Nation hostilty

[Most Lee Harmless]

As currently, any player with hostility regarding a nation cant undertake the basic citizen mission to join it. Once in, hostility with ones own nation has no effect whatsoever unless they acquire 75 points whereupon they lose the flag. A voodoo card exists which, if used once every 3 days washes all clean whereupon the citizen can then rack up more hostility, again, without sanction.

One way to gain such hostility is via NPC farming when you hit own-flagged fleets : another is to hit own flag players : both actions can be avoided but we all do them occasionally.

The third case is avoidance of ship tax : once a citizen, you just turn off auto=pay on daily upkeep and never have to pay a penny ever again. As long as you clean down your hostility every 3 days, you never need pay at all. But none of that will prevent you gaining rank, voting, and when ranked enough, proposing votes, gaining governors chairs and bonuses, or even the crown itself.

This seems a bit off-kilter to me : a tax dodger can propose and vote on the spending of taxes income they have never paid. A player who freely hits and plunders his own fellow-citizens can rise thru the ranks unhindered. And none of these tax debts are enforcable in any way : there is no means for a nation to sanction such citizens : the citzen can wash away their hostility, the nation cannot add more save revise a law which can adds a mere 1 per hour, requiring over 3 days before it will do anything at all, wasted if the citizen washes themselves, of course : and the debt still remains.

So, I would propose a law as follows :

'Hostility Penalties : (each would be optional and subject to revision votes)

No nation ranking mission can be started if hostility exists between the player and nation.

No nation ranking mission can be completed if hostility exists between payer and nation.

No citizen may vote or propose a vote if hostility exists between player and nation.

No citizen may benefit from a pay-out, or bonus acquired thru rank or nation entitlement, until any hostility between them and the nation has expired.

[Captain Jack]

Regarding the logical arguments "A player who freely hits and plunders his own fellow-citizens can rise thru the ranks unhindered", I want to underline the Hired Diplomat is a voodoo card. Voodoo Cards disrupt what seems normal and this is acceptable - this is what voodoo supposefuly (or truly) did back in Pirates Age. Roleplaying the event, once the Hired Diplomat is used, this player seems like a lawful citizen to the rest. So he can do freely whatever the rest can.

I want to remind that the game considers unlaful only people with more than 75 Hostility. These people will not be able to vote,take missions, etc as you desribe.
The game also orders the arrest of players with excessive debts but does not imply any further penalties than adding hostiity per hour. This is not a small penalty as anyone staying there will need to spend more cards.

On your proposed limitations, they can all be avoided by momentarily zeroing the hostility rating. With Hired Diplomat.
It could only be solved if we remove Hired Dilomat.

It would be too harsh to do so though. Hired Diplomat is already a rare card that requires another to use it on you. It needs cooperation which makes it fair when compared to the nation system which is a gain a cooperative feature.

My personal opinion is that If you are in a nation that has few people but in the same time it is wealthy (most probably due to port control) then you must be ready to hijacks. It seems to me like a probable event. You need to plan for this event and I believe that if you plan for this possibility, then the tools exist.

To close up, something we could do to improve situation for nation leaders is to reduce Hired Diplomat effects. Istead of removing 75 points, we can make it remove 24. It will not change much, it will just make it more difficult. Or the law you are suggesting, I am not against the law at all. In fact, I prefer it over card wimp. I am just sceptical as to whether or not it will be enough to help the original cause. This and any other ideas you might have, are open for discussion.

[Stan Rogers]

Both posts above make valid and compelling arguments.
I then look at my life experiences and ask myself "what if ? " scenarios.

If I am delinquent on my taxes I sure do not get any rebates or handouts from my RL government but I am still allowed to vote.
Any rebates, perks and allowances are applied against my debts before the remaining ever gets to my pocket.

Not too sure if this applies to the complaints and counter arguments presented in the above posts but, my 2 cents worth regardless

[TheLoveTiger]

Personal thoughts on the matter is I think that the idea of always being able to use voodoo to offset your debt becomes a problem. But I do like the idea of dropping down the power of the card.
1) What if a nation can choose how long a person is in debt before they become pirate. Make it a law say 5 days minimum late on payment then the player is "arrested" and removed from the nation AKA a pirate
2) Set a limit that a player must be in debt by this could be by the nation or Admin.
3) Players are aware of what they are coming into when they join a nation, as you mentioned we must plan to protect this. But we lowered the rate for new players to the game because we were being criticized for having such high taxes and limiting new players. So asking for a law to help the nation balance the debts owed, will help offset the problems of people joining and not paying their debt.

[Most Lee Harmless]

CJ's point on nations with few players and large balances is valid : however.. it masks the true numbers game : which is that a sufficiently large group can come in and totaly disrupt even a nation with lots of ports and council members and effectively disarm it (Mexico lost two ports due to influence being damaged to support the infiltration attempt). The nation, meanwhile, has no weapons to defend itself from such attempts save using ship tax to generate hostility in the hope that it might pirate the troublemakers out of contention. Thats the issue : the sanctions available are too easily bypassed and few or no other sanctions exist.

To leave it so means only large nations end up controlling ports as only large multi-player nations can defend in enough depth : well, we seen that, with 2 blocs controlling 90% of the ports and that wasn't desirable either and the only reason, at that time, that it wasnt 100% was because they chose not to take the last one or two. If the game developers want nations to be a factor for banks, insurance, loans, etc.. then more than 2 or 3 nations need to be stable and wealthy enough to provide that. No nation can support banks, loans, insurance, etc if they cant even collect their tax income from those who seek to harm it nor sanction those who avoid it.

Currently, Mexico has outstanding ship tax debts of over 250million.. over 200mil of that is directly related to the current assault on us. And its totally meaningless as they will never have to pay it and we can never enforce it or collect it. Even a rare voodoo card every 3 days is hardly much expense to avoid such amounts : but what other tool is left to nations to keep undesirables out, a tool which doesnt discourage new players from joining it? None is the answer.

BTW, please dont raise the impractical nonsense of nations being able, at some point in the future, to sell their debt to bounty-hunters. I cant imagine any such hunter bothering to pay a nation for some 'debt' when they can just hit the player in question and steal it on their own account.

[Lefty]

The only good national defense is a good proactive offense. The reason Somalia has not been taken back by Zomb or the PirateThing is because it is too expensive [ or was before they got your treasury ] to rise thru the ranks and gain control. Obviously its easier to do this when you don't want players to join your nation.

Question. What is the minimum fame needed to be a council member? I don't believe there is one. Is there a penalty for council members in my situation? I have very little fame. Perhaps there should be a minimum fame required for council members. That way if they seize control and disappear...eventually they would lose power and it be up for grabs again. It would also allow voodoo to be used to lower fame (various ways) and achieve the usurpation that you desire.

[Most Lee Harmless]

They dont quite have the Treasury yet...its a vote stand-off currently, no-one can get at it. Yes, you can erect a wall, but that keeps out the new players.. for which we did receive some criticism, and rightly too. However, its an illusional wall which only keeps out the nice people, really : it doesnt stop those who ignore the resultant sanctions because they are ineffective on any level : yes, they can use voodoo to clean their hostility... but there is no balancing charm, as with most cards in the game : usually, what one gives, another can take away. Nations could run with very low treasuries, moving coin out weekly... which does rely on its member shaving banks or access to banks to store such sums and enough citizens being worthy of that trust. Or just give it away to any who ask...would that rid us of the Welfare Queens currently at our gates demanding hand-outs?

[Nick halden]

could you just cast the piracy card on anyone trying to infiltrate so it just makes them a pirate and removes them from your nation?

[Most Lee Harmless]

could you just cast the piracy card on anyone trying to infiltrate so it just makes them a pirate and removes them from your nation?

That card, whilst in the encyclopaedia, does not exist.

[Roberts]

Indeed, Whilst nations have the Deport Option which I can not found out how to flaming use... There is no defence : Something needs doing about it.

P.S Forgive Nick, Danik... He is Still a New Player, is it possible for him to get a ride on your donkeys?