Heirs to the Final Empire: Roleplaying Thread

[Unodus]

-sorry this is late x=x-

A public Missive to Lady Izenry:
Too long I have been away from Luthadel, evidently. This is a declaration of War. Let it be known that Lansing fought by God when wicked men corrupted the weak with false promises. The Final Empire stands.

 

Action 1

Who?  Zonia
What? Using her university contacts to develop a counter weapon to Izenrys explosives (In the form of riot shields or some form of liquid that renders the explosive unlightable)
When? First action 
Why? Well, since House Izenry so kindly sent me the plans of the explosive- in turn I can prepare my units with some sort of counter in order to pacify the threat of Izenrys secret weapon

[little wilson]

Dellan,

Who do these fools think they are? I’ve enclosed copies of their missives within, but the gist of it appears to be that both Uethorn and Penrod are throwing in their support with the Lord Ruler. While Uethorn does have some military clout to speak of, Penrod does not to my knowledge, and neither have anything like our combined might. Do they not realize that this is their one opportunity to get out from our “God’s” control? Are they too blind to see that even before the help of the Inquisition and the minor houses, they are outnumbered and outclassed? Even if their contributions ensure the Lord Ruler’s survival, they will be extinguished in the attempt.

And Uethorn! I thought my father was arrogant, but attempting to foil generations worth of toil and research in but a few days? They will be lucky to understand the slightest part of our designs by the end of it. Nonetheless, if by some miracle they come forward with a working prototype, it will be modelled off of less potent, less reliable, less volatile designs, and likely prove useless in actual combat. While admittedly I did not tell them I was giving them inferior specifications, they cannot be so trusting as to assume I did not hold anything back.

If by wild chance they succeed, do they think the Lord Ruler will reward them? Why would he? They saw him brought low; they received copies of the very weapons that put him in that state. He will wipe the slate clean. Exterminate the Nobility in Luthadel, and rebuild with those from the outer Dominances, who would have heard only rumours of the coup, and have no idea how close it came to success.

My plans are unchanged. I hope that those of our allies remain so as well.

~Aurum

 

Dellan Wilson stared at the note from Aurum, momentarily worried. He read through the missives from Penrod and Uethron, and then he chuckled. The chuckle turned into laughter--great heaves of it--and he put his hand on his desk to support him.

 

“My Lord?” Hadal asked, concerned.

 

Dellan didn’t answer the man, just held out the two short missives to him and continued to laugh.

 

Hadal cocked an eyebrow. “I….fail to see what is so funny about this, sir. They create a problem.”

 

Dellan straightened, taking a breath and steadying himself. “Not a very big one. I commend their loyalty, but one must know when a ship is salvageable and when one should bail from it, lest they drown as it goes down. The Final Empire is taking its last breath, and they wish to take their last breaths along with it.” He shook his head and turned to the window, looking out over Luthadel. Flaring Tin, he could hear shouts in the distance as skaa around the city organized themselves for the assault. Nothing could stop it now. Soon, this would all be theirs. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked Hadal.

 

“What, sir?”

 

“Watching an Empire fall.”

 

Hadal joined him at the window. “Are we sure it’s going to work?”

 

“Izenry was contacted by an Inquisitor. Our false God has no more healing left and we have the Inquisition’s support in the assault. Yes, I would say it’s rather certain that the Empire will fall.”

 

The four of them--Wilson, Izenry, Tekiel, and Elarial--had worked together for over a hundred years, setting the wheels in motion for this. Dellan’s brother had been given to the Inquisition in hopes that he could help the coup, and Dellan himself had done all he could to make sure the Ministry was aligned with them, at least until the Lord Ruler was dead. Tekiel, Izenry, and Elarial had forces all over the city, ready to take it. The Skaa Rebellion was in Tekiel's pocket. The Lord Ruler's army was in Dellan's. Not to mention that he’d sent them and his own troops to the outer dominances to quell any rebellions that might arise among the nobility in the power transfer. It was a great time to live, Dellan thought.

 

The ‘Final’ Empire would fall. And the false god would die.

 

He glanced at Hadal. “Send a runner to Radyn and the other Inquisitors and another runner to the Ministry. I want to ensure their support under the oligarchy.”
 

Hadal nodded and walked out of the study, Dellan still staring out the window. He chuckled again, thinking of Uethorn and Penrod’s missives. “Fools,” he sighed. He didn’t want to have to destroy the two Great Houses, but if they wanted to fight, so be it. To the mists they would go. To the mists they all would go, eventually. But not Dellan. Not his friends. Not yet, anyway. Change was coming. Hope. He smiled.

[Wyrmhero]

The game is now over! I will be uploading the action spreadsheet later in the week to my Dropbox, which I will link you guys to. I will also post my thoughts at this time. If you have any questions before then, ask away!

 

In the meantime, as there is technically quite a bit left over after this rebellion, I am going to post snippets of the aftermath over time, which will allow you guys to potentially direct some RP if desired.

 

My reasoning for following this story path as an ending is due to the plot of Well of Ascension - The Lord Ruler is dead, yes, but this splinters The Final Empire as the rule of law cannot be applied everywhere at once. Instead of one Empire, we now have two - One loyalist, one revolutionary.

 

As for the 'winning' faction in this war, there are a few reasons. Firstly, the anti-TLR group has been planning this for several Generations, and their actions reflect this. Secondly, the existence of gunpowder weaponry. This tips the balance quite considerably in their favour, even with House Elariel's subsequent betrayal. Thirdly, the fact that they were slightly more successful at bribing the Lesser Houses.

 

In any case, thank you all for playing. It's been an interesting and fun game. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did 

 

---

 

The rebellion was swift and brutal and chaotic. Blood flowed freely through the streets, and disease proliferated through the slums as the bodies piled up. House Tekiel troops were already marching the streets when House Izenry tried to kill The Lord Ruler, and when the explosion rang out through the city, they immediately turned to oppressing dissenters. At that, House Elariel troops suddenly turned on their apparent allies, butchering many of them before they were aware that they had been double-crossed. Ultimately, however, the support of House Izenry's firearms proved to be enough to tip the balance in their faction's favour, and the city became covered in the soot and smoke of gunpowder. By the end, uniforms from all the Great Houses littered the streets, left to rot by the armies while they had more important things to deal with.

 

It was several weeks after the initial rebellion, and there was still an uneasy sense in Luthadel. A number of the Lesser Houses had kept out of the fight, in case they backed the wrong person, but they were slowly coming to the realisation that the fight was now practically over. Those that had fought with House Izenry and used their new ferocious weapons to fight The Final Empire had been exalted, while the rest were diminished in status. But that was a long-term consideration. Now, all the Lesser Houses tightened their security and drew inwards. As for the Skaa, they stayed indoors, and got on with their lives as they had previously done. As far as they were concerned, a change in the administration of The Final Empire did not affect them at all.

 

The Steel Ministry had started making noises about it, of course, demanding that the Great Houses and their troops return home immediately, but they were ignored. Those that did not quietly keep on with their task of making sure the city and Empire ran smoothly were locked away until they changed their minds.

 

The Inquisition, on the other hand, were strangely absent while the coup was occurring. They did not come out to condemn Houses Tekiel, Wilson or Izenry, nor did they help them. There were rumours of them heading East, towards the Outer Dominances where House Wilson's troops were currently, but nothing substantiated.

 

Some other nobles seemed to have the same idea of leaving the city. A mass exodus of Lesser and Greater nobles alike headed out to the 'true' Final Empire – A loose alliance of Dominances held by Houses Elariel, Penrod and Uethorn. Steel Ministry agents too, if they could get away from the city quietly enough. It was said that these three Houses were amassing armies and rallying support, and it was practically an open secret that an all-out war would happen sooner rather than later.

 

The Skaa Rebellion on the other hand had seen its chance after all these years. Both sides had promised them rewards for their aid in this conflict, but considering how they were normally treated by the nobility, they decided to simply use the confusion to be lawless. Violent crime rates increased dramatically, as they thieved, murdered and even kidnapped people from the now vulnerable city.

 

And in the centre of the town, hundreds upon hundreds of guardsmen stood before the twisted, jagged mass of iron that was once a palace, but was now a prison. Each was equipped with an Izenry firearm or a bow with obsidian-tipped arrows. They all had one job – To keep God contained. It was reasoned that if he could be vulnerable, then he could suffer from a siege. Eventually, he would have to leave the palace due to starvation. At that point, they could take him down. And in the mean time, the Imperial Guard were starting to defect. Every day, another starving man would stumble out, begging for food and water.

 

But that had ended now, it seemed. It had been a week, and not a single soul had left the palace. But that did nothing to help the guardsmen feel settled; it only made them feel more disturbed.

 

“You four,” a uniformed officer said to some skaa on duty. Noble, still dismissive towards the skaa no matter what his masters might have claimed was the future for the downtrodden class. “Scout the palace. Report back if you see anything.”

 

They could have complained, but that would only lead to their certain death now instead of potentially later. So they switched their firearms, which would not be useful in the confined corridors, for duelling staves, and entered the mess of metal.

 

They saw nothing living inside. Slowly and cautiously they made their way through the chambers and passageways, jumping at every shadow that they saw. Eventually, they found the throne room. It too was empty, the throne itself abandoned and covered in a thin layer of dust. A piece of parchment lay on the floor before it. They took the note and brought it outside to find someone literate to read it.

 

The note was hastily scribbled, and not neat. The hand that wrote it was shaking, and the ink was smudged in places. However, it was still legible.

 

The longer I remain here, the weaker I become. I could leave, but I will not get far, and I would rather die as I choose in my palace as a king than pierced by arrows to collapse on the streets like some vagrant. Who would have thought that it would not be age catching up with me, but food and energy? Something I have never bothered to stockpile. But regardless, I have decided that I will not wait to starve, but to meet my passing with the dignity that befits someone of my stature. I write this cursing the world you wish to create, and I take pleasure in knowing that it will crumble to dust just as I will after I finish this.

 

If you had accepted my rule, there would be more than Ruin in your futures. But alas. The penalty for high treason is that the Empire shall wither and die. Entropy cannot be defeated by mortals, only God, and you have killed Him. You have a few years of this world left to enjoy before it all falls apart; I look forward to watching your despair and suffering from the other side.

 

Rashek,

The Lord Ruler of The Final Empire.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[little wilson]

That was amazing, Wyrm. This has been a way fun game to play.

I suppose I might as well reveal the Revolutionaries docs. We talked a lot, though not nearly as much in the last few generations as the first 6/7. Generation 7 was collectively the Gen that a lot of our docs and our spreadsheet fell out of date. Same with the genealogy tree thing that Comatose and I were working on in Family Echo (which I'd share, but....it's not really something you can mass-share all that well). Everything just stopped getting updated sometime between Generations 6 and 7, unfortunately. But they were nice while they lasted.

Wilson/Tekiel/Izenry's Heirs Action and Genealogy Spreadsheet (complete with map and finances stuff (that isn't very complete....))
Wilson-Tekiel Alliance Doc (very early game)
Wilson-Izenry-Tekiel Alliance, Gen 1-3
Wilson-Izenry-Tekiel Alliance, Gen 4-6 (eventually added Heatherlocke for a time, and became the WHIT alliance rather than the WIT alliance)
WIT Alliance Current Discussion
WIT/WHIT Alliance Questions and CP'ed PMs and Stuff
WIT/WHIT Random Discussion

Other interesting docs:
The End of an Empire (Wilson, Tekiel, Izenry, and Elarial)
Wilson-Zerrung
The Impending Destruction of Vinid & Erikell (with Houses Wilson, Tekiel, Izenry, Zerrung, and Jormundgand)
The Wilson-Heatherlocke Diplomatic Channel
The Security Coalition (early game, with Wilson, Izenry, Artorius, Queade, and Zerrung)

Yeah....So total word count of the WIT alliance and the docs regarding the WIT alliance comes out to just under 250k words.
Total count of all of my docs (with players) is about 344k. Wow. 

BTW, I would not really suggest people read most of those docs. I mean, the WIT docs are almost exclusively game-related, since all the non-game-related stuff ended up in the Random Discussion doc, but....unless you want to read over 200k strategy and stuff, I wouldn't recommend it. The first doc for gens 1-3 is over 100k just by itself. It's kind of insane. I suppose reading the first part of that doc to get an idea of our alliance and then the current doc and the End of an Empire doc would probably be the best if you're actually interested in reading anything. That total's only about 20k. Which is much more reasonable. >>

Anyway. Yeah. This game was really fun, and I'm sorry I didn't RP as much towards the end, Wyrm. RL was busy, plus it's a little hard to RP when you're planning a revolution and can't give that away.  But I loved it. It was great.

[Unodus]

huh. So this is what it feels like to be outmaneuvered by the infamous Wilson... 
That business with the spies was pretty trixsy, bro x3

 

Thank you for running this game, Wyrm- it's been very inspiring (sorry that things got a little unravelled near the end...)

Edited November 6, 2016 by Unodus

[little wilson]

Heh. Speaking of, Unodus. Uh. I have a story for you.

In Generation 4, I decided to purge my house of spies. In this purge, I found one spy, and Wyrm asked me what I wanted to do with him. I ultimately decided to let the spy think that he hadn't been found, and start feeding false information through him, as just an addendum to my actions each turn, so it doesn't even have an action cost (which was beautiful). However, there was one problem with this: I didn't know what House the spy worked for.

To discover this, I decide to feed the spy false info about an attack I was planning on House Heron, posing as Izenry troops. Obviously, I was in contact with Izenry, so if Izenry got a tip about it, he'd let me know who it came from, and I had also been in close contact with Heron. I let Heron know what I was doing in case the tip came to him.

Farrsolin contacted Heron almost immediately the following Turn after the information was relayed, warning him of an impending attack. Heron tells me about this, so I am convinced that Farrsolin is responsible for the spy. I decide to troll him. This is what I sent to Wyrm:

I think I'm hilarious and Farrsolin will be completely confused about why he's doing something he had no idea that he's doing. I know it'll blow my whole cover with the spy, but I'm simply out to troll Farrsolin so I don't really care.

Heron is promptly contacted by Uethorn, who begs Heron to tell him who Heron is in contact with, because he's been outmaneuvered by someone, but doesn't know who. Heron and I have a feeling it has something to do with the spy, but we don't know how. Heron continues talking to Uethorn. Eventually, he learns that the spy is Uethorn's, and that Uethorn had used Farrsolin as a proxy to protect his identity, and now is convinced that Farrsolin has betrayed him and is aiding in this attack.

Kas and I are dying at this new, very important bit of information. There I went, trying to troll Farrsolin, and I ended up trolling Uethorn even harder. It could not have worked out better.

I decide to continue the charade, keeping the troll going, because why not? My next information drop:

What was left unsaid: I'm arming them with love (Kas' idea). Yes, at this point, Kas and I are both in full-out troll mode. We'd even talked about me faking an attack on him, so it looked like he'd been attacked to everyone else, but he hadn't actually been attacked. We had Plans.

Unfortunately, I then had some finance issues with my wealth spring up and by the time I got those somewhat sorted, Heron left the game. But it was great fun while it lasted.

[Araris Valerian]

Haha, well played fellow Great Houses, and thank you a lot for running this Wyrm! I didn't see direct play to player conflict as a part of this game (which it clearly was), so I didn't invest in intrigue really at all. And I got burned pretty badly a couple of times, once because I sent in unclear orders to Wyrm :/. Still, it was fun to try and balance between a loyalty to TLR and having skaa on my side. I was legitimately surprised that the skaa rebellion wasn't supporting me, considering my House's reputation, and the 3 kandra I had among their ranks. They were supposed to attack Wilson there at the end...

[Unodus]

What makes it worse is that in actuality, Farrsolin was never my ally- but someone else I had a spy on and got caught and confronted me about it the turn before you did your infomation planting. Seeing the potential rise of a house war, I only persuaded him to carry the message for me since he was the only one who could carry my warning without exposing my network x.x
After that derailed I withdrew all my spies and became a steward far away from luthadel for the rest of the game, slowly building my metal reserves & mp and distancing myself from a war that never happened..

Sorta wish I'd done all my scheming in google docs now- all my conversations were primarily in character and over pms... X:

End of the day, there's always another secret- eh?

Edited November 7, 2016 by Unodus

[little wilson]

Wait, wait. That trolling got you worried about a House War so you withdrew everything and went away from Luthadel? o.O I....almost feel bad about that. Almost.

Also, Araris, you can blame/thank Orlok for that. He was making I think 80+ wealth every turn and basically bought off the rebellion. So there was never really any chance of them attacking me since he had a pretty good hold on them. Fortunately. All of my MP was out in the outer dominances. Mine and TLR's (which I think the total of both of those was something like 230 or so).

[Comatose]

THat was awesome wyrm!!! Thanks for running this. 

 

So so did anyone in the anti lord ruler alliance see my betrayal coming?  I noticed our document went quiet a while ago and was wondering if I'd been found out.  I thought my spying would be enough to give TLR an edge, but I guess not.

As a side note, had he not given up, couldn't Rashek have compounded food or calories to survive?  I also thought there were some tin cans in the cavern below the palace with food, but maybe that's different in our AU.

 

I was really hoping Vin would make an appearance but I guess that's still to come   

 

On the whole I wish I'd had more time to commit to the mid turn scheming, but it seemed like a struggle a lot of the time just to get my actions together in time. 

 

With the actions to be disclosed are we free to reveal game secrets?  I don't want to spoil anything prematurely.  

 

(Also Wilson, I think I can figure out a way to share the family tree the next time I'm on my computer).  

[Wyrmhero]

I guess this is the ending theme?

The game is indeed now over, so feel free to reveal any information you like - I can guess what you want to say, Comatose

 

The question of Vin is difficult. In this, Kelsier has not been caught and sent to the Pits of Hathsin, so he has not Snapped. He cannot train Vin if she exists (Tevidian Tekiel could exist, I suppose, as a branch off the Tekiel family tree). At the very least, with Kelsier Unsnapped, TLR dead and Elend possibly nonexistent (I had reasons why it was Straff who died >>), canon has certainly been derailed.

 

While Rashek could have compounded calories, the issue is not one of Investiture here, but actually of the metal. The problem for him was not the lack of energy per se, but of the metal required to compound it. And while it is true that there is the cache below the palace (I can't remember if it stored anything other than lerasium beads?), it would be almost impossible for The Lord Ruler to reclaim his Empire like this. As such, better to bow out with dignity and laugh at you all from the next world than stay.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Kasimir]

That was awesome Thanks for GMing this, Chief - I enjoyed playing it, even though I had to bow out early due to RL, and never got to finish some of the character arcs I'd planned for the Herons.

As a brief addendum/coda to Wilson's thing with the spies, I did in fact wind up discovering a Uethorn spy in my own House. As that particular Heron I was playing was practically a sociopath, and also pretty Machiavellian, her instinctive, in-character response? Publicly execute the spy. It was especially a big deal because the skaa rebellion was ongoing and the last thing she wanted was for any of the Heron skaa to think it was okay to turn traitor.

Still, that went down so badly with Unodus it was kind of funny, in retrospect. But there you have it.

[Comatose]

I thought giving up was still very in character for for Rashek; I was just curious .  

Sooooo, did anyone realize or figure out that Elariel was administering the atium mines?

[little wilson]

10 hours ago, Comatose said:

So so did anyone in the anti lord ruler alliance see my betrayal coming?  I noticed our document went quiet a while ago and was wondering if I'd been found out.  I thought my spying would be enough to give TLR an edge, but I guess not.

Well, there was the tip in the writeup about a spy, but I didn't take that seriously. See, we invited you in because my spy network had caught a couple of interesting pieces of information about you: a guarded encampment north of Luthadel, a defection, and one of your public actions on the spreadsheet was setting the skaa against the Steel Ministry. We assumed that you were working against TLR and we decided to invite you in to help because we figured your atium stockpiles (which I knew about) would help and a fourth person couldn't hurt. Plus, we didn't want your plans going against our plans and everything falling apart for everyone.

In retrospect, it's painfully obvious what you were actually doing. Even after you joined, I was getting info on you (not intentionally; the spy I had in Elariel just kept finding things and I kept forgetting to pull him out of an ally's House). I saw skaa transport by House Queade (which, now that I'm thinking about that, Queade was over the prisons), activity around the Mines, more atium stockpiling, and even more atium stockpiling. The real kicker though? You requesting an audience with TLR. Yes, I saw that too. But I just assumed you were doing that to help us. *facepalm*

Fortunately, as you said, it didn't stop the revolution from happening. Likely only because of how much time we'd already spent on it. I'd invested a bunch of time into reputation, particularly with the Steel Ministry, but a bit with the Inquisition and TLR as well (though the Ministry was by far the easiest to gather rep with) and Aonar had spent generations working on the explosives. Plus what Orlok was doing with the skaa.

We started formulating the ideas of revolution or changing history just after Bands released in January, because I'd met Maill and Deathclutch at the release and we were talking about the game. DC had kidnapped Venture's heir as Winter left the game, to help his house's allomancy, and he was using cocaine to drug Vinid's army. Now, I'd already known from other conversations both I and Orlok had had with Wyrm that Wyrm really kind of wanted the history to change. He didn't really want it running exactly like it had in the book. So we thought, well, let's do something about that. DC found cocaine, so I wonder what we can do. We narrowed things down to either going after technology or trying to find Feruchemy, and ultimately decided on technology because we wanted gunpowder. Which we didn't get, but through Aonar's researching trying to find gunpowder, he found the explosives instead.  So...yeah. This revolution was about 9 months in the making.

And the reason the doc went silent wasn't because we didn't trust you. We just were all on Facebook, and had a conversation there and were using that instead of the doc.

 

Also, in case anyone is curious, Maill talked to me after he left the game and admitted that just about any attack on any House that was unclaimed was him. Urbain's winery going up in flames? Zerrung. He said that the Urbain attack was just a test. He wanted to know if it was possible to get in, get out, and not leave any trace. And it was. Using kandra. When Urbain and friends investigated, the trail led to the body of a skaa who had died weeks before the attack and that's where it went cold. Zerrung also tried to kidnap my heir (who was too well-guarded though a Mistborn got injured), and he stole atium from Izenry as Izenry was out stealing atium from Erikell for Zerrung (as in, Zerrung hired Izenry to steal Erikell's atium, and then Zerrung stole Izenry's atium while Izenry was doing the job).

 

And Araris, question: were you told about someone breaking into your archives late one night, but sneaking out before they could be caught? Because if so, that was me. I was researching early history about TLR hoping to find allusions to pre-Ascension weaponry and stuff. That wasn't completely successful, though I'd found a teaser for something intriguing but I wasn't able to follow up on it because that was the same turn my army started having disciplinary problems and then they started defecting. Cocaine in the food and/or water supply of an army is not something I would recommend. I was worried it was going to end with my head in a basket because I couldn't control TLR's army (it's a good thing Jormundgand left the game, because we would've destroyed him instead of going after TLR....I was really not happy with him drugging my army knowing that I would know that he was drugging my army). >>

[Unodus]

*flips table at political shenanigans*

 

 

[Wyrmhero]

2 hours ago, little wilson said:

and he stole atium from Izenry as Izenry was out stealing atium from Erikell for Zerrung (as in, Zerrung hired Izenry to steal Erikell's atium, and then Zerrung stole Izenry's atium while Izenry was doing the job).

I couldn't stop laughing for a long while when I saw that :P.

 

I wanted you guys to play around with history in this because you could. How it was changed was up in the air though - If effort was put into it, I would have been happy with anything. That's partly why I introduced stuff over time as well - So you could play with the various aspects.

 

Also, would you guys like more write-ups to define the aftermath of the game, or would you rather it was left more up to personal interpretation?

Edited November 7, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Araris Valerian]

I was never told about any breakins . My security wasn't ever that great, since I was hoping to avoid all of the inter-House politics and thus not have to spend resources on that sort of thing. I did get an offer, I think from an Izenry, to assist him in overthrowing the heir to his House. But I just killed him, and that was probably the most involved I was in any politicking.

[little wilson]

Huh. I figured you wouldn't been told something about it, but it was a super stealth mission. It was only Elerek and two of his Mistborn breaking in.

What was everyone's AS at the end? Mine was at 4000 and I'm pretty sure I was one of the highest. I think.

[Araris Valerian]

Yeah, mine was 1500. I invested a little in that at the start of the game, but I didn't start as Mistborn and I had a few cycles I didn't get around to marrying my heir actively. Beyond that, I never took advantage of the Wilson Marriage Service.

[little wilson]

Even some of the people who did sign up for it weren't actually able to get anything for it. In Gen 5, the last gen I did the stewardship, I was looking at all the heirs I was supposed to find matches for going "sdajfkgjaeij i have 8 males including my two heirs and only 3 females how is this supposed to work o.O" and everyone else was either inactive or didn't care about PC marriages. I was not happy. Wyrm got Words from me about that. >>

Though it actually balanced out well in the end, so nice job on that front, Wyrm. Total's 114 females to 115 males.

[Unodus]

I was at 2000, which I think was pretty good since I didn't start as an allomatic house or get involved with the marriage shenanigans :B

Put a lot of effort into making Lansing a nice place too

Edited November 7, 2016 by Unodus

[Comatose]

2500 AS for me.  I tried my best to up it as much as possible and spent extra rep when arranging NPC marriages.  

[Wyrmhero]

So, here is the document I used to keep track of stuff. Please don't mention any mistakes, it got rather complicated >>.
 

So, my thoughts on this game - Firstly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, balancing stuff is hard. It's not just a question of what I expect to happen, but what the players will actually do. For example, you guys spent a lot, lot longer setting up your economies than I expected. There was also a huge variety of profit being made across the board, for various reasons. The idea was that eventually your profit would cap due to Upkeep, and that you wouldn't want to just go for Wealth-producing Properties as it meant you'd have to pay more for Items. This didn't really work as well as I'd hoped, as is pretty obvious.

The other aspect is that I was treating this more as a Roleplaying setting than as a game initially - I expected people to make somewhat sub-par moves for the purposes of flavour. That occurred at times, but not as much as I was expecting. I was hoping to see more Roleplaying posts as well. I'm not sure what I could have done to encourage this further though, as it was apparently the time aspect which prevented this from happening more often than not.

It is interesting that I have only recently really encountered a game of this style elsewhere. Originally, it was designed as a cross between Civilisation and a play-by-post RP setting, but I have recently found something which describes this game better. I was recently introduced to Europa Universalis IV, which is a 'Grand Strategy' game, and I think this is a better example. I think this game would be incredible as a computer game by the same people, certainly much better designed :P.

So continuing on, as a GM this was a lot of work on specific days. Overall it wasn't that bad, it's just that it got concentrated on Sunday pretty heavily. To anyone considering doing similar, prepare yourself for this and simplify things as much as possible. As has been said, mistakes were commonly made due to the huge number of moving parts, though I tried to be fair as much as possible. Indeed, my GM philosophy is to try to allow you to do what you want to do, and I find it hard to deny that unless absolutely necessary.

But mostly, I wanted you guys to have fun. And it looks like that aspect was achieved :).

[Unodus]

wow, I didn't realise there was so much going on behind the scenes x.x
 

[Comatose]

Sorry to kind of necro this (one month isn't too bad right?), but I finally found time to grab the link to the family tree Wilson and (mostly just Wilson) I set up.  It's not complete, but its fun to play around with.

I'm not sure if the link will work for more than one person, so if it doesn't work, let me know and I'll create more links.

http://www.familyecho.com/?p=Q68D3&c=16z0lezl0q6&f=657866704298954460