New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Kraznaya]

hey what

capitals are just the man trying to keep me down

 

[JosefStalinator]

I've started writing this BT in earnest, and Jesus Christ is the part about Spain long. I hope I don't go into too much detail, but don't worry, I'm not ignoring the rest of the world!

EDIT: What's the character limit for posts?

 

[Kraznaya]

min char length 5
max char length 30k

 

[Masada]

bkpwr

 

[JosefStalinator]

Just letting you guys know I am still alive, almost done with timeline, gotta plug all the non spanish countries and deal with a tad more fallout of the fall of the Spanish empire and the resultant London Treaty.

 

[Eltain]

Would anyone be at all interested in a NESlite (non-historical) set in the time of the early roman republic? Again, non-historical, and makes no claims to being in any way historical.

Spoiler On this map :

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7338/finalmapey1.png

Spoiler With these rules :

Ottoman Empire
-Independant Faction
Emperor of the Ottoman Empire
Military: 4,000/7
Economy: 20g

Ottoman Empire - This is the name of the faction.

-Independant Faction - This is the status of the faction. In this case, it answers to no one but itself. It is Independant.

Emperor of the Ottoman Empire - This is the role of the character you are playing.

Military: 4,000/7 - The first number is your military pool - that is, the amount of soldiers you own/control in total. The second number is the amount of armies they are fed into - or even, divided into. 4,000/7 will give you 7 armies of 570 soldiers each. These armies can be placed independantly around the map. Be warned, you cannot disband armies, and they cost 2g each to upkeep, but are free to create initially. Soldiers cost 1g upkeep per 1,000.

Economy: 20g - This is the amount of spending power you have this turn. Generally taxes make the most steady source of income, while raiding and plundering make the higher source of income.

On the military: It costs 1g to recruit 100 soldiers, period. Each faction has a military description that alludes to tactics, unit numbers and strategy.

On the economy: Each city (large dot) you control will generally give you 1g income, per turn, while likewise each minor settlement (smaller dot) you control will generally give you 0.5g (half) per turn.

 

[erez87]

Ottomans in early roman republic?

Might as well make us play Romans only, receiving orders from the Senate or something.

 

[Cannae]

Well I've decided that after being part of the NESing community here for years I have finally decided that it's time for me to start a NES. This is just a rough draft right now and I posting this to get input, (constructive) suggestions, ect. All the details below are in the spoiler since the description is kind of long.

Spoiler :

CAENES - Defending the homeland

History/Backround: America in the 1850's had just gone through major changes, with the Mexican American War just ending two years ago along with the gain of Texas, California, and the rest of the American South-West. After gold was found in California, many people seeking to become rich came over rapidly populating California.
Even though the American continent has had it's land carved into various territories for centuries at this point, this land was often sparely populated and often infrequently under control by the nation who colonized the area. Until now...
The expansion of Americas population and industrial might was staggering. Once more since America wasn't separated by vast oceans the amount of people setteling out west was staggering. However this "new" land that immigrants were so eager to take already had people living on it... These people were the Native American tribes.

Gameplay Mechanics
Playable Nations: Players are able to choose to play as a Native American Tribe present during this time period. Every tribe will have to defend themselves against the United States (played by the moderator/me) and it's growing industrial, cultural, and military might. The only Non-Native American nation open for people to play as is Mexico.

Other NPC: (probably played by myself throughout the entire game, unless stated otherwise later on) nations also are present. These nations (British Canada, Russian Alaska, Spanish Cuba, France, along with another nation that hasn't been born yet) are often inactive and rarely (at this point of the game) have direct military influcence in this NES. That's not to say they aren't important and if anything actually play a critical role for any player (especially those playing as Native American Tribes) for survival.

The end goal is for a player (or group of players) to thwart American Expansion into lands currently populated by various Native American Tribes, if not to gain outright independence. It will be a hard and risky journey but one that shall determine if the Native American Tribes will remain intact or not.

Government Centralization/Type: This is a major factor for all the nations in the NES but this is more significant with nations with larger populations (and land areas). Also the culture must be taken into account. Changing your nations form of goverment is very risky especially if done within a very short period of time.

Economics/Spending: Economics is extremely important in the NES and I can't stress enough how important it will be for survival (for both Mexico, and Native American Tribes). This will determine the rate of production your nation will have. This production is important for increasing population, military power and the ability to create new technology. But there is a major catch... Investing and industrializing too quickly will be extremely detrimental to your nations stability. It will make your nation more prone to being conquered by the United States. It will also increase unhappiness due to inequality of wealth (due to industrialism).

The economic stats are based on this format. With the total being the max amount of EP that can be used at that turn. Most purchases made won't have a fixed price but will be determined by me based on how much fiscal, industrial investment, along with the size and scale of the purchase being made. Any excess money that hasn't been spent will be banked and can be used at a later time.

Agriculture/Population + Industry + Commerce + Taxes - Millitary Upkeep = Total/Banked
So an example of this would be
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 - 1 = 3/0 EP

Infrastructure: Is key to transporting goods, people, and items at a faster rate. It also allows military expeditions to occur more effectively and a cheaper cost. However, this can be used against your nation if the infrastructure falls into enemy hands. Also the amount of infrastructure can mean the difference between life and death for your nation.

Military/Logistics: This is another critical factor in this NES, one that can't be ignored. The amount of total population that can be drawled upon is a major (and arguably along with EP the most important factors) in determining your nations military might. Increased industrial capacity will help your nation produce more powerful, (and often more expensive) units. So the basic spending order for creating military units is this. Also military upkeep is another major factor. The same rules apply to the navy as well, the army and navy would both be included in the military spending.

Also any invasions will also increase the amount of military upkeep you have to pay per regiment. The amount paid will generally increase by 1 EP per regiment but other factors may make the upkeep cheaper or more expensive. (Eg: Better infrastructure may lower the upkeep because it shortens the required amount of time to travel and that supplies can be moved more efficiently.

Population Size + Current EP - Current Upkeep = Total Potential Military Power
So this would mean...

1 + 1 + 1 - 1 = 2 Maximum amount of new regiments allowed to be created during that turn

As for the units themselves they would be
Native American Regiments
Spearmen: 0 EP, 1 Population, 0 Upkeep
Archers: 0 EP, 1 Population, 0 Upkeep
Canoe: 1 EP, 0 Population, 0 Upkeep
Horsemen: 1 EP, 1 Population, 1 Upkeep
Horse Archers: 2 EP, 1 Population, 1 Upkeep
Musketmen: 2 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Rifleman: 3 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Calvalry: 4 EP, 2 Population, 3 Upkeep
Cannon: 5 EP, 1 Population, 3 Upkeep
Gattling Gun: 6 EP, 1 Population, 4 Upkeep
Carvel: 3 EP, 2 Population, 3 Upkeep
Frigate: 4 EP, 2 Population, 4 Upkeep
Ironclad: 5 EP, 2 Population, 5 Upkeep
Foregien Mercenaries: Variable and depending on whats type of regiment is desired by the player

Mexican Regiments
Canoe: 1 EP, 0 Population, 0 Upkeep
Musketmen: 2 EP, 1 Population, 1 Upkeep
Rifleman: 2 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Calvalry: 3 EP, 2 Population, 3 Upkeep
Cannon: 3 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Gattling Gun: 4 EP, 1 Population, 3 Upkeep
Carvel: 2 EP, 2 Population, 2 Upkeep
Galleon: 3 EP, 3 Population, 2 Upkeep
Frigate: 4 EP, 2 Population, 3 Upkeep
Ironclad: 5 EP, 2 Population, 4 Upkeep
Native American Mercenaries: 3 EP, 0 Population, 3 Upkeep
American Regiments
Canoe: 1 EP, 0 Population, 0 Upkeep
Musketmen: 1 EP, 1 Population, 1 Upkeep
Rifleman: 2 EP, 1 Population, 1 Upkeep
Calvalry: 3 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Cannon: 2 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Gattling Gun: 3 EP, 1 Population, 2 Upkeep
Carvel: 1 EP, 2 Population, 1 Upkeep
Galleon: 2 EP, 3 Population, 2 Upkeep
Frigate: 3 EP, 1 Population, 3 Upkeep
Ironclad: 4 EP, 1 Population, 4 Upkeep
Native American Mercenaries: 3 EP, 0 Population, 3 Upkeep

Culture: This is a very critical factor in this NES and for the survival of what ever nation you choose to play as. This is because any nation seeking to industrialise must realize that they maybe opening themselves to being conquered via cultural means. Neglecting your nations culture may make people more likely to revolt and/or be more willing to assimilate into the United States.

While other Industrialized Non-United States Nations (eg: England, France, Spain, Russia, ect) may not provide as big a threat be warned that becoming diplomatically closer may also require your nation to allow their missionaries to come into your lands and convert people. This isn't as much of a major problem with the Mexican Government as it is with the Native American Tribes. Much like industrialization, foreign missionary activity will also decrease stability in your nation.

Technology/Projects: Simple enough, can be used to create items or products that can serve a civilian, industrial, or militeristic purpose. This can give your nation a sharp edge over other nations, the price will be determined by me based on the amount of investment, and the size and scale of such an order would require.
Stories: Generally I will award players EP or some form of bonuses if they write stories within this NES. However, as of this point (maybe up until the third turn) I will generally award more if you create stories that are more based on background information or other facts and statistics about some part of your nation. But
Orders and Order Format: Anybody who sends their orders in early will gain extra EP or bonuses. Be creative in how you spend your EP, the more creative and originial you are with what you order the more likely your going to be successful. But of course don't go overboard and generally if you have a question about if spending order is reasonable private message me and I'll tell you. Also message me if you have any other questions.

Extra Stuff: Would anybody be interested in playing this and also I need a map of 1850's North America. I can't find one that isn't so pixilated. Also anybody have any suggestions on how to simplify the stats?

 

[Eltain]

Actually, the Ottomans was just an example.

Spoiler List of factions :

5 Roman factions

1.): House Aponius
2.): House Tibinias
3.): House Trebonicus
4.): House Berudicum
5.): House Lovinian

1 British faction

6.): Welsh Kingdom
7.): Cumbric Kingdom

3 Gallic factions

8.): Canute
9.): Remi Kingdom
10.): Belgae

3 Germanic factions

11.): Cembri Tribe
12.): Chatti Tribe
13.): Gothi Tribe

2 Iberian factions

14.): Ebro Tribe
15.): Tejo Tribe

1 Carthiginian Faction

16.): Carthage

4 Greek factions

17.): Epirus
18.): Macedon
19.): Sparta
20.): Athens

1 Egyptian faction

21.): Ptolemic Egypt

2 Turkic factions

22.): Capadocia
23.): Phrygian Empire

1 Persian faction

24.): Partheid Empire

After those have all been taken (which I doubt will happen) I'll allow new creations.?

And yeah, I was thinking of having the Senate give the roman factions missions. Gamey but it is a game.

 

[Terrance888]

Spoiler My Work So Far :

ChuckNESI: Classic Earth Fresh Start "NES Gratis NESisse"
Deadline for starting cultures: For now, October 1

NES for the sake of NESing! Conquer for the sake of Conquering! Rule for the sake of Ruling! ChuckNESI: Classic Earth Fresh Start “NES Gratis NESisse”

Introduction: Welcome to ChuckNESI: NES Gratis NESisse, my first real NES. Yes, I moderated NESlites, RTORs and Map Games to test my modding ability, but so far the only thing lacking is the availability of players. This will be my proof of concept, my coming to moderdom so to speak, to use all that I have learned over the years to serve YOU, the community, and give YOU a great game! Please join, and NES on!

RULES:
I will try for either 2 good updates a month, or 5 simple updates a month; Your vote in the preNES. Shorter updates will also go through time a bit slower (i.e. 150 years instead of 200, or 50 instead of 100)
Orders will be limited to 1 PM;
Medium-Longterm Contingencies, Doctrines, and any important Military and/or Espionage systems you wish me to remember over periods of time (and which you desire to be secret) can be sent in a Separate PM every few turns
Players will play as the State as a Whole (Not their culture, not as the Ruling Figure). They will be divided into “Civilized” states and barbarian “Hordes”.
Players will start by submitting a culture anywhere in the world with the following form: However, the farther you are from the ‘Classic Cradles’ and the more NPCs and work you force me to do, the better this form must look!
NOTE: You can always ask me to change this form as the game goes on and as cultures evolve. As long as it isn’t too radical/justified, I can allow your culture base to slowly shift over the ages.
Culture Name/Player
Location/Spread
[Spoilered]Culture Archetypes
Culture Details: (Spoiler Needed)
Trigger of Civilization/Trigger of Migration
Justification (Spoilers Might be Needed)[Spoilered]
Society:
Lineage:
Values:
Religion(s):
Language(s):
Mythos:
Economic Base:
Nation Names:
Person Names:
Place Names:

Culture Name/Player
Location/Spread: Location shows the birth of your culture, your homeland where people began multiplying. Spread shows initial migration of your people as overpopulation begins to become a Factor. Please put starting locations a little separate, although overlapping spreads can create interesting wars, cultural amalgamates and preNES wars.
Culture Archetype: Any Realife or Literary sources, and a little bit of what you took it from. Links may be requestion. e.g. China (Family Structure), Germanic tribes (Honor based warriors) and India (Mysticism and Caste System). This will help me generalize your culture.
Culture Details: Any interesting detains of your culture you wish to share.
• Society: How do your people generally organize in power/respect?
• Lineage: How does property, titles, ect transition between generations?
• Values: What do your people hold above all else? Please limit to a few.
• Religion (s): What religion(s) does your people believe? Quick description of each religion and the kind of people they attract/of each god in a polytheistic pantheon.
• Mythos: What is their general view of how life should go? Pragmatic? Idealistic?
• Language (s): What is their language called? How would it sound? Any interesting Grammar? Will help be determine how easily cultures can mix. In addition, share some words and I can start naming the world in the new fashion.
• Economic Base: How does your people survive? How do they thrive? Please limit.
• Nation Names: By what names are your nations called? How about descriptors? “Empire” “Kingdom” ect? Are they named by location, their founder, philosophies?
• Person Names: What kind of names is your culture known for? These will be given to legendary heros, leaders, and other important people.
• Place Names: See above, in addition, please name your stating location.
• NOTE: Not all of this is needed, as you can simply say in Culture Archetype to use Chinese Society-Values, Aztec Religion and Mythos, Greek Language, and then some Economic Base and greek names. However, despite our map seeming so familier, it will do us all some good to spice it up a little bit.

IMPORTANT!!! THIS WILL DETERMINE HOW I WILL TREAT YOUR CULTURE IN THE PRENES
Trigger of Civilization/Migration: These triggers are what pushed your culture around the final lap to civilization, culture, law on one hand, or migration, common purpose and ‘barbarian horde’ on the other hand in the PreNES. Factors might be the migration of another culture, an ancient, unified state, a powerful religion, warfare, and other events which would as definitively as possible mark the transition between a group of farming, cultured towns and powerful city-states bent on expansion, trade, or unification.
Justification: While Classical Cradles need almost no justification, and nearby lands such as Mediterranean, Iran and inner India, Peru and such need only little; the further you go the more justification you must give for the growth of isolated or nearly isolated civilizations. Although I will always allow players play, and indeed, will allow NPC cultures created by players to flourish in the background, I WILL penalize a culture in northern Norway created there “to pillage and plunder” while there are no other nearby cultures in the Baltic, or even the entire Northern European area. (If there is, the penalization will be less, and the player will almost need to manage such a state like a horde).

Finally, we will start in a PreNES which will provide a quick background sketch for the main NES. It will start at the end of the Ice Age, and first go a couple thousand years, then a thousand years at a time, until we arrive at near-OTL 3000 B.C. at the edge of the Bronze Age. Sophisticated stone tools and crude Copper ones are being used by various civilizations. This will play as a BT while I organize the main NES.

This NES started in part due to Xen’s eagerness for a Classic Earth Fresh Start, starting in the stone age, like the good ‘ol times; I thank Xen for his eagerness for helping be get started. I also thank Abaddon, erez and others for the support. For the rules I thank North King for the pillaged Culture Description section, as well as all moderators for slowly tweaking the rules and brining me ever more hours of exasperated studying, hoping to find the best ruleset..



Actual Ruleset
Stats
Egyptian Empire/RamICU
Centralized Amonic Theocratic Monarchy/Pharaoh Ramasses II
12/1-Growing (9/3)
4, Amun Guards, 4 Veteran Companies, 6 Companies, 8 Green Companies
- Core of Chariots using bows, blocks of Infantry using mixed weapons, standard shields, some bowmen
7 Green Squadrons
- Standard Galleys with hired or pressed Phoenician sailors
5 Companies of Nubian Spearmen, 5 Companies of Lybian Light Cavalry
Efficiency: Great/Good
Size: Large
Culture: Influential Egyptian, Some Phoenician, Some Hyksos, Sparse Nubian
Tech Age: Middle Bronze Age
-Hysos Chariots-> Egyptian War Chariots, Compound Bows, Papyrus, Graduated Irrigation System
Policies (-5EP): Fortresses of the Empire -1EP, Temple Maintenance -2EP, Nile Irrigation System -1EP, Scribe Schools -1EP
Projects: Ancient Irrigation, *Ancient Tombs, Great Temple of Ra, *Statues of Power, Nile Irrigation System, Nile Forts (6/10), Great Temple of Amon (3/12), Nile Graduated Irrigation System (1/15)
National Background: After two centuries of Hyksos rule, the Egyptians threw them out and declared Thebes as their capital in the middle of the 15th century BC. Pushing into Lybia, Nubia and the Levant their new Empire brings both riches and new borders. Now that they border stronger enemies, shall they rise to the challenge, or shall the Egyptian Empire fall once more?


State Name/Player
Obvious
Government Type/Ruler
Government type will include base government type and descriptors. This will not only explain your government a bit but will also help you decide how to improve efficiency. If you want to change it you generally need to get creative to prevent backlash from the former government officials.
Base Government: Generally who is the leader? Monarchy, Theocracy, Democracy ect.
Descriptors: What kind of government is it? Benevolent, Theocratic, Centralized, Fuedal, ect.
Economic Status
I am using a partially new system showing the total economy, its breakdown, and the state of the economy in general. To increase this you can increase other stats, start projects, engage in payment or non-payment policies, or even spend directly on this stat. However, you have to describe how you want the money to be spent and how you hope it will affect your economy.
Income/Banked-Status (Rural/Urban)
Income-Total Rural/Urban income you can spend
Banked- Any banked EP. May be affected by inflation or interest. May affect corruption and confidence. ++Also includes windfalls like raiding another country's treasury, looting, or donations from another nation++
Status- Complicated and new! Will be described below.
Rural- Your countryside income. Generally harder to affect directly and slower to grow. Includes farming, mining, and everything based on small, stable town economies.
Urban- Your cities, manufacturing and trade. Growing trade->Larger Cities->More Demand for Goods->More manufacturing! Very easily affected by economic status, trade, confidence and other factors, can easily affect them as well.
Economic Status Shows how fast your economy is growing or shrinking, usually affecting your volatile Urban economy. This can be easily affected by nearly every stat, and is almost random. It will depend heavily, however, on player’s actions and orders. Even then, a depression can strike the best player, while the worst player can still experience a state of Prosperity. I will use RNG to determine economic cycles every few turns.
Standard Statuses
Depression-Recession-Slow Down-Shaky-Stable-Growing-Strong-Prosperous
Ye Economic Status. Shaky and Stable don’t lead to natural EP loss or growth, while Slowdowns and Growth just gives some. Depressions and Recessions can affect your confidence and other stats, last long enough to affect your rural economy, and are generally very bad. Strong and Prosperous economies generally boast your stats. Generally, stat differences of 3 or more can spread much faster than 2 or less; a Depression can pull down a Shaky economy faster compared to an already Recessive one.
Special Statuses
Collapsed-Crashing-Booming-Golden Age
Crashing and Booming describes economic status change of more than 2 levels. The expected ending level would be in parenthesis. Sometimes, an unstable economy will boom one turn, then crash the next!
Collapsed is an extremely bad economic status worse than a depression and can be caused only by a crash. They represent an economy which is at a standstill, and won't budge, and is shrinking perilously. It will take some decent orders to survive. It might be followed by many years of negative status (moving from Collapsed to Depression still gives you a onetime boast in stats which you can try to gain momentum with). These will take much from your confidence stats and decay many of your other stats.
Golden Age is an extremely good economic status better than Prosperous and can be caused only by a Boom. They represent an over flowing economy, vibrant in all sectors and growing inexorably. Stats increase on all fronts! Rarely lasting as long as 5 turns, usually 2-3. They give many boasts to the economy and provide some security against a crash. Generally they don’t cost confidence when it ends, unless it ends with a catastrophe.
Army
-Army Description
You armies will either be based on Companies of 500 men, or just a quantitative stat. Whatever it is, you will have an Army Description describing your standard operating troops. Any deviation costs extra EP. Can be Reformed with a program. See Military section.
Navy
-Navy Description
Your navy will either be based on Squadrons of ships, or just a qualitative stat. whatever it is, you will have an Naval description describing your Standard Oberating Boats. Any deviation costs extra EP. Can be reformed with a program or by buying ships from another nation while scrapping your current fleet. See Military section.
Active Mercenaries
Instead of paying extra EP every turn during a period of war to get some cannons, how about you just hire a useful mercenary company just waiting for such an oppertunity? They stay with you for a contract, until defeat, victory, or they get paid off. Usually more effective than ad hoc deviant spending, but also more dangerous. Decommissioned UUs also go here. I will have a page of significant Mercenary bands of an area, as well as general mercenaries. *Barbarians Can Possibly Be Hired!*
Efficiency: Government/Military
Not only does this affect your nation when it gets NPCed, but it also tells how well your orders get implemented.
Government: How much is it shackled by corruption? How well do your officers play with money without taking a cut for themselves or selling info to another nation? Is affected by size, infrastructure, population and education. Also affected by your type of government. Generally it tells how effective your domestic orders are and how secure your government is. To increase this you can increase your Infrastructure or Education, or you can set up policies, projects, or ep to try to directly affect this stat.
Military: How fast do orders get to your troops? How much imagination do they have to innovate new tactics or adopt/reverse-engineer those of the enemies? Is affected by size and quality of your armed forces, recent military battles or reorganizations, and to some extent culture and education. Generally it tells how effective your generals are at interpreting orders, executing battleplans, and adjusting to the current situation when that plan inevitably falls apart. To increase this without war, you generally want to increase your education, change your culture, or spend money directly on training methods or projects/policies.
Size
How big is your country? This only counts for your directly controlled lands! Protectorates, colonies, territories ect don't affect this stat except for certain circumstances. Affects infrastructure, efficiency and culture. Generally a comparative stat.
Tiny-Petite-Small-Medium-Large-Gargantuan-Humungous
Population
How many people are in your country? As above, it only counts for directly controlled lands. Affects conscription size, education, and efficiency.
Culture
What does your people see themselves as? This stat will state the power of your culture on your region, then of any predominant and minoraties within your country. Religion included, possibly seperatly. this can affect the chance of rebellion.
Education
How learned are your specialists? No no, this is not a general stat of your entire population. However, educating more your population can increase this stat by virtue of filtering out your desired specialists! Education affects how fast you learn technologies, as well as culture, Military Descriptions, and efficiency to some extent.
Infrastrucutre
How connected is your country? Affected by size, affects efficiency, as well as the speed of armies moving through your nation. This counts for invading armies as well!
Tech Age
-Unique Techs
NEW!! Tech ages start as Ye Old Stone/Copper/Bronzes/Iron. However, after Iron they slowly seperate depending on the leading nations of a cradle. Will your nation share with the Roman Classical Age or the Chinese one? Will you follow the Italian Renaissance or the Northern one? General ages will allow new soldier types, but specific ages affect your culture, education and eventually, all your stats depending on that specific age's difference from another's! By getting a new age, you can determine whether to stay general, adopt another's specific age, or create your own. Gaining a new age will generally make your formerly smart specialists seem stupid... you will lose some Education!
Unique Techs From the Amonic system. You want something? Just pay money supporting any similar idea and I will look for any progress. Sometimes you get dead ends, sometimes I modblock it, sometimes you succeed and gain a special advantage. Unique techs can do anything you want; traded, utilized, form a unique tech tree ect. However, they can be stolen, become obsolete, or be really expensive to do anything with. Will you take a chance?
Policies
Any project which will take a long term amount of set EP payments. You can pay extra in hopes of accelerating progress, or you can pay less and hope that you won't slow it down too much. Policies can support any stat; but you must put in at least 2EP every 3 turns if you have any hopes of any payoff! My numbers are the standard effective payment as I see it.
Projects
Projects which you hope will affect any stat and which is not seemingly neverending. Building a dike is a project; maintining a dike system is a policy. Sometimes, projects for building buildings (especially if supported by stories, culture, and stats) can turn into a Great Wonder. As you can see, Egypt's Ancient Tombs were affected by Khafu's story about penile insecurity his greatness and his eagerness for a good place in death, a culture of preparing a place in death, and some good techs for stone working. BLAM! You got pyramids!
National Background
Updated every 5-10 turns or so if I managed to stay with this game, as well as after a war to account for new changed positions. This will give a quick runthrough of recent history and dreams of the people.

Yeah, I need some help here in designing a ruleset.
I like my economic system, and I will keep it. Not sure if I will keep the Special Income, or the 3 Cities system as giving direct income.
I am not sure whether to keep the Infrastructure/Education/Culture/Area/Population/Confidence stats and such. They all give important info, but I sometimes feel they "Inflate" the stats. Perhaps have an Area/Population/Density as one combined line of stats? Also, I am twisted between the tradition word-based stats and MjM's rather workable point-based stats.
For the Confidence/Stability/Factions I am split equally amongst them. An early civilization won't have that many factions, would they, or wouldn't they? Would I have to shift if I BT it to a more developed era?
For the troops, I am also split between standardized Companies/Legions/Armies with descriptions, or # of troops with descriptions.


Heck, I might just give up all these stats and go with this.
Nation/Player
Basic Government/Leader
Income/Banked
Army/Quality
Navy/Quality
Projects/Policies
National Details (All the stupid stats which show how our non-military development is)
Background

The National Details would go: The United States has good Literacy rate, but a decaying Education system which is currently Fine. Their best students are great and go to excellent educational facilities. They have a excellent transportation infrastructure and very good passanger/trade infrastructure. They are currently reforming their medical system. The government currently is not interferring with their (uh....) Mind Control systems.

The Soviet Union has a mediocure Literacy rate and a stable Education system which is currently intolerable. Their best students are fine and go to decent educational facilities. they have a decent goods transportation system and a fair passanger/trade infrastruture. They have poor universal health care.

ect. ect. I will give a number next to each description and let the player muck with the meanings.

 

[SouthernKing]

Would anyone be interested in a medieval Europe fresh start? As in, starting in Europe, maybe 600 AD, and then playing as medieval European states, through the Middle Ages. Sort of like that old lazy NES, Rise from Medieval Kingdoms, that was around 4 years ago.

 

[erez87]

Would anyone be interested in a medieval Europe fresh start? As in, starting in Europe, maybe 600 AD, and then playing as medieval European states, through the Middle Ages. Sort of like that old lazy NES, Rise from Medieval Kingdoms, that was around 4 years ago.

The rise of Europe

I'm interested.

 

[Abaddon]

Would anyone be interested in a medieval Europe fresh start? As in, starting in Europe, maybe 600 AD, and then playing as medieval European states, through the Middle Ages. Sort of like that old lazy NES, Rise from Medieval Kingdoms, that was around 4 years ago.

VERY. Assuming I can take some backwards tribe in Britain.

 

[Terrance888]

I would be interested.

However, is anyone interested with helping me renovate the "Classic Ruleset" or should I just use that "Classic ruleset" style in my Fresh start?

 

[SouthernKing]

Alright, I will start constructing it.

I have some ideas, but they are still just that: ideas.

First of all, I need a good start date. Definitely after Muhammed's Flight. I was thinking starting in 750 AD, (OTL post-Battle of Tours) and doing 50 year updates until 1000, then 25 years after that.

 

[kkmo]

Hello everyone. Sorry to post here - I don't really have a NES idea. I was wondering something. You all have an alternate history thread, but what about an alternate world thread / general fiction thread? Does this exist?

 

[Symphony D.]

Closest thing.

 

[Dachs]

For spending, I'd dump the EP in favor of something more quantitative, like $1,000,000 as the base economic unit. Abbreviating costs for things to spend on as XM$, basically. Not *much* different from the EP, except that it's much more divisible and doesn't have a stupid name.

I'm mostly concerned with questions of scale there. EP was dumb partially because it forced mods to minimize the actual size of certain economies. 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.

Anyway, since a NES that relies on shady crap like using economic measurements that aren't the same from country to country isn't my cup of tea, we're basically left with either using a standardized currency (USD, sterling, Deutschmark, and franc are the obvious choices in the Eurasian War context, which heavy biases toward the first three) or an arbitrary measurement that's equivalent to X amount of a standardized currency, like EP, except said arbitrary measurement is also standardized across countries so it means the same no matter where you are. That's not an interesting question; both are basically the same thing. The real problem with EP wasn't that it wasn't dollars or whatever, it was that it didn't actually correspond to economies in a way that made any ****ing sense.

The real interesting questions are things like how I would represent tax rate (separated into direct/indirect/ad valorem duties?), how I would represent industrial production (highly relevant for war economies, but also kind of specialized in ways that you can't always overcome by just calling it "IC"), how I would represent trade (especially since I want currency blocs, economic-based foreign policy, and so forth to be meaningful, and therefore might have to give them a disproportionate relevance in stats), how I would represent debt (no real ideas here), and so forth.

A manpower pool is essential,

I don't actually know if this is true. You have two numbers that are really relevant: number of trained soldiers in service Right Now and number of trained soldiers currently serving in a reservist capacity. Beyond that, no state is realistically going to hit a ceiling at which it literally cannot recruit more men; the only time that has come close to happening in modern history was in the case of Paraguay in the 1860s and 1870s; even Nazi Germany, with its ostensible reliance on "the old, the young, and the weak" to defend Berlin in 1945, mustered most of its manpower from military-age soldiers. The real brake on manpower is going to be upkeep: a combination of money paid to serving troops and money paid to supply troops. I've maintained this since the runup to DaNES II, and I think that NES (such as it was) more or less proved me right. In a WWII-era context, upkeep isn't really relevant by itself; as we saw in the Eurasian War (if you - unspecific you - read the damn thing) and as we saw historically in WWI and WWII, there are no serious fiscal handicaps to governments mobilizing for war. The handicap comes when you combine upkeep with limits to industrial and agricultural production from the use of trained workers and farmers in the armed forces. All of this is easily modeled by other stats. All of it is relevant at every point; it is not as though there is a minimum threshold of manpower that one can use for military service before the economy starts to be affected (snide comments about the unemployed won't slide, sorry).

tl;dr: no manpower stat.

Dachs already brought up the 'sophistication of industry' problem on #nes, which is...problematic. I think you can solve it though, by simply saying what each country can produce and where, modifiable with long-term reform and/or throwing a lot of money at the problem. Possibly an 'economy description' along the lines of the old army descriptions? In both AFSNES and DaNES II, the military descriptions changed incrementally over time, and I propose a similar approach for an economy description.

This is the easiest solution, but it's also very unsatisfactory, because it provides no quantitative input, forcing me to rely on my own judgment as far as productive capacity goes. I've had my experience with seat-of-the-pants modding in DaNES II; it worked okay in the military sphere partially because I have the capacity to explain pretty much any military occurrence ever to the satisfaction of this forum, and it will absolutely not work in the economic sphere because I will have people like Masada failing to send orders but never failing to ride my ass about semi-inexplicable economic outcomes.

Keep factions. Integrate current factional goals INTO the stats. DaNES II was great with the factional goals, but presumably those change with time, and can do so quite rapidly depending on the political situation.

Factions are pretty unsatisfactory for modeling mass politics, all the more so in a parliamentary system (or an American one). I feel like they're most appropriate for describing the interests of groups in an oligarchic system (not in the broad sense of the word "oligarchic" that modern anarchists use for democracies and such): you don't have to keep track of many different interest groups, and they suffice to model the broad strokes of politics and force the player to pay attention to internal dynamics. As such, they will completely and utterly handicap any attempt to mod the United States, United Kingdom, Japan (if it sticks with Taisho Showa democracy), Germany, Argentina, and Austria among the majors and semimajors (potentially Russia, the Qing, and Iberia as well). It kinda works for the RoC, which has conveniently discovered one-party democracy despite the absence of Lenin, but not really.

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.

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. You of all people should be most familiar with the utter disaster factions+democracies ended up being in DaNES II, because you played the only country that had a semblance of democracy and consistently failed to act in character.

I propose higher-resolution maps for theater combat along with the generalized placement (by the mod) of corps to army-sized units and major fleets. It's just necessary, and saves the mod a lot of obligatory 'WHERE THE **** ARE MY TROOPS' questioning post-update.

As with technology, theater strategy will be on a "can I be assed with micromanagement? y/n" basis; players can screw around with it if they want, with all of the serious potential defects of that policy (or benefits: see Hitler's 1941-2 "stand fast" order that saved the Wehrmacht), or they can let it go mostly on autopilot and rely on me to sculpt the narrative. More work for the mod in an abstract sense, but it's work I'm used to doing and can do well. Extra and larger maps and statified higher military formations would make for more work for the mod in a very non-abstract sense that I'm unwilling to do. Anyway, bare minimum I'm probably willing to accept are generalized strategic directives and the number of troops of various formations that you're committing to various areas; bare minimum for military policy is a sort of mission statement about the sort of military you want to create.

Dachs might and probably will disagree with me, but I think accessibility for the proletarian player is key.

Ehhh. I think you underestimate the average NESer's capacity to understand a system regardless of the intricacy of the stats and rules, and overestimate the average NESer's (even, hell, the supposedly "good" NESer's) capacity to make viable decisions with the instruments given them. Accessibility is not related to stat complexity - and I would point out that I think any stat system I could come up with is probably less complex than anything Birdjaguar or EQ could produce. The real thing here is the tug of war: I want players to get better at NESing, something that almost only happens with experience, but I would prefer that they not cut their teeth and make silly mistakes by playing major powers in NESes I moderate. Obviously, everybody can't have it both ways.

And of course this all belongs in the NES development thread rather than here, but activity is activity, eh?

Says the man who has conspicuously failed to follow up on his ostensible timeline project.

 

[Thlayli]

The real interesting questions are things like how I would represent tax rate (separated into direct/indirect/ad valorem duties?), how I would represent industrial production (highly relevant for war economies, but also kind of specialized in ways that you can't always overcome by just calling it "IC"), how I would represent trade (especially since I want currency blocs, economic-based foreign policy, and so forth to be meaningful, and therefore might have to give them a disproportionate relevance in stats), how I would represent debt (no real ideas here), and so forth.

On taxation, the real question you have to ask is, "Is a player qualified to understand the implications of making adjustments to taxation and monetary policy?" Which is rapidly followed up with "Even if the player considers himself confident enough to alter the income tax/tariffs on steel/excise taxes on liquor by X%, does the mod consider himself skilled enough to accurately model what this will do?" I'm leery of shoving too many statistics into what could be more appropriately black boxed.

Here's an interesting question that I'm not really certain of. Is industrial productivity a significant source of revenue for the state at this period, or should industrial capacity be decoupled from income calculation in the stats and only be used to demonstrate what the state can produce, and how fast?

Regardless, I'm certain that decoupling trade income and domestic income is a Very Good Idea (tm). A more detailed breakdown of trade income into spheres like 'tax income generated from exports,' 'tax income generated from tariffs,' might make sense integrated into the stats, or it might be too much work...

tl;dr: no manpower stat.

I think I can accept this rationale. But if you admit that upkeep is your main source of constraining the players and also admit that modern warfighting states have the ability to blow past all financial restrictions, you need to make overmobilization hurt the player in some other way. Cough, industrial capacity.

This is the easiest solution, but it's also very unsatisfactory, because it provides no quantitative input, forcing me to rely on my own judgment as far as productive capacity goes. I've had my experience with seat-of-the-pants modding in DaNES II; it worked okay in the military sphere partially because I have the capacity to explain pretty much any military occurrence ever to the satisfaction of this forum, and it will absolutely not work in the economic sphere because I will have people like Masada failing to send orders but never failing to ride my ass about semi-inexplicable economic outcomes.

Masada has already abrogated his responsibilities enough to have no say in whining. I don't think any of us are qualified enough to make a TRULY realistic economic simulation, the real challenge lies in making an economic simulation that's realistic enough for our purposes. Which, for a NESer, often comes down to 'How many armored brigades/aircraft/battleships can I produce in a year and what do I have to do to make that number bigger?' That's obviously an oversimplification that tends to view NESers as hypermilitaristic simpletons, but you know it's roughly correct.

Factions are pretty unsatisfactory for modeling mass politics, all the more so in a parliamentary system (or an American one). I feel like they're most appropriate for describing the interests of groups in an oligarchic system (not in the broad sense of the word "oligarchic" that modern anarchists use for democracies and such): you don't have to keep track of many different interest groups, and they suffice to model the broad strokes of politics and force the player to pay attention to internal dynamics. As such, they will completely and utterly handicap any attempt to mod the United States, United Kingdom, Japan (if it sticks with Taisho Showa democracy), Germany, Argentina, and Austria among the majors and semimajors (potentially Russia, the Qing, and Iberia as well). It kinda works for the RoC, which has conveniently discovered one-party democracy despite the absence of Lenin, but not really.

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.

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. You of all people should be most familiar with the utter disaster factions+democracies ended up being in DaNES II, because you played the only country that had a semblance of democracy and consistently failed to act in character.

In my defense, democracies work much better at higher temporal resolutions than 5 years per turn, especially if you're supposed to run through 5 archons in a turn. I think I can see where you're coming from for factions. Maybe (for the mass democracies) just keep a short version of current party platforms in the stats, along with their current percentage of seats in each chamber. My only concern is you should have some way of demonstrating which parties are increasing/decreasing in popular support, rather than having the election come as a complete surprise to the player. But perhaps this can just be done through the narrative.

As with technology, theater strategy will be on a "can I be assed with micromanagement? y/n" basis; players can screw around with it if they want, with all of the serious potential defects of that policy (or benefits: see Hitler's 1941-2 "stand fast" order that saved the Wehrmacht), or they can let it go mostly on autopilot and rely on me to sculpt the narrative. More work for the mod in an abstract sense, but it's work I'm used to doing and can do well. Extra and larger maps and statified higher military formations would make for more work for the mod in a very non-abstract sense that I'm unwilling to do. Anyway, bare minimum I'm probably willing to accept are generalized strategic directives and the number of troops of various formations that you're committing to various areas; bare minimum for military policy is a sort of mission statement about the sort of military you want to create.

For me, it seems like the map is quite underutilized, especially if we're going for a very high temporal resolution like 3 months per turn. If you're expecting a lot of detail from the players on military strategy, it stands to reason that you should offer some type of increased representational details in return. A lot of the clarifications of troop/ship numbers and positions are going to be necessary anyhow, so I don't see why they shouldn't be represented on the map in some form. Especially if the map is now Bigger and Better (tm).

Says the man who has conspicuously failed to follow up on his ostensible timeline project.

Says the man who tells me not to set deadlines and then criticizes me when I'm not timely. I'm going to keep working on it.

 

[Dachs]

On taxation, the real question you have to ask is, "Is a player qualified to understand the implications of making adjustments to taxation and monetary policy?" Which is rapidly followed up with "Even if the player considers himself confident enough to alter the income tax/tariffs on steel/excise taxes on liquor by X%, does the mod consider himself skilled enough to accurately model what this will do?" I'm leery of shoving too many statistics into what could be more appropriately black boxed.

Hell, I'm not qualified to understand a lot of that.

Here's an interesting question that I'm not really certain of. Is industrial productivity a significant source of revenue for the state at this period, or should industrial capacity be decoupled from income calculation in the stats and only be used to demonstrate what the state can produce, and how fast?

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.

Masada has already abrogated his responsibilities enough to have no say in whining. I don't think any of us are qualified enough to make a TRULY realistic economic simulation, the real challenge lies in making an economic simulation that's realistic enough for our purposes. Which, for a NESer, often comes down to 'How many armored brigades/aircraft/battleships can I produce in a year and what do I have to do to make that number bigger?' That's obviously an oversimplification that tends to view NESers as hypermilitaristic simpletons, but you know it's roughly correct.

Stats define what the NESers think about, not the other way around. If there is a statistic for "education", some NESers will work to improve it; if there is a statistic for "technology", some NESers will work to improve it; if there is a statistic for "national prestige" that directly impacts who "wins" the NES, most NESers, if not all, will work to improve it. Thus having a reasonably realistic or at least predictable set of economic rules is pretty vital.

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.

For me, it seems like the map is quite underutilized, especially if we're going for a very high temporal resolution like 3 months per turn. If you're expecting a lot of detail from the players on military strategy, it stands to reason that you should offer some type of increased representational details in return. A lot of the clarifications of troop/ship numbers and positions are going to be necessary anyhow, so I don't see why they shouldn't be represented on the map in some form. Especially if the map is now Bigger and Better (tm).

My argument in three parts:

1. This would permit the players to have perfect intelligence about everybody else's militaries' whereabouts. This is completely unsatisfactory - the practice of open stats is arguably bad enough, but in the interest of ease of moderation it cannot be avoided - and prohibits any sort of strategic surprise.

2. Armies will be represented by various kinds of divisions (except artillery, which comes in battalions). This is in the interest of standardization: any larger formations would inherently be of a mixed variety unless I were to impose some sort of ahistorical and unrealistic standardized corps on players. (Standardized divisions are kind of pushing it as well, due to arguments over binary/triangular/square formations, but there are ways of circumventing that.) None of the maps mooted for potential use has the resolution to depict all of the divisional formations. In theory, this would be overcome by representing only higher organizations such as corps, armies, army groups/fronts, and theaters, but these cannot be standardized across players and furthermore reveal entirely too much of a given player's order of battle. File size problems and my complete lack of interest in spending more time on the map than absolutely necessary make considerations of larger-scale maps pointless.

3. This may seem like a direct contradiction of 1, but it's not: formations are too mobile for map depictions of them to be relevant with turns of six-month resolution. Let me explain. Mobilization for most countries takes place on a scale of weeks, if not days. Hence the positions of armies on the outbreak of war are almost completely irrelevant to their positions at the completion of mobilization. Therefore, in a very real sense, map-locating formations is pointless. But this does not obviate the first point, because that's not how every campaign starts; standing starts are suboptimal, and mobilization plans for the outbreak of one war will soon be rendered moot by its outcome, while the state must focus on further campaigns. Example: BARBAROSSA had something like an eight-month buildup. On a map, if all Hitlerite divisions were fully plotted out in their actual locations, any fool playing as Stalin would have noticed the massive amounts of troops opposite his western border. But the Nazi invasion achieved not only strategic surprise but institutional surprise. For massive undertakings such as that one, a longer period of buildup is necessary, so positions on the map do become relevant - and damaging.

Says the man who tells me not to set deadlines and then criticizes me when I'm not timely. I'm going to keep working on it.

Yeah, well, when you roll out over a hundred pages in a little over a month, you get the moral authority to do that sort of thing.