WesWorld

A consideration came up when I was doing my research on the Lithuanian Navy. The Lithuanians - historically - didn't really build up their navy from domestic sources, although they kept it in being with them. Lithuanian military ships, and many of their merchant marine vessels were "donated" to Lithuania from various sources, mostly German or Russian or British. The M59 mineweeper,came into Lithuanian service late the German Imperial Navy, while the 6 Coastal Motor/Torpedo boats came from the Royal Navy, which couldn't be bothered to bring the vessels back from the Baltic, after service in the Great War and it's immediate aftermath and somehow or other dumped them into Lithuania's hands.

The result of this state of affairs would be that Lithuania hasn't really used any of the nautical production of it's 2 factories, since the state of Lithuania formed. The stockpile would roughly run to something like 128,000 - 136,000 tons.

2 factories, 2000 tons (1000 tons each) materials per quarter, four quarters = 8,000 tons:

1) 8,000 tons x 16 years assuming 1919 - 1935 = 128,000 tons .
2) 8,000 tons x 17 years assuming 1918 - 1935 = 136,000 tons.

Smilingassassin suggested on some discussion of the matter, that the date of 1924 - 1935 would be a more practical starting point, which would result in a potential Lithuanian stockpile of some 86,000 tons. This would probably be more acceptable to everyone else concerned, and not invalidate other players in the region's established building programs. He further suggested that I consider converting some of the 86,000 ton stockpile - if it was acceptable to the players/other moderators - to inferstructure points to balance any naval contruction.

I am in agreement with Smilingassassin's points, as 86,000 tons would give Lithuania more then sufficient reserve to build up it's naval assets but not get out of hand.

How does everyone else feel about this? Questions or suggestions are welcome. As I feel it is a matter with some bearing on their own potential naval concerns, and potentially with new players who may take up a navy that has been running on "neutral/remote" in the WesWorld.

This same thought has occurred to me when I was taking over Bulgaria - my predecessor made only a single report (Q4/34) during his time as Bulgaria, and I considered making a similar request for Q1 and Q2/35 tonnage. I decided against that because I didn't want to play "ex-post facto" with my navy production. In this particular case I don't have a problem with Lithuania applying the old production to IP, since Lithuania's infrastructure has been pretty nebulous.

However, I think this could be a rather... dangerous precedent. For instance, I could use this to make the case for Bulgaria's production from 1920-1933 to be put into IP production, which would give me two new factories in that time period. And bam, I've retconned my country from three factories to five. Sure, it's a very tempting option - I'd just love to get even one extra factory that way. I mean, Lithuania could probably get her third factory with ten years of that production, easily (and I'd definitely be buying factories in that manner than drydocks). But is that a fair option? Suddenly a little three-factory power jumps to five, simply because a player applied old production ex post facto.

The question is, at what point do we stop? In this case I have no problems, but I'm nervous about precedent...

Yes, Poland, and Romania would be very concerned if Lithuania and Bulgaria's factory's jumped to 3 and 5 respectively, mainly because all of a sudden instead of having the comfortable 2 factory lead over their neighbours, Romania and Poland would now only lead by one. This of course would force me to change all my building plans from ships to IP's. If that's the case however, then what must be, shall be. Needless to say I worked it out, and Poland needs 7 more quarters to have 5 factories, whereas Romania needs 16 quarters to have 7.

How about say coutries in that situation get a half factory for every 3 factories they have, plus an IP worth of infrastructure upgrades, and say 10% of remaining tonnage in 'free' ships?

In this case Lithuania would get about 9,000 tons of free warship materials plus some IPs for infrastructure.

Quoted

Originally posted by Desertfox
How about say coutries in that situation get a half factory for every 3 factories they have, plus an IP worth of infrastructure upgrades, and say 10% of remaining tonnage in 'free' ships?

In this case Lithuania would get about 9,000 tons of free warship materials plus some IPs for infrastructure.

Under this rule, I could argue to receive an extra half-factory for Bulgaria, lengthen a drydock, and several thousand tons of ships. I could buy a light cruiser or a destroyer division with that. Now... I *really like* that rule, but... for more than one reason, I hesitate, because it could affect me.

Calculations: if Desertfox's proposal was accepted then I could conceivably make the following claim for Bulgaria:

From 1920 to 1934, Bulgaria could have produced 168,000 tons of materials, or 21 IP (with the dedicated production bonuses). Under this proposal I could receive .5 factories, 1 IP of upgrade, and 16,800 tons of "free" ship(s).

Azerbaijan would also apply, perhaps more so than Bulgaria. They could have produced 60,000 tons of materials, which would give them 1 free IP and 6,000 tons of ships. (At the moment the Azeri Navy is probably more like 1,500 tons).

In short, I think this is a wonderful brilliant idea **because I can conceivably benefit from it** (as can, I believe, Siam and a few others). But if I were an established longtime player, or someone who took over a country and couldn't take advantage of this idea... I could be pretty upset.

What do the longtime established players say?

Well it would have a tremendous impact on small nations, Mexico could certainly use another half factory.

Now for large countries, I would estimate that the total combined amount of free stuff would be less than GB quarterly output!

Actually I really shouldn't complain either, because there are nearly 6 years (if we are starting in 1924) when Poland and Romania didn't file a SIM report. So hey Im for it too.

My calculations are from 1924 to Q4 1929 Romania would have 115,000 tons stockpiled. Under this proposal, Romania gets .5 factories, 1 IP of upgrades, and 11,500 tons of "free" ships

Poland would have 20,000 tons stockpiled which equals .5 factories, 1 IP of upgrades, and 2,000 tons of "free ships" while the tonnage isn't that great, the factories are.

So yes I think its a great idea as well *** because I can benefit too!***

Quoted

Originally posted by Desertfox
Well it would have a tremendous impact on small nations, Mexico could certainly use another half factory.

Now for large countries, I would estimate that the total combined amount of free stuff would be less than GB quarterly output!

But most of the large nations are under active or semi-active players, and have been for quite some time. I can't think of any large nations this would apply to. The middle-ranked powers like Romania, Poland, Persia, etc - all of those have either had players or caretakers for quite some time. Only the small powers, like Lithuania in this case, have never had a player for long enough to make the kind of investment required for building infrastructure or ships.

In any case, I'm rather skittish about opening such a box of worms that could have far-reaching effects on everyone in the sim...

Well what Im trying to say is that the effects will be minimal at best. The larger nations have such a huge advantage that 1/2 a factory is not going to change much. Great Britain will still be able to outbuild ALL the small nations COMBINED!!!

Quoted

Originally posted by Desertfox
Well what Im trying to say is that the effects will be minimal at best. The larger nations have such a huge advantage that 1/2 a factory is not going to change much. Great Britain will still be able to outbuild ALL the small nations COMBINED!!!

I'm not trying to outbuild Great Britain, though! :-P

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine

Quoted

Originally posted by Desertfox
Well it would have a tremendous impact on small nations, Mexico could certainly use another half factory.

Now for large countries, I would estimate that the total combined amount of free stuff would be less than GB quarterly output!

But most of the large nations are under active or semi-active players, and have been for quite some time. I can't think of any large nations this would apply to. The middle-ranked powers like Romania, Poland, Persia, etc - all of those have either had players or caretakers for quite some time. Only the small powers, like Lithuania in this case, have never had a player for long enough to make the kind of investment required for building infrastructure or ships.

In any case, I'm rather skittish about opening such a box of worms that could have far-reaching effects on everyone in the sim...

Yes, Romania and Poland have been under active/caretaker for some time. However, there was a period between 1921, when the sim starts, and 1929 when Marek took over when they were NPC's like Bulgaria and Lithuania.

And I don't consider Poland or Romania as medium powers. More like small powers. Yes they both have compartively large armies compared to Bulgaria, but both aren't that much greater in number of ships or tonnage, as the Polish Report will point out (when its done).

The way I view it is the navy and infrastructure in the NPC encyclopedia is what is available when it becomes PC.
These things are not updated, and we should not need to guess about ghost fleets.

Now, I could see the argument that prior to becoming active the country expended the factory production on IPs for factories or facilities.

This would give the new nation a 'leg up' while not effecting the rest of the SIM by introducing naval forces. This would have the effect of making it somewhat more fun to play by providing more tonnage options.

I like having a vibrant player base, and so I wind up neutral on this part of the issue. Anti-backdating, pro more fun.

Even so, I don't know if backdating to the beginning of the SIM is reasonable for infrastructure, but I am not set against it.

Back on the naval forces, I am rather against navies popping up full blown. If such was allowed, I think it would be fair to restrict such to say the historic level of of a similar nation- in this case Finland- a similar sized nation.


The above is pretty much what I did for Belgium. I simply worked from when I started writing stories for it, assigning the factories (minus a penalty for a Belgian 'depression') to infrastructure. Now it's emerging and in these troubled times is eying a small navy. Now I suppose I could claim to start from when RAM first wrote a story, in 1921, but it doesn't really matter for what I want-which is simply to tinker with one from the start.

So, seems to me, we have several solutions.

• No changes: the tonnage was not made, it is lost.
  
• Make the production available as IPs.
  
• Make some IP and some tonnage available. (i.e. Desertfox's proposal)

I can definitely understand about the ghost fleets. Calculating my bit up, I determined that I could pick up the equivalent of twelve 1920s-era destroyers, basically out of the blue. That kind of force would be quite significant to Bulgaria.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think the "free" ships won't fly. Either make it IPs/half factories, or nothing.

That was the problem when I was starting up Azerbaijan: there was, quite simply, nowhere that the Azeri Navy had been mentioned that I could find, and so I figured I'd keep it small to the point of nonexistent: hence, one torpedo gunboat and six MTBs. Too small to upset the balance of power, even on such a limited battleground as the Caspian.

What about this proposal:
- Each seven years of inactivity gets an NPC (with two factories or more) one new half-factory starting the year it is first played.
- Each NPC gets one IP for each factory existing upon startup for extending or creating new slips.
- The half-factory can be exchanged for three IPs for projects.
- All tonnage from the previous quarter carried over into the starting quarter.

Limit: A nation which has more than four (eight?) Sim Reports on file is ineligible. (Rationale: if the country was played to that level then those resources would have been used, and reflected in the encyclopedia.)

For Lithuania, this would translate into one (two?) new half-factories and two IPs for construction projects, plus 2,000 tons of materials in storage from earlier (failure to use this tonnage results in it going away, as normal).

Does this sound like an acceptable middle ground?

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
That was the problem when I was starting up Azerbaijan: there was, quite simply, nowhere that the Azeri Navy had been mentioned that I could find

I think this clearly shows the problem with these small nations - they either did not exist in OTL or they simply had no navy because there was no need or no money for it or nobody had enough knowledge or the political will was not there or....

Richard Worth "Fleets of World War II" pretty much covers every navy in existence during WW2 but when you search it for "Azerbaijan" for example you will only find ships with that name as part of other navies but no Azerbaijan Navy (try amazon.com).


In general I´m highly sceptical in reverse engineering any fleet or backdating infrastructure output.

Also consider that part of what you would have got would be spend on maintenance, rebuilds, refits etc. How to calculate that?

I´d say - if you find proof evidence that the OTL navy of the nation in question was larger or more modern than what is available in WesWOrld then you are allowed to update that navy in WesWorld. Otherwise you´ve to stick with what you have.

Perhaps we should post a poll, because I'm not really seeing a consensus emerging. Like I said, I like the idea because I can benefit, and I am nervous about the idea because of the reasons Hooman mentioned.

Perhaps we can have a sort of rule added to determine what NPCs actually do with their tonnage when they're not being played? Not an retcon rule, but a simple "from now on, any NPCs are doing Activity Blargh until they have players."

More or less every country that had anything approaching a navy is a PC. Building up to their historical levels shouldn't take more than a quarter even with 1 factory. The production when they're not PCs simply gets spent on other more worthwhile things.