Certainly all are welcomed to join The Galactic Diplomats. However, being in first place and staying there forever are two different things. For one, staying in first place forever would be boring. Also, you'll see that the High Command Hegemony is in first place in the AltMeta because of a slightly different method of calculating total score. In any case it's never a good idea to let something like this go to your head. Its fine to improve your own game and contribute to the success of your empire, but in the end the only thing that matters is playing the game for the fun of it.

Having good opposition is at least as important as having good teammates. So of course, I'm happy when a new player joins the Diplomats. But I'm just as happy if they join the Orca's, the HCH or any of a number of fine empires out there. Even better yet they can start their own successful empire.

The point is that although we may be members of different empires or even members of no empire at all, anything that benefits any empire benefits the metaverse as a whole. This is the goal of the Metaverse Council. The Metaverse Council (MVC) has been working for a few months now with really not all that much to show for it, but we are getting close to some dramatic improvements to the AltMeta that will be truly impressive. For now we're keeping a lot of detail under wraps so we don't spoil the surprise, but I'm confident that the result will be 'mind blowing'. ( How's that for a buildup Kryo? Now all we have to do is live up to all the hype    ).

Anyone interested in the Metaverse, or anyone that's in an empire that would like their own private forum or anyone interested in GalCiv2 should stop by The Galactic Core. The Galactic Core is an empire neutral, free website that currently hosts the private forums of 6 different empires as well as the home of the Metaverse Council and the soon to be operating Metaverse Times Blog. Come visit us today.   

I still want my car   

You didn't read the subtitle, did you?  

Hmmmn poor taste!

Actually the entire premise of this thread was misguided. It started out with General Homsar encouraging people to join the Diplomats because we were in first place at the time. That is what prompted my first response. Then the General came along and (perhaps prompted by my response) realized that being in first place might not be the best reason to join an empire.

However, he didn't leave well enough alone but used the ill-conceived functionality of the forum that allows you to edit the original post of a thread long after potentially many people have responded to it and changed it to an (hopefully from his point of view) obvious joke. In my opinion Popcorn Avenger’s post was merely a continuation of this (admittedly bad) joke.

I do think that the ability to edit the OP long after people have responded is a big mistake that can result in a lot of confusion. I also think that when people are walking down the street and see some obvious dog poo (no connection to Popcorn Avenger’s post) the best thing they can do is to ignore it and try not to step in it.