"The Fear of Being Rolled"

[Lord Fingolfin]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1283640392' post='2441803']
Actually, no, not really. We've got this idea that the whole alliance needs to go to war every time that a war is declared, which is the core of the problem. Imagine if MDPs were replaced by treaties that read like "In the event of war, X alliance pledges 22 nations with a total of 400,000 nation strength to the cause of Y alliance. In return for this we receive Z dollars/tech every 30 days."

That'd be like 17th-century Europe.
[/quote]

I suppose thats true enough. However, as much as I'd like to see that and how it would be interesting, I don't think it would ever work. I'm having a hard time describing why, but I suppose I would attribute it to the fact that there are "classes" in CN. Any individual nation in a CN alliance is a lot more powerful and influential than say the average peasant/soldier of 17th century Europe, and the bonds are tighter. Politics at that time for the average citizen were very impersonal, in border areas one person might have the territory his house is a part of change hands from France to Prussia to Italy to England to X, Y, and Z principality over the course of his life due to some distant war hundreds if not thousands of miles away that he has no say in. There isn't that same disconnect here, which in turn makes it hard for an alliance to just send 20 of its members off into the breach while the rest of them just sit and sip martinis and enjoy the tech and cash from the treaty agreement

[KingEd]

I don't think any alliance fears getting rolled, they just don't want too. Losing/Winning wars is part of the game, that much is obvious to me now. In noCB I was enjoying the Hegemonic days within MCXA, and moving up in the ranks as Polaris was crushed.

On the same token, my nation along with the rest of MCXA got rolled when Karma came knocking. I lost nearly 5K Infra, 3K Tech, every ounce of land within 3-4 weeks. Everything I had worked for was...well, it all went to hell. [Thanks Aztec + VE]. But when we decided to go to war, I wasn't worried about my own nation, I was worried about the members of my alliance fighting for a cause they didn't necessarily believe in. The MCXA may have had 3 treaties w/ NPO, but none of them signed by the Government that declared War in defense of NPO. [Post TSO ^&%^].

And now I found myself on the winning side of BiPolar/TOP-C&G. In sum, I never felt afraid or scared of going to war, after all it was to defend allies, on a government scale I can only attest to Karma & TOP/C&G that the feeling was mutual among all government members in regards to being scared of war.

I think going to war, or losing a war ties into "Foreign Affairs" and how well the members of the respective alliance know each other. If the individual members of an alliance know the people they are defending, they are more likely to say "$%&@ the pixels" and go to war, full willing and ready to face the consequences in the after-math.

[White Chocolate]

[quote name='lonewolfe2015' timestamp='1283607386' post='2441322']
I don't believe we're 'stuck' on WWI, I think the community has been in a constant battle/growth from the bare bones of politics (say... pre-America) to this point where we're about to break out into a "WWII" type situation. We're all prepared for a massive war, we're aligned for a massive war, we're just waiting on the evil figurehead to spark a massive war. (Many have asked for such even) It's quite possible after such a war we'll evolve into an even more common design to the real world and have [i]less[/i] wars due to the high volume of nuclear weaponry at such a time (imagine what one year will do to the volume of nukes) barring a gameplay change from admin.

We're very amazingly simulating real life here quite well. Creating treaties, backroom dealing, building empires and watching them crumble, arguing over stupid politics, stockpiling nuclear weaponry, etc.
[/quote]

Really, about to hit WWII? I can kind of see that politically. My question is, who are going to be stuck in the role of the Jews this time? From what I know of CN history, there have been a few.

And with that - there is not an alliance out there that doesn't fear getting rolled. They have all been destroyed and their inhabitants scattered everywhere, if they are even around anymore. The closest fearless alliance that I know of that is still around is The Grey Council. For everyone else, it's just a matter of degree and how much peace you can stand before going completely mad!

Edited September 5, 2010 by White Chocolate

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Lord Fingolfin' timestamp='1283640821' post='2441811']
I suppose thats true enough. However, as much as I'd like to see that and how it would be interesting, I don't think it would ever work. I'm having a hard time describing why, but I suppose I would attribute it to the fact that there are "classes" in CN. Any individual nation in a CN alliance is a lot more powerful and influential than say the average peasant/soldier of 17th century Europe, and the bonds are tighter. Politics at that time for the average citizen were very impersonal, in border areas one person might have the territory his house is a part of change hands from France to Prussia to Italy to England to X, Y, and Z principality over the course of his life due to some distant war hundreds if not thousands of miles away that he has no say in. There isn't that same disconnect here, which in turn makes it hard for an alliance to just send 20 of its members off into the breach while the rest of them just sit and sip martinis and enjoy the tech and cash from the treaty agreement
[/quote]
You're still not thinking 1648 enough. The people being sent off to war get paid. Sitting around and sipping martinis is the 20th-century dream, heh.

[DragonsPhyre]

A healthy amount of fear of getting rolled is good in that it means alliances are aware of consequences to their actions. If we all went around with no fear of the consequences of our actions, it would be pretty boring.

[White Chocolate]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1283640392' post='2441803']
Actually, no, not really. We've got this idea that the whole alliance needs to go to war every time that a war is declared, which is the core of the problem. Imagine if MDPs were replaced by treaties that read like "In the event of war, X alliance pledges 22 nations with a total of 400,000 nation strength to the cause of Y alliance. In return for this we receive Z dollars/tech every 30 days."

That'd be like 17th-century Europe.
[/quote]

That's the Protector/Protected Relationship - at least what is allowed and considered acceptable by "common practice." Also, agreements like that could happen and may unofficially happen in some cases now. Just not openly.

[Bavaricar]

My favorite part of answers to an in yo face question like this is in noting who replies by strongly emphasizing that fear is a foreign concept to their strategic thinking. In other words, with two or possibly three RP exceptions, the responses have been most entertaining.

Thanks, OP!

[Haflinger]

[quote name='White Chocolate' timestamp='1283662261' post='2442236']
That's the Protector/Protected Relationship - at least what is allowed and considered acceptable by "common practice." Also, agreements like that could happen and may unofficially happen in some cases now. Just not openly.
[/quote]
It's close to it. The problem with CN protectorates is that, like all CN treaties and like 20th-century treaties, they envision the entire alliance going to war in the event of a conflict.

The other difference is that CN protectorates do not pledge to aid their protector in aggressive conflict. 17th-century Europe was more warlike, and the small groups did pledge aid regardless of whether the war was defensive or offensive.

[Brenann]

As was said, people join Alliances for security (most of the time) and it is the goal of Alliances to "win" how ever one wins in a no end-game scenario. To win you have to survive and to survive you cant get rolled. Some alliances will gladly get rolled for their beliefs and their policies and that is great, even if I dont always agree with said policies. What they can get from it, depending on said policies is more influence because they stand up for what they believe in. Others go so far out of their way to survive that they end up tripping over their own feet while in reverse. That ends up being worse in some cases as you now lose PR and the soft power that goes with it. So to be successful you have to find a balance and pick the right battles to maintain your hard power and to build more soft. Problem is a lot of people running alliances forget that and for the most part rely on staying safe with their stats.

Edit: missing a word

Edited September 5, 2010 by Brenann

[Sabertooth]

[quote name='the lizard queen' timestamp='1283627722' post='2441619']
I have seen both ends of the spectrum. An alliance that fears war too much gets stagnant. While war does lower statistics, it leads to a greater amount of activity and participation. It brings people out of the woodwork.[/quote]

I hate stagnation.

We have 2 Major Problems leading to stagnation:

1. CN has evolved into a treaty web mess which makes going to war more difficult and risky. If you start a war you risk dragging all of CN with you.

2. Nations have invested so much time and effort into building their nations that they're not willing to go to war to lose pixels.

I'm sure in the early days things weren't as complicated. Nations were smaller. There were less treaties. Terms were less harsh and didn't take you 10 months to pay them off.

Basically you had less to lose when you went to war. There is nothing that can be done to fix what has been set in motion already. A game reset perhaps?

Face it guys. We ruined CN!

Edited September 5, 2010 by Sabertooth

[Remo]

[quote name='Sabertooth' timestamp='1283696383' post='2442569']
Face it guys. We ruined CN!
[/quote]

Well, CN is played by humans (as far as I know), and humans are in constant change (of ideas, of spheres, of friends, of whatever). Therefore, CN is a mirror with little static pixels, and you can see (if you look closely) your face stamped between NS, happiness and deployed soldiers. CN is in constant motion because we are. Old CN times are different from now, as it was the Greek Empire from Globalization. But have in mind this: all humans.

[Bob Janova]

Anyone who claims to be immune to 'fear of getting rolled' is either lying or stupid. Getting rolled greatly decreases your ability to project power, and that is a vital ability whatever your primary objectives within CN are. For example, look at the NPO: they like to play the game in a deeply political way and control how the world works; they slipped up in that, got rolled and now they can't play the game that way because they lost enough of their power that they can't project it over enough of the world any more. Or an alliance like NSO or \m/ which likes to play by annoying other players – by getting rolled (and having their allies either rolled with them or disconnected from them [i]de jure[/i] or [i]de facto[/i] by cancelling on them or not defending them) they would be unable to project enough power to make those provocative acts and would become irrelevant. Or the Citadel alliances, who liked to play in a 'moralist' way and supported a 'just' world (all in quotes because they're RP concepts and I'm talking OOC here) – they could only have an effect on wars and politics, or do an initiative like CTC, because of their power; now most of the alliances got rolled and the bloc split up, those alliances are no longer able to project enough power to have that effect (as Grämlins demonstrated so spectacularly when they tried to enforce a 'moral' position on IRON without the force to do so).

An alliance that doesn't take its own security (i.e. not getting rolled) into account isn't doing its job.

[Masterof9puppets]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1283603322' post='2441290']
Alliances were created because nations don't want to face constant war. If everyone really wanted more war, the answer is just abandon alliances.

So a large part of the purpose of an alliance is to prevent war. This is true of every single alliance.


Why, given all the political arrangements in history to choose from, we've decided to simulate World War I-era politics is a bit of a mystery to me.
[/quote]

The original purpose of alliances might have been to prevent war, and for most alliances it still is. But there is no reason whatsoever that the purpose of alliances cannot be to go to war with your enemies, with your friends.

[quote name='Rebel Virginia' timestamp='1283631688' post='2441657']
[color="#0000FF"]Those are all valid and acceptable CBs so far as I am concerned, and more or less dwindle down to the most basic of all: "I just don't like you." I have no problem with that when its not dressed up. I appreciate honesty, but quite frankly too many people are afraid to go to war for that reason simply because they know they will lose.[/color]
[/quote]

I agree with every point that you made. This is a first

[Max Power]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1283701471' post='2442629']
Anyone who claims to be immune to 'fear of getting rolled' is either lying or stupid. Getting rolled greatly decreases your ability to project power, and that is a vital ability whatever your primary objectives within CN are. For example, look at the NPO: they like to play the game in a deeply political way and control how the world works; they slipped up in that, got rolled and now they can't play the game that way because they lost enough of their power that they can't project it over enough of the world any more. Or an alliance like NSO or \m/ which likes to play by annoying other players – by getting rolled (and having their allies either rolled with them or disconnected from them [i]de jure[/i] or [i]de facto[/i] by cancelling on them or not defending them) they would be unable to project enough power to make those provocative acts and would become irrelevant. Or the Citadel alliances, who liked to play in a 'moralist' way and supported a 'just' world (all in quotes because they're RP concepts and I'm talking OOC here) – they could only have an effect on wars and politics, or do an initiative like CTC, because of their power; now most of the alliances got rolled and the bloc split up, those alliances are no longer able to project enough power to have that effect (as Grämlins demonstrated so spectacularly when they tried to enforce a 'moral' position on IRON without the force to do so).

An alliance that doesn't take its own security (i.e. not getting rolled) into account isn't doing its job.
[/quote]
Great post.

As for the 17th-century Europe thing, it wasn't all mercenary wars, especially by the end of the century.

What people crying about WWI are forgetting is that the 3-on-2 bloc action war was just like the Seven Years' War.

What CN needs oh so desperately is more 1-on-1, 2-on-2, 4-on-3, etc. wars. It's the threat of having every conflict escalate into a convoluted 24-on-17 war full of treaty chaining, multiple (often contradictory) obligations and those sorts of things that stagnates the whole planet.

[VIdiot the Great]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1283701471' post='2442629']
Anyone who claims to be immune to 'fear of getting rolled' is either lying or stupid.[/quote]

Hmm, is this multiple choice? I guess I'll go with a bit of both.

[quote]Getting rolled greatly decreases your ability to project power, and that is a vital ability whatever your primary objectives within CN are.[/quote]

This is very true, if that's your goal.

[quote]For example, look at the NPO: they like to play the game in a deeply political way and control how the world works; they slipped up in that, got rolled and now they can't play the game that way because they lost enough of their power that they can't project it over enough of the world any more.[/quote]

Also probably true. However, some folks may not care to determine the fate of nations other than their own. Maybe they play for the comraderie or fun of it all. Or to spectate. Both perfectly acceptable reasons to want to play.

[quote]Or an alliance like NSO or \m/ which likes to play by annoying other players – by getting rolled (and having their allies either rolled with them or disconnected from them [i]de jure[/i] or [i]de facto[/i] by cancelling on them or not defending them) they would be unable to project enough power to make those provocative acts and would become irrelevant.[/quote]

Or again, they may find such gameplay fun. Just because you're not a power broker means there isn't fun to be had outside of the typical 'I want to project my power.' Some folks have little interest in such things and manage to have a good time outside that paradigm.

[quote]Or the Citadel alliances, who liked to play in a 'moralist' way and supported a 'just' world (all in quotes because they're RP concepts and I'm talking OOC here) – they could only have an effect on wars and politics, or do an initiative like CTC, because of their power; now most of the alliances got rolled and the bloc split up, those alliances are no longer able to project enough power to have that effect (as Grämlins demonstrated so spectacularly when they tried to enforce a 'moral' position on IRON without the force to do so).
[/quote]

Hey, no doubt some folks have fun shaping world politics. I certainly can't say that it is pointless, I'm sure there's a lot of interesting things to be done in that case. But I also don't think you can say that all players endeavor to control such things.

[quote]An alliance that doesn't take its own security (i.e. not getting rolled) into account isn't doing its job.
[/quote]

Unless that alliance is more concerned with having a good time despite getting rolled. Sometimes a losing fight can be as much fun, if not more, than a winning one. And it can build a fun bond between the alliance that got rolled.

Ultimately, it's about what you want to do, and power politics isn't always the aim of an alliance.

And competing interests in gameplay is what makes this crazy world go 'round.

[Bob Janova]

I think you slightly missed the point, which is that even if 'you just want to have fun', 'losing wars can be fun' and so on, you still need to look out for your material strength to get yourself into the position where you can play the way you find fun. The only exception would be if you can still have fun from ZI, but considering that groups who are kept at tiny NS for long periods become ignored on these forums too (think of VietFAN era FAN), that isn't really possible for how most people want to play. (Very few of us want to be irrelevances that are ignored by everyone!) And before someone brings up Vox, they were still playing the power game, it's just that the pieces they were using (high ranked spies in large alliances) weren't the same ones as most people play with.

[quote]Or again, they may find such gameplay fun.[/quote]
I'm sure they do (or they wouldn't play that way). But they can only do so because they have enough power to project to keep themselves relevant (for now ).

That doesn't mean that every action should be taken for purely power politics reasons – in fact most alliances don't play that way (I'd say NPO are one of the few that do). For example I've been in one moralist/economic alliance and now another one which takes 'moral' positions at the expense of political capital on occasion (e.g. ZIPP). But it does mean that you can't completely ignore your power base unless you want to become irrelevant fast.

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Masterof9puppets' timestamp='1283710790' post='2442814']
The original purpose of alliances might have been to prevent war, and for most alliances it still is. But there is no reason whatsoever that the purpose of alliances cannot be to go to war with your enemies, with your friends.
[/quote]
That can be an individual purpose of an individual alliance. Still the effect of being in an alliance is the prevention of wars; if you want to have a lot of wars, it's easy. Just leave your alliance, they'll come. If you want, you can even leave with your friends, and lots of wars will probably descend on the lot of you.

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1283902933' post='2445876']
I think you slightly missed the point, which is that even if 'you just want to have fun', 'losing wars can be fun' and so on, you still need to look out for your material strength to get yourself into the position where you can play the way you find fun. The only exception would be if you can still have fun from ZI, but considering that groups who are kept at tiny NS for long periods become ignored on these forums too (think of VietFAN era FAN), that isn't really possible for how most people want to play. (Very few of us want to be irrelevances that are ignored by everyone!)
[/quote]
You're ignoring the basic fact here, which is that nearly all nations who play this game are in fact ignored on these forums. Half the game is at 9K NS or less; do you think they care about power politics?

[Opethian]

I was rolled a long, long time ago. I still cling to my smoking crater of pixes.

[Baldr]

Reps and terms are part of the problem with not as many wars as many of us would like.

After NPO lost Karma, they spent something like 9 months paying reps. During that time, they had a bunch of other rules they had to follow.

TOP is still paying reps from their last war. IRON is still paying reps - and if Gramlins had been able to maintain their "We're superior and you must bow down to us" stance, IRON would still be at war, while owing reps.

When the winners of a war do their best via reps and terms to keep the losing side from recovering, it just takes that much longer before we can have another war, as well as discourages people from taking the risk of going to war in the first place.