iamthey

Pretty big moves. Best of luck to everyone as they go their own way.

Completely unacceptable. This shameless bandwagoning on our war with IRON won't be taken lightly.

Congrats on the peace guys. Thanks for your efforts this war, and the hard work that went into the peace.

ooc: CT please take a break. Get off your computer and take a nap, go to the mall, lift some weights, boot up your favorite game other than cn, read a book - do something for two or three hours and then if you're inclined to return, do so. Right now you're coming undone and everyone can see it. A one man circus is hard work, pleasing the masses is hard work, you have to keep some mental distance! Have a coffee, take a break, come back when you're refreshed. It's a matter of personal health and wellbeing. Good talk. :)

>CN awards have never been skewed. >Best Alliance: MUSHROOM KINGDOM >Best Diplomatic Team: MUSHROOM KINGDOM >Best Player: MUSHROOM KINGDOM >Best Post: MUSHROOM KINGDOM >Best Controversy: MUSHROOM KINGDOM :D

Obviously not at the sametime. A larger nation can dump money on a smaller one during a war, or assist in the initial development phase / rebuild. A smaller nation can send tech during peace. It seems fairly straight forward what I'm getting at.

Eight men just want to watch the world burn.

Go argent :D.

Your position is too individualistic, bob is more of a communal activity. Large/small nations need not related to one another as better/inferior- they can work together for the advantage of their alliance. A small nation in today's world has a better chance at relative advantage if they choose to stay small, develop wonders, and hone themselves to dominate in their range. They gain a further advantage by supplying existing large nations with free tech generated by their self sufficient infra holdings. The larger nations in their AA that they supply can then hone themselves to fulfill their role in an optimal manner. You misperceive the goal as being one where nations seek to be quantitatively larger than their peers- this isn't necessary or honestly even rational (given how large the largest are). Instead people should just try to be the best at what they are- rather than mediocre at what they aren't. Alliances that can coordinate in this way, have an advantage- those caught up in older approaches do not. In short 6m/100 is too much, everyone should give freely of what they have where it makes the most sense to do so: large nations have no use for money, small ones have no use for tech. I would think free transfer of both would be possible where collective optimals prevail.

Very sad to see. Hope you all get on well wherever you may end up.

BONES always one to leave the world wondering?

If IRON has a plan and is reserving its forces I suppose I can't really take issue with that. I imagine even having much of the upper tier in PM between what they have out, NEW, FTW, and VE they have what they need to cover us. It's odd timing for sure, but I'm not going to lecture the other side about how to conduct their campaign.

Didn't wait :(. I enjoyed it anyway.

Shah/icewolf, I understand that you all have a vested interest in the ~TOP Peace Mode~ narrative, be it for the purposes of self gratification, or because you foresee it having an impact, but the war isn't over. The reflexive responses between you all as you bump each other with variations of the same talking points makes you look like try hards. Dcrews gets a pass, at least he's just defending you guys. You'd be served well reflecting on what a normal/reasonable reaction might look like. Hint:

It's a small world, usually the people you're in a position to impose upon are also those you may need at some point in the future. War politics today often revolve around maneuvering for the next war, and making sure the controversies and grudges land on others instead of yourself. Sometimes that means a muted accommodating tone on the part of a victor, other times it means pointing the finger for things you yourself are responsible for. Regardless, its all the same, ensuring things like lack of courtesy, or resentment, don't obstruct what you're actually after. You shouldn't be surprised, it isn't a lack of will or cowardice that has changed the world, just its scope and with it the cost of such efforts. No one here deserves criticism for their settlement decision, they were wise to prioritize politics over self gratification.

Looking forward to comic form nominations of the team's favorite alliance to the cn awards. Hoping they come.

This is kind of amazing.

I mean I think most would agree that an alliance's resources exist to serve a purpose- to inflict damage. Preserving them as a matter of course thus makes a degree of sense not only to the alliance in question but also from the standpoint of those connected to it. Allies have a mutual stake in one another's internal health so that they'll be effective partners in war. That being said [ooc]pixels[/ooc] are a means to an end, as treaties themselves often are. They function in tangent with a strategy to protect oneself and pursue overlapping interests where they exist. I'm willing to accept that TOP and Polar signed a treaty for the purposes of pursuing a common goal. At that time to achieve a winning war and to leverage that war into a dominant position shared with a group of core alliances. It was a gamble and a risk that ultimately didn't pay out, but it was attempted. Despite that we shared over a year together and I'd like to think we developed an amicable relationship in doing so. As for DBDC-IRON, I think its clear and fair to say, that the two giants saw overlapping interests, and shared goals. That they were stronger together than apart. Could one have dominated the other, perhaps, but to what end and why? I think both groups were smart enough to see through the rivalry and indeed they prospered by doing so. I don't know enough about their mutual interactions to say whether there are substantial ties of friendship there- but I'm willing to venture there probably are, and if there isn't then who really cares, in so far as they can make it work. It's ultimately their affair, as polar-TOP is ours.

The consistent trend for people like berbers is to simply select an alliance arbitrarily and proceed with the baseline of hostility. NATO has never been genuinely aggrieved by TOP, and berbers has never been subjected to punitive or vindictive measure on our part. He proceeds as he does because he requires the fixture of an enemy, and TOP is for him simply a convenient obsession. Without us he wouldn't have much of a purpose, and would lack direction: seeing as how his accomplishments are sparse and his natural adversaries few. Psychologically it makes sense, retrospectively its unfortunate. There are parties with legitimate and intelligible reasons not to like us, Non-Grata notably comes to mind. With IRON we have shared in mutual cycles of recrimination, we have both believed and acted as if the other were harboring macabre dreams of ourselves, and it is reasonable that hostility would exist. With berbers such explanations, whether they be tragic or well grounded, do not exist. Responding to him is simply a meaningless exertion, as the only logical response should and for my part always has been, bewilderment. Regardless, it does give one pause. For this brief hour, and however long it may last, we are to him an orienting star. An axis around which his universe turns, and by which he navigates the course of his journey. That we could be that, for at least one person, is perhaps- inspirational.

I believe we can come to some sort of arrangement, particularly on the last item.

I'm glad we can agree on how wrong lowsten generally is. Always wrong. :)

Well I guess GPA basically has nothing to lose.

Nice flag, I like that.

Venice, Treviso and Aquileia. Serene Republic of Venice

The sort of move that doesn't help anyone, least of all your allies. Time and again this time around I'm left wondering why people seem to so abhor the matured politics of war. There is little honorable in stupidity.