Join the new world

It's been a while since my last article and as I've promised to write an article about the history of CoT for Indians to be able to make a better educated decision on the impending referendum, I guess I've run out of excuses to postpone it anymore. So here it is.



Genesis


The genesis of the idea for the creation of CoT is much earlier then many think or suspect, though the place where it originated is still the same - Bulgaria.

At the end of 2010 (yes some of us masochists have been playing for that long), Bulgaria was a young country, just gone through it's big BB at the start of the year, and through many growing pains and problems which were normal for young countries at the time, especially ones without a high resource region. (Back then there ere a limited amount of "high" resource regions, not like now where each region has a high resource in essance)

Macedonia was added to the game and a conflict emerged for a complex mixture of reasons, which was compounded by the inexperience of both countries and the lack of trust between them. Bulgaria's alliance at the time Phoenix did a poor job in managing the problem and so it escalated and was resolved with Bulgaria leaving the alliance and thus allowing Macedonia to join it.

At that point within Bulgaria was born the idea of starting a new alliance which would be based on equality rather then seniority or damage as had been with the main alliances at that time (Phoenix and EDEN). EDEN took the opportunity and with agressive propaganda, and the lack of conviction of enough people within Bulgaria, the idea was put aside in favour of joining the already established EDEN alliance.



Birth


One year later when the history would repeat itself, though much more cynical then the first time, (probably one of the reasons why a ne alliance gained staunt support despite the uncertainty and risks involved), the question for Bulgaria where to go forward and wether it should start a new alliance, where equality would be the main credo, surfaced again.

Many, even within Bulgaria, still had doubts about starting an alliance with small countries and believed it will have no future. There was statements of the type: "two countries are not enough to start an alliance" or "an alliance with midget countries is useless and has no future".

This time however the proponents for starting a new alliance had a stronger case and were much more determined to see it happen. Main prospects fo course were the two countries Bulgaria had had traditionally and long time relations - Russia and Chile. Other countries who had received an invitation were also India and Ireland at the time. For various reasons both Russia, Ireland and India opted not to join at the time and the project seemed to be almost dead in the water as 1 month after leaving EDEN the alliance had not yet been started and it seemed that CoT would be dead before it was even born.

Still with some last minute diplomacy and pressure from influential figures within Bulgaria and some in Chile both countries took the leap and started the alliance alone. Both had been in a similar boat after Chile's expulsion from TERRA and Bulgaria's exit from EDEN and both were fighting against the onslaught of EDEN side by side, which had made them it's top priority and target.

This would turn out to be the hardest moment for the alliance - to get started.



The charter


The charter was developed and written in Bulgaria, mostly by one player who has had a lot of input into the writing of the Bulgarian constitution and other laws as well, with input from other players in the country.

Main points to it was to keep it simple and short, without long and complicated rules that can lead to protracted spats of interpretation, but rather to be based on certain principles:

Equality to all members, which includes the rotation of the SC positions among all member countries.

Decentralisation, by making the HQ fully subordinate to country CPs and making sure there is a constant change of the players within the HQ to avoid entrenchment, through limits on the terms that a player can hold positions in the HQ and again the rotational presiding countries which nominate candidates.

Conflict resolution through the introduction of the internal court, manned by respected players from each country which have proven in the past their ability to be impartial and proposed by their respective country. This last concept is in many ways revolutionary for the game as for the first time "judgment" is taken out of the hands of the HQ and thus no country can find itself in a position where the HQ can bully it into compliance even if they wished it.

Of course even the best intentioned practices might not be perfect so until it has been tested in a real situation the court will remain a potential tool for conflict resolution and not a practical one.




The early months



During the early months of it's existence CoT was targeted by EDEN (as it continues to be even to this day) and was very much dependent on the support of former ONE countries and other neutral countries. The bigger countries who were unaligned at the time were watching from afar how the alliance progresses and can it survive the EDEN onslaught before making a choice wether to commit themselves. This is the reason why smaller countries, who traditionally don't have much to loose and who don't get much of a say in alliance, were the ones who expressed interest and were willing to join the alliance.

Thus the early wave of expansion would see a number of small countries join - Paraguay, Peru, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, New Zealand.

Still the alliance was small and weak in military terms with most of the military onus falling on Bulgaria to provide the military firepower. Chile had made a big BB but was still young and incapable of defending itself against the much bigger Argentina which was bent on destroying it and it's population.



The turning point


The make it or brake it moment for CoT could be traced back to the South American expedition and the South East Asia intervention. In both cases Bulgaria neglected it's own interests and spend all of it's energy and resources to help out allies. In South America, though eventually defeated and expunged from the continent, Bulgaria managed to exhaust Argentinian resources (something from which Argentina has not recovered since) to wage war and buy the needed time for Chile to be able to develop it's population and even out the battle with Argentina.

This not only helped Chile but demonstrated to the rest of the world that the equality virtue was for real and that CoT is able to not only sustain the onslaught of EDEN, but even dare to take the fight to them (at the time Argentina was a member of EDEN).

The South East Asia intervention to help Indonesia not only free itself but expulse Romania from it's lands and make Croatia run as far away as it could also demonstrated the willingness to help allies and to wage successful campaigns, as unlike in South America, this time the campaign was fully successful. This would be the last straw needed for both Indonesia and Macedonia to agree to take a chance and join the alliance, which made it viable and able to stand on it's own for the first time. This is also the moment at which CoT became from an interesting but risky venture to a viable alternative and it started to be an attractive option for many countries.




Recent history



Later Mexico and Lithuania would join as well and many others would express interest, Thailand, Pakistan and Taiwan would be denied at one point or another for various reasons. USA would become the latest trial member and a few other countries would express intent or interest to join, among which are Brazil, Russia and India.

The problem of the alliance is no longer about expanding, but it now is about whom to deny, which is a harder job believe it or not.

At this point the alliance started to resolve also some of the wars and problems with some of it's smaller members that it was not able to earlier in it's history. It was still under the onslaught of EDEN, but it had become strong enough to fight back and take the fight on the offensive. It would cary out a number of campaigns in which Argentina would get deleted by Chile only 1 year after the 10 times stronger Argentina had started it's war with Chile. It would chase Greece and Turkey from their Arabian farms and deny them the resources with which to wage war against CoT and would free and aid some of it's smaller members to gain some additional resources.

Peru has now through diplomacy regained almost all of it's regions (only one which is a duplicate resource is given to Brazil) and in addition it holds a colony in Bolivia.

Paraguay has colonized the rest of Bolivia making these to countries the smallest and only in the hole history of erep to hold colonies.

Mexico as well not a big country by the standarts of the game currently not only has won it's freedom but gained additional colonies and resources.

The only place here CoT has not secured yet it's members is in East Asia where South Korea and to a smaller extent Japan still are under occupation from Taiwan but it is in the process of waging war to help them and as has been the track record so far of CoT it will continue relentlessly until it succeeds.




Overview



During it's development and growth to prominence during the last nearly 1 year now, CoT has been the target of EDEN and has been supported but ex ONE countries at first and then TWO in it's wars. This relationship has been very much the result of EDEN agression at the start but also as in some areas on the map interests of the two alliances correspond. Still both remain independent of one another despite the popular refrain - COTWO which is heavily promoted by EDEN.

The strength of CoT is not in it's damage, it still is the weakest of the main alliances. The biggest strength of CoT is it's diplomatic strength and it's convictions. One of the reason it's style of play and values system gives it an advantage over the now completely compromised EDEN and TWO which has reformed very closely to the form that was ONE before it, is the fact that the alliance is still young and thus "innocent" in many regards. Simply said it has not had time to do "evil", which renders it imune to the vast propaganda and vilification campaigns which have become the mainstay tactics of waging war in erep.

Bulgaria which is arguably the main piller within the alliance also has an important role as a country known for it's stubbornness and dogged defence of it's convictions and defense of it's allies, as well as it's mad mac warrior style (only top country in the game to have fought all other top countries it has managed to reach), is arguably the strongest diplomatically country in the game despite it's volatile and far from friendly divorce with EDEN 1 year ago.



In conclusion


The emergence of CoT has changed the landscape of the game, before it there was only one main battlefield - South-east Europe. While that battlefield will always remain a major one within the game and there will be rarely any countries who can escape entirely getting involved in it in one way or another, through the emergence of CoT and it's willingness to support it's members no matter how small and where they're on the map, Sotuh America has rissen to prominence and is now challenging the european fronts as an alternative focal point of wars. This is something that was not posible under the old status quo. It remains to be seen wether that will be carried on to other parts of the map as well, Asia for instance, but only that alone means that in it's short life CoT has had a bigger impact on the game then both ONE/TWO and EDEN did in nearly 3 years of their existence.


As far as India is concerned, as one of the people heavily involved in the birth setup and development of CoT in time, I feel, I should not interfere in any way in your decisions. I trust, no I know, Indians are more then capable of making an educated decision which will be in the best interest of their on country, regardless what that decisions is I'll continue to support India.


cheers from an old and opinionated beep and regardless of what you decide tomorrow, put your effort into getting a baby boom happening or you'll keep on hearing me nag about it 😛



Be different, be yourself!