It is interesting when you think about it, LUE has never been able to win a planned war. Go back to the First Great War. Following a LUEicide it looked pretty grim for LUE. Various alliances were moving to cancel treaties with LUE and it looked like LUE would be left pretty much isolated diplomatically and then crushed by the NPO. Luckily for LUE, Tygaland lost his head and declared war prior to treaties expiring, thus ensuring some of LUE’s MDPs still kicked in and the defeat of the Orders.

Fast forward rapidly through GWII and GWIII. The Initiative set the tempo for those wars, hitting the South Web are times of their picking, most notably in GWII which led to LUE’s destruction. GWIII of course was a planned attack on GATO.

The next time a force, led by Mushroom Kingdom (founded by LUE refugees), managed to beat the Pacfica came in the Karma War when the NPO had another case of preemptive attack syndrome and stupidly hit Ordo Verde. It of course helped that Pacifica had pretty much stabbed her best allies in the back, going to the point of turning its back on the sister Order of Polaris. The LUE refugees today of course are one of the leading powers in C&G these days.

Now as the TPF War evolves, it basically comes down to the old strategy of hoping people do something dumb. One alliance representing Superfriends hit TPF, as did one alliance representing C&G. The trolling from Karma 2.0 began instantly, calling TPF’s MDP partners cowards for not jumping in. If the Supercomplaints coalition was truly interested in punishing TPF for spying, as opposed to making a global power play, they should have been thrilled that TPF was left undefended. After all this is a just war on behalf of Supercomplaints right? They’re not war mongers, they don’t want to beat down the opposing block, they just want to live happily ever after and punish those who spy upon them. The NPO was the evil empire that tried to pick off alliances on the other side, Supercomplaints is a good neighbor, or so the PR sheets read.

Or perhaps we’re seeing hope of a repeat of the premature war strategy. If IRON had taken the bait and rushed in to defend TPF then various Supercomplaints alliances came in. A day or two after IRON came in, then perhaps TOP would follow its treaty with IRON and come in, giving Supercomplaints a shot at TOP. If the defenders of TPF were dumb enough to feed themselves piecemeal into a meat grinder then things would have gone swimmingly for Supercomplaints.

Instead though what is happening is more of a repeat of the Initiative or Continuum era. The side opposing Supercomplaints is building massive coalition. The announcement form NATO/TOP/IRON, with the second post in the thread being an endorsement by the NSO, is basically an announcement saying CDT, Citadel and Frostbite are now all in the anti-Supercomplaints camp.

More importantly it brings a different dynamic to treaty web activation. RoK is extremely well tied to the web, yet if and when TOP and IRON hit RoK, they do so with the casus belli “RoK Spied Upon us”, as opposed to “In defense of TPF.” This plays a major role in determining how the web triggers. Alliances like Polaris, blockmates with NSO but also tied to RoK, can now say “Our treaty with RoK doesn’t trigger due to espionage, we’re honoring our defensive pact with the NSO.” Rather than trying to rally people to the flag of “Defend TPF”, the leaders of the anti-Supercomplaints group will rally people to the flags of “We were spied upon” and “Supercomplaints is acting just like the Hegemony, trying to pick people off.” Another interesting trigger in the web is the TOP -> Gramlins -> MHA line that can occur when the web kicks into motion.

What will happen now is the diplomats for Frostbite, CDT and Citadel will make their rounds to alliances with treaties to both sides and do their best to convince those alliances to see the counterattack as a response to RoK spying and thus support the Cit/Frostbite/CDT side when they activate a treaty. This side will of course also sell the fact they have three major blocks, plus IRON, thus looking more likely to win. This is of course important since a lot of alliances on fight when they know they can win. If the anti-Supercomplaints side hits critical mass on numbers it helps ensure certain alliances will have a spine when it comes time to honor MDoAPS, plus it potentially reduces the Supercomplaints bandwagon.

As a final note on strategy, every day Supercomplaints 80k+ nations are peaced out is another day their tax collections are reduced, thus making their warchests / wonder purchases slow in comparison to the Cit growth. Everyday Supercomplaints sits in peace they slow their growth rate, giving Cit a further edge in the upper ranks.

The war has begun, economic warfare and diplomatic plays have begun, making this an alliance gov vs alliance gov war. Sooner or later the shooting will start, thus sating the rest of us.