Sunday, August 21, 2016

City Stats: Stone Age Village

Stone age?
So, as an exercise in using City Stats I am going to to stat out a TL0 "city" on a tropical island. Without much pomp and circumstance, let's see how well this goes.

I'm going to name my city Tonga, which is apparently a sovereign state of Polynesia. Let's get cracking on the metrics.

Population

Let's pull a number out of my butt, not knowing anything about how big cities get, this number is probably way too big, but oh well! So, let's say population is 1,000. Using the formulas from the book, this simply gives us a Search Modifier of -1. Easy peasy.

Terrain

Well, it is a tropical island, so the most logical is Island/Beach. Easy again.

Appearance

It's nothing especially pretty except I think tropical islands look pretty. Being on the fence, I'll say it has a normal appearance.

Hygiene

There is no futzing with numbers to figure this out, just a straight litmus test. It seems after looking through all the questions asked, the correct answer for Hygiene is -1.

Mana Level

This is a pristine location in the middle of nature, I think I'll say Normal and Rare Enchantment.

Language

I might come up with a more fanciful language name in the future, but doing a google search, I like the name Maori for a placeholder

Literacy

The village has definitely not developed a written language, so none.

Wealth

I have no reason to think this village is unusually wealthy or poor, so I choose average wealth.

Status

From what I read in the Low-Tech Companions, the status levels that would usually be appropriate are -1 to 1. A small range, but that's fine with me.

Government

The government type that makes the most sense to me from the listed options is Clan/Tribal and Caste, so I'll choose Caste. These are both on p. B509 for reference.

Control Rating

I look up the society type on B509, and choose 3, easy stuff again.

Corruption

This is how easy it is to get around the control rating. Thinking I might want some wiggle room, I'll put it at -1.

Military Resources

This is a straight calculation. Using Basic Set to find the numbers listed, and looking at some other numbers I made up or calculated earlier, I have a military budget of $12,500 a month. Not especially great, but oh well, this isn't meant to be a Mass Combat campaign anyway... though if it goes that way, I have a number now!

Defense Bonus

This, again is a list of yes/no questions, and after looking at it, the Defense Bonus comes out to +1.

Final Stat Block

So, now that we have all these things plotted out, here's what it looks like as a City Stats block.

This city has a split tech level. Some of the social improvements from TL1 exist, but more critical technologies are missing than added, so TL0 feels more appropriate.

Maoi (3500 B.C.)

Population: 1,000 (Search -1)

Physical and Magical Environment

Terrain: Island/Beach
Appearance: Average (+0)Hygiene: -1
Normal Mana(Rare Enchantment)

Culture and Economy

Language: MaoriLiteracy: None
TL: 0
Wealth: Average (x1)Status: -1 to 1

Political Environment

Government: Caste
CR: 3 (Corruption -1)
Military Resources: $12,000Defense Bonus: +1

Notes

This city has a blend of TL0 and TL1. Some economic and social advances from TL1 exist, but several important medical and military technologies are missing. Magic exists here, but is almost a rarity in this universe.

Art

Based on a typical population density of 5 people per square mile, the island needs to have about 200 square miles of land, or, rounding, about 15 by 15 miles. I wanted a volcano on the island, so I'll draw that too. I got a little bored drawing thingies itsy bitsy trees... there should be something like a brush to paint lots of trees all at once... oh well, here's a screenshot anyway.




3 comments:

  1. I like this! I used City Stats to do the town I'm living in right now (up on my blog if you're interested). I have not read your campaign material much, unfortunately. It sounds interesting from what little I've gotten to glance at, though. I also tried to run a "stone age" game ages back but it didn't go anywhere. Is this for an offline group?

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    1. Yeah, but we are probably not doing this campaign anymore. OH WELL.

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    2. I know how that feels :) Hah, to take it even further, I don't even have a group in mind for the Tiberium wars stuff I write up. I'm just kind of creating content for he heck of it. I may eventually recruit a group, though, and do it through Roll20 or some other VTT. It might be difficult to find players looking for that kind of game, though!

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