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Birthright-L
12-04-2002, 03:23 AM
Hi all.

When Birthright came out, I think we all grappled with the concept of what was
happening to a province`s population when it whent up in levels. The thought of
a province (3) ruled to (6) going from population 10,000 to 40,000 in just one
year seems a little far-fetched, no matter how many grant of lands or
irrigration projects a Regent undertakes.

My explaination, like many people, was to say province level reflects
infrastructure (irrigation, windmills, etc) as much as population, so that
province (6) might actually have far less people than the 40,000 stated in the
rulebook, but increases gradually to that level over time. The basic assumption
is that if a Regent makes the improvements, people will come eventually.

But come from where? Natural growth? Without doing the math, it seems to me it
would take decades to get that kind of increase. Now Anuire is a small place, so
we can suppose most of the increase comes from immigration from other provinces
or even domains, unproductive citizens coming from somewhere and, thanks to the
new improvements.

What if the province or small domain is practically cut off from the continent,
either because of distance or magic (Warding spell)? An influx of new population
would be needed at some point to allow growth. Anyone came up with a system to
limit province increases until the population catches up?

Robin

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Gauthier
12-04-2002, 09:44 AM
In my own campaigns settings, I try to, well, complicate some of the basic rules of BR like the random event or the growth of the populations. I have now about 30 random events like the traditionnal one but some new like natural disaster or great festival or new ressource (basic, artisanal or industrial). For the growth of population I had a basic percentage of growth for all. This can be modified by the DM, events, tax collection, trade route, war, peace, realm spells and so on.
I follow by classified each level with a population margin and a regent can only growth is province level when the population number is in the required margin.
It's perhaps not in the spirit of the game, it' certainly not the best way, I know, but for me it was the only way, for the moment, I could be satisfied by this.

Cheers ;)

Birthright-L
12-04-2002, 11:59 AM
A summary of my take on this (that I have published before) is that the
population figures are URBAN population only.

The countryside of Cerilia is quite uniformly developed, and rural
population serves as the base, but provides very little income by itself. It
is only when the regent has started an urbanization process that monetary
wealth is created on a large scale.

An old feudal-style economy uset the rural population as a power base and
produced feudal units - but these are mostly out of style today.If you wish,
in lieu of province income, you can have a single feudal cavalry unit (from
plains) or infantry unit (form other terrains) as a feudal unit, cost free.

The rationale for the rapid advancement of province levels is simple - there
has recently been some inventions in agriculture, which makes it possible to
free up rural labor. These people can form the basis of an explosive urban
growth. Similar things have happened throughout pre-modern European history.

/Carl


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Birthright-L
12-04-2002, 12:35 PM
Certainly a valid approach, but how exactly do you calculate population
increase? What do you take as natural growth?

Robin

----- Original Message -----
From: Gauthier <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 4:44 AM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] Province level vs population [2#1128]


| This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
| You can view the entire thread at:
http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1128
|
| Gauthier wrote:
| In my own campaigns settings, I try to, well, complicate some of the basic
rules of BR like the random event or the growth of the populations. I have now
about 30 random events like the traditionnal one but some new like natural
disaster or great festival or new ressource (basic, artisanal or industrial).
For the growth of population I had a basic percentage of growth for all. This
can be modified by the DM, events, tax collection, trade route, war, peace,
realm spells and so on.
| I follow by classified each level with a population margin and a regent can
only growth is province level when the population number is in the required
margin.
| It`s perhaps not in the spirit of the game, it` certainly not the best way,
I know, but for me it was the only way, for the moment, I could be satisfied by
this.
|
| Cheers ;)
|
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|

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Birthright-L
12-04-2002, 07:36 PM
On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Robin Cantin wrote:
> Certainly a valid approach, but how exactly do you calculate population
> increase? What do you take as natural growth?

In the real world, population doubled every 50 to 75 years, up to the
carrying capacity of the land. Plagues and famine reduced it. Barring
major migration, and bearing in mind that magic tends to mitiate plagues
and famines a bit, I`d go with a natural province level increase of 1
every 50 years, naturally. That`s a little quick at the low end, and a
little slow at the last, but it works for me.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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ryancaveney
12-04-2002, 10:13 PM
On Tue, 3 Dec 2002, Robin Cantin wrote:

> The thought of a province (3) ruled to (6) going from population
> 10,000 to 40,000 in just one year seems a little far-fetched, no
> matter how many grant of lands or irrigration projects a Regent
> undertakes.

I wholeheartedly agree.

> My explaination, like many people, was to say province level reflects
> infrastructure (irrigation, windmills, etc) as much as population,

My preferred explanation is not so much construction of new infrastructure
as it is expanding control over existing infrastructure. I also rather
like Starfox`s urbanization idea, but I`m not completely converted yet; in
particular, I think adopting it might require additional significant
changes to pillaging and troop mustering, especially of levies -- not that
those aren`t possible, but that I haven`t yet seen replacements I like.

> so that province (6) might actually have far less people than the
> 40,000 stated in the rulebook, but increases gradually to that level
> over time.

This is where we part company. I think all the people are already there:
for example, since all plains provinces can be increased to a maximum
level of 10, I think there are 100,000 people already living in each one.
This means that the province level is really a measure of how efficient
the regent is at getting the people to do what he wants.

> But come from where? Natural growth? Without doing the math, it seems
> to me it would take decades to get that kind of increase.

Right. This is why I think the people have to already be there -- I don`t
think your way of looking at the Rule action fixes its real problem.

> Now Anuire is a small place, so we can suppose most of the increase
> comes from immigration from other provinces or even domains,

Gary is an advocate of the immigration explanation, but I don`t buy it.
That would require much more mobility than I think the common people ought
to have, and also breaks down on the large scale -- looking at Cerilia as
a whole, "population growth equals immigration" must imply that Rule
Province is a zero-sum game (lots of Ruling somewhere depends on lots of
Pillaging elsewhere) or else it completely fails to address the too-fast
population growth problem.

> What if the province or small domain is practically cut off from the
> continent, either because of distance or magic (Warding spell)?

Yes, immigration certainly breaks down, in much the same way it does for
the continent as a whole -- I don`t see that there are hundreds of
thousands of people moving from Aduria and Djapar to Cerilia every year.

> Anyone came up with a system to limit province increases until the
> population catches up?

I made one once that was a bit like Bjørn`s method, involving population
growing on its own and the difficulty of Rule actions being modified by
how many more or fewer people were there than the rulebook table wanted,
but I found that since it meant each province could only be ruled about
once per generation the complexity of the mechanic I`d written really
didn`t help me very much more than just randomly picking one province on
the map to simply Rule itself each domain turn. For "maximum game fun"
purposes, I tend to lean towards interpretations of the Rule action that
make it possible to keep close to the current mechanic.


Ryan Caveney

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kgauck
12-04-2002, 10:59 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "daniel mcsorley" <mcsorley@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 1:26 PM


> In the real world, population doubled every 50 to 75 years, up to the
> carrying capacity of the land.

That is only valid for certain areas, but as far as representing potential,
it works fine.

> That`s a little quick at the low end, and a
> little slow at the last, but it works for me.

Of course population should grow faster (rate of growth) is low populated
areas, where there is still prime land available, where disease isn`t
resident in the population yet, and where it is possible for children to
find open land or exploit other economic niches, there is little incentive
to limit child birth.

At the top end, disease will slow growth, the surplus will be smaller per
capita because of the need to exploit ever more marginal resources, and so
population will be limited by both push and pull factors.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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Gauthier
12-05-2002, 09:18 AM
To birthright-L : I calculate the rate of growth in a non-real basis, 2% by turn. A population will so double in less then 10 years, but only if there is no modifications, bad or good. You will say it's very quick, yes, but I think that my center view are my players, and it's at their advantage, as far as it's a little one.

To all of you : I'm very interesting by all of your ideas and it will certainly give me some materials to upgrade my system. When some of you say, "this is slow", yes it's slow, but only in the view of the game who is centered on your player(s). That's why I say it can be modified by the DM's might.

There's just one thing i'm not totaly agree with. It's when ryancaveney says "the population (100.000) is already there". Well, I can rather imagine that in a coastal plain in temperate region, but even in that region it will be a rate of more than 30 people by Km². It's a little bit to many people, don't you think so? In desertic or arctic region it's for me totally impossible. I don't like to be too negative, but it's too rigid and too far from reality. In all times people have always tried to associate in tribes or other organisations (american indians, barbaric people in europe). Even in the american conquest they associate to protect themselves against indians. But if it's your way to explain it, go for it, I don't try to convince you, just give my point of view.

See you soon ([_] :P

ConjurerDragon
12-05-2002, 06:45 PM
Hello!

Ryan B. Caveney wrote:

>Gary is an advocate of the immigration explanation, but I don`t buy it.
>That would require much more mobility than I think the common people ought
>to have, and also breaks down on the large scale -- looking at Cerilia as
>a whole, "population growth equals immigration" must imply that Rule
>Province is a zero-sum game (lots of Ruling somewhere depends on lots of
>Pillaging elsewhere) or else it completely fails to address the too-fast
>population growth problem.
>
The United States have been ruled up quite a bit with immigrants from
somewhere else - without depopulating those countries.
Or perhaps the hugenottes (or however they are named in english) that
immigrated from france to prussia.

Or even: Wandering Gypsies? ;-)
bye
Michael

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kgauck
12-05-2002, 07:23 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 12:40 PM

> The United States have been ruled up quite a bit with immigrants from
> somewhere else - without depopulating those countries.

Because of the demographic trap, in which death rates decline before birth
rates, and populations skyrocket. If, on the other hand, countries maintain
rapid birth rates without traditional high death rates, populations rapidly
strain available resources, and catastrophe occurs.

Unless you imagine this to be takinig place, one must assume that birth and
death rates are in line, and that net growth rates are very low.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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Birthright-L
12-05-2002, 08:13 PM
On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Gauthier wrote:
> There`s just one thing i`m not totaly agree with. It`s when
> ryancaveney says "the population (100.000) is already there".
> Well, I can rather imagine that in a coastal plain in temperate
> region, but even in that region it will be a rate of more than 30
> people by Km². It`s a little bit to many people, don`t you think
> so? In desertic or arctic region it`s for me totally impossible.

Medieval demographics made easy: the best page ever.
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

Average population density: 30/square mile for poor terrain, up to 120 for
fertile areas.

A BR province is like 35 by 35 miles on average. That`s 1225 square
miles.

For a plains province, max 100,000 people, that`s a population density of
81/mile^2. Not too high, in fact I`d say fertile plains provinces should
have a higher limit.

Your other objection, that the number is way too high for deserts, is
easily answered, because only plains have a limit of population 10. Other
terrain types are lower, which I`m sure is what Ryan meant, he was just
using plains as an example.

For poor terrain, 30/mile^2 gives us a population of 36750, which is about
a province level 6.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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ryancaveney
12-06-2002, 02:51 AM
On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, daniel mcsorley wrote:

> Your other objection, that the number is way too high for deserts, is
> easily answered, because only plains have a limit of population 10.
> Other terrain types are lower, which I`m sure is what Ryan meant, he
> was just using plains as an example.

Precisely. To treat Gauthier`s concerns (desert and arctic) directly:
maximum province level in the desert is 3, or 9,000 people (3 per square
kilometer); maximum tundra level is 2, or 4,000 people (1 per km^2); and
the glacier limit is only 1, or just 1,000 people (.3/km^2).


Ryan Caveney

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ryancaveney
12-06-2002, 07:09 PM
On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Gauthier wrote:

> You will say it`s very quick, yes, but I think that my center view are
> my players, and it`s at their advantage, as far as it`s a little one.

Yes, it`s very quick. Too quick for me to believe, but still not fast
enough to be of much use. As you note, real population growth rates are
so small that if we link province level directly to number of inhabitants,
then almost no one ever gets to use a Rule Province action at all. Even
using your method of unnaturally fast growth, it would still take 70
domain turns to allow a province (1) to be ruled up to a province (2) --
and even then there is nothing for the player to do, in that population
growth just happens, and the number of turns in which a province will
increase its level all on its own without any player action can be
precisely calculated. Also, after just 58 years, every province (1) will
have turned into a province (10) -- what, in your view, was the population
of Cerilia at the time of Michael Roele? Deismaar?

Since I too am concerned about keeping the game fun, busy and complicated
for the players, I prefer to have an interpretation of the meaning of
province level which lets me leave the use of Rule Province restricted no
more than it is in the rulebook. I think my interpretation of province
level preserves both gameplay and biological realism, while yours
preserves neither -- I don`t think it solves the problem it`s meant to,
and I think it introduces another one besides. I prefer to alter the
meaning of the province level to population table, since I cannot see any
reasonable way to keep both it and the Rule Province action unchanged.


Ryan Caveney

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