Preview!
The year is 1410. Timur the Lame is dead. His army had just penetrated into Europe. Nothing was there except for abandoned cities, towns, lands with the people vanished. What could kill an entire race?
Just south of his grave, the Ottoman Empire attempts to recover from the destruction Timur wrought. Constantinople is theirs, The Byzantines who once dwelt there long dead. The Balkans lay open, ready for their colonization schemes. But can they trust their back?
Far to the west, the Alomohad caliphs have fled the death to North Africa, but are beginning to make a comeback. Their old lands in Granada and Toledo are easy enough to pick up, as are the Christian lands of Spain, but can they hold together their empire once they cross that barrier?
Not far south of that, the city of Zanj has new arrivals. Coming in enormous ships, the largest of which have nine masts and are almost 400 feet in length, fleets with tens of thousands of crew make the village folk gaze in awe and wonder, as they unload tons of precious silks, gems, and gold to give to the Muslims of the coast.
The Chinese ships themselves are pleased. The farthest south expeditions have encountered the mythic animal quiln, said to foretell times of peace, harmony, and prosperity, and these are loaded onto the eight masted horse ships to sail back to China. On their way, they dock at Calicut, a massive city that they believe is almost equal to any city in the Middle Kingdom. Onward they sail, past the shores of inventive Travancore, docking shortly at Colombo in Sri Lanka, where they have established a puppet ruler, onward to Malacca, where they have ensured its independence, and back home, home to mighty China, center of the civilized world.
China is poised to rule the world, and to perhaps send its treasure fleets even across the vast Eastern Ocean, perhaps to find the land holding the spices of immortality, which they said that Xu Fu had reached centuries ago. Perhaps they will find new kingdoms there?
In the Americas themselves, the Hodosaunee, Triple Alliance, and the Incas are ready to launch campaigns, to conquer themselves great empires.
The world has lost Europe to the dust of time, but several civilizations are ready to take their place. Can you lead your nation to glory, in the Years of Rice and Salt?
Rules:
Economy
Economy is based numerically, and increasing it takes a turn. You cannot increase anything else that turn. Increasing anything else takes an economy, setting up a trade route takes 2 economies.
You can increase two things for every economy (ex. Increasing army x2 or increasing army and navy),
if your nation has done something exceptional or is in an age of great cultural flourishing, or has many trade routes, or so on and so forth. This is a Golden Age. It is decided by the mod, and will be denoted by a * next to your stats in the country list. Note: This will be rather had to earn, dont expect taming some out of the way barbarian tribe, setting up a couple of trade routes, or increasing education a couple of times in a row will get this.
You can have more than one Golden Age, and they last until your economic supremacy or empire, or whatever caused them, slows down considerably or ends.
Trade
It was earlier mentioned that Trade Routes costed 2 economies each. What a trade route is is essentially an agreement between two countries to trade. Each of them pays 2 economy each, and this will earn them one economy every three turns. However, if you can justify to the mod (me) that a trade route is carrying especially valuable commodities, like luxuries, then it may perhaps earn 1 economy every two turns. If it is EXTREMELY valuable, an example being the Silk Road, the Portugese Voyages for Spices in the Indies, the Fur Trade, then it might earn an economy every turn.
Note: You can have a trade route through multiple countries, as long as they dont cut it off. They will also earn an economy every three turns from the route, so it is in their profit, as long as you arent their enemy.
Waging trade warfare is easy in this NES. If you know for a fact that a trade route passes by your coast, you can order your ships to seize the vessels, and as previously mentioned, you merely need give the order to halt a land trade route through your nation. If you seize a land or sea trade route, you will earn 2 credits if it is normal, 3 if it is very valuable, and 4 if it is exceptional. Note that this is a one time bonus, unless the nations running the route will be stupid enough to continue it.
Military
Military is like in many other NESes, and for one economy, you can increase it by 10,000, unless you are in a Golden Age, or merely past the early ages.
If you are in a war, you can call for volunteers, who may or may not fight. If your nation is particularly nationalist, then it may get many, if in a war of vicious attrition, none at all. You do have to call for them, though, and this costs an economy.
Who wins wars will often depend on who writes better tactics in their orders. Strategy really does shine in this NES, unless the enemy has a better one, or you have a bad one.
Now, on to the new part,
Great Leaders. These may come at a specific time in history (for example, if there is political turmoil in Corsica in the 1700s...
Needles to say, these may either come historically, or, they may be created if you show good strategy during war, or if your nation is not very aristocratic, or any number of factors. Depending on who they are and how they are created, then these will greatly influence battles, mostly in the owners favor. In the early ages, I will let you know they are coming before the turn when they come, so you can make good use of them,
, and then you can use them the turn afterward. Be wary, though. They may win you battles, but if the time is ripe, they can lead revolutions against you...
Navy
Simple, it acts like the military, but only if you are coastal or on a great river, and it comes originally in 10 boats for civilized people. Increases are by 10 for each economy (excepting the Golden Age).
Unique Units
One per age, land or sea, they increase by 5,000 on land, and by five on sea. Write their strengths, and weaknesses will either be determined, or you can determine them. Just keep them reasonable.
One per age.
Training
Yes, your military can be trained! The better trained it is, obviously, the better it performs on the battlefield. Training takes one economy to increase, or may be increased by battle experience. The levels are (best to worst):
Elite
Excellent
Good
Mediocre
Militia
Bad
Conscript
Education
Is counted by levels, one economy to increase to the next level. How Educated you are effects how quick you advance to the next age and how fast you make innovations in your age that give you a tech edge. Levels are:
Enlightened
Genius
Smart
Excellent
Above Average
Mediocre
Below Average
Poor
Illiterate
Bad
Idiotic
Ages
If you are in a higher age, obviously your military will perform better, and expansion will go quicker. They are rather important to attain.
The ages so far are (in ascending order):
Stone Age
Copper Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Classical Age
Early Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
Age of Exploration
(More Will be Added As we go along)
Religion
Often Religion is a so what? addition tacked on to most NESes. Not in this one. Firstly, nations with the same religion as you will be much improved towards you where relations are concerned, whereas, if you are worshipers of a faith contradictory to yours, they may not even stoop to communicating with you.
Second, you can call a holy war down on people of a different, contesting religion, and this will greatly increase your troops morale, and also your numbers as volunteers swell your ranks. A Holy War costs one economy to call.
Third, each religion comes with a special bonus. If you make up your own religion, then you can decide what it is. Real world religions will come with a bonus depending on what they are and what the historical circumstances in the world are at that point in time. Examples are better morale in battle for Islam, or easier colonization as Protestant Christians (Not saying that is what they will have, or if they will even be there).
Making up your own religion is highly recommended, or just convert to a religion others have already made. If you stick with a generic polytheist religion, then no bonus for you.
Making a religion is not easy, and it involves storytellingas you must explain in the game how it came about, explaining its doctrines would help the moderator, and also deciding on its bonus.
Remember, if your subjects begin converting en masse to another religion, then you would be very advised to switch to that officially, or persecuting them. Religions often do not agree well, unless you are in a very tolerant state, which is not likely to happen until modern democracies come about.
Government
This will affect how happy your citizens are, and basically how well your country runs. In the modern age, especially, having a different government than your neighbor, like a Communism next to a democracy, will often impair relations.
Wonders
Ah, wonders of the ancient world. Marvelous, and very imposing. It is the same in this NES as it is in all others, specify what it does, and Ill decide how many turns it takes. They can do almost anything. If it is an actual building, like the Pyramids, then they will often take longer, but may have hidden benefits, like economy boosting or morale boosting from tourism and pride in the nation. Who knows, if they survive, then they may increase your nations economy years in the future as tourist attractions.
You are limited to two per age, and you can only build one at a time.
Diplomacy
You can do almost anything with or to a nation with diplomacy. Refer all NPC Diplo to me, and talk about inter-player diplomacy among yourselves. You may want to notify me if you make peace after a war, so I dont still have your people sneak attacking each other.
What is this story-thing, anyway, and why does it matter?
Stories do matter in this game. I know some of you play NESes purely for the joy of NESing, and not for writing stories, so I wont penalize you for not writing them. You may receive bonuses for your stories, depending how good they are, though, so dont just write them off. And you cannot create your own government or religion without stories. A Golden Age may come about if you have
really good stories. It depends on your preference.
