Popular Post Raphael Posted September 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 16, 2021 Treaty Web and my arbitrary sphere divisions circa 2021 Minispheres moving forward So many people are probably in the same position as me. Wondering about the future, looking at their own corner of the world, and trying to calculate how to come out on top. This is a great thing. We need people ambitiously seeking their own self-interests in this game, but that ambition must be tempered. Competition is what drives politics, the community, player activity, and overall our fun in PnW. So the question for the longest time has been "How do we foster competition?" The answer has always been "a multi-polar world." Why is a multi-polar world even worth it? Many players are too young to even know what PnW was like just a few years ago. We lived in a Bipolar world and we'd been living in one for over a decade going back before this iteration of nationsim even started. Two sides, permanently destined to fight arbitrarily as boredom peaked. Politics were extremely stale, the slightest change in sphere composition being the highlight of the year. Competition effectively did not exist, often people would go inactive for months waiting for their annual curbstomp either winning or losing. Things did slowly start to change though, despite the efforts of some stuck in the past and saturated with paranoia. Minispheres as a concept began years ago and for a long time was a corner-ideology shared by few. You could've chalked it up with the paperless crowd who wanted to kill treaties altogether, except some people actually bought into paperless while minispheres was mostly laughed off. Now, through design or coincidence, we finally have what I would definitively call a true multi-polar world. So why does a multi-polar world mean competition is inherently better fostered? Well, frankly, it doesn't. While the official treaties and mega-blocs of bygone eras may have disappeared, the habits and thought processes of the individual players have held a little more firm. We've been seeing it over the past couple of years: Almost the entire game uniting against Quack, Quack overrunning the Swamp, Oasis/Mystery Inc jumping in to defend Rose against Hollywood, and now t$/Rose teaming up against TKR/GG. The idea of bipolarity in theory is gone, but in practice we've still seen it effectively every war. Overwhelming force being brought to bear against the unfortunate target. It is my personal theory that we cannot go on like this. If this is the attitude the player continues to hold towards war, then bipolarity will return in true form as everyone seeks security from a world where warfare is either complete victory or total loss. I also personally think this would be a great loss for politics as a whole. I think multi-polar politics opens the door for much more activity, fun, and just generally gives more potential for what can happen. Which is why I think we need to protect it. How do we protect our multi-polar world from returning to a bipolar stagnant state? Firstly, I think we need to seriously rethink our collective war doctrines when it comes to major conflicts. Overwhelming force breeds bland and uninteresting fights as well as stagnant politics moving forward. It leaves a bored victor and a disillusioned victim. If every global involves every minisphere, how does that differ at all from the bipolar world of 2007-2019? Secondly, I think we need to continue pushing the idea of what constitutes a minisphere even further. We should make active efforts to not remain stagnant nor let others remain stagnant under our protections. This is a political game and really only a handful of alliances even play the politics while the rest sit for years in the same sphere, quiet as the grave. I think shuffling allies every now and then, at a reasonable pace not at any kind of breakneck speed, is necessary to flush out the muck that contributes to stagnancy over time. I know not everyone will agree with everything I've written here, and I will be the first to admit that most of what I've said are generalities with plenty of exceptions that make sense. Hopefully though enough people will agree with the sentiment and we can take the foundations we've laid as a community and use them to propel PnW into a new golden age of activity, fun, and interesting politics. Thanks for reading. 1 1 17 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indger Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 👍👍👍 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krampus Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 (edited) -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. Edited September 16, 2021 by Krampus 2 1 Quote Inform Zigbir I have forgotten how to edit the signature field Please remind me how to do it post haste! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Schmo Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Krampus said: -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. hollywood can be beat, unlike quack. quack was unstoppable Edited September 16, 2021 by Joe Schmo 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Director Nyus Posted September 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 16, 2021 1 minute ago, Joe Schmo said: hollywood can be beat, unlike quack. quack was unstoppable Homie Did you miss the part where we literally were beat? 1 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Schmo Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 I feel like wars from now on will instead of blocs, will be coalitions of spheres. That is, if Minispheres actually hold true. Just now, Emperor Adam said: Homie Did you miss the part where we literally were beat? Probably 😐 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miller Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 8 minutes ago, Krampus said: -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. And then we went on to crush all opposition and rule orbis with an iron fist. Oh wait no we got rolled again. Come up with a new line, this one is beyond tired. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post hidude45454 Posted September 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 16, 2021 8 minutes ago, Krampus said: -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. -said BW, after dogpiling HW with Rose who could give a rat's ass about the idea of fair wars and minispheres Minispheres only really work when everyone is following the rules and right now everyone is more or less spoiling the pie since they wanna come out on top but don't expect their competitors to play fair either. My hot take is that all spheres are still too large and should ideally be halved at the very least in order to break up the simplicity and mundanity of politics these days, but until then I don't not see there always being a big bad where wars are hopelessly predictable. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyubnyan Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 4 minutes ago, Emperor Adam said: Homie Did you miss the part where we literally were beat? Did you miss the part where Hollywood was literally beat? I don't know how you could possibly consider us a hegemony but whatever floats your boat. 1 Quote Humans cannot create anything out of nothingness. Humans cannot accomplish anything without holding onto something. After all, humans are not gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Director Nyus Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 10 minutes ago, Kyubnyan said: Did you miss the part where Hollywood was literally beat? I don't know how you could possibly consider us a hegemony but whatever floats your boat. Your grab for attention is noticed. Carry on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyubnyan Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 4 minutes ago, Emperor Adam said: Your grab for attention is noticed. Carry on. Lmfao. Grab for who's attention? Quote Humans cannot create anything out of nothingness. Humans cannot accomplish anything without holding onto something. After all, humans are not gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarriorSoul Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 29 minutes ago, Krampus said: -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. This seems like a fairly disingenuous read of Roberts' initial post because a) lol at calling it Quack 2.0 and b) he's been doing these more philosophical posts well before he had any association with TKR. Not everything is about scoring points 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who Me Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 2 minutes ago, WarriorSoul said: This seems like a fairly disingenuous read of Roberts' initial post because a) lol at calling it Quack 2.0 and b) he's been doing these more philosophical posts well before he had any association with TKR. Not everything is about scoring points You know how it is, they need to say these things so they can feel good about themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Dream Posted September 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 16, 2021 Is it possible to not turn this into another post centred around TKR? I know that it slightly favors TKR in a way but I think these ideas do make sense... They maybe aren't the best, but that's the point of this post. I really appreciate the effort. The author is not an FA for any major sphere, so please don't go making this a propaganda post and don't reply if you have got nothing to contribute.... 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who Me Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 It's very simple, you can have as many "mini-spheres" as you want but as long as the majority of them clump together to dogpile the minority nothing will change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vein Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thalmor Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 "Minispheres are dead" is the new "The game is dead." 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post KindaEpicMoah Posted September 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 16, 2021 This post was made an hour or two ago and has it already devolved into barely topical flaming. Amazing. On the actual subject of the post, I do agree with some of your points. I think that, although we have reached a state of multipolarity, I don't think it's true multipolarity, due to the fact that players are too beholden to the security of themselves and their alliances. I also think that minispheres were less popular than being paperless because being paperless requires one alliance to sacrifice their security, while minispheres require a group of alliances to sacrifice their collective security for the sake of game dynamism, which is still true to this day. However, here is where we arrive at the problem with minispheres. In order for the game's politics to fundamentally change, every single major alliance would have to take a leap of faith and shed every single practice they've picked up over the past 1-7 years, otherwise we'd invariably end up at the same place as we are at now. And call me a pessimist, but I don't think this could ever happen. I think alliances are too entrenched in their ideologies and rivalries to move in a way that puts them at risk. Hedge and TKR forming Hollywood together is a great example of this, but its certainly not the only example. A lot of other alliances are guilty of this as well, but its not inherently a bad practice. The game doesn't dictate that you have to be an idealist willing to take a few blows for the sake of sending a message, nor does it dictate that you have to be an absolute realist thats unwilling to compromise your security. But just a couple of people being the former won't change anything, since the latter group of people will always hold all of the cards, forcing the idealists back to the reality of the rigidness of politics (leading to dogpiles and whatnot). Actually, there might be one way to change the game's political environment so radically, but it'd be entirely dependent upon the game mechanics changing in some way to reward both war and becoming more independent on an alliance-wide scale (besides treasures, because we all know those suck). At the moment, the only in game incentive to war is to impede a competitor's growth, and even then an alliance fighting a competitor slows its own growth and risks falling behind other competitors. I think that with the right changes, both Politics and War (pun intended) could become something interesting, and perhaps even fun(?), but I don't think those changes are coming any time soon. 1 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadenStar10 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 3 hours ago, Justinian the Great said: Treaty Web and my arbitrary sphere divisions circa 2021 Why is Grumpy sectioned off 🤔 1 Quote Hammer Councillor of The Lost Mines Diety Emeritus of The Immortals, Patres Conscripti (President Emeritus) of the Independent Republic of Orange Nations, Lieutenant Emeritus of Black Skies, Imperator Emeritus of the Valyrian Freehold, Imperator Emeritus of the Divine Phoenix, Prefect Emeritus of Carthago, Regent Emeritus of the New Polar Order, Coal Duke (Imperator Emeritus) of The Coal Mines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 3 hours ago, Justinian the Great said: Well, frankly, it doesn't. While the official treaties and mega-blocs of bygone eras may have disappeared, the habits and thought processes of the individual players have held a little more firm. We've been seeing it over the past couple of years: Almost the entire game uniting against Quack, Quack overrunning the Swamp, Oasis/Mystery Inc jumping in to defend Rose against Hollywood, and now t$/Rose teaming up against TKR/GG. The idea of bipolarity in theory is gone... Addressing this is a huge step as one of the issues looking at this is "Who makes the first move?" Whether people cry "Secret Treaties" or "Hegemony" it really doesn't matter as each side has it's own strings to pull in order to create the soul crushing game presence to wipe out the opposition. The other issue is old CBs (that are 2 years+ old) are being brought up like it's brand new information. In my opinion wars should be fought on the basis of either: 1.) Game Politics - Bloc A is spying Bloc B or Bloc A is poaching Bloc B etc. 2.) Game Security - Bad raids lead to counters lead to more counters lead to war 3.) Or (in the event of some paperless boyos like KT/Arrgh) Stale Politics. Rose jumping on the bandwagon for shits and giggle to whack at Hollywood isn't fair. But I've no doubt in 6 months Rose will hit Blackwater with Hollywood. Until somebody makes the first step of saying "No, we won't dogpile" or creates more diversity amongst the spheres like mini-blocs (Looking at you Nexus 👍) this will always be the meta for Global Wars. Quote A game dies without a community. Don't hate on the communities trying to grow. Eat them instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarriorSoul Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 55 minutes ago, Suyash Adhikari said: Why is Grumpy sectioned off 🤔 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadenStar10 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 49 minutes ago, WarriorSoul said: Yeah but they are hollywood, just click and drag em over Quote Hammer Councillor of The Lost Mines Diety Emeritus of The Immortals, Patres Conscripti (President Emeritus) of the Independent Republic of Orange Nations, Lieutenant Emeritus of Black Skies, Imperator Emeritus of the Valyrian Freehold, Imperator Emeritus of the Divine Phoenix, Prefect Emeritus of Carthago, Regent Emeritus of the New Polar Order, Coal Duke (Imperator Emeritus) of The Coal Mines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arln Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 17 hours ago, Krampus said: -said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. I remember a lot of whining about Rose from both sides of former Quack. I guess they aren't as bad if you need their help in a war. separate from above: You could always have O Levels connecting spheres. People are so concerned with keeping it visually separate on the web but then they still oA in with blocs and alliances not treatied to them or they go in defense of someone. I dont really call it secret treaty per se, but it would be nice if people made their allies a little more visible. Cant call someone a hegemony cuz they have a lot of visible treaties then conjoin multiple blocs with no ties to fight this "hegemony". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arln Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 If I am not mistaken Swamp and Hedge signed a temporary ODoAP close to The Ten Day War and when Hedge and Swamp oAed in together it was by an actual treaty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micchan Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 Minispheres are like communism, started with the best intentions and ended in a disaster Never worked and probably will never work because there's always someone who wants to win, win what is still a mistery, only Alex is the winner at the end of the day Bipolar world was boring but at least we had more or less balanced wars for years because all the pieces were already on the table The only solution is to punish dogpilers, if two spheres create a coalition to hit another the other two join the war to turn it in a 3 vs 2, do it a couple of times and no one will do more dogpiles like that 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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