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Thread: Urban Provinces

  1. #1
    I am aware there has been much discussion, and headaches, about the creation of urban provinces. However, a potential method that was developed by Osprey should be posted on this thread and I believe that by posting this now, it will motivate him to post the complete idea as he envisioned it.

    I will give my understanding of the new idea as I recall it, first from a theoretical view and then the statistical view.

    Looking to history to find major urban cities with populations over 100,000 don’t really offer so many examples until the industrial revolution. As we’re more in the medieval era its very rare, maybe Constantinople would be an example. Nevertheless, in Birthright as we have the Imperial City as an amazing example of an urban province, the possibility of following their example to create an urban province seems like it should be possible. However, it also should be very difficult, otherwise we would see more of them or even remains of them from the Old Empire.

    To solve this Osprey had a good idea to not only include this difficulty, but to also include the past difficulty with sudden population changes that plagued past ideas. Instead of just splitting the levels of the rural province with the urban province and the population inconsistency and headache that causes, rather, the rural province is built up above its maximum potential level in virtual levels. These virtual levels would then be split between the rural and urban province. As I understood it these virtual levels would be similar to the building costs to creating the urban province. Heh, that’s about as much theory as I recall atm, so I’ll let Osprey expand upon and explain his idea more himself J

    As for the statistics I recall that there are essentially 5 rules concerning the creation of the urban province.

    1. The rural province must be of level 9 (for capitals because they can count for 1 level higher population as discussed in the new D20 BRCS rules p88) or level 10 (for other rural provinces)

    2. There can only be one urban province based in a rural province. (Maybe just one per realm. Not fully discussed)

    3. The rural province must be ruled up to half of the current level of the province in virtual levels. So for both capitals and normal provinces 5 virtual levels will have to be raised. Hence, they will have to raise up their province to level 14 and 15 respectively. These virtual levels will count to the DC and cost of ruling up a province, however, they will not count for collection of regency and GBs. Nor would they allow holdings to be ruled up to higher levels.

    4. Once the rural province has be ruled up to 14 or 15 the ruler may then use the create province domain action to form the urban province. Now the levels of the rural province and the urban province can vary, slightly, so players can have some leeway in deciding how balanced they want the split. So they can split the levels to 7(rural)-7(urban) or 6-8 for capitals and 7-8 or 6-9 for other provinces. This would keep the population levels fairly equivalent for provinces of level 9 and 10.

    5. Those holdings (law, temple and guild) in the province will each be split up between the two provinces leaving the majority of levels for a holding in the urban province. Roughly 2/3 of the holdings should be in the urban province. So a level 10 guild holding would be split up into 4(rural)-6(urban) with a level 4 guild holding in the rural province and a level 6 guild holding in the urban.

    I believe these are the major rules he discussed, if I’m missing some or got a couple wrong I’m sure he’ll add or correct them.
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Just a few clarifications:

    6. The province must first be ruled to its maximum level before it is eligible to become an urban province.

    Thus, a L9 capital would qualify as [hills, caostal] or [open, river], while a L10 could be reached only as [open, coastal].

    Clarifying #2: An urban province needs at least one its trade routes to be from an adjacent rural province (typically the "parent" province). This represents an agricultural source of food for the city.

    3. These levels are created using the Rule Province action. Once per season limit applies as usual.

  3. #3
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    Why create these virtual level and then use create province. It just isn't very fluid. The city as a political and economic unit would appear in one month. A regent that controlled all the holdings of one type within the province would suddenly control only a portion of the holdings in the rural province. Why not use the create province action and then rule up the city at a base DC of 20 and an additional 10 GB per rule? To allow for a more even population spread the regent could switch a couple of province levels over to the newly created citys, along with the appropriate holdings.
    Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

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    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Check out the thread "Elven Forests and Source Potential" in the Royal Library. About 6 posts into it, a discussion about creating urban provinces begins, and it details some of the problems with simply "splitting off" urban provinces.

    The general idea in this system is that they should be hard as hell to make (hence the reason there's only one in all of Cerilia, and it was made at the height of the Empire). I imagine the virtual levels equal growing population and investment that eventually reach a "critical mass" and become a seperate province. I know, it's far from a brilliant solution, but if anyone can work out a smoother one (that's cohesive, balanced, etc.), I'd love to see it. 'Cause if it's been done once, it could be done again. And the historical evolution of our world says that such places ARE possible, but extremely rare until the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Yet ancient Rome, Constantinople, and perhaps others (Alexandria? Carthage?) provide some historical examples of the possiblity without such a revolution. So if your Cerilian campaign is evolving into a higher level of civilization (i.e., level 9-10 provinces), it should be possible, yet represent a very big step forward in that evolution.

    That's the thinking behind it, anyways.

  5. #5
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    Many cities grew to well over 100,000 in population before the industrial revelution. London, paris, colone, rome, constatinople, madrid, lisbon, barsalona, andualsia, babylon, niniva, venis, alexandra, and these are just a few of the cities that reached over 100,000 population in europe and teh middle east. These cities reached over 100,000 population during teh anchient and midevil peroids and many more cities reached over 100,000 pops in the reinisance. The real limiting factor for pop wasnt 100,000 that is realtively easy to reach its 1,000,000 that is teh population level that requires teh industrial revelution to reach but even then rome and costatinople and the anchient city of the aztechs (current location of mexico city) all reached over 1,000,000 in pops at their height. I havent even go into asia cities the reached over 100,000 in pop in india, china or south east asia. Mesoamerica also had many cities over 100,000 population. So history shows that 100,000 pop isnt rare at all.

    The fact that there is only one in cerlilia is more likely because of the constant wars (a great population limiter) and the relationship between the the source and population. Perhaps while humans are less aware or intune with nature understand at some level that they cant completely conquer nature less they lose total conection with nature and teh sourse so they subconciously limit their population growth.

    I dont know but its not difficult for anchient cities to reach 100,000 population. Hell it was teh 13th century plague that depopulated europe not the lack of technological ability to support high population cities.

    This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.

    i just wanted to point out that 100,00 population sized cities are not all that uncommon.

  6. #6
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----

    From: "Airgedok" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

    Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:50 AM





    > Many cities grew to well over 100,000 in population before the

    industrial revelution. London, paris, colone, rome, constatinople, madrid,

    lisbon, barsalona, andualsia, babylon, niniva, venis, alexandra, and these

    are just a few of the cities that reached over 100,000 population in europe

    and teh middle east. These cities reached over 100,000 population during teh

    anchient and midevil peroids and many more >cities reached over 100,000 pops

    in the reinisance.



    My list of Rennaisance cities numbering 100,000 is London, Paris, Amsterdam,

    Lisbon, Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples, Messina, Palermo, and Constantinople.

    By the 18th century you may add Madrid and Moscow, but must remove Messina.

    Considering populations over many thousands of years is not a good

    indication of how many cities should be numbering over 100,000 during the

    course of a game. Of the map of Cerilia, only Anuire, Brectuer, and Khinasi

    are of in the possition to consdier such cities. France had one. England

    had one. Iberia had one. The Empire had one, and it wasn`t German, its

    Dutch. Of all Europe East of Amsterdam and North Venice there were no such

    cities until Moscow made the list. Of such cities they play the role of

    national center, being the capital go government, finance, trade, and

    culture. Since the realms of Cerilia lack such a central capital for all of

    these functions, I have a hard time imagining such a city being able to come

    into being. It is the very nature in all of the nations of Cerilia that

    there are many small competing centers, not one dominant place where the

    government, finance, trade, and culture of Brecture (for example) are all

    conducted.



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  7. #7
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.
    Actually, I think such an idea has merit. Having urban provinces reduce the surrounding source levels isn&#39;t out of the spirit of the game at all. Cities always spread their "blights" on the natural world in a fairly large radius. Intense agriculture, and the villages and small towns that eventually grow up with them, would definitely reduce the source potential in the area. But I doubt the mebhaighal would ever "adjust" to such a degree of civilization, unless you believe that mebhaighal can coexist with urban civilization (which definitely does not agree with the original concept).

  8. #8
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    Originally posted by Osprey@Oct 12 2003, 02:02 PM
    This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.
    Actually, I think such an idea has merit. Having urban provinces reduce the surrounding source levels isn&#39;t out of the spirit of the game at all. Cities always spread their "blights" on the natural world in a fairly large radius. Intense agriculture, and the villages and small towns that eventually grow up with them, would definitely reduce the source potential in the area. But I doubt the mebhaighal would ever "adjust" to such a degree of civilization, unless you believe that mebhaighal can coexist with urban civilization (which definitely does not agree with the original concept).
    The reason for the adjustment was that the current rules for the imperial city dont create this "blight" to the surrounding areas. So why have new cities have a perma blight effect? The land only "adjusts" back in teh surounding area and the spirit of teh rules is that the effects on the source are limited to the area of the damage. The urban province would still have a 0 source and from my understanding so would teh host province correct? So the surounding provinces are only limitedly effected for a limited time.

    Also urban blight as we know it is not really a problem in older cities in teh 100,000 pop range. Its really teh advent of teh automoblie that creates the urban blight we know of today. I simply tried to present a "reason" why only one urban province ever formed. But when I think on it its a poor limating factor. Since most regents dont own source holdings and most landed regents would desire the huge gains from an urban province in both GB and RP over the lose of source holdings, this would be non-factor in teh equation. Regents would try to create urban provinces simply because of teh power city centres create. Great places to provide a kingdom with artisans and a place to muster troops. Its urban centres that provide the powerbase for a kingdom.

    So my thoughts are flawed and wrong.

  9. #9
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    I`ve made this argument several times in the past, but since the subject has

    come up I`ll mention it again: I think the solution to the "city province"

    issue in the BR domain rules is better handled by just allowing for level

    11+ provinces (both in terms of their population levels and potential

    sources) rather than a domain action that "splits" a province into two

    independant populations. The domain system assumes up to and including

    level 10 that urban areas are incorporated into the overall population level

    of the province, that the governing bodies of local urban areas are part of

    the overall province structure, and that province rulers control both rural

    and urban areas as a whole, so why stop at level 10 for either aspect of

    provinces? The "max level" of population is more a reflection of certain

    "old style" D&D methods regarding such things, and needn`t really even have

    been applied then. It was, essentially, a mistake based on some short term

    thinking about the game mechanics. Don`t get me wrong, it`s not an

    unforgiveable or inexplicable mistake--BR being the first substantial foray

    into a domain level of play in D&D, but in the long run doing away with the

    level 10 cap makes more sense.



    The existence of the Imperial City "province" does throw a bit of a monkey

    wrench in the works for anyone who is an absolute purist regarding the

    original materials, but it makes as much sense to incorporate that

    "province" into the adjacent one and just give the Chamberlain control over

    that rather than to have a sort of quasi-province of extraordinary size (in

    comparison to the other BR provinces) clinging to the coast of Anuire, like

    Rome dangling off the tip of the Italian boot.



    Having a seperated, urban province leads to several difficult issues in a

    system of domain rules, not the least of which is the "net gain" or "net

    loss" of population that results from any split of an existing population

    level given the scaled population levels of the domain rules. A level 10

    broken up into two level 5 provinces winds up displacing 50,000 civilians,

    while a more accurate accounting of the population figures turns a level 10

    province into to level 7`s for a net gain of 4 total province levels.

    Either way makes for a game mechanical problem. In fact, there`s no real

    necessity to split a province up like that. Level 11+ provinces can just

    continue to be ruled up with a few more lines to the various tables for

    revenue. Level 11+ population levels are easily projected using a simple

    formula; population level (squared) x 1,000 rounded to the nearest 5,000.



    11=120,000

    12=145,000

    13=170,000

    14=195,000

    15=225,000

    Etc.



    Lastly, there is IMO a bit of an issue with the justification for an

    independent urban province that is divorced from any nearby territory the

    way it is presented by the concept in either the original BR materials or in

    any of the proposed methods for creating such provinces. I do like the idea

    of breaking up political units into various sizes--the polis, townships,

    villages, military territories, etc.--but at the level of the BR domain

    system it`s easier to just do away with the level cap than try to deal with

    such concepts using a "split province" set of rules.



    Gary

  10. #10
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Lastly, there is IMO a bit of an issue with the justification for an
    independent urban province that is divorced from any nearby territory the
    way it is presented by the concept in either the original BR materials or in
    any of the proposed methods for creating such provinces. I do like the idea
    of breaking up political units into various sizes--the polis, townships,
    villages, military territories, etc.--but at the level of the BR domain
    system it`s easier to just do away with the level cap than try to deal with
    such concepts using a "split province" set of rules.

    Gary
    Actually, BRCS added in that an urban province needs at least one active trade route or it drops in level. I took it a step further and said that this must be to an open (read: agricultural) province to represent the food supplies necessary to feed the population of the big city. One could easily take this even further, and say that one such trade route is necessary per x levels of urban province (off the top of my head, I&#39;d say 1:5 is reasonable, so urban prov. L1-5= 1 ag. trade route, L6-10 needs 2 such routes). Optionally, given non-linear populations, we could reason L1-6: 1 route, L7-9: 2 routes, L10: 3 routes. On the other hand, it&#39;s hard to imagine an urban province being anything less than level 7, so generally at least 2 food-supplying trade routes would be needed to supply the city (and I allow 4 trade routes to a L10 province, so that should be accounted for in my suggestion). On the other hand, I imagine many craftsmen and laborers producing finished goods of all sorts and sizes, and these finished goods would be the exports flowing back to the agricultural provinces. The other trade route(s) would supply raw materials for these craftsmen.

    Similarly, when it seems that most urban provinces split from open provinces, it seems logical that one of those trade routes would be from the parent province. Moreover, some (if not all) trade routes to the urban prov. would run through the parent province, which creates a very strong relationship between the two. This is alluded to in RoE when the provinces of Ciliene and Avanil are discussed in relation to the Imperial City. It talks about the power that Darien Avan and Hierl Diem hold over the City of Anuire because they could cut off the (land-based) trade routes to the city at any time.

    If an urban province were to be made during the course of a campaign, it would almost certainly be a unique event within a given realm, and most of the time I&#39;d expect it to be the capital of that realm. This already speaks volumes about its relationship to the realm.

    I&#39;d expect the original province (clear terrain, usually) to be a mixture of intense agricultural production (with many fields and villages) and things like inns, warehouses, and traders capitalizing on the ever-growing needs of an expanding metropolis.

    I actually like the idea of a population cap for one main reason: provinces are built as self-sufficient entities, whereas the urban province is dependant on imports to supply its massive population, especially foodstuffs. Sure, there might be gardens in the city, but never enough to supply a serious quantity of food. The provincle level maximums represent, IMO, the maximum population that a province can support from its own food production. There&#39;s also a certain space limitation in dense/rugged terrain types, but cities can concentrate an amazing number of people in a relatively small space, so I don&#39;t think this is the major issue here.

    If you were to use the idea of higher province levels (which might very well be the best solution), then I&#39;d integrate a similar import-dependent rule for levels above the normal maximums based on terrain types. What do you think of that, Geeman?

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