So, I've decided to try and run another 4 or so turns of Worldsim in September 2014 (edit: well this ended up not happening... but it was a good thought!). At a rate of 4 turns every year and a half, we should finish the game by the end of the decade, which is a perfectly comfortable pace for me. To prepare, I'll write some better admin tools, and come up with some interesting scenarios to throw at the different countries.
One major change I want to make is to base resource prices and availability (and if possible, population growth) on some kind of computer simulation. There is an interesting article by Doran and Parberry, 2010, about using agent based models to simulate price fluctuations in computer role playing games. I think their model would be a good basis for simulating prices in the WorldSim economy, I also think it would be fairly straightforward to implement their model in Simpy.
The model would work something like this:
Between turns, depending on what the player did during their
turn they would have a certain number of resources in available in the
country. The agents would be the farms, factories, and people within the
country and they would exchange, consume, and produce goods among
themselves, and that's what would determine the starting state for the
next turn.
The challenge in this approach is mapping variables that make sense in the context of the main Worldsim game, to variables that make sense to the computer simulation. Each turn, the players would usually
start with a shortage of various resources, whereas in the computer simulation between rounds, things would be more continuous. It's a matter of a difference in time granularity. Each
human round represents maybe 10-15 years and prices stay constant the whole round, whereas you could have thousands
iterations of the simulation loop in a computer simulation representing the
same amount of time. So
variables in the computer rounds will change relatively smoothly within
the simulation, whereas there could be huge variations in the
allocations for human players. There is also no obvious way to represent the concept of "minimums" in the computer simulation, or to take into account things like technology improvement, or depletion of mineral resources or arable land. I think all of these problems are surmountable.
On a kind of related topic, I've recently started GMing a pen and paper rpg set in a modern setting. I'm really intrigued by the idea of human-computer synergy in game and story design. Computers are great at generating lots of random people and locations, and people are great at seeing connections and inferring backstories an personalities from the random output of the computer. I started out with the ambitious plan to pregenerate the population of an entire city. I definitely think this is possible to do this, but I've come to the realization that it is probably entirely unnecessary. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to do this, but I never ended up implementing much (though I still may). The way it would work would be you'd start with a map of a city filled with buildings, but no people. The city could be procedurally generated by a computer program, or it could just be a map of a real city. Basically what you'd need is a list of addresses, (possibly associated with x,y coordinates), and with each address you'd note whether it is a residence or a business (you may have other categories too), and how many people occupy it. You'd also have some basic demographic information, such as age distribution, and household composition. Then you'd fill each of the residences with people, and assign people jobs at the various businesses. Stats for the people in terms of game mechanics could be generated with the tool inspiration pad pro (documentation, command line version), which has a command line version that should allow it to integrate with a pipeline written in any language. Once you had all of the people (or in the process of generating them), you establish relations between them on the basis of a scale free network. That is: you'd start by picking a person at random, then establishing a relation between that person and another random person in the community (possibly with a probability weighted by distance from the original pick), you'd continue this process of randomly establishing relations, but each random pick would be linearly weighted such that people who already have relations established are more likely to establish more relations. How many relations in total to establish, I'm not sure. You would want to create several kinds of (probably independent) relationship networks, maybe an iteration for business relations, and one for social relations.You'd also want to associate some kind of additional information with each relation, maybe how strong the connection is, what each person thinks of the other, how long they've known each other etc.
The idea is that the players will have complete freedom to explore this city without the GM ever having to say "Woops, no, you can't go there, I haven't written anything up for that yet." When they enter a building the GM just has to look up who lives or works there, and pull up a map (Time-Saver Standards for Building Types the third edition (1990) is $10 or less used and contains hundreds of floor plans, and seems to be more than sufficient as a source for maps of pretty much any kind of modern building). That sounds great. But, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I've come to the realization that it is probably completely unnecessary (which is probably also why no one seems to have attempted it before). The scope of a gaming session is actually pretty limited. Most times it's 3 or 4 fights and a bit of exploring and talking to people in between. In many ways, a table top RPG is a lot like a movie, it's much more important to have an intriguing story (even if it is a story with a limited scope), and a few strong characters than a whole city full of cardboard cutouts.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Monday, May 20, 2013
Test game post-mortem and source code release
The test game is over, as of a few weeks ago.
We made it through 5 turns. After which I started to get burnt out running the game (I wasn't able to keep thinking up new and interesting events for the countries, and kind of just went with the flow), and about half the players had greatly decreased their activity. So the game kind of petered out.
Nevertheless, 5 turns was still 4 more than the 1 turn we made it through a few years ago when we tried playing by email. So the web app does seem to be a viable medium for playing worldsim, but it still takes players who are interested and a Game Master who can continuously make the game interesting.
When I started I didn't think too far ahead into the timeline, but in retrospect, I think I should have had some canned scenarios pre-thought-up for each country to bust out if a turn happened to be otherwise uneventful for them.
So in conclusion, the web app approach works, but make sure the Game Master is well prepared and has sufficient free time to manage the game, and that the players also stay active and involved, and you'll be well on your way to an interesting new international timeline.
The source code for the app can be found at:
https://bitbucket.org/seanrjohnson/worldsim
I've been meaning to include a few more admin tools to make setting up a turn easier for the Game Master. Also, I need to write a tutorial on how to even enter turn data (you can figure it out by looking at the parser code, but there should definitely be a tutorial so you don't have to...). Honestly though, until/unless I or someone else actually makes plans to run a game, I probably won't find time for these things, so if you want to run a game, let me know and I'll do what I can to make it as easy as possible for you.
We made it through 5 turns. After which I started to get burnt out running the game (I wasn't able to keep thinking up new and interesting events for the countries, and kind of just went with the flow), and about half the players had greatly decreased their activity. So the game kind of petered out.
Nevertheless, 5 turns was still 4 more than the 1 turn we made it through a few years ago when we tried playing by email. So the web app does seem to be a viable medium for playing worldsim, but it still takes players who are interested and a Game Master who can continuously make the game interesting.
When I started I didn't think too far ahead into the timeline, but in retrospect, I think I should have had some canned scenarios pre-thought-up for each country to bust out if a turn happened to be otherwise uneventful for them.
So in conclusion, the web app approach works, but make sure the Game Master is well prepared and has sufficient free time to manage the game, and that the players also stay active and involved, and you'll be well on your way to an interesting new international timeline.
The source code for the app can be found at:
https://bitbucket.org/seanrjohnson/worldsim
I've been meaning to include a few more admin tools to make setting up a turn easier for the Game Master. Also, I need to write a tutorial on how to even enter turn data (you can figure it out by looking at the parser code, but there should definitely be a tutorial so you don't have to...). Honestly though, until/unless I or someone else actually makes plans to run a game, I probably won't find time for these things, so if you want to run a game, let me know and I'll do what I can to make it as easy as possible for you.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Worldsim web application tutorial
Last updated: Feb 3, 2013
Figure 1: How the app looks when you log in
When you log in to worldsim, you are presented with a window that looks like the figure 1. On the very top right it you can see what turn it is, in this case turn 1, when the turn is scheduled to end, Feb 8, and there is a logout button. Between turns, there will also be a big red capitalized "LOCKED". This lets you know that the game is between turns, and many game actions are prohibited, such as making policies, and treaties. Any actions made when the game is locked are not guaranteed to be read by the admin, and won't count as "official" (most of these actions will be refused by the server, but it's possible that I didn't block all the actions I should have).
The worldsim program is divided up into "windows" (I may also sometimes refer to them as "views"). The big dark grey rectangle near the top of the screen lets you select which windows are open. There are two kinds of windows, "toggle" windows, and "swap" windows. The toggle windows are "Mail", "Resources", and "Users". These windows can share the screen with any other toggle windows, and with a "swap" window. The other windows are swap windows, there can only be one swap window up at a time. Clicking the name of a toggle window will toggle it on or off. Clicking the name of a swap window will turn off the current swap window and turn on the one you clicked.
At the bottom of the screen is the chat bar.
Now I'll explain each of the windows individually.
Figure 2: the cover window
The cover window lists general information about your country, the news for the turn, and research results. News tells you important events going on in your country that you should react to this turn. Research results tell you about technical advances achieved from allocating R&D the previous turn.
This view is not interactive, and will not change during the turn.
Figure 3: the map window
The map window shows a map of the world, and world news. The map window is the same for all players. Everybody sees the same map and the same world news. Most turns, the world news will include a listing of "WPI" values. WPI is short for World Price Index. Each tradable resource has a WPI, the WPI is calculated by a complicated formula comprehensible only to the worlds best economists, but the WPI value for any given resource is usually close to the average purchasing price for that resource among all countries. If you can buy a resource for less than the WPI, it might be a good idea to try to trade that resource to other countries, likewise if it costs you more than the WPI to buy a resource it might be cheaper for you to get that resource through trading.
Figure 4: Make Offer window
The make offer window is where you propose trades. Under the text "Active Offers" is a list box that lists trades you are currently proposing. The name listed is a summary of the trade, every word in the name starts with "O" for "out" or "I" for "in", followed by a number, and the first three letters of a resource name. For the trade listed in fig 4, you can see just by the name "O1kru I4poi" that this trade involves selling 1 krust to another country in return for 4 points. To stop offering a trade, select it and click the "Delete" button. To see more details about a trade click the "View" button.
Clicking the view button will modify the bottom part of the window to match the currently selected Active offer. You can't change the terms of an Active offer, but you can view it, delete it, change the terms, and then resubmit the modified version.
Targets lists all the countries with checkboxes next to their names. A checkbox corresponds to the country name to the right of the checkbox. By default, the checkboxes of your "trade partners" will be selected, a trade partner is a country where you have an embassy, and that has an embassy in your country. Trades can only be executed between trade partners, but you can propose a trade to anybody, and then execute the trade once both countries have embassies.
The "All", "Partners" and "None" buttons change which boxes are selected (in hopefully obvious ways).
Below that are the terms of the trade. Terms can be selected and deleted with the "Delete Terms" button. Note that this will not remove terms from an active trade (as explained above). If a term is listed as "In" then that resource will enter your country when the another country accepts the trade. If a term is listed as "Out" then that resource will be sent to the other country.
You can add terms to a trade with the next group of buttons. The first drop down menu lets you select whether the resource will enter ("In") or leave ("Out") your country. In the blank space, write in a positive integer for the amount of that resource to change hands. In the final drop down, you can choose which resource the term involves.
Sometimes you can trade out resources that you don't have any of. If the "Buy resources to meet demand" is checked, your country will automatically spend points to buy the resource if another country accepts the trade, but you don't have enough of the "out" resources in stock to cover the trade. This option is off by default, but it can be useful if you are trading a resource for more points than it costs you to create that resource. Be wary though, you can easily run out of a resource and be below your minimum at the end of the turn if you aren't careful (but you'll probably have enough points to buy up to your minimum, just be sure to check near the end of the turn).
"Number of trades" is how many times a trade can be accepted before it automatically disappears. If you are selling some resource, you may want to set this to an arbitrarily high number, like 10000, but if you are just trying to buy up to your minimum, you will want to keep this at some low number. It defaults to 1.
Figure 5: View offers window
The view offers window is where you can see which trades are being proposed by other countries. The first list box lists the trades being offered. The first word in the name of a trade is the first four letters of the name of the country offering the trade. The next part of the name has a code that is just like the one in the "Make offers" view (See above). Selecting a trade name and clicking "view" will make the bottom part of the window show more details about the trade. "Source" is the full name of the country offering the trade. If you do not mutually share embassies with that country big red letters saying "Not Trade Partners" will appear, letting you know that you won't actually be allowed to accept this trade until embassies are established. Next are the terms of the trade. Note that these terms are relative to the country offering the trade (and not relative to your country), therefore when it says "In", that resource will actually leave your country and go "In" to the offering country. Likewise when it says "Out", those resources will enter your country. (This might be a little confusing, I had trouble thinking of unambiguous terminology for this view, if you have suggestions, please let me know).
Figure 6: Policies window
The policies window has several functions. It is where you buy resources and describe most of the country's internal policies. A policy consists of a name, a description and associated actions. Every policy should have a name (even if it is a simple one like "buy edibulls"). If a policy doesn't have a name it will be hard to see it in the list when you save or enact it. Most policies will also have descriptions and associated actions, but some may lack one or the other of them. The description explains in words what the policy's goals and execution strategy are. If the description is obvious, like "buy edibulls to meet minimums", it can be omitted, but there may be an advantage to writing something clever even for mundane policies, perhaps (maybe something like "buy edibulls to meet minimums, instructing farmers to keep a close watch for signs of crop diseases", if there has been a recent outbreak in your country). When buying units that aren't tradable resources, a description is mandatory (see the description in fig 6).
Three kinds of actions can be associated with a policy, "Buy", "Liquidate", or "Allocate". "Buying" a resource will exchange points for units of that resource. "Liquidating" will exchange a resource for points (note that some resources that can be liquidated do not give you any points when they are liquidated, but you may have political reasons to liquidate them). "Allocating" a resource means designating that amount of resources to make the policy more effective. Except for R&D, allocated resources are spent, and do not come back the next turn. The most common resources to allocate are points and R&D, but other kinds of resources can be spent if appropriate. It does not make sense to allocate resources such as Economy, People, Health, or Culture, in most cases, if you think you need to allocate these resources, what you actually should be doing is "Buying" them. Also, military units cannot be allocated in the "Policies" window because there is a special window dedicated for military moves (see below).
After a description has been written and actions added, a policy can be either "Saved" or "Enacted". A saved policy is not yet official, saving just lets you archive a policy that you think you might want to enact later. Saved policies can be viewed, edited and enacted later if desired. Enacting a policy makes the policy official. All policies that have been enacted when the turn ends will be considered official and will affect what changes happen to your country during the turn transition. Some policies can be "unenacted" with the "Request Removal" button without consequence as long as the game is not locked. Policies involving buying or liquidating resources, however, cannot be removed once enacted, so be careful when making these policies.
Figure 7: Taxes window
The taxes window is similar the policies window, except that it has a more narrow focus. All tax policies must have a name, a description, and a "Target revenue". The description tells what the tax will be on, and possibly how it will be collected, and other details you deem important. "Target revenue" is how many points you expect your government to make from the tax. It is important to realize that this is just a "Target", depending on the description you provide, your government may not make as much as you expect (for example if you try to make hundreds of points off of taxing some activity that isn't very common), less often, you might make more money than you expect.
"Total Expected Revenue" is the sum of the revenues from all of your taxes.
It is possible to have nominal taxes or "negative" taxes, for political reasons, but these kinds of policies could also be submitted in the "Policies" window.
Taxes can be added or removed freely up until the turn ends.
Figure 8: Treaties window. A new treaty being written (left). A treaty that has been submitted and has parties with various statuses (right)
A treaty is a policy that is shared between two or more countries. A treaty consists of a name, a description, and a list of countries. Each country in the list has one of three statuses. It has either made no action involving the treaty ("Pending"), signed the treaty ("Signed"), or withdrawn or declined the treaty ("Withdrawn or Declined"). In most cases, only countries with the status "Signed" when the turn ends will be considered party to a treaty (although signing and then withdrawing, or refusing to sign can have consequences depending on the treaty). Exchange of physical goods such, like points and tradable resources agreed to in a treaty must be executed via the "make offers" and "view offers" windows. Exchange of more abstract things like technology will occur between turns among the countries who are "signed" when the turn ends.
To propose a new treaty, click "New Treaty", then enter the name and text, then add countries by highlighting their names and pressing the "-->" button. Countries can be removed by highlighting their name in the "Parties" list and pressing the "<--" button. The country proposing a treaty must be a party to it (you can't remove yourself from the parties list), and will sign it automatically upon submitting. Pressing submit will put the treaty in the "Pending" list of all party countries. When a treaty is submitted, party countries will receive a chat message telling them someone has proposed a treaty to them.
You can sign a treaty by clicking its name in the "Pending" list, and then clicking "View", and finally "Sign", which will be next to "New Treaty". You must view a treaty before signing it, but you can decline or withdraw from a treaty just by selecting its name in the singed or pending list, and then clicking "withdraw" or "decline". When your status changes, other parties of the treaty will be sent a chat message.
Once you have declined or withdrawn from a treaty, you cannot resign the same treaty, if you want to be a party, you will have to propose a new treaty and hope that all of the countries that were members of the old one agree to be members of the new one too.
Figure 9: Embassies window
The embassies window is where you establish embassies in other countries and allow them to establish embassies in your country. To establish an embassy you must have a certain number of Political Diplomacy (PD) units allocated to a country. The exact number of units you need depends on the history between your country an another country. You can allocate, or remove PD units from a country using the "+1" and "-1" buttons in the same line as that country. It can be advantageous to have more than the minimum number of PD points for an embassy allocated to a country, it can also be advantageous to allocate PD points to countries you don't have an embassy in. Be careful though, allocating PD units removes them from your "current" pool, and may put you below your minimum (see the FAQ for more details on why this might be bad). To have an embassy, you must have enough PD points allocated, then you must "Request" an embassy, and the country where you request the embassy must "accept" your request. You can expel an embassy from your country whenever you want, and you can also withdraw your embassy from other countries whenever you want.
Figure 10: Military window
The military view is where you make policies involving deploying military units. A military policy has a name, a "Public Reason", a "Real Reason", and list of assigned units. The "Public Reason" is the reason your country announces publicly for why they are moving around thousands of troops. The "Real Reason" describes what your troops will actually be equipped for and try to execute.
Assigned units are how many of each kind of military unit assigned to the mission.
In most cases, the "Public Reason" will be announced to the world via chat, or an update to the world map. But this does not happen automatically, so covert operations can also be described in the Military window. Note, however, that each single unit of military represents thousands of troops, for smaller scale operations, and particularly spying (which requires R&D to be allocated), you can use the Policies window, and allocate points.
Troop movements require approval from an Admin to become fully deployed, or to withdraw from combat once active. the "Deploying" list is a list military actions that you have submitted, but have not yet been approved. Once approved, they will move into the "Active" list. To cease an active operation, select it and press "Withdraw", this will move it into the "Withdrawing" list, and to complete withdrawing, the withdrawal will have to be approved by an admin.
Figure 11: Download window
The download window allows you to access all the data for your country in a format that can be pasted into Excel, or read by other software. It also gives you access to data about your country in previous turns. You can completely ignore the Download window, and still be an effective worldsim player. It's just here for the geeks, and other people who want to analyze the data about their country in ways that are difficult in the web interface.
Figure 12: Mail window
The mail window is where you send and receive private messages. The interface is a lot like the treaties window. You add and remove recipients with the left and right arrow buttons. And send with the "Send" button. You can send messages to your own country (potentially useful if you have a team of more than one person) or to the Admin. All messages should have both a name and text.
Figure 13: Chat
The chat bar sits at the bottom of the screen. The chat bar shows three kinds of messages: chat between players, game events, and "errors". Chat between players is always "global", meaning that when you send a chat message, it shows up in everybody's chat window. For private messages, use the "Mail" window. Game event messages include messages to tell you when someone has requested an embassy in your country, or when a treaty has been signed, or a trade has been executed. Gane event messages are usually not global, but they can be, for example if someone signs a treaty that every country is a party to. "Error" messages are messages specific to a user, they tell when a requested action fails, for example if you try to accept a trade from a country you have no embassy it. The message you get when you send a "Mail" is also considered an "error message" even though it isn't really an error. Error messages go away when you log out, and are never seen by your teammates.
There are a few options to change what appears in the chat window. To see these options, press the button with the asterisk "*" on it, at the far right hand side of the chat bar.
You can minimize the chat window with the "-" button at the bottom left of the chat bar. Press it again to bring chat back up.
Figure 14: Resources window
The resources window tells you all about your points and resources. "Start" tells you how many of that resource you started the round with. "Current" tells you how many units are in your country right now. "Min" tells you how many units must be in your country at the end of the turn to avoid possible negative consequences. "Cost" is how many points it costs to buy the resource (using the policies view). "Scrap" is how many points you get for liquidating a resource.
Boxes in the "Current" column can have different colors. The text is green if you are above minimum, red if you are below, and black if you are at minimum.
Figure 15: User Data window
The user data window gives you information about the players of the game. The column names are self explanatory.
Ok, that's it for now. Let me know if anything needs more explanation.
When you log in to worldsim, you are presented with a window that looks like the figure 1. On the very top right it you can see what turn it is, in this case turn 1, when the turn is scheduled to end, Feb 8, and there is a logout button. Between turns, there will also be a big red capitalized "LOCKED". This lets you know that the game is between turns, and many game actions are prohibited, such as making policies, and treaties. Any actions made when the game is locked are not guaranteed to be read by the admin, and won't count as "official" (most of these actions will be refused by the server, but it's possible that I didn't block all the actions I should have).
The worldsim program is divided up into "windows" (I may also sometimes refer to them as "views"). The big dark grey rectangle near the top of the screen lets you select which windows are open. There are two kinds of windows, "toggle" windows, and "swap" windows. The toggle windows are "Mail", "Resources", and "Users". These windows can share the screen with any other toggle windows, and with a "swap" window. The other windows are swap windows, there can only be one swap window up at a time. Clicking the name of a toggle window will toggle it on or off. Clicking the name of a swap window will turn off the current swap window and turn on the one you clicked.
At the bottom of the screen is the chat bar.
Now I'll explain each of the windows individually.
The cover window lists general information about your country, the news for the turn, and research results. News tells you important events going on in your country that you should react to this turn. Research results tell you about technical advances achieved from allocating R&D the previous turn.
This view is not interactive, and will not change during the turn.
The map window shows a map of the world, and world news. The map window is the same for all players. Everybody sees the same map and the same world news. Most turns, the world news will include a listing of "WPI" values. WPI is short for World Price Index. Each tradable resource has a WPI, the WPI is calculated by a complicated formula comprehensible only to the worlds best economists, but the WPI value for any given resource is usually close to the average purchasing price for that resource among all countries. If you can buy a resource for less than the WPI, it might be a good idea to try to trade that resource to other countries, likewise if it costs you more than the WPI to buy a resource it might be cheaper for you to get that resource through trading.
The make offer window is where you propose trades. Under the text "Active Offers" is a list box that lists trades you are currently proposing. The name listed is a summary of the trade, every word in the name starts with "O" for "out" or "I" for "in", followed by a number, and the first three letters of a resource name. For the trade listed in fig 4, you can see just by the name "O1kru I4poi" that this trade involves selling 1 krust to another country in return for 4 points. To stop offering a trade, select it and click the "Delete" button. To see more details about a trade click the "View" button.
Clicking the view button will modify the bottom part of the window to match the currently selected Active offer. You can't change the terms of an Active offer, but you can view it, delete it, change the terms, and then resubmit the modified version.
Targets lists all the countries with checkboxes next to their names. A checkbox corresponds to the country name to the right of the checkbox. By default, the checkboxes of your "trade partners" will be selected, a trade partner is a country where you have an embassy, and that has an embassy in your country. Trades can only be executed between trade partners, but you can propose a trade to anybody, and then execute the trade once both countries have embassies.
The "All", "Partners" and "None" buttons change which boxes are selected (in hopefully obvious ways).
Below that are the terms of the trade. Terms can be selected and deleted with the "Delete Terms" button. Note that this will not remove terms from an active trade (as explained above). If a term is listed as "In" then that resource will enter your country when the another country accepts the trade. If a term is listed as "Out" then that resource will be sent to the other country.
You can add terms to a trade with the next group of buttons. The first drop down menu lets you select whether the resource will enter ("In") or leave ("Out") your country. In the blank space, write in a positive integer for the amount of that resource to change hands. In the final drop down, you can choose which resource the term involves.
Sometimes you can trade out resources that you don't have any of. If the "Buy resources to meet demand" is checked, your country will automatically spend points to buy the resource if another country accepts the trade, but you don't have enough of the "out" resources in stock to cover the trade. This option is off by default, but it can be useful if you are trading a resource for more points than it costs you to create that resource. Be wary though, you can easily run out of a resource and be below your minimum at the end of the turn if you aren't careful (but you'll probably have enough points to buy up to your minimum, just be sure to check near the end of the turn).
"Number of trades" is how many times a trade can be accepted before it automatically disappears. If you are selling some resource, you may want to set this to an arbitrarily high number, like 10000, but if you are just trying to buy up to your minimum, you will want to keep this at some low number. It defaults to 1.
The view offers window is where you can see which trades are being proposed by other countries. The first list box lists the trades being offered. The first word in the name of a trade is the first four letters of the name of the country offering the trade. The next part of the name has a code that is just like the one in the "Make offers" view (See above). Selecting a trade name and clicking "view" will make the bottom part of the window show more details about the trade. "Source" is the full name of the country offering the trade. If you do not mutually share embassies with that country big red letters saying "Not Trade Partners" will appear, letting you know that you won't actually be allowed to accept this trade until embassies are established. Next are the terms of the trade. Note that these terms are relative to the country offering the trade (and not relative to your country), therefore when it says "In", that resource will actually leave your country and go "In" to the offering country. Likewise when it says "Out", those resources will enter your country. (This might be a little confusing, I had trouble thinking of unambiguous terminology for this view, if you have suggestions, please let me know).
The policies window has several functions. It is where you buy resources and describe most of the country's internal policies. A policy consists of a name, a description and associated actions. Every policy should have a name (even if it is a simple one like "buy edibulls"). If a policy doesn't have a name it will be hard to see it in the list when you save or enact it. Most policies will also have descriptions and associated actions, but some may lack one or the other of them. The description explains in words what the policy's goals and execution strategy are. If the description is obvious, like "buy edibulls to meet minimums", it can be omitted, but there may be an advantage to writing something clever even for mundane policies, perhaps (maybe something like "buy edibulls to meet minimums, instructing farmers to keep a close watch for signs of crop diseases", if there has been a recent outbreak in your country). When buying units that aren't tradable resources, a description is mandatory (see the description in fig 6).
Three kinds of actions can be associated with a policy, "Buy", "Liquidate", or "Allocate". "Buying" a resource will exchange points for units of that resource. "Liquidating" will exchange a resource for points (note that some resources that can be liquidated do not give you any points when they are liquidated, but you may have political reasons to liquidate them). "Allocating" a resource means designating that amount of resources to make the policy more effective. Except for R&D, allocated resources are spent, and do not come back the next turn. The most common resources to allocate are points and R&D, but other kinds of resources can be spent if appropriate. It does not make sense to allocate resources such as Economy, People, Health, or Culture, in most cases, if you think you need to allocate these resources, what you actually should be doing is "Buying" them. Also, military units cannot be allocated in the "Policies" window because there is a special window dedicated for military moves (see below).
After a description has been written and actions added, a policy can be either "Saved" or "Enacted". A saved policy is not yet official, saving just lets you archive a policy that you think you might want to enact later. Saved policies can be viewed, edited and enacted later if desired. Enacting a policy makes the policy official. All policies that have been enacted when the turn ends will be considered official and will affect what changes happen to your country during the turn transition. Some policies can be "unenacted" with the "Request Removal" button without consequence as long as the game is not locked. Policies involving buying or liquidating resources, however, cannot be removed once enacted, so be careful when making these policies.
The taxes window is similar the policies window, except that it has a more narrow focus. All tax policies must have a name, a description, and a "Target revenue". The description tells what the tax will be on, and possibly how it will be collected, and other details you deem important. "Target revenue" is how many points you expect your government to make from the tax. It is important to realize that this is just a "Target", depending on the description you provide, your government may not make as much as you expect (for example if you try to make hundreds of points off of taxing some activity that isn't very common), less often, you might make more money than you expect.
"Total Expected Revenue" is the sum of the revenues from all of your taxes.
It is possible to have nominal taxes or "negative" taxes, for political reasons, but these kinds of policies could also be submitted in the "Policies" window.
Taxes can be added or removed freely up until the turn ends.
Figure 8: Treaties window. A new treaty being written (left). A treaty that has been submitted and has parties with various statuses (right)
A treaty is a policy that is shared between two or more countries. A treaty consists of a name, a description, and a list of countries. Each country in the list has one of three statuses. It has either made no action involving the treaty ("Pending"), signed the treaty ("Signed"), or withdrawn or declined the treaty ("Withdrawn or Declined"). In most cases, only countries with the status "Signed" when the turn ends will be considered party to a treaty (although signing and then withdrawing, or refusing to sign can have consequences depending on the treaty). Exchange of physical goods such, like points and tradable resources agreed to in a treaty must be executed via the "make offers" and "view offers" windows. Exchange of more abstract things like technology will occur between turns among the countries who are "signed" when the turn ends.
To propose a new treaty, click "New Treaty", then enter the name and text, then add countries by highlighting their names and pressing the "-->" button. Countries can be removed by highlighting their name in the "Parties" list and pressing the "<--" button. The country proposing a treaty must be a party to it (you can't remove yourself from the parties list), and will sign it automatically upon submitting. Pressing submit will put the treaty in the "Pending" list of all party countries. When a treaty is submitted, party countries will receive a chat message telling them someone has proposed a treaty to them.
You can sign a treaty by clicking its name in the "Pending" list, and then clicking "View", and finally "Sign", which will be next to "New Treaty". You must view a treaty before signing it, but you can decline or withdraw from a treaty just by selecting its name in the singed or pending list, and then clicking "withdraw" or "decline". When your status changes, other parties of the treaty will be sent a chat message.
Once you have declined or withdrawn from a treaty, you cannot resign the same treaty, if you want to be a party, you will have to propose a new treaty and hope that all of the countries that were members of the old one agree to be members of the new one too.
The embassies window is where you establish embassies in other countries and allow them to establish embassies in your country. To establish an embassy you must have a certain number of Political Diplomacy (PD) units allocated to a country. The exact number of units you need depends on the history between your country an another country. You can allocate, or remove PD units from a country using the "+1" and "-1" buttons in the same line as that country. It can be advantageous to have more than the minimum number of PD points for an embassy allocated to a country, it can also be advantageous to allocate PD points to countries you don't have an embassy in. Be careful though, allocating PD units removes them from your "current" pool, and may put you below your minimum (see the FAQ for more details on why this might be bad). To have an embassy, you must have enough PD points allocated, then you must "Request" an embassy, and the country where you request the embassy must "accept" your request. You can expel an embassy from your country whenever you want, and you can also withdraw your embassy from other countries whenever you want.
The military view is where you make policies involving deploying military units. A military policy has a name, a "Public Reason", a "Real Reason", and list of assigned units. The "Public Reason" is the reason your country announces publicly for why they are moving around thousands of troops. The "Real Reason" describes what your troops will actually be equipped for and try to execute.
Assigned units are how many of each kind of military unit assigned to the mission.
In most cases, the "Public Reason" will be announced to the world via chat, or an update to the world map. But this does not happen automatically, so covert operations can also be described in the Military window. Note, however, that each single unit of military represents thousands of troops, for smaller scale operations, and particularly spying (which requires R&D to be allocated), you can use the Policies window, and allocate points.
Troop movements require approval from an Admin to become fully deployed, or to withdraw from combat once active. the "Deploying" list is a list military actions that you have submitted, but have not yet been approved. Once approved, they will move into the "Active" list. To cease an active operation, select it and press "Withdraw", this will move it into the "Withdrawing" list, and to complete withdrawing, the withdrawal will have to be approved by an admin.
The download window allows you to access all the data for your country in a format that can be pasted into Excel, or read by other software. It also gives you access to data about your country in previous turns. You can completely ignore the Download window, and still be an effective worldsim player. It's just here for the geeks, and other people who want to analyze the data about their country in ways that are difficult in the web interface.
The mail window is where you send and receive private messages. The interface is a lot like the treaties window. You add and remove recipients with the left and right arrow buttons. And send with the "Send" button. You can send messages to your own country (potentially useful if you have a team of more than one person) or to the Admin. All messages should have both a name and text.
The chat bar sits at the bottom of the screen. The chat bar shows three kinds of messages: chat between players, game events, and "errors". Chat between players is always "global", meaning that when you send a chat message, it shows up in everybody's chat window. For private messages, use the "Mail" window. Game event messages include messages to tell you when someone has requested an embassy in your country, or when a treaty has been signed, or a trade has been executed. Gane event messages are usually not global, but they can be, for example if someone signs a treaty that every country is a party to. "Error" messages are messages specific to a user, they tell when a requested action fails, for example if you try to accept a trade from a country you have no embassy it. The message you get when you send a "Mail" is also considered an "error message" even though it isn't really an error. Error messages go away when you log out, and are never seen by your teammates.
There are a few options to change what appears in the chat window. To see these options, press the button with the asterisk "*" on it, at the far right hand side of the chat bar.
You can minimize the chat window with the "-" button at the bottom left of the chat bar. Press it again to bring chat back up.
The resources window tells you all about your points and resources. "Start" tells you how many of that resource you started the round with. "Current" tells you how many units are in your country right now. "Min" tells you how many units must be in your country at the end of the turn to avoid possible negative consequences. "Cost" is how many points it costs to buy the resource (using the policies view). "Scrap" is how many points you get for liquidating a resource.
Boxes in the "Current" column can have different colors. The text is green if you are above minimum, red if you are below, and black if you are at minimum.
The user data window gives you information about the players of the game. The column names are self explanatory.
Ok, that's it for now. Let me know if anything needs more explanation.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Countries of the World
Based on
this information, you should have a pretty good feel for the countries and be
able to pick one you like.
Countries
already taken are: Mangovia and Turtuvo
All data
given here is for the first turn of the game only, and can and will change
based on player actions
Amatafel
Type of
Government: Shaktah-Dictatorship
Population: High
Ethnicity: Orange
Religion: Mostly Ru-shaktah, with a significant
Bi-shakta population
Suffrage: None
GDP: low-mid
History: A society dominated by religion. Centuries ago, the Shaktah tribes were united
by a powerful warlord. Under his
dynasty, which still remains in power, the population was indoctrinated with
increasingly radical Ru-Shaktah principles and other religions were heavily
persecuted. During the Continental War,
the long civil war between Amatafel and Surikata separatists terminated in a
loss for Amatafel and an uneasy peace exists between the two nations.
Chasekspi
(The
People's Republic of Chasekspi)
Type of
Government: Socialist Republic
Population: Very-high
Ethnicity: Violet with silver and burgundy minorities
Religion:
Flajolie with a significant Grothlic minority
Suffrage: Universal over 21
GDP: High-mid
History: The shaky monarchy in Chasekspi finally
collapsed after the country was invaded by Goripul in the Continental War, this
also caused the Chasekspi to lose its territorial holding of Turtuvo. A highly popular communist regime has risen
from the ensuing anarchy in this troubled economic powerhouse.
Kapobatil
Type of
Government: Confederation
Population: Mid-high
Ethnicity: Silver, some blue, some violet
Religion:
Grothlic, some Drubican
Suffrage: Varies by member state
GDP: Very high
History: A highly industrialized nation with vast
mineral resources but terrain mostly unsuitable for farming. Kapobatil once controlled both Furvoya and
Turtuvo. Then it lost Turtuvo to
Chasekspi, and, in the Continental War, granted Furvoya independence. Despite the prosperity of the country on a
whole, its wealth is highly polarized.
Goripul
Type of
Government: Constitutional Monarchy
Population:
Mid
Ethnicity: Blue, some violet, some silver
Religion:
Flajolie majority, large Grothlic minority, some Vervish
Suffrage: Universal
GDP: Very high
History: Historic rival of Kapobatil for continental
and colonial power. Recently instigated
the Continental War by invading Chasekspi.
After an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against Kapobatil, Goripul was
forced to agree to harsh terms of defeat, giving up territorial gains and
agreeing to pay large reparations to Kapobatil.
Furvoya
Type of
Government: Republic
Population:
Low
Ethnicity: Blue, large maroon minority, some orange
Religion:
Majority flajolie, Bi-Shaktah, Grothlic and Vervish minorities
Suffrage: Blue male over 21
GDP: Low
History: Furvoya was a colony of Kapobatil until it
was recently granted its independence after a violent revolution. Despite this, many people in Furvoya retain
sympathy for Kapobatil. Compared to
continental powers, Furvoya is militarily weak, but is rich in resources and
arable land. The population is
overwhelmingly rural and the country faces a huge challenge in overcoming its
race based class system.
Mangovia
Type of
Government: Theocracy
Population: Mid
Ethnicity: Almost exclusively green
Religion:
Almost exclusively Mangovish
Suffrage: None
GDP: Mid
History: Mangovia preserves its ancient traditions,
and is ruled by a High-Priest King. It
fights off colonization attempts every time they are tried. These resource rich islands must reconcile
their traditional ways with a modernizing economy.
Surikata
Type of
Government: Republic
Population: Low
Ethnicity: Orange, some burgundy, some blue
Religion:
Half Vervish, large Bi-Shaktah minority, some Flajolie and Ru-Shaktah
Suffrage: Universal over 18
GDP: Low
History: Made up mostly of Vervish and Bi-Shaktah
fleeing persecution in Amatafel, with aid from Turtuvo, Surikata recently won
its decades old civil-war against Amatafel.
Despite its abysmal relations with neighboring Amatafel, citizens of
Surikata remain optimistic about the future, and are among the most resourceful
and progressive people on the planet.
Turtuvo
Type of
Government: Republic
Population: Low-mid
Ethnicity: Diverse
Religion:
Diverse
Suffrage: Universal over 18
GDP: Mid
History: Colonized at one point by Goripul, later
conquered by Kapobatil and finally taken over by Chasekspi, Turtuvo's location
in the center of the world is a fitting symbol for its ethnically diverse
population. Already nearly autonomous,
the Continental War and subsequent collapse of Chasekspi, gave Turtuvo the
chance to quietly declare independence.
Turtuvo's first major action in world politics was to send what aid they
could to help Surikata whose struggle against an inflexible and domineering
outside influence they viewed as parallel to their own. Resources in Turtuvo are varied but sparse,
and its biggest challenge may be to preserve the spirit of goodwill between its
varied cultures that has taken root in the wake of its independence.
Countries
listed by increasing population (lowest first)
Surikata
Furvoya
Turtuvo
Mangovia
Goripul
Kapobatil
Amatafel
Chasekspi
Countries
listed by increasing GDP (lowest first)
Surikata
Furvoya
Mangovia
Amatafel
Turtuvo
Chasekspi
Goripul
Kapobatil
Countries
listed by increasing Army strength (lowest first)
Mangovia
Surikata
Turtuvo
Furvoya
Chasekspi
Amatafel
Goripul
Kapobatil
Countries
listed by increasing Navy strenght (lowest first)
Surikata
Furvoya
Turtuvo
Chasekspi
Amatafel
Mangovia
Goripul
Kapobatil
Timeline
It is a
time of turmoil, shifting borders and uncertainty for countries around the
world. The greatest war in the history of the world has just concluded. Here is
a timeline of that war.
A group within Furvoya declares the independence of Furvoya from Kapobatil.
The revolutionaries win some surprising victories and gain popular support in Furvoya
Kapobatil dispatches a large force of reinforcements to quell the revolution in Furvoya
Goripul declares war on Chasekspi and seizes large amounts of territory
Monarchy in Chasekspi collapses
Turtuvo declares independence
Goripul declares war on Kapobatil, striking while a portion of Kapobatil's army and navy are fighting in Furvoya.
Kapobatil panics, grants Furvoya independence, and recalls its troops to defend the homeland.
Forces from Goripul advance deep into Kapobatil before the onset of winter forces them to wait for better conditions before continuing north.
A group within Furvoya declares the independence of Furvoya from Kapobatil.
The revolutionaries win some surprising victories and gain popular support in Furvoya
Kapobatil dispatches a large force of reinforcements to quell the revolution in Furvoya
Goripul declares war on Chasekspi and seizes large amounts of territory
Monarchy in Chasekspi collapses
Turtuvo declares independence
Goripul declares war on Kapobatil, striking while a portion of Kapobatil's army and navy are fighting in Furvoya.
Kapobatil panics, grants Furvoya independence, and recalls its troops to defend the homeland.
Forces from Goripul advance deep into Kapobatil before the onset of winter forces them to wait for better conditions before continuing north.
Turtuvo, now free to conduct foreign policy as it chooses, sends modern weaponry to Surikata that turns the tide in their decades old civil war with Amatafel and forces an uneasy peace.
Forces
return to Kapobatil from Furvoya
Kapobatil
launches a final desperate counter offensive in the dead of winter, and
succeeds in driving Goripul back to the border, and eventually back into
Goripul's own territory.
Representatives
from Goripul and Kapobatil meet to work out a treaty to end the war. As part of the treaty, Goripul surrenders all
territorial gains from the war and agrees to pay large amounts in reparations
to Kapobatil.
Chasekspi declares itself the People's Republic of Chasekspi and celebrates with a huge parade through the capital.
Ethnicities and Religions of the World
Ethncities of the World
Maroon – natives of Furvoya
Burgundy – very similar in appearance
and probably heritage to Maroon people, they are natives of Turtuvo
Green – Mangovian islanders
Orange – natives of Amatafel
Silver– originally from the northern
third of the large continent
Blue – From the center of the
continent
Violet – From the southern part of
the continent
Religions of the World*
Mangovish: A distinct religion found
only in Mangovia, it is closely tied with the government of Mangovia.
It is an ancient religion, and resists change and outside influence,
almost always peacefully but if need be, violently.
Shaktah: an offshoot of the Vervish
religion that has now greatly overtaken it in terms of numbers adherents.
Ru-Shaktah: violent sect of the
Shaktah religion. Most consider this a radical religion. Does not
get along well with any other religion, especially the Vervish
religion.
Bi-Shaktah: peaceful sect of the
Shaktah religion. Can live harmoniously with most religions.
Grothlic: an ancient religion that has
at times used violence to achieve its goals. The head of this
religion is located in Kapobatil.
Drubican: a religion found on the
islands Lac, Bov, and Shalm, as well as in small settlements
scattered throughout the continent. It is a very docile religion and
does not pose a threat to anyone. It's adherents consider the island
Lac to be sacred.
Flajolie: an offshoot of the Grothlic
religion. It subtly dictates policy in any country where the
majority of the population is this faith. This religion believes it
is the true religion.
Vervish: the oldest of all religions.
Not many people belong to this faith, but those who do are proud of
it, will fight for it, and have unusual influence on countries.
*All religions appearing in this game
are fictional. Any resemblance to real religions, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.
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