SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread VII

[Shroom Man 777]

It would be a great addition to the Canissia-CATO Cross Continental Connection, for sure.

[Beowulf]

Q1: Is there going to be a MESS superblock in v3?

If it's a reset such that we aren't playing as representations of ourselves, I see no reason for there to be a specifically MESS superblock.

[Coyote]

The existence of a MESS superbloc in this game was --I felt-- reasonably explained since these were nations that banded together and share resources and bases for the Second War of the World; afterwards we maintained ties for security and trade. Since everyone was all over the planet in different time zones and hemispheres such a network made sense-- someone was always ready if a crisis broke out anywhere.

However, the MESS superbloc always seemed to be a source of friction or apprehension among others, so I'm willing to forgo it if it gives the chance for a truly clean slate.

But one thing to bear in mind, since the whole concept of this originally was "ourselves transported to alien world", the pre-existing relationships made perfect sense on that level, too. So would we be playing "ouselves" again, or should we make new characters "based on" our own personalities but not necessarily us.

If we do an alternate-Earth, where it's the same geography and peoples but events and people made different choices, I want to put my dibs now on the Transjordan territory. This'd be around 1920, right? I'm thinking of a time where Israel started forming after the 1890's call for Jews to leave Europe by Theodore Hertzl. This time, after the horrors of WW1, and the Revolution in Russia, Jews are more motivated and leave Europe to settle in the fledgling Yishuv... so while I qualify for an "Imperium", I'd willingly trade the land area and GDP value in exchange for the equivalent in social cohesion, development, and stability, military, etc... details can be fleshed out as we near this launch...

[Zor]

Alright, just as an FWI i am in London and the internet connection here is to be frank not all that reliable as such my posts here are going to likely be a bit infrequent.

Zor

[Steve]

If we do an alternate-Earth, where it's the same geography and peoples but events and people made different choices, I want to put my dibs now on the Transjordan territory. This'd be around 1920, right? I'm thinking of a time where Israel started forming after the 1890's call for Jews to leave Europe by Theodore Hertzl. This time, after the horrors of WW1, and the Revolution in Russia, Jews are more motivated and leave Europe to settle in the fledgling Yishuv... so while I qualify for an "Imperium", I'd willingly trade the land area and GDP value in exchange for the equivalent in social cohesion, development, and stability, military, etc... details can be fleshed out as we near this launch...

I was calling for the use of Earth as a base for the new world, but we could make some geographical, ethnographic, and geological changes to fit players' wishes. I believe my prior example was that if Shroom wants to play Shroomania as pseudo-Britain again, we could put Usea in the place of the British Isles.

[MKSheppard]

However, the MESS superbloc always seemed to be a source of friction or apprehension among others

I'll just post a modification of a conversation I had with Steve last night about how the MESS seriously unbalances any game:

Steve: "Though I think the 1920s-setting would diminish MESS's unbalancing potential, especially if we mostly centralize it on one continent."

Shep: "Then they control that continent. Do you know how fucking hard it is to win for example, just a land war against even a middle-grade continental power? It took the USSR 4 years to defeat Nazi Germany with allied help, and that's what with them outnumbering the nazis 4-1. A MESS continent means they are effectively invunerable for the game -- AGAIN. This also means of course, that there is a Grand Combined MESS fleet with 70+ Dreadnoughts in 1922."

Steve: "But really, Shep, there's no way to get around the fact that a good chunk of players are MESS. They're going to play together. If you spread 'em out, it lets them project power everywhere. If you concentrate them, they become effectively invincible. I suppose we could force them all to be in Europe and have the USSR to counter them."

Shep: "Soviet Union AND China -- the Trillion man screaming commie hoard -- because you know, if they're a continental power; they won't be 1 or 2 major powers plus a lot of Netherlands and Belgian type nations. They will all mostly be hyper-militarized West Germanies with about eighteen divisions (instead of the 12 West Germany had in the 1980s); and at four to five MESS members at that power scale; that's about 72-90 1980s divisions that a MESS continental power would have as an active land force. Add in the smaller nations and hangers on in the MESS, and MESS land power would hover around 90-100~ divisions. The only way a MESS continental power bloc would work and not unbalance the game is if there was a two to four nation COMINTERN block opposing them across about 1,500 miles of border; with 600 divisions in multiple echeloned waves; 70,000 tanks, and 10,000 combat aircraft all waiting for the order to go rolling west (or east).

[Steve]

I see you came up with new observations compared to what was said last night.

Of course, all you care about is imposing nerfs on MESS. I want a solution that lets the MESS players participate fully without unbalancing the game or imposing totally unfair restrictions on them.

[MKSheppard]

Of course, all you care about is imposing nerfs on MESS. I want a solution that lets the MESS players participate fully without unbalancing the game or imposing totally unfair restrictions on them.

Except the MESS by simply existing makes any game nerfed as far as geostrategic politics goes; the game devolves to "look, we launched a new ship!", "Look, we're munching on some NPC pirates!" self-fellatio, with some minor friction in the smaller nations tossed around.

The only reason NATO was formed (clearly the model for the MESS), was because after WWII, no one nation in Europe was strong enough to even begin to form a weak defense against a single Soviet Tank Army smashing west. By allying together, they at least upgraded their position from "mosquito smashing against driver's vision block of T-55" to "speedbump".

[CmdrWilkens]

Of course, all you care about is imposing nerfs on MESS. I want a solution that lets the MESS players participate fully without unbalancing the game or imposing totally unfair restrictions on them.

Except the MESS by simply existing makes any game nerfed as far as geostrategic politics goes; the game devolves to "look, we launched a new ship!", "Look, we're munching on some NPC pirates!" self-fellatio, with some minor friction in the smaller nations tossed around.

The only reason NATO was formed (clearly the model for the MESS), was because after WWII, no one nation in Europe was strong enough to even begin to form a weak defense against a single Soviet Tank Army smashing west. By allying together, they at least upgraded their position from "mosquito smashing against driver's vision block of T-55" to "speedbump".

I'd rather pointedly make reference to both the previosu and current games where the MESS was not the largest power bloc (in terms of military power and GDP) and this (where CATO currently exists as a close second on both of those counts). Without even getting into the tripartite act you had going on with Bean and Stas in the first game the MESS was clearly the 2nd string power hampered by dispersal aside from (as with this game) a trio of nations in close proximity.

Likewise in this game the combined GDP of MESS nations (and I'm not counting 'Fin) prior to your departure
placed them first amongst global alliances but not by that large an amount. The SNC then and CATO now could easily supplant the MESS as the foremost in either of those categories. In fact the CATO GDP may in fact be a tad larger than the MESS GDP right now so again its not some sort of overwhelming deal.

My point in all of this is that you seem to have some sort of persecution complex that keeps you from recognizing that a) We've never been as big and scary as you have made us out to be (we may be big and scary but your take on the MESS is that we are some sort of unstoppable juggernaut) and b) We've never been as internally united as you seem to think, we've got kinks in the bloc all over the place most notably evident by the members who did NOT participate, or participated minimally, in the one week war.

So you can keep feeling bullied by us but frankly it just resembles anti-MESS paranoia rather than a considered opinion on how to best build a playable game that is fun for everyone.

[DarthShady]

The MESS is unbalancing the game, I will agree with that; but I don't think we should impose restrictions on them. Perhaps we can simply form another super block at the beginning of the next game, that would serve as a counter to them.

CATO for the win.

[Lonestar]

Why don't we have a SMAC STGOD?

[Steve]

SMAC?

[Lonestar]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Ryan Thunder]

That sounds cool.

I'd go for that, provided that I get to set up the geographical map.

Problem is I think we'd all be University of Planet wannabes...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

A SMAC STGOD game seems to be an interesting idea, especially if we follow strictly to what was done in that game.

As for CATO's GDP, counting core members, it's smaller than the MESS. Counting the core and observers, it's still slightly smaller or close. Because the MESS consists of 4.5 Imperiums.

[Steve]

MESS is what, four Imperiums (Coyote, RogueIce, Beo, Wilkens), a Tsardom (Lonestar), and a Kingdom (Yenchin)? Not counting the fact that Beo is actually an Imperium + a Duchy with Tian Jiao and that Vineyards is coming into MESS orbit?

CATO is one "Super Imperium" (Shady controlling the UCSR), a normal Imperium (Shroomania, or is he a Tsardom?), a couple Tsardoms (Fingolfin, PeZook), and now some Principalities and Duchies (Langley, SiegeTank, Baerne, and Zor)?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

MESS is what, four Imperiums (Coyote, RogueIce, Beo, Wilkens), a Tsardom (Lonestar), and a Kingdom (Yenchin)? Not counting the fact that Beo is actually an Imperium + a Duchy with Tian Jiao and that Vineyards is coming into MESS orbit?

CATO is one "Super Imperium" (Shady controlling the UCSR), a normal Imperium (Shroomania, or is he a Tsardom?), a couple Tsardoms (Fingolfin, PeZook), and now some Principalities and Duchies (Langley, SiegeTank, Baerne, and Zor)?

Byzantium and Shroomania are Tsardoms.

Zor and PeZook are Kingdoms.

Siege is a Principality.

Langley, Baerne are Duchies or slightly larger.

[Steve]

Hrm, I thought Shroom and PeZook were larger. And I merged the listing of Duchies and Principalities for CATO to accommodate the fact that Siege's NFT is two Duchies unified into one new confederation.

How big was Shady's USSR when the game started? Was he a Duchy, Principality, or Kingdom? Obviously he got upgraded when he absorbed the Border States, and that upgrade is added to the CSR being an Imperium.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

How big was Shady's USSR when the game started? Was he a Duchy, Principality, or Kingdom? Obviously he got upgraded when he absorbed the Border States, and that upgrade is added to the CSR being an Imperium.

The original USSR was just a Duchy when the game first started, IIRC.

[Coyote]

If we play a 1920's era game, especially one of "Alternate Earth", it would not be so easy to form an automatic MESS alliance. There'd be a lot of social and historical baggage in the background that we handwaved away in these versions.

I'm more interested in honest gameplay and interesting development of characters, etc. I'd be willing to forgo being part of a bloc from the beginning and let in-game realities determine the situation. If I'm playing a vibrant Yishuv-Israel in post-Ottoman collapse, I'll have Jews (never always popular in Europe), a number of expat Russians, Poles and Germans, some British garrisons, leftover Ottoman loyalists and a strong population of Sunni Muslim Arabs who will not be 100% accepting of the Yishuv. And to throw more matters into the mix, Communism's promises of equality were very popular among many Jews at the time. Many Communist Jews would be getting pushed out of Germany, which would be going through postwar collapse with the Freikorps running amuck.

Under circumstances like that, there's no way I could get the whole population to sign onto a MESS-type alliance, although we may trade with them.

[Steve]

Um, Coyote, again, I'm not calling for a direct adaption of Earth with an alternate history as we see fit, simply use of Earth as a globe. I mean, if people want to go your proposed route we'll do so, but I was hoping for freedom for players to form their own societies as they desire without having to justify stuff from history, etc.

[Coyote]

Um, Coyote, again, I'm not calling for a direct adaption of Earth with an alternate history as we see fit, simply use of Earth as a globe. I mean, if people want to go your proposed route we'll do so, but I was hoping for freedom for players to form their own societies as they desire without having to justify stuff from history, etc.

Well, we could. Look at what we've done with the SDN worlds-- tweaked versions of, say, the real-life USSR, or hypercapitalist states based on contemporary political ideals. Using an Earth globe is easy, taking existing populations and running with them is even easier.

I mean, let;s face it-- in a 1920's style setting, we'd instinctively stock the Middle East with Arabs, Africa would have Black people in it, Mexicans would speak Spanish, America and Canada were settled predominantly by White Europeans, and so on.

Basically, history would unfold as we know it, except for the nation-states we'd create, which we'd reconcile in some manner. Maybe instead of taking a whole Tsardom or Imperium somewhere, a player would just take the Republic of Texas that never joined the Union. Or a breakaway Yucatan Republic, or the Russian Federation of Alaska, etc. That way, the only history we'd have to fill in would be "how did this slice of a country break off and become independent?" The "settlement by Spanish/British/Russians" stuff would automatically be filled in.

[Steve]

And what if we want unique societies that don't fit into historical mold at all? Shroomanians, for instance, don't quite fit into your proposition.

[Coyote]

And what if we want unique societies that don't fit into historical mold at all?

Ah, OK, I see what you mean. Conceded.

Shroomanians, for instance, don't quite fit into your proposition.

Uhhh... the People's Republic of San Francisco?

[Steve]

And what if we want unique societies that don't fit into historical mold at all?

Ah, OK, I see what you mean. Conceded.

Shroomanians, for instance, don't quite fit into your proposition.

Uhhh... the People's Republic of San Francisco?

LOL

We can probably manage some merger of the two concepts, a world borrowing both from "real" history and what we want to add.

I should probably have added Zor as another example of someone who'd want the freedom to make a society of his own creation, given his part-Japanese part-Norse society in Zoria.