First, Sorry to bounce this thread...... I know it's old news.
I've been AWOL for quite some time and only now truly catching up with what has been happening here on W24. I'd like to humbly add my few pence, however late I may be in doing so.
In my time in TW I've been blessed with good strong leadership. It's not something I've ever felt the need to do myself, far too much like work in my opinion, but I can see the buzz other players get from it. No, I prefer to keep my own villages in order rather than working for the tribe in general.
On W9 I learned the ropes under the guidance of OTD - a young kid, but still, like alexander the great, someone who seemed to transcend age. He taught me how to move into a position where you could attack without the need for super fast trains that could be seen hours, if not days away. How to defend when the situation seemed lost and yet come out the other side unscathed, but mostly he taught me that by building an aura of strength, seeming invincibility at it's best, both individually and as a tribe counts for far more than your relative position and points.
I made mistakes in W9 - got too secure in my position and became bored so I chose to move here right in the core and joined HIV (yes - honest) I spammed with the best of them and had a lot of fun but it was never going to last and I ended up in FENX and kinda coerced into middle management. All the while I had my eye on Pervis and hoped that one day I would join Kinky and learn from him...... ok cypher - parts of your suppositions were half right but for me only on a personal level which is perhaps why I bit back so often.
Little did I know the merge of Fenx/Kinky would have been so badly timed for my own expectations.... Pervis was already inactive and Kinky went downhill like so many other great tribes have done in a vacuum of true leadership quality.
I truly believe leadership cannot be taught, nor learned at it's highest level.... It's an inate skill that few players have but without doubt Wiz has it in spades.
Storm/Garuda/Kings won the war fair and square.... I thought Gzed/Rukoh and KK were cool without being exemplary and I would have happily joined them but I was on the wrong side of the world.... Geldy was mad but seemed alot of fun and I asked to join them, with heinsight I think it best Geldy declined as I wouldn't have stood for all the shady goings on.
My choices were simple, go renegade and fight to the last village alone, join one of the smaller tribes I'd been terrorizing and most probably as above, or join Storm, a tribe that apart from a few individuals I'd chatted to during the war I had little to no respect for.... I decided renegade and battened down the hatches. How wrong I was.
Rather than the anticipated attacks Wiz mailed me more than once. He took the time to get to know me and vice versa and with ease turned my ambivilence into respect. I soon accepted my future and my sword lay with Storm.
He instinctively understood that he should never never push me too hard into taking on more responsibilty than I wanted, promised me the world in his tribes comfortable embrace and allowed me to hone my skills into a cold, calculating destroyer of anyone that stood in the path of my objectives.
What I'm saying is Wiz didn't have to try, he instinctively knew when to be hard, when to put an arm around you and how hard he could push you to make you excel.... This is the mark of true leadership and I would happily follow him in whatever world he now resides.... I can't imagine what it would be like to go to war for real but if I ever did I would want to have someone like Wiz commanding me.
I made no secret of the fact that my last act on this world would be the demise of Manic.... As with us all RL was suffering and I needed a break, my only reasons for staying longer would have been one on ones with either cypher or KK, for very different reasons. Though, however much I wanted it to be so work was more than just turning up on time and staring at my computer screen looking busy while actually rebuilding troops or planning my next attack. In the time I've been away I've bought myself a new house and spent much more quality one on one time with my beautiful daughter so the lack of TW activity has been a very positive time for me.
I now find myself with more spare time again now, hence why I'm rambling like I am but from what I have read here this last few days this world is on the decline - perhaps I'll just troll for a while and spend the time to decide if I wanna start farming on a new world all over again.
Anyhow, I got off point - Wiz...... I salute you and truly hope we can work together again sometime as I have so much more I can learn from you.
Thanks for you time and patience Wiz - It was a blast.
