Kickstarter update #83

[fredmiracle]

Speaking of mindsets, I wish I understood Ares. There must be a reason that they hold information back. Do they think that it builds interest? I think it turns many more people off than it builds interest. If someone knows the reason for their secrecy I wish they would share..

I agree with you, but in fairness to Ares there are a lot of reasons they might feel differently. E.g.:

1) The reason you suggested--belief that giving away too much early reduces the excitement later
2) Belief that customers would be more annoyed than happy if they had to experience "how the sausage is made"
3) Trying to maintain flexibility to change product strategy or implementation
4) Trying to maintain flexibility as to how many resources to deploy to SGN vs. other products by avoiding commitments
5) Limited bandwidth of "customer-facing" people--time spent communicating reduces design & marketing efforts
6) Not worth the cost--the "hanging on Ares' every word" crowd buys a lot of ships each, but there are too few of us to matter
etc.

There are companies that do this very well, but my sense is that Ares is far from alone in the gaming industry in this regard

[Berthier]

My point is that what was true then isn't true now. Napoleon was a great hero then. He isn't now. There's no such thing as non-revisionist history. It's all tainted by years of studying original source material and trying write an unbiased history in hindsight. Napoleon fired his cannons against his own countrymen in Paris on orders of the government. He slaughtered them and never felt an ounce of guilt.

The context does make a big difference, but I take your point that todays mobs maybe tomorrows freedom fighters. Napoleon had witnessed the massacre of the Swiss Guard on the palace steps of the Tuileries (as well as the reign of Terror) and the lesson of unrestrained mob violence stayed with him, his fear of such actions against "legitimate" government, whatever that may mean, is documented and was essential to understanding his thoughts on stability being the first need for a nation's survival. I have not read anything on Napoleon and I have read widely, to suggest he felt no guilt when he fired on the mob. Maybe he did, how can we know? Certainly he could detach from the slaughter on the battlefield as many commanders could. He could rationalise that the losses were all for the greater good of France even if that was because he felt HE was for the greater good of France and knew best (which he didnt).

Relating to the current French attitude to Napoleon it is one that is decidely ambivalent. On the one hand they acknowledge his administrative and social, educational and legal changes that grew out of the Revolution and he enacted and spread across much of Europe. The discomfort arises from his position as Emperor, when they are now a Republic, the loss of individual freedoms an Empire creates versus the ability to enact change quickly and without fetters and the "glory" he achieved on the battlefield and in being an agent of change but under the auspices of personal ambition as opposed to republican ideals. He is both a betrayer of the revolution and a saviour of many of its' ideals, his impact on France and western europe is indisputible but the greatness being concentrated in the man and by osmosis only then to the French people doesn't sit well with the modern beliefs. To illustrate the point even more brightly, the French government recently officially complained to the Belgian government over its' plan to release a commerative victory coin (1euro I think) for the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo. So there is the dichotomy of the attitude laid bare, we dont like the whole emperor and empire stuff but dont you go and celebrate our brave French soldiers defeat, the same soldiers who entered many of your capitals spreading the code Napoleon, the metric system, ideas of female and minority rights to the doorsteps of the absolute monarchs of europe (whilst doing a fair amount of pillaging I might add) and annexing half of Europe! In a perfect world, Napoleon could have been consul for life, conquered away, spread the revolutionary concepts of meritocracy (for was not he the greatest example?), ruled half of europe and if he had retired peacefully or died in office with no intention of passing power to his offspring and never having raised his siblings to power he might have had statues on every corner of Paris. Perhaps in a hundred years as attitudes change in France he will have a statue on every corner or just as possibly every last trace of him may have been erased.

[Comte de Brueys]

That's what I call a statement.

You speak my heart.

...and this explains exactly why I'm a big fan of Napoleon and French revolutinary ideas.

[Popsical]

The battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in the history of the world, set the Germans on the run back to Berlin. They were defeated by Russia nine months before D-Day. But you only see one side of the story, Gunner, your side. You truly believe that D-Day won the war. It was already won by the Russians in August of the previous year. Get it right. Stalin won WWII. D-Day was a skirmish compared to the battle of Kursk. On D-Day, the Germans suffered around 9,000 casualties. During the battle of Kursk, the Germans suffered almost 200,000 casualties. Which do you think had a greater impact ending the war?.

No single event won WW2, there were turning points in each theatre.
It is regarded by almost every well versed authority that had the allies not landed in Normandy the Russians would have run out of manpower before reaching the centre of the Reich.
The different methods of waging war by each of the allied nations determined casualties in battle and the scope of the theatres involved.
The Royal navies blockade of Germany, the allied massed bomber offensive, the manpower attrition of the eastern front and the garrisoning of the vast area of the greater Reich all contributed to the victory.
The biggest contributor of ultimate victory could very well have been Hitler himself.
Had Manstein been allowed to perform his mobile defence against the Russians it is very likely the Soviet army would have been bled dry before reaching Poland let alone Berlin.
Soviet casualties were close to breaking point after Berlin, a reason Churchill and Patton were of the opinion of a contravertial continuation.

[Kentop]

Ares is pretty inscrutable. Sometimes I wonder if the heads of different departments are talking to each other at all. It doesn't seem like they are. If they did, you might see a more coherent operation.

[Kentop]

I'm a big fan of Napoleon, too. You can see his influence everywhere you go in Europe. Even though nothing is named after him, Paris itself is practically a monument to him. Even the wide boulevards were his idea. It was too easy to barricade the old narrow medieval streets of Paris, making it very hard for troops to clear out troublemakers. So he tore down the old buildings and made sure the boulevards were wide enough to take an army. This kind of backfired because it made Paris undefendable when the German tanks started rolling in.