Imperium Offtopicum V
Beta
Your GM's
Executive GM: Joecoolyo
Police: civplayah
Cartographer: CivGeneral
Economy and Research: Taillesskangaru
War and Combat: Owen Glyndwr
Your GM's
Executive GM: Joecoolyo
Police: civplayah
Cartographer: CivGeneral
Economy and Research: Taillesskangaru
War and Combat: Owen Glyndwr
It's finally here, this is the result of two months of hard work and progress, and before we let the regular game commence, we decided it be best if we test it out first. To make sure we didn't have any repeats of what happened last time.
This beta will last for 20 turns, basically from the year 1800-1820. Updates will occur about every two days. You will have 24 hours from the update to post your claims/income stuff in the claims and income thread.
Here are the rules (please look through them, though I trust you already have
).Spoiler :
House Rules
1. Do not flame, troll, or personally insult any other player OOC or IC. At all.You may comment on certain things negatively, but don't take it further than that.
2. Stay on topic. Make sure all comments are relevant to the fictional world of the current IOT and have nothing to do with your personal religious/political beliefs.
3. Your posts should actually consist of something relevant to your nation and not just one-liner comments. Do not quote the entire post (only quote the relevant parts) and don't respond to each relevant post individually (use multi-quote). Think quality of posts, not quantity: you're not getting Post Count, so no need to spam
4. No powergaming. By definition, powergaming is making your country surpass every other country by all terms including armed forces, technology, etc.
5. Keep your actions realistic, and don't declare war on someone for a personal reason.
6. Do not challenge the authority of the GMs. Any of them. Questions and feedback are welcome, but otherwise you follow any and all GM directions. If they tell you to cease spamming, you must do so.
7. Above all else, RESPECT THY FELLOW FORUMERS.
Failure to follow these will result in warnings from the GMs. On your third infraction, we phone the actual mods. And ban you.
Updates
IOT is a turn-based game. A turn ends and new one begins when Joecoolyo the Executive GM posts an update, which is roughly every 2-3 days. During a turn, you can spend money, claim territories, fight wars, conduct diplomacy, etc, etc.
There are two game threads – the main one (this one) and the Claims and Orders thread. The main thread contains general discussion and diplomacy. The Claims and Orders thread is for territorial claims, battle orders and spending orders. All Claims and Orders must be posted within 48 hours (24 hours in the beta) of the last update. Anything not posted by that time or not posted in the correct thread runs the risk of not being counted by the GM comes update time. Note that posting anything else but official claims and orders in the Claims Thread is prohibited.
Starting Out
To start the game, claim ten territories. Your starting territories must be connected in some way, either by land or by viable sea routes.
I don’t care if your country is inhabited by radioactive sultanas. In other words, feel free to inhabit your nation with whoever or whatever you want, provided it fits with the setting (any leader who tries to form the Soviet Union before the proper historical era will be regarded as a witch and appropriate measures will be taken.)
Special note for people joining later:
You will still have to abide by the rules above, but since you come later (i.e. after the first update) then you will be given the "average" tech level for the time.
Note - If you join later, you only get the 10 starting claims stated above, and not the additional 6 everyone else gets. You also can't spend your income on the turn you join, as technically, you haven't made it yet.
Expansion
Each turn, if you’re not at war, you can peacefully expand your empire’s reach into neutral areas. Under normal circumstances, you can claim six neutral territories a turn. You can only claim territories you can reach by either land or sea.
If you are at war, however, you cannot expand peacefully. Instead, you can attack up to six territories a turn.
The number of territories you can claim/attack increases with tech.
Special rule for Colonies: Colonies are defined as: “noncontiguous provinces that aren't part of your starting continent”.
To claim these territories, you need a navy. For each 5 colonies you have, you need at least one navy unit. If you don’t, you won’t be able to claim more.
Economy
The unit of money in this game is Income. This is the amount of money you have to spend in a turn. Income is generated at the start of each turn for each player. You’ll lose the money you have for the turn if you haven’t spent them by the end of the turn.
Every territory you have gains you an income called Base Income. Initially, this is one credit per territory, though this is increased by tech. Your Base Income is then modified by:
Industrialization – Once you research Steam Power, you can spend money to improve your nation's industry and infrastructure. Each 1 income you spend on Industry increases your Base Income by 1%. This percentage is your Industry income.
Technology - economy and some science technology increases your Income.
Trade Agreements – Trade agreements adds 10% (30% with Tech Electrification) of your trade partner’s Base Income to your own Base Income. The number of trade agreements you may have is dependent on your tech (at Tech Level 0, you may have two).
These factors can reduce your incomes:
Embargoes - An embargo reduces your industry income by -5% and cancels any trade agreement you may have.
Wars of Aggresion - starting a war without a casus belli reduces your income by 50% for the duration of the war.
Unit upkeep – For each 10 provinces you own you may keep 1 free unit (army, navy or air squadron). For each extra unit (army, navy or air squadron) you pay an upkeep of 2^n Income, where n is the number of extra units. So, if you have 20 provinces but own 5 units, you have 3 extra units and will have to pay an upkeep of 8. This amount will be subtracted from your Income at the start of the turn. If you can’t pay, then the GM will randomly disband your units until you have a positive income for the turn.
Random Events may also increase or decrease your income.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy has been simplified for this version. When conducting diplomacy, there are no longer restrictions as seen in the last one, so you can sign as many treaties and agreements you want per turn. This should lead to a more dynamic, fluid world. There are five diplomatic actions you can sign with other countries:
- Alliance
- Trade Agreement
- Defensive Pact
- Non-Aggression Pact
- Embargo
The affects of each of these are:
- An alliance will fully ally you with who you sign it with. That means if they go to war with x, you go to war with x. If x attacks them, you attack x. If x attacks you, then your ally will attack x, and so on.
- A trade agreement will boost you and the person you sign it with's economies. The specific effects are described in the economics section.
- A defensive pact is like an alliance, but it only works for defensive wars. i.e., if someone attacks you or the person you sign it with, then you will (or the person you sign it with will) go to war with that person.
- A non-aggression pact is rather self-explanatory. If you sign one with someone, that means you promise not to attack that person, and they promise not to attack you. It's not binding in anyway, but if you do break it there will be steep consequences. There is also no time limit, so it will last until you cancel it.
- An embargo is basically the opposite of a trade agreement. Declaring one against your enemy will reduce their economy (specifics again are in the economy section) and cancel all their trade agreements.
Research
The tech tree is split into 12 levels and 5 branches - Army, Navy, Civics, Economy and Science. For each branch, the preceeding tech is a prerequisite for the next one eg, you need Army III to research Army IV, which you would need for Army V, and so on. Some techs may also have a second prerequisite, usually a Science tech.
To research a tech, you contribute Income towards it until it covers the cost of the tech. Unlike Income, tech investment is cumulative and the amount invested in a tech carries over each turn. If you spend more than the required amount on research, the leftover credit goes into the research for the next level of that branch, unless specified otherwise.
At the beginning, you may only research one branch of techs at a time. You can switch the branch at any time, but you will lose any investment on a tech you are in the process of researching. Later, you will have the ability to research multiple branches of tech simultaneously.
National Focus: you can choose which of the five branches your nation will specialize in. The cost of research in this branch will be reduced (-10% cost at the start, up to -50% cost by Civics XI). You can switch your National Focus, but you will not be able to spend any Income (including research) for the turn you are switching in.
See the tech tree for the full effects and costs of each tech.
Tech Tree
Battle System
War
Casus Belli
To go to war without your population going OMGWTFBBQ, you need a good excuse. That is, a Casus Belli.
You get a casus belli if another nation has:
- a border dispute with you (the two nations must claim the same piece of territory, see Expansion, above)
- declared war on your allies
- embargo you
- blockade you
- deny you access to a sea or ocean tile.
- a large difference in religion or form of government. This is a special CB in that you have to ask the GM to grant it to you.
If you attack without a casus belli, you suffer a -50% income loss for every turn you’re at war.
Units
Your main units are armies and fleets. These are physical entities on the map.
- Armies will be represented by a golden dot.
- Navies will be represented by a dot in the sea which the same color as their nationality.
Movement
When you recruit an army or fleet, you choose where they start. Armies can start in any of your home provinces, and navies can start in any port you own. Every turn, you may reposition all your units.
Armies may move through up to 10 land territories in friendly territory (all sea crossings together costs a flat fee of 1 movement point.
An army may enter an ocean province. When travelling through ocean, an army may travel up to 3 sea provinces a turn, and does not have to coal, like a navy (see below). However, while at sea, an army is completely defenseless, meaning if you want it to get anywhere safely, you'll need to escort it with a navy.
- A navy must be based at a friendly port. From this point a fleet can move a up to a certain number of sea provinces away from that point, and cannot move further away. Once you get to that max, and still want to move further away, you can "rebase" at any friendly adjacent coastal province, allowing you to move from the new base. This is to simulate the need to resupply (or later on, recoal). The number of sea provinces you may move away from home port increases based on your tech level, but starts at a base of 3. What this means from a gameplay standpoint is that if you want an overseas presence you are going to have to compete for certain key coaling locations around the world, (In history, these were places like Sri Lanka, The Cape of Good Hope, Malacca, Gibraltar and Sicily) just as the major powers did in the 19th century, little locations that will allow you to leapfrog from corner of the world to corner of the world.
Armies
Army quality is a national value which is determined by a scale of 1-10. Every nation starts with an army quality level of 5, which gives no bonus or detriment to an army on the field of battle. Anything above 5 grants a bonus to rolls during a battle, anything below will weaken rolls during battle. Army quality can be improved through paying gold, and the cost of improvement operates on a sliding scale, meaning improving from level 1-2 will be relatively cheap, whereas improving from level 9 to 10 can be very expensive. An army's quality can only be increased by 1 each turn. Army quality is reduced by recruiting new armies.
Army morale is an individual stat assigned to each army a nation owns. It is a number assigned from a low of 1 to a theoretically infinitely high number. Each army starts with a morale equivalent to the base morale of 5. As with army quality, at level 5, morale has no effect on rolls. Anything above 5 gives a bonus, and anything below is detrimental. Morale is increased by winning battles, and decreased by losing battles. The rate of increase and decrease operates on a sliding scale, meaning that gaining morale levels gets harder as the value gets higher. If an army's morale falls below its base stat, an army can retreat to a home province of either you or your ally, and can regain morale until it returns to its base stat.
Losing armies: An army will go away if: it is manually disbanded by you the player, if you can no longer financially support the unit, if the unit's morale drops to 1, or if the army is defeated in battle, and is prevented from retreating to an adjacent friendly territory.
Land Battles
Once your army moves out of allied territory, your movement is cut in half (5 provinces a turn). If a territory through which you wish to cross is blocked by an enemy army, you are stopped on that province, and immediately enter battle.
You may have several armies attacking a single province from many directions, but only one may occupy the territory afterwards.
The defenders has a number of advantages.
A defending army will always gain a bonus to their rolls for being on the defense.
If a roll is a tie, the defender is considered the victor (in that the battle is a stalemate, and neither side moves)
If an army spends more than 1 turn in a province, it is considered "dug in". This will provide a bonus to the defending army's rolls, which increases for each turn they are considered "dug in", to a maximum of 5, or 5 turns. This advantage disappears when an army moves from the province (either vacates, or attacks an adjacent province)
In Battle:
I will roll a 20 sided die for each side involved in a battle. The side with the highest roll, after modifiers are applied, is the victor of the battle. If a province is being attacked from multiple directions, the players will decide amongst themselves the order in which the attacks will occur.
If the attacking side wins, the army moves into the province they were attacking. If the attacking side loses, or the battle is a draw, neither side moves, and the attacking army takes a hit to their morale. If the defending side loses, the player will be notified of his loss, and will be asked where he wants his army to retreat to. A retreating army may move into any adjacent unoccupied territory owned by your nation or an allied nation. You may not retreat into enemy territory.
To prevent the battles from being totally random, each army is assigned modifiers which are applied after the roll. These modifiers are determined by 5 factors. These factors are:
Army Quality: Armies with a quality above 5 gain a bonus to stat rolls, with higher quality giving higher bonuses. Conversely, armies with quality below 5 take on a penalty to rolls, limiting the maximum roll out of 20 they can get.
Army Morale: Works the same way as quality. Armies with morale about 5 gain a bonus to rolls, armies below 5 take a penalty.
Defense: Defending armies gain an automatic bonus to their rolls. The longer an army remains in a province, the higher their bonus gets, to a maximum of 5 turns.
Tech: Certain military techs give a natural modifier bonus to rolls.
Flanking: Slightly more obscure than the other 4, if a defending army is attacked from more than one direction, the defending army takes a penalty to their roll. (Being hit from more directions leads to a higher penalty).
The specific numbers will be kept under the hood, however, at the end of each round of play, I will post a stat sheet for each nation's armies, detailing their national quality, and the morale and dug-in stat for each individual army on the field.
Navies
Navies in this game are useful for a number of reasons:
Blockades: A navy may blockade an enemy's port, temporarily cancelling some (or, if it's extensive enough), all of his trade agreements.
Power Projection: A navy is necessary for the protection of armies travelling overseas, which are completely defenseless on water. If you want to protect your colonies, you will need navies.
Protection: Navies are also a good way to deny enemies from landing troops where you don't want them
Colonies: Navies serve an even greater purpose. The number of colonial provinces is determined directly by the number of navies you possess. You literally won't be able to support colonies without a navy.
Movement
Unlike on land, multiple navies may occupy one sea territory. Friendly or neutral navies may inhabit the same territory with no problem. If two enemy navies occupy the same space, a battle commences.
Battle
Naval battles operate on the same dice system as above, but are much more simplistic. Most of the modifiers are taken away. There are only two modifiers:
Hull integrity: This is the most important part of navies. When a fleet is created, the fleet will start with maximum hull integrity. At the start of the game this is 5. As the game progresses, and new technologies are discovered, the maximum integrity will increase. When a fleet enters battle, the integrity contributes a modifier to the rolls, based on its level. After both rolls have been made the differential determines how much hull integrity is lost for each fleet.
(So, say a close roll, with a difference of 1 or 2 would result in a fairly equal loss of integrity two both ships, with one taking slightly more damage than the other, whereas a large differential, or, say 18, would result in large damage to one, and little or no damage to the other).
If a fleet's hull integrity reduces to 0, the fleet is lost. A hull's integrity can be returned to maximum by docking the fleet in a friendly port for repairs for a certain number of turns. 1 turn will increase a hull's integrity by 2 points, the regain value will increase upon the discovery of certain techs.
The other modifier is numerical advantage. Because multiple fleets can occupy a single territory, multi-fleet battles are also possible. As with flanking, this results in a penalty to the side with the fewer ships, relative to the numerical difference. (i.e., more outnumbered, larger penalty). Then, once the penalty has been added the ships will be lined up, and the dice will be rolled, until all the ships on one side have been defeated. Players whose fleet has lost a battle, will be PM'd, and asked where they want their defeated fleet to "retreat to". A fleet can move to any adjacent province. If that province is occupied by another enemy fleet, they will enter combat again, until they encounter a province with no enemy fleet, or until the fleet is destroyed.
Air Power
With the discovery of the Flight tech, players are allowed to purchase fighters for their nations. Unlike ground and sea forces, you are able to build 2 types of fleets for air. Fighters, and with the discovery of Aerial Bombardment tech, bomber fleets.
Upkeep costs for fighter fleets is -1% of your income, and bombers cost -5%, to form an effective air squadron, you will have to find a good balance of both.
Air movement
Similarly to naval fleets, air fleets have to be "based" in a province, and from there they are able to move out a certain number of provinces based on tech. To start this is a total of 5 "points" - each land province is 1 point, and each sea province is 2 points. The largest sea provinces - all of the pacific, Indian ocean, and South Atlantic cost 3 points. With the discovery of bombers, this number is upped to 15 points. With the discovery of jet planes, this is upped to its max of 30 points. Another notable tech is the aircraft carrier tech, which allows the player to base his air fleets on his naval fleets - giving him extra range.
The Two Fleets
Fighters
Fighters are the first type of fleet in the game. Fighters can be placed over armies, which means that if another fighter or bomber makes an attack on the army, they will have to attack the fighter fleet first. Fighters can also be placed together with a bomber fleet, meaning that if a bomber is attacked by a fighter, the fighter will have to fight the protecting bomber before dealing damage to the bomber. Finally, a fighter can strafe enemy army positions. If the army is unprotected, then the fighter will deal damage in the form of a reduction in morale.
With the discovery of aircraft carriers, fighters can base on fleets, and fighters which are based on fleets can also strafe enemy navies, which will deal damage to their hull integrity depending on the size of your attack.
Bombers
Bombers are the second type of fleet in the game. Bombers only can do one thing in the game - and that is bomb, of course! A bomber can bomb an army or fleet, which does higher damage to an army or navy than a fighter would.
Bombers can also bomb unoccupied enemy provinces, which will drop their industrialization rating equal to .5% per province - bombing the same province twice does not count.
In addition, it is important to note, that a bomber has no defenses. If it is attacked by a fighter, and is undefended, then it will be destroyed, meaning you will have to protect your bombers by escorting them with fighters.
Combat
Air combat operates similarly to naval combat. The modifiers are tech, fleet integrity, and numbers. As with navies, you can put as many fleets as you want patrolling one province, though you may only base up to 5 fleets in one province.
An attack commences when a fighter and another air unit interact. After the dice are rolled, the fleet integrity is reevaluated. If a fleet loses, but its integrity does not drop to 0, it is returned to its base. If a bomber is escorted, and the escorting fleet is defeated, it will take damage relative to the outcome of the fight, and will be returned to the base.
Mod numbers you should know
Below are some important mod numbers that the player must know to play the game.
Army quality costs:
This graph represents the cost investment to improve an army for each level. It is also important to note that for every 5th army you recruit, your quality will drop one point, and at every 10th army you recruit, the improvement cost will double at every level.
Morale gains and losses:
This graph describes the number of losses or wins needed to move up to the next morale level. Wins are cumulative, in that you don't have to win consecutive battles, but the number is reset to 0 after each new level gained. Losses are consecutive, so losing 2 battles in a row results an a lowering of level. Finally, it is important to note that 14 is not the maximum possible morale level. Morale level is theoretically infinite. Each corresponding level follows the pattern set in the above.
1. Do not flame, troll, or personally insult any other player OOC or IC. At all.You may comment on certain things negatively, but don't take it further than that.
2. Stay on topic. Make sure all comments are relevant to the fictional world of the current IOT and have nothing to do with your personal religious/political beliefs.
3. Your posts should actually consist of something relevant to your nation and not just one-liner comments. Do not quote the entire post (only quote the relevant parts) and don't respond to each relevant post individually (use multi-quote). Think quality of posts, not quantity: you're not getting Post Count, so no need to spam
4. No powergaming. By definition, powergaming is making your country surpass every other country by all terms including armed forces, technology, etc.
5. Keep your actions realistic, and don't declare war on someone for a personal reason.
6. Do not challenge the authority of the GMs. Any of them. Questions and feedback are welcome, but otherwise you follow any and all GM directions. If they tell you to cease spamming, you must do so.
7. Above all else, RESPECT THY FELLOW FORUMERS.
Failure to follow these will result in warnings from the GMs. On your third infraction, we phone the actual mods. And ban you.
Updates
IOT is a turn-based game. A turn ends and new one begins when Joecoolyo the Executive GM posts an update, which is roughly every 2-3 days. During a turn, you can spend money, claim territories, fight wars, conduct diplomacy, etc, etc.
There are two game threads – the main one (this one) and the Claims and Orders thread. The main thread contains general discussion and diplomacy. The Claims and Orders thread is for territorial claims, battle orders and spending orders. All Claims and Orders must be posted within 48 hours (24 hours in the beta) of the last update. Anything not posted by that time or not posted in the correct thread runs the risk of not being counted by the GM comes update time. Note that posting anything else but official claims and orders in the Claims Thread is prohibited.
Starting Out
To start the game, claim ten territories. Your starting territories must be connected in some way, either by land or by viable sea routes.
I don’t care if your country is inhabited by radioactive sultanas. In other words, feel free to inhabit your nation with whoever or whatever you want, provided it fits with the setting (any leader who tries to form the Soviet Union before the proper historical era will be regarded as a witch and appropriate measures will be taken.)
Special note for people joining later:
You will still have to abide by the rules above, but since you come later (i.e. after the first update) then you will be given the "average" tech level for the time.
Note - If you join later, you only get the 10 starting claims stated above, and not the additional 6 everyone else gets. You also can't spend your income on the turn you join, as technically, you haven't made it yet.
Expansion
Each turn, if you’re not at war, you can peacefully expand your empire’s reach into neutral areas. Under normal circumstances, you can claim six neutral territories a turn. You can only claim territories you can reach by either land or sea.
If you are at war, however, you cannot expand peacefully. Instead, you can attack up to six territories a turn.
The number of territories you can claim/attack increases with tech.
Special rule for Colonies: Colonies are defined as: “noncontiguous provinces that aren't part of your starting continent”.
To claim these territories, you need a navy. For each 5 colonies you have, you need at least one navy unit. If you don’t, you won’t be able to claim more.
Economy
The unit of money in this game is Income. This is the amount of money you have to spend in a turn. Income is generated at the start of each turn for each player. You’ll lose the money you have for the turn if you haven’t spent them by the end of the turn.
Every territory you have gains you an income called Base Income. Initially, this is one credit per territory, though this is increased by tech. Your Base Income is then modified by:
Industrialization – Once you research Steam Power, you can spend money to improve your nation's industry and infrastructure. Each 1 income you spend on Industry increases your Base Income by 1%. This percentage is your Industry income.
Technology - economy and some science technology increases your Income.
Trade Agreements – Trade agreements adds 10% (30% with Tech Electrification) of your trade partner’s Base Income to your own Base Income. The number of trade agreements you may have is dependent on your tech (at Tech Level 0, you may have two).
These factors can reduce your incomes:
Embargoes - An embargo reduces your industry income by -5% and cancels any trade agreement you may have.
Wars of Aggresion - starting a war without a casus belli reduces your income by 50% for the duration of the war.
Unit upkeep – For each 10 provinces you own you may keep 1 free unit (army, navy or air squadron). For each extra unit (army, navy or air squadron) you pay an upkeep of 2^n Income, where n is the number of extra units. So, if you have 20 provinces but own 5 units, you have 3 extra units and will have to pay an upkeep of 8. This amount will be subtracted from your Income at the start of the turn. If you can’t pay, then the GM will randomly disband your units until you have a positive income for the turn.
Random Events may also increase or decrease your income.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy has been simplified for this version. When conducting diplomacy, there are no longer restrictions as seen in the last one, so you can sign as many treaties and agreements you want per turn. This should lead to a more dynamic, fluid world. There are five diplomatic actions you can sign with other countries:
- Alliance
- Trade Agreement
- Defensive Pact
- Non-Aggression Pact
- Embargo
The affects of each of these are:
- An alliance will fully ally you with who you sign it with. That means if they go to war with x, you go to war with x. If x attacks them, you attack x. If x attacks you, then your ally will attack x, and so on.
- A trade agreement will boost you and the person you sign it with's economies. The specific effects are described in the economics section.
- A defensive pact is like an alliance, but it only works for defensive wars. i.e., if someone attacks you or the person you sign it with, then you will (or the person you sign it with will) go to war with that person.
- A non-aggression pact is rather self-explanatory. If you sign one with someone, that means you promise not to attack that person, and they promise not to attack you. It's not binding in anyway, but if you do break it there will be steep consequences. There is also no time limit, so it will last until you cancel it.
- An embargo is basically the opposite of a trade agreement. Declaring one against your enemy will reduce their economy (specifics again are in the economy section) and cancel all their trade agreements.
Research
The tech tree is split into 12 levels and 5 branches - Army, Navy, Civics, Economy and Science. For each branch, the preceeding tech is a prerequisite for the next one eg, you need Army III to research Army IV, which you would need for Army V, and so on. Some techs may also have a second prerequisite, usually a Science tech.
To research a tech, you contribute Income towards it until it covers the cost of the tech. Unlike Income, tech investment is cumulative and the amount invested in a tech carries over each turn. If you spend more than the required amount on research, the leftover credit goes into the research for the next level of that branch, unless specified otherwise.
At the beginning, you may only research one branch of techs at a time. You can switch the branch at any time, but you will lose any investment on a tech you are in the process of researching. Later, you will have the ability to research multiple branches of tech simultaneously.
National Focus: you can choose which of the five branches your nation will specialize in. The cost of research in this branch will be reduced (-10% cost at the start, up to -50% cost by Civics XI). You can switch your National Focus, but you will not be able to spend any Income (including research) for the turn you are switching in.
See the tech tree for the full effects and costs of each tech.
Tech Tree
Battle System
War
Casus Belli
To go to war without your population going OMGWTFBBQ, you need a good excuse. That is, a Casus Belli.
You get a casus belli if another nation has:
- a border dispute with you (the two nations must claim the same piece of territory, see Expansion, above)
- declared war on your allies
- embargo you
- blockade you
- deny you access to a sea or ocean tile.
- a large difference in religion or form of government. This is a special CB in that you have to ask the GM to grant it to you.
If you attack without a casus belli, you suffer a -50% income loss for every turn you’re at war.
Units
Your main units are armies and fleets. These are physical entities on the map.
- Armies will be represented by a golden dot.
- Navies will be represented by a dot in the sea which the same color as their nationality.
Movement
When you recruit an army or fleet, you choose where they start. Armies can start in any of your home provinces, and navies can start in any port you own. Every turn, you may reposition all your units.
Armies may move through up to 10 land territories in friendly territory (all sea crossings together costs a flat fee of 1 movement point.
An army may enter an ocean province. When travelling through ocean, an army may travel up to 3 sea provinces a turn, and does not have to coal, like a navy (see below). However, while at sea, an army is completely defenseless, meaning if you want it to get anywhere safely, you'll need to escort it with a navy.
- A navy must be based at a friendly port. From this point a fleet can move a up to a certain number of sea provinces away from that point, and cannot move further away. Once you get to that max, and still want to move further away, you can "rebase" at any friendly adjacent coastal province, allowing you to move from the new base. This is to simulate the need to resupply (or later on, recoal). The number of sea provinces you may move away from home port increases based on your tech level, but starts at a base of 3. What this means from a gameplay standpoint is that if you want an overseas presence you are going to have to compete for certain key coaling locations around the world, (In history, these were places like Sri Lanka, The Cape of Good Hope, Malacca, Gibraltar and Sicily) just as the major powers did in the 19th century, little locations that will allow you to leapfrog from corner of the world to corner of the world.
Armies
Army quality is a national value which is determined by a scale of 1-10. Every nation starts with an army quality level of 5, which gives no bonus or detriment to an army on the field of battle. Anything above 5 grants a bonus to rolls during a battle, anything below will weaken rolls during battle. Army quality can be improved through paying gold, and the cost of improvement operates on a sliding scale, meaning improving from level 1-2 will be relatively cheap, whereas improving from level 9 to 10 can be very expensive. An army's quality can only be increased by 1 each turn. Army quality is reduced by recruiting new armies.
Army morale is an individual stat assigned to each army a nation owns. It is a number assigned from a low of 1 to a theoretically infinitely high number. Each army starts with a morale equivalent to the base morale of 5. As with army quality, at level 5, morale has no effect on rolls. Anything above 5 gives a bonus, and anything below is detrimental. Morale is increased by winning battles, and decreased by losing battles. The rate of increase and decrease operates on a sliding scale, meaning that gaining morale levels gets harder as the value gets higher. If an army's morale falls below its base stat, an army can retreat to a home province of either you or your ally, and can regain morale until it returns to its base stat.
Losing armies: An army will go away if: it is manually disbanded by you the player, if you can no longer financially support the unit, if the unit's morale drops to 1, or if the army is defeated in battle, and is prevented from retreating to an adjacent friendly territory.
Land Battles
Once your army moves out of allied territory, your movement is cut in half (5 provinces a turn). If a territory through which you wish to cross is blocked by an enemy army, you are stopped on that province, and immediately enter battle.
You may have several armies attacking a single province from many directions, but only one may occupy the territory afterwards.
The defenders has a number of advantages.
A defending army will always gain a bonus to their rolls for being on the defense.
If a roll is a tie, the defender is considered the victor (in that the battle is a stalemate, and neither side moves)
If an army spends more than 1 turn in a province, it is considered "dug in". This will provide a bonus to the defending army's rolls, which increases for each turn they are considered "dug in", to a maximum of 5, or 5 turns. This advantage disappears when an army moves from the province (either vacates, or attacks an adjacent province)
In Battle:
I will roll a 20 sided die for each side involved in a battle. The side with the highest roll, after modifiers are applied, is the victor of the battle. If a province is being attacked from multiple directions, the players will decide amongst themselves the order in which the attacks will occur.
If the attacking side wins, the army moves into the province they were attacking. If the attacking side loses, or the battle is a draw, neither side moves, and the attacking army takes a hit to their morale. If the defending side loses, the player will be notified of his loss, and will be asked where he wants his army to retreat to. A retreating army may move into any adjacent unoccupied territory owned by your nation or an allied nation. You may not retreat into enemy territory.
To prevent the battles from being totally random, each army is assigned modifiers which are applied after the roll. These modifiers are determined by 5 factors. These factors are:
Army Quality: Armies with a quality above 5 gain a bonus to stat rolls, with higher quality giving higher bonuses. Conversely, armies with quality below 5 take on a penalty to rolls, limiting the maximum roll out of 20 they can get.
Army Morale: Works the same way as quality. Armies with morale about 5 gain a bonus to rolls, armies below 5 take a penalty.
Defense: Defending armies gain an automatic bonus to their rolls. The longer an army remains in a province, the higher their bonus gets, to a maximum of 5 turns.
Tech: Certain military techs give a natural modifier bonus to rolls.
Flanking: Slightly more obscure than the other 4, if a defending army is attacked from more than one direction, the defending army takes a penalty to their roll. (Being hit from more directions leads to a higher penalty).
The specific numbers will be kept under the hood, however, at the end of each round of play, I will post a stat sheet for each nation's armies, detailing their national quality, and the morale and dug-in stat for each individual army on the field.
Navies
Navies in this game are useful for a number of reasons:
Blockades: A navy may blockade an enemy's port, temporarily cancelling some (or, if it's extensive enough), all of his trade agreements.
Power Projection: A navy is necessary for the protection of armies travelling overseas, which are completely defenseless on water. If you want to protect your colonies, you will need navies.
Protection: Navies are also a good way to deny enemies from landing troops where you don't want them
Colonies: Navies serve an even greater purpose. The number of colonial provinces is determined directly by the number of navies you possess. You literally won't be able to support colonies without a navy.
Movement
Unlike on land, multiple navies may occupy one sea territory. Friendly or neutral navies may inhabit the same territory with no problem. If two enemy navies occupy the same space, a battle commences.
Battle
Naval battles operate on the same dice system as above, but are much more simplistic. Most of the modifiers are taken away. There are only two modifiers:
Hull integrity: This is the most important part of navies. When a fleet is created, the fleet will start with maximum hull integrity. At the start of the game this is 5. As the game progresses, and new technologies are discovered, the maximum integrity will increase. When a fleet enters battle, the integrity contributes a modifier to the rolls, based on its level. After both rolls have been made the differential determines how much hull integrity is lost for each fleet.
(So, say a close roll, with a difference of 1 or 2 would result in a fairly equal loss of integrity two both ships, with one taking slightly more damage than the other, whereas a large differential, or, say 18, would result in large damage to one, and little or no damage to the other).
If a fleet's hull integrity reduces to 0, the fleet is lost. A hull's integrity can be returned to maximum by docking the fleet in a friendly port for repairs for a certain number of turns. 1 turn will increase a hull's integrity by 2 points, the regain value will increase upon the discovery of certain techs.
The other modifier is numerical advantage. Because multiple fleets can occupy a single territory, multi-fleet battles are also possible. As with flanking, this results in a penalty to the side with the fewer ships, relative to the numerical difference. (i.e., more outnumbered, larger penalty). Then, once the penalty has been added the ships will be lined up, and the dice will be rolled, until all the ships on one side have been defeated. Players whose fleet has lost a battle, will be PM'd, and asked where they want their defeated fleet to "retreat to". A fleet can move to any adjacent province. If that province is occupied by another enemy fleet, they will enter combat again, until they encounter a province with no enemy fleet, or until the fleet is destroyed.
Air Power
With the discovery of the Flight tech, players are allowed to purchase fighters for their nations. Unlike ground and sea forces, you are able to build 2 types of fleets for air. Fighters, and with the discovery of Aerial Bombardment tech, bomber fleets.
Upkeep costs for fighter fleets is -1% of your income, and bombers cost -5%, to form an effective air squadron, you will have to find a good balance of both.
Air movement
Similarly to naval fleets, air fleets have to be "based" in a province, and from there they are able to move out a certain number of provinces based on tech. To start this is a total of 5 "points" - each land province is 1 point, and each sea province is 2 points. The largest sea provinces - all of the pacific, Indian ocean, and South Atlantic cost 3 points. With the discovery of bombers, this number is upped to 15 points. With the discovery of jet planes, this is upped to its max of 30 points. Another notable tech is the aircraft carrier tech, which allows the player to base his air fleets on his naval fleets - giving him extra range.
The Two Fleets
Fighters
Fighters are the first type of fleet in the game. Fighters can be placed over armies, which means that if another fighter or bomber makes an attack on the army, they will have to attack the fighter fleet first. Fighters can also be placed together with a bomber fleet, meaning that if a bomber is attacked by a fighter, the fighter will have to fight the protecting bomber before dealing damage to the bomber. Finally, a fighter can strafe enemy army positions. If the army is unprotected, then the fighter will deal damage in the form of a reduction in morale.
With the discovery of aircraft carriers, fighters can base on fleets, and fighters which are based on fleets can also strafe enemy navies, which will deal damage to their hull integrity depending on the size of your attack.
Bombers
Bombers are the second type of fleet in the game. Bombers only can do one thing in the game - and that is bomb, of course! A bomber can bomb an army or fleet, which does higher damage to an army or navy than a fighter would.
Bombers can also bomb unoccupied enemy provinces, which will drop their industrialization rating equal to .5% per province - bombing the same province twice does not count.
In addition, it is important to note, that a bomber has no defenses. If it is attacked by a fighter, and is undefended, then it will be destroyed, meaning you will have to protect your bombers by escorting them with fighters.
Combat
Air combat operates similarly to naval combat. The modifiers are tech, fleet integrity, and numbers. As with navies, you can put as many fleets as you want patrolling one province, though you may only base up to 5 fleets in one province.
An attack commences when a fighter and another air unit interact. After the dice are rolled, the fleet integrity is reevaluated. If a fleet loses, but its integrity does not drop to 0, it is returned to its base. If a bomber is escorted, and the escorting fleet is defeated, it will take damage relative to the outcome of the fight, and will be returned to the base.
Mod numbers you should know
Below are some important mod numbers that the player must know to play the game.
Army quality costs:
This graph represents the cost investment to improve an army for each level. It is also important to note that for every 5th army you recruit, your quality will drop one point, and at every 10th army you recruit, the improvement cost will double at every level.
Morale gains and losses:
This graph describes the number of losses or wins needed to move up to the next morale level. Wins are cumulative, in that you don't have to win consecutive battles, but the number is reset to 0 after each new level gained. Losses are consecutive, so losing 2 battles in a row results an a lowering of level. Finally, it is important to note that 14 is not the maximum possible morale level. Morale level is theoretically infinite. Each corresponding level follows the pattern set in the above.
Now remember guys, we're here to test out all the new features, so war and fighting is encouraged
EDIT: Link to the Claims and Income thread
