New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Erik Mesoy]

I think we had a few RPNESes here at some stage, so there might be interest.

Do you take this sort of comic?

 

[Kal'thzar]

Just an Idea for the fresh start I want to run.

Now as usual, you will get a templete to fill out, but I was thinking of altering it, setting everything to zero, and giving you 4-8 eco to spend to customise your nation stats. Appeal?

 

[Abaddon]

Yes, that would be good.. add more flavor possibiltys straight away... might want to put some restrictions on some stats tho so people cant go "all in economy" or whatever then vastly outproduce everyone else.

 

[Kal'thzar]

well yes, I'm aware of that

 

[Abaddon]

you did ask....

 

[Disenfrancised]

Next segment in developing my new ruleset - Education and research; lets hear peoples opinions;

Education

Education is divided into three tiers and one numeric quality, to represent the various different sorts of education that a modern state needs. The stat line will look like this;

Education (Basic/Skilled/Higher/Research) - &/&/&/$

The first three are word based qualitive levels that are rated on the scale below, whilst the last is a numeric quantity giving you research points to spend. The three word level stats go on this scale;

None-Appalling-Poor-Bad-Not Bad-Good Enough-Good-Great-Excellent-Outstanding

…and are proportional to your population size.

Basic Education is things like numeracy, language skills and literacy for your population, having a high basic education will make some methods of economic growth easier, change the way your population reacts to events, slightly improve the efficiency of your army, and make it easier to raise and maintain high standards of the higher educational levels. This will degrade over time without continued funding (or some method to maintain it) and increasing a level will require funding equal to your population size, and you can only increase by one level a year.

Skilled Education is things like technical skills and secondary level education, having a high skilled education will increase economic growth significantly particularly industry, change the way your population reacts to events, improve the quality of the specialists in your army and your navy and air force, and make it easier to raise and maintain levels of Higher Education and your Research output. This will degrade over time without continued funding (or some method to maintain it) and increasing a level will require funding equal to your population size, and you can only increase by one level a year.

Higher Education represents university level educations, having a high Higher education establishment will increase some forms of economic growth, and the quality of your upper army echelons and political elite (depending on your government form). The likelihood of advances (see below) being made is dependent on the product of your Higher education rating and your population. This will degrade over time without continued funding (or some method to maintain it) and increasing a level will require funding equal to your population size, and you can only increase by one level a year.

Research Points are a numeric quantity of research that you can spend on various things (see Research, below). The base number of research points is proportional to the product of your Higher Education and population; you get some extra for high levels of Skilled Education and more research points can be gained from setting up research institutes (see projects). You can spend research points on basic research or on technologies, or duplicating advances.

Research

There are two types of research that appear in your stats, these are advances and technologies. Advances are things like metalurgy and the theory of relativity, whilst technologies are things like super-Dreadnaught Battleships and atomic bombs.

Advances

You don’t get to choose your advances except in the most general way (because this annoys me no end in NESes ) instead you’ll get advances from the secret list in a quantity determined using a RNG algorithm that takes into account a) your higher education and population, b) the number of research points you put into basic research, c) the amount of collaboration you do with researchers from another country (which can give you results greater than the sum of its parts). What you get is determined by a) what advances you know already, b) What technologies you’ve invested a lot in and c) if you put any requests in; for example “faster ships”. In this NES the bed rock of technologies is the 1890 level, and advances represent development beyond that.

Technologies

Each advance unlocks technologies enabled by that advance, I’ll give a list but feel free to suggest more and I’ll review if they are appropriate or not for the advances you have. The word “technology” is slightly misleading here, because this category includes things like “Artic Warfare” and “cracking Nazi encryption”, but nothing else seemed to fit as well. Each technology will effect the operation of your stuff in the NES in some way, for example ‘Machine guns’ and “Basic mechanized infantry” will make your armies hit harder and move faster respectively. You research a technology by investing research points into it, and you can “crash develop” something by spending economy points at a 1:1 ratio to research points, however you must put at least some research points into the technology each year you advance it. In free economies you will sometimes get extra research points turning up in technologies that the business community thinks will be profitable.

Secrecy

You can keep technologies secret, but that will increase the amount of time and effort they take to complete, and once you start deploying the technology on a large scale it will also take money and effort to keep secret. Note that secret technologies will not appear in your stats, I’ll send you a PM with your “classified” stats each turn. Advances cannot be kept secret, but you can order them to be “protected”, preventing other nations from playing catch up (or at least increase the cost), though this might create ire, and depending on how widely deployed the technology is may take funding. Technologies can also be “protected” without having to keep them secret.

Catch-up and technology trading

Its hard being the technology leader with everyone hard on your tails; once an advance or technology is known about you can order your researchers to duplicate it for a set cost in research points. You can “crash develop” something by spending economy points at a 1:1 ratio to research points, however you must put at least some research points into the duplication each year you advance it. Catching up usually costs somewhat less than researching the technology in the first place but the cost can be increased by;
-lacking the necessary advances if a technology is being copied (greatly)
-being at war with the state your attempting to copy if from (greatly)
-not trading much with the state your attempting to copy it form (slightly)
-if the state is keeping the technology or advance protected or secret (enormously)

…and it can be decreased by;
-trading a lot with the state your copying it from (somewhat)
-if many states have the technology (depends on number)
-if a state with the technology gives/sells it to you (greatly)

Thus you can give other states technologies, but they still need to make some effort in research or money before the technology can give them any benefit (representing training people, altering designs to local conditions etc). of course if you really wanted you could give them the money for that as well .

Is it too complex? I'm planning to have alot of it automated, and each level is claerly about a different thing (also over the timescale of the NES education levels will not change greatly).

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Looks good. I like the Basic/Skilled/Higher definition. I get what you mean, but as the rules are written Skilled and Higher seem to overlap to some extent in their effects.

 

[Disenfrancised]

as the rules are written Skilled and Higher seem to overlap to some extent in their effects.

Yes, from my observations of real life a mix of skilled and higher is generally what gets things done , i.e lab researchers and techicians etc. They also do different things though.

 

[Kozmos]

Dis you are making killer rules for a random modern world NES. Keep it up.

 

[Symphony D.]

There are two types of research that appear in your stats, these are advances and technologies. Advances are things like metalurgy and the theory of relativity, whilst technologies are things like super-Dreadnaught Battleships and atomic bombs.

Sounds sort of like something posted not so long ago that nobody commented on. Will read the rest when I get home.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Sounds sort of like something posted not so long ago that nobody commented on. Will read the rest when I get home.

I forgot my standard disclaimer

"People probably deserve credit so if you think you should get some then its yours and anyway the hell with you!"

 

[Nuka-sama]

I made a new Military city system for NESes. Maybe someone will incorpite it in their NES

Military Centers Military Centers have increased troop production. They emmerge in Highly populated cities near the frontlines. They can also be helped made by economic investment. Like I said earlier, they have increased troop production, but they also have better training. Example: Belguim has a military center in Brussles. Its Military training level is 7, and 1 ep gets 1 division. Instead of getting 1 division of level 7 troops, they get 2 divisions of level 8 troops

Naval Centers Naval Centers have increade Ship training and Ship production. They can emerge when the city is an important Naval Port, Economic investment, or is a place that is frequently Blockaded, and wants to defend itself. Example, England has a Naval Center at London, and its training level is 2 and you get 4 ships per eco. Isnstead, with a Naval center, you get 6 divisions with level 3 training.

 

[North King]

Why must we have so many bloody centers? I prefer my own one city system.

 

[Luckymoose]

Rules are getting way to complicated and spread out. Causing mods to give up.

 

[North King]

Rules are getting way to complicated and spread out. Causing mods to give up.

That's a good one!

Mods rarely give up because of rules; they give up because they lack interest in it.

Most of mine ended because I get this dissatisfied vibe from the players which rubs off on my after a while, and causes me to figure I might as well close it anyway.

And of course I'm not starting one nowadays because NESers are in general becoming such spoiled brats that I don't feel as though it would be right to make an NES for them.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Do I act like a spoiled brat? Oh geez, I really hope I don't.

At worst, I hope to come off as a busy person with a recent lack of stories and updates.

 

[Symphony D.]

New component up for review.

Spoiler ECONOMY :

The Economy category lists all pertinent information regarding a country’s economic and industrial capabilities. Its subcategories are as follows:

Spoiler ECONOMIC ZONES :

Economic Zones (EZs) are geographic expressions of a country’s economic development. They are not (necessarily) administrative units, merely economically integrated areas. All EZs a country possesses are indicated on the map and carry a corresponding entry. Each EZ has four relevant figures: Agriculture (A), Commerce (C), Industry (I) and Services (S). As such, beside each EZ reference are listed these four figures in the format (A/C/I/S).

Agriculture, Commerce, and Services constitute Economy Points (EP). Industry constitutes Industry Points (IP). EP can be saved in a nation’s Treasury and gained by taking on Debt. IP can not be saved or gained by taking on Debt.

Economy sectors are grown by investing an amount of funding. This amount is dependent upon the development of a given sector in the zone. The more developed the sector, the greater the cost to increase it in that zone. Economy sectors are grown using EP only. The tiers of development are as follows:

1EP: 0 Sector Output
2EP: 1 to 4 Sector Output
3EP: 4 to 10 Sector Output
4EP: 10 to 14 Sector Output
5EP: 14 to 18 Sector Output
6EP: 18 or higher Sector Output

Spoiler TOTAL ECONOMY POINTS :

Total Economy Points denotes the total number of EP a given nation produces, and is the sum of all EP in all EZs.

Spoiler TOTAL INDUSTRY POINTS :

Total Industry Points denotes the total number of IP a given nation produces, and is the sum of all IP in all EZs.

Spoiler TAX RATING :

The Tax Rating denotes the aggregate sum of all government taxes. Standard economic wisdom applies: higher taxes will increase available funding but may lead to discontent and economic slowdown, while lower taxes will decrease available funding but will increase public happiness and may increase economic growth.

The Tax Rating is given as a percentage between 0 and 100%.

The Tax Rating may be changed at any time, although it should be noted dramatic changes may lead to equally dramatic effects.

Spoiler EFFICIENCY RATING :

The Efficiency Rating denotes the efficiency of your society in gathering resources and utilizing them. It is a direct consequence of Infrastructure and Civilian Leadership. The Efficiency Rating is given by the following equation:

Efficiency Rating = (Infrastructure Value + Civilian Leadership Value) / 2

Spoiler CONVERSION RATING :

The Conversion Rating denotes the conversion rate between IP and EP. It is a direct consequence of Civilian Leadership.

Spoiler AVAILABLE ECONOMY POINTS :

Available Economy Points lists the total amount of EP available for a nation’s government to utilize. It is given by the following equation:

Available EP = (Total EP x [Tax Rating]) x Efficiency Rating

Spoiler AVAILABLE INDUSTRY POINTS :

Available Industry Points lists the total amount of IP available for a nation’s government to utilize. It is given by the following equation:

Available IP = Total IP x Efficiency Rating

Spoiler TREASURY :

The Treasury indicates the number of spare EP a nation has at its disposal.

Spoiler DEBT :

Debt indicates the EP that a nation owes domestic creditors. A nation may gain additional EP by assuming Debt. A nation may only assume up to 50% of its Total Economy Points in Debt before all loan privileges are revoked and it must pay off its Debt to continue loaning.

Debt accrues Interest annually, at a rate of 10% per year. The formula utilized for debt is given by the following equation:

Debt = (Previous Years Debt x 1.1) + Current Year’s Debt

Numbers for Debt and Growth are possibly temporary.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Looks pretty good. But shouldn't Available EP/IP always be less than total EP/IP? That would require Infrastructure and Civilian Leadership to be percentages, which makes sense but isn't specified.

Also, the fact that the Conversion Rating is entirely dependent on Civilian Leadership seems suspect to me, though I can't come up with an alternative right now. Can you explain your logic for that?

 

[Symphony D.]

Looks pretty good. But shouldn't Available EP/IP always be less than total EP/IP? That would require Infrastructure and Civilian Leadership to be percentages, which makes sense but isn't specified.

They would be, and that would be known if those sections were included; however they aren't at present. Infrastructure functions in a similar fashion.

Also, the fact that the Conversion Rating is entirely dependent on Civilian Leadership seems suspect to me, though I can't come up with an alternative right now. Can you explain your logic for that?

It was a toss-up between that or Infrastructure, or both (which would make it the same as Efficiency, which I didn't like).

My logic was the coordination of turning commercial assets into industrial ones and vice versa basically involded liquidation of those assets into capital (money) and transfer. This doesn't quite make the best of sense, and theoretically there could be three systems (IP, EP, and money) but that seems unncessary. So basically you're shuffling off industrial goods (or, the potential for them, more accurately) for commercial ones. This could be thought of sale and exchange.

Most of this would, in reality, be done by commercial interests, but "Civilian" leadership is vague enough to include them, in my book (plus every country, whether it's a market economy or not, is basically using command economy-style for its entire industry, so that's sort of unrealistic too--if I'm super-bored maybe I'll figure out a Command vs. Market rules, just for kicks).

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Most of this would, in reality, be done by commercial interests, but "Civilian" leadership is vague enough to include them, in my book (plus every country, whether it's a market economy or not, is basically using command economy-style for its entire industry, so that's sort of unrealistic too--if I'm super-bored maybe I'll figure out a Command vs. Market rules, just for kicks).

I'm still not entirely happy with that, but I guess with that definition of Civilian Leadership, it works.

On another note, a nation with high economy but low industry won't be able to build all the tanks it wants by converting its economy into industry--rather, it would buy them elsewhere. That logic suggests that there should be a cap on how many EP you can turn into IP and vice versa. It should obviously be percentage-based: Maybe you can only change 1/3 of EP to IP, and vice versa. Either that, or there should be diminishing returns on conversion, but that seems more complicated to implement.