On the ethics of alliance warfare- a new member’s views

[Spite]

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

Today I’m hoping to talk about my initial impressions of this game, about the inter-alliance relations and the expectations other players have of alliances with regards to war. But before I plunge into that diplomatic quagmire, let me introduce myself properly. My name is Iain, but in this game I go by Spite. The name, like so much else in Mensa, is self-mockery. I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but only someone who didn’t know me would accuse me of being spiteful. I’m a 27 year old guy, typing from the UK. There are about ten of us in Mensa who hail from the old country, the rest being mostly American.

 

I joined this game on 30th January this year. My initial impression of the alliances were that they were confusing and messy. Several (UPN and VE were the big two I believe) contacted me immediately asking if I wanted to join, and telling me to register on the forums. I’d heard that several of the alliances had migrated from other games I was aware of. For those of you who don’t know, I come from another browser game with the rest of Mensa HQ. Prior to that I came from an imageboard site where the “Dioists†originated from, though that was a long time ago now.

 

Dioist war banners

 

Before I go onto my initial impressions of the game, let me tell you about the game we come from. In that game, war is a constant part of the game. There is never really any prolonged period of peace, unless you’re too weak and insignificant to be worth fighting. The strong hold their place by virtue of subduing and controlling the weak. Strong nations battle over the right to colonise those without the strength to resist them. Alliances are formed between these nations, each of which contains thousands of players. These alliances last usually around a year, sometimes much longer. Attacking an ally is unthinkable, but attacking someone who isn’t an ally is not only natural but necessary to ensure you have the maximum ability to defend yourself in future.

 

So cue Politics and War. We arrive and immediately start to arm up. We come from a culture where the weak are farms for the strong, and the dividing line between the two is simply the willingness to sacrifice. We come from a culture where absolute loyalty to the group is necessary because without it, you will be divided and taken over. That has happened to the group I’m in before, it won’t happen again. We come from a culture where your allies are allies to the death, and you would happily throw yourself in front of a bus for them, knowing they would do the same for you. That trust is all that kept us strong for years.

 

So now we enter this world, where alliances are shifting and arbitrary. A few protectorates aside, there are rarely cases where a true alliance of alliances exists- one where the members attack, defend and negotiate as a bloc. For us that was unsettling. In our mindset, it meant that everyone was a potential enemy. We were weak and young and small, and without friends that means we are dead in the world where we come from. So we armed up. We learned from the raider alliances like 99% and Arrrgh that it’s not how big your score is, it’s how big your army is. We learned from TEst that you can be incredibly powerful provided your army is your focus. A guy called Excalibur was my personal model military wise.

 

We made our own innovations, several of which were tested in this recent conflict and went quite well. My initial impression was that in both wars we fought, people totally unconnected to either conflict were commenting a lot in a really negative way about our battles. At first I thought that the people involved had some sort of alliance with the people we were fighting, but apparently not. This brings me to my next point.

 

Mensa HQ, now with SANDâ„¢

 

Inter-alliance relations in this game are incredibly confusing. No doubt many of you here have been here since the beginning, and so know the disputes, personal friendships and relations which developed into the current alliance web. In the game we came from, it was common practice to simply grab groups that could be beneficial and form an alliance with them. Each part would cover the other parts weaknesses. In a game like this, that might mean someone with a majority of members over say 600 score might make an alliance with someone whose members are mainly below 600 score to protect their newer members and in turn protect the older members of the other alliance. Just as an example.

 

However alliances here seem rare and only partially formed as defensive pacts, or simply unwritten friendships. This is strange to me, since I’m used to the idea of charging into battle and burning a war chest to help an ally. Here it seems very much a free for all. Added into this is that with the community being so small, many individual members of the alliance communicate with each other directly on the forums. In the world we came from, only the alliance leadership would directly communicate with other alliances, and again through their leadership. This can lead to misunderstandings. For example, if person A from alliance A says to me “We will roll your fake genius idiots†or something on those lines, I would take that as the opening stages of a war. Apparently though that’s just normal behaviour.

 

Where am I going with this? I am trying to explain the differences between many of you and Mensa, and thus explain why there has been this bad feeling. It is simply culture shock as two very different cultures collide. With time, we will likely pick up on the local culture and adapt to it. Maybe a little of our ways will rub off on you as well. But until then, please forgive us if we do make mistakes like this.

 

The ultimate source of enlightenment

 

And finally, we come to attitudes towards war. I know some of you might be friends with some of the people afflicted. Some of you might just not like the fact that Mensa is fighting other alliances. We come from a game where you don’t need a casus belli at all. You can attack someone just because they have something you want, you don’t like the colour of their flag or you’re bored. So it’s a massive surprise when someone starts a fight with us and we take that fight to the battlefield, and people tell us we’re in the wrong.

 

Concepts of right and wrong imply there is some sort of judge up there telling you that you can’t attack alliances because it’s nasty or mean. To us this is just plain weird. As a nod to sensibilities here, we decided as an alliance to offer negotiation before every conflict. We can’t do more than that. When I first joined, I thought that the enormous amount of missiles was the main deterrent to conflict- in reality I think that it is the attitudes of the players themselves- pixel protection and role play morality are alien to us.

 

I’m currently involved in a war with a guy called Aladeen from SI. I sent him a message this morning to let him know the battle was nothing personal and that I hoped he felt the same way. We had a good little chat and despite exchanging a missile each and a load of damage, we came out of it with respect for one another. That sort of thing is normal to me. If he wanted to arrange an honourable truce I’d certainly stand for that point with the leadership, but he chose to fight on which I respect a lot and I’ll certainly help him in future on an individual level if possible.

 

 

In conclusion, I’m not going to get into the justifications for the current war, how it panned out or any of that. I’m just trying to explain the ethical baseline for war in Mensa is different to what you seem to expect. Perhaps that will change, perhaps not.

 

We’re loyal to our friends and allies. We are fair but hard on our enemies. We’re open to negotiation, but we’re not open to rude demands.

 

I see insults on the forum for what they are- a break in cordial relations. No cordial relations means more obstacles to negotiation, it means that this sort of breakdown is more likely. What will we take out of this war? Experience, both military and political. What will we bring to the next war? Organisation.

 

We don’t fight for justice, fairness or to save damsels in distress. We fight for advantage, entertainment and for our allies. If you want to be our friends, then you will find no better friends in Orbis. If you want to be our enemies, then just say so and don’t !@#$ around with pathetic passive aggressive comments.

 

Thank you again for reading this essay.

 

Spite

 

[jaguar]

tl;dr?

 

Edit: Nvm,just read it.

Edited April 15, 2015 by jaguar

[Oppilan]

What was the previous game you played?

[Phiney]

Very interesting, thanks for the background.

[Donald Sterling]

okay Table headquartars, I forgive you, but only because you are killing Communists.

[Keegoz]

A very good post.

[Atzuya]

This is actually a rather interesting read, even though the pictures are somewhat... odd. You guys should do more propaganda with pictures in the future

[Desertfalcon]

What was the previous game you played?

Most members of MENSA HQ played Erepublik before this, however the game is over seven years old and starting to die off at this point. I stopped playing way back in 2010 but still hung around the community.

[Aeon Helikos]

o/ nice grafx

[PigInZen]

Iain, I know you know this, but I could have written this, although it would not have been as well-written if I had done it.  You've captured the spirit and attitude of Mensa HQ en masse quite well.  And you've correctly identified that there's a culture shock occurring for both Mensa and existing citizens of Orbis.

[Fox Fire]

tl;dr?

 

Edit: Nvm,just read it.

To sum it all up:

• I'm a noob.
• Your gaming culture is inferior
• We do what we want

[SoS]

War is always the point of the politics and pixels. Orbis is new and different to us all. Conservative play and politics are favored.

 

The culture seeks the same advantage in war, but it dislikes blatant downdeclares. Moralists want everyone to have a fair chance to play and compete. And a reason to stay.

 

But, it was nothing more than two personalities that led to this. Hereno's legitimacy as a leader was at stake.

[PigInZen]

 

To sum it all up:

• I'm a noob.
• Your gaming culture is inferior
• We do what we want

 

 

There were other messages in there Fox Fire but if you want to ignore them, fine.  But you're putting a spin on Spite's article that isn't the complete picture.  Methinks you're going to be carrying a grudge, no?

[Fox Fire]

There were other messages in there Fox Fire but if you want to ignore them, fine.  But you're putting a spin on Spite's article that isn't the complete picture.  Methinks you're going to be carrying a grudge, no?

I was over the war before it started. I'm not one to hold a grudge. I'm just entirely confused as to what the point of the wall of text is. A lot of things were typed and nothing was actually said. Seems to be an attempt at improving the image of Mensa or something.

 

So it’s a massive surprise when someone starts a fight with us and we take that fight to the battlefield, and people tell us we’re in the wrong.

You started the fight, sir. Can we at least get that straight?

 

In conclusion, I’m not going to get into the justifications for the current war, how it panned out or any of that. I’m just trying to explain the ethical baseline for war in Mensa is different to what you seem to expect. Perhaps that will change, perhaps not.

 

We’re loyal to our friends and allies. We are fair but hard on our enemies. We’re open to negotiation, but we’re not open to rude demands.

 

I see insults on the forum for what they are- a break in cordial relations. No cordial relations means more obstacles to negotiation, it means that this sort of breakdown is more likely. What will we take out of this war? Experience, both military and political. What will we bring to the next war? Organisation.

 

We don’t fight for justice, fairness or to save damsels in distress. We fight for advantage, entertainment and for our allies. If you want to be our friends, then you will find no better friends in Orbis. If you want to be our enemies, then just say so and don’t !@#$ around with pathetic passive aggressive comments.

 

Thank you again for reading this essay.

Says almost every alliance in the game. This is not a unique position... Hence my confusion as to the point of this post.

[Clarke]

You Mensa HQ people have a habit of posting things in the wrong area, no idea why. 

[Phiney]

I don't think this is in the wrong area

[Clarke]

I don't think this is in the wrong area

 

This is an IC forum, I don't think a single line of the OP is IC.

[Spite]

Foxfire, I said in the OP I don't want this to be a blame game for the previous war. Looking for a first cause is kind of stupid. I'll give you my reasoned opinion on the matter though:

 

1. Mensa members attacked SI members in a raid: Person in the wrong- Mensa HQ

2. SI leader asked for reparations: Person in the wrong: nobody this is a sensible move

3. Mensa leader asked for the specific nations to ask first: Person in the wrong: this is a matter of opinion, since you are entitled to defend your alliance. SI would be perfectly reasonable in refusing that option. However they have few good options. Mensa leader said he did this because he didn't want to pay the leader, he wanted to pay the victims. Whatever.

4. SI leader then attacks Mensa leader- not a raid on an inactive but a direct military attack on our most prominent member. He hires someone else to join in. Person in the wrong here (in my opinion): Nobody. SI Leader is perfectly within his rights to defend the alliance by force.

5. Mensa retaliate crushing most SI nations in the first fifteen minutes of the war. Who was in the wrong? Again nobody.

 

So in summary, Mensa members were wrong initially to raid SI, though raiding inactive members of small alliances is something many alliances do, including many of our critics in the other thread. After that, nobody was wrong. SI's leader made what could be called a stupid move by causing a hot war for no reason when reps could have been paid. Our members caused the problems, but it was him who chose to escalate it to a full war. I'd never say war is a bad idea, but obviously you have to bear the consequences of your actions.

 

Now I've said my piece, I hope we can stop talking about that as this is very off topic from my original post.

 

 

This is an IC forum, I don't think a single line of the OP is IC.

 

One of the problems is you assume we'll arrive here knowing all your jargon and setup. What does IC mean? I posted this as a member of the leadership of Mensa HQ to discuss our relations with other alliances. To me, that's what "alliance affairs" means. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by Spite

[Pfeiffer]

I'm just gonna let Iain post stuff for me for a while. Easier that way, and people should know him anyway.

 

I'll be in my bunk.

Also Blood for the Blood God.

 

Who is cool, just not as cool as Dio Brando.

[Ayayay]

Eh, this shouldn't be in Alliance Affairs.

 

Anyways, there are some alliances that seem to be until death right now. But for the most part, the game is to young to have a lot of stagnating unchanging allies every war. As the game grows older, more treaties will be signed and less alliances will shift loyalties. Also, when it comes to the "paperless" alliances, just lump them all together, they are a bloc unto themselves.

[Clarke]

One of the problems is you assume we'll arrive here knowing all your jargon and setup. What does IC mean? I posted this as a member of the leadership of Mensa HQ to discuss our relations with other alliances. To me, that's what "alliance affairs" means. 

 

 

 

http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3412-alliance-affairs-forum-guidelines/, this thread explains it but replaces IC with IG. In Character (IC) basically means you don't talk about outside influences such as real life or past games you played or what you real name is in an environment for alliances to interact. Your real age and name has nothing to do with the alliance affairs, let me point out everything you said that was out of character highlighted in red. 

 

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

Today I’m hoping to talk about my initial impressions of this game, about the inter-alliance relations and the expectations other players have of alliances with regards to war. But before I plunge into that diplomatic quagmire, let me introduce myself properly. My name is Iain, but in this game I go by Spite. The name, like so much else in Mensa, is self-mockery. I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but only someone who didn’t know me would accuse me of being spiteful. I’m a 27 year old guy, typing from the UK. There are about ten of us in Mensa who hail from the old country, the rest being mostly American.

 

I joined this game on 30th January this year. My initial impression of the alliances were that they were confusing and messy. Several (UPN and VE were the big two I believe) contacted me immediately asking if I wanted to join, and telling me to register on the forums. I’d heard that several of the alliances had migrated from other games I was aware of. For those of you who don’t know, I come from another browser game with the rest of Mensa HQ. Prior to that I came from an imageboard site where the “Dioists†originated from, though that was a long time ago now.

 

 

Dioist war banners

 

Before I go onto my initial impressions of the game, let me tell you about the game we come from. In that game, war is a constant part of the game. There is never really any prolonged period of peace, unless you’re too weak and insignificant to be worth fighting. The strong hold their place by virtue of subduing and controlling the weak. Strong nations battle over the right to colonise those without the strength to resist them. Alliances are formed between these nations, each of which contains thousands of players. These alliances last usually around a year, sometimes much longer. Attacking an ally is unthinkable, but attacking someone who isn’t an ally is not only natural but necessary to ensure you have the maximum ability to defend yourself in future.

 

So cue Politics and War. We arrive and immediately start to arm up. We come from a culture where the weak are farms for the strong, and the dividing line between the two is simply the willingness to sacrifice. We come from a culture where absolute loyalty to the group is necessary because without it, you will be divided and taken over. That has happened to the group I’m in before, it won’t happen again. We come from a culture where your allies are allies to the death, and you would happily throw yourself in front of a bus for them, knowing they would do the same for you. That trust is all that kept us strong for years.

 

So now we enter this world, where alliances are shifting and arbitrary. A few protectorates aside, there are rarely cases where a true alliance of alliances exists- one where the members attack, defend and negotiate as a bloc. For us that was unsettling. In our mindset, it meant that everyone was a potential enemy. We were weak and young and small, and without friends that means we are dead in the world where we come from. So we armed up. We learned from the raider alliances like 99% and Arrrgh that it’s not how big your score is, it’s how big your army is. We learned from TEst that you can be incredibly powerful provided your army is your focus. A guy called Excalibur was my personal model military wise.

 

We made our own innovations, several of which were tested in this recent conflict and went quite well. My initial impression was that in both wars we fought, people totally unconnected to either conflict were commenting a lot in a really negative way about our battles. At first I thought that the people involved had some sort of alliance with the people we were fighting, but apparently not. This brings me to my next point.

 

 

Mensa HQ, now with SANDâ„¢

 

Inter-alliance relations in this game are incredibly confusing. No doubt many of you here have been here since the beginning, and so know the disputes, personal friendships and relations which developed into the current alliance web. In the game we came from, it was common practice to simply grab groups that could be beneficial and form an alliance with them. Each part would cover the other parts weaknesses. In a game like this, that might mean someone with a majority of members over say 600 score might make an alliance with someone whose members are mainly below 600 score to protect their newer members and in turn protect the older members of the other alliance. Just as an example.

 

However alliances here seem rare and only partially formed as defensive pacts, or simply unwritten friendships. This is strange to me, since I’m used to the idea of charging into battle and burning a war chest to help an ally. Here it seems very much a free for all. Added into this is that with the community being so small, many individual members of the alliance communicate with each other directly on the forums. In the world we came from, only the alliance leadership would directly communicate with other alliances, and again through their leadership. This can lead to misunderstandings. For example, if person A from alliance A says to me “We will roll your fake genius idiots†or something on those lines, I would take that as the opening stages of a war. Apparently though that’s just normal behaviour.

 

Where am I going with this? I am trying to explain the differences between many of you and Mensa, and thus explain why there has been this bad feeling. It is simply culture shock as two very different cultures collide. With time, we will likely pick up on the local culture and adapt to it. Maybe a little of our ways will rub off on you as well. But until then, please forgive us if we do make mistakes like this.

 

 

The ultimate source of enlightenment

 

And finally, we come to attitudes towards war. I know some of you might be friends with some of the people afflicted. Some of you might just not like the fact that Mensa is fighting other alliances. We come from a game where you don’t need a casus belli at all. You can attack someone just because they have something you want, you don’t like the colour of their flag or you’re bored. So it’s a massive surprise when someone starts a fight with us and we take that fight to the battlefield, and people tell us we’re in the wrong.

 

Concepts of right and wrong imply there is some sort of judge up there telling you that you can’t attack alliances because it’s nasty or mean. To us this is just plain weird. As a nod to sensibilities here, we decided as an alliance to offer negotiation before every conflict. We can’t do more than that. When I first joined, I thought that the enormous amount of missiles was the main deterrent to conflict- in reality I think that it is the attitudes of the players themselves- pixel protection and role play morality are alien to us.

 

I’m currently involved in a war with a guy called Aladeen from SI. I sent him a message this morning to let him know the battle was nothing personal and that I hoped he felt the same way. We had a good little chat and despite exchanging a missile each and a load of damage, we came out of it with respect for one another. That sort of thing is normal to me. If he wanted to arrange an honourable truce I’d certainly stand for that point with the leadership, but he chose to fight on which I respect a lot and I’ll certainly help him in future on an individual level if possible.

 

 

 

In conclusion, I’m not going to get into the justifications for the current war, how it panned out or any of that. I’m just trying to explain the ethical baseline for war in Mensa is different to what you seem to expect. Perhaps that will change, perhaps not.

 

We’re loyal to our friends and allies. We are fair but hard on our enemies. We’re open to negotiation, but we’re not open to rude demands.

 

I see insults on the forum for what they are- a break in cordial relations. No cordial relations means more obstacles to negotiation, it means that this sort of breakdown is more likely. What will we take out of this war? Experience, both military and political. What will we bring to the next war? Organisation.

 

We don’t fight for justice, fairness or to save damsels in distress. We fight for advantage, entertainment and for our allies. If you want to be our friends, then you will find no better friends in Orbis. If you want to be our enemies, then just say so and don’t !@#$ around with pathetic passive aggressive comments.

 

Thank you again for reading this essay.

 

Spite

 

I was being generous but the general theme of your post is an OOC post, there is no escaping that.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Clarke

[Spite]

I don't know what OOC means. I do know that nobody in Mensa is interested in role playing anything. We are people playing a game not people fantasising that we are actually leading nations... But if you need to move it then move it, I don't care particularly, and being pedantic about it rather than just explaining without using acronyms is not very new-player friendly, just saying.

[Baboon]

OOC means out of character. It's not the end of the world and technically you are discussing alliance affairs, but I think this would be better suited in the Orbis central Forums as its more a discussion post than an alliance announcement.

[Sephiroth]

I get where you are coming from here Spite!

I myself came from Grepolis! a world where your alliance is your only allies, every other alliance (even if you pact with them) will eventually betray you so when I started the game I did the same thing, militarize and terrorize all nations within my NS to well do what I always did in grepo, farm them for their cash so I can grow quicker! but as I ran into trouble and almost caused wars for my alliance quite the number of times in the start I began to learn that Orbis did things a lot differently.

 

OWF is run kind of the same way the UN is, when there is a conflict every nation (regardless of their involvement in the problem) will give their personal moral opinion so some will agree with you and some will disagree, many of you may seem to think that your reputation isn't that important here but believe me "IT IS", alliances in Orbis act morally so if you do things like attack small alliances because you can than alliances that see that as bullying will not want to have anything to do with you (even if you are powerful) and alliances that see that as a smart thing to do or don't care at all what you do will either continue with a neutral feeling towards you or a friendly feeling.

 

The majority of the Top alliances have standards of moral and if you break those by destroying small alliances that have no chance against you at all then they will like you less (If you play Europa Universalis its similar to how aggressive expansion works on there).

 

Your military is very important, same as your strategy and your Reputation. Alliances with bad reputations eventually get a coalition flung at them and they are beat until near death (take the GPA incident for example), a lot of alliances saw them as tyrants and eventually a coalition was formed and one of the top alliances lost more than half the NS they had, lost about 60% or more of their players and the only ones that stayed were those hardcore GPA members.

 

Personally, I love war, thats why the ESA war for me was a bonus because I had never been in a full scale war and I wanted to learn what it was like in Orbis but if you want your alliance to survive very long in Orbis as a World Power than you need to think about each move you make and not simply attack because of strategy.

 

You might find one day that if the alliances from rank 20-11 make a coalition against a top 10 alliance they might just dethrone that alliance!

 

But that's just my opinion on the matter feel free to listen to it or not

Edited April 15, 2015 by Brian Hurlston

[Buorhann]

I don't know what OOC means. I do know that nobody in Mensa is interested in role playing anything. We are people playing a game not people fantasising that we are actually leading nations... But if you need to move it then move it, I don't care particularly, and being pedantic about it rather than just explaining without using acronyms is not very new-player friendly, just saying.

 

Actually Spite, a lot of us spouting Dio stuff is IC / IG roleplay.  Perhaps you're just not that internet jargon savvy to know this sir.

 

Also, wonderful article detailing a lot of our thoughts coming here.