[quote=Dinh AaronMk]
The notified existence of ancient artifacts as something that gives statistical boons, 
the fact there is a unit list, and that posts need to be written as orders in which their effect will be determined by someone else, sections placing emphasis on how one's allowed to spend, build, or whatever. If you're interested in world building then just give us a world and let the players paint it, if there are things you feel MUST be included, then do so in the story introduction or even reserve the first IC post for yourself to mention or lay down the basic things you want included in lore building. But it's not going to come from a rigid attempt at raining in things by structuring it as Civilization, it raises arbitrary numerical restrictions.
[/quote]

First, let me say thanks for taking the time to tell me what you think. I think basically your saying drop all of the "game" aspects. I have to apologize, I'm not used to RPing for the sake of RPing; I come from a tabletop gaming background. The point of the nations stats is to give a player an idea of what their nation is capable of accomplishing. I don't want space flight discovered on turn 3. Maybe I should trust the players to play along nicely and ditch the stats ? 

I guess I have to decide if I want to run an RP or a strategy game-although I've browsed this forum and most of the other games running use units and statistics and seem waaaaaaay more complicated then what I am proposing. As for the orders thing, I think I may have worded it funny. I do not mean to say that you should be creative for the sake of trying to get me to agree to your plans or whatever-but rather as an incentive to stick to character. I can rewrite that. 

I do however believe that games with clearly written, concise rules can be very entertaining for players. I think I need to work on that :)