Faster Map Conquest

[Soeht]

This is meant to create an opportunity for discussion. This is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if others see the same thing.

My assertion is this: Map conquest is currently too slow.

To summarize my reasons:

• More planets claimed by major factions means new Writers can easily find a Major Faction to join and get involved in the site, increasing member retention
• If Dominioning large amounts of space take a shorter time to do so, people are less likely to act irrationally and emotionally if there's a situation that might make them lose all that territory.
• A fuller map leads to actual wars being roleplayed.
• Changing Rebellion rules will eliminate concerns that a full map prevents new Major Factions from being created.

An explanation:

Better member retention and entertainment.
A map from 2014 has nearly the entire map filled. Because of this, most Writers would be interested in joining a Major Faction and getting involved in the map game. This is because the planet of their character's origins would be under a Major Faction's sphere of influence, and Major Factions are the most visible factions on the board. A Nightsister immediately has an excuse to join the Mandalorians - or another Faction if they aim to remove Dathomir from Mandalorian influence.

For the current map, a Nightsister is in limbo on where she'd go and would have to actively search for a Witches faction or alternative option.

The benefits of this are immediately getting new Writers and Characters involved with a group. It's like getting someone in an MMORPG involved in a guild quickly - since this is a social game, the faster you can get in a social group the more likely that person will enjoy the game and stick around.

Less cost in time to paint map = Less sunk cost when losing Map territory
The current map can easily show how long it takes to gain territory. Every Hex completely filled could be assumed to be a month in time required to fill it. The Galactic Alliance has 14 hexes - so that could be at least 14 months of planning and doing Dominions to built up their territory. And it's close to that if the Feb 2016 map is any indication. With the right Invasion from the First Order, several months of work can be destroyed in the span of a couple weeks.

Because of this perception of a year of work disappearing in a couple weeks - especially for members that have been involved in the Faction for a long time - people may escalate irrational behavior and potentially harmful, unfun actions in order to maintain the Faction's territory.

In addition, filling the map from it being empty would require over 6-7 years of combined work under the current rules. Considering that a year along is very long in roleplaying terms, it makes filling up the map even with multiple factions a daunting task.

Less Space for Dominions leads to More Invasions and Rebellions
In my opinion, Dominions should be a tool to quickly fill up blank-space on the map. It would be similar to a colonization mechanic in a Grand Strategy game., In such games, colonization is very quick to perform once the means and location have been decided on. This is because there's little to no counterplay unless another player/nation is near the colonization site in such games.

But once the blank space has been filled, the rate of wars and conflict quickly ramp up. Star Wars is about galactic conflict and wars, so a Map game would ideally be set up to allow Invasions and Rebellions to be the main threads affecting the Map game.

The moments where there were lots of Invasions and wars on the site were those when the map was nearly full.

Rebellions could be retooled to allow for new Minor Factions to pop up almost anywhere
The biggest reason for why filling up the Map quickly is not desirable is that it prevents new Major Factions from appearing someone.

Rebellions could be retooled to allow for new Major Factions to get in one the Map game at the location they desired. Currently, a Rebellions can only be initiated via the target Major Faction's Dominion or if a Major Faction is recalled. Allowing conditions for a Minor Faction to initiate a Rebellion on nearly any planet would fix this.

 

[Marcus Itera]

[member="Soeht"]

Yes. Love it.

More conquest.

 

[Travis Caalgen]

An excellent proposal, I (and I assume the rest of the Imperial Remnant) will fully support this; Too much work goes into playing the map game, too much time that is wasted by the click of the button and a thread with an orange or red prefix.

[member="Soeht"]

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Soeht"]

Some good points have been made. I think it warrants further discussion.

 

[Tyberius Fel]

If it pleases the Blood God, it pleases me.

 

[Figure In White]

More invasions and rebellions is not necessarily a good thing, and wars aren't won in a day. Additionally this idea will leave no room for new factions, as a Rebellion must be won before a new faction can appear, and is unrealistic to the rise and fall of governments as a result.

Haste makes waste.

 

[Tefka]

There will always be room for improvement no matter what we change. A debate like this has its positives and negatives, and neither side is winning or losing.

The only way to get a winning idea out of this discussion is to hear what the community wants to do. So goes the people, so goes the Admins.



TL;DR: We're open to it and we can make it work, we just need to hear what you guys want.

 

[Kenrath]

Well I like the concept personally. The only issue I see is in initially execution.

What I liked about my early days of Chaos in 2014 was not only the nice filled map game as the link [member="Soeht"] shows but that there was multiple options for each character arch type for lack of a better way to put it. Want to be a largely good guy you have 2 or 3 faction options. Want to be a bad guy again 2 or 3 options. You want to be something in the middle..............yep got 3 or 4 different options for that too.

At the moment all we have is one good guy, one bad guy, and 2 or 3 options still trying to find their place in the spectrum. I think people have gotten too set in their ways recently to really try and push boundaries or step out of what has become the new normal.

 

[Placeholder 0128]

Starting from the beginning is kind of miserable if you're looking to expand to a decent size.

Unless you bang out tons of doms, the growth is very slow and can be stifling. It'd be pretty nice if we could expand more quickly, or perhaps get more for the work we do. It's difficult for new majors to keep from petering out because they lack the membership to grow at any significant rate.

I'm all for speeding up the process.

 

[Jsc]

Sure. Just be careful that Dominions don't become a remarkably quicker way to gain territory than engaging in a successful Invasion. Otherwise you'll find that winning an Invasion means you gain less territory than if you had just thrown all that time, people, and resources into two Doms instead.

2 cents.

 

[Kenrath]

Sure. Just be careful that Dominions don't become a remarkably quicker way to gain territory than engaging in a successful Invasion. Otherwise you'll find that winning an Invasion means you gain less territory than if you had just thrown all that time, people, and resources into two Doms instead.

2 cents.

A valid point/concern.

 

[Soeht]

More invasions and rebellions is not necessarily a good thing

What are some reasons for why Invasions and Rebellions aren't desirable? A lot of games are based on simulating war: Grand Strategy like EUIV or turn based strategy like Civ VI. All of the Star Wars movies are about war, so I'd imagine a lot of people are interested in the war aspect of the franchise.

So if aspects of this roleplaying game for simulating war aren't desirable, does that mean things need to change about them?

Additionally this idea will leave no room for new factions, as a Rebellion must be won before a new faction can appear,

If a Rebellion could be done nearly anywhere under certain conditions, what obstacles would prevent new Major Factions from appearing? Would it be fair to require new Major Factions to essentially win an Invasion off the bat to exist? What would it take for Rebellions to be fair if they aren't?

Just be careful that Dominions don't become a remarkably quicker way to gain territory than engaging in a successful Invasion.

Ideally, Invasions and Rebellions would then become the only way to expand the majority of the time. Again going back to the colonization example for video games: you can make colonization super quick just so that people start going to war faster. Colonization is less risky in games than war, so the way to promote war would be to take away colonization at the end game by having limited space.

The galactic map is limited - so if Dominions can fill up the map super quickly, then Invasions and Rebellions would start happening because that's the only other way to expand.

 

[Kurayami Bloodborn]

[member="Soeht"], I know I am in the minority in the sense that I tend to shy away from PvP, but for a writer like me it just doesn't hold much of a draw. I've written on multiple sites now for 9+ years and in my personal experience, when expansion became the focus of the game it really just devolved from a civil go between factions, to an absolutely ridiculous mess of godmoodding accusations at every turn and one faction absolutely steamrolling anyone they didn't like for any reason. The arms race on one board was so out of control that to stand a chance against a single 1600 meter ship you would need damn near an entire fleet.

So I would say that the system is fine as is and given some incentive could lead to more variety of major factions since the whole map wouldn't be controlled by only a few majors. Out of curiosity how would you try to involve those like myself who aren't fans of PvP but still wanted to help in some meaningful way were this adopted in some form?

 

[Tefka]

imo, the problem comes down between who likes pvp and who likes pve

PvEers gain something tangible, space on a map, for doing Doms.

PvPers can impose change tangibly by changing the map.

Both can do without, however. You can pvp just fine without invasions, and you can pve just fine without doms. I think one group accepts this easier than the other - PvEers can be content with all the content they have here on the forum to expand their minds and creativity..

PvPers don't get to experience "big wars with actual stakes" without Invasions/Rebellions.

However, people who lean more heavily towards PvP often come with more potential for toxicity and drawbacks than PvEers do, so from an Admin standpoint, it's always safer to expand PvE over PvP. Personally, I'm okay with pvp being slow. We've seen how the community got when rabid PvPers band together like in OS, TSE. OS's first rule of thumb was literally "we're not going to have a chat" because TSE's chat was so damn toxic. That small example hints at the bigger picture, and something I'm okay with not pushing to expand/giving more toys.

I'm always going to caution the community when it wants things faster. This is writing, not a videogame, not EU IV where everyone is your NPC to toy with. I have to worry about the environment that pushing for such changes would create in the future, and I know it very well, I've led it a dozen times past. It has the potential for entertainment, yes.

But there's a lot more to it than that.

However, so goes the community, so goes the Admins.

 

[Judas of Vahl]

I've written on multiple sites now for 9+ years and in my personal experience, when expansion became the focus of the game it really just devolved from a civil go between factions, to an absolutely ridiculous mess of godmoodding accusations at every turn and one faction absolutely steamrolling anyone they didn't like for any reason.

• There will always be conflict if people oppose each other. It's human nature to want to do things your way. Invasions and Rebellions here are somewhat civil and this site has been going strong for several years now, so the environment here is much more receptive and cooperative that many others I've seen.

The arms race on one board was so out of control that to stand a chance against a single 1600 meter ship you would need damn near an entire fleet.

• There are restrictions and limits in the Factory and Codex for a reason.

Out of curiosity how would you try to involve those like myself who aren't fans of PvP but still wanted to help in some meaningful way were this adopted in some form?

• Support roles. Combat isn't always about the soldier in the trenches.

 

[Soeht]

Out of curiosity how would you try to involve those like myself who aren't fans of PvP but still wanted to help in some meaningful way were this adopted in some form?

PVE elements for Map Game
The Map game is inherently PVP (even Dominions, but on a strategic level), so in my view it'd be like trying to add PVE features in a PVP server that affect PVP ladders. Hard to pull off fairly :\

But this does highlight an opportunity: how to create a feature of this roleplaying game that responds to changes in the Map game, but doesn't pit Writers' characters against each other. I think a lot of these will appear organically - people focusing on creating a "supply line" meta or subfactions. It's possible to set up PVE settings in Invasions via the negotiation of rules, too. What ideas do you think would work to integrate more PVE elements to the Map game?

---

Toxicity in the Map Game
And you bring up a valid concern: People being mad about losing the Map game. As I've stated in the lead, requiring less time investment for Map changes would reduced the perceived sunk cost in losing an Invasion/Rebellion. How bad would you feel for losing something that would take a couple weeks to take back versus something that's going to take several months to retake?

The more fluid and chaotic it is, the less likely people will feel attached enough to go apepoodoo when their faction loses an Invasion.

There's also elements of Invasions that are inherently frustrating and cost lots of time. The biggest of these is the pre-Invasion negotiation. There's no standard for what is a fair Invasion, so everyone has a different opinion. Some things are a deal breaker for Writers, while another Writer might see nothing wrong with this supposed deal breaker or might even see it as an integral part of Invasions.

To be frank, it's karking insane. I've made a suggestion for changing this before. [member="Tefka"] has a take on this too. This is the worst thing you'd have to do as Major Faction Admin besides babysitting people in a Discord chat (if you subject yourself to such barbaric torture).

And a lot of the toxicity also comes from gray areas that [member="Jay Scott Clark"] has pointed out. But that's outside the scope of the Map game and more about how does one write combat against another Writer's character in a fair manner.

 

[Darth Assimilus]

[member="Ignus"] Its a double edged sword.

[member="Kurayami Bloodborn"] Chaos is already like that though.

 

[Figure In White]

This entire topic basically tells factionset that are PvE centric they can't exist, and that if you don't participate in the map game then you are worthless to a faction.

In addition, the idea would make it impossible for minor factions to exist unless major factions are alright with them existing in their space. It's entirely unrealistic to think that the entire map should be controlled by major factions. He'll, my character wants to control the entire map. It's his driving force. But it's just unrealistic.

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

Worth noting:

The 2014 map that you put forward as the pinnacle of Major Faction activity? Was achieved using the current system.

There's nothing wrong with the system that we have, it's just that the push towards Major Factions, and the activity that went with them, died out as people got fed up of having their hard work stolen from them. And since people wanted to RP without the aggravation of troll factions attacking their territory, it often proved easier to go Minor than deal with the consequences. We're finally seeing a reversal in this trend, with Major Factions on the rise, so be patient: it'll happen again.

Such ebbs and flows are to be expected. It's not a reason to change the way the board has worked.

 

[Isamu Baelor]

Currently, a Rebellions can only be initiated via the target Major Faction's Dominion or if a Major Faction is recalled. Allowing conditions for a Minor Faction to initiate a Rebellion on nearly any planet would fix this.

This doesn't sound particularly fun. Just an added layer of stress to the map game. It could, and likely would, further push people away from Major Factions.

The current Rebellion system isn't great, and further skewing the power in the direction of minor faction's isn't the answer to fixing it.

As for quicker Dominions? Ehh. The factions that specialize in pumping out doms will explode, while the ones who don't, will lag behind really badly.