Government and population size

[Dagrill]

Not sure if this is the place for this thread but given that government type in T5 is based on population size (-5 to +5 depending on Flux), it seems to me the average government is going to be type 5.

It also means that a company rule of a planet is limited to a maximum population digit of 6, whilst the East India Company must have ruled over a population size of 8. (I can't think of any other company ruling a country).

Has anyone a better system of randomly assigning governments?

Kind Regards

David

 

[aramis]

Not sure if this is the place for this thread but given that government type in T5 is based on population size (-5 to +5 depending on Flux), it seems to me the average government is going to be type 5.

It also means that a company rule of a planet is limited to a maximum population digit of 6, whilst the East India Company must have ruled over a population size of 8. (I can't think of any other company ruling a country).

Has anyone a better system of randomly assigning governments?

Kind Regards

David

While the average government is type 5, and the average mainworld's population the same, the average imperial citizen lives on a pop A world, with a type A government and law level A.

 

[McPerth]

Not sure if this is the place for this thread but given that government type in T5 is based on population size (-5 to +5 depending on Flux), it seems to me the average government is going to be type 5.

It also means that a company rule of a planet is limited to a maximum population digit of 6, whilst the East India Company must have ruled over a population size of 8. (I can't think of any other company ruling a country).

Has anyone a better system of randomly assigning governments?

Kind Regards

David

See that in fact the odds for pop + flux (1d6-1d6) is exactly the same than 2d6-7+pop (as in former versions), even through the exact dice combinations vary...

 

[Orr]

It also means that a company rule of a planet is limited to a maximum population digit of 6, whilst the East India Company must have ruled over a population size of 8.

The EIC didn't "rule" India, at least not in the manner you believe. It basically parasitized indigenous rulers and used existing power structures.

(I can't think of any other company ruling a country).

Google "Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie" and "International Association of the Congo".

 

[Dagrill]

Google "Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie" and "International Association of the Congo".

Thanks, I was vaguely aware Belgium had an association with the Congo due to the mercenaries news in the 70's when I was growing up.

I didn't realise the Dutch EIC was so big either, although I was aware Pellew captured their outposts when he was an Admiral.

Kind Regards

David

 

[Dagrill]

See that in fact the odds for pop + flux (1d6-1d6) is exactly the same than 2d6-7+pop (as in former versions), even through the exact dice combinations vary...

I wonder why I found that more acceptable?

Regards

David

 

[Orr]

Thanks, I was vaguely aware Belgium had an association with the Congo due to the mercenaries news in the 70's when I was growing up.

Remember, Belgium wasn't responsible at first. Leopold II, who happened to be the king of Belgium, was the fiend who started it all and he did so all on his own without any official support from Belgium's government.

Sure, Leopold traded in on his title and contacts to push the idea of the International Association of the Congo and he used the same again to have the Great Powers award him territories in the Congo. However, the Congo was only "given" to him, Leopold. It was to remain separate from anything having to do with Belgium and Leopold couldn't even place it in his will.

Read King Leopold's Ghost and start plotting adventures for your group.

I didn't realise the Dutch EIC was so big either, although I was aware Pellew captured their outposts when he was an Admiral.

All of current day Indonesia and more. Like the UK's EIC, they parasitized local rulers and slowly imposed various monopolies. Unlike the UK's EIC, they early on seized physical control of certain regions producing certain goods where they imposed monocrop agricultural system on their new serfs.

Plenty of adventure ideas there too.

 

[Condottiere]

The Dutch wanted a complete monopoly and control of the spice islands, you might say concentrating on their core competencies.

The English concentrated on what they did best, divide and rule.

 

[aramis]

N is numbers, R is ranking.

LL	N(worlds)	N(people)	R(Worlds)	R(People)
0	126	777,321	4	16
1	80	6,367,625	9	15
2	104	52,021,904	7	14
3	125	397,675,583	5	13
4	140	2,743,321,262	2	12
5	146	15,088,866,941	1	10
6	140	27,433,212,620	2	8
7	125	39,767,558,300	5	6
8	104	52,021,904,000	7	4
9	80	63,676,250,000	9	2
10	56	71,330,600,000	11	1
11	35	58,985,000,000	12	3
12	20	46,640,000,000	13	5
13	10	34,300,000,000	14	7
14	4	22,000,000,000	15	8
15	1	10,000,000,000	16	11

Level 5 is most common mainword world LL, 4&6 second most common, 0 is 4th most common, 3 & 5 5th most common...

However, just a hair shy of 1 in 6 people lives on a level A world, and that's the most common, so it's the mode. Level A is also the median law level. Just shy of 25% of imperial citizens should be at Law 11+... y'know, oppressive quasi-utopias with pervasive monitoring...

Edit: I mislabeled earlier and so I edited, adding pop based data, too.

 

[Hal]

I wonder how that compares against the stats on the Capital World (Sylea)?

 

[flykiller]

the East India Company must have ruled over a population size of 8

not a clean comparison. india was/is not one nation, but a conglomeration of independent tribes, i.e. balkanized. a megacorp could indeed exercise dominance over a pop A world if it were balkanized enough that the megacorp could dominate each individual zone of control.

 

[rancke]

Has anyone a better system of randomly assigning governments?

Have a result on the table that says "unusual" and make a flux roll for 'apparent population level' before rolling for the givernment. E.g. if population level is 5 you make a flux roll; if the result is +4, you make a government roll as if the population is 9.

Or always make that flux roll for apparent pop level first, before rolling for government.


Hans

 

[Dagrill]

Have a result on the table that says "unusual" and make a flux roll for 'apparent population level' before rolling for the givernment. E.g. if population level is 5 you make a flux roll; if the result is +4, you make a government roll as if the population is 9.

Or always make that flux roll for apparent pop level first, before rolling for government.

Hans

Hi Hans,

I was flicking through my Sword worlds book and I came across Dyrnwyn, with a population of 220 million and company rule, I cross-checked with the
Traveller map, so T5 is using these stats as well, (in CT only pop 4).

When was the population changed and why?

Kind Regards

David
ps thanks for the idea of a flux role on population size, that would work

 

[Marchand]

The Dutch wanted a complete monopoly and control of the spice islands, you might say concentrating on their core competencies.

The English concentrated on what they did best, divide and rule.

British, not English.

The East India Company was famously disproportionately staffed by Scots.

 

[Meeko100]

N is numbers, R is ranking.

LL	N(worlds)	N(people)	R(Worlds)	R(People)
0	126	777,321	4	16
1	80	6,367,625	9	15
2	104	52,021,904	7	14
3	125	397,675,583	5	13
4	140	2,743,321,262	2	12
5	146	15,088,866,941	1	10
7	125	39,767,558,300	5	6
8	104	52,021,904,000	7	4
9	80	63,676,250,000	9	2
10	56	71,330,600,000	11	1
11	35	58,985,000,000	12	3
12	20	46,640,000,000	13	5
13	10	34,300,000,000	14	7
14	4	22,000,000,000	15	8
15	1	10,000,000,000	16	11

[t[td]6[/td][td]140[/td][td]27,433,212,620[/td][td]2[/td][td]8[/td][/tr]

Level 5 is most common mainword world LL, 4&6 second most common, 0 is 4th most common, 3 & 5 5th most common...

However, just a hair shy of 1 in 6 people lives on a level A world, and that's the most common, so it's the mode. Level A is also the median law level. Just shy of 25% of imperial citizens should be at Law 11+... y'know, oppressive quasi-utopias with pervasive monitoring...

Edit: I mislabeled earlier and so I edited, adding pop based data, too.

That seems... Weird.

Somehow I question how so many people live in what amounts to dystopia, while so many others exist outside it. And do nothing.

 

[aramis]

That seems... Weird.

Somehow I question how so many people live in what amounts to dystopia, while so many others exist outside it. And do nothing.

3/5 to 4/5 of the modern world lives in what could be classed as dystopias. Either due to poverty, religious oppression, or state repression. All in where one draws the line. About 1/6 of the world has what would count as LL9+

 

[Dagrill]

The English concentrated on what they did best, divide and rule.

Off topic, the way I was taught history that was the Romans (I forget the Latin). The Romans also did Bread and Circuses first, which translates into the modern welfare state and public entertainment, which is presumably how all these Type A, Pop A, Law level A governments work.

Kind Regards

David

 

[Condottiere]

The Romans made a fundamental mistake, they allowed the accumulation of the proletariat at the capital, and permitted them to be turned into a voting block that can be utilized by populists, instead of pushing them to establish colonies and secure Roman power in the provinces, even if they had to offer subsidies.

In eighteenth and nineteenth century England, you pretty much worked or had a terrible time, but the Empire offered you the scope to go out and find a better life.

The Welfare State came out of the early twentieth century, the Great War and the Great Patriotic War, where the regimes stated that they were all in it together, in order to raise those big national armies and organize a war economy, coming out of a depression that tended to screw the proletariat. Quid pro quo. Postwar Tories recognized a fait accompli, after Churchill seemed clueless in 1945 and out of touch.

 

[rancke]

I was flicking through my Sword worlds book and I came across Dyrnwyn, with a population of 220 million and company rule, I cross-checked with the Traveller map, so T5 is using these stats as well, (in CT only pop 4).

When was the population changed and why?

The population was retconned (i.e. it has always been that high) because Dyrnwyn had been the capital of an interstellar state at one point (albeit a small one). We convinced the editor that capitals of interstellar states ought to have at least enough people to support a small fleet of jump-capable vessels and got permission to up the population level a bit. The same reason was used for Hofud and one more world. Collace got a population-destroying disaster instead, but we didn't like to overuse that explanation.


Hans