Saber

Your baits were noted and ignored. We were in no way trying to encourage stagnation. Nor are we trying to threaten your alliance. TOP members are just pointing out our ideology. Now. Since you asked. TOP did contribute to stagnation for a while. Like almost any other alliance in the game. However we have also made steps to reduce stagnation. We were one of main factors behind war against NpO. We also have decided that we do not wish to support stagnation in such a massive way as Q did so we decided to leave and chart our own path. This last decision also in a way opened up field for Karma war. Both of these actions are relatively massive action on CN scale (if not biggest there are) and TOP was directly involved in both. So I would say that TOP did a lot to reduce stagnation as well. However as I said earlier. You cannot blame TOP as lone factor for stagnation. You can't blame us for even part of the stagnation as nature of the Planet Bob is not our fault. Great maker intelligently designed it in such a way and we are but figures in this world like anyone else. It's easy to channel the blame toward one alliance for problems of the world. First it was NPO. NPO hegemony made Planet Bob boring. Now weeks after biggest war on Planet Bob it's not NPO. It must be that TOP is opressing people from enjoying Planet Bob way it should be enjoyed. Open your eyes. Planet Bob was designed as a peaceful world. It will continue to be mainly peaceful for as long as physical laws controlling it don't change. When that happens we will see.

I've answered this already. [OOC] The game is designed in a way to make war not profitable. Or to be more accurate profitable only in specific circumstances which are not easy to achieve (massive beatdowns for example). Most benefit from war is relative change in power toward your enemy as you will not gain any kind of stats. Now. this is great if you really have only one enemy but if you have multiple enemies you cannot take down one only to be eclipsed by another. So it is natural that even parties which have issues with each other will not go all out as this could open them up to a third party attack. This is nothing TOP is doing wrong. It's the nature of the game. Since game tends to go toward global peace (as it is it's natural equilibrium), stagnation is normal result of such a design. Instead of blaming TOP for stagnation (something we had nothing to do with as we do not push down our opinion on others), blame admin for making a game in which war is almost exclusively bad for profit and statistics. Now compare this to some other games where you can grow faster if you are raiding. In such games alliances are constantly at war and political structure is much more fragmented. Answer to the stagnation would be to find a system which will allow at least breaking even in a war to enable decently stable political structure (as you don't need to war to keep up) but would at same time allow alliances to enter wars for much smaller reasons and more often. Imagine if after a 3 months of war you lost 10% of your stats or lost more stats but gained some other valuable statistic. I suggest that Heggo and others that share same opinion (and many of you posted here from NSO) to pool their ideas and knowledge and offer them up as suggestions to admin. Making the game more healthy for warring while at same time keeping this unique political system would be immense gain for the game and much better use of your time than writing these kind of empty papers. I tried to offer these suggestions before but with little effect. Maybe we can do something better this time. [/OOC]

It's nothing really against NSO. I feel some people directed flak at your alliance and first problem they knew about it once Heggo started to shoot arrows at TOP and Citadel (even going so far as saying we'd abandon our allies and so on). Obviously some people reacted defensively to such accusations so some negativity toward your alliance was expected. Bit of an affect reaction. Nothing more.

I'd take that as a bit of advice. Sure. Just like you should take his advice of not entering into high risk/low reward endeavors. Goading your members is very low reward endeavor, and risk, well, depends to be seen but in any case too high to justify goading your members. I'm sure government will advice them against goading your members, just like I would if I was gov .

Well it is relatively simple. TOP's decision to move away from Continuum took away lot of support for Continuum or better to say, allowed significant high end NS concentration to deploy against Q and it's allies. This in turn tipped the balance in Karma's favor and when NPO pushed OV, Karma stood up knowing they have good chance of actually winning. Situation was messy enough that Karma could have easily dropped OV if they saw Hegemony as vastly more powerful. But when TOP decided to pull out all of Citadel, along with even MHA and FOK had open hands if Hegemony came knocking. This is extreme change in balance of power as Citadel alone is 20M+ high end NS. Imagine if we had not decided to leave well in advance, who would have been able to handle IRON/TOP high ranks? Especially since Gremlins and rest of Citadel would likely be neutral. I'm not claiming we started the war, or caused it. No way that is true. However our strategic repositioning freed up enough firepower to tilt the balance in Karma's favor. It was not our intention nor our plan. But it happened none the less. I believe objective analysis finds this true enough. It's not backstory. We as Council of TOP approved new FA direction of TOP which included leaving Continuum (weeks before Karma war). Our key allies were informed and slowly we started process of changing from Q central FA to independant FA. During this process Q started to make defensive moves because they felt war was coming which in turn aggravated the situation more and helped bring the war. In a way Q made a self fulfilling prophecy by acting in a way they did. Several major alliances were involved in talks with us regarding that new independent FA. All of them could collaborate my story that TOP had decided to leave Q well in advance of Karma war. However I must admit that way Karma war went down it really left a bad taste in my mouth (for me personally) and I was not really happy with things that happened following our decision. Ivan I see little point in chest thumping here. Sodom just gave you bit of advice which in his opinion is good for you. I can see merit in it myself. Calming down and avoiding high risk low reward endeavors is always a prudent practice. @Heggo[OOC] I feel that people wish to think this game is extremely interesting and exciting when it is not. This was suffers from one huge problem and that is the fact that war is not profitable. Therefore natural equilibrium will tend toward global peace not global conflict. So any kind of stagnation is not inherently wrong, it is in fact way the game was designed. It would be totally against logic if world tended to go toward mass conflict as war is a really bad for profit. Now, if admin made war profitable you'd see massive amount of warring compared to this. Then if people were passive and non aggressive you could write this kind of "paper". But as long as it is like this your kind of "thesis" papers are extremely amateurish and your attempts at forcing your view of the world foolish. Do not accuse CN of timidity or passivity. Accuse the admin of making a flawed game (in war sense).[/OOC]

I was Grandmaster at the time TOP decided to entertain another possible FA direction. This was result of deteriorating relations withing Q due to spy alerts and various other problems that came up. We grew distant to several members of the bloc while some of our close friends left. At that time, month or so before Karma war we have decided that long term we will leave Continuum. I could very well pull out logs and discussions on TOP forums to prove this fact. Only our decision to distance from Q had started the chain of events that led to the war. However, this was never TOP's intention and I personally was disappointed when it happened almost immediately after we started to pull away. I felt betrayed to a degree. So no. We did not ditch tC knowing war would come. As you said in your OP, we have decided that we were stagnating long enough and that it is time to do something on our own. We were as you put it: "In it to win it". Not through betrayal but through strong decisive FA moves.

These guys rock. Great group to hang out with and enjoy this boring through their community.

Good luck Old Guard. You have shown guts to do what many alliances out there are thinking about following this great war. I'm proud to be allied with you guys.

Lower right position of platypus is not surprising since flag was conceived as template for national flags of each member. In upper left corner you would put coat of arms of your nation and in lower right there is alliance coat of arms. Color clash, don't think so but that's just me. Design is also a reference to Paradox Interactive as flag of Rebels in EU2 series is diagonal red/black and this is just redesign of that.

Admin will never uncap GRL because in that case large scale war would lead to people leaving the game due to deletions. Players in the game are income for him and adding something that could easily throw half the world into bill lock is not something he'll willingly add. It's a shame but it's the way it is.

Exactly. Coordination and skill is much less important in a nuke war then in a conventional and MPs have "dumbed down" the game. Times when you had to have skill and coordination with your alliance mates to keep an enemy anarchied for 7+ days are long gone. Now anyone can do it.

I have to address this. I am surprised no one else already did. There is several degrees of difference between NpO screenshots and what Sethb accepted. First major difference is that we had absolutely no contact with the spy, it was dumped via anonimous post on several alliance forums. We have immediately informed NpO of the event and have attempted to identify the spy. This is extremely different to what Sethb did, who not only was in direct contact, but through some interpretation can be seen as "instructing" the spy in what to do. So, no, Citadel and Polar screenshots are nothing like Sethb screens. We not only did not participate or condone spying (anyone who knows me would know that I immediately shut down any kind of "screenie" offering, and would inform the alliance the spy was from), but we even cooperated against it. Yes, after the screens were dumped we did not close our eyes and ignore security threat we found in them. However Sethbs situation was extremely different and it would be great if this situation was not brought up as example. It really does not apply.

It is kinda sad that you are trolling your own goodbye thread even though I was respectful and non inflammatorry in my post. It will make it harder because you are leaving in a way that reduces your standing and respect for you in some people. It's sabotaging your own CN persona through going rogue. I did not talk about PZI because TOP like most alliances does not PZI people for simple acts of going rogue. I was talking about loss of stature and image you had so far.

Indeed. I don't think anyone here is questioning that but Hell Angel tried to check if Gen Lee is no longer considered member of RoK as he has initiated hostilities against TOP and Gremlins nations. As per normal anti rogue procedure we are responding with declarations and wanted to check before we started military action. Now that we've talked on IRC the question is solved and we can both go on with our lives. I also have to make one thing clear. Anyone declaring on Gen Lee without explicit authorization from Grand Defender of TOP (Vladimir Stukov) and/or Executor of Gremlins Bob Janova will be seen as running interference. TOP and Gremlins are perfectly capable of dealing with Gen Lee's attack on our own and no help will be necessary. It is unfortunate that Gen Lee chose to go rogue as I do not believe in the practice however I can understand how it might make it harder to come back to this game, and this could be motive for Gen Lee to do so. In that case, good luck in RL Gen Lee.

Vox Populi has 2 flags, so does TPF and New Pacific Order (one of which is animated). Gotta love you. Yeah, I'm crying like a baby.

No offense but !@#$%^&*. Second time you remove TOP flag for no reason. First omitting it in original poll even though it was properly seconded, than promising to put it here only to remove it in a second is bloody annoying. Like you needed top 25 flags, because we all know that flag that finished 25th or 24th has big chance of winning. Your bias is noted.

Thank you.

Smart words. I am also proud to be in your FACE.

We regularly accept rerolls of people we know and respect (former members for example) and we accepted many nations that were destroyed by wars and had little to no infrastructure or technology but at the same time were obviously good quality members which will improve and reinforce our community. It is all about the quality of the player behind their nation. Not their nation. This is correct. I am not sure what your point is however, I doubt anyone thought we maintain #1 with 200 nations with average nations? Yes, we have high average NS. It does not make it easier to become #1, it makes it harder.

NS graph of Blocs with a long term scale (like year or so) might be interesting to see. Although it would probably be good to keep number of blocs down on such a graph. Also adding WUT/Q/UjP might be of community interest. Other than that, UE, you are bloody amazing!!!

You're a bloody ... Post #15, Post #15, not 100, not 1000, 15. Blazeazz is GATO member. There. Read your own thread next time.

The best part is they do Amazing Sanction Race by HAND. And they don't know it can be done automatically. Shhh, don't tell them.

Khyber Vult! Paradoxia Vult!

In TOP, especially during Crymson's terms, Grandmaster would post reports and updates on various issues coming up. From war talks, peace talks, discussions with other alliances or any other major issue of concern to Grand Assembly. Sometimes it would take some time but it would be reported. This does not mean that every single action that Council of TOP does is pre-approved by the Grand Assembly, that would be probably too slow for day to day business however it means that Council is accountable and does all it can to keep the membership in the loop and aware of what they are doing. I like it that way. As others said critical thing is that we have mature membership which is quite skilled in CN affairs and being transparent enables us to have more productive and interesting discussions. Gives us many good ideas.

and ES's response to Crymson. One of my favorite exchanges in all of CN. I will refrain from comments.