Originally by: tehsuxOr

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Like many of you COAD readers who are un-involved in the latest north vs south war, I like to take the time once in a wile to check the forums to see what's going on. I like to find out who's wining and who's losing.

So looking through battle reports, killboards, and sites dedicated to comparing kills and "damage inflicted". That's where the seems to be a flaw, it is what most readers believe is the deciding factor in who is winning. Regardless of the accuracy I find it amusing that so many people still really believe this is the important statistic.

True damage inflicted, would be the effect a war has on that entities ability to sustain it's generation of money. If you are for example being invaded you are likely defending your territory thus limiting the time you can spend generating money, and potentially losing things like moons generating an income.

So long as the money you generate can cover the losses from an ongoing war, the war can be sustained. (ignoring morale) But when enough pressure is applied for a duration of time, those losses might get higher, and that time spent generating an income could be reduce. Then the defending entity would be running a deficit. Run a deficit for a long enough period of time, those money reserves could run out.

Once that happens the war is not sustainable for the defending entity. Yet the attacking entity still has a fully untouched revenue from it's home. With the only real damage being inflicted is on ship losses.

So why is everyone still comparing statistics for damage inflicted ships wise. Not ever mentioning the fact that there is certainly a bigger picture economic war going on?

TLDR;

Attacker Damage Inflicted: Ship Losses
Defenders Damage Inflicted: Ship Losses + Reduced ability to generate revenue

Let's get a more accurate definition of "winning" instead of ship losses only.

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