Simple Sample Borderlands Domains

Following my simplifying assumption for wilderness, I find myself generating a big old hexmap with a lot of empty space and some scattered domains here and there.  Some of them are semi-barbarian domains, and they don't fit well into the civilized simple domains that I worked up previously.

So here are some statblocks for borderlands domains under the same set of assumptions as last time (maximally centralized, no vassals under counts, land value 6, fixed population density which is not 200 rural families per hex instead of 450, no population growth over time, simplified pillaging).  I'm pulling these results from a spreadsheet I haven't touched in four months, so some of them may be incorrect (and they certainly haven't been updated for the revised domain system).  Should be fun.

Independent Barony

• Size: 1 6-mile hex
• Population: 200 rural families, 20 urban families
• Net domain income: 1.2kgp/mo
• Market: Class VI hamlet at stronghold
• Gives liege lord: the finger
• Ruler max level from domain income: 6th
• Stronghold value: 22.5kgp, small round stone tower with an earthen rampart, palisade wall, unfilled moat, and drawbridge
• Garrison: 0.6kgp/mo, 1 platoon heavy infantry and half a platoon of bowmen
• Field army: 2 platoons light infantry, 1 platoon bowmen, 2 platoons heavy infantry
• Tribute if vassalized: 0.5 kgp/mo
• Pillaging:
• Requires 600 troops and 1 day
• Yields 2.3 kgp in gold, 6.1 kgp in supplies, 4.8 kgp in prisoners
• A pillaged borderlands barony has its net domain income reduced to 0 (29.7 gp/mo, to be precise, but practically 0), and its garrison requirement reduced to 0.2 kgp/mo
• It costs 31.8 kgp to unpillage an independent barony
• Razing:
• Requires 600 troops and 4 days
• Liberates 4.4 kgp in gold, 11 kgp in supplies, and 8.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain is destroyed
• Stronghold is somewhat damaged

Independent March

• Size: 4 6-mile hexes
• Population: 800 rural families, 80 urban families
• Net domain income: 4.7 kgp/mo
• Market: Class VI small village
• Ruler max level from domain income: 8th
• Stronghold value: 90kgp, square keep with earthen rampart, palisade, and wooden drawbridge
• Garrison: 2.6 kgp/mo, 1 company heavy infantry and 2 platoons bowmen
• Field army: 2 companies light infantry, 2 companies bowmen, 1 company heavy infantry
• Tribute if vassalized: 2kgp/mo
• Pillaging:
• Requires 2400 troops and takes 1d3 days
• Yields 9.2 kgp in gold, 24.2 kgp in supplies, and 19.4 kgp in prisoners
• A pillaged borderlands march has its net domain income reduced to 0.1 kgp/mo and its garrison requirement reduced to 0.8 kgp/mo.  Its market is reduced to a hamlet, but remains a class VI.
• It costs 127.2 kgp to unpillage a borderlands march
• Razing:
• Requires 2400 troops and 4d3 days
• Yields 17.6 kgp in gold, 44 kgp in supplies, and 35.2 kgp in prisoners
• Domain is destroyed, stronghold is damaged

Independent County

• Size: 16 6-mile hexes
• Population: 3200 rural families, 320 urban families
• Net domain income: 18.8 kgp/mo
• Market: Class V large village
• Ruler max level from domain income: 11th (most will be 10th)
• Stronghold value: 360kgp, square keep with 30' high stone curtain walls, barbican, and large round towers at its corners, filled moat, the works.
• Garrison: 10.2 kgp/mo, 2 companies bowmen, 1 company heavy infantry, 2 companies light cavalry
• Field army: 5 companies light infantry, 4 companies bowmen, 4 companies heavy infantry, 4 companies light cavalry
• Tribute if vassalized: 7.9 kgp/mo
• Pillaging:
• Requires 7200 troops and 1d4 days
• Yields 37 kgp in gold, 96.8 kgp in supplies, and 77.4 kgp in prisoners
• A pillaged borderlands county has its net domain income reduced to 0.5 kgp/mo and its garrison requirement reduced to 3.2 kgp/mo.  Its market is reduced to a village, but remains class V
• It costs 509 kgp to unpillage a borderlands county
• Razing:
• Requires 7200 troops and 4d4 days
• Yields 70.4 kgp in gold, 176 kgp in supplies, and 140.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain is destroyed, stronghold is damaged

Above counties, you start getting large towns for your market, which project a ring of civilized around themselves and the whole exercise breaks down.

If you want to throw borderlands domains a bone, consider: as a result of typical borderlands extracurricular activities like raiding and counter-raiding, conscripts raised from borderlands domains arrive fully trained and armed in proportions based on culture (eg, a Scottish-English borderlands province might raise something like 2 platoons of light cavalry, 1 platoon of heavy infantry, 1 platoon of bowmen, and 1 platoon of light infantry per 120 men, while Norse conscripts might be 2 platoons of heavy infantry, 1 platoon bowmen, and 1 platoon light infantry per 120 men), and their militia units arrive trained and equipped as light infantry.  This armed citizenry, of course, makes the threat of rebellion accordingly greater.

Simple Sample Orcish Domains

By request from Koewn, and in the style of Civilized Sample Simple Domains.  Here I am operating under the assumptions that they have captured a crumbling stronghold and are the sole occupiers of their hexes.

Orcish Sept

• Size: 1 6-mile hex
• Population: 188 rural families, 19 "urban" families.  283 adult male orcs, 238 adult females, 475 children, and 95 slaves is an average size for an orc lair.
• Net domain income: 520 gp/mo if independent, 170 gp/mo if tributary
• Market: Class VI hamlet in vicinity of stronghold
• Gives liege lord: 350 gp/mo if tributary
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 5th if independent, 4th if tributary
• Stronghold value: 22.5 kgp
• Garrison: 0.6 kgp/mo, 1 platoon of ogre light infantry ("the brute squad")
• Militia: 1 platoon veteran orcish heavy infantry (champions), 4 platoons orcish heavy infantry, 2 platoons orcish archers, 1 platoon orcish light infantry, 4 platoons "goblin" archers (orcish women fight as goblins, and half qualify as archers), 4 platoons "goblin" light infantry.  If organized as companies (and a 5HD chieftain can command at company-scale), probably 1 company orcish heavy infantry, 1 company orcish light infantry, 1 company goblin archers, 1 company goblin light infantry.
• Note that fielding the entire militia plus the ogres is ~5 kgp in supply+wages per month, which vastly outstrips domain income.  It's basically impossible to field a useful amount of troops on a 500gp/mo budget, so you have to raid, and you have to do it fast before you run out of cash to pay your orcs.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 600 troops and 1 day
• Yields 2.2 kgp in gold, 5.7 kgp in supplies, and 4.6 kgp in prisoners
• Net income reduced to 185 gp/mo and garrison to 271 gp/mo
• It costs 22.9 kgp to unpillage a sept
• A total militia wipe has economic consequences similar to being pillaged.
• Razing
• Requires 600 troops and 4 days
• Yields 4.1 kgp in gold, 10.3 kgp in supplies, and 8.3 kgp in prisoners
• Nominal treasure for an average orcish village is Gx5.5, or about 11 kgp before prisoners, so this is a little high but not by all that much
• Domain destroyed

Orcish Clan

• Size: 1 6-mile hex, with two septs joined under a single chieftain by marriage or conquest (pushing population density up to civilized).  Development characterized by religiously-justified hereditary nobility, social stratification, infrastructure projects (I'm thinking Diamond's description of Hawaiian chiefdoms in Guns, Germs, and Steel).
• Population: 376 rural families, 38 "urban" families.  This is close to the upper limit for beastman population density (390 rural families per hex)
• Net domain income: 1.6 kgp/mo, 0.9 kgp/mo if tributary
• Market: Class VI hamlet in vicinity of stronghold
• Gives liege lord: 0.7 kgp/mo if tributary
• Ruler max level from domain income: 7HD if independent, 6HD if tributary
• Stronghold value: 15 kgp (presumably they didn't so much tear down the old borderlands-grade stronghold as let maintenance lapse)
• Garrison: 0.8 kgp/mo, platoon of ogre light infantry and platoon of orc light infantry?
• Militia: 2 platoons veteran orcish heavy infantry, 2 companies orcish heavy infantry, 1 company orcish archers, 2 platoons orcish light infantry, 2 companies goblin archers, 2 companies goblin light infantry
• Pillaging:
• Requires 600 troops and 1 day
• Yields 4.3 kgp in gold, 11.4 kgp in supplies, 9.1 kgp in prisoners
• Net income reduced to 0.7 kgp/mo, garrison to 0.4 kgp/mo
• Costs to 45.8 kgp to unpillage
• Militia wipe has economic consequences comparable to pillage
• Razing:
• Requires 600 troops and 4 days
• Yields 8.3 kgp in gold, 20.7 kgp in supplies, and 16.6 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

 Orcish Tribe:

• Size: 2 hexes, each containing 2 septs
• Population: 752 rural families, 76 urban families
• Net domain income: 3.1 kgp/mo, 1.7 kgp/mo if tributary
• Market: Class VI Small Village
• Gives liege lord: 1.4 kgp/mo in taxes if tributary
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 8th if independent, 7th if tributary
• Stronghold value: 30 kgp
• Garrison: 1.7 kgp/mo, platoon of ogre heavy infantry
• Militia: company of orcish veteran heavy infantry, 4 companies orcish heavy infantry, 2 companies orcish archers, 1 company orcish light infantry, 4 companies goblin archers, 4 companies goblin light infantry
• Pillaging:
• Requires 2400 troops and 1d3 days
• Yields 8.7 kgp in gold, 22.8 kgp in supplies, and 18.2 kgp in prisoners
• Net income reduced to 1.4 kgp/mo, garrison to 0.7 kgp/mo
• Costs 91.3 kgp to unpillage
• Militia wipe has economic consequences similar to pillage
• Razing
• Requires 2400 troops and 4d3 days
• Yields 16.5 kgp in gold, 41.4 kgp in supplies, and 33.1 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

Orcish March:

• Size: 4 hexes, each containing 2 septs
• Population: 1505 rural families, 150 urban families
• Net domain income: 6.3 kgp/mo, 3.5 kgp/mo if tributary
• Market: Village, class V
• Gives liege lord: 2.8 kgp in taxes if tributary
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 9th if independent, 8th if tributary
• Stronghold value: 60 kgp
• Garrison: 3.3 kgp/mo, two platoons of ogre heavy infantry
• Militia: two companies orcish veteran heavy infantry, 8 companies orcish heavy infantry, 4 companies orcish archers, 2 companies orcish light infantry, 8 companies goblin archers, 8 companies goblin light infantry
• At this point you could take the 44 subchieftains and any of the 8 chieftains that you're not using as commanders, put them on boars, and have a superveteran shock cavalry company if you really wanted.  Probably more useful for raiding than battalion-scale defensive engagements that use the full militia.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 2400 troops and 1d3 days
• Yields 17.4 kgp in gold, 45.5 kgp in supplies, and 36.4 kgp in prisoners
• Net income reduced to 2.7 kgp/mo, garrison to 1.5 kgp/mo
• Costs 182.8 kgp to unpillage
• Militia wipe has economic consequences similar to pillage
• Razing
• Requires 2400 troops and 4d3 days
• Yields 33.1 kgp in gold, 82.7 kgp in supplies, and 66.2 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

 Orcish Horde:

• Size: 16 6-mile hexes, each containing two septs, 1 24-mile hex
• Population: 6019 rural families, 602 urban families (if free), or 301 urban families (if subject)
• Net domain income: 25.2 kgp/mo if free, 14.5 kgp if subject
• Market: Small town or large village, class V
• Gives liege lord: 11 kgp in taxes, 300 urban families
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 11th if free, 10th if subject
• Stronghold value: 240 kgp
• Garrison: 13 kgp (actually varies slight for free vs subject, but I'm not gonna worry about it), 2 companies ogre heavy infantry and misc other monsters
• Militia: One battalion superveteran orcish boar cavalry, two battalions veteran orcish heavy infantry, 8 battalions orcish heavy infantry, 4 battalions orcish archers, 2 battalions orcish light infantry, 8 battalions goblin archers, 8 battalions goblin light infantry.  Hooooly shit.  Even without the goblins they outnumber the forces of a prepared vassal county (ie, human realm of the same size) by more than two to one.  Horde mode working as intended.  Granted, they still suffer the two classic orc problems: can't pay their troops, and can't command their troops at this scale.  Maybe the point of feudalism in ACKS is to make sure you have subcommanders capable of commanding armies at close to the scale of your domain?
• Pillaging
• Requires 7200 troops and 1d4 days
• Pillaging a free horde yields 69.5 kgp in gold, 182 kgp in supplies, and 145.7 kgp in prisoners.
• Pillaging a subject horde yields 66.4 kgp in gold, 173.8 kgp in supplies, and 139 kgp in prisoners
• A pillaged free horde has a net income of 11 kgp/mo, 6 kgp/mo garrison, and costs 731.6 kgp to rebuild
• A pillaged subject horde has a net income of 6.2 kgp/mo, 5.7 kgp/mo garrison, 5 kgp in taxes, and costs 698.4 kgp to rebuild
• Market remains class V in both cases
• Militia wipe has economic consequences similar to pillage
• Razing
• Requires 7200 troops and 4d4 days
• Razing a free horde yields 132.4 kgp in gold, 331.1 kgp in supplies, and 264.8 kgp in prisoners
• Razing a subject horde yields 126.4 kgp in gold, 316 kgp in supplies, and 252.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain is destroyed

Orcish Ilkhanate (Under-khanate)

• Vassals: 5 subject hordes
• Size: One 24-mile hex, plus 5 24-mile hexes held by subjects
• Population: 6019 rural families, 1051 urban families
• Net domain income: 51.8 kgp/mo
• Market: Large town, class IV
• Gives liege lord: 22.7 kgp/mo, 1050 supported families
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 12th
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp
• Garrison: 14.1 kgp/mo, 2-3 companies ogre heavy infantry
• Militia: uhhh shit.  Honestly it's not much bigger than a horde's; ilkhanates have about two sept's worth of extra population, which doesn't really register when you're talking tens of battalions.  The main difference is ilkhanates can actually pay all of their heavy infantry without going bankrupt.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 7200 troops and 1d4 days
• Yields 74.2 kgp in gold, 194.4 kgp in supplies, and 155.5 kgp in prisoners
• Market downgraded to class V, small town
• Net income falls to 44.3 kgp/mo, garrison falls to 6.4 kgp/mo, tax falls to 16.3 kgp/mo
• Costs 781.2 kgp to unpillage
• Militia wipe has economic effects equivalent to pillage
• Razing:
• Requires 7200 troops and 4d4 days
• Yields 141.4 kgp in gold, 353.5 kgp in supplies, and 282.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

Orcish Khanate

• Subject to an orcish khaganate
• Vassals: 5 ilkhanates
• Size: 1 24-mile hex, plus 30 24-mile hexes held by subjects
• Population: 6019 rural families, 2926 urban families
• Net domain income: 89 kgp/mo
• Market: City, class III
• Gives liege lord: 35.7 kgp/mo, 2925 urban families
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 13th
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp
• Garrison: 17.9 kgp/mo, three companies of ogre heavy infantry
• Militia: About one and a half times that of a horde.  So one battalion of superveteran boar cavalry, three battalions veteran heavy infantry, 12 battalions orcish heavy infantry, 6 battalions orcish archers, 3 battalions orcish light infantry, 12 battalions goblin archers, 12 battalions goblin light infantry.  Or, in brigades, one brigade veteran heavy infantry (the subchiefs can join them I guess), 3 brigades orcish heavy infantry, one brigade orcish archers, one brigade orcish light infantry, three brigades each of goblin archers and light infantry.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 12000 troops and 1d6 days
• Yields 93.9 kgp in gold, 246 kgp in supplies, and 196.8 kgp in prisoners
• Market reduced to small city, class IV
• Net income reduced to 83.5 kgp/mo, garrison to 8.1 kgp/mo, tax to 28.5 kgp/mo
• Costs 988.3 kgp to unpillage a khanate's seat
• Razing:
• Requires 12000 troops and 4d6 days
• Yields 178.9 kgp in gold, 447.3 kgp in supplies, and 357.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

Orcish Khaganate (khan of khans)

• Subject to none.
• Vassals: 5 khanates
• Size: 1 24-mile hex, plus 155 24-mile hexes held by subjects
• Population: 6019 rural families, 15227 urban families
• Net domain income: 172.9 kgp/mo
• Market: Large City, class II
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 14th
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp
• Garrison: 42.5 kgp/mo, two battalions of ogre heavy infantry
• Militia: About three and a half times that of a horde.  Rounding to 4 for ease of use.  One brigade of superveteran boar cavalry, three brigades veteran heavy infantry, 12 brigades orcish heavy infantry, 6 brigades orcish archers, 3 brigades orcish light infantry, 12 brigades goblin archers, 12 brigades  goblin light infantry.  Again, outnumbers the field army of an equivalent human domain (imperial seat) by a wide margin - 49 brigades vs their 15.  Still cannot hope to supply all those troops.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 24000 troops and 1d8 days
• Yields 223.1 kgp in gold, 584.3 kgp in supplies, and 467.4 kgp in prisoners
• Market remains a large city, class II
• Net income reduced to 166.6 kgp/mo (it turns out that orcish urban families are net-negative, even in large cities - 4gp/mo urban income, vs 1.6 gp/mo in festival, 1.5 gp/mo in upkeep, 2gp/mo in garrison = 5.1gp/mo expenses.  So losing 7500 urban families is actually good for income... but bad for militia troop limits), garrison to 19.1 kgp/mo
• Costs 2,347.7 kgp to unpillage a khaganate's seat
• Losing all of your militia has economic consequences similar to being pillaged
• Razing:
• Requires 24000 troops and 4d8 days
• Yields 424.9 kgp in gold, 1,062.3 kgp in supplies, and 849.8 kgp in prisoners
• Domain destroyed

Hmm.  Maybe I should've set urban population fraction lower?  That would help solve the economic "can't feed my troooops" problem.

Civilized Simple Sample Domains

So I complained previously that generating NPC domains with ACKS' rules required like...  understanding them and thinking and doing math, all of which suck when you're in a hurry.  So here I'm going to make some simplifying assumptions, take a whole bunch of variables out of the equation, and just leave the usable end-results.  We are here to answer the following important questions:

• What does holding one of these do for you?
• What does having one of these as a vassal do for you?
• How tough is one of these?
• If you kill one, how much loot is there?

Assumptions:

• No sub-6-mile-hex domains.  I'm also going to mirror what my players would do in terms of growth strategy ("Maximum personal domain size is a 24-mile hex; why the heck would you want vassals if your total domain size were smaller than that?"), because it makes everything simpler!  Also because the ACKS book makes it clear that personal domain sizes vary with realm size, but doesn't make explicit just how big they are (or what population density they used) to derive personal domain populations, so I'm gonna simplify it.
• These grasping, powergaming autocrats also impose a maximally Centralized settlement pattern.  Roughly half of a vassal realm's supported urban population will be in that vassal's central settlement; the other half get pushed up to their lord's urban population through some combination of food shipments / tax in kind and travelling merchants originally from the vassal's domain.
• No ranges of values; all is concrete.
• Population density of 450 families per 6-mile hex (~75 people / sq mi).  Right in the middle of the chart, low-middle Civilized.  Probably worth doing borderlands and wilderness domains at some point...
• Actually, with urban population, 495 families per hex makes my life a lot easier, assuming a split of 450 rural and 45 urban.
• 6gp/mo land value (again, average)
• No population growth over time.  Domains are immutable (unless pillaged or razed).
• There are two levels of pillaging: pillaged and razed.  A pillaged domain has its income reduced and has a cost associated with unpillaging it, which combines the necessary stronghold rebuilding and urban/agricultural investment to bring population back up to old levels.  A razed domain is just gone.
• Things will tend to be expressed in units of kgp when reasonable, with one significant figure and inconsistent rounding.
• Military unit selection is in the "knights and pikemen" tradition. 

 Vassal Barony

• Size: 1 6-mile hex
• Population: 450 rural families, 23 "urban" families
• Net domain income: 2.1 kgp/mo
• Market: Class VI hamlet at stronghold
• Gives liege lord: 1.1 kgp/mo, 22 supported urban families 
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 6th.
• Stronghold value: 15 kgp, small round stone tower
• Garrison: 0.9 kgp/mo, 2 platoons of heavy infantry
• Field army (cost to field is around garrison+net income, has had some time to prepare for war): 2 platoons of heavy infantry, 2 platoons of bowmen, 4 platoons of militia
• Pillaging: 
• Requires 600 troops and 1 day.  
• Yields 5 kgp in gold, 13 kgp in supplies, and 10.4 kgp in prisoners.  
• A pillaged barony has its net income reduced to 0.5 kgp/mo, garrison reduced to 0.4 kgp/mo (actually the population reduction might drive the domain down into Borderlands, in which case this might go up?  Too complicated, don't care), and liege tax reduced to 0.5 kgp/mo.
• It costs 52.2 kgp to unpillage a barony (payable gradually; takes ~56 months if you sink all your excess domain income into it).  Protip: don't get pillaged.
• Razing
• Requires 600 troops and 4 days
• Yields 9.5 kgp in gold, 23.7 kgp in supplies, and 18.9 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold is badly damaged, domain depopulated.

Damn, civilized realms are way more lucrative than these borderland/wilderness crap baronies we've been using (2kgp/mo?  That's like ten times what we've seen from fresh domains).  Also: razing is terrifying.  Four days is not very long at all to gather a relief force.

Vassal March

• Size: 4 6-mile hexes
• Population: 1800 rural families, 180 urban families
• Net domain income: 8.4 kgp/mo
• Market: Small village, class VI
• Gives liege lord: 4.4 kgp/mo, 180 supported urban families  
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 8th
• Stronghold value: 60 kgp, large round tower with some 20' high curtain walls, gatehouse, moat and drawbridge
• Garrison: 3.8 kgp/mo, five platoons each of heavy infantry and bowmen
• Field army: two companies of heavy infantry, three companies of bowmen, five companies of militia
• Pillaging:
• Requires 2400 troops, takes 1d3 days
• Yields 19.8 kgp in gold, 52 kgp in supplies, and 41.6 kgp in prisoners
• A pillaged march has its net income reduced to 1.9 kgp/mo, garrison to 1.7 kgp/mo, and tax to liege to 2 kgp/mo.  Its market is reduced to a Hamlet.
• Rebuilding a pillaged march costs 208.8 kgp (110 months of domain income)
• Razing:
• Requires 2400 troops, takes 4d3 days
• Yields 37.8 kgp in gold, 94.5 kgp in supplies, and 75.6 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold badly damaged, domain depopulated.

Vassal County

• Size: 1 24-mile hex (16 6-mile hexes)
• Population: 7200 rural families, 360 urban families
• Net domain income: 33.6 kgp/mo
• Market: Large Village, class V
• Gives liege lord: 17.8 kgp/mo, 360 supported urban families 
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 10th
• Stronghold value: 240 kgp, square keep with 20' high curtain walls with a barbican and medium round towers at the corners, moat, maybe some buildings inside the walls
• Garrison: 15.1 kgp/mo, two companies of heavy cavalry, two companies of heavy infantry, two companies of bowmen
• Field army: three companies of heavy cavalry, seven companies of heavy infantry, ten companies of bowmen, eleven companies of militia
• Pillaging:
• Requires 12000 troops and 1d6 days
• Yields 79.4 kgp in gold, 207.9 kgp in supplies, and 166.3 kgp in prisoners.
• A pillaged county's net income is reduced to 7.6 kgp/mo, garrison to 6.8 kgp/mo, and tax to 8 kgp/mo.  Its market is reduced to a Village.
• Rebuilding a pillaged county costs 835.4 kgp (110 months of domain income...  a curious constant!)
• Razing
• Requires 12000 troops and 4d6 days
• Yields 151.2 kgp in gold, 378 kgp in supplies, and 302.4 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold badly damaged, domain depopulated.

Above counties you have to start adding vassals.  Incidentally, this particular generation scheme probably gives counts more power than the default.  Yeah, checking the book my counts are as strong as normal dukes, my dukes as princes, and kings and emperors as normal.  I'm OK with that.

It's also worth noting: if you're a vassal count, and you subjugate another count (somehow?), your net domain income goes up by like 50%.  Pretty nifty.

Vassal Duchy

• Vassals: 5 counties
• Size: 1 24-mile hex personally, 5 24-mile hexes held by vassals
• Population: 7200 rural families, 1260 urban families
• Net domain income: 96.7 kgp/mo
• Market: Small city, class IV (towns?  Who needs 'em?)
• Gives liege lord: 36.9 kgp/mo, 1260 supported urban families
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 13th
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp, as county
• Garrison: 16.9 kgp/mo, two companies of heavy cavalry, two companies of heavy infantry, three companies of bowmen
• Field army: two battalions of heavy cavalry, three battalions of heavy infantry, six battalions of bowmen, six battalions of militia
• Pillaging:
• Requires 12000 troops and takes 1d6 days
• Yields 88.8 kgp in gold, 232.6 kgp in supplies, and 186.1 kgp in prisoners.
• Having vassals is great if you've been pillaged, because they keep paying taxes (provided they haven't also been pillaged, or rebelled).  A pillaged ducal seat with unpillaged counties has a net income of 70.8 kgp/mo, a garrison of 7.6 kgp/mo, and a liege tax of 26.4 kgp/mo.  A pillaged ducal seat's market is reduced to a Small Town.
• It costs 934.8 kgp to rebuild a pillaged ducal seat (~13 months).
• Razing:
• Requires 12000 troops and takes 4d6 days
• Yields 169.2 kgp in gold, 423 kgp in supplies, and 338.4 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold badly damaged, domain depopulated.

Vassal Kingdom

• Vassals: 5 dukes
• Size: 1 24-mile hex personally, 30 24-mile hexes held by vassals
• Population: 7200 rural families, 3510 urban families
• Net domain income: 165.5 kgp/mo (it's good to be king)
• Market: City, class III
• Gives liege lord: 59.5 kgp/mo, 3510 supported urban families
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 14th (barely - 14th level vassal kings will be ooold)
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp, as duchy
• Garrison: 21.4 kgp/mo, three companies of heavy cavalry, two companies of heavy infantry, three companies of bowmen
• Field army: Four battalions of heavy cavalry, six battalions of heavy infantry, eight battalions of bowmen, and eight battalions of militia.  Trifle not with kings, for verily they shalt wreck thy shit.
• Pillaging:
• Requires 12000 troops, 1d6 days
• Yields 112.5 kgp in gold, 294.5 kgp in supplies, and 232.6 kgp in prisoners.
• A pillaged royal seat whose vassals are unpillaged has a net income of 139.8 kgp/mo, a garrison requirement of 9.6 kgp/mo, and pays a tax of 47.1 kgp/mo.  Its market is reduced to a Small City.
• Rebuilding a pillaged royal seat costs  1,183.4 kgp (~9 months)
• Razing:
• Requires 12000 troops, 4d6 days
• Yields 214.2 kgp in gold, 535.5 kgp in supplies, and 428.4 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold is badly damaged, domain depopulated.

Empire

• Vassals: 5 kings
• Size: 1 24-mile hex personally, 155 24-mile hexes held by vassals
• Population: 7200 rural families, 18270 urban families
• Net domain income: 367.9 kgp/mo
• Market: Large city, class II (just short of a metropolis)
• Ruler max level from domain XP: 14th
• Minimum stronghold value: 240 kgp, as kingdom
• Garrison: 50.9 kgp/mo, five companies of heavy cavalry, eight companies of heavy infantry, ten companies of bowmen
• Field army: Two brigades of heavy cavalry, four brigades of heavy infantry, four brigades of bowmen, five brigades of militia
• Pillaging:
• Requires 24000 troops, takes 1d8 days
• Yields 267.4 kgp in gold, 700.4 kgp in supplies, and 560.3 kgp in prisoners.
• A pillaged imperial seat whose vassals remain loyal and unpillaged has a net income of 314.8 kgp/mo, and a garrison requirement of 22.9 kgp/mo.  Its market remains a Large City.
• Unpillaging an imperial seat costs 2,814.3 kgp (9 months)
• Razing:
• Requires 24000 troops, takes 4d8 days.
• Yields 509.4 kgp in gold, 1,273.5 kgp in supplies, and 1,018.8 kgp in prisoners.
• Stronghold destroyed, domain depopulated.

So looking back on this, it's slightly more usable for stuff like "OK you fought and vassalized a count, what does that really get you?"  But the whole "pushing urban population up" thing breaks the abstraction of "population never changes", because presumably if you rebel against your liege and stop paying taxes and shipping food, your liege's central settlement will have a food shortage and they'll lose your supported families, which will require reevaluation of their stuff in a manner more complicated than "subtract lost taxes from monthly income, good to go".  Would probably be fine to just fix the urban populations at build-time and not worry about it changing.

Apparently I also forgot principalities.  I am OK with this; never liked them anyway (they don't fit into my Crusader Kings-based worldview).  If I have to add them back I'll make them short kings, with 3 dukes instead of five.  It does mean that emperors / kings are a little weaker than they would be if they had an extra layer of vassals, but it's about made up for by making counties extra-powerful.  It might be worth doing over again with weaker counties (with smaller personal domains and march vassals, and marches with barony vassals) and principalities, but that was a lot of typing.

Handling all the details of morale is prone to change domain income.  As far as I'm concerned, though, there are two proper morale states for the peasants: quietly resentful of taxation, and violently resentful of taxation.

Next time: borderlands and/or wilderness domains.  Because barbarian armies have to come from somewhere.

Starmada Next 4 and some Trav stuff

Not a whole lot of news on Starmada development; the devs have gotten kind of quiet in hopes of having some things in the book be surprises when it's released.  They're doing final playtesting now, and it should still release in January, but we're not sure just when in January.  The only interesting thing I've learned recently is that the Escort trait turns the ship possessing it into a line-of-sight blocker, meaning that escorts can screen more important vessels from enemy fire.  At present, escorts also block friendly fire, however.  They should still be useful under alternating movement, though, since you could move a capital ship, have an enemy move to attack it from out of its firing arcs (ie, somewhere where it cannot retaliate well), and then interpose an escort on a later move.  They would be a clusterf*ck with pre-plotted movement, though.

This introduces an interesting subversion of the standard alternating movement protocol.  In previous games my family played with alternating, the optimal strategy was to delay moving your heavy hitters until absolute last, with light ships serving as a pad so that your enemy would have to position their big ships before you did.  This puts your heavy ships into the best places both to survive and to deal damage to the enemy, which saves you points and costs them.  From what I understand, this is also the standard strategy in BattleTech, where alternating movement is also the rule.  However, with Escort, there is now an incentive to move heavies earlier-than-last and to delay moving light ships, which is a neat twist.

Alex has also launched an Obsidian Portal site for his Traveller game next semester, so I've been doing Trav work again.  Helped Drew roll up a character last night, and debugged a trade spreadsheet that I pulled down from the Mongoose Traveller Aids yahoo group.  There was a bug which used the wrong indices for lookups of purchase and sale modifiers for speculative cargo.  Fixed version is available here, and is also up on the MgTAids page.  I also put together a (kinda ugly) spreadsheet to filter illegal items by government type, available here.

I've also been thinking about weapons.  First, I'd really like to see a weapon modification system for Mongoose Traveller, which would  allow you to take a base weapon (gauss rifle, say) and then alter it in more-or-less balance-preserving ways, where each gain has commensurate loss.  For example, +ammo capacity, +weight (large, heavy assault drum magazines), or +damage, -ammo (larger than standard calibre, but fewer shots per cartridge - this is actually the tradeoff between the Gauss Rifle and the MagRail Rifle in Mercenary).  It'd be an interesting project, but a bit more work than I'm up for presently.

My other primary weapon thought is on shotguns, namely that Gun Combat (Shotgun) is...  not fantastic.  All other gun combat skills have at least two weapons available to them (more if you count TL variants of the same weapon), and most of those have some variation in law levels (except Energy Rifle; Energy Pistol has stunners vs. laser pistols, Slug Rifle has Accelerator Rifle vs Gauss Rifle, and Slug Pistol has pretty much everything vs Gauss Pistol, which is banned earlier due to auto).  Shotgun has exactly one weapon.  Not really OK.  Since the base shotgun is legal up to law level 6, it looks like the shotguns category needs an early banned version.  I present for your consideration the Assault Shotgun, based on the AA-12 and the Pancor Jackhammer.

Assault Shotgun: TL7, Range Class: Shotgun.  Damage 4d6, Auto 4, Recoil 2.  Mass 6 kg or 7kg with extended magazine.  Magazine 12 or 24.  Cost 1000 Cr, Ammo 20 or 40 Cr.

Recoil's really going to hurt on full auto...  but it's a nice capability to have, and also renders the weapon illegal at LL4 as a light assault weapon.   And another just for kicks:

Double-Barrel Shotgun: TL4, Range Class: Shotgun.  Damage 4d6, Auto 2, Recoil 2.  Mass 3kg.  Magazine 2.  Cost 100 Cr, Ammo 3 Cr.

That's right folks - Auto 2.  No use for firing on full auto, but it does let you burst for +2 damage and +1 recoil.  It might be realistic for the double-barrel to take two minor actions to reload...  but let's be fair here.  It's a pretty awful weapon, and you're going to be reloading a lot if you decide to use it.  It really doesn't need the extra handicap.

Miscellanea: Traveller Trade, GM Screens, and Upcoming Game

Nothing groundshaking today, but a couple small things:

First, trade in Traveller has always bothered me because it's kind of a pain to actually do.  Too much bookkeeping for not a whole lot of raw fun.  I recently found this pdf full of commodity cards, though, which looks like it might improve play considerably, both by speeding up random cargo generation (draw a card, roll tonnage, roll type, go) and by kind of concretizing them (players buy cargo?  Give them the card).  These kind of seem like they'd make Traveller trade bearable, which is a Good Thing.

Along a similar line, I've been thinking about how convenient the Stargrunt reference card makes the game, and it's inspired me to build a Traveller GM screen covered in handy tables of things I often forget, like weapon range modifiers ("What's the mod for an assault weapon at 50 meters again... ?"), law levels, radiation effects, and things like that.  Alternatively, I might build a series of reference sheets for different parts of gameplay; a combat card with actions types, cover, ranges, autofire, and similar, a "Crime and Punishment" card gathering the government, law level, sentencing, and starship loan default rules, and so forth.  These would be damn handy, and also useful on the player end of things.  So that might be worth the time to put together if I end up playing or running Trav...

But, this weekend, I'm running a Trailblazer one-shot of a stripped-down version of one of the Dungeon Crawl Classic modules that I played through once.  The intent is to test TB's action points and short rest rules, as well as to game for the first time in a good while.  So the rest of my afternoon is going to be prep for that, interspersed with homework.