A New NES

[Cyclotron]

If you are looking for an NES topic that is:

- Inward looking
- Related to Royalty
- Centered on alliances

My suggestion would be to make an NES based on the Holy Roman Empire during the early middle ages. The player would play as one of the various dukes of one of the more important regions of the Empire (Swabia, Friesland, Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, etc.), but not the Emperor. Especially in the early stages of the HRE's existence, there are some very interesting tales of the nearly-independent Dukes and Bishops of the Empire struggling with each other and with outside powers to keep their privileges, power, and wealth - without toppling the Empire or weakening it to the point where outside forces can crush each province peacemeal. It could be similar to the 13 colonies NES I read in this forum - except, of course, with a more brutal medieval theme.

I'm reading several books on the development of feudalism and monarchal power in the early middle ages, I think that might be an interesting scenario to do.

I like the "Carthage Wins" one too, but that's really more of a traditional conquest-centered one like the Dark Ages NES that's going on right now, and that seems like it can get a little slow without a fair number of players.

I'd volunteer to do the HRE or Carthage idea, but I wouldn't want to create competition or something for your NES.

[foolish_icarus]

At the moment I have no NES, so go for it.

Let’s do a little exercise, a quick way to generate ideas and get the creative juices flowing.

The first person has a general scenario or idea in mind, and makes a map according to it, but doesn’t say anything about what the idea is except what is on the map.

The second person guesses what that idea might be from looking at the map, or just makes up his own idea that would roughly fit with the map. So the second person names the countries on the map, explains what the general setting is. E.g. the time is the equivalent of middle ages, but the conditions are ripe for a technological revolution, but tensions are rising and it also appear that 500 years of peace are about to come to an end…that westernmost nation is the home of the peoples of Israel etc.

The third person fills in the details. E.g. New Israel is primarily agrarian, has a strong military but an unstable political system, they have a traditional enmity with the Carthaginian Empire and are steadfast allies of the Delhi Sultanate. In the northeast, the recent invention of the stirrup has given Korea a signficant advantage on the battlefield etc.

Doesn’t have to be complex or even logically watertight, just come up with as much or little as you feel like, for a bit of fun and to see what kind of ideas keep coming up, what we like and what we want to avoid. Plus it might draw some attention, no one has to commit to anything but you might develop an attachment to an idea of yours and want to see it through in a game. If more people show up we can further divide the steps so all can get a hand in it.

So I’ll start with a map:

[Cyclotron]

At the moment I have no NES, so go for it.

Well, I'll start working on it, but don't let me discourage you.

The second person guesses what that idea might be from looking at the map, or just makes up his own idea that would roughly fit with the map. So the second person names the countries on the map, explains what the general setting is. E.g. the time is the equivalent of middle ages, but the conditions are ripe for a technological revolution, but tensions are rising and it also appear that 500 years of peace are about to come to an end…that westernmost nation is the home of the peoples of Israel etc.

Hoo boy, you just had to choose China - perhaps the part of . the world I know the very least about. I don't even have a guess as to what the idea here might be.

[foolish_icarus]

So make something up. That's what I did. Or wait until someone else comes up with something and fill in the details. Or make your map. Or ignore this and continue working on your NES

[Cyclotron]

Alright, then, I'll wait to be the third person.