Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Man of Paper]

There is now a link to the Discord Channel for this Arms Race in the OP of all three topics. I'm more a fan of forum debate when it comes to teams and their discussions and encourage it for those afraid of Discord leading to the death of forum discussion, but it is an easy way to ask questions and the like.

[Man of Paper]

Shit another double-post but this is the aforementioned map and a few of the more interesting facts about the world:

Spoiler: The Map (click to show/hide)

Red outlined nations are Central Alliance, black striped ones are League of United Nations.

Spoiler: Nations by Number (click to show/hide)

• Harren Island
• Iava Kingdom
• Bryor
• Selicate Empire
• Volksfeld
• Konigschon
• Sherrn
• Ednis Isle
• Paeleris
• The Free Holds
• Oxian Empire
• Kiera
• Volgistun
• Mieristun
• Mursyk
• Albar
• Maceron
• Gastar
• Endicar
• Rosvi
• Igol
• Methren
• Torvos
• Remorth
• Alderland
• Dendaria
• Helasi
• Bordos
• Castern
• Synval

Tidbits:
The Free Holds are actually a bunch of cities, fortresses, and villages in the mountains independent from one another but united in keeping their lands free. During the Selicate Empire's peak The Free Holds were surrounded by Selicate territory, yet withstood battles and sieges against many times their number. They're responsible for funding a number of insurrections within the Selicate Empire.

Volksfeld and Konigschon were originally one kingdom that wound up divided between twin sons once their father died. While their methods of rule eventually led to the two nations becoming very different the two nations are still close allies generations later.

The cluster of small nations in the middle of the northern continent used to be part of the Kingdom of Torvos until the local governors rallied together in rebellion and declared themselves independent from Torvos. As most of the nation's wealth and resources came from the upstart territories they had practically lost the war before it started. The independent nations had warred among one another in the years since, but Torvos had never truly recovered.

The Selicate Empire is currently threatened by three rebellions for the throne - one by the Emperor's brother, and two by members from more distant branches of the family. There are also a handful of differing political uprisings popping up throughout the Empire. The Selicate Empire ruled almost the entirety of the eastern portion of the continent at one point, but after a number of wars became heavily reduced in size. With the threats from within and not wanting to deal with more than he could chew, the Emperor released Salvios and Paeleris, and allowed the restoration of the Oxian Empire by giving back the northern half of their lands. While this kept these areas from rising in rebellion against the Empire, it still hurt the Emperor's standings among his people which has only fueled the fires of rebellion.

[Man of Paper]

As it has been requested, if you aren't sure of what side you want to join during the early phases when they don't know much about one another, here are the rumors they have heard about one another on the first turn:

There is news, however, from the northern end of Harren Island. Rumors of fighting between our allies trapped in the Coniferous Forest were wiped out - apparently smoke could be seen from Salvios if you were up high enough - and a discovery of two new Resources, one of which apparently helped form their half of the island. Strange new things are happening, and your contributions are appreciated.

There are rumors from Salvios. Some automobiles in the city have been seen emitting a blue glow. There are also mutterings that they've embraced their homeland, whatever that means. Some of our scientists have also reported hearing of experiments with a new material discovered in Salviosi mines. Things are heating up, and your continued assistance is appreciated.

[Man of Paper]

A series of events has led to potentially allowing a fairly significant change to a specific rule in the game. Without giving too much away, it would involve revealing some information to each team. If you guys collectively decide to opt in to the rule change then you can expect to see it reflected in the next phase or Combat Report, depending on which side you're going to be getting info from (referring to your nation or your enemy's). I leave this decision up to you guys, but it is going to delay the next phase until this is resolved: I don't want to move further without making sure I know which rule to apply to this circumstance.

[Kashyyk]

A couple of questions:

1. Is this specifically information about our opponents?
2. Will processing this require more or less time from you as the GM?

[Man of Paper]

It is specifically related to information about your opponents, but will not affect the time it takes for me to push posts out.

If you guys want full disclosure before you decide you can get it, but just know your team could be giving up some vital information in doing so.

[NUKE9.13]

After thinking about it, I'd say that asymmetricality has been established, and plans may have been laid on the basis that the enemy will not know what you are developing, so preserving that secrecy would make sense.
That is, if I'm understanding what's at stake correctly.

[Man of Paper]

If that's going to be the consensus you guys are going to reach then I ask that if there's something for the next few turns that doesn't seem right, just trust me. It'll all make sense once you have a bigger picture.

[NUKE9.13]

So. This Caelium-Gravite business. We've talked about it in Discord, and it seems like most people aren't satisfied with the current situation.

As it stands, both sides possess essentially the same resource, Caelium. Salvios spent a design trying to create Gravite, and got Abbera's Caelium instead. Now, without going into detail on what exactly we asked for, suffice it to say that it was radically different from what we ended up with. Yes, they both involve manipulating gravity, but how and to what end- totally different.
Now, Caelium is undoubtedly a useful resource that can be used to do cool things. However, the cool things that Salvios might do with it and the cool things that Abbera might do are liable to be very similar. This is fine for basic equipment, but special resources are meant to enable cool, unique designs.
Furthermore, as I understand it, Caelium is Abbera's starting- and therefore primary- special resource. This means that it is more important to them than it is to Salvios. For Salvios to be able- deliberately or not- to fuck up the properties of Caelium for Abbera doesn't seem right either.

It has been suggested that Salvios could simply spend a design modifying Caelium to match the specs we wanted. But why should we spend two designs to get a resource? If this situation hadn't happened, it would've only taken us one. No, we're priced in to using Caelium as defined by Abbera.
Some people have suggested that having two similar resources would lead to a headache for the GM. I don't really understand why having Caelium and Gravite would be any more complex than having Whateverium and Somethingite that do completely different things.

There is the concern that undoing this would result in an information imbalance, where Salvios knows something about what Abbera is doing, but not vice-versa. That's totally valid, and so if we did undo this, Salvios would share information of equal value (the exact information depending on how we fix this).

Which brings me to the two best solutions to this situation:
-Remove Caelium from Salvios. Replace it with Gravite, with the properties we asked for. Inform Abbera about the properties of Gravite.
-Remove Caelium from Salvios. Refund the design used to 'discover' it, to be used for something completely different. Inform Abbera about the properties of [Redacted], our primary special resource.

Now, of course, the GM is the GM, so what- if anything- he does about this is up to him in the end. But we can inform him as to what we would like to happen. Perhaps by means of the following votebox:

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (0)
Replace Salvios's Caelium With Gravite: (1) NUKE9.13
Replace Salvios's Caelium With Something Completely Different: (0)

[Kashyyk]

I'm not a Salvite, nor on this Arms Race's discord, so this is the first I've heard that you even knew what our Resource was called.

And without knowing what Gravite or [Something Else]'s properties are, which one I vote for is moot as far as I'm concerned. However, I went into this due to the appeal of having two radically different sides, such that even if we both went for flying rocks the exact rules for them would differ, causing different designs. To restrict Salvios' ability to do so defeats the spirit of the game in my opinion.

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (0)
Replace Salvios's Caelium: (2) NUKE9.13, Kashyyk
...With Gravite: (1) NUKE9.13
...With a Design Credit: (0)
...Either, I'm not a Salvosite: (1) Kashyyk

[Rockeater]

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (0)
Replace Salvios's Caelium: (3) NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Rockeater
...With Gravite: (2) NUKE9.13, Rockeater
...With a Design Credit: (0)
...Either, I'm not a Salvosite: (1) Kashyyk

[Doomblade187]

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (0)
Replace Salvios's Caelium: (4) NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Rockeater, Doomblade
...With Gravite: (2) NUKE9.13, Rockeater
...With a Design Credit: (0)
...Either, I'm not a Salvosite: (2) Kashyyk, Doomblade

[Man of Paper]

Thing is something like this is bound to happen again because, full disclosure, both teams aren't doing all that great in terms of being unique even outside of this specialty resource, and when it comes down to it I'm not going to do the bookkeeping for three pairs of resources that could functionally do the same things, and with a little creativity and experimentation it can be worked around anyway. And yes, I know we've only had one turn so you haven't had much opportunity to define yourselves, but even a good bit of the ideas and planning being thrown out overlap. I'm not an advocate of GMs rolling three steps back to fix something (especially when it's not so much a mistake as people being unsatisfied) either, but I do want happy players.

The problems I'm seeing are the Abberans not liking their first resource getting hijacked and the Salviosi don't like the fact that they've discovered an old resource through a design and that said design doesn't fit their specifications. Let me just clear that up by saying you can give it a property you want by designing something that uses said effect, as has been done already. Researching a resource essentially unlocks the ability to utilize it in designs, while the designs are what advance knowledge of the resource. Literally all you'd need to do is use a design with a variant of caelium or something similar used in the proposal and, as long as the roll isn't abysmal, you get a whole new type of material to work with. What the linking of resources and research was meant to simulate was the race to discover different interactions for different effects, and I had foolishly thought people would enjoy another layer of strategy to their decisions, especially since it's probably going to happen once, maybe twice more depending on what you guys do.

What I thought would be fair was making Caesium a base resource like Ore, Oil, and Wood now that it's been found throughout the island and refunding the actions used on both sides to discover it. Yeah, sure, Abbera has a head start on research so some people might think it's unfair that they get to design a new resource for themselves freely, but if they come across [REDACTED] then it's going to be the same situation inverted. At least one other kind of similar resource has been mentioned on both sides as well, so I feel like setting this up as a rule now, as opposed to just treating this as an unusual occurrence, is going to work out better for everyone.

I'm willing to be flexible, but with the full picture that you guys don't really have, this situation looks a tad different. If we can come up with something that pleases everyone, myself included, that's fine. If not then we'll all have to push forward unhappy, and I'd rather everyone be equally dissatisfied than get accused of bias.

[Maximum Spin]

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (1) Maximum Spin
Replace Salvios's Caelium: (4) NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Rockeater, Doomblade
...With Gravite: (2) NUKE9.13, Rockeater
...With a Design Credit: (0)
...Either, I'm not a Salvosite: (2) Kashyyk, Doomblade

In contrast, I think this is an entirely reasonable outcome. I mean, let's not forget that we asked for a material that violates the known laws of physics, and received it. Isn't that enough? Realistically, you have to deal with properties of your material that aren't what you hoped for. Some of us also think we now know the properties of the other side's starting resource, but I think we really don't, we only know the properties that are either facially obvious or directly impact what we tried to do with it. Going forward, neither side will really know if the observed properties were "caused" by the other team or just balance, anyway.

In conclusion, an admission: I think "antigrav material" is just incredibly lame as a concept in general.

[Doomblade187]

What to do about the Caelium/Gravite situation?
I Don't Care: (0)
Leave It As It Is: (2) Maximum Spin, Doomblade
Replace Salvios's Caelium: (3) NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Rockeater
...With Gravite: (2) NUKE9.13, Rockeater
...With a Design Credit: (0)
...Either, I'm not a Salvosite: (1) Kashyyk

Given man of paper's commentary, I am sated, though I would like to know what Salvios's replacement material is if they redo it.