Modern World STGOD Concept

[Simon_Jester]

How many npcs can this game support? Honestly, not as many as people think. Right now I've seen calls to put npc's all up and down the American spine, to separate various borders that might have conflict and to have the Omnian "super" state.

Part of the problem is that people like the idea that their country borders more than, say, two or three other countries. Most major powers in real life have a set of at least half a dozen 'neighbors' that they can interact with meaningfully. Since we've got three isolated continents with about five countries each, that doesn't work so well in our case.

Besides Steve, I don't get why you have all kind of NPC buffer states popping up but want to push other players towards directly bordering each other.

Also I hate Omnia, mostly cause it is similar to the npc super state we all nixed back at the beginning. It takes up space and is a non-entity on a already sparsely populated (by us "players") continent. Actually that is my main concern with any NPC: the are going to be like having an AFK player state, without ever having coherent interactions with all the rest of the world.

That is a valid complaint, I think, in that a Space Filling Empire which cannot be interacted with is unsatisfying. I mean, if I want to say "I invade Omnia," what happens? Omnia is a cardboard cutout, and one too big for me to play with for my own amusement. I want either real neighbors, or neighbors I can set up interactions with on my own terms.

That's why I thought Omnia works better as backstory, or as a broken-up state with a core remnant of "Omnia" still in existence. Because it's a state that logically would not have survived the twentieth century easily, and because it's poor practice to have NPC states strong enough that they get to dictate terms to PC states, despite not being run by a real human you can talk to.

From the way you describe them, putting them between me and Klavo won't work given background and such, it's more logical if they're on the other side of Klavostan in "South America", with the Klavostani sultanate having traditionally been a buffer state from Granadian and others attacking them from the north - the coasts could've once been mostly imperial outposts of Britonia and Granadia and such, but decolonization saw the local nations recover them.

Let me state this as nicely as I can. FUCK BACKSTORY. It has no bearing on a world we are all creating in the here and now, it can be adjusted & edited, but ultimately it is only relevant in so far as it establishes things for current events. You called for a broken off section of Klavostan with a barely functional government, I have a proposed series of nations that have broken up over their non-functionality. My concept works in the area (and can be adjusted to fit better if need be), and as a bonus actually has a player ready to write about it rather then a bland NPC that is essentially stealing my idea from me.

Relax, breathe, take chill pill.

I think you have a good idea, but the random blasts of fury aren't helping.

IF I actually thought you guys would do the npc state and it's barely functional government justice (which I don't) I might as well retire my idea rather then have duplicates. But at that point I'm almost out of little state concepts, and frankly while my Patron Democracy is an interesting idea I don't think I have the right sort of focus to write about only one thing with one gimmick for long so I might as well retire utterly.

Actually all this stupid map talk reminds me that we never had anyone judge peoples concepts, unless this already happened off forum in which case I'm probably done with this BS.

It didn't, and would you please tone down the paranoia?

In seriousness, you need to be prepared to have at least one or two rounds of back-and-forth with people before blowing a gasket, or this isn't going to work. Hear people out, explain to them why you don't like their proposal, THEN get upset if they ignore you or try to marginalize you AFTER you've made yourself understood.

How many npcs can this game support? Honestly, not as many as people think.

As a veteran of several of these games I can safely say I have a pretty good idea how many NPCs the game can support. It's about 50/50 player-to-NPC. More than that and you'll have places on the map where nothing happens; less than that and (guess what) you'll have places on the map where nothing happens.

You're completely wrong on the "non-entity" comment regarding NPC states: having neutral third-party grounds to set conflicts in opens the game up and invites multiple players to participate. Locking everyone in their own territory where players will be naturally hesitant to blow shit up or engage in crazy shenanigans only diminishes the game. In SDNW #1 the most interesting place was Terra Libertia, an NPC; in #2 conflicts developed over Central Frequesue, in the Border States and on Velaria, all NPCs; in #4 shenanigans happened in Wild Space, in the Outlands and in the MEH, all NPCs at the time.

This is true. On the other hand, one thing that Frequesque, Libertia, Velaria, Wild Space, and the Outlands all had in common is that they weren't monolithic. By contrast, the UN in SDNW4 was a monolithic superstate NPC, and absolutely nothing happened there or even very near there, except for one scene on Nova Terra between Fin and Shroomy.

The problem is that big Space-Filling Empire blobs on the map represent polities too strong to tangle with. We want NPC territories because we want new gameboards to play on, not new players that don't actually do anything because they aren't alive.

Omnia straddles the line between the two. If we play up the "sick old man of Australis*" angle and represent Omnia as on the brink of falling apart due to centrifugal forces, it works. If they're organized and generally have their shit together, they're just a big wall that stops us interacting directly.

*Whatever we call our continent, I don't care, just picking something.

'When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.' That's why we need NPCs: to have a place where people can interact without immediately putting their capitals or territories at immediate risk of being blown up, contaminated, captured or revolutionized. To have something at stake without putting everything at stake.

I totally agree.

[Agent Sorchus]

How many npcs can this game support? Honestly, not as many as people think.

As a veteran of several of these games...

Im going to stop you right there. You have only been in one more of these then I have (EDIT: I actually think you were in the star wars thing, at least nominally which does mean you have been involved in one more then I initially remembered), though the partially aborted star wars one probably shouldn't count. I know the score of #3, 4 and star wars and believe it or not actually read most of 2 (would have been too late for me to actually get into it.) Your opinions about these games are no more valid then my own, and I do disagree with you.

You're completely wrong on the "non-entity" comment regarding NPC states: having neutral third-party grounds to set conflicts in opens the game up and invites multiple players to participate. Locking everyone in their own territory where players will be naturally hesitant to blow shit up or engage in crazy shenanigans only diminishes the game. In SDNW #1 the most interesting place was Terra Libertia, an NPC; in #2 conflicts developed over Central Frequesue, in the Border States and on Velaria, all NPCs; in #4 shenanigans happened in Wild Space, in the Outlands and in the MEH, all NPCs at the time.

"Aha!" you might say. "But Siege! You did not mention #3!" Yeah, because that one didn't have NPCs. Guess what happened to it? It died ignominiously.

I won't say about #2 but I do disagree with #4. Yes shenanigans happened in NPC space, but those shenanigans were boring, dull, delayed people and didn't actually change the world. Other stories were more interesting, especially the smaller closer stories that weren't disaster-iffic. AND while you claim that all those events were set in NPC's, you can also say that the MEH was an afk player state and that the big pirate story happened in the backroom of another afk player. What I am saying is that the afk players will still happen and become NPC's, we don't need that many NPC's at the start.

Also in #4 you were lucky to have reliable neighbors that stayed in the game, I got screwed by my initial neighbors (except ForceLord) being mostly afk. I had TimothyC, who posted in the storythread maybe once or twice, Coyote who would have been a great neighbor except RL basically executed his board presence, Zor who was very passive, the person playing the Dinos who I can't remember at all cause thats about how much he posted. Anyone who was active up in my corner basically had to move there stories down towards you to keep involved. (ALSO #4 had Utopia syndrome baaaddd, never again will I fall victim to it if I can.)

Maybe I have a reason to not like NPC's?

And while #StarWars was a horrible example of the genre, it died as much because no-one was going to be ready to up the stakes by betting personal power versus the few central Imperial powers. Not that there weren't enough places for npc's (or afk players) for people to play with & in. None of the few people in that game were going to challenge the core Imperial Alliance.

As for #3, I think that died more cause of the connection to real life earth then NPC's. People were acting like super powers that they would be in real life when this alt world had everyone to within a hairs breathe of each other (in no small part cause the rules were exploitable to get that way. I seriously had Steve point out ways I could build my nation to be a more efficient use of points, but I refused because I didn't see the need to meta-game it.) Seriously when Thanas was going to go invade I think it was the UK with his Franco German Alliance he really wasn't prepared for seeing that the majority of players were actually ready to risk everything in a Grand War. Maybe it was a little bit cowardice out of the majority of players in that they weren't going to do anything until it became almost unilateral, but they were willing to make war in the end even against the strongest single player.

'When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.' That's why we need NPCs: to have a place where people can interact without immediately putting their capitals or territories at immediate risk of being blown up, contaminated, captured or revolutionized. To have something at stake without putting everything at stake.

This is the bit I utterly disagree with. What is the point of some of these stories if nothing is at stake or it's just against a punching bag? Make yourself look big? I can actually divorce myself from the territory I am writing about if it were to get conquered and attempt to write about the individuals that I was developing instead. Hell I think I've already said I was going to have connections to a terrorist organization, it's not much of a stretch to make stories about the greater organization and their struggles in case I bet to high elsewhere.

In this way you and I are actually similar, if San Dorado was ever dealt a heavy blow you can still write about the Corporations activities outside of your own territory.

As for one of my immediate issues with NPC's here, it's the hypocrisy of Steve. He has a band of territory he set aside for npc's so that he doesn't have to have a single border with another player, all while encouraging Thanas and Co into having more interconnected borders. Yeah I consider that BS worth of a rant, though Thanas still said it better then I did.

Also, on a lesser note, I strongly suggest you alter the way you communicate. You've barely been active in this thread and now, suddenly, you explode. 'I hate Omnia', 'FUCK BACKSTORY', 'stupid map', 'done with this BS'; these things do not make you look like a reasonable, balanced or for that matter pleasant person to interact with. Threatening to retire from the game before we even start doesn't mean anything, so please, just stop. If you have objections against anything anyone's come up with then describe them in a moderately levelheaded fashion just like everybody else here has managed to do so far. Then we can talk about your concerns like grownups. Or don't, and then we can start yelling at each other; the choice is up to you.

Let me extend those two statements then.

I hate Omnia only in that with the current map it's location dominates an area that is going to need more actual players to be interesting and guarantee activity. It is a good concept of a state, with what I would call a bad location. I wouldn't want to have to worry that it is going to be just you and Simon as the lone active players there if I were to place a nation in the same territory.

As for backstory:
A) it is actually one of the things that I have been taught to avoid in writing, because if it is more interesting then the main story why the hell isn't it the main story?
B) good backstory here is like Pezook's and Fin's, in that they actually invited others to get involved with it. Unlike...
C) In the context of my post it was a response too the "GTFO out of our little area cause our backstory is more important then your involvement." Yeah that was absolute BS in my mind. Especially since there is nothing wrong with my concept fitting in, since they proposed a concept that isn't that different.

And yeah I overreacted to Steve's post. But Klavo's how many nations can you do kinda set me off, since people are adding NPC's that don't have anyone's involvement. Like Steves Plains Republic that literally No-one had even heard a peep about already having a space on the map while players still don't.

I can be more involved now, but last week was a little manic.

I will respond to Simon in a bit (probably.) This kinda stood out though:

That's why I thought Omnia works better as backstory, or as a broken-up state with a core remnant of "Omnia" still in existence. Because it's a state that logically would not have survived the twentieth century easily, and because it's poor practice to have NPC states strong enough that they get to dictate terms to PC states, despite not being run by a real human you can talk to.

[Agent Sorchus]

How many npcs can this game support? Honestly, not as many as people think. Right now I've seen calls to put npc's all up and down the American spine, to separate various borders that might have conflict and to have the Omnian "super" state.

Part of the problem is that people like the idea that their country borders more than, say, two or three other countries. Most major powers in real life have a set of at least half a dozen 'neighbors' that they can interact with meaningfully. Since we've got three isolated continents with about five countries each, that doesn't work so well in our case.

Im not wholly against npcs, just their unneccesary proliferation so early in development that not all players have been placed. This same reasoning is why I want to play smaller states, but more of them.

Also I hate Omnia, mostly cause it is similar to the npc super state we all nixed back at the beginning. It takes up space and is a non-entity on a already sparsely populated (by us "players") continent. Actually that is my main concern with any NPC: the are going to be like having an AFK player state, without ever having coherent interactions with all the rest of the world.

That is a valid complaint, I think, in that a Space Filling Empire which cannot be interacted with is unsatisfying. I mean, if I want to say "I invade Omnia," what happens? Omnia is a cardboard cutout, and one too big for me to play with for my own amusement. I want either real neighbors, or neighbors I can set up interactions with on my own terms.

That's why I thought Omnia works better as backstory, or as a broken-up state with a core remnant of "Omnia" still in existence. Because it's a state that logically would not have survived the twentieth century easily, and because it's poor practice to have NPC states strong enough that they get to dictate terms to PC states, despite not being run by a real human you can talk to.

This is why I want to wait on placing NPC's until we have placed a few more players. Though Omnia isn't the worst offender in this, nor is it the largest area that has been sat aside for NPC's either. But yes having all the real neighbors in place before putting out the cardboard people to fill out the neighborhood is what I want.

From the way you describe them, putting them between me and Klavo won't work given background and such...

NEARLY INCOHERENT RAGE

Relax, breathe, take chill pill.

I think you have a good idea, but the random blasts of fury aren't helping.

Yeah, that isn't showing my best side, the above cut is to show the line that set me off. Look at that utter lack of an explanation for why my proposal wouldn't work, and no reason why his is any better. That isn't ever not going to make me at the least peeved.

IF I actually thought you guys would do the npc state and it's barely functional government justice (which I don't) I might as well retire my idea rather then have duplicates. But at that point I'm almost out of little state concepts, and frankly while my Patron Democracy is an interesting idea I don't think I have the right sort of focus to write about only one thing with one gimmick for long so I might as well retire utterly.

In seriousness, you need to be prepared to have at least one or two rounds of back-and-forth with people before blowing a gasket, or this isn't going to work. Hear people out, explain to them why you don't like their proposal, THEN get upset if they ignore you or try to marginalize you AFTER you've made yourself understood.

Here is the thing though that is the third Time I requested the same or similar locations on the map before I got any real response, and it was then a nope go away don't want you here response with no justification.

See here, here and here. Excuse me if being ignored and brushed off make me less then agreeable.

Also the last I really want to say about my line of how many NPC's is that it was meant to be a response to the question of how many nations I can run at once. The answer I should have said is that I can still run more then there are non-entities responsible for the NPC's.

Now I'll be off in my little corner warming up my writing hand. Might as well have a story waiting in the wings for when this really starts.

[Simon_Jester]

Im going to stop you right there. You have only been in one more of these then I have (EDIT: I actually think you were in the star wars thing, at least nominally which does mean you have been involved in one more then I initially remembered), though the partially aborted star wars one probably shouldn't count. I know the score of #3, 4 and star wars and believe it or not actually read most of 2 (would have been too late for me to actually get into it.) Your opinions about these games are no more valid then my own, and I do disagree with you.

Perhaps he's played more of these games than you realize, on other forums?

I mean, you have a right to disagree with him, and me, and anyone you like... but at least be aware that you are doing so, that people who actually do routinely play these games as hobbies think NPC nations are a healthy part of gameplay, and that it's not just a case of "I'm right, you're stupid" with Sorchus cast as "I" and everyone else as "you."

I won't say about #2 but I do disagree with #4. Yes shenanigans happened in NPC space, but those shenanigans were boring, dull, delayed people and didn't actually change the world. Other stories were more interesting, especially the smaller closer stories that weren't disaster-iffic.

Except that many of these shenanigans were not boring or dull, except to you.

I mean, I get that you may want a totally different thing out of the game than anyone else, but again, at least try to open your mind to the possibility that other people have a right to enjoy the game their way, too. Your language does not suggest such openness.

'When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.' That's why we need NPCs: to have a place where people can interact without immediately putting their capitals or territories at immediate risk of being blown up, contaminated, captured or revolutionized. To have something at stake without putting everything at stake.

This is the bit I utterly disagree with. What is the point of some of these stories if nothing is at stake or it's just against a punching bag? Make yourself look big?...

Create a field on which two parties can compete, without either party necessarily taking serious damage from losing. That's a big advantage to play, because it makes it easier to have a collaborative story in which various players' nations vie for power. There's less incentive to pull out the stops and start god-moding, because losing doesn't mean being driven out of the game or reduced to someone else's vassal.

As for one of my immediate issues with NPC's here, it's the hypocrisy of Steve. He has a band of territory he set aside for npc's so that he doesn't have to have a single border with another player, all while encouraging Thanas and Co into having more interconnected borders. Yeah I consider that BS worth of a rant, though Thanas still said it better then I did.

See, actually stopping to explain that and asking Steve why he was acting in such a way would make so much more sense than flipping out and screaming at people. Which serves only to make you unsympathetic.

I hate Omnia only in that with the current map it's location dominates an area that is going to need more actual players to be interesting and guarantee activity. It is a good concept of a state, with what I would call a bad location. I wouldn't want to have to worry that it is going to be just you and Simon as the lone active players there if I were to place a nation in the same territory.

I dislike Omnia because of its size, which is implicitly "too big to tackle" given the way Steve pitched it. If he corrects that impression I have fewer problems... but would still like a few more neighbors. Then again, there are about a dozen of us playing this game, compared to thirty or so people who played SDNW4 (granted, a third of whom were very inactive and another third of whom were largely inactive). There just plain aren't enough countries on the map to have more than 3-5 per continent, unless we start plunking down NPC nations to bring it up to something more like the number of countries that exist in the real world.

A) it is actually one of the things that I have been taught to avoid in writing, because if it is more interesting then the main story why the hell isn't it the main story?

In nation-building, some amount of backstory is important to avoid 'crazy quilt' effects where nations are randomly tossed together in ways that make no logical sense and would predictably lead to unpleasant results if played out realistically in game.

Also, most people with any desire whatsoever to make up a country also want at least some sense of what it's been doing in the past...

C) In the context of my post it was a response too the "GTFO out of our little area cause our backstory is more important then your involvement." Yeah that was absolute BS in my mind. Especially since there is nothing wrong with my concept fitting in, since they proposed a concept that isn't that different.

This is a separate criticism. Again, we can argue it.

But objecting to someone saying "move over, I want to be surrounded by NPCs" is not the same as objecting to the very concept of NPCs.

Part of the problem is that people like the idea that their country borders more than, say, two or three other countries. Most major powers in real life have a set of at least half a dozen 'neighbors' that they can interact with meaningfully. Since we've got three isolated continents with about five countries each, that doesn't work so well in our case.

Im not wholly against npcs, just their unneccesary proliferation so early in development that not all players have been placed. This same reasoning is why I want to play smaller states, but more of them.

I do agree that NPCs should not be placed in such a way as to exclude PCs from the map.

That is a valid complaint, I think, in that a Space Filling Empire which cannot be interacted with is unsatisfying. I mean, if I want to say "I invade Omnia," what happens? Omnia is a cardboard cutout, and one too big for me to play with for my own amusement. I want either real neighbors, or neighbors I can set up interactions with on my own terms.

That's why I thought Omnia works better as backstory, or as a broken-up state with a core remnant of "Omnia" still in existence. Because it's a state that logically would not have survived the twentieth century easily, and because it's poor practice to have NPC states strong enough that they get to dictate terms to PC states, despite not being run by a real human you can talk to.

This is why I want to wait on placing NPC's until we have placed a few more players. Though Omnia isn't the worst offender in this, nor is it the largest area that has been sat aside for NPC's either. But yes having all the real neighbors in place before putting out the cardboard people to fill out the neighborhood is what I want.

Omnia is a particular problem because it spatially separates the people who ARE playing on that continent. Granted, Siege needs a big NPC buffer state around him to make his nation concept work, and that's totally OK... but I'd like to think that, other players permitting, I should still be allowed to have neighbors if I want them. Champa makes one, total.

From the way you describe them, putting them between me and Klavo won't work given background and such...

NEARLY INCOHERENT RAGE

Relax, breathe, take chill pill.

I think you have a good idea, but the random blasts of fury aren't helping.

Yeah, that isn't showing my best side, the above cut is to show the line that set me off. Look at that utter lack of an explanation for why my proposal wouldn't work, and no reason why his is any better. That isn't ever not going to make me at the least peeved.

OK, but honestly this is one reason we've wound up disagreeing so often in the past. You tend to go from "minimal presence" to "furious and hostile and denouncing all and sundry" very quickly, from the perspective of other people.

If you're going to ragepost at someone for being unreasonable, at least give them one decision cycle (post-respond) to stop and think over their position in light of your objection. You can't call someone unreasonable if you didn't give them a chance to BE reasonable.

Here is the thing though that is the third Time I requested the same or similar locations on the map before I got any real response, and it was then a nope go away don't want you here response with no justification.

See here, here and here. Excuse me if being ignored and brushed off make me less then agreeable.

I think you may have gotten lost in the shuffle- my point is simply that you were not offered an insult until now, and there are a lot of interpretations for it, and Steve might be/have been quite happy to retract his position...

And at least asking what was going on before freaking out is just good player etiquette.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I have consistently been amazed by the amount of belly aching that happens before, during, and after any STGOD game.

Sorchus, if you are so consistently so disagreeable about anything, why not "not play"?

[Steve]

Actually, I was going to have only two NPCs *if the countries on my continent agreed*. If Jub and Beo want to control territory up to my border, that's fine, but so far they're not asking. Jub didn't even bring Dreisgond up to what would've been our border in "Canada", and through no fault of mine.

As for the Omnians being too powerful, I don't mind tweaking it, I never intended for them to still be very powerful, just that San Dorado is helping to prop them up financially and the idea being that one power wouldn't go after them because all of the others would have interests at stake. Less "they're too powerful" and more "everyone's got a piece of the pie, mess with the pie and you mess with them". And if this isn't acceptable, we'll change things.

Finally, I have yet to put the southern continents onto the map, and while mad-doctor's map has some good points I"m not necessarily going to use it. I'll come up with a continent shape and stick it in and there'll be plenty of space for more PCs or NPCs.

[Jub]

My nation wasn't made to press against yours mainly because I thought the grey nation was a player and I didn't want to mess with anybody while we're still trying to get the map sorted. I actually wouldn't mind a boarder with you if only because it gives more to write about. I'm going to go ahead and eat up the arctic chunk of that NPC as well as some of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

[KlavoHunter]

I don't get what you mean by "Omnia is too big to mess with", as I imagine Komradistan is continually offending them out of sheer habit by this point - sure, all the old Klavostani royals were assassinated decades ago in what was a real scandal because they were under Omnian protection, but I imagine the Omnian navy isn't so huge that they can casually sail over and crush anyone who offends them.

Now, defensively, I imagine the Omnian Army and Air Force make the idea of most anyone attacking them have nightmares...

So it's not exactly like either side is outright attacking each other, but spying and sponsoring revolutionary cells is the name of the game.

[Steve]

My nation wasn't made to press against yours mainly because I thought the grey nation was a player and I didn't want to mess with anybody while we're still trying to get the map sorted. I actually wouldn't mind a boarder with you if only because it gives more to write about. I'm going to go ahead and eat up the arctic chunk of that NPC as well as some of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Good. And yeah, i guess I should've made that clear, the gray area is just excess I C&Ped off a map for room, it wasn't meant to be an NPC. Even the brown is a possible NPC if nobody else wants that territory, and frankly it wouldn't be an important NPC so I'm okay with nixing it.

Sorchus, you'll have room for all of your nation ideas, but not everyone feels the same way about our histories or NPCs. If Klavo and I want to have a history in common and an NPC as a result of that, and if there is room for your PC to be placed elsewhere, wouldn't that be enough? That means we all get something out of the situation.

[Siege]

I mean, if I want to say "I invade Omnia," what happens?

Then you invade Omnia. You write about the way Omnia resists your progress. Other players can come to their aid, or to yours. A narrative develops.

I hate Omnia only in that with the current map it's location dominates an area that is going to need more actual players to be interesting and guarantee activity. It is a good concept of a state, with what I would call a bad location. I wouldn't want to have to worry that it is going to be just you and Simon as the lone active players there if I were to place a nation in the same territory.

I see. Okay, so multiple people have expressed concerns about the size/placement/nature of Omnia. Then we probably need to cut it down to size or move it in some fashion. I'm not adverse to bringing player territories closer together, and I'm not wedded to the idea of Omnia as a significant state either. We could condense the continent significantly by reducing its presence, and maybe including Simon's idea of it having fractured in some fashion.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't get what you mean by "Omnia is too big to mess with", as I imagine Komradistan is continually offending them out of sheer habit by this point...

Ah, fair enough. My main argument is that Omnia should not be too big for the surrounding PC states to pressure, because then it becomes functionally equivalent to the UN in SDNW4, which was a bad idea all around.

Sure, Omnia won't be there as a modhammer state, but in reality all the UN ever did was be the invincibly powerful space-filling empire in the center of the map. Omnia doing the same thing is not desirable.

On the other hand, Omnia as the "sick old man of Australis" who just happens to be propped up by various outside powers because it's more convenient to keep the government in place than to divide the place up... that can work.

I hate Omnia only in that with the current map it's location dominates an area that is going to need more actual players to be interesting and guarantee activity. It is a good concept of a state, with what I would call a bad location. I wouldn't want to have to worry that it is going to be just you and Simon as the lone active players there if I were to place a nation in the same territory.

I see. Okay, so multiple people have expressed concerns about the size/placement/nature of Omnia. Then we probably need to cut it down to size or move it in some fashion. I'm not adverse to bringing player territories closer together, and I'm not wedded to the idea of Omnia as a significant state either. We could condense the continent significantly by reducing its presence, and maybe including Simon's idea of it having fractured in some fashion.

Personally, I'd like to see Omnia exist. And I don't mind it being pretty big, either.

But it should be established a way that makes it clear that it's a playground, not a player, in the "Great Game" of international politics. Because that's what NPCs are ultimately for. Now, the nature of the government (Ottoman or Qing China-inspired) is already a big step toward this. Because no sheltered-emperor-with-bureaucratic-government state has been a strong political presence since the Industrial Revolution. In fact, they tend to get their asses kicked.

When these guys meet up with organized corporate economic powers (like San Dorado) and modern nation-states, the usual result is that the emperor and his bureaucrats proceed to auction away ownership of most of the economy, grant extraterritorial concessions left and right, and fail to adopt modern technologies that might give them the military and economic strength to stand up to foreigners directly. Sure, they'll try to get their shit together, but in real life it usually doesn't work.

If anything, the challenge is explaining how Omnia has not gotten its ass kicked and its territory nibbled away in chunks until only a tiny core remains, the way the Ottomans did.

But if we can explain this, the idea that "Omnia" is actually a big blob on a map where the real power is overwhelmingly held by foreign corporations and the influence of foreign governments, THEN we have a very interesting situation. Some nations (San Dorado) might be scheming to increase their already-considerable slice of the pie, which they got a long time ago through various means.

Others (Umeria) might be scheming to redistribute the entire pie because they don't like how it was divvied up originally back in, say, the early 20th century. In which case they might support separatist movements and rogue political factions. Because overthrowing the Omnian 'government' would almost certainly give them a chance to gain more control of Omnian assets than they now enjoy.

Still others (KlavoKomradistan) have lingering political grudges against the Omnian government, even if that government is pretty well neutered into irrelevance nowadays.

I like that, it can work.

[Esquire]

I like that interpretation of Omnia. Maybe the Apelians have been helping prop them up for a while, regardless of historical grudges, simply as a way to spit in San Dorado's eye?

[Steve]

San Dorado has extensive influence in Omnia as well.

[Thanas]

I don't view Omnia as a problem, I think it could be a good placeholder nation as is in case future people want to join. In case they don't like OMnia we can always have it fragment into smaller states that by their sheer size would still work as player nation. Frankly, given that this is set in the modern age, landmass should not be a concern as if it were set in the 1800s and besides, I trust nobody here is going to be that stupid and go "RARGH I CONQUER OMNIA SUDDENLY HAVE GREAT RESOURCES EVERYWHERE". Besides, I trust other nations would then jump in, probably San Dorado, which Rheinland would then feel a debt of honor to support etc.

[Esquire]

San Dorado has extensive influence in Omnia as well.

Oh, I know. Certainly not trying to subvert that - my only thought was that in-universe, part of the reason they don't have even more might be Apelian use of their own influence.

[Steve]

http://i1353.photobucket.com/albums/q66 ... fbfd86.jpg

Added the core of Australis, aka the Southern Continent for Umeria, San Dorado, and others. This is just the core, additional land can be added easily just by showing me the shapes you want tacked on here or there.

I won't mark Omnia until other players state where they want to be. Generally I'm thinking Omnia will be along the northern coast, roughly south of Granadia or the Republics.

[Thanas]

I see you did not add the political map you asked me for, so why did you want it?

[Simon_Jester]

Cool. I like that.

Again, I just want to prevent Omnia from becoming a big uncommunicative blob with "no hair," no means of interacting meaningfully with it or upon its soil. That's what was wrong with the UN in SDNW4.

Having Omnia be the site of extensive scheming and maneuvering between rival commercial interests, probably with multinationals and firms from other nation-states in the Northern Hemisphere too, would do a lot to avoid that problem.

---

I'd also like to outline some thoughts on our nuclear-nonproliferation premise: that nuclear reactors can exist, powered primarily by the thorium cycle, but that fissile uranium-235 is scarce. Just putting it out there:

OK, so as I understand it, the thorium cycle starts with U-235 being refined, but this U-235 is then used to transmute thorium-232 into U-233, rather than turning U-238 into plutonium-239. Uranium-235 is still required, though, because it's basically the only naturally occurring neutron source that can be used to 'breed' other fissiles.

And in such a setting, U-235 would have to be extracted at great, laborious cost and effort from the (already rare) uranium metal. Forming a large enough mass of U-235 to act as an effective neutron source would be a major obstacle, probably the major obstacle, to any nuclear program, be it military or civilian. It might be tempting to pursue alternate means of creating fissiles, such as particle accelerators; I'm not sure.

Once you have a U-235 neutron source, you use it to irradiate a non-fissile isotope: U-238 or Th-232. U-238 necessarily exists, there should be roughly 100-200 grams of it per gram of U-235 found in your mineral deposit depending on planet age and so on, if this world is roughly Earthlike. But if uranium is inherently very scarce, then there just isn't much U-238 around. Even after you irradiate it with neutrons to make it into plutonium, you can't just expend large quantities of the stuff casually. Plutonium might also be used to breed Th-232.

Thorium-232 can be irradiated into U-233, which has been used IRL for experimental reactors and once for a bomb (in combination with some plutonium).

Once you have U-233, using it in reactors is relatively easy and breeding more from thorium (using the U-233 as a neutron source) likewise. But there is going to be a HUGE initial barrier to investment in the form of just finding the natural uranium (or massive particle accelerator assemblies) necessary to create any fissiles at all. And any fuel in which you leave the U-233 in to breed more and more of the stuff... it's going to be viciously radioactive due to side-effects, requiring remote handling.

[Steve]

I see you did not add the political map you asked me for, so why did you want it?

I missed it.

Edit: What's the link for it?

[madd0ct0r]

Steve - if I do up a nice version of the champa/umeria portion of australis would you mind dropping it in over the existing east coast? I'm part way with making a close up map of the area based on my old world map outline.

Simon - there are other way to get neutrons, we don't even need U235 to be common. Admittedly, can't think of many where you'd be able to sustain a net output reaction though. Thorium is naturally occuring, maybe this planet just got a different element mix when it accreted?
The fusor looks pretty cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source

[RogueIce]

Honestly, this is one area where I totally agree with Sorchus' "fuck the backstory" comment.

If we decide, as a player base, we don't want a bunch of nuclear weapons, then we don't have them. That's all that is truly needed here.

I for one plan to have nuclear power plants, nuclear-powered ships and submarines, etc. And I give zero fucks about what materials run those reactors, because it's not important. And it will never be important for me to bring up my "thorium-powered reactor" or whatever it is in a story post.

We don't have nuclear weapons because we don't have nuclear weapons, because enough of the players decided we didn't want them. What more is really required?

EDIT: Which is not to say you can't work this out on your own for your own benefit because you're really in to this sort of thing. I'm just putting it out there that I don't think it's necessary to try and create this "Rule of the World: How Nuclear Power Works" for those who don't care.

This is possibly brought on by someone mentioning to me "you know thorium as a naval reactor doesn't really work" (or words to that effect, and I'm not interested in throwing that person under the bus) and me wanting to preempt such silliness from starting. We can have nuclear power generation without nuclear weapons, by handwavium if nothing else.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon - there are other way to get neutrons, we don't even need U235 to be common. Admittedly, can't think of many where you'd be able to sustain a net output reaction though. Thorium is naturally occuring, maybe this planet just got a different element mix when it accreted?
The fusor looks pretty cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source

Well, the idea previously discussed was that there was plenty of (naturally occuring) thorium, but not much (naturally occuring) uranium. The gimmick then being that you need uranium to make thorium into a fissile material, or some other (difficult to build) neutron source, so that the task of creating functional fission power sources takes a good deal longer to get off the ground, and handling fissile material for weapons production is harder.

Honestly, this is one area where I totally agree with Sorchus' "fuck the backstory" comment.

If we decide, as a player base, we don't want a bunch of nuclear weapons, then we don't have them. That's all that is truly needed here.

I'm sorry I offended you by thinking about your game premise. If this feeling is widespread, I need to reconsider my approach to the game.

[looks around]

Is it, people?

I for one plan to have nuclear power plants, nuclear-powered ships and submarines, etc. And I give zero fucks about what materials run those reactors, because it's not important. And it will never be important for me to bring up my "thorium-powered reactor" or whatever it is in a story post.

I'm sorry that I offended you by talking about the physics of real nuclear power. If you have trouble with the idea that I can do this without trying to impose my views on you, then you need to rethink the way you read my posts.

EDIT: Which is not to say you can't work this out on your own for your own benefit because you're really in to this sort of thing. I'm just putting it out there that I don't think it's necessary to try and create this "Rule of the World: How Nuclear Power Works" for those who don't care.

I still find your tone objectionable.

[Skywalker_T-65]

On a different note...all this map talk makes me wonder if I should adjust my map and use actual islands for Arcadia (Iceland and Sicily for instance. We don't have an Italy-equivalent as of yet).

Hmm...would work better than trying to make a realistic looking set of islands in paint at any rate.

[Simon_Jester]

There are precedents. Or you could use islands from a fictional map that look good; in SDNW2 Shroomy used this continent from the map of the Ace Combat games:

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2010 ... tinent.jpg

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm thinking of having a former colony of Corona. It would be a developing democratic country on a group of tropical islands. It would have only tens or hundreds of thousands of people and a very small military. Corona would protect it in exchange for being allowed to keep a military base there. However, there would be people in both countries who oppose that. It would be pretty left wing. Maybe even socialist.

Could this be acceptable as an NPC?