Last updated: November 18, 1998

IT'S WAR! (Version 2.1)

Background ~ Starting "It's War!" ~ Notes on Play ~ What's New in This Version?

"It's War!" is a scenario for Emperor of the Fading Suns (EFS), created by Richard Wein. It is intended for multiplayer games, and greatly increases the amount of interaction between the players in the early part of the game. It also has other improvements on the standard galaxy, including more interesting roles for the Symbiots and the Vau.

NOTE: "It's War!" is intended for experienced EFS players. As well as having the other players to contend with, you begin the game with your economy in a chaotic state, and you will have to act quickly to sort it out.

1. Background

1.1 In 4550 AD, Vladimir I, the first Emperor of the Known Universe, crowned himself with his own hands and by the Grace of Holy Terra. Within moments, an attempt was made on his life by an unknown assassin. By God's will, and the quick thinking of a member of his personal guard, Vladimir was saved.

Vladimir's long reign was the beginning of a dynasty which lasted 400 years. This was a period of unprecedented peace, both within the Empire and along its borders.

Now the year is 4956 AD. The Noble Houses of the Empire have grown weak and complacent, their estates poorly managed and spread across many planets. With all fear of war removed, they have allowed their armed forces to dwindle to a few poorly trained garrisons. Advanced technologies, once an essential tool of the military war machine, have been lost in the return to a simpler, more tranquil way of life. The Houses have even scrapped or sold their remaining spaceships, preferring to rely on the cheap transportation provided by the Merchant League. The Imperial Ministries have also declined to a mere shadow of their former glory, their mighty fleets disbanded, and their ground forces little more than a part-time militia. The only remaining spaceships are those of the League and the Church.

But, in recent years, this peace has begun to look increasingly fragile. Rivalry between the Houses is once again growing. The Empire's populace is becoming restless, and the social order is collapsing. The Symbiots, long thought to have been exterminated, have established new hives on Stigmata. And the Emperor, Constantine IV, an old man in poor health, has no heir.

Though they no longer have the technology to build them, the Noble Houses still own Arboriums, Biochemical plants and other high-tech installations, which have been patched and repaired over many years, until they are barely in working order. Much of the output of these plants is sold to the League for desperately needed cash. But now, with the collapse of the social order, all the Houses watch each other with suspicion, not trusting enough to trade, and refusing passage to each others convoys. The trade routes are disrupted, and the Houses are running short of cash.

Finally, on March 19th 4956 AD, comes the news: Constantine is dead! The Empire is thrown into chaos. Each Noble House intends to pursue its own claim to the Imperial Throne. The Peace of Vladimir is over. Now, it's war!

1.2 As of March 19th 4956 AD, the Empire consists of the following planets:-

Byzantium II. The Imperial capital. Once a green and fertile world. Excessive industrialization has lead to global warming, melting ice caps and rising sea levels, with large areas of the planet drowned or turned into swamps. A labyrinthine urban sprawl now covers every square mile of solid ground. The swamps are farmed for food, but their meagre output is insufficient to feed the population, which is dependent on imports. The planet's depleted mineral reserves are no longer able to supply raw materials for its industries. These too must be imported.

Leagueheim. Another urban nightmare, Leagueheim is home to the Merchant League. From here, the League sends out transports to ply their trade among the worlds of the Empire, and possibly beyond. The League is pledged to remain neutral in the event of war, and will not hire out its ships to be used in the narrow interests of individual Houses.

Holy Terra. The ancient home of humanity was long ago turned into a barren wasteland by the fallout from a cataclysmic thermonuclear war. This same fallout made the planet an excellent source of trace elements, and each Noble House now maintains a mine there. The League maintains two agoras on Holy Terra to act as a collection point for the trace harvest. One agora is in Central America, and the other is in the Middle East. The only other inhabitants of Holy Terra are the fanatics of the Church, who have chosen this harsh environment as a suitable testing place for their faith. Their base is located in what used to be known as Greenland.

Stigmata. Stigmata is very rich in resources. It is also the Empire's nearest planet to the Symbiot-infested worlds. The Symbiots have recently established several of their infernal hives on Stigmata, and all that separates the planet's inhabitants from the Symbiot hordes is a thin gray line of Imperial forts. If this line should be broken, and the planet's inhabitants swept away, then the door would be open for further Symbiot incursions into the Empire.

Kish. The land masses of Kish are covered by dense jungles, making naval transport the only realistic mode of transportation.

Aragon. Aragon is an ocean world, with only a few small islands. Again, naval transport is vital. Under Aragon's shallow oceans lie many oil and gas fields, which can be exploited by ocean platform wells.

Severus. This frozen world is rich in subarctic flora and fauna. The Vau long ago established colonies here for the collection and processing of all sorts of exotica unique to Severus. It is thought that these are used for medicinal purposes, but no-one really knows, as the Vau discourage any interaction between their colonists and humans. So far, the Vau have always been peaceful, and have not objected to the later human colonization of Severus. However, they maintain a warfleet in orbit about the planet, to discourage any interference in their activities.

Delphi. Delphi is almost entirely covered by deserts, broken only by a narrow sea which surrounds the world, dividing it into two giant continents. The world's inhabitants are concentrated along the shores of this sea.

Istakhr. This is a normal planet, with no distinguishing features.

2. Starting "It's War!"

2.1 Make sure you've installed EFS patch 1.3 and the latest version of Nova 2. "It's War!" will not work with standard EFS or Nova 1.

2.2 If you haven't already done so, download "It's War!" 2.1 (ITSWAR2-1.EXE). This is a self-extracting Zip file. Download it to any directory, and run it (double-click on it in Windows Explorer). Further instructions will then be displayed.

WARNING: This will overwite some of the standard EFS files. Before unzipping, you should either

1. Make back-up copies of those files, so you can return to playing the standard EFS scenario later, or
2. Make a copy of your entire EFS folder and unzip the "It's War! files into it. That way you can play either "It's War!" or the standard scenario whenever you like. I suggest you create a new Windows shortcut to the new copy of EFS.EXE.

ITSWAR2-0.EXE will overwrite the following files:

1. GALAXY.GAL, which contains all the maps of the galaxy. This is located in the root EFS folder (usually C:\EFS).
2. Four files that control the creation of random planets: PLANETS.TXT, NORMAL.TXT, VAU.TXT and SYMBIOT.TXT. These are located in the RAND subfolder (usually C:\EFS\RAND).

2.3 "It's War!" can be played in either Historical or Random mode. I recommend Random mode. Whichever mode you choose, the following planets will always be the same: Kish, Aragon, Severus, Delphi, Istakhr, Byzantium II, Holy Terra, Leagueheim and Stigmata. These planets are totally different from their standard EFS counterparts (except Leagueheim which is only slightly different). The star map and the remaining 31 planets have not been changed (except as in 2.6 below), but, if you choose Random mode, these will be different each time you play.

2.4 "It's War" is designed to be played with Universal Warehouse OFF.

2.5 At the start of each player's first turn, when the program asks him to select his house traits, he should select no traits at all. Providing players follow this rule, it makes no difference which difficulty level you play, since the only difference between levels is the number of free traits you get.

2.6 At the start of the game, Severus has already been colonized by the Vau as well as by humans. In addition, there will, as usual, be two planets inhabited solely by the Vau. The planet Vau has been renamed Xenophon. In Historical mode, Xenophon and Vril-ya are always inhabited by the Vau, though their deployment is different from standard EFS. However, in Random mode, you cannot predict which two planets will turn out to be inhabited by the Vau. (Xenophon will not necessarily be one of them.)

2.7 I strongly recommend that players agree on some house rules to ban unfair exploitation of the many bugs in the game. You can find a set of house rules at the Nova web site. The following house rules should not be used in "It's War!":-

I recommend that you use the alternative rule 15: switch the Plague option off at the start of the game.

3. Notes on Play

3.1 At the start of the game, none of the players have nobles on Byzantium or any means to move them there. This means that no-one can vote in the elections for Regent, and no-one can be elected. You will not be able to vote until you've developed Freighter technology, built a freighter, and transported a noble to Byzantium. You should aim to get a noble to Byzantium before turn 30 (4985 AD), so you can vote in the turn 40 (4995 AD) election (see house rule 29). Make sure you don't let any other player get a noble to Byzantium more than 10 turns ahead of everyone else, or he be able to use his monopoly of votes to make himself Emperor and win the game.

3.2 Because you control only one palace and one church, while your cities are spread across many planets, you are going to be very short of money (Firebirds) in the early stages of the game. The main way to make money is to sell resources at agoras. Your problem will be to find ways of getting your resources to an agora. One way is to build naval transports and roads. Another is to produce advanced resources (chemicals, ceramsteel, etc.) near to the agora. So make good use of any processing plants which you receive at the start of the game. If necessary, buy the raw materials you need to keep these plants running. Until you research the necessary technologies, the only processing plants you can build for yourself are chemicals.

3.3 With no space transports available, the oceans will be your main route for transportation on many planets. Naval transports are vulnerable to attack, so, once war breaks out, you will need naval warships to protect them. You can build submarines to attack other players' transports.

3.4 Because farms cannot produce food on a barren plant, you will not be able to expand your food production on Holy Terra until you have developed Advanced Bacteriology, which allows you to build more arboriums. You can buy food from the agoras, but note that the Middle East agora is never replenished. (The League can't cope with the logistical problem of supplying two agoras on one planet!)

3.5 On Byzantium, you will find you have insufficient food production to feed all your people, so you will have to buy food from the League once your initial stocks run out. If you want to use your industrial cities on Byzantium, you will have to buy the raw materials for this too. It is possible to make money by buying raw materials, processing them into more advanced resources, and selling those back to the League. However you will find it very difficult to make a profit unless you maintain your city loyalty at 100%. The League has six agoras on Byzantium. Five of these, all on one island, start the game with raw materials only, and are never replenished. However, they start with so many resources that they will not run out for a long time. There is one other agora, on a separate island nearby, which sells all types of resources, and gets replenished in the usual way. Since this agora is on a single-hex island, you can only buy resources there if you have a naval transport in an adjacent hex.

3.6 On the first turn, you should raise your city loyalty to 100% by reducing your taxes to 3% (three clicks away from zero). You should also raise your tithe skim to the maximum.

3.7 You start the game with one lab. It would be wise to wait until you have a decent income before building any more. (Remember, each lab costs 500 Fb per turn in maintenance.) Unlike standard EFS, you will not be prompted to select a technology to research at the beginning of the game. So on the first turn you must remember to tell your lab what to research.

3.8 At the start of the game, you are given a lot of engineers. Be careful in deciding what kinds of cities to build with these engineers. You start the game with enough resources to meet your needs for the first 10 turns. By the end of that time, you should have got your economy reasonably well balanced. But you will still need to buy many resources on Byzantium and perhaps a few elsewhere.

3.9 There will be a lot of competition between players for the best city sites. So don't waste any time. Try to get there first. The players who move earlier in the turn order (especially Li-Halan) have a significant advantage. In some areas, this will give them the first opportunity to grab the best city sites. This has been balanced by giving them fewer cities and engineers at the start, and some of their cities are in poorer locations.

3.10 The early moving players have another advantage too. Since Li-Halan is next to move after the League, he has first chance to buy up the resources from any agora that's just been replenished. I suggest that, if the other players find he's exploiting this privilege too much, they threaten to cut off his access to the agoras by force.

3.11 For the first 10 turns, your top priority must be to balance your budget. Your fort on Byzantium next to the agora has a stock of spare resources, which you can sell if you run short of money. By the time these run out, you really must have a good flow of goods to the agoras, otherwise you are going to run out of money. If that happens, you will have to start disbanding units or raise your taxes to ruinous levels. Once you have surplus money flowing in, try to save some for when war breaks out. During a war, you may be unable to reach the agoras.

3.12 On Stigmata, do not venture north of the the line of Stigmata Garrison forts unless you have a very strong force. The northern two thirds of the planet are infested with Symbiots from three hives. Even if you stay south of the line, you are not entirely safe. You can be attacked by Symbiot Spitters (air units), and the Symbiots will eventually break through the line, or land an invasion force from space. So start building up an army on Stigmata as soon as possible.

3.13 Each player starts the game with 5 Imperial Scepters and 10 House Scepters. All these scepters are immobile, so the hexes they occupy can be thought of as objective hexes. Guard them well. You can capture Imperial Scepters, but not House Scepters. House Scepters are destroyed in combat if successfully attacked.

3.14 The Imperial Fleet and Stigmata Garrison each have 5 Imperial Scepters, so the players controlling those ministries receive extra votes in elections. You can try to capture these scepters before any ministers have been appointed, but they're well defended.

3.15 Once you've built some spaceships and started to explore other planets, you'll find that the randomly-created planets have far more sea area, and consequently less land area, than in standard EFS. This will limit the number of cities you can build on each planet, so aim to colonize as many planets as possible.

4. What's New in This Version?

Version 2.1:

Version 2.0:

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