LibriumArcana.Games

Dawn

Once, life was easy, or so say the old tales. Once, men lived in a paradise, a garden of low hanging fruits and easy to dig roots, where game were plentiful and the bees did not sting when the honey was collected. But all was not well in the garden, for sin lurked in the hearts of men. Men were not content with the offerings of the gods, and stole what was not rightfully theirs. For their hubris, men were cast from the garden. Driven from paradise, they walked the dry earth, their stomaches rumbling and their throats parched, until they came upon the banks of a dark river. There they found their punishment, waiting in the mud. Gone was the easy life of the garden, replaced by the muck and toil of tilling the soil, the earth now begrudging in its gifts, only giving them up with the shedding of sweat from brows and blood from palms.

You have forgotten how many generations it has been since your tribe was exiled from paradise by wrathful dieties, but your storytellers remember when the world was a better place, when youths were respectful to their elders, and conflict was a distant thing. Now men have forgotten the proper way of things. The youth party late into the night with bread and beer, and the village seems more crowded and violent with each passing year. The wicked tribes to the north encroach ever closer into your territory. Strange foreigners steal from local producers by bringing in their own knapped stones and the young in their laziness are all to eager to trade for them rather than make their own. Surely the end of all that is right and proper approaches with each passing day.

Yet not all decry the state of affairs. Some of the larger families see opportunity where the elders see degeneration and decay. The other tribes, long boogeymen to rally against, seem fewer and fewer, and if men seem eager to lose their wits to beer then it is endemic to all men, for traders will exchange fine tools for the bread and beer your people have so much of. What else are they willing to trade?

Most of all, what awaits in the future for your people?

---

Dynasties is an idea I have been percolating upon for a while. The idea is simple: a Civilization style STGOD where all the players start in the same location as the dominant ruling families of an early agricultural community. Your goals are simple: survive, thrive, and dominate. You need to keep your family going, and the best way to do that is to accumulate power. Will you jockey for position with the other families, trying to become the first monarch of your people, or sit on a council of equals? Will you gather together warbands and go conquering, or send out trade missions? The only ones who can decide these questions are you.

The span of this game is intended to be epic in scope, starting at the dawn of agriculture, and advancing as far along as there is interest from the players. While your family, your dynasty is what you wish to maintain, the people that make it up are dynamic, and will change with the passing of the generations. All players will have a family head though, a heroic individual gifted enough to rise to the top. Whether their offspring remain at the top is much more up to the whims of fate, though finding a good partner can help increase those odds.

The path to victory will not be easy though, for the very world is out to get you. Your village is large, and there are many hungry bellies to feed, and many fickle hearts to win. You gain power over the world by accumulating resources. You gain power over your fellows by accumulating prestige.

The only resources you know of are food and fine stone tools, but who knows what exists beneath the heavens and under the earth?

Prestige on the other hand is achieved by achieved by completing great works and showing off your wealth.

Are you up to the challenge? Can you guide your family and people to glory and riches?

Hmmm... well, I shall poke this with some more information for people to either show their interest and/or scorn before I seek interest elsewhere.

Okay, first off, mechanically things are on a bit of a sliding scale in that things will keep a similar level of detail even as the scope gets larger. So when the game starts in the Late Neolithic, 100 Citizens = 100 people, while by say the Bronze Age 10 Citizens = 10,000 people. I will make things explicitly clear, and people will probably start asking for a reduction in paperwork by then anyway.

Turn length is divided into three scales: year, generation, and era.

The year scale is just that, a single year. At the start of the year, players make their plans, which are implemented in the summer. So if you want to send out a trade mission or an attack force or anything of the sort, you begin preparations at the start of the turn, and then you can react to any changing circumstances as the plan is implemented. Year turns are moved forward at the discretion of the moderator.

Generation turns represent a longer period of time, allowing for growth and innovation. Generation turns are if players feel that they have reached a point where they need to skip over a number of years where little is happening to get to a point where they have more resources to work with. While a generation turn presents a large amount of growth all at once, the heroes and leaders of the previous generation will age and die, meaning that less experienced men and women will have to take up the reins. A generation turn can be advanced only if the moderator feels that there is no major issues needed resolution (such as a serious war - endemic low level fighting may not count, depending on the situation) and if a majority of players vote to do so, with the moderator acting as the tie breaker.

Note: if twenty year turns pass without a generation being advanced then the moderator will give a 'census update' to players so that they get the benefits of a generation having passed.

An era turn is an advancement of a much larger era of time, a century at the very least. An era turn is invoked if the players feel that they have bogged down at a certain level of development and would like significantly more advancement. If all players agree that they wish to advance the era then the moderator will move the timeline along to 'interesting times'. This will give significantly advancement in growth and technology, but will also automatically mean that the players will face some great calamity, be it barbarian invasion, plague, famine, or any other trial by fire. Again, all players must agree on the advancement of an era so that if a group of players are in tough situations they cannot put their difficulties on hold and hope a disaster will do more harm to more dominant players.

While the players are controlling dynasties, they only have perfect control over their Head of House. Other members of the household they have considerable control over, but the moderator can at any time take control of another member of the house and have them act on their own interests. This system is in place so that there can be situations such as squabbling heirs or family members who feel that they have been snubbed working against the interests of the family as a whole. That said, if a rebellious member happens to become the Head of House, the player gains control over them, although they will likely now have those loyal to the previous HoH as surly subordinates.

All Heads of House are Leaders, and thus have the following stat block:

Administration - Ability to manage farms, mines, and other such industries. A high score produces extra resources, while a low score generates penalties

Charisma - Ability to gain and keep prestige. A high score generates extra prestige and allows for more effective usage of prestige, while a low score reduces the amount of prestige and makes it harder to use

War - Ability to lead troops in battle. A high score makes your troops more effective, while a low score makes them less effective

All of these statistics run from 1-6, with a 3 being the mid-point where no bonuses or penalties are generated. At the start of the game all HoH start with either all stats at 3, or at 4, 3, and 2, distributed at their discretion. HoH need to generate heirs to continue the family. Heirs are also trained as Leaders, but their stat generation is partially up to the whims of fate. Children of leaders have their stats determined as:

Average of parents stat + 1d6/2 - 1d6/2 (min. 1, max. 6)

This represents both a genetic factor and that any children will be raised by their parents with the expectation of one day taking over. However, if the dice rolled are doubles, then that is the value of the stat, indicating that the child just has some set aptitude, be it genius beyond that of their parents or a complete disinterest.

While there is only one HoH, to make an heir requires two members. If they so wish the other partner can be mostly off screen and have stats of 2 in everything for the purposes of the heir calculation, or another character with Leadership stats can be sought in the hopes of producing superior heirs. Of course, a character with a Leadership score has to come from somewhere, one of the most readily available sources being from the non-heir children of other families and all the political ramifications that brings. Finding partners from within the family can work in the short term, but each generation after the first of inbreeding imposes a cumulative -1 penalty on all stats, to a minimum of 0.

While all players get at least one heir each generation to continue on, they are free to attempt for more children, but having lots of characters with Leadership stats in a single house is asking for trouble, since they all have to be given something to do that makes them feel like their talents are being used to their fullest. Thus it becomes a balancing game between trying to generate enough competent characters to run the family's business while not having so many dominant personalities that the family tears itself apart.

[More information on resources and prestige to follow]

Resources are divided up into multiple categories, such as food, fine stone, copper, etc. At the start of the game, only food and fine stone are known about. Some resources will rise and fall in importance, but food remains the most important resource since if their bellies are not fed then citzens rapidly become angry and then start to starve to death. A dynasty that cannot feed its subjects will not last long.

Food is acquired in one of two ways: hunting and gathering, and agriculture.

Hunting and gathering is the more individually productive of the two methods early on, but has the issue that it is not scalable and effort in does not equal effort out. Populations reliant on hunting and gathering for their diet generate 1.5 food for each citizen assigned to the task, up to the maximum support limit for their territory (often 150 to 200). This form of nutrition also consumes little time, so populations that hunt and gather can also collect surface minerals and make goods, although at a reduced rate.

Agriculture on the other hand, while less nutritious, has the major advantage of being scalable and having effort in = effort out. A citizen assigned to farming produces 1.05 food + tech bonuses + administrative bonuses, and as many citizens can be assigned to agriculture as there is room for farms available in the territory (typically between 1000 and 3000 for decent farmland). While the margins are low, there is room for massive population growth. Additionally, while the farmers have little time to do things outside farming, those supported by their work can devote their time to specialized efforts, giving them much better output.

Each turn 1 citizen eats 1 food. Excess can be stored up to half the current output initially (i.e. 1000 food/turn can have 500 in storage), be eaten which will produce population growth according to the excess (i.e. 1100 food eaten by 1000 people will produce an extra 100 citizens in the next generation), or bartered off for other resources.

At the start of the game, the other primary resource is fine stone. Fine stone is useful for three things: tools, art, and weapons. Fine stone tools offer a bonus to agriculture for a year. Fine stone art produces prestige when on display or gifted. Fine stone weapons provide a boost to combat for one battle.

Fine stone and other minerals can be collected from deposits. At the beginning of the game only surface and subsurface deposits can be collected from, but improvements in mining will allow for deeper deposits and new minerals to be discovered. Hunting and gathering economies can collect surface deposits of minerals at 0.5/year/citizen without interrupting food gathering, and process them at the same rate. Dedicated miners can collect from surface and subsurface deposits at 4+tech+admin/year/citizen but can do nothing else, while dedicated crafters can process at 4+tech+admin/year/citizen but do nothing else.

[Design note: I know these numbers are pretty big, but I want to have scarcity be a big deal in the early stages of the game when your population is in constant danger of starving. Later periods will have smaller, more abstract numbers]

Where resources represent physical power, prestige represents personal power and the power of the family. Prestige is accumulated in one of three ways: achievement, gifts, and treasure.

Achievement is doing something impressive. There are many ways worthwhile achievements, from military campaigns to exploration, to being the first to do something. Military accomplishment generates the most prestige, but also tends to be the most risky, and failure on campaign is one of the easiest ways to lose prestige. Exploration produces small amounts of prestige, but so long as the explorers make it back alive there is always glory to be had. Being the first to do something includes feats of exploration such as finding the end of a river or climbing a mountain, to being the first family to start using a new and interesting technology.

Gifts are when you give out resources to the general public or even unaligned players. The amount of prestige generated depends on the magnitude and usefulness of the gift. Giving out extra food in feasts is appreciated during good years, but opening the storage sheds during a famine produces much more prestige. Gifts tend to be consumed in their giving, although if given to another player some can be converted into wealth. Burial goods are classified as gifts and can produce a great deal of prestige for a new HoH.

Wealth produces the least amount of prestige in the short term, but accumulates in the long run. Wealth is anything impressive that will last for a long time and can be put on display, such as art or artefacts. Each year an item of wealth is held on to generates a small amount of prestige. All wealth items can be given as gifts.

Prestige comes in two forms: personal and family. Personal prestige is accumulated by each character with Leadership stats in the family, while family prestige is the sum of all personal prestiges in the family. The HoH uses the family prestige for all interactions with those outside the house, but if any member of the family has a personal prestige higher than the HoH then tensions will begin to rise as the higher ranking member tries to assume control. Heirs have a starting personal prestige of 1/4 of the personal prestige of their parents and 1/8 of their grandparents.

Prestige can be used in several ways. The first is to attract unaligned citizens into the family, increasing productivity. The second is to gain power over other families. If a family ever has more prestige than any two other rivals combined then they can push to become the ruling family, although they may have to back up their claim with force if the others protest. The ruling family can enact laws that the others in the community will have to follow, although unpopular laws will consume prestige. If a group of families wish to combine their prestige to become an oligarchy then that is also possible, although they have to actually agree. Finally, a family can use prestige to attract Heroes.

Heroes are individuals with extraordinary talents that are not quite suited for Leadership, there are three types of Heroes and three means of acquisition. Sagacious Heroes improve farms, mines, workshops, and the like and rapidly advance technology with their wisdom and intelligence. Merchant Heroes excel at exploration and negotiation with their quick wit and charm. Military Heroes add bonuses to combat with their strength and ferocity. All heroes have a rank of 1 to 6, which indicates the amount of bonus they add to their endeavours.

Heroes can be acquired either through purchasing with prestige (depending on skill and era), randomly found as freelancers that require pay for their service (depending on skill and the Hero in particular), or are randomly born within a family. All Heroes have their own personal prestige, but ones purchased with prestige rather than hired on or born into the family 'tie up' family prestige, and when they die all the prestige used to purchase them is lost. The family then has to 'get out from the shadow' of the Hero, and no new personal prestige is gained until the debt is paid off (i.e. a Military Hero is purchased for 20 prestige, and ten years later dies in battle. The family will not be able to increase its family prestige or the personal prestige of its members until 20 prestige has been earned).

[More on technology to follow]

Sorry, not interested :(

I have to defer decisions on matters like this until I get home from this voyage.

I have to defer decisions on matters like this until I get home from this voyage.

You know you totally want to build the Roman Empire from the ground up

That said, insufficient interest over the next day or two will probably result in a venue change to SDN to see how much attention is garnered there.

But anyway, onward!

---

The core interaction mechanic with the outside world is sending out expeditions. Most expeditions are trade or military, although exploration is possible with either kind and traders can be armed while military expeditions can still buy and sell stuff. The primary difference is in the planning and the expectations of the people on the mission. All expeditions have to pack their supplies before they leave. Travelling on foot, a Citizen can carry up to 3 units of supplies, of which generally one should be a unit of food to keep the expedition from starving. The other units can be any tradable good, such as more food, weapons, tools, or art, to name a few things that can be carried. Basic canoes can carry 10 units of supplies, but require two Citizens to man them. Also note that Citizens sent out on an expedition cannot participate in resource gathering or production.

An expedition on foot can travel up to two territories away from a settlement per unit of food it carries, within a single year, before having to travel back. If a river is available then the expedition can travel to any point along its length and then travel out another territory in any direction. Roads work similarly once they are built. Crossing a river without a bridge or ferry costs an extra point of movement. An expedition need not turn back if it can find sufficient food to survive for another year through forage or trade. Forage either requires that there is sufficient carrying capacity through hunting and gathering in the end territory to support the expedition, or the looting of farms and storage silos. Choosing to forage allows the expedition to move a territory further for the year, but also requires that they end in a territory capable of supporting them.

Note: If there is anyone around who can object to forage then all enemy forces must be routed from the territory to be occupied. Failure to drive out enemy forces results in severe loss of life or even the total destruction of the expedition as they are forced to fall back with insufficient food.

A less costly form of expedition is an off-season expedition. In this sort of expedition a unit can travel one territory away or along roads or rivers without having to carry food. Up to 10% of the population under a family's control can go on an off-season expedition without adversely affecting production. This allows for slow exploration of trade routes or raiding of adjacent neighbour.

Combat is resolved by comparing the sizes, equipment, tactics, leadership, and other circumstances of the conflicting forces. While tactics are ultimately roleplayed, the success of their implementation depends on the War skills of the Leaders in charge of the fight.

Technology and knowledge advance by doing things and earning Tech XP, which earn improvements and innovation. For example, planting crops earns Agriculture Tech XP, going on expeditions that involve rivers earns Sailing Tech XP, and fighting in battles earns Military Tech XP. Improvements are the accumulation of knowledge and refinement of technique, while innovations are discrete units of knowledge that can lead to new branches of technology. For example, an improvement to Sailing Tech could be 'Efficient Canoe Packing' that would allow more gear to be stowed on a canoe during an expedition, while an innovation might be 'Large Trade Canoe' that would allow for the construction of boats capable of carrying much larger amounts of gear. It is possible to share innovations with other players, but not improvements, since improvements come with experience at doing things. Also, working with older techniques and technologies when newer ones are available will eventually result in no new Tech XP being granted, as the older knowledge has already been taken to its limit.

I really like this idea of yours. It's interesting, expansive, and seems like a very well thought out system. The whole cooperative competitiveness angle is also fairly unique, and I think it would be neat to play around with the possibilites. Unfortunately, it looks like the timing isn't quite right. The "Fridgid's Revenge" game seems to be occupying most of the forum members with an interest in nation building games. I think there would need to be a minimum three players to make it work, but preferably four or five.