Charles Bolivar

The main problem with NPO's economic methodology, and it really applies to most alliances which tax high but not all, is that it essentially limits the potential of the more talented members of an alliance. This is only compounded further when you consider it is those same talented players who pretty much win wars and do much of the heavy lifting. High taxes, at least following NPO's methods anyway, basically handicaps the players you need the most and imposes limits both upon their potential revenue as well as giving up tier parity. Now, that's not to say high taxes are always bad. I think hypothetically 100/100 if done properly should be the better model. The issue is I've never actually seen it performed in an efficient manner without major flaws becoming readily apparent over time. Hypothetically though it's possible, but it would be almost a full time job for a decent Econ person and team to manage effectively. Plus it would likely require a real understanding of economics and not just google doc spreadsheeting balancing up the ledgers.

I've aways believed what you allude to here is the reason for why we see whale tier consolidation in the first place. Whale rebuilds are expensive, for both an alliance and the individual. On an individual level, a single whale or even a few whales within a typical mass member alliance are going to have an extremely hard time during a war with little direct tier support unless they are lucky enough to have decent allies and communication structures. It becomes problematic during rebuilds because then you have to justify spending the large amount of cash on a few versus the many. Of course with proper financial planning and allocation of rebuild funds it becomes less of a problem, but there is always that balance of distribution between your whale, upper, middle and lower tiers. So in that sense, you can't blame individuals for wanting to be around other whales. Upper tier focussed AAs offer better security for the individual, plus it avoids the rebuild dilemma mostly because any decent upper tier orientated AA should naturally have more funds at their disposal, and you don't have to worry too much about the allocation of rebuild funds because everyone is a costly rebuild. On a meta level regarding the relationship between alliances, a similar dynamic applies, namely security and safety in numbers. It's pretty much what drives relations between the established AAs who have an upper tier, with that drive being the protection of your principle source of wealth creation and force projection. I do agree with you in that it does make the political meta pretty bleak. I've said it for awhile that the notion of multi-spheres is flawed in this sense simply because of the mechanics around whale tier economics which favour upper tier consolidation. I think it's possible to have multi spheres ( we largely do anyway already), but it's a moot point because we certainly don't have a multi-polar world because the risk of alienating potential allies who can offer support in the upper tier against future enemies is simply too much of an expense if an alliance's whales get rolled. I also agree that it is something which largely requires an in-game fix and it's not something which can be remedied by a FA solution since all that does is encourage weaker alliances/spheres to engage in the creation of secret treaties and so on. As for the solution? I have no idea because we are attempting to remedy human nature seeking safety in numbers essentially in my opinion. Boost city costs, make infra cheaper? I've always thought having the in-game map assume more relevance would be a good way. Like say an upper tier alliance is based predominantly in North America, they would be unable to significantly project their full force without significant penalties to let's say south Africa without large penalties. That way we see greater political regionalism (multi-spheres) and we would also see the down declare issue resolved to an extent since an upper tier nation in South Africa would have a better chance against a whale tier nation based in north America ( sucks to be upper tier in Mexico or Canada I suppose though). Alliances would be forced to relocate to differing parts of the world map for security etc. It's probably not possible within the game's mechanics, and hence a pipe dream, but I think it would work. As for projects, I actually think there should be distinct trees within the larger project system which prevent a person from buying all of them and make it mandatory for a person to specialise. If a person makes say steel, limit them to specifically making steel and be unable to say farm or make alum, gas etc. You could apply a similar logic to the more Econ and military orientated projects. If you build an econ project, it should prevent you from building some of the military projects or impose a severe nerf on the effectiveness of the military project. It would encourage specialisation within alliances to fulfill certain roles, but also alliances themselves may specialise into certain roles. Just my thoughts anyway. Good topic

How interesting.

Multi-spheres =/= multi-polarity. It's the fatal flaw which those inclined to support multi-spheres ignored despite the obvious flaws being readily visible the entire time. Celestial's formation is simply the inevitable consequence of causation and escalation.

Where is a horsecock wall of text when you need it?

Does this mean we can finally stop talking about mini-spheres like it was ever anything more than some illusionary pipe dream? This game has existed within essentially a bi-polar state for years. This latest treaty only officially confirms such a reality, and renders the notion of anything different as having been nothing more than a pleasant fiction utilised as a kitchen sink justification to suit any and all intended purposes. I'm just glad we are back to the good ol days.

The tS flag is a little bit to the west of where it should be 👍

Time to bring back that biker boy theme I reckon.

No.

A sad day indeed.

Do tS even use bots? Or did they also switch off on the second day of the war? But like I said, I'm not advocating for the removal of bots so I'm not sure what your point is? Sorry old buddy but I just had to have a dig 😂

Of course there is more context, and people will always disagree on interpretation of context because well, we are people. That's what we do. But my take on this is that people have become far too reliant on bots, and that this reliance needs to be lessened. Not removed, but lessened. A good example would be say milcom bots which assist with providing targets. I have no issue with a bot which provides a target once a user manually requests it. Where I start to differ though is those bots which provide updates the moment a viable target leaves beige resulting in targets being slotted literally within seconds of leaving beige like we witnessed last war. I'd argue that such a bot effectively lessens the need for milcom gov post opening blitz. I'm not arguing for targeting bots to be entirely removed, because having to scroll through multiple alliances to find a viable target is just a chore, but having a bot which literally provides you a target without even asking does rob the game of its strategic and skill elements. I think we have established that good older alliances have larger govs 😂

Yes. Over reliance on bots is bad. That's the point being made 😂

Exceptions do exist, and they shouldn't be used to disprove general trends. If anything, TKR's usage of a larger gov demonstrates the strength of utilising more members within the governance of an alliance. It grants an element of stability to the alliance which is lacking in those alliances run by only a few active gov members who are thrown into chaos when gov members retiree or leave for greener grass elsewhere. And yeah, it was 5 years ago now that you mention it. How time flies 😂

Tkr has always had a larger than average gov though, it's a tradition carried over and retained from the other game 👍 Sorry, I still remember the days when you were low level gov in TKR learning how to manage effectively so you will always be a young pup to me 😂

I'm not so sure I agree with you in regards to bots being necessary in order to free up time so as to teach new members the knowledge required to play the game effectively. Back before your time we did pretty well with just forums and IRC 😂 Sure it helps, no doubt about that at all. Especially when it comes to the mind numbing tedium associated with a few tasks. But when I think back to say tS' first year and so of existence, we didn't have any bots ( or even really a functional milcom for that matter). Instead we just had a knowledgeable base of active members who learned the game mechanics and worked together in a manner which cemented tS as a military powerhouse. No bots at all. Indeed, the sole technical innovation might have been going from IRC to discord during that first year.

This. If anything, bots have led to a situation where govs are becoming increasingly smaller with little need for extensive lower and mid level layers of gov being present within the alliance itself. This essentially allows a few players to completely set the direction of the alliance which is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to alliance engagement and participation.

This is true. I did perhaps over generalise, but again, you also somewhat confirm my point about good players not relying on bots versus average Joes who rely on bots. Take away the bots and these average members would be forced to raise their competency and engagement (or git gud as we used to label it). Im not arguing for bots to be removed, far from it. I remember trying to run a milcom in the other game in a 900 member alliance with minimal bots and tools at my disposal. It wasn't fun in the slightest. The point I making though is you can notice a definite correlation across alliance memberships when we compare competency levels versus reliance upon bots. We all remember NPO after all whose average members barely knew anything about the various ingame mechanics including both nation building and warring.

Yeah, I remember the dollar amount of cash and resources accrued by NPO via the guinea pigs to be significantly more (vastly more) than $150 billion.

Bots basically penalise anyone trying to become good at the game because any ol average Joe can just input a few commands and achieve the same result. It helps manage an alliance without a doubt, but the competency of the alliance itself does suffer for it.

It's the worst, but it's also the most entertaining 🤣

We both know the continual state of hostilities between tS and NPO here, and NPO/umbrella in the other game wasn't exactly a voluntary state of affairs and we also both know who was the primary reason for the constant wars against NPO in this realm and umbrella/NPO in the other. Like I've got no issues in criticising tS when required, but I'm not going to hold tS responsible for the era of stagnation which permeated this game when it was being held hostage by Roq's paranoia and holding of grudges ( particularly towards TKR).

I read that entire wall of text and did not find the answer to the real question lingering at the back of my mind. Do you have a ute yet? 🤣

Will they sell their infra though is the real question 🤔