As I said, everyone involved will get credit. This game is for love of the gaming community, not for money. I will never charge for it. Kestas has inspired me and HTML5 has enabled making game play smooth and compatible with all types of devices.

Yeah, I mostly wrote it to get the creative juices flowing and to find ideas in my writing of what I really wanted in it.

And no, I don't claim to be a writer. Graphics, yeah. Game mechanics, maybe, Coder and software designer, absolutely. Writer, nope.

How about this intro?

The year is 2120. The President of the United States has orchestrated a coup of Congress and the Supreme Court and taken power as a dictator. His crimes are many and the world has turned it's back on us. You are the governor of a state that has decided to secede form the union. There are a few of you and the Federal Government doesn't have the resources to stop you, but it will fight to maintain control of those states that it still "owns".

United by cause but divided by politics, you and your fellow governors will have to fight for your lives and grow. But your neighbors may not be lost to you yet. The resistance is growing in the occupied states and without any trade, the people become restless and the federal government grows poorer. The USA is cut off from the world and, for the first time in its history, it has no allies...

You'll use political influence, military might, and economic control to hold what is yours and attempt to free the other states from a corrupt Federal regime. Are you up to the task?

a few typos, but written on the fly with the "United by cause but divided by politics..." part scarfed from the longer timeline.

Yeah that's much better, imo

Coolio. I'll clean that up and make it my intro.

I'll keep the timeline as additional material should someone be interested in reading it, but would love it if you all would point out any political hack job/flaws I have put in it.

Much better. Good game writers shorten their work as much as possible. It's web-based. but the description should still be short enough to fit on the back of a board game box.

Thanks, Theodosius. And extra thanks to Putin for pointing me to Conflict. I used it as the back of the box as a bit of inspiration for the writing. Combined it with abgemacht's "describe the game/KISS" and came up with that.

See guys, I can put my ego aside and listen. :-)

Oh and extra thanks to abge as well.

Your backstory is just great Draug, but I'm far more interested in game mechanics. If it don't play it ain't shit. If you need a tester I've always thought I'd be good at providing feedback. I know in an instant why a given game sucks.

I agree YJ as do many here, but I know quite a few gamers who get into the role playing and need the back-story for it.

I will tale you up on the offer though later when I have it coded.

This sounds like it will be quite fun. I definitely want to be a play tester. Here is a few interesting thoughts for your game.

Cities-produces a certain number of points which are used to gain money, military units, technology etc.
Money- creates political influence and is used to upkeep units.
Political influence- influences enemy states to join you and moves your marker higher on the world influence track.
World influence track- used to track all players relations with the outside world. If high enough can gain benefits.
Universities- Cities with universities receive one free technology point.

Possible units could be Infantry, Tanks, air units, war ships, Emp bomb etc. Infantry could total a higher score when defending and could possibly boost city production when inside. Tanks could be good mobile offence units but require a larger upkeep then Infantry. Air units could be great for bombing enemy cities crippling production but lowers your influence markers. War ships could be great for transporting units as well as keeping other enemy ships at bay. EMP bombs could shut down enemy units as well as any cities withen its radious but also lowers influence markers.

The reason for spending money to upkeep units would be to help balance it out so military units would not be to powerful leaving influence almost out of the picture.

Technology points could be earned from cities and Universities and could be saved up for diferant technologies that would upgrade units, unlock the EMP bomb and perhaps some other futuristic weapon prototype.

As for the story I would recommend giving each faction there own story explaning where they are at and why they got there as well as a main over all summary.

I You could take your game many different ways. The above is merely ideas for you to dwell on and stretch, twist, pull and or throw away. Good luck with it. :)

You could take your game many differant ways*

I can't do the story faction because part of the setup is selecting which state you wish to control of the contiguous 48. The game is to be for 2-20 players with 28-46 states plus DC under control of the Federal government at the start.

And while I appreciate the thought, please stop giving game mechanics/rules ideas. You have already mentioned a couple I had thought of myself and now I have to deal with potential "I gave him that idea" issues down the line.

You should call your game Waropoly.

Draug, you know I just sent you a complete working copy of the game. All of the ideas were mine to begin with.

In all seriousness though, a few questions:
1. What happened to the independent who got elected first? (not that it really matters anymore)
2. You say the largest alliance will win. I assume this means an alliance between players, not a group of states owned by an individual one. How will you keep players from defecting to the winning side once the writing is on the wall? How rigid will alliances be? What's to incentivize everyone from merely banding together to kill off the government early?
2. Will the federal government be played by a person, or automated to merely defend itself?

1. The President is in charge of the federal government. He held the coup on Congress and SCOTUS.

2. Could be a single player or multiple players. Players have a spot to lost their alliances on the sheet but to be a true alliance, each player must list the other. Making alliances comes with risks I haven't mentioned though yet, including being able to move across your state at the speed they would move across any state they own. They are other things that happen when you grant a player an alliance as well involving research and stuff.

3. The fed is computer run to defend itself, hence it won't come after you, but it will have garrisons and patrols in any state it controls (Marshall law) and if you are detected by a garrison or patrol, the other patrols will come running your way.

Being hex based, it is also fog of war. You can see all your units and Amy units within two hexes of your units as well as structures within three hexes. Some structures will be known automatically because they are major metro areas (LA, NYC, Chicago, etc.) others won't because they are "future pop centers" from the last 100 years. I will set a size and conditions for which current metro areas appear on the map.

I may revise the future pop centers and make them seen as a governor from that time period would know about them. I'll stick with unknown structures being top secret labs and tech depots and such that only the governor owning the state at the start of the game would know about.

Also, with the secession and gradual collapse of infrastructure, communications might be affected. I haven't decided on that.

This sounds really interesting! I would be happy to get in on testing, whenever that opens up.

I'm just throwing this out there, I'm not good at coding or anything, but I love playing games and writing stories, so I would really love to play test this once you get the game that far.

Oh, and the backstory seems awesome, I really like the style of writing.

Thanks. But the crew above was correct that I needed something catchy for the "get 'em to play" blurb.

Any idea when this might be somewhat ready?

It's still months away form play test. Late summer (August or September) maybe. I'm also working on a site for diabetics to track GI/GL values, try to collect more information on commercial foods (restaurants, prepackaged stuff, bakeries) for it, and be a resource for diabetics who find counting carbs and sugars aren't helping them control their condition.

Then there is my "sophisticated gentleman" site I'm working on, my site to sell the outdoor furniture I design and build, and my site to sell the pipes I carve. IT's whatever has my interest at the moment. And with the pipes and furniture, I actually have those to build and carve when orders come in (already have a furniture side business active, so have to take care of those customers).

Do you have any pipes currently for sale? I was going to make myself a corn cob one, but I missed corn season.

Not yet. All the ones I've carved to date have been for friends. But I could be induced to make one and give it to you for your help with this. It'll have to wait until the spring thaw though as my workshop is too frackin' cold to work right now (no heat in the garage unless I start the Mercedes and then, well, the results wouldn't be very Draugnar friendly as I became asphyxiated and died).

I didn't read through the 2nd page completely but this sounds fun, and I'm interested in helping out a bit if needed.

As for the storyline: does it have to be (just) the US? I think it could be interesting to make a European story, with Russia joining and ruling the EU, sort of by force, and then a big revolution throughout Europe or something...

It could run alongside the US story, for a bigger scope or an extra variant or something.

You might hate the thought of it though.