The mortal races had finally failed, their sin at last too great for even the mightiest of them to repent.
The gods had forsaken them, or perhaps they had never existed at all, being merely imagining of their lonely and feeble minds.
In their darkest hour, they called upon the divine ears, pleading, imploring, but were heard only by the silent, stony idols, every bit as powerless as they were.
But not all had died that final day.
Some had managed to escape, some by way of the same magics which had brought their damnation, others through the mysterious portals, shunned for eternity as gateways to evil, while others still by the strange peculiarities which one can only explain as 'luck'.
Now, they find themselves in a new, twisted and hostile land, marooned upon a barren island as their eternal ship finally met its end.
And they are not alone...
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=71542.0I've been trying to start a successful role-playing game for awhile, but have always run into a snag in inspiration or just simply procrastinated until the game died. But no longer.
Essentially, this is a Civ V-like strategy game, where you are the leader of a burgeoning fantasy city of your design and race, and now must try to lead this city to glory and riches in a new, foreign world. I'm pretty much going to copy-paste the rules from
this thread, but with a few changes which I'll note at the end.
Each turn represents one year. You direct city production, research, and military units, and may provide as much detail as you like. More detailed plans may give you bonuses to random rolls, so try to be a bit more in-depth than "three guys mine the hills, and I'm building a library"!
Turns will last roughly three days each. If a turn is missed, the minimum food will be produced, and everyone else idles.
Your city starts with 10,000 people. Each 1000 people generate 1 labor and consume 1 food. Labor points may be used to work the terrain surrounding your city, producing resources, or used in the city to build or staff buildings. The primary resources are food, wood, and stone, along with various ores. Other resources exist, but you won't know about them at the beginning of the game.
Your city is surrounded by 18 tiles of varying terrain types. Rivers and special resources (like ores, luxury foods, or magical reagents) can be found in some tiles. Each tile can be fully worked by one labor point, providing the appropriate resources for the terrain type and any upgrades there.
Labor may also be spent on construction (in or out of the city) or on manning buildings.
Unused resources will automatically be stored. Standard warehouses can store 20 resources of each type. Resources may be used in the same turn they are produced. Extra resources over the storage limit are given away to the populace.
Some buildings are made in the city itself, like a smithy, library, or shrine. Some of these have modest staffing requirements and provide a constant benefit. A generic shrine, for instance, gives a passive bonus of 10 spirituality luxury points. Others allow new types of labor to be performed in the city. A smithy allows ores to be processed, for instance, and a hall of learning allows labor to be spent on research.
You may also construct terrain upgrades. These generally increase the resource output of the tile they are built in. Plains, for instance, can be irrigated to raise their food output from two to three. Most upgrades are mutually exclusive - you can't build a quarry and irrigation in the same tile - but a few, like watermills, are 'free'.
The attitude of your citizens is very important! The happier your people are, the more immigrants you attract and the faster your population grows. What's more, at very high and low morale, their productivity is affected. Morale ranges from one to ten, with a base of five, and can be adjusted by many factors. The effects of morale are as follows:
Morale:yearly population growth
1:-4%, -30% production
2:-2%, -20% production
3:0, -10% production
4:2%
5:4%
6:5%
7:6%
8:7%, +10% production
9:8%, +15% production
10:10%, +20% production
Some luxury goods can be consumed for morale bonuses. Each luxury good may be converted into 10 luxury points. Every 1000 population requires 1 luxury point for a morale bonus. Additional luxury goods of the same type provide no benefit; different types are needed. If you have more than three luxury goods, further bonuses become harder to get; each additional point of morale takes two different resources.
The most common luxury good is clothing, available by refining wool produced by hills. Your people can scrounge for furs and such to keep themselves dressed, but they're happier if they don't have to.
Every civilization has a few citizens with unusual skills and aptitudes. They may be great military leaders, ingenious engineers, wise sages, or any number of other things. Leaders can provide bonuses to appropriate activities - a sage can lead research efforts in your hall of learning to speed your research, for instance. Possibly more important, however, many buildings cannot be built or operated at all unless you have an appropriate leader available. Without a general, for example, a military school cannot be built, nor can it be used while he is away. Other structures only require a leader to be built - building a huge castle requires a skilled engineer, but once it's done he can move on to other things.
Leaders of the same class have the same basic abilities, but each also has their own special ability. You may not initially know what this ability is, however; it must be discovered either by putting the leader in an appropriate situation or through a random event. Alduf the Sage might be a brilliant teacher of magic, giving bonuses to your wizards, but you might not know it if you never put him in charge of a magical college.
To create a military unit, you must be able to equip them - typically this means creating weapons at a smithy or military workshop. Almost all units may be trained in a single turn, and will be ready to move out on your next turn. Initially, you may only train one unit a turn, but there are ways to increase this limit. Military units draw personnel from the population of your city. Most units consist of 100 population. Units with heavy equipment, such as knights, may require more population to help carry their equipment while traveling. They can be left out, but the unit will travel more slowly.
Simple wooden weapons can be made with 2 labor and 1 wood for a unit's worth, and wooden shields also take 2 labor and 1 wood.
Most units may move a couple hundred miles a turn in known territory - they have a year to do it in, after all! Supplies may be an issue on long journeys, though, so be careful. Also, exploring uncharted territory is much slower. Major battles (including all PVP) takes place in a combat sub-turn at the end of the regular turn.
During combat, players will PM their tactics to me. Conditionals are allowed. Example: My archers will set up on a hill. My swordsmen will be in front of my archers, screening them from attacks. The cavalry will be behind the hill, waiting for a good opportunity to charge. If flanked, my archers will attempt to get away, while my cavalry charge the flankers. Otherwise, my cavalry will attempt to charge the enemy archers.
Units have ratings for attack, defense, range, health, movement, and morale. Special abilities may be learned through a year of training. The exact combat formulas will remain secret. Units will fight at reduced efficiency as morale drops, and units that have 'broken' lose the benefit of any known abilities.
Units will gain experience, and eventually increase their morale. They may be trained for a year to gain the "trained" level of experience, but further levels require combat experience.
Naval units are generally small enough to navigate rivers, although they receive a 50% bonus to attack and defense if at sea. If designed to be too large for rivers, they'll receive a 100% bonus at sea. Each naval unit will be able to transport at least one standard military unit.
As noted earlier, each 1000 people consume 1 food a turn. If extra food is available, it provides morale bonuses - each extra food gives 2 luxury points.
Famine can easily be disastrous. If there is not enough food, your city's population drops by 1000 every turn and morale is reduced by two until the situation is resolved.
Military units consume double food. That is, a standard unit of archers with 100 population will consume 200 food per turn. If forced to forage in the wilderness (Extended global travels without supplies), they'll lose morale and possibly health.
Excess population beyond a 1000 mark will add into a sort of labor pool, to the nearest 100. This will continue to increase each turn. When it reaches 1000, the population will be considered to have an extra 1000 people for the next turn. They'll produce more labor, require food, use luxuries, and be taxed just like a normal 1000 people. This extra will be noted in the turn text.
Initially, your people don't use money much. This changes once you research Trade. Money is used mostly for upkeep of military units and for trading. Each 2000 people produce 1 gold in tax income, and each military unit requires 1 gold in upkeep costs. Before trade is researched, you may only support three military units.
Research points are produced primarily with labor spent at the Hall of Learning. You may tell your researchers what you want them to work on, but they may surprise you from time to time. Plus, there is a large random component to research speed, so don't assume much.
The technologies given below are a basic technologies to get people started. As the game progresses, you may need to make up new technologies, either by giving a name or a desired effect. In any case, it's advantageous if you state which of your existing technologies you think can be used as prerequisites of the new technology.
The 18 tiles surrounding your city are available for production, but tiles being used for production may need to be protected. Enemies can keep you from working tiles, and may also destroy improvements in them. Units in your city may be ordered to defend terrain tiles, or not, as you prefer. Walls improve the strength of your units when they're defending any tile they enclose, but are of no use outside them.
Your tiles may be referred to by number as follows: The tile directly above your city is tile 1, and the remainder of the inner ring is numbered 2 through 6 clockwise. The northmost tile is number 7, and the rest of the outer ring is numbered 8 through 18 clockwise.
Civilizations with an appropriate technology can produce settler units by spending 5 labor, 5 food, and 5 wood. This also reduces the city's population by 5,000. Settlers move like military units, and can be expended to produce a colony or town, depending on the technology used.
Colonies take 10 money in startup costs, and represent relatively small settlements dependent on their parent city for most production. They grow slowly, and require steady upkeep costs (2 money a turn for starting colonies), but send resources back to their parent civilization based on their location. Colonies with little or no farmland may require steady food shipments, as well. Colonies initially have no ability to raise military units, and rely on their parent city for protection.
A player may only control one city at a time, although the possibility exists for independent towns to loosely align themselves with a player, trading resources for protection.
Random events will probably occur as the game goes on. These can be beneficial or harmful. Bad harvests, raiders, abundant harvests, or traveling merchants are a few possibilities. There is no way to prevent them, but bad harvests can be negated by having a granary with enough food stored. Raiders won't be able to do much if there is an army defending the town.
Colonies will have separate chances of random events.
Horses, similar beasts of burden, and slaves, have a few uses. Two maybe be turned into a labor point for the express purposes of working terrain or improving it. They may be eaten if times are hard, for +2 food. With the proper training, horses or beasts of burden may be used as part of a military unit, for cavalry.
Horses or other beasts of burden may be gained through random event, exploration, or raiding. Building a horse farm with them is advised, so that more may be trained.
Horse farms can never be improved to give more then +1 horse.
Magic is a powerful force in the world, and a civilization that can harness it can reap powerful advantages. Many magical technologies work pretty much like other techs - they unlock new structures, equipment, and special bonuses. Others, however, require caster units to take advantage of. These spellcasting technologies work as follows:
Each spellcasting tech is linked to a magical resource. Once you have a casting tech and the associated resource, you can create a mage school. This requires, in addition to normal building materials, two units of any magical resource you know how to use.
With a mage school, you can train caster units for two magical resources and three labor. A caster unit is a small group of highly-trained, highly-paid professionals, and creating them has no significant impact on your population. Each caster unit is limited to a single school of magic, set when the unit is created, and must be created with the appropriate resource. Caster units can cast any spell of their school that you know, although their power per turn is limited. A spellcasting tech will give you at least one spell of that school, and further research can reveal more. The MP of a caster unit depends on the school of magic and unit experience, and can usually be improved with further research.
Caster units, like some leaders, are often attached to military units. Caster units have no direct combat ability (unless they have a spell that grants it to them), so they should be protected; they are at great risk if sent away from your cities alone. If their unit gets involved in battle, caster units can use pre-combat buffs to improve their allies, or they can cast combat spells to damage and weaken their enemies. (Or, of course, a mixture of the two.) A caster unit cannot be attacked directly unless they are first separated from any units escorting them, but alone they can be easily destroyed by any military unit. Direct damage spells may be targeted on casters; against such attacks they have four defense and five health, modified by experience. (Caster-on-caster battles tend to be fast and mutually destructive.)
Most caster units have an upkeep cost of three money. This represents both their salaries and the cost of supplying them with spell components.
Changes:
-
We will be working with much smaller population numbers this game- 100 inhabitants will be the equivalent of 1000 in the other game (note that this is purely a cosmetic change. Military unit sizes are also cut to 10 as the standard size.)- Weapons will require 1 labor instead of 2, unless otherwise stated.
- Famine will not be quite so harsh initially, but will have a snowball effect which may carry between dry spells if they're close enough together.
- The 'Magic is dangerous' cliche will be in effect here- be wary that every step down that path can be the last for not only you but potentially the entire world. The benefits, however, can be tantalizing...
- You may spend a labor to further explore a hex, but there is a risk that some or all of the explorers may die.
- We'll be using a different method of population growth and tracking; we'll be doing away with the individual inhabitant tracking and instead 1 population will be equivalent to 1 labor. Every population will require 2 food to maintain, and to make your city grow in size you have to accumulate (3 * city population) excess food.
- Morale levels will now have the following effects:
1: -30% production, -50% construction, military units suffer a -4 morale penalty
2: -20% production, -25% construction, military units suffer a -3 morale penalty
3: -10% production, -15% construction, military units suffer a -2 morale penalty
4: -5% construction, military units suffer a -1 morale penalty
5: No effect
6: +5% production, +10% construction, military units gain +1 morale
7: +10% production, +15% construction, military units gain +1 morale
8: +15% production, +20% construction, military units gain +2 morale
9: +15% production, +25% construction, military units gain +3 morale
10: +20% production, +30% construction, military units gain +5 morale
- Morale will begin to drop after 5 population, dropping by 1 with every population after that. There may be buildings which will increase this later, but they are currently unknown.
-Labor will be split into two separate pools; one which is used to work the land, the other being used to construct buildings and improvements.
Also, this will be set in a much more hostile and dangerous world then the others- the sight of green fields, purple mountains and blue sky are now a thing of the past.
You also have a new choice when creating your race; you can be a native-born inhabitant of the land, which will require you either be VERY dark and you will start out more developed but less technologically advanced, or a survivor of the old world, finding yourself tempest-tossed on bleak lands with nothing but your wits about you.
Civilization Creation Sheet:
* Native-Born or Tempest-Tossed
* The names of your civilization and your first city, as well as a unique color for your civilization.
* Race(s): A description of the race or races that make up your civilization. If the races are common enough, a few words will suffice.
* Theme: Two or three words that describe your civilization.
* Description: Describe your civilization and culture, and any religious beliefs that they have. This will help solidify your RP, and help me with early flavor text.
* History: A brief background of your civilization, and who they were in the Old World. A newly-created/adopted race should also have some reasons why the deity (or whoever) created/adopted them.
If you need me to explain more about the world we'll be playing in, ask me here or in PM.
Note to Dawn of a New World players: I will still be participating in that game, I'm just starting another one here.