Frontiers, Governors, Successors and Injunctions

by **Sedgistan** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:41 pm

This is a wide-ranging series of interlinked changes meant to address several issues in gameplay. There has been some previous discussion on earlier concepts of this both here when Violet first suggested it publicly, and here.

Summary of the changes, as per the News post:

Governors

Regions now feature Governors, who inherit all the powers that Founders previously had, such as ejecting nations, password-protecting the region, granting the Delegate Executive control, and appointing Regional Officers. Any nation that was an Executive Founder of a region previously has automatically been appointed Governor of that region.

Founders are still recorded in regions, but only as a historical record of the nation that created a region; the role does not have any powers associated with it.

Successors

Governors have gained a new power, to appoint Successors. This provides an additional layer of protection for regions, as if the Governor nation ceases to exist, the first in line Successor inherits the Governor role, allowing them to take over management and safekeeping of their region. Governors may also choose to abdicate, which allows their chosen Successor to immediately become Governor.

These changes provide longer-term security for regions, as well as allowing the baton of command to be passed on to another nation when a Governor feels they are no longer able to provide leadership for their region.

Frontiers

A new region type has been introduced - Frontiers. These regions have no Governors, meaning Executive power is held by the Delegate position. This makes them more vulnerable to invasion from outside groups, or to internal coups; however, newly founded nations may spawn within Frontiers, providing them with a steady flow of new residents.

When founding a new region, you can choose to designate it as a Frontier, or to stick with the security of a standard region with the founding nation becoming Governor. Existing regions can choose to transition to Frontier status, which will result in the Governor relinquishing their powers. Regions can also choose to transition away from Frontier status, which will result in the WA Delegate being appointed as Governor. In both cases, the process takes two weeks.

Injunctions

The Security Council has been granted new powers to pass Injunction resolutions on regions. This prevents the region's WA Delegate from changing the region's status to or from Frontier. This allows the World Assembly to intervene to prevent unwanted changes of region status.

by **Weed** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:58 pm

What becomes the status of current non-executive foundered regions? I assume no more could be created as they have none of the benefits. Also, I have some regions that are Non-executive founders (like Bahamas) that I've held for some time. Originally wanted to do something with them, now just around. Please don't migrate us all to democracy without the heads up.

This is a great idea. Just to point out though, I'm not sure no password AND no way to go back to autocracy is the way to go. If that's what you do, there will only be an ever-increasing number of these as refounds will be very tough, which would mean your posit that these will be fought over would diminish rather quickly. DEN's attempts to refound St Abbaddon showed that even with no natives, it is tough to stop nations jumping in at the same time you are trying to refound. DEN ceased to exist before they were able to pull it off. I think some sort of hold the region for a while and then permanently turn off the spout on new nations is in order if you want these to be rare enough a commodity people care about individual ones.

by **The Python** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:58 pm

Noice!

by **Esthe** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:00 pm

Cool. When’s the change rolling out?

by **Sedgistan** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:03 pm

I knew I'd forget something:

What decides which region nations spawn in?

It's been suggested that an element of revamping recruitment be incorporated into this change, basically to give nations a choice of where they go before the recruitment TGs flood in. This would be a page at the last step of nation creation that lets nations choose from a selection of eligible regions for their nation to be founded in. For the lazy/impatient, this could be skipped and you'd just end up somewhere random.

I'm open to thoughts on this. If it's bundled into D/A, then the page would likely only list eligible Democracies (and Feeders?), or I feel it kind of undermines the change if nations are given a list of non-Democracy regions to spawn in.

by **Sedgistan** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:06 pm

Weed wrote:What becomes the status of current non-executive foundered regions? I assume no more could be created as they have none of the benefits. Also, I have some regions that are Non-executive founders (like Bahamas) that I've held for some time. Originally wanted to do something with them, now just around. Please don't migrate us all to democracy without the heads up.

My answer to this remains "don't know". I'm open to suggestions - you're one of the few players who has made use of this type of region.

Weed wrote:This is a great idea. Just to point out though, I'm not sure no password AND no way to go back to autocracy is the way to go. If that's what you do, there will only be an ever-increasing number of these as refounds will be very tough, which would mean your posit that these will be fought over would diminish rather quickly. DEN's attempts to refound St Abbaddon showed that even with no natives, it is tough to stop nations jumping in at the same time you are trying to refound. DEN ceased to exist before they were able to pull it off. I think some sort of hold the region for a while and then permanently turn off the spout on new nations is in order if you want these to be rare enough a commodity people care about individual ones.

For the region to rebound and have spawnings it would need to get 10+ endorsements on its Delegate again -- but I guess that is possible. And re-founding is something we're looking to avoid, so maybe there should be another method of permanent conquest for Democracies?

Passwords maybe could work, but only if having one meant you were ineligible for new nations. But I don't like the idea of Democracies having that tool, as larger ones may occasionally use it for security - I'd prefer them to be constantly vulnerable.

by **Morover** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:12 pm

I was writing a longer list of critiques and stuff, but decided it was mostly irrelevant and instead will just lend my support towards this idea, so long as the situation with integrating current regions into the system is figured out.

One question, would Warzones become democracies with their otherwise unique functionality kept intact?

Also, given your post about nations potentially choosing which region to spawn in, how would this interact with the point that only 50% of nations spawn in Democracies, with the other half spawning in feeders?

by **Weed** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:13 pm

Sedgistan wrote:For the region to rebound and have spawnings it would need to get 10+ endorsements on its Delegate again -- but I guess that is possible. And re-founding is something we're looking to avoid, so maybe there should be another method of permanent conquest for Democracies?

Passwords maybe could work, but only if having one meant you were ineligible for new nations. But I don't like the idea of Democracies having that tool, as larger ones may occasionally use it for security - I'd prefer them to be constantly vulnerable.

I agree they shouldn't be able to lock down and keep their flow of nations, but I just don't think they'll be fought over very long if they supply just keeps going up and up on these regions. At the point where a major org owned 2 or 3 they'd stop trying to take the rest for sure because you can't hold an infinite number. And then people would realize its easier to create one than to take one over, so why try?

IMO, it makes more sense for these to be regular regions first, and at a highish influence cost (even for founders) they choose to become democracies. Then I can't just spam out 10 of them on the first day and there's no real hope the GPers can fight over all of them.

by **The Python** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:14 pm

Sedgistan wrote:
Weed wrote:What becomes the status of current non-executive foundered regions? I assume no more could be created as they have none of the benefits. Also, I have some regions that are Non-executive founders (like Bahamas) that I've held for some time. Originally wanted to do something with them, now just around. Please don't migrate us all to democracy without the heads up.

My answer to this remains "don't know". I'm open to suggestions - you're one of the few players who has made use of this type of region.

In my opinion the region's founder should be able to choose whenever this rolls out.
Question: if a democracy is embargoed, it still has a non-executive founder and executive delegate right?

by **Obets** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:21 pm

I disagree with this, it sets too many guidlines that can make regions like the Free Nations Region divided among what they should choose. Overall I disagree with this plan

by **Zeritae** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:28 pm

Could GCR's be embargoed?

by **Cormactopia Prime** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:31 pm

I'm overall extremely in favor of this. A few brief points:

I would stick with 6 month influence decay for Democracies to see how this works. It could be adjusted later.
If the intent is to let there be a game over situation for these regions, agreed with Weed that no password, no Autocracy will make that very hard. But I'm also agreed that letting regions go back to Autocracy is a bad idea. It lets regions game this system to get the benefits of Democracy, then revert. A separate game over option coded into how these regions work might be desirable, like allowing imposition of a password once the region drops below a certain population.
In Autocracies, I think it would be fine for the Successor to not be in the region, but once it becomes Founder the WA Delegate would be executive until the new Founder moves into the region -- exactly how it works now when a Founder isn't in the region.
The Successor immediately taking over is the best option, otherwise you allow leeway for invasion and destruction. A Successor should be able to decline at the time of appointment, but not at the time of becoming Founder, otherwise you end up in a founderless situation again.
Regarding what to do with grey area regions (historic founderless, non-executive Founders), I say let them choose in the same way founderless regions were once given the option of choosing a Founder. It's the cleanest way to avoid forcing unwanted circumstances on these regions, which are usually quite small and vulnerable. Should any be too inactive to choose one way or the other, I think I'd transition them to Autocracies to err on the side of their safety.
Agreed that if there is a new recruitment page, it should list only Democracies and maybe Feeders. Torn on that because Feeders don't need the help.

My biggest suggestion for how to improve this idea even more is to let Sinkers and Warzones opt to become Democracies because unlike Feeders, they do need the help. This would allow Democracy Sinkers and Warzones to receive spawned nations and appear on the new recruitment page. In exchange, the Democracy Sinkers and Warzones would be giving up unlimited security, as the same game over conditions that exist in UCRs that became Democracies would now exist in them. For the first time, a GCR could be destroyed, which shouldn't be a problem given the regions would have opted into the possibility of destruction by becoming Democracies. If a Sinker or a Warzone is destroyed, it could be replaced by a brand new Sinker or Warzone to continue meeting the needs previously met by the destroyed region.

Whether you move forward with that additional idea or not, I really love this and hope it ultimately ends up implemented!

by **Zeritae** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:36 pm

I think that changing from D to A and/or A to D might not be bad if there is a long waiting time in between.

by **Galiantus III** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:38 pm

Sedgistan wrote:
Before we go further: I am not in any way attached to the "Democracy" and "Autocracy" labels, and am very open to changing them. I know objections have been raised to these names in the past, and I get those.

The names definitely need to be changed for the sake of clarity, because otherwise players will make decisions based on the real-world definitions, leading to them getting upset when they get unexpected results. We need very descriptive names. I already proposed this in Flanderlion's thread, but I think describing Democracy as "power-oriented" and Autocracy as "security-oriented" suggests to the average person the actual choice they are making, with all the associated trade-offs. So if someone chooses to make their region "power-oriented" instead of "security-oriented", there is less room for surprise when their region is invaded, even if they don't fully understand how an invasion works.

To be eligible to have nations spawned in them, the WA Delegate must have at least 10 verified endorsements, and a Welcome TG must be set.

[...]

The eligibility requirement being based on verified endorsements seems to be the neatest way to ensure there are X number of actual people invested in that region. I do not want people to be able to found dozens of Democracy regions that are eligible to receive new nations, or there's an incentive to have The Moon 1, The Moon 2, The Moon 3, etc., funneling nations towards one central region.

10 endorsements on the delegate is a very small number. It's the kind of thing that would see lots of R/D players just founding new regions and distributing nations between them as a way of advertising their organization. It also means more new players would start out in very small regions with not much activity, which I have a problem with. That said I see the appeal of keeping it somewhat low so the barrier to entry is actually attainable. Perhaps the chance of nation spawns could be weighted by delegate endorsements: nations are twice as likely to spawn in a region if the delegate has 100 endorsements as opposed to 50. Thus it would be more desirable to group up together than spread out. Of course a side-effect is it would shift the incentive to invade from small regions to large regions, which may or may not be a good thing.

Potentially the Founder can appoint a "chain" of Successors in case the chosen Successor has CTEd. There are some questions to ask around details of this, e.g

I'm thinking have a list where if someone is the founder they can edit the order of succession below them, and the highest nation on the list acts as the region executive if the founder is no longer in the region. Also allow nations to "retire" while acting as executive, which would simply remove them from the list and instate the person next on the list as the acting executive - retired nations could be added to the list by the current executive.

I am leaning towards thinking that regions must be one or the other, because Autocracy is basically Current Situation++. There's no downside to it, and there's no obligation to appoint Successors. So really "Autocracies" aren't so much a new feature - "Democracies" are, and then non-Democracies get "Successors".

This. I think succession should just be a new feature available to existing regions.

What about current regions?

I think just let founderless regions continue as they are. Any switching should be left up to the founder, if they return.

I am more inclined to say no to this now, or at most make it a one-way ticket from Autocracy to Democracy. There's no going back afterwards.

Edit: I initially was opposed to any switching, but honestly it's not that big a deal. One-way switching from Autocracy to Democracy makes perfect sense and meets my expectations.

Sedgistan wrote:It's been suggested that an element of revamping recruitment be incorporated into this change, basically to give nations a choice of where they go before the recruitment TGs flood in. This would be a page at the last step of nation creation that lets nations choose from a selection of eligible regions for their nation to be founded in. For the lazy/impatient, this could be skipped and you'd just end up somewhere random.

I think this is something to worry about after this has been implemented.

by **Cormactopia Prime** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:49 pm

Galiantus III wrote:The names definitely need to be changed for the sake of clarity, because otherwise players will make decisions based on the real-world definitions, leading to them getting upset when they get unexpected results. We need very descriptive names.

To push back on this a little, making decisions you think will turn out one way only for it to turn out another way is part of the NationStates experience starting with the issues you answer. Much about this game isn't quite how it appears, by design. So I actually do think some non-democratic regions being Democracies and some democratic regions being Autocracies could be consistent with the somewhat topsy turvy nature of the game's sometimes extreme outcomes that are very much at odds with what one might expect. I'd be fine with the names being changed, but I'm just as fine keeping them.

Galiantus III wrote:I don't think switching of any kind is desirable. This should be a decision made by the founder on the region creation page, and the default setting should be Autocracy (name should probably be changed to keep from upsetting people though). If you allow switching, that means someone can found a region and keep it secure until it is large enough to have both security and new nation spawns when it makes the switch to democracy. These regions need to survive the refiner's fire of gameplay from infancy to deserve new nation spawns.

I vehemently disagree with this, unless we would allow already established regions to become Democracies during some initial period, and then after the initial period only allow regions to become Democracies at founding. It wouldn't be right to force all existing UCRs to be Autocracies when they never had this option, and moreover, it would very much undermine many of the goals of this proposal as the UCRs most involved with gameplay would continue to be untouchable Autocracies.

by **Imperium Anglorum** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:55 pm

I think the names 'democracy' and 'autocracy' are frankly, extremely misleading. You can have an autocratic founderless region just as you can have a democratic region with an executive founder.

by **Sanctaria** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:56 pm

Imperium Anglorum wrote:I think the names 'democracy' and 'autocracy' are frankly, extremely misleading. You can have an autocratic founderless region just as you can have a democratic region with an executive founder.

Yeah, agreed. It's easy to say "well with NS things aren't always as it seems" which is true but when it comes to nations deciding where to spawn potentially saying "here's a bunch of feeders, or here's a bunch of democracies, autocracies don't get to be here" is probably a bit too misleading.

by **Comfed** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:10 pm

I think that Autocracy should be the default for regions, and give founders the option to switch to Democracy at any time, but make this change irreversible.

by **Fhaengshia** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:24 pm

If there's the requirement for regions to have 10 (or so) WA nations to be able to spawn like a feeder, then I feel it would make sense for regions to be able to change from "democracy" to "autocracy" when below this same threshold.

Also my 2c on new names:
Democracy: Co-operative Region, or something similar
Autocracy: Administered Region, or something involving "order"

by **Morover** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:52 pm

Fhaengshia wrote:If there's the requirement for regions to have 10 (or so) WA nations to be able to spawn like a feeder, then I feel it would make sense for regions to be able to change from "democracy" to "autocracy" when below this same threshold.

I'd second this; autocracies can switch to democracy anytime, democracies can switch back to autocracy if they are ineligible to spawn nations (with an exception being if they are embargoed).

I'd also love a new name for this feature, though I think autocracy/democracy works as a placeholder.

by **Flanderlion** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:13 pm

Looks good. I'll probably have a lot more to say later, but for now the glaring thing is about passwords. I think visible passwords should be able to be set, just that if the region has an active password it no longer is eligible for spawning.

Saw the TG recruitment buffs/penalties were removed, and tbh after seeing the competitiveness of the current situation they weren't necessary and just added complexity.

I personally also think the WA delegate if the region has been without a founder for a year (including GCRs) should be able to become democracies but that's a design decision.

For Autocracy - I think once the old founder CTEs, it starts off a 4 day timer that unless the Founder refounds during that time, the Founder authority permanently goes to their successor. If the successor wants to appoint their own successor, that successor has to approve it. Then if either the founder decides to give up power, or they CTE, the timer is started and again is irreversible once complete.

So a Founder chooses their successor, and their successor has to accept the burden. Once accepted, the timer starts (I said 4 as the time of an embassy and an accidental CTE only lasts a day or two generally, and not too much damage can be done in 4 days) and if it completes, the successor has absolute power.

--

Only thing not being addressed is RMB activity. I think new nations need access to a super active chat when they start the game. Feeder RMBs aren't at the level of what new players expect when joining a game, but they're light years ahead activity wise in comparison to other regions.

I proposed a global chat in the form of an association (which is already coded to my knowledge) to address this. People were concerned about moderating it etc. but having somewhere where they can be involved with constant activity (rather than hit and miss with UCRs) I think significantly outweighs that.

by **Bears Armed** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:14 pm

I was going to hold out for the existence of a "status quo" middle ground, but now i see that you have made your 'Autocracy category (I agree with several other players who have already commented here, that label has to go...) more of that -- dropping a restriction that your earlier draft would have imposed -- anyway.
For a possible 'founder successor' system, there's a post by me somewhere in this forum in which I gave a detailed suggestion: I'll try to find that post tomorrow, and provide a link to it in this thread for your & other people's consideration, if nobody else provides that link first.

Even if this basic concept of yours is introduced, however, with a proportion of new nations spawning in the newly-defined "democracies", I would hope strongly for a revised recruitment system that also gives the other regions a more effective way of advertising themselves than they currently possess: Otherwise, these changes would probably be harmful in the [medium to] long run to the non-GP-oriented regions.

by **Lord Dominator** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:48 pm

Bears Armed wrote:I was going to hold out for the existence of a "status quo" middle ground, but now i see that you have made your 'Autocracy category (I agree with several other players who have already commented here, that label has to go...) more of that -- dropping a restriction that your earlier draft would have imposed -- anyway.
For a possible 'founder successor' system, there's a post by me somewhere in this forum in which I gave a detailed suggestion: I'll try to find that post tomorrow, and provide a link to it in this thread for your & other people's consideration, if nobody else provides that link first.

Even if this basic concept of yours is introduced, however, with a proportion of new nations spawning in the newly-defined "democracies", I would hope strongly for a revised recruitment system that also gives the other regions a more effective way of advertising themselves than they currently possess: Otherwise, these changes would probably be harmful in the [medium to] long run to the non-GP-oriented regions.

My first impression is to restrict recruitment in some manner for democracies (with autocracy remaining as-is).

by **Papercuts and Skittles** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:53 pm

It'll be interesting to see how the 50/50 split for dispersion would be parcelled out. I'm gonna call it now, you're going to stick the GCRs with just card farmers or whoever else has the same e-mail, IP address, etc... As a pre-existing nation or whatever notion they come up with game side.

by **Weed** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 4:18 pm

Autocracy term is fine, and correct. Currently all foundered regions are autocracies, the fact certain founders don't choose to use that power for a while doesn't mean it isn't there. And one day, the founder may use that power and completely destroy the region or issue demands. They are autocracies, they always were, and there's nothing wrong with telling players the founder may one day decide he or she wants to close the region / change the region / etc and there is jack all anyone can do about it.

Frontiers, Governors, Successors and Injunctions

Frontiers, Governors, Successors and Injunctions

Who is online