Cold War Comments Thread

[Kurt (OP)]

Starfire does not track radiation and dust. What matters is how many population units survived, and of course the shipywads my impression is that a signifigant amount of the population will have survived as most of the bombardment seems to have been aimed at PDC's with a few other salvo's at population.
However even assuming I am right that will have reduced the production of earth a lot and so hurt the human economies. The shipyards are probably less critical in this situation as a lot seem to have survived and the ability of the humans to maintian their fleet has been reduced so they can't afford to build a lot of new ships

You are right, about half the shipyards survived, as the Coalition never targeted the Russian yards.  However, you are also right that the yards are not the biggest consideration right now.  The Coalition in particular had about as big a fleet as it could support, but the Russians were behind them because of their losses.  The surviving fleet will have to worry first and foremost about maintenance.  Both fleets have some maintenance set aside for support for planned offensives, but certainly not enough to keep them going for long without the support of the civilian economy, or what is left of it.  And both sides have the problem that neither government ever set up sector capitals or anything like that, so in essence the governments of both were concentrated on Earth.  The Coalition was close to setting up two different sectors in its colonial territories, but the war intervened and it never happened. 

The rules don't really cover this, except for covering setting up replacement capitals if a race loses its original capital, so I have to role-play this.  And I see no reason that either side's colonial territories would remain a unified whole.  In the Coalition, there are two factions, set up around the two main warp chains, Epsilon Eridani and Sligo.  They both have different outlooks and will react differently to the disaster.  Its more complex for the Russians.  The Tomsk Union is already independent and that will not change.  Most of the rest of their colonies are occupied by the Rehorish, and so have no opinion until liberated.  The USSR's remaining colonies in the Moskva system are its oldest and most developed, but it is still just one system with two inhabited planets. 

Admiral Ruston and General Semenov need all of the colonies to support their fleets, or they will have to mothball most of their units within a matter of months.  They will argue for a unified front against the aliens, but they also have to deal with the current war and with the chaos and mega-deaths on Earth.  Fortunately, they have a lot of respect from the people of the colonies, largely because they stayed out of the conflict on Earth and put the needs of the people outside the solar system before the mess on Earth. 

Kurt

[Andrew]

Given the alien threat it does not make a lot of sense for the colonies to all try and go their seperate ways, instead something along the lines of self government and mutual defense makes sense with all of them funding the fleet and resettlment from Earth, Once the current war is over they can sort out their actual governement and then there is a good chance that the start to split. Unless of course they find they have the domestic independence they want and feel safer with a combined fleet.
I suspect that there is also a strong argument that the primitive but hostile aliens are now a risk that can't be allowed and destroying their shipyards and spaceports so they can't grow strong enough to be a problem as the humans get weaker.

[Droll]

Given the alien threat it does not make a lot of sense for the colonies to all try and go their seperate ways#

It also doesn't make a lot of sense to nuke your homeworld to cinders when you are fighting literal aliens.
Wait....

[Andrew]

The braek out of war on earth makes perfect sense. The Russian subject states wanted freedom and correctly sensed that the central government did not have the strength to control them, their mistake was believing that the Leader would back down rather than use nuclear weapons because that would be crazy. The Soviet leader wanted to hold the state together and believed that the rebels would back down rather than face nuclear attack. Both sides were wrong and worse the Soviet leader pretty  much faced death if he did not win, if he lost control then he would be replaced as leader and killed.
Then spiralling series of incidents took things out of control, no one made the decision to start a nuclear war in a calm and considered fashion.

Here the colonies have plenty of time to think and can be certain that whatever confederation they settle on will hae extreme problems growing beyond their control as the fleet has pretty much no ability to force them to do things except to exterminate them and that would also destroy the fleet.

[Kurt (OP)]

Given the alien threat it does not make a lot of sense for the colonies to all try and go their seperate ways#

It also doesn't make a lot of sense to nuke your homeworld to cinders when you are fighting literal aliens.
Wait....

 

[Migi]

I suppose one of the big questions is how much Earth itself ends up in a single unified political block or stays splintered into different political camps.
I think the incentive to unify is pretty big but that might be too rational for people who have just lived through literal nuclear holocaust.
If Earth itself is unified then I think they have a chance of leading or participating in a federal system with the other colonies, showing a good example of working together and generally stopping humanity splintering into small single system factions that will just get stomped on.

Where does Earth rank economically compared to the other human colonies?

[Kurt (OP)]

I suppose one of the big questions is how much Earth itself ends up in a single unified political block or stays splintered into different political camps.
I think the incentive to unify is pretty big but that might be too rational for people who have just lived through literal nuclear holocaust.
If Earth itself is unified then I think they have a chance of leading or participating in a federal system with the other colonies, showing a good example of working together and generally stopping humanity splintering into small single system factions that will just get stomped on.

Where does Earth rank economically compared to the other human colonies?

Prior to the nuclear dust-up, the Coalition and Russian populations on Earth were by far the largest production centers in their respective nations.  Their colonies, in aggregate, probably provided maybe 40-50% of each nations total budget.  Which means that overall the humans have lost maybe around 40% of their income in one fell swoop, and the remaining income is fragmented. 

Kurt

[misanthropope]

wow.  at turn 119 in baseline starfire, i'd expect the homeworld getting glassed to be met with "phew, at least my fifth biggest trading partner didn't cut ties".

[Kurt (OP)]

wow.  at turn 119 in baseline starfire, i'd expect the homeworld getting glassed to be met with "phew, at least my fifth biggest trading partner didn't cut ties".

Exactly.  I suspect cutting the growth rate by 80% didn't eliminate the income bloat that can affect campaigns in the mid to late game, but it sure has delayed it.  My post today will be speaking to that, in part. 

Kurt

[misanthropope]

i mean, you're close to controlling econ bloat.  no matter what you do, at some point every habitable rock in the galaxy will have a maxed out population and the game will be untenable, slowing it down so that real life and not game paperwork is what kills the campaign is the real aim, imo.

my 4e experience is that controlling trade is critical.  it hasnt shown up in your game because every contact is a war , but in multiplayer 4e if by turn 50 your trade income doesn't exceed your primary production you're way behind the curve.  it's the same kind of ROI acceleration as is caused by the 3rd ed TL income multiplier, but significantly faster. 

[Kurt (OP)]

i mean, you're close to controlling econ bloat.  no matter what you do, at some point every habitable rock in the galaxy will have a maxed out population and the game will be untenable, slowing it down so that real life and not game paperwork is what kills the campaign is the real aim, imo.

my 4e experience is that controlling trade is critical.  it hasnt shown up in your game because every contact is a war , but in multiplayer 4e if by turn 50 your trade income doesn't exceed your primary production you're way behind the curve.  it's the same kind of ROI acceleration as is caused by the 3rd ed TL income multiplier, but significantly faster.

Marvin and I, and others, had discussions about this very issue way back in "the old days".  He was very interested in balancing the strategic starfire rules, to reduce the situation that exists in 3rdR, which is that one investment far outstrips others, so you always decide to do that.  It was a long time ago, but if I remember correctly, in the 3rd Edition, the best strategy was to explore as fast and far as possible, finding as many NPR's as you could.  The odds were you could befriend and eventually amalgamate many of them, making the smart investment in the early and mid-game exploration ships, with colonization second.  A smart player wouldn't even build a fleet, as he could count on gaining the NPR's fleets once they started amalgamating.  3rdR changed that, making exploration more risky, so now colonization was the primary (best) investment.  It sounds like the 4e changed things again so that now trade became the primary economic goal. 

The point is that there is always going to be something that is the best investment.  Changing things only changes that, or slows it down. 

Kurt

[Shinanygnz]

Not forgetting good old GFFP

[misanthropope]

that takes me back.  it's not a matter of "best investment", the problem with trade is that it scales with population, making it a colonization ROI multiplier.  marvin was tuned in (correctly) to the idea that TL econ bonus meant spiraling ROI and accelerating (percentage) growth, but somehow he couldn't fathom that the trade rules have the same effect. 

like the population growth thing, you don't need to genius up a perfect solution.  it's just egregiously huge, and if you just hack it back seriously by whatever means you will push back the "economic critical mass" date by 50 turns.

or, you know, play a solitaire game in a galaxy where everybody attacks on first sight.

[Kurt (OP)]

that takes me back.  it's not a matter of "best investment", the problem with trade is that it scales with population, making it a colonization ROI multiplier.  marvin was tuned in (correctly) to the idea that TL econ bonus meant spiraling ROI and accelerating (percentage) growth, but somehow he couldn't fathom that the trade rules have the same effect. 

like the population growth thing, you don't need to genius up a perfect solution.  it's just egregiously huge, and if you just hack it back seriously by whatever means you will push back the "economic critical mass" date by 50 turns.

or, you know, play a solitaire game in a galaxy where everybody attacks on first sight.

Part of the problem was the different viewpoints on the game.  I don't want to restart this old debate, but Marvin and I had this discussion more than once.  He viewed the game as a pure game, a competition, where the players were playing to win.  In that view, chance is a bad thing, and should be controlled for.  After all, what good is it if you take the time to learn the rules and develop a winning strategy, just to lose to a bad player who got lucky and found a system next door to his home world that had five rich type T planets and three asteroid belts?  That guy is almost certainly going to win almost no matter what.  Also, having just one best strategy or investment path makes it boring, because if you want to win you are going to do the same thing every time. 

On the other hand, as you can probably guess, I view the game as a platform to tell stories.  Even before I got into creating campaigns to amuse others, I did it for myself, to build empires in the stars that rivaled the empires I had read about in my favorite science fiction novels.  With my mindset, good or bad luck doesn't matter as much, it just becomes part of the story.  Unbalanced rules or investments also don't matter as much, because my races quite often don't make the optimal decisions for non-game reasons. 

I think Marvin and I are pretty good examples of the two primary mindsets out there.  He created 4th Ed and the later editions to make the game more competitive, because that is what's important to him, and more importantly, he thought that would appeal to a larger audience base. 

[misanthropope]

welp, all im suggesting is if you're taking the time to rein in economics, don't forget trade.  wasnt intending any general compare and contrast between editions, just using 4e as an example of how trade is sufficient by itself to blow up your universe, just because that's what happened to every 4e campaign that lasted 50 turns.

is it incompatible with the narrative arc for the coalition to partner and amalgamate the soviets?  i feel like that has become necessary in the circumstances.