Consultation on military & economic power rankings

[jamescfm]

1. Points have been raised about the guidance that only nations ranked Very Strong for military power should comfortably presume they can have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers, whilst nations ranked Strong are urged to consider very carefully before doing so. Even if you feel some nation should change ranking, in principle is this a good guideline to have? Or ought it to be altered or even removed?

Fundamentally this makes sense but would it not raise issues when countries slide down the rankings? Unless an anti-nuclear player 'seizes control', as it were, what would be the explanation for the disappearance of nuclear weapons? That said, I think it is an issue that needs addressing because the tension that it causes is clear to see.

2. It has been noted that some of the nations in the Strong and even Very Strong rankings have not been much actively role-played with recently. This is true. The reason for this is that a lot of Particracy players, especially the longer-serving ones, are understandably averse to things changing too dramatically and too fast, which means some nations are retaining their high rankings on the basis of perceptions which were created through role-play done in the past. With the draft rankings, we tried to strike a balance between not unsettling players too much by making radical changes, and allowing nations to rise to more prominent positions on the basic of much more recent/current role-play. Did we strike the balance right? A question worth reflecting on, perhaps.

The reason I pick on Indrala specifically is not only because it has lacked activity but because of the nature of the activity that it has had. I remember the 'Socialist Workers Party' withdrawing from dozens of treaties (or at least trying to) and removing the monarch. This would undoubtedly cause economic chaos and I feel that should be reflected in the rankings.

[Nolan]

I would disagree that Hobrazia economic rating is weak as the main base of the economy is manufacturing.

[Reddy]

I would disagree that Hobrazia economic rating is weak as the main base of the economy is manufacturing.

We only worked based on what we could find. There's no recent roleplay or bills (that I saw) about the development of any kind of manufacturing industry in Hobrazia. That does not mean that one cannot be developed through constant RP in that area and of course this is a consultation, does anyone agree with Nolan that Hobrazia has not been ranked correctly?

[Reddy]

One active RPer is Reddy, who since playing in Saridan sought to import naval equipment from Istalia's primary naval construction company, the implication being that Reddy accepts Axxell's assertions that Istalia can and does produce high-tech, high-cost naval equipment. But in the rankings, Reddy (along with Aquinas) says Istalia is only a middling power, implying that Istalia can't maintain or produce carriers and similar ships.

No, that's not what I meant to imply at all. My participation in RP as a player is separate from my duties as a Moderator but I anticipated that this kind of thing might happen with us now handling these voluntary RP rankings so I have already made the decision not to partake actively in international RP anymore. This kind of an appearance of a conflict of interest would only weaken public confidence in the integrity of the Moderation team.

[CCP]

One active RPer is Reddy, who since playing in Saridan sought to import naval equipment from Istalia's primary naval construction company, the implication being that Reddy accepts Axxell's assertions that Istalia can and does produce high-tech, high-cost naval equipment. But in the rankings, Reddy (along with Aquinas) says Istalia is only a middling power, implying that Istalia can't maintain or produce carriers and similar ships.

No, that's not what I meant to imply at all. My participation in RP as a player is separate from my duties as a Moderator but I anticipated that this kind of thing might happen with us now handling these voluntary RP rankings so I have already made the decision not to partake actively in international RP anymore. This kind of an appearance of a conflict of interest would only weaken public confidence in the integrity of the Moderation team.

Well I would personally regret that since you bring so much energy and quality to international RP. I know you have some other concerns besides just my post, but just to clarify, my point in raising the Istalian example and pointing out Saridan's interaction with the Axxell's company was to demonstrate how rankings like this don't really relate to the way the game is played. Aquinas helpfully pointed out that Istalia was actually ranked 'Small' in the previous rankings which I didn't realize. But despite that, no one hesitated to buy ships from his thread because it was clear he had put so much thought and effort into it and that it would enrich the game. This kind of static, update-triannually-and-avoiding-abrupt-changes rankings list doesn't reflect how we're playing the game now. It's imposing an abstraction on the game that isn't directly-enough related to what's happening in the game now. I'm going to talk to some players and see if we can come up with a more workable solution.

[Wobach]

I'm the player, who holds the position of President in our country.

And I must say, that I'm satisfied with the military ranking and partially with the economic rankings.

Darnussia greatly improved its GDP mostly due to privatisation of important industries, liberal investment & stock laws and subsidies for small companies. I would also like to point out international cooperation and equal opportunity for everyone in Darnussia. We've even had a programme to quickly boost our economy called the NEP, it's been long since then, but I believe that the money we've made then hasn't simply gone away, here's something about it:
http://forum.particracy.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=66&start=90

[Axxell]

What do you think of a less rigid continuous ranking? It will be very difficult to respect a fixed number for each category! Because: how the mods can foresee how many players will be active and how many nations will be promoted or demoted?
For example: if there are 4 nations where the players or one of them (accepted by all the nation players obviously) have created good RP that justifies a promotion but in the next category there are only 1 nations which have to be demoted? What will you do? Do you promote only one and will ignore the others? Or, in the case that in an higher rank you have to demote 3 nations but from the lower category there are only 1 nation to be promoted. What will you do?
I proposed to other players to maintain the category (very weak, weak, ecc...) but to create two continuus ranking from the weaker nation to the most powerful nation. In this way, the more active in RP nations if there are the conditions, could be placed on the highest position of their category ready to move to the next category if they will maintain their RP quality and activity (obviously, it will be an RP activity that could justify a progress, because if in a nation starts a RP that see the instauration of a isolationist and traditional dictature, obviously all the world will aspect losing positions).
Again, in this way it's possible to considerer the existence of nation that could be living a moment of economical expansion that leads them to be able to have larger capacities of others in the same category.
For example, my nations: in effect, I'm the first to have expressed myself badly. In fact, I'm not too concerned by the position in the military ranks, me too accept an everage positions, but Istalia are making all the necessary step to go beyond and I would like ask that it will be recognize an average position with a little improved capacity.
At least we don't act as a superpower, Vanuku did, in fact it's a superpower, while my nation has put beside Kalistan and always has been waiting the orders from Kalistan. When Kalistan withdrew from the projected humanitarian multinational mission, Istalia accepted because we could make only this! Istalia took, obliged, diplomatic decision that Vanuku, as a superpower, was not required to consider.
We started to reach a large international consensus, we started to try to create a core of nations against the slavery, etc... (like the awareness campaign for the human rights: we have see how a superpower has been able to easily ignore all these things and deploy its fleet without too much trouble and sure to prevail).
Again, Istalia still have to work! And in recent newspaper articles I talked about also the critical issues, also about our new "superpower" fleet. The Navy will have from now and still for a long time only the two carrier build until now, which for still long time will have limited capacity given the quality of the aircrafts owned by the Armed Forces.
And also by the side of the RP economics, like the two RP istalian company in the forum: I'm tried to create two company that for the most part of their history they remained major economical players only in homeland while outside they operated mainly in third world nations (no-playable nations) or otherwise getting enough behind the giants of the RP companies of the past.
Just now they are rising! Many RP companies are today no active, why do not suppose that they have been in financial difficulties or followed possible internal crisis of their nation (if also inside the nation fall the RP activity), or were sold and splitted between some other companies and shareholders, etc... and now other companies are taking an advantage? Advantage that do not appears overnight obviously! My companies are not multinational, just in a very smal extent Enist (always as in position very distant from the giants at the first places of the market) and for Leonardi I think that reflect the economical position of Istalia (also in real world not only the superpower produce advanced devices).
In general the description of the average powers has a bit disturbed me, because it's true that we are an average power, but I think that this can't be only judge from the equipement of a nations, because it's possible, like in my case, that one armed force today is a good level, but in general the military capacity of the nation is affected also by the situation of the other forces (for example the air force equipment is today unable to be at service of a "great powers minded nation" and today our capacity of projection of the force is limited and the nation will still maintain this situation for some time).

But I would ask: six months are a too small period to made a realistic evolution? You also proposed to make a review of the ranking three time each years, each 4 months, how slow have to be a RP to be realistic in respect of the needs of no too fast changement?

[jamescfm]

Honestly, I really like the rankings and I would hate to see them disappear, although perhaps I am biased in that sense. I think the main issue is that we have two criteria which need to be satisfied to make them most effective yet they seem to be almost contradictory. More specifically, it is incredibly difficult to include all players in the process while keeping the updates regular. At the moment, the system is rigid but involves a good deal of discussion whereas the opposite would be a fortnightly/monthly ranking that is decided authoritatively by moderation or the RP Team or whoever. In my view, we just need to keep improving the system until we strike that balance.

[JuliaAJA]

I will say that Cildania did have science and technology spending in the 5% of GDP range for a few centuries with only minor gaps. I know we need a relatively easy system to implement and that basing ratings off of RP might be the ideal combination of simplicity and accuracy but I do think we need to pair that with a process, such as this, to allow for debate of the ratings. I have only begun in Dolgaria so I have no problem with its ratings and I hope to improve them over time.

[phonexia]

I feel that we need a way to account the off-forum activities like increasing/decreasing budgets for certain programs for prolonged periods of time. For example, having at least 30 years of increasing military spending, for the sake of example from 2% to 4% of GDP, in combination with relaxing regulations on the military's ability to develop and manufacture weapons should at least have some effect on the ranking of a nation. Maybe not enough to promote them to a superpower or even a great power without at least some forum activity, but it should defiantly at least be able to affect nations on the weak-average level. Same with massively cutting the budget for the military. That could at least give some impact to the off-forum players or newer players that may not be as comfortable with the real in-depth forum RP. It also can prevent a nation from getting a bunch of pacifists in charge who may cut the budget for the military in massive amounts from doing so without consequence.

Basically, my weigh in on this conservation is that I feel off-forum activity and budget control should play at least some part in a nation's rankings, at the very least its military ranking.