Boamvndvs

I played around with some cultivated area percentages (attached).

Population.pdf

You are right. I swear fealty to the new economy system. And thanks a lot for providing the missing link to population numbers. (The Settlement Income Table from Lordly Domains prevented me from daring to assume that income and population were proportional).

2 hours ago, Morien said:

We can guess from two different directions (always keeping in mind that it can vary wildly depending on the local conditions and economics).

One data point is the statement that a typical PK manor of £10 has about 500 people associated with it. Assuming that the same population density would apply and total area would scale with the landholding income, it would imply that a £50 estate would have about 2500 people, altogether, in its geographical area.

The other point is looking at the total population of Logres (which should be closer to 1+ million, given the number of knights and demographics, the half a million would work for adults, but you need the kids, too), we can get a rough estimate of about the same ~400-500 people per knight. And since the estate supports 1 knight per £10, we can get 2000-2500 per £50 estate.

Add a fudge factor of 50% either way and you can probably argue anything from 1500 to 4000 for a particular estate.

 

Thanks, Morien. Just out of curiosity: are those data points mentioned in either Book of the Estate or Book of the Warlord? (I bought both yesterday, but I did not find it using a search of "500").

I think I agree with income being proportional with the population. It is just contrary to Lordly Domains, where it was important for the population to be concentrated. In that supplement an additional 480 people (1 POP) around a new village gave 4£ extra income, but if the same 480 people moved close to an already big city, they would generate an extra income of 35£. That non-linearity could seem interesting if it was realistic, but I imagine it would make urbanisation the key too all wealth, and the Mongols were quite competent warlords after all.

On 7/18/2021 at 6:23 PM, Morien said:

Depends what you mean by 'revised'.

Book of the Manor introduced a new system for Manors.

Book of the Estate and Book of the Warlord introduced a new economy system usable for any size of a landholding, all the way from a £1 parcel to a £100000 Kingdom.

Neither of the two uses LD's POP, nor FOOD and COIN division.

Has anyone tried to link population with the new economy system? After being away and coming back I appreciate the simpler system, but I would like to compute the income of an estate from its cultivated area (from which I can compute its population).

The examples from Book of the Estate show e.g. the number of employees of the estate and the production of the estate, but how many people in total live on the territory of the estate?

Thank you, Sir Alexios, for the Excel sheets. I have worked to figure out the economics of my favorite fantasy dominion, and the Lordly Domains rules seem to make good sense. The rules have given realistic population numbers and forced me to invent many more small towns, which I think adds to the realism. I have noticed, however, that the Lord's portion is only part of a fief; the rest has to be delegated to one or more vassals. So whenever I tried to detail something, I was forced to first invent the sub-parts, and then their sub-parts! I ended up having to enter the fiefs and their populations into a relational database in order to sum up the population numbers on the different levels of the feudal hierarchy. Fun, but cumbersome.

I see, thanks. As far as I can see, the system from Lordly Domains can also handle large dominions. I don't know if it does it well, but kingdoms with large populations are possible. I will probably wait and see what the 6th edition comes up with.

I have written an article about the Settlement Income Table from Lordly Domains, 1999 p. 18. It is attached. Have the rules for lordly domains been revised since 1999 by the way?

Settlement_Income.pdf

I agree about the opposed roll. My players (if I can gather the old group) are used to D&D rules anno 1983. They are not used to anything more advanced than "I attack with my sword" or "I attack with my bow". It's me that can't forget about the opposed roll which to me seems much more realistic than the armor class system. My players will probably be slightly opposed to the opposed roll since it is more complicated than what they are used to, so if the missile rules can remain simple, it is actually fine.

I agree about the +5/-5 reflexive bonus, and I had overlooked the possibility of increasing my stats. I suppose the combat rules are melee oriented, but I want them to work for archery too, since I intend to use them in a more standard (Tolkien inspired) setting.

Thanks folks. I am happy with the answer that my example was not representative and that movement rates are being increased to avoid an unreasonably strong "Crecy effect" (which should be there to some extent of course). I did remember the shield. The archer had to roll 6 or lower on 1d20 to hit (11 or lower when my knight was trying to get to his feet), so my rolls were rather unfavorable to the knight. Maybe I should have left out the example and stuck to the point about the number of archer shots before collision, but when I had begun reporting about the confrontation, I decided to go through with it. When creating the knight I was unlucky rolling STR. I rolled 2d6 + 3 and got 6. (STR however gave the maximal possible value of 15, on 2d6 + 3). I started out on foot for my first example of combat, but of course you are right, a knight should be mounted (but I was still surprised to be slaugtered like this by a lonely archer).

I would like to start a Paladin game at some time, and as my first example trying out the rules I tried having an archer (p. 374 in Paladin, 1st printing, 2019) stand up from behind a boulder 50 yards away and start shooting arrows at my knight. My knight (SIZ 6, DEX 11, STR 15, CON 13, APP 11) has a movement rate of 3 (6 when running), and this is interpreted as yards per combat round (p. 117), hence the archer can shoot (at least) nine arrows while my knight is running towards him.

1) The first arrow hits for 7 points of damage. My knight makes his DEX roll, and so is not knocked down, and his scale mail (8 pts.) absorbs all the arrow damage.

2) The range is now 44 yards. The second arrow hits, this time doing 10 points of damage, and the DEX roll was failed, so my knight takes 2 hp of damage and is knocked down, hence no movement takes place.

3) The range is still 44 yards. The third arrow has a +5 modifier to hit because my knight is about to stand up during the resolution phase of this round. The arrow hits for 13 points of damage, so my knight takes 5 hp of damage and is automatically knocked down again (damage >= 2*SIZ).

4) The range is still 44 yards. The fourth arrow has a +5 modifier to hit because my knight is about to stand up. The arrow hits for 12 points of damage, so my knight takes 4 hp of damage and is automatically knocked down again (damage >= 2*SIZ).

5) The range is still 44 yards. The fifth arrow has a +5 modifier to hit because my knight is about to stand up. The arrow hits for 13 points of damage, so my knight takes 5 hp of damage and loses consciousness (3 hp left).

I realize the archer shot better than anticipated, hitting every time, and my knight had a small size so was knocked down easily. But still the hight rate of fire (nine shots at at enemy running towards you from 50 yards) seems to make bows very deadly. I assumed a short bow (short range: 50 yards, damage: 3d6), but with a long bow (range: 100 yards, damage: 6d6) you would get 16 short range shots at an enemy (with a movement rate of 3) running towards you. With a bow you attack the enemy unopposed, so Sir Launcelot can be "gunned down" just as easily as everybody else. I think it is time to start training with the bow. It is a choice between life and dignity.