Ambition

[Sigrun Vapneir]

 

The hordes of Chaos were never invited by the Orders and in the old days military conflicts were often centered on keeping Chaos at bay.

 

Of course. The e.g. GOONS just showed up spontaneously, they faked their treaties and the Emperor was like 'wow, when did I sign that?' and the IOs blamed it on intoxication rather than admit they didnt know, right? And I am sure they never had shared forum access either. Certainly they werent a bunch of mercs that served as Pacificas right hand for years, no, where on earth did I get that idea?

Edited February 1, 2015 by Sigrun Vapneir

[jerdge]

The real reason was because the self-appointed lords of Order, having invited the hordes of Chaos to our world, having nurtured and built them into a powerful army to be used against their enemies... needed something to keep them busy after all their real enemies had been dealt with, lest they turn on their handlers.

Like it's in most cases, there were several "real reasons".

None of them turned up to be good enough, considering that that aggression contributed to convince a lot of people to turn against them, and seven years later their attack is still cited as one of the worst thing they made. Their relatively modest gains on the ground have long been overcome by a multitude of negative consequences, at least in my opinion.

 

It was ages and ages ago, anyway: probably we should have all moved on, by now.

 

(The alternative is to debate it with Tywin until you're tired and annoyed, and he will never give up. You have been warned. :) )

[Sigrun Vapneir]

 

(The alternative is to debate it with Tywin until you're tired and annoyed, and he will never give up. You have been warned. :) )

 

The only really annoying thing about Tywin for me personally is this ahistoric and naïve view that pops out now and then. He wants to talk about history and underlying causes but he's blind to a large part of that. The world he sees around him today did not get so small and dirty by chance, or by act of admin. It's a long sorry history and the blame for it is like a giant blanket - it's  big enough for everyone to fit under it.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Sigrun Vapneir

[Walford]

There is no demise coming. Some of us like this world to much. Heck, I even convinced my Wife to rule with me. Pacifica's numbers are pretty stable. You just need a strong recruiter group.

 

Oh, recruitment's the problem for the entire world population to be shrinking?

 

Might Makes Right officially replaced Diplomacy and Discourse in the immediate aftermath -- and as a direct consequence -- of a series of aggressive wars culminating in GW3. The perpetrators of this and their toadies are fond of saying that this was just a coincidence and all of this would have happened anyway.

 

This is the flawed theory of Static Analysis in which taxes can be raised, regulations can be increased, wars can be started, freedoms can be reduced and it will have no effect upon people's behavior, because things either just "go in cycles" or the decline was inevitable and was not caused by anyone; it just "happened."

 

The alternative to that myopic and self-serving approach is Dynamic Analysis. In that model, when there is a pattern of action by the government [or in this case, the dominant culture] and consistent reaction by the populace, with each instance, that correlation increasingly becomes proof in and of itself.

The fact is, before Might Makes Right was imposed upon everyone -- including those who may have been interested in something other than warz-n-stuff -- the population was growing. Within weeks of GW3 ending, thousands of nations -- including two major alliances and half of the non-aligned -- disappeared forever.  Hence began a decline that has been steady ever since. To the people who left, what was interesting to them about Planet Bob was dead, so the world was dead to them. There was no point in sticking around. "Good riddance," said the peanut gallery.

 

Cause-and-Effect.

 

Maggots only eat dead tissue, but they can feed on a living creature by exploiting a wound and ingesting the dead tissue first, then their waste secretions putrefy and poison succeeding layers of the living tissue underneath, thus making it so they can consume more and more of the animal until it goes finally into shock and dies.

Thus is what has been perpetrated by the heirs of Might Makes Right upon the body of living nations ever since. Each war, more absurd and destructive than the last, eats away the tissue of that body, harming us all -- including the maggots themselves. Eventually the food source runs out.

 

The present trend that has been ossified for years now has Digiterra dying. Wanting of a change in that culture, the End is inevitable.

 

If you "like this world" so much as you claim, how about recognizing that there is a problem and participate in developing solutions rather than expending your energies on trying to silence those who are pointing this out?

Edited February 2, 2015 by Walford

[Maelstrom Vortex]

 
Oh, recruitment's the problem for the entire world population to be shrinking?
 
Might Makes Right officially replaced Diplomacy and Discourse in the immediate aftermath -- and as a direct consequence -- of a series of aggressive wars culminating in GW3. The perpetrators of this and their toadies are fond of saying that this was just a coincidence and all of this would have happened anyway.
 
This is the flawed theory of Static Analysis in which taxes can be raised, regulations can be increased, wars can be started, freedoms can be reduced and it will have no effect upon people's behavior, because things either just "go in cycles" or the decline was inevitable and was not caused by anyone; it just "happened."
 
The alternative to that myopic and self-serving approach is Dynamic Analysis. In that model, when there is a pattern of action by the government [or in this case, the dominant culture] and consistent reaction by the populace, with each instance, that correlation increasingly becomes proof in and of itself.

The fact is, before Might Makes Right was imposed upon everyone -- including those who may have been interested in something other than warz-n-stuff -- the population was growing. Within weeks of GW3 ending, thousands of nations -- including two major alliances and half of the non-aligned -- disappeared forever.  Hence began a decline that has been steady ever since. To the people who left, what was interesting to them about Planet Bob was dead, so the world was dead to them. There was no point in sticking around. "Good riddance," said the peanut gallery.
 
Cause-and-Effect.
 
Maggots only eat dead tissue, but they can feed on a living creature by exploiting a wound and ingesting the dead tissue first, then their waste secretions putrefy and poison succeeding layers of the living tissue underneath, thus making it so they can consume more and more of the animal until it goes finally into shock and dies.

Thus is what has been perpetrated by the heirs of Might Makes Right upon the body of living nations ever since. Each war, more absurd and destructive than the last, eats away the tissue of that body, harming us all -- including the maggots themselves. Eventually the food source runs out.
 
The present trend that has been ossified for years now has Digiterra dying. Wanting of a change in that culture, the End is inevitable.
 
If you "like this world" so much as you claim, how about recognizing that there is a problem and participate in developing solutions rather than expending your energies on trying to silence those who are pointing this out?

The solution requires getting other people to work. There's the rub. I am already doing my best to get others to create their own nations. I'm not trying to silence anyone. I simply pointed out you needed a better recruiter corps and that I got my wife to rule at my side. Where you got the rest of it.. Screw it, I blame Tywin. Edited February 2, 2015 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Great Lord Moth]

Guys. Listen. The ship has sailed. You should've started fighting DBDC a loooooooong time ago if you wanted to do anything about them. The easy fix is no more. All that is left is to extirpate the deeply-rooted political foundations they currently rest on. I don't know how to do that. Do you?

 

 

Ok can we NOT bastardize my [ooc]Bar Mitzvah[/ooc] speech here please? Holocaust references rarely achieve anything and this is no exception.

 

Your speech was lifted from a famous poem that isn't just about the Holocaust despite that bring the original context. It's a warning to all people of the dangers of complacency, aimed most strongly at the time towards the Germans who obliviously stood by and allowed fellow Germans to be persecuted, tortured, and killed. I know you understand this, and I know you realize that it is explicitly appropriate for this discussion. >_>

[CubaQuerida]

Guys. Listen. The ship has sailed. You should've started fighting DBDC a loooooooong time ago if you wanted to do anything about them. The easy fix is no more. All that is left is to extirpate the deeply-rooted political foundations they currently rest on. I don't know how to do that. Do you?
 
 

 
Your speech was lifted from a famous poem that isn't just about the Holocaust despite that bring the original context. It's a warning to all people of the dangers of complacency, aimed most strongly at the time towards the Germans who obliviously stood by and allowed fellow Germans to be persecuted, tortured, and killed. I know you understand this, and I know you realize that it is explicitly appropriate for this discussion. >_>

No I'm aware. I hear it literally every Yom Kippur. It carries meaning, but just like every other holocaust/nazi reference it carries way to much weight for this context. Some things are just not appropriate for use on bob.

[Walford]

The solution requires getting other people to work. There's the rub. I am already doing my best to get others to create their own nations. I'm not trying to silence anyone. I simply pointed out you needed a better recruiter corps and that I got my wife to rule at my side. Where you got the rest of it.. Screw it, I blame Tywin.

 

Once again, we have the Digiterran version of Reducio ad Hitlerum (Godwin's Law), but instead of ignoring the points made and saying that it is something that Hitler would say/do, those intellectually dishonest and lazy instead say that it is something that Tywin would say. Once upon a time, it was something that walford would say, so we should not bother even  considering it.

 

In so doing, people who feel compelled to use "stop-thought" devices such as these are in reality confessing that it is they who have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

 

The problem isn't getting people to join and create nations; it is getting them to stay once they have joined. That cannot be accomplished by force. See my reply below.

 

 

Guys. Listen. The ship has sailed. You should've started fighting DBDC a loooooooong time ago if you wanted to do anything about them. The easy fix is no more. All that is left is to extirpate the deeply-rooted political foundations they currently rest on. I don't know how to do that. Do you?

 

As I had stated before, The Birds are only the latest carrion feeders who are exploiting a dying culture. Get rid of them and others will take their places -- and their replacements may even be worse. They are not even the problem; there is a place for groups like those in this world, but they and those like them cannot be permitted to control the culture on Planet Bob by wiping out everybody who doesn't operate by their standards.

 

There needs to be containment -- preferably voluntary. Using force to stop somebody else from using force is only going to have limited success and power obtained by force tends to corrupt.

 

Yes, I have offered specific solutions and I will briefly review them again. The general goal is to get people to stay once they have gotten here and to keep the nations we have. In order to stave off the End, we must arrest the Decline.

 

There needs to be a discussion involving all major parties after this war about how to save Digiterra while the possibility exists. Alliances must have the option of operating as they see fit -- and that includes engaging in the social, political, ideological, economic, religious and other aspects that do not involve war being the primary means of conducting International Relations.

 

By definition, political alliances are not a threat to the warring ones, so threat cannot justifiably be cited as CB between two different types of alliances.

 

As someone else stated earlier, newer nations being attacked all of the time will find someplace else to go. Older nations being deluged after having taken months and years to build up only to have them destroyed will finally get fed up and leave. Saying "good riddance" and that their leaving was proof that they were not worthy of being here is shallow and short-sighted.

 

OOC/People who are interested in pure war games in 2015 expect animated, 3D, hi-res graphics. Those kinds of people will find battles that come in the form of text and still images to be boring. This game was designed to be a nation simulation in which politics is the basis and war is a risk. As it stands now, people who are interested in politics are driven away while those who are interested in war would find the game mechanics to be dull. We need to try a different approach because, as the declining number of players proves, the way we're doing things now isn't working./OOC

 

There needs to be a means to accomplish co-existence. For example, some alliances can declare formally that they are primarily political and want to keep war as a risk rather than the entire point. Those that want war should declare as such be subject to surprise-attacks and even have pre-arranged inter-alliance war games. Approaches could be made from one alliance to another to engage in war-games with agreed-upon conditions for conduct, how victory would be defined, time-limits and what would be the prize for winning. That is only one solution. Others might have more creative ones.

 

And regarding keeping the new nations that join, as i have said before, it is critical that there be agreement among the major alliances to leave the non-aligned alone unless they start something. And even then, we need to remember that most of these are newbs, so no PZI, EZI and other measures that are overly harsh for someone who likely is unaware of how things work here with respect to attacking nations belonging to alliances. Just beat them up until the war they declared expires and let them go w/o condition.

 

I need to add something about the mentality of the non-aligned, because I founded a group that organized them. Some of them refused to join NONE, because they did not want to be in any group that involved having to use forums. Some of them would organize amongst themselves and stay in contact strictly by PM in-game. Others simply wanted to exist as islands unto themselves. When they found themselves being attacked by alliances over and over again, they viewed this as cheating somehow and an imposition. They were doing their own thing and felt that they should not be punished for doing so. So once things changed and the non-aligned were subject to constant attack, most of them left and never came back.

 

Our loss. We need to invite people like that to come back and make them feel welcome.

 

These are our newest residents on Digiterra and they need to have a chance to get a feel for the mechanics of how warfare works, browse the forums, get to know people, let them express themselves freely, etc. Being constantly attacked with reasons for declaring such as "tech-raid, fight back = ZI" or "join our alliance or keep being attacked" is in effect chopping down our seedlings before they have a chance to grow.

 

The non-aligned represent our future and they need to be protected.

 

No I'm aware. I hear it literally every Yom Kippur. It carries meaning, but just like every other holocaust/nazi reference it carries way to much weight for this context. Some things are just not appropriate for use on bob.

 

Invoking references to genocide and the conditions that precipitated it using historical reference are not automatically Godwin's Law, which then can be summarily dismissed. When similar conditions are arising and similar results are obtaining [viz. masses of people being wiped out and never coming back], then the comparison is valid.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Walford

[Maelstrom Vortex]

For the record. In 2008, I was a new nation and attacked day 4 by a raider. I also annihilated said raider.. as a total noob. I stuck around though. I think you can't claim the mantle and speak for every new nation. Some of us came in expecting and wanting a fight. Is it enjoyable being raided? I suppose it depends on your outlook. That raid is now part of a history of what my nation is, I was born in fire and my application to Pacifica records the events as they happened. This is a world of conflict. If people are going to drop the crown because someone sneezed upon them, getting them to stick around is going to be just about impossible.

If you really want to protect them, recruit them, and have a foreign policy that doesn't involve self-destructive suicide and has some semblance of recognizing the state of the world.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Maelstrom Vortex

[The Zigur]

If you really want to protect them, recruit them, and have a foreign policy that doesn't involve self-destructive suicide and has some semblance of recognizing the state of the world.

 

Would you describe NPO's foreign policy during the MK era as self-destructive or principled?

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Would you describe NPO's foreign policy during the MK era as self-destructive or principled?

The situation in the MK era was not a matter of a choice. It was the era's before it that lead to the events of the period. We'd already sewn our own defeat, it was a matter of enduring it and struggling to achieve the best outcome we could manage. We also learned quite a bit from this Era. We owe MK for that. We also knew we would endure. Pacifica.. what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Good thing nothing can kill us other than our own inaction and mistakes. Edited February 3, 2015 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Morgaine]

For the record. In 2008, I was a new nation and attacked day 4 by a raider. I also annihilated said raider.. as a total noob. I stuck around though. I think you can't claim the mantle and speak for every new nation. Some of us came in expecting and wanting a fight. Is it enjoyable being raided? I suppose it depends on your outlook. That raid is now part of a history of what my nation is, I was born in fire and my application to Pacifica records the events as they happened. This is a world of conflict. If people are going to drop the crown because someone sneezed upon them, getting them to stick around is going to be just about impossible.

If you really want to protect them, recruit them, and have a foreign policy that doesn't involve self-destructive suicide and has some semblance of recognizing the state of the world.

 

Was this raider in an alliance or just a single nation? If it is the latter, that is fine. Un-aligned nations should do whatever they want and experience the consequences, whether their targets are in alliances or not.

 

I certainly did and it was quite illuminating indeed.

 

The problem with raiding un-aligned arises when alliances are raiding and defending the aggression. You have a one-on-one fight between two nations, then when the target fights back, he is gang-attacked by the aggressor's alliance mates and, in some cases, subject to continued attacks after the original wars expire (oftentimes until the new nation goes into bill-lock or otherwise abandons his nation.)

 

This is the norm for un-aligned and has been for years. It has to stop if we are stop pouring out more fresh blood than we are bringing in.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Morgaine

[kingzog]

 It has to stop if we are stop pouring out more fresh blood than we are bringing in.

 

People have been saying this since at least 2007. If you believe that raiding is the principle cause of....er....'population reduction', then clearly you haven't been paying attention. There are many things that have been more important contributors, and multiple discussions on the topic over the years.

[Geerland]

Silly selective polar moralism does more to drive people away.


Bring back sponge/grub, so much better than than junka/morgaine

[Morgaine]

Hence we see the defenders of the status quo saying what they have predictably said for years.

 

Lacking the capacity to put themselves into someone else's shoes, they cannot imagine what it is like to create a new nation and be immediately welcomed with battle reports. If you dare fight back, more nations belonging to alliances come in and punish you for it until you go into bill-lock. 

 

It is not raiding that is bad, it is alliances defending raiding upon the un-aligned that hurts us all. Anything that would make hundreds and even thousand of people to leave this Planet hurts us all.

 

Cries of "Moralism" imply impracticality and arbitrariness. Identifying what is causing this Planet to die and finding ways of stopping is eminently practical.

[Mogar]

Silly selective polar moralism does more to drive people away.


Bring back sponge/grub, so much better than than junka/morgaine

As opposed to Pacifica playing the dog, we've all fallen on hard times.

[Pastor Jason]

How bout Cuba's idea.....

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?/topic/122937-allow-neutral-alliances-to-designate-themselves-as-neutral/

[Walford]

How bout Cuba's idea.....

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?/topic/122937-allow-neutral-alliances-to-designate-themselves-as-neutral/

 

That is very interesting. There may be a point of agreement there.

[Unknown Smurf]

How bout Cuba's idea.....

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?/topic/122937-allow-neutral-alliances-to-designate-themselves-as-neutral/

 

Yeah because the 90 day buffer zone is going to stop me from my alliance going to war? We will just sit in neutral mode for the majority of the year. We will only enter offensive wars and plan them 90 days in advance and not worry about being attacked and then go war for 90 days and then back to neutral mode to rebuild. 

[gatorback05]

 

Yeah because the 90 day buffer zone is going to stop me from my alliance going to war? We will just sit in neutral mode for the majority of the year. We will only enter offensive wars and plan them 90 days in advance and not worry about being attacked and then go war for 90 days and then back to neutral mode to rebuild. 

 

Well seeing as the 90 day buffer zone is only meant for nations and not AAs makes your reading abilities impeccable.  

 

Your AA can only choose once whether it is neutral or war capable.  Could you have another alliance to jump back and forth to? yes... but once every 90 days.  Also, not sure if he ever mentioned an idea to make any new AA created go through a 30 day grace period so people didn't just disband one AA and recreate another.  BUT this is all dust in the wind since that thread got locked up faster than Richard Simmons at an all you can touch boy buffet.

 

Not sure if he added a buffer zone for newly created AAs and how soon they could attack or be attacked.  Should be a couple of weeks so nations just cant make a new AA every time they want to jump in and out of PM.  

 

BUT that got locked so no debating could be done on what should or should have been.

[Unknown Smurf]

 

Well seeing as the 90 day buffer zone is only meant for nations and not AAs makes your reading abilities impeccable.  

 

 

Obviously you would have an AA for wartime and an AA for peace time. Just keep a small tech seller on each AA. 

 

Speaking of which, it would be nice to have a tech seller alliance set up as neutral, wouldn't it? 

Edited February 4, 2015 by Unknown Smurf

[Master Hakai]

what if IRON turned on DBDC?

[Dajobo]

what if IRON turned on DBDC?

Your signature answers your question!

[Walshington]

 

Yeah because the 90 day buffer zone is going to stop me from my alliance going to war? We will just sit in neutral mode for the majority of the year. We will only enter offensive wars and plan them 90 days in advance and not worry about being attacked and then go war for 90 days and then back to neutral mode to rebuild. 

 

I just don't like it because being neutral should not be a shield against being attacked,  Neutrality is a commitment, not a force field. I have nothing against neutrality, but it is a philosophy, not a guarantee.

[CubaQuerida]

The entire purpose of posting that suggestion was to gather feedback on how to fine tune it beyond what I thought was a VERY well out together premise. But alas, here we are having smacked three neutral AAs (GOP, Pax, TDO) and working towards a fourth. It was meant to be a reasonable shield and segregation tool, not a way for smurf to skirt war cycles. I'm confident it would have been worth the effort.

Edited February 4, 2015 by CubaQuerida