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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

If someone decides to run another game, maybe the problems listed can be made manageable by running a version of the game using two companies competing in a limited set of markets, with victory being when one has majority control in all but one or two of a set of markets (replacing territory with (A majority, A advantage, Neutral, B advantage, B majority)).  Money act the same as resources (each market with an advantage provides 1 unit, majority provides 2).  Take the Robert Islands rules, and rename focus to marketing to provide a boost in the market's 'battle' rolls, and the rules could work for it.

[RAM]

Couldn't you just overlay it over a real conflict? It would require some research, so it would only really be advantageous to G.M.s who already had an interest in that conflict, but you could do something like having The Great War running in the background with the design bureaus working as a super-weapons group. It would be unrealistic in that the basic technologies would not in any way be based upon the technologies being developed, and it would be prone to metagaming counters to future technologies, but it would provide a mess of background technologies.

Also, you could just put a lot of effort in, reference some real armed forces, and put together a comprehensive starting point, and then scale the game-time between updates to match a realistic introduction of new technology. You would need to abstract out the rapid rate of development as people come up with a completely new engine design from scratch in a couple of weeks(What? Why, the perfect engine for our design just happened to have just now been completed after years of work by an eccentric inventor living in an iron shack), but often you find that a military uses many of the same technologies for a long time. You could also gradually increase the effectiveness of extant equipment to replicate minor revisions. Maybe something that was made ten years ago and hasn't been reviewed by the players is now on an abstracted fifth revision that means it has received some minor alterations to adapt new technologies and is not quite as outdated as a glance at its age would imply. If you look at the revision history of a popular weapon then you see a lot of minor improvements that would be beneath the attention of a player-entity...

[Aseaheru]

 That depends on if the GM mentioned that sort of thing to the players, and if they had anything better to do at the time, but yah, most people wouldent bother working to change the barrel bands on a rifle randomly.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

It would require some research, so it would only really be advantageous to G.M.s who already had an interest in that conflict

Research is not a problem at all. Adapting all real world weapons and their variants to the game system is a problem

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

About the starting point.  While it would likely take a bit more time at startup and would require using custom countries or post-apocalypse groups, would it be possible to give the two groups a list of design categories (ex. Assault Rifle, Pistol, Tank, etc.) and have them fill all of it up by going through a design phase for each category?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

It is a viable option even if start up may be a little too long.

But... Imagine the first turn for the GM. He will need to decide how those 20+ designs from one side interact with 20+ designs from other side and come with some kind of result.

Besides, simpler way to do it is to have several design actions per turn. Like design+revision but 3-5 from turn and players must choose from different, rather broad design categories. This way most categories will be filled rather quickly BUT the price is GM's sanity.

Speaking about broad design categories...

I am thinking about this distribution for 1930s-1950s tech period

1) Small arms
2) Misc infantry equipment (everything from uniforms to RPGs)
3) Tanks, armored cars, assault guns, IFV and APCs
4) Other land vehicles
5) Artillery
6) Navy
7) Light aircrafts
8 ) Heavy aircrafts
9) Misc (nuclear bombs, radars, ballistic missiles go here)

Any thoughts?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

But... Imagine the first turn for the GM. He will need to decide how those 20+ designs from one side interact with 20+ designs from other side and come with some kind of result.

Could force parity by using 1 roll per category rather than 1 roll per design, thereby having each nation's design in a category having a rough parity.  May need to give a 'basic' tech list and a limit to the new tech to keep things truly balanced to the point where the differences are effectively ignorable.

[Kot]

Also, I had an idea about Arms Race game the other day:
Basically, each player represents their own company. During each turn design phase they can propose one design which will be voted on others, and there shouldn't be any limitations on what that is, though it certainly sounds easier to focus on one group of weapons as the technologies (which could be traded for votes or something, more on that later) and production expertise (you know, the longer you make something the better you get at it) will belong to company, not the country. The companies could also try to boost their effectivity by making advertisements and propaganda to make civilians buy their stuff or donate to their companies.

The voting phase should be split in three(?) parts (one for each slot), during which players can vote on submitted designs (except their own) or vote to leave the second and third design slot empty so the choosen weapons get produced more. This would sort out shitty designs and hopefully allow for higher amount of weapons. Revisions might exist but they seem reduntant.

The problem is it could be a bit straining for both the GM (who would have to manage the clusterfuck of whatthehelleven amount of designs) and sadly, after a while, the game would become incredibly elitist and only the strongest companies would get their designs through... which atually sounds pretty realistic. The way I wrote it is horrible but eh. I have trouble explaining ideas to other people.

[Sheb]

How about high command require several types of design ("This turn, we wants a small arm for infantrymen, a light artillery piece and a vehicle to transport stuff"), and the players get one design action for each category?

[Kot]

How about high command require several types of design ("This turn, we wants a small arm for infantrymen, a light artillery piece and a vehicle to transport stuff"), and the players get one design action for each category?

Arbitrary limitations by GM, instead of trying to outwit your enemy with ideas at right time it turns into even more RNG based basic plain text descriptions of things.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

How about high command require several types of design ("This turn, we wants a small arm for infantrymen, a light artillery piece and a vehicle to transport stuff"), and the players get one design action for each category?

How about tying it a bit to how much land is held, the amount of designs you have increasing as you have less land and high command becomes more and more desperate for something to give them an advantage to reclaim momentum?  Conversely, more land/resources means that they feel like they do not need you as much and reduce funding/designs per turn.

[10ebbor10]

All I can say is that when I ran my game This one, I focused primarily on keeping things as vague as possible, and that worked out excellently.

I mean, not all games need to be a contest. There were plenty of games where the players went up against the GM, and that works extremely well because the GM gets to "cheat". (I mean, he doesn't need to keep a full list of all units at all times).

[Aseaheru]

 For that sorta thing, I could see it working better if, say, each player had more than one design group, allowing them to focus on one request or spreading out to cover more things, and potentially gain more contracts.

 However, the amount that the GM would have to do, the sheer quantity of bookkeeping required... The more so if there is to be any form of specialization of design groups, or even just a second nation applying for stuff...

 Its the sorta thing that would be awesome for a computer game, but horrible for a human to run.

-ninja edit-

 In some ways that would work better, and in some it would work worse. Mostly the "less designs for more land gotten" thing. Modified slightly, it probably would work, say, the more land they have the more quality they want, the less the more quantity.

-ninja edit-

 Yah, that game worked well enough.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

The voting phase should be split in three(?) parts (one for each slot), during which players can vote on submitted designs (except their own) or vote to leave the second and third design slot empty so the choosen weapons get produced more. This would sort out shitty designs and hopefully allow for higher amount of weapons. Revisions might exist but they seem reduntant..

I see conflict of interests here. Say hello PM alliances. "you vote for my stuff, I vote for your stuff"
System like this need no votes, it needs GM playing for high command and deciding what will be purchased by military budget and what will not.

How about high command require several types of design ("This turn, we wants a small arm for infantrymen, a light artillery piece and a vehicle to transport stuff"), and the players get one design action for each category?

If this categories will be (semi)random and different for each country such system can work rather well. It will create very different kind of discussions to what we see now.

[Kot]

The voting phase should be split in three(?) parts (one for each slot), during which players can vote on submitted designs (except their own) or vote to leave the second and third design slot empty so the choosen weapons get produced more. This would sort out shitty designs and hopefully allow for higher amount of weapons. Revisions might exist but they seem reduntant..

I see conflict of interests here. Say hello PM alliances. "you vote for my stuff, I vote for your stuff"
System like this need no votes, it needs GM playing for high command and deciding what will be purchased by military budget and what will not.

Welcome to semi-accurate simulation of real life. Design studios got fucked over by conflict of interests a lot.