Announcements

Orders due for War Round#1 of the 2080 Turn

Welcome everyone to the first War Round of the 2080 Turn! I have reviewed and made notes on your written orders for the 2080 Turn and it is time to get onto combat. Your orders for War Round#1 of the 2080 Turn are due April 28 at 18:00 UTC. The Referee is monitoring 4 different Combat Zones

-China vs. Allies in hex 3N33

-Venezuelan Rebels vs. Venezuelan govt and Brazil allies

-Brazil Rebels vs. Brazil govt in “Rage Against the Machine” within Brazil Prime Settlement

-Brazil vs. Argentina

More Combat Zones will be created as needed and the relevant parties notified. Remember everyone, the rules regarding combat, especially Air, have changed significantly since last Turn. I expect everyone to be familiar with the current rules.

As expected, all of the changes in the combat rules to fix problems created some new problems. The most important (that I know of, so far!) is it seems that the effect of Airborne ability has gotten orphaned, it references things that no longer exist. Until a fix is implemented in the next Turn, Airborne ability officially does nothing. Thank you Martin for finding this problem!

Extension until March 27

Several players have requested an extension, I would rather not but I have other things that are pulling me away too. So I am officially moving the deadline for your Turn 2080 written orders to March 27, 2022 1800 UTC.

Related to this is that sometime between March 12-20 I will be travelling and for this trip I expect to have limited connectivity. I might be able to answer emails with simple questions during that time, I am not sure. So plan accordingly.

On a side note, something I should have emphasised is that the Unit_Listings spreadsheet is a new file from the old. The hyperlinks have been updated on the website and rules, but just in case anyone used bookmarks, etc. the new file is at

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18qsMhdrRRKxVmVZkG5s5EZ7Xd7sKFOZ8ILfj3qTTPTE

Do NOT use the old file https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w1OdHV7NJzbXOpi9VDcOfMa2Q_nTGKlCFCu3RtLmqjQ/ any movement orders written there will NOT be accepted.

Greenpeace Report: A Call to Arms: Reykjavik, Iceland: ”The oceans are dying. Being murdered by international fishing corporations and government garbage dumping. Someone must police the oceans, not just protect the ships and people but the ocean itself and its inhabitants. Corporations devastate fish stocks and suck in raw materials, depleting the oceans of its life and riches. Governments dump waste and build cities and other infrastructures disturbing delicate ecosystems. This is killing our oceans, we cannot sit idly by and let these monsters continue to ravage Mother Earth, something has to be done NOW! Today there are laws protecting the environment but no one is enforcing it. Therefore Greenpeace is setting up an international global environment protection corps. This unit will take action to see to it to protect the oceans.” -Greenpeace spokesman as reported in the morning paper Morgunblaðið

Announcement on the Beginning of the 2080 Turn

Welcome everyone to the 2080 Turn of The Great Game! The written portion of your orders for the 2080 Turn are due March 6, 2022 at 1800 UTC. I have altered and improved the orders sheet, be sure to use the latest version, which can be found in the directory of your nation’s files with the name ‘Orders_<Nation>_2080’ for your orders this Turn.

The new rules set has been published and are now the official rules of the game. There are a great many changes to the rules from the version we were using for the previous turn, some minor, some major, most are to do with how combat is handled. The 2075 Turn was the first real opportunity that we had to actually test our rules for combat and a great many things were found in need of improvement. The most consequential changes are to the rules regarding Initiative and Air units, as well as finally closing a long standing problem that any level of armor could render a small force invulnerable. So read the new rules closely. As always the rules changes are summarized in section 11.1, which for this version is unusually lengthy; also the specific changes, in green font, can be found on the document

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zMDZ31Qur75Y434pDTyJ5AxLDNQ7rtrlPcfcBCppHJc

In doing my checks on various parts of the game I found a lot of mistakes on the Facility_List spreadsheet. Remember, the Facility_List spreadsheet is the official, final, list of what facilities there are and where; keeping it updated correctly is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. That means the cells with white background you have to fill out! Yes, I have fixed everything that I can think of to be updated correctly as of the beginning of the 2080 Turn. Yes, the entire colony management system is, just like the combat system last Turn, untested and obviously cumbersome and will most certainly need a massive overhaul once we see just how badly it fails when someone really pushes it, ... just like the combat system last Turn. Yes, the idea that the Facility_List spreadsheet will become so riddled with errors as to become useless, and thus cripple the game, is a nightmare of mine… SO KEEP IT UPDATED!!!!!

I have been spending quite a bit of time fixing and revising the History section of our website, if you recall it was badly scrambled in the automatic conversion from the old version of Google Sites to the new version. While there is still much more work to do I am formally scaling back the emphasis that we used to put on newspaper-like Articles. There was a time when we thought that the Articles section could serve as the only public record of all actions by the players, specifically that there would be 1 article for every Political Action by players. That led to +50 articles per Turn and an incredible effort to create and read, even if you could discern which details were true or important and which details were wrong or trivial. I have had new players quit the game immediately once they realized how much reading it would take to immerse themselves in our game universe, an amount that was growing by approximately 20 pages per Turn. This does not mean that I am permanently ending all new Articles or deleting the old, I enjoy the Articles immensely and I think they add something special to the game, but they will be much rarer and less regular than before. The old articles are mostly being spread throughout the website, often not attached to a specific Turn, after being heavily edited.

Another change that you might notice is that I have been altering names of some Settlements or nations. Originally, the names were often the same e.g. ‘Canada’ the nation and ‘Canada’ the Settlement, so this change is to eliminate the chance of any confusion between the two e.g. ‘Canada’ the Settlement is now ‘Canada Prime’.

Recruitment:

We still need more players! Remember the contest that I mentioned earlier?* This game is more fun when you can actually deal with another person instead of somebody's low priority alt. Spread the word around! Ask your friends, post notices to your gaming groups, etc., we need more players!! I and Liam try but there is just so much else for us to do that there is no way we can give newly NPC nations the kind of intense, creative focus that a nation really needs to be a worthy adversary. We need more players!!

* The player who brings in the most new players will receive 3 Response PApoints this turn per new player. A new player only counts if that new player stays around long enough to at least submit valid orders for the new turn. The player who brings in the second highest number of new players gets 2 Response PApoints per new player. If you play only one nation, being willing to take on 1 more nation also counts as having recruited a new player. We need new players!

Bonus PA points:

[to those new to the game, this is where the Referee hands out rewards for good play]:

-There are no bonus PA points this turn except what you get by recruiting new players! We need more players!

Reminder :

-The RPOL characters 'GMDirector' and 'Israel' are dead mailboxes. Do not address anything to them, they will not be read. I would have changed/deleted them long ago but certain quirks of the RPOL site rules prevent me from doing anything about them.

-List the Settlement# where something is going/built/put/referring/etc/etc in your orders. Even if it is obvious! Right now it may be obvious, but as the game progresses, as more and more Settlements are built, then it will not be so obvious and you do not want a Referee that is guessing about where things are. We have all got to get much better about being in the habit of listing exactly which Settlement we are talking about!

-Coordinate closely with anyone that you are making a deal with. Your Referee has to check and log the effect of each of them and has diminishing patience for sorting out conflicts and uncertainties between the order sets. Expecting the Referee to research the orders of another player to find out what your nation is going to do is unacceptable. You must explicitly state exactly what your nation is going to do! Fail at this and your Referee has, and will continue to do bad things to your precious plans.

-Again, all players, the newer players especially, are encouraged to first submit a set of trial orders to the Referee so I can review them. This is a complicated game and mistakes are all too easy to make.

-Orders with an ‘if’ in them will not be accepted. The Referee will NOT be making judgements for you or trying to parse competing decision tree matrices. Not knowing, having to take a chance, is part of the fun of the game.

-Keep the Facility_List spreadsheet updated! Anything in white background is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!

Yours In Service,

Results of 2075 Turn actions released, Jan 29 2022

Hooray! Despite some attempts to the contrary I am still alive and still at it. Is everybody ready to see what the future holds for our little reality?!?!?

I have finally released your turn results to the appropriate player nation directories. You will have until Feb 05 at 1200 UTC to submit any Response Political Actions in an attempt to change those results. You may now make your updates to the Facility_List file as needed to reflect any new construction. Once this is done the 2075 Turn will be officially over and we will begin moving onto the 2080 Turn.

Yours In Service,

War Round#5 of 2075 Turn Results

Wow, that was a lot of work! My notes for this Round go on for 12 pages!

War Round#5

Like seeds from an opening flower, luminescent saplings of War begin to sprout around the world. In South America the hammer falls; like a swarm of locusts, Brazilian aircraft darken the skies; like a horde of Ants, Brazilian soldiers carpet the jungle floor. Against them the Argentine defence is already sputtering … will the Argentinains hold, or be swept away? The World wonders! Meanwhile, in the Pacific, Australia and its allies open up with their full furry, but are unable to dislodge the Chinese hold. Consequently, with the failure of the alliance forces to stop the Chinese from disrupting construction, the exciting new Japanese ocean adventure Ōshan'u-erusu collapses.

See the thread on RPOL for more details.

Brazil PA to extend the conflict. Failure with Major Mishap. The attempt to speed up the pace of the combat to reach objectives sooner fails badly. A penalty column shift to all rolls this Round will be applied.

War Round #5 was the last War Round of the 2075 Turn. The battles this Turn have been a successful test of our combat system, many gaps and shortcomings have been exposed but the accumulating errors and arbitrary fixes are making progress unnecessarily slow and difficult. If we are truly to handle a real war then we will need to have the lengthy list of updates and fixes that the new 2080 rulesset has. The most consequential changes are to the rules regarding Initiative and Air units as well as finally closing a long standing problem that any level of armour could render a small force almost invulnerable, so read the new rules closely. As always the rules changes are summarized in section 11.1, which for this version is unusually lengthy, but the specific changes can be seen in green font on the document

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zMDZ31Qur75Y434pDTyJ5AxLDNQ7rtrlPcfcBCppHJc

Looking through the turn there is a trend which I have tried to fight but is still ongoing so I will have to be more clear: Orders with some sort of conditional, e.g. If X occurs then do action Y, in them are not allowed. Yes, I know that REALISTICALLY they would occur, our time scale is years, plenty of time to adapt, but they cause chaos with our procedures and rules ...even if I had the time to figure out the dynamics of competing player decision tree matrices. So no conditional orders. What we are playing is a game, not a simulation, having to take risks is part of the fun of the game. So take chances, be decisive, everyone is in the same situation.

Over the coming weeks I will be releasing the results of things like the non-combat related Political Actions by players. When that is done you will have a two-week period to submit any final orders and then we will officially be closing the 2075 Turn and moving onto the 2080 Turn.

War Round#4 of 2075 Turn Results

Our story marches on as furious fighting resumes on the South American front! The Brazilian main attack is blunted by a resolute Argentinian defence, but the vainglorious Argentine counterattack unsurprisingly fails with heavy losses as the conflict begins to spread seeing Chile entering the fray looking for revenge against Argentina and Brazilian troops find themselves embroiled in a brewing revolt in Venezuela. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, the first shots are fired in what could be a much larger war.

Your orders for War Round#5 are due Oct 20, 2021 at 1200 UTC.

Your Referee has decreed that this upcoming War Round #5 will be the last War Round of the 2075 Turn and after it we will then move onto the 2080 Turn. The battles this Turn have been a successful test of our combat system, many gaps and shortcomings have been exposed but the accumulating errors and arbitrary fixes are making progress unnecessarily slow and difficult. If we are truly to handle a real war then we will need to have the lengthy list of updates and fixes that the new 2080 rulesset has.

See the thread on RPOL for more details.

Army Mulls Lower Recruit Standards: Brasilia, Brazil: Citing sustained and widespread childhood poverty stunting the growth of too many new recruits, the Exército Brasileiro is considering lowering standards of physical health for accepting new recruits. Generais de Divisão Euardo Alves, the outspoken commander of the 2nd Military Region is ambivalent about the proposed changes ”Droughts and bandit’s bullets do not care how little you think you can lift, neither should the army”

Results of War Round#3 for 2075 Turn

Our story finally moves on! Returning from my latest trip, to my great surprise I have found not one, but two Italian wines that I like and the Brazilian invasion of Argentina has slowed down to static trench warfare. No attacks occurred in in War Round#3 as both sides seemed to wait for reinforcements to arrive. Still, the Brazilian-Argentinian 'Rumble in the Jungle' begins to spread as Chile has declared war against Argentina and begins mobilizing, and the people of Venezuela become increasingly restive against their Brazilian aligned government. Meanwhile, a large Australian naval force is now almost within sight of the Chinese warships harassing the fledgling Japanese undersea colony of Ōshan'u-erusu ….

Your orders for War Round#4 are due September 25, 2021 at 1200 UTC. As there was no combat in War Round#3, players are warned that War Round#4 will be the last War Round for the Turn and the Turn will be considered over and we will begin preparations for Turn 2080 UNLESS there is some combat in War Round#4. At this time, the Referee has no knowledge of any combat occurring in War Round#4, a Chilean attack or Venezuelan revolt will not happen until War Round#5, if there is one and is cancelled if not.

Effective immediately, there has been a change to the wording in section 10.5 of the rules. A remnant wording from an earlier time had stated that combat is broken into different combats for differing unit types instead of the per hex basis that actually happens. The battles happening this turn have been an effective test of our combat system, many problems have been uncovered and will be fixed in the next version of the rules to be published before the next Turn, but I felt that it was important to implement the above change immediately since it could significantly influence player's decision making.

War Round#2 of 2075 Turn Results

Our story continues! While Brazilian ground troops pause to regroup, Brazilian bombers continue to strike deep to neutralize Argentine reinforcements. Argentine forces however are undeterred and manage a counterattack. Meanwhile, Japanese undersea colonizers and construction fleets in the middle of the Pacific watch as military units from many nations assemble on the doorstep of their new, NEW homes ….

There has been a slight change/correction to how things are done: For newly built units (and there are a lot of them!) I had been listing them as ‘Damaged’ status, but I see now that this was clearly in error. I have altered the Unit Listings spreadsheet to have new units start with Reserve Quality Level but have it noted in which Round they will be elevated to their final Quality Level. I know this differs somewhat from what I had said to several people, but I am going to have to be harsh about this, there are too many other things that would fall apart if I let the old way stand.

Your orders for War Round#3 are due August 19, 2021 at 1200 UTC. Yes, this is less time than I had previously been giving, but I have recently improved and fixed many of my internal procedures, figuring out combat is no longer the slog that it used to be, so I am eager to get on with the turn.

At this time, the Referee has no knowledge of any additional combat occurring other than the expected ongoing combat between Brazil and Argentina.

See the thread on RPOL for more details.

Japan Secures Food Access with South America Pursuing it's mercantilist policy, Japan’s government has awarded several contracts to Japanese corporations to safeguard the future food supply in Japan. The largest of these contracts was awarded to a new food giant, Asahi Food Conglomerate (AFCO). The zaibatsu re-emerged with Asahi Breweries acquisition of various government agricultural producers and agencies and direct takeover and merger of other food related keiretsus. The conglomerate’s main focus has been to greatly expand its extensive agricultural interests across South America and its fishing fleet, already the world’s 4^th largest. Greenpeace has launched a protest campaign charging AFCO with endangering the global ecosystem both with aggressive over fishing and with its explosive agribusiness expansion throughout South America.

War Round#2 of 2075 Turn Preparations

Your orders for War Round#2 are due July 19 1200 UTC. After that time I will be on yet another trip and may have limited availability until August 5th.

At this time, the Referee has no knowledge of any additional combat occurring other than the expected ongoing combat between Brazil and Argentina.

War Round#1 of 2075 Turn

That took a lot longer than I expected! Sorry about that. Even after I returned I was overloaded with many different things and then another trip happened. You can thank Sergey for finally getting me to get it done, he threatened to not continue to talk to me about my favorite subject of international relations and Star Wars, so I skittered over to a nearby hippy commune to finish up working on the first War Round of 2075. Nice people, but if you are not into eating a steady diet of beans then it is a great place to find the focus to get things done.

So, to our story! After rising tensions and troop movements, Brazilian forces break upon the Argentinean frontier like a tropical thunderstorm. Brazilian ground troops begin fighting their way to Buenos Aires while Brazilian bombers strike deep to neutralize Argentine reinforcements. Meanwhile, seeking to shed Chinese harassment, Japanese undersea colonizers and construction fleets move to new positions in the ocean a thousand kilometers to the East, abandoning what they cannot tow; Chinese military vessels follow them ….

See the thread on RPOL for more details.

Musings on the Divine

“We were not put on this Earth to worship God, but instead to create God. The question that comes next is simple, ...what do we do after?”

-Opening lines of the Mandarin version of “Once we were alone” by Kim Lee Myung, Lead Coder of the Korean Cyber Spiritualists

Orders needed for War Round#1 of 2075 Turn

Hooray! I finally now have all of the written orders in for all player nations for the 2075 Turn and have reviewed them, making corrections and adding comments as needed. I recommend that you review your orders to see what, if anything I have done. This now puts us into the War Round portion of the turn. Your orders for War Round#1/2075 are due April 29, 2021 at 1200UTC. As always, a summary of the player actions in the Turn so far has been posted to the History section. In addition to any orders for combat, these War Rounds are the time to impress the Referee with your role-playing and use of Response PApoints to enhance the chances of success for your Political Actions AND to interfere with the Political Actions of other players. Remember, except for special cases as determined by the Referee, the posting the final results for Political Actions, the construction of new facilities and the seizure of hexes, ... does not occur until the END of the Turn.

At the current time for this War Round#1/2075, your Referee knows of only one combat occurring, Brazil has begun an invasion of Argentina; I will inform the relevant parties if that changes. Unless any other player joins in, the Brazilian invasion of Argentina will be handled by the full, detailed combat rules. If any other player does get involved in a significant way then we are likely to switch to the Quick Combat rules as per section 10.12 of the rules, as the situation could quickly become extremely complex. Yes, because Brazil has already committed to the attack the Referee will be giving them a bonus to Initiative.

Another global flashpoint of note is that a Chinese Destroyer unit has moved into hex Sol-Gamma-3N22 and is actively disrupting Japanese construction of their new colony, Ōshan'u-erusu. Tensions are rising and construction deadlines are slipping, threatening the entire project with collapse.

If there is no combat during a War Round then the Referee MAY have another War Round or MAY declare that the turn has ended and move on to close it out, meaning any left over Response PApoints are wasted. You have been warned, it is at the Referee's discretion.

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We have a winner for the Recruitment contest! It is our own Liam Harper! Liam has brought in 2 new players that have met the requirements, thus Liam is awarded 6 free Response PApoints to use as he pleases this Turn. ...so everybody pile on Liam's nations and make him pay for it!

You may have noticed that I have changed the names of some of the Settlements of player nations, usually by adding a 'Prime' as a suffix e.g. 'China Prime'. This is me being extra cautious, I worry that there will be confusion between the nation name and the name of its most important Settlement. Let me know if you have a suggestion for a better, more creative, name for your player nation's chief Settlement.

The 2075 Turn for the Great Game is now open!

You will have 3 weeks, until March 28th at 1200 UTC, to submit to me your budget and written orders portion for the new turn. As before, for each of your nations I have put into the shared Google Drive folders for your nation a file called 'Orders_<nation>_2075' where you will enter in the written portion of your orders. Your access to edit the written orders file and budget spreadsheet will be removed on the due date. As always, the new players are encouraged to get to me some sort of 'trial' orders soonest so I can review, this is a complicated game and mistakes can easily happen.

On those blank order forms that I put in your shared folder I did make a few changes on the 'Use of Economic Units' table. Namely making it clear just what is the meaning of having a negative number for an entry versus a having positive number. A subtle but important difference that has been causing much difficulty with everyone. The changes should make it more intuitive just what is needed.

I know that I promised large changes to the appearance to the game to handle larger colonial empires, but lack of time and good ideas forced me to focus on continuing to clean up and formalize our various internal processes. It may not make any apparent difference to you, the players, but it is a big thing to me as not only does the game run even smoother than before but I think we are finally to the point that someone other than me, such as co-referee Liam, can actually run a whole turn by themselves. This could end up being very helpful to the game as Liam and I tend to alternate getting pulled away with real life issues; hopefully now there will be a better chance that someone will be 'on-duty' to advance the game.

One change to the rules that has to happen, just not yet, is the removal of the ability of Orbital Factories to produce Supply Units +limits on the number of OFs per Settlement. As is the current rule is difficult to justify that an OF could produce the range of products needed, also severely undercuts the 2300AD canon importance of Core Worlds, and at worst is an exploit. To give you time to adapt, as an OF has already been built and various deals and plans are based on the current OF rules, I am not going to immediately make the rule change, nor in the next turn (2080). The change will happen in the 2085 Turn.

Recruitment:

We have lately been quite successful in bringing in new players (this month alone, welcome Regis and Robert Hayes!) but we still need more players! Remember the contest that I mentioned earlier?* This game is more fun when you can actually deal with another person instead of somebody's low priority alt. Spread the word around! Ask your friends, post notices to your gaming groups, etc., we need more players!! I and Liam try but there is just so much else for us to do that there is no way we can give newly NPC nations the kind of intense, creative focus that a nation really needs to be a worthy adversary. We need more players!!

Bonus PA points:

[to those new to the game, this is where the Referee hands out rewards for good play]:

-There are no bonus PA points this turn except what you get by recruiting new players! We need more players!

Be sure to:

I’m Tired of Muting My Voice

A still from the linkcast of activist Paulette Sandusky in her manifesto “100% Human” on the anniversary of her bombing campaign. Her Links have swelled, pushing her to the peak of celebrity status, thanks to her campaign against Artificial Intelligence and bioengineering trends. Advocating for ‘human science, human work, and human life’. Sandusky’s work insists that ‘only through the power of the unaltered human mind can we be sure that humanity is advancing to our spiritual peak. "The pollution of the truth with it’s machine thinking will lead to machine humans. Only human thought and human compassion can solve the looming threats of shortages and removal of spiritual thought from everyday life. We have been conditioned by those global corporations that are nothing more than machines themselves. Machines that turn humans into components in that machine, and now they are looking to complete this transformation by making us into machines ourselves"

End of 2070 Turn

Hooray! The 2070 turn has now officially ended and I have released your final turn results to the appropriate player nation directories. You may now make your updates to the Facility_List file as needed.

The rules that we will be using for the new turn is version 20210215 and includes many corrections, simplifications, and clarifications over the previous version. See section 11.1 of the rules for a summary of all of the changes. The most obvious change is the elimination of the option to have Brigade sized units, this is a change that I did not want to make but I could not ignore the massive simplification to this overly complex game that it allows.

Remember the contest that I mentioned earlier! * Ask your friends, post notices to your gaming groups, etc., we need more players!! This game is a lot more fun when your opponents are actual players, I and Liam try but there is just so much else for us to do that there is no way we can give newly NPC nations the kind of intense, creative focus that a nation really needs to be a worthy adversary. We need more players!!

I have many updates to do to the game system first, but I expect that we will be starting the new 2075 turn in about one week.

* From now on, the player who brings in the most new players will receive 3 Response PApoints next turn per new player. A new player only counts if that new player stays around long enough to at least submit valid orders for the new turn. The player who brings in the second highest number of new players gets 2 Response PApoints per new player. If you play only one nation, being willing to take on 1 more nation also counts as having recruited a new player. We need new players!

Update on New Players and Moving on to 2075 soon - 06/02/2021

We have been joined by John who will be taking control of Germany, in addition to having been joined by Martin taking control of Canada, Kameron taking control of the UK and John taking control of the USA - a total of 4 new players this turn. We would ask that all existing players make sure you confirm any pre-existing deals with the new players so they know what is going on and so that these deals end up being processed and listed on orders, assuming both sides are continuing.

For all new players, you should all now have access to the orders from previous turns and the results - the results of the past turn will be posted to those google drive folders and the new turn orders for you to fill in will also be posted there.

You should also check your 'Handover of Country Name threads for some basic information on what your nations have previously been up to, though be warned this is going to be quite brief and you should also read through previous orders and the history for more in game info.

Now then, Time for an updated on where we are in game terms

I am happy to report that orders have been processed and results will be released shortly, news for the past turn should be published not too long thereafter and we are about to start producing the budgets for the 2075 turn, this should mean we will be looking to begin the new turn soon.

So keep watching those skies, and we should be up and running shortly for the 2075 turn, as both GMs are determined to get to the next turn as soon as practicable.

Saudi Arabia -Iraq War Continues

-Iraqi government recruitment poster in Kabul for the Free Afghan Battalion, fighting in the Anbar province campaign as the Saudi-Iraq war enters its 3rd year.

Results for War Round#1 of 2070 Turn

As you all will remember any orders for the first war round were to be submitted by 12:00UCT on the 3rd Jan. The result is that there is no combat this war round - again.

Whilst world peace reigns the GM has decreed there is not to be a War Round #2 - and so we will be moving to processing the end of the 2070-74 turn.

To that end - we are giving anyone who has not spent their remaining Response PA points a chance to do so. A summary of this turns Political Actions is listed on the history page for this turn, giving you an idea of what is going on should you want to respond to it - Both Kelvin and I want to move on to processing the results of these and getting turn results out as soon as possible - SO...

Any remaining response PAs had to be declared on the RPOL follow-up thread for the nation concerned by 23:59UTC on 06/01/2021 - per my original email

After this the turn is ended and we begin the process of moving onto 2075. Results of political actions will be calculated and turn results published, then we will look to generate the budgets for the next turn.

As a reminder, we are still in need of new players - so please do try and recruit from your friends, gaming groups, etc if you know someone who might enjoy this game. This turn we will offer a bounty on new players, so anyone who manages to recruit at least one new player will get 2 bonus PAs (so long as that new player completes and submits orders for that turn). An additional prize will be granted to the person who recruits the most people (minimum of 2).

Orders needed for War Round#1 of 2070 Turn

All of the initial Turn orders are in for Turn 2070 and we are now onto the War Round portion of the turn. Your orders for War Round#1/2070 are due Jan 3, 2021 at 1200UTC. As always, a summary of the player actions in the Turn so far has been posted to the History section. In addition to any orders for combat, this is the time to impress the Referee with your role-playing and use of Response PApoints to enhance the chances of success for your Political Actions that you submitted at the beginning of the turn AND to interfere with the Political Actions of other players. Remember, except for special cases as determined by the Referee, the posting the final results for Political Actions, the construction of new facilities and the seizure of hexes does not occur until the END of the Turn.

At the current time for this War Round#1/2070, your Referee knows of no combat occurring, I will inform the relevant parties if that changes. If there is no combat during a War Round then the Referee MAY have another War Round or MAY declare that the turn has ended and move on to close it out, meaning any left over Response PApoints are wasted. You have been warned, it is at the Referee's discretion.

An update to note: Ludwig has taken the role of Nigeria.

Britain Cocks it Up Again! Ankara, Turkey: The bad news for British foreign policy just kept going on when the Colin’s Street hacktivist group revealed that the latest ambassador to Turkey, apparently too stressed from getting insufficient support from home, attempted to relieve his tensions by having ‘relations’ with the teenage son of the Turkish president, and was caught, twice. This tops off weeks of other embarrassments for Britain in the Middle East, (cont pg34)

Orders are all in , Nov 22 2020

I now have all of the orders in for all player nations for the 2070 Turn and will begin processing the orders before then getting onto combat. I have changed the permissions on the orders files for players to be 'Commentator' and if I have problems or questions then you can respond there or on the Follow-up thread on the RPOL site. I have some reason to think that processing the orders will be done quicker this time around, but it is a labourious and complicated process that can still easily take weeks.

Glancing through your orders and discussions, I think I see a misunderstanding growing. It is mentioned in the rules (section 3.2 par#4) but I need to be clear, almost any action/deal which changes the published statistics of a nation will not take effect UNTIL THE NEXT TURN e.g. a deal to change the ownership of Research Modules will not have any effect on cost to increase Tech level until the next Turn. Yes, it is on my list of things to do to expand section 3.10 of the rules so that much of what is in section 3.2 par#4 is also reflected there.

I have had to remove from the game RDrucker (Korea) and SirKerry(Indonesia) for lack of participation, ...and I find it very rude that they did not bother to let me know that so I can prepare. I do not mind if people have to leave the game, I understand, but I get very upset when they just disappear! So if you have to leave, then tell me.

As you all seem to already know, welcome to Ludwig, our new player for the Nordic Federation. Ludwig was brought into the fold by Carl, so Carl is the winner of our competition for this round. Carl has 3 free Response PApoints to do with as he pleases for this Turn. Given that we are still desperately short of players, you can expect that the competition of awarding Response PApoints to players who bring in new players will continue next Turn.

Another thing to expect is that there will have to be more changes to the budget spreadsheet format in the coming Turns. The spreadsheets that we have were set up a long time ago by long-gone Referees who I suspect never really expected that we would ever get beyond the Earth's atmosphere; so the format they made is not particularly well suited to colonial empires, ... which is what we are on the verge of doing right now. Over the turns I have made many changes to the budget spreadsheet which have helped to extend the life of the format, but looking over your orders there are more things I am going to have to do. I just do not know what yet but these changes are going to have to be substantial else we risk the game collapsing from the weight of its own bureaucracy.

Anyways, that is all for now, I will let you all know when we are ready to get to the combat for the turn!

Start of 2070 Turn, Oct 25 2020

And we are back! After putting in a huge amount of work the 2070 Turn for the Great Game is now open! You will have 3 weeks, until Nov 15 at 1200 UTC, to submit to me your budget and written orders portion for the new turn. As before, for each of your nations I have put into the shared Google Drive folders a file 'Orders_<nation>_2070' where you will enter in the written portion of your orders. Remember, this does NOT mean I will tolerate 'negotiating your orders' or 'editing to react to events post due date'!!! This just means that it will be much easier to fix errors and respond to questions. Your access to edit the written orders file and budget spreadsheet will be removed on the due date.

This last turn, and preparation for the new turn, took much longer than expected. I had been hoping for a much quicker turnaround when the last turn started but there have been a huge number of mostly unexpected changes and upsets. The good thing is that they are now largely behind us; I know that I say this every new turn but I really do hope that we can get through the new turn much faster than previous turns.

I have spent quite a bit of time getting the website for the game into a more usable order after what the automatic conversion did to it. The articles section is still a mess, but I think that correcting that is something that can wait. I do expect that when I do get around to fixing the articles that I will have to dramatically cut them down and reformat them, many of those articles really do not do anything right now except scare newcomers at how much reading they have to do to get up to speed.

Updates:

Note that the rules have been updated to version 2020901, as always see the section 11.1 for a summary of the rules changes. The most obvious change is that the split between Division and Brigade sized units is going away. It has long been obvious that Brigade sized units were not the right size for a game of this scope, I resisted for a long time for several reasons but it is just too important, Brigade sized units have got to go. Brigade sized units are ok for this turn, but this is your warning that any non-Starship type unit which is still Brigade sized at the end of this turn will be marked as destroyed.

-The other thing which is going away at the end of this Turn are Artillery units. They add a surprising amount of complication to the game for only a little benefit. If you have any such units in your nation's inventory they must be converted to some other unit type by the end of the Turn or be destroyed. I am not going to issue any explicit rules for their conversion to some other unit type, I want to leave it up to you to come up with a plan; explain to me what you are doing in your orders and I will review and make a judgement then.

-I have had to reorganize the entries for the Budget Spreadsheet. This is another thing I did not want to do but there are some quirks to how Google sheets works that made the old format very labour intensive for me to create each turn. Most of these changes have the effect of automatically accounting for some player options/decisions without having to first clear it with the Referee. One of these changes is that it is now the players responsibility to fill out the number of ACTIVE Orbital facilities, which can affect the budget totals. This will allow for much greater flexibility in accounting for the effects of trades and lack of supplies etc. The default is to carry over the answer from the previous turn, but it will be your responsibility to fill it out correctly.

-I have fixed a large number of errors in how our spreadsheets do things, so you may notice some changes in the balance of the various entries. The most obvious are the upkeeps, for most nations the portion due to upkeep of tech has gone down while the portion due to other corruption&pollution, ect have gone up. The upkeep due to Settlement size should now be much better balanced to what it was intended to be with Settlement size and population.

-On the budget spreadsheets I have not filled out the usual record of deals made in previous turns as I understand them, that is now the player's responsibility. It is the Referee's responsibility to figure out what happens if you get it wrong!

Recruitment:

We need more players! Remember the contest that I mentioned earlier?!* This game is more fun when you can actually deal with another person instead of somebody's low priority alt. Spread the word around! Ask your friends, post notices to your gaming groups, etc., we need more players!! I and Liam try but there is just so much else for us to do that there is no way we can give newly NPC nations the kind of intense, creative focus that a nation really needs to be a worthy adversary. We need more players!!

Bonus PA points:

[to those new to the game, this is where the Referee hands out rewards for good play]:

-There are no bonus PA points this turn except what you get by recruiting new players! We need more players!

Be sure to:

-List the Settlement where something is going/built/put/referring/etc/etc in your orders. Even if it is obvious! Right now it may be obvious, but as the game progresses, as more and more Settlements are built, then it will not be so obvious and you do not want a Referee that is confused about where things are. We have all got to get much better about being in the habit of listing exactly which Settlement we are talking about!

-Coordinate closely with anyone that you are making a deal with. Your Referee has to check and log the effect of each of them and has diminishing patience for sorting out conflicts and uncertainties between the order sets. Expecting the Referee to research the orders of another player to find out what your nation is going to is unacceptable, you must explicitly state exactly what your nation is going to do. Fail at this and your Referee has, and will continue to do bad things to your precious plans.

-All players, the newer players especially, are encouraged to first submit a set of trial orders to the Referee so I can review them, this is a complicated game and mistakes are all too easy to make.

Yours, In Service,

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Updates September 8, 2020

I have got a whole lot of updates to pass on to everyone!

The automatic conversion from the old Google Sites to the New Google Sites that I spoke of earlier went about as well as these sorts of conversion tools usually do. After spending much of the past week on it I have managed to sort out the worst of the bugs and make it at least usable. Go to the site and have a tour, it has the same web address as before just a whole new look. Yes, I know, many pages, especially the Articles from 2010 to 2045 are still a scramble of text boxes and fonts, it was much worse. It is functional enough for now and I will get it sorted later. Currently almost every page is both ugly and not very intuitive on how to navigate around but these are things that the new Google Sites is very good at so with enough time I should be able to improve it into something much better. Unlike the old Google Sites, in the new Google Sites there are no page level permissions, so to change your nation's page under the Player Characters section you will have to request the Referee to do it for you.

The change in the format between the old and new Google Sites has forced one important change, we cannot continue to do deals with NPCs the way we have been. This is actually a good thing as the old way was spread out and not consistent thus making it much more complex than it needed to be. So I have created a new thread on the RPOL site which will be the one, unified place where all deals with NPCs are to be requested and recorded. Be sure to read msg#1 of that thread.

There is a trend starting which has to be quashed because it will be a book-keeping nightmare if allowed to continue. What I am speaking of are orders to construct a facility that somehow fail e.g. the hex is taken by another nation, a deal for transportation falls through, the move is illegal for some reason, what has been allowed up to now is that the facility is allowed to exist in place, on Earth, until its final proper location is worked out. Effective immediately, if there is some kind of problem with setting up a new facility in its target destination then the facility will be considered to be destroyed, its mass and $ wasted. No preemptive orders on a backup location will be accepted.

Remember the contest that I mentioned earlier? * Ask your friends, post notices to your gaming groups, etc., we need more players!! This game is a lot more fun when your opponents are actual players. I and Liam try but there is just so much else for us to do that there is no way we can give newly NPC nations the kind of intense, creative focus that a nation really needs to be a worthy adversary. We need more players!!

And now we have finally reached the portion of the update that you actually want to hear: "When are we going to start the new Turn?". The answer is: It will still be a few weeks. Now that I have got the website back into a state that it can be used I can finally turn my attention to getting the new turn started, and that still takes a lot of time.

All of you should have received notices from Google about having been granted access to Google Drive folders that have the same name as the nations that you play. If you did not then email me immediately. Into these folders I have placed every bit of orders or results for that nation that I have on record. When it comes time to submit your orders for the new turn you will place them into that folder and into the same folder I will respond with all of your results. So no more emailing files about orders back and forth.

Yours in Service,

*From now until the next turn, the player who brings in the most new players will receive 3 Response PApoints next turn per new player. A new player only counts if that new player stays around long enough to at least submit valid orders for the new turn. The player who brings in the second highest number of new players gets 2 Response PApoints per new player. If you play only one nation, being willing to take on 1 more nation also counts as having recruited a new player. We need new players!

End of 2065 Turn — Aug 26, 2020 17:45:44 PM

Turn 2065 results summary has been posted — Aug 17, 2020 11:45:44 PM

Results from 2065 War Round#1 — Aug 3, 2020 9:43:44 PM

Orders needed for War Round#1 — Jul 3, 2020 10:09:07 PM

Goodbye — Apr 16, 2020 1:55:47 PM

Begining of the 2065 Turn — Apr 15, 2020 3:25:08 AM

End of 2060 Turn — Mar 30, 2020 1:08:08 AM

Results of 2060 Combat Round#2 — Mar 12, 2020 3:41:25 AM

Results of 2060 Quick Combat Round#1 — Feb 23, 2020 4:47:19 AM

Results of the 2060 Turn are posted! — Feb 4, 2020 4:22:02 AM

Updates! — Jan 7, 2020 8:33:34 PM

Updates! — Dec 15, 2019 4:01:16 AM

Beginning of the 2060 Turn — Nov 30, 2019 9:45:06 PM

End of 2055 Turn — Nov 10, 2019 6:36:03 PM

Results for Quick Combat Round #4 — Nov 4, 2019 2:54:24 AM

Results for Quick Combat Round #3 — Oct 27, 2019 11:07:48 PM

Results of 2055 Quick Combat Round#2 — Sep 7, 2019 8:10:56 PM

Updates! — Aug 29, 2019 7:41:28 PM

Results of 2055 Quick Combat Round#1 — Aug 27, 2019 4:01:38 AM

Starting Quick Combat Round#1 for the 2055 Turn — Jul 15, 2019 3:09:16 AM

Results of 2055 Orders are posted — Jun 12, 2019 5:09:40 PM

Close of the Written orders portion of the 2055 Turn — May 7, 2019 7:05:40 PM

Beginning of the 2055 Turn — Apr 13, 2019 11:49:46 PM

End of 2050 Turn — Mar 8, 2019 5:20:17 PM

Results of 2050 Quick Combat Round#1 — Feb 27, 2019 5:20:36 AM

Results of written 2050 Orders have been posted — Feb 3, 2019 6:28:24 PM

Updates — Nov 18, 2018 6:28:01 AM

Start of the 2050 Turn — Nov 15, 2018 9:28:39 PM

Updates — Oct 14, 2018 1:48:54 AM

End of Turn Warning and Results for 2045 Quick Combat Round#4 — Sep 28, 2018 5:01:28 PM

Updates — Sep 22, 2018 5:28:10 PM

Results for 2045 Quick Combat Round#3 — Sep 15, 2018 2:10:23 AM

Results for 2045 Quick Combat Round#2 — Jul 16, 2018 5:04:00 AM

Results for 2045 Quick Combat Round#1 — Jun 24, 2018 1:19:06 AM

Onto Combat! — Jun 10, 2018 4:38:33 AM

Results of Orders posted — May 2, 2018 3:01:49 AM

Updates II — Mar 25, 2018 9:54:45 PM

The GM is dead, long live the GM ! — Mar 5, 2018 1:42:00 PM

Updates — Feb 6, 2018 6:08:43 PM

Start of the 2045 Turn — Feb 2, 2018 8:57:39 PM

Welcome Chance! — Jan 28, 2018 8:02:04 PM

Welcome Laurent! — Jan 25, 2018 6:13:16 AM

Welcome Terry! — Jan 22, 2018 4:13:27 PM

Welcome Tom! — Jan 21, 2018 6:57:52 AM

Welcome Stephen! — Jan 20, 2018 5:42:57 PM

Need Everyone to Look Over — Nov 4, 2017 9:58:41 PM

New Turn Delayed for a bit — Oct 10, 2017 11:27:25 PM

Welcome Denny — Sep 22, 2017 9:05:02 PM

End of Turn — Sep 20, 2017 4:27:48 AM

Results for 2040 Quick Combat Round#4 — Sep 12, 2017 7:09:50 PM

Results for 2040 Quick Combat Round#3 — Aug 24, 2017 5:22:36 PM

Results for 2040 Quick Combat Round#2 — Aug 12, 2017 7:16:31 PM

Results for 2040 Quick Combat Round#1 — Jul 26, 2017 3:18:51 AM

Onto Combat for 2040 — Jun 26, 2017 6:01:52 PM

2040 Results of Orders — Jun 1, 2017 9:36:42 PM

Welcome Bernard and Bjorn — Apr 8, 2017 10:40:05 PM

Deadline of 2040 turn — Mar 30, 2017 4:29:19 AM

Start of the 2040 Turn — Feb 15, 2017 5:54:11 AM

Budgets and Settlement files posted — Feb 11, 2017 8:11:41 AM

Last minute roster changes and game status — Feb 10, 2017 5:11:33 PM

New Player Abdul Rahman — Feb 6, 2017 2:09:52 PM

New Player Sean McDonald — Feb 2, 2017 6:27:09 PM

New Player Bob Jones — Jan 30, 2017 3:32:52 AM

New Game Rules — Jan 27, 2017 5:34:54 AM

Clean up of the website — Jan 25, 2017 6:24:28 PM

New player Sergey Malyshev — Nov 28, 2016 8:25:10 PM

2035 Results of Orders — May 11, 2016 4:17:10 PM

Deadline for 2035-39 turn is here. — Feb 7, 2016 12:58:08 PM

Start of the 2035 Turn! — Dec 27, 2015 3:09:54 AM

2035AD — Oct 26, 2015 9:16:13 PM

Light at the end — Sep 26, 2015 1:39:22 PM

New player for Iran and Nordic Federation — May 22, 2015 11:17:24 PM

Results for 2030 Orders are posted — May 22, 2015 11:03:30 PM

New year, same turn... — Feb 3, 2015 11:58:59 AM

New Player and deadline for 2030 — Dec 17, 2014 8:30:32 AM

Deadline extension for 2030 — Dec 8, 2014 1:47:50 AM

Minor corrections — Dec 2, 2014 6:46:40 PM

I am sending you the 2030 budgets now. — Nov 29, 2014 10:25:06 PM

New Rules! v20140915 — Sep 16, 2014 7:22:58 PM

We are now at 2030 — Sep 5, 2014 9:53:04 AM

Everything done but the war! — May 22, 2014 10:06:19 PM

Here is the plan to move forward — Apr 26, 2014 8:32:52 PM

Old GM signing back on again. — Apr 18, 2014 8:18:27 PM

Minor alterations to the History section — Jan 20, 2013 2:43:01 PM

Peaceful transfer of power — Jul 25, 2012 8:40:17 PM

Schedule for 2025-2029 turn — Jun 25, 2012 8:10:47 AM

New schedule for 2020 turn — Apr 7, 2012 12:04:33 PM

Schedule for 2020 — Mar 23, 2012 9:02:44 AM

Stepping down as GM — Aug 29, 2011 11:43:23 PM

Deadline Extension to 4/30 — Apr 13, 2011 10:54:41 PM

Israel - Iran Response Due 12/1 — Nov 29, 2010 11:54:05 PM

Happy Thanksgiving — Nov 26, 2010 6:35:07 AM

Extension to 11/22 — Nov 20, 2010 11:50:53 PM

Reactions Extension to 11/19 — Nov 16, 2010 8:05:17 PM

2010 - 2015 Reactions Due November 15th — Nov 11, 2010 10:23:17 PM

2010-2015 Turn Due 10/22 — Oct 20, 2010 10:37:03 PM

Basic Rules — Sep 27, 2010 8:56:29 PM

Website's Up! — Jul 29, 2010 2:39:28 AM

Samideanoj

Eŭropa Unio ŝajnas iri al vera sindikato kaj fariĝi vera federacio. Multaj faktoroj jam estis traktataj, sed restas unu kiuj neniu parolas: la lingvo.

Nature, ni povus sekvi ĉiun kun sia, sed tio ne estas oportuna. Aliflanke, iu ajn lingvo elektita donos siajn parolantojn avantaĝon super tiuj, kiuj parolas alian.

Ni povas proponi solvon: sekvante la sonĝon de Doktoro Zamenhof, ni proponas Esperanto kiel la oficiala lingvo de la Unio. De ĉi tiu maniero, neniu devus rezigni sian lingvon aŭ senti lingvonan malavantaĝon.

-Extract from a speech of the President of Eüropa Esperanto Asoci