Spies are invaluable. It lets me know the enemy so that I can know the outcome of any battle. The more I know the better, I wouldn't say it's evil bidding, it's simple intel gathering.
It's clear as crystal what our objective is in strategus, it's to bring an end to these big ass alliances. In strat 2 I tried for a long time to talk to DRZ and see if we could work with them again and they seemed interested up to a point, but then it was clear that the UIF was still strong as ever, which was a big disappointment. But I did feel I accomplished a secondary goal, which was to destroy the Northern Empire block.
In strat 3 we wanted to go into it, preparing to take the UIF on early and gather as much support as possible, that's why we were talking to people I'd otherwise have no business wishing to speak with. (mercs, shogunate, guard, etc) There were really only two real options to try to break up the alliance. Make our own mega-alliance; befriend some of the clans and destroy others through a combination of force and politics. The second option is to just avoid the whole lot as much as possible and hope they break under their own weight of boredom. Clearly, we were going for option 1.
The Fallen Brigade will never work with pecores, hospitaller, occitan, and especially templars for roleplaying reasons. And there is something you will learn in strategus, but it takes time, 80% of the clans in strategus are completely utterly worthless. Whether they just evaporate, can't return a favor or are led by incompetent people (such as the case of Eastern Tsardom). You can really waste a lot of time and resources trying to work with unproven clans.
As for being worked up, I'm not worked up at all. I just think you're a flake and when the time comes when you're needed you won't be there. Actually you're not the only clan I think that about, I also think Hospitaller and Occitan will cut and run when put under pressure. And afterwards you'll all be singing the same old tune. "We were never really allied, we were just in it for the land."
As for fighting the mercs in strat 2. That was a little payback for them stealing Halmar and Uhhun from us in strat 1. Their play style is utterly boring, conquering land through purchase power. We did not want to see a big blue area in the middle of the map again. Plain and simple. Nothing to do with the wolves.
If you think us trying to give you an out from a losing war was some sort of vindictive plot to separate you from your ally, the mercs, you're way off base. When Rogue was in the hospital for 3 weeks, vMega and I decided to attack the mercs, first cause they kept coming into our teamspeak pleading for us to stop our 1 or 2 members from signing against them in the battles and second as revenge for Halmar. We could have easily wiped the mercs out, but when Rogue returned he was absolute that we must stop fighting the mercs. But Noct is a cool guy and I like his artwork, and DaveUKR can act normal at times.
I think we're failing pretty hard at our goal this time around, if anything we've pushed people into the UIF block. It might not be called the UIF and you may not consider yourself in it. But from the outside looking in, it looks like 70% of the map is allied in some sort of fashion. Ultimately it looks like the same people will do the same thing over and over again. Utterly boring. I mean really, when will Risen, Legio, or Grey Order fight a battle? They seem perfectly content gathering resources and feeding their proxy clans.
