paying for slots....

ok, once again our kingdom monarch has paid for a slot for an active, willing player, once again this player decides we do not war enough (this was less than 3 days after a long war that we won at a canter) after he joined mid war and he defected.
to be honest we have won 3/4 wars and have what i would consider an active 'mid range' kingdom with plenty of IRC use especially during wars.
can there not be some sort of 'rule' to go with a paid slot?
ie: a time limit where the paid for player must remain with a kd (end of age, maybe) or maybe if the player decides to move on/become inactive/delete in less than 2 or 3 weeks the slot can be retained without having to pay again?
this happens quite regularly and while we do not mind helping the game in this way there surely needs to be some safeguard that spending your money will give you a reward rather than what is turning into a 'spend and lose it' scenario.
if it continues in this manner i can see a lot less being willing to contribute to the game.

Try evaluating your recruits more. Find out why they left their last kd. Get in touch with their last monarch, see what kind of attitude the player had with them.

while i agree with that Palem this is not always possible, many of the paid for players come from the forums and may be returning to the game or will not say what kingdom they were in.....besides, many leave kingdoms due to an argument or falling out somewhere and the resulting PM's from any former kingdom tend to be a tad biased.
we do get prospective players into an open IRC room for a while first to 'vet' them but it seems the only way some will stick with any kingdom now is if that kingdom is 'top ten' and win every war or have the 'protection' of an SKD type kingdom.
it just seems a shame that some monarchs (i am not monarch of my kingdom by the way) are doing what they can to build their kingdoms up and supporting the game by buying slots only for players to totally disrespect this fact.
i am in no way suggesting that paid for slots should last age after age as this would defeat the point of having them, just a little security for those paying.

eh, scum players are scum players. They're in every game. Just need to do what you can do minimize their scumminess.

you get several free moves each age and unlimited between ages. I would only spend credits recruiting players if you know for sure they are going to stick around...

ok, i am not suggesting there is anything wrong with it all as it stands but the free slots can be used and lost as easy as the paid slots, hence the need to use the paid slots.
all i am suggesting is that with some guarantee that paying for a slot will at least mean players have to give a kingdom a chance before they can flit away could result in more actually paying rather than not bothering, surely this would help the game in general?
no one can be sure a player will 'fit' and a player cannot be sure until he has spent time within a kingdom, not every recruit will work out as we all know from experience.

I agree with Hoolio. It would be a nice courtesy if kingdoms would receive a new invite if the person who accepted a paid invite leaves after a very short time

I make my recruits pay for their invites.

Some sort of refund if within a week would be ok. I think forcing a player to stay would be a bit lame / cause him to create a multi account and now you have an inactive in your kd...

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Originally Posted by Tha Legend

I make my recruits pay for their invites.

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This. Make the recruits pay for it.

doesnt this belong in the suggestions?

you are to desperate for new players or not dooing things right

I only ever recruited two players after much hesitation, one from a much larger kingdom, one from the adverticing.
Even went there and lost the first war after this straigth away but everyone stayed including the recruits so we are on our way to a possibly win now

I don't plan on paying since I'm still sceptical about the concept, but I do have an invite left and intend to use it if the war goes well

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Originally Posted by metroins

This. Make the recruits pay for it.

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Always pay yourself and let people know whos the boss. We forced players to pay, then they never realized all accounts belong to the KD of Simians.
They say something like this: I paid the account, i can do what i want with it. This have happend even if they agreed to follow plans, orders, strats and they promised to share phone number, keep activity etc etc. Its mostly empty words for some. If they paid accounts they always tend to use it against you. I will delete cause it is my account. I will do this and i will do that. Sick and tired of such behaviour. I think it costed my KD 3 deletions in 2 ages and had some other close calls.

My former recruiters of Simians forced all players to pay. Now we try to avoid that and make sure we pay for all accounts to get around that problem.

It sucks if something happens and the players turn out to be scumbags but thats just how it goes.

Anri, yup....this is the obvious downside of having recruits pay for themselves.
this last guy was with us less than a week, forcing people to stay is not a great idea i suppose, they could just drop inactive and then you have a 'feeder' in your midst.
would like to see some form of time limit though where should a player leave the slot becomes 'free'.
a few are looking at it as a 'utopia rip off' but utopia cannot control how people react and they do need to generate some kind of income for the game and i feel a time limit of say 4 weeks in which the slot stays active should a recruit leave would benefit both parties, monarchs will feel as if they are getting value for the money and utopia will not be seen as 'rip off' merchants.

A time limit will mean they will multi rather than stay in a kd they do not want to be in - resulting in 2 deleted provinces.

i think if anyone is going to multi they will do it anyway....not being nasty here but that is a bit of a lame argument not to give value for money.

We cannot force a player to stay in a kd they do not want. That job belongs to the monarch/kd. You get value for money in the fact that we give you free invites. Believe me when i say we would be delighted to remove them.

make sure they know what kind of kingdom you have and what activity you have during oow/wars.

and if they cant pay the 10$ them selfs, dont even bother get them in (or wait for the free invite)

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Originally Posted by Bishop

We cannot force a player to stay in a kd they do not want. That job belongs to the monarch/kd. You get value for money in the fact that we give you free invites. Believe me when i say we would be delighted to remove them.

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the free ones or the paid for ones bishop? ;)
the free invites are most welcome and as i said we have no problem in helping to support the game by paying for slots if the free ones are used up, but to spend money and have a player join after a long talk explaining the kingdom in detail only for him/her to leave after a week is heartbreaking at times, which is why i think a paid for slot should/could have a time limit, obviously with an age lasting as it does it could hardly be something like 6 weeks, even a 2 week limit where if the player leaves/deletes, the slot can be re-used. of course there would have to be a way of making sure the slot is the same one rather than getting a player in then another kd mate leaving and the kd claiming it was the new guy.

I agree with you Hoolio. This is especially the case when using the new 'recruit' function. I'm very wary of paying for slots having had most of my free ones burnt up by people who actually appear to be just kingdom hopping, no matter what they say up front. I don't mind paying a bit to help Uto along but I'm not a money waster by nature.

I think that if they leave before 2 weeks is up the invite should be reinstated for free. It might be too difficult technically though.

You will have people "hiring" in players for wars and getting their invites refunded.

On wikipedia you can read that being a monarch is a little like being CEO. It's not like a CEO will get a refund when he discovers he hired the wrong guy.
You interview ppl to get to know them. You try to check their story as much as possible.
The better you are at seeing through ppl, the better you can be at recruiting.
So if the situation you describe happens a lot, maybe you should become more sceptical when interviewing. Maybe you can consider to play with a prov less in case you can't find a 'perfect match'.
If you decide to take a chance/risk with a player, you need to be aware of the consequences.

I do understand it can be very annoying to get players in that don't turn out as you expected. But as many things in this game: don't blame mechanics when smtn went wrong. Rather change your strategy on that certain matter. Don't expect the game to adapt on every single issue you have, but try to adapt yourself :)
We should be glad that we get free invites, and even that we can use invites in the first place.
Besides that, you have unlimited invites at eoa. At that moment you can be a little less sceptical on your recruiting ;)

And it's better to play with 23 provs you can trust, than playing with 25 in which a few are doubtfull.

EDIT: Also Noseblood is correct - Be sure your new recruits know and understand 100% what kind of KD they will end up in.

points taken on board chaps.
of course, they could stop recruiting in wars, this has also become quite commonplace it seems.
one kd 'suddenly' aquired 3 new players as soon as war began.
i can see the reasons and it seems others can see the annoyance but you can only vet a player based on what he/she says, once they get in and get their feet under the table so to speak then the 'real' player emerges.
anyway, i have just paid for a slot for our kingdom, so anyone know of any players wishing for a kingdom?
n00bs are most welcome.

If you stop randoms in war then kds that are not full are kinda forced to stay oow to get new blood in.

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Originally Posted by Anri

Always pay yourself and let people know whos the boss. We forced players to pay, then they never realized all accounts belong to the KD of Simians.
They say something like this: I paid the account, i can do what i want with it. This have happend even if they agreed to follow plans, orders, strats and they promised to share phone number, keep activity etc etc. Its mostly empty words for some. If they paid accounts they always tend to use it against you. I will delete cause it is my account. I will do this and i will do that. Sick and tired of such behaviour. I think it costed my KD 3 deletions in 2 ages and had some other close calls.

My former recruiters of Simians forced all players to pay. Now we try to avoid that and make sure we pay for all accounts to get around that problem.

It sucks if something happens and the players turn out to be scumbags but thats just how it goes.

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First of all, only players can own an account and it's against the rules to transfer ownership of an account. You probably meant that you believe that the province belongs to your kingdom but even that is just empty words because you have absolutely no means to enforce that claim. Once you give a player control of a province they are, according to the official enforced rules, free to do what they want with it. (aside from rules violations ofc) If they decide to defect, delete or hit a kingdom mate there's not much you can do except kill the prov in retaliation.

Yes, it would ofc be a dick move to delete, defect or hit a kingdom mate after getting invited into a top kingdom but such is life.

I've had a good share of useless recruits. There are a lot of "KD hoppers" that are full of themselves.
It's sad that it has to come to this, but it's a problem I'm willing to face... it's still better than having to deal with randoms that are basically lottery.

These days I just have to assume they're trying to scam me. So I go with the old saying; if they sound too good to be true, they are.

Usually if they feed you a perfect resume about how awesome of a player they are, how they follow orders 100% of the time, own 5 alarm clocks, never miss an attack, that they've been playing utopia since 1972, claim to be a bigshot (herpa duerr i from ABS i knu what imma talking about).... and especially if they make some unlikely claim about their RL... like they work a tech job (hurr, Imma IT Techhnician nerd with no friends, I work at compewter all day), have 24 hour access (derrrp i has iphoon)..... they're full of ####

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Originally Posted by Bishop

If you stop randoms in war then kds that are not full are kinda forced to stay oow to get new blood in.

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'invited' players in war.
randoms are exactly what they say, random.
does it not seem strange that a 20 prov kd suddenly finds 3 or 4 new 'randoms' right at the start of wars?
considering they are a 20 prov kd and would not get randoms....if they dropped to a 19 prov kd then one random would re-fill the kd to 20 quite quickly, above this all are invites.

You know you can see if they are invited just by grabbing a SN, right? I don't know why you need the '' :p

I would have concerns about stopping invites in war, i don;t think we can afford to limit how people join the game right now.