On the Island Continent of Janal, the nations of Nafuna and Karikhita have fought each other for hundreds of years. Neither managing to ever truely defeat the other, but recently, unbeknownst to the other, around the same time, both nations made contact with the rest of the world, and, a glimpse of all the new technology that exists was given to them. And with it, they plan to finally end the conflict once and for all. Will Nafuna retake their rightful home? Or will the Karikhita prove that nothing can stop the Khan? Whatever the outcome, the world is mostly ignoring the conflict, watching more important things...for now at least.Q What the hell is this? A An arms race game ripped off from Sensei like all the others.
Q Are you mad?! Running an arms race game!? AGAIN?!? A Yes, I know I'm probably going to regret this but I refuse to go into hiding and bring shame to my name this time.
Q How do I join? A Just say you join in one of the nations treads, thats all
Q 1900? Isn't that a bit early? A No, not really.
Q Which side is Moskurg and which is Arstotzka? A I know this might turn you away, but neither is, unless you go off of the biome they are in.
Q Isn't your computer broken? A Yes, Yes it is...Expect only one or two battle reports a week.
Below this is rules and such that are mostly shamelessly ripped right off the intercontinental arms race game, which you probably should join if you haven't already and joined this. Just note some of it is different, like the map.
Most pieces of equipment have a resource cost, expressed in Ore, Wood, and Oil. For examples see starting equipment, below. Ore represents the total amount of mining effort which an item costs, and oil represents its use of chemicals. If something is big, or uses rare metals, it will have a high ore cost. If something burns a lot of fuel, or uses very high-grade fuel, or uses exotic chemicals then it will have a high oil cost. Costs represent what is needed to supply a company's worth of men, or about 100 men. This means, that prices given might be for 100 rifles, 50 motorcycles with sidecars, or 5-10 tanks or planes, or even a single ship.
Your nation has limited resources: The chunk of the continent you start on provides 3 Ore, 2 wood, and 3 Oil, and you will be unable to use them all until later. This is also listed in your Equipment section in each battle report. You can gain resources by taking certain sections of the map, and then holding them for one turn without losing ground. The map section, below, describes the resources available. If a design costs resources which you don't have, it becomes expensive, and can't be issued to everybody. The total amount of resources a design costs more than you have is called the Resource Deficit. A design with no resource deficit is Cheap, this means it can be issued to every soldier, or as often as your generals decide is tactically sensible. A resource deficit of up to 2 makes a design Expensive, meaning it can only be issued to officers, or 1 in 10 men. A resource deficit of 3-5 makes a design Very Expensive, available to only about 1 in 100 men. A resource deficit of 6-9 makes a design a National Effort, you can only field one at a time- so this is only worthwhile if it's something like an enormous battleship, a nuke, or mecha-godzilla. A resource deficit of 10 or more is Theoretical, and cannot actually be built by you (although, some nation with the resources might be able to use it). Some technologies Complex, being new and difficult to manufacture, and designs featuring them become one level more expensive. Consider expenses when planning your designs! Also, if you lose access to resources, any designs which become more expensive will immediately see the effects- equipment which doesn't have enough fuel and spare parts will need to be decommissioned.
There are also special resources. Using them in your design adds the requirement of the resource to the cost, however unlike the other arms race, using, say for example, titanium for an aircraft as its outer paneling or internal structure as part of a design will make it cost 1 less ore, however, adding special resources to a design wont reduce the cost unless it is a major part of the design, like in the example
You have a limited Transport Capacity (see Starting Equipment, below) which determines how much resources you are capable of claiming from other territories you control. Your TC is given from the single vehicle which gives the highest TC in each mode of transportation (land, sea and air).
The map is divided up into regions, which are further divided up into sections. Your control of a region might be written like: [Plains: Karikhita 3/4, Nafuna 1/4]. Your army may only advance along the lines between regions on the map. During the battle phase, you will advance along two of these lines, and if you win in these regions, you will gain a section, or two if you are doing extremely well. Many regions have resources, and you will only gain those resources once you have held all sections in a region, and kept them for one turn. You will also be attacked in two regions, and the enemy may gain ground- but if you beat them in any area where you did not choose to attack, you will not gain ground. Conversely, if they beat you in an area they are only defending, you will lose no ground. Karikhita's Capitol to the north, and Nafuna's Capitol lies to the south of the
island continent. When either team reaches one of the enemy's center regions, they will fight through an entire region (4 sections) before reaching the capitol. A single victory at the capitol will end the game.
As you can see, Karikhita lies on the north side of the map, and Nafuna lies on the south of the map. Islands to the west of both nations are also being fought over by both nations. The Village land, swamp, and island mountain are where both nations forces currently meet.
The following rules apply to armored land vehicles, with thickness for reference being Rolled Homogenous Armor, steel armor standard throughout WWII.
Weapons capable of penetrating armor have "Armor Penetration" values, which are hidden. A round striking armor has a penetration value at medium range, with a +1 bonus for close range and a -1 penalty for long range. Armor values are as follows:
1) Thin, <10 mm (all measures approximate and used for historical reference)
2) Light, 10-24 mm
3) Medium, 25-50 mm
4) Heavy, 51-100 mm
5) Extra Heavy, 101-150 mm
6) Super Heavy, 150-200 mm. Only historical example I can find is the Maus tank, O-I, and ironclad ships.
7) Extreme, 200+ mm, or composite equivalent.
8 ) Composite only, we probably will never get this high in this game, but it could happen.
Materials give a bonus to that value. Cheap, mild steel is -1, RHA is 0. Aluminum is -1 but lighter, Titanium is lighter with no such penalty, and alloys like manganese steel, composites or more exotic armors may be +1 or higher with various effects on the weight and cost. Good spacing and angling can give a further bonus (which might be wholly or partially negated by APBC rounds or an opponent's good marksmanship).
When building armor, you can specify the thickness and material of the armor in different areas, as well as attempt to research new materials and techniques. Thicker armor also presents an engineering challenge in general; making thick armor is a technology on its own.
Keep in mind that 0 armor is still armor and can stop stuff like 9mm pistol rounds, or small shell fragments.
Landing Strips for aircraft are either Long, or Short. Small aircraft can use a short airstrip, while larger ones, such as bombers, may require a long airstrip. In this game, most landmasses will offer a long air strip, while a few locations as well as aircraft carriers (unless you make something stupidly large) will only offer short landing strips. Sea planes can also land at harbors you control. Unless aircraft are explicitly capable of long-range travel, they normally need to land a refuel at each region they pass through. Depending on the circumstances, having a landing strip close to the region in which combat is occurring may grant a bonus to air combat, especially in the case of aircraft carriers.
The fights which take place on the sea don't represent a distinct territory; only land is gained and lost. However, each turn the effects of your naval efforts are calculated and can change your performance on land. Depending on how well you perform, one of the following traits is assigned: If your naval strength is Equal to the enemy, nobody has an advantage. If you are doing noticeably better, you have an Advantage, and have the benefit of outnumbering the enemy when fighting for islands. If you are doing better than the enemy in multiple aspects, you will have a Large Advantage, which confers the previous benefit as well as reducing enemy transport capacity at sea by half, rounded up. Naval advantage can also determine whether you have opportunities to use tactics like shore bombardment effectively, provided you are equipped to do so at all.
The following difficulties apply to both Designs and Revisions, (henceforth just "Designs" for brevity) but revisions will usually be about one step more difficult than designs in addition to being limited in scope. For example, making a whole new design for a simple rifle in a new caliber would probably be Trivial, but Easy as a revision. Simple revisions are still perfectly capable of being trivial. Difficulty is mainly judged by three factors: What the best similar example of a technology you have built is, how long ago you built it, and what progress the outside world has made in that area. It's usually easy to make incrementally better designs, and the longer your factories build something, the better your engineering bureau grows to understand it. Real world countries serve as a frame of reference for what is cutting edge technology, it is very hard to get ahead from them, but it is also assumed your engineers might be able to spend some of their time learning from books, academic papers, photos, films and lectures available to the general public- although their reading comprehension is not to be relied on. Lastly, it is important to make a distinction from advances in engineering and advances in military doctrine: For example, assault rifles depend on using smaller caliber bullets than normal rifles so they can be controlled under automatic fire, and it took real life countries a long time to realize this. However, you are able to make them far ahead of time because they are not actually difficult to manufacture.
In addition to having "bugs" as a result of a poor die roll, some designs will simply have inherent drawbacks. For example, if you build a bomber with no top-facing guns, it will always be vulnerable to attack from above, or if you specify a tank design with lots of armor, a big gun, and a small engine, no die result is going to cause it to go fast. The consequence of bugs also depends on the nature of the design, a radio with severe bugs might just stop working and be hard to fix, but an aircraft with severe bugs will probably result in dead pilots. If a design makes simple advances in multiple areas, a poor result might only advance in some of those areas, where other areas suffer bugs or do not advance.
Keep in mind that, as with all things in this game, design results are subject to a lot of, well, subjectivity. These are merely guidelines which I follow.
The mainstay of any Arms Race are Designs and Revisions. Suggestions are posted in the thread, and the most popular one is rolled up. Unlike most Arms Race's however, mostly because people seem on board with it and its decent, I will not be using a d6. Instead, I'll be using a 2d4. This means rolls will fall between 2 and 8, with the extremes being less likely.
For a design of Normal difficulty, the results are thus:
Roll (probability): Result
2 (1/16): Utter failure. You get nothing except the knowledge of what not to do.
3 (1/8): Buggy mess. Whilst you managed to make something, it isn't really usable.
4 (3/16): Below average. It works. Not especially well, but it works.
5 (1/4): Average. You get what you asked for, more or less.
6 (3/16): Above average. It works, and somewhat better than might be expected. Not a lot better, mind.
7 (1/8): Superior craftsmanship. It does its job and it does it perfectly. Its performance is exceptional and it is as reliable as clockwork.
8 (1/16): Unexpected boon. Not only does it work, but it does things you never even expected it to. If no 'bonus features' make sense, then you just get experience with some related field.
Designs of other difficulties modify the roll value like so: Trivial (+2), Easy (+1), Normal (+0), Hard (-1), Very Hard (-2), Ludicrous (-3). Designs harder than Ludicrous are Impossible, and will never yield a successful product, and will only grant experience on a 6 or higher*. Similarly, if the result of your roll would be less than 2 after modifiers, you get no experience.
Also note that the results above are guidelines. Results may not exactly match, but the 'value' will be the same, roughly.
*Said experience may or may not make the design possible. I'll let you know at the time.
From time to time, you will be given Credits as a reward for various tasks. For example, you might produce propaganda to attract tourists and make money, earning an expense credit. Or, you might do a favor for the British, and in turn they share their research, giving you Research Assistance. Each of these is spent only once.
Expense Credit: Makes one designer cheaper by one expense level, for one turn only.
Espionage Credit: Allows you to undergo one act of subterfuge, such as sabotaging an enemy design, or stealing enemy plans. More creative tactics are also an option.
Research Assistance: Allows you to roll 2 dice on a design or revision, and take the best result.
Design/Revision Credit: Grants an extra design or revision outright. Might not be used in this game.
1. I am not a history professor even if I like it, if I get something wrong, please tell me about it, if some piece of equipment is imbalanced/unrealistic, I might consider changing it if you bring it up and politely state your argument. However, I don't like back tracking on things like designs, and will try to be consistent.
2. Do not spy on the other team's private thread, or try to get into their private discord channel. Trust me, playing fair is more fun for everyone! PS, you can read the one first post of each side that I made before you join, but that's it.
3. Have fun.
KarikhitaNafunaThere is also a Discord, the same one we used originally in fact.