erez87
Lord of Random
- Joined
- May 16, 2002
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ErezNES – Waves of Civilization
Welcome
To my first NES in a very long time. I have been wanting to start a NES for ages. I have been toying with us-states NES, Nessos, space NESes, special stories I made up and eventually I decided that the simplest idea for a new starter is this – a world fresh start.
So welcome and I hope we will enjoy this until we reach update million.
RULES
Story-based:
This NES is after all a story. You may not be a great writer, and I don't expect you to be, I'm not. But I expect people to develop some sort of personality to their nation, to their people, to their leaders. This will not be a color bubbles expanding NES. Random expansion itself will be mostly useless or impossible.
Since this NES is story based, your religion, your government, your stability and everything else will have influence on your nation. If you are a nation where the people elect leaders – the people will be the ones electing, and not you. If you are in a highly religious closed society, there will be attacks on minorities with no influence from you. Your country will be alive. Give your people a good personality – or they may not like remaining blocks in your empire.
Since the NES is more story-oriented there are things that can happen that go beyond the rules; like a large army rising out of some nation without that nation having the powerful economy to hold it. It won't be a stable army, but it can happen. Militias will exist, and fight for you (or against you in rebellion) with no connection to your supposed military forces.
One last thing. No single nation lasts forever. Migrations, invasions and losses happen. Deal with it. If you created a powerful culture and gave a strong personality to your people, they will live on, and you could continue your culture, albeit with changing states and leaders.
Economy:
The NES will not be pure story based. People won't be able to tell the story of how they hired a million mercenaries and conquered the world. The game part of the NES will be mostly based on economy and the ways you spend your income to expand your nation, your people, your culture etc…
While spending economic points will be purely gamey, receiving them will depend on a mixture of game and story. Economy will flow through the world, your people will be able to manage their lives on their own. Farmers will farm whether you tell them or not, but they will not give your state a share if you don't tell them, they will sell their products themselves. States eventually take taxes to manage the big things – an all your economy will basically be how much you take away from your people's production. That amount will influence economic growth as well. Too much and your economy may suffer, too little to the people and the growth of inequality might just lead you to lose your head.
And what to do with your taxes? Farmers may farm, but a group of farmers will never build state-wide irrigation systems required for higher development. They won't build roads across the entire nation. Even major ports will not usually appear without any government direction. Standing trained and equipped armies sure won't appear to stabilize a nation on their own (but mercenary, pirates and barbarians may…
In the end the economic stat will be simply a number of available points to spend. That number will include all income from all areas of state (taxes, trade, less nice ways of gaining cash) but will not include ANY spending, not even the upkeep of your nation. You are tasked with caring about your nation spending. Upkeep will be given to every stat you have, and it will be your choice to pay it, close it, or suffer the consequences.
In brackets will be your bank or…
One small thing – there will be deficit spending. But it won't be a healthy thing. In the second brackets will be your debt. You CAN bank and have a debt at the same time. Debts will have interest.
Civil Stats:
Descriptions of your nation. It will almost always have your nation's name, your government type, your state religion. At times it may keep your rulers… depending on the current time scale.
A special stability stat will take your entire nation into account and it will have 3 levels. Unstable (bad), Stable (normal) and Hyper (good, but can turn bad). For most of the time your nation will probably remain stable but look at this stat for it can change so fast when you go conquering your neighbors.
Another special, sad, but required in my opinion for gamey reasons, is a technological era stat. For the early ages it will be Bronze and Iron, but it will go a bit crazy and may even separate the world into different technological eras for each part of the world. We all start on the Bronze Age. There will be NO, and I mean NO, influence on this stat from the players.
The movement between technological eras will be depending purely on me, and the story and on historical basis (a nation rich in Bronze does not want to be in the Iron Age). New Eras will usually bring some instability as the old economic situation is quickly changing, and some may be left behind…
Military:
This is the third time I am attempting to create a decent military system that is both realistic and fun.
The bare bones of every military are the basic untrained masses. The militia act as the main part of any state's military. They are practically the town watchers, the border guards, the agents, the bodyguards of elites, basic garrisons of castles and forts, the basic guards of camps. Out of these masses everything is trained, including the trained forces of your standing military, if one exists, and the different men who man the ships at sea.
Your militia are also normal people – they are practically a major part of your male population and are required each planting and harvesting season to work in the fields if you do not want to have troubles on your hands. So abusing your militia for constant year-long warfare outside your borders will be very harmful to your economy. You also just cannot pick up men across your state and throw them somewhere new to settle, not like that. Also training massive amounts of your militia into standing forces will take those men away from the fields, so either allow your standing armies to return to fields seasonally, find other food sources (yes using your men to pillage works), or just don't train a standing army that is too big (about 10-20% of your militia is a good boundary).
So who can we use for fighting wars without risking our lives? The trained, the equipped and standing forces, or keeping to fighting seasonal wars if you want a trained militia (think citizen Hoplites). Standing armies will be highly trained and equipped, and will usually be made of excellent and powerful elite forces capable of taking on many militia all on their own. One downturn will be that standing forces will be extremely expensive. Another downturn will be that the more you use elite standing forces the less effective your militia would become, but using few elites will make your militia more important and used – and so more trained, but still having their usual problems (seasonal fighting).
Most of your population will usually not just sit a side when attacked, the women, even if allowed to wield weapons, will not be a part of your military (at this time they have to raise their dozens of children and feed their babies) but will fight to defend themselves in wars. So will the slaves. Militia can also become rebels, or pirates or bandits, if your stability is low and your people unhappy.
The Map:
I love maps. They are probably my favorite part of NESing. The map will show as much information as my mapping ability allows. Nations will have their colors, and there may even be actual borders as time goes by. Population will be marked by small dots for rural population concentration, a bit bigger for a more urban population and big dots for major population centers, usually marking the most central city of them all, but sometimes it will really be just a lone huge city. As time progress and population grows massively, this will change somewhat (not every city with more than 10k people will be marked! Sheesh!).
I will mark major battles with a small X, and I will marked movement of really large armies that cannot possibly hide.
Major trade routes (and highly important minor ones) will show on the map as well.
Religions will also show on a map as they grow and expand. Everything will have its influence on the map, and most likely – eventually – there will be several maps on the front page.
Example state:
Susan/NPC
Absolute Monarchy
Religion: Polytheism
Age: Bronze
Stability: Stable
Economy: 3 (0) (0)
Military: (10 units available); 2 Temple Guards (-2)
Projects: Rural Roads (2/5)
All in all, if you ever played a NES you will understand most things. Any question you have come to me.
ErezNES – Waves of Civilization
Welcome
To my first NES in a very long time. I have been wanting to start a NES for ages. I have been toying with us-states NES, Nessos, space NESes, special stories I made up and eventually I decided that the simplest idea for a new starter is this – a world fresh start.
So welcome and I hope we will enjoy this until we reach update million.
RULES
Story-based:
This NES is after all a story. You may not be a great writer, and I don't expect you to be, I'm not. But I expect people to develop some sort of personality to their nation, to their people, to their leaders. This will not be a color bubbles expanding NES. Random expansion itself will be mostly useless or impossible.
Since this NES is story based, your religion, your government, your stability and everything else will have influence on your nation. If you are a nation where the people elect leaders – the people will be the ones electing, and not you. If you are in a highly religious closed society, there will be attacks on minorities with no influence from you. Your country will be alive. Give your people a good personality – or they may not like remaining blocks in your empire.
Since the NES is more story-oriented there are things that can happen that go beyond the rules; like a large army rising out of some nation without that nation having the powerful economy to hold it. It won't be a stable army, but it can happen. Militias will exist, and fight for you (or against you in rebellion) with no connection to your supposed military forces.
One last thing. No single nation lasts forever. Migrations, invasions and losses happen. Deal with it. If you created a powerful culture and gave a strong personality to your people, they will live on, and you could continue your culture, albeit with changing states and leaders.
Economy:
The NES will not be pure story based. People won't be able to tell the story of how they hired a million mercenaries and conquered the world. The game part of the NES will be mostly based on economy and the ways you spend your income to expand your nation, your people, your culture etc…
While spending economic points will be purely gamey, receiving them will depend on a mixture of game and story. Economy will flow through the world, your people will be able to manage their lives on their own. Farmers will farm whether you tell them or not, but they will not give your state a share if you don't tell them, they will sell their products themselves. States eventually take taxes to manage the big things – an all your economy will basically be how much you take away from your people's production. That amount will influence economic growth as well. Too much and your economy may suffer, too little to the people and the growth of inequality might just lead you to lose your head.
And what to do with your taxes? Farmers may farm, but a group of farmers will never build state-wide irrigation systems required for higher development. They won't build roads across the entire nation. Even major ports will not usually appear without any government direction. Standing trained and equipped armies sure won't appear to stabilize a nation on their own (but mercenary, pirates and barbarians may…
In the end the economic stat will be simply a number of available points to spend. That number will include all income from all areas of state (taxes, trade, less nice ways of gaining cash) but will not include ANY spending, not even the upkeep of your nation. You are tasked with caring about your nation spending. Upkeep will be given to every stat you have, and it will be your choice to pay it, close it, or suffer the consequences.
In brackets will be your bank or…
One small thing – there will be deficit spending. But it won't be a healthy thing. In the second brackets will be your debt. You CAN bank and have a debt at the same time. Debts will have interest.
Civil Stats:
Descriptions of your nation. It will almost always have your nation's name, your government type, your state religion. At times it may keep your rulers… depending on the current time scale.
A special stability stat will take your entire nation into account and it will have 3 levels. Unstable (bad), Stable (normal) and Hyper (good, but can turn bad). For most of the time your nation will probably remain stable but look at this stat for it can change so fast when you go conquering your neighbors.
Another special, sad, but required in my opinion for gamey reasons, is a technological era stat. For the early ages it will be Bronze and Iron, but it will go a bit crazy and may even separate the world into different technological eras for each part of the world. We all start on the Bronze Age. There will be NO, and I mean NO, influence on this stat from the players.
The movement between technological eras will be depending purely on me, and the story and on historical basis (a nation rich in Bronze does not want to be in the Iron Age). New Eras will usually bring some instability as the old economic situation is quickly changing, and some may be left behind…
Military:
This is the third time I am attempting to create a decent military system that is both realistic and fun.
The bare bones of every military are the basic untrained masses. The militia act as the main part of any state's military. They are practically the town watchers, the border guards, the agents, the bodyguards of elites, basic garrisons of castles and forts, the basic guards of camps. Out of these masses everything is trained, including the trained forces of your standing military, if one exists, and the different men who man the ships at sea.
Your militia are also normal people – they are practically a major part of your male population and are required each planting and harvesting season to work in the fields if you do not want to have troubles on your hands. So abusing your militia for constant year-long warfare outside your borders will be very harmful to your economy. You also just cannot pick up men across your state and throw them somewhere new to settle, not like that. Also training massive amounts of your militia into standing forces will take those men away from the fields, so either allow your standing armies to return to fields seasonally, find other food sources (yes using your men to pillage works), or just don't train a standing army that is too big (about 10-20% of your militia is a good boundary).
So who can we use for fighting wars without risking our lives? The trained, the equipped and standing forces, or keeping to fighting seasonal wars if you want a trained militia (think citizen Hoplites). Standing armies will be highly trained and equipped, and will usually be made of excellent and powerful elite forces capable of taking on many militia all on their own. One downturn will be that standing forces will be extremely expensive. Another downturn will be that the more you use elite standing forces the less effective your militia would become, but using few elites will make your militia more important and used – and so more trained, but still having their usual problems (seasonal fighting).
Most of your population will usually not just sit a side when attacked, the women, even if allowed to wield weapons, will not be a part of your military (at this time they have to raise their dozens of children and feed their babies) but will fight to defend themselves in wars. So will the slaves. Militia can also become rebels, or pirates or bandits, if your stability is low and your people unhappy.
The Map:
I love maps. They are probably my favorite part of NESing. The map will show as much information as my mapping ability allows. Nations will have their colors, and there may even be actual borders as time goes by. Population will be marked by small dots for rural population concentration, a bit bigger for a more urban population and big dots for major population centers, usually marking the most central city of them all, but sometimes it will really be just a lone huge city. As time progress and population grows massively, this will change somewhat (not every city with more than 10k people will be marked! Sheesh!).
I will mark major battles with a small X, and I will marked movement of really large armies that cannot possibly hide.
Major trade routes (and highly important minor ones) will show on the map as well.
Religions will also show on a map as they grow and expand. Everything will have its influence on the map, and most likely – eventually – there will be several maps on the front page.
Example state:
Susan/NPC
Absolute Monarchy
Religion: Polytheism
Age: Bronze
Stability: Stable
Economy: 3 (0) (0)
Military: (10 units available); 2 Temple Guards (-2)
Projects: Rural Roads (2/5)
All in all, if you ever played a NES you will understand most things. Any question you have come to me.
