Each turn represents an arbitrary and variable number of years, largely at the discretion of the game master. Typically turns will be longer in the early game, and shorten later on, especially during wars, but this is only important for roleplaying purposes. 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"! Unlike previous games, however, roleplaying is encouraged but not required.
Your city starts with 6 population. One population usually represents around 1000 people, but this can vary from race to race. Each population point generates 1 labor and consumes 2 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, such as wool and leather, exist, most of which you won't know about 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'.
Your population's prosperity is very important, because it determines your population growth. Each turn, if your prosperity is greater than your population, your population increases by one as your city's wealth attracts immigrants. If your prosperity is lower than your population, population decreases by one as people leave looking for better opportunities elsewhere. No matter how high or low your prosperity is, population will never change by more than one point a turn in this way. Every city is assumed to have been built where it is for a reason - a trading hub, a religious site, a valuable resource, whatever - giving it a base prosperity of two. There are several ways to increase it from there. The most common are food and luxuries.
Food can be consumed for two reasons: to sustain your people, and to increase prosperity. You are required to consume two food a turn per population to prevent famine. Food consumed also increases prosperity. Every three food consumed, including the mandatory two per population, increases prosperity by one. You may consume as much additional food as you have available.
Luxury goods also increase prosperity. Each different luxury you consume raises prosperity by one. One unit of a luxury per turn is enough for a city of any size, and consuming additional luxuries of the same type has no effect. The most common luxury good is clothing, available by refining wool produced by hills or leather from hunting camps. Your people can scrounge for furs and such to keep themselves dressed, but they're happier if they don't have to.
There are of course, any number of other luxury bonuses as well - buildings, leaders, racial traits, and so on.
Example: A typical starting city has a base prosperity of two and a population of six. If the city consumes the minimum food, 12, then food consumed gives +4 prosperity for a total of six. Population of this city will be stable. If the city consumes a unit of clothing, or 15 food instead of 12, prosperity will increase to seven and population will increase by one on the next turn.
As noted earlier, each population point consumes a minimum of 2 food a turn. Extra food can be used to raise prosperity as described above. If there is not enough food, however, famine strikes. Starvation reduces your population by one per turn, which stacks with losses due to low prosperity (which you probably also have). Even if you somehow still have more prosperity than population, population growth is prevented, so you cannot counterbalance this population loss.
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.
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. This consumes the equipment, but has no other costs. For ease of bookkeeping, you must define unit types with fixed equipment. There is no cost to do this, other than irritating the GM if you do it too often.
Most units may move a couple hundred miles a turn in known territory - they have plenty of time to do it in, after all! However, units often have trouble with both getting supplies and navigating when far from home, especially in territory that is not thoroughly explored. Researching logistics, mapmaking, and the like allows your units to operate further from home. Also, exploring uncharted territory is much slower than simple movement, regardless of distance.
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, and movement. Units also have an experience level, the effects of which vary by unit type. The exact combat formulas will remain secret. Units reduced to sufficiently low health will break and run, reducing their level by one.
Units start at level 1 and gain experience as they fight. Existing units may be trained for a turn to reach level 2, 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. Most naval units will be able to transport at least one standard military unit.
Your ability to train soldiers is limited. Initially, you may recruit one unit, or train an existing unit to level 2, but not both, in a turn. There are ways to raise this limit, however.
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 city produces money equal to half its prosperity, and each military unit requires 1 money in upkeep costs. Before trade is researched, you may only support three military units. Additionally, once a turn you may spend ten gold to get one bonus labor
The most basic way your civilization can develop is through research. Your civilization automatically produces a certain amount of research points every turn, and you may generate more by spending labor at a 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. Leftover reseach points will carry over to the next tech.
More significantly, the GM will periodically announce the beginning of a new age. Each player will be asked to describe how the experiences of the last age have changed their society, and their civilizations will change accordingly. This always unlocks new technologies, and usually has other effects as well. New leaders emerge, new racial traits are gained, and so on.
After the first age, different civilizations will have different technologies available. Technology trading is restriced by this, as well as research - you cannot trade someone a technology they could not research for themselves.
Civilizations with an appropriate technology can produce settler units by spending 4 labor, 4 food, and 4 wood. This also reduces the city's population by 3. Settlers move like military units, and can be expended to produce a colony. This also costs 10 money in startup costs.
Colonies 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 have no ability to raise military units, and rely on their parent city for protection.
As a colony grows, and if the parent civilization has appropriate technology, it may eventually develop into a small city in its own right. The number of cities a player may control is sharply limited, however.
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.
Farming
Allows farm
Animal Husbandry
Allows pasture
Allows wool production
Hunting
Allows hunting camp
Allows bows
Fishing
Allows fishing village
Exploration
Allows forester's camp
Better support range
Craftsmanship
Allows military workshop
Allows clothier's workshop
Allows jewelry production
Allows leather armor production
Masonry
Allows Quarry
Allows Granary
Allows Stone Wall
Mysticism
Allows Shrine
Oral Tradition
Allows Hall of Learning
Military workshop (Craftsmanship)
2 labor, 2 materials
Half labor cost of weapons and armor
Clothier's workshop (Craftsmanship)
2 labor, 2 materials
Make one unit of clothing a turn for no labor
Granary (Masonry)
2 labor, 2 materials
Allows storage of food
Shrine (Mysticism)
2 labor, 2 materials
+1 prosperity
Hall of Learning (Oral Tradition)
2 labor, 2 materials
Spend up to one labor/turn on extra research
Military School (No tech)
Requires General to build and operate
4 labor, 3 materials
Recruit/train an extra unit per turn while a General is in town
Architect's Workshop (No tech)
Requires Engineer to build and operate
4 labor, 1 stone, 1 wood, 1 any materials
+33% to labor spent on construction while an Engineer is in town
Wooden spears (Primary weapon, +1 attack)
2 labor
1 wood -> 1 wooden spears
Wooden shields (Shield, +1 defense)
2 labor
1 wood -> 1 wooden shields
Bows (Primary weapon, +2/2 ranged attack)
Hunting
2 labor
1 wood -> 1 bows
Leather armor (Armor, +4 health)
Craftsmanship
2 labor
1 leather -> 1 leather armor
Clothing
1 labor
1 leather or wool -> 1 clothing
Jewelry
1 labor
1 appropriate resource -> 1 jewelry
Plains
3 food
Forest
2 food, 1 wood
Hills
2 food, 1 wool
Mountain
1 stone
Desert
1 food
Water
3 food
River
+1 food
Farm (Plains or hills)
Requires farming
Requires river or lake present or adjacent
1 labor
+1 food
Pasture (Plains or hills)
Requires animal husbandry
1 labor, 1 building materials
+1 food
Hunting camp (Forest)
Requires hunting
1 labor
+1 food, +1 leather
Woodsman's camp (Forest)
Requires exploration
1 labor, 1 building materials
+1 wood
Fishing village (Ocean or lake)
Requires fishing
Requires adjacent land
1 labor, 1 building materials
+1 food
Quarry (Hills or mountain)
Requires masonry
+1 stone
Palisade
2 labor, 1 wood
+25% strength to units inside wall
Stone Wall
3 labor, 2 stone
+50% strength to units inside wall
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Topic: At the Dawn of Time discussion thread (Need a replacement player!) (Read 57621 times)