While We Wait: (Almost) Anything Goes

[Aiken_Drumn]

Gosh I can't imagine the effort updating a map like that!

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Thlayli Wow what a map and to echo AD looks like a bear to keep current.

 

[Gelion]

Sun's Torment has just finished its second official update, and its talented mod TheMeanestGuest is looking for a fourth player.

What format does the game take place? The discussion etc?

 

[ZeletDude]

Regardless, I agree with erez. I know there's an audience for a simple NES drawing from our complexity from back in high school. Even if it's not as deep as something like EOE, I think a lot of people are craving the good ol' days, and there's always nostalgia to plug the holes of oversimplification. Remember stats sheets like this?

Nation name
Government: Type
Ruler: Name
Religion: State Religion
Technology: Late Bronze Age or whatever
Stability: -3 to +3
Economy: X EP (Shrinking/Stagnant/Growing)
Size: Tiny to Huge
Infrastructure: None to Connected
Military: List of units (EP Upkeep)
M. Quality: Rabble to Juggernaut
Navy: List of ships (EP Upkeep)
N. Quality: Junk to Juggernaut
Culture: Primitive to Cosmopolitan
Wonders: List of wonders
Description: A short history

Plus cities being capitals, trade centres, cultural centres, industrial centres and religious centres, depending on the black city nodes having a white, blue, green, yellow, or red cicle... And then just handwaving mechanical interpretations from then, plus stories giving small bonuses.

I'd play that, at least.

This really brings back some memories

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

On the off-chance any of the old gang and/or the Styleses are ghosting this thread,

GET OFF PHOTOBUCKET NOW.

Having snuck through multiple ToS changes without notification between the OP and now, Photobucket is killing off free accounts. Despite the big scary ransom screen when you log in, navigating back to your account page still works... for now. You can download the original files unadulterated (and they'll automatically pack up in a handy .zip file), so if you've lost your local sources, now's the time to update your backups.

Hotlinks are still up with the ugly watermark so you still have a visual guide for rehosting, but there's no timeframe given for when they plan to shut down accounts for good, so don't dally.

 

[erez87]

How much interest is there for a states game like north kings old one? Usa forms but not yet signs the constitution and remains more of a confederacy of states at first. Always wanted to play that one, maybe i could run it.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I'd love to play, and I would help round up players

 

[Thlayli]

What format does the game take place? The discussion etc?

The rules, updates, and stats are posted as discrete google docs, with a lot of ongoing discussion happening in the Discord channel and IRC. Between updates, the actual battles to which players commit are resolved in IRC chat, with a dice rolling bot (helpfully coded by Luckymoose) which players and the mod roll to actually resolve hits, misses, and damage rolls, and the army unit icons deployed onto a Google Slide (effectively an editable powerpoint).

So it functions fairly similarly to a forum-based NES in principle, with the google docs and the Discord chat replacing the forum posts, and battles simulated between turns. This style works quite well I think, since players have some "content," i.e., the battles, to tide them over between the submitting of orders and the mod posting the next update. It was last used to my knowledge in SysNES II back in 2013 or so, but it has been adapted well to this game.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Merry Christmas to all my NESers past and present!

 

[Gelion]

The rules, updates, and stats are posted as discrete google docs, with a lot of ongoing discussion happening in the Discord channel and IRC. Between updates, the actual battles to which players commit are resolved in IRC chat, with a dice rolling bot (helpfully coded by Luckymoose) which players and the mod roll to actually resolve hits, misses, and damage rolls, and the army unit icons deployed onto a Google Slide (effectively an editable powerpoint).

So it functions fairly similarly to a forum-based NES in principle, with the google docs and the Discord chat replacing the forum posts, and battles simulated between turns. This style works quite well I think, since players have some "content," i.e., the battles, to tide them over between the submitting of orders and the mod posting the next update. It was last used to my knowledge in SysNES II back in 2013 or so, but it has been adapted well to this game.

Thanks a lot for the info! I am very happy that this evolution of NES carried on. Also because it is a new technological iteration of a NES. Congrats to you guys!

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Finally squeezed my update out, @Daftpanzer how is yours coming along?

 

[Thlayli]

Coming soon to a NES near you*




















*NES may not contain dinosaurs. It may or may not contain trollmen.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Coming soon to a NES near you*




















*NES may not contain dinosaurs. It may or may not contain trollmen.

and will certainly not contain birds.

 

[Anonymoose]

That little whippy thing looks sufficient to motivate a TRex.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Small brains, small whips!

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Small brains, small whips!

 

[Thlayli]

Here is a preview of the map which Terrance and I are working on for our upcoming NES, Consider the Laurel. The game will be an epic simulator of imperial crisis going through generations of civil war, with victorious players reigning as Emperor and setting imperial policy. This is just our test of the capital region - the final map will be huge (it frequently breaks our computers) and may be the largest map ever created for a NES. Terrance has been an invaluable assistance and junior imperator, and I look forward to our future success in this project.

For interested parties, as there are still a few player slots available, the rules can be found here:

TNES VII - Consider the Laurel

1The Valian Empire The year is 841, dated from the founding of the mythic First League of Valia. For several centuries now, the Valian Empire has reigned over much of the known world. With the prosecution of a series of civil wars within the old confederacy, the Hegemons of the Valian League gra...

docs.google.com

You can expect Consider the Laurel to launch some time in the next month, give or take. If you are on the Discord, where we give frequent development updates, feel free to pop in and ask questions.

(Also a big thanks to Daft who showed us some Civ2 mod sprites, which Terrance has brilliantly adapted for our purposes.)

 

[Thlayli]

So far we have:

Kyzarc/Sean, imperial governor in Aetheria (Britain)
Jehoshua, imperial governor in Tarias (Gaul)
Luckymoose, legionary commander in Aytak (Carthage/Morocco)
Thomas.berubeg, Valianized barbarian-descended imperial prefect in the central sea isles (Sardinia/Balaeres analogue)
Nuka, governor of Hateph (Egypt)
Danwar, legionary commander on the Altenland frontier (Germania)
Lord Iggy, aristocratic delegate in Magna Valia (Southern Italy/isles)
TheMeanestGuest and ork, a declared team of the foreign empire Ashrai, set to gain revenge on archenemy Valia (the furthest east)
LordArgon, a barbarian tribe (undeclared location)

There’s also some interest from Immac and Shadowbound who haven’t fully declared starts yet. I would say the roster has capacity for one or two more, considering potential no shows. I intend to keep a thread updated here in CFC, but things like battles will be resolved either in IRC or on the Discord in the inter-turn time. Players are welcome to begin in coalitions with other imperial players.

 

[Angst]

@Thlayli Y'know. Might actually do some insertselfing as much as I can and play as a barbarian tribe in Altenland, as something from not!Saxony and beyond, amalgating some Norse/Germanic things (Y'know, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes). If you're interested in that. I could lift some stuff from another setting I've worked on if you're interested in ideas, if not, fine too. I know in our world the area was largely insular save for the immediate Germans I think, so I'd be taking over some minor power, probably being more of an ambigious party (mercenary leader that'll do stuff for someone in Tarias?) than an actual prominent actor as eg not!Gaul.

Looking at the (latest) Discord map fragments, is Taglarika supposed to be not!Scandinavia? The non-peninsular areas seem quite (Norse) Saxon.

Seems to currently be a foreigner player and a barbarian player, so there's a barb slot free, no?

If anything, interest expression maybe. If you prefer talking in Disc, you can ping me in the Laurel channel

 

[Thlayli]

@Thlayli Y'know. Might actually do some insertselfing as much as I can and play as a barbarian tribe in Altenland, as something from not!Saxony and beyond, amalgating some Norse/Germanic things (Y'know, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes). If you're interested in that. I could lift some stuff from another setting I've worked on if you're interested in ideas, if not, fine too. I know in our world the area was largely insular save for the immediate Germans I think, so I'd be taking over some minor power, probably being more of an ambigious party (mercenary leader that'll do stuff for someone in Tarias?) than an actual prominent actor as eg not!Gaul.

Looking at the (latest) Discord map fragments, is Taglarika supposed to be not!Scandinavia? The non-peninsular areas seem quite (Norse) Saxon.

Seems to currently be a foreigner player and a barbarian player, so there's a barb slot free, no?

If anything, interest expression maybe. If you prefer talking in Disc, you can ping me in the Laurel channel

You're basically right - we describe the coastal area of Taglarika as "if Netherlands lost to the sea," so it's a Danish/Frisian/North German geographic resemblance, with these big bight/sound type areas cutting deep into the landmass, creating many shallow channels. In the north is kind of like a Dogger Bank-like large tidal landmass that freezes over in winter, and it's traversable by migrants from north and east. (It's a bit different from Europe, since it's sort of like, what if Jutland came before the Netherlands and was connected to Poland overland rather than close to Sweden. There's more of a traditional Scandinavia-like area further to the north, but it's so remote as to be off the map.) Then in the interior there are some deep primeval forests and iron age hill fort societies.

Taglarika has a weak king and the confederacy is propped up with Valian support, so there's a lot of potential mischief to be had there, as well as possibly working as a mercenary for one of the imperial players, or even allying to the foreigners. Tldr; your ideas are very welcome and I think it'd be fun to have another barbarian player, as well as someone to flesh out some regional cultures.