saxasm
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Posts posted by saxasm
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The distinction is pretty obvious, really. Being in a trade circle is hardly an act of war. You are not making an active decision to aid someone who is bad or at war with someone (unless you actually monitor your trade partners and trade with someone after you see them go to war).
Actively sending aid to someone at war is and has been a reason for punishment. People sending aid make an active decision to send aid every time they send it. The same is not true for trade partners, which are passive.
If you don't see the difference between trading with someone and actively sending aid to someone, or you don't want to see the different, I question your integrity.
You're basically just trying to rationalize a difference that is just an old institution. Having a trade deal with someone helps them significantly, too. If you want to see "aiding an enemy" as an act of war, then a trade circle could certainly be such an act. It being "passive" is really rather secondary -- people could easily check if they wanted to.
The core of the matter is simply that we have institutionalized the idea that foreign aid to nations at war is an "act of war", while we have not done the same for trade circles. It is a tradition, nothing more, nothing less. There is no objective little label called "act of war" that is attached to aid deals, and there is no sticker saying "exempt from rules of what an act of war is" on your trade circle.
This is not to say these traditions, or institutions, are to be broken. As can be seen in this thread, following traditions generally grants some amount of legitimacy to your organization. Your argument, however, is based on the false notion that "act of war" is anything but a social construct made by the nations of our world. There is no objective truth on it that can be discerned, no matter how much you try to reason about it. -
I get coalition warfare. You should probably reread my posts if you think otherwise. I stated I understood that NG/NSO hit SNX to draw in Polaris. I am simply refuting the fact that NPO actually needed the help (particularly on SNX) and gave evidence to support my thesis.
You on the other hand rambled on for a few paragraphs, none of which actually refuted anything I posted and one was completely unnecessary since I don't give two !@#$% what terms NPO attempts to hand down. Nor do I care what amount of what alliances are sitting in PM.
I think the point you're missing is that we do not call in allies to make sure we have a nice and even fight where both sides take as much damage. Generally speaking, we want to outnumber and destroy our enemies. I know, we're terribly ignoble. -
To compare this to Karma and Vox is just pathetic no one will ever get to the level of damage that war did because CN's a third the size of what it was then and yet we still can't seem to get beyond pre-Karma issues really this line of propaganda is extremely stale.
Holy mother of run on sentences. I ran out of breath just reading that. -
My dear fellow-sax, that is not entirely accurate. This war as a whole has been generally acknowledged as having as part of its motive to roll Polar. Aftermath simply happened to place themselves in the way of such a rolling, and thus got themselves hit. We hold no animosity towards Aftermath, and would be just as happy with this war if they were on our side. Even more so, perhaps.I recall that Letum specifically said in his war declaration thread that he was almost using you to get back at Polar, like, you getting rolled is NPO's way of getting back at NpO, so in essence, you are burning for Polar. I have some advice for SNX: When this war is over, get your act together, and do !@#$, you are in a Bloc with 7 members, it's not like you've got nothing to work with.
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Did it take you this long to make that image at the start of the thread?
Not gonna lie, it was almost worth the wait. -
Question: How is this "average gain" statistic calculated?
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NSO, you can't even make your own DoW thread?
Let the puppet show begin...
Polar is really grasping at straws by now, isn't it? -
You're also missing the LSF DoW.
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This is the third largest nation in SWF.
Assisted suicide is illegal. I don't think we can help you with this.
They've just finally achieved a classless society without money. You just found and stole the coin collection they had at their museum, in the belief that it was their bank vault. -
I don't care about either side of this war, but as a bystander, I can't help but think your assumptions are silly. Get past the "you do nothing while your allies burn" bit. I'm sure if allies called, Polar would go, just as allies on the opposite side called, and alliances went. Your argument is pretty flimsy there mate.
Sure, I don't think Polar will be staying out of this forever. However, it does look vaguely silly for them to just sit around. Their rhetoric of being powerful and potent clashes with the reality of them not really doing much at all. -
This theory only works if there are more, less lengthy wars. Otherwise, it will drive people away, if they feel they have just been in an x-number-of-months war and will not have the opportunity to rebuild.
Or if wars can be fought between alliances or power spheres without dragging the entire rest of CN in. Then they could be more frequent and as long without everyone getting exhausted. -
Don't be silly--no one think's Polar is impotent.
I think letting your allies burn while doing nothing does seem rather impotent. You have the numbers to be powerful, but clearly are not showing any of the spine or creativity to make something of those numbers. Just sitting around doing nothing is very much a show of impotence.Because we're a force to be reckoned with, and few alliances want to take the hits we have to offer head on.
Is that why three alliances directly treatied to Polar have come under attack? Because we are all afraid of Polar? If people were truly afraid of you, they wouldn't be hitting your allies. As it stands, you've clearly shown that you fear your enemies enough to let your allies burn in your place.But everyone, allies and opponents alike, knows that when NpO chooses to attack (or not to attack) someone it does so for strategic reasons;
In this case, is the strategy "let others burn while we fight some tech sellers"?no one wants to be taunted into a fght before it's strategically prudent to enter.
I don't think a couple more days without a DoW will make this war any less painful for you, but what do I know.You'll see him in a few days. He accepted a challenge via NpO's IRC, hence his current absence. Personally, I'm hoping he'll see the virtues of his temporary sobriety from OWF inebriation and tone down his posting habits.
This is the one thing which gives me hope for Polar's future. At least you know when to shut your members up. -
Technically, it would be possible. My concern is how to account for alliances that join the party well after the war begins. If TOP (for example) joined the war tomorrow, or by the end of the weekend, they'd be entering at 100% strength and would skew their coalition's overall loss to one that's not really reflective of what most alliances are seeing.
Might be worth revisiting the issue when everyone has either joined the war or chickened out. -
I like those damage taken "health bars" for the alliances. Could you perhaps add one for the overall coalition as well?
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You are defending allies by launching an aggressive war with no CB? I mean, the kool aid in Pacifica has always been strong, but perhaps you shouldn't have used the entire winter stock in one go.
I think, if you look at a timeline, that you will notice that we did not, in fact, launch this war. That was Doom Squad. -
Technically hitting a MD ally of an OD ally and hitting a MD ally of a MD ally.
I thought both CCC-NATO and ODN-TTK were OD level treaties? -
Alright, made a new type of plot:
These graphs are cut off to only show values within three standard deviations of the mean, on each axis. There are some massive outliers in starting NS (the ultra-tier) and there are some massive outliers in NS change (people jumping from 10 to 100 NS), so it was a cutoff that made sense and was easy to implement in the code.
Oh, and the time period being changed over is from the 11th to today, since I didn't download the stats sheet on the day before the DoW on SNX.
The mean SNX nation shrunk by 13.4% (SD: 23.2%), while the mean NPO nation grew by 0.5% (SD: 16.7%) -
I dropped my laptop on the floor this weekend. I'll get you something, but it won't be as pretty as it could be.saxasm, more graphs!
Also, the war has expanded too much for those previous types of graph to be anything but extremely cluttered. I'll make some new type of graph. -
Declaring war because someone needs more coverage sounds exactly like what is going on here?He compared this situation, in which ODN countered us in defence of NPO, who attacked our ally without a CB. To one where CCC attacked NPO 2months into the war, due to them needing more coverage. I am merely saying they are not the same.
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That a war doesn't have any CB doesn't mean it isn't political. Hitting Invicta to get at Polar is absolutely a political move, I don't think anyone would deny that. That they aren't faking or exaggerating some offence committed by Invicta to excuse their politics is certainly different, but it isn't apolitical.That was aimed at NPO. There's reason to further discuss Doom Squad's political actions because it's very clear you don't use CB's as well, and historically have never attempted anything resembling actual politics, while NPO has. Hence why I stated it was out of character for them...
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Wes, you are being ridiculous. Hitting an MD ally of an OD ally might not be absolutely ideal, but it isn't immoral. CCC did the exact same thing to NATO last war. You're better than this, so please stop it.And they are allied to TTK...ODN has effectively declared war on their own ally. /me scratches his head.
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Are you seriously claiming that NpO stays out of politics? That you are a purely defensive alliance? Excuse me, but that is absolutely delusional. No one who knows anything about the history of this planet could say that with a straight face.The implication that "DOOMBIRD DOOMCAVE" is somehow fighting against "might makes right" by attacking New Polar Order remains unsupported. I do not deal in "absolutes" unless someone essentially accuses us of being bullies after launching an unprovoked sneak-attack that likely will ultimately serve the interests of the cause they purport to oppose.
If staying out of politics and reserving our armed forces for defense markes New Polar Order as "neutral" then so was NONE and the League of Free Nations. I strongly dispute that. What is not in dispute is that we will make attacks upon us costly. Anyone who has fought us, whether victor or not, knows that.
Regarding when and how our alliance leadership chooses to deploy our forces in defense of our allies, I trust in their judgment. There have been no announcements here that we will not honor any treaties. Within an alliance, forces will rarely be deployed all at once from the very beginning unless we have all been attacked.
If recent history serves as a guide, this will be a long wasteful war, which ultimately will fizzle out and have an inconclusive ending.
In case you are unaware, we have already clearly stated that we will demand no reps at all in this war. In the last war in which Pacifica was on the winning side, there were no terms at all. In the war before that, the only terms were that the losing side not reenter the conflict. On the other hand, in the last war Polar won, serious terms were imposed on an alliance which was not even the official target of the war.I am basing my assessment on the wiki, not propaganda from our leaders as you imply. I have a mind of my own, thank you very much.
Also, it is New Pacific Order that has a history of issuing punitive terms with the intent of destroying entire alliances and driving hundreds of nations from the Planet. They and their allies were quite well in the aftermath of last year's war.
My interpretation of what the objective of the surrender terms in last year's war are only mine. Otherwise, they would have come out of the war largely unscathed and politically and economically able to foment more aggression the very next day after the war ended.
Would you really have me believe that NpO were nobly protecting the world from the harsh terms Pacifica imposes? -
You are aware that there are other tiers than the top tier? Perhaps trading a threat to all the smaller tiers for a potential threat to the topmost tier could be a reasonable move?neither is who should we pool our resources to fight due to their threat to our alliances top tier's existance, evidently.
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Since we're referring back to that embassy topic now, let this post be a placeholder for the posts we made there pointing out the errors in your revenge narrative.
Congrats, I have been saying this in y'alls embassy on our forums for as long as this thread existed. lol.
I am fine with that, that is what makes war fun.
Declaration of Wussiness
in World Affairs (IC)
Posted
Absolutely. As I said in passing, following the institutions gets you some measure of legitimacy, and that is vitally important for an alliance. Other obvious examples of institutions are that we stay on an Alliance Affiliation that truthfully reflects our affiliation, that we don't spy on other alliances, that inter-alliance war is declared here and not just through inter-nation wars, that treaties are announced, that treaties are followed, that inter-alliance wars are started for some reason, [OOC: the IC/OOC divide is at least to a degree respected], and so on.
An entity that followed none of these conventions, and broke with all these institutions, would not be called an alliance at all, by most people. It would be considered a rogue entity, and quite rightfully so. The only difference between an alliance and a group of rogues is their legitimacy. An interesting example here is DBDC, who are breaking with some institutions, such as not raiding AA-affiliated nations, but are also maintaining other traditions, such as having a name, an AA, an IRC channel, at least somewhat delimited membership, treaties, wars on specific groupings, and so on. As can be seen, some people have argued that they are just a group of rogues -- that is, some people have seen them as not having the legitimacy to qualify as an alliance -- but that argument has largely failed. Apparently they are, in today's climate, legitimate enough to be seen as an alliance. Had they broken the rest of the traditions that exist, I doubt they'd be seen as anything but rogues.
However, since many alliances find themselves benefiting from the breaking of some of these traditions and institutions, such as, in this case, sanctioning nations in groupings with legitimacy, traditions do get broken. It is a tradeoff between legitimacy and some more tangible good, such as disrupting your enemy's trade connections. No alliance can get away with breaking too many traditions, or they would swiftly find themselves seen as a bunch of rogues, but they can get away with breaking some lesser traditions. Thus, we see alliances breaking some traditions, and pushing the boundaries of our traditions. It's the rational thing to do.
Yes, they are viewed differently, and that is an important difference.
I'd also like to point out that policing a no-trade-with-DBDC policy would be much easier than you think -- just toss a bunch of sanctions at DBDC nations and start to see their trades hampered. It certainly seems to me that sanctions in war would be the logical step if one were to start considering trade deals with someone an act of war.