New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Israelite9191]

So, so, so, so, so too complicated.

 

[Stormbringer]

I am with Issy on this one. Maybe a few people will enjoy it but I most certainly do not have hours and hours and hours of time to try to direct a country in a NES.

 

[Disenfrancised]

What? Maybe you guys should read the damn thing - the player controls the tax rate (and structure), and can set some policies (of which you're only allowed a limited number), you are not able to micromanage things. Economic growth for the most part will be automatically calculated and outside the governments preview.

Half that text box is an example of what happens - not what you have to do.

The economics section is mainly reporting information, with few stats the player is able to adjust directly.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Dis, I at least like those rules. They certainly don't seem terribly complicated for the mod to update once the initial stats are constructed, especially as most of it can be automated. And the player doesn't really need to worry about the exact numbers if they don't want to--but they're a great way to find out where your country's interests lie.

Some questions/comments:
-I think it's worth listing with GAE what % of the global economy the country makes up. This would allow evaluation of the influence of merchant navy and financial services relative to the influence of the country as a whole without having to rely on imprecise descriptors.
-You say that currency strength is "a numerical value comparing it to the global reserve", but you don't actually give a number in your sample stats. I assume the number will be % of global money supply that's held in the currency. Is that right?
-What does listing GRT tell you that the % of global trade doesn't (except for telling you total global GRT, which doesn't seem all that important)? It may well give useful information, but if so I don't know what that is (so it should probably be explained in the rules).
-If you're listing major external markets, shouldn't you list the major import markets in addition to export markets? Or at least make some way available of determining whether a state has a trade surplus or deficit (i.e. % of GAE of exports and imports).
-How do you calculate the values of external markets? If it requires a % breakdown of industries within nations, will you make that information available to the player?
-Are local economic conditions those found in the individual country or in its region?
-Finally, how good is your economic growth model? It seems rather ad hoc, which I suppose is really unavoidable. Does it give the proper historical amount of growth if tweaked properly?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I have found out that presenting too much information can be bad. Not everyone wants to know how all the "behnd the scenes" elements work. In any case, thanks, I enjoyed your explanation.

 

[Azale]

Dis, I just worry about your workload. Your last NES was 1 mini-update and this, I think, was due to the tremendous amount of statwork you had on your plate (tell me if I'm wrong).

I would like to know how an economic region is determined, where I can find sources historically for these regions, and how a region could be devalued to the point where it's not a region anymore.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've thought alot about modeling for NESes and I have two rules:

1. If the mod input gets much more than entering spending amounts and results of orders & wars, the workload can easily be more than is manageable and sink the game. Therefore, automate as much as you can.

2. If the new element (read: complication) you want to add doesn't materially change what a player can do or will want to do, then don't add it. For example, adding a complicated economic model on top of the calculations to determine available spending levels would be overkill if it has only a 5-10% impact on that spending. Complications need to add play value for all the players and not just those adicted to ever more stats.

 

[Disenfrancised]

@Jalapeno and Az; once the initial stats are constructed I'll have a nice excel sheet I can just whip down and say 'good ideas = 3' 'bad ideas = 1' and then generate. Additionally these detailed stats are only for the 23 coloured nations (minors have a vastly simpler model) and economic growth is going to be calculated on a 'long update basis' of 3-4 years.

Also as will be shown in other parts of the stats the number of policies players can enact at a time will be strictly limited.

Believe me I'm trying to make as little work possible for myself . Also workload was only one of the many reasons Dis3 folded .

Some questions/comments:
-I think it's worth listing with GAE what % of the global economy the country makes up. This would allow evaluation of the influence of merchant navy and financial services relative to the influence of the country as a whole without having to rely on imprecise descriptors.

Thats an interesting idea, but might be hard to square with the GAE only being a subset of the true economic worth of the nation, I'm thinking of having some summary pie-charts somewhere at the end of the stats though now that you point it out (easier to autogenerate ).

-You say that currency strength is "a numerical value comparing it to the global reserve", but you don't actually give a number in your sample stats. I assume the number will be % of global money supply that's held in the currency. Is that right?

Well I did give a number (£15), and a summary pie chart at the end of the stats is a good idea.

-What does listing GRT tell you that the % of global trade doesn't (except for telling you total global GRT, which doesn't seem all that important)? It may well give useful information, but if so I don't know what that is (so it should probably be explained in the rules).

The GRT is how much can be moved by your merchant marine to keep the nation supplied, and available in wartime. Your right though that the numerical amount of shipping power might be better placed in the military stats.

-If you're listing major external markets, shouldn't you list the major import markets in addition to export markets? Or at least make some way available of determining whether a state has a trade surplus or deficit (i.e. % of GAE of exports and imports).

A numerical value for imports would be useful yes (and will be put in), but remember your major import market will be shown in the exports of other powers if you want to look it up.


-How do you calculate the values of external markets? If it requires a % breakdown of industries or trade partners, will you make that information available to the player?

-Are local economic conditions those found in the individual country or in its region?

Yeah they are country internal up and down cycles.

-Finally, how good is your economic growth model? It seems rather ad hoc, which I suppose is really unavoidable. Does it give the proper historical amount of growth if tweaked properly?

Its pretty damn ad hoc yes , but its designed for ease of my usage, coupled with replicating the chaotic growth of the economy rather than modeling it. As it is, assuming an absolutely stable global and local environment, and no good or bad policies under taken by the government, a westernized nation will grow at a mean rate of 1% a year. The random distributions that are sampled hopeful reflect the buzz and pop of the stochastic economy without explicitly itemizing every company folding or new mine being opened.

I would like to know how an economic region is determined, where I can find sources historically for these regions, and how a region could be devalued to the point where it's not a region anymore.

Mod fiat and rule of thumb, though the name should be clear enough for you to work out what's being referred to (and if it isn't I'll change it). Separating into regions is more based on difference in economic make up than size (clustering emphasizing distance rather than equality).
Here's a few examples: lets see who can guess whats in what:

Spoiler :

Britain
British Isles Core/Industrial, Extractive and Commercial, Heavily Urbanized/
British Isles Periphery/Agricultural Commercial/

*US
Free Soilers/Extractive, Agricultural, minor Industry and Commerce/
Upper Basin/Agricultural Breadbasket/
South/Slavery Based Plantations/

Texas
East and Gulf/Plantation and Agricultural/
Out West/Pastoral and some Extractive/

Staatenpakt
Ruhr and Rhineland/Industrializing and Extractive, large Commercial Urban centres/
Saxony and the East/Agricultural and Commercial, some large urban centres/
South Germany/Agricultural and Commercial/

 

[Stormbringer]

Now Dis, I did read the "damn" thing and I'm sorry that you and I don't agree on this. I always think that building a specific model serves only to restrict the player's possible choices. No economic model comes even close to representing the real world, and no model on this forum, no mater how complicated, will be even remotely close to the complexity of macroeconomic models that try to do that. As a result I feel that you will run into too many problems with players wanting to do things outside of what your model allows.

And next time, when you ask for an opinion, be prepared to hear people disagree with you. If you wanted only praise you could have said that I wouldn't have mentioned anything.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Now Dis, I did read the "damn" thing and I'm sorry that you and I don't agree on this. I always think that building a specific model serves only to restrict the player's possible choices. No economic model comes even close to representing the real world, and no model on this forum, no mater how complicated, will be even remotely close to the complexity of macroeconomic models that try to do that. As a result I feel that you will run into too many problems with players wanting to do things outside of what your model allows.

And next time, when you ask for an opinion, be prepared to hear people disagree with you. If you wanted only praise you could have said that I wouldn't have mentioned anything.

I apologize for a perceived rudeness (which was more directed at Izzies rather unhelpful 'so so so so...'), but your mention of 'spending hours and hours' to direct a nation implied to me that you hadn't spotted the limited amount of control (and thus time demands) this gives the players over the economy. Additionally I have explicitly rejected trying to produce an exact macroeconomic model as a non-functional tour-de-force, and instead try and produce one that mimics the output of such a model.

I can hardly think of anything the player might do that falls outside me deciding "Good Policy for this Subdivision" or "Bad Policy for this Subdivision" which is what I purposefully reduced the input options too.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Thats an interesting idea, but might be hard to square with the GAE only being a subset of the true economic worth of the nation, I'm thinking of having some summary pie-charts somewhere at the end of the stats though now that you point it out (easier to autogenerate ).

Pie charts are an excellent idea.

Well I did give a number (£15), and a summary pie chart at the end of the stats is a good idea.

Per the rules, doesn't that number refer to government savings/reserves, not currency strength? Obviously currency reserves do affect the strength of the currency, but they're not the only determinant--trade balance is important as well.

The GRT is how much can be moved by your merchant marine to keep the nation supplied, and available in wartime. Your right though that the numerical amount of shipping power might be better placed in the military stats.

Agreed. To avoid scarily large numbers, it might be worth just having a "transport capacity" stat, and giving each unit type a size/division, rather than worrying about the actual tonnage.

A numerical value for imports would be useful yes (and will be put in), but remember your major import market will be shown in the exports of other powers if you want to look it up.

Understood. It does seem worth listing trade balance somewhere, though putting it in the currency section might be more appropriate.

Also, you seem to have forgotten to answer this question:

-How do you calculate the values of external markets? If it requires a % breakdown of industries or trade partners, will you make that information available to the player?

As it is, assuming an absolutely stable global and local environment, and no good or bad policies under taken by the government, a westernized nation will grow at a mean rate of 1% a year.

Umm...isn't that untrue? If GP=BP=LC=GC=CU=0, then you get B(1+N(1,0.5)). Doesn't N(1,0.5) imply an average of 0.75, meaning growth is at 1.75% (in which case to get 1%/yr growth you want B(.25+N(1,0.5))

The more likely explanation, though is that I'm misinterpreting what N(1,0.5) means...

 

[Disenfrancised]

Pie charts are an excellent idea.

Per the rules, doesn't that number refer to government savings/reserves, not currency strength? Obviously currency reserves do affect the strength of the currency, but they're not the only determinant--trade balance is important as well.

I are dim. Missed what you were on about, lets say the value is...0.7 .

Agreed. To avoid scarily large numbers, it might be worth just having a "transport capacity" stat, and giving each unit type a size/division, rather than worrying about the actual tonnage.

I'd disagree, as people may need to move more than troops (and it makes say "the german U-boats have destroyed 10% of your shipping capacity!" much easier to work out).

Understood. It does seem worth listing trade balance somewhere, though putting it in the currency section might be more appropriate.

Perhaps

Also, you seem to have forgotten to answer this question:

I'll have a matrix of tuple relationship strengths hidden somewhere as factors of the receiving economy. The changing outputs as each economy grows will be automatically calculated, and I'll update the matrix from time to time.

For the example it look like this:

	Importers
Exporter	Germany	France	Britain
KoSFN		0.01	0.005	0.006

With the current relationships the value KoSDN from trade with Germany is 1% of Germanies sum of internal regions take a randomising factor (1% being the max possible). These are just example values, and the relationship matrix will not be player accessible I think.

Umm...isn't that untrue? If GP=BP=LC=GC=CU=0, then you get B(1+N(1,0.5)). Doesn't N(1,0.5) imply an average of 0.75, meaning growth is at 1.75% (in which case to get 1%/yr growth you want B(.25+N(1,0.5))

The more likely explanation, though is that I'm misinterpreting what N(1,0.5) means...

Something of a good catch, you both spotted somethign thats wrong and misinterpreted (which is my fault for bad explanations ). it should be N(0,0.5) meaning a value is sampled from a normal distribution of mean 0, and standard deviation 0.5. On average it shoudl have no effect, but can year by year move things up or down.

 

[sp1023]

Here's how Asia, South America, and Africa fall. Other to come later. Hopefully.

The first to fall was Africa. Their impossible terrains and horrendous communications gave the animals quite a chance to take them over quickly. The last ones to fall were South Africa, due to its better military and better navies, and Egypt and Algeria, from receiving European aid. But when hordes of octopi began to swarm upon the ships in the Mediterranean, and began to suction up the men’s faces, draining their blood and leaving empty shells, the aid stopped being sent. What can you expect, we’re humans, not angels. The Congolese and Nigerian regions fell first from the stampedes of elephants. It takes dozens of shots to take down one elephant, and once the military forces and ammunitions supplies were neutralized, there was no stopping the animal menace sfrom killing the poor peoples of Africa. The biggest killer there, however, was malaria. In the pre (End of the world as we know it) times, it was already a huge contributor to the death toll in Africa. But this new strain took death to a whole new level, and just slaughtered legions of people. There was no time to prepare for it, communities and towns died in instants from this new air borne virus.

Then fell South America. The first in South America to fall were the Brazilians and Columbians. The Amazon was too powerful in terms of animal life for Brazil to offer significant resistance. With the biggest block of South America out of the way, the way was paved for the destruction of Argentina. Here was the greatest fear of the entire happening. There was a massive army of krill bigger than ice shelves. Each step these krill took with their legs killed over 100 people. The killers from the deep apparently existed all the way past the deep end of the Mariana Trench, far past what humanity could view. In fact, these krill were probably a or the most decisive factor in the war, trampling their way across the entire South American continent. Bullets and shells, tanks and bomb didn’t even dent them. Venezuela, the United States, and Cuba launched some nukes at these monsters, which was enough to awaken their wrath. They began to breathe fire. Another puzzle in this equation was how these beasts exhaled fire. The burned and blazed their way through the Panama Canal, where they were unstoppable. At the Canal, they left for the water again, the destruction of South America complete.

Next to fall was Asia. Asian military forces were wrecked thoroughly by elite tiger and camel squadrons, so to speak. Imagining huge forces of people marching towards the jungles. Then, imagine tiger jumping out from within the army and killing everyone in sight. Meanwhile, the camels would charge in, trampling people and hewing havoc. These operations were nowhere near eough to extinguish the massive mounds of people living in Asia, and the animals had realized that more drstic actions were needed. Thus, they brought in, GODZILLA. Now, Godzilla, I must admit, is our fault, damn Frenchmen and their nukes. Although it was the stuff of legends and extremely successful movies, what we forgot was that legends have a basis in the truth. And there wasn’t one of them, or two of them, or even five. There were hundreds! These beasts destroyed Tokyo first, quite ironic, before proceeding to China and the rest of Asia. For some reason, India has been able to resist, as the mountains prevented their approach from China, and something in the waters prevents them from amphibious landings. In fact, India is where I am right now, in the last human stronghold of Jaipur, on the edges of the Thar desert. We were able to kill the elephants, but they still rampage here every now and then.

 

[Azale]

Apparently you didn't.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Stormbringer]

Dis, I think that the truth is that people like you and Symph just view NESes differently than I do. I prefer it to be a story in which over time the players can move their nation in a certain direction. Sometimes I purposefully undermine my nation, start socialist revolts, civil wars, etc. because it is a story. And as a result a single stat which allows the players to prioritize some area of development over another and also captures the relative sizes of the countries' economies is more to my liking.

Similarly I prefer military rules that are as simple as possible. I think that even giving the number of divisions in the military is a little bit too much.

Obviously this means that pretty much everything is decided by mod fiat. But then again, that's why we have good mods and I usually only join NESes that are run by people I trust.

If you would like actual economic input on this, let me know. I have to run right now but I will have some time tomorrow to type something up if you would like. And good job on putting together a very comprehensive rule set, even if it is not to my liking.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Dis, I think that the truth is that people like you and Symph just view NESes differently than I do. I prefer it to be a story in which over time the players can move their nation in a certain direction. Sometimes I purposefully undermine my nation, start socialist revolts, civil wars, etc. because it is a story. And as a result a single stat which allows the players to prioritize some area of development over another and also captures the relative sizes of the countries' economies is more to my liking.

Similarly I prefer military rules that are as simple as possible. I think that even giving the number of divisions in the military is a little bit too much.

Obviously this means that pretty much everything is decided by mod fiat. But then again, that's why we have good mods and I usually only join NESes that are run by people I trust.

If you would like actual economic input on this, let me know. I have to run right now but I will have some time tomorrow to type something up if you would like. And good job on putting together a very comprehensive rule set, even if it is not to my liking.

Stormbringer, you raise the question about where are the best places to add complexity.

Of course game developers can add as much complexity as they like to things players will never see or interact with. That aspect of developing a new NES can be as much fun as actually running the game. This is a perfect example of such an add-in:

Something of a good catch, you both spotted somethign thats wrong and misinterpreted (which is my fault for bad explanations ). it should be N(0,0.5) meaning a value is sampled from a normal distribution of mean 0, and standard deviation 0.5. On average it shoudl have no effect, but can year by year move things up or down.

My bolding.

Most importantly, complexity should be added to increase the opportunities for players to engage in a wider variety of meaningful strategic and tactical options in war, peace and politics. Complexity should challenge the thinking of players and not just add more work. If you provide more information to players, that information should enable richer game play for them. for example, in previous games I had an income stat that was based on the national economy and it could be affected by investments in various things and the tax rate. In my next game income will be based on three elements: taxes, tribute and plunder. The complexity goes up, but so do the options available to players. They now have three ways to add to their available cash. They can grow their economy and tax it; they can generate steady income from tributary states, or the can get quick money from plundering areas. In fact a player could choose to only pursue one approach and make it his primary wealth accumulation strategy.

Dis's mention of U-boat warfare and its impact on trade capacity is another good example of this.

 

[Israelite9191]

What? Maybe you guys should read the damn thing - the player controls the tax rate (and structure), and can set some policies (of which you're only allowed a limited number), you are not able to micromanage things. Economic growth for the most part will be automatically calculated and outside the governments preview.

Half that text box is an example of what happens - not what you have to do.

I did read the post, thank you very much. I understand that the burden is not on the players, but rather the Mod, which is precisely my worry. As a Mod, I have found that complicated rules = short, unfulfilling NES.

I apologize for a perceived rudeness (which was more directed at Izzies rather unhelpful 'so so so so...'),

I was simply stating what came to mind, which is that your rules were incredibly overcomplicated. I don't believe I was being unhelpful, I was saying very bluntly that I think the whole thing was overdone and overcomplicated. I'm sorry if I offended you, but when you post something in this forum you have to be prepared for people to disagree with you, say that they disagree with you, and do so very directly. I would appreciate if you would appologise for your rudeness to me as you have to Stormbringer.

Dis, I think that the truth is that people like you and Symph just view NESes differently than I do. I prefer it to be a story in which over time the players can move their nation in a certain direction.

I agree with this whole-heartedly.