LiME newbie comments. . .

[reformer]

Ok, so it looks like LiME has been declared dead. As a newbie, I'm very curious, it which ways did we each do well, and in wich ways could we improve?

[Mayhem]

It has been struggling for about a week, hasn't it?
For me, my plans fell to bits after the Indochinese rebellion. I got kinda lost and not much else was happening.

I found a lack of info crippling, particularly with regards to military stats. I just couldn't find them for the period, which made me wary of entering into any kind of military movements. This'll be due to the recentness of my POD, I guess, because it pretty much restricts me to OTL stats. I'll recommend to anyone else to do some serious research into military in any ME, though I wont be able to join in ME-CW because of the busy term I have ahead off me :(.

[DuQuense]

need to work on your WTF starting piece . I came home from work and found the game in full throttle, and no WTF Peices. They do set the tone for your Country.

You also have to decide if you are going to be a good guy, or a baddie, and if you are going to hang tough, Ho chi Minh spent 50 years fighting for Vietnam's Independence, My Ho chi Minh, was not going to do less.

[Glen]

It has been struggling for about a week, hasn't it?
For me, my plans fell to bits after the Indochinese rebellion. I got kinda lost and not much else was happening.

I found a lack of info crippling, particularly with regards to military stats. I just couldn't find them for the period, which made me wary of entering into any kind of military movements. This'll be due to the recentness of my POD, I guess, because it pretty much restricts me to OTL stats. I'll recommend to anyone else to do some serious research into military in any ME, though I wont be able to join in ME-CW because of the busy term I have ahead off me :(.

You will be missed in MECW, Mayhem. I think you were one of the bright stars of the recruitment drive.

You could just pick a small nation that would be interesting but not as intensive. Why not take a small, neutral leaning country with just a basic defense force. Allows you to write something up and join in on the play at your leisure. Just construct it in such a way that it adds flavor to the game, but is not in a strategically vital position that would require a heavy investment of time. Could you manage a small post every two or three days? That would be fine for such a nation... If you were to go such a route, I'd recommend passing until most of the very active players have announced their intended areas and/or nations, and go for some neglected, empty area on the map.

You are quite right that the research necessary for doing nations militaries can be very difficult and time consuming. However, a few recommendations to help with that...

1) Ask for help. You will find that a lot of players will happily help you with your military design, and have the background and expertise to guide you through it.

2) Pick and choose from what others have. You can cut and paste basically military elements from that of others to give the basics of what your military is like. Example :Navy could come from the game's Persia, Army from the game's Mongolia, etc... This way you can show relative to other nations what your military is like on the cheap. For those who can't afford to get into details, this is a viable option.

3) Use the butterflies, Luke! If your POD is anywhere remote, you can just finesse it and say that there have also been 'random fluctuations' in other areas that will allow you to be freed up from being chained to OTL stats exactly. And of course, a real early POD frees you from all OTL history. Just make certain your military is plausible for your nation/society. Mods and experienced players can help you figure that out, too.

4) Just give the basics. If you can't do all the details, just say the basics - For example, I've got a x thousand man army, a medium sized fleet, and a small air force focused on air interceptors. The rest of the details the mods and/or other players can figure based on what the 'average' military of the time would look like given all this.

Just some ideas off the top of my head.

[Glen]

need to work on your WTF starting piece . I came home from work and found the game in full throttle, and no WTF Peices. They do set the tone for your Country.

You also have to decide if you are going to be a good guy, or a baddie, and if you are going to hang tough, Ho chi Minh spent 50 years fighting for Vietnam's Independence, My Ho chi Minh, was not going to do less.

You can also be somewhere in between.

The important things to know about your nation are:

What are my nation's vital interests?
How is my nation willing to pursue those interests?
What are the attitudes of my nation towards others (and what criteria they use to develop those attitudes)?

This need not be 'good guy' or 'bad guy' sorts of things...often the truth is somewhere in between. I think great examples of this was p99's Egypt and Japan in ME6. Egypt was really more interested in advancing their nation, but leaned a little towards the questionable side. Japan was similar, though it leaned a little towards the 'good' side due to their sense of honor. Neither are what I would have called good guys or bad guys.

Remember Disraeli's comment to Queen Victoria regarding whether Britain had any permanent friends, "No Marm, only permanent interests."

[Ward]

We can come up with your military for you .

Let say you are a netural nation from 1965

With a small airforce
you can have 18 Mig -19 or go with F-5a either one is a nice cheep aircraft .
For ships check into some small countries navies .
The 60's time most small nations were armed the same as major nations in WWII . Look at what natins were armed with in wwII .
If ypu need to look at what a soldier had for equpment you can check
BBI toys WWII or Dragon Toys check the Action Figures they have .They have what the average soldier had for equpment . They are on the web.
Also check some of the wargame sites they will have how an army is organized .

[Mayhem]

Thinking about it, I probably do have time to be someone unimportant. I did try that in MEuro, and it didn't seem to work out, but then, neither did MEuro, so...
Glad to hear that deliberately vague Military stats make sense. I'll try that for MECW.
Only thing else I'd like to say, is that I wasn't really comfortable with the character-driven posting which was the standard in MEuro. I actually found the detatched style of LiME better, perhaps because it reminded me more of Civilisation :D. Just a thought for whoever's running the next one (who for the life of me I can't remember...).

Oh, and thanks for the compliment, Glen :)