Hello all,
Couple question on these rules:
1/ When do the kingdom turns start:
(a) as soon as the government is formed? the Upkeep phase mentions a kingdom size of 0, and the Step 1 of the Edicts phase meshes well with declaring who does what in the government.
(b) as soon as the capital is founded? the Settlements and Districts section implies that you need to found a city beforehand.
(c) at any point later? possible but impracticable, because building Farms and collecting taxes are part of the kingdom turns.
2/ Is there a limit (in number and size) on the armies I can recruit each turn?
At which step are they recruited? (there is a step called "Create Army Units", but the Improvement Edict table has a footnote saying you can also create/expand/equip/repair an army instead of founding a settlement - of which there is a number limit).
3/ Can I create an army and equip it (with bows, for instance) in the same turn?
4/ Can I create an army and equip/expand/repair one (or more?) of my other armies in the same turn?
Thanks all.
Heya, Louis.
Good questions.
1) Rules are a bit unclear. However, prior to starting your first Kingdom Turn, you need to follow the steps under Settlements & Districts for founding a settlement, then follow the guidance under Founding a Kingdom (right near the beginning of the kingdom rules, just after the Kingdom Terminology), and only then do you actually kick off your first kingdom turn. I don't know if it's actually possible to have a size zero kingdom.
2) Whilst it's not explicitly stated in the text, the footnote that says you can create, expand, or equip an existing army unit instead of founding a new settlement is meant to be the limit. Army units must be created during the Create Army Units step of the Edict phase.
3) Yes, provided that you don't exceed your limit per turn. Note that since armies cost consumption, they don't actually cost anything to recruit - you only have to pay for them the following kingdom turn (but remember that army consumption is measured weekly, so it will cost 4x the army's consumption figure to have them active for a month).
4) Yes, again as long as you don't exceed your limit per turn.
Thanks for your quick answers. I have a couple follow-ups.
1) So, I'll just ignore the following sentence from the Kingdom Turn Sequence, upkeep phase summary: "If your kingdom controls 0 hexes, skip the Upkeep Phase and proceed to the Edict Phase"
That is... unless it has a meaning for a recently-defeated kingdom? I don't see any.
2) Whilst it's not explicitly stated in the text, the footnote that says you can create, expand, or equip an existing army unit instead of founding a new settlement is meant to be the limit. Army units must be created during the Create Army Units step of the Edict phase.
Does that mean that a starting kingdom can make ONE of the following actions per turn (and a size 201+ can only make 4)?
- found a settlement- recruit an army
- expand an army (what does that mean, exactly?)
- equip an army (can I include several equipments at the same time, e.g. bows and horses?)
- heal an army
During a war, a large kingdom will be hard-pressed to manage this. How can you rely on only half a dozen efficient (and fully-healed) armies to defend a war going on 201+ hexes? And I'm not even speaking about attacking other kingdoms...
Any idea?
Sorry, only noticed this after your bump.
Unrest can cause your kingdom to lose hexes, there might be other effects (not that I can think of any right now) that can reduce your kingdom's size below 1. One possibility is the king sharing out his kingdom to nobles to run as kingdoms in their own right, while he maintains overall control from his palace but doesn't actually have any hexes. But that's getting into Ultimate Rulership territory.
As for the "what can we do on one kingdom turn?" question, yes, a size one kingdom can do only one of those things per turn.
The sub-questions are a little more complex, because it's ultimately down to GM fiat, but here's my take on it:
Expanding an army means recruiting an existing army up in army size. So, turning a medium army into a large (or bigger) army uses up a "build a settlement".
Equipping an army should be for changing the equipment you already have. You can recruit an army with whatever resources you think you can afford, but if you wand to add a resource after the army was recruited, it uses up a "build a settlement".
A kingdom of size 201+ has had (literally) years to build up to size. Minimum time is 43 months (if I did my maths right), and probably took a lot longer, and the kingdom will have an Economy bonus probably in excess of 300 (my party's size 33 kingdom has Economy +109 right now), and they're unlikely to build a settlement in every single hex, but even if they do, that's still an awful lot of armies they can afford to have active. Even more if the armies are garrisoned in a settlement and only costing consumption per month instead of per week. I'd be very surprised if a size 201+ kingdom has only half a dozen or so armies. I'd expect about thirty.
Regarding large kingdoms: of course, they would have dozens of armies. The problem is that they would only be able to recruit OR equip OR heal 4 of them per turn (as I understand your explanation of the rules).
Your ideas are interesting, and I initially thought that they weren't in the rules as written (especially as you mentioned GM fiat). After re-reading said rules in detail, I still don't know if they allow you to:
a/ recruit an army pre-equipped with resources (the rules in kingdom building say "recruit [or] equip" while the sample armies in mass combat come with recruiting cost including resources)
b/ expand an existing army (the -optional- rule of combining armies looks like it, but you'd have to have two armies of the same size and with the same resources to avoid losses; implying an action to recruit the secondary army, and another to combine them)
I'm in the process of writing a summary of these rules for my group, and wanted an explanation somewhat compatible with the rules, which I got. So, many thanks.