[eUK] Sh*t Tier Alliances. The best we can do?
WayneKerr
Dear eUK,
In my time playing this game we have always sat at the big table when it came to Alliances. We never had to settle for anything other than top tier. We had ONE, this was the first Alliance I ever had experience with. The thing I remember most about this time period was the amount of wipes we endured under TUP (or seemingly endured) and the amount of times Papa Poland had to come rescue Junior. Then, after ONE collapsed for reasons I can't remember, we had project TWO. Now don't get me wrong TWO was awesome, but it sucked at the same time.
TWO brought together pretty much the strongest nations in eRep under one banner and just destroyed everything in it's path. I remember fondly the first EPIC Tournament Plato gave us. I remember sitting in IRC chatting with all the waifs and strays the eUK had to offer at the time. Ian Keers, Dan Moir, BigAnt and Dapper sat in the #MoD room with me, Frag and the DC boys, chatting away happily, the previous days animosity brushed to one side while we waited for CoT to foolishly raise the battle to EPIC status. Where the full beast of TWO would be unleashed and that auto-hit button smashed to pieces while we tanked our way to 'free fights', giving each other tanks and food when needed, a true show of brotherhood. It truly was the only alliance that brought the eUK together!
But TWO had a major flaw, it was too powerful, it ultimately had to be broken up by the Leaders. This went on to create the long dead Poland led Sirius Alliance (the ill fated alliance we would become, yet again a full member of), with the still very much alive Assteria, which was Serbia's Alliance, being set up as the antithesis . Couldn't have the Poles and Serbs in the same alliance. Too Stronk! I can't remember the in's and out's of why Sirius died, being shitty probably. That's all I remember of em. With Poland getting fed up of bailing us out and Serbia still smarting over us picking Papa Poland's side, Junior was cast out alone.
But the silver lining of Sirius collapsing was that for the first time in my time playing, eUK was free to pick it's own path regarding Forig Policy. This led to us gaining 100% weapons bonuses for the first time in our history, but not only that, we also reached the Holy Grail of full 10/10 bonuses. This was due to a silver-tongued, deep pocketed little scamp called SerFartsalot and a master forward thinker who can often see the picture others can't, myself. Who together planned, bribed, cajoled and blackmailed our way to provide the eUK with enough tokens in Plato's Resource Shuffle Competition to enable us to create a whole new chapter in eUK's history, a glorious one, one in which we were not shackled to Plato's endless war system searching for that extra bonus. Looking around now, you failed our legacy, but that's for another article.
I believe that eUK has been in another alliance since? From the short amount of research I did on what had happened since my departure to my return, it sounded pretty shit.
Who are Orion?
Number 1 ticked off!
No f*cking idea, I seriously had to go to the alliance page and see who was there! To be honest I wish I had never bothered, it's even more depressing then I thought.
We have eFrance and eCanada, eUK enemies. Whenever eFrance got a border they would NE us... eCanada are no better, half of em think they are French and have tried to GangBang us successfully (not on my watch) on many occasions. We then have the eDutch, a slippy, slimy, nation that I for some reason just distrust, eCuba who, if I remember correctly, have done sod all since their inception in the game and last but by no means least, we have eEstonia. Nowt bad to say about the eEstonians, I often fought alongside them back in the day. The only eCountry in that line up, after the eLithuanian's departure to Assertia that I would regard as true friends and allies, I think we can all agree on that.
Looking at that line up you really do have to ask yourself why the hell did we join this alliance? From a gaming point of view, I can't think of any logical reason. Surrounded by 'friends' or 'friends of friends', with no action and no threat of action in the future. Duller than Dishwater... It's pretty much TW after TW after TW. Does Orion even do offensive wars with someone like AMD running the gaff? number 2 ticked off*
The only reason why, that I can think of personally, is due to laziness. It's the safest option. Those that took us into Orion and those that currently 'run' the country behind the scenes, will not be staying up till 3-4AM frantically searching for damage like Presidents of old. Instead, they can pat each other on the back, stick up any candidate, safe in the knowledge that sheer numbers will see them across the line (all the while having an alliance worth of mobile voters should they require it), while pretending they have reached the top tier of Politics in eRepublik. Why do I say pretending? Because an alliance such as Orion plays second fiddle to it's master on the eWorld stage. You are simply spectators that have got seats near the front of the bus.
So whats the point of this?
Unlike pretty much every CP since we gained membership of Orion, Dish wants to open up debate with the public on what Orion means to an eUKer and what it is we want to see from it. This is your chance to finally have your say. You can either leave a scathing comment on this article or extol the virtues of our membership and why it was the correct move. Or if your really feeling adventurous you could even write your goddamn articles for a change.
Dish is opening up the discussion, I neither know nor care for what reasons, so discuss it. number 3 ticked*
My job is done, now pay me the 10g!
Wayne
Chief Shouter at Orion
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Comments
I recommend you to check some two months old military reports, where the damage of UK was compared to the damage of average ORION member. I even plan to make some new ones, but I doubt the situation will differ a lot.
With all due respect, it will not be a pleasant sight for you.
What are you trying to say, that eUK is a crappy ally to have? Since I came in to this game in 2012, we have always been a crappy ally with regards to damage output. But we still managed to exude soft power. Hence why we managed to get in to the 3 alliances I mentioned in my article?
Serious question for the newly elected SG. What, other than being a weak link and often at times a drain on Orion's resources and damage, does the eUK offer to your alliance?
You made your article full of strong words, boasting about 100% bonuses and Orion only being a hindrance to the eUK domination. With my comment, I wanted to shed some light onto the real situation, which, unfortunately, is less pleasant.
As far as I have seen, in the past eUK helped us a lot, and thank to UK, we even had some interesting wars going on. Yes, of course, you have some problems, but hell... who doesn't (well, maybe Estonia 😃 ).
Unfortunately, your article makes a bad conclusion out of some good points. Why don't we make offensive wars anymore? Check out the world map - unless you want to start another South American adventure number 4.0, there are no enemies to speak of. And that is not the fault of Orion, as you claim it to be.
I shed light on eUK's past and the opportunity it spurned, which ultimately has lead us to the state we are currently in. If you believe that I think eUK can recover those glory days you are sadly mistaken. That paragraph was used as an example of how far we have fallen. I look back to my departure from the game and I could see possibly a bright future for the eUK. I look at LT, a country that was pretty much our equal back then and think of what could have been.
So being a good little meat shield is what the eUK offers Orion. You can be honest here, you can ask just about anyone here, if they were not eUKers would you let eUK join your alliance, the answer would be a resounding NO!
I don't think I blamed Orion at all. As stated in the article, you guys in Orion have no real say in matters. You are just along for the ride. You are to Assteria, what we are to Orion.
Lithuania can't be compared to nobody these days - they are on a... different level in terms of everything. Never seen a country like this and was a pleasure for me to work with them as much as I could
Well then what solution would you yourself present for the problem? Complaining is easy to do, opening a topic for discussion is slightly harder, but actually presenting solutions and coming up with a potential functioning plan, even if it does not get accepted at the end - that demands a courage. And I will be curious to see, if you will be brave enough to do just that.
Our starting base in 2015 was much better than LT's at the time. We opened our citizenship passes to their MU's in order for them to take advantage of our full bonuses. They were wiped by Poland at the time if I recall correctly. They as a nation, there leaders, they made the correct decisions at a critical time it would seem. eUK did not. eUK are proud of our brothers and sister in LT. I look at them with envy.
The point of this article is not to offer solutions, you can't offer solutions if you don't talk about the problems.
As the newly elected SG of Orion, you have the full attention of the active eUK population right here. They won't vote and they won't comment, but they WILL be reading this article. This is your chance to introduce yourself to the public, to explain to them why Orion is the correct choice for eUK. Should you really be wasting this chance by being passive-aggressive towards me or should you be attempting to woo those who are not yet woo'd?
And here I am, trying to help you by asking for your visions and your ideas, so that I can see, what path you think is better for UK, and what could I do to change your opinion.
Clearly, you have no path. No plan for the future. Otherwise you would already reveal it.
I feel slightly disappointed :/ .
Again, you misinterpret what this article is for. This article isn't for me to offer my alternatives, to offer my vision.
I don't need or require your assitance. That would imply that you have something to offer me. Looking at your account and your history, you have nothing to offer me.
Leading a discussion using personal inquiries requires little morale and honor, so I will refrain from saying "In terms of your account and your... "history", you have even less to offer to anyone than me". You go on here with the rhetoric of "present Orion to the UK", but in the next comment, you make a U-turn, talking about "you have nothing to offer". Pick a rhetoric, and stick to it, man 😃 .
However, I hope you will admit that it is hard to discuss with people, who have no plans, and they only discuss for the sake of creating a discussion, right 🙂 ?
What plans do you wish to hear? How we can 'Make eUK Great Again'? The truth is, we can't. Too much time, with too much inaction has passed and in this game time is key. Or do you wish to hear how I think Orion can improve? Well, forming a connection with your alliances public woud be a good start.
Again, I am not tasked with 'leading' the discussion, simply opening the discussion. I assume Dish picked me because he knows people will read the article and a reaction will be given.
To me, Orion is just LETO in new clothing, I won't hide that fact. You are attempting to deflect the issue on to me rather than what the issue really is, which is 'how does the eUK feel about Orion'? As I stated earlier, instead of making this about my opinion, why not use this space to connect with eUKers, extol the virtues of Orion Membership.
,, You are attempting to deflect the issue on to me"
Let me remind you your own words:
,,I don't need or require your assitance. That would imply that you have something to offer me. Looking at your account and your history, you have nothing to offer me."
So, now that we cleared out this misunderstanding about who is deflecting on whom, I will, once again, repeat what I have already stated throughout this entire conversation: It is hard to connect with someone, who does not know, what he wants. It is hard to discuss with someone, who does not have a plan. It is hard to help someone, who will not accept any help.
And on the contrary, it is very easy to criticize, but very hard to actually find a solution, and help to make that solution to solve a problem, which you criticize in the first place. You have a problem, and I'm asking you about it, and trying to get your help. But for some reason, you refuse to see it this way and you think I'm doing some ,,personal deflections". Am I demanding too much?
I'm not privy to the overarching plan. Dish simply asked me to create a discussion regarding Orion. I imagine he wishes to gauge the eUK's reaction before he plots his next move. What that could be, I do not know or care.
Well then I guess I will be directing my efforts by communicating with him and see what he comes up with.
Hopefully you will be able to collect opinions of as many people as you can, and not only a selected few. And my doors are always open, in case some of you got some interesting idea for improvement or cooperaton 🙂 .
[removed]
Bask!
It is so nice to see you again after such a long time!
Hey Bask
Wow. Reading good words towards Estonia is a pleasure for my eyes as CP, thanks. We are happy to have you as an ally 🙂
\o/
You guys have always done right by us.
To me it means nothing...I don't fight for France, Canada or the Netherlands, don't care about Cuba. Estonia is cool. So I guess I agree with this article...
I imagine that's the general attitude. Bet ya not many will have the balls to say it publicly though.
Pretty much this, unless I'm hunting for a Merc medal. The alliance served us at a time when we were pretty much permawiped (choose any occasion over the past couple of years) but now has become sort of pointless. Not all Orion's fault. More the fault of MoFAs not doing their job properly and letting us lesser mortals know what's going on in the world (you know who you are).
A brief look through articles from various Orion "leaders" (or advisors, or SG, or whatever) come up with a bunch of wordy interviews with no pictures of cats which are all TL😉R. Yawn. Learn to photoshop, or ask someone to do some pictures for you. Also, I've never felt *part* of the alliance, which appears to be little more than Jobs for the Boys and has rarely been forefront in the media.
At the moment, we have two direct borders with which to have "fun" (i.e. fight). The rest are allies. We have a training war with Ireland which... well... doesn't exactly inspire confidence, and "peaceful" relations with the US cos... well... MPP stacks, and we all saw what happened last time the Muricans wanted a jolly on our turf. Sure we had a brief foray into Paraguay, but that just annoyed Trico.
TL😉R? Thanks for the bailout when we were wiped, but Orion is now very dull (except our Eestibros 😉 )
For the alliance articles stuff, pretty much every alliance article ever that I can remember has been trash. Nobody actually tries to be funny or interesting at all. Not sure where they dig the PR guys up from.
http://prntscr.com/fi0jcn
but decent PR and communications take effort Rob
More effort than pictures of cats, might I add.
If you think the better articles and communications are the ones with less pictures and more effort you are wrong.
For example, a humble modest eUKer like myself can make 405GBP in endorsements and get 18 votes through one screencap and 3 words:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/very-important-life-changing-leaks-scandal-2642958/1/20
That opening article Orion has put out is an awful read. If that is what 'effort' gets us then you'd be better off getting somebody that won't actually put any effort in.
Rob is spot on. Wordy articles are generally only of interest to a handful of people. Even a piss-poor episode of Mewsnight will get me a nice return.
I'll happily vote a crap cartoon or a cat gif over a wall of text any day of the week. Comments, however, is where it's at - the discourse generated by a good (or inflammatory) article far outstrips the article itself in many cases.
Well, we apologize for not making an announcement of our new HQ via cat videos or fake-scandalous screenshots, and actually trying introducing all members of HQ, so that people cannot complain "we do not know who Orion is anymore". I guess it is hard to incite interest in ya, when you are not even willing to have interest in the first place.
However, do not be afraid, as I'm sure we will try to find some opportunity to make an article without words. Even if it means we will have to abduct one of our advisors to draw comics again 😃 .
Now if only you could do your comments without words as well, so that they wouldn't be too long, and thus, by your definition, "awful read" 😑 .
OK, you want some constructive criticism of your article?
- Instead of just a list of abbreviations and names, spell out what each role does.
- Add links (and maybe a profile pic) to each of the Alliance leadership's profiles so we can see who they are easily (hey, I'm lazy). Maybe even a mini-bio too.
- Point out where each of the leadership comes from. TBH, there's only 3 names I recognise from the list.
- All this should make your TL😉R wall of text at the bottom completely unnecessary, make the whole article way more readable and who knows, maybe get more positive feedback.
Doesn't need cat videos. Just a little bit of thought and understanding that most people aren't going to read something if it isn't short and succinct.
Constructive criticism is always better than mindless criticism 🙂 !
The definition of each role could be easily solved by adding a link to our charter, where they are all defined. Since the charter is in a process of being reworked, I did not link it at the bottom of the article. Most of the roles however are either explained in the article, or their definition can be easily deduced from the abbreviation.
Links and profile pics were (I believe) being added in the past, but people really did not care about the links, and the pictures were making it waaay too long (especially at times, when people chose like 10 different advisors). Just scrolling through that to get into comment section would be a pain in the... middle finger.
Adding flags to represent nationality - good. We usually have the nationality on the Alliance page anyway, so stealing those small flags from there and putting them into the article should not really be a trouble.
And as for the "wall of text" - it is actually as long as some of our comments here - and if people can read those, it does not really give them a valid reason to not read that "wall of text" as you call it. If you wanna see a true wall of text, I will let someone to interview me. If someone passes through the entirety of that, he will deserve a medal 😉 !
Note my earlier comment: "Comments, however, is where it's at - the discourse generated by a good (or inflammatory) article far outstrips the article itself in many cases."
I'm as guilty as the next person for writing TL😉R comments. I do, however, try to avoid doing that in any articles I write or - if I do have a serious point to make - it's usually not in a dry plain text format. Sure, it takes a little more effort than just typing, but tends to get more views and reaction.
I will just state one thing, which might not be very obvious here - a lot of people from Orion countries do not speak English. At all. Or very little. And copy-pasting text to Google translate is easier than downloading a program to copy-paste text from pictures - I tried that once, did not end up well. We had a guy in Cuba, who released all his articles in a form of "newspapers". Sure, graphically it was quite good, but I couldn't read a single word out of it.
That's one (not the only one) reason I believe it is still better to use text, when trying to address six different countries. That or Telegram robot emoticons, which work surprisingly well during meetings to express people's agenda.
(now, of course, having translation for articles, that would be swell, right? ... But I know, how hard it is to find me a bloody translator into Spanish, when I want to say two sentences to my own citizens 😃 . Multiplying it by 5, I would rather not imagine that.)
Ok, so you've listed countries which you don't fight for - how about why and an idea of which you do and would fight for?
Well, regarding fighting for a country to help them out or because that was the DO (I won't count the countries where I fought solely because one of the medals), during the last couple of days I fought for UK, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Czech Republic. And why I don't fight for those countries that I listed, I just couldn't care less about them, I guess it has to do with our relations in the past. But there are loads of countries I would only fight for maximum just to get 25 kills for the Mercenary mission, not more than that, for example like Albania, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Moldova, etc...There are also ones I would gladly fight for like UK, Serbia, Hungary, Iran, Belarus, Czech Republic, Lithuania, etc...
Excellent - I would guess though that we've probably been allied with or in opposition to the vast majority of countries at some point in the last 10 years and therefore it's going to be difficult to maintain a position to please everyone.
So the problem now would be how to find a path when some of the countries we've been opposed to are on the same side as our strongest allies? For example - How can you fight against Canada, France, Netherlands etc, but for Serbia, Slovenia etc?
I don't fight against them, I just don't fight for them...
To the point, this article is two things. Wayne's views, which are aggressive but draw a reaction, which is the goal. I want people to want to show what we do now, what we've done in the past, and where we want to be as a nation. He tends to draw people out just a bit better than I, possibly because he just writes with an open mind.
And two, to do exactly what the last part says. I want people to know Orion, and to tell me how they feel about it. We're going to spend the month moving towards cooperation and action, and I hope that our alliance is a big part of that as I believe it will be beneficial for all of us.
I don't think it's aggressive. Blunt and to the point, in my opinion. eUK, as I told you from the start, already know my position and what I thought of the way our entry to Orion was brought about. They would see through anything but the truth.
No doubt Orion have already been briefed about 'WayneKerr', so I imagine my stance isn't going to lose me any friends over there. I've already had an Orion CP message me about being the 'Leader of the Opposition'!. So their opinions have already been formed by certain people.
Hi, my name is Wayne...
Given the reputation you have, I would be shocked if they didn't know you anyway, but the intention of your position is as stated. I want people to talk about our future, and you happen to draw that out much better than I do.
PS - Yes, you speak aggressively. 😛
I recognise a few faces, none that I really know. Unless I'm mistaken, I was only really known in the eUK. Although Paul Tyndale claims that DC (pretty much the same as saying Wayne) was known enough outside of the eUK by forigs to know that we were the 'problem'. So I dunno, maybe my fame is more widespread than I thought...
I cant tell if you are climbing on waynes back here or are you actually doing something good.. time will tell I suppose.
But Wayne raises very solid points. The alliance sucks
1) Its doesn't help our country
2) Lets be honest it will kill off the few tanks we have/had
3) Do any of us really get a kick off heling FRANCE and CANADA... really? They hate us and we hate them.
My verdict leave. Lets do something that will actually benefit us all. Activity
For the record Iain Keers killed Sirus off
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sirius-the-corrupt-election-hq-2407606/1/20
Wayne raising these issues reminds of my youth days...
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-bigant-1-cp-the-referendum-2412137/1/20
Without Sirius dying, we could never have achieved a long held dream. Probably one of the best things he did.
I'm not at the point where I think a referendum or leaving is needed, but I do believe we need to know more as a population about the people we're allied to, the people who do support us (with damage, believe it or not 😉 ), and I am more than welcome to hear all sides to it. Even yours. 😉
Obligatory comment for earning forgiveness as stated in Congress Group Jeremy
thx
ok I actually read it and I haven't a clue cause I missed the bit where we actually joined orion
basically, AMD and pals rushed us in to Orion without a say. Mongress just blindly voted it through without holding them to account. We had zero articles about the pro's and cons. One minute we weren't in an alliance, next minute we in talks, AMD becomes CP, straight in Orion. Pretty much how it happened.
IF you Ne us we can still wype you, wont be a problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's the other way round bro, you NE'd us.