Private Party at the End of the World
Or, the Beginning of the World as We Know It 2.5
Or, the Beginning of the World as We Know It 2.5
Introduction
This is an NES based in the Fallout video game universe. It is restricted to only a small number of players, in order to save me time and energy. As you are probably aware, Im busiest with the NES Capto Iugulum which is on a global scale and features a much larger and detailed history. This NES will at no time have more than seven players, and after a few turns will likely be one or two fewer as I kill them off. With fewer players comes a smaller map, consisting solely of the state of Florida. There is a private social group for the use of the players to provide orders, as well to allow them to set up their factions in privacy. This is a no-mercy NES, and if the player dies in the game, they die for reals, as far as you know. I may be inclined to add or replace players as the NES progresses, and if youd like to join in, feel free to post, and Ill put you on the waiting list. For the rest of you, enjoy the read, and if youre interested, feel free to post, and if one of the chosen few chooses to drop, you may be allowed to come in and join as an existing faction.
The Story
Summary
The Fallout world exists in an alternate timeline that split away from the history of the real world following World War II. Up until the Great War in 2077, the Fallout world was dominated by the distinctively American culture of the 1950s, though with a far more advanced technological progression. The Fallout world's setting is heavily influenced by the science fiction anthology Worlds of Tomorrow, which was released during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1950s. We begin the NES in 2230, a over one hundred and fifty years after a major nuclear war. For your interest:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_world
Timeline of Events
NOTE: Been slightly modified by myself in some minor ways to fix some things which irked me.
Spoiler :
1945: The Second World War comes to an end with the detonations of atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Tokyo, and Nagasaki.
1961: The United States Space Agency puts Captain Carl Bell as the first man in space.
1969: The United States is reorganized into thirteen commonwealths, each of which encompasses several states. The national flag is changed to represent this, with fourteen stars, one for each commonwealth and the final one for the federal government and nation as a whole. The United States puts the first two men on the moon.
2020: The last final mission to the moon is completed, as the US Space Agency sees its budget fatally cut.
2037: The Mr. Handy robot is the first robot created for the mass market and is wildly popular among the American people for its labor saving uses.
2042: After a massive earthquake devastates Mexico City, the US military is brought into Mexico, effectively commandeering the resources and independence of the Mexican nation.
2052: The Resource Wars begin as the European Commonwealth launches several disastrous wars into the Middle East to secure their oil sources. The United Nations collapses by the middle of the year as the United States and most other players withdraw.
2053: The "New Plague" breaks out globally, and the United States declares full quarantine of the nation, forbidding overseas travel as the borders close. At the end of the year, terrorists use nuclear weapons for the first time, destroying Tel Aviv.
2054: The Resource Wars escalate as the Europeans and Islamic countries participate in a limited nuclear exchange, further devastating the region. In response, the United States government begins sponsoring Vault-Tec in its goal to create an underground environment for the survival of the species during a nuclear war.
2059: Saber rattling begins between China and the United States, as the US refuses to share fuel resources obtained from Alaska.
2060: Fossil fuels become too scare to use in cars, and most people are forced to give up their automobiles. Some electric and fusion powered cars are manufactured, but only in limited amounts. The situation brings the US economy nearer and nearer to bankruptcy. The war between Europe and the Islamic nations comes to a close as the last drops of oil are wrung from the Middle East. Both regions immediately dissolve into feuding states locked in constant war.
2065: Power rationing in the United States begins after a nuclear meltdown nearly occurs in New York City.
2066: America's refusal to sell or share oil to fossil fuel dependant China results in the breakdown of diplomatic relations and the invasion of Alaska by the Chinese. Anchorage is overrun and most of the state is occupied by China. American scientists invent the first crude fusion cell, and begin the slow process of upgrading the United States' power supply.
2069: As fighting in Alaska continues to stalemate, Canada faces increasing pressure from the United States as American military forces simply begin taking what they need from the Canadian countryside.
2072: As Canadian outrage grows against American military and business interests, the United States disbands the Canadian government and annexes Canada into the USA.
2074: China begins deploying biological weapons both in the field and on the American home front. The United States responds with a full invasion of mainland China.
2076: Food and energy riots devastate the United States, fuelled by pictures and video of American atrocities against Canadian civilians.
2077: At long last the Chinese are pushed out of Alaska after 11 years of vicious warfare.
October 23, 2077: The nuclear missiles fly between the United States and China, exterminating much of the world's population and bringing about a new dark age in human history.
Sample Game Stats
Spoiler :
Edgewood Militia: EQandCivfanatic
Leader Gorly Araynn (Lucky)
Faction Trait: Expansionist
Capital: Edgewood (Florida, Former USA; Pre-War Community)
Structures: Farming Equipment (3), Purify/Pumping Station (2), Forge, Small Reactor
Population: 793 (+8)
Total Population: 928
Slaves: 0
Education: General Education
Food: 1,534 (+910)
Water: 452 (+1,300)
Energy: 0 (+1)
Tech Parts: 197
Scrap Parts: 1,250
Ammunition: 895
Military Equipment: 215 Low-Tech Melee Weapons, 125 1-H Guns, 85 2-H Guns, 13 Heavy Weapons
Robots: 1 Mr. Handy
Military Skill: 7
Outposts:
Spoiler :
New Williamsburg: +80 Food
-Armory: 200 Low-Tech Melee Weapons, 15 1-H Guns
-Population: 135 (+1)
-Structures: None
The Rules
Spoiler :
Population and Slaves
Your population is all your people that you have available to you. Typically the numbers are going to start very small, but will quickly grow throughout the course of the NES. The "civilized" zones such as your faction won't be the only survivors out there, and based on your faction traits and other stats, you'll be receiving a slow flow of immigrants and refugees from more wild territories. This will be included alongside "natural" growth as well.
Unlike previous NESes, the Population stat isn't a representation of a larger population or a base from which to create an army. Your Population IS your army. Therefore, it is very important to keep your people happy and loyal as well as provide them with state of the art weapons and good equipment for battle. You have absolute control over your people, send them wherever you choose. They live to serve your whims and the faction as a whole. As long as they stay loyal, that is. The slave stat is entirely up to you. If you want slaves, feel free to capture some from the wasteland or other factions. Thanks to state of the art bomb collar technology, it's easier than ever to enslave people! Just place the collar around a prisoner's neck and if they try to run away... BOOM.
Education
The Education rating of your population represents the base that your intellectuals have when it comes to scientific endeavors. This is created so that we have an accurate descriptor which can define what sort of projects your faction can create or work on. Each type has a different effect, but do not feel too bad if you are the "lowest" type as this actually means you likely have a better handle on things such as farming or fighting than more intellectual factions. Educational levels WILL NOT be changed at any point. The levels of Education are as follows:
Oral Education: This represents a culture which educates its youth through Oral Tradition and knowledge. This is the most practical of the Education levels, and if you are at this level, you will have a typically easier time at salvage and farming. Unfortunately, you're less likely to recover Tech Parts and Projects will generally be more expensive for you, while some which revolve around high technology will not be allowed altogether.
General Education: This represents an educational system moderately similar to what we have in real life. While your population is likely to be literate and have a good knowledge of history, this has very little practical application. Typically if you have a General Education you will not receive any bonuses or detractions unlike all other types.
Applied Science Education: This represents a working engineering knowledge of pre-war technology. This is the best sort of education to have for the recovery of tech parts and getting old technology working. While you will not receive any bonuses towards research or new technology, you will be superior at recovery efforts and construction.
Theoretical Science Education: This represents theories and speculation as a form of education at a higher level of learning. While this won't help with day to day matters, if you want to research NEW technology, and not just harness the new world, this is the way to go.
Supplies in Their Natural Habitats
Food and Water are the most important resources out there, period. Good food and purified water are essential to the literal survival of not just the faction, but the very species. Each person that you have in your faction will require 1 Food and 1 Water every year. If they do not receive it, they will die. This includes slaves unfortunately. Some old pre-war facilities have food or water production of their own, sometimes in large amounts. Food and water is very rarely found during scavenging, as it has either long since expired or was looted in the few weeks after the Great War itself.. Slaves will always die first when low on food or water.
Energy represents the production of electricity in your faction or other related energy. Energy is very rarely found as batteries from Urban Ruin sites. The only reliable way to accumulate energy is through your own production. Energy is also essential for activating robots to join your army.
Scrap parts represent the random detritus that is the leftovers of the modern world. This can include anything from the shells of cars, to timber, to any assorted scrap metal, wood, or other building material. They are used in construction as well as to create low technology weapons for use. This is by far the easiest thing to salvage from any ruin, and can really only NOT be found in the middle of a desert. They can also be converted into ammunition with the appropriate facilities.
Tech Parts represent any leftover bits of the old world that can be converted to more sophisticated uses in warfare and production today. Tech parts are used for pretty much everything, and are frequently hard to find. Unless you're a Technocratic society or have found a particularly wonderful place in the Wastes, you generally won't receive any per turn production of Tech Parts. The majority of the time, they will be found ONLY by scavenging amid the ruins of pre-war society.
Ammunition is required for the use of all non-melee weapons. Without it, your guns are just fairly useless clubs and you'll get torn apart by the most primitive tribes. Different types of guns expend ammunition quicker, and you lose ammunition based on how many battles you fight in a turn and how many. You can find more ammunition through scavenging or by conversion with the appropriate facility in a settlement.
Military Equipment and Skill
The United States, being the home of the gun nut, has a large amount of guns just lying around the place. Scavenging and exploring will often result in the recovery of different types of weapons. Even better, when you defeat a group of raiders or another faction's army, their weapons become your own. The list of goodies you can use to fight are in a below post. Lastly, if you don't have enough weapons for your whole population, it is assumed that they are using standard melee makeshift stuff, which is always the least effective tool.
Military Skill is the type of ability that your population has for combat. Remember, all of your population generally knows at least something about fighting and war, otherwise they'd die off. Therefore, your whole population is your army and this stat reflects what sort of experience and abilities they posses in the terms of combat. Obviously the higher the better, and the more you fight, the better you get. This is also inherently increased if you have a leader with the Fearsome trait or a faction trait of Barbaric.
Exploration and Scavenging
As frequently mentioned above a large amount of your time and energy would be best focused on sifting through the ruins of society. By sending out scouting parties you can locate promising ruins which could work well as a outpost or community. You could also find nice bits of salvage and old-war gems, including hidden special projects that you could bring to life with just enough Tech Parts and/or Energy. My recommendation is that you have at least one scouting party heading out somewhere every turn. Of course, there's always the small chance that they'll get hit by raiders or other factions, so make sure to give them some firepower to help them out. To Explore to Scavenge simply say in orders "Send __ people with ____ weapons to Explore and/or Scavenge in _____ spot.
Outposts and Expansion
In this NES there is no "blobbing" across the map like giant amoebas. Instead, the civilizations of the post-apocalyptic future begin by uniting a variety of small towns and outposts. They usually begin as fortified positions or tribal communities but ultimately evolve into a part of a much larger nation. You can create outposts in one of two ways. If you know, based on independent research (i.e. Google Maps) that there's something worth claiming near your current position, go for it. You could also send out exploratory parties, and I will mention places of interest that you could colonize. Ultimately you will have to send part of your population to establish the new base, and hopefully they will reach their objective. There's always the chance they will be hit by raiders on the way, so once again, make sure they have weapons. Remember, it's not a proper settlement if there's no one living there. There are several "standard" types of places you can discover that are detailed here. These do not include some of the places which qualify as starting zones, as they typically must be conquered, not colonized. Building a Settlement from scratch requires 2,500 Scrap Parts and 100 Population, as listed further below. Any other are able to be claimed without such demands, but are far less likely to produce food and water.
Urban Ruin: This is the most common type of outpost or settlement that you can establish. These typically are buildings, small towns, or landmarks leftover by the old world which are intact enough to be fortified and turned into outposts. When establishing a base in a urban ruin, you are likely to find tech parts, and this is the only way you're likely to discover the rarest of pre-war artifacts as well as plenty of standard ammunition and regular weapons.
Military Base: This is a particularly uncommon type of outpost or settlement you can discover and claim. These are particularly nice because frequently they have large amounts of ammunition, and occasionally even ammunition-producing machines. They can also have decent stockpiles of food and water within them, sometimes even limited production facilities of their own. One or two military bases may even have fun treasures hidden within them.
Settlement: Whenever you're in a particularly barren region, there's always the option to simply just create a settlement out of spare parts in the area. While this may be useful to help monitor your territory or encourage trade, typically settlements have little or no resources of their own. If they're created in some of the very scarce fertile lands they can become profitable farming communities.
Cave System: Outside of the cities, there are occasionally cave systems in the mountains and other isolated regions. These are frequently a good source of water, and perhaps other resources as well from failed post-war attempts at survival. They are also hard to find and therefore rarely come under attack by raiders, making them easy to defend and man.
Projects
There's two types of projects here. The standard kind, where you approach me about something you'd like to try, and I'll give you the price in tech parts/energy, and the moderator kind. The latter is highly sophisticated pieces of equipment that I've got charted around North America, much of it which could greatly aid your faction's development. Projects typically cost a combination of Tech Parts and Energy, but sometimes may require one or the other. I'll let you know when the price is secured. All projects WILL be tied to different outposts, and if you lose the outpost where a project is located, you lose the project to whoever claimed your site.
Warfare in Post-Apocalyptia
As I've already mentioned, there are no standing armies or militias. Every person in your faction knows how to fight and thanks to the leftovers of modern technology, only a small number of people actually need to stay home and farm or maintain things. In order to fight, simply state the number of people you want to send into battle, what weapons you want them to carry, and where you want them to go. Typically war is fought as a series of firefights, not sustained fronts or warfare. Each battle will expend ammunition, so be careful of your stockpiles before you go out on campaign. If you run out of ammo, it is quite likely things will end poorly for you. Another important tip, NEVER send ALL of your people out to battle. You WILL lose your home base while everyone's gone. Always keep a garrison at your outposts if you want to keep them. When planning battles, feel free to be as detailed as you'd like. Whatever makes you enjoy the NES more!
A final tip. Even if there are no other factions near you, be ready for war. You never know if raiders or wasteland monstrosities will come pouring out of the Wastes to kill you in your own house. On that note, any fights a group of yours may have with raiders counts as a battle for ammunition purposes. Remember, only the guns with the group caught in battle will expend ammunition.
Trade and Diplomacy in the Wasteland
I'm assuming that no factions have communications with each other at the beginning. Contact will be mentioned in the thread, and I'd like to state that considering the state of the USA, there's a good chance of isolation for a few turns. Fear not, I'm going to happily provide those isolated with issues and conundrums of their own to ponder over and address in their orders. Diplomacy as a whole, when you do locate other factions, is an informal affair and based around pacts between people, not nations. Declarations of war are unneeded in most circumstances, just attack if you're going to attack. Treaties in general are typically out of character at the current time, though as nations develop, perhaps they will be of use. There's no global community to impress, just yourself and other survivors.
The World of Fallout Florida
The outbreak of war with China led to a significant drop in the importance of Florida to the United States government. Most military forces moved to the west coast, and with the Baby Boomer generation beginning to fade, the civilian population soon followed. As a state which relied heavily on tourism, nuclear, pandemic, and war scares began to cripple the state, leaving it with a declining infrastructure and severe economic troubles. As international travel was brought to a halt, many hotels and theme parks shut down, unable to maintain a solid business. Therefore, when the war began, Florida was not a priority target for Chinese missiles and attacks. Though large urban centers and military bases were hit, much of the state was spared from direct nuclear attack. Unfortunately the chaos that followed did more damage and harm than any nuclear weapons could. After all, war, war never changes.
The geography of Florida is as diverse as it is unique. In the south, the Everglades has overrun the ruins of Miami, and much of the southern part of the peninsula has been claimed by the swamps. These swamps are deep and mysterious, few enter them and fewer leave, especially in the vine-choked ruins of the great city of Miami. Miami itself consists of half-sunken skyscrapers and derelict vessels, as well as hordes of various creatures and monsters looking to feast. Along the western coast of the peninsula lie a number of sparse and disparate coastal communities, most long abandoned by their residents. Tampa was badly hit by nuclear weapons during the war and traditionally has been avoided by scavengers due to high radioactivity. On the eastern coast from the edge of the swamps to Jacksonville is an unending row of hotels and beach towns, stretching as far as the eye can see. These tilted hotels are without number, standing as if tombstones to the people who once lived in them, a modern Easter Island, facing toward the sea. In the center of the state is the metropolis of Orlando, the most populous city in Florida at the time of the war. Hit hard by nuclear weapons, it is full of ruins, and the skies remain choked with dust and radiation. In the south the old amusement parks crumble, though some remain hauntingly active, as some old rides still, just barely, function, without any riders or operators. Throughout northern Florida and southern Georgia, the numerous small towns and cities remain mostly abandoned, lost during the chaos after the war. Some treasures may remain, as scavengers from more organized communities look for ways to prolong their existence.
