[Change #5] Reformation SC proposal [ON HOLD]

[Unibot III]

A week is an age in this game, though. If I can't banjcect you except in those handful of seconds pre-update, then you'll be able to stick people in in large numbers very easily, very quickly and overtake my numbers by the end of the week.

You're forgetting that we would only be able to send people in as updaters. That would greatly limit how many people we could get into the region each day. Especially since weekdays are pretty poor for getting updaters.

I'm not sure whether we would be successful or you would be successful.

I know that running liberation after liberation actually hurts defender organizations, because response rates from casual members go down. So attrition tactics are both tiring for officers, but a serious organizational challenge.

[Silver Seas]

True enough, but once they actually get in, you can easily swap you those updater puppets to non-updater members of the UDL. Boom, done.

[Unibot III]

True enough, but once they actually get in, you can easily swap you those updater puppets to non-updater members of the UDL. Boom, done.

I'm not sure how legal that is... we do trade like non-WA puppets with non-updaters, but we usually tell them to keep them and we're very careful about all of that because the legality of it isn't clear.

If we were to do it the mods would have to be clear that was legal -- at the moment, we don't share updater puppets in such situations. If you get in the region with your updater nation, you're stuck there in the pile -- which is what makes attrition tactics so hard because we run out of updaters eventually.

[Cerian Quilor]

There's no reason why it would have to be illegal. You can even resign them from WA first, then pass them off to someone else, since they're safely in the region anyway. Then the new owner can (maybe wait a day or two) change the e-mail and boom, in the WA.

[Unibot III]

There's no reason why it would have to be illegal. You can even resign them from WA first, then pass them off to someone else, since they're safely in the region anyway. Then the new owner can (maybe wait a day or two) change the e-mail and boom, in the WA.

It's just unclear with the rules what counts as multing as how it would be perceived by the moderators. I opened up a topic in Moderation on the matter and got back a response saying pretty much "we don't want to clarify that rule".

There's a lot of theories about what it means to "inherit another's rulings" and not a whole lot of clarity over how that rule will be used. In the meantime, the attrition tactics, which defenders have been forced to use to try to respond to piling, encourage nation sharing.

[Astarial]

As I understand it, multying isn't really the concern - there's no need to use a WA puppet for insertion because non-WAs gain influence too. The issue is more what the implications of nation-sharing are for things like warning records - if Unibot gets a puppet in, and hands that to another UDLer, does that UDLer now become insta-ban for any future offense? If that UDLer uses that puppet in the future to multy, does Unibot get DOS? The risks are uncertain, and that's dangerous.

Edit: Grammerz

[Cerian Quilor]

Exactly. Once they're in, if I can never eject them, then its just a matter of time until you sneak enough people by me.

[Unibot III]

Exactly. Once they're in, if I can never eject them, then its just a matter of time until you sneak enough people by me.

A matter of time and effort and skill on the part of the defenders. Any matter of time is limited by a window for a Reformation proposal.

I also think its unlikely raiders would actually stay in a region once reformed. Many Macedon-like invaders, but TBH/TBR? They're naturally anti-competitive. They're leave at the first sign of trouble (as soon as the resolution is passed) and turn it into a big joke that defenders went through the WA process.

But at the end of the day, admins can't code invaders to want to compete, they can only code a structure that forces them more into competitive situations.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Exactly. Once they're in, if I can never eject them, then its just a matter of time until you sneak enough people by me.

A matter of time and effort and skill on the part of the defenders. Any matter of time is limited by a window for a Reformation proposal.

I also think its unlikely raiders would actually stay in a region once reformed. Many Macedon-like invaders, but TBH/TBR? They're naturally anti-competitive. They're leave at the first sign of trouble (as soon as the resolution is passed) and turn it into a big joke that defenders went through the WA process.

But at the end of the day, admins can't code invaders to want to compete, they can only code a structure that forces them more into competitive situations.

They can't code you to want to compete either, and frankly you haven't been competitive as a collective whole. I held Sapphire during the midst of four simultaneous Raider or Imperialist operations. If you're telling me that all of the defender groups working together couldn't overthrow any one of those (due to user error in the case of the UIAF attempt and simply missing one more person in the attempt against me), then I don't know what you expect admin to do. If you aren't willing to get updaters to make legitimate attempts then I don't see why admin should reward you with neat tools to allow you to pile in, reducing any potential for dynamic gameplay.

[Unibot III]

A matter of time and effort and skill on the part of the defenders. Any matter of time is limited by a window for a Reformation proposal.

I also think its unlikely raiders would actually stay in a region once reformed. Many Macedon-like invaders, but TBH/TBR? They're naturally anti-competitive. They're leave at the first sign of trouble (as soon as the resolution is passed) and turn it into a big joke that defenders went through the WA process.

But at the end of the day, admins can't code invaders to want to compete, they can only code a structure that forces them more into competitive situations.

They can't code you to want to compete either, and frankly you haven't been competitive as a collective whole. I held Sapphire during the midst of four simultaneous Raider or Imperialist operations. If you're telling me that all of the defender groups working together couldn't overthrow any one of those (due to user error in the case of the UIAF attempt and simply missing one more person in the attempt against me), then I don't know what you expect admin to do. If you aren't willing to get updaters to make legitimate attempts then I don't see why admin should reward you with neat tools to allow you to pile in, reducing any potential for dynamic gameplay.

Sapphire was piled to the gunnels. We would have been able to have stopped the initial invasion (we in fact had enough people online to do that) but..................... you invaded a region with a password on it -- so we couldn't defend it, we were forced to liberate. Why would you attack a region you knew defenders couldn't defend? Anti-competitiveness.

We, in fact, had to sit and watch the bloody raid from the bleachers.

The attrition tactics broke down over three updates, the influence growth is too quick. It happens every time with pile raids.

[Mallorea and Riva]

They can't code you to want to compete either, and frankly you haven't been competitive as a collective whole. I held Sapphire during the midst of four simultaneous Raider or Imperialist operations. If you're telling me that all of the defender groups working together couldn't overthrow any one of those (due to user error in the case of the UIAF attempt and simply missing one more person in the attempt against me), then I don't know what you expect admin to do. If you aren't willing to get updaters to make legitimate attempts then I don't see why admin should reward you with neat tools to allow you to pile in, reducing any potential for dynamic gameplay.

Sapphire was piled to the gunnels.

You came within one, established a beachhead, and never tried again

We would have been able to have stopped the initial invasion (we in fact had enough people online to do that) but..................... you invaded a region with a password on it -- so we couldn't defend it, we were forced to liberate. Why would you attack a region you knew defenders couldn't defend? Anti-competitiveness.

Because raiding passworded regions is fucking hilarious and awesome. The consternation of defenders is a part of that of course, but I certainly didn't pick Sapphire because you couldn't defend it. I picked Sapphire because everyone thought Sapphire didn't need defending until I moved in.

We, in fact, had to sit and watch the bloody raid from the bleachers.

It was glorious by all accounts.

The attrition tactics broke down over three updates, the influence growth is too quick. It happens every time with pile raids.

Yeah you stopped trying.

[Unibot III]

Yeah you stopped trying.

Yeah, we did. The endo's twiddled away, the piled margin got bigger. It got out of hand. At some point, something has got to give. Attrition tactics are a pipe-dream that defenders sell themselves because its better than thinking they're helpless against pile raids -- but they basically are, minus helping to blow the invader's influence so they can't grief and burn a region quicker.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

The attrition tactics broke down over three updates, the influence growth is too quick. It happens every time with pile raids.

Yeah you stopped trying.

You have to consider the effect of fatigue on defenders in that situation, especially in terms of the commanders. You can usually expect peak troop turnout for the first liberation effort, but after that it declines exponentially for each subsequent atrritional attempt. At the same time as defenders are having less troops turn out, the commanders are getting physically exhausted from the effort (as unless you live in a couple of really convenient times zones you can't sleep properly and make every update). At some point we have to stop trying - when we run out of troops and our commanders fall asleep at the computer.

[Shadow Afforess]

Mathematically speaking, once the invading force represents the majority of influence in the region, it is their region to lose. With a theoretically perfect raid commander and troops, it will be impossible to lose the region to defenders.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Mathematically speaking, once the invading force represents the majority of influence in the region, it is their region to lose. With a theoretically perfect raid commander and troops, it will be impossible to lose the region to defenders.

... That's the most useless point that has been made thus far. There aren't enough of me to go around to make the perfect raid commander point valid in enough circumstances to matter.

[Unibot III]

Yeah you stopped trying.

You have to consider the effect of fatigue on defenders in that situation, especially in terms of the commanders. You can usually expect peak troop turnout for the first liberation effort, but after that it declines exponentially for each subsequent atrritional attempt. At the same time as defenders are having less troops turn out, the commanders are getting physically exhausted from the effort (as unless you live in a couple of really convenient times zones you can't sleep properly and make every update). At some point we have to stop trying - when we run out of troops and our commanders fall asleep at the computer.

This. I hadn't slept for three days when we got ITALIA on the Friday. There was a lot of recruitment involved. It's the back-to-back liberation nights that generally cause defenders to burnout completely and resign or turn to not sleeping entirely using pharmaceuticals.

[Cerian Quilor]

TBR and TBH have been known to ask people to leave their occupations (such as in Italia) explicitly so that the UDL/etc will attempt to lib because the numbers will be less daunting (I know this for a fact because, when I was still with TNIAF, someone from TBH (pretty sure it was CoE, but I'd have to check my Windows Live logs) asked me to ask Onder to pull TNIAF forces out of Italia (Because I was on and Onder was not)

[Mallorea and Riva]

TBR and TBH have been known to ask people to leave their occupations (such as in Italia) explicitly so that the UDL/etc will attempt to lib because the numbers will be less daunting (I know this for a fact because, when I was still with TNIAF, someone from TBH (pretty sure it was CoE, but I'd have to check my Windows Live logs) asked me to ask Onder to pull TNIAF forces out of Italia (Because I was on and Onder was not)

This is correct. I also prevented further reinforcements from entering Sapphire in order to prevent the UDL from using the piling excuse. It's happened multiple times that we have sought to make it competitive, and through technical mishaps or lack of training the defender forces failed.

[Evil Wolf]

Mathematically speaking, once the invading force represents the majority of influence in the region, it is their region to lose. With a theoretically perfect raid commander and troops, it will be impossible to lose the region to defenders.

...

You're joking right? We're really going to pull out the "in a perfect world" argument? Do you know how many times that's already been done by Defenders whenever they try to argue that defending is so much harder *whine* than raiding? I lost count years ago.

The effective counterpoint here I've learned over years of hearing this false logic is twofold:
-First, humans are not perfect machines and raiders lose raids all the time so your argument is already invalid.
-Second, flip the argument, "With a theoretically perfect Defender commander and troops, it will be impossible to lose a liberation". It's an equally ridiculous statement and just as false as saying the opposite. Don't insult the intelligence of the readers by bringing up old and tired Defender propaganda.

[Unibot III]

TBR and TBH have been known to ask people to leave their occupations (such as in Italia) explicitly so that the UDL/etc will attempt to lib because the numbers will be less daunting (I know this for a fact because, when I was still with TNIAF, someone from TBH (pretty sure it was CoE, but I'd have to check my Windows Live logs) asked me to ask Onder to pull TNIAF forces out of Italia (Because I was on and Onder was not)

This is correct. I also prevented further reinforcements from entering Sapphire in order to prevent the UDL from using the piling excuse. It's happened multiple times that we have sought to make it competitive, and through technical mishaps or lack of training the defender forces failed.

Sapphire was already piled quite high. It's not really much of a game when the invaders get to decide whether they have competition or not.

[Evil Wolf]

Sapphire was already piled quite high. It's not really much of a game when the invaders get to decide whether they have competition or not.

Oh was it now? And how many nations exactly is it to be considered "high"? I can only assume high enough that defenders can't win on their first attempt. How many nations is that exactly? 10? 15? 20? It doesn't really matter, it's whatever defenders say it is, and that number usually depends on if they can win the first try or not. Funny, because I remember a time when defenders, at the update, could easily overcome numbers like the ones we saw in Sapphire.

Maybe, just maybe, the way raiders have been operating hasn't changed much over the last decade and it's the defender community itself thats changed, fracturing into squabbling parties that never work with each other and are at each others throats more than they are the throats of Invaders. Perhaps it's this internal problem that has made defenders weak in both numbers and skill.

Instead of feeling entitled and privileged, asking ADMIN to hand defenders InstaWins against the hard work that the Raider Community has put in over the past few years, maybe defenders should cowboy up and put forth the same effort and cooperation we saw of historical groups like ADN and RLA, who had much larger armies than defenders of today and absolutely wiped the floor with most Crasher groups without much change in battlefield tactics from what we see today.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

[Cerian Quilor]

There are better ways to address Piling than rendering the raiding WAD powerless.

[Sedgistan]

For the record, this change is somewhat "on hold" at the moment, due to concerns that it may further reduce the incentive for invaders to hold regions. That's not to say it is abandoned - rather that it's effectively "bottom of the list" of Summit changes, so we can consider the impact of the others before deciding whether to continue with this.

[Evil Wolf]

Hallelujah.

[Improving Wordiness]

For the record, this change is somewhat "on hold" at the moment, due to concerns that it may further reduce the incentive for invaders to hold regions. That's not to say it is abandoned - rather that it's effectively "bottom of the list" of Summit changes, so we can consider the impact of the others before deciding whether to continue with this.

I do not mind that this has been abandoned for now....I can see how it could have been quite a weapon. There was no mention on if it could be used against regions with founders but I assume it could?