Post by AdmiralKerkov on Jun 6, 2019 20:19:05 GMT
Basic Rules
1. Turns are seven days long, during those seven days, a player can post a turn. If they miss that period, they miss it. You cannot edit your turn after those seven days either. No exceptions.
2. Moderations will have a time period of three days, if they complete before those three days are up, players are still not allowed to post until the three days complete.
3. Be reasonable, if you try to throw your entire population into a sun or create a device allowing you to transport anything you want anywhere, it will be shut down and retroactively removed.
4. Don’t bring out of game conflict into the game. If you have a spat with someone in discord, and then suddenly attack them, I will not allow that to happen.
5. Don’t multipost, if you wish to change something in your turn, edit the turn.
6. If you have a problem with a part of the moderation, PM the moderator, don’t bring it up in chat.
7. Keep atrocities to a minimum in detail. You can commit them if its central to your nation, but if you’re going into detail describing death camps of some sort, I will put a stop to it.
Game Play Rules
Military & Warfare
Military Numbers
To start off, for ground numbers we are going to use organizational structure, rather than numerical. What this means is that, when you list your army/marine numbers, instead of listing 10,000 infantry, 500 tanks, etc. you will be listing ten infantry regiments, 3 armored regiments, etc. Although this sounds a little bit more confusing, it’s much easier in the long run. At the beginning, everyone will have the same organizational structure (How many infantry and vehicles per regiment) but as the game progresses, you can reorganize this structure to your liking, you can even go so far as having regiments specifically for ground combat and regiments specifically for space combat. Preliminarily, all army/marine numbers will be in regiments and battalions, but you can create larger units or smaller units, so as long as you list what’s in them. This time around we are not having a max number of military numbers that everyone will just go to, leaving everyone with the same military. Instead, we will have a balance system. If you want more of Y, you must have less of Z. This is done with Mil points, so you can in effect, purchase your army to your liking. Here will be the balance numbers for army/marine forces:
1 Mil Point = 1 Infantry Regiment = 1 Armored Battalion = 3 Artillery Batteries
Max Ground Forces Points: 50
Infantry Regiment Make-Up:
x2000 Personnel
x10 Light Reconnaissance Vehicles
x25 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x42 Armored Personnel Carriers
x8 Self-Propelled Guns
x225 Logistics Vehicles
Armored Battalion Make-Up:
x750 Personnel
x10 Light Reconnaissance Vehicles
x15 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x60 tanks
x155 Logistics Vehicles
Artillery Battery Make-Up:
x225 Personnel
x5 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x25 Self-Propelled Guns
x42 Logistics Vehicles
This is the balance sheet for naval forces:
Fighter Wing = x25 F-304 Sabre Space Fighters
Max Naval Forces Points: 32
Janissary Battlecruiser = 10 pts
Exeter Cruiser = 4 pts
Porter Frigate= 2 pts
Fighter Wing = 1 pt
Yao Cargo Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Colony Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Personnel Carrier = 1 pt
Yao Mining Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Tylium Fuel Carriers = 1 pt
Yao Tylium Extraction & Refinement Vessels = 1 pt
Erickson Science Vessel = 2 pts
Erickson Exploration Vessel = 2 pts
Military Maintenance
As the game progresses, players will want to reorganize their militaries, change their equipment, upgrade their tech, increase numbers, and train their soldiers. While some advancements can be registered by the army organization keys and namings, such as increasing troop count in an infantry regiment or creating specialized troops such as paratroopers by creating paratrooper regiments, some things cannot be so easily measured. From all of these factors, military effectiveness will be measured, on a 1 to 5 scale. This can also be affected by other factors outside of your control. If your military fights in multiple wars and comes out successfully with few casualties, military effectiveness will rise, however if you lose or take heavy casualties, it will fall. Military effectiveness can even change if you do nothing, if everyone else are upgrading their militaries in some form or fashion, then yours can decrease as theirs increases.
Warfare
Warfare will be decidedly different in this game than in our past games. Since turns are in years, it would be rather hard to plan out an entire year’s worth of operations for a year, when you don’t get the results until the next year. Rather than perform wars through operations in turns, as we formerly did, we will do things more directly. A discord server has been created, called the War Room, where players in a war, whether its versus NPC or another player, will join to do that war. Things will go more directly, the player will state their military numbers; locations of important military assets; current military technology, vehicle designs, and equipment; etcetera. They will then perform operations against each other that the moderator will moderate as battles. They can enact reconnaissance, commit espionage, and do other things that contribute to the war effort that aren’t just outright battles. This is going somewhat independently of the game, and it goes at the pace of the players, since neither need to be around when the other makes a move. The war will progress as well, since at every moderating session, what has happened so far in the war will be summarized as an event, and what has gone on in the war room up to that moderating period will count as a year of that war. This also means that what happens during turns can affect what is going on in the war room. For instance, if a war is started during turn two moderations, and during turn three, one of the players in the war has three ships finish construction, then after turn three is moderated, those ships are entered in the war room for turn four. If a war starts during turn two (War is declared by one or more parties on their turn sheet) then the war starts the year of turn three (And play in the War Room doesn’t start until turn two moderations complete) and if it is finished during turn five, even just one day after turn four is moderated, then the war is said to have gone on from turn three to turn five, three years.
Battle Calculation
For battle calculation, there are several factors accounted: Equipment/tech, military effectiveness, numbers, battle strategy, rules of procedure, environment (If applicable), and finally a 6-sided die roll for each side. Although the rest are self-explanatory, one must wonder what the dice roll is used for. Well, in any battle there is an element of chance, an element that say one ship performs above the call of duty, or the field commander proves far more competent than realized, or an element that determines a catastrophic malfunction in communications equipment, or that an unruly native provides an extra obstacle in the way of one army. That is what this die represents, and adds into the accounting of the rest of the factors.
Losing a War
When you lose a war, you must follow the treaty that it follows. Usually, it will not be a total conquest, and so it will end with a treaty, usually with something ceded and certain national freedoms given up. The signatories of the treaties must follow what the treaty says, if they don’t, they will receive international infamy, which means other players shouldn’t trust you, NPCs will be less likely to do anything with your nation, and corporations will be less likely to do business with you and may even leave your nation. This will also be bad for government approval. If you lose a war that is total conquest, you are out. The only exception is if you manage to get an escape fleet, and under specialty nation rules, you can continue playing as a refugee fleet.
Economics & Trade
Macroeconomics
The overall economics of the game will be fairly simple. The way economies will be analyzed (As in, how is your economy doing) is in terms of the business cycle. Either your economy will be on a downturn(Recessionary period) or on an upturn(Inflationary Period), and these can be small or large. It will also be analyzed in long-term growth, is your economy growing or not. Finally, it will also be analyzed by your government budget/debt, are you in a decifict or a surplus, is your budget balanced? The side-effects of bad economic cycles will largely be: inflation, unemployment, social unrest, informal markets (crime) and trade imbalances, depending on the situation. Solving these economic crises or continuing a good economic cycle will be somewhat simple. They will mostly, but not entirely, be fiscal policy, trade policy, and resultants of non-economic policies.
Trade
Trade can be two things, trade policy and direct trade. In a normal setting, governments don’t trade, but in Rhodes Parable II it is assumed there is some state industry in every government, even liberal democracies, except for nations where such a prospect is the antithesis of the style of governance, so direct trade between countries and countries, or companies, is possible. Trade policy can be fairly vague, it mostly consists of free trade agreements, forms of protectionism(quotas, tariffs, embargoes, etc.), exchange rates, and economic integration (Think economic unions). Direct trade is also fairly straightforward. Players can offer lump sum trade agreements, a one time trade of a certain amount of goods for another certain amount of goods, or long-term agreements, every year you give a nation a certain amount of goods in exchange for another certain amount of goods, for a period of x years. Players can only trade the top goods, which will be listed and explained, and only trade with players, NPC nations, and companies on the top ten companies list. Although trade obviously happens at smaller levels and can trade other than those ten goods, in the game it’s considered so insignificant it is not playable nor does it need to be.
Domestic Affairs
Domestic affairs will handle similar to our past text games. You can make reforms, put in new laws, or mess with your domestic population however you like. There will be a domestic event for your nation every turn, but they can vary from a one sentence festival to a three paragraph revolution. Domestic approval of the government will be measured on a 1 to 5 ratio (Very Low, Low, Fair, High, Very High) and the way domestic moderations respond to your actions vary highly. It can vary upon your government style, your past actions, foreign actions, and non-domestic actions. Government styles can have an effect on your domestic actions, such as: more democratic governments have the power to block your action, as the player represents the executive branch of their government, via congress or some other form of representation, whereas more absolute governments can do what they please without being blocked officially. However, for democratic governments you’re less likely to get social unrest as absolute governments, and thereby lessen the chance of a crisis.
Construction
Construction can be used to create military units, fortifications, civilian space stations, mines, science laboratories, infrastructure, all sorts of things. This can have an effect on your budget, and on domestic approval. It can effect your military effectiveness, and factor into warfare as well. Construction can play a role in just about every part of running the nation so long as you do it right.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy will be fairly simple, and will handle as it did in most games before. You can send out diplomatic envoys to NPC and player nations, the only difference is this time the diplomats themselves (nameless of course) may have some effect on the proceedings. Otherwise, you can use diplomatic envoys for all kinds of things, for making treaties, creating diplomatic unions and organizations, or representing your nation in international organizations.
Intelligence, State Security, and Espionage
Like in past games, you can perform spy operations of all kinds. If you wish to find out the latest specs on someone else’s technology, you can spy on it, if you wish to disrupt the production of a certain good in another nation, go right ahead. You can commit false flag operations, and almost anything to your heart’s desire. You can even take anti-intelligence gather measures to prevent foreign spies from penetrating your nation. Or go so far as to create a police state that monitors not only foreign presence, but as well as domestic, to put a stop to social unrest or anti-government behavior. Ensure to put these into operations so that your secrets aren’t known to others.
Research and Development
Research
Research is for designing new technology, largely military, based on science already acquired. Examples of this are designing ships, more effective reactors, armor, weapons, or manufacturing technology. These are moderated by determining how long it will construct and test them, and once this is complete, it will be approved. However, during the last turn of research, this is considered the testing period, a die will be rolled, and if the result is unfavorable then the technology will perform with some defects. If it is favorable, it will work just as it is on paper.
Development
Development is for much larger research projects, in development you can create new sciences, such as better jump drive technology, transportation technology, new kinds of weapons , etcetera. Things that didn’t exist prior to your research. These, being far more revolutionary than normal researches, are also done differently. Unlike researches, where the moderator gives a set amount of time for the research to complete, developments can go on indefinitely. Developments end by a dice roll, and the moderator will determine what roll(s) have to be reached for the development to complete. However, this does not mean if it rolls lower than the required number, there is no effect. If the dice roll is close, but not there, the development ‘gets a boost’ and the required number to roll lowers. However, if its a very low number, there can be setbacks that not only increases the number required to roll, but can also have serious side-effects in your nation such as a large explosion annihilating your capital.
Exploration & Colonization
Exploration
A large part of this game that is not apart of any previous game, except the first Rhodes Parable game, was exploration and colonization. Being a space empires type game, obviously, there has to be interstellar exploration. To perform exploration, you must have an exploration class ship, and all you have to do is include an action where the ship explores an area so far undiscovered by humans. The moderator will roll a die and if the roll is favorable, a system with a habitable planetoid will be discovered, if not, no systems of importance will be found. We will no longer be keeping track of uninhabitable systems with large resource deposits, only habitable systems. Exploration ships are the only ships that can do this as a large part of their ship computers are dedicated to calculating jump routes, as most ships follow established jump routes.
Colonization
Colonization of a planet takes place when you take colony ships or personnel carriers to habitable planetoids and establish a claim over the planet. To fully colonize a planet, you must have one hundred thousand inhabitants on the planet, but you can claim and occupy a habitable planet before it is fully colonized. Colonization is fairly simple, and rarely has repercussions other than the usual domestic affairs. There can be complications, such as hostile flora and fauna, or pirates, or hidden dangers.
Logistics
Yes, I know, logistics, bleh. Almost as bad as managing the economy. Well don’t worry, very little needs to be done in this area. Just having areas protected or using your own cargo ships (Although it is assumed the vast majority of transportation and cargo vessels are privately owned) to maintain shipping lines. The only issue for logistics is piracy/guerrilla warfare. If you have a high rate of piracy in your nation, you will have a harder time doing construction projects, increased social unrest, and most importantly, your military/exploratory/science logistics will be disrupted, preventing and limiting operations of those areas. What this means is: keep piracy low.
Revolutionary Activity
Some players in the past, specifically one, frequently bring up the question of revolutions, rebellions, and generally insurgent activity. This also registers on the piracy and guerrilla issue, and has the same problems, but that is only for rebellious or insurgent activity. When a nation reaches such a high unrest that the people want to replace the entire government. This starts a war, and would be done in the War Room, like a normal war, just against an NPC side. If the player wins, things go on as they had before, now with a war torn nation. However, if the player loses, they do not take the role of the revolutionary government, they are out of the game.
Specialty Nations
Some players might be inclined to play an unorthodox nation, such as a nation that is nomadic, or one entirely placed on a single ‘refugee’ fleet, unwelcome by others. These are allowed, but they must adjust their nation sheets accordingly. They will play without economic indicators, and will have several limitations when it comes to various areas of play. However, they can be creative and make the best of their situation, and can at one point settle and become a normalized nation. They must know that they will be limited compared to other players and their style of play will be very different.
Statistics & Indicators
If you have paid close attention, you might have seen a lot of indicators/statistics that track the wellbeing of your nation, such as government approval or military effectiveness. Well, to ease the moderator and the player certain information is kept by using the indicators, since it would prove headache inducing for both people to remember this all. Especially since these are not historical nations where these factors can be looked up and maintained outside of the game, it is important we have these. There are two kinds of indicators for every nation, player indicators and moderator indicators. Player indicators are indicators that are under a player’s direct control. These are things, that if a player does an action related to these indicators, these indicators change immediately. These are those indicators:
Tax Level (Very Low to Very High)
Gov. Spending (Very Low to Very High)
Gov. Budget (Large Deficit, Small Deficit, Balanced, Small Surplus, Large Surplus)
Currency Strength (Very Weak to Very Strong)
Note: Don’t change them by writing, “Change taxes from fair to high”, do it as you would normally, “Change tax rates on middle class from 3% to 4%” and slowly over time the indicators change. Now, the players themselves don’t change the indicators, but they do show them in their turn, like military numbers.(Preferably in a spoiler) They only change them when the moderator determines that a significant enough change has been made to change the indicators. Because a small decrease in business taxes wouldn’t change the overall tax level of a nation from fair to low, but a military program to increase the navy from 2 ships to 10 will definitely increase government spending from low to fair. The other kind of indicators are moderator indicators. Moderator indicators are indicators that moderators keep track of and players cannot see. These are indicators that are indirectly affected by player actions and allow the moderator to easier moderate the nation. Here are the moderator indicators:
Government Approval (Very Low to Very High)
Social Unrest (Very Low to Very High)
Military Effectiveness (Very Low to Very High)
Business Cycle (Trough, Contraction, Intermediary, Expansion, Peak)
Foreign Infamy (Very Low to Very High)
Piracy/Guerrilla Presence (Very Low to Very High)
Although this seems really complicated and overwhelming, its not. For the indicators you post every turn, you will rarely change more than one per turn. It’s just like posting your military numbers on every turn, so that both you and the mod know what your government is doing financially, so it doesn’t have to be worried about during turn creation.
1. Turns are seven days long, during those seven days, a player can post a turn. If they miss that period, they miss it. You cannot edit your turn after those seven days either. No exceptions.
2. Moderations will have a time period of three days, if they complete before those three days are up, players are still not allowed to post until the three days complete.
3. Be reasonable, if you try to throw your entire population into a sun or create a device allowing you to transport anything you want anywhere, it will be shut down and retroactively removed.
4. Don’t bring out of game conflict into the game. If you have a spat with someone in discord, and then suddenly attack them, I will not allow that to happen.
5. Don’t multipost, if you wish to change something in your turn, edit the turn.
6. If you have a problem with a part of the moderation, PM the moderator, don’t bring it up in chat.
7. Keep atrocities to a minimum in detail. You can commit them if its central to your nation, but if you’re going into detail describing death camps of some sort, I will put a stop to it.
Game Play Rules
Military & Warfare
Military Numbers
To start off, for ground numbers we are going to use organizational structure, rather than numerical. What this means is that, when you list your army/marine numbers, instead of listing 10,000 infantry, 500 tanks, etc. you will be listing ten infantry regiments, 3 armored regiments, etc. Although this sounds a little bit more confusing, it’s much easier in the long run. At the beginning, everyone will have the same organizational structure (How many infantry and vehicles per regiment) but as the game progresses, you can reorganize this structure to your liking, you can even go so far as having regiments specifically for ground combat and regiments specifically for space combat. Preliminarily, all army/marine numbers will be in regiments and battalions, but you can create larger units or smaller units, so as long as you list what’s in them. This time around we are not having a max number of military numbers that everyone will just go to, leaving everyone with the same military. Instead, we will have a balance system. If you want more of Y, you must have less of Z. This is done with Mil points, so you can in effect, purchase your army to your liking. Here will be the balance numbers for army/marine forces:
1 Mil Point = 1 Infantry Regiment = 1 Armored Battalion = 3 Artillery Batteries
Max Ground Forces Points: 50
Infantry Regiment Make-Up:
x2000 Personnel
x10 Light Reconnaissance Vehicles
x25 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x42 Armored Personnel Carriers
x8 Self-Propelled Guns
x225 Logistics Vehicles
Armored Battalion Make-Up:
x750 Personnel
x10 Light Reconnaissance Vehicles
x15 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x60 tanks
x155 Logistics Vehicles
Artillery Battery Make-Up:
x225 Personnel
x5 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
x25 Self-Propelled Guns
x42 Logistics Vehicles
This is the balance sheet for naval forces:
Fighter Wing = x25 F-304 Sabre Space Fighters
Max Naval Forces Points: 32
Janissary Battlecruiser = 10 pts
Exeter Cruiser = 4 pts
Porter Frigate= 2 pts
Fighter Wing = 1 pt
Yao Cargo Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Colony Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Personnel Carrier = 1 pt
Yao Mining Vessel = 1 pt
Yao Tylium Fuel Carriers = 1 pt
Yao Tylium Extraction & Refinement Vessels = 1 pt
Erickson Science Vessel = 2 pts
Erickson Exploration Vessel = 2 pts
Military Maintenance
As the game progresses, players will want to reorganize their militaries, change their equipment, upgrade their tech, increase numbers, and train their soldiers. While some advancements can be registered by the army organization keys and namings, such as increasing troop count in an infantry regiment or creating specialized troops such as paratroopers by creating paratrooper regiments, some things cannot be so easily measured. From all of these factors, military effectiveness will be measured, on a 1 to 5 scale. This can also be affected by other factors outside of your control. If your military fights in multiple wars and comes out successfully with few casualties, military effectiveness will rise, however if you lose or take heavy casualties, it will fall. Military effectiveness can even change if you do nothing, if everyone else are upgrading their militaries in some form or fashion, then yours can decrease as theirs increases.
Warfare
Warfare will be decidedly different in this game than in our past games. Since turns are in years, it would be rather hard to plan out an entire year’s worth of operations for a year, when you don’t get the results until the next year. Rather than perform wars through operations in turns, as we formerly did, we will do things more directly. A discord server has been created, called the War Room, where players in a war, whether its versus NPC or another player, will join to do that war. Things will go more directly, the player will state their military numbers; locations of important military assets; current military technology, vehicle designs, and equipment; etcetera. They will then perform operations against each other that the moderator will moderate as battles. They can enact reconnaissance, commit espionage, and do other things that contribute to the war effort that aren’t just outright battles. This is going somewhat independently of the game, and it goes at the pace of the players, since neither need to be around when the other makes a move. The war will progress as well, since at every moderating session, what has happened so far in the war will be summarized as an event, and what has gone on in the war room up to that moderating period will count as a year of that war. This also means that what happens during turns can affect what is going on in the war room. For instance, if a war is started during turn two moderations, and during turn three, one of the players in the war has three ships finish construction, then after turn three is moderated, those ships are entered in the war room for turn four. If a war starts during turn two (War is declared by one or more parties on their turn sheet) then the war starts the year of turn three (And play in the War Room doesn’t start until turn two moderations complete) and if it is finished during turn five, even just one day after turn four is moderated, then the war is said to have gone on from turn three to turn five, three years.
Battle Calculation
For battle calculation, there are several factors accounted: Equipment/tech, military effectiveness, numbers, battle strategy, rules of procedure, environment (If applicable), and finally a 6-sided die roll for each side. Although the rest are self-explanatory, one must wonder what the dice roll is used for. Well, in any battle there is an element of chance, an element that say one ship performs above the call of duty, or the field commander proves far more competent than realized, or an element that determines a catastrophic malfunction in communications equipment, or that an unruly native provides an extra obstacle in the way of one army. That is what this die represents, and adds into the accounting of the rest of the factors.
Losing a War
When you lose a war, you must follow the treaty that it follows. Usually, it will not be a total conquest, and so it will end with a treaty, usually with something ceded and certain national freedoms given up. The signatories of the treaties must follow what the treaty says, if they don’t, they will receive international infamy, which means other players shouldn’t trust you, NPCs will be less likely to do anything with your nation, and corporations will be less likely to do business with you and may even leave your nation. This will also be bad for government approval. If you lose a war that is total conquest, you are out. The only exception is if you manage to get an escape fleet, and under specialty nation rules, you can continue playing as a refugee fleet.
Economics & Trade
Macroeconomics
The overall economics of the game will be fairly simple. The way economies will be analyzed (As in, how is your economy doing) is in terms of the business cycle. Either your economy will be on a downturn(Recessionary period) or on an upturn(Inflationary Period), and these can be small or large. It will also be analyzed in long-term growth, is your economy growing or not. Finally, it will also be analyzed by your government budget/debt, are you in a decifict or a surplus, is your budget balanced? The side-effects of bad economic cycles will largely be: inflation, unemployment, social unrest, informal markets (crime) and trade imbalances, depending on the situation. Solving these economic crises or continuing a good economic cycle will be somewhat simple. They will mostly, but not entirely, be fiscal policy, trade policy, and resultants of non-economic policies.
Trade
Trade can be two things, trade policy and direct trade. In a normal setting, governments don’t trade, but in Rhodes Parable II it is assumed there is some state industry in every government, even liberal democracies, except for nations where such a prospect is the antithesis of the style of governance, so direct trade between countries and countries, or companies, is possible. Trade policy can be fairly vague, it mostly consists of free trade agreements, forms of protectionism(quotas, tariffs, embargoes, etc.), exchange rates, and economic integration (Think economic unions). Direct trade is also fairly straightforward. Players can offer lump sum trade agreements, a one time trade of a certain amount of goods for another certain amount of goods, or long-term agreements, every year you give a nation a certain amount of goods in exchange for another certain amount of goods, for a period of x years. Players can only trade the top goods, which will be listed and explained, and only trade with players, NPC nations, and companies on the top ten companies list. Although trade obviously happens at smaller levels and can trade other than those ten goods, in the game it’s considered so insignificant it is not playable nor does it need to be.
Domestic Affairs
Domestic affairs will handle similar to our past text games. You can make reforms, put in new laws, or mess with your domestic population however you like. There will be a domestic event for your nation every turn, but they can vary from a one sentence festival to a three paragraph revolution. Domestic approval of the government will be measured on a 1 to 5 ratio (Very Low, Low, Fair, High, Very High) and the way domestic moderations respond to your actions vary highly. It can vary upon your government style, your past actions, foreign actions, and non-domestic actions. Government styles can have an effect on your domestic actions, such as: more democratic governments have the power to block your action, as the player represents the executive branch of their government, via congress or some other form of representation, whereas more absolute governments can do what they please without being blocked officially. However, for democratic governments you’re less likely to get social unrest as absolute governments, and thereby lessen the chance of a crisis.
Construction
Construction can be used to create military units, fortifications, civilian space stations, mines, science laboratories, infrastructure, all sorts of things. This can have an effect on your budget, and on domestic approval. It can effect your military effectiveness, and factor into warfare as well. Construction can play a role in just about every part of running the nation so long as you do it right.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy will be fairly simple, and will handle as it did in most games before. You can send out diplomatic envoys to NPC and player nations, the only difference is this time the diplomats themselves (nameless of course) may have some effect on the proceedings. Otherwise, you can use diplomatic envoys for all kinds of things, for making treaties, creating diplomatic unions and organizations, or representing your nation in international organizations.
Intelligence, State Security, and Espionage
Like in past games, you can perform spy operations of all kinds. If you wish to find out the latest specs on someone else’s technology, you can spy on it, if you wish to disrupt the production of a certain good in another nation, go right ahead. You can commit false flag operations, and almost anything to your heart’s desire. You can even take anti-intelligence gather measures to prevent foreign spies from penetrating your nation. Or go so far as to create a police state that monitors not only foreign presence, but as well as domestic, to put a stop to social unrest or anti-government behavior. Ensure to put these into operations so that your secrets aren’t known to others.
Research and Development
Research
Research is for designing new technology, largely military, based on science already acquired. Examples of this are designing ships, more effective reactors, armor, weapons, or manufacturing technology. These are moderated by determining how long it will construct and test them, and once this is complete, it will be approved. However, during the last turn of research, this is considered the testing period, a die will be rolled, and if the result is unfavorable then the technology will perform with some defects. If it is favorable, it will work just as it is on paper.
Development
Development is for much larger research projects, in development you can create new sciences, such as better jump drive technology, transportation technology, new kinds of weapons , etcetera. Things that didn’t exist prior to your research. These, being far more revolutionary than normal researches, are also done differently. Unlike researches, where the moderator gives a set amount of time for the research to complete, developments can go on indefinitely. Developments end by a dice roll, and the moderator will determine what roll(s) have to be reached for the development to complete. However, this does not mean if it rolls lower than the required number, there is no effect. If the dice roll is close, but not there, the development ‘gets a boost’ and the required number to roll lowers. However, if its a very low number, there can be setbacks that not only increases the number required to roll, but can also have serious side-effects in your nation such as a large explosion annihilating your capital.
Exploration & Colonization
Exploration
A large part of this game that is not apart of any previous game, except the first Rhodes Parable game, was exploration and colonization. Being a space empires type game, obviously, there has to be interstellar exploration. To perform exploration, you must have an exploration class ship, and all you have to do is include an action where the ship explores an area so far undiscovered by humans. The moderator will roll a die and if the roll is favorable, a system with a habitable planetoid will be discovered, if not, no systems of importance will be found. We will no longer be keeping track of uninhabitable systems with large resource deposits, only habitable systems. Exploration ships are the only ships that can do this as a large part of their ship computers are dedicated to calculating jump routes, as most ships follow established jump routes.
Colonization
Colonization of a planet takes place when you take colony ships or personnel carriers to habitable planetoids and establish a claim over the planet. To fully colonize a planet, you must have one hundred thousand inhabitants on the planet, but you can claim and occupy a habitable planet before it is fully colonized. Colonization is fairly simple, and rarely has repercussions other than the usual domestic affairs. There can be complications, such as hostile flora and fauna, or pirates, or hidden dangers.
Logistics
Yes, I know, logistics, bleh. Almost as bad as managing the economy. Well don’t worry, very little needs to be done in this area. Just having areas protected or using your own cargo ships (Although it is assumed the vast majority of transportation and cargo vessels are privately owned) to maintain shipping lines. The only issue for logistics is piracy/guerrilla warfare. If you have a high rate of piracy in your nation, you will have a harder time doing construction projects, increased social unrest, and most importantly, your military/exploratory/science logistics will be disrupted, preventing and limiting operations of those areas. What this means is: keep piracy low.
Revolutionary Activity
Some players in the past, specifically one, frequently bring up the question of revolutions, rebellions, and generally insurgent activity. This also registers on the piracy and guerrilla issue, and has the same problems, but that is only for rebellious or insurgent activity. When a nation reaches such a high unrest that the people want to replace the entire government. This starts a war, and would be done in the War Room, like a normal war, just against an NPC side. If the player wins, things go on as they had before, now with a war torn nation. However, if the player loses, they do not take the role of the revolutionary government, they are out of the game.
Specialty Nations
Some players might be inclined to play an unorthodox nation, such as a nation that is nomadic, or one entirely placed on a single ‘refugee’ fleet, unwelcome by others. These are allowed, but they must adjust their nation sheets accordingly. They will play without economic indicators, and will have several limitations when it comes to various areas of play. However, they can be creative and make the best of their situation, and can at one point settle and become a normalized nation. They must know that they will be limited compared to other players and their style of play will be very different.
Statistics & Indicators
If you have paid close attention, you might have seen a lot of indicators/statistics that track the wellbeing of your nation, such as government approval or military effectiveness. Well, to ease the moderator and the player certain information is kept by using the indicators, since it would prove headache inducing for both people to remember this all. Especially since these are not historical nations where these factors can be looked up and maintained outside of the game, it is important we have these. There are two kinds of indicators for every nation, player indicators and moderator indicators. Player indicators are indicators that are under a player’s direct control. These are things, that if a player does an action related to these indicators, these indicators change immediately. These are those indicators:
Tax Level (Very Low to Very High)
Gov. Spending (Very Low to Very High)
Gov. Budget (Large Deficit, Small Deficit, Balanced, Small Surplus, Large Surplus)
Currency Strength (Very Weak to Very Strong)
Note: Don’t change them by writing, “Change taxes from fair to high”, do it as you would normally, “Change tax rates on middle class from 3% to 4%” and slowly over time the indicators change. Now, the players themselves don’t change the indicators, but they do show them in their turn, like military numbers.(Preferably in a spoiler) They only change them when the moderator determines that a significant enough change has been made to change the indicators. Because a small decrease in business taxes wouldn’t change the overall tax level of a nation from fair to low, but a military program to increase the navy from 2 ships to 10 will definitely increase government spending from low to fair. The other kind of indicators are moderator indicators. Moderator indicators are indicators that moderators keep track of and players cannot see. These are indicators that are indirectly affected by player actions and allow the moderator to easier moderate the nation. Here are the moderator indicators:
Government Approval (Very Low to Very High)
Social Unrest (Very Low to Very High)
Military Effectiveness (Very Low to Very High)
Business Cycle (Trough, Contraction, Intermediary, Expansion, Peak)
Foreign Infamy (Very Low to Very High)
Piracy/Guerrilla Presence (Very Low to Very High)
Although this seems really complicated and overwhelming, its not. For the indicators you post every turn, you will rarely change more than one per turn. It’s just like posting your military numbers on every turn, so that both you and the mod know what your government is doing financially, so it doesn’t have to be worried about during turn creation.