Analysis of Recent Rule Changes to Congress Elections

Day 1,647, 14:16 • Published in USA Ireland • by Seanan
Boobies.



Today, at about breakfast time, the admins changed the rules on Congress elections regarding region ownership; I learned this from an article by an annoyed Paraguayan, who's country would have a congress if it was not for this recent change. The eNetherlands got a rough time too.

Basically, from what I can tell:

✯ Before the change you had to run candidates before 23:59:59 on the 23rd. Then you have 24 hours til elections. Then you have 24 hours of elections. Then 6 hours of election check.

✯ Now your country must own the region you are running in before 23:59:59 on the 22nd. You can still run up until 23:59:59 on the 23rd, but you have to own the region before the start of the day.

"So? what it matter boi?" I hear you ask.

To understand the GRAVITY of the situation, we must first put ourselves into the shoes of a citizen of a country trying to get a congress with the threat of being wiped. I’ll give a past situation I have plenty of knowledge about; eIreland.



Stage 1: Being Screwed


Think this was a Tuesday. A few months back

Yup, thats enough screwed for me.

Stage 2: Open up RW on the 23rd, Win and Run Candidates


For ironic value, the Irish liberated the Pale first.

Under the old rules you would open up a RW on the 23rd, get a region and be allowed to run candidates. A battle takes a minimum of 12:40:00 hours, so ideally the RW would have been opened at around 10:00:00 erep time and alot of support lined up to make sure each round was won.

At this point, timing is crucial:

✯ As soon as the region was liberated, Irish congress would propose the UK as a Natural Enemy. Ideally this would have happened at around 23:00:00 erep time.

✯ This gave 24 hours til the end of proposal, and 24 hours til an autoattack by Ireland.

✯ This meant the autoattack was due to happen at around 23:00:00 erep time on the 25th. Thats 7 hours til the end of election check, and a congress is elected..

Stage 3: Making up shortfalls


The autoattack.

Under these ideal conditions: the autoattack would happen and last a minimum of 12:40:00 hours, which is 05:40:00 hours more than is needed. Of course, ideals are not common and there is often more hours to make up.

Solutions:

✯ Draw out the autoattack. If you can win the autoattack, brilliant! If you can't, you have to win enough rounds to make sure your country holds the region after the election check period. The enemy has to attack back aswell so thats another 12:40:00 hours min before they can take the region back.

But... eIreland could not win a single round in direct MPP battles. If you are facing a stronger enemy, drawing out an autoattack isn't possible. So you have to seek other ways of adding time, such the solution below.

✯ Queueing; This is when the Country President selects an enemy occupied regions which is under a RW to attack. This is how you "cheat" the 24 hour autoattack rule. In the picture above: say a RW is started in Shannon 4 hours before the autoattack is due to happen, the CP would select to attack British held Shannon - In 4 hours the autoattack is delayed because the RW in Shannon must finish first before the selected attack can happen. In this case, this would add at min 08:40:00 hours to the clock.





They changed the rules didn't they, silly :3

Think back to Stage 2. You know where under ideal conditions I said you'd have around 7 hours til the end of election checks? While still having an autoattack, and their return attack still to go?

Under the new rules: You'd have to start a RW on the >>>22nd

Meaning if you went through all the same stages, under ideal conditions, your autoattack attack would be due to happen at 23:00:00 erep time on the 24th.

And that is 31 hours til the end of elections.
If you assume you get crushed in MPP battles, take away 25:20:00 hours (two battles); Thats about 6 hours short of securing a congress under ideal pre-autoattack conditions.

Did I mention that ideal conditions never happen?



Recently I read in an interview with an admin, that they love feedback and, without a doubt, they will read feedback if sent via a ticket. And I ain't no hater, I'm totally cool with sending feedback.

So under Game Support with topic selected as Game Mechanics, I sent this ticket:

Gave a 5 star for a quick response!

If you could give them feedback too, that would be super!