Introduction
Once more I present a "mini" NES to occupy my downtime between The World Turned Upside Down updates. This departs from my usual genre of NESing as I am turning to a more ancient time. This NES will also have randomness involved, mostly out of nessecity towards the rules. For a rare occasion, some portions of the NES will be completely out of my own control and left to the experienced hands of Lady Luck. This NES will not be available immediately following this post, as it is a work in progress.
The original design for this NES was to be presented upon the NES Forum at Strategic Command Center. However, my efforts there fell apart due to a lack of time and conflicts with the World Turned Upside Down. I hope to avoid conflicts with this NES, as updating will be far easier. There will be no mass research or 4-hour updates for this NES. The events of this NES will revolve around only the actions of the players. There will be only three NPCs and should a player quit, his faction will be completely eliminated.
The locations and names provided for the terrain in the NES are stolen from a variety of sources and references which some of you may be aware. I promise that only a minority of the names in this are original creations. For those of you who recognize the references and names, congradulations, you're as bad a nerd as I can be.
Further rules and information will be provided as the NES is further fleshed out.
Story
Welcome to the land of Sen! Sen is a collection of islands not unlike the British Islands of our own time. There are three kingdoms which dominate the islands, Arathor, Kenethica, and Rtor. These kingdoms have often found themselves at war for superiority of the islands. As of now, the lands are at peace, but knowing the history of the lands, this cannot be for long.
The islands of Sen are divided into a variety of provinces, and the three kings who rule the nations entrust leadership of the provinces to nobles and knights. These nobles and knights often have their own ambitions and some may even aspire to the crown. However, only one could possibily unite the kingdoms and create a single Kingdom of Sen.
Rules
Objective: Losing and Winning
The objective of the players within this NES is to be the sole King of both islands of Sen. You can achieve this through outright warfare, duplicity, and diplomacy. The NES will continue until there is only one nation standing and one player on the throne of the united kingdom. The methods of achieving the throne are completely up to you, within the limits of the rules.
There is one certain way to be eliminated from this NES. If all of the members of your noble family are wiped out through war, plague, or other nasty deaths, you are immediately removed and your lands return to the control of your kingdom's monarch.
Set Up
The following is how you set up your noble family as you join the NES. There are no NPCs to join as, and you must start from scratch. Should a player leave his faction, they will disappear completely and not become NPC. To choose your starting province, keep in mind the nation you are part of and the resources and terrain of the province you are owning. You may only select a starting province which is not a capital and not under the control of another player.
Also, when detailing your family history, do not give the head of the family children or other relatives. Those will come as the NES progresses. Also, each player will begin with 1-3 children already born, who will be given random ages under 12 years old.
Family Name:
Starting Province:
Heads of Family: Husband and Wife names
Family History (optional):
Sample Family Stats
Trollbane Family
Head of Family: Lord Danath Trollbane (39)
Family Members:
Lady Tabetha Trollbane (wife, 38)
Sir Jonathan Trollbane* (son, 17)
Provinces: Tiras
Gold per turn: 25
Gold: 25
Army: 100 Men-at-arms
Navy: 10 Galleys
It's Good to Be the King
At the onset of this NES, the three kingdoms are ruled by three NPC families. These families will always be NPC and will only be removed as the monarchs through military might, diplomatic intrigue, or the end of the family line. These are at the start, the strongest factions. They control all provinces which are not taken by players. To be added with this, kings have special abilities in regard to the NES.
Kings can grant provinces to lords as rewards for good service. They can also grant titles, knighthoods, rights of marriage, and good hard cash for loyal vassals. As all players will initially be vassals of one of the kings, keep this in mind.
On the other hand, kings will also be allowed to take provinces away from families which have proven themselves inept, disloyal, or cowardly. Kings can call for tribute from lords and if a lord has been particularly rebellious, can call upon the rest of the kingdom to crush that family.
Kings will also assign tasks to different lords to help improve the kingdom overall. Completing or failing these tasks will raise or lower the satisfaction the king has with your family, respectively. If the king declares war on another faction, he will often call for reinforcements from the families of his realm. Answering this call and fielding a strong force will also gain you favor with the king.
As the title of this NES implies, it is possible to become one of these reigning monarchs. As a monarch you may do any of the above actions, including rewarding with provinces and declaring war. You can become monarch through right of marriage (discussed below), seizing power through support from a majority of nobles and military fight, or by being the sole family remaining in your kingdom. You can also become a monarch by declaring yourself independant of your monarch. However, this can have dire consequences.
Even if you reach the lofty position of king of your nation, your task is not over. To win this NES, you must conquer all three of the kingdoms of Sen.
Vassalage
Now, I realize NESers are overall a belligerent, stubborn, and generally uncooperative bunch. That works moderately well in large scale NESes like The World Turned Upside Down. However, this NES revolves around diplomacy and subservience. At the start you will not be the top dog in your kingdom. Remember who's on top or you may find yourself being knocked out early.
Family Matters
The family is the heart of this NES. You can count on complete loyalty of your family members and they will be the backbone of your policies, militarily and diplomatically. The Head of Family is the person who technically owns the land and soldiers of your family. The relationships mentioned in the stats are in relation to this character.
Your characters can grow old and die, or even die of disease or accident. Therefore it is always wise to select an heir. It should be mentioned here that to own land and be considered an adult in Sen, a person must be over the age of 14. The family member with an asterisk by the person is the current heir to the leadership of the family.
The personality and actions of the family members is up to you. If the head is a noble accountant and stays at home doing figures, that's up to you. If the head is a warmonger who attacks everyone, that's also up to you. The occupations and positions of the various family members within the kingdom will emerge as time goes.
To mention, there are honorifics, such as Lord, Duke, Earl, or Sir. These will imply certain positions within the kingdom and if a character has a title, they have some standing with the king. Once more it should be mentioned that only family members over 14 can recieve titles or land.
Then we have the issue of sex. Children can and will be concieved and born throughout the NES. This will happen randomly, and I will not accept lewd orders involving conception. If you want certain names for children, I'd recommend sending me a list of boy and girl names you'd prefer.
Making Money
Making money is the only way to really gain power within the kingdom and cash allows for purchasing of military forces and so forth. More details on spending money will be provided in the next section. Money can be made through trade and deals with other players. Cash can also be recieved from your king as reward, or in some cases, as a loan. The most stable method of income is taxes and financial benefits from work camps and towns in your provinces. The amount recieved from each is thus:
City: +15 gold
Cities evolve from villages and are by far the best source of income. Only villages built in fertile land can evolve into a city.
Gold Work Camp: +10 gold
Iron Work Camp: +5 gold
Gold, Iron, and Stone Work Camps are those which are built in mountains. If you choose to build a camp in the mountains, the resource gained will be made default to stone, though if you're lucky you could stumble upon a gold or iron vien in the mountains.
Lumber Work Camp: +5 gold
Lumber Work Camps can of course only be built in a forrested area. These allow for the construction of ships in addition to the five gold recieved.
Village: +5 gold
The Village is the heart of medieval society. It is here that grain is distributed to the people and is the center of the manoral economy. Villages can collect fish, grain, and all the nessecities of life. These are not counted as resources but merely keep your people alive.
There are other ways to make money. You can trade for gold from other players for resources which they may lack. Another option is raiding. You can launch an invasion of other provinces (not always that of another nation) and steal some gold. You don't even have to be at war with that nation. Hell, if you've got a grudge against someone else loyal to your king, you can perhaps steal a little of their gold from them. Just be warned, raiding the king's province would be a very bad idea for a noble not prepared for a civil war.
The king of your nation will sometimes provide loans or gifts of cash depending on your actions. To stay in character for the times, I'd also recommend giving cash as a dowry if one of you daughters is getting married to another lord. Sure it's a loss of cash, but it'll make you look good and maybe you'll get a friend out of it.
Spending Money
You've made some money through taxation or other methods. Now it's time to spend it. The majority of your spending is on military purposes, though work camps and village centers can be constructed as well. For villages, castles, and work camps, it makes it easier if you point out where you want it on the map, but if you lack the skills to make fine art like my maps, then just saying "build a castle in ______ province" will be enough. I will determine the best location for whatever building you choose.
Some of these things require resources to build and these could be acquired through trade or localized resources. If you lack the resource in the province, you can't build the building or soldier. Here are the costs:
Castle: 500 gold, requires Stone to build
Village: 250 gold, requires Lumber to build
Work Camp: 50 gold, must have mountains or forest in your province to build (Note: If the Work Camp is built in the mountains, the resource gained will be random, with Stone being the most likely, Iron the second most likely, and gold the least likely)
Trebuchet: 25 gold, requires Lumber to build. This is the seige equipment needed to bring down walls and conduct a seige of cities and castles.
Galley: 20 gold, requires Lumber to build. This is the only naval unit available. Needed for transport and cross-sea warfare.
Knight: 10 gold, requires Iron and at least one city. These are the ultimate soldier of the middle ages. These are the most heavily armored and well trained fighters. They can act as an ultra-tough foot soldier or heavy cavalry, it's up to you.
Engineer: 10 gold. These are the heart of a successful capture of a castle or city. Engineers allow tunnelling, local construction of smaller seige weapons, and so forth. A very useful person to have.
Longbowmen: 5 gold, Requires Lumber. These are soldiers trained from birth to use a longbow, the deadliest ranged weapon in medieval war.
Scout: 5 gold.These are light horsemen usually armed with a bow. Recommended if you're launching an invasion.
Men-at-Arms: 3 gold, requires iron. These are all around good soldiers. They can be adept with a crossbow or shield and sword. Useful in every situation, but expert at none.
Militiaman: 1 gold. These are peasants who are poorly armed and badly prepared for combat. Useful if you run out of stones for the trebuchets.
There's other ways to spend your money besides on buildings and soldiers. On occasion mercenaries will become available for hire. Prices and unit types will depend on the group available to hire. Under the Diplomacy section, other options for gold expenditure is available.
Resources
Resources are pretty self-explanatory if you've read through the full set of rules so far. If one of your provinces has more than one work camp which produces the same type of resource, you can trade it. Trade can occur over land or sea, whichever you find best when concluding a trade agreement. Resource trade can occur between your own provinces or with other players or kingdoms. See above for information on what each resource is required for.
The one exception to trade is Gold. Gold cannot be traded. If you find a gold vein, congratulations, you're getting an extra 10 gold a turn in that province.
Warfare
War in the Middle Ages was often a series of long periods of boredom and disease, occasionally pierced by very short periods of much excitement. Seiges were the only reliable way to force an enemy to surrender and that will be reflected within this NES. If your enemy decides to hole up in his cities or castles and wait for relief from elsewhere, you have to choose whether to storm the citadel and have heavy casualties, or wait him out. Seiges will be able to go on for multiple turns and will make for realistic warfare. Battles, when fought, can also decide the fate of the province or even the kingdom.
Use your own creativity when it comes to warfare. That's the best advice I can recommend.
Diplomacy and other Arts of Intrigue
As implied eariler, there are certain aspects of diplomacy which can cost money. This includes the hiring of thieves or assassins to cause your rivals trouble. The price of the thief or assassin will depend on the target and distance from your home province.
Overall diplomacy acts in about the same way it does with other NESes. However, this NES introduces marriages between families. It is possible to inherit another player's realm via marriage. However, a marriage between families is the best way to seal an alliance or friendship, especially if a healthy dowry is provided by the bride's father.
Once more, I recommend you use your own creativity in the realm of diplomacy.
Orders and Updates
Orders can be sent via PM or posted on the thread. My one request regarding orders is that the title of your PM includes TMWWBK so as to not confuse it with TWTUD.
Updates will also be done a bit differently. Instead of providing a map with each update, the map on the front page will be updated with the conclusion of each turn.
Well that about finishes things up. Let the best man win!
Once more I present a "mini" NES to occupy my downtime between The World Turned Upside Down updates. This departs from my usual genre of NESing as I am turning to a more ancient time. This NES will also have randomness involved, mostly out of nessecity towards the rules. For a rare occasion, some portions of the NES will be completely out of my own control and left to the experienced hands of Lady Luck. This NES will not be available immediately following this post, as it is a work in progress.
The original design for this NES was to be presented upon the NES Forum at Strategic Command Center. However, my efforts there fell apart due to a lack of time and conflicts with the World Turned Upside Down. I hope to avoid conflicts with this NES, as updating will be far easier. There will be no mass research or 4-hour updates for this NES. The events of this NES will revolve around only the actions of the players. There will be only three NPCs and should a player quit, his faction will be completely eliminated.
The locations and names provided for the terrain in the NES are stolen from a variety of sources and references which some of you may be aware. I promise that only a minority of the names in this are original creations. For those of you who recognize the references and names, congradulations, you're as bad a nerd as I can be.
Further rules and information will be provided as the NES is further fleshed out.
Story
Welcome to the land of Sen! Sen is a collection of islands not unlike the British Islands of our own time. There are three kingdoms which dominate the islands, Arathor, Kenethica, and Rtor. These kingdoms have often found themselves at war for superiority of the islands. As of now, the lands are at peace, but knowing the history of the lands, this cannot be for long.
The islands of Sen are divided into a variety of provinces, and the three kings who rule the nations entrust leadership of the provinces to nobles and knights. These nobles and knights often have their own ambitions and some may even aspire to the crown. However, only one could possibily unite the kingdoms and create a single Kingdom of Sen.
Rules
Objective: Losing and Winning
The objective of the players within this NES is to be the sole King of both islands of Sen. You can achieve this through outright warfare, duplicity, and diplomacy. The NES will continue until there is only one nation standing and one player on the throne of the united kingdom. The methods of achieving the throne are completely up to you, within the limits of the rules.
There is one certain way to be eliminated from this NES. If all of the members of your noble family are wiped out through war, plague, or other nasty deaths, you are immediately removed and your lands return to the control of your kingdom's monarch.
Set Up
The following is how you set up your noble family as you join the NES. There are no NPCs to join as, and you must start from scratch. Should a player leave his faction, they will disappear completely and not become NPC. To choose your starting province, keep in mind the nation you are part of and the resources and terrain of the province you are owning. You may only select a starting province which is not a capital and not under the control of another player.
Also, when detailing your family history, do not give the head of the family children or other relatives. Those will come as the NES progresses. Also, each player will begin with 1-3 children already born, who will be given random ages under 12 years old.
Family Name:
Starting Province:
Heads of Family: Husband and Wife names
Family History (optional):
Sample Family Stats
Trollbane Family
Head of Family: Lord Danath Trollbane (39)
Family Members:
Lady Tabetha Trollbane (wife, 38)
Sir Jonathan Trollbane* (son, 17)
Provinces: Tiras
Gold per turn: 25
Gold: 25
Army: 100 Men-at-arms
Navy: 10 Galleys
It's Good to Be the King
At the onset of this NES, the three kingdoms are ruled by three NPC families. These families will always be NPC and will only be removed as the monarchs through military might, diplomatic intrigue, or the end of the family line. These are at the start, the strongest factions. They control all provinces which are not taken by players. To be added with this, kings have special abilities in regard to the NES.
Kings can grant provinces to lords as rewards for good service. They can also grant titles, knighthoods, rights of marriage, and good hard cash for loyal vassals. As all players will initially be vassals of one of the kings, keep this in mind.
On the other hand, kings will also be allowed to take provinces away from families which have proven themselves inept, disloyal, or cowardly. Kings can call for tribute from lords and if a lord has been particularly rebellious, can call upon the rest of the kingdom to crush that family.
Kings will also assign tasks to different lords to help improve the kingdom overall. Completing or failing these tasks will raise or lower the satisfaction the king has with your family, respectively. If the king declares war on another faction, he will often call for reinforcements from the families of his realm. Answering this call and fielding a strong force will also gain you favor with the king.
As the title of this NES implies, it is possible to become one of these reigning monarchs. As a monarch you may do any of the above actions, including rewarding with provinces and declaring war. You can become monarch through right of marriage (discussed below), seizing power through support from a majority of nobles and military fight, or by being the sole family remaining in your kingdom. You can also become a monarch by declaring yourself independant of your monarch. However, this can have dire consequences.
Even if you reach the lofty position of king of your nation, your task is not over. To win this NES, you must conquer all three of the kingdoms of Sen.
Vassalage
Now, I realize NESers are overall a belligerent, stubborn, and generally uncooperative bunch. That works moderately well in large scale NESes like The World Turned Upside Down. However, this NES revolves around diplomacy and subservience. At the start you will not be the top dog in your kingdom. Remember who's on top or you may find yourself being knocked out early.
Family Matters
The family is the heart of this NES. You can count on complete loyalty of your family members and they will be the backbone of your policies, militarily and diplomatically. The Head of Family is the person who technically owns the land and soldiers of your family. The relationships mentioned in the stats are in relation to this character.
Your characters can grow old and die, or even die of disease or accident. Therefore it is always wise to select an heir. It should be mentioned here that to own land and be considered an adult in Sen, a person must be over the age of 14. The family member with an asterisk by the person is the current heir to the leadership of the family.
The personality and actions of the family members is up to you. If the head is a noble accountant and stays at home doing figures, that's up to you. If the head is a warmonger who attacks everyone, that's also up to you. The occupations and positions of the various family members within the kingdom will emerge as time goes.
To mention, there are honorifics, such as Lord, Duke, Earl, or Sir. These will imply certain positions within the kingdom and if a character has a title, they have some standing with the king. Once more it should be mentioned that only family members over 14 can recieve titles or land.
Then we have the issue of sex. Children can and will be concieved and born throughout the NES. This will happen randomly, and I will not accept lewd orders involving conception. If you want certain names for children, I'd recommend sending me a list of boy and girl names you'd prefer.
Making Money
Making money is the only way to really gain power within the kingdom and cash allows for purchasing of military forces and so forth. More details on spending money will be provided in the next section. Money can be made through trade and deals with other players. Cash can also be recieved from your king as reward, or in some cases, as a loan. The most stable method of income is taxes and financial benefits from work camps and towns in your provinces. The amount recieved from each is thus:
City: +15 gold
Cities evolve from villages and are by far the best source of income. Only villages built in fertile land can evolve into a city.
Gold Work Camp: +10 gold
Iron Work Camp: +5 gold
Gold, Iron, and Stone Work Camps are those which are built in mountains. If you choose to build a camp in the mountains, the resource gained will be made default to stone, though if you're lucky you could stumble upon a gold or iron vien in the mountains.
Lumber Work Camp: +5 gold
Lumber Work Camps can of course only be built in a forrested area. These allow for the construction of ships in addition to the five gold recieved.
Village: +5 gold
The Village is the heart of medieval society. It is here that grain is distributed to the people and is the center of the manoral economy. Villages can collect fish, grain, and all the nessecities of life. These are not counted as resources but merely keep your people alive.
There are other ways to make money. You can trade for gold from other players for resources which they may lack. Another option is raiding. You can launch an invasion of other provinces (not always that of another nation) and steal some gold. You don't even have to be at war with that nation. Hell, if you've got a grudge against someone else loyal to your king, you can perhaps steal a little of their gold from them. Just be warned, raiding the king's province would be a very bad idea for a noble not prepared for a civil war.
The king of your nation will sometimes provide loans or gifts of cash depending on your actions. To stay in character for the times, I'd also recommend giving cash as a dowry if one of you daughters is getting married to another lord. Sure it's a loss of cash, but it'll make you look good and maybe you'll get a friend out of it.
Spending Money
You've made some money through taxation or other methods. Now it's time to spend it. The majority of your spending is on military purposes, though work camps and village centers can be constructed as well. For villages, castles, and work camps, it makes it easier if you point out where you want it on the map, but if you lack the skills to make fine art like my maps, then just saying "build a castle in ______ province" will be enough. I will determine the best location for whatever building you choose.
Some of these things require resources to build and these could be acquired through trade or localized resources. If you lack the resource in the province, you can't build the building or soldier. Here are the costs:
Castle: 500 gold, requires Stone to build
Village: 250 gold, requires Lumber to build
Work Camp: 50 gold, must have mountains or forest in your province to build (Note: If the Work Camp is built in the mountains, the resource gained will be random, with Stone being the most likely, Iron the second most likely, and gold the least likely)
Trebuchet: 25 gold, requires Lumber to build. This is the seige equipment needed to bring down walls and conduct a seige of cities and castles.
Galley: 20 gold, requires Lumber to build. This is the only naval unit available. Needed for transport and cross-sea warfare.
Knight: 10 gold, requires Iron and at least one city. These are the ultimate soldier of the middle ages. These are the most heavily armored and well trained fighters. They can act as an ultra-tough foot soldier or heavy cavalry, it's up to you.
Engineer: 10 gold. These are the heart of a successful capture of a castle or city. Engineers allow tunnelling, local construction of smaller seige weapons, and so forth. A very useful person to have.
Longbowmen: 5 gold, Requires Lumber. These are soldiers trained from birth to use a longbow, the deadliest ranged weapon in medieval war.
Scout: 5 gold.These are light horsemen usually armed with a bow. Recommended if you're launching an invasion.
Men-at-Arms: 3 gold, requires iron. These are all around good soldiers. They can be adept with a crossbow or shield and sword. Useful in every situation, but expert at none.
Militiaman: 1 gold. These are peasants who are poorly armed and badly prepared for combat. Useful if you run out of stones for the trebuchets.
There's other ways to spend your money besides on buildings and soldiers. On occasion mercenaries will become available for hire. Prices and unit types will depend on the group available to hire. Under the Diplomacy section, other options for gold expenditure is available.
Resources
Resources are pretty self-explanatory if you've read through the full set of rules so far. If one of your provinces has more than one work camp which produces the same type of resource, you can trade it. Trade can occur over land or sea, whichever you find best when concluding a trade agreement. Resource trade can occur between your own provinces or with other players or kingdoms. See above for information on what each resource is required for.
The one exception to trade is Gold. Gold cannot be traded. If you find a gold vein, congratulations, you're getting an extra 10 gold a turn in that province.
Warfare
War in the Middle Ages was often a series of long periods of boredom and disease, occasionally pierced by very short periods of much excitement. Seiges were the only reliable way to force an enemy to surrender and that will be reflected within this NES. If your enemy decides to hole up in his cities or castles and wait for relief from elsewhere, you have to choose whether to storm the citadel and have heavy casualties, or wait him out. Seiges will be able to go on for multiple turns and will make for realistic warfare. Battles, when fought, can also decide the fate of the province or even the kingdom.
Use your own creativity when it comes to warfare. That's the best advice I can recommend.
Diplomacy and other Arts of Intrigue
As implied eariler, there are certain aspects of diplomacy which can cost money. This includes the hiring of thieves or assassins to cause your rivals trouble. The price of the thief or assassin will depend on the target and distance from your home province.
Overall diplomacy acts in about the same way it does with other NESes. However, this NES introduces marriages between families. It is possible to inherit another player's realm via marriage. However, a marriage between families is the best way to seal an alliance or friendship, especially if a healthy dowry is provided by the bride's father.
Once more, I recommend you use your own creativity in the realm of diplomacy.
Orders and Updates
Orders can be sent via PM or posted on the thread. My one request regarding orders is that the title of your PM includes TMWWBK so as to not confuse it with TWTUD.
Updates will also be done a bit differently. Instead of providing a map with each update, the map on the front page will be updated with the conclusion of each turn.
Well that about finishes things up. Let the best man win!
