The war, TEstical perspective.

[Prefontaine]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

 

Well before there was any hint at a war happening between the now TKR sphere and TEst we figured it was coming, at least in a way. During the summer we had figured Mensa was going to come at us. We were arguably the two best militaries in the game and there were whispers that they wanted to fight us. We had decent relations with Syndicate/BK at the time so I started dropping ideas at setting up "war games" since it would be hard to do a reasonable fair fight between Mensa/TEst or Mensa+another alliance/TEst we could set up things like 10v20 or whatever seemed to be the most reasonable matchups. The ideas were somewhat well received and we talked about possibilities here but things never really fleshed out. Was more of what we might do had sphere politics/wars not been a thing. 

 

Then TI happened. Once Sheepy announced treasure bonuses were going away at X date I knew that war was going to come for us basically at X-date. Made perfect sense, stock up on the treasure bonus "abuse" that he was trying to remove, get some solid growth then attack TEst. Around this time I had some members become a bit more active on TKR/tS's forums to try and help minimize bad blood between our alliances. The war was going to come, but that didn't mean we had to be dicks about it. I joined tS's forum to chat about any residual bad blood from the Pantheon fight, and hung out more on TKR's discord and even played a few games outside of PnW with them. You can be friendly and still fight each other. We've done it a lot in the past. Lots of our allies have spawned from fighting as enemies previously. 

Just before December I made it public knowledge via a radio show and even PM'd a few leaders stating that TEst was going to militarize at the start of december. Just a way to show that we knew this was coming and maybe get to find out how many people were coming our way. We knew some alliances were coming, didn't know how many. Not a lot happened from that as TEst had a spat with Alpha and co through Arrgh and Valyria as well. Mensa had their SK hunt so not much was gained intel wise from the move. 

 

First shots fired

 

The war system got taken offline for the major update the one that included the treasure change so we expected the war to start shortly after this, which is why TEst stayed fully militarized (well, mostly) at this time. Then the spy attacks happened. This drama has been hashed out at length, so I won't dig through it again. The end result was the spy changes were rolled back as the admin deemed an unfair advantage was being gained and he stated he should have taken the spy system offline. You can !@#$, claim whatever you want about me, but that was the result of what happened. There was no going back at this point, we didn't even attempt diplomacy to solve the problem because you hit us in that way, a fight has to happen.

 

The CB's -- Wait what's a CB

 

Normally when wars happen the aggressive party makes a declaration, that declaration never happened because they started the war with spy attacks and never formally announced their attack. There was never an official post really summing up their reasons for war, some of their alliances did, but that major ones did not. Behind closed doors, in PMs, on radio shows, etc.. the reasons for the war started to become clearer but it was still a cluster !@#$. The reasons ranged from revenge for Pantheon (even though a deal was made to avoid that), Protection for their protectorates (even though this war put their protectorates in crosshairs that never existed prior), because TEst was a threat (see: afraid of us), Because we were too big (see: also afraid of us), and several other lesser reasons. This lack of clarity for the war set up the stage for the shit show that was going to be the peace talks. 

 

The peace talks

 

Around the end of round 1, I approached Jessica Rabbit about ending the war. TEst had almost always only done 1 round of war in the past and with how many people were involved in fighting us we were clearly beaten and not going to be coming back in a meaningful way. TEst had no sphere related ambitions, we weren't looking to take out the top sphere, so there was no reason to grind us in my mind. At which point I get told we're getting multiple rounds so the rest of the game can catch up to us. Mind you their sphere has more nations over 20 cities than we do, and they even have the only one over 25 cities. So between trying to exploit the game roll out for advantage

 

 

 

 

And being told things like this was about Pantheon.

 

 

 

 

(both of these screen shots have been discussed publicly either on the radio or in other arenas so I don't mind pasting them here)

 

and being told were going to be ZI'd because we were "too big" and the rest of the game needed to "catch up". A war that should have been pretty friendly (like I said we knew it was coming) turned very dirty. The peace talks started and Jessica was telling me this wasn't about Pantheon, that it wasn't done because of the war system freeze.. And I had been told exactly the opposite of almost everything she was telling me, and representing her sphere this started the problem between Jessica and I. You're allied to over half the game, you're deciding how big alliances unrelated to you are allowed to be and are going to hold them down for no reason, you exploited the war system roll out to gain an advantage in a 7v1 nation fight, and now your lying to me in the peace talks. I treated Jessica like shit at this point, due to the reasons I just stated. TEst was demanding no terms, so I had nothing to negotiate for, they were gonna attack us til they were happy thus there was nothing we could do. Arrgh and RW had some other terms, the RW ones were pretty !@#$ed up at first, but that changed. TEst's terms never changed until the end when it was made known someone in our alliance had been given intel from secure TKR channels, we gave up the person because I don't stand for spying (right, Cuzo?). Jessica's and my communication continued to deteriorate throughout this whole process due to continued lies and contradictions about things going on so I continued to be a dick because there really weren't negotiations on behalf of TEst, we merely accepted their terms and asked for clarification about if they were protecting HBE. I'd bring up HBE further, but the whole thing was just to highlight how stupid it is for Syndicate to try and dictate alliance policy for two alliances (HBE and TEst) that they held no treaty with. 

 

So now here we are, peace. I haven't proof read this, and slapped it together because I figured it would be good to get some of this out in the open. I've heard a lot of things coming from TKR-sphere that are just flat out wrong, our motives, what we were up to, what we wanted, etc... Now that the war is over some of the pointless trolling that these sort of topics can spurn might be lower, but I'm sure you'll all do your best to prove me wrong there. 

 

If anyone has any questions about what was going on, on TEsts side, ask away. Apologies to Jessica Rabbit, I went over the top a few times.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Prefontaine

[Karrde]

I think from a mensa perspective, we wanted war because war is fun. And you were a more appealing target than the usual because you're better at this than them.

 

Imo it was a shame so many other alliances were involved too, I didn't even get a TEst slot.

 

Oh well.

[Mark76]

I didn't even get a slot, full stop, thanks to the bizarre time things kicked off and the sheer weight of numbers on our side.

[Prefontaine]

I think from a mensa perspective, we wanted war because war is fun. And you were a more appealing target than the usual because you're better at this than them.

 

Imo it was a shame so many other alliances were involved too, I didn't even get a TEst slot.

 

Oh well.

 

There's a reason we've had no problem with Mensa/BK/Common Wealth etc.. in this war. Most of our issues stem from TKR/tS and the lies/misscommunication/etc.. whatever you want to call it. They were also the two whom agreed to "Whatever Pantheon wants is fine with us", which was no revenge for hitting Pantheon in exchange for only 1 round of warfare. That's where the bad blood stems from the most. 

[seabasstion]

I think from a mensa perspective, we wanted war because war is fun. And you were a more appealing target than the usual because you're better at this than them.

 

Imo it was a shame so many other alliances were involved too, I didn't even get a TEst slot.

 

Oh well.

 

fighting mensans in the first round of the new war system provided some of the most compelling gameplay i've experienced to date. we were all learning the tactics and it was a good brawl. i wish there was more of that. i gained a lot of respect for an alliance i already liked quite a bit

[hidude45454]

TCW, find a better reason than "TEst are bullies" because forgetting about Mensa kind of doesn't work, does it?

And I'd like to hear an official position from TKR too that isn't "Whatever you say, man" *cough*

[Buorhann]

Apologies to Jessica Rabbit, I went over the top a few times.

 

 

A few times?  You've been compared to Steve, let's put it that way.

[Bollocks]

fighting mensans in the first round of the new war system provided some of the most compelling gameplay i've experienced to date. we were all learning the tactics and it was a good brawl. i wish there was more of that. i gained a lot of respect for an alliance i already liked quite a bit

 

Pretty sums up how I feel about TEst. Pushing all the emotions and politics aside, you guys are undoubtedly among the best fighters in the game. It was a blast fighting you, and organizing counters against your counters was a fun challenge.

 

And to my friends and allies, always a pleasure. Special shoutout to Guardian and Mensa, it's always a joy to coordinate with you. 

[Prefonteen]

Je suis prefontaine

[kalev60]

^Still better treatment than GPA ever got on Orbis so it's seems paperless version of neutrality is all well and alive here

 

Dragging it out, not having clear narratives and not being able to make ones minds up on reasons though was kind of annoying.

Edited January 18, 2017 by kalev60

[Sailor Jerry]

A few times?  You've been compared to Steve, let's put it that way.

Whoa....whoa.....whoa......that was completely uncalled for and unnecessary.....plus that could never be possible!

[Spaceman Thrax]

A couple points. It's my opinion and I'm not looking to debate, but I do want to present a counterpoint.

 

- Your personal conduct, in terms of the way you dealt with our sphere's representatives, makes any explanation or justification given to you or your alliance from our side an unearned luxury.

- You don't "need" a cb to hit someone. I wanted to hit Test because it would be a challenge: others had other reasons. TKR, for example had every reason to hit you over the spying. For what it's worth, I had no interest in holding you guys down until I saw the way you were acting when you got hit.

- I'm not sure what context that quote you have of Lordship is supposed to be, but there was no hand-wringing conspiracy to exploit the spy system. We didn't need to exploit to win. We figured seeing us coming would let you guys come out swinging, which was more interesting than a dogpile. I know no one from our alliance saw it as an "exploit", since Alex left the spy system active (hint: every other time we saw a potential exploit, we reported it to admin... why would this one, which we didn't even need, be any different?). You couldn't retaliate militarily until the freeze was done, but really Test was screwed for spies no matter what because of the way the system is designed (that's just a numbers game). So.... in short, it's an "advantage" that we didn't need. I know the fact that you immediately ran to admin and then boasted about getting him to make changes on your behalf didn't gain a lot of respect in my eyes, but that's beside the point I suppose.

- You're simply lying about you being hit because of Pantheon. I agreed at the time not to retaliate against Test, if Pantheon didn't want to. You seem to have taken that to be a blanket "never declare against us ever, for any reason!" Sorry, no.

- All the members of Test I dealt with fought well and managed to keep a sense of decorum, which was appreciated. Cheers!

[AkAk]

Pretty sums up how I feel about TEst. Pushing all the emotions and politics aside, you guys are undoubtedly among the best fighters in the game. It was a blast fighting you, and organizing counters against your counters was a fun challenge.

 

 

7 v 1 or 11 v 1 or whatever it was and counters were still a challenge?  Really?  Let's not going over the top with the praise here.  

[Buorhann]

7 v 1 or 11 v 1 or whatever it was and counters were still a challenge?  Really?  Let's not going over the top with the praise here.  

 

 

I think he was referring to Arrgh and TEst.

[AkAk]

- You're simply lying about you being hit because of Pantheon. I agreed at the time not to retaliate against Test, if Pantheon didn't want to. You seem to have taken that to be a blanket "never declare against us ever, for any reason!" Sorry, no.

 

 

So member(s) of the other side explicitly stated this as the reason but Pre is lying about it?  Wat?

[Spaceman Thrax]

So member(s) of the other side explicitly stated this as the reason but Pre is lying about it?  Wat?

 

Members did...?

 

It's a coalition with tons of people with it. You can find a person saying anything, probably, somewhere.

 

My point is that he's tried to say there was a government-level agreement that was broken, and that is simply untrue.

[AkAk]

I think he was referring to Arrgh and TEst.

 

It was a dog pile of epic proportions on 3 alliances but let's not let that fact get in the way of a supposed good fight.   

 

Having said that, I have enjoyed finally being involved in a multi-rounder.   I've learned a lot and everybody has been great to deal with.

 

No hard feelings but let's keep it real.   

[Sailor Jerry]

 I know no one from our alliance saw it as an "exploit", since Alex left the spy system active (hint: every other time we saw a potential exploit, we reported it to admin... why would this one, which we didn't even need, be any different?).

 

Of course the side that gets to use the exploit never sees it as one, but from what you just said, that every other time you saw a "potential" exploit you reported it....if you didn't need it, why didn't you report this one then?   

[Prefontaine]

A couple points. It's my opinion and I'm not looking to debate, but I do want to present a counterpoint.

 

- Your personal conduct, in terms of the way you dealt with our sphere's representatives, makes any explanation or justification given to you or your alliance from our side an unearned luxury.

- You don't "need" a cb to hit someone. I wanted to hit Test because it would be a challenge: others had other reasons. TKR, for example had every reason to hit you over the spying. For what it's worth, I had no interest in holding you guys down until I saw the way you were acting when you got hit.

- I'm not sure what context that quote you have of Lordship is supposed to be, but there was no hand-wringing conspiracy to exploit the spy system. We didn't need to exploit to win. We figured seeing us coming would let you guys come out swinging, which was more interesting than a dogpile. I know no one from our alliance saw it as an "exploit", since Alex left the spy system active (hint: every other time we saw a potential exploit, we reported it to admin... why would this one, which we didn't even need, be any different?). You couldn't retaliate militarily until the freeze was done, but really Test was screwed for spies no matter what because of the way the system is designed (that's just a numbers game). So.... in short, it's an "advantage" that we didn't need. I know the fact that you immediately ran to admin and then boasted about getting him to make changes on your behalf didn't gain a lot of respect in my eyes, but that's beside the point I suppose.

- You're simply lying about you being hit because of Pantheon. I agreed at the time not to retaliate against Test, if Pantheon didn't want to. You seem to have taken that to be a blanket "never declare against us ever, for any reason!" Sorry, no.

- All the members of Test I dealt with fought well and managed to keep a sense of decorum, which was appreciated. Cheers!

 

-You spheres representatives constant lying lead to the treatment.

-Your side stating they were holding us down before we acted negatively largely, unless your referring to your side spamming forum posts with "salty" "crying" about the game rollout being abused. But thanks for continuing your sides tradition of lying.

-You didn't need to exploit to win, but you tried to exploit anyway. "Giving us a warning you were going to attack" is the biggest joke of all considering we were fully militarized and basically told you we knew we were going to attack, but please try to continue to justify your exploitation of the war system being offline. Your timeline is also wrong, I told the offenders that the the spy attacks were going to be addressed by the admin because he had stated before the rollout that he didn't want anyone to gain a military advantage from the war system being offline/rollout and that's what was being done. Lordship even admitted that it was only carried out because the war system was offline. I merely reported the exploit attempt to the admin, explained how the advantage was being gained and suggested ways to address it. It's funny to hear you say you lost respect for me when you admit that you didn't need the advantage but used an exploit in the war mechanic being offline to gain an edge that you didn't need. And I'm the !@#$ for reporting an abuse to the admin. Okay, you're right. I'm totally the one lacking in respect here, lol. 

-You agreed to what Pantheon wanted. Pantheon agreed to not wanting revenge for the attack in exchange for one round. Your side admitted to this being a war of revenge against Pantheon. It's not a blanket for all future attacks, just a clause about this specific reasoning, which was the reasoning your side used. 

 

So yeah, all of your points there are basically full of shit. I'm sure you believe your own bullshit, but hey that doesn't make you right or respectable. 

[Keegoz]

The only real question I have with the Pantheon cb, if they were so upset with being hit, why didn't they enter the war?

 

Either they really are that bigger pixel huggers or the Pantheon stuff is bs.

[Spaceman Thrax]

Of course the side that gets to use the exploit never sees it as one, but from what you just said, that every other time you saw a "potential" exploit you reported it....if you didn't need it, why didn't you report this one then?   

 

That's my point precisely. We didn't report it because we didn't see it as an exploit.

[Prefontaine]

The only real question I have with the Pantheon cb, if they were so upset with being hit, why didn't they enter the war?

 

Either they really are that bigger pixel huggers or the Pantheon stuff is bs.

Talked to yui days before the fighting. She said they would defend their allies, but didn't seem on board with offensive action. They didn't want offensive action because they didn't want revenge. Have talked with them about it a couple times since that war ended.

[Bollocks]

7 v 1 or 11 v 1 or whatever it was and counters were still a challenge?  Really?  Let's not going over the top with the praise here.  

 

It's cool you bring the salt and all but, it was in fact 1:1 for nations with cities over 20, and 1:2 for nations with cities over 16. TEst also had first strike militarily after the war freeze (not counting the spy attacks). And you have no idea how to top tier fight played out. 

[Buorhann]

It's cool you bring the salt and all but, it was in fact 1:1 for nations with cities over 20, and 1:2 for nations with cities over 16. TEst also had first strike militarily after the war freeze (not counting the spy attacks). And you have no idea how to top tier fight played out. 

 

To be fair, with Roz Wei, the odds were pretty heavily stacked against them throughout the entirety of the war.

[Spaceman Thrax]

-You spheres representatives constant lying lead to the treatment.

-Your side stating they were holding us down before we acted negatively largely, unless your referring to your side spamming forum posts with "salty" "crying" about the game rollout being abused. But thanks for continuing your sides tradition of lying.

-You didn't need to exploit to win, but you tried to exploit anyway. "Giving us a warning you were going to attack" is the biggest joke of all considering we were fully militarized and basically told you we knew we were going to attack, but please try to continue to justify your exploitation of the war system being offline. Your timeline is also wrong, I told the offenders that the the spy attacks were going to be addressed by the admin because he had stated before the rollout that he didn't want anyone to gain a military advantage from the war system being offline/rollout and that's what was being done. Lordship even admitted that it was only carried out because the war system was offline. I merely reported the exploit attempt to the admin, explained how the advantage was being gained and suggested ways to address it. It's funny to hear you say you lost respect for me when you admit that you didn't need the advantage but used an exploit in the war mechanic being offline to gain an edge that you didn't need. And I'm the !@#$ for reporting an abuse to the admin. Okay, you're right. I'm totally the one lacking in respect here, lol. 

-You agreed to what Pantheon wanted. Pantheon agreed to not wanting revenge for the attack in exchange for one round. Your side admitted to this being a war of revenge against Pantheon. It's not a blanket for all future attacks, just a clause about this specific reasoning, which was the reasoning your side used. 

 

So yeah, all of your points there are basically full of shit. I'm sure you believe your own bullshit, but hey that doesn't make you right or respectable. 

 

No one lied to you. You're just surprised that a coalition of like 10 alliances has different reasons for hitting you? t$ didn't hit you over Pantheon... if anyone else did, we were supposed to prevent it somehow? You'd have had to make an agreement with them as well... they are sovereign. The only other person who could reasonably hit you over Pantheon is TKR, and they had the spy as a reason to hit you. So dunno what you're talking about, really: you're all over the place.

 

And yes. The negativity started in the way you reacted to the spying. Which predates most of the rest of it. This entire post really just underscores my first point about the lack of respect from you personally. Anyone who has questions though can feel free to reach out.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Manthrax