And when the going gets tough......

Deranzin wrote: Mr Damage wrote: Sounds good D, lets close the forum then. I do not propose that, but beating a dead horse of a topic again and again, day in and day out is imho tedious especially when we all know that actual diplomacy on the forums was never achieved even in better days

scaramouche wrote: see this opinion from a H player says it all....they will not surrender...and yet there are other threads suggesting why cant there be a ceasefire? I think this is coming down to pride...the mighty H? surrendering?...I remember a H director giving it large about some consone alliances surrendering and if they chose not to then they would continue to suffer. you can bleat as much as you like about how brave you think you are about not willing to surrender, which is fine by me, but I wish others would stop bleating about ceasefires, team B have no reason to call a ceasefire, the onus is on the loosing side to decide how they want to proceed

As you can see I am as perplexed by all this "surrender" or "cease fire" or whatever discussion every day, as you are.

The positions are clear from both sides and I clearly do not see what is the point in beating around the bush ... 

Something I disagree with you though is that fighting and standing up for what you think is correct has nothing to do with pride, but I do not think that such a point of view is something to argue over ... just a matter of personal style/point of view imho ... 

scaramouche wrote: Personally, im glad you don't intend to surrender....

Yes ... we know


Edited by Deranzin - 02 Mar 2014 at 20:31

Mr Damage wrote: Sounds good D, lets close the forum then.

I do not propose that, but beating a dead horse of a topic again and again, day in and day out is imho tedious especially when we all know that actual diplomacy on the forums was never achieved even in better days 

Mr Damage wrote: So berate your opponents all you like and try and make them out to be far worse than you ever were but reality is the majority aren't buying it, hence your current position.

Hehehe good for you, I say  ... now if this is really so, can you all stop pestering us with surrendering when our side has explicitly explained why there will be no such thing .?.

Not surrendering is our decision (for various reasons).
Destroying everyone that does not surrender, is your decision (for various reasons).

We all know the consequences of our actions and choice, so let us leave it at that and play the game as we all chose ... how about that .?.

scaramouche wrote: I, as well as others from the last war are proof that taking only two of your enemies cities is not enough...I lost two in the Consone war yet here I am six months after that war.. back to ten... and fighting again. Then again this depends on your outlook: 1. I wasn't destroyed enough to the fact that it took me out of the game, therefore I can thank the Coalition for their leniency? 2. I am now once again a reasonable threat in that I now participate again in full on battles much to my enjoyment and maybe...the coalitions regret? ... Seroiusly...I do not want to be fighting in wars of this magnitude every six months or so...I have neither the will power or time to keep this up indefinately.

Then perhaps harboring grudges and nurturing emnity is not a good look for you.  I do not assert that you have done so, but your present position does little to suggest otherwise.

You being back at full strength in six months after fighting against us is as it should be.  Six months rebuilding (presumably without prestige since it was only 2 cities) is sufficient consequence to Consone war decisions and actions, and I recall asserting that was the time frame we both predicted and sought for your recovery.  You being involved in another war now is a completely separate issue once again reflecting your own continuing decisions and actions after that point (an outcome we semi-expected and found acceptable, but did nothing to promote).

No one can domesticate a warrior but himself.

While plenty of people are out to paint a different picture now, avoiding conflict with Harmless has never been difficult nor required much more than some common courtesy and a vague sense of fairness.  For the sake of past foes who have chosen more harmonious post-war paths, I have no regrets for carefully limiting both wartime and post-war punitive costs.

----

People fight for fun, for hate, or for justice.  Whether you think we must be annihilated therefore depends on what our hate and/or sense of justice would induce us to do both now and later,  balanced against what you are willing and/or able to face from us both now and later.  If we must be annihilated to prevent what we would do, then we presumably feel that given a choice, we cannot allow you to get away with what you have already done.

In some specific individual cases at least, I cannot say otherwise.  There is no certainty for anyone, nor has there ever been any in previous wars.  There is, however, a track record regarding both how and by whom wars are started and ended - and from that, an already emerging certainty that ours will compare most favorably against yours.  For all the bawling, what we do to our enemies has proven very survivable even in terms of staying in the same economic/military class.  In this regard, whether people surrender is quite irrelevant, for in the Consone war our limits came into play in a big way long before anyone ever did.

Even so, were we to somehow beat these 5:1 odds, we'd have to think long and hard where we draw the lines between social training, justice, and revenge this time.  What do you do with someone who cannot be rehabilitated toward even the remote prospect of future peaceful coexistence, and by what measurement do you identify such cases?  It's not even an assessment we've considered since Diablito.

No doubt our active combatant enemies reside along a broad spectrum from toeing the party line to "all in."  Forget Harmless's moral compass - when was the last time any player held a grudge against an enemy that bowed out when he was winning?  And whether it is justice or just revenge, I don't feel terribly compelled to suffer continued coexistence with the latter case, except for one thing; one thing you can never take from us no matter the destruction is our leadership by example.

So if you don't want future wars, and you aren't personally responsible for orchestrating this one, then yes annihilation is one of your options.  But don't misrepresent it as the only one.  That is only true for a very select few ringleaders and puppeteers on your side - the ones whose continued influence on the game or at least the diplomacy of its major players is just not feasible nor healthy for anyone on either side.  And if they get their way, at least our coexistence with them will be happily discontinued without us even having to make those kinds of hard, example-compromising decisions.