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Tyrian Politics & Guild Conflict
User	Avaera
Categories	Player interaction Player vs. Environment

I'd like to make a suggestion for a new system of guild interaction that I hope would provide more of a high level player-driven story to this already wonderful game. With any luck it might also help to get the guild wars back into Guild Wars 2, which is a good thing!

Guildhalls

When a guild has purchased the highest tier of the politics upgrade, they may apply to any of the capital cities (excluding Lion's Arch) for a deed to their own guildhall within the city bounds. There may be a few different guildhall types available in each city, offering cosmetic differences in style. Each guild would only be able to own one guildhall at a time, and would only participate in politics on the home server of that guild, but the choice would be important and align the guild as a whole to their chosen homeland.

Cost

• Guild Gold/Influence: Purchasing a guildhall would consume a certain amount of gold (with a percentage going into that city's coffers), and a certain amount of guild influence (again with a certain amount going into that city's influence pool).

Benefits

• Free Waypoint: An immediate advantage of belonging to a guild with a guildhall is that members would receive a free waypoint that instantly returns them to their guildhall from anywhere in Tyria (perhaps with each character able to use a guildhall waypoint once every 15 minutes).
• Customisation: Guildhall instances can also be further customised by the guild through purchasing additional upgrades such as vendors, crafting stations, dueling arenas and so on, and I would suggest that each guildhall upgrade be able to be purchased from the city for a combination of gold and influence.
• Communal space & visitor fees: Guildhalls would be able to be set as private or public, allowing only guildmembers to visit the guildhall instance in the first case, or anyone to visit in the second. A list of all public guildhalls would be accessible through an NPC in each city, and may cost a token amount of silver that would go into the guild coffers.
• Bulletin Board access: Guildhalls would be able to purchase a Delegate NPC upgrade, which would allow guild members to write posts to their city's forum board (costing a large fee to prevent spamming). All other players would be able to read this board from within the city, and it acts as a mechanism for political campaigning, debate, or notices.
• Voting rights: Once a guildhall has been purchased, that guild has a single vote in any referendums or elections held in the city once they have reached a certain loyalty score (designed to prevent farming of political influence across multiple guilds).
• City boons: Guild members would also receive certain minor bonuses as determined by their city's performance and government (see Government section below).

City Loyalty

• Score shown in guild panel: Once a guild has chosen to align with a particular city and place their guildhall, they are assigned a City Loyalty Score which represents their contributions to the city, and is displayed in their guild information window.
• Reset monthly: The City Loyalty Score is reset every month, and guild members may only increase the score of the guild they are currently representing.
• Rewards participation: Actions which improve your guild's City Loyalty Score could include:
  • Contributing to the Conquest or Persuasion of settlements (see Settlements section below);
  • Contributing gold to the city coffers directly through donations (which requires phenomenal amounts of gold to raise loyalty by very much);
  • Participating in city cultural events (see Government section below);
  • Winning renown for the city in PvP or WvW tournaments; and
  • Participating as mentors for new players (which is a hardcoded 'mentor' role assigned to a new player of the same profession who has not had a mentor before on any character upon concluding the tutorial, and can be rejected by the new player)
• Note that a guild's City Loyalty Score must be raised above a certain minimum amount before they may vote in elections/referendums
• Determines city top guilds: At the end of the month, the top ten guilds with the highest City Loyalty Score are selected to form the *High Guilds* of that city for the following month.

Player Government

The heart of this system is the political game played by various guilds as they attempt to dominate each other and rise to the top of the political class in their city. While no individual or guild can actually rule their city directly (as there are already NPC rulers and story concepts in place), some guilds can elevate themselves into the highest echelons of power - acting as the powerful councillors who whisper their advice into the ears of the Queen, the Avatar, the Khan-Ur, the Arcane Council or the leader of the Wolfborn.

High Guilds

• Top ten guilds by city: Each month, the ten guilds in each capital city who have accumulated the highest City Loyalty throughout the month are awarded High Guild status, which lasts until the next month when the cycle begins anew.
• Racial titles: High Guilds may be called different names depending on the race of the city (eg. High Houses, Great Warbands, Divisions of Innovation, and so on)
• Guild benefits: High Guild status provides the guild with:
  • An additional two votes in elections and referendums;
  • A cosmetic title for each guild member appropriate to each race;
  • A slightly different cosmetic reaction by some NPCs;
  • A small discount for guild members on purchases of racial cosmetic armour/weapons and staple items/commodities from city vendors; and
  • The chance for the guild to be appointed as a Cabinet, or as the Ruling Guild of that city.

Elections

• One week a month: For the first week of every month, the High Guilds compete amongst each other to be appointed as the Ruling Guild of the city, and to wield lesser power in a Cabinet position.
• Voting: During the first week of every month, any guild aligned to a city and who has a loyalty score above a minimum threshold may vote (once only) for one of the High Guilds to be elevated as the Ruling Guild. Guilds may not vote for themselves, however they may abstain from voting. Votes can be changed at any time up to the end of the voting round.
• Nominations for cabinet guilds: During this time each High Guild also nominates three of the other High Guilds each to one of the three possible Cabinets. In the event that a High Guild wins the election, their nominations take effect, allowing for political maneuvring and bargaining to occur. If no nominations have been made when a High Guild wins the election, three of the other High Guilds are selected by the ruling NPC to take Cabinet positions at random. A guild cannot nominate another guild if they have any leaders in common.
• Voting results shown: At the end of that week, all voting is closed and the guild with the highest number of votes is awarded the highest political prize, becoming the Ruling Guild for the remaining 3 weeks of that month. The voting results will be visible to all players for the remainder of the month, but will only show the total number of votes received by each of the High Guilds and the votes given by any High Guild to another.
• Cabinet nominations automatically take effect: Upon a High Guild ascending to a Ruling Guild, three other High Guilds are appointed to Cabinet positions in the city, also lasting three weeks until the next political cycle.

• Race-specific governments (Optional): It may be appropriate to have slightly different ways that the Ruling Guild is selected in each city, rather than simply by popular vote. For example, the Asura may award leadership to the Division of Innovation that posts the most creative prototype proposal, or the Charr may award leadership to the Great Warband who achieve the most victories in a week long gorging festival of meat eating and fighting duels. That may retain more cultural flavour for each race, but could require additional coding and balancing.

Ruling Guild

• Sets city-wide policies: The Ruling Guild has access to certain key levers for their city, that they can purchase with their guild influence, representing 'having the ear of the ruler'.
• Example policies that can be set: Some possible ideas for what these levers might be include:
  • Settlement relationship style representing how aligned settlements are treated, for example some settings may be
    • despotic - high resource/gold generation, low influence generation, weak against Persuasion takeover but strong against Conquest takeover;
    • benevolent - average influence/resource generation, low gold generation, strong defense against Persuasion but average defense against Conquest
    • democratic - high influence/gold generation, low resource generation, weak against Conquest takeover but strong against Persuasion takeover
  • purchase of certain generally useful buffs across PvE, PvP and crafting that would apply to all players within their city boundaries or aligned settlements, and would last for a few days once purchased
  • purchase of city upgrades, that provide additional functions for players using that city, such as reduced waypoint costs, special cosmetic/seasonal vendors, interaction objects such as a portal allowing mystic forge use, or even simple mini games.
  • setting the diplomatic relationship with other cities, for example some settings may be
    • alliance - a large amount of gold/resources are available through trade, cultural events are discounted, and the effect of conquest or persuasion on settlements belonging to the other city is greatly diminished.
    • uneasy truce - some gold/resources are available through trade, cultural events are reasonably priced, and the effect of conquest on settlements belonging to the other city is greatly diminished.
    • suspicious - hardly any gold/resources are available through trade, cultural events are highly expensive, and the effect of conquest and persuasion on settlements belonging to the other city is at full effect.
• Powers to reappoint Cabinet guilds: The Ruling Guild can also choose to dismiss a Cabinet and appoint a different High Guild to that position at any time while in power, costing a fair amount of influence and gold to do so.
• Free guild influence: The Ruling Guild also accrues free guild influence over time for being in their prestigious position, and may receive additional rewards from competing in any guild vs guild competitions.

Cabinet Positions

• Advisory guilds to ruling guild: Three High Guilds in each city are appointed as advisors in the areas of Culture, Trade and Security, as selected by the Ruling Guild.
• Set policies specific to their area: These guilds would have levers to push in relation to their particular area, representing the advice they can give to the necessary ministers or leaders.
• Culture: Represents levers in relation to PvE-relevant buffs and dynamic events/games that can be started in their city, providing rewards both to the city coffers and players for participation.
• Trade: Represents levers in relation to crafting/treasure-hunting buffs and negotiations with other governments/settlements for resource/gold exchange.
• Security: Represents levers in relation to PvP buffs and settlement control, where aligned guilds can attempt to Persuade or Conquer the minor settlements and towns outside of the major cities.

Settlements & Territory Control

While the complex political machinations take place in the bustling capital cities of each race, some of the hardest fought competition between the guilds of each city occurs on the fringes of civilised society. Here in the independent towns, forts and settlements dotted around the wilderness of Tyria, the battle for the hearts and minds of villagers and townsfolk is waged. The aligned guilds compete to demonstrate that their city is superior to all others, and that the settlement should align themselves accordingly.

Alignment

• Towns have alignment scores to each city: Each settlement in the game has an alignment score to each of the five cities, representing how close their relationship is to each culture.
• Initial scores vary by context: The starting alignment score may be different for each settlement depending on their natural allegiance, for example the towns of Claypool and Beetletun may start with a far higher natural alignment to Divinity's Reach because they are primarily human townships.
• Highest score controls settlement: The city with the highest alignment score gains control of that settlement, and the town is said to be aligned with that city.
• Territories expand incrementally: The alignment scores for a particular settlement are only active and able to be changed if it resides at the edge of a city's boundary of influence - that is, there is an adjacent settlement that is aligned to a different city. Further, only the alignment scores for cities which have aligned settlements nearby can be increased.
• Isolated settlements lose alignment: If a settlement is aligned to a city but all adjacent settlements have had their alignments changed to different cities (so that it is effectively isolated from its aligned city), the alignment score for that city decreases steadily as long as they are left adrift.
• No penalty or player impact for alignment: Being aligned to a particular city does not mean that access to that area for any player is changed, nor do NPCs alter their behaviour in any way, the only real effect is that buffs and benefits from the aligned city now apply to all players in the area, and perhaps a flag or token NPC might be visible.

Conquest

• Guild vs Guild battles: Disputed settlements can host GvG tournaments, which represent competing guilds demonstrating that their city's military might is greater, and perhaps convincing the settlement to align further with their particular nation.
• Initiated by governments: A GvG tournament takes place over a few days, and is available for any interested guild to join from within the Heart of the Mists. These tournaments can be initiated by the Security Cabinet of any city for which the settlement has an active alignment score, for a fee.
• Winning increases alignment: The winning guilds will improve the alignment score of the settlement towards their city by a certain amount, slightly decreasing all other alignments.
• Losing has no penalty: Losing guilds will have no effect on the alignment score of the settlement.
• The actual GvG instance and competition setup I will leave to those with an interest in balanced PvP - unfortunately I don't know enough about what would be interesting.

Persuasion

• Guild vs Environment events: Disputed settlements can also be influenced by guilds competing against one another in a PvE mode, representing taking supportive efforts to persuade the town that their city is the more civilised and beneficial to be associated with.
• Similar in concept to raids: These may take the form of very rare but very difficult Guild Events, which are the next stage up from Group Events. Similar in concept to 'raids' from other games, these may tasks a guild to assemble and complete a difficult instance requiring dozens of players in order to be successful.
• Winners improve alignment score: The guilds which are able to complete the instance will improve the alignment score of the settlement towards their city by a certain amount, slightly decreasing all other alignments.
• Losing has no penalty: Unsuccessful guilds will have no effect on the alignment score of the settlement.
• Note that multiple guilds or unguilded players can participate in these events by joining any group, however the group leader must represent an aligned guild.

Final Notes

Okay, I know that was a huge slog, and if anyone actually read it all - thank you and congratulations! I know the chances of this system being implemented are next to nothing, but even if a hint of it inspires something better from ArenaNet, I think it will have been very worthwhile.  :)

TL;DR - Guilds can buy guildhalls in one of the five racial cities; guilds compete politically to form governments in their cities, and guilds compete with each other to take over towns and settlements for territorial control.

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