Founder Succession: A Better Solution [GP/RP Proposal]

[ErasmoGnome]

Quite late to the party here, but I fully support this idea. It would be an incredible loss to a region if their founder CTEs even with this proposal, but the lack of a system for succession is always something I've found rather annoying in NS mechanics.

I have no pity for the raiders this would supposedly affect. They still have just as many tiny little regions they can tag raid (if TBR hasn't taken them all down), and the proposed system is stringent enough that many, many active regions will have a founder CTE unexpectedly, open for them to be invaded. The fact that they have to search a bit harder for their targets, or perhaps wait a bit longer for them to open it, is not really concerning. They can busy themselves with Osiris or whatever GCR they feel like harassing.

What do you think of my above suggestion?

I didn't see it, unless you mean the not retroactive post you made on page 4, which I suppose would be fine, but it would be kind of difficult to somehow have a system for regions without a founder to suddenly obtain one.

[JURISDICTIONS]

I would agree with Erasmo.

[Esternial]

I would agree with Erasmo.

Founderless regions will always be an issue though, and there's no point in denying that a region without a founder can have the same kind of security of one that does. Succession will prevent active regions with a (suddenly) inactive founder from suddenly becoming more vulnerable for raids that may disturb its organisation.

Regions that currently have no founder will unfortunately have to rely on Custodians if they don't want to create a new region with an active founder. To be honest, I'd prefer re-founding over using Custodians, but regions that don't want to go through the hassle would have Custodians.

I don't think there is any way we could supply founderless regions with a founder without hitting a brick wall of opposition from the raiding community, which - like it or not - also have a say in the matter.

[Lun Noir]

I would agree with Erasmo.

Founderless regions will always be an issue though, and there's no point in denying that a region without a founder can have the same kind of security of one that does. Succession will prevent active regions with a (suddenly) inactive founder from suddenly becoming more vulnerable for raids that may disturb its organisation.

Regions that currently have no founder will unfortunately have to rely on Custodians if they don't want to create a new region with an active founder. To be honest, I'd prefer re-founding over using Custodians, but regions that don't want to go through the hassle would have Custodians.

I don't think there is any way we could supply founderless regions with a founder without hitting a brick wall of opposition from the raiding community, which - like it or not - also have a say in the matter.

Agreed.

I cannot think of an objective way to re-establish founders in currently founderless regions. Thousands of regions would need to be assessed independently, which would place a heavy and needless burden on the site staff.

[[violet]]

Founders aren't sitting around NS 24/7, though, and with inactive regions there's no reason all of them will suddenly start appointing active founder-successors - I'm confident that'd be borne out in the evidence.

True, but confining the invasion game to regions nobody cares enough about to appoint a founder-successor isn't a great solution, either. There needs to be a disincentive for using it, or else we have every active region with a founder-successor, even invader regions, and that's not really opting-out of R/D so much as eliminating it.

I would like regions to be able to take control of their own destiny, deciding who has what powers, and living or dying by their own decisions, and hopefully the Regional Officers feature will facilitate this. It's been in the works for a while and some early parts of it will show up soon.

[Esternial]

Founders aren't sitting around NS 24/7, though, and with inactive regions there's no reason all of them will suddenly start appointing active founder-successors - I'm confident that'd be borne out in the evidence.

True, but confining the invasion game to regions nobody cares enough about to appoint a founder-successor isn't a great solution, either. There needs to be a disincentive for using it, or else we have every active region with a founder-successor, even invader regions, and that's not really opting-out of R/D so much as eliminating it.

I would like regions to be able to take control of their own destiny, deciding who has what powers, and living or dying by their own decisions, and hopefully the Regional Officers feature will facilitate this. It's been in the works for a while and some early parts of it will show up soon.

Well, then maybe we should scrap the "appoint a successor" but rather allow Founders to pass along their power when they realise they're going to have less time or plan to leave NS.

This way we can preserve the core of this proposal but still have a trade-off, as you wanted: As soon as a Founder appoints a successor, their power is transferred within several days. It won't be triggered upon CTE.

It could take several days to take effect and the nation receiving the Founder's executive powers could get an instant penalty to their influence as soon as the procedure is started.

[JURISDICTIONS]

Founders aren't sitting around NS 24/7, though, and with inactive regions there's no reason all of them will suddenly start appointing active founder-successors - I'm confident that'd be borne out in the evidence.

True, but confining the invasion game to regions nobody cares enough about to appoint a founder-successor isn't a great solution, either. There needs to be a disincentive for using it, or else we have every active region with a founder-successor, even invader regions, and that's not really opting-out of R/D so much as eliminating it.

I would like regions to be able to take control of their own destiny, deciding who has what powers, and living or dying by their own decisions, and hopefully the Regional Officers feature will facilitate this. It's been in the works for a while and some early parts of it will show up soon.

This post is for [Violet] -- I think you didn't apply the context of what Anemos was saying. My proposal, as outlined in the OP (as it currently sits) is not retroactive. This means that regions that currently do not have a founder cannot get a new founder, and, regions that currently exist cannot appoint a founder. In other words, this only apply to new regions.

Even then, you mention raider regions using this function... Its not anything unusual. They hide behind a founder all the time anyway, its not like the game would all of a sudden be different if raiders have a founder.

While yet, sure, many regions will want to re-found to gain a founder and possibly have a successor. However, as I said, there are pitfalls to this system. If a founder CTE's before the six month period, or forgets to appoint a successor, the region becomes founderless. If we need to, Successors could be subject to less stringent WA Delegate influence charges, would be required to be a member of the WA so no player can be Delegate and Founder at the same time, and we could even say that if a successor runs out of influence, that the region becomes founderless.

I'm trying to find ways to let regions live past their founders, because historically, most regions fail when they lose their founder (almost immediately, if not, living on borrowed time). I find the RP/GP thing a secondary reason to implement this. Active community's are the most important thing here, because without active regions, there is no R/D anyway!

(and of course somehow the RP/GP thing seems to be a point that I have to discuss in order to defend my idea.... ) Further, I am scared at what you just said. Max (or if you are Max, you) said that both Role-Play and Game-Play are both equally valid ways to play this game. With that being said, it seems the community has taken this to mean that both sides must balance each other out. Currently as it sits, the raiders take roughly about 90% of all targets they pick. This makes RP subservient to GP. Regions should have adequate in game measures, that they can truthfully execute without having to sacrifice their children to sun gods! Founder Succession does this, in conjunction with Regional Officers, and WA Custodians.

What I love most about NS, is that myself and others get to play this game in our own unique fashion. Me, I'm a government player. I love regional governments. I need both R/D and RP to have my own survival, all that I'm asking for is balance. If anything, it should be harder to raid, because it should take politics to win a region, not the brute force of one collective mouse click.

[[violet]]

^ I agree with most of the above. You're right that Founders have the same fundamental problem as an opt-out mechanism: there's no disincentive to use them, so even raiders do it. But this is equally why Founders need to expire at the moment; if they were easily renewed, all regions would have active Founders, and there would be no more R/D.

historically, most regions fail when they lose their founder (almost immediately, if not, living on borrowed time).

I'm curious as to why you say this, as it's not my belief. I think an active Delegate with a nice store of Influence and access to Regional Control is preferable to a barely active Founder, in terms of keeping a region active and healthy.

Currently as it sits, the raiders take roughly about 90% of all targets they pick. This makes RP subservient to GP. Regions should have adequate in game measures, that they can truthfully execute without having to sacrifice their children to sun gods!

Well, this is very much a question of perspective. What people call "successful invasions" today wouldn't have been a blip on the radar in days gone by. Back then, a successful invasion was ejecting the residents and locking them out forever. Even quite recently, it would have meant holding a region for some significant period of time, with some doubt about whether the natives could ever reclaim it. Since then, from a raider's perspective, R/D has been almost completely subservient to the demands of RP and other regions who don't care for the invasion game, as we've implemented a series of measures (Founders, Regional Influence, Liberations) that severely limit what an invader Delegate can do.

Another general point I'd like to make--again, relating more to the fundamental idea of separating RP from GP, rather than this founder-succession proposal--is that RP regions are founded in the gameplay world. They create their own space, with a unique culture and rules, in a similar manner to tribes and religions and nations throughout history. But they're rooted in the real world and they never leave it. Whether you're a tribe or a religion or a nation or an NS region, if you create something valuable but don't protect it, the world outside will come to get it. History is littered with tragic examples of remarkable cultures brought low by brute military force. And while you can certainly say this proves there should be fewer military brutes, the fundamental lesson is that security is important. You ignore that at your peril. NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

[Whamabama]

Well, then maybe we should scrap the "appoint a successor" but rather allow Founders to pass along their power when they realise they're going to have less time or plan to leave NS.

This way we can preserve the core of this proposal but still have a trade-off, as you wanted: As soon as a Founder appoints a successor, their power is transferred within several days. It won't be triggered upon CTE.

It could take several days to take effect and the nation receiving the Founder's executive powers could get an instant penalty to their influence as soon as the procedure is started.

This can be done now actually. If the founder is leaving NS. Then the right thing to do is for the current founder to give his nation over to someone else so the region will not have to do without a founder. Many regions have done this successfully, including my own.

[Esternial]

Well, then maybe we should scrap the "appoint a successor" but rather allow Founders to pass along their power when they realise they're going to have less time or plan to leave NS.

This way we can preserve the core of this proposal but still have a trade-off, as you wanted: As soon as a Founder appoints a successor, their power is transferred within several days. It won't be triggered upon CTE.

It could take several days to take effect and the nation receiving the Founder's executive powers could get an instant penalty to their influence as soon as the procedure is started.

This can be done now actually. If the founder is leaving NS. Then the right thing to do is for the current founder to give his nation over to someone else so the region will not have to do without a founder. Many regions have done this successfully, including my own.

But if a Founder is no longer capable of maintaining his region but won't leave NS, he/she should have the option to pass along their power and retire.

[Baden-Wuerttemberg]

Another general point I'd like to make--again, relating more to the fundamental idea of separating RP from GP, rather than this founder-succession proposal--is that RP regions are founded in the gameplay world. They create their own space, with a unique culture and rules, in a similar manner to tribes and religions and nations throughout history. But they're rooted in the real world and they never leave it. Whether you're a tribe or a religion or a nation or an NS region, if you create something valuable but don't protect it, the world outside will come to get it. History is littered with tragic examples of remarkable cultures brought low by brute military force. And while you can certainly say this proves there should be fewer military brutes, the fundamental lesson is that security is important. You ignore that at your peril. NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

Curiously enough, this argument is not rooted in the real world, but in the fictional world of fictional nations and fictional regions. It would make sense, if we were talking about nation simulation generated entirely by one huge computer.

If you look at the real world, you see real players with real interests. These interests differ from player to player.

Founderlessness as opt-in makes no sense.

On a player level, founderlessness as forced opt-in is completely arbitrary. No player becomes somehow magically attracted to playing a specialised subgame because a founder nation CTEs, or because their region is one of the old ones that never had a founder. Military gameplay is not chosen by most players whom it affects. Voluntariness is part of the very definition of playing a game. You can’t force human players to enjoy something they don’t want. It’s not realistic.

The second problem military gameplay poses in the real world is player interaction. In a well-designed game for humans, player interaction is voluntary, and players can ignore players whom they don’t want to play with. As long as NationStates game mechanics still force players to interact with players whom they don't want to interact with and would prefer to ignore, sadly invading is admin-enabled trolling. Core principles when designing a game for human players include that game admins have a responsibility not to enable trolling, and have a responsibility to ensure that players can choose whom they want to interact with and whom they don’t want to interact with.

Also on a player level, the disdain for creation surprises me, as this is a game created by a writer. However, if creativity will indeed continue to be valued so little, I think you need to include a warning about it on the nation creation page, so that people don’t start writing anything on this site under false hopes. People who start playing a game usually don’t expect that other players are enabled to destroy their creations on a whim. I would however hope that you might possibly re-think this disdain for creation, under the premise that real human players play this game, not fictional nations. I think it’s a pity to effectively tell players who write to go away.

Military gameplay is broken from the start because it was never deliberately designed specifically for those who wish to play it against other players. It can be interesting and attractive for those so predisposed, but it isn’t for everyone. Probably it’s possible to deliberately design game mechanics to let those players who are attracted to military gameplay opt in (nota bene every player who opts in actively also opts in potentially on the receiving end). Voluntary military gameplay would indeed be enjoyable for all involved, and not nasty and bitter as it is now. However, even considering such a design possibility would require those responsible to re-think the subgame as one involving real human players.

Top 5 Questions About NationStates
Max Barry:
'I think it’s kind of part of the charm that you build this nation and then if it goes no further, then that’s fine. You just kind of, sort of potter around with your nation. And if you want to find other parts of this site, that have more elements to them, then you can do that as well.'

Emphasis mine. This describes an idea of NationStates on a player level, designed for humans, with players being free to choose. It does not describe the game as it is now.

[Whamabama]

But if a Founder is no longer capable of maintaining his region but won't leave NS, he/she should have the option to pass along their power and retire.

Well the founder could still do this, just start a new nation. Now of course this doesn't mean they will do this, same as they wouldn't have to grant founder power to someone. Easier yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean right.

If a founder starts a region, it's their region to do whatever they wish to. Including destroy it, or in this case abandoning it. That is also the risk everybody takes when joining a region. Then again I wonder how many good players are lost due to the fact that they join a region after getting a recruiting tg that explains all these great stuff they can do, but when they get there, there is none of that stuff, or none of it that goes beyond a title on the WFE, with no substance.

Though while a region should focus on limiting the risks involved in the game, it would be a massively boring game without those risks as well. (for many of us anyway)

[[violet]]

Top 5 Questions About NationStates
Max Barry:
'I think it’s kind of part of the charm that you build this nation and then if it goes no further, then that’s fine. You just kind of, sort of potter around with your nation. And if you want to find other parts of this site, that have more elements to them, then you can do that as well.'

Emphasis mine. This describes an idea of NationStates on a player level, designed for humans, with players being free to choose. It does not describe the game as it is now.

Of course it does; you are confusing nations and regions. You can play a nation without any human-to-human interaction; no-one can invade your nation, destroy it, or do anything to it you don't like. But regions are fundamentally multiplayer.

[[violet]]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

[Rephesus]

Another general point I'd like to make--again, relating more to the fundamental idea of separating RP from GP, rather than this founder-succession proposal--is that RP regions are founded in the gameplay world. They create their own space, with a unique culture and rules, in a similar manner to tribes and religions and nations throughout history. But they're rooted in the real world and they never leave it. Whether you're a tribe or a religion or a nation or an NS region, if you create something valuable but don't protect it, the world outside will come to get it. History is littered with tragic examples of remarkable cultures brought low by brute military force. And while you can certainly say this proves there should be fewer military brutes, the fundamental lesson is that security is important. You ignore that at your peril. NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

I'd like to point out this is also a matter of perspective, because frankly using passwords and non-executive delegates and such is protecting yourself using the gameplay mechanic, whereas one can see this entire struggle for Founder Succession, RP Opt-outs and even R/D Destruction to be a form of protecting yourself. The forums were given as a resource, and they are being used as such, frankly I'd argue this is the struggle to protect regions.

[Shadow Afforess]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

It seems only fair, if a region is fooled into choosing a tyrant.

[Ruzan]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

I see that as the trade-off for succession. It should be the Founder's responsibility to choose a good successor. If he picks a bad one, that's hard cheese.

[Arumdaum]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

I think that most regions would choose a suitable successor. That would probably only happen in very small regions where there's only a single person or so active, and then a raider comes and befriends them.

[Bears Armed]

NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

So, if raiding is supposed to be "like the real world", where are the costs to the raiders? As it stands in NS, although a single victory for them can be enough to take and hold onto a region (and eventually, perhaps, destroy it) they can simply keep on raiding with the same nations (or others) whether they win or lose: In RL, however, any nation that tried to do so on anywhere near the sort of scale that NS raiders commonly do would suffer population losses, economic disruption, and probably (sooner or later) regime change.
If people are going to claim that raiding is a simualtion of RL warfare then for that to be accurate there has to be some kind of risk to the raiders themselves (and I don't just mean the potential loss of disposable puppets, neither): Now, if you were to make it so that losing an invasion attempt (or, as mechanics would have to have it, a liberation attempt instead) results in a small but definite chance for each attacking nation to be DEATEd and that losing too many nations within a certain length of time gives a chance of the player involved being DOSed, then you'd have a more accurate "simulation" of warfare... and then the players behind the raiders would actually have to choose who to attack more carefully and probably spread their attacks out more in time, instead of just swarming against umpteen consecutive regions in a single day & night as they currently do, just as RL leaders have to be careful about launching too many wars...
Otherwise it isn't really a "good" simulation of warfare, it's just -- as others have already said -- legalised trolling.

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

I see that as the trade-off for succession. It should be the Founder's responsibility to choose a good successor. If he picks a bad one, that's hard cheese.

Agreed.

[Anemos Major]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

I don't see why this wouldn't be the case - there'd have to be some sort of cost to the whole affair, and it'd be notoriously difficult to try and bring that sort of thing under rules anyhow. Founder succession should be implemented, but that shouldn't mean it should become a hard 'lock' on anything happening to a region either; it should be a careful and fairly tense decision to make on the region's part.

And making the designation of the successor visible to the rest of the region might be an idea, like a promulgation of sorts. It'd cause a fair deal of internal bickering, which'd add an interesting dimension to the game.

^ I agree with most of the above. You're right that Founders have the same fundamental problem as an opt-out mechanism: there's no disincentive to use them, so even raiders do it. But this is equally why Founders need to expire at the moment; if they were easily renewed, all regions would have active Founders, and there would be no more R/D.

But the problem is that we've only really ended up here arguing for things like this precisely because that was proven to be untrue. At least, that was the case when I came to post my first thread on these forums - Greater Dienstad does have a founder, but the raider contingent still managed to hop over and occupy the region for a good few days. This is an active RPing region - a few days, quite bluntly, of defacing the page is far and above what they should be allowed to do with an active community of players pursuing something entirely different on the site. R/D is a legitimate form of gameplay but it's also inherently disruptive in its relationship with other forms of legitimate gameplay, and therein lies the problem - this isn't so much a matter of destroying R/D as allowing active communities to get on with their activities on NS without having to sit there under occupation.

Another general point I'd like to make--again, relating more to the fundamental idea of separating RP from GP, rather than this founder-succession proposal--is that RP regions are founded in the gameplay world. They create their own space, with a unique culture and rules, in a similar manner to tribes and religions and nations throughout history. But they're rooted in the real world and they never leave it. Whether you're a tribe or a religion or a nation or an NS region, if you create something valuable but don't protect it, the world outside will come to get it. History is littered with tragic examples of remarkable cultures brought low by brute military force. And while you can certainly say this proves there should be fewer military brutes, the fundamental lesson is that security is important. You ignore that at your peril. NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

But this argument only applies if R/D is the site sanctioned form of political simulation - otherwise, the 'roots' we have in gameplay are only really the same roots as those the R/Ders have in the most artficial and superficial of ways. We have nations, as base accounts, and regions, as our meeting grounds, our communities, our OOC hubs - not for 'invasions' or 'being invaded' in the same way. And yet the 'nature of the real world' you describe above is something we simulate entirely differently, with the OOC presence those regions represent being built up into organisations, blocs, alliances, treaties over time and with those 'bad guys' and 'brute military force' acted out and interacted with on the forums, with words, in more than 'endorsements' and 'delegates' but with complex backgrounds, historical context, interaction at every level from the individual to the geopolitical - yes, there are certain 'core principles of the real world' we adhere to, but we've chosen to interpret it differently to the R/Ders. So the question is this - is RPing a sort of illegitimate 'dream' in the gameplay world created by the R/Ders and are we subject to that as a sort of helpless tribe, or is RPing a legitimate interpretation of the functions and the objectives of this site and, if so, in an RPing or RPer's context, wouldn't raiding be more akin to the occasional alien invasion from some completely different part of the site than any meaningful form of 'real world interaction'?

And Bears Armed makes a decent point. If a raider fails, nothing happens. For the players who argue so vehemently against founder succession, they seem content to return to foundered, non-delegate* regions and sit there in there masses, preying on regions who really can't do anything short of try their best to boot them out one by one a few days after they've desecrated the regional page and danced on its corpse for a while. It's really more like an alien invasion than any meaningful reflection of the 'real world' - yes, there are bad guys out there, but we've created those roles and those relationships for ourselves, and the bad guys the raiders seem to have become reminds me more of an early XCOM game with the population of Earth being slowly killed off by the Greys in their untouchable flying saucers in the upper atmosphere than anything I can think of in real life. Remarkable cultures have been brought low by brute military force - but from Troy to Tenochtitlan, they all fought back, and the invaders suffered their own, sometimes devastating losses.

*We've pointed out why the same model can't be used with RPers - long established, of which there are quite a few, regions don't necessarily have the active founders to manage and handle day-to-day administration or the level of activity to be able to pick up the region's users in their entirety and just refound. People keep on reactivating their nations and popping in and out all the time, it'd mean leaving a sizeable part of the community behind. And, well, plenty of RPers create active roleplaying regions with puppets because they want to pursue some new and different approach in their nation-building - something that, as it stands, they're being punished for.

[Whamabama]

So, if raiding is supposed to be "like the real world", where are the costs to the raiders? As it stands in NS, although a single victory for them can be enough to take and hold onto a region (and eventually, perhaps, destroy it) they can simply keep on raiding with the same nations (or others) whether they win or lose: In RL, however, any nation that tried to do so on anywhere near the sort of scale that NS raiders commonly do would suffer population losses, economic disruption, and probably (sooner or later) regime change.
If people are going to claim that raiding is a simualtion of RL warfare then for that to be accurate there has to be some kind of risk to the raiders themselves (and I don't just mean the potential loss of disposable puppets, neither): Now, if you were to make it so that losing an invasion attempt (or, as mechanics would have to have it, a liberation attempt instead) results in a small but definite chance for each attacking nation to be DEATEd and that losing too many nations within a certain length of time gives a chance of the player involved being DOSed, then you'd have a more accurate "simulation" of warfare... and then the players behind the raiders would actually have to choose who to attack more carefully and probably spread their attacks out more in time, instead of just swarming against umpteen consecutive regions in a single day & night as they currently do, just as RL leaders have to be careful about launching too many wars...
Otherwise it isn't really a "good" simulation of warfare, it's just -- as others have already said -- legalised trolling.

So the question I have for this is, If the raid is successful, how many native nations in the taken region are then deeted? If the region is involved in several invasions, how many before the owner of said nations are then DOSed? It would have to work both ways.

Of course this is a horrible idea, not that I think you are serious.

[Bears Armed]

[So the question I have for this is, If the raid is successful, how many native nations in the taken region are then deeted? If the region is involved in several invasions, how many before the owner of said nations are then DOSed? It would have to work both ways.

No, it wouldn't, and couldn't, not when the attackers could throw newly-created disposable puppets against regions where people's main nations -- which many of those players use for aspects of the game other than R/D -- are located: That wouldn't be a fair balance. The idea would be to make raiders (who have the option about whether to attack or not, after all) think more carefully about how often they start 'wars', and thus act a bit more like the RL nations whose conflicts some of them claim the R/D subgame simulates, without penalising the locals for being attacked when -- if circumstances make their use of founders and passwords impractical -- they have no choice about the war's occurrence. If R/D was officially supposed to be not just a "valid" aspect of NS but actually the predominant form of interaction within the game, and everybody had been told this from the start, then losses on both sides would be a reasonable part of the mechanics, but so far (of course, and thankfully) that isn't the case.

Of course this is a horrible idea, not that I think you are serious.

Not really serious, no, because of course I'd never expect anything it to be implemented: It's basically just another way of emphasising how flawed the "raiding is onlya simulation of the war risk that RL nations have to face" argument is....

[Grenartia]

So, if raiding is supposed to be "like the real world", where are the costs to the raiders? As it stands in NS, although a single victory for them can be enough to take and hold onto a region (and eventually, perhaps, destroy it) they can simply keep on raiding with the same nations (or others) whether they win or lose: In RL, however, any nation that tried to do so on anywhere near the sort of scale that NS raiders commonly do would suffer population losses, economic disruption, and probably (sooner or later) regime change.
If people are going to claim that raiding is a simualtion of RL warfare then for that to be accurate there has to be some kind of risk to the raiders themselves (and I don't just mean the potential loss of disposable puppets, neither): Now, if you were to make it so that losing an invasion attempt (or, as mechanics would have to have it, a liberation attempt instead) results in a small but definite chance for each attacking nation to be DEATEd and that losing too many nations within a certain length of time gives a chance of the player involved being DOSed, then you'd have a more accurate "simulation" of warfare... and then the players behind the raiders would actually have to choose who to attack more carefully and probably spread their attacks out more in time, instead of just swarming against umpteen consecutive regions in a single day & night as they currently do, just as RL leaders have to be careful about launching too many wars...
Otherwise it isn't really a "good" simulation of warfare, it's just -- as others have already said -- legalised trolling.

So the question I have for this is, If the raid is successful, how many native nations in the taken region are then deeted? If the region is involved in several invasions, how many before the owner of said nations are then DOSed? It would have to work both ways.

Of course this is a horrible idea, not that I think you are serious.

Where's the risk for raiders, then?

[Bears Armed]

And making the designation of the successor visible to the rest of the region might be an idea, like a promulgation of sorts.

I'd been taking it for granted that that would be a part of how this worked.

[JURISDICTIONS]

By the way, while I have people here in favor of this proposal: What is your position in the situation where a Founder Successor proceeds to password-lock the region and run up an invader flag? Would you say that's the region's own fault for neglecting to vet their successor properly and so the region should be allowed to be destroyed, or there should be additional rules?

It seems only fair, if a region is fooled into choosing a tyrant.

Exactly. One of the many pitfalls in the system that exist on purpose to make this a "double-edged" sword like the rest of the game.

And making the designation of the successor visible to the rest of the region might be an idea, like a promulgation of sorts.

I'd been taking it for granted that that would be a part of how this worked.

Since, appointment would be like how Embassies work, I would figure that would include an on page announcement that a successor is being installed for the region.

^ I agree with most of the above. You're right that Founders have the same fundamental problem as an opt-out mechanism: there's no disincentive to use them, so even raiders do it. But this is equally why Founders need to expire at the moment; if they were easily renewed, all regions would have active Founders, and there would be no more R/D.

I seriously doubt this, since the game has seen evidence to the contrary. Just because there are people appointed to a foundership, doesn't mean in itself that they will be active, instead it is very possible that they CTE before they can appoint someone to replace them, creating a new founderless region.

historically, most regions fail when they lose their founder (almost immediately, if not, living on borrowed time).

I'm curious as to why you say this, as it's not my belief. I think an active Delegate with a nice store of Influence and access to Regional Control is preferable to a barely active Founder, in terms of keeping a region active and healthy.

I've been told time and time again that: "if you want out of the R/D game, then get an active founder". Regions follow this advice, and upon CTE of the founder are suddenly thrust back into the very game arena they sought to avoid. Further, founders put the most energy into a region since they provide a place of protection to allow their members to play NS without having to constantly worry about regional security, along with the activity they pour into a region via forums and region page. Founders are the lifeblood of UCR's, losing them is like losing a loved monarch with no line of succession to replace them. This is more evident in regions where the founder is a vital part of daily governance, like a regional government that has the Founder be a King, with the region having a parlement.

Currently as it sits, the raiders take roughly about 90% of all targets they pick. This makes RP subservient to GP. Regions should have adequate in game measures, that they can truthfully execute without having to sacrifice their children to sun gods!

Well, this is very much a question of perspective. What people call "successful invasions" today wouldn't have been a blip on the radar in days gone by. Back then, a successful invasion was ejecting the residents and locking them out forever. Even quite recently, it would have meant holding a region for some significant period of time, with some doubt about whether the natives could ever reclaim it. Since then, from a raider's perspective, R/D has been almost completely subservient to the demands of RP and other regions who don't care for the invasion game, as we've implemented a series of measures (Founders, Regional Influence, Liberations) that severely limit what an invader Delegate can do.

There is a difference between raiding, and conquering. Once the Annex feature is implemented, I expect that raiders will go back to raiding to conquer to maintain their annexations. Further, as I've understood it, raiders said that regional influence would destroy R/D, and it hasn't. Liberations, are a WASC voted upon resolution, if raiders wanted they could vote together in blocs with their "raider unity" to actually stop that legislation. Neither of these really effect raiding, other than it taking longer to lock down a region, or affect a post raiding event. I posit that this proposal will not do much of anything else either because there will still be many regions that will be founderless.

Another general point I'd like to make--again, relating more to the fundamental idea of separating RP from GP, rather than this founder-succession proposal--is that RP regions are founded in the gameplay world. They create their own space, with a unique culture and rules, in a similar manner to tribes and religions and nations throughout history. But they're rooted in the real world and they never leave it. Whether you're a tribe or a religion or a nation or an NS region, if you create something valuable but don't protect it, the world outside will come to get it. History is littered with tragic examples of remarkable cultures brought low by brute military force. And while you can certainly say this proves there should be fewer military brutes, the fundamental lesson is that security is important. You ignore that at your peril. NationStates isn't a strict simulation, of course, but we do adhere to certain core principles of the real world, and while I don't think every region should have to spend all its time dealing with the fact that bad guys are out there, trying to get in, they should spend some time thinking about it. Because this is the nature of the real world.

Yet, sure, history has shown this. And many of times as we have seen, that National Security trumps everything. Matter of fact, my very very stupid United States Government bugged the German Chancellor's phone.... Point here, is that regions did think about regional defenses, and decided to have a founder because that is what 'supposedly' keeps them from being raided. Just because I don't have a security system at my house, doesn't give a robber the right to come in and take my stuff.

Personally, I would love to see RP integrate into gameplay, and vice versa.. it would make the game more immersive... and everyone would be on the same footing.