[Region Locking] Something needs to be changed.

[Gest]

You're region is a prime example of why more opt-outs aren't necessary. You have a large number of endorsements making your region difficult to capture. You have a ton of influence which would require months and many endorsements to overcome. Any password would be removed by a Liberation. You're region is more or less untouchable

Yes, because a delegate with 8 endorsements has never been raided It certainly doesn't take much effort to overcome a delegate with 8 endorsements, and it doesn't take much influence to password a region. Not every region that is passworded gets a liberation resolution written for them.

To say that they are untouchable is laughable at best.

I'm pretty confident Space will be around for a good long while. They can be raided but the chances of them being destroyed are astronomically low.

If you live next to a volcano don't complain that it's too warm.

This is still the GTFO or be hounded by raiders forever argument. Nobody that isn't a raider or Sedge is buying it.

Yes Sedge's explanation of the rules is clearly meaningless drivel. After all who needs rules when they're morally right.

[The Bruce]

Another alternative or added feature to the update, for the invader-defender facet of the game, would be to increase the window of the update per region to one minute. Then, the update for a given region would occur at "N" time, but with a one minute (for example) window when it does where the position can be contested repeatedly during that time. You could also have the one minute clock triggered by a change of delegacy to make it more interesting and to ensure people don't wait until the last second of the window to go in. It would mean you could take and lose the delegacy in a matter of seconds depending on who could rush the place, but it would give those interested in "gameplay" some actual "gameplay," instead of the current state of non-gameplay, gameplay.

I'm not certain if it's a feasible suggestion with regards to the coding for the system, but I thought I'd throw it out there as an idea.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

Another alternative or added feature to the update, for the invader-defender facet of the game, would be to increase the window of the update per region to one minute. Then, the update for a given region would occur at "N" time, but with a one minute (for example) window when it does where the position can be contested repeatedly during that time. You could also have the one minute clock triggered by a change of delegacy to make it more interesting and to ensure people don't wait until the last second of the window to go in. It would mean you could take and lose the delegacy in a matter of seconds depending on who could rush the place, but it would give those interested in "gameplay" some actual "gameplay," instead of the current state of non-gameplay, gameplay.

I'm not certain if it's a feasible suggestion with regards to the coding for the system, but I thought I'd throw it out there as an idea.

It's actually very similar to a suggestion made by Halcones which I have suggested a way of doing.

[Galiantus]

I would like to see the game evolve in some way to include the third party of the R&D game. Without them (the nations in the regions under attack / defence) there would be no game. I hope they have a good representation at the summit. I have to wonder if given the chance to opt out of the R&D game altogether how many founderless regions would do that. Right now the only options to those players are to refound or move. Refounding involves risk and forces natives to take action in response to constant threats. Moving is also a somewhat forced action as it is due to the threat of invasions. Both of those in my opinion are forced upon Civilians as a responsive action to the R&D game. Something they already do not want to take part in but are forced to take one of three evils.
Stay and be invaded / defended constantly
Risk trying to refound
Give up and move.
Ideal would be a fourth option made open to them.

One idea I have seen discussed in the past was the possibility of making re-founding more smooth, but more costly. Essentially, in a PCR if the delegate had enough influence, and the founder was dead, they could press a button and *poof*, the old delegate would become the founder. No moving in and out of the region, no passwording. That was the simple idea. I would like to expand it in the realm of Gameplay.

A refound should be extremely hard, not only with the amount of influence required, but possibly through other costs. For example, refounding could take time, just like with embassies. Perhaps during that time the region would have to be unlocked, or perhaps the delegate would simultaniously resign the WA when he/she pressed the "Refound" button. Maybe the delegate would have to choose another member of the region to be the next delegate. Maybe in order to go through a refound the founder must have CTE'd more than a month ago.

I might also suggest a possible regional control function which simply does not allow WA nations to enter the region. Of course, doing so would cost a lot of influence, but it would prevent update raids, to a certain extent, effectively secluding the region from them.

A more extreme version of this could be decided by the founder: at the founding of a region, the founder could determine if the region was a part of the WA or not, banning the WA delegate position from even existing. Nations within the region could join the WA if they like, but would never gain control of the region. When the founder CTEd, the region would collapse, sending all the members of the region to the rejected realms, and allowing the region to be hawked by anyone who wants it. Maybe if there were enough WA members in the region, the region could turn into a "Peacezone", an idea discussed elsewhere in this forum. Even if the founder came back, he would never gain control of that region ever again. In this way, regions could opt out of invasions: at a very high expense.

[Crazy girl]

You already complain that too often the same regions are invaded. What is the cause of this? Too few targets. What would your suggestions do? Create even less targets. So either more regions get hit over and over and....yeah, or there are so few targets left that invading is killed off. As for Space, I've seen it raided since 2003/4, and it's still around. You worry too much.

[Xanthal]

You already complain that too often the same regions are invaded. What is the cause of this? Too few targets. What would your suggestions do? Create even less targets. So either more regions get hit over and over and....yeah, or there are so few targets left that invading is killed off. As for Space, I've seen it raided since 2003/4, and it's still around. You worry too much.

It's my job to worry. As Delegate, I'm the closest thing SPACE has to a keeper. Every time I see a region abused by raiders, I see what could happen to my region. Whether it does happen or not is beside the point, because Founderless regions must live with the ever-present possibility that it can. Furthermore, as an aside, just because SPACE remains untouched doesn't mean when I see other Founderless regions being damaged I feel no sense of solidarity or responsibility to advocate for them. This is an issue that affects us all. The problem that language used by players like Crazy girl and Gest lays bare is that natives are not regarded by people focused on the R&D game as stakeholders so much as bystanders who ought to just deal with the crap heaped on them by others and shut up or go away. If Crazy girl is worried that helping them will drive them out of the playing field, I encourage him/her to imagine what ignoring them has done.

I think it bears remembering also that, from a purely gameplay point of view, any good game should pair high risk with high reward and low risk with low reward. Natives in Founderless regions have a great deal more to lose in an encounter with R&D than either raiders or defenders do. If a raid fails, oh well, find another target tomorrow or even yet tonight, and try again when you've switched WA nations. The natives get nothing except one more day of the status quo. If defenders fail to protect a region the cost of their failure is borne by the natives of that region. In other words, the worst case scenario for both raiders and defenders leaves them no worse off than they were before, but if they succeed they gain prestige, influence (note the lower case), and in the case of raiders (and those jingoistic "defenders" who use their position to become kingmakers) concrete power. For natives, the best case is that we live another day free in our own regions. Natives are the players who put up the greatest stakes, yet they can never really win. There is something perverse in this state of affairs that speaks to the lack of attention paid them in designing the R&D game.

[Crazy girl]

I realise you want a way to protect your region, and I am more than interested to hear a solution that will help natives AND not damage the R/D game...and which does not make us having to define natives again. But so far I have seen no suggestions which take into account all sides of this.

Also, her. I'd think the name was clear enough

[Mallorea and Riva]

-snip-

How about you do some recruiting and get some more endorsements? Don't act like there's nothing you can do to protect your region.

[Xanthal]

Also, her. I'd think the name was clear enough :lol:

One never knows on the internet. :P

How about you do some recruiting and get some more endorsements? Don't act like there's nothing you can do to protect your region.

I have been over this in my preceding posts, you know.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Also, her. I'd think the name was clear enough

One never knows on the internet.

How about you do some recruiting and get some more endorsements? Don't act like there's nothing you can do to protect your region.

I have been over this in my preceding posts, you know.

I saw it. You're employing flawed logic. Simply because getting more WAs doesn't totally eliminate the risk of raids doesn't mean that it isn't a logical step to take. You're a founderless region. You exist in an anarchic international system, and you lack the stability of foundered regions. It's a part of the game.

[Sichuan Pepper]

You already complain that too often the same regions are invaded. What is the cause of this? Too few targets. What would your suggestions do? Create even less targets. So either more regions get hit over and over and....yeah, or there are so few targets left that invading is killed off. As for Space, I've seen it raided since 2003/4, and it's still around. You worry too much.

Currently there are 96 pages of founderless regions. Too few targets? I do not think so.

[Xanthal]

I realise you want a way to protect your region, and I am more than interested to hear a solution that will help natives AND not damage the R/D game...and which does not make us having to define natives again. But so far I have seen no suggestions which take into account all sides of this.

This bears examining in more detail, in two stages. The first, if achieving greater native security at no cost to the R&D game is possible, that should indeed be the first avenue of exploration. However, making no negative consequences to R&D a prerequisite is an explicit acknowledgement that natives are second-class citizens when it comes to game design: a majority that is to be accommodated only when it does not inconvenience the privileged minority. I am not the one to say whether or not that is appropriate, but all those making the decisions should grasp this reality if that is the approach they choose.

The second is something I am probably underqualified for, having a very loose grasp of computer science and coding, and consequently the relative difficulty of implementing various solutions. If all that is being asked initially is for a starting point, however, how about this? Simple residency is an insufficient marker, since the cost to a raider or defender of keeping a sleeper puppet in a region is low. However, since each individual is allowed only one WA nation, the cost of keeping a WA nation stationary for a long period of time is high for someone who wants to spend their time raiding or defending. If we are looking for a way for code to identify unassailable "natives," then, I would thus highlight nations which have been WA members in a region for a very long period of time; say six months. Now immediately there are problems with that which require caveats, and I would not advocate it as a stand-alone criterion, but bear in mind this is only a starting point for what must become a much more detailed discussion with input from many more players.

You're employing flawed logic. Simply because getting more WAs doesn't totally eliminate the risk of raids doesn't mean that it isn't a logical step to take. You're a founderless region. You exist in an anarchic international system, and you lack the stability of foundered regions. It's a part of the game.

The argument isn't that it doesn't totally eliminate risk, the argument is that beyond a very low threshold each additional Endorsement does very little to increase security at all. It's a function of relative increases. Small raiding organizations may have solo ambitions thwarted by five, six, or seven endorsements, but when you have eight how much harder does ten make things? Or fifteen? Raiders do not choose targets just because they are convenient. If that were true, they would just raid Founderless regions with no, one, or two WA members. They want big prizes; raids that they can sell as an accomplishment. In fact, they regularly band together to achieve whatever numbers are sufficient to do so regardless of the target. Endorsements are indeed part of the game, but they are an exceptionally weak barrier against successful raids. There are ways this could be changed- perhaps if Endorsements from nations with higher Influence were weighted more heavily in Delegate voting just as an off-the-cuff example- but as things stand proposing that gathering more Endorsements, within the limits of reason that must be applied to such a quest, can prevent more raids rings about as true in practice as suggesting that one could better protect a network already protected by ten firewalls if only more firewalls were added. The law of diminishing returns applies here in force.

[Crazy girl]

You already complain that too often the same regions are invaded. What is the cause of this? Too few targets. What would your suggestions do? Create even less targets. So either more regions get hit over and over and....yeah, or there are so few targets left that invading is killed off. As for Space, I've seen it raided since 2003/4, and it's still around. You worry too much.

Currently there are 96 pages of founderless regions. Too few targets? I do not think so.

And how many of them make proper invasion targets? As in, not so big that they're impossible to invade, not with only 1 nation in them, not passworded.....

[Mallorea and Riva]

The second is something I am probably underqualified for, having a very loose grasp of computer science and coding, and consequently the relative difficulty of implementing various solutions. If all that is being asked initially is for a starting point, however, how about this? Simple residency is an insufficient marker, since the cost to a raider or defender of keeping a sleeper puppet in a region is low. However, since each individual is allowed only one WA nation, the cost of keeping a WA nation stationary for a long period of time is high for someone who wants to spend their time raiding or defending. If we are looking for a way for code to identify unassailable "natives," then, I would thus highlight nations which have been WA members in a region for a very long period of time; say six months. Now immediately there are problems with that which require caveats, and I would not advocate it as a stand-alone criterion, but bear in mind this is only a starting point for what must become a much more detailed discussion with input from many more players.

We did this. It's called influence.

You're employing flawed logic. Simply because getting more WAs doesn't totally eliminate the risk of raids doesn't mean that it isn't a logical step to take. You're a founderless region. You exist in an anarchic international system, and you lack the stability of foundered regions. It's a part of the game.

The argument isn't that it doesn't totally eliminate risk, the argument is that beyond a very low threshold each additional Endorsement does very little to increase security at all. It's a function of relative increases. Small raiding organizations may have solo ambitions thwarted by five, six, or seven endorsements, but when you have eight how much harder does ten make things? Or fifteen? Raiders do not choose targets just because they are convenient. If that were true, they would just raid Founderless regions with no, one, or two WA members. They want big prizes; raids that they can sell as an accomplishment. In fact, they regularly band together to achieve whatever numbers are sufficient to do so regardless of the target. Endorsements are indeed part of the game, but they are an exceptionally weak barrier against successful raids. There are ways this could be changed- perhaps if Endorsements from nations with higher Influence were weighted more heavily in Delegate voting just as an off-the-cuff example- but as things stand proposing that gathering more Endorsements, within the limits of reason that must be applied to such a quest, can prevent more raids rings about as true in practice as suggesting that one could better protect a network already protected by ten firewalls if only more firewalls were added. The law of diminishing returns applies here in force.

Diminishing returns don't begin to take effect until you get a huge number of endorsements. At that point it requires a large effort on raiders' part to get the raid organized and set (capitalist paradise).

[Wopruthien]

Currently there are 96 pages of founderless regions. Too few targets? I do not think so.

And how many of them make proper invasion targets? As in, not so big that they're impossible to invade, not with only 1 nation in them, not passworded.....

I've been working on getting that figure, but last count I did was a few days ago so will likely now be inaccurate. There is roughly 1436 founderless regions. Of which 279 are held by a single nation (which as demonstrated by TBR are more than viable targets), of those passworded about one in three, roughly I haven't gotten a complete list of that yet but it is being worked on, the that fractions drops further in slightly larger regions. As for too big to be invaded, I estimate about 12, taking into account regions like Capitalist Paradise have been invaded etc. That counts for the GCRs and one or two historical off limits regions.

I estimate there is around 1000 targets but I'm still working on gaining a more accurate tally.

[Riemstagrad]

...

We did this. It's called influence.

all endorsements still count as one, regardless of the influence of the endorser.

...

Diminishing returns don't begin to take effect until you get a huge number of endorsements. At that point it requires a large effort on raiders' part to get the raid organized and set (capitalist paradise).

it requires someone to put a WA nation in the region and start swapping. your argument proves that recruiting for more WA's isn't a good strategy to create a safer region.
many regions, like Belgium, draw players from a RL-country. recruiting makes not much sense for us anyway.

besides, we don't care too much about being invaded, we care about the damage done to the region and about not being able to do something about it or to retaliate.

[Galiantus]

The more I hear about this, the more I think that Founderless regions inherently don't matter. With a foundered region, one can always point to the founder and say "owner of the region". No question. Otherwise the natural course of things is that whoever becomes delegate of the region controls the region, but no one really owns it. But I don't think raiding is okay, so where do I stand?

I would place myself as an Extreme Neautral in the R/D game. I view inactive founders with contempt. I think founderless regions need to be refounded. In my mind, all power rests with the founder, and founderless regions are a problem that need to be solved. But I don't think changing game mechanics is the solution. I think players are the solution.

What I would like to set up some time is an organization to refound founderless regions for the natives, and recycle the founderless nativeless regions. At this point I do not think there needs to be a major change to the game, but to the players participating in that game. There may be a few things to tweak, but as a general rule I have decided to oppose most of the proposed changes.

[Xanthal]

We did this. It's called influence.

Influence as implemented has been insufficient to stop invaders from griefing natives. I am talking about building on that system or alongside it.

Diminishing returns don't begin to take effect until you get a huge number of endorsements. At that point it requires a large effort on raiders' part to get the raid organized and set (capitalist paradise).

I agree in principle with Riemstagrad's reply to this. I don't accept the argument that a native's failing to have enough Endorsements to stop any given raid ought to give the raiders license to do whatever they want with the region. See my previous posts.

The more I hear about this, the more I think that Founderless regions inherently don't matter. With a foundered region, one can always point to the founder and say "owner of the region". No question. Otherwise the natural course of things is that whoever becomes delegate of the region controls the region, but no one really owns it. But I don't think raiding is okay, so where do I stand?

I would place myself as an Extreme Neautral in the R/D game. I view inactive founders with contempt. I think founderless regions need to be refounded. In my mind, all power rests with the founder, and founderless regions are a problem that need to be solved. But I don't think changing game mechanics is the solution. I think players are the solution.

What I would like to set up some time is an organization to refound founderless regions for the natives, and recycle the founderless nativeless regions. At this point I do not think there needs to be a major change to the game, but to the players participating in that game. There may be a few things to tweak, but as a general rule I have decided to oppose most of the proposed changes.

I'm not fully convinced that forcing all regions to adopt a Founder or be subject to endless, boundless harassment is the way to go even from a strictly native point of view, but I'll admit it is certainly one solution. However, as Crazy girl correctly pointed out, the way regional controls are currently structured you're almost certainly going to shrink the pool of regions available for raiders to raid if you make Refounding easier- either through player action or gameplay changes.

The question I'm trying to put on the table isn't whether or not Founderless regions are getting screwed in the R&D game- I believe they are, and I've tried to make the case from several angles that they are, and those who still believe they're not will have no interest in taking up the issue of how to fix a problem they say doesn't exist. I could no doubt talk in circles with my opponents for a jolly long time about whether or not natives should have any recourse once a raider Delegate is seated, but that would be a distraction from the question that must follow if the matter is to be addressed in an upcoming summit: what, if anything, should be done?

Whether it is the Founder or the Delegate of a Founderless region, whoever sits in the chair has the ability- from a game mechanics standpoint- to do anything they want. The only changes reform made to this system is that Influence can make them wait somewhat longer to fully execute the most radical of policies, and the Security Council has replaced the moderators as the arbiter of fair play but with far fewer tools at its disposal. The effect is that when that chair is occupied by a "wrong" person, it is often impossible to check their power or dislodge them without calling in the Security Council and an army of defenders. Raiders thus malign the Security Council's Liberation process for being a tool of defenders, which is true insofar as it's often the natives who are compelled to use it when they might well prefer not to have involved more outsiders in the first place, but had no other option.

Without gutting the existing system, I see two ways to address this. The first would be, as some others have already suggested, allowing Founders to permanently limit the Delegate's access to specific regional controls. Imagine, for example, a region where nobody has or can have the power to password the region or ban other players, even if the Founder has CTE. The second is a way to unseat an entrenched raider from within a region; perhaps a weighted vote based on regional Influence that would install a Delegate for a single WA update cycle even if they had fewer Endorsements than the sitting Delegate. Either idea has the potential to work on its own, and depending on how they were designed and implemented, both systems could even exist in parallel. I suspect, however, that both would require significant alterations and additions to the game code, particularly the second. That said, we are playing the long game here; even once the summit ends (if it does indeed happen), nothing is going to change overnight.

[Galiantus]

Giving founderless regions tools of their own to fight back is not a bad idea. Perhaps natives could spend their influence to fight back in some way. Maybe natives could use influence to temporarily do things like remove the password, make their endorsement count more, or make it cost influence for the delegate to change the WFE and flag, or cancel embassies. Maybe natives could band together to eject nations with significantly less influence than them, in the same way a WAD could. I definitely agree that natives need more tools to fight off invaders on their own.

[Mallorea and Riva]

We did this. It's called influence.

Influence as implemented has been insufficient to stop invaders from griefing natives. I am talking about building on that system or alongside it.

Your assumption that raiders should be entirely prevented from being able to grief is where you went wrong there.

Diminishing returns don't begin to take effect until you get a huge number of endorsements. At that point it requires a large effort on raiders' part to get the raid organized and set (capitalist paradise).

I agree in principle with Riemstagrad's reply to this. I don't accept the argument that a native's failing to have enough Endorsements to stop any given raid ought to give the raiders license to do whatever they want with the region. See my previous posts.

It doesn't. There is influence. I saw your previous posts. Founderless natives have a larger burden to bear. They're founderless. It's a part of how the entire system works.

[Eist]

Founderless natives have a larger burden to bear. They're founderless. It's a part of how the entire system works.

Yes, we get it; there should be some additional penalty for the founder essentially ditching their region. You keep coming back to this, but what we are trying to ascertain is how much burden is too much burden. Personally, I think that given the current raiding climate it's far too much.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Founderless natives have a larger burden to bear. They're founderless. It's a part of how the entire system works.

Yes, we get it; there should be some additional penalty for the founder essentially ditching their region. You keep coming back to this, but what we are trying to ascertain is how much burden is too much burden. Personally, I think that given the current raiding climate it's far too much.

The burden is that the Delegate gets all regional controls and is limited solely by influence. There is no reason to give them additional protection that does not exist in other regions. That having been said if this is just the current climate then isn't it likely to change? Making any change to the game in regards to this issue itself rather pointless?

[Mousebumples]

This maybe should belong in its own thread, but given the on-going discussion here regarding founder-less regions, it sorta fits here, I think.

What about adding a feature that would allow WA Delegates to become the "founder" of a founder-less region - with a particular "time served" minimum as WA Delegate.

For example, the Delegate would need to have been serving (continuously) for over a year - or perhaps longer. (I don't know how many founder-less regions that particular time frame would impact.) I'd think that a 4-day "transition period" - similar to embassies - would also be appropriate here. Although, I'd argue that - unlike embassies - the "Delegate/Founder" transition cannot be undone. (Unless the Delegate/Founder CTEs and is eventually replaced through the same process.)

My understanding is that most regions change delegates semi-frequently - which is totally fine. However, for some regions - especially founderless ones - there are those Delegates that pretty much take the region under their wing and really "run" the region.

Plus, having this "time frame" could add a different incentive to the R/D game:

• Defenders wanting to "protect" the region when the 1 year period is approach and during the 4-day window. This would be an opportunity for non-updaters to participate in the R/D game by helping founderless regions gain a founder.
• Raiders keeping an eye on the clock and which regions have Delegate/Founder transitions underway. I'd think that by seizing the delegacy - even if they don't plan to hold it long term - would be quite the motivational carrot. After all, resetting the Delegates "clock" would leave the region founder-less for at least an additional year.
• There's even potential for non-updating raiders to participate, if they can conceal themselves as "sleepers" within the region in question. If they are the first few endos for the (sleeper) raider-planned Delegate, they would perhaps go unnoticed (if clean puppets) and could offer the few extra endos needed to bring the raiders to the required endo level to succeed.
• Possible re-ordering of "incentives." I know I don't do the R/D thing, but I would think that this might shift the attention of raiders - to some extent - beyond the quantity of tag raids to seeing how many of these refoundings they can prevent/interrupt.

I'm sure there's plenty I'm missing (as I said before: I don't really do the R/D thing myself), but this seems like a possible option to allow regions to protect themselves if they have a designated "leader" of a region that is merely unfortunate enough to have lost their founder.

(On a personal R/D note, this is a feature that I would have loved to have had when Monkey Island was raided 3½ years ago. Prior to the raid, I had been Delegate of my region for about 5 years - continuously. Our founder CTEd maybe a year or so prior to when we were raided, and while we were able to refound and come out the other side, I know that not all regions are successful in their attempts to accomplish the same.)

[Mallorea and Riva]

This was also suggested previously, although I believe they wanted it as a function of the WA to appoint a founder. That was a horrific idea. This idea is interesting, but I have some concerns. What if the old founder comes back? What advantage or positive benefit would this give to the raiding side of the game? Wouldn't this just encourage some regions to lock themselves down for a year in the hopes of getting a founder, essentially removing targets from the game entirely (a game over scenario, just like raiders used to be able accomplish before the Liberation category was created)?

[Mousebumples]

This was also suggested previously, although I believe they wanted it as a function of the WA to appoint a founder. That was a horrific idea. This idea is interesting, but I have some concerns. What if the old founder comes back? What advantage or positive benefit would this give to the raiding side of the game? Wouldn't this just encourage some regions to lock themselves down for a year in the hopes of getting a founder, essentially removing targets from the game entirely (a game over scenario, just like raiders used to be able accomplish before the Liberation category was created)?

I'd agree that a WA/SC function to appoint a founder is ... ridiculous. It's not even close to being an "even-handed" tool that could be used by both sides. While I'm sure we can all agree that Libs are used most frequently by Defenders, there's potential for Raider exploitation of the tool. All that a Refound SC option would do is remove targets, as you said.

I would think that there would/could be some restrictions - i.e. if the region is passworded, the tick-box in the Admin Panel would be inactivated. And the region could not/should not be passworded during the transition phase, for the sake of fairness. I would think that the CTE founder should get an email (provided they have an email address on file for the nation) of the impending Refounding. If they resurrect their nation before the Transition Process is complete, the Transition process could/should automatically abort. (After all, the region isn't founderless any longer.) Should the founder CTE again in the future, the Delegate could repeat the process, etc., etc.

I suppose that regions could lock themselves down for a year - in order to get to the "year time period" ... but so long as they were open during the transition phase, I'd figure that would be the most interesting part. And unless things have changed drastically over the past 3 years, there will still be plenty of founderless regions who will probably be clueless as to the fact that FRA/TITO/UDL exist and/or the different options available to them. (Texas was my defender-assistance 3½ years ago, as I had no idea who FRA/TITO/whomever else may have been around then even were there to help regions like mine.)

This could result in some regions "locking down" for an extended period of time, but I think that there would probably still be enough targets to be had. There are currently over 1400 regions that are founderless (per the API), and while I don't know how many of those are passworded, I'd guess it would be less than half - at most. (Anyone should feel free to correct me if they have differing information. That's just a guestimate on my part, based on how many passworded regions I find when doing my WA campaigning.)

Of course, there's also the common argument that I hear from defenders - that passwords mean the death of a region. While that would be a way to ensure that they have the ability to gain a founder without having to go through the refounding process ... What would be left of the region after being passworded for multiple months? Certainly, for a region that has a delegate that's already been in "power" for 11+ months, a short-term lockdown may not be all that bad, but it's definitely a trade-off to think about.

Further, I'm pretty sure I've heard tales of passworded regions still being raided. (Unless they were Tall Tales?) Passwords are a method of protection for a region - but they aren't infallible. It would probably require more subterfuge and trickery on behalf of the raiders, but I'd almost wonder if that might be an interesting challenge for you all.

EDIT: One of the reasons I thought of this idea is because I know that admins have "granted founderships" before. Granted, I think that was more to offer that option to nations who were created before founders even existed, but I know - for example - that Texas has a founder for this region. I want to say that there's a thread somewhere in this forum on that topic, but I'll admit to being too lazy to hunt it down right now. I don't know what the criteria were then, but it seems like another wrinkle that could add some new intrigue to the R/D game.