But anyway, looking at Thorfinn's maps got me all nostalgic, and made me reflect on my all time favourite D&D module - CM1 Test of the Warlords (I seem to remember seriously fast tracking some PCs just so they could get to level 15 just so we could play it...) - and on what has happened to Norwold since - not so much in the CM1, CM2, M1, M2 era, more in the Wrath of the Immortals era - I was very disappointed to discover that my favourite dominion (on Landsplit river) was suddenly in the middle of tundra
Anyway - I was wondering how to reconcile the 'make your dominion anywhere' CM1 Norwold, which I liked, with the more "realistic", 'King Ericall barely controls Alpha, and the rest is all wilderness' - and how to develop the area whilst maintaining something of the atmosphere of untamed wilderness / space for dominions...
..at the same time, I've read the stuff on Vaults of Pandius about dominions with some interest, but haven't quite worked out how you would start dominions as with PCs, using the new rules - and what changes you would need to make for Norwold.
More musings to come I'm sure but that's enough for now
Is my Maths wrong?
I was going through the new economics stuff from Bruce Heard, and he quoted a 8 mile hex as having an area of 56sq miles - but I get 64, and 576 for a 24 mile hex - (these dimesnsion work for me as you get 9 8 mile hexes in a 24 mile hex - 9 times 64 = 576)
Is my Maths wrong?
Yes, you're calculating the area of a square: 8^2=64.
To calculate the area of a hexagon you need the following equation:
3/2*squarert(3)*n^2 where n is the length of one side.
So if n=4.62 (see simple map question thread)
3/2*squarert(3)*4.62^2=55.45 (to 2 decimal places)
Regards,
Gary
I was going through the new economics stuff from Bruce Heard, and he quoted a 8 mile hex as having an area of 56sq miles - but I get 64, and 576 for a 24 mile hex - (these dimesnsion work for me as you get 9 8 mile hexes in a 24 mile hex - 9 times 64 = 576)
56 miles is an approximation. The actual square mileage is something like 55.45 sq. miles. I think your math is wrong on the hex calculation, though. The length of each of the outer sides should be closer to 4.62, but if I calculate backwards from your numbers correctly, your outsides are closer to 4.89ish.
It looks like Bruce's numbers are off, too, though- at least on that 24 mile hex. 9 times 56 should be 504; and by my calculations, the area for a hexagon with 24 units of distance between parallel sides should be around 502 (with each side measuring about 13.9).
[EDIT]I'm guessing you were looking at the Dragon articles, because I see on his Dominion Economics Spreadsheet that he's got the area of a 24 mile hex as 498.82 sq. miles, which still seems a bit off, but my math might not be quite right either. It's a lot closer than the 576 thing, though. If you haven't ever seen that spreadsheet, it's an Excel file that Bruce Heard made, and it automates his dominion economics rules. It adds things like road and army building, and much more. It's pretty awesome.
Using 13.86 for the length of a side on a 24 mile hex, I get 499 with your the equation above - I'm thinking of working with 500sq miles per 24 mile hex in future....
Who said they would never need to use trigonometry, after school
Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn't...
Anyway - back to where I wanted to go with this thread - The 'new' dominion rules state, I think sensibly, that wilderness hexes don't produce taxation income, or support for non-agrarian poulation. So..
.. if a PC carves a dominion out of the wilderness, how does he start getting the neccesary food and tax to support the urban population of specialists, retainers and soldiers that he is going to bring with him?
Does anyone have rules / suggestions for this, or do I go away and try to write some (I'll try to keep the maths simple...)
.. if a PC carves a dominion out of the wilderness, how does he start getting the neccesary food and tax to support the urban population of specialists, retainers and soldiers that he is going to bring with him?
Adventuring
Seriously though, IMC wilderness areas within already settled areas do not produce any taxes/resources of significance.
But when a carving out a new dominion, I assume that the lumber, hides and other wilderness resources do have some value (as building material, trade items) This is assumed to be a very reduced amount of income (a percentage based on the amount of work/clearing that has been finished).
I once had a character who cleared a hex for his own dominion that happened to have some unique and rare monsters. He captured them alive and sold them to some Alphatian wizards. That money alone paid for an entire castle and garrison to man it and patrol the dominion.
.. if a PC carves a dominion out of the wilderness, how does he start getting the neccesary food and tax to support the urban population of specialists, retainers and soldiers that he is going to bring with him?
Does anyone have rules / suggestions for this, or do I go away and try to write some (I'll try to keep the maths simple...)
I haven't sat down and worked anything out, but I think that the 'lord' of the land has to invest in any resource in order to begin receiving any income (and likely having to continue to invest but at a lesser degree). I've often thought about doing a basic economic structure for Mystara and that a PC land-owner would have to deal with. Nothing really complicated, just something simple to give it a little bit of cause and effect dynamics.
.. if a PC carves a dominion out of the wilderness, how does he start getting the neccesary food and tax to support the urban population of specialists, retainers and soldiers that he is going to bring with him?
I remember having the same thought when I first read that. As to what he does... I dunno, maybe go door to door and demand his taxes? Who's going to say no to a 15th level+ character? :fight!:
Seriously, though, the previous responses are a good place to start from.
First - how do you go about convincing the wilderness inhabitants of a dominion to give you tax income and agrarian income? - (and thereby presumably 'upgrade' the dominion to borderlands)
Some ideas:
The idea here is to work out how much of the wilderness population 'joins' the dominion and starts paying 'taxes' as per borderlands (5cp per month from memory), and (probably more importantly) starts contributing to the food needs of the urban population (Although this shouldn't kick in until the first harvest time)
1. King's writ - in some areas, a piece of paper from the king would carry some weight. This could affect anywhere between 0 and 50% of the population
2. Build a market - once you own the resources you can exploit them - but you've got to own them first! One way to persuade people to join would be to set up a market - which can take their goods off them, and can provide them with goods that they need - which means setting up trade routes - which probably means that the new Lord of the manor needs to buy ships / donkeys to carry goods from elsewhere. Over time, though this would pay off - say 1-2% of people 'joining' each month when the market operates, cumulative
3. Build a castle - the bigger the better. Again - 1-2% per month, cumulative?
4. Provide protection - this would be a good one to roleplay - for example, the periodic Frost Giant threats in N. Norwold provide an opportunity to actually persuade people being part of the dominion provides safety - one big event might persuade up to 50% of the population to join
5. Intimidation - I just don't think this would work in a wilderness - where people each have square miles of territory to disappear into. I guess you could say that for every x troops you have out on duty y people are coereced into joining...
6. Reputation - maybe the PC is well known - or even famous. Perhaps a % of people = level of the charatcer might join straight away on this one??
I'm sure there are other ways too.
The aim I imagine would be to create a cause and effect system which allows plenty of opportunities for roleplaying (and for relieving PC's of wealth...) - without too much difficult maths
More musings to come - but that's enough for now. Thoughts?
Want you want to do is attract new settlers to the region. As you clear the land, selling it at low cost attracts people. If a farmer can pull up stakes, and get four times as much land on the frontier at little or no cost, most likely he'll do it (just look at the western expansion of the US). In some cases you can pay people to head to the frontier. If you can prove you can provide safety and infrastructure, all the better for attracting settlers. Unfortunately for all the petty barons out there, this does require a significant amount of start-up capital, and probably a steady source of income unrelated to the new dominion. Forced population relocations are also a possiblity, but I wouldn't want to to many of those.