Altheus
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Posts posted by Altheus
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On 31/12/2017 at 4:29 PM, Sketchy said:
Well Treasures were intended to be a replacement for color stocks (I'm not sure what the rationale was, I was away for like 2 years). Until recently treasures had a flat 2% bonus each, but a group of alliances merged into "Treasure Island" and stockpiled like 15+ treasures and made billions so Alex nerfed them to be completely useless, rather than trying to find a replacement mechanic.
So I doubt rebuffing treasures is on the table since they'd just be "exploited" in the same way so I doubt Alex would do it.
I think what you can do with treasures is held back by being allocated to nations rather than alliances. I understand the reasons, but any of the obvious fixes to stop their abuse (restricting them from being captured outside of colour sphere, only one per alliance) don't really work whilst their allocated to nations who don't automatically have the same colour sphere or continent as their alliance and can take their treasures with them when they move alliances.
But if Alex did change treasures to be held back by alliances rather than nations then we'd need a system for determining when an alliance had beaten another alliance enough to have captured their treasure, which feels a bit artificial
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13 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
In order to do that, this needs to be built into the war mechanics. Claims should be taken by conquest, not given at peace.
Hmmm, that is a good point. At which point Claims start looking a lot like Treasures. Maybe the solution is to increase the importance and interaction of Treasures in regards to colour spheres. You have suggestions?
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4 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
That isn't it though, you are mistaking economics for politics.This suggestion doesn't bring any earth shattering changes to the way politics is conducted. It essentially serves as a optional substitute to conventional reps.This adds 0 political reasons for people to declare war. The motivation for declaring would be a purely economic one, and a poor one at that.
Same as before, economics feeds politics which feeds war. Fundamentally disagree that this isn't political. If an alliance is in opposition to another alliance because they have a claim they want then that's fundamentally political.
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6 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
I disagree. Politics don't need to be expanded on mechanically, they are player driven by nature. The current political stagnation is from a lack of mechanical incentive to do war, among other factors.
War comes from politics, if you can provide incentive to declare war for political reasons then you are increasing the chances of player driven wars. Don't make the mistake of treating war & politics as two separate things.
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Although your point of the cost to benefit ratio of war vs. the colour bonus is very valid. As it stands it wouldn't be worth starting a war over. To fix we'd need to either make war less costly (outside the scope of this suggestion) or increase the benefit of the colour bonus so it is worth it.
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47 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
There is already plenty of political friction. Politics is in most cases the barrier to actually getting to war. What is needed is an economic incentive large enough to justify investing in a war, both economically and politically. Wars are expensive, most alliances aren't likely to start a war over a measly 3% color bonus.
And this still doesn't address the fact this system is by default balanced in favor of one type of alliance over the other. You are proposing an uneven starting playing field and then saying "well those guys have to fight to get what the other guys start with arbitarily".
@ Political Friction. There aren't a lot of dimensions to the political friction though other than being the king of the hill. It'd be good to add more aspects to the political game.
@ Military Incentive. Yep, that's a real problem although it's out of the scope of this suggestion. Alliances-wide wars are very costly for the benefit they bring. Although you could say the same about any suggestion designed to add conflict.
@ Uneven playing field. Well... yes, but unfairness can be a good source for conflict. You could say that it's not fair that all nations can't get nukes from day 1 but it doesn't stop it happening. It's a matter of working out what unfair things are good for a game by leaving ways in which they can be overcome.
@ Beige nations. Nations can't stay on Beige and alliances can't choose to be Beige. Hence that's not an issue.
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1 hour ago, Sketchy said:
This is completely unbalanced and doesn't really make much sense. Membership count isn't the sole metric that displays power nor is it an indicator of ones ability to defend their claim. This forcefully creates an advantage to one specific type of alliance over others.
Of course membership count isn't the sole metric to display power, but that's missing what the idea is. A small, powerful alliance (because of nation strength, better allies etc.) could force/persuade/"claim share" with more numerous alliances to preserve their colour bonus, thereby providing the possibility of more politics and sometimes more war.
Of course that'll cause friction between elite and mass member alliances but we want more of that right?
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1 hour ago, Sketchy said:
Who has claims shouldn't be decided on some arbitrary statistic, it should be decided based on who can defend it militarily.
The fact that it needs defending is the actual point. If it's not defended it can be taken away by force, in the short term by knocking nations into beige and in the long term by stipulating no colour claims in peace terms.
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16 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
Isn't the bonus from the claim the same? If so then requiring only 1 claim to cover your alliance vs 2 or 3 means you'd have an advantage.
One successful claim= colour bonus for 50 members. So 50, 100 & 150 member alliances would all hold an advantage over a 25 member alliance because they could all split their claims into chunks of 50 and still have twice the claim strength that a 25 member alliance would have.
16 minutes ago, Sketchy said:Considering Alex nerfed treasures to be completely useless, anything would be better than how it is now. Just think color spheres are an outdated mechanic, would be far better to make colors cosmetic and then rework a system around the ingame treaties.
No denying that as they stand colour spheres (like alliance region, national religion etc.) are mainly just cosmetic, but that doesn't mean they have to stay that way if they can be used to improve the game, right?
Actually, one big problem is that it's very harsh on newly formed alliances. Hence the idea of "claim sharing" treaties in-game (maybe protectorates could include claim sharing as part of their package?)
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22 minutes ago, Sketchy said:
A system like this would advantage low member high built alliances who'd only need a single claim to cover their membership. Overall it seems like an over complicated version of color stocks with no real advantages over it.
I don't think that's true. It would actually advantage alliances with membership numbers around the breakpoints (i.e. 50, 100, 150 etc.) and would disadvantage small, elite alliances who weren't close to having 50 members. That's because claims are based on membership numbers not nation strength.
29 minutes ago, Sketchy said:I'd rather see something similar to this be enforced via the treaty system we have ingame now. Color spheres become a bit redundant when you have the opportunity to add mechanics based on actual spheres now.
Well... the point of this suggestion is to make colour spheres relevant again, although to be straight I'm not against adding more reasons for conflict so additional reasons that are nothing to do with colour spheres could be complimentary.
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As a way of giving of giving more reasons for war and making colour spheres more relevant how about the following:
Colour Sphere Claims: Having nations only being able to get their colour bonus if their alliance has put in a successful "claim" to their sphere, with claims being a limited asset. The number of claims could be number of nations in game/200 rounded down. Whilst 1 claim enables the biggest 50 nations of an alliance to claim their colour bonus, 2 claims enable 100, 3 claims enable 150 etc. etc. So even if everyone coordinated perfectly (never going to happen) at best only 1/4 of nations in the game could get a colour bonus at any one time.
Claims could get divvied up amongst the colour spheres evenly with any fractions handed out to the biggest spheres in order of membership size.
Claims would be won by size of alliance membership, with two complications: 1) any alliance can put in more than 1 claim, but doing so acts as a division of their membership number. So as way of example a 90 member alliance could put in 3 claims, which would in effect reduce their membership score to 30, but if they still won it would be worth 3 claims which would worth a colour bonus for 150 alliance members. 2) any alliance can put in 0 claims at all, effectively therefore being a Grey alliance. I could also see this being used as a particularly cutthroat peace term, likely to cause plenty of bad blood and therefore good to stoke more vendettas.
One addition (although have mixed feelings about this) would be to create a new in-game treaty called colour sharing in which alliances have the option to pool membership numbers for claims or extend in-game protectorates to do the same. This might be in danger of inciting peace rather than war however
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i.e. at time of writing they are 8251 nations, so 41 claims. That's 2 claims per colour + an extra one for each colour sphere other than Lime (due to currently being the smallest) When the game hits 8400 nations Lime would get it's 3 claim.
As a hypothetical say Pink had 4 major alliances which consisted of A: 80 members, B: 60 members, C: 30 members and D: 20 members. If each alliance put in 1 claim each (which I suggest is the default in-game if not selected) then alliances A, B & C would each get a claim worth colour bonus for 50 members each. Alliance A notices however that it could do better and puts in two claims. That divides it's "claim strength" to 40, still enough to win so Alliance A now gets 2 claims (enough for all it's members) Alliance B still gets one and Alliance C has it's nose put out of joint by now having no claims at all.
Lucky for Alliance C they've got big friends elsewhere on Orbis and so start a war against Alliance A for the express purpose of getting their claim back. Alliance C + friends win, but then get greedy and instead of forcing Alliance A to drop 1 claim via peace terms they tell them to drop all their claims.
So now Alliance B, C & D get a claim each whilst Alliance A aren't claiming, which of course leaves Alliance B with a decision. Does it now stick in 2 claims and risk Alliance D's ire or just stick with the one claim to avoid Alliance A's fate?
All hypothetical of course but hopefully it shows how the above might help promote conflict, war and politics over peace
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1) Unless they're harmful for genuine out of character reasons forcibly disbanding communities isn't helpful, for the game or obviously for the community itself. It's even less helpful to force active players to not be in government. I'll therefore skip but will say that Viridian Entente is a more stylish name than Guardians of the Galaxy.
2) The Commonwealth and Guardian. Nothing personal, they just have high average scores and comparable number of nations
3) Alpha maybe? High average score, but Grumpy Old Bastards, Church of Spaceology, Spanish Armada etc. would make equal sense.
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Why display a Sigma on your shield?
If it just stands for (E)nclave you might have been better picking an Eta (H) or an Epsilon (E)
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Ck2, nothing beats the murder, incest and just sheer depravity of CK2
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Feels fresh. Good luck!
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4 minutes ago, Micchan said:
I want to make a new alliance and call it "The Knight Knights"
Maybe an alliance of knights that are good at sending people to sleep called the Night Night Knights
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Greeks in Civ 4, although their special unit wasn't the best I just liked them for flavour
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Knights Radiant, Teutonic Order, Black Knights, Nuclear Knights, Knights Templar, if TTK from a certain other world join we'll soon have nothing but knights
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The alliances/guilds/factions etc. to join are probably more important than the actual game itself in text-based games. Although some games are better at opening themselves up to player-generated content than others.
That aside, I miss Lunar Wars. Which just goes to show what a terrible thing nostalgia is, because it was really really broken.
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Nation Name: Magna Graecia
Nation Link: http://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=5512
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Excellent! Welcome to the war.
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Two announcements today. Firstly we've been tinkering with our charter of which you can see the results below. Secondly, we've had elections! Scroll down to the bottom of the post to see UPN's latest government.
Finally, time to put the library into the chief librarian. Here are five facts that you perhaps never knew about UPN
1) We're over 8 years old, having started way back in Jan 2007
2) The flag you see above you is nearly as old and was created by Hans- the UPN Primarch.
3) Who knows were those hands have been!
4) Over the years UPN has had a number of themes including greek, marvel superheroes, japanese (if you include some long-standing icons) & now warhammer 40k
5) UPN came into existance when a random guy living in Nottingham (in a alternative universe called real life) was bemoaning a lack of purple-themed alliances whilst drinking in a pub called the Pit & Pendulum. His friends told him to do something about it, so he did!
The Purple Documents
"Liberty. Prosperity. Peace."
Preamble
The United Purple Nations exists to provide an approachable purple alliance to its members and friends; to provide her members with safety, prosperity, and freedom through a tight knit community and government. In return, every member shall respect, and honour this charter, which is the highest law of the Politics and War branch of the United Purple Nations.
I. Admission
Any nation wishing to join the United Purple Nations is required to wear the “United Purple Nations†as its Alliance Affiliation, and may not be participating in any international conflict, or be in another alliance. The Council of the United Purple Nations may implement additional application requirements, processes, and standards of training before any nation is inducted as a member. Nations flying the “United Purple Nations†as the Alliance Affiliation, but have not been inducted as a member may still have their right to safety and liberty guaranteed provided they have obeyed the laws of the alliance.
Civil Liberties
Each member of the United Purple Nations has the liberty to exercise freedom of speech, expression, association and belief within the bounds of non-aggression. Each member has the right to control their own nation as they see fit, provided it does not directly harm the United Purple Nations or abuse any nation. No law or policy may be made to infringe on these liberties.
II. Government
Primarch
The Primarch is the leader of the Politics and War branch of the UPN.
The Primarch has the final say in all matters dealing with the P&W branch of the UPN. They must see to it that all matters are resolved and the Council continue to function properly.
The Primarch may veto any decision put forth to him at any time. Any of such vetoes can be challenged but require the consent of the Reclusiarch and a majority vote of the general Council members, with exception to inactive members and given that this is done within respectable time restraints.
The Council
The Council functions as the key advisory team to the Primarch and his personally selected equerry, deemed as his “Heirâ€. The Council consists of the Warsmith, the Chief Librarian, the Reclusiarch, the Master of the Forge, and the Lord Inquisitor.
The Council members are responsible for the daily activities of their department, and it is their duty to ensure that all necessary responsibilities are carried out.
Each Council Member is allowed and encouraged to appoint officers and deputies within their own department, so long as each one is monitored to ensure adherence to the wishes of the Council.
The Council Members and their respective directives:
[li]The Primarch's Equerry
The Primarch's Equerry is one of the Primarch's most valued officers.
The equerry can be selected either from one of the Council members or from the membership as a whole. The reponsibility of the Equerry is to step in to take decisions should the Primarch be missing or incapacitated.
Though the Equerry is a member of the council and holds great responsibility, the Equerry does not hold a council vote unless chosen from one of the elected council members.[/li]
[li]The Warsmith
The Warsmith is the second-in-command of the UPN military, subordinate only to the Primarch.
The Warsmith's duties are to maintain the military by any means deemed necessary, including organization and maintenance of UPN armed forces.
The Warsmith's deputies are known as Captains.[/li]
[li]The Chief Librarian
The Chief Librarian is the head of the UPN foreign affairs department.
The Chief Librarian's duties include ensuring that the foreign relations of the alliance are secure and ongoing. The Chief Librarian is to make sure allies are well treated and visited regularly and also to maintain foreign embassies to a high standard.
The Chief Librarian's deputies are known as Librarians.[/li]
[li]The Reclusiarch
The Reclusiarch is head of the UPN internal affairs department. The department includes all activities concerning the general membership of the UPN, including moderation of the forums & recruitment of new members. The Reclusiarch is also responsible for appointing Mentors and taking care of students. The Reclusiarch is also responsible for maintaining all guides, as well as overlooking the UPN academy.
The Reclusiarch's deputies are known as Chaplains.[/li]
[li]Master of the Forge
The Master of the Forge is head of the UPN financial affairs department. The Master of the Forge coordinates all aid programs, coordinates trades, and makes sure that UPN nations are as strong as possible. At any time can they call a general taxing.
The Master of the Forge's deputies are known as Techmarines.[/li]
[li]The Lord Inquisitor
The Lord Inquisitor is in charge of bringing the people's thoughts and opinions to the Council. As the Lord Inquisitor is a representative of the people rather than a council member, his or her vote will be counted as two in the event of a tied Council Vote.
In the absence of the Reclusiarch he is to host the Council elections every 3 months as detailed in section lll.[/li]
[li]Honourables
Honourables are members who have contributed significantly to the United Purple Nations in some way. They retain a high clearance rating for all ongoing issues in the alliance and are meant to offer insights to the acting Council on situations of importance.
Though they often work as members of the Council in practice, they hold no official authority nor do they have voting rights when Council votes are held.
Honourables are few in number and are appointed by the Primarch or by a majority of the Council.[/li]
[li]Junior officer positions
All Council members are strongly encouraged to appoint Deputies to help them out with their responsibilities.
It is suggested that the position is offered to whomever they ran against in the election, but this is not required. A council member is not restricted to one Deputy. .
In addition, with consent from the Primarch, a council member can establish junior officer positions, in order to delegate tasks and to promote active and willing members who wants to be included in running of the United Purple Nations.
Junior Officers and Deputies have no voting rights when Council votes are held.[/li]
lll. Election
The Council members shall be elected every three months. When the three months are up the current Reclusiarch will organize a vote for the new positions.
Immediately all positions and privileges are deemed void except for those listed hereafter.
The Primarch will oversee that the Reclusiarch carries out this duty or in his/her absence the Current Lord Inquisitor.
Every UPN member has the right to vote.
Every 6 months, 1 week prior to the Council election, a referendum is held on the performance of the Primarch
If the majority votes with approval of the Primarch's performance, he or she may continue on another 6 month term.
Should the majority of the membership vote against the Primarch then his position may be challenged in the following election.
Election Procedure
In order to run for a council position, a member has to be nominated by a fellow member.
The two members with the most nominations will then continue the election poll.
If there are only a very few nominations that differs the #2 and #3 nominee, The Primarch can give dispensation for the 3 members with the most nominations to be carried over to the election poll.
The Nomination Period will last for 48 hours, and the following election shall last another 24 hours.
The new council members will be sworn in immediately after the voting period is over.
lV. Removal of a Government Member
Any member in a seat of power (Including the Primarch) can be voted out of power if there is a 2/3 majority agreement between all of the members in the Council.
The Council member in question has no vote, but will be given every opportunity to argue in defense of him/herself.
The Council member will be removed from power immediately after the vote should the result go against him/her. They may not run for the position in the election following their removal.
V. Amendment
The Purple Documents may be modified with a 2/3 majority vote from the the Council members and the Primarch, and the consent of the Lord Inquisitor If not all of the Council has voted after 14 days those who have not given opinions will count as having abstained from the vote.
VI. Ratification
We, the membership of these United Purple Nations, hold this charter as accurate to the will of the membership and agree to the specifications contained herein. We accept the rules of both this document and these United Purple Nations’ constitution in full.
Signed by,
Hansarius - Primarch of UPNKauti123- Primarch's Equerry
Lord Inquisitor- Ender Wiggin
Guardofthedragon-Reclusiarch
Atzuya- Chaplin of the Academy
Kauti123- Warsmith
Altheus- Chief Librarian
Emperor666- Master of the Forge
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Particle Projectile Cannons beat AC's any day
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Congratulations, UPN.
Thanks, also thanks for keeping this thread going
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West Bridgford just outside Nottingham in England
Colour Sphere Politics
in Game Suggestions
Posted
Can see what you're getting at. If nothing else it would make allliance-wide raiding very attractive (and almost guarantee that neutrals become/stay extinct) People will have different views on that.