RvR Diplomacy

[Gregory Rainsborough]

General suggestion

 

A lot of folks like diplomacy and others do not. It seems that a game like this should have some method that allows nations to formally become allies.

I'm not sure how it worked in the past as I'm aware there was a diplomacy system but I propose a different way of carrying out diplomacy which could be done by distribution votes by port ownership. @Ink has said that ports belong to clans (as decided in Grundgemunkey tribunal case) and not the nation so it seems sensible that clans should be able to steer diplomacy via the game mechanics, rather the hodgepodge mess that exists now.

Every week (when VMs are distributed) clans that control ports could cast a vote on the stance of their nation towards other nations. It could be set up using the Alternative Vote (AV) system rather than First Past The Post (FPTP).

 

Different alignments

• War (Attack* tag all vessels)
• Neutral (Attack just warships (not traders))
• Allies (Treated as though you were the same nation)

*Attack meaning tag

 

How it would work

Each clan would get one vote per port, so a clan with 5 ports gets 5 votes and a clan with 1 gets 1 and a clan with 0 gets 0.

Votes are distributed by the diplomats or clan leader and the switch, if any, happens at the end of the week. There should also be a tally which can be published in the same way Conquest Information is which shows the distribution of votes for each clan.

 

Example A

Let's say Clan A gets 7 votes and Clan B gets 3 votes. X is home nation and Y is opponent nation.

Clan A's (7 votes) first choice (FC) is war with Y so puts his 7 votes on war and does not use his second choice (SC).

Clan B (3 votes) wants to be allies with Y and puts his FC as Allies and their SC as neutral.

• War (7 FC votes)
• Neutral (3 SC votes)
• Allies (3 FC votes)

X stays* at war with Y.

*It should always be assumed in a case of a tie that there is war and all nations start at default at war.

 

Example B

Clan A (7 votes) still wants war with Y but is willing to go along with what the majority of his nation decides. A FC is war and SC is neutral.

Clan B (3 votes) still wants to be allies with Y and votes the same as he did previously. FC is allies, SC is neutral.

• War (7 FC votes)
• Neutral (10 SC votes)
• Allies (3 FC votes)

X is neutral with Y.

 

Pros

Creates meaningful RvR that allows any size clan to have their say, forces clans to talk to each other because if they don't they may not be able to do what they like without switching nations.

People who differ so much from the attitudes of the rest of the nation can always buy the DLC and bugger off. More money for devs

More content - We all know we like to go to capitals and with the upcoming changes that exclude the battle remaining open for other nations it'll increase the amount of traffic from some nations to others. So let's say the Dutch and French become allies, they're safe from each other which will increase trade between them by traders but it also gives raiders the opportunity to sink them. The most profitable routes that I know of either all start or end in enemy waters.

Incentivise all clans to get involved in RvR and provide some semblance of national unity (particularly across timezones).

Incentivise control of ports. There's currently no benefit to controlling the majority of ports, a vote is valuable.

 

Cons

There is a danger that the clans could create a permanent peace in theory BUT within this system it also allowed enemy nations to dictate the policies of other nations by interfering with who owns the port. I mean in theory one nation could conquer the map but it's unlikely lets face it.

Restricts the raiding opportunities of raiders. Nations can dictate to other clans. To solve this you could always exclude clanless people from these RvR agreements (which could in turn mean that people en masse become clanless so you'd have to put restrictions in in turn so they couldn't hop in and out constantly).

The return of mass alliances is always a worry but as with Russia, a counter will probably arise at some point.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Gregory Rainsborough

[z4ys]

Your suggestion is almsot the same as the alliance system before.

Biggest clans (before by player numbers) now by (ports) decide what the "hole" nation has to do. It was bad and it will still be bad

[Gregory Rainsborough]

Why not exclude pirates from voting at all? Then those who don't want to RP in a Nation can be a pirate and be at war with everyone.

[Aster]

Or clans could just handle their own diplomacy.

[StaleMemes]

I'd like the game to be entirely clan based and have solo players working as pirates, privateers, or unaffiliated traders.

Heck ditch nations all together, just one starting nation for clans to recruit from.

Made a suggestion about it a while ago

[Christendom]

Get rid of most of the nations, create an "outlaw" or whatever faction that is entirely clan based.  Similar to the current impossible mode nations.  Friendly clans turn into alliances and you fight other clans and their friendly clans.  Problem solved  

All nations do in this game create a historical division between players. 

[Gregory Rainsborough]

Okay so a lot of people want to basically be free from national restraints like diplomacy. This could be a great opportunity to expand on that like @Christendom and some others want and provide the balance between those of us who want to play as a nation and others, who feel differently and want to play as clans. It's a balance between the two.

It's an ideal opportunity and reason to overhaul the pirates and create something unique about them. They're essentially pointless at this point and provide nothing meaningful.

Why not leave the system as it is now and apply the suggested system to every nation except the pirates? That way pirates could make alliances as they are currently. That way you get your clan alliances and everyone else gets the national approach. You could always develop the clan alliance system for the pirates so they could ally with particular clans and hell bring back outlaw mechanics back and remove their safezone. You could always triple the amount of income pirates get from ports or something or make them pay little for timers or something.

Providing an mechanism to switch to pirate as well that's not in the Forged Papers DLC, attacking your own nation makes you a pirate (as in the past) or attack a British AI or something....

Edited May 13, 2018 by Gregory Rainsborough

[Sento de Benimaclet]

5 hours ago, Christendom said:

Problem solved

the problem is solved with the return of the alliance of nations, since with it the current problem did not exist.

[z4ys]

We have no names on OW because people teamed up and did not fight each other. So why would alliances between clans/nations of different nations make the game better? In the end it will just be like before. Biggest clans team up because thats "easy" like ganking is easy.

Edited May 13, 2018 by z4ys

[Nelsons Barrel]

46 minutes ago, z4ys said:

We have no names on OW because people teamed up and did not fight each other. So why would alliances between clans/nations of different nations make the game better? In the end it will just be like before. Biggest clans team up because thats "easy" like ganking is easy.

That is happening anyways. A clan-based game would be much more fluid than the old east and west blocks we had.

[Kloothommel]

20 minutes ago, Nelsons Barrel said:

That is happening anyways. A clan-based game would be much more fluid than the old east and west blocks we had.

In clanbased games blocks come as well. Look at EVE with Goonswarm etc.

[Christendom]

People are going to block up regardless.  Look at the current France/Prussia/Dutch block.  It's gonna happen.  In the clan system maybe only WO and HAVOC will ally up instead of the entire dutch nation.  Sounds more fluid to me IMO.  The problem we have now is every clan has their friends and people they don't like and the politics behind it ruins nations.  GB is a good example of this.  They have been combat ineffective as a whole for the most part since the Global/EU split.  Multiple clans are at each others throats because of different play styles and allies.

Splitting the game up into clan based groups allows those players to play with who they want to and fight who they want.  Having a couple of starter nations will also allow players to fulfill their dream of being a brit captain, but then also let players duke it out RVR wise without bull crap inter-nation politics.    

So Lets say 3-4 Nations as starters.  GB, France, Spain  maybe US or Dutch.  What traditionally had heavy influence throughout the Caribbean.  Players start there and grind up.  Do some fleets, light PVP, maybe some light RVR against the other starter nations.  Then if the player wants to become more heavily involved in RVR they purchase a letter of marque, make a war clan and go conquer some ports.  They ally with whomever they want, fight who they want.  If they lose everything....well back to the starter nation with them.

Sounds like a cool dynamic to me.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Christendom

[z4ys]

25 minutes ago, Christendom said:

People are going to block up regardless.  Look at the current France/Prussia/Dutch block. ...

Sure people team up look Spain and Russia in their best time. But the difference between an in-game mechanic and player made alliances are trust. Trust can be lost in so many ways and player made alliances are therefore hard to maintain which is good. It allowes a fluid evolution of power. Sweden-> Russia -> "Prussia"-> Dutch 

While game mechanic alliances made it static west vs east.

The biggest fail of the old alliance system was to grant green status to alliance members. An alliance should have never given friendly status (green) to an enemy nation. It should always be yellow(indicates alliance) but has same rules like enemy (red).

When I look at national news then drama is what people are looking for. No drama possible with green enemies.

Alliances are the gank grps of RvR

[Christendom]

2 hours ago, z4ys said:

Sure people team up look Spain and Russia in their best time. But the difference between an in-game mechanic and player made alliances are trust. Trust can be lost in so many ways and player made alliances are therefore hard to maintain which is good. It allowes a fluid evolution of power. Sweden-> Russia -> "Prussia"-> Dutch 

While game mechanic alliances made it static west vs east.

The biggest fail of the old alliance system was to grant green status to alliance members. An alliance should have never given friendly status (green) to an enemy nation. It should always be yellow(indicates alliance) but has same rules like enemy (red).

When I look at national news then drama is what people are looking for. No drama possible with green enemies.

Alliances are the gank grps of RvR

An easy solution would be to limit the amount of clans in alliances.  

We already have alliance gank groups.  

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

I didn't mind the diplomatic system to let folks know the main views of a  nation.  I just didn't like the fact it locked out clans from fighting other nations.  I can see bring back the voting system for a nations view on what they should do, but don't make it where it forces them to only be able to attack one nation or another.  Just have it as a system folks can look at and see, "Hay we aren't freindly with the french by popular vote so we can go kill some french."  Or "Hmmm it's about even on views with the Spanish, screw it my clan is going to go kill Spain players."  Are you can just have the clan that attacks no one or every one.  Keep that as a clans choice.   That way newer players can look up the nation status with certain nations and kinda get a view of how the game is going.

[vazco]

Alliance system was tested and didn't work - it limited amount of RvR and it had issues with vote distribution (who should vote? Why should he have a power to limit how other people play the game?) 

Diplomacy between nations is too nuanced to be represented in game, it works better when it's done on TS. 

Diplomacy between clans is a different topic, but we don't have clan based system yet. 

Edited May 14, 2018 by vazco

[Fenris]

Yes to diplomacy in game, as long it isnt stupid button clicking, which we had.

[Hethwill]

Just now, Fenris said:

Yes to diplomacy in game, as long it isnt stupid button clicking, which we had.

Explain a better method that isn't a Animal Farm, where some animals are more than others.

Thank you.

[Fletch]

It was terrible and bored most people to death.

[Fenris]

3 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Explain a better method that isn't a Animal Farm, where some animals are more than others.

Thank you.

@Gregory Rainsborough `s suggestion might go into right direction. Blockbuilding was allowed with last feature, because mostly nations with biggest player base, could choose their prefered allies. Simple klicks on the button, made you feel often, you have allies, you actually don`t want to have....

Maybe few adjustments.....

1.If a nation can have ONLY 1 ally at the time, we could avoid blockbuilding . When a nation A with an ally declares war on nation B, no other nation can join the war, against those 2 nations, except their allies.

2. Casus Belli needed to declare war. "Nation A attacking permanently traders of nation B" , "port XY owned by nation XY within declared "capital protection zone", "nation XY has rank 1,2,3 in conquest", a task from Europe " a Letter from the King" , Campaigns etc...Therefore, GOALS need to be known AND DECLARED, to prevent endless wars, like during last coalition era.

When the GOAL is achieved, by 1 or another side, war ends within 24 hours.

3. When a war between 2 nations is over, for 1 week, no other nation can declare war on one of those, to allow them recovery from losses.

4. I see a problem having "neutral" status..Traders are protected, warships can attack eachother..Hmm...Might cause many issues. RVR screening? PVP?

5. What about pirates? Where do they fit in?

6.Add finally "Trade agreement"..Let traders sail around and generate MONEY for each side, and each port.

 

 

[Jake Newport]

You will also need to have a system of marque. I am thinking of where you can buy it for PvP marks in the admiralty and you receive a letter of marque for x amount of time so you can sail around and attack any ship ship except from you allies. This would also give content to people that want to do PvP 

I think only lord protectors should be able to vote on who is an ally or not. Might get more people into RvR and get protector status.

The purely clan based aliance system at the moment would not work as we can not see the name or clan tag in OW