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I'm studying the kingdom rules from Ultimate Campaign. It says that hexes you add to the kingdom should be connected.
How do you spread to a new island? Do you also annex ocean hexes? Suppose another kingdom (B) is also connecting islands, and their route crosses yours;
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A 0 B
0 0 0
B 0 A
Can your connecting hexes cross peacefully?
Do you even need to own ocean hexes at all to connect your islands? Do these hexes count towards kingdom size?
Claiming Water and Islands
When you claim a hex that contains part of an ocean or lake, your claim includes the water portion of that hex. In effect, your kingdom automatically controls a small portion of the waters adjacent to its coastline. Because any new hex you claim must be adjacent to an existing hex in your kingdom, if you want to claim land beyond that water (such as an island), you must first explore and claim the intervening deep water hexes. Your exploration only applies to the water's surface—you are searching for uncharted islands, dangerous reefs, and so on. The GM may want to treat the underwater portion of a hex as a separate hex, much like a network of large caves under a hex may count as its own hex, allowing a village of merfolk or sahuagin to thrive in your kingdom without your knowledge.
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Hmm. I must have overlooked that.
Still, doesn't that create an awkward situation, if the island is situated quite a few hexes from the coast? For example the distance between Norway and the Faroe islands? (Historically That's 420 miles, or 35 hexes iirc; a huge strain on your kingdom. But it's not like you're doing a whole lot with those hexes.
And it gets worse if you have two kingdoms with sea routes to islands that cross each other; can they share a crossing hex?
I agree with Kazaan. Whilst the Wealthy Sponsor rules don't explicitly include "Colony" as an option, it is a reasonable way to handle it. I would suggest requiring that the colony tithe to the founding kingdom (I'm in favour of "10% of earnings raised in step 4 of the Income phase"), but run it as a kingdom in its own right. Allow transfer of BP from one to the other during the Income phase, but treat it the same as the rulers of the kingdom drawing funds from the treasury for personal use (to reflect that the citizens of the founding kingdom might rebel at the idea of paying for those silly fools who decided to settle hundreds/thousands of miles away, and the citizens of the colony might not like the idea of paying more than their dues).
Should the colony decide to secede from the kingdom, the rules already exist for independence (but will need to be tweaked to account for the fact that it's not a single, unified kingdom that's being split up).
The claiming of water hexes thing is really to cover a kingdom claiming a whole lake as their own, or that group of Islands thirty miles out to sea.
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I think this deserves a small house rule module. As I'm thinking about it, the problem isn't really restricted to overseas dependencies. Historically, nobles often owned non-contiguous estates (hexes) scattered through a region. This was considered a normal situation, not an impending crisis.
Of course, if you have scattered lands, traveling between them is important. If the ruler in the middle is hostile to you, you have a problem. I'm thinking, if travel is obstructed you start suffering the penalties for unconnected sections of the kingdom. If travel is safe (which may require periodic punitive expeditions against monsters and bandits) then we move to System B.
In System B, you can have noncontiguous territories without massive penalties, but there is some overhead. Say that any disconnected territory is considered 10% bigger for upkeep cost purposes. If the territory also lacks a settlement (to coordinate local government) this penalty increases to 20%. If the territory is exceedingly distant there's another 10% penalty.
Colonies meanwhile, are separate kingdoms that acknowledge you as superior. They pay you 10% tribute regardless of distance. Ideally, a remote colony is more efficient than a remote territory, and functions better when isolation happens. On the other hand, a territory gives you more control.
For shorter distances though, you would prefer to connect noncontiguous territories.
Ah, well now, the thing is, generally speaking, nobles would have numerous holdings that are non-contiguous, but would still be part of the same overall kingdom.
Which just led me to look up the Vassalage Edict in the optional rules, and lo and behold, what do I find? Colonisation rules.
Vassalage Edicts
Vassalage edicts are special edicts that allow you to cede a portion of your lands (or unclaimed lands you deem yours to take) to a subordinate leader, sponsoring that leader's rulership in exchange for fealty. You can also use a Vassalage edict to found a colony beholden to your kingdom. You may also use a Vassalage edict to subjugate an existing kingdom you have conquered without having to absorb the entire kingdom hex by hex. When you issue a Vassalage edict, you must select a person to take the Viceroy leadership role.Issuing a Vassalage edict requires you to spend 1d4 BP and give additional BP to the Viceroy as a starting Treasury for the vassal kingdom (just as a wealthy sponsor may have granted to your initial Treasury). You may give up to 1/4 of your kingdom's Treasury to your new vassal as a grant to help found the kingdom.
When you issue a Vassalage edict, you are creating a new kingdom or attaching an existing kingdom to your own. Your vassal functions in most respects as a separate entity with its own kingdom scores. You decide how it is governed; you may give its leaders full autonomy, or give occasional suggestions or commands about buildings and improvements, or control it directly by giving orders to the Viceroy.
New Vassal or Colony: When you issue a Vassalage edict to create a new colony or kingdom, you may immediately establish an embassy, treaty, or alliance (your choice) with your new vassal (see Diplomatic edicts). You may decide that the treaty and alliance are balanced or unbalanced. These decisions are automatically successful and do not require rolls.
Subjugation: When you issue this edict to subjugate another kingdom, you may immediately establish an embassy, but you must follow the normal rules if you wish to establish a treaty or alliance. If you spend BP on bribes or gifts to reduce the DC and you succeed at forming the treaty or alliance, you may count half of this amount as going toward new improvements or buildings built in the vassal kingdom that turn.
The starting attitude of the vassal kingdom is based on alignment compatibility (as per Diplomatic edicts) and modified by the circumstances under which you deposed the prior leadership per GM discretion—for example, improving if you removed a hated tyrant or worsening if you unseated a popular ruler.
Subjugation may cause friction between your established citizens and the newly conquered. You must attempt a Loyalty check each turn (when you issue the edict, and on future turns during the Upkeep phase), increasing the DC by the subjugated kingdom's Size divided by 5. Failure means Unrest increases by 1d4. If you succeed at this check three turns in a row, you establish a peaceful equilibrium and no longer need to attempt these checks.
Vacancy Penalty: If the vassal kingdom take a vacancy penalty for not having a Viceroy or a Viceroy not doing his duties, that kingdom also takes the Ruler vacancy penalty. A Consort or Heir from your kingdom may mitigate this penalty if she is touring the vassal state; however, she cannot also mitigate the Ruler vacancy penalty in your kingdom.
Read the first part again: you can cede a portion of your territory to someone to rule for you. Essentially, you are creating a sub-kingdom within your existing kingdom. Which is exactly the process by which duchies, counties, and baronies work in the feudal system: the baron is a vassal of the count is a vassal of the duke is a vassal of the king.
The fact that the same rules can also be used to establish colonies outside your kingdom is a bonus.
The problem (which I think is where you're coming from) is that the vassal states and/or colonies do not affect the kingdom statistics of the kingdom as a whole. It is entirely possible for a full-blown feudal kingdom to have (for example):
24 baronies of 1 hex each.
6 counties of 4 baronies.
2 duchies of 3 counties.
1 kingdom of 2 duchies.
This is a size zero kingdom. The duchies are size zero kingdoms. The counties are size zero kingdoms. The baronies are size 1 kingdoms.
The king, therefore, is the overall leader of 24 hexes, but his "kingdom" has no size at all. (Speaking practically, the counties, duchies, and the kingdom should really each have 1 hex containing a settlement which is the administrative centre for that sub-kingdom, which would make this "kingdom" take up 33 hexes, and the king has 1 hex, but that's by the by.)
This is the feudal system at work: in exchange for fealty, the ruler gives a subordinate control of a piece of his kingdom. It keeps the ruler's costs down, but actually provides significant advantages (especially if you implement the 10% tithe upwards - which I pulled from the rules for establishing a kingdom, not out of thin air).
In game terms, though, the bookkeeping would be a nightmare I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Now, back to the original question: I see nothing wrong with allowing a single kingdom to be made up of discrete, geographically isolated parts, but doing so will require some significant hand-waving about mutual support. It would be more realistic to use separate kingdoms (and the simulationist in me would argue that if you're bothering with the complexities of the kingdom rules, you may as well try to be somewhat realistic), but if the players and GM all buy into the idea, there's no reason not to ignore the normal restrictions.
I think if you really want to have a contiguous kingdom, you really are going to have to control even that open water between the islands. It would be no different than controlling open field between settlements in a kingdom.
Is this a rules-based "really are" or a reality-based "really are"?
You could just claim a portion of deep sea hexes in a straight line to where you want to go, then claim the next islands hexes.