Each player begins with control of one character and a sum of gold, the Olympian currency. Characters may hire subordinates, study skills, trade items, build things, and explore. Each turn a player submits orders for all of the characters they control. These include the initial character, known as the Player Character, and any vassals of the player character, which belong to the player's faction.

Turns are run once per week, on Tuesday. Orders are due at 6:00pm, Eastern U.S. time. Players should receive their turn reports by the following morning.

Late orders will queue for the next turn. Beware! Even if mailed before the deadline, your message may take some time to get to the order scanner. Send your orders in a day early to avoid grief. This will also give you time to correct mistakes reported by the order scanner.

The Olympia Times is published once per week and mailed to each player in the game. The Times has three sections: any comments or notices from the GM (if there are any), signed press, and rumors.

Players can send mail to the player controlling an entity by mailing to entity@game.pbm.com.

For example, suppose you saw the following characters:

Seen here:
   Circe [2225], with three peasants, accompanied by:
      Hephaestus [3446], with 11 peasants

Circe's lord isn't identified, so you don't know what player is controlling her. However, it is still possible to send Circe's owner a message. Mail to 2225@g2.pbm.com and the message will be forwarded to whatever player is controlling Circe [2225].

Forwarding works for character and player entities. Mail sent to other entity numbers, or to unaffiliated characters, will be silently discarded.

Bugs are inevitable in large, complex programs such as the Olympia game engine. While every effort is made to ferret out bugs, players must expect that from time to time something will go wrong.

If you cannot tolerate encountering bugs, please do not play Olympia.

Because of the nature of how Olympia processes turns, it is not possible to re-run a turn for a single player if something goes wrong. Turns may only be re-run for all players. Therefore, re-runs will be considered for only the most serious bug-provoked disasters which affect many players.

Generally the preferred compensation for being the victim of a bug is some grant of CLAIM gold or other items. It is difficult and error-prone to attempt to move items around the game database, and there are fairness issues for other players who may be unpleasantly surprised by database edits occuring between turns.

All compensation given for bugs is solely at the discretion of the GM. Effects for minor bugs are assumed to even out across most players over the course of the game, so compensation is usually granted only for bugs which have seriously impacted a player.

Please concisely document any bugs you find, providing short excerpts from turn reports to show what went wrong. If you feel certain that a bug has occured in combat, a detailed debugging trace of your battle will be sent to you (showing the blow-by-blow action in a cryptic, difficult-to-follow format), and you will be expected to review this trace to determine whether in fact something is not working correctly.

If you feel you require compensation, briefly state how your position was irrevokably harmed by the bug, and suggest a suitable compensation (preferably in the form of CLAIM items which may be provided).

1. A player may not control more than one faction in the game. Also, multiple players from the same account are not allowed. Each player must have their own unique email address.
2. Players should not send in orders for another player's faction, to ruin that person's turn or otherwise benefit.
3. Players must inform the GM of any game bugs found.
4. Anti-social behavior, including harassing telephone calls, sending obscene/obnoxious unwanted communications, mail bombing, etc. will not be tolerated.

Punishment for serious violations is generally banishment from Olympia. So don't cheat, do play fair, and be a good sport.

The Olympia calendar has two months for each season, for a total of eight months per Olympian year. Each month is 30 game days long.

        Season  Month   Name
        ------  -----   ----

        Spring    1     Fierce winds
        Spring    2     Snowmelt
        Summer    3     Blossom bloom
        Summer    4     Sunsear
        Fall      5     Thunder and rain
        Fall      6     Harvest
        Winter    7     Waning days
        Winter    8     Dark night

Game additions and rule changes

Features may be added to Olympia every so often, such as new areas in the map, NPC races, magical artifacts, skills, spells, etc. It is also sometimes necessary to make slight alterations to existing game mechanics to correct bugs or flaws in game balance.

While it is inevitable that some players will be affected by rule changes, every effort is made to not disrupt existing game positions.

Definition of Terms

Command summary

command    arguments                            time     priority
-------    ---------                            ----     --------
ADMIT      <who or what> [ALL] [units]          0 days      0
ATTACK     <target> [flag] .................... 1 day       3
BANNER     [unit] "message" ................... 0 days      1
BEHIND     <number> ........................... 0 days      1
BOARD      <ship> [maximum fee] ............... 0 days      2
BRIBE      <who> <amount> [flag] .............. 7 days      3
BUILD      <structure> "Name" [max-days] ...... varies      3
BUY        <item> <qty> <price> [have-left] ... 0 days      1
CATCH      [number of horses] [days] .......... as given    3
CLAIM      <item> [number] .................... 0 days      1
COLLECT    <item> [number] [days] ............. as given    3
CONTACT    <who> .............................. 0 days      0
DECREE     <decree> ........................... 0 days      0
DEFAULT    <who> .............................. 0 days      0
DEFEND     <who> .............................. 0 days      0
DROP       <item> <qty> [have-left] ........... 0 days      1
EMAIL      <new email address>
EXECUTE    [prisoner] ......................... 0 days      1
EXHUME     [body] ............................. 7 days      3
EXPLORE     ................................... 7 days      3
FEE        [gold per 100 wt] .................. 0 days      1
FERRY      .................................... 0 days      1
FISH       [number of fish]  [days] ........... as given    3
FLAG       string ............................. 0 days      1
FLY        <direction or destination> [...] ... varies      2
FORM       <unit> "Name of new character" ..... 7 days      3
FORMAT     <num>
GARRISON   <castle> ........................... 1 day       3
GET        <who> <item> [qty] [have-left]       0 days      1
GIVE       <to-who> <item> [qty] [have-left] .. 0 days      1
GUARD      <flag> ............................. 0 days      1
HONOR      <amount> ........................... 1 day       3
HOSTILE    <who> .............................. 0 days      0
LORE       <lore sheet>
MAKE       <item> [qty] ....................... as given    3
MESSAGE    <# of lines of text> <to-who> ...... 1 day       3
MOVE       <direction or destination> [...] ... varies      2
NAME       [unit] "new name for unit" ......... 0 days      1
NEUTRAL    <who> .............................. 0 days      0
NOTAB      <num>
OATH       <level> ............................ 1 day       3
PAY        <to-who> [amount] [have-left] ...... 0 days      1
PASSWORD   ["password"]
PILLAGE    [flag] ............................. 7 days      3
PLAYERS
POST       <# of lines of following text> ..... 1 day       3
PLEDGE     <who> .............................. 0 days      1
PRESS      <# of lines of text> [character] ... 0 days      1
PROMOTE    <who> .............................. 0 days      1
QUARRY     [number of stones]  [days] ......... as given    3
QUIT
RAZE        ................................... varies      3
RECRUIT    [days] ............................. as given    3
REPAIR     [days] ............................. as given    3
RESEARCH   <skill> ............................ 7 days      3
RESEND     [turn]
RUMOR      <# of lines of text> [character] ... 0 days      1
SAIL       <direction or destination> ......... varies      4
SEEK       <who> .............................. 7 days      3
SELL       <item> <qty> <price> [have-left] ... 0 days      1
SPLIT      <lines> <bytes> .................... 0 days      1
STACK      <character> ........................ 0 days      1
STOP
STUDY      <skill> ............................ 7 days      3
SURRENDER  <character> ........................ 0 days      1
TAKE       <who> <item> [qty] [have-left]       0 days      1
TERRORIZE  <who> <severity> ................... 7 days      3
TRAIN      <kind> <days> ...................... as given    3
UNGARRISON [garrison] ......................... 1 day       3
UNLOAD     .................................... 0 days      3
UNSTACK    [who] .............................. 0 days      1
USE        <skill>  [arguments...] ............ varies      3
VIS_EMAIL  <new email address for player list>
WAIT       conditions ......................... varies      1

Note: Read the changes list!

An effort has been made to make sure these changes are reflected in the rest of the Olympia rulebook. However, the G2 changes list should be considered authoritative, and contains useful information which is not provided in the main rulebook.

The G2 changes list appears at the end of this rulebook.