[Alliance Update] Sowing the Right Seeds

[Alan]

TLDR; The Coven changes things for clarity and aims to better game relations.
This post is only to act as a reference for future public interactions.

 

Thank you to the leaders and alliance heads that have spoken to me over the past 2 weeks offering me their advice. The Coven has discussed your suggestions and we've decided to implement some as a means to help clarify, delegate and better support our allies. The purpose of this post is to be transparent about these changes and to act as a reference to avoid any miscommunications.

 

Foreign Affairs

1.) The Coven will be conducting FA in embassies ONLY. This not only applies to standard treaty requests/issue with counters etc. but also applies to War Week discussions, Protectorate requests and Vassal Assistance (please see #3). Any discussions in DMs will NOT be seen as official FA business.

Different alliances use and see DMs differently. As such a discussion with Alliance A using "foul language" could be seen as threatening or aggressive to Alliance B. By only having these discussions in a space with multiple insights we aim to avoid having these perceptions roll out of hand into an issue or FA debacle.

 

2.) The Coven's FA team has been split into a Macro and Micro FA team. The Macro FA team does not have a say in Micro Affair discussions and the Micro FA team does not have a say in Macro Affair discussions.

Once again this is because different alliance require different approaches to foreign affairs. As such the more "temperamental" government won't cause any issues or scenes with top alliances.


3.) We'll be changing our Protectorate Program, "The Circle", to have protectorates and vassals. Protectorates are alliances that no longer need hands on oversight from The Coven and are free to manage relations with others and handle their own affairs. Vassals are alliances that either have fresh leaders or inadequate government and will have required oversight to better protect their membership.

We're committing to this change as some of our former protectorates thought we were "overbearing" while others had little knowledge of our resources except for our countering ability. We hope this distinction will help future allies understand our involvement with them beforehand rather than an appearance of "overlord" later down the road.

 

Military Affairs

1.) The Coven is removing it's policy of countering spy-operations that target to gather intelligence or assassinate spies. Spy operations that targets infra or military will still be seen as an attack on the member nation.

If a nation is caught spy-wiping or gathering intelligence we hope that the host alliance take charge and punish the member. The hope is to move away from the idea of an overly aggressive alliance where we act as judge jury and executioner.
 

2.) The Coven will begin to accept requests from raiders to hit inactive applicants (1 month+ inactivity). If a raider hits an applicant without requesting first regardless of activity they are subject to being countered.

The Aurora conflict started because Borealis members complained and spammed us for being countered after hitting an inactive applicant. We hope that the implementation of this new rule will avoid those issues with other alliances.


For questions or more information please feel free to join our FA server and make a ticket. I apologize in advance to those coming here only to complain.

o/ The Coven

[Franz Steiger]

Interesting I suppose 

[Lysander]

Ignoring spy assassinations is probably a bit extreme a change, but then again it had to come up in discussions somehow. Best of luck with the new ideas.

[Anarchist Empire]

However probably won't get countered if raiding one though? Good luck with peace though. (Since I honor treaties, will honor the NAP regardless.)

Edited June 6, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Emeralds]

1 hour ago, Alan said:

 

Your Military Affairs have a strange twist... I would like to see how it will play out on long-run

[namukara]

Your MA changes are distinctly odd. I know that, if I am not at war and somebody decides to even do a gather intel operation against me, they are doing it for a reason; probably to see what I have on hand for a potential future raid. Spy attacks are, in my opinion, an act of war...and I've been in the position of being caught doing them myself. If your members are getting a bunch of them it's time to worry.

[Anarchist Empire]

36 minutes ago, namukara said:

Your MA changes are distinctly odd. I know that, if I am not at war and somebody decides to even do a gather intel operation against me, they are doing it for a reason; probably to see what I have on hand for a potential future raid. Spy attacks are, in my opinion, an act of war...and I've been in the position of being caught doing them myself. If your members are getting a bunch of them it's time to worry.

Way I see it is that is kind of odd, but guess Aurora War made them want to be more flexible to avoid fighting. I didn't even realize we were at war until the end though, got one war in at least. (Someone is killing my spies, I'll hit them if I can.)

Way I see it is yes raiders take a risk & an alliance can decide if how far they want to take the war or not.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Alan]

34 minutes ago, namukara said:

Your MA changes are distinctly odd. I know that, if I am not at war and somebody decides to even do a gather intel operation against me, they are doing it for a reason; probably to see what I have on hand for a potential future raid. Spy attacks are, in my opinion, an act of war...and I've been in the position of being caught doing them myself. If your members are getting a bunch of them it's time to worry.

We've been "chastised" by many alliances by countering spy-ops against us.

 

The change is not in favor of our members but as a means to better relations with these top alliances.

[Anarchist Empire]

Also realize I declared a war on you before the end, nothing personal though. Just raids against the end was the deal I guess. (Personally don't dislike you for trying to stick up for yourselves. I don't think we were wrong either, both were willing to take the damage I guess. Many alliances dont' care about inactive inapplicant raids, some decide to turn it into full out war. If they want to risk we take.)

If I was an alliance leader and somoene raided an inactive apllicant would depend on my mood if I wanted to turn it into full war or let it slide; whether I want to fight the alliance or not I guess. Bare minimum the excuse is there to fight back if willing to take the damage. So rather we not be portrayed as complaining for you fighting us. It was a fight and ended. So be it. If raiding an inactive applicant or inactive on an AA without permission, good to measure up the alliance if worth it if they decide to take it all the way. Sometimes doesn't matter if they do, not sure if it did in this case.)

Haven't been back from dead long, but not holding any grudges; but feel Aurora is headed upward. We should fear no one, but not have pointless grudges. Still getting a clear picture of who should and shouldn't be seen as potential allies or not. Fight us over an inactive applicant raid, we should fight back and willing to take any damage from it. Anyone who declares on us, we fight back. My thoughts. (Losing some infra, who cares? Some do, but I don't.) Me beating you up a round some doesn't mean I think you should make your policies into complete pushovers. Personally I consider someone spy killing more aggressive than raiding an inactive applicant.

 

(If I was a pirate and you announce it's fine to spy your nations, would probably look for really high loot targets worth any blowback. So probably better to be silent on your policy there than tell people they can. lo.)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[namukara]

5 hours ago, Alan said:

We've been "chastised" by many alliances by countering spy-ops against us.

 

The change is not in favor of our members but as a means to better relations with these top alliances.

Find better people to take notice of. 'Top' alliances have a habit of looking out for their own interests 99 % of the time, though I'm sure youknow this all to well.

[Cpt Crunch]

The amount of wars alan started over inactive applicants is startling 

[Aksel]

Is this PW's version of being Woke?

Play the game how you want.

[Lolgod2]

an alternative is to just disband

[Uriah 'the Fox']

On 6/6/2023 at 9:01 PM, Alan said:

We've been "chastised" by many alliances by countering spy-ops against us.

 

The change is not in favor of our members but as a means to better relations with these top alliances.

So, your plan is to resort to general apathy in the hopes that these alliances have the good will to "punish" their own members?

Seems a bit of a silly approach to me and announcing it to the world is just going to invite more negative consequences to your members in the area of espionage as well as making yourself less useful as an ally come wartime.