Territory, mineral rights, leases, shares

[rasqual]

Someone suggested that entire countries be "owned" if enough population centers were occupied. Makes sense. However, these ownerships might not be just individual, but collective -- a "government." An instance of alliances, obviously.

If a country were owned, though, it's resources should not be open to exploitation by just anyone. Not jewels, nor oil. These would be state-owned (yeah, we'll be socialist I guess). Parcels could be leased to foreign interests for a fixed amount or a share of the yield.

I think at some point, these national boundaries will become important. Again, this would be a good case of using data available in Earth (though not, alas, in the layers).

[Mickey]

Originally Posted by rasqual

If a country were owned, though, it's resources should not be open to exploitation by just anyone. Not jewels, nor oil. These would be state-owned (yeah, we'll be socialist I guess). Parcels could be leased to foreign interests for a fixed amount or a share of the yield.

I've already considered giving the current owner of Riyadh a very small share of the oil yield (1% or so?). I'll likely do a similar thing with the other resources as we start making them available.

I think at some point, these national boundaries will become important. Again, this would be a good case of using data available in Earth (though not, alas, in the layers).

Agreed.

[Beezer]

Originally Posted by rasqual

Someone suggested that entire countries be "owned" if enough population centers were occupied.

Not a bad idea. However, I think it would be cool that if we owned a cluster of cities all together, then we can create our own countries with our own boundaries. Then, people that have their own "country" would reap some sort of benefit from it. Perhaps points added to their total value score. This would cause people to be more strategic with the cities they attacked, instead o simply going after those with the highest populations.

I also think that the number of armies and troops you can get should be directly proportional to the total population of the cities you own. For example, if the only city you own is Belfast (pop. approx. 240,000) then you shouldn't be able to have an army of 10,000. Is it reasonable to believe that 4% of the entire population of that city would be in the army?? The US has hundreds of millions of people and we don't have 4% of our total population in the army. Again, just a thought.