Urban Provinces

[tcharazazel]

I am aware there has been much discussion, and headaches, about the creation of urban provinces. However, a potential method that was developed by Osprey should be posted on this thread and I believe that by posting this now, it will motivate him to post the complete idea as he envisioned it.

I will give my understanding of the new idea as I recall it, first from a theoretical view and then the statistical view.

Looking to history to find major urban cities with populations over 100,000 don’t really offer so many examples until the industrial revolution. As we’re more in the medieval era its very rare, maybe Constantinople would be an example. Nevertheless, in Birthright as we have the Imperial City as an amazing example of an urban province, the possibility of following their example to create an urban province seems like it should be possible. However, it also should be very difficult, otherwise we would see more of them or even remains of them from the Old Empire.

To solve this Osprey had a good idea to not only include this difficulty, but to also include the past difficulty with sudden population changes that plagued past ideas. Instead of just splitting the levels of the rural province with the urban province and the population inconsistency and headache that causes, rather, the rural province is built up above its maximum potential level in virtual levels. These virtual levels would then be split between the rural and urban province. As I understood it these virtual levels would be similar to the building costs to creating the urban province. Heh, that’s about as much theory as I recall atm, so I’ll let Osprey expand upon and explain his idea more himself J

As for the statistics I recall that there are essentially 5 rules concerning the creation of the urban province.

1. The rural province must be of level 9 (for capitals because they can count for 1 level higher population as discussed in the new D20 BRCS rules p88) or level 10 (for other rural provinces)

2. There can only be one urban province based in a rural province. (Maybe just one per realm. Not fully discussed)

3. The rural province must be ruled up to half of the current level of the province in virtual levels. So for both capitals and normal provinces 5 virtual levels will have to be raised. Hence, they will have to raise up their province to level 14 and 15 respectively. These virtual levels will count to the DC and cost of ruling up a province, however, they will not count for collection of regency and GBs. Nor would they allow holdings to be ruled up to higher levels.

4. Once the rural province has be ruled up to 14 or 15 the ruler may then use the create province domain action to form the urban province. Now the levels of the rural province and the urban province can vary, slightly, so players can have some leeway in deciding how balanced they want the split. So they can split the levels to 7(rural)-7(urban) or 6-8 for capitals and 7-8 or 6-9 for other provinces. This would keep the population levels fairly equivalent for provinces of level 9 and 10.

5. Those holdings (law, temple and guild) in the province will each be split up between the two provinces leaving the majority of levels for a holding in the urban province. Roughly 2/3 of the holdings should be in the urban province. So a level 10 guild holding would be split up into 4(rural)-6(urban) with a level 4 guild holding in the rural province and a level 6 guild holding in the urban.

I believe these are the major rules he discussed, if I’m missing some or got a couple wrong I’m sure he’ll add or correct them.

[Osprey]

Just a few clarifications:

6. The province must first be ruled to its maximum level before it is eligible to become an urban province.

Thus, a L9 capital would qualify as [hills, caostal] or [open, river], while a L10 could be reached only as [open, coastal].

Clarifying #2: An urban province needs at least one its trade routes to be from an adjacent rural province (typically the "parent" province). This represents an agricultural source of food for the city.

3. These levels are created using the Rule Province action. Once per season limit applies as usual.

[The Jew]

Why create these virtual level and then use create province. It just isn't very fluid. The city as a political and economic unit would appear in one month. A regent that controlled all the holdings of one type within the province would suddenly control only a portion of the holdings in the rural province. Why not use the create province action and then rule up the city at a base DC of 20 and an additional 10 GB per rule? To allow for a more even population spread the regent could switch a couple of province levels over to the newly created citys, along with the appropriate holdings.

[Osprey]

Check out the thread "Elven Forests and Source Potential" in the Royal Library. About 6 posts into it, a discussion about creating urban provinces begins, and it details some of the problems with simply "splitting off" urban provinces.

The general idea in this system is that they should be hard as hell to make (hence the reason there's only one in all of Cerilia, and it was made at the height of the Empire). I imagine the virtual levels equal growing population and investment that eventually reach a "critical mass" and become a seperate province. I know, it's far from a brilliant solution, but if anyone can work out a smoother one (that's cohesive, balanced, etc.), I'd love to see it. 'Cause if it's been done once, it could be done again. And the historical evolution of our world says that such places ARE possible, but extremely rare until the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Yet ancient Rome, Constantinople, and perhaps others (Alexandria? Carthage?) provide some historical examples of the possiblity without such a revolution. So if your Cerilian campaign is evolving into a higher level of civilization (i.e., level 9-10 provinces), it should be possible, yet represent a very big step forward in that evolution.

That's the thinking behind it, anyways.

[Airgedok]

Many cities grew to well over 100,000 in population before the industrial revelution. London, paris, colone, rome, constatinople, madrid, lisbon, barsalona, andualsia, babylon, niniva, venis, alexandra, and these are just a few of the cities that reached over 100,000 population in europe and teh middle east. These cities reached over 100,000 population during teh anchient and midevil peroids and many more cities reached over 100,000 pops in the reinisance. The real limiting factor for pop wasnt 100,000 that is realtively easy to reach its 1,000,000 that is teh population level that requires teh industrial revelution to reach but even then rome and costatinople and the anchient city of the aztechs (current location of mexico city) all reached over 1,000,000 in pops at their height. I havent even go into asia cities the reached over 100,000 in pop in india, china or south east asia. Mesoamerica also had many cities over 100,000 population. So history shows that 100,000 pop isnt rare at all.

The fact that there is only one in cerlilia is more likely because of the constant wars (a great population limiter) and the relationship between the the source and population. Perhaps while humans are less aware or intune with nature understand at some level that they cant completely conquer nature less they lose total conection with nature and teh sourse so they subconciously limit their population growth.

I dont know but its not difficult for anchient cities to reach 100,000 population. Hell it was teh 13th century plague that depopulated europe not the lack of technological ability to support high population cities.

This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.

i just wanted to point out that 100,00 population sized cities are not all that uncommon.

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Airgedok" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:50 AM





> Many cities grew to well over 100,000 in population before the

industrial revelution. London, paris, colone, rome, constatinople, madrid,

lisbon, barsalona, andualsia, babylon, niniva, venis, alexandra, and these

are just a few of the cities that reached over 100,000 population in europe

and teh middle east. These cities reached over 100,000 population during teh

anchient and midevil peroids and many more >cities reached over 100,000 pops

in the reinisance.



My list of Rennaisance cities numbering 100,000 is London, Paris, Amsterdam,

Lisbon, Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples, Messina, Palermo, and Constantinople.

By the 18th century you may add Madrid and Moscow, but must remove Messina.

Considering populations over many thousands of years is not a good

indication of how many cities should be numbering over 100,000 during the

course of a game. Of the map of Cerilia, only Anuire, Brectuer, and Khinasi

are of in the possition to consdier such cities. France had one. England

had one. Iberia had one. The Empire had one, and it wasn`t German, its

Dutch. Of all Europe East of Amsterdam and North Venice there were no such

cities until Moscow made the list. Of such cities they play the role of

national center, being the capital go government, finance, trade, and

culture. Since the realms of Cerilia lack such a central capital for all of

these functions, I have a hard time imagining such a city being able to come

into being. It is the very nature in all of the nations of Cerilia that

there are many small competing centers, not one dominant place where the

government, finance, trade, and culture of Brecture (for example) are all

conducted.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[Osprey]

This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.


Actually, I think such an idea has merit. Having urban provinces reduce the surrounding source levels isn&#39;t out of the spirit of the game at all. Cities always spread their "blights" on the natural world in a fairly large radius. Intense agriculture, and the villages and small towns that eventually grow up with them, would definitely reduce the source potential in the area. But I doubt the mebhaighal would ever "adjust" to such a degree of civilization, unless you believe that mebhaighal can coexist with urban civilization (which definitely does not agree with the original concept).

[Airgedok]

Originally posted by Osprey@Oct 12 2003, 02:02 PM

This is just food for thought. Creating urban provinces could create a negative effect on rural provinces that creates a -1 sorces level or all surounding provinces to teh home province of teh urban province might be another way to reduce the creation of urban provinces and say after an X time period has passed that the home and surounding provinces recover or adjust to teh urban province so that the sorce penalty is removed. perhaps a 10 year or 25 year time period is in lines of this concept. Perhaps this idea it totally outside teh spirit of the rules.


Actually, I think such an idea has merit. Having urban provinces reduce the surrounding source levels isn&#39;t out of the spirit of the game at all. Cities always spread their "blights" on the natural world in a fairly large radius. Intense agriculture, and the villages and small towns that eventually grow up with them, would definitely reduce the source potential in the area. But I doubt the mebhaighal would ever "adjust" to such a degree of civilization, unless you believe that mebhaighal can coexist with urban civilization (which definitely does not agree with the original concept).
The reason for the adjustment was that the current rules for the imperial city dont create this "blight" to the surrounding areas. So why have new cities have a perma blight effect? The land only "adjusts" back in teh surounding area and the spirit of teh rules is that the effects on the source are limited to the area of the damage. The urban province would still have a 0 source and from my understanding so would teh host province correct? So the surounding provinces are only limitedly effected for a limited time.

Also urban blight as we know it is not really a problem in older cities in teh 100,000 pop range. Its really teh advent of teh automoblie that creates the urban blight we know of today. I simply tried to present a "reason" why only one urban province ever formed. But when I think on it its a poor limating factor. Since most regents dont own source holdings and most landed regents would desire the huge gains from an urban province in both GB and RP over the lose of source holdings, this would be non-factor in teh equation. Regents would try to create urban provinces simply because of teh power city centres create. Great places to provide a kingdom with artisans and a place to muster troops. Its urban centres that provide the powerbase for a kingdom.

So my thoughts are flawed and wrong.

[geeman]

I`ve made this argument several times in the past, but since the subject has

come up I`ll mention it again: I think the solution to the "city province"

issue in the BR domain rules is better handled by just allowing for level

11+ provinces (both in terms of their population levels and potential

sources) rather than a domain action that "splits" a province into two

independant populations. The domain system assumes up to and including

level 10 that urban areas are incorporated into the overall population level

of the province, that the governing bodies of local urban areas are part of

the overall province structure, and that province rulers control both rural

and urban areas as a whole, so why stop at level 10 for either aspect of

provinces? The "max level" of population is more a reflection of certain

"old style" D&D methods regarding such things, and needn`t really even have

been applied then. It was, essentially, a mistake based on some short term

thinking about the game mechanics. Don`t get me wrong, it`s not an

unforgiveable or inexplicable mistake--BR being the first substantial foray

into a domain level of play in D&D, but in the long run doing away with the

level 10 cap makes more sense.



The existence of the Imperial City "province" does throw a bit of a monkey

wrench in the works for anyone who is an absolute purist regarding the

original materials, but it makes as much sense to incorporate that

"province" into the adjacent one and just give the Chamberlain control over

that rather than to have a sort of quasi-province of extraordinary size (in

comparison to the other BR provinces) clinging to the coast of Anuire, like

Rome dangling off the tip of the Italian boot.



Having a seperated, urban province leads to several difficult issues in a

system of domain rules, not the least of which is the "net gain" or "net

loss" of population that results from any split of an existing population

level given the scaled population levels of the domain rules. A level 10

broken up into two level 5 provinces winds up displacing 50,000 civilians,

while a more accurate accounting of the population figures turns a level 10

province into to level 7`s for a net gain of 4 total province levels.

Either way makes for a game mechanical problem. In fact, there`s no real

necessity to split a province up like that. Level 11+ provinces can just

continue to be ruled up with a few more lines to the various tables for

revenue. Level 11+ population levels are easily projected using a simple

formula; population level (squared) x 1,000 rounded to the nearest 5,000.



11=120,000

12=145,000

13=170,000

14=195,000

15=225,000

Etc.



Lastly, there is IMO a bit of an issue with the justification for an

independent urban province that is divorced from any nearby territory the

way it is presented by the concept in either the original BR materials or in

any of the proposed methods for creating such provinces. I do like the idea

of breaking up political units into various sizes--the polis, townships,

villages, military territories, etc.--but at the level of the BR domain

system it`s easier to just do away with the level cap than try to deal with

such concepts using a "split province" set of rules.



Gary

[Osprey]

Lastly, there is IMO a bit of an issue with the justification for an
independent urban province that is divorced from any nearby territory the
way it is presented by the concept in either the original BR materials or in
any of the proposed methods for creating such provinces. I do like the idea
of breaking up political units into various sizes--the polis, townships,
villages, military territories, etc.--but at the level of the BR domain
system it`s easier to just do away with the level cap than try to deal with
such concepts using a "split province" set of rules.

Gary


Actually, BRCS added in that an urban province needs at least one active trade route or it drops in level. I took it a step further and said that this must be to an open (read: agricultural) province to represent the food supplies necessary to feed the population of the big city. One could easily take this even further, and say that one such trade route is necessary per x levels of urban province (off the top of my head, I&#39;d say 1:5 is reasonable, so urban prov. L1-5= 1 ag. trade route, L6-10 needs 2 such routes). Optionally, given non-linear populations, we could reason L1-6: 1 route, L7-9: 2 routes, L10: 3 routes. On the other hand, it&#39;s hard to imagine an urban province being anything less than level 7, so generally at least 2 food-supplying trade routes would be needed to supply the city (and I allow 4 trade routes to a L10 province, so that should be accounted for in my suggestion). On the other hand, I imagine many craftsmen and laborers producing finished goods of all sorts and sizes, and these finished goods would be the exports flowing back to the agricultural provinces. The other trade route(s) would supply raw materials for these craftsmen.

Similarly, when it seems that most urban provinces split from open provinces, it seems logical that one of those trade routes would be from the parent province. Moreover, some (if not all) trade routes to the urban prov. would run through the parent province, which creates a very strong relationship between the two. This is alluded to in RoE when the provinces of Ciliene and Avanil are discussed in relation to the Imperial City. It talks about the power that Darien Avan and Hierl Diem hold over the City of Anuire because they could cut off the (land-based) trade routes to the city at any time.

If an urban province were to be made during the course of a campaign, it would almost certainly be a unique event within a given realm, and most of the time I&#39;d expect it to be the capital of that realm. This already speaks volumes about its relationship to the realm.

I&#39;d expect the original province (clear terrain, usually) to be a mixture of intense agricultural production (with many fields and villages) and things like inns, warehouses, and traders capitalizing on the ever-growing needs of an expanding metropolis.

I actually like the idea of a population cap for one main reason: provinces are built as self-sufficient entities, whereas the urban province is dependant on imports to supply its massive population, especially foodstuffs. Sure, there might be gardens in the city, but never enough to supply a serious quantity of food. The provincle level maximums represent, IMO, the maximum population that a province can support from its own food production. There&#39;s also a certain space limitation in dense/rugged terrain types, but cities can concentrate an amazing number of people in a relatively small space, so I don&#39;t think this is the major issue here.

If you were to use the idea of higher province levels (which might very well be the best solution), then I&#39;d integrate a similar import-dependent rule for levels above the normal maximums based on terrain types. What do you think of that, Geeman?

[geeman]

At 11:21 PM 10/13/2003 +0200, Osprey wrote:



>If you were to use the idea of higher province levels (which might very

>well be the best solution), then I`d integrate a similar import-dependent

>rule for levels above the normal maximums based on terrain types. What do

>you think of that, Geeman?



I like the effect of trade routes on population level. I`ve used them as

one of the modifiers in determining a province`s max pop in the past along

with various terrain, tech level and a few kinds of public works (handled

similar to monuments) like aqueducts, baths, sewers, etc. In that context

one still doesn`t really need to have a separate "city" province of the

Imperial City type if one uses 11+ population levels.



Gary

[teloft]

Im not sure what to say realy.
exept to point out some examples from history.

personaly I would like to have smaller citys then one of 100.000
for thet is like the 1/3 of the country I live in.


what are the reacons for people to settle in citys.

1. the administration is based there, and in order to run a fluen lobby group you need some people there.

2. Were are all the wariors to live, and keep there familys. a vise king will build a fort for the familys of his knigths and chavalry men in order to have them more happy aout leaving for battle. Thay feel thet there family is save.

3. A place were the traveler will find all his needs, like craftsmen and service.

Like st. Petersburg

peter the graid past a order tet a city sould be build by the sea. were all the craftsmen and tradesmen of the nabouring domains would settle (or face his raith). So he and his men could find all the service thay would need in one place, and not needing to travel all around few domains in order to find what thay needed.

...


I would like to have a variand rule awailable were small citys could be formed, and even starved out. burned, and so forth.

Not all citys need to be large. in order to function wery well.


...
then again to create a large city I would personaly like to have more then one entry for a large city, diveded by nabourhoods, a large city could even span across domain borders, rivers. there could even be large walls dividing the city into fortifyed parts, so when one part would fall, the others would remain.


Like berlin in hte cold war. Divided in 2 parts by a Wall. Or like jerusalem to day :) when the unwanted live on the other side.


Sone one large city would be maid out of many smaller ones. So tecnicaly it would be a maijor pain raisong the hell yout of a city.

Bottom line begin: I think it would describe the complexity of a city much better.

[The Jew]

Originally posted by Osprey@Oct 13 2003, 10:21 PM

I actually like the idea of a population cap for one main reason: provinces are built as self-sufficient entities, whereas the urban province is dependant on imports to supply its massive population, especially foodstuffs. Sure, there might be gardens in the city, but never enough to supply a serious quantity of food. The provincle level maximums represent, IMO, the maximum population that a province can support from its own food production.
Major food imports into cities during the middle ages almost always came from surrounding agricultural areas. A province growing above 10 could require an internal trade route, between the rural and urban area. The income would be half the province level, same as a sea trade route to "parts unknown". A higher level province, say 16, might require two internal trade routes. If that vital trade route was cut, the province would drop by one level each month or season.

[Osprey]

Major food imports into cities during the middle ages almost always came from surrounding agricultural areas. A province growing above 10 could require an internal trade route, between the rural and urban area. The income would be half the province level, same as a sea trade route to "parts unknown". A higher level province, say 16, might require two internal trade routes. If that vital trade route was cut, the province would drop by one level each month or season.

With the current trade route rules, I don&#39;t see any reason such a route wouldn&#39;t earn its full value in GB (in this case, equal to the guild level). "Parts unknown" really represents a foreign guilder holding the foreign half of a trade route. But here there&#39;s no reason an agricultural support route wouldn&#39;t also include exports of finished goods to the country folk.

This is one aspect where having a seperate urban province really does simplify things - an urban province is a different terrain type from any other terrain, and so could have trade routes with adjacent open provinces.

Internal routes are problematic because they introduce an abberration of the standard rules that opens up a whole can of worms.

In this case I think it would be better to assume that any growth beyond the normal max. levels requires food beyond what the local province can support, because that growth would be focused on the central city in the province, and the locals are already providing what they can to support that.

[Osprey]

I like the effect of trade routes on population level. I`ve used them as
one of the modifiers in determining a province`s max pop in the past along
with various terrain, tech level and a few kinds of public works (handled
similar to monuments) like aqueducts, baths, sewers, etc. In that context
one still doesn`t really need to have a separate "city" province of the
Imperial City type if one uses 11+ population levels.

Gary


Hey Gary, would you mind posting some of your rules and statistics on those public works? i.e., their costs, effects, maintenance, etc.? I&#39;m really curious to see how you work that - it sounds neat.

[geeman]

At 04:18 PM 10/19/2003 +0200, Osprey wrote:



> Internal routes are problematic because they introduce an abberration of

> the standard rules that opens up a whole can of worms.



I think "internal trade routes" are pretty much what is meant by a guild

holding. That is, it isn`t generally the manufacture, warehousing and

marketing of goods that a guilder controls, but the actual internal trade

of them that he controls. Even to that extent that the guilder may

actually own the means of production, "internal trade" is still something

best represented as part of the guild levels itself.



Gary

[geeman]

At 04:20 PM 10/19/2003 +0200, Osprey wrote:



>Hey Gary, would you mind posting some of your rules and statistics on

>those public works? i.e., their costs, effects, maintenance, etc.? I`m

>really curious to see how you work that - it sounds neat.



It`s part of a much larger rewrite of the Build action, and to be honest

it`s not all in a very nice, postable format right now, so tell ya`

what. Give me a few days and I`ll put some work into it and post it in a

more complete format. This week might be a bit busy, and I`ve got some

other things I`d like to get posted (new awnsheghlien and ersheghlien keep

popping into my head) but I`ll bump this up on my list of things to do.



In the meantime, here`s the basic idea: When using the Build action one

creates structures that one assigns a numerical value to much like

holdings. They don`t have the same effects has holdings, of course, just a

number that has some function at the domain level--the way the original

rules dealt with castles. In the same way one can construct a castle(3)

one can also have roads(2) or a palace(4) in a province. Castles and

palaces have the same effects outlined in the RB while roads reduce travel

time and allow for greater trade. Other types of construction have

different effects. Essentially, anything that isn`t a holding or a

province can be described in this manner; barracks, bridges, colleges,

shipyards, etc. Barracks allow for the reduced maintenance of companies,

bridges allow a certain number of units to cross a river or other

obstruction in a war move, colleges and shipyards allow for a reduced cost

in mustering companies or building ships, etc. If one can come up with a

domain level effect that isn`t handled by provinces and holdings then it

can probably be built using the Build action.



Each structure is to a certain extent an abstract rating of an overall

effort. That is, a castle is generally assumed to be a single, centralized

structure but it could as easily represent a system of towers on the border

of a province, the effects of an underground population, etc. Similarly

other structures can be described as a general emphasis rather than a

particular building. A utility structure, therefore, is an effort to

increase the living conditions of a province which, in turn, allows for a

greater population density. Baths, aqueducts, sewers, etc. are

infrastructure that allow more people to live in the same area. A utility

structure is something that adds to the overall maximum population level of

a province on a 1:1 basis. If the normal population level of the province

is 6 then a utility(2) will make it 8.



Gary

[Ksaturn]

It is very possible i missed something reading this long thread but i heard several valid points and i&#39;ll mix and match with a bit extra....

What if you were to allow the provinces to go above thier normal maximums by having a trade to an area that has enough untainted mehgibal to support the added population? Thus representing the shift of resource (natural in this case) nessisary to support the add ppls....

ideas all yours now... feel free to tear it apart...

[tcharazazel]

yeah, after considering the urban province for some time, and trying to find ways to implement it, we just settled upon finding ways to raise the normal province level instead, you can see the way that we determined this in our house rules here: Soutehrn Alliance (http://home.earthlink.net/~birthright/) basically, there has to be wonders to raise the province level above its normal limit.

[OsricIlien]

Here is an alternate idea that I have been throwing around for building an Urban Province. The one key thing I see with an Urban Province is that is becomes a beacon of the nation that built it. It embodies the core ideals of the regent and his realm. Also the regent building must be well experieced and powerful.

First you have to build 10 lvl&#39;s of the Urban Province wonder.(25 GB/lvl)
It must be built in a lvl 10 province.
Also the regent building the UP must have at least 30 provinces under his control.
No more than 1 lvl per season may be built.
After construction the Regent spends a season creating the province.
First month they make an agitate action to get people interested and excited about the project.
Second month is a Diplomacy action to build a trade route from the home province for food for the city.
Third month is an Administrate action to finalize all the paperwork and beauracracy of the new province

This creates a 10 lvl Urban Province that is invested by the regent builder. This opens 10 lvs of guild, law, and temple.

I would love some feed back on this.

[tcharazazel]

So are you saying with the 30 province requirement that the 100,000 people for a level 10 province comes from them, without dropping th elevel of any province? It would be 3334 people per province and if its an equal distribution than it would likely drop the lower level provinces (4 and under) by a level.

And that was a main issue we ran into before, the question of where do the people come from.




It`s part of a much larger rewrite of the Build action, and to be honest
it`s not all in a very nice, postable format right now, so tell ya`
what. Give me a few days and I`ll put some work into it and post it in a
more complete format.

Hey Gary, have you ever goten around to rewriting up the Build action that you taked about? and will ya post up your ideas now?


I like you idea for the utilities wonders, question though, could you have multiple utiliy wonders or just 1 really and it would end up having multiple functions?

[geeman]

tcharazazel writes:



> Hey Gary, have you ever goten around to rewriting up the Build action that you taked about? and will ya post up your ideas now? I like you idea for the utilities wonders, question though, could you have multiple utiliy wonders or just 1 really and it would end up having multiple functions?



Geez, I haven`t looked at that stuff in a while.... Seems like all I want

to do lately is write up awn-/ersheghlien and all that malarky. I`ll take a

look when I get home to see what I`ve got written up so I can post it,

though.



Gary

[OsricIlien]

We&#39;ll actually I was assuming the 30 province pre-reg because I thought a regent would need to have a large realm to create a city that would stand out and be the icon of the nation.(like when I think of France I picture Paris)

Your also assuming that the settlers of the city are coming only from the regents domain. This is sort-of shortsighted. Immigrants would come from many different places to join a city that would stand out so clearly. Certainly the majority would come from the regent&#39;s domain but enough would come from immigrating families that there would not be any decrease in province levels.

[tcharazazel]

Not realy shortsighted as the regent has 30 provinces his capital is likely to be in the middle of the 30 provinces or near the middle so he can effectively rule over them. It gets very difficult to rule over provinces when they the capical is like 20 provinces away (if he is ruling over a long strip of provinces along the coast for example) or even 10 provinces away, as 10 provinces away the provinces are likely to be in a different region then. Thus, if he is in a radius with about 7-8 of his own provinces surrounding his capital, then its not so likely he will be getting the majority of the 100,000 people from his own provinces.

The other reason its not short sighted is the way you set it up, as it doesnt require a diplomacy action in other realms to win over those people to come join his new UP. He is only using an agitate action to get HIS OWN people riled up to join the UP not his neigbors people. Thus, expecting the extra people to come from any surrounding realms that maybe about 8 provinces away, and possibly even in a different region, is very shortsighted on your part.

Since he is getting the majority of the 100,000 people for the level 10 UP, he would need to lower the population of the surrounding provinces. Now, if you did it like i suggested, creating virtual levels (which was Osprey&#39;s idea) then you would be able to raise the population of the province, where the UP will be located, or as you have it requiring 1 season to build up the UP wonder, then each season it gains an effective incrrease in population... however, as the UP is not yet created these people are still considered to be in the province, its just a different way of keeping track of the population.

If the populace from the surrounding area is taken slowly, ie 1 season at a time, it would then make sense that there would be no major loss in population and thus no provinces would drop in level. However, if you do it the way you originally proposed then there would be a sudden drop in population throughout the regents lands, which would likely cause a drop in the province level. So just making that little tweak would solve your problem.

[Ksaturn]

I&#39;d like to note that... province level is NOT directly tied to population... Its tied to your control over & the overall orginization of said population. The #&#39;s for citizens is something of a example average to me.

[tcharazazel]

Heh, if province level is not tied to population, then how could you have a province with only 1000 people be considered a level 10 province? Of course its tied to population&#33; If there are not enough people then there isnt enough labor, merchants, priests, ect to have any of the development that occur in the higher level provinces. This is why in the BRCS they put the approximate number of citizen for each level of the province, pg 88.

Here is a quote from the BRCS for ya on that same page, "The difining domain-level measure of a province is not its size, but rather its level -- its overall measure of its population, technology, and industrial prosperity."

So you can see population is the Key factor in a province, as without any people, there would be not technology nor industrial prosperity&#33;


You are mistaking Province levels for Holding levels. Holdings also depend upon population, however, the higher they get the more control over the population they have, until they reach the provinces level, then they control all of that holding. Thus, population size is important to the holdings, only in that it sets teh limit for the province level and thus the max level for the holding.. Holdings are described on the next page, pg 89.

[OsricIlien]

Thank You Paul.
I appericiate your suggestion. What i was thinking was that people would slowly be moving into the city throughout the entire period that the building was occuring. Slowly gaining enough population for the UP. Sadly game mechanics dont always work with real life very well. I think thats part of the problem its&#39;s hard to put what really happens in situations like this into a game perspective. I liked Osprey&#39;s idea but thought it a bit long-winded and more complicated than it needs to be(a habit that he really gets into) :P But it certainly has merit. I was trying to come up with something a bit more streamlined game mechanic wise. I had not spent a lot of time dealing with the real world comparison.
Any way
Thanks

[tcharazazel]

Yeah, game mechs and real life def arent perfect.

Well, if they are moving during that time period, then they maybe instead of having the UP start at level 10, have it start at level 0 and each season he can raise it up.

It would require the wonder to be equal level with the UP level. Thus the wonder would go up 1 level a season, and could potentially go up to level 10, however, to get the people to move there it would require the reaise province action by the regent. That would account for the extra costs of creating and maintaing an UP , and the people moving there.

[soudhadies]

Here is a quote from the BRCS for ya on that same page, "The difining domain-level measure of a province is not its size, but rather its level -- its overall measure of its population, technology, and industrial prosperity."


The BRCS p. 88 also goes on to say that the level provides a "rough metric for determining the number of loyal taxpaying human commoners in a rural province", which means that they aren&#39;t really reflective of the total population of a province after all. Firstly, because not all inhabitants are loyal, and secondly because not all inhabitants pay taxes (and some aren&#39;t human either ;) ).

I recently made some comments about more reasonable estimates in population on another thread (http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2740), that come up with some pretty good numbers (I checked against real world equivalents and there is good correlation).

While I am against the whole concept of "urban provinces", as IMO The imperial City of Anuire is a unique historical case (alright, if you build a continental empire that lasts a thousand years, then maybe I&#39;ll allow you to have an urban province). But, given my numbers, if I were to allow the creation of such divisions, I would just break off the most populous urban center of the province and say: "You&#39;re urban". That province would then gain a level corresponding to its city&#39;s size on the total province population chart.

For example, say I have Ilien, a level 7 province with a total population of 216, 691. I want to emancipate the city of Ilien from the province. The population of the city would be around 13,306. So that means that the population of the rural province will take a blow, going down to 203, 685, but this isn&#39;t enough to push the province down to level six (total pop 174, 182), and would recover eventually without too much trouble. The city of Ilien however, doesn&#39;t quite have enough people to be considered a level 1 province, so instead it is a level 0 urban province and will have to be ruled up from there. In fact, only level 10 provinces boast large enough urban populations to spawn an urban province of level 1, and only provinces of level 6 or higher should be allowed to spawn level 0 urban provinces.

A reasonable restriction would be to say that only Metropolises (these only appear at level 10 in my charts) can be spun off into urban provinces, and that this follows the natural progression of provincial developement. Once a province hits the level 10 wall (which is dictated by land availability more than anything else. Only 12 counties in the world today have more than 40% arable land, about 3/4 have 20% or less) it enters a new stage in development by spinning off a city which gains a life and character of its own, independent of later effects to the mother city. Possibly a successful rule action on a level 10 province would instead of raising the province level, create a level 1 urban province which could grow from there. Of course it would be reasonably to say that any given province could only generate one urban province(all other major centers would be the UP&#39;s metropolitan area). Heck, I&#39;m just throwing out ideas now, cause its getting late :).

Anyway, I realize that my charts aren&#39;t 100% applicable to independent cities, given that they are based on agricultural developement, but it would make things easier to standardize and just assume wouldn&#39;t it? I also realize that they are nowhere near BRCS canon, and so probably will end up being irrelevant anyway, but now that I think of it, I like the idea of level 1 urban provinces being created by a successful rule of a level 10 province. It sort of explains where the population comes from (the previous urban population, and the rule action) and it gives the player a new province that still needs growth to reach its full potential.

[tcharazazel]

Yeah, that would also work, however, I&#39;d say that it should start out at level 0 as you are essentially creating the UP. This would be setting up the beuracratic foundation, trade networks, ect. required to rule a UP.

When you essentially create the UP by raising up the province, would you then be raising the province to level 11, for game mech perposes. Thus, you would have a DC of 10 + 11 (for next level of the province). Also would you need to continue to follow this method for raising the UP level, or would you only use it for its first level?

Pros for making it harder to raise the UP level are that fewer regents would be able to do so, unless they are very gifted rulers (epecially if you use the house rules that Osprey set up for raising provinces above level 10, which can be seen here: Southern Alliance (http://home.earthlink.net/~birthright/id11.html))

If you are just calling it a regular province after its creation, then its much easier to rule up, as the DC to rule the province wil be just 10 + 1 for level 1, which it really shouldnt be.

[Athos69]

Would it not look alot more realistic, as well as make more sense to redefine the borders of the province you are creating the urban province in to include *only* the city, and have the lands around it become the province (0) or (1)?

In reality, people would flock to the city as it became more prosperous, and leave the fields, thus creating the equivalent of a food shortage, which would ned to be managed by the regent.

In other words, let&#39;s not think of this as creating an &#39;Urban&#39; province, but instead calving the farmland off of a city into its own rural province. The city holdings would not change (Temples, Law, Guilds), since they are well established and likely to be concentrated in the city anyways. the &#39;room&#39; for all of these regents to exp[and is going to be in the rural areas.

[soudhadies]

To Tcharzazel:

Probably a DC of 21 to create the UP, but then afterwards the city would be ruled independently from the mother province. So there is a major effort to overcome first, then the city can be ruled more normally. The reason for this would be to divorce the fortunes of the city somewhat from the fortunes of the mother province. The only precedent that we have, after all, is the level 10 imperial city of anuire, whch is level 10, while the province of Anuire has only a level of 7(Presumably lowered by 500 years of civil wars). I think that a level one UP is more realistic, because level 0 indicates no developement whatsoever, where in fact this is a major city that has been around for a while (years even) and is being emancipated from its surroundings. Plus, the rule action creates a new province level, which becomes the base level of the UP. However, the largest a provincial city can grow is fairly small compared to how large the emancipated city can grow, which explains the small starting level.

However, it could be added as a comment to the rules that ruling an urban province adds +10 to the standard rule DC. That would divorce the fortunes of the the UP and the mother province, while still making UPs very difficult to rule.

To Athos69:

It wouldn&#39;t really be more realistic at all. Even in the most populous medieval lands, at least 80% of the population is rural, and of the 20% that are urban, many are split amongst the province&#39;s towns and cities. So probably only about 10% of the population live in the major city that will become the UP. In the case of my chart, about 35,000 out of 400,000 people in a level 10 province. In the standard chart, about 10,000 out of 100,000 people. Creating the urban province through the rule action means that those 35K or 10K are just now considered an independent province (whose borders, like you said, are the limits of the city), while the rule action brought enough people into the original province to replace the losses. If we used you suggestion, well the movement of 365,000 or even 90,000 people is a mass exodus the likes of which are very rarely seen, especially over the coursse of a domain turn. Not only would they all starve, since the fields would produce only enough food to supply the people that remained to work them and maybe a couple hundred or thousand others, but the infrastructure of the city would be completely unable to house the immigrants. Probably the city gates would be shut to keep them out. I know if I was a citizen of a prosperous city and I saw a mass of tens of thousands of ragged people flocking to my home I would do everything in my power to send them away.

For holding divisions, probably the best thing to do (assuming the creation of a level 1 UP, is to say that the majority holder of any given holding in the mother province gets a level 1 holding while all the other holders each get a level 0 holding. In the case of a tie in holdings level the level one holding&#39;s owner would be randomly determined.

[tcharazazel]

Heheh, and now we degrade into the problems we had before when coming up with a means for creating UPs...

Ok, so Athos if we were to expand upon ure idea then: current province would drop to level 1 lets say (as not everyone would want to move into the city) and the UP would begin at level 9. Why would it have to be so extreme though? If we look at Bearcat&#39;s populatin spread, it would be more like province level 9 and UP level 3. As the urban population is the equivalent of a level 3 province.

The major problem here is that it is not equal, province level wise when it is population wise. We seem to be forgetting the important beuacratic infrastructure that it takes to run any type of province, which is created when you do the create province action and increased with every rule province action.

Now, realistically there would already be some infrastructure in the city and its likely where most of the infrastructure would be... which then leads to the opposite problem... If the city becomes a UP then how does all the infrastructure within the city suddenly go outside the UP to control the level 9 province?

Of course if we do it your way Athos, infrastucture isnt as much of a problem. However, in a level 10 province, its doubtful that the equivalent of 9 levels of infrastructure is in the city when the majority of the population is not in the city. So, that would lead us back to the starting level of the UP be 3 instead of 9. So as there isnt enough infrastructure, we can say that even though there is enough population for a level 9 province, there is only enough infrastructure for a level 7 province equivalent, or even less.


There also is one other problem that we havent addressed yet, does the maximum level for the province with the UP in it, drop when the UP is created? The reason for the question is based on the fact that the UP is obviously in the best location for a city in that province so if it suddenly is no longer apart of the province. The next city that the province would have to make to get to the higher levels would not be in the ideal location, so would it get to as high a level?

Heheh, when we try to make it more real it starts to get a lot more difficult, as there are a lot more details that the system just glosses over.

[Athos69]

But the majority of the population is not in the province. I&#39;m seeing the fallacy that people are using is directly related to a &#39;true&#39; medieval population distribution. If you look at Anuire as being a *bit* later in period than that, to reflect for the rise of the middle classes (represented by the Guilders, who would not be any force at all in a &#39;true&#39; medieval cultural setting), then you will find a much different population distribution, as the middle classes tended to migrate to where the wealth was -- the cities.

[tcharazazel]

And how much of the population was middle class? not very much, especially when compared to the serf or lower class. So, it really is the movement of the lower class that makes the big change in population shifts. As the majority of the lower class will be farming then it doesnt make sense that they would all pick up stakes and head for the city. If they are similar to serfs then they couldnt really leave the land either, as they are tied to the land.

[soudhadies]

But the majority of the population is not in the province. I&#39;m seeing the fallacy that people are using is directly related to a &#39;true&#39; medieval population distribution. If you look at Anuire as being a *bit* later in period than that, to reflect for the rise of the middle classes (represented by the Guilders, who would not be any force at all in a &#39;true&#39; medieval cultural setting), then you will find a much different population distribution, as the middle classes tended to migrate to where the wealth was -- the cities.


But it is also a logical fallacy to assume that people are no longer required to work in the fields. Despite technological advances that make farms more productive, you generally don&#39;t see a reduction in the number of people required to really work the land until heavy mechanization comes into play. The only numbers that I could easily find were for the US, which in 1880 still only had about 24% of its population urbanized.

In general, 20% is a very generous urban population, in my opinion. MMS:WE cites the range as being 6.67% to 20% with an average of 8%. The average being given in the DMG is 1/10th to 1/15th (10% to 6.67%, p. 155 of the 3.0 DMG). So 20% is a very hefty urban population all things consideered.



Heheh, when we try to make it more real it starts to get a lot more difficult, as there are a lot more details that the system just glosses over.


Which is why I like my method. Its simple and fairly elegant (and its also based on my own demographic calculations, not the ones in the BRCS, so there would be no level shifts for the mother province and the UP would be level 1). One rule action creates the urban province, with 1 level, and then rule actions with a +10 DC can be used to raise it. Traderoutes and what not can probably even be ignored if we assume that the UP is a generalized food sink in the same way that a major river has a drainage basin, a little bit from everywhere in a three to four province area instead of all from one source.