Converting ACKS Domains to 3e

[MGuy]

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone defending Profession rules.

[Username17]

I thought Buda and Pest had something to do with German speakers and Hungarian speakers making independent settlements?

Anyway you could have some feature were urban population goes into better-developed adjacent hexes UNLESS the environment is racially hostile? Or do you not want to admit that's what AD&D races mean? Or do you not want to admit that level of detail?

Probably easier to have a rule where urban population only migrates if the more developed hex is in the same realm. So you don't have to make a giant chart that tells you whether Kuo-Toa will cohabitate with Quaggoths, the Orcs on the far side of the river join up to their city instead of yours because they are in Thrazgul's Realm, and your city is not.

-Username17

[Dean]

All we have to do with the Profession rules is wipe our asses with them. Because they are worse for the game than if they simply didn't exist.

The argument isn't whether or not they are great rules, they are not. But their outputs are still more sensible than what you are proposing. An economy where a trained and employed citizen makes 20GP a month is better for the gameworld than one where they make 6 given D&D's pricing. That is the contentful argument being had and you know it.

The economy you are writing won't make a world that looks like the one's in D&D stories and it creates incentives that are destructive to D&D stories. A world with 2sp Soldiers and a destitute populace won't make the stories you want to tell or the worlds you want to tell them in.

[Username17]

All we have to do with the Profession rules is wipe our asses with them. Because they are worse for the game than if they simply didn't exist.

The argument isn't whether or not they are great rules, they are not. But their outputs are still more sensible than what you are proposing. An economy where a trained and employed citizen makes 20GP a month is better for the gameworld than one where they make 6 given D&D's pricing. That is the contentful argument being had and you know it.

The economy you are writing won't make a world that looks like the one's in D&D stories and it creates incentives that are destructive to D&D stories. A world with 2sp Soldiers and a destitute populace won't make the stories you want to tell or the worlds you want to tell them in.

You are thinking about this in a way that doesn't make sense. You can't just rent soldiers for 2 sp a day, because they aren't available for rent on that basis. They only just "show up for free" when you give them room and board. Otherwise you'd have to train and equip them yourself, which is a large outlay in time and gold.

The long term wages need to be low enough that you can make a profit on running your domain. If people were making 20 gold a month, you couldn't make a profit on an inn that rented out rooms for a sp per night. And you couldn't get any taxable income from a 20 koku farm.

Your objections are dismissable and your proposed alternative is unworkable.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

What if I'm team Nostalgia for The Magic Candle, and I want to start my D&D campaign by having the player characters work at odd jobs to raise funds for my expedition? Also, more ranks of metalsmithing will enable me to sharpen my axes more efficiently during the interactive time-management sessions that the Magic Candle really put you through during, for example, ocean voyages:
http://magiccandle.wumple.com/files/mc1 ... manual.pdf

more seriously, there is some reason to have a castle management minigame in which someone has Senechal and gets a bonus for that. Ars Magica takes this way too far with their sophmoric midevalism obsession, but it could work in principle.

[Username17]

As for having seneschals and mayors and shit, probably the most effective way to do that is to have realms have an efficiency rating or something. The higher it is, the more tax revenue you actually get. A hex full of yeoman farmers on normal soil with no magical aid produces 37,440 GP worth of tax revenue per year. You end up having to pay a considerable amount of that back to maintain a standing army to keep your law and order credentials, but if you turn your people into serfs or get someone to cast plant growth every day for a month, your yearly take-home is doubled.

Requiring people to jump through hoops before they earn more than 20% of the potential tax revenues doesn't seem out of line. As it is, a character making full income out of a farming hex can probably fill themselves out on gold economy magic items in a year or two of harvests.

-Username17

[Emerald]

Is this project still happening? I'll be starting up a game for my group in a month or so that'll be heavy on the Logistics & Dragons stuff, and this thread has been incredibly useful so far for planning that.

[Username17]

Is this project still happening? I'll be starting up a game for my group in a month or so that'll be heavy on the Logistics & Dragons stuff, and this thread has been incredibly useful so far for planning that.

At this point, I'm trying to clean it all up and make it into something that stands on its own rather than a discussion of what concepts from ACKS do and do not make sense. Example:

Once you've carved out a domain from the world, you'll want to tax it. And to grow it and defend it so that you can keep taxing it. Domains in 10KF are defined in terms of “hexes,” which are about 6 miles or 10 kilometers from the middle of one to the middle of any of the six closest hexes. A hex is about 32 square miles in area (nearly 83 square kilometers), which is a bit over twenty thousand acres or two hundred and fifty hectares. The circumference is a bit over 20 miles (32 kilometers), and should it be important it's about three and a half miles on one of the sides and about about seven miles from point to point. For size comparison, an average sized county in England like Dorset is 32 hexes, while the smallest county in Ireland (Louth) is 10 hexes. A Domain must be at least 10 hexes to be called a County, and anything smaller than that is a Barony.

Population in a hex is tracked by families rather than by individuals. There are about five people in a family, but the game does not bother to distinguish how many are children or elderly, nor exactly how labor is divided. Population can do one of three things: it can farm, it can work resources, and it can live in cities. Farms are generally considered to be about 20 acres and farmed by one family. If the entire hex was given to farms, there would be a bit over one thousand farms, and fully arable land can support 1000 farms. Less farmable land has less farms on it. 10KF does not distinguish between hexes where portions are not given to growing food and hexes where the land is marginal for crops so large areas are given to low production pasturing of livestock.

Also making tables:

Terrain	Arable Land	Maximum Farming Families
Mud Flats Grassland	100%	1000
	90%	900
River	80%	800
	70%	700
Lake	60%	600
Forest Rocky Soil	50%	500
Heath Hills	40%	400
Jungle Open Ocean	30%	300
Mountain Scrubland	20%	200
Fetid Swamp Tundra	10%	100
Glacier Barren Sand	0%	0
Each Food Cavern or Cloud Island	+10%	+100

Many hexes will have two dominant terrain types, and the available territory for farming is the average of the two. Special resources and agricultural investments such as draining swamps or terracing hills can increase the effective percent of farmable territory. The land available for farming can rise above 100%, as caverns and cloud islands can make there literally be more area given to farming than there is surface area.

• Example of two Dwarven Strongholds: Morkush is in a mountain hex with a food cavern that produces mushrooms and rothé. There can be, and are, a total of 300 farming families. That's 200 families tending to giant goats and fruit vines on the side of the mountain and 100 families cutting fungus and milking the rothé. Morkush also has a gem mine that employs 100 families. The entire population is 1200 families, which makes the Urban Population be 800 families. At fertility 20, Morkush will need to increase fertility, increase the arable land, or pay to get more food from trade if it wants to grow.
  
  Argandea is in a hex which is both mountains and grassland – it is located in a valley surrounded by steep cliffs. They have no food caverns, but the farmable limit is the average of 1000 (grassland) and 200 (mountain), meaning that Argandea can support up to 600 farming families.

Hireling[/td][/tr]

	Class	Paid in...	Monthly Wages
Acolyte	Adept	Gold	30 gp
Alchemist	Adept	Gold	30 gp
Apprentice Spellcaster	PC Class	Gold or Magic	50 gp
Architect/Engineer	Civilian	Gold	15 gp
Artisan	Civilian	Gold	18 gp
Bartender/Innkeeper	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Brewer	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Butler/Housekeeper	Civilian	Gold	15 gp
Chef	Civilian	Gold	18 gp
Clerk	Civilian	Gold	12 gp
Cooper	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Crop Blesser	PC Class	Gold or Magic	4,500 gp*
Cobbler	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Cook	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Entertainer/Performer	Civilian	Koku	12 gp
Groom/Ostler/Farrier	Civilian	Koku	5 gp
Hunter	Warrior	Koku	6 gp
Laborer	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Librarian	Civilian or Adept	Gold	15 gp
Magewright	Adept	Gold	30 gp
Maid	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Mason	Civilian	Koku	9 gp
Potash Maker	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Potter	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Sage	Civilian or Adept	Gold	60+ gp
Scribe	Civilian	Gold	9 gp
Scribe, Magical	Adept or PC Class	Gold or Magic	50 gp
Servant	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Smith	Civilian or PC Class	Koku	12 gp
Squire	PC Class	Gold or Magic	50 gp
Tradesman	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Torturer/Inquisitor	Warrior or PC Class	Gold	9 gp
Valet/Lady's Maid/Lackey	Civilian	Koku	6 gp Generic Hireling
	Class	Paid in...	Monthly Wages
Untrained	Civilian	Koku	3 gp
Professional	Civilian	Koku	6 gp
Demanded	Civilian	Koku	9 gp
Respected	Civilian	Gold	12 gp
Learned	Civilian	Gold	15 gp
Prestigious	Civilian	Gold	18 gp
Magical	Adept	Gold	30 gp
Noble	PC Class	Gold or Magic	50 gp

*: A Crop Blesser works one month out of the year to increase the gross farm production of the hex by 1/3 for the entire year.

Soldiers	Class	Paid in...	Equipment Costs*	Monthly Wages
Ashigaru	Civilian	Koku	20 gp	5 gp
Guard	Warrior	Koku	50 gp	6 gp
Archer	Warrior	Koku	75 gp	6 gp
Light Infantry	Warrior	Koku	100 gp	6 gp
Heavy Infantry	Warrior	Koku	250 gp	9 gp
Elite Infantry	Warrior	Gold	250 gp	12 gp
Light Cavalry	Warrior	Koku	250 gp	12 gp
Heavy Cavalry	Warrior	Gold	1,000 gp	15 gp
Elite Cavalry	Warrior	Gold	2,000 gp	18 gp
Special Cavalry	Warrior	Gold	8,000 gp	30 gp
Champion	PC Class	Gold or Magic	10,000 gp	100 gp
Ogre Soldier	Monster	Gold	2,000 gp	50 gp
Giant Soldier	Monster	Gold	5,000 gp	4,500 gp
Demon Soldier	Monster	Magic	10,000	3,000 gp
Dragon Rider	PC Class	Magic	20,000 gp	5,000 gp
War Mage	PC Class	Gold or Magic	10,000 gp	100 gp
Officer	PC Class	Gold or Magic	2,000 gp	50 gp

*: Attracted followers come with their own equipment.

-Username17

[Roog]

A hex is about 32 square miles in area (nearly 83 square kilometers), which is a bit over twenty thousand acres or two hundred and fifty hectares.

Just to nitpick - it's 100 hectares per square kilometer (or close to 2.5 acres per hectare), so that would be about 8000 hectares.

[Seerow]

So, is there going to be a separate set of rules for country-level domains?

You've noted that a county is at least 10 hexes, while an average one is 32 hexes. So your average county is about 1000 square miles. For comparison, small island nations like Jamaica are about 4000 square miles. So to get a nation the size of Jamaica you're already needing about 120 hexes. If you want something the size of say, the United Kingdom you are looking at 90,000 square miles. For Japan, you're looking at 140,000 square miles. So there you're looking at 3,000-4,500 hexes. For actually large countries (which you'll need if your PCs work their way up to "I want to conquer the world") you are looking at millions of square miles (Russia is just shy of 200,000 hexes).

I mean this is obviously unmanageable. And even increasing hex size does little to make it more manageable So basically I'm asking if there will be a system to layer on top of this when a kingdom reaches a certain size, so you can say "I have X counties that do Y" and you no longer care so much about the intimate details of each county. And probably even one more layer above that where you have States/Provinces/Regions.

Or really even just some generic "zoom out" method where once you cross a threshold (say around 100-150) of a type, you break that up into 5-10 of a new type, abstract stuff, and keep running on the new scale. So you hit 150 hexes, you zoom out to counties. Hit 150 counties, zoom out to provinces. Hit 150 provinces, zoom out to countries. Or whatever.

[Chamomile]

I haven't been paying extremely close attention because I've been waiting for a finished product, but is there anything about hexes that requires individual attention be given to each hex? Can you not just increase your tax income by a certain amount and then increase your garrison by another amount and then never worry about the new hexes ever again, but instead only bother managing the total numbers?

[name_here]

Well, the point of even having a map is that things are in locations. So when a rampaging dragon sets a hex on fire, the precise implications of that depend on the hex. Now, obviously you could simply declare that most hexes fall into three categories and are interchangable, except for a handful that have cities or whatever of particular interest. That kind of works but makes individual hexes very boring when you don't have many of them.

[Chamomile]

When a rampaging dragon sets a hex on fire, you CTRL+F in your database and figure out how many families' worth of income you're losing until that problem gets solved.

[virgil]

What is the specific perk of having a hex gain the Civilized trait?

[Username17]

The biggest benefit of a land being civilized is that the amount of military you need to patrol it goes down a lot. Still fiddling with the numbers, but basically the idea is that if an area is uncivilized you need to occupy it with an army, and if it's civilized you can patrol it with some police.

You need a patrol strength that is a base level for the hex plus a portion of the population. A hex being civilized makes both the base hex value and the population modifier lower. If you don't meet the patrol minimums for the hex, you don't get any rent that month.

-Username17

[virgil]

I noticed you were mentioning similar mechanics to what's been posited on Logistics & Dragons thread. Are you intending to add a second variable (Fertility) to the Koku production for a particular piece of terrain?

I like the idea of keeping the Farmer unit vague in terms of 'population', with an assumed size if you're asked to zoom in. If we do that, shouldn't the garrison be equally abstracted?

[MGuy]

If given another system, like 3e but not, do you think it would be beneficial to anchor some of the larger and/or powerful magic to the logistics part of the game? For example, the Gating of some of the most powerful creatures in the game absolutely requiring heavy investment in the relevant resources (such as a proper lab and nexus point).

[virgil]

Sample Domain: Black Cathay

Down the worlds-spanning river of Acheron, it is believed to reach its terminus on Ocanthus as a two kilometer waterfall that freezes into a cloud of razor-sharp ice crystals. The deep, dark secret is that the pond formed at the bottom has an underground channel that drains off excess remnants of the River of Pain, which leads to the forgotten world of Abaddon.
Beneath an orange sun, the River Acheron bubbles out of the Mountains of Death, whose peaks reach above the atmosphere. The river flows down and bisects the Valley of the Dead Plains of Black Cathay. In the center of this valley lies the city of Yian, the hidden & stagnant jewel of its patron god, Xangi.

Hex Statistics
The hexes surrounding Yian are pure scrubland. The hexes surrounding them are a mixture of scrubland and mountain, as well as counting as Borderlands. All 18 of these hexes are secured borderlands, populated with oppressed serfs who work to feed their civilized capital, Yian. Beyond these hexes is the unsecured wilderness that are the Mountains of Death.

• Arability - 20% for all but the four hexes with the River Acheron, 50% for the hexes with the river
  Fertility - 10 for all hexes

Population Demographics
Oppressed Serfs - 24.000

• Garrison - 384 ashigaru, 96 heavy infantry (paid in Koku)

Yianians - 23.520

• Garrison - 240 elite cavalry (paid out of Yian's operating budget)

Yian
Development - 5
Taxation - High

• Budget - 42.340gp/month, 6720 koku, post-garrison

Behind the Curtain
Everything is calculated via numbers I have seen on this thread and the Logistics & Dragons thread. Numbers that have not been designed have not been put into the calculations; as they do, this sample will adjust accordingly.
[*]Arability - The hexes adjacent to Yian are all pure shrubland (20%), with the river's arability (80%) increasing the average for its hexes. Meanwhile, the outer edge is a mix of shrubland and mountain in terms of terrain (both 20%), but technically mountain & river for the two hexes. The averages are therefore either 20% or 50%, dependent on whether it has the river adding to the arability.
[*]Fertility - Base is 20, but for Black Cathay, I reduced it to 10 to represent the harsh soil; you only get 1/2 koku per acre.

The maximum number of farms in rural Cathay is 4800, producing a total of 48.000 koku. The High Priest of Xangi has set the agricultural rent to leave them with 3 koku per farm after they feed themselves, setting the contentedness at "oppressed serf"; creating a net income of 9600 koku.

As the garrison for secured borderlands is 2%, we need 480 guards. Garrison composition requirements are currently open territory, so I have chosen to have it be 80% ashigaru & 20% heavy infantry, both of which can be paid in Koku and cost a combined average of 6 koku each. This leaves us with 6720 koku into the High Priest’s coffers, which I’m not sure how you can spend it. Yian, being civilized, has only a 1% garrison requirement. Again, composition is open, so I am arbitrarily setting it for entirely Elite Cavalry; which will cost 18gp each in wages that will come out of the budget. Requisite patrols and varied koku consumption among the population have not been decided upon, but will be factored in when available.

Yian’s development is 5, leaving us a GDP of 117.600gp/month. When taxes are set high, we get 50% of the GDP after food is bought; leaving us with 47.040gp/month. As we need to support the garrison, that leaves us with a final ‘budget’ of 42.720gp/month.

[Username17]

First: yes, I think that Fertility is a number that hexes should track. The base fertility is 20, which works out to about 1 koku per acre. That would put the Fertility of the Missouri Rice Flats at about 140, but for these purposes we can consider the maximum Fertility to be something like 60 (80 after magical enhancement). Each farm produces a total Koku equal to the fertility times the number of farms, and the maximum number of farms is the hex's arability number. The amount of koku that the ruler gets to spend is agricultural rent times the number of farms. The base peasant contentedness is fertility minus rent. The total non-farming population that can be supported is (fertility minus five) times farms minus any koku that are sold off through ports.

Note that the total non-farming population that can be supported has nothing to do with how many koku the ruler gets in rent. It's assumed that any food that the ruler doesn't take and then use to pay soldiers and laborers will be distributed by the invisible hand (or rigorous planning, bqhatevwr) from the farmers to the townsfolk via merchants all invisible hand style. So you don't track the actual food supply chain at all, it just happens.

Secondly, I think it's a no-brainer that a level based system that has a kingdom management minigame should give people abilities that are relevant to the kingdom management minigame at certain levels. Basically the "name level" stuff from AD&D at a minimum. So when you hit the paragon levels, you get abilities that make you better at conquering, patrolling, defending, developing, and extracting rent from domains. And obviously, those abilities are going to be largely wasted if you don't get yourself a home base. I could definitely see a place for characters to have army generating abilities that only work if they put themselves together a stronghold of some kind. That was the classic Fighter -> Lord ability, and ACKS posits a similar concept for Wizards making chimerae in their tower labs.

Black Cathay is indeed a terrible place. I think they might need a bit more troops if they are going to be squeezing that much wealth out of land that marginal. Like I said, I'm still fiddling with the garrison requirements.

-Username17

[virgil]

I have updated the sample domain with better math and citations for where my numbers come from. Details like holdings are undeclared due to lack of specific game effect, but assume there is a single Administrative building in Yian to turn it into a Civilized hex.

In addition, either the High Priest or Xangi itself is the ruler of Black Cathay, who will be of sufficient level to technically have started the domain; but takes a very distant approach to rulership, oppressing the populace as much as possible without having to use their own abilities.

[Username17]

As the garrison for secured borderlands is 2%, we need 480 guards. Garrison composition requirements are currently open territory, so I have chosen to have it be 80% ashigaru & 20% heavy infantry, both of which can be paid in Koku and cost a combined average of 6gp per month (or 6 koku each). This leaves us with 6720 koku to send into Yian, setting its population ‘max’ accordingly.

The amount of koku the ruler takes in doesn't limit the city's population. Population caps come from total koku. Since the total koku production is 48,000 and the farms themselves are eating 24,000, the total population of townsfolk + Garrison could be 24,000.

I think garrison troops should actually eat more than 1 koku each (especially cavalry). So heavy infantry costs 2 koku against the population cap and heavy cavalry costs 5. Also, each hex is going to need a base patrol in addition to the population base. And Black Cathay is going to need higher patrols to deal with the unrest they are causing with oppressive rent levels.

So add that together and they're probably going to need military forces like twice that big, but the population cap of the city is going to be about 22,000 after all is said and done. Which means that if that population cap was reached, the ruler would have about 40,000 gp per month to spend on whatever projects they thought needed doing. Which would be plenty to build temples and staff them.

-Username17

[Windjammer]

Secondly, I think it's a no-brainer that a level based system that has a kingdom management minigame should give people abilities that are relevant to the kingdom management minigame at certain levels. [...] abilities that make you better at conquering, patrolling, defending, developing, and extracting rent from domains. [... Black Cathay] might need a bit more troops if they are going to be squeezing that much wealth out of land that marginal.

Quick question for a lurker on this debate (and its parallel threads):
1. clarificatory: what is 'koku' an abbreviation of? monthly upkeep to feed a single kobold?
2. substantive: have you nailed down the victory conditions for the minigame itself? What I've seen so far (from my cursory readings) is an inventory of (a) relevant abilities and (b) proximate goals (both in the quote above), but where are (c) final goals? Sure, these may be campaign specific, but if we for a moment compare our minigame to D&D itself, you can distinguish between:
b. surviving combat encounters
c. get more loot
a. healing spells, dish out damage

But there's sometimes something more specific to c., such as: reach level 30, and consume your 'epic destiny' (thus 4e's half baked idea of an exit or victory condition for a character's trajectory through a campaign). Do you have something similar to your minigame? I thought of Civilization, the PC game (early instalments) and the boardgames, where your goal is not simply to stabilize your area, ward off intruders, and conquer neighbours, but all 3 things have some capstone achievements that complete the game (a game that is otherwise open).

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. In principle, you could say, scratch c. beyond the most proximate goals (survival and upkeep), the agenda is set by the players (their characters), the campaign they are in, and not the game itself. (Thus the distinction betwee a RPG/a simulation, and a boardgame.) But why not have both? Why not develop the game's own capstone achievements/exit conditions? The rest - campaign specific goals - would be allowed by the minigame anyhow.

Just interested. BECAUSE: once you sharpen your victory conditions, it then becomes clearer what you codify in category (a). And then players can formulate more coherent strategies, such as:

Small cities grow faster under Despotism. Every new citizen costs ten stored food plus ten food for every existing citizen in the city, or half
that if the city has a granary. A size ten city spends 110 food to make a
new citizen, or 55 if it has a granary. A size one city spends 20 food to
make a new citizen, or 10 food if it has a granary. Under Despotism,
larger cities don't have more surplus food.

Despotisms, Monarchies, or Communist governments generally don't spend money on luxuries, since these governments are often short on cash. Republics and Democracies generally _must_ spend money on luxuries, since it's the only way to offset citizens unhappy about military units.

Forms of government don't simply matter to player choice because of its economic impacts, but because of its impact on further in-game currencies, such as citizen happiness. And either currency only matters because they translate into a meta-metric that measures your success in the game relative to some hardwired exit points/victory conditions. At least, that's my very abstract understanding of game design.

[Username17]

1. clarificatory: what is 'koku' an abbreviation of? monthly upkeep to feed a single kobold?

Koku is a historical Japanese unit of wealth equal to the amount of rice needed to feed one man. It's a really useful quantity when discussing supplies for armies and towns, so we've expanded it slightly to just mean the sum total of food and stuff needed to keep one person going. Since it's a wealth over time quantity, you can talk about koku over a month or over a year and the numbers don't change, which is convenient.

2. substantive: have you nailed down the victory conditions for the minigame itself?

It's a plugin for an RPG, so I don't think that "victory conditions" per se really make a lot of sense. There are things you can do, and those can be personal or campaign goals, but you don't ever really have to stop playing if you don't want to.

You can amass more territory. You can develop the territory you have. You can build buildings and raise armies. Ideally, you'd be able to have your armies fight other armies. You'd be able to explore wilderness areas and encourage settlements. You'd be able to merge your territory with other settlements through diplomacy or conquest. Or you could just extract a certain amount of money and buy yourself sweet dragon slaying gear.

When you build things, you can either do them abstractly (one "standard keep" for 70,000 gp for example), or get down into the nitty gritty of buying specific rooms and drawing things out on graph paper. When you staff things, you can either buy bulk packages of personnel or get down into the nitty gritty of naming and statting the acolytes in your war temple. Since it's an RPG, you can zoom in as much as you want and if necessary calculate and track the number of ink wells one of your library's scribes has.

The numbers I'm using are purposefully integrated with those of 3rd edition D&D. Because obviously I see this most likely to see use as a module for peoples' Pathfinder games. But really it's intended for my own heartbreaker that I'm sure to finish someday. And in that context, the various classes are going to have abilities that interact with kingdom management and armies clashing.

I thought of Civilization, the PC game (early instalments) and the boardgames, where your goal is not simply to stabilize your area, ward off intruders, and conquer neighbours, but all 3 things have some capstone achievements that complete the game (a game that is otherwise open).

I think I'm looking at this more like Crusader Kings. Where there are capstone achievements you can reach like forming an empire or reforming a religion or winning a jihad on some important area... but where upon achieving those goals you could still keep playing if you wanted. You can become the Pope of Fire and get bended knee from the Lizardfolk and the Orcs, but you could keep playing as the leader of the Burning Theocracy if the characters still have story arcs that you want to do.

I think the game probably tops out at toppling the iron tower of a demon lord, but I wouldn't put my foot down about that.

-Username17

[virgil]

I think garrison troops should actually eat more than 1 koku each (especially cavalry). So heavy infantry costs 2 koku against the population cap and heavy cavalry costs 5. Also, each hex is going to need a base patrol in addition to the population base. And Black Cathay is going to need higher patrols to deal with the unrest they are causing with oppressive rent levels.

Would you say the garrison or the patrols need to be increased in response to level of taxation, or both? As of right now, garrison being 1-2-5% (Civilized, Borderlands, Wilderness) means it's solely tied to threat of foreign intrusion. If you kept them cleanly separate, you could then say patrols would be tied directly to overall threats of civil unrest; rate of taxation in this instance. This doesn't quite cover unified civil disobedience, smuggling cartels, or organized crime; which are probably better categorized as 'events' or 'challenges'.

[virgil]

Well, if you use this site as a jumping off point, we have the patrols ranging from .33% to .67%+ and lawyers/advocates in the .15% range.

You could therefore not be wildly out of line to say that the patrols are roughly half the size of the garrison, but tied to degree of Taxation rather than degree of Civilization; .5% for Free Peasants, 1% for Tenants/Serfs, 2.5% for Oppressed Serfs.