New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[kkmo]

I have a question! Is this NES still around? I didn't want to post in the thread before knowing the answer.

I am really missing Sekai right now. While there are a lot of fantasy games around here right now, sadly none of them really appeal to me (except this one).

Well?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

lj would be the best one to answer that, but I'm under the impression that it's done.

 

[pallas]

Small comment: there's another issue about modeling: calculations. A moderator is not a machine. He can only make so many floating point operations per minute. After a certain point in a complex or expansive game, he'll make errors or go mad.

It depends on the state's tax structure. During the Eurasian War, all major belligerents except Russia taxed the "excess profits" of industry, especially industries producing war goods, on two grounds: one, that it reduced "war profiteering", something that was patently ridiculous in view of the fact that most arms manufacturers deliberately take losses in peacetime to get it all back in time of war; two, that it supplied considerable revenues. But most of the impact of industry on the exchequer is indirect. Actual "corporate" taxation is limited.

Ironically, increasing taxes on war industry just increases operating costs, which are just passed back to the consumer.... In this case the state.

 

[Terrance888]

How? They are only taxing profit.

 

[Milarqui]

Was wondering whether anyone would be interested in the revival of this NES.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322475

It was a really interesting one, but unfortunately the Mod stopped it without saying anything about why he did so - even after many people asked him.

 

[SouthernKing]

I'd be interested, it looks pretty fun.

 

[Lord of Elves]

This needs to happen. In.

 

[kkmo]

If anyone else here would like to be invited to a discussion group centered around the eventual launching of "Sekai II", please put your name here and I will add you. I enjoy feedback from insightful members of this forum. Please remember this is an ongoing project and is not expected to start up any time soon.

[ Sekai was the first NES I ran here. It was short-lived, due to personal reasons (I basically moved out of the country for a while ). I would like to (someday) launch a second installment of this NES, new and improved. The NES would be, like Sekai I, a back-to-basics, stereotypical fantasy NES in which players can be a kingdom, city-state, guild, party, or individual in a region surrounded by ancient super-powers (thus keeping players in an enclosed geographic space!). All typical fantasy fare valid: elves, goblins, dragons, merfolk, magic, oh my! ]

 

[nutranurse]

I thought it was a pretty good idea, sign me up!

 

[SouthernKing]

I can provide a newbie perspective if you want.

 

[Seon]

If anyone else here would like to be invited to a discussion group centered around the eventual launching of "Sekai II", please put your name here and I will add you. I enjoy feedback from insightful members of this forum. Please remember this is an ongoing project and is not expected to start up any time soon.

[ Sekai was the first NES I ran here. It was short-lived, due to personal reasons (I basically moved out of the country for a while ). I would like to (someday) launch a second installment of this NES, new and improved. The NES would be, like Sekai I, a back-to-basics, stereotypical fantasy NES in which players can be a kingdom, city-state, guild, party, or individual in a region surrounded by ancient super-powers (thus keeping players in an enclosed geographic space!). All typical fantasy fare valid: elves, goblins, dragons, merfolk, magic, oh my! ]

Bring back your cowboy Bebop NES first though! .

Nah, this one sound awesome as well.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Was this the one where I was Dorovel?

 

[kkmo]

Was this the one where I was Dorovel?

It's the only other one I've modded, so yes. I remember Dorovel well...

 

[pallas]

How? They are only taxing profit.

The burden of complying with taxes are typically levied on companies, not the state. For example, you have to do your own income taxes. The state does not do it for you.

Besides, where do you think industry gets money to expand itself? Profits. The armaments industry will still have to charge higher rates, either now or later, because expansion of supply isn't keeping up with expansion of demand.

 

[Terrance888]

Thanks for explaining.

 

[Masada]

Besides, where do you think industry gets money to expand itself? Profits. The armaments industry will still have to charge higher rates, either now or later, because expansion of supply isn't keeping up with expansion of demand.

States finance wars out of debt; a loss of a war increases the likelihood of a default or haircut; therefore armaments industries are willing to take losses in the short run to ensure payment. Also equity > profit. Also profit isn't tied lock-step as you suggest to a movement from D1 to D2 .

 

[Symphony D.]

Two-bit commentary:

This notably blew up in AFSNES a few years ago, and although I was in Colorado at the time and couldn't keep tabs on the discussion all that well, I got the feeling that the argument was never really resolved; the question of scale absolutely became relevant in Pre-ChaNES a year or so later. Do EP represent the same thing in every country? They should, but statistically, they never really have.

I'll chime in on this since I was present for both: Perfectionist was operating under the assumptions that EP weren't equivalent and would've done radically different things if he had known they ostensibly were. ChaNES was different in so far as what really counted was orbital manufacturing capabilities rather than money; although 100kt or something of manufactures per year was low (and very rounded and stagnant for such an important figure), it was also notably constrained because the SF was spending a lot of resources on Earth, so the two situations weren't really equivalent. Under mobilization the situation would've more accurately reflected the true resource disparity. Regardless, your point on EP stands.

Anyway, I'm open to suggestions on figuring out mass politics. Maybe a Victoria-like system where they get percentages of vote share, and maybe I break down the broad strokes of individual parties' big-tent appeal (or, in the case of some countries, the appeal of the parties that play the role of primus inter pares in a parliamentary system) in the stats themselves.

This seems to be a good idea, but the trouble lies in the specifics. The composition of support for a party and the party's planks themselves shift perceptibly with time, even in a high-res setting, so some degree of breakout is useful, but going too far will be over-strenuous. Victoria's Primary and Secondary Interests is probably as far as one would want to go on an issue breakout, and going by economic sector or income level or whatever is likely asking too much.

If you start providing percentage numbers for support, you're essentially pulling them out of a hat, so perhaps cap it at "Minority, Plurality, Majority, Supermajority," and so on.

Solution to the problem of players in democracies failing to properly act in character if their preferred party loses an election is to select good players. This is mostly relevant in US/UK, since Germany's Chancellor's job is to "manage" the Reichstag and Japan's rapid ministerial change makes me almost want to railroad them into a Kodoha military dictatorship or something just to avoid the problems of trying to mod parliamentary systems.

Since the trend appears to be that players will not determine the outcomes of their elections, this becomes a very important point. What in fact is the player supposed to do during an election year? They will have a vested interest in a particular candidate but if the choice is not up to them, won't they have to have an interest in all the candidates to have some idea of what they're doing? Are they supposed to write stories, or conduct all the different campaign platforms themselves? What's to prevent them from trying to use this to railroad the outcome? The method in which elections are handed will have to be made very clear to prevent gross misunderstandings.

Care should also probably be taken to underline where player authority stops. It's clear that we're not the Executive exclusively, nor are we the totalistic embodiment of government as a whole (except in autocracies, to an extent). There is a bureaucracy and an establishment which is "handled" by the player and outlasts whomever the player is roleplaying with each election, so making sure the dividing point between the temporary and the enduring government is in some way delineated will be important.

I also reiterate my standard argument that NESers are not militaristic on the grounds that almost all of them do not understand how to use their military correctly anyway.

Imperialistic is likely a more accurate description.

 

[pallas]

Imperialistic is likely a more accurate description.

Aren't NESes about three kinds of interaction: story, economy, and war? Arguably diplomacy is simply maneuvering for the next war in a forum game.

 

[nutranurse]

Or avoiding it in some cases.

As for NESers not knowing how to do military things on a strategical level--true. I like to think of NES's as 'hilter-simulators' when it comes to the military. You can leave things to the mod by saying "Just attack Y" or you're free to do things hands on and ruin it all.

 

[SKILORD]

lmfao. Hitler Simulators. I love it. (in the military context)