Maelstrom Vortex

I am well and content that the projects be used as multipliers of effects, but it isn't tech level. Not even close. Not even a real solid indicator of tech progress. I mean I believe you and I both know that not every missile system is the same. I'd like to see you conduct AA operations with a V1.

Absent that, your last statement would be true. Except there's no real tech measure in this game to establish who is mickey mouse.

10 Million is not a massive population base for an army.. at least not in reality. At least with the tanks and the aircraft you have to take into account cost and do math to decide if an attack is even worth it, because on troop spammers.. who have crazy low infra.. and yet somehow support millions of people, it never will be... I guess someone likes living in fairy-tale land. Daisy cutters and A-10s.. Guess you weren't alive for gulf war 1. Historical homework for this discussion: Look up the events regarding the highway of death.. and then you'll understand what air power actually does to un-escorted troops and ground equipment: Here's your quick summary: "During the American led coalition offensive in the Persian Gulf War, American, Canadian, British and French aircraft and ground forces attacked retreating Iraqi military personnel attempting to leave Kuwait on the night of February 26–27, 1991, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles and the deaths of many of their occupants. Between 1,400 and 2,000 vehicles were hit or abandoned on the main Highway 80 north of Al Jahra. The scenes of devastation on the road are some of the most recognizable images of the war, and it has been suggested that they were a factor in President George H. W. Bush's decision to declare a cessation of hostilities the next day.[6] Many Iraqi forces, however, successfully escaped across the Euphrates river, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that upwards of 70,000 to 80,000 troops from defeated divisions in Kuwait might have fled into Basra, evading capture.[7]" At least you can be honest in saying you're trying to distort the game to fit your agenda. I'm just going by history.

Given it's wrong, there's an easy escape. I am biased because every other war sim I've ever been in population meant something and troop count was directly related. Here there is no such relation. Has the fact that the wars appear to manifest that way brought it to my attention? Definitely. But it's possible to observe something without it directly generating a bias. It's also possible to argue that observation on its own merits, which is what I am doing. I'm still up on my overall war damage, my performance is not bad as some might seem to think it is. Also I'm currently in a position where some loss is literally expected and anticipated. There's always going to be a cost to keeping people buckled under your thumb. How much skill does it take to buy troops and just shove them at people? That's what gets me. Other than time of day and number of barracks it's a ridiculously simple but effective strategy... that should be neither. Modern wars simply do not work that way... and never will. Seems a lot of people here have been claiming I am lazy or some such.. But.. isn't it lazier to spam a single unit type over and over again.. than it is to actually stage.. you know.. more complex strategies of which.. all are more complex than troop spam? Add a single tank.. still more complex than troop spam. I have to mock the strategy because though it is effective.. it's totally worthy of the meme... is there an infinite soldiers meme? If there isn't I need to so spawn one now. Maybe just one of an army of clones going "hup hup hup hup".... OOh, nevermind, got the perfect one.. When you realize your soldiers are ESO Pcs: Eternal in number, Resurrection, and fighting against the big-bad they will never quite defeat.

If your point was not merely in mockery of the discussion simply because it originated from me as a member of the NPO then you have a good one and as I've said previously, I am open to discussions about a population cost to all unit use.. this includes nukes and casualties caused by them though the aspect of casualties of war hadn't been addressed. By this account every method of attack should include non-combat casualties in the target cities. The way you phrased it did not appear of serious intent. You are right in the way the game handles nukes dishonoring the victims of the only two nuclear weapons uses in history. However, I think for this to be set up right then it has to account for size and yield of weapons. It's not impossible this has been done in many a game and there's no reason it could not here. That too, would also accelerate war conclusions. Well, you also have a good, but different point as to what also causes wars not to end. If there is insufficient motive or reason to end a war, it may simply not be ended. We exist in a world where you cannot kill off the enemy as in the real one, a mere willingness to survive in an abysmal state is more than sufficient to keep some players going and their nations recovering. That said, unlike in reality where you can literally kill an enemy holding a grudge against you or make it so costly no one wishes to continue, that's just about impossible here. There is no easy remedy to the latter situation which wouldn't make either the game die, or a lot of people outright miserable. I hate to think of Admin as forcing arbitrary "war-loss" measures and forcing peaces between parties, but I cannot think of any other solution that doesn't require systemic artificial manipulation in the presence of such wills. Automatic forced alliance level loss after set parameters are hit. There's also the problem that such parameters would be controversial, debatable, and potentially arbitrary as sometimes wars will be turned around with sufficient diligence and time. It may be easy for some to dismiss my suggestions as the mere ramblings of a Member of the NPO, but those that know my history know I've actually assisted with authoring a war system for a game similar to this one. I have a minor in economics as part of my Masters in Information Systems as well and almost sought special accreditation in game-theory. I've contemplated war system development for game designs since SSI was still a thing and if I could do graphics and web dev with any level of artistic expertise I might well have made my own game. My favorite part of P&W, for example, is the bid-ask system of economics. I would favor a more complex economy, but this one does the job and beats most out there. I would also like to observe that if we go by the WW2 measure.. that Dresden and Tokyo firebombings killed a much greater many people than Nagasaki or Hiroshima, so the scale of all attacks would need to be intensely evaluated given that modern conventional arms have also substantially upped lethality. We also may want to consider differentiation of nuke types as a neutron bomb purely hits pop, em purely hits infrastructure, and a dirty bomb causes long lasting devastation.

Sort of my point. When the enemy won't conclusively concede............ there is no motive to end a war. Ever. There is no reason to avoid eternal warfare. There are thus no new wars, total stagnation.

Notes to self @CandyShi and @Deulos are to partisan to take part in reasonable ooc discussion of game mechanics. They only know how to attack other players based on IC perspectives instead of debating the war mechanism outside of the lens of the underlying world politics. I will thus, discard their statements as such biased positions and not reply unless commenting improves and there is merit-able feedback and criticism to consider other than, "NPO BAD" "NPO JUST WANT TO ENSLAVE." As for the rest of you suggesting that the same be applied to all unit types, Totally would be in favor of such a re-balance. I want to just see population actually mean something than be a seemingly arbitrary number that is the descriptor of a city and an economic state. I'm not even sure if population factors into current economic and tax calculations or if it is driven by purely infra and structure calculations, but if so then the fatigue on the population almost certainly would also impact the economics as well if so.. which is also fairly realistic. You lose a baker on the eastern front, he's not making any more cookies. I'm not sure it would necessarily make the pace more slow. Think about the current state of the game where things run into limbo due to eternal warfare due to some simply not wanting to capitulate... Imagine game where wars ended and totally new other conflicts were allowed to begin because people had no choice but end them as they were strategically exhausted in a more comprehensive manner. Those arguing because I am NPO I would want this to make it easier for NPO.. are clueless.. as we have already effectively won. Technically I might be arguing against our dominance IC, except that I trust us to master any systemic configuration we are presented.

I love how everyone's go-to-excuse for a bead mechanic is , "Oh, you just can't kill it so you want it to stay dead because you can't commit.".... Lame. Try harder... that's not it. The complaint.. legitimately.. is that isn't how it works in rl, and here you miraculously have an infinite supply of soldiers. if you're okay with that.. and we're okay with that as a community, fine. I just don't like the arcade-feel to warfare. I've been playing nation sims for nigh on two decades+ now.. if fighting wars were an issue, I'd just leave.. I haven't. I love wars. I just hate badly done war mechanics. You know who had a magnificent mechanic, it just wasn't properly attended? Nationsgame. Incredible war system, customization of units, initiative considerations that weren't purely driven by what time of day you got on... BATTLES, not wars.. would last days. Don't get me wrong, PNW has its charms, it just can be better and it's not because I want an easy way to annihilate you. It's because it feels.. Cheap and dirty. To me it dishonors the value of real infantry.. of human life.

As it should be? I mean in my opinion if you exhaust your nation's manpower that's literally all you should have left. The argument for ending prolonged wars is probably more sound in that troop replacement is a long term issue. You should have a base level of natural regeneration to offset casualties, but it shouldn't be something that is impossible to overwhelm, because in reality, that is how it works. Manpower is not an infinite resource, not even close... its' value is trivialized in this game.

Where did I say you were wrong? I said you were making my point for me. That wouldn't make you wrong now would it? Hardly dishonest conversation. And what was it I said that you said in contradiction? So.. easily.. triggered.. Scarfie. I legit.. did not say.. that infantry didn't take ground. I said they did not win wars alone. That has been the only claim I made. You are making a different, yet also valid point... that is totally not in contradiction to my own yet you believe that it does stand so, when truthfully it is reinforcing my claim. Even you appended, "Supported by air force." Infantry alone could not possibly win the Falklands.. or Vietnam.. yet routinely, in this game, they do against powers with other assets. You blocking me, will be far more a reflection on you and the weakness of your position on the issue, than on me. It will be a pity though. You are seemingly the only one who could stand for their position outside of a simple down-vote and provide rational critical review of the situation. I don't buy into cancel culture, or closing off dialogue in a difficult discussion. I'm not that big a coward. I also have apt and sound reasoning to why I say what i do. I believe you do as well. I just can't believe you'd walk off so easily. I didn't even perceive this discussion as heated or having tension until you react this way. PS: No one up or down-vote me anymore. My rating is officially the meaning of life, in my favorite color, as it should be.

I never said that infantry didn't take ground.. you're basically making my argument for me.. think about it. Pity the Merchant Marine doesn't have a role in this game either, but the level of systemic complexity is likely not desired. However, we can make it so that wars aren't solely won by infantry with some modest adjustments.

I am like.. 99.9% Confident that the major deciding factor in the Falklands was naval. Don't get me wrong, infantry are good.. but if you took away the Brit navy you're talking an Island against the full armed forces of a neighboring continental nation with comparatively infinite resources. The Brit Navy and its ability to bring supplies and other armaments into the combat theater were the deciding factor in any long term confrontation there. So no.. soldiers alone did not hold the Falklands. I hoped you were joking or meant Vietnam which would have been a more reasonable argument due to the fact the infantry DID in fact make a mess on the ground with guerrilla warfare and that maybe you were a few years off on the dates of the war. Were drifting off topic, my point is made though, no modern war has been won solely by infantry. Yet we have nations in P&W who rely on this strategy.

I guarantee you no one in Vietnam on the fighting side would have thought that war, "profitable." One of the most costly wars in history for both parties. US defeat had nothing to do with resources, everything to do with political willpower and the way the war was started. Then by all means, lets set down a calculation for fighter pilots and tank crews as well. My basic point is that population should matter. Right now it's an arbitrary number that serves no real purpose. You could calculate the economy and military without even factoring in population or its depletion. Technically as a lower city count state.. my projections would actually hinder me relative to most of those I'd be fighting. Therefore, your argument is intellectually dishonest in saying 'I would use this to keep my enemies down forever'. More than likely, it'd actually be the inverse.

That's already factored in. When you make tanks, you use alum. When you make ships, you use steel. When you make spies, you use training slots. When you make missiles, you use a variety of resources, same for Nukes.. But other than cash.. what do you use to make soldiers? You need people, to make people.. not just training and cash. But that's not represented anywhere. You are correct though, crewing could be factored into the assembly of the other units as well. There's no reason it couldn't be though it is possible to have drone aircraft, tanks, and ships.. the plausibility of an entire force of such is currently miniscule. But the oversight of needing people to make troops.. is a huge one, imho. The probability you're going to drain a population piloting aircraft, ships, or tanks though is much lower than in powering an infantry regiment. Destroy (the fighting portion of) an armor division, maybe lose a couple thousand personnel.. destroy (the fighting portion of) an air wing.. maybe a few hundred.. destroy a ship, maybe a couple hundred... destroy an infantry division.. tens of thousands. I'm not factoring in logistics systems because that's not what the game system is concerned with.. it assumes those forces exist operationally in the background as part of infrastructure.

When was the last time you saw a modern war profitably won by soldiers alone? .. Maybe 2 centuries ago? So why is it true in this game that people get away with constant cheap troop spam that gives them a resource advantage? In my opinion, troop spam is too simple, to easy, and to cheap with no consequence to playing nations and makes it far to easy a tactic in the wars. There are a number of ways this can be remedied: 1. Increase cost of troops. 2. Make population matter by: A. Having war weariness affect recruitment rates/capacity as a multiplier/modifier. B. Calculating an actual troop availability based on city populations for an overall time period, say a week or a month, and have that depleted and re-grow at specific rates. IE: City of 100,000 people has 5000 troops killed, leaving 95,000 population of which 33,000 is recruit-able based on fighting ages. Once fighting age pool is depleted, despite barracks count, no more troops become recruit-able until the pool recovers. 3. Have cost of troops increase each time the capacity of a barracks is used, have it slowly recover over time to normal levels when not utilized. 1 and 2a are arguably the simplest means of affecting the changes because war weariness calculations can be applied directly to all barracks generically as can troop cost increases. The 2b and 3 are more complicated but arguably likely to give a more realistic war performance. Yes, I know we are not going for a complex sim. However, I thought these would be ideas that could help improve perceived game quality in terms of realism and therefore worth mentioning. This will make this game more, "Politics and War" and less "Politics and Clone Wars".

*Revises CoB*: "Come bomb us please!"

Maelstrom had no doubt in Stealth's capacity. The game of covert options was one of chance. But the pay out for the losses when there was success was far greater than the overall cost of many sets of losses. Thus.. Stealth's role was firmly secure, but the morale of imperial agents.. not so much. A mix of airstrikes and ground offenses began in Graveland. And such did three worthy opponents receive the same communique, part of which "Propaganda Spam is Evil" was added to the relayed texts. The Emperor rumbled, "I don't get this guy, Ripper. He could have declared the war, nuked me.. and been up a million on the bounty. Instead he asks me to bomb his nation. Strange one."

Stealth, the Emperor's Intelligence Administrator, advised Maelstrom, "This one has nukes. Let my guys handle him first." Maelstrom snorted, "I eat nukes.. and their nukes cost them more than our cities do to fix. Just hit him. Have the corpses of his infantry and our casualties on my buffet table by dawn."

Maelstrom is awakened by an imperial courier. He gets a letter from Tymoteusz. Slowly, he tears it open with his index talon as if it were a letter opener. He begins to read. "Great.. spam propaganda... does this guy even know who I am?" He rolls over.. starts going back to sleep.. "General Furyion.. find someone in the enemy coalition who is available for warfare within our range, if possible... and send a reply via fuel-air thermobaric explosive in the central square of a major urban area. Please caption on an explosion resistant side armor panel of the bomb, 'From Maelstrom, with love. Ignorance is bliss, especially where you are concerned.'" Furyion left and went to seek out a valid target for such an operation.

Unnnttillll their nukes vanish... o/ Alyster

I think it's a sure sign they're broke.. *laughs*.

#Notices 2 million dollar bounty on his head# FINALLY.. someone realizes the threat i pose.. Took them long enough. I think my spies pissed someone off when I detonated their nukes.

Not permissible.. it'd narrow my dining options.

.... I smell something familiar.....

I suspect they subscribe to the thucydides trap theory and are applying it to Orbis.