Rhine War

The Rhine War was an armed conflict between the Netherlands (and allies) and EAU & USSR (and allies).

## Preceding events and causes

On July 21st, a person called Apocolips (the only pvper in the Netherlands at the time) joined the Netherlands upon an invitation by Gerard. After he claimed that he liked to pvp, other players in the Netherlands decided to test his skills by having him fight against some of the server's established players. One of such duels was the fight between Apocolips and JustAPotatoKing in the wilderness, which ended with Apocolips winning and taking Potato's items.

Later that day, Apocolips was killed by members of Avocado Republic, after which Gerard declared war on Avocado. The Avocado Republic was an ally of Potato's.

Which one of the events was the trigger of the Rhine War is debatable, but the cause was indisputably boredom.

## 28th, Operation "The Rhine is mine"

On July 28th, Teplapus and ChocolateMilk went to the Rhine river to found the town of Bergland. While they worked on starting the town and claiming the land, Vasos, the leader of the Soviet Union and an ally of Potato's, decided to come to the Rhine river (having seen it mentioned in chat) and started draining a portion of it between Frankfurt and Bergland. He was quickly noticed by members of the Netherlands, but soon after that Potato came to help him grief the river, this time draining it between Bergland and Kleve.

The actions, which were considered griefing, were reported to the admins. Potato and Vasos got banned for 14 days, however later the admins decided that there wasn't a clear rule about griefing transport routes. Potato and Vasos were unbanned, however the rule was added to come into effect from that moment on.

## 29th, Siege of Frankfurt

Unbanned and angry, Potato and Vasos immediately decided to invade the Netherlands, starting a siege at Frankfurt, a bankrupt town where the mayor went on vacation. The attackers managed to score 14000 points, Potato was AFK all night at the banner. While AFK, he was killed by Espy, spending 2-3 hours dead. The Netherlands's biggest problem by far was the peacefulness of all of its towns. This meant that almost all citizens of the Netherlands had war sickness, and were unable to pvp.

Pannonia joined the war on the Netherlands's side, with Douglas getting a few thousand points by capping in the morning.

## 30th

Potato and Vasos brought in a large army and restored their >14000 advantage, easily destroying any resistance. Then they suffered a mild case of betrayal, with the chaos being too confusing to understand or explain.

Liking the Netherlands and seeing the imbalance of power, Synistor, possibly the best pvper on the server, joined on UKN's side. He organized the Netherlands as cappers (with war sickness the Netherlands couldn't pvp), hid all the cappers in a big mountain of wool, and stood on its guard. This strategy worked very well, with the entire EAU&USSR lead being completely erased. Synistor also beat Potato in pvp multiple times during the evening.

## 31st

By the morning of 31.07 the siege balance was -15 000. It is unclear how that was achieved, however it is suspected that Espy capped the banner overnight. The war was effectively won by the Netherlands and allies by that point.

## Aftermath

After Potato claimed that the cause of the failed invasion was a netherite set taken by Apocolips, the Netherlands (despite winning) paid a few thousands of gold in reparations to Potato, agreeing on a ceasefire and a non-aggression pact. The gold was mostly mined by fnn and Maharcuja.

The relations between Potato and the Netherlands recovered pretty quickly, with all the anger being forgotten after about two weeks.