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This is a tl;dr article and I don't have the time to write a Swedish version of it right now, so you'll have to check back tomorrow and maybe then there will be a translation.



A lot has happened the last week in Sweden, and I should probably have released this article a few days ago. But then some more things came up and here we are, delayed and a bit stressed out 🙂

Today I will cover the following topics:

- Why I haven't put Russia as our NE
- Our resistance war against Russia
- Polands war vs Russia
- The wipe
- Trolling between Poles and Swedes
- The status of my remaining campaign goals
- Plans for february

1. Why I haven't put Russia as our NE

I have right from the start of this month said that there will be no imperalistic wars this month. All I wanted for Sweden was to get our cores back and tune in to the melody of the future, with a Scandinavia free of PTO and a Sweden that could slowly start working on earning back some of the respect and trust that we lost during the late months of 2011.

Russians came here because they wanted aluminium and cattle from us, and they got it. After I signed peace with Finland, I therefor decided not to put them as NE and risk a new, long war after our first wipe. It was my hope that we could be able to regain at least Gotaland, Gotland and Bohus without much trouble. Unfortunately, Russia is divided right now and their congress doesn't quite want the same thing as their government. Plus, Axinthe consider me to be a bad diplomat. Perhaps he's right: I should have given him more Cake.

When their president decided to put Sweden as NE again prior to the congress election, our prime objective of securing a month of full congress was in danger. Even though it was a nice gesture (or silly mistake?) of him to hold the first attack to give us time to secure our congress, it still resulted in a war that Sweden did not want and that ended with a second wipe from the map.

However, considering the current situation I believe that Russia and TEDEN would rather prefer to lose Swedish colonies to a rather peaceful Sweden than to give them to Poland. That is also why we've seen some TEDEN soldiers fighting in Scania RWs. Due to losing the battle in Scania, Russia also lost her trade route to Smaland and now stands without anything to gain from defending against our RWs, other than to sabotage and get even for our previous wars. I doubt that they'll release them for free unless Poland is fighting at the same time though. Me and my MoFA have tried negotiating terms for releasing the last regions, but we're still waiting for a reply so don't expect much to come out of it.

But back to the topic of NE or no NE: I suggest that you take a look at Poland and their war against Russia so far. They won Scania and Gotaland, but lost the battle of Smaland. Then they were pressed hard in their own core region of Mazuria. Do you honestly believe that we would fare any better if Sweden declared yet another war against Russia? Aside from Axithe and a few others, I can't say that I've seen much emotion from Russian players. I may be naive, but I don't see any particular interest from their side to continue fighting us unless they can gain some raw materials from it. This picture was also confirmed by their leaders in our latest conversation, which my MoFA and logs can attest to. So I can't see what good it would do us to start another war, especially not when Russia gets more support than we do. It would be a strategic mistake and I'm not willing to bargain away our sovereignty just to please those who want +0.5 strength point per day. There will come a day when we have that bonus again, but it is not today, and if you ask me I'd prefer to get it through a training war until we're in shape to fight "real" wars again.


2. Our resistance war against Russia

As you already know, Russians settled down in our lands after the joint operation between the alliances Terra and EDEN that ended with our first wipe January 7th. It's been three weeks of intense fighting since then, but Russia has continually been a bit too powerful for us to manage on our own. It didn't help that we had to take charge of a military and national bank that had no currency left to pay orders with either. We had to save up some cash and unfortunately some of that was sold my RB, so we're still in the low as far as cash orders comes. But I have worked together with the military leaders to create a new model for the military, one that supplies Q6 tanks instead of paying SEK. This model is used by almost every country in the eWorld and it will also make it easier for us pay for foreign mercenaries if we need their support in the future.

The peace between Lithuania and Russia that was another thing that blocked our resistance. The deal was signed January 6th, moments before the new presidents were electedal, and it has given Russia a free and unchallenged trade route to Scania. Such deals are not to be made without warning your allies and I wonder what Lithuania would say if we sold them out for 80 gold/month. But I guess we all have to make our own choices in this world, and Lithuania has decided to walk their own way.

Russia has the advantage of being part of the continental alliance called TERRA. It has its prime time during our night time. So the odds have not exactly worked in our favor, since the outcome in many of our most important RWs have been decided during the nights and early mornings.

Still though, today we stand here with three regions liberated, a functional and large congress and some friendly assistance from Poland that should enable us to be back in full glory before March arrives. If we try to stay positive, at least Russians gave us a good fight and a reason to improve our own ways. I, for one, shall start by baking a delicious Q6 cake and sending it to Axithe right away. He may not like my articles, but he'll be a fool not to try my pastry.


3. Polands war vs Russia

Sunday 29th, in the afternoon, our neighbors Poland moved into Russian held Scania with the intention of aiding our struggle and liberate Sweden from Russian occupation. The first few rounds of that battle were extremely tight, but in the end Russia had to surrender to the superior numbers and fire power of the Poles. Meanwhile, we won our RW in the capital region of Svealand.

As I write this report, Poland has won both Scania and Gotaland but lost the assault against Smaland. Russia waited 24 hours to stall the war and then attacked Mazuria, one of Polands core regions. That battle was just won by Poland with 8-5 which means that Poland once again gained the initiative in the war.

Meanwhile the struggle went on in Mazuria, we secured another RW by winning the battle in Gotland. Whenever Poland fights against Russia, we stand a much better chance of winning our RWs. So don't underestimate the help their effort has given us - it doesn't hurt to say thank you once in a while, even when you're upset about the current situation. Poles decided to help us out and without their help, we would have had to resort to diplomacy and since Russians didn't want to release Smaland and Scania, that would probably have dragged things out even longer.


4. Trolling between Poles and Swedes

Unfortunately, there's been a hiccup in the foreign relations between Sweden and Poland lately. Due to our cheap currency we get a hundred or so citizenship requests per day. Our IRC channel isn't the most polite and newbie friendly channel in the world, especially not if you start highlighting people asking for cs.

About a week ago, the Polish vMoD found himself in a argument with some of our most reknown IRC trolls. After that he decided to blame the events on Sweden as a community as well as direct surly remarks towards me and my government for not interveining. He also wanted an official apology from the Swedish government.

First of all, let me just say that I was not online at the time (my BNC may have been though) so there's the reason why I didn't comment earlier. Secondly, individual arguments between players does not concern the state. Not here, and I doubt that it's any different in Poland. Let me just remind everyone that the Swedish players who offended the Polish minister held no official position within the government and did not represent the state in any way.

Trolling is something that happens everyday in this game. Just as ManiekM keeps trolling Sweden, there are Swedes who will continue to troll Poland. But I have had a good relation to hubertuses (CP of Poland) this month and we have helped each other out in various battles. I don't think that there's any reason for us to worry and even though I can't answer for every Polish player in the game, I still see a positive attitude in Poland towards Sweden as a country and ally.

But let's not forget what initiated this fight: the lack of a proper CS system. I will work closely together with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs next month to make sure that our CS application system is improved and that we can get rid of the IRC and IGM spam. I will also assign a new ambassador to Poland, and continue to communicate on a daily basis with the next CP of our neighbors. If intyala wins the election, I trust that he will decide to do the same.

5. The status of my remaining campaign goals

It's unrealistic to think that we will be able to regain all Swedish core regions before this term is over, but we still have 4 more days to work with and getting Gotaland and Bohus back within that time frame is absolutely possible. That would put us back to our original production bonus, which is the most important matter right now.

The PTO situation in Norway remains unclear. I have asked our congress to discuss a Anti PTO Act that forbids future Swedish Presidents to take part in or support any PTO squads. So far, only Toothpaste seem to be against it, but that doesn't really surprise me. It's that time of the month. I'm still keeping myself updated with how things go in Norway. Some among the new generation of Finns seem to think of their Norwegian colonies as war spoils, which could potentiall lead to a few diplomatic problems in the future, but until further notice the Norwegian regions are keep under constant occupation in order to smoke out the PTOers.

HKV is reformed and we've begun issuing weapon orders instead of the old SEK-based order system. It's been working out quite well and I shall hope to see a steady increase in amount of orders in the future, unless my successor decides to undo these changes and move back to the old system again.

The Ministry of Foreign affairs is definitely up to something new. We've cleared out all the inactives and our new MoFA - Snaskefar - is working day and night to make sure that the department is up for the task next month. Check out the upcoming article from either him or Jegarmister for more details

Our relations to Finland can still be improved a lot, but I lack the language skills to get in tune with their two-click community and their forum is about 10% as active as ours. I'm still working on that though, and have gotten a few reports from someone who speaks Finnish. Currently, it would seem as if the generation switch in Finland is more in favor of Sweden and less in favor of Russia, which I believe to be a very promising sign. If I remain in office next month, I will make sure to release a translated article with quotes from their community so that we can get some more insight in these matters.

The Economy goals have more or less been fullfilled. Of course it wouldn't hurt to get more production bonus, but that will come sooner than you might expect. Folke (aka Volcker) has been busy with RL stuff and I'm afraid I may have abused his offer of help a bit by not finding a replacement. Criticism against MoE can be directed towards me instead, but if it has anything to do with "Why am I still self-sufficient but not making as much money as before on my 40-50 saltpeter mines?" then chances are quite high that I'll just ignore it.

I have also found out why Plato stopped buying goods from our market and informed the ministry about it. Check their forum for more details, if you're interested.

Reports should be pouring in from all the departments within the next few days. I know that Thaimas is already about to release a report from Ministry of Education, Folke will sum up the fiscal report from Ministry of Economy and Lemlin will wait until the 4th or 5th until he releases a summary of the military campaigns this month. Reason for the delay is that there's still a chance that things might chance a lot before then.

So all in all, except for not having gotten all the regions back, I think that my government has achieved the goals we set out to do 4 weeks ago.


6. Plans for february

I have once again been asked to run for President, and after some consideration decided to accept this offer. However, I would like to announce that even if I manage to win again and even if I should be able to fulfill all of my campaign goals for the next period, I will not run for re-election in March. That should make some faces in this country happy 😉

The reason why I'm running for re-election is that there's still a lot of important work to be done, and this month has been absolutely crazy. It's very difficult for a President and his ministers to work under these circumstances and I'm proud over what we have accomplished, even though I had wished for us to regain all our cores by now.

But I also believe that the role I have to play in these events will be of less importance in a month from now. In march, things should be back to normal again and whoever takes charge of the government then will have a much easier and more fun job at hand. I sincerely hope that we keep working on our foreign relations and that our future Presidents have the backbone to stand up against unfairness - both from our enemies and allies.

For more information about my upcoming candidacy, my campaign goals for February and a initial list of my 8th government, please stay tuned for the next article which will be released very soon.


Yours sincerely,



Valnad,
President of Sweden
Keeper of The Cake