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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    Law has no effect on taxation, other than allowing me to go to higher tax levels without suffering loyalty effects.

    Province represents population in the rulebook, but as has already been noted, you simply can't rule provinces up if this is the case.

    So, if you are to rule up your administration of a province, and get more taxing power, you have a choice, either make the law holding the key to taxation (in which case, does Guilder Kalien tax the people of Caerwil or does Suris Enlien?)
    -OR-
    You need to seperate administration from the province rating, so you can rule something up.
    There is a third option to view law as a limiting factor on province taxation. The province ruler has legitimacy, the law ruler has the administration and coercive power. Ideally law and legitimacy are in the same hands, however if not the amount of tax a province regent can recieve is limited by the law holdings.

    Thus Kalien would not be able to tax... but Enlien would recieve less tax without the support of Kalien's law

    Would also create some opportunities for deals: I will support your taxation if you give me a slice of the pie.
    Last edited by Sir Tiamat; 06-05-2007 at 10:55 AM.

  2. #32
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShadowMoon View Post
    By the way; Green Knight used nice model to represent province population/progress growth in Ruins of Empire PBeM.
    Thanks for the tip, the amount of stuff there is awesome. This model is not that different from the wiki house rule, but its even more expensive to rule up a province, probably really making this action useless.

  3. #33
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    Something completely different

    Sorry, completely off-topic, but I couldn't resist:

    Har har, hum ho, I'm a senior member at last

    Sorry again, I'm not acting very 'senior' here

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Tiamat View Post
    the amount of tax a province regent can recieve is limited by the law holdings. Thus Kalien would not be able to tax... but Enlien would recieve less tax without the support of Kalien's law. Would also create some opportunities for deals: I will support your taxation if you give me a slice of the pie.
    Which is pretty much what happens under the normal taxation rules. =)

    Historically, administering the court system was a major source of revenue for whoever operated it (lots of fines; some tolls and customary fees could also go here). Thus to the province ruler, increasing law holdings means not so much bringing law to the wild west, but increasing royal control over existing minor manorial courts or establishing a parallel system to steal the existing case load. Both this and province ruling (in my idea of increasing central administrative control) is the core of the life's work of great kings like England's Henry II.


    Ryan

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beruin View Post
    Har har, hum ho, I'm a senior member at last
    =) So when did you *really* join? My join date ought to be April, 1998, and I should have a few hundred more posts to my credit, since this thing is just a continuation of the old mailing list. Of course, much the same could be said of other old fogeys like Duane, Gary and Kenneth, who don't take breaks as long as mine...


    Ryan

  6. #36
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Tiamat View Post
    There is a third option to view law as a limiting factor on province taxation. The province ruler has legitimacy, the law ruler has the administration and coercive power. Ideally law and legitimacy are in the same hands, however if not the amount of tax a province regent can recieve is limited by the law holdings.
    See, I have to stop right here and disagree. I don't see law and legitimacy in the same hands. I see a top ruler. Different cultures see different guys in this spot as the top guy. In Brechtur, the guilder is the dynamic, interesting guy, and the landlord is there too. The guilds should control the law, not the landlord. Otherwise the landlord is the more powerful dynamic guy and the Brecht decriptions of their society are, as Ryan put it, out to lunch. In Rjurik, the jarls feequently control the law, not the king. They got this right in Rjurik. Any sensible templar seeks law holdings.

    Historically, there is canon law, feudal law, and commercial law. Each kind of holding leader should attempt to aquire law holdings to solidify their power. Read my history of Cariele, and how Mheallie Bireon took real control of that place, she got the guilds easily enough, but that was not the same as control. Now that she has the guilds and the law, she rules. The rest, her alliance with Larra her relationship with Entier is just gravy, or perhaps more properly, naturally flows from her power in Cariele. I doubt very much that Mheallie invented a new idea - guilders own law holdings. She just put it into practice.

    If you invest too much power in the law holdling, shifting too much of the provincial power there, then Entier is a kind of source holding guy, collecting some RP, barely enough GB to staff his court, and he's an observer. Rather, he should be a junior player, with a powerbase of one kind of power, while Mheallie has two kinds (or a one and two thirds kinds).

    Thus Kalien would not be able to tax... but Enlien would recieve less tax without the support of Kalien's law.
    If this were so, who is not paying taxes to the ruler? Where is it going instead? At the very least Kalien's followers are happy with Kalien for stopping the tax man. But there is no game effect except for less money for Suris.

    If provinces are no longer power bases, but just records of how many people there are in a place, that power should move to a new, independent place, like an Administrative holding. I would be happy to see some of the revenue move to the Law holding (since I have been arguing that point since second edition), but it can't all move to Law, since properly, the law should not always be assumed to be in the hands of the landlord.

  7. #37
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ryancaveney View Post
    Thus to the province ruler, increasing law holdings means not so much bringing law to the wild west, but increasing royal control over existing minor manorial courts or establishing a parallel system to steal the existing case load. Both this and province ruling (in my idea of increasing central administrative control) is the core of the life's work of great kings like England's Henry II.
    Ryan
    Hmm. To keep the source level based on extent of civilisation / population I'd rather show the 'true' level and have 'wastage' law holdings blocking expansion than show a lower province level than is truly the case and explain the gap as inefficiency. That would mean tweaking province levels left right and centre I suppose to put in realistic populations but that doesn't bother me.

    You could then say that each 'wastage' law level reduces the province level by one for province taxation purposes and if nasty other holdings as well. In order for Suris to then centralise power as you suggest she needs to contest the 'wastage' holdings (I'd make the DC fairly high) and then rule up law holdings.

    Of course the other regents in the area such as a certain guilder would want her to eliminate the wastage levels as well so that they can expand. (I'd say that only the province ruler can contest wastage levels just like only they can rule the province).

    That then means that you can 'grow' your province either by ruling it (attracting settlers, increasing general wealth, births or health & safety, etc) or by eliminating the 'wastage' levels.


    Kenneth:
    population and terrain
    imho I agree that generally population should follow agriculture/fishing (people need to eat and if they can't they leave or die) but where you have major external factors (i.e. monsters or war) you will also have at least temporary population movements throwing the results - and i see the canon as a snapshot not as a baseline.

    Non-ruler law regents
    I also agree that if other regents hold the law the province ruler doesn't have much left to do - although if they still hold 'macro' power they can permit/ban trade routes, raise armies, charge import/export duties, do diplomacy... Will external regents deal with a mere guilder or will they demand to speak to the king (well, that probably depends on whether or not the king is a puppet but still).

    I would agree that a number of Brecht realms should have a law level or two in each province held by merchants to indicate their influence, and temples should have some too. I would however give province rulers an edge in ruling/contesting law holdings to represent their 'natural authority' - and note that they are more likely to be a class with access to the skills needed to gain full benefit from them.

    Perception of Cerilia
    I see Cerilia as in flux following a period of stability. I need the chaos of war to create a really complex interesting setting where those of poor background (i.e. PC's) can rise to the top (I'm not as good at diplomacy as you are; give me chaos, give me war, let us live in interesting times...).

    Mostly however I think that wars etc should affect mostly the nobility in Anuire rather than the entire population - whoever conquers a province needs peasants to till the fields, merchants to pay taxes, and to a reasonable degree the peasants will work for whoever lives in the castle and has an army without particularly caring overmuch, other realms being more or less similar. I'd only expect to see major population reductions from goblin or other non-human raids. (Possibly from Vos raids on Khinasi or Brecht).

  8. #38
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ryancaveney View Post
    Historically, administering the court system was a major source of revenue for whoever operated it (lots of fines; some tolls and customary fees could also go here). Thus to the province ruler, increasing law holdings means not so much bringing law to the wild west, but increasing royal control over existing minor manorial courts or establishing a parallel system to steal the existing case load. Both this and province ruling (in my idea of increasing central administrative control) is the core of the life's work of great kings like England's Henry II.
    Though I still disagree with regard to province ruling, this is a great take on law holdings and quite well explains the income these gain under the BRCS rules.

    Quote Originally Posted by ryancaveney View Post
    =) So when did you *really* join? My join date ought to be April, 1998, and I should have a few hundred more posts to my credit, since this thing is just a continuation of the old mailing list. Of course, much the same could be said of other old fogeys like Duane, Gary and Kenneth, who don't take breaks as long as mine...
    Well, I don't really know, but I guess sometime in 2000, at least well before 3E came out. However, I did not post that much, so I guess I'm missing 20 posts at most.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    See, I have to stop right here and disagree. I don't see law and legitimacy in the same hands. I see a top ruler. Different cultures see different guys in this spot as the top guy. In Brechtur, the guilder is the dynamic, interesting guy, and the landlord is there too. The guilds should control the law, not the landlord. Otherwise the landlord is the more powerful dynamic guy and the Brecht decriptions of their society are, as Ryan put it, out to lunch. In Rjurik, the jarls feequently control the law, not the king. They got this right in Rjurik. Any sensible templar seeks law holdings.

    Historically, there is canon law, feudal law, and commercial law. Each kind of holding leader should attempt to aquire law holdings to solidify their power. Read my history of Cariele, and how Mheallie Bireon took real control of that place, she got the guilds easily enough, but that was not the same as control. Now that she has the guilds and the law, she rules. The rest, her alliance with Larra her relationship with Entier is just gravy, or perhaps more properly, naturally flows from her power in Cariele. I doubt very much that Mheallie invented a new idea - guilders own law holdings. She just put it into practice.

    If you invest too much power in the law holding, shifting too much of the provincial power there, then Entier is a kind of source holding guy, collecting some RP, barely enough GB to staff his court, and he's an observer. Rather, he should be a junior player, with a powerbase of one kind of power, while Mheallie has two kinds (or a one and two thirds kinds).
    I do not really see a problem there; surely non-province rulers can legitimately control law holdings, which provide the control and the power over a province, but non-province rulers do not have the legitimacy to rule the province; one needs investiture to receive that kind of control. A law regent may also try to tax, but without the legitimacy of the province ruler, the law regent is forced to rely on his power alone: in birthright this is a seizure.

    A king (province ruler) without law, is a sad figure indeed; he cannot raise troops, cannot impose his laws, and in my view has therefore no power to tax. Surely he has the right to tax, he is at the top of the pyramid and the taxes of the realm should go to him. However without any means to enforce it he will likely receive none; he may send his officials to the landlords, but without support of the law these officials will be returned empty handed, especially when the law regent decides to have them detained and sent back empty handed. Consequently, a king without any law is no more than a figurehead; he will collect some regency (legitimacy), but is essentially no more than a mere puppet to the real powers in the realm; his power will reach only as far as others allow it to reach.

    Luckily for Cerillian Kings, being completely devoid of law holdings is rare. Though rulers may have a few difficult provinces within their kingdom, in which they do not hold the law, they are likely to have enough law in other provinces from which troops can be raised. Being the legitimate ruler of the land allows the king to freely move his troops within the kingdom, including in the uncontrolled province. If a conflict would erupt between the king and the law regent, the King could instate martial law as a last resort. Still, this would be rare seeing that the law ruler (actual control) and the King (legitimacy) have an incentive to come to an agreement; the King/domain regent sends out his tax collectors and the law regent provides the muscle in exchange for a slice of the pie.

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