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A Snake's Tale: Surrender, Booze, and Peace


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1 hour ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Treaties, whether they exist on paper or not, act only as manifestations of the FA work which occurs behind the scenes. 

It's the relationship between two alliances what counts, not the presence of a visible or invisible agreement or treaty. Alliance sovereignty 101 right there.

 

That post is just gold in my view. 

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1 hour ago, Hime-sama said:

It was already elaborated earlier in the thread how we're well aware of why we lost, and it's deeply saddening that the opposition have abandoned the same convictions they tried to smother us with during the preceding peace period and proceed to project it onto us and try to make us out to be the hegemonic power here.

I'd argue that you guys really aren't aware of why you lost at all. In my view, you lost for the simple reason that you didn't try to defuse the situation that had built up. The situation:

1- You heard some rumours that certain spheres were going to attack you.

2- Instead of trying to confirm with credible authorities, plan to attack some of the spheres who you had heard were going to attack you first.

3- Attack some of the spheres, uniting most of the game not in your sphere against you.

4- Protest the fact that most of the rest of the game united against you and how they did so (treaties that hadn't been revealed publicly), also refuse to believe that the rumours you heard were exaggerations or outright false, also refuse to do a more thorough investigation as to the credibility of the rumours that you based your initial attack on. 

 

To be fair, our side could have done a more thorough investigation as well, at least when it came to the rumours of Swamp wanting to attack Quack. 

 

Ofcourse, it's not too late for both sides to do more of an investigation on that. What is found out might help both sides in avoiding this type of 'war via rumour' again. 

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7 hours ago, Orcinus Orca said:

I don't see what's so hard to understand. Yall were fine with minispheres, but decided to grow into the strongest one, by far. 

For that, yall got slammed. To a degree, I can understand what Pre and Adri talk of, but I don't think that this is it.

You have hilariously missed the point.

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1 hour ago, Phoenyx said:

I'd argue that you guys really aren't aware of why you lost at all. In my view, you lost for the simple reason that you didn't try to defuse the situation that had built up. The situation:

1- You heard some rumours that certain spheres were going to attack you.

2- Instead of trying to confirm with credible authorities, plan to attack some of the spheres who you had heard were going to attack you first.

3- Attack some of the spheres, uniting most of the game not in your sphere against you.

4- Protest the fact that most of the rest of the game united against you and how they did so (treaties that hadn't been revealed publicly), also refuse to believe that the rumours you heard were exaggerations or outright false, also refuse to do a more thorough investigation as to the credibility of the rumours that you based your initial attack on. 

 

To be fair, our side could have done a more thorough investigation as well, at least when it came to the rumours of Swamp wanting to attack Quack. 

 

Ofcourse, it's not too late for both sides to do more of an investigation on that. What is found out might help both sides in avoiding this type of 'war via rumour' again. 

There was no stopping a ball already in motion when it comes to defusing the situation, based on the intel from Boyce, their war plans were far enough along in the process that turning back was not an option for them, it would only serve to benefit our opponents if we confronted them as then they become aware that we caught wind of it and might act.

The "rumours" we heard came from the leader of TEst, a prominent former ally of tCW, one of the alliances implicated in these war plans. TEst had also been suddenly ditched by a close ally as part of some power grab, so there was reasonable motivation for them to be truthful when revealing plans implicating their former ally.

HM was also implicated in the logs as being on board to attack us, which wasn't so hard to believe considering their immediate hostilities towards us in the previous NAP.

Keeping in mind that Ronnie already publicly confirmed they would be on board to attack us if Rose was in, so these were never rumours to begin with.

The rest of the game was united against us before we even struck, it was confirmed when our opposition admitted to the existence of their secret treaties between each other.

And yes, I do protest the rest of the game uniting against us in the manner they did, because they smothered us with minispheres moral grandstanding whilst simultaneously creating a network of secret treaties that completely undermine the values they pushed vehemently and then have the gall to hit us with hegemony accusations after creating a pseudo-sphere double the size of our own and after all the attempts to appease by downsizing/not expanding.

From where I'm standing, the only way our opposition will be appeased is if we split, but I quite like all our allies in Quack so here's to hoping we stay as allies and I'm expecting we'll be running these same circles in 4 months time, cheers.

Edited by Hime-sama
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52 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

There was no stopping a ball already in motion when it comes to defusing the situation, based on the intel from Boyce, their war plans were far enough along in the process that turning back was not an option for them, it would only serve to benefit our opponents if we confronted them as then they become aware that we caught wind of it and might act.

The "rumours" we heard came from the leader of TEst, a prominent former ally of tCW, one of the alliances implicated in these war plans. TEst had also been suddenly ditched by a close ally as part of some power grab, so there was reasonable motivation for them to be truthful when revealing plans implicating their former ally.

 

For anyone in the audience who's not aware, Boyce is one of the leaders of TEst. And yes, he was a former ally of tCW, but that's where our agreement ends. I hope I am not the only one who has noticed that Boyce has never come on the forums to defend his intel. I actually went out of my way to try to get him to respond, by asking someone fairly close to him to link to the thread I made on his role in this war. His only response that I could see was to downvote the thread. I hope that everyone here is aware that Sphinx has now denied having any plans to attack Quack first, in this thread page. Quoting from what he said to me:

  

On 12/10/2020 at 10:29 AM, Sphinx said:

My mention of us joining TEst against Quack should a potential coalition materialise was a direct reference to the grievances Boyce held towards Quack, something which I mistakenly though rather little of at the time. Regardless of any coalition forming, it was something which I would envisaged us not being in any position to join until at least well into late 2021, if at all. Since at the time I had far more cause for war against various figures in the coalition against Quack, than I did with any alliance within Quack. Now if Quack maintained its massive size and other spheres continued to beat each other up, then that might be a cause for additional concern. But that's projecting things well into the distant future, the main thing you can take from this Phoenyx, is I had no interest or plans to attack Quack. 

 

So where did Boyce get his notion that TCW/HM were going to attack Quack in December/January? My guess is he came up with it on his own, based on a flawed understanding of Sphinx' intentions, as well as a flawed understanding of HM and Swamp's intentions. 

 

  

52 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

HM was also implicated in the logs as being on board to attack us, which wasn't so hard to believe considering their immediate hostilities towards us in the previous NAP.

Keeping in mind that Ronnie already publicly confirmed they would be on board to attack us if Rose was in, so these were never rumours to begin with.

 

By all means, point me to these logs that you believe imply that HM was on board to attack you guys. As to Ronnie's own statements, I acknowledge that he did indeed mention the bit about being on board to attack you, but that "if" is important. From what I can see, Rose never agreed to attack Quack first. What Rose -did- agree to do, and only in the last few hours before the attack according to Ronnie, was to -counter- attack Quack should HM be attacked. It was, and they did. Ronnie brought all of this up back at the beginning of November. Your side took the first 2 sentences in a paragraph, but ignored the last sentence and the paragraph that followed. Here is the passage I'm referring to:

  

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. 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.

 

 

  

52 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

The rest of the game was united against us before we even struck, it was confirmed when our opposition admitted to the existence of their secret treaties between each other.

 

Yes, much of the rest of the game was united against you before you struck, but it is crucial to point out that they were united only if you guys struck -first-. In the case of Rose, Ronny points out in the quote above that their treaty with HM happened mere hours before you guys struck and may well have happened because they were concerned that -they- might have been your target instead of HM. Any port in a storm.

 

  

52 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

And yes, I do protest the rest of the game uniting against us in the manner they did, because they smothered us with minispheres moral grandstanding whilst simultaneously creating a network of secret treaties that completely undermine the values they pushed vehemently and then have the gall to hit us with hegemony accusations after creating a pseudo-sphere double the size of our own and after all the attempts to appease by downsizing/not expanding.

 

I think all this focus on sphere size is the wrong way to look at it. The better way, which I believe Charles and others have been trying to point out, is that most of the rest of the game saw you guys as a threat that no single sphere could take on alone. So they agreed to band together in the event that any of their spheres were attacked by you guys. Had you guys tried to confirm if TCW/HM/Swamp were going to attack you first as you guys had feared, all of this might have been avoided. I understand your concerns that doing so might have triggered them attacking you first, but now that the war is over and pretty much is saying that no, they weren't going to do that, I really wish you guys would at least -consider- the notion that all these spheres are being honest with you.

 

  

52 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

From where I'm standing, the only way our opposition will be appeased is if we split, but I quite like all our allies in Quack so here's to hoping we stay as allies and I'm expecting we'll be running these same circles in 4 months time, cheers.

 

Here's a suggestion once this NAP is over- consider a little more work in the FA department. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Edited by Phoenyx
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2 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:
25 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

Here's a suggestion once this NAP is over- consider a little more work in the FA department. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

Your condescending input lacking any experience behind it, is received and appropriately disregarded, thank you.

As for the rest of your post, I have no interest arguing with a wall, I've said my piece.

 

And you say -I'm- condescending -.-?

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5 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Treaties, whether they exist on paper or not, act only as manifestations of the FA work which occurs behind the scenes. 

It's the relationship between two alliances what counts, not the presence of a visible or invisible agreement or treaty. Alliance sovereignty 101 right there.

 

Setting up what's basically mine fields is detrimental for the FA landscape for reasons which should be obvious. Hence, not good FA.

There's not really any reason why they couldn't have been made public other than for people wanting to have their cake and frick it too.

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ITT: @Phoenyx continues to bloviate and we argue about the point of FA.

I support @Cooper_ 's commentary up-thread - this is all a game that revolves around war, much like every other nation sim in existence. Phoenyx continually talking about endlessly investigating is absolute garbage, we aren't here to sit around for months on end watching paint dry. There was verifiable intel, we acted on the intel, there were unspoken treaties activated, and the dogpile resulted in us getting our butts kicked. We acknowledged that and tried to make the best of the situation by fighting on and making FA plans for the future.

FA has lots of goals, and and the end of the day, it is all about making OOC friendships while juggling IC agreements and disagreements. It is continually making and breaking treaties, spheres, and allies of all kinds. End of the day, dynamic gameplay is the key to having fun. You bet, as the leader of TKR, that I'd love to have TKR on the winning side of a global sometime in the near future. It's been far too long. Our members are tired of turreting. But the response to that is not withdrawing from global FA, nor is it doing everything in our power to avoid war. I disagree that the goal is to avoid conflict all together - it is about putting the AA in the best position now and in the future for success.

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9 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

I suppose we have differing thoughts on what good FA is 🤷‍♂️ I view it as maintaining the collective security of an alliance and placing the alliance in an effective position to achieve its goals. You apparently believe FA's goal is creating a fun atmosphere by placing your own members in losing conflicts by creating unnecessary risk.

The goal is to minimise risk, not walk blindly into it and just say "hey, we are being rolled but this is fun right?".  You can do that as an ordinary member all you want, but as a member of an alliance gov ( a gov I was once a minor player in before your time for that matter), you simply can't place the collective wellbeing of the entire AA at risk over a whimsical wish. 

Least I think so anyway 🤷‍♂️

 

 

9 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

You mean a toxic environment like the last few conflicts which were steeped in the failure of creating multispheres without the faintest shred of success? 

The notion of minispheres is much akin to the outdated notion of 19th and 20th communism in that sense. In an ideal world it makes perfect sense, but we don't live in an ideal world sadly. We live in the real world governed by human personality, and the human condition precludes the notion of an artificially created multisphere system.

Now if we had a multisphere system which developed out of genuine beliefs and feelings where alliances and spheres refused to work with each other out of genuine ideological divisions, that would work. But like I've said now, whilst possible, it's possible but also unlikely. After all, we were just in a coalition which included the commonwealth after we attacked them only a few months earlier, I would have fully expected commonwealth to refuse to assist us in any manner whatsoever but hey, a common cause against a potential common threat temporarily united us.

If that doesn't act as enough evidence to support the notion that artificially created multispheres  is a foolish concept then I don't know what is.

 

9 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Read what im saying. I said minimise risks, not take no risks. Read, ponder and comprehend 👍

You are confusing pointing out  faults in logic with complaining. Whether accidentally or deliberately I don't know. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was accidentally. What reason do I have to complain about after all? We won by simply employing a better FA strategy. One which I hope tS will return to moving forward given it did to a large extent guide its first few years of existence. Quite successfully too I might add.

Like surely you have to be wondering why you lost? You can't just lay the blame at our doors and accuse us of being nasty lying so and so's. We amassed greater numbers across a coalition with widely varying beliefs in an attempt to curb a potential threat which did us all a favour in attacking a few of us in the end. That's our role in this, you need to consider your own role in this too, however, and think on the reasons why such a coalition was able to be built in the first place. 

Reflect on the reasons for the loss, ponder on options moving forward and implement solutions.

Or don't 🤷‍♂️ 

 

 

(and the other charles posts)

You're not wrong when it comes to the strategic flaws in our prewar diplomatic stances. We were aware of them when we formulated our FA policy. It was a mistake.

I suppose that what you have not been privy to (or are neglecting to incorporate in your assessment) is that following NPOLT, which treaded several boundaries from an OOC pov, structurally, a lot of the leaders of what was then "coalition A" sat down and concluded what boils down to "never again".

These leaders propagated minispheres and certain styles of play. That propagation continued right up until this war, and was leveraged to build a narrative against t$/TKR, despite our attempts to conform to what we believed was the desired meta of a majority of the game.

That's where the disconnect is at; we're aware of what we could have done to pre-emptively defeat the parties who plotted against us (months back), and we're aware of the ramifications of our choice to stay our hand. That's not what's being contested. The irritation of our side is with degree of duplicity and hypocrisy involved in this chain of events, and with what frankly boils down to gaslighting.

It's something we dealt with  when we fought NPO, and it's unfortunate to see it occur again. The paperless thing is a card you put on the table only once. After that, the cards are face up and we must readjust. How that readjustment manifests will be dependent on how relations develop from here, I suppose.

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48 minutes ago, Benfro said:

Phoenyx continually talking about endlessly investigating is absolute garbage, we aren't here to sit around for months on end watching paint dry. There was verifiable intel, we acted on the intel...

 

Sure, if by verifiable intel you mean that Boyce was saying that TCW/HM/Swamp was going to attack you in December/January, and Ronnie mentioning his belief that Swamp had been reaching out to hit you guys, full stop. Don't look behind the curtain though, because if you do, well, you may find that it in the case of Boyce, it was most likely all hypothesized in his mind based on some ambiguous statements from Sphinx, with Sphinx later saying he had no intent of attacking Quack anytime soon. In the case of Ronnie, pretty much the same, he is part of a conversation with an anonymous HM leader who tells him some ambiguous information regarding Swamp's plans, with Ronnie himself saying that he heard nothing more about this alleged attack plan.

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17 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

I suppose we have differing thoughts on what good FA is 🤷‍♂️ I view it as maintaining the collective security of an alliance and placing the alliance in an effective position to achieve its goals. You apparently believe FA's goal is creating a fun atmosphere by placing your own members in losing conflicts by creating unnecessary risk.

The goal is to minimise risk, not walk blindly into it and just say "hey, we are being rolled but this is fun right?".  You can do that as an ordinary member all you want, but as a member of an alliance gov ( a gov I was once a minor player in before your time for that matter), you simply can't place the collective wellbeing of the entire AA at risk over a whimsical wish. 

Least I think so anyway 🤷‍♂️

 

This very quickly devolves into the kind of thinking that absolutely crushed this game's (still barely alive) predecessor. When the exclusive goal of an alliance's government is minimizing risk, literally any decision is justified if you say it's to protect your members.

12 hours ago, Phoenyx said:

 

And you say -I'm- condescending -.-?

At best.

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On 12/20/2020 at 10:17 AM, WarriorSoul said:

This very quickly devolves into the kind of thinking that absolutely crushed this game's (still barely alive) predecessor. When the exclusive goal of an alliance's government is minimizing risk, literally any decision is justified if you say it's to protect your members.

At best.

Well that's the thing, decisions have to be justifiable to both your own member base and the larger community too. Rogue alliances doing as they please will quickly run into particular difficulties in that aspect which has also historically been the case in this game.

Edited by Charles Bolivar
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