SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread V

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

The numbers don't lie. The Holy Empire is pretty much the sick woman of the Koprulu Zone, much like how the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe or Qing Dynasty-era China was the sick man of Asia.

I'm certainly not a min-maxing, power-gaming bastard by any means, and I'm pretty accepting of the fact that the dice simply were not in my favor this time around. However, there's still a tiny part of me that's ever so slightly resentful of the fact that I'm a reasonably active player who got saddled with a 2 on the NCP roll while there are inactive players who are sitting on 5s and 6s. I know that this game is more about storytelling than number-crunching, but still...

I could probably write a story or two on the decline of the Holy Empire, but my well of creativity has all but dried up.

[fgalkin]

If you think that's bad, look at the poor Karlacks. For a massive swarm of OM NOM NOMs, they've definitely been hit with the nerf stick repeatedly.

In fact, we have to assume that the Pfhors are allied to the Bragulans and are the true power in the K-Zone or there IS no balance of power. The Bragulans and the Karlacks are no match for the USS, IoM, Cevaukians and Haruhiists. You're not only not the sick woman of the K-Zone, your navy is the pride and envy of the other powers, and you're valuable just for that, if nothing else.

EDIT: Naval balance in the K-Zone is heavily balanced for the humans even with the Pfhor involvement, unless we make the Sassanids into the Alien allies, since it's currently 4-3 and the Aliens are losing pretty badly (~130k vs almost 200k)

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[KlavoHunter]

Shroomarcos's declaration, if the wrong people end up dead, presents a potential casus belli for the Union, and, as an extention, a plot jumping-off point. I'm gonna have to review the local politics.

Well, do recall that the Feelypeens are mostly balanced in influence between the Sheppo-mericans, and the geeky Umer-icans who have their vital chromium-mining operations onplanet... And if there is anything on which 'mericans can agree, it's that the Feelypeens IS ARE CUNTRY! And they would rather not have to share it with anyone else, even if they hate each other too...

[Tanasinn]

Shroomarcos's declaration, if the wrong people end up dead, presents a potential casus belli for the Union, and, as an extention, a plot jumping-off point. I'm gonna have to review the local politics.

Well, do recall that the Feelypeens are mostly balanced in influence between the Sheppo-mericans, and the geeky Umer-icans who have their vital chromium-mining operations onplanet... And if there is anything on which 'mericans can agree, it's that the Feelypeens IS ARE CUNTRY! And they would rather not have to share it with anyone else, even if they hate each other too...

Trust me, I have an idea for coping with that.

(Not to give the impression, guys, that I've decided to go to war. First and foremost are the concerns of players that have characters invested in that system, and there are roleplaying/staying-in-character concerns, as well.)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If you think that's bad, look at the poor Karlacks. For a massive swarm of OM NOM NOMs, they've definitely been hit with the nerf stick repeatedly.

In fact, we have to assume that the Pfhors are allied to the Bragulans and are the true power in the K-Zone or there IS no balance of power. The Bragulans and the Karlacks are no match for the USS, IoM, Cevaukians and Haruhiists. You're not only not the sick woman of the K-Zone, your navy is the pride and envy of the other powers, and you're valuable just for that, if nothing else.

EDIT: Naval balance in the K-Zone is heavily balanced for the humans even with the Pfhor involvement, unless we make the Sassanids into the Alien allies, since it's currently 4-3 and the Aliens are losing pretty badly (~130k vs almost 200k)

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Sassanids work extensively with the Bragulans.

As for the Pfhor, just about anyone hates them really.

[fgalkin]

Too bad they're a 21 NCP state and we don't really know anything about them. As for the Pfhor, the Bragulans have made an alliance with the Karlacks who are considered even worse. So, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with an alliance of convenience precisely because everyone hates the creepy alien slavers.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Too bad they're a 21 NCP state and we don't really know anything about them. As for the Pfhor, the Bragulans have made an alliance with the Karlacks who are considered even worse. So, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with an alliance of convenience precisely because everyone hates the creepy alien slavers.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

The Bragulans historically aren't against the idea of destroying an irritating alien race.

And the Pfhor's lack thereof of activity is more due to because the player is a ADHD lemming.

[fgalkin]

True, but they're also very good at realpolitik, especially now. And the Pfhors can still be around, even if their player has lemminged out. I mean, the Cevaukians turned into Siege's sockpuppets, didn't they?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Mayabird]

What's interesting is that this also helps explain why the Bragulans are so willing to ally with the Refuge so quickly, despite knowing next to nothing about them except "they're not human" and "they're over there." It couldn't all be Fulcrum's good looks and impeccable taste, after all. Someone, at some point, is doublethinking/knowing that they're at a disadvantage and if the 'balance' is really pushed all the way, they'll lose. Who cares who or what the new guys are? At the very least they're more numbers.

Meanwhile, the Refuge is a third-rate power desperately trying to look like a first rate power, at least long enough to get into people's good graces and keep them from attacking while we throw ships together as fast as our strained resources can handle. We're playing as nice as we possibly can because we know we're at a huge disadvantage. Just as I had intended.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What's interesting is that this also helps explain why the Bragulans are so willing to ally with the Refuge so quickly, despite knowing next to nothing about them except "they're not human" and "they're over there." It couldn't all be Fulcrum's good looks and impeccable taste, after all. Someone, at some point, is doublethinking/knowing that they're at a disadvantage and if the 'balance' is really pushed all the way, they'll lose. Who cares who or what the new guys are? At the very least they're more numbers.

Meanwhile, the Refuge is a third-rate power desperately trying to look like a first rate power, at least long enough to get into people's good graces and keep them from attacking while we throw ships together as fast as our strained resources can handle. We're playing as nice as we possibly can because we know we're at a huge disadvantage. Just as I had intended.

We really ought to get around to deal with the first contact thingy.

[Simon_Jester]

Fima, I think it would be very, very easy to overstate the strength of the conclusions your spreadsheet justifies. Leaving Anglia out of the list, the GDP spread between the top puts the highest at no more than 7:5 compared to the lowest. Even ignoring the ground-troop issue, counting only naval strength as relevant to national strength*, then ignoring a very few outliers on the high end,** point spreads tend to be about 5:3 at worst. 5:3 odds is a recipe for defeat, but not a quick or catasrophic one, in my opinion, especially since the balance between national navies can potentially shift by five to ten thousand points during a well-executed major naval battle.

We shouldn't visualize war as having two fleets teleport into a single battlefield and annihilate each other on a 1:1 point exchange basis until whoever had the most points at the start wins.

Because of these considerations, "third rate" is a wrong term to use to describe the people on the low end of this scale, in my opinion. "Second rate," perhaps, but not "third;" third rate strongly implies a nation unable to mount a credible defense against the 'first rate' powers.
_____________

*And no, Fima, you shouldn't do this; that is an unwarranted assumption on your part. There are obvious ways to use ground forces to augment naval strength, particularly in a defensive war. Such as clustering ground troops on key planets and using their organic surface-to-space weaponry to turn said planets into fortresses. You can lose a lot of ships trying to engage something with enough concentrated defensive hardware in this universe. So far, we haven't seen it done mainly because no one's actually tried to assault or bomb out a planet defended by people who know their shit and have the money to pay for things like proper theater defense shielding or heavy surface-to-space weapons that pose a credible threat to orbiting ships. But the existence of the capability is obvious to anyone who applies even a little imagination to the problem.

**Also, I note from that list that a few players would seem to have expanded their navy out of proportion to their total GDP, putting something like 5% of overall costs into ground troops; there are expectations that you'll plow a certain percentage of your budget into ground forces, after all. Highest profile offenders seem to be Tianguo and the Cevaucians- especially the Cevaucians, and I'd call their player to task for this if he actually bothered to show up. But Tianguo is a serious problem child on this front. If we're going to neglect ground forces in a war, then those players need to be reined in by act of mod in the event that they try to use their bulked-up navy to justify pushing others around.

On a side note, Amy, your warship accounting on the wiki is a bit confusing, but it looks like you deliberately took fewer ships than you were entitled to, and Fima's accounting may be ignoring things like fixed defenses for warp gates... which matter very much in a protracted defensive war.

[Siege]

In fact, we have to assume that the Pfhors are allied to the Bragulans and are the true power in the K-Zone or there IS no balance of power. The Bragulans and the Karlacks are no match for the USS, IoM, Cevaukians and Haruhiists.

It bears pointing out that even though the Pfhor were not supposed to be part of the K-Zone per se, the idea was definitely that the Cevaukians would be far more concerned about the Pfhor than anybody else, and also highly internally unstable so you couldn't count on them to send an Overfleet every time you needed one. Then there were the Sassanids who were supposed to be aligned with the Bragulans, further evening things out.

I at least have mostly been operating under the assumption that this more or less holds true, even though obviously Moby and Thanas haven't been active. I also would like to point out that the Cevaukians are not my "sock puppet"; I wrote bits about them during the Monolith affair, but only after consultation with Moby.

[fgalkin]

Well, this list was originally made for my own use as the Lost, who have no intention (nor have the capability) to wage aggressive war, nor particularly care about ground forces. So yes, of course, the Army is important, but less so to ourselves.

And yes, this list is literally nothing more than just a listing of nations by GDP and Navy size. It's a very rough approximation of a nation's standing in global affairs, based on the size of their economy and military, but nothing more than that. It also ignores non-military considerations. For example, Altacar is one of the weakest nations in the game, in terms of GDP and military, but I would pity the grot who tries to attack them, given their status as a major trading hub.

EDIT: @ Siege: I stand corrected about the Sock Puppet issue, but they DID send a fleet to you in both the Monolith and the Chamarran incidents. 2/2 is a small sample size, but it's the only one we've got, so far.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Mayabird]

On a side note, Amy, your warship accounting on the wiki is a bit confusing, but it looks like you deliberately took fewer ships than you were entitled to, and Fima's accounting may be ignoring things like fixed defenses for warp gates... which matter very much in a protracted defensive war.

The Refuge has only been there for fifteen years or so. All but the smallest ships were built there. AND the shipyards to construct them. AND the infrastructure to support them. It's a testament to how much my poor guys can overwork themselves that they've gotten this far. That's why half my heavy and above tonnage is still under construction - it takes time to do stuff and I haven't had that time yet. And I have no complexes about entitlement and no inclination to being a munchkin so I'm fine with working at a serious disadvantage.

My accounting may also be terrible because I hate doing the numbers stuff. OOBs and stats on ship size and weaponry and so forth are boooooooooooring.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Bragulans historically aren't against the idea of destroying an irritating alien race.

And the Pfhor's lack thereof of activity is more due to because the player is a ADHD lemming.

If the Pfhor keeps the Cevaucians on their toes and makes them unable to aid the USS and IoM in a push against Bragspace, then they are comrade-nations of Bragule!

This also applies to grotesque insectoid hive-mind abominations, and adorable birdies!

[Simon_Jester]

All right, but if you ever get into a serious fight I'm gonna go over it to make sure you didn't accidentally cheat yourself unduly.

I understand all the reasons why the Refuge is in a bad strategic position, securitywise. My point is that "third rate" is an unfair description because, again, it implies a lack of the ability to mount a credible defense. Like Iraq versus the US, for instance. You are, at worst, in something more like a... Germany versus UK position. Where one country may have considerably more military strength than the other, but the margin of superiority isn't so great that the big guy can afford to get cocky.

In any war between single PC nations, we're liable to see quite a bit of caution on the part of the major fleet commanders. As Churchill said of Admiral Jellicoe, the commander of Britain's Grand Fleet during the First World War:

"The standpoint of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Grand Fleet was unique. His responsibilities were on a different scale from all others. It might fall to him as to no other man- Sovereign, Statesman, Admiral or General- to issue orders which in the space of two or three hours might nakedly decide who won the war. The destruction of the British Battle Fleet was final. Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon. First and foremost, last and dominating, in the mind of the Commander-in-Chief stood the determination not to hazard the Battle Fleet."

The British, at the time, enjoyed a naval superiority of roughly 3 to 2. While the extreme caution shown by Jellicoe* may be partly a matter of personality, it's also a consequence of the strategic situation. Superiority is all very well, but when your superiority consists of big long-lead items that take years to build and hours to destroy, you have to worry about it disappearing on you if you're careless- or even unlucky.

*(at least, as far as the extremely aggressive Churchill is concerned)

Well, this list was originally made for my own use as the Lost, who have no intention (nor have the capability) to wage aggressive war, nor particularly care about ground forces. So yes, of course, the Army is important, but less so to ourselves.

True, but everyone else needs to bear that in mind when looking at their list.

Listing nations by GDP is a much better guide to their strength than listing by naval size, because of the role played by ground troops and fixed defenses. Those factors act to limit a potential conflict- you can only lose so badly so long as you retain your fixed defenses, reinforced by land-based armies on the planets, and at least a decent proportion of your fleet survives.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The Bragulans historically aren't against the idea of destroying an irritating alien race.

And the Pfhor's lack thereof of activity is more due to because the player is a ADHD lemming.

If the Pfhor keeps the Cevaucians on their toes and makes them unable to aid the USS and IoM in a push against Bragspace, then they are comrade-nations of Bragule!

This also applies to grotesque insectoid hive-mind abominations, and adorable birdies!

If they enslave Bragulans? Would that not be an insult to Bragulanity?

[fgalkin]

Listing nations by GDP is a much better guide to their strength than listing by naval size, because of the role played by ground troops and fixed defenses. Those factors act to limit a potential conflict- you can only lose so badly so long as you retain your fixed defenses, reinforced by land-based armies on the planets, and at least a decent proportion of your fleet survives.

Which is why they ARE listed by GDP first, and the Navy size coming in only when deciding which nations with the same GDP go first (I do have a Navy ranking, but I'm not putting that up).

But yes, Eric is correct. Do be careful when making assumptions based on this list, because it's nothing more than a list of nations by GDP, and ignores almost everything else. So, it's a very very rough guide, nothing more.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Mayabird]

All right, but if you ever get into a serious fight I'm gonna go over it to make sure you didn't accidentally cheat yourself unduly.

I understand all the reasons why the Refuge is in a bad strategic position, securitywise. My point is that "third rate" is an unfair description because, again, it implies a lack of the ability to mount a credible defense. Like Iraq versus the US, for instance. You are, at worst, in something more like a... Germany versus UK position. Where one country may have considerably more military strength than the other, but the margin of superiority isn't so great that the big guy can afford to get cocky.

Eh. My big advantage in an invasion is that, being mostly spacebound, I can just move my guys out of the way. Sure, I'll lose a lot of stuff, but since the industry is already built to be somewhat mobile it won't be nearly as bad as losing an industrial world, plus I don't have to stay to defend it. Hold the enemy back long enough for the civilian and industrial ships and habs to skedaddle, and then my guys can run and hide and fight at a better time later.

As for offense? Well, note how I didn't immediately declare war against MEH when I could have, and instead went around trying to get opinion turned against them and finding allies and a lot of them to fight MEH too.

[Simon_Jester]

If they enslave Bragulans? Would that not be an insult to Bragulanity?

Yes, but to be fair, Bragulans also enslave, torture, and generally brutalize themselves. So insult can be overlooked on temporary basis.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If they enslave Bragulans? Would that not be an insult to Bragulanity?

Yes, but to be fair, Bragulans also enslave, torture, and generally brutalize themselves. So insult can be overlooked on temporary basis.

But the Bragulans do it to themselves. Horrors of horrors if other xenos do it on them!

Case in point: the Tau.

[fgalkin]

If they enslave Bragulans? Would that not be an insult to Bragulanity?

Yes, but to be fair, Bragulans also enslave, torture, and generally brutalize themselves. So insult can be overlooked on temporary basis.

But the Bragulans do it to themselves. Horrors of horrors if other xenos do it on them!

Case in point: the Tau.

Or, the Pfhor can, I dunno...not enslave Bragulans who give them vegemite and security and actually trade with them?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Or, the Pfhor can, I dunno...not enslave Bragulans who give them vegemite and security and actually trade with them?

Have a very nice day.

-fgalkin

Unless you want to rewrite a part of the Pfhor narrative, be my guest. Last I checked, they are a fairly insular empire, styling themselves as a larger version of Astaria/Pendleton.

In fact, realisticly speaking, I would have seen the Pfhor siding with Pendleton and going as far as aiding their idealogically similar brethen but hey...

[fgalkin]

We must be talking about different Pfhors, then, because I read their wiki article and see this

The state of slavery in the Pfhor Empire is curious and complex indeed.


While outlawed for about fifty years, the Pfhor have a long history of taking and making use of slaves, both of their own species and of others, and old habits, as they say, die hard. Many wealthy Pfhor nobles and corporate bosses still keep personal slaves for various uses, and in the remote asteroid mines and foundries of the colonies, usage of slaves to bolster the legitimate workforce of serfs is ubiquitous. The authorities generally ignore slaves if their usage is kept relatively quiet and inoffensive, only going after the more brazen slave dealers and owners.


Despite high demand, being a slaver is no longer as easy as it once was. The vast majority of "illegal slaves" are captured pirates or smugglers from the shoals, sold by officers of the Imperial Navy after routine interrogations for a little "supplementary income," as it is euphemistically referred to. Pfhor client races are also often kidnapped and enslaved if they try to fight against the rampant discrimination of the Pfhor. Prisoners of war, when war comes, also have a tendency to end up in the slave yards after the military is done with them.


There, in addition, remains one way that the Pfhor "legally" create slaves: as an alternative punishment for capital offenses. Instead of execution or torture, a being found guilty of such a crime can opt to become a slave, and while the Imperial Government owns essentially all of these slaves, some find their way into the hands of private owners. This bondage currently extends to all children that such a slave might bear after their bondage begins, this being a highly controversial point within the Archcovenant presently, with many calling for its end.

Outlawing slavery and then kinda sorta looking the other way is not the same thing as proudly supporting it in vein of Pendleton, last I checked.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Outlawing slavery and then kinda sorta looking the other way is not the same thing as proudly supporting it in vein of Pendleton, last I checked.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Look, Phfor pretty much dropped the get go before the game even really started on its full swing, so we will never know will we? And honestly, since when have states been entirely consistent with their policies publicly and under the table? Do I honestly have to quote modern examples? The Pfhor as it is are galactic pariahs or at least pariahs in their neighbourhood and I highly doubt they would want a precedent to be set.