Sedgistan wrote:The Annex idea is one I think is still worthwhile and something we should aim towards in the long-term. However, it hasn't progressed, because we never really clarified the concept - there were two competing visions for how Annex would work:
- The first was really just a token "well done, you've annexed the region" visual recognition with no in-game effect but that people would hopefully consider worthwhile (like embassies, which have no actual effect, but people attach meaning to). It would record it on the region page (while in effect) and permanently in the regional history, but there were no powers associated with one region having annexed another.
- The other was to have it be a real way of permanently(ish) conquering regions - with all the downsides about having a legitimate way of doing so, i.e. that it would make a lot of people very angry. That would only be palatable if there was some method of freeing the region, whether that be in-game or via the SC - but this would have to be tricky, or it'd invalidate the point of having Annex in the first place. How this might work has not been fleshed out much at all
What we need to decide is which of these two visions is the one worth pursuing. Would invaders attach sufficient weight to the first, or would it be meaningless and neglected? Is there a way of making the second a way of properly conquering a region, but that can realistically be overthrown with enough effort/support?
As a raider, and judging by the earlier comments in the thread (admittedly at the time of the summit - which was a few years back) a glorified embassy (Option 1) would not change gameplay in a major way, and would likely not be worth the time or effort to code it. There would likely be little change in behaviour, and the only main effect would be to change the embassy display slightly, and make a simpler way (rather than a dispatch) to view a regions refounds.
Option 2 - I've fleshed out parts of it in my ideas essay, but all of it is open to discussion and editing. In my ideas post earlier, I wrote about a multitude of ways of freeing a region when it has been annexed. Either another nation takes WA position for a week, the founder of either region decides to gain independence from/free the other region, the executive delegate of the other region decides to free the region (all taking a week approx to seperate the regions - same length as conquering the region), or the SC (I barely touched on that - because I'm thinking that the ideas for that should be in part of the SC upgrades post, rather than this) can free the region. I don't know if I added this to the original ideas post, but I also think that if the Governor leaves the region for that period of time, the region should be decolonised - because why should a nation have control over a region that they don't even have the investment of having a nation in.
Personally, I'm for Option 2, and not interested in Option 1 at all, although there are likely many who disagree.
@Cres - after looking at your idea, I'm not too sure about it. I'm not impartial, but why would the nation governing the region be outside of the region? I quite like the posting on other RMBs within the Empire. I didn't think about embassies with my version, so I'll do a ninja edit now - I'm thinking that colonised regions should be able to make embassies with other regions, because I'm not really wanting the idea to disadvantage native regions that decide to allow their region to be annexed for protection.
With the RO - additional officers and all, what's to prevent the region who wants more RO's from annexing their own foundered region of 1 nation, so that they can gain additional RO's? I'm also not too sure about balance with RO's, but I'll wait until the final concept is finalised to make an informed opinion on how exactly they should interact etc.