The Rules
This set of NES rules is an extension and enhancement of the rules for BirdNES: The New World which were written and then rewritten several times over the course of that NES. Those rules, and this subsequent incarnation of them, were developed in conjunction with many NESers and are a product of their insight and my own preferences. The Forge of Empires rules were written for a fresh start NES not based on earth, but could be easily adapted for other games.
You will be playing a “black box” style of game. The limited stats that are posted represent a far more complicated set of stats and computations that are not accessible to players. The posted stats should be sufficient to provide you with an understanding of the state of affairs of your nation. You might notice a similarity between the stats used in these rules and those of das’s latest set. That is not an accident. The “black box” aspect has a variety of implications for game play. Players will represent the leadership of their nation and direct their nation through orders. As you will see as you read the rules, that there are very few “do this to get this result” situations in regard to changing stats or improving your nation. As the game begins, each nation will have similar stats and similar underlying assumptions and formulas that create the stats. Over time, though, as players shape their nations, their spending and policy decisions will begin to change those assumptions and formulas. In essence, each nation will develop its own set of stat calculator formulas. The stat calculator is designed so that if any part of it turns out to be “squirrelly” or unbalancing, I can tweak that aspect of it and not have to go back and declare a rewrite of things mid game. (I hope).
Many of the stats are connected to others so that spending or policies that affect one area will also have an impact on others. Diversity is a good example. As it increases (through conquests and such) it will tend to destabilize your nation and make it prone to rebellion and break up. At the same time, it will increase your progress through the technology tree as new ideas and ways of thinking are introduced. In addition, you will find some new ideas to help you guide your nation. Each nation has index scores that allow you to compare your army or navy to those of the other players. The key cities of a nation (ECs, TCs & RCs) are auto generated. Their growth tracks the growth of various aspects of your economy and culture; they cannot be directly “purchased” as in other games. Nations with lots of ECs or TCs will be strong economically. If you capture or destroy those cities in an enemy nation, you will weaken their economy. However, if you capture an EC or TC, you will not gain it as one of your own unless your new acquisitions sufficiently improve your economy that a new EC or TC is auto-generated.
The economic model for these rules is rooted in two areas: a nation’s domestic economy (what takes place inside a nation’s borders) and its trade economy (the transactions connected to imports and exports). Those two economies generate both taxes and corruption which determine how many EP are available for spending. You may wonder how to grow a nation’s economy in a game where you cannot directly buy growth through increasing ECs or TCs etc. It is simple
you just do what any government would do: you spend your EP on the things that you think will generate economic or trading growth and you set policy on matters that are important to you. The way trade works will be described in detail in the trade section of the rules.
Spending and Policy is where the hidden stats come into play. I have built in enough (I think) places to apply player spending that pretty much anything you want to do will have a place. Each of those hidden stats will affect the stats you see. Some effects will be visible quickly; others may take time and multiple investments. For example, if nation A is a coastal nation, it might want to spend EP on fishing and related skills and infrastructure, where nation B is landlocked and wants to improve roads and farming techniques. Each can do so even if the stats for those are not visible. Growth in food production (via either fishing or farming) will tend increase population which will, over time, increase a nation’s domestic economy. I can also adjust the rate at which such things create economic effects, so if you think carefully about how you want to spend your EP, you can try to build in long term “bonuses”. This is one way that each nation’s stat calculator may change over time. Physically, the individuality of each nation is achieved through a different spreadsheet for each nation; I can adjust each nation based specifically on a player’s orders.
Governmental policy will also have an impact on both play and stats. If a player adopts specific policies that affect their nation, I will work them into the stats. For example, if a player sets a policy of racial or ethnic cleansing, then I will build that into the assumptions for diversity and population growth. I have tried to build in two ways for players to change their various stats: spending and policy. Spending will usually be shorter term while policy changes or direction will be slower and longer term. Policy statements and changes will be an important part of order writing just like spending. Policies can be instituted without spending EP.
Government Policy
Policies are broad governmental positions on topics that you as leader choose to identify as important. Policies do not cost EP to put in place or maintain and are only limited by your imagination. Policies are a good way to shape your nation, but to increase the number of policies you are allowed, you will need to invest in improving things related to government: Civilian Leadership, Bureaucracy, and government practices. While policies can be about almost anything a player think up, the number of polices that are permitted at any one time will be governed by progress through the Government practices tech tree branch and the previous levels of investment in government oriented items. Here are some examples of policies:
• Universal education for citizens
• Tax exemption for the rich
• Local rather than national responsibility to maintain infrastructure
• Economic and social discrimination against all non state religions
• Favored nation trading status for nations in our home cradle
• Mandatory military training for all males under 25
• Citizens of any conquered nation must convert to our religion
Every nation starts with capability to issuing one policy. In the stats it will state how many policies you are permitted to put in place. Those policies will affect the underlying assumptions that determine your stats. Changing policies will change stats. Players should think about the possible implications of policies before implementing them. Beware the law of unintended consequences!
The Stats
Like most NESes this game has stats, but in addition to the stats you see there are other stats that you cannot see. The listed stats are those necessary to be an effective leader of your nation.
Mayans/Birdjaguar
Ruler/Heir: Bird Jaguar/Smoke Monkey
Leadership/Stability/Culture: 1/1/ 6
Available Spending: Economy/Treasury: 1/7
Population/Area/Diversity: 2/1/2
Domestic Economy/Trade/National Upkeep: 3/3/0 Growing
Confidence/Corruption: 59%/36%
EC/TC/RC: 1/1/1
Maps & Charts: None
Religion/Fanaticism Level: Pagan: 2 / 1
Significant natural resources: 0 (none)
Policies Permitted: 1
Indexed Army/Navy Value: 8/6.6
UU: Honkers/Triremes
Army: 1000-I, 500-M, no -aUU (1600-max)
Navy: 10-W, 0-T, 50-nUU
Projects:
Army Costs: 1 EP buys: 1000-I, 200-M, 200-aUU
Navy Costs: 1 EP buys: 10-W, 5-T, 10-nUU
Technology: Minimally trained, lightly armored spearmen and archers; Copper Age weapons; Ships do not sail out of sight of land.
Line by line Descriptions:
Ruler/Heir: It is important to keep this information updated.
Leadership is a combination of civilian, military, & religious leadership in conjunction with education and bureaucracy. It is a weighted average that tops out at about 6. Higher is better. The weights are not fixed and can be changed through government policies.
Stability is a measure of how stable your nation is and its susceptibility to break up or collapse. Lots of things enter into this: Leadership (of all types), diversity, war, natural disasters, your economy, national confidence and even the size of your treasury (more treasury dollars helps keep things together). When your Stability gets down to 2 or less, you could be in for trouble. Any score over the “breakup threshold” is generally Ok, but sudden wars or natural disasters can cause quick drops that could have dire consequences. Higher is better and scores of 10+ are probably possible.
Culture # is a measure of the strength of your culture relative to other nations and the influence you will have over them. Higher is better.
Available Spending shows how many spendable EPs your economy generated this turn and the amount in your treasury. A player could spend up to the total of both, even if draining one’s treasury is not a wise thing to do. Taxes, tax efficiency, military support and infrastructure upkeep are applied to/subtracted from the raw economy numbers to determine your net available spending.
Population is a number used to measure how many people you have within your borders. I use it to calculate things like army size maximums, and the cost to improve bureaucracy, agriculture and manufacturing levels. With larger populations it cost more to improve those. Also, larger populations increase the size of one’s domestic economy. Population is auto calculated based on a variety of factors. I expect populations to top out at around 12 for very large nations.
Area is another important stat. The physical size of your nation will impact the population, diversity and the cost to maintain your infrastructure (part of national upkeep). It is calculated using the number of pixels you control on the map and the result is divided by 1,000 to keep the numbers manageable.
Diversity measures the variety of cultures and races and religions etc. that your nation encompasses. It enriches culture and technological progress while it decreases stability. Encompassing or encouraging diversity is most definitely a two-edged sword. Generally, the larger a nation gets, the more diverse it will be. There are no constraints on how diverse your nation could get.
Domestic Economy measures the strength of your national economy, determines how many ECs you have and is your contribution to regional and world trade. Improving things at home increases this number. If you have a very strong domestic economy, it will improve the trade scores of those around you. This number measures your economy and not your available spending.
Trade measures the volume of your foreign trade and reflects the economies of neighbors and nations connected to you through trade routes. If you are among a group of economically weak nations, your trade will be poor. Voyages of discovery and overland exploration can add trade if they find distant neighbors.
National Upkeep is the cost in EP to maintain all the institutions and infrastructure that you have in place. It goes up as you improve your nation. This is automatically subtracted from what a nation can spend. In a large nation with lots of internal improvements, upkeep can sap what it has to spend for other things.
An
Economic Growth descriptive follows the economic numbers; it indicates the state of your economy. Growing economies receive a bonus that increases your turn’s available spending. Bonuses generally range from 3-8%.
Confidence % is what percent of your people love you and feel that you are doing a good job. It is unlikely that your national confidence will ever reach 100%. If your score is less than 50% it could trigger stability problems.
Corruption % is how much of your taxable economy is slipping away out of your control. Policy and leadership levels are important in determining your corruption levels. Corruption affects your tax efficiency and national confidence. Decreases in corruption will increase available spending. It is not likely that you will eliminate corruption, but every reduction will help.
ECs (Economic Centers) are your engines for domestic economic strength. The better your domestic economy, the more ECs you will have showing on the map. Loss of an EC to war will reduce your domestic economy. These are auto calculated by the stat calculator.
Similarly,
TCs (Trade Centers) are a measure of your trade. Their loss will reduce your trade. Likewise, a loss of trade could reduce the number of TCs on the map.
RCs (Religious Centers) are also auto calculated from your efforts in religion. RCs improve your culture and National Confidence. Losing RCs weakens them.
Maps & Charts are a list of your explorations. Like in “The New World”, trade routes and voyages of discovery will be coded and listed as you discover them. Given that we have no historical model for this map, I will name them as we go along.
The
Religion stats include the name of your religion, its level of sophistication and degree of fanaticism. Their primary effect is on culture, but fanaticism can have an effect on war if high enough. These religious stats generally will be 5 or less in value.
If you have any significant
natural resource or
trade monopoly, I will list it here. They affect both trade and your domestic economy.
The
Indexed army & navy values are a measure of how your overall army measures up against everyone else’s army. Size, leadership, quality, UUs, cavalry vs infantry etc. all play a part. If your army scores a 9.6 and you plan on attacking your neighbor who has a score of 15.3, then you will likely have problems. Navy scores are similar, but calculated differently than army scores. Army scores should not be compared to navy scores, only to other army scores. These scores are overall scores and sum up many things. Improvements to your army can be made many ways; in addition to what you see in the stats, I have 15 other factors I can change that will affect costs, quality and index scores.
Any
UU is listed by name and type.
The army and navy information comes next. Your current strength in infantry (I), mounted (M) and UU are followed by the maximum size of your army. The strength of your warships (W), trade fleets (T), and naval UUs follow on the next line. In the above example the nation is not eligible (no-aUU) for an army UU and has 50 naval UUs (50-nUU), called Honkers, that are altered triremes.
Policies Permitted & Borders: this tells you how many government policies you are permitted to implement and if you have closed your borders to trade. Open borders are the default; when a nation closes borders, all trade stops.
Projects will be handled a bit differently in this game. In most games players decide what effect the project will have and the mod determines the cost and time to build. Not so in the Forge of Empires. As a leader of your nation, you will decide what monumental effort you want to make, what building or temple to build or what landmark in history you want to construct. In your orders you describe it in some detail and tell me how much you are going to pay to build it. I will announce the project in the update and when it is completed make another announcement. The results of your efforts will be left to me to decide. As a player you will be taking a small risk by investing significant EP into something with an “unknown” result. Should you build a great Naval Academy to train your captains and crews, most likely you will see improvements there, but other less obvious effects may take place. You may find ships cost less, or charting new territories is faster and easier or some unsought after naval improvement is discovered. Like life, you will be building your project without foreknowledge of what effects it will cause or the benefits it may bring. The risk averse among you may shy away from such spending leaving others to reap the benefits of blind faith in the gods. Of course some effects of projects could be less desirable. Perhaps you choose to build a great temple that attracts visitors and traders from all your neighboring countries. An increase in trade and culture might be accompanied by an increase in diversity as new ideas and ways of thinking find their way into mainstream thinking. Such things could be destabilizing. For the most part projects will benefit a nation, but players will have less control over just what those benefits are.
Army and navy costs are listed after Projects. Those may change over time and from country to country.
Tech advancement: Here I will list a descriptive of what your tech state is.
How to Spend
Spending is very easy. All you do is tell me how much you want to spend and on what. I will take care of the rest. Spend 1 EP on ships and you will get new ships. Spend it on troops and you will get new troops. If you want to improve government services, just tell me so and I will find the right place to apply your EP. You may not know the exact outcome of your spending until the update. If you want to improve your infrastructure, then spend 1 EP and see if your stats change. For a large nation it might take several investments. Depending upon the size of your nation, at some point you will see changes in your stats. My goal is to get you to think like a leader and not like a game player. Rather than worry about what it costs to get a specific result, you just tell me what you are trying to do and how you want to do it. I don’t need a lot of description, so be brief.
Armies and Navies
As a ruler you can buy purchase armies and navies. Armies are made up of Infantry, Mounted troops, in moments of desperation, Levies, and possibly a unique unit. Infantry includes all manner of melee or distance weapons including: archers, spears, swords, axes etc. that fight on their own feet. Mounted troops include those that ride things like horses, camels, elephants, chariots etc. regardless of what they are armed with. They’re your regular army and can be trained, armored, better led or whatever you dictate and spend for over the course of the game. Each nation has a maximum army size (posted in the stats). That is the total allowed for all types of regular army troops. As a ruler you can arm your troops with any available weapons and change those weapons from turn to turn. If on one turn you want to have half your mounted troops be archers and half spearmen, that is fine. On the next turn you can have all archers. I will only track the number of each type of troops. If you try to change from chariots to cavalry, you better have some “history” of using chariots in the past or your troops will probably fight very poorly.
The following
abbreviations are used in the stats: I=Infantry; M=Mounted, aUU=army Unique Unit. For your navy: W=Warships; T=Trade fleet; nUU=naval UU.
When you buy troops you will get X amount of Y type for each EP you spend. Those costs may vary from nation to nation as players make spending and policy decisions over time. Your costs are posted in your stats.
Levies are troops that you can raise on short notice to respond to some “higher calling” like defend your nation if invaded or to follow some god into holy war. Mostly, Levies are poorly equipped and not very reliable, but they will die for their cause. If you choose to engage Levies in your wars, they cost 1 EP for all you can get. In some situations, I may decide to raise Levies on your behalf and deduct the cost from your treasury. Levies disappear at the end of every update (to await resurrection) and do not contribute to your army index. A typical levy could be up to double the size of your current regular infantry strength.
In addition, you may be eligible to create a UU for your army or navy. Eligibility is based on a variety of factors related to tech progress and military matters. When permitted, players may submit a UU to me for approval and cost information. Be realistic and creative.
You may have only one UU at a time even if you are eligible for both an army and navy UU. You may discard a UU at any time and create another. Players should keep in mind that if you have a lot of land based UU troops and your nation is not very stable (has a low stability score), the situation may be just right for a coup or breakaway state.
Navies are similar to armies, but the choices are more limited: warships, trade fleets and naval UUs. The definition of a warship will vary from nation to nation and over time. Your stats will give you information about what kinds of ships you can build. You can spend EP to improve training, quality and leadership for your navy; you can also set policies related to your navy.
Trade Fleets (TF) represent an investment in supporting maritime trade. When you buy them, they spread out among all your over-water trade routes and add to your trade. TFs can be attacked by other nations or pirates; they can suffer damage from storms and be victims of war between two nations who are at peace with you. They are expensive and buying too many may not be a great idea. Their real value is to be operating over time without interruption so they pay off the investment and then the rest is profit. The more trade you have the more valuable TFs are.
Armies, Warships and Trading fleets have upkeep costs. Every 10,000 men under arms cost you an EP, as does every 50 warships and 75 Trade Fleets. These costs can be altered by spending, policies or tech advances.
Trade
Trade is the commerce between nations and a nation’s trade score measures the volume of your foreign trade. All trade takes place within the context of named geographic areas or specified named trade routes and a nation’s total trade score is calculated from the trade value of each trading area or route in which that nation is participating. For example, at the start of the game nations will only be able to trade with other nations within their cradle. Once nations make contact with one another, each will contribute to and benefit from trade across the cradle. Over time, if nation A explores and makes contact with a distant nation, B, that is not part of the cradle, then a trade route might be established between the two. Then nation A would have trade with the cradle and nation B. Nation B would gain from its contact with nation A, but not necessarily the entire cradle. As the game progresses other nations will probably make efforts to “discover” the rich trade routes started by others to reap some of the profits. The more trade routes a nation participates in, the more trade it will generate. See the Exploration section for more information about establishing trade routes.
The trade value of each area or route is calculated separately. All of the nations participating in a trading area or route contribute their domestic economy score to calculate the total value of the trade for that “route”. That total is adjusted for war, economic fluctuations and things like pirates or brigands and the net number contributes to each participating nation’s trade score. Having a rich neighbor will improve your trade. In addition, if a nation has access to a scare resource it will improve trade, as well as, its domestic economy. If you are trading with distant nations that end up in a war, then your trade with them may diminish and if the drop is severe enough, you could lose a TC until peace and trade are reestablished. Any coastal nation can purchase trading fleets to increase trade along its existing maritime trade routes. Trading fleets are considered to be spread evenly across all routes and have the general effect of increasing your nation’s trading score. Trading fleets can be lost because of war, natural disasters or pirating.
Trade does not have to be established by players. Pretty much it will be automatic once a trade route or trading area is established. If a nation chooses it may close its borders to all trade and it will cease to benefit from or contribute to trade anywhere. This is an all or nothing choice. There will not be any selective trading. If borders are closed, they may be reopened later. I do not recommend this as a playing strategy, but their might be circumstances where, in the short run, it might be useful.
Exploration
One way to spend EP is to finance explorations of the world. Such endeavors can be over land or sea. Since in most cases you will not know where your expeditions are going only general directions are needed in orders. Not all expeditions will be successful and those that are not financed will have a higher failure rate than those with some kind of financial backing. For maritime explorations, success is enhanced if your ships are capable of making the voyage in question and your crews are skilled and well equipped.
Technology
Technology will advance over time. As a player you can control the direction of what you discover, but not the pace. Technology falls into five major groups: government practices, military practices, cultural & religious practices, trade efforts and economic endeavors. You may focus your efforts for advancement in any or all of the areas. You can even designate more specific areas of interest within those broad categories. Unless you are very isolated, there may be no compelling reason to spend large amounts of EP on technology. Over time or through war, technology will spread from nation to nation on its own. Being the first to discover iron may give a nation a short term advantage, but its value will not go unnoticed and soon all the neighbors will be brandishing iron weapons. A nation that suffers from a tech deficit, if it survives, will learn to use the new technology. But technology is not just “hard goods”, it also encompasses figuring news ways to do things from organizing soldiers on the battle field or government practices to calculating longitude or engineering roads and bridges. You invest in tech by telling me how much you want to spend in what areas and even what you hope to achieve. In many ways nations will be creating an over lapping technology trees and sharing them with neighbors. In some areas there maybe techs that seem ever so difficult to learn.
Scale
Inowe is a large world. Exactly how large you will have to find out on your own, but each map pixel represents a square 10 miles on a side. You may calculate both distance and area using this scale. A 1,000 pixel nation is about 100,000 square miles. 10 pixels from A to B is about 100 miles, or the distance an ancient army can march in a week. Scale is important to keep in mind when planning war or exploration.
