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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Crake said:
I thought we said "Yeah, you can do some tolls. We have to discuss any tariffs or the like, especially in the Riverlands since we can't have every city along the banks trying to gouge people who are mostly just offloading all their goods on the other side of the continent", but that they just couldn't explicitly levy tolls to any state officials?

Or are we just nixing any road tolls, et al? I'm not actually sure what purpose tolls serve along major transport routes other than those levied by a state explicitly used to maintain those roads.

I do on the other hand hear a lot of villainization about corporations wanting roads to be privatized so that they can put a toll on every pie-slice stretch of it, but mostly as a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration about the dystopian end result of going overboard with libertarian principles. Not as a serious suggestion as something that has aggregate net-good for the public or would actually result in functional roads (not that the decades of neglect is anything to champion either).
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In a medieval setting, tolls on roads are basically the same as tariffs on imports. A tax on goods moved to or from a fief. We definitely nuked the right to do that stuff early on. Modern usage tolls leveraged per vehicle have different justifications, but they effectively still serve as price on moving people and goods.

Overall, the justification is irrelevant. Tolls are taxes and fees collected by the owner / controller of the road for whatever reason.

For maintaining roads, the Ministry of Public Works has a budget. Which is filled from treasury. And which, incidentally, the local lord can petition to receive a slice of beyond what he gets anyway to maintain the roads he already has.
Basically, we removed the lords ability to levy their own taxes on many things as means to finance themselves and instead gave them the ability to improve their lands with our funds.
 
OK here is what I have for alpha action costs. This is all just the first draft so if you see something off do not hesitate to speak up. That said keep in mind that one of the things I think we all hope for the new system is for things to take a reasonable amount of time:
  1. Upgrading the King's Road to Imperial standards (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Works)
  2. Building Arterial Roads in the North (2 Action from the Ministry to Public Work)
  3. Building Arterial Roads in the Vale (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Works -> Down from 3 due to Minister skill and the presence of the Stone Fey court)
  4. Building a network of roads in Dorne (2 Action from the Ministry to Public Work -> Down from 3 due to Minister skill)
  5. A canal cut between Seaguard and the Twins along with widening the tributaries of the Blue Fork (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Works -> Down from 3 due to the presence of Plane of Water Engineers and access to the elemental forge -Water-)
  6. A Trade City with a Harbor near the Twins and expanding the harbor at Seaguard (1 Action each from the Ministries of Public works and the ministry of Health)
  7. Making Tracks useful for train service (5 Actions from the Ministry of Public Works)
  8. Getting locomotives fit for tram use (2 Actions from the Ministry of Magic one from the Ministry of Trade)
Administration wildcard: As the ministry with the broadest remit Administration can replace any action after the first one by any ministry on a project. So for instance it could take the second Public Works action for roads in the north, but could not entirely replace the Ministry to Public health in planing a safe and healthy city.
 
@DragonParadox, we made huge road networks and channels in Essos with just Titan Tool time, spending 1 month of work per province and a bit more per channel.

This is way, way, way more time and effort.
 
Azel said:
In a medieval setting, tolls on roads are basically the same as tariffs on imports. A tax on goods moved to or from a fief. We definitely nuked the right to do that stuff early on. Modern usage tolls leveraged per vehicle have different justifications, but they effectively still serve as price on moving people and goods.

Overall, the justification is irrelevant. Tolls are taxes and fees collected by the owner / controller of the road for whatever reason.

For maintaining roads, the Ministry of Public Works has a budget. Which is filled from treasury. And which, incidentally, the local lord can petition to receive a slice of beyond what he gets anyway to maintain the roads he already has.
Basically, we removed the lords ability to levy their own taxes on many things as means to finance themselves and instead gave them the ability to improve their lands with our funds.
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Do they draw any income from taxation still? I was under the understanding that before, taxes would be collected around the lands by the indivdual lords' tax collectors, who would then transport their Overlord's share of the taxes to their seat, who would then have the Crown's portion transported to King's Landing.

That's obviously inefficient as hell (and probably with many people cheating a greater or lesser portion of their taxes dependent on how recently someone stomped on their lands and or rattled their sabers) but the Crown mostly ignored the details since it was up to the Lords Paramount to ensure a reasonable tribute was presented at the appropriate time and mostly didn't sweat the details.

Now I'm not so sure, other than that we stated that the Lords could raise certain taxes still, but I guess couldn't make taxes on basic goods that people need to survive? Or something similar?

Also this means that Lords will be incentivized either way to form corporations, since not being able to create arbitrary taxes on something means that they don't have assured liquidity in short term scenarios.
 
I imagine that we have to ignore that because frankly that month speed was too quick in my opinion. 3 months to make roads in a pretty big regions sames perfectly fair.
 
Crake said:
Do they draw any income from taxation still? I was under the understanding that before, taxes would be collected around the lands by the indivdual lords' tax collectors, who would then transport their Overlord's share of the taxes to their seat, who would then have the Crown's portion transported to King's Landing.

That's obviously inefficient as hell (and probably with many people cheating a greater or lesser portion of their taxes dependent on how recently someone stomped on their lands and or rattled their sabers) but the Crown mostly ignored the details since it was up to the Lords Paramount to ensure a reasonable tribute was presented at the appropriate time and mostly didn't sweat the details.

Now I'm not so sure, other than that we stated that the Lords could raise certain taxes still, but I guess couldn't make taxes on basic goods that people need to survive? Or something similar?

Also this means that Lords will be incentivized either way to form corporations, since not being able to create arbitrary taxes on something means that they don't have assured liquidity in short term scenarios.
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Our model, or at least as far as I always intended it, though I think we never made it explicit how it works, was that the imperial tax collectors collect everything, give the local lord his share of the general taxes and all special local taxes, and the rest goes to the crown. In reverse, the administration gives the lord funds in accordance with the budget plan for his fief.

We definitely never made a detailed ruling on what taxes they can still create.
 
Azel said:
We definitely never made a detailed ruling on what taxes they can still create.
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When we discussed a tax-overhaul IC and voted on it, we did explicitly say "no arbitrary taxes on shaky justifications" I think, and also no absurd taxes on things like bread or water or other things that everyone uses and would have a sharp decrease in quality of life if they were suddenly denied access from someone imposing a tax on it all of a sudden.
 
OK how does this work guys?

Upgrading the King's Road to Imperial standards and building Arterial Roads in the North and the Vale (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Work)

All this is familiar territory

Building a network of roads in Dorne (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Work)

As far as I recall you have never built anything in a desert

A canal cut between Seaguard and the Twins along with widening the tributaries of the Blue Fork (1 Action from the Ministry to Public Works-)

This would be harder if you did not have water elemental to literally grind the banks open

A Trade City with a Harbor near the Twins and expanding the harbor at Seaguard (1 Action from the Ministries of Public works or the ministry of Health)

Made is either or but as far as I know you guys do not have much practice building cities

Making Tracks useful for train service (1 Action from the Ministry of Public Works)
Getting locomotives fit for tram use (1 Actions from the Ministry of Magic)

Slashed the cost to be more in line with this being more known tech
 
Acolyte said:
I imagine that we have to ignore that because frankly that month speed was too quick in my opinion. 3 months to make roads in a pretty big regions sames perfectly fair.
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That speed was calculated from the effects of the spells in question and thus extrapolated from first principles. We didn't pull that out of thin air.
This is the kind of stuff that comes from D&D expanding to a nation scale.
DragonParadox said:
True. I would not want to make this lurch too much, you guys are not actually getting worse at infrastructure. Back to the drafting table.
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I'd suggest lump the first 3 points into 1 Public Works, 1 more for Dorne, and 1 for the entire Riverlands.

Point 7 felt way too much, but I just noticed that Goldfish expanded it to the entirety of western Essos. Can we get it down to one action for the Three Daughters, and then one more for each region of similar size?

Point 8 also feels weird. This should probably either take a research action or one Public Works.
 
DragonParadox said:
A Trade City with a Harbor near the Twins and expanding the harbor at Seaguard (1 Action from the Ministries of Public works or the ministry of Health)

Made is either or but as far as I know you guys do not have much practice building cities
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Health feels weird. Administration would fit better. Or Military, if we go for something more utilitarian.
DragonParadox said:
Making Tracks useful for train service (1 Action from the Ministry of Public Works)
Getting locomotives fit for tram use (1 Actions from the Ministry of Magic)

Slashed the cost to be more in line with this being more known tech
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Magic still seems weird here as the way you phrase it, it's an engineering problem and should need research.
 
Azel said:
Our model, or at least as far as I always intended it, though I think we never made it explicit how it works, was that the imperial tax collectors collect everything, give the local lord his share of the general taxes and all special local taxes, and the rest goes to the crown. In reverse, the administration gives the lord funds in accordance with the budget plan for his fief.
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Also... @DragonParadox I feel like people are still in the honeymoon stage because Viserys has been talking about spending exorbitant amounts of money and resources on improving absurd amounts of land simultaneously, and everyone believes him because he proved he could do it already.

But no one has raised the little tiny quibble that local autonomy has been lost yet, which I find impressive, seeing as how the former kind of goes hand in hand with the latter. Centralization of public officials means many of the people who used to do this kinda work for them before are going to be head hunted for our Ministries anyway.

So there will be Law Enforcement officials everywhere who are paid by the Crown. Judges, again, employed by the Crown. Municipal and other administrative officials hire by the State. Tax collectors are working for the Crown, and now no coin is lost with Lords just accepting you can't send a man out into the middle of nowhere to shake down some peasants and not expect some of your earnings to be a "shortfall this harvest" or something similar.

Big changes. It'll make ruling very different, less time taken up with basic duties and the Lords who were thinking "I'll just ignore that Province council the Crown saddled me with", might be bored enough to actually attend and listen to them.
 
Azel said:
Health feels weird. Administration would fit better. Or Military, if we go for something more utilitarian.

Magic still seems weird here as the way you phrase it, it's an engineering problem and should need research.
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  1. Administration/War sounds good. With the smaller number of actions there is no need to use it as a wildcard
  2. Research sound better yeah, thanks
 
Crake said:
Also... @DragonParadox I feel like people are still in the honeymoon stage because Viserys has been talking about spending exorbitant amounts of money and resources on improving absurd amounts of land simultaneously, and everyone believes him because he proved he could do it already.

But no one has raised the little tiny quibble that local autonomy has been lost yet, which I find impressive, seeing as how the former kind of goes hand in hand with the latter. Centralization of public officials means many of the people who used to do this kinda work for them before are going to be head hunted for our Ministries anyway.

So there will be Law Enforcement officials everywhere who are paid by the Crown. Judges, again, employed by the Crown. Municipal and other administrative officials hire by the State. Tax collectors are working for the Crown, and now no coin is lost with Lords just accepting you can't send a man out into the middle of nowhere to shake down some peasants and not expect some of your earnings to be a "shortfall this harvest" or something similar.

Big changes. It'll make ruling very different, less time taken up with basic duties and the Lords who were thinking "I'll just ignore that Province council the Crown saddled me with", might be bored enough to actually attend and listen to them.
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The thing is none of that has happened yet, and a lot of these people have no context for it. The few who do like Stannis and Doran are fine with it. Expect complaints when their 'ancient liberties' are actually trodden on by a fellow in grey
 
Azel said:
That speed was calculated from the effects of the spells in question and thus extrapolated from first principles. We didn't pull that out of thin air.
This is the kind of stuff that comes from D&D expanding to a nation scale.
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Thats was my point, while the time may be accurate for the spell. It felt unrealistic. 8 imagine we can fluff the longer times for there project as building even more comprehensive road networks. Because westros has more villages to connect to the main roads.
 
I'm pretty sure we will have to spend a lot of Diplomacy actions internally in the coming turns and Lawenforcement will be overworked to the point that we will need to divert some Inquisition resources to get shit under control.

Cons: This will suck.
Pros: This will end with someone having to explain why the taxes are late to Bloodraven.
 
Crake said:
Worth.
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Lord: "Uhm... bandits..."
Bloodraven: "Alright. I will send the Tax Collection Bomber next month."
Lord: "The what?"
Bloodraven: "I've had a Manticore bomber refitted for the purpose. It has proven very successful at reducing the banditry problem. Even when it just flew over a keep for a few times before picking up the tax chest. Strange, don't you think?"
 
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