www.navalism.org

This is the thread for Discussing Asia

Map of Asia to work from:

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm18/mmichael453/Navalism%204/asia-guinness-v1.png

From the other thread:

Quote from: Borys on June 03, 2011, 01:01:09 PM
Ahoj!
1 - Manchuria + Primorskiy Kray (if possible)
2 - New Zealand (that's broadly understood Asia, folks!)
3 - Persia / Phillipines

EDITED TO ADD Maritime Province to Machuria
Borys

Quote from: Valles on June 03, 2011, 03:48:40 PM
...Oh, that's gonna make for an interesting early game, Borys. I'm up for it, though.

Culturally, do you have in mind a Mongolian/Jurchen, a Slavic, or a 'Sinicized' society?

See, something I've had in mind historically speaking has been the idea that, rather than allying with the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century, the kingdom of Silla managed to bring in the state of Yamato by backing one side in a civil war that was going on there. The Japanese, of course, would have made a much less impressive ally than the Chinese, so Goguryeo survives several decades longer than it managed to historically - only finally falling sometime around 700CE - but aren't in a position to make territorial claims to the lion's share of Goguryeo the way the Tang did OTL, thus leaving 'Korea' with a somewhat larger geographical extent than we think of it as having today, with the (differently named) cities on the sites of Shenyang, Changchun, and Vladivostok all being fairly near the border. 'Japan' applied as I hope to, would include Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu, and the Ryukyus, but exclude Hokkaido. 'Ezochi', comprising Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the Kurils, would be a culturally and ethnically Ainu but distinctly civilized kingdom - having picked the habit up relatively early from the Japanese and Chinese. All three would be, in theory, close allies contributing funds and personnel to a combined military under the control of a council of their kings...

...Although, in practice, the Shogun would be the 'real' power, with the kings of Ezochi, Japan, and Korea jumping whenever he said frog. Hence 'Sandeii no Bakufu' - 'Shogunate to Three Thrones'.

Quote from: Borys on June 03, 2011, 09:34:16 PM
Ahoj!

Quote from: Valles on June 03, 2011, 03:48:40 PM
Culturally, do you have in mind a Mongolian/Jurchen, a Slavic, or a 'Sinicized' society?

I'm undecided as to the first two, the third is right out.
Borys

It deserves note that we haven't arrived at an official Japan+whatever player yet. Generally, we've been awarding first, second, etc. choice by player "seniority", but in the case of Japan as far as I'm concerned, it's players of equal seniority asking for it. So we'll need to hash that out.

What we're working with so far:

Asia
Valles   Japan(ish)*
PyscoWard Philippines with part of Mainland China
P3D Indochina
Borys N. China/Manchuria/Parts of Siberia

* Still working out Japan

My own... well, second or third, since I'd missed/forgotten people... pass looks like this:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v04.png

Ahoj!
I have three quibles with the red blob :) on the map:
1 - reaches too far west for my taste - at least 3 "pieces" too many, the ones on the edge; and I'm not sure I'd want Hobei Province.
2 - I'm a bit surprised at the lack of Liaotung Peninsula ...
3 - I'd like the northern border to follow the Amur - the "piece" to the NW of the Maritime Province - North is to the north of the river. But I can live with it ...
Borys

1. Fixed.

2. I wanted to apply an alteration to the historical borders of Korea to emphasize the divergence there, and that it happened very early. 'Vladivostok' and the territory roughly west of it to the northern tip of Liaotung would, I'd want to say, be territory that had 'traditionally' been Korean but was conquered when your state was set up.

3. Fixed.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v05.png

Ahoj!
Lovely - I'll keep Hobei then.
Lack of Liaotung messes up with OTL Manchu history and background a lot - I'll have to think it over.
Who lives there - Koreans or Han?

If this map gives me the mouth of the Liao River (it may be the border) - with port of Yingkou - then we can consider Manchuria ready for play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liao_He
Borys

Quote from: Borys on June 07, 2011, 11:17:46 PM
Ahoj!
Lovely - I'll keep Hobei then.
Lack of Liaotung messes up with OTL Manchu history and background a lot - I'll have to think it over.
Who lives there - Koreans or Han?

The peninsula, southeastern Jilin, the very southern tip of Heilongjiang - Dongning County, effectively - and the Vladivostok area would be ethnically Korean or at least mixed, unless efforts had been made to specifically displace the populace when they were 'conquered'. The first time that Korea was unified, it was because one of the three kingdoms feuding over the peninsula allied with Tang China; there's a theory among South Korean hardline nationalists (reported though not necessarily agreed with by the South Korean born professor who gave my history of Korea class) that this was in some way a 'betrayal' of Korea as a whole, because much of the territory that belonged to the northernmost of the three eventually ended up in Chinese hands, creating the seventh-century origins of the border we know today.

The essential divergence I have in mind is that, rather than allying with the Chinese, Silla allied with the Japanese Yamato kingdom. Mostly this would be an alliance in name only - Yamato-era Japan wasn't what you'd call an organized centralized power - but as a matter of hiring mercenaries at relative bargain prices, still militarily significant.

Unification took much longer in this timeline, but still happened... and without the northeastern border moving nearly as much.

At least until your folks showed up in, what, the eighteenth century or so? Or, if previously present, made the territorial gains in question about the same time?

Quote from: Borys on June 07, 2011, 11:17:46 PMIf this map gives me the mouth of the Liao River (it may be the border) - with port of Yingkou - then we can consider Manchuria ready for play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liao_He

It looks like the Liao is the border, yes. Real-world Yingkou seems to be east of its mouth, but from what I can tell it's only coincidentally so - there's nothing structural about the area making it a better harbor if put there rather than to the west of the mouth.

Ahoj!
IMO Liatung could had been taken from the Koreans by - if we skip the Tang, by:
- the Kitans Xthcentury
- the Dzurdzhens (Jurchens) XIth century
- the Mongols XIIth or XIIIth century
- the Ming - XIVth century
and finally
- the Manchus XVIIth century :)

I'll mull over the lack of Liaotung - IMO it butterflies away the conquest of China by the Manchus, so it opens up an interesting POD.

Yup - Yingkou will be on the NW bank then.
Maybe it's a new settlement, intruding into a previous no-man's-land between the Koreans and Chinese? Founded by the new Slavic overlords of the Manchu?
Borys

I don't see any reason why Japan should have either Taiwan or Korea.

Quote from: Borys on June 08, 2011, 10:48:34 AM
Ahoj!
IMO Liatung could had been taken from the Koreans by - if we skip the Tang, by:
- the Kitans Xthcentury
- the Dzurdzhens (Jurchens) XIth century
- the Mongols XIIth or XIIIth century
- the Ming - XIVth century
and finally
- the Manchus XVIIth century :)

It certainly could have! As could the other territories 'inland'. Probably they were, once or twice, and were reclaimed. Having it be Korean in the 'modern' era is, as noted, in large part a deliberate thumbing of the nose at the idea of sticking closely to OTL.

Quote from: Borys on June 08, 2011, 10:48:34 AMI'll mull over the lack of Liaotung - IMO it butterflies away the conquest of China by the Manchus, so it opens up an interesting POD.

Yup - Yingkou will be on the NW bank then.
Maybe it's a new settlement, intruding into a previous no-man's-land between the Koreans and Chinese? Founded by the new Slavic overlords of the Manchu?

If Walter gets the nod for Japan and I end up in China, I'd be playing them as ruled by a native Han dynasty rather than the historical Manchu one, so having that be part of the departure process is entirely desirable.

I'd been figuring that the port would be new-built, yeah. The one in our world only dates from the early nineteenth century anyway, at least as a significant city.

Quote from: P3D on June 08, 2011, 11:10:54 AM
I don't see any reason why Japan should have either Taiwan or Korea.

And I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.

Quote from: Valles on June 08, 2011, 11:55:12 AM

Quote from: P3D on June 08, 2011, 11:10:54 AM
I don't see any reason why Japan should have either Taiwan or Korea.

And I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.

"Not having Having it be Japanese Korean in the 'modern' era is, as noted, in large part a deliberate thumbing of the nose at the idea of sticking closely to OTL.
:D
Borys

*laugh* Point!^_^ In my own defense, I'd intended the context of its acquisition as being very different, but that, at least, is an argument I can take seriously.

There won't be borders and island possessions drawn such as they'd block the communication lines for two possible players, and players won't have starting possessions in areas defined "colonial" like Indonesia.

Borys's chosen position is going to have its sea lanes open to Japanese interdiction whatever you do; this is implicit in their relative locations. Who owns Taiwan won't make a difference.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v06.png

"Japanese" Korea will not happen in N4verse, sorry. Taiwan is also  claimed by the North "Chinese", Central "Chinese" and South "Chinese" nations so who will get it is not decided yet.

And I will call the nation occupying the OTL Honshu-Shikoku-Hokkaido-etc. islands "Japan" for the time being.

Some more issues here: we need to cram at least one more and maybe two more players into Asia if we can. Also, we're starting to think the Philippines should be "whitespace" at the start. So let's think about solving both if we can.

My guess is the solution is a fractured "China" for one thing. We should probably endeavor to use most of OTL Mainland China, and possibly some of OTL Russia. Borys' nation probably needs more territory on the Sea of Okhotsk.

So let's put heads together and figure this out. We really probably need 6 player states plus some small fry npcs if necessary in this region.

The building program I want to carry out in the 'dreadnought era' calls for a roughly balanced fleet program including five battleships under construction at any given time, effectively indefinitely (seven BB classes intended). Getting myself in position for this 'dream fleet' is a large part of my thinking in regards to N4. It's fairly self-evident that no starting position acceptable to the mods or other players is going to be capable of supporting that without expanding.

I can live with that.

In my 'ideal world', the needed expansion would come without more than 'coincidental' wars with other 'powers' - I have no real desire to get involved in another potentially OOC-contentious 'war to the finish'; even in N3, the presence of such was an inescapable part of the 'most likely' logic I could find based on the blank-slate situation I was handed, and in retrospect I'd've twisted my logic farther away from plausiblity in order to avoid the hassle.

Unfortunately, I also have no interest in climbing on board the 'foreign colonies' barge, and the approach to 'motivating' such to date has hardened that initial disinterest into full-bore active hostility.

I will not, under any circumstances, permit myself to be pushed in conquering New Zealand, Argentina, or where-the-fuck-ever else completely outside my desired sphere of influence.

The effect of removing 'white space' from East Asia will not directly prevent my building a 'continental' empire; it will force me into the position of the 'bad guy' who is doing so over the corpses of other player nations.

I can live with that, too, even if I'd rather not.

But I'd be remiss in my responsibility to the game as a whole and to my fellow players if I didn't recognize and warn of the potential that holds to be a problem.

That said, how does this look as a take on 'Four Kingdoms' China?

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v07.png

The 'kingdoms' are effectively centered around the North China Plain, the Sichuan Basin, the lower Yangtze, and the Pearl River watershed - Capitals Beijin, Nanjing, Chengdu, and probably Hong Kong.

I gave Korea the Shangdong peninsula partly to increase its strength/area/population closer to 'par' for a player state in the region and partly because Confucious was supposedly born there, and Korea was historically the most profoundly and absolutely 'Confucian' state.

Who or what is the Green nation away from the ocean?

Michael

One of the four Chinese splinter states, effectively centered on the real world's Sichuan province, which is itself centered on a fertile basin surrounded by mountains.

Or it should be, if I have my mapping right.

*wanders over from NA build thread*

Could be expanded to serve as and NPC buffer to continental expansion by the coastal "Chinas"

The Southern state should be centered around Guangzhou rather than Hong Kong. Before the British took over Hong Kong, it was just a fishing village like any other. Guangzhou has a much lengthier history and has served as capital for the southern kingdoms (before assimilation into China).

*makes note*

Right, thanks. Sorry, my 'Pre-Modern China' course is supposed to start this fall, so I'm shakier than I'd like on such details.

Quote from: Valles on June 08, 2011, 03:51:11 PM
One of the four Chinese splinter states, effectively centered on the real world's Sichuan province, which is itself centered on a fertile basin surrounded by mountains.

Or it should be, if I have my mapping right.

Well Central Asia is what it is, dust bowl land and hardly the center of the world.  That said the idea is in keeping with the mods intentions.

Michael

Well, right off, what do those players currently slated for Asia say about Valles' last map?

Valles: I've got to say that everything you've posted about Nverse4 so far has ranged from negative, to snarky, to downright hostile. I'm sorry if what we've come up with so far isn't to your liking. In the past you've written various things that have given me the opinion that you have a viewpoint about histories various colonizations and conquests being "wrong" on a moral level. Is it just that you'd prefer to build up a nation somewhere on your own without interference from other players, or is this more born out of some philosophical issue with colonization in general? I'm trying to get a handle on where you are coming from.

I do not think of myself, overall, as being 'hostile' to N4. Yes, there are aspects of the setting that I would prefer to have seen arranged otherwise, but those questions are settled, and I'm content to have them so. I'm quite curious about and looking forward to the unveiling of the new rule system, and overall I'm having a good time working on establishing the pre-game history of East Asia. I'm enjoying the idea of having Borys for a neighbor, since we really haven't talked much before, and so forth.

I don't mind, really, that I'll probably be opposing other players - that'd be the case even if I was trying to spread into 'white space', due to the competition for territory. I'm concerned that the 'life or death' nature of the struggles I expect given my lack of white space to expand into will cause bad blood out of character.

Colonization, qua colonization, is something I admit I have mixed feelings about; overall, I'd say that my viewpoints are informed by an emotional preference for construction and preservation over destruction, and the knowledge that colonization often worked, or was intended to work, by knocking down existing 'inferior' governmental and social structures in favor of imported ones. My disinterest in carrying it out myself as a player nation, however, is based less on moral concerns - as I've said, I'm perfectly prepared to adopt the in-character 'mode' of a bloody-handed conquerer of civilized states, just like, oh, Nazi Germany - and more on a disinterest in repeating a theme that has already been played out in real history. Colonization good, colonization evil, who cares? Colonization boring.

My vehemance on the subject of enforced colonization stems from an ongoing, mmm, movement, among my fellow players, which has always been one of my main beefs with N3: the tendancy, when I try to do something that I feel makes sense in the context of the game but which did not happen OTL, of someone or other to go, 'But that's not historical. You shouldn't do that.'

'What does historical case x share with Navalism case y?' I ask. (Or would ask, or should ask - I can be as unclear as anyone, I admit!) 'What is the principle or logic that makes this unlikely?'

'It didn't happen. It's not historical. You shouldn't do that.'

'...That's not an answer to my question.'

'It's wrong. It's not historical.'

And so on.

The 'overseas colonies' structuring of the starting positions looks, to me, like another case of people going 'This is historical, and therefore that's how you should do it' over and over without ever even bothering to explain why it should be neccessary, or, if not neccessary, why their favored playstyle should be enforced on the whole game.

And, yes, that gets my back up a bit.

I'm not being hostile to the idea of people having overseas colonies; I'm being hostile - probably more so than I was intending, if I've gotten this reaction! - to the idea that that's all that people should be able to have. Perhaps that's not what the mods intend; perhaps that's not what anyone intends - but it's what I expect things to come to in the end. Many, even most, of my arguments have been aimed at heading the 'historical precedent' logic off as early and as permanently as possible, so that I and other players who want to explore the world that Navalism actually is rather than a reflection of 'real' history will be able to do so without having to constantly fight for the privledge.

Is my 'vow' to attack other players before adopting the 'intended' route to expansion rude and somewhat antisocial? Yes, it probably is. Sorry about that - if I had another option that I thought would work, I'd take it.

But, in my mind, it's substantially less rude than trying to directly dictate another player's 'style' of play. If there are logical factors supporting why a certain style should be taken, then by all means they should be aired, to either be adopted or adapted around, depending on the choice of the individual players.

But if such evidence has been aired here, it's flown right by my notice.

Ahoj!

Quote from: Guinness on June 08, 2011, 02:46:39 PM
Borys' nation probably needs more territory on the Sea of Okhotsk.

I'm not sure ... holding the mouth of the Amur gives me access to that sea, and it's 5 months ice bound anyway.
Borys

Quoteholding the mouth of the Amur gives me access to that sea, and it's 5 months ice bound anyway.

That means that for 5 months of the year, you do not need to worry about an enemy fleet sailing into the sea and threaten your coasts from that area. :D

Quote from: Valles on June 08, 2011, 07:51:21 PM
Colonization, qua colonization, is something I admit I have mixed feelings about; overall, I'd say that my viewpoints are informed by an emotional preference for construction and preservation over destruction, and the knowledge that colonization often worked, or was intended to work, by knocking down existing 'inferior' governmental and social structures in favor of imported ones.

I think that that statement could be applied to any changes of rulers over a territory. If there were a hierarchal society in place that could be used by the new rulers for their aims it was kept in place most of the time (for example Swedish rule over the Baltic states in the 17th century, or most European colonies in Asia). I do not agree with the analysis that it was done for racially founded ideological reason any more then the radical changes in say European societies (and the extermination of regional languish and cultures) during the industrial revolution.

QuoteMy vehemance on the subject of enforced colonization stems from an ongoing, mmm, movement, among my fellow players, which has always been one of my main beefs with N3: the tendancy, when I try to do something that I feel makes sense in the context of the game but which did not happen OTL, of someone or other to go, 'But that's not historical. You shouldn't do that.'

'What does historical case x share with Navalism case y?' I ask. (Or would ask, or should ask - I can be as unclear as anyone, I admit!) 'What is the principle or logic that makes this unlikely?'

The 'overseas colonies' structuring of the starting positions looks, to me, like another case of people going 'This is historical, and therefore that's how you should do it' over and over without ever even bothering to explain why it should be neccessary, or, if not neccessary, why their favored playstyle should be enforced on the whole game.

"Historical" is almost as dangerous a word as "realistic".
For the most part, I do agree with you here; I do not believe our rules should reward or force any one play style more then any other. So on average the state that goes for military expansion in the home area, the one that gets allot of colonies or the one that sits tight at home and invest internally should after 40 years be in about the same economical situation.

As for doing "ahistorical" things, it is fine as long as one does it from an informed position, at least in the "soft" issues such as intents and trade-offs.
But when one talks about harder things such as ship engineering I would most likely be stricter.

The Person who expands will need to spend more and more money upgrading the Infrastructure of their Colonies increasing the size of their military to guard it and well.... probably raising their tax rate at home for a substantial period of time. 

This will slow their growth rate at home so this might very well be true in the current system I have seen.
The Colonial Expansion areas are their to provide locations where nations might have small regional conflicts without feeling that their nations are directly threatened.

The Problem with all the wars in N3 was most of the wars people assumed were to the Death.   But most wars up until World War I were not that way.   Win a major Battle of take the enemies capital and then the diplomats take over and you give up a province or two or an over seas colony.   The cost of the war and of occupying a hostile nation for 20 or 30 years doesnt justify not making peace.

Quote from: ctwaterman on June 09, 2011, 05:23:49 AM
The Colonial Expansion areas are their to provide locations where nations might have small regional conflicts without feeling that their nations are directly threatened.

I find this concept abit strange to be honest, as "colonial war" was mainly about gaining control of territory that other states already recognised as belonging to that state (so really an internal matter). However if it would come to any armed conflict between any of the states armed forces it was a full war. The Fashoda Incident should be a pretty good indicator.

I have a very hard time taking seriously the idea that the Japanest Islands are supposed to be capable of becoming a match for the OTL United States by staying home and concentrating on their economy without adding any 'interior' resources or workforce. Not only would I find myself dragged away from my real goals by the 'determinists', they'd be right.

But, you know, this is really kind of what I'm talking about.

What factors created the environment where 'winning a war' was understood to only transfer a province or two? In what way do they apply to my case? If you want to argue that 'limited' wars are the only kind I should be fighting, support the argument, or at least give me a workable alternative.

But for gods' sake don't waste the time and mutual goodwill of both of us repeating the historical fact over and over like it constituted an actual argument.

Quote from: Valles on June 09, 2011, 06:01:55 AM
I have a very hard time taking seriously the idea that the Japanest Islands are supposed to be capable of becoming a match for the OTL United States by staying home and concentrating on their economy without adding any 'interior' resources or workforce. Not only would I find myself dragged away from my real goals by the 'determinists', they'd be right.

I use vessel-words: "...on average the state that goes..."
Exceptions could and should exist, and really expansionism should be a high risk strategy, possibly greater rewards, but also greater risk for failure. So on average equal to other strategies. 

Ah. OK, yeah, that makes that make more sense. Sorry for misinterpreting.

Ok...

lets be honest in the real world with real Coal, Iron, Oil, and hardening metals for steel production no Japan simply cannot compete with the United States by internal investment.   It is all about access to resources which Japan historically has NONE.

But then the United States did spend 100 Years expanding until it occupied or controlled a very significant amount of territory on the North American Countinent.  So that proves and supports the Grab it theory of expansionism.  Starting at the end of the War of 1812 the Belief in its own Manifest destiny pushed the United States to constantly expand westward.  Heck the US even bought Alaska the results is with the end of the age of Wind and Water Power and with the advent of the age of steam and Coal and latter Oil the US had all the energy and natural resouces it needed.

So lets be honest ARE you looking for a system that rewards staying within you borders and slowly building up or one the penalizes going out and having a few conflicts.

I saw your desire to have 5 Battle Ships under construction in a given year?  I doubt that will happen here because I am trying to remember if anyone ever had that many under construction accept the United States or Great Britain.   Nobody Else I think ever had more then 2 Battle Ships and 1 Battle Cruiser under construction at the same time ????  Maybe Germany did so as well once.

But this Sim is distributing that Income, and Ship Building Capacity over 20 nations not 5.

Charles

Quote from: ctwaterman on June 09, 2011, 07:58:39 AM
I saw your desire to have 5 Battle Ships under construction in a given year?  I doubt that will happen here because I am trying to remember if anyone ever had that many under construction accept the United States or Great Britain.   Nobody Else I think ever had more then 2 Battle Ships and 1 Battle Cruiser under construction at the same time ????  Maybe Germany did so as well once.

Well, I just counted and Germany did build 50 capital ships above 10000 tons in 25 years. And in at least two years 5 entered service each. If building a ship took only 2 years than that makes 4 under construction at any given time on average. I wouldn't be surprised if the British number would two or three times bigger.

BTW I kind of would like to do that as well. However, the only "solution" I could think of is that don't start with countries, but with a few "core" provinces and everything else is for expanding. Some provinces might have an affinity to you and easy to integrate, others might be hostile. From a gameplay point of view that should work, but history based storytelling? I don't think so.

Quote from: ctwaterman on June 09, 2011, 07:58:39 AM
lets be honest in the real world with real Coal, Iron, Oil, and hardening metals for steel production no Japan simply cannot compete with the United States by internal investment.   It is all about access to resources which Japan historically has NONE.

I would like to point out that steel was not the industry that lead industrialisation in most countries, that honour usually goes to the textile industry.
Also, exactly what recourses one got inside ones own borders is not really relevant; the relevant thing is what is cost for an industry to acquire what it need for its production.
So on a country level there is not really much difference if say the iron is mined in the country and made into steel or imported and made into steel unless tariffs on either end distorts (and given equal transport costs).

QuoteBut then the United States did spend 100 Years expanding until it occupied or controlled a very significant amount of territory on the North American Countinent.  So that proves and supports the Grab it theory of expansionism.  

Actually; no it does not. In the first 100 years by far more wealth was generated in the core homelands then the regions that was "grabbed". Expansion in it self gains a country very little, development creates wealth and that can be both in new or old territory.

QuoteI saw your desire to have 5 Battle Ships under construction in a given year?  I doubt that will happen here because I am trying to remember if anyone ever had that many under construction accept the United States or Great Britain.   Nobody Else I think ever had more then 2 Battle Ships and 1 Battle Cruiser under construction at the same time ????  Maybe Germany did so as well once.

Russia had 7(!) Dreadnoughts under construction in 1912, and its Pre-Dreadnought buildning program was prodigious as well.

EDIT: And I think it should be pointed out that the UK in this period had an army that pretty much was smaller and less well equipped then the civilian police of most continental powers. ;)

*shrug* If need be, I can stick to alternating 'orders' of three and two, but my nomenclature scheme determines that most of my BB classes will have five ships. If the new construction rules allow me to match historical construction rates, rather than being limited to ten thousand tons a year, it won't even be that big a hardship.

I've always known that I was going to need to be aiming for 'superpower' status by 1905 if I wanted to pull it off. At one point, in the 'pre reboot' speculative discussions, I advocated a small number of quite large 'player states'; that was voted down on the theory that people were more interested in building up from modest starting bases. Sure, I'm willing to take that on. If it legitimately doesn't work, hey, that's okay, luck of the game. If trying to pull it off does things to directly ruin people's games, whether by 'system slow down' or whatever, I'll try and back off and find another way - I don't want to break the game, and I have no interest in telling people how to play their side of things.

But I'm not going to go along with, 'You're too small and you have to stay that way just because'.

Ahoj!

Quote from: Korpen on June 09, 2011, 09:02:07 AM

EDIT: And I think it should be pointed out that the UK in this period had an army that pretty much was smaller and less well equipped then the civilian police of most continental powers. ;)

IMO an urban legend. Smaller - yes. But very well equipped.
Borys

No the only limit on the game here is how you balance your budgets.  Expansion as Korpen points out pays off long term not short term.  It will I "THINK" cost short term before it ever generates income.

well unless you count California where California was aquired in 1848 and Gold was discovered their in 1949  :P

And Yes the British Army was 2 tiered a Hard Corp well Equiped Professional force and the Territorial and or Home Guard Units.  But Yes it was really really small !  Because the Navy was really really big.

QuoteWell, I just counted and Germany did build 50 capital ships above 10000 tons in 25 years. And in at least two years 5 entered service each. If building a ship took only 2 years than that makes 4 under construction at any given time on average. I wouldn't be surprised if the British number would two or three times bigger.

I believe we are interested in Lay down Dates.... when the money was appropriated for them.   They may have been commissioned in the same year but were they laid down in the same year?

Honestly instead of a world dominated by 2 or even 5 or 6 Super Powers this World will have 20 or so Intermediate powers all looking to try and become Super Powers.

Charles

IIRC in Dreadnought (which I don't have in front of me ATM) the Germans appropriated for 4 BB's and 2 BC's in one of their navy laws, and  England appropriated for a mix of 8 dreadnought vessels in one year (initial order of 4 that they expanded later)- so having 5 vessels under construction is not unheard of, though it wouldn't be something sustainable.

"If you give me four more dreadnoughts, I shall name the Winston, Churchill, Lloyd and George- how they will fight!" - Jackie Fisher to Winston Churchill, on needing 8 dreadnoughts in one year.

Quote from: Carthaginian on June 09, 2011, 09:50:23 PM
IIRC in Dreadnought (which I don't have in front of me ATM) the Germans appropriated for 4 BB's and 2 BC's in one of their navy laws, and  England appropriated for a mix of 8 dreadnought vessels in one year (initial order of 4 that they expanded later)- so having 5 vessels under construction is not unheard of, though it wouldn't be something sustainable.

"If you give me four more dreadnoughts, I shall name the Winston, Churchill, Lloyd and George- how they will fight!" - Jackie Fisher to Winston Churchill, on needing 8 dreadnoughts in one year.

Funnily enough, I do have it in front of me.  Am still not quite finished with it either.  A bit of backstory... the Germans had 7 slipways big enough to build capital ships (either BBs or BCs).  It took the Germans roughly 3 years to complete a dreadnaught from start to finish.  Roughly one year (40% of the construction time was in the slipways) of that was in a specialized slipway.  Thus 7 hulls could be started in january of a given year and the following january they would have been launched and fitted out with everything else and replaced by 7 new keels.  The book goes on to explain that the biggest bottleneck for dreadnaught construction was not the hulls themselves but the manufacture of the guns, turrets, and armor plate.  In 1909 the Germans had amended their Navy Law to build more capital ships at a faster rate.  And there was also evidence they were gathering materials (turrets, guns, and armor plate) so they could speed up the second phase of building the ship, that is, outfitting it once it has left the slip. 

Construction Schedule (according to English Naval Estimates before Parliament and German Naval Law)
1905 the English laid down Dreadnought and 3 battlecruisers. 
1906 the English laid down 3 dreadnaughts and the Germans 1 (Nassau). 
1907 the English laid down 3 dreadnoughts and the Germans laid down 3 dreadnoughts and 1 battlecruiser. 
1908 the English laid down 2 dreadnoughts and the Germans laid down 3 dreadnoughts and 1 battlecruiser. 
In 1909 the Liberal Cabinet had hoped to lay down only a further 2 dreadnoughts to Germany's 4.  First Lord McKenna wanted to lay down 6.  With Germany's capacity to lay down 7 keels at a time, and the knowledge that some German shipbuilders had begun acquiring materials before the Reichstag had approved the construction of the ships, it appeared that the Germans were planning on increasing their construction tempo.  Furthermore, it was rumored they had been stockpiling armor plating, guns, and turrets. 

(For those wishing to look it up its all roughly p. 609-612.)

Ahoj!
As concerns the dreadnaught race - keep in mind that from 1905 to 1913 the size of ships had gone up by 50% - from c.20K to 30K tonnes. And that it would reach 40K by 1916 ...

Two state of the art Schlachtshiffe+1 Grosskreuzer of 1905 displaced some 50K in total. Less then ten years later those 50K tonnes represented two frugal battleships.

Borys

My 'DN Era' BBs are probably going to hold fairly steady in size, actually...

...though, admittedly, all the variants I've tried so far've come out around thirty ktons light and forty loaded, which is steep for a Dreadnought contemporary.

Is Siam open? I'm not really sure what exactly is taken and what is open. Can someone run give a rundown?

See: http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=5562

Challenge to the "Asians": Let's firm up who's where, please. Particularly, I'm not sure about Walter and PyscoWard in China.

The four Chinas:

WEI: Shown as brown on the map, centered around the North China Plain and the city of Beijing

WU: Shown as yellow on the map, centered around the lower half of the Yangtze River watershed and ruled from the city of Nanjing.

SHU: Shown as dark green on the map, centered around the Sichuan Basin and the upper half of the Yangtze basin. Ruled from the city of Chengdu and probably an NPC.

ZHU: Shown as aqua blue on the map, centered around the Pearl River watershed and the southern coast of China. Capital is, as was pointed out to me, probably Guangzhou. Given its effective conquest of the two major offshore islands, Taiwan and Hainan, Zhu is probably the most naval-focused of the Chinas.

At the moment, I'm thinking that the general pattern of Chinese history has had five 'eras' - the initial establishment of the 'Early First Empire', from the Xia to the Zhou and through to the period of warfare, then the 'Late First Empire', also much as OTL, from the Qin to the Han.

After that, the 'Three Kingdoms' period would last significantly longer than OTL, say, up until 550 AD before finally being reunified into the 'Second Empire', which probably went through half a dozen different dynasties before being conquered by the Mongols -

We still have Mongols, right?

- and the Yuan dynasty.

After the Yuan falls, though, it leads to the modern 'Four Kingdoms' period, with four successor states feuding over who's the real Slim Sha-er, China.

Obviously, I have no clue who's where, beyond Shu's being landlocked, but that should give people enough information to make their own choices.

QuoteParticularly, I'm not sure about Walter and PyscoWard in China.

Well, I replied to your PM a few days ago. Looking at this, it is safe to assume that cyberspace ate up that reply and it never arrived at your location.

I did get your pm, but it had more than once choice in it, and I figured discussion of those was best done in this thread.

I was actually looking at this map when I gave you the reply...

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v06.png

With that Chinese coastline occupied, I indicated in the PM either west of the Yellow Blob of China with ports in the Bangladesh/East India area or North/Northeast of the Red Blob of Manchuria with preference to the western part due to the Himalayas being there in the area (and something else crossed my mind for that area).

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v08.png

Latest draft, adding 'blockage' against continental expansion the way the GMs seem insistent on having, the only way I can see how: Existing stable NPCs in the area.

Assuming that the projection of power through the Himalaya, the Pamir Knot, and across the Taklamakan would be significantly difficult, the Tibetan Empire (dark purple) could maybe be a player nation by claiming OTL Bangladesh. Russia (dark blue) and Mongolia (medium blue) probably couldn't be, though.

Valles what are the colors of the PC's please?

Michael

Red: 'Vladivostok' (Borys)
Grey: Japan (Valles)
Neon Green: Korea (Unassigned)
Brown: Wei (Unassigned)
Yellow: Wu (Unnassigned)
Aqua: Zhu (Unassigned)
Dark Green: Shu (Unassigned/NPC)
Pink: Thailand (P3D)
Dark Purple: Tibet (Unassigned/NPC)
Medium Blue: Mongolia (NPC)
Dark Blue: Russia (NPC)

Ahoj!
Should I get paranoid over Korea, which holds both Liaotung AND Shantung Peninsulas?
Borys

I wouldn't in your place. You have possible major ports at Vladivostok and the mouth of the Amur, and unless you're at war with me and the Koreans at the same time, your ports on that coast would be able to pass trade and the like through the Tsugaru, Tsushima, or Kanmon straits, as well as pretty much the entire length of the Kuriles. Or via the Yellow and East China Seas to the Taiwan Strait, if it's me you're arguing with rather than the Koreans.

I have to grudgingly admit, Valles' last maps are getting closer to my liking.

Good to know I'm getting close. Which elements do you still find unsatisfactory?

Ahoj!
Nikolaevsk na Amure needs dredging. It is a 4,5 metre port in OTL (same as Komsomolsk).
Borys

Since things are dead here and life's kept me from working on my attempt at a draft timeline, have another map revision, now with key!

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v09.png

Ahoj!
I'm good.
Borys

While I'm trying to work on the first third of my timeline proposal - 300-800CE - some questions for the other players in the area:

Borys, is Vladivostok a satisfactory/intended name, or do you have another in mind? What sort of 'feel' do you have in mind - displacement of former natives by imported Slavs, a thin veneer of political control over a large mass of 'locals', a confusing muddle in the middle, a hybrid state like Austria-Hungary, or some other fill-in-the-blank?

P3D, is Indochina a monolith of a particular culture, an empire with distinct substates, or what? How old do you picture the state being, and its antecedents? What does it call itself? Is it Thai, Vietnamese, or something else altogether? Is it at a high point in its history, or recovering from a low ebb? Are there any cultural traits and historical relationships you want to work into it?

Walter, Psychoward, which 'Chinas' do you have in mind, and likewise, what do you have in mind for their societal attitudes? I'm intending that N4's China spent more time fragmented than OTL's, but there would still be that strong tradition of unification informing their attitudes - but how do you see these states 'dealing' with their relationship to that situation? And to each other!

Ahoj!
Vladivostok is a perfectly good name.

Politically - the whole mess arose from a combination of Manchu's seeking asssistance against Hand and Korean encroachment and "Slavic" expansion.

Ethically - the north and east are mostly Slavic already (poorly populated areas), with a continuing inflow into Manchuria proper. The Manchus have set aside land for themselves, designating areas for rural settlement of the white peasants. The whites are also flowing to the mines and industrial cities. The Manchus prefer to farm and hunt, with extra money from soldiering - pretty much as OTL Cossaks. One of the reasons why they are getting along so well ...

Chinese immigration is banned - the Willow Wall is in good condition and manned.
Hopei is solidly Chinese and considered something of a separate entity. The same applies to the steppe lands with Mongol herdsmen.


Thus the country consists of:
- Slavic Amur Valley and Primorskiy Krai
- Manchu Heartland with Slavic pockets
- Chinese Hopei
- Mongolian Steppe Strip

Eurasians are accepted among the whites, slightly less so among the Manchu, and disapproved among the Chinese. Hence they tend to end up as "whites".

The Manchu and Chinese are pagans, of course. I've yet to decide what brand Christianity the whites are following. I'm mulling over a crazy twist on Old Believers - gaining political supremacy over the Christian population, in needs of priests with apostolic succession, yet rejecting the Nikon following schismatics, they end up embracing ... Rome.

Borys

I already idicated what I wanted, both by PM and here, but I'm not getting any feedback on that.

I might as well continue discussing about it with the door to the right of me or the wall behind me...  :(

With a pair of PMs, got my decision thanks to the video games I play:

Wei!

*goes off to change avatar*

Quote from: Walter on June 22, 2011, 09:59:09 AM
*goes off to change avatar*

*looking at the new one*

I prefer the old one ;)

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Cao_Cao_scth.jpg)
You might prefer this old one but I actually prefer the 'newer', slightly darker game version of Cao Cao. :D

An inspired choice, sir! IIRC, Psychoward had originally requested the Phillipines and part of southern China, so I'm guessing Zhu would be most to his taste... will update map once I'm off work.

QuoteAn inspired choice, sir!

I knew that. IMO, Wei has the cooler characters in the Dynasty Warriors games. :)

I'm planning to replace the Jin dynasty with a Cao one. ^_^

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v10.png

Quote from: Valles on June 22, 2011, 06:50:26 PM
I'm planning to replace the Jin dynasty with a Cao one. ^_^

In a sense, Jin is an extention of Wei so it does not really matter. :)

Lord knows I'm late with it, but here's the first (oldest) third of my proposed 'lead up' timeline to the 'current' situation in East Asia.

300 CE
CHINA: Cao dynasty retains control of Cao Wei, extending Three Kingdoms period

KOREA: Gaya Confederacy suffers major internal civil war, weakening it enough to be conquered by Kingdom of Baekje

JAPAN: Beginning of multisource history of Yamato Dynasty; educated foreigners imported by same

INDOCHINA: Historical peak of Funan Empire


400 CE
CHINA: Cao Wei conquers lower Yangtze River valley from Sun Wu, breaking that state's power

KOREA: Goguryeo conquers Silla and wars on Baekje; Baekje's economy/military propped up by trade with Japan

JAPAN: Yamato kings subjugate four rival dynasties in southern half of Japan using armies equipped with Korean iron

INDOCHINA: Chinese historian from Sun Wu compiles account of Funan history


500 CE
CHINA: Cao Wei conquers first Shu Han, then remainder of Sun Wu, reunifying China under the Cao Dynasty

KOREA: Goguryeo concludes alliance with Yamato, eliminating major pillars Baekje's economy and military with the removal of Japanese trade money and hired mercenaries; Korea unified

JAPAN: Yamato kings begin attempts at Chinese style centralization, road building. Rebellions crushed with armies paid for by Goguryeo bribe money and blooded in mercenary service on the peninsula

INDOCHINA: Chenla kingdom established; Funan Empire begins to weaken


600 CE
CHINA: Liu Yuan and Liu Lingjui (no documented relation) publish works advocating 'Productivist' (the explicit state removal of non-farmers and non-craftsman, AKA merchants) and 'Mercantilist' (leniency to merchants and commerce) policies; the latter focus on the role of trade and transport in bringing goods to market as the 'contribution' of the merchant. 'The Masters Liu' enters use as a phrase equivalent to modern Western 'Montagues and Capulets'.

KOREA: Goguryeo attempts to conquer Manchuria from native nomad tribes, but loses several armies to ill weather and mounted archer raiding

JAPAN: Yamato state builds two successive 'planned' capitals, Nara in 603 and Kyoto in 638

INDOCHINA: Funan empire enters 'collapse' period, with component sub-states breaking free, and falls into civil war


700 CE
CHINA: Three successive Cao emperors adopt Productivist policies, destroying Chinese internal trade and economy; last Cao emperor, later recognized as one of the most able members of any dynasty, is overthrown by a general rebellion despite his repudiation of the Productivist school

KOREA: Observing Japanese and Chinese examples, the kings of Goguryeo begin importing scholars from all across east Asia and attempting to establish a 'civilized' central government. Goguryeo is the first East Asian state to found a permanent bureaucracy filled by impartial examination.

JAPAN: Japanese kings at Kyoto begin construction of paved road network linking all sections of their territory

INDOCHINA: Chenla begins expanding into the power vacuum left by the fall of Funan, conquering various neighboring city-states.


800 CE
CHINA: Warlord and general Min Tai establishes Min dynasty 865, followed by first Chinese Civil Service.

KOREA: Goguryeo conquers Shangdong Peninusula and begins fortifying city of Qufu as a border defense post, ~840

JAPAN: Imperial edict permitting construction of fortifications by 'subject lords' begins weakening of central power in Japan; northern border begins to expand north through Honshu.

INDOCHINA: Chenla unifies Indochina, begins fortifying northern (Chinese) border.

Valles,

please slow down with Indochina, I can make the history up myself, now at least I have some time with it ;)
You digging up some relevant names will help me enormously.

I haven't even decided yet that the nation I play should be Siam, Khmer, Dai Nam or Dai Viet based. I need to get ship names from somewhere, ain't I?  :P

I was considering Korea, or one of the Chinas but I need to talk to a Moderator about it... since I have this great idea that aparently wont work =P (well it would but uhm well its technical)

Ahoj!

Quote from: P3D on July 01, 2011, 03:41:45 PMI need to get ship names from somewhere, ain't I?  :P

You can always go with numbers ...
:)
Borys

My intention with this kind of timeline isn't so much an attempt to pin down specific names and dates, overall - as a believer in the 'Strong Butterfly', none of the individual names or timings I've mentioned correspond to real people - as to lay out, mmm, a broad initial sketch of how the history of the area fits together internationally. To create, if you will, a way for people to interact with their history of the area that doesn't rely on OTL.

Keywords here are 'broad' and 'initial' - if there's something someone doesn't like that only affects their nation, it will be changed to suit them. If it's more general, an interaction, then it's just as up for discussion and counteraction as if we were working blind. If there's something that isn't said, then riffing in the gaps won't even take the trivial effort of asking for a change.

Since directly asking hadn't produced any guidance on what sort of 'end point' was desired for Indochina, I was attempting to keep things in that area more-or-less on the same course as historically shown, save for laying down the groundwork of a history of large unified states or empires such as seen in the modern game era.

 Sorry I have been off the board for so long end up in the hospital for a while .

So do I still have the Philippines or what ?

The Philippines were mod-ruled as being 'colonial territory' rather than 'civilized territory', on the theory that their access to adjacent territory suitable for expansion was too great to comply with the directive that all empires must either be created at great risk and the expense of other players, or be geographically remote from their homeland.

Accordingly, I currently have you penciled in as controlling one of the four successor states competing to become 'The One True China' in the wake of the collapse of the last unified Dynasty, specifically the southernmost one, Zhu, which is a kind of aqua color on the map.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v10.png

Quote from: PyscoWard on July 02, 2011, 06:39:11 PM
Sorry I have been off the board for so long end up in the hospital for a while .

So do I still have the Philippines or what ?

Hospitals suck, hope your fealing better

Quote from: Valles on June 21, 2011, 04:04:10 PM
While I'm trying to work on the first third of my timeline proposal - 300-800CE - some questions for the other players in the area:

Borys, is Vladivostok a satisfactory/intended name, or do you have another in mind? What sort of 'feel' do you have in mind - displacement of former natives by imported Slavs, a thin veneer of political control over a large mass of 'locals', a confusing muddle in the middle, a hybrid state like Austria-Hungary, or some other fill-in-the-blank?

P3D, is Indochina a monolith of a particular culture, an empire with distinct substates, or what? How old do you picture the state being, and its antecedents? What does it call itself? Is it Thai, Vietnamese, or something else altogether? Is it at a high point in its history, or recovering from a low ebb? Are there any cultural traits and historical relationships you want to work into it?

Walter, Psychoward, which 'Chinas' do you have in mind, and likewise, what do you have in mind for their societal attitudes? I'm intending that N4's China spent more time fragmented than OTL's, but there would still be that strong tradition of unification informing their attitudes - but how do you see these states 'dealing' with their relationship to that situation? And to each other!

I see my part of china as more like historical Southern China we see our part as the home of Chinese culture .
  We are the home of Confucius and his teaching  We see the rest of China as breack away parts of our nation .

Good Sir, Confucius and his teachings are just too confusing. :D

I prefer the teachings of Manzo and his twelve Romanian disciples.  ;D

Quote from: TexanCowboy on July 05, 2011, 01:40:10 PM
I prefer the teachings of Manzo and his twelve Romanian disciples.  ;D

His teachings would be more like telling the tales of Manzo and the Seven Dwarves Sky Giants...

Looking at the map, it does not look like Wei has much of a coast compared to others. Also more than half of it is on the Bohai Sea which, as it is now, is completely controlled by Korea on the current map. So I'm not too keen regarding the fact that the Shangdong Peninusula is Korean. Korea has plenty of coastline already.

I suspect that Vladivostok could contest control of the Bohai Sea quite handily - or at least they should be able to, if 'Player Nations' are supposed to have roughly equal resources. Presumably, so would . Only having two or three real ports to protect should, if anything, simplify defense and free a greater proportion of that strength for offensive action, and leads to very different play experiences. Inasfar as it's a 'disadvantage', it's one well within the bounds of player choices to deal with. Keeping Shangdong in Korean hands plays well, in my mind, for two reasons, one cultural - Korea has historically been very Confucian, and 'Master Kung' is supposed to've been from that area - and one practical, namely that taking it away would, by my eyeball count, remove three of the current version's twenty-three provinces. Wei, in contrast and by the same count, already has twenty-four. Shuffling other sections out of Wei would be perfectly possible, but making the same ones up for Korea would be kind of-

...hmmm.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v11.png

Roughly what I'm seeing as having lead to this is that around the middle of the sixteenth century, one of the endlessly restive daimyo serving the then-Shogun of Japan - let's say his personal name was Nobuo - happened to establish contact with European traders entering the area for the first time. Being a far-sighted fellow, a young man, and as ambitious as Satan himself, this lord of the Tokugawa spent every political favor he had to win for his clan the exclusive right to trade with the Western Barbarians... and then sent a mission to Europe to hire and bring back expert gunsmiths, shipbuilders, and navigators.

Since said mission 'happened' to include a couple dozen of the very prettiest and most charming young eligible maidens in his domains, it worked.

Knowing that, even with superior technology, he lacked the immediate force to successfully overthrow and replace the existing Shogunate, Tokugawa Nobuo instead sent what another region and era would have called filibustering expeditions to the Ryukyus and to Ezochi (Hokkaido) and set up native puppet regimes whose power depended on weapons he provided, and who could provide money, manpower, and most importantly secrecy while he built an army of his own.

By 1569, after a series of brutal battles, he laid siege to Kyoto and, taking the city, installed himself as Shogun.

Of course, even after he smashed those daimyo who fought his accession directly, Nobuo had the problem that most of his nominal vassals were just waiting for an opportunity to slip the dagger in... And solved it by loaning them money to buy 'swords' - to re-equip their armies - and pointing them at another target: Korea.

When the dust settled, Korea had been conquered, many of his domestic political enemies had been badly bled, and every daimyo in Japan was as deeply in Tokugawa's debt as the kings of Ryuku and Ezochi. Tokugawa Nobuo spent the rest of his life happily engaged in directing his Ezochi puppets in their expansion into and civilization of eastern Siberia.

Unfortunately, his son and grandson were less able men, and lost Siberia and Korea to invading Russians and the rebellion of their hand-appointed governor, respectively.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Korea, under the rule of kings who still spoke Japanese in private and at court, was enough of a military power to take the Shangdong peninsula away from a Chinese dynasty on its last legs and to annex a large portion of Kyushu after a major peasant rebellion. When the state of Wei established itself after the breakup of last Dynasty, taking back Shangdong was what established it as a 'significant player'...

QuoteKorea has historically been very Confucian, and 'Master Kung' is supposed to've been from that area

From what I saw on the net, OTL Confucian's home, Temple and last resting place is nowhere on or near the peninsula but very far inland. Also, with PsycoWard's "We are the home of Confucius and his teaching" bit, I believe he called dibs on Confucius so it is most likely that Qufu has absolutely nothing to do with Confucius as he was born somewhere in the south and not in the State of Lu.

Quoteand one practical, namely that taking it away would, by my eyeball count, remove three of the current version's twenty-three provinces.

It's not a matter of how many provinces there are. Korea will have a military and economic strength of 'X' whether it has 20 provinces or 23 provinces.

In my eyes, with such complete control of Korea over the Bohai Sea, there won't be any major naval ports along the Bohai Sea, leaving only a small strip of coast to the south, but that, too, would be fairly limited due to the proximity to Wu. That strategic situation would probably result in a Wei navy with 10-15 sloops and with a few small ports with the rest of the money to build the military forces spent on army stuff, resulting in a tiny navy and a huge army.



... and to think that I was only looking for a location to put an Alcatraz-type prison somewhere. :D

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/valles_uf/asia-valles-v12.png

Er, Wiki's wrong, then (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucious#Personal_life_and_family)? I'd taken PsycoWard's statement as an indication of the political and social views of Zhu - that is, that it would be felt by Zhu that they and they alone held to 'true Orthodoxy', and that the variant systems practiced in other nations were inferior imitations.

These viewpoints need not be factually accurate to hold social influence, and indeed I hadn't taken them as such.

Anyway. I don't believe that Korea's 'alpha draft' layout with Shangdong included would have made the Bohai 'theirs' anymore than holding Gibralter and Suez made the Mediterranean a British pond - but since Wei has a player and Korea doesn't, I suppose it's your call.

I am envisioning a Korea with a lot of small flat bottomed ironclads, Some ocean going ironclads and steam frigates to defend ships going to and from Japan.  I'm imagining some slow and very heavily armed steam ships of the line and/or iron-steel hulled battleships....slow, but with lots of guns and thick armor.

Probably have ships that are overbuilt (robust designs over sleek designs)  They probably won't win races, but they will be tough to crack....with guns anyway.  Torpedoes are new and I doubt anyone can build to stop them yet.

Not sure if they will have turrets.  I'm pretty sure they won't like the open barbette idea and would favor numbers of guns verses size of guns, unless the armor of the enemy dictates that bigger guns are needed (which is likely true).

I'm imagining mostly muzzle loaders with a few new breech loader on the most modern ships.

I am also imagining everything being built locally (if that seems viable).

I however also don't imaging the army as being all that great.  Some good units to defend the homeland and maybe one or two in Japan to keep the Japanese away, but most of the rest is average to greenish in quality (just like in the 1590s).  The navy is the powerful force (and perhaps a Marine force that is high quality) while the Army is just sort of there.  If invaded they Army could hold...eventually...but without effort I don't imagine them being much for long term offensive operations...just good for holding places the Navy and Marines take.



What needs to be done for the backstory and other things?
(My prefered style of play is scripted...or at least the idea of, I am willing to lose X-Y and Z ships in an engagement with your X-Y and Z ships....it can be gamed out to have variable results.  Land warfare usually doesn't interest me, so I generally go for entirely scripted events with fluff news and other stories added to make it interesting.  (this was more or less how the first war in Navalism was fought, by agreement between the all players directly involved and GM).

My intention in regards to the backstory had basically been that, sometime in the 1600s, Japan conquered Korea from the then-ruling dynasty and installed various samurai and nobility in place of the existing nobility and segments of the gentry. Thus, when the Shogunal deputy ruling 'the Korean territories' rebelled and set himself up as an independent king, say, a hundred-odd years after the conquest, he was ruling a nation with a Japanese-speaking ruling class, a Korean-speaking lower class, and a 'mixed' middle class. Cultural and social development since then could easily have gone any which way; the important part of this setup from my perspective is that it establishes both a conflict and a 'resolution' of that conflict - the King of Korea has the 'in' to quite credibly dream of setting himself up as Shogun, and the Shogun, in turn, can hope to break the 'rebellious Daimyo' - historically, the net balance has clearly been to Korea, given their holdings on Kyushu and Honshu.

In the modern era, I'd been thinking that there was something of a succession-struggle either going on or waiting in the wings: an aging king, a plethora of cousins and descendants with no clear front-runner and a lot of standing bad blood... But I figure that with you running the nation, that's out the window.

Ironically, I'm intending to have Japan start in the position of having a first-rate Army and needing to build up their navy; it's hard to conquer significantly-resisting territory with only a limited ground force.

Hmm.

I guess I'm striking for Siberia, first.

Internal problems can still be arranged.  Enough so they can't advance in Japan, and probably enough to keep the Koreans from forming a solid direction...at least for any ground operations.  The naval lord/relative might be a problem for the other local powers, but any ideas of conquest will likely be hindered by others in the family and the lack of an effective offensive Army.

What is the political state of Hokkaido at this time?

Are the Japanese and Koreans actually in direct conflict in Kyushu and Honshu, or are those "family holdings" for the Korean part of the old Empire?   If they are in conflict...there must be a reason the prefectures are like they are (the borders on both islands, the Koreans not holding all of Kyushu and having a foothold on Honshu).


And do we have an idea of when techologies should become avalible for countries to use?  Things seem to be in a kind of vaccum if the Europeans are not expanding as historical (the opening of Japan by Perry for example, and the Hermit Kingdom of Korea that is historical seems to be not possible if the situation is as is).  Though in the Koreans case, they seemed to develope their own cannons and iron armored ships even in the 1500s.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 28, 2011, 03:11:58 AM
Internal problems can still be arranged.  Enough so they can't advance in Japan, and probably enough to keep the Koreans from forming a solid direction...at least for any ground operations.  The naval lord/relative might be a problem for the other local powers, but any ideas of conquest will likely be hindered by others in the family and the lack of an effective offensive Army.

Sounds about right, yes.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 28, 2011, 03:11:58 AMWhat is the political state of Hokkaido at this time?

Hokkaido, Sapporo, and the Kuriles are the territory of the Kingdom of Echizo, a nominally independent ethnically Ainu nation slightly predating the current Shogunate. In theory, Echizo is a close ally of Japan, bound by a reciprocal offensive and defensive military treaty.

Of course, in theory, the King of Japan is an unchallenged absolute monarch. The odds of a rebellion in either case are not considered high.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 28, 2011, 03:11:58 AMAre the Japanese and Koreans actually in direct conflict in Kyushu and Honshu, or are those "family holdings" for the Korean part of the old Empire?   If they are in conflict...there must be a reason the prefectures are like they are (the borders on both islands, the Koreans not holding all of Kyushu and having a foothold on Honshu).

I'd been essentially undecided about that. I don't think that in either case there would be an ongoing war - more along the lines of a chilly and uneasy interval between same - but hadn't 'decided' whether the borders were a treaty-regularized version of the results of the last conflict or dating back to the personal demesnes of the 'King of Korea' and his original Japanese cronies. Either can work perfectly well.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 28, 2011, 03:11:58 AMAnd do we have an idea of when techologies should become avalible for countries to use?  Things seem to be in a kind of vaccum if the Europeans are not expanding as historical (the opening of Japan by Perry for example, and the Hermit Kingdom of Korea that is historical seems to be not possible if the situation is as is).  Though in the Koreans case, they seemed to develope their own cannons and iron armored ships even in the 1500s.

And the Japanese were producing some of the best long-arms in the world during the same period, yeah. My version of the Tokugawa Shogunate rose in rebellion against a stable and solidly set preceding Shogunate, and based their initial power on the establishment of a gunpowder arms industry.

I believe that the mods are planning on 'opening' things for research based on their judgement of events in the world - long-range naval gunnery will show up when circumstances seem to justify the introduction of fire control, and so forth.

It would be interesting if the lands held were traditional holding, or clans that decided (perhaps after a revolt) to be loyal to the mainland king over the homeland emperor...or has the emperor fallen in times past so now there are only kings because no one from the imperial line lived (or it was split two form the Kingdoms of Japan and Korea).  I was thinking the old Korean dynasty would have been propped back up...maybe via marriage or tradition, but I'm not sure what the standard practise is in Asia when it comes to taking over countries in the 16th and 17th centuries.  Thus you have either two Japans, or a Japan that has no emperor...just a king that may or may not have a lot of real power (might not even be worthy of being worshiped as a god), and the Shogun, who might be the king, but even if not, is the real power.  Korea would have a king, but squabbling lords as there would be no Shogun.


I'm attempting to figure out a way to make a large number of small sea-going ironclads and iron/steel ships.  Thick enough armor to warrent a battleship, powerful enough guns to engage a battleship...but with few guns and speed is not a real issue.  Basically a "mass produced" coastal defense force so that while on ship would not be a match for a "modern" battleship, it would take a battleship to take out out.  The mass produced quality is so they could be lots of them, which could overwhelm a modern battleship.

Most coastal defense force navies I see have only a few ships.  What I'm going for is not really a coastal defense force, but a warfleet of small capital ships backed up by a few massive capital ships with large numbers of guns.  The large numbers should overwhelm the enemy just because there are so many of them.  Something like my Turtle Ship I guess, but with vastly superior seakeeping ability.  (Trying to go for the flavor of the 1590s Korean Navy, just with modern technology).

Quote from: Ithekro on July 29, 2011, 02:59:07 PM
It would be interesting if the lands held were traditional holding, or clans that decided (perhaps after a revolt) to be loyal to the mainland king over the homeland emperor...or has the emperor fallen in times past so now there are only kings because no one from the imperial line lived (or it was split two form the Kingdoms of Japan and Korea).  I was thinking the old Korean dynasty would have been propped back up...maybe via marriage or tradition, but I'm not sure what the standard practice is in Asia when it comes to taking over countries in the 16th and 17th centuries.  Thus you have either two Japans, or a Japan that has no emperor...just a king that may or may not have a lot of real power (might not even be worthy of being worshiped as a god), and the Shogun, who might be the king, but even if not, is the real power.  Korea would have a king, but squabbling lords as there would be no Shogun.

The translation of the Japanese tenno as 'emperor' is traditional, but was originally politically motivated by comparison with Western powers. N4 Japan still uses tenno but translates it as 'king', and it refers to the same dynasty - who are, if anything, noticeably more political influential than they were OTL either before or after the Meiji Restoration; My bad for not clarifying.

Given the already 'extant' example of Echizo, it'd make perfect sense for the first Tokugawa Shogun to've set up his rule of Korea by sticking his hand up the ass of the already-ruling dynasty. I'd thought that he might not have because he was using Korean landholds as a combination reward for low-ranking loyalists and holding pen for 'troublesome elements'. My memory is that outright conquest tended to be fairly rare in East Asia - the only example I can think of without cracking my books is the Mongols/Yuan Dynasty.

It's perfectly possible that the Korean Royal Dynasty ended up bearing the 'bloodline of Amaterasu'; up until the American occupation the Chrysanthemum Throne was filled from any of four candidate families, rather than a strict Western-style succession, so marrying the Koreans to one of them - or bringing out the bloodline to create a fifth - wouldn't be impossible.

The timing of the rebellion and so forth I'm unsure of and will probably be perfectly willing to take your lead on.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 29, 2011, 02:59:07 PMI'm attempting to figure out a way to make a large number of small sea-going ironclads and iron/steel ships.  Thick enough armor to warrent a battleship, powerful enough guns to engage a battleship...but with few guns and speed is not a real issue.  Basically a "mass produced" coastal defense force so that while on ship would not be a match for a "modern" battleship, it would take a battleship to take out out.  The mass produced quality is so they could be lots of them, which could overwhelm a modern battleship.

I'm quite happy with my latest drafts of my 'three rate' system, and will probably end up essentially mass producing them, if that's any help. Then the next generation will be A-XY with shakubu twins, then A-XY with triples of the same bore for the dreadnought types.

Quote from: Ithekro on July 29, 2011, 02:59:07 PMMost coastal defense force navies I see have only a few ships.  What I'm going for is not really a coastal defense force, but a warfleet of small capital ships backed up by a few massive capital ships with large numbers of guns.  The large numbers should overwhelm the enemy just because there are so many of them.  Something like my Turtle Ship I guess, but with vastly superior seakeeping ability.  (Trying to go for the flavor of the 1590s Korean Navy, just with modern technology).

My own intent is ships of moderate power in great numbers - my DN pattern would probably outgun anything else in the world when the first class hits the water, but by the 1920s they'll be no more than 'adequate', and seem rather small and quaint by the time the 'Solar' class hits the water... But they'll be fit to fight as a unified body with hulls from twenty or thirty years earlier, and at five per class...

But that's going to have to wait until I can properly support the approach. For the time being, I'll have to limit myself to a transport flotilla and covering force.

QuoteThe Ryukyu islands have been inhabited by Japonic peoples from the earliest times, and were first unified in the late fourteenth century of the common era. In the seventeenth century, the Ryukyuan kingdom served as the primary staging point for the Tokugawa Clan's importation of Western firearms technology in return for a share of the proceeds, and, on their ally's accession to the Shogunate, were granted major legal and economic priviledges within Japan in return for continued allegiance. The high point of the kingdom was the conquest and rulership of Taiwan from 1687 to 1770. In the modern era, the kingdom mandates a legal seperation between Noble (7% of the population) and Common (93%) populations and enjoys a skilled an efficient bureacracy based on the Chinese model. Though technically tax-exempt, socially mandated 'gifts' and behaviors provide the government with a significant revenue stream from its nobility.

My thinking in regards to the Ryukyuan conquest of Taiwan is that it was originally based on a combination of troops 'borrowed' from the Shogun and a (greatly) superior command of gunpowder arms for both land and sea purposes. The way I see the timeline working in regards to China is that the invasion came at about the same time that the 'tipping point' of revenue loss began to really tell on the dynasty of the time, and that the subsequent loss followed from either the stabilization of Zhu as a state, or a misdirected effort of a reforming Emperor to regain lost ground in several senses of the word, whose costs would ultimately cause the final bankruptcy of the last dynasty.

Well an exact date of the collapse has never been established, but with the temporary control of Taiwan between 1687 to 1770 and assuming that it was recaptured by the state of Zhu, that would put the collapse of China pre 1770, right?

So it is possible that the Ming Dynasty was the last dynasty where China was complete (1644), or a failure early on by the Manchu to properly establish the Qing Dynasty like the Revolt of the Three Feudatories which here would be successful (1680s). Actually those were southern provinces so that rebellion could not only set up Zhu as a nation, but help your bit for the conquest of Taiwan you have in mind as Qing most likely won't be able to capture it in 1683 as historical.

Before I was told to lay off trying to put together a 'combined' timeline, I'd figured that there hadn't been a Ming or Qing dynasty - that, though the patterns of cyclic rise and fall had been maintained, the details and timing had been completely different, and that whatever 'Navalism Time Line' Dynasty existed before the Four Kingdoms happened to be on the downcycle when Japan and its satellites were on the rise towards their historical peak.

And yeah, I figure that a century or so should be about the right amount of time for the Four Kingdoms to get on their feet and established.

A quick question, is there a map available with cities marked? I ask because I am uncertain if Lianyungang and Wenzhou are within the borders of Wu or not.

No there isn't but there are a number of nice large sized maps of the various Chinese provinces around. This one would be for Jiangsu province.
http://www.chinatouristmaps.com/assets/images/province/jiangsu-province-map.jpg
... and with a little bit of guessing and estimations, you could figure out exactly what is within your borders.

Looking at our map, the wu-Wei border would be at about 60% of that 45 degree NW-SE bit of coast, so my rough guess would be about Yanwei. Looking at our map, that lake at out border would be Hongze Hu. So rough guess regarding the border there would be Yanwei-Xiangshui-Guannan-Siyang-Lake Hongze Hu.

That would put Lianyungang in Wei, but I don't see why there could not be a Lianyungang in Wu either close to the Wu-Wei border (though written with different characters).

Wenzhou appears to be just in Zhu, but you could do the same thing there as what I suggested with Lianyungang.

OK, thanks