Following the previous post regarding the our brief membership of the Art of War alliance and their war with the Clinically Insane Carebears corporation, I received word that the conflict was imminently coming to an end. I was interested in finding out how things had transpired. I managed to catch up with Art of War Executor Alexia Morgan in the EVE-BLOGGERS channel.
Seismic Stan: Huzzah.
Alexia Morgan: o/
Seismic Stan: Aah, Alex. Apologies if the tone of my blogpost seemed bitter toward you. That isn't the case.
Alexia Morgan: it's ok :)
Seismic Stan: Cool.
Alexia Morgan: Are you joining the alliance again?
Mike Azariah: o/
Seismic Stan: Dunno. I don't know that the others are all that keen.
Alexia Morgan: hi MA
Mike Azariah: Heyas AM
Seismic Stan: Wotcha Mike
Mike Azariah: You approve Jiorj yet?
Alexia Morgan: You know, a spy corp would say "Yeh, I was interested before the war, but now I'm not so interested..."
Alexia Morgan grins
Seismic Stan: lol
Seismic Stan: Bastid.
Seismic Stan: I'm doomed.
Alexia Morgan: yep ;)
Seismic Stan: So now the war is over, how did it all pan out? Were there any good engagements? Can you discuss it here?
Alexia Morgan: The war was public, and the results so far are here [OUCH/AWA campaign killboard].
Alexia Morgan: the war ends in about 12-13 hours
Seismic Stan: A close-run thing then.
Alexia Morgan: We're within 70 million ISK of them. Considering we killed some of their T2 ships, and we're relatively even in kills/losses, and their 10 week war was ended within 2 weeks, would it be wrong of me to think we won? :)
Alexia Morgan: Also, every day of the war leading up to you and the other corp being kicked out, the enemy CEO gloated about his spies in the alliance. As soon as I got rid of the corps I had suspicions about, the gloating stopped.
Seismic Stan: That's something. The gloating was annoying me. Very much "hey look how clever we are.", when it really wasn't.
Mike Azariah: The only reason to brag about intelligence is when you haven't got any.
Seismic Stan: I agree Mike, which was the point I made just before we got shown the door.
Mike Azariah: But you always have to see it from the [perspective of the] person holding the door, as well.
Seismic Stan: It does indeed look like you played it right.
Mike Azariah: If you are leaking intel, you leak stopped. [?]
Alexia Morgan: yeh
Seismic Stan: Like I said at the time and in my post, I totally understood the decision and the results entirely vindicate you. But it was still a bit of a disappointment for us.
Seismic Stan: Especially as we were innocent.
Seismic Stan: So it just felt a bit injust. Bigger picture aside.
Seismic Stan: But bruised egos heal.
Alexia Morgan: I'm sorry your ego was bruised.
Alexia Morgan: would you like me to deliver a toolbox to you?
Seismic Stan: Don't worry, it's a big ego. It can take some bruising.
Seismic Stan: I think I'll email Doxana and Dead Ratt to see if I can provoke some kind of response.
Seismic Stan: Given my neutral position, the public have a right to know. :)
Alexia Morgan: You're going to too much effort.
Seismic Stan: You think? How so?
Alexia Morgan: Your involvement was peripheral, but you're making it a huge thing.
Alexia Morgan: And you spend a great deal of time and effort in trying to convince everyone you weren't a spy.
Alexia Morgan: Get my drift?
Seismic Stan: From your perspective perhaps. Whether I was/am considered a spy is of no consequence to me [any more]. My first priority is to the blog. If I can squeeze an interesting story out of an event, I will.
Alexia Morgan: :)
Seismic Stan: I can only talk about the aspects that I was involved in, so of course it's going to be biased toward my perspective. Unless you care to offer another perspective?
Alexia Morgan: I've already given you my perspective in the statements I've made in the past 5-10 mins.
Alexia Morgan: :)
Seismic Stan: True.
Seismic Stan: Would you mind if I used some of it in a follow-up post?
Alexia Morgan: go for it
Seismic Stan: Cheers.
So there it is, an impromptu interview from the questionably victorious executor of Art of War, Alexia Morgan. Despite Alex's concerns I did e-mail Doxana and it really wasn't that much effort. This was the response:
Greetings,
Regretfully our contractor did not fullfill an extension payment for the war on time so we retracted the declaration of war. The war itself was fairly uneventful. A few small skirmishes at best. As far as breaches in security and spies go, they are a common occurance in EVE and should be utilized in every avaliable situation. I do have to give a bit of credit to some of our counterparts though. They did try to put up a little defense and that says a lot. Until the next time out paths cross should the need ever arise fly free...
Dox
Here is the Clinically Insane Carebears campaign killboard, for reference.
It seems that the 'at-a-glance' method of determining victory is by comparing the value of ships lost to ships killed. It is interesting to note the difference in recorded values between the killboards of the two organisations. Art of War's statistics makes it 492.88M isk (14 ships) destroyed to 537.38M isk (16 ships) lost, making the Carebears victors by a narrow margin of 44.5 million isk. Whereas the Carebears have it at 396.73M isk (14 ships) lost to 747.87M isk (20 ships) destroyed, a much more flattering victory margin of 351.14 million isk.
The two killboards agree on the number of Carebear vessels destroyed, but not on their value, and much of the remaining disparity comes from the Carebears crafty inclusion of losses sustained by Arctic Prestige, the other corporation ejected from Art of War under suspicion of espionage (you know, the ones that actually did the spying).
In any case, it seems that despite the events leading up to the war, the combatants have all come away from the engagement fairly satisfied.
EVE really is a strange place and it's denizens even stranger.Labels: discussion, gameplay, Interviews