[PON] World In Conflict - General Discussion Thread

[coolbean]

Lukas, please, no worries, I absolutely am not in charge of this. I just wanted to generate interest in a new game, and hoped we could all go at it together.

Bjfagan, I really had my heart set on playing Russia. I'm reading War and Peace right now and am on a huge Russia kick. I was really looking forward to managing the Russian economy and hoping to try and bring Russia into the industrial era. I'm really surprised nobody has taken Prussia. I would really like for you to join our game though, so see if anyone else wants to switch, and if no one really wants to I may consider switching.

I think limiting structure pools or increasing base consumption was something we needed in our other game, but it may be too early to tell if we need it for the new game. We should probably wait until we start and see how things go in that regard. In the previous game, those problems didn't manifest themselves until much later, like 15 years in game later, and I think it was largely because we had so many people playing two or three nations and managing all of their economies to be self-sufficient. But if we do run into those problems in our game, I think the smartest way we can tackle it would be increasing base consumption (i.e, increase by a percentage what each type of pop demands, I think Kensai showed how to do it somewhere) over limiting structure pools because it is more fair to everybody, small and large nations alike, because it is more universal. What I mean by that is everything else will remain the same - resources in provinces, structure amounts, resources in colonies - it will just be harder to satisfy your population, people will have to act more strategically to acquire resource sites and negotiate commercial agreements for construction instead of just deciding, "Well I have 20 coal deposits but only 3 coal mines I can build, so whatever." Either way, I think we should wait for that because the conditions may be different in our game judging by how many people play, and we won't even know until 1865 or so anyway.

[lukasberger]

Heard back from PhilThib, he prefers Prussia. So that'd give Ojo Austria, if that works for everyone.

[lukasberger]

So we have Belgium, Sardinia-Piemonte and China still available. Brazil and Sweden too if we wanted to give those to human players.

[lukasberger]

Bjfagan, would you be interested in trying Sardinia-Piemonte? They could use a strong and experienced player to make the unification happen and to kick Austria out of Northern Italy, neither of which happened in CIE.

Maybe it's not so important to have a strong Italian player if we go with the 1880 start though. But I think Italy could still be kind of fun.

[lukasberger]

Bjfagan, I really had my heart set on playing Russia. I'm reading War and Peace right now and am on a huge Russia kick. I was really looking forward to managing the Russian economy and hoping to try and bring Russia into the industrial era. I'm really surprised nobody has taken Prussia. I would really like for you to join our game though, so see if anyone else wants to switch, and if no one really wants to I may consider switching.

Since Phil wants Prussia anyway, I think you can/should keep Russia. Hopefully Brian will take S-P, as I suggested above or another smaller nation. Even though we're hoping players will stay committed I'd guess that a large nation will open up at some point, he could always upgrade them, just as most of us have done in CIE.

I think limiting structure pools or increasing base consumption was something we needed in our other game, but it may be too early to tell if we need it for the new game. We should probably wait until we start and see how things go in that regard. In the previous game, those problems didn't manifest themselves until much later, like 15 years in game later, and I think it was largely because we had so many people playing two or three nations and managing all of their economies to be self-sufficient. But if we do run into those problems in our game, I think the smartest way we can tackle it would be increasing base consumption (i.e, increase by a percentage what each type of pop demands, I think Kensai showed how to do it somewhere) over limiting structure pools because it is more fair to everybody, small and large nations alike, because it is more universal. What I mean by that is everything else will remain the same - resources in provinces, structure amounts, resources in colonies - it will just be harder to satisfy your population, people will have to act more strategically to acquire resource sites and negotiate commercial agreements for construction instead of just deciding, "Well I have 20 coal deposits but only 3 coal mines I can build, so whatever." Either way, I think we should wait for that because the conditions may be different in our game judging by how many people play, and we won't even know until 1865 or so anyway.

Sounds eminently reasonable.

[bjfagan]

Ok, I guess I will try my hand with S-P. It shouldn't take too much time for the turns.

I highly suggest limiting the number of colonial actions available, if you start the game in 1850. You can take Kensai's scripts that reduced the number and will slow down the colonial exapnsion to something closer to history.

[lukasberger]

Cool.

So the current line-up looks like this, with Holland and Belgium still available:

Austrian Empire - Ojodeaguila
Empire of Japan - Ech Heftag
Empire of Russia - coolbean
French Republic - Lindi
Kingdom of Belgium - ?
Kingdom of the Netherlands - ?
Kingdom of Prussia - PhilThib
Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont - bjfagan
Kingdom of Spain - nemethand
Ottoman Empire - soulstrider
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - lukasberger
United States of America - Jim-NC
Quing China - Matto

So if we can find Belgian and Dutch players we'll be all set.

We can probably go ahead and start discussing how we want to set things up, whether we'll use the 1850 or 1880 start etc. If we find a player for the Benelux countries while that's going on, good. If not we can just let the ai handle them. No need to hold up the game over Belgium or Holland, right?

[Matto]

If China is available still I will take it, is it possible?

[lukasberger]

If China is available still I will take it, is it possible?

Instead of the Netherlands? Sure.

[Matto]

Yes, instead of the Netherlands ... thanks

[coolbean]

I would prefer an 1850 start, and I am fine with limiting the colonial actions the way we did in CIE if everyone agrees.

[lukasberger]

I'd probably prefer an 1880 start, though either would be fine.

EDIT: took out all the rest about my leader mod, it really wouldn't work for us in its current format .

[Ojodeaguila]

I would prefer an 1850 start, and I am fine with limiting the colonial actions the way we did in CIE if everyone agrees.

I think we must limit the colonial decisions according to the major or minor organised status and the regional or worldwide etc. status.

[PhilThib]

Personally I would prefer 1880 start for a change, but won't mind 1850 provided all colonial actions are severely limited (to avoid delirious situation found in Conflict in Europe game).

[Ojodeaguila]

Personally I would prefer 1880 start for a change, but won't mind 1850 provided all colonial actions are severely limited (to avoid delirious situation found in Conflict in Europe game).

1. I think the colonial decisions must be seriously limited before 1870 or 1875 before and create a race for Africa effect, and the cost must be increased.

2. With less colonial options we can only take some small colonies before 1870 and no take all Africa in 1960.

[PhilThib]

A thousand percent in agreement wiht you on that

One thing I could do is some kind of "Specially resticted" decisions before 1870-1875 with less chance of success, higher costs and higher risks (especially vs natives reactions), and including a geographical limitation, in such a way for example not to hamper GBR in India/Asia or FRA in Algeria, or TUR in Middle-East, or USA in Continental USA, but restrict action everywhere else (namely Africa) till date or event occurs... It would take a little time to prepare, but it's possible (the alternative being that if we play 1880, we don't have to worry about that)..

I was also thinking on including back (it was removed for lack of time) the Embassy structure. If that was so, what would be the effects...I was thinking something like a small annual relationship improvement with host nation, and may be an extra diplomat or so at random over the course of time (i.e. 30% chance every 3 months, that would make on average 1 per year and per embassy). Embassies placement would be restricted to the capital cities of the playable foreign nations

[lukasberger]

A thousand percent in agreement wiht you on that

One thing I could do is some kind of "Specially resticted" decisions before 1870-1875 with less chance of success, higher costs and higher risks (especially vs natives reactions), and including a geographical limitation, in such a way for example not to hamper GBR in India/Asia or FRA in Algeria, or TUR in Middle-East, or USA in Continental USA, but restrict action everywhere else (namely Africa) till date or event occurs... It would take a little time to prepare, but it's possible (the alternative being that if we play 1880, we don't have to worry about that)..

I was also thinking on including back (it was removed for lack of time) the Embassy structure. If that was so, what would be the effects...I was thinking something like a small annual relationship improvement with host nation, and may be an extra diplomat or so at random over the course of time (i.e. 30% chance every 3 months, that would make on average 1 per year and per embassy). Embassies placement would be restricted to the capital cities of the playable foreign nations

Both of these ideas sound really good to me.

[Ojodeaguila]

I think that we have 3 debates that must be solve one by one:

1. Economical system.

2. Colonial decisions and limits.

3. Diplomatic limits.

I think we must solve first the economical debate, because it will affect the rest of the game.

Probably we need some military fixes, like ships and more forts for some minors.

[lukasberger]

Probably we need some military fixes, like ships and more forts for some minors.

I doubt this is needed since we won't have human players for the minors.

I believe the current consensus is to leave the economic system alone.

Colonial decisions should be limited if we're playing 1850, if 1880 then there's probably no need.

EDIT: I think PhilThib might take care of dealing with decision limits himself, that's the impression I got from him.
EDIT again: see below!

As to diplomatic limits, I'll just repeat my idea from the start of the thread:

"An idea for a possible house rule, that might keep national policy from changing too quickly even if players change. Use the in game relations to limit diplomatic options. So you'd have to have a relationship of +20, or whatever, with a nation in order to offer them an alliance. Or you can only go to war with a nation with whom you have, say, -20 or worse relations.

Thus national policies couldn't change in a day or week, they'd have to be planned and worked for ahead of time and could take years to come to fruition, as irl."

[PhilThib]

I agree that the most important factor is to behave as pure 'Victorian Gentlemen' (sic), i.e. diplomacy should be most civilized...your proposal is agreeable.

Minor ships and the like are iMHO not only unecessary but a potential gameplay issue.

For limiting 1850 colonial decisions, I can do some restrictive work (unecessary if we opt for 1880, allowing me to do better things instead) but it will probably need me quite a few days to work out something balanced

[lukasberger]

(unecessary if we opt for 1880, allowing me to do better things instead)

I guess that's as good a reason as any to opt for 1880, since the votes seem evenly split.

How do we want to figure out which date we start at? The vote I put up seem inconclusive, and I think that at least one person not playing in the game voted. Should we vote by posting our preference?

EDIT: I'd push for 1880, especially given Phil's comments here and in the poll thread, but this was originally coolbean's idea and he prefers 1850. I don't want to disappoint him (and additionally make him have to buy the 1880 dlc), so I'm a bit torn.

[Ech Heftag]

I think limiting structure pools or increasing base consumption was something we needed in our other game, but it may be too early to tell if we need it for the new game. We should probably wait until we start and see how things go in that regard. In the previous game, those problems didn't manifest themselves until much later, like 15 years in game later, and I think it was largely because we had so many people playing two or three nations and managing all of their economies to be self-sufficient. But if we do run into those problems in our game, I think the smartest way we can tackle it would be increasing base consumption (i.e, increase by a percentage what each type of pop demands, I think Kensai showed how to do it somewhere) over limiting structure pools because it is more fair to everybody, small and large nations alike, because it is more universal. What I mean by that is everything else will remain the same - resources in provinces, structure amounts, resources in colonies - it will just be harder to satisfy your population, people will have to act more strategically to acquire resource sites and negotiate commercial agreements for construction instead of just deciding, "Well I have 20 coal deposits but only 3 coal mines I can build, so whatever." Either way, I think we should wait for that because the conditions may be different in our game judging by how many people play, and we won't even know until 1865 or so anyway.

Increasing base consumption seems like a reasonable approach and is not overly restrictive for the players. I would definitely be fine with that.

Decreasing the chances for colonization before 1875, accompanied with a limitation of the cards and higher costs is a good way to tackle the colonization problems we encountered, so I'm all for it.

[bjfagan]

I was waiting to see how the vote went before I jumped in. I too am torn as to which way to go, but think 1850 would be better. We can see how things turn out differently than our current game. Also, while Phill would spend time on restricting the colonial decisions, instead of something else, I feel that this improvement is definitely very helpful for the game overall and will not be a wasted effort. The colonial game is too fast and needs to be slowed down. Not just for us, but for anyone else that plays.

[lukasberger]

Vote's at 8-4 right now in favor of 1850. I suspect one 1850 vote came from that guy who posted in the poll thread who isn't actually in the game. Even so it appears that we're pretty overwhelmingly in favor of 1850.

Has everyone voted? If you didn't please let us know and do so as soon as you can.

Pending any notification that several people haven't voted, I'd say it looks like we're going to start in 1850.

[PhilThib]

If this is the case, start will be slightly delayed because I need time to fix the Colonial decisions issue (which is not needed for 1880). May be a week or so

[Ojodeaguila]

If this is the case, start will be slightly delayed because I need time to fix the Colonial decisions issue (which is not needed for 1880). May be a week or so

We must decide how many decisions will give to each Nation.

[Ojodeaguila]

I doubt this is needed since we won't have human players for the minors.

I believe the current consensus is to leave the economic system alone.

Colonial decisions should be limited if we're playing 1850, if 1880 then there's probably no need.

EDIT: I think PhilThib might take care of dealing with decision limits himself, that's the impression I got from him.
EDIT again: see below!

As to diplomatic limits, I'll just repeat my idea from the start of the thread:

"An idea for a possible house rule, that might keep national policy from changing too quickly even if players change. Use the in game relations to limit diplomatic options. So you'd have to have a relationship of +20, or whatever, with a nation in order to offer them an alliance. Or you can only go to war with a nation with whom you have, say, -20 or worse relations.

Thus national policies couldn't change in a day or week, they'd have to be planned and worked for ahead of time and could take years to come to fruition, as irl."

1. I prefer a more flexible limit less than +25 to declare a war(limit to have production sites in other nations), and more than -25 to offer alliance.

With a more flexible limit an unaligned nation continue having the possibility to joining a war or an alliance block fast but the member of an alliance will need time to change from one side to another.

2. If someone attack your allied you must be able to DOW even when you have good relations with the aggressor.

In the present war in Conflict in Europe, Belgium or Japan must be able to join the side that they decide but Spain or Sweden must not be able to attack France.

With my proposal if you maintain your relations between -25 and +25 you will have more diplomatic options but your allied will not consider you part of his block because you can easily leave it.

[bjfagan]

When starting the game, I suggest using the Extended Claims, so we don't have to worry about some countries not being able to give certain provinces in surrender terms.

[nemethand]

Some issues, most of which I recall from the CiE game:

- consider changing all played nations from Minor to Major (IsMajor = 1?), to prevent certain flows (e.g. trade ships, passage rights etc.)
- decisions for "minors"
- force poll issues, engineers, doctors etc. (if necessary)

[Lindi]

Limited colonial actions is really good, but I not love Extended Claims, with Extended Claims I can resquest all Italy, or Autrichia can that...

For big country is more easy to take territory in Europ, but this game is really fun for expander in out of Europe and fight for really small territory in Europ.

other exemple is Belgique, if play with Extended Claims, French in all area I can request All Belgique in three fast war... (In solo I always do that)

Really not love Extended Claims for PBM game. But if I play with That I can play really peace but the option for war is really more present.

it only my opinion.