Empire and Legacy: August 2024

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.