Army Take III

[Valles]

I suggest to limit the money for Army at about 25 to 30% of the total budget

We are in NAVALISM, not in ARMY...ISM

Unfortunately, I need an army to eat Ithekro.

But I've already kind of decided I want to structure it as an all-standing-professional force, so absolute army size probably isn't going to be terribly large given upkeep costs for mobilized troops.

[snip]

I though wars between player nations were going to be limited or downright outlawed in the case of wars of annihilation?

[Tanthalas]

I though wars between player nations were going to be limited or downright outlawed in the case of wars of annihilation?

they are im fairly sure, somthing about critical mass for captured teritory.

[Valles]

I don't recall any such thing being phrased as an explicit rule, though there have been players speaking up and saying that they think such things are 'implausible', and my reading of the GM attitudes is that they'd rather not deal with either the drama or the amount of military bookkeeping that such would imply. This is something I'm very much on board with; Maoria's expansionism ultimately gave me nothing but grief, though based on the information available to me at the time I picked up playing them, I don't see what else I could have done.

Unfortunately, my desired DN-era building program is ambitious to say the least, and Maoria's limited construction resources have left me somewhat paranoid about being 'starved' again. When I went to do the first drafts of the East Asia map, I attempted to block off a large enough 'Japanese Homeland' that I'd be plausibly able to make up the needed growth by internal improvement and so forth; I don't think I ever got a clear and explicit explanation of why it was considered unacceptable, but the conclusions I've drawn since are that they desired smaller blocks in the region partly to make such a 'stay-at-home' approach impossible, and that the particular geography of the area made a 'large Japanese state' unacceptably well positioned to block/strangle other player nations' access to the worldsea. Since I wouldn't've been intending to get involved in any wars I could reasonably avoid, this wouldn't've been a factor for me, but another player taking over after me would've had a bit of an advantage that way.

Anyway. Needing to start small and expand militarily is a perfectly sensible game-based call, as is the unwillingness to provide any kind of 'noose' - though in the latter case, I'll confess to a kind of lingering insulted feeling that just asking that I not apply unfair leverage on another player was apparently never even considered. Wanting to keep wars short and sweet I certainly understand, and am actually entirely in favor of.

Sadly, however, I have no interest in managing a discontinuous worldwide empire, as I made very clear from the earliest stages of setting up N4. I have no intention of repeating the unpleasant experience of trying to obtain adequate resources to manage some task in distant parts, and the fact that the starting positions were deliberately biased to make such the 'smart choice' feels more like an attempt to push or dictate a particular play than a design choice... and, like when some overeager fan keeps talking about and pushing endlessly to watch a particular show, the response shifts from, "Enh, if a chance comes up," to "Absolutely not and under no circumstances," out of sheer contrary irritation.

Since all players have been clustered together with no 'inland' expansion permitted (even if I had an inland as don't), the only way to acquire the territory and resources I need 'locally' is by taking them from another player. Since I'm going to need quite a lot of those additional resources, one or two minor 'border' wars aren't going to do it - I'll have to either fight a lot of different conflicts, or fight one very large one.

The latter approach has the advantage of being over and done with relatively quickly and letting people get on with their game once it's over, rather than repeating the process constantly, therefore, it'll be the one adopted.

[snip]

There is no way to make a perfect system to cover all basis.  All systems are going to be subject to MIN-MAXing to one degree or another.  All I can say is if someone wants to avoid doing naval stuff and focus a mass army and their economy that is an option.  At the same time I don't know what the heck they are going to be doing in the game especially as the Mods have said repeatedly that we are not going to allow great wars or wars to destruction. 

well that looks to me like an explicit ruling on the matter.

[Valles]

So it does. Oops.

...Apparently I won't be building anything interesting at all, then.

[snip]

Im sure interesting things can still be done. Just remember the N^2 law

[Tanthalas]

I *think* that the point is suposed to be internal growth and trade, especialy with each of us having to have atleast one over seas trade partner.  We are esentialy outside the era of Colonies and truely sucesful wars of expansion.  im still waiting for the rules so I can get a good fealing for the Operational restrictions however.

[Valles]

Im sure interesting things can still be done. Just remember the N^2 law

Well, I can be slightly snide and exaggerated, or I can cuss and fulminate for five paragraphs, which would you prefer to deal with? In a few days I'll probably be calm enough to start being productive again, but for now, 'civil' is a struggle.

[ctwaterman]

*sighs*

If you goal in the game is to Gobble up one of your neighboring player countries well i guess it is possible if you take small bites and chew very very slowly.

But What We the Moderators do not want is All or Nothing Wars of Expansion and Conquest.  China on China was suicide givent the number of Rivers, Mountains the defender had a huge advantage and it was going to turn into a blood bath with litterally millions and millions of people killed.   

In addition everyone seemed to think that the battle was one continous series of fights.  But logistically that simply is not possible.  Even in WWI and WWII there were pauses for weeks if not months in operational tempo as both sides struggled to move in more men, material, and munitions.  In WW1 major offensives kicked off ran for a month or two and then stalled and production of replacement munitions had to catch up with expenditures.

Here we want to keep the fighting more to the flavor of an earlier era.  Where France and Germany fight the Loser gets Alsace Loraine... :o ::)  I think you get my point the war has limited aims and limited objectives.  Its not an all or nothing throw of the dice.   

If you get to the point where you are risking your nations entire navy or even it national survival to achieve your objective.  Well your Admirals and Army Commanders will look at each other, nod and El Dictator for life will be pushing up dasieys.

[Valles]

If I could attain my goal in the game with starting resources, I'd never start a single fight.

But this, it has been made clear, is intentionally and explicitly impossible.

If I could attain my goal without people trying to railroad me into using a gameplay element I never expressed the slightest interest in, I'd be a lot more willing to adapt.

But too late for that.

If I could attain my goal without ever tangling with another player, I'd be happy to go out of my way to avoid them.

But there's nowhere to do that except down the rails, and I refuse to be forced there no matter what I have to do to avoid it.

If I could attain my goal with a minimum of geargrinding and general interference in others routines, I'd be delighted.

But apparently, having only one war to deal with isn't considered desirable.

If you want to keep trying to convince me that it's unreasonable of me to want to be able to build a particular fleet and not find my entire play experience dominated by the fanatic struggle to expand to the bare minimum needed - AGAIN - then you're welcome to.

But personally, I think we'd both waste less energy if you dropped the attempt here.

[miketr]

We are not outlawing wars between players.  If you want to beat the crap out of each other, then fine.  Just keep in mind that the way things are wars will be matters of weeks / months and not years.  The idea is that you guys can mobilize your armies do one big push against each other then the war in effect is over.  See 1864 Danish War, 1866 Austro-Prussian War and 1870 Franco Prussian War.  For the later the war was in effect over in a few months with Sedan but it took the next couple of months to get the French Government to admit the war was over.

Michael

[ctwaterman]

Valles -

I Honestly do not know what your GOAL is.... and to be honest I am starting not to care ????
If your goal is to build a stable navy and army you can do that.  If you have a desire for some specific number of ships well then you either have to do it on the budget provided or find some way to build up your economy.    Either through lower taxes to start leading to higher growth or thru expansion. 

Expansion here can include exclusive trade agreements with NPC all sorts of things that do not involve Wars.

[Carthaginian]

Valles... you sound as though you're trying to build the 'Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.'

[Valles]

*lets head thump down onto desk and lay there*

I have a list of names - an admittedly rather long one, 34 capital ships; I want to try my hand at a 'Standard' series. I don't want to end up trying to manage another cold war or long-range invasion. That's what I'm coming into this game with as an 'agenda'.

I have tried, as consistently and as politely as I could, to advocate courses and game design decisions that would add to the number of options available to any player, rather than taking them away. I can't deny that part of this is because of the awareness that it would probably help me position myself without entering fields of play I'd rather avoid, but mostly it's because I think that the game will be better and more enjoyable for everyone if people are more free to shape their own courses.

Once that stage of the design effort was past, I looked at my list and its probable costs and started trying to work my way back to necessary preconditions. I tried to create a setup that I felt could plausibly support them - this was overruled. I tried to work out a way that what I was allowed could be enough - and was told it was impossible, that no starting player could be allowed to be 'that large'. Unwilling to adopt the 'One True Path', I started planning on my least favored approach...

And then, yesterday, I found out that that is apparently verboten, too.

I was upset, both at the lost effort I'd put in and at the fact that it was happening for effectively the third time. Since I was still calm enough not to want to cause a scene, barely, I tried to say -  Who knows, maybe I didn't manage to get it across! - 'Well, that's disappointing, but let's drop it'. People preferred to keep discussing why it should be disappointing, so I answered as well as I could.

And now there's been a scene anyway and it's apparently all my fault for whining.

I apologize, then. It wasn't my intention to belabor any point that's already been decided.

*sigh* Man, I can't wait until we can actually start playing. It's gotta be less stressful.

As to the scale of wars, I find that the arguments presented so far fail to support the thesis that there was something universal about 'limited wars', rather than their being a phenomenon dependent on European mores and conditions of the time. I also don't care enough one way or the other to argue against it. If that's the way it is in N4, fine, go ahead with my blessing.