Altheus

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1345215370' post='3022805'] The Dawny/Moo/KoS situation would have led to war without the screenshots. It would have taken longer, but we were working actively towards war at the time; as soon as NPO dropped Illuminati we were going in, and it would have been the same CDT-Superfriends coalition blowing them up.[/quote] Yep. War was very much on the agenda before the screenshots. It was more that the screenshots just tied things up nicely, from the Invicta/UPN perspective at least.

Very reasonable reasons and very respectively done. UPN wish Legion all the best.

A better question would be why would you want him in such a high position in your alliance. Maybe he has changed, but that's taking a very big chance on someone that screwed up so fundamentally (from a position of strength no less) as to get Illuminati wiped out. Btw, a chance to correct the history books if Terry Howard and other interested parties are listening. UPN took part in the Illuminati war not because Lolluminati betrayed NPO, but because they'd upset Invicta. Terry might have even had an advocate if he hadn't been so unreasonable to Dawny...

War without Sippy as President! It's insane. It's immoral. It's an outrage!

[quote name='New Frontier' timestamp='1338228648' post='2973635'] Intensely curious as to your justification for FOK! being ahead of LUE. I would disagree on GOONS as well, but can at least understand the idea behind it. [/quote] Community. I might not agree myself with the original criteria of stats, political impact and community, but given those criteria I'd place FOK! very highly, largely because of the exclusive nature of being a non-english speaking alliance. If I was just judging based on political impact and stats I'd probabuly rate FOK! as 7th.

Double Post

For my own entertainment I decided to come up with my own list of top 25 disbanded alliances based on Incitatus' criteria of stats, political impact and community, but could only come up with 16 that could really cut muster. I've ruled out any alliances that have stated [b]themselves[/b] that they have been reformed (hence why GOONS (original) is on the list and VE (original) is not). Also I've ruled out any alliances that clearly have had a political impact, but only because they've been the hotspot or trigger for a war that was going to happen anyway (like Ordo Verde or Brotherhood of the Storm) Also, this list doesn't reflect my personal tastes. They are a number of alliances that have disbanded in past that I've really liked and frankly they are a number of alliances on the below list that I detested, this list is as objective as possible. Why only 16? Well, I was going to do 25 but what I found is that after this top 16 most disbanded alliances they are so many that are more or less on a par as to make any listing for them meaningless. None of them have really excelled. In fact I was actually struggling after the top 7, but wanted to flesh the list out as much as possible. What that tells me is that disbanding "headline" alliances is actually the exception rather than the norm. Perhaps predictably most headline alliances don't disband. 16. CIS 15. MDC 14. Genmay 13. ONOS 12. Atlantis 11. ICP 10. GOLD 9. CDS 8. TOOL 7. \m/ 6. Vox Populi 5. GGA 4. NAAC 3. LUE 2. FOK! 1. GOONS (original)

[center][color=purple][font="Impact"][size="4"]The United Purple Nations[/size][/font][/color][/center] [center][img]http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3649/upnlogo.png[/img][/center] [center]Join the United Purple Nations, one of the most dynamic, fun and entertaining alliances in the game that stand for truth, justice, cake and... groovy self-promotional videos! Created by our very own promotional video guru Karkani. Enjoy![/center] [center][url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoUahfULruU][img]http://i46.tinypic.com/3462du9.png[/img][/url][/center] [center]Ps. We also like Ribenaberries.[/center]

I've thought about this a lot, due to a similiar set of circumstances that UPN was in with the "Revenge" AA. i.e. a far smaller AA taking on a much larger one with the following weapons at their disposal. a) Huge warchests, huge enough that they can easily keep on fighting for a year. b) Small nation strengths, or at least allowing themselves to take a beating in the first phase of the war to drop down in size. Enabling them to only have to deal with the bottom end of the bigger alliance. c) Propaganda. It's easy to make out the larger AA is incompetent by arguing that they're not winning. Which of course they're not, but that's due to a) & b) rather than any other wider reason. Extra brownie points can be had if the larger AA is unpopular to start off with. First thing I noticed is that the larger AA is basically on a loser from the start. They can take horrendous amounts of damage, have to put more productive finance projects on the side to concentrate on the threat and all the while get accused of being crap fighters for not being able to deal with something far smaller than themselves. The smaller AA isn't in any better a position, expect for that they have less to lose, less to organise and come out of the process smelling of roses. There is only one thing the bigger AA can really do. Which is decide on surrender terms that aren't so weak that won't make them look any worse than they already do and then stick to it at all costs. To back down is a disaster. That's why UPN carried on hacking away at the Revenge AA for over a year, until we got what we wanted. Because not to do so would have been to invite more rogues. Destro left this world (not what we wanted) but that's the sort of commitment you require to deter more attacks. I'm not a fan of GOONS and the circumstances about how this war came about are very different, but I do think it's underestimated sometimes how difficult it is to deal with large warchest-funded rogue attacks and how much commitment is actually needed to win against them.

[quote name='Brehon' timestamp='1334388417' post='2952928'] The official reason is you need to stop playing your martyr and victim card and see about playing in political arena more your speed. [/quote] That's gratitude for you. Invicta, you're really better off without them.

[quote name='Roquentin' timestamp='1333405635' post='2947461'] It is a disease and it doesn't matter what they owe. Simply put, whenever someone gains enough of an upperhand, it won't be limited to roguing or rogue assistance in terms of actions people take against neutrals. [/quote] You're missing the point. I'm not saying people should refrain from rolling the neutrals if that's where their IC beliefs take them, I'm saying they should refrain from calling them a "disease" on an OOC forum. The accusation was that neutrals are bad for the game. I would argue that they're not, but again that would be missing the point. The point is that they have as much right to play the game as anyone else. Sure there might be IC consequences to those choices, but that doesn't take away that right.

[quote name='Gairyuki' timestamp='1333401558' post='2947423'] GPA, OBR, WTF, etc are all massive NS sinks that serve no purpose but to drown the world in inactivity, whereas the rest of us are actively playing the game. Neutrality is a crippling disease on this community. [/quote] What a load of self-righteous propaganda. And on the OOC forums too. Get this, the neutrals owe you [b]nothing[/b], they're playing the game as they see fit and to make out that's a "disease" is pretty insulting. If they bother you that much just ignore them.

no Actually yes. If by posting you can bring people around to your way of thinking then that is inciting change without firing a shot. It's worked plenty of times in the past. Wars in CN are won before anyone declares war. The biggest deciding factors are politics and propaganda, not nukes and whathaveyou.

Ahh I see, learnt something today. How confusing for two, often non-complimentary, political definations or views to be given the same name. That's the english language for you.

If nothing else I adore the name

Good news :wubs:

I think a large contributing factor to the UJW was the antagonism the Unjust Path had towards alliances that otherwise would have been neutral in the conflict, but were grouping together with the remains of Aegis due to the perceived threat. That collective, but unnamed, entity became allied to NpO when it became clear that NpO would choose them over the UJP. So one could say that the UJP was actually it's own worst enemy, because it enabled NpO to create a Polar MDP web to defeat them.

"Liberalism adversely encourages cooperation among states to further the goals of the world as a whole, generally speaking." I don't think that's necessarily true. Liberalism is a belief in freedom and equal rights. Whilst (like any other political belief) it can benefit from international cooperation. Equally it can also be the moving force behind war and conflict in the name of freedom.

Good post and also Canik's point. Outside of the context of the game there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with tech raiding, war, spying etc, but because everything unagreeable (both IC and OOC) gets lumped into the unhelpful category of "moralist", in both a delibrately negative manner and also with no distinction between IC and OOC, it's very easy for overt OOC aggression to be overlooked. And this game suffers far too much from it, or more importantly some players suffer far too much from it. Although I do think it's a problem the internet "community" has as a whole.

Over four and half years UPN & Invicta have had such a long and shared history that it was always going to be sad that this has come about. In the end, our FA paths had just become too different. However we're still hugely fond of Invicta and I mean that. Not the typical CN platitudes that you see with some some cancellations, I do genuinely, wholeheartedly mean that. Treaties aside, they'll always be a special relationship between UPN and Invicta. Also, Dawny. I miss you.

[quote name='Parandiac' timestamp='1328775144' post='2917209'] 99% of an alliance being in peacemode gets respect from you? seriously? their eight nations at war stuck it out? they all bailed much earlier. Alt was the only person i could fight and he was scared to pick up his nuked infra and fight anyone at his level. seriously, a disgrace. everyone praising UPN for their effort needs their head examined. they fought longer than other alliances only by virtue of the fact that they were late getting on the peace train and sent their nations into peace. this wasn't honourable or noble. it was a disgrace [/quote] I remember you, you're the whiny little brat who cried when I nuked you up the ass and you know what? It was a pleasure, it felt good to burst your bubble of self-delusion. I didn't buy my infra back up to avoid nations of an equal tech size, I did it to hit people like you. The weakest target and, given your needy attitude, the most likely to break. Because that's what you in war. As much as possible you pick when, where and how you fight. You take every advantage you can get.I'm never going to apologise for that, it would amount to apologising for not lying on your back and taking it like a !@#$%*. Besides it's a load of bull. 99% peace mode? Get off. We weren't in peace mode anymore than anyone else on our side, but even if we had we owe you nothing anyway. So screw you.

Over the last twelve months it feels like we've been at war more often than peace, but it's a good feeling. An irradiated, carpet bombed, scorch earthed sort of feeling, but a good feeling none the less. A warm fuzzy feeling of satisfaction (or maybe that's just the radiation poisoning) Anyway, thanks to everyone who shared a post-apocalyptic moment with us and onwards to the rebuild!

[quote name='jerdge' timestamp='1328537490' post='2915447'] Altheus, lynchings are OK, but polite criticism isn't. Please catch up. [/quote] Ain't that the truth.

[quote name='Denial' timestamp='1328535214' post='2915441'] I will literally hold a pitchfork and torch during the voting rounds of this competition if it assists in chasing terrible players away at an even faster rate. [/quote] And by "terrible" you mean people who don't act in a way you approve of presumeably.

Just what CN needs, another unpopularity contest to chase people away. Hiding behind statements like "everyone gets to vote" and "it's just a bit of fun" to try and disassociate itself from what it is, schoolyard bullying. Wake up.