COE's Drafting Board [Invite-only]

[Crushing Our Enemies]

This thread will serve as a place for people whose values are similar to my own to offer input and help draft my summit responses before they are posted to the official summit threads.

This is an invitation only thread.

---

Only the following nations are invited to post (so far):
Tramiar
Jarron
General Halcones
Evil Wolf
Jakker
Blackbird
Krshmlnt
Punk Daddy

---

If you would like to join, please telegram me and I will consider adding you to the list. If you post in this thread, I may copy and past elements of your posts into my summit responses. If I do, I will always invite you to a live drafting session through an online collaborative text editor, so that you can take an active hand in shaping the final product.

I intend to write my own response to Summit #2 (R/D Nirvana) but I am soliciting input from those I have invited on Summit #1 (What's your ideal agenda?).

Reps, you have 500 words to express yourself on the topic of your choice. You may use that to explain why you're here, what you most want to accomplish, to relate an experience you think everyone should be aware of, or whatever. Your response needs to be internally complete (i.e. don't link to an 8,000 word essay to make your point) but you may link to ideas in the Technical Suggestions thread. Don't worry about trying to say everything in this opening statement - we'll be covering areas in more detail later.

As I am very busy with finals and such for the next few days, I will be relying on the input of my friends and comrades for the bulk of this response. So, friends: what sort of stuff would you like to see in my response? If you like, feel free to simply answer the prompt yourself. Also, I don't mind you folks responding to each other, and debating the finer points. We all agree on the fundamentals here. The purpose of this thread is to craft the most communicative post we can to express our message. A live drafting session will take place at 11 PM EST on Monday, Dec 10, so if you intend to respond, I'd like to see something by then. Also, if you could indicate in your post if you'd be able to be online at that time, I'd appreciate it. Thank you!

EDIT: In case anyone's questioning the legality of this thread:

Perhaps each participant could be allowed a [CLOSED] thread in this forum, where they can solicit input to, and discussion on, their posts in the summit. They could invite any nations they wanted, as well as entertain requests via telegram for invitation.

As Summit Chair, I don't have a problem with this idea. As I understand it, the subforum is open to new threads by anyone. I think it's entirely reasonable to have threads that aren't argumentative, but collaborative. I'd prefer that it be politely player-enforced, but we'll cross that bridge if we get there.

[Evil Wolf]

Thank you for the invite, COE. I will be able to attend the live drafting at the time but might I also suggest throwing out a few ideas ahead of time so we have some general idea about what to discuss?

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Thank you for the invite, COE. I will be able to attend the live drafting at the time but might I also suggest throwing out a few ideas ahead of time so we have some general idea about what to discuss?

Well, that's sort of what this thread is for. I don't have much time to sit down and hammer anything out. Between now and then, I'd like to see a few posts from you all to give me a clue of what you'd like to see in the response, and so I have something to start with.

EDIT: To help things along, here's sort of what I'm expecting to hear from you all, and why I've invited each of you:

Jarron - you're old school, and can possibly bring fresh eyes to the whole thing. I know you'll say some bold stuff that other people will definitely not think of, cause we can't see the forest for the trees.

Tramiar - you can put tag raiding in perspective, because you know its benefits, but can also tell when it's going overboard. Maybe a few words from you about recruitment might not go amiss.

Halcones - You've got a technical mind, and can really help make substantive technical suggestions to turn dream into reality.

Evil Wolf - I think you're in a good position to see where admin doesn't need to change anything. In other words, there are some areas where problems exist because players have made problems for themselves, not because the game is unfair. I think you're good at pointing out where and how those situations exist.

With that in mind, if I could a get a decent-sized post from each of you today or tomorrow that I can mine for a rough draft before the live session, that'd be great!

[General Halcones]

Very good COE. You have gone about this in a very professional manner, no surprise there. I am very pleased that you were picked, and have great faith that you will ensure this summit does not lead to disastrous consequences.

I will attempt to find time tomorrow to give you my post.

[Jarron]

Thank you for the invitation to speak COE, it it greatly appreciated. I also wish you congratulations on your appointment as one of the Speakers at the Summit, and good luck as well.

On the topic of an ideal agenda, what follows is my own opinions on what topics should be of importance to this Summit.

My ideas come from a point of view of a "pure raider." Someone who experiences the game from a solely raider aspect. I have been raiding since I first joined the game and not once attempted any other aspect of the game such as defending or role playing. I play this game solely to raid. That being said I am not anti-defender nor do I hate defenders. I compete with them on a daily basis and realize and appreciate their importance in ensuring a fun and competitive R/D game. Therefore my ideas are focused solely on ensuring the stability, longevity, and competitiveness of the R/D aspect of NationStates. My hopes for this summit would be that it can do all these things while keeping the R/D game enticing to new players and influential and relevant to gameplay itself. In terms of actual changes, I promote and encourage a revival of long term, stealth raids using clean, deep cover puppets. I understand the arguments against tag/clock raiding but I am against it's complete removal. It allows newer nations to get involved in a much more hands on way than say a stealth raid would. But on the other hand stealth raids offer more competition and require more skill and thus are more interesting. I believe that a balanced combination of both types of raids would do a lot for the R/D community as a whole, the question is do any of the changes this summit has proposed work towards creating this kind of game.

Upon a close rereading of (viewtopic.php?f=32&t=206532) I have picked out which ideas I would support seeing implemented and how I believe they'll help. Galiantus and COE both had good ideas of allowing natives access to regional controls either through a influence system or limited access. Either way I like the idea as it introduces a native component to the R/D game and allows them some power in the fight for their region, without relying on defenders. In the thread Todd McCloud posts a propsal by [violet] for In-Game Annexations. This is perhaps my favorite idea. It gives raiders an incentive to hold the region for longer than it takes to hit resign and switch WAs while also giving raiders a reason to forgo tag raiding in order to hold a region for annexation. I also like Halc's idea for WA delegate re-elections. It slows down tag raiding by not allowing an "obscene" amount of regions to be taken in one update, it also allows for a defender response to raids they might otherwise be helpless to stop. Finally I liked Astarial's idea for Native Resistance of Delegate Power. Again this gives power to natives to fight back in their own way, though I might propose a few minor changes to parts of this. Such as only allowing a nation present in the region for a certain amount of time to participate in the unseating of Delegate.

Anyways that's the course I'd like to see the Summit take and the changes I hope it seeks. On another note what a lot of people are complaining about is something called "piling." As I understand the term it is something I refer to as "raider unity" and I am explicitly against anything aimed at stopping that. If you can't beat us then sucks to be you.

Also I will be on tomorrow night.

[General Halcones]

Here is my 500 words:

I am in agreement that the R/D game has considerably narrowed lately, and is now largely made up of tag raiding, between two organisations, The Black Riders, and UDL/FRA. The considerable increase in tag raiding is due to it being a fairly effortless raiding style, that is very rewarding, returning a high number of raids in a small amount of time. It is also a very good way to pick up the momentum of a raiding group, and to quickly bring new players into the game. I do not want to see tag raiding abolished, but rather, discouraged.

Almost all raids now are executed during the update, being timed such that defenders are unable to react. I agree that this is unfair play, and must be infuriating for defenders. The introduction of extra variance has now made it more difficult to calculate accurate update times, however, from my own experiences, it is still fairly easy. I was able to achieve 38 raids in a single update, with the added variance, almost equal to my record of 41 achieved before the added variance.

In order to remedy this, it is first essential to make stealth raiding more possible, and more rewarding. The current problem is that raids are very easily spotted. It is impossible to do anything in the game without being seen – all new WA nations are monitored by defenders, and any suspicious activity is quickly picked up. I would like to see changes that counter this, bringing more balance to this aspect of raiding.

With stealth raiding remedied, it is then acceptable to bring in further game changes that inhibit tag raiding. My idea on WA delegate re-elections [1] has great potential in achieving this. It will both slow tag raiding down, and allow defenders to react to instantaneous raids.

I would also like to see the R/D game opened out to more players. It is currently narrowed in to 2-3 hours of the day, therefore excluding most players from participation. My idea on update splitting [2] has great potential in remedying this. Increasing variety in the R/D game will also have an impact.

In short, I would like to see simple game changes that result in a more varied, more fun and more balanced R/D game. I would like to see a return of R/D battles that last not minutes, but days. Such battles create tension, and draw in more players to the game.

References:

[1] viewtopic.php?f=32&t=206532
[2] viewtopic.php?f=15&t=207340

Your life drafting session occurs Tuesday 11th December 4:00 AM GMT I believe - that is difficult for me, but I can make it if essential.

[Tramiar]

I'm not really sure what I can add to this that hasn't already been said. I'm against anything that makes tag raids more difficult to plan, or too difficult to do in general, because they're perfect for training new people, and for keeping up activity between other raids to keep everyone interested. They're also pretty good just for general practice. I also agree that there is definitely a level of "too much" as far as tagging goes. I might support Halc's reelection plan because it would help slow it down and give defenders more of a chance to defend, and provide more conflict, which is also preferable. In my opinion, tags should not be a primary goal.

As for things that have been proposed, I don't like the idea of update splitting, and I'm against natives that aren't the delegate or the founder having access to the regional controls.

I don't know what I'm supposed to say about recruiting that belongs in this summit, but in case it's somehow related, i saw somewhere that there would be some sort of mass TG thing. I really hope that doesn't apply to recruiting. >.>

[General Halcones]

Mass TG would be nice, but would ruin everything behind recruitment. One should refer to my proposals on making recruitment safer. I think that is what is needed, within that field.

If you are against update splitting, then we need other proposals laid down, which open the R/D game out to everyone, not just update active players.

[Tramiar]

I agree, if I'm remembering correctly which recruitment idea was yours.

I also agree with that. I'm not sure what, but I don't think update splitting is the answer. That said, if we can increase the chances of succeeding in stealth raids, that kind of solves that, at least for raiders. I participated in raids years ago without being around for update.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

I'm against natives that aren't the delegate or the founder having access to the regional controls.

Can you detail your objections here? This proposal is somewhat central to my position at the summit, but you've got more recent experience than me on the battlefield, and if I hear a solid reason why this would make the game less fun/balanced, then I'd be willing to modify my approach to that issue.

That said, if we can increase the chances of succeeding in stealth raids, that kind of solves that, at least for raiders. I participated in raids years ago without being around for update.

Unibot is of the opinion that the existence of tag raiding increases the chance of stealth raiding succeeding, but I think he might only be referring to update-stealth raiding. What do you think about that?

EDIT: I don't think I'm gonna talk too much about telegrams, what with the new system coming out...sometime. I don't think any telegram-related suggestions will be seriously considered at this stage.

[General Halcones]

Unibot is of the opinion that the existence of tag raiding increases the chance of stealth raiding succeeding, but I think he might only be referring to update-stealth raiding. What do you think about that?

That may well be true - our tag raiding annihilates the WA boards - we flood it with both WA delegate changes and WA resignations, applications, and admissions. The UDL and FRA become fixated on our tag raids - we move so fast that they have no time to even blink. This certainly knocks out their ability to spot update-stealth raids. However, you still have TITO around, who completely ignore our tag raids. They'd still possibly respond to an update-stealth raid.

My campaign for stealth raids is really focused on the non-update side. To bring more players into the R/D game, we need styles of raiding that can occur outside of update. That really means non-update stealth raiding. This would currently be very difficult, seeing that it's too easy for defenders to spot such raids. Our tag raiding has no effect on the defenders' ability to spot non-update stealth raids.

[Blackbird]

My comment in this:

Raiding and defending is only worth anything if there's something to lose. Tag-raiding is laughably trivial. No offense intended.

I'm an old defender. I've been playing since December 2002. What got me defending was the prospect of my region being destroyed by invaders. I saw some ally regions: Cuba, Marxism, the Alliance of Socialist States get griefed by raiders. All the nations ejected, scattered into the Rejected Realms. Those regions had dozens, with one of them having more than 100+ nations. They never recovered. That was frightening. I had something to lose. I had something that could be destroyed.

Moreover, protecting that which I created requiring politics. Me and my best 10 buddies couldn't do anything of note in NationStates. The great battles were fought with dozens, sometimes hundreds of participating nations. When battles become smaller, the game becomes more about tactics: speed raiding and the like, which closes off gameplay to more casual players. But if you have politics, which moves at a pace of days and hours and not minutes and seconds, more people can play.

In the modern game, nothing can be destroyed; things can only be created. If the stuff I built can't be destroyed, why would I defend it? Why do I care at all about some little balkinized region with 2 people in it that you're tag-raiding? Gameplay is about speed, not politics.

I would propose some type of system that actually allows regions to be destroyed or taken, and encourages politics. Below I will sketch a proposal that does that. I don't particularly care for the proposal one way or another, but use it to illustrate a gameplay mechanism that brings back conflict.

***

First, remove founders. ([edit]Note, this is controversial, and there's lots of ways to do this half-measure. For instance, remove founders when you get to 50 nations, or some other arbitrary number, under the theory that you want to protect small regions, and let large regions with thriving communities be responsible for their own protection.)

The rule is this: he who is Delegate is he who has the most influence. Influence = 1 per endorsement per day. So if you have 10 endorsements on day 1, you end day 1 with 10 influence. If on day 2, you have 10 endorsements, you have 20 influence.

Delegates can do "things." Doing things depletes their influence. Let says Delegate A wants to eject Nation B. Delegate A has 200 influences; Nation B has 10. Delegate A ejects Nation B; now he has 190 influence. If Delegate A has 200 influence and Nation B has 150; Nation B cannot be ejected.

A system like this, I think, makes NationStates back into a game of politics, and less a game of who-can-move-nations-the-fastest. An invasion becomes a slow operation, taking days, requiring political support to be gathered. If a delegate is inactive, an invasion might be declared openly, inviting defenders to come as well. If a delegate is active, an invasion might require more subterfuge and long-term planning. "Invaders" might not even be deemed "foreign" if the invasion goes long enough, but legitimate contenders for the Delegacy. This of course, matches real-life much more. Though history might be replete with examples of autocrats executing their enemies, in most democracies (which is what a region is supposed to look like) you can't just kill all of your enemies. You can beat them; you can remove some supporters; you can remove some leaders, but you can't kill them all.

[General Halcones]

Very interesting Blackbird. Perhaps a radical idea like that is what would be needed to open out the R/D game, and return long drawn out battles, creating tension.

It's been in the back of my mind for a while now that it would be wonderful if all regions had some threat of invasion. Presently, the R/D game relies on the existence of founderless regions. Fortunately, about 1500 such regions exist. However, out of those, there aren't that many decent targets. This is something that immediately narrows the R/D game. Seeing that the majority of those regions are delegateless, it is no surprise that tag raiding has risen and now dominates the game.

If every region could in some way be attacked by outside forces, then the whole game would become a lot more dynamic, and all players would become affected by the R/D game. This could be a great thing.

The best and most addicting games are those which are highly dynamic. NationStates is far from that. So much of NationStates quickly becomes static, so no wonder it is so difficult to get players active.

These radical changes will be very hard to push, but we do have a good team of veteran players here. Together, I'm sure we can make a strong campaign, that will make some progress.

[Evil Wolf]

Allow me to identify the elephant in the room. This Summit has been called to address Tag Raiding, or Clock-Raiding as some of the MODS have taken to calling it correct? Since this is the case, lets break down why there was an uptick in Tagging.

Defenders have been given unprecedented tools, in game, to track our every movement. An unlimited dossier allows them to maintain one puppet and the new Upload and Download Dossier features allows them to store records for years and quickly reference them. The WA happenings has been extended from 10 slots to 25 slots, allowing defenders to dossier nations being accepted with greater ease and virtually destroying the Raider Community's one effective countermeasure, WA clearing. Lastly, the Reports page allows the defenders to instantly tell if any one of their hundreds of dossier'd nations move in real time.

All of these changes have benefited only one side, Defenders, and can only serve one purpose, to make the identification of raiders laughably easy. No neutral, that I am aware of, has ever expressed a benefit from these changes, nor has any Raider.

It is of little wonder then, that Raiders have had to change their tactics so dramatically these last few years. It has become impossible to launch a raid without pinpoint accuracy since Defenders are so good at tracking us. A raid that is even 20 seconds before the update will be picked off like a fish in a barrel. Raids that require large numbers of updaters have a significantly lower success rate as a result, since there are more of us and thus there is an even greater possibility of one or more participants being in a Defender Dossier. With this in mind we had only one direction to go. Smaller raids, more of them, and faster paced. Tag raids became a vital necessity to being a raider instead of an amusing gimmick, as it was in the past.

If ADMIN takes away a raider's ability to launch pinpoint raids, or make it so our progress into the region is somehow impeded, the Defenders will dominate us via pure game-mechanics alone, never mind other factors, such as spies, or off hand military numbers.

If you want to fix the so called Clock-Raiding problem, start first with diminishing the vast game-mechanic advantages Defenders are being given through Dossiers, Reports, and longer WA happenings. Making Tagging harder without first doing that will only ensure the Raider side dies a slow death, of this I am convinced.

I, personally, have a great distaste for Tag Raiding. My fellow raiders have picked up on it much quicker than I have. I favor the old tactics: Large or massive targets, massive update raids, infiltration, swapping with natives, misdirection, spies, etc. I am forced to admit, however, that these tactics are becoming increasingly difficult. More and more of my raids were getting picked off, even when using only a small number of veteran and highly-skilled players. Larger raids involving many raiders on a single target suddenly became a ridiculously impossible task. Moving in 10 or 15 seconds before an update used to be a near guaranteed success, but suddenly those raids were being picked off by the hand full. It became very difficult to stage ordinary raids, non-updaters became useless, and Tag Raiding seemed like the only way to keep on being a raider.

None of what I have described has changed over the last 12 months, if anything, its only gotten worse.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Blackbird, thanks for your bold advice. I'm not sure if removing founders of any region will be on the table, but it's something that I will certainly bring up, on the grounds that conflict is what increases interest in the game, and keeps it fun. Naturally, it follows that there is no conflict without something to lose. If not founder-removal upon a certain population, then perhaps something else, but this goal is one to keep in mind. Thank you.

EW, I agree with your premises, but the site admin has stated that features which make information more freely and easily available are to be encouraged. Naturally, this works against keeping stealth alive, and has largely led to its disappearance as the predominant tactic on the battlefield. I don't think we'll win any battles by arguing for information to be less freely available. Nonetheless, I think it's something to bring up.

I'll send a telegram link to all of you that you can use to access the live drafting session tonight at 11 PM EST. If you can make it, I'd appreciate your presence. Thank you all for your input so far!

[Evil Wolf]

EW, I agree with your premises, but the site admin has stated that features which make information more freely and easily available are to be encouraged. Naturally, this works against keeping stealth alive, and has largely led to its disappearance as the predominant tactic on the battlefield. I don't think we'll win any battles by arguing for information to be less freely available. Nonetheless, I think it's something to bring up.

Yes, perhaps, but I don't think it would hurt the Defenders that much to reduce the WA happens back to 10 nations and set a maximum of 100 nations per a dossier. 25 nations is just impossible to clear and that change only benefited Defenders. I think any neutral will be happy with 10 nations on the WA happening, if they even notice the change back, and what type of player but Defenders use the dossiers to the extent that they need to track over 100 nations at the same time?

If ADMIN intends to take the Tagging tactic away from us or at least make it harder, they should throw us a few bones to make it balanced.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

EW, I agree with your premises, but the site admin has stated that features which make information more freely and easily available are to be encouraged. Naturally, this works against keeping stealth alive, and has largely led to its disappearance as the predominant tactic on the battlefield. I don't think we'll win any battles by arguing for information to be less freely available. Nonetheless, I think it's something to bring up.

Yes, perhaps, but I don't think it would hurt the Defenders that much to reduce the WA happens back to 10 nations and set a maximum of 100 nations per a dossier. 25 nations is just impossible to clear and that change only benefited Defenders. I think any neutral will be happy with 10 nations on the WA happening, if they even notice the change back, and what type of player but Defenders use the dossiers to the extent that they need to track over 100 nations at the same time?

If ADMIN intends to take the Tagging tactic away from us or at least make it harder, they should throw us a few bones to make it balanced.

Yeah, I'll give it a shot. You'll see some lip-service in the rough draft tonight if you make it.

[Tramiar]

I'm against natives that aren't the delegate or the founder having access to the regional controls.

Can you detail your objections here? This proposal is somewhat central to my position at the summit, but you've got more recent experience than me on the battlefield, and if I hear a solid reason why this would make the game less fun/balanced, then I'd be willing to modify my approach to that issue.

I thought about it some more. I'm not so much against it now, as long as there are plenty of rules to what/how much they can do with their power. Though I don't like what it could mean for regions with long time natives with a lot of influence built up who would be more than willing to work with defenders...

That said, if we can increase the chances of succeeding in stealth raids, that kind of solves that, at least for raiders. I participated in raids years ago without being around for update.

Unibot is of the opinion that the existence of tag raiding increases the chance of stealth raiding succeeding, but I think he might only be referring to update-stealth raiding. What do you think about that?

Tag raiding would increase the chances of update-stealth raiding succeeding, I would think, but only for as long as it took them to start looking for it. Other than that, it might distract them some, but thats about it. They likely don't expect it at the moment. But tag raiding shouldn't have any effect on their ability to spot or stop non-update stealth raiding. It's something else entirely. The only possible way tag raiding would help us get away with those is defenders just not looking for them.

[General Halcones]

Through extensive negotiation with Unibot, we have come up with the following "compromise", that we both agree to and are willing to back:

The Unibot-Halcones Compromise

Proposal:

Deapproval Mechanism

A variation of the Astarial Dissention Model is applied for all regions, both Game-Created and User-Created. Deapproval buttons would appear on WA Nations for WA Nations to "disapprove" of their fellow residents.

The general gist of the Deapproval Buttons would be to make it easier for (1) defenders to combat piling through attrition, (2) natives to participate in the liberation of their region, (3) raiders to reduce natives' influence. Here is just one specific proposal to do that (I think), but there may be other variations of it:

Deapproval would both subtract an absolute value off of a nation's Regional Influence, both also reduce the growth rate of a nation's Regional Influence. How much of an absolute value or the extent of growth rate reduction would be determined by (A) How much influence the disapproved nation has, (B) How much influence the disapproving nation has.

These factors would provide a complex set of dynamics to balance out different interests:



A: A low influence nation disapproving another low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on Absolute Value (A.V) but also Growth Rate (G.R).

B: A low influence nation disapproving a medium influence nation would have a large effect on G.R, but a small effect on A.V.

C: A low influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a medium effect on both G.R and A.V.

D: A medium influence nation disapproving a low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on A.V but also Growth Rate (G.R).

E: A medium influence nation disapproving another medium influence nation would have a small effect on both G.R and A.V.

F: A medium influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a medium effect on A.V, but a small effect on G.R.

G: A high influence nation disapproving a low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on A.V but also Growth Rate (G.R).

H: A high influence nation disapproving a medium influence nation would have a small effect on G.R and a large effect on A.V.

I: A high influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a small effect on G.R and a large effect on A.V.

These relationships assume that low influence nations should be protected for deapproval; the lower the influence, the more the nation's deapproval contributes to prospective losses in influence but additionally the more vulnerable that nation is to influence growth decay. Whereas, the higher the influence, the more the nation's deapproval contributes to absolute losses in influence but additionally the more vulnerable that nation is to losses of absolute values of influence.

There would be no "cost" to disapproving, similarly there is no cost to endorse nations. It would show up on national happenings when nations disapprove other nations.

Safer Nation Donation

Safer donation of nations between players, to allow defender updaters to safely give their nations to non-updater defenders once they have successful evaded being ejected and banned.

Reduction of Endorsement Statistics in National Happenings

It would no longer say when you've endorsed or un-endorsed a nation in the national happenings of the receiving nation to aid in those who wish to commit to "stealth raiding". It would say when you have endorsed or unendorsed a nation in the national happenings of the "giving" nation.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

I'm still working on my response for #2, and once I post it I'll consider input for #4. In the meantime, I'd like opinions on what stuff I should respond to in #3. Does anything think there's a particular issue that needs my special attention?

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Well, unless anyone has anything to offer soon on #3, I'll go ahead and write it myself, posting a draft sometime in the next six hours for comment, and then submit it within six hours of that post.

I'm now entertaining ideas for how to bring about my R/D Nirvana, described here. Since Punk Daddy has expressed interest in it, I've added him to the invite list.

[Kshrlmnt]

I'm now entertaining ideas for how to bring about my R/D Nirvana, described here. Since Punk Daddy has expressed interest in it, I've added him to the invite list.

I'd suggest a two-pronged approach to get to those goals: limiting the functions that are making raiding and defending 'mechanical,' and pushing any ideas that'll add further layers of strategy. With the former, I'd think limits on the API (order, frequency, etc.), WA membership changes happenings, scripts, and possibly dossier functions are the best possibilities to reduce reliance on tools and aid things like stealth. For the latter, my favorite thus far is Halc's proposal on Vice Delegates because it adds more possibilities for all sides, including the natives. I'd like to see it implemented in combination with the above tool limitations.

Edit: Not sure I've anything in particular to add on #3.

[General Halcones]

I don't have the time to post much here as well, as I'm having to direct my focus onto the many proposals I am pushing in Technical. I'm trying to spend time coming up with plenty of decent ideas - I think the result of that is pretty clear.

I refer you to the posts I am making in Technical. Those are the principals I am fighting for and what I'd like to see you campaign for, too.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

I'm planning on posting this in Summit #3 at 9:30 PM EST. If you have any suggestions, lemme hear 'em. I'm also all ears for how to make R/D Nirvana a reality.

I’m writing this in recovery from oral surgery, so it’s a bit thrown together. I chose a few random topics that were brought up in Summit #1, and typed what came to mind.

Accessibility to new players
It sounds good to say “The R/D game should be more accessible to new players,” but I’m worried about the implications of that statement. In real life, new governments and new armies don’t get created by people with no political experience or military training. It’s the same way in NationStates: the founders of successful raiding or defending start-ups are people who were trained in a larger, more established organization. These organizations are easy to join, and the game is not hard to learn. I don’t want to see the game dummed down to the point that all the effort people have put into getting better at this game goes to waste. If someone is serious about being a powerful force in this game, they can go to the trouble to get trained by someone who knows what they’re doing.

Native involvement
Honestly, I think Xanthal is on the right track here, and I would defer to him on most matters to do with native involvement in R/D from now on.

Changing the raiding norms
I really like a couple of things that [violet] said in her R/D Nirvana post about this:

[*]When a region is successfully invaded, the invaders usually hang around and try to hold it. They can tag raid, but they don't choose to so much because the rewards aren't as great. Invaders and defenders sometimes face difficult choices in terms of which region to support when they're trying to take/hold multiple regions at once.
[*]Successful invasions permanently mark a region and can be very destructive, but if the invaders are repelled, the natives can rebuild, and in some ways it's a rebirth, where they're creating something different to what was there before.

These two points go hand-in-hand. The reason raiders tend not to stick around so much anymore is because they don’t accomplish anything by doing so. More often than not, a tag-raid and a long-term occupation leave a region looking exactly the same a week later. If a long-term invasion had substantially different effects than a tag raid, then I think we would see raiders trying a lot harder for the long-term raids, and care less about tagging, except for the occasional training purposes, and when they don’t have enough activity to generate bigger plans.

Combatting Piling
I support measures to reduce the effectiveness of massive amounts of non-updaters in a raid. However, I only support those measures which provide more options to defenders and natives, NOT fewer options to raiders. In other words, piling should still happen, but it should not be the game-ender that it currently has the potential to be. I think Halcones’ Vice-Delegate proposal is the best measure so far under consideration in this matter, but it could still use some refinement.

[General Halcones]

All good COE.

Oral surgery? Sounds nasty. *Wonders exactly what...*