History of the Galaxy, Part 2 is open for players

[geoschmo]

It began as a simple experiment. A piece of cooperative fiction between two players who fancied themselves to be amateur authors, that was centered around the events in a single SEIV game. The idea was to let the events unfold natuarally as the games tend to do, and to relate those events from the differing points of view of seperate empires in the game.

It became an event in and of itself. An interest to many, almost an obsession for some. It was "The History of the Galaxy Part I".

Very quickly it was realized that such an undertaking was perhaps not fully suited to merely two individuals. For one reason two players can play a game quite quickly and the tendacy at times was to get wrapped up in the game itself and to neglect the stories which were afterall the reason for the project to begin with. For another thing, the AI controlled empires were too erratic in the game and did not lend themselves to the vast sweeping story arcs that were the desired outcome.

So it came to pass that well into the game the AI were opened up and made avaialable for control by various other willing participants, and it was good. But the game itself has a finite lifespan, and the point was reached where little else in the game could be accomplished in the game or in the stories and it had to come to an end.

Now we have decided the time has come to once again pick up the sword in one hand, and the pen in the other, and to once and for all decide which is truely mightier. Therefore we present to you,

The History of the Galaxy, Part II

Despite the name this is not a true sequel to the first history game. The empires will be new, and we will have all human players from the start. We need 8 players willing to play and participate to whatever level they feel comfortable. If you wish to participate, it is not neccesary to actually write story Posts about the game. You will not even be required to do a lot of intense in game role play. All we ask is that you play your empire in an intersting manner, and as consistantly as is possible for you to do. This will give those that are planning on writing story Posts monre interesting events and characters to write about. We also ask that you stick with the game as long as you can, it may be months. And that you be aware the purpose fo this game is not nessecarily to win, but to generate some interesting events for others in the game to write about.

You will have the opportunity to create a race that is unique and as creative as you wish, or you may use a stock race or one created by another. All we ask is that you avoid using races from any popular science fiction genere, such as Star Trek or Babylon 5 or anything like that. It's not that those races aren't interesting, it's just that they aren't what this is all about.

We will give preferance to players form the original History game if they are interested, and those that have already expressed an interest in joining this game. We will limit the game to ten races counting Mensch and I. THe game will be played on a map that is slightly customized to make for an abundance of suitable star systems to allow players time to grow and develop before becomeing to violently enmeshed with their neighbors. We will use non-specific starting points to make sure empires don't start out too close to each other.

The came will be a single planet start, a 2000 racial point, low starting tech, high tech cost game. The game will be played usign the latest Version of SEIV Gold, and we will be using a mod.

It will be a small mod, with just a few tweaks to the stock game. We will be eliminating the Quontum Reactor and Solar cell component. The goal of this will be to cause military campaigns to be actual campaigns that require some forethought and preperation and maintaining of supply lines to continue them for any length of time. We will also allow fleeting with bases to encourage their use as forward supply depots and points of contact with other empires.

We will also raise the damage to kill one population setting as an attempt to encourage the use of planetary capture techniques instead of wholesale glassing. However glassing will be allowed if that is your races prefered method of dealing with aliens. It will simply be a little more difficult to do than in the stock game.

If you are interested go to PBW and apply to join the game. If demand for the limited spots is overwhelming we may want some information about your race so we can make choices based on what sounds like an interesting mixture for the game. We will also give some preferance to those that truely do intend to write story Posts if there are too many people for the few spots. Hopefully nobody gets offended at that. The story is the thing with this game.

Geoschmo

[ September 24, 2002, 14:56: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[dumbluck]

*Sigh* You would pick NOW to start this up.

Not only am I already overcommited in other PBW games, I'm currently in the process of moving. I have no time. Therefore, despite the fact that I had expressed an interest to play this game, I must regretfully step aside. (Heck, it's time for me to write another Adamant 4 chapter, anyway).

*sigh*

[sachmo]

DESTINY!!!!!!!!

[Jmenschenfresser]

Welcome players!
I hope part two will be even more fun than part one. Like Geo said, this game is all about fun and telling stories. So do whatever you like in game.

-Do things that will suprise the rest of us.
-Do things that you think make sense if SE4 were a real galaxy, but wouldn't make sense as SE4 strategy if this were a normal PBW game.
-Use normally insignificant weapons.
-Build tourist cruise ships and cart around a bunch of pop for the length of the game.
-Use remoting mining with the excuse your race has a strong environmental movement and doesn't want strip mining on the planets.
-Suddenly turn over half your fleet to your most hated enemy claiming treason.
-Load pop onto cargo ships and then jettison them claiming you are ridding the planet of impure genetics.
-Sky's the limit here.

Perhaps the only rule, and this was for the most part established during the first History, you cannot contradict actual events in the game. You don't have to write about them, but you can't contradict them.

For instance, you cannot claim a ship wasn't destroyed when it was. Or you took a planet when you didn't. This is the limit of the game, and believe me, it is very flexible for stories.

In history one, near the end of the game, I wrote to Geo and told him I was putting my character on the lead ship of a particular fleet, which I was sending into battle. If the ship was destroyed, he would die. My choice, and he did die. However, things like that you can play with. I could have kept him alive through some mishap or as a prisoner of war.

For the most part we sorta expect that there are ships flying around that aren't really actually in the game--transport, personal ships, shuttlecraft, escape pods, etc etc.

Perhaps one other thing to keep in mind--turns are more or less a month. So even though something happened in one turn, you can go into great detail. What was in SE4 just two shots from a meson bLaster can become a month long game of tag and repairs.

We never ran into large contradictions in stories in History 1, but I suppose it can happen. Read the other stories for inspiration. Many times I didn't know how I was going to approach something. THen I read Geo's account and it sparked ideas. And hell, if they differ, we'll just attribute it to hear-say and propaganda.

Oh, and feel free to communicate outside of the game or create story Posts in conjunction with others. Once Geo and I wrote 4 or 5 Messages a piece over IM to each other in the voice of our race and then posted it as minutes from a high level meeting.

Mensch

[Hotfoot]

I'd love to join in on this, but unfortunately I don't know if I have the time to do so, especially if it were to start up right away. Perhaps if there was a buffer of a week or so in which to prepare? If nothing else, it would allow people to work on the backstories of their races and maybe even confer with other people (in the event of multiple human/terran players so that we don't have multiple Earths. )

[geoschmo]

Well, I wasn't going to put a timeline on it or anything. I am asking people to give me an idea of their race's backgroud, not neccesarily the whole story, so I can make sure there aren't any duplicates.

Geoschmo