New NESes, ideas, development, etc

Frankly, deliberately investing in technological progression seems unrealistic to me- I think it's just an artefact of association with the Civilization series.
 
There is a private sector element to any tech progression, and in RL it is obvious that most tech progress has been made through the private sector (but, again, there are prominent examples of effective public sector research in modern times such as the Manhattan Project and ARPANET, still fresh start, we aren't talking about a modern Keynesian Economy).

But we aren't really talking about a Real Life simulation either. We are talking about an attempt to hybridize board game elements onto a story game to help give it a common context and a clear path towards development and change so that we can all derive prolonged enjoyment from it. As a game element, I think it works. I think it does a lot to provide a common context for our thinking in a game.

Yes, I'm still on a Civilization fansite. I'll even admit that now and again I play Civ V. We're on a Civilization fansite!
 
We're *not* arguing the same thing. You're saying we need to have tech progression rules. I'm literally saying the exact opposite.
 
We are looking at the same problem, lack of moderator/playerbase (since player enthusiasm can certainly affect moderator enthusiasm) interest, we are just looking at it differently.

I say that well thought out tech progress rules seem like a possible solution to me, a way to change things up so that it is less monotonous and the moderators and players can stay more engaged to the shifting environment.

Maybe you think that this is not a relevant variable towards moderator/player enthusiasm, maybe you think that player enthusiasm is irrelevant, those are details, I'm glad to talk about those details with you. If you have better ideas I'm glad to hear them, I'm just putting forwards my personal theory.

Like Fidel Castro, either history will vindicate me or not.

EDIT: The preceding applies only to Fresh Starts. Scenario Games are different creatures.

I'm still just trying to Return to my Roots.
 
As I've said, it bears no resemblance to what I've seen. Saying people lose interest because of tech stagnation makes as little sense to me as saying world war two was started by toffee. As far as I'm concerned you're trying to solve a nonexistant problem. Worse, you're encouraging the adoption of a tech schema that I think will qctivwly hinder player enjoyment.
 
It isn't so much an obvious casual relationship as it is a potentially different perspective on an intractable problem. I know the people who play NESes, if it were an obvious casual relationship that caused this problem they would have tracked it down. NESers are pretty smart people. So, our only hope for resolution at this point is through alternative approaches.

Do your games how you want to do your games. I'm ok with that. I'm sorry if you think I want to rush through tech progression and ignore everything else to the detriment of the game, that is not what I am trying to do. I see a problem. And since I have always been a big fan of Fresh Start NESes it seems to me to be a big problem. I am trying to look at that problem in an unorthodox way since the orthodox thinking on the subject has been, frankly, screwing it up for years now.
 
I don't get what NESes you've been playing. Plenty of fresh starts have flourished recently. I think maybe you should just play ones run by better mods.
 
@SKILORD: I intend to make it clear how to get out of the Classical Age and into other ages. The BTs are just to create the nations that will start seriously fighting in the ITs.
About the Stability/LQ/Happiness, I partially concur. However, there might be a difference between Stability and Happiness. For example, a brutal dictatorship that kept its people in check through torture, massacres and other equally despicable means would be a stable one, since people would not dare to rebel, but it would not be a happy one, meaning that they would probably be perfectly willing to welcome anyone else that comes to free them. That's what happened in Ucrania and Belarus when the Nazis came, but, of course, as soon as they realized the Nazis were worse they mostly sided with the Soviets again.
About research, I am thinking of using a mixed system: having a simple tech tree to signify main investigation, and then allowing the players to develop their own side research projects to get other things, which they would get as long as they can explain how they can do it with their current technology.
I will probably use a tech tree, one derived from the one I used for MilarNES I/II, but simplified to make everything go faster. Of course, I could also do a mix between the tech tree and players' research projects, to make it more interesting. Also, remember that new units' creation will depend on research. So that is another thing to do.
@All others: thanks for your ideas.
 
I've been thinking a lot about Stars Without Number recently, and I reckon you could play a NES with the faction rules.

The question would be, do we start off with all the factions on one planet or open up the whole sector?
 
A better possibility for the technology would be a simple tree, having the broad things (for example, the Stone Age, if we end up starting with it, would have Agriculture, Fishing, Hunting, Tool Making and Wheel) in it, and then each nation would be able to develop things that are more pinpointed (one nation could develop Axes, thus creating Axemen, and other could develop Ships). Eventually, those advances would reach other nations, but the creators would have an edge on its use when compared to others.

I've been thinking a lot about Stars Without Number recently, and I reckon you could play a NES with the faction rules.

The question would be, do we start off with all the factions on one planet or open up the whole sector?

Stars Without Number? Well, if you do the modding, I would probably join, because it is quite interesting. Though, I would not do it, because I'd rather go for the Fresh Start instead of SWN.
 
@NK: I don't play games with grid maps or complicated stats (and I have a very low cutoff for "complicated stats"), but I don't really take offense that there are people running games like that. It's survival of the fittest, my tech tree scheme will either work or not, we'll have to see what happens to the game, there is no other valid judgement. I just don't understand why you are so upset about it.

And when I think of "successful" fresh starts from the last batch I think that there are only two still alive. Civil Experiment and Absolution... the others obviously didn't flourish and since Absolution came in so late to that batch it isn't fair to call it a success yet. Civil Experiment has a good moderator, I've seen Terrance's mod stats, and it is likely to survive for some time I hope it does. Absolution has a tech tree. I find it useful. I just wanted to share that information, if you disagree I don't take it personal.

And, by the way, over 50% of the techs on my tech tree are player added.
 
...What are you talking about? I'm not referring to "grid maps" or "complicated stats". In fact I literally argued for less stats on this very page. Obviously the genre isn't at its peak right this instant, but that's symptomatic of the NESing forum, not of fresh starts.

I also utterly fail to see why something silly is un-silly just because it's customizable. Tech trees are metagamey and superfluous, and lack a point for the most part.
 
Actually since the interwar period most advancement can in some way traced back to government investment or structuring. Certainly basic research without government grants would be decades behind, and then all the private sector applications of said research would flounder.

Having a tech tree before the technocratic revolutions of the late 19th century (when resources, capabilities, and efforts of a nation were properly tracked and bureaucratized) is silly.

For a shared game environment I think only the two extremes are viable - where you either have a vague mod description OR every possible thing the player can do within the game abstraction is itemised and tracked (as in some of Dafts NES's or SysNES). A half arsed tech 'tree' just raises more questions about the gaps in said tree.
 
If I was wound up super tight in the name of realism I'm sure it would bother the crap out of me.

But I'm not here for the realism. I'm here to play story games. I'm here to play story based fresh starts because I think that's fun. But it's 2012 and we have reached a point of synthesis when board game elements are going to be used as support structures in a story game. As a board game element I think it works, I think it can be easily balanced and that it can provide a common context where the playerbase and moderator feel as though their world is changing and developing by virtue of their activities and that it can serve as a tool to maintain interest.

Is it realistic? Does it capture the full grandeur of human history and technical advancement? Jesus Christ, I'm running a forum game on a fansite for a video game, calm down, have some fun.
 
You may not be here for realism, but that doesn't mean that no-one else is; in fact, plenty of us value realism, and feel that if a NES isn't realistic it doesn't make any sense, and if it doesn't make any sense in that way it isn't much fun. You and some others may not object to a tech tree on realism grounds; but many people do and will object, and this is ultimately likely to detract from how many people like your NES.
 
There is a difference between realism and what we do. Realism is not a goal we can realistically pursue. We can do our best to simulate the simulation of reality, though, and I think anyone who believes we have achieved realism has a large stick up their butt.
 
Spoiler Map of as yet unnamed world: :


This is during the construction phase, turn 13.

The ugly darkish splotches near the upper right center of the map are barbarian 'civilizations'. Other civilizations are represented with dots representing their concentration at the moment.
 
Spoiler Map of as yet unnamed world: :


This is during the construction phase, turn 13.

The ugly darkish splotches near the upper right center of the map are barbarian 'civilizations'. Other civilizations are represented with dots representing their concentration at the moment.

Me likey
 
@SKILORD, spryllino, North King, Luckymoose: well, damn, that is an interesting conversation you are currently having. Though, let's please keep it civil, 'kay?

Anyway, the question is: which system, according to you, is better?
- Fixed tech tree, like in the Civ games.
- Free-for-all, with each nation developing their own technology, and it slowly spreading around the world.
- A mix, with a few things in a fixed tech tree and the rest being developed individually.
 
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