Complete Nation States.

[Bears Armed]

What is the fun in running your own country if it has nothing to do with reality... at that point you might as well just imagine your country... also thought Max may have intended it to become a satire it has become incredibly realistic already just in the fact that the issues are current day, real world issues

But... but... but if I had to base my nation on reality then I couldn't have it inhabited (mainly) by anthropomorphic Bears!

With all of the data crunching this game does as a matter of course, the Economic, Political, Environmental, and Social impacts a given nation's industrial-military complex could be calculated fairly easily and constantly updated. Size of military,

Although that would require us to accept the game's ridiculously high population-figures; for example, the game gives Bears Armed a population of over 6 billion but for RP purposes I consider it to have only about 18-19 million instead...

[Marcuslandia]

I've been involved in the game industry on and off since the late '60s. (The last 20 years has been pretty much just as an avid consumer.) I know a little something about what goes into the making of a game, and the different steps the process must go through from beginning to end.

Concept: GSR's basic concept of a more detailed warfare system is, to me at least, intriguing. As I mentioned way downthread, the hard numbers of pertinent factors like Economy, etc. are already there and updated daily. Advance to next step.

Proposal: To be incorporated into an existing game. A quite massive pre-existing game actually.

And right about there is where the process would have been halted. The potential for causing serious upheaval is too great. Whatever benefit there was to be gained is easily outweighed by the disruption likely to occur.

So, such an intriguing idea then would be shunted down a different path.

Alternative applications: A parallel game environment. "From the geniuses that brought you NationStates, you now can play....." whatever the game would be called. Something like "NationStates: World War X" maybe.

And from here it go into development. Start with the NS framework, then tweak everything towards players hammering at each other in a much less abstract way than the "warfare" in NS as it stands today.

This really wouldn't be a bad basic design to develop. Just look at the recurring ad banners touting less interesting games. But it would take a LOT of work to make it an actual, viable product for the online marketplace.

[Unibot]

Alternative applications: A parallel game environment. "From the geniuses that brought you NationStates, you now can play....." whatever the game would be called. Something like "NationStates: World War X" maybe.

And from here it go into development. Start with the NS framework, then tweak everything towards players hammering at each other in a much less abstract way than the "warfare" in NS as it stands today.

This really wouldn't be a bad basic design to develop. Just look at the recurring ad banners touting less interesting games. But it would take a LOT of work to make it an actual, viable product for the online marketplace.

Someone tried to create a program called "NSwar", back in the late Jolt days. It used the XML feeds to create a representation of a nation's military, and nation for a simple multiple player warfare game.

It didn't get too far, if I'm not mistaken.

But I'd be interested if the coding project could start up again, there's definitely a crowd of NS for it - and because it'd be a third-party site it would be separate enough to give the anti-micromanagement crowd the distance they deserve/enjoy.

[Marcuslandia]

I would guess that the unnoticed bug was that when playing a _war_game, players tend to pour their total Economy into a Total War effort. That means from the get-go, the premise is bollixed. Waging war is dependent on Economy, not the other way around. War needs to be financed out of the overall Economy's profit margin. Too many years of red ink to pay for the military results in the nation destroying itself. (The fall of the USSR as a major example.)

The brilliant thing about NS is that the player can NOT apportion the budget any way he wants. He can only nudge the budget towards favoring the military, one issue at a time. And then his Economy takes the resulting hit as something must be given up to pay for that military expansion. Makes for a difficult balancing act -- and that's the way it should be.

The rest of the proposed game is, despite what others have said, still quite doable. In a world where an entire nation can be helicoptered from one region to another, and every region borders on every other region, maps aren't necessary. (Wouldn't be possible to make anyway, as nations keep moving around.) War becomes an abstract comparison of _force_, and force is calculated by that multidimensional interaction of influencing factors. (Sort of like "War in the 8th Dimension!"). Such a game simply can NOT co-exist with the current Invader/Defender game, obviously, because they're using different "physics". But the proposed game as it's own stand-alone....It's an intriguing idea.

[Flibbleites]

What is the fun in running your own country if it has nothing to do with reality... at that point you might as well just imagine your country... also thought Max may have intended it to become a satire it has become incredibly realistic already just in the fact that the issues are current day, real world issues

But... but... but if I had to base my nation on reality then I couldn't have it inhabited (mainly) by anthropomorphic Bears!

And I couldn't have one located on a floating archipelago populated by people who use a combination of technology and magic.

[Weylara]

Ok. Having read through the thread so far, here's my thoughts - hopefully not discounted simply because I'm a longstanding player, which seems to have ruffled some feathers or some such here ...

I'm a role-player, and hence biased towards the freedom that comes of rp'ing your nation, rather than having the game run the numbers for you. While I can appreciate the fairness that could come of hard numbers being used in-game, such as I can do on my account in another game elsewhere (fleets are built, attacks are made, and what level you have your tech at comes into account), I'm not certain how it would all fit in here without 'forcing' players to accept certain tech levels across the board, or limiting interactions between players because of tech level enforcements (for an extreme example: cavemen vs space aliens), or making a really huge coding headache for one of the folks who donate their time to keeping us entertained.

Yes, many a bitchfest in the past could have been avoided if - and only if - such a thing could be fairly and easily accomplished: That being 'every nation builds at whatever rate the game allows' + 'choices affect your building' + 'little guys don't get automatically eaten up by big guys' + 'tech levels work realistically' etc. Everyone operating under the same system would likely eliminate a lot of the godmoding that goes on as well. However, while nice in theory, I'm not sure, as explained above, that it could be logically implemented.

Regional wars are already doable through Gameplay, if I'm not mistaken. Raiding/Invading/Defending and such, yes? The game has already been tailored to work with this particular phenomenon, which while not originally a part of the game, quickly became a good chunk of it to a lot of players. There's nothing stopping one from participating in any of that, and there are checks in place to prevent wholesale chaos. Whether some like said checks or not.

Personally, all technicalities aside, I prefer the freedom that comes of rp'ing out my nation completely, as I see fit - which includes military - and any resulting wars that may happen on account of actions I, or my allies, take. Its part of the challenge, you see. Some of us do not go around looking for a reason to get our guns off, so to speak - which may also be considered 'realistic' to a degree, no? Honestly, what nation irl can go around starting or participating in a new war every other week, and get away with it?

As for some of the accusations getting tossed around - no, not everyone immediately dismisses a post/comment/idea just because the nation's founding date is newer. Most of us know that while longevity may help with game knowledge, we're all individuals with opinions and ideas, and one never knows if the person posting has other older nations to boot. You'll always have someone out there somewhere who loudly dismisses a newer player/newly established nation, but one can't lump everyone into that group given the civility that most posts here have shown.

Just because some of us have been around a while doesn't mean we're close-minded or 'hotshots'. Some have just had more experience with the changes the game has undergone, and may just have seen similar suggestions or arguments in the past, and known how they've gone. Some also understand the workings of the game rather well on account of having been involved for such a long time, and their opinions may just have some validity, without necessarily being 'unimaginative' or the like.

Anyways, maundered on enough. Hope that in some way clarifies at least this particular opinion on why in-game war control might not be the best thing to add. And if not, let me know and I'll try to winnow it down to simpler terms.

Well said.

[Weylara]

Listen to yourself. You are being defensive. Always have to have the last word.

Name just one of these hotshot nations. I have a terrible sneaking suspicion that they'll all happen to be disagreeing with you.

Uhhh HELLO
yeah it would be one of the nations that is disagreeing with me... are you some sort of Rocket scientist... cause that was a tough one to figure out.... They wouldnt be closeminded if they were willing to think about the ways it COULD be done instead of finding all the reasons why it cant be done when most of you never read the WHOLE thing... and I KNOW you didnt all read it cuase you asked some really stupid questions that were already answered in the ORIGINAL post. btw thought you had had enough.. why are you even still on this thread...

I was getting off when I noticed some of the incredibly offensive things you were saying.

No, I'm not a rocket scientist. But I did read the whole thing. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm on your side. I said earlier that if your idea could be implemented, I'd try it out. So maybe try this incredible new concept of reasoning we discovered quite a while ago! I call it "thinking before you speak".

[Naivetry]

I haven't played it (heard too many bad reports...), but isn't this idea a lot like CyberNations?

[Gal Seren Roan]

Listen to yourself. You are being defensive. Always have to have the last word.

Name just one of these hotshot nations. I have a terrible sneaking suspicion that they'll all happen to be disagreeing with you.

Uhhh HELLO
yeah it would be one of the nations that is disagreeing with me... are you some sort of Rocket scientist... cause that was a tough one to figure out.... They wouldnt be closeminded if they were willing to think about the ways it COULD be done instead of finding all the reasons why it cant be done when most of you never read the WHOLE thing... and I KNOW you didnt all read it cuase you asked some really stupid questions that were already answered in the ORIGINAL post. btw thought you had had enough.. why are you even still on this thread...

I was getting off when I noticed some of the incredibly offensive things you were saying.

No, I'm not a rocket scientist. But I did read the whole thing. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm on your side. I said earlier that if your idea could be implemented, I'd try it out. So maybe try this incredible new concept of reasoning we discovered quite a while ago! I call it "thinking before you speak".

I must agree... I was being waaay too offensive... but in my defense I did apologize.. I'm apologizing again right now.. and it was like three in the morning my time when all that was going on ... and i had just got home from a really really CRAPPY day at work... Anyway.. I am sorry for the insult flinging...

[Gal Seren Roan]

Also I have found some of the ideas very intriguing... In fact the idea that i had originally had was to start a region that allowed for war among its nations on a the regional web site... I ended up not proposing this because I really dont have the time to design the kind of site that it would take to make it cool... But on the other hand if anyone wants to take my idea (the one mentioned above...) or any of the tweaked ideas that some of the recent posters have thrown out there I will be the first in line to be a part of it.

[Gal Seren Roan]

Listen to yourself. You are being defensive. Always have to have the last word.

Name just one of these hotshot nations. I have a terrible sneaking suspicion that they'll all happen to be disagreeing with you.

Uhhh HELLO
yeah it would be one of the nations that is disagreeing with me... are you some sort of Rocket scientist... cause that was a tough one to figure out.... They wouldnt be closeminded if they were willing to think about the ways it COULD be done instead of finding all the reasons why it cant be done when most of you never read the WHOLE thing... and I KNOW you didnt all read it cuase you asked some really stupid questions that were already answered in the ORIGINAL post. btw thought you had had enough.. why are you even still on this thread...

I was getting off when I noticed some of the incredibly offensive things you were saying.

No, I'm not a rocket scientist. But I did read the whole thing. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm on your side. I said earlier that if your idea could be implemented, I'd try it out. So maybe try this incredible new concept of reasoning we discovered quite a while ago! I call it "thinking before you speak".

P.S. I liked your comeback.. "So maybe try this incredible new concept of reasoning we discovered quite a while ago! I call it "thinking before you speak" it was quite witty and completely deserved...

[Weylara]

Wow. Thank you. I'm not used to dealing with someone who congratulates me for witty comebacks on this game.