NationStates Jolt Archive

Something I've noticed over the time I've spent on NS is the general ppor quality of war RP. Usually it degenerates into a series of GODMODs and enormous acts of number crunching. Neither of which are fun.

Ironically the best war RP I ever had was my first where I and another player were RPing incompetent leaders of cowardly Banana Republic armies. It was enormously fun.

Recently I have come up with an idea. Pre-Writing the overall events of the war. This takes out the element of competition and allows for people to actually write enjoyable stories. If anyone is interested, let me know. I know some of you will inevitable say this takes out the element of fun, but I don't believe it does, the frustration and ignores, perhaps, but the fun, no.

Actually, I'd be pretty interested. Although I don't think this is an idea I'd take on full time, its an experience I'd certainly like to try out. It'll also mean that I can write at my own pace, and since I expect to be busy in the next couple of weeks, this could fit nicely. Count me in.

I concur with Fax. I agree with what he said and this might be a decent idea. Kind of like reading sparknotes and then reading the book. OK, not the best analogy ever, but you get the point. Too bad I'll be gone all the rest of this week.

Actually sounds like a pretty good idea to me. It removes the big picture point and spontaneity (sp?) of the plot, but sometimes that just gets lost anyway amongst players trying to one-up each other in some sort of joke excuse for sports. This'll allow for detail and the small-picture to get fleshed out.

I'm all in.

I'd be down for this.

This sounds cool and it would allow non combative nations to have a quick summary of the war without reading through pages of "one-upping". How would you suggest opposing forces go about coming up with the prewritten events of war?

Depending on who you're RP'ing with, this might be a feasible solution to number wanking and ZOMG ALPHABET SOUP TECH WANKZORING, but I don't see how you'll do it when, say, you're invading someone. You want to take them over, install a change in government or just kill everything in sight, they want to keep their land and / or their sovereignty. The other guy won't arrange to lose their country, and you won't likely arrange (if you're a major imperialist) to pull out.

If two nations are fighting over an island both want to colonise, or are taking opposing sides in another nation's civil war, I can see this working, but not in a typical invasion.

Depending on who you're RP'ing with, this might be a feasible solution to number wanking and ZOMG ALPHABET SOUP TECH WANKZORING, but I don't see how you'll do it when, say, you're invading someone. You want to take them over, install a change in government or just kill everything in sight, they want to keep their land and / or their sovereignty. The other guy won't arrange to lose their country, and you won't likely arrange (if you're a major imperialist) to pull out.

If two nations are fighting over an island both want to colonise, or are taking opposing sides in another nation's civil war, I can see this working, but not in a typical invasion.

Hey, I'll gladly go invade and then get forced out. It's all good if it's written fine. You can't tell me NS is about winning and losing; it never ends. As long as you're alive IRL you can find something new to spark your creativity juices.

I could see other people also having no problem with that.

I've actually been wanting to do some work to develop a coherent, working method of making realistic and effective wars for a while now. I figure it would be a good way for me to get back in to NS roleplay (considering I've got the free time to do so again), so if you guys need any more people, I'd be up for it.

Well in the spirit of Dyelli Beybi’s thread I’d like to offer myself up as a guinea pig. Who here plays a reasonably imperialist nation that installs puppets more than they obliterate and annex? I’d like you to be a fair sight larger than me so that you can accept a BIG loss but ultimately still win. If we are getting along well ooc over MSN (or however we choose to coordinate our IC threads) then it could be permanent. Otherwise in a few months times (IRL) we could talk about how to engineer you either abandoning me or me throwing you out. Heck the best thing about this is we could engineer our motivation oocly and never speak of it ICly. You could pull out for ‘purely political’ reasons and my newly reasserted sovereign government could insist that we threw you out.

Heck if whoever my invader is would like we could include some coalition forces that come to assist me but are withdrawn when overwhelmed. We might be able to portray more reasonable international reactions. The offering of paltry symbolic forces which are ultimately pulled out when the bluff is called – rather than this NS dog pile that seems to happen. So what say you lot – anyone interested in engineering the takeover of a Mediterranean nation who is externally reliant for mineral wealth but possess an educated workforce and a developed infrastructure? (Including an impressive array of shipyards. Sorry no uber dreadnaughts, just a lot of large for realife shipyards which churn out super freighters and tankers on a regular basis,… easily converted to wartime production if you think you’re going to hold me for a couple of years ICly :P )

I'd definitely be up for it, especially to create a kind of "Manchukuo" puppet-state. I imagine the ruler would likely be one of your own ex-rulers, especially from a group that was once in power but was overthrown or removed through one means or another.

However, there would be a lot of cultural pressure due to migration from Vetalia or its colonies and our sheer economic power would take a massive toll on your country as its assets are consumed by our corporations. Nonetheless, in the event that the territory is "liberated", it might make for some interesting post-war RPs.

Or you can have the previously protest banner waving anarchists as stealth air superiority fighter waving Black Ops anarchists, and have a sort of "revolution backed by anonymous" with minimum collateral damages, while retaining your sovereignty, but with your people ruling directly the government in an Electronic Direct Democracy. That is ideology-motivated warfare rather than imperialism. Although to be honest, that would be highly unlikely. Third Spanish States will never focus its revolutionary efforts on democratic governments, be them direct or representative, although I could arrange a "NS alternate story" sort of if you would like.

And yes, unfortunately many times wars are usually solved in only one way, like satirized by this classic:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=274352

Although I believe that among decent enough RPers there is no need of a pre-set storyline to ensure nobody will wank or godmode their way to victory.

I don't think it's necassary, no, but it can be beneficial, for a start it makes events a little less confused as well :P

This is a vague idea that I had thought of, I don't know how many of you will like this, or if you'll be able to fill in the missing bits for me...

Dyelli Beybi is currently run by a Tzarina, a noble just and honest person... to a fault. Machievelli said that the Prince must be both the lion and the fox, but the Tzarina/Prime Minister of Dyelli Beybi has no concept of how to behave as the fox, does not really understand deviousness, and will value honour over political expediency. This gives rise to a political climate where it is very easy for Dyelli Beybi to become 'honour bound' to enter a conflict.

Dyelli Beybi is early future tech, so would probably initially meet with success, however, a lot of it's weaponry is plagued with mechanical faults and is extremely hard to replace in wartime. In a prolonged war, like the Germans in WWII, the Dyellian State will be unable to replace it's losses, and it's army will eventually fold, or at best result in a stalemate scenario where it will be up to the politicians to fix things.

I like the idea of centering it around 1 country- Galene sounds like a good option, seeing as he already offered himself up as a guinea pig. Faxanavia would step in on Galene's side assuming that they're currently a democracy- we're into the whole "intervene for democracy" thing and will generally step into any situation like this.

I'll be monitoring this thread. I don't know where I could fit in (I'm not "world police", nor attacker), but as the ideas get laid out, if I will find a place, I will "officially" enlist.

Sounds good, if there is a minor place for me I'd be interested!

I'm a brute force attacker kind of nation that generally intervenes on case-by-case basises based on whatever is going on. In a situation like the one presented, I'd probaly suit better as the bad guy than a liberating force. Not neccessarily on the invader's side, maybe as a "pillage and rape" kind of thing.

Who can think of a way that might draw the Dyellians into conflict?

Ya I know it can be a bitch sometimes, we tried to make a balance

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Turning_Point_1750/

But I do agree with the whole concept of too much number crunching etc, or to few rules (too much god-mod).

Here's some thoughts on that:

-Your nation made a secret compact with one of the attacking/defending nations for mutual defense/incursions. This is your end of the bargain, as you say your guy is honor-bound. That would cross the t.

-There's something secular you want to get out of it. Invading for selfish purposes is the best, if you ask me.

-Rather than supporting one nation, you're supporting one man/one group in leadership position (or an underground position, maybe) which coincides with a faction of the war. That'd be a little more character-driven, but no worse.

Yes my nation is democratic. Its more community minded than individual minded – where, with the exception of certain predefined inalienable rights – the community can vote you to do pretty near anything. An example of this would be that fifty years ago a communist party held majority in the house, senate, and held the executive. This resulted in the outlawing of private property, so land holdings are orchestrated by one large government office which is accountable to the senate.

This also resulted in the next party in amending the constitution to make it so that no organization could field candidates for more than one branch of the government but c’est la vie.

Okay Vetalia we can try it out. The Manchukuo analogy seems interesting. Do you want to plan this in real-time over MSN or something?

You comment on the consumption of my assets is interesting however as my nation if reliant on external trade as it is. When you start taking land my economy will falter quickly because the nation is very interdependent and recycling is a large part of the economy – both in employment and resources. There is a small but thriving industry of scraping WWII era hardware off the bottom of the ocean and melting it down into base parts.

So reasons for invading: Strategic positioning in the Mediterranean, “Bread basket” style production, access to new undersea mining enterprises, access to coal veins, large industrial base (very tempting if it could be secured intact), large shipyard facilities, impressive education system means there are A LOT of researchers in my country who could be turned out and brought to work for your military complex.

Galene prides itself on political inclusion – their moral basis for hard lining some issues. So while there is no repressed minority per se there is a sort of underground fascist movement that my nation can’t seem to divest itself of. (Leftovers from Mussolini’s occupation.) While the worst of it is contained – the brown shirts were come down on pretty hard – there is a certain lingering anger amongst the heirs to large corporations. Specifically the ones who suffered after the land redistribution and who were garnering government contracts in the 2nd world war. You would need to be careful if you choose the fascist element to deal with because despite wanting the country its members are fiercely patriotic so grand gestures like hanging your flag over the capital building might not go over so well.

I am picturing an invasion of my nation as being particularly expensive when trying to break open its coastal and air defences. While battleships are more uncommon and there are no aircraft carriers in the fleet Galene prides itself on creating ‘all purpose’ cruisers. These cruisers are designed to be able to survive on their own but at the same time link up with the fleet to provide a cohesive response, sort of a full package idea. The surface fleet on home turf, with submersible support, in range of domestic airbases and coastal batteries, with torpedo nets, and a couple of domestic mine fields will be your biggest obstacle.

Once landings are made my nation is very tank shy. Not our thing. Economically taxing and we don’t support the local terrain to really train on it. Armored divisions (so long as they can take some RPG fire) will be your biggest advantage here. Some of my troops are deployed with anti-tank rifles – in response to the growing use of reactive armour – but this is all detail stuff we can get into later.

Your nation will need to make decisions about whether or not the mass transit lines connecting the islands will be left intact (favouring the occupation or the invasion) as these lines would provide for a massive mobilization of people and resources on my part.

My nation has a universal conscription policy which will make holding areas interesting. Nearly every citizen has military training because of this. The only way to opt out is serve government as a bureaucrat instead, pushing paper for five years. I foresee this making cities kill zones for occupying forces, after achieving naval and aerial superiority though this could be limited via fire support. Again I don’t know how much detail we want to get into with the preplanning stuff.

If you do decide that you’re going to prop the fascists up then the brown shirts could be rearmed… add me to MSN if you’d like we can talk about this.

semi_equal@hotmail.com

This actually creates a perfect reason for Dyelli Beybi to get involved. Dyelli Beybi is a pseudo-Communist state (very complicated politics lol). Dyelli Beybi tries to run its State off a) Corporate tax (private enterprise isn't totally illegal) and b) Parastatals making profit (Government owned corporations).

Were a Parastatal mining company to become involved in Galene (presumably some kind of partnership program with the Galene Government), Dyelli Beybi would be very annoyed if someone started fighting around it's source of income, especially if it meant the Parastatal would be expelled from the area.

Possibly some kind of bribery went into Dyelli Beybi gaining a monopoly over the resources (we do that), which would leave someone else very upset. I think a Dyellian Parastatal wouldn't violate any laws against Private Enterprise, especially if it was dividing the profits with the local Government.

Yeah I have no problems with that – assuming these caveats.

1) Vetalia ultimately wins and conquers me, as per the original agreement
2) Your monopoly is not on a national level, but within those islands that you run your mining operation the market control can be 100%.
3) The ore is refined locally, but an agreement can exist where it is sold back to you at a fair price.
4) As many managers and executives as you want may come from your country. Labourers and engineers are hired locally.

That sounds pretty good to me...my nation hates commies, and if DB supports Galene, I could send forces to help out Vetalia's invading armies simply for sheer ideological hatred of communism of my nation (severe capitalists).

I'm going to tag this, as it seems to be the only sensible way to conduct war without it eventually divulging into spam weaponry and other forms of anti-realism.

if its not to late ill join

I'll step in against Vetalia attempting to conquer Galene. Who's side would that put me on?

As this is a preplanned war I don’t think we could really say yes or no to you joining until Vetalia has had a chance to post again. He would need to discern whether or not he wanted ideological interventionists. I have no problem with my country taking its knocks guys be please be aware we are doing this so that it DOESN’T turn out like the standard fare NS war, of which dog piling – in my opinion – is a malady.

As this is a preplanned war I don’t think we could really say yes or no to you joining until Vetalia has had a chance to post again. He would need to discern whether or not he wanted ideological interventionists. I have no problem with my country taking its knocks guys be please be aware we are doing this so that it DOESN’T turn out like the standard fare NS war, of which dog piling – in my opinion – is a malady.

Methinks we also need to wait for DB, as technically this is his idea for an RP.

I am not opposed to people getting involved, provided they know what this is all about. Probably better if people who are not part of this OOC thread don't get involved half way through.

I think perhaps we should think about what the end result is going to be and how we are going to get there. Is Galene going to be conquered first, sparking conflict, or in the end, finishing it? When we have an idea of that we can write the rough outlines of what major engagements happen when, then decide on the nitty gritty in OOC as we go.

As far as I can see there are two outcomes.

Dyelli Beybi gets dodgey trade concessions in Galene, snubbing Vetalia.
Vetalia attacks Galene, possible backed up by Amazonian Beasts at this point.
Dyelli Beybi intervenes (with more or less stuffing first around depending upon which outcome we prefer).
War ensues (if Vetalia is MT it will probably be somewhat suprised by Dyellian tech).
War ends with either Dyelli Beybi becoming over extended due to loss of irreplacable shipping or Vetalia retreating from occupied zone depending upon desired result.


If this RP is successful we could write a follow up.

About the tech - are we doing MT, PMT, whatever? I know DB has the high-end tech in the RP, but as for the rest of us, it's probaly a good thing to figure out. If this is a mostly MT/PMT RP, I'd like to use my lowish-end PMT version, as I perform a bit better there than I do with straight MT (as PMT practically is NS MT, anyway).

I don't think that the tech level really matters as much as in a normal RP where you're competing to win. The beauty of this is that we can leave this open to anyone more or less.

This can't seriously be the first time that all of these people are being exposed to the idea of a pre-planned war. There's no way. Vascilia has been doing this for years.

Bryn: I really don't even know how Vascilia is, much less seen him around the boards, and I've been here for 2 1/2 years...so...yea. This is mainstream.

The Vascilian League was the biggest thorn in the side of Yut and Mars for years.

The Vascilian League was the biggest thorn in the side of Yut and Mars for years.

Uh...for all of us who came 2005 and after...does that apply?

Okay, looks like I've got a bunch of stuff to address here, so I'll try to cover it as clearly as possible. If necessary will also TG Galene addressing their particular concepts, since the war will actually happen on their soil. If we need MSN to coordinate things, I'll get it setup ASAP; otherwise, OOC and TGs should be adequate for most needs.

1. Trade concessions are a great starting point for the war. Few things irritate our government, or the various financial interests that really back it than any kind of attempt to muscle in on a promising market. Vetalian society has gained a pretty nasty attitude towards many foreign nations in the aftermath of the war with Crimmond, so we're already going to have some distaste for Dyelli Beybi from the onset. We're also looking for a victor in a military conflict, something that's eluded us for a while.

2. PMT tech level is fine, although our technology tends towards more of an MT military and PMT society. This means the actual war will be primarily fought with our MT forces, but PMT elements will come in to play during the occupation (if it succeeds), giving us more control over the islands relative to our MT capabilities. So, from a strategic standpoint, we will need the support of more advanced forces such as AB's to help in the war and then we can effectively occupy and control.

3. The occupation will not be a plunder-and-run type of affair; in fact, we'll likely invest a considerable amount in to the territory in the same manner as Manchukuo, creating friction between the people who benefit from our rule and those that want liberation from our puppet government. After the war's over, there will likely be quite a few occupation-era buildings, factories, infrastructure and residences left over...the impact of this war will last long beyond its conclusion one way or another. Things that are destroyed in the war will be rebuilt and then some, although carefully designed to prevent giving the native Galeneans too much freedom or power to resist our rule.

There should be a lot of tension on a character-RP level if possible; I'd like to cover the personal impact of the war and occupation on the people involved. And, of course, neither side will be totally good or evil; the Vetalian troops, Ministry of State Security personnel, and Civil Protection (working name for Galene collaborator police force) will certainly be brutal, but there will be plenty of other people who are there for varying reasons good and evil.

And, if anybody could find those old threads or anything about them, it would be really helpful to see if there's anything we could learn to further develop this concept. I'd like to see some kind of cohesive, structured, and working war RP system develop and the closer we can move to that with this RP the better.

I'm definitely feelin' the idea of stressing character RP and looking hard at the small-scale. As we're already mapping out the large-scale, fleshing the little details will certainly make this from good to great.

Uh...for all of us who came 2005 and after...does that apply?

...You can't be serious.

...You can't be serious.

Take that as a no, especially as I generally don't see you around the boards much, either, as an '03 nation.

Hmm... the internet appears to have eaten my earlier reply to this thread. Oh well...

So, we are just about set to get moving I feel at least with a diplomatic prologue story creating the background events. I believe now we just need Galene to say which of these scenarios he wishes to see enacted, being as we're trampling across his country :P

Never heard of the 'Vascilian League' either. (And yes I can be serious).

That sounds like a good idea. I'm ready to go whenever you guys are.

Sounds great, I'm all ready to move.

Just waiting on Galene I think