Are alliances forced to accept harsh terms?

[Gruthenia]

Yeah but FAN's reps were less than MK's.

Yeah but FAN's reps or even terms in general from the first war are kind of irrelevant since the terms were poorly written and it turned out that they were basically just an excuse to disarm FAN to make finishing the job easier.

[Penguin]

The argument in the OP tries to separate the costs of war from the costs of terms but ignores the fact that money is money no matter where it is spent. When you reject harsh terms in a losing war and decide to fight on, you will almost definitely lose more than any amount of reparation payments you could have been forced to pay. Accepting expensive terms as early as possible is usually the best result from an economic standpoint. In some circumstances, rejecting harsh terms in favor of fighting on may be a politically sound decision but it is rarely economically sound. Perhaps modern day Manhattan Projects have slightly improved the defender's bargaining position, but an alliance will still be losing upwards of a billion dollars in infra daily (depending heavily on their size, exposure etc.). To blame the losing alliance for accepting the least costly alternative demonstrates a lack of understanding of what it is like to face an overwhelmingly large force.

[magicninja]

The argument in the OP tries to separate the costs of war from the costs of terms but ignores the fact that money is money no matter where it is spent. When you reject harsh terms in a losing war and decide to fight on, you will almost definitely lose more than any amount of reparation payments you could have been forced to pay. Accepting expensive terms as early as possible is usually the best result from an economic standpoint. In some circumstances, rejecting harsh terms in favor of fighting on may be a politically sound decision but it is rarely economically sound. Perhaps modern day Manhattan Projects have slightly improved the defender's bargaining position, but an alliance will still be losing upwards of a billion dollars in infra daily (depending heavily on their size, exposure etc.). To blame the losing alliance for accepting the least costly alternative demonstrates a lack of understanding of what it is like to face an overwhelmingly large force.

If the terms are less harsh than continued war I think the word harsh needs to be tossed out of the sentence.

[Penguin]

If the terms are less harsh than continued war I think the word harsh needs to be tossed out of the sentence.

To me, harsh terms have always been political ones. Viceroys, expelling members, secret agreements to stay quiet, things that are difficult to quantify in terms of cash. Sure, the 100k tech that we paid sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the economic devastation 4 weeks of war caused us if we had fought on for another month. I think both the victor and the victim would do well to remember that even the most expensive reparations are but a fraction of the cost of any lengthy war.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Penguin

[magicninja]

To me, harsh terms have always been political ones. Viceroys, expelling members, secret agreements to stay quiet, things that cannot be quantified in terms of cash. Sure, the 100k tech that we paid sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the economic devastation 4 weeks of war caused us. I think both the victor and the victim would do well to remember that even the most expensive reparations are but a fraction of the cost of any lengthy war.

Yeah but most of the Karma alliances like to concentrate on the amount of monetary reps that took place.

[Penguin]

Yeah but most of the Karma alliances like to concentrate on the amount of monetary reps that took place.

I suppose that's because it's a quantity that can be easily compared across history, although most people forget to account for inflation. It's a measure that the winner employs to assert dominance rather than to achieve any significant profit from the war. It's a measure that is forced upon the loser in large quantity because it is simply the tip of a much larger iceberg if they choose to reject it. Simply because I don't believe heavy reparation payments compare to the much harsher terms of surrender does not mean I consider them to be good sportsmanship. There are far worse things you can do to an alliance, but beating someone up and then stealing their lunch money is still worse than just beating someone up.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Penguin

[Deuterium Dawn]

True on the one count. The question is with the second bit of your statement. Couldn't the losing alliance try to hold out for better terms? FAN held out.

I'll echo other posters in this thread and say that FAN is somewhat of a rarity. Regardless, yes they could, but if they choose to accept the terms rather than fight on/be stuck in peace mode for an indefinite period of time and hope they're still functioning at the end of it, it's not their fault. The victor is still responsible for the terms they are offering.

[magicninja]

I'll echo other posters in this thread and say that FAN is somewhat of a rarity. Regardless, yes they could, but if they choose to accept the terms rather than fight on/be stuck in peace mode for an indefinite period of time and hope they're still functioning at the end of it, it's not their fault. The victor is still responsible for the terms they are offering.

The bold parts contradict each other imo. As Sponge said no alliance can have anything forced upon them, harsh reps included.

[Rush Sykes]

True on the one count. The question is with the second bit of your statement. Couldn't the losing alliance try to hold out for better terms? FAN held out. They got White Peace. IT was a long time coming and you could question if all the time and loss of members and strength was worth it in the end but I think they are quite happy to be back and not attached to paying reps or having to conform to a military decom etc.

FAN held out an got white peace yes. Now ask yourself though, is FANs current white peace REALLY a better term? How much NS did they lose by not being able to build? How many members got weary of playing a game they couldnt really play? The thing is, you can hold out and take a larger beating for smaller reps...but does what you lose, during that harder beating, really outweigh the more you would have to pay? This question really has no answers as the variables are unlimited, and change with every CM fired.

[Deuterium Dawn]

The bold parts contradict each other imo. As Sponge said no alliance can have anything forced upon them, harsh reps included.

No they don't. It is true the losing alliance cannot be forced into accepting, there is always a choice.. But that does not mean it is their fault the victor offered harsh terms in the first place.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Deuterium Dawn

[magicninja]

FAN held out an got white peace yes. Now ask yourself though, is FANs current white peace REALLY a better term? How much NS did they lose by not being able to build? How many members got weary of playing a game they couldnt really play? The thing is, you can hold out and take a larger beating for smaller reps...but does what you lose, during that harder beating, really outweigh the more you would have to pay? This question really has no answers as the variables are unlimited, and change with every CM fired.

If reps are less than the cost of war they are not "harsh". If they are more than the cost of fighting for a period of time to where you might get new terms you should keep fighting.

[magicninja]

No they don't. It is true the losing alliance cannot be forced into accepting, there is always a choice.. But that does not mean it is their fault the victor offered harsh terms in the first place.

I'm not saying that it is their fault for the terms offered. I'm saying if the terms were acceptable enough to accept how can they be labeled "harsh"?

It stands to reason. If an alliance believes the terms to be harsh they shouldn't accept. It's simple.

[The Poet]

New poll on how long till magicninja comes up with a rebuttal to another argument he had with ES last month.

[Il Principe]

I voted Victor, but I actualy think that if 2 parties are involved both parties share responsibility. The victor has, in my opionion, more responsibility because he is the more powerful of the two and thus has more cloud to force its will upon the loser.

The loser has to try to make the best out of a bad situation, while the victor can try to dictate its will. Because of its position the victor has more influence and thus a larger responsibility.

[jer]

The poll answers are worded with obvious bias; poll is invalid.

[Jens of the desert]

The poll answers are worded with obvious bias; poll is invalid.

This is what I thought, but do alliances have to take harsh reps?

Not if they don't want to.

Psychologically, they will take the reps to save what infra they have left for the hard work they put in. Physically, one doesn't need to pay reps, one could wait for better terms, but it wouldn't be worth it. It's the alliance leader's/s' choice how long they have to hold out for, or what they are ready to pay. Harsh is subjective and therefore is less valid, there should be a set amount of reps in ratio to how much damage was caused (of course not being equal) so that reps will never be "harsh", always set.

[Lizardo]

It's far more costly to the 'loser' to hold out than for the 'victor' to maintain the siege. At least in terms of a two element relationship. There may be social and political costs to the 'victor' which preclude pursuing harsh terms or annihilation.

Every day the individual members of the losing alliance fall past an 'event horizon' of debt. It is the choice of the advantaged alliance to impose the conditions of relief.

I'm not sure the OP and poll capture the dynamic.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Lizardo

[Otherworld]

Basically...at a point it is worth accepting the reps, because as long as your infra stays up you can generate the money to get the stuff back.

If you try and wait for white peace...by the end of it you might not have anything left to build back with.

[Chairman Cao]

There is a balance imo, and I believe that the majority of alliance surrender too soon.

While it's true that there is little point taking everybody to ZI since you're better off rebuilding without crippling yourself first to fight another day; the alliances who surrender very early on only lose respect and credibility as a result. While it's one thing to surrender early if choosing to enter through optional treaty obligations, if a powerful alliance surrenders very early on they only show themselves to be largely irrelavent. No matter how powerful an alliance is statistically, if they're not going to follow through on a war because of fear of losing some of those statistics, then they aren't really much threat at all.

[Rajistani]

The problem is even though you and a few others will go to death (nation-cide) for your alliance. Many won't, and when you end up doing it, you lose your alliance in a different sense. Hell I was in SOLID and 17 of us went to ZI, we started with 120 members though.. ended up merging 3 monthes after the war.

[Dochartaigh]

this depends. If an alliance is being curbstomped, then most likely if the terms were harsh to begin with, they will not get much better and could very well end up getting worse. Some alliances would rather choose to deal with harsh terms than end up in a vietFAN style war and hope that 2+ years later you end up with white peace.......

[Haflinger]

The poll answers are worded with obvious bias; poll is invalid.

Yes, I tend to agree.

However I agree with the fundamental point of the OP. Alliance governments agree to peace treaties because they consider the alternative to be worse.

This applies to both parties. It also applies to peace agreements requiring disbandment; some alliances, notoriously Legion in Purplegate before it was reversed, have disbanded in an attempt to protect their nations from retribution. So whether disbandment is the worst possible term is evidently in the mind of the beholder; pezstar didn't think so.

MK, Athens and TDSM8 agreed to the terms they were offered last year in large part because they felt that the alternative was eternal war, and they didn't want to go that route. You get a problem with this when the losing alliance is willing to enter eternal war rather than comply with the terms offered, which is what happened to NPO with FAN.

Possibly, time will show whether NPO, Echelon, IRON, TPF, and Avalon are like FAN.

[Haflinger]

The problem is even though you and a few others will go to death (nation-cide) for your alliance. Many won't, and when you end up doing it, you lose your alliance in a different sense. Hell I was in SOLID and 17 of us went to ZI, we started with 120 members though.. ended up merging 3 monthes after the war.

These kinds of wars reveal a lot about the character of the people in your alliance. And while I really regret what happened to SOLID, they didn't have a strong will to exist as an alliance.

[Proxian Empire]

No one can be forced to accept harsh terms, but that doesn't make the victors, offering crappy terms to the defeated, to be justified in their actions.

Edited May 22, 2009 by King Penchuk

[mpol777]

There seems to be some misconceptions in regards to VietFAN.

To start with there was one war. When terms were nulled during the armistice, the war continued. As far as FAN "holding out for white peace" that simply isn't true. It likely stems from the fact the war was so long and people have short memories. Of the 12 major alliances we fought, the small fries are inconsequential, 7 received white peace, 1 white peace with pesos, 1 black peace and 3 surrendered.

As for the OP, choices cannot be forced. The idea of forcing choice only makes sense to those that are used to being subservient and acquiesce to will being imposed on them. When posed with the question of "accept this or die" the answer is simple. Fight with everything you have. Yes, fights are rough and rarely does anyone get out unscathed. As long as one keeps other options open when confronted and makes a choice dependent on what they want and not just the options given to them, they have made their choice.

There are those that will only decide within the constraints of what is handed to them. If god did not want them sheered he wouldn't have made them sheep.