Hero's Soapbox

Let's look at it another way, Ragnarok-PC wasn't a separate war from Polar, but it continued because terms couldn't be agreed upon. That is how I see this.

Newsflash, that war ended as soon as VE and Polaris achieved peace.

I know you've spent so long talking out your ass that you have little control remaining over what flows out of it, but please. That was a terrible display of just how loose is your grasp on reality.

In any case, the point isn't to prove "NPO was going to enter", it's me saying "we attacked NPO because we thought they were going to enter" as opposed to "out of the blue attack"

See, this represents a fundamental difference in two lines of thought. When references of an attack for "nothing" or "out of the blue" come up, they deal with the fact that the NPO committed no act in response to which - justly or unjustly - a war was declared. The more accurate term for that is "unprovoked", but veracity tends to blur in this environment.

Of course, every war has a reason. A tech raid has a reason, a war because people are bored has a reason, a war because you don't like the other person's face has a reason. And this war too, has its reason, which mainly revolve around the NPO having power, being in opposition, and thus Doomhouse wanting to remove that situation. Most motives given, whether to "pre-empt" an entry a conflict, to get revenge, to prevent our return to power or the extension of the war because we have not "sustained enough damage", all feed back into that basic premise. And they are not illogical motives either - regardless of what one might believe about ruthlessness or justification, they do follow a course of action that would benefit Doomhouse, at least in the short term.

However, the presence of such motives does not change what most people are criticizing - it just allows for a circular word game. "Out of the blue" does not mean an action without any sort of reason behind it (if it did, no action would ever be out of the blue, because every act has a reason). It simply refers to attacks which do not fit into the conventional "standard" this world has developed of some form of action preceding, and being a trigger for, a war. That lack of a trigger leads to the phrase of the war originating "out of the blue".

So loose, in fact, that I had to go back and double-check just to make sure I wasn't the one hallucinating.

Posted 14 March 2011 - 12:38 AM - Polaris surrenders

Posted 14 March 2011 - 01:36 AM - Ragnarok admits defeat

I guess if you want to get technical it did indeed "drag on" for a whole 'nother 58 minutes, but, you know.

Newsflash, that war ended as soon as VE and Polaris achieved peace.

I know you've spent so long talking out your ass that you have little control remaining over what flows out of it, but please. That was a terrible display of just how loose is your grasp on reality.

If PC had insisted on surrender, it would have continued regardless. I remember after Polar agreed, PC still had to go to RoK to see if "admit defeat" was still acceptable. It wasn't entirely hammered out once that peace was achieved and RoK had given Polar the go ahead to exit. I can just go back to the NSO example if you prefer. It wasn't a fait accompli, moreso that the Polar peace had been stalled.

I love getting that kind of response from the principle asstalker. Good one. You really showed me! Considering you've made substantial factual errors when posting, it's hilarious that you jump on a slight one.

If you entered to preempt Pacifica and thereby assist VE, then why is this war still going? How does grinding Pacifica into dust help VE win the Polar war now that it's over? They won, and you won over here.

No, it's clear that the Polar war was nothing more than the long-awaited excuse to roll NPO. That's the only rationale behind the terms you offered for Pacifica; You're upset that you weren't able to smash into dust every single last one of their nations. So you literally wrote it in as a prerequisite for peace.

I think it's been stated many many times that the war continues because mass use of PM to avoid fighting isn't a precendent Doomhouse wants to become prevelant.

You are being disingenous to imply you have no idea what their reasons are.

I think it's been stated many many times that the war continues because mass use of PM to avoid fighting isn't a precendent Doomhouse wants to become prevelant.

You are being disingenous to imply you have no idea what their reasons are.

It's been prevalent since the the beginning of history, bro. Often to a much larger extent than has been seen in this war. Also, Admin forbid, we might want to use a little strategy and try to hold what precious little ground we can.

I know exactly what their reasons are, because such simple minds are incredibly easy to read. Interpreting a toddler's picture book might pose a bigger challenge.

See, this represents a fundamental difference in two lines of thought. When references of an attack for "nothing" or "out of the blue" come up, they deal with the fact that the NPO committed no act in response to which - justly or unjustly - a war was declared. The more accurate term for that is "unprovoked", but veracity tends to blur in this environment.

Of course, every war has a reason. A tech raid has a reason, a war because people are bored has a reason, a war because you don't like the other person's face has a reason. And this war too, has its reason, which mainly revolve around the NPO having power, being in opposition, and thus Doomhouse wanting to remove that situation. Most motives given, whether to "pre-empt" an entry a conflict, to get revenge, to prevent our return to power or the extension of the war because we have not "sustained enough damage", all feed back into that basic premise. And they are not illogical motives either - regardless of what one might believe about ruthlessness or justification, they do follow a course of action that would benefit Doomhouse, at least in the short term.

However, the presence of such motives does not change what most people are criticizing - it just allows for a circular word game. "Out of the blue" does not mean an action without any sort of reason behind it (if it did, no action would ever be out of the blue, because every act has a reason). It simply refers to attacks which do not fit into the conventional "standard" this world has developed of some form of action preceding, and being a trigger for, a war. That lack of a trigger leads to the phrase of the war originating "out of the blue".

The issue is "out of the blue," has a different connotation. From my perspective, it means it was unconnected to anything else and the context of the political situation(war) did not figure into it. That's why you're right in being a bit more precise.

I think it's been stated many many times that the war continues because mass use of PM to avoid fighting isn't a precendent Doomhouse wants to become prevelant.

You are being disingenous to imply you have no idea what their reasons are.

Ahem-"What's next? For the good of the game, NPO must lose 75% of it's NS so we can't have another war for a year? "

Its for the good of the game folks.

If PC had insisted on surrender, it would have continued regardless. I remember after Polar agreed, PC still had to go to RoK to see if "admit defeat" was still acceptable. It wasn't entirely hammered out once that peace was achieved and RoK had given Polar the go ahead to exit. I can just go back to the NSO example if you prefer. It wasn't a fait accompli, moreso that the Polar peace had been stalled.

I love getting that kind of response from the principle asstalker. Good one. You really showed me! Considering you've made substantial factual errors when posting, it's hilarious that you jump on a slight one.

Also, implying a petty squabble over terminology in what was by any metric a white peace, has ANY similarity to what is going on in this war, is incredibly disingenuous of you. Are you really so deluded that you "see yourself" in the same position PC was with RoK, despite all parallels being nothing more than figments of your wild imagination?

The thing is, you're not denying it. You're saying I can't prove it. I think the things that leaked about NSO before the preempt but didn't come out until fairly recently, coupled with later admissions that they were going to enter on the AZTEC front is enough. I'm not saying I have logs of Cortath saying X. I'm saying NPO was going to have to enter once their allies got involved and attacked. You said it wasn't a question of TPF entering, as well. So TCK, are you going to say you were going to keep NPO out? The way you put it was that "NPO would not enter unless one of its allies was hit," meaning you weren't going with the strong "NPO was not going to enter." Is it too much to say "NPO was going to have to enter, but I don't think you should have attacked them like that?"

In any case, the point isn't to prove "NPO was going to enter", it's me saying "we attacked NPO because we thought they were going to enter" as opposed to "out of the blue attack"

Ok, it seems we have to do this dance yet again. I have told you numerous times already that quite unlike yourself, I do not claim to have precognitive abilities or future-sight. I cannot say for sure one way or the other if NPO would have entered. This is not some admission of guilt on our part like you are making it out to be, it is a simple fact. I can list numerous things that would have had to transpire for NPO to enter. UP to the point you attacked NONE of them did. None of them were even close to happening. There was nothing in any of those super-sekret logs that you apparently take so much stock in that even begins to hint that NPO would be entering the war.

Furthermore I never said for NPO to enter an ally would of had to get hit. What I said was a specific chain of events would have to trigger...an ally would have to enter (none were in the war), said ally would have to be countered (This is not a guarantee if your side was attempting to keep NS off that front...see why Oly was not countered in this war as a prime example of what I am talking about), that ally would have to request assistance, and non chaining clauses would have to be waived. No matter how many times you say it, NSO does not equal NPO and one parties entry does not trigger the other.. Case in point..the last tme NSO got hit in a war that was clearly a losing cause they specifically requested all allies stay out. SO in that the case the precedent set by NSO actually runs completely contrary to the action you assumed they would take in this case if/when they entered.

The bottom line is that you are jumping to a conclusion that at minimum 4-5 steps removed from occurring and claiming absolute knowledge of how certain decisions would be made by parties who never had to make them due to your attack. Furthermore the facts of the layout of the war at the time you hit runs totally contrary to the conclusion you derived from them and you have no corroborating evidence whatsoever to support your claim. So no, there is not much difference between saying that you hit "out of the blue" or "because the tea laves told you they were going to enter the war".

Ahem-"What's next? For the good of the game, NPO must lose 75% of it's NS so we can't have another war for a year? "

Its for the good of the game folks.

People hiding all of their strength and letting their small nations duke it out isn't helping the game either. Based on your last 2 wars, who really cares if NPO takes part, as they just hide their top tier in peace mode.

That's why the terms were set the way they were in karma, that's why you aren't getting off this war without taking some more hits with your dove nations.

Let's look at it another way, Ragnarok-PC wasn't a separate war from Polar, but it continued because terms couldn't be agreed upon. That is how I see this.

Terms were offered to RoK at the same time as Polar where-as we were not given the same opportunity and there-by did not have the choice to accept or reject them like RoK did. That is where your analogy completely breaks down

People hiding all of their strength and letting their small nations duke it out isn't helping the game either. Based on your last 2 wars, who really cares if NPO takes part, as they just hide their top tier in peace mode.

That's why the terms were set the way they were in karma, that's why you aren't getting off this war without taking some more hits with your dove nations.

And look at the results. One major war since Karma. The heaviest reps in the games history. We put them there so we can actually fight at some point in the future. Apparently your side just doesn't want to see that fight at anything resembling even odds.

It's no where close to all of our NS being in peacemode. We lost 5 million NS in the first 10 days.

Why do people like you still wonder why wars don't happen more often? Half of our NS destroyed in a successful "preemptive" strike for a war that is now over seems to be more than enough.

And look at the results. One major war since Karma. The heaviest reps in the games history. We put them there so we can actually fight at some point in the future. Apparently your side just doesn't want to see that fight at anything resembling even odds.

It's no where close to all of our NS being in peacemode. We lost 5 million NS in the first 10 days.

Why do people like you still wonder why wars don't happen more often? Half of our NS destroyed in a successful "preemptive" strike for a war that is now over seems to be more than enough.

They think that the whole game is ruined because they don't get their own personal satisfaction with breaking things.

Protip: This is a politics game, not a war game. By taking heavy-hitters out of the political field for extended periods of time, you damage the game. Durr. But don't take my word for it - just look at the long-term trend in membership numbers.

If this is a political game and not a war game, then their stats are meaningless, and they shouldn't care if they lose them

If this is political and not a war game, 1 month of fighting and then no terms should be the most effcient way to get past the present war and allow them to politic again.

Also the long term trend in membership numbers also coincide with the inflation of nations above 100-200K. Is that the cause? If so, I would suggest that destroying a few more may bring in more players. That is just as likely as the fact that people like you and Haflinger feel the game can't function without the NPO "braintrust" telling you what to do. Get off the teat and find a new master.

Its just absolutely insane that anyone thinks that keeping 800 odd active players in CN at war because of some faux "you aren't damaged enough yet" argument is good for the game. Maybe its good for DoomHouse in the short term because they would destroy our upper tier, but everyone needs an adversary. Their prewar objective was met of denying our intervention on the NpO front, if that was ever a legitimate CB. Everything else is either butthurt or just trying to maximize their uppertier advantage for the next war. Which won't be for a year or more if our uppertier is destroyed. 100k nations don't grow on trees. The nation building and the political element are linked.

Whatever, I'm done here. Yes, I mad.

Keeping 300 in war for 2 years for trumped up soldier count violations is ok for the game.

Keeping 800 at war, because they refuse to accept BETTER terms than the ones given to the first 300 mentioned is bad for the game.

I get it. Carry on.

Yes, I've been a life long proponent of keeping FAN at war and have claimed that was good for the game. After all I was a member of Legion in 2007 so it goes without saying. You, of course, defended FAN at the time. Lets just do it all over again, for old times sake.

I get it. Carry on.

It begs the question; at what point does the NPO consider the marginal benefit of each of its nations obtaining peace to equal the marginal cost of each additional nation being beaten to a pulp (to obtain peace).

It's the NPO's own fault that the peace it once had is no longer worth as much to it now that it must buy that very peace back.

Admin should just add a salt the earth option and let Doom house get on with it.

Having not really participated in CN politics in years, the 'you aren't damaged enough yet' argument sounds like the action of an obsessive more than anything else.

gairyuki, that takes out the variable that the 'seller' of the peace has no incentive to give the peace up. That's why we're in this situation--Doomhouse has perverse incentives because, though they're the seller of the good, in the long run they benefit from not selling the good.

I still hold to the assertion that the NPO would have to enter the war at some point.

You yourself claim that this was because you guys were planning on declaring war on NPO after the VE-Polar conflict if they did not.

In other words, once peace is attained for Doomhouse member alliances, the natural state of things is that you begin planning a war against NPO. What exactly would be different after this war?

Ok, it seems we have to do this dance yet again. I have told you numerous times already that quite unlike yourself, I do not claim to have precognitive abilities or future-sight. I cannot say for sure one way or the other if NPO would have entered. This is not some admission of guilt on our part like you are making it out to be, it is a simple fact. I can list numerous things that would have had to transpire for NPO to enter. UP to the point you attacked NONE of them did. None of them were even close to happening. There was nothing in any of those super-sekret logs that you apparently take so much stock in that even begins to hint that NPO would be entering the war.

Yes, TPF entering was close to happening several times, no?

Furthermore I never said for NPO to enter an ally would of had to get hit. What I said was a specific chain of events would have to trigger...an ally would have to enter (none were in the war), said ally would have to be countered (This is not a guarantee if your side was attempting to keep NS off that front...see why Oly was not countered in this war as a prime example of what I am talking about), that ally would have to request assistance, and non chaining clauses would have to be waived. No matter how many times you say it, NSO does not equal NPO and one parties entry does not trigger the other.. Case in point..the last tme NSO got hit in a war that was clearly a losing cause they specifically requested all allies stay out. SO in that the case the precedent set by NSO actually runs completely contrary to the action you assumed they would take in this case if/when they entered.

They were going to be in the war and it matched the whole "NPO cannot move out now. They must be protected," line and the line about uncertainty in timeline due to wanting certain alliances in position before. Saying that the way the war was going was contrary to predictions is wrong. The reports indicated NSO would not go alone and throw Terra Cotta away if it didn't have support or want it. NSO did not have an obligation to enter, yet was going to in spite of another treaty partner being on the PB side. In the Ragnarok-NSO war, NSO didn't have an option.

The bottom line is that you are jumping to a conclusion that at minimum 4-5 steps removed from occurring and claiming absolute knowledge of how certain decisions would be made by parties who never had to make them due to your attack. Furthermore the facts of the layout of the war at the time you hit runs totally contrary to the conclusion you derived from them and you have no corroborating evidence whatsoever to support your claim. So no, there is not much difference between saying that you hit "out of the blue" or "because the tea laves told you they were going to enter the war".

Already countered this. Given the expectation of NPO not entering early on due to concerns it would harm the overall effort, what would have to happen in order for the layout of the war to be different would be people like Legion and TPF going in right away, rather than stalling out entries or neutrality declarations. The way it was being handled matched the tea leaves precisely. Of course, you're going to say it was a self-fulfilling prophecy because the only way to counter NPO allies holding off would by them entering, but none declared their intent to stay out.

What did happen was TPF began to mobilize and NPO followed suit, which made the preemption happen as it was not going to happen the entire time. The mobilization continued despite it not happening when it was predicted.

You yourself claim that this was because you guys were planning on declaring war on NPO after the VE-Polar conflict if they did not.

In other words, once peace is attained for Doomhouse member alliances, the natural state of things is that you begin planning a war against NPO. What exactly would be different after this war?

I never said it was DH or that DH would be behind it. NPO isn't only disliked by DH. If they didn't enter, it would be natural given that they would not be damaged for people who don't like NPO to go after them.

There wouldn't be much incentive to go after a beaten down opponent afterwards.

"So, it begs the question: If Pacifica and her allies are pre-destined to be smashed to bits again, what difference does it make to us if we just stay smashed to bits in the first place? "

Begging the question is a logical fallacy where you assume that raising a premise makes it true. For example "God exists because the bible tells us so, and we know the bible to be true because it is the word of God", or "GOONS are evil because they're going to commit perma-war against my allies, and we know they're going to do this because of how evil they are"

Indeed, your statement above is a fairly good example of begging the question. You are assuming something without it being in any way proven or demonstrated, and then building your argument on this assumption.

Well done, HoT, you managed to be so wrong that you actually became right again.

It has always been true that a peace settlement will only be accepted if its cost is less than the cost of continuing fighting.

Make peace a peace settlement attractive if you seek peace and make it unattractive if you seek war.