North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
stNNES2: StatesNES
Welcome to the second stNNES. This NES will be based around the very early United States of America. However, to make things interesting for more than one player, the states are now much more powerful than they were in real life. The storyline goes thus:
In the year of 1788, the Constitutional Convention was in essence a failure. The goals it set out to meet; a strong, federal government, were not quite abandoned entirely, but not much good happened either. The new Constitution of the United States only achieved three new things: a new law required a simple majority of the legislature to agree upon, there were two branches of Congress, and a new, independent executive branch was created to enforce the laws. Also a decentralized Judicial branch was created, though this had little power. States, however, retain most of the power, and rivalries have grown to the brink of civil war between the most powerful. Tensions are now high in the states, and many have fled to the frontiers, which hold promise of a new life...
In this NES, you take the reigns of one of those states, and lead it through war, peace, trade, and diplomacy. There are many new innovative rules, so pay attention closely. Though they are complex, they will actually make it simpler to play.
Economy:
This section is totally revamped from the last stNNES. Firstly, economy is based on income and expenses. Secondly, there is now the idea of deficit spending and debt.
Income:
Income is earned by the thousands of dollars. Some states start out with a large income, some with a small income. The ways you increase economy are: by expanding into new territory (must this be explained?), trade (more on that later), passing new internal bills in your states (like one that increases taxes, or encourages businesses or farmers or immigration), exploiting natural resources (like a bill to allow mass logging of your states forests), and through random events, which some naturally with each update.
Expenses:
These are vast, naturally. The areas of spending are: armed forces maintenance, education, projects, transportation, interest on loans, social welfare, internal security, etc. There is no way to stop this monster unless you curtail your expenses.
Deficit Spending:
Dont have enough money to increase the army more? Cant afford supporting new industries? Deficit spending is the answer. Basically, all you really need to do to go into deficit is to order your minions to spend more than you earn. Every turn you spend more money than you earn, the debt grows by the amount you are losing.
Now this sounds like a miracle cureexcept there is one problem. There is a ten percent interest on your national debt. This represents the fact that what you are doing is essentially borrowing from your banks. What this means is that for every ten thousand dollars you are in debt, you are adding one thousand a turn to your expenses every turn. You can, of course, merely spend even further into the deficit to cover these costs, but dont spend too far into debt: the banks may just not allow you to take out any more. This will be hinted at in the updates before it happens, so you will have advanced warning.
Of course, you can pay off your debt. That will just be added to the expenses for that turn.
Military:
This is your states militia. It is in numbers. An increase is a thousand men each, subject to change. Each increase costs a thousand dollars, but that is not the end of the cost of military. Your army eats up a certain amount of money, depending on their level.
If you want your army to be of conscript level, then allot one thousand dollars for every five thousand men every turn.
If you want your army to be of regular level, then allot one thousand dollars for every two thousand men every turn.
If you want your army to be of elite level, then allot two thousand dollars for every one thousand men every turn.
(A note on these: this is rounded up. So if you want it to be at militia level, then five thousand men would cost $1,000, six thousand men would be $2,000).
And that is it. One up front cost, then an ongoing cost. It is pretty simple.
Naval forces are the same, except levels are of ten ships each.
Trade:
Either the lifeblood or the destroyer of your state. Trade is either negative or positive. If you have many natural resources and encourage trade, you are likely to have a positive trade balance. A resource poor state can still use trade to its advantage, if it is in a strategic location. Then it can act as a distributer of good from its trade hub, and thus will have a good trade balance, for it is redistributing that which it bought. Confused yet?
If your state has much in the way of natural resources, then you will export those automatically. It will also import that which is desires. The people, in other words, control your trade, not you theirs. So it is all handled automatically. More work for me and less for you. Nice, eh?
You can influence trade, though not control it.
There are ways to do this: make legislation (aka put in your orders) to increase gathering or manufacturing of a certain product. Be creative. If you do not produce cotton, you could still set yourself up as the major textile manufacturer, and make much money even though you import a lot of cotton. You can encourage iron smelters, everything you can think of. Be creative.
You can also enact tariffs on imports. This you just put into your orders. This has a twin effect: not only does your trade deficit go down (generally by half), the states people will stop exporting to you as much and thus loose them money. Be warned, though, that this will not be taken lightly. Other states will probably enact tariffs on your own goods in response to you tariffing theirs. So it is most useful when you are losing much money to them and not gaining much. You can enact tariffs on separate states or the rest of the nation as a whole.
Trade wont really start until you start influencing industries to grow, so legislation there is the way to start a trade route.
Education:
Simple, the more you invest into here, the quicker you gain new advances. Of course, larger states have to invest more to have the same overall education as smaller states...
Transportation:
If you invest heavily into here, your armies will move faster, your trade will go better, and your expansion will be faster. A good are to invest in, indeed.
Internal Security:
This is essentially police. Spend more here and youll have less chance of rebellion, and your people will like you better as crime will go down. Trade may also improve.
Industry:
Spend more here, and your resource gathering efforts and industry encouragings will be more effective.
Projects:
The local equivalent of wonders. They cost money. Tell me what it is and what it does. I will tell you how much it costs. In your budget, order to spend money on these (a certain amount per turn), or nothing will happen.
Elections!:
You can be elected president! Or you can simply influence elections. How?
Announce in the thread along with normal diplomacy that you will be running the year before the election. Then others will have the chance to announce their candidacy or endorse you. Then, in election year, just wait and see.
Being president not only is a ceremonial gesture of how powerful you are, it also allows you to command the national army (though it is small), veto the Congress when it tries to make a bill you do not like, etc.
You can also rig elections. To do this, in your orders, simply put rig elections to elect ___. This is so that if you dont like the policies or simply dont like the home state of the candidate, then you can make the elections turn out how you want. There is, however, a chance of it being discovered, which will not please your people.
Or you can simply let your people elect who they want to elect. They will vote in their perceived best interests.
Congress:
Congress is your place for diplomacy to come into action. Just introduce a bill (it can be whatever you want, just keep it realistic. It can be deliberately aimed to hurt your enemies production and trade, or it can be a declaration of war on another nation, etc.) in your orders. Then it will be announced in the newspaper that following year. Then, states can vote. You can either vote yes, no, or abstain. A bill needs a majority to pass. If you want others to vote for your bill, either make it attractive to them or bribe them. Your choice.
I think I have touched everything.
Choose your state. Most have been reserved, but the ones still out are: Delaware, Rhode Island, New Hampshire (You should have looked in the preview thread, eh?). Chose carefully. Bigger states will generally have more power, but some small states are rich, too. It is advised that you know the state you are picking well before you pick it. All states will have current boundaries, except that Massachusetts owns Maine, Virginia and W. Virginia are one, and Vermont is split between N. Hampshire and N. Y.
DC is not represented on the map, and is federal territory, and current location of the federal army of about 10,000 souls, which is all they can support without donations for the states... that is, you.
Oh, by the way...
DO NOT POST UNTIL I SAY YOU CAN!
Thank you...
Welcome to the second stNNES. This NES will be based around the very early United States of America. However, to make things interesting for more than one player, the states are now much more powerful than they were in real life. The storyline goes thus:
In the year of 1788, the Constitutional Convention was in essence a failure. The goals it set out to meet; a strong, federal government, were not quite abandoned entirely, but not much good happened either. The new Constitution of the United States only achieved three new things: a new law required a simple majority of the legislature to agree upon, there were two branches of Congress, and a new, independent executive branch was created to enforce the laws. Also a decentralized Judicial branch was created, though this had little power. States, however, retain most of the power, and rivalries have grown to the brink of civil war between the most powerful. Tensions are now high in the states, and many have fled to the frontiers, which hold promise of a new life...
In this NES, you take the reigns of one of those states, and lead it through war, peace, trade, and diplomacy. There are many new innovative rules, so pay attention closely. Though they are complex, they will actually make it simpler to play.
Economy:
This section is totally revamped from the last stNNES. Firstly, economy is based on income and expenses. Secondly, there is now the idea of deficit spending and debt.
Income:
Income is earned by the thousands of dollars. Some states start out with a large income, some with a small income. The ways you increase economy are: by expanding into new territory (must this be explained?), trade (more on that later), passing new internal bills in your states (like one that increases taxes, or encourages businesses or farmers or immigration), exploiting natural resources (like a bill to allow mass logging of your states forests), and through random events, which some naturally with each update.
Expenses:
These are vast, naturally. The areas of spending are: armed forces maintenance, education, projects, transportation, interest on loans, social welfare, internal security, etc. There is no way to stop this monster unless you curtail your expenses.
Deficit Spending:
Dont have enough money to increase the army more? Cant afford supporting new industries? Deficit spending is the answer. Basically, all you really need to do to go into deficit is to order your minions to spend more than you earn. Every turn you spend more money than you earn, the debt grows by the amount you are losing.
Now this sounds like a miracle cureexcept there is one problem. There is a ten percent interest on your national debt. This represents the fact that what you are doing is essentially borrowing from your banks. What this means is that for every ten thousand dollars you are in debt, you are adding one thousand a turn to your expenses every turn. You can, of course, merely spend even further into the deficit to cover these costs, but dont spend too far into debt: the banks may just not allow you to take out any more. This will be hinted at in the updates before it happens, so you will have advanced warning.
Of course, you can pay off your debt. That will just be added to the expenses for that turn.
Military:
This is your states militia. It is in numbers. An increase is a thousand men each, subject to change. Each increase costs a thousand dollars, but that is not the end of the cost of military. Your army eats up a certain amount of money, depending on their level.
If you want your army to be of conscript level, then allot one thousand dollars for every five thousand men every turn.
If you want your army to be of regular level, then allot one thousand dollars for every two thousand men every turn.
If you want your army to be of elite level, then allot two thousand dollars for every one thousand men every turn.
(A note on these: this is rounded up. So if you want it to be at militia level, then five thousand men would cost $1,000, six thousand men would be $2,000).
And that is it. One up front cost, then an ongoing cost. It is pretty simple.
Naval forces are the same, except levels are of ten ships each.
Trade:
Either the lifeblood or the destroyer of your state. Trade is either negative or positive. If you have many natural resources and encourage trade, you are likely to have a positive trade balance. A resource poor state can still use trade to its advantage, if it is in a strategic location. Then it can act as a distributer of good from its trade hub, and thus will have a good trade balance, for it is redistributing that which it bought. Confused yet?
If your state has much in the way of natural resources, then you will export those automatically. It will also import that which is desires. The people, in other words, control your trade, not you theirs. So it is all handled automatically. More work for me and less for you. Nice, eh?
You can influence trade, though not control it.
There are ways to do this: make legislation (aka put in your orders) to increase gathering or manufacturing of a certain product. Be creative. If you do not produce cotton, you could still set yourself up as the major textile manufacturer, and make much money even though you import a lot of cotton. You can encourage iron smelters, everything you can think of. Be creative.
You can also enact tariffs on imports. This you just put into your orders. This has a twin effect: not only does your trade deficit go down (generally by half), the states people will stop exporting to you as much and thus loose them money. Be warned, though, that this will not be taken lightly. Other states will probably enact tariffs on your own goods in response to you tariffing theirs. So it is most useful when you are losing much money to them and not gaining much. You can enact tariffs on separate states or the rest of the nation as a whole.
Trade wont really start until you start influencing industries to grow, so legislation there is the way to start a trade route.
Education:
Simple, the more you invest into here, the quicker you gain new advances. Of course, larger states have to invest more to have the same overall education as smaller states...
Transportation:
If you invest heavily into here, your armies will move faster, your trade will go better, and your expansion will be faster. A good are to invest in, indeed.
Internal Security:
This is essentially police. Spend more here and youll have less chance of rebellion, and your people will like you better as crime will go down. Trade may also improve.
Industry:
Spend more here, and your resource gathering efforts and industry encouragings will be more effective.
Projects:
The local equivalent of wonders. They cost money. Tell me what it is and what it does. I will tell you how much it costs. In your budget, order to spend money on these (a certain amount per turn), or nothing will happen.
Elections!:
You can be elected president! Or you can simply influence elections. How?
Announce in the thread along with normal diplomacy that you will be running the year before the election. Then others will have the chance to announce their candidacy or endorse you. Then, in election year, just wait and see.
Being president not only is a ceremonial gesture of how powerful you are, it also allows you to command the national army (though it is small), veto the Congress when it tries to make a bill you do not like, etc.
You can also rig elections. To do this, in your orders, simply put rig elections to elect ___. This is so that if you dont like the policies or simply dont like the home state of the candidate, then you can make the elections turn out how you want. There is, however, a chance of it being discovered, which will not please your people.
Or you can simply let your people elect who they want to elect. They will vote in their perceived best interests.
Congress:
Congress is your place for diplomacy to come into action. Just introduce a bill (it can be whatever you want, just keep it realistic. It can be deliberately aimed to hurt your enemies production and trade, or it can be a declaration of war on another nation, etc.) in your orders. Then it will be announced in the newspaper that following year. Then, states can vote. You can either vote yes, no, or abstain. A bill needs a majority to pass. If you want others to vote for your bill, either make it attractive to them or bribe them. Your choice.
I think I have touched everything.
Choose your state. Most have been reserved, but the ones still out are: Delaware, Rhode Island, New Hampshire (You should have looked in the preview thread, eh?). Chose carefully. Bigger states will generally have more power, but some small states are rich, too. It is advised that you know the state you are picking well before you pick it. All states will have current boundaries, except that Massachusetts owns Maine, Virginia and W. Virginia are one, and Vermont is split between N. Hampshire and N. Y.
DC is not represented on the map, and is federal territory, and current location of the federal army of about 10,000 souls, which is all they can support without donations for the states... that is, you.
Oh, by the way...
DO NOT POST UNTIL I SAY YOU CAN!
Thank you...
