So, uh, Athens...

[Kzoppistan]

Good job, Athens. In one fell swoop you've managed to start a war without a declaration and then hide behind semantics, alienate you allies, raise world wide concern about your aggressiveness (which will surely coalesce into a coalition against you by alliances like minded as KoN), and create about 40 bitter enemies, all for the short term goal of some tech and a days worth of excitement. What an enormous expenditure of political capital in one day with little to show for it.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Kzoppistan

[Seth Muscarella]

Good job, Athens. In one fell swoop you've managed to start a war without a declaration and then hide behind semantics, alienate you allies, raise world wide concern about your aggressiveness (which will surely coalesce into a coalition against you by alliances like minded as KoN), and create about 40 bitter enemies, all for the short term goal of some tech and a days worth of excitement. What an enormous expenditure of political capital in one day with little to show for it.

I don't see any alienation from this ally. :v

[Kzoppistan]

I don't see any alienation from this ally. :v

A face-saving gesture, at best. I'm sure you stand in camaraderie with your opportunist allies, but as world wide resentment grows against Athens and sentiments turn against you, I wonder how many of your membership will remain as enthusiastic as you are?

[lordliam]

Haz bean peas deklared? I houp u guise mayke up after <3

[Masterof9puppets]

Please Osafune, don't bring your thought process into this. Last rumor I heard about Kronus is that they are slot filling a rogues war slots. So please let me know when an article is brought up about this so I can "insert" your alliance.

LOL what?

Look in the game moderation forum.

Look at Tyga's post.

Look at the post which content was denied. HINT: THEY ARE THE SAME.

Kronos (no u in there either) is not slot filling a rogues war slots. Learn2research.

[Beauty]

Wow Pacifica, We didnt think youd still be attacking poor defenseless alliances because their weaker then you!

[Ogaden]

So the message here is it is open season on alliances that aren't in a treaty web? This precedent will lead to an even greater tangling of the treaty web and contribute to the political atrophy of the Cyberverse.

Well there's no "CN Police" so yes, in order to avoid being mugged one must be tied to larger entities that would give a raider pause.

I mean the only reason why it's open season on nations with no alliance at all is that they can't do anything about it.

[Drostan]

I don't see any alienation from this ally. :v

Being a former Spartan and retaining some familiarity with the protocols of that alliance, I have to wonder how Sparta can condone this action? Sparta has disallowed any tech raiding at all as immoral and so putting over half an alliance in anarchy in pursuit if tech seems quite out of stride with Spartan policies.

Now if you mean to say that you plan to stand by your allies, sure, that was assumed (at least by me). But surely you don't believe the pathetic attempts to claim that there is no particular difference between raiding an individual and spending time coordinating attacks between two alliances on an entire AA?!

This was no mere mistake, no moment's thought, this was a deliberate and planned action by which Athens intended to make a statement. I find myself wondering that they could have done all this simply to re-open the debate on tech-raiding.

[Voodoo Nova]

Well there's no "CN Police" so yes, in order to avoid being mugged one must be tied to larger entities that would give a raider pause.

I mean the only reason why it's open season on nations with no alliance at all is that they can't do anything about it.

Opethian would disagree with you...then again many consider PPF an alliance.

[Bilrow]

Opethian would disagree with you...then again many consider PPF an alliance.

Especially those who were saying Athens was "right" in what they did here. Fun huh?

[Ogaden]

Opethian would disagree with you...then again many consider PPF an alliance.

Opethian has connections that most whole alliances would envy, and is not exactly a good example.

[Trinite]

Being a former Spartan and retaining some familiarity with the protocols of that alliance, I have to wonder how Sparta can condone this action? Sparta has disallowed any tech raiding at all as immoral and so putting over half an alliance in anarchy in pursuit if tech seems quite out of stride with Spartan policies.

Now if you mean to say that you plan to stand by your allies, sure, that was assumed (at least by me). But surely you don't believe the pathetic attempts to claim that there is no particular difference between raiding an individual and spending time coordinating attacks between two alliances on an entire AA?!

This was no mere mistake, no moment's thought, this was a deliberate and planned action by which Athens intended to make a statement. I find myself wondering that they could have done all this simply to re-open the debate on tech-raiding.

He meant we still stand by Athens. Sparta doesn't like tech raiding. It's one of the few things we disagree with Athens on, but this hasn't changed the fact that we stand with them in the past, and it doesn't now.

Personally, I don't see that much of a difference in the two types of raid. The only difference is one raid target has an alliance to fall back on and at the very least commiserate with whereas the other is left with nothing and mocked for being stupid enough not to be an alliance. I find both to be equally offensive if not prefer the raid of an AA. Why say the individual nation is stupid for not getting an alliance, but not say the alliance is stupid for not getting an ally. Both are bullying, and both are crap. Why we give an AA of 40 members more respect than 40 nations without an AA doesn't really make sense for me. At least the former can give an alliance some practice in coordination. The latter is just greedy.

My problem with Athens move isn't that it's oh so much more awful than their previous policy. I disagree with that previous policy as well. It's that it was really stupid because that line does exist. They should have talked to some more people about it, and their early responses to criticisms of the policy were kind of &#33;@#&#036;%y. All that said, they're still a fantastic ally, and we won't let this mistake get in the way of a long, strong, firm, pulsating friendship.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Trinite

[Craig]

So raiding small alliance that can't defend itself at all is totally fine, but raiding a big alliance that could do quite a good amount of damage is bad?

Eh i'm probably saying something somebody already said or is just dumb. Whatever.

[Drostan]

He meant we still stand by Athens. Sparta doesn't like tech raiding. It's one of the few things we disagree with Athens on, but this hasn't changed the fact that we stand with them in the past, and it doesn't now.

Personally, I don't see that much of a difference in the two types of raid. The only difference is one raid target has an alliance to fall back on and at the very least commiserate with whereas the other is left with nothing and mocked for being stupid enough not to be an alliance. I find both to be equally offensive if not prefer the raid of an AA. Why say the individual nation is stupid for not getting an alliance, but not say the alliance is stupid for not getting an ally. Both are bullying, and both are crap. Why we give an AA of 40 members more respect than 40 nations without an AA or an alliance doesn't really make sense for me. At least the former can give an alliance some practice in coordination. The latter is just greedy.

My problem with Athens move isn't that it's oh so much more awful than their previous policy. I disagree with that previous policy as well. It's that it was really stupid because that line does exist. They should have talked to some more people about it, and their early responses to criticisms of the policy were kind of &#33;@#&#036;%y. All that said, they're still a fantastic ally, and we won't let this mistake get in the way of a long, strong, firm, pulsating friendship.

Sorry, man, but this just doesn't make sense. I mean, sure, the first part about standing by your allies. But you think it's better to attack every nation in an alliance? Here's one major difference: an unaligned nation can join an alliance. Sure, an apparently untreatied alliance can sign treaties but that just encourages the signing of retarded treaties simply for the sake of protection. Doesn't that promote one of the most widely frowned upon phenomena on Planet Bob? Here's another difference: that alliance is organized. Here's another difference: Athens sent more than half their targets into anarchy because their tech raid looked more like a war drill. Here's another difference: two members of a bloc coordinated attacks on a single alliance.

My biggest problem is that everyone refers to this as a mistake as if there was somehow some lack of clarity about this. They also pretend like this just happened out of nowhere when you no full well that Athens and FoB clearly considered doing this for at least a day or so before actually executing it. They keep saying "nobody even heard of them before we rolled 'em lawl" and yet that just shows that they went searching for these guys. This wasn't a moment's lapse in judgment. Athens was making a statement. If they don't see the difference and don't see it as wrong in any way, then why are they apologizing? You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either way, this reflects poorly.

Now, I have no problem with people standing by their allies when their allies screw up. But I have seen a lot of verbal gymnastics employed wherein it seems like Athens' allies can't decide whether to handle the situation by denouncing it or defending it. One moment it is wrong and requires an apology, and the next it is no different from their regular raid policy and is entirely justified. I respect sticking by your allies, but I don't respect bending over backwards to pretend that your allies lay only golden eggs. I get that people feel compelled to play by the rulebook of partisan politics, but let's cut the crap already.

[Neo Uruk]

Good job, Athens. In one fell swoop you've managed to start a war without a declaration and then hide behind semantics, alienate you allies, raise world wide concern about your aggressiveness (which will surely coalesce into a coalition against you by alliances like minded as KoN), and create about 40 bitter enemies, all for the short term goal of some tech and a days worth of excitement. What an enormous expenditure of political capital in one day with little to show for it.

You laid it on a bit too thick there, and it made you miss the mark by far.

[Drostan]

You laid it on a bit too thick there, and it made you miss the mark by far.

Agreed, Athens has some pretty unshakable allies. I think they've put their foot in it here, but I doubt there will be much consequence from it because they have many allies with whom they are as thick as thieves.

[Shinpah]

Athens sent more than half their targets into anarchy because their tech raid looked more like a war drill. Here's another difference: two members of a bloc coordinated attacks on a single alliance.

If Athens thinks using just GAs and sending peace against targets is the correct way to wage war I would fear for their future military encounters. Furthermore, as I have repeated before, there was little to no actual coordination going on

[Seth Muscarella]

Being a former Spartan and retaining some familiarity with the protocols of that alliance, I have to wonder how Sparta can condone this action? Sparta has disallowed any tech raiding at all as immoral and so putting over half an alliance in anarchy in pursuit if tech seems quite out of stride with Spartan policies.

Now if you mean to say that you plan to stand by your allies, sure, that was assumed (at least by me). But surely you don't believe the pathetic attempts to claim that there is no particular difference between raiding an individual and spending time coordinating attacks between two alliances on an entire AA?!

This was no mere mistake, no moment's thought, this was a deliberate and planned action by which Athens intended to make a statement. I find myself wondering that they could have done all this simply to re-open the debate on tech-raiding.

More than assumed, I specifically addressed this "alienation" theory that the poster had brought forth, stating that these actions have not distanced us from each other.

I echo Trinite's statement regarding long, hard things and relating it to our relationship with Athens.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Sethly

[Trinite]

Sorry, man, but this just doesn't make sense. I mean, sure, the first part about standing by your allies. But you think it's better to attack every nation in an alliance? Here's one major difference: an unaligned nation can join an alliance. Sure, an apparently untreatied alliance can sign treaties but that just encourages the signing of retarded treaties simply for the sake of protection. Doesn't that promote one of the most widely frowned upon phenomena on Planet Bob? Here's another difference: that alliance is organized. Here's another difference: Athens sent more than half their targets into anarchy because their tech raid looked more like a war drill. Here's another difference: two members of a bloc coordinated attacks on a single alliance.

Protectorates are the most widely frowned upon phenomena on planet bob? You need one well connected ally, and you're golden. The problem with the treaty web is one alliance signs tons of treaties, not that small alliances are signing protectorates. Protectorates are actually a great thing for small alliances as they give them someone who knows things about PB to teach them. They are also almost never retarded and can form some very close bonds.

None of those other differences mean a thing to me. 20 nations with an AA get anarchy or 20 nations without one get it. The differences are crap, and the line is arbitrary. How is this drill any worse than picking targets from the AA none and doing a coordinated drill with them. It's not. This isn't in defense of Athens. It's against tech raiding in general. I'd actually like to see Athens argue about tech raiding with their new speech policy enacted. Maybe we could bring them around to the light side and I could love everything about them.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Trinite

[Drostan]

Protectorates are the most widely frowned upon phenomena on planet bob? You need one well connected ally, and you're golden. The problem with the treaty web is one alliance signs tons of treaties, not that small alliances are signing protectorates. Protectorates are actually a great thing for small alliances as they give them someone who knows things about PB to teach them. They are also almost never retarded and can form some very close bonds.

None of those other differences mean a thing to me. 20 nations with an AA get anarchy or 20 nations without one get it. The differences are crap, and the line is arbitrary. How is this drill any worse than picking targets from the AA none and doing a coordinated drill with them. It's not. This isn't in defense of Athens. It's against tech raiding in general. I'd actually like to see Athens argue about tech raiding with their new speech policy enacted. Maybe we could bring them around to the light side and I could love everything about them.

Singing treaties simply to avoid getting rolled and not out of friendship is generally frowned upon, yes. And alliances with 40+ members rarely want protectorates. They know how to play, as is evidenced by having nations over 1000 days old. Don't get me wrong, I think Kights of Ni! come out of this looking rather bad themselves because they didn't even attempt to fight or to get others to help them fight.

The real difference is that Athens doesn't openly say "there is absolutely no morality on Planet Bob only the strong exploiting the weak and that's what we're doing" and yet that is the mentality required to justify their actions. Which I honestly have no problem with. Except it sucks to then see MK leaping in front of them to take the bullet for a ridiculous scheme cooked up out of boredom.

When I say coordination I mean that someone had to tell FoB about it, and I doubt that many Athenians just randomly decided to tech raid the Knights of Ni. I just find it funny because Sparta and many others would be crying bloody murder if NSO or another alliance had done this, but it becomes cute when Athens has. Just a quirky sort of thing they do.

Shinpah: Well clearly it is the right way to wage a war so long as you have other big allies flexing their muscles. This way you get to win without even declaring or losing a single defending casualty. But I am sure MK will straighten you out.

You must admit that it's a little tough to swallow an announcement wherein the "voice of Karma" is swearing defence for an alliance who just rolled another one because they had no discernible treaties. I'm just saying, these actions seem to fly in the face of what was being said when the Karma war broke out. I also think it's funny that everyone is acting like Planet Bob is picking on poor little Athens given the situation.

Anyway, I get that from start to finish this was posturing, I just find it interesting. Athens did this to cross a line. It only became a mistake when people started booing them for it.

[Shinpah]

The real difference is that Athens doesn't openly say "there is absolutely no morality on Planet Bob only the strong exploiting the weak and that's what we're doing" and yet that is the mentality required to justify their actions. Which I honestly have no problem with. Except it sucks to then see MK leaping in front of them to take the bullet for a ridiculous scheme cooked up out of boredom.

I wouldn't consider MK to have taken that bullet yet, unless you know something I don't.

You must admit that it's a little tough to swallow an announcement wherein the "voice of Karma" is swearing defence for an alliance who just rolled another one because they had no discernible treaties. I'm just saying, these actions seem to fly in the face of what was being said when the Karma war broke out. I also think it's funny that everyone is acting like Planet Bob is picking on poor little Athens given the situation.

I'm not quite what sure what threads you've been reading if you think that; your definition of rolled is also rather funny.

Athens did this to cross a line. It only became a mistake when people started booing them for it.

You're reading far too much into this

[Trinite]

Singing treaties simply to avoid getting rolled and not out of friendship is generally frowned upon, yes. And alliances with 40+ members rarely want protectorates. They know how to play, as is evidenced by having nations over 1000 days old. Don't get me wrong, I think Kights of Ni! come out of this looking rather bad themselves because they didn't even attempt to fight or to get others to help them fight.

Whereas alliances with 10 or less only sign treaties out of friendship and always want a protectorate? And unaligned nations only join alliances because they want to be part of a community. Because Alliances should have a choice to be neutral, but nations have to join an alliance or be constantly attacked.

The real difference is that Athens doesn't openly say "there is absolutely no morality on Planet Bob only the strong exploiting the weak and that's what we're doing" and yet that is the mentality required to justify their actions. Which I honestly have no problem with. Except it sucks to then see MK leaping in front of them to take the bullet for a ridiculous scheme cooked up out of boredom.

How is that different than the case of unaligned nations? That's not a difference. That's why they're the same.

[Drostan]

I wouldn't consider MK to have taken that bullet yet, unless you know something I don't.

I'm not quite what sure what threads you've been reading if you think that; your definition of rolled is also rather funny.

You're reading far too much into this

MK has absorbed a lot of the heat that rightfully should have been Athens'. That's the bullet I speak of. I feel quite sure that no actual conflict will result from this.

I've been reading the threads where most of Athens continues to argue that they did nothing wrong and the one where Athens officially apologized and am trying to make sense of how a sincere apology can exist in that climate. I say rolled because these guys could not have been less prepared for what was coming. Also, I doubt that Athens would tolerate this level of 'rolling' from any other alliance.

Finally, you're asking me to believe that Londo had no idea that this would create a big stir? Nobody once raised an objection or implied it might end badly? Everyone involved didn't even notice that 40+ people had been messaged to attack targets or didn't see it as a big deal? Come now. It's not reading too much into it to assume that Athens was well aware that many would react badly and it would cause a fuss. I don't know who organized it, but I do know that there's no way that many people decided to attack KoFN for the hell of it spontaneously.

Anyway, I am done here and the situation appears to be over. I just feel like there's been a lot of embarrassing double-talk. Though on the plus side, I don't think anyone questions the solidarity of CnG (if they ever did). A lot of threats were tossed around and a lot of people came out looking bad. An ugly scene all around. I hope the lolz were worth it.

EDIT: Trinite, you seem to have misunderstood something I have said. Tech raiding in general is the strong taking from the weak. My problem is that many alliances who practice tech-raiding try to claim that it is something else. It seems to me Athens is one such alliance.

Your arguments about protectorates are a smoke screen. Are you claiming that people don't join alliances for the community? That's just sad. Individual nations do have the choice to be neutral and then they war with whomever they want whenever. But alliances generally have guidelines for raids. And alliances have governments. Alliances usually issue a Declaration of War before attacking. Athens actions just show an enormous amount of disrespect. Some people are alright with that and others not so much. Of course, KoFN have made it easy for them. But they disrespected their allies too by getting them embroiled in this. We could argue about it until the cows come home but I will use a common scapegoat: public opinion. If this were indeed such a normal thing, then why the fuss? Because the world just really doesn't like Athens? You can find all sorts of rationalizations but everyone could have predicted this would make people very uncomfortable. Take from that what you will (which is apparently nothing).

Edited November 15, 2009 by Drostan

[Mistress Demona]

I was going to register my displeasure with this but then realized that I'm in an alliance of 40 members so I'd probably get raided for it.

If you have treaty with at least one large alliance that can come to you aid that is public somewhere, then you can say something. If you don't, nope. The sad thing is, you and I by having this conversation are only half joking...

(My alliance has under 40 members, btw)

Edited November 15, 2009 by Mistress Demona

[Tygaland]

I wonder what WAPA would think of this discussion...

I can hazard a guess. "$%&@ we should have raided an alliance without any treaties!"