Pre-Thread Mortal Engines NES

[Tycho]

Introduction




"The world as you know it is gone. Nothing of it remains, and with the future shaped by the events of the past, you must all pick how to decide your future, your fate, your lives, and the lives of the people that you lead.

The Sixty Minute war was thousands of years ago at this point. The era of the Nomad Empires and their zombified soldiers called Stalkers is over. It is the dawn of the Traction Era, a dawn of a new day and a new life for the cities that had survived the cataclysms of the Sixty Minute War. America does not exist; extinguished by a nuclear hellstorm, nothing living remains in it's lands. The isthmus between South and North America has been severed by slow bombs, and annihilated from the face of creation. China's eastern coast has been scourged by blood and fire that has blasted craters and gullies and filled with water. The Mediterranean has been converted into a place of ten thousand islands, and North of Scotland there is nothing but the far, far expanse of Ice Wastes that encircle the Norther Hemisphere. Antarctic has melted and is drilled for oil, and now... now you must decide what you will do.

Led by Nicolas Quirk, London was the first city to take up it's wheels and convert itself to a massive Traction city in order to take up the practice of Municipal Darwinism. It is a city eat town eat hamlet eat settlement world out there now. Multiple great and mighty cities have converted themselves to these lumbering behemoths, and only the strong, the mighty, and powerful will survive and prosper.

Alliances will be forged, cities made and broken, creations made and destroyed by greed and power.

What path will you take?"


Sample Stats for a Medium Game City:

Panzerstadt-Aachen
Speed: 24km/h
Mass: 247,000,000
Size: 1.2/.5/.6
Structure: Disc (9)
Population: 36,000
Forces: 5 units (4 militias, 1 Soldiers)
5 Airships
20 Stalkers
Weaponry: 20x 450mm Howitzers, 10x 525mm Howitzers
Engines: Quadruple Combustion Drives (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Refined Biomass)
Wheels: 36
Electricity Supply: 1.21 GW (90% to city, 10% to engines)
Food Supply: 7500 (2500 wheat, 2500 meat, 2500 refined biomass)
Water Supply: 10500 (9000 water, 1500 alcohol)
Fuel: 1900 tons coal (2200), 300 oil (1500), 200 natural gas (500)

This is what we have so far all things considered and I'll have other stuff up after dinner, including some more in detail stuff (specializations, things related to trade and other things). Any ideas so far?




Template:
Name:
Specialty:
Size:
Location:
Government:
Description:
Religion:
Sub-specialization class:




Specializations:
Combat (Panzerstadt, Shieldwall, Long Range, Short Range, Converters)
Predator (Pillager, Reaver, Slaver, Harvester, Exterminator)
Agricultural (Miller, Sower, Energy farmer, Agriculture farmer, Miner, Weapons Maker)
Trade (Scavenger, Opportunists, Nomads, Dealers, Bargainers)
Scientific (Experimental, Prototype, Restoration, Recreation, Reverse Engineer)



Miscellaneous:
Sections for famous people.
Sections for cultural creations from each city.

 

[SouthernKing]

I'm interested, but I have never heard of Mortal Engines?

 

[Tycho]

I'm interested, but I have never heard of Mortal Engines?

The Mortal Engines quartet is a series of books written by a British author named Phillip Reeve. Essentially, the premise of the books is that there are a massive number of "traction cities", which are basically multi-tiered moving cities that move on wheels across the world to try and eat other cities or settlements that are moving or static, in order to expand their own supplies in the practice of Municipal Darwinism. Essentially, the cities eat each other and tear each other apart in order to keep themselves running, and if they don't they begin to lose resources until they grind to a halt.

Why is this the case? Tens of thousands of years before the events of Mortal Engines, the Sixty Minute War occurred between a multitude of different nations. Orbital satellites rained down laser beams upon the surface of the world, nuclear missiles were launched, genetically engineered viruses and bacteria were deployed, and all around bad things. Special weapons known as "slow bombs" were used to destroy Central America, and North America itself was completely annihilated, and there is nothing living there at this point. Most of everything above Scotland or Ireland has frozen over into a giant white frozen cap of the North Pole, while Antarctica has been heated up and has shed all of it's ice and formed a actual ground mass. Most of subcontinental India was also hit hard, same with the Middle East, Eastern China, etc. Additionally, the technology from the pre-Sixty Minute War periods are referred to as Old Tech and refer to anything from CDs and ancient books and such, to shadowy particle compression beams and weapons said to take energy from places outside of the universe, as well as horrid experimental and prototype weaponry.

Pieces of geography that are interesting are indubitably the massive mountains of Greenland that are almost always boiling, as well as the Meditteranean, which got transformed into thousands of islands jutting out of the sea. Additionally, the Himalayas are somewhat low at this point, and Everest has been surpassed by a massive new mountain, which is said to have it's point breaching the point where the atmosphere touches space. Most of this is blamed upon the Sixty Minute War, as most mountain ranges, tectonic events, tidal waves, and other titanic events occurred during that time.

All in all, an excellent book series to read, highly recommend it.

 

[Tycho]

Front post updated some more.

 

[Grandkhan]

What differentiates a Panzerstadt from, say, a short range city?

Also, how would a trade specialisation work? Would you trade goods between other PC cities?

 

[Arrow Gamer]

What differentiates a Panzerstadt from, say, a short range city?

Also, how would a trade specialisation work? Would you trade goods between other PC cities?

I can post the rules I wrote. In fact, I'll do that.

 

[Arrow Gamer]

Trade:
Trade is the lifeblood of any city. While some supplies can be obtained through alternative means, trade can round out your economy and prevent stagnation. Trade is done through orders or stories, and can be conducted with either player nations or NPCs.
There are many different kinds of goods to trade, a few of which I will outline here.

Spoiler :

Slaves: Can be employed to be the workforce of your nation, and many advanced cities will find these necessary. These can be obtained from cities, moving or not. Unfortunately, they may rebel if you let them get uppity enough.
Food: To survive, one requires food and water. Trading with other cities, especially farming ones, for this can be beneficial. This can be obtained via farming or scavenging. Also, hunting parties can be sent out to look for the last vestiges of wildlife in the world.
Technology: Technology can provide an edge, whether it be in industry, military or food-production. However, technology often comes with high prices, so beware. This can be found during expeditions (see that section) or by consuming other cities.
Information: Can be useful in any number of ways. This is just things you’ve seen or experiences you’ve had, which could be invaluable to the right person.
Money: Cold, hard cash never goes out of style. This is just obtained by taxes, trade or tribute.
Fuel: Never a bad thing to have, it is often the most traded resource. This is mostly gotten by consuming other cities, or by solar panels.
Mercenaries: Soldiers can never hurt (unless they betray you). These are merely soldiers leased from other cities.
Feel free to suggest other goods.

Beware of betrayal, because other nations will often try to ambush you during a trade meeting.
Trade income will be included in your stats, and any goods you acquire will be included as well. trade is a lucrative business, and abstaining is not usually a good idea. However, trading also has certain inherent risks, and trading partners should be picked with care.

To trade, you simply state where you wish to obtain the resources, and where you wish to sell them. For PC cities, you can merely both send in orders to meet at a certain place, and the deal will happen. For NPCs, say what you wish to get, and the GM will find a city for you. However, NPCs are often liable to double cross, and you must always beware. Trading subtypes have certain abilities, such as using airships and easy access to tradingclusters: groups of cities that meet for trade.



These are obviously not done, but it should give a small idea.


Resources:

Resources are what power your cities. If your engines are your heart, resources are the blood that flows through your veins. Water, power, food: the very necessities of human life, are scarce.

Food, perhaps the most important of resources, may also be the easiest to find. It can be scrounged off trees, grown in parks, traded for, or even stolen. Food is what fills the hungry bellies of your populace, and what keeps them placated. You know what they say: bread and circuses.

Water is obtained by making stops near lakes or rivers, a relatively simple way. However, water is not always fit to drink, and some lakes may be guarded. Also, these stops must be made frequently, because your city burns through water extremely quickly.

Power is what makes your moving cities... move. It can be bought from traders or energy farmers, or taken more... forcefully. You can, of course, farm it yourself on the small scale, even if you aren’t an energy farmer, but doing so is expensive. Selling energy is a lucrative venture if done right, and a deadly one if not. Kinds of energy include solar, natural gas, oil, wind, and (rarely) nuclear.

Supplies are excess food and water you have to send out with explorers. They appear only when you have a surplus, which is usually expensive to get.

Mercenaries. They are dangerous buggers, ready to turn on you at the slightest provocation. Bought off pirates or honest cities, they provide an extra ‘oomph’ to your fighting forces. Unfortunately, if they’re not paid, don’t expect them to stick around...

 

[Lord_Herobrine]

This sounds like an interesting genre, but I'm going to wait and see how it develops for a bit.

 

[Arrow Gamer]

What differentiates a Panzerstadt from, say, a short range city?

Also, how would a trade specialisation work? Would you trade goods between other PC cities?

A Panzerstadt uses its size to overwhelm opponents, whereas shortrangers are more towards hit and run. Long ranges use endurance to beat their enemies.

(I think)

 

[Arrow Gamer]

Example city: London
Name: London
Specialty: Combat
Size: Large
Location: Hunting Grounds
Government: Feudal Monarchy
Description: A large, ancient, city, London is the very definition of a traction city. It hunts for pray on its massive caterpillar tracks, and uses sheer endurance to catch its quarry. After a long time waiting in the foothills up north, London has returned once more, ready to pillage and survive.
Religion: Monotheism
Sub-specialization class: Long Range

FYI, I am a co-Mod

 

[Tycho]

What differentiates a Panzerstadt from, say, a short range city?

Also, how would a trade specialisation work? Would you trade goods between other PC cities?

A Panzerstadt is different because it is essentially an all around monster; it is designed to have large shields and armor plating to protect itself from attack, while at the same time wielding significant batteries of guns and such. However, it is tremendously slow, and can be dismantled easily if not supported by others that it goes with, and must either deploy all of it's armor and weapons and go slowly, or remove them and retract them but move unprotected relative to other cities.

Trade specializations work in the way that you get bonuses towards certain things, when trading with either NPCs or PCs. You can trade in trading clusters with others that have been set up, trade with smaller or larger cities, trade via airships (though they have a range that they can go), or trade with people in a cluster of moving cities that have allied with one another (if you have read the books, think of it like the Traktionstadtgesselschaft).

 

[Omega124]

So what happens when a city captures another city? Does it "annex" it and add it into its cityscape? Destroy it for the raw metal value? What happens to the people living in the city being captured?

 

[Tycho]

So what happens when a city captures another city? Does it "annex" it and add it into its cityscape? Destroy it for the raw metal value? What happens to the people living in the city being captured?

When your city captures another city, you have a choice to either dismantle it, convert it into a suburb of your own city, "annex" it (like you said), or completely destroy it. You can destroy for the raw material value and get a glut of resources back from it, and you can also convert it into a suburb to be used in other ways to help out your own city as well.

As for the people, you can either bring them into the fold of the city itself, or have them become enslaved and sell them at a trading cluster, kill them, or use them as workers aboard your city and such. Really depends on the mood that you are in at the time.

 

[Grandkhan]

Cool, so trade functions according to a barter system between NPCs. Interesting.

What's the difference between dismantling a captured city and destroying it? Would you not get its archaeotech if you destroy it?

 

[Tycho]

Cool, so trade functions according to a barter system between NPCs. Interesting.

What's the difference between dismantling a captured city and destroying it? Would you not get its archaeotech if you destroy it?

You are indeed correct. Destroying the city completely (be it in combat or otherwise) means that you will be receiving somewhat less of materials that you could have gleaned, a lot less population, and any of the Old Tech aboard has a chance of being destroyed as well, which is something you do not want if you want to capture something valuable. Same goes for airships, Stalkers, and other creations aboard the city, which will be captured if you dismantle the city instead of destroying it.

 

[Patchy]

Looks intersting and I know you are not done yet but can you at least explain what you have? What do these specializations mean? How does combat work? Will we be able to upgrade our cities and if so how? Will the cities be able to go on water or will we be restrained to one land mass?

But it's a good premise so i'll reserve the city name of Carthage.

 

[talonschild]

I'm with Patchy. It would be easier to give feedback if we knew more of what you wanted feedback on.

Tentatively calling dibs on Prague.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I'm claiming dibs on Cairo.

 

[Tycho]

Will do so, Patchy, Talon.


In essence, combat works in a variety of ways. Your cities will have weaponry based upon what you have traded, collected, reverse engineered, researched, etc., and can be deployed against enemy cities that cross your path. Combat will take place for the most part between cities between turns, unless a rather large battle breaks out at which point either side can write stories to influence the battle or go for a luck based thing using random numbers. If a city attempts to fleet, weaponry can be used to disable the wheels of the fleeing city and you can either decide to start eating the opposing metropolis, or board it in an attempt to capture it. Capturing it requires infantry, militia, and/or Stalkers (only achieveable through research and reverse engineering.) Militias are primarily used to defend cities, while infantry are there to board and do counter maneuvers and attack, and Stalkers are the lumbering and massive creatures designed to crack open hard emplacements. The more soldiers and better tactics you have in attacking a city, the better chance you'll have of taking it with minimal losses.

Upgrades to your city require a healthy helping of cash, and either to have recently traded with a city, or consumed another metropolis. You can either expand your city upwards, outwards, add new bits onto it (more jaws, more wheels, better engines, better weaponry, armor, and more), as well as changing the design of it quite a bit. You can additionally upgrade the city through bonuses given by the specializations that have already been listed.

On the note of specializations, it's merely a framework for you to work with. You can choose up to five specializations (or create your own, but they have to mesh well, so no fast moving Panzerstadts or Shieldwalls), and they give certain bonuses based upon them. A long range city has a bonus to the power of long range artillery, howitzers, and such things, while a Panzerstadt gets a bonus to the amount of guns and armor it can mount compared to others. Many classes will have drawbacks, such as the Panzerstadts' low ability to defend itself against smaller cities, and has to be in deployed (armed, armored, and ready to shoot), or unarmed (the polar opposite). It's up to you on what to decide and such, and creation of a new specialization will have to be run by myself first to see if it can work and not be too overpowered.

Cities can go on water or into the sky, but they require experimentation and such. Floats and rafts for cities to cross waterways require some form of research and are single turn used items, while actual sea going cities can keep going like a regular city (after fuel, food, water, supplies, etc.), and air cities are much the same.




What we have so far at the moment is a skeleton of rules regarding combat, specializations, design, and supplies, as well as the base specializations, templates for the starting cities, and notes on Old Tech and expeditions at the moment. What I'm asking is, at this point, is there something that should be changed, tweaked, messed with, or adjusted in order to provide a better and clearer path?

 

[Patchy]

Sounds good so far, still have some questions though:

Do floating cities in the sea have to go to a river opening along the coast whenever they want to restock on water or is it assumed that they have some desalintion facilities to convert salt water to fresh water? Will you create new unit types for flying and floating cities (I assume infantry don't do well in the middle of the air)?

Also what i meant about specialization was could you explain each one and their effects? I cant help you with them if i don't know what they do.