I stated before that a massive sov war against the Northern Coalition of Alliances was doomed to failure due to the unifying and rallying effect that an existential military threat creates. In essence, minor differences of opinion and disagreements fall to the wayside in order to band together and face the enemy shoulder to shoulder, the large size and resources of the NC providing the firepower and numbers to eventually push back any gains the enemy had made. In my defense, I had Maximum Damage and Max 2 campaigns as well as Pandemic Legions last stay in Venal to reference in the forming of my hypothesis.
However, the Geminate war has continued unabated and now with Pandemic Legion and DRF opening up new offensives into Vale of the Silent, coupled with assistance from NCDot and Ev0ke in Pure Blind to distract and weaken guest alliances such as FCON, things are looking decidedly less rosy. While I have no special insight into the mindset of alliance FCs and leadership, its not hard to look at the attitudes of people left and right of me and facing constant CTAs for what feels like months to know that morale is low and the enemy is eager to put us to the sword.
Pandemic Legion alone is causing untold mountains of grief in US timezone ops with their considerable supercap assets and willingness to commit them to battle, not to mention the Tengu/Scimitar fleets of doom. (Side note: anyone else thrilled at the number of types of fleets these days seen around town? AHACs, Mael shield fleets, Abaddon armour fleets, arty Abaddons, Drake fleets, and now Tengu fleets? Crazy!) There is a definite uneasiness in the rank and file that perhaps the fuel of the war machine was spent in Geminate in the winter and now there is not enough to withstand the renewed onslaught.
I maybe I was wrong. Maybe a well executed sov war over a long period of time will bring the NC crashing down. I think we are pretty far yet from the fail cascade point, but its hard to tell and examples like IT alliance show that sudden implosions can happen anytime.
Of course, there are many scenarios where the impending doom cloud is lifted:
- the Against ALL Authorities offensive against White Noise in the south may distract the DRF from following up recent gains,
- a successful defeat or two of Pandemic Legion including crushing some of their supercaps might drain their enthusiasm for the fight,
- the Deklein Coalition having grown bored on getting rich with no serious sov threats may come wholesale into the conflict and swing the pendulum once more to the NC side.
On the other hand, lots of things may occur to hasten the end of the NC:
- Triple AAA and friends may have no impact,
- PL kills another sizable NC supercap fleet,
- the Deklein Coalition decides to reset NC and attacks in the west.
May you live in interesting times indeed.
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The thing that really has me worried is our failure to field capitals. A year ago we could get a full capital fleet with a CTA, and now we're hardly using them at all.
ReplyDeleteThe weight of supers against us is ridiculous; that we can't compete with the DRF in russian time is hardly surprising, but with them adding raiden, and with their EU/US contingent backing up PL, we seem to be blocked out in every time zone. Practically every non-NC super pilot in the game is against us, and we're outnumbered.
The good news is that we aren't like IT or atlas; nobody has fail cascaded. But we are losing ground, and at some point we're going to need to turn that around.
I would tend to suspect that the DC will come in on the side of the NC if it really comes down to it; I believe mittens has stated that if really necessary, they would choose NC over DRF. Doubt if they would actually attack the drone regions, but maybe as a defensive force. I think they've brought a few fleets already.
Some additional reasons to hope:
-Sanctum nerf and renter exodus decreases DRF super production.
-SC nerf and dread buff will level the playing field. When it happens.
-CCP might actually take action against macros someday.
I'm not as in touch with the specifics anymore, but I certainly know what war fatigue is like. Sustained aggression is difficult if not impossible to maintain. Eventually people stop logging in and numbers continue to drop, it is amazing how quickly that can happen, even to the most dedicated alliance.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel as strongly about it these days, but I still feel like Eve would be a better universe without the NC in it. Sorry, but you know how I feel.
Still, I don't wish trouble on anyone specifically and hope whatever happens you find your way.
Even if you don't like coalitions, the NC is preferable to the russians. They already hold more space than NC+DC, and most of it is completely dead except for macros.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of war fatigue, there's a rumor that PL were hired because the DRF offensive was just about exhausted. Hum.
Weirdly, there's a feel of... and I know of no other way to put this... BOREDOM associated with this war. Recapture that tech moon AGAIN? Kill some MORE SBUs? Yet ANOTHER PL fleet? Really?
ReplyDeleteEven when the NC wins, there's a definite feeling of "Yeah, whatever, dude" associated with it. And when the NC loses, that feeling is doubled.
What this means in the long term, I couldn't say.
I agree there is no sense of urgency to this war. People seem bored with the constant CTAs. The sanctum nerf, even though it should hurt DRF way more than NC, has really shot morale. It's enough that the EVE nullsec universe is against NC, the Deklein Co is a questionable ally, but then having God in the form of CCP single 0.0 citizens out for a big nerf just added to a vague sense of doom.
ReplyDeleteThe more practical hope that I see is:
1) The people moving and quitting from the nerf will settle down and quit bumming us out as we watch old friends leave.
2) DRF gains will convince them they can do it alone and not renew the PL contract.
3) People claim RMT is the WORST threat to EVE life and will realize that they have sold their souls to the devil by giving DRF control over more of nullsec. Bots are winning out over actively playing carebears...oh the hypocrisy!
4) Life goes on. As a member of AAA citizens during the failscade, there was a few months of disruption but game life returned to normal. There were just different names and colors splashed across the map.