[GPA Declaration of Neutrality]

I would like to extend my personal congratulations to the GPA on the new DoN.

[New Wonders]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything about advanced weapons being introduced.

It is intrinsic to the WRC, not a separate weapon. If you have the WRC, your weapons do more damage because they are more advanced. Because they are more advanced, they cost more.

The down side is your cost to effectiveness ratio worsens. For example, if you have 2000 tech, your weapons do 16.7% more damage than someone without a WRC (1.4 vs 1.2). However, the cost of your weapons is 20% more than someone without a WRC.

The upside is, since you are limited in the number of attacks you can do in a day, you will do more damage to your opponent per day than he will do to you if he doesn't have a WRC as well.

[Environment Effects]

This is correct and is why things like government type are part of environment. It is not that certain government types are dirty, but rather it takes into consideration the political atmosphere that certain types of governments could create.

This opens up a whole other kettle of fish... Logically, doing something that increases the happiness of your citizens (such as establishing international trades that allow for the creation of luxury items, i.e. bonus resources) improves the social atmosphere, and therefore should improve the environment. Yet somehow it only works the other way around, whereby a decrease in the environment reduces the population happiness?

[New Wonders]

Eh, most of the "minable" resources are pretty good as is. Admin is trying to balance out the crap that those resources give you with environment now.

Perhaps a name change is in order. Instead of Mining Industry Consortium, make it an Energy Consortium. Coal, Uranium, and Oil all have obvious uses in generating energy. Lead is used in lead-acid batteries, as well as in high voltage power cables as sheathing material to prevent water diffusion into insulation. Nations with these resources could be net power-exporters, supplying those nations with lesser ability to generate power, thus increasing their income.

Same thing, just less question as to why only certain minerals are affected.

[Environment Effects]

good points. please consider that: from what I know, "environment" is not only meant in terms of "nature" and "surrounding", but also "political and social atmosphere". Thats the same thing why env suffers if you have too many soldier or too few literacy or too few tech. Basically the env-penalty on a sliding scale simulates that the population becomes uncomfortable with a large amount of nuclear warheads within the nation. At least that is how I understand it.

That may be the case, but that does not explain how the effects from the environmental penalties come into play. Why should nuclear nations make less money than non-nuclear nations, especially when you consider that the top four nuclear powers in the world (US, Russia, UK, France) are G8 nations? Why would possessing nuclear weapons decrease the population when you consider that the three most populus nations (China, Indiia, and the US) all have nuclear weapons? Possession of nuclear weapons may have an effect on the "political and social atmosphere", but where is the evidence for that having the kinds of in-game effects that are currently in place.

In addition to that, I think the damage increase with the techchange pays off for higher maintainance costs from the environmental penalty.

Considering that nukes were already capable of inflicting an unrealistic amount of damage (I wish I had kept a copy of, or a link to, my analysis of what a nuke should realistically be capable of in-game), I'm not sure that their being capable of doing more damage now is a good thing either.

[Environment Effects]

A couple of items I feel need to be discussed, what with the new changes to the effects of the environment.

Owning Nuclear Weapons Affects Environment

I believe that the negative environmental effects of simply owning one or more nuclear weapons should be dropped. What possible justification is there for the negative environmental impact of simply owning a nuclear weapon?

It can't be a radiation effect... there simply isn't enough radiation coming from a nuclear warhead to negatively affect the environment. I worked in the Radiation Protection field for seven years, so believe me, I know what the effects of radiation are and how much exposure is required. If there was enough radiation being emitted from a nuclear weapon sitting in a silo to negatively affect the environment, then the vast majority of Canada, Australia, and any other country with large deposits of uranium would be a barren wasteland. It also can't be the missile component of the nuclear weapon. After all, cruise missiles and the Space Program wonder don't have any negative environmental impact, yet both require large rockets, and there's no real world justification for an unused rocket to affect the environment of an entire country.

If it is supposed to be due to the manufacturing process, then why would it increase with the number of nukes made? Given that you can only manufacture one nuke at a time in the game, this implies that you only have one manufacturing center (or two, if the new Weapon Research Complex is implemented as written, and it already has its own environmental penalty), so any environmental effect should be independent of the number of nukes owned. Even if it were somehow tied to the maintenance of the nuclear weapons (i.e. periodically manufacturing new warheads as old ones decay), given that you purchase them over a span of time, the maintenance required would also be spread out, so the environmental effect should not increase with the number of nukes owned.

The only remaining rationale for the environmental penalty to exist and to scale with the number of nukes owned is that it is somehow tied to the silos themselves. Although I can't imagine how that makes sense, let's assume for a moment that this is the case. The nuclear silo is going to be limited to a very small area, so even if it has some local environmental impact, how does it affect the environment of the entire nation? Which brings up the next point:

Environmental Affects and Land Area

Let's take two nearly identical countries, with equal levels of infrastructure and technology, the same resources, and the same environmental factors. The only difference between the two countries is one is twice the physical size of the other (we'll assume that their population densities are 10 and 20). How is it that negative environmental factors affect both equally?

Let's assume the countries both import coal, which they burn for electricity, thus creating the environmental penalty. Since they have the same amount of infrastrucure, tech, population, etc., they should require the same amount of electricity, and thus burn the same amount of coal. In the larger country, the smoke from the plants will disperse over a larger area, reducing the concentration of pollutants in the air, thus having a lesser effect on the population and local environment as a whole. The larger country should also have more green space, which would further reduce the environmental impact.

One of the arguments in favour of the new environmental changes was that it makes the environmental score more meaningful. Fair enough. But as it stands now, land area is virtually meaningless. Once you've reduced your population density to an acceptable number, there's no reason to have more land. Allowing greater land area to moderate environmental affects would at least give another reason to have a physically large nation.

[Clarification of tech/damage update]

I think it would make more sense if the amount of tech you received from a successful attack was based on the difference between the winner's and loser's tech levels. After all, what new technology is a superpower realistically going to gain from a third world country?

[New environment effect]

I've been asked to post this response from the OG forums here. First off, let me say that I'm definately in the "builder" camp. I can't say I disagree with the concept here, but I can't see the changes doing what they were intended to do.

Re: Hitting a point where building your nation actually hurts it: With his new suggestions, and the ever-increasing cost to buy infrastructure and land, eventually you hit a point where it is too expensive to buy enough land to keep your population density down (is there still a maximum size cap?). At that point, if you buy more infrastructure, it raises your population, which raises your population density, which lowers your environment, which lowers both your income AND your population (which, incidentally, is a double hit to income, because you have fewer people with each making less money!). You're still going to hit a point where it makes no sense to build, this will likely just have shifted where that balance point is.

Re: Slowing down growth for everyone making destruction have more impact: To go to the builder/warrior model, some builders are going to be put off by the fact that their nation growth is even slower than before. Warriors, on the other hand, are more interested in growing their nation to be able to wage war more effectively. If everyone is growing at the same rate, then one of three things happens: the recovery time between wars increases (decreasing the number of wars in a game that many say needs more wars to keep things interesting); wars occur at the same rate and a new equilibrium point is achieved at a lower nation strength; or alliances/blocs capable of laying the smack down on their opponents grow an even more insurmountable lead, because their opponents can't recover as quickly.

Re: Increasing destruction on a sliding scale: While nations would likely do more damage to nations of similar size, bigger nations also recover faster than smaller nations, so they will tend to remain bigger. The really unfortunate side effect of this, which is completely contrary to making it easier for new players to reach the upper ranks, is that a big nation would pound a smaller nation even harder than before, and the smaller nation would do even less to the bigger nations than before. End result, it becomes easier for the established nations to keep new nations from reaching the top tier.

Re: Adding new features that cost a lot: This does nothing to fix the problem of nations sitting on hordes of cash because there is nothing for them to buy. People will just do a cost-benefit analysis on the new items. If the benefit exceeds the cost, then they will buy it, gain an even bigger advantage over nations who can't afford them, and then once there is nothing left to buy, sit on hordes of cash. If the cost exceeds the benefit, then people just won't buy the new items, and will continue to sit on hordes of cash.

Re: By changing to a % environmental penalty, "all nations would be affected equally": Nations with resources that carry an environmental penalty will be affected more, not because the affect on their nation directly, but because people will be less willing to trade for those resources. Rather than "balancing" the resources, it may very well just shift what the "optimal" mix of resources is. I have enough trouble finding a good stable trade with Cattle/Coal because it's not an optimal mix. Now if accepting coal is going to lower your environment, it makes it that much harder to sell my sub-optimal mix of resources.

Re: By uncapping the GRL "nuclear war will have worldwide effects and there will be political pressure to stop the massive use of nuclear weaponry": When the GRL was initially introduced ( :argh: ), it wasn't capped, and there was no pressure to stop it. The reason? People argued that since everyone was affected by the GRL equally, the only global affect of the GRL was to shift everyone down the scale equally. The GRL went to some ridiculously high number before Admin decided to cap it. Let's put it this way... if I fire a shotgun at my enemy indoors, I know it's going to hurt both of our ears, but he's going to get shot and I'm not. If launching a nuke at my enemies is going to lower both of our incomes by some fraction of a percent, but he's still going to lose all of his soldiers etc, and I'm not, I still come out ahead by firing the nuke. Since the warriors are only looking for an advantage and not relative footing, this is really only going to hold back the builders.

Re: Land has additional use and is more important: Land still reaches a point where it is prohibitively expensive to buy. The only reason that I have a huge amount of land is I had previously hit a point where buying more infrastructure would hurt my nation, and buying more tech did nothing for me, so I put all my income into land for a few months. Essentially this change just makes it more expensive to grow your nation because you have to buy land in addition to your infrastructure.

Re: Skill has more impact in the game: Because this is a new change out of the blue, luck has more impact right now, as in "were you lucky enough to have bought the right things so that this change doesn't affect you terribly". Going forward, some players will simply figure out what the new optimum mix is, share it with their alliance mates, which will then spread to the rest of the game. At that point, it simply becomes more "common knowledge" like "always buy a harbour for your first improvement".

Re: "realism. Environment has in reality a strong impact on the health of your population, and therefore the amount of deseases and deaths (pop modifiers) and the amount of days they are ill (income modifier):" The United States produces a huge amount of pollution, yet has unrivaled economic strength. China has severe pollution problems, but has a huge population. Sure, the environment affects health, but there are many, many factors at play. Furthermore, the "environment" is not insular to one country... air and water pollution caused in one country will affect its neighbours. You want realism? Your nation doesn't have or import iron and at least one of coal, oil, uranium, or water? Sorry, no electricity for you: say goodbye to most of your income and population. You don't have steel and construction? Sorry, you can't build any infrastructure. No electronics? I guess it's the dark ages for you. Population density is too high? Sorry, you can't purchase more land, all of the planet's land area is already owned. Your soldiers all died in the war? Sorry, you can't just buy more, because they have to come from somewhere... I guess you'll have to wait while you train another generation of citizens. Blah blah blah... Claiming that an arbitrary decrease in a nebulous "environment" stat directly leads to a reduction of x% population and y% income isn't more realistic, it's just more arbitrary.

[Is GPA Neutral?]

My idea of neutrality is being a friend to all and an enemy to none. (Not the none alliance obviously)

Not to fight wars of aggression.

Only to use wars to defend there own against rogues.

To seek diplomacy above all other solutions and only to use war as a last resort.

Not to flame people in public places.

Nor to speak ill of them in private.

That may go a bit beyond neutrality in the strictest sense of the word, but as a summary of the ideals of the GPA, I'ld say that's about as accurate as one can get.

[Is GPA Neutral?]

GPA then replied they want nothing to do with this how ever they will protect there senate seat, if they are neutral they would not need a senate seat.

That's like saying that if they are neutral, they don't need a military. A major alliance that has no sanctioning power is at a disadvantage against alliances that do. The GPA, with its tendency to trade only within its own alliance, is even more vulnerable to being sanctioned than most alliances, because a sanction against a GPA nation is likely to only affect GPA nations. Why should holding on to a senate seat be considered non-neutral?

Being neutral doesn't mean that you can't have economic, military, or political power. It also doesn't mean that you can't use whatever power you have. All it means is that you can't use your power to interfere with other alliances. If other alliances interfere with you first, there's nothing stopping you from unleashing your might against them.

[The DoN Interpreted]

Attempting to compete with them on a military or economic scale is not neutral.

You're thinking of non-competition, not neutrality. Let's look at the definition of neutral, shall we?

neutral (noo'trel) adj. 1. Not inclining toward or actively taking either side in a matter under dispute. 2. Belonging to neither side nor party: on neutral ground. 3. Occupying a middle position; not one thing or the other; indifferent.

Nothing in there indicates that a neutral party cannot seek to increase its own power or build its economy. If Alliance X is neutral, it will not get involved in a conflict between Alliance Y and Alliance Z. Alliance X is free to do whatever it wants, so long as it doesn't directly interfere with the other alliances. If Alliance W interferes with Alliance X, then by definition Alliance X cannot be neutral in that dispute because Alliance W forced Alliance X's involvement.

It may be a hostile act but GPA shouldn't care what other alliances do. Are these guides going to be used to attack them? No. Are they going to be used against them? No. Nothing else would concern a neutral alliance

GPA doesn't care what other alliances do, provided that the other alliances don't do whatever they're doing to the GPA. That is the definition of neutrality. Mess with the GPA, and they will retaliate. Read the Declaration of Sovereignty. It clearly spells out what the GPA is concerned. There is no physical property in CN, only electronic and intellectual property. The GPA is well within its rights to defend its property. Apparently you won't consider the GPA to be neutral until they make their entire forum public, post all of their secrets in the open world forums, and hand over all of their documents to all of the other alliances in the game. Oh, wait, then they wouldn't be sharing them with the non-aligned majority of nations in the game... best private message all that information to them too.

They went to TOOL and said, we want to attack a member, expel him or else. Then they pulled up the reason that he was in LSF, which he was, then apologised on the grounds of bad intelligence.

Sounds very much like using intimidation to get there way, and interfering in other peoples business by effectively saying, you shouldn't recruit from LSF.

This much I'll give you. From what you describe, if they threatened TOOL in that manner, then that sounds like they were acting in a non-neutral way. They could have dealt with the ex-LSF/TOOL member in a neutral manner, but it sounds like they may have crossed the line. Without going into the specifics (and that's way too long a thread for me to care about reading ), I can't say for sure though.

[The DoN Interpreted]

The government claims that going after LSF is neutral, as they harmed the GPA. But if the GPA was neutral it would only defend itself.

That's not neutrality, that's pacifism. Do you think Sweden would just sit back and do nothing if they found out another country had stolen their military secrets? GPA has always been neutral and tends to be peaceful, which sometimes confuses people as to where the line between the two exists.

If it was neutral it would not need to worry about what guides another alliance has. With the NPO, its different as they are competing. As a neutral allaince, the GPA shouldn't regard itself as in competition, so their guides should not be so sacred.

Again, not neutrality. Now you're thinking of isolationism.

So LSF has not harmed it if it is neutral, so it has no reason to mount an agressive war.

As I stated earlier, if LSF has taken a 'hostile action' against the GPA, then GPA launching a war against the LSF is not an agressive war.

Also, with threatening TOOL, they where trying to dictate alliance policy to them, as with sparta. That is a mve away fro neutral to aggressive intervention.

I admit I didn't follow those threads, but depending on how GPA approached these other alliances, it could have been neutral or non-neutral.

The whole reason for writing the DoN and the DoS was to define for the rest of the CN world what GPA neutrality means. In a nutshell, if it doesn't directly involve the GPA, they won't get involved. The whole LSF/GPA document thing DOES directly involve the GPA, so they are well within their rights to take action. Don't get me wrong, I think the terms that they set were ridiculously out of proportion with the severity of the alleged crimes (seriously, what could possibly be in those documents that caused 300 million dollars of damage to the GPA?), and that going to war over it might be excessive. However, the GPA has been acting neutrally according to their long-standing definitions.

In conclusion, the GPA may be heavy-handed, but from what I have seen they are not non-neutral in the actions they have taken against the LSF.

[The DoN Interpreted]

take this article in the context with the rest of the point that nationpimp (aka whatever) is making, and this article here only supports his case. To sum up this here quote

"If GPA members decides to act unneutral, we as gpa will completely ignore that and call them neutral anyway"

you sir, fail

Actually, you are reading it wrong, and Bob Janova is (mostly) correct. (Trust me, I wrote the damn thing... )

The LSF, being in possession of the GPA's property without GPA concent, would be in violation of their Declaration of Sovereignty. According to the DoS, the GPA is entitled to collect restitution from the LSF, or to undertake military action should they choose.

Furthermore, espionage is defined as a hostile action under the DoN. LSF, if they engaged in espionage against the GPA, falls under the definition of Beligerant, and therefore the GPA can use force against them. If the LSF made the first hostile move by spying, then the GPA would only be responding to that hostile act by going to war with LSF. The DoN would not allow the GPA to attack the LSF "just cuz" if the LSF did not take hostile action against the GPA first. It most certainly does not give GPA members carte blanche to "act unneutral" without consequences. How you combined the "violators will be prosecuted" and the "defending ourselves is not a violation" clause to come to that conclusion is beyond me...

And incidentally, the original poster is also correct. GPA nations are not permitted to accept aid from nations involved in wars. Whether restitutions constitute aid or not is not specifically spelled out in the DoN (something I admit I never thought of), so would be open to interpretation. Logically, they would not, but as the DoN is silent on the issue it would provide an interesting loophole to use as a defense.

[GPA Director of Communications]

Great Dzar,

Once upon a time, I was proud member of the GPA. We held firmly to our beliefs of peace and neutrality, and maintained friendly relations with everyone. We did not take part in wars, but we held respect, and at times, we were even able to influence the CN world as a result. Even after I left the GPA, the alliance always held a place in my heart. Every time I stopped by your forums, it felt like I was coming home.

Recently, however, the only feelings I had for the GPA were shame and regret. It was painful to see how much the alliance had changed for the worse, and how far it had seemed to drift from its ideals. Indifference appeared to have replaced neutrality; apathy and acrimony supplanted peace and good will. I began to relegate my time in the GPA to the dark, forgotten recesses of my mind, never again to see the light of day.

Thank you, Great Dzar, for allowing me to feel pride in the GPA again. Given the number of highly regarded ex-GPA members who have posted their support in this thread, I am certain that I am not alone in this sentiment.

To the current membership of the GPA,

Regardless of the outcome of Great Dzar’s actions, you will be facing an election in the near future. If you will allow an old-timer to give you some advice, take a good, long look at your future candidates. The great GPA leaders of old were not elected to their positions because they were popular. They were shining examples of the GPA’s values and virtues. Because they embodied the heart and soul of the GPA, they were great leaders. Because they were great leaders, they earned respect. Because they held respect, they became popular. When it comes time to vote in your next elections, chose your leaders by what they represent, and the GPA could be great once more.

[Official IRON Announcement]

This was not a loophole. The GPA DoN and the precedents on these matters have been set for a long time. The simple fact is that the concept of actual neutrality is completely lost on the latest generation of GPA members and leadership. Six months ago this would have gotten their member shouted at to the point of resignation and quite possibly demasked, if not thrown out altogether.

QFT...

I doubt that the GPA had any malicious intent in finding their member innocent of the charges, but they've obviously missed the intent of the DoN. Perhaps the current members should go back and read the ENTIRE DoN:

The duty and interest of the member states of the Green Protection Agency (henceforth GPA) require that the GPA in sincerity and good faith pursue friendly and impartial conduct toward all other nations, maintaining a strict stance of political neutrality.

Therefore we hereby declare that the GPA is legally bound to its neutrality, and must exhort and warn member states to avoid any and all acts or proceedings which may in any manner contravene this agreement and thereby violate the neutrality of the GPA.

Furthermore, we do agree that any member nation of the GPA committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any other nation or otherwise breaking the terms of this treaty does render itself liable for punishment; and further, that this punishment will be delivered without delay, restraint, or reserve by the officers of the GPA in formal prosecution against the accused member nation.