Vhalen

True freedom comes after 25 days inactive.

So, I was sort of skimming the thread and saw this: and then this: and, of course, I read it as "you don't have a keg to stand on." It made me a little sad to discover the truth.

I remember punching you a bit. I didn't get all that many rounds with TSO and Alchemy, though, as your NS got below my range after a bit. Mostly I ended up facing off against TOP. There were few inactives/turtles, but for the most part, quality combatants. If I had to single out one person, I guess it'd be Aesis. Had so much fun I had to come back for seconds! Most of you guys on our front were in a rough spot. Hats off for handling it with civility and class (at least from where I was standing.)

I think it's more that people have a problem with CO trying to be so boastful about giving said admission of surrender. I mean, when you come out of the blocks with "Sure, we surrendered, but that doesn't mean anything because we didn't have any terms put on us," and "Wait until next time," it puts the other side in this position where "next time" they're almost forced into demanding terms.

Yeah, with all the strays returning home, there should be a quick jump there. As far as buybacks go, that could make the gains jumping around a lot over the next few weeks as people hit their backcollections and polish up their ruins.

Unless they said it about me, and then they're wrong. Unless it was me who said it.

Needs more sigs.

Probably a wise move. Makes an order look less ineffective if it isn't followed, once it's optional.

Never mind. I guess one has to have standards first. :P

Remind me again, was this before DBDC declared any wars? No? Oh, dear, how embarrassing. Well, I'm sure you can retroactively date it. I'm pretty sure that's how everything works nowadays anyway.

Can't argue with you there. I don't think too highly of either. I think the practices diminish both politics and war, but I won't get into all the reasoning right now, on account of being lazy.

My guess is because, "way back when," people felt like it was an attack on nonparticipant nations, and depending on trade partners' activity, it could be terribly inconvenient. Nowadays, it hardly matters, what with resource-swapping.

I attribute this descrepancy largely to the DBDC AA, and before you go all, "Well, of course, they're upper tier nations, they do a lot of damage," what I mean is, it's because their roguing strategy allows them to ignore traditional war declarations and boundaries. By virtue of deserting their normal alliance and joining a new one (as DBDC has officially declared itself,) and mind you, an alliance with zero treaty ties to any at-war alliance, and a pretty piss-poor war declaration that can read however one wants it to, they allow themselves a ton of flexibility that hasn't existed in previous global wars. Essentially, they've chosen to abandon the "alliance/DoW" paradigm more or less entirely. (On a side note, it should be interesting to see how this is reflected in peace talks. One would think there'd be an interest in discouraging this sort of behavior in the future. I can think of a few things I'd suggest...so it's probably for the best that I'm not involved in peace talks.) I can't speak for every front, but there's been a ton of infra buybacks (and tech buybacks, for that matter) over in this neck of the woods. Pretty sure destroying 10k infra twice only counts as lost score once. ;) Furthermore, I see regular Umb arguments that EQ's side is all infra and no tech. If that's true, and infra evaporates so fast, %NS lost should be enormously in their favor, instead of 51% to 33% the other way.

I never claimed to be anyone's spokesman, and I've never seen myself as a mindless drone. I say whatever I want to say. In this instance, though, pretty sure GOONS has said they don't exactly do that anymore, and I doubt they ever saw it as a permanent setup. Besides, I don't think aid drops were under siege the whole time (which, as I've said, is a nasty tactic that hurts everyone in the long run, but one that would work.) Wait a minute, though. Wasn't it you who said EQ would risk giving DB/etc more consistent sellers by that tactic? If they already HAVE those consistent sellers, then what was that whole bit about in the first place? Or are you just talking out both sides of your mouth? ;)

Wow, way to focus on the throwaway line. At any rate, 100+kNS is a lot of "wiggle room," so I probably worded that somewhat poorly. And no, war weariness isn't the same across the board. Take two sides, give one a significant numbers advantage, and see which one notices the war more. The numbers side could easily have people taking a month off, with the other side never able to declare an offensive war. To make it more fun, let's also make it so the outnumbered side's biggest nations are in virtual peace mode, so they feel like they're being pummeled and you're not doing anything. Morale's gonna SOAR over the next six months, right? I DID say I didn't advocate this approach and it'd be bad for Bob, remember. I can delete everything except for the bits and pieces I cherry-picked to respond to in a denigrating fashion, too. I like how in your magical world DB's tech sellers never have to actually HAVE the money, buy the tech, put together an aid offer, or get it accepted. They're all perfect little puppets who sit there and take a beating for somebody else's gain, huh? Sure. There're hundreds of masochistic altruists out there, just dying to get their faces smashed in on a daily basis to no purpose of their own. And they're all so dedicated that they coordinate minute-to-minute on IRC to avoid attacks between accepting cash and delivering tech. Such dedicated punching bags you've found. That fits the human condition to a tee. "Competence" hardly sounds descriptive of your imagined utopia, though. Perhaps "Desperate Obsession" fits better? Seriously, though, there's a reason I specifically said I don't advocate gunning for tech sellers and young nations. It'd be bad for Bob, crippling the incoming population and driving out plenty of the old. You DID catch the part where I said I didn't advocate this and it would be bad for Bob, right? Oh, you didn't? Was that part of the "*words*" you skimmed over while searching for something to put a twist on? Let's be realistic, though. What'll happen instead is the same thing that always happens. This war will eventually fizzle out, politics will shift, nations will wander around, and in 6-12 months somebody'll kick a rock through somebody else's window and we'll all invent new nonsense names to group everyone into so we can insult them without the trouble of actual thought. Also you smell funny. ;)

That sounds like a particularly awful restaurant.

That's because you haven't seen his face light up when we pay him for our shares of the beer he brought over.

I want to see who has the statistical victory in most statistical victories declared. One can't leave one's war history visible if one wants to AA hop to avoid staggers. I'm not saying that's everybody's reasoning, but it's not exactly an unheard-of tactic.

Hmm? I don't believe I assumed that. I'm not gonna hunt down my post to check my precise words, but basically what I mean is: if (and from you guys' chest-thumping, it sounds like plenty of you are leaning this way) you intend to assert a long-term aggressive control of the upper tier for the forseeable future, then it's silly to stand atop the hill just to provide a better target for snipers. And you act like nobody will be able to build at all. There's wiggle room. In the face of your side's implied policies regarding future upper tier aggression, though, I'd actually suggest (and this is by no means good for Bob, nor the course of action I advocate, but rather, the logical tactical choice in the face of the "cap opponent nation growth" approach) that it'd be in EQ's best interest to continue this war until your side consists of nothing but its handful of "super" nations and the ZI'd wreckage of whoever didn't abandon you or delete. They should grind down mid-tier nations and allies, gun for Doombird tech sellers, etc. And they will abandon/delete. Don't kid yourself. War weariness eventually makes it unfun, and think whatever you want, you guys aren't FAN. (Whereas that same war weariness is significantly less of a concern when much of one's side can sit in war mode and not worry about being declared upon, while cycling in whichever nations feel like a few weeks of war...ask NPO how much war weariness they felt during that, erm, "extended conflict.") (Underlining supplied so people don't miss that bit and run off calling me a madman for all the wrong reasons.)

...thereby securing your own irrelevance for the next few years, you mean? If your "super" nations are big beyond the opponent's reach, then their nations are perfectly safe from you as well. One could speculate that over the next few wars, your opponents could treat those "super" nations like they don't exist...relegate them to a few piddlin' aid slots. Sure, maybe'd they have to leave a few of their own top end nations in PM, but if the next war conducts itself 80k and down...well, yeah. You realize there's no value in EQ/etc. intentionally pushing their NS up to where they can look pretty on a chart and get blown up by "super" nations, right? This thread is essentially a trap in that respect. Why would anyone rebuild past what's necessary to reach targets? Because a number on this thread's gotten low? Pfft.

Well, I'm nothing if not helpful, and I'm pretty sure I can explain that first part easily enough. You see, the act of leaving your own alliance and joining another sovereign entity during wartime is referred to as as wartime desertion. I don't claim to know GOONS' policy regarding this. You'd know better than I, so if you say they support desertion, then I'll take your word for it. As for the latter, I was just helping them out (nothing if not helpful, after all!) I've heard comments about running low on targets at the high end, so I figured I'd give them a lead on some new ones. And you guys, as well, as per the last bit of my previous comments. You can check with your ex-Umbrella comrades to see if they remember who didn't sign that BIBO agreement. Again, you're welcome. Glad to be of assistance. ;)

Oh, I'm providing some valid points, but not the imagined ones you've set your mind on. If you can't tell when you're being mocked, then far be it for me to shatter your illusions. In your own words, "please carry on" with...well, whatever you think you're doing.

I'm not trying to understand Umbrella. I'm just trying to help you guys out. I found you some deserters (by DBDC's own admission they're a separate alliance now, so any who were BIBO signatories are subject to attacks by Umbrella, as per your posted doc on BIBO.) No need to thank me for my assistance in finding you some targets with whom to get started on your quest for self-ZI. You're quite welcome.

So they deserted during wartime? Tsk tsk. But they were rogues at the time. Gotcha. What's roguery if not undeclared wars? Or are you running the DBDC "point" below, in which case is sounds like they're deserters. I don't see how you can have it both ways. And people MK isn't at war with (see above.) So its members are (I'll say pretty much, because I'm disinclined to backcheck them all) wartime deserters from other alliances? Is Umbrella gonna attack those guys as per BIBO? That declaration doesn't fly. How can you tell someone's opinion on something like that if it hasn't been stated? Or are they just assuming anyone who hasn't declared "pro" is "anti?" Because it seems to me anyone in Umbrella who didn't sign BIBO is "anti-BIBO" by that standard. Hey, I've found DBDC some more targets! You're welcome, guys!

I see these nation-NS comments and think, "Well, that only really matters if they're broke, since infra-based NS is readily available at a click." That is to say, a lot of us are sub-90k for a reason, the same reason a lot of you are buying 10k infra. We'd rather be able to pick our wars, and you'd rather be able to avoid them. Strategy both ways, and it's empty words to state "X nations above Xk NS." Some might argue that finding oneself in that state is the definition of a diplomatic failure.