Sarkin

I know what we're all thinking right now. TOP is so screwed.

I love that hartfw was not only too lazy to post this thread, he's been too lazy to post in the thread. Get it together, man. Well, we'll see what happens.

Well, don't work TOO hard on writing up a flowery, eloquent DoW. Geez, you might throw your wrist out or something. o/ Everyone But Gingervites

I was so excited to have a treaty between an AZTEC alliance and faux-GGA, too. :(

It's always unfortunate to see an endeavor led by friends not work out. That said, it's tough to complain too much when that means they'll be coming over to hang out a lot more often. As in, all of the time. As in, the Federation of Celtic Nations is merging into Aurora Borealis. We're happy to give our old friends a new home. A couple of clerical notes: Vosegus will be joining us as our new Minister of Foreign Affairs, and we will continue to protect those who remain on the Federation of Celtic Nations AA for the next 60 days. Signed for Aurora Borealis, Drake Spoke, Triumvir Jutopia, Triumvir Sarkin, Triumvir Ace072199, Elder Adviser The Evilest Eye, Elder Adviser DAn123123, Elder Adviser Wasso, Minister of Internal Affairs MrGriffin38, Minister of War Signed for the Federation of Celtic Nations, Vosegus, Taoiseach

Pretty sure they're trying to annoy AZTEC to the point where we declare war on them, too (it's the cool thing to do these days). Also, this thread has gotten really weird and off-topic.

Of course you would post this right after I left for the night, James. Sorry to see this. You guys were good allies, and I wish we could've fought together at some point. Don't say that I didn't warn you, though: Our non-AZTEC allies sort of have a history of doing this kind of thing (Sengoku's gonna be next).

This whole post is silly, but I wanted to draw attention to these three particular phrases because they're just hilariously awful. 1.) "The absolutely, positively most important weapon of war means nothing when I can only use it four times per opponent!" 2.) "We're NOT incompetent, guys! It's just that literally two-thirds of us have huddled into a fetal position ready to die! Totally different." 3.) "I have no idea what we could have done to prepare for post-war rebuilding more than a month into the round after fighting no wars! It's almost as if I shouldn't rely on a post-war collection to do the trick! It's almost as if having a warchest would've prevented just this sort of calamity! No, that's crazy talk." You know what really ruins TE? Continually dodging wars and then merging to create a super-alliance with the apparent expectation that nobody would smack you in the mouth for it. You can say that your alliances didn't "try" to avoid a fair fight, but guess what? You can start a war unilaterally. You had the option to start a war (hell, maybe even against each other!) and you chose not to. Frankly, considering the pitiful state of most of your warchests and your near-instant move to turtling, I'm pretty sure that TPC or OP alone could've kneecapped you guys. But how were we to know that you were this terrible?

These are good points, and even if Competence's coalition-wide strategy was (understandably) to engage in only a few tiers, that had some really serious repercussions in terms of staggers after the first few weeks of war on our front. If TOP had brought just another four or five mid-sized nations out of peace mode, we would've been extremely hard-pressed to maintain staggers across-the-board through the duration of the war. Hell, we were hard-pressed as it was, although we managed to keep up with it. I won't argue with TOP's fidelity to the coalition's strategy, but I would argue that on the TOP front, having fewer nations in peace mode (not all of them were small nations, as you seem to be suggesting and as bcortell just refuted) would've helped you out a lot. Considering the amount of damage you guys took with that strategy, I have a hard time believing it would've been worse if you'd tried something else. Also, considering the amount of hostility directed toward the alliances participating in the TOP front during the war, I doubt that the other EQ fronts would've been willing to shift over resources to help with the newcomers, especially after war fatigue started to settle in. Still, I could see TOP bringing out 50%+ of its peace mode nations for this war. With EQ, TOP was on the losing end of the war and part of a coalition that was significantly outnumbered in most tiers. Here, if things go as expected, TOP's coalition will hold a large quantitative edge. Therefore, it's not so much "bringing out more sacrificial lambs to overstretch our attackers" as it is "letting more people join in the victory parade." Also, and this is probably besides the point of this discussion, but I'll grant that TOP did fight well even in a bad situation. That's more than can be said for most alliances.

Realistically, this turned out to be an OP vs. TPC war, with OP using some spare war slots to slap Misfits upside the head for screwing with NLoN. You guys declared a total of four wars as your, uh, counter. Across a total of 37 wars, you guys managed to cause 10,568.49 NS in damage. On average, that's a total of 285.63 NS per war, otherwise known as "about as much as daily cruise missiles would do." It's worth noting that 3,195.23 NS of the damage you guys caused was against a pair of our smaller nations who were entirely inactive then and now, and who will likely be getting kicked off of the AA shortly for their inactivity. Just for comparison's sake, I ended up fighting 5 TPC nations. I attacked three, and two countered me. I was nuked just once, so my experience was actually pretty light compared to some other OP and TPC nations. I received a total of 5,916.99 damage, and I dealt a total of 5,001.9 damage. That adds up to 10,918.89 damage. So, just in the five wars that I fought in, where only a single nuke was exchanged, more damage was dealt by and against me than the entirety of Misfits dealt in 37 wars. I wasn't OP's largest nation coming into this war. I wasn't even top five. I didn't hit anyone in TPC's top five at the time, either. I mean, you can try to say that you "put up a bit of a fight," but the stats don't show it at all. Congrats to the three Misfits nations that didn't roll over and die in all of their wars: Kaboom, someguy, and Renton.

I love these two posts, because they exemplify everything ridiculous about the case that Misfits is trying to build. The argument of post one: Everyone forgets that we're actually really incompetent (and yet, this doesn't stop us from trash talking on the forums constantly)! So, you guys should be nicer to us, because the point of TE isn't to wage wars, it's to play nice. Also, hey, we could get better with "time and effort from leadership," but we're incapable of that and we would rather spend our time getting our teeth kicked in and whining on here, leaving the actual "fighting back" thing to TPC. The argument of post two: Since our (almost non-existent) "war" with NLoN used up all of our resources and made it impossible to fight back, we're rendered absolutely useless as an alliance and can't fight back to save our lives, leaving us nothing more than an XP raid. You know how wars turn into XP raids, right? One party doesn't put up a fight. If you guys were fighting a tenth as hard as TPC, we wouldn't have the ability to spend warchests and spy operations on cruise missiles. We'd have to actually, you know, make an effort and that sort of thing. C'mon, guys. Can't you muster up even a shred of dignity?

I can't believe that your defense is "WE WERE IN A WAR, GUYS! NO REALLLLLLY!!!!" NLoN is barely an alliance at this point, your "blitz" consisted of exactly two nations declaring a total of four wars. Looking at EddyH's nation in particular, he suffered exactly zero damage from his three NLoN wars. Swazz, your "wars" that left your resources so "exhausted" damaged you exactly 286.82 NS. This "war" lasted barely two days, and NLoN's "counter" consisted of two wars declared by one small nation In total, Misfits received a total of just 1,862.87 NS in damage from its war with NLoN, a war that you all apparently found so tremendously devastating that you're absolutely exhausted and couldn't possibly muster any resources to mount a challenge. By your own admission, we should find you all absolutely worthless as opponents and not even count you in the stats. I can't say that I disagree with this demand, you've certainly earned that valuation so far. On a side note, TPC combined preparation, coordination, and an impressive level of activity to withstand our sizable blitz (fortunately, we were able to get more than two guys up for it; take notes, Misfits!) without receiving half the damage that they would have had otherwise. Kudos on some excellent fighting so far, guys. I'm going to revise my earlier statement: Mume 4.0 is obviously Misfits, not TPC.

Go ahead, explain how this is a downdeclare. You've made the assertion, now make an actual case for it.

As someone currently at war with you, I agree, it sucks that you had to be on tonight.

TPC = Mume 4.0.

Congratulations on the new protectorate, GLoF. This.

For our part, Specify Other was never meant to be more than a one round joyride.

Aw, dammit.

The Equilibrium military coalition ultimately did not succeed in destroying the Competence military coalition. However, the post-war remnants of EQ has certainly succeeded in dismantling the ex-Competence coalition politically. Doomhouse gone, Platysphere brought over, and now C&G is reduced. The only significant post-war gain for Competence was Pacifica, whose sphere has steadily shrank since joining. Who would've guessed? What a tumultuous few months! Of course, without a few more cancellations, this withdrawal from INT is more symbolic than anything.

What I like about Ardus is that he's honest. After facing rejection from Competence, TOP has managed to place itself almost dead center in the new dominant sphere (statistically, at least) with just two treaties. TOP plays the foreign policy game differently than I do, but I appreciate the efficient manner in which they've bounced back politically from EQ. They identified two key alliances in the broader sphere (Polar, which is obviously the focal point of its own small sphere and which has become the focal point of XX's sphere; UPN, which is the bridge between AFM and Sentinel) and signed mandatory-level treaties with both just months after a crushing defeat. They achieved this by offering value (Platysphere's military ability and upper-tier nations) for value (significant influence). That's a winning strategy. Kudos.

Realistically, this one was long past due. Kudos on a good run, though.

Just to be clear, you're probably going to give in, though. Probably within two months, tops. This sounds more like what's actually going to happen.

This should've been the declaration of war against TDO. The only change you would need to make is MS Paint-ing "TDO" onto the dude's chest in the last picture.

Bad luck to announce your ancient alliance's disbandment the same night that a similarly ancient (albeit much more powerful and controversial) alliance disbanded. Sort of steals your thunder. What're the chances?

Who wouldn't want to shout at you? Congratulations, FCN.