Work with me here...

[The Rock Doctor]

That's an interesting and different approach, Snip.  Something to think about.

Yeah, I prefer not to use an alternate Earth if possible.  I think part of the fun of this idea would be the complete re-set on human civilization, with each player creating his own new idea.

Mike:  I wondered, but didn't want to push the matter.

[The Rock Doctor]

So, folks, I'll invite you to work with me on developing this concept some more.

First question:  Do you broadly agree that an "All-big-gun battleship fleet" is approximate technological standard we're aiming for here?  We may find that certain details - whether radar, aircraft, snorkels, or otherwise - are more advanced or less advanced than the baseline tech depending on the background story. 

Second question:  Given that a lot of work has been done on rules for N4 - what do you like and see as being potentially transferrable to this concept?  Bear in mind the discussion to date here.

Third question:  What resources should be tracked, if any?  Consider the opposing possibilities that this planet may have oil/coal, or that it may not (resulting in biodiesel or some other substitute).

Fourth question:  Is there interest in the idea of applying "character points" to each player-state?  There'd be very few - say, racial chauvinism (how easily do you make and keep friends), militarism (how likely are you to fight to the last man), innovation (how likely are you to make tech advances).  I see it as a potential way to limit what we might consider as "mass suicide attacks" and such.

Fifth question:  Timekeeping.  Would turns be three months, six, or twelve?

[snip]

Answers below:

1. Yes. I however would like to see things be at a WWI/1920's tech level more then a WWII one.

2. I like the tax system. I like custom slip and DD sizes, but think the DD system could be simplified.  Construction rules and the like are good, not much needed fixing from N3 there IMO. I like the Army system, but the numbers will need tweeking for the size of units that we apper to be talking about.
I do not like the trade system, if we are going to do it, it should be based around resources as opposed to cash. I do not like the research system, still to clunky IMO, but with a more advanced start some of that could be avoided, Ideal would be to not have tech at all.

3. I think that Iron (and hence Steel), Coal and Oil (or other fuel types), explosives (aka access to fixed nitrogen), general industrial ability, and food. given a working trade system, this could lead to a system that would be representative of the trade that is needed for societies to function without getting to overbearing. If wanted I can elaborate on what I have in mind.

4. Im not sure exactly what you are getting at here, care to elaborate?

5. I think three or six. Twelve does not allow much flexibility.

[Valles]

1. I'd certainly be happy starting in the 'all big gun' period, yes. Ideally, I'd set things up so that the first generation of ships built 'in game' rather than out of starting tonnage would also be the first all-big-gun battleships. A thought I've had in the past might be to write a major global war into the immediate pre-game to 'kill off' all or at least a majority of the previous generation of ships, simplifying startup.

2. This is not a simple question.

Construction rules - costing, design standards, and so forth - can, I think, be ported over without demur from, well, anyone. They haven't changed much, they're well established, they work.

I like the idea of abandoning specific tracking of slips, drydocks, and so forth in favor of simply specifying the capability of given ports - my suggestion would be to assign each port a harbor depth and a support capacity and call it good.

N4's handling of expansion and occupied territory should be abandoned with the greatest alacrity and permanence in favor of something historically better-supported and mechanically amenable to more than one pre-determined playstyle. The difficulty of assimilating and using taken territory would be one of the statistics in the 'point buy' table.

If we choose to keep technological progression 'fixed' to a particular rate, then the establishment system is as good an approach as I think we're going to get. I would vastly prefer non-fixed progression, and would instead suggest a more freeform system where money is spent to buy 'research points'. A player wishing to develop a particular ability or technology for their nation would define their goal and then throw it open to either the mods or the entire playerbase for 'costing' and plausibility checks, preferably against mod-defined standards. Possibly a percentage of RPs already spent could count towards 'related' technologies, at moderator discretion. Research point maximums should explicitly not be tied to national budget in any way beyond the overall money available.

Under no circumstances should we abandon player-directed technological progression of some sort. Steady state would get boring very quickly, and 'free' use of 'historical precedent' wouldn't be much better.

The tax system as written for N4 is concise, elegant, and seems to be a fairly accurate model within its necessarily crude limits. Trying to apply it to a tile or province-based map, however, would very quickly balloon the bookkeeping, with each area needing to have its economic size, growth, and tax income tracked separately for consistency's sake. Calculating 'province costs' whenever they were traded wouldn't be much better. A flat 'cash per production point', with the points being buildable, is an ugly and inelegant solution, but it's simpler to keep track of who's got what that way, and I think that that makes it preferable.

3. Resources... Iron, Aluminum, coal and oil if present in the setting, nitrates, and rubber would be the ones I'd consider 'essential'. Depending on the detail level people are willing to adopt, these could be backed by commercial and industrial settlements, food production regions, and possibly hydroelectric-and-geothermal power sources. (Consider the role of electrical power in the processing of bauxite into aluminum for why.)

4. I am extremely in favor of this idea, unto the point of squee.

5. I don't particularly have an opinion on this score.

[Carthaginian]

Q #1.) Yes. As inviting as the possibility of starting a sim early and then developing a nation with 'flavor' was on paper, it seems to be impossible to do so without 1.) some complaining that players can't have too much freedom and 2.) some complaining that players are not being allowed any freedom. Apparently, the later that we start, the less possibility of 'hindsight-itus' comments cropping up. This is a good thing. I am very open to us having a starting tech level assigned to us related to the backstory; I would say that players should be able to choose a 'focus' and be ahead of the curve in one thing.

Q #2.) Uhm... a lot of work has been done here- but there hasn't been a lot of solid tech development, which is the hardest part to agree upon. IF it seems that the rules can be transferred and would work with whatever tech trees that are devised, I wouldn't mind seeing them transfer... but if a conflict arises, I would prefer simpler rules developed than current ones revised.

Q#3.) What resources should be tracked?
For a WWI-era game, I would say that initially it should be nitrates, iron (steel) and coal, and possibly oil (petrol/diesel). In the 1920's, the list should automatically add oil (if not already tracked), aluminum and rubber. In the 1930's, the list should remain fairly static... or at least, only add natural gas (helium). For the 1940's, the tracking of uranium should be considered, if only for possible developments in propulsion in the latter half of the last decade of the sim.

Q #4.) I love the role-playing connotations of 'character points'... this would allow us to have a clear-cut description of our nations from the very beginning and would give an extremely concrete picture of what it's citizens would and would not tolerate. Everyone could choose, say, two 'Advantages' (innovative, negotiator, militaristic, industrious, zealous, green)... but each advantage would require accepting the attached 'Disadvantage' (hodge-podge*, pacifist, aggressor, uncreative, fixated, technophobe). These would cause a rather believable nation-state to develop.
*Hodge-podge would mean, basically, that your forces are unable to maintain a basic coherence, due to each and every item having to incorporate 'the latest thing' in tech.
I have always like White Wolf and GURPS because they allow this kind of mechanic, and have always felt it was something missing from D20 system games!

Q #5.) Three or Six month turns... a year would cause too many missed opportunities- both for role-playing and for tweaking the ships. ;D

[Valles]

Fourth question:  Is there interest in the idea of applying "character points" to each player-state?  There'd be very few - say, racial chauvinism (how easily do you make and keep friends), militarism (how likely are you to fight to the last man), innovation (how likely are you to make tech advances).  I see it as a potential way to limit what we might consider as "mass suicide attacks" and such.

4. Im not sure exactly what you are getting at here, care to elaborate?

The Civilization series has, IIRC, pre-defined factions with their own unique bonuses and weaknesses, right? Other 4X titles sometimes get the same effect by assigning their factions stats like in an RPG, which the player then has a limited number of points to buy up with. Like, say (my own example ideas only!)...

Administration: Administration represents the efficiency and honesty of a polity's government. A nation with a low score in this category will be corrupt and inefficient; one with a high score wastes little and reacts quickly, based on plans thought out well ahead of time.
Education: Education represents the knowledge of a polity's common citizenry and the effectiveness of their research establishments. A nation with a low score in this category will have low literacy and worker productivity, and will have a hard time creating new technologies natively, while one with a high score will have mechanized production lines and be a center of innovation.
Orthodoxy: Orthodoxy represents the degree to which a polity's people 'buy in' to the idea of themselves as a nation and to its common cultural assumptions. A nation with a low score in this category will have a hard time staying mobilized, and won't show much in the way of restiveness if occupied, while one with a high score will be able to fill its armies with highly committed soldiers and leave an endless headache in insurrectionists for any would-be conquerer.

Let's say each stat goes from one to five, and starts with one 'free' point.

Player A and Player B both want to run expansionist, military-focused powers. Each gets six points to work with.

Player A has privately negotiated with another player regarding tech-sharing and purchase of military equipment, and thinks he can get by without a 'native' establishment, so he spends three points each in Administration and Orthodoxy, leaving Education with only its single base point. His Nation X therefore has a highly motivated but mostly ignorant populace, and a government with a very solid idea of what it's doing.

Player B isn't thinking quite so mechanically, and he's a big fan of the United States (but not of the Federal Government), so he also models his country with three points in Orthodoxy, to represent the National Dream of Making It On Your Own, but spends only one in Administration to represent the venal influence of politicians. His last two points go into Education, giving him a solid but not exceptional industrial efficiency and research establishment. Player B's Nation Y also has a very determined citizenry who have the information to make at least decent choices for themselves, but their government is mostly a popularity contest rather than a working instrument of policy.

...

It also might be neat to let players come up with (in addition) more limited unique 'special powers', like very slight bonuses to construction speeds or crew quality, or more significant ones to less important tasks like clearing native life, just to further differentiate the nations from a roleplay standpoint.

[snip]

Well, to me that just seems like much added book keeping for not much gain. It also takes away flexibility for when a nation will inevitability change hands. Forcing new players to adopt a stratagy which they may not support with no way to change it, as the manor in which this is presented would seem to imply, is not a really good way to get and keep new players.

[Valles]

The gain would be in 1, increasing the realization and distinction of the player nations in question - rendering them less faceless voids that happened to have navies attached and more realized elements of the world of the game - and 2, by linking mechanics into it, positively reinforcing their players' desire to play them 'in character'. 'You get this if you do it!' is a lot more pleasant a way to manipulate the playerbase's behavior than whacking them on the nose and going 'Bad boy!'

I think that there certainly should and would be a way to change these national statistics, probably using the same system used to assimilate captured territory. Reform movements, muckraking, religious revivals, new colleges and school reforms - these things happen all the time, just like the election of bad leaders. New players who disliked the open countries available to them - based on our experience with N3, there's liable to be several at any given time - could easily be granted a one-time 'bonus' to their culture shift rates.

[snip]

While I do like the idea in concept, I see the book keeping associated with it to be quite massive. While I would wait for an official proposal to say yay or nay in a final manor, my initial thoughts are unchanged. Not worth it for the book keeping it requires.

[Valles]

Well, the scores result in multipliers to the base numbers for tax rates, research costs, and combat morale, right? Any given player is going to need to keep track of what those numbers do anyway - but because the national bonuses are usually static, that player will only need to keep track of their own adjusted numbers, rather than the actual base or anybody else's abilities. Knowing 'I'm average at this, bad at that, and really good at the other thing' is all you need beyond that, and frankly, is trivial.

*shrug* Free to disagree, though.

[The Rock Doctor]

I wouldn't suggest more than three or four stats, and they would not be employed often.  It's not something I would highly integrate into the rule set, but rather primarily use as a threshold for Mods to roll against when the player wants to do something extreme/wacky/questionable.

--If you're at war and want to make an attack - sure, no problem.

--If both sides have taken some early losses and you want to press the enemy - sure, no problem.

--If your flagship's been sunk, the second-in-command is dead, and you want to aggressively attack the enemy some more - hey, maybe we need a roll to see if the fleet is up to it.

I agree that some provision for change would be necessary.  It could perhaps change a certain limited amount each year on its own as a population's viewpoint slowly changes.  It could probably change more noticeably due to a change in government.  Perhaps a government could also sway numbers by spending on propaganda or bread and circuses.

[The Rock Doctor]

My take on naval infrastructure is as follows:

-We do away with individual slips and drydocks entirely.

-Our naval infrastructure is the port, which will come in a set of increments.  Each level of port will have a maximum building capacity - representing the total tonnage it can build, repair, and refit in one turn.  Its ability to "supply" naval forces will be some simple multiplier of that first figure. 

-Below a certain amount of building capacity, a port will not be able to construct/repair/refit armored warships, nor "exotic" types like MTBs, destroyers, or submarines; it'll be limited to stuff like auxiliaries, gunboats, escorts, and such.  Above that certain amount of building capacity, the port will theoretically be able to build/repair/refit anything of any length and displacement.  Your ability to splurge on capital ships will be limited by the fact that only a few of your largest ports will have the building capacity to actually build those capital ships in a reasonable timeframe.

-You can probably throw a heap of cash at a port to make it grow.  Alternately, there is probably some small chance that it will increase on its own over time, especially if you keep throwing work at it.  An idle port might gradually shrink over time.

-I like the idea of harbour depths.  This could be randomly generated at the start of the sim.  To a point, it would correlate with port size - you won't get a huge port if the harbour depth is no more than 4 metres.

[miketr]

Mike,
The distance thing could easily be solved by using a map creator such as Civilization III or IV that uses squares to create the map. Given a sufficiently large grid, a rather detailed map would be plausible. If we were to then say that each square represents an area that is X km by X km, we then have an approximation that is good enough for the vast majority of our purpaces. The same could also be done for Hexes ala Civ V, but it would take more work. While some detail would have to be sacrificed, I for one would be fine with throwing out an ultra-detailed map for the ability to play a custom-created map. Also, as I stated above, a Civilization-generated map would have resources as well (if anyone wants a complete list feel free to Google it. I have access to the mapmakers for III IV and V) that could be used to add in a trade system with relativity little hassle.

As long as people are willing to accept area based system I am fine.

As to resources, it sounds nice but it would be a BIG increase in paperwork load.  My suggestion is as few as possible, if not none all together.

If we are going to track resources I would rather have a BP / Factory system.  Where we need X resources for Y output.  Otherwise you defeat a good chuck of advantage that the cash system offers.

Michael

[miketr]

So, folks, I'll invite you to work with me on developing this concept some more.

First question:  Do you broadly agree that an "All-big-gun battleship fleet" is approximate technological standard we're aiming for here?  We may find that certain details - whether radar, aircraft, snorkels, or otherwise - are more advanced or less advanced than the baseline tech depending on the background story. 

SS is best used for capital ships.  A MacGuffin were airplanes, etc don't work is fine with me.

Second question:  Given that a lot of work has been done on rules for N4 - what do you like and see as being potentially transferrable to this concept?  Bear in mind the discussion to date here.

Tax system is straight forward, we can play games on tax levels without issue.

I suggest we just DITCH the tech system all together.  There is no research; its static and well devolved.  Limiting factor is what you can afford to buy.  Its also one less thing to track. 

Third question:  What resources should be tracked, if any?  Consider the opposing possibilities that this planet may have oil/coal, or that it may not (resulting in biodiesel or some other substitute).

See my answer to snip.  My gut reaction is none or if we do want to track resources we use a different economic system.

Fourth question:  Is there interest in the idea of applying "character points" to each player-state?  There'd be very few - say, racial chauvinism (how easily do you make and keep friends), militarism (how likely are you to fight to the last man), innovation (how likely are you to make tech advances).  I see it as a potential way to limit what we might consider as "mass suicide attacks" and such.

Not in favor of it

Fifth question:  Timekeeping.  Would turns be three months, six, or twelve?

Economics half year to a year is reasonable.  Turns... we could do it more often.  It would depend on players pace.

Michael

[miketr]

My take on naval infrastructure is as follows:

-We do away with individual slips and drydocks entirely.

-Our naval infrastructure is the port, which will come in a set of increments.  Each level of port will have a maximum building capacity - representing the total tonnage it can build, repair, and refit in one turn.  Its ability to "supply" naval forces will be some simple multiplier of that first figure. 

There is a big difference between a fleet anchorage like say Scapa Flow or Pearl and Newport News.

-Below a certain amount of building capacity, a port will not be able to construct/repair/refit armored warships, nor "exotic" types like MTBs, destroyers, or submarines; it'll be limited to stuff like auxiliaries, gunboats, escorts, and such.  Above that certain amount of building capacity, the port will theoretically be able to build/repair/refit anything of any length and displacement.  Your ability to splurge on capital ships will be limited by the fact that only a few of your largest ports will have the building capacity to actually build those capital ships in a reasonable timeframe.

Whats wrong with just having 3 attributes for ports to track?

Support, Repair and Construction?

If you want a port that is just a building hub then just shove up the construction value and call it a day.

In either case certain assumptions were built into N4 with respect to upkeep.  I would suggest a return to scratch on costs if a new system is to be used.  To figure the balance between upkeep and construction.

-You can probably throw a heap of cash at a port to make it grow.  Alternately, there is probably some small chance that it will increase on its own over time, especially if you keep throwing work at it.  An idle port might gradually shrink over time.

Hmmm...  My response is m'eh.  Just have the port be a port, it goes up if the player spend resources to do so.

-I like the idea of harbour depths.  This could be randomly generated at the start of the sim.  To a point, it would correlate with port size - you won't get a huge port if the harbour depth is no more than 4 metres.

This sounds reasonable.

Michael