Spoiler: For additional effect For maximal dramatic impact, listen to this while you read. I changed the words to fit the situation, but it's mostly the same. And the music combined with the narrator...it gives me the shivers, it's so amazing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZlWmYe8HM4 Spoiler: Intro Text In the beginning, Equestria was without form, and void. But the sun shone upon the sleeping planet, and deep inside the brittle crust, massive forces waited to be unleashed. The seas parted, and great continents formed. Mountains rose, and earthquakes spawned massive tidal waves. Volcanoes erupted, and spewed forth fiery lava, and charged the atmosphere with strange gasses. Into this swirling maelstrom of fire, and air, and water, the first stirrings of life appeared. Tiny organisms, cells and amoebae, clinging to tiny sheltered habitats. But the seeds of life grew, and strengthened, and spread, and diversified, and prospered. And soon, every continent and climate teemed with life. And with life, came instinct, and specialization; natural selection. Reptiles, birds...and mammals. And finally, there evolved a species known as the Equine; and there appeared the first faint glimmers of intelligence. The fruits of intelligence were many; fire, tools and weapons. Farming, and the sharing of food. The family, the village, and the tribe. Now, it required but one more ingredient--a great leader--to unite the quarreling tribes; to harness the power of the land; to build a legacy that would stand the test of time. A civilization. Spoiler: Details Well, now that you've read/listened to everything above and (hopefully) gotten hooked, I think I should explain exactly what I'm planning here. There is a very fun kind of forum game that I learned how to play a long time ago called an IOT, short for Imperium Off-Topicum. It's not for everyone, but I think there are a few ponies around here who would enjoy it. It is basically a giant board game, online, with a bunch of players and one GM. The rules are honestly a bit complicated, so I'm going to have to say that if, once I post the rules, you don't understand them, PLEASE ask me for help or don't play. It's not really possible for somepony to play without getting the rules anyways, but I don't want somepony to join and then drop out right at the beginning because they don't understand, so that I have to control them for the rest of the game. You know what I mean? But don't be intimidated by that yet. If you are intrigued by the concept, please say so here, and then I can post the rules and you can decide if you want to continue or not, okay? ^^ So here is the basic outline. You are the immortal leader of a civilization. It can be almost any kind of civilization that you want it to be; You can have a psychotic dictatorship where everyone is oppressed, or a tribal community where you are chief, or a republic, or a democracy. You can be Earth Pony, Unicorn, Pegasus, Alicorn (yes, even Alicorn), or really any kind of sentient creature that could build a civilization in the MLP universe. BUT. All of that is entirely flavor text. All of you start out in exactly the same position, with exactly the same potential to win. Your decisions determine 90% of your fate, and the dice determine the other 10%. No starting bias. Now for the objective. You are not necessarily out to slaughter each other, though that is one way to achieve victory. You can also win by controlling 70% of the world's land area, by being the first ponies to colonize another planet, by inventing a perfect economic system, or by establishing the first worldwide government (that is, getting yourself elected leader of the world). And all of this will come from a single starting city. Isn't it amazing? Now, don't assume it will be all boring game mechanics and number crunching and strategizing, though that is a major part of it. This is a role play, after all, and should still be treated as such. You CAN just say, "This round I expand to this territory, attack this territory of this civilization, and research this technology." Or you could describe the settling of the new land and the collective ideology of Manifest Destiny in your civilization, the battlefield on the northern front and how well it is going, and the recent breakthroughs in weaponry, all in depth. You can role play yourself, as well, since you ARE the immortal leader. And finally, my favorite part of it: The diplomatic aspect. Diplomacy is ruthless, no-holds-barred. You can make or break alliances at will, PM your allies with plans or alerts of the intentions of others, backstab, lie, and do whatever it takes to get to the top. Or, you can conduct civilized diplomacy with your game-mates, gain a reputation for honesty and, thus, others will not be afraid to make deals with you. I have played games where 7 or so tiny nations made a virtual confederacy, even going so far as to make a written constitution that all of them were bound to follow, or else suffer the wrath of the rest of the group. It was amazing, and they were all able to stand up to other massive nations that were as big as the rest of them combined, whereas otherwise they would have been picked off one by one. Things like this make the game tons of fun! So? What's the verdict?
That would be pretty cool, if we could somehow arrange it... So, have you thought of possible Civilizations you could be? I mean, the flavor text of them? Since I'm not playing, you could base yours off Rome.
Well I hope some more ponies express interest. It wouldn't be much of a challenge for you to win if they didn't. (The ideal number is around 10, but I doubt we'll get that many.)
Hmmm... I wonder if I should start working on a rough draft of how I will explain the rules... (I mean I know how it will work, but it will take a LOT of typing to explain. I wanna make sure I do it right and don't have to start over or edit...) I'll wait. If one more person joins, then I shall.
Equestria without form? Wait a second... Twilight states in Dragonshy that Equestria is a country! /Confusion! Anyway, lemme know rules.
Inaccurate Head-Canon is inaccurate. Did you like the soundtrack? I hope it was as awesome as I think it is. xD And yes, you have come just on cue. I shall start writing the rules down in a word processor right away!
Worked well for me. The reason I came was mostly my appreciation for Civilization games. I do own One, Two, Four, the expansions to Four, and Five.
Civilization IV w/ expansions and certain mods = Best game I have ever played. Anyways. Back to typing the rules.
Yeah, I also have species made up just in case I come upon like... a game company and am able to make my own version of civ. You know, a civ game that also includes multiple species and magic would probably just rock.
Oh boy. You, my friend, have been missing out on some good Civving. If you have not already seen this: Prepare thineself. I think you will love this. http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page I am so sure you will love this that I am posting the download link. http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1
I have yet to make a map, but I shall, using my mediocre art skills and/or finding one online and adapting it. Which would you prefer: Custom-Made legion map, or Map Based on a Map legion Found on the Internet map? And finally, partial credit for rules goes to my friend Yoshiegg77, but I tweaked and twiddled with them until I liked them more. I also added poni. Here they are! Generic Rules No trolling, flaming, openly complaining, GM's word is absolute, RP is encouraged, respect your fellow forumers, and stay active. All of these should be fairly obvious, but it doesn't hurt to post them. Here's a template that you should really be using once I put sign-ups out: Nation Name: Nation Leader: Leader Traits: Anything Else (History/Description/Government, all that good RP stuff): When you begin, you may claim ONE territory. This will be your capital city, and will probably grow to become your largest and most productive city on the map. Please choose wisely! You're free to create whatever kind of nation you like. Leader Traits These are the details on the leader traits. When signing up, you will be choosing TWO leader traits. They will be with you for the rest of the game, so choose wisely! Aggressive (AGG): Army Attack Tech cost is multiplied by 40 instead of 50 Expansive (EXP): New cities cost 70 CP instead of 100 CP Financial (FIN): Economy Tech cost is multiplied by 40 instead of 50 Protective (PRO): Army Defense Tech cost is multiplied by 40 instead of 50 Philosophical (PHI): Diplomacy Tech cost is multiplied by 40 instead of 50 Creative (CRE): Culture Tech cost is multiplied by 40 instead of 50 Spiritual (SPI): No chance for revolution Scientific (SCI): Cost for moving on to next era is reduced by 20% Expansion When expanding, you may only expand to tiles touching the ones that you ALREADY OWN before the turn had started. Expansion costs 1 CP per tile and will yield 2 CP. Additionally, you can build new cities for 100 CP. New cities can be built ANYWHERE on the map that you already own (However, to expand by sea, Naval Tech 3 is required). New cities will also start with a population of 1. With population, population can be increased for 10 CP (eg increasing from 1 --> 3 population would need 20 CP) Population will yield you 15 CP and 1 culture point per population Techs And these are the techs that you can research! There's 7 techs in total. There is Economy Tech 1, ECO 2, ECO 3, etc. Tech costs will be 50 times the tech number (ECO Tech 5 Costs 250 CP). Tech numbers are unlimited. For roleplaying purposes, we are starting in the ancient world (eg sharp sticks and rocks are weapons, living in tribes) Army Attack Tech (ATT): This will affect your chances of victory when attacking other nations Army Defense Tech (DEF): This will affect your chances of victory when defending from attacking nations Culture Tech (CUL): Multiplies your culture; eg CUL 1 multiplies your culture by 1 (No Effect) while CUL 2 multiplies your culture by 2 Economy Tech (ECO): Multiplies your total CP for the round. ECO 1 multiplies by 1.1, ECO 2 multiplies by 1.2, etc Naval Tech (NAV): This will affect your chances of victory during coastal attacks and defenses. Those with NAV 3 can colonize/attack across water (except the ocean). Those with NAV 5 can colonize/attack across the ocean. Diplomacy Tech (DIP): Reaching DIP 10 will allow you to build SDI's, shooting down nukes aimed at your empire at a 75% success rate! Reaching DIP 5 will allow you to build the UN (Details below) for a mere 250 CP Atomic Tech (ATO): +50 CP per ATO level. Reaching ATO 10 will allow you to build nukes at 500 CP. Era Basic here, it's 100 CP to move on to the next era, 200 CP for the next, 300 CP for the next, 400 CP for the next, and so on. The person who moves on to the next era first will be granted a free tech + 10% bonus on whatever amount of CP they make the next turn. For moving onto a new era, you gain a 1.1 CP bonus for going to era 1, a 1.2 bonus for era 2, 1.3 bonus for era 3, etc. Those bonuses are permanent, with each cancelling each other out (I.E. if you're in era 1 and move onto era 2, the 1.1 bonus is replaced with the 1.2 bonus) Contact For obvious reasons, you cannot make official contact with nations outside of your nation's diplomatic sphere. The more you research DIP tech, the greater the range of nations you can officially communicate with. If you do not have official contact with a nation, you cannot communicate through RPing (obviously), your spies cannot interfere with them, and you cannot attack them. If a nation has a higher DIP tech than you, and has contact with you, but they are not within your diplomacy range, you may not perform espionage on them. Otherwise, you have official contact with them. The UN Well, considering that we are just starting, I'll probably explain the UN more in depth when we reach that level. But the idea is that players vote between two candidates (The builder of the UN is guaranteed to be one of them), and that elected leader will be allowed to put forward proposals which are voted on by the entire world (Proposals such as global peace with a certain nation, for example. GM will give the potential proposals.) When the player who owns the UN has a DIP tech level of 10, they may propose a vote for world leader between two candidates (the same candidates who would normally be elected to put forward proposals). Culture This one's important. Culture is gained by your Culture Tech Number and your total amount of population. Culture does two things: It helps prevent revolutions, and it can blow away neighboring civilizations. Allow me to explain: If your total culture is higher than that of one of your neighbor's, it is possible to automatically claim some of their territories by means of them wishing to join your nation. It also depends on the population of the nearest city, so a city with low population is less likely to commit the automatic culture capture of a neighbour's tiles than a city with a higher population War War is kept basic. Besides the attack and defense army techs, it basically boils down to picking which territories you would like to attack. You may attack as much territories as you would like, but your success rate will decrease with every territory. Additionally, border territories will have more success than more inner territories. Capturing a city is the most difficult. There is no direct cost for attacking a territory, and the only visible concentration of your armies is shown in your Army Attack or Defense tech level. To attack by sea, Naval Tech 3 is required. Nukes A nuke is a weapon for later in the game, but it is extremely powerful and may be a goal to work toward, so I will explain them now. Nukes are basically point-and-launch. They utterly destroy anything within 5 spaces of their target space. That means cities are reduced by 50% population, territory around Ground Zero becomes neutral, and the city revolts. An SDI, which you get upon researching DIP 10, shoots these down 75% of the time, if they are aimed at your territory. Espionage Spies! These are the things your spy ponies can do: Annoyance (Steal 50 CP from a neighbour, which is the equivilance of the cost of the spy. 75% success rate) Severe (Steal 100 CP from target. 40% success rate) Frame (Steal 50 CP from one nation, then give it to another. World events will show that the nation you gave the stolen money to is the culprit. 50% success rate) Instigate a Revolt (Creates a small revolt in target city. May become large if city is already unstable. 30% success rate) Note that when your spy fails, your nation will be caught red-hoofed, but the effect is still carried out. Revolts There are no "stability" points or anything. The GM will simply decide which cities are feeling left out and wish to revolt against their empire. Revolting cities cannot contribute to your economy. The problem is normally fixed when you provide some CP in increasing your population. Far away cities are especially prone to revolts and can even secede and form their own nations! NPCs (Non-Player Civilizations) Yes, NPCs are abound and they have as much freedom as other nations do. Some are radical, some are not. Make friends, or not. Good luck dealing with them. Victory Conditions Here are the various types of victories. Completing any one of these conditions will result in winning the game: Conquest (Conquer every other nation) Cultural(Achieve culture of 10,000) Extraterrestrial Colonization (Reach level 10 on all tech branches) Domination (5 of your cities are the highest populated cities in the world and have a population over 100) Diplomatic (Become elected World Leader through the UN) Economic (Before you receive your CP for the next round, have 1,000,000 CP and ECO 10) Capitulation (All other nations, including NPCs, agree that you should win)
