SDN World 3 Rules Discussion Thread

[Lonestar]

Hold on, what about having massive rebuilds of capitalships? Would that count as yardspace?

(I'm thinking in terms of coal-oil conversions, superstructure rebuilds, etc.)

[Steve]

Note. When considering need to keep yard space utilized and your limit on it, if you put a ship like an early dreadnought or predreadnought into the yard to rebuild/refit it with new boilers, various modifications, etc., then that counts toward your yard capacity.

[Lascaris]

A proposal on the economy score if I may. Historically France, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Germany all managed 4 years of mobilization during WW2. That's a level 4 economy requiring a 3 in population. Of the four countries though 3 had the equivalent of a 2 or less in population. Austria-Hungary stood at 50 million, Britain at about 45 and France at bellow 40. Only Germany was closer but still below 3.

So isn't it more logical to remove the 3 population requirement from having a 4 in economy as well and change it to 2?

For an added bonus with such a change some of the players may well be inclined to lower their populations from the now short of obligatory 75 million to lower levels since they won't need them for a large economy and industry.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

A proposal on the economy score if I may. Historically France, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Germany all managed 4 years of mobilization during WW2. That's a level 4 economy requiring a 3 in population. Of the four countries though 3 had the equivalent of a 2 or less in population. Austria-Hungary stood at 50 million, Britain at about 45 and France at bellow 40. Only Germany was closer but still below 3.

So isn't it more logical to remove the 3 population requirement from having a 4 in economy as well and change it to 2?

For an added bonus with such a change some of the players may well be inclined to lower their populations from the now short of obligatory 75 million to lower levels since they won't need them for a large economy and industry.

Now, if this is done and I ahistorically double the Spanish Population then I'll have a great deal more wiggle room on how to place my points. It makes a Navy score of 3, even 4 possible and within my grasp.

My logic may me flawed here, but it does seem that nations with small populations are more than capable of growing large economies/industrial bases; Europe itself is a prime example of this.

EDIT: Bah, I'm just happy as long as I can maintain that 3 in N.F., methinks. And Doubling the Pop. is somewhat distasteful.

[K. A. Pital]

Navy auxiliaries.

Capships (pre-dreadnaughts or dreadnaughts) that are used as training auxiliaries should IMHO be listed in the roster of active ships since they are sea worthy, armed and capable of making war. The only issue is them being obsolete, but that is not a reason to exclude from the roster. Training ships can be returned to active service (and vice versa). Now, shore batteries I agree should be stricken out from active fleet tonnage (they are moored forever floating gun platforms, not real ships). But I'd still list them.

I listed everything down to the last shore battery. Now, I didn't list supply ships, fuel bases, troop transports, et cetera, but I may do so as well if required. Though that takes a little more from the player than just listing combat ships.

EDIT: Now, I started drafting up aviation and like I suspected earlier, the limits might have been too low. I don't know how many planes were on the active rosters of other nations, but the USSR fielded 1400 by the year 1928 (700 warplanes just a year prior in 1927). That is despite fielding barely 300 at the end of Civil War (1922). I think auxiliary units like transports, etc. are counted here, that's certainly not sheer fighter/bomber strength. But still the expansion is rather enormous.

There's no point in such a limitation if people would field combat fleets of 1000 planes in a few years from 1925... I can't really figure out a good advice, because the airforce numbers really shot up to tens of thousands of warplanes in the 1930s...

But having it just "aircraft" is ambigious. That should be changed to "combat planes" so that the limitations are clear.

[Steve]

IOW, maybe for 5 Air Focus it should be something like 800 combat aircraft and 200 or 400 auxiliary aircraft, Stas?

MoP, I'll consider reducing the Pop requirement for 4 Economy, alternatively I could alter the mobilization years. And I'm not saying a 3 economy can only be mobilized for three years, but rather after that three years it starts suffering strain, which most WWI states were certainly having in 1917-1918 (Britain was arguably a 5 Economy, but remember they were bankrolling France, Russia, and other Allies as well, with the US banks chipping in even more). It's meant more to be a guide to how long you can safely be mobilized without your economy starting to tank from being overheated.

[K. A. Pital]

A 3 economy yup, most likely would collapse or be heavily crippled in 3 years. Russia was something like 1 or 2 on the industrialization scale in the 1914 and a few years of WWI crippled it's economy utterly. Even the first year revealed complete inability to meet mobilization targets and full depletion of ammunition stocks (and despite the 8400% ammunition production increase, that was never mitigated).

Air, I'll wait for people's input. Having slightly smaller airforces without the experience of "real" WWI is somewhat warranted anyhow. Auxillaries certainly should be counted alone (200-400 limit seems fair enough, perhaps 200 auxiliaries for AF 3, and then add by a hundred to 400 by AF 5).

[Steve]

We might not have had a full WWI, but the 1910s are appearing to be a tumultuous decade, what with the breaking of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the collapse of Italy and revival of Tuscany, the Polish-Soviet War, one war between the Grand Dominion and Shepistan from what I've been told from that end, and the Franco-Dutch War.

[Norseman]

We might not have had a full WWI, but the 1910s are appearing to be a tumultuous decade, what with the breaking of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the collapse of Italy and revival of Tuscany, the Polish-Soviet War, one war between the Grand Dominion and Shepistan from what I've been told from that end, and the Franco-Dutch War.

Don't forget the Brazilian intervention in both the Peruvian and Congolese Civil Wars, or the Russian Revolution for that matter.

[Steve]

The last big question mark right now would be industrial costs for new airplane squadrons, army units (probably division/brigade level), and fortifications either coastal or land.

The way I figure it is that enough divisions would feasibly cost as much as a warship - say 10 points for a new infantry division or, to reflect building a number of large guns and perhaps vehicles to tow them, an artillery brigade - but the division/brigade is done in 1-2 quarters (1 for Garrison/Militia, 2 for Regular Infantry, Arty could be either) so in the end it's not nearly as expensive as the warship.

Aircraft squadrons would be the same. A squadron, with 20 planes, would be 2 points, but could be finished within a couple quarters.

The Focus scores wouldn't improve like Infrastructure or Industry either, since all reflect size of your force, but rather your technological level would improve (As defined by Focus + Ind + Econ).

Now, on both Improvement Points concept and even industrial expenditures, I've been approached by some players who are disliking the idea of number-crunching and prefer just saying "This is what I plan to build, and it'll take so long". Well, for them, I offer this: if you ask us, the mods will do the crunching for you, simply to verify you can do what you say. IOW, think of this as a quantified means for us to determine what you can or cannot build or how long it'd take you to advance as desired. The same goes for tracking your shipyard use.

Final note: size of forces. Us being SDNers, we will have an arms race, and with no nukes I imagine WWI will break out by, oh, 1926. Yet obviously a peacetime army getting larger would inevitably have an effect upon economy and industry (reflecting fewer workers and higher government expenditures). As of now I'm not sure how I will quantify it. Maybe at a certain point I consider you as having gone up an SML level.

[Steve]

P.S. I'm considering adding a figure for Garrison/militia forces in SML. Something like 20% at 3 and up, could go up to 40% at SML 5. This would mean everyone had a bit of Garrison/Militia. A 3/3 score in SML and Army would have a 600,000 man Army and a 120,000 man militia/garrison force. Looking for input before I make my decision.

[K. A. Pital]

I consider allotment of expansion points unnecessary. A person building something should only demonstrate:
1) the economic feasibility of his nation constructing such (by citing historical examples or going into tech trivia - most of this is rather simple, Skimmer aptly demonstrated he can build his 60,000 ton ships and I doubt others would be defending such outlandish things, hence they'd have easier time).
2) the technical feasibility of the same

The rest's up to the mods - either the project is a go, or it's a stall, or a moderate decision (a-la "you have built a superweapon which is prone to failures and militarily unusable").

[Norseman]

I agree with Comrade Stas in this, I really don't want a ton of number crunching, I'd prefer to just describe what I want to accomplish and the mods can decide if I did it or not.

[Steve]

Nein, NEIN! Ve vill make you all number-crunch everything for ze glory of ze STGOD! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

*coughs*

Oh, wait, sorry. Had to get that evil out.

Again, the number crunching is primarily for our benefit. If the player just says "I intend to build this", we can go to his industry/economy rating, whatever, and say if he can build as planned or go "you suffer delays from lack of needed materials".

Now if a player wants to do something that, to be frank, will be very quick and easy number-crunching, done once every 14 days or more (if you allot a year-long budget or something, or simply keep building the same stuff)), then more power to them. And it takes work off me and whatever poor souls respected players chosen to be my co-mods.

[Steve]

Note that I at least expect people to keep a list of what they're building, when they started building it, and if it's a ship, what it's raw specs are.

[Steve]

Retiring for the evening, but I'd like this to be considered over the night. Currently a Standing Military Limit of 1 causes one's army to be 40% Regulars and 60% active reserves like militia or garrison troops. An SML of 2 switches those percentages.

However, SMLs of 4 and 5 add 20% and 50% respectively to one's Army (and possibly Air Force, I'm still considering that).

I was thinking of equalizing these by having 1 SML go up to a full half split - half Regulars, half Garrison/Militia - and 2 SML be an 80-20 split between Regulars and Militia.

I will take opinions for and against, or alternative suggestions, before making my final decision tomorrow.

[Lascaris]

Retiring for the evening, but I'd like this to be considered over the night. Currently a Standing Military Limit of 1 causes one's army to be 40% Regulars and 60% active reserves like militia or garrison troops. An SML of 2 switches those percentages.

However, SMLs of 4 and 5 add 20% and 50% respectively to one's Army (and possibly Air Force, I'm still considering that).

I was thinking of equalizing these by having 1 SML go up to a full half split - half Regulars, half Garrison/Militia - and 2 SML be an 80-20 split between Regulars and Militia.

I will take opinions for and against, or alternative suggestions, before making my final decision tomorrow.

Ehm this is the era of massive conscript armies. The grand majority of the active troops are conscripts on 2 year terms. And about everyone has a mobilization structure to put at least 10 classes of these immediately to the colours in case of war. So the active reserves described as "militia or garrison troops" make no sense for the era.

How about SML defining your ready reserve, ie the number of reservists your country plans to put to the colours immediately after the start of war and is ready to equip? It could go as this:

1: You are UK or the USA. No active reserve to speak of.
2: Minimal trained reserves, 5 classes. Your army doubles in size at mobilization.
3: Standard European mobilization sheme with 10 classes called up. Your army triples in size at declaration of mobilization
4. More extreme mobilization levels, 15 classes called up. Quadraple in size at mobilization
5. Call up every body available, France in 1914 and 1940. Increase by 5 times at mobilization.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

MoP, I'll consider reducing the Pop requirement for 4 Economy, alternatively I could alter the mobilization years.

That would be quite helpful for little old Spain, heh.

As for number-crunchyness, I'm not one for it.

P.S. I'm considering adding a figure for Garrison/militia forces in SML. Something like 20% at 3 and up, could go up to 40% at SML 5. This would mean everyone had a bit of Garrison/Militia. A 3/3 score in SML and Army would have a 600,000 man Army and a 120,000 man militia/garrison force. Looking for input before I make my decision.

This looks like an interesting addition, I like it. Someone has to man the costal fortifications and such.

Ehm this is the era of massive conscript armies. The grand majority of the active troops are conscripts on 2 year terms. And about everyone has a mobilization structure to put at least 10 classes of these immediately to the colours in case of war. So the active reserves described as "militia or garrison troops" make no sense for the era.

How about SML defining your ready reserve, ie the number of reservists your country plans to put to the colours immediately after the start of war and is ready to equip? It could go as this:

1: You are UK or the USA. No active reserve to speak of.
2: Minimal trained reserves, 5 classes. Your army doubles in size at mobilization.
3: Standard European mobilization sheme with 10 classes called up. Your army triples in size at declaration of mobilization
4. More extreme mobilization levels, 15 classes called up. Quadraple in size at mobilization
5. Call up every body available, France in 1914 and 1940. Increase by 5 times at mobilization.

How would this fit in with the Reservist Percentage we get from Econ/Inf already? Or do you mean to do away with that percentage and have SML reflect the potential reserves ready to call up? I'm not sure how the two interact. But I have to agree Active Reserves probably shouldn't equate to Garrison/Militia troops. The way I see it there's Active (Deployable) Forces, Active Reserve, Garrison/Militia, and Potential Reserve (% of Pop who could qualify for service) in order of readiness. Or would Garrison/Militia count as active but not necessarily deployable?

On a seperate note, It's also nice to get an idea of how we'll be buying Army/Air Force assets. I'm a little hazy on how we determine the quality of the force, though. Is it the Econ + Ind + Focus Score = Quality Level of Forces with the cost in points set? Or will better quality assets cost more point as it seemed to work with modifiers in the older SDNW's? And, though I think I may heave already seen this somewhere, how are we determining our starting forces and their quality to begin with? Just the numbers set by the A.F., A.F.F. Focuses and SML?

[CmdrWilkens]

Steve real quick:

Division size varied HUGELY from WW1 onwards depending upon who you are talking about. For example most combatants entered the war with 12 infantry battalions plus artillery and machine guns in a division. By 1915 or so (certainly by 1916) almost every Division on the continent was reorganized to have fewer battalions (9 usually) except for the US Army which had 16 to 18 per division.

Anyway I think battalions and/or regiments would be a better means of tracking troops since they tend to be both more homogeneous AND more consistently sized.

[Steve]

While that's true, I think people would prefer to track their forces by the division, not the brigade. However, we could have costs of upgrading or raising a new division reflected at brigade level, and for standard simply state a 3 brigades = 1 division conversion. This would also let those supremely-dedicated players who do want to track things at brigade level to know the costs for upgrading units or raising new ones.

Skimmer had the idea, communicated through IMs, that upgrading units should take about a year to complete fully and should cost industrial points the entire time, reflecting replacing material damaged or worn out in training. Maintenance costs, especially for motorized/mechanized forces versus horse-utilizing ones (including cavalry and towed artillery, which would utilize horses in this time period), were remarked upon but ultimately I'd rather keep those out or heavily simplified to minimize number-crunching. New units would probably cost the same for a year as well, reflecting building the new equipment, raising the unit's new barracks, etc., and for a full, newly-raised division would take 2 years to reach full combat effectiveness, or 18 months if the unit is formed around an experienced cadre of troops pulled from another division (which would reduce in effectiveness for 6 months to reflect absorbing the replacements. You could, if doing this, say you take a brigade out of one division - to reflect the cadre to be spread in the new division's ranks - and replace it with a new one, still costing 3 brigades of troops in the end but with the new division being at full readiness six months earlier.

Now, as for costs....

10 planes will equal 1 industrial point, for those doing the number crunching anyway. I figure in this era they'd be done in what, a month? However, training of pilots for them and of mechanics crews would mean they wouldn't be active until after 3 months, not fully capable until 6 or 9.

2 points will buy you a brand new infantry division using horses for transporting field pieces (like light field artillery) and wagons. You can either pick the entire division to be raised from scratch or take a brigade (5,000 men) from an established division to serve as a cadre to reduce the new unit's time needed for effectiveness by six months, though it means the division you take the troops from will be reduced in effectiveness for 6 months to reflect absorbing the replacements.

Mechanization is in its early stages... and it is expensive. Actually, it will always be. At this point, to either form a division with trucks instead of horses or to upgrade an existing division, it will cost 10 points - 3 points for brigade-level upgrades. An armored recon battalion, consisting of armored cars and light tanks, will cost 2 points, giving a 12 point cost to upgrade or build a fully early mechanized division. The industrial cost, IOW, of six squadrons of aircraft or a heavy cruiser's construction until launch. Either will take a year to finish, with a new division having an extra 6-12 months to reach full effectiveness depending on if you used an experienced cadre. I'm not yet sure how much an actual armored brigade, with cars, light, and then-heavy (Medium) tanks will cost. Extrapolating from an armored battalion cost I'd imagine it'd be upwards of 8-10 points itself, reflecting the need for all that steel and fuel and logistic support vehicles.

Anyway, any objections or alternatives, modifications? I'll get into SML matters in a bit.

[CmdrWilkens]

Steve on the idea of raising and/or upgrading divisions you should probably also require the point cost to re-equip with newer models. In other works if you have an armored brigade with your Mk III Tank and have spent the time to test and develop your Mk IV tank then the cost of replacing your Mk IIIs with MkIVs should be the same (in industrial points and time) as if you were equipping an empty division. This would reflect time to familizarize with new equipment, alter the supply chain, and actually aqurie then ew vehicles.

[K. A. Pital]

Wartime mobilization should be somehow factored into production numbers. In World War II there were 10000s of planes produced yearly by industrial powers. Basically, if we get to the 1940s and end up with a major war, mobilization should allow to expand production to such numbers.

Whist I agree peacetime production is pretty well-reflected by the proportions (1000 planes per 100 IPs, pretty okay to me), wartime mobilization is definetely not.

[Steve]

Steve on the idea of raising and/or upgrading divisions you should probably also require the point cost to re-equip with newer models. In other works if you have an armored brigade with your Mk III Tank and have spent the time to test and develop your Mk IV tank then the cost of replacing your Mk IIIs with MkIVs should be the same (in industrial points and time) as if you were equipping an empty division. This would reflect time to familizarize with new equipment, alter the supply chain, and actually aqurie then ew vehicles.

An excellent proposal.

Stas, Economy rating reflects increase in wartime production.

1: 1 year of total mobilization, - 10% Industrial points in Peacetime, + 25% points industrial points in Wartime
2: 2 years of mobilization, - 5% PT, + 50% WT
3: 3 years of mobilization, + 0% PT, + 75% WT
4: 4 years of mobilization, + 5% PT, + 100% WT. You need at least a 3 in population for this.
5: 5 years of mobilization, +10% PT, + 125% points WT. You need at least a 3 in population and a 1 in colonial possessions for this.

I've considered getting rid of the mobilization factor, but I figured it might give the mods a good idea of how long to allow a player to remain mobilized before we start RPing thinks like worker strikes, production delays, and other things associated with a spent, overtaxed economy.

As a result of this, my Cascadia, with it's 4 overall in Economy and 5 in Industry as of now, would have 500 points + 100% = 1,000 points of industrial production. Granted, that's just 10,000 planes, so I'm open to raising the WT + modifiers further. Maybe from top to bottom it should be more like 250% at 5 down to 150% for 1.

Oh, general announcement, I hope to start the game Saturday. Enough rules have been set that I think we can start in four days, especially since it shouldn't take long to plug in the last really crucial bits - a firm number on tank unit production costs, artillery brigade (since it'd include heavier guns - I'm generally considering a uniform infantry brigade or infantry division to have small 75-100mm field pieces included in cost), and a base deployment/mobilization speed per square kilometer to give final quantification to Infrastructure.

[Lascaris]

MoP, I'll consider reducing the Pop requirement for 4 Economy, alternatively I could alter the mobilization years.

That would be quite helpful for little old Spain, heh.

As for number-crunchyness, I'm not one for it.

P.S. I'm considering adding a figure for Garrison/militia forces in SML. Something like 20% at 3 and up, could go up to 40% at SML 5. This would mean everyone had a bit of Garrison/Militia. A 3/3 score in SML and Army would have a 600,000 man Army and a 120,000 man militia/garrison force. Looking for input before I make my decision.

This looks like an interesting addition, I like it. Someone has to man the costal fortifications and such.

Ehm this is the era of massive conscript armies. The grand majority of the active troops are conscripts on 2 year terms. And about everyone has a mobilization structure to put at least 10 classes of these immediately to the colours in case of war. So the active reserves described as "militia or garrison troops" make no sense for the era.

How about SML defining your ready reserve, ie the number of reservists your country plans to put to the colours immediately after the start of war and is ready to equip? It could go as this:

1: You are UK or the USA. No active reserve to speak of.
2: Minimal trained reserves, 5 classes. Your army doubles in size at mobilization.
3: Standard European mobilization sheme with 10 classes called up. Your army triples in size at declaration of mobilization
4. More extreme mobilization levels, 15 classes called up. Quadraple in size at mobilization
5. Call up every body available, France in 1914 and 1940. Increase by 5 times at mobilization.

How would this fit in with the Reservist Percentage we get from Econ/Inf already?

Pretty easily in fact. Take the example of France. It mobilized 3.6 million men in August 1914 and 8.2 million men during the war. In game terms the first number would be the effect of the SML and the second the reservist persentage from Econ/Ind. Ie the first would be how many you can immediately throw to the fight in case of war (and have equipment for conveniently stashed away and ready to use. While the second how many you can bring to the colours with the war and industrial mobilization going into full force (along with casualties of course...)

[Steve]

From an IM discussion with a friend, it occurs to me that some of the standing armies we're claiming from Army Focus are rather large, well, either that or my American brain misunderstood what Thanas may have intended to represent an overall mobilization pool in the first two weeks of mobilization. Not sure. But the point is that in this era peacetime armies were rarely over 200,000 men, it was simply too costly. European states, sans Britain, used conscripts that were rotated in and out of the ranks and available for calling to the colors at any necessary time, with standing units and any professionals and volunteers providing the central cadre of a filled out unit. For instance, the pre-WWI Army size of Austro-Hungary was about 140,000 or so, which would go up by an order of magnitude when mobilization began.

I'm thus starting to lean toward Lascaris' proposal of SML being turned into one's mobilization pool at war start, with the Reserves drawn from Infrastructure and Economy scored combined representing overall military manpower when mobilized. But I'm not sure about the rest of his proposal, as said over IMs, that would divorce Army size from Army Focus and make it part of SML along with overall mobilization pool.