Once upon a time, long ago, I created two halfway decent games called
and
https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/thrive-civilization-game-part-3-reboot/
After a long time away, I have returned, and a few people have said they would like if I continued to DM a Civ based game, so I have decided to do just that, with some key changes that should help me maintain my focus and will hopefully create fantastic stories you will all love.
Now I would like to welcome you to the Strategy Mode spin-off of the Official Thrive Forum Game Competition and its many, many, many spin-offs. Instead of controlling a species, here you will lead a civilization as you make decisions to compete with the other civilizations and avoid collapse. Or see how many can fall alongside you.
As before, you will begin as a nomadic tribe, though instead of a central valley, each player will randomly be placed in a similar setting determined by an opening dice role, which will create more variety among the start locations. Each player will have a minor chance to modify their start based on their description of their people that I will use to base my rounds on.
The Game will start when I feel enough players have given an adequate description and answered some of my questions to flesh out the players.
As before you, the player is a mysterious force that guides your people through the eons. Each round of play, you can make a vote/big policy change for your people. Note that if you are nomadic, this can be choosing a direction/destination to migrate. Your votes can also be anything from choosing to wage war against a neighbor, choosing to convert your population to a new religion, choosing to research new technology. These are just some basic examples, as I will be relying on the creativity of the player to design the rounds.
You can be as general or as specific as you want, but remember that general votes have a much less impact than specific, while specific in turn, gives more fail points depending on the complexity of the vote.
Donât worry; picking a vote in waging war on a certain target wonât neglect everything else in your civilization; it will just mean that your civ will focus on the war. The same can be said for most decisions unless such a decision prevents the action from occurring. Throughout the game, many things will run in the background, even if not directly voted for.
Players will roll votes for with a d20; to me, this allows more possibility and flexibility in my decision-making process. It also more easily allows me to attach modifiers to the complexity and realisticness of the vote being achievable. Generally, the standard roll for success will be 10, but this can be lowered or raised based on factors, which I will lay out to the player during the round.
1: total disaster, Fiasco level, someone probably gets hurt
2-5: Mistake and something bad will most likely occur, which may include a negative modifier for the future
5-9: Working towards a goal, but some negative effects regarding either the process or the result
10-14: Lower end success, got it done, but nothing special is likely to occur
15-19: Well done, you managed to get it done right, and there is a possible benefit to either your people or the product
20: Something good is coming to you, so long as you are ready for it.
Various bonuses can be applied depending on the role and situation. (For example, during a period of good harvest, a bonus will be applied if you vote for better harvesting techniques)
Be aware, though, that your civilization is large and diverse, and the decisions you make only push it in a certain direction. The people can get a mind of their own, and you can face internal dissent and revolutions if you are not careful.
Unlike the previous games, there is not a solid stability rating. The results of your actions and the circumstances of your people will instead create positive and negative trends that will impact how united or divided your people are, which may allow them to survive more where they would normally not, or instead fall apart where a stronger civ would survive. This gives me the leeway to not give perpetual bonuses or maluses to civilizations caught in a bad cycle.
With that said, your people will still maintain a relative power rating, which will determine, among other factors, how many votes your civilization will have and the success of certain votes that come easier to more established powers.
Power ranges from:
Tiny - 1
Minor - 2
Medium - 3
Major - 4
Great â 5
Superpower - 6
Power will vary based on factors such as centralisation, relative power positioning, unity, military force, population, technological advantage, economic prosperity. Etc
For each level of power, you will able to make 1 vote. Everyone starts at Tiny, so you all start only being able to make 1 vote, but if anyone reaches Superpower, they will be able to make 6 votes per round. This is not necessarily better because more power also means more responsibility, and larger, more powerful civilizations are harder to maintain and can more easily lose stability. Remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Power is also relative. You can be a great power in the bronze age by having large armies of chariots and plenty of grain, but if you are surrounded by industrial nations with machine guns and oil refineries, you will definitely lose that Great Power status.
That said, votes are not the only things that dictate how civilization will develop. Based on your previous votes and on your interaction and development of the story of your people, you will gain âTraitsâ that give appropriate bonuses and maluses and will have your people develop in the background in certain ways, and possibly in ways you did not intend.
While I personally have no artistic ability, I do understand the necessity of something like a map, so if you want to create one based on your own understanding of the world, then feel free to consult me, and I will help you define it.
Various environmental events can occur during play, but besides these, most events will arise from the interaction between your civs or from circumstances within your own civ, which may be me prompting you to do something if you are falling behind.
Every event has a chance to fire; the chance varies depending on local ecosystems and such, but the planet-shattering ones are very unlikely to ever happen. There are also positive events that can fire, but most of them depend on previous votes youâve made.
These events may trigger a decision, which will basically be a free vote to deal with the event, either using an option I gave you or by taking a third option that you decide may work better.
Votes shouldnât be too specific, nor should they be too general. If they are too specific or too general, I will tell you and give you a chance to fix them. If for the sake of time, I need to get the next round posted, I will give you a decision that is as close to what you said as possible. For example, if you said you wanted to engage send a company of knights to raid Bobâs lands, I will approximate that as you encouraging your soldiers to pillage lands belonging to Bob.
However, more specific votes will be more effective when successful (and more harmful when unsuccessful). If you voted to increase intelligence operations of your nation to spy on other nations, it would give you a small boost to espionage across the board, but if you were to specifically vote to increase spying against Player X, that would give you a large boost to espionage against that particular player.
Unlike my other games, rounds will come in the form of DMs. While a general description of what happened each round will be posted in the chat, details will be scarce and specific outcomes may not be included. This allows me to have an element of surprise regarding the interaction between civs and on the general state of the world that can become a fun way to keep the suspense. Of course, players may interact with each other and give hints about their circumstances to others, but I encourage you not to be too specific and to include me in those discussions so I can know what each player actually knows.
Round 0
Past Policies:
Sapience: Your species has gained the wisdom and intelligence necessary for complex thought.
Language: Your people have developed oral communication to allow for complex exchange of information and more intricate levels of cooperation.
Oral Tradition: Your people pass knowledge down orally from generation to generation, allowing practices of hunting, animal interaction, and culture to be retained and refined over the years.
Mysticism: With sapience, your people have begun to think about the world in a spiritual way and now have various beliefs in spirits and the afterlife.
Fire: Your people have learned how to create and control fire. Through this, they have begun to cook their food. They also have applied fire to heating materials during crafting and to scare away predators. Fires have developed as a central hub for the activities of your tribe.
Tool Use: Your people have adapted materials in their environment into simple tools for hunting, crafting, and combat, often shaped out of flint or other soft stones. This includes things such as clothing and the usage of animal skins.
Basic weaponry: Your people have the basic ability to craft tools such as spears, javelins, knives, hatchets, and short bows.
Biological Description
Your species are very similar to the human species, though different in a few ways. Theyâre bipedal, omnivores, and hold similar limb count (2 arms, 2 legs) and proportions to early humans; however, their other details differ. They sport hair that grows primarily on the top and back of their head and varies in color from dark purple to bright orange. This hair can include facial hair and body hair. They have bulbous oval eyes coming in a color range from purples and pinks to oranges and yellows, as well as rare grey/white. Their skin tone is varying from snow white to dark purple, though the average is slight of center brown similar to the Mediterranean. Horn growths protrude from their skulls, though most are very small, the largest coming around 10cm in length, and males tend to be sharper while females have more of a curve. Their ears mirror humans, and their noses tend to be more snubbed, but individuals differ. Their upper row of teeth sports a double canine with those canines closer, the main incisors being larger, fang sized, though the size varies, and females tend to have sharper fangs. Overall height is around 5â4, and weight ranges from 120 to 180 lbs.
Vasarius separated into various continents and landmasses, but most of the world is unexplored by the locals, and they are not sure how the world itself is divided.
Life forms differ from those on Earth, and the different landmasses each have diverse and rich evolutionary backstories. As well as this geologically, theyâre all unique, so enjoy the late game exploration. The world is home, however, to some extraordinary natural wonders and creatures that can change the local happiness (and other factors) of populations in the area. So prepare to delve into my world.
As I have stated before, this game will be performed differently from all my previous ones, and each round will consist of a general round description posted in the Community Topic, which will cover some globally observed trends, specific world events, and fun smaller things that I thought were cool enough to include. Each player will receive a more detailed and tailored report based on their own votes and circumstances. Players may communicate with each other, but I would like to be involved to know who knows what exactly. Players may request more details on their report, and such details may filter to other groups (i.e., population estimates when the time comes), but certain details will be relatively more estimates if proper structures are not in place to actually ascertain the truth.
For this first round, each player will give me a description of their people, which may include things like their current location, culture, leadership structure, beliefs, etc. The more detailed it is, the more I can play with it for my rolls, which will determine your actual starting conditions.
Players may voluntarily choose to start close to each other, but as a general rule, if itâs not in the lore background, then I will instead isolate players to allow development, though this may come back to haunt you since you will then not have details on what other players are doing in your reports.
The final piece, due to my prolonged absence, I have decided not to wait for players that may be gone from the community. As such, the waitlist and player list are currently reset. I think with my new set of rules, I will attempt to accommodate all who wish to join, but we will see how it works out.
If you have not already joined this discord, I highly encourage you to do so as it will be my main way to interact and get you guys some of the details: