[Thesis, Antithesis: the Story of a Great War]

Excellent piece, Vladimir, I found it very interesting how you took the abstract, ie, thesis, antithesis and synthesis and related them to events within the game. I suspect you could go into great detail regarding the formation of antithesis, and I hope you consider doing so in some future article.

Good read, my friend.

[The IC/OOC line]

IC/OOC is really not hard to pull off. People make it 'hard' on purpose, because they feel it gives them an advantage.

I don't know how often people say "I'm RPing a character like myself." Dumbest. Statement. Ever. You run a nation in real life? I'm willing to bet if you do, you have better things to do than play a leader of a make believe one.

Basically, if you're speaking as a leader of a nation or as part of an alliance, then you are IC. Just because many choose not to recognize the line doesn't mean there isn't one, or that it is hard to recognize.

Good post, I enjoyed it.

[The Fail of CoMa]

Ah, yes, the 'stick by your allies until they do something stupid' proviso. Real loyalty often demands that you stick with your friends even when they're wrong. Doesn't mean you have to agree with them, doesn't necessarily mean you have to like what they do all the time, but those types of disagreements, at least among friends, should be done in private. I commend CoMA for sticking up for their friend.

Now, I would also say it is part of the responsibility of friendship for Ryan to right the course of action he has taken.

Just my two cents.

VI

[Technology & Tech deals]

MrCyber, a well thought out and excellent post. I can't say I'm surprised in the least.

[Your CB is INVALID!!!!!!!!!!!!]

This is the sort of thing that is technically true but useless.

I disagree as to the 'useless' part. Fights over 'what is and isn't a valid' CB seem to take up a lot of space on the forums. Arguing over the validity is useless.

If you are 80% of the strength in the world and can do what you like, then sure, any CB is valid.

Validity of a CB is NOT a function of strength. That is the point of my particular post. CB's by definition are always valid.

But in the real world, all operations require assistance from allies, and they require the opponent not to receive assistance from the rest of the world.

Ok, let's look at Iraq. Not much support for that war from our allies, yet, somehow, on it rolls.

If you do something which is 'unjustified' by the standards of those other alliances, you will receive less support and your opponent more.

And in Real World and CN terms, so what? Every war since I've been in CN has been a curbstomp that didn't require any more support than that which was initially mustered prior to the declaration and CB. As to the opponent receiving more, again, I rarely see anyone step in and say 'oh, that is a terrible reason for war, I'm going to help.' Most of the time, no matter how weak the reasoning leading to a CB, alliances tend to find a way to avoid the altercation and be neutral.

And neutrality invariably favors the aggressor.

[Treaties and You: Part Two, Drafting in Action]

ToAs are just glorified PIATs, therefore pretty much useless other than to say "Hey, we're friends with [insert alliance here]".

Actually, they are more than that. If you actually abide by the terms as written, this treaty:

1) Prevents either signatory from attacking the other signatory. This may not seem like a big deal to many, but it does provide a level of security to an alliance that did not exist prior to the execution of the treaty; and

2) Creates an affirmative obligation on the parts of both signatories to provide the other with any information that may be in its possession regarding threats to either signatory's security. Again, this may not seem like much to you, but the exchange of information regarding threats to my alliance is pretty darn important to me.

I would assert the reason most folks don't think these treaties are worthwhile is because they don't actually follow them to the letter, especially with regards to information regarding threats to security.

[To suggest or to not suggest...]

Your point is well taken and an excellent post.

By the way, what's the status of the 39978 suggestions I asked you to make regarding redoing the entire game from top to bottom? Will that be out soon? Thanks for the help.

Regards,

VI

[The Wonder Discussion]

As with all your articles, I find them to be incredibly helpful and well written. Great work!

EmperorVIcious

[Morality in Politics, Part One]

I'm confused by this article. You begin by defining moral relativism and absolutism, and the proceed to completely abandon those definitions in the discussion that follows.

Hello Vladimir, good to see you here. I disagree with the contention that I 'abandon' the definitions.

As you correctly point out at the start, moral absolutism is a belief that there is an objective right and wrong, and therefore that every alliance and individual should be judged by this one single morality. Moral absolutism is not the belief that a certain moral must always be adhered to by the individual who holds the moral

I disagree slightly. A moral absolutist would believe that the individual holding that belief should always adhere to that moral. If they believed that there were times that not adhering to the belief were acceptable, they would be a relativist.

-- a moral relativist is equally likely to hold this belief, the only difference is that the relativist doesn't believe that everyone else must always adhere to it as well.

Now we come to the meat of our disagreement. An absolutist does believe that a uniform set of morals and their political enactments should be adhered to by everyone. The relativist would also believe that everyone should adhere to their moral code and that the variation from it would be a violation of the moral code of that individual. In both cases, the concept of hypocrisy is alive and well as far as measuring the actions of others. It is the measuring stick that is used that is different.

In this way the moral absolutist wouldn't say "we honour our treaties no matter what," they would say "everyone honours their treaties no matter what," and then proceed to consider any who doesn't to be immoral. If the former statement is true and the latter not then it would be a moral relativist position.

It is not, in my humble opinion, a reversion to moral relativism for the moral absolutist to acknowledge that others don't honor their treaties. Absolutists can be realists. The difference that I'm outlining is the relativist measures by the code of the person whom they are judging, whereas the absolutist need not know the code of that particular individual or alliance, as there is an objective measure that all should, but don't necessarily, adhere to.

Once again, thank you for the well thought out comment.

[Morality in Politics, Part One]

Your argument for not signing MDP's (or being very wary of whom you sign them with) is not a new one. Sister Midnight, former leader of IRON, maintained IRON's independence for somewhat similar reasons, i.e., didn't want to be dragged into a war that was set off by MDP triggering.

My argument isn't about whether or not to sign an MDP. My argument is that morality, and knowing the morality of others, is a key part of international politics. I will certainly touch on this in the next installment (actually, in the section where I discuss whether or not to sign a treaty with Alliance B). Thank you for the comment, and hopefully my next section will make my argument slightly clearer.

P.S. MDP triggering is a giant can of worms! As such, I'll probably cover it at some point...

[Ramifications of the Small Alliance Boom]

A very interesting read, both the main article and Vladimir's response and link. However, there other factors at play here. Mostly, it is a factor of 'increasing decimalism.' Basically, small alliances are a natural human reaction to the sprawling size of the major sanctioned alliances.

As Vladimir's wiki article points out, for 'survival' purposes (which I will take issue with at a later time, maybe in my own blog - but for now I'll accept it as true) the major large alliances have banded together. There is nothing inherently evil about this in any way. Clearly, this has worked for the security of those alliances.

But here's where things get interesting. If you don't join one of the sanctioned alliances, there is a feeling among many that your number will come up eventually. Especially if you are in an alliance of any significant size that could be deemed a threat to the power structure. Frankly, from what I've seen, there is nothing more dangerous than being in a 300 man alliance that does not have significant ties to the MDP web. You're big enough to be perceived as a potential threat, but not nearly big enough to be a realistic threat.

Small alliances are a reaction to this concept. As a commentator noted above, why in the world do I want to get my nation destroyed for the actions of someone I don't even know? Yet this is exactly the paradigm you set up if you're in a larger alliance that isn't part of the power structure.

Plus, on the human level, the community associated with a small alliance is more comfortable. I know each and every member of my alliance. There's a lot to be said for that kind of comradery. In an alliance of 1000 people, how many of those folks could you realistically know in some fashion? 40? 100? 200? Even at 400 you would still know less than half of the members of your alliance.

Most small alliances have no desire to gain fame/infamy or otherwise create a second hegemon and plunge the world into a great war. First of all, under the current climate, it is not feasible to create a second power structure as you will be destroyed long before it would have the potential to be on even footing - which Vladimir so eloquently explained in his article. So being around CN for any amount of time, you figure your choices are fairly limited: join a sanctioned alliance. The upside is security and growth. The downside is your voice is one of a thousand and may get drowned out in the crowd. Join a large unsanctioned alliance. This has the same problems as above, ie, you'll never know half your comrades AND if you're not firmly part of the power structure, there's little security here as at some point, you very well may be perceived as a threat and attacked by much larger forces which undermines the idea of joining a large alliance in the first place.

The third choice is small alliances. Assuming you can find a protector, it's a viable alternative to the power politics of Digiterra. Those of us, like myself, that have no interest in becoming a world power, can find a home in a nice small alliance where we know everyone and can generally enjoy building our nations outside of the power politics. If you're small, you're no threat to anyone. So long as you have a good protector, it is a wonderful balance that makes nation building a lot of fun, you have relative security, and you can let go of worrying about what the current power structure is to a fair degree. And to me, it makes for a lot of fun in deciding where you want to go as an alliance.

Ultimately, many are viewing CV through a 2 year old lens where there was a doubt as to the main power in the world. That doubt has not been present for some time. To attribute the goals of the past to new small alliances is a mistake. Many of us know the world hegemony is not going to change. We have no desire whatsoever to get involved in a futile attempt at trying because that's what folks did two years ago.

In sum, small alliances are CN's way of moving forward. The old days of two giants slugging it out for primacy has long since passed. Too many focus on the old days, wanting to bring them back. Those days are not coming back. So for players to move on, who are not part of that giant, small alliances allow us to explore other facets of the game. Just because you're not the biggest guy in the room doesn't mean you're not successful.

Not everyone wants to rule the world, regardless of what Tears for Fears may tell you.

VI

[On the expansion of small alliances]

Very good article. I might suggest another reason why small alliances are popular: freedom from association. It seems that many players are identified with the alliance that they first were noticed in. For instance, purely as an example, AirMe is constantly thought of as a member of NAAC. Heck, even MK is called 'LUE 2.0' by many players.

Usually, smaller alliances don't tend to give a negative association to players that may be associated with them, unless that alliance does something really stupid. So it also allows players to be judged more on their words and actions than on their past alliance membership.

Just a thought, and well done, Lord Boris.