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

[Ivan]

IC = In Character

OOC = Out of Character

OWF = Open World Forums (?) (i.e. these forums, the P&W forums)

 

I just want to say, great post. It really explained your origins and how you are viewing this game differently than you last. Kudos, fairly enlightening. But as some others have mentioned, this game is much more focused on politics, realpolitik and (i like to think/hope) casus belli.

 

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

 

As i posted before in AA, reputation is important and I think brian outlined that well.

 

Also, for those who have played another game ((That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways)), anyone remember Karma.... a group of small alliances and medium ones can 100% take down a top 10 or multiple top 10 alliances.

 

Overall, nice post. Cheers

[MRBOOTY]

I liked this, but at the same time, is the fact that you are used to exploiting weak players really our fault?

I personally am glad you can't do that in this game, otherwise the weaker alliances would constantly be under a never-ending assault

I find this interesting, and thanks

But please don't take your other games' morals to the bank.

[PigInZen]

I liked this, but at the same time, is the fact that you are used to exploiting weak players really our fault?

I personally am glad you can't do that in this game, otherwise the weaker alliances would constantly be under a never-ending assault

I find this interesting, and thanks

But please don't take your other games' morals to the bank.

 

I think there's a learning curve and our past experiences have us collectively pointed in one direction.  We'll see how quickly we climb up the curve...

[Shellhound]

This was actually a really interesting read. Very well done.

[George W. Bush]

I still want a >bloc vs Mensa fight.

[Hysteria]

 

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. 

 

 

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

 

 

The fact that you and others are taking our time out of your day to respond to us is enough gratification already. 

 

Thank you

Edited April 15, 2015 by Hysteria

[Clarke]

The fact that you and others are taking our time out of your day to respond to us is enough gratification already. 

 

Thank you

No problem, just trying to help your guys learn about how forums typically operate. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by Clarke

[Spite]

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.

 

I spoke to Buorhann on IRC, but I thought I'd expand on this here since some of you seem interested in our history.

 

In late 2007 the game we come from (erep) was founded and beta passes were being given away. Beta pass holders had the option to invite others, so many of the early players of erep, like P&W came from external forums and other games. Notably the likes of gamefaqs, flashback and of course 4chan. 

 

At the time a few players joined the game directly from the /v/ board, which is dedicated to video games. Amongst those players was Dio Brando, who of course is the titular deity of Dioism. 

 

One of the features of erep is the "alliance" equivalent are real countries, which don't change and can't be edited. They have political/economic aspects. I'm not advertising for erep- it sucks and I definitely would not play. But it was good then. Anyway, for one reason or other the /v/ crowd settled in Pakistan, which they called /v/akistan.

 

All over the world, people began role-playing like crazy. To a certain extent they still do to this day- with titles named after RL national titles, armies and so on on named after various legendary armies. People had officer ranks and so on and because of the size of some armies (3000-4000 soldiers per nation in some cases) this went from private to Field Marshall and so forth. 

 

Anyway, /v/akistan was the opposite of this. Brutally organised by a group who were gamers first and foremost, they sacrificed the individual utterly for the co-operative group effort. Because of this, /v/akistani leadership was supremely powerful, able to wield enormous economic and political power by national standards. Later the myth came that Dioists were numerous in the early game, but they were always outnumbered. 

 

After a lot of witty exchanges between them and the Flashback crew, who were based in Sweden, /v/akistan started the Dioist faith around their newly crowned God Emperor. This was done entirely in the spirit of fun, and wasn't role play at all. Dio accepted his deification with humour, but I've spoken to him a million times and he's never role played anything- he's a gamer and he wanted his crew to win, that was the bottom line.

 

Since his disappearance around the beginning of 2010, Dio has passed into a figure of legend. The Dioist faith, which was originally limited to Pakistan, and a few of Pakistan's early allies (Brazil notably), began to spread. At some point in 2011 it landed in the USA, which has since become the most Dioist country in erep. Nearly all of Mensa are Dioists. 

 

Dioism for me might mean something different than Dioism for them, since we came across it at different times. For me it represents a hardcore gamey non-roleplay kind of play. It represents taking the angle which gives the best advantage. It represents spreadsheets, calculation and planning- not cosmetic play. It represents alliance organisation and the subordination of individual below alliance.

 

Just a few thoughts

 

 

Dio save us all!

[Garmr]

Good post, reflects our mindset pretty good.

 

I am most definitely not a dioist though as far as the spam goes. Never got that.

[Loki]

solid read. interesting take on the culture of the game.

[Jodo]

This was a fantastic read. There is (in my opinion) three or four very different cultures from various places here in Orbis. I have some degree of knowledge on most, so to read this on top of it really explains the levels of cluster!@#$ seen here in this world.

[PigInZen]

Jodo, I am curious what these three or four major cultures in P&W are, from your perspective.

 

Drop some knowledge on this ausländer.

[Jodo]

Jodo, I am curious what these three or four major cultures in P&W are, from your perspective.

 

Drop some knowledge on this ausländer.

If you'd like, I can make a rambling post/thread on the subject. I figure with my exit from the game coming, and the 8 years I've spent derping in them there might be a gem somewhere to be found.

[Vosunda]

I'd be interested in such a post.

 

If you'd like, I can make a rambling post/thread on the subject. I figure with my exit from the game coming, and the 8 years I've spent derping in them there might be a gem somewhere to be found.

[Jodo]

Fair enough. I'll make one tonight if I remember.

[Greatnate]

If you'd like, I can make a rambling post/thread on the subject. I figure with my exit from the game coming, and the 8 years I've spent derping in them there might be a gem somewhere to be found.

 

That sounds like an awesome reverse-retirement present.

[Don Juan]

I played eRep at one point in 2009-10, was a part of eJapan though.

 

This all makes a bit more sense now that I know you come from eRep. So thanks for the insight.

[Tim Armstrong]

Spite, your observations about this community make it clear that you seek first to understand and then to be understood. Thank you for taking the time to share what you have learned and to make a genuine effort to bridge the culture divide.

[Pfeiffer]

I played eRep at one point in 2009-10, was a part of eJapan though.

 

This all makes a bit more sense now that I know you come from eRep. So thanks for the insight.

 

I was there for some of 2010. I miss Kokawa.

[Dwynn]

I'd like to echo what Tim said above.

 

I've never thought bad of Mensa HQ, I'm sure others know that your culture is different to the rest of the world here. However, to use that as an excuse is just plain lazy. Use it as a justification, use it as an explanation, but to do stuff the community disagrees with and then go "oops, our bad. !@#$ off." is lazy.

 

I'm all for bucking the trends, hence the current 1-man show. I'm also for what you call a lack of alliances of alliances. In too many of the other games the wars themselves are won before they're fought simply because of formalized alliances. Having a fluid dynamic in place allows for more guesswork, less assuredness about the outcomes. In one of the games where a chunk of culture comes from, major wars are fought once a year, if that. They're only started when those wishing to start believe they have all the chess pieces laid out properly because of the formalized treaties etc.

 

To speak on the matters here though... the community is small, and to be fair, paperless hasn't changed the above thought process much. People are still hesitant to throw the first punch unless they're fairly certain they've got the upperhand and contingency plans in place just in case.

 

Chaotic wars where nobody knows what the hell is going to happen? They simply won't happen here. Couple that with the fact that the community is small (really it is), nobody is really caught by surprise by any moves that are made. There are ways it can happen, it just won't because nobody thinks with that mindset.

[vonnorman]

Hence why this game will die

Sad enough..

[Thor]

Very good read sir. Excalibur approves

[Ashland]

I'd like to echo what Tim said above.

 

I've never thought bad of Mensa HQ, I'm sure others know that your culture is different to the rest of the world here. However, to use that as an excuse is just plain lazy. Use it as a justification, use it as an explanation, but to do stuff the community disagrees with and then go "oops, our bad. !@#$ off." is lazy.

 

I'm all for bucking the trends, hence the current 1-man show. I'm also for what you call a lack of alliances of alliances. In too many of the other games the wars themselves are won before they're fought simply because of formalized alliances. Having a fluid dynamic in place allows for more guesswork, less assuredness about the outcomes. In one of the games where a chunk of culture comes from, major wars are fought once a year, if that. They're only started when those wishing to start believe they have all the chess pieces laid out properly because of the formalized treaties etc.

 

To speak on the matters here though... the community is small, and to be fair, paperless hasn't changed the above thought process much. People are still hesitant to throw the first punch unless they're fairly certain they've got the upperhand and contingency plans in place just in case.

 

Chaotic wars where nobody knows what the hell is going to happen? They simply won't happen here. Couple that with the fact that the community is small (really it is), nobody is really caught by surprise by any moves that are made. There are ways it can happen, it just won't because nobody thinks with that mindset.

I have said it before, I will say it again.  In many ways, paperless alliances increase stagnation.  There have been really interesting things that could have happened that did not happen because of the looming threat of Guardian sticking its nose in it.  I like a lot of people in Guardian, but for an AA that pays lip service to making the game more interesting, they've stopped a lot of interesting things from happening.  Some intentionally, some unintentionally.

[Isaac Lazarus]

This was a fantastic read. There is (in my opinion) three or four very different cultures from various places here in Orbis. I have some degree of knowledge on most, so to read this on top of it really explains the levels of cluster!@#$ seen here in this world.

 

Do you still think you might write about this? I'm quite curious.

[Jodo]

Do you still think you might write about this? I'm quite curious.

Yes. I ended up distracted playing GTA V last night. If its any consolation to you, I was high as balls, robbed several stores, and died in a hail of gunfire somewhere in the canal system.