Vladimir Stukov II Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 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. And then we will all hail our new leader ES! That was a touching speech. :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enderland Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 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. Sweet, do we get to betray TOP?!?!!? Pleeeeease? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heft Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 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. This is an OOC forum, silly. And from an OOC perspective, the shape of the game encourages the sort of progression that has led us to where we are now, with a complicated web of blocs and one almost meta-bloc on top to keep things somewhat sort of passively regulated. There isn't any reason that the top group has to be centered around Continuum specifically, but if it weren't, it would just center around another group (whether a convenient corporeal entity a la continuum or a more abstract network of relationships). I don't necessarily think that there's anything inherently bad that needs to be "fixed" in there, and I find it unlikely that any fix would actually change that to any long-term, significant degree (but there are a few interesting ideas that would at least complicate things). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azaghul Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 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. That's a bad analogy, as what "victory" in in this game is entirely subjective, while Mohammad Ali had a clear objective: to win all his matches and be the top player. Only one player can win by being considered the best. The Continuum only wins by being a general non-aggression pact among the great majority of the game's strength to prevent any significant conflict. If it's "winning" it is doing so by making sure nothing happens by getting nearly all potential competing groups together to not fight each other and bringing any new people within it's sphere. So if the Continuum has "won", everyone has pretty much one, as it "wins" by including pretty much everyone. The exact opposite of your Mohammad Ali example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shahenshah Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 Have relics passed onto the sanctioned alliances. An alliance to hold all 10 relics wins the game, there you go, reason for war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrophis Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 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. If secret aid was an option in this game, I think it's pretty safe to say that the game would be significantly more interesting that it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTTofAK Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 If secret aid was an option in this game, I think it's pretty safe to say that the game would be significantly more interesting that it is now. What prevents secret aid is the gadflies who insist that there be absolutely no way to uncover it. That is completely unrealistic in the context of a nation simulator which it seems that many forget that this game actually is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Soviet Attack Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 Meh. The game mechanics don't need to be changed for there to be a war; those who hold power merely have to will it. The balance of power is determined by a very small group of people, and they will decide whether or not there'll be a war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModusOperandi Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 What prevents secret aid is the gadflies who insist that there be absolutely no way to uncover it. That is completely unrealistic in the context of a nation simulator which it seems that many forget that this game actually is. Both of you raise two really good points. I think it could be beneficial and reasonable to suggest that a limit of only one aid slot could be secret though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vladimir Stukov II Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 Have relics passed onto the sanctioned alliances. An alliance to hold all 10 relics wins the game, there you go, reason for war. I don't think using BattleDawn game mechanics will work in CN. This isn't a game that you can win. Winning CN is like winning RL. However, the main goal for most people is to increase their nation and alliance's strength. Those at the top like the game the way it is and it is up to the rest of CN to challenge them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Virginia Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 What prevents secret aid is the gadflies who insist that there be absolutely no way to uncover it. That is completely unrealistic in the context of a nation simulator which it seems that many forget that this game actually is. That is actually my major issue with it. Granted I am sure there is a plausible way to implement it into the game, while at the same time including a method uncovering it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homura Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 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. If you want nukes to have a fearsome reputation, just uncap the GRL. I've been advocating that for months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veritas Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 That is actually my major issue with it. Granted I am sure there is a plausible way to implement it into the game, while at the same time including a method uncovering it. What if we were to make it so that i couldn't be uncovered by spying on the nation receiving the aid but rather by spying on the nation that's giving it. That way in order to discover who was aiding your enemies you'd either have to infiltrate their alliance and see who sends you aid or you would have to do general sweeps which could cause some major conflict due to trust issues. -Veritas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slayer99 Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 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. If it was set up right, having sole control of one resource would be nearly impossible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony_Gunz Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 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. u should like write a book or something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azaghul Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 What if we were to make it so that i couldn't be uncovered by spying on the nation receiving the aid but rather by spying on the nation that's giving it. That way in order to discover who was aiding your enemies you'd either have to infiltrate their alliance and see who sends you aid or you would have to do general sweeps which could cause some major conflict due to trust issues. -Veritas This is exactly what I was gonna say. Having to spy on the sender would make it the most interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Emperor Brian Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 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. If the resource was scarce enough and desirable enough, the result would be the larger alliances in the game turning against one another, which would definately make the game more interesting and reduce stagnation. The trick would be making the scarce resource desirable in some way without giving those who own it a huge advantage. What if we were to make it so that i couldn't be uncovered by spying on the nation receiving the aid but rather by spying on the nation that's giving it. That way in order to discover who was aiding your enemies you'd either have to infiltrate their alliance and see who sends you aid or you would have to do general sweeps which could cause some major conflict due to trust issues.-Veritas Using spy operations, a nation should be able to uncover secret aid transactions of a nation, both sent and recieved, at a moderately large cost. The way to make secret aid work in CN is to give the nation some sort of penalty. For instance, you don't get a +1 happiness bonus when trading in secret, why not cut the amount of aid you can send in secret? Just tick a box to decide if you want to aid in secret, with the penalty of only being able to send $1.5 or $2 Mil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlas Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 Very good thread and useful for moderation. Edit: But please, if you have game improving suggestions. Suggest them in the suggestion box. We're not mind readers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Litler Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 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. How exactly is this going to come about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Specific Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 How exactly is this going to come about? If you translate his remarks to this OOC realm, my perception is he is reminding us that this is a game of politics where relationship building is far more important than any game mechanics. Players do not need to have the most infrastructure and tech to make a difference here. Appeals for changing game-play mechanics miss that reality. Infra, land, tech, nukes and such are nice to parade and compare in alliance stats, but, on their own, they mean nothing if you lack the political ability to use or defend them. I also realize you are asking another question: how would someone like a Sponge or a Cow bring or challenge such a degree of political change, which are answers I doubt anyone would answer here in any detail. But the answer is the same way such changes have always happened here, through IC and OOC relationship building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vicea Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 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. I know you don't speak for Vox Populi, but I would be very dissapointed if you truly believe what you just said. Basicly the plan is to remove one regime to simply replace it with a regime that uses the same means vox is always saying it fights againsts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prodigal Moon Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 (edited) I've seen a couple people mention that resource scarcity could end up just reinforcing the hegemony, and to an extent I think that's true. But I think it's a bit more complicated than that: If one alliance or bloc obtained all of the resource, the incentive for the rest of the world would be to reclaim it, not sign for MDP's with those in power and ensure that the deprived alliances will continue to decline. If one group is able to get all of the resource and then effectively hold off the rest of the world from taking it back by force, then they absolutely deserve to "win" the game. The point is that the rest of the world would have an incentive to fight rather than take the "I'm safe so why should I stick my neck out" approach that we have now. Or, the resource could be made to be tradeable but never completely transferable. So the Orange team could have enough Adamantium for 1000 nations, which certain Orange alliances could farm out to other alliances for money and protection, but that deal could be used for political leverage (as with oil IRL), as those in power could never directly possess the resource. Zambaman's got a great idea too, of having the resources be dynamic and/or event-related. Imagine if 500 random nations on your trading sphere suddenly got a bonus resource similar to marble, except nations could be booted off of colors (or just threatened off). That might be worth going to war over. Edit: Also, ooc-speaking: great speech, Sponge. Edited March 1, 2009 by Prodigal Moon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muffasamini Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 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. No. Secret aid would be a terrible idea. Yea, sure, it would hurt the NPO because guerrilla groups could be funded. But it would make large alliances no longer accountable for their actions. Why fight a costly war yourself when you can fund proxy wars with no one knowing? Helping the little guy does not help a game! It has to be balanced. For instance, tech scarcity is great, because how cheap tech is for young nations is balanced by old nations desire for it. Forcing alliances to be held accountable (like having trading public) keeps inter-alliance conflicts real, and game changing. Furthermore, enemies need to be able to be crushed. Trust me, use NS as an example, if war has no meaning, things cant change, and change is what your after. Once again, just trying to overthrow the NPO is not really what your looking for, and beware to not use long term harmful practices to achieve short term goals I do like the idea of limited land. Wars are usually fought out of desire for limited resources. Hence, most of conflicts have roots in senate seats. Currently, land is an unlimited resource. What if land were treated like senate seats or tech? Just limiting land would simply give another advantage to big alliances. What if land got more and more expensive, not by the more you bought, but by how much land was owned in a color sphere total, would give small alliances in empty spheres lots of easy growth, while making larger dense alliance need to push out for more room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTTezla Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 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 think in this context, you've used the wrong example. Sure, people should train their hardest, but the problem might sometimes lie in the system. So, I present to you a couple of counter-examples. For example, when pitchers were too dominant in Major League Baseball, which made the game less interesting, they lowered the height of the pitching mound. The batters, with a new advantage and with a newfound ability to compete, drove in a lot more runs, and the net result was good for everyone. Especially the pitchers, considering their present salary. But that's beside the point. Similarly, in the NHL, when the Red Wings and their ilk were too dominant, they implemented a salary cap to make things more interesting and competitive. In the NFL, this was done through the draft and more importantly free agency. So while it's not necessarily the person/alliance on top to blame, if the system is unfairly helping them, it should be revised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Specific Posted March 1, 2009 Report Share Posted March 1, 2009 (edited) Taking a cue from Atlas and seeing this wander off into a suggestion box topic, the OP's question is: Do long term empires destroy the game? I say no, just as I did on the first page and the reason is simple and only a few players like that demon Sponge seem to get it so far. The more we jibber jabber about how to even the playing field in game mechanics, the more we miss the greater point of this game. We love drama and we love wishing for big wars. But we hate fighting them mostly since we don't know what to do if we lose. Long term hegemonies do not harm the game since they give the hegemony something to defend on the forums and the hegemon(s)' opponents something to work towards fighting in the future. The problem is not many, except for a few like that Sponge guy everyone loves to hate, opine publicly that it is possible. Instead of taking on this game challenge in big wars, we see the vanquished throw their hands up in defeat and agree to pay outrageously ridiculous reparations just so some silly alliance name can survive. And then some pathetic sense of futility sets in where the defeated alliances ally with those who beat them and then they complain that the game is unbalanced. If anything, the defeated alliances who cannot suck up their pride and disband are the ones who are ruining the game. What I'd like to see in the next war aka beatdown is defeated alliances see that it makes more sense for them to disband and scatter their nations, rather than be taken in as another alliance pawn in "hegemon" training, not yet another cycle of some alliance agreeing to fund the growth of their enemy with reps and then later allying with them just to survive as a shell of their past self. And on that note, props to Umbrella Edited March 1, 2009 by General Specific Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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