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No shade (but some legit questions from a mere pleb)


Queen M II
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2 hours ago, Roquentin said:

The unprovoked narrative has an easy response. "you're playing the victim." Sympathizing with victims is not how the OWF works here. It's a pro-predatory behavior environment.  if you're vulnerable to hits, it's all on you. If anything Partisan  recruiting all these for the task of hitting the most disliked group gained him tons of brownie points at a time where he had previously lost a lot of popularity, so there's nothing to gain by saying we didn't do anything to provoke it. He gained PR by doing it in spite of that if anything. We could have been his biggest fans and people still wouldn't seen an issue with him doing it. Everyone knows that's the case. They just don't like IQ so IQ getting hurt is good.

 

I want to ask you a very specific question. Who doesn’t like NPO at this point? Everyone in the game, to the most part, except maybe Rose, is willing to work with you. Maybe some changes would have to be made but I don’t know a single group who would say “frick no” if you pitched the idea of joining up or going with them. 

As for you saying people hate IQ, no one does, we just want IQ to do something other than sit and grow when you have the power and strength to knock anyone in the game down at this point. Work on your updeclaring and you’re perfect. You dominate the mid tier. DO SOMETHING.

Make sure to answer my question.

1 hour ago, Edward I said:

IQ + Acadia have 41 nations above 2500 score and, unless I missed one or two, zero above 3000 score as of this post. This is out of 509 member nations and, while it may have been a higher number a week ago, is still ample evidence that IQ lacks the upper tier that historic powerhouse alliances have benefited from.

Majority of the wars with Syndisphere, they were outnumbered in the upper tier. They utilized the mid tier and low tier to win their wars. Mensa wasn’t mid/upper until ToT, and etc. maybe the only war that Syndisphere had an upper tier advantage was Silent, and even then I don’t think so.

@Belisarius can attest sitting out a lot of wars simply due to the fact that he couldn’t hit anyone.

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1 hour ago, Edward I said:

To reiterate what Roquentin has already said, why bother when your audience is a group of posters who seem to be happiest when they're reposting and upvoting the same meme in response to everything?

  1. Are you referring to the 20 memes/posts we've created? Or the 5 individual videos? Or the memes even produced by players coming from other alliances?
  2. Having one of these memes being your flagship is a bad thing?
  3. If the community is so low and only responds to the same meme, why don't you do the same? And before setting out the arguement "why bother / no one has time for this"...
    • At the end of the day, there are two fronts in a war: the military one and the propaganda one. Whether you want to lose the propaganda war as your bloc lost the military one (propaganda statement here :v ), it's up to you.
    • This is a game and it's pretty clear at least at this war that everything is played in-character. If for some reason TJ gave you the opposite vibe, we do apologize. Thus, complaining about "toxicity" (do show us a toxic meme/video from our beautiful work of art) or lack of motivation, time or goal, just means that your in-game characters cannot really undertake that task. And if that is the case... I don't know what you are playing the game for, as out-of-character entities. Sure, doing things for the NPO community alone is all good and well, but some of your 120 members may enjoy the game per se instead of the game-of-getting-NPO to do... well, whatever it wants to do.
1 hour ago, Edward I said:

Or, to put it another way, who, exactly, do you think we'd sway out of a group of players who claimed to believe that IQ was insurmountably powerful a week ago and now take every opportunity they can to post about how it's losing a war to 23 nations?

  1. I don't know. Have you even tried?
  2. Do you think that every player out of IQ is an enemy to IQ brainwashed so much that cannot check the facts for him/herself? There are two types of propaganda: white propaganda, presenting facts, and black propaganda including falsehoods like "NPO eats babies". If you want to prove people wrong that you lose a war, you can just present the stats. If all of them say stats or strategy don't matter, you can really surrender and just lose any hope you had about the mental level of the community. And if they do accept these facts and argue on them, you can just have a healthy exchange of arguments.
  3. Again, at the end of the day, this is a game. And not a simple game. A game that is fun due to meta-gaming, the things that the community produces, the magic of playing in character, using walls of texts and verbalism to show how great a leader and poster you are, the player-based banks, newspapers, comics, schools and academies, graphics companies, scammers like Fraggle, nukers, pirates, knights. A huge opportunity was given in this war to produce content and make things fun and exciting. Not necessarily for this bad community that would hurt your feelings and dislike your content for sure, as the reputation of @Lelouch Vi Britannia's video showed. But for your own community. Unless...

Unless alliances like BK have really lost their identity and don't like to create memes. If they don't use them during war, I don't know when they would use them.

"NPO is evil and BK is dead."

Prove us wrong. We probably lie. We do propaganda. Clash with us. Create content. And enjoy the trip.

Besides...

"We jest."

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26 minutes ago, Kastor said:

I want to ask you a very specific question. Who doesn’t like NPO at this point? Everyone in the game, to the most part, except maybe Rose, is willing to work with you. Maybe some changes would have to be made but I don’t know a single group who would say “frick no” if you pitched the idea of joining up or going with them. 

As for you saying people hate IQ, no one does, we just want IQ to do something other than sit and grow when you have the power and strength to knock anyone in the game down at this point. Work on your updeclaring and you’re perfect. You dominate the mid tier. DO SOMETHING.

Make sure to answer my question.

Majority of the wars with Syndisphere, they were outnumbered in the upper tier. They utilized the mid tier and low tier to win their wars. Mensa wasn’t mid/upper until ToT, and etc. maybe the only war that Syndisphere had an upper tier advantage was Silent, and even then I don’t think so.

@Belisarius can attest sitting out a lot of wars simply due to the fact that he couldn’t hit anyone.

To be frank, I don't think you really represent everyone. There were at least several treaties that ended up ending because of someone being tied to us and most of the people who ally NPO or even indirectly are tied get a lot of backlash for it and get accused of being manipulated.  I'm not really sure why I'd  list everyone that has negative feelings in public, so I'm not going to answer that directly.  I'm sure plenty of people would be open to short-term partnerships with anyone in IQ to deploy against the others due to wanting less resistance, though.

I think this is just your own perspective. IQ doesn't really have the ability to blow out everyone else. Even the on paper stats don't really give an overwhelming advantage in the worst case scenario and they don't account for intangibles. Nothing really incentivized going to war  before this when we knew how it'll end up.

It's apples and oranges. The upper tier outside of Syndisphere's reach was relatively small. The Rose terms about hitting the whales  in Silent were basically about two guys they couldn't reach. Before that the upper tier being able to not fight much and help rebuild the rest did give Rose an edge and now that edge exists for other alliances to a much greater extent. Even one alliance can have twenty whale nations at this point.  There's a much bigger economic capacity and resource disparity at this point since a lot of the people have been able to build unimpeded by losing wars.

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34 minutes ago, Kastor said:

Majority of the wars with Syndisphere, they were outnumbered in the upper tier. They utilized the mid tier and low tier to win their wars. Mensa wasn’t mid/upper until ToT, and etc. maybe the only war that Syndisphere had an upper tier advantage was Silent, and even then I don’t think so.

I thought I was being clear when I said our lack of an upper tier is a two-fold problem: military and economic. The military aspect of this deficit has been argued about ad nauseam, so I won't repeat any of it here, but the economics of it have been mostly overlooked. We've intentionally been spending a long period of peace to grow and to reap the benefits of that growth. Buying infrastructure doesn't do you much good if you get it destroyed immediately. Furthermore, a smaller number of larger nations can outproduce a larger number of smaller ones. Even if all we cared about was relative strength and rebuilding capacity, IQ's decision to partly close the gap in resource stockpiles would still make sense: it doesn't do you any good to go to war and "win" if your opponents are able to rebuild more quickly than you.

44 minutes ago, Kastor said:

As for you saying people hate IQ, no one does, we just want IQ to do something other than sit and grow when you have the power and strength to knock anyone in the game down at this point. Work on your updeclaring and you’re perfect. You dominate the mid tier. DO SOMETHING.

If you're all so bored with the game and think IQ's presence is making it more boring, then declare war on IQ. Now would be the perfect time to do it - apparently we're just a house of cards waiting to collapse. Unless "doing something" is code for IQ breaking up, I don't see how starting a war against IQ is materially different from IQ starting a war with someone else. That is, of course, if all of the recommendations for all players to be less concerned with pixels and more with having fun were really made in earnest and not cynically.

 

30 minutes ago, Ripper said:
  1. Are you referring to the 20 memes/posts we've created? Or the 5 individual videos? Or the memes even produced by players coming from other alliances?
  2. Having one of these memes being your flagship is a bad thing?

Propaganda has two purposes: persuasion and entertainment. I argued that we would persuade few if any people that frequent the forums that we're the "good guys" here. (And, contrary to what Buorhann supposed, the aggressive nature of a mass-raid on a sphere largely considered to be the dominant power doesn't usually make those raiders look bad; it usually just makes them appear ballsy regardless of the outcome.)  As for the entertainment aspect, making propaganda about what is, at the moment, a costly slog isn't very fun for us. I expect we'll win in the end by dragging TJ down, but for now we have little to show for our efforts.

1 hour ago, Ripper said:

Again, at the end of the day, this is a game. And not a simple game. A game that is fun due to meta-gaming, the things that the community produces, the magic of playing in character, using walls of texts and verbalism to show how great a leader and poster you are, the player-based banks, newspapers, comics, schools and academies, graphics companies, scammers like Fraggle, nukers, pirates, knights.

I agree. I've read most of the posts relating to this war and I like that TJ decided to make something happen where others were content to whine about how it's IQ's job to make the game fun for them. But not everyone in IQ is me. One of the unavoidable aspects of being in a mass recruitment alliance is that you get lots of players who don't have the time or the interest to engage on the OWF. It takes a lot of time to get up to speed enough on in-game happenings and make coherent, substantive, in-character post. One of the reasons I like NPO is that it provides a home and a viable play style for people who don't want to the devote the same amount of time to PW that you or even I do.

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20 minutes ago, Edward I said:

- snip -

This post made me happy. I would love more conversations of this kind.

21 minutes ago, Edward I said:

As for the entertainment aspect, making propaganda about what is, at the moment, a costly slog isn't very fun for us. I expect we'll win in the end by dragging TJ down, but for now we have little to show for our efforts.

*inserts Culture Victory meme here* :v

On a more serious note, I do hope you enjoy(ed) the war one way or another, regardless of result and consequences.

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2 hours ago, Ripper said:

-Snip-

 

<3

Comics pls

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Ex-Archduke of Defence for BK

3 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

@Lelouch Vi Britannia - BK needs you, but they really don't deserve you.  Thanks for the dankness.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Roquentin said:

The goal of any expansion would be to prolong the longevity of the community and ideally add more people to it. For the most part it, it has succeeded in that as people who wouldn't have been involved have otherwise integrated.

So basically the Borg community.

 

I'll tackle the rest of your reply and @Edward I's when I have more time for a thoughtful one.

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13 hours ago, Edward I said:

NPO isn't killing the game, the economics of long term growth, tiering and resource production are. The same thing happened in CN; it's not a new phenomenon. If you want wars to happen every 3-5 months, then you need a world with smaller economic disparities between rivals. IQ + Acadia have 41 nations above 2500 score and, unless I missed one or two, zero above 3000 score as of this post. This is out of 509 member nations and, while it may have been a higher number a week ago, is still ample evidence that IQ lacks the upper tier that historic powerhouse alliances have benefited from.
Tiering has almost always been discussed as a military reality, but in the long run it's primarily one of economics. If you want an explanation for IQ's choice not to initiate any wars during the past months, then consider how our resource and cash stockpiles likely compare to those of alliances that have maintained largely intact upper tiers for years.

The supposed economic disparities in many cases don't exist or are the result of poor money management, rather than tiering as you seem to think.

IQ alliances have more members on average than competitors which offsets the supposed economic advantage of tiering you are referring to. You don't need a large upper tier to be economically viable.

This argument also becomes less valid when you consider that both sides have had 9 months since the last war with which to accrue wealth.

Also, if what you say is actually true, how does that translate to hunkering down rather than trying to close that advantage through military offensives or through a change in political positioning? You are making the argument for doing the exact opposite of what you are doing. 

 

The economy is certainly a factor, but its not a factor that has hit either side a great deal proportionally more.

 

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2 hours ago, Sketchy said:

The supposed economic disparities in many cases don't exist or are the result of poor money management, rather than tiering as you seem to think.

IQ alliances have more members on average than competitors which offsets the supposed economic advantage of tiering you are referring to. You don't need a large upper tier to be economically viable.

This argument also becomes less valid when you consider that both sides have had 9 months since the last war with which to accrue wealth.

Also, if what you say is actually true, how does that translate to hunkering down rather than trying to close that advantage through military offensives or through a change in political positioning? You are making the argument for doing the exact opposite of what you are doing. 

 

The economy is certainly a factor, but its not a factor that has hit either side a great deal proportionally more.

 

Also it lies due to the historical nature of NPO losing three back-to-back wars in the space of ten months. While we have more members, we had to rebuild, had a smaller economic base to grow from and also the resource changes within the game, pretty much harmed all the controls/limits, requiring us to recalibrate to the changes which further took more time. 

9 months may seem a lot, but for the economics of scale employed by NPO and also the massive growth we funded within the last six months, paints a clearer picture as to why the economics plays an important role in our decision making. We've had to play catch up to more established alliances and took the time required to even compete on that front. 

That being said, it made no sense in the past few months to run military operations, because of the tiering differences along with the costs required to run such a scenario. The costs involved would help others more than us and is the least sensible approach to the game. If anyone thought we were getting to big, that was their opening and they did not take it; we needed the time to grow. The last nine months offered us the best opportunity since our foundation, especially after kick-staring two global wars. 

15 hours ago, Kastor said:

I want to ask you a very specific question. Who doesn’t like NPO at this point? Everyone in the game, to the most part, except maybe Rose, is willing to work with you. Maybe some changes would have to be made but I don’t know a single group who would say “frick no” if you pitched the idea of joining up or going with them. 

As for you saying people hate IQ, no one does, we just want IQ to do something other than sit and grow when you have the power and strength to knock anyone in the game down at this point. Work on your updeclaring and you’re perfect. You dominate the mid tier. DO SOMETHING.

Make sure to answer my question.

We don't need to do diddly squat to fit within your narratives of how to play this game. We are doing something, and thats within our realm of control, under our plans. If you do not like it, feel free to actively create an opportunity to come at us. The idea that we are somehow responsible to act for others is ridiculous. 

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3 hours ago, Sketchy said:

The supposed economic disparities in many cases don't exist or are the result of poor money management, rather than tiering as you seem to think.

IQ alliances have more members on average than competitors which offsets the supposed economic advantage of tiering you are referring to. You don't need a large upper tier to be economically viable.

This argument also becomes less valid when you consider that both sides have had 9 months since the last war with which to accrue wealth.

Also, if what you say is actually true, how does that translate to hunkering down rather than trying to close that advantage through military offensives or through a change in political positioning? You are making the argument for doing the exact opposite of what you are doing. 

 

The economy is certainly a factor, but its not a factor that has hit either side a great deal proportionally more.

 

It doesn't offset it since most of those nations will have to do a lot more fighting in a global war. Whether it's the bigger nations in IQ that get down declared or the ones that have to sustain damage updeclaring. 

It doesn't matter if there's been 9 months. Someone who has a lot of nations that don't have to fight much will have a lot more than someone who has to fight. Prior accumulation by those who were able to not sustain much damage before the resource change also factors in..  A lot of the upper tier nations are also achieving the ability to have less reliance on their nation's income from the status of their nations via investment. 

War only closes economic gaps if it's a victory and the opponent is set back way more.  Political positioning is usually the opposite of balancing as most people don't actually want any balance and will position themselves accordingly. It usually just tilts things further in one direction. The vast majority of the alliances that have been in position to balance things never had any interest in it. It's pretty risky and often people value their material well-being over fighting competitive wars so if they take too many hits, they tend to avoid it from then on and minimize risk.  Most alliances that lose end up being worn down considerably by it and many who haven't lost don't want to take that chance. So if you have people that are willing to take hits as a group over a long term, there's ton of incentive to hunker down. It's much better to be with people who are less likely to abandon you even if it doesn't provide wins  than try to rely on people who don't have that value set and are playing to deliver on the material expectations of their memberbase or the expectation of winning. Someone that has to cater to people obsessed with their personal growth isn't going to be too reliable.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Shadowthrone said:

Also it lies due to the historical nature of NPO losing three back-to-back wars in the space of ten months. While we have more members, we had to rebuild, had a smaller economic base to grow from and also the resource changes within the game, pretty much harmed all the controls/limits, requiring us to recalibrate to the changes which further took more time. 

9 months may seem a lot, but for the economics of scale employed by NPO and also the massive growth we funded within the last six months, paints a clearer picture as to why the economics plays an important role in our decision making. We've had to play catch up to more established alliances and took the time required to even compete on that front. 

That being said, it made no sense in the past few months to run military operations, because of the tiering differences along with the costs required to run such a scenario. The costs involved would help others more than us and is the least sensible approach to the game. If anyone thought we were getting to big, that was their opening and they did not take it; we needed the time to grow. The last nine months offered us the best opportunity since our foundation, especially after kick-staring two global wars. 

We don't need to do diddly squat to fit within your narratives of how to play this game. We are doing something, and thats within our realm of control, under our plans. If you do not like it, feel free to actively create an opportunity to come at us. The idea that we are somehow responsible to act for others is ridiculous. 

 

You mean the massive economic growth which was funded using loans from Hogwarts (which is now ironically Terminal Jest). :P

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43 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

It doesn't offset it since most of those nations will have to do a lot more fighting in a global war. Whether it's the bigger nations in IQ that get down declared or the ones that have to sustain damage updeclaring. 

It doesn't matter if there's been 9 months. Someone who has a lot of nations that don't have to fight much will have a lot more than someone who has to fight. Prior accumulation by those who were able to not sustain much damage before the resource change also factors in..  A lot of the upper tier nations are also achieving the ability to have less reliance on their nation's income from the status of their nations via investment. 

War only closes economic gaps if it's a victory and the opponent is set back way more.  Political positioning is usually the opposite of balancing as most people don't actually want any balance and will position themselves accordingly. It usually just tilts things further in one direction. The vast majority of the alliances that have been in position to balance things never had any interest in it. It's pretty risky and often people value their material well-being over fighting competitive wars so if they take too many hits, they tend to avoid it from then on and minimize risk.  Most alliances that lose end up being worn down considerably by it and many who haven't lost don't want to take that chance. So if you have people that are willing to take hits as a group over a long term, there's ton of incentive to hunker down. It's much better to be with people who are less likely to abandon you even if it doesn't provide wins  than try to rely on people who don't have that value set and are playing to deliver on the material expectations of their memberbase or the expectation of winning. Someone that has to cater to people obsessed with their personal growth isn't going to be too reliable.

 

 

 

 

You've had plenty of opportunity to tilt "the balane" your way, Roq. You chose not to take it prior to Trail of tears out of fear/paranoia. That's understandable but your risk aversion is your own prerogative. You had similar opportunities to swing various alliances your way since then, but chose to hunker down in the lower tier. Again, your own prerogative. I don't really blame you for doing so, but please stop complaining about how the world is out to get you and how you're the perpetual underdog. You're not. You're a political power player with a very cautious yet pragmatic approach towards politics. That's not a bad thing. Embrace it. You can choose not to take chances for whatever reason you want, but your lack of capitalization on said chances does not mean that the chances were never there.

You've done a shitton of complaing about game balance and the like, yet refuse to acknowledge any "game balancing" attempts stemming from the other side (TKR, tS etc.). Instead you double down on the "BUT THE PAPERLESS TIES ARE STILL THERE" narrative. The combination of that narrative with subsequent hunkering down creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which there is no option but for people to take into account the inevitability of a war with IQ: A combination of hostile rhetoric and a (theoretically) mechanically unbeatable lower-mid swarm.

When conflict and tension flashpoints erupted on smaller scales between you supposed enemies, rather than capitalize, you stuck your head in the sand and hoped for war between your enemies while you could further grow your swarm. That too is absolutely fine: but when arguably one of the largest groupings in the game is looking to capitalize on growth at the expense of your war, most rational leaders are going to adopt a more dove-ish approach. Why? Because there's a large risk in being hawkish. I'd point at the TKR-HW scenario for that one.

So yes, you are a factor in the lack of conflict among ex-syndisphere. You then complain about said lack of conflict, and even go as far as state (as you did a few times in the past months) that said lack of conflict is confirmation of your assertion that paperless ties still exist. That's a rather flawed narrative. Especially considering that you've gone as far as stating that "you won't believe its a split until they war".

Circling back: Grudges aren't why IQ lost trail of tears, Roq. Nor are grudges the cause for hostile rhetoric against you, or for the current hit on you. Rather, these things are events and movements directly influenced by your own decisions as a political entity. There is no good or bad about it. But you're not a victim. Never have been. Probably never will be. You want more proof? Look at the 10 - 20 billion we loaned you during HW's time, and the various moves we (and I) have made against ex-friends and allies over the past years.

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1 hour ago, Partisan said:

 

You've had plenty of opportunity to tilt "the balane" your way, Roq. You chose not to take it prior to Trail of tears out of fear/paranoia. That's understandable but your risk aversion is your own prerogative. You had similar opportunities to swing various alliances your way since then, but chose to hunker down in the lower tier. Again, your own prerogative. I don't really blame you for doing so, but please stop complaining about how the world is out to get you and how you're the perpetual underdog. You're not. You're a political power player with a very cautious yet pragmatic approach towards politics. That's not a bad thing. Embrace it. You can choose not to take chances for whatever reason you want, but your lack of capitalization on said chances does not mean that the chances were never there.

You've done a shitton of complaing about game balance and the like, yet refuse to acknowledge any "game balancing" attempts stemming from the other side (TKR, tS etc.). Instead you double down on the "BUT THE PAPERLESS TIES ARE STILL THERE" narrative. The combination of that narrative with subsequent hunkering down creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which there is no option but for people to take into account the inevitability of a war with IQ: A combination of hostile rhetoric and a (theoretically) mechanically unbeatable lower-mid swarm.

When conflict and tension flashpoints erupted on smaller scales between you supposed enemies, rather than capitalize, you stuck your head in the sand and hoped for war between your enemies while you could further grow your swarm. That too is absolutely fine: but when arguably one of the largest groupings in the game is looking to capitalize on growth at the expense of your war, most rational leaders are going to adopt a more dove-ish approach. Why? Because there's a large risk in being hawkish. I'd point at the TKR-HW scenario for that one.

So yes, you are a factor in the lack of conflict among ex-syndisphere. You then complain about said lack of conflict, and even go as far as state (as you did a few times in the past months) that said lack of conflict is confirmation of your assertion that paperless ties still exist. That's a rather flawed narrative. Especially considering that you've gone as far as stating that "you won't believe its a split until they war".

Circling back: Grudges aren't why IQ lost trail of tears, Roq. Nor are grudges the cause for hostile rhetoric against you, or for the current hit on you. Rather, these things are events and movements directly influenced by your own decisions as a political entity. There is no good or bad about it. But you're not a victim. Never have been. Probably never will be. You want more proof? Look at the 10 - 20 billion we loaned you during HW's time, and the various moves we (and I) have made against ex-friends and allies over the past years.

I'm not really sure what you're referring to in this case. Basically every suggestion from you after the cancellations revolved around exposing ourselves by  suggesting breaking up, which wouldn't have been taking a risk but just harmful and inviting larger scale attacks than this one. If you don't blame us, then you wouldn't have done this. It's clear you took issue with it and decided to exact some form of punishment. It is what it is.  A group of people have functioned as the orbis pinatas and we're not that eager to jump and volunteer ourselves all the time. I wouldn't know any other context in which a group that always loses isn't the underdog. Caution is a product of past circumstances and we're certainly not any more cautious than any major alliances. 

It's pretty easy to tackle this. When there  was no discernible tension between the key players and the sole motivation behind the split appeared to be to browbeat IQ into disbanding, it's really suspicious and no one would trust that. To say there are no paperless ties between key players is surprising to me in that you genuinely believe that. It doesn't create a self-fulfilling narrative when hostile rhetoric precedes it. It's just a normal reaction to "you suck and lost" turning into "you're ruining everything because your bloc disband". Theoretically is simply that and even then. I see plenty of pieces that would make any war a potential big loss for IQ.

I mean if you're just referring to your situation with TKR, no one felt they were ready at the time especially when it was related to alliances we had no regular contact with.  I I don't think anyone expected conflicts to erupt with no real big divides. There isn't a real dispute besides the HW/sheltering thing.

I mean I think it's a much bigger factor that there isn't an actual big wedge issue that would turn them into competitors/rivals/enemies what have you. That was my issue with an inorganic split and our stance was always clear that it wouldn't be taken on face value. There's no incentive for friends  to fight. People aren't setting war scenarios just because it'd be interesting.  If you're still saying paperless ties absolutely do not exist, I don't really know what to tell you. I never went as far as to say there's no split until there's a war.  In so far as it's a group of people that still  agree with each other on a lot of issues and find each other compatible as partners, it's not going to change a whole bunch between the key players until there's some sort of reason.

You're just in denial here if you don't think grudges have played a role in the positioning. I don't know what to call it then, because if you're attacking because we didn't what you wanted when you wanted, that's how it comes across. Just because your past actions were beneficial, it doesn't really make the hit any less fueled by you being upset with our direction. I haven't tried to score any points on it being unprovoked an it's pointless since IQ is hated enough by the people on the forum where pointing it out is inconsequential so there wasn't even a victim angle being played, which we were even criticized for not capitalizing. However, there isn't really any other way to put it besides you hit IQ to set it back despite IQ not having any ill intent towards HW.

 

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2 hours ago, Partisan said:

You mean the massive economic growth which was funded using loans from Hogwarts

:)

1 hour ago, Partisan said:

You've had plenty of opportunity to tilt "the balane" your way, Roq. You chose not to take it prior to Trail of tears out of fear/paranoia. That's understandable but your risk aversion is your own prerogative. You had similar opportunities to swing various alliances your way since then, but chose to hunker down in the lower tier. Again, your own prerogative. I don't really blame you for doing so, but please stop complaining about how the world is out to get you and how you're the perpetual underdog. You're not. You're a political power player with a very cautious yet pragmatic approach towards politics. That's not a bad thing. Embrace it. You can choose not to take chances for whatever reason you want, but your lack of capitalization on said chances does not mean that the chances were never there.

Okay I'm going to go through this post, one paragraph at a time. Swing what alliances to our way? EMC for the most bit was intact, folks kept using the NPO bogeyman, and most of the alliances that made up EMC still hate us, or refuse to work with NPO. Folks would rather split IQ up into pieces and keep us as their whipping boys rather than working with us. We hunkered down as a rational response, working with folks who trust us and the result of that is IQ getting solidified as a core bloc of alliances. Thats a result of the circumstances that you and your folks have had a hand to play in, so no, Roq's not playing a victim card, but its a statement of fact, you and your folks refuse for the most bit to work with NPO, and we take what we can to stop remaining pinatas for you folks to hit whenever you feel like. 

1 hour ago, Partisan said:

You've done a shitton of complaing about game balance and the like, yet refuse to acknowledge any "game balancing" attempts stemming from the other side (TKR, tS etc.). Instead you double down on the "BUT THE PAPERLESS TIES ARE STILL THERE" narrative. The combination of that narrative with subsequent hunkering down creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which there is no option but for people to take into account the inevitability of a war with IQ: A combination of hostile rhetoric and a (theoretically) mechanically unbeatable lower-mid swarm.

The stance that paperless ties don't exist is laughable at best. Folks who've got no beef with each other, have members who've been friends historically and have over time been members of the same alliances, suddenly having no ties and wanting to roll each other or have some sort of friction, is a neat narrative, too bad its fiction for the most bit. If there was such friction, these folks would have been moving against each other, rather they haven't and are looking solely for IQ to break up. The chances that these folks, who've clearly not split apart in terms of relationships, taking that opportunity to frick with us again is something that may stem from paranoia, but thats because a lot of EMC/Paperless have been happier to stay away from any relationship with NPO. Thats on them, not on us. Its not a self-fulfilling prophecy when its what happened, regardless of what we wanted to do with it 

1 hour ago, Partisan said:

When conflict and tension flashpoints erupted on smaller scales between you supposed enemies, rather than capitalize, you stuck your head in the sand and hoped for war between your enemies while you could further grow your swarm. That too is absolutely fine: but when arguably one of the largest groupings in the game is looking to capitalize on growth at the expense of your war, most rational leaders are going to adopt a more dove-ish approach. Why? Because there's a large risk in being hawkish. I'd point at the TKR-HW scenario for that one.

So yes, you are a factor in the lack of conflict among ex-syndisphere. You then complain about said lack of conflict, and even go as far as state (as you did a few times in the past months) that said lack of conflict is confirmation of your assertion that paperless ties still exist. That's a rather flawed narrative. Especially considering that you've gone as far as stating that "you won't believe its a split until they war".

What are we to capitalise with? Situations that do not concern us, that have no relations to us, and also impossible for us to really change (just look at the tiers haha). We didn't really stick our heads in the sand, but rather it had nothing to do with us. We are a factor in the lack of conflict among ex-tSphere, not because of the reasons you've stated, but because we're NPO. You started that amount of douchebaggery/hatred amongst folks in your own words. Those divisions that were created in June 2016, still exist to this point where folks would prefer keeping NPO the permanent rolling pin. Nothing we can do, would change that, or else tSphere folks would have reached out, if they were interested. As circular as this discussion seemingly gets, its a two-way street when it comes to FA, but folks have preferred to blacklist NPO and by extension the lack of dynamic movement stems from the lack of ex-Syndisphere looking to do away with those narratives, or else feel free to hit us up with DMs to chat. 

1 hour ago, Partisan said:

Circling back: Grudges aren't why IQ lost trail of tears, Roq. Nor are grudges the cause for hostile rhetoric against you, or for the current hit on you. Rather, these things are events and movements directly influenced by your own decisions as a political entity. There is no good or bad about it. But you're not a victim. Never have been. Probably never will be. You want more proof? Look at the 10 - 20 billion we loaned you during HW's time, and the various moves we (and I) have made against ex-friends and allies over the past years.

Grudges are quite influential to why folks have come together to hit IQ and it stems from the fact we don't play the game on your terms. You could have been the centre of Syndisphere, Part, but get used to not being the centre of IQsphere, and expecting us to do what you want us to do. Feel free to continue hitting us. Theres no victim card being played, as much as disengagement from the narratives flowing here, since well its pretty pointless to answer folks who would prefer to not listen. 

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Yay. Walls of text to reply to! You've made my day.

Before digging into it- this is what I was hoping to draw out. More discussion. BK reverting to its shitposting ways. Now to find a way to make Zodiac competent again and the war is a complete cultural victory.

 

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4 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

Okay I'm going to go through this post, one paragraph at a time. Swing what alliances to our way? EMC for the most bit was intact, folks kept using the NPO bogeyman, and most of the alliances that made up EMC still hate us, or refuse to work with NPO. Folks would rather split IQ up into pieces and keep us as their whipping boys rather than working with us. We hunkered down as a rational response, working with folks who trust us and the result of that is IQ getting solidified as a core bloc of alliances. Thats a result of the circumstances that you and your folks have had a hand to play in, so no, Roq's not playing a victim card, but its a statement of fact, you and your folks refuse for the most bit to work with NPO, and we take what we can to stop remaining pinatas for you folks to hit whenever you feel like. 

I'll do the same, quoting one paragraph at a time then.

Alliances like Hogwarts, Sparta, the TEst successors (and before that, TEst themselves) have all at one point or another since the formation of (and prior to it) IQ, been predisposed against EMC at least as much if not more than against IQ. They are all alliances whom you at one point or another could have swung your way. That's just in the upper tier. Similar things can be said of various lower- and midtier alliances. Decisions were made at various occasions that led to no situation like that occurring. No big deal- it happens. But the claim that "there were no options" is categorically false.

Hunkering down is a rational response. It's both cause and consequence though. The claim that "I" and "My folks" have for the most part refused to work with NPO is as false as it gets as well. Prior to the formation of IQ for example, I was working actively on attempting to splinter EMC/syndisphere. TKR, tS and various others can attest to those backroom movements. During that period, I upheld contact with roquentin as well, among others and we actively discussed the viability of various options and hypothetical scenario. My FA at the time was paperless, and revolved around the creation of a defacto grouping which would function as a safety-swing for whichever syndi/emc alliance decided to break and needed the backup. Why? Because it was something different and I enjoyed the prospect.

When IQ was formed however, no invitation was given to Hogwarts prior, and the only extended hand was a somewhat post-facto invitation/request (not by roq, but by another from within IQ) to join the war against EMC/Syndi. Besides the sloppyness/communication mishap (which I was later told boiled down to a lack of/unwillingness to trust me), no real incentive was given for HW to give you our muscle. And so, I recalibrated our FA (without reverting to joining EMC/Syndi) accordingly. That is why Hogwarts went in against Zodiac in that war. Because it opened up post-war options that would help me in succesfully recalibrating that FA at the time.

Point being: That was not a grudge nor an unwillingness to work with NPO. It was a diplomatic move on roqs part (For whatever reasons he may have felt it was necessary) impacting relations.

Even then, extreme amounts of cash were still loaned to you postwar with the intent of building you up, against signifying a willingness to work with you. But i'm sure we only did that so we could hit you like a pinata later. Nothing like building and burning :P.

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The stance that paperless ties don't exist is laughable at best. Folks who've got no beef with each other, have members who've been friends historically and have over time been members of the same alliances, suddenly having no ties and wanting to roll each other or have some sort of friction, is a neat narrative, too bad its fiction for the most bit. If there was such friction, these folks would have been moving against each other, rather they haven't and are looking solely for IQ to break up. The chances that these folks, who've clearly not split apart in terms of relationships, taking that opportunity to frick with us again is something that may stem from paranoia, but thats because a lot of EMC/Paperless have been happier to stay away from any relationship with NPO. Thats on them, not on us. Its not a self-fulfilling prophecy when its what happened, regardless of what we wanted to do with it 

I'd argue that the stance that they must exist because there was no war is equally laughable :P.

There has been friction in backrooms, as well as in public. By your logic, I would never have clashed with TKR? We were best of buds when I led the Syndicate, yet here we are. These things take time though, and I suppose that my point is not that you should have immediately split in return. My point is merely that the narrative does not add up, and actually is counterproductive to what your intent was initially (if I recall your *previous* narrative). 

You keep saying that EMC/paperless have stayed away from any relationship because of grudges, but again I refer you to the example above. I similarly refer you to:

- Chola/BoC (Zodiac) who were willing to work with you despite being part of old syndisphere

- TKR approaching you post-trail of tiers on multiple occasions to talk about mutual splits and diplomatic options.

- TKR reportedly looking to cozy up to you *as we speak*

- BK despite being hardcore core syndisphere, being willing to work with you (also despite grudges)

- Hogwarts being willing to work with you on multiple occasions

If I cared to I could probably add to this list. But I think my point is made. I can dig these types of thing up throughout your history in this game if you really want to challenge it.

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What are we to capitalise with? Situations that do not concern us, that have no relations to us, and also impossible for us to really change (just look at the tiers haha). We didn't really stick our heads in the sand, but rather it had nothing to do with us. We are a factor in the lack of conflict among ex-tSphere, not because of the reasons you've stated, but because we're NPO. You started that amount of douchebaggery/hatred amongst folks in your own words. Those divisions that were created in June 2016, still exist to this point where folks would prefer keeping NPO the permanent rolling pin. Nothing we can do, would change that, or else tSphere folks would have reached out, if they were interested. As circular as this discussion seemingly gets, its a two-way street when it comes to FA, but folks have preferred to blacklist NPO and by extension the lack of dynamic movement stems from the lack of ex-Syndisphere looking to do away with those narratives, or else feel free to hit us up with DMs to chat. 

Capitalization on opportunities does not necessarily have to mean "GO TO WAR". It can mean pulling a swing, sowing dissent, scoring a PR victory or anything else. My point is that these friction points could have been leveraged to your advantage. See my previous point about upper tier alliances you could have swung, for example. Yes, I started a PR campaign back then in 2016, and while I would love to simply let it slide and take credit for being singlehandedly responsible for the permanent political isolation of a major alliance with one single stroke of brilliance, you really, really can't attribute your current situation to *that*. If by now, you have failed to overcome a single PR ploy, you don't deserve to have influence in the game if only for your incompetence. But I don't believe that, frankly. To your credit, I believe you guys are smart, and that makes this entire victimhood narrative seem disingenious to me.

And again: Plenty who have reached out over the months. Nothing has just come off of it, and that's as much if not more your own fault as it is theirs. You're right. FA is a two-way street. That means not just pointing, but also sharing the responsibility and potential blame. You're blacklisted in good part by your own hand. Re: DM chat- i'd actually be happy to talk, but that's also something I have done plenty with y'all in the past. Private. Public. Been there, done that.

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Grudges are quite influential to why folks have come together to hit IQ and it stems from the fact we don't play the game on your terms. You could have been the centre of Syndisphere, Part, but get used to not being the centre of IQsphere, and expecting us to do what you want us to do. Feel free to continue hitting us. Theres no victim card being played, as much as disengagement from the narratives flowing here, since well its pretty pointless to answer folks who would prefer to not listen. 

Actually, people did not come together to hit you per say. That's an assumption on your part. I did not decide on/reveal the targets until I had the majority of commitments and knew what I could work with. The scope of our hit was always going to be dependent on what number showed up. And people primarily showed up because they were bored and were down for a fun ride. There has been plenty of talk of other targets both before and during the war.

Various people can attest to this point. And frankly, if you had taken our white peace offer at the end of the first round, we would likely have moved on to a different target. But you chose to dig in. That's your right and prerogative, considering the situation, but let's not pretend that "we are free to continue hitting you" as if it was our choice :P. Continuing the war was yours. Justified, but still your choice.

 

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Roquentin said:

It doesn't offset it since most of those nations will have to do a lot more fighting in a global war. Whether it's the bigger nations in IQ that get down declared or the ones that have to sustain damage updeclaring.

The first is a result of your political position. You put yourself in the position of having large amounts of lower tier ties, and are staying with those ties rather than shifting away from them. Also the only reason that is true is IQ seems to have an aversion to large updeclares. If you want to play it safe that is your decision, but that is a part of your strategy not a part of some cosmic or mechanical injustice.

7 hours ago, Roquentin said:

It doesn't matter if there's been 9 months. Someone who has a lot of nations that don't have to fight much will have a lot more than someone who has to fight. Prior accumulation by those who were able to not sustain much damage before the resource change also factors in..  A lot of the upper tier nations are also achieving the ability to have less reliance on their nation's income from the status of their nations via investment. 

The original post I was responding to was talking about economic disparities. Having to fight more during war, which is a flaw of your strategy not the mechanics, is not relevant to the 9 months of accrued wealth that would happen during peace. Other IQ alliances seem to be either stagnating, or intentionally capping themselves in order to meet tiering goals.

I have no idea how much independent investment is going on, but I'm skeptical its significant enough to create or even make a slight difference to an economic disparity as large as you are claiming. I'd need to see numbers on that before I concede that point.

7 hours ago, Roquentin said:

War only closes economic gaps if it's a victory and the opponent is set back way more.  Political positioning is usually the opposite of balancing as most people don't actually want any balance and will position themselves accordingly. It usually just tilts things further in one direction.

I agree with your first sentence. but the distinction to point out is the alliances you were opposed to have split and are going in various different directions politically. We could debate whether you could actually win a war, which I would argue you can, but since we've had this argument before I'll just address your point about political positioning.

I didn't argue political positioning was balancing, I argued if you are in such a bad position, what is the justification for staying where you are rather than moving. You seem to be intentionally or accidentally creating your own situation and then using it somehow as a justification for not moving away from it which makes 0 sense. If you don't want to move that is your decision but then you can't use the consequences of that decisions as a basis for the justification and to shift the blame onto others.

7 hours ago, Roquentin said:

The vast majority of the alliances that have been in position to balance things never had any interest in it. It's pretty risky and often people value their material well-being over fighting competitive wars so if they take too many hits, they tend to avoid it from then on and minimize risk.  Most alliances that lose end up being worn down considerably by it and many who haven't lost don't want to take that chance.

All true, not really a defense. As we've seen evidence of time and time again, some alliances often will front up risk in order to achieve far less pragmatic results than the results you would get considering you are claiming you are in such a dire economic situation. We've seen this both recently and in the formation of your sphere as you've so eagerly jumped to citing in the past.

8 hours ago, Roquentin said:

So if you have people that are willing to take hits as a group over a long term, there's ton of incentive to hunker down. It's much better to be with people who are less likely to abandon you even if it doesn't provide wins  than try to rely on people who don't have that value set and are playing to deliver on the material expectations of their memberbase or the expectation of winning. Someone that has to cater to people obsessed with their personal growth isn't going to be too reliable.

So what is the overall goal then? Survival for survivals sake? This seems in stark contrast to a lot of the claims made upon IQ's formation.

Tiber was making the opposite case the other day in regards to pushing for "IQ's success as a bloc" but so far I've not seen any clear indication what that is supposed to be. 

Just to be clear, I'm trying to work out exactly what the purpose of IQ as a political entity is anymore in your minds, as its becoming increasingly difficult to discern. 

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5 hours ago, Roquentin said:

I'm not really sure what you're referring to in this case. Basically every suggestion from you after the cancellations revolved around exposing ourselves by  suggesting breaking up, which wouldn't have been taking a risk but just harmful and inviting larger scale attacks than this one. If you don't blame us, then you wouldn't have done this. It's clear you took issue with it and decided to exact some form of punishment. It is what it is.  A group of people have functioned as the orbis pinatas and we're not that eager to jump and volunteer ourselves all the time. I wouldn't know any other context in which a group that always loses isn't the underdog. Caution is a product of past circumstances and we're certainly not any more cautious than any major alliances. 

I was referring to the points already mentioned in my post to shadow. As i'm lazy, i'll just point you that way.

No, this war is not punishment nor is it "hitting the pinata", nor are you "the underdog". We did not decide on who to hit until late in the plan. Terminal Jest is not a political entity, and there is no political motive for our hit. Hogwarts is seperate from it.

With that said, The lack of communication towards HW around the formation of IQ and the inaction when HW (a "third' rival to the parties whom you so fear, at the time) squared up with TKR *are* relevant to this discussion, because they signify concrete points in our relations where foreign parties ended up not working with you as the direct consequence of your own decisions, rather than as part of some universal grudge/disposition towards you. I refer to the HW case because my involvement there means that I have complete knowledge, rather than hearsay. If I may be bold however, i'd daresay that the example is not unique in its kind, and that similar stories exist in other cases.

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It's pretty easy to tackle this. When there  was no discernible tension between the key players and the sole motivation behind the split appeared to be to browbeat IQ into disbanding, it's really suspicious and no one would trust that. To say there are no paperless ties between key players is surprising to me in that you genuinely believe that. It doesn't create a self-fulfilling narrative when hostile rhetoric precedes it. It's just a normal reaction to "you suck and lost" turning into "you're ruining everything because your bloc disband". Theoretically is simply that and even then. I see plenty of pieces that would make any war a potential big loss for IQ.

There was discernible tension between key players, as evident by TKR's current FA situation. The problem is that TKR's initial intent *was* one of hoping for mutual splits. When this did not occur, they found themselves somewhat isolated with former allies annoyed at the (seemingly unilateral) decision, yet IQ still unwilling to move. That was and is a source of tension. To say it does not exist is to stick your head in the sand.

Do you truly believe that every single EMC alliance still has a paperless agreement with one another? I do not mean informal friendship. I mean an actual agreement to assist one another? I think that's a stretch, and I think it's a stretch you're making deliberately because it suits you :P.

I should note that I don't believe you're ruining everything. I have not discriminated in who I shit on for being boring. Go ask the commonwealth what I think of them ;). Be that as it may, I do think you're boring. Is it your right? Yes. Is it something I don't like? Sure. But that's not what i'm trying to debate here. I'm merely telling you that you're not as helpless as you portray yourself sometimes.

As for there being plenty of pieces that could make a war a loss... yes. That's the nature of geopolitics in these games, and the nature of coalition warfare. Unless you literally have over half the game at your disposal, there will be plenty of pieces that could potentially swing the war into a defeat. Every leader ever has had to deal with that :P.

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I mean if you're just referring to your situation with TKR, no one felt they were ready at the time especially when it was related to alliances we had no regular contact with.  I I don't think anyone expected conflicts to erupt with no real big divides. There isn't a real dispute besides the HW/sheltering thing.

Again digging a bit further into this discussion: That was not my point. Recall that at the time I queried you with a blanket "We'll take this one on the chin, but know that this will change my disposition toward TKR moving forward"? That was a defacto open invite while allowing you plausible deniability if you so pleased. It was a "Look. Here's where I stand, but I don't need/want to know where you stand yet, because I know theres trust issues". You never followed up. Your choice not to do so. I didn't care much as I tend to keep things flexible. You didn't approach us, so we made a different plan. But it's a good example of a missed window for you.

So again... half the shit you bring forth as restricting your movement, are self-imposed limitations.

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I mean I think it's a much bigger factor that there isn't an actual big wedge issue that would turn them into competitors/rivals/enemies what have you. That was my issue with an inorganic split and our stance was always clear that it wouldn't be taken on face value. There's no incentive for friends  to fight. People aren't setting war scenarios just because it'd be interesting.  If you're still saying paperless ties absolutely do not exist, I don't really know what to tell you. I never went as far as to say there's no split until there's a war.  In so far as it's a group of people that still  agree with each other on a lot of issues and find each other compatible as partners, it's not going to change a whole bunch between the key players until there's some sort of reason.

 

See the above. I think i've already responded to this.

 

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You're just in denial here if you don't think grudges have played a role in the positioning. I don't know what to call it then, because if you're attacking because we didn't what you wanted when you wanted, that's how it comes across. Just because your past actions were beneficial, it doesn't really make the hit any less fueled by you being upset with our direction. I haven't tried to score any points on it being unprovoked an it's pointless since IQ is hated enough by the people on the forum where pointing it out is inconsequential so there wasn't even a victim angle being played, which we were even criticized for not capitalizing. However, there isn't really any other way to put it besides you hit IQ to set it back despite IQ not having any ill intent towards HW.

 

We attacked because we could. Because it seemed like a fun opportunity to suicide ourselves (we expected a loss, much quicker than what it became). We also figured if we'd be able to dip, you could be our warm up to more hits. We were mistaken on that as you refused peace ;).

You're free to pretend this is a grudge match. We've had a blast, and that's what the war was about for us.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Partisan said:

I'll do the same, quoting one paragraph at a time then.

Alliances like Hogwarts, Sparta, the TEst successors (and before that, TEst themselves) have all at one point or another since the formation of (and prior to it) IQ, been predisposed against EMC at least as much if not more than against IQ. They are all alliances whom you at one point or another could have swung your way. That's just in the upper tier. Similar things can be said of various lower- and midtier alliances. Decisions were made at various occasions that led to no situation like that occurring. No big deal- it happens. But the claim that "there were no options" is categorically false.

Hunkering down is a rational response. It's both cause and consequence though. The claim that "I" and "My folks" have for the most part refused to work with NPO is as false as it gets as well. Prior to the formation of IQ for example, I was working actively on attempting to splinter EMC/syndisphere. TKR, tS and various others can attest to those backroom movements. During that period, I upheld contact with roquentin as well, among others and we actively discussed the viability of various options and hypothetical scenario. My FA at the time was paperless, and revolved around the creation of a defacto grouping which would function as a safety-swing for whichever syndi/emc alliance decided to break and needed the backup. Why? Because it was something different and I enjoyed the prospect.

When IQ was formed however, no invitation was given to Hogwarts prior, and the only extended hand was a somewhat post-facto invitation/request (not by roq, but by another from within IQ) to join the war against EMC/Syndi. Besides the sloppyness/communication mishap (which I was later told boiled down to a lack of/unwillingness to trust me), no real incentive was given for HW to give you our muscle. And so, I recalibrated our FA (without reverting to joining EMC/Syndi) accordingly. That is why Hogwarts went in against Zodiac in that war. Because it opened up post-war options that would help me in succesfully recalibrating that FA at the time.

Point being: That was not a grudge nor an unwillingness to work with NPO. It was a diplomatic move on roqs part (For whatever reasons he may have felt it was necessary) impacting relations.

Even then, extreme amounts of cash were still loaned to you postwar with the intent of building you up, against signifying a willingness to work with you. But i'm sure we only did that so we could hit you like a pinata later. Nothing like building and burning :P.

You alone posting here that you were willing to work with us, does not somehow extend to everyone else. For the most bit, our present allies have lost other treaties just because they are allied to NPO or some leader or the other has some sort of hatred towards what Roq did to their alliance in another cyberverse. The problem does not lie with you, but more so with any alliance that could really make an effort chose not to at the time. Using the loans as some sort of great FA move by you seems disingenuous for the most bit, since a lot of it did come from HW members and HW banks, but based on other calculations than some sort of FA move. I mean, you would not be here rolling us, if those massive amounts of loans you so love to point out, was meant to be more than what they are, just making sound investments. Also for you to expect an invitation into IQ's table or any relationship with NPO deeper than a financial transaction would have required you to put in some serious effort. If Roq did not trust you, simply put you didn't try hard enough. You concede in some vague examples further on, that you opened some chats and left it at that. Given your history in wanting to frick us over, makes sense to not trust your word, unless you particularly put in any effort to make those changes.

 

3 hours ago, Partisan said:

I'd argue that the stance that they must exist because there was no war is equally laughable :P.

There has been friction in backrooms, as well as in public. By your logic, I would never have clashed with TKR? We were best of buds when I led the Syndicate, yet here we are. These things take time though, and I suppose that my point is not that you should have immediately split in return. My point is merely that the narrative does not add up, and actually is counterproductive to what your intent was initially (if I recall your *previous* narrative). 

You keep saying that EMC/paperless have stayed away from any relationship because of grudges, but again I refer you to the example above. I similarly refer you to:

- Chola/BoC (Zodiac) who were willing to work with you despite being part of old syndisphere

- TKR approaching you post-trail of tiers on multiple occasions to talk about mutual splits and diplomatic options.

- TKR reportedly looking to cozy up to you *as we speak*

- BK despite being hardcore core syndisphere, being willing to work with you (also despite grudges)

- Hogwarts being willing to work with you on multiple occasions

If I cared to I could probably add to this list. But I think my point is made. I can dig these types of thing up throughout your history in this game if you really want to challenge it.

 

Here is where you really are starting to make huge logical leaps and extrapolating a huge line of argument from my points, that at best is a straw man. I do not consider you a part of the EMC sphere or HW any practical player within the present FA scenarios at play. My point solely lies with the happenings of the last two months, while you seem to bring in examples from different periods to prove your point. The majority of your examples there were almost a year ago, within a different FA scenario, before the creation of IQ. Zodiac, CS and BK willing to work with us, had nothing to do with you, as much as their leaders deciding in flipping the FA scenarios available to the game. They literally did more to change FA scenarios than any other efforts from other folks within EMC, in the last nine months. The reason being is their willingness was unconditional, did not require NPO or our allies at the point to sign some sort of charter of what is required, as much as wanting to truly make a change and build bridges/relationships with former foes. Using those examples here, is disingenuous, especially trying to paint BK/CS/Zodiac along the same lines of present day EMC. 

That being said, I did not say that there has to be a war for friction to exist. Just that the long ties and seemingly similar cultural ties makes an amicable split hard to buy at face value. You and TKR have not been allied for a while, and enough time has elapsed for the NK drama to play out and for the natural decay of FA relationships with the change of leadership etc. Extending that logic, for us to buy these amicable splits at face value and to act immediately because folks say its all real, is at best the stupidest method of conducting FA. At this point in time, I do not believe there exists any real friction between former EMC, though there exists an opportunity for folks to start drifting away from each other. No where do I argue that these splits could not lead to any change, just within the timeframe you're all operating on and presenting to us as some sort of gospel of change; we find it hard to buy and would rather wait and watch. If any folks want to use this time to go about proving change in opinions and that the split is real, like I said our DM's are always open and we're willing to listen. Just the folks who've taken that opportunity have been extremely limited, hence continuing with the narrative that the change does not really exist within the status quo. Feel free to dig up more examples, the point will be they will only be old and older and not relevant to the debate, simply because it isn't during the EMC/IQ FA status quo of the last nine months or heck even within the last couple of months. 

 

3 hours ago, Partisan said:

Capitalization on opportunities does not necessarily have to mean "GO TO WAR". It can mean pulling a swing, sowing dissent, scoring a PR victory or anything else. My point is that these friction points could have been leveraged to your advantage. See my previous point about upper tier alliances you could have swung, for example. Yes, I started a PR campaign back then in 2016, and while I would love to simply let it slide and take credit for being singlehandedly responsible for the permanent political isolation of a major alliance with one single stroke of brilliance, you really, really can't attribute your current situation to *that*. If by now, you have failed to overcome a single PR ploy, you don't deserve to have influence in the game if only for your incompetence. But I don't believe that, frankly. To your credit, I believe you guys are smart, and that makes this entire victimhood narrative seem disingenious to me.

And again: Plenty who have reached out over the months. Nothing has just come off of it, and that's as much if not more your own fault as it is theirs. You're right. FA is a two-way street. That means not just pointing, but also sharing the responsibility and potential blame. You're blacklisted in good part by your own hand. Re: DM chat- i'd actually be happy to talk, but that's also something I have done plenty with y'all in the past. Private. Public. Been there, done that.

You do seem to have a knack of misrepresenting words during an argument. Definitely a changed Partisan from when I first knew you a few years ago heh. The PR campaign from 2016, set the steps for creating a pervasive culture within certain alliances, and members who would prefer to disband than work with NPO or something. The culture that exists because of the cross-game bullshit associated with our name, and the migration across worlds and invariably leaders of different alliances who've bought into those narratives you helped create, has not made our job easier. The fact that up until recently, most of EMCsphere had leaders who grew up within those cultural systems and acted within those frameworks of anti-NPO you helped bring into this game, is not political brilliance as much as helped reaffirm that NPO bad. Logically speaking, to change such a culture would take time and possible with alliances who want to change those narratives, case in point: BK. Of any of the former syndisphere folks, BK and us pretty much fought two wars, one of which that ended up in tense negotiations and a lot of bad blood. The cultural change started from the top and helped bring about some sort of detente and eventually led to the formation of IQ. In other EMC folks, that churn from the old to new is still ongoing, and the cultural values set up in 2016, has sort of pervaded down for quite a while. A lot of folks seem to hate us, but have had zero interactions with Roq or NPO. I mean its not overcoming a single PR ploy, as much as trying change cultural narratives which up until recently would have been difficult seeing the leadership teams of most alliances having been in place for most of 2016/2017. 

I'm still waiting to hear of this plenty who've reached out. I've been in gov of NPO for the better part of the last six months, and from what I know of serious discussions about folks reaching out have been minimal at best because none seemed to be particular serious in their efforts. Shittalking and collecting info for leaks seems to be a favourite pastime of folks here, hence our reluctance to believe in every leader/gov member who randomly opens up a chat. While I love chats, I can categorically state that its been minimal or at least overstated by you on the folks willing to work with us haha. Also since you love the snek theme, you can imagine why a lot of chats could be considered as info collection efforts rather than honest effort in building ties.

3 hours ago, Partisan said:

Actually, people did not come together to hit you per say. That's an assumption on your part. I did not decide on/reveal the targets until I had the majority of commitments and knew what I could work with. The scope of our hit was always going to be dependent on what number showed up. And people primarily showed up because they were bored and were down for a fun ride. There has been plenty of talk of other targets both before and during the war.

Various people can attest to this point. And frankly, if you had taken our white peace offer at the end of the first round, we would likely have moved on to a different target. But you chose to dig in. That's your right and prerogative, considering the situation, but let's not pretend that "we are free to continue hitting you" as if it was our choice :P. Continuing the war was yours. Justified, but still your choice.

Continuing the war was ours as much as yours with the interesting demand/timer you set for any talks. I mean if you want to seriously stop the war, then don't be a douche about it and actually you know open negotiations or discussions or w/e. Also it doesn't make sense for us to peace out after 3-4 days lol. We're not stupid folks. 

Edited by Shadowthrone
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I'll admit I was once one of the most anti-NPO people in this game (basically during my t$ days), but I don't hate NPO anymore. Nor do most of the players in this game. I don't hate IQ either, but do I hate what they currently stand for? Of course, because they stand for stagnation.

IQsphere has smart people (like Roq, Curu or Seeker), capable of interesting strategic moves and they're certainly the most powerful sphere in the game. EMC's remains don't have all the invisible treaties IQ claims, they're as tired as most of us are of shitty political dynamics and they just wanna do their own thing.

As other people said, other major alliances have also contributed for this stagnancy, but they've made moves to change things. Obviously now the only group capable of doing something significant is IQ. And contrary to popular belief, they can win major wars. They have the numbers and, if there's something this war has confirmed for me, is that their biggest enemy is their own incompetence.

IQ could have dragged us - or almost all of us - down with ease very quickly. The only reason almost all of the ones who were rolled got screwed was because we mass decommed to hit targets, in some cases overextending. I had around 200 aircraft spied away every day for about a week and a half. Literally the only thing IQ had to do to get me down was waiting till I logged off, spy away some aircraft and get like 3 16 city nations to keep dogfight airstriking the shit out of my planes. The same goes for pretty much the rest of TJ.

Instead IQ only tried to drag us down when, for one reason or another, we were already low on aircraft. And in the meantime we were just running around, causing their sphere a shit ton of damage. If they start being at least average, coordination wise, they can own this game, period. And right now they can even afford continuing to suck, because there's no real opposition to them.

As for this war, it was just a kamikaze thing. Despite having overperformed, we always knew the vast majority of TJ was gonna get rekt. It was honestly just for the fun of it. Sadly I imagine we'll have to wait a long time to see something as interesting as this happen on Orbis. It's a game, you're supposed to have fun and do something to shake things up, which I believe was one of the main reasons IQ was formed.

I personally am having a blast. I rolled and got rolled, and I just hope IQ does something with their current position, seen as they have the means. Otherwise they'll just keep doing what they've accused Syndisphere of: drowning in a ton of paper and doing next to nothing with it.

Edited by Insert Name Here
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