Work with me here...

[The Rock Doctor]

Just a general observation for all:

I'm putting this whole thing forward out of a general interest in seeing a sim go ahead.  I wasn't planning to play in N4, and I probably wouldn't play in an N5 (or whatever this would be called).

However, if the thing comes together, I'd be prepared to moderate it. 

To that end, my thinking is that in such a role, I want a reasonably simple yet realistic rules set to work off of.  I want players to be concentrate on play, and I want mandatory Mod rulings/rolling to be as limited as practical. 

What I think I'd find helpful is if y'all would individually consider the following areas, and consider proposing alternative ideas for rules beyond the concepts that have already been considered:

-A Tech tree based primarily on reverse-engineering of old historical data.

-Civilian population centres, based on the notion that humans are primarily settled in closed, multi-functional industrial/agriculture megastructures on the coast or in the oceans. What do they look like?  What do they cost, and what do they produce in terms of cash/BP/food/whatever?

-Army rules, with urban combat/assault and anti-environment clearance as the two main roles.  What units, what sizes, what costs, what techs?

-Simple trade warfare/blockade rules, based on the assumption that we break out the water terrain as distinct operating areas. 

-Simple commodity rules.  This may be as simple as ensuring there's a SOC to a place with what you need.  It may be more elaborate to a point.

IF you would like me to moderate, please note that after a point, I will reserve the right to unilaterally decide on rule wording/meaning/purpose rather than risk protracted and unsuccessful consensus-building.  Just sayin'.

[Carthaginian]

Any support you need, man, you got.

[snip]

Any support you need, man, you got.

Seconded!

[Darman]

Army: urban combat/assault, defoliation, and riot police/anti-insurgency.  Biggest unit size:  Brigade. Preferably only unit size for book-keeping purposes.  I'm having trouble seeing more than one brigade being needed for defoliation/deforestation duties and urban defense could easily be 1 brigade against many others, but you wouldn't get much benefit from calling them a division because its going to be a smaller unit type of combat anyways. 

For blockade/trade interdiction just figure out some chance that for a given density of warships in a square of water a single merchant ship has of sneaking through.  Or a warship.  Or just decide that if someone has declared a blockade then nothing can get through. 

I was kind of liking the idea that you control the source of a resource and can pretty much extract everything you need from that source. Or at least that is how I understood it.  So if I had 2 coal fields in my territory and no iron mines I can trade with my neighbor who has 2 iron mines but no coal fields.  So we exchange access to one of my coal fields for access to one of his iron mines.  As long as the trade routes are held open we have access to those minerals. 

[Valles]

I suspect that settlement architecture would also vary depending on the nation building them. I can think of something like five possible layouts just off the top of my head - a 'tower' with a central atrium acting as a hanging garden and mirrors at the top to redirect sunlight, mixed use geodesic domes, reinforced versions of real-world agribusiness greenhouses with interspersed residential/commercial/industrial areas adjacent, sealed residential areas with open farmland for those who prefer to spend their efforts on The War On Weeds rather than structural maintenance, individually sealed homes and businesses connected by subterranean streets, with rooftop garden plots, shallow-water Raptures with floating sea farms... Probably everyone would have their own idea on how to do it. The precise design of the settlements honestly wouldn't be relevant, I don't think. I'd personally suggest that the basic building block be quite small - however many people, $1/turn of income. Settle on a 'theoretical maximum growth rate' and then work backwards from that to get the per-unit cost.

Probably there'd end up being two kinds of trade warfare - raiding (the percentage chance option) - and close blockade (airtight).

It seems to me like we're more or less in consensus on how the resources would work, if not yet what they should be - each resource site produces enough to supply one nation's needs, and usage of sites can be traded if desired. I'd be inclined to treat certain technical capabilities as resources, also - building, say, turbine-powered destroyers would require a supply of Iron and a Turbine Factory, and operating them would need some form of Fuel. Obviously, things like ores wouldn't be under player control, but the choice of whether or not to develop a coalfield or whatever might be, as would building particular factory types. For what the 'technical resources' should be... Offhand, Gun Foundries, Armor Mills, Steelworks for structural steel, Turbine Factories, and Gear Cutters to allow geared drive.

Settling on final rulings is one of the things mods are for; as long as those decisions have solid gameplay or historical reasoning behind them, I can live with that.

If we adopt relatively small army units - and I agree it seems reasonable to do so - then I'd suggest getting very coarse about their ability levels - determine, say, three or four tech levels then say that a unit of the first level and of average quantity has a combat value of two points, a unit of the second level gets four, and so forth, with 'troop quality' being a one point shift up or down. Want to know how a fight is going? Compare the numbers, let the mods roll a die to see if one side 'gets lucky', then subtract half of each side's combat value from their enemies. Possibly let players assign 'specialized training' to their units - +1 in their chosen situation, -1 outside it - but I'm not sure it's necessary to bother. A soldier who can shoot his way out of a shrieking utaraptor ambush isn't going to find his nerves shocked by mere rioters... I would, however, like to be able to note what each unit has by way of attached transport, even if it's just as simple as options for 'trucks', 'landing boats', or 'walk, you poor bastards'.

I'd have no clue how to distinguish technological advancement as being 'recovery' of abilities in any way except fluff.

...wow, I get disorganized when I'm tired.

[miketr]

One thought on arms is to ditch them all together.  Before anyone drops dead of shock at the idea think it through.

Alien world with a hostile environment requiring confined and dense population centers.  This means there are no farms and other open places for warfare to occur at.  Instead every fight devolves into street by street urban warfare or long drawn out sieges that end in urban warfare.  The absolute worst and most destructive type of fighting in terms of losses and damage to the city.

There is a massive counter incentive to NOT fight in the cities.  The attacker looses lots of troops and material and even when they win their prize is damaged.  The defenders loose everything in defeat and not much better in victory.  Warfare has always had many traditions to it and these tend to evolve for good reasons.

How about a tradition that when cities or whatever get cut off they surrender upon request?  A notional garrison / police unit is needed of course but thats it.  Pure naval combat.  Cities that refuse to surrender as requested have broken the traditions are subject to the most extreme punishment.  The city can be bombarded, the cities killed to the last man, woman and child.  Its a harsh code.

This is the setup for Seas on Venus.

Michael   

[Nobody]

How about a tradition that when cities or whatever get cut off they surrender upon request?  A notional garrison / police unit is needed of course but thats it.  Pure naval combat.  Cities that refuse to surrender as requested have broken the traditions are subject to the most extreme punishment.  The city can be bombarded, the cities killed to the last man, woman and child.  Its a harsh code.

I don't think a city should surrender immediately, the defender should have some time to break the siege first and free his city. Maybe until the supplies run out? That should take a few weeks to a few months (1 turn max) and would resemble the classic besiege of a fortress or fortified city.
Other than that, I like the idea.

About Army/Police units (if we have them in the first place). I would vote for a unit size of 100 - whatever that is called in English. Such a small unit could be easily put on most ships - which are quite small compared to modern standards.
And I could live with a single type of unit, because the weapon isn't going to make much difference in urban warfare - except for rapid fire, muzzle loaders and massive explosions though.

[The Rock Doctor]

Thinking a little more on the tech and start-up:

-I've been pitching a future-based sim, in which much tech is reverse-engineered from old data

-We're looking at an all-big-gun battleship era but

-Valles suggests that the first such battleships be built during game-play

So I'm thinking along these lines:  Although the planet has been settled for some time, the concept of naval warfare will be "new".  Everything's been happy and peachy for a long time but some factor - perhaps nationalism - has led to a change.  This explains the reverse-engineering aspect of the tech:  it will be quicker to back-study historical guns, ships, and stuff from Old Earth than to invent it from scratch.  Early 20th century stuff is about as advanced as the engineers think they can "start" with - more advanced tech is too cash and labor-intensive for available budgets.

So the tech tree, in whatever form it takes, will be partly known to you in-character.  You may not know precisely when you'll be able to introduce a system or device, but you'll know it's coming.

This will pose a significant challenge to you, the player, because historical building patterns will no longer apply.  Hindsight exists, and is justifiable.  You might only be able to build a USS Texas or Seydlitz or QE, but the records clearly show that in time, you will be able to build USS Iowa, IJN Fubuki, submarines with snorkels, and maybe airplanes with large AP bombs.  Therefore - would you build a 19 knot battleship with thin deck armor and casemated secondaries?  You probably wouldn't, unless it fits your immediate needs.

So here's the thing:  That makes a long-term, large-scale build up of navies untenable.  You'd be building in a vacuum.

What does this mean for starting forces?  Truthfully, I think everybody would be starting small - maybe just a few (1-3) years of actual military builds, preceded by a couple of years of limited experimental building.  In the first year or two of the sim, the light cruiser could be your capital ship.  You might have laid down a capital ship, but you aren't likely to have any in service.

This will:

A)  Create a real dynamic of arms-racing amongst players.  Go for quantity early, or quality later?  What's the guy next door doing?  There will be a lot of one-upsmanship here.

B)  Small starting navies mean small naval battles, and short wars.  You won't have the numbers necessary for bloody attritional wars, not yet.  We'll get to the big battles and long wars, but later.   In the short term, I see this being good for game pacing and OOC player relations.  Might also put more emphasis on secret spy-ops and asymetric warfare, though.

Thoughts?

[The Rock Doctor]

Mike:  Interesting thought. 

I can see a city holding out while it can - but the threat of destruction may cause its leaders to give in, and if they don't, perhaps an internal uprising analagous to the citizens throwing open the gates. 

Warfare might take on the dimension of 18th century wars, where each power picks off the other guy's colonies, and then they negotiate who gets what back at the end of the fighting.

If implemented, cultural characteristics - chauvinism, militarism, etc - may be important here, in determining whether an attacker could/would bombard or assault, and how long the defenders could hold out before an internal rising.

[miketr]

OK how about this as a modification.

If something like Sea's of Venus is the setting the environment, in particular the animal life is a major and on-going threat.  As such the cities / whatever would by default have defenses around them to protect vs. giant / highly aggressive animal life that thinks humans are tasty treats. 

At the same time no one wants to fight in the cities, it might wreck things to the point that the native life just wins out.  So what happens is when an enemy army first shows up the city is summoned to surrender.  Even with defenses sometimes the city just folds but most times they hold out.  Next the reduction of the defenses begin.  Once a breach is made in the defenses are made the city is summoned again to yield; at this point I would say the chance is at least 50/50% the city does just that.  The attacker can run the risk of an assault or try to reduce the defenses more.  The city can raise the Black Flag* and tell the attackers to screw off.

*Raising a Black Flag in ACW was done by some confederate units, it was a symbol that did not seek and would not give any quarter.  IE it was a fight to the death.

Michael

[The Rock Doctor]

Sounds about right to me. 

[snip]

I like the idea of having the ability to use our inherent hindsite as opposed to trying to snuff it out or burry it under huge amounts of rules. The premise of all of these ideas is great.

[Carthaginian]

OK... so we are basically looking at 1800's siege warfare rules, AND battlefield civility:
Initially the fort/city is given a chance for surrender, soldiers are given parole if they agree not to take up arms again for X number of months, and the civilian population will be integrated into the new nation-state without malice. If the initial offer is refused, a major artillery bombardment begins: a defense breech is achieved, a 'Forlorn Hope' attempts to enter the breech, and if it succeeds the rest of the attackers pour through the area. If the breech assault fails, then long-term siege warfare begins: all military supplies are cut off from entering the city, communications are cut off, power to the city might be cut off as well... starvation warfare basically ensues. AT HIGH TECH LEVELS you might even see a 'selective agent' employed to kill defenders without damaging the infrastructure (i.e. mustard gas).

Rock's idea to let us 'know the future' does indeed allow for a great degree of freedom- WE CAN BUILD ANY SHIP THAT WE CAN DESIGN. The limitations on this are placed by manufacturing problems related to shipping large numbers of people through interstellar space- your ship can only carry so much. Since we've had to basically start from the Iron/Steam Age and work our way back up, those capabilities are slow in coming. We've only just recently gotten rid of 'Wooden Ships and Iron Men' and are now looking forward to the days when those damn titanium extraction facilities come online and we can start shooting rockets to the moon and mining asteroids.

Of course, till then, we're stuck with battling ourselves with steel and aluminum and trying to be the most powerful kid on the block... so we can block everyone else from those 'oh so close, yet distant' resources.

[miketr]

One thought is that with any type of chemical industry Haber–Bosch process is a given so naturally occurring nitrates are mute.  Depending on level of chemical industry; etc there might be no need for oil as gen tailored microbes produce bio-fuel.  Sun light, CO2, water and some food, poof out comes petroleum products.  This is being worked on in the real world right now. 

So the question is what is the tech level of this world?

Michael

[Carthaginian]

So the question is what is the tech level of this world?

Michael

http://gurps.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Level

OVERALL - TL6
Chemistry - TL8
Weapons - TL6
Computers - late TL6/early TL7 with rare TL11 examples (national data cores that hold all accumulated knowledge)