NationStates

Please see this announcement first.

This change would allow a founder or delegate to appoint "Regional Officers" with access to regional controls. The level of access could be set for each officer, and officers would need to spend influence to use certain controls. Regional Officers could be appointed in all regions, so both player-created ones and game-created ones.

This is a much wider-ranging gameplay change that has been on the admin's to-do list for a while. It's being discussed here as giving Regional Officers the ability to eject and ban nations, and password regions will impact on raiding/defending, and also affect a number of the other changes brought up here.

Among the intentions of this change are to:

• Give in-game recognition to player-created positions in regions.
• Allow more effective administration of a region

This change is still in the early stages of being worked out; however, for this thread the following aspects in particular need further discussion:

• What powers Regional Officers can be given.
• The method for appointing and removing officers, including the length of time it takes to do so, and whether this costs influence.
• Whether the influence cost for officers using regional controls is the same as for delegates or different.
• Whether there is a limit on the number of officers that can have certain powers (such as to eject and ban).
• Whether officers can access regional controls when the delegate's access is denied.

Discussion in this thread is open to everyone. Please use this thread for discussion of this change only - off-topic posts, regional bickering and so on will be dealt with swiftly and punished for as necessary. While the focus of this thread is on the impact that Regional Officers will have on raiding/defending, other aspects of their introduction can be discussed too.

Perhaps the best way to give powers to the regional officer is to have the founder or delegate tick off items in a checkbox

example

[] Ability to edit the World Factbook Entry
[] Ability to accept, reject, or apply for embassies
[] Ability to eject nations
[] Ability to ban nations
[] Ability to suppress or unsuppress Regional Message Board posts
[] No ability


without letting people check "no Ability" and one or more of the other options.

Appointing and removing officers should have a lag time of 3 or so days (however long it currently takes to create an embassy), and ought to cost no influence for a founder but for a delegate take half the influence of what it would take to impose a password on the region.

For the regional officer, there ought to be a cost for using all the controls, even those that don't cost the delegate (such as WFE editing). Those that don't cost the delegate should have a very low cost, but ejecting should have a higher cost than it does for the delegate, and banning an even higher one.

As for a limit, I don't think so, but perhaps tweak the influence costs so that its higher for the delegate and officers when there is a greater number of officers.

If delegate access is denied, I think officer's access should be denied as well, to fit with the spirit of what the founder is getting at by restricting delegate access.

Why have a []No Ability box? What's the point of appointing an RO with no powers?

Astarial wrote:Why have a []No Ability box? What's the point of appointing an RO with no powers?

Purely symbolic. It would be like receiving a knighthood.

Auralia wrote:

Astarial wrote:Why have a []No Ability box? What's the point of appointing an RO with no powers?

Purely symbolic. It would be like receiving a knighthood.

Yeah, exactly.

To recognize someone's contributions without risking anything.

Mahaj wrote:If delegate access is denied, I think officer's access should be denied as well, to fit with the spirit of what the founder is getting at by restricting delegate access.

Why? What if the founder wants to separate the responsibility of representing the region in the WA from other regional administrative matters?

Auralia wrote:

Mahaj wrote:If delegate access is denied, I think officer's access should be denied as well, to fit with the spirit of what the founder is getting at by restricting delegate access.

Why? What if the founder wants to separate the responsibility of representing the region in the WA from other regional administrative matters?

Eh, true.

I drop that claim then.

But in order to prevent confusion, under the "Remove delegate access" button on regional control should also have a "remove officer's access"

What about officer access if a reform proposal is passed?

I kind of like the idea of keeping it, since a savvy raider could appoint an officer if it looked like they were going to be reformed, to allow continuing control over the region.

Astarial wrote:What about officer access if a reform proposal is passed?

I kind of like the idea of keeping it, since a savvy raider could appoint an officer if it looked like they were going to be reformed, to allow continuing control over the region.

But that sort of defeats the whole point of the reform proposal.

Keep the officer and let them keep current access except for any ejecting or banning powers.

Mahaj wrote:But that sort of defeats the whole point of the reform proposal.

Tough. Presumably it would take time for officership to take effect, and it'd have an influence cost to do so - it's not a guarantee of power, and any actions they took would have to have an increased influence cost, so it's not a game over.

Keep the officer and let them keep current access except for any ejecting or banning powers.

Nah, I don't like this - eliminates the ability for legitimate regional officers to act against a rogue delegate.

Officers might be able to access the Founder/WAD's Mass TG function?

Cerian Quilor wrote:Officers might be able to access the Founder/WAD's Mass TG function?

Oh that's a good one.

That should be another option in the checkbox system.

I have a love hate relationship with this proposal.

I love the fact that one can give powers to anyone in the region but I hate the fact that one can give powers to anyone in the region.

In conjunction with the new influence rules, one way I can see this changing the game a bit is with the implementation of true ‘guardians’ of the region. The purpose of these folks is to ‘burn’ influence in banjecting nations from the region so that the delegate doesn’t have to waste influence and, in theory, can focus on building/maintaining his/ her influence.

On the flip side – if these same guardians turn on the delegate, they should be able to coup him/her as well. No different than if influence guardians turned on a lower-influenced del today, I suppose. But, with this change I suspect GCRs will create in-house police forces to scour the regions for would be threats.

That’s why I love-hate this proposal.

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of this, due to how it may affect R/D. However, could we perhaps add a Substantial Influence Cost for a Delegate to appoint an R.O, then (but free to remove)? If I missed this existing, then yay. If I didn't, then I think it would definitely balance out the worrying fact that raiders could then sit multiple points on a region, etc.

Also, for Founderless Regions, would an R.O be removed after a Delegate Change?

Tim-Opolis wrote:Also, for Founderless Regions, would an R.O be removed after a Delegate Change?

Well if they cost a lot to add and nothing (or very little) to remove then they should remain with Delegate changes, otherwise you would have legitimate new delegates having to burn tons of influence to reinstate the R.Os. If a raiding force or a liberating force wanted to remove the R.Os they could do so easily anyway.

Although, one thing to think about, how would this work with Delegate Elects? If they kept their power to eject/ban nations and the Delegate couldn't do anything that would give them a lot of power.

[] Ability to edit the World Factbook Entry
[] Ability to accept, reject, or apply for embassies
[] Ability to eject nations
[] Ability to ban nations
[] Ability to suppress or unsuppress Regional Message Board posts
[] No ability

I would want to give my CoFounders all of these abilities. Trust me, I needed this yesterday.
I think it should be up to Founders to determine how much power they give. If they want to give them all of those powers (They truly trust them) it should be their right. I know one of my CoFounders IRL and know what he would do.
I think this would be fantastic.

The Democratic Nation of Unovia wrote:[] Ability to edit the World Factbook Entry
[] Ability to accept, reject, or apply for embassies
[] Ability to eject nations
[] Ability to ban nations
[] Ability to suppress or unsuppress Regional Message Board posts
[] No ability

I would want to give my CoFounders all of these abilities. Trust me, I needed this yesterday.
I think it should be up to Founders to determine how much power they give. If they want to give them all of those powers (They truly trust them) it should be their right. I know one of my CoFounders IRL and know what he would do.
I think this would be fantastic.

Please don't give all the abilities and No Ability.

I think this proposal would be interesting if Officers could be appointed and could eject, but not ban, nations. Would make battles far more interesting.

You would have to give them more than one item from the checklist though...otherwise, what is the point? I know one of my cofounders IRL, and I trust him.
The ones I would want for him is:
Edit Factbook Entries
Embassy powers
Eject Nations (banning would still need Founder approval (like nuclear launch codes)

The Democratic Nation of Unovia wrote:You would have to give them more than one item from the checklist though...otherwise, what is the point? I know one of my cofounders IRL, and I trust him.
The ones I would want for him is:
Edit Factbook Entries
Embassy powers
Eject Nations (banning would still need Founder approval (like nuclear launch codes)

Yeah, you can check more than one.

I think banning shouldn't require founder approval, it can just be another checkbox the founder or delegate can tick off if they like.

I'd like to know how many regional officers each region could have, and if each region could potentially change the position names...


BUT ITS A TOTALLY AWESOME IDEA!

Vazdania wrote:I'd like to know how many regional officers each region could have, and if each region could potentially change the position names...


BUT ITS A TOTALLY AWESOME IDEA!

I think changing the position names is a good idea, and not unreasonable.

As for officers, there's no need to have a limit, but for a delegate it'd cost to appoint one and the influence cost for an officer ought to be in part dependent on the amount of other officers (if there are none, you're special, it takes less influence to get things done; if there are many, you're not as special, you have to spend more influence to get things done).

I'd suggest disallowing RO's from banjecting the Founder or Delegate (though the Founder could move right back). Other than that, though, I am very excited for this, and I can foresee this becoming a major part of my region. I also like Mahaj's idea for a checklist.

Wouldn't a regional officer coup be funny, even if short lived though?

We could say that if the appointer has lost the position (if the delegate appointed the RO and then lost the delegacy), the RO loses his position as well.

That way an RO *could* coup, but it would backfire as well.

Mahaj wrote:Wouldn't a regional officer coup be funny, even if short lived though?

We could say that if the appointer has lost the position (if the delegate appointed the RO and then lost the delegacy), the RO loses his position as well.

That way an RO *could* coup, but it would backfire as well.

Brilliant. It would also be a check against corruption. If an RO dislikes a delegate, he'll only eject him if he truly believes it's for the greater good because he'll loose his position.