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In my history, Germany did not prop up the Balkans, the Byzantines and the international community did so that they'd have a buffer state to the German Empire.

Steve wrote:Hey Shady, I like your ambition but frankly a Byzantine Empire without Greece would be weird. I don't see Fin letting you have Greece.

I'd suggest a border running from modern Albania to the Romanian-Bulgarian frontier. Bulgaria, Albania, and modern Macedonia are in the Empire as their northern frontier and to the north is the Socialist Balkan Federation (What's with you and being Communist anyway? And why would Germany prop up such a government I ponder? But whatever, I'm sleep deprived again....).

Now I need to hammer out a new North America history with Wilkens, Rogue, and Bean. Maybe the French player too.

Nah, it's cool, Fin can have Greece.

As for the other stuff...nothing is final, yet. I'm still thinking things thorough. As for me being communist, I don't know mang, it must be in my blood or something. Kidding. I just like it. Although I guess a change would be nice, maybe I can stile myself Emperor of the Balkan Empire Federation or something. We'll see. I think I'll draft up my own version of Balkan history tomorrow, so I guess I'll make the final decision then.

If I'm to be involved I will need New Zealand, the eastern two-thirds of Australia, and the southern half and north-eastern quarter of Papua New Guinea blocked off as the basis of the addition of Kaetjhasti to the map, just to let people know.

BTW Duchess, how is your nation pronounced? I've been calling it Kate-Jas-Tee.




OK, here's a preliminary setup for my country, the Unified Congolese Republic. If anything needs clarifying, please let me know.

I've done a bit of talking with Karmic Knight, and gotten a bit of history written down, but all this is subject to change, and most likely will be changed once the ruleset is finalized. During the First Trade Union war in 1879, a war triggered by crackdowns on trade unions, the local businessmen in the Congo rebelled against the Colonial authorities. Due to conflicts back home, their colonial master was unable to subdue the rebellion, and in 1880 the Belgian Congo renamed itself the Unified Congolese Republic. The government was largely a coalition of wealthy businessmen who resented the limitations placed on them by the Belgian government, so they immediately began diversifying the economy for the greater good of their wallets. Foreign specialists were imported, and many decided to settle down in the Congo. After twenty or so years of this, the UCR's black populace was unhappy with being shut out from the growing wealth of the country, and a civil war began in 1896. In 1898, the various factions met and drafted a new constitution granting equal rights to non-white men. Women were given the vote in 1907, and anti trust legislation was passed inn 1910.

The UCR has all the necessaries to make itself a great power, but only time will tell if it becomes such.

Population- 3

75 million or so people, maybe 60 million blacks and 10 million whites, with the other races making up the remainder. Racism is still an issue, but a minor one. Almost no one would express out and out hatred for another color, but inter racial marriages are rare, having only recently been legalized. Racism is more likely to take the form of subconscious assumptions regarding strength or intelligence rather then open contempt and calls for extermination.

Land area- 3

roughly 2 million sq km, including both republics of the Congo and Gabon.

Colonial Territory- 0

A former colony of their own, been independent for about 40 years or so. No will for colonies and plenty of resources means there's no economic reason to do so.
Colonialism in this nation has much the same undertone as Nationalization does in the modern day USA.

Industry- 5

Money from resource exports allowed for ample industrialization in the past.
A careful policy of development means that there are few things that cannot be made locally.

Economy- 5

Again, abundant natural wealth, self sufficient local industry, and a somewhat balanced distribution of wealth. There's some agriculture, some manufacturing, some mining, some shipbuilding, some fishing, some of everything. It may not be sufficient for the needs of a total war, but the capability does exist and can be expanded if need be.

Infrastructure- 3

Lots of riverine transport and local industries, but road and rail links are still only at the local level. There's nothing like the interstate highway or a transnational railway, and the only proper airport is in the capital.

Standing Military Limit- 3

I'm not sure what this translates to but the army is between 400-600k men. With reserves called up it could quickly be expanded to one million, but much beyond that and the army would have problems with training and equipping its men. Women are allowed to serve in a few jobs, all of which are non-combat related, but the military and armaments production is still dominated by men.

Naval Focus- 4

The necessity of river transport and the government's dependence on exports for currency means that keeping the sea lanes open is essential. The Navy is the senior service and by far the most prestigious. They have a strong battleship force, a modest submarine force, and a carrier made from a converted cruiser that exists as a proof of concept rather then a proper warship.

Army Focus- 3

The army is large, but mainly attrition based. Heavily oriented around trench warfare, with a few smaller groups functioning as stormtrooper units.
Standing doctrine for armored assaults is to turtle up like the Russians at Kursk. A few tank and mechanized formations exist, but they mainly function as training cadres for planned expansions of the army, and none of their generals have experience at mobile warfare.

Air Focus- 1

There are almost no airstrips in the country and few airplanes. It's on the to do list but they don't even have a proper air force. The Army and the Navy both have their own air units, but it's mainly for reconnaissance purposes.

Steve wrote: Now I need to hammer out a new North America history with Wilkens, Rogue, and Bean. Maybe the French player too.

If you all could include resettling freed slaves in Africa that would really help my nation out. That was considered by some to be a possible resolution to the "freed slaves problem" in the US historically. Turns out slave states passed laws and such to make sure freed slaves didn't stay in their territory and they weren't popular anywhere else in the US either. Some thought the best solution was to send them over to Africa and hence Liberia was born! Perhaps in this time line that movement got more traction and support from within the US.

Of course that will only be part of the story behind my west African nation. I have to go over the region's history and see how local powers will fit into what I am creating here.

Edit: For bad spelling mistakes

I'd intended for Economy to reflect financial institutions and such, not just how much a country produces in terms of resources. A 5 in Economy basically means your Congo has some of the world's best banks and one of the most robust banking systems.

Oh, I see. The Banking system in my country is sufficient for my needs but not anything to attract international fame. So, maybe a 3 then?

Steve wrote: Now I need to hammer out a new North America history with Wilkens, Rogue, and Bean. Maybe the French player too.

French player is me. Feel free to drop me a PM with whatever you've got in mind.

RogueIce wrote:Hey Ryan, if you're looking for people to invest in a Panama Canal, you probably shouldn't have "we'll lock anyone out at any time" clause. Lock anybody else out, but I think you'd need to (at at least) make an exception for your partners. Otherwise I can't see them bothering, but instead shopping around for somebody a bit less draconian.

I could agree to that.

Additionally, anybody foolish enough to attempt to take it from me should bear in mind that I have a much shorter supply chain than you do, and a modern army and navy to fight you off with.

Ryan Thunder wrote:

RogueIce wrote:Hey Ryan, if you're looking for people to invest in a Panama Canal, you probably shouldn't have "we'll lock anyone out at any time" clause. Lock anybody else out, but I think you'd need to (at at least) make an exception for your partners. Otherwise I can't see them bothering, but instead shopping around for somebody a bit less draconian.

I could agree to that.

Additionally, anybody foolish enough to attempt to take it from me should bear in mind that I have a much shorter supply chain than you do, and a modern army and navy to fight you off with.

*twitch* Ryan, for the love of all, quit this teenage need for some superiority or what crap for crying out loud.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:*twitch* Ryan, for the love of all, quit this teenage need for some superiority or what crap for crying out loud.

Excuse me? Since when do I have a "need" for superiority? I want to have a sphere of influence where you can't push me around easily from half a world away, and I want my country to actually be of some significance for once, unlike Miratia which was, for the most part, largely irrelevant with nigh-zero influence outside of its nuclear arsenal.

Is that so much to ask?

Ryan Thunder wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:*twitch* Ryan, for the love of all, quit this teenage need for some superiority or what crap for crying out loud.

Excuse me? Since when do I have a "need" for superiority? I want to have a sphere of influence where you can't push me around easily from half a world away, and I want my country to actually be of some significance for once, unlike Miratia which was, for the most part, largely irrelevant with nigh-zero influence outside of its nuclear arsenal.

Is that so much to ask?

All of this is well and good - Hell, I happen to agree with that last bit - but really, the game hasn't even started yet. Posturing and threats are a bit ridiculous at this stage.

Master_Baerne wrote:All of this is well and good - Hell, I happen to agree with that last bit - but really, the game hasn't even started yet. Posturing and threats are a bit ridiculous at this stage.

Fair enough. That comment at the end of the post that Fingolfin was responding to was directed at Thanas' comment about sending a battlegroup over, as if that'd be the end of it.

Okay, now that my homeland is set in stone, I'd like to discuss claims on the Indian Ocean islands. I most certainly want the ones near to Madagascar, including the Seychelles, Reunion, Tromelin, Mauritus, and possibly the islands in the Mozambique Channel as well (I could see this last item being a point of territorial dispute with MariusRoi's South Africa, however). Also, I kinda think Diego Garcia looks like it'd make a fantastic forward base for my fleet, though given it's a lot closer to the Indian subcontinent, someone else no doubt has a far more valid claim to it than me. I'd possibly also be overly ambitious to try and claim the French antarctic islands as well.

What's this I hear of French antartic islands?

Ma Deuce wrote:Okay, now that my homeland is set in stone, I'd like to discuss claims on the Indian Ocean islands. I most certainly want the ones near to Madagascar, including the Seychelles, Reunion, Tromelin, Mauritus, and possibly the islands in the Mozambique Channel as well (I could see this last item being a point of territorial dispute with MariusRoi's South Africa, however). Also, I kinda think Diego Garcia looks like it'd make a fantastic forward base for my fleet, though given it's a lot closer to the Indian subcontinent, someone else no doubt has a far more valid claim to it than me. I'd possibly also be overly ambitious to try and claim the French antarctic islands as well.

Two pages ago, Home slice.

Lonestar wrote:So, me and Shep get the Indian Subcontinent(to include Burma) Aden/Oman, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, the Chagos, Mauritius, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to be divided up between us two.

Can I have St Helena, Ascension and Tristan Da Cunha? Fleet advance bases are essential for any aspiring naval power.

Steve wrote:Now I need to hammer out a new North America history with Wilkens, Rogue, and Bean. Maybe the French player too.

Steve I'm essentially planning to keep Mexico's history as was up through 1824 so as to preserve the First Mexican Empire. At some point in the past Von Regan and his cohorts rebelled (possibly leading to the Mexican American war and the surrender of Texas to the Confederacy and New Mexico/California to the Von Regan's). After that Mexico consolidates, goes through a brief bit of dictatorship under the aegis of the first Empire (which is never legally abolished nor renounces its holdings in Central America) before expanding in to the Caribbean in the wake of the Spanish American War. Fighting on the side of the Spanish is how they are rewarded with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in return for helping blunt the Cuban Offensive (leading to Spain retaining possession of the island unless this conflicts with Czech's plans for the South). The conquest of Hispaniola took place during the 1860s while the US was focused on the Civil War and unable to intervene.

So yeah that's my working hypothesis.

Lonestar wrote:Two pages ago, Home slice.

Is that so, chuckles? Well in that case, you can have them all except for the Seychelles and Mauritus. Those are a lot closer to me than they are to you, and especially in the case of the latter are simply too uncomfortably near to my doorstep for me to allow it to be controlled without dispute by a potential strategic rival.

Speaking of history, Steve send me a history that he wrote up before-hand and I'm still considering it. But the main thing I'm thinking at this point is that America becomes free of British rule not through Revolution but more like "Lost it in a Poker game".

Ryan Thunder wrote:

Master_Baerne wrote:All of this is well and good - Hell, I happen to agree with that last bit - but really, the game hasn't even started yet. Posturing and threats are a bit ridiculous at this stage.

Fair enough. That comment at the end of the post that Fingolfin was responding to was directed at Thanas' comment about sending a battlegroup over, as if that'd be the end of it.

Well, when you act like a complete dick - aka "pay me tariffs, I want to inspect your ships and I am going to lock you out whenever I please" - on a completely ahistorical building you made just because you claimed it first then yeah, I am going to treat you as such. Especially because Germany at this point should have the second-largest or maybe even the largest merchant fleet afloat, which means that the Panama canal is very, very important to me.

So yeah, either act more like a responsible nation and less than a street thug who wants to essentially have a chokehold on the global economy just because otherwise his nation won't matter, aka the "I am a bad roleplayer and cannot get attention from anywhere else".

Soo, a 1915 "neutral" Brest Litovsk variant that was employed by Thanas, is now discussed by me and Thanas as he is Germany.

That means the Russia I control could actually still consume the former territories of the Russian Empire (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and, possibly, Poland, without any independence. Even Finland might never be even let to exist as an independent nation. So unless there are claimants to those lands, or a reasonable reason why they should exist as independent nation NPCs, the no-Civil War Russia could have them consumed and/or partitioned with Germany.

I am now listening to the players who might have issues with that.

Here's a rough description of the nation I am leading:

Russia wrote:After miserably losing the Russo-Korean war in 1905, the Russian Empire stays at crossroads.

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas the II starts the policy of runaway militarization just as a large European war looms over. There is considerable mobilization and it undercuts the civil consumption in the nation.

In 1915, just as the conflicts and various proxy armament shipments seem to escalate to fullscale war, Germany signs a pact with Russia. A large war is a averted, but the damage dealt to the Russian economy and political stability cannot be undone.

In February 1917, heavily impacted by the mass mobilization, hypermilitarization and runaway debt, the Tsar government relinquishes power. The Provisional Government does not last long - after the July coup attempt, runaway inflation and debt make the nation hinge on the verge of collapse. Nationalism raises it's head in the semi-colonial subjects of the Russian Empire.

In October 1917, the combined coalition of the Eser and the Bolshevik parties takes power through the Soviets, with the slogans "Land to the peasants" and "Factories to the workers". No peace or war issue makes it easy for the parties to find a compromise. The Soviet government is established, and the independence of small Russian Empire subjects, so easily trumped upon by the new government, is a small price for the victory of the Proletariat. The majority of European lands of the Russian Empire never gain independence.

In 1918, brewing pressures in those national regions lead to multiple, but disjoined insurrections. Central Asia is on fire with the basmachi raids, Europe is brewing with partisanship in Finland, Poland, Estonia, etc. Meanwhile the Japanese and Chinese try their own landgrabs against the weakened nation. Their effect is likewise a headache for the new government. Small wars and interventions become the most pressing issue with the new government of the R.S.F.S.R. Most of the uprisings are crushed without remorse. By 1922, a new political entity is born - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In 1924, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics fully repays the external debt of Tsarist Russia accumulated by 1917, takes up on all the obligations of Tsarist Russia and without distinction lays claim on all territories of the former Russian Empire, claiming that the proletarians are awaiting liberation from the bourgeois elite. The Brest Litovsk treaty of 1915 defines the borders of the USSR, with minor changes. Most of Europe, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East lay under Russia or is claimed by it's rule. The military and political elites of the USSR collude in what seems an unlikely collective junta after Lenin's death and the resignation of some of his compatriots.

The Union awaits a new leader to come after the great revolutionaries.

Ryan, it is time for you to concede and recoil in fear and say:

Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans! Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me! Don't let the Germans come after me. Oh no, the Germans are coming after me. No! They're so big and strong! Burns: Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans...

OK, me and Beo have pretty much agreed on this for Manchuria:

So, um Guys, where's the map Steve posted? The old link doesn't work. Do we have an official mapmaker around?

I'm still working on my history, thanks to Steve for his awesome idea.