Strongholds and Domains: A Revised Approach

General ACKS Forums General Discussion
1

Today I am sharing a set of revised rules  that is intended to replace the Strongholds and Domains section found in ACKS Chapter 6, p. 125 to p. 134. You can find them here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/strongholds-and-6107657

I offer these revised rules with no little trepidation. Domain rules lie at the heart of ACKS, and its mechanics have withstood some of the longest-running campaigns in the Old School Renaissance. But I would like to believe that my skill as a game designer has grown with each book I've produced, and increasingly I believe that the domain rules in ACKS could be improved in ways that retain their core functionality while eliminating some of their more unwelcome headaches. 

Here are the goals which I laid out for myself in drafting these revised rules (in order of priority):

1. The rules would retain the concrete, bottom-up approach that characterizes ACKS. I am no fan of the abstract, top-down approach that other systems have offered to handle domains, as I find them disassociated with the game world. (In any case Judges who seek an abstract, top-down approach already have several capable systems to choose from.)

2. The rules would be compatible with ACKS's existing assumptions on demographics, agricultural productivity, population density, and other economic issues. Moreover, they would need to be implementable "in play" without disrupting a campaign, and without imposing more than a small variance in the income of average or existing domains and realms.

3. The rules would eliminate the recursive nature of income calculation, wherein a lord earns 20'% of his vassal income, who earn 20% of their vassal's income, who earn 20% of THEIR vassal's income, and so on. It should not be necessary to build a spreadsheet calculating the revenue of a baron in farthest Opelenea in order to determine the income of the Emperor of Aura. 

4. The rules would eliminate any percentage-based calculations for domain revenue and expenses. All elements should be on a per-family basis, so that a player or Judge can quickly assess whether a domain is profitable and by how much. If *all* percentage-based mechanics could be eliminated, so much the better!

5. The rules would eliminate the "month/month/month with festival" cycle so that players and Judges do not need to re-calculate their domain income every third month. 

6. The rules would put morale rolls on the same timeline as other domain activities (monthly), and make morale a more integral part of the overall domain game.

7. The rules would answer important questions that had emerged over time, such as: "Is land value rolled per hex or per domain?" "do domains with a trained militia still need a garrison?" "how does a domain upgrade from wilderness to borderlands to civilized?" "why do we not track urban settlements of less than 75 families?" 

8. The rules would allow for domains of any size, and for noncontiguous domains. The default shape and structure of realms (with personal domains that increase in size with ruler level, and layers of vassals) should be encouraged by game mechanics, but not mandated in all cases.

9. The rules would take into account new mechanics that were introduced in Domains of War, such as military campaigns, militia, conscripts, and vagaries.

10. The rules would be written in such a way that new "modules" of rules could be easily added for Judges who sought more detailed mechanics. In particular, the rules should be easily expanded to cover future systems for (a) land value by terrain and technology, (b) different types of government (e.g. senatorial), (c) separating landownership from lordship, and (d) domain actions.

I hope you'll review these revised rules and let me know if you think I've succeeded!

2

In retrospect, I probably should have checked the forums and/or permissions on the file before posting my comments on it in the Axioms forum.

Reposting here!

I’m very excited about these. Overall I think this is great! I really like the idea of having everything based just directly off number of families.

But I do have questions and comments :stuck_out_tongue:

-Not sure how I feel about the territorial control mechanic. I like the existing fact that low-level characters can have a large domain if they can manage to secure it, and the penalties seem pretty punitive to stop that. On the other hand, I like that there now exist mechanics for how much unrest occurs when a realm has a child-king.

-If hexes have different land values, how do you determine which families are in which hex to determine your income? Say a domain contains four hexes of value 6, one hex of value 3, and one hex of value 9. The domain grows by 25 families in a month. Which hex or hexes do those families move to? (My gut is to divide them evenly, but players will argue that they can invest specifically in the hex of value 9 to get them to move there.) If it is not always evenly spread, it also makes it harder to have the single number for families and the single number for value. (If it is always spread evenly, you can just average the values. Though that will almost certainly give you a non-integer value, at least it’s a single number.)

-How does the Minimum Stronghold Value table work? If a 6-mile hex is 16 1.5 mile hexes and a 24-mile hex is 16 6-mile hexes, why aren’t the values multiples of 16? (In some cases they’re close to multiples of 16 and I can see it as merely being rounding, as with the Wilderness 1.5 - 6; 2,000 * 16 is 32,000 , 30k is pretty close to that. But 30,000 times 16 is 480,000, nowhere near the 720k for a 24 mile hex. Why would 16 6-mile hexes cost much less than a 24-mile hex, despite being the approximately the same square mileage? (and being called out as equal earlier)

-Attracting peasants and followers: There is no mention of a level requirement for peasant families and followers to show up in a domain that has a stronghold being constructed. Is this an intentional change? (I wouldn’t be surprised by the peasants showing up at any level, but followers seem like they might wait till 9th? Could go either way, though!)

-Note: On page 4, the domain expenses table says domain revenue in the header.

-Page 5 seems to be missing an or, or have an extra either: “either to another vassal that he has sworn fealty to (usually the lord who granted him the land to build his domain).”

-Random favors and duties as events! Fantastic.

-Page 5: The text says the irrevocable favor offsets a duty for a year, but the example implies only a month. (Given that year is bolded and the example is straight out of the book which says month, I think the example just needs an updating for the change from month to year.)

-Page 6: I don’t really understand why the loan and tax are both 1 gp. It makes sense from the PoV of a random generation, but from the perspective of a ruler, why would anyone ask for a loan when they could just make it a tax instead and never be expected to repay it? (I’d think the loan would be at 2 gp/family, it differentiates them more.)

-Reference is made to hijinks and vagaries but neither makes an appearance. Is the intent of the vagaries that the D@W ones be used and the modifiers just apply whenever you would normally roll them, or will there be new tables? (The hijink mention is less confusing, but it does bring up the question of which hijinks target the realm.)

3

-Not sure how I feel about the territorial control mechanic. I like the existing fact that low-level characters can have a large domain if they can manage to secure it, and the penalties seem pretty punitive to stop that. On the other hand, I like that there now exist mechanics for how much unrest occurs when a realm has a child-king.

APM: It's a necessary mechanic now that the restriction on domain size has been lifted. It also serves to explain why, e.g., a regent would be appointed for a child-king, and why a ruler will make sure his heir apparent gets some experience before taking over.

-If hexes have different land values, how do you determine which families are in which hex to determine your income? Say a domain contains four hexes of value 6, one hex of value 3, and one hex of value 9. The domain grows by 25 families in a month. Which hex or hexes do those families move to? (My gut is to divide them evenly, but players will argue that they can invest specifically in the hex of value 9 to get them to move there.) If it is not always evenly spread, it also makes it harder to have the single number for families and the single number for value. (If it is always spread evenly, you can just average the values. Though that will almost certainly give you a non-integer value, at least it's a single number.)

APM: Good question. My thought was that they'd be evenly distributed. I'll be curious what others think.

-How does the Minimum Stronghold Value table work? If a 6-mile hex is 16 1.5 mile hexes and a 24-mile hex is 16 6-mile hexes, why aren't the values multiples of 16? (In some cases they're close to multiples of 16 and I can see it as merely being rounding, as with the Wilderness 1.5 - 6; 2,000 * 16 is 32,000 , 30k is pretty close to that. But 30,000 times 16 is 480,000, nowhere near the 720k for a 24 mile hex. Why would 16 6-mile hexes cost much less than a 24-mile hex, despite being the approximately the same square mileage? (and being called out as equal earlier)

APM: Errors. It hsould be intervals of 16 - 512,000 for the 24-mile hex, 32,000 for the 6-mile hex.

-Attracting peasants and followers: There is no mention of a level requirement for peasant families and followers to show up in a domain that has a stronghold being constructed. Is this an intentional change? (I wouldn't be surprised by the peasants showing up at any level, but followers seem like they might wait till 9th? Could go either way, though!)

APM: It's just an oversight. I'll have to review the draft to see where I cut the text.

-Note: On page 4, the domain expenses table says domain revenue in the header.

APM: Thank you!

-Page 5 seems to be missing an or, or have an extra either: "either to another vassal that he has sworn fealty to (usually the lord who granted him the land to build his domain)."

APM: It's a surplus either.

-Page 5: The text says the irrevocable favor offsets a duty for a year, but the example implies only a month. (Given that year is bolded and the example is straight out of the book which says month, I think the example just needs an updating for the change from month to year.)

APM: Here's what it should be: During any month, each vassal can be safely asked to perform one ongoing duty, plus an additional ongoing duty for each ongoing favor given. If an adventurer demands duties in excess of this total, the vassal’s loyalty must be checked on the Henchman Loyalty table for each extra duty. Except for a marriage, an irrevocable favor only offsets a duty during the month it is first given (such gifts are quickly taken for granted…) A marriage counts as a favor for as long as the marriage lasts. Charters of monopoly count as one favor, even if granted to cover multiple types of merchandise.

-Page 6: I don't really understand why the loan and tax are both 1 gp. It makes sense from the PoV of a random generation, but from the perspective of a ruler, why would anyone ask for a loan when they could just make it a tax instead and never be expected to repay it? (I'd think the loan would be at 2 gp/family, it differentiates them more.)

APM: Good point. I think I'll adjust the Loan so that it's 2gp per family in the vassal's domain, while the tax wll be 1gp per family in the vassal's REALM. That'll make them more different.

-Reference is made to hijinks and vagaries but neither makes an appearance. Is the intent of the vagaries that the D@W ones be used and the modifiers just apply whenever you would normally roll them, or will there be new tables? (The hijink mention is less confusing, but it does bring up the question of which hijinks target the realm.)

APM: There will one day be additional vagaries tables, but for now it refers to the vagaries in D@W.

4

[quote="Alex"] -If hexes have different land values, how do you determine which families are in which hex to determine your income? Say a domain contains four hexes of value 6, one hex of value 3, and one hex of value 9. The domain grows by 25 families in a month. Which hex or hexes do those families move to? (My gut is to divide them evenly, but players will argue that they can invest specifically in the hex of value 9 to get them to move there.) If it is not always evenly spread, it also makes it harder to have the single number for families and the single number for value. (If it is always spread evenly, you can just average the values. Though that will almost certainly give you a non-integer value, at least it's a single number.)

APM: Good question. My thought was that they'd be evenly distributed. I'll be curious what others think. [/quote]

I think that my players would immediately ask if they could concentrate their peasant families in their most profitable hexes, and use the less-valuable ones for things like strongholds, dungeons, urban settlements, mines, and weird experiments. (One of my players is trying to build an interplanetary transport network. He's still working out the details of how to achieve it, but I imagine he'll need land for facilities.) If I said they couldn't, they'd expect some sort of explanation why - though they're forgiving guys, so it wouldn't have to be a great one.

I guess if peasants are evenly distributed throughhout a domain, you could just calculate the domain's average land revenue value, and use that for all domain revenue calculations rather than having to calculate each hex's revenue seperately. Hmm... It seems like that'd discourage players from expanding their domains, though. And it raises odd questions about how peasants are redistributed when a domain grows or shrinks in size.

By the way, this reminds me of a question I raised on RPG.SE ages ago. I got an answer that satisfied me then, but it might be an idea to put that answer into the rules to prevent confusion in future.

This also reminds me of a question about monopolies I've been meaning to ask. I should probably check whether it's been asked already before I pose it, though.

 

5

APM: Good question. My thought was that they'd be evenly distributed. I'll be curious what others think.

I've been doing land value by hex for my campaign. I track population by hex (I made a spreadsheet for it) and use the followign algorithm to determine where population goes:

  • The new population added when a hex is added to a domain starts in the new hex.
  • Hexes try to even out their populations - new population growth gets added to the hexes with the loest populations to even them out.
  • As a tiebreaker, families get added to high value hexes before low value ones.

This could be approximated by just averaging the population out, outside of a few edge cases.

6

I think population growth per hex would depend on the gp value of the hex.

If you have five hexes with a value of 3,4,4,6,9.

3+4+4+6+9 = 26

3/26, 4/26, 4/26, 6/26, 9/26

+12%, +15%, +15%, 23%, 35%

If 75 new familes move into a domain, they would be distubted as follows

9, 11, 11, 18, 26

 

 

 

 

7

Makes sense, but one of the explicit points APM makes above is that he's moving away from needing percentages as much as possible. This would take us right back to percentages and extra math.

8

My gut says that naturally attracted peasant families are preferentially drawn to more valuable hexes, but I think "evenly divided with uneven remainders preferentially targeting valuable hexes" is probably sufficient. So with 6 hexes, if 10 peasant families move in, the most valuable 4 hexes gain 2 families each and the other two hexes gain 1 each.

I also propose that when making agricultural investments, a ruler can choose to invest broadly (with new families spread as above) or narrowly.

A narrow investment attracts peasant families to a specific desired hex, but only half* the peasant families so attracted are new to the domain. The others are attracted evenly from the nearest hexes within the domain (with any uneven remainders drawing preferentially from poorer hexes).

*or some other ratio that produces reasonable results.

9

Does the peasantry get anything out of the increased land value, though?

There's a qualitative difference between the gently rolling, tree-dappled glens, and the howling barren waste, but all else being equal, the quantitative experience of random family #7 is the same, in that they're scraping by as their parents did before and their offspring after them. The lord gets the extra value, or misses the lack thereof after they've managed to feed themselves.

I wonder if there's a cogent way to split inhabitance based on a "reaction roll" tied to the value of the hex to reflect a more qualitative decision based on the hex value.

10

[quote="koewn"]

Does the peasantry get anything out of the increased land value, though?

There's a qualitative difference between the gently rolling, tree-dappled glens, and the howling barren waste, but all else being equal, the quantitative experience of random family #7 is the same, in that they're scraping by as their parents did before and their offspring after them. The lord gets the extra value, or misses the lack thereof after they've managed to feed themselves.

[/quote]

They get wealthier leaders who can provide larger garrisons and strongholds and better protect them from the dangers of the wilderness.

I also operate under the assumption that while the land value is a measure specifically of what the lord can extract, the populace is also better off. While their increase may be measured in cp instead of gp (and generally consumed, rather than saved), I assume it exists.

11

Good points! One could presume then that the wealthier lords have, on average, better domain morale, which already includes attracting more peasantry, so my other conjecture's already included in the system. Voila, Q.E.D., etc.

12

The discussion of land value versus hexes has been a good one!

Since the average land value is always going to trend towards 6, saying that peasants will tend to settle evenly dispersed across the territory will result in land value always averaging towards 6. That somewhat defeats the point of tracking separate land values.

Therefore I think I will make the official rule be that the ruler can allocate peasants throughout his domain as he prefers, subject to the limits of growth, but that by default peasants will settle in the available hex with the highest land value.

 

 

13

LEAVING ASIDE the land value issue for a moment, I'd very much appreciate feedback as to whether you think these rules are an improvement on the current rules.

If they capture the support of the ACKS community then I will likely adopt them for the Auran Empire setting, future updates, etc. 

If they do not capture your support, I'd like to know why so I can perhaps make further updates.

 

14

Having given them a quick once-over last night, I have to say overall I like them quite a bit.  They feel much more clear and easy to comprehend than the original rules, while still covering most of the important ground. They also seem better positioned to have additional rules plugged in to them.

 

I also really like the attempt to get away from complicated recurive calculations, though it does seem that, under the new rules, urban settlements will become extremely important because they'll be the only way to gain large amounts of domain income, with the possible exception of favoring more non-henchmen vassals. Under the new system, the maximum a ruler could earn from non-urban, henchmen vassals only income, regardless of how sprawling her realm was, would be 12,500*11gp + 7*(12,500*3gp) = 137,500 + 262,500 = 400,000gp.  This is probably fine since the XP threshold for level 13 is 150,000 and it's unlikely to be relevant that a level 14 couldn't level up from this since 14 is the maximum.  That being said, it does mean that once you get to the point of subhenching, consolodating your realm, growing urban settlements, and favoring non-vassal henchmen becomes incentivied through XP.

As I did out the math, I'm realizing it's probably not actually that big of a deal and the reduced complexity is a major boon so... good job Alex! 

15

I'm still puttering through my own math, but overall I think the simplicity is worth it. I'll post back with further thoughts later today-ish.

Stronghold Upkeep is missing from the Paying Expenses section. Is that an actual removal of the concept, or an oversight?

16

Thanks for doing that analysis. That's the same conclusion I came to. Moreover, since ACKS does often lean towards a more Late Antiquity setting, the encouragement of urban settlements is a good thing. 

A few other random thoughts that inspired this approach:

- About 66% of the Byzantine Empire's entire budget was spent on its military. In ACKS, this is reflected in the 2-4gp per family at every level of the realm. While in a feudal setting this represents feudal lords with private armies, one can just as easily view it as imperial officers authorized to collect local revenue to pay for their local garrisons. Another 25% was spent on the imperial bureacracy, which later was handled by granting the right to tax particular territories to the officers of the bureacracy. Again, this is well-represented by the tax revenue that vassals have over their domains (the land/service revenue is from land ownership). The rest of the Emperor's budget was spent on maintaining the household, gifts, etc. and more-or-less came from the imperial holdings themselves.

- In Medieval England, the king's revenues were derived from the crown lands (in ACKS, a personal domain) and from "special" taxes (in ACKS, favors extracted from vassals). And of course the system was feudal, with land allocated in exchange for the availability of troops. 

It feels like both can be well-modeled by the new rules, WITHOUT requiring recursive taxation. 

17

I removed it from the system. Here were my thoughts:

1. In the Middle Ages, rulers often extracted "services" from their peasants. It seems likely that these could encompass stronghold upkeep without having to track it separately.

2. Under the Romans, stronghold upkeep was very much handled by the troops. Since the system already requires a large body of troops that scales in proportion to the stronghold, it seems like this, too, could allow one to assume stronghold upkeep is handled implicitly.

3. The Ancient Greeks handled the maintenance of public facilities through their use of liturgies - donations from their citizens. Since liturgies is already listed as an expense, this, too, could be a place where stronghold upkeep is taking place.

4. Removing stronghold upkeep makes tracking the domain revenues soooo much easier.

 

18

I like it so far. Did notice on the Domain morale modifier there was an error, as the chart appears to penalize the ruler for paying extra liturgy expenses and reward underpaying.

19

Yes, good catch! I'll fix that and a few other glitches and release a new PDF soon.

20

A thought occurred to me; extra garrison expenses in this version do not affect domain morale. How does conquering invaded domains work, then, if you can’t just march your army in and declare martial law?

(I do think it is probably a good thing to have garrison expenses not be the ‘pay more for more morale’ mechanic, since it no longer lets you double up on value, both having a large army and a happy domain.)