Hello, I'm but a tiny player in the big silly game we call Spreadsheet Hell 2014.
Because there may still be questions, let me explain lightly how FFA got beaten, and why I really expected them to defend more effectively.
But before that, I would also like to commend Prr Wio, Life Giver, Keymaster, & Zerg; for being willing to defend countries that weren't their own at their own risk. Congratulations, I'd want you guys on my team any time.
The primary target in my attack was Eo, a Central Przewalskia that is the fourth longest active country on the server.
I observed the previous owner building statues with little capacity for defense, while being the only active Prez in FFA.
The expectation was to hit the target with a moderately large attack fleet with little forward notice, forcing the country to fight defensively until reinforcements could arrive, either creating a new Prez defense state in FFA or I would get the country type I wanted, win-win. I expected the fight to last 3-4 days, with multiple international reinforcements and had hopes that I would lose.
To increase the pressure I sent smaller attacks to related FFA countries in different regions. Selanaris, Bugfuckers, & Buckswana. The point of these attacks was to draw funds and attention away from the Eo defense.
The most interesting attack was upon Borg Storm. I knew I wasn't going to be able to take Borg Storm, but the owner is very good with diplomacy. My hope was that players with limited interest in the game would come out of stasis to donate goods, and I could expand the attack upon them while they couldn't drop back into stasis.
To my surprise, Eo fell without a fight. The forces there were split and redirected to attack the two nations that had left stasis: Foalantica & RGB Nation.
I have no idea how Bugfuckers wasn't just in stasis. Seriously. There was no fight at all and it surprised me, as I expected some basic defense against one of my smallest attack groups.
Selanaris & Buckswana defended spectacularly, Borg Storm stands just fine, and hopefully FFA has more combat understanding than they started with.
I won a few countries from it, so it was worth it from my end as well.