Regional Officers

[Kaboomlandia]

Here's an idea, and I'm just thinking of this, that could increase the role of ROs: what if, if a RO is in the WA, their vote counts as half of their endorsements in votes, rounded half up?

[Alustrian]

I am very interested in hearing the reasoning behind this particular change.

What came out of the Summit (and other discussions) is a set of points everyone agrees upon, such as Regional Officers being a good thing in principle, plus another bag of points people don't agree on, such as whether additional rules are required to prevent particular scenarios. I wrote code for much of this, but in the end we've gone with the simpler, optimistic implementation, rather than the conservative, complex one, with a view to seeing how it actually goes. If we decide additional rules are necessary, like time delays and influence costs, then okay. But we didn't want to start with those because they remove a lot of the power and flexibility of the feature.

(my bold)
Was this bolded code partially written, and the current code written instead, or is this bolded code waiting for us somewhere, completed? I guess I'm asking - after the first time raiders appoint a bunch of Border Control ROs, and the other defender commanders and I come here to explain how the Incredibly-Difficult-But-Vaguely-Possible has become Impossible due to a technical change, will there be an immediate magic fix? Or are libs done for the next 3 years?

[Salvagard]

From the News page:

Over the next few days, regions will gain the ability to appoint nations as Regional Officers, with authority over specific areas. For example, a Diplomacy Officer can be given the authority to establish embassies with other regions, and a Communications Officer to recruit and manage welcome telegrams. The name and authority of each office is up to you.

To identify the power a nation holds in its region, you'll begin seeing new icons on nation pages beneath the region, signifying their authority: Executive, World Assembly, Appearance, Border Control, Embassies, Communications, and Polls.

This feature has come from much community discussion over a long time: thank you very much to everyone who contributed! It's a big change (affecting over 5,000 lines of code) and could make a big difference to regional dynamics.

Summary

• Regions may appoint up to 12 Regional Officers.
• Executive authority is required to appoint, dismiss, or modify Regional Officers. Only Founders and Delegates can have Executive authority.
• Apart from Executive authority, Regional Officers can be granted the ability to do anything a Founder or Delegate does.
• No Influence is required to appoint, dismiss, or modify a Regional Officer.
• Influence costs are doubled for Regional Officers. That is, most functions can be used freely, but some Border Controls, such as ejecting nations, are harder to use.
• Regional Officers retain power until dismissed.
• The Delegacy can be given a specific set of powers, rather than (as is the case today) being either powerless or fully executive. For example, a region could set their Delegacy to grant authority over Border Control but not Appearance.

See also: R/D Summit "Regional Officers" discussion thread

FAQ

First bunch of answers to questions.

More to come.

this seems very fun and interesting.

[Guy]

Okay, let's go back to basics.

R/D's issue is that update defending is impossible, because precision-invading is possible.

Update defending will only be possible, once precision-jumping is impossible.

This is what we've been saying for three bloody years, and let me remind you that that thread was the catalyst for your stinking Summit.

A summit which, three years later, has yet to see one change to fix R/D.

Exasperated? Incredulous? Foaming? You bet I am.

Go back to the drawing board, and come up with a serious response. Until then, Admin, this whole thing a joke.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

I am very interested in hearing the reasoning behind this particular change.

What came out of the Summit (and other discussions) is a set of points everyone agrees upon, such as Regional Officers being a good thing in principle, plus another bag of points people don't agree on, such as whether additional rules are required to prevent particular scenarios. I wrote code for much of this, but in the end we've gone with the simpler, optimistic implementation, rather than the conservative, complex one, with a view to seeing how it actually goes. If we decide additional rules are necessary, like time delays and influence costs, then okay. But we didn't want to start with those because they remove a lot of the power and flexibility of the feature.

I will take you at your word.

[Cormac Stark]

What came out of the Summit (and other discussions) is a set of points everyone agrees upon, such as Regional Officers being a good thing in principle, plus another bag of points people don't agree on, such as whether additional rules are required to prevent particular scenarios. I wrote code for much of this, but in the end we've gone with the simpler, optimistic implementation, rather than the conservative, complex one, with a view to seeing how it actually goes. If we decide additional rules are necessary, like time delays and influence costs, then okay. But we didn't want to start with those because they remove a lot of the power and flexibility of the feature.

How many years will we have to wait for the code to fix the problems we all know are going to occur? How much will raiders have to abuse this feature and how many times will defenders have to try and fail to liberate so you can see the feature being abused before you do something about it?

"Optimistic implementation." Please don't pretend you don't know what raiders are going to do with this and what that means for liberations. You're just hoping R/D is sufficiently dead that no one will whine about it enough for you to have to bother to fix it.

[Frisbeeteria]

You guys are welcome.

[Saxe-Wittenburg]

Okay, let's go back to basics.

R/D's issue is that update defending is impossible, because precision-invading is possible.

Update defending will only be possible, once precision-jumping is impossible.

This is what we've been saying for three bloody years, and let me remind you that that thread was the catalyst for your stinking Summit.

A summit which, three years later, has yet to see one change to fix R/D.

Exasperated? Incredulous? Foaming? You bet I am.

Go back to the drawing board, and come up with a serious response. Until then, Admin, this whole thing a joke.

Yes it is quite concerning that raiders now have such a advantage, however this also does give defenders an advantage in preventing raids.. It also will potentially make certain founder less regional governments even more unstable, however at the same time it could also make them more stable by allowing them to kill a raid in it's infancy. It shall be most interesting to see how this plays out.

I have one question though, what happens in the event a region only has a small number of WA members, and the WA Delegate appoints certain members to positions such as boarder control, diplomatic relations, ect. what happens if the WA Delegate loses their position as WA Delegate, and there is no new delegate for some time. Do the nations who are appointed to those positions maintain their positions, or do they lose them when there is no WA Delegate?

[Valrifell]

finally

[Cora II]

Okay, let's go back to basics.

R/D's issue is that update defending is impossible, because precision-invading is possible.

Update defending will only be possible, once precision-jumping is impossible.

This is what we've been saying for three bloody years, and let me remind you that that thread was the catalyst for your stinking Summit.

A summit which, three years later, has yet to see one change to fix R/D.

Exasperated? Incredulous? Foaming? You bet I am.

Go back to the drawing board, and come up with a serious response. Until then, Admin, this whole thing a joke.

Precision jumping IS already nearly impossible. Defenders and rogue raiders CAN take part already to 'precision jumps' with real possibility make the impact to an outcome. There are nothing to fix here as variance makes already things hard enough for raiders to out run organized defender teams 100-0 manner. Win or lose, Its the question of about extra 1-2 seconds already what comes to sufficient time needed for defenders, while the random factor of variance can cause an effect more then that.

[Paffnia]

For clarification, does the Communications power include the ability to send mass TGs to the region as well as alter the welcome TG? Or are these separate roles?

EDIT: And where does RMB-post suppression fall under?

[[violet]]

How many years will we have to wait for the code to fix the problems we all know are going to occur?

Unless we decided to go in a different direction, I don't think we'd have a delay on code. Regional Officers required a rewrite of the fundamental system for determining who's allowed to do what. But to add a minimum period of time after election before a Delegate can appoint a Regional Officer, for example, that's only a few lines of code.

But I don't expect to rush in new rules at the first sign of trouble. This is a big change with big implications; there will be trouble, but that doesn't mean we run in and gut the feature. Even when the implications are pretty clear, like the increased difficulty of executing liberations, it will still take time to see it through and establish what sort of problems we have and what it may be worth giving up to solve.

And I do appreciate that to many people, they see a really obvious, specific problem, which can easily be solved by removing part of the feature. And they may be 100% right about that, and we end up doing it, but we're talking about a feature that's going into 17,600 regions and will probably be used in thousands of different ways. Before we take away a lot of ways that we haven't even thought of yet, and which may turn out to be pretty great, we're going to give that a chance.

[The Freehold of Caelton]

So heres my main question: Where will the thing that allows me, as the delegate of a founderless region, to create new officers?
I kinda wanna know, so I dont end up looking for hours, just to find that its in some painfully obvious position....

[[violet]]

So heres my main question: Where will the thing that allows me, as the delegate of a founderless region, to create new officers?

Yes. Delegates in founderless regions always have Executive authority, which means you can appoint Regional Officers.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

So heres my main question: Where will the thing that allows me, as the delegate of a founderless region, to create new officers?

Yes. Delegates in founderless regions always have Executive authority, which means you can appoint Regional Officers.

I think he's asking where the control for doing so will be located, [v]

[Cormac Stark]

And I do appreciate that to many people, they see a really obvious, specific problem, which can easily be solved by removing part of the feature. And they may be 100% right about that, and we end up doing it, but we're talking about a feature that's going into 17,600 regions and will probably be used in thousands of different ways. Before we take away a lot of ways that we haven't even thought of yet, and which may turn out to be pretty great, we're going to give that a chance.

I'm sure you are, no matter how many people ask you not to, because site administration has developed an extensive history of doing whatever it wants with the game no matter how those most affected by the changes feel about them. I'm just going to point out that while you take your "wait and see" approach to what you already know is going to happen -- you've conceded it will happen -- you're doing further damage to the R/D game with a change that was proposed at the R/D summit in order to improve R/D.

I think this is what some call "mission creep" but NationStates players call [violet] being [violet].

[[violet]]

I think he's asking where the control for doing so will be located, [v]

Oh right. In Region Control, in a new section named "Officers."

[Sovreignry]

So you know that this is going to be horrible for defenders, and your response is "Lol, idc"? Really?

[[violet]]

For clarification, does the Communications power include the ability to send mass TGs to the region as well as alter the welcome TG?

Yes, it does. As with Delegates, Officers can't use that power until they've held office for at least a day.

And where does RMB-post suppression fall under?

Border Control.

[[violet]]

what happens if the WA Delegate loses their position as WA Delegate, and there is no new delegate for some time. Do the nations who are appointed to those positions maintain their positions, or do they lose them when there is no WA Delegate?

They retain their positions.

[Saxe-Wittenburg]

what happens if the WA Delegate loses their position as WA Delegate, and there is no new delegate for some time. Do the nations who are appointed to those positions maintain their positions, or do they lose them when there is no WA Delegate?

They retain their positions.

Thank you for that clarification.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

And where does RMB-post suppression fall under?

Border Control.

That seems unfortunate.

Democratic (and other) regions being potentially quite cautious about granting Border Control powers, this would leave RMBs hardly more moderated than they are now

(At least as compared to the improvement we could see if those powers were decoupled.)

[Alustrian]

Even when the implications are pretty clear, like the increased difficulty of executing liberations, it will still take time to see it through and establish what sort of problems we have and what it may be worth giving up to solve.

How much time? 10 failed liberations with 30 WAs each? 20 with 20 WAs? 5 with 40? I ask because getting players together for a mission that is guaranteed to fail is only going to be possible if all involved know that they are checking some box. "Hey all, I know that we are going to lose this lib, but we only need to lose 5 more before we see some movement in Tech!"

[Cora II]

Let's see how this all will evolve. We shouldn't ever forget that alive and active founders can still override all horror scenarios here.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Border Control.

That seems unfortunate.

Democratic (and other) regions being potentially quite cautious about granting Border Control powers, this would leave RMBs hardly more moderated than they are now

(At least as compared to the improvement we could see if those powers were decoupled.)

Yes. It opens up an infiltration window likely better than the "make me exec del so I can edit the wfe" line - create a situation with annoying but legal RMB posters when the delegate is offline, set yourself up to be given a suppression role to counter that, then when it comes time to raid, remove nations endorsing the delegate to make the raid easier.