13-06-2002 02:44									#1
	Societal Model, v1.2 Full PM-box? Change here!

Societal Model, v1.2
The Societal Model begins and ends with the Province. The Province is the center of the Candle'Bre universe.

Provinces have the following attributes:

Name:
Starting Population:
Provincial Tax Rate: None, Very Light, Light, Normal, Heavy, Excessive, Brutal (tax rate can be locked or floating)
Population Growth Rate:
Population Demographics: (Archetypes 1-8)
Road Network Present: (Level 1, 2, or 3)
Provincial Improvement/Combination Slots: (1-12)
Population Driven Improvements (PDI’s)(1-3)
Strategic Resources Present (1-4)
Organization Level:
City Presence: (None, Township, County Seat, City, Metropolis)
Income:
Troop Training Rate:
Mercenary Hiring Rate:
Stability:
Corruption Rate:
Provincial Power Structure:
Prevailing Religion
Special Ability 1:
Special Ability 2:

Last edited by Velociryx on 16-06-2002 at 05:21

	13-06-2002 02:45									#2
	v1.2 continued Get a bigger avatar today!

The Population

Just as the Province sits at the center of the universe in Candle'Bre (being the driving force of the game), Population sits at the center of importance in a given Province. Population is THE most important resource you have, and must be guarded carefully, lest you find yourself facing ruin.

Everything requires and is tied to your population. Population drives the money you collect in taxes. Troops require population points to train. Building things require effort from your population. They are at the center of, and touch absolutely everything you do. Keep them happy, keep them growing, and your empire will thrive. Ignore them and you will lose. It's just that simple.

Unlike other games, the population of Candle'Bre is not expressed in terms of "generic" citizenry. There are 8 Archetypes that make up the kingdom's population, and each of these has their own likes and dislikes....things that make them happy, and things that upset them (though there are things that impact happiness and unhappiness as a whole...on a global level...but that is to be expected...they are, after all, human, and as such, have some interests in common, despite their differences in other areas). They also tend to have a variety of different ways of expressing their dissatisfaction.

Also unlike other games, you cannot control your population to the Nth degree. You cannot tell citizen X to go farm some land. If you want some land farmed, you make the jobs available, and citizens will go work in the farms. WHICH citizens....that is not for you to say, but if there are citizens available, they'll go where the jobs are. (more on this in the Economic Model section)

Another difference....in almost no case will unhappy citizens cause your province to simply cease all functioning. They tend to express their displeasure in terms of lower taxes collected or less productivity, population flight, and (in some cases) armed rebellion-either open, armed rebellion, or something more subtle and harder to nail down. Likewise, happy populations reward you with greater taxes, more productivity, less chance of rebellion, and stability.

For now though, let's take a closer look at the citizen archetypes of Candle'Bre, and see what makes each tick.

Attributes of Population Archetypes in general

Name:
Classification:
Likes: (1-4)
Dislikes: (1-4)
Happiness Expression: (1-3) (with percentage listings for the likelihood of each expression)
Unhappiness Expression: (1-3)(as above)
Organization Level:

Last edited by Velociryx on 16-06-2002 at 05:33

	13-06-2002 02:47									#3
	v1.2 continued Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Population Growth
As mentioned earlier, every four turns, your population will grow, based on the current growth rate in the Province. When such growth occurs, the current archetypical and social class demographic information is calculated for the province, and the new members of your population are "plugged into" the population of the province, based on the current demographics. In this way, although the demographic information of a province is a dynamic thing, the population growth itself does nothing to change the overall demographic makeup of a Province (though later, as you will see, the working citizens of your province may well change the demographics on their own).

Death Rate
Although it is true that there are numerous dangers in Candle'Bre, death is somewhat abstracted in the Kingdom. The need for resources and manpower is a constant, ongoing thing in the Kingdom, and so the populations of your various Provinces will be continually drained by the need for increasing numbers of troops to deal with various threats, both internal and external. Added to this are numerous in-game events that can rob you of population, including the fact that population is lost in a province anytime territory changes hands. Because of this, there is no real need for a "death rate" per se. The game tends to do that sort of housekeeping on its own.

Meeting the Basic Needs Requirements of the People of Candle'Bre
The citizens you rule have only one essential need. The need for food. Give them food, and they'll go on about their business.

It should be noted, however, that some folks in the Kingdom eat better than others, as demonstrated below.

Bandits - If there is Corruption and Banditry ongoing in a province you control, then the Bandits always eat first, and they consume 3 units of food per bandit.

Rogues - Although Rogues are consider Burghers in terms of social class, they consume as much food as the Nobles, which also amounts to 3 units of food per rogue (note - due to "Rogue Shift" which can sometimes occur, this could mean a dramatic increase in a Province's food requirements)

Nobles - Eat next, and consume 3 units of food per Noble.

Burghers - Next on the food chain, consuming 2 units of food per Burgher.

Peasants - Eat last, consuming 1 unit of food per Peasant.

Thus, if there are insufficient foodstocks to meet the needs of the Province, and starvation occurs, it will affect the Peasantry long before the Nobles feel the sting of hunger.

Social Stratification and the Class Struggle
Candle’Bre is not a utopian society. It has its share of struggles, strife, and problems, and, not unlike our own Medieval History, her people are locked in the unending (sometimes bitter and painful) struggle between the Peasantry, the Middle Class, and the privileged Nobility.

There will be more detail on this below, but for the moment, it is important to impress upon you, the reader and prospective ruler of Candle’Bre, the nature and depth of this conflict. It will influence your game….it will shade nearly everything you do.

First, understand that you cannot avoid the conflict. Nor can you do anything to prevent it. It will happen, and it is beyond the scope of your abilities to simply make your people stop struggling against themselves….against each other. All you can do is offer your guidance and leadership….your vision of the future.

Also understand that each of the social classes have things that drive and motivate them.

The peasantry, most numerous group in Candle’Bre, find their days filled up with long, hard hours of manual labor. Understandably, they seek to better themselves and obtain at least some level of comfort. Work them too hard and too long without providing them any means of advancement, and you will find them unhappy. The good news (for you) is that even an unhappy Peasant is not particularly dangerous, as they have no real power, political or otherwise. (Peasants are the very best candidates to work your fields and mines, and are generally the ones who answer the call when the Military Draft Horn sounds (anything to get away from their current life).

The Middle Class (burghers), however, are another matter. The up-and-coming citizens of your realm…the rising stars of the economy, these people are less numerous than Peasants, more numerous than Nobles, and their ranks seem to be almost constantly growing. Through hard work and determination, these are the folks who are changing the face of Candle’Bre… In some cases and situations, their power eclipses even that of the Nobility (which can be dangerous, for both them and you!)

The Nobles: Relatively few in number, but holders of immense power, these are the wealthy, landed aristocracy of the realm and their loyal retainers and followers (note here that being in the Noble Class does not necessarily mean that everyone here is nobility….loyal and beloved retainers, servants, and friends of Nobility are all considered to be in this class, as all have access to the lifestyle means of the Landed Aristocracy), and they have a deep abiding interest in maintaining the status quo. They are, in many ways…you. Their interests are your interests. After all, with such changes and upheavals as the upstart merchant class would propose, who is to say your own kingship would be secure? In the face of their rising power, your own dislocation is no idle threat, but an all too real possibility. And, given that the peasants are as sheep, with the Nobility as their shepherds, there is a certain sensibility to maintaining the status quo. Ahhh, but the wealth and productivity that can be unleashed by allowing the merchant class to thrive…and for the wise, careful, sufficiently diplomatic and talented ruler to encourage that thriving, and keep the nobility appeased in the same moment….for that ruler, the rewards could be vast indeed.

Understand that every action you undertake…every drafting of every citizen to soldier….every time you order a building to be built, you are subtly changing the equation and disrupting the delicate balance of power that exists between these classes. Do it without careful thought and consideration, and it WILL blow up in your face.

Consider yourself well and duly warned.
Social Advancement
When a peasant (trained at 20%--the minimum required to advance, and as it happens, the maximum training level for a Peasant) moves into any other type of job besides farming the land for the Aristocracy, he moves up the social ladder and becomes a Burgher. At that time, if the citizen so advancing is a member of the Rural Archetype, he moves into another archetype, depending on the prevailing archetypes of the province. In this way, Candle'Bre's middle class continues to grow as your Empire's Economy matures and changes. (Note that you can slow this down by simply limiting the number of Industrial type jobs (Burgher-class jobs with relatively low training requirements) in a given province).
Every four turns (on the turn that population is slated to grow), a check is made of all the Burghers in the Province. If there are any Burghers with a training level of 60%, and if those Burghers are in an Archetype that is "shared" (i.e. Nobles are also in that Archetype), then some of them are tapped for honors by the Nobility, becomming members of Candle'Bre's highest social class themselves. Only Burghers with an 60% + training level are considered, and a maximum of (# of Nobles currently in the province/10) are chosen for such honors. In this way, the Nobles of the Realm seek to maintain the status quo, by "adopting" members of the up-and-coming Middle Class. Note that Burghers tapped by the Noble class in this fashion never change archetype.
Nobles are at the top of the food chain, and are never "demoted" to some lower class.
Over the course of time then, these changes, ebbs and flows from one class to another (sometimes also causing Archetypical shift, in the case of Peasantry moving up the social ladder), may cause a change in the overall balance of Social Power in the Province. It may also lead to a certain amount of stratification of the population in certain provinces. Any time the balance of power in a given province shifts (i.e. - The Burghers usurping the Nobles as the dominant social group in a Province), a time of great upheaval is sure to follow in the Province in which the shift occurs (rebellion, a dramatic increase in Corruption and Banditry, and so forth). These can be difficult, troubling times for an Empire, but such tribulations can also be good things, in the end, as such conflict and struggle brings out the best of men of extraordinary talent. (any time such a period of upheaval occurs in a Province you control, there is a 2% chance that it will cause the spawning of a Great Leader. The abilities of this Great Leader will be dependent on his Archetype). Assuming the province is not lost due to rebellion, such a leader would be a tremendous boon to your Kingdom. If the Province is wrested from your control, however, such a leader may make a formidible enemy. (Note that changes in Archetypical Dominance can also occur in a province (ie- the Merchants wrest a majority share of influence from the Clergy), but such shifts are far less dramatic than shifts in power between the social classes themselves, and as such, they do not lead to the spawning of Great Leaders).
Social Power
Social power is expressed in two different ways, and both have been touched on briefly already (earlier, when we broke down the demographics of a province). The two means that social power manifests itself are in Archetypical Power and Social Dominance.
You, as ruler, can influence both types of power by building up or strategically weakening certain archetypes or social classes on a province-by-province basis (and in some cases, at a global level). The primary means of influencing Social Power globally is by creating a special taxation status for one or more groups (archetype or social class). This increases the happiness and social power of the group in question, and leads to unhappiness (jealousy) among the other groups not granted favorable position in the province(s) in question. The primary means of influencing Social Power at the Province level is via land grant to specific groups (land grants cost you 20g to make or revoke). A land grant to a specific group is made by gifting one (or more) tiles inside the confines of a Province to a particular group. Doing so can have a variety of effects, but generally speaking, providing a land grant to a specific group will increase the happiness of all members of that group in the Province in question, make that province much more attractive in terms of population flight (ie - if you give the Clergy a land grant in one of your provinces, then unhappy Clergy from other provinces will be more likely to resettle here, where things are more geared toward Clergy Happiness). Hand in hand with the generally happiness effect for the archetype or social class so favored will be an unhappiness effect (jealousy) for all other archetypes and/or social classes in that province. The specific effects of granting land to the various social groups are outlined below. Note that every time you make a land grant (regardless of its size in number of tiles), you lose 20% of the tax revenues for that province (less land under your direct control), and the tiles so granted can no longer be assigned for uses by you (i.e. - once you give a field tile to the Peasants, you can no longer assign workers there. Giving a forest tile to the Nobles means that you can no longer assign hunting parties there for food, nor build Forester’s guild to harvest lumber….that sort of thing). Note too that there is no additional tax loss for adding TO a current land grant. The loss only applies when making new grants.
Limitations on Granting Lands
A maximum of five grants may be made in any province (this would reduce your taxes collected in that province-given normal tax rates-to zero). Continguous tiles must be granted, if a grant (or later additon to an existing grant) is of multiple terrain tiles. Mountain tiles may not be granted.
Adding to Existing Land Grants
Periodically, those who have land grants from the King may wish to further enhance their power. If so, they may come to you asking for yet more land. Should you refuse their request, they will go away unhappy, and that unhappiness will last for four turns (this unhappiness expression is not calculated as part of provincial unhappiness as a whole, except that it completely negates the any advantage normally given you by the land grant). Giving into the group’s demands for additional lands will increase the overall effects of the land grant according to the % increase that the grant represents (i.e. - if you have given a particular group a single tile of land as part of a grant to them, and later they come back asking for more, and you agree to give them another tile, then the effects of the grant are doubled in strength. If they already have four tiles, ask for more, and you give them one additional tile, then the additional tile adds 20% to the effectiveness of the grant to that group). Adding to an existing grant costs you 20g, but sees no additional income drop).
Land grants may be revoked at any time (20g to revoke a land grant). Doing so causes a general decrease in the power stripped of their demesne, removes the unhappiness effect due to jealousy among the other groups, and restores your previously lost 10% less taxes. Revocation of any land grant makes all future land grants (and revocations of land grants) cost 10g extra (this is a cumulative effect...the more revocations you issue, the more expensive it becomes to issue further grants, representing additional negotiation fees, as the people will be more wary of you).
Chances of groups asking for a grant
This is entirely driven by the “jealousy” factor of Unhappiness. For every jealous group in a province, a check is made each turn…jealousy rate/10 = % chance that the group in question will ask for some type of concession.
Chances of groups asking for additions to existing grants
Baseline of 1% per turn (modifiers to follow later…modified by????)
Archetypical Power is simply an expression and acknowledgement of which population Archetype is “on top” in any given province. This type of power expresses itself every time you shy away from building a certain type of building, because you know that it will make the most powerful archetype in your province angry, but it can express itself in other ways as well.

Grants to Archetypes or specific Social Classes
Here are the game specific effects for granting lands to specific social classes or archetypes. These benefits effect the province the grant is made in only:
The group receiving the grant gains +40% happiness and all members of the group so favored "count" for more in terms of social weight. The amount of additional weight the group now has is equal to 0.5 per tile granted them (the more you give them, the more clout they have in the province...thus, granting lands to specific groups will, in a very real and profound way, impact the social order of the Province the grant is made in.)
Conversely, all groups NOT receiving favored status suffer a -10% Unhappiness penalty.
Additionally, depending on what group receives the grant, a special structure will be built on the site. Note that granting lands is the ONLY way these structures may be built. Note too that these structures do not count toward the provincial build limits in any way.
Clergy - Religious Stronghold - Any troops trained in this province gain +10% Morale, due to strong religious convictions (which some may regard as bordering on fanaticism). All religious structures in this province produce double their normal outputs. Province is considered to have a level 2 fortification in it (non-upgradable). Taxes in this province, and revenues from economic activity drop by 20% due to the Church taking in increasingly more money from the population. Organization level of the Clergy Archetype is +1% per tile granted.
Rural Folk - Farming Collective - All members of the Rural Archetype get a + 20% productivity boost. Up to fifteen workers may now be assigned to work on farming/hunting tiles (+1 per tile beyond the first so granted to the Collective). Organization level of the Rural Archetype is +2% per tile granted.
Fringe - Artist Colony - .5% per four turns, per tile granted the group of generating a Great Artist.
Rogue - Syndicate - Provincial Income drops by an additional 20% beyond the loss caused by making the grant, but C&B is eliminated as a possibility from the province in question. For every tile beyond the first so granted, Mercenary hiring rates increase by +1 in the province.
Merchant - Trade Guild - Unleashes pure free market forces in the province. All future provincial improvements built in a province containing a Trade Guild cost 10% less gold to build. Further, depending upon the size of the grant to the Merchants (total grant size/3), one additional provincial improvement may be constructed in the province.
Cosmopolitan - Bards Guild - .5% per four turns, per tile granted the group of generating a Great Artist
Military - Military Academy - Counts as a second barracks for the province in question, effectively doubling the number of troops that can be trained in the province. For every tile beyond the first so granted, this number increases by +1.
Academic - Scholar's Forum - Doubles the output of all scientific improvements in this province. Additionally, the Scholar's Forum generates 1 research point in each tech tree per tile granted them, per turn.
Social Class Power Manifestations
Peasant - Communal Enclave - Peasants now gain education and training at the same rate as Burghers. Training limits increase from 20% to 40%.
Burgher - Town Charter - A town may be formed even if the population limits are insufficient to normally do so. Organization level for the province as a whole is +1% per tile granted to the Burghers.
Noble - Estate - .5% per four turns, per tile granted them, that a Great Leader will be produced.
Other types of Land Grants
Land grants need not be made only to a particular citizen archetype or social class. Instead, a ruler may opt to build a shrine honoring one of the lesser deities in the Pantheon on Candle'Bre. Such a land grant to the (much less visible and influential) clergy that work on behalf of the less well-known deities in Candle'Bre's pantheon of gods/goddesses is issued and structured the same way as any other land grant, though these grants are more expensive to make (200g to make the grant, at least one tile of land in the province in question must be gifted), and its (the grant's) function is substantially different.
First, a god or goddess is chosen from among the less well-known deities of the pantheon to honor in such a way. Then, the size of the grant is selected (1 or more contiguous terrain tiles). Once the holy shrine's territory boundaries have been established, you lose all access to that land for the duration of the grant (as per any other grant), but you gain 0.2 Mana per terrain tile granted, per turn. This mana may be stored up over time and used to call upon Miracles or other favors granted to you by the other gods of the pantheon.

Last edited by Velociryx on 16-06-2002 at 05:26

	13-06-2002 02:51									#4
	v1.2 continued Remove this text

Implications of a Holy Shrine Grant
First and most significantly, any influence gained in the province in which a shrine to honor another deity of the pantheon is gained, sees its total per turn value halved for as long as the shrine exists. (J'honsa, as Highfather of the pantheon of gods, does not mind sharing glory, but doing so WILL impact total Influence received from temples and the like (all of which are built in honor of the Highfather of the pantheon).
Secondly, depending on whom the shrine is dedicated to, certain miracles and deific favors may received (stockpile Mana, spend Mana on Miracles). The specifics of these Miracles are below:
Kaylarr (Goddess of Magic and Revelry):
Ollux (God of Death, the Moon, Darkness):
Laernan (Goddess of Fertility, Life):
Social Dynamic
Given that any of the eight archetypes can, theoretically, hold the majority of power in any given province (Peasant, Burgher, Noble), and given that any of the eight Archetypes can hold the majority of power over all other archetypes present in the province, we are left with a table containing 24 possible combinations. This table represents the social dynamic of the province. Anytime the social dynamic changes, you can expect upheavals to be not far behind.
The 24 possible combinations, where social dynamics are concerned are:
Noble - Clergy
Noble - Academic
Noble - Merchant
Noble - Fringe
Noble - Rogue
Noble - Cosmopolitan
Noble - Rural
Burgher - Clergy
Burgher - Academic
Burgher - Merchant
Burgher - Military
Burgher - Fringe
Burgher - Rogue
Burgher - Cosmopolitan
Burgher - Rural
Peasant - Clergy
Peasant - Academic
Peasant - Merchant
Peasant - Military
Peasant - Fringe
Peasant - Rogue
Peasant - Cosmopolitan
Peasant - Rural
* - Note that while this list represents all conceivable combinations, not all of these are likely (or even possible) in the framework of the game…it is highly unlikely that “Peasant-Military” would ever exist in Candle’Bre. The author can currently envision no situation that may cause this to occur (though it is given that the author is in a big hurry just now, and didn’t take the time to think that through).

Citizens - Down To The Nitty Gritty
Archetypes describe broad groupings of citizens living in the various provinces of Candle’Bre, but they are not the bedrock…the foundation.

That title rests with the citizens themselves…the people you rule over. If you want to do well, then it pays to know your people….as such, here’s your first introduction and crash course…prospective ruler…meet the Citizen of Candle’Bre.

Attributes of Citizens
Archetype Membership: (Clergy, Academic, Merchant, Cosmopolitan, Military, Rogue, Fringe, Rural)
Social Class: (Peasant, Burgher, Noble)
Happiness/Unhappiness Value:
Jealousy Value:
Level of Training:
Title:
Starving (Y/N):
Military (Y/N):
Rogue Drift (Y/N):
Bandit (Y/N):

Attributes Explained
Archetype Membership - What archetype the citizen in question belongs to

Social Class - What social class the citizen is currently a member of

Happiness/Unhappiness value: The sum of all influences affecting the happiness/unhappiness of this citizen (governmental policies, provincial improvements, and relative power)
Jealousy Value: A subset of unhappiness, tracked separately. The Jealousy unhappiness factor/10 is the % chance that on any given turn, a jealous citizen will ask for a special favor on behalf of the archetype or social class he represents. Denying the request will increase general unhappiness for the group denied, granting the requested favor will increase the happiness level for all members of the group in the province (see below on Social Power).

Level of Training: How much expertise does the worker in question have?

Title: Unknown use variable…placeholder for possible use later

Starving (Y/N): Is the citizen in question starving? (Note that starving units have a significantly higher chance of turning to banditry and may shift into the ‘Rogue’ archetype even if they do not turn to banditry (see below on changing class/changing archetypes).

Military (Y/N): Is the unit currently serving in the Military? (Note that if this flag is set to yes, then the citizen unit in question does not appear in any province’s population information) - Application: This should enable military units to retain their class, archetype membership, and level of training for if/when they are disbanded and returned to civilian society). Note too that activation of this flag sets the current happiness value to null (happiness level has no bearing on a soldier’s performance level).

Rogue Drift (Y/N): One of the ways that citizens may express their discontent is by temporarily joining the Rogue archetype. Such shifts have a duration of at least four turns (ie- if an unhappy citizen expresses his unhappiness by temporarily “switching” to the Rogue archetype, he will remain IN that archetype for a minimum duration of four turns. If he is no longer unhappy, at the end of four turns, and every turn thereafter, he is 50% likely to revert to his former archetype). This is important because demographically, the higher the percentage of Rogues in a given province, the more likely you are to see Corruption and Banditry (see below).
Bandit (Y/N): A flag signifying whether or not the citizen in question is currently participating in Banditry in the province.

The Candle’Bre Pecking Order

Restating that Candle’Bre is not a utopian society, opportunities are not equal for all citizens, but the possibility exists for all citizens to better themselves, under the right influence, and with proper guidance from you, the prospective ruler.

In general terms, Nobles have more chances for self-improvement in the form of education than anyone else, with the Merchant Class (Burghers) coming in second, and the Peasants stuck in last place.

This general “pecking order” applies across the board in Candle’Bre, touching everything from who gets the choicest jobs in a given province, to who learns faster, right down to who gets to eat first. Because it is so pervasive in terms of what it touches inside the confines of the Societal Model, this pecking order should remain at or near the forefront of your mind any time you deal with your citizens.

The relative “strength” of each social class is best illustrated thusly: One Nobleman has approximately the same power as 5 Burghers or 30 Peasants (thus, we can calculate that one Burgher has approximately the same power as 6 Peasants).

Making better citizens

Your population is not a static thing. It is constantly growing and changing, sometimes on its own, and sometimes in direct response to things that you do.

Education is one area that your citizens pursue without any input or direction from you. It is the inherent desire of each citizen of Candle’Bre to strive to better himself, and Education is the primary means of doing just that.

Educational Opportunities

Peasants: Every ten turns (does not have to be consecutive) a peasant spends working, he gains a training level of 5%, to a maximum of 20%.

Burghers: Every five turns a Burgher spends working, he gains a training level of 5% (to a maximum of 100%)

Nobles: Every three turns a Noble spends working, he gains a training level of 5% (to a maximum of 100%)

Citizens not assigned to work gain a 5% increase in their training level every twenty turns (to whatever maximum level is dictated by their social class).

Levels of training are important because a closer look at the Economic Model reveals that many of the types of Provincial Improvement you can build require a certain level of training and expertise from your workforce.

Jobs!

Everybody wants them. Not everybody gets them. Here is the way it is determined which citizens are assigned to what jobs, when you make jobs available.

Farming: Peasant’s work. Peasants (Rural Folk Archetype) will line up for these jobs first, with the jobs going to the highest trained peasants first. If there are more jobs than there are Peasants, then members of the Merchant Class (Burghers) will take to the fields, but will not be happy about doing so (in this case, Burghers take to the fields beginning with the lowest trained members of that social class, and climbing the scale from there). Nobles are dead last in line to take farming jobs (again, beginning with the lowest trained of their lot and working upward).

Mining/Herd Management: Peasants LEAP at the chance to break into this type of work…backbreaking as it is, it represents a complete lifestyle change for them. Those Peasants who have sufficient training to do so are the FIRST in line to take these jobs when they become available, leaving their fields to be tended by Peasants of lesser education and ability if needs be (note though, that fields can be set to “auto max” (micromanagement tool) so that if/when peasants abandon their fields in this way, other peasants will automatically step in to fill their shoes, assuming any are available.

Manufacturing, Mercantile and Other endeavors: The strict purview of the middle class. Burghers with the higher level of training get first dibs on these jobs, and they are rounded out by the Nobility if more slots remain open (Nobility are not unhappy to work in these types of fields…it’s just that unless there is a particular NEED to work, they’d rather not). The peasantry generally lacks sufficient training to perform these jobs, but can gain access to the better jobs by starting off in the mines or herds and working their way up.

Scientific and Religious endeavors: The Noble class gets first crack at these jobs (best trained first), followed by the Burghers if any spots remain.

Magical endeavors: Only the best and the brightest minds get the opportunity to work in these types of environments, and again, it is the Nobles who get first crack at them (highest trained first), with the Burghers coming in second.

Happiness and Unhappiness - Causalities

In a nutshell, Happy people are better for your province than Unhappy people. Happy people pay their taxes, work harder, and enhance the stability of your empire by enhancing the stability of the province they live in.

Unhappy people tend to evade taxes when and where they can, work less diligently, drag down the stability of the province, and open the door for a ruler’s worst nightmare….Corruption and Banditry (see below regarding this most dreaded of events).

The following are the things that directly impact your people’s happiness/unhappiness:

1) Provincial Improvements (almost anything you build is bound to make some segments of your population unhappy, even if it improves things overall)

2) Governmental Policies you set or pursue (everybody loves griping about the government, and the folk of Candle’Bre are no exception)

3) Relative Power (if a social class has relatively little power in a given province, then that group will be relatively unhappy).

4) Jobs (some people get stuck working in jobs they hate…it happens, both here and in Candle’Bre).

5) Luxury Items (everybody loves luxury)

6) Starvation (everybody hates to go hungry)
7) Jealousy (if an archetype or social class is disadvantage relative to other archetypes or social classes in a given province, there will be an unhappiness effect because of it).

Each of these will be completely detailed and explained below, and are instrumental to a better understanding of happiness and unhappiness effects.

Provincial Improvements: As we have seen, Citizen Archetypes are made happy by the presence of some types of Provincial Improvements, and made unhappy by the presence of others. Each Provincial Improvement that makes a citizen happy, makes him 10% happier. Each Provincial Improvement that makes a citizen unhappy, makes him 10% unhappier.

Governmental Policies: The complete and detailed listing of Governmental policies is below, and variable in their effect, dependent on the archetype of the citizen in question, but as a rule, you may rely on the fact that happiness/unhappiness caused by Governmental Policies is measured in 5% Increments in either direction.

Relative Power: The most powerful social class in a given province will be, across the board, 50% happier. The second most powerful group has normal happiness rates, and the least powerful group is 50% unhappier with their current station.

Note that if the provincial balance of power should change, then the “unseated” social class (the one that was formerly higher on the chart) sees an additional 40% unhappiness effect, while the social class that gained an upper hand sees an additional happiness increase of 20%. This effect lasts for 20 turns, and is cumulative with all other effects (ie- if the Nobles are displaced by the Burghers as the most powerful social class in a given province, then the Nobles will suffer a -40% blow to their happiness, while the rising star of the Burghers gives them a total bonus of +70% to happiness (+50 for now being on top, and an additional +20 for having unseated the Nobles. Should the unthinkable happen, and the Peasants gain more power than the Nobles during the next ten turns, the Nobles would suffer an additional -40% happiness penalty for being unseated a second time).

Jobs: Citizens who get stuck working in jobs they do not like are 10% unhappier.

Luxury Items: (depends on the luxury - see details in the Economic Model)

Starvation: The kiss of death. A massive 80% unhappiness rate for any citizens who don’t eat. Think you can maintain something resembling a productive society with starvation running rampant? Try it and see…

Last edited by Velociryx on 16-06-2002 at 05:29

	13-06-2002 04:38									#5
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Can't you just edit your first post? Between v1.0, v1.1, and your staff topic, I won't be able to keep track of all this...

	13-06-2002 05:58									#6
	Suffering from ads?

Sounds good, Vel, but I have a few comments:

Mpt sure if I agree with the government sliders. As far as the concept goes, I think EU 2 has done it exceptionally well.

quote: Governmental Structure Feudalism<---->Republican ^ | | | V Theocratic

I don't consider these concepts are mutually exclusive. First, we should define these terms.

Feudalism, I consider to be the system of obligations and priveliges between land owners and renters - lords and vassals.

Theocracy is the rule of the chruch, of course.

Republicanism, in the midieval context, was the system of election of a monarch by the nobles. For example, the Republic of Venice or Republic of Genoa.

In midieval society, feudal law and secular church power were constants. Religion, at least to some degree, was invaribly law. In Venice or Poland, the final condition was also true. So I strongly advise against such a model. Perhaps we should split up the 3 concepts.

quote: Economic Outlook Collectivistic<---->Capitalistic * Collectivism * * * * * * Capitalism

This seems like another anachronism. Collectivism could be said to have played some part in Iceland during this period; but not much else, IMO. As far as the economic organization goes, I think a two axes:

Serfdom/Free Peasantry
and
Aristocracy/Plutocracy
like EU 2 might be a better idea.

quote: Inter-Kingdom Relations (still needs name change)

Do you mean tolerance of other nationalities, or tolerance of other kingdoms?
If the latter, some variation of "diplomacy" might be a decent name.

quote: Religious Outlook Slider

With a theocracy slider, is this redundant?
___________________

Should we have Clergy as a distinct social class? Historically, Clergy had to give up all secular titles. It also had no strong ties to the class from which they came barring a few exceptions (England 1381 comes to mind). IMO, the Clergy should probably operate independently from their class promoting the Church's agenda.

__________

What about seperate taxation rates for each social class? Burghers and peasants in particular generally have been harshly taxed, while the nobles and clergy lightly taxed.

	13-06-2002 07:09									#7
	v1.2 continued Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Governmental Outlook

Step changes in the negative direction make Clergy, Rural Folk, and Military Archetypes happy. They also make the Noble social class happy (ie - this Governmental policy counts twice in the case of the Military archetype, for example, and in the case of determining the happiness effect of archetypes containing some percentage of Nobles). Happiness effect is 5% per step. All other archetypes see a -5% unhappiness factor for negative step changes.

Step changes in the positive direction make Rogues, Cosmopolitan, Merchant, and Fringe happy (+5% per step change). The abovementioned groups suffer a -5% per step change unhappiness penalty.

* Dogmatic: Relatively closed-minded society, NOT open to new ideas but deeply committed to maintaining traditionalism. Church intercession costs 15i. Any Industrial Improvements cost 15g less to build. Research costs are 15% higher, across the board.

*-2 Church Intercession costs 16i. Any Industrial improvement costs 10g less to build. Research costs are 10% higher, across the board.

*-1 Church Intercession costs 18i. Any Industrial improvement costs 5g less to build (Guilds being seen as "old school" methodology, and in keeping with traditionalist ways. Research costs are 5% higher, across the board.

*0 Game start position - No Effects

*1 Church Intercession costs 22i, Industrial improvements cost 5g more to build. Research costs are 5% cheaper, across the board

*2 Church Intercession costs 24i, Industrial improvements cost 10g more to build. Research costs are 10% cheaper, across the board.

* Innovative: Highly flexible and open-minded society, willing to experiment with new ideas at the expense of traditionalism. Church Intercession costs 25i, Industrial improvements cost 15g more to build. Research costs are 15% cheaper across the board.

The outlook is set to the center position at game start.

*Use Strategy: If you plan on building a heavy industrial base (lots of guilds) early, then it could be very much in your best interest to tend toward a Dogmatic society...likewise, if you play Castillar, or have a big need/desire to build Church Influence into your overall strategy...Dogmatic may be the approach for you. Once that Industry is in place (and you've reaped the biggest gains from Dogmatic), switching over to Innovation for the research windfall will put you in a strong position (your early game focus on industry will see you making more than the usual amount of money by the mid-game, and this, coupled with the cheaper research rates, should see you catching up and then some, tech-wise).

*****


Governmental Structure

Theocratic<--->Aristocratic<---->Republican

OoO


Aristocratic<---->Republican leg

Noble social class is -10% unhappy per step change away from Aristocratic//+5% per step change in happiness for Merchant, Fringe, and Cosmopolitan archetypes

* Aristocratic - Baseline - No penalties or bonuses

*C&B Percentages decrease by -5% (more peaceful, more effective ways of protesting)

*C&B Percentages decrease by -10%

*C&B Percentages decrease by -15%

*C&B Percentages decrease by -20%

*C&B Percentages decrease by -25%

* Republican C&B Percentages decrease by -30% Allows the purchase of one additional slider adjustment during the ten turn waiting period for 100g (people-oriented government is fairly rapid response).

* Use strategy - well developed economies can get HAMMERED by Corruption and Banditry. Republicanism goes a LONG way in minimizing this damage. If you have not spent significant amounts of money building industries in your provinces, then the benefits to Republicanism will be scant indeed (since that's where the majority of Corruption and Banditry hits occur), but if you've built up an advanced economy, then you need an advanced government to compliment it.

OoO


Aristocratic <---->Theocratic leg
Moving along this slider will yield a +5% happiness modifier for the Clergy and Rural archetypes, for each step change. It will yield a -10% penalty per step change for the Noble social class

* Aristocratic - Baseline - No modifiers

* Religious builds are 5% cheaper//Governmental builds are 5% more expensive

* Religious builds are 10% cheaper//Religious builds may have up to +10 additional workers in them

*Productivity increases +10% for all archetypes//Taxes drop -5% (from both taxes and industrio-econo builds) (zealot workers in a frenzy...less money due to increasing tithes)

* Religoius builds are 15% cheaper//Gov builds are 10% more expensive//Rel builds can have up to +20 additional workers in them

* Productivity increases +20% for all archetypes//Taxes drop -10% (again, from both tax rate and from ind/ec builds)

* Theocratic - Religious builds are 20% cheaper//Industrial builds are 10% cheaper//government builds are 15% more expensive//religious buildings can have up to +30 more workers in them//productivity increases +25% for all archetypes//tax rates drop -15%

At game start, the slider is set to ‘Aristocratic.’

* Use strategy: Fantastic for building rapidly, if you don't mind the money hit. Also can see HUGE amounts of Church Influence (nice compliment to playing a Dogmatic style game, with cheaper intercessions and more influence thanks to a higher portion of your population working in and for the Church). The ONLY hitch is that governmental buildings (and therefore, fortresses) are more expensive (pay extra for all that fancy stone scroll work and gargoyles the priests will insist on), meaning as a purely defensive strategy, it somewhat works against itself, but....with the sheer amount of Influence you can find yourself with (each temple is basically counting triple, if fully staffed), you can be...scary.

*****
How Happiness/Unhappiness Manifest Themselves

Any time an archetype is happy/unhappy, the first thing that happens is a check, based on the archetype, to determine how the happiness or unhappiness will express itself this turn. Note that some archetypes only have one means of expressing contentment or discontent, while others have a wide range of possible responses.

The first thing then, is to determine what the response will be. This is done on a per turn basis.

Once the response has been determined, it expresses itself as per below:

1) Greater/Lesser Taxes Collected (more or less money in the tax man’s purse). Note that happiness or unhappiness expressed in this way affects ALL sources of income that a given province has (both basic taxes collected and the monies generated from economic activity in the province). Thus, if you have a thriving cattle market that generates 30g a turn in a province generating 50g in taxes at the baseline rate (80g total), then a 10 Unhappiness effect on taxes will see the province lose 8g total.

2) Greater/Lesser Productivity (faster or slower build times on provincial improvements…also means less food from the fields) Build times are calculated in units of production equal to the basic time to build times 100. Lost productivity manifests itself thusly: A build crew (20 workers) produces 100 units of production per turn at normal happiness rates. a 10% Unhappiness effect on productivity will cause total production for the turn to drop to 90 units of production (meaning that a building with a build time of 1--100 units of production--would require an additional turn to build, since it's build price in production units was not met on the current turn).

3) Increase/Decrease in Stability (makes it easier/harder for opponents to use espionage to incite rebellion—see below) Units that provide increasing or decreasing stability give the province a 1% bonus or penalty to overall stability levels for every 10% happiness/unhappiness modifier in either direction. Note that stability can rise to above 100% base, but if it drops to 0%, then rebellion is automatic.

4) Population Flight (People leave for greener pastures) Unhappy Archetypes who opt to express their unhappiness via population flight may or may not actually act upon their desire to leave. If this type of unhappiness expression is selected, the % chance of the citizen actually leaving is equal to the % of unhappiness the citizen in question is facing (modified by the existance of level two and/or level three road networks). If he does not opt to leave, nothing at all happens. If he does opt to leave, and if there is at least a level two road network in the province with the unhappy citizen, he will examine the layout of all provinces bordering the one he is currently in, and flee toward the one most to his liking, according to his happiness/unhappiness configuration (likes and dislikes on the Archetype attribute table). Note that this may mean the citizen flees his native province for another of your territories, or for a neighboring Kingdom. This is entirely dependant on how surrounding provinces are configured, and which are most to the liking of the archetype contemplating flight.


5) Rebellion (Open rebellion or Corruption and Banditry) No matter how you slice it, rebellion is a bad thing. If rebellion is the unhappiness expression chosen for a given archetype, the first thing that happens is a rebellion check. A roll against the stability of the province is made. (with a -1% modifier--making the rebellion 1% more likely to occur--for every percentage point of the population currently contemplating rebellion, and further modified by -1% (making rebellion more likely still) for every 1% of the population that fall into the Rogue Archetype. If the stability check fails, then a rebellion is brewing.

The next step is to determine the nature of the rebellion. Every citizen in the archetype contemplating rebellion must check against the stability of the province (modified per above) to see if they in fact join the rebellion. If the number of citizens joining the rebellion is equal to or greater than the number of troops garrisoned in the province, a number of mercenary units equal to the number of rebelling citizens form up in the province and declare neutrality (if the numbers are equal to the number of garrisoned troops, a battle results, if the number is greater, then the garrison is chased out, the province reverts to neutrality, and the mercenary units remain active in the province to guard against future incursions (population figures for the province are adjusted accordingly).

If the rebellion fails to attract enough support to throw off the yoke of the current ruler, then a quieter, more subversive rebellion begins. Corruption and Banditry.

Note that this is not the only way Corruption and Banditry can come about. Any time a province has a positive C&B percentage, if there are rogue archetypes present in the province, there is a chance (equal to the C&B%) that such subversion will occur (in this case, if a check indicates that C&B is occuring, then every member of the rogue archetype checks against the province's C&B percentage to see if they join in the fun.

Effects of C&B:
1) Bandits prowling in a province eat first (even before the nobility), and they eat well (3 food consumed per bandit operating--just like the nobility). This can have devastating consequences for the province as a whole, and lead to widespread starvation.

2) All citizens participating in the banditry pay no taxes, and any citizen participating in the banditry who has been assigned to work in any provincial improvement takes up a slot, but accomplishes zero work (which can horribly drag down production across the board). Note that this can further depress food production if the bandits have been assigned to work in the fields. Not only do they eat a LOT of the food that is produced, but they prevent the province from collecting as much food as it could.

Every turn, a new C&B check is made to see if the banditry continues. If the check fails, the banditry ends. If it succeeds, it continues for another round.

Dealing with Corruption and Banditry

Once it takes root in a province, it can prove to be cursedly difficult to root out. The most direct way of doing so is by stationing troops in the beleguered province (adjusting governmental sliders is another way of dealing with the problem, but represents a longer term fix).

The arrival of troops in a province subject to mistreatment by outlaws changes the equation, and the following turn, a new C&B check is made per above. If it succeeds (indicating that the banditry will continue), then a comparison is made...number of bandits vs. the number of troops now stationed in the territory. If the bandits are equal or greater in number, then the presence of the troops will flush the bandits out and force their hand. They will battle for, or outright take control of the province (if this happens, treat it as a normal rebellion....the garrison might get kicked out, but on the following turn, your forces can move in and reclaim the province, quelling the rebellion and killing off the rebels, enforcing a semi-permanant solution to the problem....semi-permanant, because keep in mind that even if every last rogue archetype is hunted down and killed in this manner, continued unhappiness may spawn more rogues as other citizen archetypes cast off their old skins for new).

Other ways of butting heads with the Corruption and Banditry Demon

Expansion is the natural goal of all Empires, and the burning desire of all would-be Emperors. As an empire grows, however, so does the possibility for increased corruption and banditry.

The baseline theshold for expansion without further tempting the bandits among your people is ten (10) provinces. Grow beyond that as you will, but know that by doing so, you open the door a bit wider for corruption to creep in (every province beyond the tenth sees your baseline C&B% grow by 2%).

Other C&B Remedies
Besides making long term strategic adjustments to the governmental sliders and stationing an increasing number of troops in your provinces to ward off the bandits, there are some provincial builds that will decrease the chances of corruption and banditry becoming a long-term problem (see the economic model for details here). The wise ruler will make judicious use of all three of these principal means of minimizing the C&B problem.

6) Rogue-Drift (Leads directly to Corruption and Banditry) The citizen in question temporarily leaves his native archetype behind, and becomes a member of the Rogue Archetype (subject to all happiness/unhappiness calculations as though he were a rogue, beginning on the next turn), for a period of not less than four turns. This is bad news for you, becuse the more rogues there are in a province, the more likely that province is to suffer from Corruption and Banditry. After four turns, if the citizen in question is no longer unhappy, he is 50% likely per turn to revert back to his former archetype. Note that if the citizen in question is a Peasant, however, and given the crushing lifestyle that Peasants live under, once a Peasant has tasted the lifestyle of a Rogue, and seen what the world has to offer, he may, after the four turns spent as a Rogue, opt to establish himself as some other archetype (this is determined at random - 30% likely that the peasant will return to his farm, 70% likely that he will morph into some other Archetype). Peasants are the ONLY social class this special case applies to.





Just back from my Wednesday night "date night" with my grandmother up at the retirement home....got some quality sci fi watching in, and some good home cooking to boot, and am once more ready to get cracking!

Sorry Cyclo... The main reason I decided to start a new topic for the Societal Model was cos I got so involved in what I was doing on the other thread that I inadvertantly co-mingled the Societal and Economic models....another new thread, one exclusively for the EconoModel is coming soon....just gotta scrape together enough free time to put together my thoughts on it and flesh that one out a bit more....a bit more work on this one, and I'll be ready to start the other!

Ramo - some excellent comments, and one of the MAIN reasons I'm posting this stuff as I go....getting feedback while I'm in the midst of creating this stuff is invaluable to me!

To answer some of your questions...I totally agree...EU does a bang up job of handling the whole notion of sliders....I am a bit reluctant to stray too far into the copycat zone with them and their concepts though, for a number of reasons.

Primarily though, because we are creating a whole new world from the ground up here. True, it's got a Medieval basis, and draws on numerous parallels with our own Medieval period, but it has developed a distinctly different flavor with its 200 years of isolation, and growing up in a slightly magical world.

The way I see it, the three proposed government types stem directly from, and are outgrowths of the backstory that sets the stage of the game.

Feudalism - being the basis of the old Kingdom (and being a tangible representation of all that was lost to them with the Old Empire's destruction and their own self-imposed (accidental or not) isolation...it gave the people something familiar to grab onto...a thing of vital importance back in the dark days immediately following the destruction of the Nilrogg horde)....so, the people latched onto the the thing they were most familiar with when they chose the First King of Candle'Bre....looks a lot like our own brand of Feudalism...Landed Aristocracy forming the power base, their right to rule sanctified by the Church.

Theocracy - Given the Church's vast presence during the flight, and their obvious strength during Candle'Bre's opening days, I see this as the ultimate expression of the Church "shrugging off the middle man" (landed Aristocracy) and taking direct control of secular affairs.

Republican - Rather than following the Historical bent here, I see this as an outgrowth of the Council of Seven....a Candle'Bre experiment in representative Democracy

Not sure if the Religious slider will wind up being redundant or not, but you raise a valid point there, and I'll be looking very closely at that as I begin fleshing out exactly what the various positions along those sliders do. If they start looking eerily similar (and they might), I'll duly nix it.

The multiple tax rates is an intriguing idea. Lemme finish putting this model together, and then superimpose some alternate tax schemes across it and see how she looks....my gut reaction is...I'm diggin' the notion...

Diplomacy is as good a word as any for the inter-kingdom relations slider, and certainly better than its current name....that's another slider I'm not 100% sure what the heck I'm gonna do with, but I put it up there for options' sake....as I'm fleshing out, if nothing springs immediately to mind to do with it, it'll go up on the chopping block.

For the moment, I'm off to add in a few spiffy details I thought of during the drive back, and then to see where things stand with the model as a whole. Gawd this is making my head spin, but I'm loving it!

-=Vel=-

Last edited by Velociryx on 16-06-2002 at 05:30

	13-06-2002 13:19									#8
	Put an end to popups!

Vel,

This all looks good but I have one biggish question about implementation - even though its early days to be pondering such things

How are you going to store the information on your citizens? Reading your post I'm getting the feeling (rightly or wrongly) that data on each individual citizen will be stored and theoretically accesible from a kind of grand spreadsheet. Whilst that would add a feeling of involvement to a Province and make for very accurate demographics , I'm thinking thats a *lot* of data to handle!

I'm not a programmer (well not since my Sinclair Spectrum days at least ), but one alternative I can think of, is to set up a 3D array for the citizens of each province, citizen attributes along one axis, their training level along a second and their happiness factor (or however this is measured, along a third. Effectively sets up a 3D set of points, covering all possible states for a citizen. Then each point has a number associated with it, which is the number of citizens in that state. Demographics are then tracked/modeled by altering these numbers. Still a fair bit of data, but a lot less than the 'individual citizen' model.

Using this idea, it may be a good thing for example to have citizen training alter in steps of 5% every 4 turns or something. This would give you a maximum of 20 steps along the second axis that would need to be accounted for, rather than 100, which would drastically reduce the size of your array.

I'm probably trying to teach the coding team to suck eggs here though, I imagine there's probably far more cunning alternatives available. In which case colour me curious!

Rich.

	13-06-2002 18:33									#9
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Yeah...as I was reading that last night, it dawned on me just how many datapoints that represented. I'm working on a few ways of streamlining that so it's not quite as much of a nightmare, but it's something I'm still chewing on.

One alternative (this would not be any less data--in fact, it would be slightly more, but of differing character--would be to adopt the notion of levels from the combat model (say everything from 1-19% training was a "level one" citizen...and go up from there...that way the internal data points (the exact experience of each citizen) would be tracked individually, yes, but would not have to be displayed in any way to the player (they'd just see the note concerning how many level one citizens they had).

Would that....help at all, or is the bigger fear with the sheer amount of data?

-=Vel=-

	13-06-2002 18:46									#10
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Velociryx Yeah...as I was reading that last night, it dawned on me just how many datapoints that represented. I'm working on a few ways of streamlining that so it's not quite as much of a nightmare, but it's something I'm still chewing on. One alternative (this would not be any less data--in fact, it would be slightly more, but of differing character--would be to adopt the notion of levels from the combat model (say everything from 1-19% training was a "level one" citizen...and go up from there...that way the internal data points (the exact experience of each citizen) would be tracked individually, yes, but would not have to be displayed in any way to the player (they'd just see the note concerning how many level one citizens they had). Would that....help at all, or is the bigger fear with the sheer amount of data? -=Vel=-

Hmmm not sure if fear is the right word but yep, it was the sheer amount of data that gave me slight cause for concern. Maybe not so much for the original Candle'Bre game with 60 or so provinces (although it'd be nice if my poor lil 300MHz 32MB machine could run it - and yes I know thats a woeful spec for this day and age ) - but thinking ahead a little to any potential sequels with an expanded world, then a compact societal model is going to be very useful if not essential.

Heh - just realised that my last idea is pretty much useless as it doesn't allow for combinations of citizen attributes. Teaching to suck eggs - more like egg on my face . Ah well, I'm sure one of the team will find a neat way to do it.

edit: *ignore* that last paragraph, I am definitely not with it today! Looking at the citizen attributes again, most of them are simply rules to govern behaviour. So the 3D array idea does work, instead of citizen attributes along one axis, you have citizen *archetypes*. Which gives you a single, reasonably compact, data structure with happiness level, training level and citizen archetypes and how many of citizens of each type there are in the Province. So you can query your structure and find out (for example) how many 30% happy 20% trained Rural Folk there are in the Province. The citizen *attributes* are then rules which are applied to the data structure to change it, sometimes with fortunate effects, sometimes not.

Thought - the citizen attributes wouldn't have to be hard coded into the model, but could be set up in a rules.txt file??

Anyhow I'm just speculating aloud (so to speak).

Rich.

	14-06-2002 01:57									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Feudalism - being the basis of the old Kingdom (and being a tangible representation of all that was lost to them with the Old Empire's destruction and their own self-imposed (accidental or not) isolation...it gave the people something familiar to grab onto...a thing of vital importance back in the dark days immediately following the destruction of the Nilrogg horde)....so, the people latched onto the the thing they were most familiar with when they chose the First King of Candle'Bre....looks a lot like our own brand of Feudalism...Landed Aristocracy forming the power base, their right to rule sanctified by the Church.

The thing is, I don't necessarily consider feudalism a system of government as much as a system of economic and legal organization. If you're going for a "rule of nobles" type feel, perhaps "Aristocracy" would be a better name.

quote: Republican - Rather than following the Historical bent here, I see this as an outgrowth of the Council of Seven....a Candle'Bre experiment in representative Democracy

So we're talking about a system in which everyone (or at least all men) vote, including peasants? Or a system where there are land qualifications and poll taxes to insure that of the commoners, only the burghers have their say?

I don't know if we'll want to deal with the baggage that might be implied by the former (socialism and the like)... Peasants should probably be kept in their places during the period, IMO (both economically and politically ).

__________

So, what do you think of Clergy as a seperate class?

	14-06-2002 07:45									#12
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Latest round of societal model 1.1 changes and additions have been made...lots of stuff fleshed out now, including the dreaded C&B. Still needs work and tweaking, but this is the most complete version of the societal model to date.

Note that I nixed most of the governmental sliders....just wasn't as much play there as I figured there would be.

I'm not opposed to putting them back, if we can think of solid game-mechanics driven reasons for doing so. As it stands though, I think the sliders we DO have (to be augemented in the next iteration by some radio buttons I have in mind), do a pretty fair job.

Re: Clergy as a separate class....still pondering that. I like the idea, but am uncertain as to its manifestation in the current soc model.

And to the question of the republican mindset....in my head, it was that each citizen got a vote, but either way, I think the concept is fairly abstracted (republicanism exists solely to combat c&b at the moment....relatively weak, but then, c&B can be pretty crippling).

As it stands, I regard the gov. sliders to be THE weak spot of the design. I'm doing some work to correct that, but it won't get put up till the next iteration of the model, so....in the meantime, if you guys have any comments or ideas on how we could either streamline, simplify, add to, or take away from the model as it's shaping up, don't be shy about making those sugesstions! I've taken most of the ideas mentioned here and woven them in, because they have been excellent...keep 'em coming guys, and this model will really start to shine! (if we can get this one looking as coolio as the combat model over the course of the next several iterations, we'll be in terriffic shape!)

-=Vel=-
(exhausted and going to bed)

	14-06-2002 08:41									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Instead of dealing with abstract sliders what making more direct decisions/laws?

For instance, if we dump the abstract aristocracy/theocracy/republicanism sliders, and we use direct laws instead such as:

If you increase or decrease the power of the aristocracy, you grant or sieze land to/from your vassals from/to your demense. Similarly, your relations with the clergy would work that way. Both events of course happened all the time in our medieval history.

If you want to increase or decrease the power of the peasantry, you could free or enserf some of them. That could accomplish the effect on C&B you want.

You could also put harsh caps on the wages of peasants if you really want to piss them off (this almost overthrew the monarchy, and much of the feudal system, in England during this period).

	14-06-2002 18:44									#14
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Just some thoughts about population evolution.

I very much liked the idea of the peasant turning to Banditry and then deciding to leave the farm behind! Chimed with some thinking I'd being doing on the population in general, so I figured now was probably a good time to post these thoughts

At the moment I'm wondering how population growth of each Archetype is going to be handled? The simplest way presumably would be to have an even increase in Archetype numbers, so a positive growth rate increases Province population but does not alter the relative amounts of each archetype present, ie. archetype percentages remain fixed.

I was toying with the idea of modeling population increase by splitting the population into pairs of parents and then assuming that the offspring of a given pair would either have a chance of following in their father's or mother's footsteps, archetype wise. Set up the concepts of a 'patriarchal - matriarchal' slider to control this, as well as setting up rules defining which archetypes are more likely to pair off with others.

Not surprisingly I got distinctly bogged down with all this and decided to abandon it . The idea however was to produce a slowly evolving society which would need to be responded to. A couple of easier ways to do this: 1. Introduce a random archetype shift, each time a population change is calculated. 2. Have archetype shifts dependant on province builds, either in isolation or over the Empire as a whole. 3. Link the shifts to the currently proposed slider settings.

As an example I'm picturing an Empire that invests a lot into research buildings. The population is initially sceptical (some archetypes being downright hostile), but over time they see the tangible benefits of the research and the society as a whole becomes more research tolerant, manifesting as a shift towards the Academic archetype.

Personally I would simply like the thought of watching my Empire evolve as I played the game. More tangibly this provides a kind of positive feedback loop, which if not handled right could cause all sorts of trouble, particularly when combined with the 'dominant archetype gets a happiness bonus' rule. Shift your archetypes *too* far and you could radically alter the balance of happiness and/or power in a Province, which probably wouldn't be a good thing!


Rich.

Last edited by BigRich on 14-06-2002 at 18:56

	14-06-2002 20:41									#15
	Remove this text

WOW! Rich, that parental pairing notion is top notch! You're right...in my head, I went with a static framework (whereby the archetype percentages were constant, and each time new people were born in the province, they simply got "plugged into" the various archetypes according to the baseline percentages...but I'm LOVING the notion of an evolutionary population!!

Probably, it'd require at least one other attribute on the buildings in the Economodel (call it "imprinting" or something, lending to its ability to slow stamp itself on the minds of the population, making it more likely that their offspring will drift toward the archetype that a specific buildig imprints.

So...the basic system could be something like this:

Mom and Dad give birth to a new CB citizen. That CB citizen is 50% likely to go with mom's archetype, and 50% likely to go with dad's archetype.

If there are buildings in the province with 'imprinting' toward a particular archetype, then this becomes a third force (with percentages being pulled evenly from mom and dad's pool to create the third choice).

Example....let's say that scientific builds come with a 2% academic imprinting, and the province in question has 5 Scientific buildings in it.

Mom's a farm gal, dad works in the church. Junior would normally be 50/50 split between farming and church work, but because of the 10% Academic imprinting, he now has a 45% chance to become a farmer, 45% chance to become clergy, and a 10% chance to become academic.

Would be REALLY interesting too, if we gave the imprinting value a time-driven increasing effect....say that every x turns, it's effect increased by an additional 2%, to a maximum of 20% or something.

In the above example, if mom was an academic and dad worked in the church, then the imprinting chance would be added to mom's chances of influencing junion (50 base, plus 10 due to the pull of the facilities, makes it 60% likely that Junior will drift into the Academic Archetype, and only 40% likely that he'll join the church).

I LOVE this idea!

Will draft out some more thoughts on it as I'm putting together v1.2 of the model (which I promptly started working on this morning! LOL)

As this model is coming together, it occurs to me that I will very likely fall into the same category as you....to h*ll with fighting...I just wanna see what'll happen with the people next! LOL

And yes! I was pretty happy with the notion of the Peasants shucking off their former lifestyle thanks to their time spent with the Rogues...adds an interesting dynamic to the notion of unhappiness, and, IMO, more importantly, it provides a mechanism for change that is essentially conflict driven (the peasants, having had their fill of the current leadership's treatment of them, go rogue, and possibly participate in a bit of banditry...but, they're basically good folk....banditry's not really their style, and so, they long for a more normal life....but....hanging with the bad boys of the provinces opens up their eyes to a world of possibilities they never even knew existed, and suddenly, 18 hour work days on the farm begin to look less appealing....so, after a period of rowdiness, they leave the rogues behind and either strike out on their own in a new life, or head back to their farm to live quietly....pretty cool stuff...

-=Vel=-
(wrestling with several formulas this morning that drive the whole model....finding out that it's tougher than I imagined to get it working like I want it to, but I am getting it there!)

	14-06-2002 20:46									#16
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Ramo - I'd like to do both...some slider driven stuff and some direct decision laws (radio buttons or whathaveyou). Will be drafting some of that out, but I gotta say, the land grant idea rocks, and will most definitely be in v1.2 (which I'm working on right now!)

-=Vel=-

	14-06-2002 21:37									#17
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Let me weigh in a second on the population growth thing. I think that it more likely that population growth will be highest when considering the economic standing. Those with poor economic standing mostlikely have the largest population growth.

Peasants, assuming food is in supply willlikely create a swarm of more peasants in order tohelp work the fields. Conversely Nobles etc. typically have smaller family units.

I would stick with the a population growth model that takes into account the archetypes wealth and make the growth inversely proportional.


Likewise famine, mortality from other effects (Fate cards) are going to likely hit the poor the hardes as they are least equipped to deal with the hardship.

Just my thoughts

Og

	14-06-2002 23:15									#18
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Og

Nice - and fairly easy to do I would think. Rather than a single growth rate for a province, you just have three, one each for peasants, burghers and nobles.

Vel

Couple of spin-offs from the evolving population idea that occured to me on the way home.

Power shifts and Great Leaders.

This all comes from the idea of a dominant (and therefore happier) Social class in a Province. If the archetype evolution is such that this dominant class in the province changes, then this would reflect a period of massive social change and upheaval. Maybe this could be the trigger for the generation of a Great Leader, if they find their way into the game somewhere. The type of leader depends on the paradigm shift, a shift to the Militarists for example would produce a General, a shift to Academics could produce a Great Artist or Scientist.

If a paradigm shift leads to a Rebellion in a province, then that province secedes from the Empire and either joins an opposing faction more in line with its views. or becomes neutral. So theoretically it would be possible for a well developed Builder empire to be thrown into sudden chaos from the emergence of a splinter group, which should add a certain spice to the endgame .

More speculatively, depending on how the population is tracked, it may be possible to pin-point the exact citizen that finally tipped the balance in the model. This citizen is the Great Leader as described above and the parentage of this citizen would be known. Cue a nice little pop-up box announcing a state of turmoil in Province X, with a nice little potted biography of the
Leader. Probably more trouble than its worth but may add a certain immersion.

Also how about making the emergence of a Great Leader a prerequisite for one or more of the Minor Wonders? This Wonder would then effectively stand as a celebration (or salient reminder) of part of the history of a Province.

"As this model is coming together, it occurs to me that I will very likely fall into the same category as you....to h*ll with fighting...I just wanna see what'll happen with the people next! LOL"

Definitely! A game model where it's possible to have a real 'peasant boy becomes powerful leader' scenario - sweet! A staple of fantasy literature that just - -happens. No player input, no pre-scripted events, but a result of the underlying game mechanics.

Keeping all fingers firmly crossed that this can be boiled down into a reasonably codable model

Rich

	15-06-2002 00:44									#19
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As always, *outstanding* ideas flowing here! Keep 'em coming!

Had to come up for air for at least a few minutes....hard at work drilling into the specific formulae that make the whole engine run....it's REALLY coming together, guys!

I have a spreadsheet that's tracking all my tweaks and changes put together to make sure I'm on the right track, but here's a little taste of where I am currently....this is stuff that I'm working on for v1.2 of the Societal Model....was pretty happy with it so far, and wanted to put a little bit of a teaser down to see whatcha think!

*Note that the Clergy Archetype is changing somewhat....is now 75% Burgher/5% Noble/ 20% Peasant (prolly will change more, but that's what these calculations were done with)

****

Calculating organization level

Let us begin at game start, before any improvements have been added to the mix. What you have at the start of the game, is a province filled up with different archetypes and social classes, and that’s it. So how does that look, exactly? For our purposes, let us suppose we control a Province called Nuria, and that Nuria has the following population demographics (broken down by archetypes)

Name: Nuria
Starting Population: 400
Population Demographics:
1 Rural Folk (40) (160 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 5%)
2 Clergy (30) (120 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 20%)
3 Military (5) (20 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 40%)
4 Merchant (15) (60 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 30%)
5 Fringe (5) (20 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 10%)
6 Rogue Element (5) (20 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 10%)

Basic Org Level (for purposes of checking to see if a township organizes here is calculated thusly (.4*.05) + (.3*.2) + (.05*.4) + (.15*.3) + (.05*.1) + (.05*.1), for a total provincial org level of 9.5%. Thus, if the population reaches a point where a township could potentially form, there is a 9.5% chance per turn that it will form.


Stability: (Organization Level * 1.5) + (Sum of Societal Weights * 2.25) = Stability.

(1-stability% = chance that a province will Rebel if something happens to cause a rebellion check) – Details on this calculation are below:

To calculate the stability of the province, however, it is necessary to weight the archetypes according to the amount of social power they hold. As it stands now, each member of the population in Nuria is counted equally, but the various social classes are not equal. Nobles hold MUCH more power than the other two groups. For our purposes, 1 Noble is equal to 12 Peasants, and 1 Burgher is equal to 4 Peasants.
Weighted Archetype Figures (pulled from the the Nuria province information above, and weighted according to social class influence)

Rural Folk (all peasants) 160 * 1 = 160
Clergy (5/75/20) = (6*12) + (90*4) + 24 = 72+360+24=456
Military (all nobles) = 20*12 = 240
Merchants (all burghers) 60*4 = 240
Fringe (20/80/0) (4*12) + (16*4) = 48+64=112
Rogue (all counted as burghers) (20*4) = 80
Total societal weight: 1288

Province Power Structure (by archetype)

Rural Folk: 160/1288 = 12% (the Rural archetype, 40% of the population, has 12% of the power IN the province)
Clergy: 456/1288 = 35%
Military: 240/1288 = 19%
Merchants 240/1288 = 19%
Fringe: 112/1288 = 8%
Rogue: 80/1288 = 7%

Calculating Stability:
Rural .12*.05 = .006
Clergy .35*.3 = .105
Military .19*.4 = .076
Merchant .19*.3 = .057
Fringe .08*.1 = .008
Rogue .07*.1 = .007
________
add them together and you get 25.9%

Stability is calculated using the following formula: (organizational level * 1.5) + (societal weight * 2.25) = Provincial Stability. In this case, our province has a game-starting stability of 72.5%

Social Class Breakdown of our province

Again, by looking at the archetypes that make up Nuria, we can arrive at an understanding of the relative power held by each of the social classes.

Peasantry: The entire Rural Archetype is made up of peasants (+160)//The Clergy draws 20% of its numbers from the ranks of the Peasantry (+24)
Burghers: All the merchants are Burghers (+60)//All the Rogues are considered Burghers (+20)//75% of the Clergy are Burghers (+90)//80% of the Fringe folk are Burghers (+16)
Nobles: Everyone from the Military group is considered Noble (+20)//5% of the Clergy are Noble (+6)//20% of the Fringe are Nobles (+4)

Totals:
Peasants = 184
Burghers = 186
Nobles = 30
______________

400 citizens

Weighted number of citizens (for measure of power of each class)
Peasants = 184
Burghers = 744 (each burgher counts as 4 peasants)
Nobles = 360 (each noble counts as 12 peasants)
______________
1288

Relative power of each group in this province (social weight/total provincial weight)
Peasants hold 14% of the power
Burghers hold 58% of the power
Nobles hold 28% of the power

From this, we can see that in our Province of Nuria, the bulk of the power is held by the Clergy, and further, centered in the hands of the Middle Class.

****

-=Vel=-
(More later! I'm back into the guts of it!)

	16-06-2002 05:32									#20
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Took out all the old v1.1 text and replaced it with what I have of the v1.2 text....there are some conceptual things I'm on the fence about, and wanted everybody to see where I am with it at the moment....see if the general sense is that it's heading in the right direction....

-=Vel=-

	16-06-2002 10:27									#21
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Sounds excellent, Vel.

quote: 3 Military (5) (20 of Nuria’s citizens) (org lvl of 40%)

I think that the knights - the landed nobility - would be one of the least "organized" archetypes in the sense that you've defined the term. After all, they live on large estates; why'd they move to a city?

quote: In the above example, if mom was an academic and dad worked in the church, then the imprinting chance would be added to mom's chances of influencing junion (50 base, plus 10 due to the pull of the facilities, makes it 60% likely that Junior will drift into the Academic Archetype, and only 40% likely that he'll join the church).

I don't know if there should be too many women academics running around in CB. Women job opportunities were rather limited, after all. Perhaps we should only count men for all game calculations?

quote: Merchants (Burghers - Tradesmen/Free Market Folk)

I don't think merchants were particularly dedicated to free markets. They tended to like to use the state to protect their businesses from competition, seize peasants' lands, and the like.

	16-06-2002 15:51									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo I don't know if there should be too many women academics running around in CB. Women job opportunities were rather limited, after all. Perhaps we should only count men for all game calculations?

I beg to differ.

If CB was a faithful representation of Medieval Europe then you would probably be correct. It isn't that, though. The best part about this project is that we can create the world from the ground up (quite literally, actually ) and although the base model for the game world is medieval we should change things that we feel would add something useful to the environment.
I certainly believe that CB should be a patriarchal society, but that women should play a more prominent role in that society than perhaps they did in the equivalent Real Life time period.
We already have examples of powerful and influential female characters (Lady Ahnwick Castillar and... um ... that Wizard lady who's name I've forgotten).

	16-06-2002 16:05									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Sounds excellent, Vel. I think that the knights - the landed nobility - would be one of the least "organized" archetypes in the sense that you've defined the term. After all, they live on large estates; why'd they move to a city? I don't know if there should be too many women academics running around in CB. Women job opportunities were rather limited, after all. Perhaps we should only count men for all game calculations? I don't think merchants were particularly dedicated to free markets. They tended to like to use the state to protect their businesses from competition, seize peasants' lands, and the like.

- agreed, looks good although I havn't really digested the 1.2 changes yet. Really liked the idea of PDI's though!

- comment about the landed nobility. Yes they'd probably be happy living on their estates - but consider what their estates really are. In Candle'Bre (and other mediaeval societies), I imagine the estates were generally not that well developed. A nice manor house (or more likely castle), extensive gardens, game preserves and what have you and then - wilderness.
Wilderness full of wild animals, bandits and *gasp* peasants. What better way to tame some of this wilderness than by commisioning a town. Clears the wilderness, allows for more organised labour to *exploit* said wilderness, encourages trade and allows for taxes of all kinds to boost your personal revenues. So indirectly I think the nobles would have a considerable organising presence.

- Equal opportunity employment. Heh maybe Candle'Bre is more enlightened than other similar societies . Forgetting PC sensibilities though, equal opportunities makes a kind of sense from the Candle'Bre historical perspective. A small group of refugees fleeing from a conflict and starting a New World. I imagine that every able-bodied man, woman or child would be needed to work initially. No reason why this should not then become socially engrained.

- Merchants. Hmmm, how about giving trained peasants an opportunity to become merchants (as an alternative to clergy). Surely some enterprising peasant is going to realise that he/she is working a vital commodity for the Province, whether this be lumber, food, luxury food or metals - and take steps to exploit this for personal gain.

Rich.

	16-06-2002 22:19									#24
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Hey guys, and thanks for the early comments!

The forumlae for all this stuff is proving to be a real nightmare for me (admittedly NOT a math guy), but I'm getting there, thanks to some assistance from Excel....I've created a "province template" spreadsheet that allows me to plug in the baseline numbers that a province starts the game with, and have it autocalculate the rest of the demographics information. After struggling for four hours or so with doing a couple by hand, it occured to me that the spreadsheet might be a timesaver, and it surely has proved its worth so far!

So....there will be much more work done with the formulae, and there are still lots of things I'm mulling over in that regard, but I think the framework of the system is really starting to come together.

One thing I have noticed though, is that a province can remain fairly productive with a LOT of unhappiness....that happens cos of the way unhappiness is calculated at present, and I'm considering making unhappiness based on the "societal weight" factors....which will preserve food production, or at least stabalize it mostly (since peasants are the first ones to line up for farm work, and have the least social weight), but it'll really hammer the other provincial improvements (which are worked by population members carrying more "weight").

Also, in v1.2, I encountered some of the same complications that Rich did wrt the whole notion of random pairings to generate the archetypes for new populations, but I *think* I found a way around that by introducing more opportunities for Peasants to shift archetype (ie - when they leave the farm to go to work in some other type of provincial improvement, they become burghers. Since the Rural Archetype is the exclusive domain of Peasants, this would require an archetype shift for them....the next formula I work on will be one that's used to determine what archetype the newly empowered Peasant shifts over to (to be weighted heavily in favor of existing provincial improvements, and further modified by the job the Peasant is currently assigned to...no particulars just yet tho).

As to the other stuff:

In my head, I see organizational level not so much as the % chance that a given archetype will want to move into a city if/when one is formed in a province, but as an element of overall social power. The Nobles, for example, draw at least a part of their power from the fact that they are relatively more organized than any other group.

And, their higher level of organization impacts the province as a whole (perhaps through emulation....others see what drives the success of the Nobles, and try to copy it). Interesting too that the formation of a township in a province will serve to further bolster the middle class, meaning that the nobles in a province may wind up becoming victims of their own success at some point (their heightened sense of organization....which is a part of what put them in their dominant position to begin with is emulated by the Burghers, causing that group to grow in both numbers and societal weight until they wrest overall control of the province from the Nobles themselves!....that's good stuff... )

Employment opportunities: I quite agree that given the medieval "stance" we've taken with the game, there would be less opportunity for women than men, however, I think both Rich and Stoo's points are excellent. The history of the Kingdom is such that it would have almost certainly required a different way of thinking and doing things if the Kingdom was to thrive in the early days.

Shortly after the founding of the Kingdom, all five groups would have taken pains to create some type of standing force, both for their own protection (and in Fury's case, the protection of the King), and to keep each other in check and watch all ways for surviving Nilrogg. This would have created an enormous vacuum of manpower (given that so many of the initial defense forces died before the Nilrogg were defeated), meaning that everyone....the elderly, women, and children, would have been needed to jumpstart the kingdom. And once they started off down that road, it'd be easy to imagine the trend continuing.

More later....on my way to the shower, and then to my dad's....

-=Vel=-

	16-06-2002 23:43									#25
	Put an end to popups!

quote: I certainly believe that CB should be a patriarchal society, but that women should play a more prominent role in that society than perhaps they did in the equivalent Real Life time period. We already have examples of powerful and influential female characters (Lady Ahnwick Castillar and... um ... that Wizard lady who's name I've forgotten).

There were also many plenty of very powerful women in our history. But it was not the norm. It kinda seems to me like a rediculous anachronism with the concept of near equality for women side by side with castles and knights and the like.

quote: A small group of refugees fleeing from a conflict and starting a New World.

Erm... you mean like the US? We haven't had much equality before the 70's...

quote: I imagine that every able-bodied man, woman or child would be needed to work initially. No reason why this should not then become socially engrained.

Certainly, they should work. There is no doubt women worked damn hard during this period. I'll grant you that the model works fine for two social groups - peasants and clergy.

But taking into account women into a group like the nobility doesn't work too well. Keep in mind that most able-bodied Noble men were knights. After all, the knight was the entire reason feudalism existed in the first place.

But while I'm not opposed to having some equality for women in CB, I hope you'll agree that having women knights running around in a time period modelled after Medieval Europe is patently absurd.

And while there may be some equality in this world, the job opportunities and political power would still have to be fundamentally different for women and men. So if we do use women in the model, I think there needs to be some changes.

quote: In Candle'Bre (and other mediaeval societies), I imagine the estates were generally not that well developed. A nice manor house (or more likely castle), extensive gardens, game preserves and what have you and then - wilderness.

Nonetheless, it was much better than living in a dirty city at the time. Particularly when the bubonic plague and anthrax hit medieval Europe.

quote: Wilderness full of wild animals, bandits and *gasp* peasants. What better way to tame some of this wilderness than by commisioning a town.

Actually, from a Noble's POV, clearing the land for agriculture. After all, that is what Nobles generally did with wilderness at the time.

Granting town charters is a "last resort" type deal for a Nobles. Land was the ultimate form of wealth during this period. Why have taxes, when one could have land instead? Nobles weren't likely to grant town charters unless they had a damn good reason. The major reason why Nobles did so at all was simply that they were getting in deep financial problems from all of the Crusades they were getting into in the Middle East or Eatern Europe or Iberia. Crusading was a damn expensive business, and since the phenomenon doesn't exist in CB, it follows that Nobles are far, far less inclined to grant town charters.

The main reason town charters were granted during the period was to undermine the power of the Nobility, and they were generally granted by the King (i.e. the player), not Nobles.

quote: Merchants. Hmmm, how about giving trained peasants an opportunity to become merchants

I agree. Perhaps the rate at which this happens could be dependent upon actions by the players such as wage caps for peasants and support/opposition to serfdom.

	17-06-2002 01:34									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Erm... you mean like the US? We haven't had much equality before the 70's...

- good point.

quote: Originally posted by Ramo Certainly, they should work. There is no doubt women worked damn hard during this period. I'll grant you that the model works fine for two social groups - peasants and clergy. But taking into account women into a group like the nobility doesn't work too well. Keep in mind that most able-bodied Noble men were knights. After all, the knight was the entire reason feudalism existed in the first place. But while I'm not opposed to having some equality for women in CB, I hope you'll agree that having women knights running around in a time period modelled after Medieval Europe is patently absurd.

- yep female knights would be ridiculous. Generally not strong enough (or stupid enough ) to fight in plate armour. However I'm thinking that the women would be in charge of the estates and accounts while the husbands was off being all manly and doing knightly stuff. Therefore they would hold considerable power in their own right. Different yes - but she who holds the purse strings ....

quote: Originally posted by Ramo Nonetheless, it was much better than living in a dirty city at the time. Particularly when the bubonic plague and anthrax hit medieval Europe.

- agreed. But the point was that the nobles would commision the towns but not actually live there themselves.

quote: Originally posted by Ramo Actually, from a Noble's POV, clearing the land for agriculture. After all, that is what Nobles generally did with wilderness at the time. Granting town charters is a "last resort" type deal for a Nobles. Land was the ultimate form of wealth during this period. Why have taxes, when one could have land instead? Nobles weren't likely to grant town charters unless they had a damn good reason. The major reason why Nobles did so at all was simply that they were getting in deep financial problems from all of the Crusades they were getting into in the Middle East or Eatern Europe or Iberia. Crusading was a damn expensive business, and since the phenomenon doesn't exist in CB, it follows that Nobles are far, far less inclined to grant town charters. The main reason town charters were granted during the period was to undermine the power of the Nobility, and they were generally granted by the King (i.e. the player), not Nobles.

- Seems reasonable to me. My history isn't that good, so I'll concede this to someone who seems to know what he's on about . However for Candle'Bre, I would propose that the need for a standing army from the word go, would provide a good reason for granting town charters. Also I'm thinking that geographically, Candle'Bre is fairly limited, so wealth is less likely to be measured in raw land ownership, but more in what you can do with your land. Agriculture is obviously essential but not very profitable.

just my thoughts though,

Rich.

	17-06-2002 03:00									#27
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quote: However I'm thinking that the women would be in charge of the estates and accounts while the husbands was off being all manly and doing knightly stuff.

To some extent, that was certainly the case. What I'm trying to get at is that women didn't really have jobs indepently from their men guardians (husbands or fathers). So why not just collapse man and women together?

quote: However for Candle'Bre, I would propose that the need for a standing army from the word go,

One thing there shouldn't be are "standing armies." Armies were extremely expensive.

Perhaps within the scope of the game there may be a "standing" army persay, but that's only because the game would be relatively short.

quote: would provide a good reason for granting town charters.

I beg to differ. If the noblemen loses his lands (and serfs), he loses the capacity to fight. So during a time of conflict, granting town charters is precisely the thing not to do.

quote: Also I'm thinking that geographically, Candle'Bre is fairly limited, so wealth is less likely to be measured in raw land ownership

On the contrary, a low supply of land (i.e. one that fails to meet the demand) implies that land becomes very expensive.

quote: Agriculture is obviously essential but not very profitable.

More profitable than getting taxes off merchants. The principle reason why granting town charters were profitable was because the burghers bought the land from the Noblemen, not because of any taxes.

	17-06-2002 04:37									#28
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

As it turns out, I did ultimately collapse men and women together....experimented with the random pairings idea, but I think ultimately, I found a "cleaner" methodology for implementing demographic archetypal drift in provinces (allowing peasants who become burghers to shift into a new archetype upon their ascension into a better social class). In that way, we simplify the population growth formula (new pop units are simply plugged into the existing demographic framework of the province), while keeping alive the coolest aspect of that notion, which is the idea of a dynamic demographic in the province. And, specifically for great leader generation, if we wanna provide a bio that includes parental heritage, we could always randomly generate one at that point.

One thing re: the social classes....remember that being a member of the Noble social class doesn't mean that every member of that group is a knight, or even nobility.

I'm sure most of bill gates' friends are nowhere near as wealthy as the man himself....but they still have access to the lifestyle and still get invited to the parties....that sorta thing.

Specifically...I'm thinking the following areas would be good fits for women of the Noble social class:

Management positions....running the estates and households and large farms of Candle'Bre while the menfolk are either training, mining, or doing the types of jobs their strength advantage makes them better at overall.

Academics are split evenly between Nobles and Burghers....I could easily envision relatively large numbers of women being drawn to that (especially given that, at higher levels of training, the possibility exists for Academics to be converted into the various types of Mage units (that makes for an excellent tie-in with the backstory, given that it was a woman who cast the wampum big spell that ultimately saved the knights holding the line from the Nilrogg).

Lady Ahnwick Castillar, of the House of Castillar could either be seen as something of an anomoly for being one of a very few women to gain power in the Church, or she could be seen as a pioneer, who paves the way for a significantly more active role for women in that archetype as well.

I could even see some specific cases of women being trained militarily in Candle'Bre....on the thinking that, should the Nilrogg resurface, every able-bodied man and woman would be needed to ward them off. Women serving as archers, scouts, or skirmishers would be a fine role (not as reliant on raw physical strength as wearing 200 pounds of platemail and assorted equipment).

Might make for an interesting short story, detailing the adventures of the Widow's Way Archery Company, which could be made up entirely of women (since that province in particular has a high percentage of women living in it). Might have to give that one some serious thought....

-=Vel=-

	17-06-2002 07:38									#29
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quote: One thing re: the social classes....remember that being a member of the Noble social class doesn't mean that every member of that group is a knight, or even nobility. I'm sure most of bill gates' friends are nowhere near as wealthy as the man himself....but they still have access to the lifestyle and still get invited to the parties....that sorta thing.

Nobility isn't necessarily about wealth or lifestyle; it's about legal obligations and rights. Burghers can be as wealthy as rich Nobles, and poor Nobles can be as wealthy as relatively poor Burghers. But a Burgher may not have a coat of arms (the privaledge of bearing arms) or the feudal rights over the peasants on his land, etc.

Noblemen of this period really weren't involved in anything but military service barring a few exceptions. Basically, if Noblemen stop dominating the military, their social position becomes obselete - as it indeed did with the arrival of the gun and cannon. The entire feudal infrastructure was established to allow rulers to place large numbers of heavy cavalry into the field. The vast majority of the Nobility should fill the Military archetype.

But the point is that the organizational level of the Military archetype really needs to go way down.

quote: Women serving as archers, scouts, or skirmishers would be a fine role

Dunno... it seems a little too radical. Since militaries haven't had women filling combat roles 'till the 20th century.

Sorceresses and the like, I believe could be justified.

	17-06-2002 08:48									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Noblemen of this period really weren't involved in anything but military service barring a few exceptions. Basically, if Noblemen stop dominating the military, their social position becomes obselete - as it indeed did with the arrival of the gun and cannon. The entire feudal infrastructure was established to allow rulers to place large numbers of heavy cavalry into the field. The vast majority of the Nobility should fill the Military archetype. But the point is that the organizational level of the Military archetype really needs to go way down.

I agree. In fact the noble men are basically the 'standing army' and the other roles (unless you have a big purse) would need to be drafted during war, usually during waring seasons, to be disbanded (usually) on the off seasons due to expense and the small amount of actuall campaigns during winter.

But things do evolve, and the whole idea of the dynamic system would be lost if it couldn't evolve, even slightly, either.