Ideas thread-Not alt histories but like rules and such

erez87 · Apr 11, 2005

Hmm I didn't found a thread to put my ideas into so... You will have to suffer here

This thread is not only for me everyone are welcome to suggest new ideas for rules and such.

Economy
Every tribe and country all over the world at all times had some kind of an economy. Be it the storage pit of the Foragers-Hunters in the prehistoric times to the Stock exchanges of the Modern world. Like them also your country will have an economy.
Your country, government and culture will affact your economy type and size. A country like the Huns will live out of raids and will have a totaly diffrent economic system than Venice that was based around trade - even barley on taxes, whats similar in both is that it's based on other countries economy...
In this NES economy could be one of 4 types: Normal, Trader, Raider, Self-efficient. Changing your type will make you loose 2 economic level but somthimes it could be a must (like if you earn nothing from raiding and you are a raider.)
Economy was also rated by it's strengh next to the other countries. Most countries had a Normal or Stable economy like others but at almost all times there were several Powerhouses of economy, for their area and many weakling countries. Somthimes a strong econmicly country was hit by depression. This levels will say how strong is your own economy and how many economies you earn every turn FROM YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
the levels are: Depression (-3), Recession (-1), Failing (+0), Unstable (+0), Stable (+1), Growing (+2), Prosperous (+2), Outstanding (+3), Powerhouse (+4). This levels doesn't mean the most you can earn is +4. If your economy continue to grow the Powerhouse economy will grow ass well (beware of falling into depression at times like that) and will have +1 added everytime it continue to grow. You cannot grow this, you need to write stories and continue giving a touch to the economy if you wish to grow this... At powerhouse economy there is a 50-50 chance you will gain 1 money that will go to the bonuses thingy. (and if your powerhouse is greater than +6 you could gain 2... beware of inflation...)
The last number in economy is money that you do not earn in your own country. This includes money from both Trade and Raids. They both will show ofcourse as diffrent numbers so you would know whats stronger to choose your eocnomy type.
Last are bonuses. You could find great gold deposits and befor you mine them and add them to your own economy you will earn 1 or 2 times bonus from them, for now... Bonuses are also money sent from other countries which can only be used in the turn you get them, not befor. That means if a country sends you money in turn 4 you can only use it in turn 5!

The economy stats will look like this:
Economy: Levels\Type, (Trade\Raid), +bonus = number of spending money
Example
Economy: Stabe(+1)\Trader, +(3\0), +0 = 4

Miliatry
Every... Well... group of people all across history had an army... be it the people themselves, animals (like dogs) or be it other people that fought for them since the dawn of men armies existed. Even of 1 man, but still an army. From the hunters of the stone age throught the legions of Rome and into the mechs and robots that begin to apear in our times...
Your country is no diffrent. You shall begin with a small army, enough for your country and it will grow as time moves under your orders. In my NES the rule for armies is much diffrent. Every turn your army will grow. Every single turn. By itself, in small-medium numbers depends on your country. The type of troops will be what is mostly wanted by the people who join unless you say how much should go to be ifnantry and how many archers... Every turn your army will grow with or without your orders. You can still ofcours use your economy to grow your army by a large number as you wish. This money spent will also add to the training of all your army... Well a bit... Navy on the other hand will not grow in the same way. You will need to pay for every ship(s) you build. Some might cost more and some less so think wisly what you build...
Your miliatry at start will be made of an army and maybe a tiny undeveloped navy. You can make up your units but make them go with your age. No Iron weapones in bronze age... Hoplites are Bronze. If you have a unit in bronze you will need to spend army so they will begin to use Iron. This will cost 1 economy for every unit type. It's like 1 time changing all weapones and blacksmiths to iron. If you will not pay it will grow in Bronze age.. and that also mean less numbers... Every age the numbers your armies grow from you using economy will grow... Also the number of men joining by themselves as health is growing to be better. In countries like Medival mongolia most of your army will join your ranks quickly... so quickly that you might not get men even from spending economy... beware of having a too big army... could ruine you... It didn't ruined Mongolia becuase they raided, such an army made of all people would kill a country like Holland or France cause they didn't raided too much.

The miliatry will look like this:
Army: # of_type (age), ...
Example
Army: 8,000 Hoplites (Bronze), 3,000 Archers (Iron) -- Yes this army badly needs to upgrade it's hoplites... if the player does in this case it most likly will get to 10,000 Hoplites even without spending an economy... People like new technologies

erez87 · Apr 12, 2005

I guss it's eaither so bad people don't give a damn

or maybe it's so good people are speechless???

:lol:

well what people think?

Jason The King · Apr 12, 2005

I like the idea about the military growing every turn, but it would be hard to manage for mods who have 20+ players and just as many NPCs.

The economy I think you are mixing government revenue with economy too much. But thats a common error that has just become a part of the NESing economic system, lol

Jason

erez87 · Apr 12, 2005

I'm not mixing government to economy :-\ i do mix the country culture\ways to eocnomy (traders\raider...)

RoddyVR · Apr 12, 2005

since this is an idea thread, i'll post something that i've though was sort wrong (as jason mentions above, which remindedme) with the econ systems of the story games infesting this forum.

why is it that you all take the "if government invests some cash in economy short term" that the economy will grow for the long term. seems a very optimistic and very simplified assuption.

i dont play or run the story games where you guys keep track of a dozen stats for each nation so i never had the oportunity to "fix" the system, but i'll suggest one that i think is not much harder to manage, but much more realistic. take it for what its worth though, i've never modded a story game and barely played in any, so my opinion could be crap.

yes, every nation has a economy that can me simplified into a "level" (ie doing good bad or in the middle). however, this does not always corelate in a direct way to the amount of cash that the government has to spend.
so lets say that each nation has an "economy" level of 1 to 100 (or 1000 or whatever, you dont realy need an upper limit).
each nation also sets a tax rate. for simplisity i would suggest 10% increments, and rounding down or up (same for everyone), lets say down.

so a nation with an economy of 45 and a tax rate of 30 would get 14 "credits" a turn to spend.
things like education (schools, unis), culture(musiums, circus), and social servises (police, fire) and healthcare (hospitals) are government responsibilities (no matter what some capitalists may think), so a government will pay for these EVERY TURN.
now, the player may raise or lower funding of any of those (whichever the mod decides to use in the game), but not by huge amounts. ie, you cannot have 10 credits into education one turn and 0 the next (cause you need that tank devision).
you can only raise or lower each category by 1 credit/turn every turn.
the tax rate and the amount the government reinvests in its own people determine wheather the economy grows or shrinks (i would say also by 1 a turn max other then with random events)

the more you tax, the more money you have, but the more likely your economy will shrink and if you keep this up, eventualy you'll be getting less taxes.
the more you spend on civic services and education and such, the more your econ grows (healthier/smarter workforce), but in the mean time you dont have a lot of your taxes to spend on military cause its all tied up in education.

make it a balancing act, like the real governments have to do.
no govenrment in the world can "raise taxes" by 50% in one year (or even decade) and not have a rebelion on their hands.
and no government can drop all education funding for a little while just cause its got "more urgent needs for the money".

if you wanna get more complicated, add in government loans to its own citizens and the reverse (gov bonds?).
where each turn the player can ether borrow or lend one of his "credits" to his people. these are kept track of in a running sum.
every turn you give your people money (sort of like banking gold) your econ would be more likely to grow a then normal. every turn you borrow money from your people (run a defecit), your econ can take an unexpected dive, but you get a extra credit in the mean time.

then there's the military.
i dont know about you, but not investing money in your military just because its already the hugest/best in the world is just stupid. every military in history has had some sort of "upkeep" needed. wheather it was that they took the food of the local peasants of whereever they happened to be, or the ridiculous amounts of cash the current governments throw at them now.

if you make a game where every "stat" needs "funding levels" instead of a series of "one time growth investments" then you'll have nations that basicaly differ from eachother by how they've treated their people and their militaries through the ages instead of just what they did with their cahs the last 3 turns.

Gelion · Apr 12, 2005

Roddy how is that different from the system I'm using? :confused:

Stormbringer · Apr 12, 2005

Gelion! Get back to updating!

Gelion · Apr 12, 2005

lol I am I am..... Ceaser could do 3 things at the same time, what makes you think I can't?

blackheart · Apr 12, 2005

Gelion said:
lol I am I am..... Ceaser could do 3 things at the same time, what makes you think I can't?

I can do 4

. But you can't type for the update and type in the forum at the same time!

Gelion · Apr 12, 2005

I can think about the update while typing for the forum

Now give me a break!

Insane_Panda · Apr 12, 2005

UPDATE. IT IS COMANDED OF YOU!!!

*runs back into shelter, fearing mob attack*

my update shall come later today....

Stormbringer · Apr 12, 2005

Panda! You get back to Updating too!
Gelion! If you can do 2 things at the same time it means if you were doing only 1 you would do it 2 times faster. Now get to it!

Ok, Im done bossing around the mods now

RoddyVR · Apr 12, 2005

Gelion said:
Roddy how is that different from the system I'm using?

i have no clue to tell you the truth. i dont read the rules for most of the story games. proly never read yours.

i just skim through a few every once in a while to make sure they ahvent gottne "board game like" enough for me to start playing in em.

and if yours is like what i described, then i guess all i have to say is:
"great minds think alike"

North King · May 7, 2005

I vaguely remembered this thread, and I decided to put my ideas for rules in here instead of clogging another thread. Comments are welcome.

Rules

Stories

Stories are the best thing to do with your spare time. Not only do they show off the greater creativity of humanity and so on and so forth, but they are highly enjoyable for the mod to read, make me feel important, make the updates that much better, etc. I HIGHLY encourage you to write stories, especially since they attach you to your nation much better than anything else.

Sadly, of course, stories alone do not sustain the rabid fratricidal simians, so we have stats.

The stats.

The stats you need to worry yourself with are:

Religion
Government
Economy (This is different from Usual)
Military (This is different from Usual)
Agriculture (This is completely new)
Industry (This is completely new)
Infrastructure (This is more influential than Usual)
Confidence (This is more influential than Usual)
Culture (This is more influential than Usual)

Now, onto explanations:

Religion
The usual deal. You can adopt an existing one, or make your own. Can be based on historical models or entirely fictional.

Government
Usual deal. Invent your own or adopt an existing one, just make sure its in time with the period. A radical government change can lead to significant stability problems.

Economy

I HOPE this is the final revision of this I have to go through.

Income is what you earn. You earn it from several areas, most notably, agriculture, industry, and trade. And perhaps, looting a city. But thats beside the point. Income is also what you spend, and you spend it on near everything.

There are no expenses, unless you borrow some money. You can borrow as much per turn as one half your total income (rounded down). No more. This accumulates in a debt, and a debt makes your income go down by 10% of the debt (rounded up). This is only for emergencies. Or crazy people.

Trade is present all the time. However, you can set up 3 official priority trade routes that, depending on how lucrative they are, may gain you a lot of money.

Agriculture

Agriculture is what you farm. It is in levels.

Levels: Scorched Earth, Barren, Poor, Average, Decent, Fertile, Cornucopia, Breadbasket

Industry

Industry is the sum of all your factories, little workshops, smithies, etc. Basically the non food production of your nation.

Levels: Barbaric, Pathetic, Small, Average, Decent, Good, Large, Powerhouse

Infrastructure

This is a very powerful stat in its latest form. It will influence how fast armies move (yours and the enemys inside your territory), how well you can deploy, how well you can develop your nations backwaters, and how well you trade. Dont ignore it. It is also in levels:

Levels: Single Track Dirt Roads, Underdeveloped, Little, Average, Decent, Good, Developed, Autobahn

All of the above heavily influence the military, as you will see below. Note that the above can be quite variable, especially in wartime...

Military

Revamped. You might want to pay some attention.

You raise troops by spending some income on it. However, how much they raise depends on a few other things.

Raising a great army
When raising the infantry or cavalry, the income you spend and your Agriculture determine how much is raised. When you raise armor, artillery, or air force, it is the income you spend and Industry.

For the navy, its the income you spend and Industry.

Naturally, the more of each required stat you have, the more you will gain per each income point spent.

Optimal support

This says how much of an overall military force you can support. It is determined by income, agriculture, and industry. You can go over the limit, but its not recommended, as you will start to have hungry troops.

Unique Units

Create as many as you want. But mind you that they are more expensive than the run of the mill unit, and they have weaknesses, as well. PM me their characteristics whenever you create one.

Education:

(Undecided on what to do with this)

Confidence:

This is very important. It determines to what degree people are willing to die for you. Literally. People will work, fight, run, move, charge, love, kill harder for you the more of this you have. The less you have, the more likely people will desert, abandon, and kill you, and will probably lead to some uprisings while theyre at it.

Levels: Lynching, Beating, Annoyed, Average, Decent, Liking, Loving, Overtly Courting

Culture:

Culture refers to how powerful, influential, and resilient your culture is. The higher this is, the more people will want to join your nation, the less resistance movements will start in occupied territory, and the longer your culture will survive and thrive under foreign domination.

The lower, of course, the more likely you are going to be absorbed by other cultures, the more you will have trouble with partisans, and the less likely will your culture survive if conquered.

Levels: Barbarian, Brutish, Backwater, Average, Decent, Promising, Strong, Dominating.

Projects:

This is the local equivalent of wonders. Built it, and they will come.

That is to say, if you start a wonder, you can have it do any number of effects. It can raise your income, military, culture, support, education, etc. You build it by investing income points every turn until completion. I determine how many it takes.

Example:

The Stupefying Sand Dune of the Sahara (+50 divisions, +5 education, +1 age) (4/13)

Nation Name [replace]
Player/Ruler: ?/?
Religion: ?
Government: ?
Income: ?
Army: ?
Navy: ?
Optimal Support: ?
Units available: ?
Agriculture: ?
Industry: ?
Infrastructure: ?
Education: ?
Confidence: ?
Culture: ?
Projects: ?

Jason The King · May 7, 2005

looks good north king.

das · May 8, 2005

Nice, NK, now go start a NES. Btw, what do you think about my idea?

(Undecided on what to do with this)

As am I, as am I... maybe you could just remove it? I tried recently to understand what would "grow education" translate in RL, and quite frankly I didn't find anything at all.

Communisto · May 8, 2005

put ethnicity in it, as in percentages of ethnic minorities and majorities, that's always a good way to spark a story by making the players conect more with their country.

other than that i love the rules! das is right, start a nes

North King · May 8, 2005

das said:
Nice, NK, now go start a NES.

Bah, it would likely die... On the other hand, I am less occupied right now, but I'm sure something will come up. I'm going to shoot for summer vacation and desperately hope that most of my time will be free...

Btw, what do you think about my idea?

It's... interesting, to say the least. Not quite my style, if you know what I mean.

As am I, as am I... maybe you could just remove it? I tried recently to understand what would "grow education" translate in RL, and quite frankly I didn't find anything at all.

I was thinking perhaps I could implement something from a Paradox game. See, in Europa Universalis, their earliest and best (for gameplay) game, they had a system whereby you invested a certain amount of money in research... Perhaps there could be a system like research points, and you could invest them in certain areas...

EDIT:

Communisto said:
put ethnicity in it, as in percentages of ethnic minorities and majorities, that's always a good way to spark a story by making the players conect more with their country.

Ethnicity is the most gadawful thing to manage, you realize, right? Perhaps I shall do it, but perhaps I shall not. It will certainly be IN the NES, but I doubt I'll want it in stats.

Fëanor · May 8, 2005

The Rules i wanted to use for a Age of Discovery NES i wanted to start, nevery started it becouse i (unlike other wannabe-mods) dont believe in modding a nes unless i have the time and can totally dedicate myself to it

Template Model
Player: Fëanor
Nation: United Kingdom
Government: Monarchy
Happiness: Content
Culture: Developed
Education: Average
Economy: 28 Gold --- Agriculture: 7/20, Industry: 5/8, Services: 16/28
Laborers: 7 Gold --- 40.000 Slaves 10.000 Criminals 20.000 Converts
Trade: 4 Gold --- Netherlands, 4 Merchant Ships
Army: -14 Gold (High) Upkeep Level: 6 --- 50.000 Infantry --- 2.000 Cavalry --- 200 Artillery
Navy: -12 Gold (Med) Upkeep Level: 4 --- 6 Merchant Ships --- 20 Corvettes --- 10 Frigates --- 4 Carracks
UU:-5 Gold (Med) Upkeep Level: 0 5 Man-O-Wars,
Treasury: 8 Gold
Projects: Harvard College (Increases Education and Culture) 3/10
Wonders: Da Vincis Workshop (a 2nd UU allowed) 16/40

Player: CFC nickname of the person that controls the nation

Nation: Name of the nation

Government: The Nations government, Monarchy is the most common.
Monarchy: Education, Culture and Happiness are Less affected by war, slavery or piracy. 2 Trade Routes Limit
Republic: Happiness, Culture and Education rises and drops faster, 4 Trade routes Limit.

Happiness: How happy the people of this nation are, an unhappy nation can cause desertion, revolt and all king of nasty stuff, the military of an happy nation is more loyal an thus his army fights better. Happiness is largely affected by wars, economy and a how well the army is equipped.
Revolting - Angry - Disappointed - Average - Content - Happy - Devoted.

Culture: Culture determines how other nations and tribes react toward this nation, Culture his affected by the nations morality, (slavery, piracy, wars etc), the Nations dedication (funding) to Art and Religion and how well the Nation is educated.
Barbaric, Poor, Lacking, Average, Developed, Model, Inspiring.

Education: Education mainly determines the costs of technology, For Every level under Enlightened the technology costs 20% above the Base cost.
The Levels Are Ignorant, Poor, Lacking, Average, Smart, Enlightened.

Economy: Your Agriculture Industry and Services, in those Branches the First number represents how much that Branch of you economy is developed, while second Number Represents the maximum development possible for you nation, developing a branch costs 1 gold if that branch is currently developed under 50% otherwise it costs to 2 Gold, You can increase your max development cap by conquering new lands, new technologies, wonders and projects might increase that too, Each point in your developed branches generates 1 gold per Turn.

Laborers: This represents the amount of Forced Laborers your nation employees, slaves can be either bough at slave markets or raided from Tribes, criminals can are products of your fine society, a Nation with high education will tend to produce less criminals than one with a low education, converts can be gained by sending missionaries to Native tribes, the amount of Converts you gain will be determined by the number of missionaries and your nations culture, but if you send too many missionaries the tribe will be angered.
Beware though that slaves lower you culture and education and that converts and criminals lower your education only.

Trade: A nation can establish up to 4 trade routes with other nations, each sea trade route can generate up to one quarter of his nations economys income while a land trade route can only generate half as much, however sea trade routes need 1 merchant ship for every gold they produce and are more at risk of disruption than land trade routes.

Army: this represents all Land Based armed forces, you will need them to conquer territories, and handle Tribes and Nations in wars.

Navy: Your Sea Based forces, they are extremely important to go and claim wild lands, you will need them to conquer other nations to at some point and sea trade is much more profitable so a navy is a must.

Unique Units: every nation is allowed one, these may be both land or sea based units, they have some special attributes and a Weakness(could be Cost, numbers etc.)

Costs per Unit:
5000 Infantry 1 Gold
1000 Cavalry 1 Gold
100 Cannons 1 Gold
5 Merchant Ships 1 Gold (Each Ships can Transport 1000 men)
5 Corvette 2 Gold (High Speed, good for Piracy)
1 Frigate 1 Gold
1 Carrack 3 Gold (Each Ship can transport 5000 men)
1 Man-o-War(UU) 1 Gold (Very Powerfull Carrack Warship that Transports 4000 men, double upkeep costs)

Your maximum purchase per turn is determined by how well your industry is developed, a nation with 5/8 industry can purchase 5 units per turn in whatever combination.

Level: the Level of you Military Branches can range from -10 to 10, the higher the Branchs level the better they will perform. A well armed , loyal force of 1.000 men guarding a fort might very well turn back an assault of 10.000 of badly equipped demoralized men and well equipped ships with good crews may survive hazards that would shipwrecked others and they may even outmaneuver better vessels to flee or sink them.
Branches with very low levels (-5 and less) will perform horribly and suffer from desertion, defection, revolts/mutiny and in the case of ships may be more vulnerable to hazards.

Upkeep and Funding: Upkeep and the Funding (Low) / (Med) / (High), are two closely linked things, your military upkeep is equal to half the raising cost of the Units in the branch, Funding determines the how well your men are equipped and trained, Low Funding halves the costs of to upkeep for the Branch, but the branch loses -2 points per turn until it reaches 0 and then -1 until it reaches -10, High Funding Doubles the Upkeep costs but raises the Branchs level by 2 until the unit reaches 0 and then Raises it by 1 per turn, Medium funding has Normal Upkeep costs for the Unit, if the Unit has a level of worse than -4 then it raises it up to -4 if the unit has a level of 4 or better then it lowers it down to 4 this is done by adding or subtracting one point per turn but if the Unit as anything in between 4 and -4 it remains stable.

Treasury: This is the amount of gold left after the all Upkeep is paid. You can spend it but any you leave will be kept there, it might be wise to keep some reserves for emergencies.

Projects: some projects will be available to all, like the Voyage to the Americas, Slave Colonies, Missionary Expeditions, Penal Colonies, others you can create yourself, like a college that increases you education, or an museum to increase both education and culture, or maybe you can buy or commission a grand painting or statue from a great Historic charter like Michelangelo or da Vinci and receive a grand boost in culture. Projects can be whatever you want as long as its not something completely unrealistic or unbalanced.

Wonders: these Unique buildings are usually these are granted by technologies, any one possesses the requisites can compete to build one, the first that finishes his will receive the effects the wonder and usually a great amount of culture.

Fëanor · May 8, 2005

In retrospect i belive that it might be better to not include the Level, Upkeep and Funding rules, while those rules make it more realistic they triple the load on the mod, i am generally still very pleased about the remainder of the rules.

im currently working on a set of rules for a modern nes idea i got were the economy and industry are represented by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of their Nation, the remainder of those rules are lagely spin offs of the games Hearts of Iron 2 and Superpower 2

Spoiler Hearts of Iron 2 based Tech Tree and Nation Template :

Ideas thread-Not alt histories but like rules and such

Lord of Random

Lord of Random

Deity

Lord of Random

Veteran Board NESer

Retired Captain

The Brick and The Rose

Retired Captain

unenlightened

Retired Captain

Deity

The Brick and The Rose

Veteran Board NESer

blech

Deity

Regeneration In Process

Condottiere

blech

Chieftain

Chieftain

Similar threads