Announcement from The Order of the Paradox

[Gamma Rho]

You guys seem to be seriously overestimating IRON's military capabilities here. Sure they had the biggest nuclear stockpile in the game at the time but claiming they would have tipped the war against Karma if Citadel had stayed neutral is just ridiculous. We have a prime example revealing itself as we speak, the largest nuclear stockpile in the game going into this war hardly helped Polaris fare extra-ordinarily well - the performance has actually been compared with the noCB war a few times even.

The war would still have been in Karma's favour with or without Citadel (unless both Gremlins and TOP entered alongside Pacifica), and either way the point is fairly moot seeing as I don't think anyone has ever argued any aspect of Gremlins participation in the war, and lumping them in beside TOP under the collective banner of 'Citadel' to further your own argument is fairly transparent. Negativity was generated towards TOP, not Gremlins, during the Karma war.

[pasquali]

Meh - having fought IRON in that war, I don't think I'm overestimating them a bit. Two of the four opponents I fought were tougher than the Gramlins I am fighting right now. They coordinated extremely well and smashed me hard, whereas I was not particularly effective against them. They had more tech than the Grams I'm fighting and a tenacity that was scary.

Yes, I believe (as do many others) that they would have tipped the scales and Karma would have lost.

Polaris not faring well likely has more to do with their heads being somewhere where heads generally aren't supposed to be than anything to do with a nuclear stockpile.

[terveis]

[quote name='Gamma Rho' date='09 February 2010 - 10:08 AM' timestamp='1265710086' post='2170376']
You guys seem to be seriously overestimating IRON's military capabilities here. Sure they had the biggest nuclear stockpile in the game at the time but claiming they would have tipped the war against Karma if Citadel had stayed neutral is just ridiculous. We have a prime example revealing itself as we speak, the largest nuclear stockpile in the game going into this war hardly helped Polaris fare extra-ordinarily well - the performance has actually been compared with the noCB war a few times even.

The war would still have been in Karma's favour with or without Citadel (unless both Gremlins and TOP entered alongside Pacifica), and either way the point is fairly moot seeing as I don't think anyone has ever argued any aspect of Gremlins participation in the war, and lumping them in beside TOP under the collective banner of 'Citadel' to further your own argument is fairly transparent. Negativity was generated towards TOP, not Gremlins, during the Karma war.
[/quote]

I have to agree on that i doubt IRON would of been able to defeat the whole of karma. But they had the biggest top tier in the game (well, beside grämlins and TOP i think) and had like kazillion +80k nations. They would of destroyed both RoK:s and FARK:s top tiers, no doubt about it.

[Nedved I]

[quote name='Tomcat' date='08 February 2010 - 07:58 AM' timestamp='1265637528' post='2168680']
This implies that at at one point your side actually was fighting for something.

What was it exactly? "Kill CnG?"
And now that it hasn't worked out you want to peace out?
[/quote]

We were fighting in support of IRON through our MDoAP, Who was fighting for NpO after they 'made a huge mistake'.
Now that NpO has basically given the middle finger to both sides, why do we have to keep fighting?

[Bob Janova]

If you want to complain about TOP, the IRON front is the wrong argument to pick, because that was Grämlins.

Krack, you linked to logs of Chill explaining the deal to Gen. Lee at the [i]start[/i] of the war. Gen. Lee is starting his career as an ungrateful swine even at that point, and if it wouldn't have been disastrous for Karma as a whole and our allies at Fark, I imagine we'd just have let him eat all those IRON nukes and get crushed. You still haven't shown (because it never happened) that anyone in Citadel told IRON to drop their nukes on SF.

And yes, without our participation on that front, every 75k or larger nation in RoK and Fark would have been at ZI, that front would have been lost and the very result of the war in question once IRON were able to redeploy that top tier onto different fronts. (Remember that at the time of that decision, the role of TOP, MHA, NpO and many more was unclear, and the sides were numerically even.) That's why we took the dirty deal we did, to hit [i]our own friends[/i] to save you from utter destruction, and the ungrateful nature of the response (particularly from RoK) frequently makes me wonder if we should have just left you to fry.

Don't forget we had a ToA with a 5 day cancellation clause, and if IRON had refused to waive that, you'd have suffered 5 days of full scale unchallenged top tier attack. That's 5000 infra (15000 NS plus land and military/navy allowance reductions) taken off every RoK and Fark nation over 75k NS. In exchange for that concession (we didn't want Fark to lose 15000 ANS!) we had to offer something, and a quick easy peace was the card we had.

[quote]We have a prime example revealing itself as we speak, the largest nuclear stockpile in the game going into this war hardly helped Polaris fare extra-ordinarily well[/quote]
IRON's trump card was not the size of their arsenal but the size of their top tier (100k+ in those days), which would have utterly crushed any single alliance in Karma except Grämlins. Rather like TOP in this war requiring the entirety of C&G to counter its top tier, IRON needed to be countered by Grämlins to stop it rolling right through other alliances. Of course TOP made that easier by declaring on the whole of C&G, but from a purely military point of view that was inevitable anyway because it's the only way you can counter that top tier.

Polaris have no top tier any more. But you still don't do them credit: they are doing a [url=http://www.cybernations.net/stats_alliance_stats_custom.asp?Alliance=Viridian%20Entente]lot of damage[/url] with those nukes, even if they're not aimed in a particularly strategic direction.

[uaciaut]

Mostly in agreement with mr bob on this one except on the over-dramatizing of things and the martyrdom of it all. Gremlins were put in a pretty tough spot during that time and they did have to compromise quite a bit. Then again some sort of action was required to change something at that time and i couldn't have seen gremlins in a good position should they have stayed out or joined the other side while dragging all of citadel in it. There would have been plenty of strategical backlash if other choices would've been made, not sure how much people were thinking about them when they did what they did.
To be honest i've always seen grem - at least till that war - as a more complacent alliance who takes more enjoyment in arguing for extended periods of time without taking any immediate action and what happened then was something i personally enjoy - though i do imagine it stirred up things a lot since it was a change of pace for gre (well for everyone else as well i guess).
But yes i do think Gremlins did take a lot of pressure in the upper tier which gave a lot of relief for everyone else in our front and it did help. Sure i think some diplomatical mistakes were done (pre-emptive promises that weren't backed up well etc etc) but meh you can't have everything.

[uaciaut]

[quote name='Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz' date='09 February 2010 - 08:45 AM' timestamp='1265697934' post='2170188']
This just isn't true. We went full nukes on both of them.
[/quote]

TOP tried to make the OMFG front non-nuclear. I was Umbrella gov at the time and it was in our defense that you came so i'm pretty sure that's how it went.
We couldn't afford to let it go non-nuclear at the time since we weren't getting nuked daily by val anyway and it wouldn't given OMFG a big advantage over us so we said no.
Also sorry for the double post.

[King Srqt]

[quote name='Bob Janova' date='09 February 2010 - 08:24 AM' timestamp='1265721860' post='2170473']
If you want to complain about TOP, the IRON front is the wrong argument to pick, because that was Grämlins.

Krack, you linked to logs of Chill explaining the deal to Gen. Lee at the [i]start[/i] of the war. Gen. Lee is starting his career as an ungrateful swine even at that point, and if it wouldn't have been disastrous for Karma as a whole and our allies at Fark, I imagine we'd just have let him eat all those IRON nukes and get crushed. You still haven't shown (because it never happened) that anyone in Citadel told IRON to drop their nukes on SF.

And yes, without our participation on that front, every 75k or larger nation in RoK and Fark would have been at ZI, that front would have been lost and the very result of the war in question once IRON were able to redeploy that top tier onto different fronts. (Remember that at the time of that decision, the role of TOP, MHA, NpO and many more was unclear, and the sides were numerically even.) That's why we took the dirty deal we did, to hit [i]our own friends[/i] to save you from utter destruction, and the ungrateful nature of the response (particularly from RoK) frequently makes me wonder if we should have just left you to fry.

Don't forget we had a ToA with a 5 day cancellation clause, and if IRON had refused to waive that, you'd have suffered 5 days of full scale unchallenged top tier attack. That's 5000 infra (15000 NS plus land and military/navy allowance reductions) taken off every RoK and Fark nation over 75k NS. In exchange for that concession (we didn't want Fark to lose 15000 ANS!) we had to offer something, and a quick easy peace was the card we had.


IRON's trump card was not the size of their arsenal but the size of their top tier (100k+ in those days), which would have utterly crushed any single alliance in Karma except Grämlins. Rather like TOP in this war requiring the entirety of C&G to counter its top tier, IRON needed to be countered by Grämlins to stop it rolling right through other alliances. Of course TOP made that easier by declaring on the whole of C&G, but from a purely military point of view that was inevitable anyway because it's the only way you can counter that top tier.

Polaris have no top tier any more. But you still don't do them credit: they are doing a [url=http://www.cybernations.net/stats_alliance_stats_custom.asp?Alliance=Viridian%20Entente]lot of damage[/url] with those nukes, even if they're not aimed in a particularly strategic direction.
[/quote]
You expected them to be grateful while your government was trying to bully them into accepting a white peace? Please! I can dig up logs of even you saying on how disgusted you were with your own government's (namely Chill's) actions in regards to Fark and RoK if you would like me to.

Yes Gramlins were in a tough spot and yes they were needed but neither of those things excused the behavior of some of the government and it didn't help that the "some" in question happened to be one of your two major representatives in Karma.

Edited February 9, 2010 by KingSrqt

[Bob Janova]

I was upset with Chill because of the timing – that very day we'd assured TOP that nothing would happen to IRON without consulting them, I woke up the next day and we were at war, and TOP were (rightly) very angry. Grämlins have governmental processes and declaring war in 30s does not fit them. Some sort of deal similar to what Chill was pushing would have been pushed the next day regardless, though, in all probability.

[quote]You expected them to be grateful while your government was trying to bully them into accepting a white peace?[/quote]
When the choices are 'white peace with some damage' or 'we let you get rolled for five days', yes I certainly do. I really don't know what the detractors would have us have done. In order to get the ToA, and the MDP with TOP, waived we needed to give IRON a good deal. Perhaps some of the diplomacy was not done in the best possible way, but Ragnarok were upset about the substance more than the way it was delivered. (Fark were understanding and reasonable for the most part, as they understood the position we were in and the sacrifice we made for them.) Perhaps they really don't see that they would have been crippled by facing the full force of IRON.

[HellAngel]

Bully?

If anything we made a friendly request (which i also believe did not happen, but my memory is not that good). I would hardly count something as bullying if you accept a "no".

Edited February 9, 2010 by HellAngel

[pasquali]

More and more certain we shoulda sat our backsides out of the war and let them take their lumps. We'd all be under the jackboot as before, but it would probably better than fighting for people who then hate and scheme against you for a year after you bled for them.

[King Srqt]

[quote name='HellAngel' date='09 February 2010 - 09:59 AM' timestamp='1265727585' post='2170554']
Bully?

If anything we made a friendly request (which i also believe did not happen, but my memory is not that good). I would hardly count something as bullying if you accept a "no".
[/quote]
I said attempted to bully, the bullying didn't work which is why you eventually accepted the "no". Although I will admit most of the actual bullying came from TOP and Not Gre it was for the idea that Gre originally presented, and was seen as a joint venture of you and TOP. When an alliance is threatened to be left in the cold for not giving a white peace after being nuked into oblivion it is most certainly bullying and is exactly the behavior Gre and TOP used during the Karma war.

[quote name='pasquali' date='09 February 2010 - 10:04 AM' timestamp='1265727899' post='2170561']
More and more certain we shoulda sat our backsides out of the war and let them take their lumps. We'd all be under the jackboot as before, but it would probably better than fighting for people who then hate and scheme against you for a year after you bled for them.
[/quote]
Your alliance bled for nothing but it's own self interest and that was made abundantly clear throughout the war.

Edited February 9, 2010 by KingSrqt

[pasquali]

Threatened to be left in the cold? Why the @#$% WOULDN'T Gre leave you in the cold? They had no ill-will towards IRON, they had held a treaty with them until the start of the war! Why should they support your demands for reps against an enemy that wasn't theirs, and was in fact a very close friend of a very close friend? Again, if ya'll were that badass, then you should have been able to demand all the reps you wanted without Gram muscle backing you up. You WEREN'T anywhere near tough enough to take IRON or demand anything on your own, and yet you feel like they were obligated to be your enforcer against one of their own friends. It wasn't enough to save your frigging backsides, you wanted them to put the boot on the throat of a friend for you and even further sabotage their relationships with OG and TOP who were allied to IRON.

There's something very wrong with that picture.

[HellAngel]

[quote name='KingSrqt' date='09 February 2010 - 04:33 PM' timestamp='1265729606' post='2170595']
I said attempted to bully, the bullying didn't work which is why you eventually accepted the "no". Although I will admit most of the actual bullying came from TOP and Not Gre it was for the idea that Gre originally presented, and was seen as a joint venture of you and TOP. When an alliance is threatened to be left in the cold for not giving a white peace after being nuked into oblivion it is most certainly bullying and is exactly the behavior Gre and TOP used during the Karma war.
[/quote]

I have no idea what you are talking about. What Chill probably said in the night of our declaration was not agreed upon by anyone. And it's not like everyone in the cyberverse is a saint in stressful situations. That you are still holding it against them speaks more about your character than it does about them.

Gre would have never left anyone out to dry.

[King Srqt]

[quote name='pasquali' date='09 February 2010 - 10:39 AM' timestamp='1265729944' post='2170602']
Threatened to be left in the cold? Why the @#$% WOULDN'T Gre leave you in the cold? They had no ill-will towards IRON, they had held a treaty with them until the start of the war! Why should they support your demands for reps against an enemy that wasn't theirs, and was in fact a very close friend of a very close friend? Again, if ya'll were that badass, then you should have been able to demand all the reps you wanted without Gram muscle backing you up. You WEREN'T anywhere near tough enough to take IRON or demand anything on your own, and yet you feel like they were obligated to be your enforcer against one of their own friends. It wasn't enough to save your frigging backsides, you wanted them to put the boot on the throat of a friend for you and even further sabotage their relationships with OG and TOP who were allied to IRON.

There's something very wrong with that picture.
[/quote]
First of all I never fought IRON, second of all, you don't pledge support of allies and a coalition and then negotiate a peace without consulting them and then when they do not agree to your DEMAND of white peace start threatening to abandon them.

I wouldn't expect a member of TOP to understand the concept of a coalition, or anything outside the scope of self preservation though.

[pasquali]

Unreal - now we fought for self-interest. Please, enlighten me. Just how did I or my alliance profit from a war that did billions in damage to us, that we got no reps from, that we were NOT obligated to fight in, that strained relationships with our closest allies, and that if we had elected to sit it out, absolutely nothing bad would have happened to us in the forseeable future? We didn't have anything to fear from Hegemony, we had members directly allied to several Hegemony alliances and were in fact considered part of the Hegemony. We didn't go around being idiots and causing wars, so there was no reason to fear getting picked off. Our numbers were low enough that we could never challenge for the top alliance spot, so there was no reason to pick us off there. Please, tell me how it was in our self-interest to fight in that damned war.

[HellAngel]

[quote name='KingSrqt' date='09 February 2010 - 04:44 PM' timestamp='1265730295' post='2170615']
First of all I never fought IRON, second of all, you don't pledge support of allies and a coalition and then negotiate a peace without consulting them and then when they do not agree to your DEMAND of white peace start threatening to abandon them.
[/quote]

Funny that you are bringing this up because it was Gremlins who were excluded from the first surrender terms meeting of everyone fighting IRON (albeit not by ill will, people just thought we didnt care).


[quote]
I wouldn't expect a member of TOP to understand the concept of a coalition, or anything outside the scope of self preservation though.
[/quote]

Ahh a typical generalization. Please continue, you are starting to make no sense.

[King Srqt]

[quote name='HellAngel' date='09 February 2010 - 10:42 AM' timestamp='1265730127' post='2170612']
I have no idea what you are talking about. What Chill probably said in the night of our declaration was not agreed upon by anyone. And it's not like everyone in the cyberverse is a saint in stressful situations. That you are still holding it against them speaks more about your character than it does about them.

Gre would have never left anyone out to dry.
[/quote]
I actually don't hold it against them, I still like Gramlins very much and the fact that they ended up being reasonable despite the pressure form some of their allies gained respect if anything, I just don't like when people come here and try and paint others in a bad light when they were put in just as hard a position as Gre was.

TOP in the end were the ones that earned an even stronger dislike then the one I had going in.

[pasquali]

That's the biggest load I've ever heard. So now because you join a coalition, you give up all right to independent thought and action? You no longer have sovereignty over your alliance to say "Yeah, we helped, but we're not going to support your idiocy any further?" Gimme a break.

Also, I am not and never have been TOP. Thanks for missing that one.

[King Srqt]

[quote name='pasquali' date='09 February 2010 - 10:46 AM' timestamp='1265730402' post='2170616']
Unreal - now we fought for self-interest. Please, enlighten me. Just how did I or my alliance profit from a war that did billions in damage to us, that we got no reps from, that we were NOT obligated to fight in, that strained relationships with our closest allies, and that if we had elected to sit it out, absolutely nothing bad would have happened to us in the forseeable future? We didn't have anything to fear from Hegemony, we had members directly allied to several Hegemony alliances and were in fact considered part of the Hegemony. We didn't go around being idiots and causing wars, so there was no reason to fear getting picked off. Our numbers were low enough that we could never challenge for the top alliance spot, so there was no reason to pick us off there. Please, tell me how it was in our self-interest to fight in that damned war.
[/quote]
If you truly believe that you had nothing to gain by taking out the NPO then you are very ignorant to the backroom political environment of the time, I don't fault you for that because most people were since things were not very transparent but TOP was far from a safe position if the Karma war ended differently.


[quote name='HellAngel' date='09 February 2010 - 10:46 AM' timestamp='1265730408' post='2170617']
Funny that you are bringing this up because it was Gremlins who were excluded from the first surrender terms meeting of everyone fighting IRON (albeit not by ill will, people just thought we didnt care).Ahh a typical generalization. Please continue, you are starting to make no sense.
[/quote]
It's funny that an alliance that was telling my allies and I what IRON's peace terms were before anyone of them had any kind of meeting could have been excluded from the original talks. The original talks actually took place before the war ever began and no one outside of Gre/TOP/IRON was consulted about them

[quote name='pasquali' date='09 February 2010 - 10:49 AM' timestamp='1265730577' post='2170620']
That's the biggest load I've ever heard. So now because you join a coalition, you give up all right to independent thought and action? You no longer have sovereignty over your alliance to say "Yeah, we helped, but we're not going to support your idiocy any further?" Gimme a break.

Also, I am not and never have been TOP. Thanks for missing that one.
[/quote]
Of course they are still sovereign but negotiating a peace without consulting your war time allies is unacceptable.

OOC: I read your TE AA and thought it was SE, I am at work and slightly distracted

Edited February 9, 2010 by KingSrqt

[WarriorConcept]

[quote name='avernite' date='08 February 2010 - 12:27 PM' timestamp='1265650063' post='2168846']
Bob Janova and Crymson stated the same thing:

You stand for the right to raid as you damn well please. You were standing for it, at least. Bob says you got hit for supporting the raiding side in a war; Crymson said you got hit for what you stood for, which was indeed raiding.
[/quote]

TOP actually wants to help nations and alliances being raided? Funny, that's not the impression I got when I spoke to him a week or so ago.

Edit: him refers to crymson

Edited February 9, 2010 by WarriorConcept

[Roadie]

[quote name='pasquali' date='09 February 2010 - 09:49 AM' timestamp='1265730577' post='2170620']
That's the biggest load I've ever heard. So now because you join a coalition, you give up all right to independent thought and action? You no longer have sovereignty over your alliance to say "Yeah, we helped, but we're not going to support your idiocy any further?" Gimme a break.

Also, I am not and never have been TOP. Thanks for missing that one.
[/quote]

The post you're responding to is a good example of the mindset of Karma during that war and of many of it's members yet today. You were a part of that coalition or you weren't and that extends to how much support you gave them, not just militarily, but in your words as well. TOP was never part of that coalition. If an alliance like TOP would have fully supported every move and decision made by Karma and continued to be fully supportive post-war, they wouldn't have been in the crosshairs since wars end. As it is, TOP is too independent minded and therefore isn't seen as 'one of them' and is large enough to be a threat.

[pasquali]

I honestly don't see a problem with that. As mentioned SEVERAL times, TOP was allied to IRON and didn't want to see them destroyed. Gramlins was willing to take them on for the greater good, but drew the line at demanding or supporting reps. Instead of thanking Gramlins for saving everyone else's rear end, people threw a hissy fit because Gramlins wouldn't support their demands for reps.

AGAIN - if those alliances were big and bad enough to demand reps on their own merit, fine. THEY WEREN'T. What makes them think they had any right to expect Gramlins to act as an enforcer so they can get reps?


edit: Also, negotiating peace for yourself and your alliance is perfectly acceptable. I seriously doubt that Gramlins said, "Oh, by the way, you guys are white peacing IRON. It's already negotiated." Hell no - you cannot speak for other alliances. Instead, it would have gone something like this: "Alright, we took the teeth out of IRON for you. We're going to give them white peace. We'd appreciate it if you could do the same." Everyone else: "NO! MUST HAVE REPS! LOTS AND LOTS OF THEM!" Gremlins: "We really don't like that idea. If you insist on it, you'll be getting them yourself. We're not going to support it." Everyone else: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW! Why are you so mean! How dare you tell us what we can and can't do!!!"

Umm... again, if they were capable of extorting reps on their own merit, no one would have done a thing to stop them. They weren't. They needed Gramlins muscle to do it, and Gram had neither the obligation or the inclination to give them what they wanted. So instead of thanking them for saving their butts, they became filled with hate towards the ones who had asked Gramlins to go easy on IRON, namely TOP.

I've known kindergartners with better reasoning, thinking ability, and gratitude.

Edited February 9, 2010 by pasquali

[pasquali]

[quote name='KingSrqt' date='09 February 2010 - 10:54 AM' timestamp='1265730848' post='2170625']


OOC: I read your TE AA and thought it was SE, I am at work and slightly distracted
[/quote]

OOC: Heheh - it's ok, Link.

- Barch

[King Srqt]

[quote name='Roadie' date='09 February 2010 - 10:59 AM' timestamp='1265731174' post='2170638']
The post you're responding to is a good example of the mindset of Karma during that war and of many of it's members yet today. You were a part of that coalition or you weren't and that extends to how much support you gave them, not just militarily, but in your words as well. TOP was never part of that coalition. If an alliance like TOP would have fully supported every move and decision made by Karma and continued to be fully supportive post-war, they wouldn't have been in the crosshairs since wars end. As it is, TOP is too independent minded and therefore isn't seen as 'one of them' and is large enough to be a threat.
[/quote]
Actually TOP government were under the impression that they had the right to make all of Karma's decisions for them, telling other alliance members to "know their place" and that they were the "big kids in the sandbox".

Some of us were actually there and dealt with it and our dislike of TOP has nothing to do with their "independent thinking"