[SUBMITTED] Bigger, or better?

[Tsarus]

Im gonna submit later today

[SherpDaWerp]

Not so fast on that submission...

After being unable to compete with better organized allies during military exercises, and realizing yours lacks any engagement organization, you have called for a discussion on a doctrine for the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ military over dinner and have invited those who have shown interest to share their ideas.

Saying "You have called for a discussion" breaches player autonomy. It doesn't really flow, as there is also a little bit too much 'description' of what happened. The majority of what's being said can be cut out. For example:

After @@NAME@@ underperformed in the recent @@REGION@@ War Games, @@DEMONYM@@ military generals are questioning the lack of an official military doctrine.

That flows a lot better, and most of the extraneous information has been cut out. From that description, you know that @@NAME@@ didn't do well in a practice exercise, and people want the leader to decide on some official 'tactic' to use in warfare. That's really all that's needed to set up this issue.

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"Aye, so I told tha' bloody keech, 'I'll shoot ya head clean off yer shoulders blootered as I am from afar if ya dont believe me,'" a Bigtopian sniper delineates, drunk off his arse. "Oi, @@LEADER@@, why dont we train em soldiers o' yers ta' shoot straight like I can, and give em all proper battle rifles? That way tha enemy can't hit us, cause we're too far away!"

Good characterisation! Not sure if there is an 'official bigtopian accent' that has been established before, or he's just drunk, but it works well. Although, being Bigtopian he wouldn't be saying "the enemy can't hit us. And he probably also wouldn't be giving military advice to @@NAME@@ given that he's a foreigner... I'm not sure if you can assume NPC nations are in @@REGION@@, but if you can, try using an NPC nation that is deliberately and obviously non-hostile to the nation, under the assumption they participated in the war games? Maybe one of the scandinavian-style nations, they seem like they would have snipers.

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"WAAAGH!" General @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ bellows as he inhales his dinner. "More guns, more soldiers! Specifically, we need shotguns and SMG's, and a lot of soldiers! Sure, this may cost a few more lives, but we can just replace them, of course!"

Also good characterisation. Although, gender-specific macros could be avoided here by calling the general @@RANDOMNAME@@, and then saying @@HE@@ inhales @@HIS@@ dinner. The @@HE@@ and @@HIS@@ macros will decide on he/she and his/her depending on whether the @@RANDOMNAME@@ is male or female.

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"I agree," ex-machine gunner and gun-nut @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ speaks up, eating a bacon cheeseburger and fries. "We should be more aggressive, of course! But let's be reasonable here, we cant put our fine men's lives at stake! These are human beings, fighting for our country. I suggest we assume a suppress and advance doctrine. Keep the bullets flyin', their heads duckin', and our boots movin'! Suppressing fire is always the way to go."

Again with the gender-specific macros. Especially if @@NAME@@ is a matriarchy or a queendom, having all-male speakers would be a bit off. There is also some non-option-specific feedback that's relevant here, but I'll get to that soon.

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@@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, a mother of an active duty soldier, says "Oh dear! My poor Billy is out there on the battlefield, and I'm so worried about him!" she weeps, as she eats from a carton of ice cream. "Please, @@LEADER@@, keep him safe however you can. Just let the airforce do all the work or something."

This is (I think) a valid place for a gender-specific macro, given that there's no mother/father macro that I'm aware of.

---

Now, some non-option specific feedback:

Outcome:
Wars with @@NAME@@ are often bloody and demoralizing for all belligerents.
Outcome:
@@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ soldiers are trained to hit tin cans a mile away.
Outcome:
Ammunition manufacturing is at an all time high.
Outcome:
Soldiers tend to do less combat, and more phone calls to the air base.

The effect lines are (with the exception of Option 4), just stating the decision again. Try to work some humor or a weird way of thinking into them for satirical effect.

And as far as the actual options go, the incredible specificity in doctrine doesn't quite fit. A better example of doctrine (IMO) would be "Loads of men" or "Loads of tanks", vs having a military general explicitly stating "We need more SMGs and Shotguns!", or someone saying "We need suppressive fire!". Because as this issue stands, due to the intense specificity, I would dismiss this issue, under the assumption that my nation should have a broader approach to warfare. If I approached every war with a shotgun charge, I would start losing very quickly, as my enemies realized this fact and began to exercise flexible doctrine and started using long-range machineguns. I suggest you have a think about the actual doctrines themselves, and how they could be more open-ended for nations to choose from.

Overall, the issue is definitely getting there. Good job so far!

[Tsarus]

Final draft is done.
Any final edits I should make?

[Tsarus]

Not so fast on that submission...

Thank God I saw this!
These suggestions are really helpful. I certainly felt it might not have had a chance before I looked at this. Thank you for that.

[USS Monitor]

Not so fast on that submission...

Thank God I saw this!
These suggestions are really helpful. I certainly felt it might not have had a chance before I looked at this. Thank you for that.

Yeah, I would suggest keeping it in GI a bit longer.

[Tsarus]

Thank God I saw this!
These suggestions are really helpful. I certainly felt it might not have had a chance before I looked at this. Thank you for that.

Yeah, I would suggest keeping it in GI a bit longer.

Do u have any suggestions? I feel about 80% confident in it, so I just want to make sure.

[Fontenais]

Description:
After @@NAME@@ underperformed during recent military exercises with allies, your military advisors have questioned the current doctrine of the military. Subsequently, a meeting has been called over dinner by your advisors.

I think you can cut the last sentence for being redundant. On the 'How To Write an Issue' page it says that the fact that people are here to talk to you is always the case viewtopic.php?f=13&t=424657

Choice 2:
"WAAAGH!" General @@RANDOMNAME@@ bellows as @@HE@@ inhales @@HIS@@ dinner. "More tanks, men, planes! To hell with losses if we have tons of reinforcements, we should be aggressive! Very aggressive!"

I'm not sure about the characterisation. It seems very immature for a General to be shouting 'WAAAGH!' during a meeting.

Choice 4:
@@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, a mother of an active duty soldier, says "Oh dear! My poor Billy is out there on the battlefield, and I'm so worried about him!" she weeps, as she eats from a carton of ice cream. "Please, @@LEADER@@, keep him safe however you can. Just let the airforce do all the work or something, I don't want my boy to die!"

If the mother is supposed to be advocating for keeping soldiers as safe as possible, then making the air force do all the work wouldn't really resolve the issue. Someone else's child will be in the air force. Perhaps option 4 should be about investing in drones and cyber warfare, etc, to minimise casualties?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Don't submit yet. Generally about a month is right, or about 2 weeks from the last outside comment.

Description:
After @@NAME@@ underperformed during recent military exercises with allies, your military advisors have questioned the current doctrine of the military. Subsequently, a meeting has been called over dinner by your advisors.

This opening is still too vague, in my opinion.

How did we underperform? Tell more of a story, with an eye to humour and painting a picture in the mind's eye. Was it poor communication leading to miscoordination? Was it soldiers improvising too much on their orders, or not improvising enough?

Ask a more specific question than "discuss the military doctrine." Give us a specific type of underperformance, then address that.

Also, the second sentence is a redundancy, and can be dropped. Lines like "A meeting has called" or "People are demanding an answer" can generally be considered to be unneeded, as they don't add any new context (this is an issue, hence we know it's being discussed), or any humour, or any useful information.

[Tsarus]

Edited.

[Tsarus]

Some minor edits made.

[Fontenais]

Well, I stand by the last two comments I made, but apart from that:

Choice 2:
"WAAAGH!" General @@RANDOMNAME@@ bellows as @@HE@@ inhales @@HIS@@ dinner. "More tanks, men, planes! To hell with losses if we have tons of reinforcements, we should be aggressive! Very aggressive!"

Choice 3:
"I agree," United Federation machine gunner and gun-nut @@RANDOMNAME@@ speaks up, eating a bacon cheeseburger and fries. "Course we should be more aggressive! But let's be reasonable here, we also cant put our fine soldiers' lives at stake! These are brave human beings, fighting for our country. I suggest we assume a suppress and advance doctrine. Keep the bullets flyin', their heads duckin', and our boots movin'! Firepower is always the way to go."

Bearing in mind, I really don't know much about military tactics, but I can't see much of a differences between options 2 and 3
I can see in option 3, it says 'we can't put our fine soldiers' lives at stake', but, what the speaker actually suggests (more firepower), is really similar to option 2 (more aggression). I think it would be better if you could distinguish these options more.

[Tsarus]

Well, I stand by the last two comments I made, but apart from that:

Choice 2:
"WAAAGH!" General @@RANDOMNAME@@ bellows as @@HE@@ inhales @@HIS@@ dinner. "More tanks, men, planes! To hell with losses if we have tons of reinforcements, we should be aggressive! Very aggressive!"

Choice 3:
"I agree," United Federation machine gunner and gun-nut @@RANDOMNAME@@ speaks up, eating a bacon cheeseburger and fries. "Course we should be more aggressive! But let's be reasonable here, we also cant put our fine soldiers' lives at stake! These are brave human beings, fighting for our country. I suggest we assume a suppress and advance doctrine. Keep the bullets flyin', their heads duckin', and our boots movin'! Firepower is always the way to go."

Bearing in mind, I really don't know much about military tactics, but I can't see much of a differences between options 2 and 3
I can see in option 3, it says 'we can't put our fine soldiers' lives at stake', but, what the speaker actually suggests (more firepower), is really similar to option 2 (more aggression). I think it would be better if you could distinguish these options more.

Touched it up a bit, made it more clear and characterized the machine gunner to be a Texan.

[Tsarus]

Got around to it again.
Fixed up the second and fourth option.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Let's look at the premise again.

@@NAME@@ under-performed during recent military exercises with allies likely due to lack of standardized attacking procedures, with a more notably embarrassing situation involving the use of highly outdated Line Infantry tactics.

Players may take offence at their nation being depicted this way. It's not an absolute player autonomy breach, but this does seem like an opening that will make more than half of players say "no, that's not my nation" and click dismiss.

As such, your military advisors have questioned the current engagement doctrine, or lack thereof, of the military.

Redundant sentence. Excise it.

[Tsarus]

Editted the description. More compact now.
Also set the scene for where the meeting takes place. Maybe a Bar isnt the best idea, but thats generally what I had in mind.
Fixed up the second guy too, to make him or her seem more human.

[Tsarus]

Minor edits.

[Tsarus]

Should I submit? Im fairly content with it, and there hasnt been any suggestions lately.