[Treaty] 'O Fortuna

[Darth Ataxia]

10 hours ago, Hodor said:

Non-chaining has been assumed for most of PnW's existence. I am guessing they may have spelled out some of these terms explicitly as a hint to their recent affairs, but these articles don't actually cover what happened between t$ and Wayward so maybe it's just a new trend of making treaties explicit and clear? Tbh that's a trend I support.

Spelling out treaties in detail is definitely something that needs to be more of a standard. Non-chaining especially can create some interesting scenarios.

 

I’m also hoping that this is possibly a move towards more AA centric stances on t$’s end though that obviously remains to be seen.

[Firwof Kromwell]

On 12/13/2022 at 10:36 AM, Pascal said:

Merely rebalancing the tides would be more accurate.

And have you even looked at a tiering sheet before writing this ?

When has any of Ronnie and his buddies ever looked at anything outside of around that? They're getting at that age where they can barely see anything in front of them as well having a decline of mental capacity. Yet you still expect them to see further than that both physically and mentally at their age? Unbelievable

[Sorra Himguard]

2 minutes ago, Firwof Kromwell said:

When has any of Ronnie and his buddies ever looked at anything outside of around that? They're getting at that age where they can barely see anything in front of them as well having a decline of mental capacity. Yet you still expect them to see further than that both physically and mentally at their age? Unbelievable

Can i just come on here and see you not get into a argument, For one day.

[Hodor]

5 hours ago, Zed said:

But I remember a day, long ago, when we told an ally - hey look, there is a conflict that we do not have any business participating in. Let us not do that. Said ally then proceeds to intervene in that conflict, with little notice or warning, because of some grand plan they figured they were concocting. That led us to break the treaty, and stop the actions we were undertaking at the time. It also led to one of the greatest forum threads ever composed here.

This was slick. Props. If I am understanding you correctly, @Keegozand @His Holy Decagonconfirmed Roq multis. Cata is NPO... though, I think they are a teeeeeensy bit different given t$'s very unpopular limited entrance into said war prior to their ally's entry, and the implied threat of chaining their ally into the war if their entrance was reacted to:

Also, talk about deja vu:

Edited December 15, 2022 by Hodor

[Firwof Kromwell]

50 minutes ago, Linky said:

Can i just come on here and see you not get into a argument, For one day.

Nice assumptive agrument, where'd you get it, can I have some too? Wait, me...assume...and agrue?! No..., I cant be taken weird substances for others, even if you force me!

[zigbigadorlou]

5 hours ago, Zed said:

I also prefer to spell out oA clauses, even though we have had past treaties and writers who say that any MDP has an implied oA clause.

If we pay attention to the last few years, you don't need a treaty to have an implied oA clause. Everyone who DMs has an implied oA clause. 

[Zed]

31 minutes ago, Hodor said:

This was slick. Props. If I am understanding you correctly, @Keegozand @His Holy Decagonconfirmed Roq multis. Cata is NPO... though, I think they are a teeeeeensy bit different given t$'s very unpopular limited entrance into said war prior to their ally's entry, and the implied threat of chaining their ally into the war if their entrance was reacted to:

Also, talk about deja vu:

 

As a precursor to the rest of this, a note on "literally NPO". This gets tossed around a lot, for better or worse; and usually, for worse. I am not here to do that, and I am not implying that Cata is conducting an illicit operation like the Pacificians did when they broke the rules. Any reference to that conflict as it relates to this one is purely about the mechanics of entry, and not about people and their behavior. Cata is not, and I want to be very clear here, "literally NPO" in the pejorative sense of the word as we toss it around..

For what it is worth, I responded to your post initially instead of a few others because you actually had something relatively constructive to say in the thread in terms of building a point in general.

I very distinctly remember alliances who were pleased we entered the war in the screenshots. I also remember a number of alliances who were very less than pleased when we left the battlefield abruptly after NPO hit TKR. SuperCholaX (not the real BK) was very incensed when we left, after being highly elated when we joined. A lot of the people on that spectrum of feelings are no longer around for various reasons, but it is what it is. That war was very messy and had a lot of feelings built up around it, and we are very much living in the shadow of that era.

It is not my intent to re-litigate the t$-GG rivalry that developed around that time here, but I think both of us would have experiences colored by that fight given where we were then and where we are now. I would not be surprised at all if the negative external opinion of t$ today is driven deep down by the role the alliance played in that particular conflict, from beginning to end. It may not be what people cite now, but it is probably where the initial seed is planted. There is even a thread about it, sort of, from WANA a few months back.

In the situation screenshotted above, one major difference is that all allied parties to t$ were okay with that particular conflict between t$ and GG. Where things went off the rails was when NPO later decided they had to save SCX directly, which was something explicitly not agreed upon. What was agreed upon is that NPO would mostly sit out, given their diplomatic situation at the time. The entire point of NPO and SCX breaking apart was because they agreed - falsely in hindsight - that their continued partnership was mechanically broken for the game to manage. Pacifica entering the conflict on their behalf was a terrible idea for many reasons. You can theorycraft all you want, but there probably is some simulation where SCX agrees to just take an L because their FA infamy was in the gutter, and then they decide to rebuild and reload with NPO turning and swinging after t$ and GG beat each other to a pulp. That is a very different Orbis, but it is speculation for another time.

t$ signed NPO at the time because in terms of challenges, it was really the last thing left on the list at the time. It was about moving the game and the narrative along. And again, without trying to make equations between the two that people will want to twist, t$ signing Cata was also something that was close to that kind of storyline shift. Short of a t$-GG union, that was about it to do. I was very supportive of t$ signing Cata, and I believed it would be a pretty good treaty. Keegoz is one of the few S-tier FA players left in this game, and one of its relatively few active drivers. Having what is probably two of the three most narrative driving alliances in Orbis together was going to be a lot of fun, and probably pretty powerful.

In short, there was not really a good reason for Wayward to enter the MG-TKR conflict. Why would there be? Both HOGG and OB were much bigger entities, and aside from one or two parties in that MG-TKR conflict, have most of the other major players in the game. Peers are who most alliances look at when it comes to crafting politics and rivalries in the game. For Wayward, this means figuring out what happens with HOGG and OB. That does not mean you wait for them to hit each other, or you hit one of them yourselves, but I hope I do not need to explain how politics works here.

If we all want to grandstand about minispheres and dynamic politics, with many diverse cliques of girlbosses, then some gatekeeping when that kind of dynamism happens is necessary, otherwise we are just gaslighting each other.

The fact is if t$ decided to hit Eclipse, and then OB/MG decide to come in on top of t$, then if t$ loses - which we will not know but not out of the question - I guarantee that the public sentiment here would still be to suggest that t$ has terrible FA and MilCom, and some version of ratio + L + you fell off + malding + cope. To be clear, this is not the reason t$ refused to enter the war, and this should not be twisted to suggest so. It is rather a summation of how public behavior would be. Sure, we could say some weird situation where Wayward enters, then OB counters, then HOGG comes in (or not), and we get a nice massive actual Global War. But that requires a lot of hoops to jump through, and assumes a lot of implied ties and deals.

Bloc treaties are designed to have the group move and think as a unit. There may be disagreements, but at the end of the day some level of common value and path is required. It may not be something that all parties, or even some parties, find to be their ideal outcome. Relationships are like that. Cata entering the MG-TKR war was not something t$ agreed upon was in the best interest of the bloc. Entering wars is a serious thing in this game. You have to be prepared to do it, and you have to know the consequences of what happens if you do. That is really what this boils down to.

 

Just now, zigbigadorlou said:

If we pay attention to the last few years, you don't need a treaty to have an implied oA clause. Everyone who DMs has an implied oA clause. 

This is a common practice, I agree. In antediluvian times, there were a great number of types of treaties. Some were mutual, some optional, and some just for color sharing or friendliness. Over time the community has mostly done away with most of these  - to the point where effectively there are just MDP and Protectorate, and the latter usually means oA is included.

We do not have to go back to the days when people signed random ToA type documents, but my original point was that the treaty t$ and Eclipse just signed is not a bloc treaty. It is designed, in part, to have some independent bilateral treaty-based politics re-enter the game. It is not out of the question if we signed other alliances too, but they will not be part of a bloc agreement.

[Kurdanak]

On 12/12/2022 at 5:13 PM, Kurdanak said:

^ just getting started early before demand begins to exponentially rise at around page 3

[Buorhann]

4 hours ago, Zed said:

The fact is if t$ decided to hit Eclipse, and then OB/MG decide to come in on top of t$, then if t$ loses - which we will not know but not out of the question - I guarantee that the public sentiment here would still be to suggest that t$ has terrible FA and MilCom, and some version of ratio + L + you fell off + malding + cope.

Elaborate further on this part.

I would nitpick your assessments of the NPO involvement, but I'm not concerned on that at all here at this time.  But the quoted part, I'm most curious about.  Why would the public sentiment suggest that Syndicate has terrible FA/Milcom for you guys supporting an ally?  Also, stating that just screams lack of confidence in Syndicate's structure to me for some odd reason.

Yet despite all that, your chosen course of action was to bail on an ally (at the time - Cata) and literally sign the alliance that further stirred the controversy (Eclipse)?   But there was no concern about public sentiment attacking your FA ability there?

Edited December 15, 2022 by Buorhann

[Hodor]

9 hours ago, Zed said:

As a precursor to the rest of this, a note on "literally NPO". This gets tossed around a lot, for better or worse; and usually, for worse. I am not here to do that, and I am not implying that Cata is conducting an illicit operation like the Pacificians did when they broke the rules. Any reference to that conflict as it relates to this one is purely about the mechanics of entry, and not about people and their behavior. Cata is not, and I want to be very clear here, "literally NPO" in the pejorative sense of the word as we toss it around..

For what it is worth, I responded to your post initially instead of a few others because you actually had something relatively constructive to say in the thread in terms of building a point in general.

  As a precursor to my response, it's really hard to judge tone on the forums, but to be clear, I didn't take your statement as a serious accusation of Cata being NPO. I was just making fun of how riled up the entire game gets whenever someone even comes remotely close to a comparison between NPO and some current alliance. I apologize that I couldn't resist talking about the comparison because I think we agree about the treaty texts.

9 hours ago, Zed said:

I very distinctly remember alliances who were pleased we entered the war in the screenshots. I also remember a number of alliances who were very less than pleased when we left the battlefield abruptly after NPO hit TKR. SuperCholaX (not the real BK) was very incensed when we left, after being highly elated when we joined. A lot of the people on that spectrum of feelings are no longer around for various reasons, but it is what it is. That war was very messy and had a lot of feelings built up around it, and we are very much living in the shadow of that era.

Namely the allies of your allies/BK and the future Coalition B. Not exactly a great group of people in the end. In general, there will always be supporters of any one FA move unless it is absolutely atrocious.
 

9 hours ago, Zed said:

t$ signed NPO at the time because in terms of challenges, it was really the last thing left on the list at the time. It was about moving the game and the narrative along. And again, without trying to make equations between the two that people will want to twist, t$ signing Cata was also something that was close to that kind of storyline shift. Short of a t$-GG union, that was about it to do. I was very supportive of t$ signing Cata, and I believed it would be a pretty good treaty. Keegoz is one of the few S-tier FA players left in this game, and one of its relatively few active drivers. Having what is probably two of the three most narrative driving alliances in Orbis together was going to be a lot of fun, and probably pretty powerful.

  I too had high hopes. As did many in Cata and Paradise.

9 hours ago, Zed said:

In short, there was not really a good reason for Wayward to enter the MG-TKR conflict. Why would there be? Both HOGG and OB were much bigger entities, and aside from one or two parties in that MG-TKR conflict, have most of the other major players in the game. Peers are who most alliances look at when it comes to crafting politics and rivalries in the game. For Wayward, this means figuring out what happens with HOGG and OB. That does not mean you wait for them to hit each other, or you hit one of them yourselves, but I hope I do not need to explain how politics works here.

If we all want to grandstand about minispheres and dynamic politics, with many diverse cliques of girlbosses, then some gatekeeping when that kind of dynamism happens is necessary, otherwise we are just gaslighting each other.

The fact is if t$ decided to hit Eclipse, and then OB/MG decide to come in on top of t$, then if t$ loses - which we will not know but not out of the question - I guarantee that the public sentiment here would still be to suggest that t$ has terrible FA and MilCom, and some version of ratio + L + you fell off + malding + cope. To be clear, this is not the reason t$ refused to enter the war, and this should not be twisted to suggest so. It is rather a summation of how public behavior would be. Sure, we could say some weird situation where Wayward enters, then OB counters, then HOGG comes in (or not), and we get a nice massive actual Global War. But that requires a lot of hoops to jump through, and assumes a lot of implied ties and deals.

Specifically, from the bolded point, I wish you would have been in the bloc channels instead of the others because this is exactly what we were saying to t$ for literal months and we were bending over backwards to try and satisfy their requirements.

I don't disagree with your assessment of what would've happened or could've happened but, from the start, Cata and Paradise were upfront with t$ about our plans and our assessment of the political landscape. It's pretty well known now what the rationale for joining was and, from the many times we'd discussed similar scenarios in the bloc chat, t$ could've guessed what Cata's reaction would be.

 

ALL THIS TO SAY: my initial comment was specifically about the non-chaining agreement and the implied threat t$ made in that infamous thread, not about how t$ hitting Grumpy was analogous to Cata hitting Midgard.

[Kevanovia]

23 minutes ago, Hodor said:

I don't disagree with your assessment of what would've happened or could've happened but, from the start, Cata and Paradise were upfront with t$ about our plans and our assessment of the political landscape. It's pretty well known now what the rationale for joining was and, from the many times we'd discussed similar scenarios in the bloc chat, t$ could've guessed what Cata's reaction would be.

I'm still floored that t$ keeps saying that they told Cata they didn't want Cata to jump into the war. I never saw that once. In fact I believe Keegoz leaked a convo of him and WANA (Cata leaks are bad. Plz stop that. But since it's already out there...) showing WANA collaborating with Keegoz on a CB for Cata to enter the war.

t$ eventually was in favor of hitting Oreo alongside TKR prior to the MG-TKR war (as they also saw that the most likely scenario would be Oreo hitting Wayward next).

What appears to have happened here is that t$ really didn't want to go to war in general, but saw no other option and understood/agreed with Cata on the situation. When the Midguard war popped up, the same thought process applied. They understood the situation at-hand, and even game-planned with Cata on how to address it. When they found a way to slither out of the situation with Eclipse, they took it. Hey, that's politics baby. I get it. The move is fine if you don't care about your honor, tradition and sticking to your word. You know what's also fine? Calling it out for what it is.

The Wayward situation:
>Paradise goes to t$ with idea to start Wayward
>Paradise/t$/Cata talk about path forward and what our understanding of the landscape is & what our goals are
>Wayward talks about how to address the current threat of Oreo
>Wayward (*including t$) agrees on how to address the current threat of Oreo based on the situation, which includes working with TKR on a coalition
>TKR gets randomly hit by Midguard
>Cata suggests them alone jumping in to save TKR. t$ and Paradise tell them to have fun and didn't object
>t$ game plans with the bloc on how to handle the situation, then suddenly gets quiet the day after Cata hit
>t$ works with Eclipse to plan out the attack/cancellation/future treaty while still in Wayward (confirmed with this thread)
>t$ cancels Cata moments before Eclipse attacks (and didn't even talk to Paradise about it  )
>t$ doesn't honor their 72 hour clause

Unsure where the controversy is, as this is pretty damn clear-cut.

[Mayor]

1 minute ago, Kevanovia said:

I'm still floored that t$ keeps saying that they told Cata they didn't want Cata to jump into the war. I never saw that once. In fact I believe Keegoz leaked a convo of him and WANA (Cata leaks are bad. Plz stop that. But since it's already out there...) showing WANA collaborating with Keegoz on a CB for Cata to enter the war.

t$ eventually was in favor of hitting Oreo alongside TKR prior to the MG-TKR war (as they also saw that the most likely scenario would be Oreo hitting Wayward next).

What appears to have happened here is that t$ really didn't want to go to war in general, but saw no other option and understood/agreed with Cata on the situation. When the Midguard war popped up, the same thought process applied. They understood the situation at-hand, and even game-planned with Cata on how to address it. When they found a way to slither out of the situation with Eclipse, they took it. Hey, that's politics baby. I get it. The move is fine if you don't care about your honor, tradition and sticking to your word. You know what's also fine? Calling it out for what it is.

The Wayward situation:
>Paradise goes to t$ with idea to start Wayward
>Paradise/t$/Cata talk about path forward and what our understanding of the landscape is & what our goals are
>Wayward talks about how to address the current threat of Oreo
>Wayward (*including t$) agrees on how to address the current threat of Oreo based on the situation, which includes working with TKR on a coalition
>TKR gets randomly hit by Midguard
>Cata suggests them alone jumping in to save TKR. t$ and Paradise tell them to have fun and didn't object
>t$ game plans with the bloc on how to handle the situation, then suddenly gets quiet the day after Cata hit
>t$ works with Eclipse to plan out the attack/cancellation/future treaty while still in Wayward (confirmed with this thread)
>t$ cancels Cata moments before Eclipse attacks (and didn't even talk to Paradise about it  )
>t$ doesn't honor their 72 hour clause

Unsure where the controversy is, as this is pretty damn clear-cut.

Sometimes it feels as though we are being painted as the bad guys for wanting to defend our MD allies. If Syndicate got themselves into a shitty war I would be gung-ho about supporting them even with a shit CB and bad odds. I guess that does not extend to Syndicate allies.

Syndicate never even gave us a chance to begin with before signing our enemies. People can say what they want about chaining and non-chaining into wars but all the claims tS had previously made about wishing Wayward had worked out falls on deaf ears when they signed Eclipse showing a complete lack of faith in our bloc and them blaming us for being severely betrayed.

Syndicates honor and prestige does not get destroyed by losing a simple war but by doing garbage like this and pretending everything is okay and that all the fault lies with everyone else. People will always find an excuse to tear their enemies down no matter what but recently it seems Syndicate is adamant about destroying their reputation themselves. I literally can not think of a worse move for them to make if they cared about their "honor".

[Agent W]

5 hours ago, Kevanovia said:

I'm still floored that t$ keeps saying that they told Cata they didn't want Cata to jump into the war. I never saw that once. In fact I believe Keegoz leaked a convo of him and WANA (Cata leaks are bad. Plz stop that. But since it's already out there...) showing WANA collaborating with Keegoz on a CB for Cata to enter the war.

t$ eventually was in favor of hitting Oreo alongside TKR prior to the MG-TKR war (as they also saw that the most likely scenario would be Oreo hitting Wayward next).

What appears to have happened here is that t$ really didn't want to go to war in general, but saw no other option and understood/agreed with Cata on the situation. When the Midguard war popped up, the same thought process applied. They understood the situation at-hand, and even game-planned with Cata on how to address it. When they found a way to slither out of the situation with Eclipse, they took it. Hey, that's politics baby. I get it. The move is fine if you don't care about your honor, tradition and sticking to your word. You know what's also fine? Calling it out for what it is.

The Wayward situation:
>Paradise goes to t$ with idea to start Wayward
>Paradise/t$/Cata talk about path forward and what our understanding of the landscape is & what our goals are
>Wayward talks about how to address the current threat of Oreo
>Wayward (*including t$) agrees on how to address the current threat of Oreo based on the situation, which includes working with TKR on a coalition
>TKR gets randomly hit by Midguard
>Cata suggests them alone jumping in to save TKR. t$ and Paradise tell them to have fun and didn't object
>t$ game plans with the bloc on how to handle the situation, then suddenly gets quiet the day after Cata hit
>t$ works with Eclipse to plan out the attack/cancellation/future treaty while still in Wayward (confirmed with this thread)
>t$ cancels Cata moments before Eclipse attacks (and didn't even talk to Paradise about it  )
>t$ doesn't honor their 72 hour clause

Unsure where the controversy is, as this is pretty damn clear-cut.

As you and I both know, FA is way more art than science. What I told Cataclysm is that “we wouldn’t stop them” from entering the war. If that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, it’s because it wasn’t. Mind you, the decisions that happened came quickly. Cataclysm gave us a 30 minute notice on the fact that they intended to enter. Perhaps had they not been in such a mad rush, they would’ve thought through the consequences of making that decision.

With regards to your point about us agreeing to hit OB, our trepidation with that idea is well documented, and both Cata and Paradise were keenly aware of that. It was that trepidation that caused members of Cata high government to flame members of mine. We agreed in principle that if it came to a situation where we believed OB would blitz us, we’d be alright fighting them. Cata and Paradise were both sure they would hit us. It didn’t help that members of Cata were openly antagonistic to members of OB.

You can believe what you want to believe happened, Kev. Would you like to hear the truth? We sat paperless for several weeks as we meted out our options. During that span of several weeks, we explored the options available to us, and eventually decided to sign Eclipse. Other alliance leaders had the same exact opportunity to bend my ear during this period. It’s a shame some didn’t even bother to try.

The relationship between us clearly didn’t work. While Cataclysm has aired as much dirty laundry as they can manage, the Syndicate has opted to take the high road. As I told both Cata and Paradise in the channel that night, I’m not going to invalidate your feelings based on what happened. However I will continue to call out distortions of what occurred. Relationships are 50/50. Anyone who believes that either party was singularly responsible for how the relationship ended is either pushing an agenda or not particularly emotionally intelligent.

[Thalmor]

First off, thanks Zed for blessing us with that post. High-level, articulate stuff like that is always appreciated.

13 hours ago, Zed said:

The fact is if t$ decided to hit Eclipse, and then OB/MG decide to come in on top of t$, then if t$ loses - which we will not know but not out of the question - I guarantee that the public sentiment here would still be to suggest that t$ has terrible FA and MilCom, and some version of ratio + L + you fell off + malding + cope. 

I don't think it's guaranteed that t$ would get shat on. People would be critical of Syndicate's war performance if there were severe issues (I recall some controversy that Syndicate deleted military and refused to fight in some past war, but I'm unsure on the facts of that), but that's true for any alliance. 

The only people who I imagine would be critical of the move would be those who you were be aligned against because of the war. That would be Oreo Bros and Midgard. I have a hard time imagining those in Withheld or HOGG would be critical of Syndicate honoring their treaty. As someone who has been critical of Syndicate publicly, I would not have held it against you guys at all in the hypothetical you're presenting. 

This is my broad perspective, as someone who is ignorant of many things in this game:

The Syndicate has, for as long as I can remember, been a mover and shaker. When 'Syndisphere' won the game, you were the one who took them paperless for quite some time. There was the t$-NPO treaty (and the wild breakup shortly afterwards). There was Treasure Island. These are the examples that come to mind, but Syndicate has always been interesting and competent. An anchor of the game.

After the war that shall go unnamed, this seems to have changed. I'm not sure what all happened, but I remember Horse's call out thread about you guys, which was immensely popular at the time. I didn't know what everything was that he referred to (and I still don't), but quite a number of people seemed to agree with the sentiment. Combined with the claims that t$ was refusing to fight and/or deleting military, it painted an ugly picture. I will admit that I can't for sure say what is true about all this, but it does influence what I think, and it's why I don't hold t$ is the highest regards at the moment. Now, what I can talk about more confidently is my interpretation of t$'s FA for the past two years:

Syndicate, as it appeared to me, started to prioritize safety above all else. I didn't like Quack, and was pleased to see it dissolve. I also didn't like Celestial. The meta was shifting towards multispheres, but t$ seems to have stayed away from that as much as possible. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see Syndicate break off and come into Wayward. It reminded me of the t$ of old. It's risky to break up a solid bloc with another anchor like Rose, and to roll with two smaller alliances. But you guys did it anyways, and that was hella cool! Wana made his thread flogging himself, and I was excited to see t$ turn over a new leaf.

Now, I say all this because I wanted to go back to what I said at the beginning on this post. As someone who has publicly spoke against t$ a number of times, I would've had nothing bad to say about t$ if they stayed in Wayward and fought Eclipse. At most I would've poked fun some if you guys had a particularly bad war performance, but I would do that for anyone. I'm sure there are some people who have an irrational hatred for you guys. I would say that I am not one of them. The Syndicate is home to a number of people I like, and I admire t$'s history. I'm just frustrated that you guys aren't what you were in the past. Instead of dancing on the knife's edge of disaster to put on a good show like y'all have in the past, it looks like to me that y'all prefer to hug pixels, and I just think that's unfortunate, because I've seen what you guys can do, and have done. 

[Kevanovia]

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

As you and I both know, FA is way more art than science. What I told Cataclysm is that “we wouldn’t stop them” from entering the war. If that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, it’s because it wasn’t. Mind you, the decisions that happened came quickly. Cataclysm gave us a 30 minute notice on the fact that they intended to enter. Perhaps had they not been in such a mad rush, they would’ve thought through the consequences of making that decision.

First of all, it was not '30 minutes'. They told us right after Midguard hit TKR that they had already begun talking to you about the situation, and the time gap between the Midguard hit and Cata entering was closer to 6 hours. Granted, that's still not a lot of time - but they were also in a time crunch to join in while they could still make a difference in the war. 

Second of all - we also told them "we wouldn't stop them" but that didn't mean that we were going to backstab them at the first convenient opportunity lol.

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

With regards to your point about us agreeing to hit OB, our trepidation with that idea is well documented, and both Cata and Paradise were keenly aware of that. It was that trepidation that caused members of Cata high government to flame members of mine. We agreed in principle that if it came to a situation where we believed OB would blitz us, we’d be alright fighting them. Cata and Paradise were both sure they would hit us. It didn’t help that members of Cata were openly antagonistic to members of OB.

I can agree to this for the most part, and it doesn't go against anything you quoted me on. We would have been fluid with the situation, as any alliance/bloc should be - but the plan was agreed upon in principle.

In regards to Cata 'flaming': I saw some logs of both Cata and t$ gov going at each other at various times (it wasn't a one way avenue). Tbh I felt like Paradise was the peacekeeper at times 😂. But new allies can take some time to gel, as I am sure you know. 

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

You can believe what you want to believe happened, Kev. Would you like to hear the truth? We sat paperless for several weeks as we meted out our options. During that span of several weeks, we explored the options available to us, and eventually decided to sign Eclipse. Other alliance leaders had the same exact opportunity to bend my ear during this period. It’s a shame some didn’t even bother to try.

What you just stated doesn't address my concern. You had to sit out as paperless for the 'next few weeks' because there was a war happening with your future partners. Sure you could 'ponder' if the solution that you discussed with Eclipse was going to be your final one, but I have 0 doubt in my mind that you collaborated with Eclipse prior to pulling out of Wayward and nothing you just said discredits that belief.

In regards to other alliances not bothering to try - who would want to work with t$ right after this move? Since clearly signing a treaty with the Green Machine doesn't mean a whole lot.

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

The relationship between us clearly didn’t work. While Cataclysm has aired as much dirty laundry as they can manage, the Syndicate has opted to take the high road. As I told both Cata and Paradise in the channel that night, I’m not going to invalidate your feelings based on what happened. However I will continue to call out distortions of what occurred. Relationships are 50/50. Anyone who believes that either party was singularly responsible for how the relationship ended is either pushing an agenda or not particularly emotionally intelligent.

That first sentence about 'taking the high road' in regards to Cata leaking would come into play if you guys didn't try and leak partial out-of-context screenshots to Midguard. But I do agree with you - I also was not a fan of how many logs came out of their camp.

I also agree with you that Cata could have handled things differently, just as allies of the past could handle relationships differently. But what Syndicate did was something that far surpasses an opportunity in communication. As you said, relationships are 50/50 - in this case Syndicate gave 0. If you wanna argue it was actually (-50)...I will grant you that point.

Tbh, idk how you bounce back from this FA situation.

[Keegoz]

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

As you and I both know, FA is way more art than science. What I told Cataclysm is that “we wouldn’t stop them” from entering the war. If that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, it’s because it wasn’t. Mind you, the decisions that happened came quickly. Cataclysm gave us a 30 minute notice on the fact that they intended to enter. Perhaps had they not been in such a mad rush, they would’ve thought through the consequences of making that decision.

With regards to your point about us agreeing to hit OB, our trepidation with that idea is well documented, and both Cata and Paradise were keenly aware of that. It was that trepidation that caused members of Cata high government to flame members of mine. We agreed in principle that if it came to a situation where we believed OB would blitz us, we’d be alright fighting them. Cata and Paradise were both sure they would hit us. It didn’t help that members of Cata were openly antagonistic to members of OB.

You can believe what you want to believe happened, Kev. Would you like to hear the truth? We sat paperless for several weeks as we meted out our options. During that span of several weeks, we explored the options available to us, and eventually decided to sign Eclipse. Other alliance leaders had the same exact opportunity to bend my ear during this period. It’s a shame some didn’t even bother to try.

The relationship between us clearly didn’t work. While Cataclysm has aired as much dirty laundry as they can manage, the Syndicate has opted to take the high road. As I told both Cata and Paradise in the channel that night, I’m not going to invalidate your feelings based on what happened. However I will continue to call out distortions of what occurred. Relationships are 50/50. Anyone who believes that either party was singularly responsible for how the relationship ended is either pushing an agenda or not particularly emotionally intelligent.

You really just cannot stop yourself from lying. You have not taken the high road, nor did you stop yourself from leaking (I've caught you trying to do it multiple times in backrooms).

You had hours to ponder our proposal of a hit and were active in brainstorming on it. 

No one should trust anything you say at this point. You're making yourself a fantasy.

[Agent W]

1 minute ago, Kevanovia said:

First of all, it was not '30 minutes'. They told us right after Midguard hit TKR that they had already begun talking to you about the situation, and the time gap between the Midguard hit and Cata entering was closer to 6 hours. Granted, that's still not a lot of time - but they were also in a time crunch to join in while they could still make a difference in the war. 

Second of all - we also told them "we wouldn't stop them" but that didn't mean that we were going to backstab them at the first convenient opportunity lol.

I can agree to this for the most part, and it doesn't go against anything you quoted me on. We would have been fluid with the situation, as any alliance/bloc should be - but the plan was agreed upon in principle.

In regards to Cata 'flaming': I saw some logs of both Cata and t$ gov going at each other at various times (it wasn't a one way avenue). Tbh I felt like Paradise was the peacekeeper at times 😂. But new allies can take some time to gel, as I am sure you know. 

What you just stated doesn't address my concern. You had to sit out as paperless for the 'next few weeks' because there was a war happening with your future partners. Sure you could 'ponder' if the solution that you discussed with Eclipse was going to be your final one, but I have 0 doubt in my mind that you collaborated with Eclipse prior to pulling out of Wayward and nothing you just said discredits that belief.

In regards to other alliances not bothering to try - who would want to work with t$ right after this move? Since clearly signing a treaty with the Green Machine doesn't mean a whole lot.

That first sentence about 'taking the high road' in regards to Cata leaking would come into play if you guys didn't try and leak partial out-of-context screenshots to Midguard. But I do agree with you - I also was not a fan of how many logs came out of their camp.

I also agree with you that Cata could have handled things differently, just as allies of the past could handle relationships differently. But what Syndicate did was something that far surpasses an opportunity in communication. As you said, relationships are 50/50 - in this case Syndicate gave 0. If you wanna argue it was actually (-50)...I will grant you that point.

Tbh, idk how you bounce back from this FA situation.

They said to us they were thinking about it. It was 30 minutes before they hit that they told us they were doing it. 
 

I’d disagree that we “backstabbed” them. I think that we acted rationally given the situation.

Like I said to you earlier, I’m not going to invalidate your feelings. You can be as disrespectful as you like, it reflects more on you than me.

Just now, Keegoz said:

You really just cannot stop yourself from lying. You have not taken the high road, nor did you stop yourself from leaking (I've caught you trying to do it multiple times in backrooms).

You had hours to ponder our proposal of a hit and were active in brainstorming on it. 

No one should trust anything you say at this point. You're making yourself a fantasy.

Pot calling the kettle black, eh? You’ve built your career in FA on being a liar, a manipulator, and a schemer. The newer players may have forgotten that, but I certainly haven’t.

[Buorhann]

You guys acted rationally?  From everything that has been going around, I have to ask - in what context?  Lol.

Cata made the boneheaded move of acting without 100% guaranteed support (Then again, helping them brainstorm ideas shows support to an extent lol).

But holy shit.  Cutting ties and signing the other alliance?

>we waited a few weeks

You literally only waited till the war ended lol.

 

You folks do know it’s pretty obvious you were sharing information with Eclipse about all this before they joined the war, right?

[Buorhann]

All I’m saying after all this, Syndicate baited Cataclysm into getting rolled by Eclipse.

Just be wary when considering signing Syndicate lol.  That is amusingly some sketchy shit.  I love it and hate it at the same time, this is great.

[Keegoz]

1 hour ago, Agent W said:

Pot calling the kettle black, eh? You’ve built your career in FA on being a liar, a manipulator, and a schemer. The newer players may have forgotten that, but I certainly haven’t.

You can barely remember conversations or events from last month accurately. Keep living in your fantasy world Wana.

[Agent W]

Just now, Keegoz said:

You can barely remember conversations or events from last month accurately. Keep living in your fantasy world Wana.

You seem quite pressed, friend. Carrying around all that anger cannot be good for you. The only fantasy on display in this thread is Buorhann’s. It is wildly inaccurate, and it is ignorant to believe that the Syndicate was somehow running a conspiracy theory to !@#$ Cata over.

[Buorhann]

My ‘wildly inaccurate’ scenario makes more sense than the bullshit you’re trying to feed the public lol.

 

Its also not a conspiracy theory when it actually happens.  You do know that you actually did !@#$ Cata over, right?

EDIT: Just to refresh your memory.  You didn’t honor the 72 hour call with Cataclysm, but instead chose to remain out and sign the alliance that would’ve triggered that 72hr period.

Normally you’d honor that.  Or at the very least, not turn around and sign the enemies at first opportunity.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Buorhann

[Keegoz]

18 minutes ago, Agent W said:

You seem quite pressed, friend. Carrying around all that anger cannot be good for you. The only fantasy on display in this thread is Buorhann’s. It is wildly inaccurate, and it is ignorant to believe that the Syndicate was somehow running a conspiracy theory to !@#$ Cata over.

If you're at 'You mad, bro?' as your argument, then I'll take my W and go.

I certainly won't take lectures from t$ about letting something go though lmfao. 

[Mayor]

2 hours ago, Agent W said:

You seem quite pressed, friend. Carrying around all that anger cannot be good for you. The only fantasy on display in this thread is Buorhann’s. It is wildly inaccurate, and it is ignorant to believe that the Syndicate was somehow running a conspiracy theory to !@#$ Cata over.

Regardless of it being a conspiracy theory or not, you guys did do exactly as Buorhann said by not honoring the 72 hour notice, refusing to defend your bloc partners and MDP level allies and right after the war where your allies got destroyed you signed their enemies and then blamed everything on Cata being aggressive. Syndicate may not have been thinking "How do we !@#$ Cata over?" but instead "How do we protect ourselves and get rid of them?" and you guys decided to abandon ship and join with Eclipse. If you wanted to stay out of the war you could have made your case, but you cut all ties, burned that bridge, and then signed our enemies.

I honestly hated the Cata war, even though I got rolled for it I hated that Cata joined a war that didn't involve them, and if tS stayed out I would have understood that (and many others as well) but instead you guys went nuclear and destroyed everything. So many Syndicate guys just keep saying everyone else is wrong, or fantasy this and that, but these are all facts. Cata and Paradise got stabbed in the back by Syndicate and honestly not a single good reason for that. I hope your new partners treat you better than we apparently did.

[Zed]

22 hours ago, Kurdanak said:

As Paula Deen would say, needs more butter!

 

19 hours ago, Buorhann said:

Elaborate further on this part.

I would nitpick your assessments of the NPO involvement, but I'm not concerned on that at all here at this time.  But the quoted part, I'm most curious about.  Why would the public sentiment suggest that Syndicate has terrible FA/Milcom for you guys supporting an ally?  Also, stating that just screams lack of confidence in Syndicate's structure to me for some odd reason.

Yet despite all that, your chosen course of action was to bail on an ally (at the time - Cata) and literally sign the alliance that further stirred the controversy (Eclipse)?   But there was no concern about public sentiment attacking your FA ability there?

In general, public perception of alliances is often that losing wars means you have done bad in some aspect of the game.If you lose a few in a short time, it compounds. You can pat allies on the back and such, but catch a few Ls and everyone feeds on it. Results are what people get driven by, and sometimes people will overdo it with stats and such.

Going to war is a serious business in this game. If you're allied, you need to be on the same page when you do it. Losing a war is not the end of the world if there is something you can plan for in it. Supporting an ally in such an effort is what you should do. But if you do not agree, and the visions do not line up, you have to figure that out and negotiate it. There really is not a substitute. That is where the fallout happens with t$ and Cata.

I joke with WANA about blessing him with a dispensation to be paperless, because only I can properly be paperless FA Head for t$, but I think it can be agreed that it would not be a long term thing. The only real problem is where to go. t$ has had run-ins with alliances before, and then worked with them as allies; TEst is not really that different in such a regard. Realistically though, where else is there to go? Unless there are changes elsewhere, like joining a HOGG or MG breaking up and picking up something there, most of the other paths are not viable for a variety of reasons. The FA ability there is just, well, what else is left?

To be fair, I heard Eclipse is apparently highly ranked on some power rankings, so it is not like there is some woe is me, this is all we could do kind of stuff. There is no disrespect meant to Cata or Eclipse or whoever.

 

14 hours ago, Hodor said:

 As a precursor to my response, it's really hard to judge tone on the forums, but to be clear, I didn't take your statement as a serious accusation of Cata being NPO. I was just making fun of how riled up the entire game gets whenever someone even comes remotely close to a comparison between NPO and some current alliance. I apologize that I couldn't resist talking about the comparison because I think we agree about the treaty texts.

...

ALL THIS TO SAY: my initial comment was specifically about the non-chaining agreement and the implied threat t$ made in that infamous thread, not about how t$ hitting Grumpy was analogous to Cata hitting Midgard.

 

I do appreciate being able to discuss things without going too far into bad territory. Thank you.

People love to e-lawyer things, especially treaties. I have been guilty of it myself within the past few months on these forums. I liked writing treaties and putting out some effortposts from time to time because they are reflective pieces of thought, or at least they can be. Forums move slower than chat, and you can have just a different type of discussion on them.

 

Quote

Namely the allies of your allies/BK and the future Coalition B. Not exactly a great group of people in the end. In general, there will always be supporters of any one FA move unless it is absolutely atrocious.

...

I too had high hopes. As did many in Cata and Paradise.

I agree on both.

 

Quote

Specifically, from the bolded point, I wish you would have been in the bloc channels instead of the others because this is exactly what we were saying to t$ for literal months and we were bending over backwards to try and satisfy their requirements.

I don't disagree with your assessment of what would've happened or could've happened but, from the start, Cata and Paradise were upfront with t$ about our plans and our assessment of the political landscape. It's pretty well known now what the rationale for joining was and, from the many times we'd discussed similar scenarios in the bloc chat, t$ could've guessed what Cata's reaction would be.

I do not intend for this to be a cop out, but not being in those channels does mean that my ability to contribute to a discussion is only filtered through what I get reported to me from other members of active government who are. While as an Exec Emeritus I do have some privileges beyond even Low Gov at times (but please do not tell those poor saps), I do not get a vote, and anything I say is treated as advice rather than holy edict. I know you have seen how we operate at a certain level before, so this is probably not news.

I have my own opinion of how this could have all played out, in various gamesmanship theories. While I did and would suggest those to our active government, there is only so far it goes. The dead should not rule the living.

 

6 hours ago, Thalmor said:

First off, thanks Zed for blessing us with that post. High-level, articulate stuff like that is always appreciated.

I don't think it's guaranteed that t$ would get shat on. People would be critical of Syndicate's war performance if there were severe issues (I recall some controversy that Syndicate deleted military and refused to fight in some past war, but I'm unsure on the facts of that), but that's true for any alliance. 

The only people who I imagine would be critical of the move would be those who you were be aligned against because of the war. That would be Oreo Bros and Midgard. I have a hard time imagining those in Withheld or HOGG would be critical of Syndicate honoring their treaty. As someone who has been critical of Syndicate publicly, I would not have held it against you guys at all in the hypothetical you're presenting. 

I write about this at more length in my reply to Buo. He just happened to ask first, sorry for shortchanging you and not writing more walls of text.

 

Quote

This is my broad perspective, as someone who is ignorant of many things in this game:

The Syndicate has, for as long as I can remember, been a mover and shaker. When 'Syndisphere' won the game, you were the one who took them paperless for quite some time. There was the t$-NPO treaty (and the wild breakup shortly afterwards). There was Treasure Island. These are the examples that come to mind, but Syndicate has always been interesting and competent. An anchor of the game.

After the war that shall go unnamed, this seems to have changed. I'm not sure what all happened, but I remember Horse's call out thread about you guys, which was immensely popular at the time. I didn't know what everything was that he referred to (and I still don't), but quite a number of people seemed to agree with the sentiment. Combined with the claims that t$ was refusing to fight and/or deleting military, it painted an ugly picture. I will admit that I can't for sure say what is true about all this, but it does influence what I think, and it's why I don't hold t$ is the highest regards at the moment. Now, what I can talk about more confidently is my interpretation of t$'s FA for the past two years:

Syndicate, as it appeared to me, started to prioritize safety above all else. I didn't like Quack, and was pleased to see it dissolve. I also didn't like Celestial. The meta was shifting towards multispheres, but t$ seems to have stayed away from that as much as possible. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see Syndicate break off and come into Wayward. It reminded me of the t$ of old. It's risky to break up a solid bloc with another anchor like Rose, and to roll with two smaller alliances. But you guys did it anyways, and that was hella cool! Wana made his thread flogging himself, and I was excited to see t$ turn over a new leaf.

Now, I say all this because I wanted to go back to what I said at the beginning on this post. As someone who has publicly spoke against t$ a number of times, I would've had nothing bad to say about t$ if they stayed in Wayward and fought Eclipse. At most I would've poked fun some if you guys had a particularly bad war performance, but I would do that for anyone. I'm sure there are some people who have an irrational hatred for you guys. I would say that I am not one of them. The Syndicate is home to a number of people I like, and I admire t$'s history. I'm just frustrated that you guys aren't what you were in the past. Instead of dancing on the knife's edge of disaster to put on a good show like y'all have in the past, it looks like to me that y'all prefer to hug pixels, and I just think that's unfortunate, because I've seen what you guys can do, and have done. 

I wrote in a reply to Hodor about how I think, for better or worse, the tone for public perception of t$ changes with We Are Here For The Whales, the wandering in the wilderness during NPOLT, and the subsequent fallout of a lot of the major public enemies of the game.

Something that probably does get missed in this analysis is that in late 2019 t$ had a major crisis of leadership. What revived t$, in part, was the fact that KT and TGH both broke apart, and several prominent people from those halls stepped into t$. Ironically, almost all of those people either have deleted or are playing elsewhere now, and the internal leadership pools were replenished to a healthy and functioning level. That period of late 2019 was probably one of the very low points in our internal history, and in our depth of leadership ability. That said, Sisyphus is an absolute saint who put on a masterclass of FA, Leopold is truly an IA wonderworker, and we had other talent - it was just not fully baked or recruited, or it was not necessarily in our halls at the time.

For those people who were around at that time, and are still playing, often in a government capacity, I do wonder what personal perceptions played into where t$ went following NPOLT. Did those people take their own rivalries and connections with them? If they did, how much does that get conflated with the t$ "brand"? None of this is to suggest that any of those people are responsible for any fault or negative perception of the alliance. t$ does not survive without most of them, and those names are some of the absolute best to play this game. Plus we repatriated some old familiar faces; people might always recognize Partisan with t$ and we brought him back around then, but he has left us before, whereas WANA left us but he was an original founder of the alliance - and that was before even my time! I only get to vicariously live through the spirit of a gay motorcycle gang, which I promise is really a big letdown.

I personally think there are exciting and skilled people in t$ now. Our Vice President lineup has a lot of skill and potential, and e$ Manager is probably one of the best training platforms for prospective alliance leadership in all of Orbis. I overflow with pregnant desire to see Lucas continue our great IA Exec to FA Exec transition (for legal reasons this is a joke); but he, Vemek, and Pope are quite understated in public. None of them have the name brand recognition of some of the famous faces in the past, but they are not generic scrubs either. WANA has been doing the FA thing for a long time and knows his way around the game.

Maybe part of the difference in perception from 2019 and today is in this fact. When people seem more unknown, or more distant, then it is harder to judge how skilled they really are. If 4 of the 5 wars you fight in a year like 2015 are defensives where you are on the lesser side, and you come out on top in each, you build an easily recognizable global reputation. When your innovations like Treasure Island or Ground Zero are easily understood economic or military victories, your easily build a recognizable reputation. What is less recognizable is when you twice in as many years lose the base of your Econ government and have to completely rebuild it, but still keep up the same level of success. Or when you have bubbly and personable IA types manage to build community and great members out of random recruits, who in olden times would have never been invited to the alliance thanks to its strict admission policies.

We are not in a situation where someone merely okay needs to stand aside for someone with genius talent. That happened with me and JR once upon a time. But we are also not in a situation where our old leaders from the past, as tired and worn out as they may be, are still hanging on. We have refreshed many times over, and I believe that is what allows t$ to endure in a way that is difficult to replicate. Any alliance at our age still living and even quasi-relevant in this game has a lot of baggage. Rose does. TKR does. UPN does. Others do, and apologies for not mentioning everyone. That baggage will color peoples opinions; legacy infrastructure is hard and comes with challenges. And that will build up over time in a way that makes people wonder where the good days of yore are. I know there are certainly some people who will wonder why any of those alliances I mentioned are not as good as they used to be, or why they have not become better than they are now.