So as Tex stated, he and I have been working on a set of rules for a reboot of sort. The plan is for a post WWI start date, but with some political changes made that will have had an effect on the outcome of events. So for comment, here are the proposed rules:
Quote• Population Levels (in millions) and total Factories (Factories determine Industrial Strength)
o Pop:IS ratio is a measure of the nations industrialization level. There are three levels, Industrialized (>1:1.5), Semi-Industrial (1:1.4 to 1:.75) and agricultural (< 1:.75)
o Pop:IS ratio determines years behind OTL tech. 0 for industrialized nations, -1 for semi-industrial, -3 for agricultural
o Pop:IS ratio determines the total number of domestic milestones that can be achieved each year. 3 for industrialized nations, 2 for semi-industrial, 1 for agricultural
• Units of factories broken up into 4 sections Land, Sea, Air and Industrial
o Sea works like WW but subs cost double to account for needed structural increases
? Each factory produces 1000t of material a third
? Costal defenses are charged the weight of the gun+armor in SS
? Maintenance costs of 2.5% of total fleet tonnage including CDS
o Air works of a tonnage system
? Each factory produces 100t of material a third
? The empty airframe weight is payed per plane rounded up to the nearest
? Airships are (volume in m3/400) for tonnage
? Maintenance costs of 20% of total invested tonnage
o Land works off a points system
? Each factory produces one point a third
? Infantry Divisions costs 10 points, Armored Divisions cost 20, and Specialization of a division costs 5 plus the costs of the Division
? Corps cost twice as much while Brigades cost half as much
? Total manpower may not exed 15% of population
? Maintenance cost of 5% of total invested points
o Industrial factories provide a small amount of dedicated Industrial points that can be allocated to adding more factories or facilities for Land Sea and Air applications.
• Tech is +0 from OTL unless GTL experience dictates otherwise
o IE, no experimental jets until the late 1930s
• Concepts require milestones to employ use. RPing must be done to work up to the employment of a concept.
o IE, any way of bringing aircraft to sea onboard a ship requires experience related to the potential usefulness of having an aircraft.
• Wars
o All wars will be scripted
o At the beginning of a war, an outline of events needs to be posted so if the writers fall behind, they do not hold things up.
• Turns
o A game year has three turns, Jan-Apr, May-Aug, and Sep-Dec
o A rate of 3 weeks a turn is ideal
• Start-up Rules
o Start date is January 1st, 1919
o The number of Naval factories is equivalent to the number of Capital ships that the nation layed down between 1909 and 1919 in OTL times 1.5 plus 7.
? The official source on this is to be Conway's All the Worlds Fighting Ships
o The number of Land Factories is equivalent to one-fourth of the number of divisions that were historically existent on December 31st, 1918
o The number of Air factories is equivalent to the number of active squadrons and operational airships on December 31st, 1918
o The number of Industiral factories is used to bump nations up into the next category of Pop:IS ratio if they are placed in the incorrect category by LSA factories
1. Appreciate the thought and effort.
2. Appreciate the sharing.
3. Would have preferred at least 1 example nation. It appears historical nations are the starting point, which means those not participating in the great war (China, Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, etc) will have far fewer Divisions, and so less resources. Also, Division strength & TOE varied by nation, so did not represent the same # of troops and level of investment.
4. This is basically a large package of rule changes. The problem is lack of player participation currently blamed on length of times for wars. I don't see the need for a sweeping basic revision of the rule structure, but I suppose a potential reboot is grounds to discuss it.
5. Start in 1918... I'm pushing earlier is better.
6. All scripted wars... not acceptable to me. Part of the Allure of Navalism was the idea of 3rd party moderation of results. Further, my experience in WW is that they take longer, and appear hard to do with more than 2 parties.
ed: like the increased cost on subs. I once read that due to all the engineering and technical staff, they cost as much as a cruiser to run, so I'm thinking a massively inflated (5-10x) maintenance cost is whats needed there.
1+2. Appreciate the appreciation.
d
3. Ok. We were preferring a division size of approximental 12,500, just so we could keep track; however, just as long as the amount of men is equal to what you paid for and whatnot, it'd be fine by us. The non-war nations: That would be represented by "industrial potential", which basically means more industrial factories.
4. We realize that; However, many players, now and in the past, are being driven away by the extreme complexity of many things, including tech, sim reports...
5. Well, the problem with 1918 is that the Great War is still running. If you can figure out a way to have that settled earlier, be my guest, but the plan was for the US to not enter, being distracted with Mexico, leading to a Western Front stalemate (And fun Russian things *evil grin*)
6. We could have options: Players choose to script the war, or someone could sim the war as a 3rd party, giving basic results, leaving the players to fill in the holes, so to speak.
A suggestion on aircraft. Instead of paying for individual aircraft, I proposed that one payed for aircraft factories. A factory would say be capable of producing 100 aircraft per quarter/year etc, and could be expanded as needed. Factory cost would be determined by type of aircraft being produced and would have to be upgraded as new aircraft became available.
Interesting idea, we will talk it over
Well, we are sorta heading in that direction; however, we figured that the option to build individual planes on a matter of tonnage would be more realistic; as a factory is not always running at maximum capacity; It also allows for differation in the planes being built. Besides, planes vary. A P-51 is not the same cost as a Sopwith Camel, and the "tonnage" factor attempts to realize that.
However, that is only my opinion, and it probably could be changd.
Well the factory would have say a peacetime limit and a wartime limit. And the difference between a P-51 and a Camel would be covered via factory "upgrades".
*slaps forehead*
*sighs* Ok.... first I dont play West World so I am completely ignorant of what they do over there. But lets be clear here KISS is going to be a guiding principle.
I have seen some really good proposals In the Military Sections for Brigades. And the Fortress and Fortified Lines and Naval Gun Batteries sections all seem to work exceedingly well.
Aircraft can be built in Car Factories so no Specialized BP or IC or whatever we want to call them. Aircraft need to be built and maintenance is going to be expensive.
And finally starting in 1880/90 means we have 25 to 35 years of sim time before we have to start worrying about them.
Charles
WesWorld's system is very simple, I can do reports there much quicker then I can do ones here. (yes, I do run a much smaller county. But compared to Ireland, the conclusion is valid)
The cost for any specific item are in no way finalized
QuoteAircraft can be built in Car Factories so no Specialized BP or IC or whatever we want to call them. Aircraft need to be built and maintenance is going to be expensive.
20% of Invested tonnage not expensive? Also, we needed a way to keep track of it, hence the dedicated factories. IMO, a simple system (and so is Foxys proposal that may replace the current system)
QuoteAnd finally starting in 1880/90 means we have 25 to 35 years of sim time before we have to start worrying about them.
Then we have to worry much more about technology and such. In the opinion of Tex and myself, starting at a point were the airplane's power can be historically derived is much simpler then trying to moderate its development in a timeline without references to the OTL anchors it uses. The less we have to worry about research, the simpler the system as a whole is.
For refference, here are WW Naval rules and a sample report
http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?postid=31034#post31034 (http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?postid=31034#post31034)
http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?threadid=9062&sid= (http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?threadid=9062&sid=)
On Wesworld vs. Navalism...since I play the Dutch in Wesworld and Bavaria here... The Wesworld IP (Industrial Production aka BC) rules are naval tailored. Discussions about appropriate country tech, army size, air force size, rate of infrastructure construction, etc has recurrently popped up there. Personally, I like the additional economic categories - Pop, and IC give two different economic ways to present nations which are not present over there.
Yes, reports here take longer and are more complex.
It was a bit hard to get going as Bavaria. I believe some have automated it more than others, I'm a bit of a luddite, so the simple act of mobilizing Bavaria meant I had to go change all the status tags in my army page and maintenance costs.
The most complex thing I have for the Dutch in Wesworld is my master ship excel sheet...which is a bit behind the times, which tracks class, tonnage, laydown, completion, overhaul, refit times, etc. That's simply because several hundred ships eat up time.
QuoteThen we have to worry much more about technology and such. In the opinion of Tex and myself, starting at a point were the airplane's power can be historically derived is much simpler then trying to moderate its development in a timeline without references to the OTL anchors it uses. The less we have to worry about research, the simpler the system as a whole is.p
Starting earlier means there is less technology available, so less to worry about, and longer until we get to the sticky stuff. In 1890 airplane power is ...0.... easy.
I don't suppose I can get folks to agree to ban heavier than air craft or submersibles ...The only value I see in aircraft factories, or tank factories, is "even flow". You can't order 1000 planes in HY1 1920, and then 1000 planes in HY1 1923 and expect to have an aircraft industry in between...while under the current rules thats exactly what one can do. If you want to have aircraft, you need folks that know how to build them, even if you're paying them to just sit around. Plus if you have to build a "factory" to ramp up production, it causes a lag during the war, which better echoes switching a civilian economy to a military one than suddenly ordering 2,000 planes in HY1 1925 and having them all built and delivered by HY2 1925.
Quote from: snip on May 17, 2011, 10:01:48 PM
WesWorld's system is very simple, I can do reports there much quicker then I can do ones here. (yes, I do run a much smaller county. But compared to Ireland, the conclusion is valid)
The cost for any specific item are in no way finalized
QuoteAircraft can be built in Car Factories so no Specialized BP or IC or whatever we want to call them. Aircraft need to be built and maintenance is going to be expensive.
20% of Invested tonnage not expensive? Also, we needed a way to keep track of it, hence the dedicated factories. IMO, a simple system (and so is Foxys proposal that may replace the current system)
QuoteAnd finally starting in 1880/90 means we have 25 to 35 years of sim time before we have to start worrying about them.
Then we have to worry much more about technology and such. In the opinion of Tex and myself, starting at a point were the airplane's power can be historically derived is much simpler then trying to moderate its development in a timeline without references to the OTL anchors it uses. The less we have to worry about research, the simpler the system as a whole is.
Aircraft are nothing to really worry about, the dirigible is the best flying machine around in all aspects for many years because it has ample payload, flight ceiling, time aloft, and range. It wasn't even possible to shoot one down until 1916 or so, when aircraft finally were able to reach altitude in time to shoot dirigibles down.
Someone could almost certainly go and make a steam powered airplane in the 1880s or 1890s. The Wright Flyer of our time line was something of a fluke that required just the right conditions to fly. When they attempted to recreate the flight in 2003 using replicas, they were unable to achieve flight. The thing is though, airplanes were considered impossible to do at the time and so no governments were actively promoting research into them. Aviation research was mostly the hobby of wealthy people with a lot of time on their hands, and very dangerous. Someone could by pure chance develop flight earlier than historically, or later than historically. The Wright Brothers didn't so much develop a great innovation as much as have a number of small things all line up for them in order to get the aircraft to fly. If wind conditions hadn't of been just right, someone else would have achieved the title of first in flight. That said, if someone were to invest in aircraft, they would become subject of ridicule in any era before it was proven it was actually possible to do. The leading experts were all saying that the crash of Langley's aircraft proved that any further research was a folly.
If anything, I would consider ahistorical dirigible development to be more realistic. They were essentially just controllable balloons which had been around for decades and used to great effect in many wars. You could put some kind of heliograph on a dirigible and have a good high altitude observation platform. Lighter than air technology had been around for a very long time and was quite well developed by the 1870s.
QuoteAircraft are nothing to really worry about, the dirigible is the best flying machine around in all aspects for many years because it has ample payload, flight ceiling, time aloft, and range. It wasn't even possible to shoot one down until 1916 or so, when aircraft finally were able to reach altitude in time to shoot dirigibles down.
I believe the problem with Zeppelins is how really fragile they are. And how very much influnced by wind currents they were. Yes they had payload, and range, advantages but they got them by carrying and explosive filler. They are and were susceptible to ground fire prior to 1916 especially if someone wants to dedicate alot of guns to shooting them down. This was why the Germans after 1915/16 went to operating only at night over GB.
Over all I agree from 1880 thru 1916 the Zeppelin is the best we have available starting with early tethered observation ballons used durring the American Civil War and other places as well. Once we Get Zeppelins they should however be extremely expensive and labor intensive just as they were historically. The Crew is small the ground crew is huge by comparisson.
Quote from: ctwaterman on May 17, 2011, 11:20:42 PM
QuoteAircraft are nothing to really worry about, the dirigible is the best flying machine around in all aspects for many years because it has ample payload, flight ceiling, time aloft, and range. It wasn't even possible to shoot one down until 1916 or so, when aircraft finally were able to reach altitude in time to shoot dirigibles down.
I believe the problem with Zeppelins is how really fragile they are. And how very much influnced by wind currents they were. Yes they had payload, and range, advantages but they got them by carrying and explosive filler. They are and were susceptible to ground fire prior to 1916 especially if someone wants to dedicate alot of guns to shooting them down. This was why the Germans after 1915/16 went to operating only at night over GB.
Over all I agree from 1880 thru 1916 the Zeppelin is the best we have available starting with early tethered observation ballons used durring the American Civil War and other places as well. Once we Get Zeppelins they should however be extremely expensive and labor intensive just as they were historically. The Crew is small the ground crew is huge by comparisson.
There was a BIG ramp up in Zeppelin performance during WW1.
Michael
Quote from: Desertfox on May 17, 2011, 08:54:01 PM
A suggestion on aircraft. Instead of paying for individual aircraft, I proposed that one payed for aircraft factories. A factory would say be capable of producing 100 aircraft per quarter/year etc, and could be expanded as needed. Factory cost would be determined by type of aircraft being produced and would have to be upgraded as new aircraft became available.
If you were going to use a factory-based production system, where each factory produces X amount of equipment, then this is the idea that I would favor most. But rather than 100 aircraft, what about making it 100 tons of aircraft? Factories will still cost more for each level but as the aircraft get bigger you produce fewer of them per factory.
Quote from: Darman on May 18, 2011, 12:24:56 PM
Quote from: Desertfox on May 17, 2011, 08:54:01 PM
A suggestion on aircraft. Instead of paying for individual aircraft, I proposed that one payed for aircraft factories. A factory would say be capable of producing 100 aircraft per quarter/year etc, and could be expanded as needed. Factory cost would be determined by type of aircraft being produced and would have to be upgraded as new aircraft became available.
If you were going to use a factory-based production system, where each factory produces X amount of equipment, then this is the idea that I would favor most. But rather than 100 aircraft, what about making it 100 tons of aircraft? Factories will still cost more for each level but as the aircraft get bigger you produce fewer of them per factory.
that is the setup that Tex and I originally proposed.
Yay; more posts in the past few days then there have been in a month.
Quote*sighs* Ok.... first I dont play West World so I am completely ignorant of what they do over there. But lets be clear here KISS is going to be a guiding principle.
I have seen some really good proposals In the Military Sections for Brigades. And the Fortress and Fortified Lines and Naval Gun Batteries sections all seem to work exceedingly well.
Aircraft can be built in Car Factories so no Specialized BP or IC or whatever we want to call them. Aircraft need to be built and maintenance is going to be expensive.
And finally starting in 1880/90 means we have 25 to 35 years of sim time before we have to start worrying about them
Yes, but all of those still aren't really that KISS; whereas these can be done without a spreadsheet, even a calculator and a piece of paper might take 15 minutes, maximum.
I'm gonna call bull on the second part. I'd like to see a naval gun manufactor suddenly start producing aircraft, with the same materials. It's possible for what, 10, 15 years at the most, until we get into more advanced aircraft. Also, the aircraft pay what we paid for them in 5/3 years; that's a pretty high maintances.
And to Darman; yeap, me and snip actually had some discussions over that very topic that lasted a while.
What is the major reason why smaller countries do not buy ships from the larger countries in game? I think I might have a way to encourage that.
Hm; ok. Fire away, in that case.
Don't think we specified anything one way or another, although, generally, small countries would have to build overseas from lack of slip size.
The major reason why smaller countries do not buy ships from larger countries is as follows.
Anyone who doesn't have enough BP to self-build are likely to not have money to buy foreign builds. Ships sell for high prices, further excluding poor countries. Hence, we get the occasional small ship sell, but almost never a cruiser or larger sell to a small country.
Money-rich but BP-poor countries tend to have bad relations with everyone, so there is little way for them to build. Most prefer to build up their own BP with that money anyways.
Larger countries also, in turn, rarely offer their old ships for sell, preferring to scrap them instead.
Yes. However, in WW, we've seen several export sales, including 4-5 BB's, and 2-3 Aircraft Carriers, all new...so, by that basis, it might, just might, be possible.
I think the problem here for Ship sails has always been the BP costs....
Italia built a brand new BB for the DKB, DKB built the turrets, turret armor, and guns and shipped them to Taranto where they were installed. Italia built the BB out purchased BP [Used Bavarian BP to replace BP used by Italia from own production.] Basically I paid around $2 per BP and then charged the DKB a bit over $3 for each BP purchased. So the total cost of the Ship in $$ was expensive probably over $100 including the 20% profit figured in by the Greedy Italians who had bank accounts to line and bribes to pay.
So DKB who had spare $$$ in there Military funds was able to get a nice Battle Ship for about @ $10-15 per year for 4 years and 1 balloon payment of $20. What they didnt have to do was build 4 more BP per year to cover the initial start up.
But as our example above pointed out Egypt could not afford such a ship. And the reason is nobody who had spare BP was willing to spend them to build new stuff for other people.
I don't think that state-run shipyards were doing too much exporting in real life anyways. I propose that the major powers have a private shipbuilding industry that doesn't have the player of the host country get involved. A country that isn't a great power could certainly construct a dreadnought of its own, but it is problematic. A private dreadnought building industry is unlikely to develop for a country that is building only a few dreadnoughts. To make a dreadnought you need to have large slips and a highly trained workforce. You also need a large steel industry and people who already know how to make large ships out of steel. It's like building a large cargo ship at that point. However, when you put in the requirement for industries that exist only for warships like armor production and rolling facilities, high performance boiler (and possibly turbine) industries, gun barrel forges, shell production plants, large industrial plants for casting the turrets, etc. Not only do you have to have these large and expensive facilities to make a ship, you also need to continually invest in them to keep the equipment, techniques, and technology of the production and the products up to date. If you don't have the prospect of sales to your own nation's navy or to foreign buyers (and a fairly substantial level of industrialization and shipbuilding), a private industry will never develop. Japan was one of the largest naval powers and a growing industrial power, and yet it never was able to support a private warship industry, nor was France. Only countries with a high degree of industrialization like Austria-Hungary, Germany, the UK, and the United States had large private shipbuilding industries, and even then some of them never did export warships.
Regarding players losing control of who is buying what, historically all the powers were selling things to each other, Germany and Austria sold guns and turrets to the Russians and the UK sold Austria turbines. Countries didn't even care about the best technology going overseas, Armstrong built the Agincourt for Brazil and later the Ottoman Empire, and Vickers constructed the lead ship of the Kongo for the IJN. With countries having more tensions in Navalism than in OTL, middle powers and aspiring middle powers should be clamoring for dreadnoughts from the yards of the great powers. You can certainly bar a power from buying from you, or seize their ships, but that is a great way to infuriate a nation and potentially cause them to go to war against you.
We debated having private and national ship building industries and decided it wasn't worth the effort. Instead if people want to buy crap someone will sell it to them, just to make a buck.
Michael
Quote from: Logi on May 18, 2011, 09:14:52 PM
The major reason why smaller countries do not buy ships from larger countries is as follows.
Anyone who doesn't have enough BP to self-build are likely to not have money to buy foreign builds. Ships sell for high prices, further excluding poor countries. Hence, we get the occasional small ship sell, but almost never a cruiser or larger sell to a small country.
Money-rich but BP-poor countries tend to have bad relations with everyone, so there is little way for them to build. Most prefer to build up their own BP with that money anyways.
Larger countries also, in turn, rarely offer their old ships for sell, preferring to scrap them instead.
Interesting PoV, I've been at the other end. Bavaria has merrily built ships for the ESC, France, and Mughals, and built parts of Iberian and Italian vessels to spec. This is because Bavaria didn't really see a need for a Navy, until the export sales, excess BP was a problem. Even so, just finished BP #13.
High ship Costs was something I found dismaying. Some old PDs went on the market and were bought for several times cost. This explanation helps explain it. However, apparently several of those nations had built up a long term investment fund - carrying $ over year to year, which is why the prices were that high- they raided a piggy bank most of us aren't allowed to have. It's a distorted price.
As for $ rich and BP poor having poor relations...that's rather a foriegn policy issue, not a structural one.
The presence of 'Great Powers' with a fixed export BP available for bid might be a way to provide that alternative while mimicing Elswick and Vickers etc.
Quote from: Kaiser Kirk on May 19, 2011, 08:42:12 AM
The presence of 'Great Powers' with a fixed export BP available for bid might be a way to provide that alternative while mimicing Elswick and Vickers etc.
The idea is that in the next game only Player Nations and perhaps a few others can build ships. There will be lots of nations looking for new build or used ships. With no BP there is no need to scrap ships to recover scarce BP's for more ship construction.
I found it sorta strange the way people kept scrapping old ships to fuel new construction.
Michael
So in the end the problem is as follows*:
We want a system which is
- easy, simple to keep track of things
yet still
- offers more/better realism, and some kind of growth
- encourages trades
while
- using that huge and detailed map miketr found
Without some kind of EDP-system this is not going to work.
Maddox asked me last year whether it would be possible to write a program that does all the bean-counting, my answer at that time was that while it wasn't worth the effort (especially the user interface would be a lot of work).
BUT, if we would use a EDP-system it would offer much more options (e.g. for economic rules) while still keeping things simple for the player.
*) probably a very simplified view missing lot of things
I have absolutely no interest in ship trading, and in fact am likely to avoid it no matter any mechanical 'enticement', simply to spite those trying to shove it down everyone's throats.
More productively, how do we reconcile that provided 'districted' map with the desire of many parties - myself included - for a physically altered world, one with differing sea levels at the very least?
That is the one thing that will turn me off completely, an 'altered world'. I don't care if we realign power blocks, de-colonize the world, make Italy the 600lbs gorilla, whatever, but I do not like a mutilated planet. I like knowing where A is compared to B without having to guess where they are in comparison to RL. It's the big reason I didn't want DKB to begin with...I have to GUESS where my cities are so I can figure out distances. It's really annoying and would probably be the end of me as an active player. I'm already swamped with school and work, but I still manage to check in at least 2-3 times a day and see what's up. I don't really want to make things more complicated. I do like the idea of "infrastructure/industrial decay" (Use it or loose it I suppose) Should make the export market more realistic.
I guess what I really look for in a sim is REALISM. I like the idea of taking some nation at a point in history and seeing what happens if you make decision B instead of the RL decision A. What if Germany doesn't back Austria-Hungary in 1914? What if Italy joins the CP instead of fence riding/finally joining the Entente? These are the things that interest me, and I'd be willing to do complex reports and stat tracking to get it. I know a lot of you don't. That's fine. I can always hang around and help people w/ ships and ideas, but I really don't want more Rohan/DKB/NS/Atlantis(WW)/Misc fake/altered crap. It's more annoying than fun.
My $0.02.
That is, in fact, not what I was talking about at all. My attempts to lobby for a completely new globe were shot down long before, and I very much dissaprove of the sloppy way the 'new lands' of the current Navalism were handled and have and continue to oppose the idea of repeating that experiment. The fine details of history that you're talking about don't interest me because they don't change anything really important... I'm more interested in thematic changes, preferably worked out with some rigor.
What I'm talking about when I say 'an altered world' is the idea of playing in a tilted (http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/SEAPOLE.HTM) or flooded (http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM) earth. Thus, I'm asking if the 'district border' file is in a 'clean' image format that can be laid transparently over a mercator projection of expected flooding, or would territories need to be drawn in manually? Or if there are other complications I'm missing.
Quote from: Valles on May 19, 2011, 09:06:37 AM
More productively, how do we reconcile that provided 'districted' map with the desire of many parties - myself included - for a physically altered world, one with differing sea levels at the very least?
I'm still desirous of hearing the compelling need for a physically altered world.
I can see lots of negatives- the first being that we have lots of data on the current world, and would not have that for an altered world, hence I can see more work with the altered world. I do not see the benefits to offset that. I really see no benefits.
RealismI don't look for realism, I look for 'fairly closism' and 'evenhanded rules we all play by'.
Quote from: Kaiser Kirk on May 19, 2011, 09:44:43 AM
Quote from: Valles on May 19, 2011, 09:06:37 AM
More productively, how do we reconcile that provided 'districted' map with the desire of many parties - myself included - for a physically altered world, one with differing sea levels at the very least?
I'm still desirous of hearing the compelling need for a physically altered world.
I can see lots of negatives- the first being that we have lots of data on the current world, and would not have that for an altered world, hence I can see more work with the altered world. I do not see the benefits to offset that. I really see no benefits.
Realism
I don't look for realism, I look for 'fairly closism' and 'evenhanded rules we all play by'.
I can agree with that assessment.
Quote from: Valles on May 19, 2011, 09:42:03 AM
That is, in fact, not what I was talking about at all. My attempts to lobby for a completely new globe were shot down long before, and I very much dissaprove of the sloppy way the 'new lands' of the current Navalism were handled and have and continue to oppose the idea of repeating that experiment. The fine details of history that you're talking about don't interest me because they don't change anything really important... I'm more interested in thematic changes, preferably worked out with some rigor.
What I'm talking about when I say 'an altered world' is the idea of playing in a tilted (http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/SEAPOLE.HTM) or flooded (http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM) earth. Thus, I'm asking if the 'district border' file is in a 'clean' image format that can be laid transparently over a mercator projection of expected flooding, or would territories need to be drawn in manually? Or if there are other complications I'm missing.
Tilted, flooded, frozen, thawed, whatever...it's still ALTERED. I don't like that idea on the whole. Earth is Earth. It's what we know and know how to maneuver. If you "tilt" or "flip" Earth, most society will not have formed the way it did, this drastically alters the world. Maybe not physically, but population/industry/civilization/resources will all be different than what we know. If you flood it, land locked areas become coastal cities. Good luck finding something more accurate than the ruler on Google Earth to measure distances with. I'm fine with changes to some things, just not wholesale change for the sake of change.
Quote from: Sachmle on May 19, 2011, 09:48:19 AMTilted, flooded, frozen, thawed, whatever...it's still ALTERED. I don't like that idea on the whole. Earth is Earth. It's what we know and know how to maneuver. If you "tilt" or "flip" Earth, most society will not have formed the way it did, this drastically alters the world. Maybe not physically, but population/industry/civilization/resources will all be different than what we know. If you flood it, land locked areas become coastal cities. Good luck finding something more accurate than the ruler on Google Earth to measure distances with. I'm fine with changes to some things, just not wholesale change for the sake of change.
The bolded line is one of two primary design
features of the approach I'm advocating. To someone who's coming to the game from a background in science fiction and
world history, what you seem to be calling 'realism' looks perilously close to the kind of 'just-the-same-ism' that'd defeat the entire purpose of our being here.
Distance calculations are and would remain trivial. Eyeball which small town is in about the same place as your 'new coastal city', record its name, and substitute at need. It's neither hard nor complicated. Cultural and political repercussions
should be somewhere between enormous and utterly transformative - as noted, that's the
point - but with each player responsible for their own nation, it should be perfectly managable.
I do not want to merely imitate or tweak an extant historical state. I want to
create, and as long as there's a "realistic" straightjacket in place, people are going to keep trying to limit that. A greatly perturbed setting
can support 'familiar' societies without utterly breaking suspension of disbelief, while simultaneously giving those of us who want to do something
interesting the room to work without people joggling our elbows. The reverse would not hold.
The
other advantage of a setting with raised sea levels is that the greater fragmentation of habitable lands increases the difficulty of army action between separated states, and thus increases the relative importance of the naval forces which are our primary focus.
For what you're looking for, why not just take a blank globe, as is, and redraw ALL the borders? Now you can make nations where ever is deemed 'good' and they can choose who and how they interact with the rest of the 'world'. No preconceived rivalries or alliances. Clean slate. The only problem with this is you need a whole new world history up to start point. That is a lot of work. In case you've not noticed, that is not something that seems to fly around here. We've never really settled on a true history as it is. The 1905 hanwavium aside, there are still some holes you could sail a battleship through in a lot of the world history. Even where it is more detailed, new players have come in and either been unaware of the preexisting history of their nation, or plain chose to ignore it for their own ends.
Quote from: Valles on May 19, 2011, 10:20:19 AM
I do not want to merely imitate or tweak an extant historical state. I want to create, and as long as there's a "realistic" straightjacket in place, people are going to keep trying to limit that. A greatly perturbed setting can support 'familiar' societies without utterly breaking suspension of disbelief, while simultaneously giving those of us who want to do something interesting the room to work without people joggling our elbows. The reverse would not hold.
I think that's the crux of the problem. You strongly want to create fresh, and are willing to do additional work for that. Others have little interest in creating or storytelling and just want to mechanistically run a nation. Then there are folks like me in between. I'm find altering nations, but I like to tie strongly to historic roots with some divergence. I really don't want to do the work of creating, or figuring out which village is now the main port. Heck, figuring out what the ports in DEI were took some time in Wesworld.
You see opportunity, I see work without substantive reward.
I wouldn't mind taking Gustav Adolphus's Kingdom of Sweden into the modern Era, or a Byzantium that didn't fall, or a Viking Vinland that prospered, an Incan Empire, a 1820s border Mexico*, or an Irish-Scot-Welsh-Breton-Brittany "Celtic" state with 1 fantasy city in Ys, ruled by King Asterix and his faithful advisor Getafix, but starting from scratch isn't too terribly appealing to me.
*North America with an 1830 Mexico, a Confederacy, French Louisiana Purchase, Canada and a N&E states USA for example.
Frankly, that's one of the things I saw as a strength of Navalism 3 - New lands and potential cultures for those that wanted to do more creating/storytelling. Maori, Rohan, DKB, Rift, NS - several places for those types of players.
Edit : An example of how I use history can either be seen in the references to the 1791 constitution in the Ukrainian bits, or over in Wesworld I built an entire timeline for the Netherlands from 1433 forward with points of departure noted...but even then many folks don't go reading other peoples histories in their encyclopedias, so folks don't *know* as well as OTL events.
http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?threadid=3463&sid=6fb2ae0b0b5478e76331fec79a21906b (http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?threadid=3463&sid=6fb2ae0b0b5478e76331fec79a21906b)
I have nothing against an unaltered world.
Any change to the world makes using existing tools difficult. Take the tilted one for example, with ice were shipping routes are assumed and the other way around. On top of that it's confusing.
On the other had I have nothing against a "new" world with no relations to earth. However, there must be an easily accessible way to calculate distances.
Data about provinces etc. should not be a problem. Even if that great map mike pointed out is used I would still insist on filling it with rather "random" data e.g. for the population.
As a result I'm in the no changes or no relations group should that exist.
QuoteFrankly, that's one of the things I saw as a strength of Navalism 3 - New lands and potential cultures for those that wanted to do more creating/storytelling. Maori, Rohan, DKB, Rift, NS - several places for those types of players.
The existence as a compromise system, yes? I quite agree, and I'm quite willing to adopt a compromise solution.
I'm speaking up, and will continue to do so, to keep people from misinterpreting the continuum. It doesn't run recent-divergence/distant-divergence/flooded-globe. It runs recent/distant/flooded/tilted/new-world.
For that matter, the suggestion I recall going around our previous discussion threads about mapping was that the flooding was a historical event in itself, rather than having been the case from earliest times - that the ice caps melted during the historical record, say, between 500 and 1000 CE.
Issues with world.
1) if you alter world, like say higher sea levels, then issue comes of map to show new coast lines. I kind like the idea of inland seas and additional islands. Problem is maps, details and distance.
2) New world issues of #1 but even more so.
There is a reason for the push for un-altered geography.
By 1880's start it was my recollection that was a tech level not a hard date so much.
Having fantasy nations using current geography is fine and I think nearly assumed depending on number of players. The idea was to map groups of 4 or 5 player nations near each other (Europe, North America, East Asia, whatever). We wanted to avoid problems like having Orange Republic in South Africa where it has huge logistic advantage down there by itself.
For example having a Mexican Empire, Greater Kingdom of Sweden or whatever sounds fine. Some effort at trying to somewhat rationalize the history would need to be made but it wouldn't need to be perfect.
Michael
Just my $0.02 worth
QuoteDistance calculations are and would remain trivial. Eyeball which small town is in about the same place as your 'new coastal city', record its name, and substitute at need. It's neither hard nor complicated. Cultural and political repercussions should be somewhere between enormous and utterly transformative - as noted, that's the point - but with each player responsible for their own nation, it should be perfectly managable.
No Eyeballing wont do it and that seems to be a common misconception.
I pointed out the Eyeballing Distance between Foxy and Myself and Rocky on where the War was starting in New Zion. Our Eyeball Difference were over 200 Km off and for a Land War in the Early 20th Century that is a huge distance.
2nd I took me what a Year to pin down the average width of the Rift Sea. Its on the Map you Eye ball how Wide is it.... Is it 100 Km or 300 Km or was that nautical miles. How wide is the Southern Entrance to the Rift. Is it 30km in which case the 12" and 14" Gun Batteries at the narrows at Blantrye on the map cover nearly the entire width of the narrows and anyships running them out of range of the guns would be in Orange territorial waters. ;)
When you are moderating a war or Even planning for defenses you need a very very accurate map that everyone can agree upon. And having to go around New Guinnea as an example adds significants amount of sailing time when sailing from say Australia to a theoretical point roughly 200 Nm East and slightly north of Wake Island.
I am with Kirk and Sam I think on the lets create some New Countries carve up the map a bit and leave lots of blank room to play in with some minor nations to roleplay and squabble with. Lots of reasons for small wars and Naval skirmishs. Plenty of opportunity to test our toys to destruction but not a reason to spend 6 months of real time covering major wars. This all or nothing commitment to wars is suicide. No real world nations does such things quite that way. Well accept Japan but they fundamently underestimated the resolve of the United States to carry on the war.
Charles
...Let's say that I want to know about where the 'new' city at the mouth of the Mississippi will be, in a hypothetical world where sea levels are, say, sixty meters higher.
I go to http://flood.firetree.net/
I set it to sixty meters rise.
I find the Mississippi River on the map and then scroll to where it meets the new Gulf.
I zoom in until I can read the name of the nearest town - West Helena, Arkansas, as it happens, though given that Memphis is only a few miles away, it'd probably get the nod in practice.
What is so hard about this?!
People've been very clear that they don't want to invest in creating new territories. I get that. I'd be damned if I let a 'new landmass' go as vaguely as we've seen ours so far, so I can sympathize with people who don't want to risk further problems along those lines.
But this IS our goddamn world. It's right there, every tool to tell you exactly what you'd want to know... and no one even wants to bother to look, to consider it.
I don't get it. I really don't, and it frustrates me to tears.
Quote
I don't get it. I really don't, and it frustrates me to tears.
I think the problem is for every single measurement I want to make using say the Google Distance calculator I have to go back look at the Flood.firetree.net map and make sure the Distance calculator is going across the proper terrain. The Sailing Calculator Port to Port works really also but only if you are going from port to port. As an Example On our N3 World the Port of Blantrye on the Ophir Island off the East African Coast is a town located Miles Inland so doing sailing calculation took extra time.
What I want as both a possible Moderator and as a player is Keep It Simple Stupid. And remember I am the person who Owns a program for building Fantasy World Maps of Entire Continents. ;)
We have a nice map that Mike has Found we can Color in the Territories to create the Player Nations and non player nations. [Or at least I seriously hope we can do so].
What you are finding is that most people are not interested in the Extra Work and hassle using a non real world would entail. Most people would prefer less work not more. Considering many of us are going to have to do Historical Research to help create our Nations well that is something some of us Enjoy Doing. But fiddling with maps heck even when Im building a new Fantasy World for D&D or other game I dont enjoy playing with the map maker program its a necessary evil just like Spring Sharp is for this game. ;)
*sigh*
Well, if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted. I guess that's it.
Quote from: Valles on May 19, 2011, 11:06:01 PM
...Let's say that I want to know about where the 'new' city at the mouth of the Mississippi will be, in a hypothetical world where sea levels are, say, sixty meters higher.
I go to http://flood.firetree.net/
I set it to sixty meters rise.
I find the Mississippi River on the map and then scroll to where it meets the new Gulf.
I zoom in until I can read the name of the nearest town - West Helena, Arkansas, as it happens, though given that Memphis is only a few miles away, it'd probably get the nod in practice.
What is so hard about this?!
People've been very clear that they don't want to invest in creating new territories. I get that. I'd be damned if I let a 'new landmass' go as vaguely as we've seen ours so far, so I can sympathize with people who don't want to risk further problems along those lines.
But this IS our goddamn world. It's right there, every tool to tell you exactly what you'd want to know... and no one even wants to bother to look, to consider it.
I don't get it. I really don't, and it frustrates me to tears.
It's not so much a matter of how easy or hard it is to do, but more of what we gain by doing it. I'm not really sure what we would gain by having higher sea levels, or a different pole, or something like that.