New Roleplayers Union (NRPU)

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"Roleplaying, Education, Respect, Unity, These Will Give Us Victory".
-LightningTurk

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The NRPU (New Roleplayers Union) is an RP community based on Bytro Labs games, primarily on the game Supremacy 1914. Its player base lies within the United Stated and United Kingdom, but it has a fairly high amount of players from around the world. The NRPU was officially created as it is known today on 2020, it has around 500 members gathered on its discord server, and with over 50 active players per round, it is the largest english speaking role-playing community. Focused on games with 100p maps, they organize a game approximately every 2 months. Its founder and leader is known as the LightningTurk, who has been around the Supremacy 1914 RP scene for over a decade.

## History

Written by Tom the Turtle (Snarkblac) I’ve used the personal accounts of LightingTurk, Jeck, Charles, Acerbus-Noctis, Czarhelios, Sarrusrizon, Matthausen, InYourHeart as well as my own accounts. It includes their memories, quotes, and paraphrasing of their accounts and of those before them.

### 2008-2012: The First Era Of Roleplay (Iron Cross Era, The Roleplayers League, SHIP Era)

The early years of RP in S1914 were decentralised and what people call casual rounds. Odds are you have been in one or two without knowing it. Essentially you join a public match and everyone writes semi-realistic articles in the newspaper and message you using in character formalities. Essentially it is still more focused on PvP and RP is an afterthought. This was what RP was in the early years. As time wore on many small and individualistic roleplaying communities were established all over the game, maybe doing one legit RP every few months and having casual RP and PvP games the rest of the time. Everything was done over the forums or in game massaging. People at this time included Malaken (rumored to be Matthausen) who made a Tibetan RP group for example. Despite all these tiny groups, one alliance grew larger than the rest and is usually said to be the first real RP dedicated alliance. That alliance, that, RP group, was the Iron Cross. The first true collection of players dedicated to pure RP.

Once known as the Iron Fist Alliance, the Iron Cross expanded as they held a few roleplaying rounds, and thus slowly, they focused more on roleplaying, before turning into the Iron Cross Roleplaying Group. It was the players that started off in this community, during which during its peak was rumoured to have 200+ members, created some of the biggest alliances seen in S1914, some of which are still active, such as Spectre, The Hell Legion, Strange Kin, Fidel Defensor and others. The Iron Cross group itself is still around as of August 10th, 2020 on Call of War, they have their own Discord server and are now more or less strictly PvP focused. However, they do occasionally have one or two RP rounds once every blue moon.

The group lasted roughly a year and a half. In that time it was playful and fun, after his rejection for example, Wulfprinz made Cross Iron as a meme with Incorporated States making Cross Iron 1.2 to meme the meme. This was all fun and games with people messing with each other for the fun of it. The group as a whole fared rather well until 2009, when the sheer amount of roleplaying matches posted on the forums threatened to oversaturate the site and many members of Iron Fist got tired of RP. Everyone wanted to host a RP and have their idea be the one everyone played. With no regulations the community became full of half filled RPs as no one had the time to join and play all. This led to many deaths of RPs. This is a common trend. Veteran players spend 4 to 6 years playing before moving on with their lives or getting simply too burned out to be interested in anything new… the "Been there, done that. We got any new ideas?" mentality forms and most old guys retire while a new generation replaces them. Of course sometimes there is no new generation and thus that is how big communities die off in a few months. This is a common trend throughout RP history. This was of course as said before, first was seen in the Iron Cross RP sections. Thus, with this die off, a void was created and was filled by two RPs. An Indian player called Don Viswanath was one of the core people around 2008, despite the fact he was commonly referred to as an “ass to most players”, he could RP decently well and he had a following. Paul4 was the main leader of RPs around this time as well and was a common tyrant. He wanted total control over everything and everyone. Eventually people grew fed up with Don Viswanath, Paul4 and other elite players who egotistically believed themselves” better than the rest of the community”, they thus were ousted by the likes of Desolator General, Czarhelios and RayCaptain. It was these people who would reform and lead a resurgence in RP however at first it was chaos. The rebellion while successful led to a general break up of the first RP groups and a major fracture in the community. To quote Desolator General:

“...lead to rounds dying before day 10”.

In the Summer of 2010 things came to ahead. Incorporated States got into a massive argument with the Bytro Staff member and fellow RPer. RPers mass took to the forums and began trolling which led to all out war between Bytro and the RP community. Incorporated States thus moved to create the “Grand Roleplayers Directory” which consisted of many veterans. Granted the Bytro staff hit hard and began issuing bans left and right. As a result the official collapse of an already disintegrating Iron Cross RP group resulted in the complete destruction of the community. This led to the death of RP with virtually no games in the fall and winter of 2010. This has stained the community to this day as Bytro is generally untrusting of RPs.

Of course, this wasn’t the end, people were still around and veterans reformed around this time. Two major groups of RPers were resulted: a group who considered themselves the RP elite (they dubbed themselves SHIP, a parody of mothership, as they would, quote, “abduct the good noob RPers and turn them elite”) and another group which hoped to form a friendly community for RP, and primarily dealt with new and less experienced RPers. This fracture remained until 2011, when both sides placed aside their differences to together create a group dedicated to making better RP rounds, which was named The Roleplayers League (RPL). For a time everything was good, until organisational differences lead to a major falling out between the two communities, which caused the fall of the casual RPers and the leader of RPL and the leader of that RP community, FallenLeaves, to quit S1914 as she was tired of dealing with the elitists. To quote Czar in late January of 2020, players of this era would have been:

"...I knew Cisco, KillerKommander, Hawshire, Hawk, Captain Price, Xgaw, Aldmeri, Xgon, Death120, United, Desolator General, Tnova. RPL/URO/etc. RayCaptain was another. And xxgotchxx. Red Guard(Danish guy) Nearly fifteen years and people still Role-Play in this game. It's pretty amazing to still see new people ^^"

Many of these people are gone and hardly remembered. Many getting, burned out by the constant drama, RPing and politics of the community. Others moved on with their lives and some were ousted like Paul4.

### 2012-2015: The Second Era Of Roleplay (Fall of SHIP, The URO, Magnum’s Joint Writing Association)

What veterans remained, having survived the fall of the RPL, went forth to become a major RP community, only to have it cut short when, Incorporated States, the leader of SHIP, left the game herself as well, and SHIP was soon disbanded (It is interesting to note that women have played a major role in the forming of the roleplaying community, and that both leaders of the major groups for RP were women). A group of RPers known as TRAP (The Strategic Roleplaying Activist Party) sprang up to fill in the void left in the community which was lead by Paul4, but their success was short lived, as the absence of a unifying RPer body with real power led to a plague of short lived and failed RPs. Czar and Desolator General took it down from the inside and disposed an elitist and pompous Paul4 and while it was good to remove such a person from a leadership position the community suffered greatly with the drama and fallout. This period is widely regarded as the second RP death.

Early in 2013, the remaining veterans from SHIP, witnessing the decline of the community, established the Universal Roleplaying Organisation (URO), inspired from the Roman Empire, in an effort to promote their own RPs without the hassle of training new generations of RPers. They were led by Czar and others who had seen the mistakes and complete abuse from Paul4 and friends. It was around this time Magnum and LightningTurk began to RP (though Turk was known as Karaturk during the time). Turk was something of a reject. He was deemed too much of a memer and not good enough or elite enough for the URO rounds. Thus he broke off on his own and made his own RPs which largely failed at first. He wasn't as harsh on applications as the URO veterans were. Thus Turk had his rounds full of quantity not quality. The URO had the opposite and eventually their veteran players grew burned out and tired while Turk retained a more enthusiastic and populated pool to draw from despite them having a lower quality of RP level.

The URO also proved to be a very fragile establishment, collapsing and reforming constantly until late 2013, and due to arguments between the roleplaying elites and S1914 moderators and staff, their leader, who was Czar still, was banned from the S1914 forums. He was also doxed multiple times making him both paranoid and having him change his discord multiple times. Thus, the URO presence in the forums was near nonexistent. It was during this time of RP silence in the forums, when no group was a clear controller, RP began to die again, albeit much slower than the last two. Czar and his group began to fade, burned out after almost a decade or RPing.

The RP community in 2013-2014 could be said to be splintered, as small roleplay groups were led by round creators rather than individual leaders of big united groups. People like Magnum, WarCityDriver (notorious for his many proven and unproven multi accounts) and many more gained popularity and strength by creating rounds and name brand rounds. For example Magnum was known for Modern RPs, WarCityDriver for his meta and post-apocalyptic rounds.

Magnum, in an effort to rally the good RP creators around one flag and to increase efficiency in scheduling RP rounds, created “The Joint Writing Association” in 2014. At the time of the JWA, bad RP rounds were largely ignored and died rapidly, while RP rounds created by known individuals were preferred.

As 2015 rolled in, LightningTurk was still experimenting with RP creation and began to create more serious and widely accepted RP rounds full of lesser RPers. He met several other RPers like himself, and after two mildly successful RP rounds, established himself as a noobish RP creator. To quote LightningTurk:

“I made the first 1865 RP on the 31p map, which was my first real RP showcase, and cemented the initial group that would form the foundations of today’s community”.

Bytro announced the making of the 85p map and major RP creators fought each other over who would win everyone over for their 85p RP. Magnum beat out everyone else, who had a modern 2015 RP idea. His RP died during its landswap phase, due to major arguments and disagreements between the admin RPers and the major nations and big names in the RP community, which effectively killed the sense of RP in the round.

This RP death proved to be quite intense for the RP community, as tensions rose and at one point, a mass exodus of players happened, leaving the community apparently in shambles.

It is worth noting that the current 100 player map derived from the 85 player had the Aleutian Islands and Ukrainian SSR placed in at the suggestion of Sarrusrizon who said:

“I am literally the person responsible for the Ukrainian SSR and Aleutian Islands… basically when the 100 map was in early versions Galicia was part of Austria. I said that was dumb because Austria kinda sucks ass when it is curved around Hungary and Hungary is always wondering hmm do I attack the AI or the guy that surrounds me. So they changed it so Austria doesn’t surround Hungary so much. And similar with Alaska, I said it was dumb because 100% of the time they will attack British Columbia first because there is literally actually nothing else around, not even a sub optimal island hopping run to Siberia. Then the islands popped up in the follow up version.”

### 2014-2015: The Rise of Turk and Authoritarianism (The Roleplay Gaming Association, and the formation of the RPU).

During this time, LightningTurk had continued making RP rounds, and as the rounds became more successful, he created a small group of about 15-20 RPers, called “The Roleplayer Gaming Association (RPGA). For a while, the group created and played rounds, yet unequipped to be a central union for the community. It was after the first successful 85p RP round (a 1919 RP by Turk) that the RPGA began to gain more recruits. As 2015 came to an end, several new RP rounds sprang forth into life, such as the Anno Domini RP by Magnum, the Fallout: New Age RP by WarCityDriver, and the Victoria 1850 RP by LightningTurk. With increasing RPer numbers, the RPGA reformed itself into the Roleplayers Union (RPU) with these successes, many more RPers were brought together. By this point the URO and Czarhelios had faded into inactivity and nothingness. Turk, WarCityDriver, Magnum, Jeck and others among them took the role of making RPs and attracted newer more underperforming players as well as old veterans. Turk's success can be attributed to a few major factors. He can recruit, organize and create extremely quickly when no one else will even step up or try. He poured his heart, mind and soul into making a RP community. This was the Roleplayers Union or RPU. Turk additionally made discord mandatory to join RP rounds,  he essentially eliminated the need for a forum and they are now all dead. Why RP on an unfriendly user interface when you can do it on discord with better customization and mechanics. Thus RPs moved from Skype, Forums and in game newspapers to Discord.

As a note in regards to the relations between the Bytro Staff and RPU during this time there were minor issues. While relations were better in this era then they were in the time of the Iron Cross they were not without their own troubles. Support was difficult to forget following the 2010 crisis and many players had to rely on Multi Accounts to help with LS rounds, this of course is against the terms of service a ban worthy offense. People such as Charles, Matthausen, DFC and Magnum used them on a massive scale which saw them banned a few times and questioned by the staff. To quote Turk:

“Aside from the RP community political front, people forget that staff members didn't just immediately start supporting RP rounds again, Everyone must realize and recognize that a legitimate and incredible effort was made by WarCityDriver, Scottern, MakeLoveNotWar, Seppelol, November Terra, Hanni and myself aside from many others like Dr.Leipreachan, South Paw, Wrayth, and Edwylm to normalize a positive view of RP within the Staff. We participated in several discussions within the Bytro Skype group with Developers and Main Administrators about this. Many staff members disliked us due to Charles', Matthausen's, DFC's, and Magnum's actions in creating tons of multi accounts to aid their own Landswaps. It was DFC's creation of literally 50+ multis to do his own Landswap on an 85 player map that led to staff putting harsher requirements on round creation. I know he had to do what he had to do, and it was amazing as hell to see a fully completed LS before players joined for the first time in my life, but I don't approve of it as it caused so many issues for us down the line.

If we do not have pro-RP voices on staff, you can 100% be sure that there will be nobody to say a word in our favor if the developers suddenly make a move to change mechanics that damage the RP community. If you have the time and want to really contribute to the rp community, join staff.”

Thus with Bytro now at ease and more accepting RP began to reach new height not seen in many years…

### 2016-2019: The Third Era Of Roleplay (RPU and its first collapse)

With the coming of the 2016, the newly formed RPU was greeted with a massive influx of new players still relatively new to RP, essentially Turk recruited a ton of noobs. There was never a RP group which grew so massively in such a short time before, this caused leadership to be questionable and ultimately Turk would take, hold, lose and regain power in an almost uncanny parallel to Paul4. Several RPU training rounds were created to rapidly train the new recruits, while older RPers, who have seen the downfall of many RP groups before, doubted the potential of the RPU and thus began to counter him. In Turk’s words:

"[Veteran RPs of the URO] began to rise in opposition as these new training rounds were created."

Turk handled his competition in very questionable ways. Blacklisting, sabotaging rounds by sending noobs, GMing, reporting creators to Bytro Staff for using multi accounts to help with LS, etc. He would do and did anything to keep and hold to his new found power. To his credit, he will admit this to be true and will acknowledge that this was once how he operated.

In mid 2016, members of the near defunct URO returned to see a different community of RPers, one which many of the old elitists were gone. They attempted to revive the URO with the same ideas as the old ones, but were unable to get the plan off the ground due to Turk making a monopoly on new players, rounds and communities. He would join smaller RP groups and integrate them into his bigger group under the idea that he had better quality rounds.

Turk called out these old veterans attempting to start new groups and small new creators trying to make their own independent rounds and servers a threat. To quote him:

"…A bigger threat to the RPU, however, was the opposition groups who saw the attempted revival of the URO as the calling card for their movement against the RPU, as they can see that RP groups can be established which were in direct competition with the RPU. The RPU itself was suffering from major organisational issues, culminating in the forming of a democratic administration, which determined RPU leaders through elections. Those who failed to gain enough popularity to have a chance of appointment splintered away and formed “Caesar’s Legion”, which attempted to become a formidable rival against the RPU."

Turk labeled people who wanted to make small independent rounds, where they could either play more casually or more hard core without a large community, as rivals. Turk based his policy of integration, control and consolidation of all RPers under his RPU, he eventually managed to integrate most groups and unite them. Since he could mass recruit, people saw him as the ultimate RPer and tried to emulate him and learn from him. All old veterans were retired or swept aside with blacklists and past beef. Turk, WarCityDriver and others were in complete control and were in all essence the new age of RPers.

As 2016 ended, the RPU, suffering from multiple problems however, and saw its natural stagnation, which culminated in Turk leaving the RPU, as his mother was ill with leukemia and his grades had taken a hit. To quote him:

“Back in 2016, when I had left due to private irl stuff, we had just formed a sort of agreement with a French RP Group/in game alliance by the name of The Kingdom of NELVA, led by a player known as Opulon. I had also brought in a player by the name of Alexiel Lucien into the RPU proper and he had proven himself by joining staff. I thought this would be a good move for us in the future as having Participation on Bytro staff allows us to break the impression that "RPers are a detriment to the community" and whatnot.

In my absence, i found out that those who effectively led the alliance in my absence were slowly bullied and forced into leaving leadership, until it was basically just WCD [War City Driver] and when i came back i found out they were trying to get him to leave so they could basically just lead the alliance. Some political shit always happens when i leave. I told Opulon off, as well as Alexiel. They were a problem for a while, but one left the game entirely and the other fucked off to CoN and the S1914 French server. Opulon of course eventually connected with others that had issues with me in the past.

The thing with charles is, he's been "rivaling" people for years. I was honestly really good friends with him before we apparently became "rivals". before me it was czar. he hates people who try to unify the community with a passion, the idea of a scheduling system and restrictions on posting RP rounds he is rightfully wary of. I personally think its because he knows of the past events back when the first Staff members forcibly took the community for themselves and made it difficult for casual roleplayers. He's kinda right honestly as ive basically done the same thing. with regards to our "rivalry" Me and him buried the hatchet a while ago.”

Leaving it in the hands of WarCityDriver who was a known multi-account, rulebreaker and meta gamer along with the others proved to be a challenging time. However Turk, a few months later, returned in early 2017. He had big plans to start a massive RP full of 200 people on a 500 player map which would be based in 1444. This RP would be attempted 3 or 4 times and would fail every time to start, after which, a disillusioned Turk would quit for a while only to return and try again. Major renovations were done to the RPU, including scrapping "democratic elections" which never really existed in the first place in favour of, in Turks words, "reactionary admins". The focus of the RPU became what it is today:

Anyone who joined the RPU was there to roleplay, and its main job was to create training rounds and bring forth new generations of roleplayers.

And a new generation of players did come. From 2016 to 2017, a great many RPs came as the new generation and lifeblood of the community including That1guy, Snarkblac, Lord Kaiser, Xevli, Lethal Legume, Niats, Reehaw, etc. They began to make rounds, run them as admins and generally were active in the community. They knew the general past and Turk's history but accepted and ignored it. Seeing better to move on and not cause trouble. Of course, Turk had a massive meltdown in 2018, where he once again raged quit from the 1444 RP when it failed to start. The RPU died and a fracture happened. The No LollyGagging community made up of old veterans who saw Turks rise and were swept aside by him gained a small following. However they were largely burned out and disillusioned. Liberty Otto von Osterreich made himself "God" of a RPing community which quickly died. Essentially all was quiet while small creators made rounds and got people to join. Poor success was mainly seen. One good round was made by Sarrusrizon which was an 1830, alternative 7 year wars 100 player rp. Full of quality and general happiness the round lasted for a few months before Sarrusrizon, the creator of the round raged quit over petty meta he caused and he used the admin money to attack a fellow player. He followed this by using gold marks and went rogue attacking everyone he could. This killed the round and much enthusiasm. Snarkblac attempted to make a new server called the Common Roleplayer’s Republic that people could join and be active in. This ran in the ideas of a voting system everyone would abide by so not to oversaturate the community with RPs. Additionally this was when Snarkblac began to keep archives of all maps and lore so it would never be accidentally lost. This lasted a few months as Turk was brought back by Snarkblac. To quote Turk:

“After I left following the first 500p map fiasco, doing shit irl and leaving the game for a while honestly was the best thing for me to take a step back and look at how I had been viewing things. From 2017 onwards, I had focused on stability and crushing the attempts of outside groups and individuals to try to establish themselves. Unfortunately this turned me into the very thing that people were saying about me. I was unimaginably spiteful and toxic. That sort of bad energy just burns you out, just like I burned myself out. I wanted to make the 500 player RP to a disgusting degree. I didn't care about anything else, and preferred to burn bridges with people who made valid points. Then when i had a problem with my own time and left, i shouldn't have expected people to immediately welcome me back when i had given them the order to start it with or without me. In one final move of memes and toxicity, i spoke to higher staff regarding the round in order to ensure that it would never start (this was when i wasn't a member of staff or anything.) , and tried to bully the admin team by saying i "copyrighted the rp". Jesus christ i look back to it and cringe intensely.

Tom [Snarkblac] talked me into coming back as a regular member, and I was cool with that. Sadly I have a bit of a rep of coming back and starting the RPU, so the moment I came back, I was in a chat with Eagle, Scottern and WCD about the RPU. We were just casually talking about it, and one of us kinda made the joke of "lets just slap on the word new" onto it and redo it fixing the issues.....Then we made a server, made some memes, made a new flag/banner and there it was. It had no members of course, bc why the fuck would it lmao”

Thus Turk formed the "New" Roleplayers Union aka NRPU.

### 2019-2020: The 4th Era of RP (The NRPU and following generations).

With the NRPU founded, people originally resisted. The No LollyGagging server had a handful of members refuse to join for example citing that Turk had rejoined the 1444 server and threatened to copyright and sue the admins for using his old rules and information. He even went ahead and laid down a 50$ deposit for the case (This was back in 2018-2019) It was ridiculous and hardly brought up today; however at the time a few were angry enough to not join. He was a joke in many eyes of the community and for a while the consensus was no one would join his server. People have short memories however and eventually everyone joined the NRPU where a "Triumvirate” system of three permanent admins was established. It was Turk, WarCityDriver (now Marshal for sometime) and Scottern who was replaced by Jeck. Of course by this point Marshal was essentially dead and about to retire, he was eventually replaced by Lethal Legume. Turk mass recruited like always and eventually got his server to a number of roughly 300. He got on the Bytro staff which further helped him recruit, organize and start rounds. While these were positives he also made it so only one S1914, one CoW and one text RP could all be happening at the same time. He would not allow rogue independent rounds and he had a voting system in-placed that let the community vote on which RP ideas they wanted to play. The thought behind this was too many RPs in one game at a time would spread player counts out too much and then no round would prevail. This was modeled after the CRR system. Turk thus finally was able to finally start his 1444 RP. The game ran for 100 days as planned with only a few minor hiccups. It was the first 500 map since the times of 2015 and it truly was remarkable that 150 people were able to come together and play this map. To quote Turk:

“The Success of the Supremacy Universalis RP on the 500 player map is a culmination of all of the greatest that this community has to offer. All of those participating were dedicated individuals who put time and effort into creating something that might never be recreated. 100 days of full RP starting with 150 players and ending with around 90-100 isnt a shitpost. Anyone talking shit about the NRPU can now be told to sit down and shut up legitimately with proof. It is now without a doubt 100% confirmed that the RPGA/RPU/RPU2/NRPU is the most successful community in Bytro RP history. I only justifiably will take credit of being the one who brought the players together and made the Landswap successful. For everything else, I'd like to credit Carthy, Legume, Xevli, Potato, Vykar, Jeck and Reehaw. Without them I honestly couldn't have had it last this long thanks to covid and college.

Yes, this was absolutely a personal goal.

Yes, im sucking the ghost of my own dick lmao

do i care anymore? na bro.

But dont think imma just go poof and leave forever. Making a 500 player RP successfully means that we have so much more shit we can do. And peaking on S1914 means that now we \*\*have\*\* to expand elsewhere.

anyways, im gonna fuck off to sleep.”

However for many it was their last. Marshal and Matthausen formally retired after this with Marshal sticking to text RPs and Matthausen leaving for good. Now in the post 500 RP era we see the NRPU reaching a 350 members mark which is unprecedented. Activity and community unity is at its strongest and we are in the Golden Age of RPing.

### 2021- Present: The Golden Age.

Entering 2021 it can indeed be described as a Golden Age. The year kicked off with my own Dark Ages RP set in 865 during the height of the Viking invasions of Europe and England. The RP itself had success and was overall a good round despite controversial events. Following this however was one of better 100 players RPs played in a long time which was Failed Revolutions 3 a sequel to the Failed Revolutions 2 and the third installment in the series. This RP lasted an unprecedented 3 and half months and saw an alternative 1870s - 1900. It was marked by few memes and peak RP performance and activity in most of the map. Following this RP was that1guy’s Springtime of Nations which took place in an alternative 1797. Much like FR3 it followed with few memes and peak RP performances by its player base. Snarkblac retired on July 17th, 2021, his reasoning was simply that he felt at peace and real life had made more demands of his time. Thus I, Snarkblac or Tom the Turtle shall end my account of the history of RP now almost 20 years old. I know not what is to come, only what has been.

### Usual rules and mechanics for rounds

These rules may change from round to round.

#### General Rules

* Unless stated otherwise, the spirit and wording of the rules must always be abided by.
* Do not intentionally seek out loopholes or take advantage of the rules in any way possible.
* Other nations must be treated as nations, and not as potential domains to conquer, regardless of size or strength. Roleplay is not about “winning the game.” If a nation does not have a player, they should be treated the same as any with.
* While strengthening yourself is an inherent goal for most—if not all—nations, avoid any RP that is unreasonable or unattainable for your nation. For example, the Papal States would not seek to unite Italy—a religious state serving as the Pope’s personal holdings with no reason to would most likely not be able to or try to do such a thing.
* Please do not bring OOC disputes, friendships, or any other things of the sort into IC. Interactions between people on a personal level should not affect the relations that their respective countries have in the game. Furthermore, avoid any real fights or disputes OOC. We are not here to quarrel.
* Any questions should be asked to an admin to avoid any mishaps or confusion.
* If you are an Administrator, do not make any attempt to abuse the power granted to you and use your capabilities only for aid and enhancement of the RP.
* The RP will begin on January 1, Each real life day will translate to 3 months in the roleplay. As such, the second day will begin on April 1, and so on.
* Sending non-naval units into the sea to scout is prohibited, unless specified otherwise in a national idea or event. Scouting may only be done with naval or aerial units.
* Only Intelligence and Counter Espionage spies may be utilized in-game. As a result of the massive amounts of silver generated by some larger states, the use of Military or Economic Sabotage spies could be highly damaging to others and detract from the spirit of the round. However, if it will assist in land-swapping or is needed to destroy excess buildings, they may be used as long as admins are notified in some way.
* Illegitimate exploits, such as stack splitting, meat-shielding where not permitted, flowering, lemmings, and shoot-&-scoot/hit-&-run are strictly prohibited. If there are exploits that are not listed below but have a term or are known are most likely banned as well.

> - Stack Splitting: Splitting small amounts of troops off a stack to draw fire away.
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> - Meatshielding: Attaching troops to naval stacks (stacks that contain ships). You may only be allowed to attach units to ships according to the tech sheet.
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> - Flowering: Splitting a stack into many smaller groups in order to drastically raise strength.
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> - Lemmings: Sending many small stacks at a fortress to destroy it quickly.
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> - SnS/HnR: Moving your army forward to bombard an enemy, then quickly moving it back within seconds so they can’t bombard back.
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* The sea paths between your coast and the sea dots directly adjacent to them (not including the dots themselves) are considered your national waters. Foreign ships that enter these waters without permission may be warned IC and, after three hours, fired upon without a war.
* All in-game units are considered official military units. Some national ideas or events may act as an exception to this.

#### War Rules

* To declare a war, you must first publish a build-up article of no less than 500 words. This is to establish your CB, or casus belli, against the target, showing the rise in hostilities between your nations and explaining why you need to go to war. You are not required to ping the target of the build-up, but you must include the name of the target's nation in the title of the article, label it as a build up, or ping the target. Build-ups expire after a week, meaning you will need to post a new one in order to declare war.
* 24 hours after posting a build-up, you may publish a declaration of war. A war dec must be at least 600 words, and be posted in #declarations-of-war(discord channel) with a ping for the target.
* Wars are fought between an offensive war leader and a defensive war leader. The offensive war leader is the one declaring the war, while the defensive war leader is the one being declared on. If a vassal declares a war or is declared upon, their overlord is the war leader by default.
* All wars must be formally declared at least 16 hours before you begin attacking or invading. If you choose to declare without calling in any allies, you may reduce this to 12 hours, but the defender may still call any allies they may have.
* Within the 12-16 hour pre-war waiting period, both sides must issue calls-to-arms to their allies if they desire their aid. These must be accepted within the 12-16 hour waiting period in order to be utilized. New military alliances may not be established and called to arms in a war that has already been declared.
* Once the pre-war waiting period of either 12 or 16 hours, based on whether or not the aggressor called in allies, has expired, the war has officially begun and either side may commence fighting.
* In order to declare a war, you must have a stability of at least 10, while in order to join a war as an ally you must have a stability of at least 0. Declaring a war will lower your stability by 5.
* After a war ends, a year and a-half (6 day) admin-enforced truce between the two sides will come into effect.

##### War Goals

* When declaring a war, you must include the war goal in your post. The war goal is the main objective you wish to gain from the war. A war goal may be one of the following:

> -Acquire Territory: Annex provinces from the losing nation. This is limited to 2 provinces in Europe and 3 provinces elsewhere. Each province annexed will cost 25 tech points.
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> -Liberate Subject: Free a vassal state from the oppressive hand of its overlord or take it for yourself. One vassal of your choosing is granted independence from the target, who will be able to re-vassalize the subject through war (regardless of size) for ten years after the defeat. Alternatively, you may choose to take the vassal as your own instead, provided it is no more than half your size. Taking it as your own will cost 5 tech points per vassal province.
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> -Create Subject: Force the target to become your vassal. You may only use this if the target is no more than a quarter your province count, to a maximum of 12 provinces. Doing so will cost 10 tech points per vassal province. Naturally, subjects created through war are more likely to strive for independence.
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> -Declare Independence: Declare your independence from the tyrannical rule of your overlord. See vassal-rules in rules-of-diplomacy for details on independence wars.
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> -Seize Equipment: Steal technology, equipment, or scientific secrets from the target nation. You may seize up to 100 tech points from them.
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> -Humiliate: Humble a nation by showcasing your army's might. You may seize up to 150 tech points and one province from them. Losing this casus belli gives all vassals reason to revolt and -10 Stability (Only usable against GPs/SPs).
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* Upon being declared on, the defending war leader must make a short post indicating what their counter war goal will be. This will determine what they must do in order to win the defensive war, and what they will take in their peace treaty.

##### Capitulation

* You can win a war by forcing the enemy to capitulate. This can be done in several ways:

> - Capturing and holding their capital for twelve hours (for all wars)
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> - Occupying 50% of their territory for twelve hours (for all wars)
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> - Taking and holding all your war goal provinces for three days (for 'acquire territory' wars)
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> - Capturing and holding the capital of the liberated vassal for three days (for 'liberate vassal' wars)
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> - Defending your capital for six days (for 'declare independence' and targets of 'create subject' wars)
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* Upon capitulating the enemy war leader, the opposing side must surrender to you and give in to your demands. Capitulating an enemy ally or vassal will force them out of the war, meaning they will have to stop fighting immediately and set their in-game status with you to Right of Way.
* If a year passes with no provinces changing hands and no battles fought, both sides will be forced to come to the negotiating table and agree on a peace treaty. This only comes into effect after two years (8 days) of war (1 year grace + 1 year timer).
* At any time, a war leader or ally can enter negotiations with the enemy side, with the goal of agreeing on a peace treaty. If, however, these negotiations do not bear fruition, the warring parties may return to the battlefield. Note that a separate peace between an ally and a war leader may not include major treaty terms (i.e. only money, resources, and other minor demands).
* Countries that are presently at war cannot be built up or have war declared upon them by a power uninvolved in the conflict. Additionally, nations that are at war cannot declare another war until their current war is over.

#### Diplomacy Rules

* Alliances allow nations to aid each other in war. The specific terms of the alliance are determined by the player. Only independent nations may form alliances. Vassals are included in the alliance, but do not occupy slots.
* Every independent state has 5 alliance slots, unless altered by national ideas or tech. Exceeding your alliance limit is prohibited.
* An alliance with a Great Power occupies three slots, an alliance with a Secondary Power occupies two, and an alliance with a Minor Power takes one.
* Declining a defensive call-to-arms will result in the breaking of all alliances, while refusing an offensive call-to-arms will result in the end of that alliance only unless the treaty says otherwise. Alliances made after a declaration of war cannot be invoked.
* All alliance treaties must be posted publicly in #treaties-and-accords, to be recorded on the tech sheet. Any mistakes in the tech sheet should be reported to an @Admin.
* The end of an alliance for any reason will result in the two states having an admin-enforced truce for 1 and 1/2 years (6 days) and will be unable to re-ally for two years (8 days). If the alliance was ended by mutual agreement, they can re-ally in one year (4 days).
* After a war, both sides will have a truce of a year and a half (6 days) that is admin-enforced. Any longer truce will not be admin-enforced beyond 6 days. However, if someone you have a truce with attacks an ally, you may accept the call-to-arms. If your ally attacks the state you have a truce with, you may not accept or be issued a call-to-arms.
* Any non-aggression pact not ordained by the above will not be admin-enforced, and will be upheld only by the states involved, if at all.
* Province trades will be limited to the number of provinces you can seize in war. Two states that trade provinces may not again for another 2 years (eight days).

##### Rules of Vassalage

* Each independent state has two vassal slots subject to technology and national ideas. Every vassal 12 provinces or above occupies two vassal slots, whereas every vassal below occupies one. You may exceed your vassal limit, but such will cost you one stability per day for each additional slot.
* Being a vassal entails fighting for your overlord and paying taxes or tribute if demanded, but they will also protect you. Unless starting as a vassal, nations may only become a vassal via war or treaty, if they possess less than a fourth of the overlord’s IC provinces up to a maximum of 12.
* Vassals may not seek independence until 2 years (8 years) after the start of hard RP. After becoming a vassal via war or diplomatically, the vassal may not seek independence for the same timeframe.
* A vassal may declare war with its overlord’s permission, but the overlord would become the attacking war leader. If war is declared on a vassal, the overlord would become the defending war leader.
* If an overlord is inactive for at least a week without justification, a vassal may request independence. Contrarily, if a vassal is inactive for at least two weeks without justification, the overlord may request to annex the vassal.
* If you start the game as a vassal, do not immediately seek independence or become rebellious, unless historical circumstances clearly justify it. If you do not like being subservient, do not become a vassal. If you sign up as a vassal, RP accordingly.

##### Obtaining Independence

* There are three ways a vassal may be emancipated: negotiation, war, and conference.
* A vassal may become independent by negotiating with its overlord. This is the simplest and easiest method of doing so, and may result in positive relations after the fact.
* A vassal may also obtain independence by fighting a war of independence, should circumstances require. If the vassal wins, it becomes independent, but if the overlord wins, it may seize one province from the vassal, who cannot rebel for another two years (eight days). See #rules-of-war for further information.
* If a vassal is fighting an independence war, another vassal of the same overlord may do the same, after RPing collaboration in their rebellion. They must declare independence within three months (1 day) of each other. One independent nation, unless increased by technology, may support a vassal in war. This will occupy one alliance slot. Only one independent nation can support multiple vassals rebelling simultaneously.
* The third way to achieve independence is via great power conference. If a vassal is discontented, they may request a Great Power summon a convention of all Great Powers, to discuss the possibility of the vassal's independence. All states in attendance must voice support, neutrality, or opposition. Once the results of the conference are announced, the vassal may back down or the overlord may release the vassal. If neither side accedes, and at least three Great Powers support the independence of the vassal, a 'Liberate Vassal' or 'Declare Independence' war will ensue.

#### Tech Rules

* The tech sheet will contain valuable information regarding your country, including limits on how many units and buildings you can build, your Cultural Unity, your stability, information regarding tech purchases, and much more. Please be attentive to the data on the sheet, as it will be very important.
* You can increase the number of units and buildings you can build, and gain various other perks, by purchasing tech groups. Each tech group specializes in a certain type of bonus. Each tech group has 5 tiers, that are purchased separately. To purchase tech, follow the template in tech-requests and fill in the necessary information, and an admin will update the sheet.
* Each country has a Development level, which at the beginning can range from 1 to 6, and can be increased through national ideas or tech purchases throughout the RP. For each Development level, you will produce 5 tech points daily. Each tech purchase will have a base cost of 100, but can be modified by stability, national ideas, tech purchases, and events. These modifiers each apply additively to the base cost of 100.
* Great Power rankings shall also be contained on the tech sheet. There are 8 Great Powers, 8 Secondary Powers, and all other countries will be Minor Powers. Vassals cannot become Secondary or Great Powers. These rankings are determined by Great Power score, which are affected by a variety of factors that can be found on the tech sheet.
* Unless your only tech group is a military tech group, having over two-thirds of your tech groups being military tech will incur a 25% addition to any future military tech group you purchase. The military tech groups are Defensive, Offensive, Quality, Quantity, and Naval.
* Should you wish, any tech group of your choice can be dropped, removing the bonuses from all tiers purchased, but freeing up the slot for another tech group. You will receive 25% of the tech points you invested in the dropped tech groups as a refund.
* To prevent vassals from becoming overly powerful, vassals will only receive half of the bonuses ordinarily received from tech groups where applicable, rounded up if this value is a decimal. If a vassal gains independence, the benefits from tech will be expanded to standard amounts.
* Outside of building limits, each country may construct one maximum level factory in their capital. For example, if your factory limit is one, you may built a factory in one of your standard provinces and your capital. However, these special factories are not retained if you relocate your capital, and must be destroyed.
* The minimum possible cost of a tech is 60 points. No matter your modifiers, no tech can be purchased for cheaper than this. The maximum development level a nation can achieve, through tech, ideas, events, or otherwise, is 8.

##### Tech Trades

* Tradable tech points are tech points that cannot be invested in tech, but only can be given to other countries. Secondary powers produce 5 daily, while Great Powers produce 8. Minor powers do not produce tradable tech points.
* Nations can trade tradable tech points to others with lower development with no penalties incurred. Nations can give tradable points to others with the same development, however 25% will be deducted from the total transaction. To give to nations with higher development, half will be deducted. Ensure that these trades are sensible in IC-terms; deals such as the Mughal Empire providing the British with military expertise will obviously be nullified.
* To trade tech, a request must be made in tech-requests. The below limits must be taken into account:

> - You may receive tech at most every two years (8 days).
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> - In all tech trades, at least 20 tradable points must be exchanged.
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> - Every three years (12 days), only up to 100 points may be received.
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##### OOC Land

* Land that is shown in dark grey in the IC map, but is shown belonging to a country in the OOC map, is OOC land. OOC land exists to economically support smaller nations or to provide stronger ones with adequate strength. This territory is not owned by you IC, and cannot be occupied in war or traded.
* To maintain sufficient morale, max forts can be constructed in OOC land. In addition, you may also construct any amount of recruitment centers and workshops in your OOC land. If you do not have colonies and all provinces in your mainland have a certain building, you may construct that building in your OOC land. Units can be produced in OOC land, but should be immediately sent to your IC territory.

Example of a Tech Sheet

#### Stability Rules

* Stability Rules and Effects: Stability is a mechanic that determines how well-governed a civilization is and whether it is in an era of steep decline or stagnation, or an era of great cultural and technological advancement.
* The Stability range goes from a minimum of -50 for very disorganized nations to a maximum of +50 for very secure states, and everything in between.
* Events, wars, and other such actions will sway stability. Tech costs increase the lower a nation's stability is, and vice-versa. Nations that accurately roleplay their stability shifts may receive events.
* Some actions that affect Stability are:

> -8 from losing a war.
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> -6 from refusing a call-to-arms or breaking a NAP.
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> -6 from losing your capital, even if temporarily.
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> -5 from declaring a war.
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> -3 for each non-colonial province lost in a treaty.
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> -2 for every three-month (one-day) tick spent at war.
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> -1 for each colonial province sold or lost in a treaty.
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> -1 for every three-month (one-day) tick spent above your vassal limit.
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> +1 for every three-month (one-day) tick spent at peace.
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> +1 for every province successfully colonized.
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> +2 for each province gained in a treaty.
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> +2 for every alliance signed.
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> +3 for each tech purchased.
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> +5 from winning a war.
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#### National Ideas

Each nation may have National Ideals. These are perks that help add flavour to a nation. These perks may range from being positive to negative in terms of their effects for the applied nation. National Ideals that exist at the start of the roleplay showcase the current condition that the nation is in. It is possible to gain or lose national ideals depending on a person’s actions and articles during the course of the roleplay. Such gains or loss of national ideals will be determined by an admin board and it is entirely up to their discretion.

* Positive National Ideals = Usually these national ideals will provide buffs or advantages to a nation.
* Negative National Ideals = Usually these national ideals will provide debuffs or disadvantages to a nation.
* Adding or Removing National Ideals = To add or remove national ideals, it will consider your actions in the roleplay, the articles you have written, and sometimes events.
* In order to request a national idea change, addition, or removal, you must write an article and upon posting it in the #world-herald channel must put in parentheses (Example) that it is an article directed towards your national spirits to help inform admins on identifying them and whether or not the request can be approved.

## Original Rounds

### Hosted Rounds

#### 2020

1460 Onwards

The Fuhrerreich: Legacy of the Great War

Supremacy Universalis

#### 2021

The Dark Ages 865

Failed Revolutions 3

Shot Heard Around The World 1764

Springtime of Nations

Shock and Awe 1914

#### 2022

Romance of Retribution 1747

1860 Onwards: Remastered

Novumque Fatum 1921

Years of Catastrophe 925

The European Contest

#### 2023

Pax Britannia 1845

Divergences of Darkness 1836

## Notable Players

LightningTurk, CowboyJeck, LethalLegume, About4Pillows, Sigmar, That1guy, BirbyTaylor, Snarkblac, DarkLordPotter, LucasMoss, Acerbus-Noctis, Giraffe, Xevli, LordKaiser.