KP. here is where you are wrong- We would indeed be hypocrites if we acted the same in a similiar situation. The difference here is every other war one side has surrendered and accepted terms. If you and others categorically state you will never do so, then you cannot even compare the two, much less draw a conclusion.

Here is where I would call myself a hypocrite- when I demanded further city loss as a term of ending hostilities. I have always been against this. To take that a step farther, I'm in favor of never razing an opponent's capital, even during war. 

BellusRex wrote: I have always been against this. To take that a step farther, I'm in favor of never razing an opponent's capital, even during war.

So what .?. In the same post you claim to not like the tactic, but yet you defend it ... signing up on a side that does some things and then you claiming that you do not like them but still defending them at the same time, is a bit of an inconsistency and, in most people's books, actions count more than words ... or at least so I think ...


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Just like a "before and after" ad ! ahahahaah :p

Dera stop 'going on' about how you lost cities, sigh.

I appreciate it's sad for you, but as soon as the political geography changed you could have moved. 

It must have been obvious to you that you would be targeted, you had taken part in previous military actions in the area. 

You could have spoken to us and to vcrow, said you were moving and asked for time to do so.  

You chose not to. 

You also chose to exo one city with an attack inbound to just a few tiles away instead of into H? core area, which would probably have given you enough time to exo another. 

You chose not to. 

You could have left H? for the duration of the war and sought individual surrender terms, as other players have, and not lost your cities. 

You chose not to.

You chose instead to stay put and stay in H?. This placed a big red enemy blotch on the map near to our more northern players and you, as a player known to built military and use them, therefore constituted a threat to their peace and security. We need no justification in removing a known threat to our players in wartime.

Vicx certainly didn't bother sieging what was effectively a hamlet with a wall round it, after all we'd made the city into one in the first place - we saw no need to carry on sieging it! One day there was a siege there and the next day the siege had gone and the village was still there, so stop banging on about what didn't happen huh? 

Presumably the player involved hadn't realised what he or she was doing and recalled when they did or were told. 

Excellent fight by the way, we enjoyed it just as much when you won a victory as when we did. 

But both of us have derailed Bellus's response to KP.

In regard to that I would agree with him, exorbitant reparations are pointless and only store up trouble for the future, and, contrary to what some would have you believe, neither Ditto nor Hath have asked for anything absurd from alliances which have surrendered so far. I see no reason to assume they would change tack on that.

I am also, personally, not in favour of demanding cities be razed from surrendering alliances. As far as I am aware the only razing required so far was of Kale's cities, which as he went awol from his alliance and the game (with no sitter appointed) are pretty much irrelevant. I think asking for some to be moved is not unreasonable but making razing a city a part of surrender terms kinda detracts from the advantages of a surrender as opposed to continuing the fight.  

There have to be advantages to a surrender that outweigh the desire to continue the fight or why would anyone bother? The corollary of which, of course, is that cities get razed whilst an alliance remains at war.  

Mahaut wrote: Excellent fight by the way, we enjoyed it just as much when you won a victory as when we did.

Yeah, it was quite a lot of fun

Mahaut wrote: But both of us have derailed Bellus's response to KP.

I think it is quite relevant actually and not really derailing, because that is exactly what they were arguing about

Mahaut wrote: In regard to that I would agree with him, exorbitant reparations are pointless and only store up trouble for the future, and, contrary to what some would have you believe, neither Ditto nor Hath have asked for anything absurd from alliances which have surrendered so far. I see no reason to assume they would change tack on that.

In that regard we have the same problem as it was evident in the Consone war aftermath ... since the agreements and terms are kept secret, it is all a matter of whether someone believes those claims or not ... and as in any thing whose details are secret yet its existence is public knowledge, rumors and hearsay are a much worse thing than the actual truth ...

I could quite easily post the terms and messages from the last war, at least as they regard EE, but we both know that is a violation of forum rules. The truth of the matter is in part the terms offered us were reasonable, while others were not. This is again the demand for yet more cities to be razed, and for reasons such as not liking forum or GC posts. Or saying a player needed to lose an extra city for being "stupid". 

I'm fairly sure i'm done with this whole topic; it's just tail chasing. The basic bottom line is if you don't like the war, leave the war. If you are too proud to accept terms, so be it. We were lectured endlessly about pride. This is not directed at you personally, you made your choice and stuck to it. The only thing I'm interested in is what those we are still fighting consider reasonable terms to end the war, and to my knowledge, none have ever been proffered. 

And no worries Mahaut, you and Deranzin didn't derail anything...

BellusRex wrote: I'm fairly sure i'm done with this whole topic; it's just tail chasing. The basic bottom line is if you don't like the war, leave the war.

No argument there ... especially if you add the obvious continuation which is "and if you do like the war and stay in it, please do not pretend otherwise"

BellusRex wrote:  If you are too proud to accept terms, so be it. We were lectured endlessly about pride. This is not directed at you personally, you made your choice and stuck to it.

And so did many others and I insist that pride has nothing to do with it ...

BellusRex wrote: The only thing I'm interested in is what those we are still fighting consider reasonable terms to end the war, and to my knowledge, none have ever been proffered.

I cannot speak about others, but now that I am destroyed it is obvious that no terms could ever satisfy me, because I have nothing to lose from now on ... as someone else eloquently pointed out, this is the whole basis of surrendering, to make the opponent believe that he would be better off by stopping the fight ... once you corner someone on the point of no return, the whole idea loses all its meaning ...

Supposing that if even for some moment our side wanted to surrender, what would they say to people like me .?. Suppose that H? surrendered two days after I got wrecked, what would you say to me, and other such members, if you were an H? Director .?.  Have you ever stopped to think about that .?. 

No, you probably haven't, this is why you guys keep taking about silly things like pride where it is a simple matter of good honest leadership ... and filling your opponents with people who have nothing to lose, is just not working the way you think it is ...

On a very funny note someone sent me a very friendly IGM urging me to surrender when I was down to 4 cities and two of them were at that moment under the raze pop limit and I was like "dude, surrender and salvage what .?. 2 cities out of 10 .?. "  ... I was already doing that without surrendering ...


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Just like a "before and after" ad ! ahahahaah :p

Now you(like the alliances in Consone) can stop the bleeding as soon as you see fit by surrendering. If not - you will lose more. 

You want to talk about how you were compassionate and put yourself up but the fact remains you bring this upon yourself by Choosing to not come to terms. Since you do have a choice but have chosen not to take it- Stop going on and on about how the other side is so bad when in fact the problem lies in H? leadership being stubborn and full of pride. Stop acting like this is the first time ppl quit the game cause they were sieged. NC did this on a number of occasions. RES has done the same.  Place blame where it belongs- and own up to your faults. 

You talk about good honest leadership. Is it really that good for leaders to continue to fight a war with only one inevitable outcome?

I've been in this game for close to three years, I have run or participated in running several training alliances as well as EE itself and so I'd like to think I know a little about good and honest leadership.

A good leader would have fought tooth and nail to see that you were kept out of the war, what with you being so far away from the H? motherland, even to the point of insisting that you temporarily leave the alliance for your own sake.

A good leader would not continue the war knowing that it can only lead to your total annihilation for no other reason than pride.

Instead a good leader, one that cared about his/her alliance and its members would say enough is enough. Stop the war, bow out with your dignity intact and your armies in tatters and rebuild. Regrow your alliance, help members with resource and advice and rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

It's what Hath did. He swallowed his pride after the contrived Consone War. A war that was engineered by H? Yes it was a bitter pill to swallow. Yes, we had those that wanted to continue the war, but ours is an alliance of lions led by lions and not donkeys. You brought us to our knees 12 months ago amidst mockery and derision but we came back stronger, oh how we came back stronger.

A year on I can look at our alliance with pride. Yes the gold demanded meant that we had to borrow it from other places. Yes we struggled to find T2 resources to satisfy the surrender terms having fought the good fight for half a year, and yes it was painful to face the humiliation of not just losing towns but having to hand them over to the "enemy" who in my case paraded it around like a war trophy.

But a year on we are bigger, we are stronger and that is what I would urge for you and your allies. We may have mistaken your resilience for stubbornness and your prowess for hubris but why not show us and the rest of the game your nobility, your honour and your dignity and bring about an end to this war and help forge a new and improved era for Illyriad?

That to me is what a good leader would do.

- We're all basically good people.

- We're all assholes sometimes.

- We all have our reasons to keep fighting.

- None of those reasons are right or wrong, or need to be proven right or wrong.

- We will keep trying to beat each other senseless. (Until someone says they've had enough.)

However it does conveniently lead on to me answer to one of Deranzin's questions........

Deranzin wrote:  Suppose that H? surrendered two days after I got wrecked, what would you say to me, and other such members, if you were an H? Director?

If such a hypothetical, and apparently extremely unlikely , event occurred then what I would say to you would simply be "Because we don't want to see every other player in our alliance end up like you."  Not every decision leadership has to make will be popular with every member, having to soothe ruffled feathers and point out the greater good for others is part and parcel of leadership. If you think being an alliance leader doesn't make you unpopular now and again then you're in the wrong line of leisure activity.  I'm actually not sure who, in their right minds, would actually want the job!!!! 

Caconafyx wrote: I've been in this game for close to three years, I have run or participated in running several training alliances as well as EE itself and so I'd like to think I know a little about good and honest leadership.

I have not been part of any alliance leadership, but I speak on matter of leadership and command, in my brief experience of commanding heterogenous groups of people in a RL army as a second Lieutenant ... And I'll tell you the obvious thing, that the stakes being pixels in a game, make leadership much easier ...

Caconafyx wrote: A good leader would have fought tooth and nail to see that you were kept out of the war, what with you being so far away from the H? motherland, even to the point of insisting that you temporarily leave the alliance for your own sake.

Well, they fought "tooth and nail" to see that everyone was kept out of the war and that was quite good enough for me ... not leaving the alliance was my decision to make and not theirs ...  apart from that I think we all know that just getting out of an alliance does not take you out of the war, especially if you were an active participant like me ...

Caconafyx wrote: A good leader would not continue the war knowing that it can only lead to your total annihilation for no other reason than pride.

I have explained many times, in this thread and others, why pride has nothing to do with it ... if you want to keep tossing the same thing around over and over again, at least to bother to offer a counter-argument instead of just proclaiming your opinion that it is "simple pride" ...

Caconafyx wrote: Instead a good leader, one that cared about his/her alliance and its members would say enough is enough. Stop the war, bow out with your dignity intact and your armies in tatters and rebuild. Regrow your alliance, help members with resource and advice and rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

You incorrectly assume that the current course of action is not a unanimous decision by everyone involved ...

Caconafyx wrote: It's what Hath did. He swallowed his pride after the contrived Consone War. A war that was engineered by H? Yes it was a bitter pill to swallow. Yes, we had those that wanted to continue the war, but ours is an alliance of lions led by lions and not donkeys. You brought us to our knees 12 months ago amidst mockery and derision but we came back stronger, oh how we came back stronger. A year on I can look at our alliance with pride. Yes the gold demanded meant that we had to borrow it from other places. Yes we struggled to find T2 resources to satisfy the surrender terms having fought the good fight for half a year, and yes it was painful to face the humiliation of not just losing towns but having to hand them over to the "enemy" who in my case paraded it around like a war trophy. But a year on we are bigger, we are stronger and that is what I would urge for you and your allies. We may have mistaken your resilience for stubbornness and your prowess for hubris but why not show us and the rest of the game your nobility, your honour and your dignity and bring about an end to this war and help forge a new and improved era for Illyriad?

Given your alliance's propensity for spin, propaganda and underhand tactics, how can we honestly be expected to assume that you did not manipulate those events?

If you can't defend your cities then you can expect to lose them.  As long as you are at war that makes you a target.  And if your allies can't help you protect your cities then you should probably consider exiting the war.  Or you can stay, that is totally up to you, but don't expect your enemies to stop attacking you.  In past wars and in this one individuals have left their alliances because they were in enemy territory and knew that losing their cities was inevitable.  But a lot of players in this war will not surrender no matter what, and I can respect that.  But it also has consequences that most of these players have not accepted.  

So please stop trying to make the other side look like bullies, because they aren't sieging your cities for no reason.  You are at war with them.   Their objective is to destroy your cities until you come to terms or have nothing left.  It really is that simple and always has been like that.  

Anyway, I figure that if I read all the other posts in that topic, then I have read most of Deranzin's post anyway... :p