Bring back the competition

[Unibot]

But the sheer mean-ness of it escalates to a whole different realm when the gloating is aimed at the residents of a region that had no desire to simply wanted to never be even remotely connected to the invader/defender game

This is true.

[Naivetry]

Forbid boasting about conquests in WFEs, RMBs & these forums: If the griefers & empire-builders can't gloat to the NS public about their "triumphs" then maybe that will discourage them...

Just for the record, I never said that: you were quoting Bears Armed.

Oops, that was a bad typo... fixed.

And Nai, "This region has been INVADED by Mencer and The Macedonian Empire" reads as gloating to me.

Clearly there is gloating; I never said there wasn't. But banning gloating not only equates to killing the more or less harmless variety of raids, but is entirely unenforceable. What counts and what doesn't? Could you simply not mention the words "raid" or "invasion"? What about "successful mission"? Or "colony"? There's too much room for ambiguity in a judgment call like that.

[Bears Armed]

You gotta let raiders gloat. You ban that, you might as well abolish invasions altogether.

*(whistles innocently)*

Forbid boasting about conquests in WFEs, RMBs & these forums: If the griefers & empire-builders can't gloat to the NS public about their "triumphs" then maybe that will discourage them...

That still leaves the offsites.

The offsites are outside of the game's direct control, of course, but hopefully the admins of most of them would support such a policy anyway: Okay, so we couldn't do anything about any offsite forums that were actually griefer-run, but hopefully only being able to boast there -- rather than much more widely, as is currently the case -- would still make it seem less worthwhile...

And then what counts as "boasting"? "This region is now allied with The Macedonian Empire" might be a boast; "This region is now allied with 10000 Islands" probably isn't.

Hr'rmm, so maybe a blanket ban on mentioning any such alliances in WFEs & RMBs might be the (admittedly rather heavy-handed) only solution?

Plus - who's going to police 6000 RMB's looking for raider insinuations of ownership?

Their aggrieved natives, or former natives, would presumably be willing to post complaints about this in the Moderation forum...

[Naivetry]

Forbid boasting about conquests in WFEs, RMBs & these forums: If the griefers & empire-builders can't gloat to the NS public about their "triumphs" then maybe that will discourage them...

That still leaves the offsites.

The offsites are outside of the game's direct control, of course, but hopefully the admins of most of them would support such a policy anyway: Okay, so we couldn't do anything about any offsite forums that were actually griefer-run, but hopefully only being able to boast there -- rather than much more widely, as is currently the case -- would still make it seem less worthwhile...

As an admin on one of those offsites, I wouldn't. The only difference between a raid and a political takeover is in the way the perpetrators frame it. A substantial part of our forum revolves around working within the field of those regional interactions and politics, and that's really the only reason we're still in this game, rather than anywhere else. (We've tried expanding into other games, and they just don't have the same political depth.) We couldn't ban all mention of raids without removing our reason for playing the game.

And then what counts as "boasting"? "This region is now allied with The Macedonian Empire" might be a boast; "This region is now allied with 10000 Islands" probably isn't.

Hr'rmm, so maybe a blanket ban on mentioning any such alliances in WFEs & RMBs might be the (admittedly rather heavy-handed) only solution?

Extremely heavy-handed, yes - and there goes the only hint new nations have that anything like interregional politics actually exists in this game.

Plus - who's going to police 6000 RMB's looking for raider insinuations of ownership?

Their aggrieved natives, or former natives, would presumably be willing to post complaints about this in the Moderation forum...

There's a fairly large percentage of players who do not visit these forums. A new and/or isolated player is less than likely to know that he or she can and should come here to do that - they are far more likely just to quit.

[Marcuslandia]

There's a fairly large percentage of players who do not visit these forums. A new and/or isolated player is less than likely to know that he or she can and should come here to do that - they are far more likely just to quit.

Hmm. Maybe what's needed is something like an Open House. Give every player a _minor_ benefit to visit the forums on a given day.

For the longest time, I didn't visit the forums at all. That was because when Jolt was running it there was some bug that made it impossible for me to log in as Marcuslandia for some unexplained reason. So I didn't bother to come at all. (I'm sure some players are muttering, "Ah, for the good ol' days! Wish they'd come back!" ) I sort of missed the change in Management. It took a regional invasion to get me to come visit. Wish I'd come sooner -- there's a LOT worth checking here! (And a lot of dreck; I leave it to everyone to sort it out themselves.)

It would be a service to all the players to get them to at least come kick the tires at least once.

[West-Flanders]

But the sheer mean-ness of it escalates to a whole different realm when the gloating is aimed at the residents of a region that had no desire to simply wanted to never be even remotely connected to the invader/defender game

This is true.

Meh. I try not to care too much about the gloating.. It's the being griefed part that's bothering me. Let's try to get rid of that. You have to have your priorities straight.

[Juken]

I personally think, as some fo you may have noticed, that we should give delegates the power to alter the WFE and nothing else. This will stop Belgiums from happening again totally, as the reaiders can't actually banject everyone, and give defenders more of a chance. I also think we should develop this idea in founded regions, like making it so that the founder can never take away the delegates power to alter the WFE, and putting perhaps a 24 hour time period between the delegate altering the WFE and the founder changing it. This would, IMO, revitalise the interegional politcs game. As there is something to lose-having another region take over your WFE and 'plant their flag' or something, people would have a bigger incentive to forge alliances and treaties with other orginisations, revitalising the military side of the game for founded regions, which has detiorated into mock 'wars' consiting of both sides saying how bad the other is on their forum and turgid attack on dead founderless regions.