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[MoLAoS]

General Gameplay
You will construct buildings, send spies, raise armies, learn and cast magical enchantments and interact with players and NPCs in a game of empire building.

The game will proceed in 4 hour turns with each turn being a month. It is not necessary to make moves each turn. You probably won't get enough income or new items or new buildings per turn to send orders every time. Orders will be sent through a form on the same website hosting the map and races so that you can send them without me being online.

NPCs

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

NPCs will take up the majority if not all of the land not claimed by players. They will have most of the capabilities that players have. You can engage in trade and warfare with them. Later versions of the game will provide even more options. NPCs may act with or against other NPCs. They will not be fans of fast expanding player nations and may act against you if you get too greedy.

Map
The world map consists of 2400 hexes split between land and water. Ideally about 1200 of each but maybe some more land.
Here is a link:
http://lordofthedawn.com/hexmap.php
The map updates will be visible to all as soon as I make them. I had to reset the map because people were adding hexes due to my forgetting to put the map generator behind an admin wall.

There will be 3 major continents, 4-7 major islands and then several other large islands or archipelagos.
Each land hex will take one month to cross and each see hexes can be crossed 2 per month. Moving from sea to land costs a month. Travel speed per type can be increased by various bonuses. Usually racial ones. Loading and landing of ships always takes a month due to logistical reasons.

Units
Below in spoilers is a list of units. I will indicate when an inanimate ship is replaced by a racial unit in this list.
A single unit must raise its population from a single province.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Scout, 1 population, 50 gold, Can see information about one province

Militia 50 strength, 50 population and 50 gold
Platoon 100 strength, 50 population and 100 gold
Company 200 strength, 75 population and 200 gold
Cohort 1000 strength, 200 population and 500 gold
Regiment 5600 strength, 800 population and 750 gold
Legion 50000 strength, 5000 population and 2500 gold

Corvette 25 strength, 25 population and 100 gold|replaced by shark if you pick the Shark race, will have no pop cost
Frigate 75 strength, 50 population and 250 gold|replaced by shark if you pick the Shark race, will have no pop cost
Cruiser 250 strength, 75 population and 750 gold|replaced by Serpent if you pick the Serpent race, will have no pop cost
Destroyer 1500 strength, 250 population, 2000 gold|replaced by Orca if you pick the Orca race, will have no pop cost
Battleship 5000 strength, 500 population, 5000 gold|replaced by Kraken if you pick the Kraken race, will have no pop cost
Dreadnaught 25000 strength, 1000 population, 10000 gold|replaced by Leviathan if you pick the Leviathan race, no pop cost
Troopship 0 strength, 25 population, 250 gold, holds 100 troops
Troop Carrier 0 strength, 250 population, 5000 gold, holds 5000 troops

Operative 10 strength, 1 population and 100 gold
Agent Cell 100 strength, 5 population and 750 gold
Cabal 1000 strength, 25 population and 2500 gold

Buildings:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Build time is gold/100 months and takes a minimum of 1 month. You can build one building at a time per province.
More buildings may be added, not sure.

Farm: +20% local pop growth, 50 gold, 5 per province
Aqueducts: +50% local pop growth, 100gold, 1 per province
Carpenter: -1month local build time, 50 gold, 2 per province
Stone Mason: -2month local build time, 100 gold, 2 per province
Local Shop: 1.1x local income, 40 gold, 5 per province
City Market: 1.5x local income, 150 gold, 1 per province
Bazaar: 2.0x local income, 200 gold, 1 per province
Barracks: 1.2x local army strength, 100 gold, 2 per province
Military Academy: 1.5x local army strength, 200 gold, 1 per province
Library: -2 research time, 200gold, 2 per province
University: -5 research time, 400 gold, 1 per province
Mage Smith: -2 month local forging time, 100 gold, 2 per province
Artifact Forge: -5 month local forging time, 200 gold, 1 per province

Nation
In order to join the game players will need a government, a religion, and a history. They will also need to pick a number of races totaling 25 points. When the map is ready they should pick 10 provinces. Governments but not religions or histories provide bonuses. A list of governments is below in spoilers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Governments:
Technocracy: -3 months artifact forging
Magocracy: -3 months enchantment research
Democracy: 1.2x income, 1.2x population
Oligarchy: 1.4x income
Feudalism: -3 month to build times
Religious: 1.4x population growth
Imperial: 1.3x army strength
Naval: 1.3x navy strength

Courtiers
Players will also need to pick a starting hero. He will be twice as effective as a regular courtier. Courtiers are special units that provide bonuses and abilities and cost 500gold and 10 population to hire. A list of options is below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Steward: 2.0x income to one province
Warrior: 1.5x strength to one army
Librarian: -2 months to enchantment research
Artificer: Can forge one item at a time
Admiral: 1.4x strength to 1 fleet, 1.2x sea movement speed to that fleet
Builder: -5 months to build time in one province
Sapper: 0.7x defensive bonus in one province
Spy: 1.5x spy success in one province
Musician: 1.5x population bonus to one province
Peddler: 1.2x bonus to national trade
Mage: can utilize one artifact at a time
Healer: -10% casualties to one host

Races
Below is a link to the race table. Cost is how many points they consume. You have 25 points.
PCP in some stats stands for per coastal province.
http://lordofthedawn.com/races.php

Spying
Spying will be a serious weapon in this game, an equal investment in spies can be as useful as the same investment in armies.
Below is a list of espionage missions:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Espionage Missions:
Locate Heroes:
This mission is relatively passive, it allows spies to track enemy heroes location in any province where the mission is active. This has a low cost and minimal danger of discovery.
Observe Trade:
This mission is only viable in the capital. If you have enough spy strength you can check to see how much the enemy is making from trade. At 2x the value of the mission you can determine who is providing how much trade.
Sabotage Construction:
This can be used to slow down the construction of a building. Its somewhat risky, as all active operations are, because it reveals to some degree that someone has spies in the province.
Destroy Building:
This will damage an improvement enough that it can no longer be uses. At 2x the necessary strength you can totally destroy it. At normal power it will require half cost to repair.
Track Spies:
This will allow you to see how many counter intelligence agents are in a province. This is passive and relatively safe. It has a quite high power requirement for a passive spy action
Kill Spies:
This will kill the defending spies of a nation, it has an extremely how power level. All active missions produce a discovery bonus that is added to the effect of a defending counter intelligence mission. This bonus is active only during turns when the mission is running. This mission has an extremely high counter bonus.
Turn Spies:
This mission has perhaps the highest cost of any active mission except encourage revolution. You will gain a number of enemy spies relative to their strength and yours.
Foment Revolution:
This mission attempts to cause a state to throw off its national government and go it alone. This costs twice as much against a player nation. This land is then aggressive towards its old nation and open to various attacks. Your spies will remain valid in a revolting province.
Steal Artifact:
This is extremely difficult and will take a high strength. It allows you to steal a random artifact from another nation.
Assassinate Courtier:
This is self explanatory, you kill another nations' courtier. A random kill will be selected. This is very hard to do and has a high discovery chance.

There may be some other missions but this is a good list.

[Alexandria]

Does 4 hour months mean we need a turn every 4 hours?

[MoLAoS]

Below are the government types in the game and their associated bonuses, you can pick one:
Governments:
Technocracy: -2 months artifact forging
Theocracy: -2 months enchantment research
Democracy: 1.2x income, 1.2x population
Oligarchy: 1.5x income
Feudalism: -2 month to build times
Agrarian: 1.4x population growth
Imperial: 1.3x army strength
Naval: 1.3x navy strength

Religions are yours to make up as is history and culture. None of these provide any in game bonuses and are purely for flavor.

Note that the template has space for 7 races, that's not set in stone, you could have only 2-3 races or you could have 8 if you can manage it.

Below are the courtier types you can choose from(10 population and 500 gold for courtier and staff):
Steward: 2.0x income to one province
Warrior: 1.5x strength to one army
Librarian: -2 months to enchantment research
Artificer: Can forge one item at a time
Admiral: 1.4x strength to 1 fleet, 1.2x sea movement speed to that fleet
Builder: -5 months to build time in one province
Sapper: 0.7x defensive bonus in one province
Spy: 1.5x spy success in one province
Musician: 1.5x population bonus to one province
Peddler: 1.2x bonus to national trade
Mage: can utilize one artifact at a time
Healer: -10% casualties to one host

Normal Units(Must be raised from a single province):
Scout, 1 population, 50 gold, Can see information about one province

Militia 50 strength, 50 population and 50 gold
Platoon 100 strength, 50 population and 100 gold
Company 200 strength, 75 population and 200 gold
Cohort 1000 strength, 200 population and 500 gold
Regiment 5600 strength, 800 population and 750 gold
Legion 50000 strength, 5000 population and 2500 gold

Corvette 25 strength, 25 population and 100 gold
Frigate 75 strength, 50 population and 250 gold
Cruiser 250 strength, 75 population and 750 gold
Destroyer 1500 strength, 250 population, 2000 gold
Battleship 5000 strength, 500 population, 5000 gold
Dreadnaught 25000 strength, 1000 population, 10000 gold
Troopship 0 strength, 25 population, 250 gold, holds 100 troops
Troop Carrier 0 strength, 250 population, 5000 gold, holds 5000 troops

Operative 10 strength, 1 population and 100 gold
Agent Cell 100 strength, 5 population and 750 gold
Cabal 1000 strength, 25 population and 2500 gold

Spying missions have a required strength to complete successfully. Success rate effectively multiplies strength, but not against the base. So 1.5 from a Spy courtier and 1.2 and 1.3 from racial bonuses are not 4.0 but rather 2.34, multiplicative and not additive.

I'll put the missions up later.

Below are the races in the game. There are a lot and you have a lot of choices. Some races are more cost efficient but have more particular uses and consume a lot of your total points. Higher costs also make it difficult to use all 20 points.

Races and Cultures(20 points):
Artisanal Craftsmen(4): 1.5x income
Early Industrialist(6): 1.7x income
Brownies(2): -3 month building time
Diplomats(5): +3 to treaty success
Tolerant(3): +1 to treaty success, +1 to vassalization
Inspiring(7): +3 to vassalization
Glories(10): +6 to vassalization
Illithids(12): 2.5x to foment revolution, +2 to vassalization
Philosophers(5): 1.5 to foment revolution
Dwarfs(2): -1 month building time | -1 month artifact forging time
Dark Dwarfs(3): -2 month artifact forging time
Gnomes(2): -3 month building time
Humans(2): 1.1x income, 1.1x trade, -1 month building time
Cities of the South(4): 1.3x income, 1.2x trade
Travelers(4): 1.5x trade
Men of the North(5): +2 visions, +1 concealment, 1.2x land movement speed
Horselords(4): 1.1x army strength, 1.5x land movement speed
High Humans(8|): -2 month mage cool down | -4 month enchantment research time, 1.5x income
Dragons(10): 1.3x army strength | 1.5x income
Sappers(3): 0.7x building defensive bonus
Dominionists(5): 1.3x population growth, -25 army cost
Gaians(7): 2.0x population growth
Nymps/Satyrs(4): 1.5x population growth
Goblins(2): 1.2x Population Growth
Kobolds(3): 1.2x population, 1.1x spying success
Insects(8|): -2 month build time, 1.5x population growth, +1 concealment, 1.2x spying success
Imps(7): +2 to concealment, 1.4x spying success, -2 months artifact forgings
Tengri(2): +2 vision
Naiad(5): 0.8x casualties
Gremlins(3) 1.3x spying success
Halflings(3): +1 concealment, 1.2x spying success
Undead(5): -2 month building time, 1.1x army strength
Fae(8|): -2 month artifact forging, -2 month spell research, +1 concealment, 1.2x spying success, 1.2x income
Wood Elves(5): +2 vision, +2 concealment
Shadow Elves(5): +2 concealment, 1.2x land movement speed
Deep Elves(3): -3 month enchantment research time
Dark Elves(5): -1 month enchantment research time, +2 concealment, 1.2x spying success
Blood Elves(4): -3 month mage cool down, 1.1x spying success
High Elves(2): -2 month mage cool down
Orcs(3): 1.1x army strength
Trolls(7): 1.3x army strength, 1.2x population growth
Nereid(4): 1.3x sea movement speed, 1.2x population growth
Siren(3): 1.2x navy strength, 1.1x population growth, 1.1x sea movement speed
Pirates(4): 1.1x navy strength, 1.2x income, -25 gold off ships
Mermen(4): 1.2x navy strength, 1.2x income per bordering coastal province
Atlantians(6): 1.1x navy strength, 1.1x income and 1.3x trade per bordering coastal province
Sharks(5): 1.1x navy strength, 1.2x sea movement speed, sentient sharks replace frigates no population cost or construction time
Serpents(7): 1.2x navy strength, 1.3x sea movement speed, sentient serpents replace cruisers no pop cost or training time
Lemurians(8|): 1.4x population growth, -75 gold off sentient sea animals, 1.2x sea movement

[MoLAoS]

Does 4 hour months mean we need a turn every 4 hours?

You do not need to give orders every turn. The game will process any things that happen automatically. Ideally you want to have orders in at LEAST every day or every other day. Money does carry over turns unlike most of these games as does anything else.

Ideally at some point you would be able to put in a day long plan at once or set up recurring orders. But that is an amount of work I probably won't put in until I think there is some sort of interest.

I would say that generally if you put in orders every single month you would only be around 1.5x to 2.0x better than another player assuming equally intelligent decisions. Note that NPCs have some features that will reign in power players, they do not approve of lots of expansionary wars and they don't like spying for instance. And hopefully players themselves will try to counter too strong players as a group, but IMO it shouldn't be that necessary.

It might be possible for me manually implement recurring orders for now, ie you send a PM saying you want certain things done each turn. Like build farms for me when possible or something.

[Taricus]

...Looking over all this, it looks like it's a pretty complex game. Hopefully you have something to help you run the actions if you're doing them on a daily bbasis, I'd feel sorry for someone that had to do all that updating by hand O.O

Anyway, I'll wait for the rest of it to be posted before cementing anything.

[MoLAoS]

...Looking over all this, it looks like it's a pretty complex game. Hopefully you have something to help you run the actions if you're doing them on a daily bbasis, I'd feel sorry for someone that had to do all that updating by hand O.O

Anyway, I'll wait for the rest of it to be posted before cementing anything.

I set up a mysql database and some php to go with it. I won't have to do anything to make turns run I think. Its about 2x as complex as a standard BoP or IOT game IMO. I understand that many people run things in Excel, which of course cannot be run by a cron job, but everything is working fine with my implementation so far.

What do you mean by the rest? You mean the list of heroes, spy actions, spells and such?

[Taricus]

For starters, what you can spend the rest of the twenty points on. Bit hard to make an application for the game if we don't know how to create a character/nation.

[Alexandria]

In that case I'm in.

[MoLAoS]

For starters, what you can spend the rest of the twenty points on. Bit hard to make an application for the game if we don't know how to create a character/nation.

Well, this isn't technically a signup thread, at least not yet. As far as points, its only for races. I guess I should post a signup template though. Most of the other choices have several options but you can only pick one, so no need for points.

Nation Name	Name goes here
Government Type	Type goes here
Religion Name	Name goes here
Races:	Primary	Secondary	Tertiary	Quaternary	Quinary	Senary	Septernary
Hero	Name goes here	Type goes here

You don't have to use a table. You may also want to write a story about your national history and hero/ruler history. I'll put up government and hero types later today I guess.

You'll also want to claim some lands, but that will need to wait till I get a decent map up. You can just edit that in when the map comes out.

At some point I'll have a page up on the website holding the game logic so that you can input all of this there directly into the database, but I'll add any posts until that point manually.

I'll also put some more information up on armies. Essentially base army size is 25 population and then racial power is applied on top of a 1strenth per soldier value. So if you get +15 to armies from racial picks then your standard army will be 40 power. This seems like a lot of value for zero cost but you lose out on other aspects.

Roleplaying isn't required but may make the game more fun for you and the other players. I'm not particularly concerned about people trying to game my system, just be warned that NPCs and other players won't take kindly to militarily hostile nations. And no, I will not nerf you by GM fiat, NPCs make their own decisions, well if you can call some simple utility functions decisions.

[Nirur Torir]

I think I wish to play.

Question on trading:

[Trading partners] will be made aware of the province improvements of any province the trade roads pass through on the way to your capital.

Do you decide the route, or do we? What about naval trade routes to keep our COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL magi-nuke buildup a secret?

[MoLAoS]

I think I wish to play.

Question on trading:

[Trading partners] will be made aware of the province improvements of any province the trade roads pass through on the way to your capital.

Do you decide the route, or do we? What about naval trade routes to keep our COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL magi-nuke buildup a secret?

Trade routes are determined by speed of travel from capital to capital. I suppose you may be able to manipulate them with road building in a later version of the game. Currently I would say that magi-nukes would be stored in warehouse or something like other artifacts. So they wouldn't be discovered. Trades would probably only see like walls and keep and roads and markets and farms and shit. And players have scouts anyways, which are like spies. I am thinking that players data will not be public, as it is in IOT, so no list of all players incomes for all to see. Trade routes and scouting would just give a general picture of how built up another nation is.

Anyways, it looks like have 3 possible players, which for the time the thread has been up is pretty good.

It make take people some time to get their nations designed, I included a shit ton of races and a decent number of governments to allow players to play differently running nations and do some role play. That adds to the complexity. And some people will be pouring over the lists to eek out any sort of numerical advantage.

I would say I'll have signups tentatively open till next friday to give people a chance to fiddle with their nations. Alternatively they can end as soon as my program is totally functional and at least 15 players have entered their completed nations.

[MoLAoS]

Espionage Missions:
Locate Heroes:
This mission is relatively passive, it allows spies to track enemy heroes location in any province where the mission is active. This has a low cost and minimal danger of discovery.
Observe Trade:
This mission is only viable in the capital. If you have enough spy strength you can check to see how much the enemy is making from trade. At 2x the value of the mission you can determine who is providing how much trade.
Sabotage Construction:
This can be used to slow down the construction of a building. Its somewhat risky, as all active operations are, because it reveals to some degree that someone has spies in the province.
Destroy Building:
This will damage an improvement enough that it can no longer be uses. At 2x the necessary strength you can totally destroy it. At normal power it will require half cost to repair.
Track Spies:
This will allow you to see how many counter intelligence agents are in a province. This is passive and relatively safe. It has a quite high power requirement for a passive spy action
Kill Spies:
This will kill the defending spies of a nation, it has an extremely how power level. All active missions produce a discovery bonus that is added to the effect of a defending counter intelligence mission. This bonus is active only during turns when the mission is running. This mission has an extremely high counter bonus.
Turn Spies:
This mission has perhaps the highest cost of any active mission except encourage revolution. You will gain a number of enemy spies relative to their strength and yours.
Foment Revolution:
This mission attempts to cause a state to throw off its national government and go it alone. This costs twice as much against a player nation. This land is then aggressive towards its old nation and open to various attacks. Your spies will remain valid in a revolting province.
Steal Artifact:
This is extremely difficult and will take a high strength. It allows you to steal a random artifact from another nation.
Assassinate Courtier:
This is self explanatory, you kill another nations' courtier. A random kill will be selected. This is very hard to do and has a high discovery chance.

There may be some other missions but this is a good list.

[Taricus]

Nation Name: Dracanai
Government Type: Technocracy (Unitary Technocracy)
Religion Name: Seyviralism
Races: Dark Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Dragons
Hero: Raiss Milosid, Warrior

History: (Waiting on the map, when that gets created)
Religion Description: (As Above)

Spoiler: Flags (click to show/hide)

[Nirur Torir]

Spying missions have a required strength to complete successfully. Success rate effectively multiplies strength, but not against the base. So 1.5 from a Spy courtier and 1.2 and 1.3 from racial bonuses are not 4.0 but rather 2.34, multiplicative and not additive.

Is this only for spying missions, or do they all stack similarly?
Two races with the same bonus help each other, rather than us using the best bonus? Interesting. Can we stack two of the same race for a larger bonus, or would that do nothing?

Musician: 1.5x population bonus to one province

Is this a fertility modifier, or some sort of morale bonus?

Assassinate Courtier:
This is self explanatory, you kill another nations' courtier. A random kill will be selected. This is very hard to do and has a high discovery chance.

Is it randomly selected by which courtier is in the province, or the entire empire and only possible in capitals?

Note that the template has space for 7 races, that's not set in stone, you could have only 2-3 races or you could have 8 if you can manage it.

Below are the races in the game. There are a lot and you have a lot of choices. Some races are more cost efficient but have more particular uses and consume a lot of your total points. Higher costs also make it difficult to use all 20 points.

Below are the courtier types you can choose from(10 population and 500 gold for courtier and staff):

The text I bolded is misplaced.

[MoLAoS]

Nation Name: Dracanai
Government Type: Technocracy (Unitary Technocracy)
Religion Name: Seyviralism
Races: Dark Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Dragons
Hero: (None yet, unless the hero types are already done)

History:
Religion Description:

Courtiers have been added to the race post I think. There are about 12-14.