Haw haw!
-Nelson Muntz
The Casino War is long over now. We lost, were driven out, had alliances, corps, and many individuals jump ship. But we managed to find a new home in Delve in very short order. In that, at least, husbanding our resources rather than squandering them against overwhelming odds worked out. There we setup shop, made new friends, scared the neighbors, and settled into peacetime null sec life again down in south, far from our old digs.
Up in the north, with the primary foe gone, all of New Eden has been able to watch and see if the Casino Coalition would break up as promised.
Initially it seemed like the whole place would be blue in all but name, with skirmishes allowed but only the occasional political issue or failscade allowed to change the the map. (e.g. Short Bus Syndicate and TISHU)
Sovereignty seemed safe.
Even Darius “We’re not here to destroy the game, we’re here to destroy your game” JOHNSON and his GoonSwarm (not to be confused with the Imperium’s Goonswarm Federation) was given some systems to call home when they were evicted from Delve, while Mordus Angels, with a long history of being the insurgent, decided to settle down and be a sov holder and mind NCDot’s moons once bereft of their traditional Goon foe.
The north looked to be settling down to peacetime as well, its new occupants content to fight the Guristas menace between skirmishes.
The north currently
Well, they are not ALL new occupants. There is still Circle-of-Two sitting in Tribute. Circle-of-Two who changed sides before the fighting was done at M-OEE8, who joined the war against us, who gave our foes intel about our capital building locations.
The war that started LONG before Easter…
Their betrayal got them what they wanted. They got to keep their sovereignty, plus the TNT sov they had been demanding from the Imperium for the last year (they were bad neighbors), their moons, plus whatever casino ISK they were able to wheedle out of those financing our foes.
It would be fair to say that there is a little bad blood left over from the war between us and CO2’s leadership. I’m not on The Mittani’s “revenge on all the things” bandwagon, but I would make an exception in the case of CO2.
So imagine the collective grin in the Imperium when it came out that Pandemic Legion family of alliances, Pandemic Legion, Sniggewaffe, and Pandemic Horde, along with their side-kick NCDot, decided that they liked the far end of the Tribute region, where CO2 lives, so much that they decided to take it. This came from the Pandemic Horde forums:
We are going to war.
Target is the tribute region, specifically CO2 sov: http://ift.tt/2cNWjI3
The first targets are the systems UMI and AW1. Timer for UMI is already coming up on Tuesday.
– Expected enemies are CO2, TEST and Snuff/PM.
– Have a Maelstrom ready if you can fly and afford one.
– Pull out your wands and start entosing as many hostile systems as you can.
– Summer’s over, let’s go boys
The plan is for Pandemic Horde to eventually move their home staging system from deep in Fade to M-OEE8 in Tribute should they take the region away from CO2.
Tribute is an improvement over our current space. M-O is in direct JF range from jita and easily accessible for new players coming from empire. That also means cutting down the load for logistics to one third compared to our current staging. This makes a big difference especially once alpha clones are here. Tribute maintains great access to content (brave and gotg) while getting us closer to TEST and to lowsec (10 jumps from Tama).
Basically, like all real estate related transactions, the primary aspects are “location, location, location.” As for their feelings towards CO2… well, if you can’t screw over your friends, who can you screw over?
CO2 have been good allies during WWB and made a massive difference in the war against goons. Afterwards they became good neighbors regularly bringing fights to 7rm (ruptures, ONIs ecc…) and to lowsec. There is no component of hate for CO2 in this campaign, they are a good alliance full of great guys. The goal of this war is to secure a better access to empire and superior space while fighting together with NC and PL. It is my belief that CO2 will eventually lose this war whether Horde joins in or not, and then I would rather be the ones holding Tribute than letting test or a new alliance grab this key area.
As a spectator… I can now be one of those sideline loudmouths with no skin in the game but lots of opinions… this is a dream match.
On one side there is our traditional foe, NCDot, against whom we have fought multiple wars in just my five years in null sec. (And they have lost every time they didn’t have PL backing them up.)
On the other side there is CO2, the last remnants of the old north still up there and… well… not our friends to say the least.
Watching just those two groups square off… with various allies lending a hand… should be interesting to watch. I hope for a long and bloody war that ends up with CO2 finding a new home. We shall see who has the stomach for it I suppose.
The propaganda war on /r/eve kicked off strong for the defenders. If that could win wars, TEST would own all of null sec. But instead the war is focused on the first couple of systems in the western end of Tribute, which is a long way from M-O88E.
CO2 did attempt to really take the war to their foes by entosising all of the Brothers of Tangra systems in Malpais. Those are part of the last remaining rental empires in New Eden and an income source for the attackers. However CO2 did not follow up on that and have not touched those systems since, making me wonder if they got word that striking there would widen the war against them.
Anyway, we get to watch this one from the bleachers in Delve. While it is starting slowly, I wonder if the Alliance Tournament is impeding the attackers some and if, once that is over, things will get bloodier.
Coverage of the war is available at the Game of Sov site, which keeps track of such things.
Other coverage that has shown up so far:
- TMC – NCdot, PL and Horde Move to Evict CO2 from Tribute
- EN24 – NC. deploys towards Tribute and begin hostilities against CO2
- EN24 – More Alliances Take Sides
- EN24 – Invasion falters and CO2 rampage in Malpais
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