IOT Developmental Thread

[thomas.berubeg]

So when the launch?

 

[Shadowbound]

Probably tomorrow because I'm gambling on still being off work.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Lovely. I"m quite excited.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

New Fleet Rules look good.

 

[Wang Lung]

Hello, I've been observing these forums for quite some time. Recently I've found that I have a little bit of time on my hands (lot a bit) and was hoping to try my hand at one. From what I can tell this is a bit different from what is normally done here, but I hope that is a strength and not a weakness. Please share your thoughts on the viability of the first draft of this ruleset.

Spoiler :

Intro:

DemIOT is an IOT meant to simulate, at least in part, the political workings of party politics in a republic. Whereas in most IOTs the game consists largely of geopolitical conquest, the bulk of this game will be about winning the most voting districts. Instead of invading a province with infantry and artillery, you will be spreading propaganda pieces and making stump speeches. Of course politics don’t stop at the end of election season. Once in office, you will have to deliver on campaign provinces, while contain crises, until the next election when everything starts all over again.
I have found that it is difficult to decide where to generalize for the sake of the game and where it is necessary to make things more complex. The nature of the game means I have to passably simulate the economic and social developments of a nation to act as an impetus and reactant to political action. I’ve done the best I can, and inevitably I have made things too difficult to follow (or at least to run from a GM standpoint) in some places, and too simple in others. As such, I retain the right to change the rules at anytime during the course of the game.
Let the games begin!

Setting:

The game will take place in a near-future fictional world. We will all be citizens of Iotus (so that makes us Iotians? Ioters?), a state newly formed following the fall of the dreaded Imperium. Iotus is a diverse and varied nation, held together more by geographic proximity than any social or cultural unity. (More on the history later).

Player Setup:

Each player will represent an entire party in game (as opposed to a country as it would be in classic IOTs). During Election Seasons you will be in charge of running campaigns and election strategies. During Legislative Sessions you will be in charge of advancing legislation and engaging in parliamentary politics, as well as publicizing your actions to the electorate. To get started fill out the form below. Your party can start campaigning during the next Election Season.

Party Name:
Symbol/Color:
Policy Goals:
Target Constituent Groups:

(NOTE: In the game, players will be referred to as parties. Anytime it doesn’t make sense to refer to a whole party, or when the political structure calls for an individual (for example the prime minister or the district representative) this person will be considered a member of the player’s party, and are functionally one and the same as the party.)

Game Structure:

The game will be divided into election cycles. Each cycle consists of an Early Election Season, Late Election Season, and three Legislative Sessions. During the Early and Late Election Season, parties will campaign and solidify constituent support. Following the Late Election Season, seats in parliament will be distributed based upon the proportion of votes. This distribution will be used for the next three Legislative Sessions. During the Legislative Sessions, the party (or parties) in power will be able to pass policy and react to crises, while the opposition will have a to criticize and delegitimize the administration. Actions during these Legislative Sessions will frame how voters view parties in the next election cycle.

Though players will be given the same amount of time to submit orders for each of the five parts of an election cycle, it should be noted that in game the Early and Late Election Seasons will take 6 months each, while each Legislative Session takes a year each.

Provinces and Districts:

Iotus is divided into provinces and districts. Provinces are the most basic territorial division in the game. Provinces vary widely, and were established from historical precedent from during and before the Imperium Empire. These cannot be changed as the game progresses. Each province will have various stats, but most notably these will be population level, economic level and major constituent groups.

Districts are groups of provinces. Unlike provinces, districts all have roughly the same population, and are used to distribute seats in the national parliament. As the game progresses and population levels change, it may become necessary to change districts to keep them equal in size.

Government:

Iotus is a parliamentary republic. It has a single-house national parliament that drafts and passes new laws. Seats are distributed similar to that of real life Germany’s lower house. Each geographic district directly elects a representative. After all the geographic seats are awarded, seats are added until the party distribution approximately matches that of the total vote. (If that sounds overly complicated, just know that the percentage of the total vote you get is the percentage of seats you get in parliament).

Once in parliament, parties will have to form coalitions until they can form a majority to govern. The majority party/coalition will choose a prime minister who will introduce new policy and act as the head of state. As long as the prime minister maintains the support of his/her coalition he/she will continue to govern until the next election cycle. (Available parliamentary actions such as vote of no confidence will be added later).

Parliament holds all administrative and legislative power in Iotus. The way this works in game is that the governing prime minister will get a certain amount of Political Capital each Legislative Session to spend on policy on behalf of the coalition. Policy changes will affect how voters view all members of the coalition in the next election cycle, and can make or break future electoral success. (Available policy changes will be given with their associated Political Capital Cost).

Finally, district representatives will also be in charge of spending district funds to improve province stats. Districts earn these funds from local income based on the economic level of its provinces (what would be local property and sales taxes), as well as in grants from the national parliament. Similar to the national parliament, actions here will affect voter support in the district.

Elections:

Elections will work more similarly to classic IOTs. Basically, each party gets a budget of publicly financed campaign funds (in Iotus campaigns are funded exclusively by public funds to eliminate the headache of fundraising). They can spend this budget however they wish over the Early and Late Election Seasons. (There will be a list of campaign items to spend money on). What they spend their money on and where and when they use it will have a large effect on their voter support. Though parties win seats at the district level, campaign actions will focus on individual provinces. Gain the most supporters across all the provinces in a district and you win the district.

Constituent Groups

Just as in a real republic, the citizens in Iotus don’t simply just give their vote to whoever spends the most money trying to woo them; they are divided into groups with common political, cultural, and/or economic views by which they will make their decision. In this context, your platform and policy proposals and actions will make a big difference on whether a voter supports you, is indifferent to you, or actively opposes you. Further, each province is made up of a different combination of constituent groups. For example, implementing a progressive tax reform that raises taxes on top earners will gain you support from the middle class and the poor, but will inspire enemies among the rich. In less affluent provinces, this may gain you net support from the voters there. In richer provinces you may lose ground based upon the constituent group makeup.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Hi Wang Lung, welcome to IOT.

Your rules look good, although I would recommend also playing a few games if you get a chance as having a perspective of a player goes a long way in hosting games IMO.

 

[CivOasis]

That being said, don't let it deter you. I certainly started the other way around.

If you don't mind leaning a bit more towards the RP end and want to participate in one first, I'm running a game currently with some fairly elaborate political background. That's not the only thing it does and it's not really built mechanically like yours, but it might give an idea how IOTers actually handle parliamentary politics thematically. Link is in my sig.

 

[Crezth]

Hello Wang Lung! Your rules are firmly kosher and would be right at home here in IOT. I encourage you to run it and see how it goes!

 

[Wang Lung]

Hi Wang Lung, welcome to IOT.

Your rules look good, although I would recommend also playing a few games if you get a chance as having a perspective of a player goes a long way in hosting games IMO.

That being said, don't let it deter you. I certainly started the other way around.

If you don't mind leaning a bit more towards the RP end and want to participate in one first, I'm running a game currently with some fairly elaborate political background. That's not the only thing it does and it's not really built mechanically like yours, but it might give an idea how IOTers actually handle parliamentary politics thematically. Link is in my sig.

Thank you for the advice. I think it might be beneficial as well. Been looking at the ones currently going and you'll probably see me join one in the coming days.

Hello Wang Lung! Your rules are firmly kosher and would be right at home here in IOT. I encourage you to run it and see how it goes!

Thank you. I look forward to becoming an active participant in the IOT community.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Come visit IOTChat!

(Or don't. Your choice.)

 

[CivOasis]

To elaborate a bit, chat's where most (but by no means all) of the community is present. A lot of GMs are there, making it a good place to ask questions, though in the past year or two it's become more of just a random place for people to have general conversations, too

 

[gay_Aleks]

The general conversations can become...odd. Just saying.

 

[Shadowbound]

Chat needs to be better moderated to prevent cybersex.

 

[JohannaK]

That assumes that cybersex should be prevented.

 

[ork75]

Hey IOT!

I just started up a Cradle NES in the NES Forum. It's not really traditional IOT style but you might be interested, who knows.

Check it out here!

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Hey IOT!

I just started up a Cradle NES in the NES Forum. It's not really traditional IOT style but you might be interested, who knows.

Check it out here!

Ill launch mine tonight, then!

 

[gay_Aleks]

In the IOT forum or in the NES forum?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

And Mine is up as well.

 

[Civ'ed]

Today I'm here to write the first dev diary for and thus also officially announce Cruel Crazy Beautiful World, an IOTNES set in the AlKebu-Lan universe.

This diary will focus on tech, stats, and imagery.
As you may know, I'm not a fan of no stats and I love to come up with new mechanics. However, I don't like the mass of spreadsheets that comes along with it. Hence, this NESIOT will focus on mappable stats, such as tech level.

In CCBW, Research will work according to a principle of buildings and tech groups. There is an Infantry, a Cavalry, an Artillery, an Experimental*, a Theoretical, and an Economic tech group.
Each of these has a building assigned.
INF: Army Board
CAV: General Staff
ART: Foundry
EXP: Practical University
THE: Theoretical University
ECO: Stock Exchange

You can only research into a path if you have the corresponding building.

However, it is also possible to share tech, or sell it, and this works a bit like the following:

!Xoo is a country with no Foundry (or the money to build one), but it wants artillery. Luckily for them, Wene wa Gaza, another country, just developed a new artillery type - in this example, the Gaza Leadbelcher II. !Xoo enters negotiations with the Wene wa Gaza.

Gaza doesn't want to give its newest tech to !Xoo, as !Xoo is not an ally. instead, !Xoo offers to buy up their old surplus of Leadbelcher I cannon (that is now outdated). On the map for this purpose, !Xoo's artillery tech is now shown as Gaza Leadbelcher I.

Now let's assume !Xoo eventually advances and unities the Khoesan. !Xoo now has a foundry, and no longer wishes to rely on Gaza's leftovers. It develops its own artillery, and puts the Leadbelchers up for sale. The government of Barqa offers to buy them, !Xoo agrees, and they go to Barqa.

So what eventually happens if there's no willing buyer? Warlords in Europe are always willing to use hand me downs from the African governments, so you will ALWAYS get something for your money.

Each turn, there is a 45% chance of discovering the next tech (according to your specs), with each extra building beyond the first adding 5 per cent chance. After the first, you can have a maximum of 10 Spec Buildings.

Next time, I'll discuss Capital, Army composition, and culture!

 

[NinjaCow64]

Question for all you GMs who have run stat-heavy games: what did you have aircraft do in your games? Like I get the idea of modelling armies and navies separately, but what about aircraft? Is it worth modelling them or is it not worth it? And what is the equivalent word for armies/navies that aircraft can use anyway?