Military Gameplay and Game Mechanics - A Primer

[Northern Chittowa]

Maybe every region that doesn't have a Founder should be given one, with that role automatically assigned either to the nation that's been present there for longest or according to some formula that also takes activity levels into account?

I think that would cause more problems than solve, as the issue over who is a native would pop up again. Indeed, the person who may be granted founder status may be the most inactive member, caring only for answering his issues et al rather than helping the region in which it resides. If that was the case, the region in question would be back to square one.

[New South Hell]

Maybe every region that doesn't have a Founder should be given one, with that role automatically assigned either to the nation that's been present there for longest or according to some formula that also takes activity levels into account?

What I would suggest is that there be a way that a Founder can designate a successor. This would help a lot with the active region whose founder just loses interest. If there was such a (quite optional) procedure, I think many Founders who noticed themselves beginning to get bored with the game would still care enough about their region to think about the possibility that they might choose to drop out someday. There's an analogy to the fact that young people generally don't have wills, but when their life circumstances start making death something they can envision, however dimly, in their future, people are motivated to write one.

[Havensky]

My name is King Drake of the Skybound Republic of Havensky - and as a long-time Defender and former commander. I'd like to take a moment to express the motivations of a Defender Nation as I don't think they've been adequately expressed. I'd also like to address some of the suggestion about merging some of the World Assembly and Gameplay functions.

Way back when the NSverse was young, the act of invasion was a much more violent affair. Entire regions would get wiped out through greifing - which is why we had all the greifing rules brought in and so far. Invaders would also taunt the regions they were invading and try to exert their will on the region.

For pure defender regions, the core principal has always been regions should be able to play the game the way they see fit. (Or at least, that has always been the philosophy that my comrades adhere to). In order to accomplish this, each defender region formed it's own military to help stop the invaders by endorsing the native delegate. This has not changed much with the introduction of influence. While some mechanics have changed, we still fly out in the dead of night to stop the hostile take over of native regions by invader groups. I don't think the introduction of influence killed the game for defenders. It just became less of a high-stakes game.

Influence, for better or worse, does support the principal of "people should be able to play their regions and nations how they see fit" because it limits what a successful invader can actually do. We arn't facing situations where everyone gets kicked off if the invaders win.

But, it's a double-edge sword because it's harder to liberate a region. But hey, The Game Giveth and the Game Taketh Away.

So, if all invasions suddenly stopped instantaneously - then I'm a happy camper. But, that's not the way human nature works.

There are always going to be players who choose to try and mess with everyone. Just like they will always be nations around to stop them.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this type of game play is fun and it's what attracts some people to stay involved on our off-site forum. I genuinely enjoy stopping invaders in their tracks. Which is why the idea of the World Assembly getting involved worries me slightly.

Now, I'm into political debate and have no problem discussing policy positions and the merits of resolutions. However, that's my political side kicking in. The defender/invading game is an entirely different beast all together. It's much more of a military operation than a political one because you have a group of players trying to influence a region - by force.

I think it's unrealistic to say that just because the WA wants to liberate a region that it happens. (Even if the game mechanics allowed it). As much as I'd like a way to liberate a region that had been invaded though a WA vote - I have to consider the inverse of the situation. What if a group of invaders tried to use the WA to overthrow a region through a 'liberation' vote? Liberations and Invasions are the same thing as far as the code is concerned. (Player A has more endorsements that Player B so Player A is the Delegate). The difference is motive and timing. (Liberators giving the region back to the natives) If you allow liberation resolutions than wouldn't you by definition have to allow the inverse to happen?

How weird would it be to have the WA deciding the fate of regions? How could one defend against that? Yes, we could lobby our case - but I don't see how that debate would be much different than the greifing debates of old. Personally, I'd rather just fight it out - but then again, I'm an old soldier.

Submitted with best regards,
King Drake of Havensky

[Yes, this post has a very strong pro-defender view - I admit it]

[Naivetry]

My name is King Drake of the Skybound Republic of Havensky - and as a long-time Defender and former commander. I'd like to take a moment to express the motivations of a Defender Nation as I don't think they've been adequately expressed. I'd also like to address some of the suggestion about merging some of the World Assembly and Gameplay functions.

Welcome to the discussion, Havensky.

Influence, for better or worse, does support the principal of "people should be able to play their regions and nations how they see fit" because it limits what a successful invader can actually do. We arn't facing situations where everyone gets kicked off if the invaders win.

Look again. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1806

Now, I'm into political debate and have no problem discussing policy positions and the merits of resolutions. However, that's my political side kicking in. The defender/invading game is an entirely different beast all together. It's much more of a military operation than a political one because you have a group of players trying to influence a region - by force.

The game of interregional politics, however, is predicated on the possibility of military action. Internal regional politics aren't, but those are dreadfully boring in comparison.

I think it's unrealistic to say that just because the WA wants to liberate a region that it happens.

I also do not support the idea of a liberation resolution <EDIT> like the one Unibot proposed, where the current delegate is simply replaced </EDIT>. We already have a mechanic to liberate regions, and that is through military action. What I do want, very badly, is the ability to do things we cannot do now - like remove password protection from a region where a raider delegate has locked everyone out. <EDIT> That sort of Liberation resolution would, in fact, be ideal - it solves one problem while adding political complexity and increasing the benefits of cooperation and diplomacy.</EDIT>

[Naivetry]

Maybe every region that doesn't have a Founder should be given one, with that role automatically assigned either to the nation that's been present there for longest or according to some formula that also takes activity levels into account?

What I would suggest is that there be a way that a Founder can designate a successor. This would help a lot with the active region whose founder just loses interest. If there was such a (quite optional) procedure, I think many Founders who noticed themselves beginning to get bored with the game would still care enough about their region to think about the possibility that they might choose to drop out someday. There's an analogy to the fact that young people generally don't have wills, but when their life circumstances start making death something they can envision, however dimly, in their future, people are motivated to write one.

There is a very easy way to do this - you can simply hand over the Founder nation to someone else by giving them the password. As long as the Founder is not in the WA, there should be no problems.

This is what Equilism has done for some time now. Equility, our Founder, left the game years ago. Westwind held his nation through most of our history. Now that Westwind has retired, Chaucerin controls it.

[Melitae-Bylanti]

I have discovered this game some years ago, and I've been playing for quite some time, but I hardly ever posted anything before.* I understand that founders have all the right to manage regions they control as they want to; I just cannot see how infiltrating regions with trojan-horses designed to accumulate regional-influence can be condoned. I mean, if regional-influence was designed to remove the complicated greifing regulations, isn't placing countries in target-regions to accumulate influence just a means of getting round these same regulations?

As in, I don't really see how the following example would be beneficial to gameplay:

A region trying to restart or maintain a community feeling.
A trojan-horse country (i.e. malevolent 'influence' native), enters and accumulates influence.
It waits for that specific time when just enough benevolent 'real' natives have gone inactive.
It takes control & ejects everyone else.
Password protects.
The community dies off.

And to target regions which never were active in the 'invading/defending' branch of NS gaming is (in my opinion) doubly offensive. . .
Yes, I must say that the developments in Belgium are a bit worrying.

I understand that the mods are fed up with the issue of influence/invading etc etc., and that they probably see it the whole thing as part of the game, it's just that I really do think that such events as those in Belgium do more harm than good to the game, that's all. I hope I haven't irked the almighty


*Recently I've posted some stuff through another country of mine though. . .

[Havensky]

I think you missesd my point about the dangers of the inverse effect. If you give players the ability to unlock a region so it may be liberated - then you are also giving the abilty to unlock a region for invasion

[Melitae-Bylanti]

For regions which do not want invasions etc. :
Couldn't there be some kind of tacit agreement between the mods and the delegates that certain regions are not active in terms of invasion? Maybe adding a phrase to the world factbook or something - that way defenseless settler-regions would be made out of bounds. There would also be no game code rewrites needed. Of course, delegates could still change the status of regions to 'open' for invasion by updating the factbook entry. (Maybe changes here would require a 2/3 majority vote, policed/checked by the mods in forum-threads?)

For regions which are active in invasions etc. :

If you give players the ability to unlock a region so it may be liberated - then you are also giving the abilty to unlock a region for invasion

Yeah, unlocking regions for liberation would also allow them to be unlocked for invasion - could the unlocking be somehow linked to the level of influence a country has? That way, if complete strangers wish to change the password they would not be able to, because they would not have influence in that region. If there is a country ejected from a region by invaders or about to be, and it has a lot of influence in that region, it could be allowed to remove the password - that way the defending parties would be on the same level as the invading ones.

[Northern Chittowa]

I think you missesd my point about the dangers of the inverse effect. If you give players the ability to unlock a region so it may be liberated - then you are also giving the abilty to unlock a region for invasion

Well yes, it could do, however i think it would lead to an era of tactical voting on those sort of things. The invaders will be caring more about their political delegate endorsements and the like, banding together to get enough votes to remove a PW, while the same will be said for the defenders who would be doing the same thing.

i dont think it would be something to fear, but more to embrace as it would add a new political element to the invasion game.

[Mayor For Life]

As [violet] suggested, splitting the WA into a legislative and "security council" part would be more appropriate.

I've thought up some of the potential Security Council's Proposal Categories - just to start up conversation really.

...snip...
Expansion of Democracy
A resolution to declutch the hands of despotism from our world.

(Disempowering a particular founder)

Why would this ever benefit any player except to exact revenge or be used to perform a WA sanctioned region decapitation? Every nation in a UCR has feet - all they have to do to bring a region to its knees is leave. I have watched two regions - friends of Ulthar - collapse entirely and CTE in the last 6 months.

Founders do something unique and essential to the future of success of NS: they create regions. They succeed if what they create has appeal, attracts nations new and old, and contributes to the game. If they're jerks or their region lacks the energy and appeal that makes it grow, their region languishes because their nations leave.

I renew my objection to the use of language of "democracy" and "despotism" with regard to UCRs as laden with the RL pejorative connotations of governmental legitimacy that may be used to imply:

(a) judgments we do not apply to NS nation founders
(b) the notion that a region is a political entity which has more or less legitimacy (or passes a political "smell test") based on organizational type

...perhaps what I mean by that last phrase is "whether or not it can be raided."

A very powerful raiding tool I have seen to turn large regions into ghost towns is to attack founder character from within, create incentives for inactivity, engage in a program of morale-busting events, puppet population bombing (OK, it's technically a rule violation but largely unenforceable - I ejected a nation yesterday for being a puppet bomb - it CTE'd in less that 24 hours - but the rule references "large numbers" "to annoy" and not one or two CTEs a week indefinitely - which still CAN affect morale in smaller UCRs unless properly handled: think about it 50 nations watching 100+ CTEs a year), and every other technique that makes a place unattractive from garbage on the RMB, RH, WFE to outright vandalism of off site forum. The raiding game didn't die with influence, part of it turned into a set of tactics mods can't restrict.

I am not here to ask for anyone to make my job as UCR founder easier. I do reject the language that suggests my region is despotic (because that suggests illegitimacy IRL) or the suggestion that UCR success is because we sit back, fat and sassy, and hide behind influence as an impenetrable wall against attack and raiders have their hands tied by my Regional Controls.

This is not an attack of Unibot's general post, which had merit. It is to say, hey - if we say raiding is part of the game and is good for it - what's so funny about saying peace, love, and understanding is also good for the game?

[Severance]

I don't Defenders should be offered any more help than currently. It's already absurdly easy to stop any invasion, just have an active founder.

[Bears Armed]

I don't Defenders should be offered any more help than currently. It's already absurdly easy to stop any invasion, just have an active founder.

Which simply isn't possible if the region in which one had had a nation for years and to which one is emotionally attached was created before Founders were introduced into the game; you know, regions like 'France' or 'Belgium' for example...

[Naivetry]

I have discovered this game some years ago, and I've been playing for quite some time, but I hardly ever posted anything before.* I understand that founders have all the right to manage regions they control as they want to; I just cannot see how infiltrating regions with trojan-horses designed to accumulate regional-influence can be condoned.

It can't be condoned. But because of Influence, it is. That's what we've been trying to point out as a huge flaw in the way the Influence system currently works.

For regions which do not want invasions etc. :
Couldn't there be some kind of tacit agreement between the mods and the delegates that certain regions are not active in terms of invasion? Maybe adding a phrase to the world factbook or something - that way defenseless settler-regions would be made out of bounds. There would also be no game code rewrites needed. Of course, delegates could still change the status of regions to 'open' for invasion by updating the factbook entry. (Maybe changes here would require a 2/3 majority vote, policed/checked by the mods in forum-threads?)

No one wants to be invaded. It's like asking to be beaten over the head with a baseball bat. I tried to make that clear in section D. of the original post. The way you opt out of the raiding game is to have an active Founder.

I like Ballotonia's suggestion, actually. It's preferable to what we have now. Yes, it would mean founderless regions could be annoyed at will. But they could never again be destroyed at will, which, call me naive, I somehow feel is worse.

If you give players the ability to unlock a region so it may be liberated - then you are also giving the abilty to unlock a region for invasion

But think about how this would work:

1) Most of NS is biased against raiding, because most of NS consists of casual or non-military players. A proposal to remove a password would have to make a very good case that the password had been unjustly instituted and was detrimental to the health of the native community in order to attract large numbers of votes. I really don't foresee anyone but a small minority of raiders voting for the removal of a password under any other circumstances.

2) Even if raiders mobilized to control a larger portion of the WA than I think they are capable of, the moment someone posted a WA proposal to unlock a region, all and sundry would know that they intended to invade it, and could prepare accordingly. Defenders could move in with the permission of the natives to bolster the delegate - and there are still far more players who can be called on to defend a region than there are raiders.

Expansion of Democracy
A resolution to declutch the hands of despotism from our world.

(Disempowering a particular founder)

Why would this ever benefit any player except to exact revenge or be used to perform a WA sanctioned region decapitation?

For cases in which a raider has ejected all the natives, then refounded the region. See, for instance, the following examples:

Albania
Andorra
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium (in progress)
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Burma
Chad
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Eritrea
Estonia
Finland
France (not yet refounded, but it's just a matter of time)
Hungary
Jordan
Kyrgyzstan
Libya
Lithuania
Mali
Malta
Mauritania
Moldova
Nepal
Niger
Nigeria
Pakistan (not yet refounded)
Persia
Serbia
Slovenia
Sri Lanka
Tajikistan
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Venezuela
Yemen

A very powerful raiding tool I have seen to turn large regions into ghost towns is to attack founder character from within, create incentives for inactivity, engage in a program of morale-busting events, puppet population bombing (OK, it's technically a rule violation but largely unenforceable - I ejected a nation yesterday for being a puppet bomb - it CTE'd in less that 24 hours - but the rule references "large numbers" "to annoy" and not one or two CTEs a week indefinitely - which still CAN affect morale in smaller UCRs unless properly handled: think about it 50 nations watching 100+ CTEs a year), and every other technique that makes a place unattractive from garbage on the RMB, RH, WFE to outright vandalism of off site forum. The raiding game didn't die with influence, part of it turned into a set of tactics mods can't restrict.

That's not raiding, and I know of no one who makes it their policy to do the things you are describing, except maybe "The Enclave," who need to be taken down in RL for InvisionFree ToS violations. If you see it happening deliberately, in organized manner, I call that griefing, and I would say it ought to be a reportable and deletable offense.

In my experience, 1-2 CTEs a week indefinitely are just part of the normal background noise of the game.

[Unibot]

This is not an attack of Unibot's general post, which had merit. It is to say, hey - if we say raiding is part of the game and is good for it - what's so funny about saying peace, love, and understanding is also good for the game?

Though I think you'll find many international insitutions attempt to expand their power, and if removing founders who stand in the way of their delegates having power is their way of doing it - I suppose I could see it happening under the umbrella of 'expanding democracy'. I based those proposal categories off actions of the real Security Council.

That being said, I reviewed that proposal category in question when Yelda brought it up earlier in this thread. It would be metagaming for the WA to attempt to control founders, who are outside of the sphere of the WA's power. So that suggestion was based in misguideness anyway.

Nai brings up a good point though.

[Mayor For Life]

Expansion of Democracy
A resolution to declutch the hands of despotism from our world.

(Disempowering a particular founder)

Why would this ever benefit any player except to exact revenge or be used to perform a WA sanctioned region decapitation?

For cases in which a raider has ejected all the natives, then refounded the region. See, for instance, the following examples:
...snipped...[/quote]

.. OK, mea culpa, point taken. Just know that obvious examples neglect the problem that there is little clarity as to who a "native" is - and when they cry for freedom, how one will determine they aren't pimping the WA.

A very powerful raiding tool I have seen to turn large regions into ghost towns is to attack founder character from within, create incentives for inactivity, engage in a program of morale-busting events, puppet population bombing (OK, it's technically a rule violation but largely unenforceable - I ejected a nation yesterday for being a puppet bomb - it CTE'd in less that 24 hours - but the rule references "large numbers" "to annoy" and not one or two CTEs a week indefinitely - which still CAN affect morale in smaller UCRs unless properly handled: think about it - 50 nations watching 100+ CTEs a year), and every other technique that makes a place unattractive from garbage on the RMB, RH, WFE to outright vandalism of off site forum. The raiding game didn't die with influence, part of it turned into a set of tactics mods can't restrict.

That's not raiding, and I know of no one who makes it their policy to do the things you are describing, except maybe "The Enclave," who need to be taken down in RL for InvisionFree ToS violations. If you see it happening deliberately, in organized manner, I call that griefing, and I would say it ought to be a reportable and deletable offense.

In my experience, 1-2 CTEs a week indefinitely are just part of the normal background noise of the game.

"I know of no one who makes it their policy to do the things you are describing?" I know dozens.

Not everyone is on InvisionFree. NS mods can't enforce NS rules on off site forums. Pretty hard to accuse someone of RL defamation when their only known identity is a NS nation. Imagine that conversation: so, uhm, your only public identity is Mayor for Life and someone has made disparaging remarks about you or suggested you have a substance abuse problem on one of our free boards and you want us to do what exactly to make them stop? Makes me look like a looney - and more than baseline.

Every nation I have ejected from Ulthar I did so because the nation was created, moved in, played less than half a dozen issues and was left there to die. 100% of them CTE'd within a day and 100% of them remain dead. It's an intentional act to spam the RH with the stink of failure. We have a forum graveyard for nations who contribute then leave the game - there is a distinct and obvious difference between the "tissue paper" littering of comatose puppets and playing a nation, then losing interest in the game and moving on.

My own experience is thusfar trivial. Other nations in my region saw this in large scale in a UCR over two months last year - when 5 to 9 new nations CTE'd almost every day until a region with over 250 nations had lost over 50% of it's "inhabitants." All the while folks on the RMB posted "OMG!" and "Are we dying?" While nations moved in and out of the vandal region so it's name with constantly on the RH.

A friend of a friend was in a region known as one of the "feared" NS raider regions recently and posted on their RMB was a specific prohibition against this conduct - by the nation in charge of the military of the above mentioned vandal region at the time. Because it works. Today that 250+ nation region has less than 20 nations, a 2 month old "ad" for other regions (including the one that trashed it) on its RMB. By a nation that cannot be punished because it CTE'd.

No one can prove who perpetrates this - so it is mod-unenforceable vandalism. It's a small annoyance to me - like a mosquito: in itself even one is inconsequential but darn near impossible to ignore. In great numbers, they are a plague.

[Naivetry]

"I know of no one who makes it their policy to do the things you are describing?" I know dozens.

Not everyone is on InvisionFree. NS mods can't enforce NS rules on off site forums. Pretty hard to accuse someone of RL defamation when their only known identity is a NS nation. Imagine that conversation: so, uhm, your only public identity is Mayor for Life and someone has made disparaging remarks about you or suggested you have a substance abuse problem on one of our free boards and you want us to do what exactly to make them stop? Makes me look like a looney - and more than baseline.

That can be addressed through moderator/admin action, though. You simply state that flaming other people is not allowed, and those who engage in such activities will have their accounts moderated or locked.

Every nation I have ejected from Ulthar I did so because the nation was created, moved in, played less than half a dozen issues and was left there to die. 100% of them CTE'd within a day and 100% of them remain dead. It's an intentional act to spam the RH with the stink of failure. We have a forum graveyard for nations who contribute then leave the game - there is a distinct and obvious difference between the "tissue paper" littering of comatose puppets and playing a nation, then losing interest in the game and moving on.

I really believe this is just part of the normal cycle of the game. Casual players find the site, answer a few issues because they're mildly interested, and then forget about their nation completely when it doesn't flash or make noises or tell them the week's winning lottery numbers.

My own experience is thusfar trivial. Other nations in my region saw this in large scale in a UCR over two months last year - when 5 to 9 new nations CTE'd almost every day until a region with over 250 nations had lost over 50% of it's "inhabitants." All the while folks on the RMB posted "OMG!" and "Are we dying?" While nations moved in and out of the vandal region so it's name with constantly on the RH.

Griefing, imo - not the nations CTE-ing, that's a fairly normal rate of death for a large region - but the movement in and out of the region. I would report this to moderation in a heartbeat. Mods should be able to track the nations and see if they're all puppets of the players of another region. (The same tools that allow them to investigate multis I would think should allow them to investigate this...)

A friend of a friend was in a region known as one of the "feared" NS raider regions recently and posted on their RMB was a specific prohibition against this conduct - by the nation in charge of the military of the above mentioned vandal region at the time. Because it works. Today that 250+ nation region has less than 20 nations, a 2 month old "ad" for other regions (including the one that trashed it) on its RMB. By a nation that cannot be punished because it CTE'd.

Could you post a link? Examples are best when concrete.

[Mayor For Life]

..snip.. NS mods can't enforce NS rules on off site forums. Pretty hard to accuse someone of RL defamation when their only known identity is a NS nation. Imagine that conversation: so, uhm, your only public identity is Mayor for Life and someone has made disparaging remarks about you or suggested you have a substance abuse problem on one of our free boards and you want us to do what exactly to make them stop? Makes me look like a looney - and more than baseline.

That can be addressed through moderator/admin action, though. You simply state that flaming other people is not allowed, and those who engage in such activities will have their accounts moderated or locked.

I have seen statements on the Jolt Forum by mods stating they will not enforce NS rules in off site forums. And I don't expect them to do so. If I need to be educated otherwise, please let me know. This wasn't flagrant flaming - it's innuendo and threads where a faux forum member - which obviously is meant to imply the actual NS player is there - is posting things that are overly personal, childish, and in sum amount to character assassination.

Every nation I have ejected from Ulthar I did so because the nation was created, moved in, played less than half a dozen issues and was left there to die. 100% of them CTE'd within a day and 100% of them remain dead. It's an intentional act to spam the RH with the stink of failure. We have a forum graveyard for nations who contribute then leave the game - there is a distinct and obvious difference between the "tissue paper" littering of comatose puppets and playing a nation, then losing interest in the game and moving on.

I really believe this is just part of the normal cycle of the game. Casual players find the site, answer a few issues because they're mildly interested, and then forget about their nation completely when it doesn't flash or make noises or tell them the week's winning lottery numbers.

I agree that happens. But I also had a nation move in 4 self identified puppets and abandon them and his/her WA nation in another region, leaving no one to punish. The player returned almost immediately to NS under a new thinly veiled guise - almost identical name, same vocabulary, habits, and haunts. I'm not saying this is something mods can stop or that I want them to even try - but I am pointing out that "the raider game is dead" argument ignores what I consider raiding by vandalism. All the "new" nation has to do is point to it's freshly minted hotmail or yahoo email account and profess they are innocent and have no idea who the old nation founder was. And I'm a paranoid looney.

My own experience is thusfar trivial. Other nations in my region saw this in large scale in a UCR over two months last year - when 5 to 9 new nations CTE'd almost every day until a region with over 250 nations had lost over 50% of it's "inhabitants." All the while folks on the RMB posted "OMG!" and "Are we dying?" While nations moved in and out of the vandal region so it's name with constantly on the RH.

Griefing, imo - not the nations CTE-ing, that's a fairly normal rate of death for a large region - but the movement in and out of the region. I would report this to moderation in a heartbeat. Mods should be able to track the nations and see if they're all puppets of the players of another region. (The same tools that allow them to investigate multis I would think should allow them to investigate this...)

Disagree. A large region does not drop 50% of it's nations in less than 60 days. I could create 100 puppets in a month - or 500 in 5 months - and dump them anywhere I like and never be identified. So could 5 players with access to two or more computers (one at home - one at school or library). I won't discuss multying detection because I'm a server geek with access to multiple workstations in multiple locations. The less said about subverting it the better. Let's just say NS security is good but not bullet proof. Doesn't need to be.

...snip... Today that 250+ nation region has less than 20 nations ...snip...

Could you post a link? Examples are best when concrete.

They are, but not to that region. There are people quite proud of that accomplishment, and the region they trashed similarly before that, and display every indication of bearing grudges for years - including posting in an off site wiki a chilling RP nuclear holocaust of the region. Much of what they did is "within' the rules - befriending and gaining the trust of the Founder, offering to take on the onerous task of forum administration (and eventually deleting about 90% of it), and making promises then breaking them.

Combine that with apparently sincere concerns about the region's stability repeatedly posted on the RMB, apparently innocent but obvious frequent movements on the RH that act like advertising, and a big old fashioned population bomb - and one doesn't need influence to drive nations away.

[Naivetry]

I have seen statements on the Jolt Forum by mods stating they will not enforce NS rules in off site forums. And I don't expect them to do so. If I need to be educated otherwise, please let me know. This wasn't flagrant flaming - it's innuendo and threads where a faux forum member - which obviously is meant to imply the actual NS player is there - is posting things that are overly personal, childish, and in sum amount to character assassination.

I meant your off-site forum's admin team could do it. Root admin gets to make the rules, in conjunction with the rest of the people who make the forum their home... in Equilism, we have community support behind a long tradition of forum etiquette, and people who break that etiquette are warned. If they don't cut it out, further steps are taken. We keep forum administration and moderation separate from our roles and personas in the game, because everyone deserves to have a civil place to debate, discuss, and hang out. If you get warned in Equilism, it's because you broke the rules that govern polite behavior, which include not attacking another player's character. For younger regions without an established forum tradition that may be harder to enforce, but IMO an active and professional admin team that can deal with such troublemakers is essential to the survival of a community.

I agree that happens. But I also had a nation move in 4 self identified puppets and abandon them and his/her WA nation in another region, leaving no one to punish. The player returned almost immediately to NS under a new thinly veiled guise - almost identical name, same vocabulary, habits, and haunts. I'm not saying this is something mods can stop or that I want them to even try - but I am pointing out that "the raider game is dead" argument ignores what I consider raiding by vandalism. All the "new" nation has to do is point to it's freshly minted hotmail or yahoo email account and profess they are innocent and have no idea who the old nation founder was. And I'm a paranoid looney.

It's not a game if it's one-sided. And it's not raiding, because raiding, whatever its other faults, is not conducted in order to destroy a community. Real raiders don't want to kill regions, because that leaves them nothing to control and nothing to brag about. This is in no way related to the real military game or any of its participants. It's region vandalism, it's purely destructive, and there's no excuse for it. You may not want the mods to stop it, but I do.

Disagree. A large region does not drop 50% of it's nations in less than 60 days. I could create 100 puppets in a month - or 500 in 5 months - and dump them anywhere I like and never be identified. So could 5 players with access to two or more computers (one at home - one at school or library). I won't discuss multying detection because I'm a server geek with access to multiple workstations in multiple locations. The less said about subverting it the better. Let's just say NS security is good but not bullet proof. Doesn't need to be.

Quite true, but the likelihood that region vandals are going to such lengths with non-WA puppets seems awfully small to me. If I were them, I'd assume no one would bother investigating unless I tried to join the WA. After all, you can have as many non-WA puppets as you like. I would by all means ask the mods to investigate, and if this sort of thing is what's going on, it should be illegal, and if making it illegal forces vandals to work harder, that's much better than letting them get away with it completely.

EDIT2: It also depends on how quickly that large region grew to be that size. If most of its nations were recruited within a 4-6 month span, and if during that time the region fails to retain new players' interest by getting them to be active on a forum somewhere, then the normal entropy will take its toll. In the particular case you're citing, this does not seem to be what happened because of the extenuating circumstances on the RMB/RH, but it takes a hugely dedicated recruitment team to maintain a population of 250, just to combat the normal rate of CTEs - and that's been the case for as long as I've been in the game.

EDIT1:

They are, but not to that region. There are people quite proud of that accomplishment, and the region they trashed similarly before that, and display every indication of bearing grudges for years - including posting in an off site wiki a chilling RP nuclear holocaust of the region. Much of what they did is "within' the rules - befriending and gaining the trust of the Founder, offering to take on the onerous task of forum administration (and eventually deleting about 90% of it), and making promises then breaking them.

Could you let me know who these region vandals are in private? This is something the gameplay community would like to know about so we can take steps to deal with it. We have in-game treaties prohibiting forum destruction and similar sorts of behavior, and we will take steps to make sure these people get shut down even if the mods don't.

[Crazy girl]

My name is King Drake of the Skybound Republic of Havensky - and as a long-time Defender and former commander. I'd like to take a moment to express the motivations of a Defender Nation as I don't think they've been adequately expressed.

What is your main nation then?

[Defaultia-10]

I also do not support the idea of a liberation resolution. We already have a mechanic to liberate regions, and that is through military action. What I do want, very badly, is the ability to do things we cannot do now - like remove password protection from a region where a raider delegate has locked everyone out.

I thought that's what Liberation resolutions were--a vote to remove password protection.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

I also do not support the idea of a liberation resolution. We already have a mechanic to liberate regions, and that is through military action. What I do want, very badly, is the ability to do things we cannot do now - like remove password protection from a region where a raider delegate has locked everyone out.

I thought that's what Liberation resolutions were--a vote to remove password protection.

Naivetry is against the kind of "Liberation" resolution where the delegate is removed from power.

[Unibot]

Naivetry is against the kind of "Liberation" resolution where the delegate is removed from power

Ah, that suggestion. Yes, it was a pointless category, I apologise. ('Administrative Reform')

The actual "Liberation" category was a neat idea.
You can find [violet]'s description of it here > viewtopic.php?f=12&t=375&start=75#p26078

[Todd McCloud]

Here's something simple. I haven't read in-depth this thread, so I apologize if this has been brought up before:

1. Remove passwords: Or have some type of password decay. Draining influence wouldn't work - for those by themselves in one region with a password, like France, they could stay there forever, as their influence would increase back to Hermit with each "decay period". So it has to be independent of influence. Quite frankly, as far as the ease of coding goes, it might be best to do away with them.

2. Remove founders: doing so would help the raiding / defending game, cause more nations to join the WA to endorse their delegate, and ultimately bring more nations back into the game. Seems extreme, but as a former raider, I can say this would really do the trick.

3. Increase the speed at which influence changes: doing this will not remove influence, which seems moot at this point, but will make it more reasonable for both region-goers and the aspect of raiding / defending. Influence as it is is a slow and often frustrating process. I personally believe it affects different regions differently, but that's my thought. If we increase its speed, it makes the game more dynamic, I believe.

4. Allow mass-telegrams to be written by the delegate: Please? This would spread communication like a wildfire and bring more people into the game.

5. Move update time back to about 1 am EST to 3 am EST: Is it still around 4 am EST? This has really hindered raiding, as no one on the east coast wants to raid at four in the morning. You don't have to make update time *set*, per say, but moving it up will help things.

[Erastide]

1. Remove passwords: Or have some type of password decay. Draining influence wouldn't work - for those by themselves in one region with a password, like France, they could stay there forever, as their influence would increase back to Hermit with each "decay period". So it has to be independent of influence. Quite frankly, as far as the ease of coding goes, it might be best to do away with them.

The problem with this is then, what about small regions that want to be all by themselves and do their own thing? That ability to do your own thing has been a positive part of NS for a long time.

2. Remove founders: doing so would help the raiding / defending game, cause more nations to join the WA to endorse their delegate, and ultimately bring more nations back into the game. Seems extreme, but as a former raider, I can say this would really do the trick.

And it would also cause a bunch of people to become extremely upset that their region was no longer safe. As cool as this would be for gameplay, most other groups in NS would be extremely unhappy with it.

3. Increase the speed at which influence changes: doing this will not remove influence, which seems moot at this point, but will make it more reasonable for both region-goers and the aspect of raiding / defending. Influence as it is is a slow and often frustrating process. I personally believe it affects different regions differently, but that's my thought. If we increase its speed, it makes the game more dynamic, I believe.

If everyone's rate at which they accrue influence increases the same, I don't think that actually changes anything. One idea is instead to have a tiered system where initially you accrue influence slowly but after a certain time investment you speed up. Additionally you would lower the costs of doing things. It would make more immediate invasions easier, but should make it a bit harder to kick out longtime residents without more time invested. I'll assume here invisible passwords go away, never to be heard from again.

4. Allow mass-telegrams to be written by the delegate: Please? This would spread communication like a wildfire and bring more people into the game.

continue to poke [violet] on multiple fronts and perhaps she'll do it

5. Move update time back to about 1 am EST to 3 am EST: Is it still around 4 am EST? This has really hindered raiding, as no one on the east coast wants to raid at four in the morning. You don't have to make update time *set*, per say, but moving it up will help things.

Would be nice, but I think the time is there precisely because noone is around, so the load on the servers is minimal.

[Naivetry]

...Eras beat me to it.

Thanks to ZS and Unibot for clarifying the question earlier.