I think it's a somewhat fitting analogy to say voodoo is like nukes and guilds are similar to allied countries.
Infrequent plundering and casting Spy Network are like preliminary strikes that many times put the victim on edge and maybe make them want to seek revenge. There has definitely been a feeling of a Cold War as players build up their voodoo stores and combat fleets. Have you noticed how much talk there has been lately about who disregarded guild rules and who cast the voodoo on whom? The guild forums and public forums have tons of posts about it. Making a voodoo attack and repeatedly plundering is enough to make the daily news because of the the losses of fame and gold. Many times they want to get revenge so they launch their own nukes (voodoo such as "Fugitive from Justice") and Mutually Assured Destruction follows.
The only thing that is required to start the events that happened in the last few days is a spark in the form of a guild member attacking the wrong guilded player or a player with nothing to lose launching the first nuke. I think the second example is what happened to start the fight in the last few days. Acadien (AKA Arkoon) logged in after a month absence to cast multiple Fugitive from Justice on me and Black Sparrow for no reason other than to start a fight. He has nothing to lose by doing this because he seems to have given up playing and is doing this only to grief players.
This is my reason for posting: I think it's helpful to think of using voodoo in the game in this way (at least for right now). The Pirate theme in the game is absolutely enjoyable but I think it can be a little misleading considering how players react to plundering. Pirates want to plunder with little regard to the consequences because that's the awesome freedom of being a pirate! But the game has become increasingly political with the introduction of nukes and allied guilds. You, as a pirate, need to take into account who you are attacking and whether that player either has a current truce with your guild or if that player has a lot of voodoo that he might send your way because of your attack.
I find it very important to identify the players who have bought voodoo and are not afraid to use it. Since voodoo (nukes) can be bought in large quantities there is a certain situation of the "haves" and the "have-nots". A player that decides to not spend money on voodoo cards has a distinct disadvantage against a player who has bought more voodoo cards. Also buying a few packs of cards can give the player just the right weapons to hit an enemy hard. A strong trade fleet even as large as 400 ships is obviously no match for a 2 month old player who has 20+ ships and a pocket full of voodoo cards. Someone suggested in another post to name the game "Witch Doctors Glory"... I don't like that name but it does seem to point out how voodoo has become the central mechanic of the game whereas it used to be trade fleet size, strong SotL fleets, and avoiding danger rating.
I just want to say this has been a really interesting experience so far and I want to keep playing despite taking some hard hits from the voodoo system. I was excited to have an analogy that helps to explained the politics and consequences of the current game. It's up to the developers to either continue making the game a high-stakes/huge-losses fight or if they will make it more casual to plunder a player for their shiny, shiny gold.
I've gotten most of my complaining out of my system in guild and friend chat but I would really like to have some way to keep inactive players from logging in only to grief me while they have only 3 cheap ships and little gold for me to steal. I have no way to effectively recover or "persuade" them to not do that again. Also you have my vote for more ways to plunder a player's or fleet's gold without the huge destruction in fame rating and hurt feelings. There seem to be very strong hurt feelings (and desires for revenge) when months of a players work are plundered in less than 6 hours and they log in to find their fleets in ruins. I want the game to be fun and risky but not stressful.
Those are some of my thoughts. What do you think?
-Captain D
(+10 fame if you read this whole post
)
you have described the current situation very well
... aimed at you 
