Our group of 6+ (depending on who shows up to play) PCs, level 4-6, has managed to liberate a small tower in the wilderness. This tower makes an ideal base for our group; indeed, one of our members wants to make the base into a permanent stronghold. Pillaging nearby camps and accepting volunteers from the slaves and prisoners has resulted in gathering a small military force, and we have plenty of discovered treasure to finance at a small army for at least a little while. However, there exist a few problems...
The first problem is having a stronghold at all. According to ACKS, to start a stronghold, one must be level 9 - that's a long way off. Is there a way to start a stronghold before that level?
The second problem is resources. We can pay our army of mercenaries, and there is plenty of water around, but not a whole lot of prepared food. Do we have to feed our army as well, or do they hunt up their own food? Is there a specialist of some sort that can provide food?
And finally, assuming we can upkeep our building and we don't starve, we still won't have any peasants. Do we need them, apart from taxes? This is a fairly excluded and dangerous area. Are peasants attracted to our land, or will we have to ship them in? Or downgrade some of our mercenaries to peasants?
You don't have to be level 9 to start a stronghold, you just don't get your class-followers and stuff until level 9.
RAW the PCs do not begin attracting automatic families until level 9. That being said any freed slaves that aren't volunteering for defense service can probably be counted as peasants (5 per "family") and be assumed to provide their "taxes" in the form of foraged/hunted/grown food and other supplies and services.
If there aren't enough survivors to do this, there's some foraging/hunting rules on p.94 of ACKS. If you're looking to make things easier on yourself, you can probably assume that enough of the volunteers/freed slaves have the Survival proficiency. Quick math makes it look to me like two hunters with Survival can provide enough food for ~7 people each day, but they have to do nothing but hunt and risk a wandering monster encounter each day.
The first problem is having a stronghold at all. According to ACKS, to start a stronghold, one must be level 9 - that's a long way off. Is there a way to start a stronghold before that level?
You may establish a stronghold at any level. However, doing so does not attract peasants or followers until you are 9th level.
The second problem is resources. We can pay our army of mercenaries, and there is plenty of water around, but not a whole lot of prepared food. Do we have to feed our army as well, or do they hunt up their own food? Is there a specialist of some sort that can provide food?
Do you have Domains at War? It has complete details for how to handle this. Essentially you need to set aside gold for their supply cost, and you need to be able to trace a line of supply from the wilderness fort to a market large enough to supply them. If the fort is out of supply then you need to build one or more supply bases in between.
And finally, assuming we can upkeep our building and we don't starve, we still won't have any peasants. Do we need them, apart from taxes? This is a fairly excluded and dangerous area. Are peasants attracted to our land, or will we have to ship them in? Or downgrade some of our mercenaries to peasants?
Peasants will not be attracted to the land unless you are 9th level. You're not strong enough to make them feel secure.
Every two mercenaries can do the work of one peasant family. However, you'd have to still pay their mercenary wages. So this is an expensive labor force.
You can ship peasants in / attract immigration with investment: 1d10 peasants per 1,000gp.
Alex updated the rules for domains. Check them out here: http://www.autarch.co/forums/general-forums/general-discussion/strongholds-and-domains-revised-approach
According to the new rules a 5th level (Average of party) can control 1 hex of land without morale penalties. As to if you will have problems with other domain rulers it not really said.
If you really have an army sized group you might want to look at the supply line rules from domains at war. Otherwise people can fend for themselves on while doing something on a 18+ for 1d6 man sized people. If you are doing nothing you can hunt on a 14+ for 2d6 people. If you have the survival proficiency you get a +4 to both those rolls.
The rules linked above explain how domains population grows. You can also invest into it for 1d10 families per 1000 gold. The DM might think to take a penalty if the area is dangerous or hard to get to but otherwise it's assumed they make their way there safely, possibly with merchants or guards.
Edit: Wow. Go to double check some info and I am beat by two people.
it's worth noting that while 5th level is required for a full 6-mile hex, you can secure a small amount of 1.5 mile hexes at lower levels. there are 16 1.5 mile hexes in a single 6-mile hex.
All great information! Unfortunately, I have neither D@W, nor a clear supply route... we're going to have to go pillaging again, I think. For the supply route, not the book. I'll buy that.
to clarify some points: you are only obligated to feed a standing army. If you are merely employing a garrison, they handle getting food themselves. Same for peasants. If some of the people you free set to the task of becoming peasant families and farming the land, they handle themselves as well as far as food is concerned. Being in supply is only relevant for mobile armies which cannot dedicate a large amount of time to foraging/farming.
Meanwhile, in order to get the peasants to begin peasanting, you'll need to secure the land. Wilderness regions, according to the latest update, can hold up to 8 peasant families, but require a stronghold worth roughly 2,000gp per 1.5 mile hex and a garrison earning 4gp per family.
Most likely, the DM should allow the stories of you freeing slaves and roleplaying interacting with them to replace the normal means of attracting peasants or hiring mercenaries, which respectively require spending money on agricultural investment or going to a market and checking availability of troops, respectively.
I think my gut instinct would be to count freeing slaves as agricultural investment in terms of GP value. A normal human slave is worth 40 gp, so every 25 slaves freed would get you 1d10 peasant families. (Some, perhaps all, of them would be the freed slaves deciding to work for you and settling down!)
In my campaign, several of my players founded domains before level 9. I did the following things:
They got no followers nor initial peasants from claiming hexes until they reached level 9.
I didn't worry about supply lines for the garrsion because the strongholds were on a navigable waterway and in any case the players used agricultural investment to attract peasants to the domain, so the domain stronghold turned into a class VI market fairly quickly.
Page 134 mentions that a low-level lord "might have to defend his stronghold from NPCs who consider him too weak to maintain his grip on his domain." To represent this, I periodically sent would-be usupers up against each domain, be it an ambitious necromancer, a skysos barbarian horde or an assassin using their fighter henchman as a stalking horse.
Once a PC reached Level 9, I gave them a proclamation from the leadership of their god's temples offically recognising their status as a true and righteous ruler. As this point, the would-be usurpers stopped showing up.
What!? HOW THE HECK DID THE MATH WORK OUT THAT NICE? The value of a slave is exactly the... I mean.... There's elegance of design and then there's WITCHCRAFT. I'm starting to distrust ACKS.