Des Rarrl
18-06-2005, 03:53
Invaders and Defenders: The Power Struggle
For quite some time the relationship between invaders and defenders has played a significant part in the global events of the NS world. Empires have crumbled and risen due to the allegiances such wars can create and destroy. So why over the past year or so has the threat from invaders, and therefore the protection required from the defenders, come to decrease so significantly.
It would be unwise to say that the battles between invaders and defenders no longer exist; almost everywhere you look a invader region is building up, attacking a region and then is being beaten off by a defender army, usually by the ADN or one of its many allies. What is obvious however is just how weak the threat from invaders on a whole has become; we haven’t really seen a real threat from a invader since the AA (for those who remember them). Some might argue that the only reason that the AA ever became so powerful is because at that time the ADN was so weak, just starting off, yet at that time the ADN was mere drop in the sea of defenders and the AA was usually able to successfully fight them all off, creating for themselves quite an empire. When the AA finally died the ADN had become one of the most powerful defending alliances in the NS world. Surely the ADN did not destroy all these armies. So where are the Invaders today?
Some might argue that the PRP is/was a powerful invader group, but who is to say that the PRP are invaders at all. It is without a doubt that their hold over the Pacific’s at times has been more then questionable and their methods of doing so, quite controversial. But their military strength, although quite significant, rarely set foot outside of the Pacific’s. Even in ‘Franco’s reign’ we didn’t see any major retaliation against the ADN or for that matter against the defending community at all. This of course is probably because of the amount of troops required to hold the Pacific’s was so great that any type of military reprisal would be unwise to attempt, yet even when things died down their really was no type of attack or lash out against anyone. A dictatorship perhaps, but a invader army? Not so much.
There are many reasons invaders have not been able to achieve the power that defenders have achieved over the past years. Simply invaders are to proud to work together, most invaders start their invader group because they are promised power. They all seem to believe that their little group, out of all the little groups, will be the one to rise up, crush the defenders and rule the world. Invaders will never be able to work together effectively because in general, invaders are invaders because they want power and those who want power are usually unwilling to share it. This is probably the main reason defenders have achieved so much over the years, because they are not afraid to work together, if invaders were able to work together in a similar way and attacked defenders directly, together, we would see a war like the NS world has ever seen, and one of the sides would emerge with power and influence not ever seen before in the NS world. Yet what is power?
In the NS world power isn’t having your own region, with a hundred different trading partners, anyone can create their own region and role-play with their neighbours. Power in NS is about controlling and/or protecting a powerful region, and having significant influence (having the world fear or love you). Yet this is almost impossible because a) grieving is illegal and b) any region with founder status can’t truly be invaded and controlled, because when it comes down to it the founder will always have that ultimate control over the region. Today, if you wanted to gain any form of ‘significant’ power you would need to take control of either one the Pacific’s or another large founder-less region. To control one of the Pacific’s is to have access to 25% of the incoming nations and a huge number of older nations to convert to your cause, but on top of the practical advantages of controlling such a region its also a powerful tittle to ones name. Yet again to do this one would need significant numbers, something one cannot achieve without working with others with similar views and goals.
Due to the law against grieving a invader region could never really strike out against a enemy and inflict true fear and gain true power, and a defender will never have a true threat to fight against. I for one understand and support the law against grieving completely, invading/defending is not the only aspect of the game and grieving could destroy the political side of the game. Many nations spend huge amounts of energy to build up and run a region and grieving can be absolutely devastating to someone who had spent so much energy trying to create such a region. However having said this, if grieving was legal it would give huge powers to both sides and create a major threat for defenders to face, bringing forth the idea that theoretically if grieving was legal it would force all regions to create some form of military or protection, and allegiances would certainly be more significant, the impact this would have on the game is unbelievable, and in such a environment world dominance would be possible, by both sides, the invaders to rule it or the defenders to unite and protect it.
So it seems that invaders in general are in fact not dead, merely broken. Although all past attempts to unite invaders have failed miserably, when it comes down to it it’s the only way that invaders will ever be able to form any kind of significant threat against the defenders or gain any kind of power worth having, nothing can be gained by invading regions with 30 nations in it and no founder and these are the sought of regions that defenders are watching. Regardless of the impact grieving will have on this never-ending power struggle, the amount of good things that will come from it is significantly outbalanced by the amount of bad things that could come from removing such a law and one would have to think seriously of the consequences of doing so.
I leave this now for you to think about.
-Locke
For quite some time the relationship between invaders and defenders has played a significant part in the global events of the NS world. Empires have crumbled and risen due to the allegiances such wars can create and destroy. So why over the past year or so has the threat from invaders, and therefore the protection required from the defenders, come to decrease so significantly.
It would be unwise to say that the battles between invaders and defenders no longer exist; almost everywhere you look a invader region is building up, attacking a region and then is being beaten off by a defender army, usually by the ADN or one of its many allies. What is obvious however is just how weak the threat from invaders on a whole has become; we haven’t really seen a real threat from a invader since the AA (for those who remember them). Some might argue that the only reason that the AA ever became so powerful is because at that time the ADN was so weak, just starting off, yet at that time the ADN was mere drop in the sea of defenders and the AA was usually able to successfully fight them all off, creating for themselves quite an empire. When the AA finally died the ADN had become one of the most powerful defending alliances in the NS world. Surely the ADN did not destroy all these armies. So where are the Invaders today?
Some might argue that the PRP is/was a powerful invader group, but who is to say that the PRP are invaders at all. It is without a doubt that their hold over the Pacific’s at times has been more then questionable and their methods of doing so, quite controversial. But their military strength, although quite significant, rarely set foot outside of the Pacific’s. Even in ‘Franco’s reign’ we didn’t see any major retaliation against the ADN or for that matter against the defending community at all. This of course is probably because of the amount of troops required to hold the Pacific’s was so great that any type of military reprisal would be unwise to attempt, yet even when things died down their really was no type of attack or lash out against anyone. A dictatorship perhaps, but a invader army? Not so much.
There are many reasons invaders have not been able to achieve the power that defenders have achieved over the past years. Simply invaders are to proud to work together, most invaders start their invader group because they are promised power. They all seem to believe that their little group, out of all the little groups, will be the one to rise up, crush the defenders and rule the world. Invaders will never be able to work together effectively because in general, invaders are invaders because they want power and those who want power are usually unwilling to share it. This is probably the main reason defenders have achieved so much over the years, because they are not afraid to work together, if invaders were able to work together in a similar way and attacked defenders directly, together, we would see a war like the NS world has ever seen, and one of the sides would emerge with power and influence not ever seen before in the NS world. Yet what is power?
In the NS world power isn’t having your own region, with a hundred different trading partners, anyone can create their own region and role-play with their neighbours. Power in NS is about controlling and/or protecting a powerful region, and having significant influence (having the world fear or love you). Yet this is almost impossible because a) grieving is illegal and b) any region with founder status can’t truly be invaded and controlled, because when it comes down to it the founder will always have that ultimate control over the region. Today, if you wanted to gain any form of ‘significant’ power you would need to take control of either one the Pacific’s or another large founder-less region. To control one of the Pacific’s is to have access to 25% of the incoming nations and a huge number of older nations to convert to your cause, but on top of the practical advantages of controlling such a region its also a powerful tittle to ones name. Yet again to do this one would need significant numbers, something one cannot achieve without working with others with similar views and goals.
Due to the law against grieving a invader region could never really strike out against a enemy and inflict true fear and gain true power, and a defender will never have a true threat to fight against. I for one understand and support the law against grieving completely, invading/defending is not the only aspect of the game and grieving could destroy the political side of the game. Many nations spend huge amounts of energy to build up and run a region and grieving can be absolutely devastating to someone who had spent so much energy trying to create such a region. However having said this, if grieving was legal it would give huge powers to both sides and create a major threat for defenders to face, bringing forth the idea that theoretically if grieving was legal it would force all regions to create some form of military or protection, and allegiances would certainly be more significant, the impact this would have on the game is unbelievable, and in such a environment world dominance would be possible, by both sides, the invaders to rule it or the defenders to unite and protect it.
So it seems that invaders in general are in fact not dead, merely broken. Although all past attempts to unite invaders have failed miserably, when it comes down to it it’s the only way that invaders will ever be able to form any kind of significant threat against the defenders or gain any kind of power worth having, nothing can be gained by invading regions with 30 nations in it and no founder and these are the sought of regions that defenders are watching. Regardless of the impact grieving will have on this never-ending power struggle, the amount of good things that will come from it is significantly outbalanced by the amount of bad things that could come from removing such a law and one would have to think seriously of the consequences of doing so.
I leave this now for you to think about.
-Locke