#3 nonsens interviews
Journalism is built on courage, curiosity and rigorous professional standards.
I currently have curiosity.
My previous victims https://app.warera.io/user/695d4d819bd9761af754f28f and https://app.warera.io/user/6987ee7614b4297da02b3188 both made the mistake of answering me and, crucially, neither blocked me afterwards.
I interpreted this as professional validation, because self-awareness has never been part of the editorial policy in my newsroom of one.
This time I somehow got https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4 president of https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d446e731854c7ac7aa one of WarEra’s strongest countries.
Finally, a serious subject. Unfortunately, I was still the interviewer.
So here we are:
1. Portugal once had an empire on several continents. Be honest: in WarEra, are you building a nation… or just trying to get the colonies back with better spreadsheets?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I dont know to be honest, all I do is stare at discord for 10 hours a day.
(Editor’s note: Ten hours of Discord isn’t screen time anymore. That’s basically fado with push notifications: sitting in blue light, staring into the distance, feeling saudade for the life you could still have if #general would just shut the fuck up for six minutes. The only thing missing is a Portuguese guitar playing every time someone starts typing.)
2. Portugal is one of the strongest countries in the game. At what point does “good diplomacy” become “everyone agrees with us because they’d rather not find out what happens if they don’t”?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I'd say you should direct that question torward our "friends".
(Editor’s note: Never underestimate punctuation. Without quotation marks, they’re friends. Add two tiny marks and suddenly I feel like the treaty should be read by a lawyer in a well-lit room. Somewhere between “friend” and “friend” Portugal managed to fit an entire foreign-policy department.)
3. Real Portugal gave the world explorers. WarEra Portugal gives the world what exactly: explorers, bankers, mercenaries, diplomats… or professional map painters?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
We give players who are so good at trading that people think they're scripting.
(Editor’s note: Being so good at trading that people report you for scripting is the browser-game equivalent of being politely escorted out of a casino for understanding mathematics. At that point your most valuable export isn’t goods anymore. It’s support tickets.)
4. If WarEra had an EU, would Portugal genuinely support cooperation, or would you join it, take the subsidies, become the strongest member and then quietly control everybody anyway?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I think we would do just like in real life, use all the subsidies for useless stuff so the politicians look good, oh, and make sure everything is finished by the end of the term, otherwise it doesnt count!
(Editor’s note: The Portuguese once developed Manueline architecture, where even the stone looked like somebody had given it an unlimited decoration budget. Pedro has simply modernised the concept: start with a normal project, add consultants, committees, logos and plaques until nobody remembers what the building was supposed to do. If the ribbon can be cut, the building has fulfilled its constitutional purpose.)
5. Portugal had the Estado Novo for decades. If somebody told you WarEra Portugal was becoming a dictatorship, would your first reaction be “that’s ridiculous” or “okay, but is it an efficient dictatorship?”
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I would think first about the opposition. We all know that if someone wants to take down a dictatorship they must have had a 25 year feud with the dictator!
(Editor’s note: At twenty-five years, that isn’t a feud anymore. That’s a vintage. You don’t resolve it — you decant it, swirl it around the glass and tell younger politicians: “Excellent year. Strong notes of betrayal, resentment and oak.” Then you put it back in the cellar because apparently revenge still needs another election cycle.)
6. How much of Portugal’s success is brilliant leadership, and how much is simply having enough powerful players that even your bad decisions somehow survive?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I wouldnt say the leadership is brilliant. Just lucky and slightly insane (or completely in the case of some).
(Editor’s note: So basically the government operates like Lisbon’s Tram 28: overloaded, rattling uphill at an angle geometry did not approve, taking corners that briefly make atheists reconsider their position — and somehow arriving at the destination while everybody inside acts like this was the timetable.)
7. Imagine tomorrow every military advantage Portugal has disappears and you’re left with only diplomacy. How many of your current “friends” are still answering your messages 24 hours later?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
Just https://app.warera.io/user/69d8a2fdab096e11d19dd1d6, mostly because he'd want to finally adopt Burkina Faso.
(Editor’s note: Even Saint Anthony would tell Knut to slow the fuck down. Normal international relations go introduction, friendship, treaty, alliance. This man skipped the entire courtship and is already asking whether Burkina Faso can take his surname.)
8. Cristiano Ronaldo is probably Portugal’s most famous export. Who is WarEra Portugal’s Ronaldo: the player everybody worships, everybody complains about, but nobody wants playing for the other side?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
I cant say his name because I fear he would be recruited by another country, we all know who he is here, but I can't tell you. He's the only player who actually knows the meta.
(Editor’s note: Portugal has a legend where a roasted rooster gets up and crows to prove an innocent man’s story. Somehow “there is one guy who actually understands the WarEra meta” is the part where I start demanding evidence. Keep him hidden. If that man really exists, he’s no longer a player — he’s intellectual property.)
9. What country in WarEra publicly calls Portugal a friend but privately checks the map every morning to make sure you haven’t moved closer to their border?
https://app.warera.io/user/688f507f779d04817c68c6f4
Spain must be scared of us taking back Olivença.
(Editor’s note: There is saudade, the famous Portuguese feeling of longing for something absent. Then there is whatever the fuck this is: saudade with cadastral maps and legal representation. Spain apparently calls Olivença “history.” Portugal has simply marked the conversation as pending.)
10. Final presidential question: if Portugal eventually dominates WarEra, what will the official explanation be — superior strategy, historical destiny, excellent diplomacy, or “we swear this was never the plan”?
https://app.warera.io/user/68a62cbd35aee16ea6f6383fused the SRs like infinity stones and thanos snapped the other countries out of existence.
(Editor’s note: The first nine answers were manageable waves. Then question ten became Nazaré. I looked up from my notebook and a thirty-metre wall of Marvel lore was coming directly at me with https://app.warera.io/user/68a62cbd35aee16ea6f6383f standing on top holding shiny rocks. At that point you don’t analyse grand strategy. You protect the laptop and hope your insurance covers Thanos.)
I went into this interview with one serious question: how does a WarEra superpower actually work?
I came out with a better one:
Why the fuck does this work?
From the outside, great powers always look like chess grandmasters.
https://app.warera.io/country/6813b6d446e731854c7ac7aa feels more like ten people playing different board games at the same table while one guy quietly owns the casino.
As for my journalism, I have finally discovered a sustainable business model: important people provide the interesting answers, and I write “Editor’s note” underneath them so everyone thinks I contributed.
At this rate the series might actually become successful. Which would be disastrous.
Failure is currently the only subject on which I have proven expertise.
See you later,
Bunget