[CN is losing players!]

Best way to increase player count: stop these boring blogs about losing players.

[I Give You: Modion!]

It's the offspring of Sponge Bob and Mario.

[Hey, GATO. I don't think you're a bad person for cancelling on NSO.]

Great to see your true feelings for GATO come out, NSO.

[Who are the best MoFAs?]

Joracy

[Toppling Tyranny: Hegemonic Hierarchies and How They Collapse]

It doesn't really matter. When people say Super-Grievances they don't mean SuperFriends and Complaints and Grievance. They mean SF and CnG plus the alliances connecting them. There is only three treaties directly between CnG and SF (GR-RIA, MK-GOD, and Athens-CSN). Their common allies is what helps keep them together though. It of course also helps that they have a common enemy. Of course you know all of this so I'm preaching to the choir.

Yes, but the article was talking about periphery alliances of C&G and of SF. Sparta is not in a bloc and is, therefore, a periphery.

Put it this way, if C&G and SF were to decide that they were going to fight each other tomorrow, Sparta doesn't have a natural 'side' like Athens or RIA would.

[Toppling Tyranny: Hegemonic Hierarchies and How They Collapse]

MHA and NpO maybe, but have you looked at Sparta's treaties? They are kind of "the middle".

Sparta isn't in one of those blocs though.

[Toppling Tyranny: Hegemonic Hierarchies and How They Collapse]

Working on what I said? If so, they should add a few if they can. Minimum of 10mil ns, ideal would prolly be 15mil, awesome if they can manage it would be 20mil. Would be lots of work but I think they would see its worth it to get out of being pawns of the top tier alliances and even more impressive would be if they held no treaties with any of the big alliances (the sanctioned ones or an alliance that is in CG/SF). Not having treaties that tie them up would make them more influential in my mind cuz they could always enter a side via the Moldavi Doctrine, but which?

He's not talking about NS, rather political power. Alliances who are not 'at the centre' of things, but are on the same side as C&G and SF due to treaty obligations.

Alliances like MHA, Sparta, NpO etc aren't at the 'centre' of these two blocs, yet they have a lot of NS and influence.

[What an odd-clustered train schedule!]

"We haven't had a war in ages"

"These wars never end, they are so boring"

[Regarding tag on IRC]

Gov tend to not wear tags. Newer members do because it gives them a sense of inclusion.

[CN Generations and Eras]

Karma generation, checking in.

[Bastion; New Kids on the Bloc]

Then it is like a bloc that's only been partially built, so it's got the !@#$@#$ huge laser beam but is missing all the office space around the poles.

[Bastion; New Kids on the Bloc]

Don't listen to them, Bastion is a fully armed and operational MDP bloc.

[Spicing up the Sanction Race]

Last man standing was cool, but changing it around makes it the most fun imo.

[Drinks.]

Blue Powerade :s

["John Q" or "Pursuit of Happyness?"]

I don't think that movies based on history can be non-predictable.

True, the 'overall' plot is predictable. But in tPoH, literally every scene and story derailment is predictable and clichéd. That's just poor film making.

["John Q" or "Pursuit of Happyness?"]

The pursuit of happyness was one of the worst films I have ever seen. They managed to make a film frustrating, slow to develop, predictable and depressing. I can't think of a single redeeming feature.

fyi, the 'happyness' was referring to a piece of misspelt graffiti outside of the kid's school and was intentional.

[A congrats to Xiphosis.]

This made me dislike Xiph less actually :s

[Lessons of the Xiphosis Experiment]

Messing up people's back collections! Do you have no shame?

[Omni vs. Timlee]

Voted Omniscientone because he was the first one on the list. I'm regretting this now because because he beat me in the AC race. And because TimLee smells less.

[The Existential Threat]

Welp. The point I made is slightly out of context. Vladimir's OP is discussing how people blamed the NPO for the loss of membership. I can't say I buy into that argument either, most players on CN don't really care about the political element. They just collect taxes and buy tech, actions which are beyond the control of any political player. So I skipped ahead to some gameplay reasons for the loss in membership.

Focusing on the political reasons for the loss in nations, I can see pacifican dominance as having both a positive and a negative effect on the total number of nations. On the one hand, I think we can thank the NPO for keeping the numbers up. Between the UJW and Karma, there were few 'sides' beaten down (yes, i'm not counting the WotC). This meant alliances were bloated with inactive members. In wars, alliances shed members, with inactive members on the losing side being the first to go. Look at the membership drops that the NPO and IRON had in Karma as evidence of this. They had sat on top for some time, but now that they were being attacked, they were leaving the game.

Obviously wars still occurred between 2007 and 2009. But these were beatdowns on smaller groups of alliances, and so although Bob lost hundreds of nations in each war, it was not as devastating as the more even sided wars such as Karma and even TOP-C&G. We can almost thank the NPO for keeping Bob in this state of paralysis caused by the MADP web mess and the dominance of Q. It prevented wars, and while it made it quite dull for some, I believe it kept the overall number of nations up.

On the other hand, the NPO's beatdowns were disheartening for the alliance leaders and active political players in the 2008-2009 era. Kalasin essentially says what I feel here. Look at the number of active players who have departed because they were hounded from the game, or saw all their work destroyed through war. The NPO can be blamed on killing off the active membership.

I'm happier with a smaller, active community. Someone mentioned on the previous page that all multiplayer internet games have a 'die off' after the peak. CN is having a very successful 'death' in my opinion. And it's been having one for two and a half years now. The loss of these inactive nations is not such a terrible thing for CN. I also feel that there is a strong group of active post-Karma players who are stepping into leadership roles around the planet. It is removing some of the 'old guard' feel. Would this have happened when the NPO was at its peak? I don't believe it would have.

[The Existential Threat]

The number of nations dropped because alliances decided to go for the quality>quantity route after 2007. Most alliances used to just require their nations to make an oath back when we had 40,000 nations. Now there are IRC interviews, competency tests, trade circle requirements etc. The result is that there are more active members, but a lower total. I know the ODN's forum activity (or rather, bandwidth/number of posts) has increased steadily since 2006, despite our cut back in total nations. I suspect it is similar for many other alliances.

There are also fewer mass recruiters now, and the number of invasion alliances has been reduced greatly. The lack of invasion alliances is probably because the game is now so established that it is rather difficult to establish a presence here (although obviously GOONS are doing rather well for themselves).

A mod crackdown on everyone's 'brother' who played probably helped reduce the number too.

[Disbanding]

At the current rate that micros disband, I expect to see CoJ sanctioned in the near future.

[Sanction Race Update Time]

Anywhere from 7-10 is fine. Any later and you don't leave much time for a last minute update if no one remembers.

[USA out of World Cup. Underachievement or a Job Well Done?]

It's hardly an under achievement, the US team is awful. That pool was just ridiculously easy, and when the UK played so shockingly, it was natural that the US would go through.

[Who wants to hear Londo sing?]

Not gonna lie, that was awful.