Make Victory Great Again

[Guest Zephyr]

I have been thinking about some of the "problems" in the game (which I understand is entirely dependent on individual opinions and biases) that Alex likely didn't intend when originally designing the game, and thinking about the sort of game changes that might help address those. I've come up with some ideas that haven't been entirely outright rejected amongst a few people I've bounced them off, though I do recognise some areas of concern. Still, I feel it's worth subjecting these ideas to the scrutiny of the community to explore if they have any potential.

Mostly what I consider "problems" are that alliances can move banks around between offshores to undermine opponents' ability to loot them, which subsequently also undermines the value of beiging opponents as expected loot is much less significant. So I present two ideas with those problems in mind, one an evolution of the other.

 

1. Alliance Administration Accounts

• Each alliance member pays an alliance administration fee (before alliance taxes), maybe 2 or 3 percent (?).
• Administration fees go into an alliance administration account.
  • Alliance bank gov can view the balance of the administration account, but cannot withdraw from it.
• When alliance members are defeated in war, the administration account is looted instead of the alliance bank.
• When an alliance is disbanded, the administration account remains for another 5 days (ensures all wars on the alliance are first resolved), after which the administration account and its balance are deleted (to prevent abuse).

2. Alliance Investment Funds

• Each alliance member pays an investment fee of 5% of their income (before alliance taxes) if the investment quota has not been met, otherwise they instead receive an investment benefit of 10% increase to income.
• Investment fees go into an alliance investment fund account.
  • Alliance bank gov can view the balance of the investment fund account, but cannot withdraw from it.
  • Investment funds are useless without capital, and as such the investment quota is 1% of the alliance's GDP before it returns benefits.
  • Question: Should alliance bank gov be able to deposit (only deposit) to this account to expedite benefits returned?
• When alliance members are defeated in war, the investment fund account is looted instead of the alliance bank.
• When an alliance is disbanded, the investment fund account remains for another 5 days (ensures all wars on the alliance are first resolved), after which the investment fund account and its balance are deleted (to prevent abuse).

 

Both ideas make offshore banking alliances and clever bank handball games entirely redundant, which is a lot of nonsense that only exists due to shortsighted game design. Furthermore, this makes access to safe banking fairer to everyone. Safe banking isn't really an issue for large established alliances so much as it is for newcomers that don't have the advantage of long trusted friendships with which to set up banking networks. Thus safe banking is more accessible at all levels without requiring premature trust of others.

Additionally, both ideas establish a second account for the purpose of being a lootable prize pot of actual value, thus encouraging beiging opponents which is often a more desirable outcome for the defeated nations themselves if they want a shot at reorganising for subsequent rounds of war. It also means that the longer an alliance goes without losing a war, the more attractive their lootable account becomes, so perhaps a more natural means to encourage routine and fair attention is given to each alliance that sits uninterrupted in development for too long.

The notable difference between the ideas is that an investment fund gives an alliance an income boost if their lootable account is kept sufficiently safe, thus increasing the interest in adequately countering each attack to ensure an alliance-wide income boost. The other is a persistent administration fee regardless of defensive proficiency, though we could consider applying a quota to that too so that the cost at least ceases if an alliance's defence is effective. However, the second idea also means that presumably a victor will reap both the benefit of looting opponents and sooner achieving boosted income which might arguably be too much benefit, or more reason for Orbis to turn its attention to the victor for the next war.

What would be desirable as an effect, I suppose, is that the potential loot obtainable is attractive enough to be a factor in decision making come time to plot wars. The cost associated with a second loot account also means that potentially any alliance that doesn't turn its attention towards trying to get a decent piece of loot is actually economically falling behind by spending more themselves on their loot account than benefit gained looting others.

Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing thoughts.

[BelgiumFury]

I might be the only one.

But I don't think alliance bank moving is a bad mechanic, it's a complexity that came from the games design that isn't necessarily bad. 

Next up I don't think this will solve the issue of beiging, a properly managed (non raiding) alliance would first kill the enemies units and then beige them when they are disorganized and dead (as happend in most recent world wars). There is no advantage in immediatly going for the loot if you can do it 10 days later but without the risk of your opponent rebuying and maybe flipping the war.

Edited June 8, 2021 by BelgiumFury

[Dr Rush]

Denying loot to your opponents is just as important as protecting your own. So this creates a meta where the good alliances will delete and reform at intervals and prior to entering a conflict. Also how are you addressing the imbalance in the world economy from both of these ideas?

[Indger]

I do not support

[Guest Zephyr]

On 5/29/2021 at 10:45 AM, Dr Rush said:

Denying loot to your opponents is just as important as protecting your own. So this creates a meta where the good alliances will delete and reform at intervals and prior to entering a conflict. Also how are you addressing the imbalance in the world economy from both of these ideas?

That was an area of concern but I thought surely alliances wouldn't actually go to the effort to coordinate all their members regularly abandoning and rejoining alliances, but if you're mentioning it too I guess it's not such a silly concern. I thought the second idea might kind of address this as presumably GDP decreases significantly during wartime, therefore the investment benefit would still be achievable for a short while and hopefully make it attractive enough to maintain the alliance. Maybe if Alex implements something like expensive but highly advantageous alliance projects this would make alliances too valuable to abandon. I could think up other possible ways to address it, but at that stage it would be less elegant and more bandage work just to salvage the idea. Alliance projects though could be a good way to make players more committed to maintaining an alliance and less inclined to disband and restart which could enable mechanics like this where it necessitates players value protecting something other than just their nation.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Zephyr

[Dr Rush]

Another option would be moving everyone to a temp war alliance during wars and leaving only a few trusted players to guard the home front.

[Deborah Kobayashi]

On 5/28/2021 at 6:15 AM, BelgiumFury said:

I might be the only one.

But I don't think alliance bank moving is a bad mechanic, it's a complexity that came from the games design that isn't necessarily bad. 

Next up I don't think this will solve the issue of beiging, a properly managed (non raiding) alliance would first kill the enemies units and then beige them when they are disorganized and dead (as happend in most recent world wars). There is no advantage in immediatly going for the loot if you can do it 10 days later but wiothout the risk of your opponent rebuying and maybe flipping the war.

same, as a raider I don't care if banks can be moved constantly, I think its just all part of the game, and alliances that offshore are the equivalent of those in the real world with better banking networks and offshore wealth.
some alliances are just easier to loot than others, and it should remain that way, people with bad banking practices shouldn't be protected at the expense of those with good banking practices. 

now maybe I could be talked into believing that if an alliance is deleted and a new on remade, the new one should be looted instead of the dead bank.
this would force them to move the money around their beiges, which while still allowing them to protect it from a solo raider, would make it harder to hide from a well coordinated raid campaign, unless they have a highly decentralized (in terms of multiple alliances) and coordinated bank network. 

[Guest Zephyr]

At this point I concede my suggestions are dead in the water, but I do want to argue some points.

Firstly, I challenge the notion that all alliances have equal opportunity and ability in establishing a safe banking network and thus equal opportunity to assure safe keeping of their bank and member savings. Established alliances have longer to cultivate trusted relationships with members, while newcomers are forced to prematurely entrust others unless they wish to make their bank vulnerable to raiding. There are arguable solutions, such as entrusting a private banking service, or if one has a protector using their protector's banking network, but these are still high risk decisions that force newcomers to prematurely entrust their bank to others in order to try and achieve a similar result as the established alliances.

I can recognise some feel that the increased risk to new alliance establishment is simply how it should be or that players should have established these trusted relationships before attempting to start their own alliance, and that's fair but the point I'm making is the risks simply are not the same and we shouldn't pretend that they are. Despite my suggestions here being overwhelmingly rejected, I would support removing bank loot entirely with no other necessary game changes to make banking fairer for all alliances at all levels (though maybe increasing nation loot rates would be in order).

 

4 hours ago, Deborah Kobayashi said:

some alliances are just easier to loot than others, and it should remain that way...

But why should it? You also said...

4 hours ago, Deborah Kobayashi said:

same, as a raider I don't care if banks can be moved constantly, I think its just all part of the game, and alliances that offshore are the equivalent of those in the real world with better banking networks and offshore wealth.

So presumably then your preference is that newcomers should be most at risk of losing their banks because...? And established alliances that are less at risk should still be forced to tediously handball banks around just so that there's occasional excitement and looting when someone falls asleep on the job? I don't see how the current system is enriching or fair basing such a valuable looting mechanic's success on the odd chance someone(s) forgets to move a bank.

3 hours ago, Deborah Kobayashi said:

...people with bad banking practices shouldn't be protected at the expense of those with good banking practices.

This seems unfair for the above mentioned reason; you could establish a banking network in the exact same way as an established alliance, but if you have dishonourable characters in the loop you're at risk of losing bank. This is not necessarily a matter of not knowing how banking works, but a matter of opportunity to develop and identify trusted relationships to put in your network. Again, it's fine if that's just the preference that the system is geared this way, but what I reject is the notion that it is necessarily due to a lack of knowledge or that the opportunities are equal when banking necessitates establishing trusted relationships and quite obviously newcomers have had less opportunity to establish those.

My preference is levelling the playing field between new and old alliances because I would prefer the system encourage players to take a chance starting an alliance without necessitating that they be dependent on established ones just to keep such a vital aspect of their alliance safe. Removing bank loot would also reduce the number of members necessarily involved in an alliance's banking duties, and thus reduces bank theft risk for everyone. Bank theft is an interesting vulnerability; make a game suggestion for the billion dollar costly demolishing other player's cities and you'll get downvoted into an early grave, but the notion that players should be able to snatch away billions in cash and resources in the blink of an eye is apparently fair dinkum. I don't share that sentiment and have a strong preference for reducing bank risks to such underhanded plays, and making it fairer between established and new alliances.