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Hello, and thanks for doing this interview to give the Irish people some more detail in what's going on outside our borders and with our near neighbours.

Greetings. I am Flavourised, MoFA of Sweden. I’ll start by apologising for taking so long to answer. Warning for major WoT!

I have played for about one and a half year and I’ve been a politician for Flashback Sweden (centre) all my life. I’ve had 10 months in congress, most of them on my previous account, Anton100000, and a couple in the cabinet.

Let's get the big one out of the way first. Ireland has been considering her next step after leaving EDEN a while ago and the possibility of joining Asgard has been strongly favoured by quite a few people. Past history is allegedly a stumbling point with some people in your country and Ireland's possible entry has not been looked on kindly?

Ok, now for Ireland potentially joining Asgar😛
We had this discussion a bit over a month or so ago, and whilst it’s true that not all were happy about the idea of Ireland in Asgard, there were very mixed opinions amongst our community. The trend seemed to be that older players were more or less negative and that younger players were positive about the idea. This makes me believe that past history is, as you suggest, one of the big reasons why many oppose Ireland as a possible addition to Asgard.

I think, however, that it is folly to refuse co-operation based on things that happened so way in the past. We should instead discuss the practical possibilites and problems of Ireland and Asgar😛

Asgard is pro-CoT rather than TWO. In fact, we don’t have very good relationships at all with TWO, since they wiped the entirety of Asgard recently, and still hold Canada. Now, this causes problems, since Ireland lies very close to the UK, a member of TWO. If (when) TWO and CoT should face off against one another, Asgard will most likely be on CoT’s side. Now, if Ireland were part of Asgard, it is very likely that the UK would occupy Ireland, or maybe even march on to Scandinavia, especially seeing how they have recently had a little adventure in Norway. A war between the UK and Asgard will be hard to avoid even without Ireland if CoT vs TWO happens. With Ireland in Asgard, it seems a huge temptation for Britain to go to war against Asgard.

This would the greatest reason why I myself am skeptical towards Ireland.
However, Ireland does fit the model of a typical Asgard country, with a small but dediacted population, and would certainly blend in well with the rest of the alliance. If the UK situation were to be solved somehow, I would certainly be open to letting Ireland into Asgard.

Yourselves and Finland have been involved in plenty of fights recently, initially with the support of Canada before Spain jumped on them and, I should say, Ireland. Would you prefer a period of tranquility/boredom or are the constant battles keeping the excitement level up?

Moving on. I’ll start by saying: War is fun. Being wiped, however is not fun. Being without a congress is neither practical nor fun. But I’ll tell you what. It’s worth it. In order to never get wiped, we would have to stay out of all military conflicts. This is hardly possible, and it would lead to a very stagnant country, isolated from the politics of the rest of the world. War is necessary to make the game interesting. It might, however, be wise to stay calm for a while, after we’ve freed our country (which, by the way, is really, really fun and feels great) and things stabilise in the region.

A bit on the world scene. Despite their problems, EDEN is still capable of a significant amount of damage (where that damage goes is, perhaps, another story!), but the general feeling is that the time is nearing when changes will happen. Would you see the EDEN nations disbanding and joining other alliances, perhaps including Asgard, re-branding herself with similar members or just sticking around as she is?

About EDEN, it’s hard to tell. EDEN seems to be a very hard nut to crack. I remember talks about EDEN disbanding just before I took a break from the game. This was one and a half years ago. I come back a year later, and nope, still there. The question is if CoT and TWO will be able to concentrate and keep their hands off eachother for long enough for EDEN to fall, once and for all, or if their focus will shift from EDEN to eachother before they finish her off. As it seems now, I can’t really tell the answer. But EDEN has proved herself many times before, and the relationships between the other alliances are strained now that Poland has invaded Russia. If EDEN were to break down, I think they would pick sides between CoT and TWO. If it goes far enough for EDEN to disband, it’s going to be a big crash. I don’t think its countries will be willing to stay in virtually another EDEN, but would rather pick sides in CoT versus TWO.

On a domestic level, how active is Sweden as a country either on IRC or in articles/shouts etc? Ireland has a smaller population and we tend to see the same people commenting. Is this the same in Sweden?

I have a hard time describing the activity in Sweden, as I’ve never been to another eCountry, and have nothing to compare with. A wild guess would be that around 35-50 people are active in the community on a daily or near-daily basis. After a short while, you’d recognise most of us, but I wouldn’t say it turns into only the same people posting, as you describe the situation in Ireland. there are, however, almost never any completely new faces, and getting newcomers to stay is one of the biggest, if not the biggest challenge we have right now.

Sticking with Sweden's domestic issues, how has the war affected policy-making, unity, financial issues?

The war actually hasn’t affected the unity in Sweden too much. Almost all of the bigger parties have faith in the government and trust that we are doing what we can to offer them a non-stagnant as well as non-wiped Sweden. There are, of course, those who disagree, but the same people are fighting against Sweden in every battle on foreign soil because they think it’s mean to occupy other countries, which takes away much support from the population for them, so their opinions aren’t really well respected. Most of us trust thjhould keep on going as we always have.

Thanks for that in-depth response. It's always good for near-neighbours to get to know each other as well as they can.