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WcaesarD

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  1. WcaesarD
    Our game of Cyber Nations has produced, through it's time, some interesting things. The one that caught my mind today, was inter-alliance friendship. I don't mean having friends in another alliance, but friendship between alliances.
    Most treaties in this game are based off of political maneuvering and/or friendship. It occurs to me, that despite what you may think, you're probably not actually friends with that alliance. Sure, you might know 10-20 members of the other alliance, and know most of them well, but then, chances are, and this holds true of most non-micro-alliances, there are MANY more you don't know. Now, chances are they are much like the ones you do know, because most alliances are groups of like-minded folks, but you do never know.
    Most often, this friendship is established government to government, and this, I believe, is the reason that we have in the past seen so many groups reailgn themsemelves. This also might not represent alliance-alliance relationships as a whole A decent example of this, is the MK-TOP relations previous to the ongoing conflict. The leaders of both alliances stated mutual liking and respect for each other, while the general membership showed the opposite. It's situations like these that make this game interesting and fresh. But true friendship between large groups of people is very rare to come by, and takes time, something that this game does not afford to many.
  2. WcaesarD

    White Peace and Reps

    By WcaesarD,

    Post war reparations (reps) have long been a staple on planet Bob. Once a war was over, the winning side would tally up some numbers, and present em to the losing side. Sure, there was usually some sort of haggling, but for the most part, the victorious dictated the terms. In the Karma war, we saw both ends of the spectrum; white peace, and the heaviest reps of all time. Now, I'm not here to discuss what was or wasn't warranted, the time for that is long passed. What I do want to discuss, is if, in the modern, warchest filled world of CN, reparations still have a place.
    During this war we're having, there was a brief period where we saw masses of white peace. Many alliances signing to peace out with all of their opponents at once. Is this an indication of a move away from reps, or more a sign of there being friends on both sides of the war, or something completely unrelated? I would say that it is the first. Of the alliances recent losing wars, almost all have had fairly tame reps for their sizes, or none at all.
    The reasons for the could be many, war is significantly more devastating now than it was in years past, they go on longer, the advent of mass warchest savings make either overly harsh, or underly effective terms the only real options, or simply the fact that there is a stigma on them from the times of the Hegemony.
    With the widespread use of warchests for not only warfare, but for post-war rebuilding, why would victors want to take money out of a stockpile? Before the massive warchest was a common practice, it would take most of the money a nation was making to gather up the cash to send out payments. With the way nation building and banking are understood, it's significantly easier to get a nation back up to banking size in a short span of time, allowing more of an alliances nations to send out reps.
    With all of this taken into account, the small amount that you can move at once, the large warchests, the public disapproval, and the PR hit you take, it would seem that soon enough, harsh reps will most likely be a thing of the past in most cases. Sure, when a group unnecessarily prolongs a war, or causes undue devastation, they still have a rightful place, but only, as I see it, in defensive victory, or when the war was grossly prolonged through malice.
    I'd love to hear thoughts on the place of reps, and the time for white peace, if anyone feels like discussing.
  3. WcaesarD
    Just a little disclaimer: This may not be coherent, it may jump around, and it may take some things I see as basic truths for granted. It's not meant as military advice, just as a commentary and evaluation.
    On the field of battle, the techniques are constantly evolving, this is as true in the cyberverse as in real life. It used to be that the best tactics involved were to throw your banks into peace mode, and have an all out blitz just before update, a quad ground war attack, and then it was all downhill to the finish. As this war goes on, we see many of the combatants with nearly half their populations either in peace mode or holding back on attacks. These nations are inevitably called cowards or inactive, and mocked, regardless of the fact that this is nearly never why they hold back.
    With the advent of multi billion dollar warchests, a simple anarchy doesn't even begin to slow the damage output of a nation. We're seeing larger nations, and larger warchests.
    Now, if you'll allow me a little hypothesizing, we're likely to see a matchup between MK and TOP at some point in this conflict, or some time in the future. Sure, it won't be just those two, but for the sake of argument, let's leave it at that. Both alliances boost impressive nuke counts, activity levels (not the in game statistic) and ANS. However, TOP edges MK in nations and ANS by quite a bit, especially at the very upper tiers. It can be safely assumed that these two alliances, both who are fairly experienced at the whole war thing won't be resorting to the full out tactics of old. The last time it appeared a war would appear we saw lines drawn at the 85k Nation strength line, and peace mode was bountiful on each side. Since we know these alliances both urge, or require large warchest requirements, it seems fairly obvious that this won't be a short conflict where one alliance comes out decisively on top.
    With all of this in mind, it seems obvious that if you're about to engage an alliance, you're going to want to have at least some people ready to come out of peace mode and provide support in the form of additional declarations, money sent out and second wave capabilities. This can be an issue if you're one of the original alliances in the war, and, if your opponents properly stagger, they gain an advantage not easily overcome, all warchests will expire eventually, no matter the starting size. This is another thing that makes the staggered ENTRY into the war (out of peace mode) so important, to counter the staggerers, to spread the targets and, of course, all the reasons listed earlier.
    The warfare methods of CN have evolved, it isn't a game where a midnight blitz is the be-all-end-all, we have other, more involved tactics to use and consider now. Now this isn't to say that the old ways are useless, a quad ground attack is still the best option to anarchy a conventional target, a dogfight will help get your bombers through, and yes, dropping a nuke is still the ultimate hit. However, a strategic group in peace mode isn't cowardly, it's a sound method. Just because your enemy doesn't fully expose their weaker nations to you doesn't make them anything other than good planners. Working to pair targets with allies is more important than ever, and still, the stagger is king. The more time you give your enemies to recover during the conflict, the more damage they'll inflict on you, and keeping a target in anarchy and bill lock with one ground war a day is a huge advantage.
    As always I'll end by saying if I missed anything, or you spot something clearly incorrect, please, bring it to my attention.
  4. WcaesarD

    Rule of treaties.

    By WcaesarD,

    With another global war appearing on the horizon, we'e seeing the usual flurry of last minute treaty signings and cancellations. When are people going to figure out that pieces of e-paper aren't the be-all-end-all of the cyberverse? I mean, look at MHA, the statistic number one alliance in the game, they're treatied directly with Gramlins, who have one formal treaty. One.
    A treaty can be a wonderful thing to formalize a relationship, and as a way to announce it to the world, if that's your thing, but it isn't always necessary. Think about it, this war started when NpO declared on \m/, in defense, so they say, of any number of alliances they hold no treaties with. Alliances like MK find themselves overtreatied and with hands semi-tied when they find themselves fighting on opposite sides of direct MDP partners.
    If these treaties were done away with, the game would suddenly become exciting. There wouldn't be simple cut and dried lines before the wars even started. Treaties are nice, but I would much rather have some real friends out there, ones who want to fight by my side, than a group obligated to do so because of a piece of e-paper signed months or years ago by people who probably aren't even there anymore.
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