Frontiers, Governors, Successors and Injunctions

[Apatosaurus]

The process isn't meant to be foolproof. Use of a password should be the primary means of protection, or calling in support to pile endorsements on the Delegate. I feel the transition period is long enough already - I know a lot of us measure time in NS in years, but for most online games 2 weeks is a damn long time - and I don't want that dramatically extended. The 3 days allows some time to rectify the situation via R/D means, without being overlong.

Ultimately, I agree with ShrewLlamaLand. If this is going to be implemented, there needs to be a foolproof method of preventing last-minute snipes by raiders and thus region griefing. A 1 week (or so) extension should in most cases work to give enough time for a WA Preserve resolution to pass, if a usual R/D liberation fails.

Also the OP still mentions "Democracy"

50% of newly spawned nations are spawned in eligible Democracy regions rather than feeders.

Spawnings cease if they initiate this switch - you don't get the benefits if you're quitting Democracy status!

the SC cannot prevent an Executive Founder transitioning their region to Democracy status.

[Flanderlion]

So admin has come back with an overwhelming positive on the project. There are a few bits that warrant further discussion; from smallest to largest:

1) "Preserve" remains a poor name for an SC category. Anchor? Embed? Fortify? Gird? I offer some casual mod abuse to someone's nation (e.g. custom extremely long pre-title) if they come up with a better term that gets adopted.

2) I talked about renaming Founders to Governor. Violet's suggestion was to have both. In her words: "I quite like Governor. [...] it's probably best to keep the term Founder as well -- e.g. Governors are also either a Founder or a Successor. "Founder" would no longer automatically mean the nation had executive power, but would be more of a historical honorific. Active Founders should keep their slot on region pages, even if they're no longer Governor." I think this is relatively uncontroversial, but please let me know if otherwise.

3) Qualifying for spawnings in a Frontier region; the big question. Violet dislikes the prescriptive nature of the requirements I've set out (see the OP) -- they suit what established gameplayers (most of us here, myself included) think would be the best way to run a region, but it's potentially stifling. Violet is not so bothered if some Frontiers are crap - we don't need to protect players from their own poor actions, and if new players end up in a bad region, they're at least receiving lots of telegrams telling them of the better places they could be moving to.

Her view was a less binary system (currently it's: 1) not qualified, no spawns OR 2) met lots of qualifications, receive equal share of spawns) -- instead one where all Frontiers receive a basic level of spawnings, but can increase the flow through various qualifying factors. I had assumed this would be more complex to code, but I'm told it's not all that much more, and gives us a lot more flexibility, especially for tweaking in the future. So roughly, every new Frontier could receive spawns, but a boost for such things as:

• Having a welcome TG set.
  [*}No pw (or a pw closes the throttle, and you get no spawns).
• Existing for more than a couple of weeks.
• Having more than 10 verified endos on the Delegate.

Because it's more granular, we can favour all sorts of stuff, e.g. medium sized regions over tiny or gargantuan ones, possibly active RMB over less active ones.

What I'm asking here, is what aspects of a region do you think should result in more or less spawns? If you can give numbers too, that's helpful.

Re Governor, it fits well so no issues from me. Yes, I know I had an issue with another name from annexation in this thread earlier but in this case I don't care.

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Still think giving a founder to a new nation should be either reinstating an old founder then them abdicating or a SC proposal that gives to the delegate at vote end. The SC is much better at approving rather than preventing things. I don't see it'll be a short term issue with raiders so weak though (players fault not game here).

There are so many examples of regions getting raided without SC intervention, and allowing a radically faster game over scenario doesn't seem good for the game. If the region isn't in favour/the SC hasn't acted in favour, why should there be an easy way for a hostile actor to appoint a founder?

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Factors for spawning:

Each region should have a spawning score, which is their probability of receiving a nation in their score/total frontier score/2 (as 50% to be in a frontier).

Thinking there should be tiers for a lot of these as they aren't like for like. Someone with posts every 2 minutes is likely a better region than one with posts every 2 days.

Semi-active RMB - non bot post in last 24 hours.
Active RMB - non bot post in last 2 hours.
Alive RMB - non bot post in last 15 minutes.

These 3 should give a 50% boost each.

A welcome TG should give a 200% or 500% boost. Like, I don't agree with the goal of any region getting spawns, but having a welcome TG seems a fairly low bar.

Existing more than a week, month and year should give 10% to each as well. (30% total as it shouldn't have a lot of weight)

Having 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 endoes on a del should give 50% boost as well each.

Active poll should give a 100% boost.

Each influence tier should give a 10% boost.

Then the base should be WA nations in region, multiplied by the factors.

E.g. 10*(1.5+5+0.3+2.5+1+0.2)= 10*10.5= 105 spawning score.
105/total spawning score/2 would be the % chance of a new nation spawning in their region.

This isn't exhaustive, and the beauty of tiers is you could put negative multipliers for regions with lots of regional influence, or regions that existed longer than a year instead to reward Goldilocks regions. Initially though it should all be positive and the factors probably when finalised shouldn't be shared (especially when negative ones happen).

If there is a total of 0 WAs in a region, it shows not a single person cares about it, and therefore a new nation shouldn't go there.

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I know would be totally seperate from this feature but the more the site is putting players in less active regions, the more it needs a super active chat to fill the void of RMBs (global).

[Lord Dominator]

Hours is reasonable for RMB post, but anything in the minutes range is unreasonable for non-Feeders. I just checked TCB, Europe, and XKI - they all fail a 15 minute test multiple times in just the last 10 posts & the latter two possibly fail on an hourly level at least once.

[Refuge Isle]

2) I talked about renaming Founders to Governor. Violet's suggestion was to have both. In her words: "I quite like Governor. [...] it's probably best to keep the term Founder as well -- e.g. Governors are also either a Founder or a Successor. "Founder" would no longer automatically mean the nation had executive power, but would be more of a historical honorific. Active Founders should keep their slot on region pages, even if they're no longer Governor." I think this is relatively uncontroversial, but please let me know if otherwise.

It seems like your idea (under the current way titles stack) would mean my RO title would read "Founder / Governor / Arch-Administrator", which is very cumbersome.

Refugia is based off an RP, and in lore is headed up by what is functionally the community keystone, the Arch-Aministrator. So it doesn't make sense for me (or future successors) to not use that title. I presume other regions have their culture-specific takes on these types of roles as well. I'd like to advocate for fewer names/titles being established by the game itself and more personal agency for individual regions' self expression.

Has admin considered the possibility of either the founder, governor, or both being a custom-set title?

[Flanderlion]

Hours is reasonable for RMB post, but anything in the minutes range is unreasonable for non-Feeders. I just checked TCB, Europe, and XKI - they all fail a 15 minute test multiple times in just the last 10 posts & the latter two possibly fail on an hourly level at least once.

Hence why I suggested tiers rather than having only one threshold. For a new system, you should aim for what is desirable, not what is current (unless current is also desirable). Also, there is no difference to anyone if no one reaches a tier, as no one gets the bonus, meaning the end result to everyone is no change.

[Tinhampton]

Further to what Flanderlion said... would it be useful at all to have a somewhat-live page which shows the probability that each region has of receiving a newly-founded nation once F/S is implemented?

[ShrewLlamaLand]

RMB post frequency is not a good indicator of regional activity, and encourages regions to increase spammy posting. I don't think it should factor at all.

Influence is a good suggestion, as well as Delegate endorsements. I agree the spawn rate should be visible.

fwiw if any Frontier with only 10 endorsements can have spawns, with no requirement for quality, and considering the possiblity of variable spawn rates, I don't see a reason why spawns should necessarily be limited to Frontiers.

[The Hinterplace]

I like secure as the name for the proposal. As for Founder name, would it be possible for regions to choose the name of their Founder, like they do for other Regional Officers?

[Weed]

RMB posting linked to spawn rate is not a good idea, it will just encourage a few active people to spam comments back and forth to clear whatever arbitrary amount per day or time since hurdle. Not good for actual RMBs anywhere.

Also, on this SC proposal... If it takes two weeks for a region to become a stronghold or frontier that's not much time to get something to vote. As of right now if a raid happened at this major the soonest a new proposal could finish voting is in the 10 day range given there are two days left at vote and four days of voting for the proposal in queue... That's going to be really pushing it (and that also means you will never have time to draft these things, they are just going to have to be thrown out ASAP because if they don't get in queue quickly the change will take place. Speaking of which...

If the proposal does what it says in the OP, stop the region from changing either way... Imagine a raid of a stronghold founderless region, raider sleeper starts conversion to frontier to erase years of influence through decay, the queue was a bit long so by the time voting ends the two week timer runs out. Does that mean if the region just switched to a frontier it stays locked one until repeal (even though at time of submission the intent was to lock it as a stronghold)?

It seems like if a 'preserve' or whatever resolution is in queue the timer should stop. Then we don't have to worry about missing a vote because of queue and also don't have to worry about what happens if the switch occurs before voting ends.

[Apatosaurus]

It seems like if a 'preserve' or whatever resolution is in queue the timer should stop. Then we don't have to worry about missing a vote because of queue and also don't have to worry about what happens if the switch occurs before voting ends.

Overall I agree with this idea.

[USS Juneau]

It seems like if a 'preserve' or whatever resolution is in queue the timer should stop. Then we don't have to worry about missing a vote because of queue and also don't have to worry about what happens if the switch occurs before voting ends.

Overall I agree with this idea.

Exceeeepppttt then if I don't like a region and they're transitioning... all I need is two WA endos to fuck with them and mess up their transfer for several days, leaving them vulnerable.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

I'm largely ambivalent about specific requirements to set up a Frontier- however, they're all going to need at least 1 WA nation present, so that some enterprising ass can't set up a hundred of them to try and choke all the others. In fact, at least having an executive WA delegate would be ideal for starters.

[Weed]

Overall I agree with this idea.

Exceeeepppttt then if I don't like a region and they're transitioning... all I need is two WA endos to fuck with them and mess up their transfer for several days, leaving them vulnerable.

in queue

Though admittedly, two WAs a few dozen WA delegates.

[Comfed]

Also, on this SC proposal... If it takes two weeks for a region to become a stronghold or frontier that's not much time to get something to vote. As of right now if a raid happened at this major the soonest a new proposal could finish voting is in the 10 day range given there are two days left at vote and four days of voting for the proposal in queue... That's going to be really pushing it (and that also means you will never have time to draft these things, they are just going to have to be thrown out ASAP because if they don't get in queue quickly the change will take place. Speaking of which...

If the proposal does what it says in the OP, stop the region from changing either way... Imagine a raid of a stronghold founderless region, raider sleeper starts conversion to frontier to erase years of influence through decay, the queue was a bit long so by the time voting ends the two week timer runs out. Does that mean if the region just switched to a frontier it stays locked one until repeal (even though at time of submission the intent was to lock it as a stronghold)?

It seems like if a 'preserve' or whatever resolution is in queue the timer should stop. Then we don't have to worry about missing a vote because of queue and also don't have to worry about what happens if the switch occurs before voting ends.

I don’t agree that those situations are necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think saving a region with preserve/secure/whatever should be easy.

[Umbratellus]

What about something like "Archive" for the category? It carries with it all the appropriate connotations, I feel. You're preserving the political status quo indefinitely, it is being retired from general consideration to be kept as is. Similarly to the Liberate mechanic, it will most likely be used to protect regions from Raiders or political coups. As such, you are "Archiving" the region to prevent its further deterioration and preserving the memory of what the region used to be. If/when the motion is repealed, the region is "taken out of the archives" and allowed to be politically dynamic again.

[Comfed]

What about something like "Archive" for the category? It carries with it all the appropriate connotations, I feel. You're preserving the political status quo indefinitely, it is being retired from general consideration to be kept as is. Similarly to the Liberate mechanic, it will most likely be used to protect regions from Raiders or political coups. As such, you are "Archiving" the region to prevent its further deterioration and preserving the memory of what the region used to be. If/when the motion is repealed, the region is "taken out of the archives" and allowed to be politically dynamic again.

It could still be politically dynamic even if it couldn't change it's F/S status. It's not like it's freezing the RMB or WFE or anything.

[Brox Reple]

Hello!

I am curious as to whether the spawning will be equally split among all frontiers, perhaps proportional to WAD endocount (either linear, logarithmic, square root, or even something else) as it was mentioned a while ago.
I mention this in addition to the boosts violet envisioned

[All Wild Things]

Hello!

I am curious as to whether the spawning will be equally split among all frontiers, perhaps proportional to WAD endocount (either linear, logarithmic, square root, or even something else) as it was mentioned a while ago.
I mention this in addition to the boosts violet envisioned

What do you think would be best? This is your chance to help determine the outcome.

It was argued earlier that equal splits would lead to empires and colonies, that linear with endos would encourage large regions with less incentive for R/D conflict, and that log/square root would be somewhere in between.

I like Flanderlion's suggestion of scores, but I don't agree with what makes up the score. Someone already mentioned that basing score on RMB posts would encourage spam. I'd say that you could spam polls too - every two weeks you could set up a 24 day poll "Is this a poll?" and game the system that way. So yeah, maybe bonus points for a poll, but not many.

I do agree with the share being related to endo count in some way tho.

[Haganham]

Suppose we didn't tell people what the scores are? It would make people spamming the region to exploit it much less likely.

[Comfed]

Suppose we didn't tell people what the scores are? It would make people spamming the region to exploit it much less likely.

It would be eventually possible to figure it out anyways.

[Lord Dominator]

Suppose we didn't tell people what the scores are? It would make people spamming the region to exploit it much less likely.

It would be eventually possible to figure it out anyways.

For reference, the precise measure of influence scoring/use used to be secret as well, and that’s mathematically more complicated than a points system (particularly as more would be fairly obvious).

[Comfed]

Anyways, I support a logarithmic system based on Delegate endorsement system. If all frontiers were equal, I could easily found lots and lots of frontiers so that they altogether captured a big fraction of new nations and set them up to point to my region, and then just leave them to funnel nations to my region until they died.

[Sedgistan]

1: A word that is sticking with me is “Entrench”, it just sounds solid.

I think this is my favourite suggestion yet, though I'm not fully convinced by it yet. Thousand Branches' "Safeguard" was decent too, although safeguarding has other connotations these days.

"Fortify" was okay. Looking at synonyms of the better words above, "Ensconce" could be fun, though that may be just because it's a funny word. What about "Anchor"? It seems a highly appropriate description; you're anchoring a region as one type so it cannot be changed to the other. And everyone can shout "anchors aweigh" when one gets repealed, and make all sorts of nautical puns.

[Thousand Branches]

1: A word that is sticking with me is “Entrench”, it just sounds solid.

I think this is my favourite suggestion yet, though I'm not fully convinced by it yet. Thousand Branches' "Safeguard" was decent too, although safeguarding has other connotations these days.

"Fortify" was okay. Looking at synonyms of the better words above, "Ensconce" could be fun, though that may be just because it's a funny word. What about "Anchor"? It seems a highly appropriate description; you're anchoring a region as one type so it cannot be changed to the other. And everyone can shout "anchors aweigh" when one gets repealed, and make all sorts of nautical puns.

Entrench seems like one of the most accurate words but at the same time I wonder if it would be confusing for some (it is definitely not a particularly commonly used word). Anchor does seem like it would work well, it feels considerably more casual than “entrench” which might be better for a browser game

[Bassiliya]

I know this was a bit further back, but I had an idea. We were talking about the whole "Governor" title thing for founders and successors. Why can't we just have customizable founder/delegate/successor names? That would really help with regions that involve the founder in their government. It would make my title in Thegye change from "Founder / Diarch" to just "Diarch". Much cleaner, especially if the founder/successor is also the delegate.