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 except for one phase of your choice which must be stated in your orders for 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
Army support will be deducted from Taxation at the end of the turn, if this results in a negative, armies will be disbanded until Tax Income - Army Support = 0
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. spies can target a Society in a revolution as there is now production in a revolution, however, if the spy is sent to another phase it is lost as in other instances
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.
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 whom you are not currently at war with. Peace may be declared by both players allowing a return to trading on the same turn it is declared. A declaration of peace by one side results in remaining at war and no trade is possible
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, armies, 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
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.
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 starting with non-wonder cities, wonder cities cannot be nuked until all other cities have been captured/destroyed. 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 one city in a sneak attack per turn
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 anything that you have not yet discovered the technology for, providing that someone else has (spaceship parts, wonders, nukes, SDI).
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. After use the wonder is obsolete.
13. Majestic-12 Program- your nuclear missiles are immune to intercept.
14. Galactic Overlord- 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, cities 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)
Cities captured on the current turn do not generate tax income until the following turn
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.
It is possible for two players to complete different Victory conditions on the same turn, this results in a dual victory
I'll try GM'ing this one, although the maps will be new for me.
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 except for one phase of your choice which must be stated in your orders for 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
Army support will be deducted from Taxation at the end of the turn, if this results in a negative, armies will be disbanded until Tax Income - Army Support = 0
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.
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.
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 whom you are not currently at war with. Peace may be declared by both players allowing a return to trading on the same turn it is declared. A declaration of peace by one side results in remaining at war and no trade is possible
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, armies, 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
Code:
City Cost ---------- 1 free 2 6 3 9 4 12
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.
Code:
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 Galactic Overlord 15 Fusion Power 2440 Spaceship Parts
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 starting with non-wonder cities, wonder cities cannot be nuked until all other cities have been captured/destroyed. 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 one city in a sneak attack per turn
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 anything that you have not yet discovered the technology for, providing that someone else has (spaceship parts, wonders, nukes, SDI).
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. After use the wonder is obsolete.
13. Majestic-12 Program- your nuclear missiles are immune to intercept.
14. Galactic Overlord- 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, cities 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)
Cities captured on the current turn do not generate tax income until the following turn
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.
It is possible for two players to complete different Victory conditions on the same turn, this results in a dual victory
I'll try GM'ing this one, although the maps will be new for me.
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