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A Treatise on the Current War


Agent W
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4 hours ago, Justin076 said:

GoB isn't the bloated size it is today because it has grown through the traditional means. GoB grew entirely through immigration of the games biggest whales from their traditional/original alliances and spheres to GoB. You are an example of that. 

 

No one in t$ would ever encourage nor want an alliance to disband. GoB is a community and those community members have every right to be and play together. 

You need to actually read what Hodor posted.

No one claims Grumpy grew in a traditional manner. That's readily apparent to any and all and shouldn't even be a point of dispute. They aren't a traditional alliance, they are niche focused so it only makes sense they have a niche approach to growth.

Grumpy's current upper tier growth, however, is based upon economic policies which cater specifically to whale and upper tier nations and in that sense, Hodor is a perfect example of why exactly larger nations migrate to Grumpy. The economic approach within most traditional AAs simply doesn't cater for the economic needs of larger nations which in turn leads to their eventual joining of Grumpy.

So sure, most of Hodor's nation growth isn't an example as to why grumpy has a near dominance in the upper tier. But the reason he just provided, namely time between city purchases due to more efficient taxation, is itself part of the reason why the tier disparity exists and why larger nations join grumpy in the first place.

If an alliance's upper tier is expected to foot the war and rebuild bill, often with little influence over the decision to go to war in the first place, then it's only natural and fair these same larger nations receive some sort of benefit gained via economic policy aimed specifically at ensuring their growth. And if this doesn't happen, you end up with a lagging upper tier growth, or larger nations who leave and go elsewhere. 

Not that any of this should be a surprise, it's been a factor of good Econ management for about half a decade at this point which every alliance has attempted to address via the implementation of economic policies.

Edited by Charles Bolivar
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2 hours ago, Cooper_ said:

Our actions were defensive in nature.  We explained this, and Ben openly acknowledged this to you.  I quoted Ben's statement beforehand.  We were very willing to believe you still, but just had to be safe (I feel quite bad for the alternate timeline HW that doesn't mil).  I was in fact among the strongest supporters of your case internally–@Vanek26 will eternally torment me now.

Not sure what to tell you but reiterate that our sphere went from varying levels of mobilization to full as a reaction to your milling. That's simply how things go.

2 hours ago, Cooper_ said:

The issue is that you guys singlehandedly escalated from there into an overwhelming blitz with another sphere while we were openly asking you and Rose to deescalate.  Shortly after responding to us, you blitzed us.  We didn't make any offensive moves, and we even took steps to scale back the defensive moves once we were in a position to do so.

It's been elaborated to you why the feeler was interpreted the way it was. I've only seen build ups end up in one way, from my time playing this game. That's due to the importance of the first strike.

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33 minutes ago, Thomas Insaniac said:

Disclaimer: not gov, never was gov. I like reading these posts just to understand the drama. I am responding to this one because I am genuinely confused at the central argument being given.

 

In the case of Grumpy, isn't their "more efficient taxation" literally zero taxes. From what I see, the only way they as an alliance generate any revenue is the 20m entrance fee and any war reparations (which I understand is a big no-no in the current meta, so just the entrance fee). It would be pretty difficult for any other alliance to be more efficient than zero taxes.

 

Frankly I get the idea that Grumpy's economic policy is actually their foreign affairs policy, where they advocate for shorter, more frequent wars, wherein they take very little damage and continue to generate revenue while other alliances get reduced to rubble, both allies and enemies. And this unchecked growth is the reason we are targeting them in this war, the reason we have targeted them in the past and most likely will have to target them again in the future.  

 

Inherently this war is a part of us trying to improve our economic policy in relation to Grumpy (and Guardian too I guess, but you guys seem to be avoiding the drama) by leveling some of their growth and trying to shake their image as untouchable. 

 

Now back to the purpose of my making this post. What is the argument you are trying to make? Should we be putting all of our big players at 0 taxes, should we be inciting conflict between our opponents in order to allow us to war profiteer, should we put a Reagan mask on Justin and adopt trickle-up economics? Or do we keep throwing our nations at GG until the game shuts down in 10 years. 

I'm not making any argument. I'm instead saying Justin should actually read Hodor's post and address the points which Hodor raised before summarily dismissing Hodor's very relevant points.

Guardian also operates differently than grumpy when it comes to economic policies aimed at encouraging upper tier growth. We have somewhat significantly high taxes (I'm paying 28% last I checked) but we get a good return for these same taxes with these taxes being invested back into city growth allowing for shorter turnaround time between city purchases. Compound growth is just grand. TKR I believe use an entirely different strategy, one which I believe still uses elements of an economic policy I implemented 4-5 years ago ( or they did anyway 18 months ago, I'm not sure if they still do use the same system which rewarded upper tier nations who invested in the alliance's bank with tax reductions).

The point I'm making, is that there exist multiple strategies for dealing with the very real issue of retaining an upper tier in addition to growing it. But just using the same CB over and over again hoping for a military solution when the issue is primarily an economic one is just missing the point entirely.

Every alliance naturally needs to devise a strategy which caters to their own needs, and you are correct in that Grumpy's FA approach is reflected in their econ strategy. But just taking the easy option of declaring war and hoping for the best when it's what, the 3rd or 4th time it's been tried with little success is just a fruitless endeavour with diminishing returns. This is particularly displayed to grumpy likely being able to rebuild within a week and start buying cities shortly after, whilst most alliances will still be rebuilding. War in this sense will only increase the tier disparity, not lessen it. 

Tldr: economic problems require economic solutions.

 

Edited by Charles Bolivar
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t$ yet to make a viable argument that GG 'objectively' negatively influences the game meta though.

Change my(our) mind with actual data or something if you can (you've created a GW so I think it a reasonable request).  Here is my current take:  GG whale tier has no significant impact on the meta for anyone but yourselves by virtue of creating a psychological glass ceiling for your own whales and upper tier - the vast majority of the rest of Orbis are out of their reach. 

I mean Grumpy's smallest 2 nations of 29 & 30 cities at pre-war levels could only have reached <10% of Orbis that have been active in the last week (7245), their 3rd smallest nation <6%, and so on upwards with their average nation score per nation limiting their to reach <1% of Orbis.  I know this is not really a good way to look at it for exactness, however I only need a ballpark to make my point.  Also their spread of scores across all 27 nations (watch out....such a horde!!) would pretty much isolate the majority of them from each other in terms of the mutual support during war such that your alliance enjoys across the majority of the tiers you occupy.  Indeed in this instance it is a logical step to grow as a defensive measure, because there is little other option without looking to allies.

If you just want to hit them for your own reasons, personal or economic, then it'd be much easier and credible to say so rather than misrepresenting yourselves as some sort of benevolent and 'game health' -centric actors.  The rest of it at this stage is pretty much unverifiable noise right now, you in essence asking the rest of us to take your word on the content of your private discussions.  As an aside, I suspect a much earlier plan with Rose than has been suggested as they didn't appear to fully rebuild since our last tango.  You might see TKR's full rebuild as a sign of peaceful intent and a show of good faith, particularly after the laughable white peace that was provided.  I guess you give someone and inch and they take a mile.

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12 minutes ago, Charles Bolivar said:

I'm not making any argument. I'm instead saying Justin should actually read Hodor's post and address the points which Hodor raised before summarily dismissing Hodor's very relevant points.

Guardian also operates differently than grumpy when it comes to economic policies aimed at encouraging upper tier growth. We have somewhat significantly high taxes (I'm paying 28% last I checked) but we get a good return for these same taxes with these taxes being invested back into city growth allowing for shorter turnaround time between city purchases. Compound growth is just grand. TKR I believe use an entirely different strategy, one which I believe still uses elements of an economic policy I implemented 4-5 years ago ( or they did anyway 18 months ago, I'm not sure if they still do use the same system which rewarded upper tier nations who invested in the alliance's bank with tax reductions).

The point I'm making, is that there exist multiple strategies for dealing with the very real issue of retaining an upper tier in addition to growing it. But just using the same CB over and over again hoping for a military solution when the issue is primarily an economic one is just missing the point entirely.

Every alliance naturally needs to devise a strategy which caters to their own needs, and you are correct in that Grumpy's FA approach is reflected in their econ strategy. But just taking the easy option of declaring war and hoping for the best when it's what, the 3rd or 4th time it's been tried with little success is just a fruitless endeavour with diminishing returns. 

Tldr: economic problems require economic solutions.

 

I'll be honest, from your description of Guardian's policy, it sounds worse than what t$ has, I am not sure if the exact policies are opsec or not, so I'll refrain from discussing it further. 

 

But you can't just dismiss this as an economic problem and one that demands an economic solution when you yourself acknowledge that Grumpy's FA approach is built to reflect their economic strategy. If their economic strategy is built on encouraging a foreign affairs meta that unfairly benefits Grumpy, then the responsible response is a foreign affairs response that shifts the meta in a way that is not beneficial to Grumpy. Fundamentally, I think us warring them is a good response. 

 

I am not party to any negotiations going on, but I hope reparations as a clause are brought back. They seem to be an obvious way to shift the FA meta in a way that is detrimental to an alliance whose appeal is partially built upon zero taxes. 

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37 minutes ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Guardian also operates differently than grumpy when it comes to economic policies aimed at encouraging upper tier growth. We have somewhat significantly high taxes (I'm paying 28% last I checked) but we get a good return for these same taxes with these taxes being invested back into city growth allowing for shorter turnaround time between city purchases. Compound growth is just grand.

Yikes, thank you for this. This answers so many of our questions as to why Guardian's growth has been sloth like. 

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Chief Financial Officer of The Syndicate

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On 8/23/2021 at 7:00 PM, Agent W said:

As for your inquiries, they are accurate, but lack context. We told you honestly why we were mil'd up, and even gave you specifics for our mil order. It was TKR that chose not believe us. For someone who proclaims not to lie, I'm not sure why you didn't take the honest truth at face value. You came to us, the day we had planned to blitz, and asked us to speak about demil'ing. Both Harry and I agreed to speak on the matter, but then got no further response from Benfro. At that point, we had no other choice but to roll with the plan to neutralize the threat.

Perhaps instead of focusing on the fact that there was a minimal attempt at communication, you should look in the mirror about the failings of those communications. Just because conversation happens, doesn't make it anything of value.

You do realize that I reached out unknowingly on the day of your blitz and what I received back was several hours later, and a half-assed "I'm around now" followed by several more hours of silence? I explicitly said I was hoping to get Rose, t$, and SRD/me in one space to hash out a de-escalation plan. Your claim that you had no choice but to act is flagrantly false; @Harry Flashman at least had the gall to reply to me and lead me to believe that Rose wasn't involved - that's a topic for another day - but you couldn't be bothered. There was a proposal for three parties to be involved in talks, the same three parties at war now, and you two were already in comms. You knew we weren't conspiring with anyone else, but are playing the "we didn't have another option" card, which is weak.

What was your plan? To go along with our proposed demil then simply not comply and whack us once we dropped our agreed upon units? I have no desire for a Cold War, but that's how you are making it sound. This war was long in the making. I'm not fussed over the actual warring, it is part of the game. But don't pin it on a lack of response on my part, nor on a lack of communication on TKR or HW's part. We made a tangible effort to open pathways that were not responded to. I just had the genuine bad luck timing of reaching out on your pre-planned blitz day, as the prior outreach via larger embassies was "oh no we are just focused on other threats" which is a bold faced fallacy.

Unless @Agent W has some other doctored screenshot, attached is what exactly went down, in totality.

Screen Shot 2021-08-24 at 10.39.41 PM.jpg

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51 minutes ago, Benfro said:

You do realize that I reached out unknowingly on the day of your blitz and what I received back was several hours later, and a half-assed "I'm around now" followed by several more hours of silence?

I brought receipts friend!

Your first message was sent exactly on 8/17/2021, 12:06:51 PM. My response was exactly two hours later on 8/17/2021, 2:06:01 PM. In the time between, Harry reached out to you. I apologize for not getting back to you the second you message me, not that you did either. Your last message was sent 8/17/2021, 5:17:58 PM when I was in the middle of eating dinner. You got back to me way slower than I got back to you, and by the time you had gotten back, and I was back online, it was too late. Seems I was the one  more on top of things that day.

Edit: Also, it's nice of you to finally join us in one of these threads. Wasn't a world record, though. You're going to have to do better than three hours if you want to try and set a new PB.

Edited by Agent W
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Former Imperial Officer of Internal Affairs and Emperor of the New Pacific Order, Founder of the Syndicate, Current Chief Global Strategist of the Syndicate.

 

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51 minutes ago, Benfro said:

What was your plan? To go along with our proposed demil then simply not comply and whack us once we dropped our agreed upon units? I have no desire for a Cold War, but that's how you are making it sound. This war was long in the making. I'm not fussed over the actual warring, it is part of the game. But don't pin it on a lack of response on my part, nor on a lack of communication on TKR or HW's part. We made a tangible effort to open pathways that were not responded to. I just had the genuine bad luck timing of reaching out on your pre-planned blitz day, as the prior outreach via larger embassies was "oh no we are just focused on other threats" which is a bold faced fallacy.

Perhaps had efforts been made sooner, this would be a different story. I've told you over and over in our embassy how actual FA is handled through DM's. I said this in our embassy, do you really want Eumir to be privvy to high-level conversations? He's been able to roast you in here easily enough with no information. The simple truth is that since I took over Exec, the only person in your alliance who made an effort to speak with me in the proper medium is no longer in your alliance.

Whether or not you choose to believe that we were being truthful is up to y'all. Ask anyone in our alliance, gov, associate, junior, and they'll tell you we were telling the truth. It was the choice of TKR to read into the tea leaves of e$ militarizing of all things to glean our intention. Hell, perhaps if you had come to me the day we issued our mil order and had a conversation with me, things would have been different. I'm going to say this for the record, our initial reasoning for our Mil order wasn't to hit TKR. No alliance in our coalition went into that weekend thinking a global was going to happen that week.
 

Edited by Agent W
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Former Imperial Officer of Internal Affairs and Emperor of the New Pacific Order, Founder of the Syndicate, Current Chief Global Strategist of the Syndicate.

 

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43 minutes ago, Agent W said:

Your last message was sent 8/17/2021, 5:17:58 PM when I was in the middle of eating dinner. You got back to me way slower than I got back to you, and by the time you had gotten back, and I was back online, it was too late. Seems I was the one  more on top of things that day.

I've already responded to this point.  We all have IRL.  Responding in a few hours is more than enough.  I assume that's the same reason you didn't respond instantaneously.  You seriously need to reconsider your priorities if you're going to hit a sphere because their leader has a job among a few very serious IRL issues he's dealing with, and was doing everything he could to be reasonably responsive. 

But that isn't the reason.  You had a blitz planned already.  We know these things take days, and you were most certainly around sometime in the hours leading up to the blitz that you could have managed to respond.  You failed to respond in the end not Ben.  You're the one who blitzed not us.  

Just now, Emperor Adam said:

ronic that when it takes @Cooper days to respond to something he said he would despite being active, it's a-okay, but god forbid Wana take a few hours to respond to something. Be better, Wana.

He could 4 days.  Idc as long we had a discussion about deescalation.  He blitzed us instead with fantastical claims that we weren't communicative and we took too long to respond.  Note the context, and you're refuting Wana and not us. 

40 minutes ago, Agent W said:

Perhaps had efforts been made sooner, this would be a different story. I've told you over and over in our embassy how actual FA is handled through DM's.

I displayed for you 3 different communications, 2 of them were done via DMs.  Even if you want to make a bad argument like the place where the majority of TKR-T$ communication outside of Quack was done wasn't good enough for your standards, there was ample opportunity.  You never reached out to us a single time.  You never offered us a single concern.  

45 minutes ago, Agent W said:

It was the choice of TKR to read into the tea leaves of e$ militarizing of all things to glean our intention. Hell, perhaps if you had come to me the day we issued our mil order and had a conversation with me, things would have been different. I'm going to say this for the record, our initial reasoning for our Mil order wasn't to hit TKR

It went beyond what you told us, and we were rightfully on edge.  Please read my thread with Shiho.  I think both T$ and TKR took logical actions all things considered, but then you went and took offensive action.  All of our actions were defensive in entirety and fully explained to you, especially when Ben leveled with you and told you exactly what was happening.  

He was willing to admit that you militarized for KT and we militarized for you.  He then offered to deescalate.  You then hit us later that day.  Only you chose to escalate offensively.

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2 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

…Politics in this game is, frankly, already in the shitter

You know there’s bits here that I don’t  disagree with, mainly about your rant concerning politics.  I too think that the general commitment to rp over my relatively short tenure in Orbis has waned, and possibly has had a knock on effect in that the potentiality of creating complex, ideological, political and economic machinations is currently a bit lame.  
 

But what can you do??  I do not think a commitment to rp with its associated effort is everyone’s cup of tea.  Certainly it means less to me at an individual performance level than I think it does to you.  Imo you’re (we’re) kinda stuck with the folk who are playing right now, and valid though it may be, bemoaning the absence of characters who brought (or might bring) great rp, colour and conflict is as worthwhile as getting upset by a change in the wind.  I do hope you get your wish in this however.

As for the rest, well I’m sure there’s nothing I can say to distract you from that enormous crowd of 27 dastardly, game dominating whales whose words you simply cannot ignore.  Perhaps trimming down GG’s profits for a war or two will change the meta in favour of t$ whale tier  🤷‍♂️, but I think not in favour of ‘game health’ in general per the narrative in your treatise (which is my chief contention).  IMO neither GG’s numbers, nor SRD’s remarks signify to the extent of justification for a GW (personally I don’t mind war - win or lose, but I’m obliged to challenge your reasoning), nor indeed is your suggestion that it may have been avoided with communication…it takes two to tango, and it appears Ben got stood up.

Edited by Etat

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was

7 hours ago, Agent W said:

I brought receipts friend!

Your first message was sent exactly on 8/17/2021, 12:06:51 PM. My response was exactly two hours later on 8/17/2021, 2:06:01 PM. In the time between, Harry reached out to you. I apologize for not getting back to you the second you message me, not that you did either. Your last message was sent 8/17/2021, 5:17:58 PM when I was in the middle of eating dinner. You got back to me way slower than I got back to you, and by the time you had gotten back, and I was back online, it was too late. Seems I was the one  more on top of things that day.

Edit: Also, it's nice of you to finally join us in one of these threads. Wasn't a world record, though. You're going to have to do better than three hours if you want to try and set a new PB.

Got it - so I was supposed to know that you and Harry were in comms and that his response represented yours too? The last thing I received from him was that Harry and Valk were happy to chat, and I responded I was "just waiting to confirm with [you]" (WANA). I learn from everyone I interact with, and one of @Sweeeeet Ronny D's biggest pet peeves is the "hello" DM instead of cutting to the point, especially when both parties are not online at the same time and it is an important matter. The onus was on you there, WANA. My message said exactly what I wanted, and it was sent 8 hours to blitz. Again, if you wanted to avoid chatting with me on blitz day, fine, but don't pin this on my RL job or my lack of response time. If you wanted to deescalate, you had an easy opportunity and turned it down by omission. We know blitzes take days to coordinate with availability surveys and build up, especially when you are planning a joint blitz with another group. I contacted you on day 3 of our defensive militarization. Still not the warring that bothers me, it is the obfuscation of the communication efforts made on our part to avoid this conflict.

7 hours ago, Agent W said:

Perhaps had efforts been made sooner, this would be a different story. I've told you over and over in our embassy how actual FA is handled through DM's. I said this in our embassy, do you really want Eumir to be privvy to high-level conversations? He's been able to roast you in here easily enough with no information. The simple truth is that since I took over Exec, the only person in your alliance who made an effort to speak with me in the proper medium is no longer in your alliance.

Whether or not you choose to believe that we were being truthful is up to y'all. Ask anyone in our alliance, gov, associate, junior, and they'll tell you we were telling the truth. It was the choice of TKR to read into the tea leaves of e$ militarizing of all things to glean our intention. Hell, perhaps if you had come to me the day we issued our mil order and had a conversation with me, things would have been different. I'm going to say this for the record, our initial reasoning for our Mil order wasn't to hit TKR. No alliance in our coalition went into that weekend thinking a global was going to happen that week.
 

Got it, so you were the aggrieved party, not the group that got tandem blitzed by the two other largest spheres in the game? Just making sure I understand. FYI - my game time is more limited than I would like for a variety of reasons lately, but my DMs are always open. @Cooper_ and @BigMorf do a great job of keeping lines of communication open in our embassy (holy cow there's a lot of chatter in there), but again one party doesn't hold all the responsibility. I chat with @Emperor Adam still semi-regularly even in his retirement bliss. We have all militarized for one reason and decided to do something entirely different to keep our membership happy, but the idea of coordinating with another sphere on 72 hours notice seems a little farfetched to me. The KT reason was clearly communicated by t$ in our embassy, which is exactly why I turned around and used it in DMs with you prior to your blitz, but does not account for such a sphere-wide mil up. We still took you at your word and now are being scolded for not coming to you, despite doing exactly that? I'm just lost on your narrative here.

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8 hours ago, Agent W said:

I've told you over and over in our embassy how actual FA is handled through DM's.

 

7 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

When you're sticking to backroom kind talks, the general membership has no idea why they're fighting who they're fighting, and any trashtalk (ie Eumir, me, etc) results in people getting in a twist over it. 

Do I have poor reading comprehension, or are these points contrary? I've shouted that FA belongs in public channels many times... Keegoz got annoyed enough to leave our bloc! But yeah get Adam back in the seat, and get those filthy DMs out of politics.  

7 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

So, to loop it back: That's why GG is an issue on a meta level. Politics is already boring. It's already stagnating.

Hot take: whining about the meta doesn't fix the meta. How is it stagnating? The oldest bloc right now is oasis. The blocs are in a seeming constant state of flux. If that's not dynamic politics, I don't know what is. E522, GnR, The last ride: 3 major wars since the global NAP ended in April. The desire for shorter, more frequent wars seems to have been achieved. We got what y'all asked for, and I guess its not what you wanted?

I think what you're secretly annoyed at is a lack of dynamic FA stance on the part of your own alliance...which is fair, because "grumpy bad, rose dishonest" is getting kinda old. 

14 minutes ago, Benfro said:

biggest pet peeves is the "hello" DM instead of cutting to the point

Seriously, isn't that everyone's pet peeve? Like, spit it out. 

8 hours ago, Agent W said:

do you really want Eumir to be privvy to high-level conversations?

What do you have against @Eumirbago? Eumirbago is a loyal and valued member I thought? I feel like you guys don't show eumir nearly enough respect. 

Hey Krampus, the signature edit is under account settings. Actually, here's the link.

https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/settings/signature/

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are we all actually supposed to believe the "*sigh*, if only we at The Syndicate could have avoided this entirely unwanted and unnecessary war through better communication..." bit coming out of the t$ camp?

strikes me as incredibly disingenuous given that, almost to a person, the narrative is "g/g bad for the meta, they obviously have to be rolled", which is perhaps the longest consistent stance any alliance has maintained in history. just own that shit lmao

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8 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

especially with how loud and proud Ronny was about being untouchable up until this war)

This is crap, I never say we are untouchable, if anything I talk about how easy we are to take down, I have talked about how vulnerable we are, how we cant actually win a 1v1 against any of the other top alliances due to strictly numbers.  Now do I talk about how much we kick ass? You damn right I do, I got no issues talking about how we get 95%+ activity for our blitz, or how much damage we are able to put out. Grumpy is a sledgehammer not a scalpel.

8 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

Going to go on a tad bit of a rant here then followup: Politics in this game is, frankly, already in the shitter with the current setup for most FAs. It's not the same game it was a few years back, and the game's hurting for it. Other people are too focused on being likeable and not focused enough on trying to keep the game interesting. It's an entire conversation I had with @Valkorion Baratheonabout Rose's FA last year. When you're sticking to backroom kind talks, the general membership has no idea why they're fighting who they're fighting, and any trashtalk (ie Eumir, me, etc) results in people getting in a twist over it. This game is not any fun if it's all sunshines and rainbows. If there's no trashtalk and everyone's all sweet and dandy to eachother, politics loses the edge and rivalries become, frankly, not any fun.

Make up your mind Adam,  You are saying that you want people to be not nice to each other, yet in the paragraph above you accuse me of talking shit and that is why we should be hit.  You can't have it both ways, one of the over arching messages of this war from tS (including from you) is SRD should shut the hell up.  I do agree that having someone to hate makes the game more interesting and gives you something to work towards.

Also not telling your members anything is a gov choice, you can tell your members everything, you just choose not to because you dont trust your members enough not to spill.  Since day one of Grumpy I have had an open door policy in terms of backroom stuff, I tell my guys like 98% of the stuff that I hear. (the 2% is when people ask me specifically not to share something)  You can ask Zig, when I promoted him to gov, he went thru our gov chat and his observation was, wow you really do tell the members everything.  I personally find this to be the best perk of Grumpy, even better than the 0 taxes.

 

8 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

Your gov is well aware that GG is a significant buffer to dynamic politics by nature of their size in the whale tier. Ben and I have spoken in detail about it. GG's size makes it to where anyone declaring on them needs to either:

a. Be willing to sacrifice their whale tier entirely

or

b. Have enough numbers to make up for the inferior tiering

Yes this is bad for you if you want to fight us, but I dont see you crying about your upper tier advantage over Mystery, or Oasis.   I see this as you are upset that aren't the biggest and strongest (which historically you have always positioned yourselves to be) and you are putting out a narrative to help put you back in that position. Which is fine, its a game, and the point is to win, and using FA to try to gaslight us into getting smaller or rallying others against us, is another way to help strengthen yourselves in the long run.

 

14 hours ago, Thomas Insaniac said:

And this unchecked growth is the reason we are targeting them in this war, the reason we have targeted them in the past and most likely will have to target them again in the future.  

Future CB secured!  Thanks Tommy boy!

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I feel like this response deserves its own post.

9 hours ago, Emperor Adam said:

So, to loop it back: That's why GG is an issue on a meta level. Politics is already boring. It's already stagnating. When you add a factor like that in, it puts a wrench in one of the last few things the game could offer - different wars with different people. Believe it or not, stagnate and boring politics in a political simulator is a horrible thing.

I dont know if you noticed, since the end of the 6 month nap after IQ, people G/G have been allied with have fought every bloc in the game, That includes, tS twice, Rose twice and fought with once, we fought that TCW bloc with Swamp, we fought Oasis, and with Oasis, we fought half of Mystery, hell we even fought Delta (well grumpy didn't due to tiering but our bloc did, I got to spy attack a guy once).  During that time we also merged with another group of alliances to form a new bloc, and basically had to completely change our FA approach because of it.  This has been some of the most fun and shifting politics I have been a part of in a while.

That political stagnation issue you are complaining about is a monster of your own creation, your insistence on focusing on G/G, you trying to get a 6 month nap to protect yourselves after Quack war, that is what tS has been pushing.  You want your politics to be more interesting then go do it yourselves, we have, it's been fun.

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11 hours ago, Benfro said:

You do realize that I reached out unknowingly on the day of your blitz and what I received back was several hours later, and a half-assed "I'm around now" followed by several more hours of silence? I explicitly said I was hoping to get Rose, t$, and SRD/me in one space to hash out a de-escalation plan. Your claim that you had no choice but to act is flagrantly false; @Harry Flashman at least had the gall to reply to me and lead me to believe that Rose wasn't involved - that's a topic for another day - but you couldn't be bothered. There was a proposal for three parties to be involved in talks, the same three parties at war now, and you two were already in comms. You knew we weren't conspiring with anyone else, but are playing the "we didn't have another option" card, which is weak.

I don’t know if gall is the right word, we were willing to chat, and ignoring people entirely is a bit rubbish.
 

We wanted to listen because for all we knew you were going to say that on reflection the formation of Hollywood was misjudged and a bit of a slap in the face to your previous allies, given the attempt to secure for yourselves the top tier for the foreseeable future.  
 

That we’re here now can hardly be a surprise to you or anyone else, you made your moves and we in turn made ours; everything else is just noise.

Edited by Harry Flashman
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34 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Make up your mind Adam,  You are saying that you want people to be not nice to each other, yet in the paragraph above you accuse me of talking shit and that is why we should be hit.  You can't have it both ways, one of the over arching messages of this war from tS (including from you) is SRD should shut the hell up.  I do agree that having someone to hate makes the game more interesting and gives you something to work towards.

They aren't contrary points. I actually enjoy the shit you talk because it adds to the political drama. Doesn't mean you can't get hit over it.

 

34 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Yes this is bad for you if you want to fight us, but I dont see you crying about your upper tier advantage over Mystery, or Oasis.   I see this as you are upset that aren't the biggest and strongest (which historically you have always positioned yourselves to be) and you are putting out a narrative to help put you back in that position. Which is fine, its a game, and the point is to win, and using FA to try to gaslight us into getting smaller or rallying others against us, is another way to help strengthen yourselves in the long run.

Glad to see your responses are getting better. This is a fair argument and I see where you're coming from, but your gov is even agreeing. Your members are. You're the only one I've talked to besides listening to Hodor thus far that claims that GG isn't a whale hegemon. And if that's what you want to be, that's fine, but you can't act surprised when people want to throw hands over it, especially when, as I mentioned, it takes outnumbering you by a good margin to be able to drag you within a reasonable timeframe for short wars. You do still preach those, don't you? 

As I've mentioned to TKR, there's honestly a big chance this war would've been avoided were it not for the debut war on Rose. An ex-ally who'd hidden things from t$ the last month or so of our treaty signing our biggest rival and immediately rolling out on the only other aa in the game that you claim can 1v1 GG set off every alarm in the building. Once the counter-militarizing was starting, it was hard to consider that the backdown was possible. I will say that I'm speaking for myself as I think Wana wanted to talk to some extent but the timing was rough. I think after the debut this war was inevitable. I think after this war there can be some massive shakeups on all sides to prevent the repetition of this. 

14 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

That political stagnation issue you are complaining about is a monster of your own creation, your insistence on focusing on G/G, you trying to get a 6 month nap to protect yourselves after Quack war, that is what tS has been pushing.  You want your politics to be more interesting then go do it yourselves, we have, it's been fun.

The 6 month NAP has been explained in detail both by t$ and TKR. I won't get into your treaties because as soon as they leave you either forget them or insult them for leaving, which is a beast in itself.

1 hour ago, zigbigadorlou said:

Do I have poor reading comprehension, or are these points contrary? I've shouted that FA belongs in public channels many times... Keegoz got annoyed enough to leave our bloc! But yeah get Adam back in the seat, and get those filthy DMs out of politics.  

WANA and I have different admin styles, yes. Differing opinions is a part of the game. (Which is why I still yell in public, suck it WANA)

2 hours ago, Benfro said:

I learn from everyone I interact with, and one of @Sweeeeet Ronny D's biggest pet peeves is the "hello" DM instead of cutting to the point, especially when both parties are not online at the same time and it is an important matter.

Based SRD. Hello dms are bad 👎 

Edited by Emperor Adam
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1 hour ago, Emperor Adam said:

As I've mentioned to TKR, there's honestly a big chance this war would've been avoided were it not for the debut war on Rose. An ex-ally who'd hidden things from t$ the last month or so of our treaty signing our biggest rival and immediately rolling out on the only other aa in the game that you claim can 1v1 GG set off every alarm in the building. Once the counter-militarizing was starting, it was hard to consider that the backdown was possible. I will say that I'm speaking for myself as I think Wana wanted to talk to some extent but the timing was rough. I think after the debut this war was inevitable. I think after this war there can be some massive shakeups on all sides to prevent the repetition of this. 

I already touched upon this above.  You knew about our intentions regarding both Rose and GG, and had already made the cut informally.  We made sure that you weren't the target out of respect for that position, but putting this impossible burden on us of figuring things out while waiting for you is ridiculous.

 If you didn't want us to spend the last week or two of TLR figuring out our future, then you shouldn't have sprung a timeline on us with only your half leaving with a sphere.  We liked you guys as allies, but the world doesn't revolve around you.  That isn't fair to us, our allies, nor our membership.  

1 hour ago, Emperor Adam said:

The 6 month NAP has been explained in detail both by t$ and TKR. I won't get into your treaties because as soon as they leave you either forget them or insult them for leaving, which is a beast in itself.

This isn't fully true.  TKR didn't want a long NAP as much as we wanted a non-blanket NAP. That way, other conflicts axes besides the Quack dogpile 2.0 would pop up and change things.  We were only sitting behind the longer NAP claims because that is what T$ and its side of Quack was wanting.  You guys were our allies, so naturally we would support you.  

1 hour ago, Harry Flashman said:

We wanted to listen because for all we knew you were going to say that on reflection the formation of Hollywood was misjudged and a bit of a slap in the face to your previous allies, given the attempt to secure for yourselves the top tier for the foreseeable future.  

That we’re here now can hardly be a surprise to you or anyone else, you made your moves and we in turn made ours; everything else is just noise.

Ben asked you about working together to demilitarize.  You indicated interest in the conversation.  You hit us later that day.  Just because it isn't surprising that you guys hit off a grudge that you claimed we've been having all of this time, doesn't mean we should be happy that you flippantly deceived us.  

Ben actually had some trust in you, and we had a 2-hours-long conversation about how TKR didn't have any problem with Rose as long as you guys made an effort to be transparent.  Now the first opportunity you had to show the slightest bit, you went back to the same old ways despite new FA head and all.  

You could've even said nothing.  Instead, you lied to our faces.  Again.

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1 hour ago, Emperor Adam said:

The 6 month NAP has been explained in detail both by t$ and TKR. I won't get into your treaties because as soon as they leave you either forget them or insult them for leaving, which is a beast in itself.

This isn't a response to the point I made, this is you deflecting taking responsibility for your part in making what you feel is stagnate politics. 

Also I didn't insult my former allies, I said they left because they wanted to take a war off, which isn't an insult, it was one of the reasons they gave us for wanting to leave.  I dont see that as an insult, I would love to take a war off, but as a point of who we are, we generally dont get that luxury.

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