Night Crusaders / STEEL conflict

Kurdruk's point is highly valid. If an alliance is attacking just to amuse themselves, it is very much a concern for all of Illy. However... we did not attack only (or even primarily) for fun. We attacked because we have a target who richly deserves it AND we enjoy it. Both conditions have to be present for us to consider an action like this. We have never attacked and will never attack anyone solely for fun. It is essential that they deserve it.

In the case of Gim, the reasons for his deserving it are plentiful. Here are a few:

 - Some time ago, he tried to get a coalition of other alliances to attack us over a territory dispute that was already resolved and did not concern him. (He failed. And of course he wanted other people to do the fighting, not himself or Steel.)

 - He contacted one of our members behind our backs to try to convince him to reveal private information and to disparage us. (This failed, and of course our member shared the transcript with us.)

 - He has tried to poach players from our alliance. (And failed, of course.)

 - He called one of our members a bigoted epithet that was way over the line and probably not acceptable to post in this forum.

 - In the Aesir/TLR conflict where ~NC~ provided the majority of the military might, Gim again inserted himself into something that was none of his business. He pretended to be neutral, when in fact he worked solely for the interests of Aesir, where his alt resided.

 - In the days before we began our diplo campaign, we learned from two separate alliances (with whom we do not have close ties) that Steel was trying to organize attacks on the Night Confederation, supposedly to repay us for our involvement in the Aesir/TLR mess. This was the last straw that caused us to decide to be proactive and attack first. (Gim, your alliance appears to be crawling with the moles of your many enemies. Information is coming to us unsolicited from all sorts of unexpected directions.)

We are attacking Steel because they deserve it. And, we happen to enjoy it. But we would never attack anyone simply for pleasure alone. Gim has worked hard over a long period of time to find people to attack us. (As long as it's not himself or his alliance!) Since he wanted the fight so badly, we decided to bring it to him.

LordOfTheSwamp wrote:   The Electrocutioner wrote: And if you should decide to join forces with STEEL and attack us, well then you don't have too much respect for them, do you? They are 3 alliances with over 100 members, and we are only 10 players total. You'd think they could handle us on their own, wouldn't you? Ah, and I was so impressed by the honesty of the opening remarks :-(  That is completely disingenuous. All players are not equal. [...] In other words, Steel are massively vulnerable.

Kurdruk is right - our comment there was disingenuous, although deliberately so. (I'd hoped the sarcasm was obvious.) We are very much trying to make a point about how weak Gim and Steel actually are.

Gim grew Steel on the premise of being strong enough to stand up to Consone. Really? They can't even stand up for themselves! Anyone who joined Steel wanting to be a part of building something big and strong has been duped. It does not matter how many join or how many sister alliances they have - a weak leader means a weak alliance.

Kurdruk commented in a separate post that Gim is not asking for help. On this, Kurdruk is simply misinformed. Gim has sent an IGM to practically every player on the server, and had a chatzy or skype conversation with half of them. The tone of desperation is quite amusing. He has been frantic and tireless in his efforts to find others to fight the battle that he has brought on himself. Anyone from Harmless? to alliances with 3 members have been approached with pleas for them to swoop in and save poor little helpless Steel.

We are hearing from a surprising amount of players who have grievances with Gim, and they are quietly cheering us on. We didn't want or expect that, but it is highly interesting. It will be very interesting indeed to see what develops.

Regards,

The Electrocutioner

(on behalf of Night Crusaders)

(PS - As an aside, the "tactic" of sending vans with resources was utterly ignorable and would not be worth comment. However, a friend set up a friendly blockade on Sir Bradly's capital, and good dozen or so were sent back limping on a very long journey home. I hope they enjoy having their vans out for a couple of extra days! Please feel free to keep doing that - we found it quite entertaining.)

The last NC post made this post moot but I'll respond anyway.

I don't care if two players want to play a war game within Illy.  But Illy is a game with war...and politics...and trading...and crafting...etc..., not simply a war game.  If someone is trying to reduce Illy to a war game (what I read described in the initial post) then I care about that.  If they do so by attacking people they "don't like" (which is pretty random to me) then I really care about that.  I care even more when it seems that the fights selected are not even (war games are by and large even contests).

Sorry I wasn't more clear the first time.  As NC has clearly stated.  It is not their intent to simply randomly attack people.  With their latest post, they've gone ahead and played Illy with all the elements (politics, strategy, long term planning, organization and war) that make Illy so much more interesting than just a war game.