Jump to content

Minispheres moving forward


Raphael
 Share

Recommended Posts

I don't necessarily agree with the premise that the most recent wars are trending towards a quasi bi-polar war, but the part about stagnation of politics is the part I most agree with. I can't see a future now where it isn't GG+allies vs. t$+allies. t$ has said that GG's grip on the upper tier is a threat, but there is no way to neutralize that threat except GG's disbandment or near permawar. I don't' see GG disbanding, so absent politics taking place, t$ is going to continue its multi-year crusade and by nature become a self-fulfilling prophecy where GG continually sees itself targeted so it becomes more aggressive in kind.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, the idealistic multi-sphere post finally makes an appearance. As much as I would genuinely like to see a multi-sphere world, it's likelihood is pretty much close to nil right now as much as it ever has been in previous years. I've been vocal about it in the past so it really shouldn't come as a surprise.

How can we realistically push for a new FA meta when we have largely the same groups of people in charge of the same alliances pushing for the same agenda as they have done so for the last few years? 

If we want change , we first have to enact change closer to home in how we operate internally as alliances. Move away from the same cliques dictating decisions for whole communities and we might start getting somewhere. The FA meta largely reflects the internal nature of our own alliances after all. Tired , stagnant government lineups using the same tired stagnant CBs every war building coalitions in the same tired and stagnant manner.

Edited by Charles Bolivar

Untitled.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Krampus said:

-said TKR, after making Quack 2.0 by signing hedgemoney and creating Hollywood. 

My post has less to do with current politics and more to do with political theory behind the game in the last 2-ish years.

20 hours ago, KindaEpicMoah said:

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. 

I don't actually think we need to radically shift too much of anything. The simple fact is that competition is good for everyone in the game. I think most people feel that way, but short-sightedness catches us all on occasion.

The conversation about security really isn't reality anymore. Most people enjoy fighting, at least occasionally, and when those fights occur people will be upset at a lack of targets or a lack of content. Members are going inactive on the winning sides of dogpiles just like the losing side experiences member attrition. Boredom is the death of this game and that's what community leaders have to keep in mind.

I don't see that as an artificial limitation or a radical shift. It's simply the responsibility of leadership to ensure their members are engaged.

3 hours ago, Micchan said:

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

I actually take a much more optimistic view, personally. The minispheres already exist and we do see a community effort to keep them maintained, however misinformed those efforts may be. People were incensed at TKR pulling in HM to form a new bloc instantly after Quack and I think that general feeling of wanting to keep blocs small and separate is the foundational piece we can certainly continue to build upon.

I'd completely disagree with bipolarity leading to equal wars. In fact, it was always the exact opposite. In the current meta we've been seeing dogpiles happen through political agreements between spheres, with a bipolar world we simply had guaranteed dogpiles as one side already had the majority advantage.

1 hour ago, Hodor said:

I don't necessarily agree with the premise that the most recent wars are trending towards a quasi bi-polar war, but the part about stagnation of politics is the part I most agree with. I can't see a future now where it isn't GG+allies vs. t$+allies. t$ has said that GG's grip on the upper tier is a threat, but there is no way to neutralize that threat except GG's disbandment or near permawar. I don't' see GG disbanding, so absent politics taking place, t$ is going to continue its multi-year crusade and by nature become a self-fulfilling prophecy where GG continually sees itself targeted so it becomes more aggressive in kind.

This is a topic that Grumpy and Guardian both need to broach with each other internally and with their enemies, in my opinion. For the center of politics these past six months, you guys have been surprisingly quiet on the FA front as far as I can tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Justinian the Great said:

This is a topic that Grumpy and Guardian both need to broach with each other internally and with their enemies, in my opinion. For the center of politics these past six months, you guys have been surprisingly quiet on the FA front as far as I can tell.

We've actually approached t$ on this topic a number of times publicly and privately and have not received an answer.

Edited by Hodor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

People forget pretty quick when the game was IQ vs EMC quite a number of times with a slight difference.

The wars we've been having recently at least are unique. I agree with Hidude however, the spheres need to be smaller for this to work in a less 'dogpile' fashion.

[11:52 PM] Prefontaine: But Keegoz is actually bad. [11:52 PM] Prefontaine: He's my favorite bad leader though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/18/2021 at 7:39 AM, Big Brother said:

Perhaps the silence itself is the answer.

I personally think silence is a bad answer in a polisim game. Dialogue, harsh or otherwise, should be attempted. Even if the answer is no it's better than silence. Not commenting on the Grumpy-T$ relationship, merely commenting on this particular comment.

 

6 hours ago, Keegoz said:

People forget pretty quick when the game was IQ vs EMC quite a number of times with a slight difference.

The wars we've been having recently at least are unique. I agree with Hidude however, the spheres need to be smaller for this to work in a less 'dogpile' fashion.

I agree on principle but in practice certain spheres can only shrink so much further. Hollywood has only 5 major alliances, for example, but was obviously targeted by two other major spheres this previous war for being too powerful in a certain tier.

So would Guardian-Grumpy have to basically form their own sphere to truly be "mini" enough? That's like 50 people, smaller than a lot of micros.

 

Other groups have some obvious splits that could happen. t$ from Nexus, Rose from CAP, etc. and I think still maintain some level of integrity in terms of stats/tiering but a lot of those peripheral groups are effectively inert on their own. CAP, TFP, Fark, USN, TLE/TFed, literally everyone in Oasis... Most of those people if they split off into their own corners would likely never actually participate in politics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Minispheres -> Tripolarity -> Bipolarity -> Hegemony -> Minispheres / Anarchy

 

Tripolarity -> three major blocs (which is true to an extent), a bunch of neutrals / hangers on (which is true to an extent), and the major blocs keep rolling each other in 2v1 dogpiles. Eventually, one of the blocs dies (Hollywood took a hell of a lot of damage in the last 3 wars, Rose took a lot of damage between GnR and 522), both sides proceed to loot the dead bloc for members and alliances, and we have a bipolar system.

 

Between Rose coalition's failure to defeat Hollywood, and the recent dogpile vs Hollywood, Minispheres are as good as dead. What we have now is a state of tripolarity given the big three (Syndicate, Rose, Hollywood). I don't think, given the political configuration, that there is much chance of reverting from a tripolar system into a minispheres system. At best, a major sphere could collapse and be replaced by another, but that's just tripolarity extending itself. And in fact, that's the best possible outcome right now, with the perpetuation of tripolarity as opposed to decay into a bipolar system, which often is a crypto-hegemony (i.e, one side always wins all its wars) that might not include you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Justinian the Great said:

I personally think silence is a bad answer in a polisim game. Dialogue, harsh or otherwise, should be attempted. Even if the answer is no it's better than silence. Not commenting on the Grumpy-T$ relationship, merely commenting on this particular comment.

Nah it was answered time and time again. @Hodor knows what the !@#$ is gonna happen.

Lxr4VfE.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/17/2021 at 6:16 AM, Arln said:

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.

 

 

To be fair its not realistic to expect anyone else to do this for the near-future, the surprise factor is gone, you see an odoap and you can assume those two groups will be fighting together in the near future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think minispheres are getting more and more alive over time 

 

BW and Rose have just worked together in a coalition and nobody assumes either are working with the other beyond that. 

I can't speak for mystery but I do know their only real link to Rose (cam ) is no longer in their bloc

 

Ultimately coalitions, when necessary, are a healthy part of politics both in game and In real life

 

But to suggest we aren't in a quint-polar game (looking to soon be sext-polar, who knows) is just conspiracy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/27/2021 at 9:00 AM, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Remember when we used to be allies?  those were the days...

We would ask you for help, and you wouldn't do anything.

Honestly?

Barely - must be the heavy drinking lmfao

 

 

The Coalition Discord: https://discord.gg/WBzNRGK

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Grave said:

BW and Rose have just worked together in a coalition and nobody assumes either are working with the other beyond that. 

I wanna see who comes to their aid next so I want to roll the !@#$ out of them next

Lxr4VfE.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Grave said:

 

 

To be fair its not realistic to expect anyone else to do this for the near-future, the surprise factor is gone, you see an odoap and you can assume those two groups will be fighting together in the near future.

If my sphere was suddenly attacked and we were clearly going to lose id rather lose with dignity rather than win because like 3 other spheres jumped in our defense. Separating spheres only works if theyre actually seperated and not just gonna oA in whenever they feel like it. Or come to someones defense 

               

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Arln said:

If my sphere was suddenly attacked and we were clearly going to lose id rather lose with dignity rather than win because like 3 other spheres jumped in our defense. Separating spheres only works if theyre actually seperated and not just gonna oA in whenever they feel like it. Or come to someones defense 

Losing isn't the end of the game.  People need to understand that it's relatively easy to rebuild.

The game has become pretty casual compared to the old days when it first started.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Buorhann said:

Losing isn't the end of the game.  People need to understand that it's relatively easy to rebuild.

The game has become pretty casual compared to the old days when it first started.

Exactly. Everyone is so scared to lose that they feel the need to bring in non allies. Like why even have treaties if you’re just gonna have other allies. 

  • Upvote 1

               

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and the Guidelines of the game and community.