[Suggestion] Spawn/Respawn in all GCRs

[Cormactopia II]

So, I'm going to propose something that has been proposed before, but has never, as far as I know, had its own dedicated thread.

Right now, we're seeing with the influx from Imgur and Reddit that some regions are benefiting in a disproportionate way. The Feeders (aka the Pacifics) are now all above 10K nations. The Delegate of The North Pacific, Plembobria, is sitting at 1103 endorsements, by far the highest in the game with hundreds more endorsements than the next highest endorsed Delegate. This is creating a serious imbalance that is disadvantaging not only the Sinkers, but also user-created regions. It's getting to a point in which it is prohibitively difficult for even a group of multiple other GCRs and high endorsement UCRs to compete with the massive voting bloc of a single region, The North Pacific, in the World Assembly. There is no reason a single region should wield this much power, particularly when it is receiving this power through a built-in advantage of having nations spawn there.

I propose that all of the GCRs (not including Warzones) receive both spawning and respawning nations. This would hopefully dilute the number of nations the Feeders are receiving, and thus also dilute the endorsement counts of their Delegates, while simultaneously increasing the number of nations in the Sinkers and boosting the endorsement counts of their Delegates.

This would benefit the game in multiple ways. It would make the World Assembly more competitive and would enhance the political dynamics, allowing both other GCRs as well as UCRs to compete and form voting blocs that won't immediately be nullified by a single region's Delegate casting a vote. It would also make the Feeders more politically dynamic by reducing the endorsement counts of their Delegates. GCR influence decay was introduced to make competition for Feeder and Sinker Delegacies more viable, but this endorsement bonanza in the Feeders, and particularly in The North Pacific, is essentially nullifying any effect the GCR influence decay change had in the Feeders.

With the Feeders standing at more than 10K nations, far and away higher than the Sinkers and any UCR, it's clear this is an idea whose time has come. Otherwise we're turning NationStates into a game that revolves around five Feeders while every other region, even large and active regions, plays second fiddle, if it even gets into the band at all.

[Trotterdam]

How would this help anyone except the sinkers? (A group that, I note, you happen to be part of.)

[McMasterdonia]

TNP has been mentioned a lot whenever proposals come up about changing the feeders and sinkers. I think it is concerning because it pushes one narrative that I think is unfair to the many years of work that people have invested in our WA system. While it is true that we receive raw nations just like any feeder or sinker, we do not simply receive more WA's than other feeders and sinkers by virtue of being TNP, because as we all know WA status is not determined at creation of a nation.

TNP's World Assembly numbers are a result of years of ongoing recruitment for the World Assembly and a relatively long history of providing rewards and incentives for nations who are WA members and who endorse every WA nation in our region. While other regions impose harsh endorsement caps, TNP wants to have as many nations with high influence as possible and we send out telegrams every day to new nations encouraging them to join and participate in the World Assembly.

UCR recruitment is one thing, but amongst feeders more specifically it would be possible for all feeders to adopt our system and to see their WA numbers grow. It just depends on whether or not this is a priority for that particular region. Each region is different and I respect that. In TNP, one of our main priorities is the World Assembly and the influence of our nations, this is why so much time is invested in it, which has resulted in our amazingly high number of endorsements. Even if this system was implemented, I would expect that our WA numbers would still remain very high because we would maintain our robust World Assembly recruitment policies.

[Scardino]

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here. This would clearly benefit the so-called sinkers and probably benefit new players but what unintended consequences might this have? Feeders might become somewhat more volatile. Telegram recruiting efforts would have to be spread out more. WA voting power would theoretically become more balanced, with political jockeying becoming increasingly effective. Is that sort of vote wrangling culture desirable? I'm sure there are others but the bourbon is flowing freely tonight.

[Cormactopia II]

How would this help anyone except the sinkers? (A group that, I note, you happen to be part of.)

It would help user-created regions as well by diluting the endorsement counts of the Feeder Delegates, allowing UCR Delegates to better compete in the World Assembly as well. There are UCRs, such as 10000 Islands and Europeia, whose Delegates have far higher endorsement counts than the Sinker Delegates. They too would benefit from diluting the Feeder Delegates' endorsement counts and making the WA more competitive.

I'm not going to pretend this wouldn't advantage the Sinkers. It certainly would. But isn't it better, in terms of political dynamics, to have nine very powerful regions than to have five superpowers, or one super-duper-power? At least then UCRs could actually compete as well, and there would be more involved in winning in the WA than:

Step 1: Convince TNP's Delegate to vote how you want.
Step 2: There isn't a step 2, you win.

I should add that I think this change should also apply to The Rejected Realms, since that wasn't clear in the OP.

<snip>

Well, it isn't just TNP. All the Feeders are now above 10K nations. TNP is certainly the starkest example of the imbalance, though.

While you're right that TNP does more than many regions to encourage WA participation, it's nonetheless true that you have a massive advantage built into the game that only four other regions have. Other regions spend money or significant time and effort to achieve a fraction of the population the game gives you for free, and due to this imbalance, aren't seeing much return for their endeavors. Even with TNP's encouragement of WA participation taken into account, you still have as many nations as you have because they spawn there, and while you may still have the highest endorsed Delegate if this change were implemented, that endorsement count would be less and would allow greater competition.

Certainly TNP's efforts are praiseworthy, but so are the efforts of other regions that work just as hard if not harder.

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here. This would clearly benefit the so-called sinkers and probably benefit new players but what unintended consequences might this have? Feeders might become somewhat more volatile.

This was discussed at length before GCR influence decay was implemented, and the outcome was in favor of making the Feeders and Sinkers more dynamic. I don't know that much has changed since that discussion, except that this new reality of mega-Feeders has replaced the accumulation of influence as the problem that is making the Feeders less dynamic.

Telegram recruiting efforts would have to be spread out more.

With the way recruiting works, I don't think this would be a problem.

1. Stamp recruitment of tag:new would be unaffected. The rate at which nations are created wouldn't change, only their spawning point.
2. Ditto API recruitment of newly created nations.
3. Manual recruitment, if done using the Activity page, would be unaffected as it would still show nations as they're founding.

WA voting power would theoretically become more balanced, with political jockeying becoming increasingly effective. Is that sort of vote wrangling culture desirable? I'm sure there are others but the bourbon is flowing freely tonight.

Wouldn't it be more desirable, in a political simulation game, to have more political jockeying than to simply lobby the Delegate of TNP and maybe one or two other Feeder Delegates to ensure things go your way? It would be a boost to the overall political dynamics of the game and put more regions in play as influential votes in the World Assembly.

[Zaolat II]

I dig the idea.

[Adytus]

I like this idea too!

[Miporin]

I look forward to the Warzones booming in population

[Cormactopia II]

I look forward to the Warzones booming in population

I look forward to you actually reading the original post:

I propose that all of the GCRs (not including Warzones) receive both spawning and respawning nations.

[Trotterdam]

But isn't it better, in terms of political dynamics, to have nine very powerful regions than to have five superpowers, or one super-duper-power?

If you happen to be one of the additional four, sure. Otherwise, there's still just as much not-us power you have to go up against, even if it's spread out more.

I should add that I think this change should also apply to The Rejected Realms, since that wasn't clear in the OP.

All practical effects aside, it seems like a bad idea to me to suggest to new players that they're rejects as soon as they've made their nation.

[Cormactopia II]

But isn't it better, in terms of political dynamics, to have nine very powerful regions than to have five superpowers, or one super-duper-power?

If you happen to be one of the additional four, sure. Otherwise, there's still just as much not-us power you have to go up against, even if it's spread out more.

It would make it easier to compete, though, so that a high endorsement UCR Delegate's vote will matter more, in cooperation with other regions, than it would under current circumstances in which TNP alone has enough endorsements to defeat or cancel out the combined votes of several GCRs.

At present, TNP's Delegate has 423 more endorsements than all the Sinker Delegates combined. Add in Todd McCloud in The East Pacific, currently the lowest endorsed Feeder Delegate, and TNP still has more than these five GCR Delegates combined. Correcting this serious imbalance by diluting TNP's population and thus the endorsement count of its Delegate is clearly going to lead other regions, GCR and UCR alike, to be better able to compete in the WA than is currently the case.

I should add that I think this change should also apply to The Rejected Realms, since that wasn't clear in the OP.

All practical effects aside, it seems like a bad idea to me to suggest to new players that they're rejects as soon as they've made their nation.

This is... a valid point I hadn't really considered. "Welcome to NationStates, you are immediately rejected!"

[Luna Amore]

On the surface this always seems like a good idea to me until I realize that the odds of a RNG correctly throwing a new nation into either
a) an active region
or
b) a region they like
is near impossible.

The feeders serve as good tutorial starting ground. You can spawn and be noticed when you want to be noticed due to the size and fluidity of the population. This as opposed to being dropped in a dead region (the vast majority are) or a hostile region; both options which would likely discourage a new player from sticking around.

[Enfaru]

I support the creation of more feeder regions. It is however my belief that this surge is a blip. Give it two months or so and we can come back and review the situation. If the members are still here and we still have an up tick, then maybe a couple new GCRs would help along with a biased spawning system.

Take the member count of each GCR (Except warzones), rank in order of members by very low, low, medium, high, very high (etcetera) the one with the highest rank gets very low. Enumerate a percentage of chance of spawning.

Thus if a new member joins, it has a 50% chance of spawning in the lowest member count, 26 in the low count, 13 in the medium, 5 in the high, 1 in the very high (or whatever numbers the admin wants). This will serve to correct the balance over time and can be scaled as new GCRs are added.

Though really, it doesn't matter that much to the rest of us so... have at it.

[Imperium Anglorum]

On the surface this always seems like a good idea to me until I realize that the odds of a RNG correctly throwing a new nation into either
a) an active region
or
b) a region they like
is near impossible.

The feeders serve as good tutorial starting ground. You can spawn and be noticed when you want to be noticed due to the size and fluidity of the population. This as opposed to being dropped in a dead region (the vast majority are) or a hostile region; both options which would likely discourage a new player from sticking around.

I don't think he's proposing that nations be spawned (i.e. created and resurrected) in any region. He's just proposing that nations be spawned in all the Feeders and Sinkers.

[Flanderlion]

Would this not remove the uniqueness of the Feeders and Sinkers? TRR would still be unique because it receives ejected nations either way (it deserves the Catcher tag, not having the Sinker one as the functions are so different to the Sinkers), but it seems more like a way to get more nations for sinkers at the expense of what makes the regions themselves special. The only reason the population is so high is due to the coincidence of both an Imgur and Reddit wave within hours.

Splitting the new nations between 5 regions or 8/9 with refounded nations in the same pool would not make a significant difference to the stability/numbers of the Feeders. Boosting the endorsement counts in Sinkers also would increase stability rather than decrease it - which I thought was part of the goal of having influence decay (which is kind of a cool mechanic, means that a long term nation doesn't need to worry about it decreasing their influence, as the influence would expire anyway).

Voting blocs wise, we could say the same about any region with a high endorsement count. Should we break them up or hinder their recruitment because they do a good job? TNP despite IC differences does a good job of retaining their WA's, and why should they be punished for it? Nationstates has always been a game that revolves around the GCRs, with UCRs as interesting diversions.

[Luna Amore]

On the surface this always seems like a good idea to me until I realize that the odds of a RNG correctly throwing a new nation into either
a) an active region
or
b) a region they like
is near impossible.

The feeders serve as good tutorial starting ground. You can spawn and be noticed when you want to be noticed due to the size and fluidity of the population. This as opposed to being dropped in a dead region (the vast majority are) or a hostile region; both options which would likely discourage a new player from sticking around.

I don't think he's proposing that nations be spawned (i.e. created and resurrected) in any region. He's just proposing that nations be spawned in all the Feeders and Sinkers.

Ah, misread.

[Cormactopia II]

Would this not remove the uniqueness of the Feeders and Sinkers? TRR would still be unique because it receives ejected nations either way (it deserves the Catcher tag, not having the Sinker one as the functions are so different to the Sinkers), but it seems more like a way to get more nations for sinkers at the expense of what makes the regions themselves special. The only reason the population is so high is due to the coincidence of both an Imgur and Reddit wave within hours.

While this sounds like a nice thought, as a Sinkerite who has spent the bulk of my gameplay in a Sinker, let me be blunt: There is nothing special about the Sinkers as a class of regions. There may be something special about each individual Sinker, but it has nothing to do with it being a Sinker. Most of the nations that respawn in Sinkers never get active in the Sinker community. While you can also say that's true of the Feeders, with some validity, there are nonetheless many more newly created nations that become active in Feeder communities than there are respawned nations that become active in Sinker communities.

Players who revive their nations are more likely than not to revive them and either move them immediately to an intended destination -- e.g., their previous region -- or to just let them sit and never log in again. Some answer issues and keep their nations alive exclusively for that purpose. Few get involved. That's the reality of the Sinkers and it's true of all three. The community of Osiris is almost entirely comprised of existing gameplayers that came from elsewhere in NationStates, not from respawning in Osiris, and that is also true of the communities of Lazarus and Balder.

Personally, as a Sinkerite, I would rather the Sinkers lose some of their relatively meaningless uniqueness if it would improve the overall political dynamics of the game.

Splitting the new nations between 5 regions or 8/9 with refounded nations in the same pool would not make a significant difference to the stability/numbers of the Feeders. Boosting the endorsement counts in Sinkers also would increase stability rather than decrease it - which I thought was part of the goal of having influence decay (which is kind of a cool mechanic, means that a long term nation doesn't need to worry about it decreasing their influence, as the influence would expire anyway).

The goal of influence decay was to make all of the GCRs more dynamic and competitive, not just the Sinkers. This has failed in the Feeders, at the expense of the Sinkers to a great degree.

Voting blocs wise, we could say the same about any region with a high endorsement count. Should we break them up or hinder their recruitment because they do a good job? TNP despite IC differences does a good job of retaining their WA's, and why should they be punished for it? Nationstates has always been a game that revolves around the GCRs, with UCRs as interesting diversions.

The difference is that the Feeders don't receive their population from any effort, they receive nations as a built-in advantage. That's always going to be the case, but this advantage has become so oversized that it has now created an imbalance that is making the Feeders the only regions really relevant to gameplay, particularly in regard to the WA. That is having a negative impact on both the Sinkers and user-created regions.

You're simply wrong that NationStates has always been a game that has revolved around GCRs. There have been years long stretches in which GCRs were not terribly relevant to gameplay. I'm not saying we should make Feeders irrelevant, but certainly there should be more of a balance, or what is even the point of user-created regions? Or the Sinkers? All regions should be able to participate in all aspects of NationStates in a meaningful, relevant way. The game should not revolve almost entirely around five regions with built-in advantages that are allowing them to dominate the game. When game mechanics create a situation in which there is an imbalance in favor of raiders or defenders at the expense of the other, or at the expense of natives, admins try to correct the imbalance. The same should happen here.

[Luxdonia]

Full support for this proposal. I am of course biased as a government official in two sinkers and a former one in another.

By allowing the feeders to grow bloated for no other reason then their special status in the game, admin is effectively creating an undynamic and boring game. Shouldn't 10000 Islands and Europeia, two regions renowned for their integration and WA development, be rewarded with increased voting power in the World Assembly then a feeder Delegate who has to do very little in order to receive a high endorsement count?

In terms of new nations spawning in all GCRs (excluding Warzones), I believe this would be extremely beneficial in increasing the player retention rate. Instead of being introduced to the five Pacifics with their similar regional themes, new nations will instead by introduced to regions such as the Egyptian themed Osiris, the Nordic themed Balder, and the Imperial China (I believe?) themed Lazarus. This will be much more exciting then just turning up in a feeder and will do much to greatly encourage them to stick around and enjoy NationStates.

~Gradea~

[Sedgistan]

I agree with the problem, but not the solution you've suggested. It's good to have GCRs be fairly significant, so they're something to compete over, but not so significant that they make building up your own region seem pointless or ridiculously hard, nor should they dominate gameplay. They should also be relatively unstable, so their leaders have to work to retain control - this ensures they need to reach out to get new nations involved if they want to stay in power. At their current size and endorsement levels, the feeders are looking far too big and far too stable.

I don't believe the answer is to share this out a little with 4 other GCRs. Across the 9 of them, you'd be looking at an average of 9,000 nations, which is still far too many, plus you've got some 40-45% of nations concentrated in GCRs. The alternative of creating more GCRs also doesn't dilute their overall influence. I accept that they may be more fractious as a group if you have more of them, which would reduce their influence, but that's far from certain.

The idea I like, which we've tossed around behind the scenes for a while now, is having some new nations founded in certain UCRs. This would have to be an opt-in thing, and with certain requirement (e.g. minimum size, no password). It should be possible to tweak the percentages to get feeders down to an optimum size, while rewarding active UCRs with a small population boost.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

I'm pretty sure I proposed this once, but only as part of a wider idea to drastically increase the number of GCRs to something where a really big coalition of updaters (think 60-80 WAs) could actually capture them. Bit tricky to make that happen if you can't guarantee the number of nations in any region, though.

[Flanderlion]

Would this not remove the uniqueness of the Feeders and Sinkers? TRR would still be unique because it receives ejected nations either way (it deserves the Catcher tag, not having the Sinker one as the functions are so different to the Sinkers), but it seems more like a way to get more nations for sinkers at the expense of what makes the regions themselves special. The only reason the population is so high is due to the coincidence of both an Imgur and Reddit wave within hours.

While this sounds like a nice thought, as a Sinkerite who has spent the bulk of my gameplay in a Sinker, let me be blunt: There is nothing special about the Sinkers as a class of regions. There may be something special about each individual Sinker, but it has nothing to do with it being a Sinker. Most of the nations that respawn in Sinkers never get active in the Sinker community. While you can also say that's true of the Feeders, with some validity, there are nonetheless many more newly created nations that become active in Feeder communities than there are respawned nations that become active in Sinker communities.

Players who revive their nations are more likely than not to revive them and either move them immediately to an intended destination -- e.g., their previous region -- or to just let them sit and never log in again. Some answer issues and keep their nations alive exclusively for that purpose. Few get involved. That's the reality of the Sinkers and it's true of all three. The community of Osiris is almost entirely comprised of existing gameplayers that came from elsewhere in NationStates, not from respawning in Osiris, and that is also true of the communities of Lazarus and Balder.

Personally, as a Sinkerite, I would rather the Sinkers lose some of their relatively meaningless uniqueness if it would improve the overall political dynamics of the game.

Agreed on the compositions of Osiris and Balder communities, don't touch Lazarus so not too sure. Also agree about most new nations in Sinkers either being inactive, or leaving straight away. Disagree on that there is nothing special about Sinkers as a class of regions. Sinkers are special/unique because nations are refounded in them, they do not CTE, etc. I don't want to see them as exactly the same as Feeders. I personally as a non-government member, just a resident, of a Feeder, don't care if a small portion of the new nations in addition to refounded go to Sinkers so that refounded nations get into an active community, although that is more government. Imagine Sinkers as a UCR with recruitment etc. for the community, just the nation number and WA count is increased.

Splitting the new nations between 5 regions or 8/9 with refounded nations in the same pool would not make a significant difference to the stability/numbers of the Feeders. Boosting the endorsement counts in Sinkers also would increase stability rather than decrease it - which I thought was part of the goal of having influence decay (which is kind of a cool mechanic, means that a long term nation doesn't need to worry about it decreasing their influence, as the influence would expire anyway).

The goal of influence decay was to make all of the GCRs more dynamic and competitive, not just the Sinkers. This has failed in the Feeders, at the expense of the Sinkers to a great degree.

At the expense of Sinkers? I don't think it succeeded at shaking up everything as intended, but I didn't think of it as detrimental either. It's not a bad thing that a nation in TNP etc. can't just keep adding on influence.

Voting blocs wise, we could say the same about any region with a high endorsement count. Should we break them up or hinder their recruitment because they do a good job? TNP despite IC differences does a good job of retaining their WA's, and why should they be punished for it? Nationstates has always been a game that revolves around the GCRs, with UCRs as interesting diversions.

The difference is that the Feeders don't receive their population from any effort, they receive nations as a built-in advantage. That's always going to be the case, but this advantage has become so oversized that it has now created an imbalance that is making the Feeders the only regions really relevant to gameplay, particularly in regard to the WA. That is having a negative impact on both the Sinkers and user-created regions.

http://www.thenorthpacific.org/world_wa_counts.html - I was going to show this for perspective, but the GCR (including Sinkers and warzones) percentage of the pie has grown significantly since I looked at it - I believe it changed within the last few days due to the large groups of new nations. btw. thank you Elu for this tool when you backlog this. Over a quarter of WA's are in GCRs.

You're simply wrong that NationStates has always been a game that has revolved around GCRs. There have been years long stretches in which GCRs were not terribly relevant to gameplay. I'm not saying we should make Feeders irrelevant, but certainly there should be more of a balance, or what is even the point of user-created regions? Or the Sinkers? All regions should be able to participate in all aspects of NationStates in a meaningful, relevant way. The game should not revolve almost entirely around five regions with built-in advantages that are allowing them to dominate the game. When game mechanics create a situation in which there is an imbalance in favor of raiders or defenders at the expense of the other, or at the expense of natives, admins try to correct the imbalance. The same should happen here.

I should have added a 'for me' in the revolves around. There is RP, issues, general etc. all which don't care that GCRs exist or not. I think we'll be disagreed with that, but I'm not going to convince you that the game doesn't revolve around the 15 regions that actually matter (people pretend it is only 9), and you aren't going to convince me, so I'll move on.

Personally, as non representative of anyone:
I don't want Feeders to stop being unique/made exactly the same as Sinkers. Feeders are the top tier GCRs, Sinkers/TRR are the mid tier ones, and Warzones are the bottom tier ones, but still ones.
I don't care if Sinkers get a small portion of new nations and the Feeders get a little less (obviously Sinkers would get less because they still get refounded nations), it won't dramatically change things for a Feeder if they get a 3/18 or 2/13 chance of having a new nation spawn there as opposed to a 1/5 chance (there has been controversy over the exact percentage each Feeder gets, but the data wasn't exactly conclusive when I looked).
TRR should remain the same, and lose the Sinker tag, and be called a Catcher (or something else, but this is the name others came up with before I think). They are completely different, they shouldn't be in the same category.
Also, I think having 12/13k nations in the region is too much. 10k is about right, but when it starts getting over 11k it's a ton harder to manage.

I'm guessing Ale, and some of the other Feeder government have fairly different views on this - but they can and likely will speak for themselves. I'd be surprised if TEP/TSP haven't seen the thread yet, and I know the other three have. Rehashing this, I'm not representing any of them, just me as a player.

As I'm posting this, I can see Gradea's and Sedge's posts.

Gradea's doesn't really add anything new, except maybe the themes thing - but that's a non-starter and I'm not even going to bother typing out something for that.

Sedge's: Seems ripe for abuse - also if regions like NE or the Internationale, or raider regions/defender regions etc. qualify, will new nations be able to be founded in regions like those? I'm against, so far, as I have been every time I've seen the idea. If a region gets new nations founded in their region - they should lose both Founder powers permanently, and have GCR type influence. And having 80 updaters being able to take the region sounds far to small imo. as Ava was suggesting.

Again, and no matter how many times I say this, I'll still get someone misunderstanding the post, I'm representing myself only in this.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I support this.

I would suggest leaving TRR it's own deal though. That's a truly unique dynamic that can stay that way.

What is true though is that, as is, sinkers receive both far less nations, and nations far more likely to move out (I'd put money on a bet that i higher percentage of nations are revived with the intention to move out into the world than nations are created to - in part because revived nations have some grasp of the concepts of the game, where new nations may not even discover *how* to leave their feeder for weeks).

While Sedge brings up good points, I think this is a good balance between both sides. Luna mentioned some of the drawbacks to UCR founding, and it's also a far more radical change. There's been decent resistance to creating new GCR's. As is, you've got issues with voting blocks and what many would consider too much stability. Making all Pacifics and the three traditional "sinkers" all have both types of founding would even the playing field some over time without as drastic of a change.

I like that it'd over time even out the voting blocs some - large clusters of votes will always exist, but this would mean several more to attempt to win over. I like that it'd potentially make some of the titans less titan-like. I find it interesting that Sedge supports something I'd like to see - GCR's being in a competitive range. I'd think it'd be in the interests of the Game to have, as a whole, GCR's be mainly stable, so that new players aren't often brought into direct and ejection-heavy conflict. However, as a Raider, I'd definitely support them being at a potentially combative level - we saw with Osiris this year, even the leader of a sinker who is proposing this very concept was able to hold his seat after pissing off the majority of military regions in the game. However, the backlash to making things more competitive may mean nothing changes - if every GCR regime has to enforce an endocap of ten to ensure their safety, they no doubt will do so without hesitation.If you really want to shake up GCR's, Sedge, I feel you'll need to think more outside the box - something akin to built in term limit (evade-able with puppets I suppose), randomly appointed delegates, making nations spawn in warzones to make holding one actually valuable, or who knows what else. Merely lowering the general endorsement count will only cause the enforced caps to lower, creating no effective military difference as long as the raw count is still prohibitively high to military operations (40+ or so, unless, say, a military region was able to acquire a feeder and use it to grow their force )

Pipe dreams aside, though, I think this would be a non-extreme step in the right direction. Hell, they're even on the same feed - https://www.nationstates.net/page=activ ... r=founding seperated only by two letters.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Sedge's: Seems ripe for abuse - also if regions like NE or the Internationale, or raider regions/defender regions etc. qualify, will new nations be able to be founded in regions like those? I'm against, so far, as I have been every time I've seen the idea. If a region gets new nations founded in their region - they should lose both Founder powers permanently, and have GCR type influence. And having 80 updaters being able to take the region sounds far to small imo. as Ava was suggesting.

Looking at the existing state of things, while no existing feeder is purely raider-defender focused, You've got one (osiris) that is has a solidly raider military, two (Lazarus and TRR) that have solidly defender ones, and the rest that have some degree of activity play both sides to a degree, but on the general level heavily restrict offensive actions while having no restrictions on defender-oriented actions. If your issue is less with them spawning into an area of a certain alignment and more with the concept of them founding into a region focused on military GP, I'd question why you're considering founding into a GP-focused region any less valid than founding into a WA-focused region, an RP-focused region, a government-focused region, or any other type of region. Theoretically, any one of those (NSRight, Raiding, etc) could control a GCR, should they get a foothold there.

[General Knot]

The idea I like, which we've tossed around behind the scenes for a while now, is having some new nations founded in certain UCRs. This would have to be an opt-in thing, and with certain requirement (e.g. minimum size, no password). It should be possible to tweak the percentages to get feeders down to an optimum size, while rewarding active UCRs with a small population boost.

An interesting concept, so bumping for visibility. Would it be difficult, technical-wise, to implement such a change?

[Wordy]

Easiest solution would be either
A. Wait and see
B. Create more feeders.

Honestly while it would be nice for UCR's to capture some spawned nations it would give select regions an advantage. If it were elder regions with no founder I would say fair enough.