Comparison: Strongholds & Dynasties - Empire - Magical Medieval Society - Birthright

[Eosin the Red]

I really feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.

This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.

That really would simplify things. I think 1 hex = 24 miles is just about perfect.

 

[Silveras]

I really feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.

This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.

I will be very curious to hear what you come up with.

 

[Sulimo]

Fields of Blood: The Book of War (Eden Studios)

Political operations are well-represented, better on the inter-domain than the intra-domain, though. Religion, Mages, and Rogues/Merchants are represented as semi-independent influences in the Domain. They are NOT available as separate domains (as in Birthright), but they offer benefits to the domain & settlement where they exist. However, it is possible for a ruler to use the Guilds (as they are called) of a foreign realm against it.

Given that, would it be terribly hard to add something so it you could run games where PC's are guildmasters and the like and not 'rulers'?

 

[Vrylakos]

I really feel as though the scale of the Book of War should be concurrent with Birthright provinces. I surveyed something like 15 different campaign maps and most of them were either 1 inch/hex = 20, 24, or 30 miles. Plus 24 works with D&D overland movement numbers.

This is something I'd like to run the numbers on.

Please do!
I am really liking FoB as I read it, and would love any web enhancements, etc. that you could come up with. Bigger hexes, extra troops, etc. Heck, I've got friends who bought Redhurst based on the web support, so perhaps something similar could occur with FoB.

In fact, I'd say that's the way to make it the de facto Realms/War d20 book.

Empire, Strongholds, etc. seem to have been Fire and Forget type supplements. If Eden and yourself exert a bit of online effort and supported Fields of Blood beyond print and errata, it would be a step towards longer shelf life and bigger product utility. At least, I hope so.

Heck, after this next freelance deadline, maybe I could assemble some human troops for people to use.

Vrylakos

 

[jeffh]

Nice work.

A couple minor BD&D/Mystara corrections. The War Machine mass combat system first came from the Companion rules set, which predates X10. (I believe X10's rules are different, but I haven't looked it over in detail though I do have the ESD of it.) And Norwald was featured in the Companion-level modules, not the Master-level ones, which were more about plane-hopping and stopping the machinations of evil Immortals.

Neither of these is a big deal and other than these two little nits, your comments about the Rules Cyclopedia system are right on the money. It's nice to have comparisons with two systems I am familiar with (Birthright and now BD&D) in front of me so that I can get a better idea of the relative merits of the books you're mainly talking about.

 

[Silveras]

Given that, would it be terribly hard to add something so it you could run games where PC's are guildmasters and the like and not 'rulers'?

Some parts would require more work than others. It would not be hard to create a specific character (PC or NPC) to be the head of one of these organizations. It would also be easy to say that different Guilds of the same type within a single Realm are all "local chapters" of one big organization.

The problems would be:
1) Giving the Guilds a share of the resources. The core system allows the ruler to collect a portion of the total Production as taxes, and the rest is left for the population center to pay its upkeep (ie, feed itself, keep improvements working, etc.). Taking resources out of the pool will make it much more likely that the settlement will have difficulty "paying the bills".

2) Defining new actions for Independent guilds to take. The existing structure makes the Guilds an object, a tool that provides services when the regional ruler needs them to (and pays for it).

3) Enhancing the diplomatic model to allow for more interactivity.

4) Enhancing competition. The existing setup allows only 1 of each type of Guild in a settlement. Competing organization domains was one of the most interesting aspects of Birthright, but would further complicate the resource issue (#1 on this list).

 

[Silveras]

Nice work.

A couple minor BD&D/Mystara corrections. The War Machine mass combat system first came from the Companion rules set, which predates X10. (I believe X10's rules are different, but I haven't looked it over in detail though I do have the ESD of it.) And Norwald was featured in the Companion-level modules, not the Master-level ones, which were more about plane-hopping and stopping the machinations of evil Immortals.

Neither of these is a big deal and other than these two little nits, your comments about the Rules Cyclopedia system are right on the money. It's nice to have comparisons with two systems I am familiar with (Birthright and now BD&D) in front of me so that I can get a better idea of the relative merits of the books you're mainly talking about.

Yeah, that's what I get for going on my memory of the first appearances and not checking the references.

I'm glad it helps. It is hard to do comparisons without familiar baselines to work with.

 

[johnsemlak]

I believe you're right, X10 did state it could be used with the AD&D Battle system rules on the cover, IIRC.

However, X10 was compatible with the War Machine as well, as I recall. I remember playing it and using it's counters. I believe the counters had the unit's battle rating (as per the War Machine) printed on it. It was a very easy to use system--I loved it.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

Fields of Blood is a book I've been looking foreward to for a good long time, and I'm certainly picking it up as soon as I see a copy. (I spent most of the afternoon driving around Cleveland looking for one, in fact.) The book sounds like it has a lot of what I'm looking for.

OTOH, this 12-mile hex = 1 province is sounding unweildy to me. While I support the use of hexes as opposed to arbitarily-bordered "provinces", doing some elementary fiddling reveals that Northern Ireland runs to about 25 of these hexes. Something like medieval France (which is the model for realms in my homebrew setting,) would run to thousands of hexes. If, in FoB, anything bigger than 7 hexes is a "large" realm... well, that's just goofy, and totally unworkable.

The question then becomes "how do you fix it?" Because in just about every other respect, FoB is sounding like exactly the book I need.

Can the numbers just be scaled up? If I make the hexes, say, 72 miles across, what other game factors will need to be changed, and can they be adjusted by the same ratio?

BTW, great job, Silveras... this thread has helped me a ton.

 

[Silveras]

OTOH, this 12-mile hex = 1 province is sounding unweildy to me. While I support the use of hexes as opposed to arbitarily-bordered "provinces", doing some elementary fiddling reveals that Northern Ireland runs to about 25 of these hexes. Something like medieval France (which is the model for realms in my homebrew setting,) would run to thousands of hexes. If, in FoB, anything bigger than 7 hexes is a "large" realm... well, that's just goofy, and totally unworkable.

The book has a sidebar talking about how to adjust the maintenance costs, which are tied to the number of hexes in the realm. 7 hexes is where the maintenance costs begin to mount up higher, marking the point of "large". You can change the table to make maintenance of realms with more hexes less expensive, and thus make larger realms "normal" for your world. The sidebar covers it pretty well.

I am in the same boat; most of the 250 areas I consider single provinces would have between 8 and 15 hexes in them at 12 miles across the hex. Sub-infeudation lets me fix this for small realms, but I am not interested in re-writing all 250 just to make sure the numbers stay in balance.

The question then becomes "how do you fix it?" Because in just about every other respect, FoB is sounding like exactly the book I need.

Can the numbers just be scaled up? If I make the hexes, say, 72 miles across, what other game factors will need to be changed, and can they be adjusted by the same ratio?

Well, the production numbers may not need to be changed at all. Since they are already abstract numbers that do not tie back to "X gp" or "X tons of iron", you could just keep them the same ... except...

The troop movements are tied to the production numbers and to the 12-mile size. Adjusting the 12-mile size up to 72, as you mention, makes your troops move 6x as fast. You pay resource points to move troops, so making the hexes bigger means you can move the troops 6x as far for the same cost.

Remember that bringing the cross-hex distance up to 72 miles across makes the area about 34.75 x the area of the 12-mile hexes. That needs to be the factor for any attempt to scale the resources.

You can cut the speed of the troops by dividing their movement points by the same amount you multiplied the distance. That has a funny effect, as their movement points are 7x their base movement (7x daily movement to represent 1 week), so in the sample case you presented, movement points would be 7/6 (1.1666667) x D&D movement in 5' squares. You might as well just say they can move as many hexes as squares at that point, and round off.

The resource points may take care of itself, at that point. If you don't try to scale them, then the 6x as far for the same cost makes sense.

What else ? Let's see...

The rules for units finding each other when they wind up in the same hex will likely need some attention, then. Armies are much more likely to be able to avoid each other in 3600 square miles of area than they are in 125 square miles of area.

There may well be some more subtle points I am not thinking of right away, too.