Logistics and Dragons [No Kaeliks]

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:56 pm

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about "development level" going around. Development level is a measure of infrastructure and organization - it's GDP per capita. Your population increases because of natural birth (which is slow), immigration events, and slave raids if you're in to that.

The best way to get immigration events is to keep your people happy, which involves letting them keep more of their money. Letting the townsfolk keep more of their money means the ruler has less money to hire soldiers to conquer things or invest in raising the development level of the city.

Nevertheless, a big city grows faster than a small city. More people makes basal population growth a bigger number. And having a higher development level means that you can keep the populace happier while still collecting tax moneys. Why, in just a few decades you could grow your city into a planar metropolis if you played your cards right.

Global conquest or cities covering the world like Dis or Ravnica simply aren't going to be likely outputs of this system. The growth rates just aren't big enough for that kind of thing to happen.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sun Oct 11, 2015 9:05 pm

Sergarr wrote:
K wrote:
Sergarr wrote:
That just changes the scenario from "The World's Largest City peacefully dominates everyone with extra-large heaps of gold" to "The World's Largest City uses it's not-extra-but-still-pretty-large heaps of gold to hire The World's Largest Army and go conquer everyone a la Carthago". There would still be a positive-feedback of "more soldiers => more conquered income => even more soldiers".
Only if you never lose.
1) It would still work if you're able to win more income than you lose at the same time. It would be slower, but it would still be a positive-feedback loop.

"Never lose more than you win" is an ideal condition divorced from reality, and not at all something that superior forces can reliably insure. Good tactics, favorable and unfavorable weather, and a host of other issues can stop a conquest well before we get to fantasy conditions like "Wizards who can set the nearest goddamn ten miles on fire."

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:41 am

FrankTrollman wrote:The best way to get immigration events is to keep your people happy, which involves letting them keep more of their money. Letting the townsfolk keep more of their money means the ruler has less money to hire soldiers to conquer things or invest in raising the development level of the city.

Seriously, Frank?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:08 am

Well, think about it. Most people don't willingly immigrate into places that are worse than where they're currently at, and in the centuries before fiat currency or widespread credit governments really were operating largely on the scale of "there is a finite amount of wealth, and the more of it you own the less of it I own."

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 2:28 am

Yeah, again, really, losing your focus wandering off on irrelevant tangents full of needless complexity.

1) What does a nearby city growing or shrinking do that your dungeon manager (via D&D adventuring) game actually cares about?

2) If it does care then how does dungeon management (via D&D adventuring) then influence and exploit that growth or shrinking in the value of nearby cities.

3) Is point 1 actually cool enough to justify the complexity required to track both the changing value of cities AND some sort of elaborate mechanics to influence and exploit them for point 2 ?

Now, if you want to go all "dungeons are bait used to farm nearby cities via harvesting foolish adventurers in a complex interdependent symbiotic relationship" that might work. It might work even MORE as a simple symbiotic relationship.

But if your plan is what it seems to be and is to just fap about inflating system complexity on stuff that actually has little or nothing to do with your god damn dungeons, again, then you are going worse than nowhere, still.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:02 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Yeah, again, really, losing your focus wandering off on irrelevant tangents full of needless complexity.

I know you're being a facetious asshat, but these are, by random chance, actually halfway decent questions.

1) What does a nearby city growing or shrinking do that your dungeon manager (via D&D adventuring) game actually cares about?

Short answer is: it depends. But if you're looking to have a dungeon that relies on and interacts with the local cities in any way - either by raiding trade or actively trading with the more monstrous settlements - then it becomes very important indeed if the city shrinks, because it means less overall trade. Larger cities would also support more adventurers, so the larger your neighboring city, the more frequent adventurer incursions are likely to be. Finally, if you are using the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook in any capacity, some of their building/sourcing costs are based on the nearest settlement.

So, there's multiple reasons why you might mechanically care about the growing or shrinking of local cities - and that's without going into the fluff reasons. Maybe you're an archmage PC and want to have a private dungeon to go to on weekends and to protect your stuff, but most of your time or adventures take place in the city.

2) If it does care then how does dungeon management (via D&D adventuring) then influence and exploit that growth or shrinking in the value of nearby cities.

As the dungeon scales up and the raiding gets more intense, that can put pressure on local economies - so, like Smaug moving into the Misty Mountain, that is going to have an impact on Lake Town. Whether or not that is good or bad depends on your goal in building the dungeon, and what you can do about it largely depends on your contacts and resources outside the dungeon itself - unless you decide to be very careful to run a low-impact dungeon that has a minimal economic impact on the surrounding lands. On the other hand, your dungeon's entire purpose might be to destabilize a region for the Forces of Darkness, in which case shrinking cities are a sign of Job Well Done.

3) Is point 1 actually cool enough to justify the complexity required to track both the changing value of cities AND some sort of elaborate mechanics to influence and exploit them for point 2 ?

Mechanics don't have to be elaborate; hell, it might just be a table you roll on once a week or something - and this gets back to the sort of the wargaming roots of the hobby. Some people - the people that want to play Logistics & Dragons - are interested in a fantasy simulationist game. So they probably do want many different factors worked in, if only through lip-service and a roll on a table. So...yeah, maybe.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:30 am

What kind of time lapses will the whole Dungeon Keeper Downtime Minigame be using? Will 'moves' be made in months, seasons, or years? How, if part of the DK minigame is having adventurers come around to grind in your dungeon exactly will higher level adventurers be handled (assuming the game gets to that point).

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:59 am

Ancient History wrote:actually halfway decent questions.

A pity about the lack of halfway decent answers then isn't it?

I mean in the end your answer to the lot was pretty much just "Maybe it does interact... somehow... in like... all these complex but largely undefined ways... and anyway, fuck it, oodles of complexity is fine regardless because we are totes all 1st edition wargame OSR grognards"... "... however, fuck it, we might just roll on a table full of bullshit though."

I continue to be deeply unimpressed. Impress me with something already. I don't want to be the "No, you are doing it wrong" guy all the time, but god damn it you make it hard.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:17 am

Does Phonelobster's Mouse Trap handle this kind of dungeon building/kingdom management game?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:06 am

OgreBattle wrote:Does Phonelobster's Mouse Trap handle this kind of dungeon building/kingdom management game?

Who cares? He has his own threads for that particular trainwreck.

Antway, classic D&D dungeons have Orc villages with hundreds of people in them. Dungeon management cares about town management because Dungeons often include Towns.

-Username17

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:20 am

OgreBattle wrote:Does Phonelobster's Mouse Trap handle this kind of dungeon building/kingdom management game?

The answer on that one is a bit of a yes and no.

No, because "this kind" as defined by the dumb choices about accounting and improbably stupid focus on ultra detailed strategic simulations and accounting spread sheets is very much not what my own system does.

Yes, because it has (and was built from the ground up primarily to support) a heavy focus on "the PCs own and operate some sort of secret base/dungeon/palace/club house as part of character/campaign progression", but just as these guys are defining their play space (stupidly letting simulationist bullshit, forum tribalism and obsessive compulsive tendencies dictate it to them rather than actually making goal based decisions about desirable game play outcomes), my system does define it's own form (well, a couple of forms) of dungeon management and interactions with other sites including populations like towns and cities, and it doesn't look like THIS. Not a damn bit.

Sergarr · Post by **Sergarr** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:20 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Why, in just a few decades you could grow your city into a planar metropolis if you played your cards right.

FrankTrollman wrote: Global conquest or cities covering the world like Dis or Ravnica simply aren't going to be likely outputs of this system. The growth rates just aren't big enough for that kind of thing to happen.

I feel like these two parts are kind of contradicting each other, unless you mean something else by "planar metropolis" than I do.

K wrote: "Never lose more than you win" is an ideal condition divorced from reality, and not at all something that superior forces can reliably insure. Good tactics, favorable and unfavorable weather, and a host of other issues can stop a conquest well before we get to fantasy conditions like "Wizards who can set the nearest goddamn ten miles on fire."

1) You need a mass combat system that can account for tactics, weather and "other issues" first, before you can use these factors as a legit counter-argument against "superior forces win more than they lose". Otherwise it's just an unquantifiable MTP.
2) Are we talking about D&D 3.5e? Because I've looked through the spell list, and I don't see any spell that can "set the nearest goddamn ten miles on fire".
3) Adventurers are more likely to work on the side which offers them more gold, which is - guess what - The World's Largest City. Unless you say that high-level adventurers want something more valuable than gold for their services, like astral diamonds or something, but then the problem just moves up to the World's Largest Astral Diamond City or something like that.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:40 am

I believe "set the nearest goddamn ten miles on fire" is probably an hyperbole. And/or accomplished by combining multiple spells.

Then you have to remember that adventurers aren't cold logistic machines and have their own agendas/ideals/likes/dislikes. If superpower adventurer A sides with city 1 against city 2, then superpower adventurer B who hates superpower adventurer B with all their guts will most probably side with city 2 for a discount or even for free. The uber paladin won't support the necromancer union, the darkness reaper won't support the country of Pelor, etc, etc.

That's not mentioning the old "superpower/adventurer A and city 1 are getting too strong, better to gank them while we can."

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:42 am

The term "planar metropolis" means a large town which has frequent trade with and reliable transportation to other planes. The archetypal planar metropolis is Sigil, which canonically has a population about equal to that of Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore has an area of 239 km^2, which would cover just under three 10km height hexes. That's quite a bit short of covering the entire world, or even being its own county.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:15 am

Canonically Sigil has a population of at least 100 000 000 000 people.

That's because the DMG says that Sigil has at least one NPC of every single possible multiclass combination.

So ignoring epic levels and non-core classes and that there's no two dudes with the same combination of levels, that's still a number with some 12 digits.

mlangsdorf · Post by **mlangsdorf** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:55 pm

Sergarr wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:Gold is a measure of value, not pieces of precious metal. It's possible to increase value even if the metal increases slowly. Most paymental end up being notation on account, with only small transfers.
That would still cause inflation, though.

mlangsdorf wrote:The largest city in the world needs the largest set of controlled farms in the world, and may have to go to war in order to secure more land. Also, neighboring cities may decide that instead of joining The World's Largest City Development Race, they may want to invest heavily in armies and get some of that large set of controlled farms for themselves, or decide that the World's Largest City would spend its income better under their control.
That just changes the scenario from "The World's Largest City peacefully dominates everyone with extra-large heaps of gold" to "The World's Largest City uses it's not-extra-but-still-pretty-large heaps of gold to hire The World's Largest Army and go conquer everyone a la Carthago". There would still be a positive-feedback of "more soldiers => more conquered income => even more soldiers".

Presumably, the World's Largest Army is not larger than the World's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Largest Armies combined. Even if you're larger than the World's 2nd and 3rd largest armies combined (a feat that that the UK only did with navies for a brief period of time), you're still vulnerable to attack from the 4th and 5th largest armies that can achieve local concentrations of force while your army is fighting it out with the 2nd and 3rd largest armies.

Alternately, if you have the tax base to support the World's Largest Army in the World's Largest City, the World's 4th Largest City with a much smaller army and surrounded by buffer nations can afford the research and development that you can't and is rapidly growing to be a larger city than the World's (formerly) Largest City.

If I was (hypothetically) doing this, I would try to imitate the physical constraints that limited the development of large cities in our world and world-sweeping armies, i.e. infrastructure and logistics. Supplying people takes time; supplying twice as many people takes more than twice as much time, since the average distance between people and the supply source increases. If the average distance doubles, the amount of supplies required per each act of transportation more than doubles, because you'll lose more of the stuff you're transporting on the way due to inevitable fuckups. Then add in that each person involved in this whole process can't produce their own supplies and thus needs to be supplied, too. And everyone needs to have their salaries paid, too.

Eador had a simple mechanic for this: corruption and/or overhead. As your empire grew larger, you lost more and more percentage of your income to corruption and overhead. You could buy buildings to reduce overhead (jails, courts, town halls, etc) but eventually you got to the point where conquering new cities was probably not worth it.

Of course, at the scale of K's game, that's probably more than you need to worry about. A dungeon and the surrounding area is likely not going to grown into Imperial Rome.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:49 pm

Sergarr wrote:So I guess Skeletons are the best non-flying troops for an Evil Empire, then? High mobility means that an army composed of skeletons can chose its battles and force the opposing side on the defensive. Though that "infinite" speed Lantern Archon is kind of worrying - it seems that distance starts to become meaningless once casual teleport comes into play.

Bearded Devils also teleport, like a Lantern Archon.

EDIT:

Sergarr wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: Why, in just a few decades you could grow your city into a planar metropolis if you played your cards right.

FrankTrollman wrote: Global conquest or cities covering the world like Dis or Ravnica simply aren't going to be likely outputs of this system. The growth rates just aren't big enough for that kind of thing to happen.
I feel like these two parts are kind of contradicting each other, unless you mean something else by "planar metropolis" than I do.

Per the Complete Joke Book, a "Planar Metropolis" is any city with over 100,000 people. That's a factor of about 5 increase in population in about 50 years.

I mean, maybe if you manage to just cruise along for a couple centuries of expanding without any obstacles you'd get towards being comparable to the continental USA, but...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 8:15 pm

Sigil is 20 miles the long way around, and is thus less than 60 square miles in total. It's weirdly shaped, but it's between two and three hexes depending on how wide you think Sigil is. The population of Baltimore is not unreasonable considering its size.

In the Forgotten Realms, Menzoberranzan has 60,000 people in it (and 2/3 of them are slaves). Even Waterdeep only has 132,000 people in it (or 2 million if you go by the web article instead of the book). Planar metropolises in D&D are not that big.

In any case, the claim that the fact that city growth rules exist necessarily means that cities would blob up and fill planets is completely insane and we shouldn't bother talking about it any more.

-Username17

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:16 pm

Dominions has extensive rules for population growth, and if anything, the problem in dominions is that population tends to collapse, what earthquakes and such.

If anything, if the players have level-equivalent adversaries, the problem would be the population being wiped out by volcanoes and control weather and whatever all. In the SRD, I suspect druids are the best at mass murder... creeping doom will kill a lot of people, but I'm sure there's a clever way of inflicting waaay more damage.

norms29 · Post by **norms29** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:20 pm

maglag wrote:
That's because the DMG says that Sigil has at least one NPC of every single possible multiclass combination.

seriously? jesus. when did they write that? is it some kind of copy-paste error from the editions when multiclassing wasn't a freefor all?

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:51 pm

Another speed rating comparison: Recumbent Bicycle Cavalry: about 100 hexes a day.

(Based on the RAAM having been done in 5 days)

EDIT: Wait, wrong page. This is the one that says 5 days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance

K · Post by K » Tue Oct 13, 2015 12:44 am

maglag wrote:I believe "set the nearest goddamn ten miles on fire" is probably an hyperbole. And/or accomplished by combining multiple spells.

I personally know at least three ways to set miles of terrain on fire or otherwise drop army-destroying power.

Here's a hint: the most amusing non-epic spell ways all involve altering weather spells with feats or PrC class features.

(I'll leave it a mystery to not further derail the thread.)

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:32 am

Perhaps you should just use the mechanics that Dungeon Keeper uses for dealing with outer world domination, international economics and long term metropolitan population growth.

Oh wait...

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:40 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Perhaps you should just use the mechanics that Dungeon Keeper uses for dealing with outer world domination, international economics and long term metropolitan population growth.

Oh wait...

Wow. So constructive. Much encouragement.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 5:06 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
In any case, the claim that the fact that city growth rules exist necessarily means that cities would blob up and fill planets is completely insane and we shouldn't bother talking about it any more.

-Username17

This isn't the claim as I understood it at all. The point is that there should be mechanics that make those city planets increasingly unlikely. Growing a planar metropolis from a podunk village is something that should take generations, a couple hundred years at least. Being able to accomplish it in a few decades even given the best possible conditions is crazy.

Also without other outside factors, every civilization ever will be basically one super city as big as they can push it, rather than a more even spread of cities, towns, villages, etc. If you're looking to create an internally consistent system that generates a world anything like what we expect to see, it's a question that actually does need answered.