Yenisey

There wouldn't be enough targets to go around Should Hellas choose to escalate the situation (please do), I will don my diplomatic robes and attempt to locate someone brave honourable suicidal enough to support them in order to give at least some illusion of parity to the sides and prevent the inevitable accusations of curbstomping. I doubt I would be able to find a sufficiently large number of fools to keep both BW and CDT happy though. ------------------------ Someone mentioned in another thread that Commander metal was absent from this round. You've got me instead. Change is nice, don't you think?

Well, for the official response from the Order of the Black Rose, there isn't really much response to make. Sir Experimentum's telling of events is accurate, as it should be given that he was largely responsible for the way in which things unfolded. I'm not going to make a 10,000 word statement attempting to spin events to show the Order in a favourable light, nor am I going to attempt to assassinate the character of Sir Experimentum further. Read the screenshots and logs yourselves and make up your own minds. If anyone who was involved has any questions, please contact me privately and I will do my best to answer. OOC: Miko, I don't know exactly what's going on or why you're doing this, but I still consider you a friend. If you'd like a chat, you know how you can contact me.

'twas a good war, best I've seen in years. Thank you all who were involved, whether friend or foe.

Should the alliance score calculation/ranking system in CN:TE be reworked? It's currently heavily biased in favour of the number of nations in an alliance, rather than the strength of those nations. Example: Lafayette Escadrille are, by all accounts, about 4 times stronger than The Phoenix Federation, yet have only a 0.19 lead in terms of alliance score. If TPF were to pick up a few extra nations at 0 strength, they would actually pass LE. Or, Fark and Roman Empire. Fark has a higher score in every category save the number of nations. Or MHA. Despite having lost 50% of their total strength in the last few days, their score has barely altered. Or, Crimson Empire and New Viridian Order, a 0.06 difference in score when one alliance is around 3 times stronger than the other? Poison Clan/ WAPA? etc, etc. There are far too many examples to list. Given the rankings are used to determine sanctioned alliances, it seems a little odd to bias them so heavily in favour of numbers. It would be quite easy to "win" CN:TE with a 500 nation alliance at 0 strength, if you could find the recruits. The simplest alternative system would appear to be ranking by total strength. Something to think about for the next round?

OK, so we haven't yet regained our starting strength of 92k, but we're working on it. I must admit though, the tactic of not counter-attacking us is working very well for MHA's overall score. With our offensive slots filled with burned-out shells, the amount of damage we can inflict during the next couple of days is limited. I admire the dedication of the MHA troops, to sacrifice oneself for the good of the alliance is not an easy choice to make. The last days of the round will be interesting, I only hope that there will be some targets left when my war slots open up...

Stranger still, now I can connect to the forum, but not the other servers (CN, CN:TE, PlanetRealm). Route to forum: 9: ae-32-56.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net (4.68.109.190) 58.905ms asymm 8 10: ae-2-2.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.132.142) 63.811ms asymm 12 11: ae-71-71.csw2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.6) 65.493ms 12: ae-82-82.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.25) 64.291ms 13: ae-44-44.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.137.62) 353.071ms asymm 12 14: ae-72-72.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.150) 309.251ms asymm 13 15: ae-61-61.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.129) 306.097ms asymm 14 16: ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.69.132.85) 159.061ms asymm 10 17: ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.134.21) 186.220ms asymm 13 18: ae-83-83.csw3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.162) 182.589ms asymm 12 19: ae-82-82.ebr2.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.145) 186.010ms asymm 13 20: ae-5-5.car1.KansasCity1.Level3.net (4.69.135.229) 189.084ms asymm 14 21: 11-INTERNET.car1.KansasCity1.Level3.net (4.53.32.10) 194.950ms asymm 15 22: te-2-3.bb-b.ms.mkc.us.oneandone.net (74.208.1.82) 192.354ms asymm 16 23: te-2-4.bb-b.slr.lxa.us.oneandone.net (74.208.1.34) 191.242ms asymm 17 24: te-1-1.gw-distp-b.slr.lxa.oneandone.net (74.208.1.118) 192.052ms asymm 18 25: ae-1.gw-prtr-r5-b.slr.lxa.oneandone.net (74.208.1.168) 192.209ms asymm 19 26: u15309394.onlinehome-server.com (74.208.8.115) 191.035ms reached Resume: pmtu 1492 hops 26 back 45 Trying to connect to cybernations.net still fails at "Dallas1.Level3.net" Edit: If nothing else, could someone please give me the addresses for CN and CN:TE so I don't have to go through cybernations.net (e.g. u15309394.onlinehome-server.com is forums.cybernations.net), see if that makes any difference. Edit 2: Connection's back as of 09:23 server time. Still confused.

Still dropping all my connection attempts. Partial traceroute below, looks like I'm getting pretty close to the server, but something (firewall, traffic filter?) is dropping my packets. 7: tengige1-9-1-0.pastr1.Paris.opentransit.net (193.251.129.122) 52.534ms 8: level3-4.GW.opentransit.net (193.251.252.138) 57.300ms asymm 9 9: ae-32-54.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net (4.68.109.126) 66.713ms 10: ae-2-2.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.132.142) 71.146ms asymm 11 11: ae-2-2.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.132.142) 68.879ms 12: ae-72-72.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.21) 67.739ms asymm 11 13: ae-62-62.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.17) 66.686ms asymm 11 14: ae-44-44.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.137.62) 150.916ms asymm 12 15: ae-91-91.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.141) 144.965ms asymm 14 16: ae-71-71.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.133) 162.384ms asymm 14 17: ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.69.132.85) 171.870ms asymm 11 18: ae-83-83.csw3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.162) 192.975ms asymm 13 19: ae-83-83.csw3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.162) 194.479ms asymm 13 20: ae-3-89.edge3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.136) 181.513ms asymm 14 21: no reply I'll give the rest of the trace by email or PM if required. Still confused. I'll continue checking during the day and update when I get access back, along with an updated traceroute. Pretty sure I'm getting as far as the datacentre, just not the last hop or two. Edit: I can ping twtelecom's router, but not "206.123.64.134 AS30496 COLO4" (colo4dallas.net), which as far as I'm aware is the datacentre that hosts CN.

Down again, as of 0:14 server time. Can't connect to any CN servers (CN, CN:TE, forums, PlanetRealm), but I can connect to 1and1.com. DNS resolves correctly, but I never receive any data from any of the CN sites. Posting this via a proxy so that you might be able to investigate the issue while it's occurring. I'll update from my normal IP once CN is back up.

The best military wonder is the one you have, but your opponent doesn't.

I know. Just a little odd that I couldn't connect for 6 hours with several local IPs, but connected instantly when faking my IP as coming from the US (didn't log in, like to keep my nation and I know proxies are banned, only posted the error on the forum). Not a France Telecom DNS issue as far as I can tell, as I wasn't able to connect to or ping the server's IP from my machine, but again, no problems when using a US based service. Happening at exactly 0:00 server time suggests it's more likely something CN related than not, traffic management on the server perhaps? Would be nice to know the issue, if it's likely to repeat and if I can do anything (legal) to avoid it, as being kicked off for 6 hours at update really makes a mess of any war you're trying to fight. Somewhat confused.

No need to accuse us of curbstomping, just because the stronger side are dropping like flies. Some more counter-attacks would be nice, saves our offensive war slots for later...

Typical, I post that... and it's fixed itself. Still might want to check with your hosting provider.

As of update, or about 10 seconds after, I can't connect to any CN server (CN, CN:TE, Forums etc.) I can, however, connect via a US-based proxy. I've reset my router and changed my IP twice, also tried from a different IP (free WiFi), no difference. CN has something against European IP addresses?

At last. Please mount something of a respectable counter-attack, we're dying of boredom here.

250+/-? Where's my 75 up, 50 down? Ranks, not percentage. I can't agree with the idea that the alliance that declares first wins in an instant-nuke environment. If the two alliances are +/-100% the same size and of a similar strength distribution, if there are no other alliances involved and if the attack is carried out flawlessly, yes, otherwise diplomacy and allies are going to play a far more important role.