Eleven Theses on the Coalition of Coincincidenc

[supercoolyellow]

Explanation

It has been bothering me for some weeks about how the CoC was run. I have also been at both times bored and burnt out with CN and this is my way of doing something about that. I could just PM my complaints to the involved players, and save face, but that wouldn't be as much fun. This is formatted like Martin Luther's Ninety-Fife Theses. This does not include examples/evidence because no one would like me to mention them by saying "so and so is angry about this." If you wish to provide examples that confirm or are to the contrary of these points that is your own prerogative. This is also not a rant about not being at the table myself. I know my place as a leader of small, but quickly growing, alliance , and my place was no where near the planning channels.

The Theses

1. In the planning of CoC many major alliances were shut out of the planning process

2. The planning of CoC was instead done by a only a few players who did not adaqeutly involve or inform other alliances.

3. If CoC was going to succeed in a large scale war, it would have had to have much better communication with its member alliances.

4. Many member alliances in CoC were not informed of who was leading CoC days after the TPF war began.

5. Many member alliances of CoC were not given a chance to give feedback on CoC peace mode strategy.

6. The peace mode strategy while on paper made sense was naive, and failed in execution, in that it expected alliances to be able to get all their member nations under 85K NS into peace mode within a day.

7. The peace mode strategy was poorly executed in that it was not even used the day that nations were sent into peace mode, and it was easily spotted within hours of the transition.

8. the leadership of CoC failed coordinate and share information with member alliances that prevented them from defending TPF until 6 days after the war began.

9. A nation ruler who has real life obligations that would prevent a large coalition from defending its allies for 6 days, should have the humility to not take leadership of a large coalition.

10. The mistakes of CoC were the result of the character, judgement, or policies or any other facet of its members alliances, their members, or their leadership but instead were the mistakes of those few involved in the planning for CoC.

11. Many members of the CoC share my same frustrations.

In Conclusion

If you were a member of a CoC alliance and are frustrated with some of the decisions that were made,that frustration should not be with your alliance but the highest leaders of CoC. If you were outside of CoC and thought some of the decisions that were made were foolish please know that these decisions were made by only a select few people. If you were one of the top leaders in CoC please learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. Especially if you ever find yourself leading a coalition that BTO is a member of.

Edited February 3, 2013 by supercoolyellow

[bigwoody]

While the CC coordination was not perfect, tell me what you would have done better. Its easy to be a pundit and whine, but if you have real feedback I'm not aware of it in public or private.

Edited January 21, 2010 by bigwoody

[Sandwich Controversy]

You could have done better by dissolving your coalition and joining the much cooler and better run group, SuperGrievances.

[bigwoody]

You could have done better by dissolving your coalition and joining the much cooler and better run group, SuperGrievances.

Touche good sir

[Starcraftmazter]

Pfft, as if the opposing side was any better.

People probably did their best they could on both sides, I think your expectations are borderline unrealistic.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Starcraftmazter

[Lord Brendan]

You could have done better by dissolving your coalition and joining the much cooler and better run group, SuperGrievances.

That's not really fair, you can say that for any situation.

[President Obama]

In a large coalition filled with many alliances, there needs to be a few people who are entrusted with the authority to run the coalition and make the important decisions. Otherwise it will just be chaos.

Edited January 21, 2010 by President Obama

[The Big Bad]

Having been in many large scale wars the problem with this one is no one was ready for it. Sure people have talking about SF&C&G vs Cit since before the last war. But in this case Athens random choice to set things in motion with a garbage CB changed much by giving the CoC much more support from the people in the middle then they expected. Add to this a major holiday and you have much chaos. That being said the CoC could have wandered in one at a time and that would have been a replay of GW2. So if you have a winning hand you don't want to waste it. Communication as always in these things is a mess. If C&G and SF can keep from killing each other long enought to get this thing rolling again I expect things will be a bit more organized.

[Snowbeast]

I'm utterly shocked at this. With geniuses like The AUT, shahenshah, and Haflinger you'd think the CoC would be a well oiled machine.

[Jacques Cousteau]

I'm utterly shocked at this. With geniuses like The AUT, shahenshah, and Haflinger you'd think the CoC would be a well oiled machine.

I thought that was why we turned tail and ran.

[Prime minister Johns]

You could have done better by dissolving your coalition and joining the much cooler and better run group, SuperGrievances.

If that happened then it would be hello Hegemony 2.0.

[AngolaThree]

Well you either go with a loose, confederation-style coalition in which nobody has real authority and negotiations tend to leave people out due to incompetence, or the more authoritarian route where a few selected standard bearers run the show, and people get left out due to personal feuds.

At the end of a day, coalitions all run imperfectly and are made for short wars because both routes suck out loud.

[wickedj]

I'm utterly shocked at this. With geniuses like The AUT, shahenshah, and Haflinger you'd think the CoC would be a well oiled machine.

You forgot UCN putting all the logs on !@#$%*

[Vespassianus]

Some hours after the DoW on TPF looked like that we will receive a curbstomp, but we ended in white peace. Ok we missed the fighting part, but the reuslt was so much better then expected.

It shows the effiency of leadership that we reached our goals. I remember for Karma war planning what was hardly a planning, it was more like "please, i don't wanna attack them, they are too strong for my alliance" crying fest, now people who had to know things knew things and did what they had to do. Yeah the real strategy was made by a few people, but it's much more easier to work with 4-5 people then with 40. The plan was unconventional and surprising, used our only strenght against the enemy's weakness it was not a stupid "cavalry charge at update". As for communication, i think it had mainly opsec reasons and i think there were less leaks then in Karma.

[Altheus]

Having been in many large scale wars the problem with this one is no one was ready for it. Sure people have talking about SF&C&G vs Cit since before the last war. But in this case Athens random choice to set things in motion with a garbage CB changed much by giving the CoC much more support from the people in the middle then they expected.

Everyone should read this, because it explains what happened. The Coincidence Coalition was just that, a coincidence. The war pushed together a load of alliances that were surprised to find themselves on the same side. The end result was frankly chaos.

[Nobody Expects]

I think you have ridiculously high expectations of what is possible with regard to getting tens of alliances on the same page. I thought LM did a great job of organising things over the holiday season, came up with a good plan, which was executed as well as possible. Anyone who thinks you can get the vast majority of nations under 85k NS in PM in less than a few days really doesn't understand the realities of CN at all.

The White Peace achieved is testament to the success the CC had in getting people onside and in some semblance of organisation. If people had run off in ones and twos and declared on \m/ Rok etc, we'd all be burning right now, the weak alliances would have surrendered in days to a week, and the rest would be being overwhelmed and destroyed.

I for one would follow the leadership of CC again if the situation presented itself. Given the hand that was dealt I thought LM and co did a good job.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Nobody Expects

[JWConner]

While I was one of the people upset at being left out of any coordination, all in all, CC (not CoC) was able to achieve what it set out to do: get TPF out of war with white peace. Granted, many of us wanted their attackers' blood, but that's not the way things worked out. Our main concern was getting TPF peace and out of war.

Now, that all said, I do believe the strategies chosen by LM and those that took charge were the best viable options. However, I don't like that it took 6 days and I don't like that many of use were kept out of the loop. We were originally told on Day 3 we were going to war, then Day 4 told the same thing. The fact that we were strung along was the most annoying aspect of it all. Strategies and leadership were fine. The anticipation and lack of communication from those in charge to TPF's actual allies is what pissed people off the most, myself included.

[LiquidMercury]

The Theses

1. In the planning of CoC many major alliances were shut out of the planning process

2. The planning of CoC was instead done by a only a few players who did not adaqeutly involve or inform other alliances.

3. If CoC was going to succeed in a large scale war, it would have had to have much better communication with its member alliances.

4. Many member alliances in CoC were not informed of who was leading CoC days after the TPF war began.

5. Many member alliances of CoC were not given a chance to give feedback on CoC peace mode strategy.

6. The peace mode strategy while on paper made sense was naive, and failed in execution, in that it expected alliances to be able to get all their member nations under 85K NS into peace mode within a day.

7. The peace mode strategy was poorly executed in that it was not even used the day that nations were sent into peace mode, and it was easily spotted within hours of the transition.

8. the leadership of CoC failed coordinate and share information with member alliances that prevented them from defending TPF until 6 days after the war began.

9. A nation ruler who has real life obligations that would prevent a large coalition from defending its allies for 6 days, should have the humility to not take leadership of a large coalition.

10. The mistakes of CoC were the result of the character, judgement, or policies or any other facet of its members alliances, their members, or their leadership but instead were the mistakes of those few involved in the planning for CoC.

11. Many members of the CoC share my same frustrations.

In Conclusion

If you were a member of a CoC alliance and are frustrated with some of the decisions that were made,that frustration should not be with your alliance but the highest leaders of CoC. If you were outside of CoC and thought some of the decisions that were made were foolish please know that these decisions were made by only a select few people. If you were one of the top leaders in CoC please learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. Especially if you ever find yourself leading a coalition that BTO is a member of.

First, it was CC. CoC = Coalition of Cowards. Yes CC is still a terrible name. I definitely should of called it the Blue Balls Coaliton or (The BBC for short).

1. This happens in any coalition. Smaller alliances are usually communicated with by their direct larger allies that are usually in the coalition channels. If you wanted access (which iirc you had it) all anyone had to do was ask for it if they were on our side. This happened in Karma as well. Fact is communicating with multiple alliances, some of which may have zero contact prior with a majority of the planning people, is never easy.

2. When I first came in, CC was chaos. Everyone spent hours arguing over who would do what. Again, this happened in Karma as well (and is similar in all coalitions). I came in, gave a plan, people decided to follow it and thus empowered me to lead.

3. This is the same repetitive point you said in one and two.

4. Again, similar point to one, two and three. Yes communication is always hard in large coalitions. Yes some people don't get the memo about things all the time. When you run a coalition sometimes it helps to have people be proactive and come to you. Many alliances came to me, many govt's talked to me, informing me they would be with us, letting me know their allies would be with us, so on so forth. I and anyone in a high military command channel can only talk to so many people so quickly.

5. We actually had a full discussion. No one else presented anything remotely close to a plan other then "attack now." I had run statistical analysis on this, and that would of ultimately just led to all of us being destroyed very quickly and having done nothing for TPF. TPF understood this, and accepted it. They were going for the "win" not just the quick route.

6. I'm sorry that not all alliances are super active. Ultimately it did work. It forced a stalemate. It turned a scenario which originally I had placed at about a 5-10% winnable chance to a 40% winnable chance and eventually just got white peace for all parties involved which in my mind, for the position all involved were in, was a good outcome.

7. Again, if other alliances were more active, it would work better. It was enacted early for the fact that many larger alliances and small inactive alliances were incapable of getting their nations to PM quickly. As I said in the end, it forced a stale mate. Had war truly fully happened, it would have protracted the war significantly, giving CC a small but needed advantage. A meat grinder pressing down.

8. The exact same point as 1, 2, 3, and 4. You're repetitive. We get it, you didn't like the lack of communication to some parties involved. Amazingly enough, many people (the major parties involved) did stay in contact with high milcom as I was running duel-clients on IRC and in over 100+ queries and 50+ channels (sound familiar to people who were with me during Karma? lol). It's not the job of a coalition leader to spoon feed every alliance out there every bit of information. Due to opsec leaks as well, which happen in any coalition, information is always best held until it is absolutely needed to be let out.

9. I would of gladly stepped down. Offered to actually. If you had any inkling of what was going on in my RL, you would understand that my priority of this event lessened dramatically. The fact that I even brought my OOC issues up as the reason for delay should show you how crappy I felt about the whole situation and how things were going. Leaders on the other side were made aware of this and even they who were on the opposite side of me understood. As I said, had anyone stepped up I would of gladly continued my [ooc] trip to the bottom of a handle of whiskey daily [ooc].

10. We get it, you didn't like the planning. You plan a coalition, learn the issues that arise, learn the best ways to deal with them when dealing with people that may not have experience in this regard and then get back to me on how it all goes. To be perfectly honest Karma alliances were easier to work with because most of them had experience at being in coalitions or had people who knew what to expect. Most on our side truly didn't have that experience and thus that indeed did make things harder. So to lay all blame on leadership is just ignorant.

11. I'm not surprised. You can't please everyone in a coalition. In Karma I was called a tyrant/vice-royesque personality by many smaller alliances.

I don't take any offense at your "theses" I just do not believe you understand the nuances of running a coalition, the absolute chaos of it all, and the fact that we came out even better then I expected.

Edited January 21, 2010 by LiquidMercury

[Godwin]

A lot of alliances weren't even entirely sure if they were going to be joining it up until the last minute anyways, and there certainly wasn't enough time to get any sort of real organization going.

AngolaThree had the right idea with his post.

[Kzoppistan]

Some good points by SuperCool and good counter-points by LM.

I've stated my dissatisfaction with the efficiency of and speed of things, but over all I was impressed with coordination and plan. I saw the long term implications and thought it was the best way to leverage the most poweful element of CC against the weaker part of Athens/co.

My concerns:

The speed of mobilizing for the plan was only a few steps away from the speed of the plan being leaked. Had mobilization been engaged a bit sooner, CC could have caught a lot more members before they too escaped into PM.

I was also disappointed in peace, especially considering that peace was Athens/co. best tactic in facing the CC strategy. They were already ahead, and they were let off. I would have pushed for reparations.

Overall, though, no situation is perfect and the 'friction' between the plan and reality was taken in well enough stride.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Kzoppistan

[flak attack]

The speed of mobilizing for the plan was only a few steps away from the speed of the plan being leaked. Had mobilization been engaged a bit sooner, CC could have caught a lot more members before they too escaped into PM.

That plan didn't even need to leak. Half the world saw it as it happened.

[Kzoppistan]

That plan didn't even need to leak. Half the world saw it as it happened.

Well, I will say that I spoke to someone from the "other side" who relayed information only available from someone in the CC general coordination channel. So spies are everywhere, it seems.

You are right, what was unfolding was evident enough to see, but that was why I said that if the mobilization had been quicker, it would have been more effective.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Kzoppistan

[Budlight]

For a failure of a coalition, it was enough to scare off the wolves, now wasn't it?

[flak attack]

Well, I will say that I spoke to someone from the "other side" who relayed information only available from someone in the CC general coordination channel. So spies are everywhere, it seems.

Logs made their way to !@#$%*. I remember seeing them there.