Join the new world

In today's article, you once again have little old me (jw). Talon is still busy with other stuff, but I am more than jamesw enough to handle these things. At the request of our omnipotent, if sometimes not so omnicient leader, first I'll be outlining why I personally, along with many others in the UK, still want to have Poland occupy Wales. I'll be finishing the article by outlining CoT, our relationship with the alliance as a whole, and then outlining a brief part of its history (and our relations since that point).

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If you know anything about tents and urinating see here if you don't, please now invert the meaning here. Poland is someone we want in the tent, not so they don't bash us about or do a little wee on us, but rather, so that if something goes bump in the night, we have our strong manly poles to soothe us back to sleep, whilst they go to bash some skulls.

I appreciate the USA is somewhat lacking, and they also dont have very many regions (h0h0), but this is something which time and again has happened, and time and again, has resulted in the USA coming back, and being pretty angry. Poland in Wales means that should the worst come to the worst, they have a region which borders quite a few of our own, and if we ask or need it they can tag in and do some sort of wormlike move or [other wrestler move here].

Yes, there you have it. Consider Poland our dainty tag team partner, who will tag in, bring some fun and good nature, and then smash someone in the throat.

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Now lets delve into what Circle Of Trust is. The alliance was founded by Bulgaria and Chile. These nations both fought against TWO in their previous alliances (EDEN and Terra respectively) and after disagreements with their previous allies, and not wanting to join the alliance they'd spent the past few months fighting against, they went their own way, creating CoT.

The alliance basics and current leaders can be found here. Basically, CoT began life as an attachment to TWO. It relied on TWO for its protection, and only won battles with TWO's support. This relationship was basically what EDEN and Terra did before Terra was disbanded. I should know, as I was the first Terra SG to ensure that it worked like that!

To give you a brief insight into the why, Bulgaria was a member of EDEN, at a time when EDEN was trying to get Turkey to join (because their damage meant they could compete with ONE and often win). Bulgaria was against this (for whatever reason) and so left the alliance. The reason Chile left Terra was because of a dispute with Argentina. Both nations wanted to invade the TWO aligned New Zealand, but this required co-operation between the two. Ultimately this broke down into distrust, and Chile was ejected (if memory serves) from the alliance by the HQ.

The true irony in all of this, is of course, that the countries both Chile and Bulgaria were trying to escape from, ultimately joined Circle Of Trust, and sit with them to this very day. Indeed, citizens who were in EDEN HQ (when they upset Bulgaria), and Terra HQ (when they ejected Chile) actually today, sit in the HQ of Circle Of Trust. Its a funny old world!



Anyway, TWO (our alliance) and CoT got on very very well, and basically destroyed what was left of the enemy alliance EDEN. Then, CoT started to grow, absorbing some members of the now defunct EDEN. Ultimately, it became a matter of time before CoT (including some close allies) and TWO (including more close allies) began to fight each other.

Ever since that day, there have been questions in the UK. Why should we MPP new nations, such as Argentina, such as Romania, such as Greece? I find myself quoting myself, once again;

I judge my allies based on who will fight to help my country, my friends and my allies. If they can do this without asking for reward, and on the only condition being co-operation, then there is the possibility of friendship and true co-operation

This is my response whenever I have to field questions about leaving old friends in CoT; the fact is, sometimes in life, things change. I will not bring up old wounds by talking about the naming dispute involving Macedonia / FYROM: I have friends on both side of this argument, and I have no intention of trying to take a side in a battle which is not my own. This is an argument and a debate for these citizens and nations to discuss. If we didn't have these arguments on eRep, all the better. But we do, so I do my best to steer clear of them altogether.

This is my advice to new players; the past is the past. You can view all of this on the eRepublik wiki. We've held regions in basically every continent. Asia, Europe, Australasia, America. We've invaded countries who today, are some of our closest allies, and some who are today, our enemies. The point is, things change. Don't make your decisions about countries based on what happened in the past; an eye for an eye makes everyone blind. Make your decisions based on the here and now; who helps us; who is civil and cordial; who just tries to cause problems. The funny thing is, most of the time, these conditions separate the nice and civil people (mostly our allies in TWO) from the trolls or instigators (in CoT). This is normal in eRepublik; you don't complain about your allies; you just belittle your enemies. Most of the time it is nothing personal, its just part of the game.

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Bulgaria

Bulgaria were our allies in PEACE, Phoenix and then at the beginning of CoT before they turned against TWO. They have always been a highly organised military force, and when we were allies, we could certainly rely on them to help in our most important battles. However, their strong ties with Ireland (from their time spent together in EDEN) ultimately lead to our relations souring after various wars with Ireland. That, and CoT choosing to fight TWO and some of our closest allies obviously meant that despite our past, we would become enemies (although, not for the first time - Bulgaria did join EDEN in the past).

Fun stuff: The UK is regularly called a bad ally by some old EDEN, and current CoT nations; that we turn our backs on each other. We have only ever 'switched' alliances once, in 2010. Bulgaria switched from Phoenix to EDEN, from EDEN to proONE, and then from proONE, have become CoT. So really, Bulgaria have 'switched' 3 times as many times as us, yet call us the traitors!

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Chile

We never really had relations with Chile until they joined CoT. We had a brief few months were as allies, we were incredibly close. And during our not-so-distant invasion by Argentina, I am told Chile sent a lot of help - alas I was not around so couldn't comment personally. I never had any real issues with Chile, until they wanted to drop our MPP because we MPP'd Romania (a nation interested in becoming proTWO). We never had issues, and at the time, took no issue despite them signing MPPs with some of our enemies. Alas, sometimes friendships do not stand the test of alliance pressures.

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Indonesia

Up until CoT became antiTWO, we had been allied with Indonesia on and off, for 3-4 years. They had, many many times, helped to fight off our enemies, with little or no fuss made at all. We joined them in PEACE, Phoenix, and also in ONE. Alas, upon the dissolution of ONE, Indonesia opted to join CoT, instead of waiting to for the new alliance everyone knew was being formed. Since that time, we've also become aligned to a country which has basically been at war with Indonesia since war was even possible on this game, Australia.

So long, long time friends, become enemies. Although I should add, when we recently went to war with Indonesia, the majority of them were nothing short of excellent; firm and hard-fighting on the battlefield, fair and light-hearted off it. One of the few countries in the world that I've seen do this; so despite being enemies, and despite not really being friends, I think I could say that there is something of a mutual 'we wont be really awful to each other' agreement here, which is no bad thing.

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Germany


Another nation that we have shared alliances with. In fact, we've actually been in quite a few with Germany. Long, long ago in ATLANTIS we were with Germany. Indeed, there was a huge controversy when a war between two ATLANTIS nations (Sweden and Germany) occured, and the UK President at the time, decided to take sides and back Germany. After that, we both joined PEACE, Phoenix and the last trip we took together, was joining Terra.

Some of the largest amounts of damage we did, many many moons ago (literally 3+ years) were in wars fighting to protect Germany. Anyone who knows Dishmcds (Dish McDonalds, as he owns several of the restaurants in Mexico) may remember its one of the few times he actually 'tanked' (to tank means to use gold to buy extra health to fight), and during the biggest battle, was the person with the most damage for Germany's side.

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Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)

Whichever name you use, is entirely up to you. I personally (as I mentioned) will not get involved in it, the name of something else is none of my concern, and has nothing to do with me!

Anyway, We were friends for a long time. Indeed, we actually supported their entrance to Phoenix (I remember this vividly, as I was President at the time) against the wishes of Bulgaria. Despite constant threats they would leave the alliance, I stuck to my guns, as did many other nations. I'm not ashamed to say that I was the first President to vote for them joining Phoenix (Followed by many other nations straight away), and I was one of the strongest to argue for their addition. Why am I, someone on the HQ of the alliance now opposing and fighting our old allies, saying this? Because as I said; times change. I don't regret my decision; at the time it was the sensible and logical thing to do.

It also gives me no end of laughs to think that despite all of the nationalistic arguments and abuse hurled between the two during this time, yet today they're allies and I am the 'enemy'. But, again, as I have said many times; there is no hard feelings; everything changes with time.



Appreciating that we still have many countries to go through, and this article is getting long, I'll leave CoT nations there for now. We'll pick this up again in our next article. Thanks for reading! And for those of you who didn't catch it, you can read Talon's insights about TWO nations here


Lots of love, on behalf of the whole Ministry,
~jw and Talon