[Suggestion] Spawn/Respawn in all GCRs

[Unibot III]

I would just suggest rejigging the GCR formula to be, rather than random, filtered: founding nations in GCRs proportional to their existing share of WA or non-WA nations or some variant of said formula.

I agree that TNP's open retention efforts have helped it perform better than other GCRs, I don't buy however that it's still a competitive field. TNP's retention has gotten to the point that it's a feedback loop. No other GCR has stood a chance in matching TNP and the consequence is TNP has largely monopolized the WA when it votes early. Having one decisive vote is ultimately bad for gameplay (in the "game" sense, not talking about R/D.)

[The Kerguelen Archipelago]

I feel like all this would do is cause there to be eight ridiculously populated regions instead of five, and just help the three sinkers instead of the whole site as you claim.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The idea I like, which we've tossed around behind the scenes for a while now, is having some new nations founded in certain UCRs. This would have to be an opt-in thing, and with certain requirement (e.g. minimum size, no password). It should be possible to tweak the percentages to get feeders down to an optimum size, while rewarding active UCRs with a small population boost.

If so, I can say that Europe will probably volunteer. Oh, and we would like to keep our UCR influence and our founder too. But then you run into the issue of getting large UCRs getting utterly gigantic.

---

@Flanderlion, that's a nice tool TNP has. I certainly didn't know that 53 regions make up the majority of WA members.

[The Kerguelen Archipelago]

The idea I like, which we've tossed around behind the scenes for a while now, is having some new nations founded in certain UCRs. This would have to be an opt-in thing, and with certain requirement (e.g. minimum size, no password). It should be possible to tweak the percentages to get feeders down to an optimum size, while rewarding active UCRs with a small population boost.

If so, I can say that Europe will probably volunteer. But then you run into the issue of getting large UCRs getting utterly gigantic.

I'm wondering if it would be better to have it randomly chosen in a subset of significantly active regions rather than just a few giant ones to avoid the problem you brought up.

[The Kerguelen Archipelago]

Alternatively, there could be a whole other approach all together. If endorsement voting bonuses were to be removed from GCR delegates, it would solve two issues that have been brought up. Obviously, it would end the extreme power that GCR delegates have in the world assembly. It also would incentivize finding a region for oneself instead of staying in a GCR. Two birds.

[Ananke II]

Right now, we're seeing with the influx from Imgur and Reddit that some regions are benefiting in a disproportionate way. The Feeders (aka the Pacifics) are now all above 10K nations. The Delegate of The North Pacific, Plembobria, is sitting at 1103 endorsements, by far the highest in the game with hundreds more endorsements than the next highest endorsed Delegate. This is creating a serious imbalance that is disadvantaging not only the Sinkers, but also user-created regions. It's getting to a point in which it is prohibitively difficult for even a group of multiple other GCRs and high endorsement UCRs to compete with the massive voting bloc of a single region, The North Pacific, in the World Assembly. There is no reason a single region should wield this much power, particularly when it is receiving this power through a built-in advantage of having nations spawn there.

Plembobria's current endorsement count is at most 100+ endorsements higher than what 10ki delegates had for a while, and before that Alsted of Europe was the one dominating the WA with his endorsement count. I don't really see how this is different? Besides a good deal of the influx from Imgur and Reddit is likely to die off in a month or two, so it seems premature to change game mechanics just to deal with TNP's current endorsement count.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Alsted of Europe was the one dominating the WA with his endorsement count.

The highest count which I (or some of the other people I've been looking at records with) have seen is ~330. Did it get any higher than that?

[Ananke II]

highest count which I (or some of the other people I've been looking at records with) have seen is ~330. Did it get any higher than that?

Not sure. I don't remember his exact endorsement count, but there were less nations and WA nations back then, so by voting early he still had the same kind of influence. The WA authors grumbled about Alsted's influence on WA resolutions ingame, until I passed him in endorsements and then they started complaining about my WA clout. Basically, TNP isn't the only region which have had an inordinate amount of influence in WA matters over the years.

[Eluvatar]

http://www.thenorthpacific.org/world_wa_counts.html - I was going to show this for perspective, but the GCR (including Sinkers and warzones) percentage of the pie has grown significantly since I looked at it - I believe it changed within the last few days due to the large groups of new nations. btw. thank you Elu for this tool when you backlog this. Over a quarter of WA's are in GCRs.

You're welcome.

[Eluvatar]

I agree with the problem, but not the solution you've suggested. It's good to have GCRs be fairly significant, so they're something to compete over, but not so significant that they make building up your own region seem pointless or ridiculously hard, nor should they dominate gameplay.

Generally speaking this reasoning makes sense. I'm not sure how GCRs make building up your own region seem hard though. One can have a region without it becoming one of the biggest players, and indeed the vast majority of regions won't become one of the biggest players for obvious reasons.

Historically, the feeders have always been near the top by WA population. I can quantify this statement with statistics, and intend to. I'm not sure how to measure if a region is dominating gameplay, so I don't know what to discuss. If we mean WA voting, however, there have always been delegates with large endorsement counts and an outsize effect on WA voting. As Ananke points out, 10000 Islands reached about 1000 endorsements on their delegate a few years ago and stayed there for about a year, I think. See statistics to be posted soon.

They should also be relatively unstable, so their leaders have to work to retain control - this ensures they need to reach out to get new nations involved if they want to stay in power.

Here I'm less in agreement.

I agree that the feeders should not be 'owned' - control of them should be open to change.

Insofar as you clarify your statement that feeders should be relatively unstable by saying their leaders should have to work to retain control, that makes sense. Feeder delegates do, however, require work to retain their delegacies. Doing the job of Delegate of The North Pacific properly, for example, is a pretty vast workload. Ignoring offsite duties and reactive interaction with the nations of the region onsite, TNP delegates and The North Pacific Security Council are pretty regularly asking for endorsements and reviewing who has endorsements. Similarly, the Delegate and Viziers of The East Pacific do the same, as does the Delegate and the Council of Regional Security in the South Pacific. On the other end, the Delegates of the Pacific and the West Pacific also ask for endorsements. (As, I understand it, do the Guardians in the West Pacific). Many of these regions also enforce an endorsement cap.

As you say the current situation is too stable, I imagine you mean that effort is insufficient. However harder we can make it, however, there will be feeders whose players are willing to put that effort in (because they're committed to a community, for their own egos, or for whatever other reasons).

At their current size and endorsement levels, the feeders are looking far too big and far too stable.

At what size and levels would they be small and unstable enough?

I don't believe the answer is to share this out a little with 4 other GCRs. Across the 9 of them, you'd be looking at an average of 9,000 nations, which is still far too many, plus you've got some 40-45% of nations concentrated in GCRs. The alternative of creating more GCRs also doesn't dilute their overall influence. I accept that they may be more fractious as a group if you have more of them, which would reduce their influence, but that's far from certain.

I don't know for certain, but I suspect that immediately after a large burst of nations are founded, the ratio is going to be a little bit out of whack. See promised statistics when posted.

The idea I like, which we've tossed around behind the scenes for a while now, is having some new nations founded in certain UCRs. This would have to be an opt-in thing, and with certain requirement (e.g. minimum size, no password). It should be possible to tweak the percentages to get feeders down to an optimum size, while rewarding active UCRs with a small population boost.

Again, I'm curious as to what the optimum size is. No problem in principle with UCRs sometimes receiving founded nations, so long as the (numerous) problems that've been brought up are handled, but I am concerned if we do this with some effect in mind that we know what that effect is, and consider whether the means will actually accomplish it.

[Eluvatar]

All right, I'm technically still populating the data to this thing, but it's got quite a bit loaded already, enough to look at: (Data is loaded through yesterday with a hole in late 2015 I'll fill in later).

Comparing The North Pacific and 10000 Islands between November 2011 and November 2014

The top 25 regions, April to October of this year

Looking at the old and the recent graph, I will note that the peak %age of world WA population in 10000 Islands appears to have been 6.87% on November 13, 2012 and The North Pacific's recent peak of %age of world WA population was 6.30% August 14, 2012. The peak %age of total WA Delegate vote held by 10000 Islands appears to have been 10.82% on September 17, 2012 and The North Pacific's recent peak of %age of total WA Delegate vote held was 8.21%, today.

Note: Do not try to graph more than about 3 years worth of data at once: that will (currently) overload it.

[Unibot III]

Right now, we're seeing with the influx from Imgur and Reddit that some regions are benefiting in a disproportionate way. The Feeders (aka the Pacifics) are now all above 10K nations. The Delegate of The North Pacific, Plembobria, is sitting at 1103 endorsements, by far the highest in the game with hundreds more endorsements than the next highest endorsed Delegate. This is creating a serious imbalance that is disadvantaging not only the Sinkers, but also user-created regions. It's getting to a point in which it is prohibitively difficult for even a group of multiple other GCRs and high endorsement UCRs to compete with the massive voting bloc of a single region, The North Pacific, in the World Assembly. There is no reason a single region should wield this much power, particularly when it is receiving this power through a built-in advantage of having nations spawn there.

Plembobria's current endorsement count is at most 100+ endorsements higher than what 10ki delegates had for a while, and before that Alsted of Europe was the one dominating the WA with his endorsement count. I don't really see how this is different? Besides a good deal of the influx from Imgur and Reddit is likely to die off in a month or two, so it seems premature to change game mechanics just to deal with TNP's current endorsement count.

I will note however that giving 10KI and Europe 'vetoes' over GA policy was not something that was fantastic for gameplay. It meant lobbying efforts were focused on two or three people, rather than campaigning and lobbying towards a broader net of important stakeholders.

10KI voted later, diminishing its influence (albeit voting unpredictably - which made it nerve-wrecking for authors), but Alsted had no shame in slopping a kiss of death on a WA resolution by voting early if he didn't like a project. The only case I can think of where Alsted (at his height) stomped and the resolution survived was Ethics in International Trade and that's because I knew he was refusing to vote for it and I didn't submit until I knew it was mathematically possible for the resolution to pass. Someone without the contacts and gameplay experience I had at the end of my WA career wouldn't have been able to go up against Alsted.

In my experience, a more distributed field of WA influence would make gameplay far more interesting and competitive than having dictatorial actors (ultra-superpowers that can singlehandedly decide votes.) That's not to say having regional great powers isn't good for the fun and experience of lobbying, but that there's a difference between hegemony and polyarchy. It's a matter of how to balance the voting side without punishing good recruiters which has always stumped NationStates - but I don't think we should stop trying to find a solution.

If the reform sticks to redistributing nations between GCRs more evenly, this is one case where the game could balance the WA's superpowers without affecting recruiters. Immigration officials in TNP, how ever much they might not like such a reform, should be reminded the nations they're 'retaining through hard work' are ultimately nations that arrive involuntarily at the behest of the game. Administrators reserve the right to play with the taps and distribute the founding of nations differently. Founding nations in UCRs is a different matter, however, because UCRs are private communities that don't have the same kind of public responsibilities as GCRs.

(But if you really want to make things interesting - and stupid - allow the SC to assign feeder status to UCRs via resettlement resolutions. 'Resettle ___' etc. That'd be batty and amusingly political. )

[Deadeye Jack]

I would agree that GCRs have been gaining too much share of NS players over the last couple years, and not really including the current booms we've had. I don't agree with the solution of letting all the Feeders/Sinkers spawn or respawn nations though.

I would be interested in seeing a pre-welcome TG vs post welcome TG breakdown of GCRs and their retention abilities because without fail newly founded and refounded nations receive a welcome TG to the region making the case to stay before any other region can get a recruitment telegram in. I'd have to think that is quite an advantage. I would be in favor of those welcome TGs getting thrown into the queue with every other recruitment telegram because that is what they are.

If that's not on the table then I think more feeders could work. How many I don't know, but they should be completely new otherwise you're just throwing those new nations into already entrenched GCR governments instead of adding new dynamics to the game and spreading the wealth

[Barbarossistan]

I quite fail to see a problem in need of a fix.

Through NS history nations have started in a feeder and over time the great majority have migrated elsewhere, mainly to UCR's where the majority now reside. The recent spike in new nations means the feeders have seen a jump in population but if history is any guide the new nations will in many cases either quit or move elsewhere, there just hasn't been enough time for this to happen to the spike. Give it six months and it will happen and feeder share of overall population will decline again.

Why fiddle with the game mechanics and the unique character of the GCR's just because one of the GCR's has a lot of WA votes, a share that has actually been surpassed by a UCR (10ki) in the past and may be surpassed again if UCR's step up their recruitment and retention. And when that happens will there then be an effort to cut down the UCR's because one of them has been very successful?

[Izzar]

I would agree that GCRs have been gaining too much share of NS players over the last couple years, and not really including the current booms we've had. I don't agree with the solution of letting all the Feeders/Sinkers spawn or respawn nations though.

I would be interested in seeing a pre-welcome TG vs post welcome TG breakdown of GCRs and their retention abilities because without fail newly founded and refounded nations receive a welcome TG to the region making the case to stay before any other region can get a recruitment telegram in. I'd have to think that is quite an advantage. I would be in favor of those welcome TGs getting thrown into the queue with every other recruitment telegram because that is what they are.

If that's not on the table then I think more feeders could work. How many I don't know, but they should be completely new otherwise you're just throwing those new nations into already entrenched GCR governments instead of adding new dynamics to the game and spreading the wealth

I feel like the quick rate that recruitment telegrams come in early on would hurt UCRs more than the welcome telegram from the GCR. Seems like we get so many that it gets annoying and/or overwhelming and a fairly reasonable reaction is just to ignore them and do nothing which means staying in the GCR. Even as someone who has read quite a bit about all this, I can't make myself read through all the telegrams that come in.

Not that I have a better system to suggest, everyone wants to recruit for their region.

[Eluvatar]

Note: I have downloaded, processed, and uploaded the missing 2015-10-25:2015-12-28 segment. The data should now be as complete as it's going to get.

For whatever it's worth, it looks to me like the difference between TNP and the other feeders is much greater than any difference between the feeders today and the feeders before tag:welcome was added. I'm not a statistician though, and am not sure how I would go about quantitatively measuring this.

Edit: if anyone wants the raw data, it's here: http://www.thenorthpacific.org/api/top_25_regions_log/

[Imperium Anglorum]

Edit: if anyone wants the raw data, it's here: http://www.thenorthpacific.org/api/top_25_regions_log/

Whatever system you're using to write the JSON files, is there any way to set to pretty printing?

(But if you really want to make things interesting - and stupid - allow the SC to assign feeder status to UCRs via resettlement resolutions. 'Resettle ___' etc. That'd be batty and amusingly political. )

Holy. Fucking. Shit. What a fuckfest that would be.

[Enfaru]

(But if you really want to make things interesting - and stupid - allow the SC to assign feeder status to UCRs via resettlement resolutions. 'Resettle ___' etc. That'd be batty and amusingly political. )

Holy. Fucking. Shit. What a fuckfest that would be.

Actually for "ejected" nations, that wouldn't be such a bad idea. It would be reminiscent of real world refugee crisis'. Though I wouldn't say the SC probably the WA in general, only if it expires every so often.

Assigning feeder status would seem a little daft admittedly.

[Eluvatar]

Edit: if anyone wants the raw data, it's here: http://www.thenorthpacific.org/api/top_25_regions_log/

Whatever system you're using to write the JSON files, is there any way to set to pretty printing?

Page (to copy paste to)

Chrome extension

Firefox extension

Among other means.

[[violet]]

I quite fail to see a problem in need of a fix.

There are server issues when regions get very large.

Aside from that, I mainly see it as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. The other bird is the fact that a lot of regions want the ability to appoint a new Founder in order to protect their region from invasion, but if we implemented that, everyone would have active Founders all the time, and a lot of democracy would die (along with a lot of R/D).

So that can't be implemented unless there's a counter-balancing reason for some regions not to have a Founder: an incentive to remain open and democratic, so that regions who really want to lock down (like RP regions) can do it, but that's not the default always-correct choice for everybody.

One concept we've discussed is to give regions the choice of declaring themselves as one of three types: (1) Autocracy, where the Founder can appoint a successor, who automatically takes over if the Founder steps down or CTES; (2) Oligarchy, where there's a Founder and Delegate like now but also new nations can spawn in the region; and (3) Democracy, where there can be no Founder, only a Delegate, but new nations spawn more rapidly in the region.

Feeders would continue to receive 50% of all new nations, under this scheme. For a UCR to receive new nations, it would need to be password-free and active, according to some criteria.

Drawbacks include the possibility of nations spawning in regions that are inappropriate for them, and some gaming, such as people creating bot-filled regions to draw in new spawns.

[Cormactopia II]

One concept we've discussed is to give regions the choice of declaring themselves as one of three types: (1) Autocracy, where the Founder can appoint a successor, who automatically takes over if the Founder steps down or CTES; (2) Oligarchy, where there's a Founder and Delegate like now but also new nations can spawn in the region; and (3) Democracy, where there can be no Founder, only a Delegate, but new nations spawn more rapidly in the region.

Feeders would continue to receive 50% of all new nations, under this scheme. For a UCR to receive new nations, it would need to be password-free and active, according to some criteria.

Drawbacks include the possibility of nations spawning in regions that are inappropriate for them, and some gaming, such as people creating bot-filled regions to draw in new spawns.

This is an interesting idea. How would the Sinkers be affected by this? Would nations also re-spawn in the UCRs that meet the criteria, or would this be limited only to spawning nations? Would there be any way for Sinkers to have new nations spawn in them?

I don't mean to seem self-interested, but the problem of activity in the Sinkers is fairly well known, as our re-spawned populations are quite a bit less likely to get involved in our regions than are the new players whose nations spawn in Feeders or move to UCRs. Allowing nations to re-spawn in UCRs, without also allowing Sinkers an opportunity to receive spawning nations, would further aggravate the problem and would have the potential to turn the Sinkers into little more than higher endorsement count Warzones, similar to the situation in Lazarus years ago when nations could only be re-spawned by GHR and there was no automatic re-spawn process. Due to its low population and low endorsement count on its Delegates, Lazarus was prone to frequent invasion.

[Caelapes]

Would there be any way of moving between the three different region types, or is it a one-time thing (like executive founder at the creation of the region)?

[[violet]]

How would the Sinkers be affected by this?

Undetermined at this stage.

Would there be any way of moving between the three different region types

Yes, a Founder or Delegate with Executive Authority could initiate a change, and it would take a number of days to complete, via a mechanism similar to embassies.

[Cormactopia II]

How would the Sinkers be affected by this?

Undetermined at this stage.

That's understandable, given that this is a concept that is still being fleshed out.

As someone who has spent the past four years of my gameplay primarily in a Sinker, and as a Sinker Delegate, though, I do hope there will be plenty of opportunity for the Sinkers and their communities to weigh in and that the well-being of our regional communities will be thoroughly considered. Many players have spent considerable time and effort -- for some, their entire gameplay -- building up the Sinkers and their communities. A change that would make the Feeders somewhat smaller and more dynamic could be a change devastating to Sinker communities if also applied to the Sinkers.

[Gibraltarica]

I would say that overall, the idea of distributing new nations to UCRs and GCRs may be good in some aspects, but I have a few points to argue:
1. Wouldn't this encourage nations to make puppets so that their region is recognized by the game as being of significant size?
2. Furthermore, what's to say that puppet regions like Violet Irises or Jumpy wouldn't get their share of recruits? I mean, as a raider, that'd be great for me, but that wouldn't achieve a goal.

Now, I recognize that both of these problems can be solved by the mods making it based on total WA nations in the region, but I have another point to argue.
3. What happens if the UCR they get founded in is raider, or defender, or Nazi, or communist, and influences the new nation greatly in their ideology? I get that this happens some already with GCR militaries and recruitment, but this would almost be predisposing them to an ideology. I don't care what that ideology is, to me, that's wrong.

That being said, I have my own idea to peddle.
I know people say they want less GCR power, but the GCRs are probably the only way to see a truly fair system taking place: a place that can be subjected to political change, a place which is founded by no man and raised by a community. So, I'd propose that we have twice as many Feeder GCRs, so that the next time Plagentine decides to blow up imgur, we end up with said GCRs receiving only about 3000 each, instead of the 6000 I estimate them to have had pass through each of them since a few days ago. I mean, this worked with Balder and Osiris, why not with the Pacifics?