Aurora succession game

[Zook (OP)]

Would anyone like to play a succession game of Aurora? Sort of Boatmurdered in Space, if you know what I mean. One player starts the game and plays for a couple of years; five, perhaps, more for the first players. Then he sends the zipped database to the next player, who now takes over the presidency (or the crown, or the Grand-Poobah-ship, or whatever it is).

Being the new El Presidente means, of course, that he's free to ignore all plans and intentions of his predecessors and implement a totally new, better, saner policy. Abandon Mars. Scrap the missile boats. Reforms!

The president would have to write an ongoing AAR, perhaps with yearly reports in the forum, unless absolutely nothing happened that year. That might be the case during the first couple of years. It would be good if he could post a screenshot now and then, for the benefit of the general public.

There shouldn't be a strict time limit to finish a mandate, but it would be good if the player could finish his term in a week or two, depending of course on what happens. If you know that Real Life (tm) will prevent you from finishing your turn, please post a message (and the turn file - the forum does allow file uploads in *.zip format).

Newbies are welcome, but please apply only if you're sure that you'll actually play.

And a little roleplaying would add a little spice, I imagine. Remember, you're the president. Nobody can fire you, just because you're incompetent or insane.

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Update: The game has begun, the AAR is in a different thread in this subforum. That's the order of players so far

Zook
Havear --> active
telegraph
Bouchart
Panopticon
niflheimr
Sinensis

[telegraph]

Nice idea. Count me in.

[sublight]

Very interested, but enough Real Life is happening that it will be about a month before I could actually start a new game. you probably shouldn't put me down any earlier than 4th in line.

5 years is probably too long. You could probably scrap, redesign, and rebuild a small battle fleet in that time. DF succession games seem to be mostly about using what your predecessor left you while building stuff for the next guy. So... 3 years? The initial turns probably don't need to be lengthened unless a conventional start is used.

[Zook (OP)]

I have only limited experience with the game. I'd say the first twenty years shouldn't see much action, unless you explore very aggressively, or get really unlucky. And even if you meet strangers out there, they are usually more keen on selling you plastic toys than pillaging your colonies.

[telegraph]

I once encountered the nasties in the very first system I discovered. Right next to the Sol. They indeed kind of sold me some plastic toys. Those toys destroyed all of my ships, bombarded Mars and Earth and landed an invasion force that obliterated my initial ground troops.

[Havear]

If the period of play was ~ a year, I'm all in. Not sure if I'd have the time for a longer game, but I'll still watch and comment.

[telegraph]

we might go with variable turn length. Like play however long you like, but no more then 10 in-game years and no more then one week of real-life time.

[Zook (OP)]

Sounds good. Instead of figuring out elaborate rules we just make it up as we go. But some initial parameters have to be set, like the number of systems or NPR creation chance. And we might want to have a loose theme for RP'ing the game, like The UN Space Program or Templars (there's a theme already) searching for the Holy Grail. Can be anything; I'd be fine with Muppets, too.

[telegraph]

digging Piggy's treasures?

[Havear]

Theme will often determine play-style. Actually, what would be better, a conventional, TN, or limited-TN start? Conventional might be interesting, but I've always associated that with multi-empire games, limited-TN something like very basic groundwork and maybe an extra tech here or there (i.e., a backstory where during a worldwide war, TN tech was first discovered and that gave the discovering size the decisive advantage to win. TN ground units, perhaps ICBM silos with TN missiles still loaded, primitive gauss stations still in orbit from the war, etc.), or full-TN where we sort of "take the reins" after the initial conversions.

[Zook (OP)]

I never played with pre-TN tech, but I think we should get into space ASAP without the drawn-out foreplay.

We have four players now (Me, Havear, telegraph, sublight), maybe others will join later if we can create an interesting campaign. Do we allow SM'ing, and if so, how much? IMO, we need an empty SM password to space-time-bubble systems in combat. Do we want players to mess with the universe in order to keep the story interesting? Or is it better to try and find an independent SM?

[Bouchart]

Count me in, but I'd rather not go first.

[Havear]

I'd leave SM open to quickly fix anything that comes up, but for anything other than a bugfix a vote should probably be called.

[Panopticon]

I'd like to play, this sounds like it could be interesting.

I agree with Havear as to the uses of SM mode. The idea of an independent SM sounds kinda cool though, I imagine it as someone who messes with things once in a while just to make things interesting, like turning on Invaders, messing with unrest, economy, or planetary ecology, or something like making the sun start to heat up or die and then leaving it up to the next person in line to start working on rather than someone who plays a full turn.

[Zook (OP)]

Fine! I've launched a game called The Gold Rush, and for simplicity's sake it's pretty much a default TN start. Actually, Earth has a random number of jump points, everything else is per the default values.

Main empire theme is French at the moment, but the scenario leaves plenty of room for any nationality.

I'll start a new thread for the story and my initial reports to the stockholders.