[Proposal] Make Delegates Exclusive to Founderless Regions

[Galiantus III]

What I'm suggesting:

1. Regions with an executive founder don't get a WA delegate, and will never get a WA delegate (except for class regions).
2. Delegates of passworded regions only have one vote, and may not approve new proposals.
3. Add founder transfer, shared foundership, or SOMETHING that allows founders to delegate executive powers. I don't really care about the specifics, but it needs to be done.
4. GCRs are unaffected by this change.

Given that in the short term this will significantly tilt WA power even more in favor of GCR delegates, discussion of some kind of nerf to delegates with lots of endorsements is welcome here.

With this change, all regions with an executive founder would be called "Community Regions", and regions with a WA delegate "WA Regions".

Why do this? Because it designates your typical UCR as a private community owned and operated by its founder. Meanwhile, all other regions are designated spaces for multiplayer gameplay and politics. You want power? It's always going to be vulnerable. You want security? Your safety is guaranteed, but you can't have power.

But what about raiding and defending? Well, in the short term there will be some bottle-necking, but within a month or two it is safe to say that the problem will correct itself. Anyone wanting to be a WA delegate will have to go create a "WA Region" for themselves, and this, in turn, will create plenty of new targets for gameplay.

For those of you who read my previous version of this, you should notice I am retracting all previous suggestions that GCR power be nerfed. My suggested changes would serve to concentrate anyone interested in WA power into fewer regions, and thus it should be easier for an individual user-created WA region to reach the same power levels as some GCRs. If you have any doubts about this, consider the huge number of WA nations within foundered regions who would immediately need to go somewhere else in order to maintain power within the WA, along with the fact that the best way to guard against a raid is to pile against it.

The important thing is that anyone interested in WA power will need to gather into a region with players of similar political goals as them, because regions too small to defend against a raid will typically be unable to maintain long-term power in the WA. This should result in a few of these regions becoming large enough to potentially compete with TNP in terms of power. Since capturing these regions will look far more like couping a GCR than a traditional raid, this should also remove the need to create any new feeders or sinkers.

Founderless Regions and the WA
Since regions with founders are the most secure and their delegates cannot be forcibly removed for any meaningful amount of time, I feel that founderless regions should be given some advantage in the WA. Whether GCRs are included in this is up for debate, because GCRs already have the unique advantage of being spawn locations for new and returning players. Discussion of any concepts which would give founderless regions an edge in power within the WA are welcome here.

A change like this would tend to direct those seeking power in the WA to founderless regions, which is something not seen much outside of the GCRs. As of me writing this post, the only founderless region with a delegate possessing more than 50 endorsements is The Communist Bloc, whose founder CTEd just three months ago.

The main reason to give founderless regions this kind of an edge is both to provide balance and also to follow principals of asymmetric game design, where players or teams are given different advantages. Regions with founders have a security advantage over other kinds of regions, and GCRs have an activity and recruitment advantage, but as of now founderless UCRs have no advantage of any kind. Hence the topic of this thread.

Here are some possible solutions:

Adjust Endorsement Values
This solution would adjust the number of votes WA delegates gain per endorsement. This number would vary by region type, such that founderless regions have the clear advantage. A fairly simple and direct version of this might be to give founderless regions two votes per endorsement, without changing anything else. A more extreme version would be to assign endorsements a value of zero votes in foundered regions (and perhaps GCRs as well), but maintain the same value within founderless regions.

A similar idea would be to do something like this suggestion by Candlewhisper Archive, but exempt founderless regions:

Now personally, [...] I think it would be a better game if there were some mechanism to make the WA and SC votes more of a game played by all delegates, rather than directed by a small handful.

For example, I would suggest something like a universal "translation curve" where the number of WA votes you gets gives diminishing returns with the number of endorsements. That is, going from 1 endorsement to 2 endorsements gives +1 votes, but going from 100 to 101 gives +0.5, and going from 200 to 201 gives +0.25, and so on. Should be a smooth curve, I don't have the maths for it.

By being a universal rule, such a thing would not be discriminating against anybody, and not being a hard cap, it wouldn't remove the reward for Pacific delegates to keep campaigning for endorsements. What it would do, of course, is increase the relative voice of smaller regions, and make them feel more significant in global politics.

Vote Accumulation
Founderless regions would slowly gain bonus votes for their delegate over time. For example, they could gain a bonus of one vote every month. But it is probably best to have a system of diminishing returns, or some ultimate cap on how high this bonus can go. This would both increase the power of founderless regions in the WA and give a direct power reward for conquering older founderless regions, which could work very nicely with any future plans for an annex feature. I personally don't think this should be applied to GCRs.

Issues
Universally, any benefit afforded founderless regions over those with founders will invite players to found regions, let the founder CTE, but revive them in the event that they lose control of the region. For this reason, any advantage founderless regions have over foundered regions must either (1) be delayed until long after the founder CTEs, and immediately and completely revoked upon a founder's return, or (2) be exclusive to regions with non-executive founders (which would also make them more playable).

There is also a risk of abuse with passwords, but I think all possible issues here can be eliminated by baring passworded regions from WA advantages just during their time with a password.

Introduction
Currently, the understood dichotomy between GCRs and UCRs is basically a matter of spawn mechanics versus security. For the most part this is true, but not for founderless regions, since they have neither spawn nor security. For a while now, I have been trying to come up with some way to make founderless regions more relevant than being simply raiding targets, and I think I have something worth sharing.

The three groups I will refer to from here on out are Spawn Regions (feeders, sinkers, TRR), Foundered Regions (UCRs with a living founder), and Founderless Regions (everyone else). Since the goal of this proposal is to make Founderles Regions unique, with few exceptions my suggestions will either (1) only affect Founderless Regions, or (2) affect both Spawn and Foundered regions uniformly.

Bonus Votes for Delegates
One angle I have been approaching this whole problem from (most obviously) is from the perspective that the only two options for region roles was either security (Foundered Regions) or feeder/sinker mechanics (the Spawn Regions). I personally don't see a problem with allowing Founderless Regions a shot at spawn mechanics, especially if there is no guarantee of ever winning that reward, and if there are severe limits and obstacles to obtaining the mechanics; I understand the seriousness of entertaining that idea. But I can also see that the idea of opening these kinds of mechanics is strongly opposed, and this forced me to change my thinking. I have now arrived at a conception for the world which looks something like this:

Feeders and Sinkers = Spawn
Foundered Regions = Security
Founderless Regions = Power in the WA

The idea is simple, really. Since Foundered Regions are unassailable, and Feeders and Sinkers constitute the center of activity, and are also the most secure founderless regions, their power in the WA is very difficult to challenge. Thus, they can project power while remaining relatively unchallenged.

My suggestion is to make Founderless Regions the only place delegates may derive extra votes from endorsements.

Issues
Naturally, this change by itself will bring with it a few issues. For example, what about passworded regions? Or what about founders CTEing just so their region has more WA votes, then swooping in to save the region whenever a raid happens? The intent is to separate security from power in the WA, so the following supporting features need to be put in place:

1. Delegates within passworded regions gain no bonus votes from their endorsements.
2. A region must be founderless for 62 days (or be created non-executive) before its delegate can derive extra votes from endorsements.
3. Founderless regions become "true founderless" one year after their founder CTEs. No founder is listed at the top.

The last point requires some explanation: if a founder has not logged in for over a year, then there is no reason he should expect the region to exist at all when he logs back on. It could be raided and destroyed, refounded, or everyone could have stopped playing and just CTEd. Also, a year away is the best indicator that the founder will never be returning. But the most important reason for this is if any substantial community exists in the region, the return of the founder could destroy the community. For the purposes of my proposal, it is also important that founders cannot game the system by building up significant WA power in a region while expecting to swat down any raids or coups.

I have some other supplemental changes below, but this is the main gist of my proposal. Please leave your feedback and opinions below!

The following changes may or may not be necessary for the support of the larger proposal:

Alternate Bonus for Other Delegates
I'll be the first one to admit the larger proposal utterly destroys the power of most sitting WA delegates. If the current proposal seems kind of extreme, perhaps we could use a different method for determining WA votes in Spawn Regions and Foundered Regions. One method we could use would be to decrease the significance of a single endorsement to a fraction of a vote (i.e. every three endorsements yields one additional vote). Another method would be to have the delegate represent any nations that didn't vote on a proposal, so that the total votes coming from the region is always equal to the number of WA nations in the region, provided the delegate does vote.

Warzone Frenzy
Sooooo.... hypothetically.... what if endorsements in the Warzones yielded two additional votes for delegates there?

*laughs maniacally*

Okay, okay okay. I know people are going to oppose that kind of change to Warzones, but I think it is completely in the spirit of their original purpose.

[Drop Your Pants]

I think this would be better suited to non-exec founders rather than founderless regions. Placing such restrictions on regional founders to stay around is a horrible method. Founderless regions losing the possibility of a founders return severely hurts them, especially from a R/D perspective.

But the most important reason for this is if any substantial community exists in the region, the return of the founder could destroy the community.

Their region, their decision.

[Galiantus III]

True, but that means we would end up with a whole ton of regions that neither benefit from the WA bonus or the security of a founder. And the only reason a region can exist more than a year after its founder dies is because someone else did the work to keep it alive. At that point saying it's their region still is a discredit to anyone within the region. This isn't to say I would never support making this a feature exclusive to non-executive and non-founder regions, but I feel like it would be a disservice to completely deserving founderless regions not to include them in some way, so I want to explore other options first.

Right now I can think of these possible solutions: (1) regions have to wait a full year after founder CTE to benefit from the WA bonus; (2) keep things the same as right now, except non-executive and non-founder UCRs get two votes per endorsement, (and maybe warzones get three); (3) founderless executive regions get 1 vote per 2 endorsements, non-executive and non-founder get 1 for 1, (and maybe warzones get 3 for 2); (4) do exactly what you are saying, but give founders a one-way option to go non-executive, made complete only by confirmation email.

[Benjabobaria]

Seems a bit ridiculous, but it also seems like it would encourage natives to make their regions founderless.

That would be very amusing.

[Drop Your Pants]

It'd be horribly easy to abuse. If there was a vote the GCR's wanted to sway then all they would have to do is pile into a year old founderless region and get extra votes. And Warzones, with their temporary bans and lack of influence, should be kept out of the whole thing.

[Galiantus III]

It'd be horribly easy to abuse. If there was a vote the GCR's wanted to sway then all they would have to do is pile into a year old founderless region and get extra votes. And Warzones, with their temporary bans and lack of influence, should be kept out of the whole thing.

Actually, that's how I was expecting the system to be used. But the more likely scenario is that the GCRs will just found some non-executive regions and set up shop there, as that will be logistically easier to maintain. And keep in mind, there is a cost to doing that - any WA that is over helping with votes cannot also be over in the home region contributing to regional security. UCRs could do the same, but the cost is that, while they may technically be able to maintain the same number of votes as before, all those votes are now assailable.

Edit: I just realized that this creates an interesting situation where regions setting up WA colonies can experience secession attempts or outright civil war. If an annex feature is ever added, it could only enrich the possibilities here.

You are probably right about the Warzones.

[Miss Bad Life Choices]

Seems a bit ridiculous, but it also seems like it would encourage natives to make their regions founderless.

That would be very amusing.

To add onto what Benja said, this could encourage some regions to go founderless and then get raided. Assuming the founder doesn't want their region raided, they'll come back and then the region will be founded for at least 28 days. It would just turn into a pointless cycle.

[Galiantus III]

To add onto what Benja said, this could encourage some regions to go founderless and then get raided. Assuming the founder doesn't want their region raided, they'll come back and then the region will be founded for at least 28 days. It would just turn into a pointless cycle.

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(1) regions have to wait a full year after founder CTE to benefit from the WA bonus;

I think this would be better suited to non-exec founders rather than founderless regions.

(4) do [Todd's idea], but give founders a one-way option to go non-executive, made complete only by confirmation email.

[Miss Bad Life Choices]

To add onto what Benja said, this could encourage some regions to go founderless and then get raided. Assuming the founder doesn't want their region raided, they'll come back and then the region will be founded for at least 28 days. It would just turn into a pointless cycle.

---

(1) regions have to wait a full year after founder CTE to benefit from the WA bonus;

Founders can still come back after a year so it would definitely need to be non-exec

[Galiantus III]

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Founders can still come back after a year so it would definitely need to be non-exec

I don't think that's terribly game-breaking. If you have to wait for a full year before gaining your advantage in the WA, that's a full year for your enemies to set things up to force the founder back and reset the 1-year timer. If you are a relatively small region, this is likely to happen anyways just because raiders would enjoy tormenting someone like that, and if you are a large region this is likely to happen simply because there are people willing to put in the time to ruin your day... I mean, year.

[Galiantus III]

I have edited the OP to both make this topic more general and adjust the proposal in the direction of feedback thus far.

[Aclion]

I don't buy the "foundered regions are more secure" line. Granted it's true so long as the founder continues to exist, but the regions members have no way of ensuring that happens. Regions with a high end count, low cap and active border control(Read: every notable unfoundered region) are in a much better long term position security wise then those dependent on a founder staying interested.

[Bears Armed]

I don't buy the "foundered regions are more secure" line. Granted it's true so long as the founder continues to exist, but the regions members have no way of ensuring that happens. Regions with a high end count, low cap and active border control(Read: every notable unfoundered region) are in a much better long term position security wise then those dependent on a founder staying interested.

Although control of the founder could be shared by a number of players, who recruit replacements as necessary, carefully selected to avoid ones who are likely either to coup or to get puppet-swept. The IDU has run successfully on that basis right since it was founded, which was more than twelve years ago...

[Aclion]

I don't buy the "foundered regions are more secure" line. Granted it's true so long as the founder continues to exist, but the regions members have no way of ensuring that happens. Regions with a high end count, low cap and active border control(Read: every notable unfoundered region) are in a much better long term position security wise then those dependent on a founder staying interested.

Although control of the founder could be shared by a number of players, who recruit replacements as necessary, carefully selected to avoid ones who are likely either to coup or to get puppet-swept. The IDU has run successfully on that basis right since it was founded, which was more than twelve years ago...

Yeah I considered that. Thing is they can still go rouge, just like with elected delegates/ BC officers of unfoundered regions. It's actually worse in the case of founders because with a rouge delegate you have a change of removing them via mass unendorsement and ally support. If any of the people with access to the founder account goes rouge you're just boned until they CTE. And even then you have to refund.

[Galiantus III]

Although control of the founder could be shared by a number of players, who recruit replacements as necessary, carefully selected to avoid ones who are likely either to coup or to get puppet-swept. The IDU has run successfully on that basis right since it was founded, which was more than twelve years ago...

Yeah I considered that. Thing is they can still go rouge, just like with elected delegates/ BC officers of unfoundered regions. It's actually worse in the case of founders because with a rouge delegate you have a change of removing them via mass unendorsement and ally support. If any of the people with access to the founder account goes rouge you're just boned until they CTE. And even then you have to refund.

Everything the two of your are saying are real possibilities which have happened to real regions at one time or another. However, I think it is still safe to say that the risks associated with being founderless so far outweigh the risks of having a founder that foundered regions have a decisive security advantage compared to founderless regions.

Regional security in the long term is always going to be dependent upon the attention residents give to both growth and security. In the short term, however, it is directly related to either current endorsement counts or (preferably) whether there is a founder. Gameplay decisions are typically made based on what can be done based on the immediate state of the region in question, so as long as a region has a founder it will most likely not even appear on radar. Rogue founders are extremely rare compared to other possible threats to a region, and the chances of founder abandonment decrease with region size.

Another thing to consider is that, whatever the actual difference in security from foundered regions to founderless regions, the perceived differences run very deep. Any new player who wishes to spend significant time on NS is going to read the FAQs page and make some general observations about the game which all slant towards one of two options: (1) stay in a feeder, where they can either blend in with the crowd or attempt to ascend to power, or (2) find a fun region with a founder. This naturally excludes non-GCR founderless regions, and thus very few of them are in a position of any sort of power, and most often they struggle to maintain activity. Something needs to be done to make them relevant.

[Galiantus III]

BUMP

I've edited the OP a bit, and there is a relevant discussion going on in Gameplay.

[Old Hope]

What I'm suggesting:

1. Regions with an executive founder don't get a WA delegate, and will nearly never get a WA delegate (except for class regions).
2. Delegates of passworded regions only have one vote, and may not approve new proposals.
   Add founder transfer, shared foundership, or SOMETHING that allows founders to delegate executive powers. I don't really care about the specifics, but it needs to be done.
   
3. If the founder in a founded region ceases to exist the longest- serving regional officer, or if that one does not exist, the nation with the highest residency gets the powers of the founder... OR when all regions with regional power Cease to Exist in a foundered region the region is deleted, and all residents thrown into TRR(first version recommended)
4. UGCRs are unaffected by this change.

Suggested changes in bold.

[Galiantus III]

3. If the founder in a founded region ceases to exist the longest- serving regional officer, or if that one does not exist, the nation with the highest residency gets the powers of the founder... OR when all regions with regional power Cease to Exist in a foundered region the region is deleted, and all residents thrown into TRR(first version recommended)

This could be the option to go with if mods want to prevent regions from existing without an executive. I do think, however, that if the founder returns to the region, then executive power should automatically revert back to them, and be taken from the RO.

4. UGCRs are unaffected by this change.

Oops! That was a late-night typo. I meant to say GCRs.

[Bears Armed]

From a GA viewpoint, rather than a R/D one, strong opposition to the OP's latest suggestions.
This would deprive a number of the regions with historically strong involvement in the UN/WA/GA of their delegates and the GA-associated abilities that those nations possess, unless the owners of those regions' founding nations -- which, in quite a few cases have existed or significantly longer than Galiantus has -- agree to let those nations CTE and thus force those regions' other members to choose between either engaging in R/D in order to protect their communities (even if they find R/D of no interest whatsoever, and have more constructive things to do with their time) or to move elsewhere (thus weakening those existing GA-involved communities anyway)... and it would take control over the GA proposal-approval & voting processes even further out of the hands of delegates who are actually interested in the GA.

And in case some people here have forgotten, it was for the UN [which effectively continues now as the GA] -- rather than for R/D -- that Max originally gave regions delegates in the first place.

[Galiantus III]

@Bears Armed I am going to address your second point first, because I feel it is important to address the overarching structure we are working within first.

And in case some people here have forgotten, it was for the UN [which effectively continues now as the GA] -- rather than for R/D -- that Max originally gave regions delegates in the first place.[/size]

I am not ignorant to why WA delegates came into existence, but it was a mistake for Max to give WA delegates access to regional controls (or at least the eject button), if he didn't want regional politics to ever exist the way they do now. The current structure of the game ties both regional power and WA power to the delegate, despite the fact they are inherently different realms of power. I have suggested changes to address that problem, but from what I have heard any such fix would be extremely complex on Admin's end.

Right now we have a game where all power is dependent upon WA membership, and unless Admin is willing (or even able) to change that, it doesn't really matter what Max intended, because we are stuck with a structure which inherently allows for R/D.

[size=105]From a GA viewpoint, rather than a R/D one, strong opposition to the OP's latest suggestions.
This would deprive a number of the regions with historically strong involvement in the UN/WA/GA of their delegates and the GA-associated abilities that those nations possess.

This is completely true, but the value of this statement depends entirely upon what would make for a better game. I would argue that the current structures straddles the fence on what would be two great structures, and in the process fails to achieve what either one would excel at. As I have established up above, WA delegates are the sole sources of real in-game power, and that doesn't look like it is going to change. As long as we cannot separate regional and WA power, we have two options:

(1) We can compel delegate power to exist out in the open, where they are always open to be challenged. This is effectively what I am proposing.
(2) We can completely do away with the R/D game by removing the eject button (except in foundered regions), and only updating the WA delegate if another nation has more than twice the endorsement count of the current delegate, and a minimum of 20 endorsements (or if the sitting WA delegate CTEs or updates outside the region).

The only reason I have any preference for (1) is that I like the R/D game - hence I made this thread instead of the one asking to abolish the R/D game. But I could also live with (2) if admin really doesn't want to continue with R/D. The reason to make a change at all is because foundered regions can unfairly avoid all threats to any power they amass. The way to fix that problem is to either prevent foundered regions from attaining power (1) or do away with all existing threats to power (2). If this isn't handled in some way, you can rest assured that players will constantly be coming here to Technical, as they have always done, to voice problems about some aspect of regional power (R/D, founders, GCRs, etc.) because something feels off, and they have not spent the time examining game mechanics to identify why.

[Aclion]

The preferable course is to split WA power from the R/D game. If that can't be done, and it's true that R/D really can't play nice with the WA, then the right thing to do if you want to improve the game as a whole is to get rid of R/D so that the WA and all the other aspects of the game that are held back by it can flourish. Further cripping the WA, and UCRs, is unacceptable.

The reason to make a change at all is because foundered regions can unfairly avoid all threats to any power they amass.

If this is true you must also argue that Feeders should be stripped of their delegates, as the votestack the acquired from being feeders makes taking one impossible.

[Old Hope]

The preferable course is to split WA power from the R/D game. If that can't be done, and it's true that R/D really can't play nice with the WA, then the right thing to do if you want to improve the game as a whole is to get rid of R/D so that the WA and all the other aspects of the game that are held back by it can flourish.

You cannot get rid of R/D without installing local dictators; which is not the better solution, obviously.
You also cannot split WA power from the regional governance because regional governance can always alter the players in the region and their endorsements/whatever... unless you make WA power completely indifferent to regional affiliation which would also require drastic and probably not so nice changes!

[The Tri State Area and Maine]

The preferable course is to split WA power from the R/D game. If that can't be done, and it's true that R/D really can't play nice with the WA, then the right thing to do if you want to improve the game as a whole is to get rid of R/D so that the WA and all the other aspects of the game that are held back by it can flourish.

Yikes. Many things wrong with this.
1. A decent portion of the WA's activity (The Security Council) is based around R/D.
2. R/D is an aspect of the game, with many regions participating in it, and multiple regions built around it.
3. It's been stated many times that R/D isn't being removed from the game.

[Galiantus III]

If this is true you must also argue that Feeders should be stripped of their delegates, as the votestack the acquired from being feeders makes taking one impossible.

I originally argued for that, but in reality the feeders, sinkers, and TRR are a bit of a grey area on this issue. Technically speaking, any of them could be taken, and even if they aren't taken by force there is generally enough potential for controversy surrounding their WA votes that they can be effectively influenced without it. The other thing worth considering is that the right kind of change could produce the momentum necessary for more UCRs to reach the power levels typical of current GCRs, thus negating any need to try and balance them.

As for balancing GCR power directly, that is outside the scope of this discussion. I have seen suggestions to limit delegate votes marginally, so that the amount of power derived from additional endorsements decreases (e.g. delegates get additional votes equal to the square root of their endorsements). While I am not attached to any particular solution for limiting delegate power, my suggestion in such discussions will be to exempt founderless UCRs specifically to give them something unique to offer. That alone would satisfy the goal of this discussion.

[Galiantus III]

You also cannot split WA power from the regional governance because regional governance can always alter the players in the region and their endorsements/whatever...

Just because they can doesn't mean they always will. I fully expect there are regions where the government would maintain complete control of the WA delegate position. But I also expect there would be regions that simply choose to ignore the WA, or decide to devolve WA powers to a lower position within the region. Regional government and WA issues often conflict, and this would help make the game more of a sandbox than it is now.