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  1. #11
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    A medieval town of 5000 would take up 82 acres, or one eighth of a square mile.

    The problem is that 5000 townsfolk probabaly means 50,000 famers.

    If elves (and giants, and dragons) live and are sustained by Mebhaighl, rather than by harvesting food (plant and animal), and the humans come and tear up the natural world to plant their slave-plants in their precise rows against all that is true and right and natural, hunt by killing the strong beasts rather than culling the weak, and in every way offend what is the right way to live in harmony with the land.

    After all a province 1 with Rjurik hunters devoted to Erik still drops the source potential by 1.

  2. #12
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    Don't have time right now to write a complete response...If I get to it later tonight, I'll edit this post.
    This is essentially the question, "why do we need government at all". Its obvious why those in control of government want government, but what about the rest of us? Without examining the free rider problem in which guilds especially might like to conduct some business in an ungoverned space, certainly it is obvious that places of sustained disorder and random violence are not also experiencing prosperous trade or religion. Order is the first prerequisite of all the other benefits of civilization (including liberty and recognition of principles other than violence).
    I know the benefits of order and government, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. Unless you want to say that 2 levels of province holdings in most areas, especially plains, effectively represents mass anarchy. I think you've got bigger problems if you start going down that road. Just as you say, a certain amount of order is necessary for civilization at various levels. You can't have a plains province supporting 100,000 people (considered wholly "settled"), but only having 2 province holding levels IF you are saying that province holding levels equate to the order necessary for civilization. Instead, the anarchy and poverty caused by such a condition would lead to emigration as famine, strife, and factional warlordism became the order of the day until that province reached near its max province levels.

    So no, I reject the idea that province holdings represent the proportional order necessary for civilization. Instead, they represent many things perhaps most easily summarized by centralization of government and its efficient administration. 100,000 people can live happily in a plains province, scattered about in hamlets, towns, and villages governed loosely by town councils, village elders, etc. That provides the structure necessary for most societies, but its lack of centralization means that power is too diffuse to defend against major invasions or construct vast public works (defense and infrastructure being two of the major benefits of centralized government).

    However, such a loose governing structure does NOT preclude a centralized religious or mercantile organization from coordinating its resources and efforts across the larger area. Thus Temples and Guilds should be able to exceed Province levels if we assume a fully settled land. I find it harder to imagine Law holdings exceeding Province levels by much, though.


    AT, your solution for ruling Provinces helps fix the cost problem I had observed. As I have above explained, I don't see why the other holding types should be constrained by the province level, however, if we're assuming fully-settled provinces. I think Kgauck would agree with you, but I'm puzzled by this statement:
    The province ruler claims the province, and gradually intensifies their control over the whole province.
    Kgauck, I thought you liked the Provinces-as-Holdings system precisely because multiple regents could lay claim to the same province, controlling different levels of Province Holdings within it? This statement implies otherwise.
    Last edited by Rowan; 01-07-2009 at 11:06 PM. Reason: Edited 1 time to add a response

  3. #13
    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    Rowan, is what you suggesting similar to the idea of a Christian church (say the Catholics) organising its ministers and missionaries in a third world country where most communities only have local governance (ie. tribal councils)? The Church may be good at being a set of church holdings across the entire province but it can not manage a law holding/central government at all? Therefore the level of the chruch can be higher than the law/province level?

    And on that point, can you realistically have someone as regent of (say) a level 4 province without having any law holdings? I suspect it is possible by the rules.

    Sorontar

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    Populations that suffer catastrophes recover quickly (in mere generations).
    Oh? With the fall of Rome, did not populations decline until after the turn of the millenia? With the Little Ice Age and the Black Death, did it not take populations centuries to recover? I don't remember exactly, but I believe I have read in many places that the populations reached in the 14th or 15th centuries were not seen again in Europe until the 18th and 19th centuries.

    If Anuire is not at (or near) its carrying capacity, then what precisely killed off all those people, and how has it not had its own profound effects that also need to be reflected in the game (rapid inflation, continuing outbreaks, random destabilization, abandonment of core beliefs). Vast knowledge is lost and a dark age ensues.
    I'm not saying that Anuire isn't at its carrying capacity. I'm saying that some realms, just a few in Anuire, more elsewhere, could conceivably not be totally densely settled. In Anuire, Dhoesone was only recently carved out and settled, its frontiers limited somewhat in immigration due to strife. Mhoried may suffer sufficient invasions from the Gorgon that some of its provinces don't maintain dense settlement like they would in Avanil. The Five Peaks have few humans living in them, and the brutish and strife-torn life of all the clashing humanoids would not lend itself to full agrarian population density; what if Anuirean realms conquer it? How do you handle Ruling provinces in those areas?

    Similarly, though the culture is highly developed, regions of Brechtur speak of a lack of settlement due to gnoll invasions and monstrous threats. You say:
    The goblins don't flee, and genocide isn't possible without an industrial state to manage it. You have conquered a hostile people and will never fully gain their cooperation (without special actions at a minimum). ... Because there is a counter balance of magic, both divine and arcane to offset this. Sure the world is fantastical, but its fantastical in both resilience and in threats to people. The best guide is the setting itself, in which human settlement in creeping forward, not backward as it certainly would if whole provinces were being abandoned.
    Yet superstition and fear led to people leaving otherwise arable areas largely abandoned due to fears of what lurked in those areas. How much moreso would this occur when the fear of something lurking in an area were real? You're saying people wouldn't stay the hell away from those haunted forests or the Troll bogs or this or that monster's territory, when all of those things actually exist and will kill our common peasants or prey upon their farms?

    Also, there have been plenty of massive refugee emigrations in pre-industrial cultures and early history that I think do indeed suggest that areas can become depopulated due to strife. Thousands, perhaps millions, fled the advance of the Mongol hordes and their derivatives. Arguably, fleeing Germanic tribes largely abandoning their ancestral lands due to Eastern invasion caused the collapse of the Roman Empire. People fled coasts and rivers in the wake of the Viking scourge. How much less would elves acquiesce to live under human rule rather than leave the land, or humans remain under goblin occupation?

    No, interracial conquest of provinces would almost certainly lead to emigration without genocide needing to even be part of it. However, given the success of the Mongol hordes and various other peoples at putting whole cities and peoples to the sword, and the carnage wrought in some of the poorest places of the world, I really have to question your assertion that it requires an industrial age power to commit genocide. And certainly, I see humans, elves, and dwarves being more than willing to attempt to purge the land of goblins and vice versa, and the same for the human-elf conflict. Will gheallie Sidhe elves suffer humans to live in lands that they have effectively conquered (by destroying any organized defense/province and all holding levels)?
    Last edited by Rowan; 01-07-2009 at 11:35 PM.

  5. #15
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    Sorontar, that's part of what I'm suggesting. I don't see where this fits in, though:
    Quote Originally Posted by Sorontar View Post
    The Church may be good at being a set of church holdings across the entire province but it can not manage a law holding/central government at all?
    Sure they could manage law or province holdings, and in some places it would be appropriate to reflect the situation so (the Papal States, the intermingled governance of the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Eastern Roman Empire, the intermingled religious authorities of any number of pagan faiths, or theocracies like we see today primarily in Islamic nations).

    However, with Europe as our analogue, the centuries perhaps from 700-1200 (rough guesstimate) saw little centralized power among the nobility, little legal apparatus, relatively lower mercantile output and trade than in later times, but much more organization and power within the Catholic Church. This might best be reflected by low province, law, and guild holding levels and high temple holding levels (exceeding province levels). In most areas, there were definite divisions between secular and Church power (in terms of who held authority over what), so the Church would not accurately be represented as controlling all those province holdings or law holdings (though it might hold some law).

    Of note, though, is that the Catholic Church was only truly centralized in theory at that time. It would not have been well-represented by hundreds of holdings all held by one regent (the Pope). Rather, the different bishoprics held more local authorities, creating a situation better described by numerous temple domains, some perhaps not even envassaled (in practice) to the Pope. Certainly the other Sees and the Eastern Orthodox would have been separate. The Catholic Church, just like most other organizations, has become increasingly centralized over the years, and is more so now than back in medieval times.
    And on that point, can you realistically have someone as regent of (say) a level 4 province without having any law holdings? I suspect it is possible by the rules.
    You can by the rules, yes, though it would be a tenuous hold. Just as I have difficulty seeing law holdings exceeding province holdings much by level, I also have difficulty seeing them far below province levels. I sometimes wonder if the two types of holdings should not be combined into one.

  6. #16
    Senior Member Arentak's Avatar
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    I believe the "Manor" function of RoE nicely covers the scenarios presented without the need to divide a province.

  7. #17
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Manors are fine for some purposes, but are less useful for mixed races - those province levels simply don't acknowledge the same ruler at all - and different province holdings would make it much easier to constrain cross-species holding levels if you wanted too (i.e. if Baroness Fhiele owns 2 province levels and her brother 1, the maximum temple holding is L2...)

    Province holding levels representing a mix of actual population level, centralisation (efficiency by another name), etc much as other holdings represent several abstract possibilities seem good to me - easy to handle, they allow for 'inefficient' lands and for 'migrant booms' or, if you wish, let you constrain upper province limits easily.


    Depopulation is fine at village level - villages regularly moved, died out, were reborn, etc. It is also fine for small local areas - the highland clearances emptied vast tracts of land to turn subsistence agriculture into profitable sheep farming, the clearances of centuries before in England by the monasteries had an identical effect (indeed clearing the land of people was a deliberate policy of the monks to prevent them from being contaminated - the wealth was the unexpected side issue).

    As a province is 20 miles x 20 miles I can just about see it being depopulated. Where the system breaks is the idea of depopulating an entire realm - and making big bucks from it. Most people would be displaced, not destroyed. Try and destroy them and all of a sudden you turn 50,000 fleeing villagers into 10-20,000 of levy/irregulars.

    Such an annihilation should also have a major impact on neighbours who have to deal with refugees by the truckload - all of whom want food and jobs.

    Incidentally I see the position as both stable and unstable - I have no problem with provinces here and there being under/over the norm - a generation ago the situation may have been reversed, as long as overall realm X is a% bigger than realm Y then the balance of power would not be affected.

  8. #18
    Member stv2brown1988's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sorontar View Post
    And on that point, can you realistically have someone as regent of (say) a level 4 province without having any law holdings? I suspect it is possible by the rules.

    Sorontar
    I do not have a suitable reference from European history but how about the USA around 1800's or so. Where large Cattle Barons owned 100,000's of acres of range and made huge fortunes from their cattle sales but used their own cow-hands as enforcers making squatters leave there homes on the range? Or tearing down fences that blocked water sources? If there was a town of 1,000 people but 90% lived within the close proximity of main street. Would this not be a case where Guild level could exceed province level? I would guess Guild 3-4 in a Province 1 with maybe a Law 1?

  9. #19
    Member stv2brown1988's Avatar
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    Also, to get back to the original question...Does anyone have a rule system for using Provinces as Holdings?

    Can a Province be contested if using this system? If the province can be contested do you still need the investure spell? And would this take power away from Temples? Also, if Ghoere takes the majority of Province Holdings in Bellam does that mean the Province is automaticlly moved to Ghoere from Roesone?

    I like the idea of adding all Province holding levels together to get the cost for increasing the level.

    Finally, does anyone let Jarls keep the Province in addition to the Law Holdings in Rjurik? Would the same apply to the Thanes in Baruk-Azhik?

    Steven

  10. #20
    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    Well Halspaka looks like an interesting situation. It has a King (Bervinig) and 7 jarls. Each jarl has a law holding in a province and I imagine has been invested for the province as well. The king has a law holding in one other province (and the province) but does not manage it well due to his age and senility. The King presumably has vassalage from the jarls so thus his domain gains regency from all the provinces.

    The following are possible occurences:
    * King loses control of his law holding to someone else but retains the regency of the province as the head of state.
    * King loses vasalage/s from one or more of the Jarls.... not sure how this is done. Is it a deinvestiture or just another ceremony or is vassalage really no more that a diplomatic agreement?

    So you could have a "powerless" king who is head-of-state for one province with vassalages from a few others.

    Sorontar

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