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Cleric or Bard. Paladins just end up stealing too much limelight, whereas the others can help the group out of a lot of sticky situations without taking up much room on the stage.
Even so, by turn 50 or 60 (if I remember well) We only got to something like 36 before we abandoned the Kingdom mechanic. That said, I personally had quite a lot of fun learning the ropes of the Kingdom-building system, planning out a functional network of cities, naming them, and watching them grow. I agreed it got too massive to continue to the end of the campaign, but I wouldn't want to have missed out on it entirely.
So, DM... how about those slimmed-down Kingdom Rules?
Fireball is a drug. You can be a rational mastermind, a learnèd loremaster, a sophisticated practitioner of the high arts, a controller of the battlefield and bender of time and space; in other words: a proper elven wizard, for all your life. Eschew getting your hands dirty with evocation as much as you can. Blasting is for sorcerers and their ilk, you know. Then scribe it into your spellbook, because, you know, it might someday be tactically appropriate. "Magister, those horrible trolls are terrorizing western Gwendor again, and did you know? they hate fire." Blabla. Alright. You prepare it once. You cast it twice, making use of your bonded amulet. Then you use your 9000 gp Pearl of Power to cast it once more. Then, before you know it, you buy a Lesser Rod of freaking Persistent Spell just to you can make every last of them , and as you near 10th level, you start thinking about taking Intensify Spell instead of Quicken even though all your mentors insisted was mandatory. It all goes downhill from there. Or so I imagine. How would I know?
She so named it because she was prophetically aware that the fate of the country would be ever linked with the fate of that owlbear cub. Did she receive a prophecy... or speak the curse with those very words?! One never knows, with you fey... Also, reports of Gwendor's downfall are greatly exaggerated. In fact, I do believe we just crushed an invading force beneath our steel-shod heel, and are about to return the favor. >:)
Can the next one be named Dr. Snuggles? That reminds me how I wanted our giant baby owlbear to be named Mr. Fluffy, but the Duchess ended up pulling rank in favor of Gwendor. She's really become a diva these days. Naming babies after countries? So Hollywood. ;P
"Why do you not just step between the dimensions to circumvent that odious chiromorphic creature?" says Iaurinn. "Oh, wait. I keep forgetting that you muggles are rooted in the material plane like so many trees." He sighs.
But the upside is that you NEVER have to deal with, "Oh, that spell I have that we desperately need? Oh, I didn't prepare it today." A bonded item goes a long way here. Allows you to cast any one spell from your spellbook once per day, even if you hadn't prepared it. Overall, I suppose I favor the Sorcerer as well, but I do currently find myself enjoying the benefits of a spellbook. There are so many good 4th and 5th level spells to know! And I can have them all. >:)
Should we do Turn 36?
Stats:
Consumption: 0
Treasury: 38 BP and 1498.4 gp
Special:
Upkeep phase Stability check: (success; +1 BP)
Improvement phase Changes in leadership: None Claimed Hexes: Claim G:d, F:e, H:2, I:1 (-4 BP, +4 DC, +3 Consumption, +1000 pop).
Farmlands: Build Farm in G:7, F:c with Sempor's help (-7 BP, -4 Consumption) Roads: Build roads and bridges in Hexes G:d, F:e, H:2, I:1 (-6 BP, +1 Eco) Edicts: No change. Income phase Deposits/withdrawals: None Magic items (Economy above 50, minimum DC to sell any magic item, so need roll of 2 or better; 12 city districts) 15 rolls (Major first, then medium, then minor; most expensive to least within those):
TOTAL FROM MAGIC ETC: +36 BP and 493.4 gp. Income (economy check):
Event phase
END:
Consumption: 0 DC: 93 Unrest: 0 Treasury: 8 BP and 493.4 gp Population: 43,250
Iaurinn frowns benevolently as he tries to make heads, tails, and tentacles of Lilac's suggestions. He actually rather likes "The Edge" for I:a. It appears to be one of the few instances where the Gnomish and Elven naming philosophies at least partially overlap. The name can be attributed to either the city's precarious perch atop its cliffside, or its precarious situation at the very border to the Riverlands. Both interpretations are no doubt entirely unintentional from the Gnomish point of view, where "it makes sense" is considered a devastating review for any kind of creative activity. Gods be good, at this rate we might actually have to start taking suggestions from Sempor, thinks Iaurinn. What is a Chen anyway?
Too tired to be going over turn 35 and answer questions tonight: I'll do it tomorrow, but it's fine if we stop at turn 35 before the session and see what happens then. The only thing we need to complete the Turn is the list of new items. We can sort out the details later. (But I understand if you're too tired for that too.)
I noticed the new city in I:a also needs a City Wall, for another 8 BP. This is getting really expensive. We might have to delay that Castle after all. @DM: Can I claim some cliff borders for the city in I:a? The map shows an outlier of the mountain range reach into the hex. We'd build our city on high ground, obviously.
Also, we need more city names. There's one in F:e coming up next Turn, and another in I:1 the Turn after. Most likely we'll also be building 1–2 more in the Turns to follow. Speak up or suffer the consequences!
So, how do we envision the end state of this map? We'll certainly fill up all farmable land. In principle, there is no need to claim forest or mountain hexes, but no doubt we will still do it for certain purposes: To link different cities with each other (e.g., Warrior's Rest with Leveton and Dancing Lady, Mîr with Varnhold, Wyvernspire with I:a); or to create a contiguous patrolled border to give us an early warning if we should be invaded (e.g., A:1–I:1 or the hexes south of Wyvernspire). The forest is also large enough to comfortably accomodate 1–2 more cities, e.g. in D:1 and E:3. Another tactic could be to claim all the hexes we can get, period. We could probably claim the entire forest without an increase in Consumption, since we have lots of cities into which to sink the timber. On the other hand, we did promise the fey to leave about half the forest unmolested. I assume if we claim a hex as a timber source, it counts as molested. Personally, I think we should just take the "useful" forest hexes (as described above) and leave the rest to police itself, through the fey population. We'll have to trust Melianse to keep us updated on any new groupings or developments in the fey population of the forest. While we could also claim all of the 8 mountain hexes on our map, I don't really see the point there. They are expensive and of no use whatsoever. We might want to claim all mountains west of Wyvernspire (4 hexes) so as to leave no unsafe territory in the midst of our territory in which an enemy could establish a foothold, but the others are rather pointless. Opinions?
We should also take up diplomatic negotiations with the Nomens about the crag linnorm skeleton. Maybe if we guarantee them safe and unmolested passage to the site for ritual purposes, they'll let us farm the area around it? It's good land.Which hex is that in, again? F:d.
WARNING: COUNTLESS SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY. Wow, it's been a while. Two years have passed in Gwendor, and a lot of things have changed. Behold the glory of the !
Age: 34 months
Status:
Changes in Government:
OK, here's my provisional plan for Turn 35. Actions: Claimed Hexes: Claim G:d, F:e, H:2, I:1 (-4 BP, +4 DC, +3 Consumption, +1000 pop).
City improvement:
Farmlands: Build Farm in G:7, F:c with Sempor's help (-7 BP, -4 Consumption) Roads: Build roads and bridges in Hexes G:d, F:e, H:2, I:1 (-6 BP, +1 Eco) Edicts: No change. Total effect: -90 BP, +0 Consumption, +4 DC, +3 Eco, +2 Stab, +5 Loy, +2250 pop. Discussion: Clearly, it's a lot of BP to ask for, but with a starting Treasury of 38 BP and four major items, it's not that unrealistic. The plan aggressively expands in two directions so as to spawn two new cities, which we need rather urgently (we have more valuable items than Districts right now!). A Castle in Warrior's Rest makes sense as a way to fortify our border to the West, whither we're supposed to point our gaze soon... on the other hand, Varnhold is our One True City apart from Stronghold, and only has a single 2x2 square left open. If we put a Castle there, we have an excuse to start a new District next Turn! DC rises faster than the stats, but that's OK, we're ahead anyway.
Hallow is a temporary solution that needs to cast every year, so I guess that's the easiest solution for now. But with only the effects of hallow, there are some days in Candlemere when things are rather gloomy. It's almost as if there were things moving beyond the veil of reality… Your arcane knowledge and the many wizards based in Candlemere have helped in keeping most of this feeling at bay… for now… Ah, yes, Candlemere winters... they remind me of Königstuhl winters, only with more aliens. If Hallow doesn't do its job right, I'd rather give Dispel Evil a shot now. The failure chance should be pretty low by now, and we can easily afford the scroll by withdrawing some funds from the Treasury.
(Oh, did we ever completely exorcise Candlemere? I can't recall, and it's time to get that done if we haven't.) Well, Dispel Evil is a 5th-level Cleric spell, so it will take our "hobby Cleric" another two levels to be able to cast it. We could use a scroll of it, of course, but it comes with a failure chance. Or was Hallow supposed to do the trick? Sempor can cast that. It costs 1000 gp in materials, but at least we don't need a scroll. (Was Hallow only the temporary solution?)
Black Market built. We now have our fourth major item slot, and have passed the 40,000 population mark. We are on fire!
Stats:
Consumption: 0
Treasury: 18 BP and 1266.4 gp
Special:
Upkeep phase Stability check: (success; +1 BP)
Improvement phase Changes in leadership: None Claimed Hexes: Claim G:9, H:a, I:a (-3 BP, +3 DC, +3 Consumption, +750 pop) City improvement:
Farmlands: Build Farm in G:9, H:a with Sempor's help (-7 BP, -4 Consumption) Roads: Build roads and bridges in Hexes G:9, H:a, I:a, H:c with Iaurinn's help (-12 BP, +1 Eco, +1 Stab) Edicts: Raise promotions to Aggressive (+1 Consumption, +1 Stab) Income phase Deposits/withdrawals: None Magic items (Economy above 50, minimum DC to sell any magic item, so need roll of 2 or better; 12 city districts) 14 rolls (Major first, then medium, then minor; most expensive to least within those):
TOTAL FROM MAGIC ETC: +78 BP and 1498.4 gp. Income (economy check):
Event phase
END:
Consumption: 0 DC: 89 Unrest: 0 Treasury: 38 BP and 1266.4 gp Population: 41,250
Speaking of Stability ... was the stability bonus for claiming the cave in H:c counted in your stats? No, forgot that. Thanks. There's also some other bonuses we could get if we clear out monsters or have them cleared out, I believe, but I've lost track of what those are ... and it'd be nice to finally get the troll cave down in the southwest, since you brought those hexes up ... I have accounted for the bonuses granted by the hexes around Varnhold. We assumed we would clear those hexes out such that we could proceed with the founding of Mîr or-Chenedril. Incidentally, two houses plus a market would be +1,000 population rather than +500. True! Forgot the Houses. This sure is a lot of bookkeeping. :P But in the end, it's the long wait for magic items that slows us down...
I had actually rolled 14d20 in the Preview, which gave me those two 1's. Looks like I didn't change it in my text-editor version, though, which is what I posted in the end. So... magic items? :P
OK, here's a provisional plan for Turn 34 while we wait for the new magic items. I'm assuming we get a decent amount of income. The Waterfront should help. Claim G:9, H:a, I:a (-3 BP, +3 DC, +3 Consumption, +750 pop)
Edicts: Raise promotions to Aggressive (+1 Consumption, +1 Stab) Total: -57 BP, +0 Consumption, +3 DC, +1500 pop, +3 Eco, +4 Stab, +3 Loy. It is doubtful whether we will be able to afford that. If not, delay the Market and build something else for at least +1 Stab (maybe a Watchtower in Candlemere, or a Dump somewhere else). Oh, by the way, since nobody reacted, I've decided to name the city in H:8 myself. It shall henceforth be known as Fairfields. It's your fault.
Alright! That was refreshing. What do we do next? Our Stability is lagging. Maybe it's time for a few Watchtowers (Candlemere could use one, so far it's naked but for the water) or — if the Waterfront is paying off — a half-priced Market to pave the way for a Black Market. We should also finally build that road in H:c for 8 BP, painful as it is... Expansion should take us to another city site, in my opinion. We could go G:9, H:a, I:a, and urbanize the latter, or maybe G:d and F:e, and urbanize the latter. I'm not so fond of building Farms in the extreme East yet, though, since there's no city there yet to protect them and offer a market (yes! I'm roleplaying! ;o). There's also the possibility of planting another border fort in I:1 or I:2, though the forest will slow down the urbanization process.
Kyra: I expanded into B:1 as you suggested, but had to reduce Festivals to raise Promotions. We got +2 Consumption from the two new city districts, +2 from the two new hexes, and -4 from the two new Farms, so no agricultural surplus to spend. And actually, those accursed shuriken introduced a .4 gp blemish into our deposit account. The horror! And finally: Please name that city; I provisionally called it Kansas in the Excel sheet for its sheer lack of distinguishing features.
Stats:
Consumption: 0
Treasury: 21 BP and 1434.5 gp
Special:
Upkeep phase Stability check: (success; +1 BP)
Improvement phase Changes in leadership: None Claimed Hexes: Claim B:1, G:7 (-2 BP, +2 DC, +2 Consumption, +500 pop) City improvement:
Farmlands: Build Farm in B:1 and G:8 (-5 BP with Sempor's help, -4 Consumption) Roads: Build roads in Hexes B:1, G:7 (-4 BP with Iaurinn's help, +1 Eco) Edicts: Keep taxes at Heavy (now half price, +2 Loy); Keep Promotions at Token; Reduce Festivals to 1/Year (-1 Loy, -1 Consumption) Income phase Deposits/withdrawals: None Magic items (Economy above 50, minimum DC to sell any magic item, so need roll of 2 or better; 12 city districts) 14 rolls (Major first, then medium, then minor; most expensive to least within those):
TOTAL FROM MAGIC ETC: +84 BP and 1266.4 gp. Income (economy check):
Event phase
END:
Consumption: 0 DC: 86 Unrest: 0 Treasury: 18 BP and 1266.4 gp Population: 38,500
Alright, assuming 11 item sales and no Economy income, we're at 106 BP this Turn. We can immediately start that Waterfront. Yay! :D With the remaining 16 BP, we might want to build a City Wall in the new city (8 BP) and a Farm in G:8 (4 BP) to compensate the two new city districts. We might as well also build a second Farm in G:7 and use the Consumption to raise Promotions and Festivals. Given that we're limited to two Farms per Turn, we shouldn't waste this Turn's capacity.
You can't save 4 BPs in one go. It's one PC being able to save 1 BP per turn. I know. -4 BP is the total cost after a +1 BP rebate. Magic items available for turn 33 (Kuthona 4713 AR): Ah... finally, another rich harvest. :)
By the way, we would have risked negative Treasury if we had gone through with the full plan, so I cut the roads in H:c. It turns out you don't need roads to prepare a hex for city-building. (Technically, I haven't seen a rule that states you need roads for founding a city, but I think it's pretty stupid not to build them.) I figure we'll have plenty of time in the next few Turns to build those arduous mountain roads (8 BP!) until the site becomes ready in Turn 36.
Stats (including Unrest):
Consumption: 0
Treasury: 23 BP and 3753.5 gp
Special:
Upkeep phase Stability check: (success; -1 Unrest)
Improvement phase Changes in leadership: None Claimed Hexes: Claim G:8, H:8, G:c, H:c (-4 BP, +4 DC, +4 Consumption, +1000 pop) City improvement:
Farmlands: Build Farm in D:7 and F:8 (-8 BP, -4 Consumption) Roads: Build roads in Hexes G:8, H:8, G:c (-4 BP with Iaurinn's spell support) Edicts: Keep taxes at Heavy; Keep Promotions at Token; Keep Festivals at 6/Year Income phase Deposits/withdrawals: None Magic items (Economy above 50, minimum DC to sell any magic item, so need roll of 2 or better; 12 city districts) Twelve rolls (Major first, then medium, then minor; most expensive to least within those):
TOTAL FROM MAGIC ETC: +25 BP and 1434.5 gp. Income (economy check):
Event phase
END:
Consumption: 0 DC: 84 Unrest: 0 Treasury: 17 BP and 3753.5 gp Population: 37,000
Would you mind keeping the chore of exploration and rolls for your followers? Probably easier than if I learn the ropes of it. Or we could just turn the mechanic into a flat bonus if you don't feel like bothering with it. I also don't know which hexes still need exploration.
We can afford 1 more hex of expansion, which can bring us to H:8. Let's urbanize that too, then.
By the way, Kyra: We can't build a trading city near Restov since that's all Nomen country. We'd either have to destroy the farm in B:c or build a city right next to Varnhold in C:a, which is a bit unfortunate placing (especially if we're eventually going to make use of Varnhold Pass). I figure Varnhold itself should be a good trading city towards Brevoy, though. It's pretty large already, and has direct roads and even some (usable?) waterways. Should we prepare another city in Turn 32? If so, where? G:8 would be within reach (instead of G:9), but relatively close to two of our existing cities. We could expand further from G:9 into H:9, but then we'd need to build more support buildings as well.
OK, how about this for Turn 32: - Turn D:7 and F:8 into farms (-4 Consumption).
Total cost: 40 BP. This actually leaves our Treasury at 8 BP, not counting Economy. Pretty sad. We'll need a better MIE if we want that Waterfront! Or we'll have to sit tight a bit.
Hm. I for one would consider it a bit of a pity to just mothball all the work we've put into the kingdom. If we were to put away with the micromanagement of buildings etc., at least we should keep expanding and founding and fortifying cities. I'm sure we could find some easy analytic predictions on how large our growth rate should be. That said: Our major items sure are screwing us over this Turn.
So, what are everybody's ideas about Turn 32? Do we have a consensus on building Wyvernspire, and not doing much else to save up for the Waterfront?
Sure, I'm happy to do some shifts on the rolling. I can see how it would take a lot of time. Just tell me how your minions work...
Turn 30 has been uploaded. I end up with a +1 to Economy — don't know from where; roads perhaps? Our numbers do agree at the beginning of the Turn. I also end up with a Treasury of 9 BP and 1548.5 gp rather than 6 BP and 548.5 gp. Something went wrong in your MIE: The three highest-price items alone cost as much as your total. Whither from here? We have on the order of 40 BP to spend next Turn, not counting the Economy income (which is not 100% certain). Here are my suggestions: Turn 31 Defend the naked cities:
Total cost: 31 --- Turn 32 - Build two Farms on existing Hill hexes
We only have 7 BP left if we don't want to risk going into debt. That would allow a Watchtower. I guess it would fit thematically for Southport, our border to Mivon. Yeah, looks like a council-wide consensus on the plan, let's go through with it. :)
How about this: Hex claims: A:1, E:8, F:9 (3 BP)
We can build all the buildings that have been discussed and have a lot left to spend. And we can build a LOT of buildings per turn now. Our current plan demands 7 buildings, one of which is the free House. So we have 4 building slots left for this Turn. There are 5 poorly defended cities at the moment: Sootscale (0), Lilac Falls (2), Elkwood (2), Southport (2), and Varnhold (2). If we want to build the Arena, we can afford 3 Walls. I suggest Sootscale, Varnhold, and Lilac Falls, since those already have buildings and thus are more "inhabited" than the other two. Hêmael, where do you want the Arena? In Stronghold, I presume?
Just noticed the new wolf has a Quenya name. "Starlight jewel". Iaurinn approves. ;)
Never mind, it's Eco/Loy we need, not Eco/Stab. How about a Brothel in Lilac Falls? So far, I've placed a Brothel and Monument in Candlemere, another Monument in Varnhold (to commemorate the dead founders), and a Brewery in Stronghold (it's our first, not counting the drivel the Varnlings are concocting in their little village).
A Pier would give us the requisite +1 Eco, +1 Stab. Don't we get a half-priced Pier at Southport? That would mostly be a roleplay decision, by the way. A Mill would give us the same bonuses for only 6 BP rather than 8 BP.
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