Regional Officers

[Nonali]

After reading through 28 pages and seeing constant comments like "There's no need for a delay on dismissing ROs.", I've finally decided to come out from sulking in the shadows.

Alright. So ROs were meant to bring balance, right? That means making defending a bit easier, right?

Well consider this. There isn't a delay.

Defenders manage to get one of their own as an RO (For the sake of example, I'm ignoring the fact of how impractical it would be to have a defender RO in hundreds or more regions). The reason that they had one of these players elected as an RO was to help when it came to an invasion. Now the raiders manage to get the delegacy and can suddenly, and immediately, dismiss that Defender RO. All of a sudden, all that waiting, all that influence building, comes to no point at all. That nation has absolutely no purpose anymore. It's no longer an asset for the defenders to use to help liberate the region. And so what if the raiders have to wait a few updates to appoint one of their own to RO status? They then have an immense advantage. Anywhere from 2-3x the banjection ability, to (If there was no cap on Border Control put into place) 13x the influence base to draw from. There would be almost no need for a risky slingshot maneuver. All they would need to do is make sure that at least one or 2 of them is on for every update.

Now picture what would happen if there was a delay for dismissal.

Raiders take the delegacy. The defender logs in later that day, is alerted by fellow defenders, and promptly logs into their nation and starts planning on some banjections.
Suddenly, a whole new layer of R/D develops. Raiders no longer have the 'endo and forget' attitude. They have to watch and make sure they haven't been banjected from a region.

If ROs are supposed to bring a semblance of balance to R/D again, why make it so that they can't be used as a defender asset?

Sorry if I seemed a bit weird with this response, I'm only half awake.
(Further note: I assumed no system in place regarding influence to banject a non-updated nation.)

This would be a major mechanics change in NS. If your idea is adopted, getting the WA delegate is practically worthless. As long as a border control officer has a high enough influence he can just eject any raider if he logs on within 26 hours (or I've seen even worst suggestions of 78 hours).

If this idea is adopted, we can say goodbye to raiding for active regions. Please note that I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I'm just pointing out this fact. Personally, I kind of enjoy the raiding part of NS even though I am usually a defender

On the other hand, the current officer method gives a big advantage to raiders. If a couple raiders put sleeper puppets in a region to gain influence, as soon as they get the delegacy they can appoint those puppets as border control officers and they can eject whoever they want without wasting any influence from the main WA delegate.

[Ravania Ultra]

There has to be consequences to being in a founderless region, it's not a natural state.

Dear Gest, it is the natural state... the oldest regions in this game are founderless.

[Letoilenoir]

The ability to eject any nation is still going to be determined by the relative influence that those nations possess, no?

So a raider delegate with minimal influence, having newly arrived in the region, would be unable to take out a high influence Security Officer immediately, 13 high influence officers even less so.

Such a Security Force could pick off the Raider Delegates endorsers at their leisure, forcing the raiders to send in repeated switchers to retain the "conquest", whilst simultaneously providing time for Defenders to rally and enter the fray. Such a scenario could expand the struggle for a region from something that only happens at update to a more ongoing process.

Of course the fly in the ointment is not that the new delegate can appoint cronies to do the dirty work (they too will have minimal influence) but rather having the ability to revoke the existing appointments immediately. Address that, possibly by imposing a condition that a new delegate cannot remove an officer unless they have a sufficient level of influence to eject them (rather than imposing a delay) , and you have a mechanism that could actually make R/D a less black & white affair.

Set a condition that a delegate has to possess more influence than the nation they appoint/dismiss and you have a viable solution, which would chime with the current Influence requirement over ejections.

Of course a high influence sleeper that becomes delegate could circumvent that, but we have to throw the poor hard pressed raiders a consolation bone, they are just trying to do their job after all!

[Letoilenoir]

On the other hand, the current officer method gives a big advantage to raiders. If a couple raiders put sleeper puppets in a region to gain influence, as soon as they get the delegacy they can appoint those puppets as border control officers and they can eject whoever they want without wasting any influence from the main WA delegate.

All the more reason for regions to be actively vigilant about who resides in their region

[Trotterdam]

Of course a high influence sleeper that becomes delegate could circumvent that, but we have to throw the poor hard pressed raiders a consolation bone, they are just trying to do their job after all!

That sounds like a good idea. It would mean that border control officers are actually useful in protecting against a coup (since if delegates can dismiss officers immediately, then by the time anyone realizes there was a coup it'll be too late), but also make it harder for raiders to use the same tactic to protect themselves from a liberation. Though if the raiders do stay in power for a while, it becomes harder to dislodge them later.

All the more reason for regions to be actively vigilant about who resides in their region

Because heaven forbid that anyone ever try to be friendly or welcoming. No, you have to be paranoid and always assume everyone is out to get you. Xenophobia is the only way to build a true community!

[Ravania Ultra]

What is the reasoning behind the fact that an RO keeps his powers in a region when he's not there at update-time?

It wasn't asked for. According to my Summit notes, one representative raised the question but no-one responded to it.

I imagine that if you're not playing R/D, it's annoying to have to reappoint your Diplomacy Officer every time they miss being back in the region at update time. But there's no real prior discussion about this.

I think the founder in this tagged region will find it annoying to reappoint his regional officers (and all the rest) after he only appointed them a few hours before update.

http://www.nationstates.net/page=activi ... il_nations

Yes, he should have set his delegate to non-executive. But chances are he never heard of taggers before this update.

[Cora II]

http://www.nationstates.net/page=activity/view=region.united_communist_and_evil_nations

Yes, he should have set his delegate to non-executive. But chances are he never heard of taggers before this update.

Changces are also that it was first time for me to experience such clean sweep (that doesn't last long I presume.) I found nothing un-balanced there. After all I'm Executive delegate of the region, elected by majority of endorsements. It makes only sense if I can determine ROs of lesser authority. The founder and all effective ROs simply let their shields down. Between hit and tag was time window of about 5 hours.

[Knot II]

I don't have the time to go through and correct all of the numerous inaccuracies within the post, so I'll focus on the most glaring one.

Suddenly, a whole new layer of R/D develops. Raiders no longer have the 'endo and forget' attitude. They have to watch and make sure they haven't been banjected from a region.

Let's think through the proposal of delaying the dismissal of Regional Officers from a wholly independent point of view.

Situation 1: An invader seizes the delegacy of an inactive, founderless region with a defender puppet RO and troops begin to flow in to support the occupation. The defender RO then proceeds to banject all raiders.
Case study: Japan
Even with a relatively active delegate who logs on every 24 hours, the appointment of any one of the dozen defender sleepers would have ended the operation. You, of all people, should know that Ravania keeps dozens in every historical founderless region.

Situation 2: An invader seizes the delegacy of an active, founderless region (such as Canada and European Union) with native RO's and troops begin to flow in to support the occupation. The native regional officers have 26-72 hours to banject any and all raiders with no resistance.

Having to "watch and make sure they haven't been banjected from a region" is the equivalent of getting kicked to the ground with both hands tied behind their back.

Likewise, it can be detrimental for the other side as well in the case of a successful liberation after the appointment of invader regional officers, which would simply repeat your argument back at yourself.

Since this proposal must have been discussed already in their lair, I, for one, must thank the administrator/moderator team for carefully evaluating its potential ramifications before making the wise decision to not implement it at the moment.

There have been a couple voices in this thread that have expressed their thoughts on having a delay on only the appointment of regional officers. If the main opposition of defenders to the current state of RO's is the "2-3x banjection ability", then by all means, implement the delay of appointments to quell their complaints (I wish). Anywhere between 26-72 hours would work in favor for them, since the first few updates are the most vital for liberation attempts.

[Luckies]

Fantastic.

[Letoilenoir]

.

All the more reason for regions to be actively vigilant about who resides in their region

Because heaven forbid that anyone ever try to be friendly or welcoming. No, you have to be paranoid and always assume everyone is out to get you. Xenophobia is the only way to build a true community!

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

[King Nephmir II]

(1) Will Regional Officers get a badge and/or golden nation trophy on their page like founders and delegates?

(2) Will polls ever have the option to be restricted to Regional Officers only?

(3) Would it be possible to have the option to let certain ROs edit certain dispatches, allowing a region's government to update information in them accordingly? In essence, similar to moderators editing another mod's OP when it needs updated.

[Trotterdam]

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

Imprisoning people with foreign descent in concentration camps just in case they might be spies is the price of "liberty"?

Because that's what happened in real life when people took that line of reasoning too far.

(3) Would it be possible to have the option to let certain ROs edit certain dispatches, allowing a region's government to update information in them accordingly? In essence, similar to moderators editing another mod's OP when it needs updated.

Dispatches are primarily associated with a nation, and are one secondarily pinnable to a WFE after they're written. What you're asking would basically be allowing other people to edit your nation.

What you could do as an officer with Appearance authority is grab the source code for a dispatch, post an edited version on your own nation, and then unpin the original and pin your own version.

[Phydios]

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

Imprisoning people with foreign descent in concentration camps just in case they might be spies is the price of "liberty"?

Because that's what happened in real life when people took that line of reasoning too far.

Who says it's being taken too far? Motorized vehicles, combined, kill over 30,000 people a year in the US alone. Thus, motor vehicles are dangerous in the wrong hands. I could take that line of reasoning too far and say that all motor vehicles should be banned. But does that mean that the line of reasoning is wrong? In other words, is a belief faulty just because there's the possibility of misinterpreting it and taking overly extreme actions?

[Trotterdam]

Some vigilance is good. But it's a problem when the game goes too far in favoring surprise attacks over drawn-out battles. Both because the paranoia makes for a less fun community, and because drawing out battles is less punishing to people who didn't happen to be present at exactly the right microsecond (with a sufficiently fast internet), and, well, because putting up a fight is more fun than going "Well, raiders got in. Guess you lose.".

[Kazmr]

Frankly, as it stands, there's absolutely zero benefit for a founderless region in the Border Control realm. The other features are great and make administrating the cultural aspects of a region much better. However Border Control has the following glaring issues for any founderless region:

• Appointing anyone with BC is already a tremendous security risk, far more so than it would be in a Foundered region, given that it opens up the region to destruction. Thus I suspect that many founderless regions, aside from the absolute most secure ones or those who simply haven't thought of the consequences, will be extremely hesitant to utilize it in the first place.
• As far as being able to help stop an invasion as its happening, it simply won't. Simply put, no region is going to be able to keep someone on watch every update forever for the invasion that might never come, and even if an RO does manage to be online at that time the chances of them ejecting enough raiders are certainly not close to 100%.
• Once an invasion already occurs, any security a region could have theoretically, though in practice not really, had from the above point is gone in a flash, since the carefully vetted ROs can be dismissed without any second thought.
• Meanwhile, just about the only people who would actually manage to keep people watching the borders at every update, if only for a short time, would be raiders in the midst of an occupation or coupers in the midst of a coup. Thus BC has, on top of demonstrating no real benefit, become a tremendous liability.

I would advocate for a system utilizing the following:

• 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.

[Gest]

At the end of the day the admins have to decide if they want occupations to be feasible. A time delay/influence cost to dismiss regional officers would give founderless regions nearly the same defense as having a founder. Influence penalties or multipliers on regional officer's actions in founderless regions are meaningless because the natives who are likely to be appointed regional officer's have obscene amounts of influence. Naturally regional officers are going to be the most active nations. Look at Asia, it already has two regional officers with border control access, both of whom have been active in 24 hours. One of the RO's has 300 influence points. You're never going to tax a billionaire into the poor house.

What regions aren't occupied currently? Regions with founders because the founder can easily reverse a raid. If every raid is reversible then you're essentially going to make all founderless regions be quasi-foundered.

[Belschaft]

What regions aren't occupied currently? Regions with founders because the founder can easily reverse a raid. If every raid is reversible then you're essentially going to make all founderless regions be quasi-foundered.

Wasn't that rather the point of the BC/RO role as originally proposed back at the conference? Raiders seem to be complaining that BC/RO's they can't immediately dismiss will make raiding harder; yes, it will.

It was meant to.

[Nonali]

• 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.......

[Zurkerx]

Ah, this is something I have been waiting for a long time.

[Excidium Planetis]

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

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.)

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

5. Regional Officers with Border Control authority should face a small additional "flat fee" of influence for ejecting nations. (Currently, Delegates and Regional Officers can eject brand new arrivals at no influence cost, which helps when holding a newly captured region against would-be liberators.)

6. 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).

2,3,4, and 5 sound good. I do not believe 1 will do anything to defend against raiders, as it makes the 1st 72 hours essentially the same as before ROs, but then makes any time after that very in favor of Raiders. Option 2 seems much better, as it allows native ROs to stay in power for a time, during which they can kick out Raiders.

4 and 5 both seem to limit the ability of Raiders to hold captured regions, and they don't seem like they'd affect native defense that much.

3 is up in the air. Multiregion defenders seems maybe useful, but so does multiregion raiders. I'd actually rather leave this to the R/D people to decide.

Honestly have no idea about 6.

-a concerned native

[Gest]

I'll just say that a delay in dismissal of regional officers is infinitely worse than the already proposed delegate elect feature. That lends itself to a possible struggle between factions but if you give regional officers in founderless regions 26 hours to reverse a raid that's never going to be a battle. They will win decisively.

[[violet]]

Ok, I have 9 officers right now, one ceased to exist while in office. I tried to modify and dismiss but it popped up the "This [nation] has ceased to exist" screen.

You should be able to properly modify ex-nations now, including dismissing them.

[[violet]]

I think you meant to type "Regional Message Board."

Fixed, thanks.

[Cora II]

After this new RO implementation, It would be time to extend visible regional happenings and national happenings space, maybe to 15 or 20 happenings for better 'situational awareness'.

No idea how memory-heavy such thing would be.

[Warzone Airspace Watcher]

I'm going to copy over my post from the other forum:

I've decided I dislike Regional Officers. One tag raid, and now the entire warzone is the raiders playground. They were WA for a minute, and own it from then on. I think we should revert the change, or stop raiders from using it.

Someone told me to put it here. I'm not sure if this is the right place, delete this if it's in the wrong one. Our region got invaded by some communist raiders who made themselves Regional Officers, and now they kick us out before we can return. It's just one guy.