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Announcing Treaties on the OWF


Feanor Noldorin

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[quote name='Jaiar' timestamp='1318037111' post='2820318']
Seat of your pants FA... it would be awesome.
[/quote]
It would not be.

People who think "hey, let's have no/secret treaties and defend who we want, when we want it and let's all do that, it'll be awesome" think this will become a fast moving world, filled with intrigue and frequent wars, powerplays between the major alliances. It won't. Wars happen when everybody is fairly certain where almost all of the pieces will fall and they think it'll be on their side (and it's such a grievious offence, they cannot let it go).

Without that dose of certainty, you'll have people afraid of their every move, not sure where most alliances will fall. And a lot of opportunistic alliances will be all too ready to jump on the winning side or the rare moralistic bandwagons/crusades to garner some easy PR points. Wars will be more one-sided than ever, in the rare occasions they will happen.

As far as this OP is directly concerned, I am curious as to what this new policy will bring for the future. What is the difference between a treatyless entry in a war and a secret treaty? How can we tell if some alliances just made a !@#$%^&* treaty for the sake of convenience?

The lack of communication, on the OWF, makes this place a very dull one. I prefer official discussions a lot more than the boring drivel that goes on in IRC channels.

Edited by Yevgeni Luchenkov
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Honestly a world of secret treaties would probably just be even more paralyzed. If people are afraid to start wars now, imagine what it will be like if everyone could potentially have a few or many treaties with the most powerful alliances or blocs.

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I prefer announcing everything. The more people withhold from the OWF, the more the OWF becomes crap because nothing meaningful is posted. As was already said, that makes the OWF being crap a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Also, as someone who spent most of his nation's life in a semi-independent alliance, a couple years ago I read the OWF quite often because the OWF was full of fun, intrigue, arguments, academic discussions, threats, and posturing. It was great. Then the last couple of years, perhaps coupled with RL, I just grew bored with the OWF. There was nothing on there, and when there was, it was all the same.

Though all that said, I would be the type of person to prefer war negotiations etc. to all be OWF, in closed roleplay. Then you can still keep the discussion solely to interested parties, but the rest of the world would enjoy watching as well...

I'll give 100 tech to the next alliance that conducts peace negotiations on these forums.

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[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1318038046' post='2820336']
Honestly a world of secret treaties would probably just be even more paralyzed. If people are afraid to start wars now, imagine what it will be like if everyone could potentially have a few or many treaties with the most powerful alliances or blocs.
[/quote]
The unpredictability of not everyone making who they will defend known could also cause more wars to occur which aren't curb stomps with a predetermined outcome, but wars that should be one sided from the planning of the attackers ending up pretty close instead. I doubt people will be more afraid to start a war with an alliance who they don't know if they have any treaties than starting a war with an alliance they can see would bring most of the treaty web on their side if attacked.

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[quote name='JoshuaR' timestamp='1318038536' post='2820346']
Though all that said, I would be the type of person to prefer war negotiations etc. to all be OWF, in closed roleplay. Then you can still keep the discussion solely to interested parties, but the rest of the world would enjoy watching as well...
[/quote]

In theory, I would love it if that was how things were done. But it makes way too much sense to ever happen.

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[quote name='Methrage' timestamp='1318038539' post='2820347']
The unpredictability of not everyone making who they will defend known could also cause more wars to occur which aren't curb stomps with a predetermined outcome, but wars that should be one sided from the planning of the attackers ending up pretty close instead. I doubt people will be more afraid to start a war with an alliance who they don't know if they have any treaties than starting a war with an alliance they can see would bring most of the treaty web on their side if attacked.
[/quote]
The problem is that [i]every[/i] alliance could theoretically bring most of the treaty web on their side if attacked.

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[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1318039089' post='2820354']
The problem is that [i]every[/i] alliance could theoretically bring most of the treaty web on their side if attacked.
[/quote]

Which is true today already. Secret treaties have already been used in major wars, and you have no way of knowing how many are out there. On top of that there are plenty of non-secret but non-announced treaties that you would have to actually sit down and search for to find. And on top of that some alliances have unilateral ODOAPs with the world, and that has been true for a very long time as well.

Welcome to the future, the future is now ;)

Edited by Sigrun Vapneir
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[quote name='Yevgeni Luchenkov' timestamp='1318037906' post='2820335']
It would not be.

People who think "hey, let's have no/secret treaties and defend who we want, when we want it and let's all do that, it'll be awesome" think this will become a fast moving world, filled with intrigue and frequent wars, powerplays between the major alliances. It won't. Wars happen when everybody is fairly certain where almost all of the pieces will fall and they think it'll be on their side (and it's such a grievious offence, they cannot let it go).

Without that dose of certainty, you'll have people afraid of their every move, not sure where most alliances will fall. And a lot of opportunistic alliances will be all too ready to jump on the winning side or the rare moralistic bandwagons/crusades to garner some easy PR points. Wars will be more one-sided than ever, in the rare occasions they will happen.
[/quote]
You described the situation the way it is now...Seriously, it's hard to tell the difference.

Intrigue - when and how will the next war happen; will it be a Polar or GOD hunt? This is now and it would be more so without public treaties. More skirmishes would take place that could lead to big wars.

Powerplays - Ardus wanting to minimize Mj, then a treaty a day or so later...PB and others wanting a piece of GOD, VE holding them back but for how long. We would definitely have more of this. Maybe not out in public but it would happen in order to line up allies for a war.

Certainty - major wars...if this Legion thing expands to a full blown world war the outcome is certain since we know what treaties will trigger what. People are afraid to move now. You got some alliances doing 180 turns - Legacy - out of fear. PR points...BTA, NsO, IAA...they attacked Legion expecting a bunch of hails and good PR. The instigator, Tetris, miscalculated all this and these jokes of alliances still followed in and attacked.

EDIT: Certainty now is not helping things is it?

One Sided - they have always been one sided; it's trivial to say "more" one sided.

Edited by Jaiar
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[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1318039089' post='2820354']
The problem is that [i]every[/i] alliance could theoretically bring most of the treaty web on their side if attacked.
[/quote]
In theory maybe, but in reality only the most influential and well connected alliances would be able to, much like the current situation. Also in practice everyone isn't going to keep their treaties secret regardless of what others do and already some alliances probably have secret treaties. To pull off a successful war it takes an alliance like MK or one of their allies who have treaties with almost everyone to launch an offensive war against one of the few alliances who aren't allied to them or their allies, so I'm not sure how more alliances having secret treaties would make things any worse. If some of those alliances who appear to be isolated end up not being isolated after being attacked, that could only mean bigger wars as a result rather than only seeing curb stomps. With the current setup the only way to be able to wage wars without getting rolled or be able to defend properly if attacked is to ally as many people as possible, which causes worse stagnation and blockades from people starting wars than the unpredictability would cause.

Edited by Methrage
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[quote name='Feanor Noldorin' timestamp='1318022247' post='2820088']
Umbrella-MHA it is still important shift by your alliance and therefore should be announced.
[/quote]
Say what?!

[quote name='Jaiar' timestamp='1318031901' post='2820256']
If you are going to declare war, research your target.
[/quote]
This boggles the mind. Research it [i]where[/i]? That's the entire point of the wiki and OWF.

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[quote name='Feanor Noldorin' timestamp='1318022247' post='2820088']
While the VE-Tetris downgrade may pale in comparsion (atleast in the grand scheme of things) to such things like GOONS-CSN and Umbrella-MHA it is still important shift by your alliance and therefore should be announced.
[/quote]
As far as Umbrella MHA there... we're allies. We didn't cancel our ties. No one outside of Umb/MHA is affected, so in that case there really is nothing to announce. Our relationship has nothing to do with other alliances, wars, sides, anything, so really the rest of the world can know exactly what they know, that we are allied to MHA.

I do like to see cancellations posted, however. :P

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[quote name='Gibsonator21' timestamp='1318039131' post='2820355']
Didn't DT and CSN basically do that? :P
[/quote]
It was great stuff too.

BiPolar had a bit of that with the negotiations too. I can't really think of much sustained political intrigue since then (DT-CSN being one of the few exceptions).

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[quote name='Heft' timestamp='1318030765' post='2820238']
Now, what's going on today is that treaties are still being "announced" and "discussed" just not openly and in public. So instead of everyone mocking, say, Fark and Polar to their faces, everyone just does it in private rooms. Everyone that is in those private rooms, anyway. [b]Anyone that isn't and is just a casual participant in politics is left with the impression that absolutely $%&@-all is happening.[/b]
[/quote]

I just had to quote this as being so true it's painful. Perhaps there'd be more people getting interested in politics and sticking around to get involved if they saw more of this.

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I wish more alliances would update their [url="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcybernations.wikia.com%2F&ei=7LuPTt6yD-WdiAfBkInnDQ&usg=AFQjCNHzKXa1eGJer5VK8eDtqn_D1NFvXA"]CN Wiki[/url] pages. Some of them - even some of the 'big' alliances - are so out of date it's hard to know who is allied to who and what the details of their treaty are - wheter it's a ODP or MDP or MDoAP etc.

Sertiously alliances, get your act together!

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[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1318041325' post='2820382']
Say what?!


This boggles the mind. Research it [i]where[/i]? That's the entire point of the wiki and OWF.
[/quote]
Research your target: Get on their forums as a diplomat. They may have a public treaty list on their forums. Know one public ally of theirs? Ask that ally hey, what other treaties does CoJ have?

I don't really care if treaties are announced or not. Announcements get very annoying very fast.

o/ Alliance 1
o/ Alliance 2

:wub: Friends Allying Friends

Sickens me :gag:

Edited by Jaiar
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[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1318041325' post='2820382']
Say what?!


This boggles the mind. Research it [i]where[/i]? That's the entire point of the wiki and OWF.
[/quote]
Also, plant some spies within your enemies' ranks. You guys want it all to be easy.









:P

Edited by Jaiar
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Because they're trying to goad someone into screwing up and attacking them.

The unwritten rule used to be that it doesn't exist and it's not reasonable to hold anyone to it if it was never announced because there was no way that anyone can know. But now alliances don't announce them and I have to think that a good chunk of the reason is that they want to create confusion for prospective attackers.

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[quote name='Duncan King' timestamp='1318046858' post='2820437']
Because they're trying to goad someone into screwing up and attacking them.

The unwritten rule used to be that it doesn't exist and it's not reasonable to hold anyone to it if it was never announced because there was no way that anyone can know. But now alliances don't announce them and I have to think that a good chunk of the reason is that they want to create confusion for prospective attackers.
[/quote]

Sure. Those attackers arent going to come at you Marquis of Queensbury style anyway. They are all too likely to come at you with every possible advantage they can get, and only after calculating it out and feeling confident that they have you completely overwhelmed from the get-go. Why make their job easier? Why advertise your defenses? The treaty they didnt dig deep enough to find could easily be the difference between victory and defeat.

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[quote name='Rebel Virginia' timestamp='1318030299' post='2820228']
[color="#0000FF"]Well, at least you're honest about yourself. That's more than can be said of you than most people.

Anyway, what Heft said. Most of the alliances who have stopped announcing their treaties think they're cleverly avoiding negative criticism.* But if they're so unable to take criticism, well, I'll just leave it at that.

*Hi Polar.[/color]
[/quote]

speaking of morons and poo flingers.

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[quote name='Johnny Apocalypse' timestamp='1318030927' post='2820242']
Hey in case you all weren't aware, Umbrella recently downgraded it's treaty with MHA to an ODP.

Signed:
Johnny Apocalypse - President


Happy now?
[/quote]
I'm unsure why you seem so upset that I mentioned that your alliance recently downgraded its treaty with MHA. By your own logic this information should have already been known to everyone due to the "grapevine" so why the attitude?

[quote]So how about this, we'll announce whatever we want to announce when we feel like announcing it and if it's noteworthy you'll probably hear about it down the grapevine at some point, after all people sure do love to play telephone.[/quote]
While reading this paragraph I felt like you were stomping your feet in some childlike manner in order to get your point across.

Edited by Feanor Noldorin
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[quote name='Sigrun Vapneir' timestamp='1318047562' post='2820445']
Sure. Those attackers arent going to come at you Marquis of Queensbury style anyway. They are all too likely to come at you with every possible advantage they can get, and only after calculating it out and feeling confident that they have you completely overwhelmed from the get-go. Why make their job easier? Why advertise your defenses? The treaty they didnt dig deep enough to find could easily be the difference between victory and defeat.
[/quote]
It's unreasonable to hold a person to a document that they're not aware of existing.

Edit: I don't really see not announcing downgrades and cancellations as a problem as many alliances would prefer to not announce bad news.

Edited by Duncan King
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