Let's Discuss the 10 sq rule with settlers

Myll,  I think there are plenty of players that would disagree with your statement.   Since you seem to be on a campaign, try placing a harvester on a silversteel mine square and you'll get your answer.    

I'm all for helping new players and have done so all my Illy life but you are using new players as an excuse to start problems with other players.    Any respectable alliance leader will tell you that diplomacy yields results, a friendly note from a player goes a long way to obtaining permission to harvest on squares or to move a city within ten squares of another player.   It's not difficult, there is plenty of room for new players but if you believe you are entitled to key locations without diplomacy, you are sadly mistaken.   As in all games, longevity has it's benefits if you are suggesting that you have rights to squares claimed by another player, you don't understand the culture or history of this game.   On the other hand unlike most games, Illy players go out of their way to help new players understand and build up in this game and one of the first lessons new players are instructed is diplomacy will get you more than brute force.      It appears you would rather send an army to prove your point rather than try diplomacy first.    I wish you luck with that, if that is your view of the future of Illy.  

Brand,

Up front - I am in total agreement that an army should be on site if you want to control the resources. 

You may want it to imply ownership, but the coding of the game does not restrict gameplay for harvesting actions.  Yes, I already know the detractors will talk about Diplomacy and how important the finesse of it is, but that in itself still does not render ownership of the res, it only results in interpersonal negotiation with an end result of a player being sent an approval or disapproval of potential actions, and even then the players are both taking risk by sending either army(s) and/or harvester(s) to the site, and a 3rd party could even show up with their own army and harvesters! 

It's the "owner" part of the equation that really needs to be dissected in this argument - there is no ownership outside your town, only sovereignty (which is not by definition ownership), and there is control (which is temporary and based on the amount of force/army you are willing to commit).

Myll

 

All other references to this are Alliance Policies, and not a rule.  To even correct a prior GM Rikoo statement on this, because the terminology matters - players do not create Rules in this game, nor do alliances create Rules in this game.  Only the game's leadership/dev's create game rules.  A GM should tread very carefully when using terms such as Rule, Policy, Restriction, Tradition, etc..  Nothing should be called a Rule unless the Game Company publishes it as such.  None of us, not even GM Rikoo, is the final authority for publishing a Game Rule.

 

Now, to get on with this, let it be known that my alliance, Tsunami [WAVE] will not publish nor honor a 10-Square Policy published by other alliances, but only because we do not acknowledge it.  Having said that, we will still follow tradition and courtesy as many of you do, especially mindful of the 20-square sovereignty pattern that the average player may employ, and specific to Settlement of towns.  However, there is already a Game coded restriction in place to settlement specifically, and it is the Sovereignty claim system.  If you don't want someone else to settle, then claim Sovereignty over the tile.

 

However, for resources, there is no way to guard/hold resources on the map other than placing your army on top of the tile and then hoping someone bigger does not come along with their army and crush you.  That - is the only way to define ownership of rare minerals, rare herbs, grapes, hides, anatomies, basic minerals, and basic herbs.  Anything else is just bluster, if you aren't willing to commit an army to hold the ground.  You don't own the "mineral rights" to the land - even in real life that is a complicated legal process and not automatic for the ground just beneath your home, so let's try not to apply fantasy logic here (and oh by the way this is an international game so not everyone has the same "norm" opinions as the others).  In this game, only armies control resources on the land, otherwise we bump caravans.

 

Myll