Jump to content

No one wants to take over the game


Kastor
 Share

Recommended Posts

Everything that happened because of NPO has everyone scared. The issue with these minispheres is everyone is using it as a cop out.

The goal of the game is to guide your alliance into a hegemony. One that you build, not that you form. You use that hegemony to inflict your governing rules on the game. Thats why a lot of things resemble Guardian, tS, TKr, Rose. 
 

No one should try to do what npo did. But don’t let shat they did dissuade you from playing the game. Not making moves simply because you are scared of taking over the game is a bad move. The game needs villains. Too often we shy away from being the villains but trust me, you gain respect by being the bad guy. Not by being the yes man. 
 

 

  • Like 2
  • Upvote 4
  • Downvote 2

IMG_2989.png?ex=65e9efa9&is=65d77aa9&hm=

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Kastor said:

Everything that happened because of NPO has everyone scared. The issue with these minispheres is everyone is using it as a cop out.

The goal of the game is to guide your alliance into a hegemony. One that you build, not that you form. You use that hegemony to inflict your governing rules on the game. Thats why a lot of things resemble Guardian, tS, TKr, Rose. 
 

No one should try to do what npo did. But don’t let shat they did dissuade you from playing the game. Not making moves simply because you are scared of taking over the game is a bad move. The game needs villains. Too often we shy away from being the villains but trust me, you gain respect by being the bad guy. Not by being the yes man. 
 

 

Couldnt agree more.

TCM3_1_281x175.png.d5f909d45f36d3dcb3722580e7b7ecc2.png
Coal Duke (Imperator Emeritus) of The Coal Mines
Diety Emeritus of The Immortals, Patres Conscripti (President Emeritus) of the Independent Republic of Orange Nations, Lieutenant Emeritus of Black Skies, Imperator Emeritus of the Valyrian Freehold, Imperator Emeritus of the Divine Phoenix, Prefect Emeritus of Carthago, Regent Emeritus of the New Polar Order

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Kastor said:

The goal of the game is to guide your alliance into a hegemony.


This is what happens when you leave the political scene for a while. You fall into old tropes. Any person that truly believes that this game can be won forgets the 90 different times people have claimed this “win” or built “the perfect hegemony”. 

As someone who’s old playstyle was, “!@#$ !@#$es, steal banks” - you should know more than anyone that the goal of this game is whatever you make of it. But most of the game has moved past sustained global domination and stagnation m8

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1
  • Downvote 1

22:26 +Kadin: too far man

22:26 +Kadin: too far

22:26 Lordofpuns[boC]: that's the point of incest Kadin

22:26 Lordofpuns[boC]: to go farther

22:27 Bet: or father

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tbh, this game has had enough of the super villain arc. We've seen it with NPO, we've seen it with Quack, and we've seen it with Hollywood. Right now in my honest opinion, what the game needs is for rivalries to start brewing, and it looks like we have seen a few already. Having the "We must unite against this one sphere" has gotten pretty old. Seeing spheres fight each other and getting the beef out of the way and seeing unexpected team ups is the way to go for interesting politics. But alas the politics and viewpoints of this game's alliance leaders will prevent that as most of them are focused on tiering and guaranteeing they win their war. Or trying to avoid war all together. Right now what we are seeing is a glimpse, but it won't last long.

Edited by darkblade
  • Upvote 1
  • Downvote 1

image.png.6f019fcf718af1be5dd853e510616a8c.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Kastor said:

Everything that happened because of NPO has everyone scared. The issue with these minispheres is everyone is using it as a cop out.

The goal of the game is to guide your alliance into a hegemony. One that you build, not that you form. You use that hegemony to inflict your governing rules on the game. Thats why a lot of things resemble Guardian, tS, TKr, Rose. 
 

No one should try to do what npo did. But don’t let shat they did dissuade you from playing the game. Not making moves simply because you are scared of taking over the game is a bad move. The game needs villains. Too often we shy away from being the villains but trust me, you gain respect by being the bad guy. Not by being the yes man. 
 

 

The appearance of minispheres is precisely that. An appearance. Once you delve a bit deeper you realise we merely traded in the previous autocratic state of bipolarity for one with a little bit more chaos is all.

Villainy, hegemony etc are all just labels whose usage depends upon an individual's perspective after all. But the motives which drove the game then are readily present now. The issue to really consider is that hegemonies arise from a need to ensure an alliance's own security against previous or future enemies. Very few, if any, arise from some general desire to impose control over the game for the sake of control (exceptions of course are present but one could argue that even NPO's brief era of dominance arose as a result of the continued series of wars over a span of years resulting in NPO attempting to find some measure of security for their members and allies by being in a position to impose some level of authority on the larger community).

Personally I believe the current state of affairs is going to be the seed for the game's next era or cycle in which we return to a more readily visible state of bipolarity. We have seen instances of this over the previous few months along with a few public statements indicating as such, but it will be interesting to watch how it all plays out.

 

Edited by Charles Bolivar
  • Upvote 1

Untitled.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Kastor said:

Everything that happened because of NPO has everyone scared. The issue with these minispheres is everyone is using it as a cop out.

The goal of the game is to guide your alliance into a hegemony. One that you build, not that you form. You use that hegemony to inflict your governing rules on the game. Thats why a lot of things resemble Guardian, tS, TKr, Rose. 

No one should try to do what npo did. But don’t let shat they did dissuade you from playing the game. Not making moves simply because you are scared of taking over the game is a bad move. The game needs villains. Too often we shy away from being the villains but trust me, you gain respect by being the bad guy. Not by being the yes man.

 

I in general agree with the sentiment of your first paragraph, although I disagree with the sentiment of the second insofar as the ultimate objective of the game.

No one should try to do what Pacifica did, and we agree. I think most of the game agrees. Trying to do some of the politics like they did, with a dominant hegemony, has been thrown out with them. I know we just had a joke term thread between OWR and TKR, but some of those terms would not have been out of the question in ages past. We only really do admissions of defeat, white peace, and memes for terms now. Finding those wars with anything substantially more, like TFP-Arrgh, is uncommon.

Now that said, there are probably fewer alliances that play in those alternate styles. Raiders have generally been defanged relative to their previous heights, the number of giant neutrals is mostly zero, and there are probably few relevant banker type players. It does seem like more alliances are either general gaming communities, or variations of a PNW-wide community. Someone like Borg is a good example of an alternative individual player, but that is one individual in a game of groups of players, and there are not many of those types in the game.

I think it is possible to have a hegemon in this meta, but you need at least one, and really you need two, alliance(s) with the broad based appeal and power - both soft and hard - to pull off that kind of governance. The rest do not explicitly have to be that, so long as they can all buy in and fit somehow to whatever that central power is. I am not sure if there are any great candidates to lead a true hegemon right now among the major alliances. Moreover, you would need some alliances to get together and drive towards that as a goal, and as of this moment I do not think that is happening. It could happen, but I think you need some slight changes to the current political environment in order to make it look closer to a reality.

 

13 hours ago, Lord of Puns said:


This is what happens when you leave the political scene for a while. You fall into old tropes. Any person that truly believes that this game can be won forgets the 90 different times people have claimed this “win” or built “the perfect hegemony”.

 

I do think that there are periods where an alliance can say they have "won", in these games. That does not always have to last, and it does not always have to be the strongest military alliance or the one in the #1 AA rank by score. The threshold for that is relatively high, and I would not give that to an alliance that simply won a global war without the impacts of it lasting long-term.

There are probably 3-4 alliances who can say they have hit that height ever in this game, as it stands right now.

  • Upvote 4

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem.
Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cüm Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Zed said:

I do think that there are periods where an alliance can say they have "won", in these games. That does not always have to last, and it does not always have to be the strongest military alliance or the one in the #1 AA rank by score. The threshold for that is relatively high, and I would not give that to an alliance that simply won a global war without the impacts of it lasting long-term.

There are probably 3-4 alliances who can say they have hit that height ever in this game, as it stands right now.

This is precisely the point. The concept of having “won” the game is fruitless and inevitably the game moves on. Time does not stop because you created an unbeatable hegemony, the world does not pause and congratulate this accomplishment. You don’t receive a reward for this stalemate. When you get to the top of the mountain you find more mountains. 
 

Since the game has evolved into creating a constant dynamic atmosphere to encourage multiple different spheres to compete and grow, people moved past this archaic idea of the ultimate victory. So we don’t have one villain, we don’t have us vs. them in mass. We have many many different points of view, and the political scene has flourished because of it.

  • Upvote 3
  • Downvote 1

22:26 +Kadin: too far man

22:26 +Kadin: too far

22:26 Lordofpuns[boC]: that's the point of incest Kadin

22:26 Lordofpuns[boC]: to go farther

22:27 Bet: or father

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, Lord of Puns said:

This is precisely the point. The concept of having “won” the game is fruitless and inevitably the game moves on. Time does not stop because you created an unbeatable hegemony, the world does not pause and congratulate this accomplishment. You don’t receive a reward for this stalemate. When you get to the top of the mountain you find more mountains. 
 

Since the game has evolved into creating a constant dynamic atmosphere to encourage multiple different spheres to compete and grow, people moved past this archaic idea of the ultimate victory. So we don’t have one villain, we don’t have us vs. them in mass. We have many many different points of view, and the political scene has flourished because of it.

Having been on the top of that mountain myself in the past (not in PnW, but a similar game), I can confirm the only thing to do there is attack your ally (which is fun in those specific circumstances, don't get me wrong). It's mostly the thrill of hunting that elusive position than anything else that draws people to it. Nobody actually wants to stagnate the game by controlling everything, or at least not if they like having fun. 

 

I'd still do it again. It's not that much different from reaching the summit of a real mountain when you think about it. The journey is the point, I suppose you could say.

Edited by Kadin
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Kadin said:

Having been on the top of that mountain myself in the past (not in PnW, but a similar game), I can confirm the only thing to do there is attack your ally

Having been on that mountain myself in another other game, the only thing to do there is quit and touch grass*

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, hidude45454 said:

Having been on that mountain myself in another other game, the only thing to do there is quit and touch grass*

You're definitely the coolest guy here. Thanks for the valuable contribution. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/8/2023 at 2:48 AM, Keegoz said:

I think the game has plenty of villians rn, and they differ depending on what side you are on.

People don't go build blatant hegemonies because people are hyper-aware of them now and will snuff them out before they are completed. Thus if one is being built, I doubt you'd know about it until it was basically already here.

I actually think the game is far more alliance-centric than people want to believe and most alliances are out here to ensure their own goals/gains. Spheres are merely built to help in acheiving that.

I think that rivalries are returning. Not just that of Rose. However I think people think running from minisphere to minisphere and fighting random wars is preferable. To acting on these grudges with friends. I disagree with the random wars. They lack the storyline that came in the beginning of the game. Now people just do things. It’s random but it’s not.

On 1/8/2023 at 3:59 AM, darkblade said:

Tbh, this game has had enough of the super villain arc. We've seen it with NPO, we've seen it with Quack, and we've seen it with Hollywood. Right now in my honest opinion, what the game needs is for rivalries to start brewing, and it looks like we have seen a few already. Having the "We must unite against this one sphere" has gotten pretty old. Seeing spheres fight each other and getting the beef out of the way and seeing unexpected team ups is the way to go for interesting politics. But alas the politics and viewpoints of this game's alliance leaders will prevent that as most of them are focused on tiering and guaranteeing they win their war. Or trying to avoid war all together. Right now what we are seeing is a glimpse, but it won't last long.

As Buor said, difference between being a villain and an idiot. Partisan was a villain. Prefontaine was a villain, a lot of people saw Kayser as a villian(a lot!)(old tkr guy i cant remember how he spelled his name)

 

Point is, being a villain doesn’t mean you have to be a *bad* guy.

On 1/8/2023 at 4:35 PM, Zed said:

I in general agree with the sentiment of your first paragraph, although I disagree with the sentiment of the second insofar as the ultimate objective of the game.

No one should try to do what Pacifica did, and we agree. I think most of the game agrees. Trying to do some of the politics like they did, with a dominant hegemony, has been thrown out with them. I know we just had a joke term thread between OWR and TKR, but some of those terms would not have been out of the question in ages past. We only really do admissions of defeat, white peace, and memes for terms now. Finding those wars with anything substantially more, like TFP-Arrgh, is uncommon.

Now that said, there are probably fewer alliances that play in those alternate styles. Raiders have generally been defanged relative to their previous heights, the number of giant neutrals is mostly zero, and there are probably few relevant banker type players. It does seem like more alliances are either general gaming communities, or variations of a PNW-wide community. Someone like Borg is a good example of an alternative individual player, but that is one individual in a game of groups of players, and there are not many of those types in the game.

I think it is possible to have a hegemon in this meta, but you need at least one, and really you need two, alliance(s) with the broad based appeal and power - both soft and hard - to pull off that kind of governance. The rest do not explicitly have to be that, so long as they can all buy in and fit somehow to whatever that central power is. I am not sure if there are any great candidates to lead a true hegemon right now among the major alliances. Moreover, you would need some alliances to get together and drive towards that as a goal, and as of this moment I do not think that is happening. It could happen, but I think you need some slight changes to the current political environment in order to make it look closer to a reality.

 

 

I do think that there are periods where an alliance can say they have "won", in these games. That does not always have to last, and it does not always have to be the strongest military alliance or the one in the #1 AA rank by score. The threshold for that is relatively high, and I would not give that to an alliance that simply won a global war without the impacts of it lasting long-term.

There are probably 3-4 alliances who can say they have hit that height ever in this game, as it stands right now.

Agreeing with your last point. You can definitely “win” the game. However the game doesn’t end when you “win”. It’s a tricky scenario.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1

IMG_2989.png?ex=65e9efa9&is=65d77aa9&hm=

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/8/2023 at 7:01 PM, Thalmor said:

New Pacific Order benefitted greatly from being an actual community. The unity of their members transcended Politics and War. If the P&W servers went offline right before NPOLT started (or even today), the New Pacific Order community would still exist. The same really can't be said for almost all P&W alliances. 

Because of this unity, NPO members were scarily loyal. They did exactly what they were told to do when they were told to do it. It also allowed their decision makers to conduct themselves with a completely different mindset from the rest of the game. P&W decision makers ask, "how do we further ourselves in Politics and War?" Whereas NPO's decision makers asked themselves, "how do we further our community?" Eventually they concluded that their enemies' continued existence in this game was an intolerable situation, and they acted as such when they had the opportunity to. 

Perhaps there are entities in P&W rn that do want to win, but I don't think anybody really has the spirit to do it. Unless you're willing to force all others to bend the knee to you or quit the game, then it's not possible to win. You also have to be very competent to enact that spirit as well; and again, I don't think anybody is competent enough to do so. A lot of the big power players would have to undergo a complete shift in principles, and then band together, and then stay together, and then survive all internal and external attempts to unmake their grouping, and then maintain a specific status quo indefinitely through diplomacy and war making.

I just don't think the will or ability exists within anyone or anything for this to happen anytime soon. It took NPO and Inquisition years to do it (and they still ultimately failed). Now we have a multi-polar world where everyone in anchored to P&W, so it would probably be harder for such a puzzle to be started, let alone completed and to ultimately succeed. 

 

I strongly disagree with the notion that only strong willed alliances can do that. 
 

Acadia, BK, and others were committed to the fight just as much as NPO. And they DEFINITELY did not have the communities that npo did.

IMG_2989.png?ex=65e9efa9&is=65d77aa9&hm=

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Not sure if I agree with partisan and prefontaine being a villain. Influential and independent? Sure. Villains? Not so sure.

There is/was a huge section of the game who believed Partisan to be the bad guy. Pre was definitely the bad guy. 
 

I don’t think you can argue Pre, Parti-Boi is a little different. 
 

partisan had ve trying to remove him as tS leader, left, hit them, lost, got upn & friends to hit them too, lost. Then with Pfieffer and his whole toxicity and Partisan “protecting” him because Mensa was vital to the sphere

IMG_2989.png?ex=65e9efa9&is=65d77aa9&hm=

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Kastor said:

There is/was a huge section of the game who believed Partisan to be the bad guy. Pre was definitely the bad guy. 
 

I don’t think you can argue Pre, Parti-Boi is a little different. 
 

partisan had ve trying to remove him as tS leader, left, hit them, lost, got upn & friends to hit them too, lost. Then with Pfieffer and his whole toxicity and Partisan “protecting” him because Mensa was vital to the sphere

'Everyone belives it therefore it must be true'.

You can ascribe moralist motivations and labels to alliance leaders acting purely in the self interest of their own alliances, but that doesn't necessarily make them true. Particularly so on when it applies to persons who employ a more realpolitik mindset to their decision making process. Plus you left out a greater part of the context regarding that partisan - VE drama too which makes the labelling rather 'convenient'.

Untitled.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

'Everyone belives it therefore it must be true'.

You can ascribe moralist motivations and labels to alliance leaders acting purely in the self interest of their own alliances, but that doesn't necessarily make them true. Particularly so on when it applies to persons who employ a more realpolitik mindset to their decision making process. Plus you left out a greater part of the context regarding that partisan - VE drama too which makes the labelling rather 'convenient'.

I think you can agree though, Pfeiffer was the bad guy. I know from Rose, we thought of t$/Partisan as the bad guy for ditching us and then supporting Pfeiffer atagonising us. 

[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

It's actually scary seeing the small minority go "!@#$ yeah let's form a hegemony and !@#$ over the game" 

but it's also heartening to see most of the relevant players posting that this is a bad post lol.

 

As usual I will begin by saying our game is multipolar but not made up of minispheres. Minispheres is a catchall phrase we've distorted from the original vision of like 250-or-fewer-nation groupings.

 

Spheres work together, they break apart, alliances move between spheres - fluidity is what makes politics interesting. NPO as a villain wasn't interesting, you can see from the data itself that many people simply deleted rather than bang their head against some stubborn fool on discord for 9 months. In any other game you'd call what NPO did with IQ "griefing" and looked down on. NPO was cringey with how seriously they took everything.

Frankly, this post calling for hegemony is too.

Edited by Roberts
  • Upvote 2
  • Downvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Keegoz said:

I think you can agree though, Pfeiffer was the bad guy. I know from Rose, we thought of t$/Partisan as the bad guy for ditching us and then supporting Pfeiffer atagonising us. 

Heh, it's publicly on this forum somewhere my interactions with Pfeiff and it's not all really that difficult to decipher how I viewed him. I even left tS and backed Rose over a particular war relating to tS-Mensa relations stemming from Pfeiff now that I think on it. I just don't equate someone on a perceived power trip as amounting to major villain status. Perhaps minor villain status? That would work I suppose and it's still a villain of some various description.

I suppose we have to make the distinction between bad guy who opposes us versus villain which admittedly may be difficult depending upon individual perspective.

Untitled.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Roberts said:

It's actually scary seeing the small minority go "!@#$ yeah let's form a hegemony and !@#$ over the game" 

but it's also heartening to see most of the relevant players posting that this is a bad post lol.

 

As usual I will begin by saying our game is multipolar but not made up of minispheres. Minispheres is a catchall phrase we've distorted from the original vision of like 250-or-fewer-nation groupings.

 

Spheres work together, they break apart, alliances move between spheres - fluidity is what makes politics interesting. NPO as a villain wasn't interesting, you can see from the data itself that many people simply deleted rather than bang their head against some stubborn fool on discord for 9 months. In any other game you'd call what NPO did with IQ "griefing" and looked down on. NPO was cringey with how seriously they took everything.

Frankly, this post calling for hegemony is too.

This is A+ level strawman posting right here.

First of all, I don't think anyone is wishing to screw over the game. Second of all, if you think hegemonies arise out of some desire to screw over the game then you are failing to understand the motivating factors which lead to the formation of hegemonic authority at a foundational level.

Very few hegemonies, if any for that matter, arise out of some general desire to dominate the game and ruin it for everyone. Hegemonies arise due to a collective goal of providing security to nations and alliances grouped around a common collective 'pole' who stand in some form of collective opposition to nations and alliances grouped around an opposing 'pole'. The only sure way an alliance leader or group of alliance leaders can provide this security is via greater numbers (with a dash of quality and superior internal systems of organisation but at some point it is still a numbers level).

That's all it is. Providing security to members and allies. Something which the likes of tS, Rose and now eclipse/test will openly agree with since they have taken definitive action both FA wise and internally to achieve some form of collective security aimed at protecting their members against the domination of GG/HW/HOGG etc (pick your era). Action which I entirely agree with for that matter from a meta perspective and which I have voiced both here and elsewhere so it should not come as a surprise.

What you are confusing, perhaps deliberately, are the motivating factors which lead to the formation of hegemonies with certain actions taken by power drunk hegemons who cross the line and 'break' the game's accepted sense of fair play. The game has had a series of hegemons over the years and I'm sure we could all agree some have been relatively ok and others not so much based upon their actions performed in order to maintain their hegemonic status. 

Now, this question of multispheres and multipolarity. I'm not sure how anyone after the last 6 months can reasonably look at the current FA meta and hold the belief that minispheres as a concept is defunct but that we somehow exist in a state of multipolarity. If we view minispheres as amounting to the holistic interaction of various groupings/blocs and treaties across the web, then right now we have without a doubt something which comes closest to some ideal form of 'multispheres'. But multispheres does not equate to multipolarity as I alluded to above.  Any reasonable person looking at the web right now can quickly ascertain that there are closer relationships between certain spheres than between other spheres, and that those closer inter-relationships can and do assert themselves, particularly when it comes down to the upper tier arms race which is essentially a numbers game of win or lose. There are only two poles,with these poles being comprised of multiple spheres linked by common interests, security and their alignment with other alliances within that same pole and most importantly, their opposition to alliances found in the opposing pole. Or in short, whilst minispheres are based on direct treaty relationships, the state of polarity, however, is one largely based on alignment against spheres found in the opposing pole in addition to common goals shared by spheres within a pole itself.

Or in even more condensed form. Multispheres =/= multipolarity.

 

 

  • Upvote 3

Untitled.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/10/2023 at 3:06 PM, Kastor said:

There is/was a huge section of the game who believed Partisan to be the bad guy. Pre was definitely the bad guy. 
 

I don’t think you can argue Pre, Parti-Boi is a little different. 
 

partisan had ve trying to remove him as tS leader, left, hit them, lost, got upn & friends to hit them too, lost. Then with Pfieffer and his whole toxicity and Partisan “protecting” him because Mensa was vital to the sphere

Except I didn't lose until Quack. Your timeline is off.

 

 

 

P.s gobble on these. I'm no villain.

 

os9LcJK.gif

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.