Many of you will be familiar with the treaty-locking and early election election tactics, although it is also true that many players spend years in the game without ever coming across them. To briefly describe each tactic:
Treaty-locking is when a player or group of players create and ratify treaties which "lock in" all or most of the nation's legislative options. This effectively makes it difficult or impossible for new players to changes laws or raise their visibility levels, because it is necessary for them to get the legislature to withdraw from the treaty before they can begin to change the laws. And withdrawing from treaties requires the support of over 50% of the members of the legislature.
The early election tactic is when a player (it is almost always a single player, but can be a group of players) calls frequent early election, making it impossible for other parties to pass bills. This means other parties cannot increase their visibility levels, making it difficult or impossible for them to win seats.
Both of these tactics have been controversial ever since the game opened a decade ago. Their merits and demerits have been debated in the past, although so far, they have always been allowed under the rules.
The Moderation Team believes the time has come to review this issue and open a consultation with the player base over whether these tactics should continue to be legal in the future. Some of the factors behind our decision to do this are:
- Particracy would benefit from having more players, and the tactics in question are notorious for disillusioning new players just as they are trying to get to grips with the game.
- The new role-play laws (see sections 10 & 11 of the 'Rules of the Game') mean it is possible to role-play one-party state systems without recourse to these tactics.
- The tough new rules on cultural enforcement and renaming, reactivation & early election requests already somewhat increase the burden on less experienced players who are less familiar with the conventions of the game. In view of this, it may seem fair to spare these players the experience of coming across early election and treaty-locking tactics.
- On a technical level, stopping these tactics ought not to be too difficult, as treaties can be removed by Moderators, and players who persist in the early election tactic despite warnings can, for example, be subject to a seat reset (ie. have their number of seats set to 0).
We look forward to hearing your views on these issues, and will study them very carefully before making any decision.