Forums / Roleplaying / Empires

Now, I have had an idea. a RELATIVELY GOOD IDEA! So, if you will all bear with me, I will write it up and we can all go play it. NO INTERRUPTIONS! Anyway...

This game, in which you command an empire, takes place in the middle ages (cheer or yawn, your choice) but with only minor magics. There will be small, useful spells, but no Armageddon style things. Many of you will compare this to VU itself, but I hope you play anyway. Two empires are better than one.

When the game begins, you write a paragraph or so on your character coming into possession of a medium sized, mostly empty town (thus cutting out most of the boring beginning). After deciding to create yourself an empire, you set about building up the town into a city. This will take place in another post. Then, you get moving in mobilizing whatever forces you wish. Military will not always be he weapon of choice, with bribery and corruption on your left and divine intervention on your right. Oh, and magic is somewhere down the hall, diplomacy is just over there next to corruption and terror will walk opposite benevolence, either one persuading people to join you for a better life, or else risk a worse life or no life at all...

So, here's what you need...in my patented QUICK GUIDE
NUMBER ONE:
Paragraph saying how you found your town and you naming it. Arvious probably wants his port place so don't steal the name from him please. Your starting town is located where a river meets the sea *beep*JECTIONS! You get this so everyone has a naval opportunity from the word go. If you want  different capital go found/take over/buy/take by agreed condition/convert/aquire/scare everyone out of one...
NUMBER TWO:
Decide how your going to get this town going. Building is instantaneous, but buildings are very difficult to destroy, so plan for future expansion. see the building article for details.
NUMBER THREE:
Start making relationships with your neighbours. Trade, bribe, threaten, do it however you want. Settle a few new towns, get the ball rolling for your future world domination...or not. It's up to you.
NUMBER FOUR:
Going back to relationships. If you want to make an alliance with a player, but don't want others to know, PM them. Same if you want to do that with a group of NPCs. But if you use trade or bribery, make sure you send me a PM too so I know where to transfer the cash and/or goods.
NUMBER FIVE:
After a while, you might want to create or join a religion. Creating one might look inviting, but remember, the power of your chosen diety relies on how many worship him, so a god worshipped by many will be far more powerful. And don't be afraid to call on the gods. I mean, you worship them. They should be obliged to do something in return. Often it is just reducing negative events, but miracles DO happen. You can split your worship between more than one god, but then they will not respond to your pleas as much.

Building:
You all start with a town. So I will explain: All towns are drawn onto pictures. The size of the picture = the size of the town. so a bigger image leaves more room for expansion. You can make a picture bigger if you want, just ask.

Buildings are all judged on their size. So, size of building = effect strength of building. So a bigger houe will hold more people. With me so far?

There are four categories of building, sorted by color. Individual buildings are classified by a big bold letter. So a building with a big red B on it will be a military barracks.

All buildings use up Money and Stone. More is used depending on size.

RED: Military;

B: Barracks. Will control the maximum number of troops for you to train. So a bigger barracks lets you train more troops. Of course, you still need men to train.

A: Armory. will allow you to train soldiers cheaper by providing cheap weapons. So a bigger armory means cheaper troops. Multiple armories have the same effect. Takes a small amount of employment.

D: Defense. These shield your troops by blocking roads and such. Troops behind a defense get a tactical advantage. These can be anything from stone blocks to bags of sand to metal spikes to a low wall. The bigger they are, the more defense they give. When the city is not under attack, they do not have any use.

W: Wall. the best form of defense besides a fortress. Your troops can get on top and attack, theirs cant even get past without knocking it down. The bigger the wall, the stronger it is and the longer it takes to fell.

F: Fortress. an upgraded town hall, it is drawn directly on top of the town hall. It provides excellent defense, which increases with size. Takes as much employment as the town hall.


YELLOW: RELIGION;

S: Shrine. Provides a small amount of worship, no employees. Size = amount of Worship

T: Temple. Provides medium worship, small amount of employees. Size = amount of worship.

C: Temple Complex. Provides masses of worship. Has to be large to function. Large amount of employees. One per city...well, it replaces the town hall. Completely undefendable. Will REALLY please your god. Size = amount of worship, and you really ought to make this one big. Requires some Gold to build.

A: Altar. Especially for you evil-doers, the altar allows you to make blood sacrifices. Will provide medium employment, and will please only evil gods. Size = amount of sacrifices = amount of worship gained. Be careful with this one...it quickly sacrifices a lot of people.


GREEN: Economy;

F: Farm. Must be pretty large, but only uses a small amount of workers, and is very cheap to build. It is also easy to expand by building onto the fields of a farm. Gains a large amount of Crop. This can be sold cheaply (prices vary, you can sell it to players for your chosen price) or used. Your city wont actually consume crop, (MAGIC NOT EATING PEOPLE!) but it can be used for events (see scenarios). Usually it is just for selling, which can be done without a marketplace for 1 Crop = $1, or at better marketplace rates. Crop is the only Rescource that can be sold without a Marketplace.

Q: Quarry. Mines quite a lot of stone, which sells for a medium price or can be used for building, making it a valuable rescource. Like in VU, it mines more from mountains. Uses a lot of employees, but is not useful during events, except negative ones.

M: Mine. Works well by mountains. Uses a medium amount of labour and produces medium amounts of Gold and small amounts of Stone and Diamond. Gold sells for much, Diamond for even more. Gold and Diamond are very useful during events.

Fac: Magic Factory. Strange foreign tech allows for these strange factories to be built; they put money straight into your coffers with no workers required. However, they need MASSIVE amounts of space to function, and cost a fortune to get running. Also the only building with more than one symbol as a logo, it is so costly.

V: Vault. You MUST HAVE ONE OF THESE IN EVERY TOWN. They store as much Money is necessary, and without them, raiders can take what they like. The bigger they are, the more secure they are, and less is stolen by invaders. This also makes them useful as they function like Defense during a seige.

S: Stockpile. Like a vault, you NEED THIS. It basically functions exactly the same as the vault, but stores Rescources instead of Money.


TEAL: CIVILLIAN;

(blank): House. These range form hovels to mansions, depending on size. The bigger they are, the more people they hold (but many small still hold more than a few large) and reduce the likelihood of 'angry citizen' events.

*: Town Hall. That's right, asterisk. What are you going to do about it? The town hall is a vital structure. There MUST be one in every city. If it is captured, the city is taken over. It can be turned into a keep, but it's size decides how good a defense it is if you don't convert it. It can also be turned into a Temple Complex, but be careful becuase that renders it defenseless. If a town hall gets destroyed, the town is abandoned and vanishes.

M: Magic School. Yeah, here we go. The Magic Shool allows you to cast spells. The bigger it is, the more effective the spell, and the further you can cast them.

$: Marketplace. Kaching! With a dollar sign as a symbol, you know it's gonna be good. If you don't have this, then you can't trade or send (or bribe people with) Money or Resources. The bigger it is, the less you have to pay in trading fees (usually a small % of the transferred goods' worth). A vital structure, as trading fees increase with distance.


HAPPINESS
Your people are usually content, but things like unsanitary housing, unemployment and continuous war upset them. If everything goes pear-shaped, there will be 'angry citizen' events such as riots and thievery.

SCENARIOS
Every now and then I will hand out random events. Try to follow along with them, or bad things will probably happen to you.

CITY READOUTS:
Depending on the city's size and buildings, I will give readouts. These are measured on bars like this.

Demo Town
Owned by Mr. Demo

[TOWN IMAGE GOES HERE]

Unemployment IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Too few workers
Happiness IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Crop +27
Stone +10
Gold +6
Diamonds +1

Soldiers in Tow*beep*r> Soldier price: $10

The white mark is  where the city stands on the population scale. The second bar shows the happiness. Yes, I used capital 'I's. I think they are slightly thicker and more medieval than '|'s. Next question?

This also shows the profits of a town. Remember, you only get money through sales. You can freely convert 1 Crop into $1 whenever you want, but everything else needs a Marketplace.

The soldiers in town and price things are self explanatory. The soldiers in town thing shows [No. of soldiers in town]/[No. of Soldiers all town Barracks can hold]. Towns can hold 100 soldiers without barracks. All barracks just increase that number.


MILITARY
When you want to attack, just say. Your sldiers will uberinstantteleport!! to the target and will engage. Soldiers will get weaker however, if the target town is far away. If the army had to cross water, they get even more tired than usual. The army can only cross the sea if they start in a port town. They can then get ANYWHERE on the map, if they want...
In a battle, you draw up plans (using arrows) onto the town map, showing what path your soldiers take. At the same time, the defender has a short amount of time (usually a day or so) to draw a similar plan, with crosses and things, to show defensive troop placements.
You both PM your plans to me, then when I have them both, I post them and write up the eventual results. You can then RP the battle to your hearts content (or not) to describe your epic struggle to take/defend the town.
Whoever wins usually gets to keep the town, unless the victor only wanted to secure the Vault or Stockpile (not the Town Hall) and do some lootin'. In which case the attacker steals large chunk of Money or Resources from the target.


BACK TO THE BEGINNING...
so, are you going to take over towns? Bribe them for protaction? Make alliances and NAPs? Become a zealous fanatic for your chosen god? It's all up to you...
You start with a town using this base.

Since all buildings need is a letter/symbol, building design is up to you. Remember, roads are free, and you can make your town take on lighter/darker tones as you will.

Your town will be randomly placed on the world map. It will probably be flipped, rotated, resized but possibly replaced with a dot.

And this is the world map!

ZOMG TEH MAP TOO BIG!

If there is anything I have failed miserably to explain, feel free to ask.

I await your posts from my epic black fortress thingy. Remember-Bronze Island is mine, so do not besiege it lightly. -Demonsul

Aww, come on Septim! Dontcha think it'll be cool to crush people beneath your armies of soldiers?

Yeah, I knew I forgot something. You start with enough stone to completely fill your first town. Apart from that you have nothing.

By the way, do NOT use my thread to advertise yours. Else you will be besieged by the force of my wrath, and you wouldn't want that.

Ok, a new deal to get people interested. Whoever draws out their beginning town and paragraph first gets Spire Island. How about that?

In case you didn't get my patchy starting explanation, I will revise it. You can make your first town however you want. You (for some reason) have a magic infinite stone supply that only lasts while your building your first town. You cannot expand this town's size yet, or everyone would have super instant capital cities.

Also, your first town gets 100 free soldiers.

So-

>Draw out the town, don't worry about costs.

>Remember to have a *town hall (without one, the town will vanish), a $Marketplace, a Vvault and a Sstockpile. Also Ffarms, Qquarries and houses are vital, and you should have more than one of each.

>Upon completion the town gets 100 soldiers, and costs are introduced.

>Then the game starts proper. Say if you want to found new towns, search for neutral people or whatever.

I tried to make it as simple as possible. There is almost no number bashing. One kind of troop. Things judged on size. And you say it is hard?!

Like I said, you dont start with anything. you have to begin with 'humble origins'.

If you get a town finished first, you get Spire Island. Of course, you can turn it down for a place near the desert, but...

Something is missing all right...THE CITY PICTURE! The entire game is based around city pictures. Your buildings could be anything from squares to imported photographs to carefully built masterpieces. They just need drawing, as the effectiveness of a city is entirely dependent on the size of the buildings in the picture. That's what the starter town template above the world map was for! Didn't I make that clear? ...I guess I didn't. Well, I hope I have now.

So get drawing!

The town pics will get a bit edited during attacks and stuff...bits will get broken off and maybe some fire...remember to put each building's logo letter on it somewhere. And take pride in your towns look.

So... now what?

I'm done being an idi0t.

PORT TRAVEN

[[I'll put Ws on my future cities.]]

Arvious was sitting in the town hall, listening to the town council bicker.

"I'm telling you, we need to build more mines!  We have mountains closeby, yes?  We should exploit the resources granted to us!  What do you think Arvious?"

"Whahuh,"  Arvious said, jolting up in his chair.  "Uh, sure, we need the jobs before the unemployment thingy gets out of hand."

"So," the man who was asking for the mines, "all in favor, say Aye."

Almost everyone raised their hands, even Arvious.

"Alright, let's get to work."

Will modify map soon.

Arvious woke up, after sleeping for a few hours.  He heard a pop sound and looked around the room.

"Hello?"  Arvious asked nobody.  Silence came in turn, and Arvious went back to sleep.  A couple of minutes later, another pop noise was heard, along with a voice.

"Arvious."

Arvious woke up and looked around his room again, scared out of his wits.

"Who is it?"  Arvious asked.

"It is I,"  said the voice, and a bright light came through the window, shining like a star.

"I-is this a dream?"  Arvious asked, bewildered.

"Listen closely to me,"  the Voice said.  "You are not just the leader of a small desert village.  You... have a destiny."

"What are you talking about?"  Arvious asked in wonder.

"It is your fate to unite the desert lands and create an order that will reign for many generations,"  Voice said.  "It will all begin with two factors.  One:  You will become a strong and smart ruler which people will all respect.  Two:  Religion."

"Wait, what about reli-"  Arvious was cut off.

"My name is ZeTa, and I have come to you to start a new religion.  Zetanism has not been seen in these lands in a long time, and you and others I will contact will restart it, and if they do, they will be granted their dreams.  This is your fate.  Don't stray away;  listen to your heart."

The light began to go away, but then Arvious began to speak.

"Before you go, was this a dream, or did it really happen?"

"Ah,"  ZeTa said.  "Of course it was a dream.  But who is to say it wasn't real?"

Arvious woke up, and saw it was day.  He scratched his head a bit, and then looked around his room.  He noticed something on his desk, something shiny.  Arvious picked it up and saw it was a gold amulet.  On the side, an inscription was carved.

"All... hail ZeTa,"  Arivous muttered.  The man put it on his head, and then bowed his knees for prayer.

"Oh Holy Light, listen to my prayer.  I will do your bidding and bring Your Light upon the world again.  This I promise.  In the name of ZeTa."

THE RELIGION ZETANISM HAS STARTED.

altho i like drawing up towns an stuf, its abit too confusing...

I'll try it out.

Only I have to go eat right now, and study tonight, so I won't come up with anything till later.

hehe, you don't realize most of that is done on guesswork, just like in real cities ...except its all my guesswork, based on the size of buildings.

ROUGH EQUATION so you can understand how the employment bar works:

Amount of space taken up by houses&nb*beep*ount of space taken up by work places * amount of labor used by work places) + amount of army in town

(there are other factors like many small houses hold more people than a few big ones taking up the same amount of space)

You can ignore that if you don't get it, its not vitally important to the player. If you are clueless, just rely on the employment bar.

Agh blast. What's that Image Shack like?

His body bruised in a thousand places, Hirgon washed up upon the beach.  He in excrutiating pain with unknown faces staring down at him, and with an unknown wooden ceiling in place of the open sky.  He lost consciousness again...and awoke....and lost consciousness...

<After three weeks>

Hirgon had been working in the fields for a week, slowly regaining his strength, when the town horns blew (yes, they used horns).  A black sail loomed on the horizon, and the villagers fled to the safety of the small, stone town hall.  But in their haste to reach their "keep," the villagers foolishly forgot the old man who spent each day sitting on a chair upon the town's only dock: their half-mad leader, who they called the Fisher King.

As Hirgon hastened towards the hall with his pitchfork still in hand (pitchforks were hard to come by in those days), he happened to notice that the old man was not among those hurrying towards the keep.  Shouting a warning to the townspeople, Hirgon spun around and sprinted towards the dock. He arrived just as the first buccaneer leapt off the vessel - which happened to be a small four-man boat with a sale in the middle - and saw the pirate push the Fisher King into the sea.

Hirgon slammed into the man, sending him flying into his fellow who just hopped off the boat.  The two pirates fell off the dock, conveniently hitting their heads on rocks.  Hirgon then whacked the third unfortunate villain over the head with his pitchfork, knocking him unconscious in the boat, and pressed the prongs of the pitchfork against the fourth scalawag's chest, causing him to surrender his weapons.

By that time, the townsfok had arrived (the townsfolk in those days tended to do everything in large groups), so Hirgon told them to fish the Fisher King from the sea as he tied up the would-be raiders.

The Fisher King named Hirgon his heir on the spot, and died of pneumonia within a week, and thus Hirgon became ruler of the Spire.

EDIT TO ADD THE MAP

His first project was to begin the construction of a watch tower on the north end of the island.

[[If I don't get Spire Island, I'll rename the town.  The town sits on the west bank of the river on the Island, right by the sea.]]

[[Notes on the town map:  The town vault is hidden within the town hall.  Also, the mines that are drawn in a little box at the top are in the mountain on the island; I opted not to draw a lot of empty space between mines and town.]]

*falls over

And there I thought I had explained it all...

WHY DO YOU THINK I POSTED A STARTER TOWN TEMPLATE? You have to draw your first town onto that template. This is to both give people equal starting points and set a regulation first city size.
Also, you cannot combine buildings except the following: Barracks and Armory, Vault and Stockpile.
Continuing on my crazy rant, You cant draw top boxes like that! When someone attacks, if they opt for a siege, they want to cut off supplies and stuff, and they cant do that if everything is all put in side boxes.
However, you can put decorations and things, so that's not a negative point.

Okay, try again.


More things for future reference:
When citing a place on the map, it is far easier to crop a section of the map and put a red cross or dot or something.
Read things carefully. I am getting annoyed about people doing this wrong.
I can rotate towns to put them on the map. Do not worry about which way is north.

There, does this work?

Or at least someone with basic explanatory skills, it seems...but having to correct everyone a single time will be the least of my problems.

The Spire
Owned by Hirgon

The Spire

Unemployment IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Too few workers
Happiness IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Crop +30
Stone +16
Gold +0
Diamonds +0

Soldiers: 100
Soldier Maximum: 140
Soldier price: $21
Spire Independent News
The space filled with cramped houses isn't really working with the peasants. Either Hirgon should improve conditions by increasing the size of the houses, or simply leave a big garrison in town all the time.

WORLD MAP

HIRGON
$0
30 Crop
16 Stone
0 Gold
0 Diamonds
RELIGION: None100%

As Hirgon walks through the hovels in his town, he notices the cramped conditions in which the villagers live.  This, coupled with the general lack of workers, prompts him to form a committee of townsfolk for the improvement of living arrangements.

The committee's solution involves expanding the current houses so that living space is not so limited and adding new houses as necessary.  The committee also suggest beginning work on a mining project in the mountain in order to provide a better quality of life for villagers in the long run.

The committee puts forth these proposals to the Council for approval, and they are passed.  The Fisher King uses his influence to push the housing and mining projects to the forefront of the village's current activities.

*waves arms
Hello? anyone?

Oh right, I have a city to update...

Port Traven
Owned by Arvious

Port Traven

Unemployment IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Too few workers
Happiness IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Crop +28
Stone +18
Gold +8
Diamonds +6
Desert Modifier: Crops Decrease, Diamonds Increase

Soldiers: 100
Soldier Maximum: 150
Soldier price: $20

Port Traven Independent News
Port Traven is prospering. Not many people are unhappy, and everyone is worshiping as if ZeTa was watching, which said almighty probably is. Many are talking of petitioning for either a large expansion or a second town.

ARVIOUS
$0
34 Crop
16 Stone
16 Gold
12 Diamonds
RELIGION: Zetanism 100%

GLOBAL MARKET

Price per unit
Crop: $2
Stone: $5
Gold: $8
Diamonds: $15
Remember, a small amount of Money will be deducted from your vault for every transfer depending on the size of your marketplace. The bigger it is, the less is deducted.

[Okay, that's fine. Anyone who has already joined want to do something?]

This is how you make THIS happen...

Just look for that earth picture with a link on it on the typing area where I typed this and enter the URL, and it'll be transfered onto a word.

[[I'm planning on expanding my houses as you suggested, and adding a couple of mines.  But right now I'm working with internet connections that are literally too slow to upload the map.]]