NationStates Jolt Archive


NOVA TERRA [Interest and Recruitment]

Vieille-Campagne
20-02-2007, 22:07
A few notes before I indulge your heart's desire:

1 - This RP is not based on the Earth.

2 - This RP follows the conception of the rise of human history through the modern age, and perhaps beyond.

3 - Because of its complexity, simplicity, and otherwise possibility to turn wrong, I will not be participating in the RP as an active participant, but rather as the "natural forces influencing the turn of events" - to some, a reference to a deity; in any case, to ease problems of potential debate, I will make it easy for you - my say is final [actually, the NS mods have the final say, but they shouldn't be concerned about this unless someone else makes it a concern for them.


That said, I submit to you a plan that will introduce yet another existence of a world, and luckily for you, I've spent some time composing a list of rules, categorized conveniently [hopefully...]. This is mostly an experiment, so I'm willing test it out to see if such a conception is possible, and likewise, I will be open to ooc suggestions [I don't exactly exist ICly in this world, except by divine intervention, and Heaven knows how that will end...]. But basically, this is the setup:

This is an idea that I've had in conception for a very long time. Basically, it's the recreation of the world in a completely different format, with a primary difference compared to most RPs that functions in a similar manner. I am not going to be an active participant in this world - instead, I shall act as a deity, determining the results of consequences, with the ability to intercede at any moment and decide the fate of any country willing to act in what I think is good. I will not lie - I have an extremely harsh bias, but I think the more important thing to work on is to see if we can have any kind of world exist like this. Since this is such a radical set-up, I'm going to lay out the rules for all of you:

Contents:

1 - Who are you?
2 - What is the world?
3 - What is in the world?
4 - Who are we?
5 - What are we?
6 - What can we do with our territories?
7 - How can we develop our empires?
8 - How can we grow with our empires?
9 - How can we expand our empires?
10 - Is that all?

1 - I AM GOD; there is nothing besides that you need to know about me.

2 - Each territory is represented by a hexagon, thereby leading to each territory being exactly the same size; at the start of the game, each unclaimed territory has an automatic population of 10,000 - to increase the population of the territory, you must RP increasing the efficiency of your agriculture systems for each territory that you own; if you own more than one territory, you must RP the efforts in each territory, not a one shot gain – players conquered by other players cannot be conquered by expulsion from the RP; instead, to resolve a conflict between two IC players, the victorious may choose to vassalize the conquered state [an informal conquest] or return full sovereignty to the defeated player; as a conquered state, you can choose if and when you surrender, whereby your conquered territory is no longer under your effective control, which places your country at the mercy of your enemies and allies - you cannot increase the size of your territory or otherwise face the wrath of GOD; for that reason, there is no region known as "space" - additionally, the world is flat; at the edge of the world, you have the extensive nebulous zone gray matter, which will destroy any units you try to send into its grasp, so don't even think about it [see rule 8].

3 - While having the same exact size, each territory has different shares of resources and terrains, leading to otherwise unequal value for each territory - to improve the "chance" factor in the RP, resources that are useless in certain ages will not be revealed until the technology required to uncover them is researched; in a pre-game disclaimer, I guarantee you that all resources for each territory have been pre-determined and are in no way influenced by the person owning the territories at the time.

4 - I AM THE ONLY GOD THAT EXISTS ON THIS WORLD - there are no other gods beside me, although I may appoint prophets and celestial agents to do my bidding at times; just to say this now, I really am a nice person, so as long as you abide by the rules, I'll have the tolerance to let things go.

5 - Players joining this RP must create a humanoid culture [i.e. anything that can look like a human, such as elves, orcs, lizardmen, ratmen, or plain old humans] at a tech level equivalent to the lowest playing tech level [see rule 7], with a starting population of their NS population divided by 1000 [if you are a new player with 5 million people, your population here is 5000]; this is also your maximum population [whatever NSpop/1000 =], although you can voluntarily reduce your RP population at will [and it will be reduced at times to reflect changes to famine, war, et cetera…]; as a humanoid species, your humanoid species is neither invincible nor physiologically superior to any other humanoid species in the RP simulation, since that introduces too many constant biases, something I want to avoid being affected by the addition of new players - a history of your culture is not necessary, but strongly encouraged - once introduced into the world, the actions of each player will help decide his/her own fate, although I may strongly influence a lot of what goes on in the world to secure blessings for them/smite them; that said, a lot of what happens is largely up to the players, not to me since I grant the freedom of will [the question is then how strong your will is...].

6 - Players must maintain their territories by dividing the labor of your territories between agriculture, industry, research, commerce, and military; for purposes of this RP, your entire population is completely disposable to your uses, from the wee babies to the grumbling ancient folk; there is no "unemployment rate" because there will always be a job for everyone in everyone's realm; For reference, the default rates for each of these shall be set to 50% agriculture [A], 20% industry [I], 0% research [R], 10% commerce [C], and 20% military [M] - it is very important that you maintain these rates as needed for each of your territories, since how much production your territory can accrue is largely determined by these rates, bearing in mind that the best rate is one that strikes a balance between the needs of your province [food, material, business, etc.] and the needs of your empire [for new players, this is the same thing...]; to develop a growing population, you will need to sustain a viable source of "food" points for your territory. Any excess food produced in a territory is converted into reserve [which is conveniently placed in your capital territory].

7 - Technology is pre-determined into stages, starting with the Bronze Age to whenever I decide to destroy the world; for the reason, time is determined by me, with the standard "year" set to 1 RL week [that is to say, 1 week will not equal one year per se...], although you are free to use whatever measurements you can hypothetically conjure [see subset for weights and measures used in this RP] - to research technology, you need a population that is researching the technology [see subset for technologies and their developments] and to sustain this population for the amount of time required to attain the amount of "research" required per unit time of accruement - it is entirely possible for numerous territories to be researching each a different technology, or for some to research on the same technology [or all if it so pleases you...]; just as a minder, while you have a set number of "research" points determined for each technology [and the numbers do increase for each tech level], I ultimately determine how much of your research is put into play [via the "corruption" and "false information" route], so don't think that I'm out completely - if you really want to do so, two player countries can share technologies, or one can generously donate tech to a friend, or sell it for something [keeping in mind that currency does not yet exist...] - the technology of conquered territories is put on credit to the conquering country [that is, all of the technology that a territory has ever researched is available to the person conquers that territory], although the parent country retains all of the completed technologies researched from that territory; if the technology has not been researched by the conquering country, exactly one half of the completed research is immediately available to the country for his/her own uses; if the territory is recovered by the same parent country conducting the research, exactly 25% of the research completed is reverted to the parent country; if the territory is secondarily conquered by another country or the player is lost the ruins of age and time, the research is lost and make be partially recovered through an extensive RP when conquered [partially to be determined by me, not to exceed 25%].

8 - Each territory can be improved with advancements that make it more high speed and up-to-date; roads help develop trade between territories and increase the amount of "move" points an army unit has to employ; factories improve industrial efficiency for specific items; irrigation networks improve agricultural efficiency; academies improve research efficiency for specific tech grades; corporations improve commerce efficiency for specific commercial enterprises; mines allow you to extract resources in your territory, and improving these will improve your extraction rate, until it reaches it maximum capacity; forts provides a better defense and decreases the logistics points required for deployments - developing new instruments, equipment, and otherwise useful tools allows you to develop new techs, bearing in mind that the appropriate tech research and resources are required before any model of development can be constructed; while I have a basic guide as to what constitutes equipment [i.e. cars, weapons, planes, et cetera], you are free to develop your own version of weapons and market them for use, as long as they follow the template guidelines for the equipment grade they represent - improvements will suffer a minimum 75% attrition damage when attacked by an army, depending on the length of the attack, the extent of the attack, and the tech level of the attack [spears on steel won't do too much, but bombs on brick will do a lot]; to improve your territory, you will need to utilize "industry" points, to be accrued over time until the points have sufficed to use it - a note about points, points cannot be inter-converted at all, so any excess points are either wasted or saved for a new project; additionally, territorial developments are not automatically useful for your entire country, although research is different in that the research is applied universally in the country - commerce is useful for trade, especially when you have techs that you want to share but not allow your allies to develop [for various reasons, good and bad]; at lower levels, trade isn't absolutely necessary, but it becomes more useful, and perhaps important in later stages if you want to have a strong economy; if currency is developed, the value of your products is largely determined by the number of "commerce" points accrued; unlike most other points, commerce points can be traded; in addition, certain products help improve your "commerce" points, such as gold, silver, and other precious items.

9 - Military forces are basically a reserve of your territory's workforce [if you're an empire, it's the sum of your territories' work forces]; in lower levels, the logistics to maintain an effective fighting force is simpler, allowing you to build larger armies, but this changes as the logistics of war become more expensive [albeit, you probably have a growing population at the same time too...]; army units are determined by the development of conscription orders [which extract the amount of manpower that you have available to your empire] and establish a working army unit; once you establish an army, you must establish its base of operations in one of your territories; for this reason, you may only have as many armies as you hold territories [conquered territories do not count towards your owned territories, until the country concedes their loss in a formal declaration, which can be extracted by various means]; armies may be divided into at most three divisions, for various purposes; army units that stray away from their base of operations accrue additional logistic points [resources, food, etc]; army units will travel as fast as its slowest unit, even if divided into divisions, although roads in different territories will also affect the rate of travel that units can access - battles occur whenever two or more units from opposing sides engage on the same territory; battles last as long as the opposing force remain on the territory; because there are no oceans, lakes, seas, there are no naval forces [unless you want boats to sail on land]; any forces that have a combat rating will engage until the opposing forces withdraw, surrender, and/or are completely destroyed; until I say so [tech-wise and RP-wise], there are no nukes in this world, principally because people have shown themselves to be completely inept to handle that concept of destruction.

10 - This is list of provisos is likely to grow since this is my first time building this sort of concept; even if it weren't my first time, I still reserve all rights to change any provision written [or not] here, in order to make this RP work; any conventional rules of physics are assumed to work just as fine in this world as it does in RL [meaning your men can't fly because gravity doesn't exist - albeit, it's harder to explain in a world without celestial bodies, but then again, I make it work]; at sum, I am a very nice person, and I am willing to work with your imaginations, because I want this RP to work more than anything, so the moment you start doing things that make this not work is the moment I become evil and maligned against you; if you work with me, I am more than willing to help you get started or continue your existence in this world, because I can't have an RP work without you; this RP is not an attempt to prove God's existence, to disprove God's existence, or to prove anything worthwhile, except to test the viability of such an existence in mind; as I do not possess the cognitive abilities to perceive every mistake and iron them out in advance, I leave the flaws as they are, fixing the more erroneous ones as they come and letting the less pervasive and significant mistakes pass my guard to advantage of those participating; because I am acting as a deity in this RP, I cannot control any territory under my sovereign grip, save by forces that I control: natural forces [volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, tornados, blizzards, droughts, flooding, plagues, et cetera], forces of will [corruption, blessings, smitings, et cetera], and otherwise forces that are not reserved for players.


Yes, this is a mock list of commandments, with no insult intended to anyone. It is basically my guide to participating in this RP, and I hope that it is as specific enough to allow a simple platform of participation, while also leaving enough room to develop imaginative cultures, strong alliances, diabolical oppositions, and many other things that have not yet materialized. This is an interactive experience, for me and hopefully for you as well. I look forward to making this work out.

Any questions?

I will have a map available once I see if interest is good enough to entail posting a map.
Xeraph
21-02-2007, 16:31
Phew! It's evident youv'e been thinking about this for a long time. It sounds like a combination of Diplomacy and Cossacks. It interests me, but the one thing that makes me hesitate is the time factor. It seems like you'd have to spend a lot of time developing your territory, i.e., being online and sitting there hours on end....not possible with my schedule.
No Taxes
21-02-2007, 16:52
I am also interested in this. But with battles do you decide who wins and what determines when the opposing force withdraws?
Vieille-Campagne
25-02-2007, 22:41
my apologies!!!

I've been busy, but I'm glad to see people interested in this already!

To address some concerns:

I've been deciding making this a turn-based RP [like Civilization] instead of RTS, which gives an advantage to nearly everyone. Of course, my main concern is still whether people will remember to return to this RP, because I'm doing this as a semi-experiment in IR theory and I'm also doing this for fun.

If you're interested, please ask more questions! I'm still trying to get a decent [decent = usable] map. It should be up by the end of this coming week, so I hope that more people are interested.

For reference, EVERYONE will start at the same age and progress according to their own developments. I'm trying to make this as egalitarian as possible without making it so unfair to really good people.
Zambistan
25-02-2007, 22:50
Sounds like fun, i'm interested. I have a question: does the technology have to...."align" with Earth's history? Perhaps steam power and clockwork used rather then traditional fuel?
Vieille-Campagne
25-02-2007, 22:55
Sounds like fun, i'm interested. I have a question: does the technology have to...."align" with Earth's history? Perhaps steam power and clockwork used rather then traditional fuel?

not necessarily!!!

I'm doing a level based tech development, but that doesn't mean that I'll follow tech developments as they happened in RL history. BUT, you've got to justify it to me. Otherwise, I won't allow it. I'm basically an intelligent program, so if you've got the tech to develop something different than what RL suggests, you can develop it.

And as you will sometime see, not even the land is cultivated the same as RL Earth, so you're somewhat more liberal to do as you please with it [as long as the terrain permits it].
Zambistan
25-02-2007, 23:15
Hmmm...to be a steampunkesque people or the mysterious remnants of a lost civilization....hmmm.

Hurry and get that map! ;)
Vieille-Campagne
04-03-2007, 12:52
hmmm... maybe, I'm just bad with my time, but here's the maps:

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/nsvc/Slide2.png
PHYSICAL

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/nsvc/Slide1.png
POLITICAL


Okay, so here's the spiel. The maps suck - get over it. I'm here for RPing, not the "cutest map contest"; so hopefully we're over that.

I'm limiting everyone to one territory slot! The first map is a geographic representation of the world, while the second one will show political control [once people apply to join]. That said, if anyone has any questions, I will try to answer them all!

If you don't have any questions, then please critique. If you're doing nothing, get off NS - you're wasting your time.
Vieille-Campagne
04-03-2007, 12:52
hmmm... maybe, I'm just bad with my time, but here's the maps:

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/nsvc/Slide2.png
PHYSICAL

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/nsvc/Slide1.png
POLITICAL


Okay, so here's the spiel. The maps suck - get over it. I'm here for RPing, not the "cutest map contest"; so hopefully we're over that.

I'm limiting everyone to one territory slot! The first map is a geographic representation of the world, while the second one will show political control [once people apply to join]. That said, if anyone has any questions, I will try to answer them all!

If you don't have any questions, then please critique. If you're doing nothing, get off NS - you're wasting your time.