How can 250 population per lot be correct? (Page 212 of Ultimate Campaign)
I am using 18 to 20 population per lot (and even that is a stretch in small or new conurbations), in building my world, until one of you sages here explain to me what I am missing....and I certainly must be missing something.
Thanks in advance!
A lot is 250 meters a side and comprises of accomidation and the noted building typeand as there is no population for claimed hexes I assume it incorporates this as well.
Well when a "House" is "a number of mid-sized houses for citizens" the lots are a bit abstract.
Like the others have mentioned, lot buildings are abstract - think of each lot as a neighborhood.
When you build a Shop you're actually building a small financial district with a wide array of stores.
When you build an exotic artisan you're founding a small industrial complex complete with housing for employees.
When you build a market you're actually starting something the equivalent of the Bazaar of Sails.
How can 250 population per lot be correct? (Page 212 of Ultimate Campaign)
I am using 18 to 20 population per lot (and even that is a stretch in small or new conurbations), in building my world, until one of you sages here explain to me what I am missing....and I certainly must be missing something.
Thanks in advance!
In the real middle ages a typical city had about 4 - 5 people per building. About 38000 people per square mile was the average medieval urban population.
250 meters x 250 meters is about the size of 2 - 3 city blocks. When compared to the RL population in a medieval city it should have a population closer to 950 people.
So basically, you are saying that UC`s population assumptions only work with rather large cities?
Actually I am not sure why an attempt to tie population to lots on a "district" grid was made at all...
From a mechanics standpoint what is material is that population, on table 4-5, Drives Base Value, which in turn affects the max value of the available magic items in the conurbation.
It hard for me to see the logic in that..... I guess I asked the wrong question.
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I did a fair amount of customizing with the old Kingmaker kingdom building rules. One idea I had decided on (but never actually wrote down or fine tuned) was to mark each lot as "sparse," "average," or "dense." A sparse lot might literally have just the indicated building plus a few houses, an average lot might have a couple examples of the indicated building, several houses and a small shop or two, and a dense lot might be a whole shopping district or a whole entertainment district. This is partly to explain how a village and a metropolis can use the same system. In Kingmaker, some of the towns had both stat blocks and maps, and the maps showed a 1:1 relationship between buildings in the stat block and buildings on the map. Which is how it needs to be in a village, otherwise the whole village would be just a single lot. But a metropolis needs much higher density.
As far as game effects, I would probably just leave Economy and Stability, etc. alone (although I can see higher density being more economically productive but maybe generating some problems with stability or unrest) and just scale the population, something like 50 for a sparse lot, 250 for an average lot, and 1250 for a dense lot. Like I said, I decided on the idea but not the details.
Thanks, for this.
What do you think about Base Value being "used to determine what magic items may be purchased there"?
I can`t see the logic thread in that one, and is actually why this population question bothers me (otherwise, I`d just take the pragmatic approach, and count the folks who`d logically be living in the towns I build, despite what the UC tells me...).
My problem is that Population is driving Base Value, which in turn drives a MATERIAL mechanical point with regards to magic availability.
And population doesn`t have a real basis....
If you want a more realistic population generation, I'd actually look at Ultimate Rulership. It's by the guy that wrote the kingdom building rules in UCamp and has an alternative to population. In this, building a specific building increases the population by a small amount (double digits), and the type of settlement also changes how much population you have. UCamp assumes that the city you start building starts as a Small Town, which is fine for some. The Ultimate Rulership assumes that the city you start building starts as a Village, which is fine too. I'd definitely take a look at that. It's right up your alley.
Also, Base Value is more tied to the size of the city, rather than the population. It's always been like that, since the CRB. I personally prefer that.
Thanks, for this.
What do you think about Base Value being "used to determine what magic items may be purchased there"?
I can`t see the logic thread in that one, and is actually why this population question bothers me (otherwise, I`d just take the pragmatic approach, and count the folks who`d logically be living in the towns I build, despite what the UC tells me...).
My problem is that Population is driving Base Value, which in turn drives a MATERIAL mechanical point with regards to magic availability.
And population doesn`t have a real basis....
I would say that this is also an abstract concept , basically the more people in the city the more likely some thing will be produced coupled with higher population means higher amount of magic users/creators. If you want a more realistic (record intensive) approach you ould always link it to academys/temples/black markets etc and do away with the item slots.
I did a fair amount of customizing with the old Kingmaker kingdom building rules. One idea I had decided on (but never actually wrote down or fine tuned) was to mark each lot as "sparse," "average," or "dense." A sparse lot might literally have just the indicated building plus a few houses, an average lot might have a couple examples of the indicated building, several houses and a small shop or two, and a dense lot might be a whole shopping district or a whole entertainment district. This is partly to explain how a village and a metropolis can use the same system. In Kingmaker, some of the towns had both stat blocks and maps, and the maps showed a 1:1 relationship between buildings in the stat block and buildings on the map. Which is how it needs to be in a village, otherwise the whole village would be just a single lot.
That's actually fairly accurate. Medieval villages were quite small and most of them were fewer than 250 meters across. And surrounded by fields. This meant that the houses were clustered together for convenience and safety (usually near the church and or the well) and then people would wander out into the outskirts to work their alloted plots of land. A single lot of Tenements would cover "the village," precisely because you don't really want to have to make a map detailed enough to show Farmer Jones' pigsty and Widow Brown's herb garden.
Similarly, Widow Brown may or may not be a witch and may or may not be able to brew potions, or craft useful herbal poultices, or something like that. Tenements don't have great chances to have magic items -- in fact, they don't have any. But when there's enough population to justify settling another district, perhaps an Herbalist, that might be her getting enough spare land to start making potions and selling them.
If you want a more realistic population generation, I'd actually look at Ultimate Rulership. It's by the guy that wrote the kingdom building rules in UCamp and has an alternative to population. In this, building a specific building increases the population by a small amount (double digits), and the type of settlement also changes how much population you have. UCamp assumes that the city you start building starts as a Small Town, which is fine for some. The Ultimate Rulership assumes that the city you start building starts as a Village, which is fine too. I'd definitely take a look at that. It's right up your alley.
Also, Base Value is more tied to the size of the city, rather than the population. It's always been like that, since the CRB. I personally prefer that.
Nice tip! I actually had UR in my downloads already, and haven`t devoted much time yet. I wanted to study the UC first.
You are right, UR has more of the sort granularity that I am looking for.
One of these days, when I'm finished tweaking it, I'll have to post my City/Kingdom Class Demographics Spreadsheet to everyone. It helps to separate what amount of citizens are what class. It uses a modified version of the demographic rules in 3.5 DMG and ties the Kingdom Building rules (and certain buildings) to increasing max level-cap, class apprentices, and amount of people as a certain class. Also, styles of government affect class amounts and max level cap for a class. Like, a magocracy will have more arcane casters, while a dictatorship will have more fighters. And even the setting affects the population, so a Far East setting will have more monks, samurai, and ninjas, while a frontier setting would have more barbarians and druids.
I do need to post this...