The Shared Worlds Forum mostly consists of role-playing games where you, in theory, get to control your own nation, while negotiating and warring with those of other players. Notable Shared Worlds Games include Mosaic Earth and Feudal Lands, NationStates, based on the NationStates site, which went nowhere, and Nation Games. The subforums hold the 2nd and 3rd A Little Trip games, currently dead, where your family and you are transported through space and time to start living as pioneers, and Earth Imperialism, also dead. The XXth Century project was also based in the Shared Worlds section (now in Timelines and Scenarios as well as the Collaborative Projects subforum), as many members have contributed to this joint timeline. Also, a new phenomenon is Nation Games, based on the first game, New Interactive Nations Game (NING for short). Started by 09Camero, it features an interestuing feature where one starts with his slate clean after an apocalyptic event, and gets to expand with other players. NING, Nations Game: After Impact, and Nations Game: After the Plague are all examples. Notable Shared Worlds players include Glen, perdedor99, reformer, DuQuense, Imajin, Othniel, Bulgaroktonos, Matt, NomadicSky, General_Paul, Norbert, Ward,Agentdark, Atreus, Locke and Demosthenes. In conclusion, playing Shared Worlds games has been proven to be dangerous to your health, or turn you into an urban legend.

Mosaic Earth, or Mosaic World game generally undergoes the following phases:

1. Idea - This is the development phase of the ME. The most vital piece of information, the ISOT date, is agreed upon.
2. Claims - You pick a country you wish to play. You may already have an idea what the country should be, but it is always advisable to claim as much territory as possible.
3. History write-up - This is the alternate history part of the game. Write a timeline, just as you would write one in the main AH.com forum. Just remember - the expectations here are low: you can write one sentence or an encyclopedia, an ASB scenario or perfect realism. I suggest the former, because no-one will be able to say that you’re playing unrealistically or out-of character.
4. Military write-up - You will be requested to write up a military for your country, as ME nations suffer occasional warfare. No matter what, create the largest military you can imagine. And remember, if your military is not rejected by the moderators, you haven’t made it large enough.
5. Gameplay
   1. Pre-ISOT - Sometimes, ME games have a pre-ISOT phase. This phase is short and not important, so I suggest you ignore it.
   2. ISOT - The first week after the official gameplay threads are posted, start writing about how everything in your nation is in chaos due to the ISOT. On the diplomatic scene, post “we would like to establish trade and normal diplomatic relations” adressed to every other nation. Not only will other players realize that you are courteous, but there is also a secret scoring system based on the number of times you repeat that.
   3. Post-ISOT - Even by the end of the first week, you will realize that the only way to entertain yourself in the game is to invade other countries. If you have followed my write-up advice, you should be playing the strongest country in the region. Concentrate mainly on the War thread, posting your military movements and conflicts in need of resolution. However, I suggest that you hurry, or else the players who ISOTed smaller countries are already kicking themselves and trying to quit.
6. Post-gameplay - After two weeks of gameplay, everything that could have been accomplished in the ME is accomplished. You should remember to drink, eat and shave while you wait in anticipation for the game to proceed at 3 in-game days to 1 real day. The War thread should now have more unresolved conflicts than resolved ones, and the Gameplay thread should have degenerated into retconning past events. By this point, you can quietly drop out, but I suggest you post an idea for a new ME game.

1. Sign up
2. Examine the map
3. Claim your starting position
4. Claim surrounding territory
5. Repeat step #4 until the entire map is filled out by claims
6. You win?

Translations of common phrases

• “My country is authoritarian” - I would like to be invaded at the first opportunity.

• “My country is democratic” - I am going to rule and make decisions as God-Emperor.

• “My country does not have nukes” - My country will develop nuclear weapons one week after the ISOT.

• “I claim China/India” - I claimed a country not only with 1 billion people, but also $1,000 trillion GDP created by my POD.

• “I’m gonna make a second claim” - My plan to take over the world with only one country was thwarted by similarly-minded players.

• “I have an early POD” - You thought Monaco ruling Eurasia was impossible? Well, now it’s not.

• “Let’s give this ME a chance” (uttered by moderator) - This ME is dead, flee as soon as possible.

• “Your claim/military is unreasonable/big” - Your claim is fine, I’m just being a jerk.

• “Yous population figure is too high” (uttered by FENK) - You are not a pro-abortion, anti-life, baby-killing degenerate atheist commie like I am.

• “The ISOT date is X” - Every nation can have the most advanced technology from that date, even though the nation is from the third world.

From its uncharted infancy in the Old Board, Mosaic Earth and its spin-offs have created a niche on the AH.com board. It survived the migration to the New Board, spewing a chaos of threads during the first year of existence. By 2005, the games became more organized, and this superior bureaucracy gave birth to Mosaic Earth 7, consider by many the pinnacle of Shared Worlds. In its wake came the well-patterned games of Late ‘05 and First Quarter 2006. However, the quality of the games soon started to decline, part to the competition presented from Feudal Lands, A Little Trip and their spin-offs. Mosaic World games, organized exclusively by Ward, have faired extremely poorly, with the exception of the 1st and 4th installments. However, the majority of the oldest ME-players abandoned the game in 2006.

Originally an ASB thread, Feudal Lands has been organized into a game by Chingo360, Highlander and Straha. Soon after its origin it was dubbed a “claim fest”, and all attempts to reform its gameplay have failed.

• Feudal Lands the Game (Early - Late December ‘05)
• Feudal Lands II (Early - Late January ‘06)
• Feudal Lands Europe (Mid February - Late April ‘06)
• Feudal Lands IV (Mid - Late November ‘06)

NING was also originally an ASB thread, but was moved to the SW forum. Created by 09camaro, it was a post-apocalyptic game where one carved out a small nations in the midst of barbarian lands and expanded. This new idea was expanded and improved by Nations Game: After Impact and Nations Game: After the Plague (NING’s true-er successor) In general, NING games last longer than other Shared World’s games. NING won the 2008 Turtledove Awardfor the Superlative Shared Worlds category... much to its creator’s suprise.