quigon jinn

--War of the Coalition (NoCB) Wasn't that two separate, yet simultaneously occurring wars? I thought GGA/Valhalla attacked Hyperion about the time TOP/allies attacked NpO but with difference CBs?

[quote name='KainIIIC' timestamp='1283556953' post='2440836']Moreover, I think there's simply a problem with the fact that it's just a daunting task to have the patience to sit and build your nation while realizing that it'll probably take you 2 years minimum to reach the middle-upper tiers and gain a lot of wonders. [b]Even if you do EVERYTHING correctly, both individually and if you have an alliance that sleds you with 15m every 10 days, it'll still take ~100 days to get your first wonder[/b], and it'll typically take the average newcomer who joins your average alliance double that. That for your average joe is simply an astounding time commitment. I'd personally like to see the game mechanics changed to quicken that process up so that people just don't quit after 2 weeks when realizing it'll take an eternity just to catch up to the rest of CN. [/quote] Just an fyi - http://www.cybernations.net/nation_drill_display.asp?Nation_ID=403758 I'm not sure what makes you believe this but I have gotten a total of 3M in free aid and tech deals (mostly at 3M/100... or 'worse' - 6M/250 ) and easily have done this (actually have 3 wonders in just over 100 days ). Granted, I spent a lot of time learning how to best grow my nation and did so and the overwhelming majority of people don't do that. But if I was funded with free aid I'd have significantly more 'nation stats' than I do as a result of my own building.

[quote name='CRex of Gulo Gulo' timestamp='1283542838' post='2440632'] Yes. GPA caved like a paper bag. Half of the nations had no stomach for war and those willing to fight clearly lacked training, war chests or military wonders. Q vs GPA wasn't a war, it was a massive scale tech raid. 3x the NS would have been just fine with Q leadership. Most Q alliances were screaming for more targets within a few days because everyone they'd hit had moved to a PoW camp or turtled. Most mid tier alliances with an active military could take the GPA out back and beat it up for its lunch money. My target just went active and let his nation die. We never even nuked him, hit him with solely conventional warfare and he left the game over it. Neutrals are a great place to hide spare banks, for losers to hide after the war or tech raid when you need to tune up your military. [/quote] You do realize you are currently in (or ghosting) a neutral alliance right?

[quote name='potato' timestamp='1283531597' post='2440494'] The real question is: why are there more than one? What's so different between GPA, TDO or WTF? [/quote] To be perfectly fair, this broadly applies to CN as a whole. There are plenty of alliances out there that are quite similar to other ones in terms of gameplay positions. The variety is in the alliance [i]culture[/i].

[quote name='KingEd' timestamp='1283535337' post='2440544'] The Continuum didn't lose any political standing did they? As for the moral objections---you wish it could be true but I think even the neutrals are beginning to realize that eventually "morals" will become a thing of the past. [/quote] Plenty of people hold that action against NPO to this day. Not to mention that at the time, eliminating a lot of "top 5%" nations (from GPA) caused an increase in the availability of nukes that would not have happened otherwise (this was pre-MP). [quote]True. However, igniting a Global War for the sake of furthering ones political agenda is pretty difficult and often plans for war dissolve due to this. One example is the IAA-GOD incident which was resolved diplomatically. The objective is not "What you can gain" is how easy it is to begin the war in the first place. Against a neutral alliance, 2 seconds...against NSO...allies have to discuss, plan, make sure everyone is "on-board". [/quote] Of course the objective is "what you gain." Whether its fun, ingame status, or something else - no one will start a war they gain literally nothing from - that is insane. People might have different objectives (casualties, satisfaction of paranoia, etc) but there is still a reason for the war. Most wars do not end up being global wars (in the sense the war is somewhat evenly matched, and not a curbstomp). See recent war for an example. [quote]And for the record, I think stripping the neutrals of their sanctions is a pretty fair prize---besides your nuclear arsenals aren't at all impressive and us "non-neutrals" don't care very much for our pixels. [/quote] This is flawed for a variety of reasons. First, how do you determine if an alliance is neutral? Number of treaties? What if we (GPA) were to treaty TDO in a "we'll fight to defend neutrality" treaty? Are we neutral still? We do have a treaty. Or if all the neutrals formed a "neutral" bloc (united to other alliances)? Then we'd be in a bloc, and not neutral by this sense at all. What about number of wars fought? GPA has fought in a war, so this doesn't make sense either as plenty of newer, non-neutral alliances have not fought in wars. Determining which alliances are neutral in terms of this gameplay definition would require a fair bit of manual work and some subjective analysis. Granted, it wouldn't be impossible or that hard. But it would be an arbitrary imposition from the gameplay staff that "neutrality is not supported in CN" that would be rather poor from the development side.

[quote name='KingEd' timestamp='1283531217' post='2440482'] Yes but wouldn't you agree that a group of alliances combined for a greater amount of stats pose as a greater deterrent than one alliance standing alone ? [/quote] It depends a lot on how involved an analysis you want. In many regards, GPA/TDO/WTF have [i]more[/i] deterrent than NSO does, because for someone to attack one of them there is essentially no gain whatsoever - no strengthening of political position (likely weakening it), no relevant statistic gain save casualties (if/when the war would go nuclear), likely alienating themselves from other alliances due to "moral" objections, etc. The only gain is from war being "fun." Whereas attacking an alliance involved in the treaty web actually provides benefits for all the above - while you likely lose infra/tech/land overall you at least further political and relative positions compared to other alliances. Attacking a neutral alliance essentially provides none of those gains. Likewise, a large bloc of neutrals (perhaps say those three above) would suddenly become a more relevant 'threat' [assuming you believe neutral alliances actually are a threat in the first place] that might actually incite action against them. Three 10M ns alliances that are independent and incredibly unlikely to ally are no threat at all, but if those three were allied, even if the actual intent to be a threat didn't exist the [i]perceived[/i] threat would increase.

[quote name='Andre27' timestamp='1283530304' post='2440466']Overall i believe it is best to take a stance and prepare to face the consequences rather than declare neutrality and idly observe (and thereby becoming an [b]accomplice[/b] to them) to acts you do not agree with and all in the name to save those precious pixels. [/quote] Neutrality is a stance. Most (all?) neutral alliances are aware there are risks with not being involved in the treaty web (these being what several people have pointed out here). GPA in particular [quote name='KingEd' timestamp='1283530289' post='2440465']The NSO card? Ok. NSO wasn't at the mercy of anyone, they had their allies who could have defended them but NSO asked them not too. At least NSO had allies to ask not to stand by them. GPA, WTF, TDO have no one at all. [/quote] You missed my point entirely. An alliance [and possible allies] on the "smaller side" of the treaty web are also vulnerable to being at the mercy of others.

[quote name='KingEd' timestamp='1283527648' post='2440424'] Sure at the graces of the non-neutrals or the powers that be. I just don't understand why take the risk of being at the mercy of others. In essence, we allow their existence; and every once in a while people get bored and there's no one to pick a fight with except those who are defenseless (GPA knows what I'm talking about). Sure, Continuum & NPO were the "Hegemony" and evil rulers of the planet, and after Karma it's unlikely to happen again unless one of the neutrals slip [I think one of them did and almost got rolled a few months back, but I can't recall the incident]. [/quote] Many alliances are somewhat taking the same risk if they have not the allies required to 'back them up.' One needs only to the recent war for an example of this - NSO (and by extension its allies) were at the 'mercy of others' because they did not have enough allies, offensive firepower, or other means to prevent an attack.

I'd be a little careful basing your entire work upon this belief. Perhaps my background as being somewhat of a WWII buff gives me a unique perspective, but on the whole, I only view a small percentage of the Germans who fought in WWII as this description (leadership, such as Hitler/Goering/etc who actively participated in the genocidal tendencies performed in WWII).

[quote name='KingEd' timestamp='1283526386' post='2440405'] I'm only 800ish days old. There are many of you that have been here much longer. If you could please share some knowledge as to how neutrality began on BOB, it'd be highly informative to me and probably a few others. [b]Lastly, please state whether you think being neutral should be allowed by the world at large or by [i]Admin[/i] himself.[/b] PS: It's also my belief that Neutrals should not have the ability to acquire a sanction since there's no point to them having it. [/quote] Yes.

It's classic "good cop, bad cop" methodology. Of course, your background does not change this from being factual - but what it does do is more or less force the NPO government at the time WUT/tC and the variety of equally bad or worse events (from a purely factual/objective perspective) from having any grounds to complain or denounce these beer review terms. Unfortunately, given the fact that you have been a well known spokesman in many regards for NPO over the past years means everything you say, factual or not factual, is clouded by that history. In cases like this it is unfortunate, because what you are saying is true, but the NPO's past presents most readers from objectively reading your work. In the future I would advise you to make more clear to your readers that the NPO's past does not change the validity and truth of your articles. Because realistically, a beer review pales in comparison to many of the actions that NPO presented in the past.

[quote name='Iconic' timestamp='1283485802' post='2439872'] Hello, I just joined and I'm pretty impressed at what you've managed to do here. I am from a forum that plays games like these on forums and I've just posted a refferal link to that forum. [b]I'm just wondering, how is this done?[/b] [/quote] I think you are going to have to expand on what you mean by this - I'm totally confused what you are referring to. The game? The forums? The design? what element?

[quote name='goldielax25' timestamp='1283521311' post='2440354'] Adding an impetus for people to not create alliances that stall out at 20-30 members and dilute the politics of the game is a good thing [/quote] I'd hazard a guess that one of the main reasons people create their own alliances is because a majority of the "game" [actual politics, inter-alliance drama/negotiation/discussion, etc] takes place at least at the government level or perhaps even "top 3" level in the majority of larger alliances. People get bored just sitting around letting other people do a large portion of the "game" and so create their own alliances, allowing them too to be government actually playing the "game" that has evolved. Solve the problem of the overwhelming majority of people being unengaged from any sort of meaningful inter-alliance activity (minor diplomats do NOT count in the slightest towards this goal) and it's likely you will stop seeing multitudes of smaller alliances created. "politics of the game" only really exists for a small percentage of players unless you count the OWF as "politics" somehow.

[quote name='MrMuz' timestamp='1283346650' post='2438161'] IMO, being a small/medium nation, the game's fun enough. At that level, you're trying to build your infra up and gain your first wonders. Then, there's aiming a bit higher and working towards the MP (and an economy to support it). There's not much focus on anything else pre-MP. From then on, there's still spies, the SDI, among other things. I noticed that the younger nations are the ones logging in every day. Past 100k infra, even the active players either start to go idle or focus more on non-game mechanics part of the game. [/quote] The game itself is boring even for new nations (unless you are playing poorly and collect every day, etc). The experience, including game/forums/irc, is what makes this even worth playing long term.

Something else to consider is not just "how to prevent large nations from leaving" but "how to interest new nations in staying." I've heard a lot of people complaining about a lack of new nations to be tech sellers, etc, which seems to lead the idea that people either 1) get interested, grow quickly, and soon are no longer a tech buyer 2) get bored, and quit About the only reason I am still playing a game I am significantly disadvantaged (and will likely be 100% irrelevant in a war for nearly a year to come) is to see how quickly I can build a large nation. I can understand 100% though how I could come to the "I have to play how long to become relevant? meh, I quit" conclusion. Most people here have been around too long to know what it's like to start new with many nations having one, two, three, or even four (I think?) years head start. It's depressing from a gameplay standpoint.

I've been incredibly inspired by this video - It is given by someone in a similar situation. I'm not sure if that would inspire or depress him though.

[quote name='Acca Dacca' timestamp='1282919062' post='2432775'] It is the network. Like Alfred, I hold back EVERYONE I know and love who see me on this laptop for a part of my day and I have to say it is closed so they dont even try signing up. Change the network rules, and I could have 50 people on the first day. Alot more the next. Alot of us visit from work and school, networks that are shared with hundreds. I'm glad I havent been deleted because another person hasnt stumbled on cybernations. You change the network rules, you'll get more people. I'm not holding my breathe for that anytime soon. [/quote] I agree with this. There is no reason for me to advertise this game (ok, some small in-game cash bonuses). But, there is PLENTY reason for me to NOT advertise it. Any person I know in RL who I get to play this game can very easily get us BOTH deleted which provides strong incentive to not recommend CN to other people I know in RL.

[quote name='supercoolyellow' timestamp='1282941086' post='2433061'] Would you care to explain how? [/quote] As an uninvolved party I find it particularly amusing to see you misuse a comma after making a post about grammar.

I'd support someone doing this on the OWF here. I think it'd be interesting though because "worst" means different things to different people.

I'm also going to just assume you have 100% efficiency on all the moon stuff

Post your current happiness (number listed in your nation) when you collect, environment, and any +$$$ income things (things like furs, silver, gold, Stock Market) and I'll calculate it for you. Do you swap for Asphault too?

[quote name='Caleb279' timestamp='1282086306' post='2420519']Also, Shakira, for the love of admin stop posting in yellow. [/quote] http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=81393

Considering the enjoyment I've gotten so far from optimizing my nation growth (going to pick up a third wonder in under a week) with no free aid (unless 6M/250 tech deals counts as free aid =P), I'd say I'm enjoying things yes. http://www.cybernations.net/nation_drill_display.asp?Nation_ID=403758 Most people are not in the situation I am in however. I suspect that the coming months will test my patience with the slow crawl I'm about to hit.

[quote name='Alex the Great' timestamp='1282274931' post='2423914'] why is it that people are so scared of wars? why else would this game have wars if everyone wants to stay at home and play with dolls? ever wonder why the caps on land and stuff were so low at the beginning? i thought it was because the game designers hoped that there would be a lot of fighting so they never expected anyone to reach that high. just my 2 cents though. do you actually enjoy coming on every day, collecting taxes, paying bills, building up an army, hoping you never get attacked so you can see your citizen count get higher only to realize that you have never done anything exciting, ever with this game? your thoughts? also, im not trying to anger people or anything like that, its just a gameplay discussion. [/quote] Some might ask you the same question given your relatively low casualty/nuke-in/nuke-out count for such an old nation. An old friend once said, "Wars not make one great."

edit: in a game 4+ years old it's to be expected