All nations. All companies. All walks of life. It was a fresh chance, at rebuilding and not ruining, protecting, or, perhaps, abusing and moving on. It only took one successful message and the world was alit with ideas of moving to this great new planet, one that was so much like Earth too. Almost the same size, with four great continents, a proper magnetic field and even natural life already there. The scientific community had already sent two manned missions, and these were progressing well, but the rest of the world was eager, chomping at the bit for the chance to migrate to a world not ravaged by climate change and a rapidly-choking atmosphere.
Hello and welcome to my interest check for a not-too-distant scifi colonist RP. Basically, it’s a group of colonists setting off from Earth, being taken from, as I said, different nations, sponsored companies, scientific organisations… Pretty much everyone has sent their own craft over towards this new planet in order to claim it as their own; nobody wants to miss out.
So, how will it work? Simply, on a turn-by-turn basis in which each turn takes about a year. Options will be given for various activities, each of which take up a number of arbitrary manpower points. The more people and robots (yes, robots will eventually be able to be constructed,) the more points you get and the more you can do, so the RP can continue to build up as we go along.
The tech level we’re at is roughly around that of Earth now… Give or take about twenty-five years. Wormhole technology allows for travel between solar systems, and we have specialist communications to allow us to contact Earth, but otherwise most things should be pretty familiar to you guys. Generally, steer clear of anything too sci-fi, such as plasma weaponry and that kind of thing, although early laser guns are right in. Spaceships use the most sci-fi tech, plasma generators.
Much like Chenzor’s, there will be a set amount of options to choose from, and I will also be allowing for other choices that you can make, and then I will (hopefully) give you what you want. These choices will affect the following factors, which are detailed below.
Populations: Split into both humans and robots, this determines your manpower points and also how close you are to total civilisation KO. No population means you’re out of the game I’m afraid. Robots are actually more manpower efficient, but are useless without at least one working human for every two robots. More than that, and you lose efficiency.
Edible Supplies: Food and water. Absolutely vital, a lack of food and water will eventually lead to malnutrition, reducing your manpower, and then starvation, which permanently reduces manpower. Growth rate is also based on this. Measured from ‘Famine.’ to ‘Extreme Surplus.’
Military: War, war never changes. Be it burning out alien nests and fighting titan worms or waging that sweet sweet war against your opponents, this lists your military might, types of troops and vehicles, and upkeep in food.
Raw Resources: This is everything from wood to uranium, but is mostly useless unless you have the facilities to process it into something useful. Your original colony ship provides enough materials to set up a decently-sized first city, but that’s all.
Processed Resources: Computer chips, engines, uranium rods, steel, aluminium. This is the products of industry, and your original colony ship provides you with enough for your first city to have plumbing and electricity. Other than that, you’ll need factories for this.
Wealth: How wealthy your people are considered to be, according to fellow colonists. This will entirely depend on how much your civ trades and what kind of colony you’re running- communists will be a hell of a lot less wealthy than capitalists after all.
Disparity: The gap between the richest of your society and the poorest. The larger the disparity, the higher the chances of breakaway factions and rebellions. On the flip side, a low disparity will anger free-market economists within your society. It’s a balancing act measured from ‘Totally Equal’ to ‘Extreme Disparity’
Trade: How much you trade with other nations and what you gain from it, as well as what you’re sending. This is only with the other colonies, not with Earth. Measured from Very Low to Very High, but only once it is existent You can trade literally anything, be it edible supplies, raw resources, processed resources and even robots!
Export: How much you’re sending home. Earth values raw resources more than processed ones, and edibles especially, but what they can send can be anything from trainers, raising army efficiency, more colonists, processed resources and even emergency food supplies, although the latter can only be requested once per ten turns, and is not renewable.
Morale: The morale and spirit of your people. Measured from Very Low to Very High, with "Indifferent" acting as a middle-point. This determines how well you fight, how well your people work (manpower level,) and generally how well things are going in general.
Foreign Relationships: Who you’ve met and how you feel about them. You’ll actually start the games with communication with everyone (radio is still a thing after all,) but actual physical trade won’t be possible until you discover them.
These different resource levels will be determined at first by what kind of colony you’re controlling. These will determine your culture (to an extent,) as well as how much you can request from home, which is a separate factor:
Aid: How much help you get from back home. This is generally, as mentioned, processed materials and colonists, but military trainers, raw resources and even an emergency food supply drop can be sent once per ten years. Receiving aid requires a coms establishment, so apart from a food drop (which is called for using an emergency comms relay,) this won’t be an instantaneous thing.
Original Colony Types: Essentially, who’s coming from Earth. Pick these in the IC, unless I specifically say otherwise.
Nation: You can choose a nation that already exists, smoosh two or more together, or create an entirely new one. These start off with average population, average food, and a small ‘defence guard’ military made up of about 5% of the population. Normal colony ship, and aid is generally colonists.
Scientific Expedition: These are any organisation that wants to research the new planet and the inhabitants. They have a higher-than-normal population and large amounts of processed materials, but no military. Normal colony ship, and aid is generally processed materials.
Entrepreneur: One or two extremely wealthy individuals organising the colony. Starts with high non-renewable food, raw and processed materials, but have low population and military. Small colony ship, aid is generally mixed.
Private Company: This is the jack of all trade group. If you want to have a large military, you can run a PMC, etc, etc. Ask me about this OOC, and tell me what kind of aid and colony ship you want to take with you.
FAQ
The colonies have already landed, can I still jump in?
As a matter of fact, yes! Yes you can! There’s plenty of reasons why a colony might be a little late to the party, and it’s perfectly fine for new players to jump in as long as there’s space. Make sure that there’s still available slots (check the status line at the top,) and join on in after saying ‘hi!’ If you want to hop in with a private company (aka; a colony type not mentioned above,) you'll want to post it here in the OOC first to make sure it will fit alright into the world.
Da Rules:
Yeah, I have them, everyone should have them. Here’s the basics.
No godmodding: If your civ is shrugging off disasters and titan worms left, right and centre, there will be consequences.
Don’t be a dick: This is very simple. Don’t be one. In the words of the mods ‘be cool like Fonzie.’ Fonzie is pretty damn cool.
I am the law: If I step in and say something, then I have stepped in and said something. If you feel I’m being unjust, that’s fine, but please know when to stop.
Other Rules:
Basically, rules that aren’t the big three.
Never wipe a player out completely unless he or she has given his or her consent. On a similar note, don’t keep wiping out other players and NPC’s to ‘win,’ this is for fun, not to ‘win.’ It’s not actually a game of civ.
You can attack anyone as long as you know where they are and have a military, regardless of if the player wants you to fight or not. Just don’t expect it to always go your way unless you severely outnumber and/or outrank them technologically.
Don’t think this is plain sailing. Hurricanes, droughts, titan worms, alien migrations and more can all trip you up. I’ll try to share out good and bad things though, so nobody should become a punching bag.
Also, here are some regulations that aren't "DON'T"'s
Any NPC colony can be wiped out at will. They’ll still fight back, but you don’t need my permission to destroy them.
Any questions and OOC-chat should be kept here in the OOC thread (obviously).
When plotting with a player against another player, I recommend you take it to PM to avoid metagaming. When doing this however, I want to be kept in the loop as the GM, to avoid misunderstandings and to avoid conflicts OOC. Just include me in the PM thread, it isn’t hard.
If you don't want to play one civ anymore but rather want another, tell me in the OOC and I will arrange a "natural disaster" for your people or take it over as a non-player civ
When starting over with a new civ, you will be given some bonuses to help you catch up, but not too much.
There is no enforced limit of posts per turn, however you may only use up to your maximum manpower once per turn, no more. Also, don't speedpost. I want to see meaning and depth in those posts if you decide to post several per turn. (When you interact with other players this is crucial)