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Economics and the Price of Peace


HeroofTime55

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This war has been going on for quite some time now, and it has begun winding to a close. Some alliances have agreed to terms and have existed from the DH-NPO war, while others remain in a state of hostilities, with steep offers of peace on the table.

Many have tried to justify these terms as 'totally reasonable' and have analyzed the numerical aspect in great detail, sometimes honestly and sometimes not so much. But always, when attempts are made to justify them, one thing has been consistently ignored by those who we oppose: What are we, the allies and friends of Pacifica (and of course, Pacifica herself) going to get in this deal?

It's an easy thing to ignore; Throughout history, the answer to that question has been so obvious that it never needed to be asked in the first place: By "paying" whatever price is in the surrender terms, you are "purchasing" peace. So why does it need to be brought up now?

The key thing, from the perspective of Pacifica and her allies, is of course whether or not making the sacrifices demanded is worth what we will get in return. What complicates this question, is the actions and statements from those offering to sell us peace, and the way in which their trustworthiness has been irreparably damaged by those actions.

As it stands, this war was began over, literally, nothing. Doomhouse aggressively attacked Pacifica without provocation or justification, out of the blue. It was a random act of violence. In the past, wars have been structured like so: X commits an offense against Y, and Y gathers a coalition to smash X to bits. But here, there was no offense, this war is not retaliatory for any action. This presents a problem: If DH is willing to attack us whenever it pleases them to do so, what is to stop them from doing so in the future?

Indeed, the very words of Doomhouse indicate that they have every intent and desire to attack Pacifica and her allies again. From their Declaration onwards, they have been making this out to be some sort of "tactical operation" to "put NPO down" because they have gotten too strong for their tastes. Even the battle cry of "Everything must die" screams this loud and clear. And this only adds to a year of intense efforts by various parties to drag Pacifica into a war prior to current events.

In short, if Pacifica "pays" to get peace, if any of us do, there is no guarantee that it will last, in fact there are strong indications that NPO is just going to get smashed again when they have made too much progress rebuilding, when those at the top of the New Hegemony decide it's time to put down NPO again, and they've already demonstrated that they are willing to do so on nothing more than a whim.

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? The difference it makes is that we get to dictate our own strategy, we get to cause as much harm as we can to our oppressors, and our oppressors do not get the benefit of rebuilding on our paycheck.

What Doomhouse is offering to sell us is not peace, but a brief pause in hostilities, hostilities which are sure to resume whenever Doomhouse feels like it. They've demonstrated the desire, capacity, and will to carry out such an attack. There is no reason why anyone should not fully expect it to happen again in the future. Only a fool would think that there is any hope for a truly lasting peace.

And that is what makes the price far, far too high. It is a simple matter of economics. We know what you're selling us, we know it isn't what you pretend it to be, as proven from a multitude of factors, and we know it isn't worth the price you ask.

Why should we bend over, let you beat us into the dirt and then hand over our lunch money, when we know you're just going to come back for more? In fact, giving a schoolyard bully what he wants only encourages him to repeat his actions.

This point of discussion is something I have never seen any member of the aggressive side touch even with a pole of considerable length, minus perhaps a handful of snide remarks and assorted drivel we've all come to expect from "lulz"-type alliances. No serious discussion, not even a hint of a counter-argument, whenever it is brought up it is ignored with extreme diligence.

And that's why I will raise this point again, and I will raise it again and again to expose the situation for what it is, until this war finally comes to an agreeable close.

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"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.

Actually, I provided ample rationale to support the fact that you (or someone on your side) is just going to smash us again at the next opportunity. But feel free to cherry pick quotes, remove them from their context, and then proclaim that I'm wrong.

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I will state that I was rather incorrect in my choice of words, though.

Many English speakers assume "beg the question" means "raise the question" and use it accordingly: for example, "this year's deficit is half a trillion dollars, which begs the question: how are we ever going to balance the budget?" Most commentators deem such usage incorrect.

Actually feel sort of silly for that blunder.

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I enjoyed the read but the time for justifications has passed. Both sides are firm in their reasoning and issued statements that neither can retract. To do so would otherwise signal defeat from one side and non relevancy for the other. Let us see this through and let faith decide the outcome.

Pacifican soldier

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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?

You are aware that 2012 is after the VE-NpO conflict right? At no point have I see anyone, from lowliest footsoldier to Archon himself claim that it would be immediate war against NPO once the current (at the time) conflict was over. NPO will always be a target for some people based on their past behavior towards those other parties and their friends.

Who's to say what the planning for that war would entail? I, personally, am always planning for war. Importing tech, maintaining alliance relationships, watching, waiting. This does not mean that war is imminent, just that competent people are well prepared.

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Actually, I provided ample rationale to support the fact that you (or someone on your side) is just going to smash us again at the next opportunity.

First up: no, you asserted this several times, but you didn't provide any reason to accept your assertion

Second of all, "Us"? Who exactly do you claim to be speaking for?

Third, if we were just looking for the "opportunity" to smash "you" up, wouldn't we have taken it back when you and Schattenmann tried to manufacture a war against us in fall 2010?

The truth is, hero, and this will be hard for you to accept, you're entirely insignificant. Until you involved yourself in this war, nobody gave the slightest damn about you, and once you disappear again nobody will remember you.

I know you want to be a big man and a major player, but you're actually a puffed up microalliance leader with a napoleon complex and absolutely no tactical or strategic skill. You're not a freedom fighter, you're not a Great Communicator, you're a boring loudmouth who insists on making any largescale situation somehow about himself despite the fact that nobody anywhere cares.

So make another blog post, reply huffily to another thread on the forums, hatch plots that go nowhere on IRC. Nobody cares or ever will care about anything you do in this game, you boring, boring little man.

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NPO compared to other alliances has been damaged substantially less and the fact that they have been able to keep much of their NS in pm for the entirety of the war makes it hard to say that they've been definitively defeated.

Losing nearly 60% (and rising) of NPO's pre-war NS is substantially LESS damage than other alliances? You mentioned NpO and STA. Fine, let's look at them. From in game alliance charts.

NpO was at 3,515,451 on the day of their surrender March 13. They had 12,276,123 on January 17 (data from Henry's link) before the war started. [sorry, used data from the wrong date for NpO and STA. Fixed)

(Pre-war Stats - Post War Stats)/Pre-war Stats = (12,276,123 - 3,515,451)/12,276,123 = 71.36% loss in NS.

STA was at 1,497,913 on the day of their surrender March 11. They had 4,617,519 on January 20 (day VE declared war on STA) (data from Henry's link) before the war started.

(Pre-war Stats - Post War Stats)/Pre-war Stats = (4617519 - 1,497,913)/4,617,519 = 67.56 loss in NS.

Now, let's comparing that to NPO's stats:

Pre-war Stats: 16655484

Stats Now: 6,684,521

(Pre-war Stats - Post War Stats)/Pre-war Stats = (16,655,484 - 6,684,521)/16655484 = 59.86% loss in NS.

Of the 2 alliances you mentioned and NPO, NpO has suffered the most loss in NS with a difference of about 11.5% more than NPO at this time. Averaging out the losses by STA and NpO, that's an averaged percent loss in NS of 69.46%, a ~9.6% difference from NPO's loss. Sorry for the screwups in using the wrong data points.

Now, what does that ~10% in NS difference mean for NPO exactly? It would mean for NPO to match the averaged losses of NpO and STA, NPO would need to hit 4,996,645 NS, a difference of 1,687,876 NS, about the same as ZI/ZT/ZL the top 16 or so nations in NPO or slightly more practically, something like the top 20 or so would need to be flatten at war (since getting ZT for some of them would definitely take too long), or even more practically, more or less ZI/ZT'ing the top ~90 to 100 NPO nations currently in war mode (give or take, which is roughly ~1/3 of the alliance in war mode right now). This makes no adjustments for higher NS nations in peace mode for whatever reason.

Is it even doable? Considering that on the low end of the top 100 NPO nations in war mode sitting at around ~3.5k NS or so (top end ~30k NS),

Again, sorry for the screw up in numbers.

You are likely to make the claim that NPO has stuck their "upper tier" in peace mode the whole time and hence as an alliance, they have not "suffered" as much as STA and NpO. Fine, let's take a look at this claim as well.

NPO has 27 members right now above 70k NS (within the definition that upper tier = 70k NS or higher) with a member count of around 500. Based on member counts alone, NPO has an upper tier to alliance ratio of 5.4%. If we modify the definition to 50k NS or higher, NPO has 42 members above 50k NS, a ratio of 8.4%

NpO has 7 members above 70k NS at this time with a member count of around 336. Based on member counts alone, NpO has an upper tier to alliance ratio of 2.1%. NpO has 17 members above 50k NS, a ratio of 5.1%.

STA has 2 members above 70k NS at this time with a member count of around 86. Based on member counts alone, STA has an upper tier to alliance ratio of 2.3%. STA has 5 members above 50k NS, a ratio of 5.8%.

Without taking events that have taken place in the recent past (ie, within the last year or so), it looks like NPO has a "bigger" upper tier compared to NpO and STA. HOWEVER, this does not consider that back near the beginning of 2010, both NpO and STA were involved in Bipolar that ended at around April 2010 while NPO was not. How long would you say it takes to build/rebuild a nation up to 70 to 80k NS, the bare minimum that some have suggested as the limit for being upper tier? A year? A year and a half? 2 years?

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

I have been over this before but we will do it again

The only ally we had in was STA. STA was hit by 3 alliances prior to your attack on NPO

wF hit them first and were countered by NV thus negating our need to enter on them

Brig was the the 2nd to hit them. They were also MDoAP with TOOL at the time, which basically negated out ability to counter due to our unwillingness to put tool in that position. (A problem, as should be noted, that NSO did not have..thus their more urgent conversation about entering)

Argent was the 3rd counter.At the same time they entered we also got word that your pre-emptive attack was coming and we were in getting ready on our end for that eventuality.

Furthermore TPF (or basically anyone else still fighting this war) were never in Polar milcom chans or were involved in any way shape or form with the planning and entry points for alliances on that front. This should run contrary to any standard thoughts or warning flags you would have about our entry taking place.

So basically no, you are wrong.

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.

I am not even sure where to start with this it is so twisted. First off I have wondered for a while now if the intel you are relying on was presented to you in the exact same fashion that your agent provocateur leaked it onto the forums. That was a cut and paste job of epic proportions from various logs and covos that occurred in no way even remotely close to the linear timeline they were presented in in that post in world affairs. The NPO cannot move out now line that you seem to put so much stock in came fom a conversation that took place the night it was found out Polar was going to be hit...BEFORE VE even attacked them. So of course it was not time for them to move out...the damn war had not even started yet. This was not some super sekret long reaching mil-com strategy, it was the feelings of one individual (who does not have the power to make the final calls for their alliance) on the eve of the opening of the polar front, that if and when the war escalated, NPO and it's friends did not deserve to get roped and chained into fighting a war over Polar, an alliance they had no ties to or working relationships with. That is all it was and all it ever was.

As far as Terra Cotta goes, i have no idea how bringing them up is even remotely related to the topic at hand. The remaining signatories are not even remotely tied to NPO in any other way aside from the NSO treaty. Once again, if you have some sort of logs between NSO and NPO gov saying that NSO is entering on a certain front, requesting back-up should they be countered, and NPO agreeing, then I would say you have the beginnings of a valid claim. We both know you do not have anything close to this. Which once again makes the point made in regards to the RoK war valid. The point had nothing to do with NSO having control ofer getting hit in that war (which obviously they did not) but rather exercising the chaining clauses in their treaties and requesting they not be brought into a losing war on the behalf of a decision they made. This once again would have been a very similar situation given, as you mentioned, the lack of formal paper between nso and sta.

Basically what you are doing here is selective data mining. You started with a foregone conclusion and have consistently done nothing aside from try to pick out certain pieces of data that support the conclusion you had already arrived at. It is why a 2 sentence log taken totally out of context and timeframe from a conversation happening before this war even kicked off can be twisted and used as reasoning for a grand military strategy by NPO. If you had the rest of those logs then you would know damn well what the discussion was entailing, and therefore you are purposefully editing down the content to try to use it in a context that was never there. The other option is that someone did pass you along a 2 sentence snippet from a convo, and rather that vetting the information in any way shape or form, you took it as some kind of sign from the gods that your pre-conceived notions were correct. There are no other options here aside form those 2 and neither reflect all that well on you, so I still do not see why you continue to bring this subject up.

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.

Once again, you are wrong. I know it is convenient for you to peddle this line as well, but your talks and planning on pre-empting NPO took place well before we started bulking up. In fact they are the exact reason we did start bulking up rather than being caught with our pants down.

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I have been over this before but we will do it again

The only ally we had in was STA. STA was hit by 3 alliances prior to your attack on NPO

wF hit them first and were countered by NV thus negating our need to enter on them

Brig was the the 2nd to hit them. They were also MDoAP with TOOL at the time, which basically negated out ability to counter due to our unwillingness to put tool in that position. (A problem, as should be noted, that NSO did not have..thus their more urgent conversation about entering)

Argent was the 3rd counter.At the same time they entered we also got word that your pre-emptive attack was coming and we were in getting ready on our end for that eventuality.

Furthermore TPF (or basically anyone else still fighting this war) were never in Polar milcom chans or were involved in any way shape or form with the planning and entry points for alliances on that front. This should run contrary to any standard thoughts or warning flags you would have about our entry taking place.

So basically no, you are wrong.

It doesn't mean anything to say TPF wasn't in any chans. The channels for that side were fairly limited in scope and NV wasn't in them, either. You had another ally in by the time of preemption. I can confront you with something that runs counter to your claims in private.

I am not even sure where to start with this it is so twisted. First off I have wondered for a while now if the intel you are relying on was presented to you in the exact same fashion that your agent provocateur leaked it onto the forums. That was a cut and paste job of epic proportions from various logs and covos that occurred in no way even remotely close to the linear timeline they were presented in in that post in world affairs. The NPO cannot move out now line that you seem to put so much stock in came fom a conversation that took place the night it was found out Polar was going to be hit...BEFORE VE even attacked them. So of course it was not time for them to move out...the damn war had not even started yet. This was not some super sekret long reaching mil-com strategy, it was the feelings of one individual (who does not have the power to make the final calls for their alliance) on the eve of the opening of the polar front, that if and when the war escalated, NPO and it's friends did not deserve to get roped and chained into fighting a war over Polar, an alliance they had no ties to or working relationships with. That is all it was and all it ever was.

Basically, the strategy made sense. Having NPO come out early would be injurious to the coalition effort especially since there would be no further support once they and their allies were in. It was corroborated by the "It would be a trap if NPO entered." What I am referring to is the general desire to go all out or not go in at all which the NSO seemed to have from what leaked. There would be no point in them going out and getting their own bloc killed without support.

As far as Terra Cotta goes, i have no idea how bringing them up is even remotely related to the topic at hand. The remaining signatories are not even remotely tied to NPO in any other way aside from the NSO treaty. Once again, if you have some sort of logs between NSO and NPO gov saying that NSO is entering on a certain front, requesting back-up should they be countered, and NPO agreeing, then I would say you have the beginnings of a valid claim. We both know you do not have anything close to this. Which once again makes the point made in regards to the RoK war valid. The point had nothing to do with NSO having control ofer getting hit in that war (which obviously they did not) but rather exercising the chaining clauses in their treaties and requesting they not be brought into a losing war on the behalf of a decision they made. This once again would have been a very similar situation given, as you mentioned, the lack of formal paper between nso and sta.

See above.

Basically what you are doing here is selective data mining. You started with a foregone conclusion and have consistently done nothing aside from try to pick out certain pieces of data that support the conclusion you had already arrived at. It is why a 2 sentence log taken totally out of context and timeframe from a conversation happening before this war even kicked off can be twisted and used as reasoning for a grand military strategy by NPO. If you had the rest of those logs then you would know damn well what the discussion was entailing, and therefore you are purposefully editing down the content to try to use it in a context that was never there. The other option is that someone did pass you along a 2 sentence snippet from a convo, and rather that vetting the information in any way shape or form, you took it as some kind of sign from the gods that your pre-conceived notions were correct. There are no other options here aside form those 2 and neither reflect all that well on you, so I still do not see why you continue to bring this subject up.

As I said, the strategy of not chaining NPO in early on was employed. Legion not going in despite a direct hit on their ally supports it. I bring it up because it continues to be disputed as to why the NPO was attacked.

Once again, you are wrong. I know it is convenient for you to peddle this line as well, but your talks and planning on pre-empting NPO took place well before we started bulking up. In fact they are the exact reason we did start bulking up rather than being caught with our pants down.

Prove it. If all you can do is point to banter onn the part of MK members, then you don't have a case. I did not want to preempt if an entrance could happen earlier. Hence why it didn't occur when you started planning for it. It was not a first line option and was not decided upon until maybe a day and half before.

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STA has 2 members above 70k NS at this time with a member count of around 86. Based on member counts alone, NpO has an upper tier to alliance ratio of 2.3%. STA has 5 members above 50k NS, a ratio of 5.8%.

NOW STA has that. We left them with 1 nation at 71K (who refused to leave pm and has since been ejected and deleted) and no one else above 40K. All these nations have rebuilt to have 1 nation above 40K. Also STA had 95+ nations at the time of surrender. So roughly 1% of their nations were above 40K

Just FYI.

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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.

NPO was beaten down by Karma (losing more NS than any other alliance has ever lost in the history of the game), and you guys seemed to have plenty of incentive to go after them anyway.

So as I said: What's supposed to be different this time?

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NOW STA has that. We left them with 1 nation at 71K (who refused to leave pm and has since been ejected and deleted) and no one else above 40K. All these nations have rebuilt to have 1 nation above 40K. Also STA had 95+ nations at the time of surrender. So roughly 1% of their nations were above 40K

Just FYI.

Thank you for that little nugget of information. That makes things worse for STA, meaning no upper tier at all at all by the end of the war.

The war also started on the 17th for NpO, not the 24th.

Sorry for that little mixup. I've double checked my post and adjusted the stats accordingly for both NpO and STA (had the wrong dates for both of them).

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Prove it. If all you can do is point to banter onn the part of MK members, then you don't have a case. I did not want to preempt if an entrance could happen earlier. Hence why it didn't occur when you started planning for it. It was not a first line option and was not decided upon until maybe a day and half before.

Seems like a silly strategy to only "preempt" once you're certain the target alliance isn't going to enter on it's own.

In fact, one could argue that it wasn't even a preemptive strike at all.

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Stopped reading here. Melodrama is not the answer to everything.

I stopped reading at that point as well.

There was no conventional CB but that doesn't mean that there weren't any reasons at all, and anyone claiming the latter is either stupid or trying to deceive the stupid.

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Oh there were reasons. It just that the reasons defined in Archon's DoW were mainly about being butthurt for years, plus something about STA and NpO wanting to keep us out of the war altogether. People just aren't satisfied with that being the official "CB". The whole preemptive strike thesis put forward by Roq was made after the fact. The real reason we're still at war is because Doom House wants a near monopoly on top tier nations. In effect, DH wants to go ahead and put themselves in an advantageous position for the next war. The NpO-VE war this was allegedly connected to is over but someone forgot to tell the talking heads on the forum. There probably won't be another large war for a year or more with this strategy, but hey, they're playing for the longterm.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

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Thank you for that little nugget of information. That makes things worse for STA, meaning no upper tier at all at all by the end of the war.

Also, I would look at % of NS in upper tier (and PM, by extension) rather than % of members.

71K out of 1.4 million is about .5% of their NS

3.5 million out of 6.6 million of NPO's top tier is still existing and in pm. This would be over 50% of their NS. Big difference

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Also, I would look at % of NS in upper tier (and PM, by extension) rather than % of members.

71K out of 1.4 million is about .5% of their NS

3.5 million out of 6.6 million of NPO's top tier is still existing and in pm. This would be over 50% of their NS. Big difference

Are you just being initially obtuse now? The war started with us over 16 million. That means it accounts for roughly 22% of our prewar strength. People lose NS during wars. The war is still going because 78% of our alliance's NS at war, with a large proportion of that being destroyed, isn't enough.

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Basically, the strategy made sense. Having NPO come out early would be injurious to the coalition effort especially since there would be no further support once they and their allies were in. It was corroborated by the "It would be a trap if NPO entered." What I am referring to is the general desire to go all out or not go in at all which the NSO seemed to have from what leaked. There would be no point in them going out and getting their own bloc killed without support.

...

As I said, the strategy of not chaining NPO in early on was employed. Legion not going in despite a direct hit on their ally supports it. I bring it up because it continues to be disputed as to why the NPO was attacked.

So you're saying NPO was preempted because DH didn't want everyone else on their side to commit to the war and then have NPO jump in last, right? It wasn't because DH believed NPO was about to declare on either them or their allies at that moment but just further down the line they might join the fight once everyone else was involved.

If that is the case then why even attack them? DH could have just as easily stayed in reserve, ready to counter NPO if they should jump in. NPO thus would not be able to enter the war last and steamroll in unopposed. It's not like DH's allies on the NpO front were getting trashed or that numbers down the line looked bad for them.

Others will of course argue with me but I don't see the threat from NPO as imminent and certain and thus not even worth considering a preemptive strike. In this case deterrence would have worked as well if not better than attacking NPO.

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Seems like a silly strategy to only "preempt" once you're certain the target alliance isn't going to enter on it's own.

In fact, one could argue that it wasn't even a preemptive strike at all.

We weren't certain and that's the entire point. If we were certain, it wouldn't have made sense.

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So you're saying NPO was preempted because DH didn't want everyone else on their side to commit to the war and then have NPO jump in last, right? It wasn't because DH believed NPO was about to declare on either them or their allies at that moment but just further down the line they might join the fight once everyone else was involved.

If that is the case then why even attack them? DH could have just as easily stayed in reserve, ready to counter NPO if they should jump in. NPO thus would not be able to enter the war last and steamroll in unopposed. It's not like DH's allies on the NpO front were getting trashed or that numbers down the line looked bad for them.

Others will of course argue with me but I don't see the threat from NPO as imminent and certain and thus not even worth considering a preemptive strike. In this case deterrence would have worked as well if not better than attacking NPO.

They'd still have to enter at some point and dragging it out was not seen as being beneficial. For example, once NPO and co.'s upper tiers were wrecked, the plan was for upper tiers to move to AZTEC if it dragged out. There was also the possibility of declaring on GATO to relieve GOD and RIA as the upper tiers weren't being covered adequately. The preempt would likely not have been needed if NV did not enter on the Polar side, as it would have allowed for STA to be countered, which at some point would have resulted in TPF's entry. If NV does not join the Polar side, then the original plan to have Athens a immediately counter STA would have gone through. It didn't go through because NV threatened to attack Athens. NV on the basis of not allowing effective counters on STA and attacking before TPF did functioned as a shield for TPF/NPO.

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I didn't really read past the first line, but it's true! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks, HoT.

Who the hell is this newbie who keeps claiming that I am imitating him? GONS, I demand answers :mad:

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They'd still have to enter at some point and dragging it out was not seen as being beneficial. For example, once NPO and co.'s upper tiers were wrecked, the plan was for upper tiers to move to AZTEC if it dragged out. There was also the possibility of declaring on GATO to relieve GOD and RIA as the upper tiers weren't being covered adequately. The preempt would likely not have been needed if NV did not enter on the Polar side, as it would have allowed for STA to be countered, which at some point would have resulted in TPF's entry. If NV does not join the Polar side, then the original plan to have Athens a immediately counter STA would have gone through. It didn't go through because NV threatened to attack Athens. NV on the basis of not allowing effective counters on STA and attacking before TPF did functioned as a shield for TPF/NPO.

You know, when your two major selling points are "They were going to enter, we needed to preempt them!" and "They weren't going to enter, but we couldn't let them escape RIGHTEOUS VENGEANCE ARGH!," well, there's just a bit of a problem.

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I have never advocated the latter. I said merely Nueva Vida unexpectedly going against VE caused any entry on TPF's part to drag out. If NV does not join the Polar side, the pressure for STA to call in TPF early on would be there. On the other hand, Ragnarok not turning on VE(given Ragnarok's initial decision not to enter, which was the basis for VE calling in PB alliances), the STA front does not become as problematic as PC is able to absorb STA, making the VE counter declaration along with Brig and possibly RIA(who wouldn't have needed to attack SLCB in that situation) enough to force the issue. In fact, Ragnarok's stance change occurred on the same day as NV's, so it could have been a cacascading effect, but the overall strategy of "gaining as many alliances as possible" before using the more valuable cards had worked.

If NPO had clearly zero intentions of ever entering the war and had closed it off as an option via some sort of official declaration, then there would be no point in attacking them at that point in time, as their unpopularity would continue to grow because of the "so called" escape and they would be the focus of everyone's hatred and would be subject to a much a larger future curbstomp. In effect, it made zero sense for NPO to rule out an entry. There is no magical "If NPO is able to escape the Polar war, everyone will like them and they will not get killed" that went on. They would still be the same hated alliance.

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