FG: Society IV Signup Thread

[Sparrowhawk]

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
The GM will arrange player starting locations equidistantly but randomly.
Starting Resources
Each player starts with 1 city and 6 gold.

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

Gameplay
Gameplay is synchronous, with players issuing orders each day. Each player's turn is made up of the following parts:

1. Espionage
2. Trade
3. Production
4. Foreign Aid
5. War
6. Tax Collection

Expanded Turn Sequence- orders are processed down the turn sequence list, first in, first processed.
1a. Espionage: New spy is trained.
1b. Espionage: New spy can be used immediately, or stockpiled.
Each spy can target the entire espionage phase
2a. Trade: Money in Treasury can be used for trade. Cost is based on the tech levels on the chart, not new research.
2b. Trade: Payout is collected. Bonuses for governments are factored in the payout. This money goes into Treasury and can be budgeted in this very production turn as part of your orders.
Each spy can target the entire trade phase
3a. Production: Scientific Research
3b. Production: Military (armies, nukes, SDI)
3c. Production: Cities
3d. Production: Wonders and Spaceships
3e. Conquered cities rehabilitated free of charge.
Each spy can only target one of the production phases
4a. Foreign Aid: You can give away anything, but not cities. There's too much potential for abuse there.
Each spy can target the entire foreign aid phase
5a. War: Wars are fought based on the sequence orders are recieved by the GM. If an army is unable to fight a war due to someone else beating them to the target, it will stay home and defend. (This is not Galactic Overlord where ships travel through hyperspace, here your troops are within your nation until they invade the enemy) The person initiating the war can decide whether to use armies or nukes first.
Each spy can target the entire war phase
6a. Tax Collection: City Income / Wonder Income. Government bonuses are applied at time of tax collection. A Republic generates 10 gold * cities * tech, for example.
Taxation is inevitable. It is immune to Espionage

Governments
You start in Despotism. Change governments by Revolution. You will forfeit your entire turn when you have a Revolution.
Despotism- Free army support. You can only collect taxes from a maximum of 6 cities in a Despotism.
Monarchy- +50% tax, trade, and wonder income/turn You can only collect taxes from a maximum of 12 cities in a Monarchy.
Army support cost = army size / cities
Republic- Double tax, trade, and wonder income/turn
Army support cost = army size

Orders
Orders are PM'd to the GM. Sample orders:
Action (cost in Gold)
---------------------
Spy --> Spaced Cowboy, target Production.

Trade with Skanky (6)-->(+9) Note that Trade income can be immediately spent

City of NukeDoc (6) A2, A3, A4, A5
Armies x2 (2)
Colosseum (6) <--important: you must specify exactly how much you want to spend for a Wonder

Give Jamski 1 army

3 Nukes to DrSpike
Targets: D3, E3, D4

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

Espionage
Once you discover Espionage (Tech Level 7) you gain one Spy every turn at the beginning of your Espionage turn. Spies are free and can be stockpiled.
You may send this Spy at any other player and target any one of the other player's actions, except for Tax Collection. That player's action is negated for the turn. Should two players send spies at each other, regardless of phase targeted, neither spy gets through and both societies proceed as normal.
Spies sent to a society in a revolution are lost.

Trade
You can trade with any society as many spaces away as your Tech Level. For example, at Tech 1, you can only trade with adjacent neighbors. At Tech 2, there can be one square separation. There is no longer a minimum tech level for trading.
Cost = Sum of tech levels between you and trading partner.
Payout= Product of tech levels, to both societies. You may only trade with adjacent neighbors.
Gold from trade can be budgeted into your Production turn. You cannot send additional caravans with gold made from caravans just sent the same turn. Should your trading be interdicted by spies, please list what expenditure to cut, or the GM will take stuff off the back of your list.

Maximum caravans per turn = your tech level

Production
Aside from Caravans, gold can also be spent on building cities, researching technology, building Wonders, nukes, SDI defense satellites, and spaceship parts.

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.

The more people who have a tech, the cheaper it is to research it.
Cost = Base Price * (P - R / P)
P = Total number of players
R= Number of players who have discovered that particular technology.

Tech     Name              Cost    Allows
-----------------------------------------------
 1   Masonry             free  Tower of Babel
 2   Iron Working       4    Colosseum
 3   Monarchy             8    Trojan Horse, Monarchy
 4   Architecture        12    Acropolis
 5   Geography          20    Silk Road
 6   Religion               32    Jihad
 7   Espionage           52    Mafia, Spies
 8   Industrialization  84    Trans Siberian RR
 9   Representative Government   136   National Rifle Association, Republic
 10 Mass Education              220   Univ. of California
 11 Nuclear Fission               356   NASCAR, Nukes
 12 Miniaturization                576   KGB
 13 Space Flight                    932   Majestic-12, SDI
 14 The Laser                     1508  Star Wars
 15 Fusion Power               2440  Spaceship Parts

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.
Nukes: cost = 500, destroys 1 enemy city anywhere. Nuked spaces cannot be reused.
SDI: cost = 1000, 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 in each city. 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.
2. Colosseum- makes you immune to enemy attack. Expires with anyone reaches Industrialization (#8). Clarification: If you attack someone, they get one counterattack.
3. Trojan Horse- you get a spy every turn before Espionage (#7), and one extra after
4. Acropolis- you have the option to change to Republic even without the technology. You still need a Revolution.
5. Silk Road- allows trade with all players, regardless of distance. Your caravans are free. Expires with Mass Education (#10)
6. Jihad- you can take any city in a sneak attack
7. Mafia- One extra gold per city in the world
8. Trans-Siberian Railroad- Your new cities may be built anywhere.
9. National Rifle Association- gives a Republic the military support costs of a Monarchy
10. University of California- Allows you to build things that you have not yet discovered the technology for, providing that someone else has.
11. NASCAR- You can trade with yourself. (income per caravan = 0.5 * square of your tech level)
12. KGB- When built, allows you to designate any other wonder obsolete.
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, nukes, SDI.
Wonders and spaceship parts are not grantable.

War
Buy armies with Gold. The cost per army is your Tech Level. When you advance in technology, existing armies are automatically upgraded free of charge.

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.

Declaring war
Normal diplomatic procedure is to declare war one turn before attack. You may carry out sneak attacks, but under such cases you are limited to capturing cities directly adjacent to your territory.

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

Captured cities do not generate income on the turn they are captured.

Two-way attacks
When two nations attack each other on the same turn, the armies first fight each other. Compare strength:
A1 * A1T vs. A2 *A2T
A1 = attacker 1's army size
A2 = attacker 2's army size
A1T = attacker 1's tech level
A2T = attacker 2's tech level

The loser's entire attacking army is destroyed. The winner's attacking army takes casualties based on the difference.

Survivors = Difference / Tech Level, round up.

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

Tax Collection
Restock your treasury for the next turn as follows:

Income = Cities x Tech Level x 5
(+50% for Monarchy, round up, double for Republic)

Victory
Conquest- self explanatory
Spaceship- build spaceship. There are 3 parts, each costing 1000 gold. You can only build 1 per turn. The first to complete a spaceship wins. The third part, the Engines, can cost as much as one wants to pay for them. Should two players complete spaceships in one turn, the one with the more expensive engine wins.
Cultural- build and hold 7 wonders, or build/conquer 10 wonders
Domination- achieve an unassailable position of power where GM and other players concede.

 
    
    
 
      
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[Sparrowhawk]

I was out of town all weekend and didn't get a chance to post this earlier, but hopefully you haven't all forgotten about this.

Please post suggested rule changes, as I have only made one change to the rules posted by Gamecube in the last game but I will continue to edit and add rules if they are agreed by the participants.

Not sure if Wednesday is too early to start, but as I am on holidays right now and have some spare time, I would happily start then

[Jonny]

I'm in.

The rules look good, since you changed the part concerning the survivors of a two-way attack.

My only suggestion is that I think the 1-turn forfeit for changing governments is a bit large; there is a reason I remained in Monarchy throughout the end of the previous game... I just didn't have the time to switch.

I would suggest that you can still spend your gold during the revolution turn, but you can't trade (too dangerous for caravans) during the revolution turn, and tax income for the end of the revolution-turn is 1/4 of normal (although the governmental bonuses of the new government are applied, before the penalty is applied).

Also, the number of cities from which taxes can be collected should be scaled to the map size. I would suggest that the max number of taxable cities under monarchy should be:

# of tiles on map/# of players (rounded down)

While for despotism the number could be:

(# of tiles on map/# of players) * 0.5 (rounded down)

Just a few suggestions.

[:) Smiley]

In.

My suggestion: Defensive espionage- use of a spy to defend one of the phases against all attacks.

In regards to revolution, the benefit for going from Monarchy to Republic could use some increasing.

[duke o' york]

I don't understand the use of the Silk Road wonder. It says that you can trade with anyone, and that your caravans are free.

This has to go. It's a licence to print money. Admittedly, you will be giving whomever you deliver to the same amount of money but even so, you should be limited to the number of caravans you can send.

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by Smiley
In.

My suggestion: Defensive espionage- use of a spy to defend one of the phases against all attacks.

In regards to revolution, the benefit for going from Monarchy to Republic could use some increasing.

Agreed on the defensive espionage, but does using a spy to defend (say production of armies) against all other societies use the spy up or do you retain it for next turn for use again? (I prefer that it does not kill the spy unless another spy is sent against that specific target, but this may allow people to build up spies and allow them to have a spy defending each of the production phases and be too powerful to attack).

As for the revolution and Monarchy/Republic, I have no suggestions, but I am open to change here, as like Jonny, I would like to have revoted to Republic, but the opportunity cost is too high to make the change (little opportunity by that point of the game).

And as to the silk road wonder, it not only expires (limiting it usefullness) but also gives benefit to the receiver (as the good Duke points out), so I don't think it needs to be changed. However, would making the caravans cost be cut in half be an acceptable alternative?
(your tech rate + trade partners tech rate ) / 2

[duke o' york]

Spies: use 'em and lose 'em!
The spy is considered to have been used up in defending the production of the empire. Maybe the spy was killed defending his nation's factories against the spies of another country.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hmm...should I play again????

We need to do something about the changing of the governments, much to drastic of a penalty to miss a whole turn in such a short game...much less two if you follow what should be the normal progression of changing twice.

I like the idea of not being able to trade, and I'd say you get half income on the switch turn, as opposed to losing a whole turn.

Counter-spying is good. Some defense to spying is needed for game balance.

[:) Smiley]

Hmm, how about you only get to participate in 2 or 3 phases of your choice on a switch turn?

Silk road is fine as it is, while it gives you free caravans, it itself ain't free, and you're still limited by tech level. By the time you're sending loads of 'vans caravan cost is down to around 10-20% of the payout anyway.

[:) Smiley]

also, after seeing Duke's attempt at OCC, allow multiple wonders in one city if a player has no blank cities to build in. I had never thought that someone would even attempt an OCC, so I enacted the "1 wonder per city" rule to simplify things on the graphics end when making the map. So here are some icons for cities with multiple wonders should we decide to go with this.

[Kuciwalker]

I think sabotage espionage should be removed - what happens if, say, A sabotages B's esp, and B sabotages A's esp, but A had another spy and used it to sabotage B's trade?

[DarkCloud]

Then replace Sabotauge Espionauge with a "Spy Defense" as in Spy A defends Trade, etc. against all comers

[:) Smiley]

As written, when two players sent spies at each other, both were negated. This had a problem of what to do if one of the players sent 2 spies versus the other's 1, as to which got through. Gamecube simply had all spies get through.

Defensive spying works. At the same time, sabotaging Espionage has potential value as there are more than 2 players in the game.

KW, in ya situation all three actions are negated.

Vote!

1. Proposed rewrite of espionage rules:

Once you discover Espionage (Tech Level 7) you gain one Spy every turn at the beginning of your Espionage turn. Spies are free and can be stockpiled.
You may send this Spy at any other player and target any one of the other player's actions, except for Tax Collection. That player's action is negated for the turn.
You may use a Spy to defend any phase (or part of a Production phase) against all enemy spy action. Afterwards your Spy is retired, whether or not it actually comes into play.
Spies sent to a society in a revolution are lost.

2. Proposed revolution rewrite:
You will forfeit your entire turn when you have a Revolution, except for one phase of your choice.

3a. Better Mafia:
Mafia- your spies may target Taxation.
(current 1 extra gold per city is really lame)

3b. Relevant wonder names
Rename Star Wars --> Galactic Overlord

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by Smiley


3b. Relevant wonder names
Rename Star Wars --> Galactic Overlord

[:) Smiley]

Well, there's already NASCAR, Mafia, and a Colosseum. Majestic-12 was the name of someone's city in the NW game going on at the time Society I started.

Also I propose renaming spies Assassins. Spies steal information. Assassins are the ones who knock off commanders and disrupt plans.