Alliances
& Diplomacy
Part
of the fun in dealing with a Planetary League is getting along with the
various other units within the NBT community. With generally
20-50 active units at any given time, this leaves a lot of room open for
development. With each of these units, you will need to decide what
stance to take in your relations with them. Whether you want to
be in bed with them, or at their throats, this is where you make that
determination. Diplomacy settings are public knowledge.
On your Diplomacy screen there is a list of all current active units within NBT. Beside each your current stance, with 5 different options: Full Alliance, Military Alliance, Neutral, Border Dispute, and WAR!!! Each unit will have different settings depending on your current status with that unit. You may choose to follow those settings or determine your own fate. You don’t have to follow the BattleTech timeline past 3067, but you do need to play up your unit as YOU think they should have done things.
The following is a full description of the Diplomacy options, and how they affect you and others.
Full Alliance
This is the ultimate alliance. In role-playing terms this is the free flow of information, trade, etc. between two societies. The bond between the two governments and their citizens are on the best of terms. Also, the Full Alliance is by far the most difficult diplomacy level to achieve and should be even more difficult to maintain. This type of Alliance would require that the two units have similar allies with similar diplomacy settings. In game terms, this would allow for:
- The unrestricted movement of military assets - Jumpships moving to/from planets. Charge Station use allowed.
- Placement of Allied Garrison Forces on allied planets
- Viewing placements of each unit’s Charge Stations
- Joint Attacks may be launched
- The transfer of economic assets to one another without penalty
- Unrestricted purchases may be made from Allied Factories
Hosted Units: In some rare cases, units at Full Alliance may be "Hosted" by another unit. This is very similar to the House Merc option, by is only able to be set by League Admins. Specific examples of this setup include: Clan Nova Cat hosted by Draconis Combine; Clan Wolf in Exile hosted by Lyran Alliance; Explorer Corps hosted by ComStar.
Military Alliance
This type of alliance is, as the name implies, cooperation between two governments to perform joint military exercises. In game terms this quite simply means that Jumpships can be jumped to/from each other’s planets. Units can be garrisoned on planets, however the local citizens are uncomfortable with this foreign military so close to home.
- The unrestricted movement of military assets - Jumpships moving to/from planets. Charge Station use allowed.
- Placement of Allied Garrison Forces on allied planets
- The transfer of economic assets to one another at 25% penalty (25% transfer fee charged per transfer)
- Option for purchases to be made from Allied Factories, with a 10% commission being charged. This may be activated on a per unit basis.
- Minor Battles may still be launched with the following special rules:
- Units are not captured if left behind (prevents illegal 'Mech transfers)
- At present, these battles still fill up battle slots. This shall be watched and reviewed as the league progresses.
- Permission should always be asked of the defending unit before making use of this option.
Neutral
This is the vanilla diplomacy setting. It is something that can exist anywhere with a little effort. With this diplomacy setting, units can transfer economic assets back and forth and that's really about it. The citizens and the government wouldn't stand for foreign Jumpships floating around in orbit, nor would they even begin to consider having foreign Units garrison their planets.
- Jumpship movements result in Trespass Disputes
- No transfer of economic assets allowed
- Raids are allowed back and forth
- Dropping from Military Alliance to Neutral will cause all Allied Garrison Units to be converted to Mothball status.
Border Disputes
This is where units can have a fair degree of activity without the negative impacts of War. Border disputes generally consist of mostly raids, however recons could be used as a preparation for progressing to War.
- Jumpship movements result in Trespass Disputes
- No transfer of economic assets allowed
- Raids and Minor Battles are allowed back and forth. One Planetary Assault allowed.
- Dropping from Neutral to Border Dispute will cause all Allied Garrison Units to immediately launch Guerrilla Raids on all planets they are located on.
WAR!
This is what makes a planetary league interesting. When two units are at War, each warring unit will have one (1) Offensive PA slot and two (2) Offensive Minor slots available to them against their opponent, only if they do not already have one Offensive PA slot and two Offensive Minors already launched on the opposite team. The largest drawback to the War setting is that it WILL have an impact on your diplomacy settings (depending upon what they are) with other units. So if someone is constantly declaring war against other units and making things difficult for their allies, they may find themselves without any allies very soon.
- Jumpship movements result in Trespass Disputes
- No transfer of economic assets allowed
- Guaranteed (2) Minor Battles & (1) Planetary Assaults
- Multiple Planetary Assaults & Minor Battles are allowed within Battle Caps.
Changing Diplomacy Settings:
All Full Alliance / War Diplomacy settings are considered locked for the first 45 days of the league. After this period, appropriate RP may be started to bring about changes in the course of the league. Some changes may be made by units to their diplomacy after appropriate RP is created to justify this change.
On setup, you will receive default settings based upon your unit’s place in the BattleTech universe. Only a League Administrator may change alliance settings and only after the units involved have created a viable role-play backstory justifying the change. All posts regarding a specific requested change should be placed in a single Role Play forum thread. Thus ComStar News Posts made should be duplicated in the relevant thread. That way the League Admin can review the entire RP history behind the requested change at a single read, without having to reference multiple pages and post types.
Note: Valid RP is determined on a case by case basis. In some instances, much greater RP may be required than others, based on both CBT and league history. In all cases, the RP required will always be more than just a news post or two, or a cursory RP forum thread. If you really want to change your diplomacy setting, then put the RP backstory into it, working with the other unit to create a new page in league history.
Lowering Diplomacy Settings: A minimum of 2 weeks of RP backstory is required to justify a lowered diplomacy setting from Military Alliance to Neutral OR Neutral to Border Dispute, with an average of 1 RP post OR news post per day. A minimum of 4 weeks of RP backstory is required to justify a lowered diplomacy setting from Full Alliance to Military Alliance OR Border Dispute to War. Both units may actually be involved in the creation of the backstory if desired. The RP must be signed off on by a League Admin before the diplomacy change will occur.
Raising Diplomacy Settings: A minimum of 2 weeks of RP backstory is required to justify a raised diplomacy setting from Border Dispute to Neutral OR Neutral to Military Alliance, with an average of 1 RP post OR news post per day. A minimum of 4 weeks of RP backstory is required to justify a raised diplomacy setting from Military Alliance to Full Alliance OR War to Border Dispute. Both units may actually be involved in the creation of the backstory if desired. The RP must be signed off on by a League Admin before the diplomacy change will occur.
Limiting effects of War and Full Alliance:
The two extreme Diplomacy settings (Full Alliance and War) come with costs associated with them. In order for them to be allowed, your other alliances will need to match up to some extent.
When a request for a Full Alliance setting between two units is received, the automation will crosscheck the other units that are set at Full Alliance for both. If there were a War setting in there, then the Full Alliance would drop one step. Likewise if a War change were requested, the automation would check all the Full Alliance settings for both units. If any Full Alliances exist, they would drop one step. These auto-changes would take the normal 2 weeks to recover from.
MRBC Hiring Halls
As Merc units do not generally claim ownership of specific planets, they base their operations out of the various MRBC Hiring Halls throughout the galaxy. Each Hiring Hall grants the resident Mercs specific bonuses or penalties during their stay in-system. A Merc may change their choice of Hiring Hall through the Diplomacy screen every 30 days (varies depending on the Hiring Hall). When the rotation takes place, all Jumpships currently in-system at the old Hiring Hall will transfer to the new Hiring Hall. Once arrived, the Merc may commence operations as normal.
The cost of this move is 100 million, plus 50 million per Jumpship transferred with the rotation.
A Merc may always jump back to their current Hiring Hall, provided they are within range, regardless of alliance level and planet lockdown.
House Mercs Option
Beside each active Merc unit there is the option listed to activate this unit as a House Merc. Activating this setting will bypass and disable the above alliance settings for the Merc unit. This means that you are taking responsibility for the support of that Merc unit, covering their operating expenses and giving them access to your space and factory production. Units may have multiple House Mercs working for them, but a Merc unit may only be thus allied with a single unit.
Benefits of the House Merc Option:
- All maintenance costs for the Merc unit will come directly out of the House’s bank each week
- Gives Merc unit unlimited access to hiring unit’s space
- All benefits of Full Alliance hold true, without the waiting period (Secondary Garrison, Joint Attacks, Merc Jump access, 100% sharing of pilots, transferring allied garrison battles in the automation, etc).
- Allows Mercs to use their Surgical Strike ability to reinforce defensive battles quickly
- Any Battle may be transferred in the automation to the control of a House Merc, regardless of the presence of Allied Garrison.
Garrison Duty
A second option is also available for the hiring of Merc units, namely Garrison Duty. This is a lesser version of the House Merc alliance, but without as many strings attached. Basically it is Military Alliance, with factory access disabled.
- Gives Merc unit unlimited access to hiring unit’s space
- All benefits of Military Alliance hold true, without the waiting period (Secondary Garrison, Merc Jump access, 100% sharing of pilots, etc).
- Allows Mercs to use their Surgical Strike ability to reinforce defensive battles quickly
- Factory access is disabled by default, but may be upgraded
- Battles may be transferred to a Merc that has a Jumpship in-system. This transfer may occur at anytime, even outside the 24-hour initial window, even 2 months into a Planetary Assault.
Unit Goals & Failures:
Each unit has a specific set of Goals & Failures assigned to them by League Administration, as well as a few that they may have set for themselves (must be Admin approved). Basically these detail milestones for the unit during the course of the league, events that are either sought after or avoided as the unit progresses. Some may be tied to role-play, others to actual combat, and others to resources. When a unit achieves a Goal, they will receive a bonus from the League Administration, generally in the form of resources, but with other possibilities as well. Likewise, having a Failure be met will result in a penalty being applied to the unit.
At present, each units' Goals and Failures may be seen by all under their Public Diplomacy page. Thus allies can help a unit to achieve specific Goals, and help to avoid Failures. On the flipside, enemies can work to prevent Goals from being met, and make Failures a reality.
Further information will be posted soon.
Espionage:
Note: Espionage will become an expanded concept at a later date in the league. For the time being, only one option is available:
- Detect
Pirate Homeworld – You will be given the identity of a random
planet within 60ly of the actual Pirates Homeworld. It is then up to
you to get to that location and track them down. The Pirate unit
is NOT informed that their homeworld is being tracked
Cost: 200 million (Periphery - 75 million)
Counter-Espionage:
Counter-Espionage will become an expanded concept at a later date in the league. For the time being only a single option is available.
Pirates may use this option to move their Capitals to a different planet. The cost of this move is 15% of their industry on that planet, deducted from their bank. A planet may only be rotated once every 14 days.
- Pirates: Will move their capital randomly to another Unassigned planet somewhere on the map. All resources present at that time will be transferred as well: Garrison, Jumpships and so forth. Factories are not transferred.
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