NationStates Jolt Archive

OK, so heres my gripe of the week, there are those nations that think that you have to be an expert on every aspect of the military if you want to even think about doing war, well not that extreme, but they want the Idea of logistics and tactics to get through. (Evil Overlord, Santa Barbara .) As it should be, but to what extent?

Than there are the Storytellers (Pantera, AMF, Steel Butterfly) who dont make a big deal about there Military, I dont think I ever saw Pantera write out:

Reaver Division One- 28,450 Reavers
Rever Division Two- 26,784 Reavers....etc. etc. etc.

These people dont godmode at all, hell, when your billion plus, you can have a standing army of ten million and thats a small army, but they dont think its neccesary to post every last thing they have in thier military, its just a given.

Than there's what I call the Numerologists, these people post in every damn War thread post, every little thing they have in their Military! ANd than they name ALL of there ships, as though Im going to remeber it, or want to read it! Im sorry I really dont think its neccessary to post:

Division 1- 40,000 Infantryman
Division 2 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 3 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 4 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 5 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 6 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 7 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 8 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 9 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 10-40,000 Infantryman

Fleet One
Twenty Destroyers
NSS-Fairfax
NSS-Gherring
NSS ICantthinkofanothername

ETC< ETC< ETC>>>

So Im just looking for peoples opinon on this, This will not be a flamefest!!! I am looking only for peoples input, not "NO! This is my style of war! And thats the only way everyone else is Godmodeing!!"

Thank you for your time.

I agree when it comes to numerologists, or whatever you called them, I can't figure out how the hell they keep up with all those damn stats in the first place. And the funny thing is, is that when the RP actually begins, most of it never even comes into play.....pure waste of time in some cases...

One should avoid either extreme, and instead try to RP with a little of both. Simply posting an endless list of each ship, soldier, and armored vehicle doesn't add much to the game; on the other hand, simply stating that you have sent troops to invade a country doesn't help the RP along either.

If I am going to invade someone, I would at least provide a brief description of it, ie "two thousand infantry supported by tracked vehicles and artillery". I would not post something along the lines of "ten thousand soldiers, each six foot 2 inches in height and carrying a M-16 assault rifle, two canteens, a pocket knife, MREs and a pair of socks are moving into the country at 2 MPH".

Just personal opinion and preference, of course.




Consul Supreme McCallister
Head of State, Dominion and Principalities of Eredron
http://www.ccadp.org/flag-trinidad.gif (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=display_nation/nation=eredron)

Well, you shouldn't name all your ships, just what each fleet consists of. And instead of breaking down every division, just say 10 divisions of about 100,000 men. And logistics, RP the supply line and skirmishes involving supply convoys arriving at the battlefield. Ambushes and such.

personally, I like to know exactly how much of what I have in the field... makes it feel like I have more IC intelligence ;)

In a recent post, I did this:
Right now we are going to commit all of our Kryptonite Mk III and Valiance battlegroups.

That means 5 Valiances, and 32 Kryptonite Mk IIIs. We're also throwing in 30 Celestial-Class Farad Artilleries.

Everything else is staying behind to guard Zarahemla.

So total forces being committed by the ZDF:

5 Valiance-Class Cruisers
32 Kryptonite Mk III-Class Cruisers
54 Omni-Class Assault Frigates
30 Celestial-Class Farad Artillery Frigates
74 Reflex-Class Corvettes
30 Tachyon-Class Frigates
1512 Mahonri Moriancumer Gunships
3024 CCF-10 Thunders
2016 CCF-90 Ammons
1008 CCF-11 TrickFighters
2016 Legolas Mecha
1008 Samson mecha

Total stats: 67 Heavy Farad Ships, 158 support capital ships, 10584 smaller attack craft.

No marines will be brought, and no civillians will be brought... Strictly space combat.

The CCSS Liahona, upstaging the CCSS Valiance, will lead this assault.

OOC: Info on ships available at CC Website:
http://www.bateshome.com/jordan/ccsig.jpg (http://www.bateshome.com/jordan/ccdex.htm)

:)

I do try to give some of my ships names and I specify what I have, but only when I don't have a whole lot.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kûk‡xenisi n!ok‡x'osi xno-k‡xek‡emi.
The state only exists to serve itself.
Racism-the other stupid ideology
Peace, love, and girls with small waists and really big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I'm male. Note the pic
of attractive women.

Surely, what those numerologists do can be annoying to some, but also prevents some confusion. While naming every one of the 100 ship they are deploying is very annoying, naming the numbers, as said, prevents confusion. This way, people can get a better understanding of your forces' numbers in RPs, and possibly even avoid some losses disputes.

And no, you don't have to be an expert. Being one, however, can make you "smarter" in wars, and therefore sometimes you can win.

I am somewhat a numerologist, I just keep track of how many divisions I have. I only post my over all numbers that i am USING in colficts. For example.

3 Armored Divisions(then how ever many tanks)

I only name large ships, like my Carriers. Or smaller ships if its specific for the RP. Usually i make up the name on the spot.

I would be a semi-numerologist.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kûk‡xenisi n!ok‡x'osi xno-k‡xek‡emi.
The state only exists to serve itself.
Racism-the other stupid ideology
Peace, love, and girls with small waists and really big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I'm male. Note the pic
of attractive women.

The name of the ships? That's just someone with too much time. lol during an rp, if they need to make it apparent that the ship in the rp is the "Whatever", then ok. But during mobilization, nah. That's not needed

I tend to just stick to rough numbers. Easier that way.

Some people call me crazy for only naming the command ships (the lead ship of each fleet), but it does help to avoid confusion. What I did was that I started a Word file when I joined NS, and then updated it every month.

What people tend to forget is that not everyone RPs the same way everyone else does. To you numbers are bad, to other people it avoids confusion and avoids rampant claims of godmodding when you out number and tromp other people.

You all have the choice of who to RP with and who not too. There's no point in discussing or trying to change minds since it wont happen ;).

Myself I use a mixture, of RP with a story and numbers my civil war thread is a great example of the two mixing together well. Enjoy christmas. HO HO HO I got new chemical weapons factories for christmas :D :D :D :mrgreen:

While it is true that you might not need to know the names and statistics of all of the 100 ships that your rp-ing partner may be sending at you two things are clear
-knowing SOME numbers is necessary
-those people find detailing their force entertaining, which after all is the point of the game.

If they go through and name all their ships, just ignore the names, get what numbers you need and go on with your rp, what's wrong with that?

I am detailed in large wars, general in small wars/battles/missions.

Right, I mean posting it somewhere once, isnt too bad, but when in every other post.....thats annoying.

But as for Eredrons post, I think thats almost exactly how it should be done, at least in my opinion.

I find that a little numeraloging is helpful.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kûk‡xenisi n!ok‡x'osi xno-k‡xek‡emi.
The state only exists to serve itself.
Racism-the other stupid ideology
Peace, love, and girls with small waists and really big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I'm male. Note the pic
of attractive women.

OK, so heres my gripe of the week, there are those nations that think that you have to be an expert on every aspect of the military if you want to even think about doing war, well not that extreme, but they want the Idea of logistics and tactics to get through. (Evil Overlord, Santa Barbara .) As it should be, but to what extent?

Than there are the Storytellers (Pantera, AMF, Steel Butterfly) who dont make a big deal about there Military, I dont think I ever saw Pantera write out:

Reaver Division One- 28,450 Reavers
Rever Division Two- 26,784 Reavers....etc. etc. etc.

These people dont godmode at all, hell, when your billion plus, you can have a standing army of ten million and thats a small army, but they dont think its neccesary to post every last thing they have in thier military, its just a given.

Than there's what I call the Numerologists, these people post in every damn War thread post, every little thing they have in their Military! ANd than they name ALL of there ships, as though Im going to remeber it, or want to read it! Im sorry I really dont think its neccessary to post:

Division 1- 40,000 Infantryman
Division 2 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 3 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 4 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 5 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 6 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 7 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 8 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 9 -40,000 Infantryman
Division 10-40,000 Infantryman

Fleet One
Twenty Destroyers
NSS-Fairfax
NSS-Gherring
NSS ICantthinkofanothername

ETC< ETC< ETC>>>

So Im just looking for peoples opinon on this, This will not be a flamefest!!! I am looking only for peoples input, not "NO! This is my style of war! And thats the only way everyone else is Godmodeing!!"

Thank you for your time.

First of all, I don't think you have to be an expert on every aspect of the military, but you know that. I'm not an expert or claim to be, I just appreciate good military literature, the strategy and tactics aspect of it, and of course, killing people and blowing things up.

But if you look at what we're doing as sort of creative fiction writing, then we can all agree that something well-written in a post is good. Hell we can probably agree on that anyway. The thing is, we all have different standards of what is good to read, and so to write. But for me, I like the informed, vivid and exact kind of writing of, say, Tom Clancy. He doesn't carve out page after page of troop lists and such, though; that's just bad writing. Others prefer less reality-themed styles, or more poetic or vague or mythological or whatever. (Actually, I like a lot of different styles, really.)

However, it's not just creative writing. If it were, there wouldn't be as many "GoDMod" problems. It's roleplay, and since it' freeform, we have no dice to resolve conflicts of character arms (or armies). There are many ways around this, and everyone likes their own way.

First, you can look at it as creative writing, and concentrate on characters and more or less accept everything as 'real' in that context. And/or, you can find people who RP like you (maybe even using a system, like dice or something else), and roleplay with them. Or, you can agree to a generalized standard ("reality") for such things, thus we are limited, like real nations, by economics, the budget, logistics, etc. That way, you can generally tell using knowledge who will win a given fight; common sense, but then you can mix creativity in.

In that case, the troop numbers and such become background. But background is important, and as a writer I've always made sure to have a solid, consistent background. So for me, I like to know every detail, because otherwise I start writing and a detail place comes up and I have nothing to say. I can make something up on the spot (in war RP, this is called pulling it out of your ass), but then it doesn't stay consistent, and it's totally dependent on the vagaries of ass-space, is hard to keep track of, etc.

The problem is, some people enjoy ass-space. A lot. And that's fine; there's certainly nothing in the Bible against ass-space. But if you enjoy ass-space, and you come at someone with some ass-spacedy weapons, wanting to destroy their well-crafted, balanced and realistic troops (who you outnumber 10 to 1, despite them spending more than your whole GDP on defense) you'd be out of line.

I guess it all comes down to style of conflict resolution. Cooperative (this is the best, but it seems people only want to wage war with nations whose players they OOCly dislike... amazing eh..) Reality-esque, or ass-spaceranging. The latter have their virtues, I guess.

You know what would be a good excercise for everyone to do, and then compare styles? An RP'd description of the Charge of the Light Brigade (Crimean War, read Tennyson's famous poem). There'd be about a half dozen general ways to do it, and that would probably give a great outline of the 'numerologists' and the other general types.

And yes, I do name all my ships, and I know every damn little bucket and bolt on them, how much power the different systems need, the deck layouts, command structure, weapons and everything else. Why? So I'm not clueless when writing about them, and so no one can pull some technobabble ass-weapon to destroy my fleet, at least not without a good explanation. I don't mean that any enemies I fight have to have the same writing style, but I'm not gonna RP the destruction of titanium at the hands of cardboard, because it's not consistent with reality.

Doesn't mean I stick with reality 100%, however, as that's impossible. I call diversions from reality (elves, gravships, plasma weapons, FTL, communism) "black boxes," like the ones on airplanes that you can't destroy. They're just there, and they have a purpose (the RP), but you can't explain them a whole lot. (That analogy doesn't make sense really, but I still call them black boxes.)

I think it's okay to have a few black boxes. Trouble is, for me at least, when someone's entire roleplay is black boxes. They have soldiers they don't know what are armed with, weapons they can't explain at all, unrealistic numbers of everything, doing things they can't, for reasons unknown, at unknown times, at vague places, using strategies they don't know against objectives they can't define. I mean how am I supposed to respond then? "Gee, uh. That was a great attack, and you've destroyed my nation." I don't think so!

I just think if you're gonna do military RP, against players you may or may not get along with, you better know what you're doing. Knowledge is power here. If you're fighting a roleplayer who happens to know a lot of military tactics and history, and you don't, well don't expect to win easily or cheaply. That's just common sense. (On that note, the opponent I would want to fight with least would be The Evil Overlord. Although I have the in-game larger military, he has a larger wealth of knowledge about how to defeat said military. However, I don't fear n00b#400 with a pop-bugged out nation launching a zillion nukes, even though a zillion is quite a lot. I know how to shoot them down, and my military does too. Basically that's how it works.)

It wouldn't be quite like this in character; generals would know more strategy than any of the players. But until NS2 comes out, and war can be more objectively quantified, the reality standard is the only one most people seem to agree on most of the time.

/babbling

As far as posting goes, though, I don't mean to name and list everything in every post.

Background, like I said, but important background that will inevitably get called into question during war RPs on some level. Whether it's the weapon your ubercharacter is wielding, or just how many of those ten million troops will be attacking the city at any one time. Best to know beforehand than not at all, I say.

I agree that it gets quite annoying when people start listing their units, but because of the high amount of n00bs and godmodders out there, this is unfortunately the only way to make sure your roleplaying the war fair and square...

at the large scale I'll just use general force descriptions, at the micro level I may name a boat that fires something or the llkes (not hard considering are fleets are tiny) or name a CO or what not to add flavour/character...
sadly the only wars I've ended up in have been with a daft godmodder so my experience is naff

Thank you Santa Barbara for your eloquent input, I wasnt naming you as a villian or anything, merely as an example as too the style of RP I was reffering too, you and EO are both damn good rpers in my opinion, I am doin one with him now, as a matter of fact.