SDN World 3 Commentary Thread I

[Steve]

Since it will inevitably come up... Industry and Infrastructure improvement, I think, should be possible, but expensive in IBPs and take time. However, as I have no idea on how to do such properly, I'm going to say just invest 10-20 points if you want in either and depending on your existing Infrastructure or Industry as well as any special circumstances concerning your country, like noted difficult terrain or such, I'll give you an idea of how long you should take to make the jump to the next score. I fully intend that it would take years to accomplish such, no matter how much you spend.

Actually, for those of us with Air and/or Army tech below 4, I want improvement there possible as well. But again I'm not sure how it should be quantified in terms of IBP costs or time.

[K. A. Pital]

Are IPs allotted each game year or reach RL month? Or each RL week? Or how? Was that set or not?

[Norseman]

Are IPs allotted each game year or reach RL month? Or each RL week? Or how? Was that set or not?

I think it was each quarter.

[K. A. Pital]

Each quarter of IG year? I.e. 4 x Industry for the entire IG year? That makes sense. Very good.

So, a quarterly loss of 47,6+37,5 = 85,1 points to keep my ships under construction. That leaves me with 315 per quarter and 1260 points per year for all my other needs. My large shipbuilding programs are years ahead, so... Fine as it is, it seems.

[Steve]

I was considering making it monthly, or at least allowing monthly changes, though that wouldn't effect shipbuilding at all. The IBP thing is a "cap" as much as it is a budget where you get so many every quarter and spend them as you please.

But I'm getting tired and need sleep, if people want me to clarify I'll do so... when I wake up.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think people would want number-crunching every month. I will just bulk the quarter points into a yearly total and have yearly defence budgets and aquisition plans, much like I did for SDN W 2.

[Thanas]

Given a challenge to the rather comprehensive list of countries that jumped in with Germany so quickly, I'm reducing it to a joint condemnation from France and Germany (given the French president was right there and all) until the point can be argued.

Then let them argue it in here.

As a point to go with that, this is the 1920s, not the 2000s, joint resolutions would be harder to set up and telegraph and telephone of the era doesn't come close to modern video conferencing and global communication.

Telegraphs would be enough. And funny, the same people who now object to it had no problem with responding to diplomatic inquiries in the same post when they first boarded the ships. Is there a double standard at work here?

As a final note, there is apparently some confusion on whether the Arabian Sea would be logically considered a war zone. Since the Shep-GD naval fighting and such has apparently been ongoing since the war it would stand to reason that most countries would consider it such and some shipping has shifted to avoid the Sea as much as possible (hugging the coast of Africa for instance). A potential boon, admittedly, for Sudan and Madagascar, but it also changes the situation quite a bit. Though certainly there should still be some irritation over the matter since that's a major Europe-Asia trade route and we should see such.

If it is a warzone, my ships would have travelled in convoys and with Battleship escort opr simply go straight through the Panama Canal. As would the ships of my ally of China headed for German ports. Since that did not happen, I will refuse to consider it a warzone, especially not the arabian sea. In short, in that scenario there is no possibility of my ships being stopped because they would not go through those waters at all except for under heavy escort.

[Norseman]

I'd like to say that having the condemnation happen in the same month as it occurred is too much, even the Austria declaration of war on Serbia happened a month after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Issuing vague condemnations would be perfectly alright a week or two after the incident in question, which is indeed all that's been done so far, but a proper diplomatic effort like this? Even if we assume that the latest dickery is the straw that broke the camels back then it should take a month or two.

A timeline for Brazil would go something like this:

1. Germany makes a decision to attempt to secure worldwide sanctions on Shepistan and the Grand Dominion.
2. They send communiqués to the German embassy in Brasilia (assuming for now there is one), asking the ambassador and possibly the trade attaché to set up a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
3. The meeting is held and the request is delivered, the Minister of Foreign Affairs promises to take it under advisement and give a quick reply.
4. A meeting of the Council of Ministers is held and it's decided that Brazil should support the threat of sanctions. Note this would be a regular meeting of the CoM, the matter is simply not all that important to Brazil, and I'd imagine the same applies to many other countries.
5. The decision to accept the German proposal is communicated to the German embassy.
6. The German embassy send a coded telegraph back to Berlin informing them that Brazil has accepted.
7. The Brazilian government makes a remark about how the imperialist powers are devouring each other, but Brazil will of course do its utmost to help preserve the peace.

By the way I agree that if it's a war zone then the German government would, logically, be treating it as a war zone which includes escorted convoys. Indeed I'd imagine that various other nations would co-operate in that venture, setting up an international convoying system. See if we assume that this is a world with a history then we must assume that our various nations would have reacted to various acts of dickery.

[CmdrWilkens]

I'd like to say that having the condemnation happen in the same month as it occurred is too much, even the Austria declaration of war on Serbia happened a month after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Issuing vague condemnations would be perfectly alright a week or two after the incident in question, which is indeed all that's been done so far, but a proper diplomatic effort like this? Even if we assume that the latest dickery is the straw that broke the camels back then it should take a month or two.

The Austrian declaration is possibly the WORST example of a timeline for delivering a diplomatic note. For starters they had to interrogate the suspects to create a sufficient weight of evidence before the council of ministers even convened. That in turn didn't occur until fully ten days after the assassination in order to begin discussing repercussions. They were then saddled by Franz Joseph and Tisza the former of whom was leery of the breaking of the Empire under strain of war and the later of whom was worried about Hungary's position of influence in a post war scenario. Moreover there was an almost universal desire to both have German assurances AND to avoid delivering a note when the President of France was making a state visit to Russia, the two being likely wartime opponents should the issue escalate. By itself the last bit delayed transmission by at least a week.


Anyway had Austria not been frought with internal divisions and a chronic need to seek assurances from Germany the note might have been delivered two weeks earlier than it was. A Germany descended from the same dynastic roots as Thanas' is woudl certainly retain the decisiveness of high command so I have no doubt a note could be delivered within a week at most...the only question is the speed of assent by others which (again as in my previous post) I take no issue with.

[Norseman]

Anyway had Austria not been frought with internal divisions and a chronic need to seek assurances from Germany the note might have been delivered two weeks earlier than it was. A Germany descended from the same dynastic roots as Thanas' is woudl certainly retain the decisiveness of high command so I have no doubt a note could be delivered within a week at most...the only question is the speed of assent by others which (again as in my previous post) I take no issue with.

Well alright, but still it takes time to go through the steps that I listed, so we should be looking at some delay on that count.

[Thanas]

I simply assumed that since the Dominion apparently found time to reconvene with its captain, hold an official meeting, answer protests by my government and then intercept a second ship that several days have past. Same for Shepistan, which apparently found the time to answer to a major Dominion diplomatic initiative. Same thing goes for the interception of the second freighter.

That is enough time to get the diplomatic ball rolling on the first offence and to get agreements from all nations involved.

[Ryan Thunder]

Quite.

[Akhlut]

For Mongolia, at least, things would have progressed quickly as the Great Khural is in session (need to get inside from the balls-freezing temperatures) and the three major parties would have all signed onto what I posted in the story thread. The AMPM have several German-descended representatives (about 7) and they, combined with the fact that piracy is an enormous problem for trade and markets, would have forced the AMPM to condemn piracy. The MMP would have seen this as an assault on the proletariat manning the merchant vessels, and the MNF would see this as a way to exercise Mongolian strength and would happily go nose-to-nose with anyone. The various minor parties that represent the nomads would have gone along with assurances from the major parties that they'd vote for some bill protecting nomads in some way.

[Siege]

In the Sultanate it's a matterof the German embassy sending a note to the Diwan, the appropriate minister takes it to the Grand Vizier, who takes it to the Sultan, who nods, and then it's back to the embassy. Could be done in a day if we so wished. Slightly longer if the Sultan wanted the opinion of the Greater Diwan, but certainly no more than a week.

[Steve]

I simply assumed that since the Dominion apparently found time to reconvene with its captain, hold an official meeting, answer protests by my government and then intercept a second ship that several days have past. Same for Shepistan, who apparently found the time to answer to a major Dominion diplomatic initiative. Same thing goes for the interception of the second freighter.

That is enough time to get the diplomatic ball rolling on the first offence and to get agreements from all nations involved.

Problem is I declared a time freeze after the official meeting and the response to Germany's protest (declared it early Monday, 1AM EST, those things were posted before that) to let some of our players lagging behind have time to get settled and involved before they got caught up in things.

Frankly at this point your feelers for condemnatory notes should still be undergoing debate in national capitals while news of the sinking would just be spreading.

Following allowing the complaintant to make a counter-point, I will allow the post to stand and instate the freeze after it, if only because it'd be silly to force a reposting of everything.

[Thanas]

I simply assumed that since the Dominion apparently found time to reconvene with its captain, hold an official meeting, answer protests by my government and then intercept a second ship that several days have past. Same for Shepistan, who apparently found the time to answer to a major Dominion diplomatic initiative. Same thing goes for the interception of the second freighter.

That is enough time to get the diplomatic ball rolling on the first offence and to get agreements from all nations involved.

Problem is I declared a time freeze after the official meeting and the response to Germany's protest (declared it early Monday, 1AM EST, those things were posted before that) to let some of our players lagging behind have time to get settled and involved before they got caught up in things.

So why did Shep and Lonestar get to sink the second freighter then? Why was that not violating the freeze?

Frankly at this point your feelers for condemnatory notes should still be undergoing debate in national capitals while news of the sinking would just be spreading.

Following allowing the complaintant to make a counter-point, I will allow the post to stand and instate the freeze after it, if only because it'd be silly to force a reposting of everything.

So how long is this freeze going to last? And they better not get to do anything to anybody else doing that time.

[Steve]

Today and maybe tomorrow. I was intending for it to last until Saturday when I announced it Monday. But now that we've got things rolling...

Just today. I wanted to buy time for players to get settled but we're in momentum right now, and frankly it'd take all day for some players to make replies anyway, so just today. Tomorrow progression resumes.

As for timescale, last Saturday was 1 January 1925, and 2 or 9 January 2010 will be 1 January 1926 in-game. I'm going to try to draw up a scale later, roughly using 6 weeks per RL week as game time.

[Norseman]

Depending on the schedule it could take up to two weeks to get a response, the Council of Ministers is supposed to meet at least every other week, in addition to certain meetings that are on set dates. If the German embassy pressed the issue the Minister of Foreign Affairs João Maria Patricio e Taffarel might take the matter straight to the Great Leader though that would take two or three days. For convenience we can simply say that you got the nod in time.

[K. A. Pital]

I prefer slow-down reaction.

This gives... interesting in-game consequences when the hammer falls down on someone who has "recanted" or decided to go for "rapproachment".

[Steve]

Heh, indeed.

[Thanas]

As an aside, Germany is putting out an offer to all nations with airtech 4. This offer will include the production of aircraft and the retraining of german aircrews.

[Steve]

Construction Queue thread posted. Make yourself one post for your queue list and then we'll just edit them as you update (please post updates to queue list here.)

[Siege]

As an aside, Germany is putting out an offer to all nations with airtech 4. This offer will include the production of aircraft and the retraining of german aircrews.

We're technically airtech 3+ (11 points rather than the 12 required for 4), but we'd be willing to work with you on that.

[Norseman]

Just for the record I was hoping that infrastructure etc improvements *wouldn't* be done by allocating IPs to them but rather by RPing, for the simple reason that it saves book keeping.

[Steve]

I'll let either happen, but if people choose to invest IBPs I'll let them do it faster.