Posts by russell_hantz

So I feel a sense of irony considering the name I chose for this forum account. I made it days after the backstab by IKEA and part of me, as much as it hurt getting stabbed in the back found myself somewhat admiring the backstab in a way. In that moment I was thinking this is something out of Russell Hantz's playbook. Lets do something that will piss people off, probably garner much negative favour but F it. And you know to a certain extent there is some element of schadenfreude seeing someone backstab another (even though it was my team in this case)

So I doubt any of you will know Russell Hantz and why I keep talking about him. He basically was the main "character" of 2 different seasons of survivor I happened to watch. He basically outwitted and outplayed everyone on both of those seasons. Got to the final vote and lost the final vote in both seasons by a landslide. He lost because almost everyone in the jury that was made up of people he had kicked off previously had some form of a grudge against him.

He played the exact same game twice in a row and ended up in the same position. In spite of outplaying and outwitting everyone he lost and what I found truly shocking is that he could not grasp why he lost. Completely oblivious to the fact that pissing off every single person who would then need to vote him as winner was actually not a wise move.

I feel like there are some parallels here to what is going on in this server.

Fun fact: Russell decided to run it back a third time on survivor and ended up being voted off in one of the first tribal councils. He had made such a lasting negative reputation that everyone in his tribe when they had a chance to get rid of him decided to do so.

Honestly I am not gonna lie, survivor is a pretty trash tv. But if you are looking to waste some time watching some kinda trashy guilty pleasure I would recommend watching the first two seasons with Russell in it. Genuinely an almost genius player

AFKi wrote:

The thing is that we are in this situation because we had better plans, strategies and played better than others and that is something that ANY of the teams in here could have achieved with more commitment & skill. Instead of trying to learn, adapt, work on you weaknessess and embrace your strengths you decided another way. Joint opses were your answer to this situation, where you could actually learn something and become better. It is what it is, sad part is that you can't challenge us with better or more advanced game play and trying to be smarter, rather do something that we can't counterplay, because of pure numbers. We did nothing that you could not do, but you decided to do something that we can't do.

We have people with Kids, families, jobs, studies, lots of irl commitments like everyone else. We just use our time more wisely than the rest. I don't mind fighting several fronts at the same time, even cooperation between enemies to some extent is fine tbh, but when you bring the game play to a level where your opponentti does not have a chance to complete, that makes me feel sorry for you.

Although sooner or later you have to start planning against each others If you want to have a chance to win this server. Our actions in future will still have a huge impact to who has the chance to win this server, we might be the one to actually make that decision for you. But we will see

Just wanted to give you some perspective, how I see this situation. We take whatever you have for us, but are you prepared for the same treatment?

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Perfectly fair. I am sure people will adapt to include some of your game style in the future. Though maybe with some improvement on the social side of the game I hope. I really do not believe you guys needed to take the scorched earth attitude to diplomatic relationships on the server to achieve something close to where you are because you did have better strats, and did play better

Heck my impression is that if you had limited yourself to just drawing the ire of Goats and GOW. You would have been in a better diplomatic situation.

But ultimately the image you have chosen to perpetuate is being a team that is willing do break any sportsmanlike convention to gain an advantage. In fact to some extent some of you went on to taunt people for choosing to complain about your unsportsmanlike actions. Yet now you are complaining that people are not being sportsmanlike.

Be consistent man.

Also for sure you are in pole position to be kingmakers. You might even end up being kings yourself. But realistically you influence of the spawn locations makes you guys a huge threat towards the end game for every meta on the server to larger or smaller extents.

Bat Man wrote:

Server was set up a bit differently

You mean that at that point you were doing well diplomatically so you decided to gloat about it to those who were doing poorly diplomatically and now that you are the one doing poorly diplomatically, diplomacy doesnt matter?

Bat Man wrote:

I don’t care that our leaders didn’t do more diplomacy or decided not to Zerg with the mega meta against the nordics. I’m happier that our leadership have faith in our members and believe in our own abilities.

A little ironic given how earlier in the server you were so proud of your ability to keep your NAP going when GOATS and IKEAS feel apart. But hey I guess hypocrisy is everywhere eh.

Hmmm my two cents for what its worth (I think the value is going to determined by which echo chamber you reside in but I think that is the reality we live in anyway)

Nordics

I think its justified in saying that GOATS, GOW and TEN have reasons to want to act against the Nordics. I dont think this is something that is really in contention.

Gunners

I think there is justification for GOW, DND, and GOATS to act against Gunners. Again I do not think there is any contention on this point.

Joint action against Nordics

So I think the point of contention here is whether joint action is a reasonable action.

I think the beef between GOATS and IKEA is extreme enough for joint action. I suspect GOW would feel similarly. For TEN I would say the "leaked landing time attacks " would be valid enough justification to want to take extreme action against he nordics. We can debate this and ultimately it will come down to a question of differing values. Nordics find their actions fair game and the others do not. And on the flip side Nordics feel aggrieved by the joint action and the others feel given past actions this is justified. And honestly the contention is based on the different perspective and unlikely to be reconciled

Joint action against Gunners

Again this is the point of contention

I believe on this note GOW and Gunners have beef that precedes this server and realistically I suspect anything goes here.

DND from what I have seen are very much pissed off with Gunners to an extent I suspect they will do whatever it takes to take them down

TEN - between the warning regarding settling cata points and the follow spy actions against them are again perfectly justified in being pissed off with gunners

GOATS - It comes down to a Slight confusion artifact. No idea why a team fighting against 3 quads decides to pick a fight with a 4th quad. But I think its a reasonable in light of hostile actions to respond with hostile actions.

Alternatives to joint action

I think you want us to attack independently like in those dumb Kung Fu movies where the people file in 1 by 1. I hope you recognise that this is something from the movies. Additionally, in a server where the Nordics specifically have said this is a war game and honor codes mean nothing, I really find it hard to imagine why anyone would want to afford you that to be perfectly honest.

My personal take

Personally I say get on with messing up Gunners and the Nordics. After that if there is to be a winner amongst the teams left, I am less likely to have a bitter taste in my mouth from their win. I am firmly on a "Anything But Gunners or Nordics" stance right now. Again for what its worth I suspect somewhere most ex-CWL players will in some part sympathise with your plight. Been there before many a time. Unfortunately one of the many aspects of this game is a social element and this is one of the things I do not understand about the nordics plan. There is so much to admire except the social element.

Now I fully expect you to disagree and that is fine. I hope at least in some way this maybe helps you understand the other perspective at play. If not, I tried.

For what its worth, nordics I really like the plan to disrupt the game with a centre quad meta. But personally dislike some of the implementation of it.

P.S. Also I hope you do not misconstrue my statements as being aggressive in any way. This was all written to be read as calm conciliatory statement.

Also I dont see a world where the nordics or gunners become irrelevant on this server. At the end of the day its the 2 strongest positioned metas on the server imo vs the rest of the server.

I would add something about the potential spawn locations of construction plans. Nordics seem to have at least 5 plans on lock and looks to be in position to contest for another 3

Seems like only gunners and TEN maybe be in position to grab the 2 plans required for WW 100

Solid planning again from the nordics but also shines a light on an additional reason why other metas may have it in for the Nordics.

Ok this is what I am aware of the negative diplomatic relationships on the server of the non Nordic alliances say pre artis. Please correct me if I am wrong.

DND - fought against Gunners and TEN (Though worked with 2.01?)

GOATS - Fought against IKEA (by extension DUAT)

GOW - Fought against Duat (by extension IKEA) and Gunners

Gunners - Fought against GOW and DND

TEN - Fought against IKEA (by extension DUAT), DND and 2.01 (now merged)

That GOATS, GOW and TEN are extending the hostilities that were already present prior to artis post artis surely cannot be considered this huge amazing bombshell can it?

On a server where people have memed about leaked landing times being excuses to suggest non cooperation I think you are really going on a stretch here.

3 Metas who already had been at odds with the nordics are continuing to do so...

WOW super huge mega conspiracy

I mean I have always been puzzled by the scorched earth policy IKEA was using on diplomacy... I cant believe they did not realise something like this would happen if you choose to the the diplomatic aspect of the game the way they did.

Hmmmm....

Is there any indication that this even represents an endgame alliance?

Personally I see this as the natural outcome of the diplomatic game the nordics have played. Be it their liberal use of deception to their opportunism, they have drawn the ire of a number of the metas.

While you can argue that they lack the numbers they also have a very intriguing compact spread of accounts in comparison to the other metas which has its own advantages in terms of organising defenses. I think even someone from gunners even suggested that they did not want to attack into DUAT due to their insane defense response time.

I suspect the Nordics themselves knew this would happen once they announced their merger. Especially when you add the fact that they did as well as they did in the artifact capture. This should project them to clearly be frontrunners to get construction plans given their dominance over the centre of the quad. Not having any concerted effort to reclaim some control over the construction plan spawn areas would be well... not smart....

Additionally I would say its clear that attacking into their "stronghold" centre of the map is going to be a rather treacherous affair as I suspect given that the Nordics went for such a strategy they should be heavily indexing defense making this a reasonably tricky task. I feel this multi quad alliance to exert some control over the centre of the map was a mere eventuality and everyone that participates in this action is likely to take severe losses.

Ultimately I think the plan that the Nordics have kinda has put everyone on this weird either go for some kinda cold war or go for some mutually assured destruction and it seems we are heading to the latter. And I guess gunners not joining in just leads to a clear target for them in the aftermath of what seems to be coming. I am sure you guys recognised this fact when deciding not to join the "swarm"

Regardless I think we can shelf any talks of this "swarm" being an end game alliance since we are months away from the end game

I doubt I have the kind of influence you think I have. Unfortunately sometimes people get stuck in local minimas...

I guess I could come up with scenarios to persist with the 4-way narrative but it all seems a little too unreasonable imo. Evidence against is significant enough for me to reject that hypothesis. And if for some reason any of those scenarions end up being true, I say I have been well and truly marinated cos I retract my suss.

Sponge(HH) wrote:

Taking the great example of certain legendary* .com domain metas, since us and DND were compared to 2 other alliances on com2, i will now let you know that it is pointless for gunners to take a ww and play for endgame since DND took some of our spawns and even chiefed a 9K EI ghost hammer. If we take a ww, it is purely for old times sake, so that we allow GoW a shot at chiefing our wonder to keep old traditions alive. As the great PP said, "Gunners are shit" and so i conclude that this OP we've done means nothing.

Lol fair play.

In defense of Brezz I suspect he said that expecting there to be peaceful simming in the NE rather than losing spawns but this is a minor point.

From my perspective... It is clear my previous speculation is inaccurate in light of clear evidence against it.

Blitzkrieger wrote:

russell_hantz your just another delusional GOATs player, except your smoking a stronger version of what Brezzok was smoking as youve now thrown IKEA into the fold..

Your spinning a story to get the fear brewing in TEN and GoW. Your leaders (if you not one too idk) keep asking “whats your relationship with IKEA” i think theyll keep asking until they get the answer they desire (spoiler: they are going to be asking until the end of the server).

P.S. Heverton by the way say your right, it was a co-ordinated OP, what does it matter if the two targets are completely separate and irrelevant to each other.. Or are you trying to say Ten and GoW couldnt defend each other as a result of the ‘co-ordinates’ OP? Is this GoW & Ten confirmed confed?? Itll be interesting to see.. All will be revealed soon..

Clearly I have annoyed you which was never my intention.

I have to say you inadvertently stepped on a bit of a sore topic. As a child of a schizophrenic, that 10% inheritance value is this huge scepter looming above my head...

I would like to think I am being more nuanced than brezzok(?). Honestly for me this is just like one of those puzzles that you cant solve but that in itself makes you somewhere between frustrated and also more curious.

So in a weird way saravan suggesting I was writing a PhD thesis was kinda personally hilarious cos I am actually attempting one. And my topic unfortunately in not perfectly open to experiments. You end up having to create causal diagrams and then make inferences. And I hope you understand with regards to any question of relationships between the different meta I am working with imperfect information and thus have to make inferences. And I fully admit my bias towards plants. Roles reversed would you really find my reasoning off?

Anyway I guess the answer to whether it is possible to speculate on the topic seems to be a firm no and I shall accept that personally unsatisfactory answer.

As for my role in GOATS. I would say I am temporary middle management at best. I feel what I do can be best described as being a glorified secretary. I call meeting to decide on certain issues, collate opinions and then do the grunt work to execute the opinions of others. I thankfully have little to no insight on actual server planning and decision making. I do not think I play well with people (as I suspect you must relate).

As always I understand that as with everything on these forums you need to take it with a healthy dose of skepticism but I do want to say I am truly grateful that you were previously willing to humour my speculations. I truly to appreciate it. And FWIW you probably have lowered my confidence in the idea of a 4 way relationship. Its nice to have some level of civil discourse

Oh and I really do agree with the sentiment that regardless of level of cooperation there should not necessarily be that huge of a change to how stuff should be approached. I think its just a question of how boring the answer is, if that makes sense.

Bat Man wrote:

Russel, when teams motives are confusing or not fitting any particular narrative in my experience it’s usually because there isn’t any specific one to go on just yet. Why would Ikea attack different teams whilst working with them simultaneously? ,

(It’s a rhetorical question and rather nonsensical to ask imho)

If Ikea have shown anything it’s that they embrace fighting, not metas, Ikea are the definition of rambunctious.

Here there is room for alliances to take what looks like a tough situation and capitalise on this as a strength.

In Ikea’s case we can acknowledge they’ve exported the Nordic style of play very successfully and haven’t needed to rely on any other team to achieve their early goals.

Remembering it was actually Goats leadership that attempted to make a collective faction, which would have included Gow, Goats and ten if successful. Perhaps to suggest collusion from the other side is a plan to take attention away from oneself?

Fascinating even on the forums Goats continue to try to shift attention to the same four alliances they secretly tried to plot against.

The Goat idea ofc was to originally combine 3 of the largest metas to create a mega meta, including Ten, Goats & Gow in order to combat and dominate Dnd, duat, Gunners and Ikea..

Unfortunately for the goats the very plan looks to have fallen off the wheels and may have just caused additional heat on TGG’s campaign as a result.

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I mean sure ... it could be a lack of a consistent plan. I just feel that explanation is somewhat underwhelming... Personally prefer to think people have plans than being random. I think at the very least I feel we should give people credit for having a plan...

Tbh a TGG plan sounds really boring. Just as the idea of a 4 way alliance so yeh hopefully neither comes to the fore. But at the same time I doubt the world works such that it will give me my preferred outcome so... lets see what happens ?

Sponge(HH) wrote:

xD you're a funny guy. Freyja was in the GZ, our only hammer in the GZ and we used Freyja to hit duat because response time to get def was like 10 mins for the attack. They walled it. So imagine if we launch a hammer from outside the greyzone and give them an hours time to coordinate def... or 2 hours..... like i said, you're free to believe what you want to believe, but that doesn't make it true xD

Ok... I do not disagree in the slightest with that line of logic. One could argue maybe the challenge of multiple attacks is a little different that the challenge of response time and you could have different outcomes. But ultimately that is tangential and I do not find any problem with your argument at all.

Its just I dont think that necessarily addresses my point of course.

So as I see it the logical flow was

1) I have this unshakable feeling that there is a 4 way in place

2) You say 1 hammer lost is evidence against that

3) I say but 1 hammer does not equate a meta level decision

4) You counter that you didnt wish to do a meta level attack cos the one hammer was walled

You explain why there was not a meta level plan but this doesnt necessarily equate to evidence against the idea of cooperation(?)

Am I explaining this ok?

I will say your point that IKEA hit DND capitals (I think the important part here being the plurality of capitals) sounds a lot of more convincing. Obviously it is a little bit disappointing that this is not evidenced at the moment. But yes it is totally fair that reports arent shared.

On a separate note. I am a little slow to pick up on cues but it does seem pretty explicit at the moment that people see this line of discussion as some form of diversionary tactic. If there would be any way I can diminish this idea of this being a diversion whilst continuing this discussion that would be amazing. I understand of course this may not be possible. To those of you engaging in the discussion, I appreciate you guys

Highlight thus far definitely been the line linking narratives

Genuinely a good line

Testostereoni_FI wrote:

Some interesting thoughts, some quite far off the mark though. I appreciate how interested you (GOATS) are in IKEA and in what we're doing/not doing. But I guess it's a great strategy to divert attention from you to others. And it seems to be quite effective. Instead of focusing on your position on the server and the options available to you, most people focus entirely on your (ally's) constant whining and finger pointing.

This is a conversation that is better suited after the server is over. There's an old .fi domain tradition of 'end speeches' where people, leaders and grunts alike (if willing) tell the story of what happened on the server and why from their perspective. We've managed to export that concept to nordics and considering the amount of drama and banter here in com, wouldn't be surprised if people are interested in having that camp fire discussion on the forums afterwards.

I'd also like to point out that there are multiple metas out there that do not share all their reports publicly.

Thats a perfectly fair and reasoned opinion.

I would suggest perhaps you are reading too much into the intentions behind my posts. I am genuinely just curious what people think. There is only so much perspective one can get from chatting amongst your own meta. Plus you know this game can get a little boring just sending raids and queuing buildings. My brain needs a break from the tedium. I am sure how you could see the alliance of particular interest to me as a GOATs player would be IKEA. Proximity does breed obvious curiosity I would say.

Would you be interested in maybe humouring me by highlighting stuff you feel is way off the mark? (privately maybe) End of server threads are usually the best part of the forums and definitely would be curious to see what the behind the scenes story would be. But perhaps, I am being impatient.

I have to say I find the amount of reports shared without hiding troops counts is quite different to me. So is this an IKEA thing not to share reports? Cos I feel like a fair few reports are shared in that discord channel? is there some underlying logic behind what is being shared and what is not?

Also I find it curious, the suggestion that there is much attention of GOATs? Is there really that much attention on us? Seems like the majority opinion is that we are underwhelming except for Batman who occasionally talks us up while also putting us down? Truly enigmatic ... which may be fitting for someone calling themselves Batman

Saravan wrote:

What distinguishes a weak alliance from a strong one is that weak ones are always on the lookout for excuses as to why they are failing. They don't reflect upon their failures to improve. They just whine - like you do, like your alliance do. If it's not broken NAP:s, it's techs. If it's not techs then it's metas. There is always something to cry about. Always an explanation to the bad results, everything except just accepting you played worse. Admitting that would be disasterous to your fragile ego. That's why you are a shit alliance, because you can't handle adversity in the way a strong one would.

Now keep adding chapters to your whine book, it's funny af.

Still a little confused how me speculating whats going with the politics of the server is whining.

I suspect that there is a simple algorithm behind the content of your post... If poster is from GOATS, then accuse them of whining

Its funny since my stand on techs and the betrayal have concretely been its part of the game.

And my stand even if there is a 4 way link, is play on...

But hey keep shouting your slogans

Sponge(HH) wrote:

Our biggest hammer at the time got walled by duat in basically a 10 minute window to send def in xD IKEA have cata'd DND caps. So idk what exactly you mean by "extent" of these blows traded. Maybe it doesn't fit into your narrative, but there really is no relationship between the 4 four alliances. As for a deal between the nordics guys, i can't really comment on that, can I ?

So, I hope you dont mind me being a little sceptical that the action of one player would constitute a meta level action. Could e the actions of a petulant player? A drunk player? an impulsive player? a player defying meta level orders not to engage? But sure I will consider that as a point against my hypothesis. I don't necessarily feel that its significant enough to substantially sway my opinion at the moment but it is noted for sure

I am curious about these IKEA hits on DND. I clearly am out of the loop and to be honest I mostly am too busy to check in on these stuff so yeh tell me more about this. I am inclined to say this sounds like more compelling evidence against my hypothesis.

Sure its only fair to suspect me of championing a narrative but hopefully I can show some level of malleability in my views when given evidence against my hypothesis. And I will say my views are very much coloured by the fact I generally am rather sceptical of the alliances that spawn in quads and say they are here "to have fun". I admit my bias wholeheartedly.

Rextugenos_FI wrote:

Had to cut the quote from a little bit of the bs spread.. But anyway, do any of you have any sticking proof of any planting or have you even considered the idea from either Duat of IKEA perspective why would either of us want to be shitty plant for another 180+ acc meta

I don't know what Duat is doing and how close they are with any other alliances but can promise you that IKEA has nothing to do with any planting, playing for anyone but for ourselves is the last thing we would do.
And sticking on the argument about balance is also shaky imo just because we don't know and can't know other alliances plans, activity, gold spending, player histories etc. So we just go with what we see and hear.
Also just to point out but have you thought that hitting GOATS/2.01/TEN might not be a part of an masterplan but just clearing out the neighbourhood for nicer gameplay for ourselves ? Would be nasty to have enemy hammers and catapoints 5r from our capitals. If you don't believe me ask GOW and DUAT I guess.

As you said it's all about narrative and point of view, both are like assholes, we all have one

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Honestly your closing sentence is definitely a great line and I may use at some point. I think I made it pretty clear from the start to include the disclaimer of playing an account on GOATS and thus encouraged everyone to see my posts in that light. I am not sure what else I can say other that giving that disclaimer.

Also I think I have been very careful to use language suggesting opinions rather than facts? No doubt clearing your surroundings is an alternate hypothesis and definitely one I considered as well.

So I guess the point that I find kinda dodgy is that apparently (I apologise for being a mere peon and not having any significant insider knowledge) there was some initial talk about a goat gow ikea action against Duat that apparently triggered IKEAs action against GOAT at least according to AFK. And then the argument was that it was for the sake of balance(?). Which is fine. A reasonable stand to take.

But then you have scenarios where you guys are playing opportunists and willing to pile on TEN in spite of them being under attack from DND and 2.01, which seemingly contradicts the narrative from before.

I dont know, it all seems a little inconsistent at the moment from my outsider perspective. Perhaps its all about clearing out your region, but then why put forward false narratives earlier? Of course things evolve. But for me the lack of consistency seems very dodgy and leads me to speculate what could be a unifying motive behind everything. Does that hopefully explain where I am coming from on this?

Saravan wrote:

You can say whatever you want in the aftermath but the reality is your ally went full crybaby mode when you got attacked and your ally are still crying about it to this day.

Flavoring it with tears of secret metas and unwinnable odds doesn't change this fact. It just shows your team never faced actual competition before.

As I said, joke alliance with the mental of a 12 year old CoD player.

[Prohibited content removed]

Sponge(HH) wrote:

i mean, DND and IKEA have traded blows. GUNNERS have been walled by DUAT. Seems we're really bad at all this secret partnership stuff. Maybe thats why were open about our NAP and deal with DND from day 1 instead of ever denying it like certain others have

Curious of the extent of these blows traded.

Saravan wrote:

It's amazing that GOATS are still crying about a few spawns, hasn't it been like a month at this point? What kind of team are you even that this affects you so much, writing PhD dissertations on morality and honor over some random Finns breaking a NAP, get a grip.

Im confused? My whole point was that morality and honour are social constructs and since the playerbase doesnt find it morally wrong this is in fact the new moral standard of the server.

Are you really that fixated on making the narrative of whining and crying that you would accuse someone arguing that nothing wrong happened is also whining? *facepalm*

I mean okay there is the alternative that you lack reading comprehension of course but I really prefer the idea that you just cannot see past your narrative. Sue me I like to see the best in people...

Saravan wrote:

Here is you on Tuesday crying about having to fight in a quad (as a result of a broken NAP).

I guess you realised your fail and thus decided to quote someone else to justify your post even though you were referencing my post in the initial comment(?). I do admire the perseverance. Definitely an admirable quality!

Blitzkrieger wrote:

If Gunners, DND, Duat & IKEA were all in a confed, what would be the actual point of playing this round.

I do suspect that line or reasoning led to the premature comment from Brezzok.

And to be honest if that is true then well then I suspect the odds are heavily stacked in their favour. But hey, as much as I think this is the most probable reality doesnt mean I stop playing this one off server I decided to play. Hell the only reason why I joined this server is because I was told there would be some opposition so play on. Ironically had IKEA not done their attack I would probably be off the server for various reasons...

I am genuinely curious though how many of the other metas buy the idea that this is not a plant situation. Like do you think its 50:50 either way etc.

I suspect Saravan probably gonna try and hamfist this as some form of me whining cos clearly thats his narrative but I am just curious how much of an outlier my point of view is.

On the off chance that gunners are not part of this foursome, do you as gunners find yourself nervous about a potential trio partnership between duat ikea and dnd?

Of course it could various potential different permutations and as I think about listing them all out I figure I save you the torture. But hey should you be interested in the hypothetical, what do the various components of what I suspect to be a foursome think about potentially being the odd one out in this current arrangement? Has the though crossed your mind? Are you prepared?

Maybe its actually 1 plant from Gunners and 1 plant from DND and you guys believe there is balance (IKEAs buzzword) in the relationship. Thoughts? I know forums are not usually the place for civil discourse but it could be interesting to try(?)

Of course the cynic in me is resigned to Trump impressions of ignoring discourse in favour of punchlines and narratives.

Poor jay I feel he is trying to be a sole voice on here and I am guessing most of you here have potentially experienced the "joys" of that experience.

So I will be cleat and state my allegiance towards GOATS. Colour my opinions and statements accordingly as I am sure we all do towards all other people posting on here.

Ok so one basic concept that keeps coming up on here is morality. I totally wish that my old account (admittedly inactive for almost 10 years) was not deleted because the last time I bothered to post on a travian forum, one of the arguments I made was that morality and specifically honour is a BS concept. Its long boring argument so I will spare you guys. Whatever the case, morality is a social construct and in this case the agents are TG and the player base of the server. If neither TG nor the majority of the playerbase want to openly condemn an action sadly this becomes the new moral standard.

Teching

Older players used to different norms find it cheating. TG doesnt and it appears neither does the majority of the playerbase so give it a rest already. Clearly there are Metas that use it widely and others that use it situationally and we can see it clearly in the leaderboard. I think there is a begrudging acceptance this is the reality of the game and and a meta we are clearly behind the game as a whole. Yes there are some player who are clearly more attuned to the new realities and thus still thriving in this new order.

Poor jay seemingly is trying to voice a more inclusive opinion of the GOATS vocal playerbase that denounce this new development but give him a break. He is afterall in leadership and has to somehow represent the wide and disparate views on the issue.

On the betrayal

So personally I am torn on this one. A little side story. I used to work in research and on animals at one point of time in my life. And you cant survive that work unless you learn to turn off that voice in your head telling you what is right. And I did learn that. Personally turning that voice off I truly have an admiration for the deviousness IKEA showed. I mean Honour and morality are BS concepts used to prevent us from choosing the most beneficial path. And from what I see, no one outside of GOATS seems to think that these actions were out of line so once again it seems we have a scenario that this is the current moral standard of the game. Cest la vie. Side note: How many GOATS would denounce IKEAS actions if it were against someone else and how many people would be cavalier about it if it were done to them? I suspect reality would show high levels of hypocrisy. (note: I am talking about immediate attack as dropping NAP)

But AFK you cant be all about being this anarchist and then try and sweet talk people into trusting you as well. At the end of the day words and actions kinda do matter in terms of setting up an impression and you have pretty much proud about the fact your word means nothing (not even the courtesy of saying yes we are now against you guys prepare for hostilities) and how that is the way the game should be played... So I am personally confused as to what you expect really.

Thing is I feel the most parsimonious answer at the moment based on confirmed public data is that there is some massive dodginess going on between alliances in the NE and the scandinavians. Havent seen much to give me a reason to lower my confidence on this being reality for the moment. And if this ends up being the truth, its just well played tbh. If it turns out to be false... That would be somewhat interesting.

I hope for the latter of course cos the idea of the centre meta does seem very compelling whereas plants in other quads is just boring...