Realm Management as a 4x game?

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've used it for provinces as well as cities. And Banestorm Atlante "Cities" included the surrounding countryside. In orphans of the stars (seriously, read mailanka's stuff on that if you're serious about using the city stats method) he writes to treat each planet as a "city".

Sweet. Glad to know.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

GURPS Despots and GURPS Chartered Accountancy sound like very different supplements to me.

And I suspect that GURPS Despots would be appealing to more than 20% of the forum.

And I think Christopher Rice is the one to write it and make it cool. Which is why I commented.

GURPS Despot lol I loved that name, it would make an incredible title for a book.

My suggestion for this would be to turn it into the likes of a video game like Civilization, with abstract values and not too much different resources to keep track off. And perhaps, just simply giving modifiers for terrain - like Civization do. For example: Desert - agriculture -5. Mountain - agriculture -3, mining +5. An Hexagon map could have each tile being it's own "terrain". And on top of it, having infraestructure like roads reducing travel time etc.

Still, even if heavily simplified, it may still turn into a nightmare. I dont know if it's actually feasible, at least not outside of a spreedsheet. I could see this work as a computer program thou. Turning this idea into a game upon which you can add external parameters would be absolutely awesome, because I dont think this is doable on pen and paper

[Bengt]

4x computer games are typically extremely abstracted with just a few resources.

I'll use Civilization as an example. It has Production (how fast you can upgrade the city or build units), Food (how fast the city grows), Money (mostly used for maintenance but can also be used to speed up production), and Science. Some entries also have Culture (how fast territory grows) and Faith (works like money but can only be used for specific stuff). A city also have a Population which is really how many workers it has, with a non-linear relationships to how many people the city reasonably has. Actual resource like sheep or bananas just modify how much Production/Food/etc a hex gives, many of which are identical in effect but occur on different type of terrain. Some entries have of "strategic" resources (e.g. oil, uranium) which affect the availability of some upgrades/units.

[Coinage]

I am curious. How exactly would one deal with a Tech-Tree, or advancing technology? Does anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with scientific or technological growth?

Would it be something like Gadgeteering (B475)? Would it be Engineer (IQ/Hard) (B190)? Do the rules for either City Stats or Realm Management cover this?

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't have either supplement, but realistically, doesn't establishing a realm generally start with establishing a settlement anyway? And what is a realm, really, if not a group of settlements under a single rule?

Particularly if playing in 4x mode, a realm is generally going to start out as a single settlement (and said settlement's local area of influence), then once that has grown enough it will send out people to establish new nearby settlements (and/or conquer existing ones) that will be under the same governing body's control (be this a King/Queen and their heirs, a council of some flavor, a deity, or whatever).

Probably. It's just that, AFAICT, there are no specific rules for founding a Realm. So, I just figured that it would be easy to transfer one to another.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Coinage

I am curious. How exactly would one deal with a Tech-Tree, or advancing technology? Does anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with scientific or technological growth?

Would it be something like Gadgeteering (B475)? Would it be Engineer (IQ/Hard) (B190)? Do the rules for either City Stats or Realm Management cover this?

If we are talking about a realistic tech-tree you are talking about system theory with innovation being the product of Religion (Clock), War (better maps, screwdriver), Accident (Discovery of static electricity, domestic gas), Environment (Chimney, air conditioning), Deliberate search because it will make you money (food in cans, domestic refrigerator, Huntsman's Steel, Edison's lightbulb), concept in one field triggers progress in another (Cams used in water wheels result in the punch cards used in the Jacquard Loom), and Deliberate search with unexpected but useful results. (Search for artificial quinine resulted in artificial dye)

New Inventions (B473-474) is the most logical method but since time is sped up in 4x games Gadgeteering would likely be a more logical choice.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

I would pay a medium-sized bundle for GURPS Despots.

Originally Posted by TGLS

I'm pretty sure more than 20% of the forum would be interested in GURPS Chartered Accountancy too.

Originally Posted by JulianLW

GURPS Despots and GURPS Chartered Accountancy sound like very different supplements to me.

And I suspect that GURPS Despots would be appealing to more than 20% of the forum.

And I think Christopher Rice is the one to write it and make it cool. Which is why I commented.

I don't think it would sell that well personally. Maybe to a small base. But the time it would take to write and do correctly I could probably write three books of a slightly smaller size and price point and thus get more money.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Yes, that's exactly the problem for such an "ultra realism" system such as this. I've run into the same problem. Tons of spreedsheets, and that's not the best format for RPG Books material. My own spreedsheets for example became so arcane that only I can understand. I therefore do no recommend it, even if doing some "systematizations" like I did - turning it into a lot like a video game, so instead of measuring water in liters or tons or gallons for example, just giving "arcane" values like "for one unit of wheat, you need 1 unit of water per turn, and each pop unit consumes 1 unit of grain per turn, which is what I did, but it's still a massive mess.

I still managed it because my Realm was NOT in the hands of the players - so, I would throw the dices each month to determine the "landscape" for the next month, and that would be the background of the game, and players would have imput and impact, but were not the administrators, and all the arcane changes could be done outside of the game sessions, but yes, it would've been terrible if I tried to implement this mess for my players to control.

EDIT: I still think something like it may be possible, if the parameters are kept resonable. Maybe taking Civilization games as inspiration for instance. For example, maybe you could have common labor, soldiers and a minor group of "specialists", divided between "scientists" (mages?), artists, engineers and leaders (generals, bureocrats etc), giving different bonuses; just SOME resources - instead for example keeping track of how many glass makers and glass is produced like I did). So, it could perhaps go a bit beyond Realm Management, but not down to the tiniest detail (like keeping track of how many hand made T-Shirts are produced by blind nums in your realm)

I mean, that sounds similar to my problems with the ultra-detail.

Originally Posted by ericthered

When I ran Banestorm Atlante, we used a generic Gurps$ economy, and then calculated resources that mattered when they came up*, like food, weapons, salt**, boats, and magic gems. It helped that every community had extremely specific characteristics. The players did not run the economy: they directed it in specific ways via City Management from pyramid, made rolls to avoid mismanaging it***, and took diplomatic, military, and exploration actions to fill in short-comings. It still very much felt like 4x.


* Low Tech companion 3 is pretty useful here.


**The salt came up, and the salt was important because of a recent windfall of meat and fish, so we tracked it and ultimately one of the more memorable NPCs ran the state salt pans.

*** The monthly finance roll was ALWAYS tense, because the state was taking so much in taxes due to the ongoing emergency. We summed up the games events over the course of the last month and gave a modifier between -2 and +2 to the over all roll from each event. It was a central feature of the game, because you always new it was coming and 10% of your income was at stake.

Hmmm. Neat.

Originally Posted by Coinage

I am curious. How exactly would one deal with a Tech-Tree, or advancing technology? Does anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with scientific or technological growth?

Would it be something like Gadgeteering (B475)? Would it be Engineer (IQ/Hard) (B190)? Do the rules for either City Stats or Realm Management cover this?

I actually had a chapter 3 in the early drafts that covered this in some detail. I had to excise it because I needed more room for the realm stuff. Maybe it'll show up somewhere some day.

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Yes, that's exactly the problem for such an "ultra realism" system such as this. I've run into the same problem. Tons of spreedsheets, and that's not the best format for RPG Books material. My own spreedsheets for example became so arcane that only I can understand. I therefore do no recommend it, even if doing some "systematizations" like I did - turning it into a lot like a video game, so instead of measuring water in liters or tons or gallons for example, just giving "arcane" values like "for one unit of wheat, you need 1 unit of water per turn, and each pop unit consumes 1 unit of grain per turn, which is what I did, but it's still a massive mess.

...

EDIT: I still think something like it may be possible, if the parameters are kept resonable. Maybe taking Civilization games as inspiration for instance. For example, maybe you could have common labor, soldiers and a minor group of "specialists", divided between "scientists" (mages?), artists, engineers and leaders (generals, bureocrats etc), giving different bonuses; just SOME resources - instead for example keeping track of how many glass makers and glass is produced like I did). So, it could perhaps go a bit beyond Realm Management, but not down to the tiniest detail (like keeping track of how many hand made T-Shirts are produced by blind nums in your realm)

I agree. I think that there should be a way to convert things for GMs. A simple formula to simplify all the information down to a basic abstract unit, or a few units. While not perfect, such abstraction would be much better for a 4x type game. If you are being forced to resort to Excel spreadsheets, I would say it has become way to unwieldy.

[lugaid]

For myself, I would like to see a supplement that models a polity or community in the general way that Realms of the Unknown did (there's a general description at my blog entry that I link there; someone left a link to a legit PDF of the Player's book in the comments). I'm sure that the audience wouldn't be huge, though, which is why it'll probably never happen. Anyway, If I were writing it I'd want to lean more heavily on the RotU system with a more streamlined version of GURPS (one iteration I got almost running back in the noughties made use of the Car Wars skill system for Specialists) for detailed characters. Probably some stuff from the old GW boardgame Blood Royale or the supplement for Marc Miller's Traveller (aka T4) titled Pocket Empires to cover dynastic families, so my version will likely never see publication.

[Coinage]

This is fascinating. I have heard of games that were uploaded online, one called A Fast and Loose God Game (link here), as well as another game called Dawn of Worlds (pdf available here). They are God Games that allow players to literally create a world, and people in them.

I found Dawn of Worlds itself interesting. For anyone who wants to see a playthrough, I found a couple videos of a playthrough (First Age, and Second Age). I think that it is particularly a good way to get players invested in the setting. I also think that it is possible to tweak the rules for a sci-fi setting, where the players create a galaxy rather than a planet.

I think that it could be useful for a 4x type game. My one concern is that it might be a little too loose or free-form for some people. One could add dice-rolls for the various events in the game, using GURPS stats.