Stormbringer
The Brick and The Rose
stSBNES6 “Through the Valley of Death"
OVERVIEW
I am very excited to be starting this NES. I must first of all thank everyone who had helped me along with putting it together. First of all Das and Panda for helping me with the map. Stalin006, and JosefStalinator helped with much of the rules and gave me good ideas. Finally Feanor put together the original tech tree which I edited to use for this NES. Thank you to all of you for your help.
RULES
Basics
Countries
You can play as any of the countries in the stats or you may start a rebel movement. I must warn you, rebel movements will not have an easy time in this NES as I tend to be critical of them. On the other hand, I am also critical of countries who fight the rebels, and so if you are careful it is possible to succeed.
Ruler
The person most directly in charge of the country. I tend to hold my players up to a high standard and they play not the country as a whole but the faction within the country that controls the government. This means that you are not omnipotent and cannot do whatever you want with your country. You do what a government can do and use only that to solve the problems that arise.
Government
This is the type of government that your country has and the general political leanings of the government. Governments can change, and they most likely will, but they must do so in a realistic manner. You cannot just say that the government changes, you must give a realistic reason and process for it to change. I will also expect you to act as your government, and Fascist governments allying with Social Democracies will not go unpunished.
Size
This is a stat that represents the stat of your country. The idea originally belongs to Das. The sizes go from Tiny (1) to Huge (5). The number in parentheses serves as a multiplier for the amount of eco points you must spend to increase the level of Infrastructure, Education, or Living Standards. This means that it is 5 times harder for a Huge country to increase any of those stats than it is for a Tiny country.
Military
The Military is divided into Army, Navy, and Air Force. Within each one there will be a number of specific units. It is best to use the units in combination with other units for maximum effectiveness.
Army
The Army is divided into infantry units and mobile units. Infantry units include basic infantry, marines, paratroopers, and mountaineers. Mobile units include cavalry, tanks, motorized and mechanized infantry. All units are divided into divisions.
To increase an army a government spends money to recruit people and arm them with weapons. Infantry costs 1 eco/division. Any type of specialized infantry costs 2 eco/division as well as cavalry, motorized and mechanized infantry. Armored divisions cost 3 eco/division.
Further, army units are the only units that have a training value. To the best of my knowledge all countries used regular troops in navies and air forces, and I do not want to further complicate the NES. There are four training values – Militia, Conscripts, Regulars, Elites. Militia are troops that serve only part time and are called into service only when the need arrives. They usually fight poorly but cost only ½ the price of Conscripts (so you get 2 divisions of infantry/eco or one division of specialized infantry/eco) Conscripts are soldiers who are called to serve their country for a specific amount of time, usually without much training or pay. They are the base units for most countries and are the units for which the cost was given above. Regular troops cost two times as much as Conscripts and are professional soldiers who dedicate their life to the army, and so have extensive training and experience. Finally Elite troops cost 3 times more than Conscripts and are the best units there are. These are professional troops who have the best training and the most experience of all other soldiers. They are very expensive to train when you are recruiting troops, and so most Elite troops are soldiers who have seen a lot of battles and have been trained in combat. All of these different trainings are denoted by a letter in parentheses that follows the division (e.g. Infantry Division (M) for an Infantry Division of Militia training)
Finally, when a new technology is researched and better equipment for infantry becomes available they can be upgraded to the higher level by paying 1 eco/division. Only infantry can be upgraded in this way, tank divisions and mechanized divisions have to be purchased anew since you cannot easily upgrade vehicles.
Navy
The navy is made up of capital ships, surface ships, and submarines. Capital ships are Carriers, Battleships, and Battle Cruisers. Surface ships include Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers, and Destroyers. Submarines are submarines. Capital ships cost 3 eco/ship, surface ships cost 2 eco/ship and submarines 1 eco/ ship.
These units have no training and cannot be upgraded. You can scrap older designs if you want, but you will have to purchase new ships when new technologies are developed.
Air Force
The air force is divided into light planes and heavy planes. Light planes are interceptors, fighters, and close air support planes. Heavy planes are tactical bombers, strategic bombers, and naval bombers.
Again, these units have no training and cannot be upgrades. Light planes cost 2 eco/wing while heavy planes cost 3 eco/wing.
Economy
The economy is divided into four sectors of the economy. The sectors are agriculture, industry, services, and commerce.
Agriculture
Agriculture denotes the income a country receives from its agriculture and its raw materials. Having a good agriculture is absolutely imperative to having a good industry.
Industry
Industry is the measure of the industrial capacity and the income from industry that a nation receives. This number can never be higher than the sum of agriculture and commerce (the resources you have from your country plus the recourses you trade for) You also cannot give more build orders every turn than you have industry. For example, if your industry is 6 you cannot build more than 6 units/turn.
Services
This sector is the most self sufficient sector. It is the amount of taxes the government gets from local business, incomes of citizens, etc. Usually this number is lower than the others and it is rather difficult to raise. This also determines how much you can spend on raising your infrastructure, education, standard of living, or technology. This means that if you have 4 points in services you will not be able to spend more than 4 eco/turn on all of these areas.
Commerce
Commerce is income from trade. It is very easy to get when you sign trade agreements with other countries, however, be careful, if war comes and your trade routes are cut this number will go down sharply and your income will plummet.
Economy Again
When you add the four numbers for these four sectors you get the number for your total economy. This is your eco/turn that you can spend on whatever you want, given the restrictions in this section.
You can transfer 1 point from any of the four sectors to another sector every turn. This represents the slow reforms of the economy you can undertake.
Also, you can grow any one of your sectors. But to do that you have to invest, in a single turn, as much eco as the next level. So, for example, if you have 4 points in Services you can grow Services by 1 point by spending 5 eco on it that turn.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure represents the roads, bridges, etc. of your country. It is rated on a scale of 1-5 and, unlike other NESes, it does have a major impact on the game. Not only will your troops move faster, but infrastructure also affects the economy. An infrastructure of 0 will make you unable to use your industry and commerce. An infrastructure of 1 will reduces them by half, an infrastructure of 2 has no penalty. At infrastructure of 3 you get a bonus of 1/2, at infrastructure of 4 a bonus of 2X and at infrastructure of 5 a bonus of 3X.
To increase infrastructure you must spend eco equivalent to the next level of infrastructure multiplied by your size multiplier. For example, if a small country (size 2) wants to go from infrastructure 2 to infrastructure 3 it must spend 6 eco points. The upgrade must be paid in full in one turn.
Finally, all countries have to maintain their roads. Because of that all countries with infrastructure level 3 have to pay 1 eco multiplied by the country size/turn to maintain it, infrastructure level 4 takes 2 eco times the country size/turn to maintain, and infrastructure level 5 takes 3 eco times the country size/turn. And yes, that does mean that a huge country that wants to max infrastructure will have to pay 15 eco/trun to keep it at the highest level, so it will not be worth it for everybody.
Education
Education works the exact same was as infrastructure, except it has an effect on research. Education of 0 makes research impossible, education of 1 increases the cost of research to 10 eco points (see research section later), education of 2 has no effect, education of 3 reduces research cost to 4 eco points, education of 4 reduces it to 3 eco and education of 5 reduces it to 2 eco.
Education is increased and maintained the same way as infrastructure.
Living Standards
Living Standards work the exact same way as infrastructure, except they affect Services and Agriculture instead of Industry and Commerce.
They are increased and maintained the same way as Infrastructure and Education.
Stability
Stability is rated on a 5 point scale. Stable-Dissent-Protests-Riots-Civil War. Low stability will reduce the effectiveness of the economy as a whole. Starting with Protests the economy is reduced by half, at Riots it is down to 1/4 and during Civil War your economy cannot be used.
Stability cannot be increased using money and has to be increased using other means.
Technology
Let me see if I can explain this well. You will have a technology level for each unit type and for each sector of your economy, and the technology level will correspond to a year. So, for example Infantry (1919) means that your infantry is at a 1919 tech level. You do not have to upgrade your infantry or any other tech level every single year, you can still be fighting with 1919 infantry in 1922 if you feel like it, but if someone else has 1922 infantry, they will have an edge.
Now, for economic technology levels you will get +1 to your respective economic sector for every year of the tech level. So if you go from Commerce 1919 to Commerce 1923 you will get +4 to your commerce, which could be a really good way to increase your economy.
Say you have a 1919 Infantry tech level and you want to bring it up to 1923, what do you do? You have to pay 5 eco points for every year that your tech level is going up, so 5x4=20 in this case. Education affects this number, as stipulated above. Try to keep up with technology, because upgrading from 1919 to 1939 will be painful.
Can you trade technology? You cannot directly trade it, since it takes more than just the bare knowledge to put theory into practice, but you can help other nations with research. If you chose to do so, the cost for the technological research for the nation you are helping is reduced by 2 eco points. And yes, this does mean that if you are helping a nation that has a level 5 education research something that nation gets that tech for free, but anyone with education below 5 still has to pay a little.
Now, let's say that you are playing Nowherestan, and you are lightyears behind in technology. Your 1000BC infantry could really use some improvement, but you cannot afford to upgrade it all the way up to 1923, what do you do? You can upgrade it to any level below the one we are currently at right now, so you might upgrade it to 1920 instead of 1923. For every year below the current one, not only do you save the 5 eco you don't have to pay for the year, but the technology is also 1 eco point cheaper. So while it takes 20 eco to upgrade from 1919 to 1923 tech level in 1923, it only takes 8 eco to upgrade from 1919 to 1921 in 1923.
Now, remember that section about education above? Sure you don't. Go re-read it because right about now you should realize why it is useful. While it takes 20 eco to go from 1919 to 1923 if your education is at 2, it would only take you 8 eco if your education was at 5 because the 5 eco/year is replaced with 2 eco/year. That is less than half the cost, and with the ridiculous amount of unit types now, and with more to come (rockets, nukes, etc.) this eco will quickly add up.
Finally, and very importantly, you can research one technology every turn and only one technology every turn. That means a total of four technologies per year, and yes, that means that you will never be completley cought up with technology, but keep in mind, hardly any country updates its tank designs and plane designs every year, that would be ridiculously expensive.
Projects
Projects are your bread and butter. Everything that is not listed here can be put into a project. You tell me what you want to do and how you want to do it and I will tell you how much it will cost and how long it will take. This can range from industrialization, creating a spy network, or a terrorist attack.
Investments work very similarly, but they are less formal than projects. If you see a place in your country where something can be improved you can indicate that you will spend an X amount of money on that and I will take into account and give you any benefits of your investment.
Final Note
Turns will be 3 months long beginning with January 1919. I may change that if I see that it needs to be changed. Updates will be once or twice a week but I will always tell you at least 4 day ahead of time so you have time to send orders. Any questions and or problems can always be addressed to me, and I will do my best to solve them.
If you see any way that the rules above are unfair, give someone an advantage that shouldn’t be there, etc. go ahead and tell me. The same goes for the stats.
All of these rules are made to make the NES more realistic and more fun, but they are by no means meant to stop creativity or innovative ideas. If you want to do something and do not see it in the rules chances are you can do it, you just have to talk to me either on msn or through a PM.
Now let us all have fun together.
OVERVIEW
I am very excited to be starting this NES. I must first of all thank everyone who had helped me along with putting it together. First of all Das and Panda for helping me with the map. Stalin006, and JosefStalinator helped with much of the rules and gave me good ideas. Finally Feanor put together the original tech tree which I edited to use for this NES. Thank you to all of you for your help.
RULES
Basics
Countries
You can play as any of the countries in the stats or you may start a rebel movement. I must warn you, rebel movements will not have an easy time in this NES as I tend to be critical of them. On the other hand, I am also critical of countries who fight the rebels, and so if you are careful it is possible to succeed.
Ruler
The person most directly in charge of the country. I tend to hold my players up to a high standard and they play not the country as a whole but the faction within the country that controls the government. This means that you are not omnipotent and cannot do whatever you want with your country. You do what a government can do and use only that to solve the problems that arise.
Government
This is the type of government that your country has and the general political leanings of the government. Governments can change, and they most likely will, but they must do so in a realistic manner. You cannot just say that the government changes, you must give a realistic reason and process for it to change. I will also expect you to act as your government, and Fascist governments allying with Social Democracies will not go unpunished.
Size
This is a stat that represents the stat of your country. The idea originally belongs to Das. The sizes go from Tiny (1) to Huge (5). The number in parentheses serves as a multiplier for the amount of eco points you must spend to increase the level of Infrastructure, Education, or Living Standards. This means that it is 5 times harder for a Huge country to increase any of those stats than it is for a Tiny country.
Military
The Military is divided into Army, Navy, and Air Force. Within each one there will be a number of specific units. It is best to use the units in combination with other units for maximum effectiveness.
Army
The Army is divided into infantry units and mobile units. Infantry units include basic infantry, marines, paratroopers, and mountaineers. Mobile units include cavalry, tanks, motorized and mechanized infantry. All units are divided into divisions.
To increase an army a government spends money to recruit people and arm them with weapons. Infantry costs 1 eco/division. Any type of specialized infantry costs 2 eco/division as well as cavalry, motorized and mechanized infantry. Armored divisions cost 3 eco/division.
Further, army units are the only units that have a training value. To the best of my knowledge all countries used regular troops in navies and air forces, and I do not want to further complicate the NES. There are four training values – Militia, Conscripts, Regulars, Elites. Militia are troops that serve only part time and are called into service only when the need arrives. They usually fight poorly but cost only ½ the price of Conscripts (so you get 2 divisions of infantry/eco or one division of specialized infantry/eco) Conscripts are soldiers who are called to serve their country for a specific amount of time, usually without much training or pay. They are the base units for most countries and are the units for which the cost was given above. Regular troops cost two times as much as Conscripts and are professional soldiers who dedicate their life to the army, and so have extensive training and experience. Finally Elite troops cost 3 times more than Conscripts and are the best units there are. These are professional troops who have the best training and the most experience of all other soldiers. They are very expensive to train when you are recruiting troops, and so most Elite troops are soldiers who have seen a lot of battles and have been trained in combat. All of these different trainings are denoted by a letter in parentheses that follows the division (e.g. Infantry Division (M) for an Infantry Division of Militia training)
Finally, when a new technology is researched and better equipment for infantry becomes available they can be upgraded to the higher level by paying 1 eco/division. Only infantry can be upgraded in this way, tank divisions and mechanized divisions have to be purchased anew since you cannot easily upgrade vehicles.
Navy
The navy is made up of capital ships, surface ships, and submarines. Capital ships are Carriers, Battleships, and Battle Cruisers. Surface ships include Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers, and Destroyers. Submarines are submarines. Capital ships cost 3 eco/ship, surface ships cost 2 eco/ship and submarines 1 eco/ ship.
These units have no training and cannot be upgraded. You can scrap older designs if you want, but you will have to purchase new ships when new technologies are developed.
Air Force
The air force is divided into light planes and heavy planes. Light planes are interceptors, fighters, and close air support planes. Heavy planes are tactical bombers, strategic bombers, and naval bombers.
Again, these units have no training and cannot be upgrades. Light planes cost 2 eco/wing while heavy planes cost 3 eco/wing.
Economy
The economy is divided into four sectors of the economy. The sectors are agriculture, industry, services, and commerce.
Agriculture
Agriculture denotes the income a country receives from its agriculture and its raw materials. Having a good agriculture is absolutely imperative to having a good industry.
Industry
Industry is the measure of the industrial capacity and the income from industry that a nation receives. This number can never be higher than the sum of agriculture and commerce (the resources you have from your country plus the recourses you trade for) You also cannot give more build orders every turn than you have industry. For example, if your industry is 6 you cannot build more than 6 units/turn.
Services
This sector is the most self sufficient sector. It is the amount of taxes the government gets from local business, incomes of citizens, etc. Usually this number is lower than the others and it is rather difficult to raise. This also determines how much you can spend on raising your infrastructure, education, standard of living, or technology. This means that if you have 4 points in services you will not be able to spend more than 4 eco/turn on all of these areas.
Commerce
Commerce is income from trade. It is very easy to get when you sign trade agreements with other countries, however, be careful, if war comes and your trade routes are cut this number will go down sharply and your income will plummet.
Economy Again
When you add the four numbers for these four sectors you get the number for your total economy. This is your eco/turn that you can spend on whatever you want, given the restrictions in this section.
You can transfer 1 point from any of the four sectors to another sector every turn. This represents the slow reforms of the economy you can undertake.
Also, you can grow any one of your sectors. But to do that you have to invest, in a single turn, as much eco as the next level. So, for example, if you have 4 points in Services you can grow Services by 1 point by spending 5 eco on it that turn.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure represents the roads, bridges, etc. of your country. It is rated on a scale of 1-5 and, unlike other NESes, it does have a major impact on the game. Not only will your troops move faster, but infrastructure also affects the economy. An infrastructure of 0 will make you unable to use your industry and commerce. An infrastructure of 1 will reduces them by half, an infrastructure of 2 has no penalty. At infrastructure of 3 you get a bonus of 1/2, at infrastructure of 4 a bonus of 2X and at infrastructure of 5 a bonus of 3X.
To increase infrastructure you must spend eco equivalent to the next level of infrastructure multiplied by your size multiplier. For example, if a small country (size 2) wants to go from infrastructure 2 to infrastructure 3 it must spend 6 eco points. The upgrade must be paid in full in one turn.
Finally, all countries have to maintain their roads. Because of that all countries with infrastructure level 3 have to pay 1 eco multiplied by the country size/turn to maintain it, infrastructure level 4 takes 2 eco times the country size/turn to maintain, and infrastructure level 5 takes 3 eco times the country size/turn. And yes, that does mean that a huge country that wants to max infrastructure will have to pay 15 eco/trun to keep it at the highest level, so it will not be worth it for everybody.
Education
Education works the exact same was as infrastructure, except it has an effect on research. Education of 0 makes research impossible, education of 1 increases the cost of research to 10 eco points (see research section later), education of 2 has no effect, education of 3 reduces research cost to 4 eco points, education of 4 reduces it to 3 eco and education of 5 reduces it to 2 eco.
Education is increased and maintained the same way as infrastructure.
Living Standards
Living Standards work the exact same way as infrastructure, except they affect Services and Agriculture instead of Industry and Commerce.
They are increased and maintained the same way as Infrastructure and Education.
Stability
Stability is rated on a 5 point scale. Stable-Dissent-Protests-Riots-Civil War. Low stability will reduce the effectiveness of the economy as a whole. Starting with Protests the economy is reduced by half, at Riots it is down to 1/4 and during Civil War your economy cannot be used.
Stability cannot be increased using money and has to be increased using other means.
Technology
Let me see if I can explain this well. You will have a technology level for each unit type and for each sector of your economy, and the technology level will correspond to a year. So, for example Infantry (1919) means that your infantry is at a 1919 tech level. You do not have to upgrade your infantry or any other tech level every single year, you can still be fighting with 1919 infantry in 1922 if you feel like it, but if someone else has 1922 infantry, they will have an edge.
Now, for economic technology levels you will get +1 to your respective economic sector for every year of the tech level. So if you go from Commerce 1919 to Commerce 1923 you will get +4 to your commerce, which could be a really good way to increase your economy.
Say you have a 1919 Infantry tech level and you want to bring it up to 1923, what do you do? You have to pay 5 eco points for every year that your tech level is going up, so 5x4=20 in this case. Education affects this number, as stipulated above. Try to keep up with technology, because upgrading from 1919 to 1939 will be painful.
Can you trade technology? You cannot directly trade it, since it takes more than just the bare knowledge to put theory into practice, but you can help other nations with research. If you chose to do so, the cost for the technological research for the nation you are helping is reduced by 2 eco points. And yes, this does mean that if you are helping a nation that has a level 5 education research something that nation gets that tech for free, but anyone with education below 5 still has to pay a little.
Now, let's say that you are playing Nowherestan, and you are lightyears behind in technology. Your 1000BC infantry could really use some improvement, but you cannot afford to upgrade it all the way up to 1923, what do you do? You can upgrade it to any level below the one we are currently at right now, so you might upgrade it to 1920 instead of 1923. For every year below the current one, not only do you save the 5 eco you don't have to pay for the year, but the technology is also 1 eco point cheaper. So while it takes 20 eco to upgrade from 1919 to 1923 tech level in 1923, it only takes 8 eco to upgrade from 1919 to 1921 in 1923.
Now, remember that section about education above? Sure you don't. Go re-read it because right about now you should realize why it is useful. While it takes 20 eco to go from 1919 to 1923 if your education is at 2, it would only take you 8 eco if your education was at 5 because the 5 eco/year is replaced with 2 eco/year. That is less than half the cost, and with the ridiculous amount of unit types now, and with more to come (rockets, nukes, etc.) this eco will quickly add up.
Finally, and very importantly, you can research one technology every turn and only one technology every turn. That means a total of four technologies per year, and yes, that means that you will never be completley cought up with technology, but keep in mind, hardly any country updates its tank designs and plane designs every year, that would be ridiculously expensive.
Projects
Projects are your bread and butter. Everything that is not listed here can be put into a project. You tell me what you want to do and how you want to do it and I will tell you how much it will cost and how long it will take. This can range from industrialization, creating a spy network, or a terrorist attack.
Investments work very similarly, but they are less formal than projects. If you see a place in your country where something can be improved you can indicate that you will spend an X amount of money on that and I will take into account and give you any benefits of your investment.
Final Note
Turns will be 3 months long beginning with January 1919. I may change that if I see that it needs to be changed. Updates will be once or twice a week but I will always tell you at least 4 day ahead of time so you have time to send orders. Any questions and or problems can always be addressed to me, and I will do my best to solve them.
If you see any way that the rules above are unfair, give someone an advantage that shouldn’t be there, etc. go ahead and tell me. The same goes for the stats.
All of these rules are made to make the NES more realistic and more fun, but they are by no means meant to stop creativity or innovative ideas. If you want to do something and do not see it in the rules chances are you can do it, you just have to talk to me either on msn or through a PM.
Now let us all have fun together.
