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[a1s]

As far as I can tell, it's a good idea to think of communal purses as simply unaligned players, who only have holdings in one settlement (and don't have special player chars boosting their production). That of course raises the question of how and if they spread (maybe it's a New Sheepstead only thing? )

What makes a province "connected"?

[Aseaheru]

And what makes up a province? I dont think we ever learned.

[Criptfeind]

And what makes up a province? I dont think we ever learned.

I'm pretty sure the provinces are just the areas on the map?

You can see on the first map that there is a bright red boarder around the provinces surrounding the settlement of New sheepstead. I would assume those are it's connected provinces.

[Aseaheru]

Wheres the map?

[Criptfeind]

In the second post of this thread and the second post of the other thread.

[a1s]

Captains, Scholars and Priests are subject to Zone of Control and may not move through provinces held by hostile armies (although they may pass through neutral territory unharmed).  Agents are invisible and ignore Zone of Control, passing freely into and through hostile held provinces.

I'm guessing Nobles are like Agents in this?

[Aseaheru]

The other thread's second post looked blank last I saw.
Also, thanks.

[Iituem]

Wait. Can a workshop only produce goods from one type of resource per turn?

Right now, no, you can mix and match.  I am open to revising the system to allow diversity of goods to matter, however.  If this gains support, it will probably have an effect on Infrastructure production.

Trade questions:
is there trade with the outside world?

Yes.  The game starts with a trade route to a foreign city that buys Grain and Goods for Gold, and offers the chance to buy Iron.  Players with ships may be able to send them 'off-map' to other cities for trade.

Can you elaborate on how caravan/ship routes work? Do they start transporting on the same turn you declare them? What happens if you cancel the route? (if something bad, can you modify resource composition, without changing the destination points? i.e. it was 2 Goods, 2 Grain <->4 Iron and now you want 1 Good, 3 Grain <->3 Iron)

Trade routes transport goods at the end of the turn, so it is essentially on the same turn.  If you cancel the route, you stop exporting/importing at the end of the turn (i.e. immediately).  You can change import/export on the route at any time and it will take effect at the end of the turn.  You can change the route entirely at any time and it will take effect at the end of the turn, provided one end of the route is where you are currently positioned.

It says workshops sell goods for 5 gold, and that other infrastructures buy goods for 5 gold from traders. Is that more of a guideline, or are traders just chumps/altruists?

Guideline.  Workshops will sell goods at a base price of 5 gold, but you can charge more if you want.  Infrastructure will buy the cheapest goods available first, then more expensive goods until its needs are satisfied.  Similarly, workshops will buy cheapest resources first.

In fact, since you can produce goods out of any resource you want (except horses and food.), and everyone produces food, is trade even going to be a a thing?

This is problematic.  Right now, only resource trade is really a thing, and I think we can do better on that score.  Expect a trade revision shortly, highlighting diversity of production. 

Although the questions I have, do players need to pay for the goods that their infrastructure uses, or does the town pick up that cost (thus making it profitable to just sell to yourself to extract money from the town...) and can you selectively give goods to infrastructure (such as your own infrastructure) for free if there isn't enough money/goods in town to keep them running?

The infrastructural base demands (1 Grain, 1 Good) will be paid for out of the town purse - think of it as being your workers buying their bread as opposed to the use of your own capital.  So yes, you can sell directly to your own town to extract money from the purse.  You can also donate goods/grain selectively as well, or even forbid sale of goods to certain infrastructure (do this sparingly or I will curse you).

You can see on the first map that there is a bright red boarder around the provinces surrounding the settlement of New sheepstead. I would assume those are it's connected provinces.

Provinces are map regions, and connected provinces have yellow lines leading to their connected towns.  Provinces will only connect to a town within 2 provinces' distance, so expansion necessitates the need for more towns.  Provinces will always connect to the nearest town they can.

Captains, Scholars and Priests are subject to Zone of Control and may not move through provinces held by hostile armies (although they may pass through neutral territory unharmed).  Agents are invisible and ignore Zone of Control, passing freely into and through hostile held provinces.

I'm guessing Nobles are like Agents in this?

That needs an update.  Going to rule that Nobles fall half-way; they aren't invisible and can't freely move into and through hostile held provinces - except to bribe/subvert.  Also going to add a purchasing rule to allow them to buy out foreign Infrastructure.

[Iituem]

Spoiler: Rule Changes (click to show/hide)

Resources

Gold - Gold (or silver).  Get it from taxes, trade or gold (or silver) mines.  Use it to spend on things, such as soldiers.  As a rule of thumb, ordinary taxes take 2 Gold per point of settlement Infrastructure.  Unlike other Resources, Gold does not take up cargo space and is sent directly to the nearest settlement or to their owner (provided he is available) after production.  Gold may be transferred freely and instantly without penalty.  Units not paid their upkeep in gold may desert.  Noble specialists can carry a purse like a character.

Gold carried by a character can be stolen if the character is captured.  Gold sat in a settlement can be taken if the settlement is captured.  Gold is a zero-sum resource, as well - gold can only enter the economy from gold mines and overseas trade, and pretty much only leave it through overseas trade as well.  If towns get too poor in gold to pay taxes, they will stop paying taxes.

Resources - Primary resources produced by settlements from connected provinces.

Iron - More than just iron, iron represents various industrially and militarily important metals and minerals.  Get it from mines.  Needed by industry and for better troops.  The maximum troops that can be trained per turn may be limited by Iron as well as training facilities.  Can be turned into Goods by workshops.

Timber - High quality timber, ideal not just for woodcraft but for the production of bows.  Forested regions produce this.  Needed to produce archers, and by industry.  Can be turned into Goods by workshops.  Also needed to produce Ships.

Horses - Strong and fast horses, necessary for war and work.  Certain regions produce these.  Needed to produce Cavalry, but can also be set to the fields to increase Grain production in a province.  Also needed to produce Caravan units.

Wool - While not having much of a military use, Wool is exceptionally useful for industry.  It can be converted to Goods by workshops.

Grain - More than just grain, grain represents edible foodstuffs of all kinds.  Get it from provinces.  Needed to support settlements and units.  If a settlement runs short on Grain, Infrastructure will temporarily stop functioning as people turn to the fields for sustenance.  As a general rule, each point of Infrastructure requires 1 Grain per turn to run.  The settlement will pay 2 Gold for each Grain from its own pocket to the trader.  Each military unit requires 1 Grain per turn or it will refuse to move and forage off the land for sustenance.

Goods - Various industrial and commercial goods needed for the running of settlements.  Each point of a settlement's Infrastructure needs 1 type of Good per turn to run, otherwise it will not count towards production.  The settlement will pay 5 Gold for each Good, from its own pocket (not from taxes) to the trader.

Tools - Goods required for the running of settlements.  Each piece of Primary Infrastructure requires 1 Tool per turn to run, otherwise it will not count towards production.

Furniture - Goods required for the running of settlements.  Each piece of Secondary Infrastructure requires 1 Furniture per turn to run, otherwise it will not count towards production.

Cloth - Goods required for the running of settlements.  Each piece of Tertiary Infrastructure requires 1 Cloth per turn to run, otherwise it will not count towards production.

Resources may be stockpiled without penalty, but they must be stockpiled in a settlement - if that settlement is taken, the conquerors gain the goods.  It takes 1 turn to move resources between settlements (happens at the start of the next turn).


Units

Scholar - A man of learning.  Can be used for special assignments.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.  (4 Move)

Priest - A man of the faith.  Can be used for special assignments.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.  (4 Move)

Noble - A man of manners.  Can be used for special assignments.  May carry gold.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.  (4 Move)

Agent - A well paid spy, assassin or expert thief.  Can be used for intelligence gathering, sabotage, assassination or theft.  Can also serve as a scout to new regions.  Paid in gold, but not grain.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.  (4 Move)

Captains - Produced at barracks at some cost.  Provide a bonus to led armies, usually unit and/or phase specific.  Bonus increases with experience.  Captains can lead multiple units, but each unit can only be led by a single captain.  Paid in gold.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.

Lt. Infantry - No particular advantages or disadvantages.  No special resource requirements.  Build: 5 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold, 1 Grain.   1/1/1 (2 Move)

Hvy. Infantry - No particular advantages or disadvantages.  Requires Iron.  Build: 10 Gold, 1 Iron.  Upkeep: 2 Gold, 1 Grain.  2/2/2 (2 Move)

Pikemen - x2 vs Cavalry.  Requires Iron.  Build: 5 Gold, 1 Iron.  Upkeep: 1 Gold, 1 Grain.   1/3/1 (2 Move)

Archers - x2 vs Pikemen.  Archers strike first in Ranged combat.  Requires Timber.  Build: 5 Gold, 1 Timber.  Upkeep: 1 Gold, 1 Grain.   3/1/1 (2 Move)

Cavalry - x2 vs Archers.  Pure cavalry army moves at double speed.  Cavalry strike first in Melee combat.  Requires Horses.  Build: 10 Gold, 1 Horses.  Upkeep: 3 Gold, 2 Grain.   2/2/2 (4 Move)

Caravan - A train of baggage horses.  Caravans can move up to 4 Resources a turn between settlements in either direction (e.g. 2 Goods and 2 Grain one way and 3 Iron and 1 Wool the other).  Once established, a caravan will follow the same route until that route is cancelled.  (The time taken is less than a turn, so simply sustaining a caravan will permit any goods being traded to arrive before the end of the turn - effectively counting them as being in the destination settlement for any book-keeping purposes.)  Caravans pay for their own food along the way, but they do cost Gold to sustain.  Build: 3 Gold.  Upkeep: 1 Gold.

Ship - A ship for travel across the sea.  Ships travel faster than land units if used in a military capacity, and each ship can carry up to 3 land units.  If set to maintaining a trade route, however, a single ship can carry up to 10 Resources a turn between settlements in either direction (e.g. 6 Goods and 4 Grain one way and 7 Iron and 3 Wool the other).  It will sustain a trade route as per a caravan.  Ships require 1 Grain/turn to support, as well as gold.  (4 move)  Build: 15 Gold, 3 Timber.  Upkeep: 3 Gold, 1Grain.


Infrastructure

Infrastructure represents the size of a town and its facilities.  The more infrastructure a town has, the more industry it supports.  Each point of infrastructure requires 1 Good and 1 Grain in upkeep per turn - deprivation of either will cause it to simply not function that turn.  It may be considered to equate, roughly, to 500 urban people (most of whom are farmers or labourers anyway).

Available Gold/Settlement Purse:  As a rule of thumb, each point of Infrastructure starts with 10 Gold for 'spending'.  This is used to buy Grain, Goods or their raw materials and pay taxes.  If the total reserves in a settlement run out, they will either stop buying superfluous resources or start cheating on their taxes.

When units are trained and such, however, the training Gold does go into the settlement's spending purse (future upkeep gold to the unit's "home").  Thus a military settlement can continue to have enough money to function.  Essentially, any and all spent Gold will go to at least some settlement, even if it's off the map.

NB: Gold is a semi-zero sum resource.  It may be mined, or brought in from overseas, but spent gold always goes somewhere and it is possible to run out.

Religion: As each point of Infrastructure represents an urban population, it also represents the local faithful.  Infrastructure will either follow a specific faith or remain neutral (in a sense, praising all the gods or a mix of faiths).  Infrastructure that follows a faith will pay tithes to a temple of that faith.  Neutral infrastructure will pay tithes to a temple of the settlement's official faith (the state religion).

With no priests in a settlement, it will default (one piece per turn) to neutral.  A single priest (of any faith) will keep the faith and start bringing the neutrals into their fold.  Each priest will convert one point of Infrastructure per turn to their faith.  Where multiple priests clamour for a neutral piece, the chance of conversion is percentile, based on relative proportion of priests.  If there are no free pieces to convert, faithful pieces of Infrastructure will convert based on how 'defended' they are and of the vulnerable who has the most faith in the settlement.

Infrastructure can be built by spending 20 Gold, 2 Tools, 2 Furniture and 1 Cloth, taking 1 turn per point of Infrastructure (after all, Rome wasn't built in a day).  Simply creating Infrastructure in a free province establishes a settlement.

Each point of Infrastructure is specialised on creation, although by spending 5 Gold (and waiting a turn) it can be repurposed.  The following specialisations are available.


Buildings

Industrial

Workshops: Workshops convert Iron, Timber or Wool into Goods on a 1:1 basis.  As a rule of thumb, each workshop will pay 2 Gold per raw resource and sell the finished product on for 5 Gold.  Each workshop has a base production capacity of 3 units/turn, although a player manager can raise this with his or her speciality.  If owned by a player, the money comes from his or her treasury instead of the communal purse.  Each workshop increases the town's Furniture demand by 1.

Forge: A workshop that converts Iron into Tools.

Carpenter: A workshop that converts Timber into Furniture.

Textile Mill: A workshop that converts Wool into Cloth.

Primary Industries: Each of the primary industries below produce resources from connected provinces.  Each primary industry increases the town's Tools demand by 1.

Stables: Stables produce Horses if a connected province has them as a resource.  Each stable has a base production capacity of 3 units/turn, although a player manager can raise this with his or her specialty.  One Stable may be built per province with Horses.  Stables can also train Caravans.

Mines:  Mines produce Iron if a connected province has it as a resource.  Each mine has a base production capacity of 3 units/turn, although a player manager can raise this with his or her specialty.  One Mine may be built per province with Iron.

Sawmills:  Sawmills produce Timber if a connected province has it as a resource.  Each sawmill has a base production capacity of 3 units/turn, although a player manager can raise this with his or her specialty.  One Sawmill may be built per province with Timber.

Looms:  Looms produce Wool if a connected province has it as a resource.  Each loom has a base production capacity of 3 units/turn, although a player manager can raise this with his or her specialty.  One Loom may be built per province with Wool.

Gold Mines:  Gold mines can only be built in settlements whose connected provinces have Gold as a resource.  Each mine produces 5 Gold/turn, flat.  One mine may be built per province with Gold.


Shipyards:  A shipyard can only be constructed in a coastal settlement.  Ships can be constructed at a shipyard with Timber and gold (which goes to the town purse), and the harbour also supports a small amount of local fishing - shipyards produce 1 Grain for free each turn.  Shipyards demand 1 Furniture per turn.

Temple: - Temples are specific to a faith.  Priests can be trained at a temple as if it were a monastery.  While possible, Temples will also extract a tithe of 1 Gold per Infrastructure each turn (including itself), so long as the piece of Infrastructure is conducive to being tithed (i.e. it follows the faith or is neutral and the faith is the official religion of that town).  Multiple Temples extract multiple tithes (from the same population), although since this is taken from the town purse there is only so much money to go around.  Temples demand 1 Cloth per turn.


Military

Barracks - The garrison and training facilities for soldiers.  Each barracks permits the training of a single military unit per turn.  Multiple barracks stack (i.e. if you have 3 barracks you can produce 3 units each turn).  Barracks demand 1 Cloth per turn.

Academy - Training facilities for officers and agents.  Each Academy permits the training of a single captain, noble or agent per turn.  Multiple academies stack.  Academies demand 1 Cloth per turn.

Monastery - A place to train holy or learned men.  Each Monastery permits the training of a single priest or scholar per turn.  Scholars aren't faith-specific, priests are.  Monasteries demand 1 Cloth per turn.

Castle - There is only one castle in a settlement, although it can be expanded.  Each expansion to the castle permits an additional unit to be garrisoned there.  Each garrisoned unit counts as having +3 strength in the melee phase while defending.  Nobles may also be trained here as per an academy.  Castles demand 1 Furniture per turn.

Walls - Each section of wall permits an additional unit to be garrisoned there.  Each garrisoned unit counts as having +3 strength in the ranged phase while defending.  Walls demand 1 Tools per turn.


Specialist Missions

Agents

Agents can be readily deployed to various nefarious ends.

Infiltrate: The standard activity for an agent, doubling as scouting for unexplored provinces.  Agents sent into an uncontrolled province will gather basic information about it in the following order: terrain type; discovered resources and settlements; present units; present specialists (captains, agents, scholars and priests); and finally reports delivered to PCs in the province/settlement.  If previous steps have been discovered, information gathering will skip ahead stages.  Agents will present a report every 5 agent turns (so more agents progress faster), gathering detail at least one level deeper each report they are allowed to 'entrench'.  So long as at least one agent remains, the entrenching will remain intact.  If all agents leave, the process must start again.

NB: Foreign agents in a friendly province will not be spotted unless a friendly agent is 'infiltrated' to root out spies.  Counter-espionage will not stop infiltration, but unless the foreign agent has backup he should be suitably vulnerable to repercussions.

Sabotage: Each agent in a settlement can 'deactivate' a single building.  This will not destroy the building, but that piece of Infrastructure will provide no effect while an agent is sabotaging it (e.g. production, defensive bonuses).  An agent must remain in the settlement for the whole turn for sabotage to be effective.  Counter-espionage agents in the settlement will counter the effect of sabotage.

Assassinate: Each agent in a province may assassinate a single specialist (captain, agent, scholar or priest) in the course of a turn (he must remain in the same province as the specialist at the end).  At the end of the turn, the specialist will be killed unless the assassination is prevented by a counter-espionage agent.  An agent can only assassinate specialists in the same province or settlement, and only if they are aware of their specific existence.

NB:  Since player characters have special abilities akin to captains or uberscholars, a successful assassination attempt on a player will instead injure the player character, deactivating their abilities for three turns.  Players may be attacked as with normal specialists.

Theft: An agent in a settlement may steal a single resource per turn from the settlement's stores.  The agent will do so at the end of the turn.  Agents steal from warehouses, not production, so if there are no stockpiled goods/will be none after production and trade they will not get anything.  Note that Gold does count, but only 1 Gold may be stolen at a time.  This action may be countered by counter-espionage agents as usual.

An agent may steal gold from a player's own purse, if he is in the same province as the player at the end of the turn.  As usual, this may be countered by counter-espionage.

Counter-Espionage: Each counter-espionage agent in a settlement or province will automatically prevent a single assassination, sabotage or theft (with precedence given to assassinations, particularly of player characters, followed by sabotage and finally theft) against their target faction.  Unless the assassins/saboteurs have already been spotted by a friendly infiltrator, the identity of the miscreant will not be revealed, only that their actions were prevented.


Scholars

Scholars are mostly deployed on special missions.  However, they do have two standard purposes.

Prospect Resources: In a new province, a scholar may attempt to discern the province's special resource (if any) by spending five scholar turns to investigate it.  Multiple scholars speed this process up accordingly (i.e. 3 scholars will finish in 2 turns, 5 scholars in 1).

Supervise Production: A scholar may be assigned to a single workshop or primary industry building (stable, mine, timber yard or loom).  The scholar will then increase its production by 1 per turn.  Only one scholar may be assigned per building.


Priests

With no priests in a settlement, it will default (one piece per turn) to neutral.  A single priest (of any faith) will keep the faith and start bringing the neutrals into their fold.  Each priest will convert one point of infrastructure per turn to their faith.  Where multiple priests clamour for a neutral piece, the chance of conversion is percentile, based on relative proportion of priests.  If there are no free pieces to convert, faithful pieces of Infrastructure will convert based on how 'defended' they are and of the vulnerable who has the most faith in the settlement.


Nobles

Nobles have a few actions they can use outside of special missions.  In addition, they may (and perhaps should) carry a purse of Gold with them.  This Gold will be captured if the specialist is killed or captured.  The gold in the purse may be used for bribery or suborning.

Manage Estates: A single noble can be placed in a province.  While present, he will increase Grain production by 1.

Bribe: A noble in the same province as another specialist can bribe them over to that noble's faction for 3 Gold.  Each noble enforcing loyalty in a province increases the gold cost by 3.  Unless spotted by an infiltrator, the bribed specialist will disappear with no clue as to who their loyalty switched to.

Suborn: A noble in the same province as a unit (or who moves into the army's province to execute this action) can bribe the unit to switch sides for 150% of their initial hiring cost in Gold (rounded up, ignoring any resource requirements).  Each noble enforcing loyalty in the province increases the bribe cost by 50%.  Unless there are no witnesses to the bribery (e.g. no units in the province or adjacent provinces and no infiltrating agents) the defection will be reported and the side the unit(s) defected to.  If there are no witnesses, only the act of defection will be reported.

Purchase: A noble in a settlement can attempt to buy a piece of Infrastructure for 20 Gold.  This amount is increased by 10 Gold for each noble enforcing loyalty that effects the Infrastructure in question.  Note that this constitutes a legal purchase - you can illegally seize Infrastructure by having a military unit in the same settlement and declaring it 'yours'.

Enforce Loyalty: A noble in a province can be set to enforce loyalty.  This raises the cost for rival nobles to bribe specialists (by 3 Gold) or suborn units (by 50% of unit hire cost).  Unlike with agents, the effects of multiple nobles enforcing loyalty stack.  e.g. If 3 nobles are enforcing loyalty in a province and 3 enemy nobles attempt to bribe 3 scholars, the price to bribe each scholar will be 12 gold (or 36 gold total).

Edit: Given the relative lack of use of Caravans at this point in the game, Wealth startups can exchange their Caravans for 4 extra Gold instead.

[Criptfeind]

By the way, can we sell units to each other?

Edit: Also I think there might be some info that might make sense to be public not being public, like as far as I can tell my title is a secret? (It's not mentioned anywhere but in my secret info) And my information mentions a few other players, presumably because they are in similar situations as me, but not what they are. Maybe a little bit of public information (of stuff that should be public) would be nice. At least it would help facilitate the interacts between us, since as it stands I don't even know of the existence of three of the players, of the three who's names I know (since they own buildings) the only information I have is that two of them hold some vague positions of power in town.

[Iituem]

Agreed.  In the Public: Sheepstead section I have added a government list and notable buildings, as well as giving Dean Hander a tavern to act as a meeting spot.  You can pin public notices on the board there, and it also acts as a place to conveniently meet characters.

If you want to make an action known to the public (e.g. Head to the docks to see who's there) just post it openly so that others can respond to it.  I'll be adding some quests on the morrow as well, to give things a bit more direction.  I just wanted to get an intro up so people could start interacting.

[Aseaheru]

I wish there was an option to trade them in for a ship. Any ship. Ships are cool.

Heck, have a few sorts of ships, specialized trade, generic and specialized army. Then let military peoples have the option of having a ship or most of the troops...

[a1s]

So, just to be 100% clear: if something says "Spoiler:Someone else's name" It's always off limits vis-a-vis reading? There's not special secret tag on top of that?

[Aseaheru]

From what I can tell, its offlimits unless you have a spy getting intel on them.

[Playergamer]

So, can we start posting?