WesWorld

Since I can't figure out how to split threads, this discussion began in the Atlantis 1942 sim report thread. Apologies for the wall-of-text nature of this post.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

What is building/selling for Byzantium?

Quoted from "thesmilingassassin"

Nothing at the moment, in the future however there will be ship transfers, most likely the Torto class escort cruisers, a couple of destroyers and some smaller craft, perhaps even some home grown designs.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

I noticed similar transfers in 1941 and 1940, without mention of Byzantium receiving anything. Did I overlook something?

Quoted from "thesmilingassassin"

I'm not sure what your getting at but I'll try to explain the situation. Byzantium is transferring its tonnage to Atlantis basically because it has nothing to build and currently no clear vision for a future navy. The tonnage is also basically a way for paying for Atlantean efforts to expand civil infrastructure and army/air force equipment and I'll admit a convenient additional source of tonnage. In the future Atlantis will transfer several ships to give the Byzantean's a small navy (IC I'm sure the Byzantean's what something transferred) but I fear it won't be very large as they really only need to be able to defend a small portion of coastline while the Turks basically control access to the sea of Marmara. They also won't likely have a huge manpower pool to work with to man a navy so that's where the Atlantean navy comes in. As newer ships come on line for Atlantis older vessels will be assigned to Byzantean waters, in fact several already are.

I'm dreadfully behind in quarterly reports so posting news on what's going on is practically impossible right now without slowing down progress, perhaps once I'm close to caught up I can start posting news summary's to explain in more detail. You'll also notice Atlantean deployments are not up to date, with 41 being the last update.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

Thanks for your explanation.

From my perspective, this is a one-sided deal and shouldn't be happening. We frowned on Gavin doing this with Italy and the EAS, after all

Quoted from "thesmilingassassin"

I'm unaware of any rules that prevent tonnage transfers as payments, if there are I'm unaware of them. I've already mentioned the other factors as to why no transfers have occurred for the last 3 sim years (1940 through 1942) from a role playing perspective and a player perspective so if there is some other factor you feel I need to present to justify such a transfer please feel free to present it. I'd like to clarify that I haven't adjusted ship deployment lists since 1941.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

I'm sure there are no rigid rules against this. It's why Gavin was able to do this for so long without consequences. It still does not, from my perspective, make it right.

If you'd like, I will spend some time going through Atlantean sim reports since 1921 and will tally up what Atlantis and Byzantium have gained from this transaction to date.

Quoted from "BruceDuncan"

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

I'm sure there are no rigid rules against this. It's why Gavin was able to do this for so long without consequences. It still does not, from my perspective, make it right.

If you'd like, I will spend some time going through Atlantean sim reports since 1921 and will tally up what Atlantis and Byzantium have gained from this transaction to date.

While agree that some of us frowned upon Gavin's action in transferring tonnage from the EAS to Italy, there was no rule against it, and we permitted him to do it without significant disagreement, at least while I was playing. Gavin was guilty of far more serious infractions that we did not catch at the time.

That said, I understand that tonnage transfers of this sort skirt the spirit of our rules. I think that rather than ask Wes to attempt to back out any such transfers back to 1921 (a process which has cost us active Italian players) let us agree to a cut off of say 1942, or perhaps 1943, and go forward with Byzantium engaging in naval construction, rather than just piling up tonnage in a nominal account.

If we are going to look all the way back to game start, I think there would be more than enough anomalies for us to find.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

At this point, I'm raising an issue. I'm certainly not asking for any ret-conning.

Quoted from "Hood"

I've long done the same regarding Paraguay's tonnage, but then officially the Paraguayan Navy was merged with the Argentine river fleet as a joint force against RSAN river forces. In return several large units have been built and refits of all vessels undertaken. I also assume the tonnage (1,000 tons per quarter) covers running costs and keeping the sole Paraguayan yard occupied and staffed.
I will probably cease this practice though in future and go for payment when specific work is undertaken.

Quoted from "thesmilingassassin"

In the case of Gavin, as I recall things, he had the EAS as a territory with factory's and all and used the tonnage produced from those factory's as anyone else would. What I took issue with was how, while bound by treaty, he was using the EAS as an excuse to build treaty limited ships outside his own and counted their tonnage outside of his own limits, basically increasing his tonnage over and above what Italy was allowing. In addition, IC he was using that fleet to basically control a vital seaway. Byzantium does by geography have a certain level of control over both entrances to the sea of Marmara but their fleet certainly doesn't nor has it ever possessed any treaty restricted ships unless you include the ten destroyer escorts of 435 tons. I've seen similar things in others sim reports, more recently the Hedjaz in 1942 for example had 260 tons being held on their behalf by India to be spent at a later date. Persia has also made an agreement with India in 1946 that gives them full access to Indian infrastructure in exchange for contributing to infrastructure for India. I fail to see how that is any different than Byzantium transferring tonnage (that would otherwise be in sim terms wasted) in exchange for future transfers as well as aircraft and land equipment while still having full and primary use of their slips/drydocks. If there is an issue with this type of practice then it seems odd that one would do something similar while protesting against it.

I'm going to wait for further discussion on the matter before retconning any reports already posted or in the pipeline as well as holding off on posting further reports past 1942, but I'm going to proceed as if that tonnage is not available to me as I continue to work on reports. I'd also request that we discuss this in the proper forum rather than in the reports thread.

New response, quoting a portion of Wes' most recent post:

Quoted

I've seen similar things in others sim reports, more recently the Hedjaz in 1942 for example had 260 tons being held on their behalf by India to be spent at a later date. Persia has also made an agreement with India in 1946 that gives them full access to Indian infrastructure in exchange for contributing to infrastructure for India. I fail to see how that is any different than Byzantium transferring tonnage (that would otherwise be in sim terms wasted) in exchange for future transfers as well as aircraft and land equipment while still having full and primary use of their slips/drydocks. If there is an issue with this type of practice then it seems odd that one would do something similar while protesting against it.

These are not at all similar things.

As explicitly noted in the Hedjazi thread when posted, the transfer to Bharat was to avoid loss of material through our stockpiling rules. Hedjaz was able to draw down on this stockpile - and did - to build its own stuff in 1942. With the stockpiling rules revised by the time I did 1943, the remaining stockpile - never used by Bharat for its own purposes - was promptly transferred back to Hedjaz. Then Hedjaz spent it on more stuff for themselves.

This contrasts with several years of Byzantium giving Atlantis everything and Atlantis using it on its own ships.

The Persian deal is a variation on the long-established practice by many powers of charging a slip fee for construction of foreign vessels in one's own yard, at the expense of one's own building programs. Rather than charge an ongoing construction cost that would be dumped into Bharat general revenues, I thought it more straight-forward for Persia to simply contribute a fixed quantity of material to an ongoing naval infrastructure project in return for an end to the slip fees. This arrangement was to be fixed - 0.5 IP in one year, and Persia would be benefitting the very next year in the form of a cruiser being laid down in Bharat at cost. Both countries are getting something tangible out of this.

This contrasts with the open-ended nature of Byzantian transfers, which have been going on since the mid-thirties or longer. They have not been able to build a single hull for themselves. They have not received a single hull from Atlantis. Your promise of middle-aged Cleito-era oddballs will be something, when it happens, but Atlantis is still very clearly gaining a lot more from this than Byzantium is.

Well, I guess I ought to weigh in here, quickly.

As a player, I don't really have that many issues with what Wes is doing... so long as Byzantium has received first priority for its own local construction. (Personally, I don't think they should be taking old Atlantean equipment, but rather building their own new vessels, and then keeping them up-to-date. But that is my personal preference only.) At best, Byzantium is a patrol-boat navy, and their close ties to Atlantis make it reasonable enough that any surplus they may have goes back to the country that built their factory and infrastructure... Again, so long as their needs are met first.

Since the other preceding incidents were brought up, I'll put down my comments for the record. While Italy got all of the EAS tonnage after a certain point, I felt it wasn't an issue worth comment, as long as the EAS had a reasonable navy for their own use.

Regarding the Persia-India scenario, I did have certain out-of-character problems with that, but it was primarily due to the way Perdedor acquired Persia (previous player quit and pimped it off to him), which resulted in a sudden pillaging of their resources by force. I have no complaints about the way Rocky resolved that situation: it emphasizes that they are tied together as partners and allies, without one being a suzerain and the other a tribute state.

For disclosure, I've got a potentially similar situation in regards to France and Indochina. Ostensibly, the Indochinese are autonomous and have two factories and infrastructure of their own; they have leveraged some of that, but not all. I've left their factories in the French tally for several reasons: practical bookkeeping purposes, trying to avoid growing the PNI (their coast guard) too quickly, and because they are still part of the French Union as a whole. I am taking my time to build up their manpower and technical capabilities before they go off building fleets.

To recap, so long as Byzantium's needs are met first and adequately, I don't have much to say about the remainder of the tonnage going to Atlantis. Ergo, the only questions I feel ought to be answered are a) what would the perfect Byzantine fleet look like & b) do they have it yet. If the answer to b) is 'no', then I would suggest that some more love needs to be lavished on them before tonnage goes to Atlantis.

Also, since I know Wes is catching up, I'd rather him get up to speed on the sim reports, rather than getting bogged down by having to re-write everything again.

A few points on my situation after I did my own digging (at the expense of time dedicated catching up on quarterly report's) and sifting through some horrible errors in transfer statements which I'm tempted to go back and correct but I left for the sake of anyone who actually wants to check. It was also a bit of a refresher for me as to what exactly I've done long long ago when I split Byzantium from Turkey.

In total 6.8 IP's worth of infrastructure was owed to Turkey for one type 3 dry dock (4 IP's), one type 1 dry dock (2 IP's) and one incomplete factory at 0.8 IP, essentially that's 68,000 tons of warship materials, all paid for from Atlantean resources. (At this point I feel that I have explained why I get tonnage from Byzantium while giving little back but for the sake of thoroughness I'll detail how that IP has been transferred.) With one factory producing 1,000 tons per quarter that's 4,000 tons per year for 17 years to pay back. So if that factory was actually producing materials the day it was transferred to Byzantium(Which it wasn't) it would be 1947 before it was paid off by Byzantium to compensate Atlantis, this doesn't include the additional infrastructure built which consisted of four type 0 slips. The factory actually completed in Q1/36 so they will essentially be paying until 1952.

From Q4 1929 (when I separated Byzantium from Turkey) to Q1 1930 Atlantis compensated Turkey for the incomplete factory with its own IP at a rate of 0.4 IP per quarter. In addition from its IP production of 1.2 IP's Atlantis transferred 0.1 IP's to the same factory in Q1/30. After that all IP towards that factory went to its completion in ......
Each quarter from Q4/29 to Q1/34 Atlantis should have transferred roughly 0.4 IP to Turkey or 1.6 IP per year for 4 years with a 17th transfer in Q1/34. The payments were actually completed in Q4/33, though after going through the reports I found a discrepancy in that I could only account for 6.3 of the 6.8 IP's needed to transfer so I may need to look into that. IIRC Atlantis and Turkey did a deal that saw plans for several Atlantean naval weapons purchased.

In addition those shipyards in Byzantium were used in 1935/36 by the Russians to refit several light cruisers. The yards were also used in 1936 to build the Azeri Karabakh, however that's as far as I looked in the reports for activity. With a lack of activity in the yards I've taken them out of Atlantean reports and I think I may have briefly posted independent reports for Byzantium before stopping them altogether due to lack of activity in the yards. As a result I'll likely post some summarized reports up until Q1/43 where I will insert Byzantean reports but I haven't decided yet.

So basically if I wanted to, I could have Byzantium transferring 1,000 tons per quarter until 1952 without a single ship transfer, but I have transferred, ten P class escorts (similar ships are still in Atlantean service) 12 subchasers, 40 Coastal Motor torpedo boats and 18 infantry launches while the Turks "gifted" 9 old Thornycroft motor patrol boats in addition to posting a small fleet of ships. So to summarize I don't see how its unfair for one nation to pay back IP invested by another nation.

It isn't unfair, Wes, but it's so long ago that I have no recollection of these events and the sim reports don't tell me anything about the history.

I retract my complaint and apologize for diverting you from your catch-up work.

Fair enough, at least I've regained some knowledge of what was done, its been so long that I'd actually forgotten just how much I'd transferred. At any rate it will be interesting to see just what I can cook up for a Byzantean fleet. I'll also have to go over those pesky Atlantean/Turkish reports in the future in an effort to clear up some discrepancies.

Yup, I have no issues now that the full story is clear. I hadn't remembered the Byzantine factory was so recently completed...

Now all issues have been resolved and thus all fits. In addition, China is at the other end of the world so no problem from my side ... go ahead.

Wes, thanks for taking the time out to thoroughly research and present the situation; Wesworld has been around so long that often history is forgotten, or - for us newer players - buried in the archives. Don't stop the presses! ;)