Today, with no fighters to be found and being fed up of getting murdered by bombers I eventually run into an old DA friend and arranged on 200 to meet between two bases. There were about 5-6 Rooks playing when I swapped countries to do so. Two in particular defending the town of the base I flew out of. They apparently paid no attention, shooting ground vehicles I think.
After some fun experimental ACM with my friend, no shots fired, I notice another Rook approaching. I request on country for him to stay out. He does not and takes an easy kill on my friend. Cue a 30 minute heated debate on country text about acceptable MA activities. Insults thrown immediately (I hate that and therefore throw some back). Told with absolute conviction that Rooks look out for each other, unlike the back-stabbing Knights and Bishops and that AH is team-based, the MA is war and if you're red you're dead (catchy). Told to get to the DA with my girlfriend or better yet get off Rooks.
I'd like to say a few things about this. In my experience it is just as often the case that the loyalty / teamwork / realism card is played to simply justify lame and selfish gameplay. Frankly I find a fervent loyalty to an arbitrary chess piece a disturbing commentary on human development. I object to people who think this way. I think you ought to evolve a bit.
Regarding realism and the 'merciless' gameplay they were proposing (which I ironically find to be usually mixed with a timid passive aggressivity that'd make Hartmann blush). I'd also like to point out that war historically contains many examples of 'classy gameplay'. Marseille dropping notes on British airbases in Africa detailing the position of downed British airman, the Steigler incident, or Georges Guynemer breaking off a disadvantaged Udet, again I think those espousing realism conveniently forget this kind of thing. You can find any kind of example to justify your activity. Basically the only reason to be an A whole in AH is because you like to be or want to be an A whole. In the case of my incident I was told he was only trying to help me out and that I was 'owned' with an enemy on my six. I do not expect him to understand I put him on my six for fun. I even accept he perhaps did not read the text in time. Still I don't feel this was the case, I think he saw an opportunistically easy kill and took it.
I myself do not care for the progress of the 'war'. I mostly stall fight my Ki-84 low down and alone. Don't care about my score, or even understand a lot of it. Just try to progress my ACM. To me AH is NOT a team activity. I absolutley don't expect everyone else to fly as I do if they don't want to. What I DO expect is that I get to do my thing without getting insulted or berated by those that have apprently read an AH rule book which I have never seen and can't find.
One further point. If you insult me, I'll insult you back, if you bring weaksauce arguments to bear I'll go toe-to-toe with you and argue back too. When both your insults and logic fail and you resort to squelching me then you are a cowardly hypocrit. One should not dish it out, if one cannot take it, I believe the saying goes.
