Recwar Treaty

[Erik Mortis]

There has been talk of making a recwar society for between commonwealth nations, and of linking this to the economy. I like this idea. At this time Shireroth has a system were you buy troops for our recwar system with money. I like this system, mostly.

We would need to work out how to buy troops, who can sell, how they sell. How government get involved...etc.

Maybe limit the number of types of orbat dealers per nation so that you are forced to buy some troops from other nations, thus creating international trade.

I think there are several types of dealers now in the Shireroth system, land, air, navy and magic. Maybe if we limited it to 2 types per nation we could then force trade between nations. Creating income for nations. Let the nations choose which orbats they sell, but still have the 2 limit.

[Andreas the Wise]

The Shirithian system is stuffed up and impractical, really. When it was created, it tried, unsuccessfully, to merge two different ideas - the idea of a constant recwar system where you can buy troops based on their points cost (from Grauls); and the idea that you should buy troops from people (from Hesam). What emerged was originally CITRA but with no land income, and several people 'selling' orbats instead of a central NPI account (Non-Player Industry). CITRA proved impractical for Shireroth (nobody was willing to respect the political implications) and so now SCIRA sits in a state halfway between 'useful only for ego' (eg "Look, I have a big army!") and 'useful in civil wars'. The concept 'we'll make people buy an army to participate in any war in Shireroth' is a stupid one, and I knew it from the start, but was willing to put up with it on the off chance it solved our tax problems (which it kinda has). The concept 'you should buy troops for a civil war' is marginally better, but the concept of Constant War is far more superior, albeit not politically convenient for Shireroth. And, as raised by Erik, the money going to the crown account is silly if the only purpose is for civil wars.

In short, if there was serious interest in some sort of recwar treaty, there would have be serious discussion first about 'what sort of recwar' 'what sort of timeframe' and 'what sort of non-broken links to the economy' before anything else. And possibly grandfathering in SCIRA as an afterthought. Possibly. But please, don't export SCIRA - its hardly one of Shireroth's good ideas. Tolerably functional, but not worth exporting.

[Erik Mortis]

I like the idea of buying troops, both for boasting about size, and for the fact it creates a reason for money to move. Money becomes useful if it can buy troops.

[Andreas the Wise]

I should probably qualify my comments, for those without an intimate knowledge of Gralan Military History (ie everyone).

A Brief History of Economics-Recwar Merges

CITRA 1
In CITRA, your money was your ability to support a military unit. You could redeploy your orbat once a week, and it's strength (in points) was how much money you had. Everyone started with 50 000.
Advantages: Everyone had a decent size force.
Disadvantages: Many, the most pertinent being nobody would ever spend their money.

CITRA 2
In my opinion the best marriage of Recwar and money to date. In CITRA 2, you used your money to buy units for your army. Their cost was their points cost. The money you paid went into a central account. The money in that central account was paid out to land owners - a set amount each week based on the number of pixels controlled (from memory, pixels/5). In this way people who had captured land by war used it to gain an income stream, and armies built up over time.
Advantages: Simple system for buying army; army accumulated over time; no broken money link (like in SCIRA).
Disadvantages: Disincentive to spend on non-military things; hard for people without land to get involved (though everyone did get 10 000 units for free).

SCIRA 1
Like CITRA 2, you bought units for their points cost. This time, however, instead of buying from a central account, you went through different orbat sellers. To stop the orbat sellers making immense amounts of money, a cut of what they sold went to the Crown Account. You could also buy through the Crown directly - theoretically, the cost was the same either way.
Advantages: People are involved and making money through this system; money to crown may reduce Tax burden; build up army over time.
Disadvantages: Crown could theoretically get as big an army as it wanted (broken); orbat sellers could get armies very cheaply (only Andreas exploited this to date, but still ...); Nobody actually used SCIRA for war because the political climate in Shireroth didn't suit Constant Recwar.

SCIRA 2
Like SCIRA 1; but this time, the cost was their points cost/5 (because people in Shireroth didn't make money fast enough); and the 'constant' part of the charter was removed.
Advantages: As above.
Disadvantages: Crown broken; and now you have to buy an army to do a recwar in Shireroth, even if its unrelated.

GROWL 1
skipped

GROWL 2
The current system, and the best Constant recwar system. The amount of days you wait between deployments is how many thousand points you can deploy (max 50 000). And you have a separate army you can redeploy each day based on the amount of land you control (pixels/5). The only part where money is involved is in buying Fortresses and the like.
Advantages: Easy to get involved in, land has a point but does not overpower the system.
Disadvantages: Money isn't highly involved (only a disadvantage for the purposes of this discussion).

[Andreas the Wise]

I would put the following questions to the Small Commonwealth to answer in considering this treaty:

1. On what grounds are armies allocated?
That is, how do we determine who has what and what's a fair amount. The answer to this will probably be "by buying units with your SC Currency" but at least consider other options. Traditionally, people are the unit of account for wars - that is, real people are allocated an army of a certain size. That may or may not be compatible with them buying more then. Other possible units of account are land (how much people hold) and politics (eg at the Ducal level, each Duchy or Region in a nation is entitled to x; or at the national level, national governments are entitled to x).

2. Are armies accumulated or redeployed or other?
Accumulated = You start with nothing. You buy a unit. You keep that unit until it's destroyed.
Redeployed = You have the right to an army of x size. You can redeploy it every y days. (imagine it as 'you have the ability to support x units at any given time)
Other 1 (for example) = You buy a unit, and have to pay a monthly cost to keep it.
Other 2 = you buy the right to have an army of a certain size, and redeploy to fill it.
etc.

3. What provisions, if any, are made for new people?
If each person redeploys every so often, new people can get in easily. If armies are bought up over time, new people may never catch up. If there's some sort of cap ... and so on.

4. What conflict is this primarily designed?
Eg is it person vs person; region vs region; country vs country. Can politics change re: war results, etc.

And if we go with 'buy army with SC Currency' the question naturally arises - where does that money go, and how do we get it back in circulation?

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Two vague thoughts at this stage:

1. A chap could have a deployable command entitlement of 25,000 "sims" who if left to their own devices would be little more than mark one chap with rifle and pack and dodgy tin helmet, the economic resources of the individual commander and his backing organisations would then come into play with regards to what weapons systems and units those sims then become a part of;
2. Go with an accumulation of equipment, the unit maximum size cap would place a limit on how much you could actually use at any given time. But within that limitation there is an element of "plug and play" just like how the Americans used to have vast vehicle compounds in Kuwait and the Gulf Emirates just waiting for the mobilised personnel to be flown in to operate them if Saddam ever tried to start Gulf War II (and of course such an arrangement was damnably handy when it was actually us who started the second war...).

This I think solves the problem pithily summarised as "OMG the state has too much purchasing power" (we are supposed to have the monopoly on violence you know...)

[Erik Mortis]

Is it? As a Count I've amassed a large amount of money. Money I intend to use for military power. If no matter how much money I amass, the government always automatically has more, then there is no point.

I like money being the means to power, then you can work hard and directly translate that into troops, influence.. etc. If we use land then if I invade another county and trounce them, I really have thrown out someone (real), and taken their land. If in theory I do this enough, I control all lands, and no one can have anything.. no fun for anyone.

I think the biggest problem is where does the money go. Which is why I thought that controlling what units a nation can produce would help slightly. But then a country could have infinite of it's own type of unit. Unless we prevent nations from buying from themselves.

[Jonas]

Unless we prevent nations from buying from themselves.

Or you deliver the money to SC-accounts which redivide the money (after a month for example) between the member states.

[Erik Mortis]

As it stands we don't provide such accounts in the Commonwealth. But I see the logic behind such a plan. but then all nations would gain equally from the wars of perhaps a few.

[Andreas the Wise]

Since Gralus already has its own GROWL system which, after much discussion, has been designed to not buy units via the economy, I doubt we'll join.

[Jonas]

As it stands we don't provide such accounts in the Commonwealth. But I see the logic behind such a plan. but then all nations would gain equally from the wars of perhaps a few.

That isn't so weird, is it? The U.S. earned millions by selling weapons to the British in the first stage of WO I & II.

I thought about something: the prices would be based on resources. You always can buy weapons, but when you have the resource (like heavy industry or uranium), it will be cheaper to purchase. Let us say that, based on the resources, you just have to pay 90% of the standard price.
Not every resource is useful, so I would propose that fishes (for example) could be used to lower the price of ships (because there are many fishing boat companies and factories, the cost to purchase war ships can be lowered).
We can, of course, make our own version of the resource map for war use.

[Andreas the Wise]

You can either go with simple, and unbroken, and have everyone buy units at their points cost from a central account; or you can try and make a way that people can sell units to other people, and invent some bizarre and complex workaround.

In the first system, it's not broken, its fair to everyone, and you still can resell units you designed - you just have to sell them to other people at more than their points cost (you having bought them at points cost first). And there is a market for people helping others make an orbat. But there aren't directly people benefiting from every troop sold.

In the second system, you do have 'orbat sellers' and people benefiting from every troop sold. But you instantly come into issues of fairness (if everyone pays the point cost, what proportion does the orbat seller get? Does the orbat seller get cheaper units?); issues of complexity (working out that proportion, for the orbat seller) and issues of tediousness (you have to go to three different shops just to get a carrier with a wing of aircraft and a squad of soldiers). Resources on the land, like land itself, like 'research', is one of those areas that looks interesting to base orbat costs off ... until you get into minutiae of having to do it every single time ....

If we went with buying units, I would go with something similar to CITRA 2, but changing the way money comes back (from land to something else); and of course making the judge elected by the treaty parties. We would also look at whether we wanted to get something automated into the bank or not (CITRA had Teller, a python-based IRC bot, but that was because we had our bank on IRC too. It may not be necessary for an SC Recwar thing, to have orbats stored there).

EDIT: Yes, other important questions. Obviously this system is opt in for nations. Is it also opt in for individuals? For example, if Shireroth and Nelaga are both in, can I, as a Nelagan, invade anywhere in Shireroth? Or can I only invade Duchies where the Duke is involved? Or counties where the count is involved? How does that apply for other nations which don't have as clear personal ownership of land?

[Gman Russell]

Oi this is getting headachey...

[Andreas the Wise]

Well, those are the practical questions to be considered.

On that note, another one is - do people get any troops for free? Like, for example, should each person start with 10 000 points free?

[Erik Mortis]

I like the idea of a small supply of free troops. Even the poorest nation can call up something.

If there is no way to create a system everyone could join then that is a problem. I was hoping to create a system for all nations that use the joint currency.

[Andreas the Wise]

Oh, its quite possible to have all (or at least most) nations with the currency involved. I'm just throwing out all the things you need to think about for this (having thought about them before) so that its not just me creating a system and everyone else saying 'er ...ok, we'll do that' because they don't understand it themselves.

EDIT: In particular, I'd like to hear what Stormark thinks. I know what Gralus thinks (we've had this discussion several times). And I've got an idea where Shirithians are coming from, and on this matter, Nelaga is essentially those two opinions put together. But what does Stormark think?

[Gman Russell]

Here are my two cents!

1- Lower the cost of military units.
2- Refund the appropriate portion of whatever units people have allready bought.
3- Elliminate the orbat middlemen, and buy direct from the crown.
4- 3/4ths of the money given to the crown for military purchases will be given back to the duchies each month depending on how active they are with said military.
(for instance, if Elwynn and Yardistan fight a civil war, at the end of that month, 3/4ths of the money we spent for our militaries will be refunded to us to make up for the loss of our units in battle. Perhaps a wager could be set up before the war that whoever wins will get more money back? At any rate, the duchies that didn't participate in the war, will get nothing. Keeps it fair, and rewards an active military.)
5- Make SCIRA mandatory, give it some bite. If you don't have a SCIRA unit, you don't have a military.

Any thoughts?

[Erik Mortis]

Some would object to being forced to fight, especially if they actually had something to lose.

[AngelGuardian93]

Then what's the point?

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Some would object to being forced to fight, especially if they actually had something to lose.

In which case confiscate their lands and strip the whinging peacenik bastards of their citizenship rights.... any body so attached to their own imaginary constructs that they are not even willing to risk them in the slightest deserves a slap


(For the avoidance of doubt - I was joking...)

[Andreas the Wise]

OK, I'll play the good delegate and make a serious proposal, instead of just raising questions without answers. There appears to be general support within Gralus for being part of an international recwar thing, so ...

First, the recwar system itself. The first quote box is relatively non-negotiable if you want Gralus involved (which I assume you do since historically we've been the most active in ongoing recwar things). Note that it is largely a copy-paste from the existing Gralan rules, and the bits specifically referring to Gralus would probably be removed from the final.

SCOWL Rules
(Small Commonwealth Ongoing War League)

PARTICIPATION
- Anyone member of the Small Commonwealth United Economy can take part in SCOWL.

LAND
- SCOWL uses the MCS claims map for land.
- SCOWL can only affect the land of Gralus and the lands that non-Gralans (wth the authority in their respective nations) willingly add to SCOWL.
- Non-Gralan lands can be removed from SCOWL only by one with sufficient authority in the MCS nation to which they belong, and only when that authority also controls that land in SCOWL.
- SCOWL cannot directly change the MCS map; however, a peace treaty signed to stop a SCOWL war may well cede land from one nation to another. In any case, it is up to the MCS to approve or deny such annexations officially.

JUDGING
- See below for international overall judge.
- Within Gralus, SCOWL will be adjudicated by a judge appointed by the previous SCOWL judge. If a SCOWL judge leaves/resigns without appointing a successor, the Gralan Emperor will choose.
- The judge's decisions are final and cannot be changed. He may later realize an error, but in order to further the forward progress of the war, he is not able to go back and alter his rulings.

ORBATS
- An OrBat (short for Order of Battle) is a listing of units in an army. In SCOWL, the term "OrBat" is often used synonymously with army.
- Units are soldiers, vehicles, buildings, or other actual things that a SCOWL member can control in his army.
- Unit strength is measured in Points. One Point is equal to one basic infantry soldier. Points don't necessarily represent the actual cost of such units in resources or money; rather, it represents the military strength and effectiveness of such units A 500 Point battalion is evenly matched with another 500 Point battalion if all else is equal. (Strategy, advantages, and other things come into play in real battles.)
- An OrBat lists the units controlled by a SCOWL participant.
- Magical units are allowed under NCM (see http://www.toketi.org/magic for details.)
- Technology may only exceed current standards by the progression listed at the bottom of these rules.
- If a unit is above Modern on the technology progression, you must add on a percentage increase to their Point value as shown in the progression timeline. This increase doesn't increase the unit's combat effectiveness, it is simply overhead for the increased research, rarity, and so on of the futuristic technology
- If there is a dispute about current standards (that is, any technology actually in use today, theoretical science doesn't count), then proof will be required.
- Any exceptional abilities (such as para-drop from transport planes) must be specified in the participant's OrBat, otherwise they cannot be used.

DEPLOYMENT
- Each Participant's OrBat is divided into two, separate parts: the Static Army and the Dynamic Army.
- The Static Army can contain up to 1000 Points per day (a full 24 hours) between its current deployment and the one before it, but it can never exceed 50,000 Points. This army represents the people and structures you can build up over time, like loyal followers and cities.*
- The Dynamic army can contain up to 1 point per 5 pixels of land the Participant controls. (A pixel is a unit of area, derived from the MCS map, approximately equal to 123 square kilometers.). This represents the wealth and influence that comes from controlling land. You can throw together militias quickly, or hire special ops for a single mission. These troops aren't as tied to you as those in the Static Army and can disappear during any redeployment (since you can do so every day), they just sort of work for you.
- The Dynamic army need only wait 24 hours between deployments.
- Deployment occurs when a participant formally declares the units he wishes his OrBat to contain. If the participant already has units in his OrBat, deploying a new one will replace the old one. 24 hours after the participant announces his desired alterations, they are officially completed and the new OrBat can be used in SCOWL. Until then, the old OrBat is still useable, if there was one.
- If at any time between deployments the limit of Points for the Dynamic Army falls below the actual total Point value it has in the OrBat, the participant has one week to choose and remove an amount of units from his OrBat such that the Dynamic Army falls within its new Point limit. (For example, if a participant's land is conquered, that lowers the maximum size of his Dynamic Army, so he will have to decide which units to take out so that his Dynamic Army will stay within its limits.)

*If a mistake is made in the creation of the OrBat, then the one who made the mistake has 24 hours after the mistake is pointed out to fix it. ex: if a user only uses 20,000 of their 30,000 possible, then they have 24 hours to redeploy at the full 30,000 after the mistake is shown. If they do not, then they have to wait the full 30 days to redeploy at 30,000.

ACTIONS
- Troops are moved and commanded in three ways, PUBLIC, SECRET, and RESPONSE.
- For public actions, you post the orders that your troops are given in a War Topic or other similar place, as specified by the judge. It is encouraged to also post a narrative version of your orders, to make reading more enjoyable.
- Anonymous ("secret malefactor" in popular terminology) public actions are allowed at the discretion of the judge.
- For secret actions, the same procedure is followed, except instead of posting it, you privately send it to the judge (method of contact is at the judge's discretion, typically email). The judge will determine if the orders are possible to be done secretly. (For example, marching a full army by a city in broad daylight isn't typically something that can be done stealthily, but slipping four covert ops outside a camp to keep watch is.) If the judge deems it impossible, he/she will ask you to post it as a public action instead. The actions does not officially take place until the judge sends you a confirmation. (If you don't have time for this, make a public action, which acts instantly.)
- Public and Secret actions can be used in conjunction (like a public battle plan to retreat, and a secret order to set up a minefield behind you to catch pursuers.)
- A Response action is used to defend, counter, or otherwise react to another member's action. It can be either a Public or Secret action as well. If the judge thinks the connection is too indirect, or the response is irrelevant, the Response action will have to become its own Public or Secret action instead.
- Response actions can be chained - a response to a response to a response is not uncommon in large battles.

CONFLICT
- If an action involving battle or conflict is made, the attacking troops must wait for a Repsonse Action from their enemy before making another move. Alternatively, if the enemy sees no way out, they can instead post a "pass" action.
- If the enemy takes more than twenty-four hours in responding, the commander of the attacking troops may decide the outcome of the conflict (including casualties and such) and proceed on with other moves. This decision of the outcome, if deemed unfair by the judge, can be vetoed and changed (also by the judge).
- The outcome of a conflict should be decided (or at least an attempt made) by the involved parties. The base deciding point, if ALL else is equal, is Point value. If a 5,000 Point force encounters a 3,000 Point force, the former should, under normal circumstances, defeat the latter. However, take into account factors such as strategy (a well planned attack by the 3,000 Point force met by a thoughtless defence by the 5,000 Point force could very well prevail), terrain (high-ground better than low-ground), familiarity (homeland better than foreign land), morale (high spirits [due to defending land from invading forces] better than low morale [due to lack of supplies, overwork, etc.]), among other things.
- When posting an attack, the attacker should post expected casualties for both sides. These are in no way set in stone, but merely an idea of what they hope to accomplish. The defending side may then post their counter, and their expected casualties for both sides (which are also intensely subject to change).
- If the combatants cannot decide on a consensus for the outcome and casualties within 24 hours of the last Response action (or, if there were no responses, the original action), the judge may make a final, irrevocable, unchangeable decision, which all must abide by.

TIMELINE
- Actions occur at the time when they are posted, except for response actions in conflicts, which can occur at any time in between when they are posted and when the action they are responding to was made.

CONTROL
- Control of land for purposes of determining the size of the Static Army is normally determined by mutual agreement of involved participants, perhaps at the end of a conflict in a peace treaty or other such methods.
- If this fails, a territory can be forcefully seized if the total Point value of units supporting the conqueror in the territory is greater than the total Point value of units opposing the conqueror in that same territory there for a full 24 hours after they declare such an annexation.

AMENDMENT
- This charter may be amended by the judge.

TECHNOLOGY PROGRESSION
Modern Technology (no cost increase):
- anything in current use today.

Imminent Technology (increase cost by 10%):
- Genetic manipulation in humans begins in rudimentary form, such as removing disease, tailoring physical features, and sharpening other aspects like vision, hearing, strength, and so on. Example: genetically stronger soldiers
- Nanomaterials gain wider and more advanced use. Example: metamaterials that make objects nearly invisible.
- Fusion power becomes plausible and practical, with safe (so long as there is constant oversight) plants providing plenty of clean energy. Practical hydrogen fuel cells can now fully power cars or other vehicles.
- Lasers become militarized, but still have drawbacks like blooming (dispersing) for continuous beams (short pulses are fine) and the size/energy consumption would require essentially its own power plant on board (so most likely only on large naval vessels.)
- Improved data handling and sending, with extremely high transfer rates, downloading full movies in a few seconds, etc.
- Robotics sees the widespread use of remotely controlled war vehicles (like the Predator except now in normal combat positions) and the beginnings of automated ones (like advanced "smart" automatic targeting systems).
- (Use with NCM only, see http://www.toketi.org/magic for details) Scientific acceptance of the Astral Plane's existence leads to creation of Astral Metal (a substance existing simultaneously on the Material and Astral Planes) in laboratories.

Approaching Technology (increase cost by 20%):
- Genetics begins to branch out, creating bizarre cross-breeds and experimental species, but without great precision. Example: Chelkran
- Nanotechnology advances even more, with perfect invisibility possible with metamaterials and very basic nanorobotics, mostly in the medical field. They also improve rudimentary human-computer interfaces using artificial silicon neurons, allowing metal control of devices like prosthetic limbs.
- Fusion technology improves even more, with self-regulating plants requiring no human intervention, and the real breakthrough - modulated output. Plants can be designed to only produce a certain amount of energy with their fusion reactions, making any meltdowns caused by outside forces do only minor explosions/radiation to a very local area (only a hundred meters out or so).
- Phased array lasers become plausible for military use, avoiding the blooming issue. They are also flat, not requiring a turret to be aimed (they can fire in any direction.)
- Wholly automatic robots become plausible for battle, and although they are still not "intelligent", they can be guided with a simple set of orders like "attack the infantry" instead of requiring full control. This technology also works on computer systems with autonomous programs and so on at the same "intelligence" level.
- (Use with NCM only, see http://www.toketi.org/magic for details) Studies yield new sensor devices able to see onto the Astral Plane, allowing for things like "metal detectors" for magic or letting non-mages see magical things with some goggles, and so on.

Forthcoming Technology (increase cost by 30%):
- More exact genetic engineering becomes possible, allowing delicate grafts of many different pre-existing traits (although still no creating new genes) to construct wild new species. Example: Montags
- Nanobots become far more useful with things like programmable matter. Precision human-computer interfaces show up, allowing a person to work a personal computer or the like with only his mind.
- Miniaturized fusion reactors become possible and safe by creating a relatively low-output system: they use that modulated output to provide a much smaller amount of energy than a power plant, so were they to "melt down" due to severe trauma or even intentional breaking, the resulting explosion/radiation would be very minor, usually going only a meter or so beyond the device itself.
- With portable power generators available, personal robotics like battle exoskeletons become possible.
- Smaller power sources means laser guns! They're still rather cumbersome, rocket-launcher size or so, and can only fire a short burst at a time since it still has to charge, but it's a laser gun!
- Communication is revolutionized by quantum entanglement. When you split a meson (a particle type), the parts continue to spin, and if you change the spin of one part, the other part changes its spin as well, regardless of distance. This means you can instantly transfer binary data over any distance with no possibility of interception, but each connection has to be manually linked up, unlike radio/micro wave communication.
- (Use with NCM only, see http://www.toketi.org/magic for details) Astral Plane technology finally creates the coveted teleporter by discovering how to create an actual gateway between the Astral and Material Planes. This can either work like Mages, shifting singular things instantly, or be a portal type system, making a circular rift that you can step through. Devices of either kind are at least the size of a room, though, and take around a minute to teleport an object/person or ten minutes to create a portal.

Eventual Technology (increase cost by 50-100% or more):
- Technology not on this list but plausible to the judge can be costed anywhere from +50% to +100% or more, or simply refused.

Yes, GROWL rules copy-pasted and changed to SCOWL. Advantages of this over SCIRA:
-Everyone can get an army, even if they're poor.
-With patience, Dukes should be able to feel they have an army large enough to defend their Duchy themselves.
-You can change which units you have (you aren't stuck with what you bought).
-Guaranteed Bayen-standard non-Broken ruleset!
-The Crown does not get huge funds for an army (though, see below, they probably would get SDS funds)
-No need to go through an orbat seller anymore!
-Large enough army that people can put in 'evil units' to cause trouble OOC that IC is unlinked to them.
-Lot's of interesting economic options (see below) including a proper and fair way to sell units.

Next, functional additions to include multiple nations

International
-When a full nation, which already participates in the SCUE, opts to join SCOWL by signing the SCOWL treaty, they must nominate a subforum which will contain all actions regarding their land, and all orbats by their primary citizens.
-This subforum can either be an existing SCOWL forum, already set up for another nation; or it can be a new SCOWL forum based on their forum.
-If the nation opts to create a new SCOWL forum, they may also nominate a national Judge, who will act as the SCOWL judge for their nation.
-All actions against the land of a signatory must be placed in the SCOWL forum nominated by that signatory. Participants with orbats in other nations may still interact with that action, but it must originate in the SCOWL forum for the sovereign nation which holds that land on the MCS map.
-Unless agreed between the nations, no SCOWL action shall be considered as obligating any nation to surrender any MCS land.

Overall Judge
-An overall judge shall be elected from those currently acting as SCOWL judges by the signatory nation. The overall judge shall have the final word in all disputes, and the responsibility to amend the rules where necessary.
-The overall judge may be removed by a no-confidence vote of 2/3 of the signatory nations. At this time, a new overall judge shall be elected.
-If the overall judge ceases to be a SCOWL judge, a new judge shall be elected by the signatory nations.

Next, formalising the process for economic links. You may have noted that the base charter has no economic involvement. That was a deliberate choice after the war based economy we used to have, before we helped found the SCUE. But one economic link was formalised even when devising this charter; and the others are simple applications within the charter rules which should hopefully be deemed as suitable additions to make this economically linked.

Standing Defence Structures
-Standing Defence Structures are man-made objects that assist armies in SCOWL orbats but are not orbatted themselves. Being non-orbatted, they cannot have the ability to damage orbatted units; they can only be defensive. However, an SDS can be combined with some points orbatted to the building to be able to fulfil both functions.
-Examples: Walls, Tunnels, Fortresses, Satellites (limited - unorbatted, it cannot detect secret/stealth moves), Radar (limited - the sort of radar a civilian city would possess, but cannot detect secret/stealth moves), Bunkers etc.
-SDS' are purchased with SCUC.
-The cost of a structure shall be related to how difficult it would be to build, not to its usefulness in war. Within a war situation, they will be treated as a piece of terrain and after the beginning may be commandeered by anyone. No standing defence structure shall have any non-orbatted personnel running it.
-Suggested costs are forthcoming (we're just finalising this part ourselves).

Patented Weapons
-Participants may design their own weapons and sell them to other people. Weapons designed by a SCUE participant may not be used without their permission (unless orbatted models are captured).
-Participants may sell patented weapons to other participants. The other participant can then include that weapon within their orbat.

Orbat Space
-Participants may sell space in their orbat to other participants. They then include units for other participants which they officially grant the other participant control over.
-It is up to participants how long this 'space' is sold for.

Land Rent
-Participants who control land may rent it to other participants. The other participant may then use the Dynamic Army generated from that land.
-Rented land can still be captured normally.

Protection
-Participants may hire other participants to protect their land/cities/orbat. This is particularly useful for those who have sporadic and unannounced LOAs.

I expect Shireroth in particular will make good use of Land Rent.
More discussion re SDS' can be found here.

EDIT: See my post below for a more detailed explanation of how some of the economic aspects might work. Also, a new thought - Shireroth at least will probably use this recwarring thing mainly for the odd civil war. We don't seem likely to be having too many protected attempts to conquer the rest of the nation; just wars over succession where you want to destroy the opponent fully. A system like this works great in that regard, because you can redeploy at full strength after being defeated if you just wait another 50 days (and to be frank, civil wars are generally three or more months apart, so ...).

[Erik Mortis]

Why is Gralus the one in charge of judging? Why is this just an expansion (specifically) of their system? While I don't mind expanding their system, if it works, but I do object to Gralus being directly being referred to in the treaty. Would not this just make this the Gralus Recwar league. Not a Commonwealth one...?



[edit]
Nevermind, I don't have my glasses on so reading is an issue. The second 2 parts make the first make more sense in an international sense when (if?) they are used to amend/rewrite the first.

Still, Money is still useless in this system. I don't see how buying wall and forts is really going to do you much good, or even really matter. So there is no point in tying this to the SCUE.

[Andreas the Wise]

As I said, I copy-pasted it. The line about the Gralan Emperor would be removed from any final SC one.

Why adopt this system? Well, you said you wanted one to include every nation, if possible. Gralus (well, Toketi) is the nation that started constant internal recwarring (at least, within my generation). And, after much discussion when we formed the Empire, we ditched our previous 'buying troops directly' system (SCIRA was a corrupted version of that incarnation), and instead opted for what you see above. I can't really see Gralus completely changing again just to be able to join with other people. So, instead, I proposed the current Gralan system, with formal suggestions of ways it can involve the economy, to see if people are interested. If the feeling among other nations is that you don't want anything based on GROWL, then I'll take off my Gralan hat and help you work out a system that won't involve Gralus. But since nobody else was proposing anything, I thought I might as well at least try the simple option.

EDIT: I'm not sure anyone, myself included, sees all the interesting possibilities that emerge from trying to link the economy with this system, instead of just having a 'you buy troops' system. Within this system, which is internally coherent, and non-broken, you can still do what you did in the other system - buy troops. The only difference is you now buy them off other people instead of off what was essentially the crown. So if, for example, Austi wasn't too interested in recwar, he might sell me 10 000 units of space in his orbat for 2000 erb.

Greg, you were complaining before that troops were too expensive and you couldn't get enough to start. Think of this as having up to 50 000 'to start' (that's if you wait 50 days between deployments); and then being able to negotiate a cheaper price with others for space in their orbat. So those who are points-hungry (like me, or the Imperial MoMA) will buy more orbat space than our initial 50 000 potential; and those who don't need many points, or don't like war, can sell us the space. And those who really don't like recwar might sell their orbat space for 10 000, pocket 7000 of it, and pay the remaining 3000 to someone else to protect their land. So unlike SCIRA, where if you didn't want to be in, you just got owned; here, if you don't want to be in, you can make a lot of money out of not being in, and use some of that to pay for your defence too.

SDS' shouldn't be a huge spending item, but should provide a reasonable cash flow to governments instead of taxes, which is what SCIRA was originally meant to do, and is good for us as a Small Commonwealth, to perpetuate no-tax for as long as we can.

[Jonas]

I don't really care what system we would use, but I like the idea of buying the troops. Like I said before: the money the nations pay for weapons are placed on a SC-bank account. Each month the money is redivided between all member state. This sounds unfair, but in RL neutral nations have this advantage too!
The money a nation gets back can be seen as income (taxes for example) the state gets back from the weapon industry.

Buying troops has gotten some interest in Batavia, even a pacifist has shown interest!

[Andreas the Wise]

If it goes for another week and nobody else likes utilising GROWL; then I'll make a counter-proposal based on CITRA II. But just know you won't have Gralus involved if that happens.

[Erik Mortis]

So... you get a base troop. And you can buy more (after a fashion) from others, of what they don't use.

So... Monty Crisco has it's 50,000 and can then buy say another 2k from Musica, who doesn't use their military. I then have those troops permanently.

Thus you buy from individuals, and NOT the government. And if we allowed the buying of troops between nations, a pacifist nation could make a lot of money on arms sales...

I'm liking this system.... It solves the Issues of SCIRA I have, and still allows the use of money in a free market, not a regulated one as we have now. I really like this...

[Erik Mortis]

Question: How do we intend to handle all the bookkeeping?

[Andreas the Wise]

A convert! Excellent, glad I've got one. The reason I favour GROWL over SCIRA (apart from just that it's easier to get Gralus involved in) is that the economy evolves more naturally. It's transactions between people within a framework, instead of saying 'you have to do things in this way'. I've been wracking my brains to think of a non-broken, simple way to get money back to people if they bought troops 'from the bank' as it were, as an alternative - and I just can't find one. It either gives the government money; or you get some complicated formula based on land or military action that requires regular actions from people to update - and that gets tedious fast. GROWL resolves all those problems by putting all transactions between individuals - which is ultimately what the SCUE is about - giving individuals in different nations the chance to transact with one another.

Bookkeeping is going to be an issue that plagues us whatever we do. There is always the option of moving to an external site - but we tried that with CITRA and it got tedious very quickly. When there may be no war for weeks, you don't keep checking the site; and then suddenly you're attacked.
I would say again what I outlined above - that each nation nominates one subforum for their SCOWL activity to take place in; and all actions directed against that land take place in that forum. If you see the GROWL forum in Gralus, as an example, it has a place for Orbats, and a place for Actions. Each person just chooses one place to put their orbat in, and places it there. Actions are directed in whichever nation ultimately owns the land. Since there's an official forum for each nation, its easy for people from other nations to check it to see actions they might like to get involved in (as opposed to allowing it to spread all over the forum). It's also easy to check other people's orbats (though it should probably be courtesy that when you do something on a nation you don't have your orbat with, your first post includes a link to your orbat).

One beautiful advantage of GROWL over buying troops manually is that bookkeeping is more relaxed. Since you can change your orbat when you redeploy it, all that matters for bookkeeping really is the date that you redeploy each time - as we do already, you just have to make a new post every time you redeploy (it could even be possible to disable edits within that forum). So orbatting is relatively easy for bookkeeping. And, as above, actions are going to be slightly complicated for bookkeeping whatever we do (I doubt we'll get conflicts across borders much, but if we do, we'll approach that hurdle when we come to it).

The final and slightly more significant area of bookkeeping is that GROWL includes a land-control-based element, and when actions do happen that change land control, that needs to be updated, with exact pixel counts. And people may well control land across multiple nations. Solution - we either have one single forum that handles all land control; or, more realistically, each sovereign nation handles land control for their sovereign land (because remember, we're not expecting that military actions will change the MCS map, even if a person from another nation conquers some of our land). If you hold land in multiple nations (eg I rent land from a Shirithian, because I'll have my orbat in Gralus) you just include a link to the other nation's land control map within your orbat.

That make sense?

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Well if we de-GROWL the SCOWL I think there is some promise in this proposal. I think I will set aside tomorrow evening to give your proposal a proper read-through Andreas. Obviously I have no say at the Small Commonwealth level but even if it falls through here I am sure there are enough good ideas for some bastardised improvements to SCIRA to be made.

[Andreas the Wise]

Well, if Shireroth is happy to adopt a de-GROWL'd SCOWL, then that would be two of the biggest likely participants involved, and enough to make a combined treaty worthwhile. I expect Nelaga would join if Shireroth and Gralus were both members. We'd see about others.

On the topic of Standing Defence Structures, some draft costs have been drawn up - they're totally subject to change (I've suggested halving some) but provide an idea of what we're aiming towards in that area of economic expense.