Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.01.06 16:54:00 -
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Edited by: Jade Constantine on 06/01/2008 16:59:55
A lot of these threads are very silly. From my own perspective TRI were not looking for easy targets or an alliance of hicksville farmers to roll over for easy laughs. They wanted a significant target to test their abilities and resolve against and took time to study CVA and gather intelligence to ensure they were an appropriate choice.
In many ways CVA were (and are) the perfect target for a upcoming 0.0 alliance to try its power and test its mettle against in a serious war. They are not however a "fun football" to have a quick kick-around with in the park.
CVA have transcended the realm of being a simple "RP alliance" and have become a significant 0.0 power with numbers, resources, allies and resolve to match.
Their diplomacy places them right in the mainstream of the Southern Coalition and they are well-positioned to benefit from any political realignment following the climatic battles raging this season.
They are also ideologically bound to Providence. This can't be underestimated, it means they will fight harder, longer, and more visciously for that territory than most "ordinary" alliances that don't have the emotional attachment to their territory that CVA have for their claim.
But this isn't the same as 24/7 entertaining fights and its on this level that TRI failed to effectively grapple with CVA. You have to credibly threaten the average defensive space-holder to get them to fight. You have to hurt them on many levels - you need long term suppression, attrition warfare, attacks round the clock. You need flexibility to hit and fade when the odds look bad, you have to make the foe waste the "blobs" then they are summoned, you have to hit the key elements of frustration and perceived impotence in enemy leaders, you have to fight smart with total commitment.
You need in other words - a total war style regardless of the ooc respect between participants. Where this went wrong off the bat in Providence was in telling CVA "we're here for the good fights". Hardin isn't stupid - 2 seconds after that comment went public item 1: on the CVA war-strategy plan was "deny TRI all good fights" - with item 2: "in about a month they will be bored and frustrated and go home".
And that really was all she wrote.
Now, I think personally TRI are a lovely alliance. They have some honest strightforward leaders. They played straight with me diplomatically. They never hurled their weight around or bullied or cajoled, they kept their word and they did their thing. When SF has been hostile to TRI we've had excellent fights with these guys for the pure fun of fighting in the North and in turn we've learned a lot about nano-tactics and fast raiding warfare. I think they have a lot of heart and they play the game for fun.
I believe that if TRI have a flaw its in not understanding exactly how far an enemy can and will go to "keep space" and ensure that it "wins" a territorial war. TRI members have publicly spoken of their frustration and disappointment at not "getting fights" from CVA in the war, and while I certainly sympathise with that difficulty (having fought the cva on and off for coming on 3 years now) I do think there was a big element of naivety at play in TRI's military strategy in underestimating the degree to which the "bore them till they go away" defense was employed and ultimately effective in CVA's homeland defense.
Of course, this might all have been academic if we didn't have the POS warfare blackout post Trinity coinciding with TRI's arrival and height of strength pre Christmas, but thats something we will likely never know.
End of the day as others have said, TRI came and showed Providence the power of nano-gangs and combat courage and gave it a good attempt. I personally wish them well for the future and who knows, maybe next time they'll come back with a longer term commitment and a broader strategy that is not so easy to counter with the prime time saturday evening souther coalition uber-blob.
"I might not have meant anything by it" |