Preventing hostile takeover

[Chris]

There are 10 predefined kingdoms, players join them. Members of a kingdom vote for a king who rule the kingdom. Player's vote strength depends on player's power and various other factors.

Now, an enemy kingdom (bigger and stronger) sends a group of strong players who join the kingdom, they all vote for one of them and take over. Then they wreak havock (break treaties, cancel projects, disband royal army, start wars with neutral kingdoms, spend all gold from treasury on useless things) after which they retreat to their original kingdom. The enemy kingdom attacks the crippled kingdom.

Solutions?

[CygnusX]

I think players in a Kingdom vote until they have a King.  After a King is established, there is no more voting in an out.  There is a Dictatorship, and if you want to challenge their rule, you would have to throw a coup. 

[FutureLost]

Maybe you can discourage such actions if you make it harder to get voting rights for immigrants. For example it takes some time to get right to vote when you change kingdom, you must pay for it (maybe proportional to player's strength) or some long time member of the kingdom must guarantee for you before you can vote (probably it is smart to limit how many times someone can guarantee for newcomers, so one traitor is not enough .

[Mutant]

My philosophy would be: don't prevent it. The more freedom you give to players, the more variety and depth the game will have. If someone can co-ordinate a takeover like that, let them do it. So long as the kingdom under attack has some means of defence (e.g. if they're suspicious of a player, they can kick them out somehow, maybe via a vote), then suddenly there's a whole set of strategies that have opened up. Savvy kingdoms will know anyone joining up could be some sort of attempt to take over from within, and try to vet new members.

If a takeover is successful, you'll get refugees fleeing to other kingdoms, who themselves will be suspicious. Maybe the refugees will try to rally and take back what was once theirs. Sure, it will be tough on players who were in the now demolished kingdom, but it's certainly an experience they won't soon forget.

[Chris]

Kingdom are always open, no one can kick out anyone. It has to be that way with predefined and strictly limited kingdoms.

This is for multilingual game and kingdoms are based on real countries, so in many cases players won't be able to go to another country because they don't know the language of the kingdom (not a big problem for English speaking players, but if you are Polish speaking player you have no choice, you can only be in Kingdom of Poland because only there people will understand what you say).

[jannesiera]

One thing you could do is make a player loose all his political power when he joins a new kingdom and let him slowly build it up again. So a really (politically) powerful player in one country will be a 'regular' powerful one in another.

[Chris]

I think players in a Kingdom vote until they have a King.  After a King is established, there is no more voting in an out.  There is a Dictatorship, and if you want to challenge their rule, you would have to throw a coup. 

I have been thinking how to deal with rule stability. On one hand, it is good if king can be replaced, on the other, it is not so good. If a kingdom have let's say 5 players, and then suddenly 10 new ones register they will take over in no time... Is it really desirable for the game?

As for hostile takeover. I was thinking about some counter how long you have been for each country separately. So, when you switch country you don't lose all "time" you have been in the old one, you can switch back if you undecide. Technicly there could be a new table row created when a player change kingdom, and the current kingdom's row gets +1 each day, while past kingdoms get -1 a day. You need, let's say, 12 minimum to vote.

Also, I think, I like the concept of older players getting more votes. There could be some kind of prestige/power that you increase each day by your action (or a bit by doing nothing), then your prestige affect your votes.

[hiigara]

Also, I think, I like the concept of older players getting more votes. There could be some kind of prestige/power that you increase each day by your action (or a bit by doing nothing), then your prestige affect your votes.

That's how I would do it. You have prestige or influence over a kingdom, which is how much peasants like you. People who just arrive to a kingdom are not well known, and cannot become kings too fast, even if they are very rich. The same happen with politicians in real life. It could only happen if they had the endorsement of someone who is well known in the kingdom.

[Chris]

So far I thought of these:
- personal influence (level of the player increases influence)
- mansions in a kingdom (you can build a mansion in any kingdom, it increases influence if you are citizen of that kingdom, if the mansion is in foreign kingdom it is useless. So if you decide to switch kingdom you have to build a new mansion, but the old one is not lost, if you ever had a change of heart you can go back, pluse you have a bragging rights for having multiple mansions, so it is not too traumatic to the player)
- penalty for joining (when you join a kingdom you get 100% penalty to influence (no votes), it decerases by 10% per day; so to make a hostile taker they need to spend several days in the target kingdom, plus upon return they will have to wait again to regain their influence in their original kingdom)

Influence = number of votes you have.

I'm wondering about the "get recommended by respected old citizen" FutureLost mentioned. Not sure how exactly it could work through.

[Barrikor]

Sounds like it'll work

"respected old citizen" could be a bit tricky (for example: a scenario where there are only a few players in a kingdom and they all go inactive then new players join) but it could work if you put the right fail-safes in place.

 As long as the Kingdoms have methods available to prevent hostile takeover it should be fine. If they get taken over it just needs to be their own fault, not the game's fault.

[Murzim]

If influence is what defines power of vote, then do:

Days in current nation * x_factor * Influence = vote power

This way you solve it with one column in user row which zeroes each time someone joins a new state. This can be called loyalty.

[Chris]

Days in current nation * x_factor * Influence = vote power

Too harsh, it makes switching kingdoms (like temporary change of heart) for older players devastating. Maybe like this:

( min(Days in current nation,14)*5 + min(Days in current nation,90)*1 ) * x_factor * Influence = vote power

This way, the critical is to be at least 14 days in a kingdom and the first 3 months are a nice addition. Above 3 months it does not affect anything.


There could be this sentence on the election page "You have been loyal to your kingdom for X days which grants you Y votes per influence point. You have Z influence points right now. Other modifiers (like profession bonus) might apply as well." After 90 days it will display in X "90 days or more" to indicate that above 90 is not important.

[Murzim]

Days in current nation * x_factor * Influence = vote power

Too harsh, it makes switching kingdoms (like temporary change of heart) for older players devastating. Maybe like this:

( min(Days in current nation,14)*5 + min(Days in current nation,90)*1 ) * x_factor * Influence = vote power

This way, the critical is to be at least 14 days in a kingdom and the first 3 months are a nice addition. Above 3 months it does not affect anything.


There could be this sentence on the election page "You have been loyal to your kingdom for X days which grants you Y votes per influence point. You have Z influence points right now. Other modifiers (like profession bonus) might apply as well." After 90 days it will display in X "90 days or more" to indicate that above 90 is not important.

Great idea. I might use it myself too in a future project.

[Chris]

Great idea. I might use it myself too in a future project.

I'm flattered If you do tell me (people frequently promise they will steal my ideas and use for their projects, but then they change their minds and don't steal it which makes me sad and depressed since for someone who is designing games for more than 25 years there should be at least one idea stolen/copied/cloned, I feel very incompetent because of this).

[AltarofScience]

If you look at EvE, hostile takeovers are going to happen. I mean, if you just have really casual players maybe it won't be a problem but joining for 14 days on an alt or even a main account is not a big deal for serious players.