My White Whale 3- The hint of a draft of the first ideas of a system
Three weeks of holiday have flown by faster than I would've liked. I had massive plans for the things I thought I'd be able to finish. A first (usable) draft of Domain play was one of them. However, due to a combination of factors and cope I didn't get all that far.
I also made the (to me) classic mistake of thinking that whatever proces I'd laid out would work, instead of going by ear and seeing what the natural way of things would be. I talked about "oh let's look into historical examples and go from there". However, in actuality, I found that it was way better for me to go the other way around. Start from the gaming POV. Which makes sense.
Below, I'll lay out in way too many words the ideas I've written down so far. All of this is… Not seminal, but a rough first draft. I'd love to get some feedback on this.
Making something worth fighting over
One thing I would love is an internal reason for conflict baked into the bones of the system. External reasons (Player wants more land and power) are great, and of course these are a massive factor in actual play. However, I believe that a system that does not inherently generate the behaviour you want to see out of the game fails at the first hurdle.
So how do you create this internal drive to conflict? My answer would be: scarcity. There are resources you need, but that your land doesn't produce (enough of). I've been in the back channels talking to several people about this who have been providing me with some valuable feedback and ideas, and in parallel some of us came up with some fairly similar ideas.
The elements of a Domain
So what does a domain consist of? Which elements need to be tracked? I came up with the following.
Hexes
A domain consists of one or more hexes. Each hax abstracts into one single terrain type, which determines what sort of resources it can produce, and how much.
Administrative centre
One hex in a domain is where the ruler has put his throne. It's the place from which he commands the surrounding lands, and where he holds court. There needs to be some kind of MVP for something to be an Administrative centre. My initial guess is the Stronghold. Just makes sense, and fits with the traditions.
Cities
A city can be built (or already exist) in a hex. They would have important functions, but due to their high population density would not be able to sustain themselves. They'd need resources brought in from provinces in order to sustain them.
Trade hubs
A sparely populated hex isn't going to be all that capable of handling the trade routes required to be visible at the domain level. You need infrastructure and specialized workers. A city can trade a number of resources per domain turn, should anyone be buying/selling.
Specialist workers
The large population of a city can attract a breed of specialists that would not be able to sustain themselves on their craft outside of those population densities. Certain aspects of industry would not be viable without these workers.
Fortifications
Fortresses of any size, other defensive structures, whatever you can think of. You want these in order to control your territories, and defend against the inevitable invaders.
Infrastructure
I define this as any sort of investment in any of the above to improve their function.
- Road or canals that allow for faster movement through a hex
- Improvements to mines, irrigation structures, planted forests, anything that might increase the output of a resource a hex produces.
- Additional capacities to fortifications or cities. Larger harbors, more production capacity, larger garrisons
- Stores for resources so you can create buffers for lean turns.
Which resources
This is one people will disagree with, but I don't think just gold is enough. I feel you need more, and I was thinking of the following:
Food
Fairly basic. How much food does a hex produce which you can use. Not only to feed provinces, but also for a variety of other factors we'll talk about later.
Wood
Building material, firewood, etc.
Stone
Needed for any serious infrastructure. You can't build a fortress solely out of wood. If you're going to build roads or cities, you'll need something sturdier than just 2-by-4s.
Ore
The metals needed to supply armies, among other things.
Manpower
Whatever men can be spared to do other things. Building projects, armies, what have you.
Others?
I'm mulling over whether I need and want others, or whether I can simplify these away. The more I can minimize this set, the less tracking and excel sheeting I need. However, I don't want to simplify this to a point where you lose wanted behaviour. This needs to be something I look at seriously at each step.
There are others that come to mind. For example: should I not have hexes produce some form of Luxury materials, which can translate directly into Gold in play? Should animals be something produced, so that we can say "you can support this many cavalrymen"? Hell, should a hex maybe just have a generic "units capable of sustaining" table?
I don't know yet. I'm thinking about it, but for now I'm working with this. I'll probably rewrite everything ten times anyway, and perfect is the enemy of done.
Resources as simplified points
In a very Settlers of Catan way, I want to abstract each of these into points, which could roughly translate into one another. I don't want to put hard numbers, but you can imagine something like making the basic unit a 'cartload'. We can then say '1 unit of manpower is however many men you can feed for a domain turn on one cartload'. You can say 'from one cartload of ore we can make this many weapons, armors and other military necessities'. It keeps the numbers tidy, while still allowing for detail when needed.
Surplusses and Scarcities
Major assumption for now: all resources given are surpluses produced, or in scarcities in that province. This simplifies things and reduces everything you need to keep track of. Otherwise you'd have to take into account how much food a province uses, how much wood they burn, etc. This way, by default you can just use everything a province claims to produce in surplus, or know that if there is a scarcity of something: that it needs to be brought to that province.
Use it or lose it
Unless you somehow manage to store any of the surplusses produced it goes away at the end of a domain turn. Use it or lose it.
Stability
A good ruler is loved by his people and they're content being his subjects. A bad one is not, and will be rebelled against. Per domain we have to keep track of this, and events (and ruler choices) can alter this, both positively and negatively.
Armies
While this is going to be a huge thing in FOEGYG, since well, domains are eventually about moving armies about and clashing them together, much of this is a solved problem. Between Bath, Hyde, Featherstone and many others who having written so much about this, I can steal a lot. What I do need to think about is how this interacts with the actual functioning of a domain.
Standing armies and levies
Historically there are two types of soldiers. The professional kind we know today, and what I'll here call the levies. The regulars and the irregulars. The professional kind can be in the field all the time. They have experience, (generally) better equipment, but need to be paid and maintained by the state. In general levies will be less (and/or differently) organised, have equipment that might have been handed down for generations, and don't stay in the field long. They are called by the ruler when required, and after a while go back to their regular lives.
I would like both to be in the game, and it seems relatively simple to do so. You can call the levies from leftover manpower in your provinces, but doing so takes time, and the troop quality will be lower. Standing armies require barracks, forts, etc, and need to be paid.
Everything boils down to logistics
The major issue at the domain level (in contrast to the strategic level where you move armies about and clash them) will be the logistics of the situation. How do you feed them? Who is arming them? This all needs to tie back into the resources.
The Domain Turn
So what does this look like in play? I hope to simplify this into a few steps to keep things easy and managable.
1. Extract resources
Each hex produces the resources it does. Add tallies for each, or scarcities in that place.
2. Move resources
Resources generated in each hex (or resources stored) can be moved about. This would also be the step in which trade from cities occurs.
Transport
To utilise resources they have to be brought to where they will be used. The following costs will be applied on a per diem basis:
- Using draft animals: Mules, donkeys, or carts drawn by oxen or horses. 1 point of Food per 10 points of resources moved.
- Using minor vessels: Such rivercraft or anything similar. 1 point of food per 50 points of resources.
- Using major vessels: Such as seagoing merchantile ships. 1 point of food per 200 points of resources moved.
These resources are assumed to be consumed from the hex the resource is in at the end of the day of movement. If there are no available resources there to be consumed for this transport, it is possible to transport these resources to the hex as part of the transport phase.
3. Pay upkeep
Cities, infrastructure and fortresses require upkeep to be paid to keep the population happy and all structures in working condition. Not paying this upkeep has consequences for the functioning of these elements.
3.1 Update stability
As a substep, this is probably where stability should be updated. I have thought of some negatives which might influence these, but the primary one is going to be scarcity. Nothing is going to sour a population harder to a ruler than not having enough food on the table, or freezing your ass off because you don't have enough firewood to last the winter. I'm thinking this is going to happen on a 1:1 basis. Each point missing will decrease stability by 1.
4. Domain events
I'm effectively seeing two types of these. You have internal events, and border events.
Border events
These are the incursions happening at the borders of your territory. The longer your borders are, the more chance of these occuring. However, having proper patrols and/or foritfactions in place might reduce the odds of these. I have yet to figure out what "proper patrols and/or fortifications" would look like.
Internal events
In an unstable domain there is going to be a lot of trouble. Resentment and uprisings, guilds refusing to do work ordered, what have you. These should I think be (primarily) based on the stability of the domain, which high stability reducing them strongly. There should always be some internal events though, to keep things interesting and to destabilize things.
4. Orders
Anything you want your domain to do. Start working on building projects, spending time in the countryside to show your face and increase Stability, declare wars, troop movement. I have yet to properly think much of this out.
Limits to growth
These need to be limited, most likely together with moving resources about. There need to be limits to the growth of any one Domain. A medieval king did not have the administrative aparatus to single-handedly administrate an entire empire; he'd divvy up his lands between dukes, barons, and whatever other titles there were in the region at the time (simplified perspective, please history majors don't tear me apart, I know you could have several titles at once and the divided loyalties that might cause).
The same should be true here. At some point, your domain gets so big you can't reasonably control it anymore. I feel that the priamry way to enforce this is going to be in this phase. You only have so much time in the day to actually go out and order people about yourself.
My primary thinking right now is time. Make actions cost a certain amount of days/weeks. This both makes things tangible, but also hooks very nicely into other modes of play. A king might feel the need to deal with a dragon personally. Doing so, however, will take time out of his very busy schedule and might interrupt his functioning as a king.
Concluding thoughts
Look at this, my initial thoughts aren't positive. I see a lot of massive hurdles I've yet to overcome, and I see issues with all parts of what I've written down. It feels… Complex. More so than what I thought even my rough first schizoposting of ideas would be. It's a lot.
Going forward, I feel the need need to put some initial numbers to things,for one simple reason: testing. I need to know if I'm anywhere even near the right path for something playable at the level I want it to. Looking at all of this, I see a whole lot of work for each domain turn for players, let alone for some referee who might need to maintain a number of these. At the very least I'll need some very strong abstractions for the referee to run, is my initial guess.
I'm also eager for seeing feedback. How do you guys look at all of this rambling? Does it make sense? Do you see major omissions, or major faults in my thinking? Any suggestions? I'll try to read and gather all feedback I receive and work with it, because all of us are smarter than any single one of us (particularly me).
Until next time, count your torches and keep mapping.