Olympia is an open-ended computer moderated fantasy simulation. Characters move, battle, explore and study in the Olympian world. Each week, players submit orders for their units. After the turn runs, Olympia sends reports to the players detailing what happened.
Olympia is set in a low technology fantasy world. Characters do not have fixed goals. They may study whatever skills they believe will be useful and pursue goals as they find them. Olympia has no victory conditions; no winner is ever declared.
An aspiring heroic fighter may purchase weapons, study combat and slay monsters. Business-minded individuals can establish a profitable trading empire. The study of magic could furnish tools to advance dark plans. An explorer could trade his gold to a shipbuilder for a galley, and set out on the high seas to find adventure and treasure.
Olympia turn reports tend to be long, detailed and dense. Since your player character may hire other units which can study, move and fight on their own, large factions of characters may be organized. Supplying orders for many units in a large faction can be a lot of work!
A turn report for a new player controlling three characters is about five (66 line) pages. Average turn reports tend to be 15-25 pages. The size of the report will depend on whether a player chooses to concentrate development in a few characters, or to pursue an empire- building strategy of acquiring many units and controlling as much territory as possible.
Orders for Olympia game 4 should be sent to olympia@shadowlandgames.com.
The 'Reply-To:' header on turn reports is set to this e-mail address, so using the reply feature of your e-mail client should send orders to the right place.
Your orders are automatically loaded into the game and queued for your units. The scanner will send a reply as soon as it processes your mail, showing whether or not there were any errors with the orders it received.
Note that the order scanner does not do an exhaustive check of your orders' syntax; it checks that the commands given exist, and checks the parameters of those commands that are executed at parse time - notably those involved in parsing (begin, unit, password, email and vis_email), in report formatting (format and notab) and those which have immediate secondary effects (resend and lore). Other commands' parameters are only checked when they are executed during the turn run.
Orders must be of the following form:
begin player-number password
email, lore, password commands
unit player-number
commands for player entity: name, format or quit
unit unit-number
commands for unit
unit unit-number
commands for unit
end
The `Subject:' line on your message is ignored.
The begin keyword tells the order scanner what your player number is. If you have not set a password, you do not need to supply one.
The unit command replaces a set of orders for a unit. Any pending orders for the unit will be cleared, and the new orders sent in will queue up. Orders that are still executing for the unit will not be interrupted unless the first order queued is the stop order.
Do not match an end for every unit command! There should only be one end, at the end of all of the unit sections. The Olympia order parser will not read beyond the end.
For example, here is a set of orders for player Fate [812], who has two characters, Osswid [5499] and Candide [1269]:
begin 812
password sneaky
unit 5499
explore
move east
explore
study 600
unit 1269
move north
stack 5499
end
The parser tries to be as flexible as possible. It is case insensitive and is not strict about spaces on a line, so you may use indentation to make your orders more readable.
Orders may be commented with the `#' character. Everything from a `#' to the end of the line will be ignored by the parser:
move north # Head to Drassa to meet up with Osswid
stack 5499 # stack with him
No one will read the comments but you. Neither the GM nor the Olympia engine will try to interpret them for any reason.
Note that arguments must be enclosed in quotes if they are more than one word:
name "Osswid the Constructor"
The acknowledgement will show any errors that occurred while the orders were being parsed, and list the current pending commands for all of your units.
There is a limit of 250 orders which may be queued per unit. Additional orders will be dropped and will not appear in the unit's command queue.
Suppose the turn report shows the following orders queued:
unit 5499
# > study 160 (executing for three more days)
recruit 10
explore
Sending in new orders for this unit will not disturb the still-running study command unless the first order is stop.
For example: If this were sent in:
unit 5499
move south
This would be the result:
unit 5499
# > study 160 (executing for three more days)
move south
To interrupt the study and get on with the move right away, instead send in:
unit 5499
stop
move south
This will show:
unit 5499
# > study 160 (executing for three more days)
stop
move south
Note that the stop queues like any other order; it does not actually interrupt the executing command until the turn runs. This means that the stop itself can be replaced by sending in another set of orders later.
Orders may be sent in for units which are not yet under control, such as characters that you intend to bribe or terrorize into switching to your faction.
As soon as the unit comes under your control, the orders queued for it will begin to execute.
Orders may also be sent in for new nobles which will be formed during the turn. First choose one of the possible unit numbers from the choices listed near the beginning of the turn report:
The next five nobles formed will be: 5717 3215 4902 4489 5628
Supply one of these numbers as the first parameter to the form order:
form 5628 "Feasel the Wicked"
Then queue some orders for Feasel to execute as soon as he appears:
unit 5628
unstack
study 160
move out
recruit
...
An order template appears at the bottom of the turn report. This template lists all of the units for a player and shows any pending orders for those units.
Order template
---------------------
begin 812 # Master Bogomil's Family
unit 2508 # Tudor
# > make 74 (still executing)
unit 2947 # Milo
unit 4375 # Beorn
# > move s (executing for one more day)
pillage
recruit
unit 4763 # Sylvia
unit 5977 # Drango
# > collect 87 0 0 (still executing)
sail e
sail s
fish
explore
unit 5418 # Comte de le Sang
end
Note that the layout of the order template matches the syntax the order scanner expects. Many players find it convenient to edit this template to add or change commands for their units. Mail everything from the begin to end (inclusive) to the order scanner. It is wise to save a copy of the orders you submit in case there are errors and they need to be resent.
Be careful
Beware of sending in different sets of orders too quickly. Sometimes messages sent within a short time of each other will arrive out of order. This can wreak havoc on your turn if the wrong orders arrive last. Compose your orders offline and review them before mailing. A simple typographical error in your orders could ruin your whole turn!
Some players make clever use of the PASSWORD order to make sure that an order set lingering out in the email system on the network which arrives late won't replace a more recent order set sent in. For example, say you submit some orders on Friday, and they don't show up by Monday. Monday you send an updated set of orders to order scanner and get an instant reply. The Friday orders have not arrived yet, but you're worried that they're out there and will arrive sooner or later, replacing the newer set of orders you just sent in. Solution: issue a PASSWORD order in the newer set, so the Friday orders will fail when they do arrive.
Commands that fail generally take zero time.
For instance, if study is issued for a skill which the location does not offer, it will fail immediately, and take zero time. The failed study order will not take a week, and it will not count toward the limited study time for that month.
Production commands fail immediately if none of their input resources are available. For instance, recruit in a location with no peasants will immediately fail, taking zero time. However, resources may sometimes become depleted while the command is being executed. In such cases, the command may fail even after it has spent some time executing.
You can replace orders for some units, but leave pending orders for other units alone, by only including unit sections for the ones you want to change.
If you want to see what orders are queued, but not change anything send in:
begin 999 # whatever your player number is ...
end
To change your email address, send in:
begin 999
email new@address.com # give your new address
end
As a security measure, the confirmation will be sent to both the new and old addresses.
To change the name of your faction, issue the name order for the faction's player entity:
begin 999
unit 999
name "Seekers of Fame and Power" ...
end
Important: Don't forget the unit command for the player entity.
Each Olympia player faction has a number. This number is represented by an entity in the game. However, unlike a character, this entity is mostly used as a place holder for the faction. No one can see the faction entity, and it can issue very few orders.
For example, suppose player Fate [501] has one character Osswid [5499]. Fate does not exist in any location, so it does not receive a location report, and no one can see it. However, Osswid, being the player character for the faction, is sworn to Fate [501]. Fate may execute only a limited set of administrative orders.
Characters, not factions, issue most orders. Do not try to form or recruit with the player entity. For most turns, the player entity will have no orders queued for it.
The orders a player entity may issue are:
- accept
- admit
- default
- defend
- format
- hostile
- message
- name
- neutral
- notab
- press
- realname
- rumor
- times
- quit
To drop out of the game, issue the quit order for your player entity.
For instance, player 501 would quit by sending in the following orders:
begin 812 password
unit 812 # don't forget unit for the player unit!
quit
end
No turn report will be sent for the turn in which a player quits.
When a character enters a location, it is added to the end of the list of characters already there. The unit that has been in a location the longest will appear at the top of the list.
If a character leaves a location and later returns, it will be put at the end of the list again.
For example:
Seen here:
Candide [1269]
Osswid [5499]
Feasel the Wicked [1109]
Candide has been here longest, followed by Osswid, then Feasel. If Candide were to leave and return, he would appear at the end of the list.
If a character unstacks from beneath another unit, the character will appear just after the unit, rather than at the end of the list.
For example:
Seen here:
Candide [1269], accompanied by:
Osswid [5499]
Feasel the Wicked [1109]
Osswid is stacked beneath Candide. If Osswid unstacks, he will appear after Candide, not after Feasel:
Seen here:
Candide [1269]
Osswid [5499]
Feasel the Wicked [1109]
Note: new player characters are added to the top of the list of characters in the safe haven in which they join, not the bottom. Additonal characters formed by them will appear at the bottom of the list as usual.
All orders have a priority of 0-4.
- Permission commands (admit, hostile, etc.) are priority 0.
- Zero-time commands and wait are priority 1.
- move and fly are priority 2.
- The sail command is priority 4.
- All other commands are priority 3.
The order scheduler will first try to start all priority 0 orders. Only when no more priority 0 orders are ready to start will a priority 1 order be started.
In other words, the order scheduler will not start an order at a higher priority when an order may be started at a lower priority.
Orders at the same priority are resolved in location order. If two units in a location are both waiting to start a move order, the first unit in the location will go first.
The above description of order priorities may seem complicated, but the intent is to let players ignore same-day synchronization issues in most cases. Rather that needing wait to guarantee that give happens before move, the lower priority of give makes this happen naturally.
For example, consider three units stacked together, top, mid and bot:
top:
move ec69
yew
mid:
unstack
recruit
bot:
recruit
These should be executed in the following order:
mid: unstack # unstack is prio-1
top: move ec69 # move is prio-2
mid: recruit # recruit is prio-3 [top and bot arrive at ec69]
top: yew # yew is prio-3
bot: recruit # recruit is prio-3
The unstack happened first since it's a priority 1 command. The move went second. When top and bot finished moving, there were only priority three commands left, so they ran in location order.
Command precedence within a location
Seen here:
Candide [1269]
Osswid [5499]
Feasel the Wicked [1109]
Order precedence within a location is an advantage for commands or skill uses which obtain resources from the location. For instance, if Candide and Osswid both attempted to harvest all of the lumber available in their location, Candide would have precedence, since his harvest order would finish before Osswid's, if they were started on the same day.
At the same time ...
No two things ever happen at exactly the same instant in Olympia. Someone always goes first.
Suppose two characters were outside of a building (which nobody is inside), and both wanted to enter, to claim it:
Seen here:
Osswid [5499]
Candide [1269]
Inner locations:
Hooting Own Inn [ep76], inn
Both Osswid and Candid issue `move ep76' as their first order on day 1 of the month. What happens?
Osswid's command begins before Candide's, since Osswid appears before Candid in the location list. Therefore, Osswid will enter the inn first.
Osswid ? Candide ------- 8 days -------- 8 days -------- city A city B city C
If Osswid and Candide both leave for city B on the same day, we cannot predict who will get their first.
Olympia's map is a large grid of locations called provinces. Groups of provinces form continents, islands and oceans. These collections are called regions, and are usually named.
A province's description will include a list of the directions in which a character may travel:
Plain [ae48], plain, in region Tollus
Routes leaving Plain [ae48]:
North, to Plain [ad48], 7 days
East, to Plain [ae49], 7 days
South, to Ocean [af48], Tymaerian Sea, 1 day
West, to Ocean [ae47], Tymaerian Sea, 1 day
This is a non-descript province in the Tollus region.
From this province, a character may travel north or east on foot or by horse, or may sail by ship to the south or west.
move north -or- move n -or- move ad48
move east -or- move e -or- move ae49
sail south -or- sail e -or- sail af48
sail west -or- sail w -or- sail ae47
Land movement will automatically use the fastest available mode. For example, if a character has enough horses for all of the members in the party to ride, then the travelers will go on horseback.
Ocean movement requires that the character be in a ship.
Route distances are rated for the number of days it normally takes to traverse them. Land distances are rated for a lightly loaded character walking, and ocean distances are given for an ordinary ship traveling in normal weather.
Actual travel times may differ from times given in the route listing. Land distances depend on the surrounding terrain and the modes of transport available. For example, horses often speed up movement, but over especially rough or treacherous terrain, they may actually slow travel because they must be led and managed. A stiff wind may speed ocean vessels, while lack of wind may slow their progress.
Nobles have a health rating of 1-100, which indicates how wounded they are. A noble with health 100 has no wounds; a noble with a health of zero dies. Nobles also have a flag which indicates whether they are suffering from an illness. A sick noble will lose some health each week, while a wounded noble who is otherwise free of illness will recover somewhat each week.
Health is shown in the turn report for each noble that the player controls.
This is a noble in perfect health:
Health: 100%
This is a rather sick noble:
Health: 38% (getting worse)
If the noble were cured of illness, this would instead show:
Health: 38% (getting better)
Medical technology is rather crude in the age of Olympia. Sanitation and hygiene are not the best. Even a minor wound runs a risk of developing into a serious, possibly life-threatening problem.
When a noble receives a new injury, their health is reduced by the amount of the injury, and a check is made to see whether they get sick. The chance that a character falls ill is (100 - health). Thus, the more seriously the noble is wounded, the greater the probability that infection will set in.
Health is updated at the end of each game week (on days 7, 14, 21 and 28). Sick nobles lose 3-15 health each week. Healthy but wounded nobles recover by a like amount. Each week sick nobles have a 5% chance of fighting off their illness.
Nobles located in an inn benefit from the rest and relaxation that the inn provides. Inns increase the chance of fighting off infection to 10% each week.
Illness can also be cured by spells, special skills, or magical potions. Sick nobles would be wise to seek out those practiced in healing, and recover in a nearby inn.
Notes:
- Characters who recover from illness will not suddenly become sick again. The illness check is only made when a new wound is received.
- Since the chance that a character becomes sick is based on the unit's health after deducting a hit, an already-wounded noble stands a greater chance of becoming ill from a wound than a healthy one.
- Health is only tracked for nobles. Peasants, workers, sailors, soldiers, etc. are either dead or alive; they have no health rating.
- A wound received in combat will be randomly chosen between 1 and 100. Wounds received in other activities are scaled to match the level of danger involved.
- Some NPCs are not rated for health. Health for these characters appears as n/a in the turn report. For means of directly inflicting damage against a character such as terrorize, Aura blasts, and Lightning bolts, such a unit requires a hit of 50 or more points in order to be killed.
When a noble is killed in battle or dies, the body is moved into the province as an item which may be found with EXPLORE. An executed noble's body is given to the character who performed the execution.
A dead body exists for one and one half game years, at which point it fully decomposes, and the dead noble's spirit passes on.
Example: A dead body rots after twelve months have passed, so if a noble dies in turn 20, his body will decompose at the end of turn 32.
The bodies of nobles lost at sea will wash ashore somewhere.
Bodies decompose after one and one half years regardless of whether they remain in the province or are possesions of another.
Priests may learn a skill Lay to rest, hastening the passing of the dead noble's spirit. Some exceptionally skilled priests possess the ability to resurrect dead characters.
In general, NP's invested in characters are returned to the character's player if the character deserts or his body decomposes.
Characters which renounce service becaused of lapsed contract or fear loyalty do not immediately return the NPs to the previous owner. The previous owner of these characters will not receive NPs for them until they swear to a new player faction or die.
When a body decomposes, the number of NP's which were invested in the character are returned to the original owner.
Characters issue buy and sell commands to indicate their desire to trade goods. Every trade must be between a buyer and a seller. Whenever a compatible buy and sell request are found, the trade will be executed.
Trades are only matched in cities, where merchants gather at the local bazaar to swap goods. (Note that characters are always free to use the give command to exchange items, regardless of where they are. But buy and sell orders are only matched in cities.)
A buyer indicates what he wants to buy, how much of it he wants, and the most he is willing to pay. A seller indicates what item is being sold, how much of it is to be sold, and the per-item price.
A trade will match if the seller's price does not exceed the maximum price specified by the buyer; if the buyer has enough gold to buy at least one of the item; if the seller possesses at least one of the item; and if the buyer and seller are both in the same city.
If the buyer is willing to pay more than the seller is asking, the trade takes place at the seller's price.
Example: A noble who wants to buy five iron [79] at no more than 10 gold each issues:
> buy 79 5 10
Try to buy five iron [79] for 10 gold each.
If someone who had iron issues a sell order which matches this buyer's request, the trade would be executed:
> sell 79 5 10
Sold five iron [79] for 50 gold.
The buyer would see:
Bought five iron [79] for 50 gold.
Either the buy or the sell order could have been issued first. If the order can't be matched with pending trades from other units in the city, it will become a standing order and remain in effect until executed or canceled.
> buy 79 0
Cleared pending buy for iron [79].
Note that the buyer and seller can't specify what character they will deal with. They will trade with any unit that has a matching buy or sell order.
Nobles are bound to their lords by one of three kinds of loyalty:
- contract
- The noble is being paid for his service
- oath
- The noble has taken an oath to serve his master
- fear
- The noble serves out of fear
The loyalty bond is rated. For example, a character's loyalty could be oath-1, contract-500, or fear-50.
A player's initial character has oath-2 loyalty.
Newly hired nobles have loyalty contract-500. Nobles are paid for
their
service with the honor command. A noble who issues
`honor 50
A noble may take an oath of loyalty, pledging one or two Noble Points
to
secure it. This would yield loyalty oath-1 or oath-2. The
oath
order secures an oath of loyalty for a noble.
Nobles may be terrorized by their masters. The severity of their
treatment
accumulates in the loyalty rating: fear-10, for instance. Fear loyalty
is
maintained with the terrorize order.
Only one kind of loyalty may be active at a time.
Contract and fear loyalty decay over time. Contract loyalty loses the greater of 50 points or 10% of the current rating each month. Fear loyalty loses 1-2 rating points each month. Oath loyalty does not decay.
Units which do not have enough loyalty to cover this decay have a 50% chance of deserting each month.
Nobles serving through contract or fear are susceptible to bribes,
which may
induce them to renounce loyalty to their lord, and pledge their service
to the
bribing faction. For details on bribing characters, see the
bribe
order.
Oath-1 nobles ignore all bribes. There is a persuasion skill which may cause an oath-1 noble to defect, although its use is difficult and rarely succeeds. Oath-1 nobles may reveal their factional affiliation if tortured.
Oath-2 nobles will not renounce loyalty to their lord under any circumstances, nor can they be forced to reveal any information about themselves.
Summary:
- contract
- Amount of gold invested in noble
Decays by max(50, 10% of current rating) each month
- fear
- Severity of
terrorizeused on nobleDecays 1-2 points each month
- oath
- 1 or 2 NPs may be invested in an oath
bond
Does not decay
Commands dealing with loyalty bonds:
bribehonoroathterrorize
One unit may stack under another unit. Two or more units
grouped
in this way are referred to as a stack.
Stacks move together and fight together. Here is a stack of four units:
Law Netexus [2020], accompanied by: Feasel the Wicked [1109] Drakkar the Trader [1752] Alion Krysaka [2785]
Law Netexus is the stack leader, the top-most unit in the stack.
Only one level of stack depth is shown, so all that can be determined from the location report is that Feasel, Drakkar and Alion are stacked somewhere beneath Law Netexus. The exact arrangement of stacking bonds is not shown.
Feasel might be stacked under Law Netexus, with Drakkar and Alion under Feasel. Or Feasel, Drakkar, and Alion may all be stacked directly beneath Law Netexus.
Generally, such internal arrangements are only important when the stack breaks up. If Drakkar is stacked beneath Feasel, he will stick with Feasel if Feasel drops out of the stack. But if Drakkar were stacked beneath Law Netexus, he would not follow Feasel if Feasel unstacked.
If Law Netexus issues a move order, the entire stack
will move.
If, however, Feasel issues a move order, he will first drop
out of
the stack before moving.
Similarly, if Law Netexus engages combat with the attack
order,
all characters in the stack will fight together. If one member of the
stack is
attacked, the entire stack will respond in defense.
Multiple levels of internal stacking can be useful if one wants several stacks to join together for a while, but then split apart later into their old arrangements.
Ocean ships may not be stacked together. There is no way to cluster ships into a fleet.
Carrying capacity: Men and items are rated for how much they weigh, and how much they can carry, walking, riding or flying.
| Name |
Weight |
Walking | Riding | Flying |
| Man | 100 | 100 | - | - |
| Riding Horse | 1000 | 150 | 150 | - |
| Wild Horse | 300 | self | self | - |
| Warmount | 300 | 150 | 150 | - |
| Knight | 400 | 100 | 100 | - |
| Elite Guard | 400 | 100 | 100 | - |
| Ox | 1000 | 1500 | self | - |
| Winged Horse | 300 | 150 | 150 | 150 |
`man' includes all of the varieties of men, including
peasants,
sailors, workers, etc. as well as nobles. A knight includes both the man
and the
horse, hence the 400 weight.
In order to ride, the total riding capacity must cover the weights of all the units that may not ride themselves.
Examples:
- man + riding horse
-
ride capacity is 150 - 100 = 50 walk capacity is 250
- man + riding horse + wild horse
-
ride capacity is 150 - 100 = 50 walk capacity is 250
The wild horse can walk or ride on its own, but will not carry anything.
-
ride capacity is 150 - 100 = 50 walk capacity is 1750
The ox may be driven alongside the horse, but will not carry anything when moving so quickly.
- man + riding horse + ox
A stack will ride if there is enough riding capacity to carry all of the non-riders. Otherwise, the stack will walk.
In order to fly, the total flying capacity for the stack must cover the weights of all units that can not fly themselves.
Stacks which are overloaded beyond their walking capacity will travel slower than normal. A stack loaded at 150% of its walking capacity will take 50% longer to traverse a route. Stacks overloaded to over 200% of walking capacity may not travel at all.
Weights and capacities are always considered for the stack as a whole. One unit may have all the men, and another unit may have all the horses. If they are stacked together, the distribution of items across units is irrelevant.
Nobles may be accompanied by different kinds of men. Men may be
peasants
obtained with the recruit order, or peasants who have been
trained
into other kinds of men such as sailors, soldiers or workers.
The different kinds of men:
- peasant [10]
- worker [11]
- soldier [12]
- archer [13]
- knight [14]
- elite guard [15]
- pikeman [16]
- blessed soldier [17]
- sailor [19]
- swordsman [20]
- crossbowman [21]
- elite archer [22]
- pirate [24]
A peasant may be trained into a soldier, sailor, worker, or crossbowman. Soldiers may be given further training to become pikemen, swordsmen, or archers. More advanced fighters may be trained from swordsmen and archers.
+--- sailor ------- pirate +---- worker +----- crossbowman / peasant ------ soldier ------ swordsman --- knight ----- elite guard \ +---- archer ------ elite archer +--- pikeman +-- blessed soldier
Training a man may require that the noble have a certain skill, or possess some item. For instance, training soldiers into swordsmen requires a longsword [74] for each swordsman produced. The training character must also know Combat [610].
Some men may only be trained in certain kinds of locations. Elite guard and elite archers, for instance, may only be trained in castles. Blessed soldiers may only be trained in temples.
Training takes one day per man. Training five archers into five elite archers would take five days, for example. Training ten peasants into ten crossbowmen would take 10 days.
num kind skill input man input item where --- ----------- ----- -------------- ---------------- ------ 11 worker none peasant [10] 12 soldier 610 peasant [10] 13 archer 615 soldier [12] longbow [72] 14 knight 616 swordsman [20] warmount [53] 15 elite guard 616 knight [14] plate armor [73] castle 16 pikeman 610 soldier [12] pike [75] 17 blessed soldier 750 soldier [12] temple 19 sailor 601 peasant [10] 20 swordsman 616 soldier [12] longsword [74] 21 crossbowman 610 peasant [10] crossbow [85] 22 elite archer 615 archer [13] castle 24 pirate 616 sailor [19] longsword [74] ship
- A character needs no skills to train a worker.
- To train a sailor requires Sailing [601], a subskill of Shipcraft [600].
- Training archers and elite archers requires Archery [615], a subskill of Combat [610].
- Training swordsmen, knights and elite guard requires Swordplay [616], a subskill of Combat [610].
For more information and examples, see the train
order.
Men such as soldiers, workers, archers, etc. must be paid in gold monthly or they will leave the service of their noble. Peasants do not willingly leave a noble's service, but will starve if they are not paid. This cost is charged to the noble holding them at the end of each month.
If the noble does not have enough gold to pay his men, he will ask other nobles in his stack (provided they belong to the same player) for gold. Thus, only one member of a stack need carry gold for maintenance costs for the entire stack. Nobles will not share gold with units from other players.
If the noble can only afford to pay some of his men, one-third of those not paid will leave service at the end of the month. The computer chooses which men remain and which leave or starve.
num kind cost --- ----------- ---- 10 peasant 1 11 worker 2 19 sailor 2 21 crossbowman 2 12 soldier 2 13 archer 3 16 pikeman 3 17 blessed soldier 3 20 swordsman 3 24 pirate 3 14 knight 4 22 elite archer 4 15 elite guard 5
Note that nobles may drop men to release them from
service
deliberately.
Weapons and armor are required for the training of some kinds of fighters. Archers require longbows, for instance, elite guard require plate armor, etc.
Weapons and armor are made with the make command. The
Weaponsmithing [617] subskill of Combat [610] is required to make
weapons and
armor.
num item material --- ---- -------- 72 longbow yew [68] 73 plate armor iron [79] 74 longsword iron [79] 75 pike wood [77] 85 crossbow wood [77]
One unit of the input material may turned into one of the desired
items each
day. For example, make 72 2 would spend two days turning
two yew
[68] into two longbows [72].
Skills represent knowledge that Olympian characters may know. Shipbuilding, thievery, kidnaping, training soldiers, castle building, mixing potions, and forging magical artifacts are just a few of the possible actions which skills allow a character to perform.
Skills are divided into category skills and sub-skills within those categories. The skill categories are:
num name time to learn --- ---- ------------- 600 Shipcraft three weeks 610 Combat three weeks 630 Stealth four weeks 650 Beastmastery four weeks, 1 NP req'd 670 Persuasion four weeks 680 Construction three weeks 690 Alchemy four weeks 700 Forestry three weeks 720 Mining three weeks 730 Trade three weeks
There are also six schools of magic. For more details on learning and casting magical spells, see the Magical Arts section.
The category skill must be learned before any of the sub-skills within the category may be known.
With each skill learned, the player will receive a lore sheet
describing
background information about the skill and how it may be used. Most
skills are
invoked with the `use skilluse and and requirements or limitations for using the
skill.
The lore sheets for the skill categories list some of the skills available for study within the category.
For instance, a noble wishing to undertake the study of Shipcraft
would first
learn the category skill with the study command:
study 600
The Shipcraft lore sheet lists some of the sub-skills available for building and sailing ships. One of these is Sailing [601], the skill required to control a ship on the ocean. The aspiring captain could then order:
study 601
Once Sailing [601] is known, the lore sheet describing its usage will appear in the player's turn report.
To begin study of a skill requires the following:
- A source of instruction
- Payment of a fee for necessary materials
- Payment of Noble Points to learn advanced skills
Research attempts to discover sub-skills which are not commonly known or made available when the category skill is learned.
Research is mostly used to discover new magical spells, as few spells are granted when a magic school is learned. However, even common skills such as Shipcraft, Combat and Construction may have hidden sub-skills which can be found through research.
Research for all skill categories except Religion [750] must be
performed in
a tower, by the tower's owner (the first character inside the tower).
Towers
make good laboratories for scholarly investigations, and minimize
distractions.
Other occupants of the tower may not use research.
Research into Religion [750] must be performed in a temple, by the temple's owner.
Research by mages of 6th black circle level and above (maximum aura of 31 or higher) must be done in provinces with a civilization level of 1 or less.
When a category skill is learned, its lore sheet appears in the player's turn report, listing information about the skill as well as sub-skills which may be studied directly based on the parent skill.
An example:
Lore for Shipcraft [600] ------------------------ All skills concerning ocean travel fall under this category. Shipcraft encompasses the building and repair of ships, training of sailors, and navigation at sea. The following skills may be studied directly once Shipcraft is known: num skill time to learn --- ----- ------------- 601 Sailing one week ... Further skills may be found through research.
The last line (`Further skills ...') indicates that
there are
sub-skills of Shipcraft which are not mentioned in the lore sheet. These
hidden
skills may represent rare or hard-to-learn knowledge, or perhaps
technology
which has not yet been discovered.
Study of these skills is not possible based simply on knowledge of the parent skill. Sailing [601] can be learned by a character, no matter where he is, once Shipcraft is known. Hidden Shipcraft skills, however, must be learned in other ways, even if the character has learned their entity numbers from other players.
There are two possible ways such hidden skills may be learned:
- Through a rare book or scroll which offers instruction in the skill.
- Through research.
Research is the more difficult choice. However, to learn rare sub-skills there may be no alternative. Perhaps there are no players who already know the rare sub-skill, and so cannot record scrolls to instruct others. Or if there are, they choose to keep their knowledge secret.
Research incurs a fee of 25 gold to pay for miscellaneous materials and costs.
Each week of research yields a 25% chance that a new skill will be discovered.
If research is successful, the new sub-skill will be added to the character's partially known skill list. It then must be studied in order to become fully known and usable.
For example:
1: > research 600 1: Will research Shipcraft for seven days. 7: Research uncovers a new skill: Improve ship rigging [9999]. 7: To begin learning this skill, order 'study 9999'. Partially known skills: 9999 Improve ship rigging, 0/7
The `0/7' qualifying the new sub-skill in the partially
known
skill list indicates that seven full days of study are required to learn
the
skill, and none of them have yet been completed.
1: > study 9999 1: Paid 100 gold to begin study. 1: Will study Improve ship rigging for seven days. 7: Learned Improve ship rigging [9999].
The research order is no longer used on the new skill
once it
becomes partially known. Research may continue to be used on Shipcraft
[600],
however, to seek out more hidden sub-skills.
Category skills may not be learned through research.
Magic is a dead cat in an oil-stained burlap bag.
Magic is a
smelly old
man, despised but feared by his neighbors.
Magic is what the king
turns to,
when his soldiers fail.
--- a
long-dead wise man of Areth Pirn
Magic is the dark art by which events are influenced outside of the normal boundaries of cause-and-effect. Rather than the glamorous ideal of shining wizards casting powerful fireballs at wicked foes, the reality of magic instead tends to be base, tedious work which earns few friends.
Hated and feared, the magician pursues his craft out of the sight of men. Like wisps of smoke rising from an ember cast into dry straw, so the mage's spells slowly take hold, woven with secret knowledge and foul ingredients.
The casting of a magical spell is accomplished with three ingredients: Knowledge of the spell, possession of any items necessary to fuel the spell, and a sufficient level of magical aura to perform the ritual or ceremony.
Learning the skill category Religion [750] labels the character as a priest. Religion [750] requires 1 Noble Point and five weeks to learn. Religion [750] may be studied in any temple. Religion is not taught by cities. Skills in the Religion category are known as prayers.
Temples yield 100 gold in offerings per month to their owner, if the owner is a priest. Temples may be built anywhere, except inside another building.
Research into Religion [750] must be performed in a temple rather than a tower.
Combat in Olympia occurs when one stack attacks another stack.
A unit will be defended by any other characters it is stacked with.
Thus, a
unit which is part of a stack cannot be attacked alone. No matter which
unit is
specified in the attack order, the entire stack containing
the unit
will respond.
Only the leader of a stack may initiate combat. If another unit in a
stack
wants to issue attack, it must first drop out of the
stack.
Combat involves nobles, who possess strong heroic fighting abilities, and fighters who may accompany them. Fighters include soldiers, pikemen, swordsmen, knights, elite guard, crossbowmen, archers, and elite archers.
Characters may become prisoners by losing to an enemy in battle, or by using the surrender order (see orders section for description).
Since prisoners are unable to report where they are and what they are seeing, they do not contribute to the turn report of their faction. The player's turn report will show that that a unit is being held prisoner, but little else.
Prisoners will not execute any orders while they are in captivity. Queued orders will remain pending, but none will be processed.
Prisoners when spotted appear as stacked units, marked with the
`prisoner' string:
Seen here: Kosar the Indefectible [2022], with six peasants, one archer, two soldiers, accompanied by: Alion Krysaka [2785], prisoner
Unstacking a prisoner sets them free. Kosar could free Alion by
ordering
`unstack 2785
Prisoners may be transferred between units with the give
command. Kosar could transfer Alion to Osswid [501] by ordering:
give 501 2785
Prisoner escapes
Prisoners are always on the lookout for ways to escape. Units holding prisoners can reduce their chances by remaining inside a structure, not transferring prisoners with give, and not traveling with prisoners.
Commands dealing with permissions:
admithostileneutraldefenddefault
Attitudes can be declared by or for either specific units, or an entire faction. For instance, player [613] could declare a permission or attitude for player [555], or a specific attitude for individual units within player 555's faction.
Declaring a permission for a player works so long as the player's units are not concealing their faction identity with Conceal faction [635], a subskill of Stealth [630].
The following structures may be built by characters with the Construction [680] skill:
kind effort material skill where ---- ------ -------- ----- ----- inn 300 75 wood 680 province or city mine 500 25 wood 680 or 720 mountain or rocky hill temple 1,000 50 stone 680 anywhere tower 2,000 100 stone 680 anywhere castle 10,000 500 stone 680 province or city
The term `anywhere' means a province, city, or other
sublocation. Buildings may not be built inside other buildings, with the
exception of towers. Up to six towers may be built inside a castle.
Effort is in worker-days.
The builder must know the required skill, have at least three workers, and possess at least one-fifth of the necessary construction materials in his inventory.
To start building, unstack from beneath other characters and issue
one of the
following build orders:
build inn"name of inn"build mine"name of mine"build temple"name of temple"build tower"name of tower"build castle"name of castle"
For example, a character who wanted to build a tower would need to know Construction [680], have at least three workers [11], and possess at least 20 stone [78].
The construction materials will immediately be deducted from the builder's inventory and put to use. The builder and his workers will be placed inside the new structure.
The remaining construction materials are paid as work on the structure progresses. A second fifth is required as the building becomes 20% complete, the third fifth at 40%, etc. Construction halts if the builder runs out of materials.
The building is completed when the required number of worker-days is invested in construction.
To resume construction of a partially completed building, first enter
the
structure, then issue the appropriate build order (such as build
inn, build mine, etc.)
Mines may only be built in mountain provinces or on rocky hills. Only one mine per location is allowed. Mines may also be built by characters with the Mining [720] skill.
Only one castle may be built in each province. The castle may be built either in the province or a city, if the province has one. Castles may not be built in sub-locations other than cities.
Inns must be built in provinces or cities. A good site for an inn is just outside a city, as the inn will benefit from the patronage of many travelers.
The restive environment inns provide help wounded nobles to heal. Nobles located in an inn have an 10% increased chance of fighting off infection each week.
Inns generate income each month from the visitors who stop for a meal and a pint of ale, or spend in the night in one of the inn's rooms. (Nobles who enter are not directly charged. Other patrons are anonymous; the only indication of their presence is the income the inn generates.)
Inns generate between 50 and 75 gold per month. Looting and pillaging scares away customers, and so lowers the inn's income. If more than one inn is built in a province, the profits are split between them.
Income is paid to the owner of the inn at the end of each month.
The owner of a building or a ship is the first character shown inside. This will be the first character to have entered the building or ship, unless another character attacked the previous owner and taken position at the head of the list.
For example, assume the following characters are on a ship, the HMS Pinafore [4000]:
Candide the Captain [1269], with ten sailors Osswid [5499], accompanied by: Feasel the Wicked [1109]
Since Candide is first in the ship's character list, he is the owner of the ship. Only Candide may issue sail orders, or change the ship's name. If Candide were to leave, Osswid would become the new captain of the ship.
The owner of a building or ship may determine who may enter with the
admit order. The default is to refuse entry to units from
other
factions.
If the first character inside a building leaves, he is no longer the owner.
A building is a castle, tower, inn, temple or mine.
A mine is a deep shaft or tunnel which allows workers to extract valuable resources from the earth, such as iron and gold. At most one mine may be built in each mountain province or rocky hill.
A new mine has an initial depth of one. The mine shaft becomes deeper as characters use it to obtain natural resources. The shaft will become one level deeper for every three uses of a mining extraction skill.
As the depth of the shaft increases, the mix of resources obtainable changes. Iron is usually found nearest the surface. As one proceeds deeper, gold may be found in higher quantities. Other rare elements may be found by going deeper still.
The deeper a mine becomes, the more frequently cave-ins or other
accidents
will occur. With each accident, the mine's damage percentage will rise.
If not
attended with repair, the mine will eventually collapse.
Once a
mine collapses, it remains in the province for one game year (eight game
months). Characters may not enter or use a collapsed mine. After the
year has
passed, the collapsed mine will vanish, and a new mine may be built in
the
location.
Opium is produced in swamp regions, and consumed by markets in desert, plain, forest, and mountain provinces. All markets (except those in swamp regions) have some level of opium demand. However, this demand will not be visible in the market report at low levels.
Satisfying opium demand in a market will cause the next month's demand to be higher. As peasants become addicted to opium, the increased demand will be shown in the location's market report. If no opium is sold to a market, the demand will fall.
Opium adversely affects the city's tax base. The more opium the market buys, the more tax revenues will be reduced.
Gangs of ten or more fighters may use the pillage
command to
seize loot from a province or a city. Pillaging siezes the tax
base for a
location, leaving none available for taxation.
Pillaging has a harmful effect on the future tax revenue of the location. The more a location has been pillaged, the lower its tax base. Provinces and cities take four months to recover from each pillaging. For example, a city which was pillaged for five months in a row would take twenty months from the first pillaging to return to its normal tax base.
Pillagers must first defeat any units guarding the province, including any province garrisons.
Each province and city generates an amount of gold each month. This gold is known as its tax base. The size of the tax base is determined by the civilization level of the province. This gold may be pillaged, taxed by a castle, or taxed by a garrison. It does not accumulate if left uncollected at the end of a turn.
A castle automatically collects all of the gold in its province.
The `garrison castle
A garrison pays maintenance for its members from the province tax base, then forwards 1/2 of the remaining gold to its castle.
Garrisons with fewer than 10 fighting men will pay maintenance for themselves, but will not be able to forward tax to a castle, guard against pillaging or obey decree orders.
The castle owner gains status from the number of provinces under control:
provinces rank --------- ---- 1-5 lord 6-12 knight 13-25 baron 25-37 count 38-50 earl 51-63 marquess 64+ duke region king (region must have at least 15 provinces)
A noble may pledge to another noble, granting status and
control
of owned provinces. The status of a noble who pledges is the smaller of
the
original status or one below the rank of the pledge target:
new status = min(original status, one below rank of pledge target)
Control of a province allows one to change its name or the name of any of its sublocations, take items from the garrison, and issue decrees to watch for certain units, or to attack specified units on sight.
The castle continues to receive the income from garrisoned provinces, even if the castle's owner is pledged to another noble.
Every noble in the pledge chain shares control of the garrisoned provinces. In other words, a castle owner may pledge to a noble, who in turn may pledge to a third noble, etc. Thus a province may have any number of rulers.
Visitors to a province are informed of the castle to which the garrison is bound, and the top-most ruler in the pledge chain (which may simply be the owner of the castle):
Province controlled by Amber Keep [0909], castle, in Forest [cj12] Ruled by Erekosse [5210], baron ... Seen here: Garrison [780], garrison, on guard, with ten soldiers
Relics are unique item artifacts which are introduced into the game via quests with monsters. All relics except the Throne return to the netherworld after use or some delay to be given out to a new adventurer via QUEST.
- Imperial Throne [401]
Long ago, the emperor of Olympia sat on his throne in the emperor's palace, high amidst Mt. Olympus. It is said that whoever rebuilds the famed castle on Mt. Olympus, and sits upon the throne, will be titled Emperor of Olympia.
- Crown of Prosperity [402]
The Crown of Prosperity was once worn by the most prosperous mortal to ever rule in Olympia, King Damar. Damar now wears his crown in the underworld and reflects on his past adventures of long ago, before the first Great Ending swept away all that he knew, and carried him from his beloved city of Kircarth to the land of the dead.
Sometimes nobles are able to acquire the Crown and hold it for a time. The crown infuses whatever province it ends each turn in with a measure of prosperity and economic health, equivalent to a +2 increase in the province's civilization level.
However, this prosperity does not last forever, for King Damar's ghostly hand invariably will reach out from the underworld to reclaim his relic. The Crown can be expected to return to its rightful owner 12-24 turns after its appearance in the mortal world.
- Skull of Bastrestric [403]
The most feared of the ancients was a wizard of terrible power known as Bastrestric ther Archymonaged. Bastrestric routinely incinerated his foes (or anyone who offended him) with bursts of raw aura energy directed from his black tower in the castle built on Mt. Olympus.
Though he was the most powerful living mage in the known world, and by any measure a fearsome, unholy force, Bastrestric yearned for ever greater abilities. He felt increasingly constrained by the limits of his mortal body, and thus in time resolved to abandon it. BtA's spirit jumped free of his body, plunging directly into the aura rivers which bind together the deepest structures of the very world itself. Only a scorched, empty body was left behind in his tower.
BtA's spirit has passed on, but the remants of his mortal body continue to radiate intense power.
Use of BtA's skull (USE 403) causes an intense aura burst which a mage will attempt to absorb. If successful, the mage will gain a 50-75 boost to current aura (within the limit of 5 times the mage's maximum aura).
There is a 25% chance that the mage will be killed by use of the skull. Non-mages who use the skull will be instantly killed.
BtA's skull will vanish with use, or within 10-20 turns after appearing in the mortal world.
Players may build two kinds of ships in Olympia: galleys and roundships.
A galley, also known as a warship, is a slender rowed vessel. Galleys require 14 sailors as oarsmen for travel, and may carry up to 5,000 units of cargo.
The roundship, also known as the merchantman, is a deep, wide sailing ship, usually with one or two masts and steered with great, oar-like paddles. The large cargo space makes it well suited for trade and extended ocean travel.
With favorable winds, roundships will make better time than galleys, even when fully loaded. Roundships require a crew of eight sailors travel, and may carry up to 25,000 units of cargo.
The Shipcraft [600] skill category allows nobles to train sailors, and has sub-skills for building and sailing ships.
ship capacity sailors ---- -------- ------- galley 5,000 14 roundship 25,000 8
Ships may be damaged while sailing by storms, or by submerged rocks
in
coastal waters. Damaged ships may be repaired with the
repair
command. Repairing a damaged ship requires one unit of pitch [261].
The capacity of a damaged ship is a reduced in proportion to the amount of damage. A galley with 10% damage may only carry 4,500 units of cargo.