¶ Overview
Players run a large tribe in a pre-industrialised world, submitting turns by email every 2 weeks. Each turn, tribes can build, explore, wage war, sail, spy, trade, and develop their civilisation.
Tribenet has been running for several years and can be as simple or sophisticated as your imagination.
¶ The Mandate
It's copius and perhaps daunting, but have The Mandate to hand. Accessing it as a pdf will allow you to use CTRL + F if you use a Windows or Linux computer or Command + F if you use a Mac. to find key words, which will invariably save you a lot of time.
Some of the rules in the current mandate relate to when players placed their orders using a word document (e.g. limits on garrison scouting), these are no longer relevant. Check with your Mentor or Discord if this is causing confusion.
¶ Your mentor
The gamemaster (GM), Peter, should assign you a mentor when you start. They should be able to answer your individual queries and moderate your orders.
¶ The turn cycle
The cycle of turns in TribeNet is two-weekly. Every turn represents one month in the Tribenet world (So one month in TN is two weeks in real life).
The next due date for orders can be found in the latest edition of Tribe News
¶ Reports
As part of the first correspondence, the GM will probably send you your first report as a Microsoft Word document. Any application on your computer that can read a Microsoft Word document will work. A report tells you what happened in the previous turn. A report contains things like...
- Weather
- Locations
- Goods held by the tribe
- Tribe movement
- Scout movement and findings (e.g. coal)
- etc
For a full description of reports and how to read them, please see
¶ Orders
Each turn, alongside your report, the GM will send you a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Any application on your computer that can read a Microsoft Excelt document will work. This is your 'auto-orders' spreadsheet and is specifically for you and specifically for that turn (so don't copy it for the following turn, you'll get sent a fresh one). The spreadsheet will be sent to you as .xls, it is OK to change this to .xlsx if this suits your needs.
The auto-orders allows you to specify your intent for the following turn, e.g. things like:
- Transfers of goods
- Tribe movement
- Scout movement
- Activities
- Skill attempts
- etc
For a fuller description of auto-orders and how to use them, see:
¶ Scouting and Mapping
Each turn you will get to know your area better if you send out scouts. You'll need to interpret any subsequent scouting reports and map the information gained.
To find out more about scouting and mapping, please see
¶ Clan, Tribe, Element, Unit etc
These terms can cause a lot of confusion early on.
Clan - This represents the entirety of the entities under your control. You will have a number for your clan, e.g. 777
Tribe - The highest level of unit within your clan. Tribes can move around, send scouts, make skill attempts, spawn new tribes and elements etc. You can normally have up to 5 Tribes in your Clan. e.g. if your Clan was 777 then your Tribes would be numbered 0777, 1777, 2777, 3777, 4777.
Element - Each Tribe can spawn Elements (and other more specialised units such as Fleets, Garrisons, Couriers) each of these Elements can move, send scouts, spawn other elements etc. They inherit and maintain the skills of their parent Tribe, so if their parent Tribe gets Combat6 then their Element is at Combat6 also. If Tribe 1777 spawns an element then that element will be named 1777e1 for example, the second being 1777e2.
An example
Unit - a unit is a general term that encompasses Tribe, Element, Fleet, Courier, Garrison etc, but NOT Clan. A unit is an entity that has a name and can be given orders. The white circles in the diagram above are all units.
The more units you have in your Clan, the more your turn cost will be.
For more info on Units, see
¶ Expanding your clan in the first few turns
Creating new tribes and elements early on gives some distinct advantage, but that doesn't mean you can't have an enjoyable game with just one Tribe, it has been done.
New Tribes - Each tribe can make up to 3 skill attempts each turn. If you have a new tribe, they are able to have a separate skills profile and make skill attempts of their own. This means you can start to specialise your skillsets.
You need sufficient Diplomacy skills to spawn a new tribe.
New Elements - With new Elements you can wander further and scout more. As each Element uses the skills of it's parent Tribe, you can use this logistically, e.g. If a tribe 2777 has Engineering7 then it is able to build stone walls, therefore 2777e1, which you may have located 30 hexes away, may also build stone walls.
You need sufficient Administration skills to spawn a new element.
NB - you are entitled to some bonus elements from your first turn.
- Admin-free element - this is one single element you can request outside the requirement of having Administration skills
- Trade Element - You can request this element without any skill requirement, it has different abilities to a regular element, it can't scout but it can move further. This element is always has the suffix e9, e.g. 3777e9
- Admin2 - Since 819-01 all new players will start with at least Administration2. This allows you to request an element straight away in addition to the two bonus elements above.
See mandate for rules about creating these elements. You request these using your auto-orders sheet in GM Actions, then make any transfers to the new units in Transfers
¶ The order of events in a turn
It's useful to know the sequence of events in a turn.
e.g.
- hunting, an Activity, takes place before consuming provisions, so it is possible for a unit to have 0 provisions at the start of the turn yet undertake enough hunting to sustain life at the end of the turn.
- Activities take place before movement, so any goods made or provisions hunted may need to be carried by that tribe during movement.
For the list of events in a turn, see
¶ Managing your weights while moving
- Carrying Capacity - Your units will each have a carrying capacity, calculated using numbers of people, elephants, horses, cattle, wagons, saddlebags etc
- Weights - Most other things your unit has in its inventory will have a weight, some things are very light, e.g. silver, some are extremely heavy e.g. logs, provisions and fodder.
You will need to effectively manage your weights. Your weight will determine whether you can move Mounted, On Foot, or not at all.
The weights and carrying capacity figures at the bottom of your report are inaccurate - do not rely on these figures. The Tribe Manager tool will help with accurate calculations...
¶ Provisions and hunting/fishing
Each person will eat 1 provision per turn. Calculate how many months' supply you have and plan accordingly. Hunting returns are influenced by
- terrain in the hex
- weather
- season
- hunting skill
- etc
Make sure you are comfortable that you're on top of this aspect of the game, those dead people are hard to bring back.
The Hunting Calculator will help you with this ...
In Autumn and Winter, fishing may be better than hunting to bring in provisions, but you can't store fish (unless you salt them) so it's good to have some normal provisions in stock.
¶ Seasons
- Spring - Months 1 to 3 - in most terrain, the best time for hunting
- Summer - Months 4 to 6 - still good hunting
- Autumn - Months 7 to 9 - hunting waning now, might want to fish
- Winter - Months 10 to 12 - fishing probably your best option.
¶ Combat Moratorium
If you started on or after 818-10 then other Clans will not be able to attack you for the first 18 months (12 months if you started earlier than 818-10). If you attack another player you may forfeit your immunity. Note that during the moratorium your scouts CAN be suppressed perfectly legally.
¶ Events
There are fairs and other events which may be beneficial to you and may need planning for.
¶ Discord
If you're not already on discord, then please give it a try. There's a plethora of keen and supportive players who will happily answer your question night or day, and usually within minutes.
If you need support getting onto Discord then contact the GM and they'll be able to find someone to help.
https://discord.gg/xR9HVYGFXs
¶ Further reading
There are a number of articles and publications that have been written which may be of use to the emerging player...
This document helps you learn how to prepare orders for your first turn. It's meant to be a companion document to Understanding the TribeNet Auto Turnsheet focused on a clan's orders for the first turn.
Understanding the TribeNet Auto Turnsheet
This document presents a detailed overview of the structure of the Auto Turnsheet and how it works. There is some key information in this document that you’ll need to consult while preparing orders for your first and future turns.
Mapping through movement and scouting is a key aspect of the game. To play TribeNet, you need to create and update a map. This is a presentation about how to map.
Additional Reading: