Seerow

Bit of selective reading there. Many of us were being pretty reasonable, especially our government members who were trying to remain as neutral as possible given the situation. The one thing that pissed most of MK off to the point where we may have entered was the rejection of peace over the wording of "not appropriate" vs "wrong". As we have seen in the back rooms this was resolved and we have peace. Well except for TOP IRON etc, cause I doubt we'll be giving them peace any time soon after an unprovoked preemptive attack. Not my place to say what the alliance, let alone the bloc, was planning on doing next. But I can say you seem to be reading a whole lot into a little, and making some pretty big assumptions, then pretending that CnG is incompetent because of it.

Wait let me get this straight: 1) CnG has friends on both sides of the war. We fail to enter immediately because we would rather things be resolved peacefully in this case, as was evidently close to happening judging by the peace that came about last night. This makes CnG incompetent. 2) TOP IRON and TORN attack CnG with no CB except "we think you might enter against us, maybe, if we enter against someone else, so we're going to hit you first. Btw go NpO you show those \m/ !@#$%^&*". This is somehow construed to still be a part of the NpO \m/ war despite TOP not yet being involved and CnG not yet being involved. Can I please get some of the hallucinogenics you are using? They must be strong and hell I could use them about now.

I'll go to #athens and ask right now, but I'm not sure what you're expecting me to find :x The response I got: <Seerow> dear Athens: I have been told by OWF to ask you guys about valid CBs, can someone tell me what a valid CB is? <@RushSykes[Athens|DMoFA]> Dear Seerow... doing 2 tech deals with Chickenzilla qualifies Unfortunately it seems as though we have done two tech deals with my alliance-mate chickenzilla, so it would seem we have indeed given TOP TORN and IRON a valid CB. I apologize for any indication that you had no reason to declare.

Trying to remember the last time TOP fought a nuclear war... drawing a blank here. Did they fire nukes in noCB? I know they !@#$%*ed out in Karma. It may be as long as GW3 since they fought a real war.

Perhaps, but to the best of my knowledge we were really gunning for a shot to hit Purple, since it seemed likely they'd get drawn in. Some people may have wanted to hit TOP/IRON but in reality from where I'm sitting as a normal member of MK, it seemed like an unlikely event. Similarly with the last 'war' despite all the paranoia that we were gunning to get IRON, at that point in time our intended target to the best of my knowledge was TOOL, not IRON or TOP. But it is good to know that our general "roll everyone" attitude genuinely freaked out TOP so much they would make an irrational decision such as this. Really, it warms my heart.

What would be really amazing is NpO then attacking TOP to defend MK per our MDoAP, and Grub being on the "Not Grub" side. This thought alone makes it worth keeping the tracking under the same war stats.

I support FAIL in this noble endeavor.

Clearly the CCC war machine is what brought this into effect.

I'd argue they made themselves much more popular with anyone who isn't TOP/IRON.

To be fair you thought it would take all of TOP and IRON to take us down, and it turned out it wasn't enough.

They will also become keenly aware of the +2 flanking bonus, and I'm pretty sure nukes count as a 4d8 heavy ranged weapon, I hope they enjoy this war they've started.

Perhaps now people will believe we deserve our 26 awards.

Look a little closer. Only the alliances involved are peaced. This isn't WWEII (or BBWII), it is the amazing rolling of TOP, the single greatest political masterstroke I have seen in this game in 3 and a half years, and I !@#$@#$ love Archon and everyone else involved for it. Seriously I am stunned and amazed beyond coherence, even half an hour after hearing about this.

Someone in MK suggested recently "Word War Two" or something along those lines, seems fitting enough to me to post here.

Understandable, I'm sure we'll cross in another thread soon enough and its not like the topic will go away. For now Im getting off OWF though, I need a break. It's like 4pm and I haven't eaten yet today.

Frankly he said at the time he knew it had the potential to blossom into more. Here's the quote in case you forgot: He states up front that he knows there may be more than just \m/ involved, and that he wants no assistance. Effectively for the duration of this war all MDPs with Polar have been downgraded to ODPs as far as I'm concerned. Yes he may have expected just PC and misjudged FOK, but frankly thats his mistake, and saying that MK would be doing the wrong thing by not jumping in to defend Polar just seems odd to me. Seriously, I like NpO. I even like Grub, in the same way I liked ES even when I was on the losing side of UJW. He is a bold leader not afraid to take action. I like that, really. But we have plenty of other obligations to fulfill, and when you give us a clear sign that we're not wanted or needed to help you, we might just help one of our other allies who does want our help.

I never said it was the end all of the situation. However it does cease us from having any obligation to defend NpO. Archon may still choose to do so, but given the current choices are PC (allied to our MADP partner) and FOK (MDoAPed to us) that seems unlikely. We may also choose to defend FOK from NSO which seems more likely, but ultimately a waste of our efforts. We could choose to attack NpO because Athens goes in on an oA clause with PC to hit NpO and we roll with Athens, however that situation is even more unlikely, as waiving the treaties doesn't waive the idea that you don't attack an ally. The point really is we have multiple points of entry, but we have no obligation to be helping NpO at this time. If more of our allies end up on NpOs side it becomes increasingly likely we end up there, the possibility also arises for us to be on the other side, we have the treaties available with or without this treaty to get in pretty much wherever we want. That said for those saying we got to this position by signing too many treaties, I agree with you. I campaigned heavily internally that we have far too many treaties and wanted to trim down significantly. But I ultimately have no more say in our FA strategy than I do in our Military strategy (that is to say none), so it fell on deaf ears. But just because we have conflicting treaty obligations at the moment doesn't mean I won't try to make some sort of sense out of the situation we have at hand.

1) And when the opportunity arose they could be beat down again. Preferably not by someone who is directly allied to one of their allies. After this war I won't be surprised to see \m/ left treatiless and isolated, but for pride nobody is going to cancel mid-war. After all thats bad PR, and who can afford that? 2) You continue to use the phase 'dictating terms'. This isn't dictating terms but a matter of wording that has no real effect on the meaning of what is being said.

1) Grub acknowledged white peace was on the table from day one. Accepting peace isn't backing down, it's holding to your word. As far as anyone knew at the time nobody knew anyone was going to join except FOK. And them going public after terms are signed to say "We were so going to stomp you, you're lucky you got out quick" would be in poor taste at best, so I doubt anyone would have thought it was over allies being brought in. The peace offer was already on the table from day one, allowing \m/ to take it would not have made anyone think Polar backed down. They got their punch in and got their point across, going further is needless. 2) Who would know \m/ chose the wording of the terms? You say dictating terms like \m/ would have been demanding reps from NpO. One word choice isn't going to lower NpOs standing in anybody's eyes, but being stubborn about a meaningless difference does in fact make a lot of people think less of them. That sort of crap is expected from an alliance as immature and stupid as \m/, NpO is supposed to be better than that. edit: He also went on to say that anyone who wants to was free to jump in of their own free will, as is the right of a sovereign alliance. NSO chose to defend Polar, it doesn't mean they were obligated to. Did you actually read the initial DoW?

I think my edit addresses the idea that both sides are to blame. You are right there, I just feel that with NpO taking the moral highground you could have taken the high road and just let it go. Let \m/ have their minor victory, you would have gotten the knowledge you held your ground and proved that you don't bluff, and I doubt anyone would have thought worse of you for it. As for blowing off steam for a few weeks then white peace all around... it's possible, but I don't forsee this ending quite so easily now that things have begun chaining outwards. We can hope, but I don't see it as a likely outcome. We do hold Athens to a higher standard as well. You'll note they haven't made a habit of tech raiding large alliances.

Not just that it could involve us, the fact that it puts us directly between two groups of allies is what troubles me. FOK is retarded for escalating from an optional clause, NpO is more retarded for not ending this when they had a chance. The entire war has been retarded from day 1, and I wish we could hit a reset button and go start a war that made some semblance of sense. Also, please note that at the start of the war Grub waived all treaty obligations, in case you forgot, while no other allies have done any such thing. At this point while we are allied with Polar, for the duration of conflict by Grubs own words we are not obligated to defend Polar, so it will be other treaties that determine our course. And of course Archon has the ultimate say in where we go with our policy, we may yet end up on Polars side, we may end up defending FOK, we may even end up staying neutral, I have no real way to say. It's been a long time since I've held a government position, and frankly with all the !@#$ going on in this war I'm glad I don't have one now. I don't envy Archon or any of our other government members' position at the moment.

I fail to see or care about the difference. As far as I'm concerned \m/ needed to be rolled. However I will say it was wrong to hold up negotiations over such a petty point and not appropriate to force this extended situation upon those you call allies. Edit: In response to why NpO is in the wrong and not \m/ for arguing over petty word choice, both are wrong. However we know \m/ is !@#$. We expect them to be !@#$. We are not tied to them because we don't like them. We are allied with NpO and expect them to be better than that, and by descending to \m/s level as Solaris said, they effectively took a !@#$ on everyone who would inevitable dragged into the prolonged war for the sake of their own pride.

It's pretty simple isn't it? Peace is on the table. The talks disolve because Grub wouldn't accept saying their actions were wrong, but "not appropriate". Seriously sucking it up over 2 words isn't worth avoiding putting everyone into this mess? (In case you're really slow this is where a lot of the "NpO is in no position to be calling anyone else out over semantics" earlier in the topic is coming from as well)

I know my personal problem is how the peace talks went down. I can't speak for others, though I can tell you right around then is when the general feeling seemed to turn against Polar, where it seemed mostly in favor of prior to that point. Up until that point I supported NpO, and had the talks dissolved over anything that seemed like a reasonable disagreement, I'd support them still. But what happened is just so ridiculous I'm still trying to force myself to believe it happened.

Seriously, MK did everything they could to stop the war before it started, Grub wasn't keen on listening. I personally have no idea what happened on the \m/ front, but really saying we wanted this war is stupid. This whole war is stupid and nobody in MK really wants any part in it. Yet it seems inevitable we will get dragged in. Seriously, this treaty is not needed for any alliance to get in on any side of the war. MK already has a treaty with FOK we could get in on. Vanguard already had a treaty with one of the stickmen alliances to get in on. The treaty was poorly timed and probably shouldn't have been posted, I'll agree wholeheartedly that Vanguard $%&@ed up by posting this right now. But if you think that it's going to change anything at all about how this war would play out you're delusional.