University of Canterbury's gaming clubUniversity of Canterbury's gaming clubIt's the late 22nd century, and mankind is busy exploiting the rest of the universe. Terra, slowly being strangled by overpopulation, has sent its tentacles out into the depths of space to draw back more and more resources to feed it. Groaning under the weight of bureaucracy, the Terran government has licensed out the rights to exploration of remote sectors to the transnationals, companies that span national and continental borders.
Of course, not everything is above-board. Terran government isn't too bothered about what happens out there, as long as it doesn't breach any laws. The corporations' activities are being monitored by the notoriously corrupt Ministry of Information, but that's nothing that a well-placed wad of credits won't solve.
Terra has given you six months to prove your worth. At the end of that time, your performance is up for review. To the best goes a contract for exclusive resourcing rights - something every company wants. The only thing in your way is everyone else, and you've got orders to make sure they get out of the way - by any means possible.
This year's Grand Strategy is going to be a slight change from the usual. I'm putting as much of it as I can on a computer and letting it do the brute work of moving your units around the map and making them fight. This takes out the usual 15- or 30-minute wait as GMs move pieces around the map or generals hold long, confusing battles and lets us focus on getting more turns in faster.
You will represent members of a corporation's mission into space, tasked with harvesting the hell out of your patch of land. The responsibilities of each team can be split into two broad categories:
I am hoping to have somewhere between 4 and 8 teams of 2 to 4 players each.
So I can have an idea of numbers, I'm opening the doors to preregistration effective now. Preregistering here won't cost you money (you pay for the Grand Strat when you preregister for Buckets), all it means is emailing me and saying "Hey Jan, I want to be in the Grand Strat, playing the economic/military leader for X". Here are some blurbs for the corporations you can play:
Through a succession of mergers, takeovers and stock-option scandals, Google has managed to keep itself alive all this time. Now one of the dinosaurs of software and search, it lags behind its competition but has the economic power to keep itself afloat, helped not in the least by strong ties with the government's Ministry of Intelligence.
One of the many startup companies that relies on subsidised surface-to-orbit transport to get its products into space, PPL is a newcomer to the scene. A recent gamble on a $4b launch facility in the middle of the Pacific paid off, and as a result the board were able to wrangle themselves a good deal on the company's placement in the Beacon sector.
The old warhorse of the propulsion industry, V-B has a surfeit of experience, money, and R&D. While not known for their speed or acceleration, V-B ships have often been bought by the Terran government for their strike capabilities.
A child of the EU, United Alloys is somewhat out-of-place in this race to the stars. However its board is confident that advanced refining technology will allow it to out-resource its competition.
Known more for its luxury liners and freight-tugs than for colonisation, Yostushuba is still a force to be reckoned with in space. Its knowledge of capital ship construction won't be any good when it doesn't have any shipyards, but it still has a strong economic base thanks to Japan's booming economy.
This company has no Terran presence - its administration, production and research facilities all orbit Earth. As a result, it's seen as something of a political outsider, but years of zero-G research mean the spacecraft it produces are the most manoeuvrable ever seen.
The first privatised nation, China has behind it the backing of billions of loyal workers. What other companies have accomplished through ingenuity, technology or playing the stock market, China has managed through sheer size and hard work.
The giant of the zero-G construction industry only just managed to get into this sector, after another company was disqualified due to illegal accountancy practices. However the company has skimped on nothing in its rushed preparations to get colonists into outer space.
We now have a preliminary manual up here, as well as a guide to turn-by-turn report sheets here. Grab them today and start getting acquainted with the rules!