What do we want?

[maddox]

A major advantage of a continious restart could be the smoothing out of the existing rules.
If we elect to do so.

[Borys]

I realize that I've already bailed out, but if there's discussions going on about rebooting the sim, it may be possible to address my concerns:

1)  Sim continuity:  established sim history does not change, particularly to suit newcomers, unless existing players agree to it. 

I do not understand.

2)  Less in-sim conflict:  at least, conflict involving me.  I'm more interested in constant nation development and occasional conflict than constant conflict and occasional nation development.

An idea bounced about to help this is 2 years of bi-weekly quarterly reports, with regular RPG, and a year or two years of Fast Forward - no RPG in this period, only country development.

3)  Focus on playing nations, rather than characters:  I'm all for characterizing individuals in nations, as many of us do/did, but I didn't see much value in Van Owen's idea of allowing multiple characters per nation, ala Agrival Mars' wife.

So she put a story from time to time, which I didn't read :)
IMO Marissa was abslutely harmless.

Also worth considering:

4)  Revision to R&D:  Perhaps something simpler, and more tightly based on historical timelines, to prevent weird stuff like airship fleets with glide-torpedoes.  If the random R&D development rolls can be dropped, we can then consider:

This was built-in, but apparently forgotten or abandoned at some point. There was a list of "cannot be researched before XXXX date" items. IMO the problem is that Maddox is not brutal enough, and was baffled by Miss BSE's hutzpah.

5)  Sim administration by player consensus or a group of moderators/senior players, rather than a single moderator.  This is not intended to slight Maddox in any way, but I wonder if he'd enjoy things more as a major player without the pressure of being "da boss". 

Beyond my experience, I will not comment.
I'm used to GM = GOD arrangement. 

Yes, with the transfer of the Game here some wrinkles in the rules can be smoothed out.

And I repeat my question - has Ithekro and others been contacted? I did not want to act on my own here, as I saw invitations as the prerogative of the GM.

Borys

[The Rock Doctor]

That first point is my way of pointing to the spontaneous creation of the END and saying, "Not Good!".  Alternately, it's me saying that I don't want to have to rewrite the whole Island Commonwealth affair as a Communist revolution when it was originally written out as an invasion by a third party.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
OK - I understand Point One now.
To this add pre-creation of player countries, giving newcomers degree of creativity, but not letting them run lose with hindsight.
Like Alikichi and his Abdul Pasha Line on every border ...

Borys

[Earl822]

1)  Sim continuity:  established sim history does not change, particularly to suit newcomers, unless existing players agree to it.

Definately a must, it is not got for anyone, especially those who enjoy reading through whole storylines, to find drastic changes part way through. Minor changes, like adjustments to maybe where a city is, or how a navy is organised are one thing, but the complete recreation of a nation into something different is unacceptable.

2)  Less in-sim conflict:  at least, conflict involving me.  I'm more interested in constant nation development and occasional conflict than constant conflict and occasional nation development.

Agreed, war is expensive under our rules, and the only way I cut costs was to commit peacetime strength forces, instead of full Divisions & Corps. To develop a nation from a minor power up through diplomacy and shrewd spending is far more satisfying.

3)  Focus on playing nations, rather than characters:  I'm all for characterizing individuals in nations, as many of us do/did, but I didn't see much value in Van Owen's idea of allowing multiple characters per nation, ala Agrival Mars' wife.

To create Characters who are mentioned in our News & Stories is one thing, to have multiple personalities for each nation is confusing at best.

4)  Revision to R&D:  Perhaps something simpler, and more tightly based on historical timelines, to prevent weird stuff like airship fleets with glide-torpedoes.  If the random R&D development rolls can be dropped, we can then consider:

Agreed, looking at the tech tree yesterday, and then looking at some history books/websites I soon realised how inaccurate it was in places. For instance by 1900 many nations were looking towards the use of Dragoons as Mounted Infantry, a step on from our tech tree. Also I think that dates to prevent certain techs from being unleased into the World until it is realistic are important, Advanced Aerodromes not avaliable until 1902/3.

5)  Sim administration by player consensus or a group of moderators/senior players, rather than a single moderator.  This is not intended to slight Maddox in any way, but I wonder if he'd enjoy things more as a major player without the pressure of being "da boss".

A sharing of responsibilities between several people?

[Desertfox]

Im for either 1 or 2. I invested alot of time on New Switzerland but then again I had made some mistakes at the beginning which I would like to fix.

One thing we could do to help Maddox is have shared responsibility, much like at Wesworld. And a smothing of the rules would help alot.

BTW I have most of my stuff saved to my computer.

[Ithekro]

Hello...looking for me?

I'm all for continuing where we were, but I see an opportunity in option 2 to do a little world expansion.  There was a suggestion early on about Navalism II using a fantasy world (and idea we shot down partly).  But recently we've encountered problems with adding new nations.  A possible solution would be to make the world larger by a few times the planet's size.  If done well, we can keep the majority of the present nations intact and running.  The main change would need to be the Pacific Ocean and therefore the New Swiss and across ocean trade will need to be retconed in some fashion.  Perhaps that also Desertfox is correct some of the population figures and make the Swiss (and possibly by extension Rohan) more the trade based powers they claim to be.  The extreme distances involved would also explain the Swiss's long legged ships better.  Could also include new colony spaces.

This also allows for new players to appear as they are "discovered" rather than "poof, here I am!" type events.  Also gives us a new exploration factor that could be fun to play with.

That's my take.

[swamphen]

My $2-bill worth:

I would, personally, much prefer option (2). Playing the DKB can be fun, but also restrictive - as a country that is virtually forced to punch above its weight, some options must be taken, while others simply aren't available.

1)  Sim continuity:  established sim history does not change, particularly to suit newcomers, unless existing players agree to it.

Absolutely, 100%. Minor retcons to correct errors are fine, major renovations would be a major no-no.

2)  Less in-sim conflict:  at least, conflict involving me.  I'm more interested in constant nation development and occasional conflict than constant conflict and occasional nation development.

Mildy agree; of course my problem is I tend to get into sticky situations and then lose, not interest, but the ability to think of where to go next. Combined with my comments at the top - in a 'reboot' scenario I'd prefer to run a 'strong, introverted (i.e. not much news), very isolationist' nation.

3)  Focus on playing nations, rather than characters:  I'm all for characterizing individuals in nations, as many of us do/did, but I didn't see much value in Van Owen's idea of allowing multiple characters per nation, ala Agrival Mars' wife.

Agree; characters should be secondary to nations. (An occasional 'man without a country' - Agrival, Harlock - can work, if done well, but agree that 'multiple players per nation' can only lead to headaches.)

4)  Revision to R&D:  Perhaps something simpler, and more tightly based on historical timelines, to prevent weird stuff like airship fleets with glide-torpedoes.  If the random R&D development rolls can be dropped, we can then consider:

5)  Sim administration by player consensus or a group of moderators/senior players, rather than a single moderator.  This is not intended to slight Maddox in any way, but I wonder if he'd enjoy things more as a major player without the pressure of being "da boss".

Agree.

Just thinking out loud...

It's when you start answering yourself that you need to start worrying.  :P

[Ithekro]

1)  Sim continuity:  established sim history does not change, particularly to suit newcomers, unless existing players agree to it. 

I think we can make that work if we take enough time to craft what will come next.  We'll have to push our histories pretty far back in some cases.  I know we had to retcon/establish the history of South America in Wesworld to figure out just how the South Africans were on the continent and yet not imperialist invaders.  That was both a headache and fun.

2)  Less in-sim conflict:  at least, conflict involving me.  I'm more interested in constant nation development and occasional conflict than constant conflict and occasional nation development.

I still prefer scripted conflicts with gamed battles to avoid some of the more personal disputes we encountered earlier, such at the Asian War dispute between Pheonix and Desertfox turned a bit personal at times.  The Anahuac War was all scripted with modifications as time went on, but accepted by both players before things went down.  (it was going to be a draw originally)

3)  Focus on playing nations, rather than characters:  I'm all for characterizing individuals in nations, as many of us do/did, but I didn't see much value in Van Owen's idea of allowing multiple characters per nation, ala Agrival Mars' wife.

Multiple players for single nations doesn't make too much sense unless you are running out of countries to play, or you have good RPG players that can inject more personality to a nation's character without to much of a mess being created....or playing puppet states, or colonial administrations maybe.  Having a few independents might be interesting...pirates and the like.  Harlock in Wesworld was not really believed for the first few sim years, but now his there...sort of...as a threat or story piece for people to use as long as he doesn't die in the story because I might need him for something else.   Mr. Mars was a little different.  I was unwilling to play ball so to speak, but it gave Rohan a target and a reason to figure out the money system for the bounty on his head.

4)  Revision to R&D:  Perhaps something simpler, and more tightly based on historical timelines, to prevent weird stuff like airship fleets with glide-torpedoes.  If the random R&D development rolls can be dropped, we can then consider:

I'm not sure.  Sometimes the tech made things interesting, but other times things got weird.  I guess it just depends on whose hands the technology is in.

5)  Sim administration by player consensus or a group of moderators/senior players, rather than a single moderator.  This is not intended to slight Maddox in any way, but I wonder if he'd enjoy things more as a major player without the pressure of being "da boss".

Multiple moderators seem to work as there is more of a chance a mod will be around, and disputes can be worked out by the mods if there is a serious problem rather than all the responcibility on one person's shoulders.  Also avoids the "the mod doesn't like me" cases where it might seem like the mod is stacking the deck against you for some reason.  (now they can all stack the deck against you...)

(Oh we just had an earthquake in California...don't know how large yet, but it was a rocker.)

(Earthquake was a 4.2, but it was only about 6-7 miles away.)

[Phoenix]

I follow the discussion, but you guys are already saying everything that needs to be said.

In essence, I want to avoid personal fights. For that you need a simming system or, as I am a AD&D-player/mistress, a strict GM and a set of rules we all abide by. I know Maddox from time to time asks others to do either the sim or the story-writing in order to make his workload lighter (or to avoid personal interest to be suspected) and as long as we all are scrupulous and fair there is no problem in that.

Throwing your weight around won't work, as we all have seen. Players who are too assertive, too much bossing and bitching (excuse my French), are not good for the game. If someone does not understand that you should abide by the consensus regarding rules then that someone becomes disruptive and should be dealt with.

A restart could be interesting, in my case it would give me the opportunity to do a more extensive re-writing of Chinese history and society. I jumped into the game and had to do what I could in such short notice. This might become fun, but be advised, I intend to write books.

[Earl822]

This might become fun, but be advised, I intend to write books.

Good, that might give me an excuse to abuse my free printing credits.

As for me If I play my planned British Empire, I will need to do a major re-write, but only going back about 200years tops.

[Earl822]

Going back to the multiple players to one nation, it was planned that I would run the ACM day-day, and Agrival would be able to define stratergy, international policy etc. This experiment was unfortunately nipped in the bud by the Austria/DKB attack, and my oppertunism with the UKA.
That said, I had serious doubts about it working smoothly, as it could have meant waiting 2 or 3 days for a reply from Agrival, each time the ACM had some diplomacy to deal with.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
Your ACM efforts were simply very clumsy from the diplomatic viewpoint.
1 - dealing with the man the world loves to hate
2 - snapping up the ACM immediatelly

- you should had gone with
"The Subtle Art of Land Grabing"
by Borys and Rock Doctor, with preface by P3D.

Borys