Call for help

Silas

Can we move CALL FOR HELP to an investable army power, so that cities can control who can and cannot call for help from city guards? This would also mean that anybody wanting to rush defenders and call for help would be putting something at risk in doing so, since their death will count towards either a sanction or charging a tank.

Katzchen

Guards are there to defend the city... not only listen to soldiers. This would make noncom only raids so much worse.

Silas

These so-called non-coms can enlist to defend the city.

Katzchen

Silas said:

These so-called non-coms can enlist to defend the city.

And then noncom only raids feed the tank more, but they still can't fight... this doesn't change anything, it still boosts those raids, which are kind of bullshit.

Shirszae

This does not really make sense because a raid is not the only situation in which a citizen might want to call the guards. if someone is being pestered/annoyed personally within his city, he should not need to be a soldier to have an opportunity to be defended by the guards within.

Jarrod

While I like the idea, it doesn't really thematically fit with the CALL FOR HELP part of it, something that even random denizens have been able to do in the past.

As for the supposed non-com raids, just tell everyone to go to guardhouse or gatehouse, and don't give the raiders 6 kills to start a sanction.

Imo, remove CALL FOR HELP because of the history it has, add something with the exact same functionality to Army powers.

Santar

Shirszae said:

This does not really make sense because a raid is not the only situation in which a citizen might want to call the guards. if someone is being pestered/annoyed personally within his city, he should not need to be a soldier to have an opportunity to be defended by the guards within.

This isn't something that needs to be decided by the OOC administration though. The IC government of each city hires their guards and should be able to determine how they are used. Calling for help from guards isn't some sort of innate privilege. A city isn't even required to have guards to begin with.

I have no preference regarding the actual topic idea, though.

Silas

Jarrod said:

While I like the idea, it doesn't really thematically fit with the CALL FOR HELP part of it, something that even random denizens have been able to do in the past.

As for the supposed non-com raids, just tell everyone to go to guardhouse or gatehouse, and don't give the raiders 6 kills to start a sanction.

Imo, remove CALL FOR HELP because of the history it has, add something with the exact same functionality to Army powers.

Seems unnecessary, but I could go for it. Some sort of city power in line with the rest of the guard syntaxes. CITY GUARD SUMMON or whatever.

ETA: Could leave in call for help and just have it yell as it does now without summoning the guards.

Santar

Should also add in, "I'm being oppressed!"

Shirszae

Santar said:

Shirszae said:

This does not really make sense because a raid is not the only situation in which a citizen might want to call the guards. if someone is being pestered/annoyed personally within his city, he should not need to be a soldier to have an opportunity to be defended by the guards within.

This isn't something that needs to be decided by the OOC administration though. The IC government of each city hires their guards and should be able to determine how they are used. Calling for help from guards isn't some sort of innate privilege. A city isn't even required to have guards to begin with.

I have no preference regarding the actual topic idea, though.

There's a difference between them being allowed to determine who can call guards based on city parameters, and making it exclusively an army power. If they do the later,it won't be much of an ic decision as an ooc one. Also, as it currently stands, calling for guards *is* a sort of innate privilege, and honestly one of the advantages of being a citizen over merely an observer idling in a city.

Kuy

Silas said:

These so-called non-coms can enlist to defend the city.

Not to beat a dead horse, but didn't we just recently have this big, long, drawn out discussion about the idea that there are a lot of people who defend without being pressured into joining their city's military?

Either way, I also disagree with this.  Guards aren't there for the military's use; they're an equalizer for those times when you don't have any experiences raiders and everyone and their mother who knows how to fight tries to raid you.

That said, what if we leave it as is, but if you call for help and die within the next three minutes, you count towards sanction?  This would preserve the guards as a staple for non-com times of trouble while also allowing for counterplay to the "rush enemies, call for help" strategy.

Nellaundra

Maybe just implement a guard balance thing.  They can only rush off to help once per <insert time here> before needing to rest for a bit, or something.

Strata

CALL FOR HELP seems fine. Making it an invested power only available to certain army ranks would defeat the purpose and those who are not in the army would have no way of getting help.

Regarding the recent raid: It was probably a mistake on the part of those who kept trying to call for help and get us dispatched from the city - and I think had they realized sooner that our original intentions were to kill guards, they wouldn't have kept bringing us more guards to kill Also, they did assemble a 15-strong group and even rushed us in a reasonable time-frame. They did that all without the "main leaders / raiders" from Targossas in the realms, and @Achilles was just sitting on his boat the entire time.

I think you should talk to them, @Silas, implore them to enlist, and also maybe lecture them on the whole CALL FOR HELP thing - as I'm sure they were just doing what they believed was the most appropriate thing to do at that time.

Not sure why Targossas has to start up a thread to discuss game mechanic changes every time something doesn't go their way.

OH WAIT... I KNOW WHY:

Kyrra

What about for non-raid purposes? You still get plenty of thieves hitting up shops and citizens, majority of the time they are enemied. Calling for guards was always an option for any citizen, because they are guards and not soldiers.

Tecton

Not something we're currently considering. The ability for citizens to request aide from guards at any time is something that will remain in place to make cities a safe(ish) place to (somewhat) relax.