Furious: This is tangential, but I'd bet most of the server would disagree with you. We generally don't come here because we view the game as somehow neutral, but because the opposite is true. We love making moral judgments about what is "right" and "wrong" in the game, and acting accordingly. We don't play this game because we want to enjoy everyone's company but because we want to enjoy the company of our friends while hating our enemies.

That's how people work, it is unrealistic to expect us to do anything else just 'cause we're playing a game.

Edit:
Also, your statement about anger management is offensive for a whole host of reasons I don't really care to get into since that is a completely different discussion than the one at hand. Briefly: you mistake incivility for anger, and are making a judgment based on your misunderstanding that provokes a prejudicial response. Civility is a courtesy I do not extend to others who've proven to be undeserving of courtesy (see my response to Heston, for example). Your statement about anger management is discourteous, is personally offensive, and invites a similar response. If you disagree with what I'm saying please do so by engaging with the substance of what I've posted rather than trying to induce prejudice. If you wish to seriously continue this thread of discussion, please send me a forum message rather than replying here as this is the limit of my willingness to discuss this on AT.

You guys seem to somehow think the #1 ranked country in the game, which was relatively thin, well defended, and required a country running a 4:1 jet to turret ratio to break it, somehow didn't have enough defense. As I pointed out, there were multiple countries with half the NW and much easier breaks that had 5k A or more at the time.

The only reasonable conclusions I can draw is that #387, who passed up better targets that would have returned way more land, hit the #1 country in the game either to show they could (which is idiotic) or out of spite (which is also idiotic). If they were hitting to actually gain something they'd have hit a country closer to their NW with more acres to get better returns. The target they hit was probably among the worst they could have possibly have chosen to landgrab for any reason other than to bring #256 down and lessen their finish or to wave their fluff around.

Once stockpiling starts, it takes absolutely no skill or effort to decide to boost up your jets and be able to break anyone in the game, because no one keeps boosting their defenses indefinitely to match whatever jetters might be out there. This is exactly what your guy did, and the hit he made is the most blatant and obvious topfeed I've seen playing this game.

People who do that kind of thing are assholes. People who try to defend that kind of behaviour are assholes. A member of your tiny little tag did that this reset, Titans, and you guys are here defending that on AT: you're assholes.

Not only are you assholes, but it looks to me like you're spineless assholes because, mrcuban and timmie, neither of you have yet made a firm statement about anything. You deny topfeeding when confronted with this, you lie about the stats on the countries involved in the hits, then you lie by saying that one of the best defended countries in the game at the time of hit was low on defense. The cherry on top is that all of this is couched in phrases like "I'm not saying he deserved it" while insinuating the opposite the whole time.

This is exactly the kind of fluff that makes people detest fluffty little tags like Titans, and makes me say good riddance.

Titans: Spineless, lying assholes.

Spin factory? I'm telling you exactly what I think of Titans given what I've seen of you: Titans are assholes.

I'm actually having a hard time figuring out what it is that you're trying to say, because rather than being clear you appear to be saying different things in different posts, and you're answering questions with questions rather than providing clear answers.

That's why I asked, and that's why I'll ask again:
Do you think a country with $18m NW (again, top in the game at the time) and 25k A was fat and low defense when others were ~$10m and over 30k A on the same date?
Do you consider an 8m jet break to be low defense?
Do you think that hit wasn't a clear and deliberate act of topfeeding? Consider that 387 didn't play turns or build the land after they made that grab when answering this.
Do you think that, to a country competing to finish #1 at the end of the reset, your offer of reps (assuming one was made, I don't completely trust your recollection of events given what you've stated on this thread) is of any value when what really matters is lost production?

Again, you have somehow managed to miss that I previously said I had 3 friends who were hit unprovoked by Titans this reset. I wasn't going to bring up any specifics (I wasn't going to bring up any of this until you came on AT asking for people to say nice things since you're leaving) until you mentioned the hit on 256 and completely mis-stated what actually happened, but please don't think that hit is the only reason I think of little of Titans as I do.

I'm being pretty aggressive and confrontational with these posts so I completely understand the defensive response that I'm getting from you regarding this, but I would actually like clear answers to my questions if possible, please. I'm curious as to how you view Titans' actions this reset, and how willing you are to throw 387 under the bus.

Heston: For anything that you post directed at me from this point forward please assume that yes, I did see it, but just chose not to reply as you didn't say anything worth replying to. I've yet to see a single post of yours of any value and I doubt that'll be changing any time soon.

braden is right, I'm not 256 and Titans has done nothing to me personally. I'd probably be less bothered if they had hit me, rather than screwing with my friends.

On that note though, the guy running 256 didn't want me to post on this thread because he was concerned that, since Titans are assholes, they'd suicide on him in retaliation for me posting here. That would seem to be par for the course.

You aren't even reading what I'm saying, are you? You've decided that since my opinion of your fluffty little tag is different than yours, that everything I say must be wrong and so you aren't even bothering to read. I've said that this round, I've had 3 friends screwed by Titans and I already pointed out that the "no defense fatass" you think I'm upset about was ranked #1 in the game at the time of the hit.

You, on the other hand, have gone from saying that Titans doesn't topfeed to saying that 256 deserved to get hit for being fat. Which is it, out of curiosity?

Also, how are each of those countries doing now? I see 256 in the top 10, it looks like 387 isn't even going to make the top 100 in a reset where most of the server went to war. And, you're implying that 256 is playing the game the wrong way?

Which one of us needs a reality check? Titans is a fluffty little tag of no consequence that doesn't play particularly well and doesn't deserve any kind of a pat on the back based on anything that I've seen.

The signatories of the agreement compose most of the server. The threat is in there because it makes no sense for them to hamstring themselves by agreeing to something like this while allowing others to adhere to a different standard when they can add an enforcement clause that no non-signatories will dare test.

Of course they'd include that and of course they'd stand by it; they don't want to be taken advantage of.

Heston: I'll acknowledge that you posted, but this is all the reply you're getting from me. You're not worth any more.

mrcuban: since you bring it up, boxcar shows the stats of the countries in question at the time of the hit. #256 was $17,423,380 (ranked #1 in the game at the time) with 25,098 acres, and had been stockpiling for 10 days already. #387 was $9,623,459 with 14,625 acres.

It looks like your 4k land and 1-2m NW difference is a little off there. If you're trying to convince me you've any idea of what your tag is doing, you're failing.

It is pretty simple: act assholes, get called assholes.

I only just started playing again this reset and my experience with Titans has been to see that they screwed with 3 of my friends, completely unprovoked.

If you want a pat on the back, you won't be getting one from me.

My last 'set was early '05. Omega had been at ~120 members, and was just coming off the 10k FS 'set. Barely a year later they're at 77 members and "don't have a war feeling right now".

I kind of want to yell "I TOLD YOU SO" at those '06 Omega leaders, but they'd made their choice and that's a large part of why I quit :P

Furious: I get the point you're trying to make, but in practice there's not going to be any difference. No larger tags are going to ever bother calling in others for a fight vs. a small tag, as any half-decent tag could kill 5 countries within 48 hours without breaking a sweat, then swat your restarts down as they pop up.

It is kind of telling that even with only 3 countries in the tag, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Good riddance to topfeeding assholes, go be mediocre somewhere else.

Accusation without details? Was I giving you too much credit to think you could figure this one out for yourselves? :P

It isn't exactly hard.

.

...that's actually a dollar below what I put mine up for sale. I wish I'd seen this first :P

Edit: Timestamps are confusing.

martian! :D

...I love you.

<3

The whole point of bottomfeeding back in the day was that it was supposed to be a way to landgrab that was workable for every single member in a large alliance, as having too many midfeeders was a FA disaster waiting to happen.

Things have obviously changed since the days of bots and 20k countries, but even with the formula changes bottomfeeding is still fairly similar to how it used to be: you pick a target that isn't too far into DRs and hope for the best. In many ways, it is even easier now with the reduced number of countries as the limited number of targets makes it much more likely someone has already got a spy op on the target you're looking at.

There are definitely players out there who can get more from less and save themselves turns while gaining land, but the biggest difference between a good landgrabber and a bad one is almost invariably the amount of time they're willing to spend waiting for targets and paying attention to the news.

As someone who successfully bottomfed this reset, I'll mostly agree with Rook. Anyone can landgrab if they're willing to put the time in, but there are definitely some who are more skilled than others at minimizing the number of turns spent gaining land.

This is the most important thing said in this thread so far.

I did read an analysis awhile ago that basically said Russia and the west are working from two entirely different playbooks: Russia is playing old-school realpolitik while the west is applying liberal values to everything. It makes some sense, as the way Russia is doing things doesn't suggest they're into mass invasions but rather that they want a bunch of client states as buffers between them and NATO.

I'm not saying that excuse what Russia is doing at all, but just to point out that the Hitler comparisons and even the Cold War comparisons are probably the wrong frame of reference here. Russia isn't a superpower looking to extend their hegemony but perhaps is instead a throwback to an even earlier era where many countries has spheres of influence that other powers were supposed to respect.

Are you familiar with the concept of supply and demand?
I'll assume yes, but here is a brief refresher all the same:

If there is a certain amount of a particular good being produced then prices for that good will rise or fall depending on how many people want the good being produced. The more people who demand the good the higher the prices will be, while the fewer the people demanding a particular good the lower the prices will be. Similarly, the lower the number of people producing that good the higher prices will be, while the more people there are producing it the lower the price will be.

So, if this is a post complaining about tech prices, techers aren't the people to blame for it. Blame everyone else who didn't go techer, rather than those kind souls who are helping you by providing the only tech available.

Uh, pretty sure the winner last reset wasn't intending to land trade but was just making a retal.

If that's how you guys want to play it, that's obviously up to you. That said, you're not going to make any friends or gain any respect by suiciding on people later in the reset. Friends and respect are what you need to avoid a repeat of what happened this 'set, you know that right?

If you suicide on people rather than trying to deal with this diplomatically you're just going to cement the impression that people already have of xSx, which is that the tag is worthless and that there's no point in talking to you.

Filled!

This isn't normally the kind of thing I'd ask about on AT, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm starting to feel a little desperate. I've been letting people leech for weeks now and I should probably stop that.

I'm uh, probably one of the more desirable research allies that are out there. I won't say a ton more than that. I know that there aren't a lot of huge techers out there at the moment, so if you're even a reasonable size (10k and actually growing, maybe?) and spending a reasonable amount of turns teching, I'd probably be interested.

Forum message me if you're interested. Yelling at me on IRC works as well. Thanks!

You know, now that you ask me that I'm less sure about my reasoning. I think I once had an argument that I liked that involved the electoral college cementing the two-party system, and so I remembered that I previously liked the argument and so attempted to restate it without checking to see if I still liked it. I can see where I was going with it, but I don't think I like it as much as I used to.

The argument used to go something like this:
The electoral college, where a lot of states have winner-take-all elector selection, tends to push the field down to two choices as having multiple candidates with similar positions makes it more likely that a candidate with a differing ideology will win. So, the field gets reduced to two candidates supported by two parties, helping to cement the two party system.

I'm not sure I like that argument as much as I used to, as I said. It isn't a huge difference from first-past-the-post, and there are lots of FTTP systems multiple parties survive, even if they're often 2+ (like Canada from CCF founding to PC collapse, and the UK) rather than real multi-party democracies.

Voters aren't idiots, though. Many are undereducated about a lot of the political choices they face, sure, but not spending the time to educate yourself is a reasonable and valid choice if you don't have any expectation that your vote really matters. And, most people's votes don't actually matter (at least federally): unless you're in one of the few congressional districts that hasn't been gerrymandered to hell and back or a swing state your vote is effectively worthless. Even in cases where your vote isn't worthless, you'd have to have some expectation that there'd be a difference between the candidates on issues you care about in order for it to be worth it to vote, which isn't a given (both parties have similar stances on a lot of issues).

The two biggest things that prop up the two parties currently in power are incumbency and the media. The parties have had decades to put systems in place to help them compete electorally, they've got their own pet think-tanks to come up with policies, they've got supporters that have been born and raised saying they're Democrats and Republicans, and they've got track records that they can point at when trying to sell the public on the idea that they should be the ones in power. On top of all that, some media outlets have explicitly picked their favourite side and campaign for them relentlessly, while even the more neutral voices tend to favour horse-race style coverage that focuses strictly on winners, losers, and creating a narrative rather than on issues of substance. It is hard for an alternative party to find a way to compete in an environment like that.

I'm only scratching the surface when talking about problems as there's a lot more than that, but I honestly don't have much to say about solutions at this point. I suspect that there will be little movement towards reform until one of the two major parties collapses (and I think this is a real possibility in the coming decades) and the system completely breaks. Until there is some kind of crisis, there is absolutely no incentive for the powers that be to do anything that threatens the status quo, as the people with power tend to want to keep it.

Damn those techers, damn them.

So uh, anyone need a research ally? I could kind of use one.

Edit: How did I accidentally get on the team forums? Nevermind!

Tim's wrapping themselves in the maple leaf annoys me to no end. They're just another fast food franchise that makes their money the same way any other fast food franchise does: by paying their labour as little as absolutely possible.

You misunderstand what I'm saying. As long as there is no constitutional reform that breaks the two party system, there will be little meaningful change to address the you raise in the original post, of electing hated representatives to government. I see lots of talk here about addressing superficial issues while ignoring that being locked into the two-party system is the root of the problem.

Hey Servant. Funny to see you here recruiting for another game again, hahaha.

Hope things are going well.

Questioning an alliance's policies on AT is usually a good way to annoy them. When it comes to policies like this, the only thing that really matters in the end is the ability of the alliance in question to actually enforce them and their willingness to back up their policy with action in the event that someone disagrees.

Generally, questioning their policies on AT and turning things into a public show make alliances more willing to invest the turns necessary in enforcing their policies. Being publicly questioned tends to provoke a response.

I'm not an entirely uninvolved party here, and my view of things is somewhat coloured by that (not that it means anything since I hold no official position), but this comes off as pretty disrespectful. If you mean no offense, I'd recommend getting in contact with a FA person and explaining that.

Anyone who has played Astro Empires can tell you why this is not necessarily a good idea: the incumbency advantage is too big and tends to discourage new players.

I've said I was teching on AT before :P

A warring demo techer? When I'm already finished grabbing? Sounds like a great idea, especially since I'd piss off at least 4 alliances were I to switch tags right now. I'll get right on that...

And now I've got that stuck in my head.

This is not only classless, it is annoying for those of us who aren't at war to have to read this kind of fluff.
You've got something like 300 active targets to work with while there are less than 50 untagged countries, many of which are inactive, all of which are deep in DRs so long as they're big enough to not be protected by humanitarians.

You have to remember that retals are on the alliance level rather than the country level, so it doesn't have to be the guy you hit who hits you back. I can pretty much guarantee you're going to be retalled regardless of what oil prices are.

It is a very different game than Civilization, as it is much more tightly focused on a specific period in history rather than the span of civilization.

You play EU4? :D

I have been avoiding it so far (though I own it), I'm concerned it'll eat me after all the time I put into EU3 and CK2.

Slash their pay and "gifts" by lobbyists become more enticing.

The real issue is that the electoral college effectively cements a 2 party system in the US, where neither party has any particular incentive to support reforms because they like the status quo where they're either in power or the only alternative.

People keep voting for candidates they hate because they're smart and realize that there is little chance of candidates not approved by the 2 major parties holding federal office. So, people make the best choice they can, which is to choose whoever they consider the lesser evil between the major candidates.

This has nothing to do with laziness or stupidity and everything to do with a flawed electoral system.

You've got a forum message.