Morkin's Island Takeover Policy

[Ruku]

clausewitz said:

So if we do not intend to vulture, what is to prevent others from asserting the same policy when they run into the situation with us?

Basically, if we do not vulture, I foresee this being used against us ten times as often as it is used in our favor Every alliance on the server will declare "I don't care that you spent 400 LWS clearing the isle, your own rules say that since I snuck in and got it, it's mine".

Spot on clausewitz, if this was to come into play with all alliances, nobody would clear an isle out of fear of it being sniped. And if we aren't sniping (due to it being wrong for a start) and we are too afraid of clearing due to being sniped ourself then there will be no chance for smaller players to expand.

[Clausewitz]

Just as an internal example...

Ruku spends 400 LWS clearing an isle. I am very close to him, so I notice it is clear, and know he is one of the other aggressive colonizers in the region. So I slip in with a colonyship, after he had 3 failures.

Ruku is upset, and offers to compensate my colonyship but wants the island.

It strikes me as extraordinarily counter-intuitive that, in this example, the alliance would go to war against Ruku to defend my actions, rather than vice versa.

[Ruku]

clausewitz said:

Just as an internal example...

Ruku spends 400 LWS clearing an isle. I am very close to him, so I notice it is clear, and know he is one of the other aggressive colonizers in the region. So I slip in with a colonyship, after he had 3 failures.

Ruku is upset, and offers to compensate my colonyship but wants the island.

It strikes me as extraordinarily counter-intuitive that, in this example, the alliance would go to war against Ruku to defend my actions, rather than vice versa.

Ooo be careful now Clausewitz! hehe

[Arminius]

clausewitz said:

...since I snuck in and got it, it's mine".

We know to make sure nobody can sneak in. And we could still attempt colonisations without knowing that somebody else cleared stuff. At least then nobody can come to us and say "you took the island, but it's mine because I cleared X amount of LWS and spears off it". As long as we're not deliberately 'sniping' en masse, there won't be a problem.

[Gornall]

The problem isn't us. The problem is people sniping our islands.

Colos aint always successful first time so timing fleets can become irrelevant.

[Ruku]

Me and Gornall came up with an idea.

We think that it would be beneficial for the Alliance as a whole to come up with 2 or 3 different policies.

These policies would then be posted on each of the alliances from page. From there members in the alliance can adopt the policy which they believe in the most strongly.

Now, say somebody picks a policy I dont totally agree with, thats ok, I will still back them as they are in my alliance and they chose that policy becuase they believe in it the most.
But I would expect the same backing, even if you don't approve of my selection of policy.

In the event of somebody messaging you demanding 'this' or 'that', we could refer them to our main page and say, I am currently following Morkin Policy number 'x'.

We will never come up with one single Policy that everyone will agree on, but we can however come up with several different Policies which we can choose to follow based on our views.

What do you think there?

[Arminius]

clausewitz said:

Ruku spends 400 LWS clearing an isle.

How a) do you know that and b) can he prove it beyond reasonable doubt?

The clearance policy reduces the risk completely, and I fail to see how that benefits smaller players. You just send one of your fleets to clear and nobody else can take the isle away from you, because you've 'cleared' it. The MH2 policy, on the other hand, keeps the evidence visible for all to check. I accept that it occasionally could lead to issues, but at least everybody is clear about the situation. The diplomats can then sort that out and perhaps recommend compensation if there is a clear cut case.

Also, it defeats Digg's policy of pre-tsunami clearances. If we don't accept those, then they will eventually stop doing it.

[Arminius]

gornall said:

The problem isn't us. The problem is people sniping our islands.

How often has that actually happened?

In my case, I have unknowingly 'sniped' several islands, while I never lost one that I cleared.

[Arminius]

ruku said:

We will never come up with one single Policy that everyone will agree on, but we can however come up with several different Policies which we can choose to follow based on our views.

What do you think there?

Erm, I think that's worse than having no policy at all...

It'll just confuse everybody.

[Ruku]

Ok, your saying the 'MH2' is fool proof.

What if for example, (seeing as your so hooked on faking reports) somebody fakes reports of somebody catting their isle from MH2 to MH1 then demands their isle back?

[Gornall]

arminius said:

gornall said:

The problem isn't us. The problem is people sniping our islands.

How often has that actually happened?

In my case, I have unknowingly 'sniped' several islands, while I never lost one that I cleared.

I lost a couple of 400pointers with about 50 or so lws and a costly number of spears/stoners.

All I'm saying is that this policy in general, is going to be used against us more often than not.

We snipe an isle, they claim they cleared and demand the isle back. They snipe they say our policy allows them to do so.

[Ruku]

arminius said:

ruku said:

We will never come up with one single Policy that everyone will agree on, but we can however come up with several different Policies which we can choose to follow based on our views.

What do you think there?

Erm, I think that's worse than having no policy at all...

It'll just confuse everybody.

How can that be worse? Ok there maybe a little confusion I admit that, but we are an alliance of many different people, everybody agreeing completely on one policy will just not happen.
At least this way we have our own views but still stick together as an alliance.

[eproxy]

arminius said:

We know to make sure nobody can sneak in. And we could still attempt colonisations without knowing that somebody else cleared stuff. At least then nobody can come to us and say "you took the island, but it's mine because I cleared X amount of LWS and spears off it". As long as we're not deliberately 'sniping' en masse, there won't be a problem.

I think the problem is that once people see the policy and what it means that people would 'snipe' en masse. You see a 500 point island that has MH20 and no defending units; you send a colonisation fleet and it takes the isle. Unfortunately the person who did clear it had, say, an hours gap between Clearing and Colo-fleet in which you managed to spy, their colo-fleet also failed.

Under those circumstances everyone would send their fleet since its a cheap isle; and the worst part is that the poor person to clear it suddenly has a severely reduced chance of keeping the isle due to the ~5-6 inbound colo attempts with cats.

Ever heard of the free rider problem? This would be an absolutely classic case. By saying that the person to clear the most units from an isle gets to keep it you can eliminate this.

As for the problem of proving actual clearing/attacks I really don't think it will be an issue. In almost all cases of colonisation of defended isles I have had my own spy report showing say 100lws and 1000sf defending the isle and when I've colonised said isle (after my own clearing fleets hit only thin air) the claimant has managed to send me a report matching the numbers I saw. Of course I can't prove it was them who cleared said isle but I know it wasn't me so I give the isle up.

[Sol]

In a game like this, I think anything can be faked/claimed...unless we start demanding that people take screen pictures of reports etc, but even then some sneaky mofo can always edit them...

I do think its very frustrating when someone comes and colonizes your isle after you've cleared it. I think thats one of the main reason why I don't enjoy colonizing bigger isles. There are also instances where people put the coords of isles they're going after on their PD, but really, who the hell is going to go searching for people's PDs to see if your desired isle is there?

Like mentioned before, there will never be a policy that everyone agrees with. For this reason, I think the simpler the policy is, the better. I think the 1 point, no catas for unnamed isles policy is a good one that will stick.

On the other hand, for other policies like sniping isles I don't think people would want to read essays of different policies. It would be like "I am currently following Morkin Policy number 'x,' please visit part A section i, of policy X and then contact Y to do Z"....bah its just a mess to me.

This is a game of war and chance after all...attempting to clear/colonize an isle will always come with its risks and those trying to fulfill such colonizations should accept those risks of having their isle taken, in my opinion. I do realize its not fair...Merda!, I'd be pissed off too...but in case of someone "accidentaly" colonizing a cleared isle, can we really place blame on someone? And, if someone knowingly takes an isle you've cleared...then they're obviously looking for trouble and will receive their just punishment.

But, again...I don't think Morkin can completely police IK so discussing colo policies sometimes seems useless to me. Maybe I've just given up hope of a unified IK.

[inyati]

This is all moving in the wrong direction. People fail to see that the objective here is to create an alliance standard of defence for their members.
Above all, no one in Morkin will fight for the wrong reasons. Bullying and deliberate sniping islands make part of the list of "wrong reasons".

Vulturing? Where do you people get off from even thinking that its Morkin's intention to consider such an approach

Above all we want our players to play fair, and for our diplomats to strike the best deal possible!

Form all these last posts, I get the feeling that people actualy are hoping that we approve "sniping" islands off!!!