>"Interactive History" is all about making the history of cultures and >developing them as well. If what you are interested in is a "wargame" then >you may as well go play Galaxy or some other game (I'm not knocking them, I >used to run games of Galaxy at uni, and still wargame when the chance >arrives - but it's not IH!!!) I very do agree and thats why i started the whole Space Game discussion by asking if we can ADAPT the IH rules for a Space game. > >Also, the rules for IH are by necessity abstract. In Celandra the rules for >warfare are very abstract, its basically str(size) v str(size) of the >opposing armies, with some judicious storytelling by the people involved. >We do not need to go into talks about lasers v projectile, or different >designs of ships, or shields v armour... all we need to know is the basic >effectiveness of the militaries. Say "Force" of the military is how >powerful >the fleets are, and Size relates to the difficulty of destroying the >fleets. >The actual composition of the fleets are just story based, they don't >affect >the mechanics of the game in any significant way. We can have a list of Starship types, heres a rough one: Doom Star (MOO2, SW's Death Star or bigger), Battle Moon (Shadow Raiders), Titan (MOO2), Super Dreadnought (Honor Harrington), Dreadnought, Battleship, Attack Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Strikecruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Cruiser, Light Cruiser, Destroyer, Frigate, Corvette, Escort (startrek), Scout, Starfighter. This is just a military ship sizes. They can be other types of ships like: Explorer, Courier, Transport, Armed Transport, Assault Shuttle, Assault Ship, Colony Ship, Outpost Ship, Medical Ship, Repair Ship, Freighter, Merchant Cruiser, Yaght, Space Liner, Light Freighter, Carrier, Escort Carrier, Shuttle, Escape Pod, etc... You get the idea. >The whole idea is ,aking the story interesting. For the point of a story, >(and game balance) you should be able to have whatever "basis" for the >technology that you want, as long as you build in some "flaw" which makes >it somewhat equal to others. some eg from Sci Fi >*Star Trek "Warp" engines. Need special tech and separate engines - but it >is basically "very fast travel" This is similar to Star Wars in that you >would need to navigate very carefully to avoid hitting things... >Objects can be attacked at all times >*Bab 5 Jump-space. travel in "jump-space" is just like normal, but gives >effective faster speed. If use jump gates there is no need for special >engines, Navigation is hard because jump-space is different from >real-space, >and combat can only take place in one or other - not across the boundary. >*Space-Fold: (Battletech, Dune, etc) The ships instantly travel from one >point to another (within a certain distance). Ships require very big and >specialised engines as well as special circumstances to travel. (BT need >recharge times and no grav field, Dune need spice and special people for >navigations "navigators") I say we should have the option of Hyperspace travel available and Normal Space travel. Jumpgates and Stargates(mini artificial wormhole to one system to another with Stargate). > > It will have the same level of details, just for space. Would need to > > modify the form of governments, technology level, military like naval >into > > starfleets, crafts to whatever that would fit for the space age... need >to > > convert everything for space. :/ Exactly. Something we do have to work on. > >OK - I'm looking at http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/ihfudge/ for reference. I read the rough draft of IH rules changes, but i think the Tech level thing have to be worked and some minor changes in other areas. > > 2) Will we be doing a game with with many diffrent Societies or > > one common Society > > Personally, If we are playing an Interactive History, we have to have >a mixture. The "Star Wars" universe had a multitude of races, but had a few >uniting organisations (Empire etc) In fact, one of the most unlikely things >that I keep on encountering is single species-wide organisations... Are >humans >the only ones to invent politics???? New players could have new species, or >could have separate organisations within existing species. I do agree with ya here. > > > 3) Who wants to be GM. > > Louis? Sure :) > > > 4) Do we begin with a stroyline or just start wherever. > > NEED A STORY! at least of some kind. There needs to be some kind of >basic structure or you get a lackluster game. What drives any good story is >a >driving storyline... just having descriptions is pointless... I do believe we should have a starting story and i will post ideas after i do bunch of replies. > > > 5) Do we want any conection to Celandra > > There is no way that we should have the two games interacting. If you >want you could have Celandra as some Far future or Far past world. But the >paradigm is nearly incompatible... Celandra has no real universe, it may >not even be a planet!!! but a flat peice of rock floating in the >"Dreaming". I do agree with ya and thats why i keep saying that this Space game should be base hundreds of thousands of years in the future. Celandra being sucked into the dreaming sounds interesting, but they would have to have more then one mythical world floating in the Dreaming because where does the Dark Elves and other beings that came out of the Dreaming and into Qaiyore? hmm? > > If players want, they can have "future versions" of their Celandra >races, and even have a "mythical" home planet of Celandra/Quaiore/Elyria >whatever, but those myths may not even refer to the same place... I suggest that Celandra isn't controled by any society, Celandra should be lost in space somewhere and a myth and a legend. > > > 6) Do we want Magic mixed with tech. or just tech. > > Clarke's law... What is magic to one species may just be judicious >manipulation of energy by another - or "alternative" energy sources. >Psionics >can be seen as "magic" or could be just some scientific oddity... Perhaps >one >society is very primitve, but has in the past been so advanced that they >have >nano-machines in their bodies which allow them to do "magical" feats once >they >learn how to use them... I think it's an irrelavent question actually. IH >measure what you are capable of, and the _how_ is relatively freeform... >-- First of all, whats with this Clarke's Law? I never heard of that guy or familiar with his darn laws. Anyway, since when people make laws on how the universe works? Isn't that God's Job. :) -LordLMP ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
>Population determinant should go up, but not by the same factor >for everything. Think exponential. > >We can stick with the nation/organization split. > >How about, um, er... > > Society: Organization: >-4 2,000 200 >-3 200,000 50,000 >-2 5 million 500,000 >-1 500 million 1 million >0 5 billion 10 million >+1 10 billion 100 million >+2 50 billion 500 million >+3 100 billion 1 billion >+4 500 billion 2.5 billion > >There's a bias in this against over-high populations; >I'm of the opinion that sane races would be much less >crowded than Earth-born humanity is today. > >Still, I could be wrong, and the +3/+4 could be changed >to have societal populations of 500 billion and 5 trillion >accordingly. Or something less dramatic. Hey, what would happen if we had a Space society of Smurfs? They would have a huge population for sure opr the ability too. :) > >For land area... societies only... how about: > >-4 Tiny part of one planet (less than a continent), > single asteriod, rag-tag fleet of ships... > (woah, battlestar galactica flashback) >-3 Small part of one planet (small continent), > entire small moon, less rag-tag fleet, several asteriods >-2 One big continent (Asia), sizeable subset of > planet (oceans, subterranean areas), large moon, > asteroid belt, respectable space station and > associated fleet >-1 One planet (groundhogs) >0 One solar system, including colonies (at least mining > colonies) on associated planets or belts. >+1 2-10 inhabited solar systems, one major colony >+2 11-50 inhabited solar systems, 3 major colonies >+3 51-200 inhabited solar systems, many major worlds >+4 201+ inhabited solar systems > >Kinda gets vague near the high end, I admit. Scale breaks >down when trying to differentiate between (say) the Federation >and the Trantorian Empire, but what can you do? +1 and up might have to change a bit. When we do get this game going, my society idea might go +2 or +3 on your scale, but would have more then three Major Worlds and Homeworld. > > > > *Economical system > > > no real changes, although nearly everyone would be "credit" based. Yeah, societies who haves joint currency and have major trade treaties or alliances might have the same currency. But i think we should just have a Wealth rating like in the IH game. > >What about societies when they interact with each other? >"Sorry, we don't accept credit from your kind any more... got >any nickel asteroids?" Thats why they should create a Trade Treaty. > > > > *Military organisation > > > No real change - Military Force and Military Size are all thats >needed. > > > > Descriptions add flavor and could be taken into account for battles as >per > > case and GM. > >Really good descriptions could give bonuses (or penalties ;). Yes and they would have many kinds of Military organizations too like Rylan says. Also, we should have a list of Starships types and Sizes? > > > ##Actions > > > keep the same - 4 per turn, > > > > Boost the actions up to five, with sub actions in each if needed, since >we > > are using five-year turns. Governments can get more done in a five yr > > span than one yr, and so should be allowed to have more opportunities to > > act. > >What I would do is to keep with 4 actions w/no penalty, but to >figure the IH scale that strategic actions which would take "five >years" could instead be done in one turn, and so on. > >So-called "Tactical" actions would get a bonus (one year going >to 5), or could be made "strategic" with no penalty, or whatnot. > I agree with the Idea of having 5 Actions per turns and the Crisis idea. But i also say turns should be measured by Stardates because i wouldn't think all races/societies would agree upon on measuring time in Earth Years like in Startrek. -LordLMP ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
>Well, as I said, I don't want this to affect the mechanics. We can have >possible suggestions, but if someone wants to create a combat force >of "Armored Comets", they should be able to. Yeah, but since we are going to have 2 or 3 types of military organizations; Army/Marines/etc, Space/Air which might have different size differences and value. >Why five actions a turn? You can take five actions in IH normally, just >with a penalty. If the turns are longer, then by IH you get a bonus >on strategic actions. Yeah true, just wondering. > >I think you should think about precisely what you're trying to accomplish; >is it just that you're trying to "get more done" on each turn than in >fantasy IH? Since this will be in space and societies willl be way bigger then societies in Qaiyore, a lot more things can be done. > >There's no reason why races would agree on stardates, either. In fact, it's >likely that each race has their own calendar and year - and the "meta" >time used by the players could just be one of those, arbitrarily. > I know that, but we do need something to measure turns in our game. Can't use Years because people will argue about travel times, the task of doing certain things and etc... -LordLMP ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
> > >Well, as I said, I don't want this to affect the mechanics. We can have > >possible suggestions, but if someone wants to create a combat force > >of "Armored Comets", they should be able to. > > Yeah, but since we are going to have 2 or 3 types of military organizations; > Army/Marines/etc, Space/Air which might have different size differences and > value. Yes, but: 1) That's different than different classes of spaceships 2) Those are sub-determinants, which is a different (and pretty well understood) IH think 3) I suggested two possible sub-determinants, Space-based and atmospheric forces (with ground troops being 'atmospheric'). > > > >I think you should think about precisely what you're trying to accomplish; > >is it just that you're trying to "get more done" on each turn than in > >fantasy IH? > > Since this will be in space and societies willl be way bigger then societies > in Qaiyore, a lot more things can be done. Some yes, some no. You can more things at a smaller scope, but it's actually much harder to change your fundamental determinant. Scope is the key; for a hundred-planet system to "fortify its borders" is one (hard) strategic action. For a one-planet system, fortifying its borders is also one strategic action. But if you're looking at "build a single starbase", that's much easier for the large society, because it's going down in scope, so it can be associated with an extra action, and it still could be easier than a much smaller society. > >There's no reason why races would agree on stardates, either. In fact, it's > >likely that each race has their own calendar and year - and the "meta" > >time used by the players could just be one of those, arbitrarily. > > > > I know that, but we do need something to measure turns in our game. Can't > use Years because people will argue about travel times, the task of doing > certain things and etc... I dunno, I think years give us (the players) a good feel for what travel times are and how long actions should take. ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
>Yes, but: >1) That's different than different classes of spaceships >2) Those are sub-determinants, which is a different (and pretty well >understood) IH think >3) I suggested two possible sub-determinants, Space-based and atmospheric >forces (with ground troops being 'atmospheric'). Yeah true. For determinants, i would think they would have many determinants and sub-determinants in this space game anyway which will be hard to have them all down in the rules. Just have to wait until we setup the societies. >Some yes, some no. You can more things at a smaller scope, but it's >actually much harder to change your fundamental determinant. > >Scope is the key; for a hundred-planet system to "fortify its borders" >is one (hard) strategic action. For a one-planet system, fortifying >its borders is also one strategic action. > >But if you're looking at "build a single starbase", that's much easier >for the large society, because it's going down in scope, so it can >be associated with an extra action, and it still could be easier >than a much smaller society. Yeah yeah, i get it. > >I dunno, I think years give us (the players) a good feel for what travel >times are and how long actions should take. Yeah, but i think using Stardates to measure turns is still a good idea. And no, I am not being unfocus about this game. -LordLMP ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
