Jenny the Hermit Follow Up

While discussing the situation with Jenny the Hermit in GC, I received the following IGM from a friend of Jenny the Hermit who asked to remain anonymous:

Hello, 
I noticed your defence of Jenny the Hermit in Global Chat and just wanted to thank you and let you know that you are spot-on about what happened. She, myself and another player joined this game from another one; she and the other player quickly used Tenaril to relocate to the area in question in Farshards; they specifically chose that spot because it was it was unoccupied and relatively desolate, and had no way of reasonably knowing about the "land claim" that she encroached on by a mere 10 squares. They also sieged and brought the other player down to zero before doing so to Jenny. In both cases, they messaged at one point that they would give them 14 days to move before attacking, which I think is an unreasonable amount of time to give a brand new player to be able to exodus, since they had each obviously used their Tenaril already. In Jenny's case, buck1 messaged her on July 20 saying she had 4 weeks to move. As you can see, she did not receive nearly that. I think it's quite clear that the actions of RofC can only be described as bullying of a player who could not possibly have (and I can assure you would never have) presented any threat to their alliance. There wan absolutely no need for urgency on their part in asking her to move: she was not any threat to them or in their way for any reason, and the misunderstanding was entirely forseeable, as there is simply no readily available information on land claims, particularly to new players. 
Thanks,
<REDACTED>


Also worth noting: They DID give the option to join RoFC also, but why would anyone want to join and pay taxes to an alliance that treats new players this way?

The IGM from buck1

As you can see, Jenny was given well under a week after being promised four... given the considerable time and resources it takes to get exodus, it would likely have been impossible for her to even attempt to move.

Interestingly, when buck1 was a new player, he accidentally settled a town well within my 10 squares. Rather than razing him, I helped him grow and gave him plenty of time to exodus. It would've been nice to see that paid forward.

Author: Eowan

RoFC Force One Town Player Out of The Game

RoFC have started to crack down in their landclaim leading to them noobringing at least one 1 town player causing said player to abandon.

Jenny's growth charts

Jenny likely used her Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportation to move into Farshards, not knowing about the landclaim. She had never joined an alliance (judging by her username, she intended to remain unattached) meaning she had no support against RoFC.

The people in RoFC who sieged Jenny were Saxon and Moksha as she faced a double siege.

Herald Siege Page

After the sieges landed, Jenny abandoned and she has since been noobringed.

Jenny's Town During Siege

Jenny's Town Now

Within hours of this happening, Snot of RoFC was in GC talking about how RoFC were going to 'Make Illyriad Great Again'. When I brought up Jenny being forced out of the game, I was described as 'fake news' and a 'troll'.

Many others in GC joined me in my public criticism of RoFC but when did people even start to think this was OK? RoFC has had a history of attacking small, largely defenceless accounts; that's what led to the Hobblez situation that has also been reported on here. This is not a one off, this is how RoFC act.

I'm going to be messaging every single non-RoFC aligned player in the RoFC landclaims of Farshards and Lapo'a Lua offering them aid with moving and a place in Cala or VAST if they want. If you would like to support those who are facing a similar situation to that of Jenny the Hermit, get your alliance leader to send me an IGM and I will add you to the list of people taking in those who are being assaulted by RoFC.


EDIT:
Iron have cancelled a NAP with RoFC, saying that they do not wish to be associated with RoFC anymore.

Author: Eowan 

How the war really began.

Normally, I wouldn't publish the following IGMs but given the amount of lies Snot has been spouting in GC about the start of the war, I feel I have no choice.

Notice the date on that IGM. War was declared by Aesir in December.

As for why this war happened, it happened as a result of TA2IN imposing a cartel on Silversteel sales. The SINdicate started this war, but fair enough they are war players. Most players in the SINdicate are pretty honest about that. Snot however likes to label her enemies the warmongers.

At the time this IGM was sent, Eresh was in Loki leadership.

Author: Eowan The Short.

Karl Aegis Interview

I conducted an interview with Karl Aegis of IRON about Loki's involvement with the IRON/RE war. I did get in touch with Fiona of Loki but she said no comment. If anyone else in Loki would like to give a comment then they can get in touch with me or just post in the comments anything they'd like to say. I'll post it here as well provided that proof of identity is provided in the case of comments here in the form of an IGM letting me know it was them.

[02:43]<Eeowan> hey
[02:44]<Karl Aegis> yo
[02:44]<Karl Aegis> what are we doing here
[02:44]<Eeowan> an interview
[02:44]<Eeowan> for the telegraph
[02:44]<Eeowan> so, what happened to cause the declaration?
[02:45]<Karl Aegis> there are goons next to my capital
[02:46]<Eeowan> why do you think loki got involved?
[02:46]<Karl Aegis> on the orders of Dark Dan I
[02:46]<Karl Aegis> he's been after me for months
[02:46]<Eeowan> why?
[02:46]<Karl Aegis> because I joined Minimart Hooligans
[02:47]<Eeowan> and that's a problem because?
[02:48]<Karl Aegis> he believed it to be some kind of betrayal
[02:49]<Eeowan> why?
[02:49]<Karl Aegis> and subsequently ordered his "friend" itchy to settle towns adjacent to mine before I exodused out of pawanalpa
[02:49]<Karl Aegis> after which snot sent diplomatic attacks on my towns
[02:50]<Eeowan> ok
[02:51]<Karl Aegis> we know Dark Dan I is somehow involved with Rashidi's account
[02:51]<Eeowan> right...
[02:52]<Eeowan> so, I don't understand why you joining minimart was a betrayal
[02:53]<Eeowan> were you supposed to join loki?
[02:53]<Karl Aegis> Josh had invited me to join ta2in earlier and was sitting my account
[02:54]<Karl Aegis> I canceled his sitter rights after joining Minimart Hooligans so I had my caravans for my own exodus
[02:54]<Eeowan> ok
[02:55]<Karl Aegis> we had a falling out shortly afterwards
[02:55]<Eeowan> so, them launching now... are they working with RE?
[02:56]<Karl Aegis> two sieges landing so closely together can't be a coincidence
[02:56]<Karl Aegis> RE just seems to have mistimed theirs
[02:56]<Karl Aegis> again
[02:57]<Eeowan> lol
[02:57]<Karl Aegis> at 23:00 and 00:03
[02:57]<Karl Aegis> within a hundred squares of one another
[02:58]<Eeowan> yeah
[03:01]<Eeowan> are there any troops from RE in the Loki siege or vise versa?
[03:01]<Eeowan> vice
[03:02]<Karl Aegis> No, RE are having coordinating their own troops, let alone someone elses
[03:02]<Eeowan> lol
[03:04]<Karl Aegis> having trouble
[03:07]<Eeowan> so, anything else you want to say?
[03:08]<Karl Aegis> if you see Josh rub it in his face he didn't a gold or silver crown on World 7 hehe
[03:09]<Karl Aegis> and I won't be losing any cities, never have never will
[03:09]<Eeowan> world 7?
[03:09]<Karl Aegis> in Crown of the Gods
[03:09]<Eeowan> ok
[03:09]<Karl Aegis> he's a sore loser about it still

IRON vs RE War

As with their last war, Roman Empire [RE] has declared on an alliance around 40% of their size by land claimed. Last time it was The Company [TheCo] for violating a land claim they never publicly asserted (see our story on The Invisible Land Claim), a one-sided war that TheCo never recovered from. This time it was against Iron Crusade [IRON], where they had a 200% advantage in terms of land claimed, and nearly 300% including their affiliated alliance REBEL. The backbone of IRON is a number of former members of The Unfettered [TUF], who have been in alliances like Asatru [Loki] and Screaming Valkyries [SV] in the meantime.

RE have not made public an casis belli for their declaration of war, but IRON were building up a presence near their land claim in Westmarch, and they might have been afraid that if they did not strike while they could, their land claim would be under threat. The war so far has not gone so well for RE, who might have expected IRON to be a pushover: despite IRON being unprepared for war, as Hyde has explained on the forums, RE have tried repeatedly to siege Spektor’s town of Hilland I, so far losing massive amounts of troops to have their first siege, smaller, broken (with help from HELL, who afterwards stopped helping IRON) and their second, larger, so far being badly damaged. Patience King, leader of RE has dismissed RE’s failure in the first siege, claiming that IRON would crumble under RE’s future offensives.

RE claim the title of Invictus, or unconquerable, on their profile. Will they end up being beaten by a far smaller alliance? An alliance that has, in the meantime, picked a fight with Loki. Anything other than a decisive victory would be an embarrassment for RE.
I reached out to Patience King and Agalloch, leader of Iron, for comments on the above.  First, Patience King:

> The war is going great and as planned the first siege was a test for hellfire to see if they would assist which they did RE declared on hellfire and after negotiations I secured a satisfactory deal with cerdarman . I don't care about population or size iron can keep using that excuse RE has declared on larger alliances without issue.

> The second siege did it's job iron forces attempted and failed to break our siege forces, ( our blockade and siege stayed up without issue in iron heartland ) so they relied on sitting each other in order to kill a small storm force which they managed to do .  The siege is seen as a success all my armies from all my cities including my alt are marching back with numbers intact and we will continue immediate offensives. Iron has been trying to exodus military cities down to aindara which get cleared by RE forces immediately while the cool down period is in effect.  Any comments that the war is not going well is idiotic and Rome will win and any notion that iron would have the ability to beat RE or make it surrender is a laughing matter NO one has razed a city in our heartland apart from SIN I highly doubt Iron can do anything they can't even defend themselves anymore .


Then Agalloch:
> I think the facts of the war so far speak for themselves,IRON is about 3 months old, although a lot of our players have played before we are returning players with only a few weeks of building our new accounts, REs inability to raze us is quite laughable in itself considering they been around for years and should have been able to wipe us off the map by now.Not only are they unable to raze us but they are also coordinating with a loki player to land a double siege on us, is it cause they are unable to field two sieges at the same time themselves? makes you wonder ......

> ALthough we werent looking for a war at this stage of our growth I am looking forwards to the ongoing hostilities,RE is welcome to bring as many alliances in this as they want, it wont change the fact they suck at war!

> Also our not launching any offensive ops so far doesnt mean we are incapable of it,we like to have a certain amount of succes in offensive ops otherwise there is no point due to the high ammount of troop losses a siege requires on the part of the attacker, the objective is to destroy the town and demoralize the enemy not some lame ass excuse about eating up enemy troops as some might claim. Anyone that says sieges are fakes or intented to eat up the enemies troops is living in another dimension.


-Alti

Hucbold and TCol Update

More IGMs have been sent to me in relation to the Hucbold/TCol story posted on the 20th. Hucbold initiated the exchange with the following IGM:

I am informed that you are briefing people that I called you a nazi. 
For the record, I did NOT call TCol Nazis. I did say that they performed two acts of ethnic cleansing. The term 'ethnic cleansing' to me comes from the Yugoslav wars not WWII. It had to do with the breakup of Yugoslavia into its constituent republics and some of them wanting more territory and pushing out indigenous populations and sometimes even killing them. However the main characteristic was removing people of the wrong 'brand' from territory. When TCol set up their land claim, Aesir had one player there, JoeK4, with 2 towns. He had been there, peacefully, for years. He was told to get out or be eliminated. I intervened at Joe's request and tried to persuade Joe to leave but while that was going on sieges landed and Joe was eradicated. Joe quit the game. I think 'ethnic cleansing' is an exact description of that. 
None of that amounts to me calling TCol nazis!
 I reserve the right, if there is an answer, to publish it, circumventing the game rules, if I think I can spin it in my favour. 
If, on the other hand you wish to pursue the offer made in my previous message, which could lead to exactly what you want, without prejudice to the final outcome and in confidence, let me know.


To which Grombrindal of TCol responded with the following:

Hail Hucbolt (Spartacus?), 
We have little else to say to you. If you somehow believe it is better to compare us to the Sebrenica massacre than the concentration camps, all hope of educating you on the sensitivities of these events seems far gone. 
The case of Joe will be remembered as a colossal failure in leadership from your side (promising that a player will move without consulting the actual player), which we nonetheless tried to solve in a diplomatic and humane manner. Joe eventually quit because he felt betrayed by his own, a lesson you may wish to take to heart. 
As for your renewed efforts to push your previous offer, we have already made clear our objection. Our sovereignty is not subject to negotiation. It is willingly and without precondition acknowledged by those who wish friendly relations with the empire (we will spare you a listing of venerable and ancient they are). 
At this point our trust in you is so tainted by your vicious and unfounded accusations, and your obvious disregard for the truth, that we are uncertain if we, even with the best of intentions, could ever consider you a friend. Your threat to publish our correspondence to spin it to your favor is downright laughable. By now you have more than proven that you could not spin a merry-go-round if your life depended on it. 
On behalf of her imperial majesty Zenorra and the united people of Mal Motsha, 
Grom


I asked Hucbold for a comment on the exchange of IGMs and he sent back a list of complaints about the TCol's handling of the situation

1. People do not refer to the Srebrenica ethnic cleansing, they refer to the Srebrenica massacre. 
2. I defined my understanding of the term ethnic cleansing - the forceful removal of people of the wrong 'brand' from a territoty, JoeK was forcibly removed from MM because he was Aesir. I applied the term correctly. 
3. In the case of Joe, he asked me to intervene on his behalf. I offered TCol to move him, and got a semi polite answer from TCol declining my offer of an NAP. I sent Joe copies of the IGMs. Without further notice TCol sieged and razed Joe. Joe sent me and others equipment and resources, told me that TCol had been completely unreasonable, was offered no choice but 'go or be razed, without reference to his lengthy friendly presence there ' and no time to achieve an exit. He chose to leave his towns where they were and quit the game. Tcol subsequently sent me an email compliaining that Joe was attacking them and a short reply when I replied incredulously. 
4. The three messages mentioned above are the only interactions I had before the ones that TCol seem to feel at liberty to publish. There is no underlying hostility between us that I am aware of. 
5. When I offered TCol an NAP (in the first communication) they responded that they were not interested in diplomatic relations with anyone. They subsequently entered not just NAPs but full confeds with alliances in the SINDICATE. 
6. My approaches to them were genuine. I was trying to give them what they said they desired and to keep them out of the war. To be clear here, the risk is that a Ta2in town in MM might launch an attack against one of our confeds. Since the empress asserts her primacy in the use of military force in MM, that could be interpreted as her allies declaring war on her behalf. Observers will note that this was one of the issues I sought clarification on. 
7. In Illy as in RL, everything can be negotiated. Seeking clarifications about the intentions of a new entity before endorsing it is not unusual. Indeed in RL, countries frequently raise issues about human rights or the military intentions of other states. It is the normal practice of diplomacy. 
8. The concerns raised could hardly have been described as unreasonable. 
9. The deliberate insults in the replies are of concern - mispelling my name - the Spartacus taunt - criticising my leadership - and so on. This is not diplomatic language - nor is the fact that communications sent leader to leader are being answered by someone else. 
Hucbold (with no t)

As a comment on points 1, 2 and 9, I'd like to point out that the Srebrenica massacre was part of the Bosnian Genocide to which Hucbold had earlier referred. I'm not going to go into much detail into the genocide because there are things I'd much prefer to do with my time than research things like this. However, this is a quote from the wikipedia article on the Bosnian Genocide: ' The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery...'. Given all this, I'd consider Grombrindal calling him Spartacus and spelling his name wrong to be a somewhat mild response.
I'd also consider the 'Empire Ambassador' responding to IGMs from foreign powers on the behalf of the Empress to be a somewhat standard state of affairs.


-Eowan The Short.

Bellicose Noobringed, Continues to be Attacked.

Bellicose and his alt Dennis have both been the targets of a strong and successful offensive by Unbow in Western Elgea. According to an Unbow player, more than 20 cities were captured, razed or forced to exodus out of the region. Of these, around 18 are believed to have belonged to Bellicose and Dennis.

As a result of the operation, Bellicose was totally noob ringed and Dennis was reduced to a single town though, due to the fact that it was in exodus when his other city was razed, Dennis has had a starter town spawn in Mal Moshta. As this town falls within TCol's landclaim, it is under their protection currently.

However, it didn't stop there. Since being noob ringed, Bellicose has continued to be attacked by a number of Resistance players; Morgweneth, FIGJAM, Thanes Aristophanes and Lagavulin. In GC, it has been claimed that these attacks are to prevent Bellicose from becoming a threat again but one must wonder at what point it becomes an attempt to force players out of the game. 

When I asked Thanes Aritophanes about the attacks on Bellicose, he responded by saying that 'Storm do not comment on ongoing operations.'. How attacks on defenceless players can be considered operations is not clear to me. 

I also got a response to the questions I asked by a player from Unbow;

1) Why was it decided to noobring Bellicose? 

Bellicose/dennis, as also Bradik, Shagrat and Anas did, did occupy a few cities in the desert of Lan Laross/Western Realms and those cities can be seen as military very important. We did however at first left them there living in peace. But then they tried to capture one village of our alliance. We didn't accept that and attacked their siege and later on attacked the city of Bellicose from where the attack took place. As a reply on that SIN and TA2IN declared war on us. In reply on the war declaration we attacked all cities in our area of alliances related to these two aliances. All in all more then 20 cities were captured, razed or exodused.

2) Was Bellicose offered a surrender deal at any point? 

There was no surrender deal offered, while Bellicose and Dennis both had the opportunity to flee to a safe haven in BL, which they didn't take. They exodused one or two villages to a nearby forest. Two weeks after we had removed all cities from the desert we started to remove all remaining villages in our area. When you are at war and still want a surrender deal you do have to ask for it and the terms must be agreed on by the leaderships of the alliances involved.

3) Why is Bellicose continuing to be attacked despite the fact he has been noobringed? 

I disagree with the people who attack beginning villages in the noobring. I don't care if they are really new or forced to begin again as a victim of the war. I see it as committing a warcrime when you attack starting villages. I do like fighting a war, but on justified rules. It is a matter of respect for your opponent as they have had respect for us in the past.

4) Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I'm part of the old Unbowed and we do respect our opponents, but disagree with their ideas/statements. As they we are a warmachine. We have our pride and we stand for a free and peacefull Illyriad with no bounderies and some agreements to live in Elgea and the Broken Lands. We will fight for this freedom.

The fact that a member of the Resistance is willing to call out other members as war criminals shows that it may just be a minority in the Resistance who feel such actions are appropriate. If this is true, then I urge the Resistance to publicly denounce those who feel it is fine to attack players after they have been noob ringed. It is extremely difficult even today to get players to talk about the last server war due to the lack of proportional force used in it. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past.

-Eowan The Short