LibArc Games: Kingdom Builder (Codename Planitia)

[Dark Silver]

Time to revisit a idea that's been stewing, and requires working out.

Once upon a time, we envisioned a trio of browserbased games utilizing CGI and PHP/MYSQL programing. There are still plans for it, but it requires many things, mostly planning for things to be included, how it will work, etc etc.


Premise for this game is going to be simple, implementation will be hard.

Overall:

A "kingdom builder" type game. You obtain control of a "province" who is grouped with a varying number of other provinces (ranged atm from 15-25 provinces) into a overall kingdom.

You obtain full control of the province, deciding what is built, the size of your military, taxation rates, what types of soldiers are to be trained, etc.

Personal Goal of the game is to build your province as powerful as you can make it, gaining control of more land through exploration and military conquest. Overall goal is to assist your teammates to build a kingdom whose power reigns supreme by the end of the round (ranging atm, from 2-6 months in time).

Players can choose a race with various benefits and disadvantages to each race.

For Example:

The Birdaloo race gain a +5% bonus to thier attack specialist, and do not require the building of farms to grow food for thier species.

The Dwarven race take 50% less time to build thier buildings, gain a 10% durability to thier buildings in attack, and a 4% defense bonus to invaders.




Input is required now, to help make this game a realization. I require assistance to design the layout, and plot out the systems required.

For a example of the type of game We are designing, please see Utopia ( http://games.swirve.com/utopia )

Note: This doesn't mean I need programming skillz, I require your IDEAS! your input! What races should we have? What should thier bonus/disadvantages be? etc

[SirNitram]

I have no idea why I have access here, but I can shit out ideas like it's going out of style. Just let me know what setting you'd like this to be in.

[frigidmagi]

Perhaps an option to play mercenaries?

[Destructionator XV]

Speaking of access, why not just open up this forum to all? If I put my RPG thread in here, it would have probably died, but with the input of the general public (especially Mayabird who has no access in here), it ended up being quite productive.

I see no need to keep this forum as group and mod access only.

[frigidmagi]

I would have to agree.

[SirNitram]

Perhaps an option to play mercenaries?

Could be fun. Raise armies and research tech, but instead of needing food/housing/whatever for your force, you need to pay cash. You gain cash by either doing your own raids, or by setting out groups for prices you set.

It should be an option after race. Also, some races may not be able to use Mercs(For whatever reason), and some may only be Mercs(No appreciable land held).

[Dark Silver]

I've taken under consideration, your suggestions, and made the forum public to view and post, but only Moderators/Designers may create new threads.

Again, I don't need coders, I just need help with the design document, the layout, if you will.

[Mayabird]

Speaking of access, why not just open up this forum to all? If I put my RPG thread in here, it would have probably died, but with the input of the general public (especially Mayabird who has no access in here), it ended up being quite productive.

Awww, shucks. Thanks.

Anyway, if we're going to have different races, please don't make humans the generic race of average abilities without advantages and disadvantages. The cliche' is getting pretty annoying, and it's not really true. For instance, since we're pretty horrible at first-contact situations even among our own species, humans should probably have some initial -% disadvantage for diplomacy or the equivalent when exploring.

I'll think of some more later.

[frigidmagi]

Advantage at organizing maybe?

[Dark Silver]

I was thinking more along the lines of giving humans a bonus to Sciences (they gain a bonus to any advantage they obtain from the sciences), as well as giving them stronger than average Offensive Specialist in thier military as benefits.

[SirNitram]

My preference would have been the science benefit and a population benefit. Humans are almost always depicted as multiplying like crazy compared to other races.

Hmm. Half-tempted to dig out the abandoned 'sci-fi done with fantasy'. And unlike most incarnations of such, had dragons, 'orc hordes', and no magic.

[frigidmagi]

Don't races like orcs and goblins traditionally bred faster than humans?

[SirNitram]

Don't races like orcs and goblins traditionally bred faster than humans?

The fratricide tends to keep them managable.

[Mayabird]

Don't races like orcs and goblins traditionally bred faster than humans?

I don't know if they breed faster necessarily, but I think they usually live longer, which contributes to a faster population growth rate. Humans are usually portrayed as a short-lived race, after all.

[frigidmagi]

Good point. So will people be able to build improvements? I.E factories, Temples, etc, etc?

[frigidmagi]

Another thought, how about we include religion? Picking a religion gives you a bonus/drawback, extra troops types...

I suggest we use fantasy religions not real world.

[Dark Silver]

yes, the player will have to develop any land they obtain through exploration and conquest (there's a chance of obtaining some of the enemies buidings with the lands you get in conquest attacks).

[SirNitram]

Clear the deck! Here comes some descriptions I wrote up a while back.

Humans

"Screw your 'potential', screw your 'Younger races', and screw you. We're here. Try and stop us." - Roman Admiral Tenebrus.

Shortly after the conquest of the Britons, the Empire's top scholars unearthed a library, apparently hidden for mileenia. The Ascenti texts, written on scrolls whose surface lit up and whose words scrolled as one read, detailed the vastness of space beyond and the means to journey through it. Inspired to near-madness by the translated records, it is said Emperor Claudius proclaimed his intent to see these great frontiers at any cost. And the cost has been great.

Over a hundred and twenty years later, the Augustus exploded on the launchpad, in the Eygptian desert. Her solid explosive fuel ignited irregularly, detonating where it stood instead of lifting it's iron-shelled cargo to the heavens, where a silvery sail hoped to catch winds emanating from the stars. Twelve years and twice as many failed attempts later, on the edge of driving the Empire into bankruptcy, the last failed system was finally corrected. Lost admist the darkness, the navigator aboard the craft made for a shimmering point of light far from Terra.

On the other side of the Star Road, it emerged within a stone's throw of an Ascenti City, floating in the void.

Fifty years since the monumentous first meeting between Human civilization and that of the stars, the Ascenti politicians continue to bicker over whether to furnish the primitive race with usable starcraft. But Rome has refused to wait: The push to space must be made on their own terms. So it begins, that mankind seeks out mercenaries once more. To learn, and to copy from..



Ascenti.

"We were old when your kind were still as rats. Yet you demand we aid you?" - Unnamed Ascenti general, to delegation from Earth.

Nearly ten million years after they first moved beyond the skies of their homeworld, the Ascenti have succeeded in their once dreamlike plans: To stride across the entire Milky Way, to forge together a kingdom across the void, and to bring the many races of Known Space together in a peaceful era. Even as their kingdom matured into a republic and their craft journeyed to the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim and Gossamer Clouds, the glacial pace of their existance has been forced, again, to yield to change. The Republic is in decline. Decline as slow as a continental plate.. Yet just as implacable. Thousands of worlds are already abandoned, and unrest ruminates over decades. Bickering throughout the nation throws ideas between minds honed by long lives, as the younger races nip at their age-old master's heels.

An Ascenti is very humanlike.. Disturbingly so, some Legionnaire's comment. Standing, typically, between six and eight feet tall, their features are highly angular, and their hands hold six fingers each(And each foot, six toes). Skintones range from verdant green, to magma-like ruddy red, to stonelike grey, and almost metallic golden. The lifespan of an Ascenti runs nearly three thousand years, thanks to their extensive genetic technology.

Current fashion among the Ascenti is for a graceful conservatory nature in technology. Be it concealed cybernetic implants, to the minimalist nature of their ships, they seek to reduce waste and overt indicators of their tools.

Ascenti ships unlocked the secrets of hyperspace millions of years ago, and still use it extensively. Static 'bubbles' of hyperspace allow for reactionless thrust for maneuvers, while huge EM fields work as solar sails for STL travel. FTL travel is accomplished through one of two paths: Submerging the ship's hull and sail-fields into hyperspace, to ride tachyon currents between the stars, or moving through already-constructed portals at L5 points.



Stout Folk(Name in progress, though an in-universe reason is given below.)

"Sure, I can help you. But it'll cost ya." - Many, many Atriotarus.

Straddling the line between carbon-based and silicon-based life, the 'Stout Folk', as humanity calls them, are short, sturdy, and industrious. Much younger than the Ascenti, they have risen to prominence in the Republic and the stars beyond as capable mercenaries, traders, and diplomats.

Born of a mineral-rich and high-gravity world, the Stout are assumed to have originally been one species. Despite being well-equipped for work on their homeworld and asteroids, this originator species apparently saw opportunity, and, through heavy speciation and genetic engineering, split his kind into three. Of them, the Atriotarus are most like Humans and Ascenti, though much shorter and often more plump. The merchant caste of their kind, they facilitate mediation, buying and selling of goods mined by their kind, and negotiate services rendered. Nasuti are the smallest caste, primarily devoted to engineering, research, and exploration. Characterized by their large noses and keen senses, they are likely closest to the original species. Abscidi function as the worker and warrior castes both, and are most numerous. More burly and slightly taller than their brethren, they appear to have a higher silicon content as well. Long beards, however, still denote their half-half nature. Much of their language is beyond Human tongues to master, but they seem content to answer to the names coined by the Empire for them.

Growing to prominence in the Republic's heyday, the Stout Folk quickly capitalized on what they did best, and today serve the Ascenti by mining vast stretches of asteroid belts and lifeless mineral worlds. They also serve as mercenaries for any and all who will pay for them. Unlike the ancient ones, however, they have no centrailzed existance: Clans splinter, unite, bud off, and collapse at an almost dizzying pace, warring with each other in both economic and purely literal manners.

Technologically, while inferior to the Ascenti, the Stout sport excellent industrial equipment and weaponry(Though both are rather bulky and complex). Scorning conventional ships, the current trend popular among the Clans is to use vast uprooted mountains or asteroids as starships, equipping them with vast reaction engines and hyperspace window generators. Warships are constructed similarly, studded with vast numbers of weapons.


Draconi and Kobodi.

If there is a hand of Fate guiding all things, it's most overt move seems to have been with the Draconi and Kobodi. Two species, in many ways the embodiments of differences, came together into a symbotic relationship. This relationship transformed the Galaxy into what we know today.

The Kobodi are perhaps easiest to understand. Three to four feet tall, these saurians follow the basics of humanoid life: Multiple fingers with opposable thumbs, upright gait, agile tongues and complex, if small, brains. Their own development on their homeworld(A blue-green world somewhere in the Spiral Arms; it's exact coordinates are lost to the ages) reached as far as tribal gatherings with simple technology. The stone age, as many call it.

The Draconi are an enigma even today. Not native to our dimensional set, these beasts range from several hundred meters long at birth to kilometers long at adulthood; some particularly huge specimens are as many as twenty kilometers from nose to tailtip. Their bodies are slender and serpentine, with small forearms. Though lacking thumbs, their fingers are agile and useful. Their solo development seems restricted to Hyperspace, where they were top predators at the time when Fate's hand, supposedly, took control.

HBE, or Hyperspace Bleeding Effect, is well understood today. The physics of normal space and Hyperspace overlap in these regions, vivid reminders of the normally-untamed forces used in interstellar life. HBE areas can be nanoscopic, or range across entire systems. It is theorized that such an event occoured over the Kobodi homeworld. During it, a wounded Draconi slipped 'sideways', coming to rest on the planet's surface, half in, and half out, of Hyperspace. Robbed of the life-giving energy flows that partially fuel the Draconi, but not so cut off that it's condition would worsen, the beast was happened upon by a tribe of Kobodi. The tribe, thinking the beast was sent by their God, rushed to tend to it and restore the bizarre alien to health. Bringing it the largest portion of the tribe's kills and stopping the obvious bleeding did, in fact, save the creature.

Why the Draconi did not simply eat the tiny creatures is unknown. What is known is that this would not be the first Draconi-Kobodi pairing. The many small creatures could provide the larger beast with fashioned tools and resources. The Draconi could provide it's underlings with vast intelligence; their brains, normally applied only to a predator's cunning and little else, were quick to snap up the concepts of language, tool use, and similar once exposed.

Why leave the glistening, shining realms of Hyperspace for our own realm? It's not really known. The Draconi and their Kobodi worshipper/partners would do many wonders as time went on. The Kobodi did not even develop true starships until much later, instead simply riding their Gods between stars as the things submerged themselves in Hyperspace and flew. But ships were produced, as client races were discovered and uplifted. The foundations of Galactic civilization in our Galaxy were laid then. It took tens of millions of years to establish the Dragon Empire. It took a single mileenia to reshape it into the Ascenti's vision of order.

Their empire no longer theirs, the Draconi took their worshippers and left. They now occupy the Lesser Gossamer Cloud when they are in our reality at all. More often, they are delving into new realms. Few dare ask what they seek. Even fewer receive answers.


The Horde.

Incomplete. They were to be the 'Orc Horde'. Goblins as disposable troops, orcs as the main bulk, ogres as the shock troopers, and the Ogre Magi, and their horrific fashion sense as the leaders. They would be emerging from Beyond The Galaxy, invading our fertile civilization.

Gonna think on modifiers for all.

[Dark Silver]

This is a quick Design Documentation I've written up tonight, giving some ideas of what I wanted done. It's not the most organized, or legible unfortunatly, but it definatly gives basic ideas that can be expanded upon, and sprouted from.


--------------------------------


Kingdom Builder Design Document (Temp Project Name)

Game Name: Undecided, open for suggestions

Setting: Fantasy (with perhaps small steampunk elements. Setting is still open.)

World: Unnamed world, NOT EARTH! (open for suggestions)



I. Kingdom

1. Player is placed in control of small province, approximatly 150-400 units in size (aiming for "acres" or "tesapattes" as land unit).

2. Player starts off with "x" amount of resources, enough to start thier province off, build up available land, train soldiers, explore more land, put study into various sciences.
3. Province is one in a group of up to 25, within a Kingdom. Provinces work together in the kingdom to make thier "team" strong enough to utilize the War function for communal growth.

A) Kingdom Growth
Kingdom's may grow by two ways, Military Conquest or Exploration

1) Exploration:
a) A squad of baseline soldier units are sent to explore and obtain land from a "world pool".
b) Takes "x" amount of soldiers per acre along with a variable monetary unit per acre in order to explore.
c) A variable chance (small at first, inverse in relation to the size of the World Pool of Available Land [WPAL]), to encounter opposing forces as soldiers explore, resulting in possible loss of soldiers, and not obtaining as much land as previously expected when sent out team.

2) Military Conquest
a) Invasion of other provinces (includes those in your own kingdom if you wish to do so) with military forces in order to obtain thier lands.
b) Chance to obtain some of opponents building, depending on variable percentage due to collateral damage.

3) Land Development
a) Lands claimed by the province can be developed with buildings which will provide bonuses, increases population
b) certain buildings effectiveness can be increased with knowledge gained from "Sciences"

B) Population and Taxation
1. "Peasents" are limited in number within a province based on amount of jobs, housing, and development of the land.

2. Higher level of non-house buildings offer more jobs, meaning higher wages, which equals more income for province in taxation, but less population (affects military).

3. Higher level of houses equals higher population, but less income via taxation due to less people working, lower pay wages. Bonus is the glut of people available for military draft.

4. Depending on how well the Player does his job, the population may approve or disprove. Higher approval levels = greater happiness of the population, which equals to temporary bonuses.


II. Players

1. Player chooses Race for thier Ruler and name of Province. Provinces are assigned at random for new players.
2. Player has full control of the province, setting tax rate, religion, etc.

III. Military
1. Military is drafted from population at a set rate. Rate and amount of population drafted can be set by the player. Higher draft speeds costs more money. Higher level of draft means less population for taxation.

2. All citizens draft start off as untrained soldiers. By spending money, the player may train the soldiers into specilized defenders, attacks, or "elites" of theives.

3. Military Operations are lead by Generals, of which there are a limited number. Generals accompany the soldiers and provide a bonus to thier attacks.

IV. Black operations
1. Done by "thieves", these allow the player to assault a opposing province via theft of physical resources, assasination of council members and soldiers, kidnapping of peasentry, etc etc.

2. Higher levels of trained theives will aid in defense against thievery operations via opposing provinces.

3. Thieves can get more detailed information in intellegence operations, including amount of soldiers currently in the province, how long till opposing forces return, ratio of buildings to empty land, etc.




--------
Revision v1.1 - clean up of text, clarification of player powers.

[Destructionator XV]

Another thought, how about we include religion? Picking a religion gives you a bonus/drawback, extra troops types...

I suggest we use fantasy religions not real world.

I think that's a good idea, and I think that it should be similar to real religions: often in fantasy games, choice of religion gives you new magics or something like that. I think that it should be something more abstract: higher loyalty and cohesion among people of the same faith, but lower loyalty between people of different faiths.

If you enact a state religion, you can get very high loyalty of one sect, with the others being excluded, and possibly even fleeing for a more tolerant land.

But I don't care much for the 'worship a demon get more powers' religion common in many fantasy worlds.

[Dark Silver]

No, but if we set up a Pantheon with Gods of "Good" "Neutral" and "Evil", and each God gives certain bonuses. Say the worship of Babaloo the Good God of Inebriation (hey, I'm not the best with making up names) gives your province a bonus to birthrates (cause you know people have more sex when drunk) and a penality to say....sciences because everyone gets so damn drunk so often.

It's a example, not something solid...

[Mayabird]

Does it necessarily have to be a selective monotheistic system? It's certainly be easier, but many societies had a pantheon of gods with different groups having more emphasis on one over the others: the soldiers with a cult of the war god, the smiths with a cult of the craftsman god, etc. Just because they mainly focus on one doesn't mean a warrior can't pray to the fertility goddess for his wife to have a bunch of kids. Could there be a set of scaling bonuses?


And my apologies, but the reference was too good to pass up.

Say the worship of Babaloo the Good God of Inebriation (hey, I'm not the best with making up names) gives your province a bonus to birthrates (cause you know people have more sex when drunk) and a penality to say....sciences because everyone gets so damn drunk so often.

[Family Guy]
Scene: ancient Ireland, full of flying cars and high technology.

"We, Ireland's greatest scientists, have discovered a way to convert our entire population into pure energy."

"Hey, we've just invented a new kind of beverage in our bathtub."

*reads label* "Hmm...whiskey..." *takes a drink* "YARRRR!" *brawls*
[/Family Guy]

[frigidmagi]

Even in pantheons some groups chose a god/goddess to be their special patron. For example Athens chose Athenia, Crete chose Posiden and I'm sure Sparta chose Ares.

In Sumeria cities had their own god unique to that city to defend it.

[Dark Silver]

After discussion with Scott, this morning, I've thinking of this mechanic to be used on player conscripted mercenaries (it is unknown if we will have playable mercenaries "provinces" yet).


comments and suggestions appreciated.

Mercenaries:

1. Each Mercenary Unit will count as a Special Unit, which will not affect your logistics. They come with thier own horses and ships (these are covered in the "hiring cost").

2. Mercenaries are individuals who sign up temporarily to your army, assisting you in battle, for a "hire fee" and a percentage of the spoils.

a) The amount of mercenaries that can be hired per "army" will be no more than 1/8 the amount of troops being sent to attack.
b) Casualties from Mercenary Units will be calculated first, then cease after 75% of thier original number has been eliminated.
c) After a battle, Mercenaries will take a percentage of all non-land "spoils".
the networth of any landspoils obtained through combat will be calculated, and a percentage (no more than 25%) of this will be taken from the spoils of war.

[Hotfoot]

You know what would be interesting? A game mechanic for diplomacy. All too often these browser games allow players to set up perfect alliances and so forth which result in one group amassing so many players that attacking them becomes suicide.

Maybe a mechanic that allows sending diplomats between friendly or hostile powers to try and reduce or increase forces sent between allies for reinforcements and so on, so that diplomacy as a game mechanic becomes another part of the game.

Alternatively, limiting the number of people that an alliance can go after might help things.