Time for an update! Here's how it's currently looking.
We'll be introducing this in two phases. First come Embassies. Founders and Delegates with access to Regional Control can issue invitations to other regions to establish embassies in each other's region, can accept or decline such invitations from other regions, and can cancel existing embassies.
When regions have embassies, this is noted on their main region page, under the WFE. The establishment and cancellation of embassies with other regions is noted in Regional History (the permanent log you reach by clicking "History..." under Regional Happenings).
Embassies provide no hard gameplay benefit; they don't increase any stats or provide additional powers. Possibly in the future we'd look at recognizing significant regional alliances, as indicated by embassies. But at first, at least, they would have no effect other than as described above. It's expected that they would mostly just formalize what many regions already do on their WFE, and, perhaps, encourage other regions to consider regional alliances.
Embassies can be canceled at any time by the Founder or (empowered) Delegate of either region.
Still experimenting with this part: possibly there will be a time delay on the establishment and cancellation of embassies. That is, rather than this happening the instant that both parties agree, it starts a timer, and 72 hours (or whatever) later, if nobody changed their mind, that's when it takes effect. This would allow regional residents to replace their Delegate if they disagreed strongly enough with the proposed embassy (or cancellation thereof).
So to Annex. The reason we're doing Embassies first is that Annex would use the same mechanism. It would require an authorized nation from each side to make it happen, and almost certainly operate on a timer, with residents able to see that an annexation is looming. If not stopped, it would be recorded in the region's History (permanently) and, while current, on the region's front page.
Neither embassies nor annexations have an associated Influence cost.
As with embassies, annexes would provide no hard gameplay benefits or extra powers. We might look at that in the future, although right now I don't see it as necessary.
Once annexed, a region is referred in-game as a "territory" of the annexing region.
Still unsure whether we'll do "chains" of annexes, where Region A can annex Region B which in turn can annex Region C, or, if instead in that situation we'd consider both B and C to be territories of A. Chains allow for tantalizing strategic possibilities, but are harder to code.
Regions can only be annexed by one other region at any given time.
Still experimenting: possibly the population of territories will be counted toward the annexing region. This would happen in two places: firstly, on the annexing region's front page, its population would be listed as something like: "Testregionia contains 8 nations and has 12 nations in territories (total: 20)." Secondly, the Region List would include population in territories. If, for example, 10000 Islands (1,340 nations) annexed Galactic Republic (1,150 nations), then 1000 Islands would be listed as having 2,490 nations, and ranked accordingly. (Galactic Republic would be listed normally.)
This is the next major feature in the pipline, so if nothing explodes, we should have it within the next month or two.
Deep shit man...
