Global Triumph

A capital would have existing infrastructure in place that the new country can utilize.

Within the context of the game, they become important target sectors and, thusly, something over which countries can battle.

if the nation is deleted, i disagree. their bases would be abandoned if they removed their nation, and yet those disappear as well. within the context of the game, someone cannot simply delete a nation from the face of the earth. it would make more sense for a nation to be simply "abandoned", but that wouldn't allow new players to drop their nation in an area that an abandoned nation was occupying.

while this does allow a location to be fought over, i still think that it's broken, and is a solution that is unrealistic- even when you defend it.

so besides conquering all of a sides territory and gaining their income, you would rather there be no benefit to conquering another side?  come on, para, i thought you were a little more power hungry than that.  I love the idea of a conquered capital still being able to produce buildings on its own, it means its that much easier to get construction trucks into newly acquired territory to fortify it.

I think the issue is that if I were to send a jeep to invade Driver Down, or more particularly, a country he has taken, grabbed an obsolete capital, I can just camp, make a base or 2 and he can't oust me without ground troops.  Bomb me to oblivion and I can just make more...

This makes a great segue to an idea I have been tossing around. What if a nuclear strike took the land back to unoccupied. That way, even though a capitol still existed, you would need to expand off of it to keep it. And that would give an opponent an opportunity to knock you off of it for good.

So you could nuke someone and cause them to lose their capital?  No way.  You could cripple other countries instantly doing that, especially if they're new.

the issue is more that any abandoned nations that are on the map leave a capital behind where you can build a land base instantly.

there's a difference between conquered and abandoned. if i take someone's capital, or someone takes mine, then that's fair game. but if someone deletes their nation, then all their assets should disappear.

So I could be like that dude that was creating countries all over.  I could make a few countries in a line, abandoning them as I go, then I just send one jeep to play connect the dots and away I go...

I know that there might be a stray issue of this, but I don't see it being a real problem.

I do agree that if a player resigns, then all trace of him should go with him.

Could that infrastructure not, however, be damaged in the same way as a land base?

I've had the resign script set so that if a player resigns within a month of joining and no one else has taken his capital, the capital disappears.  Otherwise, it stays.

Does that affect anyone's opinion on it?

sounds good to me...

i can live with that.