134 replies to this topic

[Ultra-Laser]

Prussian Havoc, on 14 February 2015 - 07:31 AM, said:

While I have nothing but respect for House Kurita LOYALIST Units, the simple fact is BWC, ACES, CI, Templars, Seraphin and no few other Mercenary Units have ALEADY left or are in the final 2-days of there contracts currently.

Even the Dragon must recognize the bifurcated nature of its might - one part LOYALIST, one part Mercenary. Hazard the lass of one and the entirety of the Dragon is lessened.

This is NOT a criticism unique to House Kurita, many Factions have felt the impact of this reality, mine own included.

Mercs gonna merc, what do you want me to do about it? If anything the Draconis Combine is one of the best potential employers in the inner sphere. Between having no fewer then two hostile boarders at a given time, fertile farmland to the south and having a near zero risk of being cut off from any of those fronts the keen businessman knows that House Kurita has solid potential as a long term investment.

[Prussian Havoc]

IDG, on 14 February 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

Mercs gonna merc, what do you want me to do about it? If anything the Draconis Combine is one of the best potential employers in the inner sphere. Between having no fewer then two hostile boarders at a given time, fertile farmland to the south and having a near zero risk of being cut off from any of those fronts the keen businessman knows that House Kurita has solid potential as a long term investment.

#GamersAreGonnaGame

I truly have no problem with gamers working best with what PGI engineers for us in-game. In my quote you used I was not expecting any action of you nor any other Kurita gamer. I was just identifying that the Mercenary-intoxifying-effects of basically doubling a Factions combat power (gaining BWC, ACES, CI, Templars, Seraphim an no few other Mercenary Corps Units does indeed double Loyalist production IMO) was about to conclude for House Kurita.

And while it is important how a Faction adapts WHEN THEY GAIN unlooked for Mercenary Largess, it is of equal importance how their High Command a and Unit Commanders re-adapt top when the contracts of these Mercenaries lapse and a Faction must once again take appetite suppressants and reacquire realistic Oceanic, Euro and NA-cycle expectations. Not overextending or failing to balance Attack and Defense are real and proximate concerns for such a Faction.

Again, good gaming and have fun!

[Catamount]

paxmortis, on 14 February 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

This is true we will recognize this and will go to the modus before the mass of mercs came. It could be that we will losing planets again but we will fight till the end!

For Dieron. For the Dragon!

I'm not sure I accept what I'm reading. Is this a Drac, admitting that the Dracs might not be 130% invincible (New and improved! Now fortified with 230% more invincible!), and may actually be capable of getting into a losing fight in CW?

Maybe there's hope for you guys yet. After all, if you can admit that, then maybe some precious few of you will have the foresight to start considering that situation and how to deal with it. I, for one, rather like the generous red buffer zone between the Clans and the still-under-construction Great Wall of Space Bacon.

[An Anime Princess]

Catamount, on 15 February 2015 - 09:28 AM, said:

I'm not sure I accept what I'm reading. Is this a Drac, admitting that the Dracs might not be 130% invincible (New and improved! Now fortified with 230% more invincible!), and may actually be capable of getting into a losing fight in CW?

Maybe there's hope for you guys yet. After all, if you can admit that, then maybe some precious few of you will have the foresight to start considering that situation and how to deal with it. I, for one, rather like the generous red buffer zone between the Clans and the still-under-construction Great Wall of Space Bacon.

i'm pretty sure at some point the population will swing badly and we'll lose a billion planets but that won't prevent anyone from shooting robots, the actual fun part of the game

Edited by An Anime Princess, 15 February 2015 - 09:57 AM.

[Catamount]

An Anime Princess, on 15 February 2015 - 09:57 AM, said:

i'm pretty sure at some point the population will swing badly and we'll lose a billion planets but that won't prevent anyone from shooting robots, the actual fun part of the game

The concern I have for Kurita right now is that what I see, which is admittedly a very incomplete picture, is you building up a community that's too much like Davion's old community, a community that eventually bombed out. You seem to be relying very heavily on a relatively small base of ****-hot loyalist units, because that's what what I see Kuritans boast about again and again and again, and fine, I'll be the first to admit you guys are doing reasonably well there. Your units, including newer entrants like NKVA have never failed to make a good showing. But I worry that maybe there's too little emphasis on breadth of community and working to build up the DCMS, instead of the individual constituent units that comprise it.
We've worked hard to maintain a very different paradigm from that, and huge swaths of our most active member base have no affiliation with any of our units. Our community-building efforts have had their ups and downs, and I think the FWLM is badly in need of some renewal there ourselves, but they've been long running and at times rather ambitious (see Marik Civil War) with an emphasis on the overall community. It's why we organized early, and why our population has stayed relatively stable.

Of course, both of our communities might get a little further if we also behaved ourselves a little more on the forums. Mass malicious trolling does not generally endear one's cause to any broader community, but I digress.


The point, I guess, is simply that as long as there's a recognition that momentary good times don't last forever, and it remains an active consideration, communities can survive. What kills them, and what I firmly think did in Davion more than anything as I've watched their community and attitudes, is pure and simple hubris.

Edited by Catamount, 15 February 2015 - 02:00 PM.

[Tasker]

Nah.

[Samurai Hanse Davion]

Catamount, on 15 February 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

The concern I have for Kurita right now is that what I see, which is admittedly a very incomplete picture, is you building up a community that's too much like Davion's old community, a community that eventually bombed out. You seem to be relying very heavily on a relatively small base of ****-hot loyalist units, because that's what what I see Kuritans boast about again and again and again, and fine, I'll be the first to admit you guys are doing reasonably well there. Your units, including newer entrants like NKVA have never failed to make a good showing. But I worry that maybe there's too little emphasis on breadth of community and working to build up the DCMS, instead of the individual constituent units that comprise it.
We've worked hard to maintain a very different paradigm from that, and huge swaths of our most active member base have no affiliation with any of our units. Our community-building efforts have had their ups and downs, and I think the FWLM is badly in need of some renewal there ourselves, but they've been long running and at times rather ambitious (see Marik Civil War) with an emphasis on the overall community. It's why we organized early, and why our population has stayed relatively stable.

Of course, both of our communities might get a little further if we also behaved ourselves a little more on the forums. Mass malicious trolling does not generally endear one's cause to any broader community, but I digress.


The point, I guess, is simply that as long as there's a recognition that momentary good times don't last forever, and it remains an active consideration, communities can survive. What kills them, and what I firmly think did in Davion more than anything as I've watched their community and attitudes, is pure and simple hubris.

[YCSLiesmith]

Catamount, on 15 February 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

The concern I have for Kurita right now is that what I see, which is admittedly a very incomplete picture, is you building up a community that's too much like Davion's old community, a community that eventually bombed out. You seem to be relying very heavily on a relatively small base of ****-hot loyalist units, because that's what what I see Kuritans boast about again and again and again, and fine, I'll be the first to admit you guys are doing reasonably well there. Your units, including newer entrants like NKVA have never failed to make a good showing. But I worry that maybe there's too little emphasis on breadth of community and working to build up the DCMS, instead of the individual constituent units that comprise it.
We've worked hard to maintain a very different paradigm from that, and huge swaths of our most active member base have no affiliation with any of our units. Our community-building efforts have had their ups and downs, and I think the FWLM is badly in need of some renewal there ourselves, but they've been long running and at times rather ambitious (see Marik Civil War) with an emphasis on the overall community. It's why we organized early, and why our population has stayed relatively stable.

Of course, both of our communities might get a little further if we also behaved ourselves a little more on the forums. Mass malicious trolling does not generally endear one's cause to any broader community, but I digress.


The point, I guess, is simply that as long as there's a recognition that momentary good times don't last forever, and it remains an active consideration, communities can survive. What kills them, and what I firmly think did in Davion more than anything as I've watched their community and attitudes, is pure and simple hubris.

This is a stupid thing to spend your time worrying about, imo.

[Ultra-Laser]

Catamount, on 15 February 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

snip

isn't the reason for our crazy huge contract bonuses right now due to the fact that we have such a low population anyway? Or has PGI not given a concrete criteria for why bonuses are set where they are?

EDIT: Of those "****-hot loyalist units", how many of them were on a permanent contract? Did they change teams or just stop playing?

Edited by IDG, 16 February 2015 - 12:09 AM.

[Conreg]

Shouldn't you clanners be fighting for a corridor about now?

[Catamount]

IDG, on 15 February 2015 - 11:22 PM, said:

isn't the reason for our crazy huge contract bonuses right now due to the fact that we have such a low population anyway? Or has PGI not given a concrete criteria for why bonuses are set where they are?

EDIT: Of those "****-hot loyalist units", how many of them were on a permanent contract? Did they change teams or just stop playing?

The impression I was given as they were falling apart was that they were doing well when they were making advances, and it's easy to want to stick around when you can smugly trample over people, but once those advances were largely halted by Marik/Liao, two things happened. First, merc relations got strained. I don't know the whole story, I just know a lot of units got "fed up" with Davion. The second was that, between stalled advances and mercs leaving, loyalist interest and population tanked. Since this was largely precipitated by their CW performance changing, I imagine mercs and loyalists leaving tended to be mutually-exacerbating problems as they became more and more unable to recover that performance until very little was left.

Whether CW changes and any attempts by Davion to get people back will ever recover their population is anyone's guess.

Edited by Catamount, 16 February 2015 - 12:08 PM.

[Ultra-Laser]

Catamount, on 16 February 2015 - 12:08 PM, said:

snip

Eh, 9SD, ARKAB, NS and the rest stuck together even when we were losing near half a dozen worlds a day. I don't feel that fair weather fans being the majority of our population is an issue. If House Kurita players won't give up at Luthien being surrounded by a smoke jag blockade three planets deep I don't think they'll give up for much of anything.

[Abivard]

IDG, on 16 February 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:

Eh, 9SD, ARKAB, NS and the rest stuck together even when we were losing near half a dozen worlds a day. I don't feel that fair weather fans being the majority of our population is an issue. If House Kurita players won't give up at Luthien being surrounded by a smoke jag blockade three planets deep I don't think they'll give up for much of anything.

I think he was talking about Davion not the DCMS.

[Ultra-Laser]

Abivard, on 16 February 2015 - 01:06 PM, said:

I think he was talking about Davion not the DCMS.

He was making a direct comparison between Davion and Kurita players. I simply don't think that Kurita players are prone to the kind of morale loss he's describing.

[Catamount]

There are distinct differences bewteen Davion and Kurita to be sure, and there are distinct similarities.

I have no doubt you have a small collection of units with some amount of playerbase that will always stick around. Is that enough for an entire house to remain dominantly competitive on numerous potential fronts, all by itself? I hope you don't have to find out.

You also aren't faced with Davion's situation. Even as the Clans pound you, you can just run to the other side of your faction and beat up soft targets down south. If you can proceed in one direction, you have enormous amounts of room to proceed in the other.

Edited by Catamount, 16 February 2015 - 01:38 PM.

[Ultra-Laser]

Catamount, on 16 February 2015 - 01:37 PM, said:

There are distinct differences bewteen Davion and Kurita to be sure, and there are distinct similarities.

I have no doubt you have a small collection of units with some amount of playerbase that will always stick around. Is that enough for an entire house to remain dominantly competitive on numerous potential fronts, all by itself? I hope you don't have to find out.

You also aren't faced with Davion's situation. Even as the Clans pound you, you can just run to the other side of your faction and beat up soft targets down south. If you can proceed in one direction, you have enormous amounts of room to proceed in the other.

I'm not sure what your saying. Does beating up on Davion somehow give us the manpower to push back CSJ? Are you saying that we should ignore Davion in favor of CSJ? What makes Davion's situation especially distinct from ours, other then the DC taking the place of CSJ?

EDIT: Does anyone know how many 12-mans Davion tends to have on a typical night? Not just on the Kurita front, how many 12-mans do they have to split between us, the CC and the FWL on any given night?

Edited by IDG, 16 February 2015 - 01:53 PM.

[Catamount]

No, you beat up on Davion precisely because you can't take on CSJ. It's a fall back that still leaves you semi-permanently with somebody to beat up. This, combined with newfound organization puts you in better shape than you've ever been in before.

That's an entirely different situation from Davion. Their morale tanked when their situation deteriorated. Your situation has only continuously gotten better. I'd say that makes things pretty distinctly different.

Quote

EDIT: Does anyone know how many 12-mans Davion tends to have on a typical night? Not just on the Kurita front, how many 12-mans do they have to split between us, the CC and the FWL on any given night?

I'm not sure I understand. Why would Davion have forces arrayed against us? The only thing we have to do with Davion is that both factions happen to have a cooperative defensive focus. So it's the Clans Davion is on, specifically in FRR space, not disputes on our border, which we don't really have, because there's a truce between us.

Edited by Catamount, 16 February 2015 - 02:31 PM.

[Scoops Kerensky]

We've taken back Paracale and Xinyang since the mercs on loan from Marik left, so saying we can't beat CSJ seems strange. You could claim that's only because of the fighting in Rasalhague, but we've been fighting 60+ of them at a time for each planet. They haven't been just rolling over and letting us ghost it.

[Catamount]

That's a pittance compared to what I've been seeing arrayed against the FRR, and CGB is a stone's throw from gaining attack corridors on you. You seem confident that you can hold back the Clans alone. I do hope you're right, makes my life easier.

[Tasker]

"You win on three fronts now that numbers even?" *bangs fist on table* "Wait until you zerged again! Ha ha!"