House Rules: Targeted Investment

The ACKS rules-as-written have a minimalist economic investments system that involves spending 1000 gp and getting a 1d10 population growth roll in return, representing the ability to attract more immigrants by improving infrastructure. This applies for both domains and for urban settlements.

Since adding some house rules for generating a domain map and deriving land value from the features of the map (instead of the default random 3d3 method), I've noticed some interest in rebuilding the various randomly-generated "ruins" sites to perform more specific functions than population growth. While I'm reluctant to introduce a complicated model that involves having to actually design a city layout with specific buildings, I think it would be appealing to have a way to distinguish different player settlements from one another and to give them economic specializations.

For inspiration, let's look at the original economic development rules given in the "0th" edition of Dungeons and Dragons back in the 70s, the "little brown book" edition, quoting here from Volume III: Underworld and Wilderness Adventures:

"Relition" suggests that Gygax was typing a bit too fast...

As is often the case with OD&D, this is less a rule itself than a suggestion to referees to invent their own rules! But we can see a general guideline: investments have a baseline effect of increasing population, and also have some other unique effect based on "area potential".

To clarify the types of investments available, it might help to break them down into categories:

• Natural Resource Investments (Hunting, Farming, Fishing, Trapping)
• Transportation Investments (Canals, Roads)
• Urban Investments (Inns, Religion, Armories, Animal Breeding, Ship Building, Land Trade, Sea Trade)

It's easy to imagine other items that could belong in each category. Any city would probably benefit from Housing, and perhaps also potion-brewing Apothecaries. And a domain with hills and mountains might naturally focus on Mining instead of agricultural goods.

The baseline expansion mechanism in ACKS ("pay 1000 gp, get 1d10 population") is probably best understood as an investment in Farming at the domain level, or an investment in Housing for a particular settlement. Since the primary motivation for building a city is usually to develop its market, it probably makes sense to have the secondary effect of most other investments be an improvement in the availability of market goods. The exception is transportation investments, which involve adding actual features to the domain's hex map; these have obvious effects of allowing better land or water movement.

Natural Resource Investments will have the effect of altering demand modifiers for related merchandise. Investment should also alter the quantity of such goods available. Each 1000 gp investment will add an addition die rolled to determine the number of loads available from a given merchant. The improvement should be capped by the number of hexes with appropriate terrain types. The maximum improvement for fishing, for example, would be given by the total number of controlled hexes with rivers or lakes in the domain. Fully investing enough gold to reach this cap should produce a downward demand modifier of -1 to all markets in the domain.

Example: A domain with 8 controlled river hexes can support 8000 gp of investment in Fishing. With this full investment, the demand modifier for fish will be -1, and any fish merchants at a Class III market in that domain will have (3+8)d4 = 11d4 loads of preserved fish instead of just 3d4. That's a lot of fish!

Urban Investments will modify the number of related goods or hirelings available at a particular city's market (not the entire domain!), as a percentage bonus. Investing in smaller markets will have a proportionally larger effect, and will also shape the further development of that settlement long into the future. To reflect this, the total number or the percent chance of available goods in any table is increased by a bonus percentage equal to (1%)*(market class) per 1000 gp of investment. This bonus is not capped, and can be over 100%. Some goods might be affected by more than one bonus, in which case the bonuses are added.

Example: An investment of 5000 gp in Apothecaries is made for a Class IV market. The bonus was previously 15% (from previous investments), and now increases by another 5*4% = 20%, for a total bonus of 35%. Ordinarily the chance of finding a alchemist to recruit at a Class IV market is only 33% per month, but in this city it is 67% instead. The chance of finding a healing potion is similarly increased from 25% to 57%. The amount of military-grade oil (a non-magical good which alchemists can produce) would ordinarily be 65 pints at a Class IV market, but here it is 65+65*0.35 = 87.75 = 88 pints.

Transportation Investments simply add either a road or a canal (artificial river) connecting into a new hex for 1000 gp. A road must connect to an existing road hex, or to a settlement. A road allows a 50% bonus to any movement that entirely follows that road (for every 2 hexes along a road, move a third hex for free). A canal must connect to an existing river, canal, or other body of water, and must go through level ground (not hills or mountains). A canal functions as a river for all purposes, but cannot allow the passage of large sailing ships, large transport ships, or war galleys (or any other ship over 120 structural points). Note also that (using my house rules for land value), the addition of a canal might improve the land value of a domain by creating new river and river-adjacent hexes.

All targeted investments (anything but Farming or Housing) are less efficient at attracting population, and will only roll 1d6 for population gain instead of 1d10. The exceptions to this are Hunting and Trapping, which don't attract any new permanent population at all (...because Gary Gygax says so!)

Access to related types of ruins will reduce the cost of targeted urban investments by 50% until markets have grown at least one size class (that is, for any city with a Class VI market or below), so long as the settlement is build around that ruin. For example, a settlement founded at the site of a ruined temple can receive investments in religion for 500 gp each, instead of 1000, until it reaches Class V size. This represents restoring the temple to some portion of its former glory. Any type of ruins can be used to support Housing investments, which can claim stone from the ruins as building material.

Finally, here's a list of some plausible market item categories that could be affected by different investment types. Domain-wide merchandise bonuses based on Resource Investments:

• Hunting: Any meat, monster parts (animal only - any extra loads of monster parts roll off the Animals subtable)
• Trapping: Any furs (common or rare), ivory (in jungle or tundra terrain), monster parts (animal only, can stack with hunting bonus)
• Fishing: Preserved fish, monster parts (aquatic only)
• Mining: Metals (common or precious), Gems

And the bonus to goods/services available at settlement markets based on Urban Investments:

• Inns: Any recruiting of personnel (hirelings or henchman, can combine with other bonuses)
• Religion: Divine spellcasting services (healing, etc), Any magic item a cleric could create
• Armories: Any mundane or magical weapon or armor
• Animal Breeding: Riding/pack animals, Mounted troops
• Ship Building: Ships and boats
• Apothecaries: Alchemists, Potions
• Land Trade: Monster parts or any exotic goods (anything exclusive to world map terrain in any other specified Class I or Class II market accessible by land, roll bonus goods as if they were being purchased in that market)
• Sea Trade: Monster parts or any exotic goods (native to world map terrain in any specified Class I market by sea)