Hello there, I've had this idea for a Grand Empire MMPOG. In the end i'd like to start it up as an open source project but at the moment I do not have the technical skills so I thought I'd pass it to you people to see what you thought. I have tried to take some emphesis away from war. Intro thoughts The game would be Earth based and between the time gunpowder was first widly used and the invention of the train (or plane). The game would be in full 3D. Each player would start as a city state with an area of land (Province). One main city and some small supporting villages, villages could advance to small towns. Should the players be able to directly interfere in battles and control their troops? This is one area I am not sure on as if one player is off-line they can not take control or the player may have too much else to do. Players should defenatly be able to draw up plans for seiges, assaults etc. Before a player starts, they should be able to design their flag and troop uniforms as well as placing their villages and city. Another thought I had was that there could be an easy to use building and monument creator where players could create their own fortifications and buildings offline and get an estimate. When they returned on-line they could set the building in motion of these buildings. There could also be a weapons creator so that players could mix and match technologies. Thus the player could totally customise their own civilisation. The City (and villages developed into towns) Workshops Ability to produce a vast array of goods if supplied with recources, for example clay can be made into pottery, livestock and crops into food, wood into paper, iron ore, limestone and coal into iron, iron into weapons, wood into tables and chairs, etc. The quality of the good would depend on the experiance of the worker, for example if they went to school to learn pottery then the player would produce better pottery, experiance could also be gained by trail and error or by scolarships. A better quality good should gain a bigger market and better price. Shops To sell the goods Workforce - Too many jobs provided would result in a workforce shortage in that town/city, this could be solved by immigration from other cities/towns/villages and provinces owned by the player, slavery, tempory or full time workers from other city states. Monuments/Special buildings Already mentioned Research Get better weapons, better quality of goods etc. Commercial Port Only cities and towns next to a sea or deepish rivers can have a commercial port to trade goods from and import goods. Villages and city/towns on shallow rivers can build mini-ports where a limited number of goods can be sailed down river to the nearest big commericial port or other mini dock. Military ports can be build anywhere along a deep river and/or sea. Commercial Ports attract trade routes and trade. Ship registration For a small fee and/or monthly fee and/or per use fee players can register ships at another players port. This would be useful for landlocked players. The player owning the port can also set conditions on the use of their port, for example the ammount of goods that can be brought in by the other player and if the ships have to be built by their own shiprights. Population The population go to the jobs, be they in villages or the city. If you remain small and your population explodes your population will starve (unless food imported) and those that can leave for another country will (unless stopped). Even so there will be a time when a player needs more teritory to build more villages and cities on or to unload their population to. Villages Farms and Windmills Villigers create food to be taken to a town or city to be made into propper foods such as bread and wine. Towns can also support farms but citys can not. Farms can streach on a certain distance from the supporting village, as you can't have a farm a day away from the supporting village Mines/raw Materials Villagers can mine and/or collect raw materials to be taken to a nearby town or city to be made into goods or to be sold. Dock For fishing Upgrading Villages can be upgraded to towns as long as the towns can be supported. Founding villages Additional villages can be founded be a player if there is enogh population. Deplomacy Pacts Such as non-agression pacts. Trade Agreements Customs Unions (see Councils), Free Trade Agreements, Trade Routes (See Trade section) Treaties Peace treaties, co-operation treaties, Terratorial (fishing ground and land control) treaties, Arms Control, Defence Treaties & Alliances(see Alliances), Direction of Councils(see councils) Protection Rackets[\i] Pay someone to defend you or not attack you Alliances </i> To do with defence and the military - each member can make propositions such as imposing embargoes to be voted on by the alliance. <i>Councils </i> Customs Union (Protectionist Free Trade Area), EU style council which should be totally customisable by the member players for example should there be qualified majority voting or does each player have equal say, can players mix and match council decisions or do all council decisions effect all players and does each player have vetoes on all issues, just a few or non at all. Councils could also set up a single currency area and a common army which each player submits some of their forces to for use by a majority decision in the council. These decisions would be made by treaties between the member states. <b>Politics </b> <i>Tax </i> Create and set taxes, for example a player would probably want a windfall tax but if the player's potery industry made exuberant profit s/he may want to impose a windfall tax on that industry. Or the player may want to tax one province with a certain tax. <i>Slavery </i> Do you allow slavery and who is legal to be a slave. <i>Infrastructure </i> Build roads which attract trade routes as they speed up travel times. Irrigation, water systems, declare areas for builing of houses, businesses etc. <i>Private/State </i> Are industries owned by private businesses (some may be foreign) or are they a national concern.? <i>Health and Education </i> Free hospitals and schools? Or just for the rich? <b>Trade </b> <i>Supply and demand </i> Produce too much and prices will slump, if too little is produced then prices will rise. <i>Technology </i> Some technologcal advances and their stories as well as stories of wars would follow trade routes as they did in real life (unless top secret), so if you are a trading hub you will gain technology wise. <i>Trade Routes </i> Trade routes are set up by a treaty between two countries or by merchants trying to make a living. A player with a trade route passing through their teritory which is not destined for one of their cities can impose transportation fees. A player (A) may directly try playing a merchant for example buying lots of pottery at a discounted rate from (D), slapping massive transportation fees on for that good so it becomes cheaper for other nearby players to buy pottery from (A) than directly from (D). If player(F) wants to transport goods to player(Z) and (Z) has no ships or port then Z can find the player with the cheapest fee for transporting their goods across the sea to (F) or the nearest port to (F) or the port with the cheapest fees near (F). A player could attract trade routes through their city states by: 1: Good maintained roads 2: Low transportation fees 3: Good accomodation for merchants, and good food. 4: Being a big continuous country so that it would be cheaper to go through you than the more direct route of 10 players. 5: Produce goods for export. 6: Import goods. 7: Own a port, or a port large enough or a port which has not got too many ships traveling to/from it. <i>Trade Duties </i> Charge import duties on certain goods. (Important to protect your countries industry in certain areas. <i>Embargoes </i> See military <b>Military </b> <i>Exclusion Zones </i> Your military will destroy anything entering the exlusion zone unless specifically tolfd not to, or what is entering belongs to an ally. <i>Embargoes </i> Declare trade embargoes on other players and inforce them with your military. <i>Seige </i> Lay seige to an enemy city or fort. If you lay seige to a costal town/city/fort then you's need ships as that city/town/fort could supply themselves by the sea if they have a port. <i>Forts </i> Can be built with would or stone to the users specification (see intro) or a predesigned fort. Can be built anywhere, even in enemy teritory if you can manage it. Forts away from civilisation need supplies. If the player has relevent technology the player could build sea forts, like between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight in the UK. <i>Defences </i> See defence structures <i>Battles </i> Should the player be able to control the troops directly? Player can create battle plans etc. Player could develop strategies off-line to add to the standard tactics? <i>Supplies </i> An army away from home would need supplying with food and ammunition. This can be done by supply convoys or by capturing and using enemy farms and/or production facilities. Ships away from home for too long would also need supplying, they also need em limes! <i>Training </i> Increases moral and experiance. <i>Conscription </i> Player could choose between a professional army (where people volunteer to join up), a conscript army (when they are forced to join up by law) or a mixture. <i>Port and Barracks </i> Military ports allow the creation of a navy while a barracks allows creation of a professional army. Those built far away from civilisation will need supplies. <i>Explorers </i> Used to map out land and find new land. A player can claim teritory from this map. <b>Defence Structures </b> <i>Forts </i> See military <i>Sea Walls </i> Makes the waters in a port calm and can offer it protection against naval attack. Cannons could also be placed in sea walls. <i>Underground Tunnel Network(s) </i> These would allow a player to perform troop manouvers undetected. Supplies could travel down these tunnel networks. The tunnel networks would help relieve a seige. Some parts of the tunnel network could be booby trapped to stop enemy spies from enerting it, if they found it. Also booby traps would slow down any hostile army (or even halt the army if it destroyed the tunnel) that found the tunnel network. <i>Moats and ditches </i> Can be built to slow down an enemy army. <i>Walls </i> Can contain cannons and be patrolled by soldiers. Walls with checks would stop smugglers. <i>Road Checks (Gate houses) and look out posts </i> Most likley to by built on a boarder to check who is entering the country by the roads, used to impose the transportation fees (see trade) and stop spys using the road network. Look out posts give advanced warning of enemy troops approaching your country and can also detect smugglers and spies attempting to enter the country. <i>Semi-Underground defences </i> Like Cammo boxes, can be added onto tunnel networks or built into the hill/cliff side or cammo box style onto flat terrain. Can contain cannons and troops. Can be designed by user(see into notes) <b>Espionage </b> Spys can try an cause revolts in city states that were taken over by another player. If a city has belonged to the invadeing player for a longish time then that city will feel as if it belongs to that player. If the city has a high military precence and/or the invading player has given them a good standar of living and/or freedoms that that city will be less likly to revolt and join you. Sabotage trade routes, buildings, ships and military things. If a spy were to continously sabotage a certain players trade route it may cause friction between countries therefore spys can be used to provoke wars. Spys can also steal information, unit positions, building blueprints, technology, money etc. Edited by - Gomacadeshez on February 24, 2001 1:28:16 PM

Congratulations, you have sucessfuly gone OVER the attention span of eveyone in design

I havn''t read everything, but it looks like what you have there is the begenings of a design doc

Just keep working on it, and, if you have any specific problems, then prehaps you should just explain it in a thread, with only specific details

Good Luck

ANDREW RUSSELL STUDIOS
Visit Tiberia: it''s bigger, it''s badder, it''s pouyer...

This looks like an interesting game to play. It certainly seems well planned, so far. (I hate to admit it, but I started skimming after about a third of the way.)

I am concerned, however, that a part of your goal is to minimize the emphasis on warfare. Looking over the sections on diplomacy and the military, I think that this type of game leads naturally to all-out warfare. The goal of many players in this situation would automatically be to dominate the globe by the most ruthless means possible. On the other hand, if you plan to limit this option, you may alienate those players who harbor fantasies of world domination.

I just want to point out that what I see here are the makings of a potentially blood-spillingly violent game (as far as strategy games go, that is.)

Good luck with this project. I would be very interested in following its progress. Please post occasional updates on your progress, if you wouldn''t mind.

~~Jonathon

People who want to rule the world will still be able to try and succed or fail. I just wanted to put more emphesis on the other areas and not just on warefare. A shrewd player would probably use both diplomacy and the military as a tool to get domination.

I'll post a message here again when I have done a basic design document which i'll put on my website.

Edited by - Gomacadeshez on February 27, 2001 1:50:49 PM