Keeping it short: I never understood why people consider their and everyone's treaties like they were pieces of a domino. I am talking of the idea of engaging "this" alliance or "that" one because of the defensive treaties that would be activated, trying to bring as much firepower to your side while you try to limit the firepower activated on the other side.
While it may seem right from the perspective of the single treaty, if you look at the whole picture it means that you use people's treatie
Source: The Fall of the Mushroom kingdomI thought that Mushlim jokes were intended to satirize stereotypes about Muslims, not really Muslims themselves. Am I wrong? Tamerlane, your take?
While perusing the GPA in-game member list I stumbled (again, but you wouldn't know) on Wikichang of Sheldonnopolis, our "dear" long-term ghost.
His feat must be made known, as you don't always meet a 750-ish NS ghost with 532 days of Alliance Seniority!
(He never exited Peace Mode, and in fact he has never been in War Mode since his inception in CN. Really an hippie! )
Too bad that I can't relay to you any of his thoughts or beliefs, as he never answered to any of the PMs we sent to him...
The GPA HoF announcement is too old and I left my spade at home, but I don't want you all to just have that puny little war to keep you busy...
Round one of the GPA voting on her Hall of Fame saw several people take really many votes, and the race to get to the second (and final) round was really close for many of them. Alas, we couldn't carry everyone into the HoF and some really deserving names had to be excluded this year too.
I am anyway pleased to unofficially inform you that we picked t
Source: Just an ordinary DoW
Sorry (or you're welcome) if this is short, but my time isn't much either.
Standards, you (both/all) say? That's a discourse that may have a leg to stand on if covered with IC propaganda and hypocrisy (which are nothing bad by themselves, anyway).
But I suspect there was an OOC tone to that exchange. As a casual observer from a neutral point of view I saw any standard that we (as a community) may have had going down the drain years ago. The ancient Pacifican Hegem
Source: Declaration from Vox Populi
Seriously guys, let's stop with the "awww treaties with a/the/some different/other power cluster are bad" argument. Treaties are tools, and establishing bonds with people of the "other" coalition can also be done to (try) erode their group. The thing can be criticized, but only in context: it's not bad by itself.
How do you think that Q lost its preeminence?
(This rant isn't aimed at Aza specifically, BTW.)
Source: Which ally will act first?
I take inspiration from Rush's posts (there are many others before and after that one) to try discuss what CBs are, what they represent in CN and what part they play in the fun we have (or don't have) when playing this crazy game.
First of all, what is a CB? Most would probably disagree on the details, but I think that most of us can agree that a CB is some incident/offense that is cited as the reason some party is going at war for. For example, the attacks o
I found some of OsRavan's points to be very solid, and my general approval of his post caused me to write this entry. Unlike the original thread this is OOC (the rationale in OsRavan's post probably came from an OOC angle as well, anyway).
I don't want to write a wall of text and I'll limit myself to "briefly" (lol) touch three main points, which IMHO have much to do with the debate over "lapdogs". They're the Imperialism "Temptation", the divide et impera method and the Prisoner's Dilemma mech
HoT very recently extensively referenced an (in)famous episode of OOC attacks against now gone players (quotes in the spoiler for the curious of you).
I personally don't think that discussing the topic of OOC attacks in that thread was a good idea (not that it's HoT that started it), but I think that continuing to discuss OOC attacks is necessary.
Simply put, the game staff has no jurisdiction over what happens off game and away from these forums, and at the same time we can't expect that ever
Source: NoR declares war on LSF
Let's look at Prodigal Moon's post as players, i.e. from an Out Of Character POV.
This game's politics is largely dominated by the needs of coalition-level warfare, which isn't good or bad in itself.
However, I find it silly that coalition warfare is so much engineered with "treaty chaining"... A hits B and not C, to trigger what D, F and G do, while C and D pre-empt Z to prevent F and X to assist Y.
How can this sort of Mikado be even slightly funny?
As I w
Disclaimer: I am a known government GPA Cabinet member and a former GPA President, thus you can probably assume that my word carries a bit of weight when it comes to the Agency. I am anyway handling this affair from a player's POV rather than from an IC angle, and I can't currently really talk on behalf of the GPA, anyway, thus this isn't an "official" stance. Specifically, none of this blog entry has been arranged in the GPA.
(This disclaimer isn't really one of those "I don't want any respons
I am one of the GPA members that most speak with other people, and every once in a while I am asked if the GPA likes/dislikes some other alliance, whom we'd like to hit and such.
The last time I answered to this, on the forums of another alliance, I came up with a bit of a wall of text that I think explains rather well my point of view on the issue, and which is also probably near to some of the best and most honest answers you can get from any long term true GPA member.
It's not an official s
WARNING: extreme romanticism below read at your own peril!
In October 2005, I was on a short trip in Firenze (Florence), Italy, with my (at the time) girlfriend.
Walking on the Ponte Vecchio we were looking at the windows of the jewelry shops that occupy both sides of the bridge, when our attention was attracted by a golden ring with seven stones of different colours. We both didn't much like yellow gold and we thus entered the shop to ask whether they maybe had a white gold ver
From the desk of the GPA Minister of Foreign Affairs.
I was informed that a few hours ago an inexperienced GPA Recruiter (at his first tries) mistakenly went backwards and not forward into the new Nations list, in that way sending repeat PMs to 125 Rulers. Some of these Rulers had by then probably already joined other alliances.
I wish to apologize to said people for the unintentional SPAM delivered in their Inboxes. Be sure that the crazy spammer has already been put at arranging Ikebana to
(Disclaimer: in this entry I talk of karma, not of Karma.)
That old attack on the GPA keeps being mentioned three years after its end, and (almost) always to the detriment of those that participated in the aggression. It might be one of the purest examples of "bad karma" of CN, i.e. something that keeps coming back to bite, again and again, those that did it (not every one in the same measure, honestly).
Also, few other extremely old events are referenced this often and with such "detail": one
I've been playing for a while with the idea of having my own blog (verbal diarrhoea etc.) and I finally decided: "why not?"
The trigger was Kalasin's most recent entry, which I was preparing a reply to, eventually realizing that it was too long to be a blog reply.
Blame Kalasin for this, then...
Note that it's "A Neutral's Blog", not "A Neutral Blog": it isn't going to be always neutral on CN politics - and maybe I will never write on CN politics at all.
Everything will be OCC unless explic
In response to Kalasin's "Couple of thoughts on homosexuality".
God loves filth then?
Jokes aside, as a former earnest catholic and religion teacher which eventually lost interest in religion, I consider Kalasin's blog entry very respectable in its intent - indeed we need to make distinctions among the very wide spectrum of "anti-homosexuality" groups - and ultimately very silly on a number of points.
Unless one is given the bible from god her/himself I don't know how the text can be conside
