Bay 12 Games Forum

INTRODUCTION:

The Empire of Zhou is no more, and the region is heavily decentralized.

A Player (maximum of 12) picks a State, a Color (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Orange, Silver, Purple, White, Teal, Pink, Blue, Grey), a Philosophy (Legalist, Taoist, Confucian, Mohist) and from there, they must take control of neighbouring lands and declare their own Kingdom.

Only then can they start a campaign to reunite the lands of Han, and start a new dynasty of Emperors!

If any Player gets eliminated, they can take a different color (if still available), pick an independent State, and try their hand in the fight for the throne. You cannot start adjacent to another Player's territory if that Player has already sent orders for the current Turn.

If a Player joins later in the game, their State's Rice is increased by 2 per Turn, minus 2 (for example, if they join at Turn 3, they start with 10+(2x3)-2 = 14 Rice total)

Players cannot join/rejoin the game after Turn 5 begins.

TURN ORDER:

The turns of all Players are SIMULTANEOUS. Orders can be sent through Personal Messages to the GM (Haspen), or if you're not caring about what people see, in the game thread itself.

For your orders to be valid, they must be bolded using the forum bbcode.

A simple example of a Player's turn:

5 Rice for Defense of Tang.
5 Rice for Investing of Tang.
10 Rice for Conquest of Sui.

You cannot edit your orders once you've send the post! Think twice before posting!!

STATES, KINGDOMS, AND THE EMPIRE:

The map is divided into 104 States, each with its own name. A Player starts with one State. Note that said State can be located in a KINGDOM-type State (underlined). The only off-limits state at start is Zhou, seat of the weak and puny descendants of former Emperors.

Each Player starts with 10 Rice, which is used to support their forces when conquering and defending, and can be used to invest into states so that they generate more Rice.

To create a Kingdom, one must control a KINGDOM-type State (underlined, ZHOU also counts) plus minimum of 4 States adjacent to it, and notify the GM you want to create a Kingdom when sending your orders!

All of the KINGDOM-states have more than 4 States adjacent to them, allowing for some wiggling room when it comes for planning your diplomacy and conquests.

There's special Rice bonus for being a Kingdom: a non-State dependent +5 to your Rice count, and this bonus persists until end of the game (or your early demise).

Once you create a Kingdom, you're viable for creation of a new Empire. The process is more time- and rice-consuming than making a mere Kingdom.

IMPERIAL VICTORY:

First, you need to conquer the independent State of Zhou, where the imperial palace is located.
Second, you must control at least 5 other KINGDOM-type States: QI, ZHAO, JIN, SONG, WU, CHU, SHU or QIN.
Third, your dominion must be continuous; any gaps between your provinces (whether due to neutral states, or other Players' conquest) must be filled up with your glorious state color!

HEGEMONIC VICTORY:

Sometimes 2 or more States are simply too strong to find a 'true' ruler of the Han. To resolve the game without making it an endless string of Turns, the game is stopped after End of Turn 20.

After it, the Rice is counted up for all Players who have reached Kingdom level; Player with highest Rice owned is declared the winner, without taking Imperial Victory requirements into consideration.

INDEPENDENT STATES:

Non-Player States will always dedicate themselves to defense of their borders, meaning that 10 Rice will always be spent on Defense. Zhou, being the capital of the former Empire, is much more developed, and has 20 Rice to spend on defense.

The independent States will never use Rice for Conquests, nor they will Invest Rice to improve their economy. Fools, all of them!

RICE AND INVESTMENTS:

Rice is used twofold; to supply soldiers fighting abroad or defending the states, or to improve the economy of the state.

If you do not dedicate any Rice to defense of a province, any opportunistic Player can simply walk their well-fed soldiers into it and automatically take control of the state!
The more Rice you dedicate for defense, the greater chances of repelling the enemy. Same with conquering your neighbours; the more Rice you set aside for the conquest, the greater chances of success.

You can also Invest your Rice in a State that you control. Each State at start lets you use 10 Rice per Turn.
For each 4 Rice Invested into a State, the State will provide you with 1 extra Rice, starting from next Turn. Partial Investments are not allowed.

Example: You have 72 Rice, and your home State, Lai, provides you with 15 Rice. If you invest half of your Rice, 36, into Lai, this will raise Lai's Rice output to 24 (15 + [36/4=9] = 24).

The maximum amount of Rice a Province can reach is 30.

CONQUESTS, DEFENSE, DEVASTATION, AND THE DIE OF WAR:

Once you decide to conquer some of your neighbours, you must know that each combat is resolved using a d10 die. You can only Conquer States adjacent to the ones you control.

Combat formula is simple: d10 + Rice = your number. If you roll higher than the opponents' defending force, you win and the State is yours!

Example: You decide to conquer State of Cheng, and dedicate 19 Rice to the task. State of Cheng can afford to dedicate only 12 Rice for defense of its borders. You roll is 4, their roll is 6. 19+4 = 23, 12+6 = 18. State of Cheng loses the fight and its lands are now yours!

If a State is attacked by more than 1 Player at once, the Rice spent on Defense is spread as equally as possible with any leftover spent against the Player with highest amount of Rice dedicated to the conquest.
If a State is defeated by more than 1 Player at once, the control of the State falls into the hands of the Player that dedicated more Rice into the State's Conquest. If Players invest same amount of Rice, then a coin toss will determine the new owner of the State.

Once a State is conquered, inevitably there will be looting, pillaging and destruction at hands of victorious soldiers. The Rice output of the State is thus HALVED, and the new owner of the pillaged land will need to re-invest into it. This can lead to Devastation:

Devastated States are those States that have 0 Rice output; it is not possible to launch attacks from Devastated States, and one must first Invest in them to be able to launch attacks from it in the next Turn.

THE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT:

When creating your State, you must decide which School of Thought you follow; all 4 bestow certain benefits on you.

Legalist: +2 Starting Generals; +5 Rice extra from each KINGDOM-state controlled after 1st.
Taoist: Pillaging will lower Rice of a conquered Province by 1 Rice less (to minimum of 0 Rice pillaged).
Confucian: Investing in Provinces and Recruiting a General requires 3 Rice instead of 4.
Mohist: Bonus +2 Rice when Defending (still requires at least 1 Rice to Defend).

You cannot change your School at any point of the game, so choose carefully!

THE VIRTUOUS GENERALS:

Renowned and respected leaders who can join your Armies on your Conquests and Defenses, providing bonuses (up to +3 per General!). You can send up to 5 Generals along with 1 Attack/Defense order, and of course you cannot send the same General to perform several tasks simultaneously. Note that the Generals provide a BONUS; meaning you can't send 5 Generals to attack or defend a Province without assigning at least 1 Rice.

Generals also come with their personal Trait: a random Trait is rolled using 1d6 when a new General is created. Possible Traits are:
*Brave: +2 Skill Levels when sent to Conquer a Province.
*Cautious: +2 Skill Levels when sent to Defend a Province.
*Elusive: Only 25% chance (2x Coin Toss, both Tails needed) to be killed when failing an Attack/Defense.
*Just: 1 Rice pillaged less when successfully conquering a Province (this stacks with Taoist bonus).
*Sagacious: Rice in the Province will be increased by 1 if General is set to Defend it (doesn't matter if failure or success, or if enemy even attacks).
*(no trait): no bonus.

Generals can be killed; this can happen when the Attack/Defense they were assigned to fails. A Coin Toss is used to determine if your assigned General survives (Heads) or dies (Tails).

Example: You send 10 Rice and Brave General Sun Ce (SL+1+2) against State of Liao, which could only dedicate 5 Rice but was defended by Cautious General Cao Ren (SL+1+2) and Cautious General Lu Zhou (SL+1+2). With your roll of 4 and Liao's roll of 8, and adding Skill Levels of Generals, we have: 10+4+3 = 17 vs 5+8+3+3 = 19, meaning you lost the fight, and Coin Toss result is Tails, meaning General Sun Ce died during the failed Attack.

Every Player is given 3 random Generals (Legalists get 5) at start of a Game. Each General is given a Name, a Trait and a Skill Level; the latter is determined by up to 2 Coin Tosses; the first is to determine if they have Skill Level 1 (Tails) or Skill Level 2 (Heads); if the result was Heads, another Coin Toss is performed to determine if they have Skill Level 2 (Tails) or Skill Level 3 (Heads).
At start of each Turn except 1, one random Player will gain another General; you can also spend 4 Rice to Recruit an additional General, which will happen during the Turn Summary; you can spend extra Rice to get extra Generals. For all these extra Generals, the above rules of determining Skill Level and Traits apply.
If a Player is eliminated and he/she had any Generals left, these Generals will be distributed to all Players EXCEPT the one(s) who eliminated the Generals' previous master; if it is not possible, these Generals will disperse, never to be seen again.

THE BOUNTIES OF THE GREAT RIVER:

It flows from beyond the western borders of Han to the Eastern Sea, roughly separating north and south of the map.

The Great River provides two bonuses:

A) Sparse river crossings and river forts grant +5 Rice Bonus when Defending the River-adjacent Province from Attacks ACROSS the River; this stacks with Mohist bonus to Defense. For example, if you attack neutral Dun Province from Zheng, they will have 15 Rice on Defense instead of usual 10. This bonus does not apply if you have a Province that is both across the Great River AND Adjacent to the target; for example, if you attack neutral Dun Province from Chen, they won't get the bonus.
B) Ease of transporting goods and merchandise across the different States means that River-adjacent Provinces can prosper easily. Investing Rice in River-adjacent Provinces costs 1 Rice less; this stacks with Confucian bonus to Investments.

NAVAL EXPEDITIONS ACROSS THE EASTERN SEA:

If you border the Eastern Sea (on the right side of the map), you can launch Naval Expeditions to reach Provinces that are currently not adjacent to any of yours, but which are adjacent to the Sea.

For each Province skipped this way, you need to spend 5 Rice extra on 'naval preparations'.

Example: You own Wu Province and wish to launch Conquest of Lai Province. Between Wu and Lai there's 4 Provinces (Han, Tan, Xiang, Ju), therefore 4x5 = 20 Rice extra is needed to attack Lai.