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Effective Immediately, Spectre is implementing a shift in its foreign affairs policy. This new direction will emphasize a more forward-facing, transparent, and a public approach to a broad range of foreign affairs issues. Key Pillars of the New Policy: Forward-Facing Engagement Spectre will actively seek and initiate official dialogue. Strategic priorities and intentions will be clearly communicated in advance, allowing for constructive diplomatic discussions and collaboration. Transparency Foreign policy objectives, agreements, and actions will be disclosed, with regular briefings and public updates. Spectre will more actively utilize public forums to address a wide range of foreign affairs topics, including: Public declarations of positions on foreign affairs issues Statements regarding escalated matters with other alliances, regardless of their size Official decrees and updates related to diplomatic developments Public Diplomacy Public platforms such as RON and other news servers or community-based servers will be used proactively as official channels for foreign affairs communications. Public statements on the forums regarding ongoing diplomatic engagements and their outcomes will become more commonplace. The following is an example of what's to come in this foreign affairs policy shift: Earlier today, Spectre confirmed the detection of spy operations activity targeting our protectorate, Shadow Valley. The operation in question was traced directly to the nation of Lost Symbol, a recognized official of Rose. This act constitutes a direct violation of Shadow Valley’s sovereignty and, by extension, an affront to Spectre’s protective obligations. As of this release, Spectre has initiated a proportional counter operation targeting Lost Symbol. Active spy operations (assassinating spies) against Lost Symbol are being carried out. This response is measured, for every Shadow Valley spy compromised, an equivalent number will be taken out. To the Rose Alliance: Spectre remains open to dialogue. However, let it be understood that attacks, direct or by proxy, against any nation under Spectre’s protection will be met with an immediate and proportional response. Should Rose wish to avoid further escalation, we invite its Foreign Affairs Department to engage in direct talks. Until then, Spectre stands by its protectorate and acts without hesitation. TL;DR: Spectre will be taking a more public approach to foreign affairs matters including using the forums. We will try our best to find a happy medium where we aren't too excessively using the forums.

Spectre currently maintains normalized or favorable relations with the majority of the top alliances across Orbis. At this time, we do not perceive any immediate or imminent major threats to our alliance. Concerns: The Golden Horde’s persistent aggression towards Spectre and our allies has not escaped our notice. Their repeated attempts to undermine us, particularly during the Geneva Convention talks and efforts to drive a wedge between us and Rose are noted and monitored. Agreement with Pacific Pirates: After signing an agreement to end our conflict with Pacific Pirates, there have been new wars launched against our Protectorate, Shadow Valley, for “one round”. The continuation of this aggression on our protectorate threatens the agreement, and continuation of such aggression will likely result in a resumption of hostilities with Pacific Pirates. While not classified as a direct threat, the significant investment by Eclipse and The Syndicate in Military Research has placed them well ahead of Spectre and many other alliances in terms of military advancement. Singularity’s growing stockpile of nuclear weapons has drawn our attention. While we do not believe these weapons will be deployed against Spectre, the increasing quantity raises concerns regarding their potential use. The uncertainty surrounding when and against whom these weapons may be used remains a matter that requires continuous attention. Non-Aggression Pact Status: With just under two months remaining on our Non-Aggression Pact with Rose & Co, Spectre does not anticipate a renewed conflict or escalating hostilities with Rose & Co at this time.

Hey all, This thread is to be seen as floating a few ideas and seeing what people think. They are not linked and further details will likely come later for a few of them. Idea 1 - Buffing Cost Reduction Military Research This will be the only one in which I will confirm, *something* will happen with to buff this side of the tree. Currently we think this side needs an extra mechanic to be seen as viable when compared to unit cap increase. It should be noted that a few bugs are being removed from the unit cap which weren't intended upon release (e.g. being able to have units without any mil improvements). Anyway, the idea is fairly simple: Add 0.5% rebuy buff for the unit being researched per level - this would be 10% rebuy should you complete the tree for that unit. We would need to probably rename this side of the tree to Military Efficiency rather than cost reduction. Idea 2 - Encouraging War It's no secret that wars are detrimental to growth and economics. This has swung to the point where political actors seek to avoid war rather than promote them and has led to political stagnation. The solution is to therefore give incentive to alliances to not farm endlessly but to create wars to also benefit them economically. The idea: Introduce a new metric tracked on peoples nations. Each day, their stagnation ticks up by 1 point. Once it reaches 60 points, the population and resource production in cities begins to decline based on the following formula. Population (%) = 1-MAX(((I23 - 60) / 240) * 0.6,-2) Resource Production (%) = 1-MAX(((I23 - 60) / 240) * 0.7,-2) Now I will say, these are some rough numbers to give an idea and the way it would work does need more fleshing out, but please see below: As you can see, after 60 days a negative modifier will slowly kick in. Every 30 days (roughly 1 month) the modifier gets worse. Conversely you can decrease your modifier so that you gain economic output (this is capped at -30). To reduce your stagnation modifier, you would need to complete wars. The amount being reduced I believe should be linked to war type declarations: Raid War - Reduces stagnation by 2 Ordinary War - Reduces stagnation by 3 Attrition War - Reduces stagnation by 4 Please note, both the nation losing and the offensive nation would have their stagnation modifier reduced by the same amount upon war completion. This may also encourage more even wars as the fight over slots becomes more important. Idea 3 - Make wars cheaper Quite easy this one. Reduce military gained by cities & research by 20%. Makes wars cheaper, promoting more wars. Flattens war range allowing for more interaction between tiers. Reduces the impact of cities on overall war strength, in preparation for future mechanics, making the war system less dependent on cities. These are the numbers: Reduce hangar capacity from 15 to 12 Reduce tank factory capacity from 250 to 180 Reduce barracks capacity from 3000 to 2400 Reduce drydocks capacity from 5 to 4 Reduce by a similar rate across military research Feedback: Please note that these are 3 discussion ideas and not all related to each other. Upvoting or downvoting this post gives me very little idea of what people do or do not approve on and therefore written feedback is always better.

This is great. I hope other AAs follow suit and make FA communications more transparent and visible to the general public.

Idea 2 - I like the idea of this, but in the current form this won't work. There's incentive to declare wars in-game, but no real incentive to actually do anything. If I declared on one arrgh nation every now and then, and worked with them to minimize damage, that'd work around this mechanic. To make the mechanic work, it'd have to be tied to damage in some form, so instead of 4 stagnation points due to an attrition war being declared and having no attacks, 4 stagnation points being awarded due to inflicting $40m in damages (arbitrary number) seems more effective. (Potentially not including loot, since otherwise it can be gamed? Though that might be rough for pirates.)

~Glasgow~ Alliance: https://politicsandwar.com/alliance/id=10377 Discord: https://discord.gg/XU59nVMRHv On behalf of Glasgow, we announce our Declaration of Existence. After pillaging through unsettled lands, conquering new lands, accomplishing things we would never thought we could do and more, we the Celts have decided to return home and bask in our glory. ~Government of Glagow~ Monarchy Monarch: Celtic Yoda Prime Minister: Cody Evans Privy Council Senechal of Administration: Arthur Chamberlain of Finance: George B Siscar of Diplomacy: Powerline Marischal of War: Mutantpigpug Treaties Protector: GATO MDOAP: Uppsala ODOAP: The Republic of Libertas Vought International United Ummah CyberTrOn Federated States of Orbis NAP: Spectre Gallowglass Side Note: We would like to thank Wintermsith of Uppsala for his assistance helping get Glasgow off the ground and to where it is today!

Idea 2 is a great idea. I disagree with anyone claiming this is killing politics, if anything it is reviving it. Building a coalition, forming alliances and spheres, and plotting is all part of politics that play a big part in wars and this mechanic will incentivize that. You can also still farm it out and still receive better income than you would by going to war up to a certain point but you shouldn’t be as rewarded as you are right now for avoiding wars while others fight and actually play the game.

Idea 1 is fine. Switching cost savings for an additional rebuy buff is more effective for players to understand. Idea 2 could be simplified by simply using a 30-day rolling model tied to a modifier on gross income. Example, nations get -0.25% per day of peace and +0.25% per day when completing wars. Thst would create a potential 107.5% cap and 92.5% low for daily gross income. Idea 3 is a bad idea. We already have issues of it being so easy as a raider to shave score and massively downdeclare with next to no infra to hit someone. Capping military at lower limits will actually cause additional downdeclaring potential. Cities and military should impact score the most because they really do dictate war strength. If you were worried about war costs, then just lessen the unit costs or revert them back to their previous values before research was added. I’m disappointed you haven’t mentioned anything about revamping the spying mechanics. That’s been something several threads and conversations have continued to take issue with. Just a few modifications to that system could make it much more effective.

Sometimes, you gotta clean off the cobwebs... Sometimes, you gotta make sure the cables are plugged in... Sometimes, you gotta do a sound check... Sometimes, you gotta check on the soup... Sometimes, you gotta leave the mountain bunker, and go for a ride... ...Even if it's your last. ______________ When: Tomorrow, July 2nd, at 10 PM EST Where: The Media - https://discord.gg/pqADXxS3 Who: Kev & Thalmor, but hopefully you too ❤️

This issue was handled privately, with Shadow Valley, and reps were sent. Diplomacy was already had between parties and this action was taken out regardless of dialogue and without any private touching base of Spectre. Just since it’s public and all.

Agreed, this is what P&W should be anyway. Tired of the drunken bar fights in the dark with no real reason.

Aha! Something else that is Kastor's fault.

Finally, an independent Scotland?

10 years ago today, The Knights Radiant was formed. We started with around 16 members as a protectorate of The Syndicate. The world then looked very different: It’s been an eventful 10 years. Approximately 1500 people have been a part of our alliance throughout the years, including those who are still a member now. We’ve had around 129 total people in gov, including seven leaders. We’ve seen the game shift from IRC and forums to Discord and moved ourselves from IRC to Slack and most recently Discord. We had a long stretch as the number one alliance. We’ve been through nearly all the major ups and downs of the game and continued through as a strong community. Arguably most important of all, we’ve converted countless people into Sanderson fans.... A special thank you to all our allies over the years for your friendship and for your support. We’ve been very lucky to have had some wonderful allies throughout the years and made some great friends. Though our in-game relationships may have changed throughout the years, so many of you have been steadfast OOC friends to us as well, and it’s been wonderful to get to know you. Most of all though, I want to thank our gov and our members, past and present. So many people have been a part of TKR’s history and have helped make the alliance what it is today. The result has been the creation of an incredible and tight-knit community. I’ve never ceased to be impressed by this alliance and its resilience, fortitude, and sense of camaraderie. I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it, let alone lead it. Keep being amazing, Radiants! Here’s to 10 years!

interesting, I think this public diplomacy should be normalized

Oh? Is the forum so back?? Good luck if you do go to war with Rose though.

Only possible issue I can see with this is does it track at the time of war completion, or the time of declaration? If someone goes inactive after I hit them, I should still get the reduction. Additional Thoughts: You could also make it so fighting sub c10 targets doesn't reduce stagnation, and nations below c20 aren't effected by stagnation. Given how quickly nations can farm to c20 these days, it makes more sense not to penalize smaller nations and micros. Ultimately mid/upper/whale tier nations are the ones being farmed and are the ones driving whether wars happen. If you have a damage threshold and inactivity cap you don't need to make it per war type. Only reason to delineate between war types is to avoid abuse but if you tackle that with those metrics instead, then you don't need to. Which is better, because there are many viable strategic reasons why an alliance would use raid vs ordinary vs attrition in an actual global conflict.

It does say in the post that they'll need to complete the wars, which I took to mean beige rather than expiry, so no attacks wouldn't work. Still could be an issue of people farming nations though, but I can't imagine even Arrgh nations want to be eating beiges constantly for people. Might need to have some other additional metric considered as well, but scaling it to damages directly might be complicated given that damages scale based on nation size. It could perhaps be a damage threshold? You could tally the cities of both parties and then determine a minimum damage threshold based on that, and then you'd only reduce stagnation if that damage threshold was hit. It wouldn't even have to be super high, just enough for it to not be conveniently farmed.

Grats lads n Laddetes. we know who you are n all but D.o.E formalities. 😛

You do realize your now protectorate (TAO/Cybertron) did exactly that same thing to involve itself in conflict with THT back in December? They signed your other now prot (Shadow Valley) and tried to enforce an NAP which THT had with TAO/Camelot, and then escalated a conflict crying foul the whole time. Lol. I simply just enjoy watching selective applications of logic when it’s convenient. It’s also why I’m a fan of public FA. Theater in front of a large audience. 🍿

I love this even if it serves an interest. Actually, I love this especially because it serves an interest. The generation of “top” FA minds who decided that the post-Partisan forums weren’t worth using should really re-evaluate the impact of public FA on their success or failure. Nice post.

@Popat "This is great. I hope other AAs follow suit and make FA communications more transparent and visible to the general public." 100% agree. I miss the good ol' days when the forums were poppin'.

Rose at it again

Recession indicator 💔

HAHAHAHA good luck with that bud You broke the last one Everyone else needs guarantees not you lmfao

Honestly you could hit up both the economic AND military side with new resources. First, make it separate from the usual resources and have all of the new ones technically available to players regardless of location. Then, make it so the player can only choose to extract x of them. As in 2 of the 5 new resources or something like that. That way big nations can't just dominate it completely. Part two is then an update to units. We have the units branch out. Planes can have bombers and fighters. One good at hitting targets, the other good at fighting other planes. Soldiers can have something like an anti-armor unit added as an option. Good against tanks, less good against soldiers. They'll cost different resources and the unit cap remains the same. Also you can mix them together if you want to find the mix that works for you and your current situation. (I.E. you can have bombers AND fighters but they both contribute to the same total plane cap.) So you get to choose what your army costs and what it's good against (and also what it's weak against). This makes war more dynamic. Losing effort? You can choose to build some anti-tank units to rack up the damage that way instead of just lobbing missiles and nukes for the next month or so. And hey, if you've been zeroed but your alliance is still going alright maybe you hitting up those tanks will help your fellow war buddies with their wars? To make this work and not just promote big nations flip flopping what they produce the penalty for switching between new resources will be/include time. It'll take a few days to get the new resource up and running so if you want to switch focus you'll have to wait and produce none of the new resources in the meantime.

Suggestion 1: I like it, I think the hard numbers may need to be tweaked slightly, but overall its a good idea Suggestion 3: Silly. Really the only reason to change the unit count per building is giving a small buff to normal whales, a bigger buff to all, what, 5? whales that raid. The downside is that it makes the math more complicated. In the end it doesn't super matter, I agree, but it seems like we could change cost or heck even score per unit and make for a more balanced update with fewer consequences. (Also side note this will screw up every MAer that has grown any sort of instincts for the game for a good month. Not the end of the world but I think given all other things unequal we should avoid it). Suggestion 2: I think the idea has some theoretical merit, but anything close to the current proposal will cause small alliances to be run out of the game. Sketchy said that it would be more profitable to just have a quick little war and peace out, but as someone in a war right now you are just wrong, sorry. We are making roughly the same amount we are at peace, but since we are at war if our bonus ever got to low I just announce "round of deccs everyone" we all get ourselves a handful of wars before eventually going back to peace having taken a couple 10s of millions of damage because our enemy is already so weak. If we were, however, to take some of the suggestions in the thread like activity and damage thresholds we push so hard into forcing wars that it kinda hollows out the politics of the game. Forget war reasons based on player actions, get excited for 10 forum posts a year saying "srry, need the econ." That shift will cause people to leave the game. As someone who has been in 4 wars over the last 9 months, it is just plain unpleasant, and I say that as an MAer, so this should be my time to bask in the sun lol. So if someone sees an alliance that they consider weak or have a grudge with, can you guess who is gonna be lined up for wars? It is going to be a round robin of the top 10 AAs dragging one top 30 AA or smaller sphere every 4-5 months. The activity one actually encourages inactivity! Just keep some folks around to wipe raiders and make it known that all your inactives are happy to pop on and defend themselves from raids and the "penalty" for inactivity from raiding is diminished, and your AA has a 40% inactivity rate that is no good to be hit by another sphere to reset them, win win for everyone involved, except the raiders and the game as a whole ofc. The damage suggestion is probably the best of the bunch I guess? But even that, it is going to be gamified to hell and back. I need to do 10m damage? Great. Im going to 0 the enemy, do 10m damage then expire the war so my buddies can decc as soon as possible and get their 10m in. All in all I don't mind incentivizing wars, I think that could be healthy for the game. But at some point you are forgetting the forest for the trees. You can say this is a war update, because it is, but the problem with all wars in this game for as long as I have been here is that they are effectively a way to pass the time. There is not a concrete or permanent benefit to having them (besides relative growth which... fine, makes AA Econ heads giddy I suppose). This does not change that. Once we get so meta focused why even have the paint job of a nat sim? Just call it "war simulator" and remove the policies page, and the little nation quirks like approval rating and those other cosmetic things that should in now way be cosmetic if this game did what it says on the tin. We have to look beyond just the war part of the game to incentivize war. We do that in theory but not in practice here. We try to effect econ and make it harder to grow without war, but there is nothing interesting here. No mechanic, not even an interesting way of implementing stagnation. So overall, I think this idea needs fundamentally reworked before it can ever be considered a worthwhile update in my opinion

Wow, people would literally do anything but make the actual war mechanics engaging and fun. As is, you just play a slightly complicated version of rock paper scissors (and superior numbers) against a stranger because of some events outside of your control. In short, wars are boring. Winning them is boring, losing them is boring, and the only exciting part of war is the first 15-minutes after day change. The foundation that half of this game is built on top of is broken and rotting from the inside, and the design team can't provide anything but bandaid solutions and half-measures. If you want more wars, make them worth waging in the first place, not contrive it with a soft timer.

I get wanting to incentive war and I am all for it the game has been way too stagnant recently but giving a buff to going to alot of wars and nerfing those that dont seems like overkill imo one would be enough either negative impact on those that dont (better option imo) or small buff to those that do cuz this will lead to a couple problems firstly - people will find ways to lower there stagnation with no cost like working with other alliances for example or declaring on inactives and use it as an economic buff - secondly it will force way too many wars since no alliance will want to go negative and some will even want to go positive buff leading to constantly going indefinite wars which kinda ruins the game cuz people will get rolled out of the game + constant war makes the game boring + kills whales/food Overall love the concept just think the solution is way too overkill

I totally agree with idea number 2. besides helping IA to conduct in-game login audits, this will also help certain alliances to rebuild after the war. and I hope to also reduce the number of NAPs that make the game "uninteresting." the title of the 3rd idea is "Make wars cheaper" but instead it looks like it is reducing military capacity. what if we reduce the amount of each resources or warchest used during war? even though we have Military Research, I see that not all alliances or players do that. or maybe someone who knows better can find another solution? I'm appreciate and respect the team's hard work, but we hope the dev team can make changes regarding spy mechanics as soon as possible.

Anything Celtic I'm cool with but you being Governed by a Yoda makes y'all top notch! .. Also posting this on the 4th is just next level politics "Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat!" 😉

Wait, we're having another The Last Ride?

No, MoO is free to attack any alliance it so pleases. We’re not aware of any alliance MoO has recently attacked that currently shares a NAP with us but that’s beside the point, our NAPs are not limitations on MoO if they themselves are not a signatory of that NAP.

Why are you spying the poor disenfranchised youth Velyni?

So does this mean Spectre will stop its protectorate (Mercenaries of Orbis) from attacking alliances (or protectorates of those alliances) which Spectre has an existing NAP with? ((Holding out microphone for comment))

There has been some discussions floating around changing the way how we do espionage operations and buffing up some areas of espionage while nerfing some parts of espionage, i am not going to go into much details of what has been discussed in the debate channel in RON but i will post a few screen shots as i believe everyone should be involved in this discussion and everyone should have a say in this. In Response to Keegoz comment, i did come up with a proposal in revamping the spy/espionage mechanics which you said yourself that it will be considered, this was back in late January but since then, there has been no mention in fixing the espionage mechanics at all, there has been discussions and proposals in military research and adding new things in Econ, but nothing has been mentioned about espionage, so since there are currently some form of discussions going on around Spying/Espionage proposals and ideas on how to improve it and make it more fairer and balance, i think the forums are more appropriate for these discussions so everyone can pitch in some ideas and proposals on what they like to see changed or added in. Also both me and Rage have been saying those in beige should be protected from any form of espionage attacks, whilst also those in beige shouldn't be able to do any espionage attacks except for intel gathering, otherwise performing espionage attacks means forfeiting the beige protection bloc. If nobody wishes to change the espionage mechanics, that's fine, leave it as it is but it least allows being in beige means being also protected from espionage attacks, allowing those in beige time to be able to rebuild spies, but in saying this, make it those in beige shouldn't also be allowed to conduct espionage attacks, if they do, they forfeit beige. Anyways enough said, i'll leave it for others to comment. @Rageproject@Keegoz Sorry for the pings.

Reminder that public dialogue is not inherently in good faith. Presentation of perspectives can sway public opinion based on who gets their word out first. Also reminder that people should not expect any public announcement to provide the full scope of active diplomacy. But it is nice to see perceived aggressions instead of letting them all be announced suddenly on a DoW/RoH *Obligatory roseman bad

u guys want to burn rose but didnt invite me...

@ToxicPepperHomie, remember Rose had us in the brink of war if I wasn't dropped from Aurora sphere entirely while I was in Compass one of the times. They even tried going for Kan & you while in LoD. They've done it again and again the background, watch yourselves n be on stand by ole homie

I told you, Rose bad. join the war when? 😌

“Love the samurai theme—I can’t wait to see how this honor-driven approach unfolds! ⚔️ Bringing the Bushido code into Dow negotiations really spices things up. Best of luck with your diplomatic strategy, and may your alliance remain as steadfast as a ronin’s resolve!”

No, I said it was a key component of the game and in the title of the game. You can feel free to not war if you wish, you will have adverse effects compared to those who do. The game was designed for wars to be a key component of the game though.

Its a natsim game why are you only focusing on war? Ffs this game has a huge functioning economy system i feel like its concerning you only care about the war aspect theres a reason when you make forum post asking about what should he done with the game theres tons of people asking for not war

I like the idea of idea 2 but honestly i feel like if its gonna work, for one its gonna lead to a complete loss in revenue for most people with current numbers, cause this is likely just gonna lead to a necessity of 5553 builds just to ensure you arent constantly being raided and losing this however leads to an issue for a lot of mid and high tier players where the lost rev from having 5553 is higher than the revenue gained even from having the max production increase. Secondly if you want to incentivize war maybe just make being at war a lot a bonus and don't penalize for not warring often. Theres a decent chunk of players who dont want to have to war often even while not caring about the fact its better economically, i feel like this is just gonna alienate a bunch of players if you make it an active detriment to just chill and farm or something. Instead just make it a benefit the rev increase alone will incentivize alliance wars and just people raiding and pirating as long as you can make them worth doing.

Instead of a 0.5% rebuy, it should be a flat unit rebuy increase similar to that of the capacity upgrade. Essentially maxing a tree should give you +4 cities of rebuy. The way % would apply to rebuy, that's a larger buff for whales than it is for others. I like this and can't spot any immediate issues with it. Condensing the game a little would help future proof it a bit.

I am Commander Shepard and this is my favorite public FA news outlet in the Citadel.

Our protectorate with TAO/Cybertron was not signed until months after December. You’re also referencing a conflict in which we do not have knowledge of nor were we a protectorate of either alliance at the time. Our protective duties begin the day our treaty is signed and with a clean slate. The current conflict between MoO and TCO was well under way when Antarctica Alliance signed a protectorate treaty with TCO. It was Antarctica Alliance’s decision to sign them as they were in an active and open conflict with our protectorate thus we do not view any involvement by them or any other third party alliance in the conflict between MoO and TCO as legitimate. Any attempt to get involved by them or others will be viewed as an attack on our protectorate by us.

Epic seeing this, I wish y'all the best of luck!

Not at all. We are the protector of Shadow Valley and any aggressive action taken against them or any of our protectorates by any alliance, regardless of our NAP status with that alliance, will be responded to by us as part of our protective duties. The conflict between MoO and TCO that I assume you are referencing here is different in that Antartica Alliance did not have a protectorate treaty with TCO when MoO attacked them and only signed that treaty after the war had already started and was already ongoing.

Happy birthday TKR! This alliance has meant so much to me these past few years. Everyone who has been part of the alliance at one point or another has helped shape it into what it is today, but I want to give special thanks to all those who have served in gov over the years, donating their time to make TKR such an awesome place to be. Sharing our government history, for posterity. Also available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SEhcU76LBCy5qGMBQtJ_th-8ak1SzQzu7aKk1cK5w2Q/edit