Abaddon
Deity
edit: Retracted. CBA with this pointless circle-jerk.
BirdNES 3: Discussions & Questions
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
I'm...not in BirdNES? 
What, exactly, could I fix, even if I were? Should I start making up my own updates and rules and stats to replace Bird's?
That said, you can, should, and probably do understand my opinions as basically the same as those of NK and Kraz here; it's kind of superfluous to post more about them until there's actually something of a substantive response to "causality is messed up, updates are rushed and late, and the stats are apparently divorced from reality", ideally from the mod himself.
What, exactly, could I fix, even if I were? Should I start making up my own updates and rules and stats to replace Bird's?That said, you can, should, and probably do understand my opinions as basically the same as those of NK and Kraz here; it's kind of superfluous to post more about them until there's actually something of a substantive response to "causality is messed up, updates are rushed and late, and the stats are apparently divorced from reality", ideally from the mod himself.
North King
blech
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Having more than one person in agreement =/= a "circle-jerk".
Oh my!! I do not have time atm to read through it all. but will when I get home tonight.
I don't know, I mean yes it seems that if you focus on what is historically possible then the events will generally playout very close to as they did in history...and that gets old. Mind I do want to go for realism at the same time, but its a difficult balance.
Whatever, I'm having fun and my role is still very limited in this NES so I guess perhaps thats why I just don't have the same feel for this issue as you all do.
Whatever, I'm having fun and my role is still very limited in this NES so I guess perhaps thats why I just don't have the same feel for this issue as you all do.
North King
blech
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...Does no one read the alternate history thread? Ever? 
Most of the people making these arguments are the ones who are coming up with the most fascinating alt-hists.
Most of the people making these arguments are the ones who are coming up with the most fascinating alt-hists.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
Um... but Bavaria also does about three or four other actions at the same time. How would hoarding beets be the only way, even if it is in the rules? If bavaria had a clever idea for the Beets (buying cheep, selling high) then power to him. But with the actions, it would be hard to figure out WHICH action is OP. According to Beej, every gold is only fitted into one slot at a time based on how its action is worded and then moved through the black box.
What if Bavaria's wealth isn't overpowered. What if they legally took advantage of the markets of their neighbors or any other way to steal wealth. Is it truly IMPOSSIBLE NO MATTER WHAT? No matter how stupid one nation or smart the other?
Yes, it's completely impossible.
North King
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Ugh, how is this so difficult to understand.
The issue I have does not boil down to "a nation repeating one action over and over to gain a distinct advantage." This was a RHETORICAL DEVICE. NO SUCH ACTION EXISTS. That is why I used "hoarding beets" as the example of an action which could make a nation ridiculously overpowered. It's nonsensical, amusing, and therefore suited to the task of rhetoric...izing.
Well, that and I didn't want to say, "hoard beets, then sell them at a profit later," because I was trying to be brief.
...I don't even know what you're suggesting. England ships off sheep to graze in the fields of Northern Spain and the Spanish are too stupid to prevent it?
On some level, yes, a nation literally cannot support higher levels of production. Even with superior seaborne trade, yes, England literally would not be able to make up the difference in budgets it had with Spain. Unless England sported a significant empire outside of Great Britain proper, it would literally be unable to support a comparable income to France or Spain.
I don't think the mod should "police" what players can do and say. I do think the mod should make his decisions have some basis in historical reality. Mark it down to my evil curmudgeon-y ways if you like, but if you're running a "historical" NES and you're framing it that way, you should at least make it have some basis in historical reality. You should force the English player to work inside a constrained budget or into supporting a continental empire, rather than arbitrarily saying, "well the black box lets them be at parity with the continental powers, so why the hell not?"
...Does no one read the alternate history thread? Ever?
Yes, but isn't the fun in NESing to be unrealistic to some degree? I don't know, this is why I have been tending to play the non earth more I guess to avoid this inevitable conflict in historical NESing.
I do understand the complaint is the overpowering of some actions...but without know what those actions were that led to such a jump how can I say if it was overpowered? I mean could a nation simply be being used by proxy and thus gaining funds from outside? Could they have started massive piracy? I just don't know which is yet another reason I do not want to run a NES myself, well a real Earth NES anyway.
North King
blech
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In short, no.
In length, I find that adhering to historical plausibility doesn't make something unfun in and of itself. I thoroughly enjoy playing a Risk game as much as I enjoy playing Perfectionist's NES; I enjoyed NESlife just as much as I did das' NESes.
For the fun-seeking player it is not genre or style that determines how fun an NES is. It is instead how that style or genre is implemented that determines how fun it is.
Abaddon
Deity
An I get fun from causing something to happen that didn't IRL... this is mostly down to us simply liking to NES differently.
I KNOW what you are trying to say NK, but I disagree. As long as the stats are correct at the start, everyone plays with the same rules. The Mod should not fudge things if someone progresses their nation better than others. Whatever England did to raise its economy, Spain or anyone could have.. they just didn't think of it.
I'd find it fun taking a seemingly useless backwater nation and rise it from nothing. Ulm for example
I KNOW what you are trying to say NK, but I disagree. As long as the stats are correct at the start, everyone plays with the same rules. The Mod should not fudge things if someone progresses their nation better than others. Whatever England did to raise its economy, Spain or anyone could have.. they just didn't think of it.
I'd find it fun taking a seemingly useless backwater nation and rise it from nothing. Ulm for example
If a ruleset were a perfect imitation of reality, Abaddon, what you say would not be completely loopy.
Now, you may say that you know it isn't a perfect imitation of reality and you don't really want it to be. But it remains that if it isn't, the rules aren't remotely fair, especially not in a NES like BirdNES. No, whatever England did to raise its economy could not necessarily have worked on Spain. That is because Spain is different from England. Spain has historically different circumstances from England. For example, if you carry out some sort of sheep-farming reform in Spain, you'll get more money for it than in England, and so you should, because Spain has more land than England and more sheep.
I put this to you:
Say immac carried out a sheep farming programme and got good results, and a ridiculously large increase in his budget, and then Lucky carried out a similar sheep farming programme. He has more sheep and more room for the programme to have effects. It ought to have twice as much of a result. immac's gave him 4000 extra gpt. Lucky's therefore should give him 8000 gpt or so. But that would horrendously unbalance the game.
Either:
a) bird should give lucky the extra money, completely unbalancing not only the relationship between England and Spain but actually the whole politics of the Mediterranean, which is disastrous even if it's only a game rather than a simulation of any kind;
b) bird should cheat lucky by giving him less of a bonus than he ought to have got, which is unreasonable and involves fiddling the black box;
c) bird should fiddle immac's stats to remove the money, which is unreasonable and involves fiddling the black box;
d) bird should have adhered to historical sense and consistency in the first place.
(d) is the only remotely sensible answer.
A ruleset is not adequate unless either it is a complete boardgame ruleset (with no room for moderator or player imagination, which intrinsically makes such a ruleset extremely unfair if not controlled) or if it is tempered by the mod's good sense. Imagine if we had a game of Risk where you could have a "farming programme" and suddenly get twice as many armies. It would be completely absurd.
Now, you may say that you know it isn't a perfect imitation of reality and you don't really want it to be. But it remains that if it isn't, the rules aren't remotely fair, especially not in a NES like BirdNES. No, whatever England did to raise its economy could not necessarily have worked on Spain. That is because Spain is different from England. Spain has historically different circumstances from England. For example, if you carry out some sort of sheep-farming reform in Spain, you'll get more money for it than in England, and so you should, because Spain has more land than England and more sheep.
I put this to you:
Say immac carried out a sheep farming programme and got good results, and a ridiculously large increase in his budget, and then Lucky carried out a similar sheep farming programme. He has more sheep and more room for the programme to have effects. It ought to have twice as much of a result. immac's gave him 4000 extra gpt. Lucky's therefore should give him 8000 gpt or so. But that would horrendously unbalance the game.
Either:
a) bird should give lucky the extra money, completely unbalancing not only the relationship between England and Spain but actually the whole politics of the Mediterranean, which is disastrous even if it's only a game rather than a simulation of any kind;
b) bird should cheat lucky by giving him less of a bonus than he ought to have got, which is unreasonable and involves fiddling the black box;
c) bird should fiddle immac's stats to remove the money, which is unreasonable and involves fiddling the black box;
d) bird should have adhered to historical sense and consistency in the first place.
(d) is the only remotely sensible answer.
A ruleset is not adequate unless either it is a complete boardgame ruleset (with no room for moderator or player imagination, which intrinsically makes such a ruleset extremely unfair if not controlled) or if it is tempered by the mod's good sense. Imagine if we had a game of Risk where you could have a "farming programme" and suddenly get twice as many armies. It would be completely absurd.
North King
blech
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Why aren't you just off playing checkers, then?
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
[oooh! Personal burn!]
Abaddon
Deity
Sadly Beej is not a time traveller. So how do we move FORWARD from the situation we are in?
You clearly do not understand me, unless you were attempting to be ironic. Checkers would be at the other end of the spectrum for me.
They have a cream for that you know..
North King
blech
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I don't think you understand how an althist works. Or at least, you're deliberately trying not to understand it throughout the course of this thread. You don't NEED to be a psychic time traveler in a blue box to have a rough gauge on how history MIGHT have turned out. You DO need to know the basics of the time -- England was a weak power, economically speaking.
Neither. I am trying to get you to articulate what differentiates this game from a card game in your mind. In the end this is going to feed into a series of leading questions which will serve to wrongfoot you and undermine your original point.
By only doing things that are not implausible and by trying to make historically reasonable judgements, and by making what was likely to happen actually happen rather than making what was impossible to happen happen, as Bird has done repeatedly.
No-one is saying there is only one possible answer or resolution of events and plans. NK has already told you that no-one is trying to replay history as it happened. What a mod should do, by fulfilling his player's orders within the bounds of plausibility, is follow any course that makes sense.
Some of the courses that Bird has followed do not make sense. That is the problem.
You move forward by choosing events that are possible given the constraints of
a) the historical circumstances;
b) the internal consistency of the events of the NES;
c) the players' orders.
Yes, that's not easy, especially not for people who don't have sufficient historical knowledge or sufficient understanding of how the world works to do it. But it is quite possible for an intelligent person like Birdjaguar, and he should do it, and he should certainly at least try to, especially if he wants his player base to drift back to him.
Abaddon
Deity
I don't think you understand how an althist works. Or at least, you're deliberately trying not to understand it throughout the course of this thread. You don't NEED to be a psychic time traveler in a blue box to have a rough gauge on how history MIGHT have turned out. You DO need to know the basics of the time -- England was a weak power, economically speaking.
Silly!
I meant that the NES is already in progress, so we need more than option d now. Sure, it would have been fine at the start.I'll bite
Card games are very simplistic, limited games, mostly based on luck with concrete rules.
A NES is a sandbox game where you are given some constraints, but essentially can do as you wish.
North King
blech
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Silly!
So if there are obvious problems with the world setup, I guess they'll never be fixed?
I'll bite
Card games are very simplistic, limited games, mostly based on luck with concrete rules.
A NES is a sandbox game where you are given some constraints, but essentially can do as you wish.
Why do we give these games a historical setting?
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