Experiences through the Karma and Post Karma Era

[Uralica]

During the Karma War:

Well, I was part of military command, and I was left headdesking at the number of people who didn't have proper war chests, the number of people who bailed for completely stupid reasons (we weren't in to defend NPO, regardless what some may think), and the two TOOL people who completely ignored peace-out orders when the war finally ended.

Due to my chronic re-rolling (which would last until the end of July) I had a rather small nation, and my opponent ended up being Blackmamba724 of Heifong (a note for Adrian, this guy's currently 23 days inactive). The ground battles were about 55-45 in my favour, and of course I launched CMs, but when it came to air power, I murdered the guy.

And then we were out of the war. I for one wished we'd stayed in for a little longer, being the hawk that I am. But it wasn't doable.

After Karma War:

The real hair-pulling stuff began AFTER the war was over. Because of our agreement with Sparta, Brigade, AO, and DT, we were liable for reparations for any attacks made after midnight, 30 April 2009. Richard B Riddick and NEO MONES cost TOOL a joint amount of $233M. Now Riddick didn't get the message that went out saying that peace had come, becuase in-games PMs were offline at the time, and he hadn't checked the forums. As hard as Graham tried to him out of liability, this latter fact shot him in the foot, and TOOL paid the reps. Now we would have had to pay Sparta more except some of their nations went late as well, so George The Great cancelled out part of our reps against what they owed us for late attacks (all of which were against smaller nations) which brought our reps to $81M. TOOL had to pay the reps there as well. No big deal, amirite? Umm... wrong.

Riddick professed innocence the whole way and refused to pay a cent, despite Graham insisting to me that he only asked for $9M out of him, to be payable to Zurital. The figure I estimated was twice that. Out of the 1000 tech and $60M Zuri closed with asking for (which was equivalent to something like $60M less than we owed) that wasn't that much. The closure of this situation came with Riddick going nuke rogue on Graham, which basically set off a large anti-rogue campaign which ended with Riddick surrendering and giving 200 tech each to the seven people he nuked in that. I would have taken the 9M over that any day.

But at least Riddick took his lumps.

NEO MONES was a guy whose forum account had accidentally been deleted by some board glitch, and I had PMed him twice to sign back up well before Karma War started. So the Karma war comes around and he gets attacked by Kunuck of Sparta. All's fair in war. Problem is, peace comes, and he's still fighting. He even redeclared war. I figured he was inactive, but I was proven wrong on 6 May when I saw he had redeclared. I ordered him to break off, and he did so. Then I PMed him to pay part of the reps. He read and ignored the message. After I complained about it for God knows how long and the reps got paid off by TOOL banks, I put to a Council vote an ultimatum to send to him - either he pays TOOL back for what he cost us, or he gets thrown out. The ultimatum passed unanimously.

So I sent it to him, and he gave me some BS list of excuses, denied ever having received the messages that I know damn well I sent him, left TOOL's AA and went into peace mode for a few weeks before joining World Federation.

Some good things came out of KW though. TOOL got a much-needed lesson in military preparedness, although it would take a few more months of me nagging for us to get rid of those bloody CMs. Also, TOOL and Brigade came away with a positive impression of each other, hence why we have a PIAT with an OD clause (standard fare for TOOL PIATs btw)

I think a lot of people on both sides were impressed by CCC's conduct towards TPF and in general in post-war, which was one of a few reasons we signed a PIAT with them as well. (Another big one, of course, is the fact that CCC was in fact my first alliance, and several TOOLies had already tried to establish relations with them for this reason.)

Of course there were other treaties gained, lost, and in one case re-gained after being lost ( UCN ) as a result of Karma War, but those were the two gains that stuck out most in my mind. And of course there was the Menotah Incident, which I really don't want to talk about, although I will say it was quite possibly my all-time low point in CN.

Some more esoteric things - 27 July 2009 was my last re-roll and I finally started actually growing a nation. Plus it allowed me to really start going on my Wiki.

[Prime minister Johns]

I wish to present my karma war story, It is a tale of high drama and crosses the IC/OOC line, but the only way I can tell my story is to also include the OOC bits since they were forced on me and played a direct part in influencing my IC actions. I ask to be excused for breaking the OOC rule but my story can not be told any other way. All OOC parts are in italics.

Before the war I was a tech seller in the NPO tech corps, my nation was designed and built to produce cheap tech to serve the upper level members of the alliance. I worked on the promise that one day I would earn my way out of this role and be paid my retirement bonus form the tech corps and get all the wonderful improvements everyone else had. I did dozens of deals and moved about a thousand units of tech.

My other accomplishments were fighting and defeating about 100 tech raiders and rogues over my lifetime that had attacked the alliances I was in (First the GPA then the NPO). I knew war.

Then the karma war happened, I got a message telling me to report in and receive three targets to attack and attack all three, I also got attacked by a further three karma nations, Somehow I managed to keep out of anarchy for this first wave and send three of them into anarchy. But my nation had taken a beating, but the worst was over for the next four waves I faced four nations per wave and sent two attackers on average into anarchy per wave while avoiding anarchy myself.

I thought I had discovered the secret to surviving while seriously outnumbered and how to give as good as I got. So naturally as a good member of the NPO I wanted to share this information on how I thought I did this with my comrades so I headed off to the war room and posted the tactics I had used and an analysis of how I thought they worked. But I was met with ridicule, I was told it was not the textbook way of doing things and that I knew nothing. I felt demoralised, I fought the best I could and achieved better results than most of them and yet they criticised me from peace mode or anarchy.

Also throughout the war I kept getting increasingly personal hate mail from some unknown karma propaganda hack with a fresh nation who knew far too much about politics for a 10 day old nation , I read these and kept a stiff upper lip, I was in the NPO and I fought to protect the unaligned of red from the tech raiders when I could. That was why I supported the NPO. But the hate mail reached its peak when a piece of mail actually made its way to my work email address at the university, it mentioned the karma war and my real name and address and was generally unpleasant. I passed this mail onto the campus IT department and to the police, but I was now scared in real life, There was a nutcase out there who took the game way too seriously and knew where I lived. And since there was no way I could work out who sent the e-mail I did not make an in game compliant

So when the next wave came I let it destroy me, I was sick of the NPO and sick of the world in general, hate mail and ingratitude were the price I paid for being a loyal member and fighting tech raiders and rouges all my life. I went to say my goodbyes to the few people I still respected and I got offered a choice, I could delete and have a fresh start, distance myself from the war and join an alliance that had similar goals to my own, and would be willing to accept me.

And I did, I joined polaris and life has been good ever since. Their growth program is not a serfdom that keeps small nations small, it actually works and works fast. It worked out for the best in the end, but it cost me a lot. I am sadder and wiser for the experience.

But I still do not trust karma owing to the OOC incident.

And as for the NPO, They asked for everything and I gave it to them without complaint and publicly supported them, but in my hour of need they were not there, so I left in disappointment.

I am sorry if my story offends anyone but it is my story told from my perspective.

Edited November 14, 2009 by Prime minister Johns

[Lord Brendan]

Helped unload the biggest Arsenal of Nukes ever in CN history, felt pretty awesome about it.

Up until recently maybe, but I believe you peaked around 4200. TOP and NpO are both higher than that now.

[Uralica]

Wow, PMJ

[OOC]Whoever sent you that mail needs to give their head a shake. Closest I ever found myself to doing that (which was still a ways off) was WotC, and the particular incident in that that drove me to that point made me step back and realise I needed to quit, which I would six weeks or so later. [/OOC]

I'm glad to know you are enjoying yourself in Polaris though. They really are awesome people.

[Archon]

One day I should actually write up the whole story from my point of view...there's a lot to be said.

[Il Principe]

Up until recently maybe, but I believe you peaked around 4200. TOP and NpO are both higher than that now.

You are right but IRON's until now still is the largest one unleashed.

Edited November 14, 2009 by Il Principe

[Bob Janova]

The number of nukes on that front was ridiculous. IRON on one side, Grämlins, MHA and RoK on the other. Every nation above about 30k was taking a nuke every day, and a lot of those nukes were damaging ones.

Re PMJ: It's funny how everyone who tells their war story always seems to have a heroic tale of victory against the odds, and destroys 6 nations single handed! If only it was like that for everyone ... (And yeah, my story was the same.) I guess those that got roundly defeated by inferior forces are either inactive or too embarrassed to give their account.

[OOC: And as for someone finding and using your RL email, that is really bad. I hope your university managed to do something about that. People who try to follow other players outside the game really need to look at themselves and stop taking things so seriously.]

[silentkiller]

I thought I had discovered the secret to surviving while seriously outnumbered and how to give as good as I got. So naturally as a good member of the NPO I wanted to share this information on how I thought I did this with my comrades so I headed off to the war room and posted the tactics I had used and an analysis of how I thought they worked. But I was met with ridicule, I was told it was not the textbook way of doing things and that I knew nothing. I felt demoralised, I fought the best I could and achieved better results than most of them and yet they criticised me from peace mode or anarchy.

Telling people to "Buy as many cruise missiles as you can afford" and buy up 20 bombers will normally invalidate a guide. Also I am reading that thread now and other than 1 person most posters were giving constructive criticisms. But that's besides the point, good to know you are having a good time in NpO .

[Prime minister Johns]

Telling people to "Buy as many cruise missiles as you can afford" and buy up 20 bombers will normally invalidate a guide. Also I am reading that thread now and other than 1 person most posters were giving constructive criticisms. But that's besides the point, good to know you are having a good time in NpO .

It worked and kept me fighting effectively for longer and doing more damage than I would of, remember I was about as small as you could possibly get to buy these things, so buying the CMs and bombers while I still had to tech ensured that I had them after I got attacked and that tech was lost.

Also ground forces were ineffective since I had near zero tech and no military improvements or wonders and my opponents had these things, this was particularly the case late in the war when I was facing people with 1000+ tech and full sets of military improvements and wonders that were in my range because they lost a lot of infra because of being nuked in previous wars, so I turtled on this front, minimised my losses, and used CM's and air attacks because they were the only viable option available to inflict even a small amount of damage.

And the idea worked in the situation I was in, I was inflicting more damage than I taking.

If a stupid idea works then it is not stupid.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Prime minister Johns

[DeScepter]

well, went through the entire war in Athens, declared on one GGA (degenerate) and i think 14-15 different NPO nations (including mary, moo, loucifer, and silentkiller) and i dont know how many nukes i launched, but i do know i got hit with 25, and my NS went from 30k NS to as low as 2k at one point, but never went ZI or ZT. and then at the end of the war left before i could get reps. twas fun.

degenerate wanted me to let you know that he had fun warring you. He said you are a good guy, and were the only person that didnt whine to him about getting hit with nukes.

So props to you!

[Chalaskan]

One day I should actually write up the whole story from my point of view...there's a lot to be said.

I wish you would. I imagine it would be a good read.

I hit Baps nations, and was impressed by the way they were handling the beatdown. Yes, TOP was nuclear. Took a few and dished a few.

Regardless, beat them down with help from my alliance mates, and had a few chuckles, then they were below my range. Was hoping for some action on the Echelon front, but none was there.

Been bored since.

I want a damn war!

Edited November 15, 2009 by Chalaskan

[Xiphosis]

The War:

I fought 3 GDA initially, along with my NPO target. The GDA had no warchests so they didn't put up much of a fight, the NPO guy did. The GDA guys got replaced by Echelon guys, who were better setup but not terribly so. NPO guy keeps the trophy for being the one who fought hardest.

The Afterwar:

Pulled myself with every ounce of will to rebuild. War went over four months for us and that's really, really mentally draining.

[Iosif]

I ORDERED A PEPSI AND ALL I GOT WAS A COKE

[Firkked]

Pre-war

Left IRON, joined Terra Prime. Got involved in helping build up the alliance as MoIA. Got interested in diplomacy to help smooth out some previous difficulties TP was in. Met a lot of great people on Purple ( o/ BAPS o/ Valhalla ) and White ( o/ TPF o/ TSI ).

War

Ended up doing DmoD work when no one else was prepping the alliance to attack. Attacked CCC, TFO and White Tree. Found out the difference between whining and griping on the OWF (Hint: None). Handed out nukes, took several, found out that not having an SDI in a nuke slugfest isn't hopeless, just ugly and painful. Watched TP dissolve as the pixel lovers took over and jumped ship. Assisted with the pre-war merger talks to form Hydra.

Post-War

Assisted Hydra in getting off the ground. Returned to IRON.

[Vizard]

I remember being a 5k'er for The Legion...yeah, our battalion had great fun quadding RoKkers, now we took it seriously but we had a load of fun at the same time. And RoK humour was awesome.

[GulagArchipelago]

Pre-War: Enjoying my time in UCN

Karma War: Fought ODN and got swarmed by 5 oranges, but never got anarchied. Turtled for a week. Worked in UCN's war department for a while, compiling lists of nations who aren't ready to fight. Helped NEW by compiling a bunch of lists for them.

Post War: CN retirement in CCC.

[cookavich]

During the Karma War, Grub allowed me to serve a short stint in the CCC in order to help them out a bit. Got to fight NEW... not something I want to do again. Had a blast watching the build up, watching it happen, participating in it, and I hated watching it end. What a mess.

After the Karma War, got promoted to Foreign Affairs Officer which is the highest role one can achieve in the Ministry of Truth, got appointed to council adviser, and was voted into council. Good times.

[Uralica]

During the Karma War, Grub allowed me to serve a short stint in the CCC in order to help them out a bit. Got to fight NEW... not something I want to do again. Had a blast watching the build up, watching it happen, participating in it, and I hated watching it end. What a mess.

lol! Second-consecutive war where CCC had people temporarily join them to fight (we had zigbigadorlou plus a guy from Element during WotC). Good on you for doing so, Cookavich