An Officer's Primer

I haven’t started chapter one yet. I’ll let you know when I have.

Everything you have so far is great.

I also understand your position on gender; I just wish you were able to incorporate choice without doing the full switch routine of CoB. Since your world is still formed from your mind and not bound strictly to our history, I would hope you find a way forward.

I can give better feedback when more is pushed out for review.

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I like the premise even though it’s a little similar to the Sabres Of Infinity series. Also I got a bug right after I got my contract with the sergeant “detailing the basic amenities I was allowed during training.”


Good work and am hoping for the best!

Seems like a fun premise, I’ll look forward to playing the demo when it’s a bit further along.

It does. I was just concerned that you were going to make a game where the PC’s character is ambiguous and never mentioned.

Of course you could do that too if you wanted, it’s just that it’d be extremely difficult to make a game where the PC is never referred to as “he” or “she” :yum:

Well…there briefly was the short lived Zatara wip, late last year that tried to go for this.
Imo, that will only work until you get to the romances where I would naturally want the other cute guys to see my character as a desirable man and refer to him as such. A society where they , instead of he or she is the default, polite for of address for everybody could work, particularly if most occupations are more equally distributed across gender lines than they used to be in our own history.

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This was a great WIP, I’ll be looking forward to more.

You’ll find that the first draft of the first part of chapter one is now up. :grin:

https://dashingdon.com/go/1264

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Yes. I’ll get around to tying up any loose ends tomorrow - and by all means let me know if you come across any other issues.

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I noticed that too but I thought maybe there were conditional choices that I didn’t have the correct stats for. :yum:

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Ok so i read the summary for this and im not going to lie with the Infinity series out except what will likely be the last game and the golden eagle coming out eventually (i say eventually because i dont want to estimate when it will come out seeing as how i have no clue when it will) the 19th century well everything has me fascinated and i am probably going to play the hell out of this demo.

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It certainly was an interesting demo.Though there has already been games like this before that does not mean that this one cannot be unique. I will be looking forward to this.
I had a few thoughts about this and I present you the ideas that I have.
1.You should change the “Respect” stat to a “Respected/Despised” stat and not connect it with the character’s ability, rather use that to show the character trait of the MC.
2.I don’t think that “Integrity” should be an ability stat rather make that into the same “Respected/Despised” stat or simply the “Respect” stat if you want to go with it.My reason is that integrity is often proportionate to respect, is it not?
3.If you chose to be the captain of your football team that gives you a boost of the character’s “Leadership” stat but shouldn’t it give some boost to your “Infanteer” stat as well which pretty much stands for physical prowess.
4.You can let the players chose their characters’ name whenever you would like but wouldn’t it make more sense if they chose their name and gender when they fill up the necessary documents for enlistment?
I had a question as well that whether or not there will be a slot for military decoration that the character might receive in the future.

The part that stuck out to me was this portion:

“The sergeant responsible for your enlistment - Sergeant Scoble, you seem to remember - was a stout fellow, with a neatly clipped moustache, undercut hair and a thin smile, although you doubt whether there was any genuine warmth beneath that smile.”

Officers don’t enlist or have a contract particularly in the time period you are writing in. Obviously you can take your fictional military in any direction you please, but the tone you are setting is one where there is a distinct societal difference between officers and enlisted and where officers are appointed as representatives of the King’s will (the government’s) to the rabble that compose the majority of His Majesty’s troops.

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That’s a good point.

The ‘vade mecum’ explains that the purchase of commissions had been done away with more than one-hundred and fifty years ago. Instead, the army was - officially speaking - far more interested in the leadership potential of a candidate, as opposed to social standing.

This is the basis for the Royal Military Academy and the interview required for selection prior to the commissioning course - and although on face value this is a meritocratic system, the reality of the situation is that many senior officers share a disdain for anyone other than of a certain upbringing, and we are therefore left with officers of a certain societal stock - namely of public schools and wealthy fathers - who end up commissioning.

So this goes some way to explaining the idea that an officer ought, to some extent, earn his commission - rather than be given it on the basis of social standing, and hopefully explains my use of the word ‘enlistment’ (although I agree that ‘enlistment’ is the wrong word to use in this instance :wink:).

Feel free to let me know if you have any other queries. :slight_smile:

prologue line 58: non-existant variable “integrity”

I told the teacher that he was hearing things.

Thanks for pointing that out: it has now been fixed. If you have any other problems, please let me know. :grin:

Just to let everyone know, I’ve tied up any of the loose ends I’ve left as of yesterday evening, and hope to get more writing done this evening & will let you know whenever there is more for you to play around with.

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I like to think modern armed forces are meritocratic in terms of officer appointment and “enlistments” are still not done on officer aspirants unless officer cadet is a quasi-enlisted rank. Distinction seems minor in terms of phraseology but it is long in meaning. Officers are appointed to their positions as representatives of the government they serve while enlisted enter into a contract for a term with the government. Appointments may be revoked at any time at the pleasure of the executive in charge of the armed force, while an enlistedperson would need to violate the terms of thier contract for it to be cancelled.

I’m any case it isn’t a matter I think would be entrusted to a desk sergeant and isn’t usually speaking irl. I would also think there would be some kind of screening even before officer candidates would be allowed to waste the government’s time at their service academy.

No, you’re quite right that a sergeant would not be responsible for the selection of officer cadets, and I’m working on adjusting accordingly. You’re also right on the second point regarding the modern military, although my knowledge really only extends to that of the British Army, and couldn’t speak on - for instance - the Danish Armed Forces, or indeed the Senegalese Armed Forces and their selection boards. :grin:

You’re also correct on the point of semantics, and that’s why you’ll see the distinction made between commissioned officers and the ‘enlisted’ ranks, so you’ll see that I made those amendments accordingly earlier today.

However, officers do enter into contracts - at least in Albion - and although they have the option of leaving during the commissioning course with no repercussions (for instance, if an officer cadet proves to be particularly ‘wet’ in character, or if he leaves voluntarily), an officer upon commissioning is bound to four years of service - and may receive extensions of four years up until the age of sixty. If an officer so chooses to receive extensions to his contract - that’s fine, although if the army decide they do not want or need him, then what the officer elects to do has no real bearing.

Anyway, it’s been interesting listening to what you have to say, and I want to thank you for making me take a second look at what I’ve already written and improve upon it. If you have any other questions or queries, don’t hesitate to ask. :wink:

What purpose does the officer contract serve?

Can the King or his appointed representative dismiss an officer at will? You kind of need that to ensure the political control of the officer corps.

If it is an “at will” contract relationship in modern parlance why make officers continually recontract with the government if they want to stay?

Just food for thought. It could certainly be internally consistent. I just don’t understand why myself.

While they may not select officers in the United States Marines Officer training is usually at least in part conducted by NCOs. Sgt and Staff Sgt.