Suggestion Increase Faction Rigor as Hex Ownership Increases

[Daiya]

For a while now, I've also looked at the map and seen big factions on the map. I don't think these big factions are the enemy, I think there will always be a story to tell in these big factions. I also don't think wiping the slate clean will solve the problems that have seen map wiping proposed as a solution.

I do think there are solutions to be found, though, and I'd like to explore one with you. Honestly, I don't think this is the perfect solution nor does it encompass all the changes that may need to happen, but it may at least address one aspect.

What about a sliding scale of rigor/requirements that a major faction must meet in order to maintain their expanded territory? Such as certain levels of activity or other requirements that increase as the territory they hold increases?

Valiens provided a good place to start. Let's say a Major Faction is allotted 10 hexes at standard requirements. From there, the requirements increase by some factor every time that number doubles. 20 hexes, 40 hexes, 80 hexes, all increasing the rigor a faction must meet in order to maintain that control.

And if they don't? Then they might lose some of the territory, find it open to rebellions by minor factions, or perhaps be at increased risk of a recall.

Yes, this is vague. I haven't come up with a brilliant proposal yet, this is just an exploration of the idea. So please consider that with care, and feel free to propose your own caveats, addendums or whatnot to make it a palatable notion for you.

 

[LT-137]

As you've mentioned, it's a rough idea - but in many respects - its one that's very similar to the concept of empire sprawl in Stellaris.

I'll probably have more to add once my coffee kicks in, but the idea has merit and we should see where it goes.

 

[Amelia von Sorenn]

I've been quietly watching and hesitant to respond to the multitude of these suggestion threads about the Map and how best to "deal with Major Faction Sprawl"; however, I must say, that of everything that has been suggested - even as bare bones as this is - I feel that it is by far the best option that I have seen in terms of dealing with the Map and Major Factions.

Even with it being as bare bones as it is, it provides a sense of life to the map, that a Major Faction's territory - in this case Map Hexes - waxes and wanes with the activity and presence of that faction, just as all nations wax and wane in their power in the course of their history.

I believe that this would be a better option than a Map Wipe - even one that is partial - as all that does is provide a momentary fix, a bandaid if you will, to a problem. We had a map wipe with the Netherworld Event and look what happened. It may have taken a few years, yet we are right back were we started that brought up the idea of a Map Wipe in the first place.

This idea though, this feels more like a solution, and a better one than a map wipe or hex cap for major factions.

 

[Fatty]

LT-137 woo! Another stellaris player!

I love the concept of sprawl opening up the outer territories to rebellion if the rigor is not being met. That way it isn't necessarily a hard lose if in a particular quarter they aren't doing as well, but gives them a chance to up it again if a minor faction wants to rebel

It would also make things more "realistic" when a big blob goes inactive or decides to go minor, it will likely come after a period of comparative inactivity that would see their clouds shrinking a bit before the final fall

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

When Major Factions gain hexes, they're not required to do anything in order to keep them, other than not be invaded and lose. This doesn't encourage storytelling or roleplaying or activity - I believe it does quite the opposite.

I like this suggestion.

I would recommend though, that rather than base the activity requirements off of numbers (as no faction should be punished for having less members now than they did if they still keep generally active enough to not be recalled), but to require that the faction does something with the planets in its hold. No, not Codex or Factory - those two corners of the board are wonderful, but do not replace RP. But actual threads and stories that are beyond personal relationships that happen to be discussed on them.

But, this way or the other, this does leave a specific concern - which is adding weight to the shoulders of RPJs and Admins. If anyone has suggestions on how something of the vein suggested can be done without adding more workload to them, that could be fantastic.

 

[Fatty]

When Major Factions gain hexes, they're not required to do anything in order to keep them, other than not be invaded and lose. This doesn't encourage storytelling or roleplaying or activity - I believe it does quite the opposite.

I like this suggestion.

I would recommend though, that rather than base the activity requirements off of numbers (as no faction should be punished for having less members now than they did if they still keep generally active enough to not be recalled), but to require that the faction does something with the planets in its hold. No, not Codex or Factory - those two corners of the board are wonderful, but do not replace RP. But actual threads and stories that are beyond personal relationships that happen to be discussed on them.

But, this way or the other, this does leave a specific concern - which is adding weight to the shoulders of RPJs and Admins. If anyone has suggestions on how something of the vein suggested can be done without adding more workload to them, that could be fantastic.

I think such a system of "Rigor" should only apply to the outermost hexes of a faction. It would be a normal activity check for any faction, but for the number of hexes it has, the requirements scale upward. Then as a result (I am refraining from calling it a consequence, as I don't see it as a negative event necessarily), the outer Hexes become open to rebellion, and they might lose one passively until they hit a lower tier of Rigor they are able to pass.

I won't pretend to know what the work load is, but I don't see that as much different than now. They still have to do all the same work, they just now tell factions and the community "Hey, your stories were a bit light this quarter, your outer territories are open to rebellion until next quarter."

Would you disagree with that assessment?

EDIT: Maybe a Major Faction could also voluntarily cede some outer territory of their choice if they are falling below rigor

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

I think such a system of "Rigor" should only apply to the outermost hexes of a faction. It would be a normal activity check for any faction, but for the number of hexes it has, the requirements scale upward. Then as a result (I am retraining from calling it a consequence, as I don't see it as a negative event necessarily), the outer Hexes become open to rebellion, and they might lose one passively until the hit a lower tier of Rigor they are able to pass.

I won't pretend to know what the work load is, but I don't see that as much different than now. They still have to do all the same work, they just now tell factions and the community "Hey, your stories were a bit light this quarter, your outer territories are open to rebellion until next quarter."

Would you disagree with that assessment?

I'm against making rules against specific factions, no matter how nicely veiled said suggestions are. I don't think targeting just the bigger factions with extra requirements is beneficial in any way - the message that sounds out in this case is that if you're small, story matters less.

But story shouldn't matter less. If anything, it should have a bigger emphasis. So this would be for all Majors, regardless of size.

The reason I say this would require more RPJ/admin involvement is because there would have to be generated lists and then checks to see the threads in question and make sure they are relevant. Nice on paper, but not very workable. However, I don't have any actual ideas about how to implement something like this without adding more to their responsibilities. I'm hoping someone else might.

 

[Fatty]

I'm against making rules against specific factions, no matter how nicely veiled said suggestions are. I don't think targeting just the bigger factions with extra requirements is beneficial in any way - the message that sounds out in this case is that if you're small, story matters less.

But story shouldn't matter less. If anything, it should have a bigger emphasis. So this would be for all Majors, regardless of size.

The reason I say this would require more RPJ/admin involvement is because there would have to be generated lists and then checks to see the threads in question and make sure they are relevant. Nice on paper, but not very workable. However, I don't have any actual ideas about how to implement something like this without adding more to their responsibilities. I'm hoping someone else might.

I don't see it as a rule against specific factions, large or not. It could just as easily apply to Darkwire, if we were particularly light on stories the same would apply to us, except with the amount of territory we have it would make sense to have all of our territory open to rebellion.

See it less as a punishment for being too big, and more so as opening opportunities for further roleplay. If a huge faction is a freakin' story train and they keep chugging, they are allowed to. But if they get more relaxed later and don't get to the same level as they used to, it's time for a shake up, either among themselves or from outside. It doesn't invalidate their past work, it just reflects where they are now.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Fatty I'm on board with the phrasing of your last reply

 

[Daiya]

The reason I say this would require more RPJ/admin involvement is because there would have to be generated lists and then checks to see the threads in question and make sure they are relevant. Nice on paper, but not very workable. However, I don't have any actual ideas about how to implement something like this without adding more to their responsibilities. I'm hoping someone else might.

As you say, this seems a little more involved for RPJs/admins. I don't know how these could get assessed properly unless submitted like dominions are currently, and checked over by hand as you've illustrated.

I think I would rather trust that factions will make wise choices about the stories they want to tell. I, like you, would hope they would choose to tell faction stories about their own territory. Or that this would encourage factions to choose to tell stories with other factions to represent their activity. If they choose to represent their activity by increasing their expansion rate, then they can do so, they'll just have more rigor to meet in the future. Eventually, that's going to ask the faction to make some hard choices, so I think this kind of approach needs to be paired with the options to make softer choices along the way.

I like Melia Siari 's suggestion for voluntarily relinquishing hexes as a means by which a faction can control their story. I also like having some increased threat of rebellions, along the lines of what Fatty 's post detailed, and I'd see it as a natural result of factions that are choosing to maintain higher levels of territory than their activity can support. As always, I'm open to more discussion on what could be done here.

Even better if it's kept within the bounds of reasonable for our site staff. Activity checks, rebellions and adding map hexes are already normal functions of the map game, so some minor modifications of these (as proposed above) seems reasonable to me.

 

[Judah Lesan]

And this is the whole crux of a lot of these suggestions... voluntary...

If TSE wants to give up territory let them. If the the GA wants to take the core... let them try. If a faction wants to expand until they burn out... that’s on them.

I still think the deeper issue is people just don’t want to invest the current work the map game requires. I don’t know why... and I am sure there are many reasons as there are writers who feel that way. I also don’t think changing the game or the meta will encourage people of this opinion to engage.

It is human nature to take the path of least resistance.

Do I think the map game is broken? No. Has it been a while since something new has infused it? Yes. Is this a solution? I don’t know.

What I do know is in its basic form it’s just one more thing for Faction Staff to administrate, and one more thing for RPJ’s and Site Admins to keep track of. None of us need more.

 

[Damian Starchaser]

So first I like this concept of Empire Sprawl from Stellaris and points were earned in my book for everyone who used a stellaris reference.

Is this the solution? No. Is it a solution? Sure. Problems normally don't get solved with a single band aid they tend to need more than one solution to fully mitigate issues especially when the problem is a social construct.

 

[Bernard]

And this is the whole crux of a lot of these suggestions... voluntary...

If TSE wants to give up territory let them. If the the GA wants to take the core... let them try. If a faction wants to expand until they burn out... that’s on them.

I still think the deeper issue is people just don’t want to invest the current work the map game requires.

Factions should facilitate story, not hold territory. People 'not wanting to invest the current work required' currently EXCLUSIVELY applies to actual story that makes use of held territory. That's the issue we have, not some perceived lack of interest in grinding away to gain 3 arbitrary ink blots on an imaginary map. There are some factions which make story their driving focus, rather than expansion for expansion's sake, and that's fantastic and should only be encouraged further.

Why should a faction that holds 100 hexes get to keep that territory? Just because they get three doms done a month? Absolutely not. When factions get that big, the focus should shift to utilize and develop the obscene amount of hexes that are already under their control and only use expansion as a tool to further facilitate a coherent story, rather than as a means in and of itself.

Vomiting out three dominions a month doesn't take any effort when you're an active major faction. Actually developing a story and using the territory you have to facilitate that story, on the other hand, does. It's easy to hold on to a fifth of the map, but it's not easy to actually use a fifth of the map to tell compelling stories. That's the problem people are trying to address here, to get more factions to actually start using the territory they hold prisoner with their influence cloud.

Because what's the point of holding on to it if you're not going to use it? Open the possibility for someone else who might actually want to tell a story in that space do their thing instead. Factions will still be able to hold on to the territory that matters most to them, but the excess fat would start getting trimmed when it becomes apparent nothing's actually going on there. Right now, up until this recent string of invasions, expansion for the sake of expansion has basically been the Modus Operandi of factions for almost two years and the mindset of constantly needing to expand is starting to take its toll on the stories we're able to write and clearly has an impact on a lot of people's enjoyment of factions, why else would a large part of the community suddenly start discussing things with so much vigour? I think it's fair to say there's a lot of room for improvement with the way things are right now.

So how do we incentivize factions to tell more stories that aren't bare-bones dominions? We incentivize factions to actually develop the territory they have and make continuous expansion less and less appealing the bigger they get. The idea of empire sprawl is a great one for that and I think it would be excellent if implemented, as it explicitly states what the partial map wipe hex decay is trying to accomplish. Work with the territory you control, don't just expand it for the sake of expanding it. By making it harder to maintain large swathes of territory as a faction gets bigger it incentivizes us to only expand to the point of comfort and to then use the territory we built to create stories and engagement.

Now that's a fantastic proposal if I've ever seen one.

And, in addition to this change, while an inward focus is a wonderful thing, I think we can also work on creating incentives to start collaborating with other factions to tell even bigger and better stories, something I personally think should be as important a goal as making factions actually use the massive clouds they build. To this end, this proposal for making gaining and losing territory easier, by Ronan Vizsla , could help actually facilitate even more stories between major factions, in addition to within them. Getting territory and the threads connected to their gain/loss to matter more while simultaneously becoming more accessible than they are now might actually see us write more interesting stories again, on our collaborative story-writing site. But until we stop moving at a glacial pace and large swathes of painted territory stop sitting idle, I don't know if it'll start to happen on its own.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Daiya
Add to that, maybe Dominions are easy when you're small, but as you get bigger it requires more posts to complete a Dominion?

So, less than 10 hexes = 25 posts
10 - 30 = 50 posts
31 - 50 = 75 posts

Spitballing numbers here, but you get the idea.

 

[Daiya]

Valiens Nantaris

This sounds like a pretty reasonable idea. It evens the odds for small majors (who are often cited as having a hard time with doms compared to big majors), and lets them grow big, quickly, if they want to.

Then at the other end of the scale, it increases the rigor for big majors to continue growing, since they should (by this proposal's reasoning) have the activity to manage it at their size.

 

[The Red of Sinner]

I like this idea, though I might add, I'd like to see more of the political happenings to keep planets happy being apart or forced to be apart of a faction. Why go as far as to explain how a faction's political stand works if no one is Roleplaying it. The past has expressed while there is a niche for such a thing, it normally dies because....well I'm not sure actually. Why have a Senate, if it's not senating lol.

My two cents...

 

[Republic Engineering]

The Red of Sinner - That should be something that the Faction launching the Dominion should take into consideration. If they don't? Then there's potential for that to be addressed by others within their Memberbase, or other writers looking to Roleplay key figures within the planet or faction's political structure. It's not something that should be forced on anyone from on high. People will write what they want to write, lol.

Valiens Nantaris - Even though that's a spitballed idea, that goes well with another suggestion that was made where the sizes of dominions could vary. Having larger factions take longer to complete their dominions would, ideally, inspire their content creators to make an invigorating and fulfilling narrative. In a way, I suppose you could say it'd kill two birds with a single stone - as the incremental increase in dominion sizes would also slow down the rapid expansion(s) of major factions on the map.

While it's kind of a hamfisted and cherry-picked explanation of my turbulent thought process, it would offer an alternative to liven up the map game outside of the random events brought about by the future flashpoints.

EDIT: Add in the possibility of multiple hexes being lost during Invasions?

 

[Enlil]

I like the idea of maintaining territory. It's consistent with realism. The further you go from your center of political and regional power, the more out of touch your power becomes. Let's examine the British Empire for a moment, as an example.

They stretched out to the 13 Colonies in the west, and all the way to Australia and India in the East. Some of the Colonies remained fairly loyal, but many rebelled, revolted, or otherwise defied the King for various reasons. The regional governors could not keep power, and the King couldn't continue funneling money toward wars meant to foster compliance because it would inevitably beggar the Crown. (And by extension, the people, because the Crown had to tax people to fund these wars.)

Not just from an economic perspective, but also from the perspective of general happiness. You might give people the freedom to self govern, but if your central, core governor or overall hierarch is showing more favor to one or two planets, people are going to start feeling detached.

There's a lot of untapped potential for story here that I'd frankly love to see delved deeply into.

 

[The Red of Sinner]

Republic Engineering I meant as far as maintaining territory, it could encourage political roleplay. Nothing forced. Never anything forced.

 

[Taiia Locke]

Daiya

As has been stated this is probably one of the more well balanced and thoughtful suggestions to be brought forward in the past few days and is one I can fully get behind. LT-137 is correct it is very consistent with the idea of empire sprawl in Stellaris where the more sprawl you have (more territory) things become more difficult to do. (Colonizing costs more, research costs more, fleet maintenance costs more etc etc.) but key importance as has been stated is that unity decreases the further you get from the capital eventually leading to rebellions.

Also, this concept ties into Valiens Nantaris point of having scaling dominion requirements based on the number of hexes a faction has. In both cases, I think this is at the very least a better alternative to partial or full map wipe. This would serve to slow the expansion of larger factions and allow the smaller ones to move more quickly in expansion. Perhaps another thing we should be doing is untethering SSD's from dominions entirely then we will likely not see quite so many dominions.