New NESes, ideas, development, etc

"efficiency"

Upon consideration, no, we don't have that. Maybe "deystvennost (действенность)"?
 
Btw, is that new NES going to be set in an althist world, or a 1870 setting? Because I do believe I noticed a suspicious-looking French Emperor in your announcement...
 
I'm working on some things. One is a mix between board and story set in Europe, another is a fresh one, but with two new ones that have just started I will probably focus on the other one. I do have a draft of rules though and I'd appreciate some comments on them, mainly on the banking, economy system and the support system. Oh, and maybe on the costs I'm considering. It seems ok to me, but I'm bound to have overlooked something and some things I'm feeling could do with a little finetuning.

I've mainly been inspired by das and some things are straigh cut'n'paste.

Spoiler Government, Centralization, Coups and Population :

Descriptions:

Nation name: This is the name of your nation, surprisingly enough. It can be what you want, but it would be nice if you will try and keep it historical.

Capital: This is the name of the city that is the administrative center of your nation, also known as capital.

Ruler: The name of the head of state. Be it president, king, lord, dictator, whatever.

Government: This is what kind of nation you are. Despotism, Monarchy (absolute, parliamentarian), Dictatorship, Military Junta, Communist, Fascist, Republic, Democracy (presidential, parliamentary), Tribal, Theocracy or Oligarchy. Other forms are of course possible, but these will be the primary ones. Not all will be available all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_government

Republic basic: Government by professional politicians elected by the populace.
Democracy basic: Government by the people.

Nations with democratic forms of government (Parliamentary Monarchy, Democracy, Republic, maybe some more later) are quite unique in that the player orders are reviewed by the parliament (me) and the parliament then states its objections, if any. If there are no objections, then I don’t send any such review PM. If no changes were made to the orders after objections, they will not be carried out at all. OF COURSE, the ruler might send the parliament’s opinion… somewhere else, and go on with the plan, but will the army follow him? And besides, such an action will probably either result in a parliament-led coup or in a civil war.

Coups

Lets face it - your actions might often be... unpopular. If you piss off your people (or just your nobles) too much, there will one day be no satisfying them... and at that point you will be couped, overthrown. Those overthrown will get a last-moment PM notification during my updating, but before I post it. This is to get a player response as to what to do about the situation. The coup is already on; they could try to make a last stand with their personal guard, to try and flee into the countryside to lie down or gather support, to commit suicide and start as a new nation, or continue playing as nation.

Centralization:
This is one of the most important issues of politics historically and today. A very centralized state would be harder to run, and thus more prone to corruption... but in a very decentralized state it is harder to impose one policy, how ever reasonable, on all regions, and also such states could, if not well-run, with time devaluate and decentralize automatically, to the point of breaking up. However, it is easier to damage a centralized state by a well-placed blow aimed against its capital then a decentralized state! And the compromise versions don't tend to work neither...
Regions in a decentralized state might decide to try and attain full independence, but the risk is much smaller than in a centralized state where they feel unfree and resent being governed from far away.

The slider will mainly change as per my discretion depending on how to choose to deal with new territories and colonies. You can attempt to change the centralization slider yourself of course. However, do know that changes are unlikely to be welcomed by those who like the way things are or by those who want to move in the opposite direction. Using centralization can have an influence on confidence.

Centralization will mainly be used as an experiment.

League-Loose Confederation-Confederation-Loose Federation-Federation-Tight Federation-Unitary with Exceptions-Unitary State- Highly Unitary-Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state

Population level: Indicates how populous your nation is. This depends both on size of the territory, quality of the land (even if you own all of Sahara your population won’t be big), living standards, food surplus, etc.
The size of your population is represented by a word rather than numbers to prevent having to change this stat all the time when changes might be almost negligible and have little impact upon the game.

Almost Non Existent-Heavily Under Populated-Tiny-Small-Medium-Quite Large-Large-Very Large-Huge-Gigantic


Spoiler Economy, Banking, Tradecenters and Trade routes :

Economy:
The lifeblood of your nation. This stat is what determines how many spending points (SP) you have every turn. It takes into account taxes, production and export as well as what expenses you have, including your military upkeep.

Now, a strong economy is something that is very nice to have as it gives you more options through the higher number of spending points. Changing it is not easy though. While you can try to boost your economy through projects it will take a long time before the effects are felt. Random events can make them go up or down quite fast in comparison and is the primary way of changing it.

Conquering new lands does not automatically change your level as the new lands may be very devastated or you have had large expenses taking it. If the enemy torched the lands before abandoning them to you, your eco-level might even drop. On the other hand a rapid conquest with little battle could see you gain a boost from taking over virtually undamaged lands.

Now, for each word you will have a (X-Y-Z/Z2) stat next to it. The first is your income per turn (X). The second is how much you have in the bank (Y). The third is how much investment you have put into growing your economy (Z) and the last is how much you need to grow it to the next level (Z2). Clear?

Now, if your state is bankrupt or suffers from very poor economy, then it will be very hard to upgrade it as poverty is widespread, unemployment is high, corruption is a problem and machinery etc will need to be completely replaced. Once economy is more or less stable then it will become a little easier to influence it, but will still take some work.

If you really need income, then you can try and loan from other nations or slash one level to get a one-time boost of 6 SP. Oh, and of course if you spend more you have available, then your orders might just not be carried out (if you’re lucky) or your economy will drop and they will be carried out. Be careful not to mix up SP in your orders.

Bankrupt – 0 SP/turn; 5 SP required to upgrade; - no banking
Depression - 1 SP/turn; 3 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 3
Recession - 1 SP/turn; 3 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 3
Very Poor - 2 SP/turn; 4 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 3
Poor - 2 SP/turn; 4 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 4
Not Bad - 3 SP/turn; 4 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 4
Normal – 3 SP/turn; 4 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 4
Good Enough – 3 SP/turn; 5 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 5
Growing – 4 SP/turn; 6 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 5
Rich – 4 SP/turn; 8 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 6
Very Rich - 4 SP/turn; 10 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 6
Richer - 5 SP/turn; 12 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 7
Richest - 5 SP/turn; 16 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 7
Economic Powerhouse - 6 SP/turn; 20 SP required to upgrade; max bank: 8
Financial World Power - 7 SP/turn; Upgrade not possible; max bank: 10

Centers of Trade:
In some places where trade routes meet or where a large, natural harbour exists able to accommodate many ships a Trade Center might spring into existence. Every now and again trade centers will give an economic bonus to the nations owning them. Players can try to encourage some of their cities becoming trade centers through creative politics, though there merchants need some pretty good incentives as to why they should start trading there instead of where they usually trade. Also, players can try to get extra economy out of trade centers by raising taxes, tariffs and other politics. While this should give your nation an extra bonus when it’s done, there is a risk that the merchants will have enough and simply stop trading there.

Trade routes:
Well, if you want then you can open a traderoute with some other nation. You will always have basic trade, but this illustrates trying to further increase trade in rare good. While expensive to set up it will pay itself back over time. It will cost one eco-level to set up a route. Once you have it you will gain 1 SP every 3 turns it is in effect.
Now, in order to set it up you will also need a route free of enemies of course and, naturally, the accept of the nation you are setting up trade with.


Spoiler Minorities, Tech and Religion :

Ethnic minorities:
Most nations has one or more minorities living in them. This shows what minorities you have. These can cause unrest in case of wars against their people (either by you or others) or can be extra supportive if you do something for them or their homeland. You can try integrating them, expelling them, ignoring them or whatever you want. Just be careful… if persecuted they might start a rebellion.

Tech level:
Quite simple. It’s how advanced your nation is. Most of the time it will be the same for all nations, but it will differ quite a bit in the early game. A good way to raise this is having high education, advanced neighbors and contact with many nations which will give new ideas as competition is harsher and it is necessary to be more innovative. More advanced peoples usually have better weapons and/or tactics and will thus have an advantage in battle.

Religion:
Who does your people worship? This will tell you. It will mainly have an impact on relations with NPC countries, but having a religious minority and waging war on a country with that religion could cause some unrest. Especially if it’s a Jihad. And a Jihad of course is a holy war that you can declare on a nation with another religion. Depending on how religious your people are this can either get you massive support or make you a head short rather fast. The stat shows how religious your nation is. The stat changes as a result of your actions, your stories, random events and my mood.

Atheist-Skeptical-Religious-Strongly Religious-Fanatic


Spoiler Army/Navy stuff inc. training and more :

Army (Size – Infantry/Cavalry):
This is the size of your army. Later on Tanks will make an appearance as well. Depending on what time period the game is in, the actual number of troops will vary. Early on infantry will be counted in units while later on it will be in divisions. It will only cost 1 SP to increase your forces. Now, if you raise too many troops at once, the overall training of the army will drop. If you only use 1 SP then it is assumed they won’t impact the overall effectiveness of your forces, but recruit too many then training will drop as there won’t be time and/or resources to adequately train them.
Infantry: For each SP used you will get 10 squads/units/legions/regiments/divisions however they are called in that period. You can make your own name if you wish.
Cavalry: For each SP used you will get 5 squads/units/regiments/divisions however they are called in that period. You can make your own name if you wish. The main benefit of cavalry over infantry is speed and mobility.

IE: Your stat could say: Army: (30 infantry regiments/5 cavalry regiments).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry

Mercenaries:
During some time periods you can hire mercenaries. If it is possible, then I will let you know. Now, there might not be any mercenaries available, but it’s a pretty good bid that they will be. Now, mercenaries are always Professional in training and come in a size of 5 units per spending point, just like cavalry. However, you must pay 1 SP for every turn you want to employ their services meaning they are quite expensive to keep around. Also, they are rarely loyal, so beware of your enemies trying to bribe them.

Army (Training – Infantry/Cavalry):
This is how trained your forces are. The better training they have, the higher the chance that they will be victorious in battle… unless their opponent is better of course. As you know it will reduce the quality of the army if you recruit too many at once, but you can of course train them to be better if you wish. Training your army costs 2 SP and you can only train once per turn. Of course, being in battles (real battles) also has a tendency to improve the quality of your troops… those who survive, that is. Note, that unlike some other NESses, then you have to train infantry and cavalry separately.
The training levels are as follows:

None-Rabble-Semi-Rabble-Tolerable-Normal-Better-Good-Very Good-Professional-Elite

Levies available:
Your levy is the militia your nation has available. The last line of defense. It is mainly farmers with little to no military experience and will usually die in droves if facing a trained army unless they are very lucky or has a very able commander.
Now, calling up the levy is free and can always be done. If you are invaded without having called up your levy, then there is a chance that your nobles/commanders will do so anyway if they feel it is necessary.
Calling them up does have some expenses though. If you call up half the levies you’ll have 1 SP less in your following turn and if you call them all up then you’ll have 2 SP less. This is because rather than producing stuff they are playing at being soldiers and thus lowering your income. In other words… every turn you have the levies called up you’ll have less SP to use in the FOLLOWING turn. Also, if you can’t pay the price, then your eco-level will drop. It goes without saying that getting them killed is not a good idea either.
Oh, and your levies are defensive only. They will not leave your lands since they have farms to look after and just being called up is bad enough. Consequently having the levies ready for no reason can cause a drop in confidence.

For conscripts the rule is basically the same apart from the fact that they can be sent to other nations and they are not called up automatically if you’re invaded. Another word for conscripting your troops is instituting the draft.

Navy (Size):
Much as with the army. This shows the size of your fleet. Initially we won’t differ between the type of ships and most likely won’t until we start playing with frigates and ships-of-the-line.
You can get 5 new ships for 1 SP. Later on as more ships become available, then prices for them will be listed. For now, you always get 5 basic ships for 1 SP though.

Navy (Training):
Well, this doesn’t really require much explanation as it is with the army. Build too many ships at one time and training will drop as there will be a lack of experienced sailors to train them. Increasing training costs 2 SP.

Useless-Extremely Bad-Horrible-Tolerable-Normal-Better-Good-Very Good-Professional-Elite

UU (Size/Training):
Your UU can be whatever you desire. Just come up with a cool name and description and you’ll get it. You can only have one UU per age and you will need to choose what kind it is, ie. Infantry, cavalry or naval.
You increase the size of your UU in the same way as with other troops and you get the same amount. However, due to it’s higher training it costs 2 SP to recruit rather than just 1 SP. The UU will always have a training equal to the branch of the army it is based on +1. You can only increase your UU once per turn.

Example. Your UU is a special infantry unit. The training of your infantry it Better. Your UU automatically gets +1 so it will be Good. Should the traininglevel of the infantry rise or fall, then the level of your UU will too.

Later on we might make a separate training stat for the UU that can be increased independently if a majority wishes it.
 
Spoiler Leadership, Support Costs and Economy & War :

Military Leadership (Army/Navy):
It doesn’t really matter how well your troops are trained if the generals leading them are imbeciles. A good general can perform miracles with bad troops (and a little luck) whereas even the best soldier might be slaughtered by bad tactical decisions from their leaders.
You can of course choose to train your generals/admirals though it is pretty hard. This stat will mainly be changed through random events. It costs 5 SP to increase the stat. It is much easier to learn troops to shoot and work together than it is to teach someone to be a good strategist.

Disaster-Hopeless-Unskilled-Average-Skilled-Impressive-Genius

Support Level:
Soldiers need to be paid or they won’t fight for you. Even worse, they might decide to rebel against you if they don’t get what they want. Now, how much of an army you can support depends on many things. Population, economy, food surplus and such. Rather than overcomplicating things though, we will only base it on population, if nothing else than to give other stats than just economy some importance. Even some poor countries have quite large armies, though of course they then can’t afford much else.
Take note that the table for how much can be supported will change with the ages. It won’t change everytime there has been a BT, but it might. I will make sure to update the front page and list it clearly in the BT update what changes there has been made to support.

If you exceed your support limit, then you must pay 1 SP for every 3 points you exceed it every turn, in order to keep the military at that size until either your limit increases or you lose/disband troops. SC is generally calculated as 1 Support Cost= 1 SP worth of troops.

Population – Support limit
Almost Non Existent – 2
Heavily Under Populated - 4
Tiny - 6
Small - 8
Medium - 12
Quite Large - 16
Large - 18
Very Large - 22
Huge - 26
Gigantic – 30

Support costs (SC):
Infantry: 1 SC per 10 units
Cavalry: 1 SC per 5 units
Ships: 1 SC per 5 ships
UU: Same as their parent unit type

IE: A nation with a Medium population could freely support 160 infantry units or 80 cavalry units or 80 warships or a mix. We will use support as an experiment at first and see how it works in praxis.

War and economy:
War costs money. Quite a lot of it actually. Long is the list of nations which got into wars and had their economy destroyed for a variety of reasons. Costs of paying and raising troops, prices of mercenaries, lack of people to work and pay taxes, destroyed property, low morale due to on-going wars, embargoes, inflation, loss of commercial shipping and lack of production of other items than just warmaterials amongst other things. This will be illustrated by your economy level dropping if you’re in a war for too long. In general it will drop once every three turns you are at war.
This is an experiment.


Spoiler Education, Infrastructure, Reaching a new Age :

Infrastructure:
Roads, bridges, boats - all things used for transportation of goods and men - are listed under infrastructure. The higher is your infrastructure, the easier it is to move your (or enemy) troops across your territory; also, infrastructure could sometimes slightly grow economic benefits from trade centers, and it is a must for maintenance of a high culture level in large empires, as well as actually maintaining your grip on faraway provinces. Improving infrastructure costs 2 SP per level.

None-Dirt Paths-Pathetic-Barely Tolerable-Tolerable-Improving-Good-Efficient-Very Efficient-Great-Excellent

Education:
This is just how your people are... educated, I guess. Obvious enough. With a good education, you have better chances of receiving a “miraculous invention”. You could design better walls and siege engines, and ships for that matter, with higher education. It also affects just how advanced are your weapons, and thus the success of your army in a battlefield.

Once someone reaches Enlightenment education, he becomes much more likely to reach the next age as soon as it becomes possible at all. When he does, he loses 4 education levels. Raising education is quite difficult as you really need to reach out to the population and make them see a need for learning new things. It will cost 4 SP to increase a level. Of course, random events can also have an impact, say if a genius is born in your lands.

None-Dumb-Illiterate-Tolerable-Literate-Educated-Well Educated-Perfect-Academic-Enlightenment

Reaching a new age and upgrading army/navy:
Progress costs money. When you reach a new age it will take some time to get ready for the changes in equipment and warfare so your army will still function at the older level. To upgrade either army or navy to take advantage it costs one eco-level. Armies will usually drop in size when this happens as the forces are restructured. Same goes for the navy. While ships are upgraded some are getting too old for use and will be scrapped.


Spoiler Culture and Confidence :

Culture:
This is how culturally strong, patriotic and unified your nation is. A nation with strong patriotism is less likely to fall into a civil war, and it’s people would resist most invaders and otherwise help their government. This also influences army morale. A nation with weak patriotism is unlikely to be as resistant to outside threats, there will often be rebellions and defections.

Culture changes by random events, projects, stories, infrastructure, wars and much more.

None-Divided-Untrusting-Average-Strongly Cultured-Devoted-Patriotic-Hyperpatriotic-Jingoist-Uberpatriotic

Confidence in Leader (stability):
People can be fiercely unified and patriotic, but they will not necessarily like their ruler - in fact, a strongly cultured nation with little confidence in its leaders can, in its cultural unity, lynch the rulers and fire their remains from cannons. Into the huge pot filled with boiled sharks. Not that the rulers will care by then... You can grow confidence by economy (propaganda), but wouldn’t it be easier to write a speech or persuade the people that you are the leader they need? If you want to do it with economy, then it costs 1 SP and might not even work.
Basically, stories and your actions influence this.

Lynching-Hateful-Resentful-Barely Tolerating-Tolerating-Respecting-Admiring-Loving-Nation Personified


Spoiler Costs :

Costs:
Just for clarity I’ve put in a summary here of what various things cost:

Increase Infantry: 1 SP / 10 units
Increase Cavalry: 1 SP / 5 units
Increase Navy: 1 SP / 5 ships
Increase UU: 2 SP / increase
Hire Mercenaries: 1 SP / 5 units – 1 SP per turn they are in service
Improve Infantry Training: 2 SP
Improve Cavalry Training: 2 SP
Improve Naval Training: 2 SP
Call up half of levy: 1 SP to be paid in the following turn
Call up full levy: 2 SP to be paid in the following turn
Improve Army Leadership: 5 SP
Improve Navy Leadership: 5 SP
Army Support: 1 SP for every 3 points over your free support
Infrastructure: 2 SP
Education: 4 SP
Projects: 1 SP/turn
Trade route: 1 eco-level.
Upgrade Army/Navy to New Age: 1 eco-level.
Improving Eco-Level: From 3-16 SP. See under Economy.
 
Don't like "Europe-only" and board NESes, still, interesting rules.

I've been pondering about the further development of my Strugatsky idea, and as I'm currently reading Evgeniy Vitkovsky's "Pavel II" (which is a splendid parody on the modern mystocryptohistoricofuturistic literature), I decided that perhaps a NES could be made where everybody is playing various secret societies, possibly on a modern world map (or, to reduce the amount of modern politics-related flame wars, on a modern world map of an althistorical world; I think I even have some ideas as to which world it should be). I think that Cleric would especially like something like that. ;) Anyway, while I ofcourse won't mod it... anybody wants to develop this idea?
 
I'm going to open a prewiev soon of a mainly board nes to start off easily. The rules above will be for a fresh start. What I have in mind is modern day, 2005, and on a European map. It will be lots of warfare intermixed with diplomacy.
Why France and Germany would fight... why, it's because of the international hippopotamus conspiracy ;)
 
Right... I've slightly changed my plans. I've moved it back in time to another period in history. Now, this is still very much work in progress and the map is not complete yet either. Figured I'd give you a WiP picture though :p

Spoiler :




Edit: Arabia should be white.
 
Hmmm

realistic: check :)
non industrial: check :)
variaty of natons: check :)
dutch control of curacao, and england of jamaica, and russians of Alaska: nope :(
overal looks good: check :D
tons of opertunity: check :)
variety of nations in africa, including zulus and/or mali: nope :(
 
Finally figured out a perfect way to mod a WWII nes....​
 

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das said:
Don't like "Europe-only" and board NESes, still, interesting rules.

I've been pondering about the further development of my Strugatsky idea, and as I'm currently reading Evgeniy Vitkovsky's "Pavel II" (which is a splendid parody on the modern mystocryptohistoricofuturistic literature), I decided that perhaps a NES could be made where everybody is playing various secret societies, possibly on a modern world map (or, to reduce the amount of modern politics-related flame wars, on a modern world map of an althistorical world; I think I even have some ideas as to which world it should be). I think that Cleric would especially like something like that. ;) Anyway, while I ofcourse won't mod it... anybody wants to develop this idea?

well, you know I am a huge fan of Strugatsky books, and summer is coming closer and closer, so I could mod a NES like that during the summer if you help me with the ideas/rules, etc.
 
@Harleqin- Besides the tribal African kingdoms, there are a few developed nations that placed themselves on the world stage along with the Europeans. For example, Abyssinia. I do not claim to be an expert on the topic, but I must insist on including at least Abyssinia, and on nearly the same political level as Europe if not the same economic level, if you want any sort of realism. Also, the exact date of this would be nice.
 
Abyssinia's "same political level" is quite doubtable - remember all the tribal violence, and the way it helped the Italians grab Eritrea and stuff.
 
When I say political level, and note that I said "almost," I mean recognition as a nation on the world stage as well as a mainly stable government. It should also be noted that the tribal and regional bickering generally took place only in succesion disputes, bickering that also took place in Europe. It is true that the divisions in Abyssinia were often larger and fiercer than in Western countries, the amount is not enough to disqualify Abyssinia from a position of a real country. Also, untill we find out the exact date, we can not say the exact level of political and other stability.
 
stalin006 said:
Finally figured out a perfect way to mod a WWII nes....​

*explodes out of sheer amazement*
 
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