This will be a full game of Through the Ages using Tabels spreadsheets.
The game rules are available at BGG:
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/55064/through-the-ages-english-rulebook.
Unless players disagree on this, the game will use the alternate corruption rule (i.e. you can choose not to produce a resource in order to avoid corruption). Since player hands are easily trackable anyway, they will be public information.
The game will probably start on Saturday.
Signups (4/4):
Tables
Jorbles
ipofanes
cayvie
Rules (shamelessly stolen from Tables and
modified )
Through the Ages is a civilization building game. The goal is to develop your civilization, not to destroy other ones. Military strength is just one aspect of your nation, as well as population, production or science. It is up to you which aspect you will concentrate on, more or less, but you should not underestimate any of them while building your civilization.
Victory is achieved by the player whose nation produces the most culture during the game. However, there are many ways to produce culture: through religion, literature or drama, by building wonders, by utilizing cultural persons etc. Considerable amount of culture can be gained even via wars or aggression.
Description from BGGThis is the thread for the
second Play By Forum game of Vlaada Chvátil's Through The Ages. This is not a short, simple game; it is an epic civilisation building game. As such, players should expect the game to take at least a few months (I predict about 3-4, depending on activity). This does mean it should be an engrossing, fun and strategically deep game, and the long time period should give you lots of time to plan out your moves.
A copy of the rules can be found
on BGG here. The rules are great, they're mostly very clear, and so I will make no attempt to explain the rules myself, and instead advise players to read them (you will need a BGG account, which if you don't have, is hassle free to make). I will of course try and answer any questions players may have.
A public spreadsheet for the game is available [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuoXfjzSnYbsdFNMRTNLZENlR0Y3Z2dvbXFVQjkzb3c#gid=7]here[/url]. Each player has a link to a private sheet, which also includes their own hands.
Players may wish to bookmark
this link, which shows all of the available actions (excluding extras given by wonders or leaders), as well as the turn structure summary. As moderator, sections 1 and 6 will be performed by me. The PBF exclusive section 7: Point out moderator mistakes, will be performed by everyone else.
Some notes for PBF:
- Please do not contact other players about the game outside this thread. I'm not saying you can't mention the game in other threads, but don't go out of your way to conspire in a way that isn't public.
- I will be respecting the standard rules for pacts. This means, you can't talk about a pact you might be proposing before you do, you have to play it, name the roles and the other player can respond. Breaking this rule results in forfeiting your political action for the turn.
- Hopefully your spreadsheets will work, but if there are any issues that crop up, let me know! Also, if you feel that some details could be better displayed, or should be displayed somewhere else, let me know - the sheets are, after all, for your benefit.
- For ease of spotting what your official actions are, please bold your final actions.
- I'm usually pretty lenient about letting people take back actions they realise are not actually good, including possibly accidentally revealing things about their military cards (consider the fact you've revealed the information your punishment). However, do not attempt to abuse my good nature, or I will instigate a 'bold thing=>it happened' policy. However, don't take back decisions because of information revealed after you made them.
- I won't be enforcing a time limit, but for the sake of others, try to play relatively quickly, and respond to events when they happen. Checking the thread maybe two-three times a day would be great, if you can manage it (that's only checking, 80% of those times you won't need to post!). Less is fine, though, so don't worry too much.
Taking your turn:
Turn structure1) Updating the card row: I will do this for you between turns along with step 7
2) Outcome of a war: You sacrifice units, then they sacrifice units, then one or both of you might need to make decisions based on what happened. I will update other things (usually culture) as I see them.
3) Political action: This is probably the most complex bit of your turn. If you want to play an:
- Event: State that you are playing an event in the thread along with it's age and, in case you have multiple events in hand, PM me which one you play. Then, I will reveal the next current event and resolve it (which may require decisions from various players)
- Aggression: Play the aggression in the thread, name your target, and post what you're sacrificing (if you can calculate it yourself, please include your total strength for the aggression as well!). Your rival then posts what they're sacrificing (or bonus cards), and one or both of you might then have to make choices regarding the outcome.
- Pact: Play the pact in the thread, specify which player is A and which is B (if relevant). Your target then either accepts or rejects. Once the proposal has been made, you can talk about it, but you cannot renege or change the proposal.
- War: Announce it as though it were an aggression, but then simply carry on with your turn. Remember it's resolved next turn
- No action: Announce you are skipping your political action (note: Please do announce it, otherwise I might ask people to wait as I check, did you really mean to skip your political action?)
4) Discard excess military cards: Check your military hand limit (normally =military actions), then PM me military cards until you are at your military hand limit.
5) Civil and Military actions: Post all of your civil and military actions directly into the thread. For the first few turns, or whenever you aren't sure, it
may be a good idea to PM them to me instead, just to double check everything you're trying to do is valid. It's easy to forget a few things and make a few mistakes, like, you used military actions on an aggression/war, or that Wonder cost 1 CA more than you thought because you've completed a Wonder already, or accidentally trying to play a military tech with a military action instead of a civil one, and that's just a few examples. Either way if your move is valid, it stands (and I'll post it if you PM'd me) and I'll update everything based on it. If you did something wrong, I'll let you know, and you can fix it.
In certain extreme situations, I might stop and check if you were aware of a consequence of something you did. This is primarily things like 'Woah those actions will give you an uprising, are you sure?' or 'Your military is already maxed at 60, are you sure you want to build those three infantry?' Both of which could be legit things to do e.g. desperately need more science at expense of some resource (for 1) or building up stuff to sacrifice in a crazy war (for 2), but usually, would not be.
6) Production and Maintenance: I'll do all of this for you.
It is possible that I will just post an update to the Card Row in thread without editing the spreadsheet, so that the next player can do his move already, and will try to remember to tell you whether the spreadsheet is up to date or not.Rules in useWe are playing a 4 player full game.
The alternate corruption rule is in effect. This lets you choose for one mine to not produce [unless you ask otherwise, I will do this automatically if it will increase your resources].