SDN World 3 Rules Discussion Thread

[Thanas]

A few numbers for Germany:

at the start of the war, Germany had a standing army of 800.000 men, iirc. The German Army eventually encompassed 14,8 million soldiers total out of a population of over 75 million, iirc.

[Steve]

For what we were discussing the key figure isn't "How many troops Germany had throughout the war" but "how many did Germany have for immediate mobilization, with formations and administrative staff prepared".

[Thanas]

I'll have official figures this evening.

[K. A. Pital]

Germany mobilized c.3-4 million for WWII (depending on how you count) in the scope of one year (1939), IIRC.

[Norseman]

Thing is... the critical issue is how many men you can get how fast and where. Ten million men in two months are not as valuable as half a million in two days. I mention this because my defence plans will have multiple tiers of mobilisation readiness. The top tier is a minuteman like group who can be ready to fight with very short notice, this is mainly to defend their local area from a surprise attack. The next tier is also fairly small, but able to be shifted quickly to wherever the fighting is at, once more this is an effort to gain time. Finally the third tier contain the regular high readiness reserves. The idea then is basically to slow the enemy down enough that the next tier of reinforcements can arrive.

[Steve]

You can work your desired mobilization plan into whatever result the system gives for you, so long as it is reasonable.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

Good, though keep in mind I've altered the Army focus to represent proportion of population as a mobilization pool, or "standing manpower", which will be modified by SML into actual peacetime forces and reserve pool. I'm still determining that. Also altered NF's requirements to the odd-numbered proportions higher up, a fair balance I think between consideration of expense and availability. It scales even from 1 to 2, with 2 and 4 combined respectively, then it goes to 5-7-9 for 3 through 5.

With the changes to NF requirements there I think anyone who had the +1 Ind point pushing them over the edge will be in the clear now. Allows me to have my NF 3 using the +1 to save a point and my Ind/Econ of 6 fits the bill so I'm not stuck with a 2.

If I'm reading the AF changes right my total Mobilization Pool reaches 3,108,098 - 14% of the Spanish Pop of 22,200,700 (Econ/Inf = 7). With an AF of 5 that gives me 1,554,049 for Army manpower, then I assume SML will break that number down into Active Forces and "Reserves" to represent peacetime forces. This sounds pretty good.

Hopefully I'm right there, which has me wondering; will the base Pop number we work from be just our Homeland Population? I've got roughly 2,454,200 in colonial population, would we add these in to form a total population from which to derive our Mobilization Pool? Or perhaps use a smaller percent of CT Pop than the percentage we determine by Econ/Inf to represent a sort of "Foreign Legion" number?

[Norseman]

I've said it before but... Argentina and Spain should have more people given how insanely overpopulated the rest of South America is.

EDIT: And I know Spain is not in South America but you know what I mean

[Minister of Pigeonry]

I've said it before but... Argentina and Spain should have more people given how insanely overpopulated the rest of South America is.

EDIT: And I know Spain is not in South America but you know what I mean

Suppose so, though, I've stuck mostly with historical Pop stats and where those aren't available, I look for a modern day figure and cut it down to one third or one half since '25's Spanish pop is roughly half it's modern number. I've pondered increasing my population but I'm not sure how I feel about it. With Pop directly effecting Army strength and whatnot now I don't want to overpower myself. Though, it might become a bit of a necessity to up things to remain competitive.

[Norseman]

You won't overpower yourself I assure you, just look at the collection of munchkins that inhabit this gameworld

[Steve]

I know people are tired of me saying this, but the Army/SML system has a final overhaul.

http://sdnworld.wikia.com/wiki/SDN_World_3_Ruleset

This will be the final one, I promise. Seriously, I still need to determine final costs for some things and mobilization time scale.

Speaking of that, since mobilization time will probably be a combination of Territory and Infrastructure, I was considering having infrastructure determine how much of your fully-mobilized wartime army could be operationally active, whether in combat or being redeployed. An infrastructure of 5 would permit the entire army to be fully active, lower infrastructures would show one needs to RP problems if one tries to use too many units in an operation as you're overtaxing your infrastructure and the attendant logistics network.

It's only an idea at current and I'm not committed to using it. But it does make one's infrastructure important and require a bit of strategy and attention to logistics in how you use your forces. Opinions?

[Steve]

Also, listed costs for aircraft and for some base army units. Feel free to comment.

[Akhlut]

I figured it'd be most pertinent here, since rules have been finalized: is me pushing Mongolia up to population 3 going to get an enormous rise out of anyone, especially after I bump up my economy? As it stands, I'm left with a few points just hanging around because I cannot have any colonial territory nor a navy (unless I'm allowed to slide a point or two into my economy and another stat simply because I completely lack anything else to shuffle points off into).

[Steve]

I slammed my mighty hammer Modnir down upon Mongolia and gave it enough arable land that, with imports, it can sustain 75 million people. Done.

[Akhlut]

Oh, thank ye mighty Steve and Modnir!

[Minister of Pigeonry]

You won't overpower yourself I assure you, just look at the collection of munchkins that inhabit this gameworld

Ahh, I suppose I'll cave and double up the pop. Going with 45,400,400 Pop for Spain and 4,908,400 for total Colonial populations. I'd like to know, though, whether or not we add both of these and use the Inf/Econ Percent (14% for me) to generate a figure for Mobilization Pool or do we just draw from our Home Population and exclude Colonial pops? Just looking for confirmation on this before I can shut up and go total up my figures.

If we're excluding them outright I'd like to propose we draw a percentage from the Colonial Pop to add to our Mobilization pool or perhaps direct to the Manpower number as a Foreign Legion. Perhaps no more that .5% -.2% of the Colonial Pop to form a foreign force. A .5% would give me a Legion strength of 24,542 and a .2% strength of 9,816. It gives those with colonies a bit of a boost but not too much, methinks. Opinions?

[Steve]

One way of doing this is the same rules as considering Pop for Economy, Industry, etc. Namely, + 1 from CT works, but + 2 would only count as +1.

To use an example, my Pop is 2 + 2 from CT bonus. For finding my mobilization pool I'd use 3 and thus 75 million or what have you.

Alternatively, it may be just as realistic in some ways to permit the whole thing to count, since not all colonies are created equal anyway.

Discussion is open on the matter for another day or so, then I'll confirm if people have no clear desire.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

One way of doing this is the same rules as considering Pop for Economy, Industry, etc. Namely, + 1 from CT works, but + 2 would only count as +1.

To use an example, my Pop is 2 + 2 from CT bonus. For finding my mobilization pool I'd use 3 and thus 75 million or what have you.

Alternatively, it may be just as realistic in some ways to permit the whole thing to count, since not all colonies are created equal anyway.

Discussion is open on the matter for another day or so, then I'll confirm if people have no clear desire.

I think I understand what you're getting at. With the pop doubled I'd be looking at (rounded up) a Pop of 2 so I'd just simplify things and use 50,000,000 as my number to figure from. As my CT is only two (about 505,000 sq. Kms) I wouldn't gain a +1 to pop from them so I wouldn't take them into account specifically. Think I was over complicating things there.. heh.

[K. A. Pital]

If that's the final overhaul, it's still pretty drastic. Army Focus 1-2 offers the (IMHO) usual proportion of a draft Army to the Mobilization Pool (10%), whereas the normal one should be more like uh, 2-3? 1-2 should be lower percentages, in my view. Army Focus Zero should offer not 1%, but more like 0,1% of the mob.pool (for very small armies in the scale of 10-20 thousand men). AF 1 should be the 1%, whereas AF 2 should be the 10%. That's more like it.

The problem is somewhat offset by the requirement to have a higher SML to actually have this large army, but the cost is still less than what it used to be (i got +1 point).

I assembled a ~3 million army with 1,5 active and 1,5 in reserve, I picked AF 2 and coupled it with SML 4, which made me go -2 AF and +1 SML, for a net bonus of 1 point. Army Focus can become somewhat a sink score for larger populations (though frankly, it has some sense to it because larger populations have easier time assembling larger armies).

Certainly SML requirements are now working properly (assembling a large peacetime army becomes complex without having either a large AF or large SML), but I feel AF estimates are off just by 1 point of scale.

[Bluewolf]

(though frankly, it has some sense to it because larger populations have easier time assembling larger armies).

This makes sense to me as well. On top of that some scores can just yield better results at lower levels for people. I mean christ, look at Population! Some nations can become the power they want at a pop score of merely 2! Some don't need CT and some don't need NF. Same with SML. Bigger countries simply need less SML...

[Steve]

Note, Stas, that if you have an Army below 3 you can't have a cutting edge Army, even if you meet a combined 12 with Army, Industry, and Economy. Your Army has to be 3, otherwise the best you can get is a WWI force as opposed to one that's playing with new things.

I considered dropping it to 2, but that might be letting people game a bit. You shouldn't be able to use Army or Air as a sink score and still get top-flight modern stuff on your own.

Note that raising new units, reserve or active, will over time start to change one's SML score, which we'll keep track of in-game. If it gets up to the 50%-50% split of active and reserve you'll be given a penalty to industrial build points. Army Focus will not change, though a player can still try to advance technologically. Same with Air. And if anyone builds such a large army, active and reserve, that it exceeds 50% of mobilization pool, I will consider you as partially mobilized and start RPing strain (and unless you have a damned good reason, political unrest).

[K. A. Pital]

BLAM! Corrected. The USSR is a super-balanced state with Army, Navy and Airforce all equal to 3, and SML equal to 3 with 20/80% reserves, yielding a 1,05 million standing army and 4,2 million in reserve. Looks about right, and no penalties to IPs.

[Steve]

After some thought - and looking at Ma Deuce's points list - I'm going to allow a limited use of the Focus bonus from industry for raising Navy even over pre-requisite. Let's say you have an Economy of 2 and an Industry of 4, your + 2 to Focus can be used to raise your Navy as high as an extra level. Such a count, for instance, only allows NF 3, but you can use the + 2 to get to NF 4. Not, however, NF 5. Rather you can spend 2 on NF and get the bonus for an NF of 2 + 2.

It works pretty much like the +2 to Pop from Colonial Territory of 4 or 5. Only 1 extra Pop can count, not more.

[Ma Deuce]

So my point count is cool, yes? As I said in the other post, my nation is still more powerful than I thought I'd be able to get or to be honest feel comfortable with (though the percentage-based army manpower mitigates that concern greatly), but obviously I'm not going to refuse to spend all the points available to me, and I'd prefer a slightly less than perfect system now so we can get down to playing soon, and I can work out my TO&E before that happens.

[Steve]

Yes, it's cool.

I almost told you no but then thought about it and decided letting the bonus count only up to a rank over what prerequisites allow would fit with the use of the Pop and Econ bonuses from Colonies (also limited to + 1).