# Comparison: Strongholds & Dynasties - Empire - Magical Medieval Society - Birthright



## Silveras (Dec 15, 2003)

My copy of Strongholds and Dynasties arrived yesterday, and I have been devouring it since. Following will be posts on the relative merits of the books I have, for comparison purposes. 

For the benfit of anyone not familiar with letter grades...
A = Excellent, well above average
B = Above average, exceeded expectations
C = Average, as expected
D = Below average, did not meet expectations
F = Failure
N/A = Not applicable


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## Silveras (Dec 15, 2003)

*Strongholds & Dynasties*

Book of Strongholds & Dynasties (Mongoose Publishing)

Overall Impression: Very Good to Excellent

Content: 
Construction system: A
Domain management system (small scale) : D
Domain management system (medium scale): A
Domain management system (large scale) : F
City/Urban Center details: F
Trade system: B
Internal Realm Politics system: B+
Inter-Realm Politics system: D
Resource Management system: C [Edit: downgraded from A]
Mass Combat system: B
Troop raising: A
Dynastic heritage system: N/A
D&D/Fantasy content: A
Arcane Magic Integration: D
Divine Magic Integration: B

The construction system is quite good. Modular enough to be useful for a-la-carte building, with some simple "one piece" buildings for common uses. Often overlooked elements like underground construction and using non-human or spell-based labor are addressed. Fantasy elememnts, such as elaborate mechanical and magical functions, are addressed as well. 

The Domain management system does not scale well, I think. The DM is supposed to keep many details secret from the players, and this can rapidly become unmanageable if the number of provinces grows. Attempting to manage more than 1 or 2 NPC rival realms will quickly become impossible without extensive electronic aids. The provided sample record sheets are also insufficient for some of this; they reflect the end state, but do not have workspaces for the DM to record updates in progress. 

The book goes into no detail on cities at all, other than the usefulness of some specific buildings as part of other functions, and even that is not as complete as it could be. 

The trade system is more elaborate than most others, and tries to address the various risks that affect moving goods from place to place. This may get upgraded once it is seen in use.

Internal politics is represented to a degree, but more on a province-by-province basis (individual strength/influence of interest groups in each province, but no overall realm-wide presence is refleced). 

Politics with other realms is lightly touched on. Much is left to the DM's discretion. 

Resource Management is extensive. The variety of resources covered is excellent, and the thoroughness of how to improve/use them is good. [Edit: In my testing, the system breaks down badly once the population center becomes larger than a Large Town. I have downgraded the rating to reflect this.]

The Mass Combat system is surprisingly small. It may prove to be just very efficient use of space, but it is surprisingly short given how much the Open Mass Combat System 2 was heralded. 

The resource management pieces also addresses equipping your troops, and does so nicely. Good coverage is given for raising units of various classes, levels, and unit sizes. 

Dynastic heritage: For a book called "Strongholds & Dynasties", there is a surprising lack of information about passing power to successors. In that sense, half the book is missing. 

The book does a good job of including the D&D races and classes into its rules. Tree-fort construction is hit upon in the construction system, as are non-human workers. Most "ministerial positions" have suggested pre-requisites in terms of skills and/or class levels, allowing most classes and races to be guided to the appropriate role. 

One element I do feel is lacking is the large-scale magic integration. Birthright's realm spells is an area that no product has tackled with as much success. S&D does better with Divine magic than with Arcane, but not to the scale of representing abilities like realm spells.


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## Silveras (Dec 15, 2003)

*A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe*

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (Expeditious Retreat Press)
Content: 
Construction system: B
Domain management system (small scale) : A+
Domain management system (medium scale): C
Domain management system (large scale) : D
City/Urban Center details: A
Trade system: N/A
Internal Realm Politics system: A
Inter-Realm Politics system: C
Resource Management system: A-
Mass Combat system: N/A
Troop raising: C
Dynastic heritage system: N/A
D&D/Fantasy content: D
Arcane Magic Integration: D
Divine Magic Integration: C

Short 'n Sweet: AMMS:WE is an excellent resource for understanding how earth's medieval period would appear with D&D rules and magic available. However, that same tight focus that gives it such great flavor also works against it when applying it to a broader range of races.


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## Silveras (Dec 15, 2003)

*Empire*

Empire (Alderac Entertainment Group)
Content: 
Construction system: C
Domain management system (small scale) : B
Domain management system (medium scale): B
Domain management system (large scale) : B
City/Urban Center details: D
Trade system: C
Internal Realm Politics system: C
Inter-Realm Politics system: C
Resource Management system: C
Mass Combat system: B+
Troop raising: B
Dynastic heritage system: N/A
D&D/Fantasy Conent: A
Arcane Magic Integration: C
Divine Magic Integration: C

Short 'n Sweet: Empire suffers from trying to fit too much material into too little space. It very much feels like significant pieces of systems were cut to make it fit, with the end result that it feels like it needs a "volume II" to make it whole.


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## Silveras (Dec 15, 2003)

*Birthright (AD&D 2nd Edition)*

Birthright (TSR/Wizards of the Coast) (2nd Ed. AD&D rules version)
Content: 
Domain management system (small scale) : F
Domain management system (medium scale): A+
Domain management system (large scale) : A+
City/Urban Center details: N/A
Trade system: C
Internal Realm Politics system: B+
Inter-Realm Politics system: A+
Resource Management system: N/A
Construction system: C
Mass Combat system: D-/F
Troop raising: C
Dynastic heritage system: A+
D&D/Fantasy Content: A+
Arcane Magic Integration: A+
Divine Magic Integration: A+

Short 'n Sweet: Even though it is not D20, Birthright did a very good job of setting a usable standard for an area near and dear to the hearts of many players: Rulership. While some D20 books may be better in some areas, as an overall package, Birthright still comes out on top.


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## jasamcarl (Dec 16, 2003)

I like.. is 'Fields of Blood' on your wishlist? I.E. can I expect a similiar round-up for that?

Which on the non-Birthright products would you most eagerly endorse of those already listed?


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> I like.. is 'Fields of Blood' on your wishlist? I.E. can I expect a similiar round-up for that?
> 
> Which on the non-Birthright products would you most eagerly endorse of those already listed?




That's a tougher call than you think. 
Answer: Depending on what style you want to play, any of them would be the "best" in my recommendation. 

If you want a Birthright realm-vs-realm level of gaming, Empire (for all that it needs some work to fill in the gaps) seems like the best bet. 

If your style goes more toward PCs'-as-regents-struggling-with-power, S&D covers a lot of that ground. 

If you are seeking more for adventurers-turned-minor-landholders in a pseudo-medieval setting, AMMS:WE is better. 

Now, if you plan to have large battles, AMMS:WE is not going to help you with that. But, if you are going to make War a centerpiece of your campaign, you will probably want Cry Havoc anyway -- because it addresses War in toto, not just the mechanics of combat or the mustering of troops. 

So, as I said, I can't make a solid recommendation blindly. You have to decide which book(s) cover(s) the material you need. You may find a use for all of them, or in a hybrid system that combines pieces of each.


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## Blastin (Dec 16, 2003)

I was just wondering what your definition of "scale" is as in what you said here:

Domain management system (small scale) : F
Domain management system (medium scale): A+
Domain management system (large scale) : A+

  What do you call small vs medium vs large? Just curious, and why you thought Birthright is an F in small scale.
  I'm a Birthright fanatic, and have been thinking about looking at the systems you reviewed, so thanks much for the info, and the comparison to Birthright.
  Blastin


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## DanMcS (Dec 16, 2003)

Blastin said:
			
		

> I was just wondering what your definition of "scale" is as in what you said here:
> 
> Domain management system (small scale) : F
> Domain management system (medium scale): A+
> ...




For small-scale, think a single manor, hamlet, village, or business.  Chief priest of a single temple.  Birthright doesn't go below the province level, and at that level you don't get much granularity: what would a knightship and a title like Warden of the Forest be in BR?  A single law holding level?  So would being sherrif of a part of a county, or political boss of a group of citizens in a city.  You can't really hire a group of 15 or 20 guardsmen for a city on the Birthright scale.

You can mod the system to do it reasonably well, I've done it myself, but then you lose the top end of the system.  A game which handles both a village major and a king of a major empire would need to be really versatile, and birthright doesn't flex quite that far.


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## Blastin (Dec 16, 2003)

Ahh...ok.I see now...and agree. Birthright definatly lets the small level of domain detail up in the air. A law holding could be many things, a group of thugs, a sheriff, a small band of rangers, ect...the system doesn't really care about the detail at that level. And I guess that's why he gave it an "F".
  Thanks


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## trancejeremy (Dec 16, 2003)

Hmmm, thanks.

I'm looking for something like Birthright, but also with an emphasis on individual cities/towns/castles.

I'm very leery of buying Empire from AEG, as I've gotten burned on their one word books in the past, and have sworn off them.


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

Blastin said:
			
		

> Ahh...ok.I see now...and agree. Birthright definatly lets the small level of domain detail up in the air. A law holding could be many things, a group of thugs, a sheriff, a small band of rangers, ect...the system doesn't really care about the detail at that level. And I guess that's why he gave it an "F".
> Thanks




Yes, DanMcS summed it up nicely. Giving BR 'N/A' for that level would also be somewhat accurate, but does not convey as clearly that the system breaks if you try to bend it that far.


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> Hmmm, thanks.
> 
> I'm looking for something like Birthright, but also with an emphasis on individual cities/towns/castles.
> 
> I'm very leery of buying Empire from AEG, as I've gotten burned on their one word books in the past, and have sworn off them.




Empire fits that role rather well, depending on how much detail you want to have for your cities. 

If you want more focus on how "City 1" fits into the production scheme of the Kingdom, Empire is right there. In that sense, it is like playing the Sid Meier's Civilization series of games; cities can have specific enhancements built in each one that have effects on how that city produces goods, etc. You may want to check a couple of the older threads on the topic for more specific comments. 

If you want something on mapping the streets of the city and deciding the politics of factions within a city, No, that's more along the lines of AMMS:WE's chapters on cities.


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## Falanor (Dec 16, 2003)

Like the review, though I'm still going to end up getting all three myself...  

I heard that S&D isn't supposed to cover Magic very well because its leaving that to the Encyclopaedia Arcane: Sovereign Magic book to fully work out.  So I don't know if that should be a grade for this book really...  Though I'd like to see what you have to say for Fields of Blood when it finally gets printed.


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

Falanor said:
			
		

> I heard that S&D isn't supposed to cover Magic very well because its leaving that to the Encyclopaedia Arcane: Sovereign Magic book to fully work out.  So I don't know if that should be a grade for this book really...




The author, Cavalorn, said that in another thread. I can certainly see that presenting such as a system would take a large chunk of space, possibly more than could be presented in this volume without cutting out other parts (and leading them to feel incomplete, as I faulted Empire for doing). 

I should qualify this comment by mentioning that Arcane magic gets a good showing in the construction system, but I included that as part of the rating for "D&D/Fantasy content".

[Edit: I did not want to be trying to say this half-asleep in the wee hours...]

Leaving the powerful, realm-affecting spells to a separate book is not why I feel that Arcane and Divine magic could be better integrated in the government system. Divine fares a little better, but not too much better. 

Arcane magic does get some use in the construction system, but I factored that into the "A" grade I gave S&D there. 

It is difficult to give arcane casters a role without tying it to the range and power of their spells. The special ability of the Minister of Magic (being able to extend the range over which the other ministers can communicate) is a good example; it is, off the top of my head, the only special ability with so many constraints on its use. It is also among the only special abilities where the individual minister character's level (and thus, access to spells) is a determining factor in its effects. The abilities of all other ministers are based upon the actions of a staff of underlings. 

Given that there are 15 ministerial positions with at least one special ability each, and 63 actions in 7 focus areas, it seems a let-down to me that the best role the Minister of Magic could fill was 'messenger service'. Communications are important, but having a staff (like all the other ministers) should allow this ability to operate with less constraints than it is presented as having. 

The High Priest, on the other hand, can at least hold public ceremonies at which s/he can bestow a sacred (or profane) bonus on various checks to a larger-than-normal number of people. Likewise, s/he can boost the effectiveness of a spell s/he is going to cast by getting part of the populace to pray in support of it. 

As for Sovereign Magic, it is just hitting the shelves now. I am curious to see it, but the advertising material paints it as dealing ONLY with Arcane magic. That is still an incomplete picture, as there is as much need for large-area Divine spellcasting as there is for Arcane, and a properly defined kingdom will avail itself of both.


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## Shadowdancer (Dec 16, 2003)

Falanor said:
			
		

> Though I'd like to see what you have to say for Fields of Blood when it finally gets printed.



Fields of Blood is printed, and available in stores.


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

*A few odds 'n' ends on S&D*

Here are a few odds & ends type of comments on S&D: 

Artwork: Good, and generally reflective of the subject at hand. The drawings of the buildings and their modular components are good, and can serve as models for creating a tile-based mapper or other electronic aid geared toward helping the aspiring builder. 

New Prestige Classes: There are none (good news for those who think there are too many). 

New Spells: Ditto

New Magic Items: Uh, ditto. 

Which means that all of the space in the book is spent on providing rules systems in the relevant areas. There are *very few* (too few, IMHO) tables. Of the tables that are present, I don't think any of them repeat information in the text; it is all new information that lends itself to tabular presentation. 

That being said, a checklist of "monthly update steps" or the like would have been helpful. Some of the details are scattered, and it will be easy for people to miss steps like "loss of stored food to vermin or spoilage" or "subtract what the people eat before counting the produced food for taxes". 

Also, a number of places leave "details to the DM's discretion". That is less useful for a newbie than for an experienced DM. Fledgling DMs would probably appreciate a little more guidance than they will find here.


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## jasamcarl (Dec 16, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Here are a few odds & ends type of comments on S&D:
> 
> Artwork: Good, and generally reflective of the subject at hand. The drawings of the buildings and their modular components are good, and can serve as models for creating a tile-based mapper or other electronic aid geared toward helping the aspiring builder.
> 
> ...




How does the book deal with invasion and conquest? Are provincial rebellions possible?


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## Silveras (Dec 16, 2003)

jasamcarl said:
			
		

> How does the book deal with invasion and conquest? Are provincial rebellions possible?




The former are treated nebulously. You can allow your troops to pillage once they are in enemy territory, for example, but there is no 'Declare War' action (although there are a host of others, including 'Declare a Trade Embargo', 'Threaten', and 'Propose an Alliance'). The book is focused, it seems to me, on how the characters influence the resolution of actions -- the special abilities of the Court members / Cabinet Ministers often provide bonuses to the dice rolls used in resolving actions (including combat). As such, the government is a collection of individuals, and the rules are structured to allow the group members to contribute individually. 

There is no strategic overview to battle. I want to be clear what I mean: Strategy is knowing which battles have to be won and which you can afford to lose. Tactics is the art of winning a battle. A good tactical leader is not necessarily a good strategic leader, and vise-versa. 

The Open Combat system is focused on the staging of "this battle", not on the relative value of "this battle" to the overall course of the war. Birthright had good, solid mechanics for wresting control of a province from one regent and handing it off to another. Strongholds & Dynasties leaves that in the area of "DM's discretion". 

This is why I mentioned Cry Havoc above; if war (as opposed to the occasional battle) is to be a major part of your campaign, you will likely find Cry Havoc more suited to your needs. 

As for insurrection: Popular rebellion and how to squash it is mentioned, but mostly as a nuisance and not as a major theme. Governments have Control and Corruption ratings (the base value for Control is not explained clearly enough for my taste, by the way; this is another area where a summary table would be highly useful). Your regime's overall popularity with various social classes and factions affects your Control in that, if you fail a check, you can lose a lot of control if a lot of people are unhappy with you. If the Control rating slips by too much, 1 settlement becomes unruly. You can send troops to quell this unrest (no rules for moving troops around from province to province, only rules for moving them on the battlefield). Long-term, you can avoid this by keeping the people happy with your government, although that is an expensive proposition. Other governments can try to provoke insurrection in your lands, as well. Most of the details are, again, left to DM's discretion.


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## jasamcarl (Dec 17, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> The former are treated nebulously. You can allow your troops to pillage once they are in enemy territory, for example, but there is no 'Declare War' action (although there are a host of others, including 'Declare a Trade Embargo', 'Threaten', and 'Propose an Alliance'). The book is focused, it seems to me, on how the characters influence the resolution of actions -- the special abilities of the Court members / Cabinet Ministers often provide bonuses to the dice rolls used in resolving actions (including combat). As such, the government is a collection of individuals, and the rules are structured to allow the group members to contribute individually.
> 
> There is no strategic overview to battle. I want to be clear what I mean: Strategy is knowing which battles have to be won and which you can afford to lose. Tactics is the art of winning a battle. A good tactical leader is not necessarily a good strategic leader, and vise-versa.
> 
> ...




Thanks..that was informitive. I think I'm leaning towards Fields of Blood at this point, because, given the hints in the preview pdfs, it looks like it atleast trys to make a comprehensive kingdom management system where these others don't. Rules for running NPC nations is especially appreciated.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

*The Joy of Conversion*

To get a better handle on how each of these books works, I decided to work up the same area in all four systems. 

The base information: 

The Barony of Kharith is a smallish Barony at the edges of the Kingdom of Aruthkar. It is more prosperous than one might normally expect such a small realm to be, because it is the gateway for trade with the barbarian lands on the other side of a mountain pass. Also, the Guild of Fire Mages chose what was then a small village to house their University. That village, Avanthus, has now become a Large City/Metropolis due to the two effects. The capitol, Kharith Town, grew up around a fortress that was originally placed by conquerors of the region. 

In the next few posts, I will describe the process of conversion to each system.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

*Conversion - Birthright*

Ok, this one was the easy one. I had long since converted my homebrew campaign to use the same basic rules as Birthright, so no real "conversion" was necessary. 

Attached you will find a PDF of the Birthright stats for the Barony of Kharith. 

Military forces are undefined because, although this location is in a troubled area, it is far from where the players were active, so I never got around to defining the military forces.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

*Conversion - A Magical Medieval Society*

This one was not too difficult, in some ways. The big challenge was that MMS:WE does not use any kind of "province" breakdown - it works in terms of square miles of area. So, I had to determine the square mile area of each province on the map. That was made easier by my using Visio to map in the first place. An add-in tool in Visio reports the area of shape (in the units of your choice). Since I had made each province its own shape, it was just a matter of taking the area of each shape in square inches and multiplying by 900 (square miles at 30 miles to the inch). That process took me a couple of days (290 provinces; good thing I had them all mapped beforehand {2 months for that}).

I decided that the best way to adjust the provinces for flavor was to vary the Population Density figure based on conditions and history. It took me about a day and a half to come up with the right mix of conditions and events, and another day to work up the numbers so that they felt right. If you are curious, you can find a 7-page PDF on how to do it on the Expeditious Retreat Community Support page, along with some great extras from other people. 

With those numbers already available, it took me about 5 minutes to fill in the Excel sheet for Kharith. However, information on the Kingdom level in AMMS:WE is very much based on averages, to it all calculates out for you. The result of that is that you may not have as much control over variations as you might like. 

Attached here is the Barony of Kharith in notation based on AMMS:WE.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

*Conversion - Empire*

This one was a harder. 

Armed with the population and area figures I already had, I started running them up at the Kingdom scale. That did not work. Kharith, a small Birthright realm, had 198 land units and 485 population units. For comparison, the Royal Demesne (where the King who is the Baron's liege rules) is about 7 times that size. Food and housing space did not seem to be a problem, but the numbers were awfully big for a small realm. So I did it over at Empire scale. That pushed it down to 10 land units and 48/49 population. Better, but that means that my world is still mostly off the scale of Empire. 

Attached are both versions of Kharith in Empire. #1 is at Kingdom scale, which is the one I assumed would be most representative of what I wanted; and #2 is at Empire scale.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

*Conversion - Strongholds & Dynasties*

This one is the most problematic. 

Much of the relevant information is scattered in the book. The number of resources units produced is on one page; the number of food units required per month is on another page; the number of resource types in a province is on a third page -- all in separate chapters, sometimes under not-so-obvious headings. 

For example, the food needs of the population are under the Population growth rules. The rates of production of raw materials is discussed 100 pages away, under the description of the Province Sheet. The limits are discussed under Resources, somewhere in between. It took me 2 days to find all the relevant pieces of information. The Index is not much help; it is not alphabetized correctly, and does not cross-reference dispersed topics. Some things are not mentioned at all. 

Once I got rolling, I tried to apply the directions for determining population from an existing map. I started with the big province, and the big city in it. The population figures came out larger (not too surprising), by about 30% (that was surprising). Also, the demographics would be much different; anywhere from 44% to 66% of the population would be urban dwellers (small town or larger). These numbers seem way off-base. 8% (as in MMS:WE) is more what I expected. 

Proceeding with the population figures I had from other sources, I still need 176 food units every month to feed the people in that province. I need more if I am going to be able to put some away for the winter months, say 220. I am allowed, based on population, to produce up to 59 types of resources, at 5 units each. Hmm.. but that includes stone, metal, inks, and a whole bunch of other good. There are not 60 types of things to produce; there are about 40 categories, of which at least half are "not food". 

Although the book says the DM will decide the boundaries of provinces and their areas, it seems obvious that there was a presumed size, and it was smaller than the areas I assigned. Adjusting this is tricky. If I increase the production rate, then the potential for trade to become a problem rears up. If I decrease the trade value of the units to compensate, then I have just made trade much less worthwhile. 

At any rate, here are 2 PDF's. The first is the Regime Sheet for the Barony, and the second is the Province sheet for 1 province.


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## Arnwyn (Dec 18, 2003)

Very nice stuff - very helpful.

Which system would you recommend if you started "from scratch" - in other words, the PCs build a tower in the wilderness and claim a few square miles of land - and then growth of that area becomes part of the continuing game?

The work you're doing above looks like you're trying to convert a pre-existing realm... something I have no interest in doing. I'm looking for something PC-centric, starting at square one and growing from there as the game continues, with their new realm being affected by their own actions (eg. We build a road (ie. infrastructure) to our tower. What happens then? We build a well nearby free to use. Does anyone settle? How many? Who? Blacksmith first? We find "resources" in the nearby hills. Now how many people show up? We offer protection in exchange for taxes. Etc etc).

(I disagree a bit about MMS:WE getting an A+ for small scale domain management. IIRC, that book is missing population growth rules, which is a cornerstone in continuous domain management.)

It looks like I'm leaning toward S&D (even though it looks like that book is poorly laid out)... but like others, I'm very curious to see Fields of Blood.

Edit: tried to clarify.


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Very nice stuff - very helpful.
> 
> Which system would you recommend if you started "from scratch" - in other words, the PCs build a tower in the wilderness and claim a few square miles of land - and then growth of that area becomes part of the continuing game?




I think I would recommend a combination of MMS:WE and S&D, depending. Birthright and Empire are a bit too high a level for that (though Empire scales down better). MMS:WE is geared around the acre-by-acre management of a manor, which is about as small a starting point as you can have. From there, it depends on how much fantasy you want. MMS:WE is very historically, grounded. What I have faulted it for in the past is being so strongly historical, it does not discuss anything varying from its model (humans in a temperate land region with a particular mix of terrains). S&D is more inclusive of fantasy variations, but its assumptions about population demographics seem way off. 

Realistically, for a band of settlers in the wilderness, MMS:WE and S&D is better than either alone. MMS:WE will give you a good base on what that first tiny settlement is like. Once they get rolling, and the population gets big enough (through recruitment, presumably) to support more sophistication, you can start mixing in more concepts from S&D. 

I don't think any of these systems really addresses the needs of a campaign where the PCs are leading 100 or so survivors fleeing the destruction of their homelands (ie., can't recruit more people, can't purchase additional supplies). 



			
				arnwyn said:
			
		

> The work you're doing above looks like you're trying to convert a pre-existing realm... something I have no interest in doing. I'm looking for something PC-centric, starting at square one and growing from there as the game continues, with their new realm being affected by their own actions (eg. We build a road (ie. infrastructure) to our tower. What happens then? We build a well nearby free to use. Does anyone settle? How many? Who? Blacksmith first? We find "resources" in the nearby hills. Now how many people show up? We offer protection in exchange for taxes. Etc etc).




MMS:WE discusses this a bit, as well as S&D. Waiting for spontaneous settlers is much less effective than advertising. MMS:WE mentions offering land to the workers who build your tower, for example. Depending on the attitude of the surrounding lands, you may be able to "buy" peasants from a local lord (essentially pay a tax or penalty to free them from obligations to their existing lord so they can move); others might take offense at your attempts to recruit settlers. In a medieval-style society, though, people do not just pick up and move whenever they feel like it (at least, the ones who are likely to be good citizens don't). S&D's population growth rules, by the way, address the normal birth rates but not much in the way of recruiting tenants (it "just happens").

I don't think you will find hard-and-fast rules for the scene you described, mostly because the circumstances of each game world will be very different. A lot of role-played diplomacy with the lords of any bordering lands would be needed, for example, to recruit people from them without having their armies steamroll over your fledgling tower. If there are no bordering lands, well, there are also no people to recruit, then. 



			
				arnwyn said:
			
		

> (I disagree a bit about MMS:WE getting an A+ for small scale domain management. IIRC, that book is missing population growth rules, which is a cornerstone in continuous domain management.)




Well, yes and no. It does mention the need to recruit people if there are no settlers already in the lands the PCs have obtained. 

In the PDF I mentioned, discussing how to vary the population in a province, I hit on this slightly. I recommend increasing the population density by 1 per generation (20 years for humans, 5 years for Orcs, etc.). That, of course, is appropriate for managing a kingdom of hundreds of manors, not a single manor.


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## Arnwyn (Dec 18, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> I think I would recommend a combination of MMS:WE and S&D, depending.



Cool - 'cause I own both of those. (I had kind of figured that those 2 books were going in the direction I needed - nice to see my hunch is [probably] right.)

Thanks again for your insight, Silveras!


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## Silveras (Dec 18, 2003)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Cool - 'cause I own both of those. (I had kind of figured that those 2 books were going in the direction I needed - nice to see my hunch is [probably] right.)
> 
> Thanks again for your insight, Silveras!




Glad someone finds the posts useful. 

One thing I am wresting with right now, as I mentioned in the post on Conversion - Stronghold is that the resource system is not as good as it looked at first. While there is impressive coverage of sample resources, and it handles increasing the value by working them, too much is ambiguous. 

Aside from the "DM decides what is available", the numbers of units don't make sense.

Resources are available in 5 quantities, ranging from scant (1 unit/province/month) to abundant (5 units/province/month). A province can work 3 resource types (grain, livestock, stone, corn, flax, etc.) plus 1 per 3,000 people. So far, that seems reasonable. Except... 

A province of 10 square miles with a population of 5 people produces 3 types of resources: 5 units of grain, 5 units of stone, and 5 of livestock. Cottage industry converts 1 unit of livestock to 1 unit of food. This province needs a miniscule fraction of 1 unit of food to feed the people for a month.

A province of 1,000 square miles with a population of 500 people produces 3 types of resources: 5 units of grain, 5 units of stone, and 5 units of livestock.  Cottage industry converts 1 unit of livestock to 1 unit of food. This province needs 1/2 of one unit of food to feed the people for one month. 

A province of 1,000 square miles with a population of 100,000 people produces 36 types of resources: 5 units of grain, 5 of stone, 5 of livestock, etc. Cottage industry converts 1 unit of livestock to 1 unit of food. Industrial buildings (10 mills, 8 tanneries) convert the 5 units of grain to 5 units of flour and the 4 remaining units of livestock to 4 units of leather. This province needs 100 units of food to feed the people for one month. 

There is no connection between the size of the province and the number of resource units you can harvest from it; nor is there any connection between the population and the number of resource units you can harvest. 

Also, aside from food, there is no information (at least that I have found) on internal consumption. Theoretically, the province if 5 people above could sell all 4 remaining units of livestock. They could then sell all 5 units of stone and 5 units of grain, too. This would not impact their standard of living at all. 

There is also no ability to decide which resources should be worked. With most other systems, some number of people need to work at a resource to produce it. MMS:WE notes that miners who are working the mine are not farming. Empire assigns population units to harvesting 1 type of resource at a time. (Birthright does not descend to this level of detail, representing all as money.)

My tentative solution, at the moment, is to say that the figures in Strongolds & Dynasties are per 100 square miles. So a province of 1000 square miles can produce up to 50 units of an abundant resource. It may seem like some resources should not "stretch" this way, especially inorganic ones like stone and metal. The DM needs to be careful when assigning the available resources. Some, like stone, may need to "drop" from abundant to "scant" to reflect the greater emphasis on area. 

As for population, the population numbers already allow you to work a number of types of resources. I am considering using MMS:WE's Population Density figures for typcal Medieval Kingdoms for the other part (30-160 people / square mile). For each 13 "points" of Population Density over 30, 10% of the total potential resources can be produced each month (for more granularity, for each 6.5 "points", 5% of the potential resources can be produced). With less than 30, NO resources can be produced - there are not enough workers together to work effectively.


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## Eosin the Red (Dec 19, 2003)

I would bet that you would be surprised how many of us are actually watching. Thank you.

Now I see that this thread made the front page.


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## Silveras (Dec 19, 2003)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> I would bet that you would be surprised how many of us are actually watching. Thank you.




You would be right, most likely  

My copy of Fields of Blood is on order. We'll see how that one compares to the others.


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## johnsemlak (Dec 19, 2003)

I want to chime in with those who think this is a very useful thread.  I'm looking forrward to your Fields of Blood analysis.

One thing, in your look at Birthright, have you taken into account their 3e conversion available at Birthright.net?


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## Silveras (Dec 19, 2003)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> I want to chime in with those who think this is a very useful thread.  I'm looking forrward to your Fields of Blood analysis.
> 
> One thing, in your look at Birthright, have you taken into account their 3e conversion available at Birthright.net?




I have downloaded the Birthright.net PDF but have not read it through. It did not have any real impact on what I was doing because I was developing my version at the same time, really. I was mostly done by the time the preliminary version became available. Also, unlike the work done at Birthright.net, I was trying NOT to do a straight conversion. I wanted generically-applicable rules suitable for my homebrew world, instead of Cerilia-flavored rules. 

For example, the Source potential of a province in my variation is not reduced in any way by the Province's development level. The nature-vs-development tradeoff/conflict in Birthright was good for Cerilia's flavor, but not the way I wanted to go. 

I added some rules on bloodlines to make families more clearly consistent. Rules on the heir, the head of the family, and what defines a noble family; rules on the long-term strengthening and weakening of bloodlines, and so on. I further tied the blood abilities to the Domains offered by the gods who were the sources of the bloodlines, with the intention that this would be easier for people to adapt to their own pantheons. 

I also wanted to replace the war cards mass combat system with something else. Anything else, really.  I wound up taking the same tack that Empire and Cry Havoc took: using a single soldier as the basis for the unit's stat block. Cry Havoc is *much* more thorough, although I like the unit advancement mechanisms I came up with. 

Finally, one of the good things about Birthright was that a character of just about any level could be an effective ruler. The problem was, lucky dice rolls meant more than any other factor (the bloodline strength). So I created a 5-level Regent PrC, whose abilities focused on Domain Actions, and which needed any Bloodline as a Pre-requisite. That leveled the playing field a lot, although I still gave stronger bloodlines more oomph (the reserve RP pool was dependent on Regent Level and Bloodline Strength {Tainted, Minor, etc.}, not Bloodline Score, for example). 

These were all areas that had not been clear enough in the original Birthright rules for me, or which had too much of a Cerilia-specific flavor. So I made changes for my own use, even before 3rd Edition was released. I adapted the changes once 3rd Edition came out. 

I ran out of steam on the project partway through the warfare rules.


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Dec 19, 2003)

Great thread, very informative! I wouldn't mind seeing someone with the Gamma World d20 book give a rundown of its' community rules, using Silveras's evaluation template.


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## Silveras (Dec 19, 2003)

*Strongholds & Dynasties follow-up*

Here is the a spreadsheet for handling the monthly production in the example province (Farmdale in the Barony of Kharith). 

Notes:

Wood is not on the list of resources. It is mentioned under the detailed comments on the types of resources, but it was omitted from the table. Thus, I missed it when assigning resources and products to Farmdale. Oops. 
The attached sheet is one I came up with based on three days of working with the information in the book. Neither of the two forms in the book tracks information to this level of detail. 
The sheet here shows the area and population, from which is derived the Population Density. I used that as a "throttle" on the production. A fully-populated province (Density 130+ on the MMS:WE scale) would be able to produce all potential resources. A province with less-than-optimal density would produce less, represented by a multiplier. Farmdale's 112 is 70% of 130, so they can produce a total of 70% of the potential units. They can still produce 100% of any chosen resource type (example: they can produce 79 of 79 cattle units), but they can overall only produce 2,700 units of 3,857 potential units.  
As I mentioned before, the production has to be scaled to represent the size of the province. The static numbers fail otherwise; you would be unable to support a province with more than about 20,000 people altogether. The area I equated for the base is 100 square miles. Farmdale is 15.69 times that area, so all potential resource production is multiplied by that factor. 
Because of the population, the province produces 62 resources. That made for a rich list of what gets generated. 
I added some internal consumption for most of the non-food resources, because the scaling that enabled the province to feed itself (although a bad year could stilll hurt them) also made them insanely wealthy with goods to sell.

Based on what I see here, the system looks unworkable. Tracking the food at this level of detail is great in the sense of knowing when famine is nigh, but it is abysmal drudgery to plot it all out month-by-month for each province. Because the food is tracked at such a level of detail, and the other resources use the same rules for production, they also need to be tracked to the same level of detail. A simpler system, perhaps tracking only Surplus/Deficit resources, would be much more practical.


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## Silveras (Dec 20, 2003)

*Construction Rules*

My previous posts have been confined to the Government rules in each product. Half of Strongholds & Dynasties, though, is construction rules. A Magical Medieval Society also has an appendix that addresses this topic. Empire and Birthright offer construction options, but on an abstract scale. 

To compare the systems, I decided to work up Kharith Keep. 

Birthright: Kharith Keep would be part of a Castle (3) in the province, under Birthright rules. Although the Birthright rules refer to fortification of a province as "building a castle", I tend to think that castle is an abstract representation of a number of border forts and other defensive positions in the province. 

Empire: Kharith Keep would be a Keep at Kingdom scale, I think, and nothing at Empire scale. I tend to think of Empire's Castles and Keeps as being symbolic of a network of defenses, much as Birthtight's castles are. 

S&D has an extensive system for building. It earns bonus points because the buildings integrate with the Open Mass Combat System II. Each of the "stock designs" presented includes the hardness, structure points, and stability modifiers for use with the OMCSII, making it relatively easy for tactical combats to include breaching the walls (kudos for the breach rules in OMCSII). Cry Havoc, by contrast, treats terrain as obstacles in tactical combat (and does not offer rules for breaching walls); siege combat appears only in the "quick resolution" systems. 

MMS:WE also has a good building system. It is shorter, and much more streamlined, than S&D's. I can't fault MMS:WE for not integrating with a Mass Combat system, as that was not its purpose. It *does* present hardness and hit points for the materials used in a building, however, so you can still make a hole in a wall using standard D&D rules. 

Both books cover the essential factors of building: labor, materials, convenience of getting the materials to the work site, monstrous and magical labor savings, etc. S&D's prices are a good bit higher than MMS:WE's, though. That may stem from MMS:WE's basis in historical reality and S&D's base assumptions of fantasy world costs. 

In the end, neither S&D nor MMS:WE is difficult to use. S&D has more page space devoted to construction, so is more thorough in presenting options and stock buildings, and presents some rules for having workers chop down trees themselves instead of bringing in cut wood, etc. However, a project under S&D's rules will have a much higher base cost than one built under MMS:WE, so which one you use may well come down to that as a determining factor. 

Attached are two PDFs, one each for MMS:WE and S&D, showing the calculated costs of building Kharith Keep. 

The parameters: 
Kharith Keep is a fortress with a 20 ft thick curtain wall, 150 ft x 60 ft., with 8 2-storey 20 ft diameter round towers, 2 20 ft tall gatehouses, 1 2-storey donjon/keep, 1 stable, and 3 levels of underground chambers and passages. 

The Keep was built with magical assistance limited to teleporting all needed workers and materials to and from the worksite as needed. Thus, neither sheet presents much added cost for carriage (conveyance of materials), and neither sheet makes use of magic to reduce costs otherwise.


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

*Fields of Blood*

Fields of Blood: The Book of War (Eden Studios)

Content: 
Construction system: B+
Domain management system (small scale) : A
Domain management system (medium scale): A-
Domain management system (large scale) : B+
City/Urban Center details: N/A
Trade system: C
Internal Realm Politics system: A-
Inter-Realm Politics system: A
Resource Management system: A
Mass Combat system: A
Troop raising: A+
Dynastic heritage system: N/A
D&D/Fantasy content: A
Arcane Magic Integration: A
Divine Magic Integration: A

Short & Sweet: Excellent rules set. Excellent balance of breadth (how many factors/options are presented) and depth (how much detail is involved). There are numerous "levers" presented with which to "tune" the rules to fit your liking and style. 

The Construction system is slightly more detailed than Empire, much less than S&D or MMS:WE. You have more options for WHAT to build than in Empire, but the process is abstract. The system focuses on the buildings/projects that impact defense and production; others (like basic residences) are not covered. 

Domain Management: The system is abstract enough to be workable with any of the scales mentioned above. The presumed mapping scale, however, is 12-mile-across hexes; as a result, existing campaigns mapped with larger areas in mind (like mine) will not convert as easily. Which brings up the reason I gave slightly lower grades as the size increaes: although there is a sidebar which discusses scaling the upkeep costs to control realm size, it does not do so with general scale in mind (as in, all realms are expected to be larger or smaller) as it does with the balance of power (more or less domains with X units of area). 

Cities are not detailed per se, although they can be improved, much like Empire, by the addition of improvements. 

Trade is handled as a bonus to production for each realm. Resource management is generic, so there are is no "I offer 4 units of grain for his 1 lumber" type of trading. There are options so that trading with a different type of culture offers a different level of benefit to each side, though, which is a good optional addition. 

Political operations are well-represented, better on the inter-domain than the intra-domain, though. Religion, Mages, and Rogues/Merchants are represented as semi-independent influences in the Domain. They are NOT available as separate domains (as in Birthright), but they offer benefits to the domain & settlement where they exist. However, it is possible for a ruler to use the Guilds (as they are called) of a foreign realm against it. In a similar vein, the ruler and the people share the resources of the domain; typically, the ruler spends both pools as s/he sees fit, but the DM can sometimes "commandeer" the people's share of resources and spend them as the people see fit, instead. There are also rules for regions to rebel, generally when treated poorly. 

Resource Management is abstracted, but well-represented. The mix of race and terrain has a big effect, maintenance costs are presented, the rulers have some tools to improve the gathering resources and cut the costs of maintaining structures. MMS:WE was based on a specific mix of terrains in historical earth, so never addressed fantasy races or alternative terrains. Empire did a comparable job to FoB in this area. Although S&D offered great detail in this area, I may have to downgrade my opinion of it (I think S&D's system crashes above a certain point; I have posted a challenge in the S&D discussion thread in hopes someone can show me I am wrong). Where FoB seems to be weak is the presumed scale. The resource production presumes the land is defined in 12-mile-hexes, and that a kingdom of more than 7 such hexes is "large". My small Barony has 31 such hexes (based on land area), and is facing an enormous cost to maintain the government. This is so fundamental, however, that I am not sure attempts to "tune" the system using the "levers" will work out (I may have to tinker with ALL of them). Arnwyn asked about a "starting from scratch" scenario -- it should be workable under these rules, but may need a little finessing to get that first "region" set up. 

The Mass Combat system is well-defined, with good comprehensive rules for converting D&D monsters to the system. Want to run a scenario of "The Coming of the Tarrasque" ? He's here, statted out, and ready to chew up your armies. Customizable units, elites, heroes, terrain effects, special formations, tactical maneuvers -- all are covered. Someone asked before about taking over a piece of land: there is a special section that discusses this specifically. Extensive coverage is given to the use of magic, including standard spells on the battlefield and new "Battle Magic" spells specifically. 

Caveat: I have not actually used the Mass Combat rules, yet; my comments are based on reading them. 

The raising and supporting of troops is covered in good detail. Maintenance and supply lines are represented. The systems are abstract, using the generic "resource points", but seem to fit well with everything else. 

All D&D fantasy content is represented; monster races, arcane and divine magic ... very comprehensive and well-integrated. This includes my pet peeve with some of the other books: arcane and divine magic. The "guilds" of priests and mages can use their facilities to cast realm-scale magics. The facilities come in various sizes, and need to be upgraded from the base to reach the higher-level effects. A point I am particularly pleased with is that Druids get a separate set of structures and spells, just as Druids do as a base class. The structure sizing requirements are tied in well to the growth of the population. 

A few general comments to round it out: There are liberal examples used in the book, and they almost all form a continuous mega-example. This was a weak point of S&D, I thought, in that there were too few examples, and each was isolated. It is much easier to see how it all fits together with integrated examples. There are numerous sidebars explaining how things work and how to adjust them; the recognition of the need for tinkering is a good thing. I also liked the occasional parenthetical comment; the humor worked for me. However, the editing could be better. There are a few too many sentences with extra words or missing words.


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

*Fields of Blood: Misc. Observations*

I wanted to single out for special mention a few elements I thought very important in Fields of Blood: The Government style, Culture type, and Race interactions. 

Most systems presume a single cultural type. All kingdoms are about the same style, and any differences are mostly cosmetic. Technology is about the same from realm to realm, until you deal with the massed hordes of Orcs (which usually do not have a proper "realm"). As I mentioned in a previous post, I was dissatisfied with the way Birthright handled nomadic tribes, and so wrote new rules for them when coming up with my modified version. It *did* offer a nation of Goblins as a real, functional realm, which was great to see; but the human realms had mostly the same effectiveness in government, etc. 

Fields of Blood recognizes these differences. The types of civilization offered (4) are varied enough to cover most standard fantasy roles, while still being small enough in number as to be easy to remember and understand easily. Likewise, there are a few labeled styles of government (5) that cover the styles most fantasy literature does. Each offers some variation from the base values in the rules; some beneficial, some not. In combination, they can model a good number of cultures, and help give a different feel to each. 

Finally, Fields of Blood also recommends you make a simple matrix for how the races of your world view each other, and apply benefits and penalties when working race-to-race. A generic table is provided, but customized is recommended.


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## Olive (Dec 26, 2003)

Thanks for that write up. It actually sounds very impressive.


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## mattcolville (Dec 26, 2003)

Wow. A very comprehensive review, very fair.

Originally, the scale of FoB was 1 hex = 24 miles, as that jives with the overland movement rules. It may be worth revisiting the decision to scale it down to 12 miles for any revision we do.

In general, I'm interested in hearing any comments or suggestions on how to improve the book.


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## mattcolville (Dec 26, 2003)

I want to mention a oversight in the FoB credits. My friend Jim Murphy was integral to the core design of the book. His experience, not only with wargaming, but fantasy wargaming over the last 30 years was invaluable and, if FoB has any qualities that set it above the rest of the pack, I suspect they're probably a result of Jim's insight.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Dec 26, 2003)

I tried to ask this question in its own thread, but didn't any replies - so now I'm asking this here:

I'm looking for domain rules for Fading Suns d20. Fading Suns is a science fiction universe, but most of humanity lives in a feudal society just like in the middle ages, so much of the rules in these books should be applicable. To my mind, the most useful rules should cover the following:

- I don't need any rules for integrating D&D magic into a kingdom, since Fading Suns doesn't have them (psychic and theurgic powers exist, but these are much weaker and have much less of an impact on society). However, some high tech survives in the Fading Suns era - from modern-day guns, radios, and computers all the way to starships. Most people will never see one of those, or even own them - but they are available to the ruling nobles, or at least the richer among them. So it should at least be possible to take technology into account with the domain rules...

- The nobles aren't the only power base out there - there is also the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun, the only legal religion in the Known Worlds. But this faith is splintered into multiple sects, and its bishops and priests also scheme for temporal power that can be every bit as vicious as the schemes of the nobles at times. So some sort of system that measures the worldly influence of religions and religious figures would be great (though not mystical power - though some priests can be powerful occultists, it is ultimately the faith of millions of believers that gives the Church its power, and not the arcane workings of some eccentric members...).

- And then there are the Guilds, mercantile organisations which each have monopolies over certain pieces of tech. They can get fabulously wealthy, and though they own next to no land and few people really like them, they can have tremendous influence by merely threatening a boycott against an offending noble or priest... Some sort of trade system, preferably one that can be used independently of existing power bases (such as noble fiefs) would be very useful...

So, which book would you recommend for this?


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Dec 26, 2003)

I am impressed with the thread, and thanks for all the analysis and commentary.  I would be curious if you could do a similar review of the domain management/mass combat rules that came with the OD&D boxes, in comparison to all the d20 systems out there.


Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> Originally, the scale of FoB was 1 hex = 24 miles, as that jives with the overland movement rules. It may be worth revisiting the decision to scale it down to 12 miles for any revision we do.




Interesting. Wasn't 24 miles the size used in some late 1st edition AD&D products, and some "Basic" D&D products ?

My main map is done at 1"=30 miles without a grid. The larger regional maps are at 1"=90 miles. I adopted the TSR standard of using a clear gridded sheet to overlay when I needed movement, but to avoid the "blocky" look of gridded maps as much as I could.


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## mattcolville (Dec 26, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Interesting. Wasn't 24 miles the size used in some late 1st edition AD&D products, and some "Basic" D&D products ?




Probably. When my friend Jim and I sat down in our first design session, and I said "How big should a hex be?" he said, without hesitating, "20 miles." His rationale: it's about a day's journey. When he said this, I whipped out the 3.0 PHB, and saw that they felt 24 miles was more correct.


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I tried to ask this question in its own thread, but didn't any replies - so now I'm asking this here:
> 
> I'm looking for domain rules for Fading Suns d20. Fading Suns is a science fiction universe, but most of humanity lives in a feudal society just like in the middle ages, so much of the rules in these books should be applicable. To my mind, the most useful rules should cover the following:
> 
> ...




The problem is that most of these works assume a level of technology that is roughly medieval, or at most renaissance. Variation is tech levels is not a key factor in most of these books, as they are written primarily for the default setting, where technological differences are slight. 

That being said, you may be best off ignoring technology anyway. If it is not widespread enough to change the lifestyles of the people, it is probably not common enough to impact the domain management rules. You may get some mileage from comparing the few pieces of very high tech with the treatment of magic in each work. 

Having said that, Birthright is the only one of these works that really presents Religion and Trade Guilds as you have described. Unfortunately, its whole system is balanced around the concept of Bloodline Strength, and much is tied to Cerilia specifically.

MMS:WE has a section on dividing the power in a city among various factions, which could serve as a model for dividing power on a larger scale. S&D also allows for factions as an influence in the domain. Neither of those, though, allows for them to be PC-controlled.


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> I am impressed with the thread, and thanks for all the analysis and commentary.  I would be curious if you could do a similar review of the domain management/mass combat rules that came with the OD&D boxes, in comparison to all the d20 systems out there.




Hmm... I do have copies of them around somewhere. It may be doable.


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## Silveras (Dec 26, 2003)

*Psionics*

Among these various systems, none addresses Psionics, even though Psionics is part of the Core rules (now). 

MMS:WE - I don't know if Psionics was part of the SRD at the time it was prepared. 
Empire - Psionics had been part of the SRD for a while when this was released. 
S&D - ditto
FoB - ditto

Although some allow more integration of magic (FoB, S&D) than others (MMS:WE, Empire) as political forces, none address Psionics. 

Personally, I am not offended; I don't like Psionics in my fantasy. However, it is worth noting, for those who do.


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

The more I think about it, the more I keep returning to MMS:WE as a good model for Fading Suns. Unlike the others, the systems in MMS:WE are not predicated on defined amount of food or land as the basis for all others. Instead, it is predicated on a ratio, Population Density. You may find my PDF on tinkering with this figure (available on the Expeditious Retreat Press web site in the Community Support section) helpful in adjusting to a larger-scale domain.


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## Grimn (Dec 27, 2003)

How difficult would it be to up the scale on Fields of Blood? As far as I can see, just up the scale to 1 hex = 48 or so. Then up the resource multiplier appropriately. Is there something I'm missing?


-Nathan


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

Grimn said:
			
		

> How difficult would it be to up the scale on Fields of Blood? As far as I can see, just up the scale to 1 hex = 48 or so. Then up the resource multiplier appropriately. Is there something I'm missing?
> 
> 
> -Nathan




The Upkeep costs would have to be scaled as well, and the unit movement. I have considered that, and tried it. The numbers become... impressive. So much so that I also considered just multiplying by the ratio of the area of my provinces to a standard 12-mile-hex's area (125.28 miles). Which works, in some ways.


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## Eosin the Red (Dec 27, 2003)

Silveras,

I had written off FoB - since I mainly play homebrew and Birthright and had already picked up Cry Havok and MMS. I passed on both Empire and the Mongoose one at the store since on a SINGLE GLANCE they seemed not to offer any additional to the stable I already own. Reading your review, it became apparent that FoB was the book I was looking for....Thanks for taking the time and for saving me some money.

I might post my own review in a few days.


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> The Upkeep costs would have to be scaled as well, and the unit movement. I have considered that, and tried it. The numbers become... impressive. So much so that I also considered just multiplying by the ratio of the area of my provinces to a standard 12-mile-hex's area (125.28 miles). Which works, in some ways.




Ok, this is bad. I am now replying to my own posts. Isn't that one of the tests for insanity ?

Anyway ... one of the things about MMS:WE that I really like is the use of Population Density (PD). Because it is a ratio instead of a fixed number, it is independent of any mapping style. Calculating and adjusting the PD is easy: population in persons divided by area in miles. Any mapping system will work nicely. When I started looking at how to adapt MMS:WE for my converted Birthright rules, I used the PD to represent the degree of province development. Basically, starting with a PD of 30 = Province 0, every +13 PD = +1 level of province. 

PD*area = Population
Population x tax rate = Income

True, this does not reflect the individual types of resources as the Manor generation system in MMS:WE does. However, since in Birthright everything is just Gold in the end, it worked pretty well. I remain convinced that a ratio like PD is the key to having a system that works with any style of map.


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> Silveras,
> 
> I had written off FoB - since I mainly play homebrew and Birthright and had already picked up Cry Havok and MMS. I passed on both Empire and the Mongoose one at the store since on a SINGLE GLANCE they seemed not to offer any additional to the stable I already own. Reading your review, it became apparent that FoB was the book I was looking for....Thanks for taking the time and for saving me some money.
> 
> I might post my own review in a few days.




You're quite welcome. As always, I am pleased to know people find the thread useful. 

As good as Cry Havoc is, I think to really do a campaign with war as the focus, you need the unit costs to be part of the overall resource management system. Books like FoB, Empire, and S&D, which offer integrated approaches, are superior in that way, even if the actual Mass Combat system winds up being less detailed.


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## johnsemlak (Dec 27, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> You're quite welcome. As always, I am pleased to know people find the thread useful.
> 
> As good as Cry Havoc is, I think to really do a campaign with war as the focus, you need the unit costs to be part of the overall resource management system. Books like FoB, Empire, and S&D, which offer integrated approaches, are superior in that way, even if the actual Mass Combat system winds up being less detailed.



 Silveras

Would you be willing/able to post a similar-format review of Cry Havoc and the Miniature Handbook in regards to mass-combat?


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## johnsemlak (Dec 27, 2003)

One question, and I apologize if it's been stated above.

Do any of these systems provide a system by which PCs can gain experience from running dominions, or for that matter, taking part in mass combat?


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## JoeGKushner (Dec 27, 2003)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> One question, and I apologize if it's been stated above.
> 
> Do any of these systems provide a system by which PCs can gain experience from running dominions, or for that matter, taking part in mass combat?




For Cry Havok, I don't recall seeing one but it's been a few months since I last used it. Haven't finished Fields of Blood yet either so I'm curious to the answer here.

In the last few Cry Havok games, I just divided the experience worth of the enemies and gave it to the units as you would normally. Skeletons vs. human warriors with a few clerics on their side do not make a pretty picture as far as the skeletons were concerned.


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> Silveras
> 
> Would you be willing/able to post a similar-format review of Cry Havoc and the Miniature Handbook in regards to mass-combat?




Hmmm... good question.
A more focused comparison of the mass-combat rules would be good, but I am not sure I am the one to do it. I have been focusing, in my campaign, on domain management for a long time. I will see what I can do, but if someone with more experience using mass combat rules wants to start a similar thread on those systems, I'd be pleased.


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## Silveras (Dec 27, 2003)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> One question, and I apologize if it's been stated above.
> 
> Do any of these systems provide a system by which PCs can gain experience from running dominions, or for that matter, taking part in mass combat?




Strongholds & Dynasties has a small section in the Mass Combat chapter. In playtest, they found that the units usually had a lot of "turnover" (new men replacing killed) so the units tended to stay more-or-less the same. It does offer non-XP-based advancement rules, based on the assumption that the unit is drilling or otherwise practicing and "learning" constantly; so a unit advances 1 level after 6 months per level it has, up to a maximum of 4th level. 

After pointing out that it is very difficult to quantify the challenges of a Mass-Combat campaign beforehand to give guidance, S&D goes on to say PCs can be given experience for creatures they personally defeat, and may receive Story Awards for winning important battles or the war in general. 

Empire and FoB have nothing that I recall seeing, or can find quickly. FoB units are produced at a static level; presumably, advancing individuals might leave and go to a new unit, or their extra ability compensates for a "new recruit" who is not yet up to par. FoB does offer an "Improve Unit" action, but it is not XP based. Empire offers a similar option for units under its system. 

The impression I get is that the XP from leading a realm is so small compared to that from adventuring that it will "get lost in the mix". Also, it appears that most such opportunities are expected to become adventures, and be handled that way. Sending a group of emissaries to a neighboring domain for trade negotiations ? There's an adventure hook, and the trip with its assorted hazards will provide XP for those who go.


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## jeffh (Dec 27, 2003)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> Silveras,
> 
> I had written off FoB - since I mainly play homebrew and Birthright and had already picked up Cry Havok and MMS. I passed on both Empire and the Mongoose one at the store since on a SINGLE GLANCE they seemed not to offer any additional to the stable I already own. Reading your review, it became apparent that FoB was the book I was looking for....Thanks for taking the time and for saving me some money.




I'd been quietly lurking on this thread (appreciating Silveras' efforts, certainly, but not planning on saying anything) when I saw this post.  I'm in EXACTLY the same boat, and couldn't have said it better myself.

So, "ditto" to everything Eosin said, and I'll add my voice to the chorus of those who appreciate Silveras' hard work.

(Edit - cut a few words that weren't really relevant)


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## jeffh (Dec 27, 2003)

*Oh, and...*

Silveras must feel like a chicken with its head cut off already, but what's Dynasties & Demagogues like?  Does it cover the same ground as the works reviewed here, and if so, how does it compare?


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## Silveras (Dec 28, 2003)

jeffh said:
			
		

> Silveras must feel like a chicken with its head cut off already, but what's Dynasties & Demagogues like?  Does it cover the same ground as the works reviewed here, and if so, how does it compare?




I have not seen it myself. From comments here, I am under the impression that Dynasties & Demagogues covers different (but complementary) ground. The post I am thinking of made it sound like it would be a good companion book for Strongholds & Dynasties (IIRC).


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## Silveras (Dec 28, 2003)

*D&D Rules Cyclopedia*

Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia - Dominions and War Machine (TSR)

Overall Impression: Very Good

Content: 
Construction system: B
Domain management system (small scale) : B
Domain management system (medium scale): B (C if using Mystara/Known World)
Domain management system (large scale) : C (D if using Mystara/Known World)
City/Urban Center details: F
Trade system: F (A if using the content of GAZ 9 and GAZ 11)
Internal Realm Politics system: F
Inter-Realm Politics system: C
Resource Management system: D
Mass Combat system: B 
Troop raising: C
Dynastic heritage system: N/A
D&D/Fantasy content: A
Arcane Magic Integration: C (B)
Divine Magic Integration: C (B)

The Construction system is abstract and simplified, but covers the basics. A collection of modular pieces are available, which the player uses to define the stronghold s/he wishes to build. The overall cost of the pieces defines how long is required. The system presumes building in a newly-cleared land, so the DM must adjudicate any discounts to the cost for discount circumstances. Some guidance is given on this point. The construction rules are integrated into the mass combat rules. 

The Domain Management rules work on the basis of 24-mile hexes for Dominions (1 Barony). The system handles starting from 1 8-mile-hex of wilderness area to be made safe by the PC's presence, which is the standard situation. However, it also presumes that the wilderness area is located in or at least near a source of trained laborers and materials -- everything is based on the use of gold pieces. 

The resource management system is simplified as well, condensing to a bonus to the base tax rate. Each Dominion (or, optionally, each hex within a Dominion) has a small number of resources that are generalized to basic categories. These resources define the bonuses to the tax rate, and ultimately resolve back to money. 

The Dominion's population is measured in peasant families, which have a natural growth rate. Growth and loss are checked for on a monthly basis, which may become tedious in a long-running campaign. 

Much like Strongholds & Dynasties, the system presented is very good for detailing the Dominions of a handful of PCs. Larger NPC Dominions can become more tedious to define and track. 

There is no internal realm politics, really. Each main class is presumed to be able to establish its own Barony, so there is almost no provision for any other power center internal to the Dominion (tithing to a Church is about all there is). 

Politics between realms is not codified for the most part. When establishing a new Dominion, there are some rules for how neighboring Dominions will react, but not much else. All diplomacy is pretty much up to the DM to handle. Because most of Mystara is mapped into one or another Greater Dominion, this area suffers more in that setting (which is why I reduced the rating -- there will be more opportunities for contact than in most homebrew campaigns, with little guidance on how to proceed). 

One really good element in this system, which Birthright and MMS:WE also touch on, is vassalage. Owing fealty to a higher authority, and more specifically collecting from a lower authority, is represented in these rules. 

The Mass Combat system is easy to use, but it is also abstract. It is not miniatures-oriented, nor is it miniatures-friendly. It is closer to a wargame level, taking place on the 24-mile campaign hexes only. It is more of what I consider a strategic level than a tactical one. The ability to raise and maintain troops is all based on the cash available. Although the statistics of a unit can be improved by training, there is not much information on the costs of providing ongoing training to those units. This probably stems from the origin of the Mass Combat Rules -- they came from an adventure module (X10: Red Arrow, Black Shield) which provided counters and army statistics for all the forces in the Known World setting. The system overall factors in terrain and most other expected elements, but in an abstract way that will not be useful to people who want to "attack from hill A to flank the archers on hill B". 

There is no section of Trade rules in the book. However, the supplements on the Minrothad Guilds (GAZ 9) and the Republic of Darokin (GAZ 11) presented rules for sea-based and land-based merchants (respectively). These also offered special "extra classes" that may have been the inspiration for the Prestige Classes in D20. 

Lastly, I gave average "grades" for the magic integration because the item creation system is very similar to standard D20 (invest XP and GP to make anything). There is no "institutional" magic use (no realm magic), but a lot of the areas in Mystara are very advanced in magic use (so, the parenthetical higher grades appy when using the Mystara setting). 

Short & Sweet: For a short system (9 pages out of the book), the Dominion and Strongholds systems in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia are very strong. They lack detail in a lot of areas (resources are very lightly handled, the construction system is very lightweight), but many key elements are covered better than more comprehensive books (experience for rulership, natural population growth). The biggest drawbacks to using these systems in a d20 game are: 1) it is out of print, and 2) the "basic" D&D game has some different core elements (Dwarf and Elf are combined race-classes, power levels were different {36th level in basic D&D is/was similar to 20th level in AD&D and D20).


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## johnsemlak (Dec 28, 2003)

I don't have it in front of me, Dynasties and Demigogues is much more of a guide to role-playing in a political envirnment, as far as I remember.

It's got lots of PC goodies like feats, spells, prestige classes, etc for players in a politcal envirnment.  It has rules on political manoevers, and lots of advice for DMs and players on playing in a politcal campaign.   It doesn't cover such campaign topics like Mass battles, Running Dominions (it does have info on different forms of governemtn and how they affect the campaign), or building strongholds.

It is however, a very good book.


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## Byrons_Ghost (Dec 28, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> I have not seen it myself. From comments here, I am under the impression that Dynasties & Demagogues covers different (but complementary) ground. The post I am thinking of made it sound like it would be a good companion book for Strongholds & Dynasties (IIRC).




I've got Dynasties. It's more a guide book for running politically-themed campaigns; it doesn't really have much in the way of mass combat or political systems rules. What your typical "Quintissential X" book is to class X, Dynasties is to politics. There's the usual feats, prestige classes, spells, and other crunch material. One nice thing is that the allow for more social mechanics, uses of charisma-based skills, etc. Good for those who want a political backdrop to adventures, but don't want PCs running kingdoms or the like.

For the GM, there's a short mystery adventure, which is fairly good for introducing new PCs to a politically-oriented campaign. Groups used to this sort of thing will find it rather simple, though. There's also systems for political campaigning and debating, but they seemed to be geared more toward a Grecian or Roman type of government. It could probably be adapted for other types of councils or quasi-democratic fantasy governments. It would probably work quite well as an internal political system for guilds, secret societies, etc.

Any other questions, feel free to ask. I loved the Companion domain rules; one of my longest-running PCs had a full-fledged dominion. From what I've read on this thread, Fields of Blood sounds like the book I'll be picking up if I ever want to introduce this to my games.

Speaking of the basic D&D world, those with Gazetters for Darokin, Glantri, or the like will find the council political rules perfect for those types of settings.

_Edit:_ Whoops, beaten to the punch!


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Dec 28, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia - Dominions and War Machine (TSR)
> 
> Overall Impression: Very Good




Thanks Silveras!  You are doing yeoman's duty on these reviews and commentary.  Your ratings are pretty much what my memory of it was.  After years and years playing every iteration of D&D it is remarkable how much "_modestly-good-enough-the-first-time_" the rules were in the OD&D.

As far as being out-of-print.  True, as far as dead-tree editions.  SVGames is selling the scanned .pdf version for less than $5.00.  HERE


Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## Silveras (Dec 28, 2003)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> Thanks Silveras!  You are doing yeoman's duty on these reviews and commentary.  Your ratings are pretty much what my memory of it was.  After years and years playing every iteration of D&D it is remarkable how much "_modestly-good-enough-the-first-time_" the rules were in the OD&D.
> 
> As far as being out-of-print.  True, as far as dead-tree editions.  SVGames is selling the scanned .pdf version for less than $5.00.  HERE
> 
> ...




Yes, I was thinking the ESD might be available. There is still nothing quite like a solid, physical book in your hands, though. 

The "basic" D&D rules were full of good systems and innovative ideas. Many were borrowed for 3E (3E is more a merging of AD&D and "B"D&D than anything else). One can do a lot worse than looking to "basic" D&D for new material. The Gazetteers series, especially, offered a lot of new ideas; often, there was something new in each one.


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## Silveras (Dec 28, 2003)

*Dynasties & Demagogues*

Thanks for chiming in, guys. It sounds like my previous impression was about right, then.


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## johnsemlak (Dec 28, 2003)

Thanks from me also for rating the Rules Cyclopedia.  That's a very nice analysis, and really helps put it in perspective for someone who is considering using it in 3e.



> Politics between realms is not codified for the most part. When establishing a new Dominion, there are some rules for how neighboring Dominions will react, but not much else. All diplomacy is pretty much up to the DM to handle. Because most of Mystara is mapped into one or another Greater Dominion, this area suffers more in that setting (which is why I reduced the rating -- there will be more opportunities for contact than in most homebrew campaigns, with little guidance on how to proceed).



  Perhaps I don't quite understand this criticism.  I see your point about establishing a barony, in say, Karameikos.  However, I think the creators believed players would establish dominions in the largely wilderness (yet claimed by Thyatis) area of Norwold.  In this case wouldn't that point be less significant?


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## Silveras (Dec 28, 2003)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> Thanks from me also for rating the Rules Cyclopedia.  That's a very nice analysis, and really helps put it in perspective for someone who is considering using it in 3e.
> 
> Perhaps I don't quite understand this criticism.  I see your point about establishing a barony, in say, Karameikos.  However, I think the creators believed players would establish dominions in the largely wilderness (yet claimed by Thyatis) area of Norwold.  In this case wouldn't that point be less significant?




Yes, it would. Norwold is not covered much in the Rules Cyclopedia, nor in the Gazetteers (IIRC). It mostly appears in some of the Master-level adventures (again, IIRC). 

What I did not make clear is that the only really defined realm interactions are vassalage (which is light, consisting of receiving payments from your vassals and making payments to your liege) and the possibility of a reaction to the establishment of a new Dominion. In the established areas of Karameikos, etc., the latter is a big issue which has little guidance beyond the initial determination of how offended the neighbors are; in Norwold, it would be less of an issue. 

The results of any reaction are left to the DM to play, much as the reaction of a standard NPC encountered in a tavern or bar would be. 

The mixed blessing of the D&D rules is their simplicity. The designers worked hard to keep it simple. The end result is that the systems are relatively easy to put into use, but they also do not cover the range of options of more sophisticated systems. The relative worth, then, depends on how significant a part of the campaign such systems are to be. A campaign focused on lots of realm interactions, for example, might find the Rules Cyclopedia frustrating. Another campaign, where the ruling of a Dominion is just another detail of the character's background, will likely find the same rules "just right". 

On the topic of XP for rulership, it is useful to remember that characters in "basic" D&D and AD&D needed much more XP to advance a level than in 3E. The dominion system gave hundreds of thousands of XP per month to the ruler; enough to gain a level in a year or so.


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## Sulimo (Dec 29, 2003)

Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done. 

Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use 

One thing I am wondering. The spreadsheets you used to create the examples. Have you put them online anywhere?


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## Silveras (Dec 29, 2003)

Sulimo said:
			
		

> Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done.
> 
> Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use
> 
> One thing I am wondering. The spreadsheets you used to create the examples. Have you put them online anywhere?




The spreadsheets I used for the MMS:WE example are posted on the Expeditious Retreat web site, on the Community Support page. There are several other very good pieces there by others, as well.

The page from Empire was taken from a template I put together, but is not posted anywhere. The ones I used for the Strongholds & Dynasties examples were "scratch sheets" that I kept making big changes to. Since the resource management system appears to "break" (actually, "crash into flaming ruins" is closer to the truth) with good-sized cities, I never finished. Mongoose put PDF versions of the sheets in the book on their site for download, though. 

As for not being able to afford them ... the best investment for raidable resources has to be the Dragon magazine archive, if you can still find it in stores. The search feature is adequate, but you are better off opening the PDF in Acrobat Reader after you find the issue you want. 

For example, in Dragon #94, there is the article "An army travels on its stomach: Large-scale logistics in a fantasy world" by Katherine Kerr. This article talks about how much food is available in a 30 mile hex, and how fast an army can move. Very useful information for domain management, and it answers a question asked in a different thread (How much grain can you grow in X area ?). 

In Dragon #89, there is the article "Survival is a group effort: The effects of population growth and regrowth" by Stephen Inniss. This one talks about how to determine the natural population birth rate for fantasy races (a question asked on THIS thread). 

While I did not do the lookup, Len Lakofka (creator and player of Leomund) wrote a very good article on playing "apprentice level" characters. It was for 1st Edition AD&D, but the ideas there are not too hard to adapt to 3rd edition. I seem to recall seeing a thread on that topic, recently. Also, he presented the Cloistered Cleric, an NPC class for a more-spells-less-fighting medieval monk-type cleric. 

Yes, I am THAT old. I remember reading these when they were new.


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## Argus Decimus Mokira (Dec 29, 2003)

Silveras said:
			
		

> I have downloaded the Birthright.net PDF but have not read it through. It did not have any real impact on what I was doing because I was developing my version at the same time, really.
> 
> ...
> 
> I ran out of steam on the project partway through the warfare rules.




Any chance you can post some of this (most excellent sounding) conversion work over on the House Rules forum?  I'd really like to take a look at it!

Thanks
Matt


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## Silveras (Dec 30, 2003)

Argus Decimus Mokira said:
			
		

> Any chance you can post some of this (most excellent sounding) conversion work over on the House Rules forum?  I'd really like to take a look at it!
> 
> Thanks
> Matt




Highly unlikely, as much of the core is lifted straight from Birthright. Why mess with the parts that worked (for me) ?


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## Silveras (Dec 30, 2003)

*Kharith - Fields of Blood*

Here, for comparison, is the Province of Farmdale statted out in terms of Fields of Blood. It is one of three Provinces that make up the Barony of Kharith. Province, in this sense, is much larger than in Fields of Blood. Each 'Hex' in this description of Farmdale is considered a Province under Fields of Blood. 

Included in this version are some military units, as well. 

I tried to attach a Zip file of a map, but it is too big. I will see what I can do about adding a map at some point.

[Edit: Deleted the PDF, as it came out corrupted. A replacement is posted here ]


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## cignus_pfaccari (Dec 30, 2003)

Sulimo said:
			
		

> Congrats Silveras. What an excellent job you've done.
> 
> Ever since Birthright I've wanted a set of rules for small scale domain management, and finally there's a bunch of books on the subject. Too bad I can't afford them all to stitch together for my own use




I think Fields of Blood could work quite nicely with Birthright, using about 9-16 FoB provinces per Birthright province (which is normally 30-50 miles on a side); when I noticed the disparaty, I giggled at the extra granularity.  Of course, that means that you'll have massive, massive amounts of math to do to run a realm like, say, Roesone or Halskapa...but think of all the extra nobles and such the PCs will have to keep happy and/or cowed (at a baron/FoB province, a count/Birthright province, etc.).

Brad


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## Silveras (Dec 30, 2003)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> I think Fields of Blood could work quite nicely with Birthright, using about 9-16 FoB provinces per Birthright province (which is normally 30-50 miles on a side); when I noticed the disparaty, I giggled at the extra granularity.  Of course, that means that you'll have massive, massive amounts of math to do to run a realm like, say, Roesone or Halskapa...but think of all the extra nobles and such the PCs will have to keep happy and/or cowed (at a baron/FoB province, a count/Birthright province, etc.).
> 
> Brad




That's pretty much where I am at right now. The Barony of Kharith in my world is currently composed of 3 Birthright-scale provinces, one of which maps to about 11 hexes in Fields of Blood. That province, Farmdale, is described in the PDF I posted just a short time ago. 

The extra granularity is not so bad in one sense, as it allows me to better depict the mix of terrains inside the "Plains" province. Also, not every hex will be occupied, and not every hex will have a big city in it. One reason I am nit-picky about 30 mile hexes vs. 12-mile hexes is because the realist in me wants the area to be able to support its cities/towns; 30 mile hexes keep the urban centers far enough apart for this to work; 12 mile hexes are more likely to see this be a problem. 

Of course, not everyone worries about these things, and it is not absolutely necessary in the long run. 

My present plan is to consider two of the three "Regions" to be vassals to the other, and detail them (and set their maintenance) under the FoB rules that way. The nice thing about a Feudal system is that it is not hard to slip in another "layer" of obligation.


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## Eosin the Red (Dec 31, 2003)

I have an even bigger area to work through but figured that each of them could be done in a Duchy/Barony fashion and then added all up with additional taxes going to the King.

I am still only about 1/2 way through FoB.


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## Silveras (Dec 31, 2003)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> I have an even bigger area to work through but figured that each of them could be done in a Duchy/Barony fashion and then added all up with additional taxes going to the King.
> 
> I am still only about 1/2 way through FoB.




Oh, Kharith is the smallest of the subject realms that make up the Kingdom of Aruthkar. I just use it here to test the systems. 

Most average about 6-7 BR-size provinces to Kharith's 3, and there are 24 of them. Then there are the Orc-infested mountains to the east (a good 10 BR provinces worth), the forested hills to the north where the Goblins live (15-20 more BR provinces), the Barbarian humans further west (200+ more BR-size provinces), the Dark Ages region on the other side of the Goblins to the north (150 or so provinces), the Byzantine-like state north of that (250 more), the Spain-like Empire east of the Orcs (500+ more), the Hobgoblin empire (Meso-American in flavor) beyond that (500+ more), the Arabian-style region (300+).

:: sigh :: I had hoped to get around to detailing the India-based, Asia-based, and Africa-based continents of my world in my lifetime. 

In reality, I will probably not bother detailing any of them until I know I am going to need them.


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## mattcolville (Dec 31, 2003)

I _really_ feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.

This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.


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## Eosin the Red (Dec 31, 2003)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> I _really_ feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.
> 
> This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.





That really would simplify things. I think 1 hex = 24 miles is just about perfect.


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## Silveras (Jan 1, 2004)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> I _really_ feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.
> 
> This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.




I will be very curious to hear what you come up with.


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## Sulimo (Jan 1, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Fields of Blood: The Book of War (Eden Studios)
> 
> Political operations are well-represented, better on the inter-domain than the intra-domain, though. Religion, Mages, and Rogues/Merchants are represented as semi-independent influences in the Domain. They are NOT available as separate domains (as in Birthright), but they offer benefits to the domain & settlement where they exist. However, it is possible for a ruler to use the Guilds (as they are called) of a foreign realm against it.




Given that, would it be terribly hard to add something so it you could run games where PC's are guildmasters and the like and not 'rulers'?


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## Vrylakos (Jan 2, 2004)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> I _really_ feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.
> 
> This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.



Please do!
I am really liking FoB as I read it, and would love any web enhancements, etc. that you could come up with. Bigger hexes, extra troops, etc. Heck, I've got friends who bought Redhurst based on the web support, so perhaps something similar could occur with FoB.

In fact, I'd say that's the way to make it the de facto Realms/War d20 book. 

Empire, Strongholds, etc. seem to have been Fire and Forget type supplements. If Eden and yourself exert a bit of online effort and supported Fields of Blood beyond print and errata, it would be a step towards longer shelf life and bigger product utility. At least, I hope so.

Heck, after this next freelance deadline, maybe I could assemble some human troops for people to use.

Vrylakos


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## jeffh (Jan 2, 2004)

Nice work.

A couple minor BD&D/Mystara corrections.  The War Machine mass combat system first came from the Companion rules set, which predates X10.  (I believe X10's rules are different, but I haven't looked it over in detail though I do have the ESD of it.)  And Norwald was featured in the Companion-level modules, not the Master-level ones, which were more about plane-hopping and stopping the machinations of evil Immortals.

Neither of these is a big deal and other than these two little nits, your comments about the Rules Cyclopedia system are right on the money.  It's nice to have comparisons with two systems I am familiar with (Birthright and now BD&D) in front of me so that I can get a better idea of the relative merits of the books you're mainly talking about.


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## Silveras (Jan 2, 2004)

Sulimo said:
			
		

> Given that, would it be terribly hard to add something so it you could run games where PC's are guildmasters and the like and not 'rulers'?




Some parts would require more work than others. It would not be hard to create a specific character (PC or NPC) to be the head of one of these organizations. It would also be easy to say that different Guilds of the same type within a single Realm are all "local chapters" of one big organization. 

The problems would be: 
1) Giving the Guilds a share of the resources. The core system allows the ruler to collect a portion of the total Production as taxes, and the rest is left for the population center to pay its upkeep (ie, feed itself, keep improvements working, etc.). Taking resources out of the pool will make it much more likely that the settlement will have difficulty "paying the bills". 

2) Defining new actions for Independent guilds to take. The existing structure makes the Guilds an object, a tool that provides services when the regional ruler needs them to (and pays for it). 

3) Enhancing the diplomatic model to allow for more interactivity. 

4) Enhancing competition. The existing setup allows only 1 of each type of Guild in a settlement. Competing organization domains was one of the most interesting aspects of Birthright, but would further complicate the resource issue (#1 on this list).


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## Silveras (Jan 2, 2004)

jeffh said:
			
		

> Nice work.
> 
> A couple minor BD&D/Mystara corrections.  The War Machine mass combat system first came from the Companion rules set, which predates X10.  (I believe X10's rules are different, but I haven't looked it over in detail though I do have the ESD of it.)  And Norwald was featured in the Companion-level modules, not the Master-level ones, which were more about plane-hopping and stopping the machinations of evil Immortals.
> 
> Neither of these is a big deal and other than these two little nits, your comments about the Rules Cyclopedia system are right on the money.  It's nice to have comparisons with two systems I am familiar with (Birthright and now BD&D) in front of me so that I can get a better idea of the relative merits of the books you're mainly talking about.




Yeah, that's what I get for going on my memory of the first appearances and not checking the references. 

I'm glad it helps. It *is* hard to do comparisons without familiar baselines to work with.


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## johnsemlak (Jan 2, 2004)

I believe you're right, X10 did state it could be used with the AD&D Battle system rules on the cover, IIRC.

However, X10 was compatible with the War Machine as well, as I recall.  I remember playing it and using it's counters.  I believe the counters had the unit's battle rating (as per the War Machine) printed on it.  It was a very easy to use system--I loved it.


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## Assenpfeffer (Jan 4, 2004)

Fields of Blood is a book I've been looking foreward to for a good long time, and I'm certainly picking it up as soon as I see a copy.  (I spent most of the afternoon driving around Cleveland looking for one, in fact.)  The book sounds like it has a lot of what I'm looking for.

OTOH, this 12-mile hex = 1 province is sounding unweildy to me.  While I support the use of hexes as opposed to arbitarily-bordered "provinces", doing some elementary fiddling reveals that Northern Ireland runs to about 25 of these hexes.  Something like medieval France (which is the model for realms in my homebrew setting,) would run to thousands of hexes.  If, in FoB, anything bigger than 7 hexes is a "large" realm... well, that's just goofy, and totally unworkable.

The question then becomes "how do you fix it?"  Because in just about every other respect, FoB is sounding like _exactly_ the book I need.

Can the numbers just be scaled up?  If I make the hexes, say, 72 miles across, what other game factors will need to be changed, and can they be adjusted by the same ratio?

BTW, _great_ job, Silveras... this thread has helped me a ton.


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> OTOH, this 12-mile hex = 1 province is sounding unweildy to me.  While I support the use of hexes as opposed to arbitarily-bordered "provinces", doing some elementary fiddling reveals that Northern Ireland runs to about 25 of these hexes.  Something like medieval France (which is the model for realms in my homebrew setting,) would run to thousands of hexes.  If, in FoB, anything bigger than 7 hexes is a "large" realm... well, that's just goofy, and totally unworkable.




The book has a sidebar talking about how to adjust the maintenance costs, which are tied to the number of hexes in the realm. 7 hexes is where the maintenance costs begin to mount up higher, marking the point of "large". You can change the table to make maintenance of realms with more hexes less expensive, and thus make larger realms "normal" for your world. The sidebar covers it pretty well. 

I am in the same boat; most of the 250 areas I consider single provinces would have between 8 and 15 hexes in them at 12 miles across the hex. Sub-infeudation lets me fix this for small realms, but I am not interested in re-writing all 250 just to make sure the numbers stay in balance. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> The question then becomes "how do you fix it?"  Because in just about every other respect, FoB is sounding like _exactly_ the book I need.
> 
> Can the numbers just be scaled up?  If I make the hexes, say, 72 miles across, what other game factors will need to be changed, and can they be adjusted by the same ratio?




Well, the production numbers may not need to be changed at all. Since they are already abstract numbers that do not tie back to "X gp" or "X tons of iron", you could just keep them the same ... except... 

The troop movements are tied to the production numbers and to the 12-mile size. Adjusting the 12-mile size up to 72, as you mention, makes your troops move 6x as fast. You pay resource points to move troops, so making the hexes bigger means you can move the troops 6x as far for the same cost. 

Remember that bringing the cross-hex distance up to 72 miles across makes the area about 34.75 x the area of the 12-mile hexes. That needs to be the factor for any attempt to scale the resources. 

You can cut the speed of the troops by dividing their movement points by the same amount you multiplied the distance. That has a funny effect, as their movement points are 7x their base movement (7x daily movement to represent 1 week), so in the sample case you presented, movement points would be 7/6 (1.1666667) x D&D movement in 5' squares. You might as well just say they can move as many hexes as squares at that point, and round off. 

The resource points may take care of itself, at that point. If you don't try to scale them, then the 6x as far for the same cost makes sense. 

What else ? Let's see... 

The rules for units finding each other when they wind up in the same hex will likely need some attention, then. Armies are much more likely to be able to avoid each other in 3600 square miles of area than they are in 125 square miles of area. 

There may well be some more subtle points I am not thinking of right away, too.


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## Assenpfeffer (Jan 4, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> The book has a sidebar talking about how to adjust the maintenance costs, which are tied to the number of hexes in the realm. 7 hexes is where the maintenance costs begin to mount up higher, marking the point of "large". You can change the table to make maintenance of realms with more hexes less expensive, and thus make larger realms "normal" for your world. The sidebar covers it pretty well.




In that case, how much attention is going to be required for each 12-mile hex/province?  If a small kingdom (in my setting) takes up 20-30 hexes, does the amount of work involved in upkeep (especially given that FoB seems to use both weekly turns and quarterly "superturns") going to be incredibly cumbersome?



			
				Silveras said:
			
		

> I am in the same boat; most of the 250 areas I consider single provinces would have between 8 and 15 hexes in them at 12 miles across the hex. Sub-infeudation lets me fix this for small realms, but I am not interested in re-writing all 250 just to make sure the numbers stay in balance.




The main area I'm looking at using FoB for is an elongated peninsula about 2900 miles long and averaging around 800 miles wide.  This is roughly the same area as continental Europe as far east as the Russian border, near as I can tell.  Just doing the simple math, that's going to give me a rather staggering 18,000+ hexes.

After fooling around with my map-in-progress, it looks like 84-mile hexes would work okay.  36-mile hexes still seem too small, but might be made to work.



			
				Silveras said:
			
		

> Well, the production numbers may not need to be changed at all. Since they are already abstract numbers that do not tie back to "X gp" or "X tons of iron", you could just keep them the same ... except...
> 
> The troop movements are tied to the production numbers and to the 12-mile size. Adjusting the 12-mile size up to 72, as you mention, makes your troops move 6x as fast. You pay resource points to move troops, so making the hexes bigger means you can move the troops 6x as far for the same cost.
> 
> ...




84-mile hexes would put that movement ratio right on the money.  And thinking about it, 12-mile hexes nestle nicely in an 84-mile hex.  Hmmm...

If we do this, though, wouldn't it mean that the proportion of a nation's total resourses needed to move a unit across it would be 6x as much, making troop movement costs inflate to an uncomfortably large proportion of the total budget?

Aaargh - this is shrivelling my brain.  



			
				Silveras said:
			
		

> The rules for units finding each other when they wind up in the same hex will likely need some attention, then. Armies are much more likely to be able to avoid each other in 3600 square miles of area than they are in 125 square miles of area.




That, at least, seems fixable, given my (admmittedly tenuous) understanding of how the rules work.

Also, does FoB (or AEG's Empire, for that matter,) address the issue of naval movement and/or combat?


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## jgbrowning (Jan 4, 2004)

I don't have FoB, so this may be a niave question. Why use hexes as opposed to just square miles for a maintenance system? I'm assuming there's a tactical tie-in with the combat system, but would someone with the book let me know?

joe b.


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> In that case, how much attention is going to be required for each 12-mile hex/province?  If a small kingdom (in my setting) takes up 20-30 hexes, does the amount of work involved in upkeep (especially given that FoB seems to use both weekly turns and quarterly "superturns") going to be incredibly cumbersome?




Well, yes, that is the core of the problem. Since each 12-mile hex can have a population center, produce resource points, and have various improvements added, each such hex needs to be tracked separately and have its production and upkeep costs recorded separately. Upkeep and Production are only at issue on a seasonal (quarterly) basis; the lesser weekly turns are there for moving armies. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> The main area I'm looking at using FoB for is an elongated peninsula about 2900 miles long and averaging around 800 miles wide.  This is roughly the same area as continental Europe as far east as the Russian border, near as I can tell.  Just doing the simple math, that's going to give me a rather staggering 18,000+ hexes.
> 
> After fooling around with my map-in-progress, it looks like 84-mile hexes would work okay.  36-mile hexes still seem too small, but might be made to work.
> 
> ...




No, I don't think so. If you don't try to fiddle with the numbers, it just means that the abstract representations are of bigger things -- wagonloads of grain instead of sacks of grain, if you see what I mean. That is what I meant by the resources taking care of themselves. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> That, at least, seems fixable, given my (admmittedly tenuous) understanding of how the rules work.




I think that stretches my suspension of disbelief a little too far. The rules for switching to Daily Movement to avoid running into another army presume that your movement points are sufficient that you can move on a daily basis, just not as far; with the scale you are talking about, that seems like it would be one of the casualties. 

Really, I think 84 miles is waaaay too big. It is large enough to reduce the count of hexes to a manageable level, but it is too big for the level of detail the rest of the system presupposes. 

Standard mapping has been on the order of 24 or 30, sometimes 36, miles across a hex. FoB goes a bit small at 12, but 72 and 84 are much more suited to modern eras where planes and motorized vehicles can really cross vast amounts of land at a stretch. 

I say this from experience, by the way. The early draft of my world had an area the size of Asia inhabited by the population of Rhode Island.  It was ... sparse. I cut the map size down a lot, and raised the population levels a bit, for something that I feel works. Even at about 600x1200 miles (the current size), I have more than enough area for several campaigns to run in at once. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> Also, does FoB (or AEG's Empire, for that matter,) address the issue of naval movement and/or combat?




FoB does not address naval combat, but it does address moving troops by ship. 
Empire does not address either. 

And for good measure: 
Strongholds & Dynasties leaves most of that to the forthcoming book (on the schedule for Feb. 2004), a revision of Mongoose's Ships of Blood. 
Birthright addresses both.
MMS:WE does not include either.
I don't think I recall seeing anything in Cry Havoc, either.


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> I don't have FoB, so this may be a niave question. Why use hexes as opposed to just square miles for a maintenance system? I'm assuming there's a tactical tie-in with the combat system, but would someone with the book let me know?
> 
> joe b.




Well, the only people who can really answer that are the designers; but since I never know when to keep my opinions to myself, I can take a stab at it . 

Yes, there is a tactical tie-in to the size. As posted on the Fields of Blood thread, the intention was for 1 hex to be about 1 day's movement. Per the Players' Handbook, that would be 24 miles across. I'm not sure where the decision to go to 12 came from. 

The other reason for using hexes instead of raw distances is, I think, to discourage unbelievable overcrowding of cities. The way the book is written now, each population center has a ring of hexes around it which are likely to be occupied by a village or smaller. I think that helps many of us who don't have a firm idea of how close is too close for cities to be located.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Jan 4, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> The other reason for using hexes instead of raw distances is, I think, to discourage unbelievable overcrowding of cities. The way the book is written now, each population center has a ring of hexes around it which are likely to be occupied by a village or smaller. I think that helps many of us who don't have a firm idea of how close is too close for cities to be located.




Of course, you can still have megalopoli in which you've got several metropoli sitting really close to each other; since there's no real discussion of food, just resources, that can work fairly easily.  It'll be a pain in the rear and you'll have a lot of numbers to crunch, but hey...

Brad


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> Of course, you can still have megalopoli in which you've got several metropoli sitting really close to each other; since there's no real discussion of food, just resources, that can work fairly easily.  It'll be a pain in the rear and you'll have a lot of numbers to crunch, but hey...
> 
> Brad




I think I'd rather just create a new category of city size and work with that. Clustering to get around a mechanical limitation strikes me as a bit of rules-lawyering. If I *need* to have a city much bigger than a DMG metropolis, then I will define a new category and place it accordingly. Such should be sufficiently rare that this just about has to be an easier approach.


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## johnsemlak (Jan 4, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> nce.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 A further note navel combat--

Rules supplementing the War Machine were included in Gazetteer 4: Ierendi for the old D&D system.


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> A further note navel combat--
> 
> Rules supplementing the War Machine were included in Gazetteer 4: Ierendi for the old D&D system.




Thanks... I had overlooked that one.


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## Assenpfeffer (Jan 4, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> No, I don't think so. If you don't try to fiddle with the numbers, it just means that the abstract representations are of bigger things -- wagonloads of grain instead of sacks of grain, if you see what I mean. That is what I meant by the resources taking care of themselves.




It occurred to me after posting that my question made no sense at all.  What I get for posting late into the night while fueled on caffiene.  





			
				Silveras said:
			
		

> I think that stretches my suspension of disbelief a little too far. The rules for switching to Daily Movement to avoid running into another army presume that your movement points are sufficient that you can move on a daily basis, just not as far; with the scale you are talking about, that seems like it would be one of the casualties.
> 
> Really, I think 84 miles is waaaay too big. It is large enough to reduce the count of hexes to a manageable level, but it is too big for the level of detail the rest of the system presupposes.
> 
> Standard mapping has been on the order of 24 or 30, sometimes 36, miles across a hex. FoB goes a bit small at 12, but 72 and 84 are much more suited to modern eras where planes and motorized vehicles can really cross vast amounts of land at a stretch.




Hmmm... maybe I ned to rethink some scaling.  Realistically, a much smaller area than the one I'm currently working with would be plenty of room.



			
				Silveras said:
			
		

> FoB does not address naval combat, but it does address moving troops by ship.




Is ship movement handled via hexes or "sea zones," or someting like that?


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## Silveras (Jan 4, 2004)

Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> Is ship movement handled via hexes or "sea zones," or someting like that?




Hexes, the speed is based on the amount of resources the race can pull out of a water hex. The better your race is at dealing with water, the faster your ships can go is the basic theory. 

It is handled mostly as a small subsection under movement in general, and a lot is glossed over. For example, it is assumed that ports have sufficient ships to carry the troops, so no attempt is made to define how many ships that is. Also, such movement is only allowed between Ports.


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## Assenpfeffer (Jan 5, 2004)

Okay, here's what I've looked at so far, and my own initial impressions, without going into any nitty-gritty analysis of mechanics (which I'm disinclined to do until I manage to track down a copy of FoB.)

Empire - Fair to Good scalability, but scales smaller than it seems to think it does  - for the needs of some (read: me,) a kingdom-level game will need to be played at this book's "Empire" level, and some of the numbers might not make sense at that level, I think.  Fairly vague in a number of places, but generally clearer than S&D.  Nice, clear-cut action types and what looks to be a workable system for mass combat.  If there's a quick-resolution mass combat system in this book (and it's implied that there is,) I have not found it yet.

Strongholds & Dynasties - The "Strongholds" part of the book is pretty good, an excellent and comprehensive building designer.  The "Dynasties" part is not so good, and couldn't be used for a Birthright-style (in which domain management is the main focus of the game,) campaign without a good deal of additional rules work and a number of assumptions on the GM's part.  Scale is supposed to be determined by the GM, but the assumtions made by the designers seemed to be the scale would be small - keep and nascent barony hacked out of the wilderness small.  The economics system is flat-out broken, but not, I think, unfixable.  In addition, many of the modifiers (for loyalty, control and so forth,) for the various actions seem out of whack, but I'm not sure that'd be the case during play.  The core of an excellent Domain Management system is present here, but the fleshing-out doesn't seem to have happened properly.

A Magical Medieval Society - Found it unexpectedly today while hunting (unsucessfully) for FoB, so I can't say too much about it yet.  It appears that it's not at all what I'm looking for to run Birthright-style Struggle of Kingdoms campaigns, but it also appears that it will be _very_ valuable to the Ars Magica game I'm currently running, or to any Harn campaign I might run in the future.  It's far better and more comprehensive than HarnManor even at first glance.  It also looks superior (clearer, certainly) to the Chivalry & Sorcery rules for running manors and feudal states, pending looking closely at the numbers it provides for arable land, population fed by farmed acres, and so forth.

FoB - Sounds great - *No One* within 50 miles of me has it.  I may end up ordering it online.

Feel free to add, raise additional points, or disagree completely.


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## poilbrun (Jan 5, 2004)

Hi all!

First of all, thanks to Silveras for the work you're doing.

I'd like to know how hard it would be to mix the various systems to come up with a good system for realm management. At the moment, I have access to Empire, MMS:WE, Birthright & Cry Havoc, and my copies of S&D and FoB should arrive this week. It seems every book has some good parts, and no clear winner seems to come out for every point of the comparison (even though FoB seems to be my best bet if I have to go with only one system). According to what I've read in this thread, I feel like taking the Stronghold part of S&D and the Ministers part of Empire and add them to FoB, maybe adding some parts of the holdings from Birthright if I feel like playing something else than a monarch (I would need to see how to give revenue to the various holdings, but with Guilds, Temples and Magic Academies in FoB, it wouldn't be too difficult to insert the various holdings from BR in FoB). I will probably only use MMS:WE for roleplay purpose and if I start the characters in a small fief, but I believe the system therein wouldn't scale very well for a very large territory. As far as war is concerned, I hesitate between the Cry Havoc system and FoB (which has the advantage of being directly linked with the basic system I'll use), though I must admit I do not know the system used in S&D at all.

So, to those who already know all these books, would such a mix be very difficult to create?

Thanks for any help!


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## d4 (Jan 5, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> I think I'd rather just create a new category of city size and work with that. Clustering to get around a mechanical limitation strikes me as a bit of rules-lawyering. If I *need* to have a city much bigger than a DMG metropolis, then I will define a new category and place it accordingly. Such should be sufficiently rare that this just about has to be an easier approach.



i think there really _does_ need to be a few categories above "metropolis" on the city scale from the DMG. Metropolis starts at 25,000, which is still pretty darn small, even for a medieval city. (well, it might be OK for most medieval European cities, but it doesn't do justice to cities of the age in other parts of the world.)

here's some lists i got off of ask.com's geography section:

*Largest Cities of 1000 AD*
1: Cordova, Spain (450,000)
2: Kaifeng, China (400,000)
3: Constantinople, Turkey (300,000) (at this stage, still a Christian city; the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire)
4: Angkor, Cambodia (200,000)
5: Kyoto, Japan (175,000)
6: Cairo, Egypt (135,000)
7: Baghdad, Iraq (125,000)
8: Nishapur (Neyshabur), Iran (125,000)
9: Al-Hasa, Saudi Arabia (110,000)
10: Patan (Anhilwara), India (100,000)

only two of these can even charitably be considered European cities: Constantinople was really a holdover from an earlier time and not really in the sphere of Western Christendom, and Cordova at the time was a Muslim city.

*Largest Cities of 1500 AD*
1: Beijing, China (672,000)
2: Vijayanagar, India (500,000)
3: Cairo, Egypt (400,000)
4: Hangzhou, China (250,000)
5: Tabriz, Iran (250,000)
6: Istanbul, Turkey (200,000)
7: Gaur, India (200,000)
8: Paris, France (185,000)
9: Guangzhou, China (150,000)
10: Nanjing, China (147,000)

Paris is the only European city to make the top 10, but i wouldn't be surprised if London, as well as some Italian and Dutch cities aren't in the 11-20 range.

as far as the idea of using cities in multiple hexes to simulate "megalopoli," i don't think that's really needed. S. John Ross' excellent "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" article (which i don't have the link to at the moment... ) gives an estimate of approximately 38,500 people per square mile for urban population densities. so the Paris of 1500 at 185,000 people (almost 7.5 times larger than the minimum metropolis size listed in the DMG!) would cover around 4.8 square miles, or a square a little over 2 miles on a side. it would easily fit into a single FoB 12-mile hex. in fact, even the Beijing of 1500 (at 672,000) would only be about 17.4 square miles (assuming the default urban population density given above), or about 4.2 miles on a side if it was a perfect square (which i seem to recall it might have been...), still fitting easily inside a single hex. in fact, since a 12-mile hex has an area very nearly 125 square miles, a city would need to have a population of over 4.8 million (at the default medieval urban population density) to cover an entire hex!

[edit]found the link to S. John's article: it's here.


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## jgbrowning (Jan 5, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> as far as the idea of using cities in multiple hexes to simulate "megalopoli," i don't think that's really needed. S. John Ross' excellent "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" article (which i don't have the link to at the moment... ) gives an estimate of approximately 38,500 people per square mile for urban population densities. so the Paris of 1500 at 185,000 people (almost 7.5 times larger than the minimum metropolis size listed in the DMG!) would cover around 4.8 square miles, or a square a little over 2 miles on a side. it would easily fit into a single FoB 12-mile hex. in fact, even the Beijing of 1500 (at 672,000) would only be about 17.4 square miles (assuming the default urban population density given above), or about 4.2 miles on a side if it was a perfect square (which i seem to recall it might have been...), still fitting easily inside a single hex. in fact, since a 12-mile hex has an area very nearly 125 square miles, a city would need to have a population of over 4.8 million (at the default medieval urban population density) to cover an entire hex!
> 
> [edit]found the link to S. John's article: it's here.




I don't think Paris was much bigger than a square mile. Build up, not out when most of the population walks (at least in the west, I'm not very informed with eastern demographics). Even Rome (the biggest city of them all til modern times) was only around 9 sq. miles when it had a million or so people.

There's a lot of flexibility in urban density. A city with a pop of only 35k may cover 1 squre mile, while a city of 65k covers the same space. It also often depends on politcal stability (ie. are walls *really* necessary?).

I'd just shove any city under 100k people into roughly 1 square mile for simplicity's sake. I'd put 100k-500k cities into 1-5 square miles. Not very precise, but should do the trick.

joe b.


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## Warbringer (Jan 5, 2004)

By the side...

It seems that a critical flaw in the use of population densities is that they only work because of the amount of natural resources that are taken from surrounding provinces.

Sure the skills that exist in a city increase the base population that can be sustained in the city, but the raw goods that feed the city have to come from areas far less able to sustain a high PD.

Unless I'm missing something, which isn't a big stretch  , this economic relationship is missing in the above applications of PD.


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## Silveras (Jan 5, 2004)

Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> Empire - Fair to Good scalability, but scales smaller than it seems to think it does  - for the needs of some (read: me,) a kingdom-level game will need to be played at this book's "Empire" level, and some of the numbers might not make sense at that level, I think.  Fairly vague in a number of places, but generally clearer than S&D.  Nice, clear-cut action types and what looks to be a workable system for mass combat.  If there's a quick-resolution mass combat system in this book (and it's implied that there is,) I have not found it yet.




That's pretty much as I see it. There is much room for addition to Empire, but its biggest problems are: 1) the base scale sizes are much too small, and 2) the scaling factor for land (20) is different than the other units (10). The result of #2 is that a domain that has 75% of its housing occupied on the Kingdom scale is overcrowded on the Empire scale, and almost empty on the Barony scale. If you assume the Kingdom scale is "most correct" and scale the land area at the same proportion up and down as the other units (by 10) the system should work better. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> Strongholds & Dynasties - The "Strongholds" part of the book is pretty good, an excellent and comprehensive building designer.  The "Dynasties" part is not so good, and couldn't be used for a Birthright-style (in which domain management is the main focus of the game,) campaign without a good deal of additional rules work and a number of assumptions on the GM's part.  Scale is supposed to be determined by the GM, but the assumtions made by the designers seemed to be the scale would be small - keep and nascent barony hacked out of the wilderness small.  The economics system is flat-out broken, but not, I think, unfixable.  In addition, many of the modifiers (for loyalty, control and so forth,) for the various actions seem out of whack, but I'm not sure that'd be the case during play.  The core of an excellent Domain Management system is present here, but the fleshing-out doesn't seem to have happened properly.




Again, that sounds like the conclusions I reached. I am still waiting (on the Strongholds & Dynasties thread) for someone to show me a resource setup that works for a Large City. *I* think it is unfixable, at this point, without a near-total re-write. 



			
				Assenpfeffer said:
			
		

> A Magical Medieval Society - Found it unexpectedly today while hunting (unsucessfully) for FoB, so I can't say too much about it yet.  It appears that it's not at all what I'm looking for to run Birthright-style Struggle of Kingdoms campaigns, but it also appears that it will be _very_ valuable to the Ars Magica game I'm currently running, or to any Harn campaign I might run in the future.  It's far better and more comprehensive than HarnManor even at first glance.  It also looks superior (clearer, certainly) to the Chivalry & Sorcery rules for running manors and feudal states, pending looking closely at the numbers it provides for arable land, population fed by farmed acres, and so forth.




Check the Expeditious Retreat web site, in the Community Support section. I provided a PDF on using Population Density to define regions in a larger-scale game. Substitute 'Provinces' for 'Regions', and it works with Birthright (which is what I had in mind when I wrote it). 

I think MMS:WE provides an excellent companion to any of the Domain Management systems, for detailing the "lower scale" operations.


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## Silveras (Jan 5, 2004)

poilbrun said:
			
		

> Hi all!
> 
> First of all, thanks to Silveras for the work you're doing.
> 
> ...




Some will be easier to mix than others. For example, taking the Ministers from Empire and adding them to FoB will have no effect, really, because FoB does not use skill checks to resolve actions; the Ministers are in Empire so that "skilled deputies" can use their superior skill checks to resolve some things for the ruler. 

Likewise, the superficial presence of Guilds, Temples, and Magic Academies in FoB looks like making them Birthright-like will be easy. Until you try. Then you realize that there are no actions for them to perform unless you add them; and they have no resources to work with unless you re-define the tax-and-surplus system. You will then have to re-define the prices of various improvements, etc., to compensate for the fact that the ruler and populace will have less resources to spend on building and upkeep. 

All of which returns me to my earlier feeling that Birthright is the "best" of the systems overall, and MMS:WE helps to handle the lower-level that Birthright mostly ignores. Which, in turn, is what led me to start posting my house rules for a non-Cerilian 3rd Edition Birthright (in the House Rules forum).


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## d4 (Jan 5, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> I don't think Paris was much bigger than a square mile. Build up, not out when most of the population walks (at least in the west, I'm not very informed with eastern demographics). Even Rome (the biggest city of them all til modern times) was only around 9 sq. miles when it had a million or so people.



i'll have to respectfully disagree. 

you're giving medieval Paris a population density of about 185,000 people per square mile, but even modern-day New York City only has a population density of less than half that... (see this site.)

i doubt Paris was more built up than Manhattan. (though a _fantasy_ city could definitely be... from what i've seen in Eberron, that'd be a likely candidate for a fantasy world with huge, hyperdense cities.)


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## Silveras (Jan 5, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> i think there really _does_ need to be a few categories above "metropolis" on the city scale from the DMG. Metropolis starts at 25,000, which is still pretty darn small, even for a medieval city. (well, it might be OK for most medieval European cities, but it doesn't do justice to cities of the age in other parts of the world.)
> 
> here's some lists i got off of ask.com's geography section:
> --snip --
> ...




Thanks, that helps confirm my "feeling" that the cities were a bit small. I think a "Major Metropolis" at 50,000, a "Greater Metropolis" at 100,000, and a "Monumental City" at 200,000 would probably fill out the city roster nicely. 

As Warbringer mentions, the PD of a city is Ok for defining its "footprint" on the map, but the greater question is: "How many non-city-dwellers are required to support it ?" For that, it is important to remember that MMS:WE uses 8% as a base urban population rate, meaning there will be 11 or so people OUTSIDE the city for every one in it. A Greater Metropolis at 100,000 people would require 1.1 Million farmers to feed it, at that rate. At the "standard" regional Population Densities of MMS:WE (30-160 for most, up to 200 max), that would mean anywhere from 5,500 square miles to 36,666.66667 square miles required to support it. That would be about 7 to 47 30-mile hexes (or 44 to 293 12-mile hexes).


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## d4 (Jan 5, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> A Greater Metropolis at 100,000 people would require 1.1 Million farmers to feed it, at that rate. At the "standard" regional Population Densities of MMS:WE (30-160 for most, up to 200 max), that would mean anywhere from 5,500 square miles to 36,666.66667 square miles required to support it. That would be about 7 to 47 30-mile hexes (or 44 to 293 12-mile hexes).



yow, that's a lot of "empty" space! 

i think it's worth noting (and this analysis bears it out) that especially in the medieval period, most nation-states would have only one really big city. Paris for France, London for England, Madrid and perhaps Barcelona for Spain, Istanbul for the Ottomans, etc. there simply were no other cities even close to their size in their respective countries, and this might have something to do with it: it took large swaths of the countryside to feed the city slickers!


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## Silveras (Jan 5, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> yow, that's a lot of "empty" space!
> 
> i think it's worth noting (and this analysis bears it out) that especially in the medieval period, most nation-states would have only one really big city. Paris for France, London for England, Madrid and perhaps Barcelona for Spain, Istanbul for the Ottomans, etc. there simply were no other cities even close to their size in their respective countries, and this might have something to do with it: it took large swaths of the countryside to feed the city slickers!




Which, I think, in turn may explain why the DMG does not depict such really big cities. They would need to be so far apart (for those who care) that they would be effectively "off the map" for most camapaigns. Having more smaller cities allows the PCs to travel more and find the goods they need "close to the dungeon".


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## jgbrowning (Jan 5, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> i'll have to respectfully disagree.
> 
> you're giving medieval Paris a population density of about 185,000 people per square mile, but even modern-day New York City only has a population density of less than half that... (see this site.)
> 
> i doubt Paris was more built up than Manhattan. (though a _fantasy_ city could definitely be... from what i've seen in Eberron, that'd be a likely candidate for a fantasy world with huge, hyperdense cities.)




Here's the maps.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/courses/parismaps/
http://www.paris.org/Maps/maps.html

Look at the earliest maps from 1716 (from columbia). The city walls enclose roughly 1 square mile. I think I read somewhere that Paris was about 680 acres (640 acres is a mile) and as these maps show, that's pretty accurate. Map 4 gives you a good outline of the city walls. It's the greenish/yellowis line south of the river.

The second link shows you Paris as early as 1550's. I can't remember for certain, but i think the walls were first built in 1200? by phillp august (only including the west bank and the ille de citie) and then expanded under charles V ca. 1370 and then expanded again later. Here my numbers are just from memory, so take that into consideration. I think the walls were expanded something like 5 times or so into the 1700's.

We underestimate density because we live in a car society that values personal space. Just think about how much space is dedicated to roads and how many people have private rooms.

joe b.


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## d4 (Jan 6, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> Here's the maps.



well, i can't dispute physical evidence. 

however, i'm not exactly sure we're in disagreement. as you can see in those illustrations, there's a lot of built-up areas beyond the city walls -- and i'd surely suspect the 185,000 figure i quoted above isn't just the population within the walls but rather the whole "metropolitan area," as it were.

in fact, the site i took the 38,500 urban density figure from gives medieval Paris' population at around 50,000 -- approximately one square mile. i suspect this (much lower) figure is for the city proper, whereas the higher one i found elsewhere includes the unfortunate sods who couldn't afford to get inside the walls.


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## jgbrowning (Jan 6, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> well, i can't dispute physical evidence.
> 
> however, i'm not exactly sure we're in disagreement. as you can see in those illustrations, there's a lot of built-up areas beyond the city walls -- and i'd surely suspect the 185,000 figure i quoted above isn't just the population within the walls but rather the whole "metropolitan area," as it were.




Yeah, there's build up outside the walls and the more secure the city is the more build up outside the walls there will be. But outside the walls the density is much less as there's less build up.

Also, from a fiscal point, farms right outside a city get the best of both worlds: city prices and almost no carriage costs. 



> in fact, the site i took the 38,500 urban density figure from gives medieval Paris' population at around 50,000 -- approximately one square mile. i suspect this (much lower) figure is for the city proper, whereas the higher one i found elsewhere includes the unfortunate sods who couldn't afford to get inside the walls.




Paris was that size and that density. It was also much denser and still the same size. I struggled over it when making MMS:WE and in the end decided to just go with minimum sizes. Density flexiblitity can come from the GM but it's really hard for us moderns to get it into our heads just how dense the cities were. I gasped at the maps, double checked, triple checked and finally realized that densities are very high. But that's not really that odd, in retrospect. Look at the site you posted and go to the international cities. The asian cities are still *very dense* and there are many european cities that are quite dense. 

joe b.


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## Silveras (Jan 9, 2004)

In the "putting my money where my mouth is" vein, I have been posting my modifications for Birthright to use the rules with other worlds and 3rd Edition in the House Rules folder in this thread


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## SkidAce (Jan 10, 2004)

/bump

...because this is my favorite thread!

thanks Sil...


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## Silveras (Jan 10, 2004)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> I _really_ feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.
> 
> This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.




Pulling out my copy of Birthright, it looks like it is mapped at 1"=25 miles. Eyeballing it, most provinces seem to run from 1/2" x 1/2" to 1" x 2"; the average appears to be 1"x1". That would put the smallest provinces "spot on" in the scale of FoB, but most BR provinces would be about 4 FoB hexes. 

Matt, have you had a chance to do some measurements and calculations ?

[Edit: To check my quick impression's accuracy, I pulled the Legacy of Kings from the Wizards' web site (which has JPGs of the big map). I loaded them into Visio, and made a couple of hex overlays, 1 at 25 miles across the hex and the other at 12.5 miles across the hex. Dropping these over the Anuirean provinces depicted, it looks like most are mapped to be slightly over 1 25 mile hex in area. Ilien, the smallest nation at 1 province, looks to be about 5-6 FoB hexes in size. ]


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## Silveras (Jan 10, 2004)

SkidAce said:
			
		

> /bump
> 
> ...because this is my favorite thread!
> 
> thanks Sil...




Glad you're enjoying it, but it looks like we've about covered everything for the moment. It has been quiet lately.


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## Falkayn (May 5, 2004)

*FoB Alternative Rulers*



			
				Sulimo said:
			
		

> Given that, would it be terribly hard to add something so it you could run games where PC's are guildmasters and the like and not 'rulers'?



I am running a FoB game at the moment and I have two thoughts about this:

1. Whilst the PCs are called "Regents", FoB makes it very clear that they could be whatever you want, including elected representatives, dictators or whatever. So you could have a province controlled by a "guild" and run by the guildmaster. In that case the government upkeep cost is what it takes to run the guild.

2. If you are interested purely in giving the PCs responsibility and a way to affect the realm they live within, then Dynasties & Demagogues is a GREAT way to do that. Their rules for handling political roleplaying are without peer, and really fit nicely into just about any D&D campaign.

An interesting area where these two mesh is having the PCs run for election to achieve control of a city-state (using DaD's election rules) and then getting them to run it using the realm rules from FoB. You could easily come up with elections every 2-3 years and have the PCs go into the election campaign with ads/disads depending upon how they have managed the realm since the last election.


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## Eosin the Red (May 5, 2004)

Now that you have had some time to digest a little bit any new stuff?


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## TheAuldGrump (May 5, 2004)

How about another entrant into the field by Mongoose? http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/detail.php?qsID=440&qsSeries=Bloodline

On the one hand it says that it can be used in any pre-existing campaign, on the other hand I can't find any reference to it being D20/OGL...

The Auld Grump


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## Silveras (May 6, 2004)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> Now that you have had some time to digest a little bit any new stuff?




Heh.. yeah, actually. 
I have looked at Dynasties and Demagogues. I like some parts of it, but I don't know if it is quite what I would like on a Domain-to-Domain interaction level. It is fine for PCs-who-are-rulers interacting, in some ways. 

I also looked at Green Ronin's the Noble's Handbook. The Noble class is interesting, but the book seems to be trying too hard to justify it. More interesting is the system for Noble Houses and their strength. Unfortunately, much of how that system works with the Noble class seems rather broken. 

However, that makes me think that a revised version, using a different growth mechanism and allowing for different campaign scales, would work nicely to represent landed and non-landed Domains. I think I would actually tie the Organization's (generic term replacing Noble House) growth to the accumulation of Influence Points (as defined in A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe). A "petty noble" organization would have 1 Strength per 10 Influence Points .. a "minor" would have 1 per 100 (so there would be overlap as the "petty" one grew from 11 to 20, overlapping 1 and 2 on the "minor" scale) .. a "major" would have 1 per 1000 (again, overlapping) ... and "great" would have 1 per 10,000 (maybe per 5,000). 

Purchases made by such organizations could use a variant of the Wealth mechanic in D20 Modern ... the "house" has a Wealth modifier that is used in a Purchase check against a purchase DC determined by the price and maybe some modifiers for the type of goods, etc. 

I am still ruminating on the idea, and looking for ways to reflect both "noble house" type organizations as well as guilds and other alternative bodies.


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## Silveras (May 6, 2004)

Falkayn said:
			
		

> I am running a FoB game at the moment and I have two thoughts about this:
> 
> 1. Whilst the PCs are called "Regents", FoB makes it very clear that they could be whatever you want, including elected representatives, dictators or whatever. So you could have a province controlled by a "guild" and run by the guildmaster. In that case the government upkeep cost is what it takes to run the guild.
> 
> ...




While both of those are true, they are not quite what I and some others are talking about. 

Birthright's structure allowed a number of regents of various types to operate domains in the same "location". The map contained about 12-18 countries, each of which was divided into 1 or more provinces. The ruler of the country controlled the land of the provinces in that country. That same ruler might, or might not, control the armed forces; some might be his/her soldiers, but some might also be occupying forces from enemy lands, or even brigand groups. Multiple trade Guilds would own offices in the provinces; sometimes 2-3 Guilds would each control a part of the trade in the same province, and be fighting for bigger shares of control. Likewise, rival religions operated networks of Temples, sometimes 2-3 in a province competing for the devotion of the people there. Additionally, mages operated networks of Ley Lines and power nodes (Sources). Because all of these could potentially exist in the same province (0-1 land ruler + 0-3 Guilds + 0-3 Temples + 0-3 Sources), up to 10 "domains" could exert influence in a single Province. Others could exert indirect influence as well. The wheeling and dealing among them was what gave the setting its appeal. Sometimes they were bitter rivals, sometimes allies, occasionally indifferent to each other. 

In contrast, FoB allows only 1 regent per Province. Guilds, Temples, Towers, and Groves all exist because the Regent decides to recruit them as supporters, and they are extensions of his/her power (generally).  The regent (whatever title you choose to use) does not need to worry that the Guild will cut a new deal with someone else. S/he does not need to be concerned that a new religion has made inroads into his/her land. 

I hope that makes the differences clearer.


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## Falkayn (May 7, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Birthright's structure allowed a number of regents of various types to operate domains in the same "location".



Thanks, I already understood what Birthright was like, I just figured that some of that functionality is given by Dynasties & Demagogues.

I think a better way of looking at it is to say that Dynasties & Demagogues (DaD) gives you the ability to _roleplay_ political situations, whilst Fields of Blood/Birthright let you _wargame/metagame_ similiar sorts of situations.

DaD will allow you to roleplay the leader of a nation, but it doesn't help you or the GM know how much tax will be raised this year, or whether crops were good or bad, or what the military maneuvering of your neighbours really means to your realm. The GM can wing a lot of that stuff, but FoB and Birthright give you the ability to put numbers on it. Birthright goes farther than FoB, because it allows a group of PCs to each be their own center of power within the same realm - DaD allows that as well, just on a roleplaying level.

By mixing FoB and DaD you _could_ (but would you?) have players roleplay out the interaction between different power groups, and then resolve the regent/realm actions appropriately.


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## Eosin the Red (May 7, 2004)

Silveras -

If you don't mind shooting me an email I would like to chat with you a bit.

eosin_the_red@cox.net

Thanks


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## Silveras (May 7, 2004)

Falkayn said:
			
		

> Thanks, I already understood what Birthright was like, I just figured that some of that functionality is given by Dynasties & Demagogues.
> 
> I think a better way of looking at it is to say that Dynasties & Demagogues (DaD) gives you the ability to _roleplay_ political situations, whilst Fields of Blood/Birthright let you _wargame/metagame_ similiar sorts of situations.
> 
> ...




Let me put it this way: My ideal campaign would involve two parallel tracks. On one level, the table-top RPG players would be exploring the dungeons, facing the evil cultists, and occasionally be getting caught up in the machinations of the political entities. On the other level, a group of other people would be playing a Play-by-E-Mail game running the Domains of my world -- seeking to contest each other's influence, establishing new hidden cults, and occasionally drawing some hapless adventurers into their plots. 

I *want* the wargaming elements.


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## devilish (Dec 31, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Here, for comparison, is the Province of Farmdale statted out in terms of Fields of Blood. It is one of three Provinces that make up the Barony of Kharith. Province, in this sense, is much larger than in Fields of Blood. Each 'Hex' in this description of Farmdale is considered a Province under Fields of Blood.
> 
> Included in this version are some military units, as well.
> 
> I tried to attach a Zip file of a map, but it is too big. I will see what I can do about adding a map at some point.




I tried looking at this file in Acrobat 7.0 and 5.0 (in case the upgrade did something funny)
and it just has big black boxes everywhere covering the text. 

Could you resubmit please?

Thanks,
-D


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## Silveras (Dec 31, 2004)

devilish said:
			
		

> I tried looking at this file in Acrobat 7.0 and 5.0 (in case the upgrade did something funny)
> and it just has big black boxes everywhere covering the text.
> 
> Could you resubmit please?
> ...




I just re-checked my originals. They appear bad , so I will have to try to re-create them.


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## Silveras (Jan 1, 2005)

*New PDF*

I made a new PDF of Kharith in FoB terms. I am attaching it here, and will remove the older PDFs from the older post ... once I find it. 

 Nice to see an old thread come back, and I hope people still find the information useful.


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## ytreza2 (Apr 22, 2005)

*and now ?*

Please Silveras, after some monthes of playtests, could you tell us which rules you are using now ?

I have tested all these rules exept S&D (but i have ordered it). 
- MMS is the one i prefer. Unfortunately, it doesn't purchase some rules about trade for instance. What i want to say is that MMS is excellent, but it's too "conceptual" and not enough detailed for my campaig...
- Empire is too incomplete (ressources management, etc...) and some bugs are not fixed
- FOB is good but contains no detailed ressources management, so you don't know if the province is rich because of its trade capabilities or mines or agriculture...
- Birthright is too complex. It's a game, not a set of rules for a RPG campaign, and i don't have time to play at my favorite game AND birthright 

And on S&D, how have you scaled the internal consumption ?

Thank you very much


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## mattcolville (Apr 22, 2005)

Silveras said:
			
		

> Pulling out my copy of Birthright, it looks like it is mapped at 1"=25 miles. Eyeballing it, most provinces seem to run from 1/2" x 1/2" to 1" x 2"; the average appears to be 1"x1". That would put the smallest provinces "spot on" in the scale of FoB, but most BR provinces would be about 4 FoB hexes.
> 
> Matt, have you had a chance to do some measurements and calculations ?




Alas, no. I'm working on my own D20 stuff now. This may mean a more ambitious project in the same area, but realistially my involvement with the Book of War ended long ago. Though I am interested in what people perceived were the strengths and flaws of the book, in the high likelyhood I revisit the subject with some other product.


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## Silveras (Apr 23, 2005)

ytreza2 said:
			
		

> Please Silveras, after some monthes of playtests, could you tell us which rules you are using now ?
> 
> I have tested all these rules exept S&D (but i have ordered it).
> - MMS is the one i prefer. Unfortunately, it doesn't purchase some rules about trade for instance. What i want to say is that MMS is excellent, but it's too "conceptual" and not enough detailed for my campaig...
> ...




Sadly, I have not been running any games for some time, and so have not had any opportunity to continue playtesting. 

I had posted my house rules for modifying Birthright a while back, but it does not appear to have survived the last round of archiving. The main idea was to merge the idea of Birthright's province levels with MMS:WE's population density. A short version of that document is available on the Expeditious Retreat Press' web site. 

I was not too bothered by the lack of resource details in FoB. If anything, I think roo much detail is what "broke" the Book of Strongholds and Dynasties. S&D divides resources into categories and grades of refinement, and then only allows so many in a province. While the book states that Provinces can be of any size, it also appears that the rules were written with a specific size in mind. As a result, the resource rules do not seem to scale well at all. I made a few attempts to make them work, but had no success. The book's system works fairly well for small domains, but breaks when they reach the point of trying to support a city.


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## Silveras (Apr 23, 2005)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> Alas, no. I'm working on my own D20 stuff now. This may mean a more ambitious project in the same area, but realistially my involvement with the Book of War ended long ago. Though I am interested in what people perceived were the strengths and flaws of the book, in the high likelyhood I revisit the subject with some other product.




I will be curious to see what you come up with.


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## Wraith Form (May 15, 2005)

*bump*

Just because of the effort and dedication put into this by Sil.  Wow!  Thank you!


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## Silveras (May 15, 2005)

mattcolville said:
			
		

> Alas, no. I'm working on my own D20 stuff now. This may mean a more ambitious project in the same area, but realistially my involvement with the Book of War ended long ago. Though I am interested in what people perceived were the strengths and flaws of the book, in the high likelyhood I revisit the subject with some other product.




On that note, and since Wraith Form was kind enough to bump the thread ...

Strengths: 
Nomadic camps
Consideration of cultural type
Frequent notes about "tuning the system"
Active representation of organized groups (the Guilds)
Treatment of domain-level spellcasting
Large selection of core monsters converted to Unit stats

Weaknesses: 
12-mile per hex scale does not lend itself to use with existing camaigns mapped at 24 or 30 miles per hex
Inability to play as head of a Guild instead of a land-ruling leader
Specific list of spells for domain magic instead of guidelines on selecting and adapting "normal" spells. 
Treating humans differently from "other monsters" in the troop creation rules (specifically, using Human Commoners while other monsters are Warriors by default). 

I would urge others to post what they thought were the strengths and weaknesses of Fields of Blood here, as well.


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## rom90125 (Nov 26, 2005)

\bump...

Just found this thread.  Outstanding Siv...truly inspired!

I own Cry Havoc and FoB but have not had the chance to integrate either into my current campaign.  

After reading everyone's input, I felt compelled for the bump.  Is there any new opinions or insight to add?


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## Silveras (Nov 27, 2005)

rom90125 said:
			
		

> \bump...
> 
> Just found this thread.  Outstanding Siv...truly inspired!
> 
> ...




I don't have anything new to add at the moment, but I expect to revisit this thread once Power of Faerun is out (March 2006 or so). From the catalogue entry, it sounds as if it addresses similar material.


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## Muaadeeb (May 30, 2007)

I find myself looking for FoB now.  How's the review on Power of Faerun comming?


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## HeavensThunderHammer (Jun 5, 2010)

*Necromantic Bump*

I'm curious about any more discussion on this. I own Powers of Faerun, and it completely lacks any mechanical guidelines, but has great RP guidelines for running a realm and how they get setup, particularily *in* Faerun.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 5, 2010)

Thanks for the bump. It let me go back in time, so to speak, and give some well deserved XP for efforts way back then.


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## HeavensThunderHammer (Jun 6, 2010)

Eric Anondson said:


> Thanks for the bump. It let me go back in time, so to speak, and give some well deserved XP for efforts way back then.




I'll throw this file I made in for figuring out some of the demographics behind a domain.


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## Thraug (Feb 28, 2011)

Big bump again. Anyone know of a spreadsheet for Field of Blood?  We're just getting into it and didn't want to reinvent the wheel!


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## mattcolville (Feb 28, 2011)

Thraug said:


> Big bump again. Anyone know of a spreadsheet for Field of Blood?  We're just getting into it and didn't want to reinvent the wheel!




I think Fields of Blood was a book more read than used, so I suspect you're not going to find much. Though, you never know!

I'm working on a 4E Solution but right now it's more a framework.

It absolutely works, and it's fun, but right now it requires me be there to build all the events and units and that's not a set of rules. It's sort of what you get before you get rules.


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## HeavensThunderHammer (Feb 28, 2011)

I'll check my computer when I get home from work, I believe I made something for it.


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## Thraug (Mar 3, 2011)

HeavensThunderHammer said:


> I'll check my computer when I get home from work, I believe I made something for it.




Any luck finding the spreadsheet?  I'm too stoopid to figure out how to send PMs here.


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## HeavensThunderHammer (Mar 4, 2011)

Thraug said:


> Any luck finding the spreadsheet?  I'm too stoopid to figure out how to send PMs here.




To do a PM you click on the user's name 

Here are the two files I found. The excel spreadsheet is one I made for a "test case" scenerio.

I felt it was important to keep the seasonal data, as in case you make a mistake you can actually find it without recalculating everything from scratch. It's not commented, so hopefully it makes sense to you.

Edit, if you need any help with the spreadsheet, let me know. I'm relooking at it, and realizing that I have a lot of stuff that is helpful, but may not make sense.


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## howandwhy99 (Mar 4, 2011)

One of the better threads ever on ENWorld. Deserving of the recent bump.


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## Nightwasp (Feb 9, 2012)

I had saved a couple of these spreadshees here:

Untitled Document


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## Crothian (Feb 9, 2012)

Of the books in the title Magical Medieval Society is the only one I still use.  I recently have been rereading it prep for my next city based Campaign.


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## Silveras (Sep 11, 2012)

Wow.. I've been away from the site for some time, and am pleasantly surprised to see there's been so much activity on the thread. I'm very glad people have been finding it useful.


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