PURPOSE: Fun must be had!
Do whatever you must to enjoy the game. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong. Anyone can join. Even new players! The rules are flexible, the mod is friendly, and by all means,
PRESS THAT RED BUTTON! I dare you!
This NES is inspired by Imago’s awesome NESes. The scale is approximately 3-5 times smaller.
PLAYERS: The Doom Bringers
Pick a country, make a country, be a country. It can really be that simple. All you have to do is roleplay some diplomacy and send some orders and you’re set! However, if you want to be a global death cult, world spanning conglomerate, or a rebellion, contact me first. You can still do diplomacy and send orders, but your stats will be private until you establish formal territory, and you can do all those delicious things NGO’s can do.
COUNTRY STATS: The Unwilling Puppets
Every established country will have a set of stats, or “statistics” or “statuses”, which will be updated every update. You can find them below, or at the end of an update. All stats will look somewhat like THIS:
Eisen Europa/Terrance888
Government: Paternal Autocracy
Approval Rating: - 45%
Annual Spending Points: 12 (10+2)
Economic Strength: +20% +Growing
Army: 107 Brigades, 25 Iron Marine Companies
Navy: 13 Squadrons
Air: 29 Wings
UU Designs (1): Iron Marine Brigades (1 Brigade for 1 ASP)
Technology: Mobilization (5)
Other Spending:
Notes: Supports of Knights Europa, Member of Pan-Eurasian Council
Description: Ruling countless nationalities and cultures, Eisen Europa survives because no one knows what they would do with its corpse. The title of Eisen is passed among their military leaders based on a mixture of intimidation, intrigue, and “insert-knife here”. If they can somehow thrive instead of merely surviving, they might be the strongest power on this planet.
Pretty intimidating, eh? Well, I’m not Canadian, so let’s break this sucker down line by line.
Eisen Europa/Terrance888
Basically, your country’s name and your name. Um… yeah. That’s basically it. Basically. Now let’s talk about your --
Government: Paternal Autocracy
A short description of your country’s government or regime, which you play as. In the above case, Eisen Europa is seen as a Paternal Autocracy. Other nations might be Communist Dictatorships, Constitutional Monarchies, or even Democracies, to list a few options. Obviously, a country’s government can change, either through player input or via less controllable events. Oh, and elections. Also, a nation’s puppet or client status will be listed here for the world to view. And if you want to see how Approved your government is by your people, you can check your
Approval Rating: - 45%
The percentages show about how much of your people approve of your government. Generally, 40% and above is where you want to be. If it is too low, the people hate your guts and might overthrow you. If it is too high, the people’s approval might be superficial, and can crack at any moment. The - sign (which may be a +, -, or = for another nation) means that Europa’s Approval Rating is trending lower if nothing else happens. You can’t spend ASP to chance this directly but… hey. What the heck is ASP?
Annual Spending Points: 12 (10+2)
And what the heck is an Annual Spending Point? It’s basically everything an EP or IC or Gold or whatever the heck you use for your economy is, silly.
Anywho, an
ASP is our currency. Eisen Europa has 12 ASP, which means it can spend 12 ASP this year/turn. And ONLY 12 ASP this year/turn.
No matter what.
So what does the (10+2) mean? It means that Eisen Europa actually only gets 10
ASPT (ASP-per Turn) from her economy this turn. However, she also received a gift from a friend, took a gift from a foe, or saved a gift for herself last turn. That’s what the +2
“Other Income” represents. If you send someone money THIS turn, they need to wait a turn before they can use it NEXT turn. If you capture supplies during THIS update, you can use it at the start of the NEXT update after sending your NEXT order set. If you save money THIS turn, you use it NEXT turn. Please, no contingencies about using captured production or shared ASP mid turn!
Rich countries obviously can afford to do more, but if you start cutting taxes you might lose several ASPT before growth catches up. In the same way, if you raise taxes you might gain a sudden ASPT boost, but end up with a weaker economy. See, one thing you can’t do with ASP is to use ASP to make more ASPT. Ok, that’s somewhat a lie, but basically you spend ASP to increase your Economic Chance, which increases your ASPT. And you use
economic policies to affect Economic Strength, which increases Economic Chance for free. See below.
Below are listed the various ways you can use ASP. From your unstoppable death army to your mad scientists, from your cthulu-esque projects to your massive economy. Ok, you can stop inhaling money fumes now. Well, not quite, because it’s time to talk about your --
Economic Strength: + 20% + Growing
This can be a confusing stat, so bear with me. Basically, large positive numbers good, small positive numbers bad, large negative numbers horrible. Growth is good. 1 ASP buys 10% more positive, up to 90%.
The first number represents the chance your economy grows or shrinks at the end of each update. +20% means, without changing anything, your ASPT has a 20% chance of growing by 1.
Each ASP you spend increases your Economic Chance by 10%, up to a maximum of 90% chance of increasing ASPT. Such spending is the first thing that happens in any turn.
The second number represents how strong your economy is in general. + Growing means that your economic chances are growing by 10% each turn.
One + sign is 10% growth. Your spending cannot directly affect Economic Strength. Economic Strength bonuses also occurs at the very beginning of a turn. Basically, If your economy collapses, it will affect "next turn's" economy, not "this turn's".
Of course,
those can be negative signs. -20% means that your economy has a 20% chance to shrink by 1 ASP that turn, and - Shrinking means that your economic chances decrease by 10% every turn. This happens when your people are VERY unhappy, you do VERY stupid things, or VERY bad things happen. However, you can come back from the brink! Spend or borrow enough ASP to remove those negative chances, reform your economy or conquer new land to increase your economic strength, and you may just survive!
If it’s = Stable, Economic Chances does not change. Duh.
It’s important to know that
Economic Chance rolls occur at the VERY end of a turn. After all battles, wars, rebellions, technologies, and other events. Of course, good economic plans or even stories can increase both Economic Chance and Economic Strength. Therefore, you can have over 100% chances when I start rolling (and give auto-successes). Conquests usually increase ASP directly. Despite all this, the max Economic Chance due to ASP spending is 90%. If you spend extra, I’ll bank it. This is helped by the fact the spending and bonuses happens at the very beginning, while the rolling happens at the very end.
Now, e
very time your ASP increases by 1 due to an successful roll, your Economic Chance will decrease by 30% and I will roll to see if your ASP will increases again. If your ASP increases again, your Economic Chance will decrease again and so on until you have 0 or negative. If you get negative Economic Chance, I will reset it at 0%. This works in the direct opposite manner when your economy is shrinking. Sometimes, you should let the market bottom out before spending and politicing your way out of that hole. Other times, you should be wary of an economy booming too fast, leaving it weak in the knees.
Any questions? Please ask or check the FAQ! Now, however, it’s time to talk about your most important arm --
Army: 107 Brigades
Or rather, Army! 1 Brigade about two thousand men, with artillery, tanks, and other general purpose equipment. Eisen Europa’s army has about two million men in it. These men are generally useful at doing anything an army could do, but not exactly great at anything. (for those you’d want UU’s)
1 ASP buys 5 Brigades.
If you undergo CONSCRIPTION (See: MILITARY), you may buy conscript brigades. Each conscript is worth two thousand men with light equipment support and basic training. Sometimes, you also get volunteer conscripts. They can be useful for their numbers, but don’t trust them to do tricky maneuvers like amphibious landings or parachute offensives.
1 ASP buys 10 Conscripts.
Navy: 13 Squadrons
1 Squadron is a handful of ships. A cruiser, submarine, pocket carrier, and a handful of destroyers. Six or so, to estimate. Europa has about 80 ships in her fleet. You can order specific concentrations (aka organize a submarine fleet), but loses will cause a scarcity of those kinds of ships. It’s probably more helpful to design UU units for such tasks.
1 ASP buys 5 Squadrons.
Air: 29 Wings
1 Wing is a handful planes. Usually twelve, a mixture of air superiority fighters, close air support craft, and bombers. Or even airships! Eisen Europa supports about 350 aircraft.
1 ASP buys 5 Wings.
UU Designs (1): Iron Marine (2 Companies for 1 ASP)
This means that you have 1 Unique Unit design, and it will cost you 1 ASP to design another Unique Unit. That unit, the Iron Marine, costs 1 ASP to get 1 Brigade.
Unique Units are cool! So cool that
everyone’s first UU and their first ASP worth of UU comes free. Every Unique Unit design costs
however many UU designs you have already to design. So if I design some Iron Fleet Squadrons and I already have only 1 other design, it will cost me 1 ASP to design. If I had no UU designs, my first UU is free to design. If it is my 5th UU, I have 4 other UUs, it will cost me 4 ASP to design. PM me and I will help you with the process. Sometimes UU’s take special tech, which I will direct you to find.
Unique Units can be shared in three ways. One, you can
Grant someone a few of your units. They don’t get the designs, but can try to Two,
Reverse Engineer them. Enemies that fought or even captured your units can also try to reverse engineer. Generally speaking, this costs
about twice the receiving state’s design costs. Finally, Three, you can simply
Help Them Design, with
both of you paying half THE RECEIVER's design costs, rounded up.
You can
decommission UU’s by paying your UU design number. You can only do that if you have none of the UU units active, and you do THAT by disbanding or reorganizing them into normal units or other UU’s. Depending on their tradition, they may resist such actions or even fight back. Remember the Janissaries!
As a general note. Division is about ten thousand men. Brigades is about two thousand. Regiments about five hundred. Companies about one hundred. Squadron is about six ships. Wolfpack/Battlegroup to a couple, usually three. Ships refers to individuals. Wings are about twelve plains. Sections about four. Planes/Airships refer to individuals.
Technology
This game doesn’t have a tech tree. If you want to spend on science, tell me what you want to spend on, from “Combat Drugs” to “Nanobots” to “DNA Splicing” to “Fluffy Puppy”. Or even “General Magitek”, “Dragon Taming”, “Runic Computers”, or “Necromancy” depending on the setting. Every ASP you spend on a science area will increase that area’s rating. So, if you spend 2 ASP on Organ Cloning, next turn you’d have ‘Organ Cloning (2)’ in your stats. Higher numbers obviously reveal increased proficiency. Techs are useful in that orders that have synergy with your scientific developments have a better chance at succeeding. Also, Tech can be used to make your UU’s even more Unique! There are three tricks to happy teching
-Techs can be intentionally leaked. Countries with a patron who admits to being such in his or her orders get catch-up development half-off. (Patrons do not have to spend anything to be patrons.) Techs that have no obvious overhead costs (i.e., not military and infrastructure techs) may be leaked, donated, or sold without need for the catch-up cost. Ask me first.
-Tech alliances are possible, wherein every member contributes ASP to a pool. However, techs developed in the pool stay in the pool, and members who leave the alliance only get 10 points of tech or all the development on two tech areas as a parting gift, whichever is less.
-Don’t even consider nuclear weapons (and other WMD’s) as being possible until you have at least level 250 of a relevant tech. Just because the Red Button is there doesn’t mean it does anything. On a related note, usable nuclear weapons will take up a Unique Unit slot (unless, of course, you trade for them).
In case of Eisen Europa, they have “Mobilization (5)”. Probably this affects the effectiveness of conscription, but if I were Eisen Europa, I would have it mean that conscription doesn’t affect economic strength as much. See below.
Other Spending
Remember when I said you can spend ASP on anything? If you have a really specific project in mind, start spending for it in your orders and it will wind up here, as a fraction counting how many ASP you have already invested out of how many ASP you will need to finish. Projects can be labeled secret, of course, for extra cost. I can help you determine what are projects and what are technologies. Also, if you spend money on, say, a Spy Agency or an NGO, it appears here, at least for that turn. This is partially to help me update, hint to others what you’re doing, as well as help both of us keep track what the heck is going on.
Notes
Inspired by Luckymoose. If you do not read your update at all, relevant local issues will be delivered here. Not that it matters much in a global community.
Description
This is a quick description. Probably will get outdated very quick as the NES updates! However, I’ll try to keep up however I can, and I will appreciate if you send updated descriptions with your orders.
DIPLOMACY: Talk peace like Canadians, eh?
Diplomacy will be important in this NES. Through diplomacy, you will sign treaties, share technologies, join alliances, and fight wars. Some guidelines.
First, I’d like diplomacy to be in thread or in SG as much as possible, so that I may enjoy twists and turns of the diplomatic process.
Second, I would really prefer role play’d diplomacy over simple bland statements.
Third, NPC diplomacy will be dealt with promptly. Generally, a “No” is never a concrete no and a “Yes” might not be a concrete yes
unless I bold them. Unbolded, the NPC is willing to negotiate details; I generally won’t have them initiate negotiation (unless, of course, they’re that kind of NPC) because I'm a busy man, and the NPC's are busy mod-fearing governments.
Finally, No NPC will simply roll over, even if you are bigger and tougher than them. However, many are willing to accept uneven partnerships depending your your silver tongue, or your unobtainium sword.
WAR: Basically, the ent… well. A big point.
There will be lots of War, don’t worry about that. Generally, by the time we’re playing,
declarations of war or casus belli are generally approved of, but I won’t make them strictly necessary. Fighting wars without declaration of war or with a weak casus belli will garner negative reactions from NPCs and your population. Of course,
a bayonet a day keeps the rebels away!
When you fight a War
, I’d love to know when, where, and how many troops you are sending. Divide them by fronts, arrows, armies I don’t care; as long as I know the above I should be good. However, I’d also like to know generals, doctrines, basic strategy for both conquest and occupation. These are not necessary, but will directly benefit your warmaking abilities (or specifically, my perception thereof).
Logistics spending is not required by me. It WILL help, but your normal military supply centers are designed to do their jobs and feed their men. Generally, only the most extreme circumstances merit actual logistics spending -- then again, in moderate amounts it does help in nearly all situations.
Finally, when you fight a war you may attempt a c
onscription. Basically, you spend
ALL YOUR ASPT (and any bonus amounts will help!) in exchange for a huge wave of conscripts for several turns. You'll get both conscripts every turn, and you can also build more manually. Generally, you will get ten times the ASP spent in brigades, or twice the going rate of standard units. However, you may also recieve volunteers during conscription. After initializing conscription, you can continue to buy conscript brigades at 1 ASP for 10 Brigades until the war ends or until I note manpower issues.
CONSCRIPTION WILL WEAKEN ECONOMIC STRENGTH.
UPDATES: Countdown to Chaos
The game starts in the year (to be voted), meaning the first update will cover (to be voted+1) and the second will cover (to be voted +2) etc. Each update will be one year. All changes will be listed somewhere in the update, including new stats and new maps. I will also showcase great stories in the Updates, and offer prompts for more stories and prizes.
I desire to run this at least 10 Updates, at 1 Update/Week. At the 5th and 10th update I will give prizes Imago Style. After the 10th Update, we can discuss continuing this, or moving on to TerraNES2: Destiny Deferred. However, don’t despair! Look at other ImagoNESes for inspiration. Much can happen in 10 updates, and these are GUARNTEED 10 updates.
This game will start rather slowly due to world building and college apps, but I'll be revving it up as much as possible, so don't slack! If necessary, I will note a shift to 1 Update/2 Weeks. However, I will try to stick with 1 Update/1 Week, which will REQUIRE ONTIME
ORDERS: Wheels within Wheels
You must PM me orders every turn.
Only thing I will specifically request is that all ASP spending be put in one place. Other than that I’d like: Diplomatic overview of all agreements, including former ones ; military strategy ; economic policy ; fun snippets. All orders must be 1-2 PMs.
I will give a bonus for FIRST SET of orders and BEST SET of orders.
STORIES: Basically, THE ENTIRE POINT
Stories are awesome! Really. I’m pretty serious about this. I will give a total of three story bonuses a turn. One for everyone who wrote a story. One who wrote the best story based on that turn’s offered prompt. And the Best Story overall will get a spotlight and an in-update story-response of my own! Still, even if you don’t think you will win, just write. Diplomacy will count for Stories. So does paragraph descriptions of your awesome new UU. So will a video or a map or a flag! Only thing is it MUST be posted in thread! Also, titles are ++ for recording purposes.