IOT Developmental Thread

Joecoolyo · Jun 20, 2010

There have been four iterations of Imperium Offtopicum, each better than the last, with new improvements in the rules and such to make the game a better experience. But I believe we're at the point in which even though we've made improvements, the same problems keep occurring. And rather than just let the game keep going on and on, with increasingly larger numbers at the end, I say, as a community, we should come together now and address these problems before we make a new game. That way, we can refine the experience without having to drudge through the problems every single time.

First off, let me tell you about each iteration and the problems with each on (and the resulting solutions to said problems).

Imperium Offtopicum I*: Founded out of the mess that was in the Altered Maps thread, this version was waaaay to loose. Anybody could claim whatever they wanted, and imagine up whatever stats they wanted for their country. This led to 1) The entire map being filled up in the first couple days, and 2) POWERGAMING like never before. And I mean really bad powergaming. This of course turned people away from the series and it died a slow, and horrible death.

Imperium Offtopicum II**: After the horrible powergaming mess that was the first one, new rules were set in place in hopes to curve it. The biggest improvement in this version was the standardizing of war. Instead of just imagining battles and such, we were giving dice rolls, which of course was much fairer than our imaginations, but still led to cheating by the players, and a rather un-fun experience because of how arbitrary it was. There was no input by the player, and that led to a sort of randomness and out-of-control feel. The player couldn't win wars through skill, but rather through pure luck. The second big improvement was the standardizing of expansion. A separate UN thread was made for this and ultimately solved the problem of mega-expansion in the last version. Though it still didn't make up for the the fact that claims could vary massively in size. And though it slowed it down a bit, the world was eventually totally filled up, which turned off possible new players and thus kinda ruined the game. The downfall of this version was the speed, or precisely, how fast the game was moving. In one night alone, the main thread could gain 20 pages worth of posts, most of which was spam, or just plain fighting over the most useless things. This of course, made the game un-playable as nobody but the most devoted fans could keep up with it. This eventually led to the GM having a nervous breakdown and the transition to IOT III.

Imperium Offtopicum III: This wasn't really much of a version of the game as it was a kinda mini-developmental thread. It was a return to the anarchy of the first version, no rules in place, and a total powergaming fest. The best thing to come out of this version were basically the complaints and the eventual improvements that went into IOT IV.

Imperium Offtopicum IV: IOT IV was probably the best improvement the series had ever seen. After seeing what had happened to the previous versions, new rules were set in place to make sure those problems didn't happen again. And for the most part it was a success. Expansion was curbed and standardized, so the world didn't fill up too quickly and left room for new players and NPC's. Combat was made much more fun with OFP, where actual input from the player affected the outcome of the battle. This led to a much better experience and left room for more diplomacy, and less powergaming/arguing. But eventually, this version had it's downfall too. And this time, it was spam. Spam like you would never beleive. Just like IOT II, this version eventually moved so fast that only the most hardcore of the players could keep up. This of course turned a lot of people off and ruined it.

And now that these flaws are out in the open, we can discuss them and find ways to curb them, as to make sure they don't happen again in IOT V and IOT VI.

I will keep a list of improvements/rules that will be voted on here in the OP:

-Establish an IOT "etiquette"
-A summary section with each update
-Athenian Democracy, i.e. players vote to kick people
-Lands of people who quit are made into neutral NPC
-An IOT Sub-forum
-NO RL politics
-Limit posts to only 3-5 every 24 hours
-Countries who have been "defeated" can come back, but with a different personality
-Limiting number of battles
-Scratch the "one attack per enemy" rule
-Player gets choice on what to do with lands when leaving, i.e. partition, NPC, etc.
-Distance penalties for attacking without using overseas bases for operations
-Points system for war
-Players can take a "vacation" from IOT and come back with their empires intact, in the mean time they will turn into NPC
-Delegate menial GM tasks among players, such as Cartographer (updates the maps), Battle Officer (keeps tabs on attacks. If has the right tools can also process the rolls), etc.
-War by story
-Risk style war
-War by Civ IV
-(this is all from taillesskangaroo)

The Map:
- Use a map similar to IOT4, but with less provinces.
- Start with a blank slate; so, the world is assumed to be empty at the start. Then, players will stake out their claims (they can only claim once, and only a certain number of territories). The rest of the world (unclaimed) would be divided up into NPCs. If you want more territories, then you'll have to go to war.
- All the starting nations would have similar level of development at the beginning.

The Time:
- We need a standard time scale. I suggest 1 update = 3 months.

The Economy:
- Instead of calculating exact GDP and budgets for each country, I think something more abstract might be better and less complicated while allowing for some realism to be modelled. The economic strength of a country should be represented by a single value (similar to "infrastructure" in Cybernations if you've ever played it, or Industrial Capacity (IC) in Hearts of Iron).
- Taking the IC route, we could have a slider system where IC is divided among a few key areas, say, for instances, economic development, military and research. The amount of growth in IC (as % of original IC) would depend on your level of economic development IC spending, and the size of your military you can support would depend on the defence IC spending.
- Trade should have actual effects on the game, though I'm not sure how best to model this.

The Combat System:
- Size of armies should effect combat
- Size of armies should be deal with in terms of units/divisions (like in Civ) rather than actual troop numbers.
- Tactics and effects of terrain, defensive structures, etc on a military operation should be represented with some sort of combat modifier similar to Civ4 "promotions" and terrain bonuses.
- You should be able to research stronger units (tank level 1, tank level 2,...)
- To prevent entire armies attacking a single provinces, there should be a limit of how large a force can be in a province. Perhaps introduce a "logistics" tech, with the limit being increased every level of logistics you research.

-Prefabricated map of countries, as to do away with expansion component and make the game simpler
-Changing the name from Imperium Offtopicum to Imperium Civfanaticum
-War based on grid like maps (linky for further explanation)
-War based on units and a RNG rather than dice
-War based on Rock paper scissors
~~-Scratch the post limit and instead "flag" spammy posts for the mods to take care of~~
~~-Send battle orders to GM rather than to the thread to cut down on spam~~
-Each update should be in a sort of "story" that the GM would write to make it more interesting
-Spice Events, using RL world-wide events to keep the game interesting
~~-curbing expansion during war to make it possible to conquer another nation, plus to make war look less attractive~~
- have one thread for role-playing, and one thread for official messages (claims, alliances, wars, ...) were you can only post one message per update
- points should not only be spent on claims but also on wars, technology, economy, navy etc.
- to distance itself from the other version, the game should start in the year 1500
-Keep diplomacy to PM's a social groups to make the thread less cluttered and to keep diplomacy more hidden, rather than in the open
~~-Lighthearter's very complex idea for combat (linky)~~
~~-Disallow two posts in a row~~
-Domination's ideas:

Spoiler :

Here's my pretext of how a game would go, there will be loose holes, some of which I'm not convinced how to fill, but here's the basic idea.

Creating a nation:

In addition to the stuff that doesn't mean anything such as name, color, exc, there would be five stats. Stats would be on a scale of 1-5, and you'd get 15 points.

Military (Higher number means you can support more troops)

Economy (Higher number means you make more money off your nation)

Propaganda (Which can be either true or untrue, the higher the rating, the more likely you will be able to avoid revolt from unpopular decisions.

Colonization (Higher numbers reduce the cost of maintaining territory overseas) by overseas, I mean like Europe to America, maintaining colonies, if a nation in Florida takes land in Cuba say, this stat would not affect that.

Expansion (How quickly you can expand.)

A turn: For a first round pick, you can take either one nation (Moderate sized such as Italy, Germany, France, exc) A multitude of small nations (Such as, for instance, the Scandinavian peninsula) or a portion of a large nation (Such as the US South, western Canada, exc.) This would be judged by the GM, and based on the climate and usefulness of the land, for instance, taking a large, Arctic Wasteland may be allowed while taking a smaller region that is very bountiful may not. The GM would judge.

Battle- Not sure exactly how this would be done, but it would be based on your population. Population would be based on real life, for instance, Florida would have 13 Million people, and you could maintain troops based on your population, based on your military rating, for instance:

One in 200 men automatically serve in the military. For instance if you have 20 million population, you would have 100,000 troops, and since each unit is 1,000, you would have 100 units in total. Once you lose units, you don't get them back, except through the military rating. Each turn, you gain 1 unit per rating in military you have. You can also gain military by annexing new land. For instance, if you annex Florida, you get 13 million population. You would gain a proportional amount of troops. Combat would basically be risk, except it would be affected by terrain, for examples, see below:

Jungle: If attacking Jungle from non-Jungle territory, lose 1 unit per turn to Malaria

Arctic- If attacking in Winter, defender adds 2 to their roll

Exc. Dice would be rolled by a neutral GM, to prevent fudging.

Obviously, there would have to be less territories, number of troops in a territory would just be written down in MS paint. This wouldn't work with small territories, hence the need to make them bigger. However, I'm okay with that. For instance, say you have 12 troops in Florida:

You would write, in black, the number 12 in the territory of Florida.

You can attack territories you are not adjacent to by air or sea, however, if attacking a coastal territory by sea, the defender adds 1 to their die rolls, if you attack an inland territory by air, they add 2.

While at war, you wouldn't be able to expand (Maybe a small amount if you have a high expansion rating.)

You can attack three territories a turn. Mass invasions only count as one (For instance, say you control armies in Florida and Georgia, and want to invade Alabama. You can combine the armies and attack Alabama for just one invasion. However, this applies only to invasions of territories next to you, not sea and air invasions.

Expansion: Each turn, you could claim 5 territories, plus 1 per point of your expansion rating. For instance, if you have a rating of 3, you could claim 8 territories per turn. Larger territories and overseas territories would cost 2, however, the standard of large would change due to the battle rules.

Colonization- If, say, you're England and have, say, colonies in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, the higher the rating, the more you could get away with before they declare independence. This would have to be decided by the GM, but higher ratings would make it less likely. If they declare independence, they become an NPC and you have to conquer them to get them back, or a newcoming player may take them over as with other NPCs.

Propaganda- This would, again, be decided by the GM, but if you're being an idiot, attacking nations without cause, using an authoritarian government exc, your people army eventually revolt. The odds are decreased the higher your propaganda is.

Economy- Each territory gives you X amount of money. Large territories give 2X amount of money (I don't know how much X is going to be, maybe 10 billion) each turn. Add 1 billion to the gains of each territory for each point in economy you have.

GMs and Anti-Spam- I know my rules look like a lot of work. But bear with me. The game would have 4 GMs.

A GM to update the map

A GM to roll the dice

A GM to calculate economy (Or people can do this themselves, but to ensure fairness)

A GM to control NPCs and decide when revolts happen (I don't know if this GM would be able to also play, maybe he just couldn't be an imperial power, I'll leave this one to you.)

To prevent Spam, and also to be fair, instead of Droopy's idea (Because they could evict people who broke no rules) the majority can vote to have the GMs consider elimination of a player. Three of the Four GMs and a majority of the game-players have to want to eliminate someone in order for it to happen. Also, although I don't agree with limiting posts, I would rather see it done then to arbitrarily decide what is spam and what is not.

NPCs: They will remain neutral unless attacked, but if attacked will counterattack. They will accept peace at any time.

Non-Combat movement of troops: Troops can be moved from any one of your territories to any other friendly territory in a similar manner to RISK, once per turn, but to any territory you want, regardless of if they are connected (Remember, airplanes) also, when sending troops for humanitarian aid, you would literally put troops on their territory, and this would affect the game.

I tried to keep this as simple as possible. I understand its a little complicated, but if you can consider this, if something is unclear let me know, and feel free to take the good and toss the bad.

-Nations should be allowed to reorganize their provinces borders
-Events based on the game itself
-Banning re-joining if you quit
-Implement a rebellion system
-disputed territories system
~~-a system to prevent world wars always occurring~~
-redesigned map
-"price value" for provinces
-get rid of the province system
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Voting Results

Round 1:
-Establish an IOT "etiquette"
-A summary section with each update
-Lands of people who quit are made into neutral NPC

Round 2:
-An IOT Sub-forum
-NO RL politics
-Countries who have been "defeated" can come back, but with a different personality
-Scratch the post limit and instead "flag" spammy posts for the mods to take care of

Round 3
-Limiting number of battles
-Players can take a "vacation" from IOT and come back with their empires intact, in the mean time they will turn into NPC
-Delegate menial GM tasks among players, such as Cartographer (updates the maps), Battle Officer (keeps tabs on attacks. If has the right tools can also process the rolls), etc.

Round 4
-Scratch the "one attack per enemy" rule
-Distance penalties for attacking without using overseas bases for operations
-Risk style war
- Size of armies should effect combat
- Size of armies should be deal with in terms of units/divisions (like in Civ) rather than actual troop numbers.
- Tactics and effects of terrain, defensive structures, etc on a military operation should be represented with some sort of combat modifier similar to Civ4 "promotions" and terrain bonuses.
- You should be able to research stronger units (tank level 1, tank level 2,...)
-War based on units and a RNG rather than dice
-Send battle orders to GM rather than to the thread to cut down on spam
-curbing expansion during war to make it possible to conquer another nation, plus to make war look less attractive
-

Spoiler :

Battle- Not sure exactly how this would be done, but it would be based on your population. Population would be based on real life, for instance, Florida would have 13 Million people, and you could maintain troops based on your population, based on your military rating, for instance:

One in 200 men automatically serve in the military. For instance if you have 20 million population, you would have 100,000 troops, and since each unit is 1,000, you would have 100 units in total. Once you lose units, you don't get them back, except through the military rating. Each turn, you gain 1 unit per rating in military you have. You can also gain military by annexing new land. For instance, if you annex Florida, you get 13 million population. You would gain a proportional amount of troops. Combat would basically be risk, except it would be affected by terrain, for examples, see below:

Jungle: If attacking Jungle from non-Jungle territory, lose 1 unit per turn to Malaria

Arctic- If attacking in Winter, defender adds 2 to their roll

Exc. Dice would be rolled by a neutral GM, to prevent fudging.

Obviously, there would have to be less territories, number of troops in a territory would just be written down in MS paint. This wouldn't work with small territories, hence the need to make them bigger. However, I'm okay with that. For instance, say you have 12 troops in Florida:

You would write, in black, the number 12 in the territory of Florida.

You can attack territories you are not adjacent to by air or sea, however, if attacking a coastal territory by sea, the defender adds 1 to their die rolls, if you attack an inland territory by air, they add 2.

While at war, you wouldn't be able to expand (Maybe a small amount if you have a high expansion rating.)

You can attack three territories a turn. Mass invasions only count as one (For instance, say you control armies in Florida and Georgia, and want to invade Alabama. You can combine the armies and attack Alabama for just one invasion. However, this applies only to invasions of territories next to you, not sea and air invasions.

-a system to prevent world wars always occurring

Round 5
- Use a map similar to IOT4, but with less provinces.
- All the starting nations would have similar level of development at the beginning.

Round 6
-We need a standard time scale. I suggest 1 update = 3 months.
-Instead of calculating exact GDP and budgets for each country, I think something more abstract might be better and less complicated while allowing for some realism to be modelled. The economic strength of a country should be represented by a single value (similar to "infrastructure" in Cybernations if you've ever played it, or Industrial Capacity (IC) in Hearts of Iron).
-Taking the IC route, we could have a slider system where IC is divided among a few key areas, say, for instances, economic development, military and research. The amount of growth in IC (as % of original IC) would depend on your level of economic development IC spending, and the size of your military you can support would depend on the defence IC spending.
-Trade should have actual effects on the game, though I'm not sure how best to model this.

Round 7
-Spice Events, using RL world-wide events to keep the game interesting

Round 8
- have one thread for role-playing, and one thread for official messages (claims, alliances, wars, ...) were you can only post one message per update
- points should not only be spent on claims but also on wars, technology, economy, navy etc.
-Disallow two posts in a row

Round 9
-Events based on the game itself
-Banning re-joining if you quit
-Implement a rebellion system
-disputed territories system

Round 10
-redesigned map
-"price value" for provinces
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Second Round Voting Results (and now game rules)
-Renaissance Tech
-No Pre-Fab countries
-Will start in the year 1453

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So IOT players, fire away, what should we do to improve the game?

* Was originally called "OT Poster Empires", but I changed the name to IOT I just for simplicity's sake.
** Was originally called "Imperium Offtopicum", changed to IOT II to just to make it clear that it was the second iteration and not the first.

civplayah · Jun 20, 2010

The Imperium Offtopicum I that you are referring to is OT Poster Empires, right? Because I remember I played Tanicius's one and there were dice in it.

Joecoolyo · Jun 20, 2010

civplayah said:
The Imperium Offtopicum I that you are referring to is OT Poster Empires, right? Because I remember I played Tanicius's one and there were dice in it.

Nah, I just looked that one up and it was a free-for-all. There were no dice until the second one (which was just called Imperium Offtopicum and was started by Tanicious, I'll edit the OP to make it a little more clear).

landlubber · Jun 20, 2010

The main problem I have with the series is that I can never keep up. I played in the beginning of IOT 4, however I could never really figure out what was going on. It was moving so fast that I was missing some important information. It would be great if the GM, after updating the map, would write a brief summary of what happened during that phase. That will help everyone keep up with it, and it also helps new players catch up, instead of reading 30+ pages at once.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

i don't think there needs to be a change. the current rules work fine. and the 5 posts a day (more or less...) is good enough.

there does however, need to be a rule about a nation who was totally defeated. does he restart as a new nation somewhere? or will he just leave and not come back until IOT 5?

Thorvald of Lym · Jun 20, 2010

Just to give you an idea of how bad the spam has become: Methos contacted me back and said he wouldn't take the time to investigate all the flags I raised. I don't think you can get a more damning report than that.

Time and again I've demanded that people cut spam, but to no avail. I tell people they get one post: by the second page someone's broken that. The chief felons are Mathalamus and Domination3000. I should have kicked them both. I should have. But by nature I'm too forgiving. I've given them more opportunities to "prove" themselves than they deserve.

I think what we need is a standard of etiquette. Most of the players know what to do, keep their statements as finalized and concise as possible; it's these select few who can't prioritize their orders that drag down the threads. Sure, it might come across as elitist, but frankly, this is supposed to be an "educated" game. As I think DroopyTofu originally proposed, players should be given the option of electing someone off the island if a nuisance develops.

I still think we can salvage IOT4. But we will need to purge it. Based on that utter joke that was a week ago, the three players I am willing to kick are Math, Dommy, and Omega; the former two for disrupting the flow of the game, the latter for a generally abrasive attitude.

DroopyTofu · Jun 20, 2010

I agree with landlubber. We need a summary section.

We also need a limit on declaring war,then peace, then war, then peace with ten different countries in one update.

We also need a good way to limit spam. I think the simplest way to to follow Athenian Democracy and have an option of exiling someone. We can take a vote by PM to the GM, and the person with the most votes is out. I'm not sure if we can enforce this, or if the forum rules allow it, but it would help. Of course, there would be an option not to exile anyone.

We need a combat system also. OFP is time consuming, dice is random and cheatable, powergaming is unfun. I don't know what else we could use.

We also need to limit people running out of expansion room and switching countries (6 different times). I also think that quitting players' lands should be made neutral.

EDIT: I have a brilliant idea. If we could get a IOT subforum, then some of the more reasonable players could be made moderaters of the subforum and keep the game in check. I don't know how Thunderfall would react, but it just might work.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

Thorvald of Lym said:
I still think we can salvage IOT4. But we will need to purge it. Based on that utter joke that was a week ago, the three players I am willing to kick are Math, Dommy, and Omega; the former two for disrupting the flow of the game, the latter for a generally abrasive attitude.

sorry, i cant see how my attitude is abrasive.

Arakhor · Jun 20, 2010

In this case, Mathalamas, "former" refers to you and Dom; Omega is the abrasive one.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

Arakhor said:
In this case, Mathalamas, "former" refers to you and Dom; Omega is the abrasive one.

...whoops. sorry :blush:

Tani Coyote · Jun 20, 2010

Fortunately, I have all of your concerns addressed already in IOT 2(which will form as soon as Methos/Matrix give me the go ahead; since IOT IV is technically still around, I'm cautious to go ahead)

landlubber said:
It would be great if the GM, after updating the map, would write a brief summary of what happened during that phase. That will help everyone keep up with it, and it also helps new players catch up, instead of reading 30+ pages at once.

I plan to use the IOT social group for this; it's one of the 15 rules I've laid out for IOT 2.

Thorvald of Lym said:
Just to give you an idea of how bad the spam has become: Methos contacted me back and said he wouldn't take the time to investigate all the flags I raised. I don't think you can get a more damning report than that.

Oh dear... poor Thorvald.

As I think DroopyTofu originally proposed, players should be given the option of electing someone off the island if a nuisance develops.

Runs the risk of abuse.

I much prefer the GM giving "infractions" to players, and banning them from the game if they accumulate them. I'd employ a three-strikes system.

I am willing to kick are Math, Dommy, and Omega; the former two for disrupting the flow of the game, the latter for a generally abrasive attitude.

Math and Omega also tend to have issues with bringing up RL politics. I've told them SEVERAL times to be careful and to go to OT if they want that, to no avail.

Mathalamus said:
i don't think there needs to be a change. the current rules work fine. and the 5 posts a day (more or less...) is good enough.

I'd limit players to 3-5 posts per 24 hours, and claims/battle orders wouldn't count towards this.

there does however, need to be a rule about a nation who was totally defeated. does he restart as a new nation somewhere? or will he just leave and not come back until IOT 5?

I'd say if they were defeated, they can restart so long as there's a single free territory. However, I'd ask they be a totally different personality; Japan, for example, shouldn't come back as Africa and plot revenge for Japan's defeat.

DroopyTofu said:
We also need a limit on declaring war,then peace, then war, then peace with ten different countries in one update.

I'd limit the number of battles you could make, so you'd be forced to make calls on strategy in large conflicts.

I'd get rid of "one attack per enemy" and instead force players to allocate their battles among the various enemy nations; you'd be able to hit a single country three times per turn, for example.

We also need a good way to limit spam. I think the simplest way to to follow Athenian Democracy and have an option of exiling someone. We can take a vote by PM to the GM, and the person with the most votes is out.

GM-imposed exile is better, I feel.

We need a combat system also. OFP is time consuming, dice is random and cheatable, powergaming is unfun. I don't know what else we could use.

Apply a penalty to dice that are conveniently too high.

We also need to limit people running out of expansion room and switching countries (6 different times). I also think that quitting players' lands should be made neutral.

So long as they're abandoning their old nation, I don't see a problem. Especially multiple times an update; only their first country's lands would count. However, if they claimed something in the same update period, they can't switch, as they have no more points to spend.

Quitting players should be given the choice of what to do with their lands; making them NPCs, partitioning them, making them independent, etc.

If we could get a IOT subforum, then some of the more reasonable players could be made moderaters of the subforum and keep the game in check. I don't know how Thunderfall would react, but it just might work.

Mods have power outside their subforums from my last check, so, this won't fly. It's better to have the GM make citizens' arrests and turn the offenders over to the real police - the mods.

Omega124 · Jun 20, 2010

On terms of abrasive? Just because I'm pretty much John Brown when it comes to how far I'll back up my beliefs doesn't mean I should be kicked out. The USSR (I mean OTL USSR, not the USSR in the game) was pretty fanatical until near its end, for one. Also, there was this one SA country that declared war on all their neighbors because the leader believed he the next Napoleon, and he got the fate he deserved. If I want to become Public Enemy No. 1, then let me, but I'm not doing anything wrong. If I was disrupting the flow, like Math and Dommy (Which I agree the two are), then you have a potential valid point, but your current charges against me makes no sense.

On other news, can we start claiming our starting spots already? I call Seoul, color being the blue of South Korea's flag.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

Taniciusfox said:
I much prefer the GM giving "infractions" to players, and banning them from the game if they accumulate them. I'd employ a three-strikes system.[/quotes]

i approve, however a permanent ban for the first time isn't good. perhaps a one week ban first time, then a two week ban the second time, then a permanent ban?

Math and Omega also tend to have issues with bringing up RL politics. I've told them SEVERAL times to be careful and to go to OT if they want that, to no avail.

Click to expand...

sorry abotu that...

I'd limit players to 3-5 posts per 24 hours, and claims/battle orders wouldn't count towards this.

Click to expand...

i approve.

I'd say if they were defeated, they can restart so long as there's a single free territory. However, I'd ask they be a totally different personality; Japan, for example, shouldn't come back as Africa and plot revenge for Japan's defeat.

Click to expand...

thank youf or clearing that up. and i approve.

I'd limit the number of battles you could make, so you'd be forced to make calls on strategy in large conflicts.

I'd get rid of "one attack per enemy" and instead force players to allocate their battles among the various enemy nations; you'd be able to hit a single country three times per turn, for example.

Click to expand...

that woudl be awesome

Apply a penalty to dice that are conveniently too high.

Click to expand...

good enough.

So long as they're abandoning their old nation, I don't see a problem. Especially multiple times an update; only their first country's lands would count. However, if they claimed something in the same update period, they can't switch, as they have no more points to spend.

Click to expand...

good

Quitting players should be given the choice of what to do with their lands; making them NPCs, partitioning them, making them independent, etc.

Click to expand...

this is a given, but approved.

Mods have power outside their subforums from my last check, so, this won't fly. It's better to have the GM make citizens' arrests and turn the offenders over to the real police - the mods.

Click to expand...

good enough.

GenMarshall · Jun 20, 2010

I have a couple of ideas. Though I pretty much like the idea that Joe had in regards to having an overseas base if one wants to attack in a far distance. Persnonally, I hope that my idea can be implemented as well in regards to this.

The idea I had in mind was that each nation would have a set amount of points (It would have to be a reasonable amount so that it's balanced to prevent a large nation from being a busing glacier while giving smaller nations a fair game). Attacks overseas would hold a penalty as well as attacks across a province (provided the fact that the province thats being jumped over is 1) unoccupied or 2) that the province owner gave consent for the nation making the attack to cross it's borders via a right of passage treaty. I would figure that attacks overseas would hold a greater penalty due to the logistics involved (eg. utilizing landing ships, craft, marines, etc)

The other idea that I have on the table is mainly geared for players who, would like to take a small break from Imperium Offtopicum without actually quiting and leaving (Can also be used by players whom are banned from the forums in general). If a player would like to take a break from Imperium Offtopicum for whatever reason (vacation, taking a break from IOT, etc) yet wishes to remain can chose to have there nation be run temporary as an NPC. Personally, I think this would lessen the amount of unwanted grey hairs and for people to charge up there batteries if there sanity has gone.... ....bla. That way, the Player is still in the game and does not have to worry about losing his or her place. I'd find this to have more convenience for players who participate in other games within the board so they don't lose motivation in them as well as for players who are going to be on vacation and without internet access.

This one idea that popped into mind after seeing the stress Thorvald has gone through handling everything himself (as well as previous IOTs). The GM can divide up jobs and deligate them to officers of his or her chosing to lessen the workload. Examples include a Cartographer (updates the maps), Battle Officer (keeps tabs on attacks. If has the right tools can also process the rolls), and someone who records and reports important diplomatic events (Not sure if this would fall under stenographer)

There should be an established rule for Imprerium Offtopicum...

Thou shall not discuss RL politics

If you want to discuss RL politics, take it to Off Topic. I came to Other Games to get away from the Off Topic crap. Not have it follow me! (The main reason why I come to other Games is to keep my sanity since Off Topic does cause me to lose it)

Tani Coyote · Jun 20, 2010

Omega124 said:
On terms of abrasive? Just because I'm pretty much John Brown when it comes to how far I'll back up my beliefs doesn't mean I should be kicked out. The USSR (I mean OTL USSR, not the USSR in the game) was pretty fanatical until near its end, for one. Also, there was this one SA country that declared war on all their neighbors because the leader believed he the next Napoleon, and he got the fate he deserved. If I want to become Public Enemy No. 1, then let me, but I'm not doing anything wrong. If I was disrupting the flow, like Math and Dommy (Which I agree the two are), then you have a potential valid point, but your current charges against me makes no sense.

Omega is correct. Even if he and I seem to be mortal enemies duking it out, he's just being the aggressive type akin to Joecoolyo(though Joe's acting; I dunno about Omega.

)

On other news, can we start claiming our starting spots already? I call Seoul, color being the blue of South Korea's flag.

I prefer first come, first serve. When the thread starts(I'm opening it IMMEDIATELY if I get the go ahead from Methos/Matrix), please post your stats and we can go from there.

Mathalamus said:
i approve, however a permanent ban for the first time isn't good. perhaps a one week ban first time, then a two week ban the second time, then a permanent ban?

I've officially reserved the right as GM to unilaterally change any rules; I'll try to keep everyone's concerns in mind though.

So we'll see as the situation develops.

Omega124 · Jun 20, 2010

Wow, Tanicus is defending me. Thanks.

Hm, I got an idea how to simulate combat! Here's how.

As the fact that Tanicus has only dice and Red Alert screw-all-continuity-and-logic-because-we-now-have-armoured-bears, we need yet again /another/ combat system.

So why don't we simulate the sword with the pen?

It'll be kinda like a NES, only instead of stats, we write stories. The attacker will tell Tanicus the type of terrain he wants to attack and how, and he'll then give the defence a chance to describe the defences (To make it fair, Tanicus will tell only the terrain, not the opposing forces). Then once we get both, Tanicus will tell the exact battlefield looks like, we tell him our plans, and then, by military logic and better writing skills, will decide whom wins, of course describing how the battle goes out.

Now, the only disadvantage I see with this that Tanicus can really fudge the results any way he wants, /especially/ if he's playing.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

Omega124 said:
Wow, Tanicus is defending me. Thanks.

Hm, I got an idea how to simulate combat! Here's how.

As the fact that Tanicus has only dice and Red Alert screw-all-continuity-and-logic-because-we-now-have-armoured-bears, we need yet again /another/ combat system.

So why don't we simulate the sword with the pen?

It'll be kinda like a NES, only instead of stats, we write stories. The attacker will tell Tanicus the type of terrain he wants to attack and how, and he'll then give the defence a chance to describe the defences (To make it fair, Tanicus will tell only the terrain, not the opposing forces). Then once we get both, Tanicus will tell the exact battlefield looks like, we tell him our plans, and then, by military logic and better writing skills, will decide whom wins, of course describing how the battle goes out.

Now, the only disadvantage I see with this that Tanicus can really fudge the results any way he wants, /especially/ if he's playing.

prone to cheating. the person will buff up the defenses to unbelievable levels.

(to be fair if you attack a capital FIRST then the unbelievable defenses make sense.)

GenMarshall · Jun 20, 2010

What about a Risk style? Or would that be too much like Hearts of Iron or Victoria.

Omega124 · Jun 20, 2010

Mathalamus said:
prone to cheating. the person will buff up the defenses to unbelievable levels.

(to be fair if you attack a capital FIRST then the unbelievable defenses make sense.)

Well, if Tanicus finds that you're bringing an unholy amount of troops, he'll tell you to get rid of some.

Mathalamus · Jun 20, 2010

Omega124 said:
Well, if Tanicus finds that you're bringing an unholy amount of troops, he'll tell you to get rid of some.

alright. is 500,000 soldiers in the Entire Istanbul province fair?

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