IOT Developmental Thread
- Thread starter Joecoolyo
- Start date
Bowsling
Deity
Let's assume that Britain and Germany are entering a naval arms race, always own eight provinces, and are solely devoting themselves to producing more battleships (cost 5 IC) than the other. Britain builds two factories in each province, then builds as many battleships as possible, whereas Germany will always build factories if they can, then they will turn to battleships. All spare IC is banked, and spent as soon as possible.
Under a flat rate of 2 ICs per factory, capped at nine per province (the I&B2 method), we get the following:
Turn|Britain IC|Britain Battleships|Germany IC|Germany Battleships
0|4|0|4|0
1|6|0|6|0
2|9|0|9|0
3|13|0|13|0
4|16|1|20|0
5|16|4|30|0
6|16|8|45|0
7|16|11|72|0
8|16|14|72|14
9|16|17|72|29
10|16|20|72|43
Clearly, under this model, doing anything other than building factories in the first few turns, assuming the IOT lasts long enough, is suicide. Germany has only been building battleships for three turns, but already has more than twice the total of Britain.
Perfect square economics are totally out of whack, and there is no use in even trying to demonstrate that. I feel kinda dumb for even proposing it.
Right now, I'm too lazy to do another demonstration, but I think the truncated Fibonacci is probably the best way of doing it.
Under a flat rate of 2 ICs per factory, capped at nine per province (the I&B2 method), we get the following:
0|4|0|4|0
1|6|0|6|0
2|9|0|9|0
3|13|0|13|0
4|16|1|20|0
5|16|4|30|0
6|16|8|45|0
7|16|11|72|0
8|16|14|72|14
9|16|17|72|29
10|16|20|72|43
Clearly, under this model, doing anything other than building factories in the first few turns, assuming the IOT lasts long enough, is suicide. Germany has only been building battleships for three turns, but already has more than twice the total of Britain.
Perfect square economics are totally out of whack, and there is no use in even trying to demonstrate that. I feel kinda dumb for even proposing it.
Right now, I'm too lazy to do another demonstration, but I think the truncated Fibonacci is probably the best way of doing it.
If I saw my enemy was building only factories and I had a nice big blob of battleships, I would consider using them.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 15,195
Ye olde dispute. Economy versus military. All military cripples your long term supply. All supply means you are a vault with no door.
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
- Messages
- 4,131
post-WW1 pre-WWII IOT in the making. Here's what I have so far. Let me know what you think.
Introduction Joining
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
-Albert Einstein
This IOT, if the above is any indicator, is set in 1936. Post-WWI world, only three years before the Germans invade Poland and the outbreak of WWII truly begins. In this IOT, you will be playing as a political party in any one of the available nations. Choosing the ruling political party lets you run the country however you see fit. If you choose a non-ruling party, be it underground or public, your goal is to come to power by any means you see fit. Do know that doing crazy things, such as claiming the Democratic Party of the US and switching their ideals to communism, will not be accepted and such actions will be ignored. However, you could feasibly make the party gradually more politically left or right, but doing so will cause your partys legitimacy to go down, and the fact that there's probably already a party with either more right-wing or left-wing views it is rather pointless. But we should really talk about that when we actually get into the rules.
I reserve the right as GM to block you from joining as any party for any reason I see fit, but I will not block you from joining the game.
Economy How to Run Your Nation
"You hold in your hands the future of the world."
-Raymond Poincare
As far as your economy goes, you have several hard stats, but they vary in the kind they are.
Trade: Trade is a commonplace for economies. But in this game, its more than signing an agreement and getting free money. You will have to not only decide on the specifics of a trade deal, but deliver your part of the deal to your trade partner. If you two border each other, its no problem so long as your infrastructure is half decent. But if theyre overseas, it will require a transport. A trade route will have to be established along with it. This is as easy as drawing a line from your port to the port of your trading partner. The amount of fuel it takes to get the transport(s) to make its laps depends on the distance it has to travel and the state of the ocean it travels upon. Not a very big deal in peacetime; its only a matter of building the transport and sending it to its destination after the route is established. But in wartime, your transports are at risk of being intercepted by enemy forces. In war, try to redraw your trade routes away from likely enemy patrol areas, and perhaps send an escort fleet along with it.
Keep in mind, your resources are not magically available to be shipped from all parts of your nation. Say youre America, and you obviously own Hawaii. You cant send resources that werent produced in Hawaii to trade with Australia, unless you have shipped resources there recently from a part of your nation that produces a higher amount of resources like the mainland. Also, all your naval vessels have a range they can go before their fuel gets low. To this end, securing deals to go through canals, securing transit rights so your ship can refuel in another nation, or strategically taking a port that expands your capacity to trade all help you. Taking strategic ports also helps in expanding the operational areas of your fleets. So while you cant send all that many resources from Hawaii to Australia due to relatively low production when compared to your homeland, you can send resources from your homeland to Hawaii so to get them to Australia. That Hawaiian naval base also helps as a base of operations for the would-be Pacific theatre because your presence in the Pacific is a lot greater. Using Hawaii in conjunction with your puppet state in the Philippines can in turn extend your trade/naval range even farther.
Diplomacy Factions
Diplomacy is to do and say The nastiest thing in the nicest way.
-Isaac Goldberg
In the beginning of the game, there are three established alliance blocs: the Allies, the Axis, and the Comintern. These dont have an awful lot of members in the beginning. Generally, countries will lean towards the most ideologically similar faction. Moderate left and right governments lean towards the Allies, far-right governments lean towards the Axis, and far-left governments lean towards the Comintern. But, if you dont belong to a faction and have your own goals in mind, you can set up your own. However, in order for the other nations of the world to take your faction seriously and perhaps decide your cause is worth leaning towards, either youre going to have to be quite powerful or have a handful of medium-power nations on your bandwagon to begin with, along with a clear set of goals.
Diplomacy from there is straightforward. Your goal if youre in a faction is probably to get as many nations on your side as possible, but this is gradual. To this end, you can influence nations to convince them that your way is the best. Improving relations also helps. You could, through espionage, support a faction that agrees with you inside a country of interest and facilitate a peaceful change in government that strengthens your chances of gaining a new ally. Or do a coup détat when your faction gains enough popular support. Either way works. You could also force countries under your factions yolk by declaring war and installing a puppet government. Installing a puppet is the most immediate way no doubt, but also the most dangerous if youre not careful enough.
If you dont intend to join a faction, you can still influence nations to fall under your sphere. Or do whatever you want to do to have fun. Its your choice, really.
Now, theres also something Id like to say about stats. The stat page to be posted every update isnt really the exact thing. You see, there is no reason Canada should know the exact details of the Italian economy and military right off the bat. It makes no sense. So, the stats posted in updates are rough estimates. Exact stats to be shown to the player of the country in question will be either posted in a factional social group for only them and their allies to see or PMed to countries that arent in a faction. Also, the only military units visible to non-allied nations are the ones directly on a border with another nation. Divisions in the inner parts of the nation are not visible for all, but will be shared similarly to their faction/PMed to them. However, through espionage it is possible to find exact economic information and military placement of your would-be enemies. In other words, intelligence is the key.
Politics Supporting Your Party
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
-George Orwell
Your internal politics can be just as lively as the world stage. There are communists and fascists somewhere in your nation that want to take power and wave your nations flag for their own ideals. Im going to tell you how to get them to back down. And if youre a non-ruling political party, Im going to tell you how you can possibly overthrow your government.
Political parties already in power cant do a ton of things to stop the rise of a rival party, but the few things they can do may be rather powerful. They can put national security at risk, making their spies who may be working on counter-espionage secure their partys dominance. If it is proven that they are doing this however, the consequences could be terrible. They could also change their policies towards a more closed society dressed in propaganda. This will make the government look good to many, but the people more ideologically different may become more active and militant than they would otherwise be.
Parties that are not in power do, to an extent, have a share of the power. Each active party, underground or otherwise, have a certain percentage of popularity. This popularity divided by 4 is the percentage of the nations manpower that would fight for the cause. This division could be mitigated if people start feeling angry with their government. It is entirely possible to have the entirety of a party be militant enough to take up arms in the name of their beliefs. Non-ruling political parties also have leadership. The amount of leadership a party has is similar to nations; 15% of the percentage of manpower that agrees with the party in question is the total leadership the party has. Leadership of parties can be used to spread support of the party, raise the militancy of the partys following, engage in political espionage in order to find information to defame other political parties (including the ruling party), or send messages to another government asking for support or some such. Besides that, publicly taking advantage of something that goes wrong under the current government is another good way to gain support if you do it right. Once the party gains enough support, depending on whether or not the government is some kind of democracy, the party may be voted into power. If the party has a lot of support and a high militancy, whether they are under democracy or autocratic regime, they can attempt a coup and put themselves in power by force. Such actions may, however, result in civil war if the nation is equally split between multiple parties.
Introduction Joining
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
-Albert Einstein
This IOT, if the above is any indicator, is set in 1936. Post-WWI world, only three years before the Germans invade Poland and the outbreak of WWII truly begins. In this IOT, you will be playing as a political party in any one of the available nations. Choosing the ruling political party lets you run the country however you see fit. If you choose a non-ruling party, be it underground or public, your goal is to come to power by any means you see fit. Do know that doing crazy things, such as claiming the Democratic Party of the US and switching their ideals to communism, will not be accepted and such actions will be ignored. However, you could feasibly make the party gradually more politically left or right, but doing so will cause your partys legitimacy to go down, and the fact that there's probably already a party with either more right-wing or left-wing views it is rather pointless. But we should really talk about that when we actually get into the rules.
I reserve the right as GM to block you from joining as any party for any reason I see fit, but I will not block you from joining the game.
Economy How to Run Your Nation
"You hold in your hands the future of the world."
-Raymond Poincare
As far as your economy goes, you have several hard stats, but they vary in the kind they are.
- Natural Resources: Natural resources are resources you get directly off the land. Your income for these resources depends on how much land you own and the quality of that land, as well as technology. However, the quality is determined rather generally. Dont expect places like most of the Canadian Territories and Siberia to be full of valuable materials, for instance.
- Energy: This is your countrys stockpile of raw energy. Raw energy powers your infrastructure and industry and helps make another one of your stats, Fuel.
- Metal: This is your countrys stockpile of metal alloys. Metal is required for construction of infrastructure, industry, and military units.
- Rare Materials: This is your countrys stockpile of rare materials. Rare materials are required for construction of infrastructure, and military units to a lesser extent. They play a large part in making goods for your population.
- Manufactured Resources: Manufactured resources are resources that are obtained mainly using your industrial capacity. The more Industrial capacity you dedicate to the production of them, the more they make.
- Fuel: This is your countrys stockpile of Fuel. Fuel is required to get your units moving. The amount of fuel required to get to different areas depends on the terrain of the territories they cross and infrastructure of the nation as a whole for land units. For sea and air, it depends on the status of weather conditions in the sea/aerial area to be traversed. Fuel is both a naturally occurring resource and a manufactured resource; you can drill for oil as well as convert raw energy into usable fuels.
- Supply: This is your countrys stockpile of supplies to be used by your military. In order to function, military units require supplies. Supplying damaged units in surplus heals them. Your capacity to supply units depends on your nations infrastructure.
- Non-resource Stats
- Manpower: Manpower is the representation of the amount of people who are able to fight for your nation. Manpower gain can only be increased by improved agricultural technology and expanding into other countries, which is dominantly an aggressive act. Or you can change your conscription laws, but well cover that later. Running low on manpower can stunt your military unit production hard. Manpower also plays a part in resupplying units by way of reinforcement.
- Currency: Currency is gained by producing goods for your public. Currency can be used as a medium for trade and is otherwise used to fund your countrys leadership. Changing your policies in order to maximize industrial buildup by way of changing your economic laws will result in lower currency income. Be wary of this.
- Leadership: Leadership is exactly what it says. Your nations leadership. Leadership is used for doing research projects, keeping your spies at their best, recruiting officers to lead your troops, and making your diplomats more convincing. Your leadership is determined by two factors. Your max leadership is determined by taking 15% of your manpower. The amount of that 15% that actually counts for your leadership is determined by how much money you pour into leadership from there. Generally speaking, every 1 leadership can do 1 research project, raise your espionage rating by 1, raise your officer rating by 1, or raise your diplomatic ability by 1; this value can shift if your populaces confidence in you goes down or your partys legitimacy goes down.
- Industrial Capacity: Industrial capacity is your nations, well, industrial capacity. It is the ultimate limit-setter in all that you do. Industrial capacity can be split up to do various tasks, such as:
- Modernizing: You can use your industrial capacity to modernize your military, making it up-to-date. All your military units start with all possible upgrades you can give them relative to your technological capabilities.
- Supply & Fuel: You can set your industrial capacity to produce supplies and fuel for your armed forces. Making a stockpile of supply and fuel is very smart; if you begin taking heavy casualties, youll want to be able to resupply immediately, not wait for the factories to churn them out as the war rages!
- Production: You can set your industrial capacity to focus on building units, infrastructure, more industrial capacity, or some other special building. Imperative if you want to expand your armed forces, upgrade your infrastructure, or build up your economy.
- Consumer Goods: You can set your industrial capacity to use rare materials in order to make consumer goods, which increases national unity, decreases dissent, and helps to get you a net income for currency.
Trade: Trade is a commonplace for economies. But in this game, its more than signing an agreement and getting free money. You will have to not only decide on the specifics of a trade deal, but deliver your part of the deal to your trade partner. If you two border each other, its no problem so long as your infrastructure is half decent. But if theyre overseas, it will require a transport. A trade route will have to be established along with it. This is as easy as drawing a line from your port to the port of your trading partner. The amount of fuel it takes to get the transport(s) to make its laps depends on the distance it has to travel and the state of the ocean it travels upon. Not a very big deal in peacetime; its only a matter of building the transport and sending it to its destination after the route is established. But in wartime, your transports are at risk of being intercepted by enemy forces. In war, try to redraw your trade routes away from likely enemy patrol areas, and perhaps send an escort fleet along with it.
Keep in mind, your resources are not magically available to be shipped from all parts of your nation. Say youre America, and you obviously own Hawaii. You cant send resources that werent produced in Hawaii to trade with Australia, unless you have shipped resources there recently from a part of your nation that produces a higher amount of resources like the mainland. Also, all your naval vessels have a range they can go before their fuel gets low. To this end, securing deals to go through canals, securing transit rights so your ship can refuel in another nation, or strategically taking a port that expands your capacity to trade all help you. Taking strategic ports also helps in expanding the operational areas of your fleets. So while you cant send all that many resources from Hawaii to Australia due to relatively low production when compared to your homeland, you can send resources from your homeland to Hawaii so to get them to Australia. That Hawaiian naval base also helps as a base of operations for the would-be Pacific theatre because your presence in the Pacific is a lot greater. Using Hawaii in conjunction with your puppet state in the Philippines can in turn extend your trade/naval range even farther.
Diplomacy Factions
Diplomacy is to do and say The nastiest thing in the nicest way.
-Isaac Goldberg
In the beginning of the game, there are three established alliance blocs: the Allies, the Axis, and the Comintern. These dont have an awful lot of members in the beginning. Generally, countries will lean towards the most ideologically similar faction. Moderate left and right governments lean towards the Allies, far-right governments lean towards the Axis, and far-left governments lean towards the Comintern. But, if you dont belong to a faction and have your own goals in mind, you can set up your own. However, in order for the other nations of the world to take your faction seriously and perhaps decide your cause is worth leaning towards, either youre going to have to be quite powerful or have a handful of medium-power nations on your bandwagon to begin with, along with a clear set of goals.
Diplomacy from there is straightforward. Your goal if youre in a faction is probably to get as many nations on your side as possible, but this is gradual. To this end, you can influence nations to convince them that your way is the best. Improving relations also helps. You could, through espionage, support a faction that agrees with you inside a country of interest and facilitate a peaceful change in government that strengthens your chances of gaining a new ally. Or do a coup détat when your faction gains enough popular support. Either way works. You could also force countries under your factions yolk by declaring war and installing a puppet government. Installing a puppet is the most immediate way no doubt, but also the most dangerous if youre not careful enough.
If you dont intend to join a faction, you can still influence nations to fall under your sphere. Or do whatever you want to do to have fun. Its your choice, really.
Now, theres also something Id like to say about stats. The stat page to be posted every update isnt really the exact thing. You see, there is no reason Canada should know the exact details of the Italian economy and military right off the bat. It makes no sense. So, the stats posted in updates are rough estimates. Exact stats to be shown to the player of the country in question will be either posted in a factional social group for only them and their allies to see or PMed to countries that arent in a faction. Also, the only military units visible to non-allied nations are the ones directly on a border with another nation. Divisions in the inner parts of the nation are not visible for all, but will be shared similarly to their faction/PMed to them. However, through espionage it is possible to find exact economic information and military placement of your would-be enemies. In other words, intelligence is the key.
Politics Supporting Your Party
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
-George Orwell
Your internal politics can be just as lively as the world stage. There are communists and fascists somewhere in your nation that want to take power and wave your nations flag for their own ideals. Im going to tell you how to get them to back down. And if youre a non-ruling political party, Im going to tell you how you can possibly overthrow your government.
Political parties already in power cant do a ton of things to stop the rise of a rival party, but the few things they can do may be rather powerful. They can put national security at risk, making their spies who may be working on counter-espionage secure their partys dominance. If it is proven that they are doing this however, the consequences could be terrible. They could also change their policies towards a more closed society dressed in propaganda. This will make the government look good to many, but the people more ideologically different may become more active and militant than they would otherwise be.
Parties that are not in power do, to an extent, have a share of the power. Each active party, underground or otherwise, have a certain percentage of popularity. This popularity divided by 4 is the percentage of the nations manpower that would fight for the cause. This division could be mitigated if people start feeling angry with their government. It is entirely possible to have the entirety of a party be militant enough to take up arms in the name of their beliefs. Non-ruling political parties also have leadership. The amount of leadership a party has is similar to nations; 15% of the percentage of manpower that agrees with the party in question is the total leadership the party has. Leadership of parties can be used to spread support of the party, raise the militancy of the partys following, engage in political espionage in order to find information to defame other political parties (including the ruling party), or send messages to another government asking for support or some such. Besides that, publicly taking advantage of something that goes wrong under the current government is another good way to gain support if you do it right. Once the party gains enough support, depending on whether or not the government is some kind of democracy, the party may be voted into power. If the party has a lot of support and a high militancy, whether they are under democracy or autocratic regime, they can attempt a coup and put themselves in power by force. Such actions may, however, result in civil war if the nation is equally split between multiple parties.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 15,195
As I recall, Siberia's actually fairly rich in natural resources. The harsh climate makes it a bit hard to tap though.
Then again, on one hand you did say resources are determined by technology. On the other hand, gulag systems make for a fine way to subsidise expensive extraction and get rid of your opponents.
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
I really wanted things to return to the basics...
Those IOTs are dead. They remain dead. And we have killed them.
Also, fixed most map problems with IOTIC and rule writing is occurring.
Siberia's actually more densely populated than most of the US, America just happens to have a bunch of mega-cities along major waterways.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 15,195
Indeed. The abstract, little or none mechanics IOTs died out, to the lamentation of some.
Fortunately where there is decay, there is reform, so something innovative is bound to pop up eventually.
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
I could do that. either that or a story driven IOT.
story based IOT, to me is a standard IOT, but with certain plot driven events. for example, Napoleonic IOT would focus on, you know, Napoleonic France and the rest of Europe. you can either cooperate and defeat France, or be defeated by France.
there would be a 5 turn grace period, so you cant destroy France immediately and end the game.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 15,195
I have tried two old school IOTS. Neither one seemed to work. Maybe it's just me but I don't think the community's there anymore.
Ailedhoo
wonderer
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 7,811
Math could try. I would consider joining. Of course we will need to organise the settings (is it Earth based, fantasy, science fiction, etch?) and from it will emerge. If required I can summon from Beyond the Lampshade, my primal forum, for members. What ever the case: if at first you did not succeed then try, try again!
SamSniped
DJ Goodboye
I've been trying to get someone to make an IOT VII reboot for a while. If anyone would finally do so, I would love it 
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
1936? But, I thought you wanted to leave a possibility to not have WW2... 
In fact, Classic IOTs operate on a very different sets of assumptions from the later IOTs which most of you are know. It's all about Cooperation Not Competition. The earliest IOTs weren't games (implying competition) as much as collaborative storytelling. They originally started as egoistic mapmaking exercises where people would takeover a region of the world and then mostly play with and within their own countries; interaction with other players were limited consisting mostly of diplomatic treaties and trade and joint actions involving international criminals, terrorists, economic crises, emergency disaster aid, environmental concerns, etc. Any international disputes were to be settled by diplomacy, in the United Nations thread. The unspoken rule was that war was to be avoided, and countries don't need to prove themselves to be better than the others; this is why people who came in bragging about a 10 million men army were frowned upon.
