Province levels and income?

[Angelbialaska]

In the 2e rules, your income increased proportional to your province. In 3e the income is fixed and it doesn't matter if you have 7 provinces with level 1 and 2 or one province of level 10.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one that has noticed this? It gives some realms that were before getting much less income because it was many provinces of low levels a huge income boost.

For most the income remains the same as before, but for some it's much higher. The best example is the Chimaeron, where they were lucky if they could gather 9 GB before, but now they pull in around twice that. 10 GB for tax, 3 GB for law and 5 2/3 for guilds.

Ilien would on the average pull in around 11 GB before, now they get Around 14GB. But they pay for it with the loss of three trade routes, which is an income of 10.5Gb, much more than they'd get in.

Couldn't we somehow make income more province dependent? Otherwise I feel a big shift in some power balance.

[The Jew]

True, but the new system is much simpler and less time consuming to calculate. From my perspective that is worth the shift in revenue for a few realms

[Osprey]

I agree with the Jew - simpler is better here. And if the shift makes formerly weaker provinces a bit stronger, all the better - it levels the playing field somewhat, and makes more realms viable competitors or significant as allies/supporters to other realms. This is, IMO, a more interesting game setting with greater potential for PC's and less absolute dominance by big guys like Avan. Of course, there were so few high-level provinces in BR anyways that it doesn't make for a huge change in power all in all.

[The incredible, edible Phil]

what the big realms need to do is have other revenue streams. Namely Ilien could get some gb from el-hadid for example.

[epicsoul]

Actually, there is one flaw, still.

You see, it is now MUCH more beneficial to rule low level provinces than it is to rule a province beyond level 6.

Why? Better chance at success, less expenditure, but you still increase your income all the same.

Let's look at this from the perspective of Elinie.

We could rule Ansien, a province 5, to 6; costs 5 GB, DC 15 before any bonuses from feats/skills. Net gain; 1 GB to income. Should we succeed, and even assuming that we have maxed out our regent to rule provinces, statistically, it may take 2 rule attempts.

Or, we rule Chalsedon, a province 3 to 4; costs 3 GB, DC 13 with same net gain of income when we succeed, and more likely TO succeed.

Even better, we rule Mholien, only costs 2, DC 12.

Not having a variance, one of the last and only advantages to having a high level province is to be allowed to have a high level court. However, we can overcome this with a palace.

I pity the wizards. They will have a REAL fight on their hands now to keep lands undeveloped. Admittedly, it was always easier to rule low level holdings. And cheaper, for that matter. However, the advantage to a high level holding was that they generated more wealth, the more you invested into it.

Compensation could be said to be granted that the higher the province level, the more trade routes and holdings for guilds and temples are gained. However, this means that the regent is now expected to gain more revenue from these. Re-negotiating this is significant. Most realms have a set rate that their guilder gives them. For instance, using Elinie as an example, where the Points East Trading Company gives 2 GB as tribute (according to the Organizations sheet in the Atlas section). Thus, the realm leader, trying to make up for diminishing returns on ruling high level provinces, would increase taxes and instead of having a set tribute amount, should have a percentage amount of the guilder's incomes... and the temples' too, perhaps.

I hate advocating the squeezing of guilders/temple rulers. However, there is otherwise, not very many reasons to rule a province beyond about level 5 or 6. Too difficult and costly, comparitively. Other reasons, other than the threat of elven invasion (who don't want to see the land scarred, but anything already having reduced the potential source to a 0 they can't care too much about), to rule a high level province? Increased muster speed (w/ law holding), should you be using that optional rule, increased muster amounts, the option to have a high level court w/o palace, and, of course, if you are a wizard ruler, you don't really want to weaken your sources. However, the muster rules for speed rarely have that much impact, nor do increased muster sizes, and both of these are minimized by the idea that if you spread out your muster thru your land, and rule other provinces/law holdings up to higher levels, you will get the same effect.

I think I hit it on the nose earlier when I used the term diminishing returns. Ruling a province to a super high level creates diminishing returns... which, when one thinks about it, it should not.

[Angelbialaska]

Yes, I feel that it's important that the higher level holdings are worth more to develop than low level holdings.

For instance Iilien should be worth more than having 7 level 1 provinces. But it it's right now. In fact it's worth for the ruler to have the 7 low level provinces rather than the high one, since they're not that concerned about trade routes like the guilders and even then there's still quite a jump from level 4 to level 7, theoretically more than there is from 1 to 4 due to the difficulty.

Maybe as some sort of compensation/some sort of equalizer, one could change numbers a bit?

A level 1 to 3 province is worth 2/3 GB per province level.
A level 4 to 6 province is worth 1 GB per province level
A level 7 to 9 province is worth 1 1/3 GB per province level
A level 10 province is worth 1 2/3 GB per province level

Possibly adjust income of guilds, temples and law accordingly
Guild/Temple:
1-3: 1/3GB level
4-6: 2/3GB level
7-9: 1 GB level
10: 1 1/3 GB level

Law:
1-3: 0
4-6: 1/3GB level
7-9: 2/3GB level
10: 1 GB level

I know that it would increase the administrative work a bit. But on the other hand we'd also see how it becomes attractive to have higher level provinces.

For instance with this calculation Ilien is woth 11 2/3 GB in taxes, 4 2/3 in law, 7 GB in temples and 7 GB in guilds.

This is better than a level 3 and a level 4 province, where the level 3 province is totally worth 4 GB and the level 4 province is worth 8GB.

[Raesene Andu]

If the issue of diminishing returns with high level province was a problem, then why does everyone always try to rule up their highest level province... Something I never understood.

If you want to make low level province harder to rule up, change the rules to allow wizards with holdings in the province to oppose any attempt to rule the province. This is what I do in my games, and while it wasn't mentioned in the original rules, was a common solution to the problem of ruling provinces in 2E.

If you use Diemed as an example, under the current rules the DC to rule Moere (5/0) is 15, while it is DC of 12 for Tier (2/3) and DC 13 for Bliene (3/6). However, if you allow a wizard to effect the roll, then Hermedhie's holdings gain more significance. By applying her holdings to the roll, the DC for Moere remains at 15, Tier rises to DC 13, and Bliene shoots up to DC 17.

This is even more pronounced in somewhere like Aerenwe where wizards hold all the source slots. If Liliene Swordwraith attempted to rule Shadowgreen (1/6) under the current rule, her DC would be 11, but if you apply the holdings of the two wizards against the roll, then the DC would rise to 17.

Using that method, it actually makes it easier in a lot of cases to rule 5/0 provinces where there are no significant source holdings. This method also has the advantage of giving wizards much more influence over a realm and a little negotiating power. On top of changes being proposed to increase the DC of rule province actions, mean landed regents really have to be nice to their wizards.

I have previously suggested an altered income system similar to what is being proposed here, but eventually rejected it simple because it is adds a lot to the administrative work. It is just so much easier to stick with the current income structure.

[epicsoul]

If the issue of diminishing returns with high level province was a problem, then why does everyone always try to rule up their highest level province... Something I never understood.

Oddly, I think it is a status thing. Mostly, players want to prove that they have the biggest... province. DMs seem to fall for this too; the amount of times I see the major NPC lands ruling their highest province instead of lowest is even more common than the players.

Myself, as long as I know that I am not ticking off some wizard, I will always go for the low province. Now if only I could make my rolls! However, I like your suggestion of having the wizard able to oppose the roll. It goes towards helping... somewhat. The problem is, while you have increased the DC, you still haven't increased the cost, nor the benefits for a higher level province. So, it is still more advantageous to rule the lower level province. Especially considering that often, those lower level provinces are rolling hills, and thus have a max source rating of 5.

Consider your own example of Diemed. Tier matches Moere for DC if you allow the wizard to oppose, but Tier costs 2 GB to make the check... yet still results in the same 1 GB bonus to income should the check succeed.

It's a step in the right direction, I grant, but still; can anyone justify to me, truly, why they NEED a level 10 province anyways? Other sections of this forum have bemoaned how easy it is to get a province there.... but why would you bother?

[Angelbialaska]

You only bother with ruling your level 10 province rather than ruling up a lot of lower level provinces, because you can then present and say you got the bigger one... It's not like in 2e a matter of the larger provinces being more profitable, which I feel is a shame.

In the system I pointed out above, it would have much more effect. A level 10 province is worth 53 1/3 for all the holding slot. That system makes it less worth to have level 1 to 3 provinces than now, the level 4 to 6 provinces remain the same and the level 7+ provinces become more provinces and therefore more interesting for a ruler to develop up to, even if it costs a lot.

As for Wizards getting the ability to oppose a rule action, isn't that wrong, because if Wizards are allowed to oppose, shouldn't the temples and the guilders allowed to support?

Also a thing to consider is the whole problem about how much gold you get compared to how many you tax in the inflexible system. If you have 1000 people in a province you can tax 1GB. If you have 100.000 people in a province you can tax 10GB. It doesn't make that much sense to me. Instead the tax should be 100GB and some might be lost in administration and such, but still the loss of 90GB in the whole matter is nuts IMO.

[Arius Vistoon]

because to run a multitude of holding is more hardiest,
there could be a modifier to action check or/and to income allowing thus the interest of the govern to increase its levels of holding ( with less number of holding )

example :
-1 to income or/and -1 to action check for 3 number of holding

it's not very complex and give us the same effect attitude....it's good to increase level of holding than increase number of holding...no ?

Your impression ?