Steam and Steel: Grand Rules Thread

[Dahak]

My thoughts on this would be that longer trade routes are kept up on a turn by turn basis, and the protection should go with it (I'm assuming that ships are going back and forth hauling food, cotton, etc... - the way real shipping does). I do agree that certain very close routes (me and Beowulf being a good one) coastal patrols should help minimize pirate/enemy action just by themselves. But many routes are longer and will pass through third parties territory. While my country isn't likely impacted (Beowulf is about the only person who might need to zip through my territory for anywhere else), Dahak might decide to only protect certain countries shipping through his waters while everyone else is on their own. Or he might ask for some type of fee for providing anti-piracy protection in his waters (I would. I'm a small colony and not a superpower acting as a world policeman)

Of course I'll charge ships coming through the Sunda Strait. I did even ask about it in the main thread. I'm not stupid enough to not charge people for one of the busiest straits around...
And of course, I'll protect it, but luckily for me it isn't a very long Strait to protect, unlike for instance the Strait of Malacca.

[Thirdfain]

My thoughts on this would be that longer trade routes are kept up on a turn by turn basis, and the protection should go with it

Absolutely not. Let's say that you go to war in the 2nd month of the game- you can have had no protection whatsoever on a threatened trade route before that point, but nothing would stop you from shifting forces to guard a threatened route. Assuming the war ended in a couple of weeks, you could then shift the forces away- why limit players to a turn-by-turn basis? It's just silly.

But many routes are longer and will pass through third parties territory. While my country isn't likely impacted (Beowulf is about the only person who might need to zip through my territory for anywhere else), Dahak might decide to only protect certain countries shipping through his waters while everyone else is on their own.

With the sizes of fleets we are deploying (quite small,) it's impossible to protect constantly the entire length of our trade lanes. Rather, I suspect that guarding trade lanes will involve hunting down any enemy squadrons sent to raid.

Or he might ask for some type of fee for providing anti-piracy protection in his waters (I would. I'm a small colony and not a superpower acting as a world policeman)

Sure.

[A-Wing_Slash]

Here's a newbie question I have on trading resources:

If I have a resource, coal for example, and I trade it with someone else for another resourse, for example sulfur, do I then count as having both coal and sulfur available to me that turn? Or did I trade away all my coal for that turn, leaving me with just the sulfur I traded for?

[Thirdfain]

Here's a newbie question I have on trading resources:

If I have a resource, coal for example, and I trade it with someone else for another resourse, for example sulfur, do I then count as having both coal and sulfur available to me that turn? Or did I trade away all my coal for that turn, leaving me with just the sulfur I traded for?

You have enough of each resource for 2 people. I.E, you'd have both sulfur AND Coal. You could also trade your remaining coal to a 3rd player, and no longer have any coal whatsoever!

[A-Wing_Slash]

Here's a newbie question I have on trading resources:

If I have a resource, coal for example, and I trade it with someone else for another resourse, for example sulfur, do I then count as having both coal and sulfur available to me that turn? Or did I trade away all my coal for that turn, leaving me with just the sulfur I traded for?

You have enough of each resource for 2 people. I.E, you'd have both sulfur AND Coal. You could also trade your remaining coal to a 3rd player, and no longer have any coal whatsoever!

Thanks

[Crossroads Inc.]

<_<
>_>

When do we get to "Next Turn" ? I'm eager for more points to spend

[Beowulf]

<_<
>_>

When do we get to "Next Turn" ? I'm eager for more points to spend

The game has to start first.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I thought it already had with the Diplomacy thread. Though I guess it really can't till everyone posts in the OOB thread.

[Cincinnatus]

Here's a newbie question I have on trading resources:

If I have a resource, coal for example, and I trade it with someone else for another resourse, for example sulfur, do I then count as having both coal and sulfur available to me that turn? Or did I trade away all my coal for that turn, leaving me with just the sulfur I traded for?

You have enough of each resource for 2 people. I.E, you'd have both sulfur AND Coal. You could also trade your remaining coal to a 3rd player, and no longer have any coal whatsoever!

If we trade away all of a luxury resource, do we report the sale twice for a greater economic effect but lose the stability bonus we'd normally get, or do we just get the normal economic effect without the stability bonus?

[Thirdfain]

If we trade away all of a luxury resource, do we report the sale twice for a greater economic effect but lose the stability bonus we'd normally get, or do we just get the normal economic effect without the stability bonus?

Normal economic effect without the stab bonus; after all, you are trading the stuff for chunks of coal or iron or whatever, not cold cash.

[Pablo Sanchez]

A point about shipping--
The current "one-size-fits-all" rules for shipping don't really fit, in my opinion. For example, a nation's quarterly consumption of luxury goods would consume far less physical volume than something like coal or iron, so I think perhaps there ought to be a modification of the rules.

Something like,
Iron, Coal, Cotton, and Food require 500 shipping units.
Sulfur and Rares require 250 shipping units.
Luxury goods (opium, silk, and spices) require 100 shipping units.

I think this would have the benefit of rationalizing the system, and also making goods that are realistically more attractive trade goods better in the game. If this causes us to have too much starting shipping, we could change that figure.

Also, I have to admit that I'm quite biased on this matter, because I'm trying to set myself up as a trading nation. Any thoughts?

[Thirdfain]

An excellent point; the thought had occured to me, but I was concerned about over-complexity. However, your system does not seem too bad.

Your system would yeild the following results when applied to my trades:

Food -500
Steel -500
Coal -500

When applied to, say, YOUR trades, they yeild similar results:

Sulfur: 250
Rares: 250
Cotton: 500
Coal: 500

Hmmm.
I supposed I'd edit down the shipping tonnage to 1700. This seems like a pretty good idea. Any concerns/questions/problems?

[Pablo Sanchez]

This one is reaching a bit more, but...

I was discussing something with Nitram on the score of super-science research. IIRC current rules for research is that it goes on as adjunct to re-investment; you spend coal, iron, and points to build extra industry and then throw rares in to advance scientifically.

I thought that if one had rares but not the other industrial goods, or if one had surplus rares, they could be used in a pure research capacity. As in, you could spend some amount of points and a unit of rares, and it would have no payoff in the form of increased industry but it would give you another dice roll (maybe at a lower probability) to gain a scientific advancement. You could have as many research projects running concurrently as you had rares, but they would have to be targetted at different things... that is, no giving yourself 2 or 3 chances per turn to develop a given tech (logically you wouldn't have multiple teams researching the same thing).

Possibly this one is more "out there" but I think it bears discussion.

[Adrian Laguna]

Scientific growth and advancement is in many ways tied to industrial growth. Consider steam engines: growing industrialization causes greater need for coal, which creates a market for devices that can help its extraction, thus the steam engine. The steam engine, in turn, spurs more industrial growth. This faster growing industry now requires large quantities of metal to build machinery that runs of the new steam engine, steel suits this purpose very well but it is hard to make. Bessemer process steps-up to solve the problem. And so on and so forth. It's always the industrial powerhouses that are also the big advancers of science.

[Pablo Sanchez]

So you're saying that it's impossible for a nation to foster scientific growth without at the same time enacting industrial expansion.

[Adrian Laguna]

I'm saying industrial growth and scientific advancement tend to complement eachother and I think it is better to keep the current rules regarding that.

Can you give real life examples of nations fostering scientific growth without accompanying industrial growth? During the Victorian period, preferably.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So you're saying that it's impossible for a nation to foster scientific growth without at the same time enacting industrial expansion.

Not impossible, but look at the time frame we are playing in. Sure, today when we have labs devoted to pure science for science sake, you can do advancement without a large industry driving it. However at the turn of the century, no Science was largely based upon new Industry. Much of what was discovered came from people trying to make a buck with big business as opposed to someone tinkering in a lab...
Not that there are not several obvious exceptions, but in general.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Can you give real life examples of nations fostering scientific growth without accompanying industrial growth? During the Victorian period, preferably.

This is an incredibly obtuse request for evidence, rendered completely useless by the false cause fallacy, because apparently one doesn't have to demonstrate any connection between the industrial growth and technological advancements occurring at the same time. It's cute that all of the examples of new technologies you cited happened to be industrial technologies, and I find it absolutely fascinating that you didn't even think about how that fact might affect the value of your analysis.

Shall we ignore advancements in theoretical science, as well as more concrete innovations like incandescent lighting, the telegraph, radios, phonograph, motion picture recorder, pasteurization, the germ theory of disease, etc. etc. etc. which had little or nothing to do with industry? Are the innovations of military-aimed projects like bolt action rifles, maxim guns, canned food, developed by government fiat and quite separate from industrial concerns, also to be dismissed? (and yes, you can consider all those my real life examples of Victorian inventions that had little or nothing to do with industrial expansion)

Or, to look at it from the other side of the glass, shall we assume that inventions that have little or nothing to do with industry should result only from industrial development? Oh, to live in a world where constructing new cement factories causes the spontaneous development of semi-automatic pistols.

Finally, even if you were right why would this necessarily preclude any possibility of government funding by research? Plenty of military technologies (as cited above) were invented thanks to the promise of government funding, and had the United States Navy demanded a newer, more efficient chemical battery, would they have found themselves restrained by some invisible hand from funding research by Edison or Tesla? I sincerely doubt it.

[Adrian Laguna]

Thank you, point withdrawn.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Thank you, point withdrawn.

Well, I don't think your point is totally without merit as a large part of innovation was driven by industry--but I also think the objection is offset by the points system.

Look at it this way: If somebody pays for 100 points of industrial development and tosses in rares, he gains a concrete benefit independent of Thirdfain's dice roll. Even if the research fails, he has 25 more points to spend next turn. He hasn't really lost anything but the value of the rares. But if he funds a research team unrelated to the industrial development, costing him a unit of rares and some number of points (to be determined, I think) and it also fails, he's taken a dead loss on the points he spent. It's a riskier proposition.

[Thirdfain]

I like it. Up to 10% of your turn's points can be spent on applied research. 40 points will net you a 20% chance of landing an advance, scaling arithmatically down from there. Sound good?

[Adrian Laguna]

I've been discussing destroyers with Thirdfain. He has suggested that the discussion be moved here so that we all can weigh on it.

I start with this, contesting his claim that destroyers have very short range.

I made a TBD design in Spring Sharp. It's got a range of 2250 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 9 knots. That's not very short.

Give me historical examples. That'll count.

Havock class destroyer, 3000 nm according to wikipedia. Battleships-Cruisers.co.uk lists the same range.

Pick an example from the allowed time period, please? 1892 is the cut-off in terms of capability. Havock does not fit within that range; the only really good example which does is an old Spanish boat (whose name I can't remember, Destructor, I think,) which was launched in the late 1880's.

Game-legal example, please

The tone of the reply the follows is unwarranted. I was going to change it, but Thirdfain got to it before I could delete it and write it over.

The technology difference between the British who launched Havock and the nations we're starting with is nil. Fact of the matter is that prior to the Havok class TBDs were rare, very rare. The Spanish destroyer? Well, they only built one. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if prior to the Havock class the only TBDs in the world were Destructor and Kotaka. The reason? Shitty range. If we're going to employ TBDs on a large scale (and by that I mean a lot more than a couple of prototypes on opposite sides of the world) then we need to base them on Havock, not Destructor.

Of course, the tone in Thirdfain's reply was definitely warranted in light of what he recieved.

Too. Fucking. Bad. These are based on Destructor and Katoka, with all the limitations that implies. TBD's are supposed to be a new idea, very much in it's infancy. These aren't the destroyers of World War 1. Live with it.

Damn, and just when I was about to bring the hostility in my message way down.

Anyway, there's no data on how much range they have. But it depends a lot on cruising speed and fuel bunkerage. I made a ship on SpringSharp (well, it's probably not an infallible program, but it seems pretty good) that's as close as I can to Destructor based on the little data avaliable. To get as much range as Havock with similar cruising speed you need between 40-50 tons of fuel. This seems well within the capabilities of the desgins of the era.

And I know these aren't the destroyers of the Great War, I'm arguing for the destroyers of the late Victorian era. Which have pretty good range.

Let's move this discussion to the Grand Rules Thread. This should be placed on the altar of public opinion.

So here we are.


My position as it stands now:
I think that torpedo boat destroyers are not as short-ranged as Thirdfain thinks. For one thing, range is very highly dependent on cruising speeds. Going faster kills range, slower lengthens range. One should also take notice of what is meant by "short range" exactly. TBDs are primarily meant to escort capital ships. During this time period the max range of the ships of the line would have been ~5000 nm. If the destroyers can only manage 1500-2000 nm they are comparatively short-ranged.

1890 is something of a difficult year, since it's in the gap between the invention of the Torpedo Boat, and the effective Destroyers with decent range needed to counter them. Taking a look at people's OOBs in general, it seems like the general player assumption is that their destroyers will be capable of keeping up with their battle-line. Since most have a number of destroyers that's about right for the purpose of forming a screening force for the main combatants. With the Great War in Europe, the concept of the destroyer should be well proven by now, and even far away colonies know of it.

What I'm trying to say is, in the real 1890 there were no effective TBDs yet. Not for another three years. However, it is mostly because nobody bothered to build any rather than technological barriers. There's been a huge war in this alternate time-line, and even if the faraway colonies are incapable of reproducing most of the advances that occured during this war, such simple ideas as "torpedo boats work" and "so do torpedo boat destroyers" should have disseminated. Like I said, getting good range in these a TBD is not hard. 40-50 tons of coal allows a 380-ton ship to have a range of ~3000 nm at a decent cruising speed.

[Raesene]

Did the russian second pacific fleet of 1904/05 also include torpedo boats/destroyers ? I think so, but I'm not sure.
I don't have the book at hand, but I read the fleet transferred coal from german steamers at sea, so that should be possible (and if we have a large european war in our history, that could also have been done before)

So range might not be a factor...

comments ?

[Adrian Laguna]

Did the russian second pacific fleet of 1904/05 also include torpedo boats/destroyers ? I think so, but I'm not sure.
I don't have the book at hand, but I read the fleet transferred coal from german steamers at sea, so that should be possible (and if we have a large european war in our history, that could also have been done before)

So range might not be a factor...

comments ?

I actually asked about supply ships prior to the exchange I posted. Here is his reply, since I believe he's right on this point:

Supply ships are all well and good, but underway coaling is an incredibly difficult operation in this area- the Russians tried it when sailing their Baltic Fleet to the Pacific, and got in huge trouble. Most coaling in this era is going to be in port. Coaling on the high seas, especially with small vessels, is risky and innefficient.

As for the ships in the fleet: the Russians did not have any destroyers, but I'm not suggesting that DDs can make it all the way from the Baltic to the North Pacific.

[Raesene]

I'd expect the unprotected cruisers to fulfil the role of latter day destroyers, but if you plan an all-out assault (or are desperate), coal transfer at sea can be done (maybe some losses occur because of the difficulties, a battleship rams and sinks a TB or two...)

I have been toying with the idea of a replenishment ship, but have to think about that a bit more - something about a 'tower' and a slope from where the coal sacks slide to the replenished ship along a reinforced cotton slope - is something like that be feasible ? or am I fantazising ?)

(and for me, my TBDs are new and experimental, that's why I have only five of them )