Pre-CosmicNES: Shards of an Empire

[Patchy]

Proposal to the House Steward

I, Glenmor Lanshire, ask that a royal marrige be made between our houses. I ask for the hand of Isabelle Casparity personally as I am looking for a suitable wife.

Signed Glenmor of the House of Lanshire.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Proposal to the House Steward

I, Glenmor Lanshire, ask that a royal marrige be made between our houses. I ask for the hand of Isabelle Casparity personally as I am looking for a suitable wife.

Signed Glenmor of the House of Lanshire.

I, Thomas Steward, agree to betroth my Daughter Isabelle Casparity Steward to Glenmor Lanshire, upon the stipulation that their Second Child is to be raised within the Steward Household, and educated within the traditions of the House. Furthermore, All Children born of this Union will be known as Steward-Lanshire.

 

[Patchy]

I, Thomas Steward, agree to betroth my Daughter Isabelle Casparity Steward to Glenmor Lanshire, upon the stipulation that their Second Child is to be raised within the Steward Household, and educated within the traditions of the House. Furthermore, All Children born of this Union will be known as Steward-Lanshire.

I will agree to these terms under these modifications:

Only children born after the first male shall be known as Lanshire-Steward.
Should the second child be the first male he will stay to be raised as a Lanshire.
The second (or third child should the second be the first male) child of the union will spend the first ten years of his life under the care of his mother in the house of Lanshire as it would be cruel to separate the child from its mother at birth.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I will agree to these terms under these modifications:

Only children born after the first male shall be known as Lanshire-Steward.
Should the second child be the first male he will stay to be raised as a Lanshire.
The second (or third child should the second be the first male) child of the union will spend the first ten years of his life under the care of his mother in the house of Lanshire as it would be cruel to separate the child from its mother at birth.

We Do not ask the child to be cruelly wrenched from its mother. By the age of 5, The Child will be fully capable of being separated from its mother for periods of time. The child will travel to visit Isabelle Steward, its mother, at least once a year, if not more (and we assume that Isabelle will be allowed by House Lanshire to Visit her birth family.) The child will be raised in a loving environment.

Aside for this, we agree to the amendments.

 

[Patchy]

Very well, so long as you understand my concerns I agree and thank you for the hand of Isabelle. May our houses live long and strengthen from this bond.

 

[Popcornlord]

I'm impressed, diplomacy already. Since you're doing it in the pre-thread, I'll make sure to put it in for update 0.

@Thomas
Well I do now. Lordpopcorn @ Gmail.com. I don't have much to do today, so I'll stay logged in.

 

[Patchy]

Since this is prethread can I create a special ship yet? It would make sense since i'm tying it into my house's backstory.

 

[Popcornlord]

@Patchy:
Sure, but unless you can give me a good reason otherwise, you will need to wait to research it.

Excuse me if I seem to be bouncing ideas off this thread, but who would be interested in playing a more tribal Terthen "clan"? The gameplay would be similar to a human Great House, with the trading of offspring, and even some light feudalism. However, the backstory could be like any tribe from Earth. That might make them more relatable, while still distinct. Plus, I wouldn't need to dramatically change the Terthan history.

 

[Patchy]

The ship in particular will be a moddified explorationship designed by Rathus. It carries equipment such as power tools for clearing landing zones, folding metal contraptions that can deploy to become refueling docks, small pods equiped with rudimentary living quarters for the first colonists, and other items that would make colonization easier. These ships were used to great extent in colonizing Thaden and were one of the reasons that the colony was so successful.

The innovation isn't really the technology, rather the ability for exploration ships to do the intial hardwork of creating a suitible colony sight with most of the equipment waiting for the settlers when they arrive.

 

[Popcornlord]

Since that's a niche I completely did not fill with the default ships, you can start with it researched. Note that you will still need to invest a lot to get any colony up and running, but the ships will decrease the cost, and be reusable.

I will likely also let a few other colony-minded players use your design, unless they give me an alternative. That's the cost of making it in the pre-thread.

 

[Patchy]

Great! The ships will be called Lanshire class deep space frigates. That's the cost of using my idea

 

[Popcornlord]

That's fine with me, and will work to add a bit of atmosphere to the game. Why shouldn't they be invented by one of the most powerful colonizer houses?

 

[Arrow Gamer]

The Banner and flag of the House Vendini, symbolizing an interstellar trade network:

 

[Seon]

@Patchy:
Sure, but unless you can give me a good reason otherwise, you will need to wait to research it.

Excuse me if I seem to be bouncing ideas off this thread, but who would be interested in playing a more tribal Terthen "clan"? The gameplay would be similar to a human Great House, with the trading of offspring, and even some light feudalism. However, the backstory could be like any tribe from Earth. That might make them more relatable, while still distinct. Plus, I wouldn't need to dramatically change the Terthan history.

I'm personally not all that interested in playing tribe or clan. Mostly because it is not a Noble Dynasty that I want to play as. Partially because I don't really know how Earth clans or tribes work at all either.

You would still have to wait for other comments though.

I would advise though that you open up more possibilities for the other races. Right now, the races are defined solely by you. The Terthens are a tribalistic bird people who worship big birds and are led by religious leaders.

It's not that the concept is too alien for us to grasp, but rather the fact that the choice available is too limited. Or perhaps even both. There seems to be only one way to "behave like Terthan," and I still don't know how to do that, because they are your creation and not mine.

What I would do is open up as much possibility as feasible when creating alien government. Playing as Republic as Terthan or the hive mind aliens should be allowed, as is Theocracy, Democracy, Monarchy, or even a large organization of Space Pirates.

 

[Patchy]

I would have been imterested in playing as a tribal house, but i've invested too much in Lanshire to turn back now.

 

[Popcornlord]

Part of the problem with opening up the different government types is that the NES is designed around the concept of a noble dynasty. If someone can come up with a good story as to why a Democracy has a somewhat hereditary leader, I'm all for it. Even if you play as an important family within a republic, I'll allow it. But that's the purpose of the NES, which is why each individual had their own stats. Where I'd love to have you along, I'm not going to change the system if that's not the sort of game you're interested in.

That said, I understand your concern, and thank you for just telling me what you want. My intention with designing the aliens was to create something that allows players to make something different. Put their own twist on it, create their own culture within the broad term "Terthen". But by creating the aliens, I guess I already created too many limitations.

But there's the problem. How do you create a broad culture, that allows very little limitations, but is still relatable? Do you just give them the anatomy of the aliens, and give no backstory? Rewrite their history? Allow players to create their own, somehow genetically-related races? Just give up on including aliens?

That's why I'm leaning to making the Terthen more tribal. "Tribal" is a very broad term, but still easily relatable to human society. Think of the Steppe Hordes, or alternatively the Native Americans, or whatever else you want. There seems to be some interest in these new Terthen. But quite frankly, I don't know what option is best. Which is why I'm petitioning to the players so much. Sorry guys, but I'm still figuring this all out.

 

[Patchy]

Part of the problem with opening up the different government types is that the NES is designed around the concept of a noble dynasty. If someone can come up with a good story as to why a Democracy has a somewhat hereditary leader, I'm all for it. Even if you play as an important family within a republic, I'll allow it. But that's the purpose of the NES, which is why each individual had their own stats. Where I'd love to have you along, I'm not going to change the system if that's not the sort of game you're interested in.

That said, I understand your concern, and thank you for just telling me what you want. My intention with designing the aliens was to create something that allows players to make something different. Put their own twist on it, create their own culture within the broad term "Terthen". But by creating the aliens, I guess I already created too many limitations.

But there's the problem. How do you create a broad culture, that allows very little limitations, but is still relatable? Do you just give them the anatomy of the aliens, and give no backstory? Rewrite their history? Allow players to create their own, somehow genetically-related races? Just give up on including aliens?

That's why I'm leaning to making the Terthen more tribal. "Tribal" is a very broad term, but still easily relatable to human society. Think of the Steppe Hordes, or alternatively the Native Americans, or whatever else you want. There seems to be some interest in these new Terthen. But quite frankly, I don't know what option is best. Which is why I'm petitioning to the players so much. Sorry guys, but I'm still figuring this all out.

Basically what i got from that is we are playing Crusader Kings 2 IN SPACE! And you want to introduce some variations in the form of other species.

To which I respond: Crusader Kings is a great game and doesn't have these tribal nations as playable, why should you struggle with it if no one is looking to play it. Just NPC it like any of the Hordes in CK2.

 

[Popcornlord]

I suppose so. I would still like the option there. But if there's absolutely no interest, I'll just expand the human part of the map and keep the aliens as NPCs, for trade and war purposes.

 

[Popcornlord]

Alright, the map has been expanded for the human sector. From now on, I will assume everyone will play human, and as such the non-human territory has been hidden for now. If anyone who has already claimed a system would like to change, feel free to ask. If anyone would like to play as an alien race, please PM me. The rules will be slightly odd, and you will play somewhat secretly.

Hopefully that will settle that.

 

[Seon]

Claiming Arcturus