Nation Building

Nation Building

Nations of the Stellar Empires are complex things, there is no simple answer to colonial rights, and indeed. Many if not most nations end up being forced to share territorial holdings. As such, unlike previous versions of my engine, players may not get entire solar systems to just themselves! (Though they are certain to get one housing their capital to themselves)

Indeed, player colonies will be placed by me on the submission of your sheets into the solar systems! Now don’t get too worried, we’re not going to end up with any Firefly-esque systems with 50 inhabited bodies, at most there will be only three or four inhabited worlds in a system, and rarely will there be more than two people sharing that system.

And so we get to the meat, potatoes and gravy of the nation, their territory.

There are, as before, seven nation sizes to choose from. And your choice may or may not be very important. (Ok, ok, it’s important!)

• Tiny
• Small
• Medium-Small
• Medium
• Medium-Large
• Large
• Huge

A tiny nation doesn’t have much power, hell it won’t even have much of a fleet compared to others! But what it lacks in power it gains in, well for want of a better term, worthlessness, while that nation may have much to offer it is small and will slip beneath the radar of most if not all larger polities, and as the ‘little kid’ will find it much easier to get the protection due to not being a potential threat. Or so they think.

Small nations are in much the same boat as the Tiny nation and will rarely try and climb from that precarious position. But they have a slight measure more power and some more influence, but in return they are more visible to powerful polities.

Medium-Small nations are approaching the average size for space-faring nations and while not militarily significant compared to others they possess some influence and draw.

Medium nations can be considered the ‘universal standard’ most nations fit into this size bracket, they have relatively standard militaries and average influence over galactic politics.

Medium-Large nations are reaching into the higher spectrums. Possessing slightly larger militaries than medium nations some consider them unjustified bullies. Others consider them attractive targets of opportunity.

Large Nations are the big brothers of the galaxy, both implications being true, they can be protectors or bullies and their militaries often give them the edge.

Huge Nations are THE king shits of the universe, the superpowers, the ones with all the power (well not literally) nobody has navies on the scale of huge nations, nor do they have populations to match. However a huge nation has a large area to patrol, and often many enemies. Whether the primary enforcers of the Intergalactic United Nations or despicable Rogue States they are major players. And often the targets of intrigue. (Only IGUN or Rogue States may be Huge, numbers of huge nations are also limited.)

Your Territory

Players have a set number of planets in accordance with their nation size, unlike previous versions the complexity of your planet types is now more homogenous with no ‘direct’ benefits as all such related elements have been homogenized in order to produce a more balanced sheet for people, their navies etc. This was also done in order to open up creativity once more to allow peoples worlds to be ‘how they like’ though naturally people need to consider the fact the traits will decide what they are roughly capable of.

Now, this is written with the LARGEST type world. There will be a small table letting you know how to ‘subdivide’ it if you wish to do so. Note: A minimum of 50% of your territory must be planets (Nomads Excepted).

• Tiny: 3 Planets
• Small: 5 Planets
• Medium-Small: 10 Planets
• Medium: 15 Planets
• Medium-Large: 20 Planets
• Large: 30 Planets
• Huge: 40 Planets

A planet is a roughly earth sized rock in space that will generally house 90% of your population or more. However there are also others.

• Large Moons
• Small Moons
• Large Asteroids
• Space Stations

A Large moon is reminiscent of our own, 1 planet can be used to take 3 Large Moons instead.

A Small moon is about half the size of our own, thus 1 planet can be used to take 6 Small Moons instead.

A Large Asteroid is a rock only a couple dozen kilometers across. 1 Planet can be used to take 25 Large Asteroid Habitats.

Space Stations are space habitats housing people, trade stations, space labs, observatories, orbital brothels and other such. As a rule all Space Stations are unarmed but heavily shielded. According to the history books Space Stations used to be armed until brighter minds realized it was pointless as enemies could just launch their weapons from well beyond the Station’s sensors killing them without ever being exposed to danger.
1 Planet may be used to take 100 Space Stations. No less than 80 must be in orbit around planets or moons. The remaining 20 may be placed in system Lagrange points safely. (No gameplay effect.)

Placement

This is where the real danger lies, you as players have no choice as to the placements of planets and moons of either type. Asteroids and Space Stations will always be in a system you have planets or moons in. However, and this is part of the tension, you can even end up with undesirable situations such as having the misfortune to have a moon in orbit of an enemy planet! (Unlikely but theoretically possible.)

Though it must be noted that nations will be placed in a roughly circular expansion point, thus planets towards the centre (core worlds) will in fact be safer and unlikely to have enemy worlds (or even friendly allied worlds) than those towards the frontier.

That is all... for now.