We are here for the whales - t$ DoW

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, HeroofTime55 said:

Imagine getting kicked out of multiple Dumpster Coalition alliances and still parroting their nonsense.

Also, characterizing a defensive preemptive strike as "aggression" is laughable, when your spheres spent months plotting a dogpile on us.  Watching the C-team come out here to continue to lie about this when the truth is plain as day is something else totally.

I was actually only removed from my first Alliance, The Fighting Pacifists, when it became clear that we wouldn't be able to reach an agreement in regards to my communications in these forums. I'd like to point out that there was actually some dissent within TFP as to whether I should be removed, but clearly the side that thought I should be won out.

 

Pretty much as soon as I was removed from TFP, my current Swamp Alliance, FSR, told me I could take refuge with them, at least temporarily, as a player without an Alliance generally doesn't do well. I think that was very nice of them. After that, I was invited to join the Rose Alliance. I suspected that I might have the same issues I had with TFP- it's the strongest Alliance in the game after all, and so it stands to reason that security could be tight. However, I really liked Vexz' style of writing, as well as another Rose member whose name escapes me- he wrote a fictional story as to how Rose entered the fray. I initially thought all his metaphors were based on something real, but he later denied it. Still, some of the things he said do seem to have some basis in things that actually happened and it was nice to have some humour on these issues.

 

I must say that I have never seen another Alliance with such an advanced organizational structure as well, and their memes were hilarious :-p. I was only there briefly, but I'm really going to miss that. Anyway, it soon became apparent that my forum diplomacy was becoming an issue with them. The one thing they mentioned was that they respected Boyce- I had no idea who he was and suspected his credibility. However, it seems a lot of people don't rate Sphinx in nearly the same way. Anyway, with Rose, I was given the choice to do things their way or find another Alliance and so I chose the latter and returned to FSR. It is clearly a small Alliance, but it is still in the Swamp umbrella, which I think should be enough protection for me.

 

Anyway, you still haven't established that you were going to be stricken. All we have is Sphinx saying that there were plans a foot- I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember him mentioning the Swamp. Even if he actually believed what he was saying, it doesn't make it true. Did he even talk to someone in the Swamp himself or was he relying on the words of someone who claimed to have talked to someone in the Swamp? It seems that the thing that is most brought up is an ad of Grumpy Old Bastards' leader Ronny saying that they had said that they wouldn't even consider hitting Quack if Rose didn't hit. I think that GOB is in the Swamp, so perhaps this is the source of it all? But the thing is, that quote doesn't explain whether he meant it defensively or offensively. Even if he meant it offensively, I know that Ronny has since said that while there was some talk about hitting Quack, it never went anywhere. So perhaps this is the source of Sphinx' notion that the Swamp was going to attack? An idea that never went anywhere? I really wish that the person I talked to in the Swamp would be ok with me revealing who they are. Because they made it clear that not only had they not even -heard- of this notion of attacking Quack, but that if they had, they would have opposed it with every fiber of their being, because they firmly believed that it would have been a bloodbath for their Alliance. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Phoenyx

[HeroofTime55]

23 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

as well as another Rose member whose name escapes me- he wrote a fictional story as to how Rose entered the fray.

Certainly seems to be a popular pastime among your side these days.

[zigbigadorlou]

 

1 hour ago, Phoenyx said:

I think that GOB is in the Swamp, so perhaps this is the source of it all? 

There is no GOB. Its Grumpy. And we're not affiliated with Swamp, we're part of Hedge Money.

[Phoenyx]

3 hours ago, HeroofTime55 said:

Certainly seems to be a popular pastime among your side these days.

I clearly fell into that one :-p. As to the real explanation, though, it seems pretty simple- Rose and others felt that no one Coalition could handle you alone so they agreed to band together in case you attacked one or more of them. Quack attacked and the rest is history.

2 hours ago, zigbigadorlou said:

 

There is no GOB. Its Grumpy. And we're not affiliated with Swamp, we're part of Hedge Money.

My apologies, Grumpy then :-). Anyway, thanks for clarifying Grumpy's Coalition affiliation. 

[Pubstomper]

4 hours ago, HeroofTime55 said:

Certainly seems to be a popular pastime among your side these days.

He's talking about the fanfic I wrote of Partisan and valk playing frisbee golf. 

[Monti]

[Kamala Khan]

11 hours ago, Phoenyx said:

It didn't benefit them and it didn't benefit anyone else either. Real wars (as opposed to raids) are generally a losing game in terms of resources for anyone actually fighting in them. So here's to hoping that some feelers are going out towards peace.

You’re still very new, so I don’t fault you for not quite understanding all the nuances of how the game works, I get that it can be confusing and seemingly counterintuitive for a new player. But wars aren’t fought solely for profit. This is what, something like the 15th global war in this game’s history. None of them have been fought for profit, but they’ve all been fought for political goals. While it’s true that fighting this war would have been costly, that proves absolutely nothing as to whether or not it was being planned.

I’ve also noticed that you seem to think all of this can be resolved by peace, and that this is all just a big misunderstanding and that post war we’ll be warm and cuddly with each other. Not exactly the case, although once again, I can’t really blame you for thinking so.

And in regards to your claims that Swamp is purely defensive and will never do anything aggressive, they just hit TCW back in August, not sure if you were around for that or not though.

[Prefonteen]

3 hours ago, Pubstomper said:

He's talking about the fanfic I wrote of Partisan and valk playing frisbee golf. 

The Frisbee golf was definitely rooted in reality. Its an avg Friday night. 

[Phoenyx]

3 hours ago, MCMaster-095 said:

You’re still very new, so I don’t fault you for not quite understanding all the nuances of how the game works, I get that it can be confusing and seemingly counterintuitive for a new player. But wars aren’t fought solely for profit. This is what, something like the 15th global war in this game’s history. None of them have been fought for profit, but they’ve all been fought for political goals. While it’s true that fighting this war would have been costly, that proves absolutely nothing as to whether or not it was being planned.

I’ve also noticed that you seem to think all of this can be resolved by peace, and that this is all just a big misunderstanding and that post war we’ll be warm and cuddly with each other. Not exactly the case, although once again, I can’t really blame you for thinking so.

And in regards to your claims that Swamp is purely defensive and will never do anything aggressive, they just hit TCW back in August, not sure if you were around for that or not though.

 

I may be new, but I'm not -that- new, lol :-p. I think I was trying to get people's attention away from the politics and more into the economics. But you're definitely right, wars aren't only fought for profit- and the profit tends to go to those producing the weapons, not those fighting the wars anyway. I definitely think that there is a -lot- of misunderstanding here, but I completely agree, after this war, I sincerely doubt everyone will feel all warm and cuddly with each other, lol :-p. In fact, I strongly suspect that the fact that the 2 groups weren't all warm and cuddly to begin with played a major role in things getting started.

 

As to being around in August, no- I started playing on September 9th. So I asked someone who'd been there. He told me that, yes, Swamp had declared, but based on the DoW, it looks like it was actually a pretty defensive war dec. It's here for those who haven't seen it: 

 

Anyway, a little song that I think fits the situation...

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Prefonteen]

2 hours ago, Phoenyx said:

 

I may be new, but I'm not -that- new, lol :-p. I think I was trying to get people's attention away from the politics and more into the economics. But you're definitely right, wars aren't only fought for profit- and the profit tends to go to those producing the weapons, not those fighting the wars anyway. I definitely think that there is a -lot- of misunderstanding here, but I completely agree, after this war, I sincerely doubt everyone will feel all warm and cuddly with each other, lol :-p. In fact, I strongly suspect that the fact that the 2 groups weren't all warm and cuddly to begin with played a major role in things getting started.

 

As to being around in August, no- I started playing on September 9th. So I asked someone who'd been there. He told me that, yes, Swamp had declared, but based on the DoW, it looks like it was actually a pretty defensive war dec. It's here for those who haven't seen it: 

 

Anyway, a little song that I think fits the situation...

 

So when others attack people for plotting its self defense. When we do it it's aggression 😛

[Phoenyx]

6 minutes ago, Prefonteen said:

So when others attack people for plotting its self defense. When we do it it's aggression 😛

I admit that does sound funny :-p. However, the CB for the Swamp war with TCW was a bit more complicated than that. They were responding to wars already fought, not to rumours of one heading their way. Specifically:

**

1) tCW and TEst having nations and micro alliances hit our bloc by proxy wars throughout the NAP. What are you doing in our swamp?

2) Denying ghosting by proxies. This is the part where you run away!

 

3) Once upon a time, tCW attacking and dragging alliances back into the last war, after initially fighting on their side. Sometimes, things are more than they appear.
 

The Swamp has had war thrust upon us and formally declares military action against The Commonwealth, Terminus Est, and protectorates thereof who engage; and, will bring the conflict to a successful resolution. 

**

 

Was any of this happening before you declared war on TcW and Hedge? I will say though, it strikes me as interesting that both Swamp and you guys attacked TcW. Clearly, a fair amount must have happened between these 2 attacks for Swamp to switch from attacking TcW to defending it.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Thor]

Oh Sphinx you'll never change. 

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

5 hours ago, Prefonteen said:

So when others attack people for plotting its self defense. When we do it it's aggression 😛

Context matters and you know that.  So if you want to change opinions of your aggression, why not share all these other logs you have.  Because right now all you have is a conversation between Boyce and Sphinx, two of our most upstanding and trustworthy members in the community. (whats up Boyce!)

[Phoenyx]

12 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Context matters and you know that.  So if you want to change opinions of your aggression, why not share all these other logs you have.  Because right now all you have is a conversation between Boyce and Sphinx, two of our most upstanding and trustworthy members in the community. (whats up Boyce!)

I think you've nailed it. I think at this point, Partisan may be having doubts. It's like a guy playing poker- he was waiting for the flush on the river. Some piece of evidence that is flushed out into the open with the war or something. It didn't happen. So now, I think he may be trying to bluff his way through this. Problem is, people are calling him on the logs and, well, he can't deliver- he didn't get that card he was hoping for. He may figure that the best he can do is draw this out as long as possible and hope everyone else folds before he has to reveal that his hand didn't pan.

 

In the back of his mind, he may be thinking, was this what Sphinx had wanted all along? To get him into a war he couldn't win? Sphinx won't be feeling any pain for a year. I'm thinking the best course of action for him may be to just admit that he acted on dubious information and start ending this war. 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Prefonteen]

56 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Context matters and you know that.  So if you want to change opinions of your aggression, why not share all these other logs you have.  Because right now all you have is a conversation between Boyce and Sphinx, two of our most upstanding and trustworthy members in the community. (whats up Boyce!)

Once again: the sphinx and Boyce logs were enough to act on as per community precedent in other wars (in which your sphere allies have at those times engaged). 

Our decision to go to war was further inspired by your allies' hegemony rhetoric dating back all the way to February and separate corrobations from sphinx' ex-fa gov. 

That's a lot. Lmao. 

Our decision to do so has postfacto been validated further by the reveal of a network of anti quack treaties, a shitton of contradictions, your public admission that you were approached by swamp but would not commit unless rose joined in, and a line of rhetoric boiling down to "well yeah we did all that but quack too big". 

The other logs I alluded to with tyrion are in reference to a swamp party having been double dealing for multiple months on a related but different subject, and while controversial in the sense that they heavily impact relations moving forward, that set has no bearing on hm. 

Tyrion has since hit me up in private and so there has been no prompt to post the logs as I suggested I would if he did not knock it off. Your calls for logs won't change that. 😛

48 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

I think you've nailed it. I think at this point, Partisan may be having doubts. It's like a guy playing poker- he was waiting for the flush on the river. Some piece of evidence that is flushed out into the open with the war or something. It didn't happen. So now, I think he may be trying to bluff his way through this. Problem is, people are calling him on the logs and, well, he can't deliver- he didn't get that card he was hoping for. He may figure that the best he can do is draw this out as long as possible and hope everyone else folds before he has to reveal that his hand didn't pan.

 

In the back of his mind, he may be thinking, was this what Sphinx had wanted all along? To get him into a war he couldn't win? Sphinx won't be feeling any pain for a year. I'm thinking the best course of action for him may be to just admit that he acted on dubious information and start ending this war. 

I think you're strongly misinterpreting my views on the political meta as well as the events that have led up to this. 😉

[Kamala Khan]

10 hours ago, Phoenyx said:

He told me that, yes, Swamp had declared, but based on the DoW, it looks like it was actually a pretty defensive war dec. 

Regardless of the CB, an offensive war declaration is still an offensive war declaration, as long as you hit first. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just that via definition, an amazing CB doesn’t turn a war from offensive into defensive. Preemptive sure, but that still isn’t pure defensive. Perhaps Swamp isn’t a sphere that declares wars solely because they’re bored, but that’s true of most spheres, and doesn’t make any of them into pacifists, it just means they aren’t warmongers, and there’s a decent bit of room between those.

[Phoenyx]

22 minutes ago, MCMaster-095 said:

Regardless of the CB, an offensive war declaration is still an offensive war declaration, as long as you hit first. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just that via definition, an amazing CB doesn’t turn a war from offensive into defensive. Preemptive sure, but that still isn’t pure defensive. Perhaps Swamp isn’t a sphere that declares wars solely because they’re bored, but that’s true of most spheres, and doesn’t make any of them into pacifists, it just means they aren’t warmongers, and there’s a decent bit of room between those.

They were at least responding to wars that had already happened. I think that's a lot different than basing a war entirely on a rumour that they were going to get attacked. 

[James II]

On 11/2/2020 at 10:39 AM, Lord Tyrion said:

I don't know where Ronnie got his info.  Not accusing him of anything - if he heard or talked to somebody, it wasn't at the knowledge/direction of our leadership.  And who's doing name calling?  There is nothing going back to old ways.  No reason to not be civil here.  

Yes our intention with TCW was/is to help them get back on their feet.  Their sphere wasn't viable and they needed time to recover.  But at the same time, they did have an M-level treaty with us, so they were protected while they do so.  We are obligated to defend them.  

Soup also said to be ready to go to war in ERROR404 because "Quack was getting to big." It seems like more of y'all were savvy than lead on.

Edited November 12, 2020 by James II

[Phoenyx]

On 11/10/2020 at 3:13 PM, Prefonteen said:

Fine, we'll call them Mutual Defense against Quack Pacts (MDQP)? Not sure what your point is. The pacts where there. The offensive coalition was there. The rhetoric on which your pact *and* coalition were based was absolutely faulty, and the degree of contradiction between your action and propagated ideology enormous.

Yes. We brought evidence. People you're in-coalition with confirmed said evidence. You yelled "NAH ITS NOT OUR FAULT. QUACK TOO BIG QUACK THREAt".

 

Don't make me drop the god damn logs. Your choice whether to force my hand.

You can either take your innocent spiel into dm's, or we can have a public log review of your sphere's attempts at setting us up against rose, and failing that, beginning your preparations to coalition build against us.

 

A lot said here, but I think on the last point, I need to call you on it. Ronny said that he had been approached by Swamp about hitting Quack, but right after the quote that you guys made an ad about, he said something that I think was even more important: that after he hadn't heard about it for a week, he assumed that that initiative had died. Could it be that Tyrion was instrumental in making it die? As mentioned in the past, the head of Swamp military affairs hadn't even heard about it. Which means this conversation never got to him. And apparently didn't even get to Tyrion. Perhaps it was nixed further down the chain. 

11 minutes ago, James II said:

Soup also said to be ready to go to war in ERROR404 because "Quack was getting to big." It seems like more of y'all were savvy then lead on.

At this point, who Ronny talked to is looking to be pretty important. Because it looks like this whole plan to attack Quack never even made it to the top Swamp brass. I'll send Ronny a message, see if he would care to elaborate.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Charles Bolivar]

17 hours ago, Pubstomper said:

He's talking about the fanfic I wrote of Partisan and valk playing frisbee golf. 

Can I get a signed copy? For free of course.

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Can I get a signed copy? For free of course.

 

It was a real classic :-). For those who like that type of thing:

 

[HeroofTime55]

14 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Context matters and you know that.  So if you want to change opinions of your aggression, why not share all these other logs you have.  Because right now all you have is a conversation between Boyce and Sphinx, two of our most upstanding and trustworthy members in the community. (whats up Boyce!)

Can we just quote your public statements and use those as the logs?  Because honestly, they're more than sufficient.

[Charles Bolivar]

16 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Context matters and you know that.  So if you want to change opinions of your aggression, why not share all these other logs you have.  Because right now all you have is a conversation between Boyce and Sphinx, two of our most upstanding and trustworthy members in the community. (whats up Boyce!)

The hilarious part is Test leadership contacting various alliances during the first half of the year in order to build up a possible coalition against tS and TKR 🤣

[Phoenyx]

5 hours ago, HeroofTime55 said:

Can we just quote your public statements and use those as the logs?  Because honestly, they're more than sufficient.

Are they? I mean, a lot of people have seen the ad of a quote from SRD:

On 11/2/2020 at 9:56 AM, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

I can tell you straight up what has been going on from Grumpy's point of view.  Swamp came to HM about a month ago, asking about hitting you guys, and as the leader of Grumpy, I said i would only be on board if Rose was also on board, and Rose said no, so Grumpy was out.

 

But how many people read what he said -after- that quote? It's worth repeating:

On 11/2/2020 at 9:56 AM, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

After about a week, I assumed the plan died since I didnt hear anything more about it.  

Last week Quack militarized out of the blue, so we militarized and started talking to the other blocs, because we didn't know what they were doing or who they were planning to hit. Swamp and HM basically agreed that if one of us gets hit, we will help the other one because we cant let the strongest bloc in the game start steamrolling the smaller blocs, and we were waiting to see if Rose would also agree.  From what I understand Rose didn't jump on the bandwagon till a few hours before you guys attacked on Friday.  If we were all on board from the get go, we wouldn't have spend the 2 hours before you attacked frantically trying to decide how we wanted to handle you guys.   If we had all actually been working together, we would have had target lists together, and hit you first.

Also you talk about us hitting TCW, well like you have been justifying your war, we knew they were coming after us (which Sphinx later confirmed) so we hit them, and swamp also had beef with TCW so they also wanted to join, and we are not going to say no to that.

So TLDR, I would love to see all these logs, because your version of what is happening is not the same as what I have seen, and I have talked to some other alliance leaders, and they also dont know what you have been talking about.

 

So there you have it- the grand "attack plan" apparently fizzled out after a week and strong evidence that the very Coalition that dogpiled Quack was only formed -because- Quack was building up their troops and the other spheres decided to make a defense pact as a type of insurance against getting dogpiled by Quack. 

 

I actually went above and beyond, though, looking into Ronny's statement that Swamp had come to HM "about a month ago" (which would now be about a month and a half ago) and asked about hitting Quack. Turns out, the original quote was pretty ambiguous:

15 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

This is the direct quote I got from one of my fellow HM leaders when i learned about you guys wanting to hit Quack. 

Time for a chat my friends. Swamp reached out to me and told me they are talking with TCW about joining together to counter Quack's growth. They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that allowing Quack to grow and waiting for them to magically break up is a good idea.

Side note about 5 mins later I said this.

"i will say that i dont trust TCW to not leak this early

[1:03 PM]

which is my concern about fighting with TCW"

I hate being right.

So first off, SRD didn't actually talk to anyone in Swamp himself. And the HM leader who did never actually said that Swamp had asked to -hit- Quack, but rather to "counter Quack's growth". Now, Partisan has said that the only way that Quack's growth could be countered would be to attack them- there may be some truth in that, but what -kind- of a hit are we talking about here? First strike or retaliatory?

 

I think we can all agree that it would be nice if we could know who this HM leader was, or at least know who he'd allegedly spoken to in Swamp, but without that information, that's as far as we can go on that particular trail. We do know that both Tyrion and a high level player in TFP have both said they had no knowledge of this attack plan. Furthermore, the TFP official, who was also a high ranking Swamp official, said that had they been presented with a plan to attack Quack first, he would have rejected it with every fiber of his being.

 

2 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

The hilarious part is Test leadership contacting various alliances during the first half of the year in order to build up a possible coalition against tS and TKR 🤣

So basically, every Coalition and their brother were coming up with plans as to how counter possible Quack aggression :-p. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Sir Scarfalot]

10 hours ago, Phoenyx said:

blah blah blah

Yes, which shows at least aggressive intentions from parties purporting to have only defensive intentions, and on top of that a de-facto bloc agreement from way long ago.

A "mutual defense against quack" treaty is still a mutual defense treaty, especially when there's no other possibilities to defend against. That constitutes an alliance, straight up. Unless of course someone's willing to unironically offer the argument that said secret treaty (well established and admitted to by all involved) somehow didn't include an implied NAP component, the coalition was already established.