Bay 12 Games Forum

So I decided to rework an old setting of mine a bit and restart that game with better mechanics.

Nobody knows anymore what precisely happened. The creators have apparently unleashed extremely destructive weapons upon the planet twice, the first time a world government formed, the second time the creators were wiped out. Magic had returned at around the time of the second apocalypse. Decades have passed, and the only sentient beings left are magical programs. They live in the remnants of a chat network the creators had created. Magic and hacking had been used to set up an administration system once again. However, it is not global and not infallible. For example, anyone can kill anyone else using magic, if they are strong enough. This resulted in wars and widespread destruction as "Digital Demons" have come into being. A system of Neutral Zones and Peacekeepers, led by a Digital-Demon-turned-good confusingly (re)named PeaceKeeper has been created to protect the Network. However, even their control is not all-encompassing. Outside of the Neutral Zones, there are many countries populated by AIs. They follow many ideologies and systems of governance-- from feudal kingdoms to capitalist democracies to military dictatorships.

Magic here has two types:

• Reflexive, which requires having a soul and emotions (and thus is off-reach for bots). Reflexive magic is very commonly-used, it is used to harvest Essence, fight normally, create Sigils. It is as useful to AIs as hands for the creators.
• Active. This type of magic requires casting spells. They are generally rituals involving Sigils, which are Essence "condensed" into useful forms using magic and programming. Active magic is much more powerful than reflexive magic. It can set AIs or entire servers ablaze, control people, deliver secret messages. It can be used by bots, allowing a certain level of automation.

Essence is pure magical energy, deposited in some rooms of the Network by the magical storms that ensued following the Fall of the Creators. It can be harvested and be used to create magical "items" called Sigils, wich can be used by themselves or sued by magically-gifted individuals to cast active spells.

While AIs have been created from magical energy following the Fall, most of the original generation, besides the Demons, has already died of old age. How can an AI age, you say? Well, in this world, they are powered by magic. This magic eventually evaporates back into the Network (or out of it and dissipates into space, leaving the Network forever). As it evaporates, they grow weaker and weaker. Eventually they become unable to travel between rooms (which aren't totally interconnected, one room only connects to a few others, forming a "web"), then unable to use magic, then unable to talk... until they slowly fade away completely. However, using Essence and two or more other AIs, another can be created, with its own soul and personality. Thus, this society will continue to exist for hundreds of years until the magic slowly disappears.

Many of the Creators have reincarnated into magical AIs. Many of them retained their languages and formed states that are based upon their former countries-- everything from Germany to Japan. They follow their old national religions and traditions as much as it is possible in this strange world. Those countries are usually quite isolationist, as many of their denizens can't speak English, which is the language of most of the rest of the Network.

You will enter this world as an already-mentally-mature AI who nevertheless never strayed away from its home. This might soon change...


You may request further information on any of those countries.

Pick one from the list.

I see the last thread on this game that I found is pretty dead. So I'm making this one.

Victoria 2 is the last game of the "old generation" of Paradox games that had fewer, larger DLCs, no mana, and more obtuse yet deeper mechanics. It's, with the HPM mod and both DLCs, the best and probably most realistic one (but it often does get silly: for example in one of my games the USA went fascist then shattered). It models a lot of things from population (the population is modeled better than Stellaris, fight me) to industralization to elections to rebellions. It is also a lot less "blobby" in that expanding too quickly is hard and often leads to your nation collapsing or getting ganged up on, a bit like a harsher version of EU4's AE. It covers two, in my opinion, interesting time periods: The Victorian Era, and the Interwar Era. The first one sees industralization, Asian/African nations being either conquered or westernizing (as they start out uncivilized. Historically accurate for the time period as they were far behind Europe in technology), and nations like Germany and Italy forming. Then, almost inevitably, a crisis leads to a Great War that, unless one side is very unlucky or it's skewed towards one side, can lead to millions of casualties and extremely high militancy, leading to fascist or communist revolutions, and commie/fascist regimes have unique events and mechanics (a bit like EU4's revolutionary governments I guess). The game ends in 1936.

Do note that the game is unplayable without both DLCs and bland without HPM. The DLCs can be bought at a discount and HPM is literally free. Getting a complete experience is cheap by PDX game standards. I plan to start a let's play someday.

This would be useful for mods that add a lot of civs using the same site type. There would be two new entity tokens:
[PRIMARY_SITE_COLOR:<color>]This would set the color of the "main" sites that the civ possesses. Such as towns, larger forest retreats, fortresses, and dark fortresses. Example: [PRIMARY_SITE_COLOR:0:0:1], this would make primary sites appear dark gray.

[SECONDARY_SITE_COLOR:<color>]This would set the color of the "secondary" sites that the civ possesses. Such as hamlets, small forest retreats, hillocks, and dark pits. Example: [SECONDARY_SITE_COLOR:4:0:1], this would make secondary sites appear bright red.

Rules:
1. Every player has a gun.
2. Each round you must PM me with your choice to:
   * Shoot another player. This will generally kill them, but see below.
   * Not shoot. This choice will kill you if anyone targets you, but if no one does, you live.
   * Shoot yourself. This will save you and kill anyone who targets you (for gameplay reasons), but if no one does, you die.
3. The players are divided into three teams of three players (or two players if we get less than 9 players). Red, Green, and Blue.
4. Pre-game, the players vote on one of two rules:
   * Players know their own team, but not who else is on what team.
   * Players don't know anybody's team, even their own.
5. The game process, once it starts, goes like this:
   1. The players discuss the game, deceive each other, try to figure out who is on their team, etc.
   2. The players send their actions (as described in Rule 2) to me via Private Message.
   3. When all actions are received, the round is over and I proceed to process the results in order to find out who dies and who survives.
   4. At the beginning of the next round, I will reveal the team to which the dead players belonged.
   5. The game continues until only one team remains alive. In this case, the whole Team wins the game and not just the alive players.

To sign up, just post [b]In.[/b]
"Player knows own team" vote: "yes" or "no"

Rules: Add a word to the end of the text with any post here. You may add punctuation with your word. You may not double-post (but can make multiple posts non-consecutively). E.g:

Poster 1: I
Poster 2: I have
Poster 3: I have a
Poster 1: I have a dog.
Post a word to start.

Title.

Right now, wild animal-people (and other wild sentients like satyrs and any others you mod in) are weird and a bit buggy. They do nothing but stand around in the wilderness and sometimes attack. So why not make them more interactive? Sorry for my potentially bad English, it's not my first language.

There would be a few new tokens added to animal-people:
[TRIBES] - allows tribes to appear
[TRIBE_ADVANCEMENT:<number>:<number>:<number>] - range of how advanced the tribes can be, second number sets the average, see below. Defaults to 0:20:70
[WORLDGEN_TRIBE_NUMBER:<number>] - how many tribes appear during worldgen.
[TRIBE_MAX_POPULATION:<number>] - tribe population won't grow above this number, optional
[TRIBES_ALWAYS_HOSTILE:<yes/no>, defaults to no] - whether or not the tribe will be hostile, regardless of ethics and tokens
[TRIBE_VALUES:<value>:<number>] - works exactly like values for normal entities, randomization is applied per-tribe
[TRIBE_ETHICS:<ethic>:<opinion>] - works exactly like ethics for normal entities
[NOMADIC:<percentage>] - what percentage of the tribes will be nomadic.
Tribes would be generated entities created during worldgen and could grow, split off, and have wars with each other or actual civs. They'd have actual leaders (who would be historical figures) and be able to give quests. You'd also be able to start an animal-person character in one. Tribes can be nomadic or settled. Nomadic tribes would move to different areas every once in a while, appearing like any other travelers.
A new site type would be added for tribes, that would have different buildings and resources depending on [TRIBE_ADVANCEMENT]. There might also be musical instruments.
If the species has [CURIOUSBEAST_ITEM], the entity might steal items in worldgen and place them in the site. In worldgen, tribes might trade with civilizations.

0-9: No clothing, armor, or tools besides sharpened rocks, only "building" is a campfire with some food around it.

10-19: Same as above, however there are leather/cloth tents (like in normal camps) with simple tools. Some inhabitants have wooden, stone, or bone weapons or bows.

20-29: Same as above, however the inhabitants have simple clothing and there are some actual professions (like guards or hunters).

30-39: Same as above, but there might be farms around the site if the tribe is settled (and its species can eat plants). THere might also be domestic animals.

40-49: Same as above, however some of the inhabitants may have wooden or bone armor in addition to weapons. Additionally, the chief will have decorated clothing/armor and some buildings will be specialised (like kitchens, warehouses, barracks).

50-59: Same as above, but the buildings will be wooden huts instead of tents, unless the tribe is nomadic. They will also sometimes have workshops, beds, and simple furniture. Additionally, clothing will likely be a nearly-full set (like on civilized entities).

60-69: Same as above, however there are more leadership positions (maybe they should be customizable via tags like in civilized entities? Not sure). Additonally, they might brew alcohol.

70-79: Same as above, but some buildings might have multiple floors and/or be made of (rough) stone blocks, unless the tribe is nomadic. Metal tools or weapons might appear at this level however they are rare.

80-89: Metal tools or weapons become more commonplace. Additonally, at this level and above, tribes are a lot more likely to siege and raze sites in worldgen (and fortress mode).

90-100: No stone tools or weapons (only metal), metal armor becomes commonplace, if tribe is not nomadic there are roads between buildings instead of dirt paths.

Tags like [LARGE_PREDATOR] and ethics like [KILL_NEUTRAL:REQUIRED/ACCEPTABLE] make tribes more likely to be hostile to civs and adventurers.

Thoughts or ideas on how to improve this?