love campaign but the rules?

[faehew]

i hope that i do not displease anyone but i find some of the concepts ie provence levels, war cards etc, unbelievable. is this considered sacrilige. i will focus on the provence levels with this post. first of all provence level populations corispond to the square of the level times 1,000 people aprox. now if this is true than the gb production shouild corispondedly reflect this with the square of the provence level. however this is not so. instead a provence level of say 10 representing 100,000 people produce about the same as 10 1st level provence levels of 1,000 poeple aprox. this means that a huge population produces far less income than rural areas per person. this makes little sense. urban areas were far more productive than rural else why move there. you could say that they tended to be far more independent. this arguement is nullified as this should be a law issue as many urban areas were not independant. i feel to keep the balance of power each level should represent 5,000 people. or you could change the balence of power and square gb production. please tell me how you feel about this.

[Lawgiver]

I beg to differ with you to a certain degree. With higher population levels you also have significantly higher expenses. Thus the domain maintenance rules are too low. You could simply cancel the errors in both and call it even.

A single level of pupolation is not simply a flat figure of 1,000 or 100,000, etc. see my rules regarding a more detailed population level breakdown http://www.birthright.net/index.php?subsec...tion=2nd&id=364 (http://www.birthright.net/index.php?subsection=General%20Info&dnd_edition=2nd&id=364)

[Lord Eldred]

For once I agree with Lawgiver. The more people you have cramped together the greater the costs. There is over a million people in Detroit but it doesn't produce as much as some of it suburbs with half the population. More people doesn't necessarily mean more production. It could mean more homelessness, more crime, more sewage problems, more hunger, more disease, more everything to deal with!

[faehew]

ok i see your point on maintinance costs, however it should not be this drastic. your pop levels are kinda close to the square i was just useing approx. historicly their were not any suburbs to compare, anyways they still work in the city. also history is a bit on my side. cities and towns offered greater economic possibilities. there was greater commerce and influx of capital. cities have always done better than their rural counter parts. almost always. this is the reason why the western roman empire fell while the eastern remained intact. agricultural based nations always fall behind urban based. ther cost for maintanance is not as bad as one thinks do to it all being centralised instead of being spread out, though i see your point to some degree.

[Lawgiver]

There are several costs incurred in urban areas that don't really exist in rural areas: increase constabulary forces, santiation, Road Maintenance,Administrative costs (wardens, judges, tax collectors, etc.), Irrigation, Public works, scribes,etc. I assure you that the cost of running Murray, Ky population 14,000 is significantly smaller than millions of residents in New York, NY.

Besides a good portion of Rome's wealth came from plunder not simply taxation.

[faehew]

there is no doubt that urban areas cost more to upkeep. however per person that is not the case. you are forgetting that that is my point. you actually have a lot more road upkeep for spead out areas of the same population than if contained in a smaller area. the system is flawed. logisticly it is a greater nightmare to have areas spread out than contained. cities were just as wealthy per person. the context of rome still proves that urban areas were wealthier even though rome got plunder. personnaly the upkeep system should be discarded. it should already be a factor in the income generation. it seems that the creators of this game did little research. it has a lot of rolls to make it harder and less bellievable. i altered it slightly to make it more real and playable.

[Riegan Swordwraith]

Faehew,I have to disagree with you on several terms.Your use of history is a bit flawed.Let us look at Rome.At the height of its power,1 MILLION people called the city of Rome home.Rome depended on its provinces to generate the needed revenues to make sure it could buy enough food to feed her population.The Eastern Roman Empire did not last longer because of rural-urban ratios...It was because it was easier,and cheaper to defend.Also the fact that the WRE kept letting "barbarians" in its borders,hiring them to fight other barbarians,then not paying them for their services.These are the things along with several other factors that led to the decline of the Roman Empire.

Most of the production that occurs in urban areas are primarily used to take care of that one urban area.A cities first and major function is trade.Trade is what generates the income in a Middle Ages type setting.But then most of it is then used in the support of trade.So one relies upon his rural populations to make the products for trade,while the urban areas are to support the actual industry of trade.

[faehew]

you make some fine points but you still miss the point. first of course urban areas need to import food but the produce more goods. second of course they rely on trade. second the east was far richer than the west of rome because of the urban commercail to rural agricultre base. yes the west had to deal with barbarians but byzantine had theirs to. if you notice the majoirty of the forces were along the danube.

[faehew]

now lets get back to the point of the br rules of urban areas. according to someones prvovence population a 10 level has say 95,000 and ten 1sr level has about 2,500 say approx. for a total of 25,000 total. now at mod tax the 10th lvl has 11 gb and the 10 stlvl has about 10 on average. now figure in upkeep and it about 8gb. thats an average of 8,500 producing a gb to about 3,000 producing a gb. now even if you think that the urban area is poorer, which it rarely was, to think it was that poor? and trade doesnt really help as it is an average of provence levels which doesnt change the proportion.

[faehew]

what i suggest is that population should be about 5,000 per level. eliminate the upkeep for holding as the income generated should be a part of that. sure you could give the upper levels 6 thousand ech but not the way they had it before. then instead of roling for each provence just add them up and make a bell curve roll. it seems that the creators just made a lot of rules for the sense of rules.

[faehew]

ok for thos estil not convinced about urban areas lets go at it from a different angle. a province of 8 could still be very rural at 5o poeple square mile. yet they still produce far less than their rural brethren in the next provence of 1 level. what is your argument then.

[Lawgiver]

I don't follow the question.

Lets start from scratch. An average province is 30-50 miles long. So lets use 40 miles for our example. Should you be able to make your province perfectly square you would have 1600 square miles (40x40). Now a level 8 province has a population of 55-70 thousand people. We'll use the midpoint of 62,500. Thus you have 39.0625 people per square mile, assuming you have a perfectly even distribution of population (an EXTREMELY outlandish assumption!), which may still qualify as a rural region.

For a level 1 province (1-4,00 people... well use 2,500) you have an average of 1.5625 people per square mile.

I'm assuming you are trying to say if you had a rural level 8 and a rural level 1 what's the difference in expenses...

The difference is (besides the fact that you are using unrealistic logic to have a level 8 rural area...) you have created a new set of expenses to reduce your income. By spreading the 62,500 people out you have made it far harder to generate income for the people. There is no central market, you have increased the cost of transporting goods, divided your labor forces, and sent your economy down the toilet.

The upkeep for a realm of 5, 1 level proivinces is identical to a realm with 5, level 8 provinces = 1GB. Assuming you tax at a moderate level...the difference is your 5 level 1 provinces produce and average of 5GB while your 5 level 8 produce and average of 32.5 GB. Your statement that higher levels don't earn a higher level of taxes doesn't make any sense to me. Whats the problem?

[faehew]

try looking at some primary history sources. granted your going to have towns in a level 8 provence, but the majority of it could still be rural. to say my example wouldnt have market is ridiculace. your own example of 5 provences proves my point. how can 5 level eight provences produce 6.5 times as many gb than 5 1st level provences. they have 25x the population. that means that they are 1 fourth as productive. that is silly. historicly wrong.

[Lawgiver]

My point is you are using fallable logic. You can't say the income is flawed and not say the maintenance isn't flawed. If you apply the same rules for income that you propose as you do to expenses you have SERIOUS problems. The ratio of expenses for 5 1st level provinces isn't the same as 5 8th level provinces. If you were to say that the 8th provinces are 25 times as productive then the same would hold true that they would be 25 times as expensive. Thus your 5 8th level provinces would cost 125 GB (5GB for the 1st level maintenance x 25 times the population). Obviously that is absurd. The growth in population is not directly proportional to the growth in income or expenses.


As far as needing a history lesson... I'll hold my tongue. But generally within a 45 mile radius you would have a larger central town/city centering around a ruling lord's keep. The rural areas were in the outlying farm land. Generally though the goods the farmers wouldn't consume would be collected as taxes or transported to a market in a town. Thus the 'urban' areas. Which urban areas are more expensive to maintain than rural areas. You say that you still have to have road in rural areas, but the cobblestone streets of cities is by far more expensive than a dirt path to a farm house in the weeds. Additionally your roads in the rural areas are more like two ruts from wagons than the maintenanced roads of an 'urban' area.

[faehew]

what? you totaly misread and switched what i was saying. the system is all flawed. but with your flawed logic states that an 8th level provence, which realisticly has about half rural half urban. the rural population, if it produced all the income(meaning that all urbanites are roaming mindlessly in the streets) they still are only half as productive as their rual brethren in a level 1 provence. i feel that there should not be a upkeep. it should be already figured in. i feel that the population for provence levels be about 5,000 or so per level and get rid of the upkeep.

[Lord Eldred]

I think that is what Lawgiver is trying to say. The upkeep that is figured in means that the higher the province level the more the upkeep costs thus lower productivity reflected by the already figured in upkeep costs.

[Lawgiver]

Didn't I say that repeatedly in the other posts? I thought I made my point clear enough... Oh well. :P

[Lord Eldred]

I thought that you were clear enough but Faehew doesn't seem to get it.