Responses and Iterations: Addressing the Discourse as it Develops (Pt 1?)

I'm not going to do another one of my preludes, and I'm just going to jump write in. I'm in class right now, and I don't have too much time to write this. Also, I'm not addressing Soviet's ad hominem remarks but I will be addressing his actual criticism of the ideas I postulated, because he actually raises some good points in that actual criticism. I'm going to go nation by nation.

Legio: 

The P&W base game is somewhat clunky. This is true. That's why rp exists, so we can expand upon the ideas that the main game gives us. But idea of trying to use a different game to determine how rp (and specifically war and peace within rp) takes place just doesn't make sense. Everyone would have to learn how to use and play that game, and the advantage would ultimately fall on the nation that is best at that game, has spent most time in that game, and understands the mechanics of that game most intimately. Ultimately, this means combat skill in rp is dependent on your skill in an entirely unrelated game that plays completely different from actual P&W! But P&W as a base for our rp makes sense. Why? Because the rp is based on our P&W nations. The skill gaps and mechanics of the base game are already familiar to us, and everyone has an equal opportunity to get good at the meta within the game itself, instead of having to pick up an entirely new, unrelated game. 

I agree with the massive player bias. When NRI gets invaded, there is massive uproar across the international community, but when Bedland/Colombia gets invaded, there is only a half-hearted attempt at a peace conference. And that's another problem. A lot of times, rp turns into a popularity contest rather than a meritocracy. But in real life, this is not the case. Even if a nation is disliked by most nations (China has border disputes with 20 countries whilst bordering 14 countries) that doesn't automatically exclude them from being in a position of power or competency as some would have you believe. Competency in terms of power scaling is not dependent on your popularity with others beyond participation in international trade (look at Soviet Russia). And before we get into the whole thing, let's clarify that competency/power does not equal influence or superpower! You can be powerful, but if you have no friends, you cannot really be a superpower because you do not have the ability to exert influence on a global scale.

 I don't hate the casus belli regulation idea. But people can easily manufacture bs casus bellis or twist a situation to fit a casus belli, so not sure how this would be enforced.

The point about different sub-units in planes, ships, ground vehicles, etc. makes sense, but I fear it makes things too complex and allows too much room for BSing. Also, it demands a much more detailed knowledge of various combat doctrines than the majority of rpers will have. And frankly, who even wants to justify having 36 F/A-18E/F Superhornets, 12 F/A-18C Hornets from the Marine Corps, 4 E/A-18G Growlers, 4 E-2C Hawkeyes, and 6 HH-60 Seahawks (this is a composition of the aircraft aboard a Nimitz-Class Supercarrier, btw) to that degree of precision? I know I'm definitely not doing that for the entirety of my army.

I agree with the point about moderation, and it seems that almost everyone is calling for it. The question is, who is going to step up to the plate and make it a tangible thing? My hope is that the war system I am developing will help get that job done, at least a little bit.

Nukey: 

Yeah, rp was better back in the day. The question is, can we get it back to that point? I think it's worth a shot personally and my hope is that this system can at least help us get back to the earlier, more reasonable composition of bulletins.

Soviet: 

Maybe city count is not the best method for solving this problem, but then what would you suggest is the alternative for having rp based in the main game? It's either project count (which IMO makes sense since some people go to C20 and then desize to raid whilst keeping their projects) or GDP (which disproportionately makes farming nations stronger even if raider nations make a lot of money, they will not be listed as having a high GDP in the main game). 

I agree with the point on obliterating everyone's hard work, but at the same time, how many people would you say actually do genuine research into their military rp? Even those we consider to be the best rpers often fall victim to unrealistic tech or military movements. Take Ajako for example, one of the best rpers IMO, who has fighter jets which go Mach 5.5, even though modern doctrine and engineering (and the expected evolution of air combat) screams out that this is functionally impossible whilst maintaining the things which make a fighter a fighter (agility, role-flexibility, durability) and doesn't even make sense from a tactical standpoint (why go Mach 5.5 when all A2A & A2G engagements occur at subsonic speeds? This is why the F-35 has a lower top speed than the F-4 Phantom). And even if the tech made sense from a doctrine/engineering standpoint, how would you justify its superiority against other nations if there was no objective marker by which to base the comparison off of?

I think if we made it so that it was harder to defend your land, you would be less inclined to go to war. Overextension and escalation would be legitimate threats to your territory that you would actually have to seriously account for if you had militaries based on in-game features

I don't think pay-to-win is that big of an issue, considering diminishing returns as it pertains to credits. After maybe C15 (which you can reach very easily without credits!) its just too expensive to justify pay-to-win meta unless you are the spoiled child of George Soros or something.

The point about MAPs is a good one. I think if you got a certain quantity of MAPs depending on the quantity of your opposition, that would make it a fairer fight (if it's a 6v1, the guy who is "1" gets 6 MAPs per turn while the "6" each get one MAP per turn). 

The war system needs a lot of work. It's got a lot of flaws and I think we need to do a lot of work to flesh this out properly. But I think its worth at least taking a shot on. Worst-case scenario, we just go back to the current shitstorm.

Cruzeiro:

Small geographic nations can easily take down large ones. Just look at Ukraine currently kicking Russia's teeth in. Historically? In WWII, Japan beat the crap out of China despite being much smaller. Keep in mind that was an offensive war too! The smaller Israel beat the balls off of the Arab World on multiple different occasions, despite being vastly smaller than the hostile entities within the Arab World. Geography does not necessarily equal strength. A poorly developed C30 gets cooked by a well-developed C10 in the game (think Nukey and I each did this in-game in a Global in our younger days), so I think in rp you would expect the same to happen.

As for the point of the Netherlands being stronger than the Soviets under the new system, I don't think that's the case. We are conflating mass with power. Power comes from the exertion of influence. Even if the Netherlands may be bigger militarily, they do not exert their influence and thus hold little respect on the global stage, and so have little leverage and little power. Contrary to what is suggested, Soviets would still be very powerful so long as they played their cards correctly. Which I think is a good thing. One cannot be a superpower willy-nilly. It takes effort to balance diplomacy and combat in such a way that a nation increases its power and influence on the world stage. And given Soviet's current position, they would actually stand to benefit from this change as they would be decisively more powerful than most of their near-peer adversaries (Beans, Kol, and so on). Furthermore, the nations that are currently not very active in rp aren't going to magically come out of the woodwork to claim their dominance. They would still have to establish relations, build up their rp (or rebuild it!), and exert their mass effectively to actually be a powerful nation.

Dauchh:

This is Dauchh's methodology:

so for me, like 600 x x.1.8 or something (0.1 per city???)
Then maybe multiply that by some subjective power ranking, so from 0-3 or something

1, how about just a formuIa of days existed in RP (so first buIIetin) x City count

I like this, I think it strikes a compromise between the pure-rp crew and the main game rp crew.

Summary:

At the end of the day, the core problems of RP stem from constant war and bickering, and we need a way to deal with those things in an objective fashion to stop the bickering, and we need to disincentivize aggression to stop the war in some way.