Barry's Bar

[Narf]

Having a point system to differentiate your nation would be cool. A bit of "Character" creation in there never hurts imo ^^

[Pericles of Athens]

Do you have a suggestion that wouldn't take away from the main game of creation?
I suppose if the idea is to be the first cradle of civilization (or perhaps the only one), originally there'd only be nomads and such out there.

Actually, I kind of forgot about that part. Most groups that are new that come into the cradle of civilization and settle down (or later, take over city-state(s) and assimilate) were nomadic or semi-nomadic groups. So when you found a first city-state, it's kind of like "Tribe of _____ settles down and founds a city".
Perhaps after the first few hundred years, if other players join the game, after that, they should be newcomer ethnic groups.
Historically, these newcomer groups also often brought new technology (Indo-Europeans brought chariots), so perhaps we can give new groups good chances of bringing in one of the possible techs of that current era.

Perhaps there should also be non-player, non-descrip tribes that have a chance of getting sucked into your city state or conquering your city-state at every Era Collapse too? Would be realistic, historical, forcing you to adopt differences and changes, along with the usual likely territory setbacks of the Era Collapse.

Yeah, the idea was that, like, tech bonuses would give you edges, usually by an extra point or so and sometimes by unlocking a whole new unit/building or something.
Are you thinking along the lines of how EU4 divides tech into Administrative/Diplomatic/Military? I wouldn't necessarily suggest doing that division, but maybe having a point system that you spend like that could be good.

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By the by, Perry and Barry especially, thank you guys for actually reacting to my idea, as opposed to the usual treatment I get over in the RPG forums now (though that may be because everyone's all focused on GoT at the moment and then I had people posting over me about an HRE rpg), and then actually offering ideas to add to it and make it better. I appreciate that.

1) Not really, I just wouldn't want the world to seem totally empty, perhaps we make the idea of these foreign civilizations vague until we reach a point at which we'd meet them? At which point we create their background more thoroughly?

2) I don't think "units" are a great way to go. I think it'd be better to have a pool of manpower (which is effected by population growth IE size of your city/lands and could decrease if your affected by famines or something) you can arm and send to fight and recovery rates to show the actually consequences of war. Fighting one war after another would hurt and be hard to maintain without a technological or tactical edge. Perhaps also have certain city states control certain minerals, like tin or iron. These minerals would affect trade and economics at certain points and time, a city state may fall from grace if its making money off the bronze trade and iron comes into fashion. We would also need to have an economic value for the lands which is affected by war on that land, if your fields are ll salted and burnt to ash your province (one of many or your only one) becomes less economically stable.

I still think focuses would be a good idea, so we can shape our city state to be a Sparta or an Athens or anything we like. It would make our cities more unique if we're all breaking off from the same culture.

3) I like the idea of tech development over time/tech trees or something.

Also unrelated I'd like to see this world be unique if this is what we did, giants and "dwarves" in the original BaW made it interesting and I'd like to see more of that especially since this game would start in a primitive society where these creatures would affect our survival.

[Dirty Chai]

EDIT: Ah! I seem to have forgotten somehow one very important thing about technology, having to do with metalworking:
Iron wasn't necessarily superior to bronze, as conventional history would tell us (we think of iron as simply having replaced bronze due to superiority), but Bronze was actually superior to Iron.

What happened is that, for whatever reason, the elements that create bronze became rare or at least rare enough to force the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean cultures to adopt a newer but weaker metal for mass purpose: Iron. Iron was orignally only wrought, I think.
Iron wasn't made into steel in any significant amounts for a few centuries after the Bronze Age collapse, so for a good few centuries after change from Bronze to Iron, people were stuck with this brittle "cheap knockoff" called Iron. Somewhere along the line, the secret of steel - adding a little carbon to the wrought iron - spread and changed that.

You'll then notice, if you look closely, that in some other places, there wasn't such a drastic change.
China seems to have widely used both Bronze and wrought Iron simultaneously for quite a long time, probably never having serious supply issues. They used bronze for weapons, and when iron showed up, I'm guessing they used it for lesser purposes that could allow to be weaker. It wasn't until the spread of steel I think that China mostly left bronze weaponry behind.

In the old Roman republic, bronze was an expensive metal for nobles to wear for their armor and such, symbols of wealth, power, etc., and was probably considered superior for a long while even after steel spread simply by traditional thinking.

SO the salient point here, is, we may not even need to have "bronze -> iron" dichotomy, and perhaps looking it as that "bronze leads to iron" is not the best way to organize the technological change. Suggestions on how best to handle this?
Theoretically, mass resource adaption like in the Near East during the Bronze Age Collapse shouldn't only need to happen unless an important resource gets disrupted or goes 'dry' (which maybe should be totally possible to happen?).

Having a point system to differentiate your nation would be cool. A bit of "Character" creation in there never hurts imo ^^

Hmm, so having some initial "traits" or "attributes" then, like creating a character in an RPG. Yeah, that could work well.
I'll have to work on actual basic mechanics more before I know what those might be though.

1) Not really, I just wouldn't want the world to seem totally empty, perhaps we make the idea of these foreign civilizations vague until we reach a point at which we'd meet them? At which point we create their background more thoroughly?

Hmm. Well, as I think I sort of said, I imagine much or all of the rest of the world (at least, on the landmass we reside upon) is nomadic, semi-nomadic, or agrarian tribes.
At the beginning anyway. As time goes on, you're right, there'd be more interaction with the surrounding, off-map lands. As I agreed with Narf, on the off-chance there's some reason to go off map and "explore" (though, that's unlikely since people migrated to get here, in this fertile paradise) we can add more mapping.

Now, in the beginning, there'd mostly be nomads and such out there. I'm not going to suggest nomadic tribes didn't have culture during the Sumerian period (look at the Indo-Iranians, a nomadic IE people who IMO have one of the most colorful cultural traditions, who I think were semi-nomadic in Bactria and Khiva during Sumerian times), but they're... er... "primitive" or "foundational" enough that they don't need to be pre-established, I think. In this way, they can generally be randomly generated or manually created each time one appears onto the stage of the game; this will usually happen everytime a new player faction appears in the game and the new "tribe" will be that player's people, but it can also happen via events and such I guess with the new "tribe" in that situation becoming essentially a new factor in one or more people's pre-existing states (like the Kassites ruling over Babylon and merging with its pre-existing culture and people).

As we go onward into more advanced times (Iron age proper, comparable to the middle of the Greek archaic age), I guess maybe there could be a simple guideline for creating external civilizations (ethnic groups that have actually formed legitimate states controlling wide territory, not just a small city-state). Perhaps it would best work on "case by case" basis, through each situation that would introduce this new AI faction (which would come from multiple reasons)?
It could also work for the NPC tribes that come in early on, though I'm thinking those tribes shouldn't be fleshed out too much, just give them a few distinguishing details and maybe a ethnic group name, etc, just enough to cause a bit of dynamic change to whatever they end up interacting with.

Now, the 'game' idea isn't designed with anything beyond the archaic period really in mind; the current, rough tech tree is aimed at stopping at about the time of the Alexander's conquests and the Punic Wars. I'm not saying it has to stop there, it's just that the idea focuses on the formative years of civilization, allowing us to examine and RP things from pretty much the ground up. So, point is, I think for a long while, we won't be experiencing any scary large external empires.
Though I suppose you could argue the Hittites count as an early external empire, they seem more like a tribe that migrated in and then founded an empire.

The map (theoretically randomized for element of surprise and all that) will be conceptualized as "the cradle of civilization and its surrounding environs", meaning basically the basins and fertile river valleys we call home, plus the mountains, deserts, steppes, and oceans and such that surround it all.

2) I don't think "units" are a great way to go.

Yeah, sorry for the wording, I didn't mean actual TW-style "units". I meant it extremely vaguely.
What I think I was trying to say that.. well, an example being the person discovering bronze working giving them a military edge. Iron working, IIRC without looking at my tree, also unlocks discovery of the sword (as opposed to short blades like daggers), for example as well.

I think it'd be better to have a pool of manpower (which is effected by population growth IE size of your city/lands and could decrease if your affected by famines or something) you can arm and send to fight and recovery rates to show the actually consequences of war. Fighting one war after another would hurt and be hard to maintain without a technological or tactical edge.

What comes to mind immediately is the EU4 manpower and the Ck2 Horse Lords manpower.
While those are great systems, I do worry a tad about scary number management. Every post could start to include lots of mathematics, since the current idea for the speed of time is 50 years IC/24 hours RL**. But overall, it's a good direction.

**(we may need to slow that down perhaps? that will make the focus even more on the earliest periods of civilization, and make technological more of a background element. That's not a bad idea, it just means that we'll need more "things to do" in the mean time. But it will allow people to RP actual characters across more than one post perhaps)

Perhaps also have certain city states control certain minerals, like tin or iron. These minerals would affect trade and economics at certain points and time, a city state may fall from grace if its making money off the bronze trade and iron comes into fashion.

Yeah, I imagine resources of all kinds will be of great political and economic importance, or should be.

We would also need to have an economic value for the lands which is affected by war on that land, if your fields are ll salted and burnt to ash your province (one of many or your only one) becomes less economically stable.

This should be very connected with climate and terrain & the man-made agrarian development into that land.

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Somewhat related, having to do with climate and terrain and all that:
I've been trying to figure out whats the most accepted theories about what Mesopotamia must've looked like .. "back then" when it was first settled by the Sumerians, around 5500 BC.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, there's a part of about cutting down "the last forest" or some such by Gilgamesh's hand, and I think I've read somewhere that that is theorized to reflect the relative deforestation of the fertile crescent over the course of the 3-5 millennium (I want to imagine, just by an educated guess, that the area started to resemble what we know as Mesopotamia now during the Roman republic period or perhaps around the turn of history to AD).

Now, Mesopotamia seems to be at just a slightly higher latitude than the Gangetic Plain in India, and both fall into the "subtropic" zone.
I haven't been there, but the Gangetic Plain is thought of as humid, fertile place, with interspersed jungle. IIRC, India was greatly changed in the centuries since the medieval age especially under British rule. I think, before heavy development began in the medieval period, India had primeval (original) forests all over the place, but I'm not sure if these were tropical rainforests or simply just temperate forests.

In Lebanon, there is some remaining enclaves of the supposedly once vast and numerous Cedar forests that ran up and along the levant.
The "Cedars of God" in Lebanon is thought to be the forest mentioned in the epic of Gilgamesh.

So, taking all this information into account, and considering how desertification occurs and how savannas etc can be formed by human burning of the land and deforestation..
I think the geography should be .. dense, green primeval vegetation along the rivers/lakes, mediterranean forests along the the sea shores, and then any inland open spaces with little water passage could be open grasslands or deserts, unsuitable to bronze age-y agrarian civilizations. Mountain ranges nearby will probably be very dry, comparable to the Zagros Mountains in Iran or Hindu Kush in Pakistan. If Mountains are along the sea shore or shores of large lakes, I suppose they'd be more like Greece or Lebanon.

Ah, what a rant. Point I'm getting to, is that deforestation and "cultivation" of the land is, at least in my mind, a big part of a settled civilization's development, and has cause and effect relationships with climate and terrain types.

Useful link here, with a good bit of information about that.
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/staff/r...bg03/home.html

I still think focuses would be a good idea, so we can shape our city state to be a Sparta or an Athens or anything we like. It would make our cities more unique if we're all breaking off from the same culture.

So like... hum.. "National focuses" or something? Cultural emphasis?
You may notice the tech tree is based on Civ V as a foundation; similarly, I considered having social policies, but they didn't feel right; Perhaps a "cultural focus" or something could work along those lines?

Maybe government type could/should be worked into that too..

3) I like the idea of tech development over time/tech trees or something.

A tech tree exists, I've built with the idea of "tech eras" - the era we're in has a selection of technologies that are randomly discovered by chances per post per turn or something (look at the original Altepetl post for that) - though the tree is still rough, doesn't have its bonuses etc put down, and still needs a lot more possible techs that have relevant effects/changes.

But something like the monarch points in EU4, I'm thinking, that you accumulate over time and can spend on things, could work - for development as internal infrastructure etc.
Feeding that internal development of territory you own could feed into technology chances, in turn.

Also unrelated I'd like to see this world be unique if this is what we did, giants and "dwarves" in the original BaW made it interesting and I'd like to see more of that especially since this game would start in a primitive society where these creatures would affect our survival.

Yeah, giant/dwarves/what-have-you I'd leave up to a group decision (the players around at that moment) before we would start a theoretical game with this.
If they existed, as you said, they could fit into both the surrounding environs of the map and off-map.
Mountains could house giants etc. In fantasy universes that actually explore first human developments.. elves leave the world forested, but the humans come in and remove it all for agrarian purpose

The "non-human races" would be grouped together in that "preliminary world creation" session, whereby we create all the basic foundations of how this world is, as you suggested, with any and all new fauna, flora, etc. I'd personally look forward to coming up with different resources to replace but mostly mimic a lot of real life important resources.

[Xion]

One more vote for Atlepetl, sounds quite fun..even if it's not as open world as the TES game could be.

[Pericles of Athens]

I like this idea, if this was decided on we should see if we could pull in more players from RPG and alliance forums for this.

Also so being able to play out the magi initiation of fantasy races from the establishment of humans would be cool, gives a different point of view regarding fantasy worlds since in most humans have already taken the cake as it were by the time the story starts (DA, Witcher, GoT).

[Dirty Chai]

Even if it's not decided on at this moment in time, I'll still keep working on it, I don't think it'll be ready real soon (simply the nature of something of this scale).
But I'm very happy about the warm reception there, I think I'll keep to sharing new ideas/updates with you all here. Perhaps I should make a thread for it though, so it's not blowing up Barry's Bar?

[Pericles of Athens]

Yeah, with ideas in the OP.

[Dirty Chai]

And.. Another good example of tribes moving into a cradle, besides the Kassites, causing great pressure:
"The rulers of the Third Dynasty of Ur had to fight with groups of people moving into Mesopotamia from the surrounding mountains and deserts, attracted by the wealth of the country. Under Ur-Nammu's great-great-grandson the empire collapsed as Amorite tribes established themselves throughout Mesopotamia. For the next three hundred years the cities of southern Mesopotamia competed for control of the region."

[Celsius]

*head bops people*

Hey.

[Dirty Chai]

Hey Celsius

@Altepetl,

New game for next year; conceptually, the game looks at progression/development/history a bit like the way I do.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Pericles of Athens]

We still doing a game for winter break? Mine just started today, or well I finished exams today.

[Barry Goldwater]

Yes we are, and since we have 6 days till Christmas I guess this would be a good time to actually start setting it up. I see the TES game has won by one vote, plus BF just mentioned in the post above yours that Altepetl is still in the works for next year (and I imagine it'll be a much longer & more complex game than the relatively simply TES IH). So without further ado, we've got to decide on a province to play in, unless y'all want to use all of Tamriel instead. Here's the provincial map:

Map

(I'm also working on a Pyandonea provincial map with a base supplied by Xion, in case anyone wants to play the Maormer)

Expansion would be handled in an improved version of the DoM way: everyone starts with 1-3 provinces, then every time you move into another prov I'll roll a die to determine who/what you encounter there and whether it's possible to peacefully absorb said province or if you have no choice but to fight the locals. Speaking of fighting, units are going to be simple & defined in fairly general terms so you can name & define them however you see fit for your own faction: light & heavy infantry + cavalry, archers, spearmen, mages.

And the races of the Merethic Era:

Races

Nedes: The native Men of Tamriel, present as disorganized tribes all over the continent from High Rock to Black Marsh. They were later exterminated or assimilated in all of the provinces save High Rock & Cyrodiil, where they evolved into the modern Bretons & Imperials. Units are weaker but also cheaper & faster to train than those of other factions. Nords: Ferocious humans from Atmora who have come to Tamriel's northern shores in search of glory and new conquests, and especially despise the Mer since the destruction of their first capital at Saarthal during the 'Night of Tears' (on top of worshiping gods who slew the head of their religious pantheon, Shor/Lorkhan). Their mages are also the Shamans of their pantheon and can use the mighty Thu'um in place of the conventional magics favored by their Mer enemies. Bonus to heavy inf & archers. Yokudan: Dark-skinned humans, soon to be (in)famous as masterful warriors, fleeing the sinking of their homeland to the west of Tamriel. Bonus to light inf & light cav. Aldmer: Representing the 'pure' Mer on Summerset Isle & recent settlers on the mainland. Bonus to heavy cav & mages. Bosmer: Descendants of the Aldmer settlers in Valenwood who have had to adapt to their new home. Bonus to archers & light inf. Chimer: Daedra-worshiping Mer who migrated off to Resdayn under the leadership of Veloth. They haven't become the Dunmer yet, obviously. Bonus to spearmen & light cav. Ayleids: Descendants of the Aldmer settlers in Cyrodiil who have converted to Daedra worship. Bonus to heavy inf & mages. Dwemer: The 'dwarves', technologically-minded Mer who live in elaborate underground cities and fortresses beneath the mainland's surface from Morrowind to Volenfell. They replace the Mage unit with 'Dwemer Animunculi' which are weaker but cheaper & faster to train and Dwemer Centurions, which are the exact opposite. Falmer: The Snow Elves of Skyrim who form Merkind's first line of defense against the Nords of Atmora. Bonus to light inf & mages. Orsimer: The descendants of Trinimac's faithful, who were mutated along with their god upon his fall from grace. Bonus to spearmen & heavy inf. Maormer: Descendants of Aldmer who were exiled to the far southern continent of Pyandonea with their god-king Orgnum, now distinguished by their blank eyes and colorless skin. Bonus to naval units. Argonian: Reclusive lizard-folk from Black Marsh who know the ins and outs of their fetid homeland like nobody's business. Bonus to light inf, remain invisible on maps until contact with the enemy when fighting in Black Marsh. Khajiit: Sly and agile cat-folk who hail from the desert region of Elsweyr. Bonus to light cav & heavy cav. Imga: Dexterous 'great apes' who are native to Valenwood. Bonus to heavy inf, remain invisible on maps until contact with the enemy when fighting in Valenwood. Lilmothiit: A tribal fox-folk from Argonia, distant cousins to the Khajiit of Elsweyr. Historically wiped out by the Knahaten Flu in the 2nd Era, along with Black Marsh's native Men. Bonus to archers & light cav. Sload: Slug-folk from the coral kingdoms of Thras west of Tamriel, infamous for their ruthlessness, apparent lack of passions owing to extreme caution & necromantic + plague-dealing abilities. Non-Sload armies in provinces next to a Sload army are weakened by the diseases they bring with them. Obviously, which races will actually show up in-game are dependent on our choice of province. I've also described them in fairly general terms so that the player can

I personally would prefer High Rock, where we've got a four-way conflict between the Nords vs. Altmer vs. Nedes vs. Orsimer; Cyrodiil, where we've got a three-way between the Nedes vs. Ayleids vs. Altmer still loyal to the Aedra (and maybe some Sload to make it a four-way); or Black Marsh where the Nedes, Argonians & Lilmothiit are around, and where the Chimer could also be present as border raiders. Alternatively ofc, we could do the entire map if we have enough players or if you guys are sufficiently confident that the Christmas season will give you enough time to play until your factions have made contact with each other.

[Pericles of Athens]

Count me in for High Rock. But I'd play any.

[Dirty Chai]

What is the timeframe of the TES game? Is this ancient, pre-Alessian times?

I'll go for Morrowind first, which I suggest being a general three-way between the Chimer, the Dwemer, and the Nedes/Nords who are stated to have at least invaded the northwest on several occasions and implied to have even settled the northwest parts of Morrowind before the Chimer and Dwemer shoved them out.

Scratching that, I'd take High Rock AND Hammerfell together (like in TESII), then Cyrodiil if not that.

[Xion]

High Rock/Hammerfell, Morrowind(with maybe a bit of Skyrim as well), or Cyrodiil would be my preferred choices.

Also, Barry, wasn't the Imga bonus changed from archers to light infantry?

[Dirty Chai]

Honestly I'm most down with any setting where I can be a Chimer tribal faction and use Velothi rhetoric and philosophy in every single post.
And of course be incredibly fundamentalist and racist in typical Dunmer fashion when convenient to do so.

[Barry Goldwater]

What is the timeframe of the TES game? Is this ancient, pre-Alessian times?

I'll go for Morrowind first, which I suggest being a general three-way between the Chimer, the Dwemer, and the Nedes/Nords who are stated to have at least invaded the northwest on several occasions and implied to have even settled the northwest parts of Morrowind before the Chimer and Dwemer shoved them out.

Scratching that, I'd take High Rock AND Hammerfell together (like in TESII), then Cyrodiil if not that.

Yeah, this will be a late Merethic/very early 1st Era game. I'm thinking of setting it between Ysgramor's death and Eplear Camoran's unification of the Bosmer + securing their independence from Aldmeri rule (1E 0), with the latter as the absolute latest start date.

High Rock/Hammerfell, Morrowind(with maybe a bit of Skyrim as well), or Cyrodiil would be my preferred choices.

Also, Barry, wasn't the Imga bonus changed from archers to light infantry?

Yes you're right, edited that.

[chesser2538]

Count me in as well. I'm all for a high rock setting. And I should be around most nights for at least a few hours.

[jacb547]

Awesome! My play is going out of the theater this week so I'll have plenty of time to play a good ol' IH game. Morrowind or High Rock sounds pretty good, the Dwemer would probably be very awesome aswell.

[Dan the Man]

As I said to Barry over Skype, I'm down for High Rock + Hammerfell.