Kingdom issues (after claiming Varnhold)

I'd be tempted to build a monument in Varnhold, 3 BP and +3 loyalty. But lets save the money until next month, just to make sure that we can afford the castle.

Rowan wrote:

I'd be tempted to build a monument in Varnhold, 3 BP and +3 loyalty. But lets save the money until next month, just to make sure that we can afford the castle.

You're probably safe for next month, but playing it safe makes sense, and you can always do the monument another month.

Okay, here are your results:

You sold 2 medium items and 3 minor items successfully for 22 BP.

You made the kingdom economy check and gained 13 BP.

For random kingdom events, I rolled a visit by a dignitary or celebrity which garnered you another 6 BP.

So at the end of Olarune you had a whopping 46 BP.

At the start of the next month (Therendor, which is the same month as the Springlight Festival, so we'll end at the conclusion of this month until we get to the tournament in-game), you make the stability check and gain another 1 BP.

You begin building the settlement at the Abandoned Tower (any ideas for a name?), which raises Consumption by 1, and build a Castle (-27 BP due to ruin; Halves cost of Noble Villa or Town Hall in same city; Economy +2, Loyalty +2, Stability +2; Defense Modifier +8; Unrest –4).

That leaves you with 20 BP for everything else you want to do that month.

I believe you'll be picking up 3 more plains hexes and converting 2 to farmland, which'll drop your Consumption back to 0. That would take 7 BP more, leaving you 13 BP. Any preferences for what you do with that?

BTW, Mike - you still haven't posted on Carrion Crown. We're in a combat situation and everyone else has, so if you don't post by early tomorrow morning, I'll have to NPC Andrik now.

I am still keen on Leonisville.

In the new town, let's build a barracks and 1 house. This will let us build other things in the future.

THat leaves us with 4 bp

EDIT: Could we get in one of the other subforums a list of all things we can buy and their effects? That way we can reference it and you won't have to copy/paste. If you already have htis would you just pop in a link? Maybe a signature on your name to useful subforum areas

Leonis wrote:

In the new town, let's build a barracks and 1 house. This will let us build other things in the future.

THat leaves us with 4 bp

It depends on what you're planning to do there. If it's mostly going to be intended for defense and item production, you won't really need too much there. One thing you could also do is to put up a Shrine, which would start selling 1 minor item each month (including this one), increasing your magic item production to 24 BP a month. You could also plan for adding another Caster's Tower there the next month, which would bump the magic item production to 30 BP a month.

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EDIT: Could we get in one of the other subforums a list of all things we can buy and their effects? That way we can reference it and you won't have to copy/paste. If you already have htis would you just pop in a link? Maybe a signature on your name to useful subforum areas

I edited the first post of the Kingdom Development thread here and listed all the buildings in it.

So lets go that route, defense and magic item selling. I think barracks for now and shrine next month.

Leonis wrote:

So lets go that route, defense and magic item selling. I think barracks for now and shrine next month.

In that case, you should go shrine first and barracks next month, since then you get to sell the minor magic item from the shrine in the first month, instead of just in the second month.

Why a barracks? They don't do anything we really need right now. It might be a useful thing to build at Lakeshore, because the cost is halved due to our Town Hall. But even there, starting to build a City Wall would be better, because each section gives +4 Defense for 4 BP, as compared to the barracks' +2 defense for 3 BP. In character, we don't have a standing army, so we don't need a barracks.

Building a black market at the new castle would make good economic sense. It costs 20 BP more than a caster's tower (26 if you count the 2 houses it needs to be beside), but gives 7 more BP per month. It was originally going to be a market, but then Leonis got involved.

If we're going to build a medium item-producing building at the castle next month, I don't think it's worth it to build a shrine. Spending 8 BP so we can get 4 once doesn't sound like a good tradeoff. We'd be better to save the BPs for something more major.


Shil, I'll pop over to PBW right away.

Rowan wrote:

Why a barracks? They don't do anything we really need right now. It might be a useful thing to build at Lakeshore, because the cost is halved due to our Town Hall. But even there, starting to build a City Wall would be better, because each section gives +4 Defense for 4 BP, as compared to the barracks' +2 defense for 3 BP. In character, we don't have a standing army, so we don't need a barracks.

Building a black market at the new castle would make good economic sense. It costs 20 BP more than a caster's tower (26 if you count the 2 houses it needs to be beside), but gives 7 more BP per month. It was originally going to be a market, but then Leonis got involved.

If we're going to build a medium item-producing building at the castle next month, I don't think it's worth it to build a shrine. Spending 8 BP so we can get 4 once doesn't sound like a good tradeoff. We'd be better to save the BPs for something more major.

All good points, but even with the amount of money you're making each month, it'll be hard to afford a black market at the new castle in the next couple of months. You might be better off putting up a caster's tower there next month, which would then bump your monthly item sales to 30 BP, while saving as much as possible for a market in Lakeshore, which halves the cost of the black market (and also fills up four squares on the district map, which is quite handy), which you'd then be able to easily build the next month.

Since we have some serious divergence on the direction you guys want to go, how about we just go with you saving the 13 BP this month and seeing how much more you make?

Also, your current kingdom stats at this point are as follows:

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Current scores: Economy +64, Loyalty +60, Stability +69 (68), Unrest 0, Kingdom size = 44; Command DC 67; Consumption = 0; Treasury = 13 BP

So if you want to make sure to not fail Economy checks except on a 1, it would make sense to build something in Lakeshore that boosts Economy. A Library might be a good idea (6 BP, for +1 to Economy and Loyalty).

Admin wrote:

Also, your current kingdom stats at this point are as follows:

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Current scores: Economy +64, Loyalty +60, Stability +69 (68), Unrest 0, Kingdom size = 44; Command DC 67; Consumption = 0; Treasury = 13 BP

So if you want to make sure to not fail Economy checks except on a 1, it would make sense to build something in Lakeshore that boosts Economy. A Library might be a good idea (6 BP, for +1 to Economy and Loyalty).

That sounds like a good idea. Let's do it.

Rowan wrote:

That sounds like a good idea. Let's do it.

Okay. I'm presuming Avi won't have an issue with that either.

Roll me six d20 rolls, please (five for items at the various settlements and one for regular kingdom economy).

Edit: Bugger!

Say, didn't Avi already make enough rolls?

The member 'Rowan' has done the following action : Dice roller

'd20' : 7, 7, 19, 1, 12, 11

Rowan wrote:

Edit: Bugger!

Actually, you averaged 9.5 on those rolls, so it's close to average.

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Say, didn't Avi already make enough rolls?

Not quite enough for the above. Plus a certain person wanted to make rolls when they came up, so I used Avi's remaining rolls for some other things.

Anyway, you made the rolls to sell the two medium items and only failed to sell 1 minor item, so you make 20 BP (instead of 22, so no big loss) on items. You also make 15 BP off the kingdom economy roll, so that's a nice 35 BP on top of the 7 BP you had.

Assuming you make the Stability check next month (which you can only fail on a 1), you'd have 43 BP to spend. You wouldn't have enough for a Market yet, but you could easily pop up a third Caster's Tower at one of the other settlements (Olegton?), and would definitely have enough for a Market the month after that (since you'd then be cranking 3 medium items out a month).

Alternatively, you could do something completely different like putting up a Theater (24 BP) in Lakeshore, which would allow building of Parks and Taverns for half price. So in that 1 month, you could (for example) do a Theater and 3 Parks (6 BP combined, due to half price) and a Tavern (5 BP, due to half price), which would leave only 4 squares of building to complete at Lakeshore and fill the first district. While having enough money left to pick up three more hexes and convert 2 to farmland.

And that's just one possibility. I can think of a lot of interesting permutations and combinations you can use. But I'd like to wait until we get to Irovetti's tournament in-game before we continue here, so we'll hold off on setting anything else down in stone. Feel free to come up with plans for the future, of course.

I thought we were going to build a caster's tower in the new castle?

As for Irovetti's tournament, it occurred to me that we might want to extend the invitation to the centaurs. Would they be interested in sending one of their best champions or archers?

Rowan wrote:

I thought we were going to build a caster's tower in the new castle?

Ah, yes. I forgot about that. It's both mechanically and tactically a very good choice, since you can consider that as effectively hiring casters to support (directly and by creating potions, scrolls, etc) the troops there.

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As for Irovetti's tournament, it occurred to me that we might want to extend the invitation to the centaurs. Would they be interested in sending one of their best champions or archers?

Very nice idea! And you don't need to waste any time on waiting for an answer. Xamanthe says "Yes" immediately, on her own behalf

Admin wrote:

Ah, yes. I forgot about that. It's both mechanically and tactically a very good choice, since you can consider that as effectively hiring casters to support (directly and by creating potions, scrolls, etc) the troops there.

A tower should also help them keep watch over the forest. If the other settlements have towers, then we could also set up signal lights for communication between them.

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Very nice idea! And you don't need to waste any time on waiting for an answer. Xamanthe says "Yes" immediately, on her own behalf

I would expect no less. I would like her to extend our invitation to the rest of the tribe, though. Rowan will ride to the Nomen plains with Xamanthe to personally give the invitations.

This sort of thing should do a lot of cement our alliance with the Centaurs. Words of alliance are a good start, but it's things like travelling and fighting alongside their best that will strengthen our relationship. Just as long as Leonis doesn't get one of them pregnant, anyway.

Plus, it'll send a message to the other nations there, if we have centaur warriors riding into the festival with us, under our banner.

Rowan wrote:

A tower should also help them keep watch over the forest. If the other settlements have towers, then we could also set up signal lights for communication between them.

That'd be a little difficult (the signal lights, I mean), considering you have about 20 miles of dense and fairly high forest between the castle and Tatzlford, and the same between Tatzlford and Hunter's Horn, but you could probably arrange something for quick communication.

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I would expect no less. I would like her to extend our invitation to the rest of the tribe, though. Rowan will ride to the Nomen plains with Xamanthe to personally give the invitations.

This sort of thing should do a lot of cement our alliance with the Centaurs. Words of alliance are a good start, but it's things like travelling and fighting alongside their best that will strengthen our relationship. Just as long as Leonis doesn't get one of them pregnant, anyway.

Plus, it'll send a message to the other nations there, if we have centaur warriors riding into the festival with us, under our banner.

Good point.

We can handle details during the game, if needed, but the quick version is that Aecora will be reluctant to send any of her people (besides Xamanthe, who's free to do what she chooses, of course), since they would be traveling very far from home (some 300 miles) and are generally not experienced at dealing with other peoples and communities. Rowan can try to persuade her otherwise, however.

In view of what went on during the game, specifically with regard to House Phiarlan, I'll say that you're going to have to build a Phiarlan enclave (costing 8 BP), which'll provide a +1 to Economy and Loyalty. You could, instead, build a larger enclave (costing 12 BP), which'll provide +1 to Economy and Loyalty, as well as boosting Lakeshore's base value by 500 gp.

Since you just built a Library (6 BP; +1 to Economy and Loyalty), I think the best thing to do is to retroactively replace that with the Phiarlan enclave, paying the extra BP for the difference. Do you want the 8 BP or the 12 BP one (both of which you can easily afford)? Remember that besides the basic benefits to the kingdom, there will be roleplaying benefits depending on your choices, which (while less easily quantifiable) can be beneficial in the long run.

Let's take the 12BP version. The investment will be well worth it as they will be well funded, and more able to help us.

We also talked about collaborating on building a full Theatre. Would that be in addition to the enclave, or as a larger replacement for it?

Rowan wrote:

We also talked about collaborating on building a full Theatre. Would that be in addition to the enclave, or as a larger replacement for it?

That would be separate to the enclave, but the existence of the enclave may give you mechanical (and definitely roleplaying) benefits toward constructing it.

Okay. I agree with spending the 12 BP on building a high-end enclave.

Rowan wrote:

Okay. I agree with spending the 12 BP on building a high-end enclave.

Okay. I updated the Kingdom Development thread accordingly.

These are your current stats at the end of that month:

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Current scores: Economy +65, Loyalty +61, Stability +69 (68), Unrest 0, Kingdom size = 44; Command DC 67; Consumption = 0; Treasury = 36 BP

Lakeshore statistics: Base Value = 1200 gp; Defense Modifier +10; Districts = 1; contains Barracks, Brothel, Caster's Tower, Castle, Dump, Exotic Craftsman (x2), Garrison, Granary, Inn, Jail, Noble Villa, Park, Phiarlan Enclave, Smith, Town Hall and Houses (x4); 4 minor items, 2 medium items

Castle in forest: Base Value = 200 gp; Defense Modifier +8; Districts = 1; contains Castle

Hunter's Horn statistics: Base Value = 200 gp; Defense Modifier +0; Districts = 1; contains Temple and Graveyard; 2 minor items

Olegton statistics: Base Value = 700 gp; Defense Modifier +0; Districts = 1; contains Stable, Shrine, and House (x2); 1 minor item

Tatzlford statistics: Base Value = 700 gp; Defense Modifier +0; Districts = 1; contains Brewery, House (x3), Shrine, Smith, Tavern; 1 minor item

Varnhold city statistics: Base Value = 2200 gp; Defense Modifier +0; Districts = 1; contains Brewery, Brothel, Caster's Tower, Exotic Craftsman, Garrison, Granary, Graveyard, Inn, Jail, Smith, Tannery, Temple, Tradesmen (x3), and Houses (x8); 3 minor items

So the next month you should easily be able to build one more Caster's Tower at the new settlement in the forest, which will then let you crank out 28 BP in magic item creation per month, plus whatever you get off the usual kingdom economy check (15 BP on average), which puts you in a position to comfortably construct one major building a month. With Lakeshore having 10 more squares of building needed to fill up the first district, you could do possibly do it in two months (including the month you build the Caster's Tower) and certainly 3, which would then let you make a building crafting major items and be really economically set.

But that'll all have to wait till after the next session or two, since the month we completed is the one in which you attend Irovetti's tournament, and I'm betting events there will seriously impact what you do next.