Post by deltaforce on Apr 23, 2013 3:26:10 GMT -5
I was talking to Rifleman509 about nation simulation games on ah.com and I was thinking that perhaps some forum game players would be interested in playing them. They are similar in concept to the forum games played on ah.com and that will be played on this site but are more complex. If anyone is interested in nation simulation games or wants to know more feel free to post in this thread, PM me on this site, or PM me on ah.com. Perhaps the nation simulation community and nation game community can collaborate to increase our player base and share ideas/resources. The following is what I posted on ah.com and discussed with Rifleman509:
I'm not sure if you are referring to the board that is named nation simulation or the type of game in general, so I'm going to respond in general.
1. A nation simulation game can be in any period. The 1950s seems to be a rather population setting recently, although there are also modern day nation sims.
2. It depends on the game. SuperPower Cold War has 38 players, Nations has around 16 or so, Scotland 1286 has perhaps 30. It may not sound like a declining base by the standards of the subforums on this site, but at once time the nation simulation community had 70 or so people playing SuperPower.
3. At the height of the community it was standard to last for around 9 months. Now games tend to last around 6 months, although rounds are getting even shorter due to a lack of people to admin the games leading to few things happening (so people then do less actions, making things more inactive).
4. Ironically, we actually have detailed military systems but large wars tend to be game ending. The largest wars we have are regional conflicts (Iran and Iraq, the Falklands, etc.) or border conflicts between India and Pakistan. It's more of a problem with games where people have nuclear weapons, as great power conflicts can obviously escalate to nuclear war. It's actually an unspoken rule in the community to avoid war if you are a major power (at least against other major powers, Falklands and other conflicts are okay) because it can ruin things for everyone else, if you want to do a war you should take a regional power.
5. People can send in actions for a certain category and they get results for them. For example, Canada can purchase arms from the US (military sale), send forces to Afghanistan (military action), spy on the Russians (intelligence action), sign a trade agreement with the EU (international/economic action), subsidize tar sands production (domestic/economic action), legalize marijuana (domestic action), build a particle accelerator (technology action), or develop a new submarine (research action). Based on the action you can have certain results happen, such as increased/decreased economic growth, loss of political support for your party, etc. You are expected to properly roleplay your country's leadership, so if you are the DPRK you should be hardcore communist and bellicose towards the United States, and if you are the United States you can't have Obama suddenly start acting like a conservative Republican.
I've never played a nation game on this site, but I play several nation simulation games. Nation simulation games are basically more complex versions of nation games. As an example, suppose you had a Fallout game. Instead of having everything take place in a thread, with a nation simulation it takes place on its own board, so you would have your own subforums for the NCR, Enclave, talking to space aliens, etc. It's a much more efficient way to organize things. There are links to a few sites in the nation games link thread here if you want to see the general concept.
Unfortunately, nation simulations are also experiencing a decline in player base. Perhaps the nation game community and the nation simulation community can come together to form a more resilient community? My friend has his own domain (which can be found here) and he would probably be willing to host a site for you, or sites if you choose to go the nation simulation route. If this is something people would be interested in you can PM me or post here and I will contact him. I know that visibility is a major issue and using Vong's domain may be useful for that, his website is currently the 8th search result for the term nation simulation on Google and we haven't been doing any kind of site promotion (we don't even have that much material up).
I think it is a good idea to decide one way or the other as a community before going to a new site or staying on this one. If you split the community you can end up weaker than before you started.
Unfortunately, nation simulations are also experiencing a decline in player base. Perhaps the nation game community and the nation simulation community can come together to form a more resilient community? My friend has his own domain (which can be found here) and he would probably be willing to host a site for you, or sites if you choose to go the nation simulation route. If this is something people would be interested in you can PM me or post here and I will contact him. I know that visibility is a major issue and using Vong's domain may be useful for that, his website is currently the 8th search result for the term nation simulation on Google and we haven't been doing any kind of site promotion (we don't even have that much material up).
I think it is a good idea to decide one way or the other as a community before going to a new site or staying on this one. If you split the community you can end up weaker than before you started.
I am interested in nation simulations but I want to ask a few questions first.
-Is there simulations dealing with all periods? (Victorian, WW1, Interwar, WW2, Cold War)
-When you say a shrinking player base do you mean like 20 players or less?
-What is the average life span of a game you would say? (the NG forum used to have one game usually last a month before it slowed to a stop or if the concept was good 2 or 3 months.)
-How do you mod wars and conflicts
-How do you mod the games in general?
-Is there simulations dealing with all periods? (Victorian, WW1, Interwar, WW2, Cold War)
-When you say a shrinking player base do you mean like 20 players or less?
-What is the average life span of a game you would say? (the NG forum used to have one game usually last a month before it slowed to a stop or if the concept was good 2 or 3 months.)
-How do you mod wars and conflicts
-How do you mod the games in general?
I'm not sure if you are referring to the board that is named nation simulation or the type of game in general, so I'm going to respond in general.
1. A nation simulation game can be in any period. The 1950s seems to be a rather population setting recently, although there are also modern day nation sims.
2. It depends on the game. SuperPower Cold War has 38 players, Nations has around 16 or so, Scotland 1286 has perhaps 30. It may not sound like a declining base by the standards of the subforums on this site, but at once time the nation simulation community had 70 or so people playing SuperPower.
3. At the height of the community it was standard to last for around 9 months. Now games tend to last around 6 months, although rounds are getting even shorter due to a lack of people to admin the games leading to few things happening (so people then do less actions, making things more inactive).
4. Ironically, we actually have detailed military systems but large wars tend to be game ending. The largest wars we have are regional conflicts (Iran and Iraq, the Falklands, etc.) or border conflicts between India and Pakistan. It's more of a problem with games where people have nuclear weapons, as great power conflicts can obviously escalate to nuclear war. It's actually an unspoken rule in the community to avoid war if you are a major power (at least against other major powers, Falklands and other conflicts are okay) because it can ruin things for everyone else, if you want to do a war you should take a regional power.
5. People can send in actions for a certain category and they get results for them. For example, Canada can purchase arms from the US (military sale), send forces to Afghanistan (military action), spy on the Russians (intelligence action), sign a trade agreement with the EU (international/economic action), subsidize tar sands production (domestic/economic action), legalize marijuana (domestic action), build a particle accelerator (technology action), or develop a new submarine (research action). Based on the action you can have certain results happen, such as increased/decreased economic growth, loss of political support for your party, etc. You are expected to properly roleplay your country's leadership, so if you are the DPRK you should be hardcore communist and bellicose towards the United States, and if you are the United States you can't have Obama suddenly start acting like a conservative Republican.