Building Capacity under Kingmaker / Ultimate Campaign Rules

[Solauren]

Simple enough question -

Is there anywhere in the rules that stays how many customers/clients/whatever some of the buildings can have?

i.e How many customers can a Tavern have at a time? What about an Inn? Dance Hall?
How many people can live in Tenament housing

etc.

[Freddy Forelle]

Disclaimer
This post is heavily influenced by my thoughts

I think the answer you are looking for isn't detailed in the rules.

The only passage coming close to an answer is under Settlements:

"Population: A settlement’s population is approximately equal to the number of completed lots within its districts × 250. a grid that has all 36 lots filled with buildings has a population of approximately 9,000."

I would say the answer on how many people could live in 1 lot of tenements depends on different factors.

-how many adjacent workplaces need to be supplied with workers
-how big/old the settlement is
Etc.

The exact number of resident could fluctuate. Like in city builder games a residential zoning only dictates which kind of building can be built there not the exact variant of building.

As far as I can see commercial buildings are worded as single variants. I would still say that if one doesn't go for a big tavern that there should be different little places to hang out and drink.

As always I would say the best way to determine what is best for your campaign discuss with your players and manage their expectations.

[Chemlak]

Freddy is basically correct. Even with the expanded rules in Ultimate Kingdoms from Legendary Games, nothing dictates the precise scale of any structures that make up a Building.

Given that a single lot is 750x750 feet, a single building can be pretty darn big.

[Touc]

Yes, not really, and no.

If you use the default rules, no. If you get Buhlman's Legendary Games accessory for kingdom building and warfare, then yes and not really. Your buildings increase population of the kingdom, which influences how many troops you can recruit at a given time. Otherwise, it's your call.

Not every gamer is going to prefer this level of micromanagement, so if the better answer is to make it whatever your group wants, then that's the best answer. For me, I am running heavy-fey influenced campaign currently. I have a 3rd party book with a city influenced by fey.

So, as the fledgling kingdom develops, when they build the Inn, I populate it with a specific Inn from that book, and I mix it into the adventure (e.g. making Lily Teskertin the new owner). My gamers like seeing the village grow from the ground up, to get to know the people taking a chance on them on the frontier.

Everything you do should make for cool adventure, not bookkeeping, which will exhaust your players. So, if you're concerned about population or who is in the Inn, think why. If your Inn has guests that lead to further adventure, fantastic.

*On one of our adventures, the party sent its wizard invisibly into the Inn to listen to gossip because someone(s) was riling up the craftsmen, drawing obscene graffiti about the ruler, and skimming taxes. He made the bad choice to try and pilfer Lily Teskertin's keys and missed, hitting her rear end in the process. This led to a debacle where he fled out the kitchen door, still invisible, and the village-wide search for the "invisible pervert." The PCs turned this to their advantage by having their Wizard go door-to-door casting pretend-security spells to ward off the "invisible pervert," and giving them an excuse to search houses. This paid off because he found one of their tax collectors dipped into some finances, at first for personal gain. Then he noticed poor people couldn't pay their taxes, cut them a break, and made up the difference of the theft and charity by overtaxing some of the craftsmen. Of course, the craftsmen wanted blood, and the wife and children of the tax guy wanted mercy for doing "right" versus what was "lawful."*