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Emilersej

Ethem-Man of Armnoserland
29 Badges
Oct 2, 2011
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THEOMACHY II
The Battle of Gods will return!

*

Socialize with other divine beings on our IRC-channel!

*
In Theomachy, that is, the Battle of Gods, you will play as one of the divine spirits which created the Cosmos and clash with other divines as you fight for control over the most powerful ressource in the Cosmos: The reverential worship of mortal men.

Create a civilization of worshippers and guide them through the ages, increasing your power as your civilization grows! Use the power of worship to mold the world according to your wishes: The forces of Creation, Flux, Destruction and Protection are at your disposal, and you can use them to manipulate lifeforms, populations, continents and much more.

In a world where the power of belief can move mountains, the creation of written or unwritten narratives makes up a potent tool that can change the world around you. Write a chronicle of your civilization’s history or a treatise on the movements of the moon, and, unless your peers declare your writings to be heresy, they will become a true part of the cosmic narrative.


Greek+Gods.jpg
Sign-up
Sign-ups are open. Standard sign-ups through the sign-up template below will be available for at least the first three turns of the game. At some point the differences in power between old and new players will be too great, and from that point on, new players must PM me and we will figure out a way for them to enter the game with style. But for now, the only thing you have to do is fill out the form below and you're in the game!

Name:
Sphere: Often, a divine spirit identifies with certain objects or concepts of the Cosmos. It could be something it created or something it likes or something it thinks that mortals like. It could be ancient things such as rocks, or it could be something not invented yet, such as farming. There can be several gods with the same sphere, though it would probably lead to some conflicts. A god can change sphere at any time, so if you don’t want to be anachronistic, you can start out as god of fertility and only later adopt the sphere of farming when it is invented.
Alignment: Gods also often identify with one of the four fundamental forces of nature: Stasis, Flux, Creation and Destruction. Obviously, deities of opposite alignments tend not to like eachother, but the exceptions to this rule are many. Your deity might be an outsider who does not fit into any of these categories. Maybe that's why he ended up in the Middle World. In that case he can identify with multiple alignments or none at all.
Appearance: How does your deity look? Does he have physical form or is he made of pure energy? Keep in mind that the gods probably haven’t even noticed that humans exist yet, so they probably don’t look like them. Unless of course humans were made in the image of gods.
Biography: What has your deity been doing up until now?


Course of the Game
Each turn will consist of three phases: Synod, orders and growth. At the beginning of each turn, the gods may choose to gather for a divine council, or Synod, to discuss recent events and/or adopt new, divine laws. This will be acted out on the thread, although secret backchanneling is allowed, of course. The Synod is the governing body of Gaia, but its form and function is up to the players. It could become a full-fledged divine institution of government with constitutionalized rights for both gods and men, or it could be a mere meeting place where divine disputes are resolved. Note that any laws enacted by the Synod (as with any other body) has to be enforced by the players, unless the gods agree to throw their divine power into it and create a new law of nature (see under ”Actions and Power”).

After Synod, we will proceed to the orders phase in which I will set a deadline and you will post orders and ICs here on the thread before the deadline passes. At this point, it would be beneficial to have downloaded COSMOSCOPE (Classical Greek for ’world-viewer”), is a unity-powered program that allows you, the gods, to view the current state of the mortal world by downloading the save-files (I call them cosmotypes), which I will be uploading as the game moves along. Kind of like in a succession game, except I’m the only one who can unpause the game. You can only use your cosmoscopes to view the game map and statistics; orders will still be posted here on the forums. See the second post for more info on how it works.

When the deadline has passed, I will process the orders using my very own special omnipotent cosmoscope. First, I will calculate how your orders came out - whether they succeeded or not. Then I will hit the "End Turn" button, and the omnipotent cosmoscope will calculate population and divine power for the next turn. While divine power is pretty simple (see below, under "Actions"), population growth is quite complex. Here is a quick run-down:

If the current lands of a civilization cannot sustain the growing populace, its people will seek to settle new, unsettled lands.
If there are no nearby lands to settle, the civilization will try to invent new techs to increase food output and population capacity. The ability of the civilization to do this depends on its polarity - if it is too static, it will be unlikely to invent new techs.
If it failed to invent new technology or the technology just isn't enough to sustain its growing populace, it may attempt to trade techs with its neighbors (if it has invented trading). However, this is also unlikely to happen if the civilization is too static.
If the above isn't enough, the civilization will try to take lands from its neighbors. Its ability to do this depends on its centralization/efficiency level and, of course, viable invasion targets that aren't too strong.
If the civilization still struggles to sustain its populace at this point, stuff will start getting ugly. Rulers might be overthrown if the civilization is too dynamic or, if it is too static, it will stagnate and become more inefficient.
Finally, if your civilization managed to get through all this without collapsing, it will prosper, and new techs will be invented along with other good stuff.

... And then we start over again with a new turn.



Actions
Each turn, you post a set of orders on the thread. I’ll set a deadline, which I’ll try to make fixed, but we’ll see about that. All orders cost power, and the only thing limiting the amount of orders you can make, is how much power you have. The amount of power you have is dependent on how many worshippers you have and can be viewed through the Cosmoscope by clicking the menu and selecting ”God Stats”. Your power will always be at a minimum of 10. You cannot save power for the next turn.

Poetry – the Power of ICs
In this universe where the power of belief litterally can move mountains, storytelling is a powerful tool to shape the world around you, especially if you are a god. Each turn I will offer ideas for ICs based on recent developments – for instance, if two cultures within one civilization come to have the same beliefs, you may tell the story of how they melted together (or how they divided the civilization). In civilization-specific cases like this, only gods of the cultures’ pantheons will get the opportunity to use the power of the narrative, but in other cases, all gods will get a chance, and which story is true and which one is heresy will depend on both the opinions of your peers as well as the superdivine judgment of the Supreme Being (me). You may also write your own unsolicited narratives, but these may not contradict anything explicitly present within the Cosmoscope – so if you write a song of the glory of your holy empire while it is really characterized as a mere alliance of city-states in the cosmoscope, your IC will be regarded as untrue heresy, but if you write about something that is not contradicted by the Cosmoscope, for instance a story of the birth of the Cosmos or a treatise on the cuisine of your civilization, your IC might be true (depending on the opinions of your peers and me) and even have an effect in-game.

Politics – the Unpredictable World of Mortals
For civilization-related orders where you wish to engage in contact with mortals, the amount of power spent on getting the message across determines your chance of success. Furthermore, a well-written IC describing your interaction with the gullible mortals will increase the likelihood of your success, as will building up loyalty. Here are the three methods of communication I’ve come up with:

Oneirophany – Appear before a carefully selected individualsin a dream in an attempt to convince it to do your will. However, it is quite likely that the recipient will perceive it as ”just a dream” – 10 power

Eonophany – Intervene in the physical world of mortals by making some kind of omen or artefact – this can be anything from a comet to the manifestation of a holy scripture, but it cannot be supernatural. Keep in mind that it often requires som prerequisites among the recipient civilization: In the first case, they must know how to interpret the comet – is it good or bad? Does it mean ”go to war” or ”make friends”? You could tell them this through a dream first - and in the second case they need to know how to read and write. - 20 power

Ensarcosis – Endow a part of your spirit in a mortal body for more lasting, direct control – 40 power

Theophany – appear before the people of an area in all your mighty splendour (any form you’d like) in order to make sure that they are listening - 60 power

Noulepsy – sometimes you just have to make sure that things are done right. In these cases, civilization-wide mind control should do the trick - 80 power

Whether you wish to convert mortals to worship you, change their form of government, create alliances or get them to invade their neighbors, the ways of mortal societies are unpredictable so you’ll have to spend power on the above and hope it works.

Theopraxis
Theopraxis is an Ancient Greek word that I just made up, and it denotes the manipulation of objects by means of the four fundamental forces of this universe: Stasis, Destruction, Creation and Flux. With these forces in your hands, you can ravage nations, bring the passing of Time itself to a halt, create new lifeforms of any kind, or mutate existing races to your liking.


The Theopractical List contains mere examples of what you could do.
 
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Pantheon
Almawtia, Goddess of Death, Spirits, Afterlife (happycats517)
Arcus, God of Laws and traditions, Order and Rightful Rule (Brettles)

Arkouda, God of Ice, Winter and Polar Creatures (DutchGuy)
Aynar, God of Responsibility, Nationalism and Industriousness (XxMantoxX)
Dranos, God of Conquest (jeray2000)
Guappaa, God of Angelics and their Slayers (Dadarian)
Harah, God of Order and Perfection (Tapscott)
Hei Long, God of Water and Weather (Duke Dan 'the Man')
Hekate, Deity of Love, Forgiveness and Fertility (Keinwyn)
Hiebosch, Goddess of Deceit, Ambition and Greed (Haresus)
Kamahans, Goddess of Wisdom, Knowledge and Enlightenment (Shebedaone)
Omorphia, Goddess of Beauty and Decadence (Mder1)
Qiion, God of Guarding, Collection and Observation (galren)
Samaran, God of Mountains, Stones and Nature's Might (TJDS)
Shadaris, God of Mysticism, and sorcery (d817819)
Tappaa, God of Monsters and their Slayers (Noco19)

Tatius, Lord of Tyrants (FLESH HUNTER)
Tychaeos, God of Luck (barkardes)
Tyjaa, God of Non-Being and the Void (MastahCheef117)
Ulgan, God of Plagues, Pests and Poisons (Hazbot)
Vitos, God of Health, Cleaning, Purity (Plank of Wood)
Xiuhcoatl, Deity of Fire, Burning and Melting (chopak)
Yemis, God of Smithing, Metallurgy, Masonry, Architecture (Corman50)

Chronicle
Chapter I: Cosmogony
Chapter II: Synod
Chapter III: Anexis
Chapter IV: Dawn of Man
Chapter V: Dawn of War
Chapter VI
Chapter VII: Winter
Chapter VIII: First Snow
Chapter IX: Anarchy
Chapter X: Return of Winter
Chapter XI: The Ice King's Gift
Chapter XII: Storm over the Steppes


Cosmoscope and Stats
Get your very own FREE COSMOSCOPE here! Download by clicking the big download button in the upper right corner of the download page, and then click ”No thanks, continue to download” if it asks you to sign up for a Dropbox account. Install it by unpacking the archive anywhere you feel like. Start up the cosmoscope by running ”Cosmoscope.exe” . A screen will appear asking about screen resolution and desired graphics options. However, the graphics options are a lie. I recommend running it in windowed mode, but that’s up to you.

When you click play, it will load whatever text file named ”CurrentCosmotype” is currently located in the save folder. This is where you will be putting new save files when the time comes. Now, you should be able to see the world map. It works much like Crusader Kings; bring your cursor to the edge of the screen to pan the camera and scroll to zoom in and out. The map consists of hexagonic tiles, and the stats of each tile can be viewed by left-clicking on the tile. When civilizations emerge, you will be able to view civilization stats by double-clicking a tile owned by the civilization. You can also modify the map by right-clicking on any tile and changing its terrain. God stats as well as the properties of the lifeforms in the game can be viewed by using the dropdown menu to the left. Here, you can also change map modes, and in the menu below you can select which world to view, but these options aren’t very interesting yet.

Please notify me if there is any trouble with the software!

Stats
Only god power will be posted on the thread for easy reference. All other stats must be accessed through your own personal cosmoscope.

Tiles
Tile stats can be viewed by clicking the tile in the Cosmoscope. The world map consists of tiles, and unless the tile is unpopulated, it belongs to a civilization. The tile’s population is divided into one or more cultures, and will grow each turn according to the fertility rating of each culture’s race. It will not exceed the maximum population cap for long though, more on that under civilizations. How much population each tile can hold is mainly determined by climate and technologies. The tile info panel also lists defense bonus and owner civilization as well as the name of the area and any magical protection (aegis) affecting, if any. To view civ stats, you can double-click a tile belonging to it. If the civilization dosn’t own any tiles, just double-click any tile, and in the top right corner of the civilisation info panel, there is a dropdown menu, from which you can select all civilizations.


Civilizations
Note that although I often refer to ”your civilization” in this text, it is likely that you will share each civ with other deities. There isn’t much that prevents gods from meddling with each other’s civilizations. Each civilization dominates a number of tiles (or none at all; in that case, the civilization can still be found by selecting it in the top right corner of the civilization info panel), and it should be quite intuitive to determine which ones from the color of the tiles. You can even select the political map mode in the menu in the top left corner of the screen for even clearer demarkation of civilization territories.

The government form listed right beneath the name of the civilization is created from your civilization’s modifiers and just aims to roughly characterize how your civ is governed. It leaves room for quite a bit of interpretation; a republic can be many thing, for instance. Do note that although this government form is in singular, it is quite likely that your civilization consists of smaller polities, and that it has no common government. For more about this, see ’Modifiers’ below.

Centralization: Centralization, or efficiency, as I’ve named it in some places, determines how efficient top-down orders can be carried out by the civilization. If you want a civilization that you can command around, you need to maximize this, as well as the civilization’s loyalty towards you (see below). However, high centralization is often coupled with stagnation, and if there is too much stagnation, your centralization will drop, which will in turn lead to eventual collapse. To see what currently affects your centralization, see ’Modifiers’.

Polarity: Affects your civilization’s ability to make technological and societal advancements. If your civilization is mostly static, it is unlikely to do so, but on the other hand, it might be more centralized. If it’s mostly dynamic, it will make advancement in technology faster, but it also increases the risk of being torn apart by the onslaught of progress. To see what currently affects your polarity, see ’Modifiers’.

Civilization Population: The total population of this civilisation. Hopefully, it consists of the civ’s main culture, as well as possibly several other ones. Other cultures aid in the defense of the civilization, but do not necessarily worship the same gods as the main culture. To see which gods they worship, go to the civilization info screen of their own civilization. If there are too many other cultures, it might be bad for the current order of things.

Main Culture God Loyalty: This is a list of all the gods in the pantheon of the main culture, as well as how loyal the civilization is to each of them. Loyalty determines how much of the main culture’s faith that comes your way. If one god has 20 loyalty, and another 10, they will get 2/3 and 1/3, respectively. Faith is furthermore affected by how intelligent the culture’s race is, and obviously also how many they are. Other cultures present inside your civilization’s borders will worship their own gods. Together with centralization, loyalty also determines how likely orders given by gods are to be carried out. Centralization determines if it is possible for the rulers to do it, and loyalty determines if they are willing to do it. To increase loyalty, think of ways to make the population and rulers love and/or fear you. You can also try to think of ways to make them spend more time on religious activities.

Main Culture Scepticism: Scepticism shows how sceptic people are towards changes in their belief systems. Basically, early civilizations are gullible fools, but as time passes, they will grow more convinced that their own beliefs are the only true ones, and it will become harder to convert them or make changes in their religion. There is nothing you can do about this, apart from manifesting yourself to them with increasing shows of your divine might (see the Politics section under ”Actions” in the first post).

Race: You can view the properties of all creatures by selecting the ’Creature Stats’ option in the menu in the top left corner of the screen.

Military Strength: This, coupled with how many inhabitants there are in the civilization, determines its ability to fight other civilizations. It is affected by the martial abilities of the races residing within the borders of the civilization, as well as modifiers and technology. Military technology mostly only makes advancements when the civilization is at war.

Technologies: A list of all technologies known to the civilization. Sustenance techs, which increase maximum population, and military techs only advance when they are needed due to growing populations or war.

Modifiers: Click the button at the bottom of the panel to spawn an extra panel listing all modifiers affecting your civilization. At the top, you will find some political modifiersdescribing the size of the polities within your civilization (Tribes, City-States, Nation-States or Empire), the nature of the connections between these polities (Diplomatic Ties, Alliance, Confederation, Union), the government forms of these polities (Hereditary Rule, Elective Rule, Militarism, Theocracy, etc.), and how the power is distributed within them (Monarchy with one or two rulers, Oligarchy where power rests with a small number of people or Polyarchy, where the people holds most of the power in some way). Domesticated crops and animals are also listed here, as well as military stuff and other stuff. Lots of stuff.

Lifeforms
The stats of all lifeforms in the game can be viewed by selecting ”Creature Stats” in the menu. To start with, the world is populated by the same animals and plants as our world, although only the more important ones are listed by default.

All life forms possess a wide range of traits that determines whether it is sapient and capable of establishing a civilization, viable for domestication, etc.. For a species to be capable of civilization, it demands an intelligence level of at least 0.8, ability to communicate, a social structure, and manipulator organs (such as hands) if you want them to make any kind technological advances. If you want a creature to be domesticated, you’ll want them to be docile, social and herbivore, although you might be able to tame them for use in warfare without some of these requirements.
For civilized species, fertility determines how fast the population can grow. For domesticated species, it determines how much the population cap is raised when they are domesticated.
Intelligence determines the faith output of populations of this species.
Martial strength and habitat should be pretty self-explanatory.
”Worlds” shows in which worlds the creature can be found.
 
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Seriously tempting me. I always flake out on these things, but I love creating a mythology.
 
Ich bin interested.
 
Interested
 
Interested
 
I am also interested
 
Interested if this manages to last a while.
 
Interested, indeed.
 
Another game from Emil?

You know I'm in!
 
If possible, I'd like to declare dibs on the bottom right jungle peninsula of the Northern continent, specifically the southern jungle hexes with three mountains to the east. I'm thinking of a kind of Polynesian theme. Either an ocean god/goddess or a volcano one.
 
Good to see so many returning people! And new ones too, of course! Okay, I think the first batch of cosmoscopes are ready for distribution!

Get your very own FREE COSMOSCOPE today! Download by clicking the big download button in the upper right corner of the download page, and then click ”No thanks, continue to download” if it asks you to sign up for a Dropbox account. Install it by unpacking the archive anywhere you feel like. Start up the cosmoscope by running ”Cosmoscope.exe” . A screen will appear asking about screen resolution and desired graphics options. However, the options are a lie. I recommend running it in windowed mode, but that’s up to you.

When you click play, it will load whatever text file named ”CurrentCosmotype” is currently located in the save folder. This is where you will be putting new save files when the time comes. Now, you should be able to see the world map. It works much like Crusader Kings; bring your cursor to the edge of the screen to pan the camera and scroll to zoom in and out. The map consists of hexagonic tiles, and the stats of each tile can be viewed by left-clicking on the tile. When civilizations emerge, you will be able to view civilization stats by double-clicking a tile owned by the civilization. You can also modify the map by right-clicking on any tile and changing its terrain. God stats as well as the properties of the lifeforms in the game can be viewed by using the dropdown menu to the left. Here, you can also change map modes, and in the menu below you can select which world to view, but these options aren’t very interesting yet.

Please notify me if there is any trouble with the software!

I am going to write a series of 'dev diaries' on how the game works, and will continually update the first post until we're ready to begin. I have one exam in mid-December, so we'll see about whether it'll be before or after that.

EDIT: I'm not taking official dibs yet, you'll have to sort it out with the other deities later, Dea!
 
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Looks great so far! :)
 
Any other gods interested in teaming up for a fun jungle pantheon? I'm thinking a fire, water and air diety.

Also, I think we should form alliances across alignments. Think about it, most polytheism doesn't have 5 life gods and no death god.
 
I have a general concept planned out Tappaa (name subject to change), Lord of Monsters, Patron of Their Slayers. But I do like Deagh's idea that we sort of work together. I think it would be neat if at least a few of us had some connections or relations among us. Similar to like Greek mythology where many of the gods came from the actions or lineage of others.