The New World Colonial Game is an onrunning nation game in the Sandbox section. It has over 250 pages and 5000 posts, making it one of the most successful in the Board's history, and was responsible for the revitalization of Shared Worlds after the slump in the summer of 2010. The thread has a vibrant and social atmosphere, and has inspired others to make their own versions.

When PaulieRomanov originally started the game the player list contained seventeen players. These players were:

• England = Clibinarius
• Scotland = The British Scotsman
• France = Evilprodigy
• Spain = DakotaG01
• Dutch Republic = KyleB
• Holy Roman Empire = Ascendant Warrior
• Russia = Malarkey
• Sweden = Xwarq
• Portugal = Aristocracy
• Denmark = Deano1001
• Courland = Democritus
• Venice = Emperor Norton I
• Ming Dynasty = Royiss
• Aztec = RaptorX
• Aani = Gpdric
• Ottoman = Frederick II
• Papal States =Chamonix
• Knights of St John = Meepy

However, only seven Board members actually continued the game after the first few days. These players are the current ones.

• Scotland = The British Scotsman
• France = Evilprodigy
• Spain = DakotaG01
• Russia = Malarkey
• Portugal = Aristocracy
• Aani = Gpdric
• Granada = Frederick II
• Knights of St John = Meepy

The thread began in early July, and was originally conceived as a role-playing nation game, including such RPG elements as commerce, industry and rebellions. Evilprogidy and Aristocracy were asked by PaulieRomanov, the original poster, to moderate and calibrate the game, because he didn't have enough spare time to manage it himself. By popular agreement, the RPG factors were removed and replaced by diplomacy, random Mod events and dice-rolled battle results.

After two months of peaceful play, the Signature Wars began between Aristocracy and Evilprogidy. This involved one player saying something silly and the other replying with a witty statement. At its peak, Evilprogidy was quoting Aristocracy roughly every four minutes, and changed his signature numerous times. The War still continues.

In 1550, the Knights of Saint John were a power in decline. The last of the once-great Crusader states; the Knights' time, it seemed, had come and gone. The Order's missionary empire in the New World was seen as its death rattle.

This would be reversed by the formation of the Valletta-Occidental Trading Company in 1594 on the island of Crux, in the West Indies. Formed through the merging of Crux's largest shipping company with it's largest sugar cane plantation, the VOTC soon grew in power to rival the KoSJ as the main source of political power on Crux.

By 1635, the VOTC's power had grown to entirely eclipsed that of the original colonial government. Company trade accounted for 3/4ths of the Order State's economy by 1654. Sometime during the 1660s the KoSJ Navy had fallen behind that of the VOTC.

In 1671 Antonio Pinto da Crux installed himself as the new majority shareholder of the Valletta-Occidental Trading Company, and declared himself Grand Master of the KoSJ. At that point half of the KoSJN's ships were on long term loan from the VOTC, in addition to this, a good portion of the Navy's officers got their start in the VOTC, and still held strong ties to the Company. In the first months of the Order's Civil War, mass mutiny and defeat at sea had driven the Order from the Western Hemisphere, and threatened their hold in the Mediterranean.

After a three year long string of defeat after devastating defeat, the Order finally turned to it's Big Brother to the North, the Kingdom of Sicily, by electing the King of Sicily as their Grand Master, effectively merging the two states under the Kingdom of Sicily.

What followed is often referred to as the Heroic War.

After Sicily's entry into the War, the VOTC's fortunes quickly took a turn for the worse. After the Sicilian Victory in the Battle of the Azores in 1675, the VOTC was once again confined to the New World.

Mere months after the defeat, the Sicilians sent their own Transatlantic Fleet to capture Valletta, on the Island of Crux, and to put an end to the VOTC. The Sicilian Fleet was intercepted en route by a flotilla under da Crux's personal command, and all but wiped out.

With the capture of the Sicilian Armada, the VOTC was once again able to launch attacks into the Mediterranean. The VOTC's advance then faltered once again, as the Sicilians supply lines got shorter and theirs longer. Fearing to lose his foothold in the Eastern Hemisphere, Antonio Pinto da Crux sought help from a most unlikely source; the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottomans' entry tipped the scales permanently in da Crux's favor. In 1677 the Sicilians were decisively defeated at Messina, slicing the Kingdom in half.

Not long after this, the old King died. With the only heir to the throne dead on the floor of the Mediterranean, what was left of the Kingdom of Sicily on the island of Sicily slid into utter chaos. Into this chaos slipped Antonio Pinto da Crux.

da Crux came unarmed before the Knights of Saint John in Palermo, nothing is known about what was said in that meeting, but it was later announced that the KoSJ would absorb the VOTC, and that da Crux would be installed as its next Grand Master. The Civil War had ended, but the Heroic War had only just begun.

The 1678 KoSJ naval campaign against the Ottomans is still ranked among the most excellent in history. The VOTC's sudden betrayal took the Ottoman Navy completely off-guard, and soon much of the Barbary Coast had fallen into the Order's hands. By the close of the 1678 campaign, the Ottoman Navy had lost a full third of its large warships, and nearly a quarter of its personnel. The Ottomans capitulated in the spring of 1679, ceding much of the Barbary Coast to the KoSJ.

In just seven years the Knights of Saint John had gone from a European backwater to global colonial empire.

Thanks to Antonio Pinto da Crux, the Mediterranean was once again a Catholic Lake.

Over the next few decades, da Crux reigned over a period of consolidation. Naples was subdued after a brief war in 1683, and has since gone to fully integrate within the Order State.

The Barbary Coast has slowly been Christianized, the local culture being largely wiped out in the process. By 1720 the coast of North Africa was about 60% Catholic European.

The VOTC was rebuilt under the direct control of the Order, and under its leadership the American colonies once again began to flourish. The VOTC is currently in the process of setting up a viable trade network between the Incan Empire and the KoSJ, but it may be a long time coming.

The Paiute people were once a nomadic one centered around the Great basin. The original confederacy was made up of four tribes who names have now been lost to time. The nation’s early years were a period of disorganization and chaos for the ruling people and chiefs. Out of the strife a great leader appeared who’s name I cannot spell in our language. This man apparently founded the first permanent dwellings in the Paiute confederacy and centralized government around an elected ‘High-chief’ where each tribe had its own vote of one. The form of government they adopted reminds me of the Holy Roman Empire.

Eventually the nation expanded by adding new tribes into its confederacy. The people who were absorbed retained their own language and culture, but was eventually diluted into the greater Paiute culture, taking the best aspects of every native tribe they took at found a unique culture in the new world.

Rather recently a series of wars has broken out with many of the tribes in the surrounding regions, the Paiute confederacy expanded to be twice it’s since in a very short amount of time by fighting a war with nomadic peoples to its east and eventually adding them to the confederacy with their own vote, that vast swath of land comes rather close to the edge of French owned Missouri territory.

The culture of the Paiute confederacy made first contact with European people after they had made contact with the Chinese by raiding their settlements (rather poorly). When they eventually came into contact with Russians the Scottish had their own settlement just to their south, not too far from the border, and the Aani did the same thing to the Paiute’s northern reaches.

At this time the Paiute had no written language, they had continued to use the pictographs of their ancestors and had built many permanent cities with food being funnelled from the large farms and vast cattle ranches of the great plains to launch a population boom and expansion by force into other areas without tribes or with small ones. It was here where the practice of slavery appeared.

Paiute slavery is almost the exact same as the Romans and Greeks where a man or woman can volunteer themselves to become a slave and eventually earn his/her freedom in time. Along with every captured enemy soldier becoming a slave under Paiute rule. Paiute slaves are used as house slaves under service of the rich upper class men who can afford to keep them. Foreign slaves however have a much harder life. Slaves that are not part of the Paiute tribes have a different status and are forced to work for the government in Mines and construction and various other things. It is considered demeaning to own a foreign slave.

The Paiute culture at this time was very distrustful of outsiders and did not many new tribes to their confederation compared to other years but rather expanded through military might and abusive settlers and treaties (much like OTL USA). The Paiute culture’s racism and xenophobia are very predominant in their society, children who are mixed with ‘pure’ Paiute blood and that of another tribe is not even considered human by some people, any children who are of mixed Paiute and European or Asian decent are often get their parents tortured in some of the most horrible ways possible and themselves ‘crucified’ (It is the best term for what it is).

Paiute written language was a recent development too. Peoples who lived on the border with the Aani and Paiute before their take over by the Paiute had adopted the Aani written language. When they were joined into the Paiute confederacy the knowledge of written language cam with them and is now the way people pass language barriers as it is the best way to communicate when you have over 500 different languages in your lands. Due to this almost all people in the Paiute confederacy can read. Their written language is exactly the same as Aani with no alterations whatsoever other then when new words are added.

Paiute military is massive in its size and diversity. The peoples of the east in the plains who are some o the most skilled horsemen known in the new world are used very well in the army and make up a large core of it. The influence of Asian culture can be seen in the armour they were as it looks much like that of a warrior from china. Despite the xenophobia many Paiute have used European, Asian, and native tactics and technology in warfare and make a strange mix that I cannot rightfully describe. The Paiute use iron weapons, shields, and armour. Swords, Pikes, Spears, Shields, Plate armour, Chainmail, Axes, Halberds, Guns, Arrows, Cannons, Lances, almost every military technology invented in Europe or Asia has found its way here except for Greek fire, Steel, and anything naval.

The Paiute army consists of five parts:

The first is warriors which are the full time regulars who are entrusted with the best weapons as they live as a soldier and know how to use them. They are often heavily armoured and armed and use the Pike, Halberd, Gun, Sword, and Bow in the different battalions of them. The second is the nomads who are the horsemen of the army who mostly are made up of cavalry from the nomadic tribes who have spent their whole lives on the back of a horse. They vary in terms of weaponry and armour, they will have either only armour on themselves like dragoons but not on the horses, armour on them and the horse like a cataphract, or no armour at all. The weaponry of the Paiute cavalry varies to fight with Long Swords, Lances, Spears, Bows, and Guns.

The third is the slaves. The slaves are born slaves have had to serve in the military since age five and like their life as a servant to the upper class men who own them. They are remarkably similar to Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, the samurai of Japan, and the Spartans of Sparta. They train their whole life for war and after living through fifteen battles are given the status of freemen, but most slaves either do not make it that far or when they do simply become part of the warrior divisions as war is all they know. Their equipment is the same as warriors, using the use the Pike, Halberd, Sword, and Bow but no guns as they are not trusted with them.

The fourth are the volunteers. These are the peasants who chose to join an army at the last minute to fight and gain glory. They often fight with minimal arms and armour. The weapons they will tend to use include the Sword, Axe, Spear, and Bow. They often never have plate armour and will wear chainmail if they have it and use shields if they have those too.

The fifth are the engineers. These are the people who work the siege engines and artillery. Each person has training with either a spear a sword or an axe in order to defend themselves close up. They were no armour as they do not need it. They operate Paiute artillery which mostly consists of poor homemade cannons or catapults with explosive loads and are the only members of the army other then command that must have an education to serve here.

Recently the Paiute have constructed forts, walls, and gates in the mountain passes to guard their lands from the westerners who already tried one to invade. They have gotten better at their skills in construction with stone from the mountain and they have catapults and cannons on them, they are a remarkable feat to behold for a native nation to construct one let alone thousands is proof of these people’s skill and power in the Great Basin, Plain, And mountains of the new world.

1296

Today King Edward has defeated the Scots in Dunbar after wisely deciding to bypass the burgh of Berwick. It looks like Scotland shall be ours!

1315

The treacherous Scottish king’s brother Edward Bruce has been crowned King over the Irish in Belfast today. While the south half of Ireland is still under its rightful owners I fear Northern Ireland shall now have to bear a Scottish yoke.

1347

Friar Baldrick set fire to the Bishop of Durham when he visited us this summer, Bishop Edmund survived and Baldrick has been excommunicated.

1401

War with France seems to be inevitable; sadly it seems the Welsh are more favourable to them than their masters.

1410

War with France ended with defeat in Calis, England has no continental territory. King Henry has died in bed, long live King Henry.

1470

The northern nobles have refused to submit to the crown since the House of Lancaster was restored. The Kingdom of Scotland has invaded the northern counties! King Edward refuses to do anything as Northern Yorkshire has been absorbed into the Kingdom of Scotland. I fear England is on the verge of collapsing.

1534

King Henry has broken from Rome. There is much civil unrest, we can only pray that the future may be peaceful.

1547

King Henry is dead, long live King Edward. Rumours of Papist traitors selling their souls to the Portuguese have entered the monastery. In Wales Frenchmen have been seen speaking to the Welsh chieftains, while the Old Enemy, Scotland, has sent raiding parties over the border again. What does this all mean, God?

1560

Civil war has returned to England, while the traitorous Welsh and Cornish have given themselves to the French and Portuguese respectively. Better news has arrived from Scotland as that country has broken with Rome. The Church of Scotland might be England’s only friend.

1562

Our nation is now divided, and while the war has stopped, the Portuguese seem intent on conquering England. Lord, help England in her time of need, you are our only hope.

1575 We are under the yoke of the Portuguese. They have taken over the Southern half of England while they dispute the over half with Scotland. I can only pray that they will not make us conform with Rome again.

1590

I leave Canterbury today. Like the masses before me I go to the promised land of Scotland. No longer shall I have to conform to the Papists in Portugal or see the horrors that have unfolded over the last 15 years of occupation. Of the thousands of Londoners who died building that monstrous spire and the thousands of my fellow countrymen who have at the hands of Inquisition I pray for your families night and day.

As the personal secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury I give this Chronicle to the Scottish Government as a token of trust and ask in return that you shall ask for the diocese of Canterbury in your discussions with the Portuguese so my friend and worker the Archbishop of Canterbury can stop worrying about whether the Inquisition shall visit him in the night.

I am at your mercy, Father Tomas Wayne.