IOT Developmental Thread

[Tee Kay]

If the under-dog keeps winning, then they have to come up with a reason for defeating a better force. That shouldn't be too hard, one just has to look at Alexander, American Patriots, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Viet-Cong, or any other number of outnumbered, out-gunned forces throughout history.

Just to set the record straight...

- Alexander was hardly outgunned. The Macedonians outnumbered the Persians at Issus. At Gaugamela, the Persians outnumbered the Macedonians, but not by much (depends on which figure you use).
- Neither were the American Patriots, really. Plus, they had the home ground advantage.
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was brutally crushed.
- The Viet-Cong lasted until 1968 as a guerrila force (different from a conventional army) before they were pretty much destroyed in the Tet Offensive.

Point is, training, equipment and numbers do matter.

 

[ilduce349]

Thats why 1-1 ratio is best.

 

[DroopyTofu]

And if their explanation sucks, we swap results!

That runs the risk of being too subjective, but that could be a possibility. I just thought that might spice things up a bit, not directly influence combat results.

Just to set the record straight...

- Alexander was hardly outgunned. The Macedonians outnumbered the Persians at Issus. At Gaugamela, the Persians outnumbered the Macedonians, but not by much (depends on which figure you use).
- Neither were the American Patriots, really. Plus, they had the home ground advantage.
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was brutally crushed.
- The Viet-Cong lasted until 1968 as a guerrila force (different from a conventional army) before they were pretty much destroyed in the Tet Offensive.

Point is, training, equipment and numbers do matter.

I'm not going to try to get into a history debate, but all of those did do better than pure numbers would have led you to believe. Training, equipment, and numbers do matter, but being at a lack of any of those does not mean automatic defeat. I just meant that it would be possible to come up with a somewhat plausible reason for winning battles that you probably shouldn't win, but the RNG says otherwise.

 

[ilduce349]

Training, Equipment, Tactics and Numbers have decided every battle. I can't think of any battle that luck decided it.

 

[GhostWriter16]

And if their explanation sucks, we swap results!

I think this would be fair, if we had more than one judge.

One judge only might be subjective. While there are a few people that I think could be fairly objective, nobody is perfect. Set it up so this small bias will counteract each other.

Also, if the judges are playing, do not allow those who have anything more than very minor interests in the war to judge at all. We should have 4-7 judges, with only judges with no interests in the war allowed to vote. A UNANIMOUS VOTE by the judges that an explanation sucks would be needed to switch results.

That way, its more likely to get away with a stupid explanation than to actually suffer for a possibly good one. If we did it sort of like that, I'd be for it.

 

[Tee Kay]

That... is unnecessarily complex.

 

[Mathalamus]

just scrap combat, and have it on a permanent peace. you can find out how to destroy an enemy via other ways.

 

[Tee Kay]

Cold War IOT!

 

[DroopyTofu]

My point was that it is possible to win when the odds are against you. I was just suggesting that a RNG would be more entertaining if we came up with battle summaries for role playing purposes.

I don't think that perma-peace would work. If you knew that no one could attack you for anything, then I'm afraid it would encourage behavior that we don't really want.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I would never join an IOT that had no war, it would make Diplomacy into a threat shouting match. The idea should be to make war UNPLEASANT, not impossible. Ideology Wars has done the best job I've seen at that, and other recent IOTs have done well as well.

If you make war a legitimate option, but an unpleasant one that will likely hurt you in the long run, you will have to make deals under pressure. Read Ideology Wars to see how this works. The entire war was avoided, but the THREAT OF WAR made something work out. While no wars have been fought yet, the threat of war was what avoided the declaration. If there was no war mechanic, the entire thing would have failed. Being able to use war as a last resort extends diplomacy.

Though I do agree with penalizing (Casus Beli system) warfare that has no cause for it, reducing/eliminating peaceful claims, or both. It should be unpleasant, but possible.

 

[ilduce349]

Here is an idea to make it interesting in terms of warfare.
WE INCLUDE NUKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nukes are uberexpensive super units that can turn the tide of a war. Someone with a few of them could scare people out of war (and if more then 20 go off, the world blows up from the fall out). It would encourage a more diplomatic ways to solve conflicts. However firing a nuke should be devastating to ones stability.

 

[Mathalamus]

or rip off tanicus nuke style, and make it very expensive to buy/use.

i thought it was a tad easy to use nukes in that game.

heck with it. rip off everything found in IOTII, introduce something so that small states are more viable than larger ones (in terms of provinces), make war more unpleasant, make nueks harder to use, then your set.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Here is an idea to make it interesting in terms of warfare.
WE INCLUDE NUKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nukes are uberexpensive super units that can turn the tide of a war. Someone with a few of them could scare people out of war (and if more then 20 go off, the world blows up from the fall out). It would encourage a more diplomatic ways to solve conflicts. However firing a nuke should be devastating to ones stability.

I am in favor, though it shouldn't be applied as an across the board improvement to IOT in general. Some games just aren't designed for nukes. But I like the idea for games that are compatible with them.

 

[Tee Kay]

Alright, what I'm thinking of using for my Simple IOT is this: I will have a number of supply centers (SC) on the map, a la Diplomacy. However, instead of effecting the number of units you can have, the number of SCs you own instead determine the number of RNG rolls in a battle. For every 1 SC you own you get one RNG roll. The number of SCs at the start of the game will be limited, but I'd like to make it so that you can build new SCs during the course of the game, but at a cost, which is cheaper for small states than large states.

I think it's a nice compromise. What you do think?

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Intriguing. How exactly will the RNG work, i.e. how do more rolls affect combat?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Alright, what I'm thinking of using for my Simple IOT is this: I will have a number of supply centers (SC) on the map, a la Diplomacy. However, instead of effecting the number of units you can have, the number of SCs you own instead determine the number of RNG rolls in a battle. For every 1 SC you own you get one RNG roll. The number of SCs at the start of the game will be limited, but I'd like to make it so that you can build new SCs during the course of the game, but at a cost, which is cheaper for small states than large states.

I think it's a nice compromise. What you do think?

Can you explain exactly why its cheaper for states which happen to have less territory? I would rather see it based on the number of SGs you have. But it seems like a decent idea.

Though I'm not sure if you plan to let me play in it anyway, or if you even care what I think. But I'm throwing it out there nonetheless.

 

[Tee Kay]

Intriguing. How exactly will the RNG work, i.e. how do more rolls affect combat?

Either: 1) the highest roll is counted, so if you have three rolls I use the best of three to decide the battle. Or 2) I sum all the rolls and the side with the higher sum wins the battle.

 

[Tee Kay]

Can you explain exactly why its cheaper for states which happen to have less territory? I would rather see it based on the number of SGs you have. But it seems like a decent idea.

Mathalamus wants smaller states to be more viable. So that's my part-solution to that.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Mathalamus wants smaller states to be more viable. So that's my part-solution to that.

Meh. While I agree with smaller states advantages, I think that advantage seems out of place. But its better than no advantage I suppose.

I'd rather see small states get stability bonuses if stability exists. If it doesn't, income bonus, if it doesn't, then I guess extra claims to make them big again.

Also, will I be invited to join this one?

 

[Tee Kay]

I'd rather see small states get stability bonuses if stability exists. If it doesn't, income bonus, if it doesn't, then I guess extra claims to make them big again.

It's a Simple IOT, there's no income and probably no stability. The cheaper SC is kinda like their stability bonus (I suppose my line of thinking goes something like: smaller state -> higher stability -> faster organization -> builds SCs quicker)

Also, will I be invited to join this one?

Everyone's invited.