cuckoo bananas
Hi all,
I just wanted to take this moment to inject a little transparency into the last couple of days, since other than a general "we are working on things", we have been pretty quiet. The reasons for that will be obvious by the end of this PSA.
As you know, the Iron Covenant moved their cloud right next to our capital a few days ago. They then announced a surprise invasion of our capital, which we have been preparing on our side for since it was announced. This was a legitimate move, their mandate allowed it, and while we would have preferred to have some communication, at the end of the day it is what it is.
Now, we have mentioned before that we were working on some plans that we thought were pretty cool and would make y’all happy. We all know the Sith Covenant is not the ‘sit back and wait’-faction. Where possible we have always strived to lean into the action and be an active source of roleplay on the board. And I think it's fairly obvious that when someone targets our capital hex and basically tries to split our territory in half, we are not going to simply wait around and see what happens.
So, we changed our mandate to Total War. This mandate would allow us to target up to six hexes of a faction with a single invasion. We also prepared the territory in advance, to make sure we can maximize the impact of our mandate if we decided to use it. Our plan was to launch a counter-invasion of the Iron Covenant running concurrently with the Coruscant invasion. This was a bit of a gamble because Total War also stipulates that if we lose an invasion we launch, we can lose an additional six hexes.
But at the end of the day we created this faction not because we wanted to gather up as many hexes as possible, but because we had stories we wanted to tell. If we lost, it would have simply been another avenue to write something else exciting. That being said, we were confident in all of you.
Especially looking at Abregado-rae, we have such a large community of excellent writers that we believed we could comfortably host both threads at once and win both invasions. Now, the Iron Covenant reached out with concerns to staff about this, because by employing our mandate, if we won, we would effectively have been able to remove them from the map and turn them back to minor status.
Which we believed was fair play. If you target someone's capital hex to basically split their territory in half... Well, you gotta expect some sort of response. Now, Staff, being considerate and frankly generous, had offered both sides the opportunity to walk back the moves of the last few days. We are doing this PSA to be transparent with you, so we will be honest.
We initially planned on declining the deal.
It was generous, but at the end of the day it was primarily a favor to the Iron Covenant, who found themselves boxed in because of their own decisions. We believe that when you are on the map, you can focus on story or on map mechanics to win. If you target someone's capital hex in a surprise invasion, turnabout is fair play, as far as I am concerned.
However, after speaking to our Creatives, we also realized that a sizeable portion of our most active contributors were less than enthusiastic about doing one, much less two new high-stakes threads with the Iron Covenant. And if that lives with our Creatives, it most certainly lives with the rest of our community as well. Abregado-rae was a story with a lot of character development, but I am not gonna sit here and pretend like it was all rainbows and flowers. A lot of you were frustrated, annoyed, and so another story with the Iron Covenant is probably not what you were interested in as a community.
We know a lot of our writers weren't having fun. We know that their writers equally weren't having fun anymore. While the map game is what it is and you cannot avoid being invaded, we did think that now that this proposal from staff was on the table, we could take it as an opportunity to be real and say things the way they were. I was frankly very blunt with them. About the way we view their faction, their actions, and the way they have treated the Sith Covenant primarily as a prop for their stories rather than as another group of writers with their own interests and ambitions. You probably saw the minor vote from them.
It doesn't look pretty and I am frankly incredibly disappointed and disturbed to see what this whole thing devolved into. A faction voting to go minor and people talking about leaving the board is never something to celebrate. People are what makes this community work. It's what lets us write incredible stories as a hobby. I am not going to get into the details of what was discussed in the PM chain with the staff team and the Iron Covenant.
But I will say this. Along with being very blunt about our lack of appreciation for how our writers and our faction have been treated, we offered a simple proposal. If they agreed to take their cloud and move to a different corner of the map, where we do not keep bumping into each other, we would agree to forgo our plans for a counter-invasion. This would also mean that the Invasion of Coruscant would not happen either.
But I did want to once again reiterate something I have mentioned many times before. I am sure I'll regret this when your heads get so big you can't fit through the doorway, but: I could not be more proud of the people in this group that write with us. Our community, but also the Major Factions we have been writing with.
The people in this group show class, effort, kindness and generosity, even when these things are in short supply or when the situation makes it hard to reach for those qualities. I am proud of the stories we have written together. I am excited for the stories we are still planning to write alongside each other. Because that's what all this is about. Not writing against each other, but with each other, uplifting one another instead of trying to win at the expense of the other.
While loud voices keep shouting about toxicity in the wider community, I only have to look towards all of you to know that's all they are. Loud. But volume doesn't make something true.
So, carry on doing what you are doing. If you have any concerns or thoughts, reach out. If you have ideas you want help with, reach out twice.
We got a lot more in store for you as well. Stay tuned for the next story real soon.
And a special thanks to Major Faction staff we have been actively working with since the start.
Darth Strosius
,
Aether Verd
,
Lorn Reingard
and
Sibylla Abrantes
, thank you for all that you do to keep the communication and stories flowing. We appreciate you all immensely.
I just wanted to take this moment to inject a little transparency into the last couple of days, since other than a general "we are working on things", we have been pretty quiet. The reasons for that will be obvious by the end of this PSA.
As you know, the Iron Covenant moved their cloud right next to our capital a few days ago. They then announced a surprise invasion of our capital, which we have been preparing on our side for since it was announced. This was a legitimate move, their mandate allowed it, and while we would have preferred to have some communication, at the end of the day it is what it is.
Now, we have mentioned before that we were working on some plans that we thought were pretty cool and would make y’all happy. We all know the Sith Covenant is not the ‘sit back and wait’-faction. Where possible we have always strived to lean into the action and be an active source of roleplay on the board. And I think it's fairly obvious that when someone targets our capital hex and basically tries to split our territory in half, we are not going to simply wait around and see what happens.
So, we changed our mandate to Total War. This mandate would allow us to target up to six hexes of a faction with a single invasion. We also prepared the territory in advance, to make sure we can maximize the impact of our mandate if we decided to use it. Our plan was to launch a counter-invasion of the Iron Covenant running concurrently with the Coruscant invasion. This was a bit of a gamble because Total War also stipulates that if we lose an invasion we launch, we can lose an additional six hexes.
But at the end of the day we created this faction not because we wanted to gather up as many hexes as possible, but because we had stories we wanted to tell. If we lost, it would have simply been another avenue to write something else exciting. That being said, we were confident in all of you.
Especially looking at Abregado-rae, we have such a large community of excellent writers that we believed we could comfortably host both threads at once and win both invasions. Now, the Iron Covenant reached out with concerns to staff about this, because by employing our mandate, if we won, we would effectively have been able to remove them from the map and turn them back to minor status.
Which we believed was fair play. If you target someone's capital hex to basically split their territory in half... Well, you gotta expect some sort of response. Now, Staff, being considerate and frankly generous, had offered both sides the opportunity to walk back the moves of the last few days. We are doing this PSA to be transparent with you, so we will be honest.
We initially planned on declining the deal.
It was generous, but at the end of the day it was primarily a favor to the Iron Covenant, who found themselves boxed in because of their own decisions. We believe that when you are on the map, you can focus on story or on map mechanics to win. If you target someone's capital hex in a surprise invasion, turnabout is fair play, as far as I am concerned.
However, after speaking to our Creatives, we also realized that a sizeable portion of our most active contributors were less than enthusiastic about doing one, much less two new high-stakes threads with the Iron Covenant. And if that lives with our Creatives, it most certainly lives with the rest of our community as well. Abregado-rae was a story with a lot of character development, but I am not gonna sit here and pretend like it was all rainbows and flowers. A lot of you were frustrated, annoyed, and so another story with the Iron Covenant is probably not what you were interested in as a community.
We know a lot of our writers weren't having fun. We know that their writers equally weren't having fun anymore. While the map game is what it is and you cannot avoid being invaded, we did think that now that this proposal from staff was on the table, we could take it as an opportunity to be real and say things the way they were. I was frankly very blunt with them. About the way we view their faction, their actions, and the way they have treated the Sith Covenant primarily as a prop for their stories rather than as another group of writers with their own interests and ambitions. You probably saw the minor vote from them.
It doesn't look pretty and I am frankly incredibly disappointed and disturbed to see what this whole thing devolved into. A faction voting to go minor and people talking about leaving the board is never something to celebrate. People are what makes this community work. It's what lets us write incredible stories as a hobby. I am not going to get into the details of what was discussed in the PM chain with the staff team and the Iron Covenant.
But I will say this. Along with being very blunt about our lack of appreciation for how our writers and our faction have been treated, we offered a simple proposal. If they agreed to take their cloud and move to a different corner of the map, where we do not keep bumping into each other, we would agree to forgo our plans for a counter-invasion. This would also mean that the Invasion of Coruscant would not happen either.
But I did want to once again reiterate something I have mentioned many times before. I am sure I'll regret this when your heads get so big you can't fit through the doorway, but: I could not be more proud of the people in this group that write with us. Our community, but also the Major Factions we have been writing with.
The people in this group show class, effort, kindness and generosity, even when these things are in short supply or when the situation makes it hard to reach for those qualities. I am proud of the stories we have written together. I am excited for the stories we are still planning to write alongside each other. Because that's what all this is about. Not writing against each other, but with each other, uplifting one another instead of trying to win at the expense of the other.
While loud voices keep shouting about toxicity in the wider community, I only have to look towards all of you to know that's all they are. Loud. But volume doesn't make something true.
So, carry on doing what you are doing. If you have any concerns or thoughts, reach out. If you have ideas you want help with, reach out twice.
We got a lot more in store for you as well. Stay tuned for the next story real soon.
And a special thanks to Major Faction staff we have been actively working with since the start.
Darth Strosius
,
Aether Verd
,
Lorn Reingard
and
Sibylla Abrantes
, thank you for all that you do to keep the communication and stories flowing. We appreciate you all immensely.