New Domain Action Idea: Create Urban Province

[Rowan]

All this worry about population levels only matters if you stick within the very deficient idea of province levels as population levels. Trying to explain realm-level rules having to do with province levels in terms of population alone or even primarily is doomed to failure.

It's time, in my opinion (and I think that of many others here) to get out of our heads the idea that province level = a certain population, period.

Instead, we're talking about level of economic and administrative sophistication, and how much control singular governmental bodies or guilds or temples wield over the general populace. Much, much economic wealth is generated by a province wholly outside of guilds, temples, and the lord's taxation. Province levels work better as a descriptor of degree of control over resources, efficiency of administration, and efficiency of the economy.

I personally have always thought that Anuire had reached a height such as the Roman Empire or the Renaissance had reached. If that's true, it's not doomed to exist perpetually in dark age squalor. Rather, it has been struggling to regain its former development and achievements, but has been limited in doing so because of internal strife and factionalism.

If my memory serves, many nations (France, Austria, Prussia, and more) have been turned around from countries in disastrous disarray and economic tatters to tremendous regional powers well within a single man's rule, and certainly over generations. BR should definitely allow this kind of rapid recovery.

As for cities developing, it's certainly not easy by my standards, but something like what Constantine did with Constantinople, or Louis XIV with Versailles, should be possible. Even a level 10 urban province is not really a city comparable with Italian City-states, Paris, London, Rome, Constantinople, or other great cities of the time (and a level 10 urban province would be incredibly difficult to create, indeed). Rather, cities like those are better represented by either levels above 10, or a cluster of Urban and regular provinces of high level.

Remember, the Imperial City is supposed to be in great decline, only a shadow of its former self, and yet it is Level 10, with many almost "suburb" provinces of high level (5's, 6's, and 7's).

[kgauck]

If my memory serves, many nations (France, Austria, Prussia, and more) have been turned around from countries in disastrous disarray and economic tatters to tremendous regional powers well within a single man's rule, and certainly over generations. BR should definitely allow this kind of rapid recovery.

It would seem, if this were how things work, that the primary mechanic would be founded in skills or attributes, so that the gifted ruler, whether this was skills or talent, would be more successful than his rivals.

There is certainly something to this, but often times I think sudden revivals are the product of the fact that two realms have different reform curves. One realm has adopted reform and improvement while another realm is trying to adjust, so one is rising while a rival is struggling.

As for cities developing, it's certainly not easy by my standards, but something like what Constantine did with Constantinople, or Louis XIV with Versailles, should be possible.

Versailles, which was financed by all of France, as opposed to the much smaller Principality of Avanil, for instance, was started in 1671, really got going in 1682, when Louis moved his residence there, and was basically stopped in 1715 because Louis XIV died. There are a lot of ways to represent this, but why spend 300 billion US dollars this way?

Which brings up the observation that both Constantinople (as were all Roman cities) and Versailles were administrative centers, which means they were expensive cost centers, not valuable profit centers. You can't just build stuff and expect economic activity to happen, even if you're a guilder. Command economies just aren't successful.

Even a level 10 urban province is not really a city comparable with Italian City-states, Paris, London, Rome, Constantinople, or other great cities of the time (and a level 10 urban province would be incredibly difficult to create, indeed). Rather, cities like those are better represented by either levels above 10, or a cluster of Urban and regular provinces of high level.

Actually I think most cities are well below level 10. I'd figure London is a Province 8 with no need for a special province of its own. Paris, as the largest city of the west might be the only city in Europe to get an urban province.

Remember, the Imperial City is supposed to be in great decline, only a shadow of its former self, and yet it is Level 10, with many almost "suburb" provinces of high level (5's, 6's, and 7's).

If the city had been a great administrative city, it is a shadow of its former self. But that doesn't mean its population has declined, only that its no longer the place to be and get things done.

[geeman]

At 08:19 PM 2/10/2008, Rowan wrote:

>Province levels work better as a descriptor of degree of control
>over resources, efficiency of administration, and efficiency of the economy.

The economic efficiency argument has a certain appeal when trying to
interpret what is meant by a population level, but in practice it has
the same faults and fumblings as the assumption that population
numbers represent actual numbers of people. It still goes up too
quickly to be realistic and if population level really represents
advances in technical control why doesn`t it accompany any other type
of technical progress? What`s worse, if population level represents
control over an already existing (and relatively static) population
level then why does control over population rather than the actual
population that apparently already exists reduce the source potential
of a province?

The best interpretation of what a population level represents is...
all of them. Efficiency should be considered a factor, actual
birthrate/infant mortality a factor, an increase in lifespan a
factor, health services, immigration, incorporation of previously
uncontrolled population, etc.

IMO, the best interpretation made for what population numbers
represent was suggested quite a while back. Population levels
represent family units, not individuals. That way an increase in
population can be interpreted as an increase in households
(journeymen set up as independent craftsmen, for example) creating
new taxable income earners. That`s an "efficiency" argument that is
much more specific and makes better sense of the low population
numbers of Cerilia when compared to medieval Western demographics.

Efficiency should be a factor, but to discount actual numbers in
population level is just as bound up in contradiction and fallacy as
anything else, and equally problematic. Rather, it`s simpler, more
sensible and a lot less of a headache to treat population level as an
abstraction like so many other aspects of game mechanics. It is a
combination of ALL these factors, not one over the other.

Gary

[Rowan]

Geeman: It still goes up too
quickly to be realistic and if population level really represents
advances in technical control why doesn`t it accompany any other type
of technical progress? What`s worse, if population level represents
control over an already existing (and relatively static) population
level then why does control over population rather than the actual
population that apparently already exists reduce the source potential
of a province?

I didn't suggest it had much at all to do with technology, if that's what you're getting it. It's about efficiency and how much of the population is actually brought under the control of the regent. One of the biggest problems of a state until modern times has been actually getting out and collecting taxes from everyone. The state's apparatus for this was usually very small compared to today, inefficient, and prone to corruption or simply lack of information. Therefore a rapid rise in province level can easily be accounted for by getting better control of taxation. Urban populations are relatively easy to tax, and therefore urban provinces can easily represent higher levels of prosperity. Further, urban populations consist of artisans more than farmers, so we're talking about a much greater level of refined, tradable goods.

You're right about the discrepancy with Source potential; reduction of source potential has always been a clumsy, game-balance-related idea. I think it can still be accounted for if you assume that temporal control of a landed regent interferes, through the blood-land connection, with mebhaigl availability. This makes sense in the context of divine beings and thus divine power primarily relying upon the Seeming of their native plane, rather than the mebhaigl of Cerilia. It affects scions by extension of their inherited powers.

Kgauck: It would seem, if this were how things work, that the primary mechanic would be founded in skills or attributes, so that the gifted ruler, whether this was skills or talent, would be more successful than his rivals.

BRCS accounts for this in regency collection. Further, any advancement in one's realm in Birthright requires either skilled rulers or luck. So it seems to me that BRCS already accounts for the wise rulership of regents. I don't know how you can ascribe it to reform rates when you consider that these turnarounds and the prior declines have been attributed to the good or poor rule of the rulers involved (Constantine, Basil the Great, Charlemegne, Louis XIV, Napolean, Bismarck).

As for cities as administrative centers, yes that's how they began. Constantinople, though, and likely others (such as Rome itself) took on economic lives of their own. They were centers of trade and finance and production of refined goods.

Kgauck:Actually I think most cities are well below level 10. I'd figure London is a Province 8 with no need for a special province of its own. Paris, as the largest city of the west might be the only city in Europe to get an urban province.

London and Paris of what period? They, like Greek and Roman and Italian cities, reached population levels alone much, much higher than 200,000, if we're going by that measure for level 10. Further, provinces can support much greater population densities than is currently indicated in the Birthright system. Especially if you expand their land areas, like many of us do. I prefer to view Anuire as the size of France. Even at smaller sizes, greater troop numbers and more trade (in terms of gold production) can be supported. In Louis XIV's reign, as well as in earlier Roman periods, we were talking about budgets of tens of millions in standard currency, and constant warfare with tens of thousands of troops.

I can't seem to find where, but I thought I remembered the Imperial City being described as having many vacant districts due to its decline in population.

[geeman]

At 07:43 AM 2/11/2008, Rowan wrote:

>I didn`t suggest it had much at all to do with technology, if that`s
>what you`re getting it. It`s about efficiency and how much of the
>population is actually brought under the control of the regent. One
>of the biggest problems of a state until modern times has been
>actually getting out and collecting taxes from everyone. The
>state`s apparatus for this was usually very small compared to today,
>inefficient, and prone to corruption or simply lack of
>information. Therefore a rapid rise in province level can easily be
>accounted for by getting better control of taxation. [snip]

I`m sure there are lots of folks who`d disagree with me on this one,
but what you`re talking about *is* a form of technological
progress. Larger, more efficient bureaucratic entities and
organizations represent a knowledge base just as the organization of
any other means of production are technology. Where one has an
infrastructure that is made up of officials and clerks the other has
managers and workers. Whether one agrees with my definition of
terms, though, isn`t really the issue. The issues is that if the
"efficiency" a province goes from level 1 to level 2 is a 100%
increase in a season.... That`s rather a heady amount of progress
and control if one considers the nature of such things. The
presentation of population levels as up to a 1,000% increase in
efficiency isn`t the kind of thing that could be done even in modern terms.

When it comes to the simple terminology, it`s hard for me to look at
the expansion of a government`s control over a population and
characterize that as "efficiency." It just strikes me as counter intuitive.

>You`re right about the discrepancy with Source potential; reduction
>of source potential has always been a clumsy, game-balance-related
>idea. I think it can still be accounted for if you assume that
>temporal control of a landed regent interferes, through the
>blood-land connection, with mebhaigl availability. This makes sense
>in the context of divine beings and thus divine power primarily
>relying upon the Seeming of their native plane, rather than the
>mebhaigl of Cerilia. It affects scions by extension of their inherited powers.

That`s very interesting. So the conflict is more a psychic battle
for control over a set amount of province "popular and mystical"
resources? It turns the issue into a direct conflict of regents and
removes it from the structure of the domain.... Off the cuff, I`m
inclined to think such an interpretation would muck about with a
whole bunch of other domain level concepts, but it`s definitely
something worth thinking about of only because the implications are
so broad and potentially useful in actual play. I don`t know if it
really addresses the issue of population vs. source potential, but
it`s definitely something to think about.

Gary

[Rowan]

A 100% increase in tax collection from level 1-2 province could be created by doubling the number of tax collectors and administrators, cataloguing a larger portion of the wealth of the region and the people themselves, and expanding systems of allegiances and communication from the regent through his servitors to the people.


As for source levels, I don't really see the conflict as a psychic one. It has more to do with all of this BR terminology of the "land" accepting a ruler, or the regent's connection with "the land." It's not conscious among the rulers; it's an unseen conflict between divine power connecting itself with the land and the mebhaigl running through the land. The only problem created that I can think of right now is if a province has levels and is left uninvested. I suggest that those provinces simply retain an "impression" or "memory" of the divine connection to a regent they once held. If you allow Source regents to contest Province Levels (like I do), that represents the Source regent erasing that impression or memory, not driving off or slaughtering whole populations.

In the instance of an uninvested province, no regent is gathering RP or gold from it, and so the province levels are essentially useless until a regent moves in and invests it, taking control of the existing political infrastructure and bonding himself with the land at the level of connection that the land "remembers." If source levels are not full, then the source potential doesn't really matter and doesn't become a problem; if they ARE full, the source regent can contest the province level to erase the land's memory and restore the flow of mebhaigl, possibly also disrupting existing political infrastructure (any other holdings in the province).

[kgauck]

The domain system's primary virtue is its flexibility and abstraction, so that whatever kind of game you want is easily manageable with major changes. Want a game where players inherit a late medieval state and impose a new renaissance administration on it, like Henry VII in England, Ferdinand in Castille (in his wife's kingdom), or France by a series of monarchs after the Hundred Years War? Great, determine populations, reduce source holdings to match, and use province level as a measure of administrative reform.

Don't care for that? Want static province figures so that players engage in politics (diplomacy, espionage, war!) instead of taking all their turns ruling things up? Great, provinces are mostly population with enough other factors that you can explain various curiosities.

It slices, it dices, it julliens carrots! But wait, there's more!

I also think that most province levels are basically agricultural with a few towns. But some provinces that get past, say level 5, might have other kinds of activity, like banking. Banking centers were very rare in the early days of finance, so this isn't springing up all over, but when cities like Ilien or Endier go up a level, it might be banking rather than administration. Increases in such places might also represent more trade that isn't represented by trade routes (because the benefits are general, rather than being confined to the guilders). So there are several things that can go on at higher levels of provinces that adds still more texture.

BRCS accounts for this in regency collection. Further, any advancement in one's realm in Birthright requires either skilled rulers or luck. So it seems to me that BRCS already accounts for the wise rulership of regents.

The reason I raised the issue is that most rulers are roughly the same level, and can be expected to have a reasonable assortment of the same kinds of skills available in their own persons or in their lieutenants. So a rise in one realm can't be ascribed to skills if everyone has access to the same skills in roughly the same proportion.

I don't know how you can ascribe it to reform rates when you consider that these turnarounds and the prior declines have been attributed to the good or poor rule of the rulers involved (Constantine, Basil the Great, Charlemegne, Louis XIV, Napolean, Bismarck).

Everything was attributed to rulers, including things we know that they had nothing to do with. If we all put on our Hegalian hats, then the reforms happen on their own and given monarchs and ministers are just the instruments of the dialectic of the age. Not terribly heroic, but it is an alternate explanation of why states rise and fall. Did Rome fall because of a series of bad emperors, or because the global climate cooled in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC?

As for cities as administrative centers, yes that's how they began. Constantinople, though, and likely others (such as Rome itself) took on economic lives of their own. They were centers of trade and finance and production of refined goods.

Rome never produced anything for export. All Roman trade routes went one way, goods into Rome (there was almost no trade between regions) and money to Rome as taxes and back again for the goods the city needed. Money also went to the Asian empires for exotic imports, like silks and spices. Indeed, all of Italy exported no goods.

Constantinople developed a trade in luxury goods in the later middle ages, but this has more to do with her geographical position between east and west than it did in the great industry of the city.

London and Paris of what period?

Our period, the 15th and 16th centuries. The times when analogy to BR is the easiest and most natural because they are most similar.

They, like Greek and Roman and Italian cities, reached population levels alone much, much higher than 200,000, if we're going by that measure for level 10.

Most poleis had a population of 20-30,000 citizens, and used colonization to keep this functional ceiling. Rome, its true got to a million, and a few other Imperial capitals got big, but that's not common.

I prefer to view Anuire as the size of France.

I think that's the consensus view.

In Louis XIV's reign, as well as in earlier Roman periods, we were talking about budgets of tens of millions in standard currency, and constant warfare with tens of thousands of troops.

Louis XIV is after the military revolution, and his armies numbered in the hundred's of thousands. Unless your Birthright has wigs and frock coats I think this is too late for much use. My target France for Birthright is between the end of the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion. Its a big hundred year window and that's a lot to draw on.

[geeman]

At 08:50 AM 2/11/2008, Rowan wrote:

>A 100% increase in tax collection from level 1-2 province could be
>created by doubling the number of tax collectors and administrators,
>cataloguing a larger portion of the wealth of the region and the
>people themselves, and expanding systems of allegiances and
>communication from the regent through his servitors to the people.

Presumably, actual population numbers in this interpretation would
exist up to the maximum population of the provinces according to
their terrain types. That might get us closer to a set of realistic
demographic numbers, but I don`t find that rationale any more
satisfying than any of the ones having to do with actual numbers of
people. The static population argument falls flat on a couple of levels.

It ignores the population vs source potential issue, but let`s ignore
that for the moment and address just the population side of things.

It also begs certain questions, like why are holdings bound to
population level? This interpretation of what a population level
means turns it into a sort of governmental tax "holding" rather than
an actual population number. If population level represents
efficiency and size of a regent`s taxation system (rather than the
tax base itself) shouldn`t law, guild and temple holdings be able to
surpass population level? Those domain structures do, after all,
represent the legal, economic and religious control over a
population. Shouldn`t it be possible for a priest regent`s control
over the religious sentiment of a static population to surpass the
taxation structure of the province ruler? Along those same lines,
shouldn`t it be possible for there to be more than one domain ruler
in a province just as there can be more than one regent for each of
the holding types? Surely there are any number of examples of more
than one regent taxing the population (which is why law holdings are
used to represent that kind of thing rather than population level.)

The big picture here is that this interpretation isn`t by itself any
more satisfying than several others. It`s not a panacea to the
issues having to do with how BR`s domain level handles population levels.

>As for source levels, I don`t really see the conflict as a psychic
>one. It has more to do with all of this BR terminology of the
>"land" accepting a ruler, or the regent`s connection with "the
>land." It`s not conscious among the rulers; it`s an unseen conflict
>between divine power connecting itself with the land and the
>mebhaigl running through the land. The only problem created that I
>can think of right now is if a province has levels and is left
>uninvested. I suggest that those provinces simply retain an
>"impression" or "memory" of the divine connection to a regent they once held.

I like the idea that the land itself is "alive" or sentient in BR, so
this would go along with such an idea.

>If you allow Source regents to contest Province Levels (like I do),
>that represents the Source regent erasing that impression or memory,
>not driving off or slaughtering whole populations.

Though it`s a bit obscure, contesting province levels is part of the
original materials.

Gary

[Rowan]

KGauck, I'm not sure I'm in much dispute with you. As for regent skills, it's more a regent's CHOICES than their skills that matter.

The historical points I'd mention are that even though trade routes may flow products in, they flow money out, which encourages further trade and development elsewhere. Also, I believe Athens and Sparta reached well over 100,000 in and around their actual cities.

I will admit that I'm biased more towards a grander view of Cerilia, placing the potential of Anuire at either late Renaissance or height of the Roman or Eastern Roman empires as for the potential power and economic sophistication. For me that's more of a latent possibility that the fractured Anuire hasn't been able to recover, but if it got organized it could certainly achieve, even fairly quickly. Therefore I am fine with a few smaller city provinces cropping up, more provinces getting ruled, much economic growth and trade, and even over a hundred thousand soldiers supportable across the empire.

Geeman, I think I can address some of your concerns. Taxes are only said to come from province levels and law holdings and discretionary taxes on guilds and temples, so yes, province levels correspond to taxation. Taxation from multiple rulers would be less efficient and correspond only to the law holdings aspects.

I don't think the land is necessarily "sentient" in any way. Rather it just responds to the divine bloodlines that call out to it, and can only bond to one bloodline at a time, thus precluding multiple province regents. Multiple regents could tax a populace, but that would only be captured by law holdings. The invested province regents gather taxes in addition to law holdings directly from the province level because their connection with the land also amounts to influence manifested over the people, allowing him to gain RP, greater control, and greater taxation through that influence from the provinces.

As for temple and guild holdings exceeding province levels, I agree this could be a problem. I'm not sure I'd mind temple and guild holdings exceeding province levels, though it should be harder to do so. As a converse to what you're talking about, large provinces with no temple holdings don't lack worship, just organization and linkage to a blooded high priest (churches had trouble reaching everyone as well). Also, a guild holding all the guild holding levels in a province does not control all the commerce; far from it. If taxes are supposed to amount to so much, there's actually a ton more economic activity outside the guilds. To me, the guild holding limitation seems to me the most nonsensical in the game. I'd be more comfortable limiting individual guild holding maximums to the province level, but allowing larger numbers of guilders to get into the province, thus allowing total guild holding levels to exceed the province level. I've never implemented that because it would require more rebalancing for game play that I haven't gotten to yet.

I think instead what we're talking about is that all regency and blooded regent control over domains stems ultimately from this divine connection to the land. Only realm/landed rulers have a direct connection to the land, but the temple and guild regents ultimately receive power through this connection to the land, and so they are limited to the extent of the connection between landed regent and the land. Temples, already concerned with divine power, find themselves limited in their influence and ability to draw power (RP) by the strength of influence over the land and its population. Guilds find it difficult to control and manipulate so much commerce to their effective benefit without that divine connection as well.

My explanations of connections to the land really play up the whole Birthright theme of blooded rulers. If you want to have non-blooded rulers, you can say the connection is still forged, but the ruler just can't draw power (RP) from it, just like small bloodlines may not be able to capture all RPs. You could also just say that the province level represents state control/organized civilization in a realm, thus limiting significant Temple and Guild influence to this civilization extent and pitting organized civilization against the mebhaigl of the land--sort of a Gestalt mental opposition of a national peoples that doesn't manifest when they're scattered in disunity. Those people not involved subsisting in self-sufficient villages pay no tribute, can't be organized effectively enough to provide excess Temple or Guild collections or regency (effectively level 0 holdings possible), and do not oppose mebhaigl.

The alternative is to assume that humans, dwarves, and goblins (but not other sentient creatures) disrupt mebhaigl just as part of their bodily existence, and that just doesn't seem as elegant to me or able to account for rapid province level rise. Note that mebhaigl is not primarily a function of vegetation, because high mountains have highest mebhaigl and humans and goblins living in forested provinces still reduce the source potential.

[kgauck]

It ignores the population vs source potential issue

It doesn't ignore it. Once population is determined, sources have to be re-calculated. Just as the population doesn't change in the game's span of time, neither do sources. The major change is that a lot of plains end up having a source rating of zero. Plains have a low potential rating, and its easy for a province to reach that even if half the land in the province is not suitable for agriculture. Wild places, mostly mountains and forests, are left as the only good locations for sources, because they have a higher source potential and because many fewer people live in such places.

Its a substantial change, but its not been ignored.

It also begs certain questions, like why are holdings bound to population level? This interpretation of what a population level means turns it into a sort of governmental tax "holding" rather than an actual population number.

Yes, the current province level becomes an administrative holding, from which taxes are derived. I recall a thread on this not too long ago.

If population level represents efficiency and size of a regent`s taxation system (rather than the tax base itself) shouldn`t law, guild and temple holdings be able to
surpass population level?

I think you've switched back to an earlier model. If you are actually referring to population level, then that is a fixed maximum for normal growth, limited by the administrative capacities of the age. In a sense, having any holding at the population level represents 100% efficiency.

If you don't actually mean population level, but province level, then sure the efficiency of guilds or temples should be able to exceed the administrative efficiency of a landlord. That's why its better to think of an administrative holding as separate from the population level. The current system, in which province level combines population and administrative efficiency assumes that land rulers don't control their own efficiency, since they can't tweak it the way other rulers can.

Along those same lines, shouldn`t it be possible for there to be more than one domain ruler in a province just as there can be more than one regent for each of the holding types?

Yes! Interesting places like the Maesil river where Ghoere and Mhoried have law holdings in each other's domains could be improved by having administrative holdings on each side, indicating they control towns or keeps in each other's domains, either directly because they captured them in a previous war or because the lords or towns have sworn vasalage, or because they or their vassals have inherited these places.

The big picture here is that this interpretation isn`t by itself any more satisfying than several others. It`s not a panacea to the issues having to do with how BR`s domain level handles population levels.

I can see why this model is more complex and may be more complex than some DM's prefer. But I don't see why you don't find it satisfying.