WesWorld

In theory - were I still actually interested in sims at such time as WW2 began - I would be fine with a non-historical setting. I attempted to kick-start a new version of Navalism in such a manner but got overwhelmed and crapped out on them instead.

The sim's managed to function reasonably well for a decade despite the lack of info on Atlantis, Iberia, SAE, and Nordmark. The sim rules, as written, require little beyond a basic sense of economic size and locaiton of infrastructure. Oil is useful to know, but the distribution of crops, iron, and such has no formal in-game effects.

Nation-building of fantastic or non-historic states can be incentivized - good work on an annual basis earns you some sort of bonus.

I have no strong opinion on nation size, save to note that a lot of folks will want to design big cool things. Whether everybody starts the same or there's a spread, there will almost certainly be a quick burst of alliance-making to offset perceived weaknesses.

And the numbers for this weekend's jackpot are.......

I'd like to play the Roman Empire too, but I would settle for a power like Spain.

I call King Soloman's Israel!

If I may provide some thoughts... we're still probably four or five years from finishing the current version of Wesworld, particularly at our current rate of posting. How about we concentrate on the next version when we're closer to actually needing it?

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
If I may provide some thoughts... we're still probably four or five years from finishing the current version of Wesworld, particularly at our current rate of posting. How about we concentrate on the next version when we're closer to actually needing it?

Agreed.

My 2 cents.

Fictional world : I am willing to entertain such a notion. The Forgotten Realms map manages to remind me of Earth with the continents shoved around and mountain ranges that don't correspond to platetectonics. I can live with that. The attraction is that changing the map changes the static strategic elements that shape navies. By changing the underlying variables, we may find new and interesting results.

Civ 4 map : I found that just really ugly and clunky. Graphics are usually not a matter of concern for me, but that was not good.

Historical Earth : A little boring.

Ahistorical Earth : Probably "best". I would be interested in a version where people can play states that existed at some point in history, vaulted into modern day. So borders and relations have historic precedent.
Foxy's "Greater Mexico" would be simply Mexico before the clashes with the US. What if Santa Anna won? Or Gold was discovered by the Mexican Army instead of Sutter? Likewise someone could play the Mughal Empire, or Norman England or 1600s Spain. An argument could be made for a Russia that won the Crimean war, owned much of the Balkans as a 'protectorate' and so had an ice-free port on the Med.

Yes, the Holy Roman Empire *probably* overlaps multiple nations others desire to run, but why reject it now? If there is no one who wants the Benelux, then the 1600 version could be doable as a replacement for "Germany". Or Northern Italy and the Benelux could be trimmed.

Obviously where there is overlap with another's proposed nation there would need to be negotiations.

TIme : The "Devastation" class was laid down in 1869 and had the fore/aft rotating 4x12" main armament and lacked sails. The Colossus class in 1882 finally abandoned muzzle loaders, and by the Victoria Class, which entered service in 1890 they had triple expansion engines. So 1880s - still experimental, 1890s...classic Pre-dread available.

Any :
Countries should have a standard starting "description" - an encyclopedia type thing, made for PCs and NPCs.
This includes standard fluff, but also the existing major anchorages and their drafts, and the default "diplomatic state" defining who's been upset with whom for ages and why. Plus a checklist of major resources- Coal, Oil, Rubber, Iron, Tin, Copper, Zinc. Folks can ignore it, or amuse themselves by making sure they and their allies have them all (collect the set !)
This will help establish what the relations are, regardless of if folks make news, and also present little headscratchers such as the current US player feeling his nation has too few factories vs. my understanding that it's as designed, or my 1928 intro to the game I was told by Red Admiral that there was old problems between Iberia vs France & Atlantis which is apparently wrong...but is a big part of why I couldn't figure out why RAM had signed the NL up in an alliance with Iberia when we're the ones with no mountain range between us and the biggest @#$ army.
Having a baseline posted...which a current player could supplement... would set everyone at the same starting point.

There should be a "world encylopedia" listing Oceans, Seas, straits and standard depth ranges.
We see OTL restraints such as Panama and Suez canals, or the depths of the Baltic. The Netherlands has the Java Sea...which is pretty darn shallow. Thus I don't have as many coastal subs as one might expect, they would be pretty darned exposed.

Kirk, I just feel that without a very indepth backstory which in itself is time-consuming and difficult considering the number of players that want to play, and have an idea germinating in the back of their heads to mesh those ideas into a comprehensive world that going with a ahistorical Earth is in my mind opening the door to all sorts of problems down the road. Some of those issues we are now finding in Wesworld, others I see but haven't brought up, not bothering because I would rather see the game go on than quibble over things. Such a scenario might be better with a computer program, or with one or two people devising an alternate history storyline than say a game with around 20 people and personalities. Also understandably other players may not want/have time to put as much detail into the game as others, yet still want to play a decent sized power. With an OTL start or one close to it I have an understanding of what each nation is capable of - there is after all a guide in what they did IOTL. When I am playing a game with the Great Mexican Empire, or Narnia, or the Mallorean Empire, or Calimsham I have no clue what to expect from such a power, no frame of reference, no understanding if this is a reasonable course of action they are taking or if someone is trying to pull a fast one. And that inevitably leads to distrust, tension, turmoil, and strife (amongst the playerbase, not the countries themselves).

I realize with an OTL start there are only 6 or 7 Great Powers in the world in the 1880's. I also realize everyone wants to build that awesomey awesome ship and that folks need for the most part GreatPowerNation status to do so. So, in the interest of the game if this is the path taken I am willing to select a minor power and develop it rather than having the advantage of being a Great Power from the get-go.

I tried to address the background bit with my suggestion of required standardized encyclopedias entries giving the nation's background.

Likewise, while I recognize greater problems in a fantasy world with "Narnia" or the "Malorian Empire", this should not be as extreme an issue with historic empires brought forward into modern times.

However, the original time line nations we have... the USA, Japan and...no one else outside Europe. Spain, the Ottomans, Brazil and Argentina barely afforded capital ships.

That leaves Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the UK.

AH, Italy and the bulk of the French fleet are hemmed into the Med by choke points at Gibralter and Suez.
AH is worse with the Straits of Ortranto.

Russia is stuck with dispersed ports and limited access to the high seas.

Germany has the baltic and then the UK across any conceivable trade route.

It's status quo, with most of the nations stuck in one spot and constrained by geography.

I somewhat get your concerns, but I just don't find the above terribly interesting. However it's good to get this out and discuss them

As will surprise no one at all who remembers my viewpoints during several of the Navalism Revival attempts, I'm inclined to favor a complete and systematic break from 'real history'. As much as attention to technological plausibility is a necessity, it's hard to really play with concepts and designs when you're trying to swim with 'historical precedent' congealed around your feet like concrete overshoes.

I am aware that my enthusiasm for whole-cloth worldbuilding is the exception rather than the rule, which is the reason that I tend to favor a reorientation of the real globe as the best compromise. It provides us with the ability to use existing resource maps, distances, and so on, while reshuffling the deck so that we're actually playing a different game rather than having exactly the same hands and just drawing different numbers of cards.

If that doesn't meet with favor, then I think that most attempts at rewriting history are going to fall foul of deep rifts over what's 'too much' and what's 'not enough' - so if my vote for a 'tilted earth' map gets overruled, I'd transfer it to suggesting a 'gentleman's agreement' to maintain parallelism in the 'Old World' while those interested in such things work out an alternate development path for the 'New'.

As far as the question of predicting a nation's priorities goes, I have to admit that I'm mostly inclined to consider this a question of player competence rather than something to be addressed by the rule and setup system, but I'd have no objection at all to requiring a player to prepare, say, a one or two paragraph 'Wiki article intro' for the country they want to run, which'd have to be approved by the other players.

If we go back before 1900 don't forget China BEFORE the first Sino-Japanese-War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beiyang_Fleet


So i hope in WW2 to play, what i'm playing now

I think an historical background with some minor alterations (island ownership etc.) is a more sound basis than supposing what might of happened 200 years before or even 50 years before. Yes, that's interesting but we then only replicate what we have already in terms of vaugeness and the "oh well Atlantis exists so anything can happen" attitude.

At least 1890-1900 gives us some older nations, its pre-Alliance (in most cases but not all) and pre-Great War biases. E.g. a WW2 starting in 1900 might see UK seeing France as more of an enemy than Germany, Spain and America still hostile, and its pre Russo-Japanese War too. Actually it has more war script possiblities than any 1920+ scenario ever had.

So as first summary i see, that most of us won't prefer playing a pure fictional map. Even a pure fictional second world isn't favored by many of us.

In short, most of us are more interested in an alternate timeline of the real world.

Really, the only thing I'd be firmly against would be everything-just-the-same-up-to-game-start. There's very little room for any kind of maneuvering in that scenario, and none at all for doing so without having to argue about it's 'plausibility'.

Hi, new here, thank Brock. Not new to forum-based gaming though, so I'm used to gentlemen's agreements, and rulesets that expect there to be a level of understanding and such.

I'm in favor of the normal world map, as it makes landmarks easy to find and doesn't require us to take a geography lesson.

However, I think that just using purely historical nations is going to result in the typical mix. I'm for alternate-historical nations. Maybe if you want an alt-history nation, you must propose it and propose the timeline that results in its existence. The rest of the group can then weigh in on allowing it, after all, we all want a fun game, not a game where a unicum nation arrives ex nihilo and just steamrolls things.

Well aside from Atlantis the current wesworld map does have some alternate nations in a real world scenario so discussion revolving around fictional diversions is most definitely not out of the question.

That is what I'm seeing in the current game. And I don't really see where forcing a strict adherence to historical only nations or going to a map or setting that's purely fantastic is going to be any better. A mild bit of alt history makes sense as it allows for some at least semi-logical timeline changes.

So let us see what nations we could have, or ? I made some thoughts and have made a list (with the infos/thought here in the thread). Which is for sure open for discussions Countries will be added or deleted.

• Dutch Empire (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
  
• Ottoman Empire (Turkey + ?)
  
• France
  
• Great Britain (England, Scotland, Ireland)
  
• Nordlands (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark)
  
• Germany
  
• Austria - Hungary
  
• Japan
  
• Russia
  
• United States
  
• Canada
  
• Mexico
  
• Iberia (with or without Portugal)
  
• Roman Empire (Italy + ?)
  
• India
  
• China
  
• Siam
  
• Romania
  
• Chosen
  
• Philippines
  
• South African Empire
  
• Argentina
  
• Brazil
  

Quite. I actually looked into a South African Republic, rather than the SAE as in the current game. Basically a Boer South Africa that won the 1st Boer War rather than an ocean-spanning kingdom on two continents.

I would say that a key point to an alt-timeline nation would be consent of the player for the other nation. For instance, if someone wanted to play the Confederate States of America, and there was a US player, then the US player would have to allow it. Otherwise you have players taking what they believe is one nation, and suddenly their nation is drastically changed on them by alt-history.

As long as everyone is around for the setup period it could just be as simple as everyone putting forward their wishlist, then negotiating any overlapping claims. Once the borders are set it would be a matter of working backwards from each country to figure out history and a suitable point of departure. A good recent example is the latest iteration of Navalism: https://www.navalism.org/index.php/topic,7000.0.html

I would expound on that to be that everyone around for the setup period for WesWorld2 has the opportunity to build those divergent timelines, sort of a reward for being around. Anyone coming in afterwards can pick from the nations present or, if it's not ridiculous, have a divergent timeline nation that is not incompatible with all of the other ones.

I'll say that my two divergent timeline nation preferences are as follows:

CSA - 2/3 the coastline, 1/3 the industry (due to industrial AND the social issues), industry grows a bit slower (a way to non-politically manifest said social issues), makes the Western Hemisphere a lot more interesting with competing powers rather than one slowly growing superpower.

Afrikaner Republic - Boers win the 1st Boer War decisively and push the British into the sea (figuratively, the British withdraw).