Population

[Rowan]

One thing that I have long found odd about most population descriptions is that province income, with the small exception of being able to host extra trade routes, increases linearly, while the population seems to increase exponentially. I have a hard time believing that higher level provinces described as more "urban" actually produce significantly fewer domain resources per capita than lower level provinces. In fact, the opposite would be true. As agriculture and division of labor becomes increasingly able to support cities and non-agricultural professions, the ability of a realm to handle building projects, administration, and military action.

This is why I don't like the tables. I would rather we list several alternative working rules and explanations under the "Population" section. I would like to include Kgauck's estimates of total populations in settled provinces (based on land area and geography), or come up with some rough abstract formula for such. Thus most provinces, even if only low level, would have populations around or over 100,000 people. Province level, then, is explained by a combination of factors, including administrative reach, control, efficiency, organization of society, and strength of the established connection of a regent to the land and his people. (The preponderance of low level provinces is explained by the effects of war and disputation, lack of administrative efficiency, corruption, contestation, weak or recently-changed rulers, etc.)

Those provinces that you wish to describe as "frontier" or "sparsely settled" would have a modifier reducing this total number of settled people. There may be other modifiers for proximity to rivers or coasts, to monster-controlled lands, cultural modifiers, climatic zones, etc. However, as has been mentioned, the actual population still doesn't matter all that much except to simulationists and those trying to describe what the setting looks like on the ground.

[Rey]

There are small domains that can have either a relatively small, medium or large population. Same goes for large domains. There may be different reasons for every combination.
In the end, it doesn't matter how much population there is in definite numbers. Only province levels are important (for RP, GB, etc) and size of an active army (and extra troops you can muster in times of war, for resolving battles or maintaining law and order).
If we insist on noting the province's population, then province levels and population based on them need to be re-wrote because at this moment they don't support the theory.

[kgauck]

The reason that the income doesn't keep pace with the population is because of the addition of ever more intermediaries who take the bulk of the income.

Consider a small province in which the regent is the primary land lord (this also assumes a small realm). the GDP of the province is a million ducats. Feudal dues and various fees amount to 84,000 ducats. This belongs to the regent.

Assume a larger province with a GDP of four million ducats. The regent can't supervise this (being a land lord is time intensive) so he has intermediary lords. They collect 340,000 ducats in feudal dues, and pass on 20% to the regent, who now gets 68,000 ducats. If our lord keeps some of this territory (the best estates, or those close to his capital) he can avoid some of these intermediaries and maybe make 135,000 ducats. Lets give him a town and call it an even 140,000.

In an even larger province, the intermediaries have intermediaries (welcome to the feudal system!) Now imagine a sixteen million ducat province with lords and counts collecting most of the tax before it gets to the regent. Lets figure you have thirty two lords each collecting 42,000 ducats, and then passing 20%, 8400, up the food chain to the counts, who in total, collect 270,000 (or 67,500 among four counts), who then in turn pass 20% up to the regent who then collects 54,000 ducats.

If the regent never held any land, but subinfudated all of it (like the post-Carolingians whose bureaucracy turned into a hereditary nobility) you actually make less and less as you get bigger.

You also make significantly less on people in towns than you do for people who farm. People who farm pay feudal dues (I'm assuming 1/12th here, but it can vary), and then up the food chain. Towns people are immune from feudal dues, so pay nothing. The city pays a fee for its charter, but its much less than what their feudal dues would amount to. On the other hand, they make stuff. So more population, which implies more townsfolk, implies more people who are tax exempt.

But the game also assumes this feudal network. Lets say I have the sixteen million ducat land, and I have only partly subinfeudated, so I make 336,000 ducats a year. What I do have is a bunch of men who are my vassals (in the strict sense) who will aid me when I call for it. So when I need a bunch of knights, I don't start making armor, buying horses, and training men to wear the armor and ride the horses and then do both at the same time while carrying weapons likely to throw them off balance, instead, all that money that my vassals were keeping went to support their vassals and so on down to the knights who already have armor and horses, and know how to manage both at the same time, and they are available in a pretty short time. So in addition to the supervision of my lands, I also get an army in reserve.

This is how you end up with the Birthright domain system.

[Rowan]

Kgauck, that works to some extent, but what about levies? And as you have mentioned, the military resources are actually a part of the intermediaries, so their size would increase at a more similar rate than the overall per capita taxation of the monarchy. Even city states in Greece, Roman territories, and later European kingdoms could manage armies of tens of thousands. Now at a small scale, considering Anuire to be in size equal to only a small portion of France, the statistics work better. But if we want to dignify the game to the level of Anuire at least amounting to internal battles within a nation relative in size to France, (which seems to me to be a basic assumption given the tone of the game), then it doesn't seem to fit.

Further, the money available among the guilds and the tithes to the temples, at least that amount available in a pinch or when financing is needed, would increase along with the productivity of the people.

In any case, I think explaining province level in terms other than population gives the most freedom for varying styles of play with the least amount of contradiction and straining of the suspension of disbelief. For instance, many people rightly have a problem with the idea of being potentially able to raise the population of a province by tens of thousands in a year (two Rule Province actions being possible within a year). If explained, however, in terms of various administrative/organizational changes, the scenario that the rules allow becomes more reasonable and lets players mimic the historic meteoric rise of several great rulers in history, turning realms around in just a few years from weak, poor, and faltering to rich and powerful.

[kgauck]

In any case, I think explaining province level in terms other than population gives the most freedom for varying styles of play with the least amount of contradiction and straining of the suspension of disbelief.

I absolutely agree with this, and have argued many times that province level is more than population, but also includes the effectiveness of the government and other variables. I have gone so far to argue that province level should be reflected as an administrative holding, and you either own a province or your don't.

But if we want to dignify the game to the level of Anuire at least amounting to internal battles within a nation relative in size to France, (which seems to me to be a basic assumption given the tone of the game), then it doesn't seem to fit.

Normally Anuire is presumed to have the size roughly of France. France normally raised armies of roughly 20,000 men. They could raise more for brief periods of time, but was in practice able to raise 20,000. That's 100 units of 200 men. That's hardly a stretch.

Further, the money available among the guilds and the tithes to the temples, at least that amount available in a pinch or when financing is needed, would increase along with the productivity of the people.

I assume that temples and guilds are faced with the same problems of intermediaries. Does answer this point? Or where you referring to something else?

For instance, many people rightly have a problem with the idea of being potentially able to raise the population of a province by tens of thousands in a year (two Rule Province actions being possible within a year). If explained, however, in terms of various administrative/organizational changes, the scenario that the rules allow becomes more reasonable and lets players mimic the historic meteoric rise of several great rulers in history, turning realms around in just a few years from weak, poor, and faltering to rich and powerful.

Absolutely. I might require a bit more time, but I defiantly agree. Both of my Birthright campaigns have been based on this as a central theme. The first half of the campaign involves conflicts with the powerful interests inside the realm, while barely able to deal with outside threats, and the second half of the campaign involves a unified realm able to go out into the world. Some of this involves getting accepted as the regent, but then it transitions onto bending the realm to your will despite the presence of other powerful figures in the realm who don't like the idea of bending.

The power of both arguments, the administrative efficiency argument and the feudal intermediaries argument allow you to basically do anything you want. And they play into one another. A very efficient administration needs fewer and/or less costly intermediaries.

[Rowan]

I think we're in agreement on almost everything, Kgauck. I was just disputing the correlation of a realm's per capita power growth with its population growth, primarily because the intermediaries represent such a large portion of the nation's power when summoned to account--for military action or building projects, the two primary outflows of a realm's wealth in BR.

I also agree that an Anuire=France scenario works and results in an acceptable simulation. However, that would also have to mean that the population and land mass to support those 100 units is much larger than 2e BR demographics represent (with an overall average probably less than 10,000 people per province level, because of the number of low level provinces, and provinces of only 20-30 miles square). I've totaled these numbers up before and though I can't quite recall, I think the 2e demographics place Anuire's population somewhere between 1 and 3 million, whereas an equivalent Renaissance France would be an order of magnitude greater. So yes, 20,000 man armies works fine with appropriate demographics (though didn't Louis XIV manage hundreds of thousands, and a little earlier Spain had managed many field armies of 20-30,000? these still fit the late Renaissance analogue, I believe). 150,000 man armies for Michael Roele also works fine, just not under 2e assumptions that might leave the greater Empire with fewer than 10 million subjects.

So yes, under "Population" we should give several possible explanations for people to use, but in general we should divorce population from province level in our explanations of what province level represents and how it is increased or decreased.

[kgauck]

After the military revolution, European states that labored to raise 20,000 men were routinely able to manage 150,000 man armies. Armies creep from 20,000 in the 1520's to 50,000 by mid century, and hit 150,000 by the early 17th century.