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Raphael

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Everything posted by Raphael

  1. The story is, from what I see on discord, is that House Stark were using these terms as their "start negotiating high" point and never actually thought they would be getting these terms. Which terms they intended to keep, drop, or change is up for speculation at this point.
  2. Fair warning this is a long post. I've been mulling over some thoughts lately and I wanted to put pen-to-paper to help shape them out. This is by no means a definitive work but rather a thought and some opinions that are open to change as time and circumstances necessitate. History and background: For those who don't know, I've been playing nationsims for too long. I grew up playing these games, as did many others here, and I've seen quite a bit happen. I used to think this was a horrific waste of time but honestly it's not been for a myriad of reasons I don't want to get into. To quickly rattle off a few positions that I think make me qualified to talk on this topic: I've founded alliances in more than one game with mixed success, I've disbanded alliances in more than one game with mixed success, I've been high and low gov in small micros and huge 500+ member groups, I've started/won/lost wars, and I'm semi-known for being unorthodox at this point in my PnW-life. I personally feel that being uberserious takes the fun from these games, but that's a tangent. Point is, I've seen and done all there is to do in these kind of games. My mind naturally creeps towards "what's next?" Typical alliance structures don't vary much. There are usually two executive heads (leader and a second), a group of high government usually divided into departments, and their respective low gov helpers. This formula is sometimes tweaked, t$ has an executive board, Arrgh has the admiralty etc, but the formula is generally adhered to. What a lot of people don't know is how this formula actually came into being, why alliances are rigidly structured with an executive branch at the top and usually lack a judicial or legislative component and avoid democracy. Ironically most alliances are modeled after the New Pacific Order - the villains of yesteryear. The NPO was the "premier" alliance in another nationsim similar to PnW and in the early years of that game there was a lot of experimentation going on with different government setups including within NPO itself (who was originally democratic!). A couple of years in and things shifted towards efficient bureaucracy and away from roleplay, and their success was mimicked across the board. Granted, this oversimplifies the process quite a bit but I don't want to get bogged down on history lessons right now. Why do we all follow this same formula of elitism? Long has the argument been made that meritocracy dictates succession and government lineup, and long has that been a flowery lie. The best players usually don't rise into leadership, and I'll explain what I mean. Given the departmentalization of the typical structure, players tend to specialize in one or two fields. In reality, almost all of these fields overlap, but I digress. The leaders of most alliances tend to be the players that specialized into foreign affairs and diplomacy, as in real life so too in PnW: Networking and social skills are far more important in gaining leadership roles than actual competence at running the alliance. The actual top of most alliances are not the most competent for the position, but rather the most popular or most outgoing. Another piece of deconstructing the meritocracy argument is the tendency of players to cling to their seats. Many high government, seconds in command, and even leaders themselves are well past the point of needed retirement. Yet they hold up their seats with claims of stability or a lack of competency in their would-be successors. The hard truth of this game is that most alliances follow a form of elitism in the belief that newer players are incapable of leading the alliances they inhabit, and the most active and engaged players in this game usually languish in low government seats. Tangentially, I also see this as one of the causes of so many new alliances constantly being formed across PnW, and why groups todays seem to struggle to maintain even 100 members when alliances ten years ago would easily have two or three hundred. We still have a large playerbase, but the active players won't tolerate being sheep to be herded and no matter how many times "meritocracy" is repeated into the air, people do recognize that inactivity and incompetence is being rewarded due to seniority over activity and interest. A culture that kills. This traditional power structure must offer some benefit, right? To be carried along by the older players for so long and to have spread to almost every alliance in the game/genre, how can this setup be so bad? The cultural of elitism is a self-defeating one. Much like a serpent devouring its own tail, this system inevitably causes its own collapse by suppressing player interest and pushing new blood out. As many of you have probably noticed, and as a few of us have observed over the years, cutting the playerbase out of the game is one of the worst cultural decisions ever made in any game genre that I'm personally aware of. Ninety nine percent of people who play this game will never truly experience the politics behind it other than being told what's happening. This will, has, and does kill interest in the game itself over time. Not only do new players see this culture and decide to never even begin the journey to becoming government, older players become dissatisfied over time and stop logging in just to receive marching orders. Now granted, many do play this game with the intention of never becoming government, but I think we can all agree that we play within a closed-off system that voraciously discourages new blood from joining. The best they'll get is forming their own micro, and even that is usually discouraged. Acknowledging the good with the bad. This system, as with any, is not completely evil in its design or implementation. The traditional setup is a clear and ordered hierarchy that allows a division of labor amongst government - and it pulls much of its inspiration from real life posts like Foreign Secretaries or Ministers of the Interior. It also offers a precious commodity that I personally find overvalued: Stability and continuity. Even if your alliance is stagnant, collecting loss after loss in wars, and shrinking by the day as your pool of interested recruits dry up - it exists. For many this is the ultimate goal, endurance is its own legacy and more agree with that statement than I think would admit it in public. The only problem with this line of thinking is that PnW is a game meant to be enjoyed, not a real life institution. The longest lasting alliances here will never be remembered outside of a wiki that may or may not outlive the game itself. While I respect the longevity of many groups, change is the only constant and change is healthy. I hope that novelty is one day valued as much as stability in this game, as I believe it provides the more interesting experience of the two. What to change? What do you actually suggest? This is an insanely complicated question, one I don't have a full answer for - I really only have theories that would require testing. This community is not very receptive to failed experiments, so the risk is high but I believe that the cost for not trying at all is higher still. Decentralization of politics is something that needs to happen, the same twenty figures cannot control the narrative of the entire game for years at a time and expect novel or interesting things to happen. Term limits on positions would be an obvious first-step for any alliance looking to try something new, limited democratic functions, exploring judicial and legislative options for government rather than a simple executive branch setup. Creativity is the key to making this game interesting and fun, and I personally think it's time to try new methods and try to move away from a traditional setup in every single alliance. tl;dr - be bold and try new things
  3. I'm glad you mention this, because this is my thought almost the entire way through this. How did Guardian get signed on to a petty-squabble war over a failed bank? How did Rose allow arguably their best ally to get pulled into such an embarrassing war and be doing the heavy lifting for said war on the heels of a solid victory? ROI anyone? How did TFP allow a third party to basic come into their sphere with no consequence? [Answered by TFP joining WELP I guess, they were leaving their sphere behind for cooler friends.] I know most will disagree but I still feel TFP has an obligation to at least help arbitrate and resolve this matter, or even defend CTO from Guardian. I think Rose also has an obligation here to pull their ally back and potentially all the way out of this war, and not the least Guardian owes it to themselves to retract from this debacle. If House Stark wants to impose harsh punitive reparations, then let them carry the weight alone.
  4. 1. Cities should count for barely any score. Let raiders and people who got clapped in war sink down into the lower tiers like we used to and wreak havoc. 2. Projects should count for no score 3. Infra should count as more score, as should military
  5. Definitely agree this should've been a feature a long time ago.
  6. I think I speak for a lot of "silent majority" people here that say the minority complaining about time-taken on a literal new war meta is not a bad thing at all. I hope you guys are single-mindedly focused on getting this right and making sure it's perfect, as this will impact the entire game from raiders to farmers / minnows to whales. I'm perfectly fine with you guys spending all your time on this and not at all worried about the next 3 random projects that a few people want to see pumped out.
  7. Interesting ideas. I voted against all of them though. I'll try to keep my thoughts brief: Superiority changes: I believe the current proposed change will make updeclares/blitzes harder and as a result be bad for the game. The attacker advantage, and superiorities as a result, are powerful tools in bringing down higher city count nations with a standing military. Superiorities are pretty essential for updeclares. They do make downdeclares worse, but they're not the main issue with downdeclares. Constructive feedback: Leave superiorities as they are now, potentially nerf air superiority to a smaller percentage than halving tank values. Maybe reduce tank values by 33% instead? Replacement idea 1: I may just not have understood it, but I don't think it makes sense for smaller armies to suddenly get a boost against larger armies. I also think the math is approaching over-complexity for this game. constructive feedback: Rework Fortify to give a better bonus - maybe something like this idea. You could also have fortify reduce the amount of resistance each attack does, basically prolonging a war and occupying a war slot and being annoying. Replacement Idea 2: I voted no but as you can see above, I think small reductions could be good. Superiorities should be kept fairly strong (in your words: a deciding factor) for my above mentioned reasoning though. Modification idea 1: This would be a pretty wild nerf to upper tiers to the point of unfairness in my opinion. Changing core mechanics in such a punishing way would be counter-intuitive to enjoyment of the game and fairness to the players. I hate to sound biased but this would disproportionately harm raiders and turn the meta for larger AA's on its head for... seemingly no reason. Whales shouldn't be rendered useless. The main problems with whales are their disproportionate economic advantage and the domino-effect they cause in large wars. Economics Prefontaine started to address with the food consumption changes and power plant upkeeps. The domino effect actually used to be reversed back in the earlygame of PnW, where large nations would get knocked down into lower tiers when they lost and be able to make a second-round comeback. This was mainly nerfed into the ground with score changes though. Constructive feedback: look into infra score changes, more upkeep adjustments, maybe even nerf the nuclear power plants (reduce the amount of infra each one powers), also look into reverting/reworking city score back to 50 or keep it at 75 (I think raising it back to 100 is proposed rn), buffing military score, and completely zeroing project score imo.
  8. I highly recommend googling "dogwhistle" the colloquial definition in the context of hate speech. Even if this new player was discussing his RP in good faith that really doesn't suddenly make it okay. I'm far from the only person not wanting to see these "gray area" exploits of the ruleset because we've seen what that leads to, consistently. As for slowmode, I'm a big believer [ironically] that over-moderation kills discussion. Slowmode is basically the definition of over-moderation. It feels weird to even have to explain this, you're defending a pseudo-slur while advocating for slowmode to discourage "unfiltered gibberish"
  9. NGL I saw you replied to me and got really excited for Harmony reign 2: Electric Boogaloo
  10. This is the Nth time I've raised this topic but I feel the need once more. I finally rejoin the main server, after having left for months due to the lack of quality, and this is the first series of messages awaiting me in the general chat channel. Now I'm not ultra-sensitive liberal, but if I was a new player unfamiliar with this game or community I'd look at that and make quite a few assumptions. 1. The moderation team doesn't exist and the game is very likely dead itself as a result 2. The community is probably toxic if this is the casual discussion being had in the official discord server, I could only imagine what alliance discords are like. (again assuming as a new player) 3. This dead, unmoderated, and inactive community isn't worth my time investment. I think I'll save the trouble and delete my nation. Not even to mention the GENERAL CHATROOM, the place where you are directed to socialize, has a freaking permanent slowmode on it. This is absolutely god awful community management 101. As you can see, I have most of these channels muted anyway, and was only poking in to tell Alex he made a typo when I saw this. This took zero effort for me to find, so imagine what I'd find if I actually used the search bar for keywords... @Alex @Dr Rush I am pleading with you guys to make the PnW main discord a nice place where players can gather and chat. Stop letting servers like RON monopolize PnW's discord space. I volunteer to moderate if that's what it takes, I can point to other people who would be good and active moderators as well. Screenshot proof below.
  11. Happy birthday orange friends! I notice a distinct lack of Prince in this post tho 👀
  12. In spite of international criticisms, you had the respect of your alliance members and frankly that's the only thing that matters. T$ is still standing through their tough times and that isn't a bad legacy. Good job Wana, enjoy retirement.
  13. Daily reminder to continue our Vic3 game
  14. UPN was actually the first alliance to reach out and protect my original AA in PnW and I appreciate you guys. You often make my list because I remember the positive legacy your group possesses. The thing people often miss with a good "legacy" is that it doesn't have to be over or be the defining piece of your story. UPN has great tiering and 50+ members, Cora is a great person with good activity, you've been in UPN since before some players here were born. Even with Matt2004 dragging you down with his Britishness, I believe UPN can be great again. Purple has always been for lovers, and I hope you guys make a big turnaround in Q3 2023.
  15. Enjoy your well-earned vacation! See you when Alex implements Lunar wars
  16. I agree with this post as well, lots of false-negativity about how the game has fallen off. I have my own share of critiques when it comes to this game and community, but the people who are feeling like the world has lost something are also the people who have disengaged themselves the most from the community. It becomes negativity to dare ask these people to come back into shared spaces. This is more or less what I was trying to say, and about more than just UPN. While I recognize that age lends some gravitas to any group, it really doesn't define a legacy. UPN's history, in my mind, was as a group that had momentum in the early game of PnW but got beat out by competing powers over time. Then they tied themselves down to NPO and lost their individuality from there. Haven't seen them do or act in years, and I think when they fought the Johnsons it was revealed they're running a very weird off-meta MMR which just shows you how out of touch some insular groups can become. The game's meta is so easy to understand and plan for, even if you don't feel like learning it just copy/paste what t$/Rose are doing with their nations and you'll have success. That's where the jokes and the "yelling" and the general sense of inferiority come from. Yet you can see in the responses I've gotten from these UPN people talking about their playstyle being judged, it's a victim complex. They'd rather be bad out of spite and pride.
  17. I know this is an AI memepost but multiple groups have shown the efficiency of central planning in PnW. The only drawback is the community skews towards more active people and those more active people want gameplay. Just like letting an FA head run your politics instead of letting every member decide if they're going to join a war or vote on a treaty, central planning is probably better than letting every individual decide things for themselves.
  18. So as of this post, two members of NpO have joined TCM. A strong merger. If this isn't a meme post for a new protectorate, honestly may be a good call for NpO to move on to new projects.
  19. So this treaty will last as long as it takes Pascal to check his pings in the balkans then, got it. Nice treaty, well-written, ODP's are a bit weird to me but we'll see where this goes!
  20. I don't buy into this oft-repeated platitude. It's a lazy blanket to hide under, that's all. Some newer players may get roped into this line of thought by the older players repeating this ad nauseum, but that really feeds back into my point that these old, tired groups are a net-loss for their own members and the wider community. When you look at the peak of activity here, in Cyber Nations, in Nationstates, and every other similar game it's during the peak times of alleged toxicity. NPOLT or earlygame PnW were ferocious on the forums, people trading essays and claiming that XYZ was out to get them. Me "yelling" (aka- saying anything about the reality of the situation) at these people doesn't drive them away, their disinterest keeps them away and my "yelling" in fact brings some here to defend themselves. This is a political/nation simulator, disagreements and criticisms are core gameplay elements. It just boils down to having cake and eating it too. If you're happy, as some in this thread claim, with your current status - then by all means stay the course. I'll be in your defensive slots looting your stuff, and my gameplay experience will not be worsened for it. I post these threads to call attention to, and hopefully get read by, the people who are languishing in these insular or dead groups like the low gov who are genuinely interested in PnW but stuck in a bad AA.
  21. Good thoughts that I agree with. This thread is part of my attempt to refocus discussion back onto the forums, as realistically there can be no communal space that is privately run, as privatization naturally creates exclusion. While I didn't mean to kick UPN in particular, they have been the bulk of people responding. So I hope they don't feel hated or unwanted in the community when the contrary was my point: I want these people and more to come back into shared spaces and take proactive political and internal action to better themselves. Self-organizing is just anarchy in disguise, the central committee will organize the people.
  22. There was a second part of this post, but I got cut short by IRL stuff. UPN was a major player for the first couple of years of PnW. You cannot deny your alliance's fall from grace. Disbandment is not a bad thing when you've spent more years as a looked-down-upon alliance than a major player. If you guys want to do something else then that's also fine, but I think it's safe to say you and several other long-standing groups need radical change to stay or become competitive with the other alliances in the game. Sorry if that offends you, these are my personal thoughts and by no means some kind of religious proscription. You can play the game any way you want but you can't be mad when people call your alliance bad when... your alliance is bad. Just to re-emphasize my above reply, that's great. UPN is just, unfortunately, not the competitive alliance it was in the earlier parts of the game. If we're being honest it's a pain I share with you, being in Arrgh: We're constantly working to bring ourselves back into relevance after being a big-ish player in the early game. So I hope this doesn't come across as preachy, but rather just shared experiences.
  23. These are just my personal thoughts on a topic that is a bit controversial. I've felt recently that there are quite a few alliances in existence that don't participate in the wider community, don't really initiate or even contribute to politics, and generally only ever fight defensive wars when their inactivity or incompetence becomes the center of someone else's war of boredom. The reason I write this is because I feel that there has become an oversaturation of these alliances and we seemingly are living in a time of change for Orbis, so maybe this writing will prompt action. The problem with these groups is usually not their inactivity as they log in often enough to function, sometimes just barely, as an alliance. The problem also does not lie with their incompetence, as the meta and politics are both relatively easy to learn and navigate. The issue is that stubborn pride is like a glacier: Locking up fresh water, inaccessible to the world. These alliances are host to several active players usually working hard to keep the wider group afloat, locked away from the community, and usually stuck in lower government positions long enough to drive them inactive. Cora from UPN is a good example of a potentially great player in an alliance fallen from greatness long ago, and now can only be described as insular on their best day. UPN, The Immortals and Mortals, Dark Brotherhood, TCM, USN, and Gods of Orbis -- just to name a few from the top 50 -- have over 400 nations between them. That's almost 10% of all active nations, locked up like a glacier in insular communities that generally don't drive or even participate in politics. Food for thought.
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