Dominion Expansion Vol. 1 pts. 1-3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VvShaX0-izc5AeiwcoSL7EMKcOMJ78AS/view?usp=sharing

The PDF wanted to drop some borders between rows for some reason, but it hasn't caused anything to be unreadable.

Hoh boy. Alright. Lots I can ramble about now. Feel free to read this rambling either before or after you read the chapter.

Real quick before we get into the real rambling stuff: this is supposed to be a 4X LitRPG where the map and city management stuff is heavily inspired by games such as Endless Legend, Civilization, and Stellaris. Most of the system is going to be in relation to kingdom building and management stuff. Combat will be done in a way similar to the Total War series. Instead of the main character having special skills and stats and all that, he'll be managing the people who do and choosing their upgrades and all that for them. You know, just like when playing any strategy game.

There will also be a harem. There will also be lewds. There will be some drama and serious arcs. For those of you who read TTE, the story will probably be pretty similar to that in terms of balance when it comes to slice of life, serious arcs, and lewds. I also plan on posting short chapters daily rather than longer weekly chapters for this.

The tl;dr synopsis as it stands right now is: Earth is part of a reward in a grand strategy game by a bunch of higher powers and the MC gets chosen to lead Hell's faction in this game where the fate of humanity goes to whoever wins.

Moving on.

That's right. It's me writing another LitRPG.

"But Ace! With the exception of LDQ which isn't a serious LitRPG at all, you've dropped every LitRPG you've started!"

That's what I expect to be on a few people's minds, anyways. Especially since I told people in the past before to smack me if I ever write another LitRPG.

So, first, let's analyze what made me drop those other LitRPGs.

Ero Dungeon Evolution: I was using a very strict system created by a friend of mine that wasn't specifically built for the story that didn't allow me much freedom, but the main issue was the plot running away from the proposed idea and growing into something far different. It wasn't a story that needed a system in the first place since the whole point was to just have kinky sex in a dungeon.

The Queen's Hound: Unlike with EDE, I decided to make my own system that I basically bullshitted the entire time. There were a few calculations needed for stats and stuff but, ultimately, it pulled a Who's Line and went "welcome to the LitRPG where the numbers are made up and don't matter" behind the scenes. It's still amazing to me that I've had people comment that they really liked the system in TQH since it was 95% bullshit made up on the spot that didn't actually matter aside from table fanservice.

CORE: TQH might have been 95% made up on the spot, but CORE was 100% made up on the spot. It was somewhere between TQH and LDQ in terms of treating the system seriously and, in my opinion, suffered for that. But ultimately, the system wasn't the story's downfall. The story's downfall was the pacing, the fact that I had no idea what to do next because it was the one story I started writing with nothing more than very vague ideas as part of a spontaneous writing contest on RR, and, after like 3 volumes, the story was nowhere close to how I wanted it to be. Sort of like with EDE.

In addition to that, there's one other major problem I've had with all previous LitRPGs that caused me massive annoyances that could have been avoided, and it wasn't properly tracking things. You know what I had to do every time I needed to pull up a table or cite a skill or stats? I had to ctrl+f the document to go look for it. Basically, every single time I ever brought up any specific details for the system, I had to ctrl+f to look it up. That was time consuming, led to some mistakes, and just stupid and stressful.

So, how have I dealt with these issues for this story to prevent falling into the same issues?

1. I've spent weeks now designing a system custom built for this story. The story already has a prebuilt system specifically for it. Everything is already set up. I have a tech tree with probably about 200 different techs on it right now built to be used. I have an entire biome list with rare variants and tile features to go through. I've got a proper map making program to easily provide visual information in regard to territory/map stuff. The system is detailed and strict, but also provides freedom for social and slice of life chapters. Only things that affect the overall "game" require the system. Outside of that, anything goes. So we get the strict system for the game where it matters, but anything beyond that is free from it and more relaxed. I've also been building this system in a public channel on my Discord server where others have helped me out with it. So, there is a strict system, but it's a system that was designed specifically to benefit the story. It's a system that serves the story rather than a story trying to fit itself into a system.

1.1. By having a grand strategy system instead of an individual system where every single person has stats and skills and all that, I get to still have a strict system without having to go into things like how much damage a single person takes with windows popping up to show hit points going down every other paragraph and so on. There is a system for combat, but that's going to be more like watching a battle from the Total War series. You don't exactly see numbers flying in every which direction during those.

2. The system matters. It's not random bullshit made up on the spot. The system has actual weight that affects the story. Not only that, but I'm really playing by the system here since I feel like it would be more fun and make a better story to do so. What I mean by this is that I'm not just making everything up on the spot. When it comes to map generation, I've got a system where I roll a 3-5 die. The number that lands on determines how many biomes will be in a region. I then roll 1-26 to determine what the first biome will be. Then I roll within that specific biome category (for example, the base Volcanic biomes are 14-18) to get other related biomes to connect to it. Then I roll, depending on the specific biome, another die with a modifier attached to determine how large the biome is going to be. Then I roll 1-100 for every single tile to determine if there will be a special feature on the tile. The only thing "made up" when it comes to the "map generation" part of the system is what special feature I put on which tile since there's no easy way for me to make a rolling system for that which wouldn't get way out of hand and be way too much work. So, the starting zone was about 90% random and I had no idea what it was going to be until writing the chapter. I actually tried avoiding getting a volcanic area because I thought, "Come on, demons in a volcano biome? That's way too cliche," but I tried three times and got volcanic-type biomes every time. So, the system demanded that the story starts off within the volcanic biome. The system even granted us with a unique variant of the lava lakes that only had a 10% chance of being rolled. So, whenever it might seem like "wow the author is purposely giving the MC good stuff, plot armor, blah blah," or whatever, just know that I'm actually not. That's the system. The system could have either seriously fucked the protagonist over or it could make him extremely lucky. You'll find out how the system treats him when I do. Anyways, that's just one example (probably the one I'm most proud of and feel is the most unique among LitRPGs) of giving the system weight and making it actually matter.

3. I know what I want to do. I already have basically three volumes of content planned, I know what I want the final conflict to be, and I have enough assorted ideas to make at least 7 volumes or so, probably. Unlike with CORE where I really had no idea what to do other than very vague ideas, I have an entire list of things I want to do with this series. Different plot arcs, drama, events, fun things, etc.

4. Mother fucking organization. I have excel spreadsheets for all the things now. No more having to ctrl+f to find and edit a table. All I have to do is look at Excel. I am organizing the shit out of this story via Excel to make it so that I can easily reference every instance of the system being used with templates for tables that I can easily edit and so on.

In other words, I analyzed all the reasons for why my previous attempts at LitRPGs were dropped and made it my mission to make those problems my bitches. They ain't shit now. I feel incredibly confident about this. All I have to do is hope that people actually like it xD. If anything, the MC might be a bit off-putting due to how 'Murican he is, but I really wanted to write a protagonist who symbolizes the American spirit. The true American spirit. That means being all about freedom and liberty, steak and guns, hating taxes and loving freedom of speech, but also being kind, hard working, a protector of the oppressed, and a safe haven for those who want better lives. I wanted to mix the more meme-y parts (hating taxes, loving guns and steak, making fun of Europeans, etc) with genuine American ideals (believing in the American dream, accepting all who want a better life no matter where they're from, freedom and equality for everybody, etc). Basically, a less ironic Ron Swanson (props to anybody who caught the Ron Swanson reference, by the way).

All that aside, I had no idea how to actually start the story. I know that LitRPG readers like to get to the tables and system stuff right away, and I tried doing that, but I couldn't really introduce the system any more than I did without it feeling way too rushed. I deleted about 6k words of me trying to start the story off right away with the system and ended up rewriting the first two chapters to be a bit slower paced. It's still the first two chapters that I'm not sold on. The third chapter (and what will soon be coming after that) is what I know exactly how I want to write. I actually wrote the third chapter first and then went back to write the first two chapters. So, honestly, those first two chapters might get changed depending on feedback. If people like them and think they're fine, I probably won't worry too much about it. If people think they could be better, I'll try improving them at some point.

That aside, there may be points in the future where I have to balance things and change some numbers. I'll always let people know when that happens.

Alright, that's probably all the rambling for now. Have some art in case you aren't a member of the Discord server and haven't seen these yet.

The Protagonist

Enna

Sara

Future Characters

Oh, and I plan on having hentai illustrations to go with this series, too. Though they probably won't be anywhere near as common as the ones in TTT unless I commission extra ones just for the heck of it even if they're not attached to lewd chapters.

Alright. That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed.