Ejayrazz's Blog

Again with the baawwing, and tit-for tat drivel, c’mon folks its getting old.

I don’t know about the others, but Checkmate. offered terms commensurate with our loses and the wrongs done against our allies, and by the logical extension of MDPs, ourselves, and which given TSO’s size, remaining warchests and overall activity level, could be easily completed in two months or less, while meeting their other proposed obligations in a timely fashion (maximum of three months overall).

The total amount assessed against TSO is 1300 slots and750 of those can be paid by others. I’ll try to go easy on the stats here, but you’ll find that 1300 slots is easily payable in under three months if TSO do it all themselves (assuming 60% slot utilisation) and in about two months if they make full use of the ability to have others pay, although CnG may not have enough slots for this, necessitating an additional ten days max. Two to two-and-a-half months of reparations (theoretically even less (one-and-a-half if TSO use 80%+ of their slots), especially for an active alliance with solid warchests like TSO is hardly a hardship, and as AirMe pointed out, this is our starting position. Being reasonable individuals we are of course open to counter offers, should our opponents find themselves like-minded. I personally view reps as a ‘price for peace’ and as such, can be commensurate with offsetting further loses, which would have been dealt to the losing party had the war continued (see my response to Stormsend’s blog for a more detailed discussions of the various functions and justifications for reparations). If you don't want to pay reps, either don't start a war, or win it. I can see the case for white peace in certain circumstances, but I do not feel they have been met in this conflict, if you want to disagree, by all means do so, just don't assume that you'll be changing our minds any time soon. We are willing to work with our opponents if they make a reasonable counter offer, or demonstrate factually, why two months or less of reps would represent an inordinate hardship. If that makes us monsters, then so be it.

Did someone say NUTS?

Compare how much tech MK had and how much TOP has.

Compare how much tech NPO had, and how much we had to pay out.

Guess which of those two figures is bigger.

The moral of this story, think really hard before you attack C&G.

Did someone say NUTS?

NUTS!

These are not actually as ridiculous as I had imagined, as a high-ball negotiating position (similar to TOP/IRON's white peace gambit). If we had a week of negotiation and came to a figure around half of this, or a bit less, it would not be unreasonable in my opinion.

I'm not sure why TOP, an alliance of ~200 people, is having more stuff stolen from them that IRON, though.

Regarding proportionality, MK at the time of noCB was 170 members, TOP now is 204, and you're asking for roughly four times as much tech (from TOP) as you (MK) were asked for back then. So the reparation demands are three times worse than Hegemonic. And yes, TOP broke a convention of war by declaring pre-emptively, but so did MK in noCB, going completely nuke-free. Being hypocritcal by only a factor of 1.5 would be more reasonable.

Edit: The no aid is a dirty trick though and is unlikely to be accepted at any stage. Yes, it's been used in the past, but we've all seen how damaging it is now.

And Grämlins, you should be ashamed. Do I need to quote your own Codex at you?

I don't think you'll ever pry tech out of TOP's hands. Lets face it, terms are going to be stiff, but they still can be fair and allow for some form of active growth to commence by the alliances in the meantime.

Why not reps like this:

TOP pays $4.8 billion to IRON.

TSO pays $600 million each to DAWN and TORN.

IRON pays 80,000 tech to C&G.

DAWN pays 10,000 tech to whomever.

TORN pays 10,000 tech to whomever.

The reps are a high number, but it enables TOP and TSO to keep their tech while funding IRON/TORN/DAWN rebuilding, and IRON pays C&G a large reparation of technology while TORN and DAWN pay the rest out. C&G gets massive tech reps.

Also to adjust that for 3/150 wouldn't be bad as well, as IRON/DAWN/TORN really don't lose anything by doing that method, its just a crapload of normal tech deals for them otherwise.

Revised for 3/150:

TOP pays $4.8 billion to IRON.

TSO pays $600 million each to DAWN and TORN.

IRON pays 120,000 tech to C&G.

DAWN pays 15,000 tech to whomever.

TORN pays 15,000 tech to whomever.

And Grämlins, you should be ashamed. Do I need to quote your own Codex at you?

Yes Bob, please do.

Regarding proportionality, MK at the time of noCB was 170 members, TOP now is 204, and you're asking for roughly four times as much tech (from TOP) as you (MK) were asked for back then. So the reparation demands are three times worse than Hegemonic. And yes, TOP broke a convention of war by declaring pre-emptively, but so did MK in noCB, going completely nuke-free. Being hypocritcal by only a factor of 1.5 would be more reasonable.

Anybody else find it funny when Bob starts a paragraph with "Regarding proportionality" and then proceeds to ignore concepts like:

1. The percentage of MK's total tech that was asked for at the time of noCB versus the percentage of TOP's tech asked for now in reparations, and

2. The total amount of damage caused by MK back then versus the total amount of damage caused by TOP in the current war?

I don't even know what the answers are to these two questions, but since they are the most obvious questions to ask, and Bob ignored them completely, I have a feeling proportionately-speaking C&G and company (I suppose that includes myself) are behaving like saints.

These are not actually as ridiculous as I had imagined, as a high-ball negotiating position (similar to TOP/IRON's white peace gambit). If we had a week of negotiation and came to a figure around half of this, or a bit less, it would not be unreasonable in my opinion.

I'm not sure why TOP, an alliance of ~200 people, is having more stuff stolen from them that IRON, though.

Regarding proportionality, MK at the time of noCB was 170 members, TOP now is 204, and you're asking for roughly four times as much tech (from TOP) as you (MK) were asked for back then. So the reparation demands are three times worse than Hegemonic. And yes, TOP broke a convention of war by declaring pre-emptively, but so did MK in noCB, going completely nuke-free. Being hypocritcal by only a factor of 1.5 would be more reasonable.

Bob, while I won't argue with you on the proportionality (I think you are wrong to frame the argument using only membership numbers and 'conventions of war' as your comparative factors), I think it's quite silly to refer to reps as 'stealing'. To steal is to take something to which you had no right without providing valuable consideration for it. You can, argue that nobody has right to request reparations, but I think you'll find there there exists a rather long list of logical and rational points which you can quickly find arrayed against you should you choose to do so, and furthermore, you ignore the fact that by ending the war, the payments of reparations does confer a valuable benefit upon the party who pays it, negating a principle ingredient, of theft, the lack of consideration given by the thief.

Reps are essentially agreement at gunpoint, and if you 'agree' to hand over your wallet because some guy in the street won't stop punching you until you do, it's still theft.

Krack, those points were not raised when giving NPO, an alliance with a much lower tech build than MK had had before it, reps as high as they did. Regarding damage, MK in noCB specifically targeted their nukes where they would do the most damage (nations with high infra and no SDI, and forced several NPO nations into deletion through anarchy collections. MK had around 1500 nukes back then if I remember right, compared to around 3000 TOP ones pre-war, but SDI coverage was much lower so the number of successful hits would probably be around the same. You'd need to get MK and NPO people to find out exactly, of course.

Odin

II. On Reparations

The Grämlins shall not pay reparations for defensive wars and shall not demand reparations for offensive wars.

Nice and simple, explicit and violated. Where did DAWN or IRON declare war on you?

The reps are a high number, but it enables TOP and TSO to keep their tech while funding IRON/TORN/DAWN rebuilding, and IRON pays C&G a large reparation of technology while TORN and DAWN pay the rest out. C&G gets massive tech reps.

I think the whole idea is not to allow TOP to keep their tech.

I suppose CnG plan is to open a big gap in tech between them and TOP&Co, to ensure the upper hand in any future conflict with them that may arise. More or less the same they aimed with NPO reps.

If this is achieved either by reps or by eternal war, it doesn't mind that much to them.

I should point this out, since I've seen it mentioned many times already - total tech is not the best measure of how "nice" reps are.

Let me give you this (simplified) example. You have an alliance with 200 people: the top 100 have an average of 2000 tech (for a total of 200,000) and the bottom 100 have an average of 50 tech (for a total of 500 tech). Now, if you had to pay out 100k in reps, which of the two groups would you rather have do it? The top 100, for whom it is 50% of their tech, or the bottom 100, for whom it is 2000% of their total tech, but who can do cheap tech deals?

Having been subject to such restrictions, I can definitely tell you what my answer would be. Having a 8k tech nation pay out 4k tech is not the same as having a 3k tech nation pay out 1.5k. The amount of tech DOES matter much, much more that the relative tech levels, since it translates into how many slots are being used, how much time it takes to send it out, and how much time it takes to send it back.

Of course, the "proportionality" counterargument would be that setting back an alliance 50% of its tech now is the same than setting it back 50% 2 years ago. However, expressing things in percentages covers up the true picture, as they do not translate into actual equivalence. When you are small, growth is faster, and that holds true in all aspects of our world. You can ask someone with 3k tech to give it all up, and he'd be able to get it back via deals in 5-7 months (5.4 at "perfect" 3m/100 deals); do the same thing for someone at 9k tech, and he'd be trying to get it back for 15-21 months. (And all these numbers are on top of how long it takes to send them out) Of course, there is a certain portion that they could easily buy from their own nation, but that would be a greater proportion for the lesser tech nation than the greater one, further ruining any attempt at "proportionality"

In terms of how much "punishment" is caused to the alliance in question, there is also no equivalence. All alliances (save NPO) have been rising in tech levels, and an alliance losing 100k now would put it in the same position relative to everyone else as it would have been if it lost 100k tech a year ago. In terms of Utility, one piece of tech is no different from the next.

The real issue is that TOP has high tech levels, and that represents a threat because so long as they have that tech, they can inflict significant damage in a nuclear war (like they are doing now). The reps do not achieve anything with regards to some previous proportion, but rather serves the very realpolitic notion of neutering someone who might stand in the winners way, much like NPO has been neutered for years by losing (via war and reps combined) about 1.1m tech. It is a very simple goal -> method -> result process, and has become characteristic of the era of high reps. What we tried to accomplish by taking away an enemy's political ability to be a threat, CnG is accomplishing by removing the technical ability to be a threat. Morality does not really enter into the picture one way or another, except as a PR rallying call by one side to denounce the unprecedented (well, not anymore) nature of this strategy, and by another to portray its "nicety" by trying to equivocate difference and improvement.

Odin

Nice and simple, explicit and violated. Where did DAWN or IRON declare war on you?

They didnt, I never said they did. I thought it would be prudent though to have you quote it. In my opinion we are in an offensive war against Iron and Dawn and were in a defensive one against OG and Zenith, thats who the reps should have been garnished from but Im not gramlins government.

Krack, those points were not raised when giving NPO, an alliance with a much lower tech build than MK had had before it, reps as high as they did.

I don't even know what this sentence means, but I'm fairly certain I don't really care since its protagonist appears to be NPO and they aren't involved in this war at all.

Regarding damage, MK in noCB specifically targeted their nukes where they would do the most damage (nations with high infra and no SDI, and forced several NPO nations into deletion through anarchy collections. MK had around 1500 nukes back then if I remember right, compared to around 3000 TOP ones pre-war, but SDI coverage was much lower so the number of successful hits would probably be around the same. You'd need to get MK and NPO people to find out exactly, of course.

Hmm ... I bet MK's tech levels back then were much, much higher than what TOP's are right now, so their 50% less nukes, proportionately, caused the same amount of infrastructure damage. Right? And I bet that MK's targets 18 months ago had much higher infrastructure levels than TOP's current targets, so that when their nukes hit, it was almost the exact same economic setback, proportionately, as C&G is seeing today. Right? Because otherwise, your entire argument falls apart - and you wouldn't come here with an argument that falls apart that quickly and easily, would you?

Reps are essentially agreement at gunpoint, and if you 'agree' to hand over your wallet because some guy in the street won't stop punching you until you do, it's still theft.

"Reps are essentially agreement at gunpoint, and if you 'agree' to hand over your wallet because some guy in the street won't stop punching you until you do, it's still theft."

Bob,

I'm afraid you don't seem to understand how theft works. You are describing, duress, which doesn't equate to theft. In a war, there are many form of duress, (the attacked wasn't asked by the attacker if they would mind being attacked for example), violations of autonomy, sovereignly, liberty and integrity. Your repeated arguments, present an overly simplistic view of both the role of reparations and one’s right to them, without providing clear, cogent, rational and logically robust reasoning to support your position (if you have please link me to it, because I've not yet seen it)

‘Reparations’ in CN, broadly refers to payments of Cash and or Technology to victorious alliances from those they have vanquished, or the payment of the same to resolve a conflict without resulting to force of arms. They are not theft, they are an agreement which benefits both parties significantly more. Theft is characterized by the lack of valuable consideration given to one party for its goods/services, or a gross and unjust inblance in the consideration provided by each party, which certainly is not the case in any proposed reparations to date, though I think those assessed against TOP and IRON might be on the high side by about 5-10%.

Reparation payments then from a loser, guilty party, or group seeking to avoid conflict for past wrongs, actual or perceived, can be said to fulfill a number of distinct, if necessarily interrelated roles. Generally speaking, any individual in a position to receive, or demand reparations is by definition entitled to receive them (you can argue this is wrong on ethical or moral grounds, and if you want to, please do, but as you and others well know arguments about moral relativism, rarely produce a result all can agree to as such consist have at best a weak foundation in fact, and a more solid grounding on situational, personal and ethno-cultural norms and emotions), and for reasons which should be clear after the true nature of reparations become clear, the relative strength of this entitlement, is almost equal across all parties capable of assessing them for a given conflict, regardless of their manner of entry.

The functions of reparations into several broad categories:

1: ‘damages’ the recovery of losses suffered by the victors as a result of the conflict, regardless of direct causation This is the 'standard' definition of 'reps' and that which probably causes the least headache aside from point 2)

2: ‘restitution’ or the recovery of assets taken by the enemy (especially relevant in cases of tech raids or aid-thieves, but also to a degree in wars of agression) again I would venture to say that even ultra self-righteous moralists would have trouble finding this to be incompatible with their ideas of social justice

3: ’punishment’ a sort of fine for bad behaviour (ie, starting or escalating a war, poor conduct during said conflict, keeping bad company, associative guilt, ect This is more controversial to be sure, but if we look at reps as simply a 'final shot' in a conflict, I think it it's more difficult to argue against them logically as opposed to morally/philosophically

4: ’price of peace’ it is a general proposition of war that a party can attack its opponents until there is simply nothing left to attack, and thus peace is granted at their discretion, for which it is reasonable to charge a price, alternatively one could explain this ground as the ‘final shot’ in the economic element of war. I personally consider this an important element in reparations and one of the reasons, which among some internal dissent I and others in OSA moved towards asking for quite reasonable and low (10% of remaining tech) reparations from TSO.

5: ’dissuasion/deterrence’ if a party knows that they may suffer consequences which would affect their nations (most specifically their ability to rebuild/grow) for a reasonable period after official terminations of hostilities (to say nothing of their diplomatic/political standing) as a result of entering a conflict they will be less likely to do so, unless they are strongly convinced as to the correctness of said course of action, arguably leading to fewer nonsense conflicts.

6: 'incentive' if a party knows that they might be able to recoup some of their loses, or even potentially profit from a conflict, they may be more likely to enter a conflict to provided assistance, than if they saw the war as a zero sum or absolute loss venture.(note this may be seen as at cross purposes with the dissuasive function of reparations, which is true, but life is just full of these sorts of lovely paradoxes isn't now?)

Taking the above into consideration, it would seem to me that it logically follows therefrom that a party who has war foisted upon them, even if their own eventual involvement in a conflict was inevitable, and who subsequently, either because of the fatigue or lack of will of their enemy, or for their superior numbers, or performance on the battlefield, can prima facie demand ‘reparations’ as part of the conditions for the cessation of hostilities. Similarly, a party who of their own choice enter a conflict, for whatever reason, and do so to either their determent or benefit, and who contribute to the conditions which allow the initial party(s) to claim reparations are equally entitled to claim them as said initial parties.

I suggest that it would also follow then, that any reparations to with both sides can agree should be seen as a fair bargain. As many jurists are fond of saying, 'the price is right, if its the price you agreed to pay'. CN has no law, saying one cannot make an unequal bargain, nor is there a presumption that the rights of those in a position of dominance or power must be limited to benefit the small, in fact I would argue the exact opposite principle has always been a driving force in shaping CN both in terms of politics and game mechanics.

Oh jeez, you posted that copypasta here too. Your tl;dr is: if you agree to it, it's fine, however much duress you were under. So, I'm sure you support the noCB reps, GATO not being allowed into peace mode, GPA having permanent terms, wonder decommision etc etc.

Edit: Taking this part to PM/query

Krack, I'm going to ignore you here as I do on the main boards because you're basically unreasonable (in the literal meaning of the term) and you are not representative even of C&G so it's pointless having an argument with you. But as a parting shot, many of those NPO nations were well over 10,000 infra – infra inflation has basically stopped because of the cost at the high end, and as I said in the post you failed to comprehend, NPO's SDI coverage was far lower so the actual nukes landed would have been the same or (accounting for rebuying) even more.

Honestly, expected the reps to be higher. These don't seem that bad, aside from the secondary alliances on the CnG side (i.e. Sparta, Dark Fist, etc.) getting reps. Get rid of those and it's fine.

It might be useful for a number of people to read the books "Getting to Yes" and "Getting Past No". Or read a short summary: Wikipedia article on Getting to Yes

We all know that there will be an agreement to end the war. Some alliances will pay reps to some other alliances. The question is how much reps, in what form.

It seems that this is a matter of looking at precedents, data, history, and other details of past wars and their resulting peace agreements and the reps that wee paid. In the "Getting to Yes" book this is refereed to as "Standards". Both sides have their own standards, and it can take time for each side to present their data, logic, argument and to listen to the other side.

The important thing in my view is to be open to persuasion. Let's be mutually respectful and let the people who are going to do this negotiating get down to business.

By the way, I have been to Bastogne and visited the hotel where the American commander wrote the famous "Nuts" reply.

The difference is that Patton was heading up from the south with the Third Army, while on Planet Bob it seems unlikely that a few fresh alliances will jump into this war.

The moral of this story, think really hard before you attack C&G.

Is that what you got out of this? Seriously, you can only pretend to make this conclusion should TOP et al. accept these terms. Currently, the overwhelming opinion is NUTS.

So the real moral of the story is: Think really hard before offering terms to TOP et al. if you expect them to be accepted.

to anyone insulting ej you really need to grow the hell up. he stated an opinion and left it like that, he didn't call anyone 'immoral' or anything of that nature unlike idiots like wenwilltheisend and others telling him to get off his 'high horse'. the dude is the same ic as he is ooc, he is a leinent person who respects others' opinions do the same. just because he has a way of playing the game doesnt mean you need to agree with it, but it doesnt mean you need to insult him because he is the last one to directly insult others

to the terms, i think they are alright though the time constaints do suck, its part of the game even though i can understand that cycle you were speaking about. people are narrow sighted and must use insulting jabs to better their own egos, but you also need to take into consideration that we all play differently which i really dont need to say to you as u understand that. ej, we will have to agree to disagree, but i am glad you voiced your opinion.

Best of luck to IRON. Keep fighting guys and make them take the tech from your cold, dead hands.

Self-serving encouragement?

Well it looks like for the foreseeable future neither TOP nor CnG will be a threat. If you want to turn this into a vietFAN type situation things can get very messy.

I love these threats from TOP. These terms are hugely better for you guys than a vietFAN type situation. I'll quote a post I made a while ago because I don't know how buried it became in the topic I posted it in.

These arguments only make sense if the # of nations on our side is grossly underestimated. Even if we're losing more per day because of the scenario that doesn't change the fact that our total "nation strength" (I say that in terms of militaristic and economic power, not actual NS) will remain much higher than yours, and your situational advantage is at its peak right now (just getting to 1k infra). At the beginning of the war we were doing relatively equal damage because you had infra to lose. The past week it's been a bit unbalanced because you don't have much infra to lose. However over the next few weeks if terms aren't reached your tech will be whittled down. We have a multitude of nations switching in and out regaining part of their warchests. Sure we're losing more infra, but eventually you'll be at the point where you not only have minimal infra but your tech won't be significant enough to do much damage. We'll still have pretty high tech levels and far more nations which allows us to rebuild with our warchests that aren't being eaten as quickly.

Basically, as far as I can see it, you guys don't get to choose who you can hit, and that's going to be a problem when you're outnumbered 10:1 (or more).

Shahenshah, please stop posting. You are not representing IRON well in this thread and that just burns my bum.