A year ago, an article reflecting on whether armies fight to please the judges or not was released. Today, we delve into this problem even further, as we aim to explore if anything has changed since then. Join us in this formidable opinion piece.

ORANGE STARTS HIS ANALYSIS

Before we go into detail, I must define the two words this whole opinion is based on: Subjective and Objective.

Dictionary.com defines: “Subjective most commonly means based on the personal perspective or preferences of a person—the subject observing something. In contrast, objective most commonly means not influenced by or based on a personal viewpoint—based on the analysis of an object of observation only.”

Essentially, this means that subjective can be based on one’s personal opinion while objective is surrounded by fact. If I were to say “Edu is a loser”, that is subjective. However, if I were to say “Edu is a CPA legend” that is objectively true. These words will be very important as they will be used plenty throughout the article.

So now that we got that out of the way, what is this post really about? Well, I came up with the idea of writing this when Edu had me do an analysis on the EGCP vs ACP finals. Though I was just looking through the pictures, it seemed to occur to me that these battles have become so… Robotic? Calculated? Mathematical? 

I can’t seem to grasp what the correct term is, but hear me out. What fun is a battle if you can pinpoint the exact minute an army will change its formation? We are seeing the same formations and same tactics. It’s impossible to be creative because creativity is subjective. Leaders cannot properly plan a battle plan, because the judges cannot pinpoint what it is they are looking for. Armies fight to please the judges, but do the judges know what pleases them?

And so, I believe that armies have evolved over the past 18 years. Yes, a very easy point to make. But have we evolved too far? And what I mean by that is, have armies evolved too far while simultaneously judging has not evolved one bit? And is that the reason why battles feel so repetitive and formulaic now?

A small historic REVIEW OF WARFARE

The earliest iteration of club penguin battles in the early 2006/2007 era was called “The Color Wars”. The first distinct battles occurred within the Dojo. Involving clans of distinct colors, using the Miniclip forums to communicate. Primarily throwing snowballs at each other and running around. It was chaos. But it was fun, evident by the fact that we continue to see different armies hosting their version of the color wars throughout the years.

As we slowly start to evolve into the 2010s, we begin seeing organized formations and tactics. Nothing crazy, but more cohesion and less freelancing. The biggest point I want to make here revolves around the rules of war. Back then during war battles, it would be the defending army following the invading army around. There was no room switch after 10 minutes, the invading army could move whenever. 

What I want to highlight here is that this kept a creative aspect of armies. The decision to move rooms was a choice we had. When and where. The defending army would typically have spies in the opposing army’s chat room. If not, they would frantically search the whole island for the army.

When it comes to the beginning of the CPPS era, warfare was scarce due to the lack of armies. The ones that were around had a small size compared to the Rebel Penguin Federation. Nonetheless, battles still followed the same standards used in the OG CP era, with a few changes: now invaders followed defenders, for instance. There was no such emphasis on speed and spacing in formations. Most formations were bunched and no one was ever bothered by that.

Furthermore, as time passed, the lack of a proper stable organization and server map made such rules slowly forgotten. An important point we also need to consider is that judging was almost non-existent outside of tournament battles. Judging was mostly handled by league administrators or staff within it, with a separate judging org being almost utopical to think about. War battles and invasions were never judged. This allowed both sides to claim victory – even though one side was worse than the other in some cases. For instance, the most relevant wars of 2017-2018 were not judged: World War VII, War of Roman Subjugation, EGCP-TCP Conflicts, etc. 

With the creation of Club Penguin Armies, led by DMT, Greeny, Memmaw, and Club Penguin Armies: The Game, by Superhero123, armies were presented with an alternative to CPOAL. With a much more professional and safer environment than the latter, armies started being subject to proper warfare rules once again. 

And now we enter the 2020 pandemic era. The supposed prime for the community where armies were hitting sizes we have never seen before. So many big armies battling it out. The rules of battle are beginning to get a bit more stagnant. The first major change we see is room changes every 10 minutes. The second is the introduction of voice leading, allowing armies to execute much faster.

In this era, we perfected the creativity of formations and tactics while blending them with the old era’s utilization of movements and wipes. Armies such as the Army of Club Penguin, RPF, and Ice Warriors were pulling off creative movements in battles to help with their case. 

Lastly, today. As I mentioned earlier, today seems more formulaic than ever. The judges have eliminated the utilization of creative movements, such as wipes, so now battles are just… Whichever army executes faster. The creativity has been removed and the ability to make our own choices has slowly been dwindling. As Coolguy stated in a post about a year ago, battles have evolved to where we fight to just please the judges.

EVOLUTION OF JUDGING (NOT EVOLVED)

So we can say that battles have evolved throughout time to become more predictable and calculated. I know an army is going to stay in a formation for 3 minutes and if they take a minute longer, they will be deducted “points”. But, here is the argument.

Judging is just based on vibes. Yes, it is simply based on vibes. People subjectively decide if an army is more creative. They subjectively decide if an army stays in a formation too long or if they are not doing tactics fast enough. What is the metric that armies need to focus on when it comes to battles? The vibes of whoever is judging.

And it’s strange the pedestal we put judging on today. The style of judging has not changed but the way we present it has. During the old days, Club Penguin Army Central would hire judges on a tournament-by-tournament basis. Battles between two armies would be decided by the leaders of both armies or an external judge the armies agreed upon. But in both cases, the judges were judging based on vibes.

Now we have a whole organization dedicated to judging, but they haven’t changed the way things are judged. They just judge on their subjectivity. Armies are subjected to battle the way the judges feel battles should go. And this can be dangerous. We put judging on a greater pedestal than ever before (as we have seen our first individual being nominated for Legend solely for judging), yet nothing about it has been changed or revolutionized. One could argue there have been more controversial judging decisions.

To continue this opinion, I know that one could say “But Orange, you haven’t led in 3 years!?! What do you know about battles now? I would say I’m smart enough to research to form my own opinion, but I decided to get the opinion of a fellow CPA legend and current-day leader, Edu14463, to ask him more about what he believes.

Edu shares his thoughts

I begin my analysis with a small story. Suppose Orange is currently standing trial in a court because he was found breaking into DMT’s residence. According to the penal code of his country, depending on the gravity of the crime, Orange may face between 2 to 20 years in prison. However, like any reputable court, the verdict will fall upon a presumably impartial judge.

In this legal system, the parameter that determines the crime, its classifications, and corresponding penalties is the Penal Code of each state. As previously mentioned, the penalty Orange will receive for the crime he committed is already determined: 2 to 20 years in prison depending on the severity. However, during the trial, evidence that Orange was committing the burglary while armed is brought to light. This aggravating factor will certainly increase his sentence.

However, the judge responsible for the case interprets the Penal Code differently, ignoring the relevance of the aggravating factor. This causes some confusion in the court, as the evidence is as clear as crystal. Nonetheless, the authority of the judge is unquestionable, as is his interpretation of the laws. Orange receives the minimum sentence of 2 years in prison.

I use this small story as a preamble to a real—and virtual—problem in our community. Should judges interpret the guidelines in their own way or should the guidelines interpret themselves? This question opens up an alarmingly large possibility of debates about numerous philosophical problems: subjectivism or objectivism? Relativism or absolutism? Free-interpretationism or originalism?

Firstly, we must consider the context of judging in the current community. Club Penguin Army Judges organization is responsible for providing judges for battles, tournaments, and wars and guidelines that ensure a certain unity and consistency in all verdicts. These guidelines — at least theoretically — should be followed by all judges.

However, what is more noticeable nowadays is the growing opinion in the community that we battle to satisfy the personal criteria of each judge. But before we proceed, let’s philosophically define some terms. Objectivism holds that the meaning of the text is present in the text itself and is independent of the opinion that interpreters may have about the text. According to objectivism, all interpretations can be judged regarding this criterion of objectivity. On the other hand, subjectivism understands that the meaning of the text is always a rationalization of the interpreter’s personal, moral, and political desires, always dependent on their own interpretation.

With this in mind, let’s return to the debate: “We battle to satisfy the personal criteria of each judge.” Notice that if the whims of the judges must be followed by the armies in order for them to potentially win the battles, then something is very wrong. Such bias cannot be applied in battles where the winner is already clear — most likely due to a considerable size advantage or clear tactical superiority.

These subjective conflicts, as I call this problem, become more evident in close and tight battles, where individual perception ends up overshadowing the interpretation of the guidelines themselves. If I know that one of the judges likes a specific formation, then I will use it. If they don’t like a certain strategy, then I won’t use it. They think certain types of moves are weak, I will avoid them! Meanwhile, the guidelines remain in the world of oblivion.

Whether it is possible to establish purely objective criteria for judging is a conversation for another time.

Do we need to go back army-wise or go forward judging-wise?

Now, this is not to be a knock on how things operate currently. I think there are a lot of things that work better today than they did back then. For instance, it’s nice to have defined winners for battles and wars. But let me offer a couple of challenging ideas.

If battles have evolved so much to where you know when an army is moving formations, why can’t we judge objectively? You can easily put a metric to every facet a judge is looking at. How fast an army does tactics, how many tactics they do, types of formations, delays, etc. You could even have a built-in creativity bonus system. If we battle like a formula, why don’t we just use a formula?

And I am not entirely for that idea. But if battles have evolved to the point where we have a standardized timing for everything, why not just standardize the judging so it is now objective and not subjective? At least now, the armies know what they need to do when it comes to battle. They would know which areas they are lacking in, so they would know which areas they would need to improve.

The other idea would be to go backward. Instead of having such rigid battle requirements, start allowing the armies to express their freedom of creativity. Lift the restrictions off when an army needs to change their formation or tell them wipes and movements are ineffective. Armies were founded based on children’s creativity so why cannot we bring that back?

What can we do today?

Change takes time and many people are opposed to it. So what solutions are there, if any? Ulysses Nardo, a Small/Medium Legend, tried to create his own judging organization to implement a formula to judge battles. He wanted the case of battles to be objective and so he was building a formula.

Now where he failed was his execution. If you have a great idea, but poor execution, everybody is going to think it’s a poor idea. Nobody knew why he wanted this, and with the organization coming during the time of a controversial battle, it seemed very… forced.

But hear me out, his idea was not a bad one. A formula could easily be perfected and would represent an evolution in an area of judging that has not evolved in 18 years. It would represent the change for armies that could be better. There would no longer be complaints due to the judges if everything is formulaic. You can’t single out somebody’s vibes for being wrong when you can point to where your army did not perform well.

But, is that going too far? Instead of going all in on the formula, should we change the way we battle? The great thing about the evolution of armies has been the creation of a league where armies have a uniform map and rules they abide by. I know individuals are very passionate about this as I heavily took part in the league merger talks two years ago.

However, where is that passion for when it comes to the battles itself? The armies are the ones that create the battles. The armies are the ones that give the judges something to do. Why aren’t the armies in control of how they want to battle? Maybe it’s time to relax the rules on judging and let the armies decide between themselves how they want to do things, whether it’s old school or modern.  

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As someone who’s been in the community since 2012, I have seen a lot of change occur. We must continue to keep the elements of what we do fun to keep this community lasting. With the newfound value we place on judging, we have given the community another avenue of potential disaster. For CPAJ to continue to succeed, it must be led without ego. Don’t judge for yourself and judge for the community.

But change is normal, and we could see an individual in the future challenge the status quo. And would the community be open to that change? Only time will tell. 

 

Orange
Advisor

Edu14463
Associate Editor

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