World Population And Government Types

[aramis]

They aren't going to be dealing with the planetary leadership or top government officials except in rare circumstances (like there's a noble or famous person in the group).

Given the CT, MT, and T4 Char Gen systems, those are NOT rare circumstances.

 

[Akeel]

Population and Cities

Hi there

Talking of populations... has anyone got a better method of detailing cities on your world... I've got the Megatraveller World Builders Handbook but that method starting on page 72 just seems a wee bit cumbersome and I was wondering if anyone had come up with a more efficient method.

 

[Fovean]

I've been using the UWP Pop digit - 1D (minimum 1) for major settlements, each holding 10-60% of the entire population. Whatever the result is x 1D for minor settlements (1D3 x 5% of remaining population each).

So my world with Pop 6, Ext 7 (7 million) has 6-1D (3) = 3 major settlements:

1) City 1 has 40% (2.8 million) - probably the downport and Startown
2) City 2 has 20% (1.4 million) - probably centered on the major resource areas
3) City 3 has 10% (700 thousand) - possibly a faction of the main government/religion or center of minor/secondary resources
Total 4.9 million in major cities, 2.1 million remaining in smaller cities and towns.

Minor settlements number 3 x 1D (4) = 12, each with 105K (5%) to 315K (15%) residents, to a limit of 2.1 million inhabitants. This could end up being only 8 or 9 small cities or could also be 12 small cities with a leftover 200K or so people scattered about the globe in villages, colonies, mining camps, etc if I wanted to detail each one.

I ended up with one world (pop 200,000,000) where I put all the major cities right up against each other, creating a sort of MegaCity 1 with distinct factions/areas. That was fun.

Helps figure out the situation on balkanized worlds as well, simply give each major faction its own city, the rest may be individual fringe factions, puppet states, what have you.

Only used it a few times so far but seems to be working. Takes about 2 minutes per world.

 

[LeperColony]

"Make it your own" is always an option for any game system, but I'm a systems guy - I like seeing the universe generate on its own (with the help of dice, of course) and desire for that process to make sense. If I have to handwave something, that generally means (to me) that the system is flawed in some way.

Of course, no system is perfect, and I have no problem adjusting as needed (either with system tweaks or handwaving), but I was just curious if there was an underlying design choice and/or socio-economic concept I was missing.

Like you, I'm a system guy too. When I encounter something like this, rather than ascribe it to error or inelegant design (which it very well may be, in actuality), I prefer to accept the condition as true, and then puzzle out what it means for the setting (so yes, apologies ahead of time to anyone opposed to the OTU).

It could be that the dominant strains of political and cultural ideology see the most legitimacy in autocratic rule.

Note also that a society may be politically restrictive but still socially, culturally, economically and/or religiously open, though it seems less likely.

 

[Akeel]

Thank you, Fovean, I'll give that a try

 

[Ulsyus]

Helps figure out the situation on balkanized worlds as well, simply give each major faction its own city, the rest may be individual fringe factions, puppet states, what have you.

Wouldn't you need to be careful about the balance of population and RUs on balkanised worlds? Otherwise wouldn't the imbalance from a random allocation of people and stuff require even more work to justify why one state hasn't dominated another? That is, assuming geography doesn't play a large role in it.

 

[Fovean]

Wouldn't you need to be careful about the balance of population and RUs on balkanised worlds? Otherwise wouldn't the imbalance from a random allocation of people and stuff require even more work to justify why one state hasn't dominated another? That is, assuming geography doesn't play a large role in it.

Fair question, as I said I haven't had a need to use this mini-system a lot but I have done two balkanised worlds with it.

MgT gives a simple mechanic for determining factions and their relative strengths under a "unified" government but for balkanised worlds I assume each faction is Notable or Significant and thus worthy of at least one major settlement.

One world came out with a faction that was indeed significantly larger in terms of population/settlements but the handful of other factions collectively prevented the big one from assuming control of the world. The big one did have effective control of the starport (by hosting the Imperial noble who oversees the world) so a quick visit might leave one thinking there was one government in control when in fact several were competing. And yeah, geography had an influence here.

The second time around I did try to balance the factions a bit by liberally spreading around the minor settlements to create a more even playing field, and added Imperial reps for each country, making starport authority more a board of directors than a single noble liaison.

Both situations allowed for great local color although quite frankly my players never really explored the political situation on either world. But I don't think either world breaks anything metagame-wise.

Regarding RUs, I don't use them IMTU as this is not the OTU. My part-time Trojan Reach campaign doesn't really use RUs either but if I need them that is what I'll use. I haven't had to detail a balkanised world for that campaign yet so I guess we'll see.

But I have used my settlement system above for Nekrino, Chalchiutlicue, Dolberg, Pryme and Cordillon - so far so good.