Sarkin

That's so awesome. Shout out to y'all for leading the way. We'll have to catch up!

I'm very sorry to report that your allies have been the ones messaging me.

The war wouldn't exist without TW attacking LSF/SWF. Why should the aggressor get to peace out at the time most convenient to him? You're a ghost on behalf of TW. Four hours ago, you said "I'm on the AA but I'm not a member." UCR's main two proxy fighters are from a non-ally in FTW. You've spent the last three months crowing about how easy the war is. The idea that you've just been dying for peace is silly. UCR is a literal victim of an attack by MONGOLS. Their allies defended them from that attack. The only one "pretending to be the victim" is MONGOLS, who had to invoke a defense treaty against an alliance that they attacked and that has launched zero wars on them.

Wow, UCR must've been giving MONGOLS a real tough time over the past 48 hours to turn them into the victims. I understood where Bundy was coming from back in May; he knew that attacking LSF and SWF would result in a UCR counter. He knew that his alliance would be outnumbered and relished the challenge against an opponent who had a score to settle with him. MONGOLS, on the other hand, saw an alliance in UCR that was entering its fourth month defending their allies from an unprovoked attack, and decided to launch their own unprovoked attack on the same alliance. MONGOLS was very clear that they were not operating as reinforcements for The Wolves, and Bundy was equally clear that he didn't ask for their help. GATO/PGS smacking MONGOLS on the nose was a fully legitimate invoking of a defensive treaty to protect their ally who had been attacked for literally no reason. NG claiming that their attack of UCR is "in defence of MONGOLS" is an eye-rolling non sequitur. You should admit that you're afraid to fight GATO and PGS and, much like MONGOLS, would much rather try to pick on a wounded alliance. In your case, it's even more egregious given that you're literally 10x their size. Y'all are just bullies, plain and simple.

Surely, you'll have no difficulty defeating these cowardly lions then. Have fun!

My friend, it's probably just a light-hearted joke about the alliance name.

Happy hunting to our allies at PGS and friends in GATO!

Congratulations to our friends at KoRT and our allies in VE!

There are so few alliances putting in the work to recruit, educate, and grow new nations. There are fewer still that invest the time and energy to nurture a welcoming community, one that makes those nations want to stick around and encourages them to take on alliance government positions. PGS are making a positive difference in this world; no wonder you resent them. You and much of your sphere have become a death cult. Y'all are too embittered to think that alliances can change or that growth (on an individual, alliance, or world-level) is even possible. Your one grand dream was a vengeance fantasy, but you never imagined the world beyond that, so your vision remains stuck in a bloodhaze. The future is more open than you think; take a deep breath and let some light into your soul. This is silly. FTW was 7x the size of PGS with a much more seasoned membership; PGS was full of new nations without complete improvements/wonder sets or years of warchest savings built up. Who would ever reasonably expect them to be competitive with the third-largest alliance in total damage or even damage ratio given those circumstances? Also, regarding the opponent quality, I'm sure you would say that PGS wasn't fighting a bunch of slouches, either. 😉

Lines getting extra-thicc. Congratulations to our allies in PGS and our friends in GATO; y'all rock!

Y'know, fair enough, you're not political and this sphere isn't the one you put your energy into. That's true for a lot of folks in this world, and there are other fulfilling things (socializing, nationbuilding, casualties) worth pursuing instead. But, since you've shown an interest, I did want to bring you up to speed by pointing out that y'all managed to betray virtually every alliance around over the course of the last war: Leading up to it, Polar plotted with one set of your allies (Group A) against another set of your allies (Group B) for the cardinal sin of *checks notes* letting you join a bloc that you wanted to join and then becoming bored. Then, as that war began breaking out, you changed your mind about betraying the Group B allies at the last minute, betraying Group A instead, canceling and attacking them. Then, you had your first internal freakout and uncanceled the Group A allies, but kept fighting their friends. Then, you had your second internal freakout and kept fighting the Group A allies' friends, but also started fighting the Group B allies' friends. Finally, you betrayed Group B, canceling and attacking them. Nobody forced y'all to ally literally 12 of the other 14 largest non-neutral alliances, or to stay allied to them all for years. You deliberately wrapped yourselves up in a diplomatic straitjacket and then had a panic attack and blamed everyone else for it. "Why can't I move? It must be that guy's fault! Or maybe her fault! It couldn't possibly be mine!" I dislike Sponge on a personal level, but he was absolutely right to recognize that Polar's situation had become ridiculous and was throwing a wrench in the works for everyone. As I've said before to folks on both sides of the aisle: it's a good thing you finally picked a side and stuck to it. Polar's indecision had paralyzed much of the world. ---------------------- Incidentally, the "we're small but fierce" thing is just silly. Polar was the sixth-largest alliance entering the last war, and it's still the seventh-largest now. As has been noted, almost the entirety of its strength is located in a different range than several of the alliances ahead of it, so it's functionally one of the strongest alliances in the mid-tier and low-tier. Just a few months ago, your leaders and allies were crowing about how you had totally overthrown the hegemony and it didn't matter that you statistically lost the war because you had achieved your strategic objective. Now, you're falling back on the "gee whiz, join us cool underdogs fighting the big bad hegemony" line. Either you must have decisively lost the peace in these few short months, or you're just making whatever argument is convenient for your propaganda in the moment.

There's nothing to deal with in this press release; it's such a generic "hey guys, you remember that Pacifica are the bad guys right??? please be our friends still" statement that I think he outsourced it to ChatGPT. Assuming he did write it, the contents of the press release consist of three points: (1) he doesn't like NPO and won't in the future either, (2) he likes allies, and (3) he doesn't like non-allies. Probably true for the most part!

Good move on Non Grata's part to send out their new proxy alliance to make PR statements on their behalf.

Funny enough, we're the nice boys in the Doom boy band (bloc rebrand coming soon). We have range.

Small correction: we're the bad boy in the Oculus boy band (bloc rebrand coming soon).

I'm so happy to see my favorite alliance tie the knot with the great folks at KoRT! Getting to know KoRT was one of the war's true pleasures. You two are a great fit as brothers-in-arms! ⚔️

The three former members of Soyuz who have decided to continue playing joined the Dark Templar. We're excited to help them learn the game and grow with us!

This makes sense; I think y'all already had MDoAPs with each other individually already, right? That's kind of how Oculus started (with a couple of exceptions). Have fun! Also, shout-out to AZTEC for remaining the game's only MADP, hell yeah

Congratulations! Two of my favorite alliances; y'all both rock.

Everyone can agree: we want to make it as easy as possible for former players to return without letting people exploit the inactivity mechanic for gameplay advantages. Given the need to achieve that balance, I understanding keeping the restriction on newly returned nations declaring wars and sending aid. Those both help solve the "don't let people exploit the system" problem. However, I agree with the others that the current system is too punishing for the "let's make it easy to return to the game" problem. As it stands, there are technically three options to get out of a hole like this: (1) donate, (2) demolish your own nation, or (3) receive aid. I think it's unlikely that someone who already dropped the game will be willing to do option #1 immediately upon their return, so we can rule that out. I also think option #2 is about as demoralizing of an experience as a player can possibly have. Either they'll refuse to do it, or they'll feel extremely frustrated. The end result is the same: most will leave. So, that leaves option #3, receiving aid. Here, Catface is in the ideal scenario: she's returning to an active alliance with the resources and desire to help. Even still, she has to spend a whole week waiting around doing nothing until that help can arrive. Again, how many returning players are likely to stick around for that? Those who do, like her, will undoubtedly be exceptional cases. Especially for other nations that would require multiple rounds of aid to escape their red ink, how discouraged are they going to be realizing that and knowing that the bailout process can't even start for a week? Knowing that, in the meantime, their debt will just grow even larger! Again, most will leave. Ultimately, I don't see how the ability to receive aid immediately upon returning from inactivity is exploitable. And if it's not exploitable, then we just have to ask whether allowing it would make it easier for nations to return, and that's certainly true. Even for those nations in the most dire financial straits, the financial aid they receive will constitute an immediate expression of care; it helps recreate a social fabric between the returning player and their alliance or the community at large. And that's the kind of thing that encourages people to stick around.

I'm so sorry for your loss. It can still be herogasm in your heart; that's okay. Nobody can take that away from you.

Welcome to the game! It's been fun chatting today; I love to see new faces joining CN.

Our first new treaty in six years! We had a wonderful time getting to know Hakai, Jason, and other folks at PGS over the course of this last war, and we're excited to put that new bond into writing. They're good folks, and it's both an honor and a treat to work with them.

Hey, that sounds terrible. Hope she's on the upswing now! Head's up that we included you in the peace agreement, so you should have a clean slate for whatever comes next.

OK, final stats update as the remaining wars expire after today. Since most wars are done and rebuilding has begun, I'm not going to bother posting NS or infra stats since those are wonky. Fortunately, Piejonk captured a pretty timely snapshot of the NS portion last week, at least. Tech is a much stickier stat, though, so that's still of interest. Also, I did actually collect the stats a couple of weeks ago but forgot to post them, so the % change (2 weeks) column should be accurate. Coalition Alliance Nations Tech % change (2 weeks) % change (overall) Hegemony NPO 193 4,574,613 0.36% -21.85% Hegemony IRON 135 2,954,814 -1.79% -13.10% Herogasm FTW 109 687,748 -1.71% -64.75% Hegemony CLAWS 92 918,886 -1.81% -42.57% Herogasm The Legion 86 397,842 -1.27% -62.56% Herogasm NpO 82 403,110 -7.17% -50.52% Herogasm NG 80 238,285 -5.90% -67.40% Herogasm NATO 47 336,890 -8.74% -60.57% Hegemony GATO 48 601,685 1.44% -5.24% Hegemony DT 35 573,812 -5.85% -33.06% Hegemony VE 36 303,693 -0.55% -53.95% Hegemony Argent 40 493,669 1.04% -12.14% Herogasm Sparta 36 133,419 -3.14% -66.59% Hegemony DBDC 13 653,555 2.23% -14.85% Herogasm CCC 35 103,891 -17.81% -64.48% Herogasm OBR 21 290,054 -1.59% -26.13% Herogasm MHA 23 160,942 -0.68% -29.05% Hegemony GLoF 19 272,123 5.72% -9.87% Herogasm TLR 18 213,341 0.05% -13.72% Hegemony TKTB 12 36,186 -0.36% -66.97% Hegemony DS 18 58,461 0.95% -48.89% Hegemony DW 13 32,434 56.32% -62.90% Herogasm OG 7 93,173 -0.82% -32.14% Herogasm MONGOLS 3 8,823 51.70% -76.97% Herogasm Nordreich 18 165,321 -1.05% -20.18% Hegemony KoRT 65 789,444 -1.15% -18.54% Hegemony PGS 38 49,156 -2.47% -62.72% Hegemony WWF 5 61,222 1.45% -27.19% Herogasm FAN 21 228,612 0.35% -30.13% Herogasm Fark 33 187,155 -3.29% -61.96% Herogasm RIA 19 99,244 -6.90% -62.29% Hegemony ODN 25 595,993 -0.50% -8.09% Herogasm CRAP 12 156,440 0.70% -3.08% Hegemony 787 12,969,746 -0.38% -23.07% Herogasm 650 3,904,290 -3.44% -53.86% Of course, when you start off with a smaller number, loss percentages aren't going to favor you. In terms of raw figures, Hegemony alliances started the war with 16,859,027 tech and Herogasm alliances started with 8,461,220 tech. So, Hegemony lost 3,889,281 tech and Herogasm lost 4,556,930 tech over the course of the war, which is a 17% difference. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Piejonk for joining this thread and improving upon it. Much appreciated, and happy holidays!