Drive-By Blogging

I think reparations should be deserving of the victor in proportion to the deeds done by the loser. If the loser routinely has done bad by them, then it is okay to ask for a little more than normal, in proportion to what they can easily pay. Harsh reps are a thing of the past, you're right, no one will stand for seeing fairly innocent alliances be asked to pay 1/2 their tech, or countless billions of dollars. And, no matter how bad an alliance may seem, or how bad their actions may seem, they're all fairly innocent when compaired to all other alliances. No alliance is ever free of guilt.

Harsh reps simply strengthen an alliance's hatred for the victor. It doesn't help that the victor is often enough an !@#$%^& in victory, either.

I think reparations should be deserving of the victor in proportion to the deeds done by the loser. If the loser routinely has done bad by them, then it is okay to ask for a little more than normal, in proportion to what they can easily pay. Harsh reps are a thing of the past, you're right, no one will stand for seeing fairly innocent alliances be asked to pay 1/2 their tech, or countless billions of dollars. And, no matter how bad an alliance may seem, or how bad their actions may seem, they're all fairly innocent when compaired to all other alliances. No alliance is ever free of guilt.

Harsh reps simply strengthen an alliance's hatred for the victor. It doesn't help that the victor is often enough an !@#$%^& in victory, either.

I think you also bring up a good point here on the purpose of reps. Is it to prevent rapid rebuilding, allow the victor aid in rebuilding, or is it a punishment for crimes of the past? And in many cases, an alliance in a position to demand overly oppressive reps isn't going to be opposed by many, most likely, so the burden of preventing those harsh reps falls to their allies and fellow victors.

Reparations...

The way I see it is alliances will use their defeated foes to provide tech for their larger tier nations and some tech and mostly cash for their mid to smaller tier nations. Basically, use a defeated alliance as a foreign banker.

Some will do the white peace if the sides are at a stalemate. But on fronts where there are clear winners, reparations will be put to the defeated. All reparations are harsh. Some are harsh, some are harsher, and then you have the harshest. Reparations set back an alliance for months. So they can be very devestating no matter how light some may say the terms are.

I would agree, but I also think that laziness plays a part. It's hard to organize, all those reps and get them going.

I think you also bring up a good point here on the purpose of reps. Is it to prevent rapid rebuilding, allow the victor aid in rebuilding, or is it a punishment for crimes of the past? And in many cases, an alliance in a position to demand overly oppressive reps isn't going to be opposed by many, most likely, so the burden of preventing those harsh reps falls to their allies and fellow victors.

I think the days of reps as punishment/hinderance to rebuilding are over. It's petty to try and extort as much cash and tech as possible out of your opponents when the war is over and they're already at their weakest point. That's not to say reps are a bad thing, but it is petty if your goal is then to crush them and ensure they'll never be the same again, because it just doesn't work. IRON went from 20m NS down to about 5, and within a month or two, back to a sanction.

Reps should be proportional to the grievance, without being petty and underhanded. If you had no problem with the alliance beforehand, let em walk knowing they lost. If you had a slight grievance, ask for a pittance. If you had a major grievance with them before the war, then ask for more, but know that whatever you ask for, whatever you do, will shape the way everyone else looks at your alliance from that point on.

Reps should be proportional to the grievance, without being petty and underhanded. If you had no problem with the alliance beforehand, let em walk knowing they lost. If you had a slight grievance, ask for a pittance. If you had a major grievance with them before the war, then ask for more, but know that whatever you ask for, whatever you do, will shape the way everyone else looks at your alliance from that point on.

What about after GW1, when no harsh reps were imposed, and then that later came to bight the victors in the $@!? If the opponent is still viewed as a threat, are reps not just another form of warfare, or a way to manage your alliance over theirs?

What about after GW1, when no harsh reps were imposed, and then that later came to bight the victors in the $@!? If the opponent is still viewed as a threat, are reps not just another form of warfare, or a way to manage your alliance over theirs?

Different time. The notion that you're going to cripple your enemies by imposing on them the harshest set of reps you can is patently false. The only thing you're going to do is sow the seed of vengeance within that alliance, which is what karma was ultimately about, whether people want to admit that or not. People got their vengeance after years of being held down, and the same will happen to any alliance that wishes to, in an effort to make themselves feel "more secure" give crippling peace terms/reparation demands to their fallen foes.

I'll just add that you saw a lot of white peaces with no reps because most of the people fighting had no bad feelings towards each other. It was more "unfortunately we're getting dragged into this stupid conflict" rather than something more vicious as we've seen in the past.

I think reparations should be deserving of the victor in proportion to the deeds done by the loser. If the loser routinely has done bad by them, then it is okay to ask for a little more than normal, in proportion to what they can easily pay. Harsh reps are a thing of the past, you're right, no one will stand for seeing fairly innocent alliances be asked to pay 1/2 their tech, or countless billions of dollars. And, no matter how bad an alliance may seem, or how bad their actions may seem, they're all fairly innocent when compaired to all other alliances. No alliance is ever free of guilt.

Harsh reps simply strengthen an alliance's hatred for the victor. It doesn't help that the victor is often enough an !@#$%^& in victory, either.

Right, harsh reps do breed resentment against the victor. Not always, but usually. Then again on the other side, white peace doesn't always breed friendship. As we can see here, Ex Hegemony alliances who had gotten white peace in the Karma war are entering this one. Alliances who got relatively light surrender terms are coming into this war. The light surrender terms and white peace from Karma has not changed any friendships, and has enabled certain alliances to remain a threat to others.

The trick is where to draw the line and make fair surrender terms that will be accepted, but prevent the defeated enemy from being able to pose a credible threat to you in the near future.

Right, harsh reps do breed resentment against the victor. Not always, but usually. Then again on the other side, white peace doesn't always breed friendship. As we can see here, Ex Hegemony alliances who had gotten white peace in the Karma war are entering this one. Alliances who got relatively light surrender terms are coming into this war. The light surrender terms and white peace from Karma has not changed any friendships, and has enabled certain alliances to remain a threat to others.

The trick is where to draw the line and make fair surrender terms that will be accepted, but prevent the defeated enemy from being able to pose a credible threat to you in the near future.

But the reason they're coming into this war is because harsh reparations just would not work, anyway. With today's warchests and tech, even if harsh reparations had been demanded and paid, most alliances are efficient enough to have paid them off while rebuilding to a point where they're close, if not already beyond their total strength at the beginning of the karma war.

There needs to be a reason for the reparations, and the victor also needs to show compassion. This war is looking like any other war on most fronts, where the victor is clear, and we're all just waiting for the war to officially end as we know it will. In most cases, the victor isn't taking anywhere near the damages that the loser is, so the loser's ability to pay at the end of the war should be taken into account. So should the victor's state at the end of the war, along with whether there were any grievances with the losing party before the war (again, merely being declared on in defense of another isn't a grievance, but should be expected) and also whether alliances have paid past debts to you already.

Reparations should not be crippling if there is no need to be crippling. Karma war debts, or lack thereof should not be a factor in any reparation demands this time around, because those debts have already been paid, and it is not their fault that some alliances were too stupid to ask for more at that time.

To those fighting IRON now, especially those in SF, they have paid their debts to them already. To those in FAN, they have not. It would be more acceptable of FAN to ask for reparations that were a little above normal (though not greatly above), than for SF alliances to do the same this time around. That's just an example, btw, and doesn't take into account that FAN entered on no treaty. And, despite what FAN wishes, the world is NOT paperless, at least not yet, so their entry without a treaty is a hinderance to any reparation demands they may have. They could ask for a pittance, but anything more would be seen by many as being arrogant and cruel.

Of those alliances fighting now, the only one who could ask for reparations above a pittance, or above white peace at all, would be MK, but not all of CnG. CnG was declared upon, but they are not all deserving of the same amount, or anywhere close to the same amount. Again though, that is not to say MK can ask for anything that would be seen as crippling, just that they could ask for more than others and be justified in doing so.