Barren Realms Elite

Barren Realms Elite or BRE is a multi-player bulletin board system strategy game.

Barren Realms Elite is a 25-player strategic war game originally by Mehul Patel. The setting is in the future -- nuclear destruction has spread throughout the planet, and now only a vast barren void exists. As a baron under a great king, you must expand your barony throughout the planet and become the ultimate baron.

One feature of the game was the ability for a bulletin board system to compete against other BBSs. Each BBS would function as its own distinct planet in a universe of planets, where the universe comprised all of the BBSs that agreed to host the game together. Messages and attacks would travel from planet to planet on a regular basis as the BBS systems called each other to transmit and receive data. The game was based on Solar Realms Elite (SRE), and is considered by many to be SRE's successor. The focus on inter-BBS play completely changed the game dynamics, and both BRE and SRE continued to be developed for several years. In modern times, Barren Realms Elite has managed to maintain a fair number of players, most of whom connect to BBSes via Telnet in order to play.

Gameplay

In the Local mode (A non-InterBBS game), each player rules over his or her own "barren" on a post-apocalyptic planet, competing to have the strongest barren. Each day, the player makes various leadership decisions, each of which can cause their population to increase or decrease. The players must be careful to sustain their own empires, preventing low popular support and military morale, as well as starvation, while they strive to expand their might militarily. Tactics and methods vary, but all players may wage war on other players as well as form alliances, truces, and treaties. By capturing or buying new regions, their barren can grow more food, make more gold, or produce more military units. Players are also able to select from a list of espionage missions which can demoralize the enemy's forces, attack the population directly, weaken their defenses or many more. Finally, there is also a list of diplomatic treaties which players can use to create alliances or trade routes.

The InterBBS mode offers many more tactics to players. In this mode, each BBS works together as a team, making alliances with other boards to try to gain supremacy over the entire league. Each team designates a Planetary Coordinator, who is basically the planet's official spokesperson, and usually is also the planet's leader. By working together with different common strategies and layouts, boards can gain various bonuses that are unavailable in the local mode.

Region Selection

*Coastal Regions - Coastal regions produce fairly massive amounts of money, but their production depends almost entirely on a barren's Popular Support, so they tend to produce less in wartime.

*River Regions - River regions produce money through hydro-power. Workers in this area will become fishermen once in a while, producing extra food at random.

*Agricultural Regions - Agricultural regions have only one purpose: to produce food.

*Desert Regions - Desert regions are money-producing regions that cannot be affected by war.

*Urban Regions - Urban regions increase immigration to a player's barony.

*Technology Regions - Tech regions slowly raise a barren's technology levels. The end result of this primarily is reduced food decay rates, reduces maintenance costs, increased food production, and increased military efficiency.

*Industrial Regions - Industrial regions create military units.

*Mountain Regions - Mountain regions produce money from ore mines, but they also boost the production of Industrial Regions.

Military Units Selection

*Troopers - They're considered expensive to maintain, consume food, and can be killed with Chemical Bombing.

*Jets - These units are unable to be used for defense. They have a heavy maintenance cost and require carriers to be used in wars.

*Turrets - Unable to be used to attack, Turrets have a fair sized maintenance cost and cannot be damaged by Ops, except Demoralize.

*Tanks - Very powerful defensively and offensively. Tanks are expensive to buy or build, but their maintenance costs are very low. Another drawback is that their efficiency decreases when your Headquarters are below 100%.

*Carriers - Units needed to bring jets to the battlefield, or in trading.

*Bombers - These units are used mainly for bombing runs (S-Ops), but they can also be sent in an attack to destroy any Jets or Bombers that are 'on the ground' when the attack hits.

*Special Agents - They can perform many actions that will disrupt or destroy units or can have a wide range of effects.

References

* [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/1948/strategy.html Microthick's Realm] is a site dedicated to the BBS online game, Barren Realms Elite.

* [http://www.johndaileysoftware.com/index.asp John Daily Software] now owns the rights to the various Solar Realms games and continues to release registration for all of them, including Barren Realms Elite.

ee also

*BBS door
*Newkingdoms