IOT Developmental Thread

[Zack]

Again, not a sign up thread, and posting for banned users is against the forum rules.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Gah, once again people, this thread is for development of IOT, not claiming. The next person who claims land is getting reported for spam and won't be allowed to join the next game.

EDIT: crosspost with Zack, but what I said still stands

 

[Reiser]

Alright, guys. Since the regular IOT thread is down for now, I'll post my news here about the disappearance of myself.

The youth at my church had planned to camp at a horse ranch from Friday to Saturday, overnight. Yes, we did get to learn how to and rides horses. But that's not the point.
Thursday, June 16, at 5:01 PM, the Internet died. No pages loaded. So guess what?
[rant]
I had no communication to IOT that I would be gone two days, and so I had to read about 20 pages today, Sunday, when I could get on again. And now I can't even post on the thread to make an address to explain why I was gone and to respond to posts, especially Mad Man's restarting and giving of land.
[/rant]

 

[Arakhor]

Realism (or at least verisimilitude) should be a key element. No one wants to see the Vatican City suddenly pump out 1 million Swiss Guard or Equatorial New Guinea have a defence budget ranging into the tens of billions of dollars.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Alright, guys. Since the regular IOT thread is down for now, I'll post my news here about the disappearance of myself.

The youth at my church had planned to camp at a horse ranch from Friday to Saturday, overnight. Yes, we did get to learn how to and rides horses. But that's not the point.
Thursday, June 16, at 5:01 PM, the Internet died. No pages loaded. So guess what?
[rant]
I had no communication to IOT that I would be gone two days, and so I had to read about 20 pages today, Sunday, when I could get on again. And now I can't even post on the thread to make an address to explain why I was gone and to respond to posts, especially Mad Man's restarting and giving of land.
[/rant]

Alright, thanks for the update, but it's not necessary since the community has pretty much unanimously voted to start IOT V.

Realism (or at least verisimilitude) should be a key element. No one wants to see the Vatican City suddenly pump out 1 million Swiss Guard or Equatorial New Guinea have a defence budget ranging into the tens of billions of dollars.

Alright, but how do these numbers fit into the game? We've never used actual stats in war before, so this realism thing can only apply to roleplaying and such, unless of course you have a new idea for combat. Do you?

We need all the help we can to solve some of the problems that have plagued IOT.

 

[Tee Kay]

A list of all the proposals I threw at Taniciusfox last night, plus some more.

The Map:
- Use a map similar to IOT4, but with less provinces.
- Start with a blank slate; so, the world is assumed to be empty at the start. Then, players will stake out their claims (they can only claim once, and only a certain number of territories). The rest of the world (unclaimed) would be divided up into NPCs. If you want more territories, then you'll have to go to war.
- All the starting nations would have similar level of development at the beginning.

The Time:
- We need a standard time scale. I suggest 1 update = 3 months.

The Economy:
- Instead of calculating exact GDP and budgets for each country, I think something more abstract might be better and less complicated while allowing for some realism to be modelled. The economic strength of a country should be represented by a single value (similar to "infrastructure" in Cybernations if you've ever played it, or Industrial Capacity (IC) in Hearts of Iron).
- Taking the IC route, we could have a slider system where IC is divided among a few key areas, say, for instances, economic development, military and research. The amount of growth in IC (as % of original IC) would depend on your level of economic development IC spending, and the size of your military you can support would depend on the defence IC spending.
- Trade should have actual effects on the game, though I'm not sure how best to model this.

The Combat System:
- Size of armies should effect combat
- Size of armies should be deal with in terms of units/divisions (like in Civ) rather than actual troop numbers.
- Tactics and effects of terrain, defensive structures, etc on a military operation should be represented with some sort of combat modifier similar to Civ4 "promotions" and terrain bonuses.
- You should be able to research stronger units (tank level 1, tank level 2,...)
- To prevent entire armies attacking a single provinces, there should be a limit of how large a force can be in a province. Perhaps introduce a "logistics" tech, with the limit being increased every level of logistics you research.

 

[Mathalamus]

A list of all the proposals I threw at Taniciusfox last night, plus some more.

The Map:
- Use a map similar to IOT4, but with less provinces.
- Start with a blank slate; so, the world is assumed to be empty at the start. Then, players will stake out their claims (they can only claim once, and only a certain number of territories). The rest of the world (unclaimed) would be divided up into NPCs. If you want more territories, then you'll have to go to war.
- All the starting nations would have similar level of development at the beginning.

The Time:
- We need a standard time scale. I suggest 1 update = 3 months.

The Economy:
- Instead of calculating exact GDP and budgets for each country, I think something more abstract might be better and less complicated while allowing for some realism to be modelled. The economic strength of a country should be represented by a single value (similar to "infrastructure" in Cybernations if you've ever played it, or Industrial Capacity (IC) in Hearts of Iron).
- Taking the IC route, we could have a slider system where IC is divided among a few key areas, say, for instances, economic development, military and research. The amount of growth in IC (as % of original IC) would depend on your level of economic development IC spending, and the size of your military you can support would depend on the defence IC spending.
- Trade should have actual effects on the game, though I'm not sure how best to model this.

The Combat System:
- Size of armies should effect combat
- Size of armies should be deal with in terms of units/divisions (like in Civ) rather than actual troop numbers.
- Tactics and effects of terrain, defensive structures, etc on a military operation should be represented with some sort of combat modifier similar to Civ4 "promotions" and terrain bonuses.
- You should be able to research stronger units (tank level 1, tank level 2,...)
- To prevent entire armies attacking a single provinces, there should be a limit of how large a force can be in a province. Perhaps introduce a "logistics" tech, with the limit being increased every level of logistics you research.

way too difficult, way too annoying and too much stress.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Okay, I'll add all that stuff to the OP (good stuff too Tailless!)

EDIT: @Tailless

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Difficult, yes, but worth it.

 

[Mathalamus]

Difficult, yes, but worth it.

yeah.. and the NPC will always fight back making even maintaining your borders too difficult. sorry, but expanding, shrinking expanding again etc causes such a strain on the nation.

 

[Tee Kay]

way too difficult, way too annoying and too much stress.

Well, yes, some of them are. I mean, some things like IC sliders are taken from bloody Hearts of Iron.

But I think simplified versions of them would work, especially if the players keep track of their own nations and the major tasks like map-making or combat were divided among multiple GMs and IOT players.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Actually, that goes along perfectly with someone else's suggestion of the GM forming some sort of "cabinet" of players who will take care of some of the menial tasks (such all the economic stuff Tailless proposed, which would be difficult if the GM had to do it all) so the GM can concentrate of the main things.

EDIT: crosspost with Tailless

 

[Mad Man]

actualy I think in the next game we start should have prefabricated countries and due away with province plucking all together. I've actually been working on a prototype map, it's not finished or set in stone but something to think about nevertheless.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I'm not really keen on the idea (I personally like expansion), but nonetheless added to the OP.

 

[Mathalamus]

actualy I think in the next game we start hould have prefabricated countries and due away with province pucking all together. I've actually been working on a prototype map, it's not finished or set in stone but something to think about nevertheless.View attachment 255967

Turkey should be whole, not only Asian.

 

[DroopyTofu]

@Tailless: I think that all of that would be good, but it would be too confusing logistically. Only the most devoted people would keep up with all of it. I do support the idea of a cabinet and volunteer to keep a summary of events (stenographer). How would we be able to model trade? I think that would be a good thing, but like most other things, it would end up way to complicated.

@Zack: I doubt we'd ever get a subforum for this, but if it ever does happen, there has to be a first person to suggest it, so I figured I'd get the idea out. Someone raised the issue about control outside of IOT forum. A junior mod doesn't have the authority outside of one forum/subforum. That would be the best option.

 

[Tani Coyote]

We need to find some intermediate method.

Gaming simulations are needed.

btw, Tanicious, if you're going to create the next IOT, can you please hold off until we got these new rules under control? I don't want to see another train wreck of a thread.

Tanicius. No o.

I already have 16 rules formed, all based on my experiences with three threads. I want to make it simpler yet still awesome, fair to all(I'm such a Commie!), and less spammy.

I'll wait until the mods get back to me though.

Wait, wait, are we starting a new game? Can't we just keep the other game going? We have plenty of empty land and the game was still interesting. Can't we let it keep going with the same countries?

We need a GM with more time on their hands(between DYOS, IOT, and god knows what else, Thor seems to be quite occupied) and totally different rules to keep IOT IV going.

IOT players, should we stick with IOT IV or move onto IOT V?

If Thor'd hand me the keys, I'd be glad to let IOT IV stay.

Buuuut, he's a stubborn one.

Again, not a sign up thread, and posting for banned users is against the forum rules.

...well damn.

The Map:
- Use a map similar to IOT4, but with less provinces.
- Start with a blank slate; so, the world is assumed to be empty at the start. Then, players will stake out their claims (they can only claim once, and only a certain number of territories). The rest of the world (unclaimed) would be divided up into NPCs. If you want more territories, then you'll have to go to war.
- All the starting nations would have similar level of development at the beginning.

The Time:
- We need a standard time scale. I suggest 1 update = 3 months.

The Economy:
- Instead of calculating exact GDP and budgets for each country, I think something more abstract might be better and less complicated while allowing for some realism to be modelled. The economic strength of a country should be represented by a single value (similar to "infrastructure" in Cybernations if you've ever played it, or Industrial Capacity (IC) in Hearts of Iron).
- Taking the IC route, we could have a slider system where IC is divided among a few key areas, say, for instances, economic development, military and research. The amount of growth in IC (as % of original IC) would depend on your level of economic development IC spending, and the size of your military you can support would depend on the defence IC spending.
- Trade should have actual effects on the game, though I'm not sure how best to model this.

The Combat System:
- Size of armies should effect combat
- Size of armies should be deal with in terms of units/divisions (like in Civ) rather than actual troop numbers.
- Tactics and effects of terrain, defensive structures, etc on a military operation should be represented with some sort of combat modifier similar to Civ4 "promotions" and terrain bonuses.
- You should be able to research stronger units (tank level 1, tank level 2,...)
- To prevent entire armies attacking a single provinces, there should be a limit of how large a force can be in a province. Perhaps introduce a "logistics" tech, with the limit being increased every level of logistics you research.

All good ideas, but a bit complex. I'm all for making things a bit more realistic with a focus on tactics/strategy, but too much realism can hurt gameplay, as any game developer would tell you.

 

[ZeletDude]

If we do get a number of Provinces and we can only claim once, exactly how many would we have to claim with? It would have depend on the size, like Europe's are smaller then Siberia.. etc..

 

[Tani Coyote]

Well I know IOT II, as planned, will give players who join in the first five turns a HUGE advantage over others, so as to keep the game from going too slow.

I'll factor in NPCs; I'll create them every so often and gradually expand them, and leave them open for players to take. More NPCs means you have to fight to be imperialists!

 

[ZeletDude]

Well I know IOT II, as planned, will give players who join in the first five turns a HUGE advantage over others, so as to keep the game from going too slow.

I'll factor in NPCs; I'll create them every so often and gradually expand them, and leave them open for players to take. More NPCs means you have to fight to be imperialists!

So you can claim more territories the first 5 turns or what?