Pre- orangeNES: FFHRemixed?

I had an inspiration for a new NES a few days ago, and after working on it off and on I've hacked together a workable prototype. My goal is to take the general "FFHNES" style and add my own personal flair. (To those that may not know, "FFH" stands for Fall From Heaven, a mod for Civ. There are currently three FFH NES's in some stage of play: one is active, one is on hiatus, and one is in development.) Before I go any further, I want to mention that I intend this to be a summer project of mine, for my own enjoyment. It will not be intended to last longer than that. Also, since this is for my (and hopefully, the players') enjoyment, it will be quite low-key. It's just for fun, and any potential player shouldn't worry too much about how much time they can spend on it, how good their writing is, ot whatnot. I ENCOURAGE NEW NES PLAYERS; I LIKE TEACHING LITTLE ONES. Anyway...

Like I suggested to Immac in FFHNESII, I thought that having individual characters working as active participants in the NES was a neat idea. Immac agreed, and implemented the nicely working system there that, to me, has added a lot to the feel of the NES. Among other idea, I would like to take that "character" concept and extend it further. Immac did a good job, but this NES will be designed from the ground up to include characters as active participants. Of course, "regular" nations will be there too, and what I plan to have happen is a sort of character NES within the greater NES. There will be lots of interaction between the two, but the characters will have quite different objectives than nations will and overall the "feel" will be different for players at each "scale" of the world.

The other major change from the formula FFHNESI, FFHNESII, and KolNES are taking is to start the NES "mid-game". If those NES's were random maps, this NES is a scenario - so everyone starts out with more than a warrier and a settler. There will hopefully be little to no "buildup" stage, and though not everyone will start in equally advantageous positions I'll try to let everyone get in the action to start with. To advance this goal, I'll be tossing out techs and revamping the FFHNES-accepted money system to make it population-based instead of improvement-, trade- and resource-based.

I will not allow players to pick what exact nation or character they would like to be, but I will allow them to choose which list they'd like to be on. And no, a person can't be both, they must be either a character OR a nation. In general, the characters will be more story-based, while the nations will have more stats to play with. First option at each will be given to previous FFHNES players, then to previous NES players, but I promise any newbies out there that I will try to keep a slot or two of each kind for you guys. I'll wait at least a couple days before deciding who's in and who's what (wait...), but in the end it boils down to first come, first served.

Knowledge of Fall From Heaven lore is nice, but not necessary. You'll eventually have to get a little acquianted, but that's not a big issue to me. I just want to see how much interest there is right now, and solve the other problems later. If you are interested, check out the FFH forums here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=190.

Charles Li - nation
merciary - character
vruchten - nation
thomas.berubeg - nation
Ekolite - nation
hbar - character
Sepuku - character
Seon - character
Immaculate - nation
MasterofDisasta - character
Tyrs - character
Haseri - character
TheJopa - nation
TheForestAuro - nation
Northen Wolf - nation
Kyroshill - character
Diamondeye - character

With Daris as backup.

Svartalfar (thomas.berubeg)
Leader: Faeryl Viconia
Government: God Queen
Queen Viconia is the center of Svartalfar life. =Her every will is faithfully enforced out of Love... and fear. for her secret police is EVERYWHERE.
To assist her, she has a council of Generals and elected officials.

Balseraph (vruchten)
Leader: Perpentach
Goverment: Monarchie
Perpentach is the mad king in Jubilee. But mainly he is just giving some random ideas as orders to his crowd of ministers. Those then try to make the best, not to fail. Because failure means arena...

Malakim (Immaculate)
Leader: Varn Gosam (he's likeable enough)
Government: despotism with strong nationalistic, even fascist ideology
(mod note: fascists are people too...)

Kha'zad (Northen Wolf)
Leader: Bronz For'kan
Government: Council of Factions
(mod note: your leader is named Bronze Fork? That's hilarious...)

Ljosalfar (Ekolite)
Leader: Amelanchier
Government: Military State
As a result of a military coup a short while ago, the Summer Queen has been executed for weakness and Amelanchier, her general, has seized the throne of Summer. Immediately he disposed of the Aristocrats who had been running the country, and while they still control small Forest Estates they have had their power dramatically reduced. Amelanchier's commanders now act as Warlords, controlling vast swathes of forest, where the peasantry and nobility alike are extorted and drafted into warfare. The Capital of Evermore has been mostly converted into a giant training camp for spurting out seemingly endless regiments of troops. It's craftsmen, once jewellers and carpenters, now make weapons and war machines for battle with the Svartalfar menace.

Still need three more, people! Charles Li, TheForestAuro, and TheJopa - I've called you out.

This is a major departure from the previous FFHNES's. My goal was to simplify and streamline the process a little bit, mostly so that I have less to deal with since there are more players. Like all good things, it's deceptively simple.

I don't want to have to dig through the numbers of the following example and correct them, but I've finalized the people-to-gold ratio. 2500 people will give you one gold. Again, cities provide 10, and most UF's provide some gold as well.

Essentially, your entire economy will be based on one thing: population. Every territory will have a population assigned to it, and the gold you get from that population is a multiplier of that. So, for instance, assume you have a total national population of 13455 people. Every 1000 people (or something like that; I'm still playing with the numbers) gives you 1 gold, so your "base" income is 13.5 gold.

Now, there are a couple other things that add into that. Some Unique Features will add in an extra bonus on top of that. So, let's say our hypothetical nation owns the Remnants of Patria, for another 10 gold. You're up to 23.5 gold to play with.

Finally, there is a final modifier that comes into play: Productivity. Depending on events, your nation's general level of civilization, wars, and the like your productivity can rise or fall. Thus, if our above nation was, say, in the middle of a civil war, the final total could maybe be multiplied by .75. Thus, your final total becomes 17.6, which gets rounded off. Think of it as the “stability” modifier that exists in so many NES’s: You want it to go up, and to do that you want happy people, safe lands, cool buildings, religion, etc.

Now, that's fair enough. Where it truly becomes interesting is in how your population can change. There are a couple ways - first, most territories will grow a percentage of their population every turn, depending on what's happening in the area (plagues, good harvest, etc.). However, conquest also increases your total population. Drafting units, while not actually removing the citizens, does remove them from your active economy and thus they don't count toward your income.

Gold isn't just useful for military. I will not release a specific list of buildings or improvements you can buy, but if someone wishes build a defensive line, improve their food production, train their soon-to-be-drafted population or something like that I'll be willing to listen, and work something out. THINK CREATIVELY, WRITE A STORY, and COMPLAIN A LOT - and you might be surprised at what you end up with.

Perhaps the most important part of gold is that it can be traded, whereas population can't. That extends to units, as well - I'll allow selling or renting of units, but only bought ones, not recruited ones. There is one exception to that - the Hippus, which shouldn't be any great surprise. Their population still has to stay at home, but their drafted units can be hired as mercenaries.

A little more subtly, I'll be making gold inviolate once banked. Stored gold cannot be taken from you, under any circumstance. Invading nations may recieve gold, but it will be at the cost of killing a whole bunch of your citizens, not by taking gold you're already gained.

So, to summarize, there are basically only two resources you'll ever need to keep track of: population and gold. Population is vital - it not only produces gold, but can be directly traded for military units. You can't go wrong with trying to get a larger population. Gold is useful because it's flexible - you can use it to do neat things a simple population can't do - and because it's "safe". Plagues, wars, and the like cannot affect how much gold you have stored, but you can't depend on your population staying at what it is. Also, unlike population, gold can be traded.

I pretty much ditched this idea. Too much micromanaging - what I think I'll do instead is include list every turn that ranks the civs based on population. It'll still give everyone a rough idea of where they stand, without giving away too much info on military or even economic strength.

As for reconaissance units, they will be used to see what your enemies' armies are up to. I'm thinking I might steal Immac's idea, and have recon units get their orders earlier. However, being the devious bastard I am, I will also probably make them easier to detect and decieve. Even so, a properly scouted enemy will be easier to defeat than an unknown one, so you'll likely want to be sending scouts around despite the risk.

UF’s exist for many reasons. First of all, I think they’re cool. Second, many of them offer monetary bonuses to whoever owns them, and may also improve your productivity modifier. There may also be other, “hidden” advantages as well – some of them will improve military quality of certain units, or increase population growth, or something like that.

Most interesting, though, is that UF’s are closely tied to random events. Nearly every UF can be destroyed or used in some fashion, and the effects that destruction can take will be varied and powerful. Characters can destroy/use them as well as nations, so they also serve as a connection between the two “levels” of play.

Not every nation starts with a UF, and there's no guarantee that I'll tell you the location of any. You'll have to hunt for them, or hope to get lucky.

The only hints I'll give are that there are 10 UF's, they are all from the mod, and they are all in more-or-less "lore-appropriate" locations.

Cities exist to help me balance things a little to start. Each city adds 10 gold to the owner, as well as the population that exists in it. Guard them well, or attack them fiercely. Remember, though, that they are static points of defence, so battles for cities will turn out to be rather bloody for both sides, in general.

The Wall, which exists as the border around Erebus, is a pseudo-Unique Feature. It gives no gold, cannot be destroyed, but it may factor into random events someday and, is someone is creative enough, it can be interacted with. It's just going to be really hard to do.

There will be some other pseudo-Unique Features. There are a couple of defensive lines scattered around to start, and it's possible for nations to create other capturable, destroyable, or otherwise interactive toys. Some of them may even be able to gain UF status, if they're expensive enough or fought over enough.

There are two ways to get a military: spending gold, or drafting your citizens. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Spending gold is easy: you pay it out, and you're done. Units that are bought are considered to rise out of the ground, so they will not affect your population count - yes, that's a cop-out, but for balance reasons a necessary one. There are no maintenence costs, either. The only real disadvantage to this sort of recruiting is that you need the gold in the first place.

If you don't have the gold, you're going to have to draft citizens instead.

Drafting, on the other hand, is slightly more complicated. You can't simply draft your entire population - obviously - so there is a % draftable modifier that limits how many you can draft. This value has a pretty wide range among the various nations, and can change over time.

Now, just because a given person can be drafted doesn't mean he's very useful. Most people have no more knowledge of fighting other than "avoid pointy things", and there is a mechanic to represent that. Your skilled units will have a % With Skill modifier - what this indicates is the percent of your draftable population that can become this unit.

There's a lot of modifiers involved, so here's an example. Suppose your nation has 100,000 people, and three units they can draft. Let's call the units Militia, Heavy Militia, and Super Militia. Your % Draftable is 20%. Militia are your "base" drafted uniit, Heavy Militia have a 25% With Skill, and Super Militia have a 10% With Skill.

Out of your 100,000 people, you can draft 20,000 (100000*.2=20000). Now, of those 20,000 people, all of them could in theory become Militia - as your "base" draft. However, only 5,000 (20000*.25=5000) can be Heavy Militia. An additional 1000 can become Super Militia (20000*.1=1000). Thus, out of 20000 people, 6000 of them have some useful skills to allow them to be more than simple Militia.

Thus, with drafting, you can begin to see a couple disadvantages. First of all, there's still a basic limit on how large your amy can be - but it's generally higher than what your gold limits you to, at least in the earlier game. Also, a drafted army has a limit on your level of skill - purchased armies, in theory, can consist solely of top-tier units. The main disadvantage is that when you draft people, they no longer provide any gold to your economy. It's a sort of "hidden" maintenence cost, that purchased units don't share. They will, however, still count towards total population for growth purposes.

Remember, once you've created a unit, you CANNOT un-create it. That's no big issue for bought units, but drafted units can become a huge drag later on in the game.


I’m planning on seven rough military disciplines: arcane/religious, ranged, siege, infantry, cavalry, reconnaissance. Some nations will be roughly equal quality among them, others will greatly specialize, and some will have cross-discipline units.

Arcane: Weak if not protected by other units, but capable of magic. Highly skilled units can literally defeat armies singlehandedly, but you'll need to get lucky to do so. Religious units are sort of included here; they differ from normal mages in that they have no control over what they cast. However, they also raise morale and assist in healing, so even though their actual magic may be slightly weaker it's a good idea to have a few.

Ranged: Better in large numbers, and best when combined with defending melee units. A combined-arms approach is perhaps best with them.

Siege: This is a "catch-all" category for war machines. Some nations don't have any, while others have basic supplies for attaching walls. A couple nations have well-engineered machines that are absolutely deadly in the open field.

Infantry: Grunts. You'll almost always want some infantry, whether as arrowcatchers or the backbone of your force. Generally cheap, too.

Cavalry: Only a couple nations have mounted units worth mentioning, but those nations have a great advantage. Cavalry is not only faster, they're more effective than infantry. They are a little more limited by terrain, and vulnerable to well-guarded archers, but the advantage of some mobile cavalry cannot be underestimated.

Recon: In my NES, recon units are hybrids. They're a combination of "pure" reconaissance troops, and skirmishers. While you do not, in general, want to make an army out of only recon units having a few along can't hurt.


In case you can't tell, I am a strong proponent for combined arms. Now, I'm not going to tell you that the best army is one that includes one of each kind of unit; it's not, that would be stupid. Most nations have a specialty in one or more of these genres. However, I would suggest that you try not to have large armies of only one kind of unit. An army of 10 infantry will almost certainly lose to an army of 7 infantry, 1 archer, 1 mage, despite the differences in size. Thus, specialize, but don't forget about having a few of the "weaker" types of units along too.


Oh - and don't worry about sea combat. Only the Lanun have combat ships. If you want to cross the sea, make sure you make friends with them first.


EXPLANATION OF UNIT STRENGTH:


A unit's strength is computed from five numbers: base quality, experience, luck, morale, and other. A higher total value is better.

Base quality is out of 10, and will probably be the number with the most effect. This is a property of the unit you've made.

Experience can only be gained from combat. It caps out at 5. It will generally start at zero - although as always, there are a couple excpetions to that rule.

Luck is based on the RNG, with the best you can get being a 2.5.

Morale is an army-wide quality that can range from -5 to 5.. All your units will be affected by low morale, so be wary of drops! Most nations will start at zero for this value, but not all. To affect this, you'll need to be creative, spend gold, or simply keep winning.

Other will let me account for whatever I forgot. Most notably, some UF's will add to specific units' strength - random event modifiers will probably end up here, as well.

Should a unit be damaged, their Strength will go down in direct proportion to the amount they're hurt - you lose half the unit, you lose half your Strength.


Now, the tricky bit about strength is that it's not the be-all, end-all to combat. It's an indicator, a baseline that I'll work from. The actual battles will also include the tactics you used, the types of units that are fighting and a great deal of luck. Still, a strong enough army can probably bull through anything. Probably.

While they will exist, their only importance is to me as the moderator. Territory borders – and thus, national borders – are very fluid, and ill-defined to boot. Thus, you can get extra population without having to capture an entire territory, and the same goes for UF’s and cities.

Another point to make is that I don’t expect territory borders to be inviolate. Moving armies are pretty obvious, but recon units are skilled enough to travel mostly unseen. Even larger armies can get pretty far within some nation borders without being caught out. The mere presence of an army can have an effect on borders, and that effect will carry over to population. The actual amount will be small, but doing some of those little things can result in big effects later.

Actually, the only thing that happens to large armies moving into or through other's lands is that I tell the owner about them. Citizens won't rise up against mysterious armies, although enemy armies may be hurt by attrition in some cases. Thus, if you think you're strong enough to move your armies through another's land without permission, go ahead.

Also, it’s possible to alter territory borders peacefully. Some nations will get more influence as they succeed in their goal, and good stories also influence where I place your borders. Random events can do this as well, and so can character actions.

I encourage these, always. Any order is better with a story, posted if possible. You are allowed to keep them "in reserve" for a while, and you can also have me post them if you'd like. Still, a story unread is worse than a story unwritten, so get them out as soon as you feel comfortable.

Unlike the characters, nations will not be able to use stories alone to create an effect. Stories amplify, not create - you'll still have to spend gold, population, military, productivity or draftable % (think of that as civic love...) to actually do anything.

Remember, though, that characters' stories take precendence over yours.

The update time is going to be about a year in duration. It's not perfect, since the growth rates of nations are going to be a bit unrealistic, but it works better from a story and combat perspective.

That update time translates to distance your armies can travel. The easiest way for me to do this is using real distances on the maps I've created (they're both the same size).

Individual characters, with no followers, can travel roughly 2 inches (10 cm) on the map. That's a little further than the distance from Golden Leane to Jubilee. Characters with <250 followers, or cavalry armies, can travel about 3 inches (7.5 cm). That's from Golden Leane to Kwythellar. Infantry armies (or large character followings) can go 2 inches (5cm), or from Golden Leane to Cevedes. Dwarves, or seige-intensive armies, can only go 1.5 inches (3.75 cm), or from Cevedes to Kwythellar.

Water travel is a different ballgame. All travel on water can go about 10 inches (25 cm), or from the Grecan Isles to Celo.

These distances can be increased with good roads. Also, armies that have to fight lose at least an inch (2.5 cm) of travel per major battle. Swamps, deserts, unfamiliar forests, jungles, and ambushes also slow travel considerably.

Also, remember that Erebus has no seasons. All weather, both good and bad, is a product of the Wall - not astronomical phenomina. That's not to say it's always perfect weather, but with the end of the Age of Ice (and the death of Mulcarn) winter is now officially extinct.

As for the "real-time" length of updates, I have no idea as of yet. In a perfect world, I'd try to maintain weekly ones like Immac - more realistically, I'll probably settle for biweekly, like Jopa used to do. There are a lot of players, but hopefully the characters will require a minimal amount of writing via updates, making it simply the amount of time it takes to write about 8 nations.

Let's start with my intentions for what a "character" will be in this NES, since the idea is (to my knowledge) pretty new to the genre.

My goal for characters is to have them be a full half of the NES. Instead of focusing on a national level, though, the character players will instead take follow the life of a single person (or, in one case, a small group of people), and how that person interacts within the world the nations are creating. Obviously, these characters aren't going to be average Joes, but people of minor standing, unique skill, or some other odd circumstance to make them important. Still, while your character is a singular individual, remember that you aren't a head of state, and are still limited in scope and power.

You primary method of interaction is going to be pure story-writing. You will end up getting some kind of abbreviated stats, but the main thing I'll be looking for are some good stories that show how your person(s) have worked within the world. Try to be realistic, here - I'll want everyone to run their character stories by me before posting them - so that you don't just declare "I walked into a city, all by my lonesome, and killed 10000 people". No, you didn't. However, if you write a story telling how you killed one person who happened to lead a powerful faction within that city, while disguised as a rival faction member, I might just well take that as inspiration for an event that leads to 10000 dead people.

My goal is to devise the system in such a way that the nations have nothing to offer you. You'll be free to talk or whatever, but for the most part the nations will have very limited control over what you do. Sure, they may issue a warrant for your arrest or death, but that will be rather tough to accomplish in most cases. Realistically, a single person can be damn hard to track down. You might end up losing most of your followers or something, but unless you have bad luck or the nation does a spanking good job you'll probably live to see another day.

Anyway, the point is, while you can greatly affect the nations the nations will, perhaps, have less effect on you. Don't get me wrong, they will affect you. The nations will have their wars and peaces, migrations and exterminations, grand civic plans and improvements - these will mainly serve as a rough backdrop for what you are allowed to do. If someone raises an army, perhaps you will manage to sneak yourself in as a common soldier for a while; if someone else starts trying to round up and kill all their redheads, perhaps you will decide to work on creating a resistance movement.

Each character will be based off of three (well, four) stats only: Followers, Equipment, and Strength Equivalent (or SE). The sort-of fourth one is your base strength, which is a "hidden" value in the SE. Now, not every character will have all of these - you'll all get a SE value, but some won't have (or want) Followers, or be able to get Equipment. The main difference between your stats and the nations' is that character stats are based less on definable numbers. Nations pretty much boil down to population, which I can easily track - characters, on the other hand, will get higher stats mostly from "mod rewards".

Followers will be gained from a lot of things. First, the more your character is "in the open" - i.e., the better they're known - the higher your chance will be to gain followers. Second, some characters have better relations with people of specific nations, and while staying in those nations' land they get more people than if they were in an enemy's land. You can try to convert people to your cause, you can enslave people, you can hire people with Equipment, etc.

Followers will carry certain skills with them. You may, for instance, get a troop of scouts, or a small cult of priests, or some skilled archers, or... well, you understand. These can then be used within stories, or within combat orders if you're forced into that. They also can serve as people to die instead of your character, in some situations. Note that, should your character die, it's possible that your followers will try to continue your cause for you.

Equipment is harder to get, but cooler. This could indicate a couple things - both singular weapons like Orthus's Axe, as well as a general level of weaponry among your followers. To get it, you either need to steal/take it from someone or somewhere - although it may also serve as reward for completing your goal, doing something that I personally thought was awesome, or for absolutely nothing at all. Some characters will start with equipment, as well. Having more followers may also indirectly change your equipment, as will the nationality or your followers. Orcs will probably be stronger followers, but less well-equipped - whereas dwarves are usually heavily armored, but a bit weaker to compensate.

The cool part comes in with the "special" equipment. Some of it will be from the mod, some of it will be my own custom creation, and all of them will have effects other than a simple strength boost. Your character might not know what those effects are, but they're there. To get this stuff, you'll most likely have to encounter another character, find a Unique Feature, or so something so mind-boggling that I feel obligated to give you one.

Note on equipment: if your character becomes diseased, crippled, or otherwise weakened that will be factored in here.

Strength Equivalent is where characters start to interact more with nations. Followers and Equipment mean nothing to nations - SE does. Should a nation attempt to attack you (or vice versa), SE is the first indicator of how that effort will go. Luckily for you, nations will have no idea what your SE is. Even if your SE is low, though, remember that battles depend as much on orders as overall strength, and that your stories usually take precedence. If you say you escaped, you probably did, although your followers are most likely dead and your Equipment lost. Character/character fights will be more interesting, since then you'll be combating on an equal footing.

SE is based on a couple things; more followers will help, more equipment will help, and your character will have a base strength as well. For most of you, your SE will be tied very closely to your amount of followers, but there are exceptions.

Note, that having a higher SE or more followers doesn't imply that you're doing "better". More followers makes you more open to influence from nations, and a bigger target overall. The SE helps offset that a bit, but remember that a nation almost certainly has more resources than you do. A single person is much tougher to find, kill, and/or capture than a small army, no matter what TV may say differently.

Also, raising more followers can eventually lead to you becoming something like a nation by yourself. I mentioned that earlier, but it's worth saying again. Becoming a new nation is exciting, but you will almost certainly arise as the weakest nation. Try it if you want (or if it's your goal...), but remember the risks.

1) I must see everything and approve of it before it's posted. I'll try not to make anyone's hard work go to waste, but I also want to make sure everything is appropriate, fair, and within the bounds of the NES.

2) No superheroes. I'm not talking about being a good guy, I'm saying that no one is invulnerable. Many characters will be skilled, and tough as individuals, but you're still only one man. Don't attempt the impossible, and if you ever wonder "would I actually be able to do this?" ASK!

3) Be consistent. When we first start, I'll allow a person to alter my initial vision of the character a lot - you'll write an intro story, detailing your past, and showing a little of your morals or whatnot. However, once that's done, I don't want to see a sudden, drastic change in your goals. Unless you can justify it somehow to me. Small changes are OK, and in fact encouraged - people change, after all.

4) If you like to keep secrets, do so. This isn't a rule, so much as an offer. Some players will be content to let everyone know who they are; others may not think that is such a good idea. If you wish, I can post stories on your behalf on the forum to preserve your secrets. However, every story must be posted.

5) Respect the timeline - both your own, and the nations'. Don't try to change things that already happened. I will, however, allow stories about your past if you wish to write them, so long as they are obey rule #3.

6) Have fun. Be imaginative, try to surprise me, and do your damndest to tick off the nations. Your whole existance is based on the premise that you'll create interesting situations, and help keep the world "alive" for the rest of us.

7) Commitment. I'm not a terrible stickler on how much time you should or should not put into these things, but I do require that you put some time into them. I don't yet know what update times will run, but I will probably kill your character off if he, she, it or they have not done anything for more than an update or two. It doesn't have to be much, but I recommend that at the very least you keep moving.

8) I may kill you. I apologize in advance, but this is dark fantasy, and no one is immune to a violent end. I won't let any player be truly removed if they don't want to be, but you may have to switch to another character before the NES ends.

9) Use other's inspiration. If a nation writes a story and describes a good situation, person, or other idea you like, borrow it. Try to use the character or whatever as the original story-writer would have intended, and be respectful of the originator. A note here: character stories will generally take precendence... so you may be able to kill off nation's characters, if done right.

I always enjoy pictures, so I made sure to include a map right away.



Yes, I used Paint, and yes, I understand that the lines aren't filled completely. The damn thing leaks resolution fo some reason, and there were other issues, and I liked the effect anyway.

Here's a basic legend:

Solid blue = water!
Speckled brown/red = mountains
lines = coast or starting territory boundaries
purple = Sheiam
dark grey = Sidar
light green = Hippus
peach = Balseraph
purple-ish bit below them = Amurites
light blue below them (#1) = Doviello, separate from Bannor, and a boo-boo I just noticed
yellow = Malakim
dark blue = Lanun
light purple/pink = Kuriotates
dark green = Ljosolfar
light gray = Svartalfar
bronze/brownish = Khazad
straight brown = Luichirp
orange = Clan of Embers
light blue (#2) = Bannor
off-grey-brown-island bit = Grigori

# civs, total: 16
# of cities: 15
# of Unique Features: 10

Bolded nations will be playable. There are also two other maps I'll get to later: one shows Unique Features, and the other shows cities/major roads. Roads will matter to characters; not so much to nations. As fo UF's, well, those will remain secret for now.

In general, the NPC nations will start out a little stronger than the others; this is intentional, since the NPC nations will be getting a lot less love than the player-controlled ones. Among the player nations, there is also a pretty wide difference in relative strengths, but along with that comes a difference in immediate threat levels. The more isolated nations are, in the main, weaker - and those that start out stronger will almost certainly need the extra boost.

And map #2, with place names and no territories marked:



CURRENT EREBUSIAN POPULATION: 2,034,295
CURRENT TOTAL INCOME ALL NATIONS: 999

In Erebus, the strength of what you can do is not determined by what level mage you happen to be. Due to the rules of magic as I've interpreted them, any idiot with a speck of ability can do some pretty hefty stuff. In my view, the limit on what you can do comes with control - that's why Adept-level spells are giant climate-changers, while Archmage-level spells are summons that require a lot of control and manipulation.

Let's use the Fire sphere as a good example. The Adept spell can set an entire freaking forest on fire, while the Mage spell is a fireball. The fireball, while appearing to be weaker, is under much better control and can be used under more circumstances. You wouldn't want an Adept to set fire to your army, would you? That's why fireballs are more useful. The Archmage level is a summon, and summons require rather small amounts of very finely-tuned magic instead of lots of fire raining everywhere.

So, use this general idea as your inspiration for what you can and can not do with magic. There may be a few (very few) moderator-imposed limits for balance and safety reasons, but for the most part, I'll be going solely with this rule to determine what a given magic-user can do.

Although, I should note - religious magic is another exception here. What priest can do is pray - that's it. From there on, all they can do is hope that their god heeds them and gives them something to help out.

After a couple questions from players, I added this to make my vision of magic within Erebus clearer. First, I want to repeat my earlier claim - the general ability of mages is based not on their strength, but their control. For the most part, all people with magic ability are roughly equal in strength.

This leads to some interesting repurcussions. Most mages know a larger amount of spells than they can actually cast safely. Most mages are smart enough to never use any spells they cannot control, unless they're under duress (or just insane). This extends across magic sphere boundaries as well.

Thus, most Water mages are perfectly knowledgeable about Fire spells, and vice versa. The reason Water mages don't cast Fire spells is that they lack the experience and familiarity of the other sphere.

Now, what does that mean within the NES?

For nations, I'll be determining an individual Arcane unit's ability based on their strength. For each sphere, there are four levels: Ignorant, Beginner, Advanced, and Mastered. I'm not using the FFH labels here because I've already used them for some unit names, and I'm trying to eliminate confusion. You can invest a level of quality in a specific sphere for every five points of strength. Some units will get extra "bonus" levels; however, none of those exist just yet.

For a simple example, say you have a strength 12 Adept unit. You'll be allowed two levels. Let's assume you invest one of them into Earth. Your second level can either turn it into an Advanced Earth user, or give it a second sphere to use - it could become an Earth/Nature Beginner user.

What's better to do? Good question. I don't know. You may want a more flexible, but less experienced mage corps; on the other hand, being truly skilled in one magic sphere could be useful too. That's your choice to make.

As for spells: I'll be rather open to anything, really. Remember my general rules above, and if you've played the mod, you'll have a good baseline idea of what each level can do. If you haven't, I'll simply reiterate that you can't go wrong if you ask me, and that creativity will let you get away with a lot. Good rules of thumb: Beginners can only use the sphere in a "big" way, with much preparation, meaning that in a real-time battle situation they're slightly less than useful. They can still do a lot, but it will probably have to occur before the fighting actually starts. Advanced users can use the sphere without preparation, so they can actually fight in battles actively. Masters can summon, and perform the really "tricky" stuff.

On the character/story-writing level: Remember my general explanation of what I see magic to be in On Magic, part I. If you're unsure, ask.


About the spheres: this is lore-related information; I'll try to post it here in a day or two, when I have time to copy-paste it from somewhere. If I'm really motivated, I may also post the "default" spells that FFH provides for the spheres.


One last thing: there may be other limitations on magic that I haven't thought through yet. For instance, use of the Ice sphere will most likely be limited, and Chaos mages will probably have some special things involved with them as well. Some of the less... "compatable"... spheres might not be allowed for the saem unit.

On the Kuriotates:

On the Amurites:


On the Clan of Embers:


On the Sidar:


On the Lanun:


On the Luichirp:


On the Sheiam:

The Wall is what exists at the edges of the world. In most areas, the Wall is isolated by mountains or fog (if at sea), but there are a couple places where it becomes easy to walk up to it. Most notably, the Hippus lands exist right next to it, and the Lanun hold some lands that do so as well.

No one knows the exact shape of the Wall - some think it's a circle, others a perfect square, or various other designs - but the Wall is the boundary of Erebus. Looking at it is a wonder - it appears to be a perfect mirror, streaching from far underground to the clouds. No one has ever touched it; not because of a force field, but because people simply forget that they wanted to. No matter who you are, no matter how prepared you are, you will simply not think to do it. Ever. Animals seem to have the same reaction.

Many have tried to circumvent this law of nature, but none have succeeded. Any action that could possibly result in a living being contacting the Wall simply cannot be done. Pushing, throwing, riding, blindfolding, magically befuddling - all have been tried, and all have failed. Curiously, nonliving objectsand most types of plants can contact the Wall. When one of these is thrown, it appears to go into the Wall while the mirror image comes back out. Claims of areas where thrown objects simply disappear occur frequently, but none have been definately proven to exist.

Even more oddly, the Wall seems to create weather - it heats and cools, blows air away or sucks it in, and does other mystical things. Mages claim that they do not sense magic in it; religious types state the reason for that is because the gods dictate that no magic be seen.

Reasons of it's creation and existance abound, with some people even revering the Wall as a god in itself. The only common thread is that the Wall serves as a divider between this plane of existance and the god's vaults; other than that, nothing is known for certain.

Erebus is full of many conscious races, some of which are quite secretive, and some that are quite rare. This only covers the four "main" ones, with a special side-note on the Kuriotates.

Men are, by far, the most umbiqious of the Big Four. They extend everywhere, including within the traditional "elven" and "dwarven" nations. In these places, they tend to stick to themselves, with minimal interbreeding. Still, they are as loyal as anyone is to the nation who's borders they lie in.

Men don't have any particular advantages, really. They are rather unique in that they can, in theory anyway, breed with any race that started with a human base - which pretty much excludes only the dragons. However, that, uh, "talent" is pretty rarely used, and the resulting halfbreed takes after the non-human parent in ability and becomes indistinguishable from a fullbreed.

Elves are most dense within the forests of eastern Erebus, although they can also be found in several other forests as well. In theory, every elf has sworn to one of the two Crowns; in practice, the ones outside of the Umbrawood and connected forests are essentially neutral, and follow the orders of whatever nation they lie within.

Dwarves are much more centralized. They do, supposedly, exist in large numbers in their underground homes - no one not of dwarvish blood has ever confirmed this, though. They are only really found within the valleys passes that streach from Duck Point to the Zephyr Jungle, and come in two main "flavors". The Khar'zhad are those that claim to have risen from the Underholme, and are slightly smaller and lighter-skinned. The Khar'te say they have always been Surfacedwellers, and are larger, darker, and generally stronger. While the Khazad are composed of only Khar'zhad, the Luichirp contain both types - although the Khar'te are a strong majority. There is no small amount of friction between the two groups, as well as some between Khazad Khar'zhad and Luichirp Khar'zhad.

The final group, orcs, are reviled by all others. Luckily, the orcs hate back just as much. However, there is a small problem with labeling them a fourth race - they are virtually identical to a human. A newborn orc looks the same; a child orc looks the same; even teens and young adults look the same.

Now, a casual observer would look at a fully-grown orc and say, "what the hells are you talking about?" This is probably due to the boney protrusions that stick out of their body, and the generally greenish or orange coloration. Those who undertake some magical study of this, however, have found that these are easily created artificially, or even accidentally through application of rogue magic. The question is not likely to ever be sastifactorily answered, though, since no one has ever lived long enough to investigate an orc and prove it.

There are other races, more than half a dozen living ones at last count. However, they are quite marginalized (either voluntarily or otherwise) through most of Erebus. The exception to that is, of course, the Kuriotates. Most of the minor races hold no small amount of power there, and two are especially prominent: the Lamia and the centaurs. These two races have managed to take good control over the military and mages, respectively - although humans, as always, exist there too.

Economies are ruled by trade, and Erebus is no different. Whether nations are at war or peace, goods and money will continue to move throughout the lands. From trade comes taxes, and from taxes comes the gold nations dearly love to spend.

Most trade on Erebus is carried over water, since it's much faster, cheaper, and generally safer that way. There are a couple landlocked cities, and these usually survive only because of natural resources (Khazak), tradition (Cevedes), or military reasons (Thariss). Most cities, though, are created because of the trade that goes through them, so they lie on coasts of rivers.

Because of these tendency toward water trade, roads between nations and cities are not very well kept. They exist, but more closely resemble cart-paths than properly engineered roads. A few nations have managed to create decent roadways through their nations, but these as a rule do not extend past their own borders and usually don't last much longer than those nations do. There are a couple of exceptions. (Let's see how many of you actually read these...) Two of the old Patrian highways yet exist: one that rises from the sands of the Sand Desert and heads north, close to Cevedes, to Centaur's Battle - and the second, which goes from Fallenvale to the Zephyr Jungle (and, coincidentally, is the major travel way through Khazad lands). These have survived the Age of Ice miraculously well, and could serve as a basis for a new road-based trading empire or, perhaps, routes of conquest. Roads make armies move faster, as well.

However, for now, trade comes mostly from ships, which are all pretty much controlled by the Lanun. That makes them powerful allies, or terrible enemies - or it would if the Lanun could bother to unify at all. They almost always prefer to stay neutral in wars and continue to get money from both sides instead of actively warring.

A note: trade would be more of an effect on your productivity stat than the amount of gold you get per population. I'm going to keep gold/person constant, so worrying about trade only matters to your productivity value. It's not quite to same thing. Anyway, hopefully this gives people some ideas on how to change their productivity, although I also hope it doesn't limit them either.