STGOD rules thread

[Academia Nut]

It looks alright, although it seems that there might be some rather intensive bookkeeping involved here. Votes are:

1: Aye
2: Aye
3: Aye, although it should be pointed out that I'm not sure how well the industrial point costs jive between infantry costs and capital ship costs. As it is, at start 5 points is either a 20,000 tonne warship or 10,000 infantry, which feels like there is a wrong number of zeroes on one side of that equation
4: Aye
5: Nay. While players should be encouraged to take colonies, the stat seems to be getting really powerful and with bonuses is now of neutral cost at 3 and above
6: Aye
7: Aye
8: Does not exist
9: Aye

[Comrade Tortoise]

Aye to all. they are reasonable. Provided we get a consolidated post with all the updated rules ;)

[General Havoc]

My votes:

Proposal 1: Nay. I believe these numbers are too small overall. If you have at least 3s in Economy and Industry, there is no advantage to taking 3 NF vs. 2, moreover the most capital ships you can ever have is 12, even with super Great-Britain-style Naval focus, even with no WNT. I would suggest doubling them across the board and grading down through NF 1. Even Austra-Hungary had SOME capital ships.

Proposal 2: Aye.

Proposal 3: Aye.

Proposal 4: Aye (Standard).

Proposal 5: Aye.

Proposal 6: Aye, though I would increase the requirements for Economy 5.

Proposal 7: Aye.

Proposal 9: Abstain. As I said, I will take whatever navies are appropriate to the period people want.

[Hadrianvs]

Proposal 1: Capital slips - Yes

Proposal 2: Time span for building ships - Yes

Proposal 3: Ship Costs - I am a bit uneasy about this one, but I'll give a tentative "yes".

Proposal 4: Tonnage rate to use - I vote against standard, stupid WNT invention.

Proposal 5: Naval Focus and Colonies - Yes

Proposal 6: Economy and Industry - Yes

Proposal 7: Auxiliaries - Yes

Proposal 8: Russia gets 35 points - Yes

Proposal 9: Naval Tech. - YES! Pre-WWI design battleships simply cannot carry the level of AAA required for close in defense now that dive and torpedo bombers are a threat.

[frigidmagi]

Hotfoot has voted Nay to Proposal 5 and Aye to Proposal 9. Cat has voted Nay to proposal 5 and has not voted on other proposals. I have moved the posts. You can bitch all you want guys but I am not going to be put in the position of digging through mountains of texts to find one vote.

[Charon]

1. Aye
2. Aye
3. Nay, kind of, will discuss in separate thread
4. Standard, but it is related to Proposal 3.
5. Nay, will discuss in separate thread
6. Maybe... I will edit to reflect my decision upon further reflection.
7. Aye
9. Aye

[Hadrianvs]

Okay, here a bunch of small tweaks to the proposed rules.

Navy

Submarines have slow speed. In fact, they have the slowest speed. They would be ridiculously dangerous if they could actually chase down a cruiser or battleship. They can't, instead they lay in ambush. They can also covertly lay mines (using a mine rack bolted to the hull, so don't expect to multi-task).

Need an "old ship" modifier, as I suggested earlier.

Naval fighter-bombers should come in "dive" and "torpedo" variants. For best results, use both types on the same target.

What's an "escort/recon" aeroplane? I don't remember any navy fielding anything like that as part of their CAG. They had multi-role fighters, dive fighter-bombers, and torpedo fighter-bombers. That's it.


Army
To better reflect armed forces in 1930:

Dragoon divisions should be striked. There is no difference between mounted infantry and cavalry in this time period, nor has there been one since the late 19th century. Cavalry division has better mobility than infantry, but slightly worse all-terrain capability.

There should be a motorized division option. If a 1920s truck can carry this, then it can damn well carry a rifle section. Motorized is the fastest unit, but has the worst all terrain capability.
-Suggestion 1: 20pts (same as tank division).
-Suggestion 2: 15pts (more expensive than cav, cheaper than tank)

Currently light tanks, normal tanks, and heavy tanks all cost the same amount of points. This does not make any sense. Furthermore, a tank division was not a huge mass of tanks operating independently, they had integral infantry support. Tanks should be an attachment that you can add to infantry, motorized, or cavalry divisions. The number of tanks also seems too low.
-Suggestion: Strike tank division.
---Heavy tank regiment 5 pts (50 tanks)
---Medium tank regiment 5 pts (100 tanks)
---Light tank regiment 5 pts (200 tanks)

The independent artillery regiment should give "100 howitzers" and the siege regiment "20 heavy howitzers".

Normal infantry divisions should be assumed to have organic support. As noted earlier this includes: machine-guns, field guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, armoured cars, and motorcycles. Also signals, medical, and logistics detachments. (Note that the field, AT, and AA roles could often be done by the same type of gun.)

A 15 points guards division has 10 000 men, but 15 points of guards regiments has 7500 men. Something does not add up.
-Suggestion:
---Guards regiment 3pts (2000 men).

Engineers are elite troops in their own way, and yet 10 000 engineers only cost 12 points.
-Suggestion:
---Engineer regiment 3pts (2000 men)

I think a dedicated anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) unit should exist so that players can defend their rear areas from bombers, or bolster their air defenses in the front. As a bonus, AAA can be switched to an AT role in a pinch simply by switching the ammunition.
-Suggestion:
---AAA/AT regiment 3pts (100 guns)

Summary The total number of items on the army buy list has been increased by only one. I replaced dragoon with motorized, and tank division with medium tank regiment. Then I added a dedicated AAA attachment. Various other items were modified, but nothing more added. KISS principle at work.


Air Force

Liason and ambulance aeroplanes should come with any large armed formation. They have a background role and no combat capability, so I don't see any point in counting them against one's air force pointage. Most players won't even mention them.

Every battleship should include two free reconnaissance sea planes. This will be dinky little things that are no good for anything but recon.

Currently we have one engine mono-wing fighters and two engine mono-wing bombers as options. I think double-wing fighters should be made available. They are still dangerous combatants, and are cheaper to build. There should also be an option for fighter-bombers.
-Suggestion: Modifiers applicable to fighter wings
---Double winged (-2 points)
---Fighter-bomber (+2 points)

General:

Other correction, infrastructure got divorced from industrial might in the rule-set. Why? In general terms infrastructure is railroads, paved roads, canals, dredged rivers, rail yards, ports, etc. All of these require industry to make. There should be an "industrial might" requirement for high infra like in the original ruleset.
-Suggestion 1: Max infra = ind (need 5 ind for 5 infra)
-Suggestion 2: Max infra = ind+1 (need 4 ind for 5 infra)

[frigidmagi]

Need an "old ship" modifier, as I suggested earlier.

Write it up for me and I'll use it.

Dragoon divisions should be striked. There is no difference between mounted infantry and cavalry in this time period nor has there been one since the late 19th century. Cavalry division has better mobility than infantry, but slightly worse all-terrain capability.

Alright, this makes sense.

There should be a motorized division option. If a 1920s truck can carry this, then it can damn well carry a rifle section. Motorized is the fastest unit, but has the worst all terrain capability.
-Suggestion 1: 20pts (same as tank division).
-Suggestion 2: 15pts (more expensive than cav, cheaper than tank)

Well Hadri the question isn't can a truck carry a rifle section, the question is was anyone deploying trucks to do so at the time? I can't find data either way (earliest date I can find is 1940 and I know there were motorized troops before that) so I'll error on the side of giving players the option.

Currently light tanks, normal tanks, and heavy tanks all cost the same amount of points. This does not make any sense. Furthermore, a tank division was not a huge mass of tanks operating independently, they had integral infantry support. Tanks should be an attachment that you can add to infantry, motorized, or cavalry divisions. The number of tanks also seems too low.
-Suggestion: Strike tank division.
---Heavy tank regiment 5 pts (50 tanks)
---Medium tank regiment 5 pts (100 tanks)
---Light tank regiment 5 pts (200 tanks)

Let me think about this one some more. I'm pretty sure most of ya want armored divisions but what you're suggesting is more realistic, on the flip side keep in mind our limit bar. We don't really have heavy tanks yet.

A 15 points guards division has 10 000 men, but 15 points of guards regiments has 7500 men. Something does not add up.
-Suggestion:
---Guards regiment 3pts (2000 men).

Engineers are elite troops in their own way, and yet 10 000 engineers only cost 12 points.
-Suggestion:
---Engineer regiment 3pts (2000 men)

I think a dedicated anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) unit should exist so that players can defend their rear areas from bombers, or bolster their air defenses in the front. As a bonus, AAA can be switched to an AT role in a pinch simply by switching the ammunition.
-Suggestion:
---AAA/AT regiment 3pts (100 guns)

I like these so I'll say yes.

Currently we have one engine mono-wing fighters and two engine mono-wing bombers as options. I think double-wing fighters should be made available. They are still dangerous combatants, and are cheaper to build. There should also be an option for fighter-bombers.
-Suggestion: Modifiers applicable to fighter wings
---Double winged (-2 points)
---Fighter-bomber (+2 points)

Hrm...

[Screwball]

Well Hadri the question isn't can a truck carry a rifle section, the question is was anyone deploying trucks to do so at the time? I can't find data either way (earliest date I can find is 1940 and I know there were motorized troops before that) so I'll error on the side of giving players the option.

AFAIK, there were proposals and experiments with motorised infantry as early as WW1. The Germans were experimenting seriously with the concept in the early 20s, and the British established an experimental motorised infantry battalion in 1927, according to 'WW2 Infantry Tactics: Company and Battalion'. Lots of people forget that the BEF, at the start of WW2, was fully motorised, which isn't something that you'd get if the idea hadn't been around for some time and gained acceptance.

[Steve]

I believe the British experimented with motor-truck formations in the 20s, and the Soviets were making use of them into the 30s. Even in WWI the concept of carrying troops to the front in motor vehicles was seen; the French requisitioned Paris' taxis to move troops to the front at the height of the German attack.

[frigidmagi]

Alright I've added in the motorized division and removed the dragoons. As of right now the Motorized Divison is at 5000 men. It didn't seem right for them to be more numerous than the cav divs in addition to being faster and heavier armed. Made changes to the regiments as well.

[Steve]

A Motorized division would logically be the same size as a normal infantry division, just quite a bit more expensive due to needing to build a large number of trucks and making the spare parts, spare vehicles, and fuel depots for the units. Furthermore a motorized division is really just dragoons as much as cavalry are, save their their mobility is primarily limited to roads or flat enough terrain that their trucks can move on it. Horses can actually move into forests and through rocky hills that the trucks would have trouble with.

As it's 1930, the earliest half-tracks may be starting to become available, now those I can see keeping to regiment size only, and they're capable of moving into rougher terrain than trucks.

[frigidmagi]

No Mechanized Divisions or regiments to start.

Now we need two things. We need a system for reserves, I favor strongly having a separate point pool tied to SML or Pop. And an R&D system. While I prefer not being a dick, it's time to shot the engineers and actually build this damn thing. So I'll wait til Thursday night for any suggestions and then I'll throw mine up (it won't be the one y'all have rejected relax). At which point y'all will have the weekend to post your OOBs in a thread set side for it. The point set up for your nation must be included, as well as a list of your military units, where they are deployed, any and all fortications you've created. Fortications within reason will not cost you points (however if you want them to be manned and gunned you have to buy the units). On the flip side, God help you if you make a Maginot Line because I will rip a chunk of your points out of your army to pay for it.

[Steve]

I'd say use SML and Economy to determine a percentage that you get the reserve pool from out of your population. For instance, if you have a 50 million population and the SML/Econ formula derived a 10% pool, your reserves would have 5 million men.

[Hadrianvs]

Need an "old ship" modifier, as I suggested earlier.

Write it up for me and I'll use it.

Okay then.

-Proposal 1:
---Old ship modifier (-50% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships may not outnumber new ships of that class.

-Proposal 2:
---Old ship modifier (-40% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships/new ship ratio for each class may not exceed 1.5 .

-Proposal 3:
---Old ship modifier (-40% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships/new ship ratio for each class may not exceed 1.25 .

Modifier only applicable to initial point buy, much of price reduction indicates that the investment was made many years ago.

Let me think about this one some more. I'm pretty sure most of ya want armored divisions but what you're suggesting is more realistic, on the flip side keep in mind our limit bar. We don't really have heavy tanks yet.

A tank division is an infantry or motorized infantry division with a tank brigade (given their new size "brigade" is better than "regiment", same for the artillery). Players can operate their tank units independently if they wish, but without infantry support they'll get pasted by dug in AT.

As for heavy tanks, the Vickers Independent is a heavy tank. Which may have, due to industrial espionage, been the basis for T-35, also heavy tank. Then of course the French outdid everyone else with the hulking monstrosity called the Char 2C.

Currently we have one engine mono-wing fighters and two engine mono-wing bombers as options. I think double-wing fighters should be made available. They are still dangerous combatants, and are cheaper to build. There should also be an option for fighter-bombers.
-Suggestion: Modifiers applicable to fighter wings
---Double winged (-2 points)
---Fighter-bomber (+2 points)

Hrm...

Now that I think of it, since we're starting in 1930 we would be using aircraft introduced in the second half of the 20s. I cannot find a single example of anyone fielding a monowing fighter in that period. Monowings were tried in the First World War, but so were triwings, and it seems that based on the experience of the war everyone settled on biwings as being the best. The earliest example of a post-WWI monowing fighter that I an find is the Polish PZL P.11, and the first working prototype of that fighter flew in 1931. We may actually be starting out with fleets of biplanes, and not begin introducing monoplanes until after the game gets off the ground.

In any case, biplanes will continue to be effective for quite some time to come. Major powers were fielding new models of bi-wing aeroplanes into the 1930s. Examples include the Polikarkov I-15, Glouster Gladiator, and Fiat CR.42. These were introduced in 1934, 1937, and 1939, respectively. The working prototype for the first US monowing fighter didn't fly until early 1932. Biplanes didn't have as much range, speed, or ceiling as a monoplane, but they have insane maneuverability and can take off from anywhere. Many combat pilots loved the things, and the bean counters liked the smaller price tag.

The combat record amply shows their effectiveness. When the Germans invaded Belgium the Belgian Air Force had 25 CR.42s in active service, and these downed over a dozen enemy aeroplanes, including a few Messermitch Me-109s, for a loss of only two fighters. Later in the war, the first encounter between British Hawker Hurricanes and Italian fiat CR.42s resulted in the Hurricane pilots running the hell away and a mild panic among the RAF.

I was going to make biplanes even cheaper, until I did research and saw how effective they were.

Then there's naval aviation. There were no monoplanes of any kind on carriers until the mid-1930s. The first such aeroplane, the Mitsubishi A5M, first flew in 1935 and was introduced in 1937. I believe it's because until then monoplanes required more runway than available in a carrier. So we're all stuck with biplanes in our carrier air groups for the near future.

On another note, aircraft are too expensive. Currently a power with AF 4 and SML 4 could field at most 700 fighters. Assuming a four year production run that's only 175 fighters a year. The British managed more than that in 1914, and they were hardly exceptionally militarized in that department. For a more contemporary example, the French built 2500 Potez 25s and 2000 Breguet 19s in the 1920s. Generously assuming 10 year production runs (was 4-6 in reality) that's 450 fighters a year, and I add that the French were simultaneously also building other types of military aircraft, including bombers.

Finally, I think the bomb load for twin-engine bomber needs to be revised up. British Bombers dating back to the First World War, such as the Handley O/400, Handley V/1500, and Vickers Vimy could manage to carry 2000-3000 lbs of bombs. In light of that, I find 1200 lbs to be excessively conservative.

[Hadrianvs]

A Motorized division would logically be the same size as a normal infantry division, just quite a bit more expensive due to needing to build a large number of trucks and making the spare parts, spare vehicles, and fuel depots for the units.

Maybe we should have the "motorized division" be renamed "motorized brigade". That way if anyone wants to have 10,000 men motor division they can simply buy and field the unit in pairs.

I'd say use SML and Economy to determine a percentage that you get the reserve pool from out of your population. For instance, if you have a 50 million population and the SML/Econ formula derived a 10% pool, your reserves would have 5 million men.

I think infrastructure, along with economy, is a key part of determining one's reserve pool.

[Steve]

Okay then.

-Proposal 1:
---Old ship modifier (-50% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships may not outnumber new ships of that class.

-Proposal 2:
---Old ship modifier (-40% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships/new ship ratio for each class may not exceed 1.5 .

-Proposal 3:
---Old ship modifier (-40% cost, -40% effectiveness), old ships/new ship ratio for each class may not exceed 1.25 .

Modifier only applicable to initial point buy, much of price reduction indicates that the investment was made many years ago.

Proposal 1 is my vote.

[frigidmagi]

We're not switching over to a brigade system. And infrastructure is not a determining factor for reserves, no where near as close as your total population is or how wide spread military training is. A nation could have a very high infrastructure but no real training for it's population, in such case it could not have a large reserve.

Also points, not numbers. We're using a point buy system for military units so reserves will have to be expressed in points.

[Hadrianvs]

And infrastructure is not a determining factor for reserves, no where near as close as your total population is or how wide spread military training is. A nation could have a very high infrastructure but no real training for it's population, in such case it could not have a large reserve.

Ah, sorry, was conflating "mobilization pool" and "reserves". A country's mobilization pool is determined by infrastructure, and a more developed infrastructure makes a country better able to send more men to war without bringing the economy to a grinding halt. Reserves are trained personnel who are not in active service, which is, as you point out, not directly dependent on infrastructure. However, how many reserves you can have is determined by your mobilization pool. So infrastructure is indirectly related.

We're not switching over to a brigade system.

We don't have a regimental system either, our system is divisional, and yet there is the option to attach "regiments" to divisions or groups of divisions. I am suggesting that it would be more accurate terminology to refer to some of these attachments as "brigades" instead. The nature of the system is not changed, it's still divisional. The terminology is not, however, terribly important in this case. If you really want to leave it as is, then I won't press the issue further.

The case of the current motorized division is, I grant, different because it is an independent unit. On that basis I withdraw my suggestion. If a player really wants to have 10 000 man motor divisions, I don't see why they couldn't just pony up 30 points for each one bought.

[Screwball]

We need a system for reserves, I favor strongly having a separate point pool tied to SML or Pop.

Taking into account the earlier statements about infrastructure also having an effect, how about something like this:

Pop + SML combined gives you a points pool. I'll assume that three in each is the average, so a combined score of six would give you 700 points of reserves. This (theoretically) preserves the historical 1:1 ratio of active to reserve soldiers that major powers like France and Germany maintained.

Meanwhile, infrastructure determines how many points of reserves you can have active without overstretching your economy. Again, assuming that three is the average, Infra 3 would allow you to mobilise 700 points. Anything over that would lead to a lowered economy and industry score- say -1 each- to represent the fact that you don't have enough rolling stock and track to move raw materials to your factories, food to your cites and supplies to your armies all at the same time, so your economy suffers while you prioritise your military for supplies.

What you'd end up with, therefore, is that nations with standard population and infrastructure can deploy all their reserves without destroying themselves, like Britain, France and so on in WW1 and 2, but nations with lots of people, and thus reserves, as compared to their infrastructure can collapse under their own weight, like Russia did in WW1.

[frigidmagi]

Sounds interesting, do you think you can write me up a table so I can see it fully Screwball?

[Screwball]

Okay, I'll have a go. I'm not real awesome at balancing this sort of thing, so I suspect the numbers will change, but:

Reserves (Population + SML)

<2: None
3: 175
4: 350
5: 525
6: 700
7: 875
8: 1050
9: 1225
10: 1400

I'm using the same increments as SML, because that's easy. It breaks a bit at the very low end, but nobody's going to buy only one point in pop and SML, and the points look like they get a little huge at the end of the scale, but then, nations with huge populations tended to have huge reserves, especially with conscription.

Infra is exactly the same as SML, just applied to the reserves you're allowed to mobilise.

An alternative might be to have SML give you two identical points pools, and then make higher SML levels dependent on population. SML 4 needs pop 3 or whatever.

[Charon]

A Question and a Proposal.

Proposal: Home Territory actually helps in something.

Version 1
1- No bonus
2- No Bonus
3- +1 Population
4- +1 Population, +1 Infrastructure
5- +2 Population, +1 Infrastructure

Version 2
1- No Bonus
2- +1 Population
3- +1 Population, +1 Infrastructure
4- +2 Population, +1 Infrastructure
5- +2 Population, +2 Infrastructure

Bonus to population is obvious, the more land (generally) the more people. Infrastructure is because the larger your country the better your infrastructure needs to be to keep said country together.

I vote for Version 1 by the way.

Second, the Question.

Do we have any sort of ruling on what it will cost to raise a stat like Infrastructure or Industry over the course of the game?

[Academia Nut]

If a stat gives a bonus, it should come with a prerequisite to keep everyone from just buying up more and more of the stat without actually paying for anything because you can just shuffle points around. And since you said that you need better infrastructure to keep a large nation together, by that logic infrastructure should become the prereq. And I say this as a guy who would benefit massively from your proposal. A better proposal might be:

1 - No bonus
2 - No bonus
3 - +1 pop, requires sum total of 4 or better in army focus and infrastructure
4 - +1 pop, +1 econ, requires sum total of 6 or better in army focus and infrastructure
5- +2 pop, +1 econ requires sum total of 8 or better in army focus and infrastructure

Note: You could also swap AF with SML, the idea being that you need a large army to patrol your large territory. Of course, I don't necessarily agree that this is perfect, but I think it is better in balance and spirit than your proposal Charon.

As for raising stats, frigid had one proposal for Industry, but not for any other stats. Considering Industry's prereqs, it might be useful to get everything else sorted out.

[General Havoc]

I really don't think we need to throw more and more interlocking bonuses into the various stats. They wind up massively favoring some types of countries and otherwise screwing others, and results in everyone min-maxing out the same sort of empire. If I can spend my points on X or Y, and spending them in X gives me Y as a bonus, then it only makes sense to spend them on X rather than Y, and thus de-favors anyone who does spend their points in Y.

There are discrete advantages in-game to having enormous home territory, such as effective physical immunity (or at least relative immunity) to invasion. If I conquer a part of your home territory the size of France and manage only to capture about 8% of your land, then that gives you something of an advantage relative to a country like France itself. It is not necessary that along with said advantage you need to get enormous other bonuses that also gets you all of the things that France has spent its points on.

Whether it is historically accurate or not is beside the point. Russia gets quite enough of a bonus out of its 5-point spend in home territory simply for being Russia.