Author Topic: Strategic Secessions  (Read 19079 times)

Chenier

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Strategic Secessions
« Topic Start: October 06, 2011, 05:16:18 AM »
The geography of the realm is just totally not going to work, it is both too large and too thin. Maybe if it dissolved into 3-4 realms, all within an empire (similar to what Luria is going to do), we could keep being a powerhouse, but otherwise it is going to come to its knees the second a decent group of realms decide to fight us.

That sounds a lot like strategic secessions... If this wouldn't be, I have a hard time seeing what would.
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De-Legro

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #1: October 06, 2011, 05:26:14 AM »
That sounds a lot like strategic secessions... If this wouldn't be, I have a hard time seeing what would.

Strategic Secessions usually involve a war, the new realm isn't at war with anyone. The aren't going to be getting a capital closer to a war front.

From the wiki "Strategic secessions are prohibited. This means creating a new realm, through secession, in order to circumvent recruiting-in-capital-only restriction. Friendly secessions are okay."

The issue the realm is facing is one of control, there regions are too far flung to reasonably be able to expect to hold all their regions without tons of court and buro work.
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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #2: October 06, 2011, 05:27:31 AM »
That sounds a lot like strategic secessions... If this wouldn't be, I have a hard time seeing what would.

So you would prefer that the regions too far from the capital went rogue, to avoid the appearance of the secession being "strategic"?

I think "strategic" should only apply to actual military strategy--seceding so that your capital is closer to the enemy, for instance. Seceding because the game ENCOURAGES compact realms is merely playing the way the game wants you to play.

Chenier

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #3: October 06, 2011, 06:53:10 AM »
Strategic Secessions usually involve a war, the new realm isn't at war with anyone. The aren't going to be getting a capital closer to a war front.

From the wiki "Strategic secessions are prohibited. This means creating a new realm, through secession, in order to circumvent recruiting-in-capital-only restriction. Friendly secessions are okay."

The issue the realm is facing is one of control, there regions are too far flung to reasonably be able to expect to hold all their regions without tons of court and buro work.


"but otherwise it is going to come to its knees the second a decent group of realms decide to fight us."

So if it's done during a war, it's bad, but if it's done in preparation for an eventual war, then it's all legit? The act and intent is the same, the only thing that differs is timing.

The issue of distance between one border and the other has also been mentioned as a reason for splitting up. This is blatantly military in reasoning, it's just other words for saying that having the capacity to recruit closer to these borders would help defense should a war happen.

So you would prefer that the regions too far from the capital went rogue, to avoid the appearance of the secession being "strategic"?

I think "strategic" should only apply to actual military strategy--seceding so that your capital is closer to the enemy, for instance. Seceding because the game ENCOURAGES compact realms is merely playing the way the game wants you to play.

Well, that *is* the nature of most of the arguments that have been given. Nobody mentioned "distance from the capital" as a reason. People *did* mention how undefendable such a large mass was and how travel times from one side to another were too long. That the war has yet to be declared is of little importance in my eyes if the action is done as a preemptive measure for an eventual war.

Imo, this kind of thing should either be allowed, or we should remove the rule altogether. It's pretty darn impossible to prove that a secession was strategic. People will *always* be able to make up whatever kind of RP or historic motivation to justify what is, at the core, a strategic action.

I'm hearing a lot of talks of people wanting to break up large realms in order to form big strong alliances. After all, it's been proven that this helps reduce control issues, increases tax tolerance, and decreases tax tolerance of foreigners. If it starts becoming a fad, I would hate to see the people who are better at covering their intent or who keep any incrementing discussions on IRC or MSN be able to do their thing while other players of good intent be punished for not properly motivating what is essentially the same thing.
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De-Legro

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #4: October 06, 2011, 07:07:08 AM »

"but otherwise it is going to come to its knees the second a decent group of realms decide to fight us."

So if it's done during a war, it's bad, but if it's done in preparation for an eventual war, then it's all legit? The act and intent is the same, the only thing that differs is timing.

The issue of distance between one border and the other has also been mentioned as a reason for splitting up. This is blatantly military in reasoning, it's just other words for saying that having the capacity to recruit closer to these borders would help defense should a war happen.

Well, that *is* the nature of most of the arguments that have been given. Nobody mentioned "distance from the capital" as a reason. People *did* mention how undefendable such a large mass was and how travel times from one side to another were too long. That the war has yet to be declared is of little importance in my eyes if the action is done as a preemptive measure for an eventual war.

Imo, this kind of thing should either be allowed, or we should remove the rule altogether. It's pretty darn impossible to prove that a secession was strategic. People will *always* be able to make up whatever kind of RP or historic motivation to justify what is, at the core, a strategic action.

I'm hearing a lot of talks of people wanting to break up large realms in order to form big strong alliances. After all, it's been proven that this helps reduce control issues, increases tax tolerance, and decreases tax tolerance of foreigners. If it starts becoming a fad, I would hate to see the people who are better at covering their intent or who keep any incrementing discussions on IRC or MSN be able to do their thing while other players of good intent be punished for not properly motivating what is essentially the same thing.

Yes pretty much it is bad if you are at war, and not much of an issue otherwise. Arcaea had to continually put off their plans to split up, which are mostly based on Jenred wanting to make his Queen a recognised Queen throughout the island because we were at war, and the new realm would have a capital close to the CURRENT front line. I am sure the rule could also be applied if a realm was to split off and declare war on a realm now noticeably closer to the new capital if it all occurred within a small time frame, so no, it can't be done in preparation for a war, though proving that would be much harder. In this case though they are not preparing for a particular war, they so far as we know are not going to declare war on some realm and are just waiting for the split to be finalised for it to happen.

Like many rules yes you can get around it by hiding your intent, that is life, no rule based system works in 100% of cases. Tom has created the rule, we generally know the intent behind it, it is largely up to us as a player based to play fair and adhere to it.

As an aside I guess if the Duchy that splits off is further away from the battle front then the current capital, that would be okay too :)
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 07:08:44 AM by De-Legro »
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Indirik

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #5: October 06, 2011, 04:24:05 PM »
The issue of distance between one border and the other has also been mentioned as a reason for splitting up. This is blatantly military in reasoning, it's just other words for saying that having the capacity to recruit closer to these borders would help defense should a war happen.
Wut? That's crap.

Big distances between borders means big distance from the capital to the outlying regions. Which means controlling those outlying regions eventually becomes a near impossibility. It is proving to be essentially impossible to keep the Akanos duchy under control. Distance from the capital is killing me. I get very large loyalty and control drops every day, that court work and 200% authority estate coverage just can't overcome. They are going to try and send an army north to try and get things under control, but I don't see it happening. I'll probably have to secede just to keep the entire duchy from going rogue all by itself.

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Well, that *is* the nature of most of the arguments that have been given. Nobody mentioned "distance from the capital" as a reason.
Taylin has been telling Anatole that the distance from Akanos to Colasan was too big since before the realm formed. I had hoped that we could have Ozrat as the capital. But when the other two Cathayan duchies joined, that makes Ozrat unworkable for the old Cathayan regions. And since the realm is almost entirely composed of Cathayans, I don't expect us former Ohnarians to get any consideration, even though two of the original conspirators' duchies are Ohnarian in origin.

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I'm hearing a lot of talks of people wanting to break up large realms in order to form big strong alliances. After all, it's been proven that this helps reduce control issues, increases tax tolerance, and decreases tax tolerance of foreigners.
Splitting your realm because it has become too big to manage has always been allowed, IIRC.
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Chenier

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #6: October 06, 2011, 06:18:07 PM »
To me, it's all the same. That seceding a day before war is fine while seceding a day after war is declared is not sounds like complete bull!@#$. The act, intent, and outcome are exactly the same.

The "strategic secession" rule is extremely arbitrary, and I quite dislike it. People with good knowledge of English and of the rules will be able to pull of with ease what other less knowledgeable people would be harshly punished for. Same for the strategic capital move, really. It's so incredibly easy to make a reason up to justify purely strategic reasons. A well-planned act would be untraceable and unpublishable. Reminds me of when Alluran moved their capital from their old historic center to the city bordering Enweil. It was incredibly lame. But hey, it was "to keep that duke from seceding". Uh huh. I could go on staging a revolt on Enweilieos with the fake drama and all in order to have two capitals extremely close to Riombara too, if I wanted and said players agreed.

The other rules are very easy to verify. When the people exploited the loophole to generate a ton of wealth in Dwilight, nobody doubted that it was obvious abuse. There was no room for interpretation. With these strategic secessions and capital moves, though? Anyone who properly understands the rules can easily stage a justification for what is otherwise a purely strategic act, while other well-intended people will get harshly punished for poorly justifying the exact same act.

The rules should, imo, either be completely removed or given some non-fakable criterias. There's no justice otherwise.
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Carna

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #7: October 06, 2011, 06:45:51 PM »
Well, turn around how it works. Rather than you can't do this, you can only do this if or for these particular reasons. When is moving a capital or seceding acceptable? Every Duke involved in this jumped from a sinking ship (two, in fact). That's fine, but this whole thing is fluid. There were no plans for this extent and sustainability, in more than just military or realm control, is threatened. Breaking a part into more than one realm given how quickly and unexpectedly a lot of this went down, isn't so much strategic as trying to cope and find a solution to something that grew out of hand. Or is it a case of "you made your bed"? Because if that's the case, it just sucks and I don't see how that makes the game more fun for anyone.

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #8: October 06, 2011, 07:28:47 PM »
That seceding a day before war is fine while seceding a day after war is declared is not sounds like complete bull!@#$. The act, intent, and outcome are exactly the same.
Just because you aren't at war when you secede doesn't mean it can't be a strategic secession. It's more likely to be a strategic secession if you're at war, and people are more likely to call foul if you do. But seceding and then declaring war (even if it's not until a week later) could still be a strategic secession, if you did it so that you could fight the war better.

It's the intent behind the act, not the diplomatic situation, that counts. Which of course leads to:

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The "strategic secession" rule is extremely arbitrary

Yeah, it kinda is. As is any other rule that tries to interpret someone's intention. It's like a thought crime. It's really hard to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, unless the accused self-convicts through poor planning or loose lips.

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The other rules are very easy to verify. When the people exploited the loophole to generate a ton of wealth in Dwilight, nobody doubted that it was obvious abuse. There was no room for interpretation.
The people doing it sure didn't think it was an obvious abuse. (Or maybe they did, and didn't care?) There is a certain viewpoint (not one that I agree with, mind you) that holds that if the game lets you do it, then it can't be an abuse of the game. I mean, if the game didn't want you to be able to use your family gold as an endless fountain of wealth, it wouldn't let you do it, right?


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With these strategic secessions and capital moves, though? Anyone who properly understands the rules can easily stage a justification for what is otherwise a purely strategic act, while other well-intended people will get harshly punished for poorly justifying the exact same act.
Point to any arbitrary rule where that is not the case.

Also, point to any secession that was judged by the Titans to be a strategic secession, and punished.

(FWIW - I can't remember it ever happening the the 5.5 years I've been playing, even though I've seen two that I think were rather blatant.)

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The rules should, imo, either be completely removed or given some non-fakable criterias. There's no justice otherwise.
So, what would you consider to be some criteria that couldn't be gamed?
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Stue (DC)

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #9: October 06, 2011, 11:00:28 PM »
i would agree with chenier on this, war or peace - doesn't matter , if you do secession without any rp reason it is simply something against good playing practice, call it strategic or circumventing game mechanics.

in game, ruler can hardly have good reason to willingly reduce his own realm - if region is hard to control he will put blame on incompetent lord (even if that is not true). the others may not agree with ruler and that is good cause for trouble and grievances

...in some better, parallel reality. in our bm reality those in power will mostly find any way to avoid any in-game grievance, no matter the costs, even if they would initiate ooc discussion about planned secession.

the only planned secession i can imagine to be fairly played is the one related to some claim or diplomatic resolution, it can by no means be related to region work hardships.

this is perfect example how meta-gaming kills this game and how probably little is done to prevent it.

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #10: October 06, 2011, 11:30:57 PM »
In general, I think secessions are Good Things.  More positions open up, if nothing else.  Strategic secessions are only banned in the "getting around recruiting at the capital" level for a reason.
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Chenier

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #11: October 07, 2011, 01:05:46 AM »
So, what would you consider to be some criteria that couldn't be gamed?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any. Hence why I favor removing the rule altogether.

(FWIW - I can't remember it ever happening the the 5.5 years I've been playing, even though I've seen two that I think were rather blatant.)

This only reinforces what I wished. Even when blatant, it's easy to make up an excuse and then profit from plausible deniability to not be punished.

Over the years, all of the other restrictions on secessions have been lifted, I think we should finish this trend and remove the strategic secession ban. It would make it fair for everyone, as right now it gives greater rights to rulelawyers and otherwise deceptive people over less knowledgeable well-intended people. Further, there are many drawbacks to splitting off your realm, namely when it comes to communication and coordination. With a constantly decreasing player base, it can become harder and harder to fill certain government positions, especially with competent people. There are less and less candidates for lordships as well. The more fractionned a realm becomes, the more difficult it becomes for all new realms to find competent people for all the positions. The drawbacks are hard to quantify, but they are important and present. Furthermore, these communication gaps allow for newly formed realms to seek new means to differentiate themselves, and eventually drift away from their host realm. Generally speaking, you have much more odds of having conflicts with many small realms than few large ones.

I would also do with the strategic capital move rule, because that too can be gamed, and I've seen it. However, I would implement a new dynamic to the distance from capital penalties. Allow people to move their capital to a border region if they want, but have the game calculate the most central point in the realm and the realm's radius from that point, and then add extra penalties to all regions that are beyond that radius from the capital. As such, if a realm was 7 regions wide with the old capital in the center and decided to move their capital to the border, inflict considerably harsher distance from capital penalties to all regions more than 3 regions away from the new capital. Therefore, you could do away with that rule that is too easily gamed, and have a fairer game that will passively balance those who would move their capital on the border to help them in their war. Such new penalties should be exponential, though, to make sure that the regions just outside of the normal control radius aren't too severely affected while those at twice the distance of the control radius and punished in a crippling way, because it's not always possible to have a capital in the most central region of the realm (as it may not even be a city).
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Indirik

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #12: October 07, 2011, 02:57:04 AM »
i would agree with chenier on this, war or peace - doesn't matter , if you do secession without any rp reason it is simply something against good playing practice, call it strategic or circumventing game mechanics.
And i suppose you don't consider "The realm is so big that my entire duchy is going downhill fast, and will soon revolt and go rogue unless I do something about it" a good RP reason?

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in game, ruler can hardly have good reason to willingly reduce his own realm - if region is hard to control he will put blame on incompetent lord (even if that is not true).

And thus give the duke a perfect "RP" reason to secede.

BTW - Thanks for pigeonholing every ruler character into the exact same selfish, "It's all mine Mine MINE!" attitude. So glad that you know exactly how my characters hsould behave better than I do.

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...in some better, parallel reality. in our bm reality those in power will mostly find any way to avoid any in-game grievance, no matter the costs, even if they would initiate ooc discussion about planned secession.
So in your opinion, every "planned secession" requires an OOC discussion and agreement, and it can never be done via IC means, and IC agreements?

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the only planned secession i can imagine to be fairly played is the one related to some claim or diplomatic resolution, it can by no means be related to region work hardships.
That is ridiculously wrong.
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Indirik

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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #13: October 07, 2011, 03:00:00 AM »
I would also do with the strategic capital move rule, because that too can be gamed, and I've seen it. However, I would implement a new dynamic to the distance from capital penalties. Allow people to move their capital to a border region if they want, but have the game calculate the most central point in the realm and the realm's radius from that point, and then add extra penalties to all regions that are beyond that radius from the capital. As such, if a realm was 7 regions wide with the old capital in the center and decided to move their capital to the border, inflict considerably harsher distance from capital penalties to all regions more than 3 regions away from the new capital. Therefore, you could do away with that rule that is too easily gamed, and have a fairer game that will passively balance those who would move their capital on the border to help them in their war. Such new penalties should be exponential, though, to make sure that the regions just outside of the normal control radius aren't too severely affected while those at twice the distance of the control radius and punished in a crippling way, because it's not always possible to have a capital in the most central region of the realm (as it may not even be a city).
That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure how well it would work, though. It would totally screw with any realm that did not have a nice, geometrically centered city to be their capital.
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Re: Strategic Secessions
« Reply #14: October 07, 2011, 03:55:39 AM »
I wouldn't remove the rule. Just because it's never been enforced doesn't make it pointless, because it probably has deterred a number of blatant strategic secessions.