Game Proposal: Smash TV

[Puke]

Thanks to SJ and Geo who got this whole concept rolling. I will now shamelessly mooch their good ideas, please note that nothing here is original nor is any of it creditable to me (except my fictional blurbs, devoid of any literary quality).

Your Race is one of the ancient and powerful races that govern the vastness of the universe. Child races have evolved and passed to extenction during the time of your rule. Open war is a thing of the past, as you live side by side with equally powerfull races, each governing as many of the infinite galaxies as they can populate. Disputes and ideological differences are resolved by regulated competition, on a semi-millianal bassis.

This epoch, a small selection of your population has been selected to compete for the glory of your empire, and the entertainment of all. They will be striped of your technological knowledge and history files, and sent into an expanse of space governed by a strict Judiciary. They will be planted on a planet outfitted with enough technology to sustain the standard of living that a citizen of your empire should enjoy, and given a single warship of modern design. They will not be able to replicate this technology however, and any expansion they achieve will have to be on their own.

The setup:
-each race gets one planet
-the planet will be outfitted with multiple spaceyards and will have a high resource production value.
-each race gets one advanced ship. a mere scout by the standards of your empire, but a dreadnaught with impossible technology onboard by the standards of the colonists operating it.
-any advanced technology used will take into account racial techs for your empire. an organic race's advanced DN will be different from a temporal race's.
-ancient races will be allowed, instead of ancient, imagine the description to be 'astrologer' where advanced optics let them see far away stellar bodies.

The Rules of Engagement:
-no orbital bombardments of civilian population. Troops OK. Blocades OK.
-no fireing upon civilian transports or colony ships, boarding parties / shield depleters OK.
-no planet or star destroying weapons
-these RoE do not apply inside an empired recognized borders. for borders to be recognized, they must appear on the 'border map' as unchallenged by your neighboring races. claiming a system that you do not legitimatly border will not be recognized as a true challenge to someone else's border claim.
-Sneak attacks on the same turn that a treaty is broken will not be tollerated.
-engaging in any hostile action against the Judiciary race will not be tollerated
-the Last race standing will be declared the winner.

the dirty details:
no intel. aside from what is mentioned above, it will be a low tech, 1 planet start. this will be on a large (if not unnaturally large) map. colonize anything, trade anything. the judiciary race will occupy a central system and will be well defended. they will have fingers all over the place, and it will take someone a very long time to build up a force large enough to face off against them. racial points at ZERO, this is to discourage people from taking more than one racial tech since it would unbalance the start. research cost low (hey, you should have researched this before, right?) and score visible to all (its a game show, afterall)

The Judicary race will probably not step in on their own, you will have to file a complaint / request with them to get them to do things. often the Judge will not take any direct action, but will respond by invoking trade sanctions (sucks to loose a trade alliance with a race pumping out millions of resources) or declaring free-zones. free zones will be areas on the map where the judge has extended its borders, and in these areas the Rules of Engagement will not apply.

there will actually be an allied victory condition (peace after 2yrs), but the Judiciary race wont let it happen unless they are destroyed. The Judge will recognize a state of universal alliance as a 'cold war' status where people are building up militaries. if it approaches the 2 year mark, the Judicary race will break off its treaties and declare the partnered races unsportsmanly and uncompetative, and procede to prepare for war with them. If any race manages to overcome and destroy the Judge, their parent / sponsor race will enjoy unparalleled fame throughout the universe. until next season.

Open to questions, comments, and suggestions. If there is interest, it will be created on PBW.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)