The Council of Wyrms

[The Panther]

I am announcing a new mega-MP game. This will be totally opposite from my last mega-game (RAND). Diplomacy will be crucial to winning this game. The following are the rules:

1. Diplomacy will be controlled by the Council of Wyrms. Any nation who selects a wyrm pretender will have a vote on the Council. If your wyrm dies in battle, you lose your vote until he is resurrected. If you select a non-wyrm pretender, you will never have a vote.
2. Any attack by any nation upon a province controlled by another nation must first be cleared by the Council. You may state your case before the Council, and you should try to be as persuasive as possible.
3. The Council has 24 hours to vote on a proposal. The game hosting will be delayed until after the ruling when a proposal is before the Council. The proposals must be worded such that the choices are either yes or no. Wyrms may abstain, and a failure to vote will be treated as an abstention. The proposing player may vote for his own proposal only if he has a wyrm pretender alive at the time of the vote.
4. When a wyrm is out of town for business or pleasure, he may either get a sub or designate another wyrm as his proxy if he so desires. Votes on weekends and perhaps some holidays will be extended to 48 hours.
5. A proposal must gain at least a tie vote (abstentions do not count) in the Council to succeed.
6. Bribes, vote trading, pre-vote solicitations, retaliation threats, discussions, etc., are all allowed. Anything goes.
7. Any nation that attacks another nation without approval of the Council becomes a rogue nation. All other nations are allowed to attack a rogue nation anytime and anywhere without requiring a Council vote.
8. Rogue nations can be removed from rogue status only with a proposal plus a ruling from the Council. Rouge nations are not allowed a vote in Council until removed from rogue status.
9. AI nations are always a rogue nation.
10. National defense is allowed at any time. If a neighbor wins a Council vote against a player, the losing player may defend his threatened territory however he sees fit. However, the defending player may NOT attack any provinces owned by the attacking player without a Council ruling. Once the territory in question is lost, the defending player may not retake it without a Council ruling. If the attacking player cannot take territory ownership (or have a fort under siege) within 3 months, then he loses the opportunity to win the province until another proposal succeeds before the Council.
11. Provinces that revolt against a ruler are fair game to anybody. If multiple players attack such provinces (or any other independent province for that matter), the winner of such a battle becomes the rightful owner, no matter where it is located. The sole exception is the capitols. Other nations may not take advantage of a successful revolt against an enemy national capitol without a Council ruling.
12. Provinces with one player owning a fort and another player owning the province remain contested until one nation controls both. Either side can commit any forces in such situations until ownership becomes clear.
13. Attacks on white provinces are allowed anywhere and anytime and from any nation. First come, first serve.
14. Attacks that convert an owned province to neutral (such as Ghost Riders) are not allowed without a Council ruling.
15. Spies, stealthy preaching, creating unrest with stealth, and assassinations are all fair game since those acts do not result in province ownership change. Stealthy attacks on enemy provinces are prohibited without a council ruling. Of course, if you annoy a neighbor too much, he could perhaps retaliate in Council with proper evidence.
16. Other matters may also be brought before the Council, such as turning a nation AI, squelching a nation due to excessive Council requests, designating a permanent sub for a departing player, etc. In fact, you may bring anything you want to a council vote, such as: "Vanheim owes me a Dwarven Hammer because I can't make one myself!"

I hope to get a full 17 players for the game. If so, the game will be played on Orania with the standard preset starting positions. I will host the game as PBEM on MWF evenings (in general), unless we can get a non-playing host to volunteer. Because Pangaea is the only nation I have yet to play in MP, I am claiming that nation henceforth.

Abysia ... Cainehill
Arcosephale ... Reverend Zombie
Atlantis ... Whollaborg
Caelum ... Zooko
C’tis ... Huntsman
Ermor ... Quantum Mechani
Jontunheim ... Wish for Blood Slaves
Machaka ... Arralen
Man ... ygorl
Marignon ... djo
Mictlan ... puffyn
Pangaea ... Panther
Pythium ... RonD
R’lyeh ... Izaqyos
T’ien Ch’i ... Tauren
Ulm ... Pasha Dawg
Vanheim ... Morkilus
Alternates/subs ... YC boron Archaeolept Naresh

Game settings:
Map Orania
Starting Provinces 1
Indy strength 8
Magic Sites 50
Richness Poor
Events Common
Graphs Enabled
HoF 15
Research Very Difficult
Victory Condition 17 VPs
Master password Enabled
Renaming Allowed
Cheat Prevention Active
Mods Zen 4.0

Astute players will note that low resources greatly favor the death themes that kill population and get free spawns. These will therefore be prohibited. What this means is that Ermor must play Broken Empire and Pangaea cannot play Carrion Woods.

Also, I will use the master password (on Turn 1 only) to publish a full report on the pretender design of all nations. We will have to rely on the honor system for a player declaring that his wyrm has died in battle.

The magic site setting will be used to counterbalance the advantage of the blood nations on these settings. I am thinking that somewhere in the 35-65% range makes sense, based on my game tests with these settings. I do not want it real high because then the late game will be too much dominated by gem income and it would really hurt base Ulm plus some other low magic themes.

Tauren tested Abysia on these settings (with 50% magic) and there appeared to be no clear advantage in the early and middle game for blood hunting. The big problem for all nations (including the blood hunters) is the lack of money with which to buy commanders. Indy 8 battles are very tough for everybody. The powerful wyrm really helps here, but you do run the risk of your pretender dying in battle.

As for the victory condition, 25% of the provinces does seem low. However, this will likely be difficult to achieve due to the Council. I am guessing that the only way to win is to stay in the Council until you get strong enough that you believe you can go rogue. Then you will need to blitz your way to victory in the hopes of winning before the Council members can take your own territory away.

As for the Council, I would ask that one player volunteer to maintain the Council on another web site, kind of like we are doing on Yarnspinners 2. I will have my hands full with hosting and do not want the added problem of running the Council site.

Of course, I am open to discussion on the rules and settings. Additions, deletions, modifications, and opinions are all welcome.

[quantum_mechani]

As great as wordplay is, I think from a fun and thematic point of view giving human pretenders the voting privileges would be better.

[High_Priest_Naresh]

yeah I'll play... sign me up as either abysia or caelum
and i also have a few questions
1. say you want to do a sneaky attack you would have to tell every one about it right? wheres the fun in that!
2. humans, are they rogue or just no votes?
3. why not have the council here?
4. mods what does zen mod 2 allow?
thanks
Naresh-will conquer

[archaeolept]

map?

also, c'tis DT would be banned as well, would it not?

anyways, it sounds like a cool idea. I'd like to try c'tis. never played them in a real MP game, and they're so cute

[RonD]

I have a bad feeling that the poor world is going to feel like a real slog.

But what the heck.

Pythium

[High_Priest_Naresh]

I have decided... caelum
Naresh-will conquer

[The Panther]

You do not have to select a wyrm. If you do not, then you will not be labeled as rogue unless you disobey the will of the Council. It only means that you will never be able to vote in council. You can still bring proposals before the council, but you can't even vote for your own proposal.

By the way, the wyrm is the only pretender available to all 17 nations.

Also, I don't think I have ever played an MP game on a poor world. And yes, it is a VERY hard slog in my SP test games. As I said earlier, the wyrm helps an amazing amount for this, though it is quite risky to use him solo.

Sneak attacks are outlawed per the rules. They are not very useful anyway in that all they do is annoy the recipient unless you are at war with someone (in which case they are very useful).

As for using this forum for the Council, I see a heck of a lot of discussions on the Council, especially in the mid and late game. We must have a better method of organizing this then a forum which only allows time-linear posts. There are plenty of computer literate folks out there that could make a great site to take care of this. I hope, anyway.

As for the mods, it is Zen's 4.0. There is a ton of discussion about these mods on the other forum. You can read about it over there to your hearts content.

[quantum_mechani]

The Panther said:
You do not have to select a wyrm. If you do not, then you will not be labeled as rogue unless you disobey the will of the Council. It only means that you will never be able to vote in council. You can still bring proposals before the council, but you can't even vote for your own proposal.

By the way, the wyrm is the only pretender available to all 17 nations.

Also, I don't think I have ever played an MP game on a poor world. And yes, it is a VERY hard slog in my SP test games. As I said earlier, the wyrm helps an amazing amount for this, though it is quite risky to use him solo.

The Wyrm may be the only pretender available for all 17 nations, but every nation has human pretenders as well. Oh, and if you do insist on wyrms instead of humans, I claim BE Ermor.

[The Panther]

archaeolept said:
map?

also, c'tis DT would be banned as well, would it not?

As stated above, the map is Orania if we get 17 players.

I had orginally banned C'tis DT also, but my son pointed out that they do not get free spawns. The tomb worms must be summoned by an expensive unholy priest. On a poor world, it will be a long time to get very many of these guys. Tauren therefore convinced me to allow it.

Of course, since you picked the lizards, you can ban it by simply not picking them, which I personally think would be a great idea, especially for an expert player like you.

I did ban Carrion Woods from myself for similar reasons. The free troops on a poor world would be quite strong indeed.

[The_Tauren13]

Id like to claim T'ien Ch'i. All praise Kir'Doq, Conqueror of Life And Death, Ruler of the Stars, Eater of the Unholy, God of T'ien Ch'i.
C'tis Desert Tombs is not a true death theme. It does not kill population and get free spawns. It is no more a death theme than Broken Empire is.
Rule 3 states that the game hosting will be delayed for council rulings. This seems silly; Im sure there will be so many proposals by mid game that it would never host, and it is already a slow game. Also, there is no real reason any given proposal cant wait a turn for the results. Therefore I would suggest taking out the clause that states the game hosting will be delayed for council votes.