It is the year 1900, and stormclouds are gathering. Thirty years ago, the Atlantic Federation formed in response to the conquest of the Nord Republic by the Three Emperors League, later reformed into the East Europan Imperial Alliance. Today, tensions along the borders are running high, in the last five years there has been an average of over one major incident a year. Shots fired in Afrique, a Vinland merchantman seized by Imperial coast guards in the Pacific, a world hurtling towards a conflict that in many ways seems inevitable. The question is less if, and more when the armies of east and west Europa will clash, and how the war will be waged when they do.
Valkyria Chronicles: Drums of War
- Thread starter Ithillid
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 290
- Recent readers
- 238
- Threadmarks
- 28
-
Statistics (12 threadmarks, 55k words)
User Total Ithillid 12 -
Loading…
-
Loading…
-
Loading…
Nation Selection
- Location
- The Underdark
Valkyria Chronicles: Drums of War
It is the year 1900, and stormclouds are gathering. Thirty years ago, the Atlantic Federation formed in response to the conquest of the Nord Republic by the Three Emperors League, later reformed into the East Europan Imperial Alliance. Today, tensions along the borders are running high, in the last five years there has been an average of over one major incident a year. Shots fired in Afrique, a Vinland merchantman seized by Imperial coast guards in the Pacific, a world hurtling towards a conflict that in many ways seems inevitable. The question is less if, and more when the armies of east and west Europa will clash, and how the war will be waged when they do.
State Selection
[ ] United Kingdom of Edinburgh
The strong right arm of the Federation, the United Kingdom of Edinburgh has oft been described as a land of shopkeepers and merchants, safe across the channel and often far from Europan concerns. But it is also the seat of a global empire, the place where the treaties that bind the federation together were signed, and the home of some of the worlds most cutting edge development.
Walls of Oak: The Edinburgh navy has a tradition of being second to none, and while that is fading in the modern day, it has not faded yet. The navy, is a significant source of pride for the people and government of Edinburgh, and its upkeep is a requirement for any economic leader.
The Sun Never Sets: The flag of Edinburgh flies in the sun, no matter the time of day, due to a vast network of colonies. While few are particularly profitable, they are both a great source of wealth, and a great vulnerability for the Kingdom.
[ ] United States of Vinland
Vinland has always seen itself as a frontier, as separate from Europan affairs, and as a place of endless possibilities and limitless ambition. With many who could not find a home in Europa leaving to pass through the golden gates of Vinland, the country has quickly sprawled across much of a continent. While it has fallen far short of its ideals, and has an often fractious internal political sphere, it, more than any other nation in the Federation has the potential to upend the balance of power.
Far from the Front: The United States of Vinland, more than any other power in the Atlantic Federation, is insulated from the horrors and strains of the war. While other nations may fear Imperial incursions and coastal raids, the USV is distant, protected by oceans to both its east and west.
Budding Powerhouse: The USV has recently made the transition from being a debtor nation to a creditor nation, and has begun fully exploiting its natural resources. Steel, coal, ragnite, and a thousand other products flow into and out of its factories. While not as developed in many ways as Europa, it has the most growth potential of any nation in the Atlantic Federation.
[ ] Revolutionary Republic of Valois
Valois often considers itself the birthplace of Freedom. When Vinland rebelled, it was based on ideas penned by writers from Valois. And, for much of the last century, it has been on the front lines of a struggle between liberation and reaction. Today however, it stands side by side with others who will not see a government of the people, by the people, and for the people be stricken from this world.
Revolutionary State: The time of monarchs is over, the dusk of oligarchs has come. Citizens, rise up and take what is yours! The Republic of Valois has cast off the shackles of Monarchy, and has fought for its freedom time and time again. The people are no strangers to privation and deprivation, and will continue to fight, as they have for much of the last century.
Economically Limited: Valois has often been the battlefield of Europa as it is today. While it has allies now, Valois's ability to fund military, scientific, and economic development is dramatically limited, and with war on the horizon, you must perform economic miracles on a regular basis.
A/N: I am very much stuck with Mechanist Quest, don't want to run Sequelquest with things as unsettled as they are (and I have made sure that there is an out of country backup of all of my notes and plans, just in case) So have this. Not sure how long I will manage to keep with it, but as the fox likes to say, fuckit we ball. Take two hours to discuss, and I will call the vote tomorrow.
A/N2: buy me a coffee at: Ko-fi.com/ithillid
It is the year 1900, and stormclouds are gathering. Thirty years ago, the Atlantic Federation formed in response to the conquest of the Nord Republic by the Three Emperors League, later reformed into the East Europan Imperial Alliance. Today, tensions along the borders are running high, in the last five years there has been an average of over one major incident a year. Shots fired in Afrique, a Vinland merchantman seized by Imperial coast guards in the Pacific, a world hurtling towards a conflict that in many ways seems inevitable. The question is less if, and more when the armies of east and west Europa will clash, and how the war will be waged when they do.
State Selection
[ ] United Kingdom of Edinburgh
The strong right arm of the Federation, the United Kingdom of Edinburgh has oft been described as a land of shopkeepers and merchants, safe across the channel and often far from Europan concerns. But it is also the seat of a global empire, the place where the treaties that bind the federation together were signed, and the home of some of the worlds most cutting edge development.
Walls of Oak: The Edinburgh navy has a tradition of being second to none, and while that is fading in the modern day, it has not faded yet. The navy, is a significant source of pride for the people and government of Edinburgh, and its upkeep is a requirement for any economic leader.
The Sun Never Sets: The flag of Edinburgh flies in the sun, no matter the time of day, due to a vast network of colonies. While few are particularly profitable, they are both a great source of wealth, and a great vulnerability for the Kingdom.
[ ] United States of Vinland
Vinland has always seen itself as a frontier, as separate from Europan affairs, and as a place of endless possibilities and limitless ambition. With many who could not find a home in Europa leaving to pass through the golden gates of Vinland, the country has quickly sprawled across much of a continent. While it has fallen far short of its ideals, and has an often fractious internal political sphere, it, more than any other nation in the Federation has the potential to upend the balance of power.
Far from the Front: The United States of Vinland, more than any other power in the Atlantic Federation, is insulated from the horrors and strains of the war. While other nations may fear Imperial incursions and coastal raids, the USV is distant, protected by oceans to both its east and west.
Budding Powerhouse: The USV has recently made the transition from being a debtor nation to a creditor nation, and has begun fully exploiting its natural resources. Steel, coal, ragnite, and a thousand other products flow into and out of its factories. While not as developed in many ways as Europa, it has the most growth potential of any nation in the Atlantic Federation.
[ ] Revolutionary Republic of Valois
Valois often considers itself the birthplace of Freedom. When Vinland rebelled, it was based on ideas penned by writers from Valois. And, for much of the last century, it has been on the front lines of a struggle between liberation and reaction. Today however, it stands side by side with others who will not see a government of the people, by the people, and for the people be stricken from this world.
Revolutionary State: The time of monarchs is over, the dusk of oligarchs has come. Citizens, rise up and take what is yours! The Republic of Valois has cast off the shackles of Monarchy, and has fought for its freedom time and time again. The people are no strangers to privation and deprivation, and will continue to fight, as they have for much of the last century.
Economically Limited: Valois has often been the battlefield of Europa as it is today. While it has allies now, Valois's ability to fund military, scientific, and economic development is dramatically limited, and with war on the horizon, you must perform economic miracles on a regular basis.
A/N: I am very much stuck with Mechanist Quest, don't want to run Sequelquest with things as unsettled as they are (and I have made sure that there is an out of country backup of all of my notes and plans, just in case) So have this. Not sure how long I will manage to keep with it, but as the fox likes to say, fuckit we ball. Take two hours to discuss, and I will call the vote tomorrow.
A/N2: buy me a coffee at: Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Informational Post
- Location
- The Underdark
Nation: TBD
Name: TBD
Departments
Discord Link: Join the PoptartProdigy Discord Discord Server!
(Discord is a good place to ask questions, and I use it for feedback. Be aware that anything posted to the Discord is not final product. Often I ask questions or pose ideas as a test, so you won't be missing out on much if you don't join
Name: TBD
Departments
Discord Link: Join the PoptartProdigy Discord Discord Server!
(Discord is a good place to ask questions, and I use it for feedback. Be aware that anything posted to the Discord is not final product. Often I ask questions or pose ideas as a test, so you won't be missing out on much if you don't join
Vote closed
Chapter 1: Countdown
- Location
- The Underdark
Chapter 1: Countdown
Stepping off the train in Roosevelt was an experience. A wall of cold slammed into you as snow covered the ground, partially melted with a generous application of salt. You saw a kid pacing along the edge of the station, scattering salt with abandon. Your office building would not be a long walk. Heading along the sidewalk, fairly recently poured but already spattered with tobacco juice stains, you could see a bustle of city life, not like out west where you had been assigned to one of the small towns on the silver route.
Your destination was a particularly nondescript brownstone office building, indistinguishable from the outside from any others on the blocks preceding it along the National Road that lead to the White House. Stepping inside, it smelled new, of pine sap and sawdust, paint and plaster in a way that had not yet been cut by cleaning products and ink. To your left, there was a constant click clack of the autotelegraphs and the tap tap of the typewriters hooked up to them, hammering out messages as fast as they could.
- - - -
Your office was a bit bigger than the rest of the offices in the building, but that was mostly taken up by machinery and filing cabinets. Across the front of the desk was your nameplate, Chester Adams.
Sitting down at your desk, a newspaper has been laid out before you, the Roosevelt Daily Tribune. A good paper, one that took its job as the news source for the nation's lawmakers seriously. Blazoned across its top reads the headline "Smith's Hyperborean expedition fired upon by Imperial forces! Ambassador claims breach of territorial integrity! Smith claims driven south by storm!" and another incident. Joy. They kept coming, and sooner or later, some damn fool would get shot, and the whole world would plunge headfirst into the fire. And Vindland was far from ready. One only had to walk by the naval shipyards downriver to see that. Antiquated, creaking things designed for wooden ships a half century ago, not modern war machines. Anther headline grabs your eye "Future of rifles revealed, Walt Repeating Arms company demonstrates Model 1900! Fires as fast as you can pull the trigger!" and you can't hold back a snort. Walt's gun was a range toy at best. The stock was fragile, and the damn thing kicked harder than an angry mule on a good day. And trying to run a military round through it broke the action two times out of three. The rest were, for the most part, fluff pieces. A couple of ones praising the new administration, not that the incoming president needed a bigger head.
- - - -
A knocking at your doorframe pulls you out of your newspaper, and the head is instantly recognizable. Ká:nien,your assistant in this department, dressed, as usual in a heavy formal jacket, and reinforced moccasins. "Sir, the carriage for your 10 o'clock budget meeting is here to take you to the legislative building."
Pushing your chair back, and getting up from behind your desk "Good, please, join me for this one. I have a feeling that this is going to be when we finally make a deal, and you are going to need to send a lot of telegrams when we get out."
"Of course sir, I already have my bag packed for just such an occasion" replied Ká:nien, chipper as ever.
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Taxes are low, butter is flowing, and for the average citizen, conflict is a distant affair. While there is substantial unrest from labor organizing, the temperance movement has cut down apple orchards across a couple of states, and there are a hundred other minor fires, right now, things are, on average, getting better. People feel like there is more money in their pockets than there was this time last year, and the year before that.
Political Support: Medium
At this point, you are an experiment, and are being rushed into service. Most of your staff is pillaged from other government offices, the machinery is pulled from spares, and the mandates are loose to say the least. So right now, you need to hit the ground running with a program, the more aggressive the better.
Status of Factions
Status of Factions is less parties in power, and more factions within those parties. There are strong bonds between the parties at this point in history, and oftentimes a faction is heavily regionally associated. For example, the Progressives are strong in the northeastern cities, while the Agrarianists are strong in the southern plantation belt. However, Progressives and Agrarians are part of the same Federalist Party.
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
The progressive party is a relatively elitist and reformist party. While not noblesse oblige, the core of the progressive movement is middle and upper class old money that sees the conditions of sweatshops and factories and of lower class life in general and feels a desire to help, more than it comes from the lower class themselves.
Agrarianists: Weak Support
The Agrarianists or the grange as they refer to themselves are reformist smallholders for the most part, looking for a lax monetary policy, and federal intervention in agriculture to make it more sustainable, alongside setting up farming cooperatives, and other means for small farmers to maintain crop prices at a living wage.
Proletarians: Weak Support
Proletarians are a bottom up group, largely in favor of workers rights, unionization, regulations on business and a host of other issues largely relating to workers power. You are likely to do little to address many of their issues, aside from producing large numbers of well paying government jobs.
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Jacksonians as they term themselves largely build their position on opposition to the federal government. While building army and naval strength is, as they see it within your remit, other activities should be largely left to the states.
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
The Fiscalists are, more than anything else, budget hawks. While happy to spend money on pet projects, they usually tie these projects to tax increases, particularly tariffs intended to protect their businesses.
N/B: These are the most prominent groups right now, there are others, but I am trimming them back to get this update out in a reasonably short order.
Readiness of Forces
(Readiness of forces is on a 5 point scale, Low, Mediocre, Medium, High, Very High)
Army: Low
Vinland's army is far more of a pro-forma force than an actual military. Only a few tens of thousands strong, and the vast majority of them dotted in penny packets around the periphery, mostly manning various naval fortresses, the Army lacks in nearly all aspects of modern warfighting, with rifles, uniforms, fixed artillery (mostly Dahlgren pattern naval rifles in casemates) and little else.
Navy: Medium
Vinland's navy is a solid, professional force. At its core is an oversized fleet of battleships of a relatively modern class and type, displacing just over ten thousand tons, and carrying 13 inch naval rifles, with an array of different calibers of secondary and tertiary armament. Beyond that, much of the navy is of an older pattern, steel hulled hybrid rigged ships, slow and cumbersome under sail, and underpowered under steam.
Current Economic Issues:
Energy: Limited Infrastructure 3/21 zones energized
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +4, +1 per turn
Promises
Must pick at least 3, picking and completing more than 3 is beneficial. Push goals count as two promises.
[ ] Highway Administration
Vinland's road network is, a mess to put it lightly. While major cities like Roosevelt have modern macadamized roads, signals in intersections, and assorted other improvements, just a few miles outside and things go from prepared road to dirt track in short order. Beginning to build a modern, standardized network of post roads, connecting major cities would do a significant amount to both ease mobilization efforts, and provide avenues for economic development.
(Build at least 24 points of road capacity across the four year span)
[ ] Army Preparedness Initiatives
Vinland's army is in a notably poor state. In some ways, it has always been in a poor state due to chronic underfunding. And it will take time to turn that military into something that is ready to fight a modern war. Investments in bringing new technologies to readiness, modernizing equipment, and simply expanding resources for shells, machine guns, body armor, and the like,
(Bring army readiness to mediocre) Push: (Bring Army Readiness to Medium)
[ ] Ragnite Exploitation
Ragnite is a wonder material, used in everything from power generation, to medication, to armor. Vinland, overall, is behind the curve. While Federal Alchemic and a number of other companies have small scale Ragnite extraction operations, substantially more investment will both increase economic activity, and help bring Vinland to a substantially better position.
(Bring at least 20 points of ragnite onto the market)
[ ] Energy Infrastructure Improvements
Electrification is a long term process, and one that will take a long time, even with all levels of government working together smoothly, and it being a priority. However, it is also a vital necessity, as electrification allows for improvements in both productivity and quality of life.
(Electrify at least 5 regions) Push: (Electrify at least 10 regions)
[ ] Dockyard Upgrade Projects
Vinland requires major investment into its docks, especially as every ounce of equipment will have to be transported across the ocean on its warships and merchant marine. Dockyard expansions are the first step in making that happen. While substantial dockyard infrastructure does exist, much of it will need to be modernized or upgraded to meet the challenges of the new century.
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to level 5) Push: (Expand at least two docks to Level 5)
Project References
Expected Budget
250 resources per turn
4 Infrastructure dice (+5 bonus)
4 Light and Chemical Industry dice
4 heavy industry dice (+10 bonus)
4 Raw materials and exploitation dice
3 Bureaucracy dice
[ ] Regional Electrification
Regional Electrification is going to be highly variable, from a minimum of approximately 500 points of progress, at an approximate 15 resources per die cost, to over 1500 points of progress at a cost of over 20 resources per die, depending on region and and methodology.
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
-[ ] Level 1
Level one dockyards are small, designed to construct small boats, fishing vessels, and assorted lightweight craft. While important for coastal trade, the coast guard, and sporting and similar. These, are best suited for building a new skill base, rather than practical production. (Progress 0/100)
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 0/200)
-[ ] Level 3
A serious shipyard, Level 3 shipyards are capable of building anything but the largest ships afloat. While throughput limited, these are best suited to building cruisers, larger merchant vessels, and similar. (Progress 0/400)
-[ ] Level 4
Level 4 shipyards are substantially larger and more capable. Designed to be able to build anything currently afloat, these shipyards are designed for limited throughput, but can even build battleships and some of the largest bulk carriers, such as the haulers that carry Vinland's grain to Valois and Edinburgh. (Progress 0/800)
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials makes these an all in one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600)
A/N1: Take two hours for debate, and a couple days for voting.
A/N2: The tip jar very much does help me stay able to do things like this. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Stepping off the train in Roosevelt was an experience. A wall of cold slammed into you as snow covered the ground, partially melted with a generous application of salt. You saw a kid pacing along the edge of the station, scattering salt with abandon. Your office building would not be a long walk. Heading along the sidewalk, fairly recently poured but already spattered with tobacco juice stains, you could see a bustle of city life, not like out west where you had been assigned to one of the small towns on the silver route.
Your destination was a particularly nondescript brownstone office building, indistinguishable from the outside from any others on the blocks preceding it along the National Road that lead to the White House. Stepping inside, it smelled new, of pine sap and sawdust, paint and plaster in a way that had not yet been cut by cleaning products and ink. To your left, there was a constant click clack of the autotelegraphs and the tap tap of the typewriters hooked up to them, hammering out messages as fast as they could.
- - - -
Your office was a bit bigger than the rest of the offices in the building, but that was mostly taken up by machinery and filing cabinets. Across the front of the desk was your nameplate, Chester Adams.
Sitting down at your desk, a newspaper has been laid out before you, the Roosevelt Daily Tribune. A good paper, one that took its job as the news source for the nation's lawmakers seriously. Blazoned across its top reads the headline "Smith's Hyperborean expedition fired upon by Imperial forces! Ambassador claims breach of territorial integrity! Smith claims driven south by storm!" and another incident. Joy. They kept coming, and sooner or later, some damn fool would get shot, and the whole world would plunge headfirst into the fire. And Vindland was far from ready. One only had to walk by the naval shipyards downriver to see that. Antiquated, creaking things designed for wooden ships a half century ago, not modern war machines. Anther headline grabs your eye "Future of rifles revealed, Walt Repeating Arms company demonstrates Model 1900! Fires as fast as you can pull the trigger!" and you can't hold back a snort. Walt's gun was a range toy at best. The stock was fragile, and the damn thing kicked harder than an angry mule on a good day. And trying to run a military round through it broke the action two times out of three. The rest were, for the most part, fluff pieces. A couple of ones praising the new administration, not that the incoming president needed a bigger head.
- - - -
A knocking at your doorframe pulls you out of your newspaper, and the head is instantly recognizable. Ká:nien,your assistant in this department, dressed, as usual in a heavy formal jacket, and reinforced moccasins. "Sir, the carriage for your 10 o'clock budget meeting is here to take you to the legislative building."
Pushing your chair back, and getting up from behind your desk "Good, please, join me for this one. I have a feeling that this is going to be when we finally make a deal, and you are going to need to send a lot of telegrams when we get out."
"Of course sir, I already have my bag packed for just such an occasion" replied Ká:nien, chipper as ever.
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Taxes are low, butter is flowing, and for the average citizen, conflict is a distant affair. While there is substantial unrest from labor organizing, the temperance movement has cut down apple orchards across a couple of states, and there are a hundred other minor fires, right now, things are, on average, getting better. People feel like there is more money in their pockets than there was this time last year, and the year before that.
Political Support: Medium
At this point, you are an experiment, and are being rushed into service. Most of your staff is pillaged from other government offices, the machinery is pulled from spares, and the mandates are loose to say the least. So right now, you need to hit the ground running with a program, the more aggressive the better.
Status of Factions
Status of Factions is less parties in power, and more factions within those parties. There are strong bonds between the parties at this point in history, and oftentimes a faction is heavily regionally associated. For example, the Progressives are strong in the northeastern cities, while the Agrarianists are strong in the southern plantation belt. However, Progressives and Agrarians are part of the same Federalist Party.
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
The progressive party is a relatively elitist and reformist party. While not noblesse oblige, the core of the progressive movement is middle and upper class old money that sees the conditions of sweatshops and factories and of lower class life in general and feels a desire to help, more than it comes from the lower class themselves.
Agrarianists: Weak Support
The Agrarianists or the grange as they refer to themselves are reformist smallholders for the most part, looking for a lax monetary policy, and federal intervention in agriculture to make it more sustainable, alongside setting up farming cooperatives, and other means for small farmers to maintain crop prices at a living wage.
Proletarians: Weak Support
Proletarians are a bottom up group, largely in favor of workers rights, unionization, regulations on business and a host of other issues largely relating to workers power. You are likely to do little to address many of their issues, aside from producing large numbers of well paying government jobs.
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Jacksonians as they term themselves largely build their position on opposition to the federal government. While building army and naval strength is, as they see it within your remit, other activities should be largely left to the states.
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
The Fiscalists are, more than anything else, budget hawks. While happy to spend money on pet projects, they usually tie these projects to tax increases, particularly tariffs intended to protect their businesses.
N/B: These are the most prominent groups right now, there are others, but I am trimming them back to get this update out in a reasonably short order.
Readiness of Forces
(Readiness of forces is on a 5 point scale, Low, Mediocre, Medium, High, Very High)
Army: Low
Vinland's army is far more of a pro-forma force than an actual military. Only a few tens of thousands strong, and the vast majority of them dotted in penny packets around the periphery, mostly manning various naval fortresses, the Army lacks in nearly all aspects of modern warfighting, with rifles, uniforms, fixed artillery (mostly Dahlgren pattern naval rifles in casemates) and little else.
Navy: Medium
Vinland's navy is a solid, professional force. At its core is an oversized fleet of battleships of a relatively modern class and type, displacing just over ten thousand tons, and carrying 13 inch naval rifles, with an array of different calibers of secondary and tertiary armament. Beyond that, much of the navy is of an older pattern, steel hulled hybrid rigged ships, slow and cumbersome under sail, and underpowered under steam.
Current Economic Issues:
Energy: Limited Infrastructure 3/21 zones energized
- Coal: +6
- Oil: +4
- Ragnite: +2
- Rail: +7
- Naval: +2
- Road: +1
- Quantity: Plentiful
- Quality: Low to Mixed
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +4, +1 per turn
Promises
Must pick at least 3, picking and completing more than 3 is beneficial. Push goals count as two promises.
[ ] Highway Administration
Vinland's road network is, a mess to put it lightly. While major cities like Roosevelt have modern macadamized roads, signals in intersections, and assorted other improvements, just a few miles outside and things go from prepared road to dirt track in short order. Beginning to build a modern, standardized network of post roads, connecting major cities would do a significant amount to both ease mobilization efforts, and provide avenues for economic development.
(Build at least 24 points of road capacity across the four year span)
[ ] Army Preparedness Initiatives
Vinland's army is in a notably poor state. In some ways, it has always been in a poor state due to chronic underfunding. And it will take time to turn that military into something that is ready to fight a modern war. Investments in bringing new technologies to readiness, modernizing equipment, and simply expanding resources for shells, machine guns, body armor, and the like,
(Bring army readiness to mediocre) Push: (Bring Army Readiness to Medium)
[ ] Ragnite Exploitation
Ragnite is a wonder material, used in everything from power generation, to medication, to armor. Vinland, overall, is behind the curve. While Federal Alchemic and a number of other companies have small scale Ragnite extraction operations, substantially more investment will both increase economic activity, and help bring Vinland to a substantially better position.
(Bring at least 20 points of ragnite onto the market)
[ ] Energy Infrastructure Improvements
Electrification is a long term process, and one that will take a long time, even with all levels of government working together smoothly, and it being a priority. However, it is also a vital necessity, as electrification allows for improvements in both productivity and quality of life.
(Electrify at least 5 regions) Push: (Electrify at least 10 regions)
[ ] Dockyard Upgrade Projects
Vinland requires major investment into its docks, especially as every ounce of equipment will have to be transported across the ocean on its warships and merchant marine. Dockyard expansions are the first step in making that happen. While substantial dockyard infrastructure does exist, much of it will need to be modernized or upgraded to meet the challenges of the new century.
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to level 5) Push: (Expand at least two docks to Level 5)
Project References
Expected Budget
250 resources per turn
4 Infrastructure dice (+5 bonus)
4 Light and Chemical Industry dice
4 heavy industry dice (+10 bonus)
4 Raw materials and exploitation dice
3 Bureaucracy dice
[ ] Regional Electrification
Regional Electrification is going to be highly variable, from a minimum of approximately 500 points of progress, at an approximate 15 resources per die cost, to over 1500 points of progress at a cost of over 20 resources per die, depending on region and and methodology.
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
-[ ] Level 1
Level one dockyards are small, designed to construct small boats, fishing vessels, and assorted lightweight craft. While important for coastal trade, the coast guard, and sporting and similar. These, are best suited for building a new skill base, rather than practical production. (Progress 0/100)
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 0/200)
-[ ] Level 3
A serious shipyard, Level 3 shipyards are capable of building anything but the largest ships afloat. While throughput limited, these are best suited to building cruisers, larger merchant vessels, and similar. (Progress 0/400)
-[ ] Level 4
Level 4 shipyards are substantially larger and more capable. Designed to be able to build anything currently afloat, these shipyards are designed for limited throughput, but can even build battleships and some of the largest bulk carriers, such as the haulers that carry Vinland's grain to Valois and Edinburgh. (Progress 0/800)
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials makes these an all in one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600)
A/N1: Take two hours for debate, and a couple days for voting.
A/N2: The tip jar very much does help me stay able to do things like this. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Vote closed
1900 (Early)
- Location
- The Underdark
1900 Part 1
"Ká:nien, now that we have our marching orders, I have some messages for you to deliver."
"Of course, sir." replies Ká:nien, finding a nearby bench and pulling out his pen and pad of paper. "Ready to receive dictation."
"To the Secretary of the Army: The Development Bureau will, in the coming months, likely be putting out tenders for new carbines, machine guns, armor, and other supplies. We would like the highest priorities posthaste. Put all the usual pleasantries around that."
"'Sincerely, Chester Adams, etc, etc.' got it."
Plan Goals
(Bring army readiness to mediocre)
(Bring at least 20 points of ragnite onto the market)
(Complete at least 5 Electrification Stages)
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to level 5)
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Taxes are low, butter is flowing, and for the average citizen, conflict is a distant affair. While there is substantial unrest from labor organizing, exploitation of the workforce, the temperance movement has cut down apple orchards across a couple of states, and there are a hundred other minor fires, right now, things are, on average, getting better. People feel like there is more money in their pockets than there was this time last year, and the year before that.
Political Support: Medium
At this point, you are an experiment, and are being rushed into service. Most of your staff is pillaged from other government offices, the machinery is pulled from spares, and the mandates are loose, to say the least. So right now, you need to hit the ground running with a program, the more aggressive the better.
Status of Factions
Status of Factions is less parties in power, and more factions within those parties. There are strong bonds between the parties at this point in history, and oftentimes a faction is heavily regionally associated. For example, the Progressives are strong in the northeastern cities, while the Agrarianists are strong in the southern plantation belt. However, Progressives and Agrarians are part of the same Federalist Party.
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
The progressive party is a relatively elitist and reformist party. While not strictly motivated by noblesse oblige, the core of the progressive movement is middle and upper class old money that sees the conditions of sweatshops and factories and of lower class life in general and feels a desire to help, rather than drawing from the lower class themselves.
Agrarianists: Weak Support
The Agrarianists or the Grange as they refer to themselves, are reformist smallholders for the most part. Their agenda favors a lax monetary policy to ease debt burdens, federal intervention in agriculture to make it more financially sustainable, creation of farming cooperatives, and other means for small farmers to maintain crop prices at a living wage.
Proletarians: Weak Support
Proletarians are a bottom up group, largely in favor of workers rights, unionization, regulations on business and a host of other issues largely relating to workers' power. You are likely to do little to address many of their issues, aside from producing large numbers of well paying government jobs, which is reflected in their limited support.
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Jacksonians, as they term themselves, largely build their position on opposition to the federal government. While building army and naval strength is, as they see it, within your remit, they feel other activities should rightfully be left to the states.
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
The Fiscalists are, more than anything else, budget hawks. While happy to spend money on pet projects, they usually tie these projects to tax increases, particularly tariffs intended to protect their businesses.
N/B: These are the most prominent groups right now, there are others, but in the interest of time they are not being mentioned right now.
Readiness of Forces
(Readiness of forces is on a 5 point scale, Low, Mediocre, Medium, High, Very High, measuring how confident that force is in prosecuting its expected duties. A Very High readiness military that expects to only defend its home nation would likely falter if sent abroad, while a Mediocre military that is meant to go on expeditions may prove quite hardy fighting close to their own bases.)
Army: Low
Vinland's army is far more of a pro-forma force than an actual military. Only a few tens of thousands strong, and the vast majority of them dotted in penny packets around the periphery, mostly manning various naval fortresses, the Army lacks in nearly all aspects of modern warfighting, with rifles, uniforms, fixed artillery (mostly Dahlgren pattern naval rifles in casemates) and little else. It cannot be relied upon to do anything other than fight a war on Vinland's shores, and even that it expects to do poorly.
Navy: Medium
Vinland's navy is a solid, professional force. At its core is an oversized fleet of battleships of a relatively modern class and type, displacing just over ten thousand tons, and carrying 13 inch naval rifles, with an array of different calibers of secondary and tertiary armament. Beyond that, much of the navy is of an older pattern, steel hulled hybrid rigged ships, slow and cumbersome under sail, and underpowered under steam.
Current Economic Issues:
Energy: Limited Infrastructure
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +4, +1 per turn
Resources :250 resources per turn 0 in reserve
Infrastructure (4 Dice, +5 Bonus)
[ ] Post Road Expansions (Phase 1)
Vinland's road network is not awful. However, it is deeply sectionalized. Major cities and their immediate surroundings are quite modern, with metalled, cobbled, or macadamized roads, modern signalling, and assorted other advantages. However, there are large stretches of the country where roads are, at best, dirt tracks. If they exist at all.
(Progess 0/400: 10 resources per die) (+5 Road Logistics)
(Progress 0/500: 10 resources per die) (+4 Road logistics)
(Progress 0/600: 10 resources per die) (+3 Road Logistics)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Railroad Amenities Improvements
Vinland has a substantial rail network, especially connecting major cities. However, the quality of that rail is a very mixed bag, especially in the south and west of the country. Launching government-funded programs to improve signalling, encourage best practices, improve stations, replace timber trestles with more capable and less maintenance heavy construction, and otherwise upgrade facilities will increase both safety and throughput for many of the nation's growing rail routes.
(Progress 0/250: 10 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Electrification
Build and expand the electrical grid in the seven regions of Vinland, constructing power plants, switches, transformers, power poles and everything else needed to bring electrical energy to the people.
-[ ] Dawnbreak (Stage 3)
While major cities and transport corridors are increasingly electrified, there are substantial areas, including a number of major towns, that have not yet received electricity. For the most part, this is a process of building or contracting to build power lines, rather than power plants, although they will need substantial work as well.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Daylit (Stage 1)
While the Daylit region has a number of local power plants in areas like Shikaakwa, the overall region is still very much in the dark. While the region is ripe for wind power, it would have to be a secondary supply, with cities and heavy industry relying more on thermal power projects.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Dusk March (Stage 1)
The Dusk March sees vast inequality, and great poverty in many cases. While historically one of the wealthier parts of the nation, its economy, powered by luxury goods, has suffered greatly in recent decades as demand and export markets have shifted. The need to put down the cavaliers that ruled the region has caused further disruption.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Still Reaches (Stage 1)
The Still Reaches are in some ways still very much a frontier. While the region's mountains are wonderful for hydroelectric power, much of the skill and labor will have to be imported, making it a noticeably more expensive project.
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/300: 25 resources per die)
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Old Vins (Stage 2)
Old Vins is extensively urbanized, and many of those urban centers are extensively electrified. Electrification projects would be primarily focused on joining those centers together into a regional network, and working on a number of hydroelectric power stations from local waterfalls and other hydraulic features of the region.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Valkyrian Aegis (Stage 1)
The Aegis is largely less settled, with a substantial number of nomadic and seminomadic tribes ranging the region. While electrification is not going to be cheap, the region also does not demand much in the way of power.
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/300: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Deep Reaches (Stage 1)
The deep reaches are not fully explored, and are the far frontier. While settlement is extremely light, each settlement will need localized power generation, dramatically increasing costs, especially given that those power generators will need to be shipped in from the industrialized east.
(Progress 0/275: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice)
[ ] Guncotton Plants
Guncotton, or nitrocellulose, is the basis of modern smokeless powders, made by the treatment of organic fibers with nitric acid. It is used as a mining explosive and in most modern munitions, everywhere from the smallest pistol rounds to the largest of shells.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] New Salem Armory Upgrades
The New Salem Armory is one of the larger government owned and operated armories in the United States of Vinland. Unfortunately, it is also deeply outdated, with the last major order given to it being the later model trapdoor rifles.
(Progress 0/150: 15 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Heavy Industry (4 dice, +10 bonus)
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
Ships and boats of all stripes are absolutely critical to the economy, and the war effort. Investing in the dockyards will enable Vinland to expand, build, and maintain, the merchant marine, the fisheries, and the navy. Upgraded dockyards increase the maximum size of ships they are capable of producing as well as their total production capacity.
-[ ] Level 1
Level one dockyards are small, designed to construct small boats, fishing vessels, and assorted lightweight craft. While important for coastal trade, the coast guard, and sporting and similar, these yards are best suited for building a new skill base, rather than practical production of shipping with major economic impact. (Progress 0/100: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Casborough
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Palmetto
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Shikaakwa
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 3
Level 3 shipyards are serious shipyards, capable of building all but the largest ships afloat. While throughput limited, these are best suited to building naval cruisers, and large merchant vessels. (Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Hunter's Point Shipyard
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 4
Level 4 shipyards are substantially larger and more capable. Designed to be able to build anything currently afloat, these shipyards are designed for limited throughput, but can build battleships, great ocean liners, and some of the largest bulk carriers, such as the haulers that carry Vinland's grain to Valois and Edinburgh. (Progress 0/800: 20 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods)
--[ ] Charlestown
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Providence
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials makes these an all in one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600: 20 resources per die) (-2 Capital Goods)
--[ ] New Amsterdam
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Portsmouth
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Cold Springs Artillery Foundry
One of the larger artillery foundries operated by the United States, the Cold Springs facility is woefully out of date, with large portions of it still designed around older cast iron modes of production rather than modern steel. Upgrading and refitting it to modern standards will be a substantial project, but it will be useful for whatever modern guns are adopted by the military.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Roosevelt Naval Gun Factory Expansion
While Roosevelt's naval gun factory is substantial and relatively modern, it is not large enough. With demand for naval rifles expected to double, if not triple, in the coming years and decades, a major investment now will create capacity for future naval shipbuilding efforts, and potentially expansion of the naval fort system.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Raw Materials and Exploitation 4 dice
[ ] Ragnite Prospecting Expeditions
Sending prospectors into the reaches, where there are vast tracts of federal land awaiting exploitation, is going to be a substantial project, with no certain payoff. (5 resources per die)
[ ] Metals Prospecting Expeditions
Similar to ragnite, but with somewhat different tools and methods, metals prospecting, especially for high quality ores, is an uncertain process, but one that could seriously enrich the United States if pursued boldly. (5 resources per die)
[ ] National Refinery Program
While Vinland is one of the world's major suppliers of oil and oil products, refining is a bit more of a mixed bag, with significant amounts being refined in particularly wasteful ways, with a sizable fraction of the crude left over as unprofitable or inconvenient to refine waste to be burned, or dumped into local waterways. Building a number of high tech refineries, either for the government, or in partnership with existing major oil companies, will noticeably enhance the yield of useful products from the refined crude while producing less waste.
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Request Bids for Partnerships
[ ] Military Readiness Programs
Public health is military health, and Vinland has seen noticeable declines due to a number of factors in the recent decades.
-[ ] Vaccination Campaigns
While the health of the people is under threat from multiple directions, one of the major factors is infectious disease. Treatments exist, but an ounce of prevention is often far more effective than even a pound of cure, and vaccines are an excellent method of prevention. (20 resources per die)
-[ ] Malnutrition Treatment Protocols
Malnutrition, and especially childhood malnutrition, are a major cause of the decline of healthy young men available for military service. Nothing cures it like a proper diet can, and a broad approach to encourage doctors to prescribe nutritious foods, ensure children eat at least one healthy and filling meal at school during lunch, and government funded food programs to supplement the diets of the poor will do much. (5 resources per die)
-[ ] Standardized Housing Projects
Crowded housing, poor temperature controls, and more, all contribute to poor health. Establish minimum construction and maintenance standards for housing in the various regions and states of Vinland and enforce them. (10 resources per die)
-[ ] Water Safety Standards
Contaminated water is a major vector of all sorts of diseases. While most major urban areas have access to water treatment facilities, many rural communities draw their water from wells or open bodies of flowing or stagnant water. Increase the availability of clean, potable water. (15 resources per die)
Bureaucracy 3 dice
[ ] Army Machine Gun Trials
While the navy has adopted the Palmcrantz machine gun, it is too large and heavy for infantry or cavalry use. Serious machine gun trials, with the full intent to adopt something suitable, would be a good starting point for Vinland's army.
[ ] Field Artillery Trials
Between guncotton, breech loading, and ragnite, modern field artillery has become an entirely different beast from what it was a generation ago. With significant portions of the military using either pneumatic dynamite guns or old style cannon for their field artillery needs, something modern is very much desired, especially if it is planned to fight in the fields of Valois.
[ ] Carbine Trials
While the Blackfeather carbine is a fairly impressive gun, with a long history of use, it is still a black powder lever action weapon. It has been surpassed by modern weapons in foreign use, and needs replacement with a weapon that is capable of handling modern propellants. A modern carbine would be of great help to not only the cavalry, but also artillery, engineers, and assorted other units that need a weapon smaller and handier than a full length military rifle.
[ ] Munition Armor Trials
Advances in metallurgy in the past thirty years have begun a true revolution in armor design, at least in Europa. Treated armor steel, aluminum protection, and other experimental concepts must be assessed for full scale military deployment, though this is a fairly mature field with few true surprises in design. It remains an open question which units will adopt added protection, and how much they wish to add.
Mechanics Partnerships, Contracting, and Trials
From a purely mechanical perspective, all three work in basically similar ways. You look for bids, I generate two to four, and then you get to pick which one or ones you want to invest in. From there, however, you get different projects. These projects are started by throwing a die at the problem, this represents the bureaucratic overhead of starting in on looking for people/getting the word out that you want submissions for a new item.
In a partnership, you now have a limited amount of time to put dice and resources into a joint project between you and an industrial company. There is a time pressure, typically 1-3 turns, but the net cost is going to be cheaper than doing the project entirely by yourself.
In a contract, you are going to be paying more than if you did the work internally, but you can spend just resources over time, and save all of your dice for other projects.
Finally, in a Trial, you pick a winner (or in some potential outside cases where you have a particularly broad trial, winners) and then have to move on to building capacity to produce said equipment.
Partnership Example
National Widget factory
-[ ] Request Bid for Partnership
On results post
[ ] Omni mega corp
3 dice, 60 resources, 1 turn, 30 percent government ownership, 25 resource penalty
[ ] Local Contracting Industries
2 dice, 40 resources, 2 turns, 20 percent government ownership, 15 resource penalty
Contract Example
National Widget Factory
-[ ] Request bid for contract
On results post
[ ] Genericus Industrial Applications
3d30 progress per turn, 20 resources per turn
[ ] Smalltown Construction
5d10 progress per turn, 10 resources per turn
Trials Example
National Widget Trials
On results post
[ ] Expensive Artisan Work
Get a 400 Progress, 30 Resources per Die project for handcrafted widgets that are probably pretty good
[ ]Mass Production Are Us
Get a 300 Progress, 20 Resources per Die project for piles of widgets that are still passable
A/N1: Take a couple hours for discussion, and a couple days for voting. Will do the management through
A/N2: I know times are tough for everyone right now, but the tip jar is at Ko-fi.com/ithillid
"Ká:nien, now that we have our marching orders, I have some messages for you to deliver."
"Of course, sir." replies Ká:nien, finding a nearby bench and pulling out his pen and pad of paper. "Ready to receive dictation."
"To the Secretary of the Army: The Development Bureau will, in the coming months, likely be putting out tenders for new carbines, machine guns, armor, and other supplies. We would like the highest priorities posthaste. Put all the usual pleasantries around that."
"'Sincerely, Chester Adams, etc, etc.' got it."
Plan Goals
(Bring army readiness to mediocre)
(Bring at least 20 points of ragnite onto the market)
(Complete at least 5 Electrification Stages)
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to level 5)
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Taxes are low, butter is flowing, and for the average citizen, conflict is a distant affair. While there is substantial unrest from labor organizing, exploitation of the workforce, the temperance movement has cut down apple orchards across a couple of states, and there are a hundred other minor fires, right now, things are, on average, getting better. People feel like there is more money in their pockets than there was this time last year, and the year before that.
Political Support: Medium
At this point, you are an experiment, and are being rushed into service. Most of your staff is pillaged from other government offices, the machinery is pulled from spares, and the mandates are loose, to say the least. So right now, you need to hit the ground running with a program, the more aggressive the better.
Status of Factions
Status of Factions is less parties in power, and more factions within those parties. There are strong bonds between the parties at this point in history, and oftentimes a faction is heavily regionally associated. For example, the Progressives are strong in the northeastern cities, while the Agrarianists are strong in the southern plantation belt. However, Progressives and Agrarians are part of the same Federalist Party.
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
The progressive party is a relatively elitist and reformist party. While not strictly motivated by noblesse oblige, the core of the progressive movement is middle and upper class old money that sees the conditions of sweatshops and factories and of lower class life in general and feels a desire to help, rather than drawing from the lower class themselves.
Agrarianists: Weak Support
The Agrarianists or the Grange as they refer to themselves, are reformist smallholders for the most part. Their agenda favors a lax monetary policy to ease debt burdens, federal intervention in agriculture to make it more financially sustainable, creation of farming cooperatives, and other means for small farmers to maintain crop prices at a living wage.
Proletarians: Weak Support
Proletarians are a bottom up group, largely in favor of workers rights, unionization, regulations on business and a host of other issues largely relating to workers' power. You are likely to do little to address many of their issues, aside from producing large numbers of well paying government jobs, which is reflected in their limited support.
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Jacksonians, as they term themselves, largely build their position on opposition to the federal government. While building army and naval strength is, as they see it, within your remit, they feel other activities should rightfully be left to the states.
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
The Fiscalists are, more than anything else, budget hawks. While happy to spend money on pet projects, they usually tie these projects to tax increases, particularly tariffs intended to protect their businesses.
N/B: These are the most prominent groups right now, there are others, but in the interest of time they are not being mentioned right now.
Readiness of Forces
(Readiness of forces is on a 5 point scale, Low, Mediocre, Medium, High, Very High, measuring how confident that force is in prosecuting its expected duties. A Very High readiness military that expects to only defend its home nation would likely falter if sent abroad, while a Mediocre military that is meant to go on expeditions may prove quite hardy fighting close to their own bases.)
Army: Low
Vinland's army is far more of a pro-forma force than an actual military. Only a few tens of thousands strong, and the vast majority of them dotted in penny packets around the periphery, mostly manning various naval fortresses, the Army lacks in nearly all aspects of modern warfighting, with rifles, uniforms, fixed artillery (mostly Dahlgren pattern naval rifles in casemates) and little else. It cannot be relied upon to do anything other than fight a war on Vinland's shores, and even that it expects to do poorly.
Navy: Medium
Vinland's navy is a solid, professional force. At its core is an oversized fleet of battleships of a relatively modern class and type, displacing just over ten thousand tons, and carrying 13 inch naval rifles, with an array of different calibers of secondary and tertiary armament. Beyond that, much of the navy is of an older pattern, steel hulled hybrid rigged ships, slow and cumbersome under sail, and underpowered under steam.
Current Economic Issues:
Energy: Limited Infrastructure
- Electrical Infrastructure: 3/21 Stages completed
- Coal: +6
- Oil: +4
- Ragnite: +2
- Rail: +7
- Naval: +2
- Road: +1
- Quantity: Plentiful
- Quality: Low to Mixed
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +4, +1 per turn
Resources :250 resources per turn 0 in reserve
Infrastructure (4 Dice, +5 Bonus)
[ ] Post Road Expansions (Phase 1)
Vinland's road network is not awful. However, it is deeply sectionalized. Major cities and their immediate surroundings are quite modern, with metalled, cobbled, or macadamized roads, modern signalling, and assorted other advantages. However, there are large stretches of the country where roads are, at best, dirt tracks. If they exist at all.
(Progess 0/400: 10 resources per die) (+5 Road Logistics)
(Progress 0/500: 10 resources per die) (+4 Road logistics)
(Progress 0/600: 10 resources per die) (+3 Road Logistics)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Railroad Amenities Improvements
Vinland has a substantial rail network, especially connecting major cities. However, the quality of that rail is a very mixed bag, especially in the south and west of the country. Launching government-funded programs to improve signalling, encourage best practices, improve stations, replace timber trestles with more capable and less maintenance heavy construction, and otherwise upgrade facilities will increase both safety and throughput for many of the nation's growing rail routes.
(Progress 0/250: 10 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Electrification
Build and expand the electrical grid in the seven regions of Vinland, constructing power plants, switches, transformers, power poles and everything else needed to bring electrical energy to the people.
-[ ] Dawnbreak (Stage 3)
While major cities and transport corridors are increasingly electrified, there are substantial areas, including a number of major towns, that have not yet received electricity. For the most part, this is a process of building or contracting to build power lines, rather than power plants, although they will need substantial work as well.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Daylit (Stage 1)
While the Daylit region has a number of local power plants in areas like Shikaakwa, the overall region is still very much in the dark. While the region is ripe for wind power, it would have to be a secondary supply, with cities and heavy industry relying more on thermal power projects.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Dusk March (Stage 1)
The Dusk March sees vast inequality, and great poverty in many cases. While historically one of the wealthier parts of the nation, its economy, powered by luxury goods, has suffered greatly in recent decades as demand and export markets have shifted. The need to put down the cavaliers that ruled the region has caused further disruption.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Still Reaches (Stage 1)
The Still Reaches are in some ways still very much a frontier. While the region's mountains are wonderful for hydroelectric power, much of the skill and labor will have to be imported, making it a noticeably more expensive project.
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/300: 25 resources per die)
(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Old Vins (Stage 2)
Old Vins is extensively urbanized, and many of those urban centers are extensively electrified. Electrification projects would be primarily focused on joining those centers together into a regional network, and working on a number of hydroelectric power stations from local waterfalls and other hydraulic features of the region.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Valkyrian Aegis (Stage 1)
The Aegis is largely less settled, with a substantial number of nomadic and seminomadic tribes ranging the region. While electrification is not going to be cheap, the region also does not demand much in the way of power.
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/300: 10 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Deep Reaches (Stage 1)
The deep reaches are not fully explored, and are the far frontier. While settlement is extremely light, each settlement will need localized power generation, dramatically increasing costs, especially given that those power generators will need to be shipped in from the industrialized east.
(Progress 0/275: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice)
[ ] Guncotton Plants
Guncotton, or nitrocellulose, is the basis of modern smokeless powders, made by the treatment of organic fibers with nitric acid. It is used as a mining explosive and in most modern munitions, everywhere from the smallest pistol rounds to the largest of shells.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] New Salem Armory Upgrades
The New Salem Armory is one of the larger government owned and operated armories in the United States of Vinland. Unfortunately, it is also deeply outdated, with the last major order given to it being the later model trapdoor rifles.
(Progress 0/150: 15 resources per die)
-[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Heavy Industry (4 dice, +10 bonus)
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
Ships and boats of all stripes are absolutely critical to the economy, and the war effort. Investing in the dockyards will enable Vinland to expand, build, and maintain, the merchant marine, the fisheries, and the navy. Upgraded dockyards increase the maximum size of ships they are capable of producing as well as their total production capacity.
-[ ] Level 1
Level one dockyards are small, designed to construct small boats, fishing vessels, and assorted lightweight craft. While important for coastal trade, the coast guard, and sporting and similar, these yards are best suited for building a new skill base, rather than practical production of shipping with major economic impact. (Progress 0/100: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Casborough
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Palmetto
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Shikaakwa
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 3
Level 3 shipyards are serious shipyards, capable of building all but the largest ships afloat. While throughput limited, these are best suited to building naval cruisers, and large merchant vessels. (Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Hunter's Point Shipyard
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 4
Level 4 shipyards are substantially larger and more capable. Designed to be able to build anything currently afloat, these shipyards are designed for limited throughput, but can build battleships, great ocean liners, and some of the largest bulk carriers, such as the haulers that carry Vinland's grain to Valois and Edinburgh. (Progress 0/800: 20 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods)
--[ ] Charlestown
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Providence
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials makes these an all in one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600: 20 resources per die) (-2 Capital Goods)
--[ ] New Amsterdam
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Portsmouth
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Cold Springs Artillery Foundry
One of the larger artillery foundries operated by the United States, the Cold Springs facility is woefully out of date, with large portions of it still designed around older cast iron modes of production rather than modern steel. Upgrading and refitting it to modern standards will be a substantial project, but it will be useful for whatever modern guns are adopted by the military.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
[ ] Roosevelt Naval Gun Factory Expansion
While Roosevelt's naval gun factory is substantial and relatively modern, it is not large enough. With demand for naval rifles expected to double, if not triple, in the coming years and decades, a major investment now will create capacity for future naval shipbuilding efforts, and potentially expansion of the naval fort system.
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Raw Materials and Exploitation 4 dice
[ ] Ragnite Prospecting Expeditions
Sending prospectors into the reaches, where there are vast tracts of federal land awaiting exploitation, is going to be a substantial project, with no certain payoff. (5 resources per die)
[ ] Metals Prospecting Expeditions
Similar to ragnite, but with somewhat different tools and methods, metals prospecting, especially for high quality ores, is an uncertain process, but one that could seriously enrich the United States if pursued boldly. (5 resources per die)
[ ] National Refinery Program
While Vinland is one of the world's major suppliers of oil and oil products, refining is a bit more of a mixed bag, with significant amounts being refined in particularly wasteful ways, with a sizable fraction of the crude left over as unprofitable or inconvenient to refine waste to be burned, or dumped into local waterways. Building a number of high tech refineries, either for the government, or in partnership with existing major oil companies, will noticeably enhance the yield of useful products from the refined crude while producing less waste.
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
--[ ] Request Bids for Partnerships
[ ] Military Readiness Programs
Public health is military health, and Vinland has seen noticeable declines due to a number of factors in the recent decades.
-[ ] Vaccination Campaigns
While the health of the people is under threat from multiple directions, one of the major factors is infectious disease. Treatments exist, but an ounce of prevention is often far more effective than even a pound of cure, and vaccines are an excellent method of prevention. (20 resources per die)
-[ ] Malnutrition Treatment Protocols
Malnutrition, and especially childhood malnutrition, are a major cause of the decline of healthy young men available for military service. Nothing cures it like a proper diet can, and a broad approach to encourage doctors to prescribe nutritious foods, ensure children eat at least one healthy and filling meal at school during lunch, and government funded food programs to supplement the diets of the poor will do much. (5 resources per die)
-[ ] Standardized Housing Projects
Crowded housing, poor temperature controls, and more, all contribute to poor health. Establish minimum construction and maintenance standards for housing in the various regions and states of Vinland and enforce them. (10 resources per die)
-[ ] Water Safety Standards
Contaminated water is a major vector of all sorts of diseases. While most major urban areas have access to water treatment facilities, many rural communities draw their water from wells or open bodies of flowing or stagnant water. Increase the availability of clean, potable water. (15 resources per die)
Bureaucracy 3 dice
[ ] Army Machine Gun Trials
While the navy has adopted the Palmcrantz machine gun, it is too large and heavy for infantry or cavalry use. Serious machine gun trials, with the full intent to adopt something suitable, would be a good starting point for Vinland's army.
[ ] Field Artillery Trials
Between guncotton, breech loading, and ragnite, modern field artillery has become an entirely different beast from what it was a generation ago. With significant portions of the military using either pneumatic dynamite guns or old style cannon for their field artillery needs, something modern is very much desired, especially if it is planned to fight in the fields of Valois.
[ ] Carbine Trials
While the Blackfeather carbine is a fairly impressive gun, with a long history of use, it is still a black powder lever action weapon. It has been surpassed by modern weapons in foreign use, and needs replacement with a weapon that is capable of handling modern propellants. A modern carbine would be of great help to not only the cavalry, but also artillery, engineers, and assorted other units that need a weapon smaller and handier than a full length military rifle.
[ ] Munition Armor Trials
Advances in metallurgy in the past thirty years have begun a true revolution in armor design, at least in Europa. Treated armor steel, aluminum protection, and other experimental concepts must be assessed for full scale military deployment, though this is a fairly mature field with few true surprises in design. It remains an open question which units will adopt added protection, and how much they wish to add.
Mechanics Partnerships, Contracting, and Trials
From a purely mechanical perspective, all three work in basically similar ways. You look for bids, I generate two to four, and then you get to pick which one or ones you want to invest in. From there, however, you get different projects. These projects are started by throwing a die at the problem, this represents the bureaucratic overhead of starting in on looking for people/getting the word out that you want submissions for a new item.
In a partnership, you now have a limited amount of time to put dice and resources into a joint project between you and an industrial company. There is a time pressure, typically 1-3 turns, but the net cost is going to be cheaper than doing the project entirely by yourself.
In a contract, you are going to be paying more than if you did the work internally, but you can spend just resources over time, and save all of your dice for other projects.
Finally, in a Trial, you pick a winner (or in some potential outside cases where you have a particularly broad trial, winners) and then have to move on to building capacity to produce said equipment.
Partnership Example
National Widget factory
-[ ] Request Bid for Partnership
On results post
[ ] Omni mega corp
3 dice, 60 resources, 1 turn, 30 percent government ownership, 25 resource penalty
[ ] Local Contracting Industries
2 dice, 40 resources, 2 turns, 20 percent government ownership, 15 resource penalty
Contract Example
National Widget Factory
-[ ] Request bid for contract
On results post
[ ] Genericus Industrial Applications
3d30 progress per turn, 20 resources per turn
[ ] Smalltown Construction
5d10 progress per turn, 10 resources per turn
Trials Example
National Widget Trials
On results post
[ ] Expensive Artisan Work
Get a 400 Progress, 30 Resources per Die project for handcrafted widgets that are probably pretty good
[ ]Mass Production Are Us
Get a 300 Progress, 20 Resources per Die project for piles of widgets that are still passable
A/N1: Take a couple hours for discussion, and a couple days for voting. Will do the management through
A/N2: I know times are tough for everyone right now, but the tip jar is at Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Last edited:
Vote closed
- Location
- The Underdark
[X] Plan: Long Term Naval Contracts
-[X] Infrastructure (4 Dice, 45R)
--[X] Electrification
---[X] Dawnbreak (Stage 3)
----[X] Request Bids for Contracting: 1D
---[X] Dusk March (Stage 1) 3D, 45R
-[X] Light and Chemical Industry (4 dice; 60R)
--[X] Guncotton Plants: 2d, 30R
--[X] New Salem Armory Upgrades: 2d, 30R
-[X] Heavy Industry (4 dice, 30R)
--[X] Dockyard Expansion
---[X] Level 2
----[X] Shikaakwa 2D, 30R
---[X] Level 5
----[X] New Amsterdam
-----[X] Request Bids for Contracting 1D
--[X] Cold Springs Artillery Foundry
---[X] Request Bids for Contracting 1D
-[X] Raw Materials and Exploitation (4 dice; 20R)
--[X] Ragnite Prospecting Expeditions: 2d, 10R
--[X] Military Readiness Programs
---[X] Malnutrition Treatment Protocols: 2d, 10R
-[X] Bureaucracy (3 dice)
--[X] Army Machine Gun Trials: 1d
--[X] Field Artillery Trials: 1d
--[X] Carbine Trials: 1d
Last edited:
1900 (Early) Results
- Location
- The Underdark
1900 Part 1 Results
Plan Goals
(Bring Army Readiness to Mediocre)
(Bring at least 20 points of Ragnite onto the market)
(Complete at least 5 Electrification Stages)
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to Level 5)
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Political Support: Medium
Status of Factions
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
Agrarianists: Weak Support
Proletarians: Weak Support
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
Readiness of Forces
Army: Low
Navy: Medium
Current Economic Issues:
Resources: 95
Energy: Limited Infrastructure
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +5, +1 per turn
Headlines
Politics
The election is in full swing, with Federalists and Democrats picking candidates. For the Federalists, they have picked an east-and-west pairing. Thomas McKinley, a prominent member of the business wing of the party, and Cheyton Black, a western progressive. While McKinley ran unopposed as the incumbent, his previous vice president had to drop out of the race over health problems, leading to something of a cage match as different party factions attempted to get their man in as vice president.
Comparatively, the Democrats are conducting a rematch, with William Bryan and George Dewey running again against the incumbent president. William Bryan is a long term politician and public speaker. George Dewey is a former admiral of the Vinland Navy.
Given Dewey's tendency towards gaffes and the split in the Democrats on the issue of bimetalism, the Federalists are widely expected to be victorious , but that is far from a certainty. Overall, the major issues are likely to be expeditionism, with the Federalists supporting the creation of an expeditionary army, not just for a potential conflict in Europa, but also because of Vinland's expanding interests in Lydia and elsewhere, as well as bimetallism, which proposes that the currency should be backed with gold and silver both. The Democrats largely – but not entirely – support this notion, while Federalists typically favour using gold alone as the reserve.
Foreign Policy
Valois's debate on the status of glassworkers under their theory of the triune economy has continued to go nowhere. The country understands economics to work in three parts, oftentimes expressed as "roses, bread, and bullets," representing the small economy, the strategic economy, and the state economy respectively. The first category is the small things, the things that make life worth living. Arts, music, writing, and a number of other things are considered to be the core of the small economy, but it also includes luxury foods, and assorted other industries that have limited strategic importance. The second is strategic industries. Mining, staple grains and meats, medicine, and assorted other extractive industries are the core of the strategic economy. Finally, there is the state economy, weapons, shipbuilding, and assorted other core strategic operations.
Glassworkers have traditionally found themselves in the small economy. Glass, while important for things like spyglasses, binoculars, and a handful of other items of military use, was simply not needed in large quantities. Today however, with the massive need for laboratory glass, cameras, optical rangefinding equipment, and assorted other use-cases, there are a number of people arguing that it has become a core strategic priority for the state.
Helena Eulenberg
One of Vinland's more prominent radical mystic feminists, Helena Eulenburg is a leader of the "Freyan Church" and writer of The Heavenly Origins. A book about the 'true origins of the Ancient Valkyrur' which proclaims they came from the second planet of the solar system, which she insists they called Freya. She claims this information was revealed to her via hypnosis and trance-states where she lived her past life as a Valkyrur queen. Since that point, she has written translations of multiple ancient works, oftentimes to substantial criticism from more traditional scholars and local cultures. Most notably her translations of the "Sutras of Tanda Kemenangen" received fairly universal panning, especially by linguists. Despite this, her work is fairly popular in Old Vins and Dawnbreak's elite circles.
Naval Acquisitions
The navy has acquired multiple new experimental craft, as they search for revolutionary ideas. The most notable of these is the newly christened VSS Eagle. While submarine craft are not a new idea, and there have been previous attempts to build militarily viable submarines on both sides of the Atlantic, the Eagle is a substantial leap, capable of extended operations on batteries alone. While still in testing, it is likely to be adopted, and lobbying has begun in congress for the next naval budget to include the purchase or construction of a full sixteen vessel squadron.
[ ] Electrification
Build and expand the electrical grid in the seven regions of Vinland, constructing power plants, switches, transformers, power poles and everything else needed to bring electrical energy to the people.
-[ ] Dawnbreak (Stage 3)
While major cities and transport corridors are increasingly electrified, there are substantial areas, including a number of major towns, that have not yet received electricity. For the most part, this is a process of building or contracting to build power lines, rather than power plants, although they will need substantial work as well.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Dawnbreak is a relatively simple contract, all told. Produce a little bit more power and, more importantly, run electricity out into all of the small towns and bedroom communities. Making matters easier, there are multiple companies that all have local industrial capacity.
The biggest offer is from Federal Alchemic, which actually has an interesting one. They want to use the contract and construction as a chance to train a sizable number of new linemen. While it will be less efficient than doing it in-house with experienced engineers, it is also training up a sizable quantity of personnel, who can then be sent out to further expand the electrical grid either by hiring them directly, or contracting with Federal Alchemic again.
The second is by Watt and Harrelson, one of the older electrical companies in the country. While limited in what resources they have currently available to service the contract, due to bad investments in the last couple of years, they are a perfectly legitimate operation.
And then there is the Harney Electrical Company, and this would be a straightforward case of corporate welfare. Federal Alchemic has been sniffing around a hostile takeover of Harney for years now, and Harney needs good, consistent contracts to survive. However, they are lacking in both equipment and manpower to do work on this scale, meaning that progress will be slow.
Contracts
[ ] Federal Alchemic
Cost: 20 resources per turn
Progress: 3d50 per turn
[ ] Watt and Harrelson
Cost: 15 resources per turn
Progress 2d50 per turn
[ ] Harney Electrical Company
Cost: 5 resources per turn
Progress 1d20 per turn
[ ] Reject [Electrification]
-[ ] Dusk March (Stage 1)
The Dusk March sees vast inequality, and great poverty in many cases. While historically one of the wealthier parts of the nation, its economy, powered by luxury goods, has suffered greatly in recent decades as demand and export markets have shifted. The need to put down the cavaliers that ruled the region has caused further disruption.
(Progress 110/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
Electrification in the Dusk March is starting off slowly, and on the borders with the Dawnbreak as a number of coal plants go up in the border states. The Dusk March, more than any other part of the country, was defined by the Civil War in the middle of the last century, and since that point, not one president has hailed from the region. Much of the area is caught in a cycle of poverty, where they are producing early stage goods, and buying finished goods, and many are effectively cashless, working through general stores and mills to access the broader markets.
Electrification of the region is complicated by political separations, with old divisions, often along racial lines, at the center of chronic infighting on nearly every issue. Power plays, schemes, even outright skullduggery, none of these are unknown in the Dusk March as factions vie to have their districts electrified first, and host the power plants. Although none would be so crass as to say they would use and exploit their control of the power infrastructure to further their position and force rivals to bend the knee or suffer black outs, that does not mean none would perform such an abuse of power.
Beyond that, survey work has begun for a series of run of river dams, and potentially the creation of a number of artificial lakes for power generation. These, while a substantial up front cost, will have relatively low operating cost, compared to ragnite generators or coal power plants, and will provide cheap, reliable energy. While there are some energy companies already doing this, such as the Count Electrical Company in Carolina, they are relatively small, and for the most part vertically integrated into existing industries. For Count, they are providing energy for air conditioning tobacco products, rather than as a utility for all.
[ ] Guncotton Plants
Guncotton, or nitrocellulose, is the basis of modern smokeless powders, made by the treatment of organic fibers with nitric acid. It is used as a mining explosive and in most modern munitions, everywhere from the smallest pistol rounds to the largest of shells.
(Progress 99/250: 15 resources per die)
Guncotton plants require a fundamentally different design than most factories. Working the 'devil's porridge' is a harsh and unforgiving art, because the process of nitrating organic material produces a product that is extremely heat sensitive, and produces a lot of heat simply as a byproduct. The fumes from the product can be detonated by a stray spark, and the idea of using ragnite engines anywhere in the region puts cold sweats in the engineers designing the plant. On the other hand, by this point, it is a fairly well-understood art, with a now typified design, a kilometers-long complex (ideally out in the country) running entirely on piped-in compressed air.
The Hull plant is a good example, built between two railroads heading out of New Amsterdam. Fifteen kilometers long, the facility is effectively four sites, each spaced so that even the complete detonation of one site would not chain to the other three. The plant is actually one of four spaced out along the eastern seaboard, one to its north in Old Vins, two in the Dusklands, and another two are situated out in the midwest.
All of these are being built as cadre factories, designed for small-scale production in times of peace, less than a hundred tons a week, but with the capacity to rapidly ramp production up to meet wartime demands. At full-scale operation they are each capable of manufacturing up to eight hundred tons a week, a pace that would hopefully ensure the six factories can fully supply not only Vinland's army but its allies as well. Scaling up to such a production rate would require substantial further investment into the factory infrastructure to facilitate it, alongside dedicated towns for the workers, and other amenities.
[ ] New Salem Armory Upgrades
The New Salem Armory is one of the larger government-owned and operated armories in the United States of Vinland. Unfortunately, it is also deeply outdated, with the last major order given to it being the later model trapdoor rifles.
(Progress 89/150: 15 resources per die)
The fundamentals of gun design have changed little in the last century. A tube, some lockwork, and a wooden stock. In practice, however, a gun built in the year 1800 has more in common with the first thunderspears than it does with a modern repeating rifle. One of the bigger impacts has been the stamping machine, used both to cut sections from sheet metal and to fold them into shapes. For example, the rotary magazine of a Kamerad-Nielsen rifle makes use of both techniques to create the leaves of the rotor. Similarly, the metalwork has seen a massive series of upgrades, especially as chamber pressures on modern cartridges have shot up. Old rifles rarely saw chamber pressures exceeding 10 tons per square inch, and typically half that if not less. A modern rifle round can often double that number in a service round, let alone the 25 tons per square inch that many of the weapons are proofed at.
And then there are the added complexities of magazines, loading systems, and sights. Old style sights were rarely adjustable, and oftentimes little more than a bead at the end of the rifle. Modern sights comparatively are often very complex systems, oftentimes requiring extremely precise machining work, that can lay reasonably accurate fire out to over a kilometer.
All of this combines into a need for further work to properly upgrade the armory, as it is currently in an unfortunate half-state of being able to perform some of the manufacturing that is needed for modern weapons, and not being able to do the rest as was intended.
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
Ships and boats of all stripes are absolutely critical to the economy, and the war effort. Investing in the dockyards will enable Vinland to expand, build, and maintain the merchant marine, the fisheries, and the navy. Upgraded dockyards increase the maximum size of ships they are capable of producing as well as their total production capacity.
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 145/200: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Shikaakwa
Shikaakwa, located on the great lakes is an interesting project, because it faces limitations few other major shipyards do. The biggest limit is the canal networks that link Shikaakwa to the outside world. On the other hand, the navy is looking into building a new type of ship, a torpedo boat destroyer. Intended as a screening ship armed with small, rapid fire guns, it will protect the battleships from attacks by fast moving boats, while at the same time being proper seagoing vessels. Compared to the Hudson class cutters currently in use by Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Marine, these ships will be noticeably larger, and better armed, although no design has yet been finalized. Even if the Torpedo Boat Destroyer does not work out, there are a number of other designs that the Navy desperately needs to update, most notably harbor defense craft, minesweepers, and assorted other light vessels with proven track records.
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials make these an all-in-one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600: 20 resources per die) (-2 Capital Goods)
--[ ] New Amsterdam
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Your request for bids was responded to by Huntington-Adams, one of the few major contractors for the Navy and Lifesaving Service. While they are currently mostly focused on building Hudson class cutters for the Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Marine, they can detach a handful of engineers and workmen to help on the New Amsterdam Dockyard Expansion project, although the construction of such facilities is not their exact area of expertise.
[ ] Huntington-Adams
Cost: 30 resources per turn
Progress 1d50 per turn
[ ] Reject [Shipyard]
[ ] Cold Springs Artillery Foundry
One of the larger artillery foundries operated by the United States, the Cold Springs facility is woefully out of date, with large portions of it still designed around older cast iron modes of production rather than modern steel. Upgrading and refitting it to modern standards will be a substantial project, but it will be useful for whatever modern guns are adopted by the military.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
The only contract that is worth taking seriously was one from Walt Repeating Arms, offering to sell their old equipment as it is replaced. While it would be a pretty bad deal, all things considered, it would be some amount of consistent progress on the problem.
[ ] Walt Repeating Arms
Cost 10 resources per turn
Progress 3d10 per turn
[ ] Reject [Cold Springs]
[ ] Ragnite Prospecting Expeditions
Sending prospectors into the reaches, where there are vast tracts of federal land awaiting exploitation, is going to be a substantial project, with no certain payoff. (5 resources per die) 115
While there were no high-quality ragnite ore veins found, there were two areas with what seem to be mid-grade ore. One is far more problematic than the other, bordering on the holy Black Hills. The other is in the southwest, with a number of deposits along the Couleurourge River. While neither will be particularly cheap to exploit, they are both viable for exploitation if properly fenced.
The process of searching for ragnite ore often begins not in the field, but in the archives. Ragnite in its natural state, especially in high purity, can have healing effects. While not all of these pan out, sites like the Black Hills are places where there are hundreds of stories of people with wounds that would not heal or incurable sicknesses, going in to die, and being blessed by the spirits of that place. They would then, weeks or months later, walk out of the hills, hale and hearty once more. Once a list of sites has been made, teams are sent out to do chemical testing, looking for tell tails of ragnite deposits, if not ragnite crystals on or near the surface. Many, if not most, do not pan out, or find only trace amounts of ragnite. But if you get lucky, there are ragnite deposits for mining.
[ ] Military Readiness Programs
Public health is military health, and Vinland has seen noticeable declines due to a number of factors in recent decades.
-[ ] Malnutrition Treatment Protocols
Malnutrition, and especially childhood malnutrition, is a major cause of the decline of healthy young men available for military service. Nothing cures it as a proper diet can, and a broad approach to encourage doctors to prescribe nutritious foods, ensure children eat at least one healthy and filling meal at school during lunch, and government-funded food programs to supplement the diets of the poor will do much. (5 resources per die) 113
Each region of the United States faces a different kind of malnutrition. In all of them, it is primarily the domain of the poor, but there are fundamentally different patterns based on settlement and population density. In the north, in Old Vins, and generally along the eastern seaboard, the fundamental problem is a blunt lack of food availability for the urban poor. In the cities, and with the complex supply chains required to feed them, there is considerable volatility to the cost of food, with problems across the region being severely felt, rapidly pricing the poor out of the market. Beyond that, those complex supply chains leave vast holes in supervision, creating opportunities to adulterate food with additives like sawdust, or otherwise cheap but nutritionally useless if not outright dangerous filler materials are included to suppress the cost of production while selling at full price.
Comparatively, in the Dusk March, the major issue is the lack of vitamins among the rural poor. Especially sharecroppers suffer major deficiencies, with scurvy, pellagra and other diseases common in the population. Their diet largely consists of fatback, corn meal and molasses, as economical realities force them to focus their efforts on the production of cash crops and very limited space is left to the production of the vitamin rich vegetables and other products that they need to stay healthy.
Each problem is fundamentally different and requires different approaches. In the north, something as simple as setting up soup kitchens in core urban areas would substantially impact malnutrition rates if done on a sufficiently large scale. In the south, comparatively, the problem is much more heavily focused on a lack of vitamins, and requires going into the outback to encourage changes in agricultural practices at the farm, rather than there being focus points that can be easily attacked.
[ ] Army Machine Gun Trials
While the navy has adopted the Palmcrantz machine gun, it is too large and heavy for infantry or cavalry use. Serious machine gun trials, with the full intent to adopt something suitable, would be a good starting point for Vinland's army.
There are only really two machine guns offered that make the cut for reasons of reliability, power, and ease of use, the Walt-Hewlett 1895, and the Hochmann 1897. Both are air-cooled rifle-caliber weapons. While this does disadvantage them in terms of sustained fire, it also makes them light enough to actually be maneuvered with as a man-portable asset.
The Walt-Hewlett is an air-cooled, belt-fed, gas-operated machine gun that fires from a closed bolt with a cyclic rate of 450 rounds per minute. What makes it interesting is the way that it operates, with a downwards swinging lever at the bottom of the gun, with the gas being tapped off to launch the lever downward against spring pressure in order to operate the workings of the gun. While this does mean an interesting recoil impulse, it is otherwise an accurate gun, especially for the first few shots.
The Hochmann is likewise of interest. Gas operated like the Walt-Hewlett, it fires from stiff metallic strips that can be interlinked for sustained fire. Its rate of fire is somewhat higher than the Walt-Hewlett entry, at just over 500 rounds per minute, but it is also noticeably heavier.
[ ] Walt-Hewlett
[ ] Hochmann
[ ] Reject [Machine Gun]
[ ] Field Artillery Trials
Between guncotton, breech-loading, and ragnite, modern field artillery has become an entirely different beast from what it was a generation ago. With significant portions of the military using either pneumatic dynamite guns or old-style cannon for their field artillery needs, something modern is very much desired, especially if it is planned to fight in the fields of Valois.
There are really only two options worth considering, the Edinburgh-produced BLQF 124mm-SB, or the Valois-produced Model of 1897 quick firing 76mm. While Vinlanders did attempt to join the trials, their entries were a bit of a nightmare. Either they lacked recoil systems entirely, or their recoil mitigation was so horrifically bad as to be disqualifying. One gun, during the initial test firings, flew off of its mounting as the springs that were being used as shock absorbers shattered under the strain.
The BLQF 124mm-SB, or Breech Loading, Quick Firing 124mm Short Barrel is a reasonable pick all things considered. The most recent attempt at a "universal gun," it attempts to be both a rapid-firing field piece capable of supporting mobile infantry, and a siege gun that can batter through brick and earthworks to destroy fortresses. Unfortunately, this means that it is neither fish, nor fowl - too heavy in some ways for really mobile action, and shorter-ranged than many mid and long-barreled fortress guns. Perfectly suitable for colonial warfare, where modern rifles are at a premium at best, but questionable for potential peer warfare.
Valois's entry is a more classic field gun. The 76 fires from a unitary cartridge, with shot, powder, and primer all encased in brass, essentially a large bullet. This gives it an impressive rate of fire, with even amateur gun crews managing six rounds a minute, and the demonstration crew, putting thirty rounds downrange in a minute. On the downside, the round is notably lightweight, purposefully designed to tear through infantry with clouds of shrapnell, rather than pounding targets with direct, high explosive hits.
[ ] Edinburgh BLQF 124mm-SB
[ ] Valois Model 1897 76mm
[ ] Reject [Artillery]
[ ] Carbine Trials
While the Blackfeather carbine is a fairly impressive gun, with a long history of use, it is still a black powder lever action weapon. It has been surpassed by modern weapons in foreign use, and needs replacement with a weapon that is capable of handling modern propellants.
The Carbine trials got over three hundred applicants, ranging from the serious to the hilarious. Many were simply commercial hunting rifles with quickly applied bayonet lugs and other military paraphernalia. And of those hunting rifles, many are good, but nothing particularly stands out. They certainly performed well enough in the trials, and some of them were even chambered in a modern infantry rifle cartridge.
The best showings in this category were the Sturgeon and Albee rifles. The Sturgeon is a relatively strong lever action, capable of chambering modern high-pressure rounds. While there are severe concerns about using spitzer rounds under cavalry conditions, its performance otherwise is such that excluding it from the trials on that condition alone would be problematic in terms of optics at the very least. The Albee comparatively is a slide action rifle, with each shot pumped into the chamber. On one hand, this means that it has an impressive rate of fire for follow-up shots, especially with the thirteen rounds that can be safely loaded in the tube magazine. Unfortunately, that is where the good parts end. It is in a pistol cartridge, and its action is not particularly well suited to putting a particularly hotter round through it.
The second category is proper military rifled carbines, with the Valois Berthier guns making an appearance, alongside a cut-down version of the Kamprad-Nielsen, and three domestic entries, the Chatam, Walt, and Blackfeather II.
The Berthier rifles are short, handy, lightweight guns that fire from an en bloc clip, loading all of the rounds in a single motion. This makes their sustained fire rate one of the fastest, although not the fastest of the lot, being beaten out by the Marsden and Chatam rifles. However, there are problems. The first is the cartridge it is loaded in. The 8mm Valois is a necked-down version of an 11mm cartridge, has significant issues with rimlock, and is a cartridge that Valois has been attempting to replace for some time now. While adopting it would be useful for interoperability reasons, it is not a particularly good round.
Secondly, there is the Kamprad-Nielsen Carbine. In many ways, it is effectively identical to the infantry rifle, with a cavalry-style sling, a shortened barrel, and readjusted sights to compensate for a marginal reduction in velocity. Effectively all of the components of the rifle are already in production, making this one of the cheaper options to adopt, and it would allow for substantial easement in logistical needs, cutting multiple items from inventories as cavalry and infantry now share components. On the other hand, there are problems with the Kamprad-Nielsen, with a relatively fragile magazine system, some difficulties with clip feed systems, and a handful of other minor problems that may become more impactful in the coming years. Probably the most important of these is that the system is effectively hitting the roof on what velocities the design can handle.
The Chatam rifle is an interesting one, presented by Henri Chatam on his own dime, and produced by the Diné Manufacturing Cooperative. Six round magazine, stripper-clip fed, and a straight pull bolt action, this is a comprehensively good rifle, with few complaints aside from some of the cavalrymen disliking the straight pull design. While it is notably more complicated to manufacture than a traditional bolt action, due to carrying the bolt in a chassis, rather than directly manipulating it, it is also a simpler motion and has an overall higher rate of fire.
Walt Repeating Arms presented a gun that is effectively a bid for a standard rifle for the whole military. More of a short rifle than a carbine, it is a solidly built bolt action, has a five-round vertical magazine, stripper clip feed system, and while the submitted one fires the same round as the Kamprad-Nielsen, it is overbuilt enough that it should be extremely easy to convert to a much higher velocity round if need be.
Finally in this category is the Blackfeather II, and it is an entry that is largely acceptable, but not spectacular. While modernizing the Blackfeather to a smokeless cartridge, it is underpowered, slow to reload, and while the sights were good for the era, they have not been updated, meaning that at modern ranges they have notable issues with accuracy. On the other hand, for the cavalry this is the rifle that they want the most, simply because they can switch with minimal need for retraining.
And then there were the interesting options, the Thornton and Marsden rifles. Both are radical departures from the norms of combat arm designs. Probably the most radical of the lot was the Thornton Carbine, which boasted a full-length rifle barrel, while cutting nearly 19 centimeters off of the overall length, with the bolt running effectively all the way into the shoulder of the shooter. While slow firing, due to ergonomic issues, it is an interesting design, putting the magazine behind the trigger and breech face. Another option was the Marsden recoil-operated rifle. While longer than desired, it got passed forward, mostly by virtue of being semi-automatic. And it is not a bad rifle all things considered. While it has problems with mud and grime, is not compatible with a bayonet, and most importantly, would be expensive to produce in sizable numbers, the firepower of the gun makes a compelling argument, with a cavalry company able to put more rounds downrange than a comparable infantry battalion.
[ ] Sturgeon - Lever action rifle, full power round, tube magazine gate loaded.
[ ] Albee - slide action hunting rifle, good sights, slamfire, overloaded pistol round, tube magazine gate loaded
[ ] Walt - Bolt action, five round integral magazine, generally competently made short rifle.
[ ] Blackfeather II - Improvement on the original Blackfeather, modern round, seven round magazine, gate loaded, very familiar.
[ ] Chatam - Straight pull bolt action, five round magazine.
[ ] Kamprad Nielsen - Shortened version of the infantry rifle, broadly cross compatible with infantry rifle parts, solidly accurate.
[ ] Berthier - three round en bloc clip, problematic cartridge, short and light.
[ ] Thornton - bullpup, ten round magazine, iffy ergonomics, bolt action
[ ] Marsden - Semiautomatic, ten round magazine, incompatible with bayonets, expensive to produce, unreliable in extreme conditions
[ ] Reject [Carbine]
A/N1: take a couple hours to debate, and a couple days to vote. Approval voting is okay, don't worry about voting by plan.
A/N2: The tip jar, as always is open. Any contributions do help significantly. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Plan Goals
(Bring Army Readiness to Mediocre)
(Bring at least 20 points of Ragnite onto the market)
(Complete at least 5 Electrification Stages)
(Expand at least two docks to Level 3, and at least 1 dock to Level 5)
Tracked Statistics
Civil Morale: Very High
Political Support: Medium
Status of Factions
Federalist Party
Progressives: Strong Support
Agrarianists: Weak Support
Proletarians: Weak Support
Democratic Party
Jacksonians: Weak Opposition
Fiscalists: Ambivalent
Readiness of Forces
Army: Low
Navy: Medium
Current Economic Issues:
Resources: 95
Energy: Limited Infrastructure
- Electrical Infrastructure: 3/21 Stages completed
- Coal: +6
- Oil: +4
- Ragnite: +2
- Rail: +7
- Naval: +2
- Road: +1
- Quantity: Plentiful
- Quality: Low to Mixed
Capital Goods: +6
Consumer Goods: Plentiful and highly varied
Labor: +5, +1 per turn
Headlines
- Royal Edinburgh Navy Launches HMS Venerable, third of her class of Battleship-are 4 13 inch guns superior to 6 12 inch?
- Mayor Peter Winkelman of New Amsterdam brought up on corruption charges by Federal prosecutors, vows to fight charges.
- Snow cutter experiments across the Aegis, three prototypes compete, one vanishes, presumably sunk beneath the ice.
- Helena Eulenburg publishes The Ragnarok of Old Europa From Ancient Texts, claiming to be a translation of Linear C, some of the surviving relics of pre-Valkyrur Europa. She claims them to be Darcsen accounts of their salvation by the Valkyria.
- Whitsett air torpedo rejected by Edinburgh Royal Horse, claims unreliable, heavy
- Red star line claims to be constructing largest, fastest cruise ship to date, aims to reclaim title from imperial class vessels
Politics
The election is in full swing, with Federalists and Democrats picking candidates. For the Federalists, they have picked an east-and-west pairing. Thomas McKinley, a prominent member of the business wing of the party, and Cheyton Black, a western progressive. While McKinley ran unopposed as the incumbent, his previous vice president had to drop out of the race over health problems, leading to something of a cage match as different party factions attempted to get their man in as vice president.
Comparatively, the Democrats are conducting a rematch, with William Bryan and George Dewey running again against the incumbent president. William Bryan is a long term politician and public speaker. George Dewey is a former admiral of the Vinland Navy.
Given Dewey's tendency towards gaffes and the split in the Democrats on the issue of bimetalism, the Federalists are widely expected to be victorious , but that is far from a certainty. Overall, the major issues are likely to be expeditionism, with the Federalists supporting the creation of an expeditionary army, not just for a potential conflict in Europa, but also because of Vinland's expanding interests in Lydia and elsewhere, as well as bimetallism, which proposes that the currency should be backed with gold and silver both. The Democrats largely – but not entirely – support this notion, while Federalists typically favour using gold alone as the reserve.
Foreign Policy
Valois's debate on the status of glassworkers under their theory of the triune economy has continued to go nowhere. The country understands economics to work in three parts, oftentimes expressed as "roses, bread, and bullets," representing the small economy, the strategic economy, and the state economy respectively. The first category is the small things, the things that make life worth living. Arts, music, writing, and a number of other things are considered to be the core of the small economy, but it also includes luxury foods, and assorted other industries that have limited strategic importance. The second is strategic industries. Mining, staple grains and meats, medicine, and assorted other extractive industries are the core of the strategic economy. Finally, there is the state economy, weapons, shipbuilding, and assorted other core strategic operations.
Glassworkers have traditionally found themselves in the small economy. Glass, while important for things like spyglasses, binoculars, and a handful of other items of military use, was simply not needed in large quantities. Today however, with the massive need for laboratory glass, cameras, optical rangefinding equipment, and assorted other use-cases, there are a number of people arguing that it has become a core strategic priority for the state.
Helena Eulenberg
One of Vinland's more prominent radical mystic feminists, Helena Eulenburg is a leader of the "Freyan Church" and writer of The Heavenly Origins. A book about the 'true origins of the Ancient Valkyrur' which proclaims they came from the second planet of the solar system, which she insists they called Freya. She claims this information was revealed to her via hypnosis and trance-states where she lived her past life as a Valkyrur queen. Since that point, she has written translations of multiple ancient works, oftentimes to substantial criticism from more traditional scholars and local cultures. Most notably her translations of the "Sutras of Tanda Kemenangen" received fairly universal panning, especially by linguists. Despite this, her work is fairly popular in Old Vins and Dawnbreak's elite circles.
Naval Acquisitions
The navy has acquired multiple new experimental craft, as they search for revolutionary ideas. The most notable of these is the newly christened VSS Eagle. While submarine craft are not a new idea, and there have been previous attempts to build militarily viable submarines on both sides of the Atlantic, the Eagle is a substantial leap, capable of extended operations on batteries alone. While still in testing, it is likely to be adopted, and lobbying has begun in congress for the next naval budget to include the purchase or construction of a full sixteen vessel squadron.
[ ] Electrification
Build and expand the electrical grid in the seven regions of Vinland, constructing power plants, switches, transformers, power poles and everything else needed to bring electrical energy to the people.
-[ ] Dawnbreak (Stage 3)
While major cities and transport corridors are increasingly electrified, there are substantial areas, including a number of major towns, that have not yet received electricity. For the most part, this is a process of building or contracting to build power lines, rather than power plants, although they will need substantial work as well.
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Dawnbreak is a relatively simple contract, all told. Produce a little bit more power and, more importantly, run electricity out into all of the small towns and bedroom communities. Making matters easier, there are multiple companies that all have local industrial capacity.
The biggest offer is from Federal Alchemic, which actually has an interesting one. They want to use the contract and construction as a chance to train a sizable number of new linemen. While it will be less efficient than doing it in-house with experienced engineers, it is also training up a sizable quantity of personnel, who can then be sent out to further expand the electrical grid either by hiring them directly, or contracting with Federal Alchemic again.
The second is by Watt and Harrelson, one of the older electrical companies in the country. While limited in what resources they have currently available to service the contract, due to bad investments in the last couple of years, they are a perfectly legitimate operation.
And then there is the Harney Electrical Company, and this would be a straightforward case of corporate welfare. Federal Alchemic has been sniffing around a hostile takeover of Harney for years now, and Harney needs good, consistent contracts to survive. However, they are lacking in both equipment and manpower to do work on this scale, meaning that progress will be slow.
Contracts
[ ] Federal Alchemic
Cost: 20 resources per turn
Progress: 3d50 per turn
[ ] Watt and Harrelson
Cost: 15 resources per turn
Progress 2d50 per turn
[ ] Harney Electrical Company
Cost: 5 resources per turn
Progress 1d20 per turn
[ ] Reject [Electrification]
-[ ] Dusk March (Stage 1)
The Dusk March sees vast inequality, and great poverty in many cases. While historically one of the wealthier parts of the nation, its economy, powered by luxury goods, has suffered greatly in recent decades as demand and export markets have shifted. The need to put down the cavaliers that ruled the region has caused further disruption.
(Progress 110/350: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/450: 15 resources per die)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die)
Electrification in the Dusk March is starting off slowly, and on the borders with the Dawnbreak as a number of coal plants go up in the border states. The Dusk March, more than any other part of the country, was defined by the Civil War in the middle of the last century, and since that point, not one president has hailed from the region. Much of the area is caught in a cycle of poverty, where they are producing early stage goods, and buying finished goods, and many are effectively cashless, working through general stores and mills to access the broader markets.
Electrification of the region is complicated by political separations, with old divisions, often along racial lines, at the center of chronic infighting on nearly every issue. Power plays, schemes, even outright skullduggery, none of these are unknown in the Dusk March as factions vie to have their districts electrified first, and host the power plants. Although none would be so crass as to say they would use and exploit their control of the power infrastructure to further their position and force rivals to bend the knee or suffer black outs, that does not mean none would perform such an abuse of power.
Beyond that, survey work has begun for a series of run of river dams, and potentially the creation of a number of artificial lakes for power generation. These, while a substantial up front cost, will have relatively low operating cost, compared to ragnite generators or coal power plants, and will provide cheap, reliable energy. While there are some energy companies already doing this, such as the Count Electrical Company in Carolina, they are relatively small, and for the most part vertically integrated into existing industries. For Count, they are providing energy for air conditioning tobacco products, rather than as a utility for all.
[ ] Guncotton Plants
Guncotton, or nitrocellulose, is the basis of modern smokeless powders, made by the treatment of organic fibers with nitric acid. It is used as a mining explosive and in most modern munitions, everywhere from the smallest pistol rounds to the largest of shells.
(Progress 99/250: 15 resources per die)
Guncotton plants require a fundamentally different design than most factories. Working the 'devil's porridge' is a harsh and unforgiving art, because the process of nitrating organic material produces a product that is extremely heat sensitive, and produces a lot of heat simply as a byproduct. The fumes from the product can be detonated by a stray spark, and the idea of using ragnite engines anywhere in the region puts cold sweats in the engineers designing the plant. On the other hand, by this point, it is a fairly well-understood art, with a now typified design, a kilometers-long complex (ideally out in the country) running entirely on piped-in compressed air.
The Hull plant is a good example, built between two railroads heading out of New Amsterdam. Fifteen kilometers long, the facility is effectively four sites, each spaced so that even the complete detonation of one site would not chain to the other three. The plant is actually one of four spaced out along the eastern seaboard, one to its north in Old Vins, two in the Dusklands, and another two are situated out in the midwest.
All of these are being built as cadre factories, designed for small-scale production in times of peace, less than a hundred tons a week, but with the capacity to rapidly ramp production up to meet wartime demands. At full-scale operation they are each capable of manufacturing up to eight hundred tons a week, a pace that would hopefully ensure the six factories can fully supply not only Vinland's army but its allies as well. Scaling up to such a production rate would require substantial further investment into the factory infrastructure to facilitate it, alongside dedicated towns for the workers, and other amenities.
[ ] New Salem Armory Upgrades
The New Salem Armory is one of the larger government-owned and operated armories in the United States of Vinland. Unfortunately, it is also deeply outdated, with the last major order given to it being the later model trapdoor rifles.
(Progress 89/150: 15 resources per die)
The fundamentals of gun design have changed little in the last century. A tube, some lockwork, and a wooden stock. In practice, however, a gun built in the year 1800 has more in common with the first thunderspears than it does with a modern repeating rifle. One of the bigger impacts has been the stamping machine, used both to cut sections from sheet metal and to fold them into shapes. For example, the rotary magazine of a Kamerad-Nielsen rifle makes use of both techniques to create the leaves of the rotor. Similarly, the metalwork has seen a massive series of upgrades, especially as chamber pressures on modern cartridges have shot up. Old rifles rarely saw chamber pressures exceeding 10 tons per square inch, and typically half that if not less. A modern rifle round can often double that number in a service round, let alone the 25 tons per square inch that many of the weapons are proofed at.
And then there are the added complexities of magazines, loading systems, and sights. Old style sights were rarely adjustable, and oftentimes little more than a bead at the end of the rifle. Modern sights comparatively are often very complex systems, oftentimes requiring extremely precise machining work, that can lay reasonably accurate fire out to over a kilometer.
All of this combines into a need for further work to properly upgrade the armory, as it is currently in an unfortunate half-state of being able to perform some of the manufacturing that is needed for modern weapons, and not being able to do the rest as was intended.
[ ] Dockyard Expansion
Ships and boats of all stripes are absolutely critical to the economy, and the war effort. Investing in the dockyards will enable Vinland to expand, build, and maintain the merchant marine, the fisheries, and the navy. Upgraded dockyards increase the maximum size of ships they are capable of producing as well as their total production capacity.
-[ ] Level 2
Level 2 shipyards are the home of midsized shipbuilding, up to about two and a half thousand tons of displacement. (Progress 145/200: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Shikaakwa
Shikaakwa, located on the great lakes is an interesting project, because it faces limitations few other major shipyards do. The biggest limit is the canal networks that link Shikaakwa to the outside world. On the other hand, the navy is looking into building a new type of ship, a torpedo boat destroyer. Intended as a screening ship armed with small, rapid fire guns, it will protect the battleships from attacks by fast moving boats, while at the same time being proper seagoing vessels. Compared to the Hudson class cutters currently in use by Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Marine, these ships will be noticeably larger, and better armed, although no design has yet been finalized. Even if the Torpedo Boat Destroyer does not work out, there are a number of other designs that the Navy desperately needs to update, most notably harbor defense craft, minesweepers, and assorted other light vessels with proven track records.
-[ ] Level 5
A level 5 shipyard is a modern wonder of mass production, designed to put ships in the water at a rapid pace, and built with modernization in mind, as ships continue to grow. Machine shops, massive cranes, and the capacity to fabricate nearly anything from raw materials make these an all-in-one stop for truly modern shipbuilding. (Progress 0/1600: 20 resources per die) (-2 Capital Goods)
--[ ] New Amsterdam
---[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
Your request for bids was responded to by Huntington-Adams, one of the few major contractors for the Navy and Lifesaving Service. While they are currently mostly focused on building Hudson class cutters for the Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Marine, they can detach a handful of engineers and workmen to help on the New Amsterdam Dockyard Expansion project, although the construction of such facilities is not their exact area of expertise.
[ ] Huntington-Adams
Cost: 30 resources per turn
Progress 1d50 per turn
[ ] Reject [Shipyard]
[ ] Cold Springs Artillery Foundry
One of the larger artillery foundries operated by the United States, the Cold Springs facility is woefully out of date, with large portions of it still designed around older cast iron modes of production rather than modern steel. Upgrading and refitting it to modern standards will be a substantial project, but it will be useful for whatever modern guns are adopted by the military.
(Progress 0/350: 15 resources per die)
--[ ] Request Bids for Contracting
The only contract that is worth taking seriously was one from Walt Repeating Arms, offering to sell their old equipment as it is replaced. While it would be a pretty bad deal, all things considered, it would be some amount of consistent progress on the problem.
[ ] Walt Repeating Arms
Cost 10 resources per turn
Progress 3d10 per turn
[ ] Reject [Cold Springs]
[ ] Ragnite Prospecting Expeditions
Sending prospectors into the reaches, where there are vast tracts of federal land awaiting exploitation, is going to be a substantial project, with no certain payoff. (5 resources per die) 115
While there were no high-quality ragnite ore veins found, there were two areas with what seem to be mid-grade ore. One is far more problematic than the other, bordering on the holy Black Hills. The other is in the southwest, with a number of deposits along the Couleurourge River. While neither will be particularly cheap to exploit, they are both viable for exploitation if properly fenced.
The process of searching for ragnite ore often begins not in the field, but in the archives. Ragnite in its natural state, especially in high purity, can have healing effects. While not all of these pan out, sites like the Black Hills are places where there are hundreds of stories of people with wounds that would not heal or incurable sicknesses, going in to die, and being blessed by the spirits of that place. They would then, weeks or months later, walk out of the hills, hale and hearty once more. Once a list of sites has been made, teams are sent out to do chemical testing, looking for tell tails of ragnite deposits, if not ragnite crystals on or near the surface. Many, if not most, do not pan out, or find only trace amounts of ragnite. But if you get lucky, there are ragnite deposits for mining.
[ ] Military Readiness Programs
Public health is military health, and Vinland has seen noticeable declines due to a number of factors in recent decades.
-[ ] Malnutrition Treatment Protocols
Malnutrition, and especially childhood malnutrition, is a major cause of the decline of healthy young men available for military service. Nothing cures it as a proper diet can, and a broad approach to encourage doctors to prescribe nutritious foods, ensure children eat at least one healthy and filling meal at school during lunch, and government-funded food programs to supplement the diets of the poor will do much. (5 resources per die) 113
Each region of the United States faces a different kind of malnutrition. In all of them, it is primarily the domain of the poor, but there are fundamentally different patterns based on settlement and population density. In the north, in Old Vins, and generally along the eastern seaboard, the fundamental problem is a blunt lack of food availability for the urban poor. In the cities, and with the complex supply chains required to feed them, there is considerable volatility to the cost of food, with problems across the region being severely felt, rapidly pricing the poor out of the market. Beyond that, those complex supply chains leave vast holes in supervision, creating opportunities to adulterate food with additives like sawdust, or otherwise cheap but nutritionally useless if not outright dangerous filler materials are included to suppress the cost of production while selling at full price.
Comparatively, in the Dusk March, the major issue is the lack of vitamins among the rural poor. Especially sharecroppers suffer major deficiencies, with scurvy, pellagra and other diseases common in the population. Their diet largely consists of fatback, corn meal and molasses, as economical realities force them to focus their efforts on the production of cash crops and very limited space is left to the production of the vitamin rich vegetables and other products that they need to stay healthy.
Each problem is fundamentally different and requires different approaches. In the north, something as simple as setting up soup kitchens in core urban areas would substantially impact malnutrition rates if done on a sufficiently large scale. In the south, comparatively, the problem is much more heavily focused on a lack of vitamins, and requires going into the outback to encourage changes in agricultural practices at the farm, rather than there being focus points that can be easily attacked.
[ ] Army Machine Gun Trials
While the navy has adopted the Palmcrantz machine gun, it is too large and heavy for infantry or cavalry use. Serious machine gun trials, with the full intent to adopt something suitable, would be a good starting point for Vinland's army.
There are only really two machine guns offered that make the cut for reasons of reliability, power, and ease of use, the Walt-Hewlett 1895, and the Hochmann 1897. Both are air-cooled rifle-caliber weapons. While this does disadvantage them in terms of sustained fire, it also makes them light enough to actually be maneuvered with as a man-portable asset.
The Walt-Hewlett is an air-cooled, belt-fed, gas-operated machine gun that fires from a closed bolt with a cyclic rate of 450 rounds per minute. What makes it interesting is the way that it operates, with a downwards swinging lever at the bottom of the gun, with the gas being tapped off to launch the lever downward against spring pressure in order to operate the workings of the gun. While this does mean an interesting recoil impulse, it is otherwise an accurate gun, especially for the first few shots.
The Hochmann is likewise of interest. Gas operated like the Walt-Hewlett, it fires from stiff metallic strips that can be interlinked for sustained fire. Its rate of fire is somewhat higher than the Walt-Hewlett entry, at just over 500 rounds per minute, but it is also noticeably heavier.
[ ] Walt-Hewlett
[ ] Hochmann
[ ] Reject [Machine Gun]
[ ] Field Artillery Trials
Between guncotton, breech-loading, and ragnite, modern field artillery has become an entirely different beast from what it was a generation ago. With significant portions of the military using either pneumatic dynamite guns or old-style cannon for their field artillery needs, something modern is very much desired, especially if it is planned to fight in the fields of Valois.
There are really only two options worth considering, the Edinburgh-produced BLQF 124mm-SB, or the Valois-produced Model of 1897 quick firing 76mm. While Vinlanders did attempt to join the trials, their entries were a bit of a nightmare. Either they lacked recoil systems entirely, or their recoil mitigation was so horrifically bad as to be disqualifying. One gun, during the initial test firings, flew off of its mounting as the springs that were being used as shock absorbers shattered under the strain.
The BLQF 124mm-SB, or Breech Loading, Quick Firing 124mm Short Barrel is a reasonable pick all things considered. The most recent attempt at a "universal gun," it attempts to be both a rapid-firing field piece capable of supporting mobile infantry, and a siege gun that can batter through brick and earthworks to destroy fortresses. Unfortunately, this means that it is neither fish, nor fowl - too heavy in some ways for really mobile action, and shorter-ranged than many mid and long-barreled fortress guns. Perfectly suitable for colonial warfare, where modern rifles are at a premium at best, but questionable for potential peer warfare.
Valois's entry is a more classic field gun. The 76 fires from a unitary cartridge, with shot, powder, and primer all encased in brass, essentially a large bullet. This gives it an impressive rate of fire, with even amateur gun crews managing six rounds a minute, and the demonstration crew, putting thirty rounds downrange in a minute. On the downside, the round is notably lightweight, purposefully designed to tear through infantry with clouds of shrapnell, rather than pounding targets with direct, high explosive hits.
[ ] Edinburgh BLQF 124mm-SB
[ ] Valois Model 1897 76mm
[ ] Reject [Artillery]
[ ] Carbine Trials
While the Blackfeather carbine is a fairly impressive gun, with a long history of use, it is still a black powder lever action weapon. It has been surpassed by modern weapons in foreign use, and needs replacement with a weapon that is capable of handling modern propellants.
The Carbine trials got over three hundred applicants, ranging from the serious to the hilarious. Many were simply commercial hunting rifles with quickly applied bayonet lugs and other military paraphernalia. And of those hunting rifles, many are good, but nothing particularly stands out. They certainly performed well enough in the trials, and some of them were even chambered in a modern infantry rifle cartridge.
The best showings in this category were the Sturgeon and Albee rifles. The Sturgeon is a relatively strong lever action, capable of chambering modern high-pressure rounds. While there are severe concerns about using spitzer rounds under cavalry conditions, its performance otherwise is such that excluding it from the trials on that condition alone would be problematic in terms of optics at the very least. The Albee comparatively is a slide action rifle, with each shot pumped into the chamber. On one hand, this means that it has an impressive rate of fire for follow-up shots, especially with the thirteen rounds that can be safely loaded in the tube magazine. Unfortunately, that is where the good parts end. It is in a pistol cartridge, and its action is not particularly well suited to putting a particularly hotter round through it.
The second category is proper military rifled carbines, with the Valois Berthier guns making an appearance, alongside a cut-down version of the Kamprad-Nielsen, and three domestic entries, the Chatam, Walt, and Blackfeather II.
The Berthier rifles are short, handy, lightweight guns that fire from an en bloc clip, loading all of the rounds in a single motion. This makes their sustained fire rate one of the fastest, although not the fastest of the lot, being beaten out by the Marsden and Chatam rifles. However, there are problems. The first is the cartridge it is loaded in. The 8mm Valois is a necked-down version of an 11mm cartridge, has significant issues with rimlock, and is a cartridge that Valois has been attempting to replace for some time now. While adopting it would be useful for interoperability reasons, it is not a particularly good round.
Secondly, there is the Kamprad-Nielsen Carbine. In many ways, it is effectively identical to the infantry rifle, with a cavalry-style sling, a shortened barrel, and readjusted sights to compensate for a marginal reduction in velocity. Effectively all of the components of the rifle are already in production, making this one of the cheaper options to adopt, and it would allow for substantial easement in logistical needs, cutting multiple items from inventories as cavalry and infantry now share components. On the other hand, there are problems with the Kamprad-Nielsen, with a relatively fragile magazine system, some difficulties with clip feed systems, and a handful of other minor problems that may become more impactful in the coming years. Probably the most important of these is that the system is effectively hitting the roof on what velocities the design can handle.
The Chatam rifle is an interesting one, presented by Henri Chatam on his own dime, and produced by the Diné Manufacturing Cooperative. Six round magazine, stripper-clip fed, and a straight pull bolt action, this is a comprehensively good rifle, with few complaints aside from some of the cavalrymen disliking the straight pull design. While it is notably more complicated to manufacture than a traditional bolt action, due to carrying the bolt in a chassis, rather than directly manipulating it, it is also a simpler motion and has an overall higher rate of fire.
Walt Repeating Arms presented a gun that is effectively a bid for a standard rifle for the whole military. More of a short rifle than a carbine, it is a solidly built bolt action, has a five-round vertical magazine, stripper clip feed system, and while the submitted one fires the same round as the Kamprad-Nielsen, it is overbuilt enough that it should be extremely easy to convert to a much higher velocity round if need be.
Finally in this category is the Blackfeather II, and it is an entry that is largely acceptable, but not spectacular. While modernizing the Blackfeather to a smokeless cartridge, it is underpowered, slow to reload, and while the sights were good for the era, they have not been updated, meaning that at modern ranges they have notable issues with accuracy. On the other hand, for the cavalry this is the rifle that they want the most, simply because they can switch with minimal need for retraining.
And then there were the interesting options, the Thornton and Marsden rifles. Both are radical departures from the norms of combat arm designs. Probably the most radical of the lot was the Thornton Carbine, which boasted a full-length rifle barrel, while cutting nearly 19 centimeters off of the overall length, with the bolt running effectively all the way into the shoulder of the shooter. While slow firing, due to ergonomic issues, it is an interesting design, putting the magazine behind the trigger and breech face. Another option was the Marsden recoil-operated rifle. While longer than desired, it got passed forward, mostly by virtue of being semi-automatic. And it is not a bad rifle all things considered. While it has problems with mud and grime, is not compatible with a bayonet, and most importantly, would be expensive to produce in sizable numbers, the firepower of the gun makes a compelling argument, with a cavalry company able to put more rounds downrange than a comparable infantry battalion.
[ ] Sturgeon - Lever action rifle, full power round, tube magazine gate loaded.
[ ] Albee - slide action hunting rifle, good sights, slamfire, overloaded pistol round, tube magazine gate loaded
[ ] Walt - Bolt action, five round integral magazine, generally competently made short rifle.
[ ] Blackfeather II - Improvement on the original Blackfeather, modern round, seven round magazine, gate loaded, very familiar.
[ ] Chatam - Straight pull bolt action, five round magazine.
[ ] Kamprad Nielsen - Shortened version of the infantry rifle, broadly cross compatible with infantry rifle parts, solidly accurate.
[ ] Berthier - three round en bloc clip, problematic cartridge, short and light.
[ ] Thornton - bullpup, ten round magazine, iffy ergonomics, bolt action
[ ] Marsden - Semiautomatic, ten round magazine, incompatible with bayonets, expensive to produce, unreliable in extreme conditions
[ ] Reject [Carbine]
A/N1: take a couple hours to debate, and a couple days to vote. Approval voting is okay, don't worry about voting by plan.
A/N2: The tip jar, as always is open. Any contributions do help significantly. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Last edited:
The Valkyria
- Location
- The Underdark
The Valkyria
The Valkyiria are a source of substantial historical debate and theorizing. While nobody is really certain of many of the details, there are a few elements that nearly everyone agrees on. First, the Valkyrur came from the north. Across all of the legends, from the Darcsens, to those of the Mohawk and Shoshone, share that element of the Valkyria coming from the north. Second, that by the mid 200s , the Valkyria had vanished/collapsed/disappeared.
There are a few main theories of the Valkyria. In Valois and Edinburgh, the most accepted is the hyperborean theory, that the Valkyria come from an area with a hyperpure ragnite vein, typically located somewhere north of the arctic circle. There, depending on the iteration of the theory, the Valkyria were born, and developed much of their technology, before heading out into the world. More religious scholars believe that the end of the Valkyrian rule was the world being too impure for them, and that they have since returned to Hyperborea, while less religious scholars believe them to have lost their powers over time, due to a lack of exposure to hyperpure ragnite. In Vinland, the Hyperborean theory is a little more contested, with many theorizing that old hyperborea was actually the far northwestern corner of Vinland. This theory is often seen as completely discredited, not by any flaw of itself, but rather that there have been dozens of faked discoveries of "ancient hyperborea" of varying quality.
Within the broader camp of hyperborean theories is Hyperborea-sub-mundus, where the ancient source of the Valkyria is an "inner earth" with a number of theories about how to access it. The most common is that there was a now collapsed cave network, but others claim that it was not caves but rather somewhere in the depths of the ocean that the Valkyria came from, pointing to some of the few remaining intact structures carrying substantial nautical themes.
The second theory is typically called the Deliverance theory, that the Valkyria were a specifically enlightened group, but small that intentionally sacrificed themselves to sanctify specific bloodlines that would be fated to rule Europa and the world eternally. This is the typical orthodoxy of the Imperial Federation. While historically accepted across Europa, it has been challenged in recent decades, but plays a significant role in the national myth of Edinburgh and Gallia, among many others. In Edinburgh, the line of monarchy claims direct descent from the Valkyrur Arturia, and claims to have her blade Aerondight as part of the royal heirlooms. While so far they have been unwilling to allow it to be studied, by cursory examination it certainly appears to be real. According to national legend, Arturia's descendents will only reawaken their powers in Edinburgh darkest hour, and take up the blade to cast down any who threaten the islands.
Less accepted but still out there is the Freyan theory or theories, that the Valkyria were not in fact from earth, but rather visitors from the stars. While each Freyan has their own version of the story, with Freya either being a moon of one of the gas giants, one of the other planets (typically Venus or Mars), or even from another solar system.
The Valkyiria are a source of substantial historical debate and theorizing. While nobody is really certain of many of the details, there are a few elements that nearly everyone agrees on. First, the Valkyrur came from the north. Across all of the legends, from the Darcsens, to those of the Mohawk and Shoshone, share that element of the Valkyria coming from the north. Second, that by the mid 200s , the Valkyria had vanished/collapsed/disappeared.
There are a few main theories of the Valkyria. In Valois and Edinburgh, the most accepted is the hyperborean theory, that the Valkyria come from an area with a hyperpure ragnite vein, typically located somewhere north of the arctic circle. There, depending on the iteration of the theory, the Valkyria were born, and developed much of their technology, before heading out into the world. More religious scholars believe that the end of the Valkyrian rule was the world being too impure for them, and that they have since returned to Hyperborea, while less religious scholars believe them to have lost their powers over time, due to a lack of exposure to hyperpure ragnite. In Vinland, the Hyperborean theory is a little more contested, with many theorizing that old hyperborea was actually the far northwestern corner of Vinland. This theory is often seen as completely discredited, not by any flaw of itself, but rather that there have been dozens of faked discoveries of "ancient hyperborea" of varying quality.
Within the broader camp of hyperborean theories is Hyperborea-sub-mundus, where the ancient source of the Valkyria is an "inner earth" with a number of theories about how to access it. The most common is that there was a now collapsed cave network, but others claim that it was not caves but rather somewhere in the depths of the ocean that the Valkyria came from, pointing to some of the few remaining intact structures carrying substantial nautical themes.
The second theory is typically called the Deliverance theory, that the Valkyria were a specifically enlightened group, but small that intentionally sacrificed themselves to sanctify specific bloodlines that would be fated to rule Europa and the world eternally. This is the typical orthodoxy of the Imperial Federation. While historically accepted across Europa, it has been challenged in recent decades, but plays a significant role in the national myth of Edinburgh and Gallia, among many others. In Edinburgh, the line of monarchy claims direct descent from the Valkyrur Arturia, and claims to have her blade Aerondight as part of the royal heirlooms. While so far they have been unwilling to allow it to be studied, by cursory examination it certainly appears to be real. According to national legend, Arturia's descendents will only reawaken their powers in Edinburgh darkest hour, and take up the blade to cast down any who threaten the islands.
Less accepted but still out there is the Freyan theory or theories, that the Valkyria were not in fact from earth, but rather visitors from the stars. While each Freyan has their own version of the story, with Freya either being a moon of one of the gas giants, one of the other planets (typically Venus or Mars), or even from another solar system.
Vote closed