The Next NES of Das: Development Thread

[Insane_Panda]

Do not listen to Niklas! His opinion is of less worth than mine, and furthermore, it is wrong. You wouldn't want to be misled, would you?

 

[Niklas]

When your best argument is that "he is wrong", your case clearly isn't very strong. Proof by Forceful Presence (TM) may work on those with a weak mind, but I doubt that das belongs to that category. Proof by Solid Reasoning (TM) on the other hand is something that appeals to those of great intelligence, so I'm sure I'll be the more successful in this clash of titans.

 

[jeps]

NES2 VII would be my preference, any others would bo good.

 

[Insane_Panda]

When your best argument is that "he is wrong", your case clearly isn't very strong. Proof by Forceful Presence (TM) may work on those with a weak mind, but I doubt that das belongs to that category. Proof by Solid Reasoning (TM) on the other hand is something that appeals to those of great intelligence, so I'm sure I'll be the more successful in this clash of titans.

Unfortunately for you, I have a record of being a very forceful presence, so it is likely my Titan shall destroy yours and thus leave the options slim.

 

[Niklas]

No matter how forceful your presence, it is not me you need to impress but das. And I am sure that there your puny Titan will fall short, for who could stand against the very Titan of Titans?

ps. I hear that Proof by Profuse Flattering (TM) is a good method too.

 

[Luckymoose]

Advanced Fresh Start or NES2 VIc only.

 

[fantasmo]

Good gravy, a NES run by Das with an Australian superpower? Be still, my beating heart! My vote goes for numero uno!


Otherwise, the advanced fresh start sounds like fun. I'm in a bit of a fresh start mood.

 

[HMS Vanguard]

- NES2 VII, an althist NES like all the other NES2s, based on this guess-the-PoD map: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attach...3&d=1177933349 which most of you already know and remember. It strikes me as a generally pretty good setting for a modernish NES, with many interesting nations and possibilities, and a fairly different geopolitical setup when compared to what we usually see in modern NESes (no Russia ever existed, Australia and the Canada-equivalent are great powers, the sun never sets on the Portuguese empire, neither India nor China nor even Africa are fully colonised and so on);

Definatly this one!!!

 

[das]

If turn lengths are longer than a year, it would seem to me that on map troop placements are meanlingless beyond some specific garrison sites.

In drawn-out wars with standing armies it would always make sense to mark the end-turn positions of said armies.

I actually liked the system in DisNES3 a lot

I really don't think I could manage *that* level of detail, though earlier times do make things simpler.

As a possibility there could be more generalised technological ages, with the specific national deviations from said norm listed in the specific nation stats. That would, at least, take up less space.

 

[Luckymoose]

Advanced Fresh start seems to appeal to more people. Besides if you go to the middle ages. We could just keep playing til the industrial age comes along. Better history than just starting all powerful.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Rules (thoughts about; unless said otherwise, I'm using the ITNES I incarnation two rules as a base for those):
- The age system in Technology Level doesn't seem to express all that much except for major gaps; perhaps a descriptive system (seeing as that has been working out quite well for me) is in order? On the flip side, it would be very detailed, but somehow I don't think Symphony D. or Disenfrancised, for instance, would mind that much;

If you define what a nation can do in terms that effect play then the Age questions goes away and easy comparisons between nations can be made.
Nation A has knights and crossbows; fuedal governments and no printing presses.
Nation B has early firearms and ocean going ships, etc.

To be in late Middle Ages doesn't mean anything until you define how that effects the stuff people can buy and other game effects. So why not scrap the broader categories and stick with the game effects. They are what really matter. Very broad tech trees could be created to track changes in key areas: weapons, tactics, government, economic production (agriculture and manufacturing), trade, education, and religion. Progress up the tree determines what options are available to players. The tech tree can either be a costraint to development, to slow things down, or made to allow things to speed up and have machine guns show up in 1800.

- More detailed military? Nah. Although, maybe some sort of an additional descriptive stat for military composition (quality, organisation, leadership, base unit type, equipment and all other information that people PMed me about previously) might be in order; its not like this information was ever secret either in a NES or in RL;

See above.

- On a somewhat related note, wars would generally be easier for us all to manage if all the nations had general military doctrines (which would remain secret, but will be kept by me in a separate file and passed on to a new player taking a nation) from the first turn of the NES on. That's tactics, strategy and everything else; you would be able to make adjustments to it if you want, both within the doctrne itself and for specific situations, but generally it would be very convenient for us all to be able to refer to this doctrine;

Great idea. Anything that makes writing war orders easier is a good thing.

- Economy. Simple and usual though the economy level system may be, the arguments for the more complex sectorised system are convincing. Other issues are those of economic centres (I'll probably just adapt the same approach as in ITNES, though, leaving trade centres that don't magically generate income by themselves but still are significant for actual trade) and of economic regions (which are also increasingly widespread, but strike me as a bit too complex). Really, I'm out of my depth here, so I'll particularily appreciate suggestions here;

I think that trade and the economy should be separated. Perhaps have trade, agriculture and manufacturing be weighted components of the overall economy score with the weighting shifting over time. Cities could be part of the various sector subscores. numeric based systems (rather than word based levels) work best for this

Agriculture: +3
Manufacturing: +1
Trade: +4
Economy: (3*1)+(1*2)+(4*1.5)= 11
Spending could then be tied to or derived from the econ level. Sector spending would be how players change their economy. Wars might reduce agriculture levels, but have less effect on manufacturing etc. loss of cities might effect manufacturing.

- Other ideas worth stealing include a Population stat (which will function as the Size stat for things like Education and would have some obvious, though probably not mathematical, influence on economy and military) and a periphery system (like in the sadly short-lived DisNES, for autonomous regions and effectively autonomous colonies);

As has been pointed out to me, large nations need to have some benefit beyond lots of land. City count could affect sector stats and maybe population would affect total army size permitted. Of course having a huge empire should have some negative impact from a management stand point.

 

[Niklas]

I really don't think I could manage *that* level of detail, though earlier times do make things simpler.

As a possibility there could be more generalised technological ages, with the specific national deviations from said norm listed in the specific nation stats. That would, at least, take up less space.

Well, the main reason I don't like the ages version is simply because they assume something about a standardized general tech pace across a wide variety of areas. What's to say that the advances in, say, ballistics, and the advances in naval technology, must both follow the same relative pace as in RL? Indeed, by making the system more detailed it is possible that we might even see some interesting technological divergences from RL (galleon warships mounted with ballistas?).

I actually doubt that managing *that* level of detail is actually that much harder than your current system. It's a bit more to write when you initially set up the stats, but the running updating shouldn't be all that difficult, not really more so than answering a lot of questions about tech. As for the size, well, that's what spoiler tags are for.

Still, if you think this is all too much, I would agree that listing deviances from some norm would be far preferable to just listing an age stat.

 

[ThomAnder]

For benefits for larger size, how about making army recruitment proportional to the size/population stat?

 

[Birdjaguar]

For benefits for larger size, how about making army recruitment proportional to the size/population stat?

The population stat could cap total army size:

Population = 7 means no more than 70 total divisions permitted
Population = 4 means no more than 40 total divisions permitted

Or
Population = 7 means no more than 35 divisions purchased in a turn*
Population = 4 means no more than 20 divisions purchased in a turn

* 35 = (7*10/2)

 

[JosefStalinator]

You can see my rules for army recruitment based on population.

 

[Birdjaguar]

You can see my rules for army recruitment based on population.

How about a link?

 

[JosefStalinator]

A given nation is capable of producing two (2) times its Population number of Units per turn at its Military Basic (Training) level. Every Unit after that for that turn up to four (4) times its Population number will be at its Military Basic level minus one (1), and every Unit that turn after that up to six (6) times will be at Military Basic minus two (2), and so on.

Tenchartenchar

 

[Birdjaguar]

A given nation is capable of producing two (2) times its Population number of Units per turn at its Military Basic (Training) level. Every Unit after that for that turn up to four (4) times its Population number will be at its Military Basic level minus one (1), and every Unit that turn after that up to six (6) times will be at Military Basic minus two (2), and so on.

That works fine as long as the rules (and mod) are willing to keep track of how many units, of which type, are at what training level. You also have to cost troops at the unit level or have some kind of partial EP payments.

If my population is 3, and I want to buy the max I was allowed without losing training, then the pricing system would have to allow for buying exactly 6 divisions.

 

[Symphony D.]

That works fine as long as the rules (and mod) are willing to keep track of how many units, of which type, are at what training level.

I again make the argument that this is basic math that everyone should have learned at age 7 or earlier. Anyone who can't do it shouldn't be playing the damn game.

You've got Military Basic of Professional. You've got a Population of 5. You can produce 10 Professional units. Everything after that drops to Veteran. You can make up to the 10 Veteran units. Then it's 10 Hardened, and so on. There's no need to keep track of anything except multiplying 2 times Population and making sure the numbers match. Hell, make the players include the math beside the purchase if necessary, not that it's terribly difficult.

On that note, I also qualify my statements on Population and Area by supporting exponential numbers (like in JSNES03) as opposed to linear ones. I'm also unsurprisingly in favor of the descriptions for leveled stats in those rules too.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I again make the argument that this is basic math that everyone should have learned at age 7 or earlier. Anyone who can't do it shouldn't be playing the damn game.

You've got Military Basic of Professional. You've got a Population of 5. You can produce 10 Professional units. Everything after that drops to Veteran. You can make up to the 10 Veteran units. Then it's 10 Hardened, and so on. There's no need to keep track of anything except multiplying 2 times Population and making sure the numbers match. Hell, make the players include the math beside the purchase if necessary, not that it's terribly difficult.

The purchasing math isn't the real problem for me. It is the ongoing record keeping.

Nation A has 10 recruit divisions; 10 professional; 10 veteran divs; 10 hardened divs and 10 elite divs. Then in a war the losses for each level engaged have to be calculated and then listed separately. If this is multiplied by 20 nations, the task can get overwhelming quickly. If unit types are added or navies, it just gets worse.

Such a system also requires players to say which types of troops are engaged in each area or battle adding further complications to already complex war orders.

I guess my goals are different than yours. I want complex thinking by players with simple orders and easy updating.