- Gameplay is mechanically basic and lacks complexity
- Power has centralized around GCRs, leaving the UCRs mechanically and narratively uninteresting
- R/D has become narratively bland, prioritizing quantity of raids and defenses over political intrigue
- Gameplay is stagnant and difficult to make a splash in because of lack of avenues for conflict
My proposal seeks to address all of these points while not taking away from the cultural, mechanical, and political importance of GCRs, UCRs, and R/D. This system would exist on top of the current mechanics, and provide another level of in-game political intrigue that brings attention back to nationstates.net as opposed to off-site communication platforms that contribute the entirety of narrative development in Gameplay.
Let's call it Factions.
Right now, we can say that there are mechanically two levels of GP: the Nation and the Region. Players exist on the Nation level and contribute, via the World Assembly, to the mechanical power of the Region they reside in. At the Region level, WA Delegates and their endorsements form the basis of the Raider/Defender subculture, which was originally an unintended side effect but is now a bona fide aspect of NSGP. GCR culture is founded upon the necessity of securing their Founderless regions with dedicated WA nations endorsing their Delegate.
The crux of my proposal hinges on adding another level to GP: Factions (or alliances, or whatever you want to call them). They exist above the Region level, they are entities that will be comprised of Regions like Regions are comprised of Nations. Like regions, they will have additional game mechanics which add intrigue to the world of NationStates and provide for in-game methods of true warfare, which games such as [REDACTED] have had since their inception.
At the Faction level, regions act like nations, with their Founders (or WA Delegate in their absence) acting as representatives to the faction they are part of. Founders can also choose to delegate this responsibility to the WAD. The World Assembly system is used to determine a region's power within their faction. The region with the most endorsements on their WAD would become the Chair of the Faction, or maybe they're elected.
The Faction Chair is an incredibly important and influential role to play. It is expected that every feeder and sinker would inevitably be the Chair of their faction, because I can't imagine two GCRs existing in the same faction when, with the amount of endorsements they have, they could easily Chair their own faction and wield far more power over the game. A Chair region would be able to contribute a number of votes in the World Assembly proportional to their faction's overall power (which I'll call Impact later), much like how the WAD's power in the WA is equal to its endorsements. A Chair also has the power to rename their faction, appoint Electors, incorporate Territories into the faction, and utilize the faction's power on the world's scale in other ways I haven't thought of yet.
There are two types of regions that would exist within the Faction: Electors and Territories. Electors are fully fledged members of the faction that cannot be claimed by other factions as their sovereign territory. The amount of Electors that can exist within a faction is determined by the faction's overall Impact on the World Assembly. Basically, the more endorsements your faction has, the more regions within the faction are allowed to be protected with Elector status. Territories are contested regions that have been claimed by the faction and contribute to the World Assembly power of the faction, but without Elector protections can be disputed and claimed by other factions through warfare. I'll get into how later.
There are two ideas I have in mind for how you would go about creating the initial Factions in the game. I'm very open to any combination of ideas here.
- 1. Create about 20 initial factions with generic names (Ex. The Dandelion Alliance) and distribute the most powerful regions between all of them, randomly filling in the rest. This would certainly generate some very interesting narratives and eventually balance out into a consistent meta, with the Chairs having renamed their factions, designated their favored Electors, and incorporated the territories they were interested in claiming.
2. Allow factions to emerge naturally, providing mechanics to form a faction if a group of regions meet certain criteria (a combined 100 endorsements needed between all regional delegates, for instance). Regions are allowed to exist as neutral elements on the Faction level until they are claimed by a faction through Annexation or R/D.
"Warfare" exists as a consequence of Territories not being protected as well as the existence of R/D. How exactly it works I'm willing to argue about, but here's my current idea: Nations have Influence in a Region, and Regions generate what I'll call Impact for their Faction. Impact will be expended by the Chair to appoint Electors and to stake claims on Territories. Territories (and even Electors!) can also choose to switch factions voluntarily, which means one can bypass the Warfare system by raiding a region and changing factions like one would establish Embassies currently.
I'm going to use the region St Abbaddon to illustrate how the system would work here. Let's say St Abbaddon is a Territory claimed by the New Pacific Order faction. The Imperialist faction, having generated a certain amount of Impact, expends that Impact to contest the NPO's claim and forcefully Annex the region into their faction. St A's endorsements will now generate Impact for the Imperialists and push that faction further up the ranks. Alternatively, they could decide to use R/D to save on Impact and raid St A, forcefully applying the region to the Imperialist faction using WAD tools. The downside is that they would be parking useful endorsements in a single region they could be using to raid other regions.
I think it's important to illustrate that since this augments the current system, it still maintains the integrity of the "opt-out" options available to people who want to stay out of R/D. A neutral region claimed by a Faction using Impact is not mechanically or socially affected, which in a way makes it less disruptive than R/D to native regions, while still including R/D as a viable alternative. It also brings UCRs back into the meta (even providing a mechanical incentive to care about backwater regions with low endorsements) without changing the culture of GCRs and UCRs.
Please feel free to mutate this any way you wish, and help create a more interesting GP experience that the admins will never actually implement. I wrote this really quickly so I know I'll have to clarify some things.
