I think the chief problem and greatest strength I have with strat is that its open-worldness requires you to play in 1 of 2 catagories. You either play serious, strict RP diplomacy with kings, lords, vassals, and allies, or you play "yolo who gives a shit lets just attack shit." What I have found in my years of strat is that not only do people in one catagory not get along with people from the other, but also, people will switch sides, or worse be yolo about 1 aspect of strat, yet hardcore about another. So what I am about to say isn't just a rant on Aldog, but on almost everyone who plays strat.
I guess I am alone in thinking strat is a game for our entire community to enjoy, not a e-peen test to see who is better at internet fighting. Now don't get me wrong, I tried very hard to "win" strat, we had a plan to literally make a play at the entire NA map. But I always viewed it as a way to bring battles and a plot to our community. So most people might think I hate LCO for being the straw that broke my camel's back, but its quite the opposite actually, I have great respect for Arrowaine and the LCO guys for letting me face them in what was no doubt the most competitive, strategiclly played war NA has ever had. Both sides had incredible map and battle management.
And it is too bad that shitty strat mechanics and bugs drove most of the interests away from VE members(as well as many others) and I quit giving a shit, Trist quit giving a shit, and HoC decided to split when myself, trist, and 9finger were all AFK for at least a week. We were a huge faction, but even at our peak in activity every major decision was made by either Trist or myself, and several others would take leadership interests for small periods of time. But that is strat, you cant rule by commitee, its too inefficient. So trist handled the number stuff, army logistics, and war preperations, and I handled trade and most importantly, I kept VE together. VE was my baby, I spent a very long time putting our clans together, so I know more than anyone about VE, its leaders, and downfall. So that being said: Aldog,you are a dumbass.
I'm assuming Jaren is the guy who told you this, but ironically you are all former VE members so idk why you put that. If you didnt here it from Trist or myself, it most likely isn't true. And in the case of Aldog's involvement in strat, you literally had zero knowledge of any politics for VE or even MB. It took you six months to fight in one of our battles, and you never showed interest in leading anything.
So to get back to my first point, Aldog was always the "strats for nerds, lets just yolo for xp" mindset, and naturally most of your mems followed you. 9finger and canada ran MB, and I loved working with guys. HoC was just the opposite, they took everything seriously, working with bonesaw and warborn was such a challenge, but i think you guys are the main reason I put so many hours into strat, i would do it again in a heart-beat. The irony in all of this, is HoC split from us because they didnt give a shit anymore, and MB wanted got pissed at how our beloved God Emperor King Robert handled drunken diplomacy. All of those nights I spent going to your TS asking you to quit over the top trolling HoC, and you guys leave from one incident with a guy who doesnt really care about strat, in Robert.
I get it, you wake up one day and decide you want to become involved, or just do something else entirely. Its a video game, no one blames hoc or mb for doing what you did, I told you this when we talked in TS. But to address the OP: HoC split because A) bonesaw wanted to B) they felt our leadership sucked and they wanted to- "get off a sinking ship." If you knew me at all, you knew I wanted to win real bad, so why the fuck would I want to attack someone in my own faction? Someone who worked very hard and didnt mind letting us make the big decisions. We would never have attacked HoC why they were still VE.
Now the last part, and my personal favorite because I feel like it truly expresses the fundamental differences of a Yolo'er like aldog, and a hardcore nerd like me, is our war with MB. The fact is, we wanted to fight both MB and HoC, but we needed to get a 2v1 in order to do it. It was also no secret we wanted Uxxhal, VE is keeping the Rhodok lands etc. HoC wimped out though, bonesaw said they were so tired of MB they didnt even want to fight them anymore. So being the cunning lord that I am, I tried to threaten you guys by bluffing and telling you HoC was with us, but that we would have rather fight HoC with MB as an ally. In reality, I didnt care which one of you we fought, I just wanted to attack one of you. Which almost worked, but you guys just said you werent going to fight HoC, and months went by without anything happening.
Now some people would call that low, but I call it diplomacy. It is why I love Kesh, Arrowaine, Turboflex, Grey Order, and DRZ. It makes the game competitive and interesting, and I feel it the only "fair" thing about strat. And yes, we got raped pretty bad in those Nomar battles, but if you actually know anything about strat, the -1k battle kd in those 5 or 6 battles is nothing, and uxxhal lost over 5k troops to upkeep alone.
** this is done from my phone while at work, so its prob full of grammy errors.
