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Nation Wars Rules
Topic Started: Mar 5 2016, 05:42 PM (54 Views)
cdice
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In Nation Wars, you are a small tribe of 200 people, sitting on the cusp of the Bronze Age, the discovery of the arts of metalworking and agriculture, a time of rapid growth, fire, and war. Will you conquer the world, will you become simply the vassal of another, or will your tiny empire collapse in fire and ruin? Only time, and your strategical genius, will tell.
In order to play, you need to build a nation. You can do that here: (Nation Builder).

How to Play:

Reading this isn't entirely necessary. Actually playing is fairly straightforward. But at least skim through, as it'll give you an idea as to the kind of things you can actually do.

Actions

Once there are enough applications (hoping for around 4-6 people) and the game is underway, you’ll be placed on the map and informed of your surroundings, where you can start taking actions.

You get four actions per turn. They let you do anything you can describe, over an amount of time that depends on the complexity of the task at hand. You may research something that interests you, explore, or start building a structure as examples. Well-described actions tend to be more successful. Some actions will not be possible without further research, resources, or construction; these actions will 'fail' in the form of descriptive text informing you of what your scholars have concluded needs to be done in order to make your wishes manifest (if it's something simple, they'll usually get right on that instead of wasting your time). Having more people gets you more powerful actions (increasing the size of the dice you roll, on a formula given with population), not more actions. Some expensive buildings (universities, factories, etc) grant action bonuses that are expressed as +X to certain types of action.

Any offensive military actions, including scouting for territory and resources, cost an action.

Defensive military actions, however, are free. You may organize your troops’ defensive orders, such as patrols and scouting.

I’ll be handling all the particulars of your nation, so all you need to present to me is your four actions.

Research

Research is what fuels the progress of your fledgling nation. Strictly speaking, the technology tree isn't laid down in stone ; the structure is sort of rough. Mostly, you can build what you like, and if I think there need to be prerequisites, I'll let you know about it. That said, some guidelines:

Technology, in general, is separated out into Core Techs and Applied Techs, with the latter being specializations of the former. Core Technologies are described by level (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, and 'Master'). Core Technologies give you a broad ability to do things in a given sphere, while applied techs are cheaper and more specific techs. Generally speaking, in order to be really effective at something, you'll want a core tech supporting an applied tech at its level; for example, with Advanced Seafaring, you could research the 'Junk' type of ship, which you could then produce in quantity at a Shipyard structure to allow your merchants and armies to easily travel the world.

A specific type of research action that you can perform is 'Investigate Possibilities in (sphere)'. Essentially, this is devoting research into a sphere to see what buildings or applied technologies seem viable at this level of development (ie: asking me for suggestions). This will generate a number of possibilities, any of which you might focus your efforts on; all acts generated in the Investigate Possibilities action may be applied to any one of the possibilities, allowing you to proceed to work on an unexploited field without worrying about wasting time.

Buildings are not as rigidly laid-out as technologies, but tend to rely on a few specific techs to be effective. Construction is the core tech for buildings of all types, but Engineering is also quite useful; Farming and Mining are also vital to their respective fields, and Siege Warfare is important for defensive structures. As with research, you can 'Investigate Possibilities in Infrastructure' as well, if you want suggestions on what to build.


Core Techs

Construction & Industry: Building techniques, required to produce most structures Knowledge of machines, like pulleys and gears, making many complicated problems much easier. Mining techniques, for digging deeper and more productive mines.

Espionage & Military: Techniques for infiltration and skulduggery. Knowledge of the myriad ways of attacking and defending fortified structures.

Agriculture & Beastmastey: Farming techniques, for increasing the productivity of your farms. Domestication of dangerous and wild beasts.

Medicine & Biotechnology: Medical techniques, to keep your people healthy, and save injured soldiers from death.

Navigation & Commerce: Techniques for sailing and shipbuilding, allowing you to travel the seas. Economy technologies and practices, such as banks and mints.

Population & Economics

Civilian population are fundamental to success. They are your basic source of labour, the pool from which you recruit your men, and a source of tax revenues.

Population Cap
Total food-producing capacity determines Population Cap (Popcap), which must support both your civilian population AND your military. Popcap also determines how much you can grow every turn. 20% of your remaining Popcap is added to your Population, so it pays to make sure you always have enough Popcap to grow. Any population growth that would put you over your Popcap is lost, so keeping an eye on this is important!

Certain disasters can temporarily reduce Popcap; having excess capacity is useful. Stockpiled food helps mitigate losses due to diminished Popcap; either through short-term actions in response to perceived disasters, or long-term actions like building granaries and similar structures.

Morale
There are two types of Morale, Citizen and Military. Military Morale will be explained below, but keep in mind that unless it is noted otherwise all Morale Modifiers effect Citizen Morale only. Citizen Morale represents your nation's average happiness, Morale is effected in two major ways, Taxes and War Weariness. Both are explained further below, but there can be other modifiers as well, such as from random events. A high morale will allow you to assimilate more people and tax your people more as well as lead to better outcomes on Events. A low morale could lead to negative outcomes on Events which could lead to rioting, plague or worse.

Growth
Births:+20% of your remaining Popcap each season.

Assimilation: Minor NPC tribes dot the landscape. After a period of peaceful relations, you may be presented with an opportunity to add these tribes to your growing nation. Once a part of your nation, it will take some time for these foreign tribes to fully integrate into your nation. A portion of the foreign population is assimilated each season.

Conquest:
Depending on the circumstances, a conquered population will flee as refugees, submit to conquest, or be captured in varying degrees. Submitting civilians immediately join the conquering nation's normal population. Rate of submission is very low without special circumstances, like reconquest or Priest magic.

Captured population are much like captured enemy soldiers; they count against the capturing nation's popcap, and do not contribute toward productivity. You may choose to disarm and release any number of captives at any time; they flee as migrants or refugees, depending on circumstance. Like when assimilating a tribe, eventually captives will be won over to your side. Each season, a portion of enemy captives will join your nation, but at a much lower rate than had they joined peacefully.

Finance
Gold generally grows at a fixed rate, depending on your nation's total financial output. There are things you can do to affect that rate, and you can look at the rate and see specifically where it's coming from any why, but the rate itself is slow to change. Certain plans and deals can consume gold directly, and will be cancelled if you run out. Otherwise, you can spend gold on recruiting soldiers, or directly on productivity (You gain 1 Action Point towards a specific Action this season. Rushing is limited based on the Action Die, with the limit of only two Actions gaining the benefit of additional Action Points per season.).

The three main sources of gold are taxation, trade, and income structures.

Taxation: Tax rates can be set to whatever you like, expressed in terms of 1 gold per X people per season. You can choose whatever initial tax rate you prefer when first creating your nation, and change it thereafter at the cost of an Action. You can choose from five different levels of taxes:

Inexistent: 0 Gold Per Person, +2 Morale
Low: 1 Gold Per 100 People, +1 Morale
Average: 1 Gold Per 50 People, -0 Morale
High: 1 Gold Per 25 People, -5 Morale
Crushing: 1 Gold Per Person, -10 Morale

Advances in government technologies help with the administration of taxes, lowering the unrest generated by taxation. Advances in civilian infrastructure help make your population wealthier, and able to bear more taxation.

Trade: Resources and trade goods can be exchanged for money; this is trade income, and distinguishes the wealthy from your average population, even if it's just internal trade, selling your goods to your own people. Of course. more profitable trade is always external, though you will need to build either a Port or a Caravanserai in order to truly begin making a profit. While simply building these will bring you a profit, developing resources, as well as some events, will increase your profits.

Income Structures: Most structures do not produce gold directly, instead producing a trade good that becomes gold. An iron mine, for example, produces iron ore... you could sell it directly, but you'd be better off building forges to make it into tools and equipment, and selling them instead. Some structures, however, DO produce gold directly... mines for precious metals and gemstones (which also generate some trade income), as well as financial structures like banks and mints. Gold mines are the most effective source of gold, of course, but other coinable metals are also good for producing lots of direct income. Financial structures, on the other hand, depend heavily on trade goods to function; banks profit directly from expanding your existing trade network, while mints literally make money from precious metals.

Military & Combat

You are free to give out numerous orders amongst your troops, but cannot give the same troops additional orders. For instance you could order 50 of your soldiers to patrol your lands while another 50 scout a nearby hex, however you could not order those same units scouting to then attack someone as they are busy scouting.

Recruiting soldiers is a fairly easy process. Each season you may recruit up to 10% of your population as soldiers at no cost, anything further costs 10 gold per head. You may only ever have up to half your population as a Standing Army, as anything more than that starts affecting your industry and economics. You may also train 10% of your regular soldiers into Elites, who count as two soldiers on the battlefield. Training Elites costs 20 gold per Elite trained.

Every spring, gold is taken out of your treasury to pay for maintaining your army. Every 10 soldiers cost 5 gold, while every elite costs 1 gold. If you are unable to afford to maintain your army, you must disband soldiers until you can afford to maintain your troops. Men and women aren't willing to die for free, so make sure you're prepared each spring to pay your troops.

In battles, tactics used and prevailing conditions will apply ad-hoc bonuses or penalties, but the basic battle mechanic will be a d20 roll + modifiers vs a d20 roll + modifiers.

Casualties will will be determined individually for each army depending on the conditions of victory (complete, solid, partial, draw) or defeat (withdrawal, retreat, rout, catastrophic loss).

The basic stats of your army are:

Training - An experience-type stat. Training exercises can increase it, especially with the aid of certain elites, but it mostly comes from real combat experience. Recruiting new troops decreases it, proportional to the number of new troops being added. Unlike other stats, Training does not provide a direct bonus; rather, it's a relative term, that gets compared with your enemy to determine it's power.
Mobility - How fast your troops are, in broad terms. Can be increased by use of cavalry, and decreased by use of armour. Important in determining who holds more advantageous terrain, when two armies meet in the field (as opposed to when attacking a defended position).
Armour - The protectiveness of your army's armour. This usually involves a tradeoff against mobility.
Weapons - The effectiveness of your army's weapons, both melee and ranged.
Equipment - The general quality of your army's gear, mostly determined by the skill of the craftsmen at home.
Leadership - The skill of your officers... often enough, the skill of a particular officer. Certain specialists automatically make passable leaders, but training better leaders is more art than science. The only way to get really good leaders is to send them into battle and see how they do.
Discipline - The professionalism of your men. This mostly just needs to be drilled into them. It can be increased with effort, but increasing it also increases the time it takes to add new recruits.


Without any military specialists or technology, your forces use a crude mixture of slings, and sharp/heavy sticks.

~1 Training (Untrained)
+0 Mobility (Unburdened Foot Soldiers)
-2 Equipment (Improvised Gear)
-2 Armour (Unarmoured)
+0 Weaponry (Crude Weapons)
-2 Leadership (Disorganized Command)
-2 Discipline (Disorganized Troops)
Edited by cdice, Mar 5 2016, 06:36 PM.
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