DaNES I: At the Precipice
Please don't post yet, or I may be forced to resort to nasty measures.
Setting
Once again, an althistorical NES has come, to wreak havoc upon those who dwell in cradles. The year is 1926, and twilight is descending over Europe. The United States’ Civil War and the wars of German Unification dominated the decade of the 1860s and seventies, which culminated in the French attempt for hegemony in the Great European War. Following the British, German, and Russian victory in the war, the Great Powers re-divided into two opposing blocs: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Russia, and the United States, against the Entente Powers of Britain, France, Spain, China, and Japan, which competed with each other for colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Now that space has finally run out, tensions are growing between the humongous power blocs. A vast arms race is underway, on land, with tanks and artillery; in the air, with zeppelins and airplanes; and in the seas, with aircraft carriers and dreadnoughts. Border clashes occur each month in Thrace, Alsace-Lorraine, Mexico, and Manchuria; war seems imminent. The coming global war will determine the hegemons of the Twentieth Century; the losers can expect nothing less than total failure and destruction.
Introduction
This is my first attempt at modding; hopefully, you guys will prevent it from being my last. This NES is organized around usual das rules, for ease of use, ease of modding, and my own personal comfort level; there have been some major changes, but on the whole the rules are similar to those of the recently begun AFSNES I. I’ll deliver the best product I can, but the update is only as good as the orders are, so in return I’ll need all y’all to be as committed as possible – and you’ll get the same from me.
The Usual First Post Stuff
Players – Anyone can join, as long as he or she has a Civilization Fanatics’ Forum account and commitment to sending orders in a timely fashion. If you don’t have the time to manage a country, please don’t join, but if you can devote your time and energy to this, by all means start playing.
Stories – While the bonus system won’t be in use, stories will be incorporated as best I can into the updates, and may have an effect on the game, though it won’t be as blatant as (+5 divisions) or anything like that.
Orders – PM these please, in any format you like so long as it’s readable and it has the information I need readily at hand. Spending orders, diplomacy, and military operations are the only necessary parts, but pretty much anything you want to do with your nation is possible (so long as you check with me if it isn’t in the rules). Make sure that the orders are clear and without unnecessary detail; being too vague and general is naturally bad, but knowing the radio frequencies on which your troops transmit messages is also extreme. Please also make sure that you have read the rules before you send orders, as not doing so might mess things up for all of us. I’m pretty lenient on order deadlines, especially if it’s infrequent, due to RL troubles, or something like that, but repeated failure to turn orders in on time will be punished severely and creatively. Turning in orders early is sure to get you on my good side.
NPCs – Non-player-controlled factions will obviously be played by the mod; I’ll play these in character, ‘course, and a few will be fairly apathetic and passive. Then again, we all know that 1914 Serbia was an NPC…bwahahaha…
Updates – I’m no robot, updating for years every Wednesday like clockwork; thus, after each update, I’ll post the next order deadline, and an update should come a day or two after the order deadline. Each update covers a year of world action and consists of military and non-military events (may be changed if there get to be too many non-military events), plus bonuses for doing stuff I like, such as early orders, good orders, inclusion of our furry friends (even to the chagrin of sticks-in-the-mud such as [censored]), and OOC, which is an opportunity for me to rant about people who screwed up and/or laugh about a particularly entertaining mishap that seems to have befallen the most powerful nation in the world. If you insist on sneaky black ops or intel gathering or whatever, I’ll PM you secret reports on their success and/or failure.
Map – The standard CFC world map, with all of its failings, inherent flaws, and ubiquity. It’s a political map, with each nation getting its very own color (and you said I didn’t give you anything nice!), which denotes its control of its own territory, plus whatever it’s occupied. Thicker lines denote boundaries between countries; thin lines divide territories or autonomous regions of political significance. Black circles are cities; cities with a white outline are national capitals, and cities with a red one are economy centers of manufacturing and/or trade. Eco centers each give a country a certain amount of extra eco points depending on what it does; the list of eco centers can be found on the stat page, and is updated with the stats and map every turn. You cannot really influence the development of eco centers directly, but trade pacts, military actions, or some such will probably change the amount of money you get from them. White on the map denotes unorganized rebels or Antarctica; as soon as the rebels or Antarcticans become organized, they get their own color too. Added to this will be an army map displaying the positions and proximate numbers of troops/ships for each nation/faction; they will be denoted with the nation color, unless they are armies on national territory, in which case they are colored black. This ought to cut down on the number of questions I get each turn, plus it gives players a reason to rant (Why not use NATO symbols, to confuse them even more?).
Countries – Pick an NPC or start a rebellion (about the latter: please consult me first, because unrealistic or unviable rebellions start way too often in these games, and consequently get crushed way too easily). Rebels movements don’t get any stats until they actually take over some territory. If you pick an existing country, please make sure to read your nation background at the very least, so as to act in-character (another problem), or so I don’t get so many bloody questions. Reading the entire TL would be even better, but unfortunately I seem to be a bit long-winded for most of you to stomach, so I’ll probably have to just live with the nation descriptions.
Reformers are fine, and they have always existed, and they will always run into problems implementing reforms, so try to not go overboard and rely on the history of your nation to have some idea of what you can and can’t reasonably do. Some people have already reserved nations or will do so during the time this thing spends in the preview thread; unless they fail to confirm them in a timely fashion, they won’t be up for grabs.
NATIONAL TEMPLATE
Nation Name
Capital:
Ruler:
Government (Bureaucracy):
Technology:
Army [Mobilizable]:
Army Cap:
Navy:
Air Force:
Military Upkeep:
Economy (Base/Eco Centers):
Area:
Infrastructure:
Population:
Education:
Living Standards:
Culture:
Confidence:
Projects:
Colonies (Government/Income/Militia/Confidence):
Nation Background:
Government
This is obviously your form of government, from Oligarchic Parliamentary Monarchy to Democratic Republic. Parliamentary or democratic forms of government (easy enough to figure out from the name) will have some possibility of order overriding, especially if this is a move – reform, diplomatic, military – that has a good measure of unpopularity in your country. You should probably provide reasons for your actions, although bribery, blackmail, and murder are also possible, with the attendant consequences. Radical changes in government and hasty reforms are also poor ideas, especially if you don’t give any reasons for them, because anachronistic actions – not as much a problem in the 1920s, but still an issue if I know certain NESers – generally don’t sit well with the populace. Think about these things, or ask me about whether or not it’s a good idea. Several attempts to reform, both in real life (French Revolution) and NESing (NES2 V’s Italy), have met with horrible failure and nasty consequences due to unrealistic expectations.
Also, parliamentary governments will have periodic elections; for the United States especially, these may have a very huge impact on policy. Generally a leader with confidence higher than Tolerating will be able to win, but in the event of losing the player will have to play with a different leader and a different political party at the helm, with the attendant changes in policy, which you could ignore at your peril or do the usual government job of doing what the People Want (a bad one). Decisions are more likely to be vetoed by your senate, parliament, or representative assembly if you go against the party line.
Bureaucracy
The civil service system is critical; you make the grand strategic policy decisions that affect millions, and the bureaucrats implement them and manage day to day operations. A well trained bureaucracy can improve revenue, confidence, or even alter policy to make it more appealing to the masses (or more efficient); a poor one can inflame the people, spread corruption, paralyze your government, and ruin the best laid plans of mice, men, and polar bears.
None-Ineffectual-Corrupt-Incompetent-Blundering-Tolerable-Improving-Competent-Efficient-Great-Brilliant
Technology
Since everyone hates the age system (with good reason), a different one will be used; while an age-type descriptor will be affixed to each country’s stats with the usual technologies available, any deviations from the norm (whether it be faster tanks, better radio, television, or what have you) are also listed next to the “age”, which is generally the same for everyone with few exceptions. You can order technology research, but it generally needs to be feasible and funded to get anywhere, and you might need people who can actually read as well. You can’t trade techs like in the Civilization games, but people with technical expertise may be loaned to another nation, or your own products might be sold over there for this other country to reverse-engineer.
Second Industrial Revolution: Development of radio, electricity as a viable power source, use of internal combustion engines, use of iron and steel warships, machine guns, early rotary engine airplanes, beginning of real chemical research (harmful gases for military use as well as advanced industrial dyes), development of the assembly line as method of production.
Machine Age: Development of more advanced aircraft and rigid airships, and the use of piston engines for power and monoplanes as opposed to bi- and tri-planes; construction of large steel buildings of great height (skyscrapers); more rapid and comfortable transportation by automobiles, airliners (zeppelins and planes), railroads, and ships; high speed printing technology, allowing the spread of cheaper newspapers; development of earthmoving technology; refinement of radio technology into early forms of television and cinema; use of early tanks on the battlefield; mass production of modern consumer goods running on electrical power.
Later: Who knows?
Military
My own personal favorite, the military is based on divisions/brigades, types of ship, and air squadrons. In this NES, a slightly more realistic way of handling more modern ground forces has been introduced, i.e. the use of mobilization and reserves. Each player has a standing army, which must be paid for via the upkeep stat along with the navy and air force. However, when war is imminent – or if you would like to make a diplomatic point or threat – your reserves (shown in brackets next to the standing army) may be mobilized by paying 1 EP for every 20 units you wish to add to your standing army. Upkeep will be adjusted accordingly. Mobilizing your reserves is likely to hurt your economy; demobilization, which doesn’t require any money from you, will help to boost it again. If you wish to add troops to your reserves, not your standing army, you can acquire double the number of units per eco point - but you can't add reserves and activate them in the same turn. Also, conscripts exist, and depending on population size, area of your territory invaded, confidence in your government, etc., you will be able to raise different amounts per turn; it’s wise to ask me about exact numbers. This will weaken the economy even more than recruiting beyond the cap (seen below), and these troops are generally of very low quality, good for garrisoning, holding inactive portions of the battle line, and/or cannon fodder.
Logistics are important; it’s difficult to have tanks move forward without oil, and infantry may fail to carry a position without any ammo. It’s wisest to spend at least 1 EP per campaign, but if there’s any doubt whatsoever – for instance, you send 100 divisions into your neighbor on a 2000-mile front – you should ask me for the cost.
Armies also have a cap beyond which you can’t recruit any more troops. This primarily rests on population, but also may have something to do with the civilian response to the war. Recruiting beyond the cap is possible but carries with it the likelihood of lowering confidence and/or economy. You can raise the cap by spending 1 EP/5 units, with the limit being 50 times your population size.
Your troops can probably move quite quickly – after all, this is the threshold of the mechanized age of warfare, with trucks and tanks and airplanes. However, you should also consider geography, infrastructure, and enemy resistance – everyone remembers our good friend “Charlie Chaplin”, right?
Partisans (in this world, called jägers after the events of the Great European War) and militias do exist, and will not be in the stats because you have basically no control over them. If they do rise up, they’ll be mentioned in the relevant portions of the update. You can do your best to coordinate your efforts with them, but usually they won’t do too well under orders.
Inasmuch as I love military doctrines in NESes, I’m asking for one here as well; you can go as in depth or as vague as you wish, with the attendant consequences. There are two current schools of thought in the field of military strategy right now, and you could adhere to one or the other or even try to make a synthesis or go striking out on your own, so long as you a) tell me and b) tell me why. You can always make changes to the doctrine or deviate from it on specific occasions, and if you don’t give any specific operational guidelines I will assume your troops use standard doctrine.
1 EP buys:
5 infantry divisions
2 marine infantry divisions
2 tank brigades
3 artillery brigades
5 fighter squadrons
2 zeppelin squadrons
5 destroyers
5 submarines
3 cruisers
2 dreadnoughts
1 aircraft carrier
Economy
The most important part of the economy is that you cannot directly alter its workings. There is no “invest 3 EP in economy via industrialization” now. Economy is divided into three areas: base (taxing, industry, internal commerce, agriculture), colonies, and eco centers (external trade, some manufacturing, based on important cities), plus a description of how your economy’s doing (recession, boom, stagnant, whatever). Each turn, you can spend an amount of EP (eco points) equal to the sum of base, eco centers, and income from whatever colonies you may own (plus indemnities, plunder, and other ways to extract EP).
There are many things that you can do to influence the growth of the economy, most of which have other side effects, too. You can raise taxes and/or tariffs (with the attendant consequences), create jobs via Keynesian methods of creating more bureaucracy and injecting money into various companies, sign trade agreements, subsidize corporations, improve national infrastructure (and thus internal trade), or virtually anything. Loans are generally readily available, with some interest attached (the terms of which will be made clear to you when you apply for one), and probably a payment schedule. Other factors (like getting blockaded, or pillaging, or mobilization, etc.) will obviously have an impact here as well.
You can spend EP on loads of stuff – the military, improving level-based stats (paying attention to area and population, natürlich), logistics, investments in various schemes, projects, paying for previous loans, and the like. Banking eco is possible, but inflation will quickly rear its ugly head (losing at least 1 EP/turn when there’s more than 1 EP banked and unused, which could go higher depending on the state of your economy), and corruption could be problematic if you’re so silly as to bank eco when you could have simply raised Bureaucracy. And, unlike certain past games, you can’t raise a level based stat beyond the last level, although you may rest assured that it will decrease with time and without maintenance.
Area
This is the size of your nation, not counting colonies or occupied areas what haven’t been officially ceded to you yet. It affects a few things, but mostly you should use this number when determining the number of points to spend on infrastructure and bureaucracy. It’s a number – the number being the amount of EP to spend on infrastructure and bureaucracy, funnily enough.
Infrastructure
Planes, trains, and automobiles need airports, tracks, and roads respectively, and infrastructure gives those to them. The size of your merchant fleet, the quality and extensiveness of your roads, and your civil aviation fleet are all part of the infrastructure stat, which influences trade (and thus eco centers and/or base), military cap, and even culture.
None-Dirt Paths-Pathetic-Barely Tolerable-Tolerable-Improving-Good-Efficient-Very Efficient-Great-Excellent
Population
Your sheeple pay your salary and fill your armies, so it might be wise to give a care about them every once in a while. Similar to area, it is used as area is, except this is the multiplier for living standards and education. Economy, military cap, and conscripts are also affected by population.
Education
Your people need to be educated to allow (or at least speed up) technological progress, altering the amount of time tech research may take. Higher education levels may allow you random innovations which you may not have ordered. Reaching the Singularity education level greatly improves your chances of reaching the next “age” (although these events seem unlikely outside of BTs), which as usual decreases your education level by two.
Education has a major impact on several other things – politically, less educated populations won’t be as open to reforms or revolutions, and a more educated one will likely as not demand reforms or instigate revolutions quickly if their sensibilities are not kept in mind. This should (hopefully) alter your approach to carrying out enlightened reform on turn one, or to not reforming at all. Also, more educated populaces will perform better militarily, as long as they haven’t got anything against the war itself.
None-Dumb-Illiterate-Tolerable-Literate-Educated-Well Educated-Academic-Enlightenment-Singularity
Living Standards
Higher living standards make revolt much less likely – after all, what will the people gain what they haven’t got already? They may also increase economy levels, or even have higher education (through tutors and the like). A sharp drop in living standards, due to neglect or to economic problems or to some silly war or other, will probably increase the likelihood of revolt, worsen your economy even further, or cause other fun problems the likes of which are frankly terrifying to comprehend. Educated nations with low living standards will probably have problems as well.
None-Slums-Very Low-Low-Barely Tolerable-Tolerable-Normal-Higher-Very High-Splendid
Culture
This is a written description of your national culture; who lives there, the religions they follow; the unity or lack thereof of the populace, and such. You can’t influence this directly either, but there are things that may do so, and of course this has an effect of gameplay in what should be fairly obvious ways.
Confidence
Do your people like you? How much? More loyal citizens will gladly join the military and take up arms, work in factories for the war effort, and stifle revolt; a people that hate you will also take up arms, but for a completely different reason. Your successes or failures, real or not, will have a major impact on the public opinion, as will whatever propaganda you choose to roll out. Confidence also has an impact on elected governments during elections (and in some cases can even cause special elections or votes of confidence to go awry), in that a confidence lower than Respecting will probably lose your faction the election with the attendant policy changes for your government. You cannot grow confidence by eco points directly, because that’s just silly.
Lynching-Hateful-Resentful-Barely Tolerating-Tolerating-Respecting-Admiring-Loving-Nation Personified
Projects
Instead of Civilization’s Wonders, you get these fun things, which are probably more programs instead of big useless buildings. You can usually have a project change pretty much any stat out there, but it’s wisest to talk to me first, especially if it has an esoteric effect on several stats that may not be obvious. Most projects have intended and unintended consequences, both good and bad, and to improve the quality of these and possibly ward off some horrible things that may happen to you upon the beginning of this project, you should describe projects to me in some detail as opposed to simply listing the effects, because I may have no idea how you intend to get there.
To start a project, invest 1 eco point, and after that it will progress on its own. It’s possible to shorten the length of a project by investing either 1 EP (speeding it up by 1 turn) or 2 EP (speeding it up by 2 turns), or even using some other innovative solution, whether it be stealing scientists from other countries, throwing slaves at a problem, or something entirely different. (You should probably not throw slaves at the Manhattan Project, and stealing scientists will be nearly useless when trying to construct a fortification line or increase the military.)
You can also make a project secret, with the attendant extra spending necessary to do so.
Colonies
Colonies are overseas possessions that actually matter (insert joke about Newfoundland here) and are thus given stats, which differ slightly from the nation statistics given elsewhere. Colonial government involves how much control you have over the colony. Income depends on many things, such as population, available resources, development, and the like. Militia is the number of troops that you could raise to fight off an invasion, reducing – but not totally eliminating – the need to keep track of your regular army units and to garrison them in your colonies. Your militia may also rebel against you and form the core of a partisan army, a la the 1857 Great Mutiny. Militia should generally not be used in aggressive campaigns, but it is possible, depending on number of troops and colonial confidence. Confidence, by the way, works just like normal confidence.
Nation Background
Almost redundant if you have read the TL, the nation background is a simple, paragraph length description of your country to help you play in character and have some knowledge of what your country is like. They will be updated every so often, as long as there is some good reason, such as a significant change, to do so. Role-playing is sort of important, so please make sure to stay reasonably in character.
Intelligence
You can PM me questions that I may or may not answer truthfully and almost certainly ambiguously, representing your intelligence service’s knowledge of the situation. You can also add espionage or intel portions to your orders, giving me the lowdown on what sort of secret spy missions or sabotage ops you wish to conduct, and after the update I’ll send you a PM of the results if they are of significance. Spies aren’t omnipotent or omniscient, so they could conceivably be flat-out wrong; it’s best to make sure that you have ordered the construction of an intel network (which doesn’t really require much money unless you want to make it a good one).
Everything else
If you have any questions at all about anything ambiguously covered by stats, rules, or update, or are just plain confused, post them or PM them to me. I’m here to take your orders and turn them into an update, and to create a fun gaming environment, not to terrify you into submission and silence. You might even be able to argue me into a different stance on your ability to do something, although it is advisable not to pursue this for very long, for the mod’s decision is final, and his temper is sadly very short.
If this is among your first NESes, I’d like to welcome you to NESing and advise you to visit the guide and talk to more experienced players about how to work well in a NES. However, do not expect that anyone will go easily on you if you are new. In fact, being new may be a good incentive for people to attack you – look at Carl XII. If you do something terribly rash or OOC, I’ll probably hint against doing so (if you’re relatively new), but that can’t be expected to happen every time, or even most of the time. In the words of das (in a game with oddly familiar rules): “Remember – anything you say or do can be turned against you, any plan can go terribly awry, a worst-case scenario is perfectly plausible and everyone is out to get you. That is, most usually, not OOC player malice or biased moderation – rather, that is part of the game.”
Any criticism whatsoever, whether it be “I hate Americans”, “You’re so biased”, “Stop with the ******ed polar bears and penguins, etc.”, “You forgot [stat]”, or “This update is too [long/short/mediocre/boring/exciting/unrealistic]”, will be welcomed. I don’t like yes-persons as much as I like providing you with a better NESing experience.
Hopefully this will turn out to be mildly successful and reasonably long-lived; the upcoming Global War should be interesting, at the very least. Perhaps it may even warrant further DaNESes.
Having said all that, let’s get down to brass tacks; I need your input on the rules, the stats, the name, and nation reservations. Have at them!
Please don't post yet, or I may be forced to resort to nasty measures.
Setting
Once again, an althistorical NES has come, to wreak havoc upon those who dwell in cradles. The year is 1926, and twilight is descending over Europe. The United States’ Civil War and the wars of German Unification dominated the decade of the 1860s and seventies, which culminated in the French attempt for hegemony in the Great European War. Following the British, German, and Russian victory in the war, the Great Powers re-divided into two opposing blocs: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Russia, and the United States, against the Entente Powers of Britain, France, Spain, China, and Japan, which competed with each other for colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Now that space has finally run out, tensions are growing between the humongous power blocs. A vast arms race is underway, on land, with tanks and artillery; in the air, with zeppelins and airplanes; and in the seas, with aircraft carriers and dreadnoughts. Border clashes occur each month in Thrace, Alsace-Lorraine, Mexico, and Manchuria; war seems imminent. The coming global war will determine the hegemons of the Twentieth Century; the losers can expect nothing less than total failure and destruction.
Introduction
This is my first attempt at modding; hopefully, you guys will prevent it from being my last. This NES is organized around usual das rules, for ease of use, ease of modding, and my own personal comfort level; there have been some major changes, but on the whole the rules are similar to those of the recently begun AFSNES I. I’ll deliver the best product I can, but the update is only as good as the orders are, so in return I’ll need all y’all to be as committed as possible – and you’ll get the same from me.
The Usual First Post Stuff
Players – Anyone can join, as long as he or she has a Civilization Fanatics’ Forum account and commitment to sending orders in a timely fashion. If you don’t have the time to manage a country, please don’t join, but if you can devote your time and energy to this, by all means start playing.
Stories – While the bonus system won’t be in use, stories will be incorporated as best I can into the updates, and may have an effect on the game, though it won’t be as blatant as (+5 divisions) or anything like that.
Orders – PM these please, in any format you like so long as it’s readable and it has the information I need readily at hand. Spending orders, diplomacy, and military operations are the only necessary parts, but pretty much anything you want to do with your nation is possible (so long as you check with me if it isn’t in the rules). Make sure that the orders are clear and without unnecessary detail; being too vague and general is naturally bad, but knowing the radio frequencies on which your troops transmit messages is also extreme. Please also make sure that you have read the rules before you send orders, as not doing so might mess things up for all of us. I’m pretty lenient on order deadlines, especially if it’s infrequent, due to RL troubles, or something like that, but repeated failure to turn orders in on time will be punished severely and creatively. Turning in orders early is sure to get you on my good side.
NPCs – Non-player-controlled factions will obviously be played by the mod; I’ll play these in character, ‘course, and a few will be fairly apathetic and passive. Then again, we all know that 1914 Serbia was an NPC…bwahahaha…
Updates – I’m no robot, updating for years every Wednesday like clockwork; thus, after each update, I’ll post the next order deadline, and an update should come a day or two after the order deadline. Each update covers a year of world action and consists of military and non-military events (may be changed if there get to be too many non-military events), plus bonuses for doing stuff I like, such as early orders, good orders, inclusion of our furry friends (even to the chagrin of sticks-in-the-mud such as [censored]), and OOC, which is an opportunity for me to rant about people who screwed up and/or laugh about a particularly entertaining mishap that seems to have befallen the most powerful nation in the world. If you insist on sneaky black ops or intel gathering or whatever, I’ll PM you secret reports on their success and/or failure.
Map – The standard CFC world map, with all of its failings, inherent flaws, and ubiquity. It’s a political map, with each nation getting its very own color (and you said I didn’t give you anything nice!), which denotes its control of its own territory, plus whatever it’s occupied. Thicker lines denote boundaries between countries; thin lines divide territories or autonomous regions of political significance. Black circles are cities; cities with a white outline are national capitals, and cities with a red one are economy centers of manufacturing and/or trade. Eco centers each give a country a certain amount of extra eco points depending on what it does; the list of eco centers can be found on the stat page, and is updated with the stats and map every turn. You cannot really influence the development of eco centers directly, but trade pacts, military actions, or some such will probably change the amount of money you get from them. White on the map denotes unorganized rebels or Antarctica; as soon as the rebels or Antarcticans become organized, they get their own color too. Added to this will be an army map displaying the positions and proximate numbers of troops/ships for each nation/faction; they will be denoted with the nation color, unless they are armies on national territory, in which case they are colored black. This ought to cut down on the number of questions I get each turn, plus it gives players a reason to rant (Why not use NATO symbols, to confuse them even more?).
Countries – Pick an NPC or start a rebellion (about the latter: please consult me first, because unrealistic or unviable rebellions start way too often in these games, and consequently get crushed way too easily). Rebels movements don’t get any stats until they actually take over some territory. If you pick an existing country, please make sure to read your nation background at the very least, so as to act in-character (another problem), or so I don’t get so many bloody questions. Reading the entire TL would be even better, but unfortunately I seem to be a bit long-winded for most of you to stomach, so I’ll probably have to just live with the nation descriptions.
Reformers are fine, and they have always existed, and they will always run into problems implementing reforms, so try to not go overboard and rely on the history of your nation to have some idea of what you can and can’t reasonably do. Some people have already reserved nations or will do so during the time this thing spends in the preview thread; unless they fail to confirm them in a timely fashion, they won’t be up for grabs.NATIONAL TEMPLATE
Nation Name
Capital:
Ruler:
Government (Bureaucracy):
Technology:
Army [Mobilizable]:
Army Cap:
Navy:
Air Force:
Military Upkeep:
Economy (Base/Eco Centers):
Area:
Infrastructure:
Population:
Education:
Living Standards:
Culture:
Confidence:
Projects:
Colonies (Government/Income/Militia/Confidence):
Nation Background:
Government
This is obviously your form of government, from Oligarchic Parliamentary Monarchy to Democratic Republic. Parliamentary or democratic forms of government (easy enough to figure out from the name) will have some possibility of order overriding, especially if this is a move – reform, diplomatic, military – that has a good measure of unpopularity in your country. You should probably provide reasons for your actions, although bribery, blackmail, and murder are also possible, with the attendant consequences. Radical changes in government and hasty reforms are also poor ideas, especially if you don’t give any reasons for them, because anachronistic actions – not as much a problem in the 1920s, but still an issue if I know certain NESers – generally don’t sit well with the populace. Think about these things, or ask me about whether or not it’s a good idea. Several attempts to reform, both in real life (French Revolution) and NESing (NES2 V’s Italy), have met with horrible failure and nasty consequences due to unrealistic expectations.
Also, parliamentary governments will have periodic elections; for the United States especially, these may have a very huge impact on policy. Generally a leader with confidence higher than Tolerating will be able to win, but in the event of losing the player will have to play with a different leader and a different political party at the helm, with the attendant changes in policy, which you could ignore at your peril or do the usual government job of doing what the People Want (a bad one). Decisions are more likely to be vetoed by your senate, parliament, or representative assembly if you go against the party line.
Bureaucracy
The civil service system is critical; you make the grand strategic policy decisions that affect millions, and the bureaucrats implement them and manage day to day operations. A well trained bureaucracy can improve revenue, confidence, or even alter policy to make it more appealing to the masses (or more efficient); a poor one can inflame the people, spread corruption, paralyze your government, and ruin the best laid plans of mice, men, and polar bears.
None-Ineffectual-Corrupt-Incompetent-Blundering-Tolerable-Improving-Competent-Efficient-Great-Brilliant
Technology
Since everyone hates the age system (with good reason), a different one will be used; while an age-type descriptor will be affixed to each country’s stats with the usual technologies available, any deviations from the norm (whether it be faster tanks, better radio, television, or what have you) are also listed next to the “age”, which is generally the same for everyone with few exceptions. You can order technology research, but it generally needs to be feasible and funded to get anywhere, and you might need people who can actually read as well. You can’t trade techs like in the Civilization games, but people with technical expertise may be loaned to another nation, or your own products might be sold over there for this other country to reverse-engineer.
Second Industrial Revolution: Development of radio, electricity as a viable power source, use of internal combustion engines, use of iron and steel warships, machine guns, early rotary engine airplanes, beginning of real chemical research (harmful gases for military use as well as advanced industrial dyes), development of the assembly line as method of production.
Machine Age: Development of more advanced aircraft and rigid airships, and the use of piston engines for power and monoplanes as opposed to bi- and tri-planes; construction of large steel buildings of great height (skyscrapers); more rapid and comfortable transportation by automobiles, airliners (zeppelins and planes), railroads, and ships; high speed printing technology, allowing the spread of cheaper newspapers; development of earthmoving technology; refinement of radio technology into early forms of television and cinema; use of early tanks on the battlefield; mass production of modern consumer goods running on electrical power.
Later: Who knows?
Military
My own personal favorite, the military is based on divisions/brigades, types of ship, and air squadrons. In this NES, a slightly more realistic way of handling more modern ground forces has been introduced, i.e. the use of mobilization and reserves. Each player has a standing army, which must be paid for via the upkeep stat along with the navy and air force. However, when war is imminent – or if you would like to make a diplomatic point or threat – your reserves (shown in brackets next to the standing army) may be mobilized by paying 1 EP for every 20 units you wish to add to your standing army. Upkeep will be adjusted accordingly. Mobilizing your reserves is likely to hurt your economy; demobilization, which doesn’t require any money from you, will help to boost it again. If you wish to add troops to your reserves, not your standing army, you can acquire double the number of units per eco point - but you can't add reserves and activate them in the same turn. Also, conscripts exist, and depending on population size, area of your territory invaded, confidence in your government, etc., you will be able to raise different amounts per turn; it’s wise to ask me about exact numbers. This will weaken the economy even more than recruiting beyond the cap (seen below), and these troops are generally of very low quality, good for garrisoning, holding inactive portions of the battle line, and/or cannon fodder.
Logistics are important; it’s difficult to have tanks move forward without oil, and infantry may fail to carry a position without any ammo. It’s wisest to spend at least 1 EP per campaign, but if there’s any doubt whatsoever – for instance, you send 100 divisions into your neighbor on a 2000-mile front – you should ask me for the cost.
Armies also have a cap beyond which you can’t recruit any more troops. This primarily rests on population, but also may have something to do with the civilian response to the war. Recruiting beyond the cap is possible but carries with it the likelihood of lowering confidence and/or economy. You can raise the cap by spending 1 EP/5 units, with the limit being 50 times your population size.
Your troops can probably move quite quickly – after all, this is the threshold of the mechanized age of warfare, with trucks and tanks and airplanes. However, you should also consider geography, infrastructure, and enemy resistance – everyone remembers our good friend “Charlie Chaplin”, right?
Partisans (in this world, called jägers after the events of the Great European War) and militias do exist, and will not be in the stats because you have basically no control over them. If they do rise up, they’ll be mentioned in the relevant portions of the update. You can do your best to coordinate your efforts with them, but usually they won’t do too well under orders.
Inasmuch as I love military doctrines in NESes, I’m asking for one here as well; you can go as in depth or as vague as you wish, with the attendant consequences. There are two current schools of thought in the field of military strategy right now, and you could adhere to one or the other or even try to make a synthesis or go striking out on your own, so long as you a) tell me and b) tell me why. You can always make changes to the doctrine or deviate from it on specific occasions, and if you don’t give any specific operational guidelines I will assume your troops use standard doctrine.
1 EP buys:
5 infantry divisions
2 marine infantry divisions
2 tank brigades
3 artillery brigades
5 fighter squadrons
2 zeppelin squadrons
5 destroyers
5 submarines
3 cruisers
2 dreadnoughts
1 aircraft carrier
Economy
The most important part of the economy is that you cannot directly alter its workings. There is no “invest 3 EP in economy via industrialization” now. Economy is divided into three areas: base (taxing, industry, internal commerce, agriculture), colonies, and eco centers (external trade, some manufacturing, based on important cities), plus a description of how your economy’s doing (recession, boom, stagnant, whatever). Each turn, you can spend an amount of EP (eco points) equal to the sum of base, eco centers, and income from whatever colonies you may own (plus indemnities, plunder, and other ways to extract EP).
There are many things that you can do to influence the growth of the economy, most of which have other side effects, too. You can raise taxes and/or tariffs (with the attendant consequences), create jobs via Keynesian methods of creating more bureaucracy and injecting money into various companies, sign trade agreements, subsidize corporations, improve national infrastructure (and thus internal trade), or virtually anything. Loans are generally readily available, with some interest attached (the terms of which will be made clear to you when you apply for one), and probably a payment schedule. Other factors (like getting blockaded, or pillaging, or mobilization, etc.) will obviously have an impact here as well.
You can spend EP on loads of stuff – the military, improving level-based stats (paying attention to area and population, natürlich), logistics, investments in various schemes, projects, paying for previous loans, and the like. Banking eco is possible, but inflation will quickly rear its ugly head (losing at least 1 EP/turn when there’s more than 1 EP banked and unused, which could go higher depending on the state of your economy), and corruption could be problematic if you’re so silly as to bank eco when you could have simply raised Bureaucracy. And, unlike certain past games, you can’t raise a level based stat beyond the last level, although you may rest assured that it will decrease with time and without maintenance.
Area
This is the size of your nation, not counting colonies or occupied areas what haven’t been officially ceded to you yet. It affects a few things, but mostly you should use this number when determining the number of points to spend on infrastructure and bureaucracy. It’s a number – the number being the amount of EP to spend on infrastructure and bureaucracy, funnily enough.
Infrastructure
Planes, trains, and automobiles need airports, tracks, and roads respectively, and infrastructure gives those to them. The size of your merchant fleet, the quality and extensiveness of your roads, and your civil aviation fleet are all part of the infrastructure stat, which influences trade (and thus eco centers and/or base), military cap, and even culture.
None-Dirt Paths-Pathetic-Barely Tolerable-Tolerable-Improving-Good-Efficient-Very Efficient-Great-Excellent
Population
Your sheeple pay your salary and fill your armies, so it might be wise to give a care about them every once in a while. Similar to area, it is used as area is, except this is the multiplier for living standards and education. Economy, military cap, and conscripts are also affected by population.
Education
Your people need to be educated to allow (or at least speed up) technological progress, altering the amount of time tech research may take. Higher education levels may allow you random innovations which you may not have ordered. Reaching the Singularity education level greatly improves your chances of reaching the next “age” (although these events seem unlikely outside of BTs), which as usual decreases your education level by two.
Education has a major impact on several other things – politically, less educated populations won’t be as open to reforms or revolutions, and a more educated one will likely as not demand reforms or instigate revolutions quickly if their sensibilities are not kept in mind. This should (hopefully) alter your approach to carrying out enlightened reform on turn one, or to not reforming at all. Also, more educated populaces will perform better militarily, as long as they haven’t got anything against the war itself.
None-Dumb-Illiterate-Tolerable-Literate-Educated-Well Educated-Academic-Enlightenment-Singularity
Living Standards
Higher living standards make revolt much less likely – after all, what will the people gain what they haven’t got already? They may also increase economy levels, or even have higher education (through tutors and the like). A sharp drop in living standards, due to neglect or to economic problems or to some silly war or other, will probably increase the likelihood of revolt, worsen your economy even further, or cause other fun problems the likes of which are frankly terrifying to comprehend. Educated nations with low living standards will probably have problems as well.
None-Slums-Very Low-Low-Barely Tolerable-Tolerable-Normal-Higher-Very High-Splendid
Culture
This is a written description of your national culture; who lives there, the religions they follow; the unity or lack thereof of the populace, and such. You can’t influence this directly either, but there are things that may do so, and of course this has an effect of gameplay in what should be fairly obvious ways.
Confidence
Do your people like you? How much? More loyal citizens will gladly join the military and take up arms, work in factories for the war effort, and stifle revolt; a people that hate you will also take up arms, but for a completely different reason. Your successes or failures, real or not, will have a major impact on the public opinion, as will whatever propaganda you choose to roll out. Confidence also has an impact on elected governments during elections (and in some cases can even cause special elections or votes of confidence to go awry), in that a confidence lower than Respecting will probably lose your faction the election with the attendant policy changes for your government. You cannot grow confidence by eco points directly, because that’s just silly.
Lynching-Hateful-Resentful-Barely Tolerating-Tolerating-Respecting-Admiring-Loving-Nation Personified
Projects
Instead of Civilization’s Wonders, you get these fun things, which are probably more programs instead of big useless buildings. You can usually have a project change pretty much any stat out there, but it’s wisest to talk to me first, especially if it has an esoteric effect on several stats that may not be obvious. Most projects have intended and unintended consequences, both good and bad, and to improve the quality of these and possibly ward off some horrible things that may happen to you upon the beginning of this project, you should describe projects to me in some detail as opposed to simply listing the effects, because I may have no idea how you intend to get there.
To start a project, invest 1 eco point, and after that it will progress on its own. It’s possible to shorten the length of a project by investing either 1 EP (speeding it up by 1 turn) or 2 EP (speeding it up by 2 turns), or even using some other innovative solution, whether it be stealing scientists from other countries, throwing slaves at a problem, or something entirely different. (You should probably not throw slaves at the Manhattan Project, and stealing scientists will be nearly useless when trying to construct a fortification line or increase the military.)
You can also make a project secret, with the attendant extra spending necessary to do so.
Colonies
Colonies are overseas possessions that actually matter (insert joke about Newfoundland here) and are thus given stats, which differ slightly from the nation statistics given elsewhere. Colonial government involves how much control you have over the colony. Income depends on many things, such as population, available resources, development, and the like. Militia is the number of troops that you could raise to fight off an invasion, reducing – but not totally eliminating – the need to keep track of your regular army units and to garrison them in your colonies. Your militia may also rebel against you and form the core of a partisan army, a la the 1857 Great Mutiny. Militia should generally not be used in aggressive campaigns, but it is possible, depending on number of troops and colonial confidence. Confidence, by the way, works just like normal confidence.
Nation Background
Almost redundant if you have read the TL, the nation background is a simple, paragraph length description of your country to help you play in character and have some knowledge of what your country is like. They will be updated every so often, as long as there is some good reason, such as a significant change, to do so. Role-playing is sort of important, so please make sure to stay reasonably in character.
Intelligence
You can PM me questions that I may or may not answer truthfully and almost certainly ambiguously, representing your intelligence service’s knowledge of the situation. You can also add espionage or intel portions to your orders, giving me the lowdown on what sort of secret spy missions or sabotage ops you wish to conduct, and after the update I’ll send you a PM of the results if they are of significance. Spies aren’t omnipotent or omniscient, so they could conceivably be flat-out wrong; it’s best to make sure that you have ordered the construction of an intel network (which doesn’t really require much money unless you want to make it a good one).
Everything else
If you have any questions at all about anything ambiguously covered by stats, rules, or update, or are just plain confused, post them or PM them to me. I’m here to take your orders and turn them into an update, and to create a fun gaming environment, not to terrify you into submission and silence. You might even be able to argue me into a different stance on your ability to do something, although it is advisable not to pursue this for very long, for the mod’s decision is final, and his temper is sadly very short.
If this is among your first NESes, I’d like to welcome you to NESing and advise you to visit the guide and talk to more experienced players about how to work well in a NES. However, do not expect that anyone will go easily on you if you are new. In fact, being new may be a good incentive for people to attack you – look at Carl XII. If you do something terribly rash or OOC, I’ll probably hint against doing so (if you’re relatively new), but that can’t be expected to happen every time, or even most of the time. In the words of das (in a game with oddly familiar rules): “Remember – anything you say or do can be turned against you, any plan can go terribly awry, a worst-case scenario is perfectly plausible and everyone is out to get you. That is, most usually, not OOC player malice or biased moderation – rather, that is part of the game.”
Any criticism whatsoever, whether it be “I hate Americans”, “You’re so biased”, “Stop with the ******ed polar bears and penguins, etc.”, “You forgot [stat]”, or “This update is too [long/short/mediocre/boring/exciting/unrealistic]”, will be welcomed. I don’t like yes-persons as much as I like providing you with a better NESing experience.
Hopefully this will turn out to be mildly successful and reasonably long-lived; the upcoming Global War should be interesting, at the very least. Perhaps it may even warrant further DaNESes.
Having said all that, let’s get down to brass tacks; I need your input on the rules, the stats, the name, and nation reservations. Have at them!
