Discouraging "Offshore" Alliance Banks

[Alex]

I find the use of "offshore" alliance banks a confusing gimmick that doesn't really improve gameplay. Alliances are effectively forced to use this gimmick to remain competitive, and I think that discouraging its use would be better for everyone. I have a few suggestions on how to do that:

• Set stricter standards on alliance creation:
  • Nation must be at least 30 days old to create an alliance
  • Nations can only create one alliance every 30 days (to prevent constant new alliance creation)
• Disable alliance banks when alliances have less than 5 members
  • While the specific threshold could vary, in my opinion every "real" alliance has at least 5 members. This requirement would prevent frivolous 1-man "offshore" alliance banks, and would increase the probability of an offshore being raided (and thus discourage the use of "offshores" altogether)

I think that these changes would discourage the creation and use of "offshore" alliances, which again, in my opinion don't add anything valuable to the game but instead force others to use the same gimmick to be competitive.

These improvements to game mechanics would help to eliminate situations like this: https://politicsandwar.com/alliance/id=7244

That alliance has one nation with 0 score and is effectively "unraidable." Alliance banks are not intended to exist to eliminate the possibility of money and resources being looted.

[Basebond]

I miss the Downvote button

[namukara]

This is what downvotes were created for.

[TRM]

A very terrible idea. 

[BlackBeard]

Bring back downvotes please 

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

I remember a short conversation between us in this a while ago, Alex. I don't think it's that nobody agrees with you that that 0 score guy is patently ridiculous. I think they just dislike your idea to approach that problem more.

So I've got two different ones.

1. Make the first city count for score like any other city. No more zero score bullcrap offshores.

2. I'm not really sure what to do for normal offshores. My alliances own personal situation has several very easy alternatives if this happened, and I can't think of anything that wouldn't cause alot more pitchforks than you've already got being raised here.

[Reagan]

Unpopular opinion: I agree. “Offshore accounts” were not an intended game mechanic. They’re a loophole. The ability to loot alliance banks adds a layer of risk that affects strategy, as it was meant to be. This “workaround” stifles that.
 

That being said, I don’t know that the solution presented will do anything more than make it a slightly more inconvenient, but still completely doable option.

[Danzek]

The useful gimmick being to protect your hard earned money/resources?

I'd rather it get "fixed" by making offshores irrelevant, rather than just making it more difficult for small alliances, but still provide mechanical loopholes for bigger alliances to run 5 nation offshores. (i.e. a 30 nation alliance can theoretically be creating a new offshore every single day, under the new rules)

This also effectively kills a lot of micros, by disabling their legitimate bank usage.

Possible other solutions:

• Introduce (useful) things players can dump money into if they don't want to purchase new cities.
• Set caps on how much can be raided from banks. 
• Introduce some other currency that can't be raided, but have some conversion cost, or time delay associated with using it for storage in banks. 

[Wendell]

Nice and shiny for you! ?

[Majima Goro]

This suggestion is actually nice. I'm a bit skeptical about the member limit needed to start AA bank part though. This hurts people who just want to play alone.

[Dryad]

It being gimmicky doesn't seem like a very important reason to get rid of it ?

Rid of something that's very vital to the survival of most alliances.

If you do prevent offshoring then there must be an alternative to store stuff imo and it should be one that works for alliances of any size.

[Ripper]

There are plenty of established alliances offering safekeeping options.

I think an update like this would support raiding and give a drive to alliances to solve their safekeeping issues through politics instead of fireworks and tricks.

Edit: There are some alliances with less than 5 members that are real, not offshores... I guess we shouldn't nerf them... Maybe some more work on the requirements should be done.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Ripper

[Raphael]

Why not just disable certain functions like alliance creation/renaming during war? That way people can’t infinitely shuffle money around to avoid raids but it also doesn’t needlessly punish smaller alliances.

Even the 30 day limit on alliance creation can be exploited to hide money.

the member limit thing should just be thrown out entirely.

[Majima Goro]

2 minutes ago, Bartholomew Roberts said:

Even the 30 day limit on alliance creation can be exploited to hide money.

The goal here isn't to stop hiding money. The goal is to make this hidden money fair game for all to loot.

 

55 minutes ago, Borg said:

• Introduce (useful) things players can dump money into if they don't want to purchase new cities.
• Set caps on how much can be raided from banks. 
• Introduce some other currency that can't be raided, but have some conversion cost, or time delay associated with using it for storage in banks. 

Well, all of these exist

You can buy projects, land, infra, military, resources, etc to waste money

There is a cap of 40% on bank loots.

Credits

---

How does it feel to know even Sheepy is 4 parallel universes ahead of you

[Majima Goro]

1 hour ago, Akuryo said:

1. Make the first city count for score like any other city. No more zero score bullcrap offshores.

The problem is: A 1 city can still only be raided by a 1 city nation. And most 1 city nations aren't coming into the game to loot banks. The problem being addressed here is making alliance banks a Free For All game. 

A city cap of say 8 cities to make an alliance can be introduced. And to do away with transfer of ownership, nations below 5 cities cannot be made gov in-game.

[Danzek]

25 minutes ago, AntMan said:

The goal here isn't to stop hiding money. The goal is to make this hidden money fair game for all to loot.

 

Well, all of these exist

You can buy projects, land, infra, military, resources, etc to waste money

There is a cap of 40% on bank loots.

Credits

---

How does it feel to know even Sheepy is 4 parallel universes ahead of you

• buying infra is often counterproductive (especially as a raider, or during war), since it raises your score (thus score to military ratio). land is almost useless, and you are limited to the number projects you can have. Edit: I don't want to waste money, I want there to be useful things players wanting to stay low cities can spend money on (in the event that they can't safely store it)
  Anyway, something like projects for alliances would be a neat money sink. e.g. a project to protect the bank
• I meant a cap that would offer protection for the bank, 40% doesn't do that, as it's a massive percent, and grows proportionally to the size of the bank
• you can't store credits in banks, nor can you feasibly obtain billions worth of credits. there just isn't the supply.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Borg

[JackRackham429]

My problem with this is its going to hurt private banks. They want to avoid looting for a good reason, its bad for business.

[Guest Elijah Mikaelson]

This is a good step forward I feel.

I hope you keep on this path of doing whats best for the game and not an odd few who disagree as thats all they have known.

You do not want your hard loot you sat and watch come in get looted, then dont lose that simple

Edited February 26, 2020 by Elijah Mikaelson

[Danzek]

1 hour ago, Bjorn Ironside said:

then dont lose that simple

yeh, but, not losing any wars is a whale tier strat all us peasants haven't unlocked yet. 
I mean, I have twice as many active wars as total wars listed on your nation page.
gotta wait until there's a special on cities, like buy one, get forty free.

[Sir Scarfalot]

1 hour ago, Bjorn Ironside said:

You do not want your hard loot you sat and watch come in get looted, then dont lose that simple

It's that exact kind of justification and mentality that resulted in the monstrosity that was IQ.

Losing is not bad, nor should it be, which is why there has to be a balance between bank looting and bank protecting.

Offshores are arguably a valid option to maintain that balance, since while they can be used to protect banks, they require effort to do so and are susceptible to failure... just like any defense plan/option should!

[Guest Elijah Mikaelson]

55 minutes ago, Borg said:

yeh, but, not losing any wars is a whale tier strat all us peasants haven't unlocked yet. 
I mean, I have twice as many active wars as total wars listed on your nation page.
gotta wait until there's a special on cities, like buy one, get forty free.

I was fighting wars before those stats came in?

30 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

It's that exact kind of justification and mentality that resulted in the monstrosity that was IQ.

Losing is not bad, nor should it be, which is why there has to be a balance between bank looting and bank protecting.

Offshores are arguably a valid option to maintain that balance, since while they can be used to protect banks, they require effort to do so and are susceptible to failure... just like any defense plan/option should!

As i said the right step, next step is to make sure alliance banks can not be looted and the amount of loot is based off the number of cities an alliance has

[Zygon]

[Guest Epi]

1

Edited February 18, 2021 by Epi

[Odin]

My idea would be:

Alliances would need to have 100% of the score of the highest score player ingame (Currently Fraggle @ 17700 score). If they're not fulfilling this, they get a 3 day timer to solve this problem (get more people into that alliance or get on Fraggles level). Once the timer is up, the alliance automatically dissolves and the loot ends up in the hands of the highest Gov member -or- split between all members. 

That would improve the community by letting new players not mold away in the trash alliance hells, while also making the hot potato game even hotter. 

[Arawra]

I would rather you remove bank looting outright than disadvantage smaller, low-tiered alliances.