Re: [BOP 1884] Main Thread: ORDERS ARE LOCKED, TURN 3 PROCESSING BEGUN

This blatant western aggression against the rightful dynasty in Vietnam is a foolhardy endeavor and an egregious affront on the Emperor's honor. Although the Emperor wishes for a swift and diplomatic resolution, know that he will not yield without a fight. Know too that the Emperor has every intention of continuing to support General Liu and his brave men in their righteous struggle against the French. Buguan hei mao bai mao, zhuo dao laoshu jiu shi hao mao.

The Constitution was and is a binding document. These United States exist in a perpetual Union, bound by common culture and objective. The Southern states have seceded unlawfully, and have seceded with the intent to prevent the abolition of slavery and the breakdown of the Southern planter aristocracy. Any potential hope for reform and diplomacy is misguided, overestimates the political and social abilities of a barely cobbled together state, underestimates the strength and power of moneyed aristocracy within the Confederate political apparatus, and provides blatant and deliberate disregard of a geopolitical crippling of the American peoples for the benefit of Europeans.

The Southern States will be forcefully returned to the Union, and the American People's returned to their whole and complete state. If they want to make it a continuous struggle to abolish the institution of slavery (as well as it's damning re-ignition of the slave trade) and break up the caste system of oligarchical supremacists, the Union shall reciprocate for it's own preservation, and for the betterment of the American peoples as a whole.

I call on the Great Powers of the world to not negatively interfere in this illegal and destabilizing, desperate uprising by the White Southerner.

Our "revolt" is no more illegal than our ancestors split from the British Empire, nor from California's and Deseret's split before us. Further, we are not "abolition of slavery", we are preventing the poverty that would exist in the vacuum if it were to be abolished over night. The North focused solely on the North where infrastructure and development were concerned, while the South was forced to use cost effective measures to keep our economy afloat. The First and Second Compromise were nothing more than an excuse to avoid having to actually spent tax revenue on the Southern taxpayers, and rather than actually reach a compromise that would actually allow us to end slavery you simply want to yank it away and leave people to starve.

We can not survive without farmhands. The logical solution is to either receive federal funding so that we can pay our slaves as freed workers or (better) modernize our economy so that machines and infrastructure negate the need for slave labor. You can not blame me for this war, as I was more than willing to seek a gradual abolishment that would have ended in a referendum to reunite the North and the South back into one power once equality had been achieved (for both the slaves and the economic status of the North and South).

I pray that the Europeans are paying attention to the mismanagement of Washington, and avoid creating this sort of disparity in Africa. Favored children breed resentment in the rest.

It is seen by the Texan people as undeniable truths that the governments of each great state, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. The African race had no part in the formation of the state of Texas, so shall they not have any part in its polity.

However, Washington's stance on slavery and treatment regarding slavery towards our sister-states is not Washington's only failing. The federal government has failed to sufficiently curb attacks by the savage Indian, in many cases exacerbating the violence with the poor discipline and regulation of the Army; the federal government has failed to regulate kidnappers of slaves from unlawful abolitionist states; the federal government has allowed California to become an estranged sister-state, distant and victim to predation by the Indian and Mexican, forced to operate as a nation in its own right out of sheer necessity.

Most egregiously, the Washington tyrants seek to suppress the existence of means for legal secession through violent response, so there is no recourse but to meet such violence.

If anyone would like to host any conferences on neutral ground, Hawaii is building a large conference resort. All major bookings include five tokens for free coconut cocktails per person, and a 30% discount on surfing lessons.

Hello Players,

I am pleased to announce that the Country Cards and Turn 0 Reports are finally finished and ready for viewing! I thank you all for your patience, and hope you all enjoy your cards. These have been the labors of some two months of research, internal discussion, and writing, and they are in total probably the longest and most elaborate single piece I've ever written, so while I apologize for the wait, I hope it is well worth the delay. If you have any questions or problems with your card, let me know via Skype, Steam, or PM. Otherwise, you may begin working on your orders and formulating your strategies now! For those new to the game, follow the link below, and enter in the Username and Password I provided for you by Personal Message when you joined the game:

https://tw.greywool.com/bop/

As Cards and Orders are now out, you will have TWO WEEKS to write out and submit your orders. Thus, orders will close on July 29th, at Midnight EST. Penalties for late orders without prior notice given may result in drops in Prestige, while early orders will boost it!

I've also uploaded the map into the BoP menu, and transferred it here, as it is of much higher quality. Once more, thank you for your patience, and I hope you will enjoy your opening Turn in Balance of Power: 1884!

Kind Regards,
Your Hosts

P.S. As a final note, I am utterly burned out on writing atm, so I may be in varying degrees of absence while I enjoy a long vacation over the next few days. On that note, a handful of players may have somewhat truncated colony descriptions as I fit in the essential details. I will get to filling out a fuller and more elaborate description for these over the next few weeks as I have the inspiration and inclination. Otherwise, for the moment, I bid you adieu!

Don't forget you can try to bother me or Monty in Alma's absence as well. With most of the Country Cards and reptors being stupidly long, there's bound to be some inconsistencies so let us know and we'll work with you. If you want to do any NPC diplomacy, just address the PM to all three of us and we'll work out then which host which represent which country. As you do your own diplomacy amongst yourselves, CC us in your PMs if you want. It's not required, but we like to know what's going on!

Alright, let's see how many wars gets started in the first turn.

I hadn't looked at Qing's card until now, and I see now that it's probably the only one longer than Great Britain's.

Almalexia really likes China.

Yeah, there was a lot of work put into the turn 0s. Enjoy

Edit: and definitely remember to cc all hosts in diplo! We enjoy that stuff

Austyboo ^_^ said:

I see now that it's probably the only one longer than Great Britain's.

Click to expand...

I still haven't finished reading my stuff...

Moose! said:

This blatant western aggression against the rightful dynasty in Vietnam is a foolhardy endeavor and an egregious affront on the Emperor's honor. Although the Emperor wishes for a swift and diplomatic resolution, know that he will not yield without a fight. Know too that the Emperor has every intention of continuing to support General Liu and his brave men in their righteous struggle against the French. Buguan hei mao bai mao, zhuo dao laoshu jiu shi hao mao.

Click to expand...

Know that France as ever seeks a diplomatic resolution as our first approach, if this aim is truly shared by the Chinese then we would caution them against making further incendiary remarks as these. We will make further comments on these matters in the coming days.

The Russian Empire would like to outline its foreign policy objectives and its stances on several of the crises currently afflicting the world.

We have no desire to pursue significant territorial expansion. Our Empire is already vast and powerful, and its size is straining against its might. The father of the present brilliant Emperor sacrificed his life to the internal forces afflicting Russia and its territories beyond, and those issues must be prioritized. To our rivals in Central Asia, we propose a truce to the Great Game. To our major neighbor in the East, the Qing, we seek harmony and peace. In Europe, we will maintain our mantle as the protector of the Orthodox faith and the Slavic peoples, but we will not be pursuing any aggressive actions on their behalf. The Ottomans may see a lasting peace with us as well, so long as they do not renege on the autonomy they are presently providing to the Slavic and Christian peoples under their reign.

However, we do seek to expand our trade network, which will require access to new harbors. Our Empire should not rest solely on the backs of our farmers, and in order to provide our people with commercial opportunities, we need ports, ships and capital. In order to facilitate such trade expansion, we will be creating protectorates and establishing territories on the Horn of Africa, where our merchants will have safe refuge to resupply and continue on their journey. We may also pursue mutually beneficial relationships with nations throughout the world involving leases of ports.

We would like to inform the great empires of the world that we intend to create a two pronged Transcontinental Railroad - leading from St. Petersburg to Vladivodstok and into China, with an extension into our Central Asian holdings. This is a massive infrastructural endeavor that we invite the world to invest in, so that its construction may be swift and strong, and your nation may benefit from safe and rapid land transport of goods across the vast expanse of Asia.

We will be watching the events of the world unfold with great interest, but we currently have no plans to interfere. We will, however, warn that any nation harboring or assisting the assassins who slew the late great Tsar will face swift retribution by the full might of the Russian military.

Just a note for everyone, as far as NPC diplomacy goes, you can contact practically anyone for negotiations. There may exceptions, but none occur to me at this time.

You can potentially start this by contacting one of us through Skype or Steam, but PMs here would be best. Just PM all three of us, but I figured I'd let you know we decided to each take control of a certain region to handle NPC diplomacy. I will handling all of the NPCs, including individual States as far the U.S, C.S.A, Deseret and Western Territories go, in the Western Hemisphere. Almalexia and Amontadillo will be splitting up the European and African NPCs as it comes up, so again just messaging all three of us would work best. Almalexia will be handling the Indies & the Far East.

Could my recruitment prices be in the same currency as all my other finances, please?

PM sent.

Sorry about that, slipped my mind to fix those. Applies to a couple people's cards, don't worry about it, will be fixed.

For the record, however, there are no currency conversions or anything of the sort: currency differentiation is solely for flavor. We've fixed up a few for a bit more consistency, plus a few clerical errors. If you guys see anything else let us know.

Also, you can consider me "officially" back, so I'll try get back to any questions you have as soon as possible, as well as catch up on diplomacy and such.

The Russian Empire would like to declare that although it has not taken a position on the legal status or sovereignty of the entities involved in the military conflict in North America, we recognize the power of the constituent states of the United States of America to make trade deals with sovereign entities, and would consider any attempt to impede Russian trade in the region an act of military aggression.

The Confederate States will recognize and respect the neutrality of foreign trade vessels and escorts and clearly identifiable foreign observers.