The Death of IOT

[JohannaK]

You're thinking of Defcon Red. IOTCW was long before then - almost 2 years ago now.

-L

Right! That was it, I liked it a lot. I knew it wasn't CW but I really didn't know it's actual name.

 

[Patriotic_Fool]

As an example of what I'm talking about, one player in MP2 was a significant irritation to the community and the GM by popular acclamation. If I had been the GM, he would have found himself booted unceremoniously long before things built to a head the way I've been told they did. Even in IOTX, I would probably have deployed the banhammer on Aillied and P_F both if they couldn't pull themselves together and stop squabbling. Call me authoritative, but I jealously horde the prerogative to maintain order in my games - more mods willing to kick players, use blacklists and instill in-game penalties in order to discipline problem players would be a significant step in the right direction, combined with mod overwatch to ensure nothing's being used unfairly.

I strongly disagree when you say that a "significant portion of the community" was against me. If by significant, you mean 4 or 5 players, then sure. Keep in mind there were dozens of players, and most had nothing against me.

I even created a 4 man alliance (possibly 5 had I allowed Katterland to join), while the 5 players "against" me ran around shouting OCC insults, screencapping my comments, complaining to the GM, and whining. Had they banded together and just stomped me, there wouldn't have been a problem.

Tani was not against my war-like actions. While in MP3 he states that he prefers to lead it away from war, tani was the one that told me the riches I could plunder if I "annexed" my neighbor. I offered to leave the game voluntarily twice, but both times he said that he didn't want anyone to leave (including me). I wouldn't even have had to get kicked out.

Ailedhoo and I had our squabbles because he overreacted to a territory dispute. What could have been an easily problem to solve diplomatically, became an intense war. He instantly morphed into "Red_Spy", with the whole "you'll never take me down, I have allies! You're doomed". And as history shows, things didn't turn out well for him.

Thorvald wanted me gone from the game, but as sub-GM he didn't have any say in it. The game was tani's, and tani made the final decisions (of course, Thorvald attempted to push the idea that he and tani were equals, especially when he had his "Strike one" and "strike two" comments.)

Long story short: A few people don't like my playstyle. Instead of acting rationally and preventing my ascension to power in-game, they make it into an OCC meta squabble. I've got 2 games to prove it

If you guys think a player is ruining your game by "ruining" the fun for others, simply band against him.

 

[choxorn]

I concur. Kiwitt's judgement towards the end was strange, to say the least.

It was strange from the moment he started GMing, to be honest, but it got really strange at the end, and the stability thing was ridiculous. Being able to do some bad things with spies to a player who has no espionage at all? Okay, that makes sense. Being able to make their stability drop to near zero and then make almost all of their land yours? With spies? That's ridiculous.

That paragraph that Thorvald quoted me saying in the OP was part of a longer rant in which I talked about my problems with Iron and Blood, and concluded that everything that happened at the end of the game was terrible. I also concluded that a lot of it was kiwitt's fault, and wonder what would have happened to that game had tailless been able to GM it for the entire length of the game.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Really, I just find it distasteful to kick players; given that it is necessary to get moderator approval to do such, I am even less inclined to attempt such. If someone really does not like a player, everyone should take action against them. There is no rule that prevents ganging up on someone. Just be careful it doesn't come off as metagaming or I'll be less hesitant to take action.

I don't join most of the major IOTs because there is a fetish for realism and historicity. I lean towards the fantasy and creativity camp. I have many ideas I can play (yes I'm biased towards Mobians but everyone has biases), but most are cut short by the games' rules. So, I impose isolation on myself accordingly.

Never mind, it's more fun to see the bigger picture than just a small piece of it.

I think MP2 was evidence enough of my interest in roleplaying; I was trying my best to flesh out the six NPCs I had stewardship of, trying to avoid favoring any one over the other, and trying to keep them in line with what their original players wanted. JoanKey is infamous for being a moderate, so Catalonia wasn't too aggressive. Louisiana was led by Omega124, so I made them ludicrously libertarian. Bengal ... well, they were more of a fail on my part, but they spent a lot of time at war so weren't able to succeed to Dem Taqat's position as an internationalist leader.

Victoria was perhaps my most radical alteration, but that was because NinjaCow made no secret his disdain for Jehoshua's Katterland. Logically, I used blowback to create a radical republic fond of mass murder, persecution, and destruction of Katterland-related culture. French Revolution met Iranian.

I also tried to do well as America but the short time I had rule of the area not much changed.

 

[ilduce349]

This is directed at the opening post
2-3 years ago I would have disagreed and was one of the first advocates of adding economic rules to prevent powergaming. However now I agree.

3 times in the last year I have checked this forum to see if there was an IOT worth playing. All I was looking for was either a simply laid back casual game that I could just roleplay diplomacy in, or if it was complex, it was one where I felt the complex rules made sense.

I wasn't able to find such a game so I haven't played an IOT in probably 14 months if not longer.

 

[NinjaCow64]

This is directed at the opening post
2-3 years ago I would have disagreed and was one of the first advocates of adding economic rules to prevent powergaming. However now I agree.

3 times in the last year I have checked this forum to see if there was an IOT worth playing. All I was looking for was either a simply laid back casual game that I could just roleplay diplomacy in, or if it was complex, it was one where I felt the complex rules made sense.

I wasn't able to find such a game so I haven't played an IOT in probably 14 months if not longer.

There's always IOT:X. That's the simplest game ever.

 

[Patchy]

Tyo's new game might also be more your speed.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Indeed, IOT X takes its ruleset directly from IOT IV. Some territory changes and a different battle system, but overall there's almost zero mechanics to work with.

 

[ilduce349]

War plans are the key to victory. You may call it "Roleplay" for convenience. Whoever has the best strategy will emerge victorious in combat. Factor in the terrain, numbers, and all the like. Fairly straightforward.

I have 2 concerns for that (and no time to read through 21 pages to see if they are valid):

I have selected you to participate in my 'Space Race,' a competition among world leaders that has never before been seen by your planet.

If it victory based or not? I like open ended, if there is a victory condition then count me out. (I pulled out of Iron and Blood for this very reason).

War plans are the key to victory. You may call it "Roleplay" for convenience. Whoever has the best strategy will emerge victorious in combat. Factor in the terrain, numbers, and all the like. Fairly straightforward.

I don't want to make war plans, I want my 5-star generals coming up with war plans, lol.

Tyo's new game might also be more your speed.

Tyos was far from simple, with tehs, industry, great powers etc. and I really don't like the ideas of great power-medium power etc. in a roleplaying game, especially when land size determines your power and that great powers automatically have better technology then small powers. (at least this is what I gathered from reading the rules)

edit: Sonic answered some of these questions in VM and I appreciate him doing that so not to degrade this conversation into a which IOT should ilduce join, lol.

 

[Tyo]

I'd call my IOT fairly simple. Industry is more of a ranking of your economy rated 1-10, which pretty much details how much your country can do. Resources work similarly. Tech is hardly a concern for non-great powers because they aren't succumbing from resource depletion.

Great powers are generally in a more powerful position- but this is only realistic for this kind of game. If everyone had equal starts every single mechanic in the game makes no sense. The game is built to have different powers of different levels interact. Also, while the great powers have the moa power, they also have the most problems. Ranging from quickly depleting resources, smaller powers squabbling, and any other problems I decide to sadistically send at them, great powers are both the strongest and hardest nations to manage.

Lastly, while land is a sort of indicator of how powerful your country is to an extent, power is not based off how much land you have. For example, we're having a Russian successor state with much of Siberia still owned. A doubtlessly large country, but this country is still a small power with no more strengths or limitations than any other small power.

I just felt like putting my two cents when I saw my IOT wa being discussed.

 

[SamSniped]

I've been hinting at an IOT VII reboot for a few months, ilduce. I'll VM you if I ever get around to it

 

[kiwitt]

The game has to be complicated for me to really get into it – but by complicated I don’t necessarily mean the rules have to be complicated. SonRISK and IB3 are prime examples of streamlined rule sets that still offer a ton of complexity and need for strong strategic planning/thinking. I probably spent more time planning/thinking about the game in IB3 than I have in any other IOT for a long time.

This is what I wanted for IB3, a complex chess-game.

Not to rag on you Thorvald, or IOT IV, but to be honest, I have much better memories of Iron and Blood than I do of IV. Don't get me wrong, IV was fun, being warmonger Japan, but it never got to the high point I&B did. The diplomatic situations, the wars, the evolution of the ATK, the world, felt more real, more tense and more challenging in I&B compared to IV. Hell, you can ask GamezRule if you want, I still reminisce with him about the final standoff between his alliance and mine in the final years of I&B, why things went the way they did, and possible alt-scenarios. This doesn't happen to me with IV, whenever I think of that game its more along the lines of "haha we had fun didn't we" rather than "if only I did this, maybe the entire course of the game would have been different". I know that's poorly explain, but the basic gist is that I've had so much more fun with evolved IOT's compared to the original batch.

Iron and Blood was my first ever IOT. It is the standard by which I judge all other IOTs, but unfortunately very few live up to that high standard. For me it had the right mix of RP, mechanics, actual diplomacy, and a great balance of power throughout the entire game – up to and including the point where GamezRule and I and our handful of remaining allies defied the odds and came out on top of the rest of the world.

I agree. Iron and Blood 1, which I took over after about 5-6 turns and continued for 6 months was very enjoyable. However, from a GMs perspective it was a real lot of work (close to 20-30 hours per week). I doubt any GM would be willing to put that much time into a game again. This is one of the reasons I developed IB3, to minimise the GM workload.

Of course forcing your empire into a smoldering mass of instability goo was quite amusing as well.

I actually didn't think Iron and Blood was that great. Sure, it had all the nice things you mentioned, but everyone was even more willing to fight over stupid things than usual and it fell apart for no reason at all at the end, so it really sucked at the end.

I concur. Kiwitt's judgement towards the end was strange, to say the least.

It was strange from the moment he started GMing, to be honest, but it got really strange at the end, and the stability thing was ridiculous. Being able to do some bad things with spies to a player who has no espionage at all? Okay, that makes sense. Being able to make their stability drop to near zero and then make almost all of their land yours? With spies? That's ridiculous.

That paragraph that Thorvald quoted me saying in the OP was part of a longer rant in which I talked about my problems with Iron and Blood, and concluded that everything that happened at the end of the game was terrible. I also concluded that a lot of it was kiwitt's fault, and wonder what would have happened to that game had tailless been able to GM it for the entire length of the game.

I would have to say that I let the espionage mechanics get the better of me in that game. However, it should be noted that "espionage" can be a very effective tool to de-stabilize a country in the real world like the CIA have done.

The reason your nations collapsed was that you had virtually spent nothing on espionage points. Espionage points was considered as both an offensive and defensive value. Having none, is like having no Gestapo or Police force to deter espionage missions. You chose not to spend on espionage and then suffered the consequences your eventual collapse. You were warned well in advance that there was espionage in the game as I believe I reported on missions success either passively or actively.

However, in hindsight, I should have had some kind of exponential scale to the mechanics making it ever more difficult to lower stability via espionage, but this would have made little difference in the scenario above as we are talking of orders of magnitude differences between espionage points. Still unbeknownst to me at the time it would would also be a game-breaker.

Now to the OPs point of this thread. It should be noted I really only played Iron and Blood series.

I joined IB1 as Iceland as my very first IOT and nation. I decided to role-play it as a "Nation of Blonds" and sent pictures of my "ambassadors" to the player nations. This was misinterpreted as SPAM. In the end after my futile attempt at trying to form an alliance, I was dog-piled, so I rage-quitted. But the role-playing I remember was fun for a time.

I did however, keep watching the IB1 thread, and when I noticed that TK was finding it too hard to keep up, I decided to offer to take over. As a newbie-GM, I leant quite heavily on the players to help me with the rules and even offered a rules discussion thread in the IB1 group to help refine them as the game developed (this progressed into an IB2 development group). Generally this worked out quite well and we ended up with quite a good rule-set (except for the aforementioned espionage), that allowed the game to play for 6 months. Making me the IOT GM of the year 2011. But it should be noted I was fully retired at the time, so I had the time.

Iron and Blood: redux and Iron and Blood 2, I decided I would role-play and really put a lot of effort into creating and developing my nations (I suspect this maybe NES'ing - but I don't know), using real-world histories for the most part. This was fun as well. It made me read a lot of national and regional histories I would never have come across otherwise. Being a historical nut (see my RTW Historical Mod for more details), this interested me greatly. I was sad when both of these died again.

It would seem the while Iron and Blood series are great, they do take a lot of work on the part of the GM and for this reason I developed Iron and Blood 3: Rapid Fire. I was a bit disappointed that it got "romanized", but eventually it stabilized and was very playable. The rule-set I developed was simple yet the choices players could make were numerous. But I had to give this one up as well eventually because I had to concentrate on real-life (my semi-retirement workload increased significantly).

With Iron and Blood 4 now on the horizon, I don't believe IOTs are dead, just that they are evolving and will continue to evolve.

I will also add my +1 to merging NES and IOT and I suggest moderators give this its due consideration.

 

[Sonereal]

IOT would be better if GMs actual could GM their games without being backseat modded.

 

[Lighthearter]

I want to "Like" that so much right now. We don't need mod babysitting, we need authority to do our jobs.

-L

 

[Sonereal]

Apparently we do. We've only been here in IOT since 2010 after all. Hell, we've been here before the split. I'm pretty sure we understand the needs of our individual games better than someone else. If players don't like the way a game is being ran, then they are very much free to leave, aren't they?

Edit: Wrong word

 

[Birdjaguar]

I will also add my +1 to merging NES and IOT and I suggest moderators give this its due consideration.

If you mean staff moderators rather than game moderators, then I have already told you how to make that happen: Start IOT games in the NESing forum and play them there. It is very simple and you would get pc in those games. vote with your feet ..uhh...posting.

 

[Osmowstroyer]

An IOT died today. It is coming.

 

[Luckymoose]

As a NESer, I do not support a merger and view it as a disgusting effort worthy of being erased from history.

 

[Birdjaguar]

An IOT died today. It is coming.

If you mean this one, you are wrong. I am just waiting for Sonereal to let me know he is ready for me to open it again.

 

[Patchy]

If you mean this one, you are wrong. I am just waiting for Sonereal to let me know he is ready for me to open it again.

Why? Isn't it Tani's thread?