Lords of the Earth

Lords of the Earth (LOTE) is a play-by-email game, first published by Thomas Harlan in 1983 during a growing era of PBM games. Initially played by postal mail as well as in-person paper submissions, the game featured mixed moderation—computer moderated with some human assistance. By 2002, the publisher processed turns by email (PBeM). Lords of the Earth comprises multiple campaigns, each one a separate game. Each of these games is termed a "campaign," by analogy with a tabletop role-playing game, usually with a unique human moderator. Campaign 1 was the first, beginning in 1000 AD, and continuing to the 18th century, an "Age of Air and Steam." Other campaigns feature start dates from 2000 BC to 1400 AD. Settings were often global in scale, with one campaign featuring an outer space setting. Each campaign has an historical starting setup, from which flows an alternate history defined by player actions.

Campaigns are open-ended, with no set victory conditions. A game lasts about 25 years.Harlan 2002. p. 2. Commonly 20 to 50 players compete as leaders of various types of nations. Regions in a campaign map include varied terrain, religions, wealth, and ability to resist others using diplomacy or warfare. Players move leaders across the map, often commanding military units, to perform actions. A reviewer in the early 2000s noted positives and negatives about the game, observing that some players went to great lengths to win, even "using false identities or smear campaigns".

Play-by-mail genre

Play-by-mail (PBM) games feature a number of differences from tabletop games. The typical PBM game involves many more players than an average tabletop game can support.Greenberg 1993 pp. 8–9. PBM game lengths are usually longer, depending on a number of factors. Turnaround time is how long a player has to prepare and submit "orders" (moves and changes to make in the game) and the company has to process them and send back turn results.Paper Mayhem Jan/Feb 1993 p. 1. The average turnaround time in the 1980s was two weeks, but some modern PBM games are play-by-email (PBEM) with shorter turnaround times of twice per week or faster.Flying Buffalo 2020. Open ended games allow players to strengthen their positions without end, with players continually entering and leaving the game. Examples include Heroic Fantasy and Monster Island.Townsend 1987 p. 24; DuBois 1997 p. 4. Conversely, closed end games typically have all players starting on equal terms, with rapid, intense, player vs. player gameplay that ends when a player or group achieves some victory condition or is unopposed.John Kevin Loth III 1986 p. 42; Paper Mayhem Jan/Feb 1993 p. 1. Examples include Hyborian War and It's a Crime.Lindahl 2020. The complexity of PBM games can range from the relatively simple to the extremely complex.John Kevin Loth III 1986 p. 42; Townsend 1988 p. 20.

Once a player has chosen a game and receives an initial game setup, gameplay begins. This generally involves players filling out order sheets for a game (see example image) and sending them to the gaming company. The company processes the turns and returns the results to the player, who completes a subsequent order sheet. Diplomacy—interaction among players—is also frequently an important, and sometimes indispensable, part of gameplay.Townsend 1987 p. 29; Mouchet 2017 p. 11. The initial choice of a PBM game requires consideration as there is a wide array of possible roles to play, from pirates to space characters to "previously unknown creatures".John Kevin Loth III 1986 pp. 42–43. Close identification with a role typically increases a player's game satisfaction.

History The earliest play-by-mail games developed as a way for geographically separated gamers to compete with each other using postal mail. Chess and Go are among the oldest examples of this.McLain 1993 In these two-player games, players sent moves directly to each other. Multi-player games emerged later: Diplomacy is an early example of this type, emerging in 1963, in which a central game master manages the game, receiving moves and publishing adjudications.Babcock 2013. p. 16.Loomis 1999. p. 2. According to Shannon Appelcline, there was some PBM play in the 1960s, but not much.Appelcline 2014. loc. 2353. For example, some wargamers began playing Stalingrad by mail in this period.

In the early 1970s, in the United States, Rick Loomis, of Flying Buffalo Inc., began a number of multi-player play-by-mail games;Loomis 2013. p. 38. these included games such as Nuclear Destruction, which launched in 1970.Rick Loomis PBM. This began the professional PBM industry in the United States.Mclain 1993. Professional game moderation started in 1971 at Flying Buffalo which later added games such as Battleplan, Starweb, and others, which by the late 1980s were all computer moderated.

For approximately five years, Flying Buffalo was the single dominant company in the US PBM industry until Schubel & Son entered the field in roughly 1976 with the human-moderated Tribes of Crane. Schubel & Son introduced fee structure innovations which allowed players to pay for additional options or special actions outside of the rules. For players with larger bankrolls, this provided advantages and the ability to game the system. The next big entrant was Superior Simulations with its game Empyrean Challenge in 1978. Reviewer Jim Townsend asserted that it was "the most complex game system on Earth" with some large position turn results 1,000 pages in length.

In the early 1980s, the field of PBM players was growing.Harvey 1984. p. 21. Individual PBM game moderators were plentiful in 1980.The Space Gamer 1980. p. 13. However, the PBM industry in 1980 was still nascent: there were still only two sizable commercial PBM companies, and only a few small ones.Popolizio, Leblanc, and Popolizio 1990. p. 8. The most popular games of 1980 were Starweb and Tribes of Crane. It was in this environment that Thomas Harlan launched Lords of the Earth.

Development Lords of the Earth Campaign 1 started in 1983. It focused on nation development versus expansion by conquest. Thomas Harlan designed the original rules.Boomer 2004. p. 22. In 1995, the game was run by postal mail and had mixed-moderation—hand moderated with computer assistance. By 2002, the game was play-by-email (PBeM).Helsdon 2002. p. 12. The same year, there were more than twenty active campaigns run by multiple gamemasters globally.Barton 2000. p. 13. The base rules were supplemented with a Renaissance and Industrial addition.Helsdon 2002. p. 17. A subsequent Modern Age rulebook combined all rules editions for the campaign.Helsdon 2003/4. p. 20. Gamemasters for subsequent campaigns could adjust Harlan's original rule set. Leslie Dodd added a diplomacy addendum to Campaign 42. In 2006 and 2007, Thomas Harlan and Martin Helsdon published the latest versions of the basic rulebook (encompassing 1000 to 2000 AD), a Modern Era supplement (covering the 1400s to 1800s), and a Space Age supplement (mid 20th to mid 21st century).Harlan 2007. pp. i, 1; Harlan 2007. pp. i, 1; Helsdon 2006. pp. i, 1; Lords 2023.

Campaign 1 was the first of many Lords of the Earth settings.Helsdon 2002. p. 17. In 2002, Martin Helsdon asserted that the first campaign (LOTE01) might have been the "longest continuously running PBM" game after over twenty years of play.Helsdon 2002. p. 16. Campaign 1 included players from across North America, as well as Australia, France, and the United Kingdom.Helsdon 2002/3. p. 23.

Gameplay Each player represents a nation, with more than fifty players competing in certain campaigns. Various nation types are available, depending on the campaign, such as barbarian, seafaring, secret nations, religious groups, and merchant consortia. Map regions have varied terrain, religions, wealth and the ability to resist others using diplomacy or warfare. Game turn periods usually begin at five years each and decrease as the game continues.Editors 1998. p. 13. The game is open-ended, with no set victory conditions. One game takes about 25 years.

According to Warren Bruhn, campaigns have started in periods from 2000 BC to 1400 AD.Bruhn 1995. The game setting comprised 24 Geographic Zones.Harlan 2002. p. 7. Although the global scale became typical, game settings have included outer space as well. As campaigns progress, nations' technology levels increase.Harlan 2002. p. 8. By 2002, Campaign 1 gameplay had progressed from the year 1000 to 1752 AD. It was set in the "Age of Air and Steam" which was global in scale.Helsdon 2002. pp. 16–17. Global calamities were much more frequent in Campaign 1 relative to other campaigns.

Gameplay spans combat, economics, intrigue, and social and cultural topics. Combat ability progresses with tech levels around cavalry, infantry, warship, and Siege capabilities.Harlan 2002. p. 13. According to Martin Helsdon, in the game players can "found universities, build cities, create trade routes, massacre populations, enforce religious conversions, engage in both overt and covert warfare, forge alliances, break treaties, and sometimes suffer the dread dynastic failure, when their nation implodes". Engaging in diplomacy and developing public works contributes to success, with the latter returning outsized dividends for new players.Harding 1997. Player interaction is significant, occurring by phone, email, and online discussions.Helsdon 2003/4. p. 21.

Reception Martin Helsdon reviewed the game in various issues of Flagship magazine in 2002–2003. He noted drawbacks such as lengthy rules and "GM burnout".Helsdon 2002/3. p. 23. He recommended the game, stating that it "is an intriguing and frustrating game with a depth and a breadth not equalled by any other I have encountered". He noted that some players took gameplay overly seriously, even "using false identities or smear campaigns". Andrew Barton reviewed the game in a 2000 issue of Flagship, noting positives and negatives about the rules. He stated that "Lords of the Earth allows you to ... role-play whole nations. I don't know of another PBM game quite like it".Barton 2000. p. 16.

Lords of the Earth

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