Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Sorry if there's already an answer to this, but what is the mechanical incentive to expand the kingdom? My group claimed two hexes, drove their consumption to zero, and have spent almost 3 years in-game building their capital city. They don't see any point claiming additional hexes because doing so would increase their command DC an not provide any significant benefits. Are we missing something?
Sorry if there's already an answer to this, but what is the mechanical incentive to expand the kingdom? My group claimed two hexes, drove their consumption to zero, and have spent almost 3 years in-game building their capital city. They don't see any point claiming additional hexes because doing so would increase their command DC an not provide any significant benefits. Are we missing something?
With decent sized cities, your command rolls all fall into "only fail on 1" so why not expand? Sure, keep up with adding farms to manage consumption, but get bigger. Roads add to economy and stability. And you get advantages for large sizes - your rulers can add their bonus to more categories, and you can build much faster. The difference between adding 1 building per month vs 10 is huge. Add districts to cities to get more rolls to sell magic items - the key force driving Kingmaker economies - and push the frontier out.
Plus, it's fun.
Yup. This has actually been answered in another thread already, so to sum:
Number one, three hexes is a barony, and not a kingdom. You've been chartered to grow a kingdom.
Second, for bigger armies, you need bigger kingdom. Most of your advanced armies don't become available until you hit bigger sizes. (In fact, I believe you need a Size 5 kingdom just to field the smallest army in the book.)
Third, once mass combat does start, the moment an enemy army moves through a hex you control, you lose control of that hex. Would suck to lose the game if you only had the one hex.
Fourth, the last book has you losing hexes at random. If the random choice is from a set of 1... again, game over.
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Sorry if there's already an answer to this, but what is the mechanical incentive to expand the kingdom? My group claimed two hexes, drove their consumption to zero, and have spent almost 3 years in-game building their capital city. They don't see any point claiming additional hexes because doing so would increase their command DC an not provide any significant benefits. Are we missing something?
Yes, you are missing an entire half of the kingdom building game, in short. :)
You will want to check this thread here for a fairly recent discussion on this very subject. I hope your group sees the light. :D
Because city states get steamrolled by the armies of nations? If you want to keep that city, expand. Expand or die.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Thanks for the responses - we haven't gotten into the mass combat rules, and I hadn't realized there were elements there that required larger kingdoms.
What has everyone else's experience been in kingdom expansion? Did your party build an uber-city and then expand? What's so great about having a barony? How many cities can you have?
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Thanks for the responses - we haven't gotten into the mass combat rules, and I hadn't realized there were elements there that required larger kingdoms.
What has everyone else's experience been in kingdom expansion? Did your party build an uber-city and then expand? What's so great about having a barony? How many cities can you have?
Since I am assuming your asking as a DM (spoilers inside):
So far they have been playing for 3 years in-game kingdom building time and have a kingdom size of 16 hexes and have 2 cities (Stagfort and Oleg's). The problem is if they do full out expansion (just claiming hexes) it's still going to take them a year to a year and a half more game time to get that big. Of course, they can't just do that or they would blow their kingdom DC so high they couldn't make any of their rolls. So they are maybe claiming an average of one hex a turn (if even that) and then building cities up with the rest of their BP to keep pace. Their average income is around 10-12 bp a month at this point and they have been making good fiscal decisions. Now they are just starting to get some magic items coming into their cities and I can see that this will make a BIG difference in their income eventually. Anyway, I am seeing reaching the 50+ hex mark taking them another 3 years of game time. Now I wouldn't have an issue with the time frame except what it means for their cities. Their cities are going to be very very well developed by this point as compared to poor little Varnhold that has supposedly had a similar amount of time to develop. I am thinking that it is too big a jump and that I am going to start Varnhold at about 30+ kingdom hex size. The requirement to reach 80+ comes at the beginning of chapter 4 but with the big hex boost by claiming Varnhold and the increased ability to claim hexes it should be doable fairly quickly at that point. I know it says to start chapter 4 right away but I don't see any reason not to delay this a bit.
Now as to incentive to expand. A big one has been the resources and half priced large structures they can claim. They have also made regular trips back to Restov to buy needed items, curing, spells, etc... In doing so roads became important for speeding up their travel times. Roads also became important for establishing a trade route with their capital Stagfort (they are working on one with Varnhold now - when it is finished I will give them a +1bp per month bonus until Varnhold "vanishes" which then becomes that much more meaningful). I personally tie in the character backgrounds with things they discover and so they are driven to claim such areas (e.g. My worshipers of Erastil or Gozreh want to claim the lost temple and statue. My elven player wants to claim lost elven sites: castle and island). Making the sites important and meaningful helps a lot. The safety factor for themselves and their people is a big one also. Once the land is "tamed" by claiming it everything gets a lot safer for everyone. I also tend to make what they claim fairly meaningful for their kingdom. For example, they claim the mud bowl suddenly their kingdom is becoming reknown for the pottery made from it. They build a pier, they are suddenly able to travel by water. I also play up the defensive nature of claiming hexes. Those distant watchtowers are invaluable! That pays off in the later chapters. There's lots more but let me know if you have questions or any of this has been useful.
I know you asked for just mechanical and there is a lot of that hidden in there but I wanted to give a complete picture...and sometimes the mechanics are things I add like the pier or trade-routes.