New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Daftpanzer]

So now that summer is here AND drivers ed is over with, I'm thinking about attempting what I consider to be a rather ambitious project. I am thinking about making a non-earth entirely from scratch, and then use it to do an "accelerated timeline" thing. However, eventually the "accelerated" part would stop, and the NES would turn into one looking more like BombNESIII. This will allow players to create nations on a non-earth map, and then play in a world with (hopefully) a good deal of depth in the industrial era.

That sounds interesting... I had fun with the 'Imperialism' computer games back in the day.

 

[Heraclius49]

Here is the basic format for my new NES. Is there anything that can be improved or needs to be changed?

Rules

Spoiler :

Rules
Sample Stats
KGB/Heraclius49
Full Name: Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti
English Translation: Committee for State Security
Country: United Soviet Socialist Republic
Role: HUMINT, Counter-Intelligence, SIGINT
Budget: 25 GFU
Approval: 89%
Training: 9
Freedom: 5
Prestige:

I will use GFUs (government funding units) instead of money to avoid the complications of Exchange rates and Inflation. Funds will be needed to execute missions and for any projects that you might have. Your Budget increases with greater government approval.

Approval is how much the Government approves of our actions. With Increased approval comes more Funding and possibly more Freedom. Do things that cause troubles for your government might result in harsh restrictions. It is important to note that the approval reflects not the Executive branch but the Legislative branch of Government (i.e. Congress or Parliament in democratic nations, or the Politboro or Communist party in Communist nations.)
Roles (See below)
Training measures how skilled your spies are. This can be raised by many methods such as improved facilities, new techniques, or better organization. There is no concrete cost for raising your training level. Create methods of improving your spies skills will have more effect than just putting funds into improving training.

Freedom is how much freedom of action is currently allowed by the government. 5 is the least restricted (greatest Freedom).
5- Significant censorship powers, no warrants required to search private property
4- Limited censorship, warrants needed to search private property
3- No censorship, warrants required to search private property
2- No censorship, cannot execute warrants, and certain types cover ID’s are not allowed to be used
1- All above mentioned restrictions and you cannot have agents running intelligence operations on domestic soil

Prestige is measured in points. It is similar to EQ's player point system. The only difference is that besides agency goals you will be sometimes given missions, by your governments, which need to be completed in a certain amount of time.
Roles
HUMINT is short for HUMan INTelligence. It is defined as “intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources.” It is gathered mainly by spies and agents operating in foreign nations
SIGINT is short for SIGnals INTelligence. It is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people, whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication, or combinations of the two. As sensitive information is often encrypted, signals intelligence often involves the use of cryptanalysis. Also, traffic analysis — the study of who is signaling whom and in what quantity — can often produce valuable information, even when the messages themselves cannot be decrypted.
Counter Intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them.
Secret police are Domestic investigative or Counter Intelligence Agencies that operate in a similar matter to Intelligence Agencies. They tend to have high degree of Freedom. They are typically found in Communist and heavily authoritarian nations.
Diplomacy
In this game I have Identified 4 Great Powers: United States of American, United Soviet Socialist Republic, United Kingdom, and France. Each has more than one intelligence agency. They can be directed by a player or by me as an NPC. Don’t automatically pick a Great Power to play as. It can possibly be boring, as all you can really do is delegate jobs to agencies under your control and engage in Diplomacy. This is a spy NES after all. One more important thing to note: you only control the executive (or equivalent) portion of the Government. Still have an approval rating from your legislative (or communist party) and can be removed from office. In Great Powers with NPC governments, an agency may be temporarily “empowered” to negotiate for a specific issue.
The Benefit of taking an agency of a smaller country is that you can engage in your own diplomacy and run your own affairs. Keep this in mind when you are picking an agency.
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)
NGOs come in many varieties: rebels, aid Organizations, terrorists. All NGOs will be NPC unless otherwise specified. If a rebel group or terrorist organization has a great enough following, they can become playable.
For spies the use of an international aid organization, secular or religious, as a cover ID is frowned upon, or even outlawed.
Wars
Wars are inevitable, even in the Cold War. Since this is a SpyNES, large conventional wars are not the focus of this NES. The Armies themselves will be NPCed. Their success or failure will depend on the help you give them through the intelligence you have gathered. You will also be able to execute Special Forces operations that can also greatly affect the war.

Agency List

Spoiler :

USA
CIA
FBI
ONI
NSA

USSR
NKVD
MBG
GRU

UK
MI-6
MI-5

France
DGSE
DST

Pakistan
ISI
IB

China
MMS

India
CIB

Israel
Mossad

West Germany
Gehlen Organization

East Germany
MfS (Stasi)

Argentina
SIDE

Egypt
GIS

Syria
General Security Directorate

Netherlands
AIVD

Italy
SIM

Spain
SECED

 

[vruchten]

i don`t know which exact date you are taking for your SpyNES, but why the agency for west germany would be the BND... the gehlen organization was actually an american agency with german personal...

 

[ryaz]

I would absolutely join.

I should be able to influence the ideas of foreign populations, such as through KGB active measures. The KGB did sponsor anti-war movements and anti-nuclear movements.

 

[Omega124]

Yes. Just Yes.

I call the CIA.

 

[Heraclius49]

i don`t know which exact date you are taking for your SpyNES, but why the agency for west germany would be the BND... the gehlen organization was actually an american agency with german personal...

Intended start date is 1948. I have taken a little bit of liberty in this to allow for a more diverse agency list.

As for the Gehlen organization, Gehlen was a German and eventually goes on to head the BND.

@Ryaz
No KGB yet this is 1948. It was founded in 1954. Right now it is called the MGB and is a subordinate orgsnization in the NKVD. I am happy that you are interested though.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Intended start date is 1948. I have taken a little bit of liberty in this to allow for a more diverse agency list.

As for the Gehlen organization, Gehlen was a German and eventually goes on to head the BND.

@Ryaz
No KGB yet this is 1948. It was founded in 1954. Right now it is called the MGB and is a subordinate orgsnization in the NKVD. I am happy that you are interested though.

You create a Cold War NES but tailor it toward non-nations. Sadist

 

[mgsmuhammad]

I call dibs on GRU.

Just so I can dick up the NKVD's plans at every turn.

Like in the real Soviet Union!

 

[ryaz]

I call dibs on the NKVD. Just because, it's fun being Beria.

 

[Heraclius49]

It nice to have some guys interested.

All I need to do before the preview thread is work on getting most of the stats done and adding some stuff to the rules. I will probably be busy this weekend, so Thursday will be the soonest I will post a pre-thread.

@mgsmuhammad;ryaz
I will reserve the spots for you. You will still need to psot in the thread to cement your claim. And ryaz thanks for the info you sent me.

 

[mgsmuhammad]

I call dibs on the NKVD. Just because, it's fun being Beria.

But he was a fat rapist-murderer.

On one of the few times he met Churchill and Roosevelt, when they inquired to who he was, Stalin replied (and I quote): "He's our Himmler".

That is how history shall remember him.

 

[The Farow]

I do not know much about ancient navies had a question and decided to look to people with some knowledge on the ancient eras. What were the different types of ships commonly used and what were they used for? Also, what was the size of a crew and how many troops could they carry for amphibious landings? In a rule set I would like some opinions on the best way to represent ancient navies?

 

[Dachs]

Ancient navies where? China? India? The classical Mediterranean? And how far back do you want "ancient" to go?

 

[mgsmuhammad]

In the Med, the common vessels of the Greco-Roman era could be broken into these categories:
Biremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bireme), Triremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme), Quadriremes and Quinqueremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquereme#Quinquereme).

Hope this helps!

 

[The Farow]

Ancient navies where? China? India? The classical Mediterranean? And how far back do you want "ancient" to go?

I am looking to revive my random fresh start NES so I am not so much interested in a paticular culture at the moment. Most NESes, I just represent them just as galleys and I feel things should be a little more in depth then that. If you could I would like a little bit of general info on all those regions at that time. Things are complicated a bit by the fact that this is a random fresh start world for me. I just wanted to make a more realistic representation of navies for my world.

I do not want to go to far back probably late bronze age/iron age ships. This is still a very general time period but I am not familar with naval history at the time so I cannot really set an exact date for you. So any info or ideas you are willing to give me would be helpful.

In the Med, the common vessels of the Greco-Roman era could be broken into these categories:
Biremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bireme), Triremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme), Quadriremes and Quinqueremes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquereme#Quinquereme).

Hope this helps!

I actually had looked at some of those articles and they did help a little bit. Some of the stuff in there paticularly about crew members was useful.

 

[Dachs]

I am looking to revive my random fresh start NES so I am not so much interested in a paticular culture at the moment. Most NESes, I just represent them just as galleys and I feel things should be a little more in depth then that. If you could I would like a little bit of general info on all those regions at that time. Things are complicated a bit by the fact that this is a random fresh start world for me. I just wanted to make a more realistic representation of navies for my world.

I do not want to go to far back probably late bronze age/iron age ships. This is still a very general time period but I am not familar with naval history at the time so I cannot really set an exact date for you. So any info or ideas you are willing to give me would be helpful.

Okay. Well, I'm only really any good with the Med, so I'll do what I can there.

The links that mgsmuhammad gave are part of the story. The bireme, trireme (triereis), and so forth were some of the first pure combat vessels in the Eastern Med. The number of ranks of oars, which differentiated the various ships, frequently went up to as many as "eight" (if triereis are "threes") and sometimes into the teens. Before that, during the archaic period, you get ships like the pentekontor, which were essentially converted merchantmen, and lemboi, which were small, light, fast ships about which we don't know a whole lot. There were also transport ships of various types, although in a pinch any of the combat vessels could serve as transport ships for limited numbers of troops and horses. (Athenian cavalry transports were initially simply heavily modified triereis.)

That was probably the worst, most simplistic, and most compact overview of classical naval vessels I could have crapped out, but it's kind of hard to know where to start and what's relevant. You should probably drop by the library and pick up some useful books. Shortest, most concise, and generally most useful for NESing purposes is probably Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World, cause it also has pretty visuals.

Honestly, I don't think you need to heavily differentiate between types of ships employed, except maybe transport ships, but that's just me.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I am looking to revive my random fresh start NES so I am not so much interested in a paticular culture at the moment. Most NESes, I just represent them just as galleys and I feel things should be a little more in depth then that. If you could I would like a little bit of general info on all those regions at that time. Things are complicated a bit by the fact that this is a random fresh start world for me. I just wanted to make a more realistic representation of navies for my world.

I do not want to go to far back probably late bronze age/iron age ships. This is still a very general time period but I am not familar with naval history at the time so I cannot really set an exact date for you. So any info or ideas you are willing to give me would be helpful.



I actually had looked at some of those articles and they did help a little bit. Some of the stuff in there paticularly about crew members was useful.

Question: Is this NES an Earth map fresh start or other? I shall investigate preemptively in any case...

I agree with Dachs. I don't think you really need to describe the quality of seafaring vessels. Most fresh starts I have seen just read "Galleys"

 

[The Farow]

Alright, if galleys are used as transports how much would be a realistic amount of men/horses each galley could hold? I was thinking there should be some more too it but from what it sounds things may be getting too complicated. That book sounds interesting none the less and I may see if I can come up anything myself after reading.

@Lord of Elves, it was a Random World Fresh Start not a earth map fresh start.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[Dachs]

As far as lemboi go, we don't actually know anything about the ships themselves, much less how many troops they could carry. Triereis could hold nearly 200 men all told, i.e. rowers, marines, and deck crew.

 

[Masada]

Dunno about China but Southeast Asia and India tended to use ships which are broadly similar to the Med. experience but with more of an impetus on I suppose general seaworthiness. Tips and tricks used to achieve this include larger sails, smaller banks of oars, a somewhat different hull-shape (but I'm no shipbuilder) and a less than rigid hull design. The latter made ramming impractical or so we are told, which isn't as far as I'm concerned necessarily the gospel truth.

In general they tended to be somewhat smaller with a complement of perhaps 50-100 fully loaded but we are told that larger ships did feature and that these could carry perhaps as many as 500 men fully loaded. Sails and a different hull design made them more than more capable of taking to the open ocean and going on long outings at sea. There is some proof that raids from India all the way into Southern Sumatra were not only possible but repeatable. A trip from Sumatra to Vietnam was also possible and repeatable. In terms of combat there seems to be a greater impetus on boarding than ramming but that's hard to convert into a hard and fast rule. Manoeuvrability seems to have been a strength.