anti-break

Fooglmog
Member Jul 29th, 2006 0:26
In the spring of 2000, I was given a position that would change my career in Earth 2025 forever. I was made Secretary of War in Rage FFA. I was given charge of all things related in killing in one of the largest alliances on the FFA server.

While in that position, I fought two wars. During these wars I posted on the clan forums stating that certain countries needed to die. And long behold, within hours they would be dead. Even the mighty UCN of 1A (an alliance I had been in only a few months before during their war with SoL) couldn't achieve kills at the rate I was achieving them. I was a master of war, and, if not the very best than, one of the best players in the game... at least as far as war was concerned.

In august of that year, unable to keep up with the number of countries one was required to play to be a major player, I left both Rage and FFA behind. My intention was to take my obvious talent for war to 1A where my skills (and reputation) would no doubt bring me to a similar position as that I had possessed in Rage FFA.

Within days of joining the 1A server I received a recruitment message from a name I recognized from FFA, Beltshumeltz. He was starting a new alliance called "Imaginary Numbers" whose whole purpose would be to bring war and destruction to whomever they desired. Perfect, I joined at once.

I didn't rise as quickly as I may have hoped. Beltshumeltz seemed reluctant to take my assurances that I was one of the greatest war leaders in the game as face value, and refused me the position of Head of War that I requested. Regardless, I made a home for myself in iMagNum.

It was here that I began to get a more real image of war. I watched as my small alliance, first under Beltshumeltz then under a succession of other leaders struggled to be organized during war. At first I scoffed at them all, knowing that I could do better (after all, look what I'd done in Rage). Over time however, I began having conversations with these same leaders I had scoffed at. I began to realize that they knew things about war I had no clue about, which in turn led me to wonder how I could run wars better then these people who were so much more knowledgeable than I.

Eventually the truth dawned on me; War is very much more difficult in 1A.

In the early summer of 2001, I became the head of War in iMagNum. A position I held proudly for 3 years. Since then, I've been in the war departments of Lust, TIE, Dominion, Vengeance, KoS and a slew of others.

During these almost six years since I switched from FFA to 1A I have constantly heard said something which I firmly believe to be a myth. The FFA players are better at war than 1A players. When I first started in 1A, I'd hear this and say "damn right". As I learned more, I began to doubt this idea. And eventually, I grew to believe that the concept was absolutely absurd.

And yet, the "Myth of the FFA Warrior" continues today. Even here, on UMET I've heard it said that the "FFA Alliances" (as in alliances in which most of the membership recently played in FFA) would win wars against alliances whose core members came from 1A. Claims such as "FFAers are crazy about war" or "love war more than anything else" seem inseparable from these claims.

And yet I wonder, where's the evidence of this?

Fooglmog
Member Jul 29th, 2006 0:26
I am, admittedly, biased against the war prowess of FFA players. This stems in large part from the fact that when I played FFA I knew very little of war, but believed I excelled at it. I even convinced others, in a fairly large FFA alliance (Rage), that I excelled at it. This falsehood obviously taints the lens through which I study other FFAers (I expect them to be as I once was).

But despite my bias, the evidence seems concrete. Netters Anonymous, an alliance formed almost exclusively former FFA players and was the largest on the server, fell like a sack of potatoes, barely putting up a fight.

At the outset of the war, I was asked by a friend, for my analysis of what would happen during this war. I stated, among other things, that dyNAsty would put out a disappointing performance. I listed the following reasons:

1. FFA alliances had no need for warchats. With 15 countries to a player there was no need to organize more then a handful of members at a time. Thus, dyNAsty would be unable to organize their mass of numbers into effective kill runs and their hits would be sporadic.

2. FFA players have little experience restarting. With 15 countries there was rarely any need to create new ones when they were killed. One simply continued the war with their remaining countries. Thus, the dyNAsty restart rate would be low and the restarts that were created would be ineffective. (I also know that for a time it was impossible to create FFA countries mid-reset. I do not know if this continued until the closing of FFA, however if it did, it adds to the fact that FFAers would have little experience in this area)

3. FFA players have little experience with real FA, thus dyNAsty would be unable to bring in allies. Politics are the heart of 1A, without being politically attuned to the entire game an alliance doesn't survive there. In FFA all that seems to have mattered is numbers. Thus, dyNAsty would be unable to bring any allies into this war to aid them and negate the MD/MET FS advantage.

On my first point, I appear to have been proven correct; dyNAsty's hits have been few and far between, achieving very little (particularly in the opening days of the war).

As for my second points, indications are that I was once again correct. While it is still possible that 40 restarts will take dyNAsty prior to the end of the reset, and reign down vengeance upon the lower ranked MET and MD countries, I find this unlikely. Baring this unlikely event, I believe we can all agree that dyNAsty's restart rate has been sub-par at best.

It is only on my third point that I appear to have been in error, but even here not entirely. It took dyNAsty a long time to get allies into the fight, they were nearly crippled before anyone else joined in. They also appear to have been unable to organize their allies to join the fight all at once. Alliances seem to have joined the war in a piecemeal manner, allowing MET and MD to cope with them individually instead of suffering a massive counter-attack all at once. So, while dyNAsty should be commended for finding more allies than I would have expected, their inability to organize their allies or bring them into the fight quickly has been a serious drawback.

Regardless, on points 1 and 2, the points most obviously relating to skill in war, the shortcomings of a majority FFA alliance were not only predictable, they were predicted.

This war is, to my knowledge, the largest of any conflicts where 1A and FFA players have fought. While this single incident cannot be taken as proof that FFA players are not, as reputation would have them, masters of war. This war, along with the fact that the areas in which FFA players would fall short in war were predicted, can be taken as strong evidence against the idea the FFA players are superior in this regard.

What was the point of this point you ask?

Quite simply, I want to hear no more tosh about FFA players being in some manner superior in the art of war. It is a myth, and it will remain a myth until you actions in game would seem to demonstrate otherwis

ok, where to start

lemme start with RAGE FFA

your under a total misconception as to what a "war minister" is actually responsible for in ffa
all RAGE needed you to do was to identify targets, post 'em....and..umm.......identify more targets, LOL

I mean, c'mon, really....did you actually think having rom and cele fighting for kill count, along with the likes of wack, dd, lorrie, and a dozen others getting their fair share, counts as being "a great war minister"????

i am by no means saying you were bad at what you were asked to do....but having played in 1a myself, as well, war minister in 1a is as totally different from ffa, as being a great war player is for the two servers
different requirements...simple as that
no
not compareable, really

and being good at one, does not mean you'll be good on the other server, either
can you be......yes
but it's certainly not a given


there is no "myth" about great war players in ffa
to me, it's real
just like there's bad war players in ffa
and the exact same statement fits 1a

it doesnt take any more skill to kill in 1a then it does in FFA. its always about target selection no matter which server, and now more then ever its about speed. to say 1a players are better at war is just silly.

oh, and btw

the failure in the example you gave was a failure of leadership........

NOT warring abilities of the individuals

.....................................................
1. FFA alliances had no need for warchats. With 15 countries to a player there was no need to organize more then a handful of members at a time. Thus, dyNAsty would be unable to organize their mass of numbers into effective kill runs and their hits would be sporadic.

2. FFA players have little experience restarting. With 15 countries there was rarely any need to create new ones when they were killed. One simply continued the war with their remaining countries. Thus, the dyNAsty restart rate would be low and the restarts that were created would be ineffective. (I also know that for a time it was impossible to create FFA countries mid-reset. I do not know if this continued until the closing of FFA, however if it did, it adds to the fact that FFAers would have little experience in this area)

3. FFA players have little experience with real FA, thus dyNAsty would be unable to bring in allies. Politics are the heart of 1A, without being politically attuned to the entire game an alliance doesn't survive there. In FFA all that seems to have mattered is numbers. Thus, dyNAsty would be unable to bring any allies into this war to aid them and negate the MD/MET FS advantage.
****************************************************

1. failure of leadership, plain and simple......has nothing to do with any one player
RAGE FFA did, in fact, have warchats
was there hundreds of players in it.....not, we didn't have hundreds of players, LOL

2. i call bs......any clan i've played in in ffa restarted during wars...yes, even back in the days when numbers of countries were unlimited

3. no FA'ing? ......really think ffa'ers don't know how?
or is this an assumption because you didn't know about it:P


again, all three assumptions are based on what you saw in the 1a ffa'er clan, which was totally caused by poor leadership
NOT poor warriors

and for the record, Fooglmog, hers's my credentials:P

1a
RAGE
Laf

FFA
RAGE FFA
BOD
PANLV
and may as well have been part of IMP, ICD, and DWAR, as much as i played with them at various times over the early years

Great Foogly Moogly

who's the noob?
what's with the anti-break?
is the world still flat?

Generally, I find the only difference between 1a and FFA players (referring to people who either only play one or the other or who only put a fraction of the effort into one of them) is that FFA players don't put the same level of effort into each and every country as 1a players do, since we get 16 and they get 1.

Some 1a players come over and outplay FFA players for a set, because they put a crapload of effort into each country in comparison. Those players don't tend to stay in FFA for very long, or if they do, they adapt and find the same ways to play their countries faster that us FFA types do.

ya got some kind of issue you'd like to discuss, Dibs?

why you trying to bypass my questions with just one question?

because none of yours were even remotely intelligent?



just sayin'.....

What I really don't understand is why a 1a oriented thread is posted on FFat.

Maybe I just don't get it. Beyond that, who really gives a fluff how FoggleGoogle may or may not be intertwined between 1a and FFA.

because i asked fooglmog if i could resurect it, and discuss it with him, since i was off doing other things when he posted it in 2006

i chose this board for two reasons
one....it's actually about "the Myth of the FFA warrior"
two....i figured ffa folks would provide less hassle than alliance folks on such a topic being discussed
you know how the alliance boards can be:P

I enjoyed reading it.

LOL, anyone remember that war DWAR had with the 1A players (TE) that came over to the FFA. If I remember right DWAR tag killed them and they were over 1000 countries. Taking time to get everyone into a war chat before using your turns is not a good idea in the ffa.

haha TE, i'm glad i was semi-retired by that point or dwar wouldn't of been the only one to fight that war :P

for one to expect questions to be sentient is not logical.

i've seen you make logical posts, Dib

but i'm pretty sure that all 3 of them were ignored:P

LMFAO

Tame the troll!

Atta boy, Celeborn... :O)

IMO The differences in warring in either server are great. Kinda like apples and spudtaters..

lol, where's foog's response to these posts that he authorized?
where is this discussion taking place?
nice colors QM

ouch.....a good question from Dibs
case of the missing Foogl'


<tips hat>

Sorry, it's taken me a little while to get to this.

I did indeed tell Celeborn he was free to resurrect this thread when he PM'd me -- though, in truth, I didn't know exactly which of my old threads he was referring to.

In the current context of FFA, I probably deserve to be berated for this post. I can't be sure because I haven't played on this server since EE started -- but my impression is that the points I was making in 2006 (is that really how old this is?) would not hold water today.

Because of that, this thread is only worth discussing in a historical context.

When FFA shut down back on 2025, a lot of FFA players ended up on the Council server. But very few of the FFA tags actually survived that switch. They went to a lot of different places, but NA was by far the most popular single destination. Because of this, NA represented a good cross section of players from across FFA.

For a while, NA benefited from the myth this post was aimed at dispelling. That FFA players were fanatical about war, would dedicate their whole lives to fighting wars when it came to it, and that no alliance with 1A roots would be able to compete with them in a war. They used this reputation to push people around and it worked.

Many players from 1A really did express the opinion that NA would prove to be the superior war alliance because of its FFA roots. And many NA members continued to advocate this point on the boards.

Then NA got into a war with MD and MET and didn't live up to the reputation it had built. This thread was me pointing this dichotomy out to other players because I didn't want NA (who were rivals to my own alliance at the time) to continue to benefit from their reputation. It was a politically motivated post as much as anything else.

These are all facts though. NA had a war reputation because of its FFA roots, and they did not live up to that reputation at that time.

Now, obviously I tried to explain the causes of these problems as well. And that's supposition rather than fact. There's plenty of reasons why NA might have underperformed that didn't have to do with their FFA roots.

In trying to argue against me, Celeborn effectively made my point:



It was taken as a given that NA would be outstanding at war on council because they came from FFA where everyone was fanatical about war. You say yourself that such things should not be taken as a given. And, in fact, this was demonstrated not to be the case.

I used my own experience as an analogy to show that this should have been expected. I was competent on FFA and thought I was outstanding, largely because of the calibre of players I was playing with. When I moved to FFA I expected to be equally capable. This did not prove to be the case.

I was never saying that FFA players were bad on FFA. Simply that they did not deserve to be viewed as superior on the council server. If you read my, rather understated, summing up this becomes apparent.



(PS. I'm responding to this thread as a good natured discussion from the past. I have a lot of respect for FFA and its players. If I didn't, I wouldn't spend so much time modding here. I hope that this post will be taken in the nature it is intended.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

"2. FFA players have little experience restarting. With 15 countries there was rarely any need to create new ones when they were killed. One simply continued the war with their remaining countries. Thus, the dyNAsty restart rate would be low and the restarts that were created would be ineffective. (I also know that for a time it was impossible to create FFA countries mid-reset. I do not know if this continued until the closing of FFA, however if it did, it adds to the fact that FFAers would have little experience in this area)"

Just gotta say, that is the biggest BS ever, most players make 16 countries, then in SemperFi vs NBK and XI war alone, over 1500 restarts have been made, with about 50 people doing them. The opposite is true, FFA players have far more experience restarting.

And before when you had unlimited countries and couldn't make more midset, the country running strategy was different. All that mattered was speed at which they could be run vs quality of country achieved, and you needed the best balance between the two. With just 1 country you no longer require that balance which completely changes how you run it. It takes just as much skill, just in a different way (I could run 300 countries in 20 minutes, and did all 300 startups within 3 hours. The countries were far superior to the typical of the day and used with effectiveness vs the Usimp when their Coalition hit NBK.)

Uh Oh,someone else has been watching "Maggie and The Ferocious Beast" :)
GrandKid excuse here.

thats 4 seconds a country, 12 if you run them every 3 days

or 36 seconds for each startup, when you couldnt really run them over multiple days

tax number turrets number enter
sell milandfood numberx2 enter
build number enter
build farms number enter
sell milandfood numberx2 enter
build indy number enter
sell milandfood numberx2 enter
explore nuber enter

and thats not even a full startup and you have to do it 300 times?

Challenge accepted!

What I did was

Gov enter, tax enter, production (I think it was like 20,40,0,35,5) enter, build 20 farms, Forget the rest, lol. But it was pretty CS light, so they would grow faster.

I customised the amount of lines each click of the scroll wheel scrolled, I setup my strat so it repeated itself as many times as possible (Build 5 farms 4 times, build 10 cs twice, build 20 farms twice) so I could double tap enter and skip a step. Basically streamlined the entire setup so it required as little movements as possible while ending up with a really good (at the time) country.

Once they were setup, it was just explore 75 times twice per 3 days then once every 3 days build, which I could do within 4 seconds as I saved all my logins in HTML form and linked it to Earths login page so I didnt have to type them.

FFA is more reliant on the individual knowing what to do, and when to do it
which explains the "myth" of a better warrior

in alliance, you are more reliant on well oiled and functioning leadership
it almost doesn't matter how good the individual is....if the leadership isn't coordinating the masses, the clan fails

in your thread, you seem like your placing the failure on the individuals within the clan for it's failure in that war, therebye debunking the "myth"
i'm claiming that the individual, in fact, did NOT fail......it was leaderships failure to organize and utilize the individuals as a cohesive unit that was the failure

1a and FFA are different animals.