Limiting unjustified diplomatic actions

[vonGenf]

negative example is in my opinion arcarea, that quickly moved from long-negotiated peace to war, even if she was not party directly involved in ga-cathay troubles, in my opinion just to use favorable disposition of military forces. ordering attack and than declaring war 15 minutes before turn-change is one of my the least respected things in the whole game, and falls into similar category. there is no any rp-ing justification for use of diplomatic buttons for military tactical purposes, in my personal opinion, that just leaves bad taste.

Not everybody was surprised at this, to say the least. Maybe you're not hanging out in the right circles?

The problem with your proposal is that rulers would be forced to drop the alliance at the first sign of tension. It is normal that alliances keep existing on paper even when tensions exist, and get torn apart only at the last minute.

[Indirik]

that is matter of personal opinion that would fit much better to i-c grievances. my opinion is, for instance, that cathay betrayed alliance as they had obligation to help against annoying third parties, and they completely rejected to provide it.

Was there a treaty in effect in which Cathay promised to help GA attack realms which took actions to defend their borders against Aenilian trespassers? Xarnelf requested permission to travel through OW territory to "help negotiate" in Arcachon. His request was denied. I believe it was only on his third trip through OW to make clandestine investments in Arcachon regions, thus aiding Arachon in their war against Arcaea in direct violation of the Peace of Ahael, and his having already been warned not to pass through OW twice already, that something happened. If Xarnelf hadn't been violating OW's territory against OW's specific injunctions and warnings, and also violating a peace treaty he signed, then he would not have been in Nbasah, where he was stabbed. Not only that, but GA has no proof at all that OW was involved in the incident.

having different opinion about i-c issues should be natural way of developing conflicts, and devs would not have to make efforts how to adjust too-much-peace code. unfortunately, there is tendency to align opinions both ic and ooc, which eventually leads to ... g-b wars.

That's just pure bull!@#$. The Arcaea/GA war is nowhere near a gang-bang, and had nothing at all to do with *anything* OOC. Everything that happened is directly attributable to specific IC actions and situations. And how the hell can you possibly accuse Arcaea/OW/Cathay v GA/Arcachon/PoZ/Kindara of being a gang-bang against GA? OW and Cathay are about as useless in a war as you could possibly get. GA knew full well what it was getting into, and deliberate provoked the war anyway. You would be more credible calling this war a gang-bang against Arcaea. Except that it's not a gang-bang at all. In any sense of the word.

Which, by the way, is perfectly fine with me. The game is boring without a few good wars to spice things up. I'm *glad* the war started. My character will be happy to see some of these realms get the crap knocked out of them. On both sides of the war.

[Stue (DC)]

Arcaea was allied to OW before any of this happened. OW knew that Cathay was denying passage to GA. (They told us this.) We also knew that if GA ignored this, and marched anyway, that GA would be violating a treaty they had signed with Arcaea and Cathay. And If that happened, we knew that Arcaea would attack GA. We knew that Arcaea *wanted* to attack GA, and had wanted this for some time. The Peace of Ahael (I think that's the name) was the only thing holding them back. Once GA broke that, it was Game On for Arcaea.

there is no any game when one side has three or four time more players than the other, and they joint having no much care for long-term history, but for mere sake of gang-banging, that is almost non-playable, as those massibe allinances are, they stall the game completely.

I'm assuming that GA knew all of this, and *expected* to be attacked by Arcaea. They almost certainly knew that Arcaea would attack them back, but probably thought that Arcaea was too busy in the north with Arcachon to free up enough forces to act quickly. Too bad for GA that they telegraphed their intentions for a week or so before the attack, so that Arcaea had plenty of time to prepare.

what you call "telegraphing" was mostly attempt to RP war through medieval-flavored actions, on continent that praise to be rp-ing. war has become because of offense, it is properly and intentionally notified in advance to avoid any thought of blietzkrieg non-medieval flavored surprise attack. it was declared after diplomatic talks were stopped.

And, to be brutally honest, isn't this the kind of thing that you're advocating for? GA gave plenty of warning as to what was going to happen, giving Arcaea plenty of time to prepare for the war. Isn't this exactly what you wanted? Except that this time it apparently worked against you, thus you don't really like the results.

not at all, we were much quicker than opponents even after all advance notifications, probably because of ultimate complacency. again, going from peace to war within one day is worst part of the story, that is nothing but button-playing.

i am advocating significant time delay between two diplomatic changes.

again, they could fulfill all their allied obligations through neutral stance, changing from peace to war in one day is tasteless.

This wasn't an unexpected commando/ninja/specop raid. You seem to be the only who didn't know that Arcaea would attack GA. And if GA didn't know, too bad for them. It just underscores how blind they were to the political situation on the island. (But I don't believe that. I think they knew exactly what they were provoking.)

"political situation" is: 130-140 players is ganging against 30; 25 other players consider joining stronger side...

with enough obstacles, the mentioned being one of them, and emphasis on consequent playing your characters, two strongest realms on the continent would never joint against some weak opponent, they would be simply too proud for that.

Hard to organize? They marched 12 nobles through a Cathayan region to loot some undefended OW regions. What's so hard to organize about that?

they marched through three or four cathay regions around arcarean lands to respect their peace treaty, with advance notifications, with warnings sent by cathay, yet showed incomparably larger effectiveness than the other side, maybe not much, but better than others at that moment. though when gang-bang rules, nothing else matters...

[Indirik]

there is no any game when one side has three or four time more players than the other, and they joint having no much care for long-term history, but for mere sake of gang-banging, that is almost non-playable, as those massibe allinances are, they stall the game completely.

At this point, I have no choice but to assume that you have no clue what you're talking about, and are being deliberately misleading, if not outright lying. You have no clue what the "long-term history" of the realms involved is, nor how the true political landscape of FEI lays out, and willfully choose to interpret this as "Everybody is cheating and abusing the game".

I'm done with this conversation.

[Heq]

Heeheeheehee,
Oh my.  No, Alliances are often with people you -hate-, not even dislike, but hate-hate-hate.  Leave aside the idea that it's a gangbang when GA is winning the war in the south and OW is being absolutely devestated by Arcachon, but OW and Arcachon were long term "allies" who have never been friends per say, but just didn't have a reason to attack each other and so said "Eh, look, we're uh, friends?" while sharpening their knives.

Xarnelf helping Arcachon led to pretty much exactly what OW and Arcaea didn't want from the start, and what Cathay is now desperately trying to avoid, which is another total war in which half of the FEI gets burned to the ground.

If anyone should complain about a potential gangbang it should be Cathay, but they entered the war (second to) last and chose their fate, especially if the wind blows the other way and C'thonia/Kindara shanks them.

This who FEI continent wide war is really even, Arcaea/OW/Cathay start with an edge, but due to their lack of food they effectively have a timer running on their war machine.  It's really exciting.

[Indirik]

Xarnelf helping Arcachon led to pretty much exactly what OW and Arcaea didn't want from the start

It's actually pretty much *exactly* what I wanted. Which is why I made sure the war started, exactly as it did. (You're welcome.) And I'm pretty sure that Arcaea did want a war with GA. Though it's maybe not quite turning out quite how they envisioned. I doubt anyone could have foreseen the sheer magnitude of OW's incompetence. I sure didn't. I mean, I knew it would be bad, but this is just... I can't even think of a word to describe it.

Also, I was warning the OW council for *months* that this would happen, way back when Galiard first decided that OW's obligations to help Arcaea on the island had been fulfilled. Too bad most of the people there were so short-sighted that they couldn't manage to see past next Tuesday...

This who FEI continent wide war is really even, Arcaea/OW/Cathay start with an edge, but due to their lack of food they effectively have a timer running on their war machine.  It's really exciting.

It will be interesting to see how it ends. Not sure I'll stick around that long, though. I may have to learn about the end result via trans-continental carrier pigeon.

[Stue (DC)]

At this point, I have no choice but to assume that you have no clue what you're talking about, and are being deliberately misleading, if not outright lying. You have no clue what the "long-term history" of the realms involved is, nor how the true political landscape of FEI lays out, and willfully choose to interpret this as "Everybody is cheating and abusing the game".

I'm done with this conversation.

it is your own interpretation, not my statement in any of my posts, that gang-bang equals cheating and abusing.

on contrary, i think most of what i called gang-bang is developed i-c but through one sort of pragmatism which is in my opinion rather tasteless and kills lot of fun, and is partly caused by game mechanics, partly by some sort of culture where buttons have priority over in-game justifications.

[Stue (DC)]

Not everybody was surprised at this, to say the least. Maybe you're not hanging out in the right circles?

The problem with your proposal is that rulers would be forced to drop the alliance at the first sign of tension. It is normal that alliances keep existing on paper even when tensions exist, and get torn apart only at the last minute.

the only surprise came from expectation that all that will be much more comprehensively rp-ed.

again, many things are matter of personal opinions. what you consider normal, i consider ultimately abnormal.

[Bedwyr]

Stue, you don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Arcaea and GA have been fighting on and off since '07, if not before.  We made a temporary "we'll kind of work together" when we both decided to help the Akadian League, and we went to a full alliance against the Southern Federation after it sacked Anacan, but that was only because Cathay had been attacked, and GA and Cathay had been allied since (I believe) their respective formations.

When Arcaea attacked Zonasa, Aenilia did it's level best to screw with Arcaea's attack, which resulted in Arcaea destroying an Aenilian army and letting lose black-market traders and infils.  That only didn't become a full-scale war because Cathay warned that they'd intervene on Aenilia's side if it continued.  So we backed off.  Then Aenilia orchestrated a "training maneuver" that looked like an all-out attack on Talex (and I still think it would have been one if they hadn't seen they'd lose), and the fall-out from that resulted in the Peace of Ahael.

Then Xarnelf proceeded to violate the Peace of Ahael by providing gold and investing in Arcachon, but Cathay was reluctant to accept it as a violation because they would have had to declare war on Aenilia.  OW got pissed because Xarnelf was ignoring their demands that he stay out of their land, and had him stabbed.  So, GA declares war on Ohnar West.

Cathay, allied to Ohnar West, decides that if Xarnelf didn't want to be stabbed he should have stayed out of OW when they told him to get out of their lands, and refused to let Aenilian forces move through.  GA ignored this, violated the territorial sovereignty of one Arcaean ally to attack another Arcaean ally.

I warned Xarnelf a week before the attack that if he actually attacked Ohnar West Arcaea would respond with all-out war (once I cleared it with Cathay to make sure they were on board).  I then specifically warned him a day before he moved into Cathay that Arcaea would fight.  And then warned that unless his troops returned to Aenilia within a day of entering Colasan that we'd attack.

Hostilities were officially declared when we dropped to neutral with Aenilia.  The fact that the war declaration didn't happen until shortly before turn is because I didn't get on until then, and several people in Arcaea remember when Aenilia launched a true sneak attack with not a word indicating they were even thinking of hostilities from Lasop to Remton.

In other words: Arcaea and GA have been wanting to fight for months.  Once the barrier to them fighting was removed (Cathay) fighting began immediately.  The Arcaea/Cathay/OW side is (currently) losing the war, which makes your claim of a gangbang so utterly ridiculous that there are no words.  Xarnelf knew exactly what he was doing, and he'd laid the groundwork for the whole thing weeks if not months in advance.  This is a war that has been building, essentially, since the Sunset Crusade finished and I don't think a single one of the Rulers were surprised by how anything turned out.

So, yeah, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, and you're wrong on every single point.

[Stue (DC)]

even if i would make particular effort, i would hardly reach ideal situation to be wrong on any point.

in these threads, it seems subject easily slips into something else. my desire was not to discuss in details about diplomatic situation in any continent, i tried just to finish some argument.

shortly: all if not everything could be gained through lowering relations from peace to neutral and all those talks about diplomatic background were not relevent for the main subject. of this thread, which is - to not allow subsequent changes of diplomatic stance in too short time

shortly: peace was being negotiated for weeks and weeks, than relations were dropped from peace to neutral and from neutral to war in extremely short time, than takeover of second largest city has began about one hour after (incredibly hasted) war declaration. war declaration: 17,45 p.m  takeover attempt: 18'45 p.m.

shortly: that is very unrealistic and put more focus on game mechanics than on any storyline.

i don't call it use-abuse-cheat, just bad taste mechanics tweak could prevent...

[Bedwyr]

Again: The timeline for hostilities was given a week in advance, and the peace process dragged on because neither side wanted it, it was only Cathay putting it's foot down.

And again, if Aenilia didn't want to get attacked, they shouldn't have attacked one ally, violated the territory of another, and broke the most important term of the peace treaty that you keep returning to.  What, precisely, do you think the appropriate response to breaking a peace treaty is?

[De-Legro]

Heeheeheehee,
Oh my.  No, Alliances are often with people you -hate-, not even dislike, but hate-hate-hate.  Leave aside the idea that it's a gangbang when GA is winning the war in the south and OW is being absolutely devestated by Arcachon, but OW and Arcachon were long term "allies" who have never been friends per say, but just didn't have a reason to attack each other and so said "Eh, look, we're uh, friends?" while sharpening their knives.

Xarnelf helping Arcachon led to pretty much exactly what OW and Arcaea didn't want from the start, and what Cathay is now desperately trying to avoid, which is another total war in which half of the FEI gets burned to the ground.

If anyone should complain about a potential gangbang it should be Cathay, but they entered the war (second to) last and chose their fate, especially if the wind blows the other way and C'thonia/Kindara shanks them.

This who FEI continent wide war is really even, Arcaea/OW/Cathay start with an edge, but due to their lack of food they effectively have a timer running on their war machine.  It's really exciting.

You realise Arcaea actually produces enough food for their needs these days right? Only just, but if we get bad harvest its just  a matter of rationing. The recent starvations were due to losing a banker at a poor time, not an actual shortage of food.

[De-Legro]

even if i would make particular effort, i would hardly reach ideal situation to be wrong on any point.

in these threads, it seems subject easily slips into something else. my desire was not to discuss in details about diplomatic situation in any continent, i tried just to finish some argument.

shortly: all if not everything could be gained through lowering relations from peace to neutral and all those talks about diplomatic background were not relevent for the main subject. of this thread, which is - to not allow subsequent changes of diplomatic stance in too short time

shortly: peace was being negotiated for weeks and weeks, than relations were dropped from peace to neutral and from neutral to war in extremely short time, than takeover of second largest city has began about one hour after (incredibly hasted) war declaration. war declaration: 17,45 p.m  takeover attempt: 18'45 p.m.

shortly: that is very unrealistic and put more focus on game mechanics than on any storyline.

i don't call it use-abuse-cheat, just bad taste mechanics tweak could prevent...

Problem is, so far only you are claiming there is anything truly wrong with it. When your personal opinion fails to gather support, at what stage do you think that perhaps the bulk of the player prefer it the way things are?

You hit the nail on the head, its purely game mechanics. In 99% of cases both realms know what is coming and have time to prepare LONG before the official declaration. The fact that your character is not privy to a large amount of letters and RP's around this certainty doesn't mean they didn't happen

Also please stop calling FEI the RP island, that experiment failed. FEI is now a normal island that just happens to have a strong RP culture.

[Velax]

I think my IQ just dropped 10 points reading Stue's posts.

[Stue (DC)]

Problem is, so far only you are claiming there is anything truly wrong with it. When your personal opinion fails to gather support, at what stage do you think that perhaps the bulk of the player prefer it the way things are?

You hit the nail on the head, its purely game mechanics. In 99% of cases both realms know what is coming and have time to prepare LONG before the official declaration. The fact that your character is not privy to a large amount of letters and RP's around this certainty doesn't mean they didn't happen

Also please stop calling FEI the RP island, that experiment failed. FEI is now a normal island that just happens to have a strong RP culture.

in this thread I heard only few more vocal players who state that abrupt diplomatic changes is what they like and prefer, and discussion is based on arguments, not on bulk of loud, and sometimes rude, voices.

to your information, i had approach to if not 100%, than to say 95% of all relevant letters of the mentioned period which extends to 4-5 rl months before mentioned period, but again, that is slipping off the subject.

if peace is being negotiated for many, many weeks, where it is completely irrelevant why it was dragged so much, to be "effectively" broken from peace to war in express-quick period of time, to help tactical military purposes, i simply consider that bad taste. that is my opinion, personal opinion, discussions are place for stating opinions and number of loud voices who would just put pressure by loudness is not what will change that.

if your opinion is different, and you think that is good playing actually, than you should state so, changing subject will also not help if we are to develop some discussion.

and it is by no means my opinion only, as stated in posts, there are already many things put in place (in game mechanics) related to that, I actually just think that should be emphasized more.