Tambien
Theseus, Duke of Athens
Statecraft and Duplicity
"The King is waiting for your Master."
"The King is waiting for your Master."
Introduction:
Since the beginning of time, humanity has come together into groups to survive. Soon those groups grew into organizations controlling thousands of people and activities. That was when power and the struggle for it was born. History has been dictated by these power struggles, by the man fighting to become the most powerful in their group. Soon, each group found other groups, and the competition for supreme power over all began. Not only were men fighting within a group for power, but with other groups for even more power. Yet, no one group managed to rule them all.
The time has come to show your power to the world. Will you become the most powerful man in your nation and the world, and lead your people to rule over all others?
Rules:
In this game, you, the players, will be citizens of the Arabian nation, and you will lead this civilization from the beginning of time. You will compete against other civilizations, just like in any ordinary game. One twist here is that I will control the other civilizations using hot seat. The other settings are deliberately withheld.
Basics
Each player will be a citizen of the Arabian Empire. At the beginning of the game, all signed up players will be civilians of this emerging nation. From the civilian pool, a politician will be chosen at random. At the beginning, a politician will be chosen every time a “citizen” in-game is born.
I will say in-game to refer to aspects of the Civilization IV game that are not controlled by me.
As soon as 5 people have signed up, a politician will be chosen.
Once you have created your government, the way politicians are chosen will change depending on your constitution.
Each player will have the following “stats:”
Name
Positions
Age
Money
Income
Expenses
Tiles Owned
Location
Home
Family
Name:
This is the name of your character. Your character’s name must consist of a First and Last name. Middle names are optional.
Positions:
These are the offices your character hold.
Age:
This is how long a person has lived. The older the person is the larger the chance of death is, and the more most people will respect their opinions.
Money:
Wealth is a very important part in the game. This is how much money you have. With money, you can do many things. All players gain wealth. A civilian gains .25 umla per turn, a politician gains 3 umla per turn, and the highest position, being the leader of the civilization, gains 5 umla. When you establish a constitution you will establish salaries for the different positions, and the last sentence will become invalid. To get money you will have to get a job or start a business. If you own a tile, you also get money, unless government created says otherwise. From the tiles, you earn 5 umla from each gold produced, 1 umla per food, and 2 umla from each hammer.
Income:
This is a short summary of where your income comes from, and how much you will make.
Expenses:
This is a short summary of where your expenses come from, and how much you will spend.
Tiles Owned:
This lists the tiles that your character owns.
Location:
This is where your character is located.
Home:
This stat doesn’t matter until we get into the Classical Era. When we do, you will have to choose to buy a house, but will have a choice between different districts. The districts will be: Poor, Medium, or Rich. The district you chose will have an impact on how people perceive you. You may move at any time as long as you have the funds.
Family:
Your wife and children (if applicable) will be listed here.
Gold v. Umla
Gold is the commerce output in-game (you know, that number up in the left corner), while umlas are player money. The nation will have a separate treasury for umlas. Think of Gold as the international transaction standard, while umlas are the national currency. Umlas can be used in international trades between nations as well, but separately from Gold. The umla treasury is filled through taxes, and events. For example, when a village is nice and provides us with 40 Gold, I would add 40 umla to the treasury as well.
Government
In this game, you will create your government. You will decide how things are decided, how laws are made, how policies are made, how civics are chosen, and much, much more. At the beginning of the game, there will be a despot. He has sole power and the law is his whim. Once we have five politicians, the government will be created. A Government Council will be called and I will give all the details needed for the creation of the government. The public’s views of the politicians will play a big part for the acceptance of the new government. However, governments throughout history have changed, even in the same country. For a government to change, all politicians have to agree, or at least most, and a Reformation Council is made to change it (unless the government makes a specific rule about reforms). Opposition and Supporters can do various actions to push or fight these changes.
Civics:
Civics will have a large impact on the population of the nation, and how they perceive your government. Civics can sway the opinions of the masses as to whether you are a great government, or whether you are oppressive. A vote of the politicians is required to change civics. When Government civics are changed, I will mandate some changes to your constitution, but I will try to give as much leeway as possible to creativity and variations. The civic state property is the one other civic that forces you to do something. If this civic is chosen all property is seized by the government. The Labor civics will also have an impact, determining whether your society has slaves, politically separated classes, etc.
Actions
Players can do unlimited actions. There is no limit to what actions you could do, as long as they are not movements. Some actions may involve spending money. Two very important actions are look for spouse and procreate. For more info, see Lineage. Actions include but are not limited to:
• Hire body guards
• hire assassins
• political coups
• military coups
• espionage
• hire agitators
• bribe
• create assassin groups
• create guerrilla groups
• imprison politicians
• Frame politicians
• Rig elections (if democratic government)
• create propaganda
• create laws
• reform laws
• Secede
• create groups, clans, parties, creeds,
• Issue government crackdowns
• banish anyone
• Order assassinations on foreign leaders
• Bribe foreign leaders
• spy on foreign leaders
• send agitators to foreign civs
• aid insurgents or governments
• create agreements with foreign leaders
• create protests
• start revolutions
• create a guerrilla movement
• terrorism
• ethnic attacks
• boycotts
• go on strikes
• assassinations (hire or become assassins)
• Hire Security Forces
Movements
These actions have a limit at how many of them you can do. Each turn you can do two movements. Movements involve your character moving around or attacking/assassinating another player/foreign leader/etc. Some movements may involve spending money.
Power
One of the main objectives of the game is to be the most powerful man in the nation, and to be there throughout history. Power will be determined by the influence you hold over the people and government. The power you had when you died would be the power that goes on the long term list.
The ten most powerful people will be listed on the Powers list, and will be constantly changing. What you want to be is in the list, and to be Number 1.
At the end of game, whoever is in first place is the winner.
Lineage
When you reach the age of 18, you can begin to look for marriage to conceive heirs to your fortune and continuance of the family. If you do get married you can do the action procreate. A random number will be given, and depending on that number I will decide whether or not you get a child. If odd, no child, if even, you get a child. This child will in ten turns enter the civilian pool. Each of your children can become a politician, but only the first born of your primary character is guaranteed a slot. The others have probability. The second is 50%, third is 40%, fourth is 20%, fifth is 10%, sixth is 5%, seventh is 2.5% and so on.
Your children can also become politicians through appointment to public offices. If you have two children that become politicians, you will control both of their firstborns, etc. I reserve the right to not let some of your family have children if you get to controlling too many characters.
Each child will receive inheritance, and you decide how much each gets. Those who don’t become politicians will not be controlled by you, so you have to be careful how you distribute your inheritance.
Resource Ownership
When a person owns a tile, and that tile has a resource, they own that resource. The government must now pay them to use that resource, and that person has full control of that resource. The amount the government pays must be negotiated by the two different parties. The government must pay for rights to build on that square, and then pay a continued usage fee after the improvement is built.
The government can decide to expropriate the tile, taking control of that tile because of resource. If the government also has a policy of communism/authoritarian, then maybe all resources belong to state and people can not own the resource.
Ownership of a resource creates the possibility of forming a company of that resource. You will have employees. With companies it is easier to control all resources of same type. Remember that you must pay your employees and may sometimes pay taxes for it.
Tiles
Every time a there is a new politician, he will receive a tile. The tile he will receive is the tile where the new citizen was placed in-game. When a government is formed this ends, and tiles can only be gotten through sale or gifts. The Players can buy/sell tiles among each other, each putting the price and negotiating. When a player can not pay the government’s taxes or owes money, a tile(s) can be taken. Tiles increase the influence you have, and the money you gain.
Tiles are worth 1upt per food, Hammers give 3upt, and Commerce gives 5upt.
Ethnicity
Through out history, one of the most problem causing factors is different ethnic groups in the same area causing fights. This factor will be present in the game. Your civilization will be one ethnic group, and other civilizations will be different ethnic groups. Barbarians and tribal villages will also have a small different ethnic group. As you expand and conquer, more ethnic groups will join your civilization’s society and will interact with the civilization’s original ethnic group.
Every time you take a barbarian city or a tile with a tribal village you will incorporate their population into the nation. When you “pop” a tribal village the tribe joins your nearest city. When a tribal village gives the empire a settler, the city it settles will be from that ethnic group and their population will be added to the empire's. The politician will be an AI from that ethnic group.
When two civilizations border each other, migration will occur although the amount will depend on any treaties (such as Open Borders) that the nations might have.
Religion
From the beginning, all civilizations will have unorganized religion, all polytheistic. We will use each civs ancient mythology. When a religion spreads to our land, a religious council will be called to decide if we adopt it IF the organized religion civic is available. If not, the council is delayed until it is. If it is adopted, all politicians will be called to vote on whether the religion should be incorporated into the government or not. Then, we will adopt either the organized religion or theocracy civic based on what the politicians decide. If only organized religion is available, then that will be chosen and we will decide whether to incorporate the religion into the government when Theocracy becomes available. When other religious civics become available the same method used to choose other civics is applied. The Free Religion and pacifism civics, though, will be under the control of the government. However, even if organized religion or theocracy is abandoned by the people/government, the Church will still exist as an organized entity, just not as part of the government.
Remember though that the in-game religions are broad, and could contain many sects. Also remember that the religions don’t necessarily have to be the same as in our world. For example, many people in our world (mistakenly) believe that Islam is a militant religion. In this world, why couldn’t Christianity be seen as the militant one?
Pools
In Statecraft and Duplicity there are three pools of players. Only the Politician and Limbo pools are relevant after the Constitution. The first pool you start in when you sign up is the Civilian Pool. Here, you are a civilian with no government office who gains little money and has little influence in national and international events, normally. Then, when a citizen in-game is chosen, you have the chance to go to the Politician Pool. There you will be a politician. When your house dies (ie- when you as the only member die), which can happen at any time, you go to the Limbo Pool for five in-game turns. After five turns, you are born back into the Civilian Pool.
The Limbo Pool can be avoided by having children. When you die, you can take control of your first born child, who becomes a politician automatically.
Politicians
Politicians are important people. Before the Constitution, politicians are chosen when a new in-game citizen is born. After the Constitution, politicians are the first-born of player controlled characters or characters appointed to offices. All politicians are PCs or AIs controlled by me.
The Main Thread
The main thread is the public stage. Everything here is public, which means everything told here is known by all the population. This is the place to make speeches to the people and address other players and issues. Try to stay in character as much as you can. To keep the thread interesting to read, keep the main thread for discussions involving many players.
For discussions with only one player, try using PM or social groups. Everything said here could affect you popularity and reputation.
To help me make the updates easier, try to make all decisions in bold and in the following way:
In-game Issues:
What shall be produced in Mecca?
Monument
What shall the Scouts do?
Explore South of Mecca:
-Stay in Flat Grasslands and hills
-Avoid Barbarians
-Go to Tribal Villages if possible
Responses to Issues
Domestic: Hire Standard Security Forces
Foreign/Military: Attack Barecians with our Royal Division
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