OOC: The Rules

[Mr. President]

When you do: sqrt(NS population), do you do the NS population in millions, billions . . . or what?

[GeneralTacticus]

In indivdual people, I think (i.e. 3 billion people is 3 000 000 000 people)... it's the only way to get the same results as my proposal, and taking it in any other measure would raise the population.

[Mr. President]

Okay, I think I'm getting the right answers now.

Karakas' NS population is: 3,361,000,000

sqrt(3,361,000,000) = 57,974.13216

Effective population = 57,974.13216 x 5,500 = 318,857,727


Edit: Before I was not only misreading the answer but also pressing the wrong buttons on my calculator.

[Squeblish Nef?]

Huge nations are still at an advantage, but I think it's acceptably reduced.
The only problem is that all nations are either moderately big, or reasonably small.
There are no extremes, as there are IRL.
Maybe we should have all picked our populations, but I don't really see a way to keep that fair.

[Mr. President]

You're probably right. While I would have chosen to be a country of about 30-40 million, someone probably would have requested a country of 5 billion genetically engineered super-soldiers of unusual size and strength and the whole thing would have gone to hell.

[Kuciwalker]

You could have a moderator-type person, well, moderate it

[Squeblish Nef?]

Maybe, but that probably wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

[arkatahten]

Maybe the result should take another step and give you a range instead of an exact number. This would limit us while also giving us some flexibility to choose our own populations within certain limits.

If result of calculations already introduced in this thread are "x" then the actual result is anywhere of the player's choosing within the range of "y - x through x + y." I don't know how we figure out "y," but it should probably scale also.

[Squeblish Nef?]

x and y should be pretty far apart.

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by Kalius while he still seemed to exist
I concur. Maybe we should make a UN General Assembly thread for the Apolyton region, where the talk is moderated as in the General Assembly (i.e. one person talks about an issue, the chair-nation receives via PM requests to question the speech giver, the speech giver replies and he moves on the the next question. The chair decides how many Qs are asked (e.g. 2 or 3)).

I think having a regional (or world, if we want to be one contained pocket of the multiverse) Assembly would be an interesting thing. I would think, however, it might be better with something slightly more free-form: Someone proposes an issue and people take turns making in-character comments. Then we could vote on useless resolutions and censure countries we don't like

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by arkatahten
Maybe the result should take another step and give you a range instead of an exact number. This would limit us while also giving us some flexibility to choose our own populations within certain limits.

If result of calculations already introduced in this thread are "x" then the actual result is anywhere of the player's choosing within the range of "y - x through x + y." I don't know how we figure out "y," but it should probably scale also.

Would it work if we make the results just blanketly (sic?) +/- 35 million (say)?

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted by Mr. President


I think having a regional (or world, if we want to be one contained pocket of the multiverse) Assembly would be an interesting thing. I would think, however, it might be better with something slightly more free-form: Someone proposes an issue and people take turns making in-character comments. Then we could vote on useless resolutions and censure countries we don't like

That sounds rather interesting... although I agree it would have to be a bit more free-form than the UN General Assembly. Waiting for your requests to speak to approved could take ages, and seriously slow things down - so, IMO, the furthest we should go in that direction would be to have some IC rules regarding speaking, and just assume that anyone who wants to say something has approval.

Regarding population: we could have a rule saying that you could vary your population from the number given by any amount you liked, but, if you go over, the original number is what's used for economic calculations and the like, so you could still have nations with populations in the billions, but they'd also be extremely poor.

Or we could just allow you to alter your figures by 15-20% in either direction, possibly using the system above (which would encourage smaller populations while not making them ridiculous).

[Squeblish Nef?]

So, what you're saying is that small nations will have the best economies?

[GeneralTacticus]

Not exactly; if they're technically large nations, they'll have a larger GDP per capita, but they'll still have the same overall. Of course, given that a higher per capita GDP gives you more resoruces to spend on things like defence (less has to go on supporting each person), you still have an advantage if you're smaller.

[Squeblish Nef?]

Al Mastif's GDP is $10,000,000,000,000 smaller than its Budget.
Is this a bad sign?