Worst Actor of the Universe Awards

What do I mean by that? The universe is somewhere between 15 and 20 billion years old. That is kind of a long time. In that time period certain actors have arisen that should never have been allowed to be on the silver screen. I do not consider the masses of lesser known actors and bit players. Only those that, through some fantastic failure in cinematic judgment, were allowed to play leading or semi leading roles in films tht were widely distributed. And there are many of them that have strove to rise to the level of worst actor i nthe history of the universe. I am sure that there are countless billions of other lifeforms that too have nasty thespians who should be squashed under 16 ton weights, but I can only concern myself with those that belong to the Homosapiens of Earth.

So without further mumbo jumbo here he is for all to recoil from and vomit at:

Joe Don Baker has no business being affilated with Humanity. In truth Humanity and the planet Earth itself should distance themselves from this being. No selfrespecting planet, solor system, or for that matter galaxy, should be seen in the company of this puffy, bejoweld, no-talent back-woods, banjo piken, shit hearder. Who or what in the name of all that is holy decided to heave this stinking pile of actor onto the breast of comely humantiy. Thankfully others of my race have taken up the standard and they too fight to keep this 220 pound rack of fatback off the screen and in the spotlight of denegration and woe. MST3K has done much to redeme the Earth and Milkyway with their constant attempts to further denigrate this macabre assemblige of san-talented idiocy. Yet they are now gone to the rerun-yard. Please don't let this pox and blight on the good name of Earth go un faught against. Do whatever you can to let the universe know that you too think JDB should be eradicated.

Joe Don Baker Porkapalooza!

More Megalomaniac concepts

Fright: This is a funciton of how feared your troops are. If the enemy is in Fright of you they will drop their weapons and run screaming from the field. They will abandon castles, town centers, they will "run away!" Like lemings, if faced with the sea they will rather drown than end up at your mercy. Certain kingdoms may be unable to be in fright of you should they be in a babarian state. You can even stop a war between to kingdoms by simply sending in your forces.If both kingdoms are in fear of you they will stop attacking each other and go back to a nuetral stance.

I was also toying with the idea of marriage. Medieval times were the high tide of marriage diplomacy. I think that you could secure an allied stance with a kingdom if you offer marriage to the other sides princess or prince. Of course you would not want a stupid allience. You would want a marriage based on the largest dowery you could take hold of. You personal glory rating would impact what king would be willingto offer his daughter to you for such a purpose. This Queen would be an NPC stationed at your captial town or imperial city. If she died then the kingdom from whence she came would go back to the previous status. You can marry as often as you need. However you cannot kill your wife or divorce her. This also brings up the subject of heirs. If you produce an heir and that npc is 21 years of age or older upon your death then there is no civil war and that heir will inheirit all your personal status unlike a chosen succesor who will use it's own status upon your death.

Texas crap

This is a colossal waste of money, time, and manpower: I want to know how much it cost the illustrious state of Texas to get their 50$ fine?

Atwater was driving her two children home from soccer practice in 1997 in Lago Vista, Texas, when she was stopped by a police officer who had noticed the three were not wearing seat belts. Texas law allows police to make arrests for routine traffic violations, except for speeding. The officer arrested Atwater, handcuffed her hands behind her back and took her to the city police station. A friend looked after her children and her pickup truck was towed away. Atwater's mug shot was taken and she was released after posting bond. She later pleaded no contest to the seat belt offense and paid the maximum $50 fine.

I assume the trooper is making about 45 to 50 k a year so he's pulling in around 20 bucks an hour. You have the police personel who took the mug shots, Then you have the court personel to do the paper work. I think that it cost way more money than 50 dollars to harras this woman. Oh yes lets not forget the amount of money spent bucking this case all the way to the United States Supreme court!!!! Admittedly she should have had her kids seat belted in the car. but that is not the point. Not even close to the point. We have really screwed up priorities if this is an arresting offense. This country is screwed up. Our whole neighborhood couldn't oust a drug dealer from a house up the street yet we have the money to arrest soccer moms. You can drive 100 miles an hour and get a ticket and go on your way, but not where a seat belt and your in the slammer. What a load of
crap.

The dufus hard at work pleasing the chinese

After pretending to act tough we now know how the big dufus was able to get the flight crew out of China. He caved on the sale of destroyers to Taiwan. So any time China wants to tell us what to do all they have to do is take some hostages? Way to go Mr. President! If Clinton did this he'd be up on impeachment charges again. As much as I think Clinton was a scum bag, and I disagreed with his China Policy of trade and look the otherway, at least he never bent over for China. I am so very glad that we have a strong leader in the White House. I only pray that he is not the Nevil Chamberlain of our time.

Orders and stuff for Megalomaniac

Sea born commands:

The Admiralty: Kings Lord Admiral is an npc that is available as soon as you are king. Like generals an Admiral can control a fleet of ships of any size and can be given commands to carry out. They can also be chosen to succeed as emperor.

Admiral level commands: Take fleet X and attack Y until Y has recieved Z% damage. Take fleet X and blockade port or town Y for Z weeks or months.
Take fleet X and patrol sea sinking all enemy ships rebuilding ships as required etc.

You have all the AofE commands plus several others. You can garrison troops on any vessal. You can order warships to blockade a harbor. If a ship in a blockade is sunk another one is built by the admiralty and sent to fill it's place. Ramming is another order. Ramming is not an order that does the ramming ship any good but will 100% sink an enemy vessal if the rammed vessal is equal or lesser in size than the ramming ship. You can outfit any ship with a steel ram. This can give the ship the ability to ram two ships before itself sinks due to damage.

Nasty things that can happen to your kingdom:

Famine: Everyonce in a while the crops will fail and when they do all work stops. Nothing can be constructed and the population falls by 10%. Famine is an equal opportunity killer in this game.

Plague: Not good at all. It can start in any TC and spread to adjacent buildings and people. Trade carts canbring it to other towns and ports. Ships can take it to other kingdoms. It is technically possible to kill off the entire population including solders and even you. People stop working turn sickly green for a few days then keel over. Nothing can be done but burn the infected structures down, sink ships, raze castles, etc.

Draconian measures must be taken. Quarentining the infected to isolated areas unitl they die is a good thing. Burning down infect structures, greek fireing groups of the sick. As your empire improves global civilization the chance of plagure breaking out gets slimmer and slimmer.
bizzare yet cool orders you can give to the entire population;

Once you are emperor you can give Edicts. And Edict has an effect on all the population of the kingdom recieving the Edict. You can quickly tell a kingdom to go on crusade. When and entire kingdom is told to go on crusade it mobilze all of it's inhabitents to go and attack the kngdom that is labeled as infidel. Once orderedthe kingdom will put all it's resouirces into troop creation and offensive millitarty action and all the civilians become skirmishers. This is a powerful command but can have dire consequences if it fails.

Megalomaniac even more devilish stuff

Capital city: This can be any town you have under your control provided that it has a Market, Church, Castle, and Town Center. Usually the largest city under your control will be the likely candidate. This function is allowed as soon as you are made king. The capital city becomes the imperial capital when you are made emperor. The capital city gets some automatic defensive advantages to a normal town. It automatically gets a wall around and paved streets at no cost to you. When defending the capital your troops will get a bonus on damage. The bonus on damage does not apply to mercinary forces. Once you town is made a capital it's church becomes the ecclisiastical center of your kingdom and any the first priest there or created is the bishop.

Road: These greatly increase your ability to move troops and goods to other town and regions. Speed is dubbled on roads. There are three types of roads. The dirt pathc is what is first available to you. It increases movement by 10%. The leveled path increases movement by 25%. The stone road increases movement by 50%. In order to build roads and bridges you need a royal architect, yet another npc. These are created in church schools. You need to have at least one to make any roads and the more you have the faster you can build roads since you can dispatch them to different regions for construction.

Bridges: Spendy and time consumming but worth the effort. Note that both roads and bridges can be destroyed. Bridges come in two varieties. The simple trus-bridge and a drawbridge. Both take time to research. Both types can be upgraded to fortified bridges that give more hit points.
Drawbridges can be further upgraded to tower-bridges that have some offensive capabilities.

Encampments: This is really a type of stance you can order an army into. If you order your army to encamp then they will erect tents, picket there horses, and dig a trench around their paremeter. This heals them very fast and provides a defensive bonus if attacked. It takes time to encamp, similar to erecting a trebuchet. They cannot move unless given the order to break-camp.

El Presidente' SCHRUB!

The dufus is at it again! Just when you thought that the failed Texas athletic supporter couldn't get any worse he rises to the occasion! Today we learn that he has slashed the budget for traking Russian nuclear material! Thats right boys and girls, our beloved dufus has cut programs that help us track plutonium, uranium, and warhead stock piles in Russia. Even his republican appoligists are backing away from this stupid move. What an idiot. I don't know who's worse Bush or that Rice chick. Of course Rice's role as national security adviser is perfect for her since she has sooooo much experience comeing from that intellectual think-tank otherwise known as the Chevron Corporation. Bush should be impeached before he starts WWIII.

PS I am not going to capitalise dufus since he is not worthy of a proper noun.

More additions to Megalomaniac

Once you are king you can also bribe the church. In AofE churches and the clergy go around making troops well and converting the enemy to your cause. Fine and dandy but the real church had other attributes. Forinstance Henry VIII made himself the head ofthe church of England thus gaining for himself a cut of all that lucerative collection-plate doe and taxes paid by pesants to the chruch for using church owned land to live on. The first cleric you create in your captial city is the defacto bishop. Once he is bribed you are the head of the church and you can get 20% of all the doe collected. This doe is a function of how many people live in your kingdom. Another thing you can "research" in the church is Simony and Indulgences. Simony is the charging of fees for religoius services. Indulgences is a bribe a person makes to God so that they get a few years off of pergatory. Both Simony and Indulgences were frowned on by the historic church but accepted nonethless as means of making more doe. Simony and Indulgences at 5% each to the level of doe you can collect from the chruch. Be aware that if your personal glory rating falls to below 10 those you have bribed will cease being your buddy and you will lose the benifits.

Homage is another thing to help you make money and control other kings. If you conquer a kingdom its land is added to your kingdom and its king, if not killed, is made a vassel to you. As a vassel this petty king must make payments to you on a yearly basis. the payment is 1 gold peice per person and structure existing in that kingdom. If you order the king to make more farms and people the king will then have to come up with the payment. if the vassel cannot come up with the doe the computer will tell you this and you can decide to ignore it and let him pay what he can. Tell him to reduce the exess towns and population (kill them all) so that the payment eqates to what is actually existing in the kingdom in question. If you choose
the former then your glory rating increases ir you say 'fuck you pay me!" then your glory rating falls but your kingdoms renown rating goes up.

As a vassel the king must also come and send troops to fight for you if needed. A vassel's troops behave just like your own troops. Vassels may also ask you to help them if a unfreindly comes raiding them. If this happens you can: Ignore them, Tell them to fight it out with their own troops, help them by sending your own troops in. Ignoring their crys will not cause them to leave your service, but your glory rating will suffer. If too much is destroyed that will adversly impact the income from that kingdom. If you tell them to fight it out with their own troops they will do everything to kill the enemy including invading that other territory and destroy it. This is risky for a couple of reasons. One the vssel might noght have enough strength to do it. Two they might kill off a potentially lucerative kingdom before you have a chance to conquer it and make that king a vassel. Sending in your own troops allows you to control things. Your glory rating goes up if and the renown rating goes up if you win. With your own general there you can order the vassels troops to do your bidding.

General is a special unit, like an assasin or a bishop. If there are no generals then the army is under the direct command of the king. As your power grows you will find it tiresome, likethe boy with his finger in the dyke, moving from mini-crisis to mini-crisis. A general is handy in that you can order him to control a given group of troops. You go to a seperate map screen and order him, via way-points, to carry out numerous functions. Example: You create a general in a Barracks (big buck but worth it) You select the troops (unlimitted number) and place them under his command. Then you go to a strategic map screen that shows the world minus all the graphic bullshit. On this map you draw the route he will take to his objective. You order him to move under stopping to attack nothing along the way. Once at the objective, say attacking a castle, you tell him to "lay seige" then you tell him how long the operation will last. If he takes more than 50% casulties he must retreat to the start location. If he is there for more than three months he must retreat to the start location. Once this is done he takes charge and goes about his duty. the point is that you are free to do other things whille the general is doing your bidding. Generals can also become emperors.

Further details on Megalomaniac

The opening scenarios using the halflife engine pit you in an every-man-for-himself set of battles. Your regiment will not attack you nor will they come to your aid if you get in trouble. Most are outdoor battles but a few would require you to hack your way into a stronghold or burn down a town etc.

The REVOLT chapter of the game adds a high degree of complexity to the game. The preceeding chapter of State Building is basically a clone of AofE.

In the Revolting chapter I made mention of assasinations, mercinaries and bribary.
Assasins are special units that you can create in a town structure called a beer hall. The assasin costs big bucks but can move through enemy terriroy without getting killed unless he is found out buy an Intelligence officer. This unit is also a beer hall creation and is the unit designed to counter an assasin. The assasin unit is a single use npc in that he will die in his attempt even if he is successful. Assasins are armed with a crossbow but it is not a long range weapon and so the assasin needs to get close. It is also an autonomous unit in that is out of your control as soon as you turn him loose. You go to your list of kings and generals and select the dude who is to be assasinated. Once that is done the assasin travels on his own to the location of the hit target and will try as often as he can to kill the guy until he is killed or dies killing his mark. If
you wish to call him off you will haveto hunt him down with your own forces and kill him. If the assasin is able to kill his target your plot will not be discovered and the nation the mark once lead will not attack you. Should he fail there is a 50% chance that the mark's country will launch an attack against you. And your personal glory rating will fall too.

Mercinaries were always a popular way to bolster your army if you were a poor slob of a king. Macheavelli didn't think much of mercinaries and warned against employing them. In the game I use Macheavellian rules for mercinaries. You can hire them from freindly lords for a specified length of months. Once they are in your command they will attack anything you order them to attack. Yet if they are outnumbered they will break and run. If the are garrisoned near a town, even one of yours, and they are not under orders of some kind, they will begin to attack the locals and burn buildings. If there receive no orders for more than a month they will go wild and you'll have to kill them. Mercinaries are best used for bolstering a force for use in a pitched battle where you have the upper hand. They pay no attentioin to your personal glory rating. Once their term is up they automatically leave and return to their home land.
Bribes can be a most effective and less violent way to revolt. In the game, during this chapter and onward, you can bribe any npc in the world. You can bribe clerics, knights, kings, castles, beerhalls, anything as long as you have three things. Money, a high personal glory rating, and your army must have a high renown rating. In otherwords you not only need the money to buy but the nature to intimidate. Bribed troops are loyal, unlike mercinary forces, and will fight even in death defying battles. However they cost more to bribe than mercinary forces cost to hire. The cost to bribe is tied to the stats you have and the stats of the king under whom they are presently serving. Once bribed they will remain yours unto death unless your personal glory rating falls below 10. In that case even your own troops will abandon you. Bribing kings is tough unless you have a huge amount of cash and the power to back up the cash with the not-so-subtle threat of war.

The chapter of Monarchy, where you have to attain the throne of your kingdom, adds further complexity. You have all the tools at your disposal that
you gain during State Building and the Revolt, but you also have to start paying attention to your kingdoms overal world rating. There are fifty kingdoms on the planet and your kingdom fits somewhere in that order. If you want to be emperor you have to get you ranking to number one. Not every kingdom who is listed as numero uno is an empire. Not only does kingdom have to rate number one but it's army must have the highest renown and the monarch must have a high personal glory rating. Once you have acheived that then you are, without doubt, the emperor of the world. As you claim more territory and vanquish your foes your kingdom expands and it gains in rank and stature. You should do freqent comparrison rankings with your neighbor states. If you see that you are inthe acendency you can try to bribe a kingdome off or take it over. If your overall rating (GRWR) is twice that of a neighboring state they may wish to have you become their overlord. As overlord you gain all the advantages of the wealth and troops of the subjegated kingdom without having to conquer it. If you decide to conquer a state you must reduce it unitl its GRWR is low enough so that it seeks
refuge under your rule. Only a kingdom that is adjacent to your domain can be subjegated without conquest. As king you must also continue your role
as leader by establishing farms, towns, castles, etc. You can also send exploration ships out to check out the big wide world. As your exploratio parties find more kingdoms your ranking will change.

Once you have beceom emperor your characters day are numbered. Eventually it will die. In selecting a successor you go to the list of generals and kings and you can literally select anyone under your control. You will notice there each character has a personal glory rating, an army renown rating, and a kingdom ranking. You want to pick a person who has high ratings. The higher the rating the less chance for a civil war to break out upon your death. However you also are given the age of each character. Since the life span, throughout history increases, at each time you choose the age matter changes. In the beginning the average life span is 45 with a maximum age of 65. So one way to choose is to takethe youngest leader with the highest rating. That way your emprie won't change hands to often. If you choose king Ulfwaln the sextagenerian he may rule well but may die before he can choose a successor. The main thing is that you don't know when your character will die. The likely hood that your emperor will die in a given year increases as he or she gets older. Chooseing a new emperor is an ongoing problem you will face many times in this phase of the game.

The last number you must deal with isthe world civilization level. It is a summary of all the ratings of all the kingdoms of the world. The higher that number the longer people live the less lieklyhood of war or plague and the higher all your emperors rating become. As this number rises new technology and society emerges. The main thing to emerge is the Senate. Peace leads to people demanding freedom. However, as in real life, the npc population is still pretty busy just tryingto survive. The kings are the first to see the need to cooperate with each other to achieve goals. You will be asked if you will permit a senate being founded. if you say no, depending on your rating, there might be war.

Bills do not come to you that often. The bills that come and their nature depend on the overall level of cililization of the empire.

I'll let you know of any other rules that pertain to this cool game ofthe future.

Megalomaniac

Title: Megalomaniac
Style: Realtime / Turn based game of global domination and overlordship Number of Players: 1+ human and 1+ai

Setting: Real and or vitual worlds generated by editor or random generation.
Description: You select a nationality to belong to. You select your sex. The computer generates some specs for you and your character apears in the ranks of a regiment of skirmishers. The view of the coming battle field uses the Half-life engine. You can see your other cohorts. They all seem hell bent on marching off to attack an enemy you spy to your front some 100 yards away. The battle ensues and you must fight your way to survival. If your side wins then you advance to the a new rank in that army. If your side looses, but you live then you are enslaved and have to escape a camp. If you escape then you advance to the next rank in your army.

Next you are given the choice of infantry or cavelry. The cavelry gives you great speed and increases the damage you can inflict on the enemy, but reduces your manuverability and the types of weapons at your disposal. Once you choose you are put in the ranks of a like regiment of either infantry or cavelry. If you choose a Pike then you are part of a pikemen regiment etc. You fight another battle. If you live and are victorious you are advanced again. If you live but are captured then you must escape from the dungeon of a castle.

If you live you are put in command of the regiment inwhich you have been serving. Now you have control of how the regiment attacks. There are nine other npc's to order around. Now the game takes on the AoE engine accept closer up. You can equip your fighters with varioius weapons and armor depending on availability in the location and the type of regiment you command. Before the next engagement you can go to the lord general and get a map of the area and see where your regiment fits into the overall battle. The battle begins and you must acheive your regiments objective with at least yourself serviving. If your side looses you are put in the tower to and you must escape.

To live is to be rewarded! The lord general makes you a brigade commander. Now you have three regiments under your control. You can select the type of the two new regiments; infantry, cavelry, skirmishers, archers, seigers. The next battle is for you to fight alone. Your brigade is sent into a distant march to acheive a goal. Once the goals is achieved you are sent to your next assignment. Each one is slightly different requiring you to use different tactics and skills. As you achieve goal after goal your brigade recieves new equipment, skills, and renown. The renown level will become very important in the near future.

After ten or so campaigns, if you have lived, your brigade has become famous throughout the kingdom as a kick-ass oufit. You recieve word that the king is dead and that three sons of the dead king have split the kingdom and are waring with each other to claim the crown. You are given three letters, one from each prince, begging you to fight for their cause. You must choose which to fight for.

Once you choose you are put into the army of that prince. Each prince has a different demeaner and this changes for every game. Because you are the most notorious lord general in the land you are put in charge of the entire army of said prince. You must fight and defeat each of the other princes. You must also build units as they are lost, develope technology to serve them, and keep them supplied. Your view of the kingdom is broader now resembling the AofE engine.

The other princes are fighting not only you but also one another so you can use this to your advantage. Since you are the lord general now you have brigade commanders to deal with. You must order them to move their own mini-armies into position and fight. The more you are victorious the more they listen to you. The more you loose the less likely they will be to perform.

After you are victorious, of rather if you are, then the new king gives you a domain of your own to govern. You can take your old brigade with you. It is a remote location that you are expected to develop and defend. You must build some towns and fortifications and fight off the nasties that try to attack you. After your domain reaches the status of State, you can go and try to win over as many troops of the kingdom as you can and then try to dislodge the old king from his throne. IN short you can revolt! From a strategic standpoint the deck is stacked against you. The king has lots of troops and castles. However there are "other" options. You can use an assasin to rid the kingdom of it's monarch. If you have enough doe you can try to bribe the troops to your favor. If your really loaded you might try to bribe the king himself. The more succesful you are as an administrator of your domain the more easily you can grab power. You can even use allied lords from other kingdoms to help you in your quest for power; beware of using too many mercinaries they need doe to keep working for you and they don't like hanging around doing nothing.

If you revolt you better do some daring victorious fighting or the troops you have won over will defect back to the king. Should you loose your revolt you will be put back into your state. Your state will be plundered and you'll be poor and without troops. You'll have to rebuild all that to fend off the nasties that want to take your lands. You can always revolt again since there is no time line here.

If you should be successful in ousting the king, the crown is then thrust upon your head. You now are the king! but the king of what? A pimple of a kingdom on the world stage. The world map beckons and you see your kingdom as just a tool. A tool you can use to build an empire that will span the globe! You see those neighborning states who dislike you and those you have good trade relations with. How do you start? Do you build a mighty invasion force and attack? Or do you launch trade missions and build alliences through commerce? Unlike AofE the economic power of your domain has a direct impact on your ability to through your imperial weight around. In the Megalamaniac world there are dozens of other states, some small, some vast, all striving for the same thing. Your state always has a rating. The higher the rating the closer your kingdom comes to being seen as the seat of empire.

Should your kingdom flourish and gain wealth and military might you have other options given to you. You can order a neighboring kingdom to attack another kingdom and fight to the death. You can tell them what to build. Be wary of sending another naiton to it's doom. Your power also comes from victory. If your commands result in failures then you kingdom's rarting will fall and you might get ordered around yourself. Should this happen you can always say no. But then you will have to be prepaired to fight that king who did the ordering or suffer sanctions or blockades.

When your kingdom reaches the summit of power and it is seen as the seat of a world empire, and you are seen as the emperor, things do not stop. The world needs structured government in order to advance. You could systematically genocide your enemies out of existance but that would leave the world in a barborous state that would cease to be under your control. Your empire can only exist as long as the nations that make it up continue to exist. Yet empires are not nation-states. They are an ensamble of states each with competing voices and goals. Your task as emperor is to maintain the glory of your domain and keep the states in line. A never ending task?

Well sort of...You see, although the game has no time limit your character does have a lifespan. And when he or she is old, and scared up, they will eventually die. Another task you have is the choosing of a successor. If you do not do this intime your empire will be ripped asunder by civil war and one of the petty kings will be thrown up as the new emperor, the seat of government will move to that region and you will be faced with dealing with things from that standpoint. The wise thing to do is go to the list of kings and generals and choose the one who you like the best and move them to the imperial seat before you die. The civil unrest will still happen, but war might be avoided.

As your empire continues forrests are harvested and regrown, as long as you don't cut down too many trees. Fisheries will also recover should you not over fish them. And the population can get huge as long as you maintain a balance of people to resources.

Somethings to worry about: If you choose to lead the armies of the empire yourself your army will get a big bonus in strength and damage infliction. However if you are killed then the empire will devolve into civil war and the next strongest lord will be the new emperor. Once you are emperor you can, at any time,. choose your successor. This is something that should be done prior to your death but not to much in advance. If you choose to far in advance the person may be killed in a battle and you can only choose once. This means instant civil war upon your death. The other problem with choosing a successor to early is that the guy instantly gets a big head and if you faulter in your managing the empire he of she might decide to attack you and take the royal purple for themselves, ergo civil war. Try not to choose a successor until your old and gray. Once chosen you choice is made and cannot be undone.

As the empire keeps the level of civilization steady things progress and new technology and society will develop. After a long period of time your kings decide to tell you that they want to meet in a capital of some kind to better govern the empire. This is the begining of a senate. YOu can choose the location of the captial. The senate will start sending bills to you for approval. These bills establish law, army barracks locations, new weapons, advisements on wars that shouldbe fought etc. You can always say no to them and some of them you should say no to. But if you thwart their will too often you may face civil war. As the senate continues to develope the emperor will have to spend more time dealing with them. You can always kill them all but you better have a huge personally glory rating. Each emporor has one and it increases with good decision making etc. However even if you kill the senate it will simply reconvine with a new bunch.

After another long time interval the kings begin to relinquish power to a new class of leaders who, up unitl now have been weak little snot balls. The class is town mayors. Each town has had a mayor since its inception with a town center. Spontaneously the empire has an election and the senate gets bigger as these mayors are elected. The kings still command your armies but are now nolonger involved with infrastructure. The civil senate gives you bills far less concerned with military matters and more concerned with benifits for society establishing university systems, graineries, hospitals, civil police forces, and most ominously, restraint on the powers of the nobility. Right now you can order a king to take his army and attack another king and nobody, as long as you have a high glory rating and you kingdom has a high power rating, will thwart you will. If you aquiess to this bill to regulate the king's power they will tell you no more often and when they do say yeas it will only be after a vote by their populations. This makes for even more intrigue. You can send in your own army and terrorize the poppulation into follwing you. But terror is a double edged sword. If you do this too often you will be on the road to civil war.

Another landmark bill to come to you is the civilization of the army. This puts building of arms and armies under the control of the senate and as emperor you must get senatorial approval for war. This may stick in your craw and hence will not be a bill signed soon by a typical megalomaniac. Should you aquiess to the senate your personal power in the senate will fall, ergo they will be able to now overide your vetoes. Yet civilization rating of the world increases so that your empire gains more stuff and culture. If yo usay yes to this in order for war you must get a majority vote in the senate then get your commanders to get their kingdom's assent to your request. You can avoid the second vote by leading the troops yourself but watchout for the unlucky arrow in the head. Your old brigade, long considered the preatorian gard, can still be lead by you without any such voting though in this empirial world a single brigade is mighty small. The significance of this bill cannot be overstated. The relinguishing of power by the emperor to the senate means the begging of the end of your dynasty as a real force. It will benifit the world but not you.

The last bill you will see is a bill ending the title of emperor. This bill is triggered, as are all the bills, by the level of civilizationi of the world. At this point there is no need for a dictator any more. By this time you, as emperor, are advising the senate on what to do not the other way around. You are given three choices. You can say no and try to hold on a little longer, you can auger in and give up the throne entirely, or you can ask for a general election on the viability of your throne. If you are a glorius emperor you may pull off the coup of coups and become a constitutional monarch. You will have the palace, the gold, and the respect, but none of the stress of governemnt. At this point the music swells and the game is at an end. If you choose total abdication you are lionized as the father of the new world and eventually will be the focus of a new religion. If you choose the first course you will be asked again, in a year, if you still hold on there will be war. This war will pit you against your enemies and most likely will lower the civilization rating to the point where there is no senate. However your death will be the main goal of the war and if you die and your empire has a low civilization rating a civil war will ensue.

This game is not a single night game. It could take weeks if not months. The game time is quite slow compared to AofE. But the rewards are huge. As the game progresses you go from a petty skirmisher to the hights of empire and then death. Then you will be personified by numerous emperors, each with names and character, you will face struggles in war and at peace. You will plot and face plots. In the end you will face your own
dynasties oblivion and how you deal with that final struggle will tell the ages that will come what kind of an empire it really was.

Who makes the game?

Nobody does. It needs to be made. For now it resides in the software of my own brain.

The big Dufus Caves again

Our dimwitted, fart smelling, Dufus of a president has now caved to the meat industry and relaxed testing of school lunch meat for samonella poisoning. According to the Big Dufus, and those pitchforked imps who advise him, our kids can drink more arsenic and consume more bacteria and breath more pollutants. But hey the corporations that bought our Dufus of a president will get a break. I hope all those idiots out there who were moronic enough to waste their vote on Nader realise how much he fucked things up. Was it really necassary to allow our nation to ingest more poison just so the green party could prove a point? As lacklustre Gore would have been, all this shit that has gone down in the last few weeks would not have happened. I hope all the Naderites enjoy their arsenic. What the greens need to do is infiltrate both the democratic and republican parties. Not waste their time and votes in lofty circle-jerks that accomplish nothing. A divided opposition to corporate power is the surest way for them to walk over us all. We need leadership that moves us in the right direction. This takes time. The greens seem to think that revolutionary change will happen if only their side would be listened to. Clap-trap! In a country of 280 million people and opinions it takes a long time to move the naiton in any direction. Millions agree with Bush?! Does this make for watered down laws and national direction changes? Yes but even though these bits of legislation are watered down and murky they were at leasst moving in the right direction. Now, with leadership who should where NASCAR like jackets with all the corporate sponsor logos, we are seening 12, and in some cases 20, years of right-direction legislation dulled down even further and stopped or reversed. Opposition to this power cannot be divided again no matter how illustrious the candidate for the green party happens to be. I hope these people see that there was a clear difference between Gore and Bush. I'll toast Nader with the arsenic.

Rant now finished.