Darkstar wrote:

> Simon Graindorge wrote:
>
> > I always liked the way Ruling (of a province) was handled in Darkstar's
> > PBEM. Simply put (and maybe Darkstar can expand on this), when ruling a
> > province, the regent was not allowed to use any extra modifiers (RP/GB/etc)
> > to affect the dice roll. Thus, the higher the level of the province becomes,
> > the harder it is to increase its level.
>
> I introduced the change to stop regents from ruling up provinces too
> quickly. Using the standard rules, and with a liberal application of
> RPs, it is theoretically possible to go from a level 1 province to a
> level ten province in just ten turns. In other words the population of a
> province can increase from 1,000 to 100,000 in a little over 2 years,
> which is hardly a reasonable increase in my opinion. So I changed the
> rule action to forbid the use of RPs, and then later I altered it again
> to add the target level of the province to the success roll. Then I
> modified it a third time to allow wizard with source holdings in the
> province to either support or hinder the rule attempt.

I personally like the level-hinders-success varitation. If you read the BR
rulebook page right before the actions table (which comes right before the action
descriptions) it speaks of using such a method. It may have been missed when
typing the action descriptions. I think that the playtesters would have noticed
the ease of ruling if it were that easy (assuming the level hinderance). One
problem may be the way we play Birthright. It is my opinion that many of a
regent's actions are spent in espionage or dealing with random events. By taking
an espionage action every turn you really learn a lot about the world around you.
I'd be willing to bet that a correctly played Roesone has to spend two actions a
turn dealing with Ghoere. One action to find out about troop movements and
another to deal with a Ghoerean espionage (which creates a random event) or keep
Ghoere busy with creating random events in thier territory. After I've finished
reading Debt of Honor (by Tom Clancy), I think we also let players get away with
too much direct diplomacy. In most PBeMs, players are too open. If you want to
form a non-agression treaty with another regent or you want to work out a
trade-route taxation deal, simple letters won't cut it. Taking the trade route
taxation example: Endier wants to trade in Diemed. The Duke wants money. But in
real life, neither of them will say OK to just that. Diemed will want as much
money as possible, or maybe Diemed will want to gain a little land from Endier and
will use the trade taxation as a level for that strip of land. Meanwhile, Endier
wants to pay as little as possible and wants to buy several areas of land near
Diemed's major cities for building guilds. So they both do diplomacy and a subtle
game of words takes place between ambassators. If you've read most any Tom Clancy
type book you'll probably know what I mean. So anyway, that uses up most of a
realm's actions. For Roesone, after dealing with Ghoere, Diemed, the Straits of
Aerele Shipping, Rogr Aglondier, and High Mage Aelies; it's no wonder the realm
can't manage to rule up its few level (2) provinces. They only cost 2 GB and 6 RP
to rule with a 60% chance of success. But Roesone should be too busy to have the
time for that. Provinces CAN grow from nothing to large cities in a matter of
seasons. But that takes tons of resources and more time, both of which are
usually too precious to waste on getting a few more plebs to live in your chunck
of rock.
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