[TWF] The Way Forward - Dev Diaries

[alexander23]

pretty sure is like that, in most countries, you need to ask the GM whats available by irc

 

[ThunderHawk3]

Any chance no one claimed you-can-not-jihad-or-mossad-the-ASSAD so far ?

((Yeah, as someone already mentioned Syria has been taken. In fact, it already has two players lined up.))

Um can people co play countries?
So two people to a country?

((So, you play as a major party (or faction) within a country, so each major faction can have a player. For example, the United States has a player for the US Democrats and a player for the US Republicans.

In some cases, I have asked for backup players for important factions, so some factions have more than one player. The Syrian regime, for instance, has two - a primary and a backup. This could result in a co-play system but I'd probably try to avoid that, as I imagine players would end up stepping on each others' toes.))

 

[Andre Massena]

((Can I switch to SPD in Germany?))

 

[Luftwafer]

Can I be the ANC
South africa

 

[ThunderHawk3]

((Can I switch to SPD in Germany?))

Can I be the ANC
South africa

((I haven't officially begun in-thread sign ups yet, so I'd prefer it if people tracked me down on IRC if they wanted to talk reservations - particularly because I generally have a bit of a follow-up chat when accepting a reservation.

Andre, yes, I'll switch your reservation.

Luftwafer, I realize I wasn't around when you showed up on IRC a while ago, but could you find me on IRC or PM me if you want to make a reservation? I have one or two questions to ask.))

 

[Luftwafer]

Theoretically how much PP would a normal democratic state make a turn, let's say South Africa, if the leading party had a 60% majority,also can it be stored?

 

[ThunderHawk3]

TWF Dev Diary #4: Crises and Campaigns​

So - Crises and Campaigns.

Standard updates in The Way Forward will usually take place every Saturday if I have anything to say about it. Possibly this will extend to Sunday if we get so many players that it takes me two days to write the update. Under my current plan, the update will generally be in two parts. The first part will resolve orders. The second part will resolve elections, events, discoveries, 0 PP events, bankruptcies, recessions - basically the other happenings of the world that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the orders. Both parts are equally important, and stats will be published after the second part. The deadline for orders every week will be one minute past midnight - 12:01 AM Saturday morning (PST). I will start writing the update a few hours after that.

However, TWF will also have two kinds of mini-updates. "Spotlight" updates and Crises. You will be able to tell them apart because Spotlight updates will have the world "Spotlight: " at the start of the update title in large friendly letters, whereas Crises will have "Crisis: " at the start of the update title in large, rather more menacing letters. Spotlight minis are merely my harmless ramblings on some going on or another. I will pick some topic, maybe entirely at random, like "the Military of Ireland" or "Agricultural Modernization in Namibia." They will sometimes have effects but usually are just informational in nature and have no particular bearing on world affairs. No immediate response is required, or else responses can wait to be submitted with regular orders.

1. The Irish Army. I like how they have what kind of tank it is printed on the side.​

Crises are mini updates, often precipitated by players (though they also include random events), where some event has happened that I think some players may wish to respond to. Crises could include an invasion, a revolution, or a nuclear detonation. Natural disasters and terrorist attacks sometimes also qualify, as do lots and lots of other things.

2. A crisis.​

Crises differ from regular updates and potentially spotlight minis because they will be written from the perspective of events in progress, where it is still possible to interdict. For example, if you ordered an invasion of a neighboring country, the first part of the crisis update might read, "troops of such-and-such a nation have crossed the such-and-such border." The first part of a crisis update ends with me setting a deadline for emergency crisis orders, for players to respond to the crisis while it is still in progress. This deadline might be as little as 24 hours, so stay alert.

After the deadline, I will write the second half of the crisis update, resolving all the responses to the first half and the outcome of the crisis. I usually will end both spotlight and crisis updates with one sentence of flavor text in italics.

3. Crises will be written as ongoing events, where your swift response can change the outcome​

Crisis orders often still cost PP, though they don't count as an additional order for the purposes of penalties. You don't have to submit crisis orders and unless you're an international high roller or a stakeholder, you usually shouldn't. For example, if the crisis is that Egypt has invaded Sudan and you're Hong Kong, you probably shouldn't submit a crisis order.

If a crisis is prolonged enough, it may postpone the regular update.

If you a submit an order I judge likely to start a crisis, I will require you submit it earlier than the regular deadline. It must be submitted by Thursday at the latest or I will postpone it until the next week.

4. An order is likely to start a crisis if other players are likely to want to respond to it immediately, while it is in progress​

Of course, not all crises can be resolved with one round of orders. Some crises - like the Syrian Civil War - are ongoing and constantly developing. In All for the Empire (AftE, my last forum game), I experimented with a format called a "Campaign." A campaign was like a crisis on steroids. I created a separate post for the Campaign, frequently updating it with short notes on the progress of the campaign as I relentlessly and mercilessly hunted down the participants and haraunged them for brief orders to resolve. It was confusing and draining on all parties involved.

But I think it deserves another try. A campaign would be a format where I would expect frequent, very short orders from participants and I would edit the campaign post just as frequently. Usually these types of crises would be military campaigns. The Syrian Civil War would be one example of a possible campaign.

5. A possible campaign​

I guess I lied about that whole shorter Dev Diary thing. Oops.

Next week we'll talk more about orders specifics, ongoing orders, Projects and Superprojects. Maybe we'll even get to Money and Secrecy.

 

[ThunderHawk3]

Theoretically how much PP would a normal democratic state make a turn, let's say South Africa, if the leading party had a 60% majority,also can it be stored?

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you reserved South Africa, would it?

Democratic states don't make PP every turn. They typically gain it (or lose it) during elections, during which larger majorities giving them more PP. Certain orders may generate PP, but these aren't merely popular orders - they're orders that in some way makes it easier for you to pass legislation, like institutional changes. I talked about this somewhat in the first dev diary, which you should read.

 

[Luftwafer]

I am disgusted that you thought that

I just used it as an anolgy because I knew the percentage of the party in the lower house

Also some nations have special laws about changing the constitution, South Africa is one of these nations
How will this effect the game

 

[ThunderHawk3]

I am disgusted that you thought that

I just used it as an anolgy because I knew the percentage of the party in the lower house

Also some nations have special laws about changing the constitution, South Africa is one of these nations
How will this effect the game

It will probably change how easy or hard it is to change the constitution in your country...

 

[Luftwafer]

Ok, so it would have a lower PP cost

Also this is Far superior to the Iaars and other Forum games, just the attention to detail and scale is fantastic.
I can't wait!

 

[ThunderHawk3]

TWF Dev Diary #5: Projects and Superprojects​

I expect by now, many of you are already plotting your first move in TWF. While I don't exactly know what those moves are, I have a few guesses - so let's start talking about projects and superprojects.

While some orders can easily be accomplished in one turn, most - particularly those on the serious development and nationbuilding side of things, will take more than one turn. These are the things I'm talking about when I say Projects and Superprojects. Want to build the world's tallest building? Nationwide high speed rail? Housing for all the nation's poor? Or just construct some sort of deadly new piece of military hardware with which to menace the world? These would all probably take more than one turn to complete and fall under the definition of projects or superprojects.

1. The International Space Station would be an example of a superproject​

Ordering a project is no different from issuing any other order. Unlike in All for the Empire (AftE), my previous forum game, you don't have to keep submitting orders to maintain projects or superprojects. After the first order, work will continue on the project without further input from you - although if you want to change something about it or give the workers an extra kick in the pants, you might be able to issue another order to do so. Large-scale construction projects, development of new technology or military hardware, space exploration-typed missions, and so on will all usually be considered projects.

2. Developing new military hardware is a project as well, and will likely take several turns​

Though a project starts in the year you order it, it will either slowly scale up over time or else your nation will get all the benefits when the project is completed. You won't get the benefits in the year that you ordered it - this is to be expected.

Let's briefly talk about money in TWF. You already know about PP - the currency you use to submit orders - but orders have actually $ value money costs too. In TWF, I will typically state all prices in 2015 US dollars and all stats are written in the same, although it keeps track of currency values and inflation, etc., for economic purposes. These are nominal dollar values (not PPP) because money transfer between players (and debt payments!) will of course be in nominal dollars. Orders - particularly big projects and superprojects - will have costs, which will appear in your budget.

3. Don't forget about this​

While we're on the subject of orders and massive undertakings, I have a few things to say about orders (a bit unrelated to projects). Again, unlike in AftE, your orders need to give me a sense of scale. If you submit an order to me that just says "Build Houses," I'll probably come back and ask you for greater precision. How many houses do you want? Why and where? Etc. I will generally either reject or send back extremely vague orders like, "make the economy better" or "do research." While I'm sure these are worthy goals unto and of themselves, I do need more information. Orders should be somewhat precise.

On the other hand, if it's TOO detailed, I may either ignore some of the provisions or ignore the orders entirely. My experience in AftE was that people often submitted ridiculously overdetailed orders in warfare particularly. I will be cracking down hard on this TWF. I anticipate ~60 people in the game and potentially hundreds of orders. I can't read them all if they're treatises on warfare. I will also reject orders that have lots of conditionals in them ("if this happens do this but if that happens do that or if...") or orders that are actually several orders numbered as one order.

4. I received some lengthy military orders in AftE... maybe leave the fighting to your generals​

One last note. The Way Forward extends speculatively into the future - but what about projects that are already underway? IE: What if the real-world Chinese government started building the world's largest nuclear power plant or something last year, but it won't be completed until 2018. Will China get the benefit of that in TWF, starting in 2018? Sadly, there are thousands of these projects around the globe and I simply don't know about most of them, so they won't normally be counted in TWF. If you want to continue a project that your government has started in real life, you'll have to submit an order to do so in TWF. Otherwise I won't take stock of real-world projects in progress, and I will just assume they have been mothballed. The sole exception to this is nuclear programs (and other highfalutin military projects).

5. The exception that proves the rule​

If they are terribly relevant to current events, I may make additional exceptions, but at the moment I don't anticipate any.

Next time we'll talk about Secrecy and Information in The Way Forward, and what I can and can't tell you, gathering information in orders, and what other players know and don't know about your tricky activities.

 

[ThunderHawk3]

As a bonus to the Dev Diary, here's an example set of stats. (Note that these stats are not accurate for the USA.)

Year: 2015
Global Stats:
GDP Growth: 3.5%
Population Growth: 1.1%
Terror Alert: 30
Nuclear Proliferation: 8
Oil Price: 50(0)

Currencies:

Spoiler

USD: 0.98929 Down 0.01071
CAD: 0.79 Up 0.0
BRL: 0.31 Up 0.0
MXN: 0.63 Up 0.0
GBP: 1.53 Up 0.0
EUR: 1.11 Up 0.0
JPY: 0.0082 Up 0.0
CNY: 0.16 Up 0.0
AUD: 0.75 Up 0.0
SKW: 0.00088 Up 0.0
INR: 0.016 Up 0.0
RUB: 0.017 Up 0.0
CHF: 1.06 Up 0.0
NGN: 0.005 Up 0.0

USA

Spoiler

USA
United States of America
Democracy

Politics:
PP: 10
Government Approval: 45
Legitimacy: (hidden stat, for now)
Stability: 75
Next Election: 2016
Next Legislative Election: 2016

Demographics:
Population: 313.53M
Population Growth: 1
Life Expectancy: 78.9

Budget:
Receipts: 0(0)
Budget Items:
generalexpenditures 3.65T $(20.915% of GDP)
debtservice 272.5B $(1.561% of GDP)
automaticstabilizers 479.99B $(2.75% of GDP)
Annual Deficit: 21.5%
Debt: 21.99T (125.967%)
Government 10-Year Rate: 5.5%

Economics:
GDP: 17.45T(+2.7%)
GDP per Capita: 55669
Median Wage: 28448.666 USD
Unemployment: 5.19% (-0.3)
Imports: 2.13T
Exports: 1.7T
Account Balance: -422.14B
Inflation: 4.2%
Government Funds Rate: 0.3%
GINI: 0.62
HDI: 0.919
Currency: USD (this is our own currency)

 

[Luftwafer]

How is the South African Rand doing?

 

[Fingon888]

دولة فلسطين
The State of Palestine

فتح
Fataḥ

​

 

[ThunderHawk3]

How is the South African Rand doing?

((The Rand is not included in this example output but it will be in the future.))

 

[Luftwafer]

((Ok,Thank you))

 

[EmperorBasilius]

"Glory to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!"
"Sorry, but its banned here"
"K"

Russia / Labour / Rule of the People / Socialism
CPRF

Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации
Communist Party of the Russian Federation​

 

[Ironhide G1]

((Umm.. How and when will this game start?))

 

[oxfordroyale]

((Umm.. How and when will this game start?))

((Not until after PttP ends))