jackolas

TL;DR - If you're playing this game you probably have more value placed in the things you claim not to. You can't change the establishment by being a rebel in a small group, with rare exceptions (this game not being one of them), so you might as well play along and shape the game the way you want to see it through those means. Otherwise, you're just in a circle jerk with your few comrades while the world is developing around you.

You kind of answered your own question. Power is, among other things, the ability to create, maintain, and enforce the social norms that you are condemning. Alliances who have built up reputation, military strength, economic power, etc. have the ability to shape these social norms and enforce them. Due to there being an existing social environment, those who shun it and try to create an alternative would be forced to match the level of various other strength factors (military, economics, etc.) to be able to change the social norms. This isn’t done by initially starting out saying “we are different, we are free” because you’re already telling those enforcing the norms, those who have the power, that you intend to threaten their hold on things. That’s what animalz openly does, and that’s one reason they aren’t taken seriously (that and the fact that of their 22 nations half of them are in anarchy). Animalz have the “freedom” to do whatever they want, but look what that cost them. When they go around using their “absolute freedom” they get put down and have to start all over (or, if peace is declared before that, they start from wherever they ended at). Sir Kindle is a good example. He’s been playing for almost 600 days and his nation is currently under 2,000 strength. If you’re playing just to do whatever and go along for the ride, then yeah, maybe the animalz approach would work. Then again, so would not joining alliance or creating your own and doing whatever you want. We're probably going to end up talking past each other. It seems you think there is value in affronting the social norms, as if that hurts the establishment or really offends people. If I had any intentions of impacting the social norms, I would take an approach that is more effective. Look up international realism. If you don't play the system's game then you are the one getting played (even if you think you are rebellious or free). Yeah, a large uprising in numbers might work, but again, you have to match the established power on other numbers to make that happen. Maybe my use of "laughed at" was misunderstood. I didn't mean mocked, because, as you said, everyone gets mocked. I meant not taken seriously. Yes, there are smaller alliances that don't take the others seriously, but that's more of just a front and talk. There's no way it can be backed up in-game, because smaller alliances, until they grow and gain some self-sufficiency, exist at the will (i.e., by the permission) of the larger ones. If a larger alliance wanted a small one gone, it could be done (and yes, they could still exist and rebuild, but that's not my point). You say power is subjective, yet you place importance on a statistic, implying that it isn’t subjective. If power, numbers, etc. are subjective, then to people other than yourself your casualties number doesn’t really mean anything. If one of the top ten alliances decided to declare war on your alliance and ZI all of you (or any other alliance), is that subjective? I'm not claiming an objective value in the game, but I think there is enough common value in certain things in the game that there would be a general agreement that a more productive economy is better than a less productive economy, etc. Even for you, without money to buy troops, you get no increasing casualty rate, and if someone were to keep you at a near ZI level your casualty rate would be much lower than it could be (as compared to growing and then launching armies of higher numbers).

We disrespected an alliance that attacked us? They pretty much don't have respect among this community in the first place, from what I'm seeing. The way some of their members post seems to indicate that they don't have much respect for their alliance, as well (more of a twisted reverence). They put a spy in another alliance (and have done so to others), threatened multiple alliances just in this thread, and act as braggarts because an almost 600 day old nation is supposedly beating three nations (though he is in anarchy), two of which are less than two months old. Maybe Kindle isn't representative of the alliance as a whole, but he has an official title and is listed as a government member on the wikia. Animalz "freedom" comes at a cost of being laughed at by other alliances (as seen in this thread), as well as adhering to an absurd ideology that they are going to become powerful by constantly being at war. Ironically, their leader is in peace mode and the one purporting their goals/beliefs most loudly is in anarchy. It might be fun to run around and attack people at random, but I think it's pretty clear that alliances aren't going to grow long-term if they take that approach (as indicated by the various large wars Animalz has been in and their current size given the age of many of their nations).

Please explain.

You're the only one in anarchy out of the four (three AP members and yourself). Sometimes war is about strategy and strength in numbers, not just angry words and throwing troops around. Use your big boy words and play nice, you make your alliance look even worse.