• A listing of everyone's territory size and pbem alliances are recorded.
• Everyone starts out with 1.0 quadrants.
• New empires have a one month 'grace' period where they cannot be challenged nor can they make a challenge until this period has expired. New empires shall be marked by a graphic next to their names.
• For every 6 treaties of trade treaties and better an empire gets a 0.1 monthly territory expansion in the name of trade and exploration. (0.5 monthly expansion maximum).
• Empires may engage in one conflict (excluding skirmishes and Galactic War's) per 1.0 quadrants. An empires economy cannot support more wars than this. In order to assist an empire in a conflict, the one assisting must have at least 0.5 territory free in each instance.

   

For purposes of speed and realism the conflicts will be separated into these distinct levels of warfare:

1. Skirmish: Challenged for 0.1 quadrants up to and including 0.3 quadrants. Settings-Small Galaxy, Low chance for warp points, All warp points connected, All events, Moderate event frequency, Low Tech costs, Normal Ships, Three racial advantages, Agreed upon starting tech, 50000 starting points, Players can view scores of allies, Empires Allowed to start in same system, Good planet value, 5 Start planets. Victory Conditions-5 years elapsed There is no limit on the number of skirmishes you can undertake per quadrant.
2. Small-Scale Conflict: Challenged for 0.1 quadrants up to and including 0.5 quadrants. Settings-Small Galaxy, Medium chance for warp points, All warp points connected, All events, Moderate event frequency, Medium Tech costs, Normal Ships, Three racial advantages, Agreed upon starting tech, 50000 starting points, Players can view scores of allies, Empires distributed evenly, Good planet value, 5 Start planets. Up to 2 allies if needed. Victory Conditions-5 years elapsed.
3. Medium-Scale Conflict: Challenged for 0.6 quadrants up to and including 1.0 quadrants. Settings-Medium Galaxy, Medium chance for warp points, All warp points connected, All events, Moderate event frequency, Medium tech costs, Normal ships, Five racial advantages, Agreed upon starting tech, 50000 starting points, Players can view scores of allies, Empires distributed evenly, Good planet value, 5 Start planets. Up to 3 allies if needed. Victory Conditions- 10 years elapsed.
4. Large-Scale Conflict: Challenged for 1.1 quadrants up to and including 1.5 quadrants. Settings-Large Galaxy, Medium chance for warp points, All warp points connected, All events, Moderate event frequency, Medium tech costs, Normal ships, Eight racial advantages, Agreed upon starting tech, 50000 starting points, Players can view scores of allies, Empires distributed evenly, Good planet value, 10 starting planets. Up to 4 allies if needed. Victory conditions- 15 years elapsed.
5. Galactic War: Alliance must have 10.0 quadrants(1 galaxy) to declare each conflict. May not challenge for more than half of the total territory defending alliance possesses. Settings-Large Galaxy, Medium chance for warp points, All warp points connected, All events, Moderate event frequency, Medium tech costs, Normal ships, Eight racial advantages, Agreed upon starting tech, 100000 starting points, Players can view scores of allies, Empires distributed evenly, Good planet value, 10 starting planets.No more than 5 empires per side. Victory conditions- 25 years elapsed .Resources are pooled between alliance members to determine how much territory is challenged for and is divided internally if victorius.The number of players in each alliance willing to play determines how many games there are. IE.8 from Alliance 1 and 10 from alliance 2. Since the game can only handle 10 players per game these players will be divided between 2 games.

All specifics of game setup are negotiable between combatants EXCEPT number of years elapsed. If an agreement cannot be reached on one or more set up aspects of the game, then the challenged gets one choice, and the challenger gets one choice. All other aspects in dispute are then set to the game default. One player's choice may not cancel out another players. Games will be kept manageable this way. 

Players are obligated to send at least one game turn a week, if this rule is broken there are two possible consequences. If you're the defender and you fail to send at least a turn a week you're empire will be put on auto after your second violation (2 weeks). If you're the attacker and you fail to send the turn, the war is over and you lose the disputed territory. If either side has a good excuse for being absent then the penalties will be forgotten, but negligence isn't an excuse.

A "Combined assault" can be initiated by two or more empires when they both agree to put up their territory for an attack. If they lose, the empires will lose how much territory they put up respectively. Treaties of Military alliance and above allow your ally to call upon you in event of war. These treaties do not "force" you to play in the pbem war but one should only choose to have these high treaties with an empire that can be counted on. A Temporary "Military Pact" may be formed with an empire who you do not hold Military or Partnership treaties with. This allows empires that may not be on the best of terms to unite against a common enemy. This treaty generates no economic bonus points and it runs out once the conflict has been resolved. May only be signed after being attacked, and must be reported within one week of the original challenge. The time limit represents the hurried mobilization of forces that would be needed, and would discourage empires from stalling until they can massively outnumber challenger. 

How to distribute the spoils of war, (i.e. the amount of territory being fought over) should be negotiated with your allies prior to the conflict.

Example:

1. RamTam challenges Grand Fenwick for 0.5 quadrants
2. Grand Fenwick enlists the aid of K'Star within a week of the challenge.
3. If Fenwick is victorious they promise K'star 0.2 of the newly conquered territory. 
4. Fenwick wins, 0.3 quadrants added to their space, 0.2 to K'Star's.

A challenge that meets the correct protocols may be issued in the HyperComm Central Forum and must be answered within a week unless the player has already stated he would not be available. If not, half the disputed territory will be ceded to the attacker. Legal challenges that are not addressed in two weeks time will force the challenged to concede all of the disputed territory, again unless the player has already stated he would not be available. Legal challenges that are ignored will result in the loss of disputed territory. A down time of one month is required to challenge/re-challenge an empire whom you were previously engaged with. And a one month limit is imposed to accept a challenge, set a start date, and begin combat so as not to drag wars on forever. If war is stalled because an empire cannot begin after a month from the original declaration, disputed territory will be ceded.

Defender may refuse challenge through post if any of the above are incorrect, and challenger has to wait one week to re-issue the challenge. Amount of territory challenged may not exceed the amount challenger possesses. If challenger loses conflict then he cedes the amount of territory disputed to the defender. If the challangee refuses to respond to legal declarations of war on two seperate occasions he'll be removed from the ladder. If player is defeated and all territory lost, player will start over with 0.1 quadrants and may not re-apply to the ladder under another name. If player decides to leave ladder the sum total of his quadrants will be divided evenly between his allies. If player is kicked from the ladder for inactivity his territory will not be divided. Once battle has been concluded both sides must copy down the final battle summary/score/stats and post their win or loss. If a person is already in a "war", nobody can declare war on him/her, until it's over. 

A listing of "Active" or "Inactive" will be made on the ladder board indicating whether or not a empire is available to play (vacations, other commitments). The person will just notify Vendetta and he can change their status on the ladder. If an empire is constantly inactive for many months at a time without notification they'll be given a warning, then removed.. If an empire is found to be controlling multiple empires on the ladder both empires will be removed. Shareware players may also join but if they challenge or are challenged an agreed upon tech level must be used. 

A common data file must be used and agreed to by all of the participants. The original data file will be used as the default as well as to solve any arguments over which to use.

The "Blockade"
A simple means of using your economic bonus points to halt the monthly territory gain of another empire.

Example:
Aquilae Federation 0.3 quadrants/month imposes a blockade on the Gurak Dominion who only have a 0.1 galaxy a month expansion. Gurak's expansion is stopped and effectively blockaded. 

In order to break a blockade peacefully one must allocate more economic points to break the blockade than the nation who is enforcing it is spending to impose it. At any time Aquilae can increase their economic point spending towards the blockade, thus making G'urak and his allies expend more points in order to break it. There is no limit, time or otherwise as to when and how long you may impose a blockade. Before, during, or after pbem war is acceptable. Thus you can lose a pbem war and turn around with a blockade and win an "economic war." The ally who asist the blockaded empire must spend the difference in order to break the blockade, the econ bonus spent will be lost at month's end.

An empire who is blockading another may not have a blockade imposed on them. This would be overly complicated and could get out of hand. Blockading CAN be done while an empire is engaged with another in pbem. This can be represented as moderate support for one of the empires engaged.

The exchange of territory for treaties, agreements, assistance in a war etc. is allowed and may be traded freely. 

As always anyone who wants to suggest a change or revision just contact me.

Everyone is welcome to play.

*By Warlord Adamus, Amaru Commonwealth (WhattaAzz@aol.com)