Lords of the Earth

Lords of the Earth (LOTE) is a play-by-email game, first published by Thomas Harlan in 1983 during a growing era of PBM games. Initially played by postal mail as well as in-person paper submissions, the game featured mixed moderation—computer moderated with some human assistance. By 2002, the publisher processed turns by email (PBeM). Lords of the Earth comprises multiple campaigns, each one a separate game. Each of these games is termed a "campaign," by analogy with a tabletop role-playing game, usually with a unique human moderator. Campaign 1 was the first, beginning in 1000 CE, and continuing to the 18th century, an "Age of Air and Steam." Other campaigns feature start dates from 2000 BCE to 1400 CE. Settings were often global in scale, with one campaign featuring an outer space setting. Each campaign has an historical starting setup, from which flows an alternate history defined by player actions.

Campaigns are open-ended, with no set victory conditions. A game lasts about 25 years. Commonly 20 to 50 players compete as leaders of various types of nations. Regions in a campaign map include varied terrain, religions, wealth, and ability to resist others using diplomacy or warfare. Players move leaders across the map, often commanding military units, to perform actions. A reviewer in the early 2000s noted positives and negatives about the game, observing that some players went to great lengths to win, even "using false identities or smear campaigns".