Das Blitzkrieger

I didn't misquote you. What's the difference between recruiting nations (for the sake of score) one week out, two weeks out, or a month out? In each case, an alliance is manipulating the score of their alliance. The problem, then, seems to be the number of nations we pulled in last round. I find it highly incredulous that D1 members, if they were *really* motivated, couldn't ask family and friends to create nations and join D1 at a similar rate as we did last round.

Ah, so if UN had a higher score earlier in the round, other alliances would have recruited nations to boost their score? That's the very tactic we executed last round—the one which is still being heavily criticized. Thank you for your honesty, KingBilly.

The nations who were formerly in Dawners have been a part of the UN community for the entire round. Due to their inexperience and multiple wars at the beginning of the round, their nations were in shambles--most of them had to re-roll. Rather than plunge them into the same situation, we elected to keep them off AA in order to have better builds, so that the next time they fought, they would have more fun and more success. So, when D1 attacked, the Dawners came back to their original AA. It seems that several of you think these were underhanded tactics, but considering the animosity for UN this round, as well as their inexperience with the game, it seems like a fair strategy to me. Admittedly, I don't quite understand the complaints about boosting our score. If these nations had joined us before the war, we would hit the same score we did now (probably higher, since we lost NS at the initial blitz!). If we had asked these (and other nations who didn't return) to stay active at the beginning of the round instead of rerolling, our score would have eclipsed 70 after myself and other UN members joined the AA. Either way, we would have had the top score.

My prayers are with you, the children, and their mother. Thank you for the care you bring to children as a foster parent.

There are two ways we might understand "gunning for Stevie Squad." First, we might understand it as viewing a small group of players as one's primary opponents and fighting them each round. That's fine. Second, we might understand it as trying to push a small group of players out of any alliance in which they play, using whatever tactics possible. That has been HG's objective. Two rounds ago, he gave the leader of UN and ultimatum: kick "Stevie Squad" out or face a permanent war the next round. Last round, several of our members received pms from D1 that if the UN didn't harbor certain person's, they wouldn't have been attacked. The small communities which serve as alliances are all some people have, sadly. I have pursued flags, declared wars I shouldn't have declared, and boasted far too much. However, I have never, nor will I ever, resort to these bullying tactics in an attempt to push players out of an alliance or the game. If those are the kind of actions which you deem to exhibit character, then you should probably reassess your moral judgments.

From whom, exactly, do you think the UN stole the award? What lies, exactly, did any of us tell? We held the strongest alliance score the entire round, up until alliances began merging to boost their scores, to which we responded by recruiting nations, many of whom are playing this round. Furthermore, we were the best economic performers, won every single war we fought, and fought as many wars as any other alliance. Sure, the award is rigged. But any alliance which claims that they, rather than the UN, deserved the strongest alliance award is being dishonest, both to themselves and the community. Your cause is neither new nor noble. Whenever an alliance succeeds, other alliances complain, and the success is always "unfair." So it goes. The only tears we'll shed over this declaration are tears of laughter at the guise of justice which hides a frustration at one group's continual success. Good luck.

I like the idea of reintroducing this award in the place of strongest aa, then.

I think (2) is a better option than (1). So, if the award became the top two nations in the alliance with ANS, would there also need to be a minimum number of nations in the alliance? If I recall correctly, an alliance put all it's members but the top 5 on pending in order to win that award in a previous round.

I'll take that as a "not any." I appreciate your constructive response.

I also think that this award should be removed, and possibly replaced. What, if any, award would people like to see instead?

Thanks for updating this, HG!

Cf. Volatile Temperament In all seriousness, you're in my top 5 favorite TE players of all time. <3

o/ UN Foreign Relations Team!

The point about WCs is that *we could have* done much more damage than we did. If our nations had spent down to the same levels as IRON's warchests, we would have had 2.5-3k tech WRCs. But what would be the point in doing that? You didn't even have enough nation strength for that to be a plausible option. We simply spent what we needed to spend to beat you. Even though you coordinated well, and even though our members were highly inactive, at least compared to previous wars, we had utter control over the outcome. I'd like to say that you'll see our WRCs later, but I don't think you'll be in our range.

Lol, we're definitely trying to fill our slots in order to avoid IRON. I'm not saying you influenced him—this time, at least. But, he idolizes you and agrees with everything you say because you stroked his ego. My comment about giving IRON more time to build warchests was genuine. Take Sparta and Secor, for instance. They have 14 million and 20 million dollars left, respectively. They'll be near ZI after the war, without practically any chance at playing a major role in the end of round fun. None of us wanted that.

No one seriously pursuing kills fills a second and third defensive slot rather than spreading out maximally and using defensive wars to coordinate. If you're right, we made a strategic move, just as D1 made a "strategic move" to incite all of our nations just before the end of a war. If I'm right, we made a strategic move, but we could have made a better strategic move at the sacrifice of a reduction in fun with one another, fun winning wars, and a final showdown with IRON where we pulled out all the stops. I'm pretty content with either explanation.

Count how many war slots UN had available. Check how many nations are in WoTN, RE, and NLON that would be in range. Let me know what numbers you get, then tell me if those slots would have been full.

Again, you both fail to grasp any of the above statements. 1) If our most important goal was soldiers killed, then it would be in our best interest to hit RE, IRON, NLON, and the Wolves. But, that's not our most important goal. We value other things, too. Learn to read more carefully. 2) You don't know anything for a fact about UN's motivations for this war. You may have info, sure, and certainly, we take D1's obvious pursuit of most soldiers killed at the cost of their individual nations into strong consideration in our decision making, but saying that you know for a fact that that was the reason? Tighten your arguments. 3) Winning something "on your own" in TE doesn't make sense. In any game in which there are competitors, making moves that inhibit your opponents' goals is vital. Understand the basic tactics of games. 4) What motivation would we have to incite a 10k NS nation before the nation is in anarchy? That's not plausible. What is plausible is that someone from D1 (or one of their temps) spied MsShawdi so that IRON now has a justification to perform these ops on UN. I expect better from you both. LS, your absence has made you neither wiser nor any less of a D1 pawn.

You missed the entire point of my post. We hit WoTN, RE, and NLON with the intention that we would not go all out with WRCs, high tech, etc. Conversely, we planned to go all out against IRON. But, if we did that now, it would have been extremely lopsided. Instead, we intended to give IRON time for another rebuild and collect before they fight us. If we simply wanted to deny D1 opponents and kills, we would have hit Wolves, RE, NLON and IRON. Awards are nice, yes, but they're not the only thing we care about. Fun and well-fought wars are the best. Maybe, if you focused more on your alliance fighting well and less on accumulating kills for D1, you might have won a war this round. Instead, you're 0-4. Consequently, I have a hard time taking seriously any advice, comments, or criticism you provide about war declarations or tactics.

Yes, declaring solely on IRON would have been a lost cause. Most of your nations have between 50 and 100 million dollars; most of our nations have between 250 and 400 million dollars. If we went all out on IRON, you'd be facing 10-12 nations with 2.5k tech WRCs, in which case, you never would have recovered. So, after a lot of deliberation, we decided to fight another alliance in order to give IRON some more time to build up warchests. We planned to hit you right after our war with WoTN, RE, and NLON, when we'd have lower infra and the playing field would be more even. In short, there was nothing from which to flee except the dishonor in rolling IRON. Your alliance is filled with excellent fighters, and wasting that excellence in an unfair matchup this early in the round certainly would have been a lost cause.

Blame Das

When he started leading?

The accord is now in disaccord with what's best for D1. They've lost two wars straight "playing by the rules," so now, HG seeks an alternative way to defeat us. Is this not transparent to everyone?

o/ United Nations!

I think you're smart enough to know that there are very few cases—and almost none in TE—where there's only one possible explanation for an event's cause. Why do you think yourselves so privileged to be the only alliance which might get our attention? We could have been planning a war against RE + War Doves, your own alliance, OP+NDO, and a lot of other possibilities. I give you my word that we were not using the accord to shield ourselves from D1 when you declared the war. Yes, it gave us some comfort at the beginning of the round, knowing that you couldn't (because of an accord *you* helped write) attack nations before they built. But after our nations built, we immediately began preparing for a war. Finally, we are not afraid of D1, nor will we ever be. We beat you this war—even if you try to do some mental acrobatics and explain the many reasons why your alliance is more skilled, but still lost. The fact is, our members rose to the occasion, and almost categorically, had a great war. We were not shielding ourselves from you then, and we're not shielding ourselves from you now. As Horatio suggested, our frustration was due to the unclarity of the accord; from our perspective, the precedent of "we'll interpret these how we want because we helped write them" is counter to anything for which the accord originally stood. Enjoy your rebuild, and I look forward to a rematch later this round.