Modern World STGOD Concept

[Beowulf]

Rogue, Shinn, E_F, & Steve:

Any interest in a Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and a Pacific Severe Weather Prediction Center?

Similarly, anyone else interested in a Joint Atlantic Typhoon Warning Center?

Rheinland doesn't get Typhoons, but would be interested in it because Rheinland likes getting weather data.

Observed weather data sharing is likely the province of a World Meterological Organization, rather than multi-national or national weather centers. Forecast data requires computing power, and often costs.

[Siege]

Well, it does sound spectacular. I'm game.

Sweet. Looking at the map and recalling some earlier conversations in this thread, I believe the idea was that Britonia had colonies on the south of the continent? Steve drew up a map of Omnia at its zenith. I would propose that at some point in the second half of the 19th century Britonia took over the part from the southern coast all the way up to the great lake.

Then at the end of the Eighty Years War Granadia took advantage of the total collapse of Britonia and conquered the place with an expeditionary force. Omnia protested; Granadia ignored them, and in response Omnia marched their army into the north of their former territory. A decades long low-intensity war developed during which Granadia's well-trained colonial troops slowly but surely pushed the Omnians back to their own border.

Up to this point San Doradan corporations had done little more than their usual contracting and war-profiteering. But then Granadian troops started crossing into Omnia proper. And despite the best efforts of San Doradan mercenaries the Omnian defense began to collapse, to the point where at some point the Granadians were blitzing their way toward the Omnian capital of Temple Cliff. The fall of the Omnian Empire seemed a matter of weeks, maybe days.

This was when the Gang of Seven began to issue a series of increasingly stern warnings. "Don't. No, don't. Seriously, don't." The Granadians ignored them. This, it turned out, was a mistake. Bellamy Night, the owner of San Dorado's largest privateer Nightfall Armada Inc., made the city-state's grievances abundantly clear by sailing a remote-operated freighter loaded with an equivalent force of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT worth of explosives into one of Granadia's largest harbors, and detonating it.

I figure this cataclysmic hit may have been slightly demoralizing for Granadia. Omnia stabilized its defense, privateers started harassing Granadian troop ships and such, and after a bit the tides turned and Granadia was pushed out of Omnia and away from the great lake shores.

Something along those lines?

[Force Lord]

Well, it does sound spectacular. I'm game.

Sweet. Looking at the map and recalling some earlier conversations in this thread, I believe the idea was that Britonia had colonies on the south of the continent? Steve drew up a map of Omnia at its zenith. I would propose that at some point in the second half of the 19th century Britonia took over the part from the southern coast all the way up to the great lake.

Then at the end of the Eighty Years War Granadia took advantage of the total collapse of Britonia and conquered the place with an expeditionary force. Omnia protested; Granadia ignored them, and in response Omnia marched their army into the north of their former territory. A decades long low-intensity war developed during which Granadia's well-trained colonial troops slowly but surely pushed the Omnians back to their own border.

Up to this point San Doradan corporations had done little more than their usual contracting and war-profiteering. But then Granadian troops started crossing into Omnia proper. And despite the best efforts of San Doradan mercenaries the Omnian defense began to collapse, to the point where at some point the Granadians were blitzing their way toward the Omnian capital of Temple Cliff. The fall of the Omnian Empire seemed a matter of weeks, if not days.

This was when the Gang of Seven began to issue a series of increasingly stern warnings. "Don't. No, don't. Seriously, don't." The Granadians ignored them. This, it turned out, was a mistake. Bellamy Night, the owner of San Dorado's largest privateer Nightfall Armada Inc., made the city-state's grievances abundantly clear by sailing a remote-operated freighter loaded with an equivalent force of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT worth of explosives into one of Granadia's largest harbors, and detonating it.

I figure this cataclysmic hit may have been slightly demoralizing for Granadia. Omnia stabilized its defense, privateers started harassing Granadian troop ships and such, and after a bit the tides turned and Granadia was pushed out of Omnia and away from the great lake shores.

Something along those lines?

Sounds fine. Could reconcile nicely with what I want and what Steve is planning.

[Simon_Jester]

Those crazy San Doradans and their GLORIOUS PIRATE SUBMARINES!

I'm pretty sure Champa would be on that like a hot plate of grilled crab

Anything that gives them a few extra minutes to dive for cover and/or pray, eh?

You know, Umeria might actually negotiate electricity-sharing arrangements with Champa, in which case the Champans get the benefit of (some of the) power of a thorium reactor, but this time any anticipated nuclear meltdowns happen in someone else's land... someone comfortably downwind.

I've been wondering about weather patterns.

This is the larger ocean currents as I think they'd be laid out, assuming earth equivalent size density, rotation, Coriolis forces ect.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/641 ... Oceans.png

Dear sweet King of Dual-Wielding Monkey Spirits, my north coast is freaking tornado alley!

[Eternal_Freedom]

Huh, I look pretty safe, excellent

Do we have a broad-strokes global timeline at all? So I know where things like that Second Great World WAr or the 80s years war happen in relation to each other.

[Simon_Jester]

Simultaneously, since the first was part of the second?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Sweet. What about other major events?

[KlavoHunter]

What do we want to do with the gray/brown areas in the middle of the 'American' continent? Nobody's claimed them and it seems perhaps a bit difficult to squish the map down now...

[Thanas]

MY ORBAT AND COUNTRY POLITICAL INTRODUCTION IS FINISHED, meaning my country is ready to play. I'll start by posting pieces of it.

As always, it helps to have themapon a second screen.

The economy of Rheinland
- Excerpts from an unnamed San Doradoan intelligence report -

Some say guns make nations. You, valuable messers, know better than that. You know coin rules nations. And so does Rheinland.

Rheinland's economy is based on two things: Technical knowledge and the industrial base to use that knowledge. Rheinland is a world leader in many industrial categories and likes to think of itself as the largest export nation in the world, or as they term themselves, Exportweltmeister. A lesser known fact is their acute need of resource import, specifically metals, rare earths, coal and oil. This combination of import and export has lead to Rheinland needing control of their sealanes, from which most of their strategic plans derive. While it is estimated that much of that demand -certainly enough to have a war economy- could be satisfied by domestic resource extraction, this is cost prohibitive to a normal economy due to a variety of factors including but not limited to labour costs, difficulty of access and/or environmental concerns.

Due to Rhenish laws, all cargo operated in Rheinland space must be carried by Rheinland ships unless the other nation has an exception. This protectionism of the merchant fleet ensures thusly that Rheinland keeps one of the largest merchant navies on the planet.

Rheinland prides itself on its highly effective train system as well as the rivers and canals dotting their landscapes, forming a highly efficient transport system in concert with the fabled Autobahnen.

Rheinland's economy is characterized by a mutual process of labor and management working together for the good of the company, with labour having multiple seats at the management council table... [45 pages of legalese cut]

List of major companies
[list of standard civilian companies omitted, think Daimler Benz, Siemens and other typical German companies here)

Rheinland's economy is based on the export of high-tech products, mainly cars, electronics, pharmaceuticy, chemicals, machinery, aircraft, military hardware and other high tech goods. Rheinland companies are battling for first positions in nearly all those fields listed, though their service sector is underdeveloped to other nations. At its heart, the country is still an industrial one that views the service and financial sector with distrust.

A few of their most recognized companies include JHD Flugzeugbau, the consortium founded in 1970 by amalgamating all major Rheinland civilian manufacturers (Junkers, Heinkel, Dornier). JHD is considered the second-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world and has since branched out into both civilian and military hardware. The companies lines of succesful civilian models (somewhat less imaginatively named 3XX series) will soon be completed with the planned introduction of the JHD 380, the world's first Superjumbo, with which JHD hopes to make the jump towards being the worlds biggest airliner manufacturer. JHD is semi-state owned.

The other major aircraft company is Rheinland Flugzeugwerke (RFW). They produce mainly military aircraft, including almost all combat aircraft of the Rheinland Force. In recent years, their Steinadler and Habicht projects have garnered much criticism for delays and cost overruns, necessitating a purchase of allegedly substandard JHD designs to replace aging airframes.

Much rumour's afoot about a secret collaboration between the two companies codenamed Kolibri. We have been unable to find out any more about this, as none of the usual JHD test pilots knew anything about that and the identities of RFW test pilots are kept secret.

Though over a dozen airlines operate in Rheinland space, the flag carrier is the Großbremen-based Lufthansa.

(list of army companies cut, see Orbat for that)

The free city of Großbremen is the premier producer of warships for the Navies. Its main company, Bremer Vulkan AG (BV) , owns four major drydocks capable of producing 100+k ships and is often claimed to be one of, if not the biggest shipyard in the world. Very rarely is not one of the docks in military use. Bremer Vulkan is one of the world's premier manufacturers of cruise ships and of high-tech civilian ships.

It's main competitor, Rheinland Schiffbau (RS) holds major facilities in the heart of Rheinland, the ocean-going capability of the Rhine allowing ships to be built even in cities hundreds of miles removed from the coast.

Nordrheinischer Lloyd is the prermier operator of cruiseships in Rheinland and operates the only four ocean liners left in Rheinland, who are mainly kept alive by the transit between Ostrheinland and Rheinland proper. There are half a dozen smaller shipping companies vying for their market share as well.

• General overview of the various regions of the empire:
  - The North and northeast are filled with legendary riches, but most of those are not worth it with current tech to go after. Aside from the Diamond mines and the state-owned Oil/gas/mineral fields for the strategic reserve there is almost no mining going on, preserving the legendary beauty of the north and its mountains. The cities of Eisenstadt (iron and rare metal) and Johannesburg (diamond mines) are the exception to that rule.
  - The Free City of Großbremen controls the north of Rheinland, with its close allies the free Cities of Ostrograd and Bergen. Großbremen is the major shipbuilding centre, a city of 12 million the largest port of Rheinland, controlling the trade routes to the west. Großbremen citizens hold a view of San Dorado that is unique in the world - in their view our fair city is merely a bad copy of their own, though it is hard to differentiate if that is said in earnest or just bad ribbing.
  - The Rhein valley (an area located behind the capital Rhenania) is the industrial heartland of Rheinland, the result of massive relocation of industry during the 80 years war.
  - Due to the conscious decision to give up the south to bombing during the 80 years war, the South was turned from the secondary heartland of Rheinland into the backwater. The only noteworthy industry remaining from that time are harbours and industries fed from the Rhein valley, with stretches of railroads connecting the parts (in addition to river barges). However, in recent years a conscious effort has been made to relocate industry to the south again to ease up the stress on the Rhein Valley, which has almost hit max capacity. Of note is the city of Rhenania antiqua, the major tourist destination within Rheinland.
  - Westrheinland (formerly Britonia) main products are agriculture and education, as the old universities were allowed to keep functioning. Britonia suffers from a decline in manufacturing since outsourcing became popular.
  - Ostrheinland (formerly Nippon) has become a major exporter of foodstuffs and cultural items, which for some odd reasons the youths of Rheinland and other nations seem to love. Ostrheinland is - alongside Rheinland proper - the main winner of the 80-years-war, though they were on the losing side. They are heavily industrialized and specialize in elecronics, optronics, robotics and other high-tech goods, with Rheinland propaganda claiming this to be the result of 50 years of re-education and investment. It will be interesting to see if - and how - Rheinland manages to hold on to a nation so far away, a nation that - unlike Britonia - would be able to stand on its own. The newly elected Chancellor is expected to handle that problem within his first term, though skeptics doubt if he will be able to do so.
  
  Major trade partners
  UOCSR - resource trading in return for machinery, Rheinland companies also outsourced there in the 70s
  Hawaiʻi - major vacation destination for Ostrheinland
  San Dorado - diamonds and industrial goods in return for industrial goods?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Thanas, as you are a major importer of metals and rare-earths, and Orion is a major exporter of those and a major importer of consumer electronics and luxury foodstuffs, what would you say to a profitable trading partnership?

Also, just so I know, how detailed do my economic history/OrBat have to be? And could someone give me some advice on the later, I'm rather an armchair admiral in such matters.

[Thanas]

Thanas, as you are a major importer of metals and rare-earths, and Orion is a major exporter of those and a major importer of consumer electronics and luxury foodstuffs, what would you say to a profitable trading partnership?

That would work fine, all things Rheinland needs and sells. (Now if only you would stop with the whole "you-sole-britonia-from-us" business.grumblegrumble).

Also, just so I know, how detailed do my economic history/OrBat have to be? And could someone give me some advice on the later, I'm rather an armchair admiral in such matters.

I think nobody needs to have a very detailed economy or Orbat. I just like to do one because I am kinda anal about that. But if you want I can either do one for you or you can simply copy mine when it is published and revise the numbers. I think a good general rule on part of all players would be to assume competence, meaning that even if the other player does not explicitly says "we have anti-air" it would be bad form to then go "well, free reign for my bombers then", because every nation has some form of anti-air.

My own orbat will just be hugely detailed because I feel that it gives me a set of rules to follow and provides for storylines, but that is just me.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If I may, I will use yours as a basis.

Now, a few other thoughts have occurred to me. I already have Orion declaring war on Britonia in 1941 in response to their bombing campaign, but I think it would be good if Orion had actually fought.

Perhaps Britonia had other colonies on that big empty continent next to me, that we might have neutralised in order to help ease pressure on you. That would give me a chance to work in some naval/ground combat into my history and make it more reasonable for us to claim Britonia's territory if we've already taken some of it. The combat would also let me better justify our fetish for drone warfare.

Of course, the "we claim it all" is mostly rhetoric that's blowing up in recent years as we become more fascist. However, we're still pragmatists, so if we have to drop rhetoric to do business, that works for me.

[Thanas]

Nah, don't drop the rhetoric, it's what makes this interesting. Besides, Rheinland probably figured a lot of it is just brouhaha for internal consumption. Just looking at the map distances makes enforcing any such claim rather difficult.

As to the history, I think that would work just fine. Maybe drones being favored due to horrendous losses suffered when going up against fortified positions. I figure even if the Britonian troops left there were just a few colonial milita regiments (the majority of the Amry having been annihilated by Rheinland when they could not evacuate the Rheinland continent) they would still have put up a heavy fight simply due to experience against unexperienced troops.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Funnily enough that was exactly my thinking, especially as it would be the first war Orion fought in, so the scientific, rational populace object to spending valuable Orion lives for a moral point. It would lead to a change in policy; from occupying the colonies to eliminating them. Capture them, deport the civilians and raze the colonies to the ground.

Fits in with my "Eternal War" rhetoric.

Drones also gives me an advantage; my shipyards aren't as large as yours, so our carriers aren't as big. However, with UCAV's being smaller and more expendable than manned fighters we can carry more of them. I'm also thinking that in our naval combat we pioneered anti-ship missiles, like those radar-guided bombs the real-life Germans used (the Fritz-X was it? something like that) and we then developed from there.

[Thanas]

Rheinland could sell you carriers if need be. And of course the tradeoff to UCAVs is that they utterly suck in air combat, so I don't know how much value (if any) they will actually have. You might be better off using long range bombers with sophisticated anit-ship missiles then, the soviet model, only better.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's a good point. Then again, I think I got the wrong term. I'm thinking of remote-controlled drones rather than true UCAVs.

As for selling carriers, it's a possibility. We have yards to build 60k+ ships, but something larger may be interesting to the Orion Navy in future.

Purely because of my own interest in them, I may yet decide to have some Orion Admirals invest in a nuclear-powered battleship or two. Purely for the awesome.

Hey, thats a thought. How viable are our thorium reactors for naval use?

[Skywalker_T-65]

I would hope they're viable since Arcadia has nuclear powered Battleships

Which means they could potentially sell them, but that depends on how common the things are. If only Arcadia and (maybe) Orion invest in them, they could become something that the Navy refuses to let be sold, for the military security if nothing else.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The hell with it, yes, Orion has maintained dreadnought battleships since the end of the war and is currently investigating building a limited number of new, more advanced vessels. To gain the benefit of modern technology being integrated from the start rather than during upgrades.

[Thanas]

That's a good point. Then again, I think I got the wrong term. I'm thinking of remote-controlled drones rather than true UCAVs.

Same problem - too slow, not enough firepower etc. Heck, we are doing this in 2000 and even now in 2014 there is no viable combat drone - not even with over a decade of war funding pushing for it. Drones are just not good for fighting a war against somebody who can contest airspace at all. If Pakistan was willing to do they could probably stop every US drone with their outdated air force.

Hey, thats a thought. How viable are our thorium reactors for naval use?

I think we decided earlier nuclear power was viable.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, nuclear power is feasible with thorium reactors. I've no idea if they can be scaled down to fit into a carrier, battleship or submarine hull. Oh well.

Yeah you're probably right about drones. May have to still have manned fighters on the carriers then, but they probably won't be the primary naval striking arm.

While we can't have SSBN's I think a large SSGN would be useful addition to my cruise-misile-spam plans, in conjunction with bombers. Something like the Ohio conversions or the Russian Oscars.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

It may be a bit (probably very) late for me to voice my objections, but I was never keen on the year 2000 being the starting date. A lot of our histories only make nebulous references to "the present day," while Force Lord's history of Granadia explicitly goes up to 2014. Depending on what some of us have in mind for our orders of battle, we may end up with tons of anachronistic hardware.

[Thanas]

Good point, but combat-ready drones are a thing of the future no matter whether it is 2000 or 2014.

I'll post my orbat in a few hours if nobody wants to talk about Rheinland economy anymore. But again, my orbat is hugely detailed and should not be taken as a requirement - last thing I would want is push players away because they do not want to spend hours formulting an Orbat. Nor should anyone suffer negatives because he does not want to do so.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I doubt that's the only thing Shinn is concerned about.

Here's an idea. Since we already have a total alternate history and world map, we could say that we have 2014-level technology, but we're simply using the 2000 date for convenience.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

SOP for SDN Worlds 1 and 2 was simply "use the current RL year as the in-game starting year" (in both of those games' cases, 2008). It worked perfectly well there, and I don't see why we shouldn't do the same here. The start date is an ultimately minor issue, though, so I'll be fine with whatever the mods declare for the most part.

[Thanas]

THat would force me to redo my Orbat so I'll wait for Steve/Siege to decide here....