StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This was an idea that i was wondering about in regards in light of the Strategic Fantasy Crossover and its passing. The idea is a Steampunk/Fantasy one with firearms and so forth, but coded for balance purposes to keep one side from having too much of an advantage...

First of all, we get a default setting, which is large and well populated. However, its population is at a very basic level in Terms of Magic (a few basic spellcasters such as healers, basic guards against angry spirits and a few basic combat spellcasters, but nothing too fancy like dragons or daemon hordes) and Technology (lets say for sake of argument that of the 30 Years' War, we can work out the fine details latter). Now you can invest points in Technology (going from the age of sail to the civil war era to a fancy steampunk setting with clockwork soldiers and Land Ironclads) to magic (going from lets say having Firebenders common among the population to having floating islands full of dragons and such), which cuts down the size and scale of a nation and its army. Things are not mutaully exclusive, even a basic magic using civilization can build a musket and a highly technological civilization can make use of a magical healer. You can also invest in both, but it costs extra.

Of course a hard rule against things such as atomic bombs or supernatural weapons of mass destruction would be a good idea as well. However what are your opinions on this basic concept?

Zor

I have always wanted to do a british colonial era STGOD with magic...

As fun as this might be, there's the other fantasy STGOD that fell dead in the water for God knows what reason. Unless there's a rational reason why that fell dead, this one is going to suffer a similar fate.

/me coughs and hums. As an Iron Kingdoms fan, I'd totally be up for this.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:As fun as this might be, there's the other fantasy STGOD that fell dead in the water for God knows what reason. Unless there's a rational reason why that fell dead, this one is going to suffer a similar fate.

Problem of induction HO!

A lot of STGODs fail, most due to stochastic forces.

Nephtys wrote:/me coughs and hums. As an Iron Kingdoms fan, I'd totally be up for this.

I'd totally be up for the space STGOD moderator maybe answering her PMs, but that's just me.

Fingolfin, a lot of STGODs fail. When they do, you wait until conditions are more favorable and try again. Sometimes they fail because a single player builds himself into the driving force and then suddenly drops out. This isn't so much of a problem with current STGOD conventions as it was a few years ago when we used power tiers (it's hard to build yourself into an uber-threat if you're one of many nations with parity, as opposed to one of a few grand empires among a bunch of regional powers), but it's still something to watch for. Other times, it's just that a lot of players have other obligations at roughly the same time and have to quit. When that happens, you just save your nation and try again next time around.

Rogue 9 wrote:

Nephtys wrote:/me coughs and hums. As an Iron Kingdoms fan, I'd totally be up for this.

I'd totally be up for the space STGOD moderator maybe answering her PMs, but that's just me.

Fingolfin, a lot of STGODs fail. When they do, you wait until conditions are more favorable and try again. Sometimes they fail because a single player builds himself into the driving force and then suddenly drops out. This isn't so much of a problem with current STGOD conventions as it was a few years ago when we used power tiers (it's hard to build yourself into an uber-threat if you're one of many nations with parity, as opposed to one of a few grand empires among a bunch of regional powers), but it's still something to watch for. Other times, it's just that a lot of players have other obligations at roughly the same time and have to quit. When that happens, you just save your nation and try again next time around.

I had a PM? Oh jeez! I missed that one

Really? You read it. Or at least it disappeared from my outbox.

I'd advise avoiding 'twenty years of fighting NPC nations' if at all possible in this iteration. Start as the established powers you want to be. Though i'm not sure if i'll be involved in this one.

Cool idea; however I'm going to be focusing on the space STGOD, at least for the moment.

As a starting point here is my roigh draft of a system outlay for this STGOD

Everyone starts out with 60,000 Civilization Points for basic customization

For a basic guideline.

-1 point gets you a field gun and crew
-2 points gets you a siege gun and crew
-5 points gets you 100 basic firearm infantry
-10 Points gets you 100 basic cavalry, 100 elite and armored firearm equiped infantry, 100 defensive spellcasters, or 100 healers
-20 Points gets you 100 Elite Cavalrymen
-50 points gets you a basic transport ship
-100 points gets you a frigate
-300 points gets you the equivelent of a ship of the line/battleship

Depending on what you select, a frigate might be a humble sailing ship, or it might be a craft with a living self healing hull armed with blessed cannons and alcehmically strengthened powder with weather spirits to provide wind for it's stails or a steam powered warship armed with rifled guns.

The starting level is Tier Zero. A Tier Zero nation is big, resource wealthy and has the largest population (lets say 40 Million people as a starting point), but is backwards technologically (lets use 30 Years War as a basic level) and highly limited in Magic (basic healing mages, a few combat wizards with limited spells such as firebending and defensive spellcasters which offer protection against unplesant spirits).

Now people can raise themselves up via tiering, there are three tiers for both magic and technology.
Each tier costs some 15,000 points and cuts the size of your nation in half (Tier 1 nations have 20 million people, Tier 2 10 million people, Tier 3 has 5 million). You can push for both, but you can only get to tier 3 by investing exclusively to get to that level. However, even a tier 3 magic using civilization can still make a arquebus and a tier 3 technology using civilization can have a healing medic to treat wounds.

A basic outline of the tier system...

Tier 1 for technology unlocks Napoleonic War Technology, with some additions (working turtle type submarines, basic trains, maybe a few technical clockwork gadgets for spies and such)
Tier 2 for technology unlocks civil war/Franco/prussian war era Technology, with some additions (basic steam powered airships (that are small and low range) for recon and light bombing, gatling guns, industrialization)
Tier 3 Tech unlocks more advanced steampunk technologies (long range and reliable airships, diference engine operated mechanical men, Land Ironclads (tanks), Nautilus type submarines)

Tier 1 for magic unlocks some more capable combat spellcasters (for example Basic necromancers able to animate a few corpses to act as stereotypical brain eating zombies which don't turn others into zombies), some basic enchanted weapons and basic fantasy creatures for support (Tengu, Harpies, Minotaur, Nagas)
Tier 2 for magic unlocks more advanced spellcasters, basic flying stuff (lets say 30 meter long flying and more advanced fantasy creatures (Golems, Oliphants and Dragons)
Tier 3 for magic unlocks really powerful spellcasters (for example, limited weather control, the equivelent of Toph's earthbending abilities and very potent necromantic abilities), really high end creatures (Sandworms, Krakens and Great Dragons) and big flying things (floating fortresses some 150 meters in diameter)

I would recommend separating build points from Tech/magic points, with the option to dump tech/magic points into build points. The tech/magic stuff represents investment, but it represents investment that has tangible returns separate from what you can do with it. Labor saving, improved logistics, things of that nature that would in reality make per-unit costs cheaper.