Age of Empires D&D style (Or d20 Sim city)

[Tonguez]

First to OP question

Personally I use a homebrew system where the Town itself becomes a character with its own Parameters (Ability Scores) rolled as 3d6

Authority (Cha) Political influence of the organisation/town
Economy (Con)
Culture (Wis) - Integrity of the culture and loyalty of its members/citizens
Education (Int)
Security (Str) - Military and Civil enforcement and defence
Mobility (Dex) - quickness of response and transport

A town then can acquire skills and feats and even a class template (eg Market Town, Religious Center, Military Camp etc). I've not done much with the class templates but skills and feats work, Feats in particular are used to representing new relationships (Spy Network feat giving +4 to Gather Information), technologies and particular buildings - eg the Resident Academic Feat means that the town can build a university). Other features can be added to by building new structures too (eg Irrigation suystems to raise fertility and roads to give a bonus to Mobility checks.

Towns act by using skill checks (see below)

5 acre farm can produce 60 bushels of food per year or, 5 bushels/month 3 required by family with 2 left over to sell or keep for seed. 1 bushel of seed is required to produce 4 bushels of food.
1 man can farm 5 acres in this way.

Personally I think a yeild of 60 Bushels per 5 acres is extremely high (means a 12 bushels per acre render). In Medival England Rye had a seven-fold render and Wheat a 5-fold render so 5 acres of rye would have a yeild of 35 bushels per year, or 3-ish per month.
That being said I also don't think 5 acres is big enough if you are calculating how much land a person used to support themselves and family (as opposed the the zie of the garden plot) and would likely double (or even triple) it to take account of fishing etc


Now mechanics
Yield = Area x Render
Fertility = Arbitary number based on Soil quality, Weather, Irrigation and DM mood

Use Prof: Farmer skill check with DC = Yeild/Labour used/Fertility

so using Rye render of 7 and a 10acre feild, 1 man and his wife in good soils (Fertility 2)

Yeild = 70 (10 x 7)
DC = 70/2/2 => 17

so Prof: Farmer check vs DC 17 to achieve the desired yeild in one year


January
mending and making tools, repairing fences
showers

February
carting manure and marl
showers

March
ploughing and spreading manure
dry, no severe frosts

April
spring sowing of seeds, harrowing
showers and sunshine

May
digging ditches, first ploughing of fallow fields
showers and sunshine

June
hay making, second ploughing of fallow field, sheep-shearing
dry weather

July
hay making, sheep-shearing, weeding of crops
dry early, showers later

August
Harvesting
warm, dry weather

September
threshing, ploughing and pruning fruit trees showers

October
Last ploughing of the year
dry, no severe frosts

November
collecting acorns for pigs
showers and sunshine

December
Mending and making tools, killing animals
showers

 

[godawful]

yeah the actual bushels per year thing is based on 7 acres. and this was on a spring/summer/fall crop rotation method along with meat/poultry production. thence the 60 bushels i have decided on so far (weight and amount also supplied by fish, meat, etc not just pure grain or vegetables)
yes 60 bushels of pure grain or veggies would be high (unless mommy was a druid)
but as i am getting ready to layout grids for the whole town/city 200 feet by 200 feet plots (close to 210 by 210 actual for one acre) will just work a bit better than the 7 acre actual yield for layout purposes. it's just for mapping simplicity really.
that's a neat idea there for town stats. i guess my party will have to decide in advance how to structure it (lots of neat stuff to think about though) so if starting from a ruined keep with a couple of farmers moving into town, start everything off as ability score 1? or 3? then as more people/professionals move in, raise each stat accordingly? that is a pretty handy system you have there, how would you handle starting from ground zero?

 

[Thunderfoot]

Of course all this goes to show, you can't trust a farmer to tell you the straight facts.
I knew the weight this was wrong, but if you were farming whole grains, 70 pounds would probably be about right, just don't try to get that kind of yield in corn or fruit.

Great, now y'all made me homesick...

 

[Altalazar]

Gotta love player-empire building in D&D. It can basically self-generate an entire side-campaign if the players are into it and the DM runs with it.

 

[Rassilon]

Just another echo for MMS: Western Europe. It's not perfect, but it is soooo good that it doesn't need to be. It probably won't exactly map what you want, but it wil give you about 90%, and make it very easy for you to change one or two things that you would rather just be different (average population, cost of buildings, whatever) and see how the whole system adjusts.

The other nice thing about this book is that it uses the figures in the DMG as it's assumption as how much buildings etc costs, so in terms of the WOTC figures (how much a manor house cost, how much an apprentice scribe earns per day, etc) it meshes nicely.

IMO, it is worth going to some effort to acquire, given that you (godawful) can't conveniently download it. Get a friend (with broadband) to buy it and send you a copy on CD, or download it a cybercafe with a good conneciton speed, if you have one available.

It's probably not good enough to shift cities, or takeover a massive Telco to provide cable to your area, but it is worth a lesser effort.

Rassilon.

Edit: Be aware that the comprehensiveness of the book comes at a convenience cost - it is a little complex, and will take time to absord and play with.

 

[genshou]

<snip>Stronghold builder's Guidebook<snip>

I was starting to feel like I was the only one in the world with a copy of this book!

I think what you're doing is very cool. It'll take some research, but that's what Google is for.

I also like the system that Tonguez has developed.