Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 20, 2023, 07:35:50 PM

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 02:21:59 PMThe entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste.

I'm curious how the system models economics when simulating anything that's not 100% grounded in reality. And wouldn't that still at best be just an estimate and ergo GM-handwaving?
I agree with some of your sentiment, but how do you apply narritivanium conventions to real-world physics/economics?

I get choosing the complexity level you have fun with, and you clearly prefer more, but economic models in real life struggle painfully to simulate things accurately, so Im not sure how they could simulate worlds where the price of grain can drop on harvest festivals when "The Peoples faith for the Goddess Zaluka is pure, but only if she succeeds pushing away the Darkmoore horde in the heavens that quadlunar cycle".

Well, sadly, almost nobody, even ACKS players, cares about the effect of magic on flora. Take Game of Thrones. The island-continent of Westeros has flora and fauna similar to that found in England and Europe, even though it has seasons that magically can last years; any climatologist would tell you that you'd have totally different biomes but GRRM didn't care, neither did his readers, and neither do people who want to play RPGs in Westeros. He certainly didn't take into account the effect of the magic seasons on the price of wheat. My target audience -- the sort of people who'd want to start off as Jon Snow the 1st level ranger and eventually become King of the North and commander of huge armies, fighting pitched battles vs the Wildlings and Others, tracking his supply lines through the North, etc., -- also don't care about that. This annoys me so much I can't enjoy GOT anymore. But since even my target audience doesn't care, I try not to worry about it too much.

But I still worry about it enough that I did put some effort into it, and ACKS actually can (if I'm understanding the example) simulate the situation you describe. When a realm ruler manages his realm, his clerics can extract divine power from the peasantry thru worship. The amount of divine power available is determined by the morale of the peasants. The morale of the peasants is affected by whether their religion and the realm ruler's religion are in alignment, whether they have enough food, taxes, etc. The clerics can then use divine power to consecrate the fields or perform rituals to make the harvests bountiful. Conversely, evil clerics can use rituals to damage the crops. There are then a number of Vagaries tables for the Judges that can allow events that raise or lower domain morale, offer good or bad omens, and so on. Finally, there's an abstract resolution system for mass combat that would allow you to fight the Heavenly Host vs the Darkmoore Horde if you really wanted to.

So, for instance, you might set up the realm so that the realm ruler anticipates that all of his domains will earn an extra 1gp per month in domain revenue from having consecrated fields. But then a Vagary "bad omens in the heavens" causes domain morale to fall, and the clerics don't have enough to consecrate the fields. That in turn drops revenue for the ruler. The Judge can then adjust the demand modifier for "wheat, grains" on the merchandise table, which will make the price of wheat go up.

Note that there are others levers as well -- for instance, a realm with high  morale and devout clerics that uses magic to enhance its food supply can then lower taxes on the peasants while still keeping the realm ruler with enough money to support his army, castle, etc. The lower taxes will feed into higher morale, which in turn causes higher birth rate, makes it harder to do spying and crime in the realm, and so on.

==
From ACKS II Revised Rulebook:

CONSECRATING FIELDS
A divine caster can use divine power to consecrate a domain's fields. Consecrating fields is an ongoing dedicated activity requiring 1 day per 780 peasants (round up). Upon completing the consecration, the spellcaster must expend 2gp of divine power per family and make a magic research throw. If the throw succeeds, the fields have been consecrated. Consecration increases the Land Value by 1gp per peasant family during the next month's Revenue Collection phase. If the throw is an unmodified 1, the consecration goes awry, and the Land Value is decreased by 1gp per peasant family during the next month's Revenue Collection phase. Fields may be consecrated repeatedly if sufficient divine power is available, and legends tell of garden-like realms blessed by the gods.


HARVEST*
Divine 7         Type: esoteric, ritual   
Range: 12 miles      Duration: 12 months

This spell enables the caster to channel divine energy into the land around him, blessing it with fertile soil and bountiful harvests. Harvest increases the land value of all territory within 12 miles (1 24-mile hex or 500 square miles) by 2gp per peasant family for the next 12 months. See Collecting Revenue in the Domains and Realms section for details on land value. 
Ravage, the reverse of harvest, decreases the land value of all territory within 12 miles by 2gp per peasant family for the next 12 months. Ravage can be undone by a successful remove curse cast by a spellcaster of greater level than the caster lor by a harvest spell.
==

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 08:25:39 PM
Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's awesome. So many people are terrified of running games at that level of scope and grandeur. Your campaign sounds epic af.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 20, 2023, 07:35:50 PM

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 02:21:59 PMThe entire economic engine has had the "hood lifted" and can be customized to taste.

I'm curious how the system models economics when simulating anything that's not 100% grounded in reality. And wouldn't that still at best be just an estimate and ergo GM-handwaving?
I agree with some of your sentiment, but how do you apply narritivanium conventions to real-world physics/economics?

I get choosing the complexity level you have fun with, and you clearly prefer more, but economic models in real life struggle painfully to simulate things accurately, so Im not sure how they could simulate worlds where the price of grain can drop on harvest festivals when "The Peoples faith for the Goddess Zaluka is pure, but only if she succeeds pushing away the Darkmoore horde in the heavens that quadlunar cycle".

As I understand it, price fluctuation is less important than price averages at the macroeconomic scale, because in the ancient world while price fluctuations were common, they were very local. In the modern, heavily globalized economy, fluctuations happen more globally and there aren't opportunities for significant arbitrage at scale, whereas arbitrage was basically what drove long-range trade along e.g. the Silk Road. So while local price fluctuations can be significant, in the bigger picture they average out.

The other key piece to building the foundations of a functioning economic model is to start with basic subsistence. Basic agricultural products have inherent value (because people need food), so that can be pegged to historic economies, and then other sources (e.g. the Domesday Book, the Edict of Diocletian, etc.) can be used to establish relative  baseline prices for other goods. Then the wages of various professionals can be determined based on their cost of living and the value of their production, etc.

Once that model is working soundly, the income of various rulers and authorities can be worked out, synced further with cost of living, and from that their level can be determined (ACKS awards XP for GP earned from domains, less an "XP Threshold" value, structured very cunningly such that a character earning e.g. 3200 gp per month will eventually level up to an 8th level character who can just cover their living expenses with that amount). The macroeconomic structure thus determines the number of levelled rulers in the setting. Similar cycles have been developed to determine the amount of clergy gathering worship from the crowds for their deities, arcanists in their towers doing research, soldiers getting XP from battles, merchants getting XP from arbitrage, thieves' getting XP from hijinks, raiders getting XP from pillaging, etc. etc. to create a complete model. Obviously this is a simplified description, some of the people who've gotten to check out the spreadsheets have crashed their computer just opening them.

From there, Archon has modelled out the productivity of mages in item creation to determine the equilibrium availability of magic items, the demand for various fantastical creatures and thus market for them, the availability of arcane and divine magic in settlements of various sizes, etc. The Axioms e-zine and ACKS Patreon contain a lot of depth for people to dig into on this stuff if desired, which I certainly do, but my players mostly just use the final table and guidelines when it's relevant "how many cows can we sell in this village of 300 people?" or "how long will we have to wait to find a buyer for this Sword +1?" It's also a handy worldbuilding tool, when I can look at a region and determine based on it's size and population what level the ruler is likely to be, along with levels for as many other characters there as I care to detail. And that stuff in turn creates new play opportunities, whether it be "we'll need to voyage across the strait to reach a settlement big enough to liquidate our treasure in a reasonable time frame" or "based on his lands, this guy's probably a 7th level Count, and if I conquer his lands I'll get a nice monthly XP payout so long as I can hold onto them."

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 10:14:31 PM

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 08:25:39 PM
Greetings!

In my own Thandor World, I have been running campaigns for years, decades even, where Domain rules and systems were used constantly. I think having a robust set of flexible domain rules are very important, and very useful. In one of my campaigns, there was one Player Character that became the Queen and Empress of a majestic and powerful empire that has over 200 million inhabitants. The mighty empire features a professional, Imperial Army of 2,000,000 Legionnaires. In addition, there are some 3,000,000 reservists, militia, Urban Cohorts, and retired, elite Evocati warriors that can be swiftly recalled to duty. The Evocati, while retired, are all elite warriors that have completed a 20-year career serving in the Legions.

In another campaign, a Player Character married a particular High Elf Prince, and became a Princess of an ancient and powerful Elven Kingdom. That Elven Kingdom that the Player Character became a Princess of has a population of 20 million elves. That Elven Kingdom has a standing professional Royal Army of 500,000 warriors, with highly-trained reserves comprised of an additional 500,000 Elven troops.

Another Player Character became a prominent Noble and warlord in a Black Arghana Kingdom, and controlled vast lands, millions of people, and a powerful army of some 200,000 warriors, as well as 14,000 Light Cavalry, 4,000 Heavy Cavalry, and 2,000 elite War Elephants. The rich provinces that were part of his domain had several huge cities, extensive trade networks, and which produced vast supplies of elephant ivory, fine gold, and copper, as well as enormous supplies of grain, fruits, and herd animals.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's awesome. So many people are terrified of running games at that level of scope and grandeur. Your campaign sounds epic af.

Greetings!

Thank you, Amacris! Yes, I agree. Far too many people are *terrified* of running Epic, Domain-Level games!

I have notations on my regional maps detailing ERS, and MRS for every province and hex. ERS is (Earthly Resource Strength), while MRS is (Magical Resource Strength). Each of these classifications has a further "Quality Modifier" of Excellent, Superior, Standard, Modest, and Poor.

Some province having an Enchanted Grove of Orange Trees can be a reason to go to war. Or, of course, a strong motivator to forge friendships and alliances. What do the Magic Oranges do? Daily consumption provides a given population a +25% Resistance Bonus to Disease; steady supply for 1 year and a day, and more, results in the province's population having extended health and vigor, and also prolongs their racial lifespan by +25%. The province becomes happier and more joyful, and also has a Fertility Bonus of +25%. For Elves, the Magic Oranges affect them differently; Elves gain Advantage on Musicianship and other Performance skills. However, the Magic Oranges have a high Addiction Factor, with cessation causing withdrawal and depression. Elves also experience enhanced happiness and joy, and gain the +25% Fertility Bonus.

Thus, as a Magical Resource, these Magic Oranges are very valuable to everyone, and much sought after. Most especially, though, the Magical Oranges are particularly cherished by the Elves. The Elves of course keep most crops of Magic Oranges for themselves, but occasionally trading crops of Magic Oranges to other peoples brings in vast wealth for the Elves.

I have various minor bonuses and enhancements for Earthly Resources, from Herd Animals, Game Animals, to Timber, Plants, Cereal Crops, Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Spices, Fish, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Insect Harvests, Weird Meat, Metals and Ores, and Stone, in addition to Gems, and Exotic Resources.

Then, I have settlements, whether villages, towns, or cities, or Encampments, that are involved with producing items and goods from whatever resources. Fabric, Fur, Linen, Wool, Cotton, Teeth, Claws, Hides, Leather, Rubber, Herbal Medicines, Alchemical Resources, Salt, Pepper, jewelry, and the various armour, weapons, vehicles, tools, clothing, household goods, and more. All of which provides detailed frame works for what provinces and settlements are valuable for, and how. Settlements have a CSR (Crafting/Commercial Strength Rating), again, using the previously mentioned quality scale. The CSR quickly provides an idea of how well a particular community gathers, manages, produces, and sells whatever resources they possess.

All of this, incidentally, also creates a whole sub-genre of mass-scale industrial and resource themed magical items for the campaign.

Beyond such immediate benefits, these elements provide endless detail, scope, and motivations for politics, alliances, cross-border raids, full-scale warfare, as well as more localized adventure scenarios and opportunities.

All of this deeper scope of campaign detail makes a strong, vibrant, and diverse skill system essential. I have always expanded and continue to embrace using a powerful skill system. There is simply far too much specialized knowledge and abilities that the players and I, as the GM, need to keep track of that go far beyond a handful of skills used for crawling into dungeons.

As for the theme and scope, I think it is important to allow some measure of the fantastic into the game. We aren't always starving, helpless peasants covered in mud, after all. Just watch how insane your players get when they command an army of 200,000 troops and are marching into an enemy kingdom, fighting great battles, conducting fantastic sieges, blowing war horns, listening to the screams of dying men. Crushing their enemies under their hooves in victory, and hearing the lamentations of the women...

My players get very excited and can hardly wait to reach high levels as Characters. EPIC ADVENTURES AWAIT!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK     

I generally try to avoid complex player-facing rules, since they are both anti-immersive and typically give the player a lot more information than the PC should have. Pure handwavium does not work well in a coin-counting game like D&D, either, but would likely be the best approach in eg Star Wars. For my Forgotten Realms Damara feudal setting, it's important to know population as this determines the size of the feudal levy (40 days service/year), what resources the ruler owns, and general taxation if any. My game is set mostly in southern Arcata which is sparsely populated but rich in mineral wealth, so the main thing that needs tracking is mine output, and how much of that goes to the PC ruler. My baseline is that a mine worth tracking produces 1d6x200gp of material per month, a domain ruler owner takes 50% of that, while 40% goes on expenses and 10% of output is tithed to the higher ruler. If the mine is owned by someone else, baseline the local noble takes a 10% tithe and the higher ruler another 10%.  Taxes could be increased above a tithe, these are the minimums that keep everyone happy.

Here's what I have on my Campaign Rules page:

Territory Development
When characters clear and rule territory around a stronghold (at least 10 miles radius in wilderness), they may receive a tax income of typically 3d3 or 6 silver pieces per inhabitant per month, including Resource income. High level Fighters, and some other classes, may also have a body of Followers come to serve them. A typical initial domain has 2-8 (2d4) hamlets, each with 101-400 (1d3x100 + 1d100) people. Politically this is, or is equivalent to, a minor Barony.

Typical Followers for PC Level 9+ ("Lord")

Warlord's Followers (roll d4 or choose)
(1). 20 light cavalry (9gp/m), ringmail & shield AC 16, longsword, hand axe, 3 javelins.
      100 heavy infantry (6gp/m), scale AC 15, halberd, club.
(2) 20 heavy infantry (6p/m), splint & shield AC 19, morningstar, hand axe.
      60 pike infantry (6gp/m), padded AC 12, long pike, short sword.
(3) 40 heavy crossbowmen (6gp/m), chain AC 16, heavy crossbow, shortsword
      20 light crossbowmen (6gp/m), chain AC 16, light crossbow, shortsword 
(4) 10 heavy cavalry (15gp/m), splint & shield AC 19, lance longsword & mace
      20 medium cavalry (12gp/m), scale & shield AC 17, lance longsword & mace
      30 light cavalry (9gp/m), studded & shield AC 15, lance & flail
Troops typically are veterans and use Mercenary stats (hp 16, ST+2 DE+1 CO+1), with adjustments for equipment as above.

Troop Commander (d4):
(1) Veteran, plate armour & shield AC 20, +2 longsword or +2 battle-axe
(2) Knight, plate armour & +1 shield AC 21, +1 longsword & +1 lance
(3) Veteran, +1 plate armour & shield AC 21, +1 longbow & +1 longsword
(4) Knight, +1 plate & +1 shield AC 22, +2 longsword or +2 battle-axe, barded heavy warhorse with horseshoes of speed.
Commander Upkeep: 60gp/month

Troop Lieutenant (d4)
(1)-(2) Fighter-2, splint & shield AC 19
(3) Fighter-3, plate & shield AC 20
(4) Fighter-4, plate & shield AC 20, +1 longsword
The Lieutenant can advance to Fighter-4 in play. They may eventually become a Veteran or Knight.
Lieutenant Upkeep: 30gp/month
The Troop Lieutenant may be created by the Player or DM, using Standard Array attributes.

Alternate Followers
Rogue's Guild: 1d3 MM Spy, 2d3 MM Thug, 1d3 Rogue-1 (hp 10 DEX+3)
Wizard's Tower: 1d3 Wizard-1, 2d6 Mercenary (hp 16 ST+2)
Priest's Temple: 1 MM Priest, 2d3 MM Acolyte, 2d6 Mercenary (hp 16 ST+2), 1d3 Cleric-1 (hp 9 WIS+2)
Druid's Grove: 1d2 MM Druid sc4, 1d3 Druid-1 (hp 9 WIS+2)
Bard's Company: 1d2 VGTM Bard sc4, 1d3 MM Spy, 1d3 Bard-1 (hp 9  CHA+2)
Barbarian's Holdfast: 1d3 MM Berserker, 20d6 MM Tribal Warrior, 1d3 Barbarian-1 (hp 14 ST+3)
Other classes typically acquire 1d3 1st level followers of the character's own class, eg a Fighter Lord may acquire 1d3 Fighter-1 (hp 12 ST+3).

Elven Lord's Followers:
20 Elf Scout with longbow, shortsword & studded leather, 10 Elf Guard with splinted armour shield longsword & javelins, one Elf Knight with plate armour shield & magic longsword, one Elf Scout Veteran with mithril half plate, shortsword & magic longbow.

PC-class Followers may be created by the Player or DM, using Standard Array attributes.

Most strongholds will also attract an appropriate number of Commoners to serve the PC. A Wizard's Tower might have only 1d6, where a Warlord's fortress has 10d6 or more.
Losses of non-classed followers may typically be replaced at a rate of 5% of initial total per month, eg a force of 120 can replace 6/month.

Classed Followers
Classed followers may use a generic template as above, or may be created by the player using the standard PC rules (and may be played as a PC in lower level adventures). Classed followers are not replaced if lost, but every month there is a 10% chance to acquire one additional such follower.
Charisma Limit: No character may ever have more classed followers (aka Henchmen) at once than their Charisma bonus +4 ; eg CHA 8 (-1) enables 3 such followers, while CHA 20 (+5) enables 9 such followers.

Realm Improvements

Magic Resources

Religious
Shrine (1 Acolyte sc1): 1,500gp & 5 weeks. Requires: Thorpe pop. 20
Church (1 Priest sc3, 1 Acolyte sc1): 4,500gp & 7 weeks. Requires: Hamlet pop.100
Temple (1 Priest sc5, 2 Priest sc3, 4 Acolyte sc1): 15,000gp & 11 weeks. Requires: Village pop. 500
Abbey (1 Abbott/Abbess sc5, 2 Senior Brother/Sister sc 3, 4 Monk/Nun sc 2, 8 Monk/Nun sc1): 50,000gp & 57 weeks. Requires: -
Cathedral (1 Bishop sc7, 2 Priest sc4, 4 Priest sc2, 8 Acolyte sc1):  42,000gp & 20 weeks. Requires: Small City pop. 6,000

Arcane
Arcane Tower (1 Wizard sc3, 1 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 4,500gp & 8 weeks. Requires: -
Arcane School or Guild Hall (1 Wizard sc5, 2 Wizard sc3, 4 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 15,000gp & 14 weeks. Requires: Small Town pop. 1,500
Arcane Academy (1 Mage sc9, 2 Wizard sc5, 4 Wizard sc3, 8 Apprentice Wizard sc1): 54,000gp & 31 weeks. Requires: Small City pop. 6,000

Mercantile & Administrative
Trading post (improves all Resource income by +10% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 5,000gp & 8 weeks. Requires: -
Guildhall (improves 1 Resource income by +20% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 5,000gp & 12 weeks. Requires Large Town pop. 3,000.
Noble Estate with Manor, luxurious (improves Tax income by +10% in a 2 hex/20 mile radius): 25,000gp & 21 weeks. Requires: -
Imperial Palace (improves Tax income by +10% across entire dominion): 500,000gp & 3 years. Requires: -

Fortification
Tower/Broch: 10,000gp & 12 weeks. Can hold 30 infantry.
Motte & Bailey: 20,000gp & 18 weeks. Can hold 60 infantry.
Small Castle: 40,000gp & 30 weeks. Can hold 125 infantry.
Large Castle: 80,000gp & 45 weeks. Can hold 250 infantry.
Fortress: 160,000gp & 60 weeks. Can hold 500 infantry.
Citadel: 320,000gp & 90 weeks. Can hold 1,000 infantry.
One light cavalry = 3 infantry. One medium or heavy cavalry = 4 infantry.

Castle Build Elements - Construction Cost
20' stone wall, 10' thick, per 20' section: 1000gp.
30' stone wall, as above: 2000gp
40' stone wall, as above: 4000gp
Round Tower, 5' thick walls, 20' diameter, 30' high: 5000gp
Round Tower, 5' thick walls, 30' diameter, 40' high: 12000gp
Square Keep, 10' thick walls, 60'x60', 40' high: 40,000gp
Moat/Ditch, 20' wide, 10' deep, per 20' section: 80gp
Gatehouse 30'x20', 20' high, with portcullis: 6500gp
Dungeon Corridor, 10'x10', flagstone: 50gp
Stone building (2 story & attic, 30' peak, 120' of outer wall (typically 40'x20'), wooden doors, stairs, floors, roof, 1'-2' walls): 3000gp
Wooden Building (as above): 1000gp
Minimum time to build is 1 day per 500gp cost.

Manor Resource Improvements
At Manor Scale, 1 hex = 2 miles. For Baronial Scale (1 hex = 10 miles) multiply costs & incomes by x10.
25gp/month = 300gp/year. 50gp/month =600gp/year.
Mine (requires valuable minerals): cost 2d4x100gp, income +1d6x100gp/month. Population +2d4
Smelter (requires Mine): cost 1,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/month. Population +2d4
Logging Camp (requires Forest**): cost 1,000gp, income +1d4x10gp/month. Population +4d4
Sawmill (requires Logging Camp): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/month. Population +2d4
Improved Farmland (requires Plains***): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/m. Population +4d4
Fishing Ship (requires Sea): cost 2,000gp, income +2d4x10gp/m. Population +2d4

*Typically a 1 in 6 chance there is a mining resource per two mile hex. With one surveyor a survey takes 1 month (& a typical 30gp hireling cost) per 2 mile hex, requires a character with Miner's Tools Proficiency or equivalent and a successful proficiency (INT) check at a DC of 5+1d10 (1e: 4 in 6 chance of success).
If a resource is discovered, the GM rolls 1d6, or selects:
1: clay or stone quarry 100gp/m
2: lead or coal mine 200gp/m
3: copper or oil/tar mine 300gp/m
4: silver or tin mine 400gp/m
5: gold mine or marble quarry 500gp/m
6: platinum or gemstone mine 600gp/m

**One two mile hex, approx 3.5 sq m of forest.
***One square mile of arable land.

Baronial Domains

Resources per hex (Baronial Scale, 1 hex = 10 miles across, approx 85 sq m)
1: 1 resource
2-7: 2 resources
8-9: 3 resources
10: 4 resources

Resource Type
1-3 Animal (eg dairy, fish, fowl, furs, bees, horses, ivory, beef, pork)
4-8 Vegetable (eg farm produce, foodstuffs, oil, fodder, wood & timber, paper, wine)
9-10 Mineral (as above)

Baronial Income per 10 mile (85 sq mile) hex, a domain has 1+ hexes.
Animal Resource: 10 sp/person/month, max 1d4x1,000 (2,500) gp/month per hex.
Vegetable Resource: 5 sp/person/month, max 1d6x1,000 (3,500) gp/month per hex.
Mineral Resource: 15 sp/person/month, max 1d8x1,000gp (4,500) gp/month per hex.

The maximum resource income for a 10-mile domain hex thus varies from 1,000gp/month, to 32,000gp/month!

Towns & Cities: These generate 5 sp per person per month in taxes and tolls.
Theocratic Domains generate an additional 2 sp per person per month in tithes.

10-mile Hex Population & Rate of Increase
Population will naturally increase through immigration and birth up to the limit of available resources. Eg an intensively farmed domain with 4 vegetable resources generating up to 140,000gp total could have a population of 28,000.
1-100:     +20/month
101-200: +20/month
201-300: +30/month
301-400: +30/month
401-500: +20/month
501-1000: +20/month
1001-2000: +10/month
2001-4000: +10/month
40001-8000: +10/month
8001-16000: +10/month
16001+: +10/month
An untaxed population increases by an additional +30/month, up to the resource limit of the domain.

Urbanisation
Population centres begin to emerge when a hex population reaches 10,000. At this point 10% of the population may be considered urban, generating an additional 5sp/month per urban inhabitant.

Typical Net Personal Income
After all reasonable expenses including military and infrastructure, as a rule of thumb a typical dominion including sub-dominions generates 0.5 sp per person per month (or 5sp/person/year) as personal wealth to the ruler, which can be spent however he or she desires.
Dominion Status: net Income per month (x10 for per Year)
1. Wretched: 0.1 sp, 1 gp per 100 people
2. Poor: 0.2 sp, 1gp per 50 people
3. Unassuming: 0.3 sp
4. Modest: 0.4 sp
5. Typical: 0.5 sp, 1 gp per 20 people
6. Comfortable: 0.6 sp
7. Wealthy: 0.8 sp
8. Rich: 1 sp, 1 gp per 10 people

Example 1: Damara in 1360 DR is overall a Poor Dominion, with an incorporated population of some 750,000 generating (750,000/50)= net 15,000gp per month for King Dimian I Ree Banacath.
Example 2: Impiltur in 1360 DR is overall a Typical Dominion, with an incorporated population of 1,100,000 generating net 55,000gp per month for the Crown - nominally the Queen Regent, in fact the Lords of Imphras II.

My mass combat rules are at http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/05/diaz-freeform-mass-combat-system.html

Quote from: Wtrmute on May 19, 2023, 04:51:41 PM
Yeah, the best domain rules I've seen are really @amacris 's ACKS rules. Keep a running tab of how many families labor under your lordship and how productive the land is ("economic power") and how much you spend on your armies to keep the peace ("military power"). Then the other PCs get "drafted in" as magistrates and factota of the ruler PC, if they don't have their own domains to rule (in which case they can probably set up an alliance bloc to help one another).

The more abstract rules in the Old School Companion seem to be more for the kind of party who's supposed to be dungeon delving even when they're in the top ten highest leveled in the kingdom, which in a Medieval Authentic setting doesn't make a terrible lot of sense: a high level character, even if he was originally a serf, will quickly discover that he was secretly the son of a mighty noble, since of course random serfs can't become great, so if they do then it's proof that they weren't random serfs from the beginning... And in any case they will probably be granted titles of nobility and a fief somewhere where there are monsters and they need to be cleared off and the land colonized.

What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

Quote from: Wtrmute on May 20, 2023, 03:43:36 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 20, 2023, 10:34:17 AM
In my case I've never really dealt with domain management because it's almost never come up in any game I've played. And the few instances that it has, the GM invariably "GM Fiat" it based on what they were willing to put with to handle it, as well as the specifics of their campaign. But 99% of the game still focused on personal adventures without keeping tract of armies of followers or your kingdom's finances.

I believe you, but I have played AD&D and oWoD then D&D for twenty years and my group never once tried to do commerce, until we tried a Traveller campaign in 2018. Now, Traveller does have trading rules which the players can interact with, and suddenly the players were interested in commerce (even though only one of them owned a starship). So the interest in trading play came as a consequence of the rules being there, not the other way around. And anecdotal evidence I've collected lends further credence to the hypothesis that "if you build it, they will come" (with apologies to Kevin Costner).

And after all, nothing forces the players to engage with a system. If you have a system for extemporaneous magic and another for rigid, Vancian-adjacent magic, the players can always ignore one, the other, or both by simply not making casters of either or both systems. Or the dungeoneering procedures by limiting themselves to wilderness or urban adventures. That doesn't mean that the system should not be there. It is simply another option.

I don't doubt that there might be people who enjoy that, and I've often considered it as well. But this still requires player buy-in, and most people I've played with don't even read the rules that concern their own character abilities, so they're probably not even gonna know that domain management rules exist if they're included in the manual. And even if they do, this is still something that ultimately entails extra bookkeeping for me specifically. Since the players are not gonna keep track of this stuff, and even if they do (most won't) I still need to get involved in order to be able to incorporate this stuff into play, so a considerable amount of the bookkeeping will always fall onto me, times whatever number of PCs have a domain.

So unless those rules are very elegant and succinct, and easily customizable for my purposes and specific circumstances in my game, I'm probably gonna ignore them and just winging it--IF/when it even comes up (which probably won't be very often). Combat and skill related tasks, however? Those always come up during play, which is why it always makes sense to include rules for those in a TTRPG. They might not all come up in every session (some skills might come up, but not others), but there will almost invariably be some type of task resolution in every session. But stuff like domain management is kinda optional and supplementary, and rarely come up unless it's a specialized game that specifically revolves around it.

Like, if you were doing a Dune RPG (I ain't touching anything 2d20, so I don't know the current one), you would definitely need some domain management stuff if you want it to be anything like the novels and cover the sort of stuff that's important in that setting. But for a game like D&D and most "action adventure" games, I tend to see this as more like supplementary material that should probably be covered in detail in a splat book or something rather than take up space in the core manual. Though, I suppose covering it in the DMG wouldn't hurt, but I'm not entirely a fan of separate GM manuals for RPGs and probably wouldn't make one if I was publishing my own game. I'd probably just do splat books or some RPGPundit Presents style pamphlets people are more likely to snag from some rando publisher than a DMG style book.

Quote from: amacris on May 20, 2023, 09:56:25 PMWell, sadly, almost nobody, even ACKS players, cares about the effect of magic on flora.

I am aware your system has magic things in it as options. I was asking more:
How are your arbitrary picks for how magic would affect economics/sociology any different from just GM fiat or benchmarking?
Doesn't that seem to be a lot of effort for a simulation that just reaches a black box of non-existentium that just shrugs and says "Figure it out?".

QuoteTake Game of Thrones.

Well, it's more interested in its themes and ideas (I find its themes and ideas crap, but that's a separate story). While I love holding its nonsensical worldbuilding against GRR and his own wanky "Whats his tax policy" claptrap, I find worldbuilding to at best be something that has to suit a setting's themes. It's better when it aligns, but it will never be even 50% realistic.

A Deathstar will probably never be economically or militarily viable. There is probably absolutely no way for the DSII to explode and not heavily damage Endor. But I'd much rather experience a setting to simulate a mood or thematic premises than deal with an alternate reality theoretical physics engine to ensure every molecule can be accounted for.

Now to be clear, even if I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean I don't appreciate different things existing for different people.

Quote from: SHARK on May 20, 2023, 11:17:51 PMThank you, Amacris! Yes, I agree. Far too many people are *terrified* of running Epic, Domain-Level games!

I would argue by far more people just absolutely positively do not care about it. I love domain management, and base building, especially if magic or sci-fi tech is involved. But my players never do.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
I am aware your system has magic things in it as options. I was asking more:
How are your arbitrary picks for how magic would affect economics/sociology any different from just GM fiat or benchmarking?
Doesn't that seem to be a lot of effort for a simulation that just reaches a black box of non-existentium that just shrugs and says "Figure it out?".

They're not arbitrary. They are finely tuned and carefully integrated. The idea that choices can be "arbitrary" is exactly why most domain systems fail. An economy is an interlocking system with emergent properties. GM Fiat cannot address emergent properties and benchmarking leads to absurd results if you don't cross-check the benchmarks against each other, which you can only do if you have a system built to check them with.

It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it. They wrongly conclude that handwaving is better because they didn't actually do the hard part of the game design.

I've done the hard work so others don't have to. The ACKS economy has a:

- Demographics of heroism that calculates exactly how many characters of each level there are, based on the availability of activities that let them gain XP, along with their average age, class, etc.

- Bottom-up model. Mixed farming, goat herding, sheep herding, cattle herding, pig farming, olive growing, and wine making are all modeled at the scale of the family, as are lumberjacking, mining, and stone quarrying. I know how much they eat, how much of each good they produce, how much of each good they consume, what their surplus is, etc. All of these are modeled on historical data.

- Top-down model. There's a complete circular flow for the entire continent which calculates the GDP overall, as well as the production quantity of every type of good in the game, and determines how many families are required to satisfy the caloric requirements for different foods, the workforce required for the mines and lumber needed, etc., with every gp entirely accounted for in the circular flow, and with all the input values derived from the bottom-up model.

- Circular Magic model. There's an "economy" of arcane power and divine power based on worship, sacrifice, and reagents. The number of spellcasters of each level is calculated, along with the average amount of research they can do per month, which in turn tells us the inputs required of arcane and divine power and the output of magic items or ritual magic. There's then a depreciation model for loss of magic items of different types each year to anti-magic, destruction, being lost, etc. From this the number of magic items in the world can be calculated based on population growth, and matched to the known wealth of NPCs to determine how many magic items a typical emperor has, etc.

And much more. It just goes on and on. It's over 10 years of work put into it. The ACKS economic system is so good that I was able to use it to predict where Diocletian's prices in his Edict of Prices were *necessarily* wrong. I then researched those specific prices and, voila, I found that other scholars working from historical sales contracts, archeology, etc., had also concluded that those prices were wrong. My model spit out right answers without that data because the model is right. The ACKS model is, without exaggeration, better than anything being used in academia to model ancient economics, to the point that PhDs who have dug into it have suggested I should be publishing academic papers based on it.

So, yah, it's a lot of work. And maybe a lot of people don't care. But it's not arbitrary and it's not something you can emulate with GM fiat or benchmarking.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 21, 2023, 10:22:16 AM
A Deathstar will probably never be economically or militarily viable. There is probably absolutely no way for the DSII to explode and not heavily damage Endor. But I'd much rather experience a setting to simulate a mood or thematic premises than deal with an alternate reality theoretical physics engine to ensure every molecule can be accounted for.
Now to be clear, even if I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean I don't appreciate different things existing for different people.

Of course. I'm not by any means suggesting that ACKS is for everyone. It's all different strokes for different folks. I don't do or want mood emulation. I'm earnestly a simulationist where the rules of the game are the physics of the game world. So I'd never create a game that was centered around Death Stars that weren't economically or physically viable. (And this is why I haven't created a mecha game, even though I love the genre in anime and manga.)

Where I take umbrage is just at the suggestion (not from you) that there's nothing behind the curtain of domain rules, since I've spent 10 years behind the curtain, or that if there is something behind the curtain that no one wants it, since those folks pay my mortgage! It makes me feel like how parapsychologists feel after conducting 10,000 experiments to demonstrate that conscious attention can have a small effect on random number generators, sufficiently robust enough to have the president of the American Statistics Association confirm it, only to be told by a Redditor skeptic that there is "no evidence of parapyschology". 

Quote from: amacris on May 21, 2023, 04:28:32 PM
...
It took me 30 seconds to say "1 peasant family yields 12gp per month" and then it took me 10 years to figure out everything that implies about the world. People often do the former and think they've created domain rules, but they almost never do the latter. Then they wonder why their campaign world makes no sense ("I can't afford to field an army based on my population!") and handwave it. They wrongly conclude that handwaving is better because they didn't actually do the hard part of the game design.
...

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 21, 2023, 05:14:53 AM
What's much more sensible in Medieval Authentic play is that social growth is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you're level 9 or level 19, you may be extremely famous, as a soldier, or a thief, or whatever, but you still won't just be made into a Lord. Before the Renaissance, that almost never happened. Occasionally someone might be knighted.  Of course, commoners could get offices or special ranks. They could be given salaries, a manor house, or other benefits. But no, your level should have almost NOTHING to do with your ability to move up the social ladder; only your accomplishments could potentially do that, and it's not very likely.

I admire your commitment to historical authenticity and I think that you're right about the medieval world in reality. But, to the extent that medieval authenticity precludes "personal power = political power," I've found that any sort of level-based play with the power curve typically seen in D&D-type games is incompatible with the sort of medieval authenticity you want.

Feudalism arose under very specific conditions of agricultural production, equestrian availability, social structures, and so on, and among those conditions was the limits of human power of the real world. When historical conditions changed, feudalism changed. And if the limits of human power changed, I think feudalism would change. In a world where a wizard can kill a king with a word and then vanish, he WILL have political power, and the governance systems will reflect that. In a world where a warrior can single-handedly cleave through a thousand men, he WILL have political power, etc. It might resemble the medieval world but it won't be authentically the medieval world.

You can overcome this by tweaking the rules to avoid having people become powerful enough to be "weapons of medieval destruction", which I think is a good approach. I assume that's what you've done in L&D or your other books.

The approach I take is to assume personal power DOES equal political power and build from there. The world that ACKS outputs is NOT what historians tell us the ancient and medieval world was like, but it is somewhat like what the ancient and medieval writers tell us that the ancient and medieval world was like. The ancient writers say that Ramses was a god-like warrior on an invincible chariot who single-handedly changed the course of the battle of Kadesh. The ancient writers say that when Aurelian fought Zenobia, Sol Invictus personally descended onto the battlefield and changed the course of the fight. And Julius Caesar had 70hp; that's why it took so many senators to assassinate him.

I've written about this extensively elsewhere:
https://forum.autarch.co/t/political-power-is-personal-power-or-why-julius-caesar-had-70-hit-points/1945

I'm not trying to simulate history, but rather simulate an alternate history where some key variables are different. Just like how some writers write novels like "What would the Middle Ages have been like if machineguns had been available?" or "what if aliens invaded Rome", mine is "what would the ancient and medieval worlds be like if D&D heroes were real". I then use dialectic adjustment with "what would D&D heroes have to be like if the world still resembled the ancient and medieval world" to reach the desired outcome I wanted for ACKS.