[Submitted] Silk road threatens seaports

[Singapore no2]

Description:
After reports that @@NAME@@'s major trading partners are teaming together to build a 'silk road', a trans-continental railway, to bypass your seaports, the Minister of Trade and Commerce has hastily assembled a meeting to debate the issue.

Validity:
Nations with a sea-based animal

[option]
"We can't let our ports close down just because of some measly railway!" booms @@RANDOMNAME@@, the Minister of Defense, who just happens to own a majority stake in a shipping firm. "Their railway goes through at least three nature reserves, two indigenous villages and skirts the border of a disputed region. Give me the go-ahead leader and I'll tie up this project in so many international legal disputes and protests that it'll never see the light of day! If that fails, their railway is in so many conflict zones that it's almost certain that someone would do something to stop it, wouldn't they... ...?"
[effect]
@@NAME@@ has repeatedly called for the international community to condemn the railway while simultaneously committing acts of sabotage
[stats]
pacifism decreases, military funding increases significantly, cheese exports and beverage sales industry expands

[option]
"Do you know how much a government programme like that would cost?!" exclaims @@RANDOMNAME@@, the Party Treasurer, who had just run a census of the nation's coffers. "Let's just buy a massive stake in their railway so that we can re-route the railway to our nation. It's time we freed up our territorial waters for trout fishing and whale watching anyway."
[effect]
giant shipping firms close down to make way for fishermen and tourists
[stats]
tourism and trout fishing industry expands, cheese exports and beverage sales industry contracts, industry funding increases significantly

[option]
"Their trains will never beat our ships," scoffs @@RANDOMNAME@@, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who owns several speedboats. "Sure, half of the world is going to be connected by a super-continental trade sphere, but what about the other half? What about the island nations and antarctic settlements? That's a market that has been largely neglected. All you have to do is to give me permission to establish ties with those dictatorships and militant states, and our shipping businesses will be set back on track."
[effect]
pirates and extremists stop to restock in @@NAME@@ before carrying out attacks
[stats]
safety from crime decreases, safety decreases, economic freedom increases, arms manufacturing industry expands, pacifism increases slightly

[option]
"Trading 'partners' indeed!" fumes @@RANDOMNAME@@, the Minister of Propaganda, glaring at a picture of the world map. "They only care about their own economic interests after all. Like I always said, we don't need other countries for their goods and services, because we can just produce them at home. If we set up several government farms and factories, it will be more than enough to support our population. An added plus is that we won't have to waste money and cause pollution for imports. Of course, foreign investors and the filthy rich may pull out of the country, but who honestly cares about these non-patriots and foreigners?"
[effect]
capital flight from @@NAME@@ has reached unprecedented levels while the government sets up more companies than it does amenities
[stats]
environmental beauty increases, industry funding increases significantly, the economy contracts, state-owned industry expands significantly, private industry contracts significantly

[option]
"How is that a solution?" objects @@RANDOMNAME@@, the Minister for Science and Technology, while simultaneously formulating a thesis on a napkin. "The only reason why our trading partners have to resort to building such an expansive rail line is because our ships take weeks to months in commuting time. We need a serious upgrade of our merchant fleet to solve this problem. Since the military has so adamantly refused to share their seafaring technology, I find it reasonable to divert some funds from them for research and development of better ships."
[effect]
engineers are struggling to modify jet engines to fit on merchant ships as the deadline for the railway looms near
[stats]
military funding decreases, education funding increases, scientific advancement increases significantly, economy expands slightly

Great thanks to Annihilators of Chan Island, Caracasus and Trotterdam!

[Annihilators of Chan Island]

This is an interesting draft. I quite like it.

Option 1 should stress "our shipping companies".

In the second option, how about you try to get the other nations to re-route the railway to your nation?

While on that note, surely it makes more sense if they were banding together to build a huge motorway instead of a railway?

In option 3, I think the person should be saying that half the world will be connected by this super-continental trade sphere, seeing as the railway hasn't been built yet.

[Caracasus]

A good idea, I like the concept. Just a thought, but perhaps option one could be focused more on creating as many legal challenges and problems as possible? It seems more like something a nation would consider as opposed to actually attacking the railway.

Perhaps:

Option: "So they want to build a railway do they?" scoffs @@RANDOMNAME@@, your most Machiavellian advisor "we'll see about that! This railway plan seems to go through at least three nature reserves, two indigenous villages and skirts the border of a disputed region. Give me the go-ahead leader and I'll tie up this project in so many international legal disputes and protests that it'll never see the light of day! And if all else fails, building a railway is such a dangerous undertaking. Accidents do happen after all......"

Effect: Other nations are fuming as the country uses its international clout to quash any attempt to reduce its stranglehold on international shipping

[Trotterdam]

Description:
After reports that @@NAME@@'s major trading partners are teaming together to build a 'silk road', a trans-continental railway, to bypass your seaport,

I don't think that's really what the original Silk Road was. (And not only because they didn't have trains back then.)

I'd just drop the buzzword and go directly to describing the trans-continental railway.

Validity:
Nations with a sea-based animal

Ugh no. My nation is supposed to be heavily involved in sea trade, but my national animal lives on land. I even have a little backstory about how it's not native to our nation but was imported from overseas as an exotic pet during one of our exploration voyages, and became crazy popular.

Unfortunately this draft has no option that feels like my nation would choose it, but then I'm not sure what could be.

cheese exports and beverage sales industry expands

Any particular motivation for choosing these as the industries that would be most dependent on sea trade?

In the second option, how about you try to get the other nations to re-route the railway to your nation?

Heh. When I started on this thread I thought to myself there should be an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" option, then I saw there was one already, and then I saw it was your suggestion and not in the original draft

[Rivercastle]

Wouldn't the sheer volume of trade make it hard for trains to handle it alone? Maybe instead of a railway you can have them trying to dig a canal to bypass your port.

[Singapore no2]

Wouldn't the sheer volume of trade make it hard for trains to handle it alone? Maybe instead of a railway you can have them trying to dig a canal to bypass your port.

Ultra-continental Suez Canal... ... sounds good.


But how do you sabotage a Canal without people noticing?
Also, this issue is actually a jab at concerns raised by fellow Singaporeans about the Arctic ice melting and making our port irrelevant.

[Caracasus]

This is looking really good so far. The only other thing I'd add really is perhaps a fourth option around renovating and upgrading your nation's merchant navy? Hmm. Oh, and I'd remove the reference to the Security Council. Just put something like "lobbies on the world stage to..." instead. Not all nations being part of the WA and all....

[The Wolven League]

Perhaps one option would revolve around a local merchant who wants to establish some sort of cavalry-based trade route across land for environmental/tradition reasons. Your leader could be out for a walk or something, and the merchant rides up on horseback and suggests a horse/maybe camel-driven Silk Road.

[Trotterdam]

Perhaps one option would revolve around a local merchant who wants to establish some sort of cavalry-based trade route across land for environmental/tradition reasons. Your leader could be out for a walk or something, and the merchant rides up on horseback and suggests a horse/maybe camel-driven Silk Road.

How would you enforce that, though? The premise of this issue is that other nations are deciding to bypass your nation's trade policies for the sake of their own economic interests. It's unlikely that horse-and-camel-caravans would be able to compete with a train route in a free market.

There could, though, be an anti-globalization option insisting that your nation should become more self-sufficient rather than relying so much on trade (also occasionally an environmentalist platform, based on the money and pollution that gets wasted transporting goods over long distances that could have been produced locally). And I guess you could still have the person suggesting this be on horseback because horses are a lot more viable over short distances (or less viable over long distances, either/or).

[Singapore no2]

I made some changes, but can someone suggest which options to merge? 5 seems one too many.

Also my validity is a bit patchy, can someone also provide a suggestion?

[Trotterdam]

I made some changes, but can someone suggest which options to merge? 5 seems one too many.

I don't know, I like all of those options.

2 and 4 are indispensable, being the two options for not keeping up your sea trade, in very different ways.

1, 3, and 5 are all different approaches to having your merchant ships remain relevant. I think 1 and 3 have some similarities in that they're the two most morally-questionable options (sabotaging other nations' projects to protect your monopoly, and trading with oppressive rogue states, respectively), so maybe they could be combined for a two-pronged attack, though I find them both interesting in their own respects. 5 is necessary as the unique non-corrupt way of keeping your ships.

While option 3 is amusing, I must question the implied assumption that island nations are automatically less reputable than continental ones. There are plenty of dubious dictatorships in the Southeast Asian mainland, while Japan is much better off. Also, it's not just small island nations that you need a ship to reach, there are also entirely different continents. Trade going from the US to Europe (both wealthy developed regions) necessarily needs to use ships for at least part of the trip, whether it turns out to be more efficient for each coastal nation to have its own ports, or for all US-sourced shipping to arrive at one major port and then continue on train to the rest of Europe. Being a major trade hub with good ship and rail access would encourage a lot of trade to flow through you. So maybe combine 2 and 3 rather than relegating all your ships to the fishing industry? But not unless the corruption of option 3 is downplayed, and then I think it'd be too much of a clearly-good option. 3 and 5 could also be combined, to go all-out with your trading empire, but that has the same problem.

Looked at another way, I would summarize the current 1 and 3 as the "evil" options, 2 and 5 as the "sane" options, and 4 as the "radical but not exactly evil" option. I think it's nice to have this distinction, so that nations with a strong commitment to playing as evil or sane still have multiple attractive options. I like issues with more options, anyway.

Also my validity is a bit patchy, can someone also provide a suggestion?

Since NationStates has no way of telling which nations are coastal (an aquatic national animal doesn't do it, since coastal and island nations can still have land animals, and landlocked nations can still have freshwater animals) and little way of telling how much nations rely on foreign trade (since even a nation that does have ports wouldn't necessarily be so reliant on them as to be known as "the port nation" of its continent, that people make international coalitions to defeat).

I think I'd just have it require having a very strong economy, and not having previously banned foreign trade. (Do we have a sliding scale for import/export taxes/tariffs?)

Maybe just ask the editors to use whichever criteria allow #201 to show up (which also assumes sea trade is important). If there are any!

[Singapore no2]

Bump.

Alright, how should this be amended?

[Australian rePublic]

Nations with sea-based animals are likely to be isolated islands not connected to continent

[Singapore no2]

Nations with sea-based animals are likely to be isolated islands not connected to continent

Yes, but I'm not sure what to do about that. I mean, there needs to be something to define the validity of the issue, surely.

[Australian rePublic]

Nations with sea-based animals are likely to be isolated islands not connected to continent

Yes, but I'm not sure what to do about that. I mean, there needs to be something to define the validity of the issue, surely.

Not really. You're more likely to find an island nation than a landlock nation, and this would apply to all non-islands

[Australian rePublic]

Most nations have more than one sea port
And wouldn't a train line go in the opposite direction of a sea port?

[Singapore no2]

Most nations have more than one sea port
And wouldn't a train line go in the opposite direction of a sea port?

Yes, but this is assuming that the countries you trade with are connected via land (and are closer together), and thus could bypass you.

[Australian rePublic]

Most nations have more than one sea port
And wouldn't a train line go in the opposite direction of a sea port?

Yes, but this is assuming that the countries you trade with are connected via land (and are closer together), and thus could bypass you.

Yes, but you would move your sea port elsewhere. Also, if your neighbours are on the west, that means your coast is on the east, and your rail line runs west, so there is no problem. In fact, it then gets better because you can run from the far east to far west and open trade routes from both ends

[Australian rePublic]

Let me draw you a diagram. you are the white nation. The pink is your sea port. The green is the railway line, the different colours are you different neighbour and the blue is the ocean. As you can see, the railway line can run through your nation without interrupting the sea port, perhaps even improving it

[Annihilators of Chan Island]

Christ, Singapore, just submit your issues. This one should already be implemented in the game!

Let me draw you a diagram. you are the white nation. The pink is your sea port. The green is the railway line, the different colours are you different neighbour and the blue is the ocean. As you can see, the railway line can run through your nation without interrupting the sea port, perhaps even improving it

(Image)

Yes, but this issue is running on the assumption that that green line is going to purple from black via red (say): an obvious disadvantage for the white nation and possibly disastrous for the seaport, so I like it as it is.

[Singapore no2]

Christ, Singapore, just submit your issues. This one should already be implemented in the game!

Let me draw you a diagram. you are the white nation. The pink is your sea port. The green is the railway line, the different colours are you different neighbour and the blue is the ocean. As you can see, the railway line can run through your nation without interrupting the sea port, perhaps even improving it

(Image)

Yes, but this issue is running on the assumption that that green line is going to purple from black via red (say): an obvious disadvantage for the white nation and possibly disastrous for the seaport, so I like it as it is.

Since I have no idea what to do to salvage the validity, I'll take your word for it.

[Australian rePublic]

Good luck!