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  1. #11
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    These are great!

    Once, it was not a BR campaign, a friend of mine did some write-up on resources, but through the buildings point of view. That is, a saw-mill, stone quarry, etc. There was given cost for building, prerequisites, maintenance and output. Maybe even a number of people needed for work, that could be equivalent to a province level. It was very nice, maybe better suited for town-level play.
    Also, he did advancement for the army: training time, advancement in HD and some quick battle rules.

    I think those papers are no longer in my possession, but another friend of mine could have it.
    Rey M. - court wizard of Tuarhievel

  2. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Rey View Post
    These are great!

    Once, it was not a BR campaign, a friend of mine did some write-up on resources, but through the buildings point of view. That is, a saw-mill, stone quarry, etc. There was given cost for building, prerequisites, maintenance and output. Maybe even a number of people needed for work, that could be equivalent to a province level. It was very nice, maybe better suited for town-level play.
    Also, he did advancement for the army: training time, advancement in HD and some quick battle rules.

    I think those papers are no longer in my possession, but another friend of mine could have it.

    If you could find that stuff that would be awesome. Sounds very interesting and might add more ideas to the melting pot.
    "The Light Grows Dim, Darkness seeps in the cracks."

  3. #13
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    I'll do my best.
    Rey M. - court wizard of Tuarhievel

  4. #14
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    I reviewed the resource rules in AEG's Empire supplement (for 3E), Mongoose's Strongholds & Dynasties and Eden Studio's Fields of Blood (both for 3.5) to see how resources are handled there. I'll try to summarize.

    Fields of Blood has the simpliest systems and only uses resource points for everything. These are like GB and regency points rolled into one. Improvements like Mines or Irrigation are possible, but these are nearly identical and only differ with regard to the terrain they can be built in, i.e. you build mines in hills and irrigate plains. Easy enough. These improvements cost the total production of a province in either 1 or 2 seasons (domain turns) and raise the subsequent resource point production by 25% and 50% respectively.
    Simple, easy on the book keeping, not really the detail you were looking for.

    Both Empire and Strongholds & Dynasties keep track of resources. This includes that you have to determine whether you have enough food for your population. Everything you build needs resources as well. Empire has the easier system of the two, so I'll start with this.

    As an example, here's a mine from Empire:

    Code:
    Mine: A mine allows you to take advantage of the mineral and stone resources available in your holdings.
    With a mine, your workers have an easier time extracting and processing raw ore and rocks.
    A mine can only be placed on an area capable of producing stone or mineral resources. 
    When you place the mine, you must choose which of the two resources benefits from its presence.[...]
    
    Benefits: A mine increases the mineral production of any area that can already produce minerals by 1 unit.You can only place one mine on an area.
    
    Cost: 4 stone units, 3 gold units, 3 lumber units, 1 population unit, 2 seasons duration.
    On the one hand, the accountant within me really loves keeping track of specific resources, but the Lazy DM within me abhors the book keeping.

    The advantage is that your players will really have to think about resources. Do I have enough iron and wood to produce the weapons and armour for the unit of knights I so desperately need? Do I also have enough horses? If something is lacking, where can I get it?
    This therefore has the potential to increase the interaction with neighbouring realms.

    However, this kind of detail won't probably interest every kind of player and it will need a lot of book keeping. A decent excel sheet to handle this would nearly be a necessity. Also, if you use something like this, trade routes should probably be more defined and not just produce GB. Which goods in which amount and in which direction are traded?
    All in all this constitutes a major overhaul.

    Nevertheless, I found it interesting that population units are also needed to gather or develop resources. This is worth thinking about. After all, if you have just about 1,000 farmers in a province with exceptionally good agricultural conditions you will probably still have too few people to produce a significant surplus in total you can sell and convert into income.

    This could easily be implemented as a required minimum province level before a resource can be developed. For instance, for food or lumber you would need at least a province (2) or (3). This would be the minimum level a province needs to develop basic agricultural resources. Horses might need a province (4), metalwares or luxury items a province (6).
    Going from the rough estimate that in the middle ages about 90% of the population were peasants and these produced just enough surplus to feed the other 10% following other occupations, it seems somewhat realistic that only sizeable provinces could develop resources.

    With regard to game balance, this also means that larger and stronger realms would gain an additional advantage compared to smaller domains.
    This, however is already somewhat true before, as larger realms will more easily find the coin to spare to develop resources. So, what do you think?

  5. #15
    I like it Beruin. It sounds like the kind of thing I am looking for actually.

    I may have to find a copy of some of those books now...
    "The Light Grows Dim, Darkness seeps in the cracks."

  6. #16
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    Strongholds & Dynasties also includes an excellent system of tracking your realm's taxation, corruption, cabinet ministers and socio-political factions, all of tangential interest to Birthright players

    Ius Hibernicum, in nomine juris. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

  7. #17
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sarelth View Post

    I may have to find a copy of some of those books now...
    Sorry, I didn't want to cause a buying urge

    You can probably find a copy of some of these on ebay or purchase a pdf copy for not that much money.

    There used to be a comparison of the different domain systems over at ENworld, the link is also mentioned in this post, but, alas, the link doesn't work for me anymore and I wasn't able to find the thread any other way.
    I'm pretty sure I saved the thread to my HD somewhere, but just can't find it at the moment. Bad DM organization...

    Perhaps anyone knows where this can still be found?
    "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
    - The Three Kingdoms, attributed to Luo Guanzhong, c.1330-c.1400

  8. #18
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    For the time being, I'll try to summarize in short what the books deliver and give my two cent's worth.

    I for one would have difficulties if I had to choose what to use.

    The Domain rules in Fields of Blood are very close to the BR rules, including different types of action and realm spells, and are quite neat (even though lacking in resource development). On the whole, I'd say they are better than Empire.

    Empire has a a scaling system for three different scopes of play. On the barony scale, a population unit equals 100 people, a gold unit is 1,000 gold pieces and a land unit is 1 square mile.
    On kingdom scale these numbers are 1,000 people, 10,000 gold pieces and 20 square miles.
    On empire, people and gold pieces are again multplied by ten, land by 20, for 400 square miles.

    This sounds neat, but I'm not sure it really works that well. At the very least some rationalization what something you build looks like on each scale would have been nice, but you won't find it there.
    In effect, when constructing a 'Grand Temple' you are building a chapel on barony scale, a church on kingdom scale and the Saint Peter's Basilica on Empire scale.
    This however, you have to work out yourself.

    With regard to resources, Empire tracks food, lumber and minerals, with the latter broken down again into stone, iron, gold, silver and copper, plus the fantasy metals mithral and adamantine thrown in. However, the latter four don't have game applications apart from serving as a source of income.

    Quote Originally Posted by Thelandrin View Post
    Strongholds & Dynasties also includes an excellent system of tracking your realm's taxation, corruption, cabinet ministers and socio-political factions, all of tangential interest to Birthright players
    I'd agree that Strongholds & Dynasties has the most details of the three. In fact, depending on the scope of play, there might sometimes be too much detail here.

    My biggest gripe with the book is, that the information is often poorly organized and it can take sometime to find a particular piece of information you seek.
    References like "(See chapter 4)" are downright annoying as the chapters aren't numbered anywhere, neither on the top of the page nor on the table of contents. Too be fair, often - but not always - the name of the chapter is included, i.e. "turn to Chapter 19, The Open Mass Combat System", which helps somewhat. In any case, as several of the chapters are quite long, a reference to page numbers would have been more helpful.

    Nevertheless, the book is well worth its money and with regard to resources it is definitely the book to go for.
    Last edited by Beruin; 03-10-2010 at 11:39 PM.
    "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
    - The Three Kingdoms, attributed to Luo Guanzhong, c.1330-c.1400

  9. #19
    Due to the fact that I generally play evil characters who are usually either LE or NE, I must ask one question and seek no offense in it:

    What about slave trade? Has anyone considered how or where it would be in this and what kind of costs/setup would be required?

  10. #20
    Senior Member Beruin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JakobLiar View Post
    Due to the fact that I generally play evil characters who are usually either LE or NE, I must ask one question and seek no offense in it:

    What about slave trade? Has anyone considered how or where it would be in this and what kind of costs/setup would be required?
    Strongholds & Dynasties does include Slaves among the resources. All resources are assigned a frequency ranging from common to very rare. This defines the base price per 'unit' of a resource in its crude form.

    'What a ‘unit’ is may vary wildly depending on the resource; it could signify enough wheat to feed several villages, or enough gold to fill a large chest. It is an abstract term, used to quantify production in a simple way.'
    Resources can then be converted into 'processed', 'crafted' or 'fine' forms, increasing their value.
    For most products this pretty obvoius.
    For instance, grain products are common and the converted forms look like this:

    crude: wheat, rye, barley

    processed:threshed grain, malted barley

    crafted: food, beer, brandy, flour

    fine: pastries, delicacies, fine spirits.

    Resources like horses or slaves are not really 'processed', but their quality increases.

    Slaves are uncommon which gives a base price of 3,000 gp per 'unit' for 'crude' slaves, defined as
    'a captive individual who is completely unused to his state and has not been broken in. Slaves of this kind are not
    in the least resigned to their role and are likely to be rebellious.'
    'Processed' slaves are accustomed to their lot, 'crafted' slaves possess useful craft or profession skills and 'fine' slaves have exceptional qualities, are considered exotic novelties etc.

    Okay I hope you get the general picture. That said, I don't picture slavery as a usual practice in Rjurik or Anuire. Here, you'll probably sometimes find enslaved prisoners of war and indentured servants, but I don't see slave trade as a usual occurrence here.

    The Vos, otoh, might treat their lower classes as slaves and here slave trade might be common.

    The Khinasi? Hm, I'm undecided. This depends on how you picture their culture.
    "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
    - The Three Kingdoms, attributed to Luo Guanzhong, c.1330-c.1400

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