Perfectionist
Angel of Verdun
This should not have taken me so long, especially considering the ultimate quality of most of it. I was busy getting ready for quals, and then I was distracted, and then I was busy with quals again. So, sorry about that.
Right, this is the preview thread for a NES that, barring unforeseen consequences, should start next Friday. It's based on the GtPoD map that some of you perhaps remember from a while back; a sixteenth century alt-hist with a PoD in the eighth century. This thread is intended partially to try and rustle up some players, and mostly to have people look over the stats and see if there's anything particularly stupid. Or at least, anything particularly stupid that I can fix.
In yet another good idea I'm stealing from Dachs, we're going to do applications instead of reservations. I think it's fairer that everyone have a shot at their state of choice, rather than just luck-of-the-time-zone, plus I don't know most of the new people. So, please post your top two or three choices, and tell me a bit about what you do well in NESes, and then at the end of the preview thread I'll assign everyone's nation. It might also be a good idea to PM me whatever cunning plans you have, just so that I can tell you if they make no sense in the setting. From now on, you don't have to submit an application; if you want an open country, just say 'I'm taking X'.
Credit for most of the ideas in the rules goes to das; Prestige [edit: apparently was also devised by das, but I didn't notice at the time. Sorry] , a couple of map fixes, and lots of general ideas are thanks to Dachs.
Map, AD 1500, Labelled Map, AD 1500
Right, this is the preview thread for a NES that, barring unforeseen consequences, should start next Friday. It's based on the GtPoD map that some of you perhaps remember from a while back; a sixteenth century alt-hist with a PoD in the eighth century. This thread is intended partially to try and rustle up some players, and mostly to have people look over the stats and see if there's anything particularly stupid. Or at least, anything particularly stupid that I can fix.
Credit for most of the ideas in the rules goes to das; Prestige [edit: apparently was also devised by das, but I didn't notice at the time. Sorry] , a couple of map fixes, and lots of general ideas are thanks to Dachs.
Map, AD 1500, Labelled Map, AD 1500
Spoiler extremely rough draft of rules, and I'll write better ones later, but these should have most of the important information and I really want to get this posted tonight :
Players: Anyone can join, and should. States are open to application in the preview thread: please post your top two or three choices, and a brief CV describing any significant past NESes, strengths and weaknesses, anything else.
Stories: Obviously would be greatly be appreciated, so if you feel like writing some, knock yourself out. I'll give probably give bonuses for good stories and such.
Orders: should be clear and possess some semblance of organization. In particular, you should make sure it's absolutely clear what you're spending money on. I don't mind length, as long as it's sensible. If you're doing anything particularly subtle and clever it's probably a good idea to include a bit of justification and mention of what you hope to accomplish; that way when it all goes pear-shaped I'll have a better idea of what your government should do.
NPCs (Non-Player Countries) – Any polity that isn't taken by a player will be essentially played by the mod. I intend for my NPCs to be rather tougher than the usual pushovers, so keep that in mind; being surrounded by NPCs will probably not be a recipe for a ballooning empire.
An important random thing to keep in mind is this: in all but the most lopsided of conflicts, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO MILITARILY ENFORCE YOUR WILL. In almost every case, you will not be able to decisively beat an enemy and dispose of his possessions at leisure, so don't even try. The mod intensely dislikes highlander wars.
Nation Name
Capital:
Ruler:
Government:
Culture:
Factions (Strength/Confidence):
Revenue – Expenses (Treasury/Debt):
Army:
Army Description:
Navy:
Navy Description:
Nation Background:
Government: This is a descriptive stat describing your government form. Something to bear in mind is that essentially every government is dependent to a greater or lesser degree on elite support. Think about this before you act; antagonizing the people who make your government tick is a very bad idea
Culture: A brief description of the major cultural groups, religions,and foreign influences in your state. This is not directly player-controlled, but you can indirectly influence it, and it is of course extremely important to keep your cultural makeup in mind.
Factions: Lifted straight from Birdjag's NESes, because I think they're a good idea. Confidence goes from 1 (not at all confident) to 5 (very confident); strength likewise goes from 1 (not very strong) to 5 (tread carefully). It is unlikely that you will get anything major done without at least some support from your factions, and if you offend them all you are unlikely to last long. Politicking will be necessary
Economy: You get four numbers: your revenue, your expenses, the amount of money in your treasury, and your debt.
Your revenue is, oddly enough, the total money reaching your central treasury. Consequently it will, all other things being equal, be lower in decentralized states, as more money in spent at local levels, and higher in centralized ones. There are lots of things you could try to increase revenue, but the easiest is probably raising taxes. Bear in mind that unilateral massive tax raises are likely to be extremely unpopular; states with a parliament may have to negotiate revenue increases, and everyone should try to gain at least some factional support. Now, it is important to note that this stat enumerates only your ordinary; that is, the revenue known ahead of time and that arrives every year at a more or less constant level. You additionally have access to various potential sources of extraordinary revenue; money arriving on a more or less one-off basis. Depending on the state, this could be nearly anything: forced loans, tax grants from parliament, sale of confiscated estates, grants from the church, etc. Ask the mod what you have in mind, and I'll tell you how much you can expect to get from it. Again, suddenly and without warning ceasing and selling off the property of your nobles would be extremely unpopular, so keep your factions in mind. You'll mostly spend your money on soldiers, I imagine, but you are by no means limited to that. You could spend it on fortifications, public-works, patronizing artists, and anything else you can think of. So long as it makes sense in 1500 AD, of course; please don't
Your expenses are the total amount of money it would take to pay everyone who needs to paid, and run everything that needs to be run. The largest single component for nearly everyone is the cost of the military; other components are the cost of administration, maintenance on government property, interest on the debt, and so on. Your expenses will then go up if you hire soldiers or administrators or otherwise expand the number of things your government needs to pay for. The only real way of making it go down is by reducing the number of things you need to pay for. Now, expenses are not automatically deducted from revenue. You could, if you think you really need the money, decide not to pay some of your expenses; depending on how you do it, this might not even have catastrophic consequences. It would certainly be best to explicitly say who you're not paying.
Your treasury is how much money you have just lying about for a rainy day. It doesn't earn interest, and it doesn't directly benefit you in way other than by looking shiny and making you feel safe.
Your debt is the amount of money you owe various non-statted creditors. You pay interest on the debt, which goes into your expenses, and can pay it down with any spare money you happen to have lying around. The precise in-world mechanism of state credit varies from state to state, but from an out-of-world standpoint it all works pretty much the same way; you tell the mod how much you want to borrow, he tells you if you can, and the interest gets added to your expenses. Different states have different levels of access to credit, and different borrowing costs, depending on the sophistication of their financial markets. Some states might not have access to credit at all, or at least not easy access; the Dahabis aren't big on usurers, for instance.
These are denoted in taris, which are this world's versions of florins, and have more or less the same value. The tari was a large Sicilian coin in the twelfth century. It was popular, spread around by Sicilian merchants, and now the tari – or rather the copies that everyone makes – is pretty much the standard coin for western Europe and the Mediterranean. Asian states obviously use other currencies, but for the sake the mod's sanity will use taris in the stats, A soldier might cost a few taris a month; a cannon might cost a thousand or two; and a really major fortification might cost a million taris.
It is very important to remember that war is EXPENSIVE. It is unlikely that you will be able to get much done with just your ordinary revenue. Extraordinary revenue and debt mechanisms are there for a reason; use them, or you'll probably be killed by someone who did.
Military: Your military, in both terrestrial and aquatic flavors. It comes in discrete Companies or Ships, and is described in...the military descriptions. The descriptions aren't directly player controlled, but you can alter them by reform efforts and the like. What you can't do is issue minute tactical directions to your men; you're the sovereign, not a drill sergeant, and I don't want everybody trying to make tercios on the first turn, as I know you all want to do.
The Companies displayed in your stats are just your standing, professional troops. Nearly every state also has levies from various sources available to a greater or lesser degree. Ask me for how many such levies you can likely raise. Bear in mind that your levies are, if not always of a lower quality than your professionals, generally less flexible; they typically won't like being used to garrison frontiers or launch unprofitable invasions of poor places. Now, the military numbers do include garrison troops, or at least garrison troops organized by the center. If you've ruthlessly crushed all your nobles and cities and an enemy invades where you haven't put any troops, there won't really be anything to oppose them.
Standing military units have some upfront cost to raise, this being a combination of outfitting, signing bonuses, construction cost of ships, and so on. They additionally cost upkeep to maintain; this is by far more expensive. It costs a lot more to pay a guy for three years than to persuade him to signup and give him a pike. Keep this in mind. Military upkeep is automatically calculated and added to your expenses. In order to maintain your army's fighting efficiency on campaign, it's an excellent idea to allocate additional funds for their support, above and beyond the standard upkeep, for logistics, wastage replacement, and so on. If you don't do this, and send an army into a difficult situation, do not expect it to fight at anything close to peak efficiency.
1 Company = 15,000 taris
1 Ship = 15,000 taris
Prestige: Is shamelessly stolen from Dachs, because I think it's an extremely good idea. Prestige doesn't have much effect on the game world, but the player with the highest prestige at the end of the NES gets to be the Winner. There are plenty of ways to gain prestige. Generally speaking, doing things that are popular, successful, or kingly - or that at least look like they are – gains prestige, and doing things that are unpopular, or unsuccessful loses prestige. There is no faster way of losing prestige than trying to do something wildly inappropriate for the setting, so do please ask before you try to build the Suez Canal or conquer China with five thousand men.
Description: Is a short description of your state's background. There isn't a written timeline for this NES, but a lot of information on the ~700 years of divergence is in the descriptions, so you should at the very least read yours.
Stories: Obviously would be greatly be appreciated, so if you feel like writing some, knock yourself out. I'll give probably give bonuses for good stories and such.
Orders: should be clear and possess some semblance of organization. In particular, you should make sure it's absolutely clear what you're spending money on. I don't mind length, as long as it's sensible. If you're doing anything particularly subtle and clever it's probably a good idea to include a bit of justification and mention of what you hope to accomplish; that way when it all goes pear-shaped I'll have a better idea of what your government should do.
NPCs (Non-Player Countries) – Any polity that isn't taken by a player will be essentially played by the mod. I intend for my NPCs to be rather tougher than the usual pushovers, so keep that in mind; being surrounded by NPCs will probably not be a recipe for a ballooning empire.
An important random thing to keep in mind is this: in all but the most lopsided of conflicts, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO MILITARILY ENFORCE YOUR WILL. In almost every case, you will not be able to decisively beat an enemy and dispose of his possessions at leisure, so don't even try. The mod intensely dislikes highlander wars.
Nation Name
Capital:
Ruler:
Government:
Culture:
Factions (Strength/Confidence):
Revenue – Expenses (Treasury/Debt):
Army:
Army Description:
Navy:
Navy Description:
Nation Background:
Government: This is a descriptive stat describing your government form. Something to bear in mind is that essentially every government is dependent to a greater or lesser degree on elite support. Think about this before you act; antagonizing the people who make your government tick is a very bad idea
Culture: A brief description of the major cultural groups, religions,and foreign influences in your state. This is not directly player-controlled, but you can indirectly influence it, and it is of course extremely important to keep your cultural makeup in mind.
Factions: Lifted straight from Birdjag's NESes, because I think they're a good idea. Confidence goes from 1 (not at all confident) to 5 (very confident); strength likewise goes from 1 (not very strong) to 5 (tread carefully). It is unlikely that you will get anything major done without at least some support from your factions, and if you offend them all you are unlikely to last long. Politicking will be necessary
Economy: You get four numbers: your revenue, your expenses, the amount of money in your treasury, and your debt.
Your revenue is, oddly enough, the total money reaching your central treasury. Consequently it will, all other things being equal, be lower in decentralized states, as more money in spent at local levels, and higher in centralized ones. There are lots of things you could try to increase revenue, but the easiest is probably raising taxes. Bear in mind that unilateral massive tax raises are likely to be extremely unpopular; states with a parliament may have to negotiate revenue increases, and everyone should try to gain at least some factional support. Now, it is important to note that this stat enumerates only your ordinary; that is, the revenue known ahead of time and that arrives every year at a more or less constant level. You additionally have access to various potential sources of extraordinary revenue; money arriving on a more or less one-off basis. Depending on the state, this could be nearly anything: forced loans, tax grants from parliament, sale of confiscated estates, grants from the church, etc. Ask the mod what you have in mind, and I'll tell you how much you can expect to get from it. Again, suddenly and without warning ceasing and selling off the property of your nobles would be extremely unpopular, so keep your factions in mind. You'll mostly spend your money on soldiers, I imagine, but you are by no means limited to that. You could spend it on fortifications, public-works, patronizing artists, and anything else you can think of. So long as it makes sense in 1500 AD, of course; please don't
Your expenses are the total amount of money it would take to pay everyone who needs to paid, and run everything that needs to be run. The largest single component for nearly everyone is the cost of the military; other components are the cost of administration, maintenance on government property, interest on the debt, and so on. Your expenses will then go up if you hire soldiers or administrators or otherwise expand the number of things your government needs to pay for. The only real way of making it go down is by reducing the number of things you need to pay for. Now, expenses are not automatically deducted from revenue. You could, if you think you really need the money, decide not to pay some of your expenses; depending on how you do it, this might not even have catastrophic consequences. It would certainly be best to explicitly say who you're not paying.
Your treasury is how much money you have just lying about for a rainy day. It doesn't earn interest, and it doesn't directly benefit you in way other than by looking shiny and making you feel safe.
Your debt is the amount of money you owe various non-statted creditors. You pay interest on the debt, which goes into your expenses, and can pay it down with any spare money you happen to have lying around. The precise in-world mechanism of state credit varies from state to state, but from an out-of-world standpoint it all works pretty much the same way; you tell the mod how much you want to borrow, he tells you if you can, and the interest gets added to your expenses. Different states have different levels of access to credit, and different borrowing costs, depending on the sophistication of their financial markets. Some states might not have access to credit at all, or at least not easy access; the Dahabis aren't big on usurers, for instance.
These are denoted in taris, which are this world's versions of florins, and have more or less the same value. The tari was a large Sicilian coin in the twelfth century. It was popular, spread around by Sicilian merchants, and now the tari – or rather the copies that everyone makes – is pretty much the standard coin for western Europe and the Mediterranean. Asian states obviously use other currencies, but for the sake the mod's sanity will use taris in the stats, A soldier might cost a few taris a month; a cannon might cost a thousand or two; and a really major fortification might cost a million taris.
It is very important to remember that war is EXPENSIVE. It is unlikely that you will be able to get much done with just your ordinary revenue. Extraordinary revenue and debt mechanisms are there for a reason; use them, or you'll probably be killed by someone who did.
Military: Your military, in both terrestrial and aquatic flavors. It comes in discrete Companies or Ships, and is described in...the military descriptions. The descriptions aren't directly player controlled, but you can alter them by reform efforts and the like. What you can't do is issue minute tactical directions to your men; you're the sovereign, not a drill sergeant, and I don't want everybody trying to make tercios on the first turn, as I know you all want to do.
The Companies displayed in your stats are just your standing, professional troops. Nearly every state also has levies from various sources available to a greater or lesser degree. Ask me for how many such levies you can likely raise. Bear in mind that your levies are, if not always of a lower quality than your professionals, generally less flexible; they typically won't like being used to garrison frontiers or launch unprofitable invasions of poor places. Now, the military numbers do include garrison troops, or at least garrison troops organized by the center. If you've ruthlessly crushed all your nobles and cities and an enemy invades where you haven't put any troops, there won't really be anything to oppose them.
Standing military units have some upfront cost to raise, this being a combination of outfitting, signing bonuses, construction cost of ships, and so on. They additionally cost upkeep to maintain; this is by far more expensive. It costs a lot more to pay a guy for three years than to persuade him to signup and give him a pike. Keep this in mind. Military upkeep is automatically calculated and added to your expenses. In order to maintain your army's fighting efficiency on campaign, it's an excellent idea to allocate additional funds for their support, above and beyond the standard upkeep, for logistics, wastage replacement, and so on. If you don't do this, and send an army into a difficult situation, do not expect it to fight at anything close to peak efficiency.
1 Company = 15,000 taris
1 Ship = 15,000 taris
Prestige: Is shamelessly stolen from Dachs, because I think it's an extremely good idea. Prestige doesn't have much effect on the game world, but the player with the highest prestige at the end of the NES gets to be the Winner. There are plenty of ways to gain prestige. Generally speaking, doing things that are popular, successful, or kingly - or that at least look like they are – gains prestige, and doing things that are unpopular, or unsuccessful loses prestige. There is no faster way of losing prestige than trying to do something wildly inappropriate for the setting, so do please ask before you try to build the Suez Canal or conquer China with five thousand men.
Description: Is a short description of your state's background. There isn't a written timeline for this NES, but a lot of information on the ~700 years of divergence is in the descriptions, so you should at the very least read yours.
Spoiler claimed states :
Longphort League: Masada
England: spryllino
Denmark: OwenGlyndwr
Sweden: ZeletDude
Liyun: InsanePanda
Al-Isbunah: Kentharu
Saraqusta: Kraznaya
Lotharingia: Bill3000
Swabia: yui108
Gascony: Agent 89
Provence: bombshoo
Italy: LittleBoots
Sicily: Thlayli
Bohemia: Communisto
Poland: Matt0088
Hungary: NorthKing
The Order: Ninja Dude
Prince's Lithuania: flyingchicken
Duke's Lithuania: Toteone
Veliky Novgorod: Luckymoose
Nizhny Novgorod: madviking
Rome: Shadowbound
Egypt: Dachs
Chobanids: taillesskangaru
Ardabilids: Lord of Elves
Tokhta Horde: Karalysia
Delhi: das
Pandyans: ~Darkening~
Mongolia: azale
Nanhai: ChiefDesigner
Haishu: Espoir
Guangzhou: Birdjaguar
Hubaekje: ParkCungHee
Yamato: Adrogans
England: spryllino
Denmark: OwenGlyndwr
Sweden: ZeletDude
Liyun: InsanePanda
Al-Isbunah: Kentharu
Saraqusta: Kraznaya
Lotharingia: Bill3000
Swabia: yui108
Gascony: Agent 89
Provence: bombshoo
Italy: LittleBoots
Sicily: Thlayli
Bohemia: Communisto
Poland: Matt0088
Hungary: NorthKing
The Order: Ninja Dude
Prince's Lithuania: flyingchicken
Duke's Lithuania: Toteone
Veliky Novgorod: Luckymoose
Nizhny Novgorod: madviking
Rome: Shadowbound
Egypt: Dachs
Chobanids: taillesskangaru
Ardabilids: Lord of Elves
Tokhta Horde: Karalysia
Delhi: das
Pandyans: ~Darkening~
Mongolia: azale
Nanhai: ChiefDesigner
Haishu: Espoir
Guangzhou: Birdjaguar
Hubaekje: ParkCungHee
Yamato: Adrogans