[We at The III Percent]

The Historian in me is having a conniption. Not sure how to post this IC, but as its a response to the theme, I'll just spoiler it. If you are offended, don't click the spoiler :P

 

[spoiler] 18th century armies were by and large very small as it was hard for countries at the time to provide the necessary food and ammunition to field large bodies of Line Infantry. The US was no exception to this, though far more then 3% of the population fought at any one point of time. They just did not fight in the Continental Army as Congress could 1. Not pay them, 2. Not feed them, and 3. Not provide them with sufficient ammo. It was not until the French Revolutionary Wars that Western countries began developing the concept of national conscription and mass mobilization of resources. [/spoiler]

 

Anyhow, lesson over, congrats on the DoE. 

[Pillars of Sand]

Fighting one now. My nukes blast about 60 tech a go, but there are other WRC nations of a similar NS as me that can blast for 100 tech on our side. http://www.cybernations.net/nation_drill_display.asp?Nation_ID=231572 if we assume that this fellow is going to be nuked every day, he will be out of tech in about 3-4 weeks depending.

[Pillars of Sand]

So what happens when the mega tier nations drops down to demolish your mid tier?

 

They can't. That is the point. At a minimum they can declare on 3 nations each, but that depends on them not being in Anarchy and not getting swarmed and being forced to fight 6 nations at once. 

[Pillars of Sand]

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

 

This has been mentioned in other threads, but I feel it deserves a discussion all its own. Mainly, the merit of belief that a war can be won, and power can be gained, solely by powerful upper tiers that for the most part, constitute the vast minority of nation strength and population of nations in the game. 

 

In referencing the "Upper tier stats" threads, the focus has solely been on 508 nations spread across every belligerent alliance in the war.  As a matter of population, this comes out to around 7.88% of the entire belligerent population of the game. Of that roughly 8%, a little over half (around 5%) are from the Competence Coalition. While these nations are indeed powerful, they constitute the minority of power, on both sides of the conflict. While DH does indeed have a plurality of upper tier nations compared to other power spheres, this plurality only translates into a few percentage points of the overall population of the game and an even smaller percentage of the nations actually fighting. 

This fact forces us to ask a critical question. What is the goal of war? In its simplest term, the goal of war is to destroy the enemy. Whoever that enemy happens to be, and however you choose to define destruction. Be it in pure stats or in political terms. History shows though, that the former strongly influences the latter. And ultimately, after everything is said in done, the most important stat in this game is not tech. It is not money, it not infra. It is membership. An alliance without membership is doomed to irrelevance and disbandment. And an alliance, no matter how top heavy in stats with regards to upper tiers, cannot hope to maintain power in this game without a membership base to draw on for support. Be it for sending out diplomats, running government programs or replacing bored senior officials who cannot be bothered anymore. 

 

The fact that this base is being destroyed by Equilibrium should be cause for concern on the part of Competence. What should be more concerning though is not only is the vast majority of their base being destroyed, this same base also constitutes the majority of their raw nation strength power. Why is it upper tier nations are being forced to spend billions of dongs to try and stay above the fray? Because they know their is nothing underneath them but a swarm of destruction. Equilibriums upper tier by comparison, has no such fear. ZI is not a death a sentence. It is a salvation. An EQ upper tier nation that is ZI's is safe to restock nukes and rest. A Competence upper tier nation that is ZI'd is swarmed upon and must spend huge amounts of money to try and escape, being pounded on all the way back to the top. 

 

You cannot be a power with a foundation of Sand. Already the mid and lower tiers of Competence are beginning to collapse. Many a WRC armed nation is facing a shortage of tech, and within a few weeks will be below the critical 500 tech level where things become exceptionally dangerous for any mid tier nation. Especially those with WRC's that cease to be a benefit and become a monetary drain. All the while being unable to attack the strong mid tier power base of Equilibrium, that constitutes the vast majority of the belligerant population and as an aggregate is presently 272.8% more powerful then Competence. 

[GRL - what's the record?]

Aye, unless everyone let's their peace mode nations out and have those fresh nations start nuking too

 

Pretty much this. Most alliances are at war, but not all are at "war" so the GRL reflects this. Was hoping for triple digits too :(

[Graphing the War (Because numbers suck)]

What is the point of having these threads in an OOC forum if both sides are just going to put their IC spin on the stats anyway?

 

its hard to tell where OOC ends and IC begins. I seriously doubt must of us our Role Platying, either in the IC forums are the OOC forums. Honestly the difference is essentially meaningless. For example, I seriously doubt various people have to "roleplay" their dislike for certain alliances. 

[Quality vs. Quantity]

We need to be more understanding. Hormones is fighting 3 nations who have 20 nukes each with just the nukes he can buy once a day. It has to be galling. Especially on nights when he can't get through the SDI.

[Upper End of the War]

The really problematic thing for EQ as I see it the war of attrition going on down in the lower tiers and the number of EQ nations it is taking to swarm over DH nuke turrets.  That is limiting the forces available for upward declares and making the large nation shorter that much worse for EQ.  EQ definitely needs to make some progress here and really maul some of those turrets. 

 

Political will of course plays a major role in deciding most wars.  Right now though it seems to be reaching a point for EQ where the political will is about to become a larger issue.  The war is reaching a point where soon DH will have the forces to down declare if they desire and start clearing out everyone above 80k (a 110k NS nation can hit strike down to 83k).  While EQ has superior numbers in the 80k to 90k range on paper, there are some alliances who are trying a lot harder than others.  I could see a situation arising where DH focuses on those alliances who are trying and engages them heavily with favorable odds (similar to how Argent and TDT were singled out for visits from Umbrella) while leaving those who aren't trying that hard for later.

 

This is pure wishful thinking. You must be higher then a kite if you think NPO/DR does not have political will, and since we're the major focus of the war, just how pray tell do you plan on breaking the will of Aft/XX/SF et al? FFS, many of them are gaining ranks in the Sanction Race, not losing it. DH put all their eggs in one basket for the most part and tried to roll Ai. At the peak we were around 400 active wars, now down in the mid 100's at this point. 

So, how exactly do you plan on breaking the political will? 

[Graphing the War (Because numbers suck)]

This thread is now about to become an argument about strategy instead of the fact that eQ, with it's huge numbers advantage, should be putting out way more damage in comparison to Competence. And the numbers prove that is not the case.

 

Actually, the numbers are not saying that. As an average of all the nations involved DH and friends is sustaining well over twice as much damage as Equilibrium. The fact that you have sustained slightly more damage as a total number with so many nations in peace mode out of your already fewer numbers is pretty bad from where I sit. You've done 30 million damage to around. 5,000 nations is not the same as sustaining 30 million damage to 1700 nations. 

[Upper End of the War]

Average NS loss for Equilibrium. -822,184 Average NS loss for Competence -2,327,547 And that is with half the Competence Coalition in peace mode.

[Upper End of the War]

Personally, I would settle for an admission that using Ai as a shooting range for bored Umbrella members is actually a really bad idea :P

[Upper End of the War]

This war was over the moment the first shot was fired. Like in chess, we are in the end game. You guys are making each move but everyone playing and everyone watching knows that the end result will be checkmate unless our side makes an enormous screw up. Which incidentally, is very unlikely to happen.

[Upper End of the War]

Why would the situation change post war exactly? If as you say, you manage to stay in the mega upper tier, the only people you could conceivably attack are GPA. And trying to prevent other alliances from growing into range of you would just cause your rank and file to get massacred again. I am sure they relish the idea of repeatedly being sacrificed for your stats.

[Upper End of the War]

Tech is also much harder to replace effectively. At the rate Umbrella is losing tech, they will be out of it come fall.

[War Losses Charts]

The arguments here also ignore the fact that doing the same amount of damage is not enough for DH to win this, since "doing the same damage" to 30 odd alliances is way different to "the same damage" to 12 or so.

[War Losses Charts]

I do not see any statistics saying this as such.  The statistics above only states NS loss between certain dates not damage dealt nor receive.  

 

The more accurate statistics would be the per battle war chart and add it up.

 

After that, divide by tier, divide it by front since each tier and each front varies differently.

 

Equilibrium cannot claim victory if an NS tier was already lost by them.

 

So what does victory look like to you exactly if not shear damage done? 

[Graphing the War (Because numbers suck)]

Considering how many alliances are on the eq side and the near even losses on both if say the Dh/ CNG side is winning. Sure they have a small amount of extra losses but they have dealt back nearly the same amount to an enemy near 3 times larger. 

 

Nukes are the great equalizer, that and limitations on wars that can be declared. Usually wars are neck and neck in the first month. Its in the following months after nukes start running out and cash reserves get depleted that the outcome becomes clearer. 

[Upper End of the War]

Aren't you cute. We fought for the ten most bloodied weeks in CN's history, losing 75% of our NS and inflicting heavy casualties on our enemies. Anybody can last a year in Peace Mode (well, save for most folks on your side). FAN did two years. Fighting with all of your nations, in a very tough war, is something else entirely. We also surrendered mostly because peace wouldn't be given to our allies if we didn't surrender as well. You know, those allies who are currently on your side. You know, IRON and TORN, to name only those two. 

 

I don't get TOP's sour grapes about this tbh. The divergence between DR and DH was something everyone saw coming. You guys had over a year to see it coming and plan for it. Its not like it was a bolt from the blue, so lets not kid ourselves. TOP chose one of their allies over all there other allies. There is nothing wrong with this and it was a choice that had to be made. But lets not try and pretend that it was a choice others made for you. I know for a fact TOP had ample opportunity to stay with IRON et al and made the deliberate decision not too. That decision rests with you alone. 

[Upper End of the War]

That's assuming that these nations slipping into peace mode are all going to stay there.  Those that slip in, restock nukes, and come back out for another round of fighting, if they're able to continue to slip in and out at will... that doesn't really play out so well.

 

This would be true, if there was any strategic depth involved with the opposition. Unfortunately this not the case. In Equilibrium, going to peace mode is no problem as there is a swarm of reserves to pick up the slack. For the opposition, there is no reserve. Every nation in peace mode is a war that is not being fought. Which means we can focus on what is really important. Burning Umbrellas tech to ash. That really is what constitutes victory here after all. Defeating Umbrella. That is why we are all at war. If you can't save Umbrella from defeat, then you lose the war. You can argue about how you preserved your stats all day long and it won't matter. The reason you are fighting is to save Umbrella, and if you don't save Umbrella you have lost. 

[Upper End of the War]

Busted staggers are a fact of life. When you have so many moving pieces as there are mistakes happen. They seem to be the exception rather then the norm. And honestly, this war is all about Umbrella. The hangers on are incidental. If ODN et al go to peace mode it only helps the cause of burning Umbrella.

[Announcement from the Mushroom Kommune]

We shall not rest until every school in the kommune extols the truth of Francoism, and all the workers work for and consume the product of our corporation.

[An Official Announcement from the Mushroom Kaliphate (Kingdom)]

Generally speaking though, when you declare war on somebody, aren't you supposed to attack them?

[An Official Announcement from the Mushroom Kaliphate (Kingdom)]

God is dead. There is only the vast expanse of spiritless corporatism ahead of you :P

[Upper End of the War]

And that will be of great consolation to those who can't maintain NS levels above 100k. 

See, the vast majority of your alliances. Good luck explaining to your rank and file why they have to die for Umbrellas stats. That is ultimately what this war is about after all. Umbrella deciding to play reindeer games with the 4th ranked sanctioned alliance in CN.  An alliance everyone on Bob knew was not one to ignore provocation coming from Doomhouse. As your rank and file burns, I hope you have an awesome spin doctor to explain to them that its for a good cause, and not for saving an arrogant power that decided to play with fire. 

[Upper End of the War]

I can speak for how bad things are for the opposition at the 20-40k range. I am fighting two wars. One enemy has given up and the other is being destroyed by three nations (counting myself). No counters. The fact is, the elite nations are trying to stay above the fray, but it is at the cost of the vast majority of their rank and file who are doomed. The fact that these elite upper tier nations are usually alliance leadership should probably not be lost. It may be indicative for the delusion that DH is winning this war in any meaningful way. There seems to be an assumption here that EQ's upper tier cannot rebuy. This is far from the truth. The truth is, Equilibrium does not need to rebuy right now. Massacring the rank and file these elite nations rely on works much better then trying to focus on the upper tier.

 

Once the pillars that support this little pyramid scheme are dead, then attention can be turned to the hundred or so survivors celebrated in this thread. And make no mistake, any DH aligned nation not above 100k is dead. They are going into the fury of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and 75% of the nations on Bob. They will die, and then we shall see how the elites that sacrificed them will stand when they stand alone.