Why not let the team declaring war decide the terms of surrender? Could be the % of the tribute and how long it will be paid. After the tribute period expires, the surrendering team can choose if they want to keep paying and get the protection, or just stop paying.

teams that would be normally left alone because there is no reason to attack them will be attacked a griefed into paying this money for "peace"

Decent idea, but its going to lead to unnecessary fighting where strong teams force weaker teams to pay them with little effort by the larger team.

-ERMAN

Sounds awesome

Can't wait for it.

that is indeed a possibility. but we need more content to encourage warfare and make it both more practical and more costly therefore a more serious decision.

this idea definitely needs more tweaking. but it shows some promise.

If a team surrenders players will simply leave the team to aviod the tyth.

I think the current proposal will just lead to griefing as Erman suggests.

I think its pretty much a bad idea the war system works fine as is, the teams involved fight until theyve had enough works great leave it alone

I have been thinking about this idea a lot.. and I love the concept, however I think the system you came up with is fairly rubbish.

In my opinion, the system should work like this:

Team A: Peaceful colony/PvAI team, large amount of colonies, small amount of players, not prepared for war.

Team X: Powerful PvP oriented team, fairly large group of combat experienced players.

--------------------

Team X invades Team A, and Team A surrenders to Team X after say.. a couple days of war, to limit losses, as they realize they have no chance at victory.

As soon as Team A surrenders to Team X, Team A becomes the "Slave Empire" of Team X, and pays a Tithe (Varying from 5% to 15%, set by Team X Leader), and the two teams are no longer able to attack each other (As seen when in a Squad). They are healed by each others bases, and are for all intents and purposes, allied teams, with one paying the other.

Team A is now under the protection of Team X. Any team that wars Team A, will War both Teams X & A. This can last until either the universe reset, or if Team A feels they have prepared properly, after one week with a "Declare Independence" function, which would restart the war. If Team A does not surrender again within the following week after Declaring Independence, then Team A becomes once again, an independent team.

If Team X were to be too greedy, and take many "Slaves", or is too heavy handed with the Tithe, their slaves could all revolt against them, and one slave might be okay to control, but 4-5 would be very difficult indeed. Perhaps they might organize with another powerful team to become their "Slave" instead, for a lower Tithe. Either way, there any many ways out of slavery, and having many slaves would not be the best option all the time.

Team X, when invading, would purposefully try to limit the damage they do to colonies and in general to infrastructure, as that would in turn hurt their own income, if they believe a victory is imminent, which would stop virtually any grieving done by very high end teams. The invaders would WANT their slaves to make as much money as possible, to increase their own income.

Pros of this system:

-Added Depth to PvP ingame.
-Added depth to ingame Politics.
-Would decrease teams simply trying to wipe each other out.
-Grieving would end instantly, since the losing team can automatically Surrender and avoid being wiped out all together.
-Would make all current alliances ingame virtually obsolete over night.
-Would give a true ingame hierarchy that is much more tangible than the current Score system.

Now.. here are a few things to remember for this:

-A minimum Tithe of at least 2.5-5% would be needed, so to stop large teams from slaving each other to simply receive heals in the other teams gals at no cost.
-The "Master" team should only have the option to release the slave after 1 week of peace, to stop grieving all together.
-If Team Z invades and is victorious over team A, and Team A has a slave, Team B, then both Team A and Team B are now slaves of Team Z.


... Thoughts?

This system would make SS far more interesting than it ever has been in the past, and even encourage casual PvP on a less personal scale.

/signed

Other notes upon further thought...

-Would make for an extremely tidy and very meaningful Emperor run system.

-Might be a good idea to have any team that surrenders to become unwar-able within the first week of their Tithe, to avoid two teams working together to grieve a small team.

-Would enhance SS in so many ways, and make the MMO aspect of this game take on a whole new meaning. Thinking about it makes me seriously reconsider how I play the game, and would make me actually overlook massive games like Diablo 3 and SC 2 in favor of playing this. I think that added appeal is... very, very important.

-Would greatly extend player sub longevity as there will always be Emperor runs to accomplish, and those would be a true feat to pull off, unlike now, where after you have done everything, you sit idle and wait for stuff like UZ 2.

- Might want to consider making it impossible to attack bases if War is not declared, as a further way to prevent grieving, and remove that petty War Mongering skill. Just something to consider.

This is a great suggestion from Sodomy, big improvement on original.

The only thing i can think to add would be a 'rebel' concept to deal with people leaving a team that is currently paying a tithe to another.

Swapping between teams all paying tithe to team X would have no effect

Leaving the protection of team X would cause the rebel to be automatically warred by team X after a few hours had passed unless/until the rebel joins another team.

At that point team X gets a message informing them "rebel A has joined team B and is under their protection" and normal diplomacy/war can resume.

Not sure if this holds up under scruting, but i think there needs to be some penalty for leaving a team that is slaved.

I dont think it is very practical.

Who is going to stay in a "Slave team".

The slave team would simply dissolve and the members would join the nearest big pvp team. Or if they were severely effected go and play something else as has happened in the past.

How many PvP teams in game do you know recruiting right now? Change the name if semantics are that important for you, but once something becomes the "norm", i don't see people leaving long term teams over it. Do not forget about Team size limit, either..

Right now, PvP is incredibly unrewarding. Take Helro who has been on the winning side of the vast majority of battles for many universes now.. what does he have to show for it? 100 gg 20? You make those kinds of credits in a couple days on a good col team.

I absolutely LOVE Sodomys idea, please please please to god put it in.

Date of competition: June 2010

Sodomy's idea is the don.