Feedback Hex Gains for factions that successfully defend from an Invasion?

[Mercy]

Since the inception of the board, invasions have always been skewed towards the invaders.

Both sides write their hearts out but only one side gets rewarded for a good showing.

If you invade and you win, you get the targeted hexes. If you lose, nothing changes materially and you can just try again.
If you defend and you lose, you lose the targeted hexes. If you win, you don't get anything out of it besides the status quo.

That's it. That's the situation.

Anything outside of that is just working around the margins. The idea that it is a reward to keep the territory you already had after two weeks of writing is silly and I don't think anyone actually seriously believes that is a reward. The idea that you can just counter-invade is true but besides the point.

At that point you once again need to write for two weeks just for a chance to win, when you had just won yesterday already.

The question is this: Why should a faction work tirelessly to write an amazing story, but only be rewarded for it with a tangible bonus, when they are on the attack?

As it stands on Chaos it is almost impossible to kill a major faction, unless the major faction decides themselves to go minor. So what happens is that when a faction wants to 'win' a war and really do not like the other side, they will just chain invade and keep throwing shit into the gears, until the other side is worn down and gives up.

That logic is the exact logic that enabled toxic groups and individuals in the past.

There is no cost to launching an invasion. You throw it up, you try it, either you win and keep going... or you lose and you can try again.

And why shouldn't there be a cost to launching an invasion? I keep seeing people bring up the point that it makes no sense ICly that if you successfully defend an invasion you get hexes out of it. I am not really sure why in a discussion about OOC rules to make the experience balanced, IC is pulled into it, when Chaos rules are never aimed at making 'IC sense'. It is always about balancing the OOC needs of the community with the OOC tension of keeping the experience dynamic and interesting.

Also, there have been numerous historical examples where an unsuccessful invasion resulted in the loss of territory of the invader, some of which they couldn't recover either. Check out the Second Balkan War, the Soviet annexation of Nazi territory after the Soviets repelled the Nazi invasion, and that was just a cursory glance. I am sure there are other examples. Launching an invasion takes investing effort, resources, time, manpower, and if you lose the invasion... you don't magically get all that back and you leave yourself open to your opponent. Who can take advantage of it as they have throughout history.

So I think this rule change is long overdo.

Right now the invasion system is unbalanced. I think it never claimed to be balanced, but overtime we have seen how that can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous parties.

This change makes it balanced.

You can invade whenever you want and if you win, you are golden. But now you actually have to consider if you want to incur the cost of an invasion and run the risk of losing hexes instead of only losing time. On top of that, it will actually motivate Major Factions who are on the defense, because now they too can actually have a win state that means something tangible for them.

As far as I am concerned, this change would turn invasions into a WIN-WIN situation, rather than a WIN-LOSE situation. Anyone can win something, anyone can lose something. I am pretty sure that is the definition of fairness.

 

[Ives]

A ted talk of my own with some points, in no particular order, and a conclusion:

More stakes are good. Both sides should stand to gain and lose. Defenders get nothing currently, while attackers stand to win it all. That's an asymmetry that favours only one side, which sucks. Agreed.

Precedent exists. One Invasion rule[1] and two Mandates[2, 3] already provide hex gain (or neutralization) to the defender on attacker loss.

Conflict is mechanically discouraged. Invasions are the primary way to make territory changes happen, adding greater risk to the attacker disincentivizes them from attacking. Invasions are already rare, time-intensive efforts. A change which only favours defenders risks making them even more scarce.

If launching an invasion willy-nilly gives a faction pause because there are now equal consequences, that reeks of storytelling insecurity to me.

If a community is not confident in the story they have to tell, compared to the people they want to write against, then that is a prime opportunity for them to work together and improve their skills.

1.) If equal consequences gives a faction reason to pause perhaps their narrative or faction identity isn't ready yet? I wouldn't say a skill issue, that's not fair, but perhaps the idea just needs more time to cook?

This is a fair point to raise. Attackers have the strategic advantage. "Wait until you're ready" is very good advice for the attacking side.

But this point rings hollow when judgement is an opaque, subjective process. This is a can of worms I do NOT want to open. I dodged that drama bullet on timing, and I'm hesitant to even include these lines for fear of being misconstrued in my meaning.

However, the subjective judgement part is important to name regardless of critique because this change interacts with invasions in an interesting way:

Higher stakes amplify existing problem points. Whatever problems currently exist in Invasions, greater stakes of territory loss amplify them. One aspect I named already is subjectivity in the judgement process. I am not saying this needs anything done. I only want to raise it as a natural consequence of amplifying stakes. The same goes for drama, perceived risk, etc. etc.

Faction size makes cost disproportionate. Small factions risk losing much more from this change than big established ones. One hex out of ten is a tenth of the cloud. One hex out of fifty is a rounding error. This goes double for scenarios where a faction loses an invasion and its concurrent counter-invasion. On the flip-side, small factions also stand to gain a lot, but I'd be careful around whether that's enough of a balancing factor.

---

Concluding, this change addresses an existing asymmetry (that should be addressed!), but it amplifies stakes which has more knock-on effects. Conflict through the invasion system becomes mechanically discouraged in a "meta" where invasions are already rare. Existing imbalances and issues (e.g. small vs big factions) become intensified because more hexes need to be staked. I like the idea of revamping defenders in the invasion system. I don't think this is the form it should take, however.

---

The mentioned rules and mandates:

[1] Capital Defence: "3. If a Major Faction successfully defends their Capital, the defending Major Faction may annex or nullify any one non-Capital hex that is adjacent to that Capital hex."
[2] Total War: "Weaknesses: If they lose the invasion they lose 6 Hexes of the winner's choosing. Can be used to cloud break."
[3] Techno Boom: follows a similar design philosophy, though the underlying mechanic isn't an invasion.

 

[Darth Kentarch]

These are just knee-jerk reactions to this fall's invasion season. Like all knee-jerk reactions, they never pan out or work as intended.

 

[Taiia Locke]

It’s certainly interesting. Though, as voiced by some and highlighted by Srina, this might cause a different type of OOC agitation. ‘Great, we invaded, the judges found against us and we just lost one of our hexes that wasn’t even involved! I quit the invasion game.’ Maybe people prefer a more docile map game.

On the other hand, is it for the attacking faction to offer up collateral? The adjoining hex etc. I guess us coming to understand what the outcome of the measure, and its intended fix, might be will lead us to find other solutions or, perhaps, more nuance in the proposal.

I would like to say that's hyperbolic. But it's entirely within the realm of possibility. Still, people will always have opinions like this, even when Staff isn't involved.

What if we added other rules to try to prevent inaction? Like major factions have to launch one invasion every three months? That might be a bad idea. I’m just thinking out loud here.

It might also be nice to have a discussion where people can just talk about what they want to see out of the map game. Then staff could better understand what the community vibe is?

Then you have another issue: invasions become routine tasks on a checklist, where people may not put as much effort into them. Risk/Reward, I think, is the better approach than punitive measures and adding another layer that needs to be tracked. My $.02.

To expand on or sidetrack Alric Kuhn 's idea, Srina Talon :

If both factions stand to lose hexes, it seems fair that both factions declare which hexes they want before the invasion thread commences. That way it's not an entirely unilateral buff.

Someone might have already suggested this but by god y'all post walls, and I'm not awake enough to read them yet.

---
I'm very hesitant to agree that attackers currently have all the advantages while defenders are left with nothing, but that's a point that needs more nuance than I can muster before coffee.

On the one hand, this makes sense; on the other hand, the defender, by virtue of being invaded, doesn't get to choose what's being invaded.

Since the inception of the board, invasions have always been skewed towards the invaders.

Both sides write their hearts out but only one side gets rewarded for a good showing.

If you invade and you win, you get the targeted hexes. If you lose, nothing changes materially and you can just try again.
If you defend and you lose, you lose the targeted hexes. If you win, you don't get anything out of it besides the status quo.

That's it. That's the situation.

Anything outside of that is just working around the margins. The idea that it is a reward to keep the territory you already had after two weeks of writing is silly and I don't think anyone actually seriously believes that is a reward. The idea that you can just counter-invade is true but besides the point.

At that point you once again need to write for two weeks just for a chance to win, when you had just won yesterday already.

The question is this: Why should a faction work tirelessly to write an amazing story, but only be rewarded for it with a tangible bonus, when they are on the attack?

As it stands on Chaos it is almost impossible to kill a major faction, unless the major faction decides themselves to go minor. So what happens is that when a faction wants to 'win' a war and really do not like the other side, they will just chain invade and keep throwing shit into the gears, until the other side is worn down and gives up.

That logic is the exact logic that enabled toxic groups and individuals in the past.

There is no cost to launching an invasion. You throw it up, you try it, either you win and keep going... or you lose and you can try again.

And why shouldn't there be a cost to launching an invasion? I keep seeing people bring up the point that it makes no sense ICly that if you successfully defend an invasion you get hexes out of it. I am not really sure why in a discussion about OOC rules to make the experience balanced, IC is pulled into it, when Chaos rules are never aimed at making 'IC sense'. It is always about balancing the OOC needs of the community with the OOC tension of keeping the experience dynamic and interesting.

Also, there have been numerous historical examples where an unsuccessful invasion resulted in the loss of territory of the invader, some of which they couldn't recover either. Check out the Second Balkan War, the Soviet annexation of Nazi territory after the Soviets repelled the Nazi invasion, and that was just a cursory glance. I am sure there are other examples. Launching an invasion takes investing effort, resources, time, manpower, and if you lose the invasion... you don't magically get all that back and you leave yourself open to your opponent. Who can take advantage of it as they have throughout history.

So I think this rule change is long overdo.

Right now the invasion system is unbalanced. I think it never claimed to be balanced, but overtime we have seen how that can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous parties.

This change makes it balanced.

You can invade whenever you want and if you win, you are golden. But now you actually have to consider if you want to incur the cost of an invasion and run the risk of losing hexes instead of only losing time. On top of that, it will actually motivate Major Factions who are on the defense, because now they too can actually have a win state that means something tangible for them.

As far as I am concerned, this change would turn invasions into a WIN-WIN situation, rather than a WIN-LOSE situation. Anyone can win something, anyone can lose something. I am pretty sure that is the definition of fairness.

10/10, no notes, couldn't have written it any better. Also, too much Ace Combat I saw Balkan as 'Belkan,' and I was like, oh shit, Mercy plays Ace Combat!? I need more coffee.

A ted talk of my own with some points, in no particular order, and a conclusion:

More stakes are good. Both sides should stand to gain and lose. Defenders get nothing currently, while attackers stand to win it all. That's an asymmetry that favours only one side, which sucks. Agreed.

Precedent exists. One Invasion rule[1] and two Mandates[2, 3] already provide hex gain (or neutralization) to the defender on attacker loss.

Conflict is mechanically discouraged. Invasions are the primary way to make territory changes happen, adding greater risk to the attacker disincentivizes them from attacking. Invasions are already rare, time-intensive efforts. A change which only favours defenders risks making them even more scarce.




This is a fair point to raise. Attackers have the strategic advantage. "Wait until you're ready" is very good advice for the attacking side.

But this point rings hollow when judgement is an opaque, subjective process. This is a can of worms I do NOT want to open. I dodged that drama bullet on timing, and I'm hesitant to even include these lines for fear of being misconstrued in my meaning.

However, the subjective judgement part is important to name regardless of critique because this change interacts with invasions in an interesting way:

Higher stakes amplify existing problem points. Whatever problems currently exist in Invasions, greater stakes of territory loss amplify them. One aspect I named already is subjectivity in the judgement process. I am not saying this needs anything done. I only want to raise it as a natural consequence of amplifying stakes. The same goes for drama, perceived risk, etc. etc.

Faction size makes cost disproportionate. Small factions risk losing much more from this change than big established ones. One hex out of ten is a tenth of the cloud. One hex out of fifty is a rounding error. This goes double for scenarios where a faction loses an invasion and its concurrent counter-invasion. On the flip-side, small factions also stand to gain a lot, but I'd be careful around whether that's enough of a balancing factor.

---

Concluding, this change addresses an existing asymmetry (that should be addressed!), but it amplifies stakes which has more knock-on effects. Conflict through the invasion system becomes mechanically discouraged in a "meta" where invasions are already rare. Existing imbalances and issues (e.g. small vs big factions) become intensified because more hexes need to be staked. I like the idea of revamping defenders in the invasion system. I don't think this is the form it should take, however.

---

The mentioned rules and mandates:

[1] Capital Defence: "3. If a Major Faction successfully defends their Capital, the defending Major Faction may annex or nullify any one non-Capital hex that is adjacent to that Capital hex."
[2] Total War: "Weaknesses: If they lose the invasion they lose 6 Hexes of the winner's choosing. Can be used to cloud break."
[3] Techno Boom: follows a similar design philosophy, though the underlying mechanic isn't an invasion.

I don't think defenders getting a reward for surviving an invasion harms attackers. Does it add risk to the attacker? Yes, all warfare is risk. One only goes to war when the risk is worth it, or there are no other options. You say the increased risk deters invasion, I think it makes them more impactful. You (the attacking faction) are essentially saying, under this proposed change, that we are willing to put our own territory on the line to go after this story/target and are committed to this course. I don't see any harm to invasions here other than commitment. If you are not committed, you should not be launching invasions.

 

[Alan]

In military terms, however, if people want to bring that up, attackers failing to secure an objective is the goal as the defending force. You win by denying the enemy their objective. They fail to secure their ground. That's the goal you're after.

Other people brought it up already, but writing that somehow by Faction A invading Faction B at X somehow means that Y and Z also are lost to them. The narrative would suck to write and would probably not be fun to write about it or even sensible at times.

Another thing:

Faction A before invasion: 10 hexes. One hex represents 10 percent.

Faction B has 4 hexes. One hex would effectively kill them entirely or set them back greatly. The loss wouldn't be proportional.

More consequences does not mean better roleplay or a better out-of-character experience for anyone. Infact, I think it would just amplify the issues we presently have and the attitudes people have about judgements and staff already. Why would I want to launch an invasion- an attack on an enemy, when I could just play patty-cake and do junction after junction or dominion after dominion? I don't think discouraging invasions is the answer, changing how we approach them and being less of dickheads to each other OOC is probably the safer answer. Or, just don't participate in the map game and back out if you don't wanna deal with it.

To me, the Major Faction map game is the critical component that has been driving roleplay for the last ten years. Changing that to making it to where there's less consequences doesn't sit right and would probably only suit people who don't wanna fight. Don't wanna fight or have to deal with invasions? Don't be a MF. That's probably a little bit aggressive or confrontational of a response, but really, this would probably solve nada and just have new problems.

Edit/Follow up:

There is a people problem with invasions, not the mechanics themselves.

 

[Ives]

the defender, by virtue of being invaded, doesn't get to choose what's being invaded.

That's a cost of being passive.

My goal with that proposal is to make stakes and consequences clear before any competition begins.

I don't think defenders getting a reward for surviving an invasion harms attackers. Does it add risk to the attacker? Yes, all warfare is risk. One only goes to war when the risk is worth it, or there are no other options. You say the increased risk deters invasion, I think it makes them more impactful. You (the attacking faction) are essentially saying, under this proposed change, that we are willing to put our own territory on the line to go after this story/target and are committed to this course. I don't see any harm to invasions here other than commitment. If you are not committed, you should not be launching invasions.

I agree with your point about commitment. I see participating in the map game as an explicit agreement that you are committed to gaining and losing territory. I see that as a given. Invading another faction already commits you to potential territorial loss through counter invasion.

I'm honestly also in favour of more hex loss/gain in general.

My concerns are not about the necessity of risk. They're about incentive.

There's a fine line between discouraging reckless aggression and discouraging all aggression. This rule change would effect the latter.

If the cost of invading goes up while its expected value diminishes, that makes it less appealing as an option. Hex loss when attacking encourages defensive strategies by making going on the offense more costly. Faction conflict with hex stakes behind it is already rare (only 6 invasions this year so far). My concern is whether this change won't push invasions to be even less prevalent as a system factions engage with.

I want more faction conflict. I want more change of territory. But greater risk to the attacker makes it more prohibitive to engage with, and makes invasions less appealing from a strategic point of view.

 

[Ives]

Mercy
This is a text medium, which makes addressing individual points a lot more natural. I'll be doing that, but I'm trying to keep from misconstruing your larger points. I didn't mean to, if it does happen.

The question is this: Why should a faction work tirelessly to write an amazing story, but only be rewarded for it with a tangible bonus, when they are on the attack?

This leaves the tangible gain through Dominions, Junctions, and Populates out of the discussion. These each provide hexes while giving a platform to faction writing. Their cost is much, MUCH lower than invasions while providing full hexes.

Big factions, with the current proposal, can absorb the type of hit an invasion loss incurs a lot better, while small factions are just left SoL.

Big factions beating on small factions is already disliked. The protection they gain is comparatively minor.

It suggests that small factions need to build up more before they can participate--

Hm. Actually. Actually.

That's not that bad of a consequence. Hex gain is cheap, so it's two or three months of activity, but I'm wary of whether this would engender passivity on a faction game level even more than the current system does. Plus, two to three months to build some kind of cloud is still a considerable amount of time.

Food for thought.

There is no cost to launching an invasion. You throw it up, you try it, either you win and keep going... or you lose and you can try again.

I disagree that there's no cost to launching an invasion. There are currently no rules consequences to losing one, but the cost is real. The OOC investment of time, effort, and posts is also required of an attacking faction, same as the defender. The attacker gets to choose the time and place, but beyond that, the same effort is asked of them as is asked of the defender.

Some kind of mechanism to stop low-effort invasion spam is absolutely a good move though. Factions should mean it when they invade.

And why shouldn't there be a cost to launching an invasion? I keep seeing people bring up the point that it makes no sense ICly that if you successfully defend an invasion you get hexes out of it. I am not really sure why in a discussion about OOC rules to make the experience balanced, IC is pulled into it, when Chaos rules are never aimed at making 'IC sense'. It is always about balancing the OOC needs of the community with the OOC tension of keeping the experience dynamic and interesting.

Also, there have been numerous historical examples where an unsuccessful invasion resulted in the loss of territory of the invader, some of which they couldn't recover either. Check out the Second Balkan War, the Soviet annexation of Nazi territory after the Soviets repelled the Nazi invasion, and that was just a cursory glance. I am sure there are other examples. Launching an invasion takes investing effort, resources, time, manpower, and if you lose the invasion... you don't magically get all that back and you leave yourself open to your opponent. Who can take advantage of it as they have throughout history.

I agree that IC reasoning doesn't make for a strong argument against this.

Dear: IC reasoning lovers

I love you, but get creative.

Yours,
S.

Right now the invasion system is unbalanced. I think it never claimed to be balanced, but overtime we have seen how that can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous parties.

This change makes it balanced.

You can invade whenever you want and if you win, you are golden. But now you actually have to consider if you want to incur the cost of an invasion and run the risk of losing hexes instead of only losing time. On top of that, it will actually motivate Major Factions who are on the defense, because now they too can actually have a win state that means something tangible for them.

As far as I am concerned, this change would turn invasions into a WIN-WIN situation, rather than a WIN-LOSE situation. Anyone can win something, anyone can lose something. I am pretty sure that is the definition of fairness.

I agree and disagree.

My last post put it succinctly, so I'll repeat the core idea.

Invasions are already a laborious, underutilized system. Factions don't do invasions often. Aside from the occasional gung ho outliers, there seems--from observation--to be a real barrier to entry.

This change would raise that barrier. It disincentivizes all aggression, rather than being a targeted change toward chain-invasions and burn-out wars.

I like the idea of more hexes flipping, which this would enable, but it mainly adds incentive to remain passive, while also disincentivizing proactivity on the map game. To me, that's the wrong approach to the issue of making defenses (or invasion in general, really but that's out of scope) more fun and meaningful.

---

Wow I really got it with the walls of texts today. Idk man, I love invasions and faction conflict. I wish we had more of it. I'm passionate on the topic.

 

[Khamul Kryze]

My big question is how would the defender gaining hexes make sense in terms of story? I can get behind the idea of giving the defenders something for successfully defending their territory, but in terms of story I'm failing to see how the logic works. I know we're talking about a rule OOC, but I always like to think of the IC implications of PvP. A defender gaining the same amount of hexes just doesn't make sense to me from that angle. I like the defender getting rewarded for their work, but I think it might need some more brainstorming.

 

[Mercy]

Ives - You're good, man, I appreciate your thoughts. I am gonna take a bit to consider your last two posts and if I have more thoughts I will reply again. But I do wanna come back to this point.

Invasions are already laborious, underutilized systems. Factions don't do invasions often, aside from the occasional gung ho outliers. There seems, from observation, to be a real barrier to entry.

I don't disagree that invasions are underutilized.

There was this thread that popped up a few weeks ago where a person went through the last two years and listed them all. I don't recall what the end number was and I can't look it up because it's gone now (for good reasons we don't need to get into right now), but I think it was something like... 20 invasions across two years.

So yeah, I agree, invasions are underutilized.

But even with that understanding, I still think this is the right move.

Because in my opinion, the reason invasions are underutilized has very little to do with the mechanical barrier to starting one. In fact, I think invasions are one of the easiest things to start, especially since the last rule incarnations. Since the old days, you do not need to reach out to the other side anymore, you don't have to agree on a common story, and you don't even have to worry about winning objectives or PVP wins within the invasion.

If you are on the map, at any time, you can pick a target, come up with a story and announce an invasion. Within a week the thread can be up and running.

So why are there so few invasions when the barrier to entry is only slightly higher than a skirmish?

Because there are two approaches to roleplay/warfare on the board. Okay, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of types, but for this discussion, two types are relevant in my opinion. The approach that enjoys PVP, views it as a competition with a scoreboard and loves shaking up the map with their latest exciting idea. Then there is the approach that wants to write their faction stories, value collaboration and don't really have much truck with score keeping in general.

The former naturally gravitates towards invasions, while the latter has become increasingly wary of them. Why? It's a story like any other, right? It should just be additional stakes, the war in Star Wars. I think it is because over time and especially since the 2016 era, invasions are seen by default as a hostile form of interaction. One that is done to take something away from another faction that worked for something.

That view prevents factions based on the latter type from engaging in a system they have seen create bad situations in the past.

And then when a faction comes onto the map, wanting to make things happen fast and, crucially, prioritizing their own story over the story of others, the rules allow them to do just that.

That doesn't always end well.

To make it end well, you need trust between the two sides.

To have that trust, you need to spend time, energy and effort to foster a relationship where two factions can be on opposite sides of a conflict ICly, but OOCly trust each other that the conflict is story based and that each side is willing to give the other side wins, moments in the sun and story beats that elevate each other's writing.

If you have that kind of relationship, losing or winning is beside the point. You can make a good story out of it. If you lose this time, there's always next time, etc. That is the ideal.

But you do need to actually care about fostering that relationship. About reaching out to groups, spending time to get to know them, to try and create stories based on mutual gains. And that isn't always easy, because as I said, that takes time and energy. It is much easier to just write within your own group, pop up on the map and then go to town. Heavens know a lot of us have been guilty of that too, with varying success and consequences that belong to it.

So am I surprised that invasions don't happen more often? Not really. Doing it without causing salt requires trust. And every time people in the community see stuff devolve into salt and toxicity, they become less interested in engaging with that sort of mechanics.

In my opinion, the solution to get more invasions isn't to keep giving invaders the ability to launch these things with no territorial risk to themselves.

The solution is to get people to work together more. To increase trust between major factions. To let go of the map game as some sort of meter of your board standing or silly stuff like that.

Now, is this rule going to magically increase trust? I don't believe so. But I do think it will encourage factions to consider the consequences of their decisions more carefully. Right now, you can force another faction into a conflict with very little territorial risk to yourself, even if they might not be very interested in it. I don't think that encourages healthy relationships between factions.

And I think a healthy relationship between factions based on trust is key to encourage more invasions. And not just more invasions, but invasions that are actually fun for everyone involved instead of a stressful occasion people dread to see happen. Because even if we somehow manage to double the amount of invasions happening on the board? So what? If they are still dreadful, tiring and exhausting, have we actually won anything?

I remember all the way back in 2013 (yes, yes I am old, I apologize in advance), there was an invasion between the Lords of the Fringe and the Omega Protectorate. We wrote for a long time, we had hundreds of posts. By the end of it, our Faction Owner looked at the story and then looked at the Faction Owner of the OP and said something to the effect of: Hey, I just noticed that y'all managed to get complete space superiority over the planet, so it wouldn't really make sense for us to win this one. We are gonna concede this one, good job.

That is the sort of relationship and the sort of vibes you need to get more invasions.

WIN-WIN, not WIN-LOSE, not zero-sum games.