The Overtime Accords

[Beefspari]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304694939' post='2707497']
Not really. If you go by "more nations = more aid that can be sent out", then GOONS, having more nations than MK and Umbrella combined, would have been an aid powerhouse.

Quite obviously, that doesn't make any sense at all. And all the reasons why GOONS couldn't do that - because they had small nations and they were fighting wars - also apply to all the people sending out reps now.
[/quote]
The original post about nation strength went on to say "Some of these won't be sending aid." Total nation strength is no better a judge of how many people can send money, considering at least some percentage of those nations will not be sending aid. In fact your own example works against you, because GOONs would add a ton of NS having a large number of nations, but none of those would be sending aid. So you also can't go by "more NS = more aid that can be sent out." You'd need a combination of those things to actually figure out who has more capability to send aid. Say, number of nations over 50k NS.
[img]http://meru.xfury.net/images/aeris/aerisdisL7.jpg[/img]

[Letum]

[quote name='Beefspari' timestamp='1304697564' post='2707511']
The original post about nation strength went on to say "Some of these won't be sending aid." Total nation strength is no better a judge of how many people can send money, considering at least some percentage of those nations will not be sending aid. In fact your own example works against you, because GOONs would add a ton of NS having a large number of nations, but none of those would be sending aid. So you also can't go by "more NS = more aid that can be sent out." You'd need a combination of those things to actually figure out who has more capability to send aid. Say, number of nations over 50k NS.
[img]http://meru.xfury.net/images/aeris/aerisdisL7.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

What? You need complicated math and multiple factors in order to get an accurate picture of something? Surely you can just pick two random statistics, and the one with the highest one wins!

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304693670' post='2707487']
Pot, Kettle, Black.
[/quote]
Judging by a lot of the posts from NPO in this thread; you know damn well that you kept your nations in peace mode merely so you'd have some sort of "leverage" in the negotiations. Not as a war strategy. In the end, what did it buy you? Nothing. Just a longer more drawn out war. It bought you nothing because the fact of the matter is we never wanted anything else from NPO.

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304697820' post='2707514']
Judging by a lot of the posts from NPO in this thread; you know damn well that you kept your nations in peace mode merely so you'd have some sort of "leverage" in the negotiations. Not as a war strategy. In the end, what did it buy you? Nothing. Just a longer more drawn out war. It bought you nothing because the fact of the matter is we never wanted anything else from NPO.
[/quote]

If we bring our nations out before we reach an agreement, then they quite obviously aren't able to be part of said agreement. Every nation brought out prior to the agreement just means an extra nation that has to be brought out as part of it.

It's not like our entire upper tier was in PM for this war. 90/130 nations above 50k ended up being knocked down before this agreement. If the 22 nations coming out now had also been released, for a total of 112/130, then you could have just went on to demand an "exit" from whatever is leftover. If 70% of our pre-war upper tier wasn't good enough, then why would 86% have made such a large difference when your first demand was 97%?

So yes, it was either use it as leverage, or leave anyway and hope that Doomhouse sees it and decides to "be nice". And considering your initial demands would have reduced our upper tier down to 4 nations, as well as damaging many nations below that, you "being nice" wasn't really a realistic prospect.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304699099' post='2707519']
blah blah blah...

So yes, it was either use it as leverage, or leave anyway and hope that Doomhouse sees it and decides to "be nice". And considering your initial demands would have reduced our upper tier down to 4 nations, as well as damaging many nations below that, you "being nice" wasn't really a realistic prospect.
[/quote]
Okay so riddle me this, what do you think we'd have asked you for if you had just fought normally? We're not unreasonably cruel here, we have our objectives and we met them, do you think we'd make you pay reparations or something?

[Beefspari]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304697662' post='2707512']
What? You need complicated math and multiple factors in order to get an accurate picture of something? Surely you can just pick two random statistics, and the one with the highest one wins!
[/quote]
If you feel that "number of nations over 50k" is hopelessly complex, that explains a few things.
[img]http://meru.xfury.net/images/aeris/aeris-_-L8.jpg[/img]

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304699323' post='2707521']
Okay so riddle me this, what do you think we'd have asked you for if you had just fought normally?
[/quote]

Normally? Considering that a quarter of MK has been in PM since March, I'll ignore that little PR jab.

[quote]We're not unreasonably cruel here, we have our objectives and we met them, do you think we'd make you pay reparations or something?[/quote]

I'll ignore that little jab over what is "reasonable" too, in the hopes of diving directly into the matter. 2 months ago, you wanted 90% of our remaining 40 nations in that tier. If we brought out 50%, like we are doing today, we would have quite obviously not met your demands, would we?

[Kowalski]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304697307' post='2707508']
For your analysis to hold true, you require a critical assumption: that each nation is capable of sending out 15m per 10 days. (And it would be 15m rather than 18m, given the general lack of DRA's). However, that assumption does not hold true for most nations in the world. In order for a nation to be capable of doing that, it either needs to have a large enough warchest (i.e, money in the "bank"), or have enough infra to get the required income to make that money.

Now, for a bunch of alliances that have been on the receiving end of a beatdown for the past 3 months, warchests have been depleted for all non-PM nations. So, rather than a 20k NS nation with 50m in the bank, you have a bunch of 5k NS nations with 0m in the bank.

That leaves income as the main way of generating money for aid. A decently built nation should be able to net 1.5m a day at around 4000 infra. GOONS, which you allege could "easily" send out more aid than MK/Umbrella, has a mere 8 nations above that level. Now, granted, a good system of internal backcollecting and aid-falls should be able to expand that capacity significantly - all those low-ns nations are poised for quick growth. But still, it is quite some time before that growth results in an ability to send aid that outstrips Umbrella's - and it is definitely not a capacity that exists right now.

In much the same manner, the 254 nations that NPO currently has at under 2k NS wouldn't be able to even send a fraction of the aid the 22 nations we are bringing out of PM from our upper tier are.

I am not denying that our coalition has enough nations to meet these terms without much difficulty. They wouldn't have been accepted if there was a chance they couldn't. However, going off and saying "you have 5 times more nations than Umbrella, and therefore can send 5 times more aid" is blindingly inaccurate. Not that an NS comparison is particularly accurate either, but one arbitrary and ridiculous metric might as well respond to another one. Next up, we can compare aid potential based on the number of nukes.
[/quote]
I'm assuming this wonderful case study shows that a group of alliance's NS is a better judge of their ability to move aid than their nations numbers/aid slots?

Also I don't remember saying "you have 5 times more nations than Umbrella, and therefore can send 5 times more aid" at any point.

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304697307' post='2707508']
I think that...Umbrella's excessive time with high-NS nations has somewhat diluted your understanding of basic economic concepts.
[/quote]
Absolutely. It's a strange phenomenon that an alliance of dunderheads like Umbrella have a record of excellent economic growth, both on a nation and alliance level, while the collection of geniuses that make up the NPO economic dept continue to struggle to hit 40% aid slot usage.

[Letum]

[quote name='Beefspari' timestamp='1304699355' post='2707522']
If you feel that "number of nations over 50k" is hopelessly complex, that explains a few things.
[img]http://meru.xfury.net/images/aeris/aeris-_-L8.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

(I'm actually agreeing with you there, and "complicated" is sarcastic commentary on the inability of most people here to do addition)

[Letum]

[quote name='Kowalski' timestamp='1304700376' post='2707526']
I'm assuming this wonderful case study shows that a group of alliance's NS is a better judge of their ability to move aid than their nations numbers/aid slots?
[/quote]

Did you read the penultimate sentence? The one that says that both are crappy measures? The one right after the part you've referenced?

[quote]Absolutely. It's a strange phenomenon that an alliance of dunderheads like Umbrella have a record of excellent economic growth, both on a nation and alliance level, while the collection of geniuses that make up the NPO economic dept continue to struggle to hit 40% aid slot usage. [/quote]

It's one thing to be very efficient, it's quite another to tell me that 300 nations under 10k NS can send out tons of aid.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Letum

[Kowalski]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304700534' post='2707529']
Did you read the penultimate sentence? The one that says that both are crappy measures? The one right after the part you've referenced?
[/quote]
I did, I just can't see why you're arguing with me when I say that the number of nations/aid slots is a better way to judge the ability to move aid than NS and then pull that crap out of the bag.

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304700534' post='2707529']
It's one thing to be very efficient, it's quite another to tell me that 300 nations under 10k NS can send out tons of aid.
[/quote]
I imagine it would be, I just don't remember telling you that "300 nations under 10k NS can send out tons of aid", whatever secret value you've attributed to 'tons'. Either I have a bad memory or you're making things up.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304700058' post='2707525']
I'll ignore that little jab over what is "reasonable" too, in the hopes of diving directly into the matter. 2 months ago, you wanted 90% of our remaining 40 nations in that tier. If we brought out 50%, like we are doing today, we would have quite obviously not met your demands, would we?
[/quote]
You're not listening to what I'm saying. If you hadn't decided to withhold nations as a negotiating strategy, what do you think we'd have asked of you? The answer is nothing. Yes the negotiations for the initial offer was high, but my point is that had you fought normally we wouldn't have had to negotiate it at all, and it would have saved everybody a lot of time.

[Letum]

[quote name='Kowalski' timestamp='1304700874' post='2707533']
I did, I just can't see why you're arguing with me when I say that the number of nations/aid slots is a better way to judge the ability to move aid than NS and then pull that crap out of the bag.
[/quote]

Because it isn't a better way. 5 nations like mine have more aid capacity than 250 nations at NPO's 0-2k range with depleted warchests. Trying to find which was is "less horrible" out of two incorrect metrics is a pretty silly discussion.

[quote]
I imagine it would be, I just don't remember telling you that "300 nations under 10k NS can send out tons of aid", whatever secret value you've attributed to 'tons'. Either I have a bad memory or you're making things up.
[/quote]

Goons has 315 nations under 10k NS, and you claim that their high nation count is the reason they "could easily send out more aid than MK or Umbrella". "Tons" is just a very fancy way of expressing that "more aid" amount.

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304701012' post='2707535']
You're not listening to what I'm saying. If you hadn't decided to withhold nations as a negotiating strategy, what do you think we'd have asked of you? The answer is nothing. Yes the negotiations for the initial offer was high, but my point is that had you fought normally we wouldn't have had to negotiate it at all, and it would have saved everybody a lot of time.
[/quote]

Seeing as we only decided to use our upper tier as negotiating leverage [i]after[/i] you made it into a demand, I'm not quite sure I follow your point at all.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304701522' post='2707539']
Seeing as we only decided to use our upper tier as negotiating leverage [i]after[/i] you made it into a demand, I'm not quite sure I follow your point at all.
[/quote]
Well then that is why you fail. Had you not just gone with the kneejerk "grab anything we can for leverage" reaction and just offered to come out at a reasonable level, or better yet just come out unprompted in a surprise attack, then we wouldn't have had anything to negotiate about, and things would have been wrapped up much quicker. I feel bad that you can't seem to grasp the bigger picture here.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Sardonic

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Kowalski' timestamp='1304694545' post='2707493']
What the hell has NS got to do with aid slots?
[/quote]
The amount of NS has to do with the amount of aid that can be offered.

Just because a 5K nation with a DRA and a foreign ministry has six aid slots does not mean that it can suddenly aid 18M out.

[quote name='Kowalski' timestamp='1304695655' post='2707502']
Your GOONS example is irrelevant, because while it obviously would have been foolish to have GOONS send aid to MK and Umbrella the fact is that they could easily send out more aid than MK or Umbrella, because they have more nations and therefore more aid slots. The argument is whether they could not whether they should, and a collection of alliances far outnumbering Umbrella in number of nations could easily match and exceed the number of aid packages that Umbrella sent out in any period.
[/quote]
You can't send aid unless you have the money. That's why GOONS wasn't aiding MK and Umbrella, its nations didn't have billion-dollar warchests. (Which I know that not all MK and Umbrella nations had, but some did.)

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304699323' post='2707521']
Okay so riddle me this, what do you think we'd have asked you for if you had just fought normally?
[/quote]
Disbandment.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1304702119' post='2707545']
Disbandment.
[/quote]
If you think I support this disbandment of alliances, you don't know me very well.

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304701926' post='2707543']
Well then that is why you fail. Had you not just gone with the kneejerk "grab anything we can for leverage" reaction and just offered to come out at a reasonable level then we wouldn't have had anything to negotiate about, and things would have been wrapped up much quicker. I feel bad that you can't seem to grasp the bigger picture here.
[/quote]

When we sent nations into PM in January, we did not do so with the objective of using them as a negotiating tool later down the road. After you did make your initial, very high demand, [i]then[/i] those nations turned into leverage, and that is where we were able to make counter-offers to "come out at a reasonable level" - which is what the whole negotiation was about. There wasn't anything particularly kneejerk about it.

There were only really two other alternatives. One would be not to use any peace-mode from the beginning of the conflict, which has nothing to do with "leverage", is definitely not "normal", and which is a whole different discussion, and the other would have been to just go with the first set of demands rather than try and reduce them.

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304702213' post='2707546']
If you think I support this disbandment of alliances, you don't know me very well.
[/quote]
You've already disbanded alliances.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304702218' post='2707547']
When we sent nations into PM in January, we did not do so with the objective of using them as a negotiating tool later down the road. After you did make your initial, very high demand, [i]then[/i] those nations turned into leverage, and that is where we were able to make counter-offers to "come out at a reasonable level" - which is what the whole negotiation was about. There wasn't anything particularly kneejerk about it.

There were only really two other alternatives. One would be not to use any peace-mode from the beginning of the conflict, which has nothing to do with "leverage", is definitely not "normal", and which is a whole different discussion, and the other would have been to just go with the first set of demands rather than try and reduce them.
[/quote]
Whatever man, we would have been fine if you had just taken a reasonable amount of nations out in a surprise attack or something along those lines. It would have laid the issue to rest immediately. Don't get me started on how long it took you to give us a non-insulting counteroffer either.

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1304702307' post='2707549']
You've already disbanded alliances.
[/quote]
Name them.

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304702655' post='2707552']
Whatever man, we would have been fine if you had just taken a reasonable amount of nations out in a surprise attack or something along those lines. It would have laid the issue to rest immediately. Don't get me started on how long it took you to give us a non-insulting counteroffer either.
[/quote]

Really? 18 of the current 22 nations would have probably fought in March had you never made your demand. If we had brought them out anyway, am I supposed to think that DH as a whole would have seen it as "reasonable", or that MK/Umbrella would have kept on making additional demands from the remaining nations, in accordance with the figures which had already been given to us?

Edited May 6, 2011 by Letum

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304702871' post='2707555']
Really? 18 of the current 22 nations would have probably fought in March had you never made your demand. If we had brought them out anyway, am I supposed to think that DH as a whole would have seen it as "reasonable",
[/quote]
Yep. Pity you didn't try it.

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304702655' post='2707552']
Name them.
[/quote]
UOKMB (where you tried to permazi all of its former members once the alliance disbanded); FnKa; GCU.

[Letum]

[quote name='Sardonic' timestamp='1304703056' post='2707557']
Yep. Pity you didn't try it.
[/quote]

So, for future reference, whenever you demand something and we offer half of it, there's an agreement?

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1304703320' post='2707558']
UOKMB (where you tried to permazi all of its former members once the alliance disbanded); FnKa; GCU.
[/quote]
UOKMB were never pressured into disbandment, they were unable to negotiate with us for whatever reason and went on their way, getting individual terms (PZI was never on the table). FnKa, on numerous occasions, and even in their goddamn disbandment announcement, stated that we had nothing to do with their decision to disband, you illiterate !@#$%^&. I've never even heard of GCU so I can't imagine we ever exerted pressure on them to disband.

[quote name='Letum' timestamp='1304703451' post='2707559']
So, for future reference, whenever you demand something and we offer half of it, there's an agreement?
[/quote]
Something like 3/4 would have been fine.