Player Status Change

[snip]

All,

We are having a changeup in the sim's participants. As of this time, olekit24 is no longer the player of Iberia and has been barred from continued participation in the sim for the foreseeable future. This is due to continued violation of and apparent indifference to the rules of the game coupled with a possible history of such action.

During startup, there were several items that required intervention by myself in the role of GM to correct. These ranged from issues evolving from designs not being posted for public comment, to difficulties in correctly partitioning Iberia, and unpaid for items. While none of these alone were worthy of disciplinary action, we are all human and make mistakes,  the frequency resulted in a raised eyebrow on my end. Come the 1910H1 report, things, for the most part, looked ok with the report. Some of the items struck me as odd in relation to what I recalled about the startup report and after procuring startup data I audited the startup with the data from the 1910H1 report.

What I found were several major errors. First, the Iberian startup report was deficient of at least 36BP. I was unable to get a more accurate figure due to the second and third issues. Do note that the attached sheet shows a bigger total due to the unknown dates on some ships. Second, I was unable to locate sims of all the claimed ships in the 1910H1 report. Third, many early ships had refit dates noted in the encyclopedia, but no information on what these refits were or any changes they made were provided. While this is clearly an issue that warrants an intervention, dismissal would be harsh.

Here we tie into some past history of the sim. Back in 2008, a player by the name of Olekit ran Russia in N3. After a bit of an odyssey of overreach with GM-controlled NPC nations and massive report inconsistencies, the Mods at the time removed Olekit from the sim and banned him from the site. Per the thread on the subject in the N3 Mod forums, Olekit did try and log a couple times in 2009. When olekit24 registered in 2011, it was discussed in that thread that he might be an alternate account but no firm conclusion was reached. At the start of this sim, when olekit24 asked to play his name rung a bell and I found the thread from Olekit's removal. I asked the people who were around at the time who are still involved in what they thought. I also asked olekit24 about any connection to Olekit and he denied any affiliation. I was able to trust this until the pattern of unforced errors and behavior above became apparent. Due to the similarity in the above behavior with what lead to Olekit's dismissal and banning, I no longer have trust that Olekit and olekit24 are different people as olekit24 claims.

Putting all of these things together, olekit24 represents something I really don't want in the sim; a participant that needs constant observation and auditing. That, coupled with the similarities between current behavior and what lead to the dismissal of someone by an all to similar name lead me to the conclusion that it would be best of the long-term health of the game to take drastic action. In this case, that amounted to the removal of olekit24's ability to participate as a player. I don't take this action lightly and understand it will cause some discomfort. At this time, I have not removed olekit24 from the forums and he is welcome to be as active as a non-player as he would like. Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions either here in this thread or via PM.

[The Rock Doctor]

Thanks for the update.  Your decision seems sensible given the circumstances involved.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Thank you for the report and explanation.
I'll trust your judgement, and express thanks for the additional workload.
The latter- the additional workload to audit and monitor a player, is not ok.

The question is, what can we- as players - do to help 'patch' this deficit ?
Roughly I see, in no particular order
A) Attempt to run Iberia as consensus - have an "Iberian turn" post, each turn we each put forward our idea, then vote on which to do. Likewise for ship designs - if a need for a 18,000 ton BC is identified, we each put up 1 (and only 1) design, and then vote.
B) Split Iberia into 2 parts N & S of Gibraltar as powerful NPCs
C) Split Iberia as above, but give to Rome/Byzantine. While it makes each quite large.
D) Leave Iberia a giant question mark for a future player, not my favored.
E) One of us run 2 countries. Which may be me, as I'm the only one that doesn't border Rome already. Or Snip because Iberia is critical to Rome.
F) Some amalgam of the above
G) Something else entirely

[snip]

Let me hit these with my "off the cuff" response so I can think in more detail on my commute home.

A) Im not a huge fan of this course. It brings back the spectre of needing everyone's input before proceeding in the same way random research rolls did.
B) I would much rather keep Iberia as a "super NPC/Starter player nation" than this
C) Workable, but would probably need some sort of storyline and delayed implementation. While this storyline could result in some cool/nessisary stuff (eg, how do we figure out that we need tanks?), it would take some group work. Also would need to figure out how to alter (if at all) the other three powers in a similar way.
D) As much as I would love to just leave it open, we would need some idea of what is going on there. How far do you think we would need to go with the reports to both maintain some level of flexability for a new player while allowing for enough of a background to keep the rest of us in a reasonable know?
E) I really want to avoid that, almost to the point of hardcoding into the rules.

Overall, Im most intrigued by the dismantlement idea. I can see ways around having it be unfair to the other three powers (eg, establishing some Iberian colonies for them to grab, trading increased cash income for built BP or something like that). It also gives us the ability to have a WWI analog where we can have the technical and tactical know-how come into the right to place us in the right spot technologically.

[The Rock Doctor]

There anybody we could head-hunt into taking over, if only on a short-term basis?

[Kaiser Kirk]

Let me hit these with my "off the cuff" response so I can think in more detail on my commute home.

No worries, no hurries.
And it would have been fine to hate them all :)

[snip]

There anybody we could head-hunt into taking over, if only on a short-term basis?

I'm not sure. who would you have in mind?

[The Rock Doctor]

Nobody specifically, but I've seen Guinness and ledeper on the site recently.

[Jefgte]

Dismantling could spice up the game.
Parthian colony in Morocco
Northern & Vilnius in Iberia &/or Mediterranean ...

But an other player is the better option;
Guinness, Ledeper...

[Jefgte]

Dismantling proposal
As noted a few month earlier, Parthian is out of the Mediterranee...

[Walter]

The easiest would be to keep it as it is and as a super NPC like snip says with the potential for a future player to pick it up.

Not sure what you based the split on on that proposed map. A lot of yellow is being added which is fine with me as I have (IIRC) quite a bit fewer regions than any of the other nations. However, to me it looks like barely anything is being added to the Byzantine Empire and nothing is being added to Parthia (or would the Iberian additional regions be off the map to the east?).


When I look at your map, I can see these as issues and benefits that I would be facing with those additional Iberian stuff...

Cons:

- It is more likely that the Northern Kingdom would have expanded eastward, trying to regain more of the lost lands of the Novgorod Republic from the Golden Horde. Only way I think that that chunk of the Iberian peninsula would become part of the Northern Kingdom would be through marriage.

- While I have gone for 5 regions at startup and thus could dump those Iberian bits into a 6th one without having to mess around with them (and I hope the other players won't mind that I will be lazy and just dump everything into that one region without counting how many sub-regions are in there to balance it out with the other regions), I would have to go and juggle the ICs and BPs around until I get something I like. Probably not too much of an issue.

- There is probably the issue of religion where the Northern part of the Kingdom would be Norse Catholic while the Iberian part might still be Roman Catholic due the close proximity of that Evil Southern Pope Pius X. That is not really going to work out unless this union would have happened prior to the Norse Catholic Church splitting off from the Roman Catholic Church.

- Using "The Northern Kingdom" would no longer be appropriate with a piece like that so far to the southwest.

- Evil Roman presence between the southern part and the northern part of the Kingdom.

- Additional royal line stuff to add to the family tree increasing the chances that my computer will melt when I am working on that picture. Would probably have to shift some images around as well.


Pros:
- Great historical stuff to add to the Kingdom's history.

- Additional potential news bits that can be added to the Kingdom's news section.

- Additional royal line stuff to add to the family tree making it even bigger than it is now and even more impressive.

- Great chance to annoy the Romans when it comes to supply lines to the new world.

- Allowed usage of various VIPs from the region as well as those from any of the OTL Portuguese and Spanish colonies (because without the OTL colonial lands, these people would most likely still be on the Iberian peninsula). Very useful for a near future planned classified news bit involving two classified persons (one American and one Cuban)

- Additional stuff that can be used in trade with the big NPC nations ("High quality wines from the Iberian Peninsula. Much better than that Roman p!ss!" ;D )

[Kaiser Kirk]

Not sure what you based the split on on that proposed map. A lot of yellow is being added which is fine with me as I have (IIRC) quite a bit fewer regions than any of the other nations. However, to me it looks like barely anything is being added to the Byzantine Empire and nothing is being added to Parthia (or would the Iberian additional regions be off the map to the east?).

Generally speaking, adding stuff to Parthia from Iberia would be terribly difficult.
Parthia actually supporting and defending that portion would be extremely difficult due to the length and route of the needed of the logistics line.
With Suez hostile, that makes a 9,800nm trip from Rabat to Tis, that's 34 days at 12knots, or 51days at 8 knots, which means I wouldn't want anything of value to be in Morocco.
As you all expand you'll come into more contact with my Parthia, and I expect to be increasingly relevant.

I included in my list what I expected the reasonable options to be, to spur conversation.  I accidentally omitted "find a replacement" because it was too obvious... ooops.

To me, what we don't want is : A large powerful nation who's fleet, infrastructure, colonies, etc we know nothing about except they exist and will spring forth if a player swoops in.
I also don't think we want the question of who holds Gibraltar and their attitudes towards other nations to be unknown.
Snip however, has put a huge amount of work into all this, and would rather keep it open for a player. So I'm ok with that.

A replacement player would fix that and is the very best choice.

My "council" idea was my fudge if we couldn't find one, and has the exact drawbacks Snip noted.  I think a group long-range plan could alleviate much of that by putting Iberia on Autopilot. Plus, only counting the votes of those that do so by some deadline. However, the concept is not my first choice, rather an effort to avoid the empty nation.
Otherwise you wind up with a player doing double duty, which Snip - and myself - am not in favor of.

Dividing Iberia up - either into NPC states or absorbed into existing states - would remove the problems. 
This has the downside that if a player comes by later, there's no landing spot.

For the absorption bit, the reason I suggested Rome for the North and Byzantium for the South is that Rome's route to unify her fleet would be guaranteed, while Byzantium would gain Atlantic ports and freedom from the chokepoint of the Red Sea.  Much the same could be gained from a Roman client state Iberia, and a fundamentalist isolationist Morocco.

Adding a Hostile power to Iberia would adversely effect Rome and effectively divide her fleet and supply lines, putting Snip in an uncalled for bad position. The North African shoreline is much more reasonable to divide up, but extremely difficult for Vilnus or the Norse to defend.

[The Rock Doctor]

Indeed, I can't say the notion of adding Morocco to the VU makes much sense to me, though I suppose I could just hand-wave it as an early start to colonial adventures.

Splitting between Rome and Byzantium makes some sense; if it's felt that there's a need for the other three powers to gain territory, we could always pick up bits of western Russia instead. 

But I think I'd still rather see another player come in if possible.

We don't need to rush to judgment.  We have, I think, a good sense of Iberian building up to the start of the sim, and the amount of change in 1910 is manageable even if a new player swings things in a different direction for 1910/11.  My major concern, to be honest, is sorting out what colonial adventures Iberia might embark on; a future player would like want to have some outports to amuse themselves with.

I'll also put this on the table:  If the group thinks it needs active Iberia more than active VU, I'd be prepared to switch locations.  VU is fun and all, and I've laid some ground work for colonial stuff that a future replacement could build on - but I'm not emotionally invested in the place just yet.

[Walter]

Generally speaking, adding stuff to Parthia from Iberia would be terribly difficult.

I did not pay any attention when I typed that bit. I said "or would the Iberian additional regions be off the map to the east?" but it really should be "or would the Parthian additional regions be off the map to the east?" with which I meant some additional bits in India and Russia.

With Suez hostile, that makes a 9,800nm trip from Rabat to Tis, that's 34 days at 12knots, or 51days at 8 knots, which means I wouldn't want anything of value to be in Morocco.

Then you should donate it to your good Norse buddies. ;D

Splitting between Rome and Byzantium makes some sense; if it's felt that there's a need for the other three powers to gain territory, we could always pick up bits of western Russia instead.

It is only fair that the other three powers gain an equal amount of territory.

One issue to me is that if Rome gains Iberia and the Byzantines gain the African mainland is that Rome gets an additional 55 regions and the Byzantines get an additional 57. I think that when we give an equal amount to Vilnius, the Norse and Parthia, we will probably end up with no horde lands at all.

Without any complicated messing, the below map gives:
Rome: +55 regions
Byzantine: +57 regions
Vilnius: +38 regions
Parthia: +38 regions
Norse: +36 regions



Alternatively, a number of the Roman and Byzantine regions should be merged to give them less additional regions. In case of the Byzantines, we could give them less of the Iberian North Africa bits and give a few of the southern regions to the NPC to the south.

[snip]

I can safely say doing a complicated thing like the above is not going to happen just out of the blue.