The Last great War?

[Heartless]

lokken - I was merely pointing out that elviz seems to be more lucky than almost every other person when it comes to stealing ships, see the parsed scan gzambo provided (I could actually link to the news scan here but that is against the rules).

AngryDuck - the last real war was round 15, I propose, maybe even round 13. Since then I haven't seen a single alliance devastating their proposed enemy. I can imagine that CT probably has the amount of incoming 1up had in the rounds you were among us, but the overall quality of the game had dropped by then already. The rounds you witnessed in 1up had nothing of the intensity of a round 13 war against eXilition. I agree that considering the shorter round length a war is much less profitable, but then again if you want some kind of recognition for your alliance to be on par with a top alliance like legion, fury, exi or 1up, then you should go and utterly crush your opposition (and now don't come here with some kind of "but with prelaunch it is impossible to kill someone"-yadda-yadda, exilition and 1up both prove that even with the current game mechanics it is possible to kill an alliance).
- Just because you wanted me to comment on the issue.

[bwtmc]

Originally Posted by aNgRyDuCk

kiez, thing is, it all depends on what you consider a war. Now what has happened in the last 2-3 rounds isn't neccesarily "must see tv" but if anyone thinks the alliances fighting for the #1 spot haven't been hitting each other non stop they really have no clue. We have banged it out this round vs jenova and vgn from the start.... it is a war, it's opponents niether side can just brush aside. It is war in every sense of what a war is. 2-3 alliances banging each other, duking it out night after night.... that ain't sunday school. You let up for one night you end up on the short side of it.

Germania, this is what I was talking about. I'm not seriously suggesting all CT have done all round is attack galaxies. I'm saying that there's a real lack of intensity in the fighting between these alliances. There doesn't seem to be the fighting mentality we used to see. I can think of a few times Angels have fought in this way and I think if they were here today, they'd probably be doing quite well in this environment. Personally, I've never fought in a war like that, I've only ever played for an alliance that's been doing everything it can to win until it can't win any more or has put winning beyond all doubt. This might 'end up on the short side of it' stuff doesn't sound much like wartime to me. The planned targetting might be there, but the intensity and the military drive isn't. There's attacking your enemies in the hope you'll nip across the line first and there's attacking them in the knowledge they can't come back to win.

I don't really get your point with regard to eXilition and going after roids. It should go without saying that we only targetted 1up in so far as it satisfied our goal of winning. Just as they'd only respond for as long as they thought they needed to fight us / were playing for first. Obviously, R15 we had to keep fighting other alliances until the end, R18 was very different and for a while it made most sense for us to accumulate score and get stronger. Our primary goals were always for alliance success and if we achieved those, within reason, we'd try and help members achieve any personal goals they had. It's not rocket science, although I suppose alliances now seem more content to let those secondary goals come before what were our primary goals back then.

Ironically, in a way, this round's been what I've been asking for forever, a close competition between several alliances and in some ways it's good to watch.

[JonnyBGood]

It's interesting to hypothesize how an alliance like exilition or 1up, or anyone willing to play at the same level, would do in PA. Because of the lack of a perceived counterweight every other alliance would have to go full out against them from the start. In fact the first week or so of this round saw this happen partly to ascendancy when, due to a variety of factors, the perceived danger, the release of intel, the fact we're complete dicks, ascendancy received a pretty high amount of incoming. That said I presume someone like exi or 1up would actually go out and ally people or something.

Edit: With regards to elviz, I was actually referring to the planets he hits and how back in "the day" a top planet hitting planets not even in top ten alliances would have been looked on, not any accusations of cheating.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Because of the lack of a perceived counterweight every other alliance would have to go full out against them from the start.

This is an interesting idea too but by far false and not realistic. You can't expect alliances to function as by rational setup would be to achieve a position where winning the round is possible. Say, round 17. It was, at one point, pretty well perceived, that 1up is going to take ahead once it tags up. At this point, everything was pretty much settled for the three others to target 1up, until two broke off and decided to target the standing leader. Obviously, one could call this rational tactics too - attempting to have the standing leader hit the obvious challenger hard, and to grab a third party role to climb atop of things. After this happened, the standing leader of that point had no intrest whatsoever to make deals with the two others without proof of heavy commitment, to which the two others weren't prepared for. To top it in the end, one of the three non-1up contenders decided to eventually ally 1up in order to claim the second place, which they obviously didn't.

What went wrong?

Another strange bit of empirical data that dates to the round after, round 18, correlates very negatively with data given. eXilition and 1up started off as natural contenders for the first seat, with Subh behind them, Omen coming fourth, Escape behind, xVx behind them. Quite soon eXilition started pulling ahead of 1up. As your hypothesis goes, by logic both Omen and Subh should now stand up to target the leader to prevent the inevitable from happening. In fact, up to this point your theory stands well - negotiations with Sid proceeded, Omen was found willing to target eXilition with 1up given it could be agreed that Subh would at least stay off the ramble, and under no circumstances ally eXilition. Apophis, as their head of politics, was keen on joining in, and gave a deadline for the Subh descision. Again, your logic seems good. The three behind the number one mounting a cooperated effort to pull the leader back. Since the agreement with Apophis, though, Subh high command was nowhere to be reached, and the night after their announced descision deadline broke off Omen was heavily targeted by xVx, Escape, and Subh. Unlike in the previous example, this instance held little logic at all, and the reasons for it happening are still today a mystery to me. At this point, we took our own stance, battled it off, and made agreements with eXilition soon after the smoke had cleared.

What went wrong?

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Edit: With regards to elviz, I was actually referring to the planets he hits and how back in "the day" a top planet hitting planets not even in top ten alliances would have been looked on, not any accusations of cheating.

Do the multihunters do cross-round comparisons of IP addresses etc?

I'm just curious to see if these planets that keep "suiciding" on elviz are from the same IPs as planets that have "suicided" on him in past rounds...

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Do the multihunters do cross-round comparisons of IP addresses etc?

Hardly. That sounds too intelligent for the MH team.

[JonnyBGood]

You misunderstand me keizari. Irrelevant of any perfect rational actors scenario I believe the real political scene is set-up to be weighted against an exilition or 1up type-ally. Primarily because what I think will happen has to happen at the start of the round before any other targetting or whatever can take place and create the sort of bad blood or allow for the type of outright stupidity that means the results get twisted around. That said maybe everyone will be too appallingly mediocre to do anything. However if red is right all the current alliances, being really close together in skill or whatever and at a reasonably high level of performance, they'll hit the 1up/exi-style alliance out of contention.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by Heartless

but then again if you want some kind of recognition for your alliance to be on par with a top alliance like legion, fury, exi or 1up, then you should go and utterly crush your opposition

Who asked for such recognition? We formed CT to provide a home for good players and to win rounds, we never claimed we were going to form the greatest alliance in PA history, something that I challenge you or anyone else to do with the current player base.

[JonnyBGood]

Then, really, you're going to have threads like this every once in a while.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by K-W

Who asked for such recognition? We formed CT to provide a home for good players and to win rounds, we never claimed we were going to form the greatest alliance in PA history, something that I challenge you or anyone else to do with the current player base.

This gotta be the post of the round.

[K-W]

bwtmc

Planetarion has been losing intensity for years. Nothing CT or Jenova or any other alliance can do is going to re-energize the PA player base.

My point about exilition is that CT's tactics are no different, but we aren't exilition and this is round 22.

Ironically, in a way, this round's been what I've been asking for forever, a close competition between several alliances and in some ways it's good to watch.

Yes this round is a competition because the alliances actually are playing to win. People aren't working as hard as they did in round 15 because its round 22, not because they aren't still trying to win. Meanwhile there is an awful lot of work being done, and while it may not impress you it doesn't deserve to be dismissed or denied.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by Heartless

lokken - I was merely pointing out that elviz seems to be more lucky than almost every other person when it comes to stealing ships, see the parsed scan gzambo provided (I could actually link to the news scan here but that is against the rules)..

Quite honestly I find it hard to believe you are being genuine as it came across as rather sarcastic.

As evidence has been pasted I am content for now. People are free to draw their own opinion from it.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by K-W

bwtmc

Planetarion has been losing intensity for years. Nothing CT or Jenova or any other alliance can do is going to re-energize the PA player base.

My point about exilition is that CT's tactics are no different, but we aren't exilition and this is round 22.



Yes this round is a competition because the alliances actually are playing to win. People aren't working as hard as they did in round 15 because its round 22, not because they aren't still trying to win. Meanwhile there is an awful lot of work being done, and while it may not impress you it doesn't deserve to be dismissed or denied.

I don't think it's reasonable to ask for intensity; it is simply no longer worth it. Beating Fury, Legion and Xanadu was a real challenge, so was ultimately worth it in terms of playing the game because it was a real achievement. What I do think is reasonable is to expect BC's to think aggressively and to be intelligent in their target selection so that real damage (be it psychological or otherwise) is done on top of roids being capped. We don't see alliances cut apart, when it's actually still very possible to do this.

From last round, Ascendancy obviously showed it was possible, they just lacked the motivation and conviction to carry it out on a serious level - but that's inherent with an alliance like Asc.

[aNgRyDuCk]

Originally Posted by Heartless

AngryDuck - the last real war was round 15, I propose, maybe even round 13. Since then I haven't seen a single alliance devastating their proposed enemy. I can imagine that CT probably has the amount of incoming 1up had in the rounds you were among us, but the overall quality of the game had dropped by then already. The rounds you witnessed in 1up had nothing of the intensity of a round 13 war against eXilition.

round 13 was my first round in 1up, I was there to experience it.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by aNgRyDuCk

round 13 was my first round in 1up, I was there to experience it.

I don't remember having seen you there... but then again, a few years passed since then

[Game^]

Originally Posted by Heartless

I don't remember having seen you there... but then again, a few years passed since then

He probably joined the last week or something.

Same as you, I thought his first "true" roid, was round 14

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Say, round 17. It was, at one point, pretty well perceived, that 1up is going to take ahead once it tags up.

Economics also assumes perfect information. This isn't any more true in planetarion than it is in the real world. The actual payoffs could be very different than alliances perceive.

And being that this is subjective, different policymakers may have different perceptions. In r17 ND & InS hit Omen after about 2 weeks. I believed the payoffs were greatest if we continued this non-stop until you were broken, before moving onto 1up. Different policymakers saw different payoffs and so an erratic and ineffective policy was pursued.


This lack of information is a huge contributor as to why no other group of alliances ever took down 1up or eXilition. They all thought they could do better by staying out of it, taking the cheap roids from people who were hitting eX or whatever. Which, in hindsight, was a bit silly.

I think a PA without 1up or eXilition has a lot of potential; because it gives more people a chance to win; a kind of balance of power which should open up more strategies.

I'd like to know what went wrong

[aNgRyDuCk]

Originally Posted by Game^

He probably joined the last week or something.

Same as you, I thought his first "true" roid, was round 14

actually I left ND 3 weeks prior to round 13's tickstart when mazz and Sid hired me as Senior MO, to run attacks. Became HC in round 14.

[Game^]

Originally Posted by aNgRyDuCk

actually I left ND 3 weeks prior to round 13's tickstart when mazz and Sid hired me as Senior MO, to run attacks. Became HC in round 14.

I thought it was like but but plus 1 round, thats the way i remember it anyway.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Gate

I think a PA without 1up or eXilition has a lot of potential; because it gives more people a chance to win; a kind of balance of power which should open up more strategies.

I'd like to know what went wrong

You don't have to put in as much effort and intelligent thought to do well. Why should you? In case you appear more dangerous and 5 other alliances gang**** you and you can't recruit past 70 people anyways and just get crushed by a boring numbers game making your higher level of skill irrelevant and forcing you to play in tired, predictable and tedious ways?

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Gate

Economics also assumes perfect information.

And that's about as wrong as it gets. Economics doesn't assume perfect information. A branch of economical studies may assume perfect information (for example the rational , but for example Keynesian theory base their theories on information not being perfect). Perhaps the most famous of "perfect information" would be the rational expectations theory by John Muth and later Lucas Jr. If economics did assume perfect information, why would anyone have ever bothered to research into symptoms like moral hazard and adverse selection? True enough they can't excist as perfect information is assumed!

My relevance to perfect information was...

Originally Posted by JBG

It's interesting to hypothesize how an alliance like exilition or 1up, or anyone willing to play at the same level, would do in PA. Because of the lack of a perceived counterweight every other alliance would have to go full out against them from the start.

This assumes a wide length of information. I was merely giving empirical evidence against the hypothesis that it would work like this - why not - because people might not perceive that they're dominant, or they might still not be interested in doing anything about it, even if it was rational and logical to do so under given information.

And being that this is subjective, different policymakers may have different perceptions. In r17 ND & InS hit Omen after about 2 weeks. I believed the payoffs were greatest if we continued this non-stop until you were broken, before moving onto 1up. Different policymakers saw different payoffs and so an erratic and ineffective policy was pursued.

This isn't the situation I am talking about, though. ND and Insomnia coordianted on Omen on two occasions: early round, which was soon ceased as Insomnia wanted to draw back after we left ND alone and started hitting them. This wasn't very interesting. The funny instance of the first two-week run was, though, that it didn't take too long for one of the participating parties to come to the conclusions that it's going to be too costly for them to continue targeting Omen until they should break (the irony of which runs from the assumption that new alliances break easily, and given the reputation of the other of the participating alliances - everyone figures out the rest).

The second issue was when ReligFree gave me his word that ND will not hit Omen, after suggesting that 1up needs to be targeted and us agreeing to it. The following night ND and Insomnia targeted Omen, which was the end of that pact for me - after this targeting ended, there was a meeting held (lead by sjor) where I wasn't, for given reasons (of course, herein came the excuse of "information cutoff" between ND high command that caused the left hand to punch while the right hand was signing the contract, which for obvious reasons wasn't alone credible enough), very keen on cooperating with the named faction. This is a drivel all over done, and if needed, I can again post the logs on forums (which I probably have done earlier), to pinpoint the date and time where ReligFree, introducing himself as military high command of ND, gives his promise, talks about how he will further proceed to talking to Insomnia, and again track back to defence bot logfiles on the following night.

This lack of information is a huge contributor as to why no other group of alliances ever took down 1up or eXilition. They all thought they could do better by staying out of it, taking the cheap roids from people who were hitting eX or whatever. Which, in hindsight, was a bit silly.

Indeed. The lack of information or misevaluating of it (the Insomnia, NewDawn, Omen issue perhaps), and the irrational choices, adverse selection, (the PMS-shredded descision of xVx to join the war against Omen - a war which they joined because there was a single Omen member a single xVx lead member did not like, or shall we say, hated - this all was nothing at all in the benefits of the alliance) will obviously affect what happens.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Keizari

This assumes a wide length of information. I was merely giving empirical evidence against the hypothesis that it would work like this - why not - because people might not perceive that they're dominant, or they might still not be interested in doing anything about it, even if it was rational and logical to do so under given information.

You insist on failing to understand me! I think that the game would be weighted against any new superpower alliance for a number of concrete reasons, beyond "they're the best and should be targetted heavily". First of all if this round has shown us much it's that in the current state of affairs there's not a huge difference between any of the top five or six alliances. Secondly a superpower alliance returning to PA is very different to what will have gone before. R19 exilition pretended to play understrength, r18 exi vs 1up was the initial starting state of affairs, r17 it wasn't clear at the start that 1up were the 1up of previous rounds. A new superpower alliance will either return bringing a large number of top players back or take a large number of top players from other alliances. This is very obvious and exceptionally difficult to hide. Moreover people are now very suspicious of any devious plans to win the game (just look at what people thought descendancy was for this round). Finally because all these situations will be relatively clear at the start of the round the opportunity for bad blood and grudges to build will be negligible in comparison to earlier rounds.

People will perceive them as the greatest threat and people do appear to be interested in winning.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

You insist on failing to understand me!

I'm good at it, aren't I!

People will perceive them as the greatest threat and people do appear to be interested in winning.

The concept is still very debateable. Whether the current standing "cream of crop" would be interested in even starting to target a new evident superpower from the start off is hard to say. Why? Everyone's always afraid of having to take the retaliation, to start off with. One could say, that in that aspect alliances today are more careful than before. While I do try understand your point, I still don't see it happening, because people would plain lack balls, someone would cut a deal in hope of a shiny second spot or just to sooth their egoes having made deals with "legendary characters" like Sid. (A harsh comparsion: when talking about Sid, a lot of people say he's awesome in many ways, and that the mere "presense" can be inspiring; the same is said about Kaifux. I've (looking at myself as an average player) to an extent worked with both and never experienced the feeling, but it's clear that certain people (hereas the referance to xVx) will often be perserved, how true or not, as serfs to certain factions).

edit. again, even if there was a correct evaluation of the situation, bizzarre logics and irrational descisions may (and probably to an extent) will happen that might prevent the block from forming. here, I prefer to refering to xVx round 17, who joined the Subh (who had the gain of getting more edge over Omen) and Escape (who had the gain of passing Omen in score) against Omen for... No evident reason but the fact that a certain leader of theirs was pissed off with a certain member of ours.

Originally Posted by JBG

r17 it wasn't clear at the start that 1up were the 1up of previous rounds

Yeah. It still puzzles to me (regarding my rant above) how the actual evaluation of 1up being strong managed to dodge people's minds so long, and how even when it was perceived and agreed upon descisions were not made accordingly.

[JonnyBGood]

Obviously it's still debatable, we're talking about a hypothesis with a lot of assumptions of which we can't be entirely sure. I do believe it's far more likely to work out this way than in previous rounds. To address one point I think alliances are very willing these days to have broad levels of co-operation in terms of targetting over even short periods of time. That it should happen at the start of the round minimises the chances of the sort of "bad blood" event you mentioned in connection with xvx.

I've never quite seen how 1up got away with it either especially after we'd hidden score out of tag in r16. I remember bwtmc and yggdra had an independently run arbiter setup which pretty much had the 1up planets bang on (at what point I can't remember but I think it was a good week or two before 1up tagged). It wasn't that hard to discover for anyone, I can actually remember making logbook posts where I referred to the 1up untagged members thing as a rumour when I knew it was true myself. It's a strange old world sometimes.

[add100]

the last great war for me was the sex war when esc subh and xvx took on omen in r18 (i think) and omen still ended 2nd

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I've never quite seen how 1up got away with it either especially after we'd hidden score out of tag in r16. I remember bwtmc and yggdra had an independently run arbiter setup which pretty much had the 1up planets bang on

Heh. Beats me too. I could put the blame on myself (and the Omen lack of military staff) for refusing to cooperate after the second run of hits by ND and Insomnia on us, but the obvious previous incident regarding Relig and the whole mess is still very much blurred. But, hey, at least the support planet rule was made more stricter for the following round, and resource donation planets were forbidden (at least to me)!

What comesto bwtmc's and yggdra's arbiter, we were actually running a copy of yggdra's arbiter tools hosted by yggdra (which is again why once the screenshot of their version {I think they were using arbiter.exilition-community and we were using arbiter.maximus or whatever} popped up there was a lot of rant that it'd be a snap of our arbiter). Our intel wasn't much behind in what comes to 1up, and in fact I wouldn't be astonished had they just blatantly copied our intel and used theirs to enhance it, or the other way around. Yggdra was hosting our arbiter, after all.

[JonnyBGood]

Given that I was around them a lot at that time and didn't hear anything like that I'd doubt it. After all intel isn't really that hard to do.

[Tietäjä]

Yeah. True.

I'm sure you heard we're using their arbiter though!

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by JBG

You don't have to put in as much effort and intelligent thought to do well. Why should you? In case you appear more dangerous and 5 other alliances gang**** you and you can't recruit past 70 people anyways and just get crushed by a boring numbers game making your higher level of skill irrelevant and forcing you to play in tired, predictable and tedious ways?

This would be my post of the round nomination if I had one.

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

And that's about as wrong as it gets. Economics doesn't assume perfect information.

CETERUS PARABUS AM I RITE

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

CETERUS PARABUS AM I RITE

DUDE

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

A harsh comparsion: when talking about Sid, a lot of people say he's awesome in many ways, and that the mere "presense" can be inspiring; the same is said about Kaifux. I've (looking at myself as an average player) to an extent worked with both and never experienced the feeling, but it's clear that certain people (hereas the referance to xVx) will often be perserved, how true or not, as serfs to certain factions

I played with both Sid and Kaifux, and the similarity I noticed was that they didn't talk down to anyone. They were very approachable and would chat to you in PM about ideas (or whatever) without being condescending. Something that a lot of HCs seem unable to do, and consider themselves too busy and important to listen to anyone.

They also pay attention to the little things in the alliance. I remember when I was in both alliances and I did something that potentially looked suspicious (I probably defended someone who wasn't in the alliance or something, I honestly can't remember). Both Sid and Kaifux took me to one side for a chat, just to check and ask me what I was doing. It wasn't a reprimand, it was simply asking me what was going on - and also to let me know that they WERE watching and people wouldn't be able to get away with using the alliance as a free ride for defence.

Those are the only two HC (with perhaps the exception of Focht and RealJames) who I've experienced who treated their members like that. I think one of the main reasons why people regard them as fantastic leaders. I'd be much more likely to send escort ships to help the alliance (without getting roids) if Sid or someone PMed me and asked it, than if I was invited into a channel by an HC I'd never spoken to, and TOLD me to send the ships.

[bwtmc]

Originally Posted by lokken

What I do think is reasonable is to expect BC's to think aggressively and to be intelligent in their target selection so that real damage (be it psychological or otherwise) is done on top of roids being capped. We don't see alliances cut apart, when it's actually still very possible to do this.

That captures quite well my disappointment with the alliances fighting it out this round. And actually, intensity doesn't have to be about sleepless nights and major battles. A little bit of applied thought can go a long way. Find and exploit the weaknesses of other alliances / galaxies / players.. target weak individuals until they quit, isolate selfish players & ship jumpers and so on.

I don't think that has to be part of a detailed plan, I'd just expect to see more of it in general - at least while at war or trying to win. I didn't expect this five horse race to be quite like this. I suppose if the lead is in such close contention, maybe nobody wants to piss anyone else off for fear of losing *the chance* to win. Maybe everyone's just a bit too nice these days!

[K-W]

Originally Posted by bwtmc

That captures quite well my disappointment with the alliances fighting it out this round. And actually, intensity doesn't have to be about sleepless nights and major battles. A little bit of applied thought can go a long way. Find and exploit the weaknesses of other alliances / galaxies / players.. target weak individuals until they quit, isolate selfish players & ship jumpers and so on.

I don't think that has to be part of a detailed plan, I'd just expect to see more of it in general - at least while at war or trying to win. I didn't expect this five horse race to be quite like this. I suppose if the lead is in such close contention, maybe nobody wants to piss anyone else off for fear of losing *the chance* to win. Maybe everyone's just a bit too nice these days!

Right intensity isn't just about sleepless nights and major battles, this is why the lack of intensity in Planetarion that has been building for years effects every aspect. I hesitate to accept your premise because I really don't understand how you expect to see things that happen in Planetarion. Just because you don't hear about something does not mean it is not happening.

That said it probably is true that we are seeing less work being done all around in Planetarion with every round. What I cannot understand is why you keep attributing this to alliances not playing to win, rather than the obvious lack of motivation amongst the entire player base.

[Stoom]

Originally Posted by K-W

My point about exilition is that CT's tactics are no different, but we aren't exilition and this is round 22.

RIGHT.

[Tietäjä]

I'm like God but I'm not God and this isn't 450AD.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

You don't have to put in as much effort and intelligent thought to do well. Why should you? In case you appear more dangerous and 5 other alliances gang**** you and you can't recruit past 70 people anyways and just get crushed by a boring numbers game making your higher level of skill irrelevant and forcing you to play in tired, predictable and tedious ways?

And when you're shit, it can be the only strategy to survive. The question is this:

1) Are Ascendancy the biggest threat
2) Have other threats been ignored

This is the first incident for a long time where I can remember where a quality alliance has been gangbanged early on. Surely if it was 1up and exilition it would have been an excellent strategy. As much as if I was on the receiving end I would be angry, people are giving Ascendancy the biggest compliment a bunch of people mucking about could ever receive - mass incoming. The fact that it took several alliances to take my galaxy down last round was a massive compliment, because on their own, they all failed miserably to get any change from us.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by K-W

Right intensity isn't just about sleepless nights and major battles, this is why the lack of intensity in Planetarion that has been building for years effects every aspect. I hesitate to accept your premise because I really don't understand how you expect to see things that happen in Planetarion. Just because you don't hear about something does not mean it is not happening.

That said it probably is true that we are seeing less work being done all around in Planetarion with every round. What I cannot understand is why you keep attributing this to alliances not playing to win, rather than the obvious lack of motivation amongst the entire player base.

This is in reply to you and bwtmc, but I think the word we are looking for is 'incisiveness' rather than 'intensity'.

What I want to see is alliances picked apart; I have no interest in roid racing or swap the roid. Such battles are meaningless.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by lokken

This is in reply to you and bwtmc, but I think the word we are looking for is 'incisiveness' rather than 'intensity'.

What I want to see is alliances picked apart; I have no interest in roid racing or swap the roid. Such battles are meaningless.

Unless of course your goal is to win the round, in which case such battles are very meaningful whether they entertain spectators or not.

But hey, I would love it if this game were designed around high stakes combat and not slow score accumulation. I just don't understand why such complaints are being directed at people who have nothing to do with the game design.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by K-W

Unless of course your goal is to win the round, in which case such battles are very meaningful whether they entertain spectators or not.

But hey, I would love it if this game were designed around high stakes combat and not slow score accumulation. I just don't understand why such complaints are being directed at people who have nothing to do with the game design.

I think the difference between yourself and bwtmc, is that he knows it can be done. And it can. The point is that regardless of how the game is designed, they aren't making the best of it. Exilition did by being very aggressive and their record comes as no surprise as a result.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by Stoom

RIGHT.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I'm like God but I'm not God and this isn't 450AD.

Is there a point in here somewhere?

[K-W]

Originally Posted by lokken

I think the difference between yourself and bwtmc, is that he knows it can be done. And it can. The point is that regardless of how the game is designed, they aren't making the best of it. Exilition did by being very aggressive and their record comes as no surprise as a result.

Yah it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that eXilition had by far the most active and dedicated membership in the game.

I'm really not sure what you mean by knowing it can be done. I have plenty of experience in elite alliances. The main difference I see between myself and bwtmc is that I have first hand knowledge of what is going on this round. I happen to know for a fact that CT has been aggressive.

I have no dearth of experience in crushing opponents, but I also know that if you don't have an alliance that is massively better than the competition, or competition that is easily defeated, all the aggression in the universe wont magically make you dominate. Jenova and VGN aren't weak, aren't stupid, and aren't going to just quit because we are aggressive.

This whole conversation is really quite special. People sitting on the sidelines complaining because those of us who are playing to win aren't working hard enough to amuse you.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by K-W

Is there a point in here somewhere?

It's the part of it you keep on missing.

Originally Posted by K-W

all the aggression in the universe wont magically make you dominate. Jenova and VGN aren't weak, aren't stupid, and aren't going to just quit because we are aggressive.

This whole conversation is really quite special. People sitting on the sidelines complaining because those of us who are playing to win aren't working hard enough to amuse you.

Of course they're not going to quit just because you're aggressive. While I have some inside views to the rest of it, I'm not going to be arsed to even comment on it.

No, it's not us complaining you're not trying hard enough to win. It's just us trying to figure how long it takes for you to realize Ct isn't all that awesome either, especially if it's compared to how alliances in the past have worked.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

No, it's not us complaining you're not trying hard enough to win. It's just us trying to figure how long it takes for you to realize Ct isn't all that awesome either, especially if it's compared to how alliances in the past have worked.

See this is the crazy part. I have never said, indicated, inferred or implied that CT is awesome compared to the top alliances in earlier rounds. In fact I said just the opposite in another one of these stupid threads a few days ago. And even on this thread I have repeatedly made the point that CT is working hard for the win but simply is not capable of the level of play of an alliance like eXilition which had a drastically more active and dedicated membership.

We formed CT to be a home for good players who wanted to play to win at a time when most good players were going inactive and quitting and the top alliances were fading away with no real replacements. We are pleased as hell that CT is still going and after surviving a pretty crappy round is playing well again. Its hard to express how silly it is to think that CT is claiming to be a historically awesome alliance. We spend a large portion of our time wondering if we are going to be able to keep our members going (a large portion of whom hang on the verge of quitting planetarion most of the time) and be able to get together enough good players to keep CT going another round. We spend exactly zero time comparing ourselves to alliances from PA history.

Do you guys really sit around making up stories about how awesome CT thinks it is so you can laugh to yourselves and think about how great you are? Do you really think that someone who has been playing this game since round 2 needs to 'realize' that the alliances in round 23 aren't the best PA has ever seen?

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by K-W

And even on this thread I have repeatedly made the point that CT is working hard for the win but simply is not capable of the level of play of an alliance like eXilition which had a drastically more active and dedicated membership.

Taking into account how hard the competing alliances (named VGN and Jenova) are working to win, I'm astonished how with the amount of effort you're claiming to have been putting in all round you're yet to claim more than a meager 600k edge coming PT 803.

Originally Posted by K-W

Its hard to express how silly it is to think that CT is claiming to be a historically awesome alliance.

It's still silly, how often when it's being stated otherwise (ie. that certain alliances are getting off pretty easy in compared to certain historical alliances) someone comes with a notion from defence logfiles with "we're having equally harsh time and fighting equally hard hence shut up".

Originally Posted by An anonymous poster

but if anyone thinks the alliances fighting for the #1 spot haven't been hitting each other non stop they really have no clue...from the start

This is what I mean. Given, if an alliance has really been hitting their enemies non-stop, given, that I for one have some insight into these competing alliances (somewhat limited though: being the inactive useless shit I am), I'm really having hard time figuring how it's possible not to gain any edge with hitting your enemies non-stop for 600 ticks (that's 25 days for you). It could be just total political incompetence, too. I'm good at that, so I know.

Originally Posted by K-W

We spend exactly zero time comparing ourselves to alliances from PA history.

I'm guessing I'm soon in for a log digging spree, but you're not the only person posting about CT in the Planetarion mediums.

Do you guys really sit around making up stories about how awesome CT thinks it is so you can laugh to yourselves and think about how great you are? Do you really think that someone who has been playing this game since round 2 needs to 'realize' that the alliances in round 23 aren't the best PA has ever seen?

No. We sit around making stories about how awesome we don't think Ct is, and then we giggle when someone starts defending it. Obviously, as a veteran player, you probably know what I'm talking about.



ps. about the log digging. it's not going to happen. i gave it five minutes, and got bored reading the ND/Conspiracy bicker.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Taking into account how hard the competing alliances (named VGN and Jenova) are working to win, I'm astonished how with the amount of effort you're claiming to have been putting in all round you're yet to claim more than a meager 600k edge coming PT 803.

I have repeatedly agreed that CT is putting less work into the game in round 23 than top alliances in previous rounds. I have been saying that we are trying hard to win with the alliance we have, and when I have referred to all of the effort we put in I am referring to the rather large baseline of effort it takes to run defenses, organize attacks, and run good planets. Even if we don't go the extra mile alot of the time, we aren't just sitting around doing nothing.

It's still silly, how often when it's being stated otherwise (ie. that certain alliances are getting off pretty easy in compared to certain historical alliances) someone comes with a notion from defence logfiles with "we're having equally harsh time and fighting equally hard hence shut up".

Im not sure what this has to do with me, but what looks silly to me is that anyone feels the need to go around telling people how easy they have it compared to them. This seems like something that is guaranteed to make people defensive especially when things aren't particularly easy for them.

This is what I mean. Given, if an alliance has really been hitting their enemies non-stop, given, that I for one have some insight into these competing alliances (somewhat limited though: being the inactive useless shit I am), I'm really having hard time figuring how it's possible not to gain any edge with hitting your enemies non-stop for 600 ticks (that's 25 days for you). It could be just total political incompetence, too. I'm good at that, so I know.

First of all I'm not sure where this hitting enemies non-stop stuff came from. I ran defenses for 1up when exilition crushed us and we did not get non-stop incoming, we got incoming when we had asteroids. And this was a situation where exilition did not have to worry about a second alliance very similar to 1up that had to be suppressed at the same time.

Secondly, how many times exactly do you need to be told that CT is not a super-alliance? Jenova and VGN are not just going to give up because we roid them all round, and working together they are able to come back and roid us very effectively. This is the dynamic that shaped the first part of the round, now more alliances have entered that picture, which has only made it more the case that either side can roid the other down so that nobody is able to gain a large value advantage. Thus the edges are small and xp, something that all 3 alliances are very adept at getting, plays a major leveling role.

I'm guessing I'm soon in for a log digging spree, but you're not the only person posting about CT in the Planetarion mediums.

You mean a CT member might have said something silly somewhere! I'm shocked!

Do you really think that an alliance with as many veterans as CT doesn't know better than you how we are doing and what our abilities are?

No. We sit around making stories about how awesome we don't think Ct is, and then we giggle when someone starts defending it. Obviously, as a veteran player, you probably know what I'm talking about.

No, I really do not know what you are talking about. CT isn't one of the best alliances in PA history, but it has, 2/3 of its time been a good alliance with some excellent players. So while I can certainly understand that you enjoy making fun of us. We all enjoy making fun of each other. I cannot understand why you feel the need to go on about it on the forums and then get on our cases because we don't appreciate being told how crappy you think we are over and over again.

[Game^]

I guess I'll give my thoughts on this subject too

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Taking into account how hard the competing alliances (named VGN and Jenova) are working to win, I'm astonished how with the amount of effort you're claiming to have been putting in all round you're yet to claim more than a meager 600k edge coming PT 803.

I feel I must stress that CT probably has been the 'main' alliance that has conducted planet targeting exclusively of alliances they target on a given night, and usually it has worked quite well for them (I'll explain why I think its better for them later in the post). Where I think CT has fallen down this round was their continued working and target sharing from around PT250 with Vision and ToF. Up until around PT650 Jenova was quite happy to target alliances on its own where needed, but having seen CT seemingly take a sizeable roid lead, and their HC bragging about how they laid off Jenova because they had no roids left to take, it prompted certain people within Jenova to stand up and be counted, both in a political sense and a military one.

It's still silly, how often when it's being stated otherwise (i.e. that certain alliances are getting off pretty easy in compared to certain historical alliances) someone comes with a notion from defense log files with "we're having equally harsh time and fighting equally hard hence shut up".

Actually I believe it is the other way round, I believe that alliances of the past (commenting on round 12 and below) got off pretty easy with incoming, due to the 'myths' that surrounded them, and the perceived view that it was not in many people's interest to hit them. For example round 11 I was an Xan in 1up, with decent roids all round and a pretty high ranking planet, and I could probably count on one hand the number of fleets I had incoming.

This is what I mean. Given, if an alliance has really been hitting their enemies non-stop, given, that I for one have some insight into these competing alliances (somewhat limited though: being the inactive useless shit I am), I'm really having hard time figuring how it's possible not to gain any edge with hitting your enemies non-stop for 600 ticks (that's 25 days for you). It could be just total political incompetence, too. I'm good at that, so I know.

I think if you look at CT's history this round they were starting to gain an advantage over the rest, but due to the reasons stated above this is now being closed.

On to now why I feel CT have been more successful with planet targeting in the main. I feel this was the case earlier in the round for two reasons, 1.) being that CT incoming would usually involve Vision and ToF incoming too, resulting in 160+ fleets flying at you, and 2.) Planets in Jenova seem to be a lot more concentrated in certain galaxies than CT planets, thus planet targeting of Jenova can be more channeled to certain galaxies than CT.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Game

and their HC bragging about how they laid off Jenova because they had no roids left to take

I'm sure this was a good idea.

Originally Posted by Game

Actually I believe it is the other way round.

There's a sport of "truth" to this. Once you've achieved a certain reputation, people will be afraid to attack you - this reputation isn't gained for nothing, though, and there's often a reason why these alliances gained the given reputation. If you would attack and land on a fat eXilition planet on the second half of round 18, there'd be a good chance you'd get fleetcaught heavily. Such reputation doesn't come out of nowhere, but it actually comes from showing ground of being able to hit back hard. If I was to launch a fleet at a fat Ct planet now, I wouldn't probably even be arsed to check for a fleetcatch, but back when I was launching at Gôsu round 19 I would (anyone remember my 40k beetles?) usually be aware that I might be hit back in return.

Originally Posted by K-W

Im not sure what this has to do with me, but what looks silly to me is that anyone feels the need to go around telling people how easy they have it compared to them. This seems like something that is guaranteed to make people defensive especially when things aren't particularly easy for them.

I guess "how easy it is" goes in a matter of perspective. I could say, that, up until when 1up started hitting Omen in round 17 (granted, we had severe incomings from five alliances during the first night for some strange reason), we never really experienced "hard time" being hit by ND and Insomnia. In fact, being a mediocre alliance ourselves, both two times Insomnia and ND went after us one of them backed off in a matter of days because of retaliations, and we'd usually bounce back up. (That is, I underpin, up until 1up started hitting us, which was the point where the really annoying incomings started). So from my perspective, waging war with modern state alliances is a lot easier (you can pretty much expect there to be little more than galaxy targetting, at most a hit of planetary targets, but you'd probably get off without being constantly hit through the day with added nuisance like retaliating defenders and planned single-class wave series).

Originally Posted by K-W

I have repeatedly agreed that CT is putting less work into the game in round 23 than top alliances in previous rounds.

And that's where we agree, and why some people enjoy pulling the shit and giggling, is because over and over again, given a taunt, you'll eventually wind up with someone explaining you how they got equally much incomings and planet targeted equally intensive as any alliance ever.

Originally Posted by K-W

Im not sure what this has to do with me, but what looks silly to me is that anyone feels the need to go around telling people how easy they have it compared to them.

Although I've said the only two instances where I've had it hard where when the SEX-block was hitting us, and when 1up/Insomnia (and on the first night xVx, ND, and some doggies) were hitting us. What I feel looks silly, is people bragging how the fight is intensive and how it's been going on for a couple of hundred ticks now. Especially with the claims like high commanders bragging how badly their opponents are doing - in fact, doing too badly to be worthy targets - and that they now have a two million thereabouts (1.5%) lead over them just. "We've been intesely targetting them a lot. Meanwhile, we can't be arsed, because they're shit targets". The given round 18, eXilition would just grind 1up planets once they'd hit 400+ roids. I'm not sure if you're saying that an alliance should stop targetting it's enemies when they don't have "enough" roids, or that it should keep on to demotivate them. I guess it's a timescale tradeoff. On short term, it's nicer to hit something fat, on long term, +10% size gains aren't that hard to get, and if you don't smash your enemies down effectively you'll find it hard to get the gap.

Originally Posted by K-W

First of all I'm not sure where this hitting enemies non-stop stuff came from

It's related to the situation of the current round, not regards to how much incomings 1up or eXilition received at their peaks. If you think about it yourself, as a claim that one of the top alliances mentioned has hit it's enemies non-stop from the start and haven't achieved any gap... Being a lazy, inactive, deadweight member of one of those mentioned alliances I'm struggling to see how non-stop hitting doesn't sink the boat and hasn't generated much of a visible effect yet. All the alliances have definately not been doing anything even closely related to non-stop targetting.

Now, before you shoot me down claiming that such non-stop targetting from the start hasn't happened this round (by Ct or anyone), you should read a post by this person:

Originally Posted by An anonymous poster

Now what has happened in the last 2-3 rounds isn't neccesarily "must see tv" but if anyone thinks the alliances fighting for the #1 spot haven't been hitting each other non stop they really have no clue. We have banged it out this round vs jenova and vgn from the start.... it is a war, it's opponents niether side can just brush aside. It is war in every sense of what a war is. 2-3 alliances banging each other, duking it out night after night.... that ain't sunday school. You let up for one night you end up on the short side of it.

Let me interpret it. "if anyone thinks the alliances fighting for the #1 spot haven't been hitting each other non stop they really have no clue". I'm reading this as a statement that "the alliances fighting for the #1 spot have been targetting each other non-stop". "You let up for one night you end up on the short side of it". I interpret this as a confirmation to the previous. "We have banged it out this round vs jenova and vgn from the start". I interpret this as that the mentioned and confirmed non-stop fighting has begun fairly early - so it's reasonable (in my opinion) to say it's been around for 450-500 ticks at least.

This is what's the entertaining part with the giggling involved. On one hand, there's claims that an alliance has not targeted it's enemies because "they're too shit targets", and on other hand they've been hitting them non-stop (the weight on the expression "non-stop from the start"), yet gaining no effect. It took almost 800 ticks for one of the block pairs to deny it's members from in galaxy defending the war machine that has been targeting them (and the other alliance) non-stop since the beginning of the round, which just... further elaborates the case?


Now you're about to sludge in.

Originally Posted by K-W

You mean a CT member might have said something silly somewhere! I'm shocked!

I bet you are. The poster above isn't just a CT member. I bet you are shocked.

Originally Posted by K-W

So while I can certainly understand that you enjoy making fun of us. We all enjoy making fun of each other

I wouldn't enjoy it half as much as if you didn't have the apparent picture that CT isn't non-stop targetting anything because it isn't "smart", and yet the other side of the board claims it's been going on, and on the left flank there's a throw about not targetting the mentioned non-stop targeted enemies because they're low on roids.

Originally Posted by Game

2.) Planets in Jenova seem to be a lot more concentrated in certain galaxies than CT planets, thus planet targeting of Jenova can be more channeled to certain galaxies than CT.

Heh. Yes. Well, given that Jenova hosts some of these famous 4-5 person packs, it makes it pretty easy to keep demolishing those planets.



ps. but I guess I've spoken myself to a corner. obviously, the "if you let go for one night you end up on the short side" combined with "First of all I'm not sure where this hitting enemies non-stop stuff came from.".

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by K-W

First of all I'm not sure where this hitting enemies non-stop stuff came from. I ran defenses for 1up when exilition crushed us and we did not get non-stop incoming, we got incoming when we had asteroids. And this was a situation where exilition did not have to worry about a second alliance very similar to 1up that had to be suppressed at the same time.

Considering I dc'd against eXilition, too, I have to say that where eXilition and CT do largely differ is the definition of "having asteroids". For eXilition it was sufficient when 1up planets had 250 to 300 roids to fall into their target list, at least that is how I remember it from the defense calls we had listed in 1up back then.

Once 1up was beaten (read: heavily outgrown, fleet-wise) eXilition shifted priorities from attacking 1up to roiding beneficial targets. That is where I see a difference even though you claim that CT and eXi would behave the same. They simply are not. You have to go the extra mile (read: keep on hitting 'low roid targets' for a few nights to outgrow your enemy, fleet-wise), even in a short round.

But yes, maybe this extra-mile does require some launch-recall-relaunch games to be played, and I guess this is where "motivation" kicks in - even though this makes me wonder why people keep playing when all they do is launching fleets at a set launch-time every night, because that kills motivation to play the game. Keep on reinventing the wheel, it doesn't take a lot of activity - just some brainpower (either in military or politics). And I think we in Ascendancy have proven that you can do well that way quite nicely.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Heartless

But yes, maybe this extra-mile does require some launch-recall-relaunch games to be played, and I guess this is where "motivation" kicks in.

Originally Posted by Did you already guess who?

but if anyone thinks the alliances fighting for the #1 spot haven't been hitting each other non stop they really have no clue

I think Heartless just may have given a describtion on what hitting your enemies non-stop means and an insight to the mechanics and results of it.