Ethics of Waving and War

By W1nd. 12-12-2020. Part of Utopia News, Age 88.

Original: http://forums.utopia-game.com/showthread.php?640067-ETHICS-OF-WAVING-and-WAR-(UTOPIA-NEWS-AGE-88)

WAVING vs. DIPLO

Now, there are two waves of achieving war in UTOPIA. There are two schools of belief when it comes to this; waving for war and diplo. Most people like arranged wars because it gives everyone plenty of time to get ready and it is like showing up for work. Everyone knows what time to login and when to be ready to use their consumables (stealth and mana), very easy to plan your day around these wars. Typically they are referred to as “arranged wars”, which always get scrutinized closely by the community as everyone is extremely paranoid about war fixing and ‘fake wars’ which no one likes to hear about. In my mind I do not really see an issue with this but it is not my preferred method of getting war, it is however easier for people with a busier schedule and those not comfortable with certain elements of the game (no dragons). I believe setting limitations takes away from the game but that is just me.

Waving for war is my preferred method and I wish everyone did it more often, too many kingdoms hide in their shells and are far too reactive. One of the most important things is waving out during your OOW period not just for plunders but for books as well! The downsides to waving for war is that you never really know when the enemy may declare, but they do still have to march several armies just to get the war button. Anyone paying attention to their bot will get a notification that a province was attacked or at the very least the province ruler will see it and would be best to notify their LS (leadership) as soon as possible. There are virtually no restrictions or diplo required but it can be added as an extra layer if you so choose.

ETHICAL MATTERS

I wanted to take this time to touch on some ethical matters within the game as well when it pertains to warring since we are already on the subject.

TO PK, or not to PK

This is a sticky subject, there is not really a ‘right’ way or time to do this but sometimes it is needed. Typically only a few things would generate enough resentment towards a province to commit the act of a pk; dragging wars, explicit in game mail, explicit dm’s in discord, and more commonly a vendetta that will never be dropped like we saw with Princess Jasmine and gv, I doubt that will ever end based on what I heard from Jasmine regarding gv. Notwithstanding, they have made it significantly harder to PK a province, however is not impossible, I feel it is just a waste of time in any case. There will always be a better attack. Bottom line, if you get Pk’d, it is likely you just neglected your province for too long or you or your kingdom did something to bring it upon yourself.

WHEN TO WD

Most monarchs will tell you that when the NW/ACRE gap reaches a certain point by min time that is a good indicator that you stand to lose more than you could possibly gain. The winner of the war always gets propelled to the top of the charts in one way or the other especially this early in the age. There is strategic value in this however as you can push your kingdom down lower in the charts by holding out on withdrawal, which means more targets and possibly a faster war since there will be many more options. What I hate to see is when the LS or Monarch is ‘punishing’ their kingdom for something they did or did not do. Most monarchs will concede once they can no longer see a clear path to victory. This at the end of the day is very subjective and without knowing the full story/strategy we can only make assumptions based on the limited game data we have access to as spectators.

RAZING INTO WARS

Unless you want a severe beatdown that could potentially cause you to rage quit or destroy your entire kingdom, I would avoid this behavior. The community is generally very accepting of mistakes and errors but when things are done maliciously it is not cool and no one deserves to be harassed in a game that is meant to be fun for all. I feel strongly that this aspect should be blocked from the game, I know others feel the opposite but this would solve a lot of the butthurt grudges by not allowing them to continue. Secret alliances can also influence wars by razing provinces to help the other team, not to mention sending override dragons. For these reasons alone I would call these acts interference of the mechanics of the ‘war’ and secret collusion with the opponent resulting in a fixing of the charts.