People wanted me to write a thread.

[Adrienne]

13 minutes ago, Kevanovia said:

I get it was a long time ago, so I don't fault you for not remembering. But a little strong of you to go straight to a "this is not true"  We considered hitting them before the logs broke. I can provide screenshots if it's alright with the people that were in the group DM with us.

I'll try and help the ol' memory. There was a fear of BK hitting ahead of the log leak - which is why we were a bit miffed when KETOG hit us. The day the war kicked off we all talked about using the war as a potential smokescreen if those rumors ended up being true, and also discussed the possibility of just hitting them based on what the situation was. (The rumored NPO/BK connection) Granted - now looking back at the logs (you had me second guessing myself lol) - it wasn't set in stone, but there were certainly discussions of all of us hitting BK & friends day 1 of Surf's Up.

So we definitely got our wires crossed a bit here. I was under the impression you were saying we always planned to immediately hit BK after, like those ridiculous rumors that IQ was circulating at the time, hence the strong '!@#$ that noise' response.

I don't remember it starting on day 1 but I do remember that it wasn't very long into the war that we started hearing rumors about BK wanting to hit us and were bringing up those concerns. And then when BK immediately launched into Nova after that whole scandal broke, that was another red flag because they didn't waste anytime at all with that and I can't remember if we thought this at the time but retrospectively, it seems like they were baiting us with that hit. Like you said here though, I'm pretty sure we were just discussing what to do in the event there was more substantial evidence (iirc Buor was trying to get hold of some more info) and nothing was definitive until those logs dropped from what I remember. And then it was go time.

[His Holy Decagon]

3 hours ago, Angantyr said:

From where I'm sitting, it looks a lot more like everyone who was thinking of using strategies like that are the ones who are complaining, while the alliances who made themselves temporarily impervious to the tactic are cracking jokes at the expense of the others.

 

Have to admit it has been pretty funny to watch

Isn't this... literally Syndi in a nutshell? I hope you aren't *that* oblivious to what the rest of the game thinks of you guys. Inb4 "we don't care what the rest of the game thinks"; that wasn't the point, nor was I asking "if" you care. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by His Holy Decagon

[Kevanovia]

19 minutes ago, Adrienne said:

So we definitely got our wires crossed a bit here. I was under the impression you were saying we always planned to immediately hit BK after, like those ridiculous rumors that IQ was circulating at the time, hence the strong '!@#$ that noise' response.

I don't remember it starting on day 1 but I do remember that it wasn't very long into the war that we started hearing rumors about BK wanting to hit us and were bringing up those concerns. And then when BK immediately launched into Nova after that whole scandal broke, that was another red flag because they didn't waste anytime at all with that and I can't remember if we thought this at the time but retrospectively, it seems like they were baiting us with that hit. Like you said here though, I'm pretty sure we were just discussing what to do in the event there was more substantial evidence (iirc Buor was trying to get hold of some more info) and nothing was definitive until those logs dropped from what I remember. And then it was go time.

Naw fam, those rumors were hot garbo.

Yeah, we started talking about hitting BK day 1 of Surf's Up - it was like the first convo in our group chat  Good times, good times.

To get back to the topic at hand:
The point borg is making with the chaining comment is that it has happened before with several wars and folks that are now condemning it - were fine with it. We received the “fake war” BS criticisms that NPO spewed and we (including TKR) defended chaining as just a part of the game and that the criticisms against it were weak (BK and friends complained about it in Dial Up & Rose and friends complained about it in GnR)

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

I feel like the real losers here are our friends in BR, they are getting destroyed in an imbalanced war they had no shot of winning.  But here we are pages upon pages of fighting over a peace treaty between completely different blocs, and they are an afterthought. 

I see you BR, even if i had no idea who you were about a month ago.

[Wizel16]

32 minutes ago, Kevanovia said:

Naw fam, those rumors were hot garbo.

Yeah, we started talking about hitting BK day 1 of Surf's Up - it was like the first convo in our group chat  Good times, good times.

To get back to the topic at hand:
The point borg is making with the chaining comment is that it has happened before with several wars and folks that are now condemning it - were fine with it. We received the “fake war” BS criticisms that NPO spewed and we (including TKR) defended chaining as just a part of the game and that the criticisms against it were weak (BK and friends complained about it in Dial Up & Rose and friends complained about it in GnR)

Yes Chaining has happened before and yes TKR has participated in Chaining in the past. I can't speak for Celetial, but we in TKR have seen the effectiveness of chaining into a demilitarized sphere first hand. Because of that experience, we didn't want to be on the receiving end of that exact situation.  Clock has chained wars recently and we had reason to believe they would again.  Hollywood believed we would be the likely target if it happened.  We made a strategic decision to prevent that from happening to us while we were not fully militarized rather that remaining at full mil unnecessarily losing large amounts of income.

[Indger]

7 hours ago, Eumirbago said:

@Indger

What brings me here, Eumir? Anything you need?

[Angantyr]

1 hour ago, His Holy Decagon said:

Isn't this... literally Syndi in a nutshell? I hope you aren't *that* oblivious to what the rest of the game thinks of you guys. Inb4 "we don't care what the rest of the game thinks"; that wasn't the point, nor was I asking "if" you care. 

I mean, I am just a syndicate rank and file, so my point of view carries no weight.. but I don't at all understand how factoring in the opinions of others contributes to my bottom line. ROI is god of all. From that perspective, this is all clear as crystal.

 

And it's all still very funny to watch

[Etat]

8 hours ago, Thalmor said:

This is like, a schizophrenic-level perception of reality.

Here's the downvotes on the HollyRo$e's announcement thread: 

Here's the upvotes in this thread to Keegoz's OP (after just 5 hours): 

This isn't a hard science, but the forum's reputation system is a good way of gauging community response to things. The community seems pretty hard against what y'all are doing, and are pretty happy with what Keegoz is saying.

Another perspective of course is that the OWF’s reputation system is a good way of proving there’s a lot of sheep here!  It is not an inconsiderable point though whichever way you look at it.  I mean people are duped every day by prevailing opinions.  Truth or accuracy in the PR war seems to be less important than the outcome’s being aimed for.

[Buorhann]

4 hours ago, Kevanovia said:

It has nothing to do with a “fake war” - but I can tell you that the plan the whole time was to hit BK right after Surf’s Up. Surf’s Up was a way to curb boredom and also show what a minisphere-vs-mini sphere war would look like. That was all real, there is nothing fake about that.

With that said - as soon as KETOG hit there was a chat between Chaos and KETOG leadership about smacking BK & friends - even without the logs (NPO came in later)

This is completely 100% false.

We had talks to back each other up in case BK and Friends hit either of us during the war or during rebuild.

Edit:  There were talks well BEFORE Surfs Up (?) to tackle both BK and NPO when they were still tied together, but one leader backed out so we scrapped the idea.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Buorhann

[Sphinx]

12 hours ago, Prefonteen said:

I agree. We shouldnt be defending this action because frankly its the result of your treatment of tS and your creation and enabling of grumpy over the period since npolt.

When the DSM-5 is updated, they should include Syndicate as a case study under 'persecution complex', as you guys are a perfect fit for that, completely oblivious on how the community interprets your actions and denigrating legitimate criticism against the actions of t$ gov as "hating on t$". I've seen several t$ gov try to use the sympathy factor as a way to justify t$'s actions in stagnating the game. This doesn't wash, the fact that you fall back upon bad events against you which happened years ago as cover for your own shitty actions nowadays is quite frankly a joke. t$'s so called "bad treatment" over the past 2 years is simply an invention of t$ paranoia, and it pales in comparison to alliances like TLE and spheres like Oasis and Swamp who suffered far more than anything t$ endured in the same time period.

8 hours ago, Thalmor said:

This is like, a schizophrenic-level perception of reality.

....

This isn't a hard science, but the forum's reputation system is a good way of gauging community response to things. The community seems pretty hard against what y'all are doing, and are pretty happy with what Keegoz is saying. 

t$ gov has no grip on reality, you could tell them the sky is blue and if they don't like the source it came from they'd disagree with you

[Adrienne]

17 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

This is completely 100% false.

We had talks to back each other up in case BK and Friends hit either of us during the war or during rebuild.

Edit:  There were talks well BEFORE Surfs Up (?) to tackle both BK and NPO when they were still tied together, but one leader backed out so we scrapped the idea.

See @Kevanovia? Not just me ahaha

[Charles Bolivar]

8 hours ago, Thalmor said:

This is like, a schizophrenic-level perception of reality.

Here's the downvotes on the HollyRo$e's announcement thread: 

Here's the upvotes in this thread to Keegoz's OP (after just 5 hours): 

This isn't a hard science, but the forum's reputation system is a good way of gauging community response to things. The community seems pretty hard against what y'all are doing, and are pretty happy with what Keegoz is saying. 

Bro, would it be easier for you if I just gave you my PO box? That way you can just write me a love letter directly and hopefully get you some relief.

I tend to believe the forum reputation system grants better insight into the distribution of the active forum community instead of specific community response.

[Kevanovia]

26 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

This is completely 100% false.

We had talks to back each other up in case BK and Friends hit either of us during the war or during rebuild.

Edit:  There were talks well BEFORE Surfs Up (?) to tackle both BK and NPO when they were still tied together, but one leader backed out so we scrapped the idea.

I wasn't referring to the talks prior to Surf's Up - I was referring to the discussions that we had starting day 1 of Surf's Up.

[Keegoz]

Seems like t$ also missed the point of the thread (or intentionally trying to duck the implications).

Both alliances in HW and Ro$e have previously been perfectly fine with chaining. You are being either entirely hypocritical or misleading with your reasoning behind your latest MDP agreement.

A bloc that has chained a total of once, does not justify your response to it and you deserve to be called out on it.

Making political moves that no one can do anything about has happened in this game before and led to hurting the game. Laughing at the people that cannot do anything is fairly reminsicent of what they did as well.

[Danzek]

2 hours ago, Wizel16 said:

Yes Chaining has happened before and yes TKR has participated in Chaining in the past. I can't speak for Celetial, but we in TKR have seen the effectiveness of chaining into a demilitarized sphere first hand. Because of that experience, we didn't want to be on the receiving end of that exact situation.  Clock has chained wars recently and we had reason to believe they would again.  Hollywood believed we would be the likely target if it happened.  We made a strategic decision to prevent that from happening to us while we were not fully militarized rather that remaining at full mil unnecessarily losing large amounts of income.

So, chaining Rose was a concession to T$ they wanted at the last minute. Your leadership knew this full well before this post by Keegoz, but then pretended it didn't so they could externalize all blame for their consolidation. There was no evidence or reason to believe clock would do it again. 

You're already the largest sphere, with 2v1 whale tier advantage over clock. 

Let's go over your "effectiveness of chaining into a demilitarized sphere". So what, spending hundreds of billions fighting another war is an effective way to reduce your infra? If infra shredding was so effective, everyone could just be selling it, hell, that'd be cheaper than fighting a global for it.

And yeah, no doubt pulling a Rose isn't effective milcom strategy. Obviously you want to have your cake and eat it too. But your sphere had plenty of other alternatives that they didn't even try at before choosing to consolidate 60% of the game's whales against what probably was a non threat.  

• Partial militarization is out, obviously, even though 2 buys from max in upper tier is likely sufficient. Because god forbit HW spend a cent on preparedness. 
• Paying clock? Or hiring another alliance such as HoF, Circus etc instead of going full hegemon? Same issue, costs a shred of income.
• Spending some sort of influence or concession? Did your sphere even make the calculus that the reputational hit and blowback and from the MDP was less than what they'd lose to a lesser more palatable agreement? Essentially to achieve the same claimed goal of stopping clock from chaining? 
• Trying to get accurate intel on clock's intentions? Effort. Blegh, why even do more FA with clock over their chaining when you can just do an end run around game threats by signing celestial. 

 Your leaders say they want a fair fight, and then do everything possible to do the opposite and try to reframe a fully milled HW having a war of its choosing against a smaller sphere is fair. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Borg

[Etat]

15 minutes ago, Keegoz said:

Seems like t$ also missed the point of the thread (or intentionally trying to duck the implications).

Both alliances in HW and Ro$e have previously been perfectly fine with chaining. You are being either entirely hypocritical or misleading with your reasoning behind your latest MDP agreement.

A bloc that has chained a total of once, does not justify your response to it and you deserve to be called out on it.

Making political moves that no one can do anything about has happened in this game before and led to hurting the game. Laughing at the people that cannot do anything is fairly reminsicent of what they did as well.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here.

1. As far as I can see both HW and Celestial are still perfectly ok with the idea of chaining.  We just didn't want it to happen to us, so steps were taken.  I have not seen anyone call Clock out for chaining wars as a terribly negative thing beyond the point that it left us with a degree of uncertainty about their future intentions.  Nobody is saying it is bad to chain wars.  Clearly the pertinent questions surround the evidence and/or justification for clause 3.
2. As far as doing anything about it, no-one need do anything which is made clear within the demilitarization agreement.  I guess I can see how you've constructed this climate of fear about the future in light of this agreement.  However I guess much like you believe we are unjustified to insert clause 3, I believe you are unjustified to believe that this arrangement is some sort of game breaking event.  You're basically just catastrophizing for your own reasons.
3. Finally, I do not see any of us laughing at the rest of the game not being able to do anything about this extremely time limited and specific arrangement.  There may be a bit of banter aimed back at you given the vitriol that has come our way, but the sort of derision from us you're suggesting is non-existent as far as I've seen.

Perhaps it is time to let your hard-on for this issue go for a little bit as it has clearly derailed your ability to reason.  It is not like HW and/or Celestial have started a war and trying to tell everyone else how to play unlike what is coming towards us.

[Danzek]

15 minutes ago, Etat said:

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here.

1. As far as I can see both HW and Celestial are still perfectly ok with the idea of chaining.  We just didn't want it to happen to us, so steps were taken.  I have not seen anyone call Clock out for chaining wars as a terribly negative thing beyond the point that it left us with a degree of uncertainty about their future intentions.  Nobody is saying it is bad to chain wars.  Clearly the pertinent questions surround the evidence and/or justification for clause 3.
2. As far as doing anything about it, no-one need do anything which is made clear within the demilitarization agreement.  I guess I can see how you've constructed this climate of fear about the future in light of this agreement.  However I guess much like you believe we are unjustified to insert clause 3, I believe you are unjustified to believe that this arrangement is some sort of game breaking event.  You're basically just catastrophizing for your own reasons.
3. Finally, I do not see any of us laughing at the rest of the game not being able to do anything about this extremely time limited and specific arrangement.  There may be a bit of banter aimed back at you given the vitriol that has come our way, but the sort of derision from us you're suggesting is non-existent as far as I've seen.

Perhaps it is time to let your hard-on for this issue go for a little bit as it has clearly derailed your ability to reason.  It is not like HW and/or Celestial have started a war and trying to tell everyone else how to play unlike what is coming towards us.

Just because you haven't seen anyone from your sphere call clock out, or telling others to go cry/seethe/cope/eat shit etc. (or refuse to beleive your eyes, idk) doesn't mean they haven't. 

Orbis just had the whole, "NAPs are bad we should stop having them after every global" discussions, Justinian? (iirc) from your sphere did a post about it? Anywho, general sentiment being that it leads to stagnation. And then you go and sign a NAP and an MDP with the other largest bloc without having even fought a war.  

A "temporary" treaty signed again the next time you perceive a threat is not temporary. Morf doesn't want to commit to this being a one time thing, ergo, it's not temporary. Not to mention that there's large pushback against even the hint of normalizing these kinds of treaties. 

> "unlike what is coming towards us."

lmao

Edited May 28, 2022 by Borg

[Etat]

11 minutes ago, Borg said:

Just because you haven't seen anyone from your sphere call clock out, or telling others to go cry/seethe/cope etc. (or refuse to beleive your eyes, idk) doesn't mean they haven't. 

Orbis just had the whole, "NAPs are bad we should stop having them after every global" discussions, Justinian from your sphere did a post about it? Anywho, general sentiment being that it leads to stagnation. And then you go and sign a NAP and an MDP with the other largest bloc without having even fought a war.  

A "temporary" treaty sign again the next time you perceive a threat is not temporary. Morf doesn't want to commit to this being a one time thing, ergo, it's not temporary. Not to mention that there's large pushback against even the hint of normalizing these kinds of treaties. 

> "unlike what is coming towards us."

lmao

Just because you say someone said something, doesn't mean they did.

Anyway, if it isn't in a public space I won't know about it.  I don't engage in, nor am invited to private chit chats.  Neither do I spend my hours cruising discord looking for or manipulating poorly thought out comments to screen shot and throw at people later.  Plus why are you even bringing that stupid NAP nonsense into this??

It is generally a pretty weak approach to only ever reference private discussions, and as far as I can see that is all you've got.  There's been some pretty deep dives into history on this issue, and all completely unwarranted IMO.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Etat

[Danzek]

 

8 minutes ago, Etat said:

Just because you say someone said something, doesn't mean they did.

Anyway, if it isn't in a public space I won't know about it.  I don't engage in, nor am invited to private chit chats.  Neither do I spend my hours cruising discord looking for or manipulating poorly thought out comments to screen shot and throw at people later.  Plus why are you even bringing that stupid NAP nonsense into this??

It is generally a pretty weak approach to only ever reference private discussions, and as far as I can see that is all you've got.  There's been some pretty deep dives into history on this issue, and all completely unwarranted IMO.

idk man. The forums and public chats get get a bit toxic, and some people can be pretty boastful when they have the upper hand. It's really not a big deal, it happens every war, but having a sense of disempowerment isn't great I guess? /shrug

[Etat]

1 minute ago, Borg said:

idk man. The forums and public chats get get a bit toxic, and some people can be pretty boastful when they have the upper hand. It's really not a big deal, it happens every war, but having a sense of disempowerment isn't great I guess? /shrug

I agree!  To my knowledge (as a non-gov member) there is no intent to have a negative/hegemonic affect on the game from either HW or Celestial.  I believe, and without making any sort of value judgement about it, that the extent of the backlash to this move has been surprising for everyone.

[Buorhann]

10 hours ago, Eumirbago said:

 @Buorhann need a platform to voice their opinions against the toxic whitewashers that is The $yndicate!

I love you too, Eumir. 😘

[Thalmor]

45 minutes ago, Etat said:

I agree!  To my knowledge (as a non-gov member) there is no intent to have a negative/hegemonic affect on the game from either HW or Celestial. 

Clock likes to fight. Let's say, for example, they hit HM or Johnsons in 5 months. What stops Celestial and Hollywood from doing this again?

[Etat]

15 minutes ago, Thalmor said:

Clock likes to fight. Let's say, for example, they hit HM or Johnsons in 5 months. What stops Celestial and Hollywood from doing this again?

If future hypotheticals is what we end up levelling at each other, there’s very little point in me responding 😂  I’ve no crystal ball, nor will I speak out of turn.  Right now we are at peace, have been quite clear about our intentions and are not trying to tell anyone what to do.  Can you say the same?

[Buorhann]

I blame @Abbas Mehdi.

[His Holy Decagon]

Still, no one has given me a logical response to how bringing in more high infra targets, deters low infra nations from chaining. The plausible net damage in that situation, IMO, seems to almost entice pirates, raiders, and chaining.