The Peshawar Lancers II

The year is 1880 AD. Two years previous, a great and terrible meteor shower known as the Fall, almost destroyed Europe and North America, leaving civilization elsewhere in shambles. Although civilization could have rebuilt itself then, the Great Winters then struck due to the dust from the impacts and the disruption of the Gulf Stream, freezing everything and leaving the survivors to starve. Great empires have fled to their colonies, leaving Europe home to wandering bands of cannibals. However, the majority of countries, unable to feed or defend themselves, simply collapsed to ambitious warlords who saw the Fall as an opportunity to gain more power for themselves. Others in the Southern Hemisphere and elsewhere, previously crushed under the European yoke gained their freedom and seek to make their mark upon this brave new world.

Your people have entrusted you to lead them through these dark days. Will you build an empire to stand the test of time, or will you perish in the harsh and violent world of The Peshawar Lancers?

The Rules

Note: all rules are subject to change, so please keep an eye out for them. Thanks.

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 spam.
4. Long diplomatic discussions belong to the realms of Social Groups or visitor and private messaging, not the Game Thread.
5. No powergaming. By definition, powergaming is making your country surpass every other country by all terms including armed forces, technology, etc.
6. The GM is supreme. He reserves the right to change game rules, ignore or modify orders, impose restrictions on players, disband player nations, and so on.
7. Above all else, RESPECT THY FELLOW FORUMERS.
8. If you have an issue with the way I GM this game, PM me with your issue before making a big stink about it.
9. Posting in this thread or the claims thread, PMing a player of this game for any IOTE-related reason, or performing ANY sort of interaction with this game.
10. When posting orders, please do so in Blue and Bold to distinguish them from regular posts. Red is reserved for GM comments only.

WHATSOEVER is declaring that you have read and understood the rules to the letter.

I'll usually warn players first if they break the rules. If they break the rules repeatedly, then I'll apply this:

1st Strike: Player is suspended from the game for one turn.
2nd Strike: Player is suspended from the game for three turns.
3rd Strike: Player nation dissolved, and the player banned from ever rejoining.

I reserve the right to ignore this policy for players who really piss me off, and kick them out of the game instantly.

Inactive players (AWOL for more than 3 turns) risk facing the Wrath of the GM (WoG) ie having their nation disbanded. These players can rejoin the game, but their old territories won't be restored to them; they'll start off with 2 claims like every new player.

The Map



IMPORTANT NOTE: Provinces marked in grey are impassable, and represent areas devastated by the meteors/tsunamis/froze to death/home to cannibals. You can neither start in impassable territory nor claim them. They will go away eventually, though. It is perfectly

Joining the Game

To join a game choose a nation and a color, tell us about it, a flag is necessary, government, religion, people, policy and etc. Claim any fifteen connected passable provinces to begin.

Tip: If you have trouble coming up with ideas for a nation, check out the Wikipedia article on the Peshawar Lancers novel or the Peshawar Lancers Redux project on Alternate History.com.

Updates

IOTs are turn based games. each turn is 5 in game year. Updates will probably be on the Saturday of each week unless specified.

Roleplaying

Roleplaying is the essence of IOT. It’s how your nation develops. It’s how alliances are formed and broken. Roleplaying is very encouraged. Feel free to inhabit your nation with whoever or whatever you want, provided it fits with the setting and the etiquette listed above. Good Roleplaying will grant you military and economic bonuses.

Expansion
To expand, simply spend send 1 Army unclaimed connected provinces (or provinces on the sea coast). In war, you can ONLY expand into ajacent enemy provinces, again following the rules as above. Note that armies are consumed when they are used to expand into provinces. Note that small island chains, like the Balearic Islands, can be claimed with only 1 army and navy.

Stability
The stability meter measures from 1-10 (as the name suggests) how stable your empire is. The stability level of your empire drops by 1 for every 100 territories you own or if you declare war. If your stability level goes to 7, you start losing wealth, if 5, revolutions begin to start, while a stability level of 2 means half your empire secedes from you! Note that stability does not go up for territories lost in revolution. You can invest I EP for .005 stability, meaning that you spend 200 EP to go up 1 stability level. Every nation begins with a Stability Level of 10.

Economy

Economy Points (EP) are the basic currency of the game. One territory produces one. It's that simple. You can invest EP in Infrastructure (which costs 2 EP), which increases your income by 1 for every Infrastructure you build. You cannot bank EP.

War
Combat is decided by RNG, each army gives you one roll (1-10), with Technology bonuses being added where relevant. Any unused armies are used to defend if attacked. Armies cost 1 EP and are used to invade enemy territory in war. Unless you have the Tanks Army technology, you cannot blitz conquer territories and use them in the same turn to invade deeper into enemy territory)

Navies cost 5 LP. You can only expand into 1 territory on another landmasses for every navy you have. You can only invade overseas nations if you have 1 navy for every 5 armies. Expanding with a navy will also destroy it. You can also blockade opponents, causing them to lose 25% of their income. Naval combat works the same as land combat.

Air Wings cost 5 LP and can be placed on defense, assist in battle, or bomb infrastructure. You can only build Air Wings once you have researched Airships.

Espionage
An espionage mission (or actions) is a secret (obviously) mission undertaken in order to undermine a rival. Note that the price listed below are the minimum prices of the mission in question: paying double the mission increases the chance of success by 10, triple cost 20%, and so on until 90% chance of success. Note that failed Espionage Missions will be exposed to the public, as well as the nation that instigated it!
Espionage Missions come in several varieties:


NPCs
Non-player Countries (NPCs) are added in order to fill in space in otherwise unclaimed territories. There are two categories of NPC:

Passive NPCs (PNPCs) represent small nations that have little agenda apart from survival and the welfare of the people inside their territories. They start with 5-10 territories and will not expand and will only declare war if bribed. In addition, Passive NPCs also have military and income bonuses at the start.

PNPCs can be influenced in several ways (note that "i" stands for that PNPC's income):
-Bribe: Costs 1/4i. Causes them to declare war on a specified nation (including ANPCs).
-Sphere of Influence: Costs 1/2i. You can now determine their foreign policy and spending.
-Annex: Costs 3i. Takes them over completely as part of your country.

Active NPCs (ANPCs) are GM-controlled nations that otherwise act as player-controlled nations. You cannot influence ANPCs. Only a few start out in Turn 0, but if you no longer wish to play, then notify me and your nation will become an NPC. People who are not playing can PM me to take them over (please give me your orders for this turn when PMing me). If you plan on taking an ANPC that was previously a player country, then I will only allow it with the former player's permission.

Rebel NPCs appear as the result of low stability or the Initiate Rebellion espionage mission detailed above. They act as ANPCs and can be taken over by prospective players. However, if not taken over, then they will revert to PNPCs and can be inflenced as such. If started by Initiate Rebellion, they can be influenced by the player who funded them (and ONLY by them), and cannot be taken over.

Technologies
You can invest EP in researching technologies. Technologies are used to add bonuses to your militarycapacity. There are several Tiers, and every civilization starts at Tier I, which has no bonus. Tier II costs 100 EP, Tier III costs 250 EP, and Tier IV costs 500 EP. You can 'bank' EP used to research tiers, so if you invest 40 research Tier III Army in turn A and 50 in Turn B, you have 90 EP into that tech in total. You can only research 1 tech at a time in order to stop early Science Victories (see below):

The tech tree is as follows:

Army
Tier I (Line Infantry): (No bonus)
Tier II (Breech-loading Rifles): +1 on combat rolls
Tier III (Machine Guns): +50% on combat rolls
Tier IV (Tanks): Can blitz (attack up to 5 "layers" of enemy territory)

Munitions
Tier I (Cannons): (No bonus)
Tier II (Nitroglycerin): -1 for enemy combat rolls
Tier III (Poison Gas): -50% for enemy combat rolls
Tier IV (Advanced Ballistics): 1 enemy infrastructure is lost for every 2 enemy casualties

Navy
Tier I (Ships of the Line): (No bonus)
Tier II (Ironclads): +1 on combat rolls
Tier III (Dreadnaughts): +50% on combat rolls
Tier IV (Submarines): Blockading causes the enemy to lose 50% of their EP.

Aerial
Tier I (n/a): <cannot build Air Wings>
Tier II (Airships): Enables Air Wings
Tier III (Sterling Cycles): Enables Blitzing FOR AIR WINGS ONLY
Tier IV (Fighters): +50% on combat rolls against other Air Wings

Reserved

Update 1: 1880

The sun rises on 1880 AD. Although the winter was still cold and harsh like the previous two years, the summers are slightly warmer and the year was otherwise more tolerable than last two. Nearly 3 dozen nations have risen from the ashes of the old world, ready to make their mark on the slowly defrosting planet.

Question - since we do not start with any armies, and we can only expand with armies, does that mean we can use armies on the turn they are built?

I'll allow it for this turn. I'll have to think about the succeeding turns, though. Probably no.

Why not?

Martim had given a public address earlier that morning:

Speech said:

People! We are a small, struggling nation. God forbids unnecessary killing and violence, but He provides for our defense. Therefore I announce a general recruitment for soldiers to protect our nation! [Crowd cheers] We will need strong young men, brave young women, to serve their country; we will need experienced men and women to teach the younger generation to protect themselves and heal their friends; and we will need the families to support them in their mission to protect and defend!

Click to expand...

When you say that expansion is via armies claiming connected provinces, what exactly do you mean? For example, if territory X is unconnected to Nation Y, but Nation Y claims territory Z, which is connected to territory X, then can Nation Y claim territory X the same turn that it claims territory Z?

That can only be done if Nation Y has Tanks.

Farsight said:

Probably no.

Click to expand...

Double A said:

Why not?

Click to expand...

Cough

Since there are no good territories for the Cult of Winter, I claim Russia

Levante

10 into navies
3 to armies
2 to infrastructure.

Incorporations in orange:

I don't know if it's me, my computer or the picture but I don't see any orange

The slightly orange yellow. With these tiny provinces the difference between colours is not that evident, but if you pay attention you can notice that Majorca, the Moroccan province and the upper French coast are in a slightly orange yellow.

EDIT: Meh, I didn't realise that there was an NPC sitting in Algeria! Then I claim Corsica instead of the African province.

I see.

Orders later.

Whoops, never mind.

That's a really lame place for an NPC. He's stuffed into a corner.

And you still haven't answered my friggin' question about why you won't allow armies to be used the same turn you buy them.