ktarthan

HoT, I can't really tell who you're responding to so I'll just ask: who do you think called you an idiot? Other than Mr. Uruk here, I can't see anyone singling you out.

Oh I'm well aware. I was attempting to not get lengthy about this, but I guess the distance between what I said and what I meant was a bit too far and most people came to the conclusion that I'm trying to admonish people who troll. This is not the case. My OP carries two main ideas, and I'll try to break them down: "Attempting to convince the world that you're an idiot and succeeding" The basis of making someone dislike you is to be disagreeable. Whether by disagreeing directly with what they say, by espousing ideas that they strongly disagree with, or by acting in a way they strongly disagree with. The main point is to act contrary to their beliefs/opinions. The other main ingredient is believability; if they don't think you're sincere, then you don't effectively establish yourself as being disagreeable, and whatever you're trying to do won't really work. So, together this means being believably disagreeable. I used the word "idiot" but as I said, it can be pretty much any other derogatory term. The take away here is that success means the target(s) will be convinced you are wrong in some way. This really only covers a specific flavor of "trolling". It's probably the most common and most effective one, but anger isn't the only reaction that people can try to elicit. "is a victory neither hard won nor worth merit." Now that we've established the sort of trolling I'm talking about, this is where I call into question its merit. This part is a bit tricky, because there's a bit of implied context. That is, it's directed only to a person who is attempting to convince me otherwise. Or in other words: an openly proud troll. Since we established earlier that believability is a major component to effective trolling, a person who admits that they are indeed purposely trying to elicit a response is intentionally reducing their effectiveness. So in my eyes, the only reason to do so would be because they assign value to their actions. And once such a thought is expressed, it's now a valid target for criticism, which is exactly what the OP is. So, without discussion of trolling, the OP doesn't exist. I guess you could call it a meta criticism? Effectively, to those who admit they troll: "What, would you like a cookie?"

just wait for the upcoming expose "Ardus: At fault for literally everything ever"

Substitute "idiot" for any other derogatory term, really. It's trivial to get people to dislike you for any number of reasons. Simply saying that it was your intention to get them to dislike you doesn't lend the act any worth.

im gonna start my own alliance and call it gonos suck it

This is a bit of a departure from the regular theme of this blog as it doesn't exactly address an argument per se, though it often comes up argument adjacent. I'll make it short and sweet: Attempting to convince the world that you're an idiot and succeeding is a victory neither hard won nor worth merit.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Death to the Neutral Meanace!

Pity be upon them who must face The Wrath of Allarchon,

Oh wow you are just SO funny XDDDD

It's. About. Time.

[quote name='Thrash' timestamp='1341359704' post='3002891'] Shout outs to the MK guys I fought so far. I picked famous ones so I'd know I'd get a good fight. Banksy, kthartan, Azaghul, Chickenzilla, Detlev and Blacky, I'll be seeing some of you again soon. [/quote] Despite spelling my name wrong, you and Haf were easily the most competent opponents I've faced this war (although I think Haf's warchest makes him a little reckless with his GAs) Also a special shout-out to the few CSN and NATO nations I faced that haven't learned about tech priority when nuking; you guys certainly made my life easier more than a few times!

[quote name='scytale' timestamp='1342783581' post='3012536'] No, no, no. Please, not the PARENTHESES. Anything but that. The humanity. The horror. The horror. The horror... BTW, how come you and Umb aren't close enough to know no more then taking wild guesses about Umb's war policies? [/quote] Because I don't care nearly enough to ask them about it.

[quote name='scytale' timestamp='1342731154' post='3012234'] Ha! I stirred someone up. So... why [i]does[/i] Umb have their lower tier in PM? [/quote] Oh yes, I'm so stirred up. Like a big angry pot of stew. As I've said before I'm not privy to Umbrella's war policies (as I assume is the case with most people not in Umbrella), but if I had to take a wild guess it'd be to avoid sending their lower tier into a protracted (and rather pointless) battle with Fark's sizeable amount of 25-40K nations. [i]Now[/i]. Before you try to equate one alliance sending its lower tier to PM to the majority of a coalition sending their upper tier to PM, please be forewarned that if you do I will have no choice but to write an [i]incredibly[/i] long blog post on the importance of context, and it's going to be absolutely [i]chock-full[/i] of parentheses and emphases, and [i]you're[/i] going to have to read the entire thing, and [i]nobody[/i] is going to enjoy any part of it.

[quote name='scytale' timestamp='1342724000' post='3012136'] Well... a slight correction. Umbrella's peace mode DoW on Fark was pretty defensible. So defensible for Fark that Umbrella had to bring in Denios and TLR in an attempt to help "defend" Umb nations that didn't escape into peace mode. Glad for that because it gave us more targets. We were ready to go to war against each other to see who would get open slots. Thanks! [/quote] Yes, we get it, Umbrella has a bunch of their lower tier in PM. But if the top 10 nations in Fark (minus #8) came out of PM they'd most certainly have some targets, so I don't see what all the fuss is about.

[quote name='the rebel' timestamp='1342617800' post='3011589'] Anyone ever thought what if the top tiers of these alliances which are so bad not letting the over the odds top tiers ripping them a new orifice...Come out of peacemode to let those have their fun. Then once the war ends the losing side of the conflict decides there is no point building any nation above a predetermined level of NS which would make the winning top tier immune for war and fun and just left to collect/bills/aid for eternity. So would be left with few choices, turn on each other in future wars or repeat previous wars but no top tiers to cry about. A case of shooting ones self in foot for very short term gain. [/quote] Why not just have your entire alliance sell off all infra and land and tech? If you have 0 NS, your enemies can't damage you at all!

[quote name='the rebel' timestamp='1342493329' post='3011005'] At the end of the day, I spent time working out what the average pm cycle time is for some alliances. My reasoning was throughout this war the bigger side has said "stop hiding your nations in pm" when the other side says back "you're hiding nations in pm too" the reply comes back "but we cycle our nations unlike you that hide". So aimed to see if the claim was backed up that alliances were cycling their peacemode nations in and out or not. High average would show hiding and low average would show cycling. Low to mid being 5-14 days / mid to high 15-21+ days. You can disagree or call it flawed, but at least its a different way to view peacemode stats by day rather than the normal "herp durp they have x amount hiding in peacemode". [/quote] Alright, now that you're clear that you feel that high average equals hiding, and low average equals cycling, I can provide some better criticism. First off, you've incorrectly interpereted the argument coming from my side that you're trying to refute. It isn't always explicitly said, but I'm sure you'll find most agree that the accusation is that some alliances are employing PM in order to avoid damage at an alliance level. Given this interpretation of the argument, the statistics you've provided are lacking as a rebuttal, as it does not provide any detail about how an alliance's use of PM relates to how much damage the alliance can potentially or effectively evade. Secondly, the statistics you've provided do not even do a particularly good job of describing whether or not an alliance trends towards "hiding" or "cycling," which you've stated is what you're trying to describe. The biggest reason for this is that you've assumed a negative correlation: an alliance that cycles many of its nations does not hide its nations, and that an alliance that doesn't cycle many of its nations must be hiding its nations. The truth is that cycling and hiding are both independent actions, and as such should be measured independently. Also, as a heads up, if you [i]do[/i] want to measure them independently, don't bother with cycling. It's more trouble than it's worth to provide a meaninful statistic on it. Lastly, at the end of the day, you can't justify incorrect reasoning with "at least it's a different way to look at it." A different view is not always a useful view. [quote name='Mompson' timestamp='1342497355' post='3011022'] While I agree with you that average number of days in PM doesn't tell the whole story, this post illustrates something else. Umbrella puts their lower nations in PM because they are so outnumbered at that range any nations not in PM would be crushed (look at nations who couldn't quite make it to PM when Umbrella declared that Fark got their hands on). Now how is alliances on the SF/XX side hiding their upper tiers in PM different from Umbrella hiding their lower tier in PM? In both cases, the people in PM are there because if they came out, they'd have three nations on them within 48 hours and it'd just be a huge curbstomp that would most likely result in them being staggered for multiple rounds. I understand the "didn't get their beating" argument, and understand it completely, even agree with it. But to take what the losing side is doing and say one thing, then take that same concept that the winning side is using and say another is hypocritical. [/quote] Yes, it appears Umbrella has its lower tiers in PM to avoid having them swarmed by Fark. I'm not intimate with Umbrella's war policy, but for sake of argument, I'll assume that's the truth. In this case, the tangible difference (and honestly, the clearest difference in many cases where the sides could be compared) is that the vast bulk of Umbrella's NS is still in war mode. Whether or not those nations stay in PM won't have a significant impact on Umbrella's overall stats.

[quote name='the rebel' timestamp='1342480545' post='3010921'] The average days is to show which alliances are actually "cycling" nations in and out of peacemode and how fast they're doing it. Nothing more and nothing less. [/quote] In previous posts you've implied a conclusion that a higher average days is a less desirable result. I find this to be flawed reasoning. I also find that your stats don't adequately measure what you're trying to measure, even given the information readily available. If you're going to start producing statistics and then assign qualitative words like "worse" to the results, then I will provide criticism.

[quote name='Ogaden' timestamp='1342474464' post='3010865'] This whole thread is blatantly about politics, are you blind. Maybe if someone made this thread when a giant war [i]wasn't[/i] going on we could have a vaguely impartial discussion about these matters. [/quote] What does that even matter? I made a post about statistics and you replied to it with a jab at Umbrella. I don't care if you lack the self control to act impartial about an internet browser game that is currently experiencing a large war while posting in an Out Of Character forum. Please keep your politics out of my statistics.

[quote name='Ogaden' timestamp='1342473370' post='3010852'] Maybe their lower tier should come out of peace mode and [s]get rolled[/s] earn our respect. [/quote] Maybe you should get your politics out of my statistics. No, it is not a delicious combination like peanut butter and chocolate.

[quote name='Neo Uruk' timestamp='1342471296' post='3010825'] I think you're missing that GOONS is preserving nations who can help anyone without a warchest rebuild so that we're not a parking lot after the war. Umbrella has always had a policy and I'm not going to elaborate here if you don't already know it by now. [/quote] Umbrella in this case is a great example where the "average days in PM" can fall flat on its face. Umbrella has 17% of its nations in PM (only 3 of those in their top 80 nations), yet 70% of those nations have been in PM for more than 30 days which skews the average up. The fact that Umbrella is largely under-engaged means that they don't have any real need to use PM to cycle their nations, which means they have very few sub-7-days-in-PM nations to lower the average.

"Average days in peace mode" gives an extra perspective, but just like "total % in peace mode" it doesn't give the full story. Unlike with most stats in this game, you're trying to derive an [i]intent[/i] which is incredibly difficult to render from a single stat in a meaningful way. Total % and % NS don't take into account length of time, Average Days doesn't take into account Total % or % NS. Combine that with the fact that gathering data from this game is a pain at best, it's difficult to get enough info to make a proper metric. For instance: counting the number of enemy nations with open defensive slots in range of nations in PM, and plotting that over the course of the war would be one I'd be most interested to see, but it'd be a nightmare to gather the info. Out of stats that are more readily available, I think that the average days in peace mode weighted around %NS would be interesting as well. Something like (Nation NS / Alliance NS) * 100 * Days in PM. But even that would require more than twice the effort of just gathering the average. Also, [quote name='Jonathan Brookbank' timestamp='1342413112' post='3010667'] Anyone saying that if people weren't in peace mode that the war would be over needs to reevaluate their viewpoint, because it's clear MK and co. have no intentions of letting anyone but their buddy VE and NPO's buddy NATO out with such sweetheart deals. [/quote] "MK's buddy VE" xfd are you for real

[quote name='Yggdrazil' timestamp='1342207215' post='3009779'] Your opponent will not attack you where you are strong and won't let you use your "big stick". The lament of every stronger opponent. Welcome to warfare as it actually is. Learn to embrace this cold hard fact and quit trying to change Bob into a game. [/quote] That has nothing to do with it. With a few exceptions here and there, I find the act of sitting in peace mode to avoid participating in a war to be wholly pointless and cowardly.

[quote name='supercoolyellow' timestamp='1342163937' post='3009621'] Are you for real? Both coalitions have nearly the same percentage in PM, and you're saying when coalition A does it they're cowards, and when Coalition B does it they're just cycling people out. Honestly, I don't even know any more. I would say this is getting stupid, but the peace mode thing went full retard weeks ago, but people like yourself seam just hell bent on spouting such drivel. [/quote] It is true though, to some extent. There are two primary uses for Peace Mode: First is as a useful tool during war to keep control of war declarations. It can be used to keep nations in reserve for staggers, as well as for getting out of anarchy and restocking nukes. This is a tactic being used by both sides in this war fairly equally. Second it can be used to avoid taking any damage at all. This is also being done by both sides in this war, but it is [i]primarily[/i] being used by the SF/XX coalition. With a few small exceptions I, and I'm sure others, find this tactic to be pointless and cowardly. It's not that when one coalities uses PM it's valid and when the other does it is not; it's the fact that each coalition has demonstrably different priorities in its use.