I am so excited to play this game! Do you have a more printer-friendly version by chance, maybe without the background? 

Hi, i thought i might as well ask here. So i love the last updat to this game but as i expressed in a previous comment i dislike that tribes and bandits have been put together into one. Again, there is a big distinction between a tribe and bandits, so i always used an older version of Mappa Imperium for the Neighbours development section. Small problem though, i kinda lost the PDF of the older version. Does anyone remember the distinct tables of Tribes and Bandits or maybe even has a PDF. I'll probably eventually make some tables my own but having the old tables would be a massive help.

Truly a hidden gem, and it's amazing you offer it for free. I tipped what I could, and genuinely believe it's worth it. I played through with a few variations on some of the rules and outcomes.

I solo played for 7 different factions, and here was the world I created via Inkarnate...

Olympios, Year 39 of the 7th Era.

Here are some variations which made solo play even more active...

--HERO UNITS--
When the dice results say "A hero arrives" or "Place a monument to a hero" instead, I created a Hero unit (monarch, adventurer, general, etc) and they acted like a free military settlement, simulating an influential party or a strong military force. When getting the "War" option, you get to move your Hero next to the settlement you're trying to capture, essentially camping in their territory. Obviously, as people they aren't just sitting in one spot for dozens of years, but their placements on the map might be considered "where they were recorded to have been" during periods of history.

Whenever a faction rolls to attack your settlements, if the Hero does not have any settlement between them and the attacked settlement, then that faction MUST attack the Hero instead. Similarly, monsters, wizards, bandits/pirates, and swarms must all roll on the War chart against the Hero if their own actions would allow them to destroy a settlement. Heroes being "captured" as a settlement, simply means the hero perishes in battle. Monsters and Swarms don't get the benefits of creating a Hero by these rules, but bandits/pirates do, as well as minor factions. Magic Users are essentially already Heroes but with special rules, and their attacks on the War table can create new Heroes too (or perhaps they convert/blackmail/brainwash the original hero).

As an era ends, all heroes are removed -- this can either mean they die of old age, or simply that time has marched on and their heyday is passed.

--ERA VII, AGE OF STRIFE--
This is basically a continuation of the game that allows it to go on indefinitely. In Era 7, empires are struggling against tumultuous times. Everything is up for grabs, and the weak are seeking to overthrow their neighbors. It consists of the same 60 year (6 Turn) format for Era 4-6 in a normal length game. On their Turn, a major faction rolls once on the Age of Empires table, implements the result, and then immediately rolls once on the Age of Collapse table, also implementing the result.

Once that is done, EVERY Neighbor that has been generated by that faction gets to roll on the Neighbor's Develop table. Swarms don't get to do this (unless you want them to, but they alter the world a bit too much and are quite OP). It can be cumbersome to track each faction's neighbors, as I had 7 "players" each with their own cultures and neighbors, but it definitely made for an engaging mapmaking session. You are free to adjust which neighbors get to do this and which don't -- your Age of Strife could be an era of mythical monsters acting on every turn, leading to an inevitable clash of titans as they perhaps roll on the War table against one another; or it could be an era in which a rapidly invading monstrous swarm consumes kingdom after kingdom.

When the Age of Strife ends, it simply begins again, allowing for infinite play and any number of variations to it you'd like. Time and history continue to march on, and everyone suffers as they continue to vie for power or struggle toward a stable life.

--WARLIKE NEIGHBORS--
I modified the Cults, Tribes, Hives, and Minor Factions once they enter the Age of Strife. Before then, most of the game plays out as written in the rulebook. But once we've passed the Age of Collapse, these groups become more warlike because just like the main factions, they now act on every turn as well.

Cults. On a roll of 5 or 6, the cult will go to War. Their target can be determined by you (if it makes sense lore-wise) or you can randomize it by assigning a number to any amount of neighbors and rolling as many d6 as needed to get that number. This also means that if you are using the Hero rule listed above, Cults can create a Hero for themselves if they roll high (or their attacker rolls low) during the War as well.

Tribes. On a 5, tribal societies may create a floating village as usual, or even a coastal settlement. But pirates will create a small fleet that functions the same way as a Hero unit, and bandits will create a Hero unit. Obviously, these must be dealt with before the pirates or bandits can be dealt with, making it that much harder to uproot and destroy these sources of lawlessness.

Hives. On a 4, the Hive can attack as usual, but must roll on the War table. Attack results of 6 will not create a Hero unit, but will create an extra infestation nearby instead. On my own map, I have several infestations of "Snakemen of Thulsa" and Crom does not seem to favor any attempt at stopping them. To hell with him!

Minor Factions. On a 5, they don't build anything unique, instead, they go to War. Like with Cults above, the target can be determined by you, or you can randomize the target by assigning numbers to neighbors and rolling as many d6 needed to get one of those numbers. Also, when Minor Factions roll to develop and get a 4 or 6, if those options are not possible (no nearby tribes, or no unconnected neighbors), you can decide if they go to War or simply skip their turn.


These all have led me to create a world using Mappa Imperium that continues to evolve and thrive. Honestly, I was just making a pseudo-classical, sword and sandal, kinda-Mediterranean world and now it's managed to randomly generate so many mythical moments and heroic achievements for each empire.

I am making a Fallout thing for personal use with this as my biggest inspiration, thanks

I bought this game before I had an itch.io account and accidentally got rid of the PDF. Is there anywayto redownload it or do I need to pay the $10 again? At the time I didn't realize that it was associated with itch.io and I'd need your account to reaccess it. This is so much fun by the way, I did this with my 5th grade class and they loved it. Made map reading so much fun!

Hey Nook! Happy to be finally getting with my group to be playing this. We decided to do an eastern style map/theme (part of which is here). Just finished the (reletively) new Age of Myth - hugely fun!!! We included local Spirits and Dieties to reflect regional folklore.

We decided to do our own 3d6 Race table, to include Multi-race, and to suit our Pathfinder/DnD sensibilities:

• 3 Themed Choice (based on geography, gods, features, theme)
• 4 Daemonkind (Daemonfolk, imp, teifling)
• 5 Feyfolk (Satyr, Faerie, Eladrin, Kitsune, Firbolg, Fey multi-race etc)
• 6 Reptilian (tortle, lizardfolk, kobold, wyvaran, grippli, serpentfolk)
• 7 Multi-race (roll again to determine which races dominate, or 'standard' RPG style Human/Half-Elf/Gnome/Dwarf/Halfling mixture)
• 8 Smallfolk (Hobbits, Darklings, Halflings, Gnomes, Forest Gnomes, Svirfneblin)
• 9 Humans (Cultural, hybrid cultures, custom)
• 10 Dwarves (hill dwarves, mountain dwarves, duergar, surface dwarves, dwarf-multi-race)
• 11 Elves (Wood Elves, High Elves, Drow, Grey Elves, custom, Elf multi-race)
• 12 Other humanoid (Dragonborn, Elemental Genasi, Shifters, Kitsune, Aasimar, other)
• 13 Human dominant multi-race (roll 1d6 for number of other races present)
• 14 Animalfolk (Ratfolk, Mousefolk, Bearfolk, Leonin, Tabaxi, Herengon, Gnoll, Vanara, Tanukifolk)
• 15 Greenskins (goblin, orc, hobgoblin, monkey goblin, deep goblin greenskin multi-race)
• 16 Birdfolk (Tengu, Aarakocra, Owlin)
• 17 Giantkind (ogre, giants, golems, goliath, troll)
• 18 ‘Monstrous’ (centuar, bugbear, minotuar, gargoyle, orang-pendak)

Of course, people are free to use this or variate of it! Credit goes to Nook for the original idea :P

Are you open to someone making / posting expansions or alternate rules to this? Obviously free + with credit. I love this game so much and have played several solo games in the past few days, but I'm trying to make alternate rules for godless realms by replacing gods with magic systems, among some other alternate tables and stuff, and it seems a shame not to share it

Just a small question. Why did you put Pirates/Bandits and Tribes together? Both are very destinct and i have found myselve wondering how to explain why a tribe would build a floating city, etc. It´s not really critice, i´m just curious.

I just had a nice long solo game and I still love this game to death. Bless you Nookrium for bringing so many of my favorite things together into something that not only can be super fun to play, but can also be used for worldbuilding. Might even turn the session I just played into a short campaign :). The only problem I found was in Era 4, the hyperlink in "11 Expansion" takes me to page 8, not page 9, however that is such a small detail that it had 0 effect on my enjoyment. Keep up the fantastic work man.

on the 5.2 Neighbors Develop page, under the "Tribe / Bandits / Pirates" there is no have a 4th option, just 1,2,3,5,6

Fun little step I added in my solo run: At the end of each era after the first, for each region (so each player), I created an idiom around what was currently known of the world. A saying for local customs.

For instance, and mind that these are rather Chinese in nature due to this run being used to develop a wuxia setting... "I'll see you at Niangmukan" is a way to tell someone their goal is unattainable. It refers to the sacred site of one of the celestial beings established in the second age, which is so remote as to be considered mythical.

In another example, "awakened by a fulurong on the side of the road" is a reference to an animal chosen as one of the "resources" of my world, whose horns naturally balance qi around it. In other words, this idiom is a fancy way of describing a windfall.

I'm really digging this step because it helps add that little bit of extra oomph to the lore, so I figured I'd share in case anyone else wanted to take on a similar approach.

Just built my first map! The program I used online was free but did let me make paths or draw small lines but otherwise it was great!Loved how it came out!

 I did want to mention that the Era charts don’t say to use 3d6 for the charts.  I just happened to notice how high the charts went in number and fixed my rolls.

How's the progress on the final update going so far pal?

Hey Nookrium, don´t want to seem rude, but didn´t you say you wanted to bring one more update out in a comment down below, or was that the continental update. Just wondering.

I downloaded what I thought was the game, but only got a PDF file. How do I access the game?

I have made a map in WorldBox v0.94 through Mappa Imperium!



I had to adapt things a little based on the biomes & races available in WorldBox, but overall it is the same. Except, the gameplay part I get to do Worldbox style! 😁

Geography

1. Hills

2. Desert

3. Forest

4. Mountains

5. Geyser

6. Acid Geyser

7. Volcano

8. Ice Tower

9. Flame Tower

10. River

11. Lake

Factions

1. Humans

2. Elves

3. Orcs

4. Dwarves

Minor Factions

1. Rats

2. Undead (Necromancer + Skeletons)

3. Druids

4. Snowmen

There sure were a lot of rolls for the Ice Towers. 😬

I have actually been throwing in a few extra bells and whistles regarding technological advances (Based on access to local resources). Worldbuilding currently with stone age elves who only have access to flint, fish, and salt. They are currently dealing with a territorial wingless dragon who happens to fancy a spot they dedicated to their River God.

Will their be any more updates to this?

Hey Nook. I've spent the last month creating this map on and off, backporting in updates as you've released them and I'm very pleased with the result.

Since finishing I've drafted a design document to use the map to play a sort of card-driven board game. a game within a game sort of thing, itself based upon mappa imperium's rules.  The idea is still in its infancy but I'll let you know if anything ever comes of it.

Thank you for all your hard work making mappa imperium, it's scratched my civilization building/observing itch in a way very few other games ever have.

I'm planning on playing this with my DND group to create their world. I plan on homebrewing some rules that the players are playing the gods they create and have that woven throughout the storyline. I sort of wanted to fuse this with the Dawn of Worlds game. I hope in future versions, the pantheon portion of this is elaborated a bit more. Otherwise, thanks Nook! This is great!

I did a single player season with just one player and I noticed a few things that could be improved or better explained Let's start with the first thing that happens.

I got a hive and it rolled a “Spawn” action in Age of Discovery. When it says to create a new legendary monster near “friend or foe” is this monster considered part of that hive if it’s set to be a friend? Like should be to consider part of the hive faction?

When a legendary monster spawns another legendary monster does that new legendary monster get a turn or does it have to wait until the next era? Also is this new legendary monster a part of a faction. Because in the same game we had 5 legendary monsters all part of the same faction. Like I feel like something is slightly off. 

 Also when this did become an issue we noticed two things. First Heroes are present in the game, but only for monuments. It would be nice if said heroes could be characters and get actions. It also would be nice if the heroes had a good chance to kill a legendary monster. Cause again in that game a ton of legendary monsters and i'm sure you can guess how that went. Lol 

Also some things need to be a little more clear cause it confused us. Like if a legendary monster spawns a cult, does it belong to the monster? When you are about to get a shrine for a legendary monster what does that do? Is it just for art? 

 Also other than heroes that should be a thing in the future, what about things such as relationships and all that? Sometimes it’s not super clear in some situations on what the relationships should be between some nations. Maybe add to this too at one point? 

 Overall I like the game though, even though it can be a little confusing at times. Look forward to see what you come up with.

Hey Nook,

I'm in the middle of an epic world-creation with the help of Mappa Imperium, and I thought a cool addition could be ruling government systems. A simple roll for a monarchy, a triumvirate, an aristocracy, a democracy, etc. This is just for more flavor and storytelling depth. At least that's what I'm going to use it for. :D

Here's a sneak peek of my world in the Fourth Era. I started out with 4 Prime factions but upgraded any hostile factions or tribes to a Prime faction once they entered the game. So now I have 16 Prime factions. Like I said, it's EPIC. And it's taking forever.... xD

I created a world with 4 factions together with my son of 5. In the northwest lived greenskins, lizards in the northeast and two factions of dwarfs in the south. Their was also a catfolk tribe and lots of pirates. My creativity with names is a bit lacking. But it was fun.

I created this map after finding your video of the game on YouTube, so I'm posting my map, as requested. Started with 1 human kingdom and 1 giant kingdom. Ended with 5 human kingdoms, 1 orc tribe, 1 dwarf thanedom, and 4 kinds of giants. Very cool!

I really love this game. One problem though: the Game Length Table on page 15 uses Eras 3-5 when G&G update has pushed those previous Eras up by one, so it should be Eras 4-6. Are you holding off on changing the table because you have future updates in mind?

Hi, I am the one who was translating this into Spanish, I found some errors that were mentioned in the translation, I have already finished the translation, I have a draft to show you if you are convinced, where can I send it to you?

I enjoyed this game as a little solo afternoon. From your comments section I found Campaign Cartographer and look forward to doing this game again and putting it up on there when I get round to it.

I would say the pantheon could be integrated a bit more - perhaps things like specific diety influences on the world. 

I didn't do the war / fall at the end because I was playing solo and didn't want a ravaged world on the already very full map I had but it also looks good. 

Thanks!