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Grognot -> RE: Economic/Diplomatic (12/31/2007 9:28:20 PM)
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For some more details --
As noted, manpower and money are required for unit production. Money is either from taxes (from own or conquered territoriy) or trading (the latter with UK and America -- automated and abstracted, so it's not like you establish trade routes or chose commodities et al). Money accumulates from economic phase to economic phase. It's used for purchases, unit maintenance, unit supply, and bribery (manipulating minor states to like you more).
Manpower is -not- accumulated, unless you're Prussia.
You can shift the balance between money, manpower and political points through economic manipulation -- give up something in one area to get more in another area. This is somewhat analogous to raising/lowering taxes or conscription rates -- ex. you can give up some money in exchange for higher political status, which means more VP.
Unit production might be looked at in a few areas.
Corps and fleet counters need to be purchased (empty). In an economic phase, you pay for the ability to place them until the next economic phase. You don't have to specify where you'll place them when you buy 'em.
Troops are purchased (usually using both $ and manpower, but militia don't cost $). Other than militia, they will -not- be available for a few months -- cavalry and guards taking longer than regular infantry. You also don't need to specify where they'll be, when you buy 'em. You pay immediately regardless of arrival date. If you're buying guards or cav, be sure to buy corps when they're arriving, because it's wasteful to convert them to infantry.
Ships are purchased well in advance -- ex. heavy ships are not available until 18 months after purchase. You also need to specify the port city where they're being built, and if you lose the port city while they're under construction, you lose the ships (and the full construction cost, which is again immediate and
non-refundable). Plan ahead.
Free-state minors have their own economies, armies (and, sometimes, navies). You can give 'em money if they don't have enough. Unlike major powers, they can't accumulate $, so anything unspent is gone (with single exception of Turkish Ottoman Empire in December -- Turkey gets unspent OE funds in this case). Conquered minors don't have economies or troops.
Diplomacy. Well, you tend to either be neutral (no relations), at war with, or have an alliance with other nations. Allies may or may not grant access rights -- which have to be universal (all units, all territory) but not necessarily mutual. One can lend corps or fleets to another major power, or offer money to majors/minors (but not manpower). War tends to eventually leads to peace (through either conditional or unconditional surrender; the former subjects the loser to fewer and nicer terms, which must be chosen from lists of possible terms), including a time of mutual unbreakable peace. Diplomacy with AIs is necessarily limited and pretty arbitrary -- you can request certain things of allies, but it's pretty random whether they'll accept, and they don't seem to ever initiate offers, or to request anything other than alliances or access to your territory.
Micromanagement isn't too extreme. Supply, for instance, is abstracted to supply chains and foraging -- you can build chains of depots linking armies to supply sources, and pay for it all (paying for the depots themselves, and for the use of 'em based on how many corps and how far from the depots), but you won't be going down to ex. how much food, ammo and money to bring along with an individual army. You don't adjust taxes on a per-city basis. You don't explicitly build fortifications, bridges or anything like that. You don't have tactical battle maps. Battles have only three rounds per day, and it's uncommon for there to be a second day. Casualties are removed and abstracted-- you don't have wounded units and managment of medical treatment, and prisoners are immediately off-board rather than marched around. It's all at the level of corps (with army factors, representing ~1-2 thousand men each), fleets (with naval factors, representing ships), garrisons, depots, and a sprinkling of leaders.
You can still find the board game rules online, and the computer version is pretty faithful to it (modulo deviations primarily used to streamline PBEM play, by making some decisions either pre-planned or automated).
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