The greatest war the world has ever seen is now over, and the old political order lies in ruins. Industrial warfare has brought devastation to lands across all continents, and the prewar world’s system of alliances and regional powers is now a quaint memory. In the aftermath a few nations stand above all of the others, having emerged victorious and ready for this new era in world history. They will be the driving forces of world events, as their competition grows in ferocity and nations must choose sides in the coming conflict, one that will play out not only on battlefields but also in financial markets and hearts and minds across the globe. The era of old Great Powers has ended, the future belongs to the Superpowers.
This will be a nation RP inspired by the Cold War and the aftermath of World War 2, starting from a similar time period. I’ll need two Superpowers (possibly a third if we get a lot of interest) and several ordinary countries. The Superpowers are nations that have an intense rivalry and both seek to become the single dominant power, and they will try to do so by rallying smaller countries to their side, by whatever means they can.
Players will control the central government of a fictional nation and guide their policies to steer their nation through the years. To make a nation, choose advantages and disadvantages and fill out the form below. Superpowers get ten points to spend, normal nations get five points. Advantages that are in bold cost three points for Superpowers and two for normal powers, all others cost one. Disadvantages will earn you a half point (except Agrarian, which will earn a full point), up to a maximum of five points.
The actual game will move in turns representing roughly two years of real world time, players will interact with each other and make decisions about how to allocate their nations resources, prioritizing things like building a stronger military or investing infrastructure, which will have effects as time passes. World events will disrupt the status quo occasionally just to make things more interesting. When we've got enough people to start I'll have everything hashed out.
Name: Form of government: Leader: Brief History: Advantages: Disadvantages:
Massive population: Your nation has a large population, giving it manpower for war and industry. Superpowers start out with a large population already and may only take it once, regular nations are able to take this advantage twice.
Fully industrialized: Your nation has completed the transition to an advanced economy with modern infrastructure. They are more productive, and don’t have to worry about encouraging urban growth and nurturing industries
Technology Leader: Your nation has a world class educational system and is a constant source of high quality research, it is much easier for you to discover technological advances.
Unscathed by the war: The fighting barely touched your homeland, sparing the need for a costly rebuilding after the war.
Influential Ideology: Your nation’s ideology has admirers around the world, which will aid you with espionage and possibly even start rebellions for your cause.
Breadbasket: Your nation has particularly productive farmland, making it easy to feed your population and export food.
Oil rich: Your nation has significant oil deposits, allowing you to be self sufficient and supply others.
Friendly geography: Something about your nation’s natural features, whether it is narrow mountain passes or a hostile climate, makes invasions difficult.
Military Tradition: Your nation has a long history of warfare and fighting other nations. They keep a large standing army to ensure readiness even in times of peace, and the civilian population is more tolerant of war
Command Economy: The government exercises near complete control of the economy, giving them less obstacles to implementing large scale efforts.
Culture of conformity: Citizens of your country value the collective will and hesitate to go against the grain, reducing dissent.
Nuclear ready: For superpowers, this means that your nation has successfully built and tested a nuclear weapon before the end of the war. For ordinary nations, it means that they can begin the development process immediately.
Agrarian: Subsistence agriculture is still the norm for most of your citizens, cities have only just begun to modernize, there’s a long way left to go in terms of development. Incompatible with Fully Industrialized
Backwater: Education is poor and there is little in the way of research happening. New developments will take longer to reach your country, especially without outside help. Incompatible with Technology Leader.
Cultural Conflict: Your nation is afflicted with deep divides, whether they are ethnic, religious or something else. They create many conflicts, especially when tensions flare up. Can be taken twice for even more intense divisions. Incompatible with Culture of Conformity.
Independent Media: Your nation has an influential and unrestricted press, which is always quick to draw attention to failures and shady dealings. Dissent comes more easily, and the population has less tolerance for war. Incompatible with Culture of Conformity.
Food Insecure: Your nation is prone to periodic crop failures, which lead to devastating famines without outside aid. Modernization may lessen this problem. Can be taken twice to indicate food insecurity too deep for even modern agriculture to help.
Fragile Peace: The government’s position is precarious, especially given your nation’s history of violent civil wars. It is very easy for small bits of discontent to spiral out of control.
Weak Centralization: The central government has difficulties with local governments across your country, whether it is because of corruption or laws that limit it. Initiatives coming from above may find themselves impeded as lower level politicians put up resistance.
Colonial Power: Much of your nations power rests with nations it has colonized, nations who now seek independence. Holding on to them will be difficult, letting them leave will mean giving up much of your power.
Entrenched Traditions: There are traditions that your nation has clung to since ancient history that stand at odds with modern society. They will slow down modernization and hurt production from advanced industries.
Small Population: Your population is small, limiting your total output.
Hostile Neighbors: You have longstanding disputes with nations on your borders that could easily lead to future wars. Can be taken twice to indicate that the country has numerous neighbors all of whom are hostile.
Military Incompetence: There are deep-seated problems with your nation’s military leadership, it’s inevitable that they will occasionally loses battles that they should’ve been able to win easily.
Devastated by war: The war hit your nation particularly hard, rebuilding will be a slow and painful process, possibly needing outside aid. Incompatible with Unscathed by the war.
Lastly, just to let those who were there for the interest check know and to reserve a second post in case I need space: @BingTheWing@Taeryn@Inkdrop@Treshan
Also if I can be the germany I already have an idea for it. Zellonia would be the name and the Advantage would be Miltiary Tradition with several Disadvantages.
Yes, it's easier that way. You can request where you want to be roughly on the world map if you have a preference, and I'll do my best to take it into account when I draw up the map before we start.
Also if I can be the germany I already have an idea for it. Zellonia would be the name and the Advantage would be Miltiary Tradition with several Disadvantages.
That's fine. Remember, you have five points to spend as a normal nation, you could take on other advantages like Fully Industrialized and Technology Leader if you want to make Germany (East or West). Disadvantages aren't mandatory, they're just a way to get more points to spend on advantages if you want. The raw number of advantages or disadvantages doesn't matter as long as you don't go over the point limit. Superpowers have ten points, normal nations have five, and either can gain up to five additional points by taking on disadvantages. It takes two disadvantages to earn an additional point (except for Agrarian, which will earn a point all by itself). If anyone has suggestions just let me know. By the way, if you wants to make your nation one of the two superpowers, please mention this when filling out your nation sheet.
Will our nations be using real weapons too? Or at least copies/close copies of them?
Basically. You'll go through the technological advances like the real world, and decide what you want to prioritize. I could see someone deciding to pursue cancelled projects like the XB-70 or Object 279 instead of what was actually chosen historically, but it will all be close to history.
Crapcrapcrap I've been slacking off
By the way, will we start directly after the war ends or a few years later?
One year after the war, all of the treaties and mop up are finished but not all of the deployed troops have returned home.
This is gonna be tricky - the history of both the world wars and the Cold War placed heavy emphasis on international relations. Globalization was on the rise during this time and there wasn't a single country who wasn't affected by another's actions.
Also, colonialism - I'm pretty sure most of the countries nowadays were either colonizers or colonies themselves. So I'm not sure how non-colonizer countries will go about making their CS.
Therefore, I suggest that we establish at least two superpowers, several major colonial powers and the participants in the war first before moving on to other things. I don't think we can start the RP coherently without having these roles taken (NPCs controlled by the GM would do).
This is gonna be tricky - the history of both the world wars and the Cold War placed heavy emphasis on international relations. Globalization was on the rise during this time and there wasn't a single country who wasn't affected by another's actions.
Also, colonialism - I'm pretty sure most of the countries nowadays were either colonizers or colonies themselves. So I'm not sure how non-colonizer countries will go about making their CS.
Therefore, I suggest that we establish at least two superpowers, several major colonial powers and the participants in the war first before moving on to other things. I don't think we can start the RP coherently without having these roles taken (NPCs controlled by the GM would do).
The focus on international relations is a big part of why I made this RP, if everything goes well it'll a lot of options for player interactions. For colonialism, I made the Colonial Power disadvantage to represent a situation similar to Britain or France after the war, a powerful nation with a colonial empire that's slipping away and will force them to make some tough choices. If someone wants to make a nation that is a former colony, mention it in the brief history section and I'll make an NPC nation out of the colonizer (unless you get the OK from another player for their nation to be the former colonizer). There's always options for nations without colonial issues, there were plenty of nations who lost their colonial empires that were dismantled before the end of World War 2.
Hmm, all well and good, but what I'm saying here is that we need a lot of essential roles filled before we start, lest we have major holes in our histories. Perhaps make a list of roles that need to be filled first?
Name: Afrikaanis Major Form of government:Classic Monarchy Leader: King Munashe Obama Brief History: This large nation taking up a good portion of the upper-middle section of Africa was once a pride empire spanning much of Africa and even part of Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. It was that way for about two centuries, but it did not last. A massive civil war erupted, after many long years of disrespecting natives and even enslaving them. That civil war did not in itself tear the nation to pieces, but outside invaders finished off the already weakened state. One of those nations took a large chunk of Afrikaanis Major, the one chunk that incidentally had intense oil fields, and turned it into a colony. The empire broke apart like a meteorite, and was never to regain her former glory.
Afrikaanis Major was a colony for about a hundred years before World War Two broke out. Relatively untouched by World War One, she was in a prime position to help out her mother nation. The wealth from her oilfields had only shown itself recently, due to the oncoming age of machines. It had nonetheless turned the country into a modern wonderland. Electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles, paved roads… it was an absolute gem of the desert. The many huge refineries and rigs around the country pumped out a Mississippi River worth of oil. That, coupled with the already impressive navy bolstered by her motherland’s navy, meant that AM was a major boost to her mother country during the First World War and was set to do the same in World War Two. However, there was something different about this war. She had been harried by zeppelins in World War One, but those usually either drifted off course due to wind or were turned into fireballs by intense antiaircraft fire.
This time, giant metal bomb trucks, unaffected by wind, much tougher against AAA, and in much greater numbers, bombed the daylight out of Afrikaanis Major. Her developing air force fought as hard as they could with their excellently trained pilots, but they rarely had the top of the line aircraft other nations did. Even as the war reached the middling years, they still used Gladiator IIs and Mark IIB Hurricanes. Despite her highly developed state, Afrikaanis Major lacked the facilities or knowledge to design and build aircraft, plus they were forbidden to do so by their motherland. The Gladiator was an obsolete biplane with the novel modern touch of an enclosed canopy. The Hurricane was a good aircraft, but they were old designs, and they were showing their age. The Afrikaanis Major Air Corps (AMAC) was helped greatly by the arrival of P-39 K-1 Airacobras scrounged from across the world in the middling years. Technically, she was not allowed to do that, but her motherland was too occupied to care. These aircraft, while sub-par in design and difficult to fly, were at least modern and fast. Plus, they all came with a thirty-seven millimeter cannon in the nose. This weapon proved to be rather effective against the bombers that so badly harassed the little African nation.
Afrikaanis never faced a land invasion. A few commando raids did cause issues along the Mediterranean coast, but there was nothing major. A few volunteer divisions fought in other lands, and usually were slaughtered because they were thrown into the worst battles. It was good that there were no land threats to AM herself, because the Afrikaanis Major Land Corps (AMLC, often pronounced AM-LICK) had a small armored division and had been neglected like other parts of the Afrikaanis Major Armed Forces. Since Afrikaanis Major had never faced any real aerial or land-based threats during World War One, most armed divisions withered under severe neglect. The Afrikaanis Major Naval Corps (AMNC, often called AM-NICK) was the only division to get major support. As such, this short-ranged but powerful naval force was the only part not in need of major upgrading when the Second World War broke out. It was also why the AMLC was never fully utilized on their own soil. Afrikaanis Major is surrounded by either vast desert, unforgiving mountains, or a heavily guarded sea depending on where you are coming from. A major land invasion was considered suicidal.
The air war, on the other hand, was a battle that continued on a fevered pitch from day one to V-day. The charred carcasses of various aircraft and their crews can still be found littering the desert. Bombs rained down and set off massive secondary explosions in the refineries, killing dozens and poisoning what little agricultural land there was with chemicals from ordnance, undetonated bombs and antiaircraft shells, and spilled oil. Some bombers, unable to find their targets, would instead drop their bombs on cities. Thousands of civilians died, and the metropolises were turned into wastelands. The flow of oil was kept going, but at great human, environmental, and financial cost. The AMAC (A-MACK) lost many pilots and many machines to the never ending furball over the oilfields. They never did get any good, modern aircraft from their motherland. The best they got was second-hand P-63C Kingcobras, about a year from the end of the war, which were an updated and “improved” version of their P-39s. They still were not great but at this point the nations that harried Afrikaanis Major were being weakened by other forces.The last major air battle occurred on New Year’s Day of the last year. With four lost P-63s, two downed P-39s, a blown up oil rig with two dead workers, and five Afrikaanian pilots dead, the enemy raids… stopped coming. The primitive radar warning system never again picked up an enemy formation.
Afrikaanis Major received word of the Allied victory a few months later. King Obama asked for financial assistance from the motherland, since Afrikaanis Major was absolutely ruined at this point. The refineries were disasters waiting to happen, with many jury-rigged and hastily repaired systems just waiting for a chance to explode or spew flaming liquid. There were intense fires in the oil fields. Many cities were cratered and had broken utilities from bombs. She was in dire straights, but her motherland never answered. A month or two later, several ships arrived in the capital’s port and dumped off a shipment of Mark XIV Spitfires, A-36A Invaders, and A-24B Banshees, plus a letter from the Queen saying that Afrikaanis was now a sovereign nation all on her own. The Spitfires were not numerous enough to cover all seven squadrons, but were able to replace the Kingcobras in five of them. The A-24s and A-36s, while having some age on them, were far superior to the prehistoric and ineffective Hurricanes still making up the AMAC’s attack wings. A few treats arrived for the ground forces as well. New guns and other pieces of equipment came, with plans and details on how to build them, and a small handful of new Comet tanks.
Afrikaanis Major had a situation that was not desirable in the slightest. She was suddenly a sovereign nation with positively wrecked infrastructure and a devastated populace. She had no plan for this. The government scrambled to make something of this situation. Even as the refineries constantly caught fire and/or exploded due to their hasty repairs and crews struggled to extinguish the burning fields of oil, the black stuff was exported to everyone and used to fuel massive repair efforts. These are still ongoing. This money was also used to upgrade the M4 Shermans still serving as the primary battle tank in the AMLC to M4-FL-10s. These were Shermans with improved engines and the turret of a French tank mounted in place of the standard affair. Afrikaanis Major is still struggling. Her agricultural sector is totally gone, and is expected to be that way for many years to come. Many are dead, many are homeless, and many more are wounded or disabled.
Now this little nation must push forward into a new era and rise from her own oil-soaked ashes.
Looks good, a lot of detail on the history section. That's a good thing, but it's also fine if someone wants to give less when making their application. I wouldn't count distrustful of other nations as a disadvantage, as it's more about how the nation approaches diplomacy rather than a feature of their society. If that distrust was strong enough that they reject the influence of other nations even when doing so makes modernization and development harder, you could take Entrenched Traditions. As is it's accepted, and you can post it in the characters tab. As of your bio, I guess there was a first world war in this world also, but I'll leave the details of what happened in it up to whoever wants to fill them in.
Bing, that's a good idea but I'm not sure how I want to handle it. I'll make an edit to the OP soon with something to address that.
