Epaminondas 
alluded to an interesting question, on another unrelated thread, concerning certain marketable export products from a specific Caribbean country. That question being whether or not spirits distilled from cane sugar by-products should be modded into the economic model written into the CORE mod.
Frankly, upon a cursory reflection of the concept, the question might seem completely spurious. But, after subjecting the idea to a rigorous, non-linear evaluation I realized that there might actually be some merit in instigating a discussion about whether some armed forces of the period might have simply folded their tents and gone home had this product become unavailable to them on a daily basis.
Think about it for a moment. Could the Royal Navy have maintained their vigilance on the lonely North Atlantic patrols during the darkest days of the Axis unrestricted submarine warfare campaign had the English sailors not been able to partake in their daily grog rituals? What about Commonwealth armed forces? Would similar forces be applicable to their cases?
And, to take the concept just a little further, what about spirits distilled from starch by-products? I'm sure that the entire Soviet cause was markedly bolstered by large infusions of the stuff, from the top levels all the way down to the infantryman in the field, throughout the entire period of the war in the East.
The difficulty is in placing a quantitative economic value upon products representative of this class of goods.
In a qualitative sense, I might assume that there is a specific relationship between "morale", from a military point of view, and the availability of one or more distilled spirits to troops and/or politicians of the various countries portrayed in HoI.
In a more quantitative sense, some formula could probably be developed that approximated whatever factors might be deemed appropriate, based upon demographic and/or economic data available for the HoI time frame.
Or, I suppose that "special volunteers" could provide us with some actual experimental data to support or dismiss the inclusion of distilled spirits into the game.
For example, test subjects could refrain from imbibing distilled spirits of any kind until, say, the release of CORE for HoI2.
It would certainly be interesting to see what kind of correlation there might be between test subjects who are modders and those who aren't, and the level of withdrawal symptoms exhibited by the subject him/herself. Qualitatively, I might even opine that the results might even plot outside the normal statistical distribution for test subjects of any stripe.
So, in the interest of methodological validation, I would certainly provide my time to run an experiment of this type. Any "special volunteers" can begin immediately to abstain until notification of the general release of CORE for HoI2 is announced in the forum. At the end of the experiment's duration, volunteers need only post here as to whether they ended up:
a) withdrawn into a fetal position, whimpering and/or gibbering incoherently;
b) repeatedly running starkers down the middle of the street, screaming wildly about pink elephants;
c) sullen and mumbling imprecations against "them";
d) writing down long and generally sardonic posts expanding upon phrases taken almost completely out of context from postings in other threads.
alluded to an interesting question, on another unrelated thread, concerning certain marketable export products from a specific Caribbean country. That question being whether or not spirits distilled from cane sugar by-products should be modded into the economic model written into the CORE mod.Frankly, upon a cursory reflection of the concept, the question might seem completely spurious. But, after subjecting the idea to a rigorous, non-linear evaluation I realized that there might actually be some merit in instigating a discussion about whether some armed forces of the period might have simply folded their tents and gone home had this product become unavailable to them on a daily basis.
Think about it for a moment. Could the Royal Navy have maintained their vigilance on the lonely North Atlantic patrols during the darkest days of the Axis unrestricted submarine warfare campaign had the English sailors not been able to partake in their daily grog rituals? What about Commonwealth armed forces? Would similar forces be applicable to their cases?
And, to take the concept just a little further, what about spirits distilled from starch by-products? I'm sure that the entire Soviet cause was markedly bolstered by large infusions of the stuff, from the top levels all the way down to the infantryman in the field, throughout the entire period of the war in the East.
The difficulty is in placing a quantitative economic value upon products representative of this class of goods.
In a qualitative sense, I might assume that there is a specific relationship between "morale", from a military point of view, and the availability of one or more distilled spirits to troops and/or politicians of the various countries portrayed in HoI.
In a more quantitative sense, some formula could probably be developed that approximated whatever factors might be deemed appropriate, based upon demographic and/or economic data available for the HoI time frame.
Or, I suppose that "special volunteers" could provide us with some actual experimental data to support or dismiss the inclusion of distilled spirits into the game.
For example, test subjects could refrain from imbibing distilled spirits of any kind until, say, the release of CORE for HoI2.
It would certainly be interesting to see what kind of correlation there might be between test subjects who are modders and those who aren't, and the level of withdrawal symptoms exhibited by the subject him/herself. Qualitatively, I might even opine that the results might even plot outside the normal statistical distribution for test subjects of any stripe.
So, in the interest of methodological validation, I would certainly provide my time to run an experiment of this type. Any "special volunteers" can begin immediately to abstain until notification of the general release of CORE for HoI2 is announced in the forum. At the end of the experiment's duration, volunteers need only post here as to whether they ended up:
a) withdrawn into a fetal position, whimpering and/or gibbering incoherently;
b) repeatedly running starkers down the middle of the street, screaming wildly about pink elephants;
c) sullen and mumbling imprecations against "them";
d) writing down long and generally sardonic posts expanding upon phrases taken almost completely out of context from postings in other threads.
