Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Margrave]

Welcome to Emperor of the Fading Suns!

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a science fiction "grand-scale" space strategy computer game made by Holistic Design in 1996. This game was based on Holistic's in-house role playing game Fading Suns. The game had a wide array of units and a complex back-story but was rushed to market and released with numerous severe flaws and several features underdeveloped. In patched form, it survives as a popular abandonware title with numerous unofficial, fan-made mods.

However this hardly gives the game enough credit, EOTFS is a flawed gem that still shines almost two decades after its creation. A game set in the Dark Ages of futuristic humanity let loose into the stars beset by ravenous monsters, threatened by techno-barbarians and held together by the thin threads of a dying Empire further strained by the machinations of the corrupt League, oppressive Holy Church and the schemes of the players as the Great Noble Houses. All of this takes place in a galaxy where the very stars themselves are slowly fading away.

EOTFS is best played with the addition of one of the dedicated mods that transform the fantastic yet fatally bugged vanilla into a universe worthy of galactic war, unspeakable horrors and vicious betrayal.

The mod we have chosen is the Emperor Wars Mod which in turn is built off of the Reality Mod, aimed at giving the setting a proper fluffing up with new units, a re-designed and populated map as well as a huge variety of other changes.

Galactic Map 4982 A.D.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

House Rules:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Securing new fiefs on NPC-controlled planets by Il Palazzo and Vertab Nukks:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Current Regent: Lady Santiago of the Hazat
Previous Regents: Lord Alvarex Hawkwood

Houses
Empty of House Li Halan(formerly Vertab Nukks)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

sk128234 of the Hazat (formerly Karlito)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gollor of House Decados

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Margrave of House Hawkwood

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Il Palazzo of House al-Malik

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Who among these worthy Lords will become the Emperor of the Fading Suns?
====================================================================================

[Margrave]

In-Game Lore:

Church Geography & Sects:

Orthodox: Earth

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sanctuary Aeon: Artemus

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Eskatonic: Pentateuch

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Avestite: Pyre

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Brother Battle: De Moley

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

League Geography & Major Guilds:

Engineers & Reeves: Leagueheim

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Scravers: Madoc

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Muster: Bannockburn

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charioteers: Known Space

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Imperial Fiefs & Ministries:

Byzantium Secundus

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Tethys

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stigmata

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nowhere

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

===================================================================
Original Post

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Before we begin I want to bring up three issues we should resolve first:

Does anyone wish to change anything about the current settings? Plague/Rebellion/Universal Warehouse, etc.?

Does anyone wish to switch Houses?

And I'd like to talk about starting traits. I think we should go with an edited version of the Nova rules (link to be added soon) specifically the trait Battlemaster. In regular vanilla and Nova mod you only have five Nobles to control which brings up a cautious balance of using these now very capable commanding units in battle versus risking a very limited resource. In this mod Battlemaster is a very potent trait with many more units to take advantage of it. I know personally how valuable it is from the last game, so I believe we should at least double its Nova value.

[Karlito]

Thanks for putting in the effort to get this thing going again. Posting to reconfirm my interest and intent to participate. I guess I'll need to download the latest version of Emperor Wars.

Do we want to have some definite rules about securing our passwords this time around? Giving it to the person in front of you seems like a decent measure.

Does anyone wish to change anything about the current settings? Plague/Rebellion/Universal Warehouse, etc.?

In the previous game, the war between the Church and the League either involved plague bombs or aggroed plague-bomb rebels on Sutek. Basically the entire industrial/palace/shield megacity-complex was infected, and there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I might like plague to be turned off. I'm not sure how much it adds to the game as a threat for the players to use against each other in the late game, but at least it will prevent disasters happening in the first 10 turns.

And I'd like to talk about starting traits. I think we should go with an edited version of the Nova rules (link to be added soon) specifically the trait Battlemaster. In regular vanilla and Nova mod you only have five Nobles to control which brings up a cautious balance of using these now very capable commanding units in battle versus risking a very limited resource. In this mod Battlemaster is a very potent trait with many more units to take advantage of it. I know personally how valuable it is from the last game, so I believe we should at least double its Nova value.

Yeah, we definitely need better house rules for the traits, as the vanilla point values aren't at all balanced for the mod. Decadence was basically just free points last game- I turned my tax rate to zero and was still making tons of firebirds every turn.

EDIT: On consideration, I think maybe it would be best to use the provided bracketed values with the Nova house traits system. "It's War" is similar enough to our starting scenario in that the players begin with a higher level of development than default.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, that's where this is.

About the traits - seeing how the game has the houses highly customised, including noble stats and what looks like house-specific units, maybe in the name of increasing fluff and adherence to lore we could leave the traits of each house as in the default setting?

[Karlito]

That would solve a problem with the proposed Nova House Traits scheme- the Nova mod includes a change that allows for the free selecting of traits, but as the Reality Mod makes no such provisions, we'd have to modify that into the datafiles ourselves. It also would stop us from all ending up with the same house traits, which is sort of what I think would happen were we to choose freely.

[Il Palazzo]

Well, Margrave. Perhaps you've miscalculated how much the other two players want to continue playing, though?

[Margrave]

Perhaps, let me send one more PM to them.

As for traits I'd be okay with sticking to each Houses default as long as they aren't too overpowered. Correct my memory if I'm wrong but I believe Hawkwood gets both Noblesse Oblige and Rule of Law which would give my units a whopping 20 loyalty.

[Il Palazzo]

which would give my units a whopping 20 loyalty.

I'm cool with that.

[RedKing]

Yeah, I think imma pass on this one guys. Just got too much going on, plus the Emperor Wars mod is redonkulously hard. I want my rebels to be an early-game minor threat which fades into an annoyance, not the kind of existential threat that has even the Symbiots going "Man, those guys look nasty..."

[Margrave]

Understood, thanks for playing Redking.

Well we now have an opening for Li Halan for a player out there who wants to try their hand with EOTFS. I personally don't have much preference for who should join. I will only say that this mod is challenging so someone with some experience would have a much easier time, that and we anticipate this game to be AT LEAST a few months to play so we need someone who can commit to that.

[mainiac]

I might maybe kinda be interested but am scared by the micromanagement hell.

[Margrave]

I might maybe kinda be interested but am scared by the micromanagement hell.

Think of it this way, the first 20 turns have already been done for you in this mod. And you get transports almost right off the bat if you research economics.

That and the universe is alive this time, no more dull empty planets with the same rebel shield megacities and the odd wetware plant. The Church and League declared war on each other in our old game. The Symbiots are an IMMENSE threat, the Ministries greatly expanded. And war is ripe instead of slowly plodding forward.

[Il Palazzo]

Is there still an incentive (and possibility) to churn out engineers like there's no tomorrow?

[Karlito]

Yeah because you have to build more labs, and you have a strong need for more food/metal/chemical plants/etc. There are only a few buildings that you're able to recruit engineers from, so you have to really maximize that throughput. At least, that was my experience with The Hazat, whose worlds start off a bit more developed than the others. The real micromanagement is the constant building of peasant serfs/freeman laborers.

Incidentally, here's the House Trait spread if we all select beginner. I think Hawkwood makes out a little too good, and al-Malik a little too poorly, but tell me what you think.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

House Li Halan
Noblesse Oblige
Rule of Law
A Friend in the Church
Ancient Documentarium x 3
Disdains Trade
An Enemy in the League

The Hazat
Administration
Charismatic Leadership
Warrior Ethic
Battlemaster
Ancient Documentarium: Physics
Spendthrift

House Decados
Noble Scholars
Mercantile Savvy
Internal Security Aparatus
Battlemaster
Ancient Documentarium: Bioengineering/Psychosocial Engineering
Inbreeding
Decadence

House Hawkwood
Noblesse Oblige
Rule of Law
Charismatic Leadership
Battlemaster
Ancient Documentarium:Physics
An Enemy in the Church

House al-Malik
Enlightened Nobility
Administration
Mercantile Savvy
A Friend in the League

EDIT: It's worth mentioning that its not as if the other aspects of our starting positions are exactly balanced. I know al-Malik starts off with a larger space navy than most houses, for example.

[Margrave]

Unit resource requirements have been drastically changed, for example even basic infantry requires at least 1 electronic and chemical on top of food and metal, and most second tier economic cities don't exist on your worlds and take serious research to get to.

Hell, I think ceramsteel is something like 1200 research points.