New NESes, ideas, development, etc

Lord of Elves said:

I want to effect methodology, because over the course of the first few turns it's becoming apparent that there are no limits to the players' capabilities. I want there to be some sort of give and take between the players' determining the shape of the world, and the world determining the shape of the players' factions, instead of the former dominating the latter.

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Begin with a list of how the world will affect players' stats. What are the forces at work and the rate that they can change things. Include both the forces for growth and erosion, order and chaos, etc.

Then list the player tools that can be used to offset or enhance those natural forces.

If you set the rate of change that happens without player intervention, you can then tailor player actions to offset those at some appropriate rate. Does that make sense?

Birdjaguar said:

Begin with a list of how the world will affect players' stats. What are the forces at work and the rate that they can change things. Include both the forces for growth and erosion, order and chaos, etc.

Then list the player tools that can be used to offset or enhance those natural forces.

If you set the rate of change that happens without player intervention, you can then tailor player actions to offset those at some appropriate rate. Does that make sense?

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Changing whims of the populace, resulting in rebellion, assassination plots, nationalist groups, so forth.

Economic landscape, the ability to feed the populace, the ability to manufacture weapons, money made from trade with other nations. Negative results would be depression, military impotence, famine.

Political landscape, keeping your nation's government from outgrowing its britches and becoming an enemy to itself. Negative impacts would be a feudal separation of land and decentralization.

The player could attempt to placate his populace with programs designed to improve the general welfare of his people, educationally, monetarily, spiritually, so forth.

The player could combat famine by programs aimed towards creating large state-owned farms that could eventually be turned over to private owners, both fixing the problem of famine and eventually turning agricultural control back to the people and thus helping to keep their confidence in the rulers' goal of maintaining the best interests of the people. The player could enter trade pacts with other nations for discounted prices, et cetera.

The player could centralize government gradually through economic consolidation of power, or with enough force, military consolidation of power.

Finally outside forces beyond the player's control such as the Makadi Horde (read Update 3) that would force players to shift the paradigm of their orders and "keep them on their toes".

@Daft Bare in mind it is Orange (K), Yellow (G) and Yellow-White (F) stars that will most likely have life-bearing planets (and the resources that go with it - Bio and Gas, I assume). Red (M) stars are too small, and any planet in the habitable zone is likely to be tidally locked to the star. Most white to blue stars (A, B, O) (except the lower end of A) are too big to have planets, and don't last long enough for life to evolve before they die (either as a white dwarf, neutron star or black hole).

Red stars can still work. We can have hoth like planets with life.

No comments on my system? Is it good enough for a development thread?

I suppose a red dwarf could have life, but they would have to adapt to there being a day and night side. If the atmosphere was thick enough, I guess the planet could retain enough heat for autotrophs to use thermosynthesis. Or if a binary star had the B star close enough to provide a 'day' for the planet (although it wouldn't be that much better).

Unless life had a different biochmeistry on a planet further out, like hydrogen, ammonia or hydrocarbons.

Planetary rotation rates don't really hew that closely to the gravity of their primaries. See Venus, which seems to have been thoroughly whacked by something early in its history, and Mercury, which is not tidally locked to the Sun but rather has a resonance between its rotation rate and its orbital period.

If you really wanted, of course, what you could do is simply put a hot Jupiter in orbit around the red dwarf, and have its moons support life -- they'd be locked to their local primary rather than the star.

Even if we do assume a planet close enough for life would be tidally locked, that's no reason to write it off; in fact that simply results in a lot of rather interesting biomes.

Terrance888 said:

Red stars can still work. We can have hoth like planets with life.

No comments on my system? Is it good enough for a development thread?

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I will comment only if you promise to make such an NES reality before fall!

I don't think that rules should tell people what to do, just what they can do. From your post, I see stability issues, tech issues and "natural" occurrences.

Within stability you might have two stats. One would focus on the politics and factional differences in the nation and the other on the ability of the government to govern: satisfaction of the people in general and the government's ability to control popular unrest. Popular unrest might be tied to domestic spending or lack there of and deteriorate over time if the government shows lack of interest in spending on the people. Success or failure in war or political instability could also affect popular unrest.

A tech level stat is used to compare one nation to another. You can use things like bronze age or iron age; or you can be more specific and list weapons systems available to a particular nation. You could give each nation a military capability stat that reflected two things: the size of the army it could equip and what weapons it could manufacture. As the stat changed, a nations capabilities would change.

If you create a world or regional economic value stat, then you can have national economic stat levels respond to changes in the wider stat and then allow players to ride the upturns and spend to offset downturns. Econ levels would translate into ability to spend money.

Once yo have the stats you want and what the various levels mean, you then figure out how you want player spending to change the stats.

If popular unrest is a stat that ranges from 0 to 5, then a famine might be an automatic -3 that slowly rebuilds over a few turns. Players would have an option to spend their money to speed that rebound process.

A tech stat could be a two digit number from 11 to 99: 34 say. The first number could be one of 9 levels of weapons types capability and the second, one of 9 levels of army size. 92 would be a small army with lots of weapons options, while 29 would be reversed. A 55 would be balanced. Players would spend to increase the first number, but perhaps the second would be based on both population and spending.

Helpful? Or not?

Lord of Elves said:

Changing whims of the populace, resulting in rebellion, assassination plots, nationalist groups, so forth.

Economic landscape, the ability to feed the populace, the ability to manufacture weapons, money made from trade with other nations. Negative results would be depression, military impotence, famine.

Political landscape, keeping your nation's government from outgrowing its britches and becoming an enemy to itself. Negative impacts would be a feudal separation of land and decentralization.

The player could attempt to placate his populace with programs designed to improve the general welfare of his people, educationally, monetarily, spiritually, so forth.

The player could combat famine by programs aimed towards creating large state-owned farms that could eventually be turned over to private owners, both fixing the problem of famine and eventually turning agricultural control back to the people and thus helping to keep their confidence in the rulers' goal of maintaining the best interests of the people. The player could enter trade pacts with other nations for discounted prices, et cetera.

The player could centralize government gradually through economic consolidation of power, or with enough force, military consolidation of power.

Finally outside forces beyond the player's control such as the Makadi Horde (read Update 3) that would force players to shift the paradigm of their orders and "keep them on their toes".

Click to expand...

Definitely helpful. Thank you, I'll be keeping it in mind for the future.

Now here is an idea. Being such a huge fan of feudal Japan and Europe I have tossed this idea in my head for a while. A fictional island with warring factions or warlords, an Emperor of sorts as a figurehead to maintain some semblance of order and off shore(mainland) NPC empires that might try to come and stomp the snot out of the island every once in a while. The NES would be part story, part war, part diplomacy. Stats would be simplistic and based around manpower, military, and economy while victories would require competent diplomacy between factions and the emperor. It would have oriental flair and naming with similar warfare styles. The ultimate goal would be to become the supreme faction on the island and dominate it under your boot. I'm not sure how I would setup factions, maybe a player aided history BT thingy, or I could just make some factions up. Anyway I've been toying around with a map this afternoon and have been slowly bringing it out of Alpha stage.

Eh, maybe if the map wasn't such a Japan rip off I'd join

Ninja Dude said:

Eh, maybe if the map wasn't such a Japan rip off I'd join

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That is the point.

What kind of simple stat system? Like the original originals? Or more like RTOR and Greatwar style?

Oh god, I forgot: most of you have no idea what I am talking about in Great War.

It is a very cheesy, but statisfying (like good Pizza) NES-lite with few stats, and some modifiers, but based mostly on the story, and then on the battles. Oh yes, we have lots of battles. The situation in those games are a world frozen to be awakened by NESers, their minions, or escaped slaves. Unrealistic.

I have been toying with a Great War game on a period of chaotic warfare: as non-stop as possible. Thinking of Ancient Korean Civil war of Japan... maybe something with the Rise of Rome or Greece with a denuded Athens and Sparta.

This isn't a neslite. I want it to be a very in depth diplomatic scene with stories and such. The stats would only include the faction name, leader, economy, major cities, military (manpower, limit, etc) and whatever else I need included.

EDIT:

@Lucky that sounds rather cool. Will you be mixing some fuedal european into the japanese theme? I am seeing Samurais with ornate red steel plate armour.

Daftpanzer said:

@Lucky that sounds rather cool. Will you be mixing some fuedal european into the japanese theme? I am seeing Samurais with ornate red steel plate armour.

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Yes that was the plan but since the majority of people spit on the idea it's aborted.

Hey, I like it!

Guess I shall shelf my Great War plans for next year. There is no interest.

Luckymoose said:

Yes that was the plan but since the majority of people spit on the idea it's aborted.

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Ninja Dude is not the majority of all the people

Daftpanzer said:

Ninja Dude is not the majority of all the people

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Well if you would play I probably would continue it. It was going to have a very catholic style religion system but have a very feudal Japan faction system. It should have been very unique.

Daftpanzer said:

Ninja Dude is not the majority of all the people

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And I just said that the map was a bit to "Japan-ish". I think a similar NES could be pulled off with some original geography.