1903 Rules Patch

[snip]

Logi and I had been talking about this behind the scenes for some time, and now that parts of it have started to leak out due to the IC thread I figured it was best to unvale the lot of them. For the tl;dr crowd this includes: Changes to the gun rules, Changes to Foreign Standard rules, Canal project rules, Colony economics rules adjustments, Digestion Rules change, Population Relocation rules. Complete text is below, tho exact wording and numbers are still subject to change as of initial posting.

1) Replacement of the Naval Gun rules with the following.

Unlike other weapons, the development of Naval Artillery and their mountings is more precisely defined. For constant terminology, Guns and Mountings will be defined as such.

--Gun: The minimum needed to have a fireable weapon (rifled tube, breach, etc). The gun has a set of characteristics such as bore, caliber, and muzzle velocity that are hard stats which can never be altered. The gun also has soft stats like RoF that can be improved over time. [Note: Still needs absolute definition of soft and hard stats
]
--Mount: The means by which the gun is secured to the ship, trained, protected and any means for transferring ammunition from the magazines to the gun. Mountings effect things like elevation, train speed, and RoF. Mountings are always paired with a specific gun and can be updated with changing technology. Mounts come in two categories, Deck Mounts and Turret & Barbette [Note: Additional mounting categories were being considered, but not finalized.]

The Naval Artillery technology allows for guns in accordance with the following table. The table diagrams the earliest level a gun of a given bore and caliber can be designed.
[table goes here, no need to copy it]

A nation may develop a gun if:
- They have the relevant gun technology (the row).
AND
- They already have a gun design not more than two spaces away (in non-diagonal movement) in the table above.

A note: This table account for the vast majority of historic naval artillery and allows it to enter service within a reasonable timeframe of its historic dates. In the event a historic gun that is outside of the rules of the table is desired, the moderators will review the case on an individual basis.

Development of New Guns and Mounts:
Development of a gun or mounting for a given caliber and bore may not always take place under the earliest tech that allows for the creation of a gun. When a gun or mount is developed after the nation has researched a later gun tech, the different between the levels (3-1 not 1900-1885) modifies the cost.

Developing a gun costs the following. It is payed out of the nation's research budget. [Total Cost] = [Base Cost] * [1 - Tech Level Difference / 20] where the base cost is $0.50 per turn for guns larger then 210mm and $0.25 per turn for up to 210mm. Development takes two years.

Developing a mounting costs the following. It is payed out of the nation's research budget. [Total Cost] = [Base Cost] * [1 - Tech Level Difference / 20] where the base cost is $0.25 per turn for guns larger then 210mm and $0.10 per turn for up to 210mm. Development takes one turn per barrel. One mounting is always free along with the development of the gun. Guns under 210mm also get a free single deck/casemate mounting.

Refreshing, Importing, and Modification of Guns and Mounts:

Guns and mountings can be refreshed to reflect the benefits of new gun technology. This only effects soft stats like RoF and elevation, not hard stats like muzzle energy. Refreshing is payed for like developing a new gun or mount, but the development time is halved. Costs stay the same. These rules are also used to cover costs associated with importing a gun design from another nation. They also handle any weapons that are bored out to increase shell diameter or fitted with thicker liners to increase caliber for a smaller shell, such as the historic 15" Mk1 or the 8"/120 Sub-Caliber Mk1. Boring out or relining will need to be approved by the moderators.

2) Foreign Standard
   When a ship is constructed by a nation is used by the navy of another, it is counted as foreign-built which has a 25% higher maintenance cost. This can be changed in two ways:
   a) Pay a 1 time +50% cost fee for the construction of the ship at the time the ship is under construction. This ship was built to domestic standards.
   
   b) A Refurbishment level Refit of the ship "domestifies" the ship, removing the foreign-built maintenance penalty.


3) Canal Projects

   Canals have the pay both for dirt and for the locks. The dirt cost is $0.25 per cubic meter / 10^6 of canal.
   
   You must have 2 locks (a pair) per 9m (rounded up) of elevation change. Each lock is represented by a drydock with the capacity of ships that can pass through the lock being the same as the drydock limitation.
     
   e.g. A canal that is 100km long, 30m wide, and 11m deep that goes through a path that is at tallest point 20m higher than sea level costs:
   
   $33 in dirt and 6 locks (3 pairs). Presuming Type 3 drydocks at the lock, the locks cost in total $126 and 18 BP. The canal would cost $159 & 18 BP in total.


4) Colonies and Commonwealth
        For game purpaces, a colony is defined as territory owned by a country that does not possess a land connection to the capital of the country. An exemption to this exists for Canada and Australia as long as they are owned by the UK given the historical length of time these colonies have existed. A Colony also is any territory taken over by a nation from another nation for a period of X years. An exemption exists for any territory that changed hands before 1903H1. IC in colonies costs 3 times more then an equivalent IC built in the homeland.

   From Pop:IC = 0.25 to Pop:IC [Homeland] there is a chance that the colony may revolt. The revolt risk is modified by the speed at which the colony is industrializing and/or the lack of industrialization.
   
   [Baseline Chance] + [Time Penalty] + [Growth Penalty]
   
   [Baseline Chance] = 10%
   [Growth Penalty] = RoundUp(delta Pop:IC / 0.05) + [Last Turn's Growth Penalty]
   [Time Penalty] = Number of Half-years since colonization
   
   The moderators will roll a 1d100. You must score higher than the revolt chance calculated above to avoid a revolt.

       Once a colony hits the same Pop:IC ratio of the most developed region in the homeland, the colony is considered part of a commonwealth and the revolt chance becomes 0%.

   
5) Digestion Rules
   To discourage cheep excessive technology sharing and making the sale of goods more viable in short-term situations, the cost reduction for digestion of tech has been removed. Digested tech now costs the same as what normally researching the tech would cost, but only requires two turns (one year) to complete.


6) Population Relocation
   Players may move relocate population in their own lands as they please, however, each 1 unit of pop (1 million people) will cost $20 to move.
   
   This cost symbolizes both the direct and indirect costs to the economy as people and properties are shuffled around. The expected break-even point is 10 years after the relocation for a profitable relocation.

*dawns asbestos undies* Comments?

[Tanthalas]

I think the combined effect of revolt risks and increased cost are a bit excesive, one or the other definetly slows me down the combination prevents me from ever being competitive with well anyone, and honestly makes me wonder why anyone would bother with colonies.

The exemptions for england are also questionable... DEI was around in one form or another from like 1603 on, about the same time the first english colonies went up in Canada, and australia didnt get any untill like 1783.  The duration argument isnt realy valid IMHO.

[snip]

I think the combined effect of revolt risks and increased cost are a bit excesive, one or the other definetly slows me down the combination prevents me from ever being competitive with well anyone, and honestly makes me wonder why anyone would bother with colonies.

The idea is to make investment in colonies be something with risk, not just the "no duh" choice it is right now.

The exemptions for england are also questionable... DEI was around in one form or another from like 1603 on, about the same time the first english colonies went up in Canada, and australia didnt get any untill like 1783.  The duration argument isnt realy valid IMHO.

Duration was not the only thing we discussed with regards to why Canada and Australia would be exempt but I seem to have lost the specifics. If it is felt that the exemptions are to large, then they could be eliminated.

[Tanthalas]

Look I could deal with the whole thing, all the changes etc (even like the tech ones), but reality and self interest compel me to point out once again that the actual effect intended or otherwise is to esentialy punish we who played semi realisticly.  While others built masses of IC at the start esentialy get rewarded (because we literaly cant catch up to them now).

[snip]

Reality is the system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Because moving away from Pop:IC for cash continues to be a non-starter, the issue then defaults to increases in IC costs for correction.

[Tanthalas]

Fine, can I redo all my reports to reflect this effect? or are you going to give we who didnt "hack the system" bonus BP to make up for it as Rock sudjested? cause some nations (trying realy hard not to call out anyone by name cause it's you know Rude), spent all their cash (and every penny they could scrape from BP sales to NPCs) on their economy to start with... it looks suspiciously like some of them may have known IC costs were going to raise, and adopted an "I will get mine then screw everyone else" attitude...

[snip]

Fine, can I redo all my reports to reflect this effect? or are you going to give we who didnt "hack the system" bonus BP to make up for it as Rock sudjested? cause some nations (trying realy hard not to call out anyone by name cause it's you know Rude), spent all their cash (and every penny they could scrape from BP sales to NPCs) on their economy to start with... it looks suspiciously like some of them may have known IC costs were going to raise, and adopted an "I will get mine then screw everyone else" attitude...

Who are you accusing of this?

[Jefgte]

2) Foreign Standard
   When a ship is constructed by a nation is used by the navy of another, it is counted as foreign-built which has a 25% higher maintenance cost. This can be changed in two ways:
   a) Pay a 1 time +50% cost fee for the construction of the ship at the time the ship is under construction. This ship was built to domestic standards.
   
   b) A Refurbishment level Refit of the ship "domestifies" the ship, removing the foreign-built maintenance penalty.

These are penalties for small countries.

Unlike other weapons, the development of Naval Artillery and their mountings is more precisely defined. For constant terminology, Guns and Mountings will be defined as such.

--Gun: The minimum needed to have a fireable weapon (rifled tube, breach, etc). The gun has a set of characteristics such as bore, caliber, and muzzle velocity that are hard stats which can never be altered. The gun also has soft stats like RoF that can be improved over time. [Note: Still needs absolute definition of soft and hard stats
]
--Mount: The means by which the gun is secured to the ship, trained, protected and any means for transferring ammunition from the magazines to the gun. Mountings effect things like elevation, train speed, and RoF. Mountings are always paired with a specific gun and can be updated with changing technology. Mounts come in two categories, Deck Mounts and Turret & Barbette [Note: Additional mounting categories were being considered, but not finalized.]

Use historical naval weapons & mounts (NavWeaps) are easy. We have all infos than you need.

[The Rock Doctor]

Fine, can I redo all my reports to reflect this effect? or are you going to give we who didnt "hack the system" bonus BP to make up for it as Rock sudjested? cause some nations (trying realy hard not to call out anyone by name cause it's you know Rude), spent all their cash (and every penny they could scrape from BP sales to NPCs) on their economy to start with... it looks suspiciously like some of them may have known IC costs were going to raise, and adopted an "I will get mine then screw everyone else" attitude...

Easy, Tan.  I find that scenario very unlikely.

[snip]

2) Foreign Standard
   When a ship is constructed by a nation is used by the navy of another, it is counted as foreign-built which has a 25% higher maintenance cost. This can be changed in two ways:
   a) Pay a 1 time +50% cost fee for the construction of the ship at the time the ship is under construction. This ship was built to domestic standards.
   
   b) A Refurbishment level Refit of the ship "domestifies" the ship, removing the foreign-built maintenance penalty.

These are penalties for small countries.

The way it works right now is that you get shafted with the 25% penalty for the lifetime of the ship. These are ways to remove that penalty.

[Tanthalas]

oh I am reasonably calm Rock, I am just fealing slightly misused... and I don't realy think that happend I was just throwing out a potential perception (among some who may or may not already be slightly bent)

Fine, can I redo all my reports to reflect this effect? or are you going to give we who didnt "hack the system" bonus BP to make up for it as Rock sudjested? cause some nations (trying realy hard not to call out anyone by name cause it's you know Rude), spent all their cash (and every penny they could scrape from BP sales to NPCs) on their economy to start with... it looks suspiciously like some of them may have known IC costs were going to raise, and adopted an "I will get mine then screw everyone else" attitude...

Easy, Tan.  I find that scenario very unlikely.

[snip]

oh I am reasonably calm

From the tone of posts and PMs, I dont feel that way.

[Tanthalas]

oh realy I am though... trust me, I am sitting at a steady 52 bpm.  Perception and tone do not carry well through the written word ocasionaly, and this is aparently one of the ocasions.  Literaly my only complaint is people who atempted to build reasonably are being efectivly if unintentionaly punished for playing within the spirit of the rules... I dont have a reasonable answer to that problem but it exists (even if you dont want to see it)... as others have pointed out in the other thread, short of blowing up the sim and starting over (I am btw definetly against that option) there may not be an answer.

oh I am reasonably calm

From the tone of posts and PMs, I dont feel that way.

[The Rock Doctor]

Tan, you insinuated that one or both Mods is cooking the rules for their benefit.  Whether you feel calm or not, those are strong words and don't help anything at all.  Let's stop with that.

[Walter]

For game purpaces, a colony is defined as territory owned by a country that does not possess a land connection to the capital of the country.

I don't agree with that bit. I have a bunch of islands that are not connected to the capital by land but I'm not going to consider them to be colonies. What about Japan? Hokaido, Shikoku and Kyushu are not connected to the capital by land either but I doubt Logi would turn those into colonies. With the Suez canal, every little bit of the Ottoman empire in Africa would be a colony because it is no longer connected to the capital by land and the same would be true for the Northwestern part of Scotland if I am not mistaken because it is cut off from the rest of Scotland due to the Lochs and rivers. The definition of Colony should be different.

The exemptions for england are also questionable... DEI was around in one form or another from like 1603 on, about the same time the first english colonies went up in Canada, and australia didnt get any untill like 1783.  The duration argument isnt realy valid IMHO.

I agree... and don't forget that you got natives in both Canada and Australia that might not really like it all of a sudden. Not to mention them troublesome fake Frenchies in Canada and the fact that those non-Aboriginals in Australia are mostly descendants of criminals...