My current plans re: fixing system<br/><br/><strong>Action Economy</strong>:<br/><ul class="bbc_list" style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li>Army/fleet movements controlled entirely by the national leader and metered by national stats.</li><li>Significant nation-wide moves are controlled through the same mechanism.</li><li>Personal actions are smaller, more complementary.  Generals roll once in a way that has serious impact on battle but the rest is handled by the GM for speedier combat less biased towards individuals.</li><li>There will be a cap on Generals, in that no nation will be able to have more than 2+ the lowest population Clan\Nation's Generals.  If that lowest pop Clan has people leave or go inactive it will freeze the larger nation's pop, grandfathering them in (so nobody gets kicked out) but preventing them expanding.</li></ul><br/>Most of this is already addressed in the mechanics of Stellar Supremacy, but that game is probably not ready for prime time yet.<br/><br/>I do not feel that the blank space served very much purpose.  People were timid, some people got bottle necked, and overall it detracted rather than adding.<br/><br/><strong>Placement Advantage</strong>:<br/><ul class="bbc_list" style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li>There will be a minority of neutral ground, and starting locations will be selected from a pre-prepared list.</li><li>Control over territory will be slower to obtain, but more meaningful interaction will be possible (see: development and orbital bombardment system from Stellar)</li></ul><br/>Finally there is the issue of the Culture\other non-violent routes, which were shamefully under-served by me in Shindo.<br/><br/><strong>Culture</strong>:<br/><ul class="bbc_list" style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li>Great Art will, in future, generate Prestige (or its equivalent) income and be transferable.</li><li>Development of regions gives people something to do.</li><li>A <strong>lite </strong>research system will be implemented, not a game changer like Civ but gives the player a feeling they've contributed.  Tech will be transferable.</li><li>There will be locational constructions, i.e, shipyards or watch towers, to be build and destroyed over time.</li><li>Spying will be implemented (see below).</li></ul><br/><strong>OOC Concerns</strong>:<br/><ul class="bbc_list" style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li>Military movements will be PM'd directly to the Game Master and execute simultaneously (akin to Diplomacy).</li><li>In-character dealings thru PM <em>must </em>CC the Game Master.  Successful spies in either nation will intercept some or all of those messages, thus what you are plotting will not be as "secret" as you might prefer.  This adds risks and rewards.</li><li>No ICky in OOCky will be a new rule.  Commentary/critiques on game state will still be welcome in OOC, but divulging intentions Out of Character will be discouraged.  If it's not in the RP thread, it's a PM, and again I am CC'd and a spy may intercept it.</li></ul><br/>Oh and lastly.<br/><br/><strong>Negotiations</strong>.<br/>I do not think they were a bad idea, but they are beyond my skill in running pbp games.  I'll simply allow people to do as they want, and Prestige penalties will be implemented for precise mechanical actions (i.e.: Raiding).<br/><br/><hr/><br/>All this said and done, I intend to run Shindo until people are basically done with it.  The question is largely about the next game.  I'm seeing<span class="bbc_u">three options</span>.<br/><br/><ul class="bbc_list" style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li>We move the setting and expand the scope such that rather than an intimate civil war it becomes a "clash of civilizations."  More freedom with what you are, slightly more interesting b\c it's a breath of fresh air, does not feel like we're re-hashing the same game.</li><li>We attempt a hard-rebooted Shindo with the above principles and changes in place, plus some other additions.</li><li>We go ahead and try Stellar (risky)</li></ul><br/>I'd be very interested in hearing what you all have to say about these observations and additions and options, which are based heavily on the discourse here.  Action Economy was pointed out ages ago by Aiden but felt like a huge change to make in a game in motion--however, there's no reason to not fix it for a new game.