Raphael

Apeman you're always welcome in Arrgh. We won't boot you for being interesting.

Another thread also gave me an interesting idea of adding more peace options. So something like this: - Add in resistance so we can prevent beige again, but at a lower value so you can't permanently fortify out of beige. - Beige does 15-20% infra damage but takes no resources - Peace options added such as: can't declare offensive wars for 7 days, pays the winner resources and cash, forced decom'ing of nuclear weapons, forced decom of either ground/air/naval forces

I think this would be a cool option but for nation-to-nation interaction rather than alliance. Different peace options rather than beiging would be cool. Alliances can use the political metagame to create vassals.

TGH/KT doing pretty well despite their disadvantage. Also good to see TKR hasn't lost their edge.

The entire purpose of the Shifty News Network, as I understand it, is to point out that there are no secrets if you ask. Most of the leaders in this game will leak, and the one's who are quiet or secure are usually just inactive.

Surely something about dancing.

From my perspective, beige is necessary. Beige is intended as a stop-loss mechanic. Military buying limits (population caps, daily caps, improvement caps) necessitate a beige mechanic that gives the beaten nation a break to rebuild. Otherwise you're creating a system that overtly punishes losing the first round of fighting. So the core issue isn't necessarily that people are REWARDED by being beiged, it's that it's NECESSARY under the current war system to have a remotely fair chance of things. Adding additional penalties to a stop-loss mechanic doesn't make sense, it worsens the problem the nation already has (that it's losing a war.) So my vote, if beige is such an issue, is echoing Sweet Ronny D - lessen the time each beige gives. But we also need to take a hard look at the military buying limits. If we make it easier to fight wars on even terms, we may not even need a stop-loss mechanic.

The better question is 'who isn't?'

Not to get too deep into this line of discussion, but I do want to address that the raiding playstyle is a significant percentage of the active playerbase and the last few updates to the war system have nerfed raider's ability to wage war. I think some adjustment, that also happens to have positive ramifications for everyone in the war system, is warranted.

Yes, I guess I didn't realize cities already capped military. Population is too volatile to be a good cap for military and infra isn't weighted heavily enough into score to prevent issues with miss-matched wars. I don't think infra should be inflated in value because that would cause other scoring issues in the upper tiers, therefore the only solution is to remove the population cap. Again, I totally understand the desire for realism but it can only get skin deep when population instantly vanishes like a Thanos attack or instantly appears when you build or destroy infrastructure. Even in terms of game develop, because of the way score works the population cap favors infra-heavy builds which leads to war avoidance not to mention punishes raiders unduly.

My suggestion is to have the military cap (which is currently a population, ie. infra, cap) changed to being based on your city count RATHER than population. As mentioned, I think it would solve a lot of problems going forward and really make war a lot more fun and competitive.

Sorry if I was unclear, I'm talking about infra = population = military caps being changed to a flat-rate city count formula. 1 city = X military, remove the infra/population thing because how infra is related to population already doesn't make sense. The way infra works now is silly. Military has a population cap, infra being destroyed instantly drops my population. Infra being built instantly grows my population. This directly impacts everyone's ability to wage war after taking the slightest amount of damage. Right now population is too volatile to be a cap on military. I understand the reasoning and desire for realism when it was implemented but it makes the gameplay less fun. Right now the instantaneous loss and regeneration of my population does not convey realism. Not only that but this small adjustment would do wonders for the game.

City count is how we tier everything anyways. Put caps on military based on your total cities rather than your population (ie- infra). Gives nations more of a fighting chance and creates less of a snowball effect during wars. This would also help to address the activity gap between people who can log on multiple times a day and people who might log on once a day. You would still get rewarded for your effort and activity because of resistance, but at least effective damage can be dealt in a non-suicidal way, giving more room to "flip" wars as well. Not to mention, the "realism" this update offered is only skin-deep when rebuying the destroyed infra instantly gives me fighting-age troops summoned from the planes of Oblivion.

One could argue that the root of the problem is a lack of anything to truly compete for. Our world is unique in that there has to be a true *drive* to fight. The only thing we have to fight for is the de facto "on top" spot. Many recognize this for what it is: a target on your back. Many others recognize that they can only achieve this by doing avoiding fights. The only other reason to fight is responding to insult or a threat. We need something to compete over.

I agree with the idea that fear of upsetting other people shouldn't hinder making a move or declaring a war. I also agree that anyone has the right to decide what their line is and act upon it being crossed. However, the public arguments had here are one of the cornerstones of politiking. I think it's fine that people argue, I wish people would just put more effort into it.

Destruction, mayhem, chaos. I've heard it's a ladder.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

As the powers that be fight, the pirates at sea delight.

Well as I mentioned above, wasting time is generally what we're here to do. The goal is to have fun while wasting time. I would again contend that competent leadership skills are grown through exposure. Isolation erodes, engagement strengthens. Poor leadership and favoritism operating under the guise of "meritocratic promotion" is a fault common in all systems. It's why networking is so important in everything you do. Democracy is not the same as collectivizing the game experience. The entire point is to strengthen the individual engagement. To that end, backrooming is still an acceptable and encouraged form of non-direct content. As to divisive internal conflicts being generated by democracy: If a leader makes an unpopular unilateral choice in an autocratic system, does this not produce the same or worse results? Disagreements are natural and shouldn't be repressed. That's the beauty of the system, finding common ground from which to work forward on. Admittedly a democracy would, by necessity, be more complex than an autocracy. This wouldn't have an impact on efficiency or effectiveness though. It's just a different way. You lay out good points but I believe each one could be solved with a simple checks and balances system, much like real life. My concept of democracy doesn't really include electing people to then go dictate to the group though. I think we all agree that voting for people who then take total control over things just goes poorly all around. Representatives are obviously needed to present a cohesive public face but ideally one would want a more direct method so as to place onus on the individual. A good example of a check/balance would be a simple activity requirement. Many alliances have this already just to avoid bad wars or raids. You could get more in-depth with requirements as needed.

Arrgh remains the only alliance where your ship is truly your own to command. Join and sail the seas as a free man!

Will you build the Republic into a true utopia or subvert it into your personal empire? I've been playing with the idea of a Roman Senate-esque roleplay, ideally using discord for ease of organization and access. The idea would be to work your way up the Cursus Honorem, hold elections for different offices, issues edicts, and politik like the historical inspiration. To further fuel the content I would roll dice, probably a d20 or something, to determine semi-random events and outcomes of the edicts/laws/decrees issued by "us". There would also be other mechanical things at play that could potentially be automated by a bot if this gets enough interest. Thoughts?

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that there's room for growth in terms of playtime for the majority of leaders. I think there will always be a niche for players that have limited time and don't want to/can't get as involved. However, if you glance at other MMO games, you'll clearly see that as long as there's content, players will spend more time doing said content. Usually this means non-direct content that doesn't directly impact the major areas of gameplay. Things like roleplaying, the baseball simulator, and "backrooming" come to mind for PnW non-direct content. I think there's an untapped market, so to speak, of leaders who would "blossom" by becoming more directly involved in the day-to-day and major decisions of the alliance. There's just simply no alliance that practices this because it's too hard due to the variety of issues you brought up. The real roadbump isn't that democracy is a failed system, it's that people who have never known democracy have to acclimate to it before it can truly be successful. Well really think on what you're saying here: Something that adds content, potential conflict, and potential fun to a game is a waste of time? I think the common tropes about democracies can be as easily dismissed here as they are in real life. Do less-than-ideal candidates come up for vote? Yes. Do they get elected sometimes? Yes. Are leaks an issue in a democracy? Yes. However, those answers don't change with any government type. I would even go so far as to point out that the typical autocratic systems most alliances have in place only further complicate those issues. You would list the top 15 alliances as examples of autocratic success, yet would ignore the other 500 failed alliances due to some aspect of a poor leader seizing power. Even the top 15 have their own issues, a glaring one being the stagnant and slow-moving nature of major politics because of long-tenured leaders. Every degree of democratic influence you introduce into an alliance structure only serves to increase the competency of your membership as a whole. It's the same concept as showing more and more of a math formula to someone instead of simply giving them the answer. Having more direct control over their fate, and therefore more direct understanding of how their fate was made, can only serve to benefit the world as a whole. I believe politiking has stagnated because of reasons I previously listed above. It could become a complex and fulfilling role again if a handful of major alliances were to merely pivot away from autocratic handling of politics and "loosen the leash", so to speak. To me, there is a distinct difference between a ratified (read: codified, permanent) democracy and what almost every alliance runs on now (read: autocracy with some minor consideration for the individual.) To put it succinctly: It's the difference between asking for permission or asking for forgiveness. Also sorry I quoted and long-replied to everyone. I got excited that so many people replied with actual thought.

One might argue that casting a single vote every four, six, eight, twelve, etc. months does not constitute democracy. The closest thing I've witnessed is Arrgh's anarchy or smaller alliances that try to keep members "in the loop". Even then, it's more a courtesy than a democratic method.

I would but I have to mindlessly grind up to 1000 score first. There are a few cool systems I've wanted to try and see how they go. I personally think more democracy = more involvement = more activity = more competency ad infinitum in that cycle. It actually doesn't make sense when you really think about how the overwhelming majority of this game has willingly surrendered nearly all ratified "say" in their own fate in order to secure themselves from a fight. This is a *nation* sim but the idea of sovereignty of the individual is essentially non-existent and that strikes me as odd.

How is this determined? Got hit by a guy whose current military is higher than my maximum. Seems anti-competitive.