Years ago, there was a small string of forum games based on Civilization. I want to bring one back.
Players each have one city, with an urban center and surrounding rural hexes to upgrade and assign workers to. They explore the world map, looking for neutral villages, interesting places to exploit by building outposts, and if they're lucky, ancient ruins from before the calamities. Research new technology, both common techs and unique faction techs. Train large armies. Meet other players and have peaceful diplomatic talks.
Our ancestors had a golden age of bronze and magic, shattered by greed, ambition, and magic too great for mortals to handle responsibly. Hundreds of years later, the winds of cataclysm finally abate. The surface still lashes out destructively at times, by wild magical discharges or more natural weather. Still, it is growing less dangerous every year, and the time to reclaim and rebuild draws near.
Civilization and city name:
Race and society: Do you have a military order of spartan surface dwarves, let by a trio of generals who share power equally? A group of philosophical party hobbits lead by a philosopher king?
Theme: A brief, abstract description, of up to 5 words, which will be the main feature defining your strengths and weaknesses. Peaceful Farmers, Decentralized Druidic Horsemen, utilitarian military-industrial merchants, etc.
Brief History of the city and its surroundings: Important for creating the city map and start conditions. Did a magical bunker complex run out of power, forcing your people out and into a hilly river valley? Are you leading a group that fled encroaching desert in boats, forced to land on and make due with an archipelago? Especially difficult starts may be balanced by being near valuable resources on the world map, but you'll still need to find them and have the strength to colonize them.
Magic type: One word, such as Elementalism, Hydromancy, Arcane, Divine, Astral, Enchantment, etc. This will be the general magic theme for unique magical researches.
Racial Frequency: Common, uncommon, or exotic.
Common races will have at least one NPC town of that race somewhere on the map, and will get trade and disposition boosts between same race settlements. Different common races are considered to have a neutral starting disposition with each other, as they will frequently have some degree of familiarity with each other, and have similar shared languages. One common race's taverns will likely stock food that another common race likes. In Tolkien terms, humans are common.
Uncommon races have typically been cut off from the world at large, and have a chance for the world to have smaller NPC settlements. Most people have heard of uncommon races from embellished stories told by traveling merchants. Common <=> uncommon races will have a small diplomatic penalty, while uncommon <=> uncommon races will have to work to overcome their differences before they can trade. A common race's town will typically have but a single tavern that an uncommon race feels comfortable at. In Tolkien terms, elves, dwarves, and orcs are uncommon.
Exotic races will have no NPC settlements, but isolated individuals or uncivilized bands may exist. Exotic races exist in legends, and have really weird cultural practices or unpronounceable languages. Exotic relations will usually require multiple epochs of effort or dedicated research to normalize enough for trade to be possible. A town of a common race will usually not allow travelers from an exotic race to linger for long, and almost certainly won't have welcoming taverns. In Tolkien terms, ents are exotic.
Uncommon and exotic races will have more, or stronger, strengths, and may have more exotic strengths and weaknesses. For min-maxers, exotic races also have more potential to have drawbacks for better strengths, if such is empathized in "race and society." The diplomatic penalties can be overcome with time, but not for free. Players may conduct diplomacy freely regardless of how exotic they are, but should expect a trade penalty and a military morale penalty if fighting next to allies considered weird.
Any race can be any frequency. You can have common fire demons or exotic humans, but please explain how.
Descriptions can be simple or complex.
Civilization and city name: The Musical Mushrooms, The City of Bardtopia
Race and society: The walking mushroom-people of Bardtopia live for music. They work hard all day, and their city takes a lively turn almost every night. They hold a yearly Battle of the Bands concert, and the winning band chooses a member to lead the civilization for the next year. He will be crowned The Fun Guy.
Theme: Cultured Music Mushrooms
Brief History of the city and its surroundings: Bardtopia is hidden in a clearing deep in the forest near The World Mountains, the tallest mountain range in the world. They survived by traveling in small groups of hunter-gatherers. When they passed through the tattered remnants of civilization, they usually traded music for what services they needed.
Magic type: Bardic
Racial Frequency: Common
To keep players on a relatively even science playing field, each player will have a limited tech tree per era, and only a limited number of slots for researchers. Eras will begin to advance once someone researches all their technology, and those that do will have a golden age for the remainder of the era.
It is expected that players will look at each others' turn and results posts, but try to avoid meta-gaming too much.
To be respectful, please write your turn up before looking at other' posted actions, don't change your orders after seeing where your rival is sending his army, and try not to base your actions off of what others are doing behind spoiler boxes in any case.
Reading the results of their actions in my post before you write yours is allowed (IE, feel free to do "you found a ruby mine, I want to trade my emeralds for them."). Please spoil turn posts. Feel free to redact secret actions and PM them to me if you want to be particularly discreet. You may occasionally redact innocuous actions if you really want to be sneaky, but please don't do this every turn.
Your city starts with 10,000 people. Each 1000 people generate 1 labor and consume 1 food. Labor points may be used to work the terrain surrounding your city producing resources, or used in the city to build or staff buildings.
Your city is surrounded by 18 tiles of varying terrain types. Rivers and special resources (like ores, luxury foods, or magical reagents) can be found in some tiles. Each tile plus its basic improvements can both be fully worked by a single labor point. It is possible that advanced improvements will allow multiple laborers to work a single tile.
Labor may also be spent on construction (in or out of the city) or on manning buildings.
Unused resources will automatically be stored. Standard warehouses can store 20 resources of each type, excluding perishables like food. Resources may be used in the same turn they are produced. Extra resources over the storage limit are considered to be either given away to the populace or stolen.
Urban buildings are made in the city itself, like a smithy, library, or shrine. Some of these have modest staffing requirements and provide a constant benefit. A generic shrine, for instance, gives a passive bonus of 1 spirituality luxury good. Others allow new types of labor to be performed in the city. A smithy allows ores to be processed, for instance, and a hall of learning allows labor to be spent on research.
You may also construct rural terrain upgrades. These generally increase the resource output of the tile they are built in. Plains, for instance, can be irrigated to raise their food output from two to three. Most upgrades are mutually exclusive - you can't build a quarry and irrigation in the same tile - but a few, like walls, can be built alongside others.
The attitude of your citizens is very important! The happier your people are, the more immigrants you attract and the faster your population grows. What's more, at very high and low morale, their productivity is affected. Morale is capped at ten, with a base of five, and can be adjusted by many factors. The effects of morale are as follows:
Morale:yearly population growth
0: -6%, -50% production, rebellion brewing
1:-4%, -30% production
2:-2%, -20% production
3:0, -10% production
4:2%
5:4%
6:5%
7:6%
8:7%, +10% production
9:8%, +15% production
10:10%, +20% production
Some luxury goods can be consumed for morale bonuses. Each point of a luxury good supplies 10,000 people, but goods may be partially consumed down to 0.1 units. Additional luxury goods of the same type provide no benefit; different types are needed. If you have more than two morale from luxury goods, further bonuses become harder to get; each additional point of morale takes two different resources.
That is, to get +1 morale, every pop needs to consume 0.1 of 1 type, +2 morale takes 2 types per 1000 people, +3 takes 4, +4 takes 6, +5 takes 8, etc.
The most common luxury good is clothing, available by refining wool produced by hills. Your people can scrounge for furs and such to keep themselves dressed, but they're happier if they don't have to.
Leather may also be used to craft clothing.
Every civilization has a few citizens with unusual skills and aptitudes. They may be great military leaders, ingenious engineers, wise sages, or any number of other things. Leaders can provide bonuses to appropriate activities - a sage can lead research efforts in your hall of learning to speed your research, for instance. Possibly more important, however, many buildings cannot be built or operated at all unless you have an appropriate leader available. Without a general, for example, a military school cannot be built, nor can it be used while he is away. Other structures only require a leader to be built - building a huge castle requires a skilled engineer, but once it's done he can move on to other things.
Leaders of the same class have the same basic abilities, but each also has their own special ability. You may not initially know what this ability is, however; it must be discovered either by putting the leader in an appropriate situation or through a random event. Alduf the Sage might be a brilliant teacher of magic, giving bonuses to your wizards, but you might not know it if you never put him in charge of a magical college.
Most military units will consist of 100 people, given any weapons and equipment you see fit to assign them. They will usually require one turn to train. You may train them on the same turn you make their equipment, but this will give them a morale debuff for their first turn while they finish acclimating to their gear. You must have the free population available at the start of the turn you train them.
As an example unit, I will train a unit of Spearmen, with wooden spears.
Spearmen - 2s/2d, 100/100, 10/10ml, 3mv
They have 2 shock attack, 2 defense, 100 HP, 10 morale, and have a tactical speed of 3. They have no traits or special strategic movement modifiers.
There are initially three kinds of attack damage: Shock, charge, and ranged.
Shock is a typical melee attack.
Charge is a special melee attack that can deal devastating bonus morale damage to units with a low shock attack rating on its first turn engaging them. Some units, such as pikemen, have a bonus trait to further resist charge damage.
Ranged attacks deal bonus morale damage and often get a bonus round before combat begins.
HP shows how many are alive. It will recover on its own if civilians can be assumed to reach the unit, and recovers fastest when stationed in a town. It takes population to recover.
Permanent HP damage is possible, usually representing a loss of difficult to replace equipment or war beasts. This will take special measures to recover, such as figuring out how to enchant your own artifact shields or establishing trade with someone who has trained pegasi.
Morale indicates discipline, willingness to fight, and to a degree, stamina. It affects the damage dealt, how likely a unit is to retreat during combat, and their chance to succeed at any complicated tactical orders the player gives. Units will frequently get temporary morale boosts to represent combat experience.
Tactical speed will be used behind-the-scenes to calculate combat. It also affects chances at certain tactical orders.
Units will not level up, per say, but may gain traits for special performance or over time as a unit builds institutional knowledge and passes it down. It may be possible to research a way to spread such training to new units. The more traits a unit has, the harder it will be to gain new ones.
Units may be upgraded with new equipment if they spend a turn training. They will typically keep their old traits, unless it would give such nonsense as longbowmen with great cavalry charge abilities.
You may decide to train unarmed units with no equipment. They will have bad morale, and civilian morale will be more strongly impacted by casualties.
As noted earlier, each 1000 people consume 1 food a turn. If extra food is available, it provides morale bonuses - each point of extra food counts as a luxury good for 2000 people.
Famine can easily be disastrous. If there is not enough food, a third of the unfed portion of the population dies or leaves every turn, and morale is reduced by two until the situation is resolved.
Military units consume double food. That is, a standard unit of archers with 100 population will consume 0.2 food per turn. If forced to forage in the wilderness (Extended global travels without supplies or a lack of food), they'll lose morale and health, based on how hospitable the terrain is.
Excess population beyond a 1000 mark will add into a sort of bonus labor pool, rounded down to the 100 level. This will continue to increase each turn. When it reaches 1000, the population will be considered to have an extra 1000 people for the next turn for labor and needs purposes. They'll produce more labor, require food, use luxuries, and be taxed just like a normal 1000 people. This extra will be noted in the turn text.
Initially, your people don't use money much. This changes once you research Trade. Money is used mostly for upkeep of military units and for trading. Each 2000 people produce 1 gold in tax income, and each military unit requires 1 gold in upkeep costs. Before trade is researched, you may only support three military units.
Researching Trade will cause your people to begin producing a small amount of free Trade Goods. Each civilization's trade goods are considered to be a unique luxury good, but they cannot use their own.
Research points are produced primarily with labor spent at the Hall of Learning. You may tell your researchers what you want them to work on, but they may surprise you from time to time. Plus, there is a large random component to research speed, so don't assume much.
The 18 hex tiles surrounding your city are available for production, but tiles being used for production may need to be protected. Enemies can keep you from working tiles, and may also destroy improvements in them. Units in your city may be ordered to defend terrain tiles, or not, as you prefer. Walls improve the strength of your units when they're defending any tile they enclose, but are of no use outside them.
Your tiles may be referred to by number as follows: The tile directly above and right of your city is tile 1, and the remainder of the inner ring is numbered 2 through 6 clockwise. The top middle tile is number 7, and the rest of the outer ring is numbered 8 through 18 clockwise.
(https://i.ibb.co/RvYsMjP/Number-Reference.png) (https://ibb.co/0Dm6WsZ)
Civilizations with an appropriate technology can produce settler units by spending 5 labor, 5 food, and 5 wood. This also reduces the city's population by 5,000. Settlers move like military units, and can be expended to produce a colony or town, depending on the technology used.
Colonies take 10 money in startup costs, and represent relatively small settlements dependent on their parent city for most production. They grow randomly with up to two chances to grow per era, based on when they were founded or last grew. They send resources back to their parent civilization based on their location. Colonies with little or no farmland may require steady food shipments, as well. Colonies initially have no ability to raise military units, and rely on their parent city for protection.
A player may only control one city at a time, although the possibility exists for independent towns to loosely align themselves with a player, trading resources for protection.
Random events will occur as the game goes on. These can be beneficial or harmful. Bad harvests, raiders, abundant harvests, or traveling merchants are a few possibilities. There is no way to prevent them, but bad harvests can be negated by having a granary with enough food stored. Raiders won't be able to do much if there is an army defending the town.
Colonies will have separate chances for random events.
The first era will have more bad events, and higher chances of exploration events, good and bad. Early overextension is dangerous, but may be profitable.
Horses and similar beasts of burden have a few uses. Two maybe be turned into a labor point for the express purposes of working terrain or improving it. They may be eaten if times are hard, for +2 food. With the proper training, horses or beasts of burden may be used as part of a military unit, for cavalry.
Horses or other beasts of burden may be gained through random event, exploration, or raiding. Building a horse farm with them is advised, so that more may be trained.
Military schools give a second training slot. Training slots may be used to train for new traits, if unlocked, or to (re)train a unit to use a new equipment loadout.
There is one exception. A unit with 0 traits, or a new unit, may train to both have a trait and get a new equipment loadout for 1 training slot.
You may also use a training slot to get a temporary morale boost, or a temporary boost for a particular terrain type (this may evolve into a full trait for the unit if they use it in combat). The morale boost roll table will be improved with a military school, staffed or not. The roll table will be improved with a general assigned to training, stackable with the improvement from the military school. There will be strong diminishing returns from trying to get two morale boosts from training at once on one unit.
Laborers get resources
Trickle resources, like Trade's effects
Laborers do tasks that use resources
Population eats and uses luxuries
Civilian morale changes
Population grows
Bonus labor pool increases
Military trained
Disasters rolled and declared
Military moves
Military fights
Military raids, explores, and resolves military events
Civilian morale changes from military and disasters
Other disaster effects, like destroyed stockpiles
Other stockpile changes, like trade.
Morale productivity bonus calculated for next turn
Reference:
Plains (Yellow)
2 food
Hills (Brown)
1 food, 1 wool
Forest (Green)
1 food, 1 wood
Mountains (Grey)
1 stone
Ocean/lake (Blue)
2 food
River (Blue line)
+1 food
Terrain improvements (and technology required)
Only improvements marked with a * will take effect on the turn construction finishes.
Irrigation (Farming)
Plains or hills
Requires river or lake present or adjacent
no resources, 2 labor
+1 food
Quarry (Construction)
Hills or mountains
no resources, 2 labor
+1 stone
Pasture (Animal taming)
Hills
1 wood, 3 labor, optionally 1 animal
+1 food OR +1 wool OR +1 animal (and -1 food)
Woodcutting village
Forest
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
+1 wood
Hunter's camp (Archery)
Forest or Swamp
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
+1 food OR +1 leather
Fishing wharf (Fishing)
Ocean/Lake
Requires land adjacent
2 wood, 2 labor
+1 food
Horse Farm (Animal Taming)
Plains
1 wood or stone, 1 horses, 2 labour
+1 horses
Mine (Mining)
Mountains or hills
Requires ore present
1 wood, 3 labor
Production depends on ore type
*Palisade:
Any land, including city hex
2 wood, 2 labor
No tech required
Protects hex against raiders while city is garrisoned, and increases strength of hex defenders while wall is intact by 20%.
*Stone Wall:
Any land, including city hex
3 stone, 3 labor
Construction
Better protects hex against raders while city is garrisoned, and increases strength of hex defenders while wall is intact by 40%.
Only buildings or effects marked with a * take effect on the turn construction finishes.
Explorers Hall
1 wood or stone, 1 labor
Exploration
Allows one labor to be used to train a unit with the Explorer trait, increasing exploration speed and safety.
*Finds or generates one time-limited opportunity per era.
Hall of Learning
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Allows up to three labor to be used on research
Standard Warehouses
Free
No tech required
Stores 20 of each non-food resource type
Stables
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
Horseback riding
Allows production of mounted units
*Granary
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
Construction
Allows storage of up to 20 food
*Warehouses
3 wood or stone, 3 labor
Construction
Increases storage by 20 of each non-food resource type.
Shrine
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
+1 Spirituality luxury
Tombs
3 wood or stone, 3 labor
Ceremonial Burial
+1 Spirituality luxury
Marketplace
2 wood or stone, 3 labor
Trade
+50% tax income
*Town Hall
3 wood or stone, 3 labor
Town Planning
Increases the population soft cap from 12,000 to 16,000.
Military workshops
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Doubles production speed of weapons and armor (Normally 2 labor for each)
Clothier's workshops
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Doubles production speed of clothing and luxury clothing (Normally 1 labor for each)
Military school:
2 stone or wood, 4 labor
No tech required
Requires General to build and operate
Train up to 2 units/turn
Canoe Workshop:
3 wood or stone, 3 labor
Canoe Crafting
Build up to 1 canoe/turn
Animal Taming
Build Pasture
Build Horse Farm
Archery
Build hunter's camp
Build archery units
Canoe Crafting
Build Canoe Workshop
Ceremonial Burial
Build Tombs
Construction
Build stone walls, quarries, granary
Exploration
Build Explorer's Hall
Farming
Build irrigation
Fishing
Build fishing villages
Horseback Riding
Build Stables, Horsemen
Mining
Build mine
Prospect ores
Primitive Pottery
Craft Pottery for 3 labor
Town Planning
Build Town Hall
Trade
Enables money
Trade Goods free trickle at 0.1 per 3000 population, rounded down.
Build marketplace
Wooden spears
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Wooden shields
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Leather armor
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 leather
Bows
Archery, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Canoe
Canoe Crafting, Canoe Workshop
3 labor, 2 wood
Stored pottery increases food storage by 5, up to a limit of 1 food stored per 1000 people. Pottery may be consumed at any time as a luxury good.
Primitive Pottery is considered urban work, but is expensive as the crafters harvest clay themselves and shape it by hand. It is, however, a cheap technology.
Infiltrators - 50% chance for commanders with control over (or allied control over) at least one doppelganger unit to know enemy tactics and attempt to counter them.
Stealthy - Light units recieve a free Stealthy trait.
The Stealthy trait makes it much easier for units in terrain such as forests or mountains to hide from more powerful forces, and often gives a first round surprise bonus. It does not work in open terrain, such as grasslands or deserts.
Units such as infantry in medium armor and archers count as light units. Mail-armored pikemen or knights count as heavy units, and would not get this trait.
Starting Leader: Explorer (Double exploration speed of attached units)
Starting Tech: Fishing
Flower Castes: Every labor spent in the city center will increase the Bonus Labor pool by 100, effectively giving a 10% refund on urban labor.
Vine Legs: -1 move speed for unmounted troops.
Floral Bodies: -10% damage taken from mundane weapons, +25% damage taken from fire and ice (including terrain attrition).
Starting Leader: Governor (+1 morale)
Starting Tech: Praise the Sun (replaces Ceremonial Burial, allowing the shrine to be upgraded to serve more people).
GM Notes: See Food and Your People spoiler in the rules for the Bonus Labor system. This special will increase your food and luxury needs to feed the bonus labor, but will give bonus labor, taxes, and any other relevant boosts that technology may bring in the future.
Green is strong: +15% melee attack damage.
Green is friend: +20% money generated from trade, Trade Good production doubled when researched.
Starting Leader: Explorer (Attached units explore at double speed)
Starting Tech: Construction
Thoughtful: +25% research rate.
Trollish Physique: -20% damage taken from non-magical attacks, -1 move speed for unmounted troops.
Bonus Leader: Sage (+25% research)
Starting Tech: Construction
Shimmersilk: Start with a Shimmersilk Spider ranch, and can build more with Animal Taming. Shimmersilk can be used to create luxury clothes, which can be stacked with regular clothes. May have military use in the future.
That is not a vine: +25% attack strength to The Chain of Petals' units defending Ashcrown.
Starting Leader: Govenor (+1 morale)
Starting Tech: Practical Biomantic Applications
May build a Biomancer's Hall for 1 wood, 2 labor.
1 worker may either mitigate a famine's food penalty by 2, OR mutate a unit with the Berserker Fury trait for a cost of 150 extra population.
Berserker Fury - Unit gets +1 melee shock attack, halved low morale penalty to damage dealt. Damaged morale makes a unit difficult to control and likely to charge into melee to fight to the death. Unit costs up to 250 population to recover to full HP, instead of the usual 100.
GM notes: You can put this on most units, even archers, but they're likely to drop their bows and charge into melee when they get shot at. I simulated a combat, and an unarmed berserker beat a spearman, but it was a pyrrhic victory even before the extra population cost. Because they can beat a spearman, even unarmed units with Berserker Fury are considered full military units, and civilians will not take extra morale damage at their casualties.
To mitigate a famine, effectively giving +2 food, the laborer must be assigned after a famine is declared.
Asura: Units may equip another weapon or shield for the full benefit, without the usual downsides.
Self-centered raiders: Extra loot, but units may ignore tactics to engage in glory-seeking or for self-preservation.
Martial Focus: Most research is done at -25% speed. Raids on advanced neighbors may potentially flip this for specific techs.
Starting Leader: General (May build and operate military schools. May command groups of units.)
Starting Tech: Animal Taming
I don't think that anyone who's dumber than a troll will be able to research their entire era 1 tech tree in 8 turns.
Currently unavailable techs may be available in era 2. There's some fuzziness, but you're mostly split into groups that ran into the wilds and have Exploration and easier pottery to survive famines, and groups that hid in place and have Town Planning for a higher soft population cap and Construction+granary to survive famines. Granaries are more efficient in the long run, but it may be difficult to research Construction and build one before turn 3. As such, nobody starts with Construction researched. Instead, the green people get farming, and the trolls get mushroom farming.
I might get the city maps out tonight so we can get started, but the goal is tomorrow night.
Infiltrators - 50% chance for commanders with control over (or allied control over) at least one dopplegager unit to know enemy tactics and attempt to counter them.
Stealthy - Light units receive a free Stealthy trait.
The Stealthy trait makes it much easier for units in terrain such as forests or mountains to hide from more powerful forces, and often gives a first round surprise bonus. It does not work in open terrain, such as grasslands or deserts.
Units such as infantry in medium armor and archers count as light units. Mail-armored pikemen or knights count as heavy units, and would not get this trait.
Starting Leader: Explorer (Double exploration speed of attached units)
Starting Tech: Fishing
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Animal Taming
Archery
Ceremonial Burial
Exploration
Farming
Primitive Pottery
Trade
Flower Castes: Every labor spent in the city center will increase the Bonus Labor pool by 100, effectively giving a 10% refund on urban labor.
Those Legs are Vines: -1 move speed for unmounted troops.
Floral Bodies: -10% damage taken from mundane weapons, +25% damage taken from fire and ice (including terrain attrition).
Starting Leader: Governor (+1 morale)
Starting Tech: Praise the Sun (replaces Ceremonial Burial)
Unique tech: Solar Focuser
May build Solar Focuser for 2 labor.
Up to 4 labor may work it to each give +1 food, regardless of famine conditions. Every 2 labor will mitigate a famine by +1 food. Triggers caste system bonus.
As this is considered an optional side-path instead of rushing granary, and likely worse than having one, you have +1 tech option over others.
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Animal Taming
Construction
Farming
Fishing
Mining
Town Planning
Trade
Solar Focuser
Green is strong: +15% melee attack damage.
Green is friend: +20% money generated from trade, Trade Good production doubled when researched.
Starting Leader: Explorer (Attached units explore at double speed)
Starting Tech: Farming
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Animal Taming
Archery
Ceremonial Burial
Exploration
Primitive Pottery
Town Planning
Trade
Thoughtful: +25% research rate.
Trollish Physique: -20% damage taken from non-magical attacks, -1 move speed for unmounted troops.
Bonus Leader: Sage (+25% research)
Starting Tech: Mushroom Farming
Rare Tech: Mushroom Farming
Hills or mountains
No resources, 3 labor
Tile produces 2 food, ignoring base food and river bonus.
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Animal Taming
Ceremonial Burial
Construction
Farming
Mining
Town Planning
Trade
Shimmersilk: Start with a Shimmersilk Spider ranch, and can build more with Animal Taming. Shimmersilk can be used to create luxury clothes, which can be stacked with regular clothes. May have military use in the future.
That is not a vine: +25% attack strength to The Chain of Petals' units defending Ashcrown.
Starting Leader: Governor (+1 morale)
Starting Tech: Practical Biomantic Applications
May build a Biomancer's Hall for 1 wood, 2 labor.
1 worker may either mitigate a famine's food penalty by 2, OR mutate a unit with the Berserker Fury trait for a cost of 150 extra population.
Berserker Fury - Unit gets +1 melee shock attack, halved low morale penalty to damage dealt. Damaged morale makes a unit difficult to control and likely to charge into melee to fight to the death. Unit costs up to 250 population to recover to full HP, instead of the usual 100.
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Animal Taming
Archery
Canoe Building
Construction
Fishing
Town Planning
Trade
Asura: Units may equip another weapon or shield for the full benefit, without the usual downsides.
Self-centered raiders: Extra loot, but units may ignore tactics to engage in glory-seeking or for self-preservation.
Martial Focus: Most research is done at -25% speed. Raids on advanced neighbors may potentially flip this for specific techs.
Starting Leader: General (May build and operate military schools. May command groups of units.)
Starting Tech: Animal Taming
Available tech for the Era of Calamity:
Archery
Ceremonial Burial
Exploration
Farming
Fishing
Horseback Riding
Primitive Pottery
If this looks balanced, the game can start. I think I'll start you with resources instead of buildings, aside from Toaster, who would have a uniquely unpleasant time without them.
This is now also in the reference post under "City Surroundings."
(https://i.ibb.co/RvYsMjP/Number-Reference.png) (https://ibb.co/0Dm6WsZ)
You will start with a cache of 3 wood and 1 spear.
Your lighter yellow tiles are plains, the rest are deserts. Deserts produce no resources, but your people know of desert animals nearby that could be tamed to make use of them. Soldiers will have to retrieve them, while civilians build a pen.
(https://i.ibb.co/qnnxQM3/Crazyabe-City.png) (https://ibb.co/1nnbWft)
You start with a cache of 2 wood.
(https://i.ibb.co/wRLYR7r/Criptfeind-City.png) (https://ibb.co/t4h34zP)
You start with a cache of 1 wood and 1 stone.
(https://i.ibb.co/ZWJXsjr/Egan-City.png) (https://ibb.co/m6BTsjK)
You start with a cache of 2 wood.
(https://i.ibb.co/prLtJ42/Irony-Owl-City.png) (https://ibb.co/jZrcg3h)
As you can feed your people with only 4 workers, you start with no bonus resources.
(https://i.ibb.co/3yLfhzm/Stirk-City.png) (https://ibb.co/ynbhsSF)
You start with a mushroom farm in tile 2.
Your capital has a special unique mushroom pit building. One worker may work it for 3 food. You do not produce enough biological detritus to build and support another.
You start with a cache of 2 stone.
(https://i.ibb.co/9wxx218/Toaster-City.png) (https://ibb.co/dbNN6VW)
Explorer Leader is named: Big Man Ferun.
A huge number of citizens gather into the Grugun Agora; all adult Grug who are able to and care to attend. The day's agenda is unspoken, but obvious: to pick a leader for the Tribeship, to organize the hordes of Gruggi for labor and for war.
Those who wish to try their luck plead their cases to the crowd, but in the end one gets louder shouts than the others and is declared the Big Man. Ferun is a proven survivalist and practical living legend among Gruggi, and deemed the best choice for taming the savage wilds surrounding Grugunnium.
Irrigate 16 (River Hills). (2 labor used.)
Having recently discovered this "Agriculture" thing, many Gruggi work enthusiastically to improve their yield, using their big muscles to excavate trenches and water gardens. They start up in the foothills where the river first bursts from the mountain rocks, mainly because the sheep there are cute and make the hard labor more bearable.
Work 16 (Irrigated River Hills). (Food now 3, Wool now 1.) (3 Labor used.)
The foothills were once a region uninhabited by Gruggi, who preferred the jungle and wild foods. But agriculture and the improvement project has made these hills greatly more attractive, and soon a village pops up, farming and loosely herding the sheep. Bundles of wool are rolled over the fields into Grugunnium, often in exchange for foodstuffs juicier than mere bread. The village here is named 'Linda', for some reason.
Work 15 (River Fields). (Food 6.) (4 Labor.)
Work 5 (River Fields). (Food 9.) (5 Labor.)
The fields around the winding river are productive, but unpopular, as farming is tedious and unfun. Gruggi take to drawing straws each month to determine who must work the fields and who has the leisure of gathering in the forests. There is much grumbling, but the extra bread doesn't go unwanted. Workers in the river-fields tend to camp out just west of Grugunnium, so as to retain access to the city and its services.
Work 3 (Woods). (Food 10, Wood 2.) (6 Labor.)
These are the areas most loved by Gruggi, and make for pleasurable work shifts. Tasty berries and juicy bugs abound. Gruggi will often rip up small trees out of the ground to drag back to the city, but mainly they focus on relaxing.
Work 17 (Mountain). (Stone 2.) (7 Labor.)
A few Lindan Gruggi make the journey up the mountain to find big rocks. These aren't very useful, but it's fun to show off and lift heavy stones. Some of them find their way back to Grugunnium for use as building material.
Build Shrine (City). (Wood 1, Stone 1.) (9 Labor.)
There is no Grug god. They can't remember ever worshipping. But they do know that a lack of favor with up high won't do when they're founding a city, so a makeshift shrine of trees and rocks is erected near the middle of the city. Half-remembered rituals and praise for foreign gods are preformed here, in hopes of finding, or perhaps making, a patron of good fortune.
Make Clothes (City). (Wool 0, Clothes 1.) (10 Labor)
Relatively few Gruggi stay in the city, winding wool into textiles in a labor intensive process. Not helped by thick fingers and a lack of patience! The resulting garments are highly sought after for protection from the elements when working the fields.
No Bonus Labor increase.
A few long-bearded philosophers speculate as to Gruggus's population. By counting the original founding families and doing some questionable 'math', they conclude that the number is exactly ten tens of tens of tens. This is, of course, absurd.
Labor eats 10 food. (Food now 0.)
Hard works takes a lot of food. What little food is left over is saved for a feast when the Gruggi assemble for a vote. Voting is also hard work, after all.
1.0 Clothing consumed as Luxury. (Clothing now 0.)
A few fashions show up among the more well-to-do Gruggi, who are able to obtain good foods to trade. Mainly they seem interested in looking more like cute sheep. Still, the people are content.
Morale changed to 6.
Population increases to 10,500.
A migratory family of Gruggi arrive in Gruggus lands and decide to settle down. There is much debate in the Agora as to grant these newcomers citizenship, residence, or even attempt to enslave them. In the end the settlement is unclear. But the migrants aren't going anywhere.
Train unarmed unit. Name: Ferum's Bantums. Attached to Big Man Ferum. (Civilian population now 10,400)
Conscious of the fact that he was elected to tame the wilds, Ferum sets out hand-picking a legion of fine lads and lasses fit to brave the wilds. He doesn't push too hard to obtain weapons, perhaps in the assumption that Grugan fists are enough to defeat most things anyways.
Basic Info
Population: 10,400
Labor Bonus: 0
Labor: 10
Morale: 6 (5% growth)
Green is Strong: +15% melee attack damage.
Green is Friend: +20% money generated from trade, Trade Good production doubled when researched.
Buildings/Improvements
Shrine (City): +1 Spirituality.
Irrigation (16): +1 Food when worked.
Stores:
Food: 0/0
Wood: 1/20
Stone: 1/20
Wool: 0/20
Clothes: 0/20
Spirituality: 0/20
Leaders:
Big Man Ferum, Explorer (Attached units explore at double speed)
Units:
Ferum's Bantums (Attached to Big Man Ferum.)
Research Tree: (green= researched)
Agriculture
Animal Taming
Archery
Ceremonial Burial
Exploration
Primitive Pottery
Town Planning
Trade
(https://i.ibb.co/xJsLvkb/Egan-City.png)
Laborers get resources
Trickle resources, like Trade's effects
Laborers do tasks that use resources
Bonus labor pool increases
Population eats and uses luxuries
Civilian morale changes
Population grows
Military trained
Disasters rolled and declared
Military moves
Military fights
Military raids, explores, and resolves military events
Civilian morale changes from military and disasters
Other disaster effects, like destroyed stockpiles
Other stockpile changes, like trade.
Morale productivity bonus calculated for next turn
Hope this doesn't hit the character limit. I'll likely have less flavor text to add in the future, but it's a fun challenge to add it for each item for now.
I'm officially abandoning this. I'm sorry.
The Living Wood would have been a fun resource. Initially, it would have been as strong as copper weapons. It could have been taught to take a second form by spending the labor cost of the second weapon, but no further material costs. Two obvious uses would have been archers that can fight like swordsmen, without whatever downsides come from having too many weapons, or having swordsmen with a pikeman anti-cavalry skill. Future research possibilities could have made it stronger, to keep up with higher tier materials, or let it take a third form, both probably at fairly high costs.
I played silly games with your maps. Everyone had a different 90 degree rotations from their neighbors, so you wouldn't have noticed you were near someone just by exploring their lands. I would have found it endlessly entertaining if you had managed to not find your neighbors until you tripped on their capital.
Only the backwards, four-armed barbarians had the True map rotation.
I liked the map at first. It was a Mediterranean style map, with a big sea surrounded by land. The trader elf GMPCs would have made contact with villages along the inner coast by era 2-3. That would have been made awkward by nobody having a good backstory for a naval tradition, meaning that GMPCs would have been at least an era ahead in navy over the players, and had strong reasons to invest heavily in it. That's too overbearing for GMPCs.
The full map also has lots of forests, and is generally very green and pleasant looking. It's strategically interesting, but it doesn't look like an apocalypse happened.
Might I suggest sending them a fruit basket?
This post made me laugh: The aggressive raider player suggested the best path for diplomacy, and the only one I had planned out. The NPC group was small, so 1 food during each famine during era 1 would have been enough to make them friendly with you. You could have probably come up with other ways, but that was the easiest.
This was my first game I made with a complicated battle system that I actually liked. With a spreadsheet, it was easy to run.
Every turn, each side dealt (X*HP%*(1-MoraleLoss)) to the enemy HP. Morale damage was a straight up losses percentage of how many died that round. The only hard RNG was whether morale rounded up or down, which was weighted based on how close it was.
Most soldiers had morale worth 6% damage per point. At 0 morale, they'd deal 40% base damage. At 9 morale, 94%.
Berserkers would have had 3%, so at 0% morale and fighting to the death with no ability to retreat, they'd still be hitting for 70% base damage. This might have been too strong.
Most animals had 8% damage per morale. Pacifistic neutrals would have had the same.
HP % being different from morale meant that battered units with full morale would have still been useful to bring into battle. It also made it easy to calculate extra units, if the only tactics were "everyone clump together and fight." Having two Spearmen units wouldn't have changed attack or defense at all, but counted as 200 HP. After battle, I could then distribute losses between the two units in any way that felt right.
Damage was weird, but worked and I liked it. I based it off of the difference in attack vs defense, rather than something easy to plug into a formula. It was 20 damage base if attack = defense, like spearmen vs spearmen. One attack difference changes it to 15 or 25, then 10 or 30(eg,5 attack vs 3 defense). I didn't settle on how to deal with larger differences, and probably would have started by multiplying by 20% or 25% per step, and then seeing how the results from the battle felt.
With fresh units, a spearmen vs spearmen match would start the battle with each side killing 20 enemy spearmen. That lowers morale by 2. They then deal 20*0.8(str)*0.88(morale) = 14.08 damage for round 2. That's 17.6% losses, so morale loses at least 1, and a ~75% chance of a second. Damage drops quickly as units get tired and scared, making it easy to for me to look at it and see "Everyone's tired of fighting, end the battle here," or "this unit has low morale, decides things are hopeless, and runs."