As some of you may already know, I recently developed an advanced influence calculator, combining a year's worth of research and data and several formulas into a single tool, which is not yet publicly available. Inspired partly by The North Pacific's concept of "endorsement saturation", found here, I have since altered my influence calculator to also calculate game mechanics concerning World Assembly Endorsements, including endorsement saturation. My other motive was the next change to game mechanics, "Delegate Elect", which also will affect game mechanics based on the World Assembly Endorsements and will need to be easily calculated.
Endorsement saturation, for those who don't know, is the total number of endorsements swapped in a region divided by the total number of endorsement swaps possible, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. This is seen as a method of keeping a region secure by allowing many nations to reach endorsement levels that increase their influence enough to force the delegate to need to spend most or all of his/her influence to eject one of the nations; meaning that a rouge delegate could easily be overrun, resulting in minimal to no damage to the region. This is a different way of thinking from those that enforce low endorsement caps, in which the idea is to give all power to the delegate to ban and eject any nation, and to easily password protect the region, while making it difficult for foreign threats to overcome the delegate.
Endorsement saturation may become more pivotal when Regional Officers is implemented. Should the officers need to be World Assembly members in order to gain enough influence to use or keep the region secure, it would be important to know how to keep your region secure from either a rouge Delegate or officer, and foreign threats. Hence a balance of endorsements must be achieved, thus I have coined the term "endorsement balance".
Endorsement balance takes into account two different percentages of a region's endorsements: endorsement saturation and what I like to call "endorsement productivity", which is simply how many WA nations are endorsing the WA Delegate divided by the total WA members in the region, also recorded as a percent (the remaining percent is considered "unused resources" or "potential resources", and the region's delegate is producing influence at full potential if all of its WA members are endorsing him or her). Endorsement balance is calculated by adding both percentages (Endo sat and Endo pro) and dividing by 2 to get an average. This percent is the region's endorsement balance.
Regions with very high or very low endorsement balance outside of the safe zone (below) are more prone to crippling or damaging raids (low) or internal and government issues (high).
(Yes, it was necessary to show a visual.
)The safe zone begins at 45% and ends at 85%, as determined by research, leaving a 40% safe zone to move around in, with 60% split on either end.
A region cannot have 100% endorsement saturation without 100% endorsement productivity, and cannot have 100% endorsement productivity without some endorsement saturation. Therefore having 100% of each gives you a 100% endorsement balance, which is well above the safe zone and can lead to constant delegate changes and difficulty to maintain control of the region. Having 100% endorsement productivity, and low saturation, as seen in military occupations and in regions with low endorsement caps, gives you at least 50% endorsement balance, and is well within the safe zone. This safe zone, of course, applies to regions that have executive delegacy enabled.
Now, let's take a look at these regions I analyzed just after last update. They will be listed as shown in each graph, ordered by region size to remain consistent. The regions are the Association of Imperialism, The Republic Nations, The Union, and The World Alliance, listed as AoI, The RN, The Union, and World Alliance.
I would like to focus mainly on the middle two regions; AoI and World Alliance is there for comparison purposes. Also, assume that these regions are founderless if they aren't already.
Cast your vote now! Which region do you think would be harder to occupy should the founder not be present? The answer may surprise you.
First, let's look at the number of WA nations each region has in relation to each other.
As one may be able to determine, the amount of WA nations in each region is not proportional to the total population when comparing the regions:
(# of WA nations divided by total region population, as a percentage)
With this in mind, we can see how efficient each region is in producing endorsements on their delegate.
The World Alliance has reached 70% of their endorsement (output) potential, with only 30% of their resources not being used towards their region's defense. In comparison, we can see that The Republic Nations is using only 22.2% of their potential, which when comparing with the Association of Imperialism (who has only a few more WA nations), is very low. 78% of their resources are not being used to defend their region, as endorsing the delegate is neither encouraged nor mandatory. Now, time to compare with endorsement saturation:
As a note, low percentages are expected for endorsement saturation, especially in regions with endorsement caps; however that is not to say that lower percentages are necessarily the best for that region.
The World Alliance seems to take the lead in both endorsement productivity and endorsement saturation. In addition, they have 1 more WA nation than The Union, of which only have 10 out of 80 nations.
The lowest endorsement saturation goes to The Republic Nations, most likely due to the fact that endorsing anyone is not encouraged nor compulsory, and the low endorsement productivity the region produces. The Association of Imperialism has 5.16%, due to enforcing a static endorsement cap that does not adjust with the region's "endorsement inflation", or the increase of endorsements on the delegate over time. The concept is similar to real world economics; minimum wage must be adjusted over time as inflation rises. In this case, the "pay" is regional influence, "purchased" by endorsements.
No surprises here. AoI has a higher amount of WA nations, and therefore more regional influence. However, if you compared The World Alliance to similar sized regions with a lower endorsement saturation, you'd notice that The World Alliance has a significant advantage in total regional influence. The higher endorsement saturation is, the faster the total regional influence rises, leading to inflation, in which it is significantly harder to raid the region... if the region is in the "safe zone" for endorsement balance.
And now the truth is revealed. The only region in the safe zone is The World Alliance. This means that if the founder were to cease to exist, it would be harder to raid that region than those outside of the safe zone. Yes, The World Alliance clearly has less endorsements on their delegate, but they also have large reserves of influence spread out amongst their members, and enjoy a 70% endorsement productivity. If a nation became delegate of the Association of Imperialism after elections, with such a low endorsement saturation and Endo cap, if the founder were to CTE removing the delegate would be near impossible. In fact, the delegate has 78 SPDR, while the second most in the region is 19 SPDR. The delegate could wait until the end of his or her term and reign terror on the region, significantly damaging or even destroying it, with or without a founder. AoI could easily get to the safe zone by increasing the endorsement cap, or simply adjusting it for inflation by keeping it at 15%-20% of the delegate's endorsements. This would ensure that it could not be raided as easily as it's former incarnation, the Coalition of Freedom, who had the same endorsement cap and population size.
In conclusion, the higher a region's total SPDR, the more secure the region is, if proper adjustments are made to stay within the safe zone. Each region needs to properly adjust for influence and endorsement inflation, to maintain a proper endorsement balance to ensure that the region is as secure and efficient as possible. In the end, if you enjoy a large enough military force, each of these regions are just as easy to raid; however those that are prepared for an invasion can easily use internal and external aid alike to easily take back their region should it be raided, leading to a more secure founderless region that takes more effort to both raid and destroy.
I would appreciate any relevant questions, comments, criticism, or advice.
