The Third Dynasty of Purplebeard
February 18th - March 28th, 2011
Contents
Ascension Address
Four Score And Seven Millenia Ago…
Friends,
The first spring of my leadership has now arrived. While we mourned the passing of our previous chief, who succumbed to the winter cold, and immortalized his reign on the cave wall, the warm sun slowly returned to us and now embraces us once again. This is a year of new beginnings, and I promise you that under my leadership, we will no longer be slaves to the whims of the forest gods and the weather spirits. We shall direct our efforts towards harnessing the power of the flame, so that it might warm and protect us. We shall make tools with which we can reshape the earth to bear delicious fruit. Under my guidance, you shall come to fear neither rival nor winter, and we shall truly rule this land we call home.
Why are you all looking at me with such quizzical expressions? (sigh) Oh alright, here we go:
chief dead. spring here. we must make fire and collect more food this year or we die next winter. also neighbour tribe look at us funny. also dynastic rules go away now. word ‘ant’ becomes ‘caveman’ and ‘sandbox master’ becomes ‘chief’.
Players
The following players were active at the end of this Dynasty:
Bucky*, Chivalrybean*, Darknight*, Darth Cliche*, Ely, Florw, Kevan*, Purplebeard*, Rodlen*, Saakara, Travis, Ujalu the unnecessary, William, Winner
Posts of interest
- writing is hard gave every player an Intelligence stat, with the value limiting the number of syllables they could use in proposals. The default value (for players) meant that they "may not use any punctuations other than full stops (periods) and question marks in their proposals, and may not use words with more than two syllables". The Emperor could use punctuation and longer words.
- me no know sci…sci…thingy? added a Research projects tech tree, with a single research project (or "learn think") already in progress called Bashing Rocks
- You must be this tall to write a proposal gave an Intelligence boost for enacted proposals
- Names allowed Cavemen to always use certain words in proposals, including player names and the word "proposal"
- Run With These added the Pointy Sticks tech
- Beyond Geology added Basic Plant Knowledge, Rhyming, Cave Painting and Thinking Hard techs
- Research Interests allowed players to follow Pursuits of Knowledge, Art or Progress
- learn grunt: sky fire - the Cavemen hypothesised about lightning
- learn thinks are hard added an Intelligence boost for posting a Research Project
- a way with words allowed the Chief to reword rules at will
- learn grunt: tools
- Top-Down Planning added distant possible technologies
- learn grunt: filling hole closed a loophole ("much danger from deep hole in back of cave")
- the balance modified the research costs of Learn Thinks based the balance of players' Pursuits
- Interdisciplinary Research added more future technologies: Building Monuments, Designing Huts and Following Stars
- learn grunt: advanced painting
- learn grunt: basic math
- free speech repealed the rule limiting communication to minimal, unpunctuated syllables
- The Knowledge restricted which Projects a given player actually understood enough to use (based on their Intelligence and Pursuit)
- The Greatest Apes gave players Tools, and the means to create them using Projects they understood
- Can You Tell What It Is Yet? allowed cave painting to progress Project research
- Two proposal in an hour is way too much added Raw Meat to the game
- learn grunt: hunt animals allowed players with Pointy Sticks to hunt animals for Meat
- Hit Tree With Rock changed the tech tree so that each node could have more than two branches
- Language Barrier renamed the Rhyming tech to Grunting
- Research Proposal: lifting large rocks
- Styx and the Stones allowed Cavemen to form musical groups in genres such as Classical or Heavy Metal
- Rock Banned reskinned the previous proposal as Social Rituals
- Research Proposal: Rock Finding
- BlogNomic may be fought with clubs, but it is won by cavemen defined the victory condition as having a higher Intelligence than the Chief
- Research Proposal: Axe Crafting
- Sticks and Stones defined types of weapon
- Biodegradable Technology allowed players to discard Sticks and Rocks
- Learn Grunt: Basic Geometry
- Hungry for More defined weekly Feasts: any player without access to Meat would lose Intelligence
- Show Me Your Moves allowed players to increase the Intelligence of lower-Intelligence players, through teaching
- Grunting Compromise gave teaching a bonus if particular skills were known
- Cave painting complete
- Thirst for Adventure gave the option of a weekly, randomised Intelligence modification
- The unseen horror! announced the arrival of Predators, who might attack a random tribe member (slightly reducing their Intelligence) if the tribe didn't have a fire lit
Core changes
- Drawing a Blank made unspecified starting values default to zero or blank. (This would be expanded to cover more cases in later dynasties.)
- Ejecting the Core reverted the proposal limit to "two proposals pending", it having been changed to "two non-core and one core" at some point in the relatively recent past.
Final Ruleset and Gamestate
Ascension
Predators Attack - Kevan used a carelessly worded "If no other caveman has done so in the last 18 h" rule 345 times in a row (because after you've performed it it's still true that "no other caveman" has done it), to reduce the Intelligence of the Chief below that of himself, which was the criteria for victory.
