We Meet Again...

Some of you may already know the general update process that some xPowers subs - namely EmpirePowers - tend to run, but for those of you not in the know, I'd like to welcome you to the first SWWP "Dev Diary"! Starting from now until launch, you'll be getting weekly updates on the development of the state of the sub's launch and of the moderation team's efforts in bringing you ever closer to the Second World War.

The set launch for the second season is aiming for November 11th, at 11 AM Paris time - and the game will be starting at the same time in-game as well, right in 1918! We're bringing you closer than ever to the end of the Great War, so that you, the player, can determine the state of Europe that will then erupt into all-out war once again. Of course, this launch date is viable to change depending on the needs of the sub - if we're lacking in mechanics or if suddenly half the mod team falls sick, we will be pushing it back as needed. Now, for some updates on what exactly we've done, or have decided on.

Sheets

Sheets as of this time will not be implemented in SWWP. We feel that they limit what players feel they can do. Oftentimes, subs with sheets either opt for an overly-complicated breaks-if-you-touch-it sheet that tries to model almost every aspect of a society, which then results in players playing more with numbers than they do with the actual politics, diplomacy, and war in-game. Alternatively, barebones sheets usually end up in a simple "Oh, they have a higher GDP. They win." scenario, and don't accurately display the disparities between the money on paper and the actual situation on the ground. With these things in mind, we have opted not to be using sheets this season for most mechanics, and instead rely more on a moderator consensus for historical feasibility of a given endeavor. Should sheets be deemed necessary for certain mechanics at a given time later on, we may compliment them - but they will not be the tool which one uses to run their nation.

Map

The map for this season is going to be a mixture of a 'stateless' map hand-drawn by /u/Yetkinler and the adaptation of the HoI 4 map by /u/GammaRay_X , doing their utmost to model Europe as it exists a minute after the end of the Great War. A version of the map with states may be made available to help players with agreeing on a given border, but ultimately states have no 'mechanical' aspect on the game at large.

Time Progression

At game start, we will be operating on a one day, one month policy. The game may be increased to two or even four months a day later on, but given the sheer amount of chaos and needed negotiations at the beginning of the game, we will be moving as slowly as possible at start.

Unique Mechanics

Some of you who paid attention in high school history class might think to yourself, 'Wait, the armistice only stopped the war, it didn't settle a peace'. Well, you're right! In SWWP, we host player-lead peace conferences. Want to go even harsher on Germany? Perhaps actually give Italy what it was promised? Maybe just eliminate the Ottoman Empire alltogether? The choice is yours - but so are the consequences! Furthermore, a peace treaty must be signed once per week starting on the second week of the game, or dynamic crises may be implemented to force nations to come to terms with the necessity of peace. The game will, in such events where players still refuse to come to peace terms, pause indefinitely while such crises mount around the world, and will not resume until either peace is achieved, or until... Well, certain other conditions are met. Can't spoil everything, now, can we?

One of the major problems concerning moderation both here and in other subs where I and other members of the mod team have worked came down to how wars would become an absolute horror to moderate. Moderators frequently would be waiting on players to submit war orders, and then likewise would have to - in a very short time - understand the intent and goal of all players' war orders, and anticipate how they would interact. When one player would submit two paragraphs and a map with arrows drawn on it, and another player would submit ten pages with complete time-period authentic topography, moderators would frequently run into issues of not knowing where one army is, or having 'too specific' orders that players demanded were followed to the letter despite actions on the ground not being what the player envisioned. In an attempt to solve - or at least mitigate - some of these problems, we will now be necessitating all players to have at minimum the location of their armies and troops displayed for moderators to view on a nation-specific google drive. Historically, nations had battle plans prepared well in advance to a given conflict, and oftentimes planned for conflicts that would simply never happen. Now, this fact can be represented in-game, where players can only act on war plans that are present in their 'war folder' prior to a given turn! Furthermore, this mechanic will interact with BLOPS in new and meaningful ways - but more on that later.

A Clarification on Meta and the use of Discord

Metagaming as it is understood by the mod team is banned. This is, for example, trying to subvert history by doing something so wildly out of character that it doesn't make sense. The King of Greece, for instance, was historically killed by a monkey bite - if a player did everything he could to keep the King of Greece away from monkeys, this would be metagaming.

However, if I try to make a deal with someone else on discord, it is not metagaming. Yet it must be made explicitly clear - only those deals that are made on the subreddit are "canon". One must understand that oftentimes players can get 'wrapped up' in the identity of their claim, and talk to others like 'one claim to another'; doing so isn't a bannable offense, it just isn't actionable from the perspective of enforcement. If you make a deal with someone on discord, it doesn't automatically transition to the subreddit. Ultimately metagaming comes down to a "You know it when you see it" ruling, and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as needed. If metagaming needs to be clarified further, it will be, but know that interactions between two people in planning to perform an action, or subverting an expected action, or simply holding a conversation or 'what if' on a subject, are not considered metagaming.

Second World War Powers? More like Interwar Powers!

Well, yes and no. I'd like to take this time at the end of the 'dev diary' to clarify the intention of SWWP. See, we could have simply plopped ourselves in 1936 and started the game - it'd be easier on setup, surely, but the problem is that it creates very little in terms of the interesting setup of the world. There is such a diverse array of how politics, diplomacy, and national identity can be tweaked in the matter of months in 1919, whereas if we started the game in the waking hours of World War Two, all that would be done would be, effectively, battle posts and quid-pro-quo alliance blocs that pop up more out of necessity than because of interesting roleplay and geopolitics.

We aim to create an interesting season, where player agency creates a user-made Second World War, rather than just rehashing the same story with different battle outcomes. Here, you will try to solve the Old World's problems in 1919... only to create problems that you, yourselves, are responsible for. You will start the Second World War - not the impending advancement of history as we know it. You will impose the heavy peace that upends the world - or you will fail to impose a harsh enough one to prevent a new Great War. The choice is yours.

Welcome to SWWP. There are no winners here.