Wow! You are so strong! How come you keep losing?

Day 1,652, 00:49 • Published in China China • by mihail.cazacu

When Turkey sided with EDEN at the end of last year, people carefully added up the damage dealt by ONE and compared it to the total firepower of EDEN (including Bulgaria at the time) and Turkey. It turned out ONE was still leading. On paper. But they were losing big on every battlefield.

Surprising? Well, not quite! In mid-2011, when Turkey was firmly on ONE's side, Serbia and Hungary had somehow managed to get wiped out.

Then, well before Turkey switched sides, the Polish and Serbian empires had already started to crumble.

So even before Turkey sided with EDEN there were several hard facts pointing out that something is terribly wrong with how ONE works, so terribly wrong that even overwhelming superiority can't guarantee them victory.

How could that be possible? How could the strong be defeated by the weak? Or as several prominent ONE trolls had repeatedly put it, "by the weaklings"?

The answer is very simple actually. The first half of the answer is ONE's superiority was only a matter of brute force. No member of ONE however had enough brute force alone to defeat the "coalition of weaklings".

The second half of the answer is that each member of ONE was fully aware of its own magnificence. That magnificence dictated that her colonial empire, a reflection of her splendid glory, was more important than everything else. Which meant that when the "weaklings" attacked several empires at once, each ONE member tried to defend her own. So all the "weaklings" had to do was to threaten those empires simultaneously while actually concentrating all their forces against a single enemy.

It was the same strategy TEDEN employed at the height of PEACE and Phoenix power. It worked every time. And it will keep working against any "Coalition of the Self-Important."

Fast-forward to the present days.

Bulgaria left EDEN 3 months ago. Since ONE was already more powerful on paper than TEDEN when both Bulgaria and Turkey were on the same side, it is obvious that, after Bulgaria left, ONE had again the Holy Overwhelming Superiority their players adore with religious fervor.

And yet, how did that really work for them?

At first they managed to wipe out several TEDEN countries, as expected. But doing so returned each of them to the imperial status. And do you remember what an empire is for any Self-Important? Something worth ignoring all his allies for.

So right now the Poles and the Serbs are pouring most of their damage not into defending their core regions (that would be humanly understandable) but in defending their precious empires. They take so good care of their own bonuses that Spain and Macedonia, both founding members of the Self-Important Bullies Club aka ONE, are forced to fight for what is left of their core regions.

Oh, and Bulgaria is down to one core region as well.

What was TEDEN doing in a similar situation? Like when Greece, France, Turkey and Croatia were all contemplating extinction in the same time?

TEDEN was skillfully switching the focus from one battle to the other, with the overall strategic goal of ensuring each country would be on the map in time for Congress elections.

When TEDEN was pouring huge amounts of damage in the Turkish battles some Bulgarians hastened to say Turkey was TEDEN's master. But then France became "TEDEN's master". And then Greece. And then Croatia.

TEDEN had set the "sheepish" goal of ensuring every member has a Congress and ended up with forcing Spain, Macedonia and Bulgaria to fight hard for their cores, at the height of ONE + Bulgaria domination.

On the other hand ONE + Bulgaria had set the "manly" goal of eWorld Domination and failed miserably. Again and again, for 3 month in a row.

Bulgaria left EDEN as the result of a Self-Importance attack:
"How dare EDEN to disregard OUR irrational opposition to Turkey's membership?"
"WE are the strongest EDEN country".
"WE kept EDEN alive".
"WE are 50% more powerful than Turkey".
"WE will keep Turkey under occupation till their players leave the game".

Oh, and let's not forget the "WE will form a new alliance where WE will have the leading role"

The problem with any alliance where "WE must have the leading role" is that every member would want that every second of every minute of every hour of every day. And you would end up with having a PEACE, a Phoenix or a ONE.

In the Alliances of the "Weaklings", each member gets to be important from time to time. One day the most important member, the one for which the whole alliance fights, might be Greece. Another day it would be France. Another day it would be Brazil. Then Belarus. Then Turkey. Then Israel. Then the USA. Then Romania. Then China. Then Finland. Then Croatia. Than Ireland. Then Germany. Then the Netherlands. Then Columbia. Then China again, and so on.

Such alliances can adapt to every situation because none of the members is intoxicated with self-importance to the point he thinks his wishes are more important than the wishes of the rest of his allies.

Many of the Self-Important Hyperinflated Ego players failed to notice a very interesting thing: China is a Real Life superpower, the EDEN country which, through her 100% bonuses practically arms the whole alliance and one of the countries who wins EDEN's battles while it is night time in Europe. Yet time and again the Chinese players define themselves not as the "Saviors of the alliance" but as the "soy sauce" - the modest ingredient which contributes to the good taste of a meal.

Maybe the Bulgarians would want to incorporate soy sauce in their traditional recipes from now on. Fusion cuisine is becoming more and more popular.