How to address raiding

[nippy]

The also tend to leave the game afterwards and tell their friends that the game sucks, especially if the raiders are particularly vicious or rude (Remember the ZI game show).

And in the end CN is poorer by one player and also loses an unknown number of potential new players from negative word of mouth advertising.

I wonder what the real numbers are, and I wonder what the ratio of 'people who have left due to being raided' is in comparison to 'people who have left because they're bored'. Not everybody likes to include themselves in the politics game. It takes a certain personality to be successful at it. What you anti-techraid people are proposing is that every single player of this game refrain from using the war system (that was intentionally coded in as a feature of the game) until they're ordered by one of the politicians of their alliance to use it. But wait, they'd have to be in an alliance for that to happen (something we've been suggesting throughout this entire thread). If they're not in an alliance, I suppose they can choose to go to war on their own, right? No, that would just make them a 'rogue', which will result in someone posting a whiny thread about how they're being attacked by some unaligned in their forums, which will result in the 'rogue' being jumped on by three more nations (which is perfectly acceptable for all you anti-techraid supporters, isn't it?). End result of such an occurrence? The 'rogue' either quits (ZI is boring, no matter what anyone says), or joins an alliance.

[Dochartaigh]

I wonder what the real numbers are, and I wonder what the ratio of 'people who have left due to being raided' is in comparison to 'people who have left because they're bored'. Not everybody likes to include themselves in the politics game. It takes a certain personality to be successful at it. What you anti-techraid people are proposing is that every single player of this game refrain from using the war system (that was intentionally coded in as a feature of the game) until they're ordered by one of the politicians of their alliance to use it. But wait, they'd have to be in an alliance for that to happen (something we've been suggesting throughout this entire thread). If they're not in an alliance, I suppose they can choose to go to war on their own, right? No, that would just make them a 'rogue', which will result in someone posting a whiny thread about how they're being attacked by some unaligned in their forums, which will result in the 'rogue' being jumped on by three more nations (which is perfectly acceptable for all you anti-techraid supporters, isn't it?). End result of such an occurrence? The 'rogue' either quits (ZI is boring, no matter what anyone says), or joins an alliance.

thank you. i knew i forgot yet one more massive flaw in the anti-raider argument.

[Prime minister Johns]

So do you, too, feel that the worth of a raiding nation is less than that of a non-raiding nation? I've encountered that opinion several times in this thread so far, but I have yet to understand how such a conclusion can be reached.

No, I do not feel that the either raider or the raided nation is inherently more valuable than each other. And the loss of either makes the game poorer, but if a nation chooses to raid then they can at least be sportsman like about it, and not run to their alliance when they have bitten off more than they can chew and then have their entire alliance keep attacking the raided nation until it deletes. I have seen this happen all too many times and it sickens me.

If a nation wishes to raid then at least its ruler should have the testicular fortitude to take the good with the bad and sometimes a raided nation will choose to fight back rather than negotiate and be more effective at fighting than the raider had anticipated and in this case the raider should take their lumps, learn the lesson and live with it.

I remember when it was the norm for tech raids to only done on nations that had 20 days of inactivity, because it was reasoned that the nation would auto delete and the tech would not be missed since the ruler of that nation was obviously not returning. Whatever happened to this kind of raid?

Tl;dr: Raid if you wish but don't be a bully or a coward when you do it.

Edited December 24, 2009 by Prime minister Johns

[nippy]

I remember when it was the norm for tech raids to only done on nations that had 20 days of inactivity, because it was reasoned that the nation would auto delete and the tech would not be missed since the ruler of that nation was obviously not returning. Whatever happened to this kind of raid?

Quite simple. For some reason, nations attacked after a certain number of days of inactivity (16 days, if I remember correctly) provide no spoils. All ground attacks result in 'your soldiers have destroyed such and such amount of tech, land, and money'. I agree, if things weren't like this, people would be more apt to raid inactive nations...but we're being forced to raid active nations now.

e: forgot a quotation mark.

Edited December 24, 2009 by nippy

[Fallen Fool]

In regards to the NPO/RPC: It is my belief that the Revenge Doctrine was canceled for two reasons. 1. It was a policy that the NPO maintained on the authority of their immense power and domination of the red team. Removing the signs of their power reduces their prestige and effectively knocks them back a bit. And 2. A large amount of Karma are/were tech raiders. Simply put, by removing the ban on raiding red, they opened up new raiding markets.

I think most people can accept that I haven't been a big supporter of the NPO for a few years now, but even I liked their protection of red. I viewed it as payback for their age-old stranglehold on the color sphere.

RPC was pretty awesome, at least when NPO wasn't using it as a smoke screen to further their own political agenda.

The people who wish to take this freedom away from tech raiders and have them act within stupid restrictions simply because a few windbags like the NpO constantly decry tech raiding should find something better to do.

This is the first topic relating solely to tech raiding I've seen in ages. So yeah, not really sure where you get off claiming that NpO, or any other alliance, is constantly decrying tech raiding.

[RandomInterrupt]

So your only justification is one of the very things that you accuse tech raiders of being guilty of?

I don't understand this answer. Earlier you were patting yourself on the back for your work with the UJW, "some of my best work," because through force you were able to impose your view of morality on the world. Yet you believe that might does not make right when it comes to the tech raider; that is, you disagree with the idea that if he can get away with it, he should be able to get away with it.

You seem to have hypocritical opinions regarding your own use of force compared with tech raiders' use of force. Both of you would argue that you're doing it for an acceptable end and that use of force is moral. You are even worse than the tech raiders because you bragged about the people that you helped into a state of EZI, PERMANENTLY ruining the game for them, while the tech raider merely sets an unaligned nation back a couple of days worth of growth.

So does might make right, or doesn't it?

I would recommend re-reading the OP. Specifically section 2.

There's another side to that argument and it goes like: Without raiding, many older nations would leave the game. Would you rather have older, more firmly established nations kicking around and raiding, while maybe chasing away the errant nation here or there, or many of those older nations leave in favor of newer folks who might stick around just long enough to figure out that the only truly fun part of the single-player, non political aspect of the game (the war function) has been utterly neutered by an MADP web the size of my ex's rear and the nanny-state of raid-haters?

Personally I would err in favor of fun and personal choice, but that's just me, and I try not to concern myself with controlling the actions of others.

I would rather have new blood than old blood that can only enjoy the game by attacking innocent people.

[nippy]

I would rather have new blood than old blood that can only enjoy the game by attacking innocent people.

way to side-step around my post.

[TheNakedJimbo]

Fixed that for you. Tech raiding is equivalent to war with no CB, which basically every alliance opposes on an alliance scale.

Sorry, but you really didn't fix anything. All you really did was render a moral judgment that tech raiding is an insufficient casus belli. And again I ask, to what standard of morality do you appeal to suggest that your opinion is the only right one, or even more correct than the opposite view?

If you oppose war purely for profit, do you support tech raiding which is done as war practice, since in that case it is not purely for profit?

And how exactly did you come up with the silly and arbitrary idea that war for profit is less acceptable than war as a method of bullying another alliance, "casus belli" or no? You just introduced this idea that war for profit is always wrong while other kinds of war may not be, with no logical or moral explanation whatsoever, just asserted them as if they were facts. Explain yourself.

Edited December 24, 2009 by TheNakedJimbo

[Mergerberger II]

Tech raiding is fine, people should stop getting their panties in a twist over it.

Who gives you the moral authority over the rest of us? Don't come in here like you're the almighty and your word shall be law among us mere mortals.

Every nation has the option to join an alliance for protection or defend themselves alone, it is their own decision. Likewise every nation has the option to tech raid and enjoy war or focus on building their nation solely on their own merit. It's called freedom, the freedom to be protected or stand alone, the freedom to attack or do nothing.

Now you're going to throw freedom at me? Maybe people want the freedom of life? And they don't want an alliance? They don't like the way alliances are run and instead they want to be a neutral party, they want to discard all alliances and alliance politics? What about them? I have known quite a few people who were fed up will alliances and instead decided to go it alone, without an alliance. Alliances aren't the paradigm of morality on this planet *scoff*. If they were, why would we have wars like the Karma war, where morality was 90% of the CB? Why would people decry Pacifica for her actions? Alliances aren't perfect, and maybe instead of being a part of something imperfect, a nation would rather be independent, what of them? Because of their decision that they don't like alliances they should be raided? What gives you the right?

Also don't bring freedom into this. Arguments where people bring in things like freedom and liberty are often terrible ones. Those points are exhausted and using them as reasons for any sort of argument or debate really brings your point down. Saying that other people are taking away freedom is really low. Saying that people like Polaris are against freedom is really, really low. We're not. We'd just rather that the unaligned be given their own right to life, instead of having it taken away by someone in an alliance.

The people who wish to take this freedom away from tech raiders and have them act within stupid restrictions simply because a few windbags like the NpO constantly decry tech raiding should find something better to do.

I don't know why you've brought Polaris into this. We're against tech raiding, but we're not constantly whining about how tech raiding should stop. This is the first thread on this topic I've seen in awhile, like Fallen said.

Tech raiding has no negative impacts on the planet, the negative impact of taking freedom away from the tech raiders certainly does, people get bored and leave.

Yeah, that is what this entire debate is about, so how about you actually address the points that the anti-raiding folk are bringing up and stop insulting the people you disagree with.

Edited December 24, 2009 by Mergerberger II

[Bob Janova]

'Freedom' is a terrible argument to take. That's like saying that thieves should be allowed to steal because otherwise you're restricting their freedom. Freedom only goes as far as where you're interfering with someone else's, and attacking their nation is the single biggest interference possible in this game. You are interfering with people's freedom to play the game – having everything you build destroyed when you have more than 10 land or tech is not playing the game. This is not just an IC political 'morality', it is to do with being able to play the game.

as for the whole changing the game so that unaligned do not take as much damage [huge straw man argument]

That wasn't what I was suggesting. I don't have a fleshed out suggestion, but the problem is that getting all your stuff smashed is not fun, and a lot of people would clearly throw a fit if they weren't allowed to smash new players' stuff, so we need to make changes that stop having your stuff smashed be so unfun.

also, i still have yet to see proof from anyone that people leave due to be raiding

Almost by definition, the people who have left due to being raided in their early days and decided that the game is not worth playing have not made contact with any of us who post here. People who leave the game typically don't leave a reason, apart from high profile players. This isn't quite up with asking for proof of who made a post on /b/, but it's close.

Sorry, but you really didn't fix anything. All you really did was render a moral judgment that tech raiding is an insufficient casus belli. And again I ask, to what standard of morality do you appeal to suggest that your opinion is the only right one, or even more correct than the opposite view?

You were suggesting that to oppose tech raiding and not other wars is hypocritical, because they're equivalent. I was pointing out that that isn't true. The reason that tech raiding is bad OOC (which is where we are) is because it almost certainly causes new entrants to CN to decide it's a bad game and leave. Alliance wars are generally thought to be fun by all (see the whinging about long periods of peace), they are part of the political system which we have all developed in order to enjoy the game and they are not so frequent that you cannot play the game. Tech raids are almost never fun for the victim (apart from a few high level quitters who get to fire some nukes and get casualties), they are not part of a political metagame that the victim has consented to be a part of and they are basically end to end if you are unaligned.

But once again you are missing my main point, which is not that 'zomg raiding is evil' but that the game needs to be modified so that it is not so unfun to be raided, or alternatively it is much easier to protect yourself from being raided.

[Dochartaigh]

'Freedom' is a terrible argument to take. That's like saying that thieves should be allowed to steal because otherwise you're restricting their freedom. Freedom only goes as far as where you're interfering with someone else's, and attacking their nation is the single biggest interference possible in this game. You are interfering with people's freedom to play the game – having everything you build destroyed when you have more than 10 land or tech is not playing the game. This is not just an IC political 'morality', it is to do with being able to play the game.

the issue though is you are restricting those who wish to raid, thus bringing freedom squarely into the argument. you are indirectly affecting my sovereignty and attempting to directly affect the way i play this game. so i am not entirely sure, why it is ok for ya'll to use this argument and not for us?

That wasn't what I was suggesting. I don't have a fleshed out suggestion, but the problem is that getting all your stuff smashed is not fun, and a lot of people would clearly throw a fit if they weren't allowed to smash new players' stuff, so we need to make changes that stop having your stuff smashed be so unfun.

how was what i said a straw man argument? you stated that the mechanics for gameplay should make it where raiders do less damage. there is no way whatsoever to single out raiders from alliance members hitting a rogue nation under the AA none. thus, your change will have a huge impact on what damage can be done to rogues under the AA of none. do not attempt to state it is a straw man in the least.

Almost by definition, the people who have left due to being raided in their early days and decided that the game is not worth playing have not made contact with any of us who post here. People who leave the game typically don't leave a reason, apart from high profile players. This isn't quite up with asking for proof of who made a post on /b/, but it's close.

so you admit that you have no clue whether what you say is actually factual or a lie? thus, it is entirely conjecture and opinion based and cannot be a true argument as you have no evidence to back up what your claims. thus, you cannot even attempt to claim it as factual if you have no evidence to support it. does not work that way.

You were suggesting that to oppose tech raiding and not other wars is hypocritical, because they're equivalent. I was pointing out that that isn't true. The reason that tech raiding is bad OOC (which is where we are) is because it almost certainly causes new entrants to CN to decide it's a bad game and leave. Alliance wars are generally thought to be fun by all (see the whinging about long periods of peace), they are part of the political system which we have all developed in order to enjoy the game and they are not so frequent that you cannot play the game. Tech raids are almost never fun for the victim (apart from a few high level quitters who get to fire some nukes and get casualties), they are not part of a political metagame that the victim has consented to be a part of and they are basically end to end if you are unaligned.

i suggest that until you get evidence to support your claims, the use of the "it forces people to leave the game" argument should cease. also, not all alliance wars are thought to be fun. i remember quite a few people complaining about curbstomps and what not, so the claim that alliances wars are generally thought to be fun by all is also false as i know there was quite a bit of whining over curbstomps. (see all the "forced" disbandments of alliances do to curbstomps/lack of terms/joke terms) as for the political metagame- this is also a war game thus, to superimpose one aspect of the game over another is ridiculous. your style of gameplay does not supersede my own and quite frankly, until admin takes the war aspect out completely, never will supersede my style of gameplay.

But once again you are missing my main point, which is not that 'zomg raiding is evil' but that the game needs to be modified so that it is not so unfun to be raided, or alternatively it is much easier to protect yourself from being raided.

again, this modification will also make it much more difficult to deal with rogues and will end up ruining the game for those who are now hit by super-rogues who have a much easier time protecting themselves simply because their AA is set to none. again, i do understand where you are coming from, but your suggestion will inevitably impact the game in other areas and make it much less fun for others who will almost assuredly become victims of your suggestion.

[Bob Janova]

Sigh. You are taking your mistake and running with it. I never said anything about the AA of None being given special treatment. It's not worth trying to debate seriously with you when you're in this mood.

[nippy]

Sigh. You are taking your mistake and running with it. I never said anything about the AA of None being given special treatment. It's not worth trying to debate seriously with you when you're in this mood.

...but Bob...you yourself said that the people that were techraided and left haven't made contact with any of us who post here. How does one know why someone left without being contacted?

[Dochartaigh]

Sigh. You are taking your mistake and running with it. I never said anything about the AA of None being given special treatment. It's not worth trying to debate seriously with you when you're in this mood.

ok. you were talking bout tech-raiding, which the majority is done to the AA of none.

So the game itself should make sure that those players don't lose so much they don't find things fun any more when they meet one of the 'thugs'.

Tech raiding is immoral ... as part of the game politics. Here, if it's damaging to the game, we should be talking about game design decisions to make it less damaging or harder to do.

That wasn't what I was suggesting. I don't have a fleshed out suggestion, but the problem is that getting all your stuff smashed is not fun, and a lot of people would clearly throw a fit if they weren't allowed to smash new players' stuff, so we need to make changes that stop having your stuff smashed be so unfun.

But once again you are missing my main point, which is not that 'zomg raiding is evil' but that the game needs to be modified so that it is not so unfun to be raided, or alternatively it is much easier to protect yourself from being raided.

so where is my mistake? you were talking about raiding being made less fun. aiight fine, since you never stated it specifically for the AA of none, we now have the grievous error of it being made harder to destroy infra and what not for everyone. which means that while people will not lose as much, alliance wars will be made longer as it will take longer for one side to be destroyed enough for the other to be sure of victory. which means that i bet the moment it becomes a curbstomp, it will be that much harder for the underdog to fight back since it will be harder for them to damage their opponent. which means the underdog will actually just end up being even more stomped on than already occurs.

either way it goes Bob, this idea is just horrible and will only guarantee in doing the exact opposite of what you want. since raiders will not enjoy the game as much and those being curbstomped will most assuredly not enjoy it and thus, more people leave versus the few you gain who stay.

[Bob Janova]

we now have the grievous error of it being made harder to destroy infra and what not for everyone

Hey look, you're inventing stuff again! Sorry to be snide, but it is getting annoying seeing walls of text devoted to shooting down things I never said in order to defend your 'right' to grief other players. If infra, tech and land were much harder to destroy under say 200, 40 and 100, that would stop new players getting a really bad introduction without affecting alliance wars. Hell, making nations invincible under 1000 NS would work, too.

How does one know why someone left without being contacted?

First, I'm not sure why you quoted what you did, since that wasn't anything to do with your question . But you're right, we can't (either way). However, we can make reasonable guesses, based on what would make a game not be fun in the early stages, when you haven't understood about the politics and the community. And having all your stuff repeatedly smashed by much larger and well connected nations would certainly do that. People say 'just join an alliance', and I agree that more integration of the alliance system (so they don't have to sign up on an offsite forum, get IRC and so on to join one) would help, but they aren't seeing things from a new player's perspective. The array of alliances in CN is bewildering, it's hard to find information on what they are and what they stand for without signing up on their offsites and you can't join most of them without going through an academy.

[Dochartaigh]

Hey look, you're inventing stuff again! Sorry to be snide, but it is getting annoying seeing walls of text devoted to shooting down things I never said in order to defend your 'right' to grief other players. If infra, tech and land were much harder to destroy under say 200, 40 and 100, that would stop new players getting a really bad introduction without affecting alliance wars. Hell, making nations invincible under 1000 NS would work, too.

hey look, i am simply going off of what you said. you gave some sort of pseudo suggestion about protecting raid victims or making it less fun by making it harder to destroy stuff or whatnot. so i am simply expanding on your ideas since you failed to even do that much as you stated. so yes, i am inventing stuff but using your ideas as a basis. the one issue that you seem to fail to grasp, and only harp on the fact that i am expanding your ideas in a snide way, is that whatever you are trying to suggest will not work for just raid victims ever. there is simply no way to do as such and thus, it will work for either some select group (like none AA) or for everyone. there is simply no way to code it to work for only raid victims and have that be it. i guess it could be coded to work for nations under a certain age but then we have to consider people who may reroll a small nation during a war just to have whatever advantage you want to give young nations.

any way you wish to put it, the point i am getting at is simple, whatever you suggestion could very well be abused horribly and make it less fun for others. so how about you actually read what i write and consider what i say instead of just going "zomg, i did not say that completely, i just came up with some half-thought out idea and spouted it out in rather vague terms in order to have something that will help some group of people as of yet undetermined." because i made the same point in both and that regardless of which group or age or whatever, you are attempting to give an advantage to some select individuals that could be abused against others.

and you do realize that all of those are already harder to destroy under a certain level. shoot, in TE, when someone was around 100-200 infra i had 5 lvl 5 bombers and half the time i was destroying under 1.00 infra and the other half it was maybe 1.00 to 2.00. so that already exists, i understand you may not have been at that range in quite some time, but except for things like CMs and nukes- it already scales down some. otherwise if you get 3v1 on someone who is 200 infra, you could potentially destroy all their in 10 GAs total. and iirc that does not happen all that often if ever.

[TheNakedJimbo]

Tech raids are almost never fun for the victim (apart from a few high level quitters who get to fire some nukes and get casualties), they are not part of a political metagame that the victim has consented to be a part of and they are basically end to end if you are unaligned.

Has he really not consented to be a part of it? Knowing that the (very simple) solution is to join an alliance, and having dozens or hundreds of alliances mass-mail him the moment he creates his nation, he can hardly claim that he is ignorant of what goes on. By choosing to remain unaligned, and being completely aware of the consequences, how can you argue that he does not consent to the consequences of his actions? If he desired different consequences, wouldn't he take the very simple step which could prevent him from ever being tech-raided at all?

I don't want to fight a bogus war over a questionable casus belli, but I am in GOONS, so I know this will probably happen eventually. If I really didn't want to fight that war, I would join a different alliance. By staying where I am, I am consenting to the consequences of my choice. Every choice has consequences. The consequences of remaining unaligned include tech raiding. How can you argue that the victim is not in control of his own destiny here?

You and the others are terrible. "Oh, you can't say that everyone has to join an alliance; you can't make them play the game a certain way!" "Oh, you can't tell us to play in peace mode, that's no fun!" "Oh, you can't ban people from tech raiding; you can't make them play a certain way!" Wait, that last sentence is what you would say if you had an ounce of integrity or logical consistency. Since you don't, you leave it out and make me say it instead.

[nippy]

First, I'm not sure why you quoted what you did, since that wasn't anything to do with your question .

I apparently quoted the wrong thing. It was late.

Edited December 25, 2009 by nippy

[The Peaceful One]

As someone who raids, I agree with your retaliation argument. When your target fights back, it sort of pulls you off your high horse. But many raiders would just get mad and fight harder to "protect thier honor" (honor, in a computer game? Geeks.). Then it becomes a full scale war, alliances get involved, then other alliances get involved. In short, !@#$ hits the fan. So I would say go hide while people like us take what we need .

[nippy]

As someone who raids, I agree with your retaliation argument. When your target fights back, it sort of pulls you off your high horse. But many raiders would just get mad and fight harder to "protect thier honor" (honor, in a computer game? Geeks.). Then it becomes a full scale war, alliances get involved, then other alliances get involved. In short, !@#$ hits the fan. So I would say go hide while people like us take what we need .

Oh, this will settle well.

[Mistress Demona]

Also, is techrading really a problem in general or specific for the unaligned nations with more then, lets say, 2000 infra ?

We're over 30 members and over 100,000 NS, have a protectorate and a couple other treaties and still get occasional raids from people up to about 500 infra. In these cases, it is done entirely outside of their alliances rules so after a day or two of talking to the right people - we get reps or pile on to the attacker. I'd say this happens once every 3 months or so.

We push to get our new nations above 4,000 NS. That generally gets them out of the range of being attacked by other new people who don't know better.

When our statistics were outside of those generally accepted by alliances as "off limits" - we'd get "tech raided" weekly and I couldn't tell any difference based on infra. There was some based on military strength and also the level of tech.

Small alliances and non-aligned

1) keep your military strong

2) keep your tech low (5-15)

Edited December 25, 2009 by Mistress Demona

[nippy]

We're over 30 members and over 100,000 NS, have a protectorate and a couple other treaties and still get occasional raids from people up to about 500 infra. In these cases, it is done entirely outside of their alliances rules so after a day or two of talking to the right people - we get reps or pile on to the attacker. I'd say this happens once every 3 months or so.

We push to get our new nations above 4,000 NS. That generally gets them out of the range of being attacked by other new people who don't know better.

When our statistics were outside of those generally accepted by alliances as "off limits" - we'd get "tech raided" weekly and I couldn't tell any difference based on infra. There was some based on military strength and also the level of tech.

Small alliances and non-aligned

1) keep your military strong

2) keep your tech low (5-15)

Are you guys not interested in becoming a protectorate of a larger alliance, or at least getting treatied to another alliance of some notoriety?

[Sephiroth]

I'm not a fan of tech raiding myself, although I see it as a non-issue. I was unaligned for a while after leaving FCC and never got raided, although I was ready to nuke whoever tried it. I have been raided before though and while I didn't like it, its not a big problem.

[ktarthan]

If a nation wishes to raid then at least its ruler should have the testicular fortitude to take the good with the bad and sometimes a raided nation will choose to fight back rather than negotiate and be more effective at fighting than the raider had anticipated and in this case the raider should take their lumps, learn the lesson and live with it.

I 100% agree with this. I don't know if anyone in this thread has even hinted that they disagree with this stance. However this isn't what we're discussing here; I'm sure it's more along the lines of "Should tech raiding be allowed at all?"

[Sephiroth]

I think someone needs to be ready to get nuked without getting his alliance to help him ZI the raided nation if they're going to do it. I also think people who raid should do it one on one unless the other nation receives backup somehow.