Not as long this time, but still full of crunchy goodness.
Villages & Cities
Metropolitan areas like villages and cities require a little more attention than standard Regions. So, let’s take a look at them.
Villages
A Village is a small community of farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen, usually located near a river or another large body of water. As a Region, Villages are responsible for Production: turning Resources into Goods.
Turning Resources into Goods usually only takes one Season. Because Actions take place after Harvest, you can use the Resources you harvested last Season to produce Goods this Season. Any Goods produced this Season will be “harvested” as usual at the beginning of next Season.
So, to be clear, here’s an outline of how to turn Resources into Goods.
- During Spring Harvest, among my other Resources, I gather some Metals.
- During Spring Actions, I hand my Metals over to a Village to turn the Metals into swords and other weapons for my Personal Guard.
- During the Summer Harvest, the Metals I turned over to my Village are now swords and other weapons for my Personal Guard.
Like other Regions, Villages have ranks. Rank 1 Villages can only make simple Goods. As the Village increases in rank, it can create more sophisticated and stylish Goods. You can find a List of Goods at the end of this chapter.
A rank 1 Village has one Craftsman. He can produce one Good per Season. A rank 2 Craftsman can create two rank 1 Goods or one rank 2 Good per Season. A rank 3 Craftsman can create three rank 1 Goods or one rank 3 Good per Season. You see where this is going.
The rank of a Village is also indicative of its size. A rank 3 Village is much larger than a rank 1 Village. As the Village grows, the Craftsman grows as well. Whenever the Village gains a rank, its Craftsman gains a rank as well.
A Village’s size is also the limit on how good your Craftsmen are. You cannot have a rank 3 Craftsman in a rank 2 Village, for example. The size of the Village is the top rank of any Craftsmen in that Village.
A Village may only have one Craftsman.
Growing a Village takes one Season. It also requires a number of Lumber and Stone Resources equal to the current rank of the Village. Thus, you must spend 2 Lumber and 2 Stone and one Season to grow a Village from rank 1 to rank 2. This is considered the Village’s Season action. The Village is considered “grown” at the end of the Season.
A Village cannot grow larger than rank 3. To grow further means the Village becomes a City.
Cities
A City is a great asset to any lord. Much more productive than any Village, a City is the first true sign of high culture.
To create a City, you must transform a rank 3 Village into a sprawling metropolis. This requires 3 Lumber, 3 Stone and 3 Luxuries. The changeover takes place at the end of the Season.
Cities are automatically assumed to be rank 4. A City may have as many Craftsmen as ranks, although it cannot have more than one Craftsman per rank. In other words, a City may only have one rank 4 Craftsman, one rank 3 Craftsman, one rank 2 Craftsman, and one rank 1 Craftsman. All of them may take individual Season actions, changing Resources into Goods.
If you wish, you can also hire a Mayor for your City. The Mayor requires one Food and one Luxury per Year. Mayors can be bribed, but they can also use Season actions to quell Troubles. And Cities cause a lot of Trouble (as seen on the chart above).
A City can also have a Port. This requires a Port Master—one Food, one Luxury per Year—who looks after your busiest city quarter. The Port Master may change one Resource into any other Resource as a Season action. He also can be bribed.
By the way, each City also has a Thieves Guild. Neither your Mayor nor your Port Master can get rid of it. That’s something you have to do yourself. You can bribe the Guild for one Luxury per Year. If do, the City’s Troubles go down by one (from 3 to 2) and the Security of your City goes up by one rank.
Damn thieves. They’re everywhere.
The Advantage of Cunning and Bureaucracy
By now, you’re probably wondering why Cunning is so important to the Season. Well, let me tell you why.
Cunning and Bureaucracy are vital to managing a Domain. The ability to see the big picture, to forecast Trouble, to see the move within the move within the move. That’s Cunning. Bureaucracy, on the other hand, gets around all those pesky laws the Senate keeps passing, making it easier for you to do what you need to do without proper paperwork or procedure. And so, here’s how it works.
Your character’s Cunning is the number of additional Provinces he can manage alone. If you have a 4 Cunning, you can be the direct lord over five Provinces. Your Cunning + 1. That’s how large your Domain can be.
Meanwhile, Bureaucracy is the number of additional Season actions you can take. Yeah, I said that right. Additional Season actions. If your Bureaucracy is 3, you can take a total of 4 Season actions per Season.