An Alliance system?

[Kholdlands]

I think it would be great if we could have alliances since regions are more geographical locations and alliances can be spread over multiple continents. So this way nations exist with regions (physical locations) but can be in alliances. For those of you who played NS 2 while it existed you know what I am talking about. You get to vote on issues with in the alliance, set status towards other alliances (very friendly, fiendly, nidifferent, NAP, unfriendly, at war (note that these are purly cosmetic)). Alliances could recuit either by invitation or be open to any applicant. This can be nice for building communities based on things like game activity, the more active players don't want to wait around for the less active to come on a vote on something. Each alliance has its own page similar yet different to regional pages with is own description and so on.

[Reploid Productions]

NS2 also turned into a poorly executed mess of a game, and their Alliance system was clunky, unintuitive, unwieldy and only half-functional at best.

Alliances happen outside of a formal in-game system; people play them out in the forums, they use embassies between regions to solidify cross-regional alliances, and so on. There are roleplay alliances, Gameplay alliances, factions in the World Assembly, ideological alliances, etc.

Right now, the idea of adding a big new slice of code for it is generally pretty far down the priority ladder; and whatever we do possibly end up implementing is not going to be like the NS2 attempt.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Would it have to be an entirely new system? I don't think so. I think adding some "relationship status" system to the existing region system would be effectively the same. (Aside from voting on things, that is.) Right now, you can let people know which regions your region has good relations with, but you can't say who your enemies are. Adding on an 'enemies' system to the embassies system could be interesting.

[Reploid Productions]

The trick is making sure any sort of Alliances widget doesn't just duplicate the functionality of regions, because that just becomes redundant- even though regions technically are sorta supposed to represent geographic locations/continents/etc, they're also already being utilized to organize by alliance or some common interest.

The idea of a regional enemies list is probably a lot more viable and interesting, because it's a different function and a tool for politicking. I think it'd be neat if a region also displayed (perhaps after the list of embassies) a list of regions that have designated it as their enemy. Some people might endeavor to collect enemies the way some are trying to collect embassies, for instance. Or being on someone else's enemies list could spur an invasion or other action to try and get off that list. Could be interesting, and a little easier for the techies to put together.

[Frisbeeteria]

I think adding some "relationship status" system to the existing region system would be effectively the same.

• Single
• In a relationship
• Married
• Divorced
• It's complicated

Looking forward to those choices.

[Kholdlands]

yeah I suppose your right about the redundancy. Would be nice to set the status with other regions though.

[Galiantus]

I think adding some "relationship status" system to the existing region system would be effectively the same.

• Single
• In a relationship
• Married
• Divorced
• It's complicated

Looking forward to those choices.

But seriously, this gives me some ideas, especially considering my region's history:

. . . . . . . . . Gatesville
. . . .__________|________________
. . . | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Gate of Evil . . . . . . . . . Holy Moosean Empire
. . . |
. Tiamat . . . .The DCM
. . . |___________|
. . . . . . . .|
. . . .Glass Gallows

Perhaps founders could declare a mother region(s) in a place titled "History", during founding?

--

The idea of declaring a regional enemy is interesting, but exactly how you might implament it could widly vary. Maybe individual nations could declare their own (limited) list of enemy regions, and if a particular region was an enemy of enough residents of an other region, the regions could both see each other as "enemies".

[Mousebumples]

I think adding some "relationship status" system to the existing region system would be effectively the same.

• Single
• In a relationship
• Married
• Divorced
• It's complicated

Looking forward to those choices.

Oooooh, a mod looking to bring back NationDates? Interesting ....

[Unibot III]

I think any Alliance system would run into major problems with recruitment. The game's recruitment rules is designed for a region-centric view of NS, any existing alliances between players have an uphill battle to try to promote their org (or promote -anything- besides a region) -- throwing out telegrams to newbies in feeders to tell them to follow a few dead links they need to C/P here, here and here to join some forum is a bloody waste of time when they also get told in the next ad that they can join this region JUST BY CLICKING THIS LINK AND THIS BUTTON, bang. Easy, simple. The recruitment rules don't anticipate alliances between players, it's all about regions and preventing interregional poaching. It's one-sided and enforces a certain stagnant order that is in conflict with the emerging cosmopolitan reorganization of the game.

Could an Alliance system legitimize this new order? Sure, but it would have to deal with the issue of the promotion of alliances, which is the major issue facing alliances nowadays. Simply creating an Alliance system would not solve the problem unless there was a way to promote an alliance well to players in NationStates.

[Kholdlands]

I don't think recruitment is the problem. The point is to categorize based on shared views or something, but most importantly activity. I don't think spam would be that big of a problem, there is no shortage of players but you want the ones that share your opinions. The is no rule that says one has to be in an alliance either, it just adds a little. The problem is the redundancy with regions.

[Unibot III]

The trick is making sure any sort of Alliances widget doesn't just duplicate the functionality of regions, because that just becomes redundant- even though regions technically are sorta supposed to represent geographic locations/continents/etc, they're also already being utilized to organize by alliance or some common interest.

Regions generally have much greater ideological diversity than alliances; alliances allow players to get to do what they want to do with a group of like-minded people which is achieved with ideological similarities, while these players can also participate in regions which enjoy the greater political power and diverse communities relished by regions which is achieved with ideological diversity.

Saying regions and alliances share the same functions, is like saying EU and the Red Cross share the same function in a humanitarian conflict... sure they have similar ends, I suppose and may achieve similar things, but there is a difference in how they operate in the conflict and its something studied by a lot of people in intergovernmental and international political sciences. You wouldn't see someone give up their citizenship in the EU or stop participating in the EU's politics to help out with the Red Cross. Coalitions of the willing tend to be more effective, whereas bigger institutions tend to be more legitimate due to their larger numbers.

Alliances between players do not replace the need for regions, but it supplements the regional experience where it lacks.

[Kholdlands]

That makes me think that an alliance status between players (most likely an option in the dossier) would also be a nice feature. When you view a nation you could see its alliances with other nations. I know you're going to say that people do this in their factbooks but it would be nice to have an official one that you can set since most countries in this won't do that on accounts of laziness. Perhaps when they set an option it could appear on both players message boards as well.

[Unibot III]

That makes me think that an alliance status between players (most likely an option in the dossier) would also be a nice feature. When you view a nation you could see its alliances with other nations. I know you're going to say that people do this in their factbooks but it would be nice to have an official one that you can set since most countries in this won't do that on accounts of laziness. Perhaps when they set an option it could appear on both players message boards as well.

I only said players, since this is what it amounts to, in practice, in Gameplay. Duality isn't very common anymore.

I would expect any Alliance system would be between nations.

[Coherent Imbeciles]

Alliances between players do not replace the need for regions, but it supplements the regional experience where it lacks.

That's like saying that I should serve pasta with cheese as the main dish and pasta without cheese as a side dish. Yeah, they're different, but not in any meaningful way.

[Sedgistan]

Saying regions and alliances share the same functions, is like saying EU and the Red Cross share the same function in a humanitarian conflict... sure they have similar ends, I suppose and may achieve similar things, but there is a difference in how they operate in the conflict and its something studied by a lot of people in intergovernmental and international political sciences. You wouldn't see someone give up their citizenship in the EU or stop participating in the EU's politics to help out with the Red Cross. Coalitions of the willing tend to be more effective, whereas bigger institutions tend to be more legitimate due to their larger numbers.

You misunderstand. If an alliance feature were coded up, how would it operate differently in terms of games mechanics, so that it didn't duplicate what regions offer? That's really the question that needs to be answered here for them to be considered viable.

Think about the things that regions have - WFEs, founders, delegates, RMBs etc. and then consider which of those alliances would/wouldn't have, and what else they could offer in-game.

[Unibot III]

You misunderstand. If an alliance feature were coded up, how would it operate differently in terms of games mechanics, so that it didn't duplicate what regions offer? That's really the question that needs to be answered here for them to be considered viable.

Oh, actually, that's not a bad point. It'd be very difficult to design alliances in a way that significantly was different than regions in terms of technical construction, since both regions and organizations are just constructs that rely on communication.

Some key proposed differences:

- A nation could be a member of multiple alliances at once.
- Perhaps a private Organizational Message Board (OMB) built-into the game.
- An organization administration would have to be constructed without using the WA, nor be totally fluid or static unless the founder wants it that way. Thus no endorsements either.
- Also, perhaps instead of a World Factbook Entry, a paragraph about the organization could be included automatically onto every member's nation page. Thus affirming these are things that nations join, not separate "geographical" constructs like regions that they reside in. Members would likely debate over what this paragraph said, since it'd be included upon their page. If you clicked on a link for an organization, instead of having its own public page, perhaps it could have a standard pop-up notice that asked whether you would like to join this organization, Y/N. If you were in the organization, the link would bring you to organization's private page with it's OMB, a blurb from the leader of the organization and an index of hierarchical positions in the organization.
- Perhaps you could become an "observer" of an organization and thus have access to their private-page, if the founder allowed this. I would expect, if the recruitment allowances for organizations were sufficient, there could be news organizations that would use this system.

I'll admit I'm not totally satisfied with these proposals, I think Reppy has a good point under your interpretation, Sedge.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I don't see why you couldn't just have regions set relationships with other regions (aside from establishing embassies). It's functionally the same as an alliance, and there's no Law of NationStates that dictates a region is a geographical area.

I can see the appeal of having exogenous alliances, where nations across different regions can be a part of another group, but that would require a new system. So it would be a long-term thing, whereas labeling regions (Allied, Friendly, Indifferent, Mortal Enemies, etc) would be a relatively minor project.

So, I say, ¿Por qué no las dos?

[Kholdlands]

Really the reson I started this was for the reasons Unibolt listed, regions are not quite alliances. The point about multiple alliances is another thing, real countries are usually in more than 1 alliances so this could add some realism for those who want it. Plus if it had a private board they could make agreements amongst themselves that they don't want the forum to see. This would be good for those who like to play out wars on the forum since if you want to organize things privately messages need to be sent to each individual where as this would be visable to all parties concerned. But really the most important thing is dipolmatic status. That is something that I think would bring up the entertainment value for me.

[[violet]]

What a few mods are hinting at here is that we basically already have this coded. The project name is "Associations." Anyone can create a new association, you can associate yourself with as many of them as you like, and each Association has a bunch of features like a RMB-style board, an emblem, etc.

The idea was to provide a flexible framework that could be used for a variety of purposes. Empires could be used to tag puppet nations to their main, Alliances could represent the kinds of trans-regional organizations that already exist, Pacts could signify the nation has signed up to a particular deal, Belief Systems could allow you to display your ideological allegiances, and so on.

So this was all quite nifty, and many cool features were added, such as allowing Alliances to make their membership lists and boards private (i.e. viewable only by members), to allow for extra intrigue.

However, during testing we noticed that Associations seemed to basically play like super-regions, to the extent that regions almost began to feel like crappy Associations. There were still many things regions could do that Associations couldn't--like have a WA Delegate--but they felt very similar. They look very similar. So the project was halted until we could figure out some greater differentiation between them.

This was a while ago, NS development pace being what it is, and really the problem wasn't so enormous to justify shelving the project indefinitely. But I feel that regions are absolutely critical to your sense of "home" in NationStates, and wanted some time to think about how best to make sure we didn't erode that with Associations.

[Galiantus]

You misunderstand. If an alliance feature were coded up, how would it operate differently in terms of games mechanics, so that it didn't duplicate what regions offer? That's really the question that needs to be answered here for them to be considered viable.

Oh, actually, that's not a bad point. It'd be very difficult to design alliances in a way that significantly was different than regions in terms of technical construction, since both regions and organizations are just constructs that rely on communication.

Some key proposed differences:

- A nation could be a member of multiple alliances at once.
- Perhaps a private Organizational Message Board (OMB) built-into the game.
- An organization administration would have to be constructed without using the WA, nor be totally fluid or static unless the founder wants it that way. Thus no endorsements either.
- Also, perhaps instead of a World Factbook Entry, a paragraph about the organization could be included automatically onto every member's nation page. Thus affirming these are things that nations join, not separate "geographical" constructs like regions that they reside in. Members would likely debate over what this paragraph said, since it'd be included upon their page. If you clicked on a link for an organization, instead of having its own public page, perhaps it could have a standard pop-up notice that asked whether you would like to join this organization, Y/N. If you were in the organization, the link would bring you to organization's private page with it's OMB, a blurb from the leader of the organization and an index of hierarchical positions in the organization.
- Perhaps you could become an "observer" of an organization and thus have access to their private-page, if the founder allowed this. I would expect, if the recruitment allowances for organizations were sufficient, there could be news organizations that would use this system.

I'll admit I'm not totally satisfied with these proposals, I think Reppy has a good point under your interpretation, Sedge.

So basically a political party. This could get very interesting, as regions could hold a lot of sway over alliences and vica versa. This would open up the door for more intricut interregional and intraregional politics: "You are a part of the NS Communist party? Don't you realize...". Maybe these organizations could exist either as a world-wide organization, or as a regional organization, even, much like how in the U.S. there are national party platforms and state party platforms. But the exact way this works should probably be left up to the players, since they are the ones who know how they would want to use this function.

Perhaps we could have totally secret organizations...?

[Unibot III]

What a few mods are hinting at here is that we basically already have this coded. The project name is "Associations." Anyone can create a new association, you can associate yourself with as many of them as you like, and each Association has a bunch of features like a RMB-style board, an emblem, etc.

The idea was to provide a flexible framework that could be used for a variety of purposes. Empires could be used to tag puppet nations to their main, Alliances could represent the kinds of trans-regional organizations that already exist, Pacts could signify the nation has signed up to a particular deal, Belief Systems could allow you to display your ideological allegiances, and so on.

So this was all quite nifty, and many cool features were added, such as allowing Alliances to make their membership lists and boards private (i.e. viewable only by members), to allow for extra intrigue.

However, during testing we noticed that Associations seemed to basically play like super-regions, to the extent that regions almost began to feel like crappy Associations. There were still many things regions could do that Associations couldn't--like have a WA Delegate--but they felt very similar. They look very similar. So the project was halted until we could figure out some greater differentiation between them.

This was a while ago, NS development pace being what it is, and really the problem wasn't so enormous to justify shelving the project indefinitely. But I feel that regions are absolutely critical to your sense of "home" in NationStates, and wanted some time to think about how best to make sure we didn't erode that with Associations.

I agree that the problem you highlight is a problem, but I think the problem is not that Associations are too inclusive of goodies. Instead, the problem is Regions are actually lacking in stuff to make a regional experience that more of a "home" experience and this simply isn't recognizable until you pit it against the notion of an Association. I don't really know what is lacking yet, but it would be stuff that gives participation in regions greater import by the virtue of them being a home-region.

[Sichuan Pepper]

Have you toyed at all with the idea that Associations could attack each other? Move R & D to a whole other arena.

[Soviet Canuckistan]

R&D is already a mess as it stands, that mess wouldn't be solved by having a new arena of gameplay.

[Sedgistan]

Have you toyed at all with the idea that Associations could attack each other? Move R & D to a whole other arena.

Essentially, no. Gameplay was supposed to remain centered around regions, with Associations being a useful way of grouping nations - but not something to fight over. They have a founder, and the intention was to have some mechanism for replacing that founder if they left.

However, this leads to another problem - that if Associations offer almost everything that regions do, and are completely secure against invasion, then you'd have people simply ignoring regions and playing entirely within Associations. This could cause serious long-term problems for the invasion game (which we don't want to kill off), as there would be far fewer founderless regions in existence.

[The Haatschapen]

Have you toyed at all with the idea that Associations could attack each other? Move R & D to a whole other arena.

Essentially, no. Gameplay was supposed to remain centered around regions, with Associations being a useful way of grouping nations - but not something to fight over. They have a founder, and the intention was to have some mechanism for replacing that founder if they left.

However, this leads to another problem - that if Associations offer almost everything that regions do, and are completely secure against invasion, then you'd have people simply ignoring regions and playing entirely within Associations. This could cause serious long-term problems for the invasion game (which we don't want to kill off), as there would be far fewer founderless regions in existence.

Hmm, idea: I should start up a griefer organisation that kills off founderless regions. This in turn will kill off the invasion game since they're out of targets