Domofuhrer
Chieftain
[size=+3]The Boundless World (TBW): The United Divided[/size]
[size=+2]The New American Century[/size]
**********
PLEASE READ ALL OF ME FIRST!
[size=+2]The New American Century[/size]
**********
PLEASE READ ALL OF ME FIRST!
Introduction:
Imagine a world where the United States of America collapsed from internal pressure after years of war, economic disaster, and nationalist sentiment. The Boundless World is a new NES developed on the core concept of the entire NES revolving around a much smaller map focusing on the (former) United States of America and Canada. In TBW, the game map consists of some sixty nation-states, all of them independent American and Canadian cities, provinces, states and territories. Each player may take up one of these nations and craft it according to his whim and pitting his land against his neighbors in a bid for domination of all that comprises the former United States of America.
The “World” as far as the game is concerned, is composed solely of the lands shown on the official game map. Later additions with introduce Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and so on until the entire world is up for grabs. There is no set timetable for map expansion at this time. The world outside of the map does not exist, at least in the eyes of the American people at this time: the world has its own problems on their doorstep. For the moment, contact between the North American continent and the rest of the world is impossible.
There is no driving force of canon to restrain players, though realism will be maintained. Unless something extremely drastic occurs, the Fantastic Four will not battle Doctor Doom in the Bronx, but the secret police might happily bulldoze a neighborhood of orphan nuns to make way for a new concentration camp in rural Alabama. Use your imagination when crafting your nation and your leaders. Be interesting. Be entertaining. Just don’t be a dumbass.
On the realism of government, each nation has a base belief that is as obvious as the sun in the sky. The default setting for North American nations is a base commitment to democracy, believing that all citizens are born equal. You can change your government to whatever you want - fascist dictatorship, eco-friendly hippie commune, technocratic police state, whatever - but a stable government must have a history to justify it. So the more radical government you want, the more you have to work for it with newspaper articles, stories, diplomatic communiques with other nations, etc.
Time in TBW is measured in 'years'. Each 'Year' is 16 In Real Life (IRL) days, or just over two weeks. Each 'Year' is split into 4 'Seasons' (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall). These Seasons are important for wars, described in detail below.
Players are the core of TBW. However, to play in TBW is a privilege, not a right. Those who cheat, dishonor themselves, the players and the game will be evicted. Those who cooperate, are active and obey the benevolent rulings made are guaranteed to enjoy their experience in playing TBW.
United the Continent and bring America back to its former glory in The Boundless World: The United Divided!
Economics:
A new method of statistics will determine the ranking and capabilities of players in the TBW universe. Instead of levels and points, each country will have a Gross Domestic Product. Every player will do what is called a Budget. Budgets allocate resources within a country.
The great German panzer general Heinz Guderian once said "The most important weapon of a panzer is the engine". And the economy is the most important part of your nation. Without a strong economy you cannot field a strong defense of your nation, and will be trampled on by those who do have a strong military and a strong economy to support their military ventures.
The economies of TBW are based upon 1current GDP statistics for American and Canadian states/provinces, available from wikipedia. $1 is equivalent to one billion US dollars and is the currency of the game. Each nation in the game has a budget. Budgets are Private-Messaged (PM) to me every year. Player nations must have a budget done yearly by their players; otherwise the nation reverts to Non-Player Country (NPC) status. Please remember to round all fractions to a whole number.
As large as some of the budget figures are, a nation will find itself with many things to spend it's money on.
Budgets, which show what you spend, are basic and take no more than a few minutes to write. They consist of several parts:
Bureaucracy is the money a you can spend to pay for roads, customs barriers and civil servant salaries, amongst other things. Bureaucracy consumes 10% of your budget, however though one can allocate more, one cannot allocate less. A nation's civil servants would rather scrap military units before taking a hit in their paychecks.
Social Spending is the money spent on schools, hospitals, parks, etc. These are the bread and circuses for your populace, and higher social spending will mollify your populace as they will concentrate more on issues such as free health care than you latest build-up of tank divisions. Social Spending consumes 10% of your budget and though you can always spend more, you can never spend less. Low social spending will see your populace riot, revolt, and even cause a revolution that will see you kicked out of your nation permanently, with no reprieve. Do not underestimate the people’s desire to have their welfare checks and food stamps in the mail on time.
Internal Security is the money you spend on guarding military bases, research institutes and funding your covert operatives keeping spies out of your nation. There is no base limit for Internal Security spending but the average and recommended amount is 10%. The lower the amount spent on Internal Security, the more vulnerable your nation is to enemy missions done inside your territory.
Technology spending works as a pool. You can research technology projects whenever you like, though it is always advisable that you always research something every year. You can space out the costs of researching technology over several years by a reasonable amount - reasonable being defined on a case-by-case basis. There is no minimum amount to pay to begin researching a technology. Technology projects are dependant on your economy size. For more information, look up the section further down on Technology. There is no minimum level for technology research. Technology projects allow you either access to specific military units, growth increases or other similar benefits.
Military spending varies on the size of a nation's military. A lot of military units will drain your economy of funds that may be needed in Social Spending or in Technology. But too small a military will mean your neighbors could walk over you and take your population and technology.
Military spending is divided into three forms - Upkeep, Purchases and Upgrades.
* Upkeep: Military units must be maintained first before new military units can be built or existing units upgraded.
* Purchases: This represents the growth in military strength in numbers and equipment. The specific costs of military unit purchases and upkeep are listed below in the Technology section.
* Upgrading: When upgrading a unit, the nation does not pay the maintenance for that unit in the year it is being upgraded. Instead the player purchases the new unit at full cost. While being upgraded, the old unit is still there in its existing form. Upgrading takes a whole year to complete.
Reconstruction is the money your government must spend to rebuild conquered or reconquered territories. This is the money that goes into clearing rubble, getting utilities running, repairing roads and erecting buildings. Once this sum is paid off, you will receive a boost in raw economic growth to be added to your economy permanently. The cost of reconstruction varies on how badly it was damaged: a nation that had only a few tank battles occur would have very few reconstruction costs, while a nation that was heavily destroyed in nuclear warfare would have a lot more.
Reinvestment is what makes your economy grow. This is a pool - generally money left over from the above resource-sucking bureaus. Reinvestment is money put into a pool, much the same way money is deposited into a bank. The following year, that pool is replaced by a figure devised by multiplying the Reinvestments by the percentage. So if Michigan reinvests $100 and receives a 10% growth rate, then their economy has grown by $10. If it has grown by 15%, then Michigan has grown by $15. Reinvestment percentages apply ONLY TO REINVESTMENT, not the whole economy, and though it seems demeaning to embolden that statement, there are always a few who figure out their economic growth otherwise.
Ill-Gotten Gains represents the value of a territory you have seized or taken control of, one way or another. It is added directly to your economy. These Ill-Gotten Gains could range from stolen gold, to conquered territories, to merging states.
Here is an example of a Budget:
Fiscal Budget of the Republic of Quebec
Economy 2001: $280
Growth 2002: 20%
Reinvestments 2001: $100
Economy 2002: $300 ([$100 * 20%] + $280)
Bureaucracy: $30 (10%)
Social Spending: $30 (10%)
Internal Security: $30 (10%)
Technology: $75
Defence: $60
Reinvestments: $75
Other: $0
Technology: $75
2000: Mechainized Infantry
2001: Artillery I
2002: Superhighways ($75/$75)
Defence: $60
Maintenance: $36
4 Mechanised Infantry Divisions: $8
4 Special Forces Units: $8
5 Fighter I Wings: $5
5 Attack Boats: $15
Procurements: $24
6 Artillery I Divisions: $24
Upgrades: $0
Other: $0
It is not surprising to state that nations often at war will receive low growth rates while peaceable nations that work with their neighbors, rather than killing them, will have higher growth rates. It's as simple as that. However nations that are peaceable run the risk of becoming lazy, lethargic and focus too much on social affairs rather than defense. There is no ‘right’ way to run a nation, but acommon measure of success is the balance between the needs of the Military and the needs of the Economy.
The baseline economic growth is (20%), and can be raised and lowered through a variety of methods, with civilian technology research and war being the most common methods.
This is the value of the North American economy at the start of the game:
California: $1,000
Texas: $1,000
Florida: $750
Illinois: $500
Ontario: $500
Los Angeles: $500
New York City: $500
New York State: $500
Pennsylvania: $500
Ohio: $450
New Jersey: $450
Michigan: $400
Georgia: $350
Virginia: $350
North Carolina: $350
Massachusetts: $350
Quebec: $300
Washington: $250
Maryland: $250
Indiana: $250
Minnesota: $250
Tennessee: $250
Colorado: $200
Arizona: $200
Alberta: $200
Wisconsin: $200
Missouri: $200
Connecticut: $200
British Columbia: $175
Louisiana: $175
Alabama: $150
Oregon: $150
Kentucky: $150
South Carolina: $150
New Hampshire-Maine-Vermont: $125
Oklahoma: $125
Iowa: $100
Nevada: $100
Kansas: $100
Utah: $100
Arkansas: $75
Saskatchewan-Manitoba: $75
District of Columbia: $75
Mississippi: $75
Maritime Provinces: $75
Nebraska: $75
New Mexico: $75
Montana-Wyoming: $75
Delaware: $50
Dakota: $50
Hawaii: $50
West Virginia: $50
Idaho: $50
Alaska-Northern Canada: $50
Rhode Island: $50
This is the map of North America:
Spoiler :
If you want to make a nation claim, do so in the othr thread, the OOC thread. Any claim in this thread will be ignored!
War
When declaring war on someone, have a plausible explanation - cutting off your oil, assassinating your leader, invading your borders, etc. Do not just roll over the border just because you feel like it, otherwise your populace will become disenchanted with having a madman as leader. And if you are just invading someone because you feel like it, have a plausible “excuse”, real or not.
When putting up orders, organize your divisions, wings and ships into Armies, Air Corps and Fleets. The Moderator dislikes dealing around with individual divisions, wings and ships, especially if there are dozens of them to mod. It is also best to list where your troops are coming from, and where they will be in a few weeks time. The Moderator cannot guarantee personally that intricate plans will be followed through, especially if the moderations are done at some ungodly hour of the night. The Moderator prefers orders that fully list all units involved (even the fractions) and put down the brief of your orders in bullet-point form - it takes hours to write up moderations, and in a major war that is time the Moderator does not have. When writing orders, account for every unit every time in every season.
Orders should be sent to the Moderator via Private Message– the Moderator will ignore orders sent to him by any other way – and battle moderations are (usually) done every three or four In Real Life days. The scale of time is that of seasons of the year (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) and gives you the time to think of new tactics and strategy without having to slow the game down with ‘bullet time’.
This is an example order template for sending military orders:
[size=+2]Operation: Template[/size]
Précis: To provide a template set of orders for others to use.
Location: Examplestan, eastern quarter.
Season: Game Season this operation is to take pace.
Forces in Use:
* First Group
1 Infantry Division
1 Armor II Division (Reinforcements)
1 Special Forces Unit
* Second Group
1 Light Infantry Division (Nation One)
1 Light Infantry Division (Nation Two)
2 Artillery II Divisions
* First Air Group
3 Stealth Fighter Wings
1 Bomber Wing
* Second Fleet
2 Light Ship I Fleets
1 Attack Submarine I Pack
1 Carrier
* Misc.
3 Cruise Missiles
Orders:
* First Group is to head to the capital from the city of Templateville. If resistance is light, the capital is to be occupied and aid distributed. If the resistance is heavy, air cover will have to be called in and bombard the town while skirting the capital and attacking it from all sides.
* Second Group will head east and west of the capital from Etcetera, providing two locations for the Artillery to bombard the capital
* First Air Group will achieve air superiority from air bases in home territory at Borderposttown. If this is achieved, it will then assault the capital for the ground forces to move in. Air superiority must be achieved first.
* Second Fleet will blockade the capital from the sea to the north, sailing out from Port City. The carrier's air planes will assist First Air Group in achieving air superiority.
Special Notes: If resistance is heavy, 3 Cruise Missiles will be used against the capital to hit at infrastructure and troop concentrations. They will be fired from the missile bases in Missiletown.
**********
Note several things here:
* The total number of units and types of units are clearly labeled and all in one spot.
* The orders given have direction - a place where the units are coming from, and a place where they are going to.
* Larger groupings such as Armies, Groups and Fleets have the units correctly numbered with type and quantity. Units of different nations and reinforcements regardless of nationality in a Group are listed on separate lines.
* The main point is sharp and succinct. If you can't get the main point across in one sentence, you might need more than one group to do it.
* Generals do not give ultra-specific orders. Your commanders at divisional level are not idiots that need to be looked after. They are trained to lead and make their own decisions. You are the Grand Strategist looking at the Big Board, not the grunt on the ground.
* If more than one country is contributing units, or if it is an alliance war, try to have ONE PERSON do ONE SET OF ORDERS for the whole alliance.
* Orders for war moderations MUST be PM’d to the moderator.
* PROOFREAD YOUR ORDERS. While typos, grammatical mistakes, or spelling errors won’t in themselves hurt your efforts, such things can lead to inconsistency, confusion, or misleading directions in your orders, which could lead to your forces doing unintended things or being more inefficient.
Remember:
* List all units and their specific type
* Be short and to the point. What happens in-between is my job, not yours
* Alliances should have one Supreme Commander
* Orders must be submitted by PM
* Orders should be on time.
Nuclear Weapons are a weapon that can be used at great political and strategic cost. In the later stage of the game it is likely that many nations will have an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can obliterate entire cities, small countries, and millions of people. Because of the destructive power of these weapons, the Moderator has the ultimate decision of allowing their use on whatever target is designated. The use of nuclear weapons on an unprovoked opponent is a terrible crime against humanity, and may see your regime toppled. Nuclear weapons are often used as the Doomsday Weapon of Last Resort when one's back is to the wall, or as the ultimate weapon of war intending to wipe out an enemy in one fell swoop. Consult the Moderator about nuclear weapon use if you have any questions.
