STGOD rules thread

[frigidmagi]

The vote is not closed yet gentlemen.

[Lonestar]

I say nay for the air force. It would make floatplanes for capital vessels coast prohibitive.

[frigidmagi]

The vote is called with 4 nays and 6 ayes.

I will offer this, zepplins will be awfully vulnerable to fighters and AAA guns and work best against soft undefended targets. In effect the zepplins in the rule systems are as good as zepplins are ever going to get. Meanwhile the planes will continue to improve.

New suggestions:

To create a new division you must pay double it's starting cost over a period of 6 months (basically you're paying for it twice).

So to create a infantry division would take 3 weeks real life time, and cost 20 pts. This is to represent the time and cost of creating a new pool of equipment and spares and training troops and shifting cadres over for leadership and training.

To jump a level in industry is also relatively simple. Every level in industry produces pts. You have to pay in 150% of the pts your new level would produce. So if you want to jump to lvl 4 (180pts) from lvl 3 (150pts) you have to pay in 180x1.5= 270pts.

R&D this requires scientists, labs, testing ranges, prototypes the works. A player must devote a percentage of his industrial points to R&D while telling the mod what field(s) of science and tech he is concentrating on. I'll set up a table and roll every 6 months gametime for success, the more points the better your chances. The realism is low but it's relatively simple and easy to implement.

Also Steve can discuss his freaken bloody navy AGAIN.

[Academia Nut]

The vote is not closed yet gentlemen.

Apologies for jumping the gun there, I had read that the vote would go until 1:30am Wednesday and when I posted it was past 1:30am Wednesday everywhere in the world.

Anyway...

To jump a level in industry is also relatively simple. Every level in industry produces pts. You have to pay in 150% of the pts your new level would produce. So if you want to jump to lvl 4 (180pts) from lvl 3 (150pts) you have to pay in 180x1.5= 270pts.

Do you need the prerequisites in the other sections as well? How do you upgrade economy and infrastructure? What about the doctrines? The implication seems to be that you need the higher levels of the doctrine to not just build more than a trickle of gear, but also especially for the Naval doctrine you need the higher levels to build larger ships. This makes sense, you need the training facilities, the docks, the specialized industries and what not. So how do we raise those?

Also, the standing military point seems only useful at the start of the game and since buying up past 3 hurts your economy, it seems like you should just start off with an average standing military and a high industry and build up from there. Perhaps the standing military should also impose a limit on how large your maximum possible army can be.

R&D this requires scientists, labs, testing ranges, prototypes the works. A player must devote a percentage of his industrial points to R&D while telling the mod what field(s) of science and tech he is concentrating on. I'll set up a table and roll every 6 months gametime for success, the more points the better your chances. The realism is low but it's relatively simple and easy to implement.

How specific would these R&D fields be? I ask because since we know what works best there would be a tendency to focus on the fields that would help the most. Perhaps it could be that the narrower your focus the higher the likelihood of getting something useful, but also the higher the likelihood of you going down a dead end path. Of course, there could also be serendipitous fruit from even dead end paths, like say if you were trying to research better zepplins you're not going to get very far, but maybe, just maybe, you might discover the principles behind earthquake bombs, as an example. You'll need better planes to use them effectively, but you'll have a strong reason to want to build larger bombers.

Finally, while I withdraw my objection to going over 100% of points with doctrines, my question still stands on what to do if you have less than 100% and on the size of the divisions for the number of points they are worth, since it is impossible to have a standing army at the start with much more than half a million men.

[Steve]

The vote is called with 4 nays and 6 ayes.

I will offer this, zepplins will be awfully vulnerable to fighters and AAA guns and work best against soft undefended targets. In effect the zepplins in the rule systems are as good as zepplins are ever going to get. Meanwhile the planes will continue to improve.

New suggestions:

To create a new division you must pay double it's starting cost over a period of 6 months (basically you're paying for it twice).

So to create a infantry division would take 3 weeks real life time, and cost 20 pts. This is to represent the time and cost of creating a new pool of equipment and spares and training troops and shifting cadres over for leadership and training.

To jump a level in industry is also relatively simple. Every level in industry produces pts. You have to pay in 150% of the pts your new level would produce. So if you want to jump to lvl 4 (180pts) from lvl 3 (150pts) you have to pay in 180x1.5= 270pts.

R&D this requires scientists, labs, testing ranges, prototypes the works. A player must devote a percentage of his industrial points to R&D while telling the mod what field(s) of science and tech he is concentrating on. I'll set up a table and roll every 6 months gametime for success, the more points the better your chances. The realism is low but it's relatively simple and easy to implement.

Also Steve can discuss his freaken bloody navy AGAIN.

Given our industrial scale, I think 20 points for a single infantry division is ludicrously expensive. Small arms, basic equipment, and light field guns are not going to be that expensive. Now if we're talking motorized infantry its different, as the added material in trucks, spare parts, etc. would probably cost quite a bit, as much as 5 times that of a normal infantry division.

Go ahead and make it time-consuming to raise one fully and get it to normal effectiveness, but the industrial cost should be relatively light.

And I've said my peace on the issue of Navy stuff, I'll let others respond.

[Steve]

Also, the standing military point seems only useful at the start of the game and since buying up past 3 hurts your economy, it seems like you should just start off with an average standing military and a high industry and build up from there. Perhaps the standing military should also impose a limit on how large your maximum possible army can be.

That's why I recommended changing the penalty. Instead of the economy reductions it reduces the number of industrial construction points you have available. Still something to consider when contemplating raising your military in peacetime, but not so.... prohibitive.

How specific would these R&D fields be? I ask because since we know what works best there would be a tendency to focus on the fields that would help the most. Perhaps it could be that the narrower your focus the higher the likelihood of getting something useful, but also the higher the likelihood of you going down a dead end path. Of course, there could also be serendipitous fruit from even dead end paths, like say if you were trying to research better zepplins you're not going to get very far, but maybe, just maybe, you might discover the principles behind earthquake bombs, as an example. You'll need better planes to use them effectively, but you'll have a strong reason to want to build larger bombers.

I like the concept of everyone having a general advance in technology, but if you want to make a breakthrough first you have to invest IBPs or Industrial Construction points or whatever we're calling them, and then magi here does the rolling every six or so game months to determine if someone makes a breakthrough which automatically gives them an edge.

Finally, while I withdraw my objection to going over 100% of points with doctrines, my question still stands on what to do if you have less than 100% and on the size of the divisions for the number of points they are worth, since it is impossible to have a standing army at the start with much more than half a million men.

I'd say if you have less than 100% from your three focus scores then take a point out of SML since you'd just be wasting it. Alternatively such forces should be considered reserves.

A system for Army at least should determine how much is actual standing formations, in active duty, and how much would be reservists, as this is the era of the conscript army.

[Academia Nut]

I'd say if you have less than 100% from your three focus scores then take a point out of SML since you'd just be wasting it. Alternatively such forces should be considered reserves.

By that logic I shouldn't invest anything in SML as at any level I would be wasting points. The way the rules are written, you need to have a powerful navy to get the full use of your points. The way things are written now, to get things the way I like them to represent my empire, I have as a preliminary

Army 5
Navy 2
Airforce 1

That means I get to spend 85% of my starting points. What happens to the other 15% points? No matter what my SML, I'm losing 25% of my points. I can maybe wiggle out an extra point here or there, but I'm still losing out on some significant fraction of my military. If we made an 'average' empire where we put three points into everything then we get

Pop 3 +1 from colonies
Home Territory 3
Colonial Territory 3
Industry 3
Economy 3 +1 from colonies
Infrastructure 3
SML 3
Navy 3... but wait, you can't because Industry + Economy = 7, so don't meet the prereqs so its actually 2
Army 3 +1 from industry
Airforce 3

Now, we have a spare point, so to illustrate the point I'll stick it in Army because that gives the biggest boost. My military expenditures are 50%+30%+15% = 95% So I'm still off by 5%. Of the 700 starting points I get for SML, 35 (enough for 3 infantry divisions with an artillery regiment attached) of them are in limbo as the rules don't state what happens if your doctrines don't add up to 100%

Given our industrial scale, I think 20 points for a single infantry division is ludicrously expensive. Small arms, basic equipment, and light field guns are not going to be that expensive. Now if we're talking motorized infantry its different, as the added material in trucks, spare parts, etc. would probably cost quite a bit, as much as 5 times that of a normal infantry division.

I think that the points scale is off by about... ohh... a factor of 5, if not 10. As mentioned, the way things are written, the biggest, baddest army anyone in the game can start with is 1050 points * 50% = 525 points, or 52 foot infantry divisions with 1 artillery regiment, or 520,000 regular soldiers and 50 guns. And you're going to have like 9 million men in reserves at the very least. The numbers are off.

[Steve]

One alternative is to let the player divide the unused percentage up between the services. But never more than a third, so a player doesn't have the choice to reduce focus in something not impact as heavily as it should.

[frigidmagi]

Apologies for jumping the gun there, I had read that the vote would go until 1:30am Wednesday and when I posted it was past 1:30am Wednesday everywhere in the world.

Okay I'll admit that's my fault. I was thinking in terms of business day, as in when I got off work Wednesday night.

Do you need the prerequisites in the other sections as well? How do you upgrade economy and infrastructure?

Good Question. I'll throw this question out on the floor, should we have to upgrade Eco and Infra and if so, how do we do it?

What about the doctrines?

We currently don't have any stat for military doctrine. We've discussed using focus for that, but currently it just determines your points.

Given our industrial scale, I think 20 points for a single infantry division is ludicrously expensive. Small arms, basic equipment, and light field guns are not going to be that expensive. Now if we're talking motorized infantry its different, as the added material in trucks, spare parts, etc. would probably cost quite a bit, as much as 5 times that of a normal infantry division.

You're not thinking Steve, you also have to build a place to post these troops. You have to set them up in the supply system so on and so forth.

On the flip side AcNut has a point when he says that the current point cost creates rather small armies. Maybe we should drop the starting cost of divisions? Maybe cut them by half? So an Infantry Division would cost 5 points, a Guards Division would cost 15 etc.

Also I think some of the problem in lost points comes from the Airforce stat being on a base 5 system, when Army and Navy are on Base 10.

So what if we change Airforce to

AfF 1: 10%
AfF 2: 20%
AfF 3: 30%
AfF 4: 40%
AfF 5: 50%

So at 3 in all focuses you would have

Navy: 40% Army 30% Air Force 30%

Which equals 100% I believe?

Will that work for everyone?

[Steve]

Better.

As for divisions, you are correct, but given we're looking at only 180 points for a max industry country a 20 point cost for a single division is too high IMHO. You're basically saying a country can only raise 9 divisions as a max at any time and can do nothing else if it does so.

I believe I also raised with you and Zeke the need to adjust how naval focus permits the allocation of capital ships, as in the current system is almost ludicrously small in how little our battle lines can be.

[Academia Nut]

That works better, although the question still remains on what to do if there is a shortfall for one reason or another. Perhaps take the remaining percentage and divvy it up according to the same distribution used before?

As to the points cost, here's the acid test: how much will ships be? Because if it turns out we're fielding more battleships than divisions, something is definitely wrong. Also, since they are 'free' how to reserves work?

[frigidmagi]

Zeke may have had something in mind but he didn't share it with me.

The reserves can only be called up in a time of total war. Doing so in my mind should lead to penalties to Economy and Industry. Reserves can only be infantry. We also need to reformat the reserves from a number to a points as when they were written the Army focus gave you a number of men. For example back then Army focus 5 give you 1 million men under arms.

[Steve]

Yeah, that was before Stas proposed to me making Army Focus represent a percentage of one's mobilization pool that's in the Army, as either Reserves or Actives, with SML determining the percentage of Active to Reserve.

[frigidmagi]

I've edited the Air Force Totals on the 1st page.

[frigidmagi]

Alright, it's a bit quiet so I'll make some proposals for a vote.

Proposal one: Cutting the unit prices for the Army in half. Meaning instead of 10 points, a basic infantry division will cost 5 pts and so on.

Proposal two: For the reserves, Using the Eco+Infra scheme of before. Reserves may not be activated expect in cases of officially declared wars. Activating your reserves means during that time you lose 25% of your industrial points and your Economic stats drops by 1.

If your Eco+Infra= 10, you receive 450pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 9, you receive 400pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 8, you receive 350pts for your reserves.
And so on until...
If your Eco+Infra= 1, you receive nothing.

[rhoenix]

Proposal one: Cutting the unit prices for the Army in half. Meaning instead of 10 points, a basic infantry division will cost 5 pts and so on.

Aye. This makes sense to me.

Proposal two: For the reserves, Using the Eco+Infra scheme of before. Reserves may not be activated expect in cases of officially declared wars. Activating your reserves means during that time you lose 25% of your industrial points and your Economic stats drops by 1.

If your Eco+Infra= 10, you receive 450pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 9, you receive 400pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 8, you receive 350pts for your reserves.
And so on until...
If your Eco+Infra= 1, you receive nothing.

Aye. This also makes sense.

[Steve]

I don't think you should lose industrial points for activation of reserves, since you're also mobilizing your country for total war. Rather, economic rating should determine how long you have before the strain of mobilization begins to break your nation's economy.

Actually, if anything mobilization for war should increase one's industrial points to reflect government direction of the economy for the war effort. However, again, one's economy rating would determine how long you can endure this before your economy begins to break under the strain.

[Steve]

Frig asked me to critique the naval rules, so here we go.

5: Total naval tonnage cannot exceed 60% of your points. Total capital ship tonnage cannot exceed 40% of your points. Combined industry/economy level of 10 needed

Let's assume a 3 in SML or 700 points overall. That's a max of 420 points for Navy. Now, the second line is ambiguous - does it mean 40% of overall points - that is, the 700 figure, providing 280 points - or of naval points, which would mean 168?

If the latter, then even a max NF country would have a rather small capital fleet compared to overall fleet strength. Composition of capital ships should, in fact, be completely up to the player due to their needs (with one exception I'm about to list). A Pacific or Globe-spanning empire demands a fleet with cruising range, even at the expense of capital units or, if capital units, forcing larger tonnages for the same protection and firepower as other ships to ensure longer cruising range (by adding more fuel bunker space). A shorter-legged force can forgo extra cruisers and such for smaller, just as lethal warships, and a higher proportion of capital ships to non-capital.

Now obviously some things can't be taken too far, and you need a decent screening force lest your expensive dreadnoughts get sunk by enemy sub and destroyer torpedo attacks, but even when considering the need for a screen you have to keep in mind that a capital ship in the 1930s, even assuming "treaty ships", would be 30-35,000 tons, compared to 1,500-2,000 tons for the newest destroyers. You can get enough destroyers to decently screen two battle squadrons (8-10 battleships) for the tonnage expense of just one battleship.

Cruisers are getting on to 10,000 tons, but that depends on role as well: a "light cruiser" (aka patrol cruiser or scout cruiser) that is generally a screening ship as well (even occasionally used to command destroyer squadrons) would be in the 6-10,000T range. Historically this was when the heavy cruiser debuted, a cruiser with guns of over 6" bore (typically 8") and usually over 10,000 tons displacement. Such vessels are adept at greater cruising range and work well for a trans-oceanic empire. Of course, unless we go for a Washington Naval Treaty analogue, there would probably be no heavy cruisers; the evolution of the cruiser would be in the direction of the original intention of the battlecruiser just as the battlecruiser evolves into the fast battleship, namely, while you'd have scout cruisers aka light cruisers to lead destroyers in screening operations and to scout for the fleet, you'd also have "heavy" cruisers, going on large cruiser, that would be used for killing enemy cruisers without actually being a battle line vessel. The historical Alaska-class ship of the US Navy in WWII would probably be the end evolution of non-scout cruisers, arrived to 10 years early without the Washington and London naval treaties to artificially restrict cruiser design.

All things said and done, cruisers and destroyers and submarines can be a sizable number of one's force and yet take up less than a third of your fleet tonnage, they're simply so light compared to those castles of steel we all want to use.

There should also indeed be a limit to how much of these colossal beasts someone builds, and not just defined by industrial point: I propose that each nation have a limited number of capital slipways, either overall or rated to tonnage ranges so that people have to expand smaller slipways or build new ones as we get into greater tonnage areas. Slipway numbers should be fixed to Naval Focus - the higher your NF, the more capital ships you can be building at one time, industry willing.

Finally, we need to determine the point cost of a ship. I'd presume that points would have to be spent until the ship's construction phase is over (perhaps the trial-fitting out phase could be 5-10% of normal to reflect the costs and labor to fit on armor, guns, and superstructure). Certainly with the lower point scale - 180 only for an Industry 5 - we'd adopt a different cost than "1 point per thousand tons".

Any other comments?

[frigidmagi]

Steve, Vote First. We have a topic up for vote, that means the vote rules apply. Aye or Nay and wait until the vote closes, which will be tomorrow night.

[General Havoc]

I vote yes on the first proposal, but no on the second, as I agree with the suggestion Steve made concerning the effects of reserve mobilization.

[Hadrianvs]

Yes on the first item, if it still comes up short we could adjust how many points you get from the Standing Military score.


Nay on the second point. The size of the reserve force should be determined by economy, infrastructure, and population. And I agree with Steve's objection regarding the economic effects of mobilitzation. Your industrial output should go up on mobilization and then start slowly decreasing as the strain of war takes its toll.

[Steve]

Alright, it's a bit quiet so I'll make some proposals for a vote.

Proposal one: Cutting the unit prices for the Army in half. Meaning instead of 10 points, a basic infantry division will cost 5 pts and so on.

Aye.

Proposal two: For the reserves, Using the Eco+Infra scheme of before. Reserves may not be activated expect in cases of officially declared wars. Activating your reserves means during that time you lose 25% of your industrial points and your Economic stats drops by 1.

If your Eco+Infra= 10, you receive 450pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 9, you receive 400pts for your reserves.
If your Eco+Infra= 8, you receive 350pts for your reserves.
And so on until...
If your Eco+Infra= 1, you receive nothing.

Nay.

[Slacker]

Yay and Nay, respectively. I don't like the idea of mobilizing immediately forcing an econ hit, it should be a gradual process as you are preparing for a war and mobilization plans generally try and disrupt the economy as little as possible-you need it to make the bullets, if nothing else.

[frigidmagi]

The vote is closed with 5 votes total. 5 votes yes on cutting army units prices in half. 1 vote yea and 4 votes nay to the reserves scheme I suggested.

Alright, I now open the floor to Steve for the naval discussion. Quick note this is what we have to take care of before we can start.

1: The damn never to be done ever resurrecting issue of the Navy.
2: Reserves, how we gonna set them up. For the record I want some sort of front penalty to keep players from thinking they can simply activate their reserves and overrun someone quickly.
3:R&D, what set up are we gonna use.
4: Rebuilding damaged divisions.

At this point we'll have enough to start play.

[Steve]

I'll post recommendations for all later today, now I'm off to partake in the fruits of America's yearly turkey genocide.