27-04-2003, 22:26
Foreign Affairs covers the following general categories:
-- Foreign Aid, Loans
-- Treaties, Alliances, Alliance/UN fees
-- Military
-- Trade
On the foreign affairs page, you'd be able to select any of those tasks to manage. First two are in this post, Military and Trade will be separate.
Foreign Aid/Loans
In times of crisis, certain countries may ask for help, or you may need help. You should be able to see a list of countries, sortable by allies or by need or type of crisis. Clicking on a country would go to a description of the country's problem/plea for help. If you choose to help a country out, simply select what you will do and how much, and attach a message, for example:
-- Donate money
-- Offer loan
-- Send food, medical supplies, emergency people (not military!)
The country requesting the aid will be able to see which countries have offered what. Loans would have to be accepted, but other items may be accepted automatically. It might be possible to send home or deny the aid/money/supplies if a country decides it has received enough, or maybe if it doesn't want to owe a favor to certain countries.
In order to request aid, simply go to this same place, click "request aid," fill in information about why you need it, the urgency, background info, and some category (environmental crisis, disaster, financial breakdown, famine, etc...).
A country can also offer loans to others here as a part of treaties (they don't have to declare disaster first), and manage what supplies are being sent around to where. Note that anything that is offered here will show up automatically on the budget, either through the current year's foreign aid allocation, or next years if there is none or not enough. Countries receiving aid will immediately be able to allocate it (if it is money) on the current budget.
Loans will follow the plan discussed in JT3a -- Economy.
Treaties, Alliances, and Alliance/UN fees
This page you can manage your treaties, Alliance and UN memberships, and membership fees.
(Quick note, please reference JT1 about Treaties, Alliances, and Regions. Regions we've defined as physical non-changable locations, like north america, or europe. Treaties are agreements between two or more nations. Alliances are a set of nations that want to strengthen themselves and act as one for certain purposes. Being in an alliance allows a few more options for economic treaties than would otherwise be available.)
-- Treaties
At the treaty page, you can view your current treaties, sort them a zillion different ways, make new treaties, and pull out of or report a broken treaty.
To make a new treaty, simply click whichever button, determine whether it is a general treaty or a treaty for your alliance (if you have one), write the text of the treaty, select the type and category, budgeting category and item, etc...
There can be a few types of treaties, such as economic (trade), military, environmental, and probably some others. See JT1 for more details on those. Some of the economic treaties may only be available as an alliance treaty. Certain treaties that follow the available selection items you may be able to break automatically, though it won't necessarily pull you out of it and put a black mark next to you name. For example, a few nations could be in a treaty that states "We will not fund technology X." or "We will not trade with country Y." (Actually the latter would be more like a resolution, but it's all the same thing, we could have different style names for treaties just like nations have different prefixes... The Nixonstan Accords, etc...) Anyway, if you fund tech X or trade with country Y anyway, perhaps nations within your alliance could find out easier, or other nations would have to spy on you (spying and intelligence is another discussion) to figure it out. Maybe there'd be a very subtle note on the treaty page or maybe on the nation's stat sheet about what they are up to, and other nations would have to puzzle together that someone is in violation of a treaty.
If someone violates a treaty, perhaps they would have a player or nation rating or history which would list all of the international violations that they've done. Whether or not a nation is in violation is a matter of debate, and vote of maybe other treaty members, or the UN or the alliance. (Originally Christmas Day's idea I believe.)
When a treaty is written, you could just specify the nations to invite to join. Those nations would be notified that they were invited to join a treaty, and then review it. If they disagree, they can refuse to join, or if they want a change or modification, say so, or join/sign the treaty. In any of those cases, they can send back a note with their response.
One possibility would be hosting an international conference. I could announce on various boards that on some date I am holding a conference on global warming in some city in my country. We could either have a live chat, or a discussion over several days, and someone could write a treaty based upon the discussions and people could sign it.
-- Alliances
If you are not in an alliance, you can form one, search and apply for membership, or just view information about other alliances. In forming one, you could specify the different options like is there one person with more power in the alliance than others or be an equal democracy, will it be open membership or applications required, etc... Besides those, you can write up non-functional things like a description and purpose of the alliance, and invite other nations to join.
If you have been invited to join an alliance, or they accept your application, click accept and you're in. You first have to read the alliance purpose/mission, and accept all alliance treaties, either en-mass or one-by-one. After you accept those, you will get access to the private discussion board of the alliance and can participate as you wish.
Each alliance will have a public view page where it can list whatever information it wants the world to see about it. It can have announcements, description, member roster, icons/flags, etc..., and a public discussion page.
A nation can be kicked out of an alliance. How this happens depends upon the type of alliance, whether it requires a vote, or the alliance dictator decides, or whatever. Being kicked out of an alliance would also go into the player or nation history. A nation could voluntarily leave an alliance, though if that would have a negative effect is also up for discussion of the alliance.
-- Membership Fees
As in real life, the UN and alliances have a budget. The budget and membership fees would be voted on by member nations. It could be a static fee, or be dependent upon the population or gdp per capita of each nation. Nations don't have to pay them though, they can change in their budget what portion of the fee they pay. Note that in real life, the United States owes several billion dollars to the UN in back-payments. So far the UN hasn't done much to convince the US to pay them, so they're getting away with it. In the game, other countries would have to convince member nations to pay the fees if they aren't.
-- Foreign Aid, Loans
-- Treaties, Alliances, Alliance/UN fees
-- Military
-- Trade
On the foreign affairs page, you'd be able to select any of those tasks to manage. First two are in this post, Military and Trade will be separate.
Foreign Aid/Loans
In times of crisis, certain countries may ask for help, or you may need help. You should be able to see a list of countries, sortable by allies or by need or type of crisis. Clicking on a country would go to a description of the country's problem/plea for help. If you choose to help a country out, simply select what you will do and how much, and attach a message, for example:
-- Donate money
-- Offer loan
-- Send food, medical supplies, emergency people (not military!)
The country requesting the aid will be able to see which countries have offered what. Loans would have to be accepted, but other items may be accepted automatically. It might be possible to send home or deny the aid/money/supplies if a country decides it has received enough, or maybe if it doesn't want to owe a favor to certain countries.
In order to request aid, simply go to this same place, click "request aid," fill in information about why you need it, the urgency, background info, and some category (environmental crisis, disaster, financial breakdown, famine, etc...).
A country can also offer loans to others here as a part of treaties (they don't have to declare disaster first), and manage what supplies are being sent around to where. Note that anything that is offered here will show up automatically on the budget, either through the current year's foreign aid allocation, or next years if there is none or not enough. Countries receiving aid will immediately be able to allocate it (if it is money) on the current budget.
Loans will follow the plan discussed in JT3a -- Economy.
Treaties, Alliances, and Alliance/UN fees
This page you can manage your treaties, Alliance and UN memberships, and membership fees.
(Quick note, please reference JT1 about Treaties, Alliances, and Regions. Regions we've defined as physical non-changable locations, like north america, or europe. Treaties are agreements between two or more nations. Alliances are a set of nations that want to strengthen themselves and act as one for certain purposes. Being in an alliance allows a few more options for economic treaties than would otherwise be available.)
-- Treaties
At the treaty page, you can view your current treaties, sort them a zillion different ways, make new treaties, and pull out of or report a broken treaty.
To make a new treaty, simply click whichever button, determine whether it is a general treaty or a treaty for your alliance (if you have one), write the text of the treaty, select the type and category, budgeting category and item, etc...
There can be a few types of treaties, such as economic (trade), military, environmental, and probably some others. See JT1 for more details on those. Some of the economic treaties may only be available as an alliance treaty. Certain treaties that follow the available selection items you may be able to break automatically, though it won't necessarily pull you out of it and put a black mark next to you name. For example, a few nations could be in a treaty that states "We will not fund technology X." or "We will not trade with country Y." (Actually the latter would be more like a resolution, but it's all the same thing, we could have different style names for treaties just like nations have different prefixes... The Nixonstan Accords, etc...) Anyway, if you fund tech X or trade with country Y anyway, perhaps nations within your alliance could find out easier, or other nations would have to spy on you (spying and intelligence is another discussion) to figure it out. Maybe there'd be a very subtle note on the treaty page or maybe on the nation's stat sheet about what they are up to, and other nations would have to puzzle together that someone is in violation of a treaty.
If someone violates a treaty, perhaps they would have a player or nation rating or history which would list all of the international violations that they've done. Whether or not a nation is in violation is a matter of debate, and vote of maybe other treaty members, or the UN or the alliance. (Originally Christmas Day's idea I believe.)
When a treaty is written, you could just specify the nations to invite to join. Those nations would be notified that they were invited to join a treaty, and then review it. If they disagree, they can refuse to join, or if they want a change or modification, say so, or join/sign the treaty. In any of those cases, they can send back a note with their response.
One possibility would be hosting an international conference. I could announce on various boards that on some date I am holding a conference on global warming in some city in my country. We could either have a live chat, or a discussion over several days, and someone could write a treaty based upon the discussions and people could sign it.
-- Alliances
If you are not in an alliance, you can form one, search and apply for membership, or just view information about other alliances. In forming one, you could specify the different options like is there one person with more power in the alliance than others or be an equal democracy, will it be open membership or applications required, etc... Besides those, you can write up non-functional things like a description and purpose of the alliance, and invite other nations to join.
If you have been invited to join an alliance, or they accept your application, click accept and you're in. You first have to read the alliance purpose/mission, and accept all alliance treaties, either en-mass or one-by-one. After you accept those, you will get access to the private discussion board of the alliance and can participate as you wish.
Each alliance will have a public view page where it can list whatever information it wants the world to see about it. It can have announcements, description, member roster, icons/flags, etc..., and a public discussion page.
A nation can be kicked out of an alliance. How this happens depends upon the type of alliance, whether it requires a vote, or the alliance dictator decides, or whatever. Being kicked out of an alliance would also go into the player or nation history. A nation could voluntarily leave an alliance, though if that would have a negative effect is also up for discussion of the alliance.
-- Membership Fees
As in real life, the UN and alliances have a budget. The budget and membership fees would be voted on by member nations. It could be a static fee, or be dependent upon the population or gdp per capita of each nation. Nations don't have to pay them though, they can change in their budget what portion of the fee they pay. Note that in real life, the United States owes several billion dollars to the UN in back-payments. So far the UN hasn't done much to convince the US to pay them, so they're getting away with it. In the game, other countries would have to convince member nations to pay the fees if they aren't.