Pocket empires and non-state actors

[nDervish]

In my ongoing quest to insert ridiculously excessive detail into MTU, I've been doing some long-term sector development using a system based on T4 Pocket Empires. But there's something missing: Support for major entities (megacorps, terrorist groups, etc.) which have a substantial interstellar presence, but are not actually planetary governments. I'm not really looking for the full-on cyberpunk concept of the megacorps being stronger than the governments, but I would like them to at least be represented instead of totally ignored.

Has anyone done anything like this previously?

One possibility that I've considered would be something vaguely similar to the "faction" subsystem from Stars Without Number. It would allow factions to send assets to a system, establish a base there, develop facilities, run operations against other factions (or the planetary government...), etc. For income, I suspect it would work best to calculate each faction's influence on the world and collect some small percentage of the post-tax GWP based on the level of influence. I haven't really developed or thought it out beyond that point so far.

(Mods: Feel free to move this to another board if it would be more appropriate there. I chose IMTU because it's essentially a thread about house rules, but could also see it going in a few other places.)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

You're looking for *rules* about megacorps? I would think it would only really work by simply taking a look and seeing what would fit.

 

[Dragoner]

JTAS 16 has a rundown on SuSAG, that gives some idea how the megacorps work.

 

[Gray Pennell]

My favorite Mega Corp supplement is BITS 101 Corporations if you can get your hands on it. It 101 corporations and Universal Corporate Profile rules. The rules allow us to compare companies and get "personalities"

 

[mike wightman]

Has anyone done anything like this previously?

Nope, but tI think its a great idea and should be an interesting exercise.

Let's concentrate on mega corps to start with.

A mega corp can own worlds - RUs can be gained there - but the mega corp is also something of a shadow empire, the mega corps are there in the background making money/RUs for their shareholders rather than for the development of the polity.

So we need to work out how many RUs a megacorp can "skim" from the government economy (I realise the reality is the two go hand in hand but for this exercise we have to split them so we can generate the megacorp RUs).

We also need stuff for the megacorp to spend its RU on - manufacturing centers, shipping lines, r&d, security forces, shareholder dividend. Note I 'm keeping very broad descriptions - a manufacturing centre could be making whatever the mega corp specialises in.

OK, that's my starting point - off to dig out the books and play...

 

[nDervish]

You're looking for *rules* about megacorps?

Basically, yes. Either rules (if they exist) or suggestions for coming up with my own (if they don't).

What I currently have is a bunch of worlds which produce a load of RUs at the start of each year and get "turns" at random (avg. 90 day) intervals, at which point they and their controlling pocket empires spend RUs per T4PE rules. (Or at least a large subset of T4PE... I haven't implemented unit purchases, military operations, or relationship mechanics yet.)

What I don't have is any representation of organizations other than planetary or interstellar governments, which seems like a gaping hole in the model to me. While I certainly could declare on a purely roleplaying basis by GM fiat that the Syart Corporation expanded this month by opening a new plant at Serapiro, putting them in direct conflict with Genorg Manufacturing's operations there and then a couple months later decide, again purely by fiat, that Genorg raided the Syart facility causing X type of damage, I would much rather have at least a loose system for determining how much money (well, RUs) each corp is making on each world, how much they're spending to expand their operations, how much Genorg spends on the raid vs. how much the damage costs Syart, etc.

 

[Timerover51]

Hmmm, Tony Bath, in his Setting up a Wargame Campaign book has a system using a deck of cards and dice rolls that you might adapt to what you are looking for. He uses it for setting up governments, but I suspect that it should work for large companies.

I will need to get out my games design material in case you are interested.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ah, you're gaming economies and such. Have fun. (That's too much like college coursework to me! )

 

[Timerover51]

Ah, you're gaming economies and such. Have fun. (That's too much like college coursework to me! )

Well, the other option is use something like Klaus Knorr's War Potential of Nations, and adapt the data on various nations industrial capacities to large companies. That gives you a lot of data on GDP prior to World War 2 of the various industrial nations, along with industrial output as a portion of the World's industrial potential. Or go with something like the Mineral Yearbook or Mineral Facts and Problems put out by the US Bureau of Mines for a long time, and see where minerals are produced and how much from each area, and then assign that data to one of your companies on a planet.

As a former Army supply officer that actually thinks logistics are fascinating, I can see how it could be done. I am not sure that it is something that I would do. I do try to determine a reason for every world being settled in the Spinward Marches, using some of that data. If I cannot seem to get it to work right, I do adjust some of the UWP to make things work. Small population worlds with poor habitability conditions generally will be producing a very valuable resource to justified their existence, although sometimes I simply use a group with strong financial resources that simply wants to get away from it for a while.

 

[nDervish]

Hmmm, Tony Bath, in his Setting up a Wargame Campaign book has a system using a deck of cards and dice rolls that you might adapt to what you are looking for. He uses it for setting up governments, but I suspect that it should work for large companies.

I will need to get out my games design material in case you are interested.

Do you know if those materials are available online anywhere (including online ordering of physical copies)? Sounds likely to be worth looking at, at least.

Ah, you're gaming economies and such. Have fun. (That's too much like college coursework to me! )

I suppose so, although I think of it more as simulating the setting. And I aim to ultimately have software handling all the mechanics, so I won't have to do the coursework myself. The only problem is that I have to figure out what the mechanics are before I can automate them.

I do try to determine a reason for every world being settled in the Spinward Marches, using some of that data.

I've come to the conclusion that, at least IMATU, the reason that there's at least one colonized world in every available system is simply to provide a place to stop and refuel. If it's a pleasant place to live or has valuable resources, then that's a major bonus, of course, but the initial expansion was done mostly by Jump-1 or, at best, Jump-2, so every potential waystation was valuable, even if only as a stepping stone to somewhere better. I don't know the OTU history well enough to say whether the same reasoning might also apply to the Spinward Marches or not.

 

[Dragoner]

It sounds like what you are looking for is a macroeconomics text book, maybe you can just pick one up at a used bookstore?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I've come to the conclusion that, at least IMATU, the reason that there's at least one colonized world in every available system is simply to provide a place to stop and refuel. If it's a pleasant place to live or has valuable resources, then that's a major bonus, of course, but the initial expansion was done mostly by Jump-1 or, at best, Jump-2, so every potential waystation was valuable, even if only as a stepping stone to somewhere better. I don't know the OTU history well enough to say whether the same reasoning might also apply to the Spinward Marches or not.

IMTU there's sometimes nothing in system. Well, there's often a few people, at least - mining an asteroid somewhere or just living out of the way and off the grid. Of course, MTU is low pop, too - it only has 480+ years of pop growth to work with. There's a LOT of wilderness refueling going on in MTU.

I also had a couple of systems turn up in generation with nothing but a star - no rocks, no GGs, no nothing. I actually had to figure out how to code that UWP, without making it look like an asteroid belt with no people (X000000). (I used XFFF000, instead.)

 

[Fovean]

Mongoose's Merchant Prince has a system for developing corporations, from a couple of scrappy junk-dealing merchants up to massive megacorps. Basically it generates various corporate attributes (such as Control and Management), skills (like Research, Advocacy and Investment) and traits (such as Loyalty and Wealth). Wealth and Employees are spent on task checks to improve scores and generate more wealth in various ventures like Cargo Hauling, Manufacturing and R&D.

It's fairly intensive bookkeeping but it could give you a place to start, perhaps making Wealth equal to RUs or some fraction thereof.

 

[Whipsnade]

In my ongoing quest to insert ridiculously excessive detail into MTU...

A laudable goal.

One possibility that I've considered would be something vaguely similar to the "faction" subsystem from Stars Without Number. It would allow factions to send assets to a system, establish a base there, develop facilities, run operations against other factions (or the planetary government...), etc. For income, I suspect it would work best to calculate each faction's influence on the world and collect some small percentage of the post-tax GWP based on the level of influence. I haven't really developed or thought it out beyond that point so far.

I like what I've read about the SWN faction system but I think it's too fiddly, too "below the level of resolution" in this particular case.

PE is all about RUs. All you're interested in is how many RUs you can collect and how many RUs you're forced to spend. All you need to figure out about these non-state actors is how they effect the amount of RUs collected.

"Good" non-state actors like law-abiding corporations, development consortiums, public charities, and the like are going to add to a given planet's RU tally because they increase economic activity, pay taxes, handle things the government doesn't have to, and so forth. You can lump their presence together into a simple and single percentage increase
to the number of RUs received.

"Bad" non-state actors like law-breaking corporations, organized crime, terrorists, and the like are going to subtract from a given planet's RU tally because they require more policing, divert resources, decrease economic activity, require the government to handle more things than it wants to, and so forth. You can lump their presence together into a simple and single percentage decrease to the number of RUs received.

(PE already does something like this with it's culture scores and random events which effect RU levels, IIRC.)

Here's the twist, the same non-state actor can be "good" in one system and "bad" in another.

Whichever way you decide to handle things, please let us now.

 

[nDervish]

Mongoose's Merchant Prince has a system for developing corporations, from a couple of scrappy junk-dealing merchants up to massive megacorps. Basically it generates various corporate attributes (such as Control and Management), skills (like Research, Advocacy and Investment) and traits (such as Loyalty and Wealth). Wealth and Employees are spent on task checks to improve scores and generate more wealth in various ventures like Cargo Hauling, Manufacturing and R&D.

It's fairly intensive bookkeeping but it could give you a place to start, perhaps making Wealth equal to RUs or some fraction thereof.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I've already picked up MgT's Dynasty, but found it a little too abstract for my taste. It's very well designed for role-playing with lots of interpretation of results, but doesn't work so well for simulation. (e.g., I can roll my dynasty's "Militarism" score against your "Tenacity" to resolve a "Conquest" action to "Invade another Dynasty’s territory and claim it", but the only mechanical effect of my success would be to reduce your "Morale" and either "Territorial Defence" or "Wealth".) If Merchant Prince involves "fairly intensive bookkeeping", that's likely to be closer to what I'm looking for.

 

[Icosahedron]

Perhaps, as Bill suggests, the simple method would be to allocate various Megacorps a percentage of each world's GWP. That percentage could be increased or decreased depending on whatever events you chose to throw into the mix. That way the actual government of a world could turn out to be a minority shareholder of the GWP...