All I Am Saying Is Give Peace A Chance

Sir A wrote: Either way once you start taking enough damage your members will start to leave and only the leadership and your most loyal/stubborn members will remain.  Believe it or not, not everyone in your alliance wants to lose all of their cities because they can't admit defeat.

Which, at this moment, seems to be all of us ...

Well, believe it or nor Sir A what you say is false because everyone that wants out of the war, is indeed allowed to do so, by both sides.

Angrim wrote: this is precisely the same place the victors of the Consone war were in when they threatened the continued loss of cities until a surrender was made. in that sense, the victors in this war seem to be treating their opponents in just that same way (which may be a source of pride or shame depending on one's particular outlook and position).

Not exactly ... unless you mean that words and actions are equal as "treatment" goes and so they can be compared ...

Angrim wrote: Sisren made a comment some time ago in gc that Team A would not surrender because it would mean agreeing that Team B was "right". i would like to understand if this is a common view across Team A, and if so, what Team A feels it would be admitting by surrender. iirc, the dogma of surrender in the Consone war was that it was simply a capitulation to the military reality that more would be lost by continuing to fight than would be lost by surrendering...and if there is a theme to this thread, it is that nothing has changed since the Consone war.

That is the theme of one side that tries in vain to claim that nothing changed.

Imho the point of Consone surrendering was not that of military might, but proving in practice that their kind of organization was not optimal and that it would lead to many future problems ... by surrendering they accepted that maybe this was so ... and by their next actions, which were forming a network of alliances in a similar organization plan like the Coalition's, they intrinsically accepted that the Consone idea was done for and that the Coalition's idea of organizing was better.

So, imho, the Consone war was not about "who would be first", but "how should you organize in order to be first" and in that regard the Coalition won in the two steps I described above.

Now many of our former opponents along with others, having settled that organization issue and having in fact agreed with our point of view, is waging a war on which of the two similarly organized sides (note: only similarly organized, the similarities end there) will be first.

So the Consone war was about "how to be first" and it was settled
This war is about "who will be first" and is, in that regard, settled as well.

Not the same wars at all when seen by this point of view ... 

Now, why we will not surrender has been already explained very eloquently by HonoredMule who is in the position to speak for more people than himself, so I will not really go into it again ... I will take a guess though on why our opponents would like our surrender :

Cohesion via the continued existence of a common enemy. This is tactically first and foremost because the winning side is simply organized like the Coalition, but lacks many of its other characteristics. It has many inherent problems which are now masked only by the "same goal". Once that goal is achieved then those problems will eventually arise. Now if the goal is achieved via surrender such a thing will not happen in the same magnitude because the "common enemy" will act both as a future scarecrow and thus will be a "binding glue" for the winning side. If however the common enemy is totally gone or totally incapacitated, the scarecrow and the glue are gone and the problems will start from day 1.

Good PR. Surrender terms would be hidden, as in previous fights, so via the surrender avenue they will be able to mask their power grab with good intentions. This can be also seen on how they are making a show in GC of sending resources on surrendered players they had just stomped. On one hand surrender terms are secret, but benevolence is a public show .?. I do not think that many people buy that one, but you never know.

Satisfaction and revenge. Many from the winning side, having once been subjected to surrender terms, now they lust to subject others to it (preferably the ones they once subjected them to it).

If anyone remembers my analysis over Consone, they might remember that I was more on the mark than out of it and I guess that this time it will be no different ... For the "good natured people" who are always keen to brand someone's personal  opinion as a generalized dogma, I specify that the above are my OWN views

many castings here, but at the end of it the war will not end without a surrender, not because of vengeance or hatred or because "wars have always been fought this way" but because Team B faces little danger of reversal at this point and has no incentive to end the conflict without a definitive victory. this is precisely the same place the victors of the Consone war were in when they threatened the continued loss of cities until a surrender was made. in that sense, the victors in this war seem to be treating their opponents in just that same way (which may be a source of pride or shame depending on one's particular outlook and position).

Sisren made a comment some time ago in gc that Team A would not surrender because it would mean agreeing that Team B was "right". i would like to understand if this is a common view across Team A, and if so, what Team A feels it would be admitting by surrender. iirc, the dogma of surrender in the Consone war was that it was simply a capitulation to the military reality that more would be lost by continuing to fight than would be lost by surrendering...and if there is a theme to this thread, it is that nothing has changed since the Consone war.

Peace proposals that include a cease-fire will be an automatic non-starter in the current conflict.  I am certain that peace could indeed be achieved in some fashion (it certainly has for a large number of former combatants, and without mandatory city razing of active players), but I frankly think the most likely outcome is continued war until all armies on one side or the other are exhausted. There is always a tipping point in Illy warfare where one side is no longer able to muster any realistic defense, and sieges become trivial.  once that point is reached in the current conflict, I expect an exodus of core players to greener pastures while claiming with righteous indignation that Illy is no longer worthy of the effort.  I do not expect surrender or acceptance of terms, no matter how mild they may be, simply due to pride.

Edited by Le Roux - 04 Mar 2014 at 17:29

Caconafyx wrote: I would strongly advocate that as part of any peace accord BOTH sides of the conflict agree to get rid of these inactive or abandoned accounts so that we can let smaller players flourish.

tansiraine wrote: Sometimes i feel like i have a bunch of 4 year olds running around think about the behaviors of the most vocal and look at a group of 4 year olds you be surprised on how much they sound the same.

Can I stay 4 years old .?. People tell me that it IS an improvement to my current personality