SDNWorld Redux - Casting Call & Planning

[Raj Ahten]

So any countries you'd like to see OBATS done for to help with sizing of nations?

South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and perhaps Sweden or some other place would be useful. Brazil could be good as well. Basically a better picture of what small states with decent militaries and larger states like Brazil are fielding would be helpful.

[Siege]

Since I'm strongly considering playing as a Singapore type city-state I'd be very interested in how their military looks.

[MKSheppard]

We need better rules regarding playable nations, to avoid the mass of usless nations we had in this one, such as Enderistan, whose player made a grand total of just one post.

[Lonestar]

I hereby announce the Old Dominion, with Lonestar, Lord Fairfax reigning.


What are the sizes again lol

[MKSheppard]

I announce the nation of Shepcrackistan, ruled by Ahmad bin Faisal Al-Sheppard; or something else (prelimianry only)

[The Yosemite Bear]

Remind me to nominate STEVE for senator in time for the next game getting started.

[RogueIce]

We need better rules regarding playable nations, to avoid the mass of usless nations we had in this one, such as Enderistan, whose player made a grand total of just one post.

Pretty much it goes, you declare within the first game year (or at least if you know you'll be out before we get around to that but you've been active in OOC or whatever you could get a waiver) or you're out of luck for this game.

Don't know what to do if people simply drop out altogether.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Since I'm strongly considering playing as a Singapore type city-state I'd be very interested in how their military looks.

Are you sure you want to? Our army is soft like hell. We'd be lucky to fight half as well as the Israelis do.

Not to mention, we make IRT look ... simple.

By the way, Shep, you need to update Singapore's figures with 60 or so Leopard 2A4s.

[Zor]

On the subject of SD.net's world, Might i sugjest raising the Population of the Ducthies to 1 Million First World, 2 million Second World and doubling their landmasses acordingly?

Zor

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

On the subject of SD.net's world, Might i sugjest raising the Population of the Ducthies to 1 Million First World, 2 million Second World and doubling their landmasses acordingly?

Zor

A population of 3 million is too small. Better to have it the size of Sweden so that they can still exercise some degree of politics and mean something.

[Vohu Manah]

I guess I'll rejoin the game. However I still don't have a new name or a concept (waiting for final Dutchy specifications).

[Coyote]

The Spain model worked well for me.

How about this? A sliding scale of points--

A person gets points based on their post count, and you can spend it on land size, industrial might, population, and military professionalism.

So if you put a few points in industrialism, but a lot of points in military professionalism, you have a great military but they have to buy their stuff elsewhere.

You can also, for example, decrease land size to increase population, industrialization, and wealth and have a crowded nation (1980's Japan), like.

Or spend points on massive land area, medium population, medium industry, lower overall wealth, and have late Soviet Union.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, I agree with the postcount spending idea. This way we can get diverse nations.

[Coyote]

We should establish a baseline average-- if you go with "medium" point spending on everything, you get the country "as is", basically the stock countries as originally envisioned.

But you can re-jigger certain categories. How about:

Population
Land Area
GDP
Industrial Capacity
Military Professionalism


So you start out with 20% of your points in each category.

But you can take, say, the following:
15% Population
15% Land Area
30% GDP
15% Industrial Capacity
25% Military Professionalism

So you have a smaller nation (the next "size" down, maybe, from Tsardom to Kingdom?) with a smaller population...

Their GDP is high, but it must be from tech, tourism, raw materials, or agriculture, because the Industrialism is lower than usual, too.

They have a very capable military, however-- although with lower-than-average industry, they are probably buying their high-grade material from overseas (ie, tanks, planes, etc).

If someone chose to have zero industry, then they are buying pretty much everything from overseas, they have no domestic production. Neverhood might have been like this, for example.

[MKSheppard]

My rough sketch -- I've stolen heavily from Pakistan, with some Iran, some North Korea, and some Iraq mixed in for spice:

Shepistan

Formal Name: The Islamic Republic of Shepistan[/b]
Leader: President-for-life Pervez bin Takim al-Sheppard

Population:
Land Area:
GDP:
Per Capita GDP:



Military:

Shepistani Army
Active Duty: 555,000
Reserves:500,000 (obligation to 45, officers to 50)

9 Corps HQs
2 Armored Divisions
19 Infantry Divisions
26 Independent Brigades

Army Inventory
1,100 x T-55 clones
400 x T-62 Clones
275 x T-72 Equivalents
320 x T-80 Equivalents
45 x T-90 Equivalents
1,100 x M113s
1,829 Towed Artillery Pieces
200 x 155mm SPHs
60 x 203mm SPHs
150 to 170~ SSMs
10,500 ATGMs
1,900 AA Guns
21 x Huey Cobra Equivalents

Shepistani Navy

Active Duty: 24,000
Reserves:5,000 (obligation to 45, officers to 50)

8 x SSKs
6 x FFGs
1 x FF
9 x Patrol and Coastal Combatants
3 x Mine Warfare Vessels
9 x Support Ships (oilers etc)
6 x Long Range ASW Aircraft (Atlantique/Orion)
1,400 Marines

Shepistani Air Force

Active Duty: 45,000
Reserves: 8,000 (obligation to 45, officers to 50)
Flying Hours Annually: 210~
Combat Aircraft: 415

1 x Mirage Squadron (16 a/c)
3 x Mirage 5 Squadrons (52 a/c)
2 x Q-5 Fantan Squadrons (41 a/c)
8 x J-7 Squadrons (132 a/c)
2 x F-16A/B Squadrons (32 a/c)
2 x Mirage III Squadrons (43 a/c)
1 x Recce Squadron (15 x Mirage IIIRPs)
1 x Transport Squadron (14 x C-130s)
1 x Heavy Transport Squadron (3 x 707s)
7 x SAM Batteries

Shepistani Paramilitaries (289,000 to 294,000)
185,000 National Guard (Janbaz Force, Mujahid Force, National Cadet Corps, and Women Guards)
65,000 Frontier Corps
35,000 Shepistani Rangers
12,000 Northern Light Infantry
2,000 Maritime Security Agency (1 x WW2 DD)


General Commentary: Shepistan shares a long border with it's mortal enemy, the Old Dominion; and they have fought two bloody, inconclusive wars over the last 40 years.

The large mountainous areas of Shepistan are under very tenuous governmental control, and large swathes do not pay any taxes to Shepibad. The Frontier Corps, numbering some 65,000 men; is an attempt to impose control over these regions, but it is still in a very underequipped state and rife with corruption.

International Flashpoints: Shepistan is somewhat of an international pariah in the world due to it's actions in trying to quash the various mountain rebellions, not to mention semi-regular border skirmishes with the Old Dominion. Internationally, it has drawn semi-serious economic sanctions from the various nations of the world for it's major role in exporting controlled technology -- (read IRBMs and chem/bio) -- and for it's nuclear development program, begun for the purpose of "mastering the fuel cycle".

Nuclear Program: Shepistan's public nuclear program consists of two research reactors that have been in operation for the last 30 years in the capital city of Shepibad; which produce short-lived radioactive isotopes ostensibly for medical purposes. The output of these reactors' have been linked to at least one radiological poisoning of a Shepistani dissident. Shepistan continues to stick by it's claim that Dr. Fakim's death by cesium-137 poisoning was the result of unauthorized research he was conducting overseas.

The secret, undeclared program consists of an small-scale enrichment plant and a small reactor buried in a mountain under heavy guard by the Shepistani Special Republican Guard. International experts estimate that in about 5-6 years, Shepistan will have gained enough experience in working with Uranium and Plutonium as well as theoretical physics to construct several gun-type devices. As a result of this, Shepistan is under international sanctions


-------------------

Don'y worry -- while my tank counts and aircraft counts may be high; remember, i'm going to base actual readyness off of typical arab army rates, like you only actually have enough tank crews trained to man 1/3rd of your tanks; and only 240 trained pilots for a 500 aircraft force...

[MKSheppard]

Hum, perhaps I should add a sort of East Shepistan (aka Bangladesh) situation where the Old Dominion defeated Shepistan in a war 30 years ago, and imposed a partition plan...

[Raj Ahten]

Hum, perhaps I should add a sort of East Shepistan (aka Bangladesh) situation where the Old Dominion defeated Shepistan in a war 30 years ago, and imposed a partition plan...

Don't forget the nation next door whose fundamentalist government you support, but whose fundamanentalists basically run one of your provinces . That is, if you really want to go ala Pakistan.

[Raj Ahten]

Something I would really like in the new game is that we all really cut back on the secret super weapon projects. A lot of people had weapon systems that were deployed with no one knowing about them. I'm fine with secret projects, just everyone please have their researchers or your strategic planning staffs at last discuss the projects and their capabilities. Or we could announce all big new defense projects in the discussion thread. This would be advantageous as we could all figure if a system and its development time are reasonable when it is first being worked up, rather than have arguments once a system is already in place and players have based their actions on the capabilities their new wonder weapons can provide. Another benefit is it gives espionage minded players something for their agents to work on discovering.

On another note I hope space doesn't become as weaponized as last time, unless everyone can come to the table and have such shiny toys . (That would be an advantage of putting things 50-100 years in the future. Conceivably even poor nations, or even criminal syndicates, could likely afford spy satellites and KKV's.)

[Setzer]

I'll hold off posting until the stats are done. So, how much money, land and population will a Principality have?

[Pollux]

This looks like it'll be fun when it gets off the ground. Sign me up.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Something I would really like in the new game is that we all really cut back on the secret super weapon projects. A lot of people had weapon systems that were deployed with no one knowing about them. I'm fine with secret projects, just everyone please have their researchers or your strategic planning staffs at last discuss the projects and their capabilities. Or we could announce all big new defense projects in the discussion thread. This would be advantageous as we could all figure if a system and its development time are reasonable when it is first being worked up, rather than have arguments once a system is already in place and players have based their actions on the capabilities their new wonder weapons can provide. Another benefit is it gives espionage minded players something for their agents to work on discovering.

On another note I hope space doesn't become as weaponized as last time, unless everyone can come to the table and have such shiny toys . (That would be an advantage of putting things 50-100 years in the future. Conceivably even poor nations, or even criminal syndicates, could likely afford spy satellites and KKV's.)

Espionage has been something of a mystery to me as to how it is to be played.

But on the other hand, there has to be strict ground rules as to using OOC material for in-game stories. We cannot have Shep go around breaking every damn rule again and next minute, we have nuclear war like the last time. A war that was based on faulty OOC information at that.

[PeZook]

Espionage has been something of a mystery to me as to how it is to be played.

It worked fine as long as players weren't douchebags. I think it should be common etiquette to declare "secret" stuff in OOC or game posts (something like a presidential briefing, etc.), so that it's "canon" you have them (the FUN, sadly, broke that with our SCUD spam), and if we don't have complete assholes in the game, it should be fine.

But on the other hand, there has to be strict ground rules as to using OOC material for in-game stories. We cannot have Shep go around breaking every damn rule again and next minute, we have nuclear war like the last time. A war that was based on faulty OOC information at that.

Yeah, on second thought, we should've ignored that one

Then again, i enjoyed the "40-years after" posts surprisingly much.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

It worked fine as long as players weren't douchebags. I think it should be common etiquette to declare "secret" stuff in OOC or game posts (something like a presidential briefing, etc.), so that it's "canon" you have them (the FUN, sadly, broke that with our SCUD spam), and if we don't have complete assholes in the game, it should be fine.

What is needed is a common code of conduct where everyone agrees and sets down perimeters on how secret a project is and so forth. It should not degenerate into a "scoring points" scenario.

Yeah, on second thought, we should've ignored that one

Then again, i enjoyed the "40-years after" posts surprisingly much.

Perhaps you would handle some of the landing of the aircraft on your end.

[PeZook]

What is needed is a common code of conduct where everyone agrees and sets down perimeters on how secret a project is and so forth. It should not degenerate into a "scoring points" scenario.

Yeah, some sort of a quick guide would be nice...

Perhaps you would handle some of the landing of the aircraft on your end.

Huh? I've got a message decoding failure here...

[Siege]

Are you sure you want to? Our army is soft like hell. We'd be lucky to fight half as well as the Israelis do.

Well, it's mostly to see what the military of a city-state would be like. I imagine it's quite different in its requirements than the armed forces of a sprawling country.

A problem with the based-solely-on-postcount idea is that I'm pretty much stuck with nothing compared to guys with 8000+ postcounts. Now I don't need a big empire, but I'd still like my duchy to be not completely insignificant in every respect.

Since we're stating our intentions, I intend to play as President Sydney Hank, chairman of the board of directors of the corporate republic of San Dorado, a virulently capitalist city-state embroiled in perpetual chaos. At any given time, there is at least one riot, demonstration, protest or shoot-out going on in the city .