Empire and Legacy continues its progress from a disparate set of random events to a coherent game. This month I’ve been finalizing the stats I’m using to model the Galactic Empire.

Factions

There are seven bars that are always visible on the left side of the game window. The topmost one shows how much of the galaxy the Empire currently controls, and the other six show the how much political influence each of the major factions currently have.

The factions are:

• The High Noble Houses
• The People’s Assembly
• The Galactic Church
• The Academic Council
• The Guild of Extraction companies
• The Imperial Navy

(I’m probably going to change the appearance of the territory bar to distinguish it from the others, but I’m not sure how yet.)

As Emperor, you’ll spend a lot of your time dealing with these factions. The bars can change rapidly, representing the cutthroat vicissitudes of court politics. If you consistently favour or disfavour a particular faction, you can get its bar to the top or bottom pretty quickly. Conventional Imperial wisdom is that keeping the Empire stable relies on not letting that happen, but perhaps it’s what the galaxy needs.

My original idea was to have each of these factions represent both an interest group at court and also a part of the Empire’s infrastructure. I’d do this by either giving each one two bars, for strength and approval rating, or by having the single bar represent both a hybrid of how influential and how powerful the faction was. I’ve realized that both of these approaches are too limiting, so this month I’ve added separate stats for…

Institutions

While factions represent interest groups jockeying for position in the Imperial court, institutions represent the actual machinery with which the Empire rules the galaxy. Each institution has a strength score from 0 to 100. These change less rapidly than the factions’ influence levels, and they will also tend downwards, representing the Empire’s decline. Some events use these scores as success chances in skill checks, e.g. if the Diplomatic Corps has 60% strength then it has a 60% chance of negotiating a peace treaty.

Some of the institutions are associated with a particular factions (e.g. the Grand Fleet and Anti-Piracy Fleet are the two branches of the Imperial Navy) but most of them fall between factions or aren’t associated with a faction at all.

Because the institution scores change less rapidly than the faction scores, I’m not showing them on the main page. Instead, you can see the scores from the Galactopedia index page, which doubles as a stats screen.

I haven’t decided on the final list of institutions yet (I’ll almost certainly cut some of the ones in the above screenshot), but some of the ones I’ve settled on are:

• The Grand Fleet
• The Anti-Piracy Fleet
• The Diplomatic Corps
• The Imperial Development Network
• The Hyperspace Beacon Network
• The Order of the Mirrored Blade (your spies and assassins)
• The Imperial Palace (the score represents how grand and well-maintained the palace is)

Because the Empire is so ancient, many of these institutions are thousands of years old and have their own traditions and rituals. (Here I’m taking inspiration from Dune, in which every character seems to be a representative of a different quasi-religious organization with its own traditions, symbols, and particular strain of drug-aided mental conditioning.)

If you’re the kind of person who likes reading encyclopedia articles about fictional worlds, you can read about each institution’s history and practices:

If you’re not the kind of person who likes reading encyclopedia articles about fictional worlds, that’s fine too. I’m trying to write the game such that the Galactopedia articles are interesting if you want to read them, but you never feel like you have to read them if you don’t want to. Anything you really need to know will be in the main game text.

As the Empire gradually loses systems, a third kind of game entity will come into play…

Nations

When a faction gets so unhappy that it can no longer support you, it spawns a corresponding nation, and you can either go to war with it let it secede in peace. Each nation has a stat for how many systems it currently controls, and a flag for whether it’s at war with the Empire or not. (The nation is a separate entity from the faction that spawned it, which now represents that part of the faction that’s still inside the Empire.)

Being at war adds a bunch of events (currently all with placeholder text) that let you gain or lose systems while also affecting the influence levels of factions or the strength of institutions. The number of systems you gain/lose is often based on the influence level of a faction or the strength of an institution. In this one, deciding to introduce conscription increases the strength of the Grand Fleet, makes the Navy more influential and the People’s Assembly less so, and then the Empire reconquers a number of systems based on the Grand Fleet’s (newly modified) strength.

The number of systems always refers to the number of inhabited systems. In real life there are 100-400 billion stars in the galaxy, but to keep the numbers readable I’ve decided that in the E&L universe only 10,000 of these stars have habitable planets, and those are the only ones that the Empire counts.

Also, I’m using the word “nation” in my code, but the people of the Empire don’t necessarily think of these as “real” nations–they’re unlawful rebellions that temporarily control systems that are still really part of the Empire.

Current plans

Right now I’m focusing on getting the faction takeover/rebellion mechanics working for the first two factions, the Noble Houses and the People’s Assembly. By the end of next month I hope to have a playable game (but unbalanced and with placeholder text) implemented for those two factions, so that I’ll be able to test siding with the nobility and fighting off a democratic rebellion, or bringing about a Galactic Republic and fighting off a monarchist rebellion, or try to side with both or neither. Once I’ve got that working, I’ll extend it to the other four factions (for a ton of possible combinations of embraced/rebelling factions), and then work on adding even more events and filling in all the placeholder text.

The Imperial Discord Server

Also, at the request of a few people there, I’ve added a new channel to the Beyond the Chiron Gate Discord server for the discussion of Empire and Legacy. If you want to say something about it and find Discord more convenient than commenting on this blog, you can head over there.

This month I’ve been working on the overall structure of Empire and Legacy.

E&L is essentially a series of random events. My original design was to have a single list of events, each of which had some code to evaluate how probable it was based on the current game state. The game would take you through random events at a fairly steady rate (each event was one in-universe year) until you reached the end. I’ve now decided that that wasn’t really satisfying, so this month I’ve redesigned the game to give it a clearer overall structure, while also simplifying the event-choosing code.

The game will now be divided into distinct chapters, each dealing with a different part of your reign, and each with its own set of random events. The event lists are modelled as a deck of cards, which are shuffled at the start and then dealt out one by one. It’s possible for events to insert new cards to the deck, and at the end of each event some code runs that can add new cards to the top of the deck if conditions are met, but overall the deck of card metaphor holds.

Dividing the game into chapters means that each chapter can represent a different length of time. The first one is the time immediately after your accession, where you’re dealing with things like your coronation, your parents’ funeral, and your courtiers jockeying for influence with the new emperor. That whole chapter takes place over weeks or months, and its events might be only a few days apart.

If you survive the initial chapter, the next chapter covers the early part of your reign, where you’re dealing with the day to day life of a still relatively prosperous empire, and each event represents a year or more of time. I’m currently planning five chapters in total, although I might change my mind about that.

I’m also rethinking what the bar for each faction actually represents. Rather than how powerful each faction is or how much it approves of you, I’m now thinking that they represent how much political influence each faction has. This means that preserving the status quo of the Empire means trying to keep the bars in the middle, playing the factions off against one another. If a bar reaches the top, the faction is so influential that it’s basically running the Empire; if a bar reaches the bottom, that faction can decide it has nothing left to lose and can attempt a rebellion. A faction rebellion means you transition to the “galactic civil war” chapter, which has its own deck of event cards. Of course if you want to change the Empire then you might want one of the factions to end up basically running things, but the other factions aren’t going to be happy with that, so that can lead to a civil war by another route.

I’m experimenting with having the faction bars change colour when that faction is in rebellion. Right now the red colour looks kind of ugly but it might still be a good idea if I revise the colour.

My current plan is to flesh out the entire game with placeholder events, and then go back and write the proper text for those events.

Work continues on Empire and Legacy. I’ve written a bunch of placeholder text this month…but more excitingly, we now have cover art:

This is by Tom Morley, the same artist who did the Beyond the Chiron Gate cover art.

I’ve also been adjusting the look of the game itself, changing the plain grey colour scheme to one that’s more a kind of muted bronze colour, and adding a starfield in the background like the one in Chiron Gate. (Compare to last month’s screenshots to see the difference.)

IMPERIAL STAR DREADNOUGHTS: …The Navy’s most powerful capital ships, the Star Dreadnoughts, were built between the 8th and 9th millennia IE. After the 9th millennium the secret of their construction was lost, and by the 12th millennium only half a dozen of these ships remained in service..

— Galactopedia

The Star Dreadnought Cleansing Obliteration fills the sky of Novaion as it returns from its centuries-long tour of duty. A sleek, kilometres-long manta ray shape, moving with a grace that belies its immense size, it represents a vanished golden age of shipbuilding that make more recent ships looks crude and unwieldy. It will spend the next year being repaired and refitted according to the Naval Engineering Corps’ secret rituals, before setting out again, not to return within your lifetime.

As you stand on the palace observation deck watching the spectacle, the head of the Academic Council comes to you with a proposal. If Academic Council archaeologists were to study the ship, they might rediscover some of the lost principles of its construction. Studying it properly, however, would mean disassembling it, permanently taking this irreplaceable naval asset out of service.

• Decommission the ship and let the archaeologists study it.
• Keep the ship in service.

The eventual game will also have custom icons to replace the placeholder ones in the screenshot.

Barely relevant side-note: I’ve started re-reading Asimov’s Foundation series in the hope of getting inspiration, and wow, younger me did not pick up on how sexist that first book is. Hari Seldon gathers the greatest minds of the galaxy to save civilization, and it doesn’t occur to any of them that women could contribute except as wives and secretaries. That’s one idea I won’t be using; my game’s Galactic Empire has more gender equality.

That’s all this month. Hopefully next month I should have more to show.

I’m continuing to write the content for Empire and Legacy. Here are some of the events I’ve written this month.

I decided I wanted the Empire to start losing territory early in the game, so I’ve added this event that always triggers in the first few years:

OUTER RIM: …The few inhabited systems in the Outer Rim were widely spaced and generally undeveloped, making the assertion of any central authority difficult. Many of these systems were only nominally part of the Empire…

— Galactopedia

The Vaion Star Empire unites the entire galaxy. That was what your father always told you, and that was the responsibility you inherited with his untimely death.

But now, as your civil servants return the audit of Imperial systems they began when you ascended to the throne, it begins to look like the Empire’s dominion over much of the galaxy exists only on paper. There are planets in the outer rim that have had no regular contact with the capital for generations. Do the people of these outlying regions even think of themselves as part of the Empire? Do they even still know the Empire exists?

“The tax those systems owe would not be worth the expense of collecting it,” your financial advisor says. “Your predecessors simply ignored them, and I suggest you do the same.”

• I have a duty to even my most distant subjects. Send envoys to the outer systems to re-establish an Imperial presence. (70%)
• Those systems are part of the Empire. Send the navy to enforce the Empire’s rule. (45%)
• Ignore the issue and move on.

The success chances of the first two options are based on your faction strengths. If you succeed one of those checks your empire will still lose some systems, just not as many as if you’d failed.

To add a feeling of progression as your empire loses territory, I’ve added a series of events that trigger when you drop below certain numbers of systems. Here’s the first one, which triggers when you control less than 75% of the galaxy:

VAION: …Although Vaion ceased to be the Imperial capital in 10014 IE, it retained immense symbolic value. When the Empire lost control of the planet in 11317 IE, it was seen as a serious blow to the legitimacy of Anascanar XXXVI’s rule…

— Galactopedia

The holographic map of the galaxy that flickers in your situation room is no longer the one that greeted you when you first walked into the room as emperor. More than a quarter of its stars have gone dark, indicating that the Empire no longer controls those systems. The Galactic Core still glows brightly, but large swathes of the outer rim have slipped from your control.

What stings more painfully than the number of systems lost, however, is the fact that the ancient Imperial capital of Vaion is now outside the Empire’s borders. As a child you visited that planet with your parents and saw the ruins of the palaces from which your ancestors built and then ruled the greatest empire the universe has ever seen. Now those palaces lie outside the Empire’s control, and their future is uncertain.

How can you call yourself the successor to the Vaion Emperors if their ancient homeworld is no longer part of your realm?

• Negotiate with the new rulers of the planet. The old Imperial Palace must remain part of the Empire, even if the planet itself is not. (46%)
• Ready the fleet. We must reclaim the ancient capital. (30%)
• Vaion is of no strategic importance and hasn’t been the capital for a thousand years. Let it go.

Finally, here’s the event I’ve written that kicks off the event chain that can eventually lead to the Empire being reformed into a republic:

PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY: …The power of the People’s Assembly waxed and waned over the long history of the Empire. In some centuries it was ignored or even outlawed, while in others it rose to the status of a formal Galactic Parliament…

— Galactopedia

One of your more pleasant regular duties is your weekly meeting with Jilvon Xvan, the speaker for the People’s Assembly. Over the course of your reign, these meetings have developed from formal briefings to friendly chats.

“Your Majesty, there’s an idea I wanted to run past you before it becomes a formal proposal,” she says one week as you share spiced tea in the Little Throne Room. “You’ve always championed the interests of the common people, and I sense that you are friendly to the ideals of democracy. With your support, the People’s Assembly could become a Galactic Parliament with formal powers…”

Jilvon explains the idea. The new Galactic Parliament would have the power to write laws, but you would remain head of state and have wide-ranging executive powers. It would not transform the Empire into a republic, but it would be a step in that direction.

• Create the Galactic Parliament.
• Absolutely not.

My thought is that you’ve probably not going to get this event if you’re not trying to, so I’ve written it with the idea that your character maybe believes in democracy and is trying to reform the Empire from the inside. At least, that’s what the Speaker for the People’s Assembly hopes–you get to decide if they’re right or not.

Also on display here is the name generator I’ve building into the game. Lots of characters are going to have random names and genders. I started building this system for the potential suitors in the romance/marriage events (whose gender depends on the player’s preferences), but since I had it I decided to use it for other characters too.

That’s all for this month. I’ll keep working on the game and should have some more events to show next month.

P.S. In the unlikely event you’re reading this and don’t already own Beyond the Chiron Gate, it’s currently in the Summer Sale on itch.io and Steam.

This month has partly been taken up by the Chiron Gate Steam release, but I’ve also been working on the ‘Legacy’ part of Empire and Legacy.

You’ll play through the game as the ruler of the Galactic Empire. Once your emperor’s reign ends (often but not necessarily because they die), you’ll then get a few screens of non-interactive story about what happens afterwards. These will be formatted as excerpts from Galactopedia articles–the non-Galactopedia text is what your character personally experiences, but once that character is gone the game will go into a more zoomed-out, historical perspective.

My current plan is for the legacy story to be in three parts:

• Successor state
• Successor institution
• Overall picture of the galaxy

The successor state is what happens to the territory the Empire controls at the end of the game. This might be the entire galaxy, but more likely it’ll be the territory controlled by the old Imperial capital. Is it still a monarchy, or did you manage to steer it towards a republic or something else? If you somehow manage to lose all your territory there might not be a successor state, but that shouldn’t usually happen.

The successor institution is a non-state entity that the Empire leaves behind that influences the course of history. It might be some kind of alliance of newly independent nations (like e.g. how the British Empire ended but left behind the Commonwealth), or it might be something like a religious institution (like e.g. how the Roman Empire collapsed but its religion kept going as the Roman Catholic Church). The Foundation from Asimov’s series would be an example of an institution, as would a monastic order preserving knowledge through the dark age, or an order of knights fighting to keep peace between the planets. You might not manage to found any kind of successor institution, in which case you’ll probably be remembered by history as a weak and indecisive emperor.

The overall picture concerns what’s happening outside that state’s borders. (Or, if you did keep in control of the whole galaxy, what’s happening on the ground as opposed to in the government.) Is the overall galaxy at war or at peace? Is it generally prosperous or impoverished? How much of the old Empire’s scientific and cultural knowledge have been lost? The state and institution from the previous sections will have a lot of influence on this.

The endings you get will be determined partly by the visible stats (the power level of each faction and the amount of territory the Empire controls) but mostly by specific decisions you’ve made during the game. There will be chains of events that let you move towards different legacies, e.g. by gradually converting to a different form of government, or founding one of the successor institutions.

Some comments to my previous posts have indicated that people really want to be able to convert the empire into a republic, so the first legacy event chain I’m working on is the one that will allow you to do that. If you make the People’s Assembly faction powerful, you can have it transform into a parliament, which you can gradually give more powers to until the empire becomes a republic. Of course, this will anger some of the other factions, and you’ll also need to hold on to all the Empire’s territory if you want to end up with the Galactic Republic rather than just a small republic among many other states. I think that this is the ending a lot of players will consider to be the best one, so I’m going to try to balance it to be challenging to get!

Some of the legacy event chains will be things you might want to actively work towards, while others might be “deal with the devil” type things where you keep the Empire together at the expense e.g. of giving more power to sinister corporations. The state and institution at the end might be things you’ve worked towards but might also be things you’ve failed to avoid. I don’t yet have a list of all the possible successor states and institutions (and when I do, I won’t tell you, because this is the kind of game where some of replayability comes from finding all the different endings).

This month I’ve mostly been working on design work and implementing things with placeholder text, which is why there are no screenshots in this dev blog, but next month I should hopefully have some text to show you.