Kingdoms 1
| Author(s) | SenorConejo |
|---|---|
| Genre | Early Developmental |
| Players | SenorConejo, NoHaxJustPotatoes*, abigzebrafish, clumsycapy (then thecoolkid26), Bloxhead7, TheZipCreator, poisontrigger, firepeas, surrenderfire, FrenchFryFan, _leopardcat_, others |
| Date Created | Late 2017 - January 2018 |
| Known for |
|
| Successor | Kingdoms 2 |
| Inspired by | RP Wars |
| Inspired | Lands of Tckia, Apocalypse, Echokia |
| Status | Defunct, Unretrievable |
Kingdoms (later referred to as Kingdoms 1) is an Early Developmental genre game by SenorConejo and the first installment of the Kingdoms series. The second ever fully recorded game in DiamondFire-Warlords history, the game's creation and hosting marked the start of various important events in community history, such as the first real union of what would later become the Warlords community, the creation of the Loria genre, the creation of Lands of Tckia (and subsequently the Early Boom), the creation of the Echo-Ultra bubble (which would later on become a large influence on the Warlords' server's space-oriented and Afterlife genre games) and, most importantly, the revival of the Executor RP concept following the closure of RP Wars, ending the First Dark Period which otherwise may have completely killed the DiamondFire RP community before its history even began. With all of these factors in mind, Kingdoms 1 is commonly considered one of the most important games in the history of the DiamondFire-Warlords community.
Context and Prelude
Some time prior to the creation of Kingdoms, chunghhoid (with advice and inspiration from n5Q, then known as Kcolyz) would create the first recorded Executor RP game in DiamondFire history, known as RP Wars. This game saw players be able to play as one of four countries situated in each corner of the plot, with two starting in the desert and two starting in the prairie. The gameplay itself was composed of exploring a map obscured by a fog of war mechanic, constructing new settlements in newly explored lands, creating troops and fighting against natives that were always hostile to the player, and researching newly discovered items (such as coal and iron ore) in an open-ended research system. Although the game proved to be successful, the game proved to have several flaws that reduced its enjoyability.
Issues with RP Wars
The lack of a defined research system coupled with players who were all playing a Developmental game for the first time ever meant that the tree would remain underused. Coupled with the limited discoveries that players could make apart from the discovery of new ores and biomes, the open-ended research system proved to be surprisingly limited despite players theoretically being able to research anything that was within reason.
Moreover, the combat and diplomacy systems were mostly undefined or nonexistent. When players would combat with enemy natives, battles would be primarily decided by numbers and the host's verdict. There was little in the way of strategy and fortifications, and the types of weaponry were restricted to melee swords and ranged bows. Diplomacy, on the other hand, was not a game mechanic at all - there was no such thing as making peace or alliances with the natives, and they were solely hostile enemies that you could not interact with in any other meaningful way other than combat.
In retrospect, the only good mechanic that existed in the game was the exploration mechanic, but even this was limited. There were few biomes (desert, prairie/forest, and mushroom) that existed in the first place, and movement speed was so slow that it would take an excessive amount of time before two player-owned countries could interact. In fact, no player country was even close to meeting one another by the time that RP Wars ended. All of these factors in mind made the game become gradually more boring to host, ultimately leading to chunghhoid's decision to clear the plot and abandon the concept entirely.
The First Dark Period
Following the end of RP Wars, the small Executor RP community that emerged from it was left with several players who wished to play, but no host to actually create a playable game. Three players who either played or spectated RP Wars - clumsycapy (then known as thecoolkid26), Bloxhead7, and dylan34481 - would attempt to address this need by asking chunghhoid for his permission to use his plot for the creation of a new RP Wars. He accepted, and work on RP Wars 2 began. Improvements in the diversity of biomes and the actual game mechanics were attempted, but the project would never come close to completion. Following an extended period of inactivity by the developers of RP Wars 2, chunghhoid ultimately decided to clear the plot and use it for another one of his own personal projects.
With none of RP Wars 2's developers showing much interest in re-attempting to revive the concept, it seemed that Executor RPs as a whole were destined to die off and become a forgotten part of DiamondFire history. However, another RP Wars player, SenorConejo, decided that he would attempt to redo the RP Wars concept on his own, implementing several improvements under his own vision. Having both more dedication than RP Wars 2's developers, as well as more experience in Minecraft building and country development games (he'd later credit Civilizations VI in helping inspire some of Kingdoms 1's mechanics) his efforts soon resulted in a project that was, in almost every aspect, a direct improvement of RP Wars as well as capable of being hosted. Soon after, he would announce the release of Kingdoms to the DiamondFire public.
Mechanics of the game
Kingdoms 1 was an Early Developmental game, meaning that it fell under the same subgenre as RP Wars. This was most clearly seen in the game's display: the usage of a natural map that emphasized resources like trees, the usage of blocks (such as note blocks, dispensers, and droppers) to display cities, as well as heads for the display of units (such as scouts, builders, and knights). Moreover, the game also reused the fog of war mechanic, leaving most of the map unexplored, and also restricted itself to 4 players across 4 countries, each situated in their own corner of the plot.
Where Kingdoms 1 differed on RP Wars was in virtually everything else. Instead of two starting biomes, Kingdoms 1 had one for each corner: the mesa, desert, prairie, and tundra. More consideration was given to each of these biomes, giving each corner its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, the tundra had a high scarcity of resources, but was easily defendable and bordered other, harsher biomes (such as the Arctic/Polar biome) which would make it incredibly difficult for an civilization that wasn't adjusted to the cold to ever invade the country. Starter biomes like the prairie were plentiful of resources and bordered other biomes heavy in resources (such as the forest and swampland), but the largely flat terrain and moderate climate meant that it was highly susceptible to invasion.
When it came to troops and mechanics, Kingdoms 1 would better define the units of the game as well as their movement speeds, with scouts, builders, knights, and archers, as well as a new spearman unit, among others. When it came to military units, the less ambiguous nature of Kingdoms in terms of the range of each unit, the possibility of creating military fortifications, and a siege mechanic (RP Wars would simply have the enemy plunder settlements as they arrived) added much more depth to wars than ever before.
The research system would be completely overhauled. Unlike RP Wars' undefined, open-ended research mechanic, Kingdoms would take inspiration from Civilization VI and create a rigid, defined research tree that all players would follow. Upon creating a dedicated library building, players would be able to use the research tree, which started at the middle and had various branches depending on different fields. For instance, one of these branches included animal taming and horseback training, which would later unlock cavalry units for the player's country. The implementation of a rigid research tree saw a greater usage of the mechanic as a whole compared to RP Wars, making it a success for the time.
Lastly, and most importantly, Kingdoms saw a greater emphasis on the roleplay aspect of the game. Natives were no longer just an enemy that the player must war with, diplomacy was now possible and players could even strike alliances with native tribes. Culture for both player countries and native tribes would be more defined, especially when it came to religion. Players could create churches and even dedicated religious units (such as missionaries and popes) that could go to other countries and convert their population to match the player's religion. Altogether, this greater roleplay aspect led to players immersing themselves more with their country, which likely helped to increase player retention when compared to RP Wars.
Gameplay
For the purposes of this article, the Gameplay section will be split into each of the four corners, starting with the desert corner and moving clockwise. In this order, the four corners (and the four countries) are:
- Desert: Canyani;
- Prairie: Aralia, later renamed to Avalonia;
- Tundra: Vacce, as well as Mushea;
- Mesa: Bulliac.
Desert
The gameplay of Canyani, ruled by SenorConejo for the entirety of Kingdoms 1's runtime, was the least eventful of the four corners. Much of its early gameplay revolved around creating a city within a resource-scarce desert. The discovery of a nearby canyon biome (which inspired the country's name) did little to address the country's wood scarcity, and in fact posed a major problem. Canyani's two main directions of expansion (noting that two of the four sides were the plot borders) were either ocean or an unclimbable canyon wall, completely halting any exploration plans.
To address this, Canyani opted to allocate much of its stone towards the creation of a bridge to cross the ocean, in the hopes of discovering another biome. The subsequent bridge, the Stone Gate, which measured well over a dozen blocks and remains the longest bridge ever made in the entire Kingdoms series, would prove to take up much of Canyani's gameplay to create, but nevertheless proved to be worthwhile. The Stone Gate would lead to a new region that was a Savanna biome, filled with wood, horses, and rabbits. These resources would not only resolve Canyani's resource scarcity, but also allowed it to become the first and only country to implement horseback riding. By the end of Kingdoms, Canyani was still a relatively small nation compared to Vacce and Avalonia, but was by far the fastest growing as the discovery of the Savanna led to a boom in development.
Roleplay-wise, Canyani was the only secular country of the four for most of the game. By the end of Kingdoms, the discovery of rabbits led to many of the country's troops in the savanna to begin to "praise bunnies," likely forming the basis for the creation of a rabbit-based religion. Canyani also saw the least action out of any of the four kingdoms, being the only one to not fight a major war.
Prairie
Due to clumsycapy recording the history of their country in books, as well as being the author of this article, the history of the prairie is the most well-recorded. However, that is not to say that it was the most developed region in the game, though by the end of Kingdoms, this player country had the largest military strength out of any of the four corners.
Early history
The early settlement of Aralia was founded by a player whose username was recorded as NoHaxJustPotatoes. It's unclear who this player is, as the username exceeds 16 characters and thus was impossible to have as a username. Searches of the name "NoHaxJustPotatoe" or "NoHaxJustPotato" on namemc yield several accounts who have used the username, none of which appear on DiamondFire's /whois list of players. Regardless, this player did not stay on for long in Kingdoms, and would soon be replaced by another player, named abigzebrafish.
Zebra themself would create much of the early foundation of Aralia, creating the capital settlement's first farm and mine, as well as exploring parts of the prairie. However, Zebra would not play for long, and would go on to be replaced by clumsycapy, who became the ruler of the country for the remainder of Kingdoms 1.
clumsycapy's immediate plans upon taking over Aralia were threefold, prioritizing:
- The upgrading of the capital outpost into a city, building upon Zebra's work;
- Increased exploration to find more resource-abundant biomes;
- The establishment of a sizeable military force in anticipation of discovering potential enemies.
clumsycapy achieved their first objective by creating a second farm closer to the capital. Zebra's original farm, though useful in resolving the early food shortages faced by Aralia, was situated far from the outpost and across a river, making it difficult to access. The new farm proved to be useful in giving the outpost a food surplus, starting its process to upgrade from an outpost to a city. It was around the same time that clumsycapy discovered the swamp that they settled on the country's name to be Aralia, derived from the word "arable" in reference to its fertile soils.
First interactions with natives
During clumsycapy's exploration of the prairie, they would encounter a group of natives. Both sides were friendly to one another, but a language barrier prevented any communication. This led clumsycapy to send a representative to the native's home city in order to learn their language and allow for the opening of diplomatic relations. The natives, which were the Kingdom of Wolotia, appeared to be a major country with settlements spanning the prairie, swampland and a previously undiscovered valley biome, where the brunt of their population stayed at. The Wolotians that lived in the valley, however, would soon secede from Wolotia, forming the Wulu Kingdom.
In the meantime, Aralia had continued to develop itself, forming two settlements in the prairie and beginning work on a third in the nearby prairie. Its military was expanded to the point where it was by far the largest of the four player-owned countries (though this was largely due to Canyani not being incentivized to create a large military due to its resource scarcity and isolation, as well as the other two corners fighting devastating wars that brought their civilizations to the brink of collapse) and also founded its own religion - Piganism.
Piganism
The Piganist faith, as it name implied, was centered around the worship of pigs. The creation of a church, the addition of a pope and the creation of a fleet of missionaries served to achieve one of its main objectives, which was the conversion of all countries into Piganism if they were deemed heretical. Conveniently, countries with heretical religions were essentially every kingdom or tribe that had negative relations with Aralia, making their ally Wolotia (and their religion, Wolotianism) exempt from the same aggressive efforts of conversion that other enemies would be subject to. Piganism became the de facto primary culture of Aralia too, meaning that any later efforts of integration would involve sending missionaries to convert the peoples to Piganism.
The Great Wulu War
Aralia initially had no response to the creation of the Wulu Kingdom, and all options, including war and diplomacy, were taken into consideration. As the Aralia's scouts and builders continued to explore the swampland, direct contact with the Wulus was anticipated, and Aralia pre-emptively had sent knights to the swampland in case if the worst occurred. These concerns ultimately became reality, as an Aralian worker traveling across the swampland became threatened by three Wulu soldiers. The knights in the swamp quickly came to the worker's aid and a skirmish ensued, resulting in the death of one Wulu soldier and the retreat of the remaining two to the city of Indus, a major Wulu settlement located between the swampland and the valley entrance. The Aralian government declared the skirmish to be an act of war, and in response to the attack on the worker, declared war on the Wulu Kingdom. This would mark the start of the Great Wulu War.
The Indo-Aral Massacre
Aralia quickly organized the brunt of its forces to enter the swampland with the intent of besieging Indus. Meanwhile, the Wulu army organized a sizeable force of its own to repel and potentially counter-attack against Aralia. The army compositions were as follows:
- Aralia had an army of 8 knights and 2 archers, the largest invasion force in Kingdoms 1's history up to this point. The army was divided into two formations, as follows:
- The First Army, a force of 3 knights and 2 archers. The First Army's archers would wittle down the large Wulu force while the three knights would ensure that the enemy could not confront the archers in close-quarter combat.
- The Second Army, composed of the remaining 5 knights. As the main melee force, they were intended to take the brunt of the hit while the First Army gradually crippled the Wulu force, or would jump in to the First Army's aid if it came under heavy pressure from the Wulu army.
- The Wulu army was composed of an even larger force of 15 Wulus, with no subdivisions of its own.
Although the Aralian army was outnumbered, it was better trained and better equipped than the Wulu force. Coupled with the Wulu army's lack of organization, the battle was tipped to Aralia's favor before it even began.
The actual battle began with the Aralian First Army approaching the large native force. The two archers began their volley of fire, instantly killing 2 native units. The Second Army maintained a defensive posture during this, but the Wulu army immediately turned their attention onto the First Army, sending a detachment of their force to repel it. An Aralian citizen named Jonathan, a scout who played an important role in the exploration of the swampland, was caught within the crossfire, and the Wulus began to target him as well. This led clumsycapy to make the risky decision of committing the Second Army to battle with the remaining Wulu force, meaning that there were no longer any forces on reserve to assist the First Army. Aralia's first casualty was a knight from the First Army which had been thrown into a puddle and killed by a Wulu soldier, as that knight attempted to save another Aralian soldier that was being encircled. A nearby First Army knight came in and killed the Wulu native, and the battle quickly descended into chaos. The avenging knight would fight multiple Wulu natives simultaneously, saving the surrounded knight and giving him a chance to return to the First Army. By this point, the First Army had regained its composure and began to fire on the Wulu army once more, delivering several volleys of arrows that proved to be decisive.
By this point, the battle had now turned into more of a massacre, as it became clear that the Aralian army would emerge victorious. However, as the placement of the Second Army completely cut off the Wulu force from retreating to Indus and instead pinned them against the ocean, the Wulu army had no chance of retreating. As a result, the entire 15-man strong force was killed, and the remaining Aralian forces moved to siege the city of Indus. The city would eventually surrender, and after 2 turns of conversion through missionaries, had become a large, pro-Aralian Piganist city. Victory was declared over the Wulu Kingdom and the war was considered to have ended.
Second phase of the war
The existence of Wulu settlements deep within the valley was not known to the Aralians until they were notified by their allies, the Wolotians. The Wolotian chief cautioned to clumsycapy that the remaining Wulus in the valley were numerous in size and posed a constant threat to both of their countries. The chief would be right; a small Aralian expeditionary force sent to explore the valley fell under attack as they approached the densely populated Wulu settlements, forcing them to retreat. This meant that the Great Wulu War had yet to end, and clumsycapy vowed to end the Wulu Kingdom - this time, for good.
The Battle of the Valley
After negotiating with the Kingdom of Wolotia to provide them material support, and greatly expanding the size of the Aralian army, clumsycapy would eventually assemble the largest invasion force in the history of the Kingdoms series to date, composed of over two dozen archers, knights, spearmen, and native Wolotian allied soldiers. The Wulus, for their part, had an impressive but smaller army force, and to compensate, created several defensive lines between themselves and the enemy coalition army. Both sides lacked sub-divisions and instead operated as one large mass of soldiers.
The actual battle initially went in the favor of the Wulus. The Aralian and Wolotian armies had little experience facing off against fortified defenses, and opted to approach the battle with caution. clumsycapy's plan of staying firm and allowing for their ranged units to decimate the Wulu army, as they did in the Indo-Aral massacre, proved futile; the defense lines of the Wulus meant that, at worst, they only lost several soldiers to volleys of arrows. Meanwhile, the Wulus themselves had ranged units of their own, and without any equivalent defense lines, the coalition army began to take losses of their own. The Wolotians, which were situated at the front of the army, would lose most of their soldiers, and the Aralians were beginning to take losses of their own.
Options grew limited for Aralia, and the most they gained in compensation for these losses were small breakthroughs in the enemy's defense, which they were hesitant to exploit. However, seeing no other option, clumsycapy ordered a death charge of the entire coalition army - in other words, only marching forward, slashing every enemy in sight, and putting the entire army in a high-risk situation. The plan had its merits - after all, the coalition force was still more sizeable than the Wulu army, and if the defense lines were breached, their ranged units could launch a massive volley of spears and arrows that would nearly guarantee a coalition victory. Ultimately, this was the outcome that the Aralians got - upon the breaching of the first defense line on their right flank, a detachment of coalition soldiers were able to successfully capture a Wulu city located between the first and second Wulu defense lines. This breakthrough proved to be decisive, and casualties for the Wulus began to skyrocket as they engaged in melee combat with knights, natives and a few spearmen, while the Aralian archers & spearmen behind the frontlines would provide crucial assistance in turning the tide of war to the coalition's favor. The outcome was that the few remaining Wulu soldiers behind the second defense line would surrender, as the brunt of the Wulu force (located between the first and second lines) would perish in combat.
Aftermath of the Great Wulu War
The Wolotians lost most of their army in the war. After the triumph of the coalition and some negotiations between the Wolotian and Aralian governments, the two countries would unite into the Empire of Aralia. Indus, now the largest city of the Empire, was also centrally placed and culturally linked with both the Aralian and Wolotian peoples. As a result, it became the new capital of the Empire. It was also around this time that the country would rename itself to the Empire of Avalonia, a name which had no meaning but symbolically represented a union between the Aralian and Wolotian peoples. Although the Wolotian faith was tolerated and no active efforts were made to convert Wolotians to Piganism (as part of the terms of unification), Piganism's efforts to convert the Wulus meant that the vast majority of Aralians were still Piganist.
Final events
The Aralians set their sights to exploring lands beyond the oceans of the swampland. They gained knowledge of a tribe situated in a forest on the other side of the oceans, of some other faith. clumsycapy, by this point an imperialist at heart, vowed to turn the lands into loyal Piganist peoples. Around the same time, Vacce had actually reached the island and began to form ties with the natives. At the end of Kingdoms 1, it was still unclear as to whether or not Vacce would form an alliance or a rivalry with this tribe, but regardless of the decision they made, it became inevitable that some day, Avalonia and Vacce would go to war against one another. However, the game would end prior to any further action on this front.
Tundra
The tundra biome, a harsh and unforgiving environment, would be the homeland of the Kingdom of Vacce. It's unknown who started playing as the tundra, but surrenderfire would lead Vacce for most of the game's lifespan. Following some early development and the discovery of a taiga biome filled with critically needed wood, Vacce would quickly find itself at war with a tribe native to the taiga over the land and resources of the region.
The War (and battle) of Spearmen
Vacce would suffer some early losses, mostly in scouts and builders, as the natives quickly became aggressive and indiscriminately killed all Vaccian units in the tundra. In response to this, the brief ruler of Vacce at the time, Tinted_Air, would assemble a force of spearmen to fight off the natives. In fact, Vacce was the first country to employ spearmen at all, and this decision proved to be decisive. The ability for the spearmen to fend for themselves in both ranged and melee combat evened the odds against the native forces, and although it was a very close battle with heavy losses for both sides, Vacce came out victorious after a battle fought within the taiga. The enemy tribe would be subsequently destroyed and subjugated.
Aftermath of the war
The heavy losses sustained in civilian and military units proved difficult to replenish, and by this point, surrenderfire had taken charge over leading Vacce - for the majority of the remaining time of Kingdoms 1, he would be the country's ruler. Settlements in the taiga would be constructed, and by this point, Vacce was home to the second oldest religion of any player-owned country: Vaccianism.
Vaccianism
The Vaccian faith actually was also the namesake for the country. Its name derives from the Latin word Vacce, meaning "cow." As expected, this religion revolved around the worship of cows, and would become the predominant religion of the country. Although this religion was not as aggressive as Piganism against non-believers, it still played a major role in the country's politics as the game progressed, especially when it came to its foreign relations.
Growth, exploration, and mushrooms
From the taiga, a newly empowered Vacce would go on to discover two biomes: the Mushea biome, a pink land full of mushrooms and fungi-derived life, and the Arctic biome, a harsh, valley-like snowy land with lots of ores but little in the way of other resources. Already adapted to the cold, it was possible for Vaccian scouts to go through the Arctic but difficult for any major settlements to form. Moreover, none of these biomes were well-suited for farmland, and all Vaccian settlements continued to partially or wholly rely on hunted, transported meat to subsist.
A settlement would be made in the middle of the Mushea biome, and at the request of one of Kingdoms 1's spectators, FrenchFryFan, surrenderfire allowed for a vassal government to be created on this mushroom settlement. The country, the Kingdom of Mushea, became the fifth and last player-owned country to be created in the game, and after FrenchFryFan became inactive, he would be replaced by _leopardcat_, who would rule Mushea for the remainder of the game.
Tribal contact and rising tensions
As Vacce continued to grow, it also began to meet other tribes, such as the Wuarta tribe, located on the western part of the Mushea biome. The Wuartans followed a faith of their own known as "Reverse Vaccianism," which had some unknown relationship with regular cows but worshipped mooshrooms, going so far as to be the first to create barns dedicated to any animals for the sake of mooshrooms. To the Vaccians, this was unacceptable, and surrenderfire threatened war if the Wuartans would not convert.
Meanwhile, _leopardcat_ contrasted greatly with FrenchFryFan in the sense that he was disloyal to the Vaccian leadership. PL had ambitions of creating his own religion and ultimately becoming fully independent from Vacce. Although the Mushean army was far smaller than the Vaccian one, Mushea had diplomatically positioned itself to a point where a Vaccian war with Mushea also meant a war against the Wuarta tribe, forcing the Vaccian army to fight a two-front war in that regard. This meant that, as relations worsened, they still hadn't devolved to war by the end of Kingdoms 1.
Discovery of the forest island and final events
Vaccian sailors who had reached the oceans past the Mushea and Arctic biomes would cross the oceans to reach a forest island inhabited by a major tribe. This tribe and Vacce established contact with one another, but it remained uncertain if Vacce would form an alliance or go to war against this tribe. Around the same time, Avalonia was made aware of the existence of this tribe, and the Avalonian government had intentions of someday invading the island. Regardless of whether or not Vacce and the tribe became allies, an Avalonian presence on the island would pose such a large threat to Vacce that war between the two countries became basically inevitable. Avalonia's larger army size, coupled with Vacce's internal troubles against Mushea and the Wuartas made Avalonia the clear favorite to win, regardless of the outcome of Vacce's diplomatic excursion. However, Kingdoms 1 would end before any actual events occurred on this front.
Mesa
The country of Bulliac, founded by Bloxhead7, started as a small mesa settlement bordering a fairly wide river. Early efforts of the kingdom involved exploring the mesa as well as constructing a wooden bridge and a second settlement on the other side of the river. It is worth mentioning that, although Bloxhead would be the main ruler of Bulliac, he would have several periods of inactivity, in which several other players would rule the country in his stead. These players possibly included TheZipCreator, poisontrigger, and firepeas.
One of the very first actions Bulliac did was create a new faith, known as Bullianism, becoming the oldest religion of any player-owned country. Bullianism revolved around the praise of bulls, which were declared sacred and never to be killed for any reason. Bullianism was also a highly peaceful religion, not declaring any other animals to be unholy nor any other religions as heretical. This contrasted greatly with Vaccianism and Piganism, both of which were partially defined by their hostility to non-believers. In practice, Bulliac operated like a theocracy - the religion and the kingdom itself were one and the same, and Bulliac would go on to create the first church and implement the first pope of any country.
Exploration and Destruction
A scouting group that had explored all of the mesa would soon encounter another biome, the Mediterranean biome, which was a red, tropical land. Little is known about the biome, as these scouts would soon face a hostile native group that killed them and began marching on Bulliac. Bulliac did not adequately prepare to combat the native army as they marched for several turns, and eventually, a battle would break out on Bulliac's original settlement.
What ensued was a massive defeat for Bulliac, resulting in the loss and destruction of their original settlement, as well as losing almost their entire army while inflicting relatively few casualties against the natives. Bulliac was set to be annihilated by this point, but they had one saving grace: as the natives began to cross the bridge en masse, the amount of natives on the bridge simultaneously was more than the bridge could bear, destroying the bridge and killing the natives that fell. The remaining army, still on the opposite end of the river, decided to return to their homeland, ending the conflict.
Recovery
The recovery of Bulliac would not go nearly as well as the Vaccian rebound after their war against the taiga natives. The country struggled with adequately developing itself at the same pace as the other player-owned countries, and Blox's inactivity led to a constant change in leadership with varying priorities. Blox's original vision of a theocratic Bulliac would be put on hold, and other leaders of Bulliac did not care as much about the religion, leaving it on the side in favor of other growth initiatives. One player would successfully lead an expedition over a mountain range nearby Bulliac's settlement, revealing the Alps biome, a valley biome with mountains that flanked a fertile prairie. A second settlement would be made here, and it would gradually develop.
Final events
Unfortunately for Bulliac, it never reached the same level of growth as the other players. By the end of Kingdoms, it had fallen behind even against Canyani, as its discovery of the savanna led it to quickly overtake Bulliac in population count, technology, and resources. Bulliac would also never see the enemy tribe again, leaving its second settlement within the Alps constantly vulnerable to any enemy invasion, as it had little in the way of natural defenses against any tribe that may have lived in the Alps. Inconsistent leadership with varying objectives meant that Bulliac would never excel in any one particular category, as its main defining aspect - its religion - would be completely ignored by any ruler besides Blox. It also never raised a meaningful army nor did either of its settlements become as great as the most developed cities in the other player-owned countries, which made them the worst performing country in Kingdoms 1 by the time the game ended.
End of Kingdoms 1 and Aftermath
Sometime around March 2018, SenorConejo would take an unannounced hiatus from DiamondFire for reasons unrelated to Kingdoms. By this point, the game had taken on a sort of cult following by its players and some spectators that frequently returned to see the game's progress, and the community had grown used to near-daily gameplay. The abrupt exit of Senor, though only lasting about 2 weeks, took the community by surprise, and soon, both players and spectators were left wanting to play something else.
Two games emerged around this time. The first, Apocalypse by leopardcat, was hardly hosted and ultimately did not gather any significant playerbase of its own. However, a project by clumsycapy made in direct response to SenorConejo's absence, Lands of Tckia, would be the exact opposite. This game, which doubled the country count from 4 to 8 and saw multiple changes in lore and mechanics, proved to be a major short-term success, increasing the relevancy of Executor RPs in DF and leading to a new era of history known as the Early Boom.
SenorConejo would return to DiamondFire to see that a new game had overtaken Kingdoms 1 in popularity. He would view the game as a spectator, and was also given build permissions by clumsycapy. One day, as a joke according to Senor, he would completely clear Lands of Tckia using WorldEdit. Although he planned to undo the command and restore it, he was suddenly timed out from the server, making it impossible for him to undo it, and thereby bringing Lands of Tckia to an abrupt halt.
Meanwhile, he also noted the improvements that the game made over Kingdoms 1, and ultimately came to the conclusion that Kingdoms 1 was in dire need of several improvements. Around this time, he made the decision to end Kingdoms 1 in favor of a new, better-developed sequel, which would be known as Kingdoms 2. Kingdoms 2 would overtake Lands of Tckia in being the next major Developmental game, and became a massive success and innovator of Developmental games in its own right.
Issues and Controversies with Kingdoms 1
Although it was a massive improvement over RP Wars, Kingdoms 1 was, in hindsight, also a fairly limited game with several drawbacks. For one, although the research system was more rigidly defined than RP Wars, it was still vague at points and SenorConejo retained the right to implement/modify new upgrades throughout the game. For instance, a controversy arose over the new "Climbing" research, added after Bulliac had crossed the Alps and before Avalonia controlled the valley biome. clumsycapy was told by SenorConejo that their scouts could not cross the valley without the Climbing upgrade, to which clumsycapy protested that Bulliac could traverse an entire mountain without the upgrade while Avalonia couldn't scale a far lesser height without it.
On a related note, the fact that SenorConejo played his own game also led to some controversy. In relation to the valley controversy, clumsycapy would point out that crossing the valley would make Avalonia travel in the direction of Canyani, potentially leading the two to meet and go to war. Given that Avalonia had a better army than Canyani, clumsycapy would allege that SenorConejo was using the "Climbing" research to delay efforts by Avalonia to travel closer to Canyani, and give his own country more time to develop before meeting with any powerful player.
The roleplay and military mechanics, though a great step from RP Wars, were also very limited. Apart from the religion mechanic, there was very little in the way of cultural development within a country, as well as any sort of interesting internal politics that didn't involve subjugating a foreign population that was annexed into a country after war. The military mechanic, for its part, remained largely undefined and at the discretion of the host, which would be improved upon in subsequent Developmental games. The military units were also not much more diverse than RP Wars, which further served to reduce strategic decisions that the players could make.
Exploration suffered the same core issue as RP Wars in the sense that exploration was too slow. It took months of hosting and dozens of turns for two corners (Avalonia and Vacce) to come close to meeting, and even then, the event never actually occurred before the end of Kingdoms 1. Gameplay, though much more eventful than RP Wars, was still slow-paced and could've been more exciting with adjustments to the game.
One of the main considerations taken in this regard was the country count of 4. Although it allowed for turns to occur faster as there were less players playing, a higher player count would've allowed for more player interactions and thus more exciting gameplay, as well as allow more people in general to play. During Kingdoms 1, there were many players who wished to play, but only ever got a chance if one of the 4 players went inactive, or, in the case of FrenchFryFan, were allowed to rule over a vassal state of another player. For this reason, Lands of Tckia doubled the player count to 8, and Kingdoms 2 would follow suit.
Other Events
The end of Kingdoms 1 saw far more Executor RP games be created than the end of RP Wars did. Instead of there being one predominant game, DiamondFire RPs would now see multiple exist simultaneously. Besides the earlier examples of Apocalypse and Lands of Tckia, there were two other notable games that were created during this time. Tinted and Ultra, both spectators of Kingdoms 1, would go on to make their own Executor RP games that actually shared very little in common with Kingdoms itself. These games, collectively known to be a part of the Echo-Ultra bubble, saw the first space games and a more tabletop-like Afterlife experience during the Afterlife Boom. This distinct playstyle did not fully catch on outside of a small following in DiamondFire, but upon migrating to Warlords, both Tinted and Ultra would go on to continue creating games in this style, creating a depoliticized alternative to the largely politics-oriented games of the era which continues to exist to this day.
Most importantly, however, would be Bloxhead7's inspiration to create an Executor RP game of his own. Mixing in the core Executor RP concepts of Kingdoms 1 with the political and military concepts of Hearts of Iron IV, Blox would create the Loria genre in DiamondFire with his first hosted game, Echokia. This led to the creation of Belloria and the start of the Early Loria Boom, which was the peak of Executor RP activity in the history of DiamondFire.
