Old West Indies

Dependent region of the New West Indies

The **Old West Indies** (OWI) is a NationStates region and territory of the New West Indies. It previously served as an on-site platform for medieval roleplay by New West Indies members separate from the post-modern/futuristic main roleplay. The new roleplay was created by New Sistonia on July 8, 2019, with facilitation from the New West Indies government.

In-character posts for the roleplay were largely made on the OWI regional message board, though there was also a complementary Discord server for out-of-character discussion and quicktime in-character negotiations. The latter generally revolved around the trading of goods and military posturing.

Despite temporary success and repeated attempts at restarts, the roleplay suffered stagnation and disinterest over time. The last recorded RMB post was published on June 13, 2020, nearly a year after the Old West Indies began. With the dwindling activity, the project is *de facto* shuttered for the foreseeable future, absent a rekindling of inspiration.

## Region Management

The region itself was founded by New Sistonia through the Old West Indies Founder account, which was also under the control of then-Secretary-General Karteria and the Founder Achipel. All three went on to serve as the primary moderators and managers of the roleplay's resource system and activity for some time, though only New Sistonia would remain permanently in the role.

Following bouts of inactivity, Sistonia sought to revive the roleplay, leading to some success. This was coupled with an attempted rejuvination of the OWI factbook line, which had direct inspiration from the NWI.gov style originally created by Celestiam. However, despite Sistonia's best efforts, activity was short-lived.

Due to neglect, the founder account of the region ceased to exist on March 25, 2021. About two weeks later, the region was apparently raided by a small force from an unknown location. Nevertheless, the world factbook entry remained intact, and with the OWI founder nation back online, the nations were ejected and the region password-protected thereafter.

## World-Building

The roleplay within the Old West Indies was based around medieval-era European and Northern African nations vying for dominance over land, water, and resources. Nations were divided into provinces, with each province (or "tile") producing a specified amount of resources.

Where each nation is located is currently unavailable, though it is apparent that they were placed in, among other locations, medieval Greece, Iberia, the Italian peninsula, and Central Europe. Noteworthy participants in the roleplay include Cymiopolis, Nordic States of Europe, North Italian Union, and, of course, New Sistonia.

### Resource and Nation Management

Akin to Settlers of Catan, each new province can build a village, and that village can be upgraded later to towns and cities to produce more resources. The more resources extracted from the land/sea (such as fish, cloth, or timber), the more goods the nation could produce, and the more goods could be bartered or traded for income. There were also shipping costs, namely coal, associated with trade that nations would need to take into account. More goods led to stronger economies and stronger militaries (if the correct items were produced), leading to an increase in relative national power.

### Conflicts

The battles that took place within the roleplay utilized a percentage point system wherein each military was weighed against one another in terms of power. Relative might depended primarily upon the number of troops available, the circumstances of the battle (such as terrain), the quality of the forces themselves, and how the forces are utilized. Each battle takes place over the course of multiple skirmishes and uses the RANDOM.ORG number generator to achieve more accurate results.

The aforementioned system is akin to many roleplay battle simulations, though it is likely that there was some inspiration taken from the Rules of War co-authored by New Sistonia for the main New West Indies roleplay. While fleshed out, it is unconfirmed whether any battles in the medieval roleplay utilized the described system.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 OWI History Page.
2. ↑ Last RMB post in OWI. June 13, 2020.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Nation Management. *OWI Curators*. March 25, 2020.
4. ↑ The images on the OWI maps dispatch are no longer loading.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Building Guide. *OWI Curators*. April 4, 2020.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Military Manual. *OWI Curators*. April 5, 2020.
7. ↑ Rules of War. *Kronshtadt et al*. February 12, 2019.