A Neutral's Blog

I just spent 15 minutes typing out a long response, only to get a "no permission" thing from the forum. Sorry, jerdgy.

EDIT: In short, CBs used to serve the purpose of political justification for a war. IMO, the definition of a CB is an action committed by the defending alliance which allows the attacking alliance to assert that the defending alliance committed the first aggressive or unconscionable act and thus should be the one held responsible for the war. What a good CB really does is give alliances who do not want to defend the defending alliance a chance to save their skins without facing too much embarrassment. The inverse is also true with bad CBs (see: Karma War). Now, however, the political dynamic of PR in CN has been lost because all that remain here are the partisan core members of alliances, meaning that no amount of logic or good posting is going to sway the fate of an alliance or war over time.

In my short time here I think I have seen the valid/invalid CB play an important role in the way people act and what people do. The trouble is you have to be patient to see it. The way I see it can be crudely described as follows;

Every alliance in the game has a certain amount of points. These points are added to by its popularity, treaty partners, its own power etc. They are lost due to unpopularity, unreliable partners and poor ability to fight war. To win a war those at the top need to have more points than those at the bottom to beat them.

If an unpopular CB is used it reduces the number of points that alliance has. It loses popularity, it reduces the chance of future treaties, and it weakens the loyalty of that alliances treaty partners. Alternatively, those that have a popular CB will gain points in terms of popularity and treaties.

The crux of the matter is that a weak CB is mostly used to achieve a planned aim, and only those with a lot of points are able to carry out such plans. So the lost points don't lead to a defeat, it merely lowers the alliance in the theoretical points standing. However, eventually, the lost points will make it vulnerable to defeat. The bad CB won't cost the alliance the war it is fighting. It is what may cost it the next war however.

A case in point is the GOONS Kaskus war. GOONS certainly lost a lot of points in that war in terms of popularity, respect and possibly loyalty. Kaskus certainly gained them in terms of respect. Does this means GOONS could be defeated in the war? No. Does it make it more vulnerable to future attack? It may well do.

Hey, this is essentially the same point that I made in like 3-4 sentences in the same post

In any event, if El Salvador can go to war with Honduras over losing a soccer game, MK can go to war to "Save Dave93"

Lol, I feel like I've gone over this a few times.

CBs matter a LOT.

Nearly all alliances are chained to both sides of any conflict. A CB determines where they chain onto. Nobody wants to be on the unpopular side of a war.

There are plenty of strong CBs, like defense of an ally, defense of a member (who was raided/rogued). You can simply not defend an ally, citing coalition warfare like so many others do. Coalition warfare is a decent CB, and so are pre-emptive strikes. A good reason of most of the pre-war treaty movements is determining where these CBs fall when a weak CB triggers a global war.

Nobody ever questions a CB if it's strong enough; it's why Legion-Tetris didn't expand, why the 6 Million Dollar war didn't, why Nordreich has a clean hit on LSF now. This war and the TOP-NpO war were both equally hopeless, but it expanded because it was a poor CB and people felt the need to defend their pride over that. LSF is salvageable, but the CB on them is too strong to be worth helping.

I'd say that the real difference between MADPs and MDPs are how strong a CB has to be before they'd defend the treatied ally. A weak enough CB will automatically be considered an "aggressive war".

The only reason why you wouldn't want to argue about CBs is if you've already lost the argument.

Nearly all alliances are chained to both sides of any conflict. A CB determines where they chain onto. Nobody wants to be on the unpopular side of a war.

Not everyone follows the CB, though. Some people just want to "win," while others are too scared to make a stand for what they think, or they're just in it for their friends, or whatever. I mean, just look at the last war. There were several alliances, most notably NPO, who looked down on MK's CB, yet they still fought on MK's ~side~ of the war.

Nobody ever questions a CB if it's strong enough; it's why Legion-Tetris didn't expand, why the 6 Million Dollar war didn't, why Nordreich has a clean hit on LSF now. This war and the TOP-NpO war were both equally hopeless, but it expanded because it was a poor CB and people felt the need to defend their pride over that. LSF is salvageable, but the CB on them is too strong to be worth helping.

That's one reason why people make up/push weak CB's, though. If someone is foolish enough to give out a legitimate CB, the war never expands. So at least making up CB's adds something which every game like this needs: controversy.

Nobody ever questions a CB if it's strong enough; it's why Legion-Tetris didn't expand, why the 6 Million Dollar war didn't, why Nordreich has a clean hit on LSF now. This war and the TOP-NpO war were both equally hopeless, but it expanded because it was a poor CB and people felt the need to defend their pride over that. LSF is salvageable, but the CB on them is too strong to be worth helping.

That's one reason why people make up/push weak CB's, though. If someone is foolish enough to give out a legitimate CB, the war never expands. So at least making up CB's adds something which every game like this needs: controversy.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you just said that people push weak CBs to give the other side a better opportunity to gather support. While this may have happened, at times, I think that the very most of times people don't bother coming up with anything better just because they think they don't need it for their ends. Involving the intended main target(s) has usually been done via preempts, rather than with provocation/baits.

Right, because the alliances at the center of wars (at least since I've been around) have been alliances who know better than to take bait or do something /that/ foolish. So I think that some alliances view not having 100% support as OK as long as they're getting what they want. That's what MK just did. It's what TOP did the previous war, etc.

Or hey, maybe they're just bored and want to lose support. To see what they can get away with.

Or hey, maybe they're just bored and want to lose support. To see what they can get away with.

There is that little problem with "courage" that plays the foil in your scenario. Lots of people with big Epeens on planet bob, very few are willing to act outside of accepted norms. Even when the peak is clearly past and we are in decline you have nonsensical posturing that amounts to little more then a dossier on collective stupidity.

A CB is a reason for an action, not an action. So basically saying there is a weak CB is saying that the reason is $#%^. Good read.