My group has just finished about a year's worth of kingdom building, and has 40-some hexes, consisting of most of the stolen lands. They have four cities of various levels of construction, with their capital about to need a second district soon. They have kingdom stats in the upper 50s, and a pretty decent economy.
Meanwhile, Varnhold has covered 19 hexes, and has a single city, with a single 21/36 (59%) full district. (I'll leave aside the difference between the "official" size of a block compared to what's in the Varnhold map.) It's kingdom stats, assuming a +1 mod in each position, low edicts, NG alignment, and a farm everywhere they could stuff one, are in the high teens. (E19, L15, S21).
Given the kingdoms were started around the same time, that's a pretty huge difference. Can it just be chalked up to the conflict with the Nomen? If so, how do I justify that there aren't more defensive buildings? All the money went into the army (which then disappeared with the rest)?
I ran into the same concerns myself, and had to make some justifications. Here's what I used...
- Varn was tasked with 'Dealing with the Nomen', and even though he immediately got a settlement charter, he hasn't yet dealt with the Nomen, so he never received the initial 50 BP subsidy that jumpstarted the PCs kingdom.
- Diplomacy never occurred to Varn ("negotiate with half-bestial barbarians? Nonsense."), and so he has spent a fair amount of capital intermittently raising and supporting military units to make strikes against the Nomen (but his economy isn't able to support long-term operations).
- His unfortunate fetish for claiming every contiguous hex (notably the mountains) regardless of whether it is productive has damaged his ecomony. My PC's still haven't claimed all of the Narlmarches, as they've been careful not to over-claim areas they can't farm.
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That's how I justified it. Varn has been at war with the Nomen since near the beginning of the campaign. It's been bleeding his treasury dry. The players if they did go to war with Hargulka should have had a fairly decisive victory fairly quickly (plus they had time to grow bigger before being drawn into a war). Varnhold was at war since day one, and paying soldiers, mercenaries and widow's pensions is not cheap by any means.
That said: I still gave him a bunch more farmlands in the hexes surrounding Varnhold and a watchtower in the mountains.
Additionally if Vordekai didn't make Varnhold's citizens all disappear Varn would have succeeded in his war and driven the Centaurs into Iobaria, and without any other major threats in the region would have rapidly grown to rival the PCs.
Funny ol' world.
Thanks, it's good to know other people have thought about it and come to the same conclusions. And in writing up the question, I realized that the city was more built up than I thought at first, which is another good realization. So this seems much more justifiable than it did originally.
** spoiler omitted **
Ooh, I like this idea. I just need to let the spymaster know he should start looking into their neighbors...
If Varn has been waging war with the centaurs for a year+, and the PCs kno wabout it, are you planning on changing VV?
Perhaps a war with the spriggans would work better. Varnhold didn't need a lot defenses but they did need to root the buggers out of the mountains. That explains why Varnhold bothered to claim the mountain hexes.
It's early in my campaign, but I'm thinking that Drelev and Varn don't get along. Perhaps Drelev's political connections kept Varn from getting the kingdom building resources from Restov. Perhaps the PCs will have to ally with Drelev as well to get all of their resources.
If Varn has been waging war with the centaurs for a year+, and the PCs kno wabout it, are you planning on changing VV?
In my game, the PC's pretty much blame Varn for his poor relations with the Centaurs...even though they really like him. They expect to be shot at by the Nomen when they enter the plains, and have resolved to avoid killing any of them, hoping to get the opportunity to talk (they've got a couple of silver tongues in the party).
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If Varn has been waging war with the centaurs for a year+, and the PCs kno wabout it, are you planning on changing VV?In my game, the PC's pretty much blame Varn for his poor relations with the Centaurs...even though they really like him. They expect to be shot at by the Nomen when they enter the plains, and have resolved to avoid killing any of them, hoping to get the opportunity to talk (they've got a couple of silver tongues in the party).
If folks look up Dudemeister's Varnhold Vanishing they'll see rules for getting trust with the Centaurs. Varn is an imperialist, and diplomacy was never on the table for him. The PCs need not be so violent.
I am putting that Varn is simply not very active in city building. The town is small because he wants a small town, as do most of his followers.
This is expressed in that if the player's meet them before their unfortunate 'vacation' or should the player somehow prevent the worst, that this small 3 hex kingdom simply putters on slowly and resists claiming near them. People are nice, but very independent, and will remind visitors who brag that this is their town, their rules.
Players don't respect them and try to attack? Centaurs refocus on them, and Varnhold hunkers down, calling for Brevoy support. If necessary, Surtova will favor Varnhold, and Brevoy favor the players.
I haven't read VV yet - are we supposed to be building up Varnhold as the players build their own kingdom?
I haven't read VV yet - are we supposed to be building up Varnhold as the players build their own kingdom?
You could if you want to, but there's no need. There's specific things like "this hex already has a farm" and "when you claim varnhold, place these buildings for free" already written in.
It depends on your players. IMC, the Grand Diplomat and Spymaster were immediately interested in their neighbors, so I've been roughly been keeping track of the growth of both Varnhold and Drelev's Domain.
I think it has added a fair amount of immersion value to the campaign
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I believe RAW is that the PC's kingdom can only claim 1 hex per month while the kingdom is sized 1 to 10 hexes.
So if this rule is used, then 1 year into kingdom building they'd have 14 hexes at most. Or it'd take 14 months before they've claimed 18 hexes.
I've been having Varn keep pace with the PC kingdom on a hex-by-hex basis, so they will be tied at 18 hexes somewhere in the 14-18 month range.
Whenever the PC kingdom reaches 18 hexes is immediately when I kick off Book 3... thus far, it's feeling like things are timed "just right" based on how aggressively the PCs are out hunting for trolls at the moment in month 10.
I believe RAW is that the PC's kingdom can only claim 1 hex per month while the kingdom is sized 1 to 10 hexes.
So if this rule is used, then 1 year into kingdom building they'd have 14 hexes at most. Or it'd take 14 months before they've claimed 18 hexes.
I've been having Varn keep pace with the PC kingdom on a hex-by-hex basis, so they will be tied at 18 hexes somewhere in the 14-18 month range.
Whenever the PC kingdom reaches 18 hexes is immediately when I kick off Book 3... thus far, it's feeling like things are timed "just right" based on how aggressively the PCs are out hunting for trolls at the moment in month 10.
The reccomendation in the book is that the kingdom have 75-80 hexes at the end of book 3. You sound like you're on-track for 40-60. I'm not sure if it matters, though.
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My players are at the end of book 2 and are 7th level.
They have a trade agreement with Varn (proposed by Varn): he ship construction stone down the Shrike till the first series of falls where the two kingdoms have build a jointly owned trading post and there he exchange it for food.
Judging by the map the PC kingdom would lack good quarries so it would be a worthwhile trade.
Recently an edict offering a bounty for centaur pelts and a reward for resolving the problem with the centaurs by sword or word has been issued by Restov.
My Varn is a building a strong colony, but most of his good farmland is threatened by centaurs.
Then, unless the PC get there immediately after the people disapparence, you must rememebr that "If the kingdom’s Unrest is 11 or higher, it loses one hex chosen by the kingdom’s leaders. Any improvements in that hex (farmlands and roads) are lost and must be rebuilt after the hex is reclaimed."
I think that losing all the population in a hex is a way to lose the hex.
So when the PC reach Varn kingdom most of the developed hexes have reverted to unclaimed.