Thread for the British Loyalists10 Engineers: Werty892, Kot, Coleslaw35, Fillipk, Aseaheru, 10ebbor10, 3_14159, Tryrar, Andrea, Happerry
Thread for the Atterton Monarchy7 Engineers: Hawk132, Flazeo25, Tntey, Graknorke, Urist McDwarf, Beneviento, Snake1229
Thread for the Dunwich Meritocratic Confederacy7 Engineers: Playergamer, Baffler, Ukrainian Ranger, Funk, Sheb, Wolfhunter107, VoidSlayer
With the revolution in the Americas stirring up a great deal of trouble for the British Empire, the small island colony of the Robert Islands has decided to attempt to go for its own independence while everyone is distracted. This small pair of islands has a central mountain range on the larger of the two that divides the climate between extremely thick forest to the south and east, past the massive inland lake, and grasslands with sporadic forests to north and west, including on the second, smaller island off the northwestern coast.
Thus far, the independent nation thing has gone off quite well. Well, with the minor exception of no one being able to fully agree upon what sort of government should be used and who should be in charge. Over the course of the three years of resulting conflict, three primary countries have wound up emerging in order to dominate the Robert Islands.
Faction 1 - Imperial LoyalistsThe first of the three factions is the British Loyalists. This group have holed themselves up on the northwestern island and have held it for near the entirety of the conflict that occurred upon the main island. Due to this relatively long term control, they have managed to get all the rest of those loyal to the Empire off the main island and kicked off everyone who would want to rebel. The fisheries of the island have allowed it to be kept fed to allow the support of one third the total population of the island chain, after the fishing boats of the mainland forces were sunk or captured.
Faction 2 - Dunwich Meritocratic ConfederacyThe second major faction is that of the Dunwich Meritocratic Confederacy. On paper, it near blatently rips off the Meritocracy ideals that were filtered back from China, but in actuality its upper echelons are completely filled with whoever has the best, and frequently largest, armies. This faction's formation was a result of first being a group of entities around Dunwich forming into a coalition for defensive purposes, then intimidating or bribing all others in the surrounding area to joining with the group, conquering if absolutely necessary.
Faction 3 - Atterton MonarchyThe third major faction is that of the Atterton Monarchy. Rather than the intimidation used by the Confederacy, the Atterton Monarchy under the rule of King John Richards simply conquered every single force around them. Forces that surrendered had their leaders killed for being cowards. As the subordinates of those forces often wound up doing this themselves, it is believed by some, mostly in the other factions, that there is something in the water that renders individuals slightly mad, though that may be true of all inhabitants of this island chain.
Turn List1780-17811781-1782
Rules CompendiumDo not look into the threads of nations you are not a part of.
In the thread of the nation you are a part of, you are to suggest the nation's action for each turn and vote for suggestions of what is to be done. There are five different phases of what is done with each nation.
-Phase 1: Design Phase - This is where engineers suggest the creation of new designs to be introduced during the coming turn. The result of your project is hit with a roll to see how well you achieved various components of it.
-Phase 2: Revision Phase - This is where engineers suggest modifications to existing creations, to a reasonable degree. For example, you can add sights to or make a larger version of the Brown Bess, but you cannot turn it to a machine gun.
-Phase 3: Production Phase - This phase is where engineers determine which of their techs that they decide to aid the production of in their production facility, cheapening that by 1 level for that turn.
-Phase 4: Espionage Phase - This phase is where it is determined what action your spies take, whether to steal technology, sabotage production, counter the actions of other spies, fund dissidents, etc.
-Phase 5: Focus Phase - This phase is where it is determined which location will have the focus of the nation's war effort delivered to. You may decide to focus on shoring up defenses, striking at a location, etc. On this phase, each nation has two actions to perform, and can be used with both being offensive, both being defensive, or a mix.
After all three nations have gone through these five phases, the turn is written up and sent out and the next turn starts up. In a standard turn, only one action may be taken at each phase, but credits may be given for one turn to allow the performing of more than one action.
Expense and Resource are taken from the Arms Race thread.
Expense: Regular equipment can be given to everyone in your army. If a piece of equipment is difficult to produce, it has expense levels: 1 is Expensive, 2 is Very Expensive, and 3 is A National Effort. It doesn't matter how many different types you have, as you'll still only be making a total number of guns enough to equip everyone. Inexpensive equipment could be given to every soldier, if you want. Cheap vehicles means everyone can ride around in one instead of marching. Expensive equipment can be given to officers, or one per squad (5-10 soldiers). Expensive Vehicles means a pretty good number can be used for support. Very Expensive equipment can be used by special squads only, about 1 in 100 soldiers. Very Expensive vehicles are few and far between on the battlefield, or there are only a couple squads in total. Your nation can only deploy one National Effort at a time. It had better be an aircraft carrier, or a nuke, or a giant walking robot if you want this to be worth it. If you have multiple weapons at a price tier, then soldiers/squads choose one for the situation. Some weapons, EG crewed machine guns and artillery, don't benefit much from being Inexpensive because there aren't many situations where you'd want everyone using one.
You might gain an Expense Credit for a certain type of unit, reducing the expense by 1- for example, if High Command desperately wants an airplane, they'll offer an expense credit for it, which might reduce your new bomber from A National Effort to Very Expensive. Monetary gains from trade will be represented this way.
The expense of equipment is determined when you design it. The more new features, or the more ambitious, the more likely it is to be expensive. You can attempt to reduce the expense when revising equipment- this might introduce bugs, or it might permanently reduce the expense of that technology.
Resources: You can gain more Ore and Oil by gaining territory, and by designing better general transportation (trains, trucks and boats). If you lose it and a product becomes more expensive, then soldiers will cease to use it as they run out of ammo/replacement parts.
For example, a car might cost Ore 3, Oil 2. If your nation has Ore 2, Oil 1, a product which costs Ore 3, Oil 2 gains an expense level, because you're short 2 resources. If you're short 3 or more resources, it gains two expense levels (Very Expensive). If it's also Complex, that's three expense levels (A National Effort). Something that costs 6 or more resources than you have gains three expense levels right away (A National Effort). If something adds up to 4 or more expense levels, it is Theoretical and cannot actually be built. Ore represents total mining effort, so if you have a gun made of a rare or difficult to mine metal (let's say titanium) it might have an ore cost of 2 or 3 despite being only a rifle. If a large truck can be made mostly from low-quality steel, it might be cheaper. For now I'm ignoring train cost and assuming that new technologies are either cost effective or considered failures automatically.
There is a minor addition to the expense levels in regards to ship:
If a new variety of ship is something different (ex. new ship is a galleon type vessel), a complexity penalty is applied to it for one turn as a shipyard is made to produce the vessel. If this pushes the vessel into the 'National Effort' level and the Production Phase is not used on it, only the shipyard would be made in that year. The penalty will then be removed the next turn. To see how the complexity penalty affects expense, look under the resources section of the rules in the original Arms Race's rules. A link to the old thread is in the OP.
Diplomacy may be performed between nations at certain points of the conflict. The OP of the International thread and the turn posts will mark whether diplomacy is open during that year. Generally, this signifies points where Armistices may be made in order to allow for the potential advancement of time by a few years. Diplomatic relations of this sort will typically be carried out within the International thread, but messages between two nations via a personal message that are also put up in the threads of both nations for debate. At the current time,
diplomatic attempts between the nations are ignored by the leaders.
I was partially thinking about starting up a weapon design game in the vein of
Arms Race, but with three factions waging war starting in the late 1780's. I've hammered out something basic, but I would prefer to see whether this would be an idea worth continuing work on or just leave it dying in the concept phase. For the most part, the rules would be the same, with the minor addition of a production phase that allows for one weapon to be cheapened down one expense level.
Author
Topic: Arms Race: 1780 - International/'OOC' Thread - 1782 (Read 27771 times)