Rozalia

People when buying resources are forced to first buy from their sphere (their own Sphere's tariff doesn't apply to them), only being able to go buy elsewhere when there is none of the resource they want to buy. Sphere leader can set minimum-maximum prices on resources so there isn't any abuse of that fact. Essentially due to a lot of sellers now having a tariff over them it should make your sphere's goods the cheapest for you to buy, and with the forcing of you to buy in house first it promotes keeping the money inside the sphere. The seller does not get a selling restriction as other alliances can still buy their goods the moment they put it up... but that is what the tariff is for as it's existence should prevent all your sphere's goods being brought up by others... though if it happens than at the very least your selllers made a lot of extra dosh so they'll be happy. For simplicity's sake the tariff's are tied to the spheres. An alliance that isn't top 10 and doesn't belong to a sphere doesn't have access to a tariff. So they can join a sphere, keep their prices the same so as the cheapest goods after an alliance has bought everything in house they'll naturally go for their goods, or they could look at everyone's tariffs and raise their prices accordingly so they are still the cheapest but will be making some extra moolah. In terms of buying goods if they ain't in a sphere than they'll likely run into a tariff most of the time making goods more expensive for them to buy. If an alliance splinters than one half merely needs to maintain the top 10 spot so they can sphere the other. If both stay within the top 10 than the mechanics I laid out means there is no way for them to still be "cohesive" in game. If both are not in the top 10 than they merely need to join someone's in the top 10 together sphere. They won't be able to set the tariff themselves as they aren't the sphere leader but they won't have to pay tariff's on each others goods. It's fine. I'm happy to address whatever issues are raised.

No, underlordgc. You are the !@#$. And then underlordgc was a Underlogic.

If you join someone's sphere than you don't have to pay tariffs (which the sphere leader sets) on goods from the alliances in that sphere. So if you join a sphere with a lot of nations that sell on the market than you'll be getting stuff cheaper than you would normally. Besides that it can be brought up when alliances discuss treaties and such as a condition. Nice of you to notice.

Painting Rose as the primary villain? I'm sure Rose is gracious enough to do the paint job for them at no cost so getting their hands dirty isn't really necessary. I'm unsure where TEst come into this... As for the rest... I don't see what is your problem with them than honestly. It's not all about being the biggest dog with the biggest bite... plenty of times in history a force has overcome another through the usage of superior diplomacy. If VE are good at that like you say than how can they be deemed incompetent? Lets look at it this way. Guardian/SK/Mensa were seen as "ruling the realm" and while they didn't hold a huge amount of land their troops were experienced, powerful, and feared. The coalition that gathered against them was made of a large amount of forces not all on the same side, but nevertheless united against their common enemy. Guardian/SK/Mensa have from what can be seen been dealt a costly defeat and forced to retreat westward... they will survive as a dominate force as long as they don't destroy themselves from within, after all their enemies will surely fight each other. VE and Rose who are considered the big players in the coalition who will compete for supremacy against each other... what we'll see is just who they are. Apologies if you don't know what I'm referencing so the above comes off as gobbledygook.

BALLGAME! We drop facts on Friday nights MAGGLE! HAHAHAHA I LOVE IT MAGGLE!

Best Alliance of June: Seven Kingdoms considering they are the game's Dong Zhou at the moment. Best New Alliance: Thunder Legion Best War of June: Whatever the big war is called Most Annoying Player: Muhammad Ali Bas Worst Alliance: Rose naturally Best Forum Poster: Ranoik Most Creative Treaty: Ansom paying back the money of that guy as a means to put that nasty business behind his alliance and Cobalt. Favorite Leader: Oskar Best IRC Bot: Again not a fan of the gimmick. Overpushed vanilla midgets. Best war opponent: Steward

So that stuff you were saying while in VE was a calculated attempt to get VE to look bad? I don't see why you couldn't just move on and be done with it. Leaving an alliance like that sucks, but I honestly don't see why such a high proportion of people than insist on going rogue on their former alliance afterwards... actually I suppose you never really hear about the ones who don't go rogue so I may well be wrong there. I mean you clearly decided that Rose was VE's primary enemy right? If so why not simply go join Rose?

I didn't even realize he had left, makes me wonder why he would and than attack VE... I assume you guys kicked/asked him to leave and he didn't like it?

I would never presume to call VE a vanilla midget. More of a Big Hoss.

Nice flag. Just need something for these forums now to really represent the crunch berries.

I'd have appreciated at least a word, but I see someone else hooked you up. No matter I expected as such.

So you post an alliance announcement to... announce a raid on one player? Well I'm glad everyone else doesn't take that stance as we'd be flooded with announcements than.

*Makes identical Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Jake Roberts joke from last time because Lawler repeats stuff* Cuba as leader eh? He has more shots in him than Tupac hanging around with Jim Beam like he does Congrats to Cuba and Guardian.

You will find sir that I made mention of Rose's dastardly arming of terrorists. But perhaps the reason others haven't is if you don't mention them than their nobz squad won't show up and you just have the more reasonable members about? Outside the obvious obviously. And yes I wanted to use that Warhammer reference because I have yet to use it here.

If a sphere leader was to set a 100% tariff than the rest merely need to set a lesser tariff to make it so people are more likely to buy it from their nations. The top 10 not being allowed to sphere each other is an attempt to cut down on abuses like the one you describe. If an alliance were to convince the majority of alliances below the top 10 into their scheme and screw the other top 10 alliances than... sounds like a casus belli to me.

Vanguard, GPA, and Titan verses the terrorist organization Nexus backed by Rose clearly.

You could allow a different tariff for each good but it's likely unneeded. One tariff that applies to all goods would do just fine I think. It makes the top 10 spot worth holding, promotes relations between the top 10 and other alliances, gives reason for wars (if you want to use it as a reason), and... promotes competition I'd think. That would be one way to do it. The only issue I have is allowing other top 10 alliances to be exempt by being under market sharing as that will promote abuse. If the most numerous and powerful alliances all market share with each other than it'll strangle everyone else. I also just noticed I forgot to note something that should be obvious, but nevertheless. An alliance should only be able to be sphered by one of the sphere leaders.

Thanks for the catch. It is of course as you say.

Market sharing mechanic would have to be removed to apply this. This suggestion involves establishing sphere leaders which I will run through some ideas on the suggestion. It may well be too complicated or difficult to implement, and perhaps not even fulfill the functions I believe it would. I am aware that this is going to be very wordy, apologies. Sphere leaders = Top 10 alliances Alliances that can be sphered - first off alliances in the top 10 cannot be sphered at all as they are too powerful. Only alliances below the top 10 can be sphered. Alliances can only be sphered by one Sphere leader - In an effort to stop big top 10 alliances rigging it by having their allies all be sphered by them all at once, alliances can only be sphered by one leader. To sphered by another they'd have to be removed first. Effects of Spheres - Those within spheres when buying resources must buy from nations within their sphere first, only when there is none available within the sphere are they permitted to buy on the global market. This promotes inter sphere purchasing but to avoid certain members abusing that by setting up crazy prices the sphere leader can set up a minimum and maximum price on each resource to avoid this abuse. Prices in and out of sphere - Now one thing this shouldn't do is restrict sellers because we play in real time and forcing sellers to wait a day before having their goods go on the global market I don't believe is something people want. So here is a suggestion on promoting in alliance buying while still having your goods on the global market. Tariffs - Sphere leaders can set a percentage based tariff that will apply to nations within their sphere which will only apply to nations outside the sphere buying goods from your sphered nations. So say: The Dutch East India Company is the sphere leader. Genius Corps is a sphered alliance under DEIC. Cobalt is a sphered alliance under DEIC. DEIC has a tariff of 30%. Genius Corps nation is selling 1000 Steel at $2000 per unit. For a DEIC or Cobalt nation that $2000 per unit would be what they'd have to pay. For other alliances like let us say United Purple Nations for example the price would instead be $2600 per unit. The tariff of course would be adjustable once a day or perhaps a week may be better by the sphere leader. It could be set 0-100% up to them. Now where the extra money goes can be dealt with in different manners. It could simply become extra money into the pocket of the seller, it could go into the sphere leader's bank, the seller and bank can split it... or you can allow all those options by allowing the sphere leader to set what they'd like (so do they want to enrich their sellers? Their own bank? Or a bit of both?). How to sphere and leaving: Tricky business but here is some ideas. First off a sphere leader can straight up invite an alliance into it's sphere, and can also remove an alliance. I was thinking there could be two types of agreements, two sided and one sided. One sided: Sphere leader can diplomatically remove sphered alliance. Sphered alliance cannot remove itself diplomatically. Two sided: Both parties can remove the sphered alliance from the sphere. Of course the one sided agreement has to allow the sphered alliance a way out so one way to allow that would be a decision available to the sphered alliance's leaders that they can take when they have 5 ongoing wars with the sphere leader's alliance. Than they'd need a certain amount of victories to break free, but at the same time if they recieve the same amount of defeats than their attemp fails. If we set the amount needed at 33% your member count than an alliance of 30 would need 10 victories to break free, but if they recieve 10 defeats first than they remain. A cooldown would likely have to exist to not allow those alliances to constantly start such wars. Losing sphere leader status - When you drop out of the top 10 you have a week to regain your spot. Failure to do so removes you as a sphere leader, your sphered alliances are "freed", and the new sphere leader takes your spot. Thoughts? NOTE: I didn't really take into account the colour mechanic above but you could also integrate that too I suppose. If each sphere leader has a different colour than you can make it so sphered alliances to get the colour bonus they must take the colour of their sphere leader. Such a thing would be problematic for alliances like GPA for example as VE would like get the green but oh well. You could to be fair give the #1 ranked alliance first dips on choosing a colour, than the #2, and so on.

Here is two. I'm aware only the second matches your specifications, but the first was so quick to knock up I thought I'd link it too in case you liked it.

Don't see much issue with Grealind's stance (surprised someone is even raising an objection). Giving new members aid is a fine thing and spitting in the alliance's face after receiving it is just dastardly.

I'll give it at least a year I think if I even get it. Did that with 3 and had no issues, didn't with New Vegas and got a nightmare where it got so bad I could only seemingly play 20-30 minutes at a time as it would than start entering slideshow mode (if it didn't hang on a loading screen before than). Thankfully I was mostly done with the game by that point.

The Legendary 10 time World Champion Vacant is part of your alliance? Its nice to know that losing the Intercontinental title to the BIG GUY recently has not got the vacuous one down.

I really appreciate the posts Memph is making on this matter. I'd have just gone with the reps as it seems the softest way out as they aren't exactly massively excessive or anything... but while Guardian/SK may believe that further resistance will get those reps to be dropped (and they are likely correct on that I think), VE has an obligation of sorts you could say to cause further damage that is significantly greater than the cost of reps especially after already having Mensa accept their terms as I'm sure VE wouldn't want Mensa feeling screwed in the matter. If they cause enough damage for a while longer and than white peace... than both parties can in essence claim a victory. At least that is how I see it.