Introduction

Emperor #

Game rules v2.0 2022-06-18

These are the rules for Emperor, a role-playing political strategy game inspired by games like the Master of Orion series by Infogrames, and the Great Houses of the Landsraad PBeM game. In the game, players take on the role of ruler of a great galactic empire. You can play either with or against your fellow players.. or both. Make your stand by allying with other empires or NPC factions, winning the support of the Galactic Assembly, or crushing your enemies by military might.

The Three Games #

Emperor is at once a role-playing game, a political game, and an empire-management strategy game. These games all inform one another: the strategy game provides the backdrop for the political game, which in turn provides the context in which the role-playing game happens. Let’s first take a look at these games individually to understand how they fit together.

The Strategy Game #

Playing the part of ruler, players will direct the actions of their empire at the galactic level - taking control of new worlds, building infrastructure, deciding what areas your scientists should focus on, commanding military fleets and intelligence operatives, and exploring the galactic map.

View the strategy game rules here.

The Political Game #

Players’ empires start out as the only full voting members of the Galactic Assembly, a sort of United Nations of the galaxy. Other non-player, single-world factions are partial members of the GA, voting together in regional blocs. Players will propose and vote on resolutions to become law, or to take action.

View the political game rules here.

The Role-Playing Game #

Tying the other games together is the role-playing game, where players take on the role of the leaders and diplomats of their empires and even the empire as a whole. Argue your case in front of the Galactic Assembly or conspire privately with others to build political or military alliances to challenge your rivals. Build up your fleets along another player’s borders to intimidate them into voting for your resolution. How you embody the actions of your empire and interact with other players is up to you.

Structure of the Game #

Players interact with the game in two ways: role-playing and discussion via email, and submitting votes and empire management via a web application.

Email #

There are three kinds of emails you might send when interacting with the game:

  1. Emails to the mailing list. These emails are usually role-playing your delegation to the General Assembly. Other role-playing of a broad public nature is also appropriate, such as press coverage of your empire. Occasional messages (or parts of messages) marked with OOC (for “out-of-character”) are welcome for discussing game-related topics with the group.
  2. Emails direct to other players. Private emails for in-character diplomatic messages are definitely allowed - closed door scheming is part of the game. However, all private emails between players must also CC the game master.
  3. Lastly, private emails to the game master are of course welcome if you’d like to discuss the game out of character without giving away information to other players.

Web #

The web interface will allow you to:

  1. Browse a map of known star systems in the galaxy, and see the positions of your planets and fleets, as well as any other players’ planets and fleets within your sensor range.
  2. See the current state of your empire, including your treasury, your levels of technology in different categories, and the levels of infrastructure on the planets that make up your empire.
  3. Issue orders to your fleets, set priorities for research, and build planetary infrastructure or military assets.

Turns #

With the exception of diplomatic interaction and role-playing, the state of the game advances in discrete steps. How often turns happen is up to the group, though week-long turns seem to work well, offering enough time for correspondence and strategizing despite busy real-world schedules.

Things that happen during the transition between turns:

  1. Your empire’s treasury receives income based on its level of economic infrastructure.
  2. Research into your selected technological area advances by a random amount, proportional to your level of scientific infrastructure.
  3. Orders that you have issued are carried out - though not all results happen instantaneously. Some actions, for example sending a fleet from one star system to another, may take a number of turns to complete.
  4. Open votes in the Galactic Assembly close and any laws or actions they propose take effect, if the vote passes.