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Pledge to never make city deletion a peace term


Sweeeeet Ronny D
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I was a bit surprised when Ronny hit me up asking for TCW's signature since forcing city deletions wasn't something that even occurred to me as something which could be leveraged in peace terms, but we're happy to support this measure and I'm glad to see the game is pretty much in unanimous agreement.  

However I'm also in agreement with @Epi and @Thalmor, as it stands now the current rules which Alex wrote up are pretty broad and I feel would be heavy handed in situations where a certain degree of nuance is required. Actions intending to try and push people out of the game should be addressed by the player-base, only when does it drift into the realm of OOC involving harassment and bullying should the admin draw a line in the sand. Scenario 3, which Epi described is especially relevant since most alliances who have been victims of bank thefts, treason or other actions are certainly entitled to take punitive actions against those who back-stabbed them. @Alex I know you're trying to Improve the community, and its a good thing that benefits us all, but I feel that more rules and regulations aren't the answer, what will heal the wounds the last war caused is time. Time for alliances to repair themselves or for new alliances/blocs/spheres to establish themselves, for politics to reset itself and for the playerbase to recover.

5 hours ago, Rossiya said:

Otherwise known as the "Whale Protection Pledge".

Name it Keshav's law. 





 

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Threads like this make we wish we had Roq and Leo back.

City deletion was stupid anyway, but the whiny and victim role “pls no bully” is so god damn cringey.

Just gonna force people to delete projects then or delete discord and their forum account. Gotta find a way to keep plebs down.

Just rename the game Banter and Peace. Give everyone 500 cities and first person to dissolve their borders and become a city-less utopia wins. Instead of raids and looting just add a gift system and reward the most charitable nations.

fricking kumbaya peace pipe circle we got goin’ on now. 

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9 minutes ago, 丂ħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™ said:

Threads like this make we wish we had Roq and Leo back.

Even though I know you're shitposting, lolno

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On 3/16/2016 at 9:54 PM, Lykos said:

Our next move is obviously rolling LordStrum. 

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Just now, LordStrum said:

Even though I know you're shitposting, lolno

I want my senpai back 

HE

PROTECC

ME

WEN

NO

1

ELSE

WUD

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2 hours ago, 丂ħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™ said:

Just gonna force people to delete projects then 

This is the problem with making city deletion peace terms against the rules. It's OOC intervention against IC behavior. 

There's nothing special about cities that should make them off-limits. They're expensive, sure... but so is 4,000 infra in each city. So is 9,000 land in each city. So in a 29 city nation getting 100% military. So are a lot of projects. So are the contents of an alliance bank. Are all of these things going to have to become against the rules to push in peace terms? Will Alex have to personally oversee peace terms in major alliance wars? Where is the line drawn?

You're faced with 2 options: This is an arbitrary rule, or you have to apply the same logic to other things like I described above. The latter is really bad because it injects moderation quite heavily into politics and that's pretty gross.

I believe the intent behind this thread and the rule change are friendly and good. I have no problems with this thread, but I don't like the rule change. I am fine with the part of making it against the rules to push players to delete (so as long as jokes and banter are still allowed). Unlike the city deletion part, the nation deletion thing is an OOC response to an OOC thing, and that's fair.

Finally, this is not to say that it's okay for people to push others to delete cities in peace terms. I can agree it's shitty and any political repercussions that come as a result are warranted. However, I think I laid out pretty well that making it against the rules is nonsense. Players should feel free to direct politics how they wish within the realm of IC interactions. 

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Considering how Alex doesnt accept proof from outside the game, how exactly will banning city deletion as a peace term be policed? For example, what happens if i'm fighting Alliance B and they demand city deletion as a peace term via discord? 

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Guest Elijah Mikaelson
47 minutes ago, Madokami said:

Considering how Alex doesnt accept proof from outside the game, how exactly will banning city deletion as a peace term be policed? For example, what happens if i'm fighting Alliance B and they demand city deletion as a peace term via discord? 

This is a valid point, most peace agreements are made in discord channels made by the sides fighting, Will Alex now take screen shots of peace agreements that show people are being forced to delete cities for peace terms?

if so then what will Alex do if people do delete a city and blame the other side saying he was forced?

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13 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

You make some fair points, but I'm going to have to disagree on this one. There's at least one major difference between the things that you've mentioned, and that is the vulnerability of those things. Cities, projects and land are special in that they physically cannot be attacked nor destroyed by any means short of escalating and deliberate toxicity and a determination to undermine the enjoyability of the game for the target. The others can be looted, stolen, blown up etc., but nothing can and nothing should be able to destroy certain specific 'milestones' in a nations' development, those being the cities, projects and land.

The only way to attack projects/cities/land is quite simply to be an unholy toxic !@#$, and choosing to attack by such means is therefore a clear-cut case of being enough of a dick to warrant moderation action. That's where the line is, as far as I understand it.

Ask for billions in reps, fine. That can (in theory) be looted. Ask for infra to be sold down, fine. That can (very definitely) be blown up instead. Ask for the totality of an alliance bank... perhaps less fine, but looting is a thing and repeated lootings can get close to being as good as a full transfer. But ask for a city to be deleted? There's no way to achieve that outside of either A. hacking or B. psychologically assaulting the player sufficiently to convince them to do so of their own free will. That crosses the line into OOC territory, big time. Same with projects and land, for the same reasons: attacking those constitutes a psychological attack against a player as opposed to a nation.

Is all this getting through?

No, it's not getting through.

First off, thanks for providing a good response. The invulnerability of those is a factor I didn't consider and will meditate on more. That being said, I disagree with your post and I will explain why.

I really don't like the argument that it's 'toxic' to an unholy degree to attack these things and that admin intervention is needed. I'm strongly against city deletions in peace terms. I think alliances that push it should be decced on and raided. I also don't think any alliances today would push such a peace term or be friendly to those who did. However, I think the player base and meta should have the freedom to drift in that direction as the years go on. 

Additionally, so what if they are pushed as peace terms? People can just keep fighting. Nobody have to accept any peace terms. Maybe that causes some people to quit, but oh well. People quit when they're raided for the first ever time. I'm okay with it being against the rules to pressure people to delete their nations, but I don't know how that (or the city deletion policy for that matter) will be enforced with Discord logs not being counted as evidence.

The biggest concern I have is that this will led to Alex intervening more in politics as he dictates which peace terms are acceptable and which aren't. In your post, you've laid out the argument that projects and land should also not be targets of peace terms. Great. In the span of less than day, we've intellectually already expanded the list of justifications Alex has to intervene in politics. If he doesn't add projects and land to the list, he's being a bad admin. If he does, it's admin action becoming more involved in politics. It's a lose-lose situation.

Eventually, with Alex intervening more in politics through dictating which peace terms are acceptable, he himself will become more involved in politics. This is a dangerous slippery slope for a number of reasons. He will stop being a neutral party in politics and that will affect his admin decisions. Imagine if starting with NPO's First Time, Syndisphere and co were pushing terms Alex considered rule-breaking. Imagine then that NPO and co were interacting with Alex and being friendly to him (courting him) where Syndisphere and co weren't because they were angry at Alex for punishing them for pushing terms they thought were fine. Alex is a normal human being. His subconscious bias would kick in. It could very well be kicked in now, but at least Alex has yet to interfere with politics so we're not in trouble now. But, in this parallel universe, Alex is active in politics. Now, imagine the game played out the same way until February 1st, 2020. Would Alex still ban NPO's leadership and shut down GPWC? I don't think so. I don't think the argument that 'well NPO would be in trouble for trying to get Coal A to delete'. I disagree. Discord logs aren't evidence to Alex and I think that's for the best because logs can be faked and allowing them as evidence is a can of worms we don't want open either. This is not a criticism of Alex either. As I said, he's a normal human being and we're all open to our subconscious biases affecting our decision making. 

At the end of the day, this is not about city deletions. I've already laid out that I think city deletion terms are bullshit. What this is really about is Alex losing the important position of a neutral observer who is there to ensure there's a degree of equality of the playing field. This is about rather or not we want a figure we cannot fight with or negotiate with deciding what is political acceptable or not. This is about rather or not we want to decide what is fine and what is unacceptable, or if we want to outsource that to a person who is basically God in this field of play. 

We should be free to destroy each other, and to stop us from destroying each other. We shouldn't make either of those things the responsibility of anything or anybody else.

EDIT: I meant to throw this screenshot in originally but forgot. Alex is admitting there's no way to enforce player agreements except with admin actions. This is Alex opening the door to enforce other player agreements as well, and we don't want that. 

Capture.JPG 

Edited by Thalmor
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For the record, I agree with Thalmor,  Sheeps is setting himself up on a slippery slope.  I assume he made the new rules because his intention was to make his life easier when people bother him about deleting cities, and probably didn't think about other uses of the city deletion mechanic. (I love the little guys that are buying and selling cities to hit people, nice job by you guys)

I tried to do this politically so that we can police each other, the second Sheeps gets involved we all know the outrage machine is going to go into full affect, and you will get people whining and crying, threatening to quit the game, and actually quitting the game.  So while I do appreciate you Sheeps moving quickly and making these rules about forced city deletion, and forcing people from the game, I think in the long run, you are setting yourself up for failure.

 

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8 hours ago, Thalmor said:

At the end of the day, this is not about city deletions. I've already laid out that I think city deletion terms are bullshit. What this is really about is Alex losing the important position of a  neutral observer who is there to ensure there's a degree of equality of the playing field. This is about rather or not we want a figure we cannot fight with or negotiate with deciding what is political acceptable or not. This is about rather or not we want to decide what is fine and what is unacceptable, or if we want to outsource that to a person who is basically God in this field of play. 

We should be free to destroy each other, and to stop us from destroying each other. We shouldn't make either of those things the responsibility of anything or anybody else.

 

6 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

For the record, I agree with Thalmor,  Sheeps is setting himself up on a slippery slope.  I assume he made the new rules because his intention was to make his life easier when people bother him about deleting cities, and probably didn't think about other uses of the city deletion mechanic. (I love the little guys that are buying and selling cities to hit people, nice job by you guys)

I tried to do this politically so that we can police each other, the second Sheeps gets involved we all know the outrage machine is going to go into full affect, and you will get people whining and crying, threatening to quit the game, and actually quitting the game.  So while I do appreciate you Sheeps moving quickly and making these rules about forced city deletion, and forcing people from the game, I think in the long run, you are setting yourself up for failure.

I appreciate your concerns, really I do, and for what its worth I share many of those same worries... but do remember that the 'slippery slope' argument is a fallacy. Potentially true, certainly; the possibility of Sheepy choosing to allow his (quite well-established) human foibles to act to the detriment of the game is of course very real. I've seen it happen dozens of times in dozens of games, including more than a few times in this one, and only once have I seen a game survive beyond a certain threshold of administrative failure. Even so, 'slippery slope' is unsound and therefore invalid; the possibility of something is in no way evidence towards its actually happening.

Lest we forget, the possibility of Sheepy failing us has always been there, and always will be, regardless of any 'precedents' or lack thereof. We all can and should maintain vigilance over the activities and decisions of Sheepy, and by all means should consider the ramifications that he's inevitably missed in his ill-considered flailing about. Despite that however, much like any deity or for that matter any boss or politician or leader of any flavor, at the end of the day that relationship operates on faith. Faith that Sheepy is listening to us, faith that well-reasoned and honest arguments can reverse detrimental courses that are threatening our game, and faith that the evidence we have to support that faith, or reputation to use a somewhat more accurate term, remains true. Nothing about faith or reputation can be "sound" or "valid" of course, since both attempt to describe the unknowable unknowns of future decisions, but as long as we want our society IRL and our game here to remain stable, we basically have to operate under the assumption that we're good, while of course remaining congnizant of and prepared for when (not if) that assumption proves inaccurate. Obviously Sheepy has failed us before, and he no doubt will again... but that's no reason to call it before it happens.

Now, please don't misunderstand: None of that is to say that we should simply accept the word of Sheepy to be ordained as immutable law, frick no. The faith that I'm referring to is entirely based on Sheepy actually doing what we, as players, find to be acceptable, at least after reasoned and careful consideration of the complete effects that such decisions end up having. If Sheepy makes mistakes or does something stupid, I'm not going to stay quiet about it any more than you are, I assure you. We've both seen it, we've both called it what it was, and hopefully that will indeed not change.

We do indeed need to decide, as players, what is acceptable... and I think that's what's been done here. Not about city deletions nor project deletions or whatever, but in the fundamental underpinnings of the new rule: Attack nations, not players. That much has been and remains against the rules as it was, and like I pointed out, this new 'rule' essentially just clarifies what already was there.

The only change is basically in the specifics, and while I would indeed prefer that the 'community' be capable of 'policing ourselves' on the matter... there's an issue with that: conflict of interest. How can everyone be expected to declare and wage war in support of such a pledge? Sure, we would... but would the costs of such wars be truly equitably distributed? What threshold of evidence would be necessary to compel an alliance to drop an ally they'd invested heavily into? How would even an innocent alliance recover from the loss of such an investment, relative to their other rivals? And if a bloc felt its existence threatened entirely, why wouldn't they simply breach the pledge to gain themselves even the slightest possible advantages in their mad quest for 'survival'? And once breached, how could we ever go back to the glory days of the agreement remaining ironclad? Of course, all of these things are still issues as a game rule, but at least having the administrator enforce it sidesteps the political kudzu.

As for how Sheepy would enforce it, I imagine it would be something like

>Alliance A declares total war and requires city deletion for peace
>Alliance B complains to Sheepy
>Sheepy requests confirmation from alliance A
>Alliance A either confirms, and leadership striked, or denies and pulls the term

Sheepy can and has already set the precedent of incognito investigation, so there's that. Though I do admit to being apprehensive about the mechanics of actually enforcing those rules, I will grant you that wholly.

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I wish we could just remove the mechanic all together. I mean really, what logical reason would there be to delete cities. One out of a thousand nations might want to delete a city for some odd reason. We can't guarantee we've seen the last of the Roquentin's and Leo's in this game. Revert this change please @Alex

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On 4/11/2020 at 10:23 PM, Justin076 said:

I wish we could just remove the mechanic all together. I mean really, what logical reason would there be to delete cities. One out of a thousand nations might want to delete a city for some odd reason. We can't guarantee we've seen the last of the Roquentin's and Leo's in this game. Revert this change please @Alex

I was deleting cities for people by request almost every day before this was implemented, which takes up a fair amount of my time. Just building it into the game makes things easier.

Besides, if you're worried about people forcing city deletion as peace terms, they could have forced you to recreate your nation (delete all of your cities) before. Effectively nothing has really changed on that front, except that now it's explicitly against the rules.

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On 4/11/2020 at 2:46 AM, Madokami said:

Considering how Alex doesnt accept proof from outside the game, how exactly will banning city deletion as a peace term be policed? For example, what happens if i'm fighting Alliance B and they demand city deletion as a peace term via discord? 

I don't accept Discord screenshots.

Previously, users have given me temporary access to their Discord accounts in severe cases so that I can verify evidence for myself. In this case, if someone is mandating city deletion or quitting the game as peace terms, and it's reported, it could be verified that way.

With Discord account validation, it is now easier to link a Discord user to an in-game user as well.

I'm hoping that the threat of the rule is enough to just keep this from happening in the first place. But, if reported to me, I will investigate, and if I can find proof I will take punitive action against the offenders. I don't want people being forced to quit the game or delete cities (which are otherwise permanent, they can't be destroyed in war.)

On 4/10/2020 at 10:41 AM, Thalmor said:

Taken from the changelog: "Bullying, harassing, or otherwise coercing/encouraging players to quit the game is against the rules. Depending on the severity and scale of the offense, this can result in anywhere from a moderation strike to a permanent ban. The punishment is subject to moderator discretion."

Does this apply to memes as well? I think it's funny to declare on someone and the war reason say something like 'delete your nation for peace.' Would I receive a moderation strike over that? What if somebody on the forums or the official Discord says something stupid and I say 'you should delete your nation'? 

These things are not serious attempts to have people delete their nations. In the first case, it's just a silly meme to open a war with. In the second case, it's banter in response to someone saying something dumb. Still, I'd like to know where the line is drawn and if I would be crossing them in those examples.

There's no reason you need to say things like "delete your nation for peace" or "you should delete your nation." Yes, I would consider that against the rules, for the same reason we ban other things regardless of context.

E.g. If you said "Hitler did nothing wrong," even if you were joking, and I knew you were joking, you would still be punished and it would be removed. Context is not always obvious or easily interpreted in situations like this where the text is permanent. Players who do not understand the context will see the message, see that nothing was done to punish/remove it, and think that it's okay or even actually supported.

So, to be clear, you would be crossing the new rules in those examples.

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On 4/11/2020 at 8:15 AM, Thalmor said:

No, it's not getting through.

First off, thanks for providing a good response. The invulnerability of those is a factor I didn't consider and will meditate on more. That being said, I disagree with your post and I will explain why.

I really don't like the argument that it's 'toxic' to an unholy degree to attack these things and that admin intervention is needed. I'm strongly against city deletions in peace terms. I think alliances that push it should be decced on and raided. I also don't think any alliances today would push such a peace term or be friendly to those who did. However, I think the player base and meta should have the freedom to drift in that direction as the years go on. 

Additionally, so what if they are pushed as peace terms? People can just keep fighting. Nobody have to accept any peace terms. Maybe that causes some people to quit, but oh well. People quit when they're raided for the first ever time. I'm okay with it being against the rules to pressure people to delete their nations, but I don't know how that (or the city deletion policy for that matter) will be enforced with Discord logs not being counted as evidence.

The biggest concern I have is that this will led to Alex intervening more in politics as he dictates which peace terms are acceptable and which aren't. In your post, you've laid out the argument that projects and land should also not be targets of peace terms. Great. In the span of less than day, we've intellectually already expanded the list of justifications Alex has to intervene in politics. If he doesn't add projects and land to the list, he's being a bad admin. If he does, it's admin action becoming more involved in politics. It's a lose-lose situation.

Eventually, with Alex intervening more in politics through dictating which peace terms are acceptable, he himself will become more involved in politics. This is a dangerous slippery slope for a number of reasons. He will stop being a neutral party in politics and that will affect his admin decisions. Imagine if starting with NPO's First Time, Syndisphere and co were pushing terms Alex considered rule-breaking. Imagine then that NPO and co were interacting with Alex and being friendly to him (courting him) where Syndisphere and co weren't because they were angry at Alex for punishing them for pushing terms they thought were fine. Alex is a normal human being. His subconscious bias would kick in. It could very well be kicked in now, but at least Alex has yet to interfere with politics so we're not in trouble now. But, in this parallel universe, Alex is active in politics. Now, imagine the game played out the same way until February 1st, 2020. Would Alex still ban NPO's leadership and shut down GPWC? I don't think so. I don't think the argument that 'well NPO would be in trouble for trying to get Coal A to delete'. I disagree. Discord logs aren't evidence to Alex and I think that's for the best because logs can be faked and allowing them as evidence is a can of worms we don't want open either. This is not a criticism of Alex either. As I said, he's a normal human being and we're all open to our subconscious biases affecting our decision making. 

At the end of the day, this is not about city deletions. I've already laid out that I think city deletion terms are bullshit. What this is really about is Alex losing the important position of a neutral observer who is there to ensure there's a degree of equality of the playing field. This is about rather or not we want a figure we cannot fight with or negotiate with deciding what is political acceptable or not. This is about rather or not we want to decide what is fine and what is unacceptable, or if we want to outsource that to a person who is basically God in this field of play. 

We should be free to destroy each other, and to stop us from destroying each other. We shouldn't make either of those things the responsibility of anything or anybody else.

EDIT: I meant to throw this screenshot in originally but forgot. Alex is admitting there's no way to enforce player agreements except with admin actions. This is Alex opening the door to enforce other player agreements as well, and we don't want that. 

Capture.JPG 

First, I'm not intervening more than I've explicitly stated ahead of time. That is why I added these two specific rules to the game and publicly announced them.

Second, NPO and co. had courted me for a long time. They got special access to things like the API so they could build their stats trackers. Arguably that is unfair, but IMO it benefited everyone and was worth the slight special treatment (extra API calls.) I also worked with them to improve the API to make their stat tracker better, less resource intensive, etc.

Now, I'm not saying I did anything like bias moderation decisions in their favor (obviously) or give them any unfair advantage in gameplay. But, I worked closely with many NPO gov members and would have considered them "friends" before I began investigating the GPWC ordeal.

I do my best on a daily basis to not give preferential treatment to people I consider "friends" or to people who spend money on the game, and believe me, I get many messages about people demanding special treatment because they spent $X or people threatening to not spend any more money unless I do things that they want, including changes to game mechanics. You can see this for yourself if you look at many of the suggestions threads or announcements that I've made, where people have brigaded the comments with "this will kill the game, I won't spend a dime if you do this / don't revert this" etc. I believe that this game is only fun because of the players, and if all the non-donators quit, the donators would quit too. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I think I'm one of the most unbiased admins you'll find because I understand the game needs to be moderated fairly across the board, and people can't get away with things just because they gave me money.

As for that screenshot from Discord, you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I was stating that the player agreement is not enough on its own. It is not, in my opinion, self-enforcing. Anyone could deviate from the agreement and decide that they want to mandate city deletions, and unless everyone bands together to stop them, they'll get away with it. I don't think we can rely on allies turning on each other, or in a situation where players are already getting out of a long war having the tenacity to stand up to such demands, thus the need for an enforcement mechanism (the rules, and me) to prevent mandating city deletion being a thing that happens.

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4 hours ago, Alex said:

I was deleting cities for people by request almost every day before this was implemented, which takes up a fair amount of my time. Just building it into the game makes things easier.

Besides, if you're worried about people forcing city deletion as peace terms, they could have forced you to recreate your nation (delete all of your cities) before. Effectively nothing has really changed on that front, except that now it's explicitly against the rules.

would have just been easier to say no, sorry we do not delete cities get on with it.

3 hours ago, Alex said:

First, I'm not intervening more than I've explicitly stated ahead of time. That is why I added these two specific rules to the game and publicly announced them.

Second, NPO and co. had courted me for a long time. They got special access to things like the API so they could build their stats trackers. Arguably that is unfair, but IMO it benefited everyone and was worth the slight special treatment (extra API calls.) I also worked with them to improve the API to make their stat tracker better, less resource intensive, etc.

Now, I'm not saying I did anything like bias moderation decisions in their favor (obviously) or give them any unfair advantage in gameplay. But, I worked closely with many NPO gov members and would have considered them "friends" before I began investigating the GPWC ordeal.

I do my best on a daily basis to not give preferential treatment to people I consider "friends" or to people who spend money on the game, and believe me, I get many messages about people demanding special treatment because they spent $X or people threatening to not spend any more money unless I do things that they want, including changes to game mechanics. You can see this for yourself if you look at many of the suggestions threads or announcements that I've made, where people have brigaded the comments with "this will kill the game, I won't spend a dime if you do this / don't revert this" etc. I believe that this game is only fun because of the players, and if all the non-donators quit, the donators would quit too. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I think I'm one of the most unbiased admins you'll find because I understand the game needs to be moderated fairly across the board, and people can't get away with things just because they gave me money.

As for that screenshot from Discord, you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I was stating that the player agreement is not enough on its own. It is not, in my opinion, self-enforcing. Anyone could deviate from the agreement and decide that they want to mandate city deletions, and unless everyone bands together to stop them, they'll get away with it. I don't think we can rely on allies turning on each other, or in a situation where players are already getting out of a long war having the tenacity to stand up to such demands, thus the need for an enforcement mechanism (the rules, and me) to prevent mandating city deletion being a thing that happens.

So you was fine with NPO/BK demanding people delete their nations and that was pretty public, but not deleting cities? Do not get me wrong i think both are bad.

As for giving people bias moderation, lets be truthful NPO abused the API to track peoples money and what they was spending and so on you did give them an unfair advantage that did not help the game, and not everyone benefited from the stats.

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2 hours ago, Elijah Mikaelson said:

So you was fine with NPO/BK demanding people delete their nations and that was pretty public, but not deleting cities? Do not get me wrong i think both are bad.

As for giving people bias moderation, lets be truthful NPO abused the API to track peoples money and what they was spending and so on you did give them an unfair advantage that did not help the game, and not everyone benefited from the stats.

I didn't take a stance on players plotting to get other players to quit. I was also never provided with direct evidence of it - as far as I know none of that happened in-game, on the forum, or the official P&W server. I am taking a stance now, which is to explicitly forbid it.

Deleting cities wasn't a thing before, so it's not relevant.

I'm not aware of any evidence that NPO abused the API to "track peoples money and what they was spending"

As far as I know, the NPO stats website was public for everyone to view and use.

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I think it was a mistake to implement this mechanic at all.
The simplest and most sensible solution would've been to just refuse to delete cities for anybody.

Not allowing deletion to be a peace term is the right move.

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15 hours ago, Epi said:

Some Questions

@Alex

What is your stance on using these things to coerce players into quitting.

Also: Something Interesting in regards to if people admitted to forcing others to quit. There are examples from both sides, but this was definitely the first shot during last war.

Encouraging players to quit is saying something like "I won't stop until you quit" or "I want you to quit the game."

  • Punitive peace terms - These rules don't apply to this unless the peace terms are "delete your cities" or "quit the game"
  • Long wars - These rules have nothing to do with war length. You can fight someone forever if you want, that's not forcing or encouraging them to quit the game, it's playing the game.
  • Permwar - See above. Unless it's "we will perma-war you unless you delete to 5 cities" or something, these rules do not apply.
  • Play Style - I don't care what your play style is. Declaring war on someone is not encouraging them to quit. It's playing the game. Messaging them and saying "quit the game" is telling them to quit.

 

15 hours ago, Avakael said:

So does this mean I can't run my old banner ad telling people to quit and start again with my nation referral link on it?

Correct. That's just cheating anyway - if you didn't actually refer them, you're just abusing the system to get free money and resources. The point of the referral bonus is to incentivize you to recruit new players - not force existing players to quit and recreate.

  • Upvote 1

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