Originally Posted by
jmiedema
The thing is, currently (to any kingdom that has played at the top level, and yes I agree maybe someone like Zauper should make a post explaining the current "Do Not List") hitting a smaller kingdom is not an actionable offense. In the example of SS, they knew they were #2 honour, they knew they didnt have an actual written CF agreement with FS, and all throughout the "SS vs WSK" thread people were saying things like "Watch out SS, FS is coming for you" and "SS better explore up all their explore acres to be ready for FS after they get out of war". So they knew we were coming for them, and choosing to not explore their pool in order to stay small (thinking for some reason that the server would be against #1 honour kd FS waving the #2 honour kingdom SS) is just a strategic error on their part.
Before SS went to war with WsK, we had asked SS for war (on even terms, we would drop down to their acres or give them time to get up to ours) they refused war in a way that made it very clear that they were going to avoid warring us the rest of the age. So no, we weren't going to let them jump into another war with the possibility of them running it out to the end of the age with no chance of us ensuring the crown. Any kingdom in our shoes would do the same. Now, if they had an actual confirmed war with Divinity, and both kingdoms confirmed this and/or tagged their kingdoms as going to war against each other, we would have honoured that, and not hit into the arranged war, as that is a much more actionable offense than "bullying" (put in quotes because I understand you think what we did is bullying, though any top kd monarch will tell you that is not the utopia definition of bullying).
The actual situation is that they saw us intelling them in preparation to wave them, and message us saying to not wave them, and that they "might" be going into a war, and it might be with divinity. Well.. for one, divinity is bigger than us, and you already think we are "bullying" so not sure what your plan with divinity was if not to avoid us. Secondly, you were a kingdom out of eowcf, without a confirmed war, without a CF with terms attached to it, #2 in honour, with Prince T/M's within 105% relative networth to approximately 2/3 of our Undead attackers. Of course we are going to hit you, and of course it is completely legitimate. THAT is the reason the majority of the kd's saw what happened and said we did nothing wrong. THAT is the reason why we werent actioned, and the kingdoms involved in actioning us were actioned on instead PRIMARILY because GB without cause and confirmed Dealbreaking are two ACTIONABLE offenses to the community.
This is a war game, and action and a certain degree of "unfairness" is allowed. We ate waves from other kd's and got CF's out of it all age. Not that we always do that (example settlers being bigger than us and waving us, and we took it to war and secured a major advantage and victory at the 48 hour mark) but every 1v1 conflict without dealbreaking involved is allowed, that is the nature of the game, like it or not. Every time you are waved by a kingdom you have to decide if retaliation is worth it, do a loss assessment, and gauge whether conflict benefits the goals that your kingdom has set out to accomplish in the age. Almost exclusively for any WW/Honour kingdom it is not worth it to escalate a conflict with a kingdom bigger than them. At the same rate, most of those kingdoms in turn probably do unfair attacks and randoms into kingdoms smaller (sometimes much smaller) than them. That is the nature of this game. The biggest mistake new players make in this game is trying to protect the resources of their individual province rather than figuring out what is best for the kingdom as a whole. Doesn't mean you can't take notes on the kingdoms that wave you and CF you. You can then wait for them to go to war, then get into a position where you are stronger than them after the war and (assuming your CF allows for it) retaliate on them in full after their war, or later in the age.
There is a give and get to this game, every kingdom knows it. Sorry this conflict had to escalate to where it did, but we refuse to be wrongfully GB'd. If between ages we have a big discussion as a community and we can agree as a community that hitting a kingdom a certain % smaller than you is bad form and actionable then by all means we won't do it. But GB'ing a kingdom due to a non-actionable offense will be dealt with in force, every time.
I do welcome discussion (in a separate thread) on the creation of a list of actionable offenses, as well as a list of things that are bad form, but not actionable. This would help the community a lot. Also, maybe a thread (stickied) on what is expected in contract CF's and War Agreements, what is binding, and what constitutes the breaking of a war agreement. I suggested it last age too, that maybe a "war agreement form" be drawn up so that any kingdom can keep the same format for war terms, that way it is more black and white on what the breaking of those terms represents, and what aspects of that dealbreak are actionable.