We are here for the whales - t$ DoW

[Kevanovia]

5 hours ago, Cooper_ said:

On top of this, Quack has actively cut down on it's treaties (TI, T&, Soup, and others) as well as rejecting many other potential ties.  

I would like to say that part of this is inaccurate. TKR was going to keep Soup, Soup gave TKR the heads up that they thought ‘Quack’ would get too big. (At the time they were also allied To TI) To their credit, TI left - but I was also told that TI left on their own accord.

With that said, Quack isn’t IQ. Sure they’re big, and it is a valid concern to believe they are too big - but comparing them to IQ is bogus.

Happy Halloween.

 

[Micchan]

Rest of the world: Quack is getting too big!

Sorry if we don't suck in recruiting and economy

[Prefonteen]

2 hours ago, Once-ler said:

I would like to say that part of this is inaccurate. TKR was going to keep Soup, Soup gave TKR the heads up that they thought ‘Quack’ would get too big. (At the time they were also allied To TI) To their credit, TI left - but I was also told that TI left on their own accord.

With that said, Quack isn’t IQ. Sure they’re big, and it is a valid concern to believe they are too big - but comparing them to IQ is bogus.

Happy Halloween.

 

I can't speak for soup. But swamp forming (ti leaving) was most definitely a result of our refusal to fully merge all spheres.

 

But I guess brownie points matter more. 

[Sisyphus]

11 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Come on now guys! we just had a mostly civil global war last month, lets do it again! 

You in particular came in here and immediately compared us to one of the most toxic groupings of players this game has seen. 

And other compared Partisan directly to Roquentin who is arguably one of the worst players I've ever had the displeasure of obstructing and undermining. 

Buorhann is back in the game now, and as belligerent and bullheadedly off-base as ever. 

 

Don't talk to me about "civility". You obviously weren't concerned about that as soon as you got here. 

9 hours ago, Buorhann said:

I'll agree that it's not right to call/compare TKR to IQ/NPO (I say that as someone who was upfront and fought along with you guys in that mess from the start), but the formation of TKR/Syndicate and what you've guys built is worrisome to players.

I smell envy. 

[Adrienne]

3 hours ago, Once-ler said:

I would like to say that part of this is inaccurate. TKR was going to keep Soup, Soup gave TKR the heads up that they thought ‘Quack’ would get too big. (At the time they were also allied To TI) To their credit, TI left - but I was also told that TI left on their own accord.

With that said, Quack isn’t IQ. Sure they’re big, and it is a valid concern to believe they are too big - but comparing them to IQ is bogus.

Happy Halloween.

 

That's not exactly accurate either though. You had made it abundantly clear at the end of the last war that if we didn't drop t$, you were gone. Therefore, we expected it when we made the decision not to do so and, to address some of the concerns you had brought up, informed you then that we'd be looking to cut down on our sphere and we held to that. Implying that we expected you to join the sphere isn't correct nor is the implication that the sphere always intended to remain the size it was at then.

We spent the next several weeks talking with The Immortals, conversations which I would hope they have not forgotten. Conversations over who would make up our sphere and expressing concerns over trying not to be too large of a sphere. They decided rather than to commit to a new sphere and make cuts with some of their current allies alongside t$, they would separate from us and they took their current allies and t$'s ally The Ampersand with them. We respected that decision and wished them well.

Those conversations didn't end after TI and & left. We continued to work with t$ on our sphere and to be selective about who was involved in it. And I think the numbers here pretty well speak for themselves that we never attained anything that was impossible to take down. If you wanted a numbers advantage, two spheres vs us would easily give you one and we expected that going into this war and thought it would be a fun time. All three other spheres joining in wasn't necessary.

Like I’ve said elsewhere though, it's fine that you did that. All three spheres hitting us isn’t my gripe: this is not our first time being outnumbered; we can handle it just fine. But as you said here, comparing us to IQ is bogus. All these comparisons to a group that actually did have a stranglehold on the game and that couldn't be taken down even with all the other spheres combined and pretending you needed all three spheres to take us down is just plain insulting to the intelligence of literally everybody who was here then.

If you all wanted to hit us for whatever reason, good for you. Just don't insult us all by pretending it was necessary for all three spheres to band together to take down the big bad Quacksphere when you can clearly see that wasn't the case.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Adrienne

[Kevanovia]

33 minutes ago, Adrienne said:

That's not exactly accurate either though. You had made it abundantly clear at the end of the last war that if we didn't drop t$, you were gone. Therefore, we expected it when we made the decision not to do so and, to address some of the concerns you had brought up, informed you then that we'd be looking to cut down on our sphere and we held to that. Implying that we expected you to join the sphere isn't correct nor is the implication that the sphere always intended to remain the size it was at then.

If memory serves, we had planned to keep our tie (and after the discussion of cutting t$, there were even other plans - but I’ll keep that between us  ). We didn’t bring up the t$ concern until (as you said) the end of the war when it was apparent that it wasn’t needed any longer due to IQ getting the boot.

Therefore, it is reasonable to expect we would still be allies had we not expressed our concern about the t$ tie post-Dial Up. As yourself and many others have said, Chaos was the most fun grouping that any of us had been a part of.

But at the end of the day, that is semantics. The real meat and potatoes is that you guys are not IQ, nor anything like the toxicity embodiment of IQ. The concern that you guys were too big is valid. It is nice that you guys didn’t go hella-huge and made an effort to not blatantly break Orbis, could you imagine the size of your bloc if you didn’t??? You’d be way bigger than IQ.

As far as I can currently tell, this appears to be a checks and balances act similar to wars of the past.

Here’s to hoping that both sides have a good time. 🍻 

Edited October 31, 2020 by Once-ler

[Adrienne]

2 minutes ago, Once-ler said:

If memory serves, we had planned to keep our tie (and after the discussion of cutting t$, there were even other plans - but I’ll keep that between us  ). We didn’t bring up the t$ concern until (as you said) the end of the war when it was apparent that it wasn’t needed any longer due to IQ getting the boot.

Therefore, it is reasonable to expect we would still be allies had we not expressed our concern about the t$ tie post-Dial Up. As yourself and many others have said, Chaos was the most fun grouping that any of us had been a part of.

Stuff that happened before the end of the war isn't exactly relevant to this discussion because the end of the war changed everything. At the end of the war is when you said that. You "expressing your concern" about t$ isn't why we're not allies. It's not like I flew off the handle and cut you because you expressed a concern. You decided you didn't want to be in a sphere with a TKR-t$ tie regardless of the cuts we planned to make. I respected your decision and we parted amicably.

[Kevanovia]

1 minute ago, Adrienne said:

Stuff that happened before the end of the war isn't exactly relevant to this discussion because the end of the war changed everything. At the end of the war is when you said that. You "expressing your concern" about t$ isn't why we're not allies. It's not like I flew off the handle and cut you because you expressed a concern. You decided you didn't want to be in a sphere with a TKR-t$ tie regardless of the cuts we planned to make. I respected your decision and we parted amicably.

[Monti]

[Cooper_]

11 minutes ago, Once-ler said:

But at the end of the day, that is semantics. The real meat and potatoes is that you guys are not IQ, nor anything like the toxicity embodiment of IQ. The concern that you guys were too big is valid. It is nice that you guys didn’t go hella-huge and made an effort to not blatantly break Orbis, could you imagine the size of your bloc if you didn’t??? You’d be way bigger than IQ.

As far as I can currently tell, this appears to be a checks and balances act similar to wars of the past.

Hi Kev, I'm having a bit of trouble following some of the logic here.  You say we didn't go hella-huge, and yet you also imply we deserve a check and balance.  Can you go into why Quack specifically needed a check?  I keep hearing this hegemony narrative without any backup.  People keep saying "oh Quack is a hegemony," but they are having trouble saying why that is.  Unfortunately, there are no wars or really statistics to point to.  And if that's true why doesn't Swamp, the bigger sphere, need that same check?  Why is the the anti-hegemony Hedge Money working with the biggest sphere twice in a row to dogpile other spheres?

[Lucas]

Not going to lend credence to the IQ comparisons by dignifying them with a proper response. 

Numbers provided by others already show that, yes, this sphere is sizable, but hardly warranting the buzz word of our time. If your mongrel complex gets in the way of recognizing that, then there isn't much we can do other than let you know we won't be accepting surrenders at this time.

[Kevanovia]

48 minutes ago, Cooper_ said:

Hi Kev, I'm having a bit of trouble following some of the logic here.  You say we didn't go hella-huge, and yet you also imply we deserve a check and balance.  Can you go into why Quack specifically needed a check?  I keep hearing this hegemony narrative without any backup.  People keep saying "oh Quack is a hegemony," but they are having trouble saying why that is.  Unfortunately, there are no wars or really statistics to point to.  And if that's true why doesn't Swamp, the bigger sphere, need that same check?  Why is the the anti-hegemony Hedge Money working with the biggest sphere twice in a row to dogpile other spheres?

That’s a poor spin. Just because you didn’t go for double the size of a new record, doesn’t mean Quack isn’t huge. So yeah, you’re not “hella-huge”, you’re just “huge”.

As you know, Swamp being “large” isn’t the same as another bloc being “large”. Swamp have quantity. Quack have quality and quantity.
 

In a fight: 10 grown adults would be able to easily handle 2 grown adults. 10 grown adults would also be able to easily handle 3 adults and 100 3 year old children.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Once-ler

[The Titan]

37 minutes ago, Once-ler said:

That’s a poor spin. Just because you didn’t go for double the size of a new record, doesn’t mean Quack isn’t huge. So yeah, you’re not “hella-huge”, you’re just “huge”.

As you know, Swamp being “large” isn’t the same as another bloc being “large”. Swamp have quantity. Quack have quality and quantity.
 

In a fight: 10 grown adults would be able to easily handle 2 grown adults. 10 grown adults would also be able to easily handle 3 adults and 100 3 year old children.

Did you just insult your own allies?

Anyway, I too disagree with the comparison between us and IQ. I can also state that as a new leader in the field that both The Syndicate and The Knights Radiant have taken immense measures to ensure our sphere does not grow to be what you call a "hegemony". Many possible routes to peruse that would have grown our sphere in size were shot down.

This whole conflict was launched with a purely defensive view, like stated so many times we saw a threat and acted upon it, only to find out the rest of the game had allied upon us and now we find ourselves dogpiled.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Lord Vader

[Kevanovia]

1 minute ago, Lord Vader said:

Did you just insult your own allies?

No. I made an objective observation.

[Sval]

Oh do come on t$.

How dare you plot to plot against the plot that was plotted against you!

Don't you know pre-empting a planned hit on you is not a valid CB? Evidence be damned!

[Cooper_]

45 minutes ago, Once-ler said:

That’s a poor spin. Just because you didn’t go for double the size of a new record, doesn’t mean Quack isn’t huge. So yeah, you’re not “hella-huge”, you’re just “huge”.

As you know, Swamp being “large” isn’t the same as another bloc being “large”. Swamp have quantity. Quack have quality and quantity.
 

In a fight: 10 grown adults would be able to easily handle 2 grown adults. 10 grown adults would also be able to easily handle 3 adults and 100 3 year old children.

I'm not really one for spin.  It makes me dizzy.  On the other hand, I'm a big fan of speaking the truth, and I think all of the statements I made oblige with that.  If you have evidence to the contrary of what I said, I welcome the discussion.  

Looking at your response, I feel like you're just playing semantics or maybe it's just nonsense.  We're not hella-huge, but we're huge?  Swamp is large, but we're a different large?  What does that even mean?  I can't respond to vague definitions that don't have any logic or data backing them up.  I mean this whole narrative has been vague.  My thinking is it's vague because going into specifics would make it easy to scrutinize the narrative.  I've already given you statistics that show Swamp being larger than Quack by a significant margin as well as outiering above and below us.  You've told me what kind of huge you think Quack is.  That isn't really a fair equivalency.  

Unless someones starts giving me a valid definition of what a hegemony actually is and then proves how Quack qualifies under those conditions, all of these arguments hold no water.  We can dance around on rhetoric, but in reality there's zero substance to these claims.  Thus, I will continue to suggest that this hegemony narrative is nothing but a political mask for opportunism because that's what the hard evidence suggestions.  

Finally, I have a real problem with quality critique.  This double standard is always leveled against TKR.  I don't understand why we have to be handicapped by some notion that we're competent.  Yeah, we put a lot of effort into training our members and gov, and it pays off.  That should be expected, and we take pride in it and our community.  Your metaphor is a bit off as the competency advantage tops off pretty rapidly.  The wars against IQ numbers and our quality demonstrated that nicely.  And I think that's pretty insulting to Swamp who has a lot of promising gov (and many old guard) in T&, TI and TFP, especially.  

As an aside, it's nice to see you around, Kev.  I hope @Pika and you are doing well.  I didn't get to say good bye when y'all left last time.  Stay well, friends.

[Grave]

5 minutes ago, Cooper_ said:

I'm not really one for spin.  It makes me dizzy.  On the other hand, I'm a big fan of speaking the truth, and I think all of the statements I made oblige with that.  If you have evidence to the contrary of what I said, I welcome the discussion.  

Looking at your response, I feel like you're just playing semantics or maybe it's just nonsense.  We're not hella-huge, but we're huge?  Swamp is large, but we're a different large?  What does that even mean?  I can't respond to vague definitions that don't have any logic or data backing them up.  I mean this whole narrative has been vague.  My thinking is it's vague because going into specifics would make it easy to scrutinize the narrative.  I've already given you statistics that show Swamp being larger than Quack by a significant margin as well as outiering above and below us.  You've told me what kind of huge you think Quack is.  That isn't really a fair equivalency.  

Unless someones starts giving me a valid definition of what a hegemony actually is and then proves how Quack qualifies under those conditions, all of these arguments hold no water.  We can dance around on rhetoric, but in reality there's zero substance to these claims.  Thus, I will continue to suggest that this hegemony narrative is nothing but a political mask for opportunism because that's what the hard evidence suggestions.  

Finally, I have a real problem with quality critique.  This double standard is always leveled against TKR.  I don't understand why we have to be handicapped by some notion that we're competent.  Yeah, we put a lot of effort into training our members and gov, and it pays off.  That should be expected, and we take pride in it and our community.  Your metaphor is a bit off as the competency advantage tops off pretty rapidly.  The wars against IQ numbers and our quality demonstrated that nicely.  And I think that's pretty insulting to Swamp who has a lot of promising gov (and many old guard) in T&, TI and TFP, especially.  

As an aside, it's nice to see you around, Kev.  I hope @Pika and you are doing well.  I didn't get to say good bye when y'all left last time.  Stay well, friends.

 

 

I have a different disagreement than him, the main reason Swamp is the size it is currently is because of how large Quack has gotten.

[SleepingNinja]

1 hour ago, Once-ler said:

That’s a poor spin. Just because you didn’t go for double the size of a new record, doesn’t mean Quack isn’t huge. So yeah, you’re not “hella-huge”, you’re just “huge”.

As you know, Swamp being “large” isn’t the same as another bloc being “large”. Swamp have quantity. Quack have quality and quantity.
 

In a fight: 10 grown adults would be able to easily handle 2 grown adults. 10 grown adults would also be able to easily handle 3 adults and 100 3 year old children.

By definition is Huge not bigger than Large? I feel like there's something really inconsistent about the way you've phrased this.🤔

[The Titan]

2 minutes ago, Grave said:

 

 

I have a different disagreement than him, the main reason Swamp is the size it is currently is because of how large Quack has gotten.

But you acknowledge your size as well. We're being dogpiled by literally the whole game except Schrute and WTF. I feel like we're not the ones being controlling here.

[Cooper_]

16 minutes ago, Grave said:

I have a different disagreement than him, the main reason Swamp is the size it is currently is because of how large Quack has gotten.

I find this to be the fairest point brought up thus far.  Reactionary consolidation is definitely a phenomenon that exists and contributes to the development of bipolarity.  

To the extent that it happened with Swamp is up for debate.  From my understanding, it precipitated the TcW and Swamp merge.  That said, there were also other factors like the previous war and the months of decline TcW sphere had beforehand.  When the NAP started, TcW and Quack were at parity.  Later Swamp took that role from TcW.  Quack then outgrew the rest without really adding any ties.  TcW joined with Swamp and brought things back to an equilibrium with Rose and HM as the other major players.  

I can tell you the this was actually the first thought I had when I saw that tie.  That was part of the reason I was looking forward to the preempt against TcW/HM with a Swamp counter.  I thought it'd've been a really fun and balanced war with a strong possibility of both larger blocs breaking up after the war.  

[Leftbehind]

51 minutes ago, Once-ler said:

In a fight: 10 grown adults would be able to easily handle 2 grown adults. 10 grown adults would also be able to easily handle 3 adults and 100 3 year old children.

I'd rather take the chance with 10 adults. My three year old beats the unholy hell out of me and thats all in the name of playing. 

18 minutes ago, Lord Vader said:

Did you just insult your own allies?

Anyway, I too disagree with the comparison between us and IQ. I can also state that as a new leader in the field that both The Syndicate and The Knights Radiant have taken immense measures to ensure our sphere does not grow to be what you call a "hegemony". Many possible routes to peruse that would have grown our sphere in size were shot down.

This whole conflict was launched with a purely defensive view, like stated so many times we saw a threat and acted upon it, only to find out the rest of the game had allied upon us and now we find ourselves dogpiled.

Are you really going to complain about a dog pile when you tried to dogpile us? Don't be a hypocrite. Wars are never even so maybe you guys should take some ownership as to why this happened instead of being mad that it did. 

It isn't a secret that Quack's size and ability made everyone leary that they could position themselves to be the next Hegemony. It is simple logic. For all your "immense measures" taken it didn't stop you guys from becoming so big that it would take at least two blocs in order to challenge you. Not one of the other blocs, be it Hedge, Rose, or Swamp has the ability to challenge on its own. Even a HedgeSwamp coalition would be a very uphill battle. So when you say that you watched your size I'm going to call nonsense on that. All you done was keep yourselves just under the bar.

Like it or not, Hegemony is bad for business and you done nothing to prove that you wouldn't take it if opportunity arises. 

[HeroofTime55]

3 minutes ago, Leftbehind said:

I'd rather take the chance with 10 adults. My three year old beats the unholy hell out of me and thats all in the name of playing. 

Are you really going to complain about a dog pile when you tried to dogpile us? Don't be a hypocrite. Wars are never even so maybe you guys should take some ownership as to why this happened instead of being mad that it did. 

It isn't a secret that Quack's size and ability made everyone leary that they could position themselves to be the next Hegemony. It is simple logic. For all your "immense measures" taken it didn't stop you guys from becoming so big that it would take at least two blocs in order to challenge you. Not one of the other blocs, be it Hedge, Rose, or Swamp has the ability to challenge on its own. Even a HedgeSwamp coalition would be a very uphill battle. So when you say that you watched your size I'm going to call nonsense on that. All you done was keep yourselves just under the bar.

Like it or not, Hegemony is bad for business and you done nothing to prove that you wouldn't take it if opportunity arises. 

Except for, you know, the whole part where we didn't take it when the opportunity did arise.  But keep spewing this hysterical nonsense.  I think the only people you're trying to convince are yourselves, trying to assure yourselves that you didn't just become pawns in an actual Swamp hegemony.

I can't wait to see how the war after this one plays out.  Oh boy, it's going to be fun to watch.

[Leftbehind]

36 minutes ago, HeroofTime55 said:

Except for, you know, the whole part where we didn't take it when the opportunity did arise.  But keep spewing this hysterical nonsense.  I think the only people you're trying to convince are yourselves, trying to assure yourselves that you didn't just become pawns in an actual Swamp hegemony.

I can't wait to see how the war after this one plays out.  Oh boy, it's going to be fun to watch.

How little you know but how mighty you talk.

We are not the ones running around complaining because we didn't get to have that nice easy war on HM and a deflated TCW. We are not the ones crying about how we are something we aren't. If you cannot accept the point of view as to why alliances were nervous about Quack than by all means exit the conversation. 

I am not worried about a Swamp Hegemony and if they tried to create one I'd slap them as well. In fact, I'm confident enough to say we would burn Hedge to the ground before any of us would prop one up. This is simply that, ensuring that one doesn't take place.

Like I said before, learn to take some ownership and give some thought about how three independent blocs came to the aid of one another. 

[HeroofTime55]

16 minutes ago, Leftbehind said:

How little you know but how mighty you talk.

We are not the ones running around complaining because we didn't get to have that nice easy war on HM and a deflated TCW. We are not the ones crying about how we are something we aren't. If you cannot accept the point of view as to why alliances were nervous about Quack than by all means exit the conversation. 

I am not worried about a Swamp Hegemony and if they tried to create one I'd slap them as well. In fact, I'm confident enough to say we would burn Hedge to the ground before any of us would prop one up. This is simply that, ensuring that one doesn't take place.

Like I said before, learn to take some ownership and give some thought about how three independent blocs came to the aid of one another. 

Ownership of what, that y'all plotted to steamroll us?  Or the fact that we decided to kick it off on our terms instead of yours?  Say whatever you need to convince yourself.  Everyone knows what this really is.  Nobody else is fooled.

[Critters]

I am fooled.