On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, James Donald Lail wrote:
> 1) At the games start it appears that no Roads or Trade Routes exist
whatsover. Is this correct ?
Appears to be, but of course it is up to the DM: if you want to add some
background to your game, you should be encouraged. I personally ruled that
in Anuire there exist the remains of the old Imperial Highway system, but
that much of it had fallen into disuse and disrepair, and needed to be
rebuilt before it was capable of carrying caravans. Some I ruled were
still OK and being used, but others needed work. For example, the highway
between the capitals of Tuornen and Alamie and Mhoried has been decimated
by centuries of warfare, but the one between the capitals of Elinie and
Osoerde may still be fine.
> 2) At the games start it appears that few Domains have any standing armies,
> fortifications of any sort or Palaces. Is this correct ?
I considered ALL domains to have standing armies, and if it wasn’t
detailed in the book, I set aside half of the domain’s income to pay
“maintenance cost” of their army, and gave that country enough units to
require that amount of maintenance expenditure. You really only need to do
this for countries that are adjacent to your PC’s or whom you plan to be
major players in the region. I gave Palaces to the following realms:
Boeruine, Avanil, and Ilien. I gave each country 1 castle, worth half of
the capital province if the regent was a non-fighter, or worth the full
rating of the capital province if the regent was a fighter (I allowed PC’s
to split up their “levels” into two castles rather than one if they so
chose. I consider walled cities to be fortfied guild/temple holdings, and
began all cities marked on the map as walled cities (of varying
strengths).
> 3) It is not clear whether Trade Routes which cross domain boundaries can be
> created by just 1 regent since to do so requires actions in other domains.
> Which is it ?
The regent has to physically go to the other domain to set up the
agreements that allow the trade route to run. I represent the “contacts”
and “agents” of the guilder set up to receive the goods in the destination
province as a level 0 guild, which the guilder gets for free by
successfully completing a Trade Route action. This is useful, because it
both represents the “intellegence” that the guilder can gather from his
trade route in the destination, and because 0-level holdings do not count
against the “total number of different holders” that a province can have
based on its size. Also a note: I SELDOM allow trade routes to be set up
this easily. The guilders in the destination province almost ALWAYS want a
cut of the action, and will thus block most trade routes that they do not
control. My guilders thus usually require 2 action rounds to set up a
trade route, one month either to Create Holding in the destination
province, representing the time he spends making friends and payoffs,
setting up his warehouses and agents in the province, or to conduct
Diplomacy with one of the guilders already there, which will usually allow
a guilder to set up a trade route in return for 1 or 2 GB cut of the
profit per domain turn. In this case, the local guilder serves as the
“agent” for the trade goods, and the creating guilder does not have to pay
for the upkeep of another 0-level holding (but doesn’t get the
intelligence ability out of it, either).
> 4) River travel seemingly is totally ignored in so far as trade is
> concerned. Is this correct ?
I consider rivers to be just like roads in terms of conducting trade, but
I require guilders using them to buy and maintain the keelboats needed for
the trade route. (Rules available in the “Cities of the Sun” Campaingn
Expansion)
Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu
