Trying to understand kingdom rules in Ultimate Campaign


Rules Questions

The Exchange

I have been reading the kingdom rules in Ultimate Campaign. I have not played with them yet but there are a few things I'm still trying to understand.

1. How exactly does getting tax income work? "Income Phase" step 4 says you get (Economy check result / 3) BP income (regardless of the check difficulty), but the example in Edict Phase step 7 implies that you don't get anything if your check fails to beat the control DC. Is this correct? So if your control DC is 60, then a roll of 63 gives you 21 BP, a roll of 60 gives you 20 BP, but a roll of 59 gives you zero BP? (And, if this is the case, if you fail the roll does this also mean you don't get any money from your Mines, Quarries, and Sawmills?)

2. Similarly, if you choose "None" as the tax rate, the rules as written say you would still get tax income (just with no plus to economy). Is this correct?

3. It looks like there really isn't much difference between how much income you get with the different tax rates. For instance, if my base Economy is 49 (and let's say my Control DC is small enough that I can auto-pass the checks) then with Light tax rates I get an average (assuming a 10 on the d20) of (49 + 10 + 1)/3 = 20 BP/turn, while with Overwhelming tax rates I get (49 + 10 + 4)/3 = 21 BP/turn, only a 5 percent difference. Am I understanding this correctly?

4. On Page 199, it says that Consumption is modified by settlements. Where in the settlement rules does it say how much Consumption the settlement provides?

5. For trade routes (p.232), let's see if I understand things correctly.
The DC to establish the route is (Control DC + Corruption - Productivity) + (RM + LM), where RM = (TRL/10) and LM = max(Size-TRL, 0). For instance, if Size=50:

TRL = 25 means RM=2, LM=25, so RM+LM=27
TRL = 50 means RM=5, LM=0, so RM+LM=5
TRL = 100 means RM=10, LM=0, so RM+LM=10

So basically this is saying is that the difficulty is lowest if TRL=Size, with a very steep penalty for lower TRLs and a smaller penalty for higher TRLs.

It seems to me that this is confusing because of how highways interact with TRL. A highway counts as half distance. That means that if my kingdom size is 50 and I am trying to connect a trade route between one of my settlements and another settlement 50 hexes away, then having a highway there makes the check 22 points HARDER. Is it really supposed to work that way, that a highway makes a trade route harder to establish?

Another question has to do with the "return on initial investment" part. Successfully establishing the route gives you "RM + 2d4 BP per 5 GP invested." Is this [RM + 2d4 BP] per 5 BP invested, or RM + [2d4 BP per 5 GP invested]? In other words, if you invest 50 BP in a trade route with RM = 10, do you get back 10 + 20d4 BP, or 100 + 20d4 BP?

If the former, it seems like there would never be a reason to invest more than 5 BP (you are not increasing the expected gain if you succeed, since the average on 2d4 is 5, but you are increasing the loss if you fail.) If the latter it seems like this can just give you gobs and gobs of BP really easily. For instance suppose I have a kingdom with Control DC = 70 (e.g. size 45 and 5 districts worth of settlements), no modifiers to productivity or corruption, and 75 Economy, 75 Stability, and 75 Loyalty. Then I can auto-pass trade route checks with RM = 5, and thus on average double my initial investment with every trade route. (average of 5 + 2d4 = 10 BP per initial 5 BP investment). Since you can have 4 possible trade routes, which can be re-established every year, you can get a almost guaranteed 16x return on your investment every year (2 x 2 x 2 x 2). And if you increase the 75s to 80s, then you can get RM = 10, and triple your money each time, for 81x per year, and so on. (And don't forget that this isn't counting Productivity improvements. It seems like there are lots of cheap buildings that give you +Productivity, so this could help if you hare having a hard time getting up to the

6. So it seems like you've got to be very careful with increasing size. Let's look at what increasing size does to you. If you increase size by 1, by claiming a new hex, the following bad happens:

- Consumption increases by 1. This costs you 1 BP/turn.
- Control DC increases by 1. This makes all your Economy, Loyalty, and Stability checks 1 harder.

The following good happens:

- You get the ability to build Terrain Improvements on that hex. These terrain improvements are really good in terms of money. For instance the Mines, Quarries, and Sawmills effectively pay back their investment in 6 months (in addition to the Economy or Stability they generate). Building a farm on a plains pays back its investment in 1 month. (In contrast, buildings have a much longer payback period. For instance, a Bank costs 28 BP and effectively gives you an average of 1.33 BP/month, for a payback period of 21 months.)

- You get the ability to build Settlements on that hex. This probably doesn't matter that much as it is unlikely you will want to build so many Settlements you don't have hexes to put them all.

- At certain thresholds of size you get bonuses, like XP, being able to do more things each turn, etc.

So it seems to me like the best expansion strategy in general (in the absence of specific reasons otherwise) is the following:

- Always keep your Consumption at 0. If Consumption is above 0, then the most cost-effective thing you can do with your BP is to build a farm or fishery. And if you expand and increase consumption by 1, and then build a mine/quarry/sawmill there, on the net you haven't gained anything. So you only want to expand if you can mitigate the consumption.

- Never expand into a hex if you don't intend to build a terrain improvement there. Every unimproved hex is just costing you money and increasing your Control DC for no (or very little) benefit. Literally every terrain type can support at least one of the "consumption reducers" (Farm/Fishery) or one of the "money makers" (Mine, Quarry, Sawmill) so you want to put one of those on every hex if you can.

- For example, suppose that you expand onto 2 hill hexes, and you build mines in both of them, a farm on one. You have net zero extra consumption, and spent a total of 18 BP (6 mine + 6 mine + 4 farm + 2 to claim the hexes) and gain Economy +2 and +2 bonus BP/turn, for an average of 2.66 BP/turn. (remember that every +3 economy is basically 1 BP/turn). This is a pretty good payback. Of course it also makes it harder to pass your kingdom checks since you're increasing size without increasing stability/loyalty.

- It's probably best, especially with reasonably large kingdoms, to keep your Size low enough that you can auto-pass most Economy/Loyalty/Stability checks. Most of the unexpected bad stuff happens if you fail one of these checks. This becomes easier as your kingdom gets bigger. For instance if your size is 100 and you are passing checks half the time - if your size was only 90 instead, then you would be passing them all the time. So unless 90 hexes isn't enough and you really need those extra 10 hexes right now - might want to hold off on claiming them until you've built more economy/loyalty/stability buildings.

7. Unrest - It looks like you also want to keep Unrest at 0 as much as possible. Each point of Unrest is effectively -1 to each of Economy, Loyalty, and Stability, and it's a lot easier to reduce Unrest than to increase those other things. For instance a House costs 3 BP and reduces unrest by 1, while you would have to pay several times that if you wanted to increase Economy, Loyalty, and Stability by 1 each using other buildings.

One thing that is unclear in the rules is whether, if you demolish a building that has +Unrest or -Unrest, whether the change is reversed.

If not, it seems like you could cheaply reduce Unrest very easily by repeatedly building and demolishing Houses (you reduce 1 unrest on each build, and no negative effect when you demolish it. In fact if this is the case you might want to demolish Houses to free up space all the time if there's nothing else you want to do, since a House would do nothing for you after you've finished building it, unless there's a "requires adjacent house" building next to it.)

If the change is reversed if you demolish the building it seems like a good strategy is as follows. As long as you can auto-pass Stability and Loyalty checks you can reduce Unrest by 2 every turn if nothing else is going on (1 from normal upkeep, 1 from the Royal Enforcer.) Then you can build a tenement each turn while keeping your unrest stable. The advantage of this is now you have a "buffer" so if something bad happens that gives you a lot of Unrest, you can quickly demolish your Tenements (or upgrade them to Houses) to reduce Unrest a lot in a hurry.

8. So putting it all together, let's see if we can figure out the most effective investments (not counting the optional rules) to grow your kingdom, if you are mainly concerned about growing but still want to be able to pass your stability and loyalty checks. Consider the following "growth package":

- Claim a hill hex and a forest hex.
- Build a mine and farm on the hill hex, and a sawmill on the forest hex.
- Build a brewery and a stable in your settlement. (There are lots of buildings with similar costs that also give the small bonuses to economy/stability/loyalty that you need, if you want multiple "growth packages" but don't want to build too many of the same building in your settlement.)

Collectively this costs: 6 [brewery] + 10 [stable] + 4 [farm] + 6 [mine] + 3 [sawmill] + 2 [claim hexes] = 31 BP.

It gives you +2 economy, +2 stability, +2 loyalty, and +2 BP/turn extra income. Since the Control DC goes up by 2, this means you are just as good at checks as you are before. And of course increasing economy by 2 increases tax income by about 0.66 BP/turn. So we get that we're spending 31 BP to increase our income by 2.66 BP/turn, or about a payback period of 12 months.


1. I can't find the page you are mentioning about failing the Income phase. As I recal, there isn't a failure chance on that check.

2. Yes, That is correct. How silly it might seem. See it as you still generate income from donations, trade, ect..

3. Yes. You are correct. The taxation in Kingmaker and Ultimate Campaign isn't that great. That +x to Economy doesn't do a whole lot. I would suggest to look at the book; ultimate Rulership. It has some nice optional rules, one of them being the taxation ones. Each taxation still applies a Economy bonus (other way around), however, what is the big effect that instead of Economy check/3, the edict now increase or decrease the divition.
In short; Minimal taxation is divided by 5, light Taxation is divided by 4, normal Taxes is divided by 3, heavy taxation is divided by 2.5 and Crushing is divived by 2. So the taxation edict will now affect the income check much more.

4. It is mentioned in the "original rules" of the Rivers Run Red adventure path, page 55 under "Consumption". Doesn't seem like Ultimate Campaign wanted to mention or change it.

5. Both me and my players found the trade edicts mechanics very confusing and way to complex. We are currently working to find a solution to simplify it.

6 & 7. Not completly sure what the question is here. I am guessing there is none, and its asked in point 8 :P

8. In my opinion, the leaders should firstly focus on getting the city up and running. Once they have gotten some bonus' to the kingdom attributes, expanding becomes much safer. If they just start claiming hexes right and left (even with improvments), its gona hurt them. But your math doesn't seem to be off. So it looks like it would be a good way to expand.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Regarding 1): All Kingdom checks can be failed, either by not achieving the Control DC or a roll of natural 1. This is not explicitly stated in the income phase, but is clearly mentioned in the examples.

4) I'm sure it's each district adds 1 to the consumption, I'll hunt down the reference later.

5) One of the terms in trade edicts is the wrong way round: it should be "subtract Kingdom size from TRL..." This has never been officially confirmed, but is the only solution that makes sense.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I knew I had a reference somewhere: Sean K Reynolds did the development work on the Kingdom rules (after Jason Nelson wrote them from James Jacobs' original presented in Kingmaker), and here's his comment in the product thread:

Sean K Reynolds, Designer wrote:
My reply from the other thread: At one point we had specific district, consumption, base value, and other stats for villages, towns, and cities, but we changed that in development. Add the number of city districts to your kingdom's Consumption (just like the Kingmaker rules).

Edit: and to add the imprimatur of officialness to my answer for 1):

UCam, Kingdoms & War, Kingdom Building, Terminology, Control DC wrote:
Unless otherwise stated, the DC of a kingdom check is the Control DC.

Since the Economy check for tax income doesn't give an otherwise stated rule or DC, it uses the Control DC as the DC for the check, this is likewise confirmed by Sean K Reynolds in the product thread.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

#1 - Income BPs = your economy roll divided by your tax rate, if you fail your economy roll such as with a natural 1. Then you get zero BP.

#2 - If you set your tax rate to "none" you still get income.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

#3 - There is very little difference in the tax rates RAW.Some games use an alternate system where the normal tax rate is Economy Roll/3, Heavy/2, Overbearing/1, Light/4, None/5.

#4 - Each district increases consumption by 1.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

#5 - On trade routes, Chemlak has the right of it I think, otherwise they make little sense.

#6 - ?

#7 - If you are constantly building & demolishing the same houses, your GM might rule they are not providing any benefit at all or even have demolishing a house increases unrest +1.

#8 - In your example you will also need a house adjacent to your stables. Also its not in Ultimate Campaign, but it was intended that you could only build 1 Mine, or Sawmill, or Farm, or Quarry per hex.

The Exchange

Neros wrote:
1. I can't find the page you are mentioning about failing the Income phase. As I recal, there isn't a failure chance on that check.

It's implied in the example in Edict phase, step 7: "Jessica realizes that an average roll for her Economy check would be a failure ... which means there's a good chance the kingdom won't generate any BP this turn"

Neros wrote:
8. In my opinion, the leaders should firstly focus on getting the city up and running. Once they have gotten some bonus' to the kingdom attributes, expanding becomes much safer. If they just start claiming hexes right and left (even with improvments), its gona hurt them. But your math doesn't seem to be off. So it looks like it would be a good way to expand.

That was actually part of my point, and is even more true if failing an income check means you don't get any income. It seems like the best strategy is to always make sure your Control DC is less than your Economy/Loyalty/Stability (E/L/S), so that you can never fail a kingdom check (except on a natural 1). Especially since there is such a gigantic penalty for failing an income check even by a little bit. There is sort of a discontinuity in the mechanics here, where if my E/L/S are at, say, 100, the first 101 points of control DC don't hurt me at all, then the 102nd, 103rd, 104th, etc. start hurting me a lot, so much that by the time I get to control DC 120 I can't do anything really.

The reason I thought I was missing something was that that would make it so that the optimal strategy would always be to keep your control DC just under your E/L/S. (My calculation was based on the idea that you would keep your control DC at pace with your E/L/S, thus every 2 hexes claimed is paired with +2E/+2L/+2S.) That would seem to make the random events less interesting since you would almost always pass the checks 95% of the time. I am wondering if there is something I was missing, where there is a benefit to expanding your Control DC beyond your E/L/S.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

What you do have to realize is that everything in Ultimate Campaign is designed to be story telling aids. There are mechanics for downtime, kingdom, etc - but they are really not very well done. There is little to no balance in them, and some things just don't seem work work. But they do provide a common point of reference for the story tellers around the table to use to weave their tale.

This is not an apologist remark regarding the rules. There's really no excuse for them being as bad as they are - that said, at least there are fixes (like the Ultimate Rulership book from Legendary).


Another issue about the Ultimate Campaign version of Kingmaker that I am looking into right now is the issue of Loyalty: a few things, such as the Royal Enforcer, now subject the Territory to a penalty to loyalty. Is this a permanent decrease to loyalty, such that a Territory that repeatedly makes use of an Executioner to reduce Unrest would then be stuck with negative Loyalty (which increases Unrest), or does this Loyalty penalty go away over a period of time?


Quel'Technoh wrote:
Another issue about the Ultimate Campaign version of Kingmaker that I am looking into right now is the issue of Loyalty: a few things, such as the Royal Enforcer, now subject the Territory to a penalty to loyalty. Is this a permanent decrease to loyalty, such that a Territory that repeatedly makes use of an Executioner to reduce Unrest would then be stuck with negative Loyalty (which increases Unrest), or does this Loyalty penalty go away over a period of time?

Personally, I would rule that the penalty to loyalty is permanent, since the implication is that you are crushing dissent by executing those responsible for the unrest. Such harsh actions tend to be remembered for decades, long beyond the scale of a typical campaign. (However, I would be perfectly open to letting a kingdom roll to remove the penalty after ten years if they've gone at least five years without using the Executioner's ability.)

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Trying to understand kingdom rules in Ultimate Campaign All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.