(WIP) The Mandate of Aurelia (55k words) (Kingdom building/political sim) (Update: 7/20/2025) (Update in post 40)

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The Mandate of Aurelia

The true King has returned and claimed the throne from his corrupt father, unifying the once divided provinces of Aelin into a kingdom once more. Only that’s not you. You’re not the King or the tyrant he overthrew. You’re one of his staunchest supporters, a member of his inner circle who rose from humble origins to aid him in taking his throne.

Now at the verge of a glorious new golden age for Aelin, an emissary arrives, bearing a message from the demigod empress, Aurelia Sparrow, declaring dominion over the fledgling kingdom. Which she intends to collect in five years. The King dispatches you to the province of Redguard under orders to raise it to prosperity before the Mandate is enforced.

Genres: High Fantasy, political sim, kingdom building,

This will be a complete story and not a series.

The demo can be found here: CoGDemos (55k words)

Features

  • Play as a knight, cleric, or wizard. Only instead of their combat prowess you’ll be relying on the connections that come with being one.
  • Build a city of your own up from ruins and customize it to your liking. Be that as a military fortress, a center of culture, a trade hub, or more.
  • Your decisions shape the province you govern and reach beyond to change the kingdom as a whole.
  • Settle promises struck by the King back when he was vying for the throne, and combat the lingering foes he made in the process.
  • Fight against the influence of a demigoddess and her empires with every tactic and resource you can muster.
  • Negotiate with foreign and domestic powers to secure the best future for your province and the Kingdom of Aelin.

I don’t know if there’ll be romance or not. I originally intended it but then I realized that the characters most eligible (the ones you meet in first chapter) will all be in different provinces from you for most of the story. And I don’t know if the ones you’ll meet later will be suitable for romance given they’ll mainly feature in scenes discussing politics, but we’ll see.

Regardless of what I choose, this will be a political sim before a romance.

I’ll allow this topic to auto-lock and won’t unlock it for updates. Except every 100k word milestone or so to see if there are any bugs that I missed. I’ll update the title when there’s new content for anyone interested in playing it.

Characters (so far)

Elasha the Lightbringer

An elf formerly of the Three Empires until she deserted them centuries ago. Elasha’s a revered heroine of countless wars and priestess of the Maker, El Olam. She’s the oldest friend of Samuel Lorel and sees the rebirth of Aelin as a turning point in the history of humanity that she’s eager to see flourish.

Alaric Jakome

A wizard hailing from the Amethyst Spire and master of arcane enchantments. His flippant, cheerful attitude conceals a brilliant mind intent on leading Aelin into an age of discovery. He, like Elasha and Aldreth, is a member of Samuel’s inner circle and a longtime ally of his.

Aldreth the King Eater

A dragon from the age of Old Aelin, released from captivity by Samuel. He fights zealously in the name of the King and for the rebirth of the kingdom he once knew.

Gylda

The Stewardess of your new county, so chosen by the local council. She’s a cunning and well-studied woman who has learned much about politics through her years as a merchant. Now, she’s intent on aiding you in making Redguard flourish again.

Aurelia Sparrow

The Empress of the Three Empires and demigoddess of order. To discern her ways would require you to unravel thousands of years of history and peer into a mind touched by a goddess. All that anyone agrees on is that she’s intent on bringing benevolent order to every corner of Adela.

ROs are still being decided on.

Samuel Lorel (for women)

The King of Aelin himself, who you’ve come to know well. You’ve fought beside him during the war, became a member of his inner circle, and watched him ascend to the throne over the body of his wicked father. Following the death of his wife, his thirst for vengeance distanced him from all others. Only now that he’s achieved it, does he find himself wanting to connect again. Will your friendship flourish into something more?

Annette Fontaine (for men)

The Duchess of Redguard and heir to a house whose reputation has suffered thanks to the actions of her mother. It falls to her and her brother to redeem their family name and maintain their rule over the province. Her unguarded attitude and kind heart are both her greatest weakness and strength. Many men pursue her hand in marriage and in time she’ll have to choose one. If you’re willing to take on the competition it could be you.

Changelog
  • [7/20/2025) Chapters 4 and 5 added: 22k words long.
  • (6/22/2025) Chapter 3 added: 9K words long.
  • (5/23/2025) Chapter 2 added. 8K words long.
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Very interesting concept I’ll try it when I have time, but and just hear me out if you do decide to add romance can you add the empress, pretty please.

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I got stuck loading here:

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Thank you! If you do check it out, I hope you enjoy.

I don’t know if you realize what you’d be getting into by attempting to romance the empress, lol. She probably would be interesting to (attempt) to romance but I don’t know if it’d work for this specific story. She has a bunch of haughty children so I’d probably use a couple of them if I decide to include RO’s at all.

Thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now.

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Very interesting concept.

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Good start! But I have to say I’ll fail you my king I’m just a knight who can fight, not rule🤣

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Just this “short” demo seemed really great, hope you continue working on it!

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You say you are unsure if you going to add ro or not but if you going to add ro can you please add a ro from royal family.

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Very interesting concept and I like the demo so far. It’s cool to have the perspective of a close ally of the new king who has overthrown the old dynasty. I look forward to learning more about the Samuel, Lenore, House Kendrick, etc. Also in terms of ROs, maybe they could be incorporated as marriages to create political stability in Aurelia or flings/affairs, so they are integrated into the story and fit into the political and medieval theme.

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Still short and hard to judge but the summary is good

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Thank you!

Haha! To be fair, a knight would have more experience than a cleric or wizard. Knights at least are usually from wealthy familieis who own some land.

If I do add RO’s, there’d be a couple of royal ones.

Thanks! I’m glad you’re interested so far. I’ll be elaborating more on what happened in the past through the political turmoil the MC will deal with in the present.
The idea of a political marriages did occur to me. I’m thinking about dedicating a section to the MC having one if you choose to, but we’ll see how it pans out.

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I’m sold, I like it, intering concept and I liked what I read so far.

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Thanks!

I have a tiny update and the last one for a bit because as I’ll be getting into writing the next chapter now.

  • I added a glossary for the names of important figures, nations, etc to the stat screen. I’ll try my best to write in such a way that you don’t need it, but if you ever get confused or forget a name to something you’ll probably be able find it there. There’s a lot of stuff in it right now, but don’t worry, once I’m deep enough into the story I’ll cut out the stuff I opted not to use.

As I mentioned briefly in the first post, the MC will be the lord/lady of a city that they can build up. It’ll be more of a story focused thing than a resource management one, to give more freedom with what you can do with it. I’ve got some ideas but if anyone has any suggestions I’d be happy to take them.

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I have somewhat of an idea here, regarding the turning it into something else, is there a chance that you can do a combination of at least two? Like combining the fortress with a trade hub of sort, like the ones that Constantinople and the ancient cities of old Imperial China?

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Loved the first part. But it got a flaw, it ends when things are getting gud. he he.

Ok. I wanna know, how deep the Kingdom Building will go? The genre pratically was created in text-adventure back in the 70s ( Summer Game (1972) to be exact)

So I have high expectations when someone try to bring back the genre to its roots. I even brought Lucid last Daria and give it a try. (good mechanics, but I think there should be more slice-of-life stuff in between, kind of like what Zaper did with his War for the West book…)

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I was thinking of letting the player pick two main things for the city to really stand out for, and then adding some minor things on the side for flavor. So yeah, a wealthy, fortified city should be possible. Thanks!

Thank you!

My goal is approach the kingdom building from a bit more of a story perspective as opposed to being heavily focused on stat raising. Because I want the decisions the player makes to feel like they have weight outside of getting them some resources. For example (not a concrete one, I’m just making this up) let’s say you’re facing a land dispute and have to pick which of two parties gets their way.

If you pick the merchant maybe the land becomes home to a marketplace, and if you pick the adventurer maybe they build a guild there. That kind of thing. So maybe not as deep as you’d prefer, I’m not good enough at math and stat balancing to take the genre back to its roots. But I plan on having the decisions you make carry weight.

Also the current plan is for the MC to engage in social events and slice-of-life stuff on the side so you can get to know characters better.

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Previously, I had an even crazier idea of having the Mac to create new military units, like fully armoured knights and horses, Cataphractarii, horse archers etc. but I don’t know if that’s possible for your project.

How about something like this: a guild would also bring in groups of rangers, hunters and scouts into the place more, so that it may booster your place’s defence and making a name out of it?

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That’s more or less what I was thinking actually. Customizing your own units from the ground up would be a bit too complicated to add in, but making certain decisions will earn you special resources and units.

Ideally (depends on how complicated this proves to be), having the right resources will unlock other choices going forward. So, if you obtain a special kind of stone you can build your walls out of it to make them stronger. Or if you choose to bequeath land to a noble family you’ll get knights to protect your lands. That kind of thing.

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I was thinking can we turn the city into like Constantinople like richest city in whole Europe until 1300s and impenetrable walls that stood up like almost 1000 years and survive countless invasions. Also can we built up a navy since we have a coastline. And are we going to get options to develop whole province like building roads etc.

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You’ll be able to make your city rich and defensible, yes. There’ll probably be a little about building a navy but generally there’s less variation in naval combat (in fantasy) than in ground combat, so it won’t feature too heavily. That and Aelin controls most of the nearby sea, so hostile nations would approach from the ground.

Roads and other basic infrastructure (like houses) will “automatically” improve as the city grows without the player needing to manually select it. But yes, the MC governs a city and the lands around it so there’ll be some development there. The province itself has other prominent lords, of which the MC is only one, so they can’t do whatever they please to all of Redguard.

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