Game Idea: Age of Sail... General ramblings...

[Valles]

In regards to the 'next Navalism', while I'm less wedded to any particular play-balance or relationship set among player nations, I'd advocate in the strongest terms that a completely new, non-Earth map be used. Something different, so that the game and its nations would be able to develop in their own terms without being jammed into some preconceived 'historical' mold. Obviously, people who wanted to create their own societies with their own backgrounds and viewpoints would thus be able to do so, while at the same time there'd be nothing blocking even the most thinly veiled expies of real nations for those who wanted to roleplay that way.

[Guinness]

The very strong difficulty with that is simulating battle (and various other things).

Completely clean sheet geography and geology means inventing every detail we'd normally need to stage a land battle, for instance. This is non-trivial.

[Tanthalas]

I figure we should just use a modified Earth map, so many details on a alternate planet that we wouldnt have by default.

[P3D]

I figure we should just use a modified Earth map, so many details on a alternate planet that we wouldnt have by default.

The only modifications should really be very limited. Modifications would be at 'important' places, and important places tend to be fought over ("Drift Sea", NS home isles, Chuvosa). I really suggest less modification than N3verse, preferably none.
If the 'reach' of most powers is limited it is not a problem.

Placing countries even in Europe would be quite a challenge, that each would have 'adequate' sea access. I do have some idea, though... I like to draw up semi-plausible historical scenarios.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Elements I'd like to see
1. More defined merchant marines
2. Like Valles, different world map with geographic constraints- canals, straits.
3. Random starting depth for ports.
4. Fewer big powers and more mediums.
5. Overall P3D's list is pretty good. Not sure how I like establishment though.
6. Strategic resource points and alternates for those. Need to define where your economy is getting it's resource points in some simple fashion. Such as Iron 5 pts needed- Bavaria x 4, ESC x1.... No nation should start self sufficient.

[Blooded]

Not sure if I understand the conversation but...

Inventing nations and races can be fun, but I would stick with a 20th C. Earth Map and physics. Placing countries is easier if you know the terrain and building a realistic world from scratch sucks. Just invent whole new borders and focal points(ie Europe countries split or sent to a larger area(north America or somesuch).

[ctwaterman]

We could realistically have a 3 or even 4 nations in North America plus a decent number in Europe and  a few in the Pacific that would be 12 or 14 players with semi historical starting locations.  And we didnt even have to invent new Islands or anything like that.

Charles

[Valles]

I like the idea of building a clean-sheet world; I have a standing ambition to do so at some point when I can find the time just for the sheer fun of it. My position is not that of someone demanding more work out of the moderators - I'm volunteering to undertake it myself.

If there really is so much of an inexplicable attachment to this particular globe for what's ultimately a fantasy game however carefully plausible, do something more interesting with it than random hacking about with new landmasses or jamming historical preconceptions in around the necessities of gameplay - set it during the Triassic or Cretaceous, or spin the globe to put the poles in place for new climates, like the World Dream Bank's 'Tilt!' section.

I think that there were, indeed, some rules done for expanded Merchant Marine data, but I don't know where they vanished to.

I don't know about 'random' depths, but I think it'd be a good idea to track and rate the depth of same.

Personally, I'm more inclined to favor a smaller number of larger nations, out of the perception that there's even now a certain amount of difficulty in finding enough players to fill all the needed chairs, as well as the hope that people will be able to play with the best toys if they want to, but I do certainly agree that the wide range in scales between the various player nations in the current iteration can be... frustrating.

I don't care for the idea of a rule-enforced mercantilism or colonial system; if people want to imitate that 'real life' play style, well and good, but if they want to adopt alternate approaches that have also been proven in the same forge - 'period' or not - that should also be fine.

I'm not certain what would be entailed by this 'Establishment Tech System'; could anyone explain it in more detail?

I absolutely approve of the idea of a more detailed tracking of military and other resources.

[P3D]

WARNING Second Nverse hijack in progress
The Fantasy world map would work if:
- land combat is abstracted to whole provinces changing control after a few dice rolls
- naval combat is abstracted to coastal skirmishes, bombardment and battles on open ocean
- people won't micromanage their nation to create easily defensible terrain at critical points

Back to an Earth-based one, the one I have in mind has the following naval powers for Europe:
- "Great Britain"
- "France"
- "Italy"+"A-H" - they hold Suez
- Byzantines/Ottomans (they hold the Persian Gulf, my candidate for Global power
- Scandinavia?"+"Rus"
The latter held in check by the "mongols" (Moderator-controlled land nation with very limited sea access if any)
- Iberia+Morocco - either Spanish/Portuguese or Almoravid, perhaps Aragonia as a buffer
And a smattering of small principalities acting as buffers (e.g. no German reunification)

For North America: Two on the East/SE coast, one West Coast (perhaps Chinese influence?), one "Mexican(Aragonian?)-Aztec"
Assume somewhat earlier colonization, resulting in more developed states.

Far East powers:
- Japan
-Korea+Manchuria+Primors
- "China" from Manchuria to somewhere South of Jangce
- one more ex-warlord, N Vietnam-Yunnan-Guangzhou
- one on the Indian Subcontinent - its expansion limited by its neighbors backed by other great powers

"Black" Africa: Colonies and coaling posts, established to get trade connection to India
North Africa: Egypt a buffer between "Morocco?" and "Italy"
Mid East: "Kingdom of Jerusalem" exists, this and a lot of sheikdoms, again buffer

Persia-India: The "Byzantines" recovered and managed to defeat Persia after the Mongol invasions, this area is relatively less developed due to being politically fragmented.

South America:
Indigeneous people got over the European plagues before the Europeans arrived in force.
A smattering of indie nations with colonies on the coast

Australia, Indonesia, Philippines: indie + colonies for the Eastern powers

That's about 15 possible nations. 3 of them moderator-owned. They should definitely start from a more even playing field than N3verse.

For a clean-sheet world one must "steal"/get permission to use one already built up to an adequate extent, at least geographically if not politically, otherwise it would be too much of work.
"Steal" from some SciFi with fanbase dedicated enough to draw up a planetary map, with topography
E.g. "stealing" the map from David Weber's new series (Off Armageddon Reef) which would even give some plausible backstory
And assume more or less even distribution on mineral resources.

[Tanthalas]

LOL P3D this entire thread is a HIjack, and this is N3 not N2 (im not even sure N2 exists anymore).  That siad im sure eventualy we will do a restart in some form or the other but for now im having fun as Rohan =P

[maddox]

Nverse II , last time I looked, was an empty front page.

If people are dissaffected with the Nverse III, and want to start a new version, I'm not one to ban nor delete those members of the Nverse III in anger.

And if the new version is low on beancounting, I'm even tempted to play as a player in no other function.

[miketr]

"Flaws" of the N3 economic system.

1) Merchant Marine (MM), I like P3D have some ideas as to how to address that.  My idea would be to break the worlds oceans up into zones.  Like the Mediterranean would be broken up into two zones, WEST AND EAST.   MM within the zones would be part of one of the following local trade or long distance trade.  Local trade would be for nations / ports within the zone.  While long distance trade would be for trade routes like between London and Bombay.  These routes would need to be established in advance with a certain "value" of the trade and be subject to change, slow change, over time.  The MM would cost money to build and generate income depending on where its at.  Those that want to go raider would have clear targets and those that one to defend against it clear missions.

2) We should decrease the income value of IC and add some other stuff in like Railroads and the above MM.  All of this would give people something to invest in over seas and be targets for war.  Railroads would require a province based map.  

3) I would like to add oil and other resources but I tend to doubt that the players would agree to such an addition to the paperwork load.

Maps of N4

I am in favor of using an earth based map but with changes.  The reason is to add interest to the game in terms of having new things but at the same time having things close enough that we can use current data in terms of mapping programs (for distance calculators) and naval maps for details.  Guinness is right if we use a totally fictional world it would be a lot of work or we would have to accept a high level of hand waving on part of battle moderators.

I have a map that's based on Paradox games maps for things like Victoria or Hearts of Iron and that could work fine for us.  You could see it here, http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=3894.0

History vs. Alt History

I am strongly in favor of an Alt-History setup for the following reasons.

A number of people would like more balance between the players so things are "even".  Also if we put in a Britain analog its grossly unbalancing for game play and make no mistake this is a game.  I have a number of games to play for alt history like the before talked about Victoria, even if the AI is stupid as all heck and as the Kingdom of Portugal I can take over the entire world.

[miketr]

Nverse II , last time I looked, was an empty front page.

If people are dissaffected with the Nverse III, and want to start a new version, I'm not one to ban nor delete those members of the Nverse III in anger.

And if the new version is low on beancounting, I'm even tempted to play as a player in no other function.

I am fine with N3 but the game has become somewhat static... 

[maddox]

Then we should unstatic it .

But didn't we agree on a restfull periode after tumultous 1916?

[miketr]

Then we should unstatic it .

But didn't we agree on a restfull periode after tumultous 1916?

Yes we did but that's not the problem.  With the current setup what wars over colonies, etc are we really going to fight to the finish?  I have targets I would like to attack but can't for various reasons.