Entry posted by Kyaris
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It is becoming more and more apparent that the GOONS front of the Doomhouse War is finally nearing its end. With this week's surrenders, remaining enemy forces aligned against us are reduced to seven alliances:
New Pacific Order
The Legion
Cult of Justitia
Regnum Invictorum
The Phoenix Federation
Sanitarium
64Digits
Among these, peace mode is prevalent and offensive wars are sparse, with TPF and Invicta being the only forces doing any noticeable fighting whatsoever.
I've posted a number of times alluding to the subject matter of why it does not pay to be an ally of the Hopeless Coalition in this conflict, and I think the current situation showcases this. However, I've decided to post a little more in-depth on why I think this is the case, not just that it is. Inevitably, the reasons are going to be mostly self-evident mechanics and strategic oversights of the Coalition's leadership. Some of this will seem like a rehash of matters already discussed, but with any hope I'll be able to be a little more in-depth on the subject than previously.
There are significant issues with the way this war was managed from a longer-term strategic perspective. The worst of these is the mismatch in ideology and action that has been evident in the morale and propaganda war versus the actual fighting being waged. Originally, the Peace Mode Strategy was announced as a stop-gap to NPO/Legion's allies--a measure by which they could regain their composure, wait for an opportunity, and re-engage at their discretion. It has long since become obvious that this re-entry into conflict in such an aggressive capacity is no longer possible. Doomhouse's terms of surrender highlight this. The cries against how NPO is being forced into having their alliance "decimated" is an unspeakable crime against them only serves to further emphasize that when NPO/Legion implemented their strategy they failed to take this possibility into account that they would never return to the front. More specifically, there is a distinct implication that a case could be made that they in fact never intended to. The argument that NPO and Legion have left their allies to be meat shields for the sake of their escape to peace mode in this conflict has been discussed already. I will leave it aside for now.
Let’s be fairer to the Coalition's leadership and assume another possibility. That is, that when they implemented the peace mode strategy, they did fully intend to re-enter the conflict at a later point with an advantage. I will assume for the rest of this blog post, in more direct terms, that the Peace Mode Strategy was not a smoke screen for the upper tiers to have an excuse to preserve as much of their resources as possible at the expense of others.
There has been much discussion on some of the obvious tactical points; With their primary nations in peace mode, there is insufficient aid going to their nations that are actually fighting. With their primary nations in peace mode, Umbrella is free to act as they please and aid Doomhouse and allied nations that are fighting. With Legion entirely in peace mode, there is less pressure across all nation strength spectrums and thus more ability for Doomhouse forces to coordinate unimpeded in group attacks. With opponents occasionally coming out of peace mode and going back into peace mode, it has been a rather simple matter to fight our opponents two or three on one, one at a time, throughout the course of the war. Our offensive wars have greatly outnumbered our defensive wars in the past few weeks, indicating that we are getting to choose when and where to fight. On a tactical level in this regard, the Hopeless Coalition has horribly mismanaged their forces. Although some of their fighting nations are actually fantastically competent, the Coalition leadership has done a spectacular job of ensuring that they cannot do an effective level of damage or fight with the full economic or numerical support of their allies. Frankly, had NSO, just as a singular example, had the sort of aid-bombing and numerical support that GOONS has had throughout this war, things could have gone drastically differently.
The Peace Mode Strategy had a number of stated purposes aside from the re-entry gambit. Among these, it was presumed that GOONS and to a lesser extent Doomhouse and Pandora would become more fatigued by a war with fewer or no combatants. Without our "griefing" and "lulz" we would become disinterested and morale would swing back in favor of the Coalition. There were two problems with this perspective's rationalization: One, GOONS morale would not have changed as a result of this, we merely would've resumed our normal day to day activities in addition to ensuring that Coalition targets that did stray out of peace mode were dealt with summarily; two, the actions of the Coalition itself rendered this aspect of the strategy useless. After the initial declaration on NPO, the Coalition arranged for the 12 alliance blitz on GOONS. It was rather destructive, admittedly, and is the primary reason why we've lost so much nation strength in this war. The problem with this is that it automatically provided Doomhouse with a very target rich environment through which to express ourselves. The mass exodus to peace mode then gave us only the opportunity to stagger and engage at will any targets that we desired, even as we took significant, but not unrecoverable losses. With enemy forces split more or less half and half war and peace, our advantage of numbers in blitz attacks began to shine through drastically.
What could have been done differently? Had NPO truly wanted to martyr itself in their "just defense" of themselves, it seems that they could have gone the full 9 yards. What would have happened, for example, if NPO had not called in allies, dropped into peace mode, and waited GOONS out? The conditions may have been about the same for surrender, but NPO may have preserved the moral high ground, and also gotten out of this war with the close of the VE-Polar front. In addition, they would not have cost their allies the reparations that they must pay now. The Coalition leadership's strategic blunders have costs these alliances billions in losses and reparations, while 99% of Legion's NS sits in peace mode, and a large percentage of NPO's does the same. This combined firepower and financial aid that was never implemented and never used would have been enough to ZI both GOONS and MK twice over, and although they would have lost the war in the end to Umbrella, the cost of victory would have been so great that we would have weakened Doomhouse on the inter-alliance stage significantly.
This conclusion is one that I sincerely believe: The Hopeless Coalition's loss in this war is a device of their own making. Technical defeat was inevitable, but making it just as large a loss for Doomhouse as it was for them was a possibility, and they have unwittingly shirked it through a series of tactical and strategic blunders. New Pacific Order's megalomaniac tendencies are to assume that everything is about them and them alone, and their subsequent exodus to peace mode and lack of coordination with their allies was a costly mistake. Their reliance on their own relevance as a protection from harm and assurance of the moral right was fallacious, and this loss reflects poorly upon their ability, leadership, and diplomatic ties.
Kyaris
Commander, Squad S
Company A
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