Troop production limit [9#28159]

[oomalex]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to ask you some help about a question that I've often been asked from my players, but I couldn't find any specific information on birthright manuals.

Is there any limit about the number of troops a regent can muster in a province in a long period of time?

The rule states that "a province can raise military units equal to its level (never higher) in a single domain turn".

As well it is specified that only the "levy" action reduces a province's level by 1.

I can assume that the muster armies action doesn't affect the province level, and that it is hypothetically possible that the regent of Medoere can muster in Braeme (3/2) a number of troops equal to 3 every in a single domain turn.

After 3 domain turns there will be 9 troops produced by a single level 3 province; probably it shouldn't work like that, I can suppose that mustering a large number of troops from a single province would affect the level of the province itself.

Is there anyone that can help me with this dilemma? Or is there anyone that want to share his opinion?

Thank you very much indeed

P.S. this is our campaign website, please visit us and leave us a message if u want!
www.birthright.it

[DanMcSorley]

There`s no problem in the fiction with it working like that; soldiers
looking for work will hear that the lord of Medoere is paying good coin for
men, and come from far and wide. There`s no reason for it to reduce the
province level.

--
Daniel McSorley

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:46 PM, oomalex <brnetboard@gmail.com> wrote:

> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=28159
>
> oomalex wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I wanted to ask you some help about a question that I`ve often been asked
> from my players, but I couldn`t find any specific information on birthright
> manuals.
>
> Is there any limit about the number of troops a regent can muster in a
> province in a long period of time?
>
> The rule states that "a province can raise military units equal to its
> level (never higher) in a single domain turn".
>
> As well it is specified that only the "levy" action reduces a province`s
> level by 1.
>
> I can assume that the muster armies action doesn`t affect the province
> level, and that it is hypothetically possible that the regent of Medoere
> can muster in Braeme (3/2) a number of troops equal to 3 every in a single
> domain turn.
>
> After 3 domain turns there will be 9 troops produced by a single level 3
> province; probably it shouldn`t work like that, I can suppose that
> mustering a large number of troops from a single province would affect the
> level of the province itself.
>
> Is there anyone that can help me with this dilemma? Or is there anyone
> that want to share his opinion?
>
> Thank you very much indeed
>
> P.S. this is our campaign website, please visit us and leave us a message
> if u want!
> www.birthright.it
>
>
>
>
> Birthright-l Archives:
> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
>
>
>

[Birthright-L]

At 09:46 AM 7/19/2012, oomalex wrote:

>Is there any limit about the number of troops a regent can muster in
>a province in a long period of time?
>
>The rule states that "a province can raise military units equal to
>its level (never higher) in a single domain turn".
>
>As well it is specified that only the "levy" action reduces a
>province`s level by 1.
>
>I can assume that the muster armies action doesn`t affect the
>province level, and that it is hypothetically possible that the
>regent of Medoere can muster in Braeme (3/2) a number of troops
>equal to 3 every in a single domain turn.
>
>After 3 domain turns there will be 9 troops produced by a single
>level 3 province; probably it shouldn`t work like that, I can
>suppose that mustering a large number of troops from a single
>province would affect the level of the province itself.
>
>Is there anyone that can help me with this dilemma? Or is there
>anyone that want to share his opinion?

It is a bit awkward. In a system like the warcards, no limit on the
actual cards is a little artificial as those cards are generally
assumed to represent actual numbers of troops (200 each or 100/100
troops and mounts) and population levels represent actual numbers of
people. One could, therefore, raise more troops from a province than
it has people.

This situation could be dealt with as easily as saying that the cards
don`t actually represent actual numbers of people, but are an
abstraction of overall fighting ability, and/or that the population
levels are similarly abstract. However, there is no such limitation
in any of the original rules or in any of the official fan-based
rules that I can recall. In the past several people have suggested
various house rules for troop limits, usually based on population
levels in the provinces from which they are mustered, or limitations
on the numbers of particular types of troops (like "knights") due to
the training, scarcity, or relative social status that such troops
represent. In my own system of large scale combat, troops are raised
like levels of a holding and, therefore, max at population level.

Gary

[Arentak]

There is no limit. However, many games have implemented limits of various kinds, most recently, many games are using the wargaming concept of "Force Pools", so a realm like medoere might be limited to 5 or 8 units in its "Force Pool".

Another option is 1 unit per province level, which would limit Medoere to 9 units, Diemed to 21, Aerenwe to 20...

The only problem with limiting people to a certain # of units, is the restriction can be partially bypassed by saying "my 9 units will be uh..all elite infantry and knights", so you get more bang for your pool. Really, gold was designed to be the main limiting factor, gold and what holdings you have that you can muster from.

You'll have to decide, as a DM, what approach to take. The rules don't have much for you to go on.

[oomalex]

...

Another option is 1 unit per province level, which would limit Medoere to 9 units, Diemed to 21, Aerenwe to 20...

The level of the province could be a good realistic limit to make the potential of Medoere for example, if you have enough money you can hire mercenary.
Thanx for your ideas

[Birthright-L]

One issue with using population level to limit troop numbers is that
the rules have a special issue with raising levies. That is, levies
can--possibly permanently--lower population level. So, arguably, if
one were to raise 4 levies from a province with a population level of
8 then that would reduce the population level to 4, meaning that no
more levies could be raised from that province. Or one might make a
similar argument regarding regular troop types. That is, if one had
already raised 5 units of infantry from a province and then wanted to
raise levies, then one could only raise 2 without the population
level dropping to the point where no more troops could be supported.

Of course, one could adjudicate that issue in a couple of ways;
simply counting levies separately, not counting them at all as
standard units for the purpose of limiting troops by population
level, and/or assuming that levies can be raised until population
level is reduced to 0. So, one could certainly still use population
level as a limitation on troop numbers. My point, though, is that
one would want to consider how to address that particular issue
before it arises if one is going to limit troops by population level.

Gary

[lmnoq]

in the core birthright book, on page 33 it talks about province level and population. A level 3 province might have up to 10,000 people. So if a person could hire 12 units at 3 units per quarter. Those 12 units might be about 2400 people in the old 200 to a unit. So drafting maybe 1/5 of the population into service. And I liked the point about people traveling to those provinces seeking employment; because a military job would be choice money to a peasant.

as far as levies are concerned; I think one needs to keep in mind they are militia and not professional soldiers. So when a free levy unit is defeated; those are the farmers are craftsmen that were just summoned up to protect the locals and losing the only village blacksmith or cobbler hurt the population.

[AndrewTall]

in the core birthright book, on page 33 it talks about province level and population. A level 3 province might have up to 10,000 people. So if a person could hire 12 units at 3 units per quarter. Those 12 units might be about 2400 people in the old 200 to a unit. So drafting maybe 1/5 of the population into service.

There's been a lot of debate on the meaning of the word "people" as the book populations look ridiculously low by medieval standards if the text is taken at face value. If you see it as "men", "free men", "hearths" or a similar medieval style definition of "people" then you can get much closer to historic polulation levels.

And I liked the point about people traveling to those provinces seeking employment; because a military job would be choice money to a peasant.

? War is the choice of the nobility, though even for them mainly due to poverty - once a noble has bought armour, horse, etc most of them generally don't have much inheritance left (BR's domain and bloodline systems scream "1 child gets all" as the inheritance norm). For a peasant ransom is highly unlikely making capture highly dfangerous and starvation quite possible. On the farms at least you've got a good chance of living through the year, while in the city you are more likely to live and get rich. A peasant soldier might get a few chickens, possibly even a cow or some religious chalices as loot but the land - which is the real wealth - will almost invariably go to the nobles in the army.

That said, the villages only need so many people (far fewer if enclosure and sheep, etc are the norm as opposed to crops) and the need of the cities depends on the economy so at times you will get masses of willing mercenaries - they'd rather farm or weave/etc than fight, but they'd rather fight than starve.

[Deathknyte]

I would agree with the previous comment that most of a units soldiers will not be coming from the local population. Most of them will be individual soldiers hiring themselves out to this lord or that. These would not form mercenary units however, because mercenary units would be self contained with their own leaders, equipment, and whatever else they would need.

The individual soldier looking for a job probably wouldn't have his own gear and would expect the lord to provide his equipment. Making or buying this gear takes time and the rules state one unit per province level per domain turn.

I would say this limit is reasonable based on the time needed to acquire gear and train the individuals in working together as a unit. So the limit isn't necessarily due to population size, but due to the amount of soldiers who can be trained/equipped at one time.

The larger the population the more likely there will be larger amounts of smiths, armorers, and other specialists to make gear as well as better facilities to handle more troops being trained at one time. Training facilities would have to have a host of support from the local communities and the more people you have the more support you have. Clothes, food, and ways to replace or repair damaged gear would be hard to ship in from outside a province. Not to mention the comforts of home.