Interesting figures there.  Any data on South America?

And how much of that would be changed by the Invasion?  Sure, it failed, but it also hurt some countries pretty badly, the UK in particular.

Rich

And for the proposed Balkan League: 59,495 (includes Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia). Compare to Turkey's 40,588, and they can make life difficult...

If you exclude Romania, things are more even, as the Balkans come back down to 37,685.

I would be hesitant to tie GDP directly to Ether-fleet strength.  GDP is not always a good indication of goverment wealth or industrial capacaity.  China a good example- high GDP, poor industrial development.  Another example is that Spain is slightly wealthier then Austro-Hungry by GDP, but the Austrian goverment historically had far more money to play with (larger army and navy, better developed civil service) due to different tax and development policies.  Finally, what each nation is willing to spend on defense is a factor as well- the US and the UK are fairly close in GDP, but the % that the UK spent on defense was much higher in this time period, so thier military power was correspondingly greater.

I think a better approach would to be see what each nation sees as it's security needs and how it should meet them.  For example, if you have historically poor relations with another country (or a present point of contention) and they have an ether fleet consisting of X, then you better also have X or something that can counter X.  Another example is that the nations currently mining the earth-following asteriods (can't recall the name) will need plenty of smaller ships for escort duty, and nations that don't will need a smaller number of raiders to disrupt those convoys....  Spain's lunar adventure will give them thier own unique set of security requirements, and so on.  I could see GDP being a brake on nations getting too ambitous/large for their size.

Actually, I'd pull Greece, have it be an ally and not a member and leave Romania in.  That way the League is closer to the White Russian sphere of influence (both geographically and politically).  Don't know what that does the GDP.

EDIT: The multiplying factors is an interesting idea and does answer some the issues above.  But I really do feel that we're otherthinking the issue and simply setting the fleet strength at what we need it to be in order to be interesting but not over the top is a better choice.

-Will

Indeed... but (a) I love objective statistics... and (2) I don't know that there's any available numbers on money collected by the Government of different countries.

Hopefully, something like the industrial and motivation factors listed above can accomplish what you're suggesting.

Hmmm, still pretty high.  If we stick with the GDP approach I might have to re-think my alternative Balkan League history.

I don't recall much of my economics, but does't GDP measure consumer spending, local investment and goverment spending?  If so, that means GDP really isn't a great measure of a nation's wealth in terms of producing a military-industrial complex at all, since goverment spending is already accounted for (aka GDP consumes the goverment's wealth, it doesn't create it).  If we are going to pick a statisitic to base assumptions I think it would be better to grab something that is more directly applicable, such as tons of manufactured/industrial goods produced anually or something along those lines.

The factors do help, but I still think it's a lot of work for something that could just as easily be done without any calculations at all, just level headed extrapolation.  I guess I'm not so much opposed as I am not grasping the necessity of locking into such a system.

As for the objective nature of the statistics, I've found that objectiveness has very little to do with military budgets.... 

-Will

No, actually, I do think the Germans would see the ether as a Godsend (thus the name of the asteroid cluster, Kaiser-Freude).

But the Germans also have the industrial capacity to follow up on that, as evidenced by their large surface fleet by the time WW1 comes around. My argument is that there aren't any non-naval nations in this period that would have the capacity to jump into the Space Race.

And maybe lots of little nations will try to throw up a ship or two... but the sizeable fleets will be limited to a select few nations -- and I suspect those select few include only the ones currently in the game, plus the USA and France. Maybe the Balkan League, maybe one or two more.

Could one assume that ships constructed during 1904-5 (the first IS book) could be picked up at a cheaper price 10 years on (since we seem to be discussing the economies of these countries at the brink of the first World War)?

Could congeve rockets (1904-05) be picked up cheaper than hale rockets (1908-09)?

Or is every technology meant to be available at the same time? And does every nation have to be at the top of the technological tree?

Would a 225 point BB with all the bells and whistles cost the same as a 225 point BB with just guns and torpedoes? Since the construction system allows one to arrive at the same point total in a variety of different ways, then surely something else has to be factored into the economic cost of warships.

Mike B.

If we do use the GDP to help determine fleet sizes I'd suggest having GDP determine a total 'tonnage ratio', not points.  I think the amount of shipping tonnage that a nation could construct would be as big or a bigger limit on fleet size then pure buying power (for the big boys like Britain or Germanyn in particular).  If a nation is willing to spend more then others on thier fleet, well we have the adjustment modifiers to GDP to reflect that.  Maybe it would even be a good idea to establish a difference (just a modifier would do probably) between nations that build thier own hulls and nations that have to purchase them.

In any event, how should we go about establishing the modifiers that are used to adjust GDP?  What's worthy of a positive or negative modifer?

Also, just another thought I've had- are we actually designing every ship for each navy?  One thing I'm worried about is that if we say 'here's how big every fleet is, and here's all thier ships' we might discourage new people from designing thier own vessels inadvertently (since with the official calculations there is no more room for new ships).  Should we esablish a fleet point or hull limit and then leave some of that space 'empty' so players can feel like they can fill that space up with thier own designs?  I know a 'full canon list' of ships won't discourage some players from designing thier own anyway, but it will certaintly discourage others....  Just a worry I have.

-Will

That's sorta my thinking... but even this is getting too specific for what I had in mind.

I was simply trying to find a reliable and somewhat "realistic" way of ranking the relative sizes of standing fleets.

For example, if Britain has a higher modified GDP than France, then Britain's ether fleet should be larger than France's. I'm not trying to create a campaign system...

That would be the easiest thing to do, yes.

I'd be okay with a bit more structure to fleet selection, but the rather rigid "ratio" system in BFG would be going a little too far IMO.  It's worth remembering that BFG's fleet lists were designed in part to ensure sales of the cruisers, which were "priority" items for GW...the plastic ones *had* to sell big to pay for their molds, and the metal ones had the best profit margin of anything in the line.

But yes, forcing players to field some escort craft for their battleships would be nice.

Rich

I was considering a "pyramid scheme", in which a fleet must include more ships at each size class than it has in the next level up... i.e.,

I've got one V.Large ship, so I have to have at least two Large ships.
I've got two Large ships, so I have to have at least three Medium ships.
I've got three Medium ships, so I have to have at least four Small ships.
I've got four Small ships, so I have to have at least five V.Small ships.

Thus, to put just one V.Large ship on the table, I have to have at least 14 other ships out as well...

...eek...

Maybe that's too harsh...