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)
-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:
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
-
-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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Round Voting Results (and now game rules)
-Renaissance Tech
-No Pre-Fab countries
-Will start in the year 1453
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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:
-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
-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.
-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.
-Changing the name from Imperium Offtopicum to Imperium Civfanaticum
-War based on units and a RNG rather than dice
-War based on Rock paper scissors
-Spice Events, using RL world-wide events to keep the game interesting
- 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
-Domination's ideas:
Spoiler :
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.
-Events based on the game itself
-Banning re-joining if you quit
-Implement a rebellion system
-disputed territories system
-"price value" for provinces
-get rid of the province system
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
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.