***Minor Spoilers Follow - Non-GMs have been warned***
I am starting War of the River Kings with my long time game group. We began the campaign with the whole kingdom building subsystem bolted on, but my highly gamerist players very quickly managed to break the system to the point that they created an insurmountable economic engine - they literally could not fail any non-screwjob event (except by rolling a 1), and they had so much in the treasury that any minor setback in kingdom stability could be easily fixed with cash the following round. Pretty soon we decided to handwave the kingdom building since it was just a time sink, and no one was really having much fun with it.
Now that we're getting into WotRK, I want them to have the experience commanding armies. I'm planning to follow the Will Save alternate rules to substitute for Loyalty checks, but I do want them to have the game of building and maintaining an army.
My plan at this point to is give them small militias as already constituted units in their settlements. They were always concerned about defense, so it makes sense they would have a low level of armed troops in existence. My idea is to set them up with a treasury of build points and a reasonable monthly income. That would allow them to build up forces and have to budget their resources to keep the armies equipped.
What I need help with is figuring out a reasonable size for the treasury and what their monthly income should be. They've basically "won" every challenge so far - they created an alliance with the centaurs, they rebuilt Varnhold after rescuing the remaining villagers, they liberated Ft. Drelev in no time and with no civilian casualites to speak of - essentially, they have done about as well for their kingdom as the AP assumes they could do.
Given those priors, what seems like a reasonable nest egg and income? We meet tonight, but we're just starting the module so it will be at least a week or two before I'd need to worry about it too much.
Thanks in advance!
I would say, figure out what armies you want them to have, calculate consumption from the armies, and base it on that.