[General] BoP Main Thread: Host Pixel

Pixel said:

Please don't metagame - that is, use information from outside the game to your advantage (like judgments based on the player, rather than their country)

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Spoiler

Pixel said:

Eternal hasn't updated his bop thread in ... literally years, and it was decided by the popular vote of about 3 people that I throw up a new one that's all like super up to date and stuff. And hopefully will be kept that way. So...

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Balance of Power: The Vikings
The Vikings, Magyars, Byzantines, Khazars, Celts, the Dark Ages of Europe and the Islamic Golden Age of the Arabs

This is the age of fire and iron, of storms and longships, of the Old Gods raging against the new religion: this is the Viking Age, at its brightest fury. From their frigid homeland from across the North Sea, raiders from the Norselands are spreading in every direction in search of plunder, fame, and new lands to explore and settle. The settled pattern of the past decades of small-scale raids is about to change: stirrings in the North and the prophecies of seers indicate that a great change is on the horizon, when the men of the North draw their swords and longships together into a mighty force capable of toppling the old kingdoms of the distant Continent and isles, and raising their own over their ashes. A new terror is about to be unleashed on Europe, joined by the arrival of the roving hordes of Magyars upon the far frontiers in the East, and even strong states from the successors of Charlemagne, the kings of Great Britain, and the fortress of Great Moravia will struggle to weather the storm to come.

At the same time, across mountains and sea and a thousand leagues in the sands and rivers of the Near East, humankind is experiencing one of the most profound flowerings of thought, sciences, and the arts in history within the cradle of Islamic civilization, which has found itself as a meeting point between scholars and philosophers of dozens of cultures and faiths. Regardless despite the stability that has reigned for generations in the Islamic heartland and the rarified learning they have accomplished within the House of Wisdom, the Caliphate is on the verge of turmoil. The Turkish slave-soldiers that have been their fiercest warriors have begun to realize their own power in the realm of politics, and the great bastion of Christianity against the East, the annual foe of the Byzantines, have begun to recover from their decades of internal conflict over the Iconoclast controversy, and reclaim their lost splendor and strength.

With old empires dividing, and fledgling new states arising, who will have the strength to repel the coming winter? For in the arriving dark, no church nor refuge is safe;

"From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord deliver us."



This setting is at 860CE at the cusp of the greatest upheavals of the Early Middle Ages: a time of swords and fire, when the Viking raiders begin to join their forces to not just plunder, but conquer, and topple the settled kingdoms of Europe to carve out territories of their own. The area of play would be focused largely on Europe and the Near East, where even at the furthest reach of the Vikings, great events would play out in the flickering old hearthes of the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the successors of Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire. These flames of civilization are joined by vibrant new lights in centers like Cordoba, Great Moravia, Khazaria, and Sicily, while petty kingdoms flourish in the borderlands and peripheries, asserting their proud independence in Anglo-Saxon Britain and Celtic Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. But new or old, all now find themselves at the mercy of ruthless raiders hailing from the frozen Norse sea, or from thundering hooves bearing down upon the Eastern marches under the banner of the Magyar horde.

In terms of gameplay, this is an age marked by raiding on the grand-scale, punctuated by epic conquests and periods of trading and coexistence. Exploration also looms large, finding not only new trade routes and lifting the veil of ignorance across a world thrown into ignorance in the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire, but voyaging even further to lands unknown even by the ancients, boldly venturing to new territories and new continents across the rolling sea, spearheaded by the Vikings towards the Americas and the Arab-Swahili down the coasts of East Africa. Significant disparities in power may mark some players against others, encouraging different styles of play between petty chiefs, kingdoms, and empires, but localized concentration of power and coalitions can even the playing field. Expect some elements from BoP: Kings of Dragon Pass to appear, adapted into a wider and more contentious arena of cutthroat international politics in an age of ruthless raiding and war, while the struggles of colonization and  statebuilding manifest for those bold enough to forge new kingdoms on the frontier. Expansion further east along the Silk Road, from the Hindu states of India to Tang China where it is about to face the wrath of the bandit armies of Huang Chao, and the rarified splendors of Silla Korea and Heian Japan as well as the thalassocratic empire of Srivijaya, can be considered with co-host.

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Balance of Power: The Silk Road
The Mongols, the High Middle Ages, Crusades, Empires, Song China, and the Silk Road

This is the peak of Medieval Civilization: an age where more independent centers of civilization proliferated and shone than any other, a multi-polar world more diverse and vibrant than ever before. From England to the Khmer Empire, Mali to the Song Dynasty of China, states new and old are experiencing golden ages amidst record population growth and the brisk competition between rising kingdoms. In Italy, the Renaissance has begun in the city-states of Venice, Florence, and Genoa, and in China the Southern Song is undergoing an Industrial Revolution amidst technological innovations that would give birth to the modern world. Knights in shining armor clash and joust in chivalric contests in Europe while the Bushido of the Samurai rises in Japan, and along the Silk Road, the beating heart which connects the Old World as we know it, trade routes pulse briskly with goods and fortunes.

Yet this world stands on the brink: the bountiful harvests and mild winters of the Medieval Warming Period are ending. And riding hard on the brink of this climatic upheaval, is the greatest nomadic conqueror ever, who at the end of his conquests and those of his sons, would forge the largest contiguous empire in human history. Beneath it would be the ashes of kingdoms and of millions who dared to oppose him or were unfortunate enough to stand in his way. In 1207, a man named Temujin became Genghis Khan, and on this year, he would lead his horde from the open steppes of Central Asia out to unite the world. He would come closer than anyone else in history. By the end, using every method and every ounce of cunning born on the hard Siberian steppe, the majority of the Old World was under the rule of the Khans, and they would blot out every king and challenger in their way. This is the 13th Century, and though the world hums and prospers in blissful ignorance, a change unimaginable in scope and ferocity is upon the horizon. The Mongols are coming.



This setting is, at least initially, focused on what we would call the Orient: the vast expanse of Asia, as it stood on the brink of the Mongol Invasions. Starting in 1207, this is a time of great empires and incredible cultural fluorescence, with immense technological, economic, and population growth across a vast area of the world. In China, the reigning dynasty of the Song are experiencing some of the most stunning societal and cultural outpourings in history, becoming unquestionably the most advanced state in the world, but one suffering and surrounded by equals in power by formerly-nomadic empires who have conquered and established dynasties of their own in Northern China at the Song’s rueful expense. In Southeast Asia, two empires rule supreme like never before; the Khmer Empire, whose radiant mandala is centered in their imperial capital at Angkor, the largest urban conglomerate of the pre-industrial world; and the shining Empire of Bagan, who claim a protectorate as champions of the entire Buddhist world.

In India, old Hindu rajas bow in subservience to a conquering dynasty of slave-soldiers who have sprung onto the Northern Gangetic Plain in the name of Islam, opposed by the brilliant Chola Empire in the Dravidian South who thalassocratic hegemony stretches across the Indian Ocean. In Japan, rivalrous lords contest with one another for influence over the Empire in a feud that is about to break into open war, and give birth to the rise of the Samurai. On the far limits of the area of play, the Byzantine Empire is in mortal peril, the City of the World's Desire hanging by a thread at the mercy of Crusaders sent to its relief, while to the North the once great realm of Kievan Rus is splendid but divided, the sons of Rurik dividing his land between them in petty rivalries. In the Near East, the Ayyubids have at long last rid the Muslim world of the Crusader menace, forging an honorable settlement relegating the Franks to a few tenuous footholds on the coast, while the legendary Saladin's life work has been consummated in the liberation of Jerusalem after a long one hundred years in the hands of the Christians. His religious head, the Abbasid Caliph, has meanwhile seen a revival in the fortunes of his realm and after many long years as the puppet of conquerors and strongmen, the Abbasids are at last in a renaissance of their powers and former glory having wrested control over Iraq back into their hands, and in time the splendor of Harun al-Rashid's Baghdad may return to the Euphrates, in revival of the times when moon shone on the telling of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights. And in Persia, a new contestant in a long string of foreign conquerors gives this ancient and glorious land one last age in the sun before the coming catastrophe. For on the steppes of Central Asia, Genghis Khan has united the Mongol tribes, and is about to embark on the greatest ride of the nomadic peoples in history, to unite, or destroy, the known world.

Encompassing most of Asia, this is a more expansive area of play, but in the age of the 12th century for most of the players power would be more evenly balanced, leaving on the whole a more balanced playing board. Each major power or center of civilization has room to expand,  and while interconnected with other players through trade and alliances, most players have less to fear from major power imbalances compared to their neighbors. There is one, almighty, exception to this rule, and this is the Mongol Empire; they, and the player at their helm, can be compared only to a steamroller, and is to be rightly feared. The Mongol war machine is capable of wiping out empires, and is a major dynamic force in this BoP. Trade will also figure highly in this BoP as well, with dynamic trade events to establish new deals along the legendary Silk Road. I highly encourage an Expansion for this BoP, opening up to Europe and the Occident with the chivalric contests for power and wars of Crusade in Europe, but I will require a co-host (or two!) to expand and accurately render the Medieval European world!

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Balance of Power: Mesoamerica
Aztecs, the Maya, Zapotecs and Mixtecs, the Tarascan Empire, and the Lost World of Pre-Columbian America

_{actual sunset invasion not guaranteed}

The lush valleys, plateaus, and jungles of what is now southern Mexico came to be one of the cradles of human civilization. Here, completely isolated from the rest of the world, the people of Central America independently underwent the Neolithic Revolution, domesticating corn, beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cacao, chilis, and other crops. The simple agrarian villages of the distant past coalesced into hundreds of booming urban centers peppering the landscape. Soon to follow came writing, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and all the drama of history and progress in technology.

Despite lacking draft animals, utilitarian use of the wheel, or metal tools, and furthermore settling down in difficult terrain with often marginal farmland, these people nonetheless managed to build sprawling yet organized cities, some of them floating, with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. They invented zero, traded over long distances along road networks, erected enormous monuments, developed their own metallurgy, worked obsidian with craftsmanship that has not since been equalled, invented unique uses and types of quilted fabric, and devised ingenious and innovative methods of working the land. In so doing, they built civilizations in many ways are equal to those of the old world. This world is mostly lost now, a human tragedy of unparalleled magnitude in its destruction. This BoP is, aside from a forum game, a love letter to an entire world that no longer exists, and in doing so attempts to portray the Mesoamerican world as they would have seen it, to our best understanding of how this perspective would have been. If history is written by the victors, let this be a tribute to those who lost.



This setting brings us most out of the realm of the familiar and into an utterly unique, almost alien land, that despite being settled only some 15,000 years earlier, and arising in total isolation, came to produce some of the most vibrant and spectacular civilizations in the world. From the high mountains and valleys and lowland jungles and wetlands of Mexico, people would create amazing pyramids, floating cities, advanced astronomy, completely unique forms of agriculture, and highly progressive societies the equal of any in the Old World, surpassing many in their accomplishments in the arts and sciences. Though some names are familiar to most in the modern world today, such as the civilizations of the Maya and Aztec, the Mesoamerican world was a place of incredible diversity, and through our work collating information from multiple languages across many sources, we have created perhaps one of the most comprehensive databases of information of Mesoamerica’s civilizations to share with you this lost world.

The area of play here encompasses the cultural region of Mesoamerica as well as its peripheries to the North of Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, and the peninsular regions of Central America to its South. Mesoamerica requires many unique mechanical adaptations to represent its civilizations, where city states figure as highly as cultures in its rich and complex kaleidoscope of ethnicities, religions, and political entities. I can certainly guarantee it will be a more unique Balance of Power experience than you have ever experienced before. As stated before, this is a bit of an exceptional option: regardless of what the community settles upon here, I’ve already agreed with Pixel to help him in this endeavor, and ultimately he is the boss on when it begins and all other major details as his brainchild and labor of love. BoP: Mesoamerica is an independent project, and while Pixel and I may collaborate in the case of the community choosing one of the above options, players are free (and encouraged) to play in both. I present this project here for those who would like to see us work more closely together on a single project; whereupon I’d act as a dedicated co-host with Pixel on BoP: Mesoamerica alone. This presents likely the best opportunity for more extended run-times for the game and faster returns on processing orders!

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