I love this bit about you not approaching the game from that perspective. I guess you forgot about strat 2 when you became "good dogs" -Vovka of DRZ in order to survive and then turned on your friends with glee in the hopes of acquiring more internet lands; especially since it looked like you and DRZ would wipe us the fuck out pretty easy seeing as we had just expended all of our troops on the hosp castle.
I will admit that I have in the past been concerned with being wiped out. In strat 2 I was much more adamantly playing into the diplomatic rigor of strategus, and we had made official allies with Druzhina and felt slighted by BRD - we broke a NAP to follow them into a war against you. It hadn't to do with winning, but for being denied what we felt we were promised and adhering to an agreement we held above another. It was not about gain.
I will say this now, too, because it still seems to be a troubling incident: It was not meant to be personal, but it was anyway. I'm sorry about it.
Bullshit. Kesh might go hunting for mercs and let people know we have room for them.. but he isnt going to get people to sign up on your side to eat slots and then have them switch last minute. Also, Kesh was complaining to me about how a bunch of people who were signed up for us all dropped last minute to join your side... but at least he didnt make up shit about it being part of some scumbag plan you had to screw us out of mercs.
I wasn't saying he had them sign for us to begin with, but I am fine dropping it as a rumor. I will confirm, however, that TimTehEnchanter_AoW and RoR_Dragon and possibly more have unsigned themselves the instant before a battle has begun without saying anything to us. A shame upon them, and a lesson upon us about hiring flighty FCC friends. Maybe Kesh's dogged roster-hunting gives our list casualties as a coincidence.
Also:
Although Kesh and FCC will deny it, yes he has encouraged people to sign up and retract at the last minute as well as sign up and leech as a low level. I cannot disclose who told me this because I don't want to call him out. This also applies to the MB faction as well.
I know that 9Finger has said to other MB members that they had a mercenary agreement with FCC and would always remind MB to sign up for FCC in battles. I think MB leaders have said that they don't recall any such merc agreement. (if anyone from FCC wishes to confirm or refute this)
That deal with mercs made it absolutely necessary for us to go on the offensive against a major faction in the hopes of acquiring land. We had a lot of people who had helped us a great deal in that war with the mercs and we wanted very much to be able to give them something in return; as such we planned on giving a large amount of the land we took from NE to those who had helped us previously. And yes we all expected NE to put up a much better fight. I would also like to point out that even before the war with NE was finished we already knew that DRZ was going to be attacking us the second our NAP wore off; granted we didnt expect our best friends (who constantly told us we didnt need any official alliance because we were so close that such things were unnecessary) would also attack us (while constantly reassuring me on steam that they wouldnt do such a thing without at the very least telling us first... while marching troops at us in preparations for a sneak attack)... basically we knew that things were still not going to be easy for us even after NE war was done. The only part of strat 2 that was easy for us was the week or so where we were fighting NE but it was overshadowed by the looming threat of DRZ and turning into another back against the wall situation.
I say the promise of land was worse because we were the ones who felt that the promise that was made to us was not fulfilled.
It seems that you saw farther ahead then we did; we were not aware of Druzhina's intent to attack you until a couple nights before the war were declared. I think the stick that tore the dam loose was when we told them about our discontent with what we felt we were denied receiving. There was, I think, only one instance I recall where I told a lie to you guys about our intentions after we had that whole misunderstanding about receiving another village. It was, I think, the night before any attacks occured, and I said something non-commital about what we were planning, stating that we hadn't planned on fighting you at any point.
you sent out like 2 suicide attacks. FIDL sent out like 8. you sat there and did nothing while we sieged fidl fiefs. Why would we think you would send any new armies?
Because clearly we're bad at the game. And like I said, the prophecy is self-fulfilling. Give our stuff away because you don't expect retaliation and you keep us from having it. I don't think FIDLGB has any interest in retaking what they lost, but I'd hate to see no more battles occur at some of these fiefs.
Looking back on other things we've done, we're also slow-moving when we try to accomplish something. I do not begrudge anyone for penalizing us for this, but don't brag about how we're awful turtles just because we're slow.
Holy shit i did a messy version of a canary post... what have you done to me?!
The old-fashioned Strategus wall of text is back. If I know how these things go, it might stay a while.