In the beginning there was darkness. Lots of events occurred afterward to craft a beautiful, unique planet filled with equally beautiful and unique life. One of these forms of life is human: you! You are all the leaders of a sizable tribe of humans as they move from barely subsisting to settling and, hopefully, thriving through the ages. There is only so much room at the top where the lucky few bask in the fruits of the labors of others, and this creates a divide between you, the leaders of this as-of-yet unknown tribe!
If you join before the first update is posted, you will have the opportunity to declare yourself as either a
Major Founder or a
Minor Founder. The first three players to declare themselves as
Major Founders lock their roles in and default all other players to
Minor Founders. All participants will be kept in a Master List maintained in my next post (with further details covered in the “Winning The Game - The Master List” spoiler).
Both types of families can propose plans of action for the tribe during all four phases of each turn and all generally want their peoples to continue existing. Beyond that, they are all competing for the position of Top Dogs as the Minor Founders try to outmaneuver one another to usurp a Major Founder and the Major Founders do everything they can to hold onto their positions.
But
how are you supposed to do any of that while you’re also leading what may one day be a multicontinental empire? Find out more in the spoilers below!
Everyone wants Influence. It represents how much sway a family has expressed over their people. Influence can be gained in quite a few ways, and with alarming regularity. Any proposal that is accepted by the tribe grants (or in very unlucky cases, loses) the Founder that proposed it a flat amount of Influence. Events may occur based on a number of factors during the course of gameplay that will also result in an opportunity for Founders to gain (or lose) influence.
The first three Major Founders start with 1 Influence. In order for a Minor Founder to switch positions with a Major Founder they need to surpass, not tie, a Major Founder’s Influence. These swaps can only happen one at a time and only at the end of each turn once all other actions are complete. In the event of any ties between rising Minors or declining Majors, appropriately-sided dice will be rolled to randomly determine who gets to ascend or descend.
THE ABOVE IS ALL WRONG NOW.
Influence is gained as normal, but is reset with every age. The three Founders with the highest influence go on to become Major Founders in the following age.
Everyone wants Prestige. Prestige represents the legacy a Major Founder has left behind and is what determines the winner at the end of the game. Prestige is only gained by Major Founders in position when your people pass into a new Age. Prestige cannot be lost. Proposals that bring about a new Age will give all Major Founders the Prestige regardless of whether or not they voted for it.
The Master List is the scoreboard for the game and will track each players Influence and Prestige, as well as any notable events that may have occurred due to their actions. If you decide to build a character for yourself to play as your founder I won't stop you - roleplaying is fun, but the list will use your forum username for ease of reference. Your character details can and will probably be copied and pasted alongside your other information for posterity.
Major Founders and Minor Founders are only different in how they vote on proposals each phase, but this one difference is significant.
Major Founders have a great amount of power and utilize their own votebox where their votes count in their entirety.
Minor Founders vote is a votebox separated from the Majors’, and upon concluding a vote the winning proposal from the Minor Founders has a singular vote cast to represent them in the Major Founders’ votebox.
In the case of a tie vote the proposal backed by the Minor Founders will always win.
Each turn is divided into four distinct phases that take place over a wildly variable amount of time - months, years, or even generations can pass by over the course of a single turn.
The Exploration Phase is the first phase and lets you propose plans for exploration of the world or developments to specifically enhance and advance exploration. Early on your people will only be able to explore 1 Space from settled territory, but as time goes on and your explorers can cross multiple tiles you will need to chart an exact course. Sea-based exploration needs to have a course charted that starts and ends on a settled coastal tile. Should trade become a possibility for some reason, it will also be taken care of in this phase.
Exploring Land and Shallow Water will reveal any resources available that your people would be able to identify, acquire, and utilize at the time. Details of Land terrain will also be revealed upon exploration. Exploring Deep Sea for the first time will result in a number of rolls to represent exploration into the great unknown. This "random generation" can provide boons or maluses to your exploratory efforts, wipe them out in a mysterious storm, discover new lands, and much more! If nothing of a more permanent nature is discovered, Deep Sea will be converted to a plain Ocean tile. Both Deep Sea and Ocean tiles represent much larger areas than other tiles, making progress through them slower if not properly prepared for. Tiles with a mix of Land and Shallow Water are considered to have Coastal Waters, which function similarly to Shallow Water with a lower bar of entry. A technology that allows only Coastal travel can cross from one landmass to another so long as they are not separated by a complete water tile
You may decide to develop new techniques or equipment to improve their scouting or prospecting abilities in lieu of exploration during this phase. These proposals need to have a basis in presently available Resources and Technologies, and may reveal new Technology upon their creation depending on what is available and how well their rolls end up. Proposals for advancements are developed and integrated into society based on a roll of 1d10, where a 1 represents terrible construction, craftsmanship, execution, or adoption, and a 10 results in a brilliant final product with a major impact on the nature of future exploration...and perhaps the direction of your people as a whole. These developments may require resources for upkeep in order to continue gaining benefits from them, but can be "defunded" and "refunded" for no penalty during any Exploration Phase based on current needs.
Your first Exploration Phase will be fundamentally different from every other, as instead of choosing where to explore or what to construct you will be selecting a starting location from a set list.
The Expansion Phase is where you directly influence civilized society (if you consider yourself either of those things). You can choose to spread your people to a neighboring grid square with a Resource upkeep cost based on the terrain and your people's own skills, technologies, and equipment. Distant settling and colonization will also occur in this phase if you develop means to do so. If, for some reason, you'd need to fight a war, decisions on where to strike would occur here.
Instead of expanding your borders you can use this phase to develop your people and their society in a wide variety of ways. Things like spears, hospitals, and a code of laws can all be proposed during this phase. You can also create techniques to refine base materials into a more refined resource, such as developing an alloy after figuring out how to use metals and getting your hands on a few of them, potentially expanding the potential of your technological and societal advancements. These proposals need to have a basis in presently available Resources and Technologies, and may reveal new Technology upon their creation depending on what is available and how well their rolls end up. Proposals for advancements are developed and integrated into society based on a roll of 1d10, where a 1 represents terrible construction, craftsmanship, execution, or adoption, and a 10 results in a brilliant final product with a major impact on the nature of future expansion...and perhaps the direction of your people as a whole. These developments may require resources for upkeep in order to continue gaining benefits from them, but can be "defunded" and "refunded" for no penalty during any Expansion Phase based on current needs.
The Exploitation Phase allows you to grow your economic capabilities. You are able to choose one additional known resource in controlled territories to gather every Exploitation Phase.
You may opt to propose new techniques and equipment to improve the exploitative measures of your people. More advanced means of identifying and gathering resources is the quickest and easiest way available to identify new useful resources. Your proposals can be general, but more specific creations will have the potential to provide much more potent benefits. For example you may choose to create iron tools to provide a general benefit to your people, but proposing an iron pickax instead will potentially greatly improve extraction of ores and perhaps discover new ones. These proposals need to have a basis in presently available Resources and Technologies, and may reveal new Technology upon their creation depending on what is available and how well their rolls end up. Proposals for advancements are developed and integrated into society based on a roll of 1d10, where a 1 represents terrible construction, craftsmanship, execution, or adoption, and a 10 results in a brilliant final product with a major impact on the nature of future exploitation...and perhaps the direction of your people as a whole. These developments may require resources for upkeep in order to continue gaining benefits from them, but can be "defunded" and "refunded" for no penalty during any Exploitation Phase based on current needs.
The final phase of every turn is the Experimentation Phase. This turn does not have a variety of actions to perform, and is instead used solely to propose new Technologies, techniques, tools, social constructs, just about anything you could make in the previous three phases and then some. Unlike the designs proposed in other phases, the proposals in the Experimentation Phase do not necessarily need to be based on existing Technologies. Straying further from your existing baseline will make the action less likely to have major successes, and positive and negative outcomes leave more extreme marks on your society than advancements proposed in other phases.
Proposals for advancements are developed and integrated into society based on a roll of 1d10, where a 1 represents terrible construction, craftsmanship, execution, or adoption, and a 10 results in a brilliant final product with a major impact on the nature of future experimentation...and perhaps the direction of your people as a whole. These developments may require resources for upkeep in order to continue gaining benefits from them, but can be "defunded" and "refunded" for no penalty during any Experimentation Phase based on current needs. Oh, and Proposals in this phase will grant the Founder 2 Influence when chosen as opposed to the 1 attained in other phases.
The Experimentation Phase ends with a summary of your peoples progress as well as any changes in Founder status or the Age.
And here's some more spoilers covering a few other things!
All proposals require a name to identify them as well as a plan detailed enough to be comprehended by the GM and other players. Proposals for technologies, equipment, and the like should clearly describe the desired outcome of the project. Adopted proposals in every phase grant 1 Influence, save for the Experimentation Phase which gives 2 Influence instead.
There will be two voteboxes active at any given time, and you are only allowed to vote your singular vote in the proper box depending on your standing as a Major or Minor Founder. A votebox is a quote box listing the proposals being voted for during that phase where you add your name next to the project you support as well as adjust a number representing the amount of voters supporting said item. Major and Minor Founder voteboxes will likely appear very similar, so they should be clearly labeled to prevent confusion. Provided below are two examples of acceptable voteboxes and one example of what not to do:
Owl Ranch (2): Birdman, Manbird
Money (1): Fedboy
Help We're Dying (1): Minor Founders
Floorpills (2): Dr. Floorpills, Doc Galactic
Monkey Translator (1): Rathen
Help We're Dying (3): Shitsec, Checkers, The AI
In the above examples the victorious proposal would be the Owl Ranch. Help We're Dying was the winning proposal among the Minor Founders, so a vote was tallied for it in the Major Votebox. Note that both examples have clear titles indicating which group they are for.
Egg Scrambler (4): Larry, Moe, Curly, Joe
Scramb Eggler (4): Pinky, Brain, Moe
This is a bad votebox. It does not clearly identify which tier of Founder it is associated with, the numerical tally of voters does not match the amount of voters, and Moe has voted twice!
While there is a vast multitude of resources to discover, uncover, and create, these can generally be broken down into three groups:
Food is any resource that provides sustenance for your people. This can include but is not limited to game, fish, wild berries, and crops. Food is usually used to pay upkeep for settled territories.
Economic Resources are most other resources used in the development and maintenance of your society. Examples of some Economic resources are tin, marble, clay, wood, and cotton. Certain Economic Resources, such as tobacco and opium, will (de?)buff your civilization with passive effects while they are being Exploited.
Special Resources are resources only found in large concentrations in very specific areas of the world. These Special Resources defy our own laws of the physical universe and can lead to very creative and interesting advancements. Special Resources have undefined reactions, allowing players to come up with unique solutions to whatever problems might arise. The base form of a special resource does not mean other forms would be ineffective or impossible: it is up to you to define what the liquid form of your special gas can do. Special Resources are the only ones you will be made aware of before you have the capacity to gather or utilize them.
Water, while not technically a Resource, is not available in some territories. Any action taken within them will be more likely to fail until a means of bringing water to distant lands is developed.
Each Resource will be persistently tracked in their own spoiler alongside the amount of the resource you have available and the amount of the resource total (Ex. Iron (2/4))
Congratulations! You've managed to advance the Baobabi enough to have a significant passive influence on the wellbeing of the world around them! Exhaustion represents humanity overexploiting the resources they rely on. It is possible to deforest a region (admittedly that's not so accurate - early on - with the Baobabi), eliminate animals (also admittedly not so accurate with widespread animal husbandry, but you get the point), or suck a vein of ore dry. At the end of every turn a d100 will be rolled to determine whether or not the Baobabi experience Resource Exhaustion. If the roll is not higher than the tool's Exhaustion Rate then one exploited resource is chosen randomly to be Exhausted. An Exhausted Resource disappears from the game, although there is a chance that something could be uncovered beneath/nearby to somewhat make up for the loss. Renewable resources and semi-renewable resources (at least early on), as well as most Special Resources (to more varies degrees) are not affected by Resource Exhaustion. If an Exploited Resource providing multiple resources loses one of them, the entire Resource and everything it produces is lost. Exhaustion can be negated through advancing the appropriate technologies, such as basing an entire culture around a sacred tree and respectful and responsible woodworking with a dash of sowing tree seeds for good measure making wood an entirely renewable resource (at this time) and all tree-based resources completely immune to Exhaustion as a result. You will not be told outright how much or in what ways your technologies combat or accelerate Exhaustion (except that one time just now) until you have sufficiently advanced technology capable of providing that level of information. It's more fun to find out by fucking around, I think the kids say.
I'd like to thank the almighty Macho Man, Nuke for being the one to bring Venturey games to my attention, eS for leading me into arms races, and modern air conditioning.
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Topic: The Founders - A RiskyArmsCivGodPoliticking Game (Experimentation VI) (Read 19762 times)