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Resources

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A Resource is a strategically valuable material produced only at certain Locations, which are called Resource Nodes.

Obtaining Resources

Glass Empires deliberately eschews complex modeling of commodities exchange markets on the basis that emulating a proper dynamic economy is nearly impossible for computers, let alone a GM’s brain. The point of the game is not individual acts of arbitrage!

As a result, we use a simplified model. We assume the following things:

  1. The GM determines & places Resource Nodes at the time of building the campaign world.
  2. Resource Nodes, when made into Settlements, produce 1 or more copies of a Resource.
  3. Access to a Resource is a binary yes/no. We do not measure or combine sums. Each copy is a sufficient supply for a single sovereign Faction.
  4. If a Faction has one of the following, they have access to the Resource:
    • Direct control over a Resource Node producing that specific Resource.
    • An agreement with a Faction who has a copy of that Resource to have that copy continuously shipped via a currently unblocked trade route.
    • Another Leader in the same sovereign realm who has met one of these other conditions.
  5. A Faction with no access suffers penalties based on the Resource in question.
Design Implications

GMs should note that this design implicitly means that a single copy is always sufficient for an empire of any size. There are various compromises you can try to make here (i.e. Resource Nodes that are only good up to a certain Level of Faction), but most will be quite ugly. For the sake of the core game, try ~1 Resource copies per 10,000 square miles on your campaign map.

Types of Resource

There are two types of Resource:

  • Ordinary: If you have no access, all Action Durations & items that would logically require that resource have their Cost/Duration doubled.
  • Exotic: As Ordinary, but costs increase 10-fold.

Ordinary Resources are assumed to be abundant in the world, such that alternative trade routes & distant shipping could be arranged even if it came at great friction. Exotic Resources are assumed to be produced only by a handful of locations & in great demand.

Trade Routes

A trade route is a path along connected, unblocked roads or naval routes between a Resource & a target Location.

  • Connected means a continuous unbroken line of roads. Trade demands roads, even if it’s a simple dirt trail. Navigable rivers & open waters are included.
  • Unblocked means no hostile army occupies the road or is within a 50-mile radius of a traced route across the seas.

Resources on Glass

In Glass, there are two Resources in play, both of which are Ordinary:

  • Wood: High-quality timber required for ships & siege machines.
    • Impacts shipbuilding, siege duration, & lumber construction.
  • Metal: Needed for almost everything. All of Glass’s mines are managed by salamander slave clans.
    • Impacts Army raising time & all construction/manufacturing/fortifications.

Game Design Notes

Why Wood & Metal?

We track Wood because Aian warfare is heavily dependent on siege machinery due to extensive fortifications, & Metal because salamanders hold a total monopoly on mining in Glass — as a consequence, we must track the leverage they hold, but need not differentiate in type of metal as not only are all critical, but all are commanded by the same group.

Distributed Resources

We might refer to the standard Resource described here as a monopoly Resource, as specific Locations are assumed to have a monopoly on their production. However, some cases will require tracking of the availability of generalized materials such as food — which, notably, is produced by every Settlement in some quantity & is desired by those who cannot grow it.

Rather than tracking these explicitly, we generally use Features for Faction Types that demand access to one or more friendly Settlements exceeding a certain size. The Families metric of a Settlement is, in a real sense, the resource volume for such distributed/generalized resources.

What About Magical Resources?

Here’s a fun note for adventurous GMs with homebrewed Resources: Theoretically, control over a given Resource could grant any benefit desired to Factions so long as it reflected the underlying fiction. Magical rocks that are used in cool guns? Only those Factions can mix in cool gun units. Fancy construction materials? Construction bonus instead of a penalty. Cheaper castles & housing. All you have to do is plot out all of the logical consequences & use-cases of a given material’s existence & estimate how they should show up in the rules.