World of Arl

[Azahul]

First of all, yes I got permission from Disciple for this

Now, I'm a member, and team leader, of a game called World of Arl. This is a game with aspects similar to some of the more structured internet roleplays (those that are run by a Games Master, who resolve character actions through dice rolling, etc.). However, rather than controlling a single character, you are the leader of an entire nation. This nation, its society, background, military units and tactics, philosophies, and everything else you can think of is controlled by you. You fill out a template, similar to the character templates we use in TVC, and submit it to the GM (a guy called Teifion) and if he approves it you can choose a starting location from a map and begin to play your nation.
While there are no graphics, no visuals that show your mighty armies sweeping across the world, this game is far more versatile than any RTS. You can do just about anything that a real life nation in your place could do (as I remember, I once nearly destroyed a city using pleasure slaves infected with STDs. Too much time spent around Disciple I guess...). Even more in fact, as magic is a significant part of the game.
The game is played in turns. Each turn is a week in real life, but represents a year in the game. Over the course of the week you write your orders, giving instructions essentially for your nation to carry out that year. Then, at the end of the week, the orders are gathered by the GM and results are posted the next day, in the form of statistics in your own, private team forum (showing soldiers lost, materials and resources gained, etc.) and in the form of a story in the public forum, which spells out an epic saga of grand wars, assassination attempts, empire building, treaties, and other things.
If you want to get to grips with the game first, before you dive in and start leading your own nation, the option to play as a second, or ordinary team member, is always open. Most people would be happy to have you, and most of the time you can simply pick a culture you like the sound of from the list of active teams and ask to join them, with a fair degree of certainty that an acceptance will be forthcoming.
There is a truly wide variety of teams, from the Calidi, a wandering band of nomads that have recently settled down and are currently arguably the dominant power in the world, to the Zeroth Order, a nation that worships their leader as a god and indulges in a considerable amount of daemonic rituals to supplement their armies. There is no real restrictions in terms of race either, most nations are human, but at periods throughout the history of the game there have been Centigors, Birdmen (my own nation in fact), Dwarfs, Orcs, and others. Just like other aspects of the game, is it possible to design your own race.
There is one rather vampiric nation in the game, unfortunately their leader prefers to be a loner and doesn't take on seconds. However, his nation isn't that vampiric, and if any of you wish you could make a nation and show him what real vampires are like
The game has a fair number of rules (found here) which can take some time to learn completely (I have questions of my own quite a lot, and I've been playing for a fair few months now). It doesn't take too long though to familiarise yourself with the bulk of them however. The community though is generally helpful and eager to help out new players. As most of the game is run from the forum (found here), there is a fairly large community behind the game, and while not plotting the downfall of the others you can have some friendly jokes (often at Strife's expense. Expect a fair few people warning you to stay away from him when you introduce yourself).
Anyway, hope my sales pitch has convinced a few of you . If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here (or better yet, sign up and ask your questions on woarl itself :lol.

 

[Oracle]

Damn Azahul, this looks pretty cool. I'll take a look based on your recommendation. And I suppose that timezone don't matter (usually a problem for us aussies no? That was the most annoying part of tvc for me anyway) since a turn takes a week.

Making a real vampire nation would be fun. Or maybe even one based of the DE fluff. Hmm decisions, decisions....

That pleasure slave thing sounds hilarious. How did they counter it?

 

[Azahul]

Timezone certainly isn't a problem. Teifion is usually on from around 8pm onwards (until around 8-9am some days) for me (I'm not entirely sure where you live Oracle, but if you're online to post it when you did, then Teifion is usually online from about two hours before the time of you posting onwards).
At the moment the 'vampire' nation is only a group of people with nightvision and some vampire-inspired background. And as for the STD attack, in the end it didn't achieve a lot (killed a lot of soldiers though ) so the guys I targetted didn't bother to retaliate (although they did persuade one of my neighbours to attack me). I would've done a lot more damage, but between their own disease-wracked bodies and the city guard hunting them down, the pleasure slaves didn't get a lot of chances to keep spreading the disease after it was first discovered.
Anyway, I've had a great deal of fun with this game, so much so that I have trouble getting around to roleplaying normally (as one player once described it, World of Arl is like roleplay on steroids ). For those interested in how much free time it takes out of your life, I spend far more time online there than is really necessary though. It doesn't take up too much time normally, although if you're performing a major attack with allies a bit more time tends to be taken up coordinating such attacks. I find the amount of time I actually need to spend online varies from an hour a week to far more time than is really healthy, but that could just be me :lol:
Edit: Nearly forgot. My username there is Sharyk Lyn-ak, and I am leader of the Sharyzen Shrikes so far I've betrayed nearly every alliance I've ever made, so it's debatable as to whether you'd actually want to get to know me in the game itself :lol:

 

[Oracle]

Hahhahaha nice. Backstabbing ftw.

I was looking though it and so you choose to be either a chosen one nation or a evolution nation? Or does everyone have both?

And is there (or could I ask to be added it) uses for slaves. I was thinking along the lines of going along the DE lines, which is take slaves from races that are skilled in whatever I need. Or piss me off. Whatever works. . But could I take slaves and use that to counteract the fact my race is rather unskilled when it comes to farming.

Or for the vamp option, what in your opinion would be the best way of achieving a vamp nation? Is there a rout where I make my nation smaller than others but be more powerful on an individual scale?

 

[Azahul]

First of all, all nations led by players are chosen nations. They have a chosen one, which is the player's representation in the game, who is physically far more powerful than any normal warrior. However, due to the scale of the game, this Chosen One has no real effect on the outcome of any one battle (with some exceptions. Last turn we saw a truly epic battle in which Coel, leader of the Zeroth Order, single-handedly wiped out every siege weapon and a fair number of the mages under the command of his attackers, but that was largely thanks to beneficial circumstances, some flaws in his opponents plan, and Coel having used daemonic rituals to increase his power even further).
When you start, you are assigned a certain number of evolution points. These can be used for conventional evolutions, which are listed in the rules, and give your nation things like extra strength, agility, intelligence, combat affinity, etc. or they can be what is termed a radical evolution. A radical is an evolution created by the player, which is given a price by the Games Master. For example, the Shrikes have spent a number of points in conventional evolutions, amongst which give them a 50% bonus to their agility. However, a considerable number of points (30 in fact, which is a rather large amount) have been spent giving them wings, feathers, bird heads, beaks, talons, etc. essentially making them birdmen. So to answer your question, yes, everyone is both a chosen and evolved nation (although it should be noted that it is possible to exchange evolution points for additional materials). As for the reduced population for additional evolution points, that I am unsure of. You'll have to ask Teifion if it is possible.
Slaves however, are certainly an influential part of the game. They act as additional population for your nation, producing food and materials in the same manner as civilians, although they don't produce additional population, and nor can they be recruited into your military. All civilians are assumed to be equally good at producing food and wealth, in order to make it easier to generate the resources produced by your nation. However, a nation that focuses on slave-taking would certainly be viable, although a solid core of your own civilians would be necessary.

 

[Oracle]

Bah while that's good it doesn't make my choice any easier. I'll have to sleep on it. And PM Teifion.

Another question, if I were to try to focus on slave taking, would it be at all possible for a brand new nation (well I don't mean I'll be doing it straight away but relatively quickly) to attack another nation to take the slaves? Or would I just get butchered and have to start again?

 

[Christophe von Carstein]

Although I haven't read through the stuff you linked us to it seems... different, that and the idea of a decent vampire nation would be kind of cool

 

[Azahul]

New nations are essentially created at slightly (but only slightly) weaker than the average existing nation. Someone familiar with the game and good at writing orders could quite easily attack and destroy a few cities of another nation, taking slaves in the process. Don't be surprised if it doesn't go off perfectly, as the game takes some time to master, but essentially if you give orders you think should work, there's a good chance that they will. Still, a few turns after starting, most teams would have the strength required to tackle a fair number of the more firmly established teams straight away. All you need are good orders.
Also, another of the more important pages is the world map. It shows every team active at the current time, where their cities are located, and even the size of the respective cities. Most of the larger teams are Indegenous Races, which are teams controlled by Teifion and are essentially punching bags. A fair number have large and powerful armies that are difficult to defeat, but are prevented from retaliating due to a variety of in-game and ooc reasons. For those interested, my nation, the Sharyzen Shrikes, are located a little the south and east of the top left-hand corner of the map, on the continent of Rayti. The map can be found here.
Oh, and Oracle, good to see you've signed up

 

[Azahul]

Apologies for the double post, but for those interested a good time for starting new nations is coming up. Every five turns, the power of starting nations essentially leaps forward. The starting population tends to increase, more evolution points are awarded for starting, additional techs and constructions are available for those starting. This coming turn is the 48th, which means that you can spend the next two or three turns serving as a second on another team, before jumping in early to take advantage of the sudden surge in power for new nations (note that you will still only be on par with most established nations. The power of new nations leaps forward every 5 turns, while that of established powers creeps forward during that same time. Due to this, the best times to start a new team are almost invariably every 5th turn).

 

[Azahul]

Apologies for the third post in a row, and somewhat for resurrecting this topic, but I'm too excited not to tell someone about this :lol: for the last... 4-5 weeks/turns, I've been fretting about this gigantic apocalyptic invasion army (controlled by Teifion, the Games Master) that had declared that it would hunt down every daemon in the world. Since my nation wields daemonic magic, that put me pretty highly on these invader's (the Seraphim) to kill list. Anyway, for those interested on the outcome of our fight, look here. It should be the last story item (Seraphim First Reserves) of Turn 50, which may or may not be the last post in the topic at the time of me writing this (the next round of results go up in about 12 hours or something). It took me most of the week to get around to posting this here, and I've only done so because everyone else I know is now heartily sick of the story.
Anyway, that's enough shameless advertising from me. Unless of course someone actually expresses interest...