Nationbuilder in Space

It's Nationbuilder, but we use a big empty black hexgrid instead, and a bajillion sci-fi tropes.

The rules are usually passed around as a *.pdf file, but with MegaUpload, FileSonic and the rest of the file-locker services being a bunch of pansies, a wiki article may be better.

Rules

The following is from a "Spacebuilder 0.4 by Kalmuk" document shortly before rapidshare deleted it... again.

This page is in need of cleanup. Srsly. It's a fucking mess.

Introduction

Welcome to SpaceBuilder, a NationBuilder in SPESS! This NationBuilder allows players to make their own unique nations on a galactic hex map, expanding, trading, colonizing and doing everything people love about sci-fi.

Sessions start when at least three players are onboard. Most sessions are once a week. There's usually an IRC channel for tabletalk, but any official diplomatic declarations, as well as rebuttals (saying 'yes' or 'no' to an offer) must be made in the forum so that everyone knows what's going on and important stuff is recorded publicly.

For now, Nationbuilder in Space is using this irc chatroom: irc://irc.mibbit.net/#Nation

Creating Nations

When signing up for a game, you will need to provide the following to the game master to establish your nation:

• Race Name & Home Starsystem Name. It is heartily encouraged that your own unique aliens are created, though some game masters are okay if you really want to be CHINA IN SPEES or GREEN ORKS THAT AREN'T ORKS I SWEAR or Space Marines.
• Color for marking territory on the map. Since the map will be a white hexgrid on a black spacescape, don't be an idiot and say "white" or "black." Also see below about the colours used for system markers.
• Government Type. Autocratic? Democratic? During the game you will need to decide how much freedom to give your starsystem colonies.
• Ideology. This is important for diplomatic relations. A technocracy (Adeptus Mechanus) and a plutocracy (Ferengi) will have a better time getting along than, say, militaristic vegetarians (K'kree) and territorial hunters (Kzinti).
• Location. A vague idea of where you'll be starting. Rather than use sci-fi terms like 'coreward' and 'spinward', just "center, east, north, south, west" will do.
• Fluff. Some flavour and color for when you're interacting with the other players.

The Map

The map will be a large hexgrid, 21 or 23 hexes on a side. Each hex represents enough space for one solar system with planets (and comets and Oort cloud, etc), no exact measurements because that's a pain to keep track of. Travel between hexes must be with star-ships; it's assumed any colonized system has as many interplanetary ships, shuttles and patrol boats in to take care of any business.

The map starts out with a "fog of war" on any hexes not explored by players. When a hex is explored and a star system is found, the game master will mark that hex with a colored dot to show the resources in that system:

• Grey - lifeless system, either barren or exterminated, but enough solid mass/ solar radiation to build a base or fleets
• Light Red - average, one habitable world, gives one +1 bonus
• Dark Red - good, two habitable worlds or equivalent, gives two +2 bonuses
• Yellow - excellent, three habitable worlds or equivalent, gives three +3 bonuses
• Green or Purple - paradise, four habitable worlds or equivalent, gives four +4 bonuses
• Blue - mystery system. When colonized, 'dice+d6+d10' for number of habitable worlds and a 1-in-10 random effect. Blue systems may not have the same # of worlds nor random effect; if a duplicate of either is rolled, the next unique lower number is used instead.

Blue systems harbor terrible threats that will definitely ravage the galaxy, but when harnessed, will provide glorious bonuses. It’s advised that you refrain from colonizing blue systems until you have a strong military.

If a nation chooses one of the above colours as "theirs" for marking territory, the referee will adjust one or the other colour and notify the players before the game starts.

Taking Your Turn

In every turn, you post to the game's thread in /tg/, with 'dice+4d100' in the email field. You can state four separate actions in your message (one for each d20 rolled by the forum software, in order).

When your message is posted, the forum software will roll a d100 for each action; 50 or higher means that action succeeded. Rolling "100" means a miraculous success, rolling "1" means a disaster happened during the attempt.

During the course of the game, your nation will receive BONUSES. Bonuses are permanent until they are lost through dice rolls, or a player can SPEND that them, doubling their value for an action but discarding the bonus afterwards. Spent bonuses are discarded whether or not the action was a success, failure, miracle or disaster.

When posting your action, please remind the gamemaster your nation's colour and location to prevent confusion.

Example of a player's turn

Player A posts the following for their turn, with 'dice+4d100' in the email field:

1. Build a fleet
2. Research "hyperdrive" technology
3. Colonize a starsystem
4. Explore to the north

Player A posts the message, and sees the dice rolled 49, 60, 30, 1. "Build a fleet" is <= 10, so it would fail, but Player A's nation already has a "+2 orbital drydock" bonus, bumping that failing 9 to a successful 11.

Example of bonus use:

Build a Fleet (+2 orbital drydock)

Player A rolls a 9 but with the bonus it becomes an 11, meaning the action succeeded.

When posting your action, please state the colour and location of your nation so the referee can avoid confusion in publishing results.

A player's actions can be one of the following:

• Explore target unexplored hex
• (Diplomacy?) Trade technology with another nation
• (Diplomacy?) Trade resources with another nation if there is a trade route
• Build Espionage score by +1
• Launch Espionage mission to steal a bonus from another nation
• Colonize target unclaimed starsystem
• Fleet Battle in the same hex as another nation's fleet forces
• System Battle against another nation's starsystem without their fleet present

Exploration

Before systems can be colonized, they have to be explored. Exploration requires an action, (which means a d20 roll), and a destination hex to be explored that has not yet been explored in this game (still under fog of war). Exploration lifts the fog of war in all hexes around the hex you target; rolling a miracle '20' on the explore action will lift the fog of war for a radius of 2 hexes instead of 1. Exploration teams will claim all empty hexes between the nation's borders and their destination. Hexes with starsystems are not automatically claimed; they must be COLONIZED. Systems you find through exploration have to be named by the player who found them. Rolling a disaster '1' means something bad happens during the exploration team's mission.

Diplomacy

It is assumed that communication technologies are refined enough to allow contact between all nations in the universe (no 'you gotta find me first'), and every nation shares at least one common language with any other. This is for the purpose of speeding up the game. Technology knowledge can be traded with no restrictions; trading resources requires an explored and unobstructed route on the map between the two nations.

Technology

There is no rigid tech-tree, as players basically open up their own tech trees, but traditional 4X tech trees will be used as a guideline for advancing nation technology. All nations start off with the ability to construct starships and colonize systems. For each military force, all nations start with basic (poor) weapons: direct-fire guns and missiles. Keep in mind that this game is not hard sci-fi so all sorts of wacky research is allowed. Even magic is allowed in a sci-fi form (ie. The Force, Psykers and The Warp, etc). Keep in mind that magic by itself will not win you the game but feel free to make your Stellar Wizard Empire.

If you want to research something that you don’t want the other nations to know, put it as Develop/Continue project ‘X’, where X is the codename of your research.

Espionage

Espionage has its own level, like fleets. A nation must build up your intelligence network through actions as they would fleets. A nation with a high enough espionage level can steal a bonus from a target nation if the acting nation's espionage level is higher than the target's espionage level plus the value of the bonus being stolen.. Successful or no, the acting nation's espionage level is reduced for three turns (thus vulnerable to counter-espionage). On a success, the acting nation now owns that bonus! Keep in mind that actions are worth their weight in gold and every action you spend at espionage will mean one less action dedicated to fleet building and colonizing.

Colonization

Colonization requires a roll; a '20' miracle means two starsystems were colonized simultaneously by the same team. Starsystems are rarely just one world; they would have have one 'capital' planet and a subset of auxiliary planets dedicated to their own special fields. The colonizing nation chooses the fields of expertise for these planets – this is expressed as bonuses applicable to other actions.

Systems with more than one planet in them are valuable, as already mentioned in the Map description above. A dark-red system will give the owning nation two +2 bonuses, whereas a light-red system only grants one +1 bonus.

Secession

Through random events, INACTIVITY or pacts forced upon a defeated foe, systems can become independent. Due to lack of leadership from the mother nation, they will stagnate, though if threatened will produce fleets. These independent systems are colour-coded white in the hex map. New players are welcome to take control over such systems and create their own nation from them.

If you cannot play for a certain period of time (2 weeks or more) send an email to the game's referee. The referee may preserve your nation, but for the sake of the other players it will be played "on cruise control" as entering a period of isolation and stagnation. These kind of nations cannot be attacked before a AFK’s players consent (by email or chat). In that case, during a war the ref will roll for that nations fleet recruitment and war. A player may declare another allied player to be their proxy, if it is preferred.

If a player is inactive for a long time (absent from three weekly sessions) without warning as mentioned above, the referee will likely describe the collapse and fracturing of that nation. All systems that were in that nation's area of control are now independent and may be targeted by Colonization actions, easily annexed into other nations. The collapsed nation's territory will no longer be marked with their colour.

War

Players can build fleets to increase their military. There are no 'armies' as in other Nationbuilder games. It is still worth researching land tech – this provides land combat bonuses!

Fleet Battles are resolved as follows: Two nations will have fleets comitted to battle in the same hex. Military strength for each nation during an exchange are calculated with 'dice+Xd10+B', where X is the number of fleets the nation committed to battle, and B is the total of that nation's relevant bonuses. More fleet units give a wider range of strength, and bonuses give a smaller but more reliable strength. Any '1' disaster rolled will lose a fleet from that nation's forces. If a nation's strength is 10 less than the other nation's, the weaker nation loses a fleet for every 10 in difference (ie. 17 vs. 38, difference of 26, the weaker loses (26/10) 2 fleets before the next exchange). If the difference is 10 or less, both sides lose a fleet, but the weaker nation must retreat.If the difference was marginal, that is ten or below, both sides lose a fleet but the winner forces the loser out of the system.

When fighting multiple enemies in the same hex, you have to choose which fleets to send against a given enemy. For example, you cannot send your 12 fleets against two separate enemies twice – you have to split up your forces for that (e.g. two forces of 6 fleets). This makes diplomacy important so that you aren't outnumbered.

If a nation's fleet is the only fleet occupying another nation's colonized system, they may perform a System Battle action. This may be a continuation of a fleet battle in another nation's hex they have colonized, but the forces committed can only be whatever is left over after the Fleet Battle.

System battle rules are still being hashed out.

When making a System Battle, the attacking nation must choose between INVASION or EXTERMINATION. In both cases, the attacking force rolls 'dice Xd10+B' for strength, where X is the number of fleets they wish to dedicate to the attack, and B is the value of relevant ground-attack bonuses for Invasion, or fleet-attack bonuses for Extermination ("nuke 'em from orbit"). The defending player rolls Xd10+B, where X is the number of planets in a system and B is relevant ground- or planetary-defense bonuses. If the defender has a higher strength, the system remains under that nation's control, although the enemy fleets are still in that hex. If the attacker is Invading and gets a higher strength, the attacking nation gains one appropriate +1 bonus for their nation. If the attacker is Exterminating and has a higher strength, the system is changed to "grey" lifeless, and any bonuses that system provided are lost permanently.

Random Effects

During the course of the game, random events will be rolled, at random times. They will either provide glorious bonuses to you or screw you over. In the early game, random events will not be rolled so as not to screw you over right when you start. Beginning from session 3, random events will happen. The referee will 'dice+d20' and check the following chart:

• 20 - Golden Age – All nations in the galaxy now experience a golden age of economic prosperity and scientific discovery! (+3 to rolls for next two turns, +3 to research actions. If you haven’t done much research before now is your chance to catch up!)
• 19-18 – Land Grab – Citizens of nations in the galaxy have decided, in a patriotic fervor, to colonize systems out of their own pockets!
• 17-16 – Economic boom – Galactic economies grow and billions of jobs are gained! (+1 to roll for next two turns)
• 15-8 – Nothing important happens, life goes on as usual.
• 7-6 – Recession – Galactic economies contract and billions lose their jobs. (-1 to roll for next two turns)
• 5-4 – Galactic Discontent – Discontent among nations has made some systems declare independence! (New players are welcome to take over those systems). If this happens early in the game then this just means that fleets have to take a military roll or else nations suffer a -2 to rolls for the next turn.
• 3-2 – Warp Storm – A warp storm has manifested itself! A new (blue) system has appeared, however there may be terrible threats in the system, waiting for unlucky explorers!
• 1 – Disaster!

Each session has a general theme, from the videogamena.me generator. This represents new movements, subcultures, religions and other social events that transcend nations.

Final Notes

For a future run of this game, there might be more of a randomization process – exploration roll deciding whether you encounter a system or not. This could also appease players who wish to be placed in a particular part of the map and treat everyone fairly. For the first game I had a map with all systems on it in an even ratio, with rims having less systems but more overall quality of the systems and the centre having many low quality systems. If there is higher demand I may expand the galaxy and test out the above random system process.

I was also thinking about making bonuses only expendable, making players prioritise.

Any improvements suggested in threads and through chat/email will be added to the PDF file that gets passed around, so as to improve the system. Finally, if there are any good, free hex-map creation software I would be very grateful for providing links to them.

Did you know that Hexographer has a space tileset?