Fred wrote:My issue with power protocols and spreadsheets rests on the inability to agree how to objectively quantify power in a game largely based on role-play, the impracticable workload of keeping such an index up to date, and the (IMO, unnecessary) limit such a thing would place on RP.
My spreadsheet can be updated every game-month.
As for quanitfying power, EEL had attempted a Power Index before (with numbers).
Pale has done 2 listings (Power & Development), where Aquinas and I spoke and I said this:
What would have been cool, if it could have been implemented, is the attachment of a cost to each policy. For example, universal healthcare would require a specific amount of money per citizen to be fully efficient, and an active professional army would need money as well. That way, every nation would have a recommended budget, and it would be assumed that they're underdeveloped (or unable to provided enough services as planned) if they don't meet those spending levels.
This was the intention of EEL's NPI, which inspired my latest spreadsheet.
All we would do is attach a budgetary cost to nuclear weapons maintenance, and see which countries could afford it or not.
They would have to have a minimum level of Infrastructure/Transport and Science/Technology spending per capita.
Their Defence spending would need to be able to cover their military expenses (tanks, guns, nuclear weapons, etc.) - the intention of OTAF.
A Particracy government can't, for example, have the lowest military spending in the world, yet claim to have an active professional military and nuclear weapons, then go into war as some superpower. Their defence budget should be able to afford their claimed military capabilities (OTAF again).
Farsun and I have spoken, and I had planned to make an OTAF spreadsheet. I could merge this with my latest spreadsheet, to have a single spreadsheet for calculating the military and economic details of any nation at any time.