Court Bailiff (Nation Debt Collector)

[Most Lee Harmless]

Governements should be able to do as much as their force can do or better put as much as their citizens allow. Imposing an unrealistic tax of 250k per ship is sure to create debts to any nation used. It is the right of the citizens not to pay it and it is the right of the legally elected government to deny citizenship to those that keep their debts unpaid. Of course, magic plays its role here (voodoo).

The 'unrealistic' tax of 250k per ship was put in place to keep freeloaders and bandits out : it was relaxed as criticism of it as being unfair to newer players was felt to be well-founded : as a consequence, the freeloaders and bandits have piled in and we have the current situation in Mexico. If the game developers feel 250k taxes are unreasonable, then change the limits to what you think is reasonable : you cant blame a nation under attack for using whatever legitimate tools are to hand to defend itself.

[Roileon]

Governements should be able to do as much as their force can do or better put as much as their citizens allow. Imposing an unrealistic tax of 250k per ship is sure to create debts to any nation used. It is the right of the citizens not to pay it and it is the right of the legally elected government to deny citizenship to those that keep their debts unpaid. Of course, magic plays its role here (voodoo).

The root idea of this suggestion, is to give a bonus to skirmishes applied by this special person, called Court Bailiff. While not entirely a bad idea (as we speak for 1 person per nation) it still lacks enough arguments and is an imbalance to current skirmish system as players who owe debts will automatically start losing more. The reasoning that they owe debts, is not enough.

There is no real way to automatically collect the debts due to a mechanism and I cannot find any new ways other than the existing arrest mechanism. At most, governments could also disallow citizens from being protected from any law (loans/skirmish Insurance) and not allowed to vote at all. This however is being discussed elsewhere.

In real life it is the same. If you do not pay your debts, your nation will use violence against you to collect anything you have. It will try to take by force what you own. Back in the age of Piracy, what nations could do was to chase down Pirates, sink their ships, plunder any gold they carried and hung them. They really had no way to ever take back anything they already looted and nowhere near any fines they might have issued at them.

Therefore, we are historically correct here. Debt collection should be through violence usage. In the same time, nations should be able to clear debts. This can be made through the issue of Letter of the Marque. Which is again historically correct. Thankfully, these issues are already resolved in real life, in history.

So, the best way to improve debt collection is to let nations issue Letter of the Marque. One of the Letter of the Marque rewards can be debt clearance.

Therefore, as an example, Danik could issue a Letter of the Marque to Warrior which would say that if you sink/grab X ships/Y gold from Z enemy, your debt to Mexico will be cleared! Warrior then will have 2 possible profits: 1)Gets rid of his existing debt (in case he cares) 2)Keeps all the profit

Feedback?

I like the letter of marque idea. Clarifying question, will anyone in the council be able to issue letters of marque?

[fullfathomfive]

..... The root idea of this suggestion, is to give a bonus to skirmishes applied by this special person, called Court Bailiff. While not entirely a bad idea (as we speak for 1 person per nation) it still lacks enough arguments and is an imbalance to current skirmish system as players who owe debts will automatically start losing more. The reasoning that they owe debts, is not enough....

The balance of course is the fact that the indebted player was winning more when not paying the nation tax. Skirmish actions I doubt would be sufficient to extract substantial debt.

[Warrior]

This is what is my opinion on this - if they don't pay taxes then let them waste their voodoos to not become a pirate. If they pay their taxes then they just are saved from the trouble. I don't see any problem here. And there are ways to punish a person for not paying the tax but I won't discuss it here

And btw if a letter of marquee is given to someone to hit someone of the same nation then they'll just become pirate themselves and their debt will be automatically cleared unless the join the nation again:lol:

[Roileon]

..... The root idea of this suggestion, is to give a bonus to skirmishes applied by this special person, called Court Bailiff. While not entirely a bad idea (as we speak for 1 person per nation) it still lacks enough arguments and is an imbalance to current skirmish system as players who owe debts will automatically start losing more. The reasoning that they owe debts, is not enough....

The balance of course is the fact that the indebted player was winning more when not paying the nation tax. Skirmish actions I doubt would be sufficient to extract substantial debt.

The belief that skirmish actions will not collect the debt is only true if your nation has imposed an unrealistic tax amount.

[Most Lee Harmless]

The tax rate was not hidden from you when you chose to join Mexico : the rates for each class are public knowledge and the higher bands could easily be avoided : given that you and your bunch of bandits only joined so as to loot the Treasury then your deep concern for a fair and equitable recovery system is a bit surreall..

[Stan Rogers]

Just to throw it out there so it can be considered.....

An NPC bailiff armed with a exceptionally strong fleet that patrols the ports continuously looking for anyone the King has deemed a criminal to the state.
This NPC could attack on sight and be relentless whenever until the debt has been returned to the national coffers or the King forgives the offender. A bailiff only reduces danger on offender attacks by 6 danger points instead of 18.
Not the kind of guy you want to be looking for you

[Brazzler]

Just to throw it out there so it can be considered.....

An NPC bailiff armed with a exceptionally strong fleet that patrols the ports continuously looking for anyone the King has deemed a criminal to the state.
This NPC could attack on sight and be relentless whenever until the debt has been returned to the national coffers or the King forgives the offender. A bailiff only reduces danger on offender attacks by 6 danger points instead of 18.
Not the kind of guy you want to be looking for you

+1

[Mohammed]

that is too strong i think it should have a limit on how many times it can attack the same player and nations would need to spend gold to increase the power of the court bailiff

[Most Lee Harmless]

Thats why I tried to link them to skirmishes.. the existing limit of 5 skirmishes per player would act to prevent wholesale slaughter.. also offers the possibilty of slipping away unharmed thru the existing % escape chance. Plus, of course, any other skirmish on the target would act to reduce the number of chances for the Bailiff to act.

If the Bailiff was an NPC, as Stan suggests (and thats a good idea too), then it is right the nation should stump up a fee to cover its 'costs' : perhaps a link between the number of skirmishes it can carry out and the amount paid : ie. x amount for a single skirmish per day, x2 for a second, x3 for a third, and so on. I'd still want the random capture of a ship from the defeated target fleet : the prospect of losing a prime war-ship might well tempt the miscreant into settling for terms with the nation.

Those terms might be a full payment, part payment or some service in lieu of payment : suggested ideas like adding population to the nations ports, or boosting influence, etc could come in here, persuading the King/Council to remove the 'Fugitive' order and ending the hunt.