Regional Officers

[Goddess Relief Office]

I would like to add to those requesting Border Control to be split into two separate powers -- Kick/ban, and Suppression.

Suppression is useful and should be given to as many people as possible. But kick/ban should be limited.

[Flanderlion]

I would like to add to those requesting Border Control to be split into two separate powers -- Kick/ban, and Suppression.

Suppression is useful and should be given to as many people as possible. But kick/ban should be limited.

Yeah, that was a popular request. Violet moved suppression into the Communications category (2nd News Post) - so BO's can't suppress posts anymore.

[Guy]

First, I'd like to note that it's disappointing not to have a serious response from Admin for the last week, but then again, we haven't seen a serious response for three years now. It's time to get serious, or you will lose your last defenders.

1. New Delegates should be unable to appoint new Regional Officers for the first 72 hours (but can immediately dismiss any existing Officers).

Is there anyone seriously against this?

2. New Delegates should be unable to make any changes at all to Regional Officers for the first 26 hours.

3. Regional Officers should lose office if they're outside the region's borders at update time. (Alternately: only lose Border Control authority.)

I think that the latter actually ameliorates the effect of the latter, in that you might not be able to directly fire the RO, but at least you can kick them. In any case, I think it's a good idea, whether on its own or together with #2.

Regions should be limited to no more than three Officers with Border Control authority.

Or, perhaps so to restrict non-founderless regions less, cap the number of Border Control ROs for founderless regions at zero? This solves your huge GCR issue, your R/D issue and internal coup issues without making any other changes.

Regions should be unable to eject more than one nation per second. (This would reduce the effectiveness of a team of Border Control Officers working together to hold a newly-captured region against liberators).

This is a crucially important change, ROs or not. For too long, we've had to deal with questionable ejection rates making libs impossible. It'd do a lot to rebalance the game.

My preferred solution would be no Border Control ROs in founderless regions, together with an ejection cap rate.

[The Stalker]

Founderless shouldn't get any ROs with Border Control? That's just outrageous.

I understand why defenders fear this will make liberations impossible, and if the right change isn't made maybe they will, but this is a far greater tool for founderless communities to defend themselves with. Why should responsible founderless regions be punished and less entitled to such a powerful weapon.

I personally would like to see option #2 enacted, making it so new Delegates can't remove ROs for 26hours.

This actually creates a dynamic where Natives can fight back against raiders. Instead of merely becoming the battle ground for defenders and raiders, the native ROs could fend off invasions proper. Really, it's the more logical direction to head in. Any other nation war based game would have one region vs another. Nationstates has two ideologies at war in someone else's home, it's time that changes.

[Kazmr]

• A time delay or influence cost to both appoint and remove Regional Officer powers that themselves cost influence (namely BC). In terms of time, either the 26 that currently exists for telegrams or the time currently existing for embassies, perhaps the latter for appointment and the former for dismissal, would be ideal.
• A limit on the number of ROs in a region that can hold Border Control status. This balances the scale a bit so that on one hand with a large enough force a new group in a region (either raiders or liberators) may be able to survive a hostile RO long enough to dismiss them, and also prevents an impenetrable barrier of ejections from forming at update.
• Border Control can only be held by a nation currently within the region's 'borders'. I would go so far as to advocate for all RO positions to be lost upon ejection, but with BC especially, its utterly illogical for the 'borders' to be controlled by a nation completely outside.

So basically you're advocating for a system where a WA delegate can't ejected officers until 26 hours after he is appointed? I think that's ridiculous. A WA delegate should be able to eject anyone as long as he has enough influence to do so.

I'm not a fan of this hold on dismissing officers for 26 hours. It's going to be a headache for everyone involved. The World Factbook entry is going to switch back and forth between "We have invaded you!" and "No! Endorse the real delegate -blank-." Embassies will be constantly opening and closing with the raiders trying to close them and the defending officers trying to keep them. Posts will be suppressed and then a second later unsuppressed. Nations will be banjected and then a second later unbanned and then rebanned and then unbanned and then.......

Actually, no. Rather from time of clicking the button to dismiss there is a 26 hour delay until it goes into effect. However, alternatively, if one has enough influence, they could also kick out a particularly arduous BC RO which would also remove that power.

Founderless shouldn't get any ROs with Border Control? That's just outrageous.

I understand why defenders fear this will make liberations impossible, and if the right change isn't made maybe they will, but this is a far greater tool for founderless communities to defend themselves with. Why should responsible founderless regions be punished and less entitled to such a powerful weapon.

I personally would like to see option #2 enacted, making it so new Delegates can't remove ROs for 26hours.

This actually creates a dynamic where Natives can fight back against raiders. Instead of merely becoming the battle ground for defenders and raiders, the native ROs could fend off invasions proper. Really, it's the more logical direction to head in. Any other nation war based game would have one region vs another. Nationstates has two ideologies at war in someone else's home, it's time that changes.

Exactly this. For the first time Natives would actually have an opportunity to defend their region, and its great to hear this coming from a delegate actually in that position.

I've always been the sort of defender who would be more than happy to see activity on both sides mitigated if it meant that natives had more power and a change like that really would work.

And as for raiders, something like this isn't necessarily the end (unfortunately ). It would require extra work, but if, for instance, you could soften the blow of this a bit by having the influence to eject an RO and remove powers that way, it just means you'll have to do a bit more planning and work. Aren't you so fond of telling defenders we need to do that same?

[CoraSpia]

News people asked me to contribute, (like every one else), so don't say I won't.

Let's adopt none of these ideas. Let's instead allow officers to be used as a tool for raiding. Raiding/defending is a legal part of the game, as we have been told by admins and mods countless times. Therefore, a technological hange should be accessible by people who want to play that part of the game.

[Jakker]

New Delegates should be unable to make any changes at all to Regional Officers for the first 26 hours.

This suggestion would destroy raiding occupations. It is hard enough to overtake a delegate, but if raiders have to also think about other nations who have border control, then most targets will be lost. I'm fine with the first suggestion that existing officers can be removed, but this one is silly.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I think at this time, a handful of measures seems obvious but we have to keep it simple:

• New WA Delegates should have to wait 72 hours (3 days) before appointing, dismissing or re-assigning regional officers. This forces both the raider and defender to earn power by not raiding or defending too fast.
• Afterwards, WA Delegates with executive authority (which replaced executive WA Delegates due to the founder being able to tailor powers) should spend influence to appoint, dismiss or re-assign Regional Officers.
• WA Delegates and Regional Officers should spend influence to eject any nation (not just those who have been there for some time). This would slow down both raiding and defending.

The problem with that first one is that, just as the complaint is now, it'll makes liberations impossible. Yes, It'll make raids much more difficult. We'd have to either obtain the delegacy in cover for a period of time, or obtain any BC RO roles, or maybe seiuze it with a cross-endorsed pile so big that the RO's have a hard time ejecting folks while continually sending in enough people to keep the delegacy, or something along those lines...but it'd still be quite possible. But then once we're secure in power, we'd be able to set up a whole pile of BC RO's, making liberations even more difficult then the raids in the first place would be, because we'd assuredly have more, more active, more mechanics-understanding, and more watchful RO's than the natives would. That's basically trading as 3-day easier window of libs for a permanent lockdown, and I don't think that's really what's wanted, is it?

The second point feeds into that - it'd push us to build influence on our sleeper point, but hurt more any defender liberator point. Because we've already been told that "more defender sleepers" is never going to happen, it's always going to be a new, low-influence nation that'll have more trouble appointing RO's than a raider would. What if your lib succeeds, but we both get to keep our RO's for a few days, and then you have the power to change them, but lack the necessary influence? Again, that makes our ability to recover from a lib far easier than it'll make the three-day lib window.

The third just seals the deal. Again, we can get more infleunce, easy. We can also send in a lot of puppets if they get banned, easy. That gives us both a a valid method of just seizing the delegacy and running RO's out of influence, and makes taking a region back from the low-influence liberators all that much easier. It's trading a slightly easier window for liberations for a lot of raider aid.

---

EDIT: on the next few posts, this also serves as a general rebuttal on delays.

---

First, I'd like to note that it's disappointing not to have a serious response from Admin for the last week, but then again, we haven't seen a serious response for three years now. It's time to get serious, or you will lose your last defenders.

1. New Delegates should be unable to appoint new Regional Officers for the first 72 hours (but can immediately dismiss any existing Officers).

Is there anyone seriously against this?

2. New Delegates should be unable to make any changes at all to Regional Officers for the first 26 hours.

3. Regional Officers should lose office if they're outside the region's borders at update time. (Alternately: only lose Border Control authority.)

I think that the latter actually ameliorates the effect of the latter, in that you might not be able to directly fire the RO, but at least you can kick them. In any case, I think it's a good idea, whether on its own or together with #2.

Regions should be limited to no more than three Officers with Border Control authority.

Or, perhaps so to restrict non-founderless regions less, cap the number of Border Control ROs for founderless regions at zero? This solves your huge GCR issue, your R/D issue and internal coup issues without making any other changes.

Regions should be unable to eject more than one nation per second. (This would reduce the effectiveness of a team of Border Control Officers working together to hold a newly-captured region against liberators).

This is a crucially important change, ROs or not. For too long, we've had to deal with questionable ejection rates making libs impossible. It'd do a lot to rebalance the game.

My preferred solution would be no Border Control ROs in founderless regions, together with an ejection cap rate.

I can live with #1, certainly.

I've already posted on the effects of delayed dismissal. To add - it seems, with the long-held statement of Raiders being able to more quickly access more updater than Defenders, that we'd perhaps even hold a further advantage in squabbles resulting.

3 wouldn't be too hard to get around, with more sleepers and raider cross-endos. You make it hard few a newly elected defender liberator to eject some of the numerous raider BC RO's, and it'd have to be done far enough away from update that the others can;t just unban them and let them move back.I'd also argue that it's really only a practical change to the R/D mechanics if #2 was instituted - otherwise, the impact is far greater on ordinary players than it is on raiders who's just have to keep a puppet in a region they held power in. Which, well, you hold power in, so you can keep any nation you want in, and if you don't hold power, you've been dismissed, so there's no situation. In a situation where the Exec can freely swap RO's, it wouldn't even lower the bonus to ejecting native nations (aka the faster refounds thing) because you can just drain an RO then appoint someone new.

A cap is an under-discussed issue that'd be interesting to look more into - though I've said before, at least in high-pressure ejections, such as those during a liberation, I'd expect the gain in # of ejections for each BC RO active to decrease very fast, as you start butting heads over the same nations. Your proposed amendment is basically to keep the current status quo lib-wise as before RO's, yes?

I've called bullshit on those "questionable rates" before. The only time I've ever seen an *inhuman* rate was Bob in Mountains to the East, and I think that's pretty universally agreed that that wasn't something legal. That also didn't work out for Bob either. Everything else can be explained with people having good reflexes, smart window tiling, and maybe some messing around with the page appearance on their end to move or resize the eject button within the nation page.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

On the average update, more defenders are usually willing to update than invaders. Invaders have the advantage of choosing when to strike, however.

The desirability of delayed RO changes is to allow natives to defend their regions. Once the regional officers are removed, then, yes, liberating the region becomes a bit harder. I think you're exaggerating by how much, however. In regions where defenders will most care about the region, there will be natives who care about the region, also. Therefore, there should be nations opposed to the occupation with influence, and putting one of them into the Delegacy would be the necessary first step. Keeping them in the delegacy may then also require effort, yes. This is not insurmountable. (And again, the advantage of electing a native nation to the Delegacy is increased, improving the ability of natives to help protect themselves.)

[Minoa]

It is in my opinion that there has to be some rules on how the regional officers feature is exploited for raiding and defending, but I see that it should at least be easy for natives to fight back without having to call the liberation team if they haven't got the time for R/D: obviously, we do not want to go back to the days of griefing rules since it is clear that the moderation team does not want to do so, so this is why I believe that a deal on how Regional Officers work is essential.

-- Minoa

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

On the average update, more defenders are usually willing to update than invaders. Invaders have the advantage of choosing when to strike, however.

The desirability of delayed RO changes is to allow natives to defend their regions. Once the regional officers are removed, then, yes, liberating the region becomes a bit harder. I think you're exaggerating by how much, however. In regions where defenders will most care about the region, there will be natives who care about the region, also. Therefore, there should be nations opposed to the occupation with influence, and putting one of them into the Delegacy would be the necessary first step. Keeping them in the delegacy may then also require effort, yes. This is not insurmountable. (And again, the advantage of electing a native nation to the Delegacy is increased, improving the ability of natives to help protect themselves.)

That's not something I've heard much before. I've always heard from defenders that their numbers bonus is in pilers (which there's not as much use for), and that raiders can almost always scramble more updaters on short notice.

Other than in influence, I don't see how putting someone more than likely very recently introduced to GP in the one office you'd control (with delayed dismissal) to fight raider RO's still maintaining power would increase your chances of success in a liberation (in the case I covered above, where by some method we do manage to keep the region long enough to install our own RO's). Mainly in that there's no guarantee they'd be on and fast-acting at update, which could allow the up to 12 surviving raider RO's to eject defender pilers supporting the native delegate, ejecting any jumping defender reinforcements, dismiss a password, unban any critical nations, etc - in the few critical minutes before update. Even if a liberation managed to return a native to the delegacy, I can't see it lasting.

[Gest]

New Delegates should be unable to make any changes at all to Regional Officers for the first 26 hours.

This suggestion would destroy raiding occupations. It is hard enough to overtake a delegate, but if raiders have to also think about other nations who have border control, then most targets will be lost. I'm fine with the first suggestion that existing officers can be removed, but this one is silly.

Agreed. In the vast majority of founderless regions, there are no elections or delegate changes. Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

[Minoa]

This suggestion would destroy raiding occupations. It is hard enough to overtake a delegate, but if raiders have to also think about other nations who have border control, then most targets will be lost. I'm fine with the first suggestion that existing officers can be removed, but this one is silly.

Agreed. In the vast majority of founderless regions, there are no elections or delegate changes. Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

However, I do also take into account the active nations that don’t log-in like every 24 hours for any reason such as real life. I think that current state of R/D leads me to think that the game is “too fast”.

[Elke and Elba]

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

*raises eyebrow*

How do you suggest we obtain the role of RO in a region without first obtaining "at least a single endorsement?"

Also, in small regions without a founder, and with only an occasional delegate, do not RO's allow them to do such things as change the WFE and handle embassies when they lack one? It seems unfair and overly complicated as well to deny them this feature entirely. I'm equally sure larger, organized places like Canada and Hell would like their RO's, thank you very much.

(and if your answer to that is "well then they can have a region with a founder," you're giving one of the textbook answers to natives who complain of raids )

[The Silver Sentinel]

Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

And how exactly is this a problem? Before these suggested changes came along, raiders were singing praises, and claiming defenders were crying that this would give the supreme advantage to raiders. Now that the tables have somewhat turned, raiders are bitching this may kill their game. Tough luck. Every change to gameplay has always been to the advantage of raiders. I am sure you will find someway to adapt.

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

I completely agree. The last thing we need is having invader regional officers with enormous power being appointed after every tag raid. Can you imagine Cora controlling the borders of hundreds of regions at one time? If that's the way it is going to be, we might as well go back to the old days of pre-inluence as defending will become next to impossible.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

I completely agree. The last thing we need is having invader regional officers with enormous power being appointed after every tag raid. Can you imagine Cora controlling the borders of hundreds of regions at one time? If that's the way it is going to be, we might as well go back to the old days of pre-inluence as defending will become next to impossible.

That's overblown. If it stays tagged, they have no need to do anything, nothing to use said power for, really. If it gets detagged, either by natives or by defenders, the RO's will likely be removed long before their owner notices and does anything like eject a native delegate (unless, of course, there is a delay on removal of RO's ). I've said before, no raider is going to use RO's to actively defend tags at updates (especially cora, who came after me relentlessly for "defending" TBR - it'd be far too defender-y for him, I bet). Just as tags that had been undone without embassies being cancelled went unnoticed for months back in TBR's height (and were occasionally purged when someone bothered to look through a few hundred of them to check which were still tagged), In the rare case a region is detagged with a raider RO left, it'll probably go unnoticed in more cases than not. And going back to the "no one is defending dozens of tags at update every update" statement, It makes detagging little harder, assuming the jumps are on a smaller window than, oh, say about a minute, and someone online really cares more about defending said tag than hitting three more.

[Knot II]

Every change to gameplay has always been to the advantage of raiders.

I fail to see how the introduction of founders, influence, and liberation proposals were meant to favor invaders.

[Gest]

Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

And how exactly is this a problem?

If the admins don't want occupations then it's not a problem. The defenders, who let's get real wouldn't shed many tears if there was no invading, being perfectly satisfied doing some other secondary activity in this game, will probably not have a problem. If you believe the R/D needs to be "mitigated", who cares if it happens, then again it's not a problem.

Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

claiming defenders were crying that this would give the supreme advantage to raiders.

That's because you were crying and it was funny: "Admins don't love us", "Strike!" and "Hire Afforess".

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Don't forget "this game is crap" and that state was "deliberately engineered" by admin

[Jakker]

Give an influence heavy nation, which all regional officer's are going to be, 26 hours to notice there is a different delegate and that's not going to be a fight, it's going to be a knockout blow from the natives.

And how exactly is this a problem? Before these suggested changes came along, raiders were singing praises, and claiming defenders were crying that this would give the supreme advantage to raiders. Now that the tables have somewhat turned, raiders are bitching this may kill their game. Tough luck. Every change to gameplay has always been to the advantage of raiders. I am sure you will find someway to adapt.

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

I completely agree. The last thing we need is having invader regional officers with enormous power being appointed after every tag raid. Can you imagine Cora controlling the borders of hundreds of regions at one time? If that's the way it is going to be, we might as well go back to the old days of pre-inluence as defending will become next to impossible.

I think admin should know better than to listen to your extreme thoughts, Sentinel. At least you have mastered defenders' overuse of hyperboles.

[Improving Wordiness]

Is a three day delay a bit much then? I would have thought 24 hours was a good window for natives RO a chance to secure a region. (provided of course the instant dismissal is changed)

[Cora II]

Hah. Not even "Crazy Cora" begin stalk all hundreds of tagged puppet dumps on daily basis. Come on, defenders! Please, get a grip to reality.

[CoraSpia]

My issue with any anti-raiding restrictions for regional officers is that it has the power to shift the game far too much in the direction of natives.
Even thinking about a region that isn't very active (say about 12 friends, 5 of whom are in the wa) whose founder has gone to that place in the sky where founders go when their time on here is over (I think it's called real life?) The delegate could appoint all of his/her friends to regional officer status, meaning that only one of them has to be online at a time to get rid of raiders, making raids pretty much impossible. I know that if regional officers (avec restrictions) had been around, their's a good chance this message would be coming to you from a nation in the silver isles right now, but unfortunately for that region (not the game) they weren't. Occupations like that, though extraordinarily annoying for natives, would be impossible with these suggestions.

[Elke and Elba]

Can we agree that ROs should be disabled when a region does not have either a delegate or a founder?

It is certainly a bit stupid that RO powers are being used to occupy regions without any of that. And seriously, if either raiders or defenders are serious on raiding or defending such a region, they should jolly well earn at least a single endorsement to run things.

*raises eyebrow*

How do you suggest we obtain the role of RO in a region without first obtaining "at least a single endorsement?"

Also, in small regions without a founder, and with only an occasional delegate, do not RO's allow them to do such things as change the WFE and handle embassies when they lack one? It seems unfair and overly complicated as well to deny them this feature entirely. I'm equally sure larger, organized places like Canada and Hell would like their RO's, thank you very much.

(and if your answer to that is "well then they can have a region with a founder," you're giving one of the textbook answers to natives who complain of raids )

Eh, realised a slight error in my post - "without a delegate and founder."

Maybe time to take back all the hypotheticals that don't apply now?

I don't really give a flying flute about you taking a region for tag-raiding. What I am more concerned is with one Cora taking all the regions and making them virtual wastegrounds by banjecting everyone on a regular basis due to the self-appointed RO status before leaving the place. Or the like. Like what may have happened in WZ Airspace.