Capto Iugulum

[Circuit]

OOC: We haven't been a beacon of freedom for decades.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

EQandCivfanatic, I'm growing very concerned about the feeling I'm getting from talking to a variety of players in this NES. There is a strong sense among many of us that many events are being railroaded- that is to say, being directed by yourself towards a predetermined end.

This is extremely problematic for several reasons. An NES is a wonderful thing for its ability to provide an environment for players to play out their roles as leaders of nations in a fictional world. However, the great enjoyment and roleplaying that comes out of this has to come from player autonomy. Players have to have a distinct connection between their ordered actions, and what happens. Their efforts don't all need to be successful, of course. If someone does something foolish, they should pay for it- but the results of their actions do have to matter.

Minor incidents can be explained away as bad luck, but when they build up to a consistent trend favouring particular nations or alliances, this explanation ceases to stand on its own. Thus, when players find themselves in situations where elements of their nation which should be under their control begin to act independently or contrary to the player's orders, or when their efforts and sustained initiatives to change things amount to nothing, they grow confused. When, in spite of common sense or the player's will, large portions of their leadership appear to doggedly pursue some unwanted goal, the players grow frustrated. When a player loses all belief that they can actually change anything in the world of their NES, they have become disenchanted. The critical connection between action and result is lost, and the whole NES suffers as a result.

I want to see Capto Iugulum be the very best NES it can be EQ, but I myself and growing frustrated and disappointed at where I see the world going. I am a neutral third party who has not been significantly impacted by any of the events which people have described to me as railroading, but it is alarming to me nonetheless.

What am I asking? I'm asking if you could join myself, and other like-minded players in a constructive dialogue about where this NES is going, and what say the players have in the NES' direction.

In brief, we just want you to take a moment, drop some of the preconceptions about the way that the world of Capto Iugulum is supposed to be, and consider the world that is forming from the collective actions of your vibrant and active playerbase alone. Sit a moment and listen to the grievances of players. If you can provide satisfying answers to what they have to say, then it will go very far towards restoring and shoring up the confidence of a significant portion of the playerbase in your moderation.

Yours,

-Iggy

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@Lord Iggy: I can assure you that there is no event railroading going on. Not going to say I wasn't a little disappointed that we couldn't reach my goal of 5,700 brigades lost in the Great War, but I wasn't unhappy that things didn't go the way I expected. I can assure you that nothing has been manufactured according to predetermined events that I concieved, and guesses I have made in private have just been guesses, and frankly I've been comfortably wrong more often than I've been right. When people have asked for advice I have given it, and I've done my best to make sure that people know it's just advice, not the will of god that it must be done one way or another. I think there has been only one incident in the entire NES in which I've actually had to put my foot down and block something entirely, mostly because it was horribly out of character for the government and time period of the related player.

Other than that, I'm positively thrilled with the way the NES has shaped out, far beyond anything I actually expected, and there's only one flaw so far with any of the background stuff. The tech tree and behind the scenes development of tech is working surprisingly smoothly, stability and random events furthermore going great, and the economic models (while a bit sketchy in the first two updates) have finally balanced out to realistic patterns after a little tweaking. The most exciting thing to me is that I quite literally have no idea of what's going to happen in this NES, though I can make guesses. But that's more of knowing some of my players fairly well rather than any fiat on my part. The ONLY flaw I've had with the behind the scenes stuff has been naval combat, and the simulations with that have been incredibly time consuming and problematic. Also, I'm dissatisfied with the results it generates. Not faulting its accuracy, I just don't know if I agree with the major losses caused by it, not who wins or loses.

Summary: There has been no railroading caused by me, and I'm happier for it. The twists and turns of this NES are absolutely thrilling to me, and I'm more excited to be moderating this NES than any other. This does not mean there has been no railroading at all, as some of you (you know who you are) are rather good at manipulating other people to being stuck in one good course of action.

EDIT: As for greivances: I pledged [URL="http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=434261]long ago[/URL] to listen if anyone has complaints. So far, I've taken a number of complaints from various people at varying degrees of validity. I'm quite often on AIM and happily respond to PMs, but not Visitor Messages, because those were invented by the devil.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

One final point, that's worth its own post: Some people come to me with an idea for what they want to enact, and I offer pointers. Other people come to me asking for ideas. Frankly, for this ruleset, being railroaded is a state of mind. Cause yeah, if you ask me for ideas, I'll give you some, and some may be better than others, but you're going to feel a bit constrained. My advice is not gospel, though my non-NESing prophecies are.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

My personal feelings around this refer to the Conservative victory in the last Vinlandic elections. I have put in my orders every turn things meant to help warm Vinlandic-American relations- specifically organizing sporting events between us, and working to normalize relations. However, the Conservative Industrialists won on a campaign that was composed almost entirely of anti-American belligerence. Beyond the fact that fighting America is inviting certain destruction for very little potential gains, it makes very little sense to me that this party won, or even got a significant portion of the vote. While the Conservative Industrialist point that Vinlandic neutrality may have cost Scandinavia and its allies the war, why would this have been a wedge issue if the Conservative stance had been anti-Scandinavian?

The Social Democratic Party has begun calling for social reform and even more attraction of migrants from Europe and elsewhere. They have also been less than pleased with even the de jure ties with the Scandinavians, calling for further isolation from the "bad politics" of the home land. The conservatives have been vehemently against these policies, hoping to close the borders to disruptive influences from Europe, especially Stockholm.

The Moderate Orderists of Axel Gyllenstjerna, the leading pro-Scandinavian political party, were thrown out overwhelmingly by the Vinlandic public just shortly before the war. Both other parties, Social Democrat and Conservative Industrialist, ran on anti-Scandinavian platforms.

Going into this latest election, the Social Democrats had:
1. Kept us out of war.
2. Opened up large-scale domestic industrial development.
3. Passed the first legislation protecting workers' rights.
4. Helped to improve relations with America.

We avoided joining the war, avoided severe losses to commerce raiders, co-opted a large part of the 'Industrialist' from Conservative Industrialist, and passed several acts which I would have expected would have been very popular with the emancipated, blue collar voting populace. Yet the party that has very little platform beyond this:

A brutal election campaign was waged by the conservative Industry Party against the Social Democratic chancellor, Grim Magnusson. The campaign was based upon the lack of Vinland's involvement in the war against the Allies, and they have taken the current platform that Vinland's inaction under the Magnusson government cost Scandinavia and its friends the war, and perhaps the best chance of Vinland against an oppressive United States of America.

The immediate problem in this path is the practical issues involved with a nation in Vinland's position harassing a nation in America's position. Vinland, quite simply, has nothing to gain. If we conquer land, we gain a large, angry minority and a revanchist neighbour. If we fight and gain nothing, we merely have a revanchist neighbour who has lost a great deal of trust in us. If we fight and lose, which is overwhelmingly the most likely result, then we lose absolutely everything and America annexes us wholesale, with little issue.

What would even happen if we, utterly implausibly, conquered America ourselves alongside a massive coalition? We would be administrating a population many times larger than our own, or the disunited puppet states carved out of America would spend the rest of their existence plotting Vinland's demise.

The campaign started slow, but as the American Underground began their intensive guerilla attacks in the Northeast, the Vinland Industry Party's newfound platform began to make sense on a wider scale. The Industry Party would manage to gain a slim majority on the basis of their foreign policy alone, pledging to build up Vinland's military security against any offensive threat from the south. Unfortunately they were hard fought, and the politics became quickly bitter, as the Magnusson government possessed a large amount of support for their ambitious domestic policies.

No matter how much domestic instability America finds itself going through, would the population really be convinced to follow such a risky and foolhardy plan after enjoying 4 years of stable governance in a time of world war, coupled with the other things I mentioned about the previous ruling party?

I am asking this because I feel there is either something going on in Vinland that is not being revealed to me, in the updates or otherwise, or that you are trying to direct me into a path that puts me at odds with the United States of America. Either way, I'm unable to come up with a clear explanation for these events, and it's making it hard to maintain my until-now healthy suspension of disbelief regarding events in Vinland.

 

[Circuit]

First, I would like to say that this may not be the most appropriate place for this discussion. A PM, or maybe even a group chat on AIM, may have been more appropriate. Nonetheless, it's here, and I will make my opinion known.

I honestly don't believe that EQ is a railroad mod, and that things go contrary to his desire. The military coup of the US, for example, was the result of rolling boxcars for stability, probably the most interesting stability roll this game has seen and has defined it ever since. Neither EQ nor I planned the coup. So it's the product of his system that things go against what the player intended.

It's given that events go against player intent. However, I believe this enhances the game rather than detracts. I have played NESes where events happen simply because I order them, including massive regime changes, and everything operates smoothly. While those games were fun, I've had more fun where things did not go as planned, and my nation takes a drastically different course than what I intended. This has happened to me. An American election (before the coup, obviously) occurred that was clearly a backlash against one of my economic policies, and I was forced, in the name of role-playing, to reverse the policy that I, according to my education in economics, believed to be the most economically beneficial (EQ also agreed, and his justification for the election result was that the public doesn't always know what's best, which I do honestly believe is true).

If a player wants everything to be executed as planned, and wants complete autonomy, they should play Civilization, which is a sorry excuse of a political simulation (not saying the game isn't fun, though; I play it between updates ). The incomplete autonomy in EQ NESes has made the NES more realistic and, in my opinion, more fun and interesting. No nation has stable policies; democracies have elections that bring in different decision-makers that go against the course of the previous government (which may be the very reason why they were elected). We know this to be a fact in real life. EQ NESes simulate this very well. Ultimately this NES is not Civilization but a role-playing game where the player plays not as the nation, but as the national decision-makers, who in reality change all the time and take governments on drastically different courses (some of which we believe to be flat-out stupid). No video game has ever been able to effectively simulate this, and maybe never will. This has only made the NES more fun and interesting. I don't call this railroading.

While this is a perfectly acceptable discussion, I do not want this thread clogged with debate. I'm here to play, not have a discussion. If I want a discussion I can go argue with my parents about politics or why we have too many pets. I feel that PMs or maybe AIM or #nes would be more appropriate.

 

[Thlayli]

lurker's comment: There's a lot of talk on #nes about the mod intervening to negotiate on behalf of a player which should obviously remain unnamed but is in Russia, which strikes me as a surprisingly high level of intervention for a mod. Perhaps this can serve as a segue into an open discussion of the moderator's duties, here or in WWW.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

In regards to problems with Capto Iugulum, I think it's best if we keep it on this thread. Assuming of course, that the problems are legitimately part of this NES.

@Lord_Iggy: yeah, it was an upset political victory, it can happen, and it was hard fought. It was not what I expected to happen. I think we took away different interpretations of events though. My feeling was that they were elected to guard against the threat of a war with the United States, not prepare for an aggressive war. The way I viewed it was that the politics were fearmongering, not drum beating for a war effort. A lot can change in four years, and the American Underground and the American government's response to them is quite unsettling to the Vinlanders across the border. As for the rest, I think I actually stated in the article that the former government had a lot of support for their domestic policies. I stand by the election results, as politicians have never been above fearmongering to win, and populations have been known to vote people in, despite what others may view as the better interests of the nation. I'm really not trying to force you to one position or another, the only key interest the Industry Party campaigned upon was to improve defenses, not force a war. I think that it's open-ended enough that you could find multiple routes to improve security without actually increasing hostility. I thought of a few of them before I was even done typing the below paragraph.

@Thlayli: Yes. I was informed about this talk on #nes. Here's what happened. TheLastJacobite's computer has been down for a number of weeks, as a lot of you know. Therefore I have conducted a number of negotiations on his behalf over AIM, as we are, as I have said before, RL friends and in contact by phone. 90% of these negotiations have actually been done WHILE he was on the telephone with me, with me saying word for word what he was saying. Only once was this not true, and frankly, I can't discuss it here or else where because it would compromise a number of players' plans. In that case, he gave me the terms, and asked me to pass them on as they were, and asked for a Private Message response. The matter was hardly urgent. In the issue that is at hand in #nes however, I believe that a lot of it stems from a misunderstanding from the other player in question. He obviously somehow believed that the threats and statements being made were the words of god and promises about the future. In fact, based on some of what I've heard, this particularly player almost definitely hallucinated a large part of the conversation. Thankfully I save my NES-related AIM conversations for JUST this reason these days. Unless this player would like me to actually show everyone here that he's telling tall tales, the conversation will not be posted.

 

[Grandkhan]

A Formal Apology to the World

Spain wishes to offer its formal and most sincere apology to the World for its actions in starting the Great War, and for the horrific bloodshed that it has caused.

We wish to accept and acknowledge the fact that it was solely Spain's actions in Colombia that started and caused this war. We apologise to Colombia for starting a civil war within its borders, for aiding an illegitimate rebel, and for acknowledging an illegitimate rebel government within Colombia's borders.

We apologise to the nations of the world, the mothers, daughters, and wives of the millions of men killed as a result of the fact that we alone escalated the War. We are truly and sincerely sorry for our actions in causing such death and destruction.

Furthermore, we acknowledge that the Reusachtig was not sunk by Brazillian ships, and withdraw any previous statement that we made saying that it was.

Signed,
Signed, Emperor Phillip X, and Prime Minister Manuel Garcia Prieto, on behalf of the Spanish Nation

 

[Luckymoose]

TO: Spain
FROM: Brazil

Acceptance is the first step in healing. We thank the Spanish government for their apologies and denying previous slanderous activity as fraudulent.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

If events go against player intent, but they do so in a way that makes sense, then that's okay. I can try to reform my nation, and have the reforms backfire spectacularly. That happens, and if the reforms are performed in a particularly bungling manner, then it should be expected.

Thus, Circuit, a moderator who tolerates your massive regime change without considering the consequences or difficulties of doing so is making a mistake.

The point about Civilization doesn't make a ton of sense to me- Civ is a game, which lacks strong models for roleplaying. We play it for different reasons than the reasons that we NES. A better example might be, "If a player wants everything to be executed as planned, and wants complete autonomy, they should write althistory."

My main concern is that things often develop in ways that do not make sense, not that things often happen that are unexpected. The problems I'm concerned about are not that player plans sometimes fall through- it is that when they do fall through, what happens does not make sense given the context of the nation.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@Lord Iggy: Perhaps the article on your elections could have been better written, I was rather distracted while writing this update, for rather personal reasons based in real life. I feel that the results do make sense for your nation, and other events have made sense for other nations, and perhaps we're just thinking of it on different levels. I do stand by statement though, that there's no hidden agenda by me for the direction of the NES. It's entirely possible that my election system could need revisions, and I'll be recruiting an unbiased observer to review the system and see if there's improvements that could be made. He'll take a good look at the ruleset, and we'll figure out what, if anything, may have gone wrong with your elections.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Well, your explanation of the electoral results as fearmongering by the Conservative Industrialists makes a lot more sense, although I don't understand quite as well why they pulled an about-face regarding involvement in Europe- was that a shallow move to win political points, or was it a genuine shift in their party's politics?

And perhaps the electoral system does need a rework- I'm not entirely sure how you weight parties, but realistic elections certainly aren't pure chance- a party with desirable policies or popular actions in its recent past should have a larger chance of winning, in any system.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@Lord Iggy: I leave it up to you to decide wether it was shallow or a genuine shift. It is your nation after all. Yeah, I am aware elections aren't pure chance, it's currently managed by, at its core an RNG system, BUT it's weighted based on a number of factors and a systematic distribution of manpower. That's the simple answer anyways, I don't want to go more in depth, simply because I don't want less scrupulous people exploiting the system.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Alright, thank you for the explanation of Vinlandic events. I'll do my best to take it from there.

 

[Luckymoose]

TO: World
FROM: Empire of Brazil

Rio de Janeiro has been a beacon for freedom and hope to millions for generations. With the near return of world peace, and the soon to be complete subway transit system underneath the city, Brazil offers Rio de Janeiro as the site of the coming 1912 Olympic Games as a sign of world peace and prosperity in the aftermath of the Spanish caused Great War. We invite our Allies to support our claim to the event to start a new era of peaceful competition in Paradise City.

 

[Justo]

To: World
From: The Arabian Empire
RE: Olympics

The Arabian Empire offers its vote to Brazil to host the 1912 Olympics.

To: World
From: The Arabian Empire
CC: Kurdistan
RE: Baghdad Pact

The Arabian Empire is pleased to announce the formation of Alliance between ourselves and Kurdistan. Henceforth this Alliance will be known as the Baghdad Pact.

 

[erez87]

The Ypres Convention, 1908​

As the Flemish observers begin to return from the fronts with their reports, the government of Flanders has begun to compile their observations into the Calais Reports. It is already clear though, that the Calais Convention is imperfect, and requires adjustments in order to keep up with the times. For this reason the government of Flanders is calling a convention in the city of Ypres, convened now through the year 1909, in order to amend the Calais Convention. Flanders encourages both those nations who are already signatories and those who have not yet signed to attend, so that all peoples and countries may have a voice in the amendment of the Convention. Come the release of the Calais Reports, any nation will be invited to propose an Amendment to the Calais Convention, which will be voted upon by all nations present at Ypres. The government of Flanders holds great hope that this convention will serve to somewhat assuage the suffering of both soldiers and civilians caught up in the hell that is war, at least for as long as mankind continues to fight wars.

Though the Calais Reports remain incomplete, a pattern has already emerged from the preliminary review of the various individual reports collected from our observers. Every one of our observers who have seen the effects of gas warfare have resoundingly denounced it as the most inhumane and torturous of any weapon man has yet conceived. Therefore, to start the convention at Ypres, Flanders proposes the following Amendment:

Amendment 9: Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world, to the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of the Calais Convention, binding alike the conscience and the practice of the signatory nations, abolishing its use in conflict between the signatory nations.

If invited, the Italian Republic will send delegates to the Ypres convention.

 

[Grandkhan]

Spain believes that the banning of gas weapons removes a valuable weapon from the arsenals of the world, and will not attend the Convention.

 

[Luckymoose]

Brazil will not attend this convention.