Wow you sure have a very efficient way to convince other people of your viewpoint Harpag & Erasmas, with your random flaming and insulting.
We contemplated leaving Strat for a long time now. Ever since the onset of the "Great Inactivity" during the summer month we have been in steady decline. All the resources in the world won't do you much good if you have no one left to move armies or do any other kind of work in Strat. Covering our fiefs with at least semi-inactive, partially reachable guys was a challenge. In the end the sole soul still moving on the map and doing stuff was Nikdoin. Some fresh blood tried to rise, were tutored and groomed and inevitably burned out, some really fast. The main burden of work, for over a year, was carried by the same few guys, whose main motivation was to keep on going since so much work has already been invested.
With that background an exit plan was devised. The options we had were rather simple: roll over and go inactive and let our enemies take all our stuff for free, like Mercs and Templars did. We wanted to avoid that, until we decide to go we wanted to resist as best as we can, which we did quite well. Give all our stuff away to friends, there was basically no one left. We considered moving it to NA and giving it to FCC, but with so few guys, so much stuff and later so many enemies walking around this was not really feasible. In the end we decided on erasing everything we have and just disappear. This plan was to set in motion once even the most hardcore guys finally had enough.
After around one month of brutal fighting our foes ceased to attack, we can't blame them for that. Attacking the same fucking place 10+ times in a row with still flowing reinforcements and a basically unlimited enemy stockpile, it gets boring and frustrating. We call that the Uxkhal syndrome. It is more a flaw in the game than a lack of resolve in the factions.
About a month after even our most eager foes ceased to attack us the idea was born to turn at least some of our resources into XP, converting everything would probably too long. We offered this option to DRZ, GO and Shu Han. GO wanted to kill us in the classic way and even told us what they wanted to try next, dance with our cities. I can respect that, although we are not here to provide the antagonist for what they consider the most fun for them. Shu Han thought we are afraid, but they are rather silly anyway. DRZ eagerly accepted our proposal and after initial fights plans were hatched to enlarge and speed up the process, enhanced by plans to just fight ourselves for XP. Lack of our most valuable resource, active strat players, and pressing needs poor Nikodin had to attend delayed all this.
Then came the expected GO assault on our cities and what we expected to be an almost untakeable fortress turned out to be a craphole with really bad flag distribution. The prospect of fighting a 2-3 hour battle at least a week or more, where the primary strategy consists of a dance around the respawn timer was the final nail in the coffin. The remaining active Strat leaders, Nikodin, Dark and me decided it is time to quit. Instead of going with the origjnal old plan we offered some our stuff to DRZ to turn into XP. They have proven to be our most relaxed adversaries, with Segd and Vovka being cool guys and their proven utter trustworthiness (we let them spawncap one of our castles to save their tickets), this was logical choice. Segd suggested to go way beyond what we had in mind and to give them basically all we had. We agreed.
Unfortunately not being a die-hard hatemonger and taking stuff from an opponent who wishes to leave anyway is treason for some people. At first I thought Segd was making a joke when he told me about it the next day. I still can't wrap my head around why someone could think like this. Cold war much?
It is a testament to Segds integrity that he even handed all the stuff back, which we immediately submitted to the old exit plan. The fires burned hot. Respeccing was not even part of that plan, until you whined so eloquently about it, not that it matters anyway. All fiefs will be taken over until the seven days are up. This was a mute point to begin with, but hey at least you get worked up about it enough to spew more nonsense and random insults.
Another point worth adressing: giving everything to smaller factions. We could have tried that true. But first of all we would not just hand our resources over to anyone, first choice would have been friends like FCC & Bros. Logistical problems ruled out NA and Bros didn't even want Tulga with everything inside. Individually handing it out to smaller guys is way too much of a hassle and would take too long to be feasible. Once it became obvious what we were up to it was likely we would get attacked to claim a piece of the cake. Fighting more battles was something we wanted to avoid. It's not like anyone is entitled to our stuff anyway and we already tried leaving it all behind to be turned into XP.
All the guessing about the inner workings of our faction is silly. Fancy theories but nothing more and it is easy to parade the flag of activity for people who barely played a third of the round in a position of responsibility. This strat round is just way too long with next to no support for bugs, imbalances and glitches. It should have ended 5-6 month ago with the onset of the great inactivity.
And for everyone hating on us and because I love quoting myself:
[...]in the end we don't really give a fuck about what anyone of you writes or thinks anyway.
