Rules

[P3D]

I decided to develop somewhat more realistic rules. If anyone wants to contribute, send me a PM.

Good news is that most of it is done. You have to worry about money, economy will develop on its own, and would be hampered by military spending. I am also trying to keep it as simple as possible.

[The Rock Doctor]

I'll have to wait and see what you've written before I can comment or make suggestions...

[Desertfox]

Well our HBP-MBP-MP rules were working pretty well, they are simple and the only problem I saw with them was the massive upkeep cost. Perhaps it would be better if we used something similar to what we were using since we know how that works.

[Ithekro]

Remember to keep it to a point less than if someone is filling out their taxes.  We want the sim to be fun, not a mathimatics nightmare.

[Earl822]

And definately at a lower level than degree level maths

[P3D]

HBP-MBP-MP rules worked awful. A nation that had the capacity to build 6000t a quarter could have easily built 12 HBP a quarter. HBP was both a currency and capacity measure. Army maintenance was ridiculously cheap. IRL most nations spend the same amount or twice as much on Army than on Dreadnoughts save perhaps UK and Japan. There was no reason to buy ships from other countries. Nations with money but without heavy industry, that IRL bought most of their ships from abroad could not be represented at all with that system. Examples are IRL South America and Turkey.

Moreover, countries managed to maintain a fleet without any large heavy industry. Upkeep will be paid by money not HBP. You will have to spend HBP for refitting/overhauling the ship, as per current rules.

I want accounting to be simple. Anyone will be able to do it by hand.
To make it faster, however, I will post an Excel sheet to do the calculations.

[Ithekro]

Well one reason was that most of us were using moderate sized nations with enough slips and docks to do things ourselves.   Gabi's nations, Gran Columbia maybe, and pretty much all the lesser Muslim, South American, and African nations that came and went probably should have been buying ships rather than build them.  Rohan was even buying ships because we couldn't build fast enough, but it was also building ships for others at times.  Rohan's fleet upkeep took a third of the income off the top easy.  Armies...well that's not my field.  Wartime they took about a third to half my MBP a quarter, but using the LBP kept it fluid.  The army took all the mainpower upkeep...my navy still hasn't hit 0.05 MP for upkeep.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
There were six or so player nations.
All with sizeable HBP.
Why buy abroad?
My suggestion:
- upkeep at fixed 0,125 HBP per quarter (war and peace),
PLUS
- 0,25 LBP peacetime and 0,5 wartime upkeep.

Higher cost than army due to use of more skilled personell.
This will also allow higher fleet tonnages at current HBP level, OR faster construction.

Borys

[Earl822]

I think that the upkeep we paid was only slightly too much, I personally reckon that the fleet should have a wear and tear cost of 1ton per 1000tons, therefore, a fleet of around 300,000tons would cost 3000tons to maintain. On top of this there is the manpower cost, which I'm presently unsure about,

[Desertfox]

A 0.1 HBP per quarter would be alot easier to work with. However I would propose that it could be payed with MBPs at a reduced rate 4MBP=1HBP, since you dont need special steel to keep a ship running.

And yes the Armies need increased upkeep, even Siam could support a WWII Russian size army without problems.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
For army I suggest current to pay BOTH with MBP and LBP, at current peace and wartime rates.

Borys

[P3D]

I'll post some of the new rules I was working on this weekend. They are a more or less complete overhaul of the sim. I did some work to be sure that the different statistics are really comparable to IRL data. Suggestions to streamline the will be welcome.

[Alikchi]

I found the HBP-MBP-MP system to be extremely confusing and awkward, but that's just me (and I am rather new to all this).

One of my pet peeves is that fortifications cost too much (relative to armies) to build and maintain.

[P3D]

Some musing about how to introduce money into the system.

All calculations here are for one turn, i.e. 6 months.

Population unit is 1 million.
Currency unit is $1, £, €, whatever.
1million population gives $1 revenue, up to the number of factories.
Over this limit their tax is reduced to 1/5.
Each factory gives you another $1. Regardless how that factory was used.
You cannot have more factory than four times your population.
Max starting factory size will be 2-3x population.

GDP per capita: a fully industrialized country has $5 revenue per million. PPP GDP for this era was ~$5000 for UK and US, 3500 for France, Germany, 4000 for Netherlands. We will take a ~40-million IRL industrialized country as our example, France.
France had a PPP GDP of $3500. This corresponds to 100 factories, and a half-year wartime income of $140.
During peace, however, when the economy is not mobilized, nations would be able to spend only half as much.

WWI armies were 5-10% size of the population. Assume 7% can be maintained without much problem. That corresponds to 56 corps of 50,000 troops each.
France IRL had a 730,000t navy in 1914. If they spent 20 years building it up (25-30 years ship life plus economic growth). It requires 36HBP per year, or 18-20HBP for half a year. Take the higher value of 20 HBP.
Each HBP requires 2 MBP to use. Unused HBP counts as 1MPB in calculating economic growth.
Historical annual GDP growth was 1-2.5% in this time period. 200 medium factories in two turns should be able to make 2 additional medium factories, corresponding to 2% growth.

Economic development should not cost a penny. It is free. This is partly factory buildup, partly infrastructure - railroad or merchant marine building. Factories used in military production unfortunately cannot be used for development. But all unused factories contribute to the economy. But only in peace budgets.  Wartime economy does not allow such development.

Of the 200, only 120 is available for construction, so one factory should cost about 60 MBP.
However, it should be easier to develop from a relatively low starting point, but difficult as the number of industries are increasing compared to the population size.
Say, cost = 40+Income/popx5, giving a cost of 57.5 in this case, or some not so gradual increase.
Income/pop 1 cost 45MBP

Income/pop 2 cost 50MBP
Income/pop 3 cost 55NBP
Income/pop 4 cost 60MBP
A smooth function would approximate this as (8+income/pop)^2.

France also had 1M NRT  (1.6M GRT) merchant marine and a total of 6300km of rails in 1906.

To build up a 1,600,000GRT navy in 20 years you need 100000GRT/year construction. 50k (30k NRT) per quarter, cca. 20,000t steel. Say a similar amount is spent on railroads,about 100km /100 miles.
A nation with balanced land and maritime commitments spends about the same on merchant marine and railroads.
The default size of the merchant marine is dependent on the economy size. It is MPBx20, in 1000GRT (roughly equivalent of 1t normal/full displacement). If the fleet size is lower than the default size somehow (e.g. convoy raiders operating), it will regenerate at the rate of unused MBPx500 GRT per quarter.

Starting Railways will be MBPx50 km standard gauge. 1km standard gauge can be converted to 2km meter-gauge or 4km narrow(600-760mm)-gauge rail. Rail network expands each quarter by 'unused MBP'x2 km, which is not payed by the player. Any additional building cost 0.1HBP/km.
A nation can have less railroads but more merchant marine and vice-versa.

Such an industrial nation should be able to keep its army and navy at wartime footing when at war.  France spent about twice as much on its Army than its Navy, with mobilized armies it is even more slanted.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Molinari/mlnSoc22.html

Upkeep multipliers for army and Navy
War/Readyness /be able to be deployed or shipped in a short (1 month) notice/: 1
Active (standing army in general): 0.5
Reserve (the equipment is stored, only a frame of the command structure exists, to be filled up during mass mobilization): 0.1

If a corps/division/ship is engaged in combat, it consumes a lot more supplies (considered negligible in peacetime).

With the monthly income of $140, the nation should be able to (more or less) finance its troops.
At full mobilization with ~7% of the population, or 56 corps, and a 800Kt navy.
Here 100 goes to the Army and 40 to the Navy. Navy upkeep translates into roughly
$0.5 per 10000t.
$100 per 56  corps translates to $1.6-2 upkeep per half year in readiness. Yes, war is expensive.

Navy building cost

AH Navy in 1913-14 was 260kT, with 74 M kr. budget. 1xTegethoff of 20kT normal cost 80M kr. Annual upkeep estimate for Tegethoff is thus 5.7M kr., or 7.1%.

Peacetime navy upkeep is, say, 4% per half year, wartime cost is 8%.

I arrived at 0.5$/10000t/6 months. This way, Tegethoff should cost $1M to maintain per year, giving a total cost of $12.5M-14M.
SS cost for the ship is L2.072/$8.288, so multiplying the cost in pound by 6 gives the cost in Navalism $.

SS cost multipliers
Before  1912: 1
1913 1.09
1914 1.27
1915 1.46
1916 1.64
1917 1.82
1918 2.00
1919 2.18
1920 2.36

Posted by: P3D Mar 2 2007, 06:58 PM
An idle HBP counts as two MBP in determining economic growth, but won't give you any extra money.
1HBP cost $200

Cost of Infrastructure projects.
They will cost the half the amount of $ as MBP (first approximation).
1 HBP should cost ~4x a factory, say, (Current HBP+50)x4 MBP. The more you have, the more expensive they are.
Research: Research cost is 1$ per turn. Research time is at least 4 turns. In the 4th turn success chance is 25%, raising 25% every successive half year.

Army construction

By Borys,

"In 1906 12 batteries (guns, limbers, ammo wagons, etc.) of QF 105mm howitzers cost 7,500,000 French Francs.
If that was 48 guns, then the coost would be have to be quadrupled (for simplicity) for an "advanced" corps. I know the corps would not have had 192 guns of such calibre, but about 72 guns of c.75mm calibre, c.48 such howitzers, and 18-24 howitzers of c. 150 calibre. And maybe a couple of 105mm guns."

So 3 inch gun is 0.75 the cost of a 105mm howitzer, and a 6 inch howitzer counts as 2.5 unit, a trench Mortar is taken as ¼, a HMG as 1/24.

I had some data for German divisional and corps artillery. An 1914 German division is 17500 men, I'd multiply it by 3 to get values for a corps.

So a 1914 GER corps had

36x10.5cm, 108x7.25cm, 16xheavy guns, = 36x1+108*.75+16*2.5=157, plus 3x24HMG. Total is 160.

In 1917, 12x7.25 was replaced by 12x10.5cm, and the number of HMGs were increased, say, 144HMG. Plus mortars. Increase Heavy artillery by half, 126+60 (Heavy Art.)+6 (MG) +24 trench Mortar (at 1/4) = 198.

One 10.5cm howitzer cost ~FF150,000 ~75000kr.
48000 rifles and small arms, counting at 1/120 cost of a gun, is another 40.

The  cost is thus 1914 gives ~15M kr, 1917 gives ~ 19M kr, equivalent Navalism money is $2-$3, which just reflects how damn expensive armies are. Multiply it a bit more to reflect training and other equipment, plus barracks.


Introduce here two other infantry corps, an 1890 level (dated) with a few MGs and old artillery. And another  1900 one with half the artillery of an 1910(14) brigade, that's baseline.

Now we have the following costs:
Dated Cost $2, 0.4HBP
Baseline $3, 0.8HBP
Advanced (1910) $4, 1.2HBP
Cutting Edge(1916) $5, 1.6HBP

[Earl822]

That seems awfully confusing compared to the old system.

And after a second read through, will make everything more expensive, not less.