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Shared Worlds : Moderated Games
Moderated Games mostly consist of role-playing nation games where you, in theory, get to control your own nation, while negotiating and warring with those of other players.
In the past, when Moderated Games had their own subforum, there was a greater variety to the types of games played. Notable variations included Mosaic Earth and Feudal Lands, NationStates, based on the NationStates site, A Little Trip games, Earth Imperialism, and Nation Games, which inspired a number of variants, including the Small Nations Game (SNG), the Continuous Nation Game (CNG), the Technological Nation Game (TNG), and the New Interactive Nation Game (NING). Nation Games, specifically CNGs, would go on to become the predominate game of played under the Moderated Games umbrella.
While superficially similar to Nation Games, Moderated Games have a few key differences. A Moderated Game starts with voting between a few proposals. Proposals can range from a game set in a post-apocalyptic 1970s to a fresh take on the Victorian Era. After a game is selected, players make claims, which are either accepted, rejected, or modified by the GM. Unlike most Nation Games, these are custom nations, designed by the players themselves. After acceptance, the players create “Almanacs,” providing information about their nation that includes such details as population, internal issues, and military numbers. The game proper starts a few days later.
Another major difference between Nation Games and Moderated Games is that there are no set turns. Instead, a day in real time is generally held to equal a year or six months in-game. This means Moderated Games progress faster than Nation Games. Historically, they have also lasted longer than Nation Games, though there have been some exceptions. They also tend to put more emphasis on worldbuilding, with players encouraged to write short stories or small “fluff” pieces set in their nation.
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History and culture
Nation games–that is, games in which each player is in command of a country, regardless of setting–have a long history on the forum, and have been represented by several genres.
1.) Older Nation Games
a.) "Mosaic Earth"
From its mostly uncharted infancy on the Old Board, Mosaic Earth and its spin-offs have created a niche on the board. It survived the migration to the New Board, spewing a chaos of threads during the first year of existence. By 2005, the games became more organized, and a superior bureaucracy gave birth to Mosaic Earth 7, considered by many to be the pinnacle of Shared Worlds at the time. In its wake came the well-patterned games of Late '05 and First Quarter 2006. However, the quality of the games soon started to decline, partly due to the competition presented from Feudal Lands, A Little Trip and their spin-offs. Mosaic World games, organized mainly by Ward, faired extremely poorly, with the exception of the 1st and 4th installments. The majority of the oldest ME-players abandoned the game in 2006.
b.) "Feudal Lands"
Originally an ASB thread begun by Douglas, Feudal Lands was first organized into a game by Highlander, chunkeymonkey13q, Straha, and Chingo360. Soon after its origin it was dubbed a “claim fest”, and all attempts to reform its gameplay failed. The game varried in that players were only allowed to claim nations with populations of 25 million or less, and those nations had to be from between 1938 and 1942.
- Feudal Lands the Game (Early - Late December '05)
- Feudal Lands II (Early - Late January '06)
- Feudal Lands Europe (Mid February - Late April '06)
- Feudal Lands IV (Mid - Late November '06)
2.) NING and successors
The term “Nation Game” derives from 09camaro's New Interactive Nations Game (here), created in October 2007 in the ASB forum and soon moved into Shared Worlds. It differed from Mosaic Earth in the nature of its setting: the beginning of the game was not when nations from various different timelines were suddenly thrown together, but when countries on an otherwise blank map began interacting with each other. This formula was further developed, making it explicitly post-apocalyptic, by Nations Game: After Impact and Nations Game: After the Plague. NGs quickly gained a reputation for longevity. NING won the 2008 Turtledove Award for the Superlative Shared Worlds category… much to its creator's suprise.
Throughout late 2008 and early 2009 the NGs began to fall apart, with many games lasting less than a month. In February of 2009, a new type of game was attempted; the Small Nations Game (SNG). It was, in effect, an attempt to recreate Feudal Lands under a different name. The game initially seemed popular, but by March it too had fallen apart.
This collapse instigated the rise of a new game type; the Fenwickian Nation Game (FNG), distinguished by the use of randomly-generated scores to represent national capabilities.
3.) The Continuous Nation Game
In August 2009, Overlord founded CNG: Rise of Empires, a “continuous nation game” putting a definitive end to the Mosaic Earth and NING tradition of a catastrophic start to the game. Instead, the countries of the game would coexist for years and years before the commencement of the traditional interaction. The name and idea have stuck: most Moderated Games since then have taken place in worlds of unified history, and have borne the “CNG:” prefix, even if they avoid playing out centuries of setup.
Glossary
- “OOC” - Out of character, often officially confined to a separate thread.
- “IC” - In character.
- “SECRET” - A tag for posts to indicate most players need to pretend to forget what you're saying.
- “My country is authoritarian” - I would like to be invaded at the first opportunity.
- “My country is democratic” - I am going to rule and make decisions as God-Emperor.
- “My country does not have nukes” - My country will develop nuclear weapons one week after the ISOT.
- “I claim China/India” - I claimed a country not only with 1 billion people, but also $1,000 trillion GDP created by my POD.
- “I'm gonna make a second claim” - My plan to take over the world with only one country was thwarted by similarly-minded players.
- “Fenpire/Fenpan” - 1. Simple terms to explain the oddity which is anything Fenwick touches. 2. After CNG: Eod of Darkness, in which Fenwick crated a Japanese superpower (Fenpan/Fenpire), the term is used to describe any nation outside of Europe which people feel is to powerful. Ex: “Your China is looking exactly like the Fenpire!”
- “Let's give this game a chance” (uttered by moderator) - This game is dead, flee as soon as possible.
- “Your claim/military is unreasonable/big” - Your claim/military is wrong, but I'm only saying this because I don't want you interfering with my plans for global conquest.
- “Your population figure is too high” - Your population is wrong, but I'm only saying this so that I can conquer you easily later.
- “The ISOT date is X” - Every nation can have the most advanced technology from that date, even though the nation is from the third world.
Popular MG fictional characters
List of Moderated Games Games
List of launched Shared Worlds/Moderated Games games | |||
---|---|---|---|
NG Name | Start date | Duration | Days played |
NING | 2007 | Early October '07 - Mid February '08 | 121 |
NG: After Impact | 1830(?) | Late December '07 - Mid May '08 | 140 |
NG: After the Plague | 1920 | Early February '08 - Mid April '08 | 81 |
NG: Earth Rise | 2060 | Early April-Late June '08 | 44 |
Shared Worlds Tournament | 1950 | Late July '08 - Late August '08 | 40 |
NG: 1901 | 1901 | Early November - Mid December '08 | 42 |
NG: 1976 | 2000 | December '08 | 23 |
NG: Fracturing Empire | 2158 | Late December '08 - Early February '09 | 36 |
NG: 1919 | 1949 | Early January '09 - Early February '09 | 31 |
NG: 2060 | 2060 | Early February '09 - Late February '09 | 13 |
SNG: 1942 | 1942 | Late February '09 - Early March '09 | 16 |
FNG: 1910 | 1950 | Mid March '09 - Late March '09 | 17 |
FNG: Renaissance | 2005 | Early April '09 - Early May '09 | 34 |
FNG: Century of Peace | 1971 | Mid May '09 - Late May '09 | 36 |
FNG: Colonization | 2032 | Early June '09 - Mid June '09 | 8 |
FNG: Absolute Power | 1750 | Late June '09 - Early July '09 | 17 |
ME: Divided Earth | 1958 | Mid July '09 - Late July '09 | 17 |
FNG: 2035 | 2034 | Late July, '09 - Mid August '09 | 19 |
NG: Genesis | 1930 | Mid August '09 - Late August '09 | 8 |
CNG: Rise of Empires | 1780 | Late August '09 - Late October '09 | 53 |
CNG: Imperial Victory | 1600 | Late October '09 - Mid January '10 | 84 |
CNG: Dark Age of Empires | 900 | Mid January '10 - Mid February '10 | 31 |
CNG: Requiem | 1450 | Late February '10 - Mid May '10 | 81 |
NG: A New Dawn | 1945 | Mid May '10 - Early June '10 | 15 |
TNG: 1550 | 1550 | Mid June '10 - Late June '10 | 6 |
CNG: End of Darkness | 1600 | Early July '10 - Late October '10 | 117 |
CNG: Sprawl | 1450 | Early November '10 - Early January '11 | 67 |
NG: Entropy of Empires | 1794 | Mid January '11 - Late April 2011 | 101 |
CNG: New Dawn | 1845 | Early June '11 - Mid July '11 | 44 |
FNG: Oncoming Storm | 1939 | Mid July '11 - Early August '11 | 18 |
CNG: Age of War | 1750 | Mid August '11 - Mid September '11 | 33 |
NG: Rebirth of Nations | 1905 | Mid September '11 - Early January '12 | 45 |
CNG: Crescent Ascendant | 1650 | Early January '12 - Late February '12 | 48 |
NKFZD Collapse of Empires | 1920 | Early March '12 - Early May '12 | 63 |
CNG: Aspiring Empires | 1550 | Mid May '12 - Early July '12 | 55 |
CNG: Superpower | 1945 | Mid July '12 - Early September '12 | 52 |
CNG: Scramble for Glory | 1880 | Early September '12 - Mid November '12 | 67 |
MG: Age of Empires | 500 BC | Late November '12 - Early December '12 | 19 |
CNG: Viva La Revolucion | 1789 | Late December '12 - Early April '13 | 103 |
CNG: Fallen Idols | 1658 | Early April '13 - Mid Late '13 | 38 |
NG: Fall of Liberty | 1977 | Late April '13 - Beginning July '13 | 63 |
CNG: From Crooked Wood | 1820 | Early July '13 - Late July '13 | 17 |
CNG: Roaring Forward | 1918 | Late July '13 - Late October '13 | 82 |
CNG: Broken Mirror | 1820 | Late October '13 - Late April '14 | 183 |
CNG: Dawn's Early Light | 4444 | Early May '14 - Late June '14 | 50 |
CNG: Tripartite World | 1887 | Late June '14 - Mid Early August '14 | 44 |
CNG: End of History | 1987 | Mid August '14 - Mid September '14 | 25 |
CNG: Falling Leaves | 1810 | Late September '14 - Early November '14 | 40 |
CNG: Scourge of God | 162BN(434AD) | Mid November '14 - Early December '14 | 19 |
CNG: The Long Night | 1905 | Mid December '14 - NA | NA |
Summaries of Moderated Games
CNG: Broken Mirror The game began in 1820, in a world where there were a few geological changes, including the eastern US divided between a few islands, an African passage, and a Sri Lankan archipelago. Europe was relatively like OTL, though Paganism was quite widespread. Towards the beginning of the game, a radical Turkish republic managed to puppetize Egypt, and beat the Serbians under King Milos. TheShahs nation, Arza, a mess of feuding houses in Sri Lanka. Troyer IV took over that nation, posting many posts on “Game of Houses”. Early on, England went Fuel Lordist, so France, Scotland-Holland, and Spain went to the Conference of Reichenbach Falls, where they decided to invade England. The English held them back, though Ireland was made independent, though, ironically, it moved closer to the English, even becoming Fuel Lordist. Brazil, meanwhile, was taken over by radical communist-like people, and continued its wars against Wales that began when an aristocrat republic ruled the place. Throughout the 1800s, Arza became somewhat Socialist, more of the world went Fuel Lordist, and, in the last quarter-century, Scotland-Holland and France were defeated by Fuel Lordist Germany, England, and Ireland. Scotland then became under the control of the Popular Party, increasing its birthrate, and doubling the population in 20 years, though it was eventually defeated after they tried to acquire chemical weapons. It then was subsumed into the Brythonic Federation, which was basically a united britain. Arza continued expanding, spanning the entire Indian Ocean, even defeating Han China. France was also Papo-Fascist for a while in there. In the 1920s, Brazil, actually, the Federation of South America, collapsed, and the Maroon Republics- a former Scottish slave republic, the RSA- a Welsh Argentina, and Tir St. Iago- a Monarchist Welsh Chile. In the 1940s, another war broke out, where Germany and Russia smashed France, Romenia, Saxony, and Scandinavia, Romenia being an ERE-successor Italy. The RSA, under the Integralist Party, took over Saxon Patagonia, but was forced to withdraw after the Federation and Mexico threatened to invade. The game ended in Jul-November 1954 and as aged or b sad a a la d.