A few words on Jahkku and the future

6 days ago, raiders invaded Jahkku, a peaceful roleplay region whose founder nation had ceased to exist a mere three days earlier. Yesterday, after major update, the invading Delegate resigned from the World Assembly and left the region, thereby ending the occupation. While this may sound like a successful temporary operation by the raiders, this was actually a tremendous (and hopefully trend-setting) success for defenders.

What is missing from the full story here is the efforts of defenders and restorers in those five days. Dedicated defenders from a variety of regions struck out at the raiders every single update since the begin of their occupation, dealing crippling blows to any attempts to build up influence in the region; meanwhile, Solidarity worked with natives to prevent a mass exodus of nations from the region and keep their spirits held high.

The result?

• Not a single native nation was banjected from the region.

• The raiders were never able to build up any influence that could have been used towards banjecting natives or even passwording; at this time, they barely have more than they did when they entered initially.

• Defenders built a foothold of 6 nations in the region, which combined with the typically stronger presence of defender updaters on weekends would have made a liberation at the next major update inevitable.
  

The raiders left gracefully before the inevitable direct defeat, and (to their credit) left a tacit acknowledgement of the efforts of defenders on the region's World Factbook Entry before leaving. At the following minor update, a defender nation assumed the Delegacy of the region to clean up; meanwhile, Solidarity is working with the native population to transfer control back to them in an orderly fashion and help them with security and rebuilding efforts.

Lessons learned

Defending has been around for 13 years (and influence for 11), so this approach has surely been done in some fashion before, but it has certainly not been attempted recently, and there are quite a few insights that this operation has brought about.

First, attrition runs work. This isn't really a new insight, as it's always been known that attrition runs work, but this operation showed us just how well they work. No natives banned, plus negligible influence gains, plus an unejectable defender foothold of 6 nations in the region - after 5 days. This was the result of attrition runs at every update (10 in total), most of which with a force less than half the pilers on the raider delegate. Simple math shows why this works: the influence gain for N cross-endorsed nations updating in a region is N squared, which means every additional cross-endorsed nation getting in deals exponentially more damage to the raider's influence.

Second, Solidarity’s concept works. Sure, defender contact with natives has always been a thing, and defenders have always worked diligently to returning control back to the oppressed natives, but Solidarity’s unique pitch, founded in compassion, brings a different feel to the entire affair. The natives felt better, were constantly updated with progress, but simultaneously were engaged to continue with business as usual, as far as possible, with cultural impulses provided by Solidarity, and are engaged in discussions on securing their region for the future. It’s a more wholesome approach than what regular defenders provide (and frankly, they don’t need to provide it - that’s what Solidarity specializes in!).

Third, attrition fatigue is a thing, but is manageable. In the past months, I was always told that the reason attrition runs cannot be sustained is because “people get fatigued”. But after this operation, I realized it’s not the individuals helping that got fatigued (I asked them, and they said no). But having led 7 of the 10 operations, I noticed that I myself was the one getting fatigued. Approaching people, getting them together, making sure a trigger was there, posting orders, etc. are all part of the job, and individual parts that I consider fun, but there is a certain grating quality to that when it’s done 5 days in a row. If we spread that effort around, that dreaded attrition fatigue should not be an issue.

The Future

So we’ve learned a few things, but how do we put that into practice? I think we, as defenders in general, need to change to make attrition runs a viable tool in the long-term, and I believe doing so will help us with all our other operations too: We need to change our culture regarding update participation.

We should make it culture that update isn’t seen as a chore, something to be called to when there’s something to do by the commander illuminati. Rather, everybody just checks in to say that they are there and in which capacity (are they there full-time? Are they doing something else but could help with a liberation if pinged 5 minutes before? etc.)

We should make it culture that the first person to show up just posts a nation for everybody to cross-endorse on. Others should say “hey, nobody spotting yet? Ok, I’m free, I’ll look what’s happening”. Yet another can say “oh hey, I’ve never spotted before, help me out?” and receive the help and assistance they want.

We should make it culture that our lower leadership positions are empowered to take charge. RIASF Officer Scez, SPSF Officer Vietnam, the Warden-Constables Birdkeeper and Dolen, etc. are all in leadership positions in their respective militaries, and they should show it! Not only should we encourage them to take charge on their own, we should help them do so by making sure they know everything that needs doing (liberations, detags, defenses, attrition runs, etc.) — We should trust them enough that we can give this information to them, and if we don’t, they shouldn’t have been promoted in the first place. Finally, a very convenient side-effect is that it reduces fatigue on the commanders, and gives the officers more incentive to be there.

We should make it culture that update isn’t just those 60-120 minutes of the game processing all the regions in order, but rather an event, with fun banter, voice chat, music bots, other games, and all the rest, starting long before update begins and going long after update ends. These are the things that made the Grey Wardens the primary hub of update defenders in the summer, and it’s worth repeating.

-- Roavin