Do long term empires destroy the game?

[Chairman Cao]

Well, the masses can clamor for war all they want, but if the leaders see no benefit in it, they won't do it. Now, you might say, hey, don't the masses keep the leaders in power? Clearly, fulfilling their wishes will be beneficial to the leaders and trigger war! But, there's two things wrong with that train of thought: first, generally a member fed up with peace will probably just rogue and/or quit the game entirely, which doesn't really do much to tip the scale of power unless he's a relatively high level official. Second, war at this point is just prohibitively destructive. The nations at the top levels of the currently dominant alliances generally have not faced a truly destructive war in a year or two, and it shows from the size they've reached. A war where the outcome is at all in doubt would probably leave nations on both sides pretty well trashed in a very short space of time thanks to the tech damage bonus and WRCs, while one where the outcome is known will probably end up with the loser's nations ground into a state that would take a very long time to rebuild or possibly removed from the game altogether in a manner similar to FAN and Vox, where they may still be "fighting on" in their own way, but effectively have no means to conventionally project power. Nobody wants to lose their nations that they've spent years on, not necessarily out of a love of pixels, but for fear of being marginalized for an unknown but probably long time (six months or more).

tl;dr imo people are too scared to migrate to alliances willing to act recklessly and in doing so erode the advantage of the boring alliances, and the tech damage bonus means we have a MAD situation if we ever have a conflict of interest between sides of any size to give us something better than a gangbang

I can see your point, but your assumption is that most leaders don't want war at all. While I certainly admit that leaders tend to be much more towards the hippy side and a good deal are utterly against any war they are not guaranteed to profit from, I still believe that a good few leaders do like the occasional war deep down - it may just take them longer to realise it. My point is that it only takes a significant minority to eventually achieve war, not the majority.

Many people will say "Yes, but the significant minority ends up relegated to the low end". I disagree. While the more reckless and warmongering players (do not confuse the two) will both on average be at lower NS, this is not surprising - they are this way because they prefer fun over NS. Such players will certainly be slightly lower but overall they hold enough sway to influence global events IMO.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Chairman Cao

[Facade]

large alliances (nations) appear in real-life. do they make it any more boring?

[Chairman Cao]

Do they make the world a worse place by acting purely in self-interest? Certainly.

[Snake Solidus]

I'm liking quite a few of the ideas proposed here.

I still think defensive war slots should be reduced to 2, it would make even the most one sided wars far more of a level playing field.

I agree, mostly because I also suggested it.

It doesn't change game mechanics and it really isn't that difficult to change in the code. It does however limit large alliances curb stomping ability. If a nation is considering attacking another nation but it knows it will be attacked by 3 other nations right away it may not do it. But if it can only be attacked by 2 other nations then they may go through with it.

It would give smaller alliances a chance to compete in war agianst with larger alliances who can just pile on nations.

[Slayer99]

So far the best ideas are create scarcity and secret aid.

If secret aid was to be re-established in the game then odds are you would see a lot more devastating attacks against alliances set up by groups like VOX. This could add a new element to the game so that people might get better surrender terms so that, as stated above, alliances wouldnt be drawn into gurilla warfare because of support from external people. It could totally change the dynamic of the game.

And here is an idea to have a limited resource.

Land.

Land has never been a fully utalized part of this game.

What if you were to limit the amount of land on the planet. As it is people can grow and grow and grow and land just continues to grow with them.

Putting a cap on the amount of land in the world would make it so people could only gain more land through conquest. To make it fair to newbies perhaps not have the effects of a land cap effect a nation until they hit 500 land or so.

Once you hit that cap people would have to start to fight for land. This could really make alliances fight with each other to take that land away from an enemy and to gain more so their nations can grow better.

Just an idea.

I think this is a great idea. It creates a realistic scarcity.

To take it one step further (and assuming there were controls on alliance membership). what if an alliance controlled x amount of y resource. That would also create scarcity but would probably make Admin pull his hair out figuring out how to code it (good test for TE).

[Grand Emperor Brian]

The only way to halt stagnation is to create conflict, and to create conflict, we need, as Heft said, scarcity. Master-Debater has a great idea with the land scarcity thing.

Create a set amount of land on Planet Bob and make it more profitable to have more land, e.g. you could make it so that you need a certain amount of land in order to build an improvement or wonders.

Changing the war system wouldn't really change anything, except for the strategies used to fight. It would do absolutely nothing to reduce stagnation. Likewise, changing the aid system or anything to make it easier for smaller nations to grow still wouldn't change anything because, no matter how you change it, the older nations will have an advantage. Capping infra, tech, etc. is a terrible idea, too. It's unrealistic and would just make it boring once nations reach the caps.

[jerdge]

It's very funny that there are a lot of players that claim that war isn't expensive enough, and that brought us to this "stagnation" with dominant factions that can continue to keep others down with little effort.

At the same time many others claim that war is too expensive, and that makes the leadership stay away from it, for fear of throwing away their work without much gain.

Not only I am certain that it can't be both ways, but I actually think it's neither of the two...

Most people have just ten minutes a day for CN, they joined some medium/big alliance and aren't active enough to keep their aid slots filled, let alone manage war against other nations.

Add to this all those players that can't be on at updates, and you will understand why war isn't that popular in CN. The Board people are not the same of the Game people.

I personally enjoy building my nation and not so much fighting wars and I don't find my CN to be any stagnating...

[muffasamini]

So the real adjustment needs to happen in game mechanics, not the political landscape. Part of what he's saying is that a game will naturally evolve to the point where large alliances will dominate economically.

The solution in terms of CN, would be to make it easier for alliances to rebuild. It takes far too long to build the infra/tech up for a young alliance (or a group of alliances that has lost a war) to compete with a more established alliance.

Lowering the cost of infra/tech for nations under 5 or 6k infra, would give them more opportunity to be able to fight. Just a thought.

Actually, I think its exactly the opposite. The high cost actually ensures that when an alliance is defeated in war, they are effectively removed from the landscape. They dint just spring back immediately as if nothing happened. And, it ensures that things move so slow no alliance has a window to suddenly shoot up and dominate the game. If all nations/alliances werent really severely set back by war, then everyone would be super strong, war would be pointless, and the game would be boring.

[BamaBuc]

This is true, but the loss of those players would also likely impact the balance of power, as well as offer a chance for new invasion alliances. Right now an invasion alliance isn't really viable because they don't have well developed nations. During a reset established players as well well as invaders would be on equal footing in nation development. Let's say there was a reset and 300 of NPO player's came back, FAN could go recruiting and bring in 200-300 players from gun forums and equal them.

You're right. But what if 300 also stayed at IRON? And 200 at MCXA, and 200 at MHA, and 200 at Sparta, and virtually all of alliances like TOP and Gremlins? If the political landscape stayed the same (which it would), nothing but a huge, coordinated force (unlikely) or internal conflict spurred on by the equalization of NS (a bit more likely, but still unlikely) would change anything.

The Curious Case of Benjamin's Nation

I'll admit, I lol'd IRL.

So far the best ideas are create scarcity and secret aid.

If secret aid was to be re-established in the game then odds are you would see a lot more devastating attacks against alliances set up by groups like VOX. This could add a new element to the game so that people might get better surrender terms so that, as stated above, alliances wouldnt be drawn into gurilla warfare because of support from external people. It could totally change the dynamic of the game.

And here is an idea to have a limited resource.

Land.

Land has never been a fully utalized part of this game.

What if you were to limit the amount of land on the planet. As it is people can grow and grow and grow and land just continues to grow with them.

Putting a cap on the amount of land in the world would make it so people could only gain more land through conquest. To make it fair to newbies perhaps not have the effects of a land cap effect a nation until they hit 500 land or so.

Once you hit that cap people would have to start to fight for land. This could really make alliances fight with each other to take that land away from an enemy and to gain more so their nations can grow better.

Just an idea.

Very much agreed.

Now, what if it was combined with the idea mentioned (I can't remember by who, sorry) about a proposed "resource in demand" being done by team, not globally? Not only would it prevent it from being monopolized, but it would revitalize dead spheres. Another side effect (good or bad, I can't say for sure) would be greater incentive to control a team and attack others on your own team. That would be the end of teamwide cooperation. In the short term it would create drama, but in the long term we may end up with a bunch of teams controlled by "land tyrants" who hog all the land on the team, with the remaining teams overcrowded.

Considering the in-sphere rivalry issue, it'd probably better as a global thing.

-Bama

[Grumpdogg]

So far the best ideas are create scarcity and secret aid.

If secret aid was to be re-established in the game then odds are you would see a lot more devastating attacks against alliances set up by groups like VOX. This could add a new element to the game so that people might get better surrender terms so that, as stated above, alliances wouldnt be drawn into gurilla warfare because of support from external people. It could totally change the dynamic of the game.

And here is an idea to have a limited resource.

Land.

Land has never been a fully utalized part of this game.

What if you were to limit the amount of land on the planet. As it is people can grow and grow and grow and land just continues to grow with them.

Putting a cap on the amount of land in the world would make it so people could only gain more land through conquest. To make it fair to newbies perhaps not have the effects of a land cap effect a nation until they hit 500 land or so.

Once you hit that cap people would have to start to fight for land. This could really make alliances fight with each other to take that land away from an enemy and to gain more so their nations can grow better.

Just an idea.

This is the best idea I've seen here. SCARCITY BREEDS CONFLICT.

Land (and the resources on or under it, or it's sacred value) is the cause of most of the RL World's conflicts. However, you would need to increase the value of land to each nation. You could do this by increasing the population bonus for land and make improvements take up land, so that there is a cap on your inprovements and wonders until you get some more land. To further flesh out this idea, you have to think about new players adding to the strain on the limited resource. I would suggest that Planet Bob could have a natural growth rate of Land (sounds stupid, but think of it as new discovories due to exploration etc).

OR

A much simpler idea could be: make land massively expensive, increase the population bonus (or add some new value/positive benefit) and make the gains of land from war much larger.

[Bleda]

It would be awesome, though I don't think it would have a major impact, aid can only do so much.

As a for instance , if secret aid flowed into VOX right now , how much larger of a pain would they be to NPO ? Do you think NPO would chose to re-evaluate thier diplomatic stance , or would they continue to persu a prolonged conflict that guarantees a more serious hinderance to thier continued position at the top of the santioned alliances list ?

Secret aid would END many of the practices that lend themselves to the stagnation we are seeing right now. Enemies made could no longer be crushed to the point of being a non-issue . It would either force diplomacy if the underdog had friends , or allow htem to be crushed if they really had it coming.

Do you think FAN would be getting aid if it was secret ? I bet they would , simply because as far as enemies of the order are concerned , FAN would represent the biggest bang for thier buck in getting even.

Let's say the tide was turned and it was NPO who was getting the secret aid from thier allies , With NPO refusing to offer terms to FAN , how long would thier allies continue to dish out aid for thier war before the NPO started to recieve political pressure to find a resolution ?

When GPA was attacked , what would have happened if they could have simply sat in peace mode and funded what was left of the unjust path , to do battle in thier stead ?

The new relms secret aid would open in terms of policy , war , diplomacy , ect. are simply staggering.

[Veritas]

Yes secret aid is the way to go i believe, but i think that every single aid slot should be secret it's more realistic. I also would make it so this aid could not be uncovered by spies. What this would do is make it so that real spies, as in actual players, would need to infiltrate the opposing alliances to find out who was sending them aid. It would allow someone to fight an alliance in secret merely by supporting their enemies without as much fear of repercussion. This happens in real life so there is no reason why it shouldn't happen in cybernations.

To further prevent stagnation i would recommend making it so tech can no longer be sent in aid packages. Yes i realize this would destroy the tech market but the current system allows the stronger nations to grow at an equal rate to the medium sized nations effectively making it so the mediums can never catch up. In order to compensate for the extreme tech advantage the stronger nations already have a group of nice wonders would need to be created that actually required tech to purchase. Imagine if you had 10 wonders that each cost 1k tech. The nations with 10k tech would of course want to purchase these wonders but they would be forced to pay much larger sums to get them as 1k tech costs a heck of a lot more when you have 10k tech than when you have 2k.

Now you may think that this would decrease the ability for new nations to grow but I would have to disagree. The fact of the matter is that 3m is a very small sum to a large number of nations in the game. Because of this most people would have no problem sending out aid packages to new alliance members for no other reason than to see their alliance grow. I think tech deals actually decrease the amount of aid that gets sent to new nations as those active stronger nations who care about rankings cannot afford to waste the aid slots sending money to noobies for free because they will fall behind when it comes to tech. If aid slots were no longer an issue for tech dealers they would be free to use those aid slots to help alliance mates grow.

Combine all this together and you get top tier nations where growth costs a fortune and where skill in managing your funds plays a bigger role than just how long you've been spamming tech deals. And you also get a large number of nations with aid slots to spare whether it be for aiding the enemies of ones enemy or for building up your alliance.

Sorry for the text wall, but thanks for reading.

-Veritas

[Zambaman]

Yes, this is the biggest issue with creating a scarce but attractive/necessary commodity. Inevitably the most organized and most powerful groups will monopolize it. In the meantime you would have a resurgence in conflict, but all of that conflict would be funneling towards an increasingly centralized power structure, as the room for top power brokers becomes less and less. Essentially, the opposite of what CN has done (where power has become increasingly decentralized over time). The logical end game in this scenario would be to eventually have one massive alliance and many smaller ones. This sort of change would also hurt all of the very many unaligned nations, who would be the quickest to be pushed out of the buffet line. Similarily, capping the amount of nations on each color sphere (which sounds to me like one of the more promising or at least more interesting options) would hurt unaligned nations as well, and discourage new nations from joining the game because they can't join the colors they want. It's possible we would soon unaligneds being chased off of spheres, as they would be easier targets than entire alliances.

Capping how much an individual nation can grow wouldn't really accomplish a whole lot other than making people bored, and the reality is that there are already some de facto limits, since eventually you run out of things to buy or things become prohibitively expensive. The only thing that can realistically be bought forever is tech from smaller nations. Capping how much of a given thing can exist in the world at once could have interesting results, though, again it would most quickly harm unaligned and new nations. I don't immediately see a way to introduce scarcity on a level that will generate conflict without harming unaligned/newer players disproportionately.

But, as Cortath said, people will adapt and the equilibrium will necessarily establish itself again. This may be true even with any scarcity-introducing changes, depending on how it's done, I'm not sure, but it is certainly true of any change that still allows for unlimited growth across the board. If you want to generate more conflict, then you have to provide real incentives for people to have conflicts. Changing the way wars are fought does not give people a reason to fight wars, it just changes the strategy of fighting them.

One possible method of implementing scarcity into the game as a resource to be fought over would be to have that resource exist somewhere (on a certain sphere perhaps) for a limited time. This could prevent one alliance from effectively gaining and then maintaining control of the scarce resource for eternity. Now the length of time that the desired object exists for could be dynamic. You could possibly have it where there is X-time units of the resource available (similar to kWhs for instance), where if a few controlled the resource it would last longer, or if more controlled it then it'd last a shorter period of time.

e.g. 100kWh of energy available, say each person represents one kW, the if you have 100 people accessing the resource then it shall only last for one hour, however one person could access it for 100 hours.

Now obviously time units would be different (in days say), but if there was a team/colour event where membership was exclusive (top 100 per colour or something similar, or a different mechanic perhaps), and the event was significant enough to be fought over then that'd probably get some conflict happening. If there was even some way for alliances to raid a sphere to deny access to the bonus to other alliances then that'd have an effect on conflict, surely.

With a time limit for the bonus to be in play it'd also stop someone or some people from gaining control of the bonus for eternity.

Secret aid would be an interesting thing to implement, though I'd imagine it'd require a large change to the current spy/espionage system if spying is to still be an in game function/action. You'd need some way for the aid to be uncovered (odds of some sort to maintain some risk) which would be hard to do as the action wouldn't be directly attacking another nation so how do you determine spy odds? Also, if secret aid were to go into effect I'd enjoy it more if it were possible to send hardware such as nukes instead of just finances or a few soldiers.

Finally, nukes are still just large cruise missiles. If you want them to have a truly fearsome reputation (like they did way back when only the top 300 could buy them), then they need to do some sort of Percentage of Infra destruction. And if that happened you'd probably need to pare back the amount of nukes people can stockpile.

[MTTezla]

I strongly feel that Heft's idea is a good one. But there's a key aspect to it that everyone has been forgetting; specifically, limiting it by color.

If you just make one giant "resource", and have everyone compete for it, that would, if anything solidify the power structure. NPO and the Continuum wouldn't have much trouble pushing out everyone looking for their piece of the pie. Then, because they had the most uranium or land or whatever it was, they would be able to grow faster than their competitors, and would be able to even more easily push out competition in the future. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of helping competition.

Instead, the comparison to Senators makes it much more interesting. Look at how much conflict the admittedly limited current system has already brought. There was the Balkanization of Maroon, the Viridicide, Vox Populi's Senate run, New Reverie's Senate run, which helped the tensions leading to either GWII or III (I don't remember which offhand), and many, many others. Clearly, the colors are a great area to develop if we're looking to create more conflict.

One example might be reinstating the very old system, in place well before GWI, and possibly before WWI. Stick with me here, oldies, because I wasn't around then and I'm working from half-assed historical documents. As I understand it, there weren't three ambigous Senate seats, but instead three distinct positions, with, theoretically, different powers. If we made being the most power alliance on a sphere a desiriable thing, that would shake things up a lot. It's a lot harder for alliances on a specific color to get along when they can't share the power, but can only line up for it. It's hard to imagine, as a completely unweighted example, the United Jungle Accords working as harmoniously when only one alliance can get the Team Praetor spot.

It also creates a lot of new choices for alliances. On Brown right now, GATO regularly holds 2 senate seats and OTF holds one. However, OTF holds the top spot, and GATO holds two and three. If there's one powerful position, GATO has to choose whether to hold two and three, or combine votes and try to take one. OTF faces a similar hard choice, and might even choose to get votes from some of the other players on Brown to try to steal the top seat.

Though this is just an idea, it might change the Senators from an already-powerful catalyst into an even stronger one.

[Il Principe]

Actually, I think its exactly the opposite. The high cost actually ensures that when an alliance is defeated in war, they are effectively removed from the landscape. They dint just spring back immediately as if nothing happened.

I do not agree. NpO is gaining strenght and influence rather fast. They regained sanction within 4-5 months.

To further prevent stagnation i would recommend making it so tech can no longer be sent in aid packages. Yes i realize this would destroy the tech market but the current system allows the stronger nations to grow at an equal rate to the medium sized nations effectively making it so the mediums can never catch up.

I really like this idea. Although I would not like to lose my tech deals I can cee the benefit of the the change.

[Mack Truck]

Secret aid, limited land and team specific resources are the best ideas so far. The latter two breed conflict and the first adds an extra dimension to conflict despite being very basic.

[scythegfx]

Well, the game isn't dead yet, so I'd assume not.

[Generalissimo]

Certain sentences of permanent zero infrastructure for individuals and occasionally alliances amount to grieving.

We could retain some of the current membership if we didn’t physically drive them out of the game.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Generalissimo

[Triyun]

Hegemony is the natural end result of a succession of wars. However, I do not believe that it is the fault of those that achieve hegemony that they maintain it. I have always viewed this as something like a boxing match. When Mohammad Ali was on the top of his game, he could beat most anyone. Does that mean that he should have purposefully thrown a few matches and fought horribly? No. It meant that someone should actually train to fight on that level and challenge them. The reason that the Continuum is on top is because outplayed the competition. If someone wants to change that, then go and outplay us.

I have always felt that the Order's greatest strength is that while many alliances have dominated one area, LUE political, GOONs and FAN military, no one has quite approached us in a trifecta of power economic, political, and military. Furthermore we've been very skilled in crafting a system of inclusion for rising powers to enter into the power super structure. These are aspects of the game, which I do not see a reason for us to purposefully play worse at. Instead it should be the responsibility of the opposition to find a way to undermine this structure. However, do not be upset or surprised when we strike back against you, and may the best team win.

[Generalissimo]

That doesn’t help game membership, what can we do to save game membership?

Does the interalliance structure effect game membership?

Edited February 27, 2009 by Generalissimo

[Suvorov]

Wouldn't creating scarcity result in even bigger dominance?

People here rightly state that wars for losing sides can be a huge catastrophe and that it takes a long, long time to regain your strength. How would adding a scarce recourse (land, for example) make this problem any smaller? If anything, a curb stomp would be even more beneficial. And even harder to recover from.

The forces that are currently dominant in this game are in essence merely so due to diplomacy. You can not control the game without it. If you also make them physically dominant by letting them control a large part of this scarce resource, how is the rest ever going to fight/bounce back, especially if this resource gives the dominant party huge bonuses?

To me, it seems this proposal only increases the problem.

[ModusOperandi]

Hegemony is the natural end result of a succession of wars. However, I do not believe that it is the fault of those that achieve hegemony that they maintain it. I have always viewed this as something like a boxing match. When Mohammad Ali was on the top of his game, he could beat most anyone. Does that mean that he should have purposefully thrown a few matches and fought horribly? No. It meant that someone should actually train to fight on that level and challenge them. The reason that the Continuum is on top is because outplayed the competition. If someone wants to change that, then go and outplay us.

I have always felt that the Order's greatest strength is that while many alliances have dominated one area, LUE political, GOONs and FAN military, no one has quite approached us in a trifecta of power economic, political, and military. Furthermore we've been very skilled in crafting a system of inclusion for rising powers to enter into the power super structure. These are aspects of the game, which I do not see a reason for us to purposefully play worse at. Instead it should be the responsibility of the opposition to find a way to undermine this structure. However, do not be upset or surprised when we strike back against you, and may the best team win.

You are missing the point of this discussion though; no one is saying its anyone's fault that it has become stale, we are saying that the mechanics should be adjusted so that opposition can be mounted and has a slim chance.

At the moment, there is absolutely no way an opposition can succeed; it has been like this for nearly two years. Two years man.

The concepts of PZI and EZI are just tips of the iceberg here; something needs to be done mechanically-wise to give people hope.

[Caesar833]

You are missing the point of this discussion though; no one is saying its anyone's fault that it has become stale, we are saying that the mechanics should be adjusted so that opposition can be mounted and has a slim chance.

At the moment, there is absolutely no way an opposition can succeed; it has been like this for nearly two years. Two years man.

The concepts of PZI and EZI are just tips of the iceberg here; something needs to be done mechanically-wise to give people hope.

Oh some of us have hope still. There is a way everyone else can "succeed" and it may be coming sooner then you think

[Siracusa]

Wouldn't creating scarcity result in even bigger dominance?

People here rightly state that wars for losing sides can be a huge catastrophe and that it takes a long, long time to regain your strength. How would adding a scarce recourse (land, for example) make this problem any smaller? If anything, a curb stomp would be even more beneficial. And even harder to recover from.

The forces that are currently dominant in this game are in essence merely so due to diplomacy. You can not control the game without it. If you also make them physically dominant by letting them control a large part of this scarce resource, how is the rest ever going to fight/bounce back, especially if this resource gives the dominant party huge bonuses?

To me, it seems this proposal only increases the problem.

It would have to be so scarce that it forced current ties to break. If the the resource was just plentiful enough that a current team or bloc would divy it up and keep all its members happy all the scarcity would do is make it harder for the havenots. If the resource was scarce enough that say only 400 nations or some other number could survive on it then you would see conflict. You'd have those 400 or whatever banding together, trying to hold off the barbarians, or basically the rest of us.

The idea has its pros and cons. If scarce enough a resource could serve as a limiting factor on how big your alliance could be, and how many allies it could have. If your footprint got too big you wouldn't be able to keep all your members happy and internal strife would occur. This could lead to interesting diplomatic efforts to divy up the resource and keep treaty blocs together despite economic forces. On the downside if done incorrectly we'd end up with more of a Dark Ages model, where packs of have nots would sweep in to pillage. It would shift the focus of the game from politics over to simply military objectives.

[Electron Sponge]

I don't need help from Admin. The hegemony will be destroyed and those who wish to cling to the idea that they can continue to dominate others in such a fashion will find themselves meeting the same fate as those who once challenged them. Change is coming and all accounts will be settled. Already hundreds are rallying to the cause, and thousands will follow. The current system where a small group of cronies in the Continuum can throw the weight of thousands of nations around at their whim to protect their own personal fiefs is at its end. The world will be free from the capricious and corrupt nature of the Pacifican oligarchs and their sycophants. Those who continue to espouse the current system will find themselves taking the place of those they once oppressed.

The Continuum will be destroyed, those who support it will be removed from power, and the ringleaders of this corrupt band of gangsters and criminals will be brought low and will remain there until such time as they have paid sufficient penance for their sins. The people will take back what is theirs and no amount of back room plotting amongst the elites or lies spread about the opposition will be able to stop it.

Surrender now and mercy may be forthcoming. Make us fight for it and there will be no mercy.