EMPIRE! A Community World-Building Tale of People & Discovery

[Lord_Burch]

Also, as of turn 2, I should have three thousand troops. As for the Mithril, how far does that go? How many men can I equip with it?

[Silverbit]

Round 3 is not counted yet. So this is correct. Round 3 will be added at the end of the round.

Ahh, I see now. Sorry.

[zabbarot]

Navies are handled differently. To have a battle at sea, you'd just put soldiers on ships you have built and send them out to fight.

We talked about the possibility of having marines on ships be a separate kind of unit, but I figured that that would provoke questions of "can't I just get those marines off my ship to fight on land?" And that would actually make kind of sense. Plus, then there'd have to be separate rules for getting land armies on transport ships to move to other places to land and conquer or colonize, which would be a whole trap that I don't want to get into.

Things should be up tonight.

I mostly ask because I don't have any cavalry. I don't even have horses. The only mountable animal in Genivana is a giant lizard that I only mentioned once in passing in the Grand Ball post, and I haven't upgraded it to a full fledged resource yet.

[Morph Bark]

Also, as of turn 2, I should have three thousand troops. As for the Mithril, how far does that go? How many men can I equip with it?

That will be detailed in the added rules. Have you specified that the troops you trained were mithril-equipped? To make use of technologies for future armies, that will be a requirement, at least. For the previous two rounds that can be waived, but you'll have to talk with Waylander about that. He may be too busy to check much until Thursday, however, due to exams.

I mostly ask because I don't have any cavalry. I don't even have horses. The only mountable animal in Genivana is a giant lizard that I only mentioned once in passing in the Grand Ball post, and I haven't upgraded it to a full fledged resource yet.

Any problems with placement of troops on the table can be the result of Waylander still figuring out how they work on GitP. They were likely either misinterpreted from your actions, or misplaced in the table by a slot and should be one further to the top/right/left/bottom.

[WaylanderX]

Nice table! Another suggested thing is detailing how many a nation CAN have, by putting in a column stating what a 3rd of their population is, so people and you don't have to constantly do math, and instead, refer to the table.

Added. For the lazy bummzah who do not want to do math.

[Lord_Burch]

Can I specify the armies I was training this turn are Mithril equipped? And, does that mean my Mithril is basically infinate?

[WaylanderX]

Can I specify the armies I was training this turn are Mithril equipped? And, does that mean my Mithril is basically infinate?

Each army unit equiped with a special resource takes up 1 of that resource in that turn. Seeing that you got one "Stack" of mithril each round, you are limited to 1 unit of troops with mithril each round. So you can specify that you have two units of infantry with mithril gear, one for round 1, one for round 2.

Also for people who have different unit types in each 1000 man unit, please make it the same sort of unit for that 1000 man group. Or else it is going to be complicated, I think.

3: send 1623 troops to aid Heartwastes

Please keep the numbers rounded at intervals of 1000 please. People can send troops with an uneven number, but the militiary bonus will be rounded down. So Arkhosia would only gain a +1 militairy bonus from sending this much people.

[zabbarot]

Navies are handled differently. To have a battle at sea, you'd just put soldiers on ships you have built and send them out to fight.

I just reread this part and now I'm thinking I should just wait until you figure out what to do with navies... I've just been saying "Make 1000 man navy" which I figured meant a buncha dudes on boats. If dudes and boats are separate items, then I guess I just have enough boats to carry 1000 dudes around and no armies? Or maybe I have 1000 dudes who are waiting for me to build boats?

I figured navies would just be a unit that could attack coastal regions and other navies, so it would be it's own separate thing.

[Lord_Burch]

Alright, I guess Ill say I have the two Mithril equipped units from the first two rounds.

[Morph Bark]

I just reread this part and now I'm thinking I should just wait until you figure out what to do with navies... I've just been saying "Make 1000 man navy" which I figured meant a buncha dudes on boats. If dudes and boats are separate items, then I guess I just have enough boats to carry 1000 dudes around and no armies? Or maybe I have 1000 dudes who are waiting for me to build boats?

I figured navies would just be a unit that could attack coastal regions and other navies, so it would be it's own separate thing.

For the first and second round actions, everyone someone said that they were building a navy and specifically mentioned soldiers, marines or sailors, I counted that as 1000 troops. For some it was a little vague on what judgement call to make, but I mostly went in that direction.

It's an idea to make navies a separate thing, but that's both an extra unit type to track and begs the question if there's enough space on those boats to transport land armies to other lands across the sea.

[Logic]

Well crap. My intent in raising "one unit of Naval Ships" in round 1 was to have them be combat capable.

[Elemental]

Concerning the shiny new table... I see that on it, you've listed Ashenia as having one thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry when it should have two thousand cavalry as of turn two and no infantry.


Furthermore... Wouldn't it be better to have a distinction between light and heavy infantry and cavalry? They fulfil very different roles after all.
And what about cavalry archers? Where do they go? Or units that have both melee and ranged capabilities like my light cavalry?
In short, what I'm trying to say is that it might be wise to not try and differentiate between troop types as it both adds a severe degree of complexity and places an unspoken limitation on how we can fluff our own troops.

[Morph Bark]

I suppose if the majority of you would rather have navies be a separate thing and count the navies raised (soldiers and ships included, as long as you've got access to wood) as naval units, we could do that. WaylanderX thought we were going to do that originally, so he may not mind the extra column on the table.

This would mean that navies would have no land capabilities and armies would have no fighting capabilities at sea. This would also mean (and this is a more realistic part) that countries with no access to the sea that get it later will not have soldiers readily available to go on some ships and fight at sea.

What do the rest of you think?

[Rain Dragon]

On that note, WaylanderX will be joining as co-GM alongside Wombat. He'll be handling the population and military things, while Wombat will handle ruler attribute scores, alliances and resources stuff. I'll be dropping those tasks from my own list of duties completely, other than the occasional check-up of the co-GMs.

Wow. Everyone's managing everything so well, considering how much detail this game has so early.

Table

Well, that was quick...

Half of these resources already provided makes most of my personal stuff obsolete, which is good. All I'm personally tracking now is my own map, my own characters, my own resources, my own history, my own future actions and everyone's actions count so far (excluding the elusive 'secret actions') (so I can check if the round will ever end prematurely and prepare accordingly). Thank you everyone.

I suppose that gives me more time to write future religion lore...
Ah, but my writing stinks anyway. It doesn't matter.

[zabbarot]

Concerning the shiny new table... I see that on it, you've listed Ashenia as having one thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry when it should have two thousand cavalry as of turn two and no infantry.


Furthermore... Wouldn't it be better to have a distinction between light and heavy infantry and cavalry? They fulfil very different roles after all.
And what about cavalry archers? Where do they go? Or units that have both melee and ranged capabilities like my light cavalry?
In short, what I'm trying to say is that it might be wise to not try and differentiate between troop types as it both adds a severe degree of complexity and places an unspoken limitation on how we can fluff our own troops.

I agree. I feel like the most separation we might need is Army and Navy. Armies fight armies, navies fight navies. Armies can defend cities from navies, since they have to get out of the boats for that eventually.

Each unit of navy could carry and deliver one unit of army without being much of a stretch, I think. 1 Unit being 1000 men.

Edit: Mostly ninja'd by Morph But that last bit about 1 to 1 transport is still relevant.

[BladeofObliviom]

To be honest, given that we've gone as far as we have to ensure that we all have insider buddy-buddy access to beautiful Sulvan-Forged mithril mail and coats of plates to equip our forces, I didn't really think it was necessary to carefully describe the loadouts of our troops for the same reasons that nobody specifically goes out of their way to point out that their troops have wood.

In fact, I was under the impression that this was a fairly abstract system and the only value that really affected the mechanics of combat (as far as individual soldiers go) was the number of troops. I just threw on a basic classification of what I was training because of fluff.


Limiting the number of troops that can be trained by resource is logistically sound, but raises some unfortunate questions. For example, does that mean an extra wood resource is required for every troop type, ever? I mean, limiting only special resources in that way is kind of brutal given that we already have to spend a curiosity 10 action to be able to use them at all, and needing multiple "stacks" to do more than one thing at a time with something like mithril really calls the value of having such a resource into question entirely.


Just as a hypothetical, let's take two nations, Nation A and Nation B. Let's say Nation A has Wood, Iron, and Horses, and Nation B has Wood, Iron, and Awesometal. Both nations have Curiosity 10 and are on the brink of war.

Anyway, Nation A spends its curiosity 10 action on... ...let's say superior military training regimen, because that's a good resource-free example that plausibly provides a bonus to every unit. Then they use all four remaining actions to raise soldiers because they're about to go to war.

Nation B wants to use its vast natural stores of Awesome Metal (tm) to help them against the evil forces of Nation A, so they spend their Curiosity 10 action on perfecting smithing techniques. However, since they're trading it with some people, they only have one "stack" left, and can only raise their one dinky little army with this cool metal. The rest don't have any kind of advantage, not even horses like Nation A does.

In this example, Nation B basically gets screwed, since Nation A has no limitations on its military bonuses and gets a resource up on them too, with no trade-off whatsoever.

[Lady Serpentine]

If one unit is a thousand men, and my vampire/werewolf/fae things only take, say, five hundred or so people to be equivalent to that, does that mean that I can transport twice as many people on ships as mere mortals?

(Kidding, of course, but... It is one issue with splitting naval and land forces, even if it does make sense that infantry capabilities might not matter in a naval battle and such.)

Also, Morph, do I have to spend an action specifically to defend my borders or the enemy walks in unopposed, even though I'm not actually contributing anything but raw materials that would be freely available as stockpiled/easily harvested by Eyrecradia?

[Rain Dragon]

If one unit is a thousand men, and my vampire/werewolf/fae things only take, say, five hundred or so people to be equivalent to that, does that mean that I can transport twice as many people on ships as mere mortals?

(Kidding, of course, but... It is one issue with splitting naval and land forces, even if it does make sense that infantry capabilities might not matter in a naval battle and such.)

Also, Morph, do I have to spend an action specifically to defend my borders or the enemy walks in unopposed, even though I'm not actually contributing anything but raw materials that would be freely available as stockpiled/easily harvested by Eyrecradia?

/Jion prods C'nor gently.

Would you mind cleaning your PM box of one message so I can send you one final message? Thank you.

Also, do you have a preferred method of communication? Does 'send C'nor an email' link work or is that also not good?

EDIT - /Jion stops prodding as soon as Zabbarot begins. One wouldn't want C'nor to be overprodded!

[zabbarot]

/Jion prods C'nor gently.

Would you mind cleaning your PM box of one message so I can send you one final message? Thank you.

Also, do you have a preferred method of communication? Does 'send C'nor an email' link work or is that also not good?

/Joins in the prodding...

I also would like to send you a PM

Edit: You being C'nor

[Lady Serpentine]

/Jion prods C'nor gently.

Would you mind cleaning your PM box of one message so I can send you one final message? Thank you.

Also, do you have a preferred method of communication? Does 'send C'nor an email' link work or is that also not good?

EDIT - /Jion stops prodding as soon as Zabbarot begins. One wouldn't want C'nor to be overprodded!

Sorry 'bout that, just got back on.

It does work, but I never, ever, check my email unless I just signed up somewhere and I'm verifying my account or something.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Sorry 'bout that, just got back on.

It does work, but I never, ever, check my email unless I just signed up somewhere and I'm verifying my account or something.

Actually, when I was trying to let you know about the invasion, I tried that one and it said you had that option denied, IIRC.

[Lady Serpentine]

Actually, when I was trying to let you know about the invasion, I tried that one and it said you had that option denied, IIRC.

Huh. Well, alright, then. Had forgotten doing that. Probably won't change it, though... Keeps people from thinking they have a shot to actually reach me that way.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Huh. Well, alright, then. Had forgotten doing that. Probably won't change it, though... Keeps people from thinking they have a shot to actually reach me that way.

I'd say that's a good plan.

[lt_murgen]

I suppose if the majority of you would rather have navies be a separate thing and count the navies raised (soldiers and ships included, as long as you've got access to wood) as naval units, we could do that. WaylanderX thought we were going to do that originally, so he may not mind the extra column on the table.

This would mean that navies would have no land capabilities and armies would have no fighting capabilities at sea. This would also mean (and this is a more realistic part) that countries with no access to the sea that get it later will not have soldiers readily available to go on some ships and fight at sea.

What do the rest of you think?

I would prefer that. Keep naval vessels seperate as a 1000 man equivalent. That way the cost is roughly the same, but we can fluff it however we want (It could be 10 true warships with 100 crew each, or 20 armed merchentmen with 50 each, or 500 two-person dugout canoes.)

I would suggest that if somone was to attempt to transport any land-based unit, they would have to build ships specifically for it first- be it cargo ships or barges. That would likely take a Curiosity action.

I think this reflects the reality of mediveal ships. 1- you only build ships as big as you need. 2- ships are crew intensive 3- that means there is little "free" space for people and 4- you simply can't fill a ships cargo hold with soldiers and expect them to travel any distance and still be in fighting shape. Food, water, waste, etc, all become massively complicated.

[Lady Serpentine]

I would suggest that if somone was to attempt to transport any land-based unit, they would have to build ships specifically for it first- be it cargo ships or barges. That would likely take a Curiosity action.

So people with low Curiosity get screwed even worse? No thanks. Having geniuses should help, sure, but it shouldn't be necessary just to defend yourself from an invading force if the only way to them is by water.

Also, Morph already said specifically that she doesn't want to make things that fiddly.

Yes, it's more realistic to do it your way. Does that matter? No. It's not meant to be an accurate simulation of medieval combat beyond what's necessary to make it so that one can reasonably gauge one's success in taking or defending against military action.

[WaylanderX]

Updated Militairy Table:

Classes: Army (Ground), Naval (Sea), Aerial (Air), instead of the old ones. Players can fill in the fluff themselves entirely.

[SamBurke]

Silverbit: I am, in fact, still here. So hopefully your earlier mention of not attacking me if I'm about wasn't changed later?
Aaand now I'm going to go try to gather help.

Sorry, bro... I didn't want to have to invade anyone yet (maybe never, if I had my own way), and certainly not you, as the treaty offer from two weeks ago attests.

Alright, thanks a ton Wombat! You and Morph (and everyone here) is doing a totally awesome job!

C'Nor you're alive! Well, with my troops, it's nothing personal, just supporting an alliance. Good luck though, I think you're going to need it.

Arkhosia, might want to tread carefully, the Khan probably won't trade with anyone who kills his warriors or his allies.

I'm interested in seeing if the Coalition would agree to pull out, now that we've got a chance to lose a lot of soldiers.

Why is it okay to invade a defenseless society?

(I know I'm LE, but even I wouldn't do it.)

EDIT - Everyone wants the Heartwaste because of the highly overrated Bloodfire.

I had three reasons:
1. I believed at the time that C'nor was gone. I'd sent out a trade request in the early days of round one, and I hadn't gotten an answer. Which was sad, because I'd prefer to trade and not invade.
2. If everyone else was stepping in, then they'd have a tech advantage, and thus, I would need it too.
3. Having bloodfire and territory is good, yeah. Agreed there.

Also, it's not a defenseless society. In game, they had the chance to raise armies and the like. Metagaming, there are now roughly equal forces on both sides, so I'd say calling it "innocent" is more of an emotional appeal than actual truth at the moment. *shrug* My opinion.

Nice! Could you please edit into the post the link to the post in which you roll her stats? I'll be putting that into the rules as well, to make it easier on the co-GMs.

On that note, WaylanderX will be joining as co-GM alongside Wombat. He'll be handling the population and military things, while Wombat will handle ruler attribute scores, alliances and resources stuff. I'll be dropping those tasks from my own list of duties completely, other than the occasional check-up of the co-GMs.

I know the both of them well and they have my trust. They're capable, and I've yet to see either of them metagame in any game.

Except that one time during a LAN-party when Waylander kept watching my screen.

I heartily approve of Waylander! He's pretty legit. I do have a suggestion: instead of saying X,000, just say X units. It doesn't matter the numbers in this game, because of how we're playing it.

Well crap. My intent in raising "one unit of Naval Ships" in round 1 was to have them be combat capable.

Yeah, that's how I feel about this now... But having them usable only for water, and armies only for land, I'll take.

NOTE FOR WAYLANDER: I believe I should have two units each of soldiers and ships, and I only see one on the lists.

[WaylanderX]

NOTE FOR WAYLANDER: I believe I should have two units each of soldiers and ships, and I only see one on the lists.

Sigh....this is for the first 2 rounds, the third round will be added AFTER the round is over. So for the coming rounds, this also holds true. The actions are not set in stone untill the round is over, thats why I'm doing it when its finished.

Edit: Enlarged the lettering of the last round which is in the update. Please read the whole thing. I've already gotten four different comments about this....

[Lady Serpentine]

Huh, seems we are roughly equal... Well that was unexpected.

Waylander, didn't you mention our getting an envoy at some point? I'd be up for setting up some sort of trade agreement to cement next turn, or this one if I have an action free.

[WaylanderX]

Huh, seems we are roughly equal... Well that was unexpected.

Waylander, didn't you mention our getting an envoy at some point? I'd be up for setting up some sort of trade agreement to cement next turn, or this one if I have an action free.

Well, I send you a PM to join the Grand Conference at the Grand Ball. Well, the Grand Conference was a success, resulting in the formation of the Grand Coalition. And you're kindoff in the heart of it. If you want send an envoy to Kasumor with a request to join the Grand Alliance, I'm sure we can work a couple of things out. Offcourse Eyecradia is welcome aswell (Arkhosia responded a few times in the Grand Conference thread, then went silent, so we had no idea what happened). You can try it this round if you want, I'll speak it through with the rest of the GC. And a trade agreement is always welcome, so I might even pull my troops back if that is the case .