Still here as well

I'm still in if we give it a go

Yeah when you're good to go, i am as well.

I'm still here, when you have time for it.

Idk. I've had some tough family stuff in the last couple weeks, and so since you were the only one I heard back from and you were gonna be gone, I put this on the back burner. I'm open to get back to it if others are.

Was out for a bit and catching up. Seems that all has gone quiet. Has this come to an end or just a slow patch?

I'm travelling this week so may not reply with much feedback right away

Later than I hoped, but I just posted the basic rules: My original plan was to open up a poll about the various sections and give some time for back and forth, but in the interest of getting this moving I would say we skip that. Even if the rules aren't perfect, there is room for adjustments, additions, or balance changes later on. That said, I am open to hearing any major problems or gaps. Also note, I haven't defined the rules for how sharing the duties of GMing will go, these are just the basic mechanics. Assuming people are willing to try something close to what I posted, next steps will be wrapping up our nations to fit the adjusted stats and requirements, and then making any notes we want to about the relationships between our realms. Then we can start.

In the meantime, I set up a basic Discord server for us to use: If there are any other channels you think we'll need, feel free to make some suggestions.

Sorry all, last week was rougher than expected. Still got a bit of work done on this though. I'm hoping to have it in a spot where we can review things a bit later this week and start playing beginning of next week if that works for everyone.

I made "Heart of Empire" the focal point of map on assumption that havjng it be accessible during gameplay would matter. If that isnt the case I could easily move that to off map and make this whole region on the outskirts of the Empire. I'f also ask that eveyone give me 2 place names for the other nations. Don't put much thought into them beyone a name as just going to add them randomly to remove the XXX placeholders.

The distances are interesting, when i started putting Katraen together I sort of expected it to be the furthest, not for any reason and it doesn't really matter but i thought of it as 'that place way up there' then the continent got really deep south and the center was further north so its really interesting how these things come about.

On the topic of landmass distances and scale of map, see below. Distance (as the crow flies) from the capitol city of Farhaven to the capitol city of: Iemanec Athiri – 2,192 miles Respita – 1,975 miles Edekta Alam – 1.700 miles Allard – 960 miles Katraen – 1,165 Some other points of reference: Tallihah to the word ‘Pith’ – 456 miles Mangthenodir to Ghuelte – 1,150 miles Volcano to Volcano – 750 miles Isles of Loss to Ahmet Botoy – 2,550 miles

Thanks again Rumguzzle for making the map. I'm making progress on the rules. Hoping to post them in the next couple of days or so. In the meantime, I opened up topics for each realm - so feel free to keep working on your background. Now that we know who the players are and the relative positions, we should also start working on what, if any, relationships we have with each other.

City locations thank you for doing this. City locations as follows: Tapaqli Kithka'aype Mangthenodir

That is super cool!

Looks good to me 👍 btw sorry, I meant to give you the settlement names before, not just numbers. Thanks for getting them in there.

Easier for me to address it this way. Hope landmass shape works for all. I'll detail from here.

I agree about not getting too caught up in the weeds, and I don't want to make you iterate too many times. I think we can imagine parts of our realm even if they're not depicted. That said, I was imagining the empire being part of a larger world. I'm happy for that larger world being off-map for now, but I do agree with this: And I want everyone to be relatively happy with their starting position. I wonder if the problem is having the 3 coastal powers on separate coasts. If is fine with switching to the west, and you don't mind making one last shape change, I wonder if this could solve some problems: You and I would have plenty of ocean to explore and another continent to expand into or trade with, while Allard is a bit further out and has its mountain range (Hakootoko may want the mountains placed differently, but this is just the general idea). The empire also has an inhabited land frontier it hasn't tamed/expanded into.

We can do whatever the group feels is best and as Primeval stated, the map should serve the story, not restrain it. I think everyone is going to have to step back a little on the specific details that we all have on our realm in order to be collaborative and make this work. I can live with no sea access to the south or we can close the passage in the SW to make that a landmass and swap locations between Allard and Iemane. I can also shrink the scale of the map and the empire and give more 'dead space' not in their control. I set it at the scale it is for easy of visibility more that anything. what were your initial thoughts on Empire and what existed outside of it. Does a starting map that is mostly the reach of the empire work, leaving out the non-empire world until we develop and encounter? Or a map that shows the Empire as part of the broader world with defined non-controlled areas more defined.

I can definitely see that, and I don't want to interfere with your plans. My concern is that the map is turning into an island (water on three sides, possibly water or arctic wastes at the top) which is almost entirely the empire. The empire just has a bit of mopping up to do before it controls the whole land mass. That doesn't leave us room for any non-imperial land powers, like the plains nomads I was imagining. What do you think we can do? As to the mountains, I was thinking of extending them East in a solid mass.

I wouldn't mind more granular specifics within a stat - for example, you could have a bunch of things military 3 'buys' but i agree that it should generally be just Military Vs. Military just to make it quicker and easier, otherwise we'll get bogged down deciding if the 300 archers you bought are better than the 150 horsemen backed by the 150 spear

Maybe I am missing the question so let me give the example of what I prefer and you can fit it into the bucket it belongs in. So from hakootoko's example of an Elvish Wizards unit facing off against Panzer IIIs it is resolved purely by military value - I agree AND I think that there should be some things gained or accomplished in game that can add to that unit's base value. The other approach could be a table of events that may impact a conflict, rolled against each time a conflict occurs. Could be a good percentage of no impacts but some will. This keeps it simple and gives some randomness that may affect the outcome.

If I extend thend east off the map I am cutting off sea access for Farhaven to sail south and west which is a main part of their fleet trade goals. I can basically move the canal into that area which means it will not be an endless grassland but cut in half by the sea. As far as moubtains, lookibg for more extending east between thr two points mentioned of just move the eastern range that exists over to that spot?

+1 to this