Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
FORGE OF CIVILIZATIONS
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Pre-Update 0 theme; click to listen.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias, 1818.
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Pre-Update 0 theme; click to listen.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias, 1818.
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Welcome to Forge of Civilizations.
Planet Earth. So familiar, yet so unknown, so uncharted, so unbound from history. Let’s see what Earth can become. Join as your very own culture, have it embark upon the sea of history, shaping the world as it wishes until it meets its eventual doom.
This IOT is a grand narrative IOT that seeks to chronicle a feasible history of an alternate Earth. Players participate in building their own cultures and governing their societies throughout a simulated history. A feature is that societies collapse; this is not a game of Age of Empires. Everything may rise and fall at the whims of history, but do not worry too much about the collapse: What’s important is the achievements during your heyday, the sweet taste of history's fickle favor, and the cultural footprint that your society may leave for the future. Everything can be a butterfly effect; I seek very much to have the interconnected nature of culture featured in the IOT, meaning that your values and ideas may shape things you never thought possible.
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Rules
Players participate as sovereign societies, be they tribes, nomads, states or nations. Players act as the Zeitgeist of these societies, managing their economies, military endeavours, cultural policies, and so on. The societies are enabled and limited by their respective society stats, which feature a lot of factors such as religious values, available money, military quality, efficiency of administration and all other things a state bothers with during policking. In this game, all stats are qualitatively handled, even the stats featuring numbers, I will make no calculations at any point during the game. Also, as always, some luck is involved. I will handle everything qualitatively, and carefully, using my analytical skills and real-world knowledge to procure history at the best of my abilities.
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Stats
This is the stats format:
Rome: Angst
Age: Mediterranean iron age
Government: Oligarchic republic. Individual people from wealthy families are elected to rule in the senate. A complex of checks and balances exists, attempting to preserve stability and prevent corruption, although it has recently been failing due to the increasing power of generals.
Infrastructure: Effecient bureaucratic institutions in all areas. Particularly advanced infrastructure with broad access to fresh water. Roman roads connect the whole nation. Participation in military allows for social mobility through granting of land to veterans.
Culture description: Latin majority rule with compliant Etruscans and Gauls in the north and disenfranchised Phoenicians in the Carthage area. Uses the Latin alphabet. Religiously heavily inspired by the Greek pantheon and values.
Economic revenue (reserve): 56 (143)
Army: 8 legions, 1 archers 1 light cavalry, 2 cataphract
Navy: 5 fleets
Military description: Has the most powerful and advanced land military of the whole Mediterranean. Navy is mediocre but stalwart.
Additional notes: Originally a city state on the Italian peninsula, Rome has expanded quite a bit recently, and especially succesful wars in Gaul has made some patrician families particularly powerful.
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Stats explanation
Society (player): society name (player name)
- The society in question, and the player who plays it. If the nation is free to play, there is no player string.
Age: description
- An approximation of the technology of the society. Descriptions of each technology group will be present on Page 1; I will not write "bronze age" here but rather stuff like "Chinese bronze age", "Harappan imperial age", "European renaissance" as 'ages' are usually region specific; some societies never really went through what we understand as the bronze age, for example. Every instance of "string stats" basically outlines how this nation in question varies from the default technology group description.
Government: description
- A short description of the government and the details of its current workings and stability.
Infrastructure: description
- A description of your particular set of bureaucratic administration and infrastructure. Details about particular areas of resource allocation and trade goes here too.
Culture description: description
- A detailed description of the cultural going-ons, be it artistically or socially, outlines the "default" ethnic group and the ethnic groups that aren't assimilated into the society, the religious beliefs and values of the people.
Economic revenue (reserve): value (value)
- Simply outlines your revenue; how many Economy Points (EP) you earn each turn, and your reserve; your unspent EP. EP is basically your money, it’s the base unit for any action you might want to take. The reserve is the amount of EP you have this turn to spend. You can spend less, which leaves the rest available for you to use next turn. But you can also spend more: If you do so, you must note in your orders where that money comes from; it may be tax increases, loans, raiding or pillaging, and so on. However spending more than your reserve will most probably cause some issues that you need to solve during your next turn. For success in your decisions, you should pay EP for any action you do; attacking another society needs supply lines; establishing new trade lines could have shipbuilding; even making a decision in your government requires paying or bribing your bureaucrats. Again, EP is the base unit for any action you might want to take. Use it for everything.
Army: list
- Your army. Different unit types, strengths and costs will be listed in the rules. Some unit types are only available to certain technology groups or cultures. The legion unit in my example stats would only be available to Latin societies.
Navy: list
- Your navy. Same rules as the army rules apply.
Military description: description
- An outline of how well-trained, well-equipped (or, on the other hand, poorly developed) your army and navy is.
Additional notes: description
- Anything about the going-ons in the society that would be relevant either historically or at this very moment.
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Update policy
The game is ordered in turns called Updates, each turn spanning a period of time, which is always a year minimum. For each Update, each player must send orders to me over CFC Private Messaging, describing what that player’s society does during the Update’s time period. Updates should be formatted properly (see below), as I want clear information of what’s going on, good formatting gives you mod karma. Also, you shouldn’t go too much in detail in your orders, neither cultural affairs, policking or war strategies. I don’t want to parse long, dense orders. If you want to go in more detail with your affairs, write stories (fiction or nonfiction) in the thread, and link to those stories in your orders. Those texts can be anything, they can even be images or music that you create. Good or interesting stories gives you mod karma to a reasonable extent; it could be argued it increases your “luck”, but not in an unfeasible way. Also, don’t hold back a war story because you want to surprise attack an enemy: because the world is handled at a macro level, OOC knowledge of what the other players do isn’t going to help you one bit.
The time period covered for each Update varies. We will have two kinds of turn progression: normal time and extended time. During normal time, which is the default, we’ll cover shorter periods of time each turn, looking at history unfolding in detail. But for Update 0, and certain other turns, we will see extended time Updates. Here large periods of time pass over just one turn. The intention is to experience history in detail but also to be realistic and move through eras so we’ll make it through history at a reasonably pleasant and interesting rate. At the end of each Update, I’ll give you a notice if we do extended time for the next Update.
The initial culture applications define the approximate statuses of your cultures by the equivalent of 4,000 BC. Update 0 will cover the time period 4,000 BC-3,000 BC. Then each update will cover about 50 years for a while.
Of course, before anything else can happen, we need to create cultures.
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Orders
You may format your orders as you like it, but only the following format is mod-karma-guaranteed:
PM Title: AngIOT ; [YOUR SOCIETY NAME] ; Turn [# THAT THE ORDERS ARE FOR].
PM Content:
[Spoiler with your stats]
New stories: [Links to the stories you have written since the last update]
Spending: [List of each of your actions with respective EP allocation]
Action details: [Indepth description of each action inquiry. Fill if details are needed for any of your actions]
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Examplary orders
PM Title: AngIOT ; Rome ; Turn 3.
PM Content:
Spoiler :
New stories:
Story about the new gladiators in the Grand Colosseum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14057704&postcount=26
Story about a Roman trader in Persia:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14056901&postcount=21
Spending:
1: 20 EP into beginning the construction of a Grand Colosseum in Carthage
2: 40 EP to train 4 new legions
3: 20 EP into maintaining supply lines for the prolonged war in Gaul
Details:
1: The colosseum would be majestic, made of marble, and oversee the central temples and libraries of Carthage. The idea is to please the Phoenicians and make them feel more appreciative of Roman rule. The best gladiators will be celebrated as folk heros, visited by the patricians and given exotic prices.
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Creating a culture
When you create a culture, fill the following template:
[Culture Name]
Starting Location: [draw your culture's whereabouts on a map, then upload it and link to it here. Important! For Update 0, you may only create cultures in the red and orange cradle areas. Red is rich, orange is less rich. The green Yucatan will only be accepted as a cradle if at least two players start there (Sorry Tolni; but you can take inspiration from Mesoamerican culture to create your own in any other cradle; it's improper to import real world cultures for this IOT anyways.) After Update 0, you may only create cultures in white areas on the map.)
Structure: [Add a description of your people’s political and social systems: how the culture is organized, how it functions]
Lineage: [How do your people trace descent - When you're born into your society, who do you consider family? Who considers you family? Who inherits what; how is inheritance structured socially or politically? Are there any religious reasons for your hereditary ideal?]
Values: [What do your people believe to be the most important human qualities?]
Religion(s): [Add a description of your people’s religious ideas]
Language(s): [Add a description of your people’s language, including, if applicable, their writing system]
Mythos: [Explain the mythic origin of your people]
History: [Explain where your people *actually* comes from. Geography, migrations, political or ideological developments, warfare and so on]
Economic Base: [Give the general economic basis of life for your people]
Country Names: [Make a list of nation names for me to use]
Person Names: [Make a list of names for me to use of famous persons]
Place Names: [Make a list of place for me to use for notable places]
Props to North King for designing the template I use as a base.
This is the location of the cradles:
Spoiler :
For this IOT, I much much prefer custom cultures over the cultures of our world. Be creative and get mod karma. After Update 0, the cradles will ideally be filled with cultures, and I will craft appropriate societies from them; then players may select a society to control. Players will get dibs on certain societies, depending on how much the respective societies are designed in accordance to player cultures.
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Map legend
The map will showcase different entities through a palette of colors and gradients:
– we will use “shroud”; after Update 0, areas that haven't been explored will be black.
– the blue blob is the ocean of course.
– societies' territories will be marked by different colors on the map, similar to Europa Universalis or Civilization IV-V.
– “barbarian” territories are displayed by a gray gradient. These are territories where some sort of cultural identities exist, usually labeled by the cultures in question, but no serious statebuilding has happened. From the gray “barbarian” area, players are allowed to create societies based on the cultures that live there.
- “uninhabited” territories are showcased by white terrain. Note that humans inhabit the whole planet except Antarctica, but the cultures of these ares are considered to be undefined; this will allow latecomers to create cultures that they'd find more interesting than the established cultures.
– when discovering unexplored terrain, I might place NPC cultures or societies if no player does it.
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Creating a society
Whether you create a new culture and establishes a society at the same time, or establish a society from the gray “barbarian” areas already present, you should use the following template. Note that new societies aren't as powerful as already established societies, and the societies that are established fresh from white, “uninhabited” territories are the weakest of the bunch. Initially.
When creating a society from a culture, this is the template you should use:
[Society name]
Starting location: [draw the society's whereabouts on a map, then upload the map and link it here.]
Cultural foundations: [describe the makeup of established cultures that shape the foundation of this society, details are needed only if you deviate significantly from your cultural foundations.]
History: [what made this society surface from “barbarism”?]
Organization: [describe how the society is politically organized, details are needed only if you deviate significantly from your cultural foundations.]
Economic base: [describe what makes the society survive/become wealthy]
Particular values: [again, deviations, describe your society's deviations from the cultural foundations listed above]
Particular cosmology: [this is more oriented towards the society's beliefs in regards to philosophy, religion and other thought paradigms that would be important.]
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Army and navy units
This isn't really important right now and will be filled out by Update 0 when you will have use of knowing the prices for soldiers. I wanted to get the thread done.
UPDATE: I have begun to do some preliminary work for military.
All military units will have two stats: a strength score, an endurance score and a morale score. I might reduce the complexity to just two stats - combat and morale - before Update 1. We'll see.
Again, I'm a qualitative guy. The stats are approximate values, they are displayed for you players to showcase how each unit type compares with other unit types in general. The Military description stat is much more important than the base numbers to decide the outcome of combat.
EDIT: Finally made a table. I might find the unit distinctions useless before Update 1, this list will probably end up with Levys-Infantry-Cavalry-Ships to easen the rules burden; as military descriptions will explain each army composition and quality anyways.
Levy A collection of ordinary, untrained folk such as peasants using simple weapons and tools as weapons. If you have a working draft system, you may buy them for 1 EP. Poor (1) Normal (2) Rabble (1) 2 EP 1 EP
Warriors Soldiers with military training and an assortment of early martial weapons. The bulk of ancient warfare. Normal (2) Normal (2) Disorganised (2) 4 EP 2 EP
Spearmen Trained soldiers with long spears, particularly effective when in formations. Poor (1) Durable (3) Disciplined (3) 5 EP 3 EP
Swordsmen Armored soldiers with significant training to master swordsmanship. Heavy armor makes them fatigue easily however. Strong (3) Burdened (1) Disciplined (3) 6 EP 3 EP
Archers Ranged supporting troops often incorporating skilled hunters of their state. Particularly effective against shieldless soldiers, poor fighting capabilities at close quarters. Ranged, poor (1) Normal (2) Disorganised (2) 3 EP 1 EP
Slingers Ranged supporting troops that aim very accurately at short range. Poor fighting capabilities at close quarters. Short ranged, normal (1) Normal (2) Disorganised (2) 2 EP 1 EP
Chariot archer Earliest cavalry unit, utilizing the mobilility of the horse to stay out of melee range. Early chariots' movement suffer tremendously in rough terrain. Only available if you have horses. Ranged, normal (1) Durable (3) Disorganised (2) 5 EP 3 EP
