Pfff, I actually even forgot about that. I meant it as a joke because Zan said they're actually doing great and I said that in the style of "Well, it's not like it's common knowledge".
Jokes really don't go over well on a text based medium, as I've found.
By the way, I know we haven't exactly started yet but... does any of you have any ideas for art? :>
Do need a flag for the Atterton Monarchy and the Dunwich Meritocratic Confederacy.
Adjustments may be made in the future, but here are the rules as they currently stand. Feel free to ask for clarification.
Rules CompendiumDo not look into the threads of nations you are not apart of. Besides being bad form, it affects your opinions of actions your nation is making.
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.
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 or similar is something vastly different to what is currently being produced, 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. This penalty will only be able to push the creation to the national effort level, so if something would already be at the national effort level, it will not be pushed to theoretical.
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 currently ignored by the leaders of the nations.