Welcome to the world of ASCIIhoodIn this game you can choose to either play as a god or a civilization. The two things are mutually exclusive, meaning you can only be one thing at any given time. Civilization players need to work on tiles to get resources and basically not die, while god players compete with eachother for mortal worship and make changes to the grid world.
Note that new rules will be added as the game progresses. If you want to do something that there are no rules for, that will probably trigger the creation of new rules that cover the aforementioned something.
Remember to check this post for the most current rules that are in effect. Don't be deceived by the seemingly basic beginning of the game.
Keep in mind that things do not officially exist until they appear on an update post. This means you cannot settle a civilization on a tile until you actually see the tile on the grid map.
The game will update whenever the GM feels like it which will always be at least 24 hours after the last update*. If you fail to get your action in, the GM will not wait for you.
To start playing, you will need to pick a tile on the map to start at. The tile needs to be unoccupied and you cannot start on a blank tile which means at least one god will need to exist before civilizations start popping up. You will need to decide on the following things: Civilization name, Civilization color, Starting tile. Alternatively, if there is an inactive civilization player you can take over their civilization instead of making a new one from scratch.
Your new civilization will start with X amount of people in it. At the start of the game this number will be 5, but it may be higher if you join at a later time. You will also begin the game with 10 food. Your civilization will officially exist starting on the next turn.
Each turn, each person in a civilization can do one of the following things:
- Scavenge a tile to find resources. At the beginning you will only be able to find the resource "Food" but this will probably change. You can only scavenge a tile that is either on or adjacent to a tile you control
- Pray to a God, generating 1 FP for that god.
- Attempt to research something. The more complicated a topic is, the longer it takes to figure it out. If you try to research something too complicated without the prerequisites, unpredictable things may happen instead of you getting the desired outcome.
- Attack another civilization. Note that defenders get an advantage in combat situations. The precise mechanics of combat are deliberately kept secret from players.
- Use a special action granted by a researched technology
If a certain action requires "Labor" that means you need to have one of your people spend a turn working on that action.
Civilizations as a whole have a stat called "Logistics". If their logistics is not specified elsewhere then their logistics value is 5. Each turn you can reliably perform an amount of distinct actions equal to your logistics. For example, having 2 people forage at tile A counts as one action, but having one person forage at A and another forage at B counts as two actions. You can perform more actions than your logistics allow, but random things can potentially go wrong if you go over the limit.
Civilizations now have a stat called "Housing". The home tile for a civilization provides 10 housing on its own. If a civilization has more population than housing, unhappiness can be generated. Unhappiness can cause bad things to happen, and if it gets too bad a large amount of the population might leave to form a new civilization!
Without technology, food can only be stolen by killing all members of a specific civilization that exist on a tile.
Take note of the "Common Knowledge" spoiler on each update post. The techs in that spoiler are available to all civilizations!
Every turn, your civilization will consume 1 food for each person in it. If there is not enough food people will starve and die.
At any time you may spend 3 food to create one new person for your civilization. Newly created units cannot work on the turn they are made.
To start playing, you merely need to announce that you exist as a god and provide a name for yourself. You will get 1 FP that you can immediately use.
All gods will gain 1 FP per turn, and additional FP for any mortals that pray to them. In the event that two gods attempt to affect a tile in the same turn, the god that posted first takes precedence. Deliberately editing a post to affect a tile after another player attempts to do something with the tile is cheating, and should be reported to the GM if you notice it happening. If another god beats you to the tile, your FP will not be lost.
You may collaborate with other gods to accomplish a single action. All gods involved in such an action need to reference the fact that it is a group action, including the names of each god they are working with.
FP may be used to do anything on the below list. Additional things will appear as the game progresses.
1 FP: Create a basic landscape tile to replace any empty tile. Things like Grasslands, Mountain, Ocean etc.
3 FP: Replace an existing landscape tile with a new basic landscape tile.
5 FP: Create an advanced landscape tile with unique or special features. Can be used to replace a basic landscape tile.
10 FP: Create an interactive landscape tile. This tile will do something when "Triggered". Any tile that affects things outside the tile must be at least this expensive.
30 FP: Create an Epic level tile. There are limits on how what most tiles can do, but an Epic tile can break some of these limits. Don't forget to protect this investment, it would be a shame to throw away so much FP!
3 FP: Trigger the effect of an interactive tile.
2 FP: Change the weather on a tile. Does not destroy the landscape tile.
8 FP: Change the weather on a tile. Unlike the cheaper version, this effect can be meaningfully dangerous.
X2 FP: An action may be a "Secret" action by sending a PM to the GM. Any secret actions will cost twice as much as a regular action. Secret actions cannot take priority over non-secret actions.
10 FP: Create a terrain change habit. Doing this lets you declare a tile variant you want to modify and a tile type to turn it into. Doing this permanently adjusts the cost of replacing the specified tiles by 1. You need to remind the GM about this whenever you do it, or the discount is invalid.
X FP: A tile may be protected to prevent other gods from messing it up. The amount of acts spent on protection must be a multiple of 2. If any god wants to change a protected tile they must first break the protection. Breaking the protection of a tile costs half of what it costs to set up the protection in the first place. If god A protects a tile for 4 acts, god B can break the protection by spending 2 acts. You can modify then protect a tile, or un-protect then modify a tile in the same turn. You can dispel your own protections for free, but you cannot modify a tile while it is still protected even if you protected it yourself.
Your action posts must include your god/civilization name in them.
For civilizations, you must declare which tile you want to forage (Even if there is only one tile available). You must also reference a god by their proper name when praying.
All actions that affect a tile or involve a tile must include the tiles co-ordinates. No exceptions.