Krzyzewskiville

It's been 9 and a half years since I started playing this game. I don't think I ever expected it to be this long. I don't think I expected to ever come back after every time I left - sometimes for a few weeks, one time for a period of months. Something always kept sucking me back in, usually the people. But after all of this time, I've finally hit the point where I don't have the time or energy to keep going in this game, so once this current war ends, I'm going to let my nation fall into Inactivity Mode, get off IRC for good, and say goodbye to Planet Bob. Maybe I'll pop up in a different world, but that seems unlikely right now. If I know you and you wanna chat, hit me up before I'm gone for good - either on IRC, on the forums, wherever. I'll be around I'm not even gonna try for individual shoutouts because there are just too many people to shout out. Too many alliances. Just too much over the years. Thank you all for making this game as fun as it was for most of the 9 and a half years I was here. It's really sad to see what it's become because of how great it once was. My advice to everyone: cut the treaties and have some fun. Let the game go out with a bang, not a whimper. Winning is fun, but fun is more fun. When all is said and done, nobody's gonna care who "won" or "lost" when it ends, they're gonna remember the fun times. In general, shoutout to the CN community. Time and time again, the people were the reason to keep coming back. That was the strongest part of this game, consistently, and we were at our best when we had fun and opposed each other without getting ultrapersonal or digging up personal details. I will miss a lot of people around here. It's a great community and I hope that it somehow sticks together (even if, as I would strongly recommend, you don't invade another game like NS did with CN, imposing CN politics elsewhere). Keep that part of the game around somewhere. It's been real, and hopefully this war doesn't disappoint. If it does, it may be a lot less time than I expect before I'm deleted.

o/ Polaris Glad to see someone finally taking down a guy who really deserves it.

Damn bros, you old.

Great War III was a blast. It was the biggest and baddest war. I was in Legion at the time and it was a total clusterfuck, but in the best ways - those of us who were active and in mid-level positions basically ran the alliance through the complete and utter chaos/panic of the alliance. It was a bonding experience for us all. I am friends with many of those people to this day. We had the /b/ attacks, we had total chaos. It was the war that set the path of the rest of the game - the first with crippling reparations, the first with forced disbandments, etc. Anyone who was here can remember how crazy and huge it was. No war has ever come as close. And no war has ever really been as closely fought as it was. God, that was an awesome war.

Congrats, both of y'all!

My greatest regret was not cancelling on both you and NSO at the same time. (That was a rare moment where Red and I were very much on the same page: neither of us wanted to cancel on TPF) It was clear then that we had drifted apart, but we didn't want to do it because of our great historical relationship. It was a chore to ever talk to you while I was an active IO, and it was beyond broken. Things moved far faster than we could ever keep in touch with you because of the disparities in activity. That's the honest truth.

TPF was once the most steadfast ally of Pacifica, That was seven years ago. Over the seven years since Karma, TPF and NPO slowly drifted apart, and ultimately, during Brehon's reign, things reached a breaking point where we should have cancelled. That was 3-4 years ago. In fact, we almost did cancel on both TPF and NSO, but decided only to cancel on NSO at the time. We kept our treaty even though both of us knew our relationship was not the same, but during that time, things collapsed and it became hostile even between allies. TPF fell into inactivity during this time, breaking the already frail lines of communication, and it became difficult for our two alliances to ever try and reconcile. The cancellation was at the end of years of the relationship falling apart, something which TPF itself recognized and yet was still angry for. We screwed up in the DoW last war, no doubt, but the way TPF has responded is really saddening to see. The reality is, neither NPO nor TPF are the same alliance they were in 2009, and anyone who is talking about Karma in here is missing that.

Happy birthday, my friends!

Wait, on Planet Bob, does fire represent your life? When your fire is gone, so are you? Let's be real: CN has always been like Survivor.

Congrats, Legion. Even though you all seem to have a lot of disdain for me these days, I spent a lot of my early days in Legion, and I am glad to still see some old alliances alive. And, surprisingly, to still see konkrage alive and kicking. He and I go way back.

If one alliance leads and nobody follows, that alliance becomes a very easy target. The treaty web is basically all about mutually assured destruction. If you don't play the game, you make yourself and your allies vulnerable without connections. If you do, you are just allowing yourself to be used by others for this kind of thing. The treaty web is a serious problem, but you can't have one alliance "set[] the example[,]" you need many alliances to act together to really change it. But there's too much inertia to do that.

Umbrella isn't our only ally. Just because we were one of the earlier alliances in, and that Umbrella is our only ally who preceded our entry, does not mean that Umbrella is our only ally who picked this war. Big wars like this take a lot of commitment from a lot of alliances.

I'd tell you I like the DoW, but I'm Team The Black Keys. Down with the White Stripes! Down with Jack White! [OOC: All White Stripes bashing is sarcastic.]

That's clever, but Pacifica does not support cruel and unusual punishment.

Finally. NATO's gonna be so happy, they really hated being the awkward third wheel during the "will they or won't they" years. o/ R&R