Pathfinder 1e: Ultimate Campaign Repeat Buildings

So here I was messing around with the kingdom management rules in Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign and noticed a horrid exploit for building more than one building. I was doing a story where a noble comes in and takes over an existing town to clean it up and get the place adequately managed.

I laid out the town from an existing town map, and it had something like 15 house blocks on it. You know those "fantasy town map" books you buy where the artist copy and pastes hundreds of houses to make the map look cool. Yeah, and here I figured if the rules say "250 people per city block" and a house takes one, then for every 25-50 houses, that is one "city block" of dwellings by the rules.

And 15 "city blocks" of houses by the rules reduce the city's unrest by -15.

Raise taxes and be a tyrant all you want, ain't nobody getting upset in this town.

So I put in a "diminishing returns" rule for cities that build duplicate structures:

• If you build 1 structure, you get the bonus for one structure.
• If you build 2-3, you get bonuses for two structures.
• If you build 4-7, you get bonuses for three structures.
• If you build 8-15, you get bonuses for four structures.
• If you build 16, you get bonuses for five structures.
• …and so on.

So my unrest modifier should be at a -4, and if I build another house, it goes to -5. And this feels right. This still lets you "double-up" a building and stack bonuses, but the waste starts here and worsens. If I were to build a town from scratch and want a lot of houses, I would build 4 blocks maximum, and 8 if I were pushing the issue.

In this current game, I may have my noble destroy house blocks, keep the best ones, and use the space a little more wisely. I may also do a "luxury upgrade" to all residential and commercial blocks (yeah, I sound like SimCity here), which costs a lot but raises loyalty by +1 per, and have some neighborhoods be the ultra-wealthy ones you would see in a travel magazine.

This gives me fewer blocks, but more upgrades for each that let me flavor each one. I may also create a "high density" upgrade for housing that raises the population for the city block to 1000 at a cost of +1 crime, +1 econ, and -1 unrest, but it lets me pack people into my downtown area efficiently, so they can all live close to the city center and jobs.

Because unlike SimCity I do not have the options for freeways, bus lines, and light rail in medieval times.

And high-density housing requires a sewer system in the town as a prerequisite. And yes, +1 econ on those high-density blocks because more people equals more jobs and commerce, just ask New York City. All of them follow the rules of diminishing returns.

And a structure like an inn or shop is assumed to have housing nearby (in the square), so not all houses are represented by the house city block. These are likely just "great neighborhoods" that are prestige areas of the city, while shops and every other city block on the map have that same 250 population living in apartments, rooms above stores, and other housing nearby.