Lonely Star

Low Conquers High: Player's Guide

Table of Contents

Introduction

Below is the player's side of my megagame, Low Conquers High, which is essentially a hack of Sengoku, by the Megagame Makers, with parts grafted from Renaissance and Reformation (another game of theirs), Here I Stand by GMT games, and general inspiration from Cataphracts. But you don't have to worry about that.

You play as one of a series of grandees involved in the struggle to become the next Supreme Commander, the de facto ruler of the country, either through raw conquest or canny alliances.

Low Conquers High

Game Organisation

Players are divided into teams, each representing the magnate of a certain region and their sphere of influence.1 The players must delegate among themselves, but if there are enough players, it would be ideal to have the positions of:

The game is divided into 8 halves of seasons, each taking 1 real-life day. So it goes as Early Spring > Late Spring > Early Summer > Late Summer, and so on.

Every half-season the player team will issue orders.

Alliances

Alliances are cemented by one of the following methods, in ascending order of severity:

  1. The word of honour of those concerned, in front of witnesses;

  2. A treaty signed under the auspices of a priest and invoking the holy name of God;[^God]

  3. A treaty as above, but accompanied by an exchange or taking of hostages, usually the heir or wife of the character.

If a PC is taken hostage, they must act as a member of the family of those who took them captive, as that is the custom of the land. In case of a misstep, they will be killed and eaten.

Economics

Income

There are two forms of income: rice and beans (that is, coffee beans, as there is no minted coinage in the world of Sunrise Generation).

Each province produces a certain amount of rice, given in points. Whoever holds the province at Late Autumn will receive that many points in rice. Other provinces produce beans directly.

Provinces taken by force produce only half (rounded down) its nominal income in the first year. This also applies to subsequently recaptured provinces.

Rice and beans are effectively interchangeable in terms of value, their difference lies in storage. For this reason, expenses below will be referred to as "points".

Troops - It costs 1 point to raise an army of 1.000 men.2 Troops must be raised in the provinces that fund them, up to the limits of that province's value. E.g. a 11-point province can only raise 11.000 men.

Troops without a general are treated as garrisons for that province until a general comes and rallies them.

Troops disband during Early Winter, and must be raised again next year.

Defences - Castles3 cost 15 points to build and take 2 points a year to maintain. Fortresses cost 30 points to build and take 5 points a year to maintain. Both take 1 year to build.

Fortresses can only be built as extensions of existing castles, and they cannot be built in the same year.

Castles or fortresses that cannot be maintained are deemed to be abandoned and lose their military value. Recommissioning costs are 8 points for a castle and 20 for a fortress.

Other Expenditures - These are some other expenditures suggested:

Savings

You cannot save all of the points you acquire from one year to the next. These are the values you actually can save however:

10% of the annual income from rice

50% from additional taxation, such as cities

And 100% from gold mining

All savings must be converted from rice to beans. On top of that, every year you must reduce your savings by 1/3 as the beans go stale.

Prestige and Infamy

The two main sources of prestige are ostentatious spending and titles.

Titles are bequeathed either by the King of Kings or by the Supreme Commander. The King of Kings is a figurehead from which the people believe all power, glory, and prestige emanates from, and he is considered far too pure to govern, thus the Supreme Commander does so in his stead. The King of Kings governs from the central province of Bancaster, and the Supreme Commander from the province of Proximus.

By performing some service or great act in benefit of the King of Kings or the Supreme Commander, the leader of the group can be appointed Governor and / or Constable of a province, respectively.

The King of Kings also grants courtly ranks to leaders. These can be either Low, nominated by the Supreme Commander; Middle, awarded to leaders via recommendation of the Supreme Commander to the King of Kings; and High, which can only be nominated by the King of Kings and virtually never given to non-aristocrats - which is to say, almost never to player characters.

The total is then tallied up, starting at 1 and gaining +1 per:

Infamy, on the other hand, is accrued whenever the character loots a province, breaks a promise, or is blatantly and publicly cruel in some other form or fashion that is widely considered needless, as judged by the umpire.

Prestige and infamy are both used by the umpire to judge the effects of diplomacy and negotiations.

Warfare

Army Movement and Scouting

Each half-season, generals can move 1 province per point of Experience they have. They may move 1 extra area but the army gains fatigue. A fatigued army will be prone to mutiny and desertion.

Movement over mountain passes either takes 2 movements or just 1 but the army gains fatigue.

The army can also use 1 movement to rest in friendly territory for the half-season and some fatigue.

Extortion: An army may extort 1 Beans from an area as it passes through, provided it could move another time this half-season.

Looting: An army may spend a half-season looting. This removes all of the fatigue it has, and if it has none, the army starts carrying a die's worth of Beans, which will return to its leader once taken back to their home provinces.

Unaligned Provinces: Passage through unaligned lands is assumed provided the army does not extort or loot the area. If these conditions are violated, the ruler of the area raises an army equal to the value of the province to oppose the invader. Infamous rulers will find they are resisted more often.

Scouting: Armies become aware of other armies in any province adjacent to themselves, as do provinces.

Campaigning and Battles

Generals have an important rating: Experience. It goes from 1 to 4 and it affects how quickly the general can marshal his armies.

The general's Experience times 5 dictates how many thousand men they can lead at one time. If there are two or more generals at the head of the army, the sum of the two highest will be used instead.

Generals increase experience by 1 for every battle won.

Whenever a general enters a space containing an enemy army, the umpire will determine who has the advantage and ask them if they seek a battle or avoid it.

Avoiding battle - If avoiding a battle, the general will try to move to another province adjacent to the space they're in. If they don't have any other spaces to move this turn, the army takes fatigue. Avoidance obeys these restrictions:

Supplies: An army is considered to be supplied if it can draw an unbroken path to its home spaces that is controlled by friendlies and currently free of enemy units. A detachment of 1.000 soldiers occupying an unaligned province counts it for the supply path.

An army without a clear path for more than one half-season is considered undersupplied. I.e. if the army moved away this half-season and joined a battle, it is still considered supplied, but not at the start of the next half-season.

Battles - With the general having chosen to pursue battle, the Attacker and the Defender are chosen. Typically the person who moved into the province is the attacker, even if they weren't the one to have had the final word on there being a battle. Having decided that, the umpire asks each general what tactic they pick from:

The umpire then considers the tactics and other strategical considerations and figures out who wins, telling each side how many casualties they took - between dead, wounded, and deserters. The generals then write down how many of those soldiers they will get back next season, as below. They are responsible for bringing this up to the umpire.

After the battle, the loser's army is fatigued and must retreat to a valid province.

Reinforcements: On the season following the battle (other than winter), each army recovers manpower as such:

If an army loses its general, it cannot reform until next year.

Death of leaders: Commanders involved in a battle always have a chance of dying or being wounded. Any leader over 55 who travels during winter or across inhospitable terrain also risks their health.

Castles and Fortifications: Castles count as an extra 5.000 soldiers in any battle fought in that province; fortresses count as an extra 10.000 soldiers. These are only notional.

Controlling Provinces

When you conquer a province, you have some options:

  1. Force the magnate to submit and become your vassal. If this is the only province of another player, they continue to run it as before, but now as your subordinate. When this happens, the income of the province is unaffected with your taking over, but naturally the risk lies in the loyalty of your new vassal. This will be influenced by your prestige.

  2. Exile the existing ruler and replace them with your own people. This reduces the income of the province as mentioned before, but the province is now under your direct control.

  3. Exact tribute in terms of rice or beans or similar, and withdraw.

Communications and Travel

Each PC has a person of trust, trained to remember specifically-worded messages of up to 140 characters, longer messages require a visit in person.

Messengers typically convey more the meaning than the exact words, and can move a total of 8 provinces per half-season, including the return journey.4 If they pass through hostile territory they might be intercepted on the way.

Exchanges between two PCs cannot exceed the 8 provinces per half-season limit, even if they are relaying different messengers and switching them.

PCs travelling without an army are treated as messengers.

Smoke Signals: Armies in neighbouring provinces can send a single-word message back to any character in any province adjacent to it, provided there are friendlies there willing to relay the smoke signal.

  1. In Sunrise Generation, this typically means a personally influential warrior and their partisans, members of his faction, which typically also form their extended family. Terms such as "grandees" and "leaders" all denote the same thing. Some peoples do practice kingship, however, and have hereditary rulers who govern absolutely.↩

  2. These are always skirmisher infantry, there are no horses or mountable animals in Sunrise Generation. It is said that there are some in the mountains to the far west, but they're no good for warfare.↩

  3. Typically earthworks, with fortifications providing even more extensive earthworks.↩

  4. This assumes they are running. There are no beasts of burden in Sunrise Generation.↩

#gameable content #sunrise generation