A British Chinook Transport Helicopter
Rulebook, Section IV
Build Orders
IV. Build Orders
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A very important component of the game is building new military units. Aside from the standard military units, players can also spend their cash income on construction of new industrial facilities, scientific research, espionage, propaganda, and investment in economic expansion and trade.
IV. A. Cash Income
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The basic unit of exchange in the game is the "Cash Point". Each point represents roughly one billion dollars in cash income, but not exactly. Cash points are spent on all construction. You get a certain number of cash points each build cycle. They must be spent that turn, and cannot be hoarded. If not spent, they are lost. If you have excess you simply don't know what to do with, throw it into investment or research, do not let it get wasted. Cash points may be freely traded among positions in the purchase of resource points, military units, technology, technical assistance, and even territory. Your cash income can be increased through economic investment, but beyond a certain point this becomes more expensive than it is worth. Cash income can actually decrease due to heavy fighting within your own territory, or as a result of strategic bombing or nuclear strikes on your territory. It may also temporarily decrease due to strikes or rioting caused by unpopular policies, wars, or alliances. Economic sabotage by other powers' espionage agents may also decrease your cash income.
IV. B. Resources
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The other unit of income each position receives each turn is a certain number of resource points, but a certain number are also automatically consumed by the normal operation of your economy. The amount you receive each turn is called your "Resource Supply", and the amount you consume each turn is your "Resource Demand". Any surplus can be traded to other players at whatever price you can get them to pay, or sold to the wholesale market for one cash point each. Any shortfall MUST be met by either trading with other players for their surplus points, or by buying them on the retail market at a price of 2 cash points per resource point. If you do not meet your resource demand, your cash income will suffer severe penalties as factories stand idle for lack of raw materials, electric power plants run out of coal, and your people starve. The resource points in the gam represent a combination of metals like iron ore, energy resources like oil, and food resources like wheat. Resource points can be stockpiled, but your stockpile is limited to no more than 3 resource points at one time.
An important part of your economy and your diplomacy is international trade. Trade is vital. Nations that do a lot of trade may see an increase in their overall cash income. Nations with resource shortfalls can trade with other nations to make up that shortfall, and can usually get a better price by dealing directly with the suppliers than they could get on the retail market. There is no restriction on the kind of deals you can make. Anything you have that someone wants to buy, you can sell, including military units, resource points, technology, and even chunks of your territory. The only units you can not sell are existing army units, because you can't sell your actual soldiers. If a nation that is not able to build tanks, for example, wants to buy some from a nation that can, here is how it works. The nation that can build tanks spends the cash to upgrade (or raise from scratch) the army unit, and makes a note that they are spending it on behalf of the other nation. The nation that cannot build tanks sends the unit being upgraded (or the Reserve division) to the other nation, along with whatever payment the other nation requires. Then, the newly upgraded unit is moved back to the new owner once the upgrade is complete. Other units can be freely traded, and there is no cost to retraining or staffing, but new units can not be used in combat for at least one movement phase due to the need to train your soldiers, sailors, and pilots to operate their new equipment. Nations selling technologies such as AEGIS or Stealth must spend 1 cash point to send engineers and technical advisors to help train the personnel of the nation buying a technology. There may be additional costs in setting up production (retooling factories or shipyards, for example) or other conversions to make use of newly-acquired technologies.
IV. D. Production Restrictions
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Not all positions can build all units. Some nations have no domestic aerospace industry, some lack the large shipyards to build modern warships, and some don't have the heavy industry needed to build tanks. Others do not have access to the technology needed to build certain advanced weapons systems. In the unit listings, each unit has a statistic called "Production" that lists which type of industry or technology needed to produce such units. There is another restriction on your production. Each Position also has a statistic called "Limit". This is the total number of units that they can build or have under construction in their territory in any one time. Units that take more than one turn to build, such as ships, count as one unit for each turn they are under construction. So, for example, if your limit is 10 units, and you start production on 5 DD one turn, the next turn all 5 of those are still under construction, and you cannot build more than 5 other units that turn. No matter how many cash points you receive through trade, you cannot have more than your limit of military units under construction or being upgraded in your own territory at any one time. If you have cash points left over, they must be spent on things other than military units, such as research or espionage. If you want more units, you will have to buy other players' existing units, or pay other players to construct new units in their territories. Units being built in your territory for other players DO count towards your limit.
IV. E. Building Units
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To build units, simply spend cash to do so, and note this purchase in your orders. After the appropriate number of turns, your orders results will include a notice that these units have been delivered. In the following movement-only phase, you may deploy these new units to whatever task force you wish.
IV. E. 1. Standard Military Units
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Standard Military units, such as aircraft, ships, subs, and army units, can be built by any position with the proper facilities to do so. Players can build units for themselves, and also for their allies who do not have the proper facilities to build their own units. Fortifications, minefields, nuclear weapons, and SOSUS nets do not count towards your limit on the number of military units you are allowed to build, but SAM sites, Shore Defense batteries, and AA guns do, since they act like military units. Military units are available for deployment the movement-only phase after they are delivered in your orders results.
IV. E. 2. Special Units
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Special Units are things like Defensive Fortifications, SDI sites, minefields, and SOSUS nets. They do not count toward your limit for the number of military units you are allowed to build. Unlike military units, they are fixed, non-mobile units that must have their location determined when construction is begun, and are immediately available for combat the turn they are delivered.
IV. F. Investment
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Investment is what you do when you spend money on things other than combat-capable units like military units and special units. Investment includes spending cash points on research, economic improvement, espionage, and propaganda.
IV. F. 1. Research
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There are new research rules for the fourth game. Research can be done in one of two ways. The first and cheapest is "General" research, in which you merely determine the general field you are trying to research, and the Moderators determine what technology is eventually discovered. It may not be the exact technology you wanted, but it WILL be something useful to improving the general area you specified. If you are a new player, you might want to use this method and allow the Moderators to decide which technology in each field would be most useful to you. The two general pathways are Military and Economic.
IV. F. 1. a. Military Pathway
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The Military Pathway is further divided into three narrow fields. "Naval" research develops new ship designs and improvements in naval weaponry that allows you to produce new types of units (such as Stealth Carriers) or to improve existing unit designs (such as improved missiles or radar for your ships). New unit types in the "Naval" category simply give you the design, you have to spend more cash to actually build the new types of ships. Incremental Improvements simply gives you the new system blueprints, you must spend more cash to refit your ships with the new technology, which will result in bonuses in battle. "Aircraft" research develops new designs for aircraft units (such as NX and FX aircraft) or improvements in aerial weaponry (such as new radar and missiles) that can be refitted on your existing aircraft to add bonuses to air combat. "Army" research develops new types of tanks and other weapons to give bonuses to ground combat. There are no new units in the Army category, since it is unlikely that the game will go on long enough for units such as hover-tanks or power armor to be developed. In all types of Military research, additional cash points must be spent to actually build new unit types or to refit existing units with the new technology.
IV. F. 1. b. Economic Pathway
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Players wanting a better way to improve their economy than just straight investment need to research new technologies. There are three narrow fields within the Economic Pathway. The "Resource Exploration" field is the search for new resource sources within your own territory, and will increase your resource supply. The "Resource Efficiency" field seeks new technology such as recycling and Solar Power that reduce your Resource Demand. The "Economic Efficiency" field seeks to increase the efficiency of your economy through technologies such as robotics, electronic fund transfers, and computerization. All of these require further investment once the technology is found, to actually drill for the newly-found oil, install the energy-efficient machinery, or upgrade to the new factory robots. The cost for these activations will vary according to the technology involved and the size of the economy being improved. Please note that research-based improvements in cash income and resource demand take several turns to take full effect. At higher levels of income, this may be cheaper than straight investment, but it takes longer.
IV. F. 1. c. Directed Research
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If you want one specific technology, such as AEGIS or Stealth, you can bypass the moderator-directed pathways and concentrate on that one technology. This assures that you get the exact technology you want, but by cutting off possible surprise research breakthroughs, the cost of the research actually increases. However, if you are concentrating on a technology already possessed by another player, you can greatly aid your research through espionage.
IV. F. 2. Espionage
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Spying is an important part of the game, and it has both its risks and its rewards. The success of your espionage efforts is proportional to the amount of cash you spend on it. There are three basic missions you can send your agents out to accomplish, and a fourth way that is essentially free espionage.
IV. F. 2. a. Spying
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This is your standard intelligence-gathering mission. All types of information can be gathered. Your agents can be sent out to learn the locations and missions of enemy units. They can be ordered to determine what units are under construction or have been recently built. They can be told to attempt to determine an enemy government's intentions or secret alliances. They can even be told to try and steal technology. Full technologies cannot be stolen, since one needs more than just blueprints to build a stealth fighter, they need to know the complicated manufacturing processes needed to create the radar-absorbent materials and the software for the onboard avionics. However, your agents can steal information that can advance your own researches into that technology, and make that technology cheaper for you to develop.
IV. F. 2. b. Counterintelligence
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Equally important to offensive espionage is defensive counter-espionage. Each cash point you spend on counterintelligence effectively decreases enemy espionage spending against you by 2 cash points. If your counterintelligence efforts are effective enough, you can even feed false information to enemy agents.
IV. F. 2. c. Covert Action
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The most risky type of espionage is covert action, also called terrorism. Covert action agents can sabotage factories, transportation networks, and even military installations. Attacks on highly-guarded military installations such as air-defense radar and SDI sites are most difficult, but can mean the difference between defeat and victory in battle. Sabotage of civilian installations like factories and railroad lines can reduce an enemy's cash income, and blowing up oil^2 wells can reduce his resource supply. You can also funnel cash points to support rebels and secessionist movements inside other nations, to weaken their military and keep them too busy to attack you. If your agents are caught, or these actions are traced back to you, it can cause a diplomatic crisis that invites war. It is recommended that such actions are taken only as the opening shot of a war.
IV. F. 2. d. Diplomatic Spying
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Simply put, this is talking to your fellow players and asking what they are doing. Knowing what they are doing, and what they may have heard about what others are doing, can be an important part of your overall intelligence-gathering capability. This does not cost cash points, but in such conversations you run a double risk. The first risk is that of misinformation by other players. Lies or false rumors could lead you into actions that could bring your empire down. The second risk is that, in order to get information out of other players, you usually have to reciprocate by revealing information yourself. If other players are not acting as your loyal allies, they could reveal this information to your enemies and lead to utter defeat.
IV. F. 3. Infrastructure
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Investment in the infrastructure of your economy can increase your cash income. Building roads, offering tax incentives to new businesses, and promoting trade all work to increase your overall economy. The effectiveness of such investment is determined by the following formula: x^2/5*1/y, where "x" is the number of cash points over your starting income that your income will increase, and "y" is your starting income. The result of this equation is the number of cash points that must be spent in order to achieve that gain in your income. The larger your economy, the more it costs to increase your income. As your cash income rises, the limit to the number of units you can build also rises.
IV. F. 4. Military/Industrial Complex
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If you want to be able to build military units that you do not initially have the proper industrial infrastructure or technology to create, you need to invest in your Military/Industrial Complex. There are five types of Production restrictions that require factory construction in order to increase.
IV. F. 4. a. Shipyards
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Your ability to construct your own naval vessels is determined by the level of Shipyards you possess. Level 0 Shipyards can only build small Fast Attack craft such as PTM missile boats. Level 1 Shipyards can also build Frigates, destroyers, and diesel-electric submarines. It costs 2/1 to upgrade Level 0 Shipyards to Level 1 Shipyards. Level 2 Shipyards can build cruiser-size ships, as well as Amphibious Warfare ships, CVH carriers, and Nuclear Submarines. It costs 3/1 to upgrade Level 1 Shipyards to Level 2 Shipyards. Level 3 Shipyards can build anything up to and including CVN-size supercarriers. It costs 4/2 to upgrade Level 2 Shipyards to Level 3 Shipyards. Note that some naval units require additional technology (like AEGIS) or additional industry (like Level 1 Aircraft Factories for missile frigates) besides shipyards.
IV. F. 4. b. Aircraft Factories
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Your ability to construct your own aircraft and missiles is determined by your domestic aerospace industries. Level 0 Aircraft Factories can only repair existing aircraft and build simple bombs, they cannot construct new aircraft or missiles. Level 1 Aircraft Factories can build Obsolete aircraft such as OA and OF, and can also build missiles like ALCM. It costs 2/1 to upgrade Level 0 Aircraft Factories to Level 1 Aircraft Factories. Level 2 Aircraft Factories can build helicopters and larger aircraft such as Transports and Light Bombers. It costs 3/1 to upgrade Level 1 Aircraft Factories to Level 2 Aircraft Factories. Level 3 Aircraft Factories can build advanced aircraft such as MF and MA, as well as the largest planes like Heavy Bombers. It costs 4/2 to upgrade Level 2 Aircraft Factories to Level 3 Aircraft Factories. Note that some aircraft units require additional technologies (like Stealth) or additional industry (like Level 1 Space Program for stealth aircraft).
IV. F. 4. c. Tank Factories
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Your ability to build tanks and other heavy ground weaponry depends on your domestic heavy industries. Level 0 Tank factories can only build ammunition and light infantry weapons for units like Light Infantry. Level 1 Tank Factories can build heavier weapons like the artillery for Heavy Infantry divisions. It costs 2/1 to upgrade Level 0 Tank Factories to Level 1 Tank Factories. Level 2 Tank Factories can build the wheeled APC's and trucks for units like Motorized Infantries and the landing craft for Marines. It costs 3/1 to upgrade Level 1 Tank Factories to Level 2 Tank Factories. Level 3 Tank Factories can build the full Main Battle Tanks for units like Armor, as well as the tracked APC's and self-propelled artillery for Mechanized Infantry divisions. It costs 4/2 to upgrade Level 2 Tank Factories to Level 3 Tank Factories. Note that AC divisions need Level 2 Aircraft Factories to build the helicopters that give them their mobility.
IV. F. 4. d. Nuclear Program
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Your ability to build nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered naval vessels is determined by your domestic scientific community and whether or not you have nuclear power plants. Level 0 Nuclear Programs can conduct research on nuclear weapons and mine uranium, but that is all. Level 1 Nuclear Programs can build nuclear power plants and nuclear reactors for naval vessels like SSN and CVN, but cannot build bombs yet. It costs 8/2 to upgrade Level 0 Nuclear Program to Level 1 Nuclear Program, although this can be cut in half by getting the technology transferred from another player. Level 2 Nuclear Programs allow you to build fission weapons such as ADF bombs, but not the more powerful hydrogen warheads. It costs 20/4 to upgrade Level 1 Nuclear Program to Level 2 Nuclear Program, but this too an be cut in half with technology transfers from other powers that already have the technology. Level 3 Nuclear Programs allow you to produce the more powerful fusion-based hydrogen bombs and ICBM warheads. It costs 15/3 to upgrade Level 2 Nuclear Program to Level 3 Nuclear Program. Note that many nuclear weapons need additional technology or industry, such as Level 3 Space Programs for ICBM missiles.
IV. F. 4. e. Space Program
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Your ability to build and launch satellites is determined by your domestic space programs. With a Level 0 Space Program, you cannot build or launch satellites on your own, but you can receive signals from satellites launched for you by other players. Level 1 Space Programs can build satellites, and allow construction of advanced materials for things like Stealth aircraft, but cannot launch satellites. It costs 8/2 to upgrade Level 0 Space Program to Level 1 Space Program. Level 2 Space Programs allow you to launch satellites on your own, as well as build certain medium-range nuclear weapons such as IRBM missiles. It costs 12/2 to upgrade Level 1 Space Program to Level 2 Space Program. Level 3 space programs allow manned space flight and construction of long-range nuclear weapons such as ICBM and EMP weapons. It costs 15/3 to upgrade Level 2 Space Program to Level 3 Space Program. Note that you typically need aircraft factories and nuclear programs to take advantage of the benefits of space programs.
IV. F. 5. Propaganda
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Another important thing you can invest cash points in is Propaganda. If you wish to form an alliance with certain other nations that your citizens have a traditional hatred of, or wish to attack a nation that your people like, your citizens may riot or go on strike, disrupting your economy or even leading to rebellions or secessions. Propaganda can lessen these difficulties. Propaganda can convince your citizens that enyone is their enemy or their friend, but try not to switch these around too quickly. Propaganda can also be used on other nations, to try and convince your neighbor's people that you are their friend, which might make it more difficult for them to sign an alliance against you, but if the player wants to attack you, the only way to prevent that is to talk them out of it. While spending cash points on propaganda helps, an important part of propaganda is writing articles for the newsletters. In these articles, you can accuse other players of spying on you or funding rebels, or even secretly attacking you. This may make it easier to form a coalition against an enemy. You can also profess your friendship with a nation, to lull them into a false sense of security before you invade. This propaganda works directly on the other players, and does not cost cash points.
