OK!:
1.5 mile hex "small domain" - The more-or-less 16 hexes contained in a 6 mile hex coexist peacefully with the maximum number of lairs findable in the same hex (2d8 wilderness jungle) - one could theoretically invert the L&E lair tables to generate random domain holdings?
I appreciate the clarification on starting domain type.
A 1.5 mile hex domain purchase (1,506 acres I think?) would be 52,800 gold. The 1.5 mile hex at 1,056 acres would hold about 35 30-acre farms, or 35 families/175 people - ~560 families in a 6 mile hex, very well civilized. If you could fill it up day 1, you'd get about 2800 gp/mo income (civilized plus tribute), returning your investment in about 19 months.
The 30-acre farm is a hex of 1,228 feet in height; 600 feet shy (about 1.5x less) of the height (1,822 ft) of the 1/16th subhex of a 1.5 mile hex.
Territorial Control: This goes really well with the Demographics of Leveled Characters table on pg 235, and might help one make certain assumptions about how people in the world think of themselves.
If a L2 character can rule a Hamlet, one might think that anyone in the surrounding four 1.5 mile hexes identify themselves with that hamlet or that authority figure there - or the City (L8) has the surrounding four 6 mile hexes considered as it's "suburbs", to use a modern idea, or perhaps the primary destination for the goods and services exported from those lands.
Tribute/Liturgies: Festivals were previously 5gp/fam/quarter, or 20gp/fam/yr, or 1.6 gp/fam/mo. Taxes were 20%, tithes were 10%.
3 GP is 20% of 15 GP: Maximum per-family income in a domain is 15 gp (9 LV+4+2), so except for the 3.7% of hex land values that were already 9, the value you take out of your vassals is much greater.
This encourages vassalization for the PCs, which is good - interaction with the game world. Some light math tells me the percentage of one's income that would come from one's vassals doubles in most cases, given 4 vassals of about half your personal domain size or so.
You can still gain at least an extra full 1 GP per directly vassaled family for non-henchman vassals even if you spend 1-2GP of the 3GP/family income back at the non-henchman domain (in effect reducing tribute, if allowed) to increase it's current morale score (offsetting the -2 by half or full - 1GP for 2d6-1 increases current 16% of the time and holds 58%, 2 GP for 2d6 increases ~27%, holds 72% of the time) or let it fly and takes your chances. The thoughtful Judge, however, would nix that by having one's henchmen, as a group in a dark room, ask why Bob from Jersey's getting special treatment and they ain't.
Land Value Matters More With Lieges: On the other hand, if you have a liege lord, you really want a higher land value. The 3.7% of wilderness hexes with LV 3 are zero-profit with this change, as the garrison costs + tribute eats all the income - you pay your lord tribute as if your LV was always 9. You save a little on the backend from the lower Tithe and Liturgy costs, however, tithing was 1 GP at LV 4, so, again, LV 3 is penalized, with LV 5+ saves a couple percentage points of income, 1 SP per family per value above LV 4.
Ignoring garrison costs for domain types, the difference per family per LV for festivals/taxes/liturgies/tributes:
With Liege Taxes/Tribute due, if I didn't screw the math up:
LV |
Festival>Liturgy |
Tax>Tribute |
Tithe |
Difference/Fam |
3 |
0.6 |
-1.2 |
-0.1 |
-0.7 |
4 |
0.6 |
-1 |
0 |
-0.4 |
5 |
0.6 |
-0.8 |
0.1 |
-0.1 |
6 |
0.6 |
-0.6 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
7 |
0.6 |
-0.4 |
0.3 |
0.5 |
8 |
0.6 |
-0.2 |
0.4 |
0.8 |
9 |
0.6 |
0 |
0.5 |
1.1 |
Without a Liege:
LV |
Festival>Liturgy |
Tithe |
Difference/Fam |
3 |
0.6 |
-0.1 |
0.5 |
4 |
0.6 |
0 |
0.6 |
5 |
0.6 |
0.1 |
0.7 |
6 |
0.6 |
0.2 |
0.8 |
7 |
0.6 |
0.3 |
0.9 |
8 |
0.6 |
0.4 |
1 |
9 |
0.6 |
0.5 |
1.1 |
In general, then, this change nets the domain ruler more income except in the case of envassaled, low land value domains - the 62% of hexes with LV 6+ see some increase no matter their vassalage status. Nobody's ever even implied domain income might be too high, so. It does indicate that "hex shopping" for the elusive 8+ LV is still worth it.
Ignoring the fact that most players will not settle a below-average value hex without an overriding strategic reason to do so anyway, then, the change encourages either "going it alone", out in the wilderness or whatever, or encourages future conflict when the adventuring PC outlevels their liege lord, or the PC pisses off mutliple vassals and they ally against her. That's also good.
It also tends to make me think that, in general, higher land value areas are less turbulent, as there's "enough to go around" that every petty lord can have a good piece of the pie, whereas crappy parts of the world will tend to have a lot of folks squabbling over who rules who. Largely, then, ACKS models the human condition here.
Lastly, Tribute and Liturgy are cooler terms than Tax and Festival.
Tribute implies that armies back your request, Tax implies Accountant Specialists. Liturgy implies serious works of art and entertainment and professionally staffed orgies, Festival implies Ren-Faire with greasy turkey legs and underengineered corsets.
So...yea. The simplicification is well worth it for the Judge, as, in general, a player gets more out of it, except in a corner case that players would intend to avoid anyway.