To follow or not to follow.....the status quo

Day 1,588, 09:18 • Published in Bulgaria Bulgaria • by eDarkAngel

Why is EDEN (Greece) attacking Bulgaria?


The simple answer is for daring to challenge the status quo.




However as in RL, things are never so simple. So let's look at the bigger picture for a moment.

It is generally assumed the strongest countries/core and so on of EDEN are Croatia, Romania and Greece. That however is only true if you look at the population and damage stats, in reality they're the weak point of EDEN and the weakest link.

Simple reason for that is the eternal wars with equal or stronger opponents on their borders which they cannot sustain on their own. Basic example is this:

Croatia, has a big deficit and will likely always do against Serbia.
Romania at best has a negligible advantage against Hungary currently but throughout history the dynamics have been equal, with the one side prevailing because of their allies mostly.
Greece often having a deficit, right now slight deficit to Macedonia.

The sum is that these 3 countries are in deficit against their main rivals, they're in essence useless to any alliance on their own as they have a deficit of damage to begin with on a daily basis.

The solution is to recruit other countries to compensate this deficit and to bring additional damage above that so they can win in turn. This means either countries which have no opponent/no equal opponent or countries that will sacrifice their own security and ambitions and transfer their damage to the big 3.

Poland plaid that role for a long time, while Span was dominating and USA friendly or neutral, Spain played that role too, Sweden did, so did USA itself. All of them are no longer members of EDEN.

Australia was another example, Bosnia was a damage drain (ironically Bosnia was permanently deleted during most of their time in EDEN, but have enjoyed quite good times since exciting the alliance, though they will always be dependent on EDEN).

Bulgaria initially had the same role as well, being thrown at whichever front it was needed to compensate, be it against Turkey for Greece (oh the irony) or against Macedonia, again for Greece (more irony?), against Serbia for Croatia (NAP or excursion to north America anyone?), against Hungary or Poland for Romania.

Only after Bulgaria stopped being the docile servant and actually started making some rational and tactically sound decisions that actually EDEN started getting out of the whole dug by the incompetence of the ruling oligarchy, along with EDEN it meant good times for TERRA.

TERRA of course is a service alliance to EDEN, the relationship is mutual dependance of course, because without EDEN TERA cannot fight off ONE, but for the most part TERRA is donating damage to EDEN in it's wars as most TERRA countries have excess damage on their fronts (Brazil + USA) outweigh Spain by a large margin. Argentina is such a hot commodity, because of the lack of an opponent which means they're great servant country to donate damage and why they get courted so much, but usually get tricked with propaganda tricks (case with Chile, the whole conflict was well orchestrated as it served Turkish foreign policy).

So we get to Turkey, in the current configuration, Turkey has no other counterpart then Bulgaria to fight with in it's immediate region (Iran is not a match and Greece cannot afford to fight on 2 fronts, hence why they made the peace early on with Turkey leaving Bulgaria alone against them). So the only matching country would be Bulgaria, however as both countries were relatively equal in strength over the past 18 months or so (due in large to the difference in resources which augmented Turkish damage and was detrimental to Bulgarian) it meant that Bulgaria wasn't tipping the scales when fighting Turkey, because it's damage was being neutralized. This was useless to the "core" of EDEN.

Bulgaria recognized that too, but it also knew it was stronger then Turkey 1 vs 1, all it needed to do was even the playing field by gaining equal resource base to wage war and this would benefit EDEN.

The rest is self-explanatory, Bulgaria became the flag carrier of the turnaround, by methodically defeating one by one the opponent, weather directly or by sending it's damage is irrelevant. This happened because of 2 reasons:

1. Bulgaria gained needed resources while Turkey lost such, so Bulgarian damage exceeded Turkish and started turning battles around.

2. Bulgaria has always put same amount of effort in fighting for it's allies as it has fighting for itself, so when damage was not used internally it was being given to allies. In addition, Bulgaria has always been one of the most efficient countries in terms of damage distribution and tactical placement. This meant that while it was making headway in it's own affairs, it was at worst helping keep the other fronts at a status quo and with accumulation of advantage soon the tide turned (long before Turkey switched sides for the 3th time in the year).


I'll just point out that before Turkey changed sides, Poland and Serbia were not only out of USA, but Poland was left with only a few regions in Germany, had lost little Poland in a direct battle with Bulgaria recently, Spain was with 1 resource for nearly 3 weeks, Indonesia had been recently technically not, but in essence deleted and their resource base denied, ABC, traditionally a subservient alliance to ONE was completely occupied and so was UK in the process of loosing it's last regions, Sweden was about to be wiped and Croatia was making strolls through Slovenia.

Main reason again, Bulgaria "donates" much larger % of it's damage, daily to it's allies then does Turkey.

So the neutral and "ingenious" solution for permanent domination of ONE was to bring Turkey to EDEN side. This would mean both Bulgaria and Turkey would be free of opponents and they would donate all their damage to the rest which would ensure total domination.

This worked perfectly for Turkey as their main doctrine is "win the game = gain all resources, sacrifice on the basis of interest not values", but didn't work well at all for Bulgaria, whose main doctrine is "enjoy the game through challenges, resources are a tool and not an aim, sacrifice on the basis of values and not interest".

These two doctrines contradict each other and so does the playing style of both countries, the main sticking point in any dealings they have had. This is not the first time Bulgaria has demonstrated that, it refused peace with Macedonia in April, when Macedonia asked for peace to wipe Italy. This would have been a good opportunity to eliminate one opponent on it's borders, however Bulgaria choose to stick by it's ally, it would get deleted eventually later on, when most EDEN countries did anyway, still it is representative of the style of play. Same can be said of the process of peace negotiations with Turkey that lasted nearly 2 months, when one of the main sticking points was not abandoning Ukraine in it's plight.

These differences and the accumulated mistrust over the past 1 year augmented by the absolutely "idiotic" way in which EDEN HQ tried to force on a decision it thought rational, led to a quick deterioration of the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey, which had improved to a point of being cold and somewhat neutral.

So after gambling and making a huge mistake, augmenting it by retarded actions, EDEN was forced with a choice, to accept responsibility for it's failure and error of judgment or to seek to absolve itself of any responsibility.

It choose the later, however it is not simply an absolution of responsibility and guilt, it is also a fundamental difference in playing doctrines between the main trio and Bulgaria. The doctrines of Croatia, Romania and especially Greece (no surprise they're leading the way) is much closer to the one of Turkey then the one of Bulgaria. Sacrifice has always been a mainstay rhetoric, but because of the "mathematical" dependencies it has been usually the other way around, other countries sacrificing for them 9 months of the year ant they making sacrifices the other 3. Also all 3 countries (exception recently to some extent makes Romania here) are ruled by oligarchies which have not changed in years, with the same few players being the decision makers.

The oligarchic model of course is in stark contrast to Bulgarian model of governance, which though not perfect is a democratic one and is the source of some of it's greatest strengths. For example, while it does cause internal instability from time to time, it has given the opportunity of over 500 players to be involved in one way or another with the governance of the country over the last 2.5 years, Bulgaria rarely has presidents for more then 1 term anymore and has had 5 different parties be top parties within the country within the last 2 years.

This model of governance though extends to it's foreign policy as well, where Bulgaria follows a policy of inclusion and not exclusion. It tries to keep civil relations with everyone, friend or foe, it does not use PTO in it's arsenal (the only major power in the game to have never used it) and it has in it's history always secured it's resources from foreign countries via diplomacy and has never been an occupying power (only military power in the game to ever do that). This has of course meant it can dedicate much more resources to it's allies and so you can rarely find an important or big battle during the last 2 years in which Bulgaria would not have been front and center for it's allies.

These doctrines though are in stark contrast with the doctrines of domination, subjugation, oligarchy (few enlightened know better then the rest) which are predominant among the top countries, where small elites usually came to prominence back when each country was gaining strength have kept control and molded their countries to their own understanding, will and views of events.

So we're at the current situation, where Bulgaria could not endure anymore (EDEN made 2 express summits in 2 days following a regular one to overturn the decision to stop Turkey trial and to vote for the removal of Bulgaria from the alliance after it had announced it has left and remove the newly appointed SC, while it took it 10 days to convene a summit last month to hold a vote on Turkish membership as was requested by Bulgaria) a double standard towards it and has decided to end it's internal problems by leaving the alliance. These internal problems of course were externally caused by the decision of EDEN to force Turkey into the alliance (not ot invite and give a chance).

So naturally, now that Bulgaria is a top military power, it would seek a different path for itself, one that gives it a chance to not have to make compromises with it's own style of play and it's own doctrine, thus looking to form a new alliance. Simple solution is Bulgaria vs Turkey 1 on 1, they're both balanced and Bulgaria looking to form a new age alliance based on representation and not power output and spreadsheet rationality.

This of course is a big threat to EDEN, but not that much to the alliance itself or the ordinary players, but to the oligarchy in charge (same people are in control of the alliance once again mere days after Bulgaria left). It is not only a threat to their position in EDEN but in their own countries as well, as EDEN is their tool for leverage in their own countries. They're the power brokers in the alliance so they're inexpendable.

Bulgaria's reputation (though admittedly tarnished through some dumb moves in this whole process by some of it's politicians), remains better then almost all major powers in the game. This will of course make it a natural magnet for countries that want a change in the status quo and more importantly a change in the way they're treated in an alliance (inclusion vs exclusion). Basically most medium and smaller countries are kept within alliances on the threat of being deleted if they do not stay or do as told, rather then on the prospect to belong. For EDEN this means loosing the donor countries to the main 3, whose deficit is not going to change anytime soon.

For example, values of India is higher then values of Croatia on average, because India currently has not opponent, so all of it's damage even if it is only 40-50 million daily is a "plus", where on a daily basis Croatia would always have - 500 million against Serbia. So Bulgaria forming a new alliance and having been part of TEDEN for the past 1 year +, is very likely to be followed by other countries be it small and thus limit the damage donor countries or meat-shield countries for the alliance.

This is why EDEN needs to make out of Bulgaria an enemy and as quickly as possible to make it harder on anyone who might even contemplate braking the ranks, if that does not work threats will start going around. TERA to some extent is in similar situation, but it resolved partly that problem by expulsing Chile, which made no secret it's stance towards Bulgaria, thus partly eliminating any possible influence within Terra, Russia will now find itself in a tough position and will sooner rather then later be forced to choose by both EDEN and TERA.

The second aim of making Bulgaria an enemy is that the new direction of the propaganda that Bulgaria has become pro-ONE can stick easier and TERA can be forced to abandon it's neutral stands toward the issue by having no choice in the matter.

It's yet the last in the series of guns diplomacy by this eternal command of EDEN and will backfire in the long term, likely leading to the end of EDEN as the main 3 get abandoned one by one, by the rest of the countries which have for years compensated their deficit of damage.

The new approach to game play however will be gaining more and more followers, for the simple reason that with time, more and more countries become big and strong enough, populated enough and enough of their players want to be included in all aspects of the game, not only the "click the mouse button" one, that it is inevitable that a doctrine and style of play based on inclusion becomes predominant.

The mechanics of the game force us nowadays to work to limit wars rather then to look to start wars, thus that will weight into the diplomacy as well rather then the threats of the past. Mastodons like EDEN and ONE will eventually brake apart and many smaller conglomerations will appear which will be coming together for limited amounts of time over time to ally as anyone trying to gain dominance, but will revert back to it's forming blocks once the threat has been neutralized. The domination doctrine is dead and the people trying desperately to keep it alive will go down screening and kicking.

The last fight before the old system crumbles will be the one between "spreadsheet damage alliances" and the ones with the guts to move to the new "people based doctrine of alliances". I choose the second, because I believe no status quo should stay too long and because I believe we all should get the chance to play this game to it's fullest, no matter how *beep* it might be.

Good luck to EDEN oligarchy in their futile attempt to hold on to virtual pixel power and spreadsheet damage castles, I'll do what I can to oppose you at every step.



Be different, be yourself!



To follow or not to follow.....the status quo
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