New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Dachs]

I don't think they're able to either. The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can be made to do...

That strikes me as far too close to virtually NPCing the country. I mean, if the bloody idiot can't follow the rules, by all means force him to act realistically, but that would be a lot of work for two or three or four bloody idiots, to come up with actions that strike a fairly good balance between competence and not making super powerful NPCs (which are ********).

POTC FTW.

When was the last time you say a one to five year turn game during the Roman Empire, or one with leaders who were rotating that heavily?

ITNES I IT III had five year turns as the Roman Republic, with a bunch of consuls, although I believe I sort of fudged by making a "super-dictator" above and beyond the legal bounds (Proconsul Domitius Ahenobarbus, although that is so long ago that my memory is fuzzy). But with all of the normal turns, there ought to have been more significant policy turnover, from the level of military engagements (following a unified grand strategy was sort of weird; look at the problems the real Republic had doing that in the Punic Wars) to economic policy (which was nonexistent, sort of against the interests of the richer types that made up the Senate). Simulating that would be a headache even for someone with acumen at switching between two perspectives, I think.

 

[Symphony D.]

That strikes me as far too close to virtually NPCing the country. I mean, if the bloody idiot can't follow the rules, by all means force him to act realistically, but that would be a lot of work for two or three or four bloody idiots, to come up with actions that strike a fairly good balance between competence and not making super powerful NPCs (which are ********).

Slash and burn is fairly easy to achieve in any endeavor. Angry opposition groups like slashing and burning...

If you know what groups are there, you can fairly easily calculate what they'd like done--if the current ruler is "mysteriously" parroting the previous ruler (especially if he was unsuccessful or disliked) then they agitate and either block his efforts or do their own thing. Occasionally this actually does happen, like in dynastic successions, or with successors from the previous administration or what have you, but if it occurs inappropriately you just throw a hurdle into the player's way and tell him "Hey, j0, CHANGE" until he figures it out.

But with all of the normal turns, there ought to have been more significant policy turnover, from the level of military engagements (following a unified grand strategy was sort of weird; look at the problems the real Republic had doing that in the Punic Wars) to economic policy (which was nonexistent, sort of against the interests of the richer types that made up the Senate). Simulating that would be a headache even for someone with acumen at switching between two perspectives, I think.

A simple solution presents itself: if the turnover rate is extremely high, then the time for making change is extremely low--it therefore becomes somewhat acceptable to treat change as a sum over the period, thereby diminishing the importance of the individuality of each particular ruler who may rise to prominence in those short periods of time.

The differences become marginal enough that they can be discounted, basically. The thing is you have to define what sort of period they do get counted over, in which case four to five years is a nice benchmark for seeing discernible shifts in policy, particularly with all the crap that tends to happen in one year games.

 

[Disenfrancised]

... the other literally gave the election to a secretly PC opponent.

Tehe.

So anyway I've been think about new ways to show data, ever since that conversation in this thread turned against explict and exact numeric quantities - what do people think of these. Also if anyone knows how to do nice arrows in GIMP I'd be much obliged.

Spoiler Names for that PoD map (Borders have been slightly changed too) :

Spoiler Population and Migration :

Spoiler Economic power :

Mainly on that last map - should exports be given a colour coded map of their own, bar charts, what? If they have a map of their own how am I going to display more than 2 metrics?

Additionally on a general philosophy note - I recently conjectured that part of the reason for the preponderance of warmongering in NESes is that non military achievements get you a few lines in the update, whilst there is a visceral thrill to seeing your colour spread on the map.
a) Do you agree, and how important do you think it is?
b) Do you think displaying stats information graphically on maps (standard of living, wealth etc) will make it more 'real' than numbers on a stat line, and if so will this encourage non military endevours?
c) Do you think an expanding segment of a pie chart (for things best pie charted as in science development, global trade, what have you) reproduce this thrill as well?

 

[Abaddon]

Bah, nothing?

 

[Symphony D.]

ever since that conversation in this thread turned against explict and exact numeric quantities

It did?

Mainly on that last map - should exports be given a colour coded map of their own, bar charts, what?

Bars.

a) Do you agree, and how important do you think it is?

Somewhat. Vast walls of text versus a few sentences probably has something to do with it too.

b) Do you think displaying stats information graphically on maps (standard of living, wealth etc) will make it more 'real' than numbers on a stat line, and if so will this encourage non military endevours?

Somewhat. I think the concern here is more of the space it will consume, both visually within a given update, and physically in some form of digital storage, and the time it will take to make them all, keep them updated, and keep them consistent.

c) Do you think an expanding segment of a pie chart (for things best pie charted as in science development, global trade, what have you) reproduce this thrill as well?

Sufficiently, and it's both vastly easier to create, maintain, update, present, and interpret for most people.

Unrelated aesthetic opinions of little value due to likely rushed nature of demonstrations (but for future reference):

• I'm aware you're using that map because you had a map already completed with it, but I hope never to see it again.
• The differing fonts for countries, both the text itself and the spacing and sizing of the different texts, clashes a lot and is just really ugly.
• The symbols for the EXPORTORS (it looks really funny with an O instead of an E, sorry) are unintuitive and just a bit crude.
• Industry scale is good, though I don't wonder if instead a triangle of Agriculture-Heavy-Light or a diamond of Agriculture-Extraction-Light-Heavy might not be more inclusive and also serve to eliminate the need for some of the markers. You could, with a hexagon, throw in Services and Energy for a more or less complete economic analysis, though those two are less related than the other four.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Somewhat. I think the concern here is more of the space it will consume, both visually within a given update, and physically in some form of digital storage, and the time it will take to make them all, keep them updated, and keep them consistent.

Well making bar graph/multiple icon overlays shouldn't be too tricky to automate, though automatically colouring things will be tough.

I'm aware you're using that map because you had a map already completed with it, but I hope never to see it again.

Heh, well finish the city mapping maps and then I might consider something different .

The differing fonts for countries, both the text itself and the spacing and sizing of the different texts, clashes a lot and is just really ugly.

The fonts aren't different ? Upper and lower case is to distugish states from sub-state entities. TO fit in the smaller countries you need small font, that'd look ridicilous on a Russia sized polity for example...should they all be small, all big, what?

The symbols for the EXPORTORS (it looks really funny with an O instead of an E, sorry) are unintuitive and just a bit crude.

No making fun of bad spellers , truly I am lost without spell check. I was thwarted in icon creation by being unable to draw .

Industry scale is good, though I don't wonder if instead a triangle of Agriculture-Heavy-Light or a diamond of Agriculture-Extraction-Light-Heavy might not be more inclusive and also serve to eliminate the need for some of the markers. You could, with a hexagon, throw in Services and Energy for a more or less complete economic analysis, though those two are less related than the other four.

I don't see how a triangle would work - where would you place the colour for being bad at all three metrics and the one for being good at all three on the same 2D scale? A triangle is good for showing proportions of each element, not combinations. Hmm maybe if the country has two colour regions, an outline of agri/extractive (which would have its own colour square) and inner region of light/heavy/services types (which would need a colour cube). Energy can probably go on a pie chart.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Gelion]

SYmphony, who's that on your avatar?

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Gelion]

<snip>


I'm sure you would love this!

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Gelion]

Macross is superior, though both suffer from Minmei.

Got to love them all!

Which reminds me, we could do a space NES based on human Robotech colonisaiton

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I have some thoughts on this Sym, but they will have to wait until after I finish updating.

 

[das]

Just some random brainstorming...

One thing that I definitely will be using heavily in the Iron Age project would be Maintenance. Bureaucracy, infrastructure, military, state structures (palaces and fortresses) - all those things will require money, and will fall into decay if denied funding due to more pressing concerns. This should hopefully create a realistic limitation on the modernist (in this case, absolute monarchist) tendencies in this forum, as things like a large standing army or an efficient bureaucratic apparatus will now be genuinely costly, as OTL Egyptians and Assyrians in particular had often found out to their chagrin. Realistically, maintenance should be the main source of expenses; other than that, you will need money for long-range campaigns, donations to important cults (to ensure support of the traditional elite), mercenaries, military equipment, and projects (which will be redefined to mean general state construction projects, for infrastructure, fortresses, new cities, wonder-type buildings and so on; also, it will ofcourse be possible to have more than one project at a time, though most will probably finish relatively quickly, and indeed it will be more similar to NES2 VI Investments).

With regards to the military update system, I'm afraid that the various problems with it seem a bit too major, and there are other aspects of the (steadily-developing) ruleset that might require much fine-tuning early on. So I'm presently leaning towards the system Fulton uses for his NES right now (which is rather like NK's idea here, but also with occasional "flashpoints"), with the Focus Point system somehow worked in.

 

[Thlayli]

I like those ideas, das. Also, it seems like the old 'Confidence' stat should be replaced with a more DaftNES-esque faction system.

 

[das]

Actually, as I have already discussed with North King in the While We Wait thread, I intend to go further and introduce a full-blown (albeit somewhat simplified) system of social groups, i.e. various elites (traditional aristocratic/military-bureaucratic/mercantile, though this will also include things like barbarian ruling elites), the commoners (divided into agrarian and urban where appropriate) and the minorities (significant foreign merchant colonies seem to be the most obvious examples; minor and irrelevant nomadic groups will usually not be counted). I've decided against listing slaves, though their existence and significance will ofcourse be mentioned in the economic description.

All social groups will be rated by political power, social power (not sure about wording here. Freedom or security might be more appropriate; basically, this is the difference between the traditional aristocracy or clergy and the meritocratic political elite promoted from amongst commoners and petty nobles), economic wealth (these three are separated on purpose, seeing as I want to incorporate social tensions into this, and said tensions always arise from situations where these three are not proportional for any given group) and loyalty to the present government. I'm not sure, but a rough measure of quantity for the elites might be useful as well. All those will be rated by a very simplistic system of relative levels.

 

[Gelion]

Das, might it be possible to write a short algorithm in Excel to regulate stat growth?

 

[das]

Depends on what exactly do you mean under stat growth... In any case, I advise that you consult Birdjaguar, who seems to use Excel alot for his current NES.