Realm Efficiency.

[geeman]

In the current BR realm rules there`s no limit to the size of a realm that
a regent can rule. Bloodline strength, of course, limits the maximum
amount of RP that can be collected without resorting to vassals, but
technically there`s no reason why one regent couldn`t rule every province
and holding in Cerilia--and all the ones on Aduria too, for that matter.

It`s debatable whether or not any of the individual realms in the BR
materials rise to the level that the civil governments would run into the
kinds of inefficiencies of large empires, but in the history of Cerilia
(particularly Anuire) there certainly have been larger realms that might
have been much less efficient.

I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?

Gary

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[Birthright-L]

this is something i too am looking into for my new domain system
[http://www.theoretic.com/?Domains]. I would be very interested in ideas
here, since I don`t have any of my own yet :)

Gary wrote:
> In the current BR realm rules there`s no limit to the size of a realm that
> a regent can rule. Bloodline strength, of course, limits the maximum
> amount of RP that can be collected without resorting to vassals, but
> technically there`s no reason why one regent couldn`t rule every province
> and holding in Cerilia--and all the ones on Aduria too, for that matter.
>
> It`s debatable whether or not any of the individual realms in the BR
> materials rise to the level that the civil governments would run into the
> kinds of inefficiencies of large empires, but in the history of Cerilia
> (particularly Anuire) there certainly have been larger realms that might
> have been much less efficient.
>
> I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
> how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?
>
> Gary
>
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[kgauck]

I doubt very much that if the Empire of Anuire were re-constituted, there
would only be one random event every turn. Random events happen at the
barony/duchy level. Grow too big and the random events alone will begin to
sap your strength.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Green Knight]

Take the Gorgon for example; I`m pretty certain he`s swamped in matters
of civil unrest, rebellious provinces, earthquakes, flood and famine and
interracial strife...

Bet he`s just yearning for more blooded lieutenants :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Birthright Roleplaying Game Discussion
[mailto:BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM] On Behalf Of Kenneth Gauck
Sent: 30. mai 2002 18:55
To: BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
Subject: Re: Realm Efficiency.

I doubt very much that if the Empire of Anuire were re-constituted,
there
would only be one random event every turn. Random events happen at the
barony/duchy level. Grow too big and the random events alone will begin
to
sap your strength.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[geeman]

At 11:55 AM 5/30/2002 -0500, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

>I doubt very much that if the Empire of Anuire were re-constituted, there
>would only be one random event every turn. Random events happen at the
>barony/duchy level. Grow too big and the random events alone will begin
>to sap your strength.

Actually, random events occur at the realm level, no matter what the size
of the realm, just so long as it is an "active domain" whatever that
means. (A regent with anything over a level 0 holding from what I can
tell....) Even then only one such random event occurs per domain
turn. Vassals who control a realm, it`s true, would also have their own
random events to deal with, but from the Liege POV the Vassal would
probably be expected to deal with his own random events without much or any
assistance.

Random events _should_ be based more on the size of the realm, of
course. Very large realms should be more likely to get two or more random
events per domain turn, and substantially smaller realms should be more
likely to have none, but I don`t think the number of random events alone
entirely expresses the problems with efficiency in large realms. The
amount of revenue collected by provinces or holdings doesn`t decrease at
all no matter how large and relatively inefficient the government becomes,
nor are the costs for performing activities in larger realms that a smaller
realm can perform more easily and efficiently.

At 12:19 PM 5/30/2002 -0400, Adam Theo wrote:

>this is something i too am looking into for my new domain system
>[http://www.theoretic.com/?Domains]. I would be very interested in ideas
>here, since I don`t have any of my own yet :)

From a game mechanical perspective, I have a couple of thoughts.

1. Inefficiency should kick in for the provinces and holdings that exceed
the regent`s bloodline strength score. That is, if King Bobo has a BSS of
48, inefficiency should start creeping in at some point after he controls
49+ levels of provinces and/or holdings. One could make an argument that
bloodline strength score should have nothing to do with relative
efficiency, but my take on this is that
A. Bloodline is the basis of the BR system, and should be supported in
as many additional ways as possible.
B. Many of the existing realms in the published materials seem to
collect the maximum amount of regency possible given the bloodline strength
of the regent who controls them. That`s not necessarily a reason to go
with such a ruling--one shouldn`t necessarily come up with guidelines to
justify things retroactively, IMO. It`s nice when they do justify such
things, but that`s not really a reason to come up with a rule.

2. Inefficiency might influence several things at the realm level. As
noted above, it might affect he amount of revenue collected or the number
of random events might be greatly increased, but a large, inefficient realm
might also suffer any of the following consequences:
A. The base RP/GB cost of domain actions could go up.
B. The time required to perform domain actions or the time in which
they take effect could increase.
C. The difficulty of various domain actions could go up.
D. Normally "free" actions could be lost. (An emperor might be
prevented from performing Adventure actions.)
E. The types of domain actions a regent can perform could be
limited. (Very large realms might no longer be able to Agitate.)
F. Various domain actions might not be able to be performed as realm
actions, or there may be come limit place on the extent to which a realm
action can function. (A regent might not be able to Rule more levels of
holdings as a realm action than he has bloodline strength.)
G. Maintenance costs for the realm, castles, military units, ships,
etc. could rise.
H. The stats of various military units might decrease.
I. The amount of RP that a regent can spend to assure the success of an
action or in a RP bidding war with another regent might be limited.

I don`t much like several of those possibilities, but others I think make
some sense.

Gary

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[Magian]

I don`t see the Empire of Anuire being directly ruled by the Emperor since
that is virtually impossible. Therefore he takes on what his abilities
(bloodline str) can handle and delegates the other holdings and lands to
subjects who swear fealty to him. Of course this is self explanatory but if
a regent decided to take more holdings than his bld str could maintain he
places himself at risk of loss. Ghoere is an example of this sure his realm
is powerful and militant but it is spread thin if a contest war plagued him
from all sides. The efficiency of a Regents RP takes care of itself in the
due course of actions in a campaign.

Vassals are a good and bad thing, however since the game is already complex
running domain functions all the way down to the lords and knights of law
holdings would defeat the funtionality of the game (needn`t be said it is so
obvious). Thus we are given regents or minor Kings who rule their own
little domains of various types. These Kings are the sovereign level of the
domain where the said random actions affect and can be run in a somewhat
simple game system. These sovereigns act as the default domain caretaker
for all the peerage under them. The domain maintenance and court cost are
what the regent pays back to the nobles of his land since they divert
regency and taxes to him. Sovereigns are the characters where the domain
level of the game functions to keep things simple. However the peerage can
always play a bigger role at any time (seperatist movements and rebellions).
As far as this goes each domain is sovereign to those unnamed individuals
serving under it for functionality purpose. This is where the bld str
importance is evident since the strength of the bloodline is basically a
rating of how big of a realm a character can be a sovereign over
(efficiently).

When dealing with sovereign vassals such as with an empire scale mere
diplomatic arrangements of tribute and so on would act as the efficiency for
the empire. No empire existed without lieutenants, governors, vassals and
so on to keep the local populace in line. (or Moffs depending what galaxy
you are from) Therefore no emperor truly rules directly, and if he does he
is a fool cause his domain will be stagnant. (this is anuire not persia)

A good question is where do the random events occur? Certainly if a
character ruled directly over all cerilia there would be more than one roll
for random evens. If not then direct rule would prove more profitable. I
do think a sovereign level (regent) would maintain a good guide for any DM
and random events. I would also suggest that a direct ruling emperor would
have to hold against peerage trying random events of their own since his
highly central rule is easily weakened by just a few individuals.

Perhaps that is why a PC (someone who adventures and understands teamwork)
is recommended to become the next emperor. Not some megalomaniac who thinks
he is the only one fit to rule.

ciao,

Paul

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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, Gary wrote:
> In the current BR realm rules there`s no limit to the size of a realm that
> a regent can rule. Bloodline strength, of course, limits the maximum
> amount of RP that can be collected without resorting to vassals, but
> technically there`s no reason why one regent couldn`t rule every province
> and holding in Cerilia--and all the ones on Aduria too, for that matter.
>
> It`s debatable whether or not any of the individual realms in the BR
> materials rise to the level that the civil governments would run into the
> kinds of inefficiencies of large empires, but in the history of Cerilia
> (particularly Anuire) there certainly have been larger realms that might
> have been much less efficient.
>
> I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
> how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?

For acting in a province, for every province it is away from the capitol,
add an extra RP cost to the action. If you want to be really mean, an
extra GB too. So every action in Ilien costs as normal. In Medoere,
since both non-capitol provinces there border the capitol, actions will
often cost an extra RP.

Avanil, on the other hand, has its capitol in the south. Provinces in the
north of that realm are less subject to the rule of Daulton, and you`ll
notice that Avanil lost three provinces to the closer duke in Tuornen (ne
Alamie) at some point.

Just I idea I came up with a while ago.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[kgauck]

Never mind, Gary. Sorry to have bothered.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[geeman]

At 01:34 PM 5/30/2002 -0400, Daniel McSorley wrote:

> > In the current BR realm rules there`s no limit to the size of a realm that
> > a regent can rule. Bloodline strength, of course, limits the maximum
> > amount of RP that can be collected without resorting to vassals, but
> > technically there`s no reason why one regent couldn`t rule every province
> > and holding in Cerilia--and all the ones on Aduria too, for that matter.
> >
> > I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
> > how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?
>
>For acting in a province, for every province it is away from the capitol,
>add an extra RP cost to the action. If you want to be really mean, an
>extra GB too. So every action in Ilien costs as normal. In Medoere,
>since both non-capitol provinces there border the capitol, actions will
>often cost an extra RP.

That`s interesting. I did a similar thing for various domain actions but
limited it to the provinces in which the regent had some sort of control;
he controlled the province, a holding or had a ley line/trade route to
it. The costs of performing certain domain actions (most notably
Espionage) increased by +1 RP and +1GB per province outside of the regent`s
control.

Do you use a Create Capitol action in order to designate the "central
location" of the realm for the purpose of the costs you expressed
above? Does the capitol have other effects?

Gary

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[Birthright-L]

> I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
> how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?

I agree with Kenneth`s comment that random events should begin to
overwhelm, since they really should be handled as "one event per N
provinces or holdings" rather than "one event per regent". There is also
the increased maintenance cost per holding chart; it does get linear above
100 holdings, but one can fit a simple power-law function to the rest of
the table to extrapolate a curve which shows that once you get too many
holdings, they start to cost you more in maintenance than you make in
revenue (I did this once, but I don`t have in in front of me -- I`ll try
to remember to look tonight). One change you could consider is limiting
realm actions to cover at most some number of provinces; one way to do
this, and bleed off some of the extra RP and GB as well, is say that it
costs a cumulative +1 RP and/or GB per holding in the action. Thus, to
Rule up five temple holdings in one action would cost an additional 10
(0+1+2+3+4) RP/GB/both beyond the basic cost; this means that ruling up
dozens of holdings in one action would suddenly become much less
attractive, and make the regent much more vulnerable to dozens of separate
Contests from a bunch of smaller regents.


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, Gary wrote:
> >For acting in a province, for every province it is away from the capitol,
> >add an extra RP cost to the action. If you want to be really mean, an
> >extra GB too. So every action in Ilien costs as normal. In Medoere,
> >since both non-capitol provinces there border the capitol, actions will
> >often cost an extra RP.
>
> That`s interesting. I did a similar thing for various domain actions but
> limited it to the provinces in which the regent had some sort of control;
> he controlled the province, a holding or had a ley line/trade route to
> it. The costs of performing certain domain actions (most notably
> Espionage) increased by +1 RP and +1GB per province outside of the regent`s
> control.
>
> Do you use a Create Capitol action in order to designate the "central
> location" of the realm for the purpose of the costs you expressed
> above? Does the capitol have other effects?

Nah, it was nowhere near that consistent and thought-out. Most realms
have traditional capitols, I just used those. If pressed, I`d say that
the regent`s court, the one he spends GB to maintain, is the location of
his capitol, but for pretty much everyone that`s the same as the
traditional capitol.
--
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Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[geeman]

At 03:55 PM 5/30/2002 -0400, Daniel McSorley wrote:

>>Do you use a Create Capitol action in order to designate the "central
>>location" of the realm for the purpose of the costs you expressed
>>above? Does the capitol have other effects?
>
>Nah, it was nowhere near that consistent and thought-out. Most realms
>have traditional capitols, I just used those. If pressed, I`d say that
>the regent`s court, the one he spends GB to maintain, is the location of
>his capitol, but for pretty much everyone that`s the same as the
>traditional capitol.

What about for non-landed regents? The province with their highest holding?

Gary

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[Magian]

>What about for non-landed regents? The province with their highest
>holding?
>
>Gary

A capital could simply function as a designator for all domains. A capital
need simply be declared by the regents before play begins. The catholic
church for example (vatican city). I know it could be considered landed but
so are estates and some businesses however not enough land for a province
rather enough to be a holding. (sorry if I sift through basic and obvious
ideas its the socratic method in me please bear with me.)

I would say that the highest holding need not be a capital. As a similar
example (even though it is landed) NYC is the biggest city in US but DC
remains the capital so size should not play absolute part in such a
decision.

Charlemagne (I think) moved his capital around (Maybe Clovis can`t remember)
from the original/traditional capital of France. I can`t remember all the
details of it however the point is that a Sovereign/Regent can delcare a
capital anywhere he deems necessary. I personally think a capital-type
action for BR would be a good idea to bring this demension of a realm out.
Effects for capital should have something in general to do with local
efficiency, loyalty, and any other multitude of strategic advantages one can
come up with.

ciao,

Paul


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[Peter Lubke]

On Fri, 2002-05-31 at 01:42, Gary wrote:

In the current BR realm rules there`s no limit to the size of a realm that
a regent can rule. Bloodline strength, of course, limits the maximum
amount of RP that can be collected without resorting to vassals, but
technically there`s no reason why one regent couldn`t rule every province
and holding in Cerilia--and all the ones on Aduria too, for that matter.

It`s debatable whether or not any of the individual realms in the BR
materials rise to the level that the civil governments would run into the
kinds of inefficiencies of large empires, but in the history of Cerilia
(particularly Anuire) there certainly have been larger realms that might
have been much less efficient.

I know this is a rather vague idea, but does anyone have any thoughts on
how efficiency and size might affect the realm level of play?

Mostly this just centers on the limit on domain actions that can be
performed per regent. There have been lots of house rules suggested that
have a further effect.

Random events:
It`s already been mentioned of course - if random events were based on
the size of regents domain then that begins to create problems for large
domains with only one regent.

Peers:
Generally speaking lots of small domains versus one large one is a
win-win situation for the large domain. A small domain won`t attack a
significantly larger one - it will lose. A large domain has to make use
of realm actions as much as possible in order to achieve the same ratio
of action to domain size.

Diminishing return for RP/GB:
It has been suggested that as a house rule that the adds for increasing
amounts of RP/GB be non-linear i.e. there are diminishing returns for
expenditure.

Initiative:
I personally use a domain modifier that is not based on character class
level but is determined by subtracting domain power from bloodline score
and diving by 5. A regent with a larger domain than his bloodline has
less advantage in initiative than a regent with a higher bloodline score
than domain power.

Imperial Anuire (as I see it).
The Emperor (the Roeles) ruled apart from the 12 duchies. It is likely
therefore that they weren`t one of the duchies but were overlords to all
duchies. In RP terms they held the Imperial City and gained RP and GB
from all duchies as Vassals. The bloodline of the Roeles was high and
handed down from father to son. The empire had command of all Anuirean
troops, the primary function of the emperor was to present a united
Anuirean front to enemies.

With a small domain the chance of having to respond to random events was
low (lower than any of the duchies). The RP to DP ratio gave the emperor
a tremendous advantage in initiative, and his combat potential was
higher than any individual realm on Cerilia (but beware of fighting on
too many fronts) His choices of action were similarly limited allowing
him to concentrate on what he did best.


Gary

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[Magian]

>From: Peter Lubke <peterlubke@OPTUSNET.COM.AU>
>
>Diminishing return for RP/GB:
>It has been suggested that as a house rule that the adds for increasing
>amounts of RP/GB be non-linear i.e. there are diminishing returns for
>expenditure.


While looking through this thread I have been considering possible effects
for modifying a regents actions who has a domain power larger than his
bloodline. Perhaps a % of difference between the two can be a modifier to
domain actions reflecting realm efficiency. Thus this would enhance the
importance of the bloodline and balancing it with ones domain power.

So then a regent with a larger domain power would have a negative to his
actions while a regent with a larger bloodline than domain power would have
bonuses. This would aid new scions in establishing a domain for themselves
and it would level out in the balance of the setting once they are
established. Realms that ignore balancing their bloodline with the domain
power would soon find themselves in a self induced dark age and decline.


>
>Initiative:
>I personally use a domain modifier that is not based on character class
>level but is determined by subtracting domain power from bloodline score
>and diving by 5. A regent with a larger domain than his bloodline has
>less advantage in initiative than a regent with a higher bloodline score
>than domain power.
>

This is a cool idea.


>Imperial Anuire (as I see it).
>The Emperor (the Roeles) ruled apart from the 12 duchies. It is likely
>therefore that they weren`t one of the duchies but were overlords to all
>duchies. In RP terms they held the Imperial City and gained RP and GB
>from all duchies as Vassals. The bloodline of the Roeles was high and
>handed down from father to son. The empire had command of all Anuirean
>troops, the primary function of the emperor was to present a united
>Anuirean front to enemies.
>

I think the principalities played a large part in the old empire. They
served as a more direct ally for the Roele line with immediate relatives
overseeing vast domains for the emperor. So with the emperor (according to
your initiative idea) having such a large initiative and large landed
princes with dukes under him Cerilia could be in the grasp of such a
dynasty. Of course efficiency is the topic thus an emperor carefully
designs each vassals domain in accordance to his abilities of rule (bld str)
allowing the Emperor and his standing army to get the initiative on any
would be traitors.

On another note, Avanil was a principality, not sure if a prince ruled it or
if the emperor himself did. Vague is the history of this empire and its
structure.

I do not think it is necessary to add random events to a domain because of
its size. I think each domain should be subject to only one roll per season
regardless of the size. If a regent does over expand himself in domain
power over that of his bld str then the scions of the land can create a hell
for such a regent by creating competition in holdings and contest actions
till the holdings of the regent is spread thin end up back to the balance
point they once were. The normal course of actions should handle this.

Example: I once played in a pbem where I was Lasica Diem the strongest
Guilder/Baroness in Anuire. I had plenty of money coming in, the largest
navy, almost the largest army. However to maintain and develop such a realm
a lot of RP was needed but I could not get any without subjecting others as
RP vassals. My actions were limited and my standing power was only a
deterrant. If I was to go to war I would have been wiped out very fast
cause I had no real pool of RP to defend my holdings and I had so many
fronts to protect against. Thus the powerful Avan was needed as a safe
guard cause I knew the security of my realm depended upon it even though I
may have been able to crush his war machine with my war machine 1 on 1.
Investing was another issue.

So I am a firm believer that the system of realm effieciency in regards to
RP and DP (domain power) already handle themselves over the course of a
game.

Looking back perhaps that is whay in the Falcon and the Wolf Ghoere was not
able to vanquish the Mhors so easily, he was already bogged down with GB
maintenance defending his boarders and a head to head RP war of investiture
balanced the power.

ciao,

Paul

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[Lord Grave]

I have not followed this topic, but I see that it has gone a long way,
so here is my opinion.

One ruler has only three actions per season. Now, imagine that you have
to rule whole Anuirean Empire with just three actions per season! You
wouldn`t be able to devote time to every part of the region, you would
fail, and the Empire would fail with you.

That`s why there are vassals. With vassals comes lack of loyalty, and
this results in many things, from inefficiency to rebellion.

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[geeman]

At 01:57 PM 5/31/2002 +0200, you wrote:

>One ruler has only three actions per season. Now, imagine that you have to
>rule whole Anuirean Empire with just three actions per season! You
>wouldn`t be able to devote time to every part of the region, you would
>fail, and the Empire would fail with you.
>
>That`s why there are vassals. With vassals comes lack of loyalty, and this
>results in many things, from inefficiency to rebellion.

There are a few practical reasons why a regent can`t rule all of Cerilia on
his own. The three actions/domain turn being, as you not, probably the
most significant. The number of random events also _should_ be an
influence, though the current rules on random events don`t really even
adequately cover realms the size in the published materials IMO. The RP
collection of bloodline strength sets a sort of rough size limitation of
the realm that can be controlled too, though it doesn`t in any way alter
the efficiency of a domain other than in the number of RP collected.

What I`m trying to get at, though, is a way of reflecting the decreasing
returns that occur in a large realm. "Inefficiency" might not be the best
descriptor for that process, I suppose, but if one man were to run an
empire (without Vassals) what kinds of things might hamper his
rule? Ignoring things outside the realm; invasions, diplomacy, etc. what
would a ruler lose as his realm increased in size?

Gary

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