Strategic Fantasy Crossover RPG

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Uh...there's also farms, fields, bridges, cities, ports, mills, quarries and mines, all very important for production of advanced technology. Especially farmland is suspectible to being abandoned for a generation or two due to rampaging monsters.

But then you are suggesting a population die out not just in the cities but in the country side. Not to mention, the urbanisation of Western Europe hadn't altogether returned to the levels during height of the Roman Empire. This will be worse than even after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

Urbanisation in the East however still remained to a sizable extent. You still had metropolises in Greece and Anatolia, Egypt, Syria and all the way to Mesopotamia.

[PeZook]

Of course there is going to be a massive population die-out in the countryside! That's where most of the creepy legends originated!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Of course there is going to be a massive population die-out in the countryside! That's where most of the creepy legends originated!

A city populated by a few thousand???

[Darkevilme]

When is Zor's Russia gonna be on the map?

[Zor]

When is Zor's Russia gonna be on the map?

Moscow at its center, as well as covering Tver.

Zor

[Setzer]

By the way... I've decided there's a secret civilzation in Antarctica.... It should be an NPC nation.

So...do they enjoy starving to death much?

They could be like the Others from ASOIAF. Demons of cold and ice, riding spiders and leading armies of undead wights.

[Setzer]

I know this sounds a bit odd coming from the guy who introduced flying Pyramids, but I doth think we ought to limit just how advanced our armies can be. As I see it, everyone is fielding ancient/medieval armies, but Zor here is basically going on a Napoleonic binge, with rockets thrown in to top it off. Early arquebuses I could live with, but flintlock rifles? That's a gigantic leap ahead from the rest of the playing field - gunpowder armies with proper rifles will utterly massacre those who don't have that tech, and it will take a whole lot of doubletakes and throwing around of the word 'enchanted' to undo that massive tsarist advantage right there.

Moreover, if we accept gunpowder as having found widespread application, you just know that someone will have enchanted Gatling guns before the year is through.

And I'll throw in weather controlling wizards to drench their powder stocks.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Alright. After much editing, this is the final setup for the Despotate:

History of the Despotate

The disastrous crusade shook the Byzantine Empire to its foundations and led to its collapse in the midst of the sea of daemons that overwhelmed many cities. Over two hundred years of desperate fighting had reduced the empire to a few cities and severely depleted the population. When Constantinople's walls were about to be breached, a strategos, praying desperately at the city walls for the aid of Our Lady, patron saint of Constantinople, was suddenly granted a vision and then subsequently transformed. He became the first alchemist and psyker and had powers unrivaled. He rallied his men, and led them to victory, even slewing the daemon lord himself in single combat. The grateful citizens proclaimed him a living saint, a representative of God himself, and perhaps, going as far as calling him a God Emperor, one who was granted powers by God himself and to be a defender of humanity.

The name of this strategos, was Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus. From the 15th century, he led a policy of rebuilding what was left of the Empire. Feeling that the Empire was a mere shadow of its former self, he renamed it the Despotate of Byzantium, with Constantinople remaining the capital. He instituted a policy of reform; ordering the gathering of alchemists and psykers, reforming the army, increasing support in Science by reopening the University of Constantinople and other universities and encouraging the development of metallurgy technologies. He was the force behind the revival of the Despotate. He spent the next 50-100 years rebuilding the army, rebuilding the Despotate's cities and population and retaking the countryside. He rebuilt many forts, most notably the forts at the Hellespont, or otherwise known as the Dardanelles. He strengthened the Despotate's defences, and built a huge cannon foundry at Constantinople and another smaller one at Nikea. In the area of magic, he has championed the mixing of magic and science, leading to improvements in the Despotate's weapons. The Despot also formed daemon hunting teams, specialised in the art of killing and expelling daemons from the physical realm. The Despot had heard much of some of the technologies of the north, and desired to either develop technologies to match them, or to send spies to acquire them.

With the emergence of dwarves, elves and goblins in the world, the Despot regarded them warily but decided that they were relatively harmless, and if they were willing to swear fealty to the state and to sell their services to the Despotate, they would be welcomed. In general however, the human citizenry regarded them with some degree of suspicion at first, but when some of the dwarves and elves and goblins adopted Neo-Christianity as their religion, the suspicion waned. The dwarves and elves in particular established an excellent reputation for fine craft and warfare, and their human counterparts began to respect them and were eager to learn. The goblins however often proved to be rather suicidal and often charged into enemy ranks with bombs

In the 1700, he declared to his people that it was time to reclaim the lands of the Byzantine Empire, and to return the Empire to its days of glory. He declared that he was determined to expunge from the Earth all things daemonic and would regard any nation who worshiped daemons as heretical and would then lead a crusade against them. His people greeted his proposal with joy. By then he was regarded as a living embodiment of Christ himself; the God Emperor of Man.

Religion

NeoChristianity is the current state religion. When Iustinianus was proclaimed a living saint, the Patriarchy of Constantinople humbly submitted and named him the patron saint of Constantinople, and revere him with God-like reverence. Despite the Despot eschewing being called "God Emperor", many of the laity and clergy secret venerate him as a representative of God himself. Many of the churches have since been rebuilt and missionaries are regularly sent out to convert the flock and to rally them against the daemonic powers.

[Master_Baerne]

Setzer, I like your dragons. Draco Targaryenis indeed.

[Dark Hellion]

Fingolfin, there are fucking monsters wandering around eating people right after the fall. Country side villages are the most vulnerable to that kind of random raider attack pattern. Considering that many of the nomadic tribes are probably also pushing into central Europe to escape you are going to have a massive collapse of most smaller feudal establishments. Only strong centralized governments that can effectively protect its outlying villages from assault will stand, and then a century later my dark army marched into Europe and took the combined force of all those remaining empires and countries to collapse. It broke my countries back but lead to the basic collapse of all large governing bodies within Europe. How long do you think it would take to rebuild basic European civilization from a Pre-Roman base while monsters are still roaming the countryside?

Some countries have countered this with magic, some with tech, some with isolationism and manpower. Now, after 500 years or so these countries have build from little fiefdoms with influence over a few hundred km to large prosperous kingdoms that can project power thousands of km if they wish. They can send out armies that don't have to be afraid of getting eaten in the woods by random wolfmen or bullshit tree spirits.

The timeline makes perfect sense. After a total collapse you may have a few countries that have OTL style tech, but many will have gone for different cultural mindsets.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Fingolfin, there are fucking monsters wandering around eating people right after the fall. Country side villages are the most vulnerable to that kind of random raider attack pattern. Considering that many of the nomadic tribes are probably also pushing into central Europe to escape you are going to have a massive collapse of most smaller feudal establishments. Only strong centralized governments that can effectively protect its outlying villages from assault will stand, and then a century later my dark army marched into Europe and took the combined force of all those remaining empires and countries to collapse. It broke my countries back but lead to the basic collapse of all large governing bodies within Europe. How long do you think it would take to rebuild basic European civilization from a Pre-Roman base while monsters are still roaming the countryside?

Some countries have countered this with magic, some with tech, some with isolationism and manpower. Now, after 500 years or so these countries have build from little fiefdoms with influence over a few hundred km to large prosperous kingdoms that can project power thousands of km if they wish. They can send out armies that don't have to be afraid of getting eaten in the woods by random wolfmen or bullshit tree spirits.

The timeline makes perfect sense. After a total collapse you may have a few countries that have OTL style tech, but many will have gone for different cultural mindsets.

Wait, this doesn't make a lot of sense. It would be one hell of a trap to set to stop your army if you are suggesting that the demons broke in beyond Constantinople, then the hardest and strongest fortification on Earth and protected by the most powerful military in Europe, into greater Europe. There is a reason why the Ottomans were able to expand as far as they could; they had taken Constantinople and there was nothing left to oppose them except bad battle tactics and rampant stupidity.

And pre-Roman base? That implies that there wasn't any city left standing. A good many cities back then was built on the bones of some ancient Roman fort or an actual city laid down during the Eastern and Western Roman times. Besides, even post Western Roman Empire, everything was centered around the cities left by the Romans, especially cities with walls. To say all that is gone is as good as saying that there's no civilization left and nothing to rebuild. It will take a great deal longer than hundreds of years to achieve even what Zor has now because all knowledge of even making concrete or even using stone work to build anything would have been lost.

[Setzer]

Setzer, I like your dragons. Draco Targaryenis indeed.

You get the reference?

[Dark Hellion]

So Fingolfin, explain how far you think roaming crusaders that spread insanity, trolls, orcs, werewolves and daemons of all stripes coming out of the forest, and an evil empire rising out of the east with the Ottoman empires troop numbers plus biologically enhanced fighters shooting lightning bolts and a demigod like figure at the head batting at the door of Europe is going to set them back? So far all you have done is bitch that it is unrealistic, of course its unrealistic, it has fucking magic. But most every civ is using at least very late pre-renaissance level tech and most have Napoleonic tech analogues in the form of magic.

What the fuck are you actually bitching about?

[Akhlut]

Just want to further explicate the Republic's religion; will add to the SD.Net Kingdoms thread, but, since that would just be an edit, no one would read it, really.

Also, I hope that old Flavius is cool with this religion.

Crimean Christianity

Crimean Christianity is the result of Orthodox Christianity, Mithraism, and old Greek paganism blending together. The Crimean peninsula was always a bit behind the curve religion-wise from the rest of the Hellenic region, thus, it had harbored the older ways for far longer then elsewhere. After the Fall, a lot of the influential priests of Zeus started to fight with the Orthodox priests and lone bishop over what the Fall indicated. The Christians obviously thought this was the result of the Apocalypse, while the pagans thought it more to be the result of titans escaping back to earth. The laity, however, was unconcerned with the why, and merely wanted comfort. The Basileus, Giovanni di Marco (a descendent of the Venetian merchants), had a vision, though (or, at least, claimed to): that God almighty had spoken to him, and revealed himself as Zeus. Zeus claimed that Jesus was his favored son, and had appeared already as Mithra, before needing to return again as Jesus to spread his message to the Roman Empire. Giovanni said that as he was not a theologian, and that Zeus had only given him that message to comfort both flocks, that the priests on both sides would have to reconcile things.

[Siege]

So gunpowder is definitely a go? I'll have to slightly adjust my OOB then. Although I don't really like muskets and stuff, they break my theme. Hmm...

[Dark Hellion]

Gunpowder is 2000 years old at this point. Go ahead.

Honestly, am I going to have to write a fucking thesis on how technological development during the middle ages was highly dependent not upon the economic availability or scientific base but upon the cultural mindsets that governed whether advanced where made or not? I am qualified to do so, but I honestly would expect some basic knowledge of the history of science from people playing this. I mean, for fucks sake Greek Civilization invented steam engines, dry cell batteries and mechanical computers two millenia before they would come into heavy use during the industrial revolution, why do you think it took so fucking long for us to use them.

[Darkevilme]

So gunpowder is definitely a go? I'll have to slightly adjust my OOB then. Although I don't really like muskets and stuff, they break my theme. Hmm...

If you want it then have it, if you dont want it cause it breaks your theme then dont have it. There is no penalty for having a lower tech base...though i think there's becoming a penalty for not having an airforce.

[Siege]

Honestly, am I going to have to write a fucking thesis on how technological development during the middle ages was highly dependent not upon the economic availability or scientific base but upon the cultural mindsets that governed whether advanced where made or not?

Don't be deliberately dense. You know what I mean. I'm fine with introducing flintlock-wielding armies, difference engines and god-knows-what-else, I just want to make sure that we're not going to see people walk away from this game because they signed up to play Charlemagne and ended up facing Sherman.

[Dark Hellion]

Sorry Siege, it wasn't directed at you but at the increasing asininity of the questions about technology. I did a decent amount of study in college on the history and philosophy of science and technology in the Middle Ages and there is very little wrong with a wide variety of different technological levels being employed, especially when we have magic as a tech analogue.

Also, editing OoB a bit to make my army numbers better match other players.

[Master_Baerne]

Setzer, I like your dragons. Draco Targaryenis indeed.

You get the reference?

That I do. I wish I'd thought of it.

[Setzer]

I think if I do make use of gunpowder, it'll be heavy, crude siege artillery. Anything else just wouldn't fit in with what I want to do.

[Akhlut]

Before things get too far advanced, I want to know how we will resolve combat and keep things from getting into a "No! My horsemen outflank your horsemen!" "Nuh-uh! Mine outflank your outflanking maneuver!" style bitchfest, especially since this will be my first time in this sort of thing, and I'm not too used to complete RPing of combat.

Examples in addition to explanations would be extremely appreciated.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Sorry Siege, it wasn't directed at you but at the increasing asininity of the questions about technology. I did a decent amount of study in college on the history and philosophy of science and technology in the Middle Ages and there is very little wrong with a wide variety of different technological levels being employed, especially when we have magic as a tech analogue.

Also, editing OoB a bit to make my army numbers better match other players.

And here I thought you were criticising my history....

[DarthShady]

So can we finally start this game?

I believe most of us have their OOB's ready.

[Norseman]

So can we finally start this game?

I believe most of us have their OOB's ready.

Lemme do my OoB but since I won't be attacked right away, and since it'll be in line with what everyone else is doing, I don't think it'll be trouble.