well, i'm not one of the guys, but your post is really missing some understanding of the BGS imho.
1. you are assuming, playing the BGS is about retreat/expansions/control. it is not. cmdrs play the BGS for various reasons:
- there have been quite some groups in colonia playing the local BGS for not expanding, keeping other faction in control for lore or historical reasons (see Ed's 38) etc. - assuming playing the BGS is about retreat/expansion devaluates this.
- there are various other reasons for playing the BGS. some do it for testing, others for backing a goverment type independent of factions (e.g.: democracy), creating mission opportunities, doing powerplay backoffice work, helping a superpower... and probably a bunch of reasons i don't even know off.
- as far as i followed this conflict on these forums, it has two "reasons":
a) a broken treaty
b) control of a shipyard (for shiptypes available)
objective a) isn't totally clear for me, but probably the idea is "a new treaty" and "honouring the original treaty" vs. "accept the treaty was broken and move on". b) is connected to a)
objective a) is not possible to achieve with playing the BGS only. but playing the BGS can nudge the outcome in one or the other direction.
2. on retreat:
- you can retreat a faction. but at the end it will retreat back to its homesystem. which means both sides will never leave the playing field ingame.
- you can also retreat all other factions of a system and keep it like that. but that is REALLY hard (i can't see them doing it realistically).
- which leaves us with: neither retreats, nor expansions, nor control will end this conflict, it needs to be ended "out of game"
3. which leaves us with assessing the tactic pristine_bump lays down in this thread:
- he knows, he can't be retreated from the shipyard system, but they might loose the shipyard. if they loose the shipyard, they can always fight getting it back.
- he assumes, that the other side don't like to manage various conflicts at once (might be true or not - i can say from managing one of the larger factions ingame once in a while, useless conflicts are really getting at least on my nerves and we try to avoid getting into them, because that's easier than playing them out)
- while the other side can realistically retreat the faction he's backing, they can't retreat all other factions - so they have no realistic outlook of creating a situation without useless conflicts/proxy wars.
now, if you'd claim, that the other side just loves fighting conflicts everywhere, that would be imho a good argument. but i really can't follow you in your assessment that "The lack of BGS understanding on display here is staggering", quite the opposite.
Ok so before I go on to explain why I have said that the above posts display a lack of understand of the BGS I'll just answer your post.
First of all, I am fully versed in this conflict, having followed it for weeks. I understand what Reapers goals are, because they have been talking about it for weeks.
Secondly, regarding your point 1: "you are assuming, playing the BGS is about retreat/expansions/control. it is not. cmdrs play the BGS for various reasons"
I have made no such assumption. I am fully aware of why people play the BGS having played it myself for a substantial amount of time. My assertion was based on what Reapers strategy appears to be, based on the many posts that they have made about it on a variety of threads.
I will get onto retreats shortly, I will answer your 3rd point first.
- of course they cannot be retreated from their home system and they have already lost control of the shipyard. Since they cannot be retreated and can always come back, it is fair to say that their opponents must have some kind of plan for stopping them from coming back. If you look at the system and its recent history, it is so obvious. They will split all the assets in the system between two or three factions and then lock the system up with perma-wars/elections so that Reapers can never get The Nameless back in. This is not a new strategy. Plenty of bubble factions follow this and you can see it being prepared in the data. This also deals with your point about " they have no realistic outlook of creating a situation without useless conflicts/proxy wars". Those useless wars are exactly what they are doing from what I can tell. This is a low maintenance method of locking up a system. Start a war/election and let it run the full 7 days. Retrigger, repeat. Minimum work required. So as I said, they should not read too much into the war state. It is a useful tool and does not mean that much. It's not like a faction who really understands the BGS is going to say "oh no, we have a war, better throw everything at it including the kitchen sink." They can lose and win again later. They can win with minimum effort, or, as I am describing, they can start it deliberately and not fight it at all because the war state itself has another purpose.
- in terms of fighting multiple conflicts at once, we're talking about civitas dei here, who currently sit 4th on the combat leaderboad and can consistently be found near the top of that leaderboard. They live and breathe conflict zones. If the strategy is to make Civitas Dei fight lots of wars they'll be greatful of that. Never mind the fact that these conflicts need to be triggered first. In Hephaestus and Coeus Civitas Dei and EN respectively have all the levers except murder available to them. It will not take much at all to react to any downward trend in influence and correct it. So yes, I am claiming that the other side loves conflict zones. You just have to ask them, like I did.
Now, to explain WHY a player opposed retreat is so hard to achieve:
1. When a faction is in retreat the mission board spawns a large number of retreat-related missions that make it easy to get influence + points stacked up and completed.
2. If the faction in retreat is in control of another system with RES sites pulling the bounty lever is extremely easy. The Nameless, in this example being an anarchy faction, do not have this lever available as easily anyway, although they can do it in Carcosa since they control assets there (and this is relevant given the three historical retreats in this conflict.
So 1 alone means a faction in retreat has an easy lever to pull to get out of retreat. If they have 2 available as well it is even easier to escape retreat.
The crucial point for why it is so difficult to retreat a faction that is being backed by active players is more complicated and requires some explanation.
Assume you have a system with the following influence distribution:
Faction A: 50%
Faction B: 20%
Faction C: 15%
Faction D: 10%
Faction E: 5%
Faction F: 1% (the faction being retreated)
Each influence + point put into Faction F has 50 times more effect than an influence+ point put into Faction A, 20 times more effect than Faction B, 15 times more effect than Faction C and so on.
In other words. If one player puts 40+ points into Faction F on the key retreat day with that distribution of influence the opposition will have to do
200+ inf for Faction E
400+ inf for Faction D
600+ inf for Faction C
800+ inf for Faction B
and
2000+ inf for Faction A!!!!
just to match the work done for Faction F
You can see there why it is SO HARD to retreat a player backed faction. The only way you can achieve it is to lock up as much of the influence that Factions A-E hold to leave no free influence for Faction F to work with. Only then can you realistically expect to retreat a faction that players are backing. And you can ask the above forum mod for confirmation if you like.
So what happened in Colonia? Three player backed retreats, with three total influence locks in three systems. Two of them on the same day if you look at the data. That is no easy achievement and to me, as a BGS player, that tells me something about the competence and staying power of the opposition Reapers are facing out there.
So I will say again. Reapers have been facing THIS, for nine months, and now they think that they can tire the opposition by starting wars in the systems of factions that clearly have the drive, manpower and patience to keep this sort of thing going for months on end? It's a pipe-dream and I encourage them to consider a better strategy because in BGS terms, if they don't, this will be over in two months at the most.
