Europa 2 Rules

EUROPA RULES

Welcome to Empires of Europa!  New players please read this guide carefully, returning players also read this guide because there's been some changes.

ROLL SYSTEM:

In this game you can take as many actions as you want, but each action increases the difficulty threshold (a.k.a. DC) by 10.  So if I wanted to do 3 actions, I’d have to roll a 30 or above for them to succeed, but if I wanted to just do 1 action I’d only have to get a 10 or above.  9 actions would mean I’d have to get a 90 or above!  Rolling less than half your DC (e.g. I did 3 actions and rolled a 15 or less) will result in BAD things happening to you.  Rolling a crit 1 will result in VERY BAD things happening to you, and your roll will autofail regardless of modifiers.  Rolling a 90 or above, on the other hand, will lead to GOOD things happening, and rolling a 100 will result in VERY GOOD THINGS happening.

EXAMPLE:

I did 3 actions this turn.  So my DC is 30.
Here's what my roll table would be.
1: CRIT FAIL - oh shit
2-14: Bad stuff happens
15-29: Nothing happens
30-89: Success!  The thing got done.
90-99: Awesome!  I got something extra nice!
100: CRIT SUCCESS - PARTY HARD I GOT SOMETHING LEGENDARY

Keep in mind that if an action is impossible or unfeasible to do under your current circumstances (i.e. your ooga booga caveman civ inventing robots, slicing a mountain in half with your bare hands, etc.) it will fail regardless of roll result - even a 100.  However bad stuff and crit 1s won't apply either since the action simply will not happen.  This also applies if your action would go against any of the rules below.

BREAKDOWN OF STAT SHEET

POPULATION:
Population is an abstracted/simplified measure of how many people reside in your lands.  If this reaches zero, either through invasions, disasters, etc. you will lose and be removed from the game.  Population will grow every turn, but only as long as you have more HOUSING and FOOD than your current population (It will be capped by the lower of the two, for example if I have 10 pop, 12 food and 15 housing my pop will be capped at 12).  Population is primarily used to recruit armies (which will subtract population when you make them) but can also give bonuses to rolls if you have enough (+1 per 100 population) and population can also be put into army units for a strength bonus (see Military below).  Population gain per turn can be increased by using techs such as medicine and sanitation as well as building more cities.

FOOD PRODUCTION:
Food Production is an abstracted/simplified measure of how much food your civilization is producing.  It acts as a cap on Population and should generally be kept above your total population if you want your population to keep growing.  Generally you will get +1 to this stat per food resource and +1 per food tech, though this will be increased on all NEW food techs by +1 per 50 people due to there being more manpower available to farm/hunt/fish for food.

HOUSING:
Housing is an abstracted/simplified measure of how much housing/living space is available for your people.  Like food production this acts as a cap on Population so you'll want to keep this number above your population stat if you want your population to keep growing.  You can get more housing by acquiring more territories on the map (see Territory below) or by building outposts/towns/cities.  Territories increase housing by 1 for every territory you acquire while outposts/towns/cities increase housing by 5/10/15 respectively.  Alternatively you can build more buildings like extra housing or improve building techs.

TERRITORY:
Territory represents the amount of territories on the map that you control.  Each territory that you own increases your housing by 1 and also increases the likelihood of finding certain resources if you choose to search for them.  You can get more territories by expanding (spending an action to do so) or by acquiring it from another player or NPC either through conquest or diplomatic means.

OUTPOSTS/TOWNS/CITIES:
Outposts/towns/cities represent the villages and towns that the majority of your population lives in.  You start with 1 (your capital) and must build more as you expand.  As mentioned above building outposts/towns/cities will grant you 5 housing for an outpost, 10 housing for a town and 15 housing for a city.  By default all settlements begin as outposts, though some may start as towns if you do well enough on the roll. However you cannot simply build a city from scratch - it will start as an outpost and then you'll have to build it into a town and then a city.  Outposts/towns/cities are also useful for keeping you in the game, as if someone conquers all your cities then you will lose and thus be removed from the game.  Outposts/towns/cities cannot be built within 2 territories of another outpost/town/city (this applies for both your cities and other people's cities).

HAPPINESS:
Happiness is a measure of the overall morale of your citizens.  It ranges from 10 (Blissful) to -10 (Abysmal).  Happiness can be gained by completing happiness-related buildings or techs (arts and culture, entertainment, etc.), however it can also be lost as a result of bad rolls, war weariness, building or doing things that would generally make an average and reasonable person unhappy, intrigues from other nations, etc.  A happiness of 8 or more will grant a +1 bonus to all rolls while a happiness of 10 will grant +5 to all rolls as long as the happiness stays at 10!  In addition, if you get any additional happiness points that would put your happiness stat above 10, you will be given happiness tokens that can be used to get +5 to a single action (maximum of 1 happiness token per action, they don't stack, also happiness tokens must be used WHEN you roll, not before or after)!  However a happiness of -5 or less will result in a -5 penalty to all rolls that don't involve raising happiness and if your happiness reaches -10 your troops will refuse to fight for you and your people will turn against you, leading to your removal from the game.  Happiness will gradually gravitate towards zero (1 pt every 2 turns or so) as long as nothing is done to make it higher or lower during that time.

TECHNOLOGIES:
Technologies represent the various technological achievements/skills that your civilization has learned.  Each level of a given tech will grant a +1 bonus to rolls involving that tech.  Unique techs can be gained with rolls of 90+ and legendary techs can be gained with rolls of 100, giving +2 and +3 per skill level FOR THAT SKILL LEVEL respectively. For example if I had Masonry II and I wanted to build a house, I would get +2 to that roll.  If I researched masonry, got a 100 and tried building the house with Legendary Roman Masonry III, I would get a +5 to that roll (2 from earlier levels + 3 for legendary).  To get more technologies you can simply research them, however keep in mind that prerequisite techs will be strictly enforced, both with techs (i.e. trying to research chariots before you've discovered wheels) and with materials (i.e. trying to build sailboats without any form of cloth, this especially applies for things like iron/steelmaking).  When in doubt on this ask me first.

Tech Cap: All techs are capped at 5 for the time being, as a majority of players reach certain historical milestones this tech cap may be raised.  This is to encourage people to research a variety of techs and not just stick with powerleveling a few.

A note on technology:
This game takes place in an early bronze age setting, thus while your people are assumed to know the basics of bronze age life (basic survival skills, firemaking, etc.) your civilization is a LONG ways off from making any sort of guns, making steel, etc.  Please DON'T rush guns or future shit and try to stay historically realistic.  Repeated violations of this rule will be punished.

BUILDINGS:
Buildings represent the various buildings that your civilization has built in its cities.  Like techs, buildings can give bonuses to related rolls (i.e. if I had a barracks it would grant me +1 to troop training rolls).  They also give other bonuses - for example having a granary would generate extra food production, having a barracks or harbor would give you a bonus to your troop strength/ship strength respectively, and having walls would give your troops extra strength when defending that settlement.  Just about every building that isn't completely and purposely useless will bestow SOME benefit. ONLY ONE OF ANY GIVEN BUILDING CAN BE BUILT PER CITY.

Great Buildings are buildings of grand scale that take many turns to complete.  These buildings are generally far more effective than normal buildings, equal to a legendary 100 building,

MILITARY:
Your military represents the brave souls willing to defend your nation from outside threats.  It is your military that defends your lands from invaders and without it said invaders can simply take what they wish from you.  Thus your military is a necessity.  You can recruit one unit per action, and your unit's strength will be dependent on any relevant techs you may have (weapons, armor, etc.), how much population you put into it and the result of your recruitment roll (90+ or 100 will make them stronger).  Having a large
 population is essential to having a large military as each unit takes up 5 population.  Additionally, due to the fact that being a part of the military takes up most soldiers' time (training, patrolling, guard duty, etc.) if you draft more than half your population into your military you'll begin to take penalties to rolls due to not having as much manpower around.

If you're a coastal or island nation you may wish to invest in ships as well.  Ships come in two types: transport ships and attack ships.  Transport ships carry your troops across the seas, and can carry 1 unit of land troops per unit of transport ships.  These are necessary for attacking a target across the waves.  Attack ships are useful for attacking other naval units, and gain a 2x bonus when fighting unescorted transport ships, making them essential to defending your shores from attacks.  However keep in mind that while transport ships can drop troops to attack land targets no ships can attack land targets on their own.

A third type of unit is the siege unit.  Siege units are useful when trying to take heavily fortified cities as they help negate the defensive bonuses from walls, forts, etc.  However they're also easy targets if left unprotected and thus regular land units get a 3x bonus against any unescorted siege unit.

RESOURCES:
Resources are the material goods that your civilization has to work with.  These are split up into three categories: Food resources, luxury resources and industrial resources.  Food resources increase your food production and include things like carrots, cattle, etc.  Luxury resources increase your happiness and include things like gold, jewelry, incense, etc.  Industrial resources determine the kinds of things you can build and work with and include things like bronze, stone, wood, cotton, etc.  These give a +1 bonus for each extra resource of this type that you have when working on things that use that particular resource.  For example if you wanted to build a stone house and you have stone+ (2 stone) you'll get +1 to building that house (+1 for every +).  To get more resources, you can either spend an action to search for them (make sure to specify what you're looking for or I'll give you something at random), research relevant techs (for certain processed goods, not so useful for raw materials), or trade for them with others (see trading below)

DIVINE FAVOR/MAGIC
Divine Favor represents how much favor you have gained with your patron god or goddess.  You can use divine favor in a variety of ways.
 For example you can use it to research magic, both for war and for peacetime.  You can also use it to create a demigod, a powerful unit that will boost your military's strength greatly.  (Minimum 3 favor for this)  Lastly you can use it to circumvent bad stuff from happening as a result of low rolls (cost is 3 favor, note that you'll still fail the roll and critfails cannot be avoided in this manner.  Favor can only be used in this manner before the next update).  The more favor you put into an action in this manner, the more powerful the magic or demigod will be.  Note that some spells and magic may require a LOT of favor to achieve the desired effect.  Also note that you can only cast spells from within your god’s domains.  The maximum amount of favor that can be spent for a single spell or demigod is 20.

About gods:
Gods will not appear right away.  Instead they will come to you after a few turns.  The form the god takes and the powers he/she bestows will be based on your fluff and actions leading up to the discovery.  Some may be stronger than others, if you feel you’ve been drastically cheated or want to complain about a significant issue let me know.  New magic can be researched by using divine favor, the more powerful the magic is the more favor will be required.  You can only research magic that is within the god/goddess’s sphere of influence.  Gods will NOT directly intervene in worldly affairs, no matter how much you beg, and you can only worship one god/goddess at a time.

TRADING:

Civilizations can trade resources with, but you can only trade one technology per turn and it costs an action to do so.  It is a free action and automatically succeeds, but note that it will still count as a roll and add to the difficulty threshold as explained below.  DO NOT ROLL FOR TRADES!
The one tech per trade thing means that only one tech level can be traded as well, so if Nation A has Farming V and Nation B has Farming III, Nation B would get Farming IV from the trade.  However unique techs (named techs, etc.) are carried over so Nation A Farming would remain Nation A Farming.
Although the one tech/resource per turn rule is still in effect, unlike with techs if resources are traded you can trade as many of one resource as you have extras of, for example if Nation A has Wheat+++ and Nation B has Iron, Nation A can trade 4 of his wheat (base resource plus 3 +s) and Nation B can trade 1 iron (just base resource) if they wanted to, or if Nation B has Cattle++ they could trade 3 cattle in one turn in return for the 4 wheat if they wanted to.  But trading Wheat and Carrots for Gold and Cattle would still be an invalid action.  Also keep in mind that traded resources cannot be traded again unless the prior trade is cancelled
Also with traded resources or techs if the other party cancels the deal (for example if Nation A and Nation B had a trade going and Nation A attacks Nation B, Nation B could respond by cancelling the trade deal and Nation A would no longer receive whatever was traded.  Nation B would no longer get Nation A's traded item as well).  This is a free action.

BATTLES:

Battles require an action on behalf of the attacker to initiate, though no action is required to defend.  For battles, roll a d10 for every unit.  This along with their multiplier (1x, 1.5x, etc.) will determine their strength.  The one whose combined army rolls are the highest will win the round, although it will likely take several turns to completely resolve a battle.

INACTIVITY:

While it's understandable that sometimes we have to miss turns you should still strive to be an active participant, especially since we have a player cap.  If you miss one turn, you will be entitled to one make-up turn (post as separate turns).  However, miss two turns in a row and you won't get a second make-up turn.  Miss three turns and you'll be removed from the game and your civilization NPC'd.  An observer waiting to play can then jump in at that time.  I don't update that often so this shouldn't be that much of an issue but it's worth stating anyway.

FAQ:

Q: Update weeeeen?
A: Soon™

Q: How do I find other players?
A: You can either use an action to explore for them or if you expand close enough to them you’ll automatically meet.  You may also meet people through other civilizations if they have prominent trade partners you haven’t met yet.

Q: I want to play but there's no space left for players!  What can I do?
A: Sorry but you're gonna have to wait until someone either dies or goes inactive for 3 turns as described above.  Feel free to observe though.

Q: Waaaaah, (insert player here) is kicking my ass!  Make him stop!
A: A good rule of thumb for any non-cooperative builder is to always assume that other players can and will fuck you over if given the opportunity.  My advice to you is to play defensively, always try to stay one step ahead whenever possible, and more importantly TRUST NO ONE.  If you don't want to follow this advice then that's on you.

Q: I have a question about something that isn't in the rules
A: Reread the rules to see if your question is answered here and then ask me in discord.  Don't bombard me with tons of dumb questions, I won't answer them

More to come as questions arise