Society I (Forum Civ) Sign-up Thread

[:) Smiley]

Society
version 1.0

a forum game from Smiley's Cultural Industries

Society is Civ for the vBulletin platform. You, as the leader of a society, can aim to rule the world! Of course, if that's not enough, there's always shooting for the stars.

Despite its richness, Society is easy and fast to play and is similar in complexity to Galactic Overlord.

Basics
Gameplay takes place on a square grid map, on which cities are built. Each society lives on the following resources.
Gold comes from cities and is used to build weapons, research technology, expand you empire, and just about everything else.
Technology increases your tax revenue as well as your army's effectiveness.
Armies capture enemy cities, and inflict damage on enemy invaders.

Setup
In the beginning, the world was created
Players sign up in the thread. When signup is closed, the GM generates a square map with an area as close to 12 squares per player as possible. Map is labelled with letters across and numbers down.
Settlement
Each player PM's the GM 4 map coordinates, such as A1 or Z26 as the location of their first city. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices to be used if a spot's taken.
Starting Resources
Each player starts with 1 city and 1 gold.

Map Adjacency
Two squares on the map are adjacent if they have a common edge. Catty-corner squares are not adjacent.

Cities
Base Income = Cities x Technology Level x 5

Build additional cities in the same way the first is built, with one exception. New cities must be adjacent to an existing one. If you don't give coordinates, the GM will build cities in a way to minimize your borders.
The cost of building a new city is equal to 3x the number it will be

City  Cost
----------
 1     free
 2     6
 3     9
 4     12

Technology
Buy Technology with Gold. You must buy them in sequence, but you can buy more than one if you can afford it.

Tech  Cost    Allows
---------------------------
 1    free  Tower of Babel
 2    4     Colosseum
 3    9     Trojan Horse, Monarchy
 4    16    Acropolis
 5    25    Silk Road, Caravans
 6    36    Jihad
 7    49    Mafia, Spies
 8    64    Trans Siberian RR
 9    81    National Rifle Association, Republic
 10   100   Univ. of California
 11   121   NASCAR, Nukes
 12   144   KGB
 13   169   Majestic-12, SDI
 14   192   Star Wars
 15   225   Spaceship Parts

War
Buy armies with Gold. 1 gold buys 1 army.

You can fight one war per turn with an adjacent society. Your armies sent to attack do not defend. Specify target and number of armies to commit.

Theater of operations
Rank the enemy cities in preference of which ones you'd like to capture. Each city must be adjacent to your territory or to a city further up the list. If you don't the GM will take cities in a way to minimize your borders.

Capturing cities
The attacker is the only one who can capture cities. Factors include army size vs. defender technology, number of defenders per enemy city, and the ratio between attacker and defender's technology.
C = ((A / DT) - (D / DC)) * (AT / DT), round down.
C= cities captured
A = attacker's army size
D = defender's army size
AT = attacker's tech level
DT = defender's tech level
DC = defender's number of cities

Taking casualties
Attacker takes casualties as follows:
Casualties = D / AT.
Defender takes casualties as follows:
Casualties = (D / DC) * cities lost.

Governments
You start in Despotism. Change governments by Revolution. You will forfeit your turn by doing so, including gold collection.
Despotism- Free army support
Monarchy- +50% gold/turn
Army support cost = army size / cities
Republic- Double gold/turn
Army support cost = army size / tech level

Special Units
Buy these like you buy anything else.
Caravans: Cost = Sum of tech levels between you and trading partner. Reward = Product of tech levels, to both societies. You may only trade with adjacent neighbors.
Spies: You get 1 spy per turn once you discover the tech. You may use any number per turn. Spies are either used against other players, cancelling one part of their orders (builds, war, trade, etc). If two players send spies at each other, both of their spies are negated.
Nukes: cost = 100, destroys 1 enemy city anywhere. Nuked spaces cannot be reused.
SDI: cost = 250, each will stop 1 nuke from hitting you per turn.
Spaceship Parts: cost = 1000 each. You can only build one per turn, and need 3 to win. You can overpay on the 3rd part, whoever spends the most wins a tie.


Wonders of the World
There are 14, one for each tech level, except for Tech Level 15. Only one Wonder may be built. The base cost of each wonder is the square of its tech level. You may, however, overspend. In the case more than one player gives orders to build the same Wonder, the one who spends the most gets it. In ties, first to send orders wins. Loser gets their gold back.

Wonders are captured when a player is eliminated. Allies must agree who gets it.

It may appear that many of the wonders might be unbalancing, but don't worry, forum games seem to have a natural way of correcting any sort of imbalance.

1. Tower of Babel- Generates gold per turn equal to the square of your tech level, after government bonuses.
2. Colosseum- makes you immune to enemy attack. Expires with Tech Level 8.
3. Trojan Horse- gives you 1 spy per turn even if you do not have the necessary tech. Doesn't do anything after you do.
4. Acropolis- allows Republic government without having discovered the necessary technology.
5. Silk Road- allows trade with all players, not just neighbors.
6. Jihad- your military can be split to make multiple attacks
7. Mafia- One extra gold per city in the world, after gov't bonuses.
8. Trans-Siberian Railroad- Your new cities may be built anywhere, as long as a path can connect them to an existing city of yours without crossing anyone else's territory.
9. National Rifle Association- gives a Republic the military support costs of a Monarchy
10. University of California- gives you any Tech Level known to at least 1 other player.
11. NASCAR- Give you bonus gold, equal to the square of the number of cities you own. After government bonus.
12. KGB- gives you 2 additional Spies per turn
13. Majestic-12 Program- your nuclear missiles are immune to intercept.
14. Star Wars- Your cities now require 4 nukes to destroy.

Foreign Aid
Once per turn you may grant the following to any one other nation. You must be adjacent to provide military aid.
1. technology
2. military units
3. spies, caravans, nukes, SDI.
Wonders and spaceship parts are not grantable.

Orders
Sample orders:
Builds (cost)
---------------------
City of NukeDoc (6) A2, A3, A4, A5
Armies x2 (2)
Trade with Skanky (4)
Colosseum (6) <--important: you must specify exactly how much you want to spend for a Wonder

Attack Skanky with 4 armies.
Targets: B1, C1, D1, etc.

Spy to Spaced

3 Nukes to DrSpike
Targets: D3, E3, D4
---------------------

Order of Processing
1. Trade
2. Production
3. Foreign Aid
4. War (this means you can attack with newly built armies)
5. Tax Collection

Victory
Conquest- self explanatory
Spaceship- build spaceship. There are 3 parts, each costing 200 gold. You can only build 1 per turn.

[:) Smiley]

this space reserved for rule changes

[:) Smiley]

Signups and rule suggestions welcome. I'll let this run to Monday.

[Jamski]

I'll cautiously say "sign me up" as I think I have the perfect starting strat worked out

-Jam

[Gamecube64]

I'll join. How many people will be (max) playing?
Nice formulas

[DarkCloud]

I think I'll try this.

(Don't know how well I'll play though...)

[:) Smiley]

What are your thoughts on the spy system right now, is it too strong, too weak?

[DarkCloud]

personally, for now I would just eliminate Spying altogether until we see if the rest of the game works. It seems like a needless complication.

though I will admit, if players understand it and use it right, it could be a lot of fun..

and no, it doesn't seem overpowered as long as the produced spy is destroyed after one turn and spies can't be 'stockpiled' (if they could be stockpiled then they could 'mass-rush' a nation... which is a bit unrealistic )

hopefully this will work

[Gamecube64]

Hmmm, when you send spies on counter-espionage do they protect you from all spies, or only one player you specify?

[Spaced Cowboy]

Okay, since I'm mentioned in the rules, I'm in.

[:) Smiley]

Gamecube64, right now it's against all, though if this sounds too powerful, might change to against only X number of spies.

If it's only one, other players could simply shut down the top players every turn with spy barrages, which is unrealistic.

How about if spies only deactivate one part of a player's turn? (builds, attacks, etc.)

[Gamecube64]

That sounds like a much better Idea.

[DarkCloud]

How about if spies only deactivate one part of a player's turn? (builds, attacks, etc.)

to echo gamecube64... much better

[:) Smiley]

Should we even bother with counterespionage then? Or will it just be like Nuclear War, where if I send a spy at you and you send a spy at me, it's as if no spies were used at all.

[Gamecube64]

I was playing around with the capturing cities formula and found the importance of high tech levels.

I suggest making the spaceship parts more expensive, Right now at average cities (12) and tech level (15) you make more then enough money to make one, and have extra money, even more if your in monarchy/republic, unless your army is to big of course.

And what if 2 people complete the 3rd part in one turn? Same rules as wonders, you can overpay for the third?

[Ljube]

I'd also like to join.

[:) Smiley]

12x15x5=900. That's not counting trade income or government bonuses.
Must be a holdover from when I had cities generate gold equal to their tech level. Good point, Gamecube, I'll up them to 1000 each, with ability to overpay on the third.

The cost of nukes and SDI probably also needs adjusting.

How's this?
Nukes: 100
SDI: 250

[Gamecube64]

Now I feel important, first Society, tommorrow... THE WORLD MUAHAHAHA! Inflation shall inflate! MUAHAAHAHA

I don't know about the nukes though, those prices sound good, but if not then next game either the nukes can be more expensive (if minorly overpowered) or SDI's can be cheaper (If majorly overpowered) Atleast I think thats how it would change balance... kinda late to do calculations... and I'm lazy.

The way you have income set up in that post is,
cities x tech x 5 = BI, but in the rules, and I quote.

Base Income = Cities x Technology Level

Is it supposed to be,
Base Income = Cities x Technology Level x 5

[:) Smiley]

Whoops. Gonna make all the corrections now. Game thread to go up later today.

[duke o' york]

Could you not post an example of a game map to give people an idea of what it will end up looking like?

[:) Smiley]

Here's the sample map as requested. Here, Blue and Yellow are adjacent nations, Red and Blue are not.

Currently on players list:

DarkCloud
Spaced Cowboy
Gamecube64
Ljube
Jamski

Duke'oYork, are you in?

[Gamecube64]

Gamecube64 says in a monotone voice, "Join us Duke, Join us." (Gamecube64 stands still for a moment and then runs off)

[:) Smiley]

Last call! I'll give Duke, and anyone else who wants to sign up, a few more hours to post.

[:) Smiley]

Game is started, http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=116485