What do you want for politics?

[Lysander]

I think it’s important to see where we as a community are on political preferences. Do we generally want to go with sphere-oriented, or alliance-oriented? What kind of spheres do we like? This matters given all the discussion about minispheres, O-levels, and wars/politics.

For context - Multipolarity is used as multiple spheres, but not evenly balanced spheres. This is generally where Orbis is. Limited Multipolarity is used as a condensed version of Multipolarity (envision back in Quack times - fewer, but larger, spheres). Expanded Multipolarity is used as a broadened version of Multipolarity (think generally more, fairly even, and smaller spheres). 

TL;DR just curious where people want things to go. Easier to debate the merits of these things with that knowledge.

[Sketchy]

I don't see any difference between Alliance politics and Sphere politics.

Most alliances form or join spheres to prosecute their individual FA goals (assuming they have any). Spheres are (ideally) just a manifestation of an aligned purpose or goal between multiple alliances.

[Lysander]

The way I’ve seen it generally looked at is more a difference between a neat treaty web and an ugly treaty web. IE, sign whoever you like, or stick with a specific group and don’t mix across groups. 

[Lord of Puns]

If there were no differences between alliance politics and sphere politics, spheres would stay the same forever. But clearly each alliance has goals that they promote or push aside to work with people they desire to.

[Arln]

#1 shouldn’t be just Multispheres and Bipolarity. I am pretty sure it’s possible to exist without either in play. I think if there was more connections between spheres and alliances and less blocs, wars could be more interesting. People entering the war over time as it reaches through the web instead of just one side smacking into another is more likely to cause a fog of war in my opinion. You could see stuff like an alliance 1v1 turning into some sort of global as it expands. I am no political professor in this weird game but one extreme or the other isn’t the only options.

[Buorhann]

8 hours ago, Arln said:

#1 shouldn’t be just Multispheres and Bipolarity. I am pretty sure it’s possible to exist without either in play. I think if there was more connections between spheres and alliances and less blocs, wars could be more interesting. People entering the war over time as it reaches through the web instead of just one side smacking into another is more likely to cause a fog of war in my opinion. You could see stuff like an alliance 1v1 turning into some sort of global as it expands. I am no political professor in this weird game but one extreme or the other isn’t the only options.

#1 is there to make it simple.  There’s also questions #2 and #3, that breaks it down more.

 What you just replied would fall under multipolarity with alliance oriented focus.

[Sketchy]

20 hours ago, Lord of Puns said:

If there were no differences between alliance politics and sphere politics, spheres would stay the same forever. But clearly each alliance has goals that they promote or push aside to work with people they desire to.

Goals change over time, and spheres shift to adjust. All sphere politics is driven by alliances. Usually when alliances compromise their personal goals for a sphere it's because they are choosing to put one goal over another.

[Lord of Puns]

14 hours ago, Sketchy said:

Goals change over time, and spheres shift to adjust. All sphere politics is driven by alliances. Usually when alliances compromise their personal goals for a sphere it's because they are choosing to put one goal over another.

Right, but I think we all (or maybe 70% of us) can agree that the political climate is much more interesting and dynamic when alliances have prevalent opinions that stand out from their sphere. Which is what I believe Lysander was getting at.

 

A great example being  Carthago and TFP, both have a very strong individual presence outside of bloc politics 

[Sketchy]

7 hours ago, Lord of Puns said:

Right, but I think we all (or maybe 70% of us) can agree that the political climate is much more interesting and dynamic when alliances have prevalent opinions that stand out from their sphere. Which is what I believe Lysander was getting at.

 

A great example being  Carthago and TFP, both have a very strong individual presence outside of bloc politics 

Fair. I'm just disagreeing with the alliance politics vs sphere politics distinction.

I would argue it's just being ambitious/independent vs not.

[Raphael]

Few thoughts on the distinctions made in the poll:

 

Bipolarity was the default political state of not only PnW, but multiple other nationsims that parts of the community were also involved in. I have no idea about the "now" in those other worlds, but our world has greatly benefitted from Minispheres or the pursuit thereof. Stagnant, repetitious politics have been replaced with dynamic coalitions that find former enemies as allies almost every six months or less. For anyone who's been around more than a couple years, that's a huge shift from two monolithic coalitions that occasionally lose one or two alliances per six months.

If you think politics are boring or exclusive now, bipolarity was ten times worse. Very often half the game would rely on a single person or a single alliance to basically dictate/decide/trigger stuff happening. If you wonder why Partisan, Abbas, or Roquentin are always mentioned as "top FA minds" in discussions - this is why. Some will argue it's not so simple, but those are probably the subordinate-leaders from the lesser alliances that coalesced around NPO/t$/Rose for years. A collaborative structure doesn't negate that a single alliance usually dominated their half of the game.

 

All that being said, I don't believe minispheres can happen. Even if every powerhouse AA agrees to a 300 nation or smaller sphere, whale alliances like Grumpy or TEst will hold all the power. Micros that can accumulate massive coalitions like in Midgard can roll people via sheer numbers. Multipolarity and reasonable self-restraint are the only way forward that actually exists.

 

And finally, as someone else mentioned - you are brainwashed if you think sphere politics is separate from alliance politics. Alliances never lost a thing from spheres, many actually gained a seat as equals. Something they never experienced in bipolarity / treaty chess / "alliance centered politics" or any other buzzword for big-as-F spheres.