So, what should we set our ambitions toward, then? If aiming for a powerful empire means the quest dies for good, because you lose all interest, if we can't aim for anachronistic levels of technological development, because we can't control things finely enough to inject ahistorical things to prod them into doing any of it... Is the point of the quest to be wiped out by something else whenever we happen to fuck up? If the typically expected player goals for a civ-game are expressly verboten, what are the goals we can aim for? This is something where explicit QM guidance would be very helpful at shaping the direction of a quest's discussions.
Thanks for this question.
Now I'll turn it back around. Has conquering and technological anachronism ever been a draw of the game? Eretria has made some anachronistic things, but they've mostly been political or institutional. I don't have a problem with conquering or expanding the borders, but that doesn't seem to be the point. Most of the attraction appears to be in building a culturally, militarily, and institutionally unique state that is able to hold its own among its neighbors. I don't think that expanding through South Italia and Sicily one day is out of the question, nor do I actually think it's an issue to make technologically anachronistic things, but I have been building the proper groundwork for this for a long time. Things have already diverged a lot, but I believe in a consistent and clear causal chain of events in development, not a random steam engine out of nowhere.
I mean, I've been running this game for ages and ages and there hasn't really been issues with people complaining it's too slow or not enough is happening. It's just that things are happening in a different direction with a different pace, and I pay far more attention to political, diplomatic and cultural developments than many civ quests do. Players will grow and expand and see numbers go up, but I'm not interested in telling the story of an empire that sweeps the world; there are stories told about empires that sweep the world all over the place. This is and has always been a city-state quest, not an empire quest, not even a civilization quest (though I'll take the tag for ease of description). Players expand realistically and within their limits, they are met with new challenges and new enemies, and they grow their city and its people and its society. This is a quest about building "tall", one way or another, and as powers grow bigger, obviously the definition of tallness will increase, and it already has, but I don't see a trajectory for Eretria Eskhata being a true imperial power without effectively losing the heart of the game, which is the democratic system.
There are many, many, many games where it's just about numbers going up, or new worlds to conquer, or new places to expand to, or what-have-you. Magna Graecia has all those things, but it is also attempting to be the simulator of an ancient society, and what you are seeking is to have a society succeed. But societies can succeed without ever becoming empires, and the rise of empires often destroy the society which made them in favor of something entirely new. Societies can succeed by building cultural and political legacies just as well as by building one big empire.
For effectively the entirety of the game Eretria has been a middle power. The definition of middle power has shifted over time, but it was a middle power from very early on in the quest and it has remained a middle power. Perhaps it will one day face the legions of Rome with a coalition of powers and a greatly expanded league, but it will not replace Rome. I don't want players to think they can't expand or become quite big, even a great power of the Mediterranean, but they will be no empire.
Player decisions throughout the games have already set in motion a chain of events that will alter the course of history in a decisive way. In the meantime, there will be plenty of opportunities to do many of the things questers would like to do without the frenetic pace that many empire builders like to take.
Often, when I get this objection, players tend to misunderstand me, because they don't really see the context I was replying to. I was not banning players from expanding, I was responding to suggestions after the Peloponnesian War Eretria would have a huge swathe of Hellas join a Pan-Hellenic League and then fight whoever won for hegemony over all the Greeks. Just as I had responded in the past to people who wanted to conquer all of Italia like the Romans, or who wanted to invent the steam engine. Often, these suggested aims are completely disconnected from the actual context of the game, where both factions and players are constantly suggesting more realistic and moderate ideas in order to expand and go in interesting new directions. Several have already been incorporated into the platforms for the next elections. I am not against incorporating interesting ideas or new suggestions. Many of the city's institutions are player-made, and I am constantly cribbing player ideas and interpretations of events for my own. I love player involvement and it keeps me going in writing this quest.
So it is funny to receive a question about what players could possibly do if not all these crazy things. Well...you could do what you've been doing already, and which has allowed the quest to maintain a consistent core of players despite several iterations and declarations of death by myself! Build a society to influence the world, change history, and stand the test of time.
