Mirreille
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Blog Comments posted by Mirreille
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If you can change the outcome, strategically, by going into peace mode than it's a war tactic. If you are just denying reality then its avoidance.
I'm sure I saw this argument used against FAN during their guerilla war, and it didn't work on them then, why should it work against the NPO now? You can argue that the situations are completely different, etc., but at the end of the day it is up to the alliances using the tactic to decide if it is worth using or not. Obviously they don't think their alternatives are better options at this point.
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I forgot to thank GeoLauzier for his comments, that was informative. I had no idea Bros was King of the Fungus at one time. I can't remember a time before Archon, so I assumed they saw him standing there one day and built the AA around him.
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Half? Looks more like two thirds to me.
Who the heck are those guys??? Half of them I've never even heard of... 
I have to save that picture to get a good look at it. When you click on it to expand it, the right side gets cut off, and I still can't read it very well, with my terrible eyesight. Looks like Fark better watch out; they are the only AA that was tied to RIA back then who isn't dead or been disbanded at one point. Also, who the heck were those IVIK people, and why does their flag look suspiciously like the old Mushroom Kingdom flag? Did they they merge with LUA at some point to form MK?
Looking at that chart and seeing who was tied to who, and who isn't now is interesting. Even if they were just PIATs.
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Is this the beginning of Zogoria? Was Ashokaland already taken?
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It's called the Hopeless Coalition for a reason and I think you're dumb as hell if you think people are "content" in PM. I doubt most of them wanted to be in there the first place.
I agree with you that it reads like a propaganda piece, and you are probably right about the people in peace mode, but there is still the other side of the coin to consider. Given that they have already paid into this plan for over two months, and the obvious distaste the DH side seems to have for them using it, why NOT continue? It's obvious your side has almost no respect for them, even at a basic level. A few Legion nations came out of peace mode, and almost immediately I saw a DH member mocking them for being stupid and letting themselves be destroyed. Allowing you all to destroy them easily and then point and laugh at them for months afterwards is hardly a cheery prospect.
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I've seen worse.
Have you guys completely forgotten Dr. David Banner? Walford at his best? That GGA poster who probably got post of the year for that one post he made? This one was rude, but it doesn't register on the 'Worst Posts of All Time' meter for me.
Think of all the posts we were saved from seeing thanks to the hard work of the Mod Team....
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Peace mode is bad for the game. Never used it, never will.
If peace mode did not exist, then neither would FAN. At least not in their current form, they would have all had to be re-rolls at some point. Peace mode allows the political part of the game to take precedence over the purely military part, at great economic cost to the nation that chooses to use it; it's just fine the way it is. If this game only had the military option, then I doubt a 1/4 of todays population would still be here.
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The thing about the posts that Peggy highlighted isn't just that they are being jerks, it's that they are direct personal attacks. There is way too much of that on the forums, and it has nothing to do with any actual debate that you might be having. OK, you can say a person does not have enough experience on a particular subject, or that their position and history makes them biased for this or that reason, but those are not personal attacks per se,and there is at least some logic behind them.
The spelling and grammar attacks have always been
to me, especialy when the person goes on to make a spelling or grammar error in there post trying to knock someone else for doing so. When I quote someone else I often will correct any spelling errors I notice in their post, but I don't make a spectacle of it, it happens to everybody sooner or later. Also, I refuse to apologise for my terrible grammar, so you get no points from me for pointing them out. -
If we have infinite patience, but our opponents do also, in this case it means we win, because our opponents in peace mode cannot expand their nations or collect significant taxes while hiding in peace mode, whereas we can continue to grow and operate while they remain stagnant. I don't believe the peace mode war strategy is going to be proven effective in the long run in an "infinite patience scenario". As for us re-writing the strategy book, yeah, we have. We've proven the viability of infinite war chests, proven the importance of full NS combat spreads and aid bombs, and produced the most viable long-term siege in Cybernations history.
Your point seems reasonable, we are "stuck" in this war. It also is the most fun war we've ever had, and morale in GOONS is higher than it has ever been. The attrition and "fatigue" you're referring to isn't happening. It's just not there. NPO is in for a long ride.
"Infinite war chests"? I'm not sure what you are referring to there, would you mind explaining that concept to me? Full NS spreads and aid bombs have been done in war before, I'm not sure why you think that is new, though perhaps the scale of the aid being sent to GOONS is unprecedented. I wouldn't say you have produced the most viable siege just yet. VietFAN and the Karma War were both much longer then this one, and a lot can happen between now and the time when you would match those conflicts for length. Though your position seems strong enough right now.
When people are referring to fatigue I don't think they are talking about GOONS or the nations they are fighting, it's the ones in peace mode or twiddling their thumbs while waiting for a target to come out. I'm sure after the first week the upper tier nations have not had much fun. I honestly think both sides are in for a long ride, since the pre-emptive strike has given the NPO side enough morale/incentive to stick it out for a while. Now maybe that willpower will fade, but the more the DH side talks about it, the more likely they are to stick with the peace mode plan since it seems to be annoying them at least. You are right about growing faster then the NPO side, but those two groups are not the only ones in existance; Everyone else will move forward while those two stagnate. The NPO side moreso, but you will both be affected. I guess it comes down to opportunity costs.
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Plus we have infinite patience as time will tell.
As for strategic war theories for inter-alliance warfare? We're busy rewriting all of those.
You are either extremely optimistic, or just plain arrogant. If you can have infinite patience, what makes you think the people you are fighting are not capable of the same? Are they somehow inherently inferior to you? Please elaborate.
There is no such thing as international law here, but there have been and always will be conventions that people more or less follow. None of those are absolute, but those who flought convention often pay a high price for it. Witness NPO and what happened to them when they attacked in the middle of negotiations for one example of this. What theories are you re-writing? Other then attacking for no reason other then you want to and have the power to do so, where is the innovation? I'm sorry, but I've seen Might Makes Right before, it's not new.
If anyone is re-writing the strategic theory book, it is the other side, with this "PM for the upper tiers, war for the middle and lower tiers" strategy. Which I have already seen people on the DH side complain about rather vocally, since it flies in the face of conventional thought. I think DH is in the stronger physical position right now, but their situation isn't perfect by any means. If this war does go on for an extended period, you won't grow as fast as the people who are not involved in the war, and attrition from boredom is likely to affect you just as much as it does the NPO Coalition's side; that's hardly a win for you. Also, as long as this goes on your abilitiy to deal with any new business is severely curtailed, since you will always have to keep your eye on the people you're keeping down as well. You are like Brer Rabbit with your hands stuck in the tar baby right now. You aren't in any great danger, but you certainly are stuck with it. The other side has already been stifled by peace mode for months and seen their other alliance members torn up a lot in the war; they have no real incentive to come out and let you beat them to death, I don't understand why you don't seem to realise that. If you had made that offer a month ago I think it would have had a much better chance of being accepted. The longer this goes on, the less likely it will be that they accept it, since they've already been paying in on the installment plan so to speak.
In other words, your offer to them at this point looks light.
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I look at that recipe, and the first thing that pops into my mind is,"I'm going to throw some raisins into the mix when I try that recipe.".
Nice find Kingzog! -
Are you used to seeing me? :|
I meant your forum posts of course, and in those you usually seem irritated or angry for some reason. Text is a lousy medium of emotional expression however, so I hay have gotten the wrong impresssion.
Would it be fun to encourage more wars? The process of starting them might be for an individual. It wouldn't be for the game. One of the major issues with the majority of the last few wars has been that no one can really get their heart into it - and that's relatively important. You want your side to want to run to the front and slaughter, horde style. If a war is started for a shallow reason - and one individuals pleasure is shallow - then the war will be shallow and lackluster.
How do you see white peace as an outcome of war effecting an alliances' future desire to war? I see it as making an alliance a lot less introspective about their reasons for war. If you roll into a war on a bad reason and get a boot on your neck for it, there's a lot of hell to be paid to the membership/congress/whatever. White peace makes you a lot more likely to continually and repeatedly go to war on any grounds, no matter how solid or not the grounds are, and I legitimately feel that's a bad trend for the game.
Well I think you touch on a good point, in that peace without reps makes AAs less fearful of getting into conflicts. To me the idea of reps is silly though, after the amount of damage a losing war already causes. If you really are concerned about security, then a few more days/weeks at war should finish any of those concerns off. By the end of a war the losing side's damage output has to be minimal I would think.
The other thing about reps, even reasonable amounts is they are very demoralising to an alliance, after they have been put through the wringer on the losing side already. Even if an AA survives, it can seriously damaged by them. I will use TPF as one example, I don't believe they have ever gotten back to the number of nations they had at the time the Karma War broke out. This actually causes even more micros and splinter groups to form, and isn't that something you have been against in some of your public posts? It dilutes the leadership, etc.. Most actions don't have only positive results, they often have unfortunate side effects as well. Now not every AA is going to end up having these problems, I don't think TOP lost many members while they were paying BiPolar reps, but it does happen.
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This is a more thoughtful and less hot-headed side of Xiphosis then I am used to seeing.
I don't think disbandment has been used often enough, to draw any definitive conclusions about the use of the practice. The problem with implementing it on a larger scale is if your hypothesis about it improving the quality or gameplay and the communities ends up being wrong you are not going to be able to repair the damage already done.
As far as reps go, if they is a reason for them beyond,"You lost." I don't really have a problem with them. The reps that go on too long(more then 3-4 months), and the absolutely vidictive/punitive terms(destruction of wonders/factories, forcing the top tiers to send off all their tech as reps) are the things that make reps intolerable IMHO. The last one is especially imbalancing on the game overall; has any AA that has had that happen to them ever recovered their relative tech strength? Out of the ones I can think of off the top of my head,Polar(NoCB), NPO(Karma) and TOP(Bipolar), none of them have recovered to their previous levels. If that practice continues, eventually there won't be any opposition at all at the highest levels, you will have an elite and then everyone else beneath them like peasants. I suppose anything in the name of security is justified though, right?
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When a nation joins an alliance, a lot of the work that he had to do on his own before will now be taken out of his hands, most notably the security issue. Alliances offer shelter and substantial benefits to anyone who joins, but it comes at the price of giving up the sovereignty over your nation. Most people don't take issue with that, and are happy to plead loyalty to an alliance.I'm going to take an sidestep here, since it doesn't directly touch on the point of your blog. I disagree with the last sentence, because in the current climaate, people who choose to be entirely independent nations are viewed by the vast majority of people as failures and are targeted unmercifully by raiders to the point that very few of them have the fortitude to continue on that path. This is not yet another jab at raiders, but we don't really know how many people would use that option if it wasn't so difficult to do so. Now some might argue that this helps keep the alliance/bloc game intact, but I wouldn't mind seeing long daisy chains of mutual friends who are all independant nations just go off like Chinese fireworks, it would be at least more entertaining then curbstomps.
The difficulty in deciding how many poles there are is the fault of the current treaty web. You can probbly link 95% or more of the alliances in the game directly to each other if you follow the chains long enough. Especially when alliances have many treaties, it makes judging what the actual groups are very difficult(that isn't necessarily a bad thing).
Some AA's view treaties as a way to pick which side they want to be on in any given war. Some view them as contracts that need to be fulfilled to the letter. Some AAs only sign with what they consider like-minded groups and so the spirit of the treaty can be more important then the actual words on it. There are probably a host of other ways in which alliances choose to use/view a treaty as well. This, combined with the treaty web, the fact that alliance governments can change and other variables make it one big mess that is hard to disentangle.
Actions speak louder then words however, and if you look at enough history you can generally see some trends or points of interest that seem to represent a certain amount of stability. They aren't eternal, but they do last for a long time. You have some older blocs(AZTEC, C&G, SF) and some newer ones (DH, PB) that exert influence and can be considered poles. Then you have certain alliances that through size, aggressiveness, or political/military power seem to become focal points, like NPO, Polar, and maybe TOP.
You have these focal points/poles, and then you have the current divide that seperates them into Karma and ex-hegemony/remnants sides. I don't really like using labels like that since it makes it easier to stop considering someone once you have filed them into a category in your head. There are plenty of groups that would say they are not not part of either of the two sides I mentioned, but since those groups are not organised, they don't form a pole by themselves usually, and generally follow the lead of the poles anyway.
Obviously there are more focal points on the Karma side of the divide now then the Remnants side, the last few wars have demonstrated that. I don't know about everyone else but after Karma I was hoping the ex-Hegemony side would dissolve completely and the other groups would start to maneuver among themsleves, maybe competeing for the Remnant AAs to further their own objectives. Apparently the Remnants side didn't break up enough, or maybe some people just want to go over the same ground again.
Overall I do agree with you there is a multipolarity right now, but the divide I mentioned before is driving most of the politics between them right now. Perhaps we should consider the question of exactly what counts as a pole?
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Now, I'm not going into full detail of what an alliance does or should do at such a point in time, the only point I wanted to make for now is that an alliance who sits still and does little to improve its position is simply asking for trouble, in the same way as an alliance that does too much is asking for trouble, as we are in a world that is characterized by hostility towards one another.
However, it is actually very rare that a war is being fought over nothing, even though it appears some people think this is happening, or even would like to see it happen. In reality, war is diplomacy by other means, so when it comes to the point of war this is merely a sign that two parties have conducted diplomacy, and eventually clashed so hard when wielding their power, that they both failed to preserve the peace, not just one of them.
War can be 'Diplomacy by other means' but at least in CN that isn't the case 100% of the time. There are different kinds of alliances, and philosophies on how to run them, and I for one think the variety is far better then if everyone thought the same way all the time.
I've seen people say the NPO and some other AAs "Should have done something to improve their position". I'm not exactly sure what they mean by that, but if you think about it, one of the few scarcities in the game is who is allowed into the dominant grouping at any particular time. MK during the Q heydays certainly didn't have a lot of diplomatic options, did they? CN is like musical chairs in that respect, there are only so many seats to go around.
Only rogues ever really attack for no reason at all. The current NPO-DH war was started by an unprovoked attack, but there is certainly tons of previous history that lead to this point.
Now as to whether or not aggression is a crime....I was always taught that the person who resorts to violence, is the person who has run out of options. Not everyone thinks this way though, and given that this is a game, I don't see anything wrong with aggressive play styles. I think it gets the bad label in CN because it goes against the unwritten codes of conduct that have been built up over time(private channels, etc.); also, the bad side effects like the difficultiies of rebuilding and the sheer destructiveness of war somehow get attached to the initial act of starting a war itself. The fact that it has been noted that being on the side perceived as 'defending' gives you an advantage just reinforces the negative impression people have of starting a war.
TLDR: It's become a cultural taboo.
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seems my link was rather rude, so to anyone else walking into this thread I was of course talking about the ''Prince Albert Piercing''.
I'm so glad I don't know what that is.
When I saw Zog's comments I thought of the tobacco, I never even considered there could be other possibilities. They actually have names for all the different piercings??? Is there an Elvis Presley, and do I want to know where it is? -
Could this be one of those things where someone hit the wrong key on the keyboard, and the wrong information pops out? I'm sure it's possible the person literally didn't know, but LOL!
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Note that that's different to the current situation, where Doomhouse are taking advantage of a temporary break in the Orders' treaty web (due to the Polar sphere being engaged), not using the weight of their own treaty web as a weapon. (Most of their own allies are also engaged and not able to do anything in the Pacific war one way or the other.) If we were really as hegemonic as you say, MK would have rolled NPO over nothing in peacetime. The fact that they had to wait until there was a war already going on shows that the 'hegemony' does not in fact control a reliable majority of power and therefore isn't in the same position as Continuum-One Vision at the moment.
Yet. You see that clearly given your last three words. You are a forward thinking individual Bob, surely you can see where this path leads?
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Considering the effort you put into writing this, you might have been better off making a World forum post for this, instead of your blog; it would get wider circulation and likely more responses.
I don't know if I agree with you on the overall concept, as PB/DH, C&G, SF, and other blocs clearly don't always see eye to eye. You are right about the NEW war though, the chest-pounding posts about ,"We want a challenge!" are laughable after they showed their hand there.
Whether the actions that have caused this war will become the norm remains to be seen, it's too early to tell. I don't care for the tossing of diplomacy in the trash bin though, that's a terrible precedent. Without politics this game will no longer be fun, and diplomacy is a big part of that.
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Also i would point out a fault in your logic Schattenman(Respectfully mind you). After the last several wars, huge amounts of players quit immediately following and during the course of the conflict. While server activity explodes, those that lose years of work realize that building a nation for 3 years and watching it get destroyed in 3 weeks is a huge waste of time. If war were not so detrimental to nations they would be fought more often and more players would be willingly involved.
I have no idea how Admin envisioned how the war system should work when he designed it, but I doubt the idea of a 300k NS nation existing was on his mind when he was making it. To a certain extent, the game has grown beyond the ability of the original design to contain. The sentence I bolded is a good indicator of that. Now I could argue that a nation that planned so poorly in three years that when they lose their infrastructure they are unable to rebuild, but that is another matter entirely and somewhat moot. You don't NEED to have a huge nation in order to play the game and make an impact; too many people buy into the line that "Only the upper tiers matter." They are important and likely to influence who will win the military battles, but they are not the end-all be-all.
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Hypocrites. Immature, sadistic, hypocrites.
You got most of that right Vladimir. It's more like: Hypocritical, Immature, Sasdistic, Stupid, Yellow. A classic H.I.S.S.Y. fit if I've ever seen one.
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(Are bloogs OOC or not?) I would say that things like this are hilarious and the best thing for this game. If you all want to just sit around chatting all day, then emigrate back to that other place so many came from (unless they have war functions too, I have no idea). I am loving all this outrage in the forum while at the same time feeling sorry for a bunch of people who seem to take it all so very personally.
I would feel the same way, if it were not for the whole,"Everything Must Die!" motif. If it is purely propaganda then fine, but it all seems to be more like DH & Co. wanting to take their ball and go home, even if everyone else wants to keep playing. I'm not sure how serious they all are about that though at this point.
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When you expand the image, the AA's attacking loss get knocked out of the picture for some reason. Is there any way to fix this? Nice job BTW, the pictures are fun.
It looks like some AAs are surrounded,etc. -
Alas, all I see are problems, not ideas on how to fix it.
A lot of people seem to agree with you on the problems part, if the number of suggestions that have been made are any indication.
Not all of them are good but some of them do address the fear part(the two defensive war slots one comes to mind).
Who the heck are those guys??? Half of them I've never even heard of... 
to me, especialy when the person goes on to make a spelling or grammar error in there post trying to knock someone else for doing so. When I quote someone else I often will correct any spelling errors I notice in their post, but I don't make a spectacle of it, it happens to everybody sooner or later. Also, I refuse to apologise for my terrible grammar, so you get no points from me for pointing them out. 
Nice find Kingzog!
It looks like some AAs are surrounded,etc.
American Vaudeville
in The Draconian
A blog by Xiphosis in General
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Since when was Al Qaeda, or any other terrorist group considered a nation?
They don't play by any "rules", and so they don't get treated with the level of consideration that soliders and civilians get in more formalised conflicts.
I disagree with Xiphosis though, I think it is mostly a human thing to take joy in killing. Animals don't act that way.