Although the Lady Magda Marilenev (fuelled by anger and hate) has built the estate into a model of agricultural efficiency since the destruction of the rest of her family, the last few years have been experiencing a productivity slowdown. Age, and illness, and insanity have taken their toll on her capacity to manage the Marilenev Estate.
Marilinev Village: population (900 people)
900/5=180 families x 120sp rent=2,160gp
Farming: population (11,000 people)
(10) light wood x 40 farms x 86 acre size (400 small farms)
(5) cleared x 200 farms x 172 acre size (1,000 large farms)
Specularum (Mirros) (50,000-60,000 people):
60,000/5=12,000 families x 120sp rent=144,000gp rent which no longer goes to Marilenev estate (the previous landlord of this once guild town) but to Duke Stephan directly.
Marilenev Woodlots: The plantation has 30,960,000 acres of timber x 20,000lb per acre/1000 year regrowth=619,200,000lb (per year)
Total Woodlot Income (619,200,000 lb /800lb) x 35gp=27,090,000gp
Small farm (86 acre)
Grain: harvest produced (28 acres x 20 bushels x 50lb per bushel x 63%)= 17,640lb
Turnip: Harvest produced =(28 acres x 25 ton x 63%)=411 ton
Fed to Pigs for Pig Production (411 / 25) x 10=160 pigs
- In farm human consumption (24 pigs & 2,302lb grain)
Small Farm Produce: (136 pigs & 15,388lb grain)
Subtotal (400 x small farm) = 54,400 pigs & 6,155,200lb grain
Large farm (172 acre)
Grain: harvest produced (57 acres x 20 bushels x 63% x 50lb per bushel) =35,910lb
Turnip: Harvest produced =(57 acres x 25 ton x 63% )=897 ton
Fed to Pigs for Pig Production (897 / 25) x 10=358 pigs
- In farm human consumption (24 pigs & 2,302lb grain)
Large Farm Produce: (334 pigs & 33,608lb grain)
Subtotal (1000 x large farm) = 334,000,000 pigs & 33,608,000lb grain
Marilenev Brewery (12,138,362lb grain/20)/36=16,858 barrels of strong ale
Ale Barrel is 400gp (standard 36 gallon barrel) so the Marilenev pull in 6,743,200gp from their ale production.
Grain (8400lb flour) for bread supplying Marilenev Village & castle
Marilenev Estate Production Totals and Incomes
Marilinev Village Rents..............................2,160gp
Firewood & Timber (619,200,000lb)……....27,090,000gp
Pigs (188,000)………………………..............…1,504,000gp
Grain (127,616,438lb)………………………….....3,705,900gp
Strong ale (16,858 barrels)……............. 6,743,200gp
Total…………………………...........…….......…45,78496,300gp
Income Division (taxes)
25% To Stephan………………………….........11,446,572gp
25% To House Marilenev…………….........…11,446,572gp
50% To farmers………………………...........….22,893,150gp
small farm………………………………………9,538gp
Large farm……………………………………..19,077gp
Some of the Grain produced is used up in Marilenev for the baking of bread, a considerable portion is allocated to Ale. The brewing of that ale takes place in Marilenev village in the Shadow of the Gothic Monstrosity that is Castle Marilenev. Marilenev Estate is a self sufficient Estate that produces a lot of the Vegetable and Meat needs of Specularum (Mirros). It also produces most of the grain needs of Specularum.
It also produces the firewood and timber needed by the City population as well as an extra 540,000lb of wood which is exported in a well managed regrowth program where the woodlots have a thousand years to regrow before they are again harvested.
Methinks those are some very pricy turnips indeed... :D
And even if the poor folk of the city could afford that, I think they would starve because of shortage of food. Specularum is quite large.
:-) Jesper
The Marilinev family gets a lot of money from agriculture. It use to get a lot more before Karameikos took over. Their Income has been cut by half (assuming they paid tax to the Thyatian Empire befor Karameikos came in).
Thanks Chris for the info on Population.
I got about 11,000 people in the estate ignoring the village and specularum.
The spreadsheet assumed medieval farming practices and crop growth and low light penetration through the atomosphere (hence dark ages) ;)
So for every 4 people farming, they grew food for 5 according to this, using this meant that karameikos had to import food, I upped it to a 3/5 ratio as these guys have gods of agriculture, so they should be telling them how it increase crop yields, and which trees to grow for fire wood - how to make plant growth potions.
What about the gnomes and dwarfs digging coal. what about local coal shafts.
Wizards - the snertzer keep warm room heater, only 200 g.p. (nice for the middle classes) - but where is the off switch for summer? just keep it in your oven - but you could buy the snertzer delux heating/cooling plate for 350 g.p.
- warm in winter, cool in summer, and for that ultimate luxery of ice in the summer, the snertzer larder cooler
The basic 'build from scratch' number assumptions I'd be working from, to generate reasonable expectations of how well a place like Marlinev should be doing:
- One person consumes about 5 gp per month (or 60 gp per year) of 'Stuff' to live. This includes food, fuel, new clothing and tools to replace those that wear out, time repairing clothing/shelter/what have you, and so on. General productivity allows a peasant to produce at about 8-10 gp per month, or 100-120 gp per year. (That '80% rural farmers' thing is not an exaggeration - medieval life was intensely hand-to-mouth.) This is not all 'taxable income' - some of it is repairs and upkeep on one's own possessions, exchange of services, or other earnings that would be too much work and trouble to try and collect taxes on.
- Marlinev's overall income is therefore about 12 million gp per year, all told; monthly taxes come to 1 sp/head to Lady Marlinev and a similar amount to the Duke. Each ruler therefore brings in about 66,000 gp per year in taxed income. A good haul, but a lot less notable than what the original trade numbers suggest.
I think the only thing this spreadsheet is doing for me is pointing out some serious logical holes in the basic economic data. There's no way an 11,000 person estate can manage to generate 500 billion gp of revenue per year. Even after 50% taxes, that's average earnings of better than 40,000 gp per year - favorably comparable to the pay scale of an expert Name-level magus pulling a salary of 1,000 gp per week. And this is in a small, poorly-managed dominion on one of the less advanced countries of the Known World. One can only guess at how well the Glantrians, Alphatians or Thyatians must do.
The basic 'build from scratch' number assumptions I'd be working from, to generate reasonable expectations of how well a place like Marlinev should be doing:
- One person consumes about 5 gp per month (or 60 gp per year) of 'Stuff' to live. This includes food, fuel, new clothing and tools to replace those that wear out, time repairing clothing/shelter/what have you, and so on. General productivity allows a peasant to produce at about 8-10 gp per month, or 100-120 gp per year. (That '80% rural farmers' thing is not an exaggeration - medieval life was intensely hand-to-mouth.) This is not all 'taxable income' - some of it is repairs and upkeep on one's own possessions, exchange of services, or other earnings that would be too much work and trouble to try and collect taxes on.
- Marlinev's overall income is therefore about 12 million gp per year, all told; monthly taxes come to 1 sp/head to Lady Marlinev and a similar amount to the Duke. Each ruler therefore brings in about 66,000 gp per year in taxed income. A good haul, but a lot less notable than what the original trade numbers suggest.
While the production yeild is realistic (historicaly accurate for late medieval society) The pay isnt always in coin. It was in trade for what they didnt make.Over production rotted in the fields. Estates are rarely as Big as Marilenev estate. Marilinev estate is 952 square miles (17 hexes) while historicaly an knight would own an estate of 1-3 villa equating between 56 to 168 square miles (1-3 eight mile hexes).
A villa is 2-200 farms of about 172 acres. That means a Villa is no bigger than a single 8 mile Hex (56 square mile). The true average population density for an estate hex is 20 farms. Production prior to the introduction of 3 field crop rotation, and feeding fodder to livestock for greater yeilds, and industrial volume food preservation, farms were getting 10% efficiency yeilds and barly supporting a knight and his horse on the income of 2 farms.
For an estate like Marilenev, the real value of production would be in the millions. But considering tax was payed in produce and preservation of food was rarely practiced, there were real problems with it even getting to market. Idiots farmed land and even bigger idiots were incharge.
The Dragon 187,189,191 articles on economics describe cleared flat farmland as 100 x 5=500 people per hex which is 100 family farms (each about 172 acres each) per hex (about half the maximum possible farmland for 56 square miles). Prior to advances in agriculture the farms of an estate might produce the needs of its Lord and his small army of thugs. Taxes to the King were wagonloads of firewood, some excess grain and meat, and Millitary support.
The economy you describe is one of Serfdom and slavery. Karameikos has outlawed Serfdom and Slavery in favour of Farmers Producing for personal income in excess of just the food they need to survive.
Optimal Production per Acre
Produce......................................................................Per Acre
Sheep, Grazing.......................................................1/3
Sheep, Fodder fed...................................................10
Wheat, Fallow ground.........................................20 bushels
Wheat, Stubble ground........................................12 bushels
Maize....................................................................40 bushels
Millet....................................................................30 bushels
Turnip………………………………………………………………………………25 ton
Sugarcane.............................................................20 ton
****......................................................................5 ton
Hay........................................................................5 ton
Linseed (for flax)..................................................14 bushels
Oats.....................................................................60 bushels
Tomatoes............................................................600 bushels
Tea…………………………………………………………………………………440lb-1242lb
Dairy, grazing cows………………………………………………………… 140 gallons
It is restricted to 8 months grazing season on 1&1/2 acre per cow.
Dairy, grazing ewes………………..……………………………………….0.25 gallon
Yield is per sheep per day. 180 days grazing season on 5 ewes per acre.
Dairy, fodder&hay&grain supported cows…………………………….20lb milk
Fed 1 mixed bushel of fodder, hay, and Oats per day.
Wool, sheep……………………………………………..…………………………2&1/4lb
Yield per year in wool per sheep
Firewood………………………………………………………………………………20,000lb
One person requires 10,000lb/year
Its all about farm management.
The economy you describe is one of Serfdom and slavery. Karameikos has outlawed Serfdom and Slavery in favour of Farmers Producing for personal income in excess of just the food they need to survive.
Its all about farm management.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. I'm not making any judgements whatsoever about how the economy is managed; I'm complaining about the final numbers. Which are, by any measure, WAY TOO BLEEDIN' BIG.
By your numbers, the average Karameikan peasant has a yearly income that's larger than many dragon hoards. By your numbers, King Stefan could build more than a hundred million-gp castles in his realm, off one year's tax revenue from Marlinev alone. By your numbers, Lady Magda can afford to commission a sister ship to Gaity's Air-Ship of Love off two or three months' rents. By your numbers, a skilled swordsmith has to bang out more than 3,000 swords a year (selling for 15 gp apiece, getting the raw materials free) just to equal the productivity of a single peasant farmer.
These results go beyond "Suspension of disbelief" and into the realm of "Hey, where'd the nanofactories come from in our fantasy game?"
I am not asking for any sort of 'judgement' on how an economy produces. I am simply asking for final results that don't turn Mystara into some sort of insane Monty-Haulesque paradise, where simple, no-risk agriculture is hundreds of times more productive than crawling a 1st-level dungeon. We've got a setting, for better or for worse, in which basic peasant farming doesn't produce more than a few dozen gp per year. Decide that such a result 'can't' be right, for whatever reason, and the entire game world goes out of whack.
Specific assumptions that I would challenge:
- The notion that Marlinev peasants could achieve the "optimal production per acre" yields that you listed. Such numbers aren't sourced, so I can't check them, but a wheat yield of 20 lbs per acre, frex, is on the high end of what could be achieved at the dawn of the 20th century (source) - with improved understanding of crop rotation and fertilization and the beginning of mechanization. Expected yields of 10% - 20% of optimal are expected even with a more enlightened, free-enterprise attitude towards agriculture in Karameikos.
- The notion that a 1,000 square mile estate can be completely and efficiently exploited by a population of only 11,000. Medieval France had a population density of around 120 people per square mile (source) - about a hundred times what Marlinev managed. The typical medieval farm was maybe around 20 acres in size; more than 99% of Marlinev may be unclaimed and uncultivated. (And if you think this is a bad idea, add more people.)
- The notion that GAZ11 prices (which is what well-trained and canny Darokinian merchants can expect to sell their product for in a large city) are an accurate gauge of what peasants can sell their produce for. Even if "100 gp per barrel" is a reasonable price for ale (and it's probably not - at 34 gallons to the barrel (source, we're talking a price at the tavern of 5 sp a pint minimum, probably 20 times as high as it should be), there's no way the village brewer is getting that price from the merchant. The merchant makes absolutely no profit that way.
So I'd chop the price and production numbers as follows:
- Area given over to farms is cut by 3/4ths at a minimum, to around 160,000 acres total. There simply aren't enough people to keep it all under cultivation. Firewood harvesting is maybe 1% of "full yield" estimates - 11,000 farmers with nothing better than axes and hand-drawn sledges will be lucky to harvest even 3,000 acres per year.
- Yields from the areas under cultivation are reduced by an order of magnitude from "optimal yield", if not more. No matter how enlightened and free-market oriented the Karameikans may be, they're working with iron plows and hand scythes, planting when their guts say the weather's right, and using Mark I Handicrafts for weed and pest control.
- Prices for anything sold in the city, rather than being consumed locally, are reduced by another two orders of magnitude. Part of this is a too-generous overestimation of GAZ11 prices; much of it is middleman costs.
- At least another order of magnitude in 'taxable income' is lost from general inefficiency and peasants spending their time on untaxable services rather than direct production of goods.
Add those numbers in, and the original estimates may work out to something fairly close to established canon on how an estate gets managed in the D&D game.
:evillaugh In medieval times crop yields were around 4 times what was sown. From this you needed to keep the seed for the following year.
So 1 acre would feed 0.73 people if barley, oats and beans were planted on a 3 field crop rotation system.
Therefore to feed a family of 5 you would need 7 acres. (Meat was not a major source of food for the average peasant, chicken
but only when it was too old to lay eggs, or what deer from the local forest). For taxes to the Duke you would need 10.5 acres (unless payment in kind is offered).
For taxes to a baron you would need 14 acres.
Mystara AC1000 – it has a better climate the medieval times, in general warmer and more sunlight penetrating the atmosphere. It also has gods to tell people the best way to farm. Druids to help the farmers, and to ensure not too much land is farmed e.g. Large area plant growth, disease resistance, bug repellent, in return for a share of the produce.
So armed with this fact crop yields could be increased to 8 times per acre in good years, but average 7 times. So the figures for 8 times are feeds 1.69 people per acre, 3 acres per family, 4.5 acres to pay the Duke, 6 to pay a baron. For 7 times, 1.45, 4, 6 and 8.
Most farmers in medieval England had 10 acres or less, and worked the local lords lands as well to pay the taxes, as well as the churches lands for the tithe.
A yardland 25-30 acres was considered the best size for a family farm. Any more and you would need to hire farm hands to work the extra land, any less and a bad year could see you starving.
After the great crater is formed, there will be a dense layer of dust in the atmosphere, crop yields for the next 20 years should average around 3 times, unless the immortals get their act together and remove dust from the sky. Also the average temperature should drop.
Of course some volcano's may blow to slow the progress.
Times should be tough. People leave cities to scratch a living in the fields. Carrion eaters, goblins etc should flourish.
Druids should be popular, especially those who can increase crop yields, and no cleric would dare not memorize create food.
See http://www.hyw.com/books/history/Agricult.htm for the base numbers.
http://www.hyw.com/ for detail on the hundred year war period.
also http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/medsoc/17.shtml
300 square miles*640 acres=192,000 acres/50 vinyards=3,840 acres per vinyard commune/172 acre farm=22 farm families per Vinyard. 47,222,222gp/1200 families=39,351gp/2 =19,675gp after 50% tax goes to each family per year.
So no I do not think it unreasonable for a farming family to be getting 45,000gp per year in a medieval setting if that family is producing food with a high yeild per acre.
The problem is that you are used to a medieval economy where an estate farmer was a subsistence labourer and 98% of the profit went to his/her Estate Lord/Lady or worse still The Estate was a bunch of small 20 acre farmplots devoted to feeding the person living there and the Estate Lord lived off the Rent.
If the Marilenev estate was only interested in renting out 26,880 20-acre farm plots then its income from those farms is 322,560gp for an individual rent of 120sp.
What the Marilenev estate represents is a managed estate. The Farming families are Shareholders in the Produce, and the Farm sizes are examples of real Agricultural reforms. If Europe had not brought in the 172 acre farm during the Crusades, They couldnt have had cities and Wars. Famine would have been every day occurences. And the raids conducted by rival lords plundering Territory and foods would have killed civilization.
Three hundred square miles divided between fifty vinyard communes in the Bordeaux region produced 8,500,000 gallons of wine in a year. In D&D prices of 200gp for a 36 gallon barrel that is 47,222,222gp. The Medoc is less than 1/3 the size of the Marilinev Estate. That is 1/5th of the entire Bordeaux region production.
300 square miles*640 acres=192,000 acres/50 vinyards=3,840 acres per vinyard commune/172 acre farm=22 farm families per Vinyard. 47,222,222gp/1200 families=39,351gp/2 =19,675gp after 50% tax goes to each family per year.
So no I do not think it unreasonable for a farming family to be getting 45,000gp per year in a medieval setting if that family is producing food with a high yeild per acre.
The problem is that you are used to a medieval economy where an estate farmer was a subsistence labourer and 98% of the profit went to his/her Estate Lord/Lady or worse still The Estate was a bunch of small 20 acre farmplots devoted to feeding the person living there and the Estate Lord lived off the Rent.
If the Marilenev estate was only interested in renting out 26,880 20-acre farm plots then its income from those farms is 322,560gp for an individual rent of 120sp.
What the Marilenev estate represents is a managed estate. The Farming families are Shareholders in the Produce, and the Farm sizes are examples of real Agricultural reforms. If Europe had not brought in the 172 acre farm during the Crusades, They couldnt have had cities and Wars. Famine would have been every day occurences. And the raids conducted by rival lords plundering Territory and foods would have killed civilization.
We seem to be talking past one another.
The problem that I have is not that Karameikos 'needs' to have some hugely inefficient 'medieval economy' that's far less capable than your numbers. The complaint I raise is that - whether you like it or not - Karameikos, along with every other nation on Mystara, has a level of wealth and productivity that simply is not compatible with the results you want to set forward.
Repeat after me. 45,000 gp is NOT yearly earnings for a family of peasant farmers in Mystara. 45,000 gp is the hoard of a mature dragon. 45,000 gp is the down payment on a large wizard's tower. 45,000 gp is the equippage cost of a small army. The above figures are established fact since the days of Moldvay and Cook, and DO NOT MAKE SENSE if a bunch of peasants with cast-iron hoes and hand sickles can expect to sell old turnips at the prices and production volumes you think are reasonable.
You can continue your wankage about estate valuations and crop yields; the simple truth is that you're trying to paste together, from wildly diverging and probably badly misrepresented sources, an agriculture-based economy that's a good order of magnitude more efficient than that of 21st-century America. Which is a conclusion that simply doesn't fit the observed facts.
Despite your dispersions over the lack of talent in the USA for Agricultural Production and the Idea that they are the most efficient possible, About ten years ago there was this ugly little dispute between Australia and the USA over subsidies granted to US sheep farmers because you sheep farmers were incapable of getting our production yeilds. After some investigation the difference in yeild was found to be that US Sheep farmers were grazing their sheep off the naturally occuring foliage available. Australian Sheep Farmers were feeding their sheep grain. That difference equates to ten times the production yeild.
Now if you would pay attention and read the D&D books describing agriculture and practices in the D&D known world you will find that they practice the high efficiency medieval agrarian farming techniques that allow for production yeilds of ten times the volume produced by previous practices through 3 field rotation, fodder support, and value-adding (aka making cheese from milk). These have only happened in Specularum on the estates because the Estates are picking up Good Farm Management Practice and enforcing it. Out there in the free territories of Karameikos, the lazy, inefficient outcasts who were incapable of changing their agricultural techniques, continue to starve, producing nothing of real value. The fact is that a well managed 172 acre medieval farm should be pulling in an income of 4-40 thousand gp in the D&D world depending on the produce.
For over 70 years my family had a thousand square miles of cattle station and practiced the advanced medieval agrarian farming methods. It was only four decades back that that cattlestation was taken for national park. So dont argue with me about Agrarian efficiency. My family has done it all.
Wankerage indeed!
The Large 172 acre farm only pulls in 7,080gp (after 50% tax)in annual income.
The Small 86 acre farm only pulls in 3,540gp (after 50% tax)in annual income.
Marilinev estate gets a 2,124,106gp annual income from its farms in taxes.
Marilenev produces all the grain, and firewood needs of Specularum with ease but does not produce enough meat (needing another 388,000 pigs) vegetables, and Ale for local consumption.
Specularum must bring in meat from the rest of the Karameikos.
In fact a 172 acre vinyard has income (after 50% tax) of thirty nine thousand.
The only way Marilenev could have an income of twenty five million a year through the taxation of its own farm producers is if it converts all its agriculture to Wine production.
Real agriculture produces real quantities of food. The production yeilds I have pushed are real medieval volumes using 172 acre farms with three field rotation and fodder fed livestock. For them to produce the nothing Quantities that you think the Estates of D&D Nations should produce their production yeilds will be at 5-10% of real medieval production practices. That means the agricultural practices of these societies do not include fertilizing the field with pig manure, rotating croping fields, or feeding the livestock grain and fodder.
Wankerage indeed!
Yes, wankage. Not simply with the inputs, but with the sources (or lack of same), the methodology, and all the assumptions that you've never stated and that would never hold up under scrutiny. You're offering numbers that, as far as I can tell, are pulled completely out of your ass, conflict with each OTHER much of the time, and are absolutely disproved by authoritative third-party data that both I and Chris.Nix have provided.
Karameikos is a medieval nation in a medieval world. It's absolutely reasonable to expect one peasant family of five to manage only one farm of 25-30 acres - because that's what medieval families did. You want to argue differently, provide an independent source to back your claim up.
It's absolutely reasonable to expect said peasant family to get yields of 10% to 20% of 'optimal yields', because they have crappy medieval technology, crappy medieval weather prediction and crappy medieval pest control methods. You want to argue differently, provide an independent source to back your claim up. (And no, 'personal experience' is not an independent source - not just because it's nonverifiable, but because even 'authentic medieval recreations' benefit from modern gas-powered transport to get goods to market, modern steel-forging for more durable tools, modern breeding practices for stronger and tougher livestock, modern weather prediction techniques, modern pesticides used in neighbors' fields for the good of everyone, ad infinitum.)
It's absolutely reasonable to expect said peasant family to sell their crops, not for the prices that Darokinian merchant PCs get in a large city, but for a fraction of the final price. They're price-takers, at the very tip of the rent chain, and can either take the local trader's rate of coppers on the bushel or let it rot. You want to argue differently, you're just a loon.
D&D is a medieval society and a medieval economic system. A few hundred gp, for a common family, is a heck of a lot of money. Minor barons are not banking tens of millions of gp per month on simple rents. These are things that have been taken as given in all of the rules as written since Day 1. Your conclusions don't fit the facts.
A Reading List
The English by Christopher Hibbert
This does describe Estate Farm Plots in the 20 acre area however it is also pointed out that with losses of humans and the merging of farms estate Outputs increased allowing real income from trade. This is an important concept if the Estate is an Income Estate (something raised in the Crusades).
A Wargamers guide to the Crusades by Ian Heath
Which has a nice selection on rents and agriculture including the concept of income estates, the number and size of an estate that Knights would have and the number and size of farms covering those estates.
Considering a Knights estate was 1-3 hexes and was something expected to support not only them but a small retinue of troops in the field from income, I would suggest to you that at a certain point during the Crusades Income for produce and income for rent becomes a dominant aspect of Farming in Europe.
The Farmers Handbook(5th edition) by the Department of Agriculture of NSW is extreemly useful because they have not only machine/industrial agriculture but the agriculture that involved sowing by hand, tilling the soil with a plow pulled by a horse, harvesting by hand, or oxen, real rates in fodder and grain feeding vs grazing for livestock yeilds. Yeilds for plants that I have provided come from here and I use these Production rates as the unacheivable limit for all medieval farming because these are the very limit of pre industrialized agriculture.
The most efficient estates in Medieval England were running at 83% of this production limit. Therefor it is well within my right to assume that the ten percent yeild you are looking for is back at the other end of Agricultural science where idiots knew nothing about food production, had no experience with soils, and threw seeds on the ground in the assumption that god and prayer makes the crop grow rather than hard work and brains.
The Other Economy by Kathleen Biddick who teaches medieval history at the university of Berkely http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8199p22b/ covers many fine concepts in agriculture including the useful realization that not all the answers are in one book.
The New World Encyclopedia (1932) by Reverend C.A. Alington
Has a nice selection of storage volumes if you want the Barrel sizes, bales, loads of hay ect.
The Encyclopedia Britannica
The Webster New International Dictionary
The Complete Farmer for those yeilds in pre industrial American Agriculture just incase Commonwealth agriculture doesnt cut mustard.
Tools for Homsteaders, Gardners, and Small Scale Farmers which covers a wide selection of hand and industrial tools
A History of Medoc Wines drawn from the Internet.
And other Net Sources in Medieval History of the More legimate variety.
And perhaps the explanation you are looking for The Erruption of Krakatoa and its effect on global weather patterns, The resulting hundred years of Famine, the emergence of plague, and the end of Saxon rule in England. The Crusades, And the invasion from the East by The Nomadic Hordes who without grain, the sebsequent destruction of Grazing land in Afghanistan, and the wealth of the Holy land saw a need to move west.
An Ps, The errors in my calculations came not from the Production yeilds, but from the use of my windows Calculator.
It's absolutely reasonable to expect said peasant family to sell their crops, not for the prices that Darokinian merchant PCs get in a large city, but for a fraction of the final price. They're price-takers, at the very tip of the rent chain, and can either take the local trader's rate of coppers on the bushel or let it rot. You want to argue differently, you're just a loon.
As stated by you, we have an assumption that there is only acceptance of the merchants coppers or letting it rot. I know of many cases where that happened. I also know that it was not uncommon for Farmers using the Wagons and farm tools provided for common use by the Estate would prefer to take their wares to the city and sell in bulk rather than be preyed upon by parasites out for a quick fortune.
Rob Roy was a case where the farmer refused to accept a few coppers from a buyer and drove the cattle to market only to be robbed of his vast wealth on the road.
More importantly an Estate which draws a share of income from the produce of its farmers is going to sell for them and get the best possible income. That means even stalls in the Markets of the city to sell produce directly to the people.
It has a vested interest in its farmers not accepting those few coppers, and not letting the crop rot in the field.
So As far as Marilenev Estate goes, it is supporting its farmers and is even selling its ale to keep up the price of grain. Feeding surplus fodder to Livestock allows reduced losses and increased productivity.
An In response to your insults of Loon, Wanker and assorted other displays of contempt, I find you most entertaining.
So Income from Ale is four times that I have recorded above. 6,743,200gp. Now to fix the top sheet again.
All your charges are accurate, but I'm going to hold to my poorly-conceived, poorly-calculated, and utterly absurd conclusions.
There, corrected your post.
Let me pose a few simple questions, that you so far have been utterly unable to answer and gutlessly ignored:
- Why should a peasant's productivity and income be determined by the prices that an adventurer-merchant can achieve in a big city, when the peasant doesn't have the skill, the time, the knowledge or the DM generosity needed to command such prices?
- Why should a peasant equipped with medieval technology be able to engage in such feats as managing a half-square-mile area of farmland on his lonesome, or harvesting thirty acres of old-growth timber in a season, or turn seven tons of whole grain into ale?
- Why should anybody in the world be an artisan, live in a city, mine precious metals, serve as a merchant, or adventure when the life of a farmer is so valuable, low-risk and rewarding?
- If every farming family can bring in 45,000 gp a year in income, then what price should the miller ask to turn their grain into flour? Or the wagonmaker who brings their produce to market? Or the builder whose house keeps them warm at night? Or the watchman who keeps the peace and fights off raiding goblins? List RC price, for some strangely absurd reason?
- If every minor baron can expect 125 million gp a year in taxes and rents, should a skilled wizard - who can probably pick and choose between employers - really accept only a couple thousand gp as a monthly salary? How about a sage whose learning is unmatched and literally unique? Or a master spy?
- If a minor lordship of 11,000 people produces at 500 million gp per year, then shouldn't a place like the Empire of Alphatia (population 5 million plus, and with much more advanced magic and management) have an economy of something around 250 trillion gold pieces at a minimum, and possibly up to ten times as high? Or in other words, effectively more than a million tons of gold circulating each year? More than a hundred times more gold than has ever been stored in Fort Knox?
Until you can answer these simple and straightforward questions, and reconcile your claims on agricultural productivity with the prices we know to be true for the rest of the Known World, I'm done with you. You have no credibility whatsoever.
Marilenev Estate Production Totals and Incomes
Marilinev Village Rents..............................2,160 gp
Firewood & Timber (619,200,000lb)……....27,090,000gp
Pigs (188,000)………………………..............…1,504,0 00gp
Grain (127,616,438lb)………………………….....3,705,900g p
Strong ale (16,858 barrels)……............. 6,743,200gp
Total…………………………...........…….......…45,7 8496,300gp
Income Division (taxes)
25% To Stephan………………………….........11,446,572gp
25% To House Marilenev…………….........…11,446,572gp
50% To farmers………………………...........….22,893,150g p
small farm………………………………………9,538gp
Large farm……………………………………..19,077gp
Having recalculated for the propper barrel sizes. The Barrels (80lb) of Ale, Wine, Preserved Fish, Preserved Meat as defined in the GAZ 11: are only 9 gallon barrels.
Conceivably we can take the 36 million (the firewood and strong ale) and give that to the estate lord in income. That would only leave 5.2 million from pigs and grain to be divided between the farmers.
It is not unreasonable to have such a high income since a comfortable-wealthy family as defined as an income level must spend 10,780gp on the overpriced foods and goods each year to survive.
The Social Ranks present in Karameikos
Dirt Poor:
This means you work on someone elses farm for room and Board.
Poor:
Whereas smaller farm sizes such as 20-30 acres which are the old way of farming and therfor pose a threat to income from excess produce, are producing the subsistence needs of those social levels defined as Poor. They must produce their own needs first because they cant afford to buy it from town.
Comfortable:
Conceivably an 86 acre farm in Marilinev is making sufficient income to support the farming family as the Social rank of Comfortable as defined by the Gazetteer.
Wealthy:
On the other hand they could be producing Wine on 172 acres which would put them into the Wealthy category. Generating an income over a single acre of about 2.5 ton. With the great income from a vinyard a farmer could buy their food needs at the high price defined by GAZ 11: Darokin and still have an income of several tens of thousand.
Very Wealthy:
You own Ships, Wagons, Some buildings, A large Farm which is where you have a nice country residence and dont realy produce anything. Perhaps a town house, and you are very rich off Merchantile trade.
There, corrected your post.
Let me pose a few simple questions, that you so far have been utterly unable to answer and gutlessly ignored:
- Why should a peasant's productivity and income be determined by the prices that an adventurer-merchant can achieve in a big city, when the peasant doesn't have the skill, the time, the knowledge or the DM generosity needed to command such prices?
- Why should a peasant equipped with medieval technology be able to engage in such feats as managing a half-square-mile area of farmland on his lonesome, or harvesting thirty acres of old-growth timber in a season, or turn seven tons of whole grain into ale?
- Why should anybody in the world be an artisan, live in a city, mine precious metals, serve as a merchant, or adventure when the life of a farmer is so valuable, low-risk and rewarding?
- If every farming family can bring in 45,000 gp a year in income, then what price should the miller ask to turn their grain into flour? Or the wagonmaker who brings their produce to market? Or the builder whose house keeps them warm at night? Or the watchman who keeps the peace and fights off raiding goblins? List RC price, for some strangely absurd reason?
- If every minor baron can expect 125 million gp a year in taxes and rents, should a skilled wizard - who can probably pick and choose between employers - really accept only a couple thousand gp as a monthly salary? How about a sage whose learning is unmatched and literally unique? Or a master spy?
- If a minor lordship of 11,000 people produces at 500 million gp per year, then shouldn't a place like the Empire of Alphatia (population 5 million plus, and with much more advanced magic and management) have an economy of something around 250 trillion gold pieces at a minimum, and possibly up to ten times as high? Or in other words, effectively more than a million tons of gold circulating each year? More than a hundred times more gold than has ever been stored in Fort Knox?
Until you can answer these simple and straightforward questions, and reconcile your claims on agricultural productivity with the prices we know to be true for the rest of the Known World, I'm done with you. You have no credibility whatsoever.
I suggest you go back and read the Top post you ignorant hick. Until then your base and peasant-born insults have no meaning.
You will find that I realized you were right regarding the final figures. That error has since been corrected. While the field yeilds were correct, the final incomes were not.
I also suggest you read a copy of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos if you have on available. This will describe farmers outside the Black Eagle Barony as significantly better off and living above the Subsistence Poverty of the Serf Farming 20-30 acres and stump broke mule that you so desire.
As is pointed out repeatedly Stephan Karameikos represents Agrarian reforms. Mainly that a large number of Small 20 acre estate farms have been merged into large 86 and 172 acre farms so that estates could increase their real income. As a consequence vast numbers of now farmless peasants were economicly forced into the towns or out into the wild to farm outside the estates.
As to the Miller: considering the miller is oft an employee of the estate lord, and the Mill is effectivly government property collecting an apparent income of 5%-10% of the grain milled in income it is entirely likely that it costs Farmers pulling in huge volumes of grain a lot of money to mill to flour. Conceivably the Mill is getting 6,581-12,762lb of milled grain (5%-10% of the 127,616,438lb of grain) and that therefor a private milling concern functioning in the estate of Marilinev might be on an income of 92,500gp-370,000gp per year. After 50% tax this cuts back to about 46,250gp-185,000gp which is very much an income of a Wealthy Family Milling concern.
The Paldeve family would make considerable income from privately owned Mills in Marilinev estate.
Perhaps the Question you should ask is why a quarter of a million peasants toil on incomes of 1 gp per month in an economy which requires them to spend 20gp per day just to eat and put fire wood in the fireplace while the wealthy get rich off their labours. Work is the only resource that continues to be under valued by despots and merchants.
If so much gold is in circulation and a basic family of peasants supposedly eats and drinks for 20 gp worth each day, what would be the incentive to keep the silver piece and the copper piece?
I mean, if even basic items are so expensive, could you even buy something for a copper piece? or a silver piece?
I don't think so. And that, to me, is all I need to know to not use Yellowdingo's figures in my campaign - rightly calculated or not.
:-) Jesper
P.S. I really wish that everybody here would calm down and stop calling each other names.
Marilenev Estate
Marilenev Woodlots: The plantation has 30,960,000 acres of timber x 20,000lb per acre/1000 year regrowth=619,200,000lb (per year)
Total Woodlot Income (619,200,000 lb /800lb) x 35gp=27,090,000gp
How exactly do each of the 11,000 people on the estate manage to cut down 2.81 acres of forest every year, which is 56,290 lbs of wood per year, or around 167.5 lbs of wood per day?
That right there should kind of be a warning that something is off in your calculations.
Subtotal (400 x small farm) = 54,400 pigs & 6,155,200lb grain
Subtotal (1000 x large farm) = 334,000[,000] pigs & 33,608,000lb grain
Now that's 39,763,808 lbs of grain.
Ignoring for the moment the difference between small and large farms, each of those 11,000 people has to harvest almost 3,615 lbs of grain every year. Then prepare it and transport it.
As for the pigs, you've got 32 per person on a small farm, and a stunning 71.6 per person on a large farm. How do they manage to take care of that many pigs while also cultivating 28 or 57 acres of cropland per season, not to mention cutting down 167.5 lbs of timber every day?
Obviously there is something critically wrong with your base figures, above and beyond just crop yields.
Obviously there is something critically wrong with your base figures, above and beyond just crop yields.
And more to the point, if a mile of road costs 500,000 gold pieces (I think that was the price you wrote in another thread) then the value of gold is low that it would actually cost you to mine it out. Doesn't seem plausible, does it?
:-) Jesper
Economics is important because you realize that despite the prayers of the clerics, the grain doesnt grow any more plentiful if all it takes to kill a wheat harvest and create a famine is one goblin with a burning arrow.
While my crop yeilds are correct, you are well pointed in your assumption that there are problems on the Farm. Around Harvest time there is a labour shortage that must be filled by the surrounding communities. While fire wood is a near continuous harvest with labour specific employees chopping down trees all year round. Farms need about 5-10 extra hands to bring in the crop during the harvest.
For the village of Marilenev, they are employed both in milling many tons of grain, brewing thousands of gallons of ale, and helping out on farms as farm hands. From the city come thousands of lads looking for an honest wage in logging firewood and timber in the estate. Considering the 27 million gp that six hundred thousand tons of firewood in a world without coal is worth, those 5gp per acre to fell timber, split timber, and saw timber are well spent. Its only about 62,000 acres a year. Thats three thousand lads all year round processing at two weeks an acre. After tools, meals, tents, and Haulage, the Estate still gets about 26.5 million gp from the timber harvest.
As to the cost of Roadworks, i got the price wrong. It costs 100,000gp per mile of stone paved 20' wide road as compared to 5,000gp for a mile of 20' wide dirt road.
As to the harvests, and the pigs, real people did real work every day of their lives. feeding seventy pigs a day is something the kids do in daily farm chores. There was a time when people did 12 hours a day in real physical labour. That is how things got done. There is nothing wrong with my estimates of productivity. The only problem is that noone wants to believe that people do that much work.
Like they say, If you think you have it hard now, wait until the petrol runs out.
While my crop yeilds are correct, you are well pointed in your assumption that there are problems on the Farm. Around Harvest time there is a labour shortage that must be filled by the surrounding communities. While fire wood is a near continuous harvest with labour specific employees chopping down trees all year round. Farms need about 5-10 extra hands to bring in the crop during the harvest.
Well, begging the question of whether your yields are in fact correct for the moment, that you acknowledge that extra people are needed for harvesting exposes that critical flaw in your figures.
Quite simply, those people don't exist.
If they did, since everyone has their own farm in your economic model, they would be working their own farms instead of being hired laborers.
More, they would be counted in the domain population.
Even more, they would have families of their own, and each one would actually be 2-1/2 people.
So somewhere along the way you have "lost" around 15,000 people somewhere along the line.
For the village of Marilenev, they are employed both in milling many tons of grain, brewing thousands of gallons of ale, and helping out on farms as farm hands. From the city come thousands of lads looking for an honest wage in logging firewood and timber in the estate.
Then they wouldn't be living in the city, they'd be living on the estate.
And they would be using that firewood on the estate, not in the city.
You've lost sight of making your economic system stable while trying to prove the game one is broken.
As to the harvests, and the pigs, real people did real work every day of their lives. feeding seventy pigs a day is something the kids do in daily farm chores. There was a time when people did 12 hours a day in real physical labour. That is how things got done. There is nothing wrong with my estimates of productivity. The only problem is that noone wants to believe that people do that much work.
No, people believe that much work is done.
What they don't believe is the sheer amount you have them doing.
Feeding seventy pigs is a job of a day. Being able to go out and cut down close to 200 lbs of wood in addition to that makes it the job of an adult for more than day.
Dirt Poor:
This means you work on someone elses farm for room and Board.
Poor:
Whereas smaller farm sizes such as 10 acres or less, which are the old way of farming. They must produce their own needs first because they cant afford to buy it from town. And bad years see starvation
Comfortable:
Farm size of a yardland 24-30 acres, sees the family producing enough food for there own needs plus a surplus to sell on the market. Several bad years would be needed for starvation to start
Wealthy:
Wine production on a 172 acre farm. Or owns several small farms, or a large farm, which has hired hands
Very Wealthy:
You own Ships, Wagons, Some buildings, A large Farm which is where you have a nice country residence and dont realy produce anything. Perhaps a town house, and you are very rich off Merchantile trade.
I can see where your going with the ideas, but the g.p. values are out of line with other parts of the D&D values.
As to production yields, the Romans in England out performed many farmers through the ages. Medieval times were tough due to many factors, with the peasants farming their own small plots as well as the local lords' land.
Remember the simple cereals used do not match today's hybrid plants, and that the average peasant did not have enough animals to fertilise the fallow land properly. Also Abbeys were in a position to be able to experiment with farming methods, due to there unique place in society.
Modern tests using the simple cereals on modern fields (which have been drenched in modern fertilizer in previous years), achieved crop yields of up to 12 times rather than 8 times of seed planted.
Most peasants were limited to a maximum of 40 sheep, 2 oxen, 2 pigs, and a cow (adult animals), to ensure that the farms were not overstocked.
Also remember Marilenev is a traditional traladaran so would try to limit her 'serfs' to the old ways, whereas her farms would be the most efficient, as her workers should come from the estate.
But saying all this, you only have to look at the celts (those that made good - usually the top dogs anyway) and how their farm houses turned into small villas, then large villas and were redesigned several times during Roman times in England, to see what is being proposed.
Do we want Karameikos to have a medieval feel, or just the inland areas away from Thyatian influence.
For the coastal regions, do we want an almost Roman feel, where locals (and immigrants) could become wealthy and influential land owners.
*Not everyone works at tending the fields, chopping wood etc... There are teamsters, millers, blacksmiths, merchants, clergy, various tradesmen and craftsmen etc, all of whom are needed by the estate- and who come from the 11,000 population of the Estate. In short, there may be 11,000 people on the estate, but I doubt more than 70-80% are in the farming or firewood business.
*There is land needed for housing, storage, workshops, barns, mills, roads and a myriad of other things that do not involve direct cultivation of the land.
*Even in the best farmland, there are areas unsuitable for cultivation.
*It is very doubtful that 100% of available farmland is under cultivation. If you believe they are using crop rotation, at least 1/3 of cultivated land would be fallow each growing season.
*The assumption seems to be that a peasant sells his leftovers for the price in the rulebooks. I'm not an economist, but this is absurd. Adventurers are paying (at a minimum) for the following when the buy food from a merchant:
[INDENT]-The merchant's profit
-The merchant's overhead and shipping (including duties and taxes)
-The farmer's overhead and costs (which is not only taxes, but paying for storage, equipment and any animals needed to help with the harvesting and transportation)
-The farmer's profit, if any.[/INDENT]
This economic reality can be seen everytime you go to a farmer's market outside of a town or city and can buy fresh produce for 1/4 what you would pay in a grocery store. Every person in the food chain adds to the cost of an item. In reality, the farmer (even today) is lucky if he can have enough food to feed his family, pay his taxes, and have enough extra to sell to cover his expenses, let alone make any money at it.
*After taxes, most of the food grown, firewood harvested, cattle butchered, would be be consumed by the 11,000 people living on the Estate, and would not be sold to city dwellers.
Anyway my 2 cents...
No, people believe that much work is done.
What they don't believe is the sheer amount you have them doing.
Feeding seventy pigs is a job of a day. Being able to go out and cut down close to 200 lbs of wood in addition to that makes it the job of an adult for more than day.
On the contrary, feeding seventy pigs is a three hour task at best. Considering you have the food in the Barn and pigs confined to their stys. For children that might even take until lunch. If a farmer leaves the children to feed the pigs and the wife to milk that cow and make cheese, It would take about an hour before breakfast to chop a couple days worth of firewood.
A single adult can fell an acre of forest in a day. It will take a 1-2 weeks to split and mill that acre of felled timber. Giving you 20 tonnes (44,800lb) of Lumber and firewood.
That is why all it takes to make those three thousand young men felling trees part of the 11,000 population of Marilenev is to change the 86 acre farms to 172 acre farms and redeploy about 1/3 of the population to transient labour. That puts 8,000 on farms and 3,000 who are being fed by them chopping wood all across the district. Conceivably every wooded 56 square mile hex in Marilenev has 344 acres of farmland supporting an adjacent hamlet of 300 labourers employed in logging timber within a four mile radius. Across the bay you have 900 in the Village of Marilinev and they labour on farms and process grain to ale.
Obviously there are blacksmiths every where sharpening axes, making barrels, other specialists making and repairing wagons, looking after the horses and oxen, hauling the produce to market.
Those extras are employed by the estate to bring in the harvest.
On the contrary, feeding seventy pigs is a three hour task at best. Considering you have the food in the Barn and pigs confined to their stys. For children that might even take until lunch. If a farmer leaves the children to feed the pigs and the wife to milk that cow and make cheese, It would take about an hour before breakfast to chop a couple days worth of firewood.
Actually pigs were typically allowed to forage freely in the forests. Now granted, you are clear cutting them at a shocking rate, but that still shouldn't change how they are kept.
Also, a child is going to take a lot longer to cut down a tree than an adult will.
Again, more indications of errors in your basic premises.
A single adult can fell an acre of forest in a day. It will take a 1-2 weeks to split and mill that acre of felled timber. Giving you 20 tonnes (44,800lb) of Lumber and firewood.
Say what? An acre a day? Not a chance. Or have you forgotten that not only don't they have power tools, they also don't have high quality steel.
That is yet another clue that your numbers are all off.
That is why all it takes to make those three thousand young men felling trees part of the 11,000 population of Marilenev is to change the 86 acre farms to 172 acre farms and redeploy about 1/3 of the population to transient labour.
Wait, now you are casually reassigning farms?
And why should anyone want to be transient labor when the real money is in being a farmer? Are you going to create an underclass of transient laborers by force? I thought you said that couldn't be done in Karameikos?
That puts 8,000 on farms and 3,000 who are being fed by them chopping wood all across the district. Conceivably every wooded 56 square mile hex in Marilenev has 344 acres of farmland supporting an adjacent hamlet of 300 labourers employed in logging timber within a four mile radius. Across the bay you have 900 in the Village of Marilinev and they labour on farms and process grain to ale.
Conceivably in some perfect world where the farms and hamlets sprang into existence in one month from raw wilderness, with a food reserve to feed them, and all the required famr and timbering equipment already stockpiled and waiting for them.
Since that wouldn't happen, your transformation is pretty near impossible.
Obviously there are blacksmiths every where sharpening axes, making barrels, other specialists making and repairing wagons, looking after the horses and oxen, hauling the produce to market.
Those extras are employed by the estate to bring in the harvest.
Those extras are not employed by the estate to bring in the harvest. They are busy doing all their specialist tasks, and don't have time to go off bringing in the harvest. If they did, they would be farmers themselves and not specialists.
Your economic model is completely unstable and nonviable. The one in the rules might be broken, but at least it acknowledges that its purpose is to keep players adventuring and not running farms.
The economy you describe is one of Serfdom and slavery. Karameikos has outlawed Serfdom and Slavery in favour of Farmers Producing for personal income in excess of just the food they need to survive.
Its all about farm management.
Oh, and I wanted to add . . .
Just because you have outlawed serfdom and slavery does not mean you have given every farmer 40 acres and a mule, or in your example, 86-172 acres and 80-160 pigs.
Not to mention teams of draft horses and oxen, plows, full sets of high quality farm tools, individual barns and threshing floors, and all the other things needed to run farms of that size.
And not to mention the sudden clearing of all that land, plus dividing up the already cleared land, and thoroughly disenfranchising all the people who owned that land before.
So it is not all about farm management. It is all about farm ownership, and how much work people can actually do in a day.
What annoys me is that you think a lot of Work is being done if it is something that would take you a couple of days to achieve and then you doubt it could be done quicker and better by a peasant a thousand years before you were born.
Medieval Labours
Felling trees(20 ton)...........................................12 hours/acre
Splitting and milling 20 ton of wood........................110 hours
Feeding 70 pigs...................................................1-3 hours
Slaughter 70 pigs.................................................100 hours
Mow (Scythe) Wheat...........................................8 hours/acre
Thresh 50 bushels (acre of wheat)........................ 5 hours
Blood Pudding (or Blood Sausage)
Slaughter of the Pig includes the manufacture of a Blood pudding from a single pigs blood and 2lb of cereal grain, some salt and herbs. filling its intestines and making a Blood Sausage (or Black Pudding) weight: 2&1/2lbs sausage,Value: 5sp.
Actually pigs were typically allowed to forage freely in the forests. Now granted, you are clear cutting them at a shocking rate, but that still shouldn't change how they are kept.
I realise what you mean and in settled, peaceful areas I would agree. But on the frontier, with goblins and werewolves around, I'd probably keep my livestock a little closer to home ;)
:-) Jesper
I revamped all the weapons prices based on what (I thought) it cost the manufacturer in materials, time/wages, overhead, and a slice for profit.
You did?
Can we see it? Please?
Please?
:-) Jesper
The funny thing is that despite the fact that The rates I define as the absolute limit of Medievil Agricultural production using all the knowledge to be had, the Most Efficient Medieval Estates in England were at more than eighty percent of that limit. If you are not getting the production yeilds and subsequent income, your estate must be populated by lazy peasants who need a good whiping to motivate them.
You can't whip free men just because they don't want to work fast enough to make themselves millionaires and you a billionaire.
And you still haven't demonstrated your rates are valid.
What annoys me is that you think a lot of Work is being done if it is something that would take you a couple of days to achieve and then you doubt it could be done quicker and better by a peasant a thousand years before you were born.
That's nice.
What annoys me is that I'm a big proponent of reasonalbe population and economic demographics in games, and people like you destroy any chance of that with figures like the ones you are throwing about with abandon with little or no basis in reality.
I realise what you mean and in settled, peaceful areas I would agree. But on the frontier, with goblins and werewolves around, I'd probably keep my livestock a little closer to home ;)
:-) Jesper
In theory, maybe.
But . . .
A medieval boar would probably just eat the goblin. Those things were lean, vicious beasts, that could easily go feral and become lethal.
If you have werewolves around, you could keep your swine in your house, and all that would do is let the werewolf have bacon strips on his peasant sandwich. If anything, I'd want to keep them outside to feed the local lycanthropes so they wouldn't feel inclined to come into the village and eat me or my neighors.
Of course it also depends on how you qualify most medieval villages. A lot of them were in frontier areas by the standards of the rules. So it was obviously safe enough.
Of course it also depends on how you qualify most medieval villages. A lot of them were in frontier areas by the standards of the rules. So it was obviously safe enough.
Hmm... safe enough?
Perhaps a medieval world was safe enough but I hardly think it compares with Mystara and other fantasy settings. Sure, healthcare is better (if you are on the good side of the local cleric ;) ) but the presence of monsters and evil users of magic IMHO makes it a lot more dangerous. :D
You make an interesting point though. Perhaps not just dragons but many other types of monsters are offered food to keep them out of the villages? I never thought about this before. Interesting...
:-) Jesper
Hmm... safe enough?
Perhaps a medieval world was safe enough but I hardly think it compares with Mystara and other fantasy settings. Sure, healthcare is better (if you are on the good side of the local cleric ;) ) but the presence of monsters and evil users of magic IMHO makes it a lot more dangerous. :D
You make an interesting point though. Perhaps not just dragons but many other types of monsters are offered food to keep them out of the villages? I never thought about this before. Interesting...
:-) Jesper
Yes, safe enough.
It has to be.
If it isn't, those people are dead.
The only difference is going to be the specific type of danger, not the overall degree of danger. If the degree were so awesomely higher, then everyone is going to be dead no matter where they live.
This is one of the effects of the "level" divide. If you have things dangerous enough for high level characters to have to deal with, how do they interact with everyone else? Obviously they must post some threat, or there would be no impetus to go after them beyond the basic Hack-n-Slash concept. Equally they can't be a continual threat, or they'd eat everyone.
Or you can go with an equitable demographics explanation. That is, for every super dragon out there you have a super party that keeps said dragon from trashing all the peasants until the PCs can handle the job. When they can, the former super party has either moved on to higher level, other tasks, or made an involutary contribution to the hoard.
Or you can use a more blatant deus ex machina, and said super dragons simply don't exist until needed for whatever reason. (Perhaps they were out adventuring as well or something.)
But no matter how you manage it, you must have something keeping your ecosystem stable on a game power level. And that means the villagers can indeed forage their pigs in the forest without fear of horrific casualties. (Well, at least not until the PCs need an excuse to go kill stuff and take its loot.)
You can't whip free men just because they don't want to work fast enough to make themselves millionaires and you a billionaire.
And you still haven't demonstrated your rates are valid.
As lord of the estate you can decide not to rent out to farmers who produce low yeilds and rent to another.
That's nice.
What annoys me is that I'm a big proponent of reasonalbe population and economic demographics in games, and people like you destroy any chance of that with figures like the ones you are throwing about with abandon with little or no basis in reality.
I posted a reading list for source material, give it a try.
Concepts in productivity
Three hundred square miles divided between fifty vineyard communes in the Bordeaux region produced 8,500,000 gallons of wine in a year. In D&D prices of 200gp for a 36 gallon barrel that is 212,499,999gp. The Medoc is less than 1/3 the size of the Marilenev Estate. That is 1/5th of the entire Bordeaux region production.
300 square miles*640 acres=192,000 acres/50 vineyards=3,840 acres per vineyard commune/172 acre farm=22 farm families per Vineyard. 212,499,999gp/1200 families=177,083gp/2 =88,541gp after 50% tax goes to each family per year.
So no I do not think it unreasonable for a farming family to be getting 45,000gp per year in a medieval setting if that family is producing food with a high yield per acre.
The problem is that you are used to a medieval economy where an estate farmer was a subsistence labourer and 98% of the profit went to his/her Estate Lord/Lady or worse still The Estate was a bunch of small 20 acre farm plots devoted to feeding the person living there and the Estate Lord lived off the Rent.
If the Marilenev estate was only interested in renting out 26,880 20-acre farm plots then its income from those farms is 322,560gp for an individual rent of 120sp.
As lord of the estate you can decide not to rent out to farmers who produce low yeilds and rent to another.
So in other words not everyone has a farm like that.
And of course people who are lazy farmers are going to be lazy loggers.
I posted a reading list for source material, give it a try.
Post specific quotes.
Concepts in productivity
Three hundred square miles divided between fifty vineyard communes in the Bordeaux region produced 8,500,000 gallons of wine in a year.
Bordeaux has been producing wine for centuries.
It has a massively developed infrastructure for producing wine, along with modern equipment for producing, storing, and distributing it, as well as markets for it, and access to those markets.
Barring massive use of magic, that isn't going to be possible in Marilenev.
In D&D prices of 200gp for a 36 gallon barrel that is 212,499,999gp. The Medoc is less than 1/3 the size of the Marilenev Estate. That is 1/5th of the entire Bordeaux region production.
300 square miles*640 acres=192,000 acres/50 vineyards=3,840 acres per vineyard commune/172 acre farm=22 farm families per Vineyard. 212,499,999gp/1200 families=177,083gp/2 =88,541gp after 50% tax goes to each family per year.
So no I do not think it unreasonable for a farming family to be getting 45,000gp per year in a medieval setting if that family is producing food with a high yield per acre.
Your number crunching is nice, but it still doesn't mean it is possible.
And you are again making an error of assuming that 1,200 families are producing nothing but wine all of a sudden. That isn't possible.
And you are assuming that everyone suddenly wants to guzzle all that wine every year.
And you are assuming that much wine can be transported.
And on and on with assumptions that are not simply unreasonable, but completely impossible.
The problem is that you are used to a medieval economy where an estate farmer was a subsistence labourer and 98% of the profit went to his/her Estate Lord/Lady or worse still The Estate was a bunch of small 20 acre farm plots devoted to feeding the person living there and the Estate Lord lived off the Rent.
No, I'm not. I happen to be significantly more familiar with a medieval economy than you appear to be, and I know that the limitations on production have little to nothing to do with who took the profit.
And that exposes the massive flaw in your reasoning. You are assuming that just because they can now keep more of the profit, these farmers are suddenly going to triple their production, and avoid the threat of starvation. That presumes that the average medieval farmer enjoyed living on the verge of starvation, and was deliberately lazy as a result.
You are also making a false assumption that rents will not increase to account for this massive upsurge in productivity, going from a mere set percentage or set amount of produce, to a more significant claim on the amount produced.
And you are also making the false assumptions that all these farms already exist, fully developed, and ready to be exploited on the level you think possible.
If the Marilenev estate was only interested in renting out 26,880 20-acre farm plots then its income from those farms is 322,560gp for an individual rent of 120sp.
Or maybe they are greedy, and don't rent out any farms at all. Instead, they hire everyone as laborers, and keep every penny of profit for themselves. Your farmers are now back to being dirt poor, but every member of the Marilenev family is so rich as to completely cause the entire estate to sink 10' every year from the weight of the sheer mass of gold coins they accumulate.
At least it would if the flights of huge dragons didn't attack on a weekly basis, looking to gain enough gold to fuel their next ritual to increase in size.
They had come through many famines and knew the importance of producing food even if it had no income value when compared to Wine.
According to your figures they should have been millionaires with food production.
Why not just grow food for a year or two, then buy what you need the next few years while switching to wine production?
And do they really need to be multi-millionaires instead of just millionaires?
And if wine sells for so much, why aren't the winegrowers all multi-millionaires today?
According to your figures they should have been millionaires with food production.
Why not just grow food for a year or two, then buy what you need the next few years while switching to wine production?
And do they really need to be multi-millionaires instead of just millionaires?
And if wine sells for so much, why aren't the winegrowers all multi-millionaires today?
Hardly millionaires from food production. The estate lord might be a millionaire but the wealth of income I am posting is based entirely on what D&D pushes as the price of its produce. If the resource calculations do not include the labourer and the food they need to maintain a high resource value then there is always going to be a problem.
After plague decimated the estates serf population wages went up from a few coppers a day (on top of the food they needed) to a few silvers per day.
As to your criticisms of the ammount of gold that must be floating about as a consequence of such "unreal production yeilds and the incomes from their sale" That would push the use of letters of credit and exchange as used in Darokin on even Karameikos. Gold is a commodity. It is traded. Conceivably even a Dragon could knock out magic items for a massive wage rather than loot and flamethrower a tax wagon.
According to your figures they should have been millionaires with food production.
Why not just grow food for a year or two, then buy what you need the next few years while switching to wine production?
And do they really need to be multi-millionaires instead of just millionaires?
And if wine sells for so much, why aren't the winegrowers all multi-millionaires today?
The ones who set the prices and own the wine all the way up to the bottle in the retail outlet are millionaires.
A Ten row Vineyard over a single acre produces about 2.5 ton. So 86 acres x 2.5 ton=481,600 lb of grapes. Grapes to wine equate to (the amount varies with grape size, post (red wines) or pre (white wines) ferment pressing) about 85-90 lb per 5 gallons. So the production for 86 acres of vineyard is about (481,600 lb/85 lb)/5 gallon = 28,329.4 gallons of Wine.
According to the PHB v3.0 a bottle of wine(10gp)-Wine bottle, glass(2gp)=8gp per 1.5 pints. 786 36-gallon barrels x 1538gp=1,209,288gp. 42 bottles of wine x 10gp = 420gp
Hardly millionaires from food production. The estate lord might be a millionaire but the wealth of income I am posting is based entirely on what D&D pushes as the price of its produce.
No, the farmers are millionaires. You were quite clear about that:
50% To farmers………………………...........….22,893,150g p
That's over 2 million gp to every farmer each year.
But it seems you are now beginning to realize that people do not in fact make that much, and that you should be deducting massively at each step along the way. That is a start.
No, the farmers are millionaires. You were quite clear about that:
That's over 2 million gp to every farmer each year.
But it seems you are now beginning to realize that people do not in fact make that much, and that you should be deducting massively at each step along the way. That is a start.
I believe the bit you were looking for is divided by the number of Farms according to their size. That 2 million after tax is divided amongst the Farming collective.
Income Division (taxes)
25% To Stephan………………………….........11,446,572gp
25% To House Marilenev…………….........…11,446,572gp
50% To farmers………………………...........….22,893,150g p
small farm………………………………………9,538gp
Large farm……………………………………..19,077gp
small farm has income around 9,500gp
Large farm has income of around 19,000gp.
Apology accepted!
"Ignorance of income is no excuse!"The Baliff leaned over the farmer.
"Says who?" Rebelled Bartoleme the Turnip Farmer.
"The Tax Collectors!" Bartoleme fell back in fear at the mere mention of the most feared band of thugs in all the Kingdom.
Traianus puts forth a number of really good points. If the economics is important in your game than it's probably best to just create your own system and prices. I revamped all the weapons prices based on what (I thought) it cost the manufacturer in materials, time/wages, overhead, and a slice for profit. I personally find the whole topic fasinating, but yet it is still a game that is placed in very different world than our own.
Hugin, No need to change the prices, they represent such inflation that wages themselves must be high to match. We know that farm labourers who had all their lives been serfs were able to demand substantial improvements after the decimation of the plague and the agrairian farm reforms where fifty percent of the farm populace were pushed into cities or allowed to die so that production could yeild greater for less cost. Gone are the days of 20 acre plots and serf (at least in the major economic powers). The prices are high because there are still shortages and no one cares enough to meet demand by increasing supply.
I believe the bit you were looking for is divided by the number of Farms according to their size. That 2 million after tax is divided amongst the Farming collective.
With all due respect, that's anachronistic garbage. Farm subsidies? If the government is paying my 9000gp a year to live on my farm, why work it? Subsidies are a modern thing, and have no place in a early-rennaisance setting.
Since noone else has asked, where exactly did you get the numbers you're throwing around here?
3000000+ pigs per year in the estate alone??? You do realize that the entire European Economic Union, with all its modern tech and farming only produces about 1.5 million pigs?
With all due respect, that's anachronistic garbage. Farm subsidies? If the government is paying my 9000gp a year to live on my farm, why work it? Subsidies are a modern thing, and have no place in a early-rennaisance setting.
Since noone else has asked, where exactly did you get the numbers you're throwing around here?
3000000+ pigs per year in the estate alone??? You do realize that the entire European Economic Union, with all its modern tech and farming only produces about 1.5 million pigs?
They asked. I provided a reading list for source material. As to the "subsidies" as you refer to them? They are not subsidies. They are the average calculated income (after the kings 25% tax and the Estates tax of 25%) taken in by farms on the Estate of Marilenev who produce their own farm produce and sell for money. The Estate is over 900 square miles. Effectivly it is as big as the Bordeaux Province.
As to comparing it to the EU output for Pigs. Thats the problem with the EU. They subsidise food production so that farmers can continue inefficient medieval farming. If they took your farm from you for inefficient food production and rewarded high productivity by giving it to others, they could squeese higher returns from primary production and cut Farm subsidies to zero. Sure you have the right to a substantial income but underproduction must be punished by the state.
Feed 1 pig a 50lbs bushel of mixed grain each day and you have the capacity to support more pigs (of a healthier, higher market quality) per acre rather than grazing and foraging. But it eats up grain production that makes flour.
Modern Europe could up its production in other areas such as livestock by dumping its surplus primary food such as grain into fodder support.
Unless you read from the beginning just what we are arguing over, you will never know.
PS. This Planet has the capacity to produce food for fifty billion people but would require an end to the freedoms that waste resources. Dairys, Pigfarms, Chicken farms, Cattle farms, fish farms, hydroponic farms would all need to be redesigned in multistory buildings that sat in the heart of cities and every citizen would have to work employed as a food technician for four hours a day beyond their real job.
Feed 1 pig a 50lbs bushel of mixed grain each day and you have the capacity to support more pigs (of a healthier, higher market quality) per acre rather than grazing and foraging. But it eats up grain production that makes flour.
50lbs seems alot per day, hope you mean a week
As an example: suppose we take a piggery with an average genotype, marketing baconers at 24 weeks old. The pigs need to have their feed rationed (but not severely restricted) in the final 8 weeks. They will be getting about 80% of the amount they would otherwise eat from a self feeder, ie. they will be rationed to 80% of appetite.
Now, think of feeding pigs in terms of the amount of energy they will eat each day. This is different to the weight of feed eaten daily. The amount of feed given depends on the energy content of the diet and the total energy to be fed per day.
In our example, we want the pigs to get a maximum of 32 MJ of energy per day. In summer, diets are usually based on barley, while in winter we use diets based on sorghum. Each diet is balanced and contains adequate amounts of protein and lysine. However, barley diets usually have less energy than sorghum diets (13.1 MJ DE/kg compared to 14.2 MJ DE/kg). This is because barley contains more fibre than sorghum. We want to feed 32 MJ DE/day, so how many kg/day do we feed?
BARLEY DIET:
(32 MJ DE/day) ÷ 13.1 MJ DE/kg = 2.44kg/day
see
http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/pigs/4381.html
so 2.44kg / .8 * 2.2 is approximately 7 lb for a growing pig
so 2.44kg * 2.2 is approximately 5 1/4lb
I assume that these figures are for Meat production. Obviously if you want fat pigs for Lard production then you would want to increase the above rates (double).
(Pig fat is used for cooking, greasing axles etc)
I believe the bit you were looking for is divided by the number of Farms according to their size. That 2 million after tax is divided amongst the Farming collective.
Perhaps you should write your summary in a more readily comprehensible manner.
However, what is this "collective" thing?
I thought you said they didn't use medieval methods, but that every farmer ran his own farm. Now suddenly everything is collectivized?
And you criticize the EU for subsidies, but claim providing subsidies to Marilenev farmers will make them more effective?
Or is that a fully managed farm program will be more efficient than multiple, independently managed farms?
You do realize that medieval farms were managed collectives rather than independent farms, don't you?
Wait, you do, you've said that elsewhere.
But now you claim collectivization is more efficient, while decrying medieval methods.
As I said before, you apparently have issues with real world practices that you are projecting into the analysis of the game material. Why is not relevant. That it is making all of your assumptions, and thus all of your conclusions, wrong is.
Hugin, No need to change the prices, they represent such inflation that wages themselves must be high to match. We know that farm labourers who had all their lives been serfs were able to demand substantial improvements after the decimation of the plague and the agrairian farm reforms where fifty percent of the farm populace were pushed into cities or allowed to die so that production could yeild greater for less cost. Gone are the days of 20 acre plots and serf (at least in the major economic powers). The prices are high because there are still shortages and no one cares enough to meet demand by increasing supply.
I didn't say anything about changing prices because I thought they were too *high*! I just created a simple 'fudgable formula' that allowed me to see *how* the price of the item came to be; i.e. the materials, the wages (based on how difficult the item is to make), and the profit. Since I did it on a spreadsheet it really didn't take very much effort.
OTOH, I didn't even change prices on too much, but rather it showed me the 'time' it would take to create the item (and thus wages as well). I basically used the wages as given in the 3E Arms and Equipment Guide. It was done over a year ago when I got a little curious as to how the wages rates, the craft skill and weapon prices worked together. Just one of those things...
50lbs seems alot per day, hope you mean a week
so 2.44kg / .8 * 2.2 is approximately 7 lb for a growing pig
so 2.44kg * 2.2 is approximately 5 1/4lb
I assume that these figures are for Meat production. Obviously if you want fat pigs for Lard production then you would want to increase the above rates (double).
(Pig fat is used for cooking, greasing axles etc)
No I mean 50 lbs a day. It allows them to feed all day and not go hungry. It boost Pig weight and improves health.
It wasnt until they started feeding Cows 50lbs a day they found milk production raised to 20lbs of milk per cow per day
http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-924697-1.pdf#search='medieval%20farming%20practices'
I would suggest that unless your Medieval world is blanketed in the ejecta of the worlds largest volcano for a few hundred years, that yeilds not go below 63%.
Medieval Iceage
I would suggest that unless your Medieval world is blanketed in the ejecta of the worlds largest volcano for a few hundred years, that yeilds not go below 63%.
Like post summer 1006
1006 Summer: Days after Chandra ul-Nervi's defeat, a devastating meteor sent by the Master of Desert Nomads smashes through the skyshield and slams into the Darokin/Glantri border. The impact creates an enormous crater north of Lake Amsorak. It destroys a mountain range, and raises an impenetrable cloud above the two nations. The resulting earthquake knocks down buildings in Akesoli and devastates the village of Chandbali. The dust cloud rising from the impact is larger than some countries. It covers all of southern Glantri and northern Darokin and extends over northeastern Sind. For days it blocks the sun. When it finally settles, ash and dust cover everything, smothering plants and fouling drinking water. The harvest is ruined, and a winter famine threatens.
Post Mount st. helens, the world temperature cooled. Only because of global warming has this Volcano's effects been nullified. Also as we remove the particulant pollution from our atmosphere, it is noticable that the rain changes from drizzle to more torrential downpours. Hence more flooding in England and Wales occurring
Yellowdingo has done excellent work, but I don't buy into it for three reasons: He hasn't accounted for the Murphy's Law factor in farming, the differences in technology at all levels, and there isn't that much gold in the world to cover such profits. The economy today isn't on a gold standard anymore for that practical reason alone no matter the stated reason at the time of transition. No amount of draves is going to dig up that much metal. A shortage of physical gold to support an improving economy is what led to such gold lust in the 15th-16th centuries. Fact is, in PERFECT world, using the prices stated in THE GAME material, his reasearch stands up. I'll also point out that acedemics, though very book smart in most cases have little to no practical experience (and thus often fail when puch comes to shove in the real world, with rare exceptions of course).
Example: Maybe a peasant with a first class steel axe can cut down a acre of wood, if they are second/third growth trees, softwood variety, he has twelve hours of good light, a guy who stands to one side and sharpens axes all day, doesn't get heat exaustion and basicly works like a machine. He won't do it two days in a row for sure. It's a base case scenario with all factors perfect. I've cut down a Southern live oak, one of the hardest hard woods in North America (wood that gave 'Ol Ironsides her name) that can reach a diameter of twenty+ feet in a decade. I used a chain saw and crew, and we certainly didn't clear a acre (Yes, we worked 12 hours, yes it was OUR property and yes it was Florida thus good light and a long day. We are 9th generation ranchers and farmers and know are business and no, we do not take subsidies.). Then to say you do get all that wood, to mill and cut it all down on the mills they had then is stretching it. I doubt the blades then would hold up and would likely snap or warp regularly under such use.
Yeah the peasants of 1000 years ago were enormously tough by todays standards, but I've lived in the 3rd world for years, they are tough SOBs by any standards and can't pull of some of the things pitched by Yellowdingo consistantly. Too many mitigating factors not the least being human nature. People simply don't go full out seven days a week for any reason, even in emergencies. They burn out, get tired, get injured ect. or just decide, dang it, to take a bloody break for a few hours.
Next is the crop yields. This I call again best case scenario. He fills in all the holes, has good sources, but can't explain logicly what makes up the filling of the holes. Where does that surplus labour come from, why does everyone work 100% efficiently, what are tha factors for sickness, injury ect.? These and other factors can and will drasticly effect crop yields. Also I'd like to know how long it took to build all this and how expansion is till carried out without a drop in production. I sure he has a answer, and a good one, but I'd still like to see it. I would also like to know if there is a country today that can match this with modern technology! I would like to point out that when you switch from grains ect. to grapes, it take several years to reach top yields.
Next is the measurements. Fact is, as I finally got my own proffesor to admit, Medieval writers were prone to exagerate wildly. Every academic seems to take the numbers presented that support a pet theory at face value while doubting everything else. Someone pointed out once that if the witch burnings of the 15th to 17th centuries were as bad as written, almost 1/4 of the female population would have ceased to exist in Germany (my own DM, a history PHD agreed, based on his own reasearch)! The chroniclers exagerated often and with a clear conscience as being a historian back then meant being a editorialist as well; you were trying to create an impression and make a point, not be detached and factual. Now add in the fact that EVERYONE has ALWAYS lied to the tax man, you get the idea about how hard it is to figure out how productive the period in question was.
Fact is it's all guess work. One academic actually had a good idea: estimate how many people there was and what variety of crops and livestock was raised (problematic but possible) then factor in cost of produce, results of forensics on the bodily remains of a cross section of society, tree rings and ice core reading (for climate ect.), death records and causes listed (to determine the number of deaths caused by starvation ect.) and you'd likely get a pretty good idea of how things were. Of course this would mean a great deal of cross discipline reaseach and the academic world frowns on this.
Another problem with crop measurements is this: Medieval measurements are near impossible to pin down as they were open to interpetation and arguement(to say the least) even then. A "tun" of wine meant different things to different regions at different times and to different merchants. And that was a fairly agreed upon standard! Add in a spotty ability to weigh and measure accurately (no common universal standard existed to compare against as their is today). One merchant's pound weight could be different from anothers by some margin (and why not, who but the Royal rep. would determine who was right anyway. And that was a matter of opinion to boot). My point is that any measurement of production based on a medieval source's description of a "bushel" of anything is a loose estimate and best and a educated guess at most.
Now, Yellowdingo, before you jump on me, I do think your numbers are essentialy correct! Only for a pure best case scenario, and has the added flaw of being based on a badly done price list to boot. Not your fault. I've checked out your sources as well, and they also have (in my and many other's opinion) a overstated trust in period sources that are notoriously unreliable to begin with (basicly all of 'em!). Best to call it what is: a starting point into which to start subtracting from. Lets start with the sheer amount of BUGS and BIRDS existing back then, before the good modern days of insecticides and housecats. Even the 3rd World is tame in comparison in that regard! Druids or not...
I am aware that firewood was pretty much the tax paid by serf farmers. Firewood harvesting which was critical to a Pre Coal civilization was decimating the Woods of Medieval England. I know that Bronze Axes are Very nasty compared to steel. And I know there is one tree felling technique that gets that acre of fire wood in a day (its called ring barking) Sure I cant harvest in the same day but I get it eventually.
It doesnt matter that rural france in the medieval years produced barely enough surplus food to feed seven percent of its Paris urban population (Paris with 15% of the total national population) at best. Or that it would have had to import all its surplus needs from the vast agricultural lands the other side of the Carpathian mountains just to feed one overcrowded city sucking the Eastern Roman empire dry of food. That Principality (Wallachia)between the Danube, Serbia, the Carpathians, and the Black Sea covered 30,000 square miles of land and would have barely contributed to the food needed by Paris.
The best France ever realy achieved was a 92% efficiency average and that held until the industrial age. England was struggling to reach 83% efficiency average on its best estates.
Perhaps in the best of times, a 63% efficiency is about where you were as an agricultural producer.
But bringing out a family history, no need, I already had one of those. Mine were farming in the region that is Canada when the Warlord George Washington decided to no longer pay his taxes.
Would you like my favourite family story, it is set in Ireland, where my grandfather as a child watches as a priest orders women picking potatoes from the field to push his car up the hill to the the Village church because he wants to save fuel.
But bringing out a family history, no need, I already had one of those. Mine were farming in the region that is Canada when the Warlord George Washington decided to no longer pay his taxes.
Any chance of leaving this garbage out of the conversation? It's annoying enough having to read your unfounded, ridiculous claims about medieval demographics, but your smartass comments about somewhat modern politics are completely off topic and irrelevant.
I'm right, you know it. What is to discuss?
Even a Fantasy Kingdom such as Karameikos is subject to rules of the realworld. If you think that Karameikos should be producing food at (5%-10%) the level of a Medieval England, Drowning in Plague with 95% of its popualce in Serfdom, then show me in the books where it says that Karameikos, didnt outlaw slavery and serfdom, and is riddled with plague, and is agriculturally dying under a mini iceage induced by the equivelent of the Erruption of Krakatoa. Frankly Marilenev Estate has had over fifteen years to evolve through Estate Management. Considering the nasty reality that Marilenev is producing the Most food, in all the Kingdom of Karameikos.
Besides my calculations for Marilinev Estate were at 63% efficiency.
PS. Washington was a Tax dodging Warlord and you Know it!!!
840 square miles Administered by Lady Magda Marilenev and her army of Stewards, Ballifs, and thugs.
Marilenev Village: population (900 people)
900/5=180 families x 120sp rent=2,160gp
Farming: population (11,000 people)
(10) light wood x 40 farms x 86 acre size (400 small farms)
(5) cleared x 200 farms x 172 acre size (1,000 large farms)
Specularum (Mirros) (50,000-60,000 people):
60,000/5=12,000 families x 120sp rent=144,000gp rent which no longer goes to Marilenev estate (the previous landlord of this once guild town) but to Duke Stephan directly.
Marilenev Woodlots: The plantation has ((35840-3440)x10)= 324,000 acres of timber x 20,000lb per acre/100 year regrowth=64,800,000lb (per year)
Total Woodlot Income (64,800,000 lb /800lb) x 35gp=2,835,000gp
Small farm (86 acre)
Grain: harvest produced (28 acres x 20 bushels x 50lb per bushel x 63%)= 17,640lb
Turnip: Harvest produced =(28 acres x 25 ton x 63%)=411 ton
Fed to Pigs for Pig Production (411 / 25) x 10=160 pigs
- In farm human consumption (24 pigs & 2,302lb grain)
Small Farm Produce: (136 pigs & 15,388lb grain)
Subtotal (400 x small farm) = 54,400 pigs & 6,155,200lb grain
Large farm (172 acre)
Grain: harvest produced (57 acres x 20 bushels x 63% x 50lb per bushel) =35,910lb
Turnip: Harvest produced =(57 acres x 25 ton x 63% )=897 ton
Fed to Pigs for Pig Production (897 / 25) x 10=358 pigs
- In farm human consumption (24 pigs & 2,302lb grain)
Large Farm Produce: (334 pigs & 33,608lb grain)
Subtotal (1000 x large farm) = 334,000,000 pigs & 33,608,000lb grain
Marilenev Brewery (12,138,362lb grain/20)/36=16,858 barrels of strong ale
Ale Barrel is 400gp (standard 36 gallon barrel) so the Marilenev pull in 6,743,200gp from their ale production.
Grain (8400lb flour) for bread supplying Marilenev Village & castle
Marilenev Estate Production Totals and Incomes
Marilenev Village Rents..............................2,160 gp
Firewood & Timber (64,800,000lb)……........2,835,000gp
Pigs (188,000)………………………..............…1,504,0 00gp
Grain (127,616,438lb)………………………….....3,705,900g p
Strong ale (16,858 barrels)……............. 6,743,200gp
Total…………………………...........…….......…14,788,100gp
Income Division (taxes)
25% To Stephan…………………………...........3,697,025gp
25% To House Marilenev+rents............…3,699,185gp
50% To farmers………………………...........….7,394,050gp
small farms income………………………………………3,080gp
Large farm income……………………………………...6,161gp
Just so We know what we are discussing here-
Marilenev Estate: 63% Production Efficiency
PS. Washington was a Tax dodging Warlord and you Know it!!!
No, about the only thing I know here is that you are an ignorant EDIT.
An Economicly induced Famine will decimate Specularum.
Therefor the Second Marilenev Uprising doesnt even have to involve troops beyond the immediate conflict as Karameikos is forced to send his army of occupation into the Marilenev Estate to secure all its produce for local consumption. This would create a lot of resentment with the farmers who get more coin from mercantile export than from barter and trade in the local economy.
Thats why I lke you Chatdemon! You're another poor loser. We had a long conversation over your bad maths when describing South American Firewood Consumption, Any time You care to lay down the rules by which you think the Medieval economy works (including the reason for getting 5-10% of what is achievable by people who know how to farm...let us know!
Farming: population (11,000 people)
(10) light wood x 40 farms x 86 acre size (400 small farms)
(5) cleared x 200 farms x 172 acre size (1,000 large farms)
. . .
Marilenev Woodlots: The plantation has 30,960,000 acres of timber x 20,000lb per acre/1000 year regrowth=619,200,000lb (per year)
Just a bit of checking on numbers . . .
An 8-mile hex is 55.42 square miles.
A square mile is 640 acres.
So each hex is 35,468.8 acres.
So . . .
Each of your cleared hexes has 34,400 acres of cultivated land.
That leaves 1,068.8 acres for roads and buildings.
Are there cities with that low a ratio of roads to occupied area?
And never mind what I said about the pigs being left to forage in the forests, there are none!
And speaking of forests . . .
35,468.8 acres times 10 hexes of light forest is a total of 354,688 acres in those hexes.
Subtract 34,400 acres of farms.
That leaves 320,288 acres of trees.
Your figure is over 96 times that. I'm not really sure how to address that. I suppose you could just reduce your lumbering by a factor of 96 to account for that, and just get a "mere" 6,450,000 lbs of wood out of Marilenev every year. Or you could cut your regeneration rate down to 10 years, but then you wouldn't have the giant trees you need for the lumber you are getting from them.
So I think you need to seriously review your firewood use numbers. You have a lot less available than you think.
Just a bit of checking on numbers . . .
An 8-mile hex is 55.42 square miles.
A square mile is 640 acres.
So each hex is 35,468.8 acres.
So . . .
Each of your cleared hexes has 34,400 acres of cultivated land.
That leaves 1,068.8 acres for roads and buildings.
Are there cities with that low a ratio of roads to occupied area?
And never mind what I said about the pigs being left to forage in the forests, there are none!
And speaking of forests . . .
35,468.8 acres times 10 hexes of light forest is a total of 354,688 acres in those hexes.
Subtract 34,400 acres of farms.
That leaves 320,288 acres of trees.
Your figure is over 96 times that. I'm not really sure how to address that. I suppose you could just reduce your lumbering by a factor of 96 to account for that, and just get a "mere" 6,450,000 lbs of wood out of Marilenev every year. Or you could cut your regeneration rate down to 10 years, but then you wouldn't have the giant trees you need for the lumber you are getting from them.
So I think you need to seriously review your firewood use numbers. You have a lot less available than you think.
Lets see: each light wood hex is ((56 square miles x 640 acres) - (40 farms x 86 acres)) x 10 light forested x 20,000 lbs per acre=6,480,000,000 lbs firewood)/100 years regrowth=64,800,000 lbs per year.
thanks sam.
A real world example
Wallesgrave Manor (60 acres): running three fields (3 x 19 acres) in rotation. A single harvest of Grain on previously Fallow Land is 20 bushels per acre (380 bushels) and grazing sheep 1/3 per acre (6 sheep, 5 ewes and a ram) producing wool (6 x 8lbs) and milk (5 x 0.25 gallons x 180 days).
So the maximum produce is 19,000lbs grain, (5 x 0.25 gallons x 180 days) =225 gallons milk, 48lbs wool.
If we suggest that it is at its peak, perhaps 83% of a production limit as was the case for England’s most efficient producing Estates, it is producing 15,770lbs of Grain, 39lbs of wool, and 186.75 gallons of milk. Wallesgrave Manor occupies a remaining 1/2 acre, leaving 1&1/2 acres for firewood thickets producing a mere 30,000lbs timber per year with a ½ acre vegetable garden to supply assorted vegetables (10 ton-17%=18,592 lbs) and a ½ acre run for 10 chickens (providing 1,800 x 0.83 =1,494 eggs per year).
The Produce of Wallesgrave Manor
1 Tun of Weak Ale (252 gallons)
1 Tun of Strong Ale (252 gallons)
18,592lbs vegetables
7,300 loaves of bread (1 per serf & 2 per lord’s family members per day)
1,484 eggs
1 Pig (fed off food scraps)
222 & ½ lbs cheese
Wool (39lbs)
2,705lbs grain for the Knight’s warhorse along with chaff.
Just bare enough to support 1 Knight whose estate this is, his family of wife and three children, and some 10 serfs and servants who Farm the land, tend livestock and labour in the manor house for little other than room and board but requires import of 120,000 lbs (54 wagon loads) of firewood per year from nearby forest.
Produce.....................................................................Per Acre
Ewes, grazing Milk and wool over 180 days Grazing season.
1/3rd ewes per acre...................................................0.25 gallons of milk per day per ewe & 8 lbs wool per sheep.
Cows, grazing 8 months grazing season.
1&1/2 acre per cow.....................................................140 gallons per grazing season per cow
Sheep, Fodder fed10 sheep per acre....................14lbs wool per sheep
Cow, Fodder fed Feed requirements: 1 mixed bushel of fodder, hay, and Oats per day per cow.
5 cows per acre...........................................................20lbs Milk per day
Firewood One person requires 10,000lb/year.............20,000lb wood
Wheat, Fallow ground...........................................20 bushels
Wheat, Stubble ground.........................................12 bushels
Oats..................................................................60 bushels
Maize.................................................................40 bushels
Millet.................................................................30 bushels
Linseed Flax fibres produced for Linen.....................14 bushels
Tomatoes...........................................................600 bushels
Turnip................................................................25 ton
Sugarcane..........................................................20 ton
****...................................................................5 ton
Hay.....................................................................5 ton
TeaUp to seven leaf harvests per year.......................440lb-1242lb
GrapesA Ten row Vineyard over a single acre................2.5 ton
Honey, Skep Hive Skep hive or straw rope hive per 10 acres.
Crop pollination bonus 20%-50%..........................................10lbs Honey per Skep & 1lbs Beeswax
Honey, Box Hive Wooden box hive per 10 acres.
Crop pollination bonus 20%-50%...........................................20lbs-30lbs Honey (Northern European Conditions) & 5lbs beeswax or 800lbs Honey (Australian conditions with mild winters, multiple pollen sources and times) & 100lbs beeswax
Hens Free range grazing hens 20 hens per acre..............180 eggs per year per hen
Second stage production
Flax to Linen
Linen comes from Flax fibre but is very vulnerable to dry conditions and unskilled handling.
The harvest of Flax fibre from a good linseed crop is at 14 50lb-bushels per acre (As long as the moisture in the crop was good and it didn’t dry out destroying the fragile fibre).
Converting pre-industrial flax fibre into linen is at a productivity of about 64%. That means of the 700lb of flax fibre from a single acre only 448lb becomes Linen.
Grain to Ale
In a process by which the Grain is soaked to trigger germination and then roasted in the oven to form a brown Sugar rich substance known as Malt. Malt and Hops are then heated in a vat together and mixed in with yeast for the purpose of creating Ale.
1 gallon of water + Grain (varies with strength) + Hops, Yeast=1 gallon of Ale.
Grain (lb)/12lb=Weak Ale (gallons)
Grain (lb)/20lb=Strong Ale(gallons)
Grain to Bread
Flour (Milled Grain) is mixed with yeast, salt and water (or milk or ale or wine) to produce bread dough which is then baked in an oven in loaves.
A loaf of bread is represented as 73 loaves per 50lb grain
(Grain total (lb) / 50lb) x 73= loaves of bread
Milk to Cheese
In the Process of manufacturing Cheese from Milk, one must separate the Curds and the Whey to manufacture cheese. Milk converts to cheese at the following rates:
Milk (gallons) x 10.31= Milk (lb)
Milk (lb) x (5/43.25) = Cheese (lbs)
Grapes to Wine
Converting Grapes to wine equates to (the amount varies with grape size, post (red wines) or pre (white wines) ferment pressing) about 85lbs per 5 gallons of red wine while for white wine it is 90 lb per 5 gallons.
17lbs red wine grape = 1 gallon red wine
18lbs white wine grape= 1 gallon white wine
Honey to Mead
Honey wine is produced from honey, water, and assorted spices at the rate of
(Honey(lbs)/5)=mead (gallons)
Grain to Flour
Converts to flour in the mill at
0.72xgrain(lbs)=flour(lbs)
Wheat to Grain & Chaff
Threshing of 21 bushels of wheat, 1,050lbs of grain and 4,480lbs Chaff.
So 1 bushel of wheat=50lbs grain bushel + 213 & 1/3lbs Chaff.
The Possibilities of Production
Despite productivity that was as low as 5%-10% of possible medieval outputs (due to the mini ice age induced across northern Europe by an eruption of Krakatoa all the way around the world in Indonesia) the best estates in England were as high as 83%, Southern Europe on the other hand were getting yields as high as 91% of what is possible with all skills, tools, understanding of Soils, techniques of agricultural production, and efficiency of management.
And Ltlconf, thanks again for your comments. I found them useful in putting these numbers into perspective.
Wallesgrave Manor
A real world example
Wallesgrave Manor (60 acres): running three fields (3 x 19 acres) in rotation.
Just bare enough to support 1 Knight whose estate this is, his family of wife and three children, and some 10 serfs and servants who Farm the land, tend livestock and labour in the manor house for little other than room and board but requires import of 120,000 lbs (54 wagon loads) of firewood per year from nearby forest.
That's interesting.
So 10 people are required to work this 60 acres full time, but you have farms where 5 people work 86 or 172 acres full time.
So now you have your labor overstimated by at least double by you own example.
Oh, and I notice you also failed to address that you have over 95% arable land in a hex defined as "clear". You really should correct that.
That's interesting.
So 10 people are required to work this 60 acres full time, but you have farms where 5 people work 86 or 172 acres full time.
So now you have your labor overstimated by at least double by you own example.
Oh, and I notice you also failed to address that you have over 95% arable land in a hex defined as "clear". You really should correct that.
No just offered a real world estate that was not one of the crusader income estates. I offered you one that you expect from a medieval period.
Wallesgrave with its 60 acres is a lot less work with no real income compared to the 86 acre and 172 acre crusade era income estate farms. I can only assume that this Knight of Wallesgrave is also in receipt of some small stipend or pension from the King or his Baron.
Wallesgrave represents the subsistence thinking that dominated early medieval periods.
And by calculating its limit, you can only reduce its output with loss of efficiency. PS its not 95%, its 83% efficient (I took a chance on it being one of the superior land holdings in england).
yellowdingo, you've obviously put a lot of effort into putting together your estate incomes. I would find it interesting to see what you come up with in regards to the estate's expenses; what they spend some of that sizable wealth on. What about all the support industries, and the non-support industries (like theives guilds, etc.). It may just help you balance out some things... or not.
And Ltlconf, thanks again for your comments. I found them useful in putting these numbers into perspective.
Assumedly they spend it on wages, art, indulgences of the lady of the estate, and a small army waiting to overthrow the vile Duke Stephan Karameikos.
Hello Folks,
Yellowdingo has done excellent work, but I don't buy into it for three reasons: He hasn't accounted for the Murphy's Law factor in farming, the differences in technology at all levels, and there isn't that much gold in the world to cover such profits. The economy today isn't on a gold standard anymore for that practical reason alone no matter the stated reason at the time of transition. No amount of draves is going to dig up that much metal. A shortage of physical gold to support an improving economy is what led to such gold lust in the 15th-16th centuries. Fact is, in PERFECT world, using the prices stated in THE GAME material, his reasearch stands up. I'll also point out that acedemics, though very book smart in most cases have little to no practical experience (and thus often fail when puch comes to shove in the real world, with rare exceptions of course).
Example: Maybe a peasant with a first class steel axe can cut down a acre of wood, if they are second/third growth trees, softwood variety, he has twelve hours of good light, a guy who stands to one side and sharpens axes all day, doesn't get heat exaustion and basicly works like a machine. He won't do it two days in a row for sure. It's a base case scenario with all factors perfect. I've cut down a Southern live oak, one of the hardest hard woods in North America (wood that gave 'Ol Ironsides her name) that can reach a diameter of twenty+ feet in a decade. I used a chain saw and crew, and we certainly didn't clear a acre (Yes, we worked 12 hours, yes it was OUR property and yes it was Florida thus good light and a long day. We are 9th generation ranchers and farmers and know are business and no, we do not take subsidies.). Then to say you do get all that wood, to mill and cut it all down on the mills they had then is stretching it. I doubt the blades then would hold up and would likely snap or warp regularly under such use.
Yeah the peasants of 1000 years ago were enormously tough by todays standards, but I've lived in the 3rd world for years, they are tough SOBs by any standards and can't pull of some of the things pitched by Yellowdingo consistantly. Too many mitigating factors not the least being human nature. People simply don't go full out seven days a week for any reason, even in emergencies. They burn out, get tired, get injured ect. or just decide, dang it, to take a bloody break for a few hours.
Next is the crop yields. This I call again best case scenario. He fills in all the holes, has good sources, but can't explain logicly what makes up the filling of the holes. Where does that surplus labour come from, why does everyone work 100% efficiently, what are tha factors for sickness, injury ect.? These and other factors can and will drasticly effect crop yields. Also I'd like to know how long it took to build all this and how expansion is till carried out without a drop in production. I sure he has a answer, and a good one, but I'd still like to see it. I would also like to know if there is a country today that can match this with modern technology! I would like to point out that when you switch from grains ect. to grapes, it take several years to reach top yields.
Next is the measurements. Fact is, as I finally got my own proffesor to admit, Medieval writers were prone to exagerate wildly. Every academic seems to take the numbers presented that support a pet theory at face value while doubting everything else. Someone pointed out once that if the witch burnings of the 15th to 17th centuries were as bad as written, almost 1/4 of the female population would have ceased to exist in Germany (my own DM, a history PHD agreed, based on his own reasearch)! The chroniclers exagerated often and with a clear conscience as being a historian back then meant being a editorialist as well; you were trying to create an impression and make a point, not be detached and factual. Now add in the fact that EVERYONE has ALWAYS lied to the tax man, you get the idea about how hard it is to figure out how productive the period in question was.
Fact is it's all guess work. One academic actually had a good idea: estimate how many people there was and what variety of crops and livestock was raised (problematic but possible) then factor in cost of produce, results of forensics on the bodily remains of a cross section of society, tree rings and ice core reading (for climate ect.), death records and causes listed (to determine the number of deaths caused by starvation ect.) and you'd likely get a pretty good idea of how things were. Of course this would mean a great deal of cross discipline reaseach and the academic world frowns on this.
Another problem with crop measurements is this: Medieval measurements are near impossible to pin down as they were open to interpetation and arguement(to say the least) even then. A "tun" of wine meant different things to different regions at different times and to different merchants. And that was a fairly agreed upon standard! Add in a spotty ability to weigh and measure accurately (no common universal standard existed to compare against as their is today). One merchant's pound weight could be different from anothers by some margin (and why not, who but the Royal rep. would determine who was right anyway. And that was a matter of opinion to boot). My point is that any measurement of production based on a medieval source's description of a "bushel" of anything is a loose estimate and best and a educated guess at most.
Now, Yellowdingo, before you jump on me, I do think your numbers are essentialy correct! Only for a pure best case scenario, and has the added flaw of being based on a badly done price list to boot. Not your fault. I've checked out your sources as well, and they also have (in my and many other's opinion) a overstated trust in period sources that are notoriously unreliable to begin with (basicly all of 'em!). Best to call it what is: a starting point into which to start subtracting from. Lets start with the sheer amount of BUGS and BIRDS existing back then, before the good modern days of insecticides and housecats. Even the 3rd World is tame in comparison in that regard! Druids or not...
The Limits are there because everyone else is going to produce less.
As you pointed out, there are factors that reduce from those limits of productivity. I include that in such estates as Marilenev which I decided was 63% efficient because it is restructuring the estate to meet the new way of thinking, compared to the Best estates in medieval England which were getting 83% of the Limits I described.
While the others may want 5-10% efficiency which is only justifiable because of the ice age hitting northern Europe at the time, I cannot realy go along with it in a game where that isnt happening.
As you ask where do they get the extra labour to chop all that fire wood? From the City of Specularum which prior to the Arrival of Karameikos was a guild town on the Marilenev Estate.
Marilenev is described for Game Purposes as Southern France. In truth the Estate Should be pulling in 27 million in wine exports rather than wasting its time on fire wood and food exports.
No just offered a real world estate that was not one of the crusader income estates. I offered you one that you expect from a medieval period.
Wallesgrave with its 60 acres is a lot less work with no real income compared to the 86 acre and 172 acre crusade era income estate farms. I can only assume that this Knight of Wallesgrave is also in receipt of some small stipend or pension from the King or his Baron.
Wallesgrave represents the subsistence thinking that dominated early medieval periods.
And by calculating its limit, you can only reduce its output with loss of efficiency. PS its not 95%, its 83% efficient (I took a chance on it being one of the superior land holdings in england).
Except you still have 10 people struggling on a 60 acre lot compared to 5 people doing more than twice as much on 86 and 172 acre lots. So barring some actual evidence, your estimation of labor is proven wrong by your own example.
Further, you still haven't explained how an 8 mile hex somehow has over 95% arable land.
Assumedly they spend it on wages, art, indulgences of the lady of the estate, and a small army waiting to overthrow the vile Duke Stephan Karameikos.
And here I thought you'd put some effort into it like you've done for the incomes! I could have told you this much. I was trying to work with here to see where all that wealth went; it's obviously not all cash (even the OD&D rules made that clear) so it would be helpful to accually see how much of the estate's revenue is expense and profit. Numbers regarding 'revenues' (cash and other) means very little without those for 'expense'.
What about shrinkage? Losses due to theft (internal and external), natural causes (fires, floods and rats, oh my!), rot, competition, etc. Shrinkage is a surprising factor in business.
The percentage of farmed land, as Samwise pointed out, certainly needs to be adjusted conciderably.
As you ask where do they get the extra labour to chop all that fire wood? From the City of Specularum which prior to the Arrival of Karameikos was a guild town on the Marilenev Estate.
This would be an expense, wouldn't it?
Oh, another question I just thought of; if the revenues given are those of the estate, wouldn't it also be responsible for all maintainance and upgrades to buildings and infrastruture?
The Estate of Vorloi is marginally larger (7 cleared and 11 light forested hexes) than Marilenev.
The Baron Vorloi is a farsighted and shrewd merchant. He under-cuts the local traladaran prices.
From an economic point of view, there is a price war going on in Karameikos. Vorloi sells his estates produce at cost or less to the population of Specularum. This then makes the estate of Marilenev produce surplus, which being a master merchant, he buys and flogs to Thyatis at a profit.
Lets not forget that Thyatian farmers will have spread along both coasts and east/west/north roads, which will also bring in surplus goods.
Of course from the money being repaid by the Duke (originally lent to build the Navy), he ensured that it was invested in sufficient warehouses and merchant vessels to accomplish this.
So for Marilenev, its sell to Vorloi or go bust, which is another reason why she is 'bitter and spiteful'
Searching the internet for wood use and only using NGO, Charity and govermental sources, the wood use ranges from around 3,000lbs in cambodia for a family to 10,000lb for an 80 year old woman in south america.
Although in the south-american example, a simple cooking stove made from local brick, rather than an open fire reduced her wood usage.
Lets see: each light wood hex is ((56 square miles x 640 acres) - (40 farms x 86 acres)) x 10 light forested x 20,000 lbs per acre=6,480,000,000 lbs firewood)/100 years regrowth=64,800,000 lbs per year.
So now at your rather excessive rate of wood use, you only have enough wood being cut for 6,480 people, and Marilenev must import wood. They just lost a whole lot of their income to buying wood for themselves.
By Marilenev simply directing all it produces (beyond the needs of its now self sufficient estate population) into export income rather than feeding Specularum, King Stephan will be forced to spend all his tax income on buying food and firewood to feed his capital city. All his tax money. The hungry will flee Specularum in their thousands.
No, the people of Specularum will have to spend all of their personal income on buying food and firewood.
Except they won't.
At least 11,000, or nearly the entire population of Marilenev, will simply turn on their empoyers, and take the harvest for themselves. Starving people tend to do things like that, particularly when the people trying to make them starve are also trying to make them work to grow the food they won't sell them.
Or maybe those 11,000 people simply stop working, and the entire economy and production of Marilenev collapses, and not only don't they have anything to export, they suddenly can't feed themselves, or they all freeze to death over the winter.
Not only won't this revolution be televised, it won't succeed.
Of course that assumes nearly a fifth of the population of Specularum either doesn't actually live in Specularum, or somehow manages to walk 8-40 miles each day, both ways, to go to work. Regular people can manage about 4 miles/hour under good conditions. So 2-10 hours of travel time, each way, work 12 hours, and then apparently drink a potion so they don't drop dead from exhaustion.
It also manages to ignore that Specularum is, in your words, a guild city. As such, you would expect a good portion of the people to be involved in guild jobs of one sort or other. And while you might expect that to leave a considerable portion of the unemployed still available, Specularum is also a port city, so most of them will just hop on a ship and spend the day fishing. (Which will incidentally reduce Specularum's dependence on imported food.) Still more will get caught up when it is also noted that Specularum is a capital city, and requires more people for the service industries to support such.
So I don't know where you get those surplus workers. Perhaps you should consider the economy of Specularum before seizing its population to work elsewhere.
Farming: population (11,000 people)
(10) light wood x 40 farms x 86 acre size (400 small farms)
(5) cleared x 200 farms x 172 acre size (1,000 large farms)
That is 1,400 farms.
If each family is 5 people, that is 7,000 people. So you have either lost 4,000 people, or 800 farms. Since we know you have already overassigned arable land, we'll have to assume that family size is bigger. Normally, we would expect there are more people on the large farms than the small ones. Unfortunately for that theory, you have the same in-farm consumption for both large and small farms:
- In farm human consumption (24 pigs & 2,302lb grain)
So we must divide them equally, and get a farm population of just under 8 people per farm. (7.857 and a bit.)
And that leads to a number of very confusing calculations.
First, you have those people eating 2 pigs a month. On another thread, you had people eating 1/8 of a sheep per day, or 3 sheep per person per month. So either these pigs yield nearly 12 times the amount of meat as a sheep (some mighty porkers indeed), or these people are not getting your minimum daily requirement of meat. (Or I was right that people don't need 1/8 of a sheep per day, but you've rejected that theory soundly.)
A little more troubling is that grain requirement.
Locally, that works out to 6.85 lbs of grain per day per farm. (Remembering that Mystara has a 336 day year.) That is about half of the 2 lbs of grain per day you mandate in your other thread as well, although closer to the 1 lb per day I would suggest. (Assuming we have our 8 people per farm that is.)
It becomes a serious issue though when we consider this:
Grain (127,616,438lb)………………………….....3,705,900g p
Never mind that gp value. That much grain can feed, by your numbers, 55,437.2 "farm households" of 8 people family. That is more than 440,000 people. Just how many problems are there with that?
Well, first it means that you are wrong, and Specularum doesn't need to import one ounce of grain from anywhere but Marilenev. In fact, since Karameikos only has a population of 350,000 (in AC 1010), Marilenev can feed the entire nation 1 lb of bread per day, and still have 27 million pounds of grain to export. Only if we up the daily consumption of bread over that 1 lb do we need to worry if another Barony in Karameikos can equal that production. (I'll nominate Vorloi, which is about the same size, so the people can be well fed.) Absolutely ever other scrap of production from Karameikos' 315,000 or so remaining people can be industrial and export oriented, and we have 1 person feeding 31 (without Vorloi) or 15 (with Vorloi), or a mere 3.14% (6.28% with Vorloi) rural population.
However, that pales when you consider that, theoretically, your 840 sq miles of land can support a population density of more than 500 people per square mile. Even if we halve that by requiring us to use the produce of Vorloi, it only drops to 250 per square mile.
(And just for the heck of it, let's assume you really did just lose those 4,000 people somewhere, and your 2,302 lbs of grain per farm per year is based on a 5 person family. That means Marilenev can feed over 275,000 people, and yields a pop density of 330 per square mile, 165 per square mile if they are only accounting for half of everyone's grain requirements.)
If we could squeeze all those people into one city to be supplied by Marilenev (and maybe Vorloi) of course.
So somewhere in there you have made some pretty big errors in your calculations.
Vorloi seems even heavier in timber production than Marilinev as far as the employment of its population. It would well be a major exporter of wood with basic food production to cover its own population but it doesnt export food.
Kelvin on the other hand imports grain for local use because they pretty much have Marshland (they might harvest peat for fuel alternatives to wood). They have little reason to exist other than being at a fork in a river and road.
Actually sam,
Vorloi seems even heavier in timber production than Marilinev as far as the employment of its population. It would well be a major exporter of wood with basic food production to cover its own population but it doesnt export food.
Kelvin on the other hand imports grain for local use because they pretty much have Marshland (they might harvest peat for fuel alternatives to wood). They have little reason to exist other than being at a fork in a river and road.
Why wouldn't Vorloi, which also has 5 clear hexes and 11 light woods hexes, also produce millions of tons of grain like Marilenev? Don't they want to be filthy rich too?
As for Kelvin, what does that have to do with anything?
I showed some serious problems with your calculations. To summarize so far:
You "lost" 4,000 people somewhere.
You have a different rate of consumption for people here than in your other thread.
You have Marilenev producing enough food for over 440,000 people at the rates given here.
You have over 95% of the clear hexes being top quality arable land.
Thats why I lke you Chatdemon! You're another poor loser. We had a long conversation over your bad maths when describing South American Firewood Consumption, Any time You care to lay down the rules by which you think the Medieval economy works (including the reason for getting 5-10% of what is achievable by people who know how to farm...let us know!
Ok, first off, you ignorant hick (borrowing your words),
My "maths" (nice grammar there buddy) in the other thread were 100% sound, and backed up by specific citations from authoritative sources. Your dismal of my data because it doesn't fit your inane crusade does not make it wrong. Got that?
Second, you've reacted in the same arrogant, insulting way to everyone who has questioned your numbers. Get off your high horse and accept the fact you might be in error. Having your tripe posted to Pandius does not make it above scrutiny. Got that?
Third, you claim these peasants eat 5 to 10 pounds of food each, every day. Impossible. For the record folks, 5 pounds of food=
20 McDonalds Quarter Pounder sandwiches.
10 normal size boxes of cheerios.
50 Taco Bell tacos.
3 Foot Long Subway subs.
3 Large Dominos Pizzas.
Nearly 100 Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.
I don't give a damn how hard you work, it is physically impossible for a human being, modern or medieval, to eat that much food.
Fourth, you overlooked a HUGE fact about karameikos, from Gaz 1. Let me quote if for you, verbatim, read slowly now so you comprehend it, mmkay?
In other words, a peasant family in an area with an agricultural resource will be paying the equivalent of 12 gp per month, and this is equal to 50% of its earning power.
WAIT! WHAT'S THIS? A FAMILY ONLY MAKES 24 GP PER MONTH?!?! That's 288 gp per year, son. Then, you take 288 gp and multiply it by the number of farming families in the estate. Still with me? Don't want to confuse you with advanced arithmetic here. Ok, so we'll use your number, 1400, for the number of farms in the estate. 1400 x 288 = 403,200. Is that clear you obtuse twit? 403,200 gp, per year, income. 403,200! "Bad Maths" or otherwise, that's just a hair shy of 2,124,106 gp, the number you offered up. You are clearly wrong here, put on the big boy pants and admit it.
Don't bother with claims of "bad maths" or misrepresented data. Mystaran Canon has spoken, quite clearly and succinctly, and the result is, you are wrong. Got that?
Are we through now? Will you admit your error and apologize to those of us you've insulted for disagreeing with you? I doubt it, actually.
When it refers to a single resource, it is talking about a family farming firewood, or a family farming grain, or a family farming hay (fodder), and as the farmer is paying fifty percent tax the incomes going to the estate from the farmer are defined by:
monthly dominion rates Standard income (10gp) + tax income (1gp) + resource income (animal:2gp, vegetable:1gp, mineral 3gp) = monthy tax paid in goods and services by a single peasant family. So how much do we get 12gpx12 months in taxes (144gp).
That minor income of 144gp per year after tax may be fine for what is being directed to those families working in the Logging camps harvesting timber and fire wood. But you see Marilenev doesnt just have one resource type. It has many resources.
Population density: civilized (500-5000 families per hex) this means 56 square miles is divided into 500-5000 farms of between 8-71 acres. That means that a single hex generates between 144,000 gp - 1.44 million gp of resource and labour income per civilized hex. Income increasing, the smaller the farm gets? I dont think so!
Gee Wiz, I'd say there is a problem with the rulebook!
And had I not decided that that was what it used to be like on the Marilenev estate before agrarian reforms such as the plough and the draft animal (two things that should have shown up within two thousand years) and other important reforms forced on the Lady of the estate in the fifteen years of Karameikos rule, the farming world would still be drinking its own urine and passing grain fed cow urine off as ale to hicks in Specularum who cant tell the difference.
I think that once we get the bugs iron out, this method of determining your estate using real world production, will be far more useful.
Why wouldn't Vorloi, which also has 5 clear hexes and 11 light woods hexes, also produce millions of tons of grain like Marilenev? Don't they want to be filthy rich too?
As for Kelvin, what does that have to do with anything?
I showed some serious problems with your calculations. To summarize so far:
You "lost" 4,000 people somewhere.
You have a different rate of consumption for people here than in your other thread.
You have Marilenev producing enough food for over 440,000 people at the rates given here.
You have over 95% of the clear hexes being top quality arable land.
Conceivably Vorloi would be pulling in similar incomes. He is a major exporter through the town he established. The predominant exports would undoubtably be grain and timber.
As to the 4,000 peasants from Marilenev I lost: they fit the number of people needed to harvest timber and fire wood in the estate. Considering they represent families, they would be 800 families working in the timber industry in Marilenev estate harvesting 30 square miles a year (1 adult male from each house cutting and milling). Every light wood hex has a small community of up to 80 families harvesting firewood and timber.
They live on the Woodlots. in such numbers to require several permanent villages devoted to Timber harvest and milling. That is one person per acre of timber over a two week period to harvest and mill using most likely axes, hammers, and wedges to split and board.
They work on the Farms as temporary labourers. The mobile work force active across the entire estate as farm labourers. They get paid little and get room and board.
After efficiency it was 63% on the farmland.
Consumption rates different: Probably! I suspect I'm loosing track!
But just to make every one Happy, we will do the entire Marilenev Estate again from the Beginning. You decide how big farms for the peasants are, what the efficiency of the farm land is, what are the differences between the fully cleared and the lightly wooded hexes Including tons of timber per acre in light wooded areas, and what the farmers get for their different produce before tax.
Thank you Chatdemon for pointing out that the farmers on the estates get 288gp a year in agricultural income before taxes which are paid mostly in produce based on the reference to a peasant family (with 5 members) with a single resource straight from the companion rules.
I see. So every family in the estate is working 5 1/2 resources to meet your numbers? BS. The Gaz 1 is explicit on the matter. 288 gp is the earning potential of a Karameikan family. EXPLICIT.
Since you want to be the little child who will not admit error, this conversation is over.
Now, Mr. Community Assistant/Pandius Admin, let me make a request here. Since Pandius is still, AFAIK, the official Mystara fan site, the material there needs to labelled as such when it egregiously violates published canon. Please do so in the case of this fool's economics articles. More than one of us here have shown just how disposable his numbers are. Don't let the reputation of Pandius be stained with this kind of crap.
monthly dominion rates Standard income (10gp) + tax income (1gp) + resource income (animal:2gp, vegetable:1gp, mineral 3gp) = monthy tax paid in goods and services by a single peasant family. So how much do we get 12gpx12 months in taxes (144gp).
That minor income of 144gp per year after tax may be fine for what is being directed to those families working in the Logging camps harveting timber and fire wood. But you see Marilenev doesnt just have one resource type. It has many resources.
Maybe that is why it was later (in one of the articles by Bruce Heard) that a family only be able to work one resource in any hex.
Population density: civilized (500-5000 families per hex) this means 56 square miles is divided into 500-5000 farms of between 8-71 acres. That means that a single hex generates between 144,000 gp - 1.44 million gp of resource and labour income per civilized hex. Income increasing, the smaller the farm gets? I dont think so!
When you get that many families in a hex, it changes from agriculture (or mining or herding) to being a town or city with an industrial economy, and the consequent increase in income that industry provides. So of course incomes doesn't increase like that the smaller the farm gets.
As to the 4,000 peasants from Marilenev I lost: they fit the number of people needed to harvest timber and fire wood in the estate. Considering they represent families, they would be 800 families working in the timber industry in Marilenev estate harvesting 30 square miles a year (1 adult male from each house cutting and milling). Every light wood hex has a small community of up to 80 families harvesting firewood and timber.
Then why didn't you list them, and their income, as a separate entry on your sheet? That is a rather significant oversight don't you think?
So yes, you are obviously losing track of many things.
And that is the two most minor issues I raised. You still haven't addressed how you get more than 95% high quality arable land in a hex, or how you manage to feed over 440,000 people with the surplus from the estates.
As for starting over, you can try, but I doubt it will help. You seem completely committed to these excessive figures no matter what. You still appear determined to ignore several critical concepts, chief among them focusing excessively on the trade cost of goods to determine farm income, efficiency of farmers as opposed to overall arability of the land, and carrying loads of the forests. Step away from those for a moment and focus on the relevant factors, and you will get more reasonable results.
Now, Mr. Community Assistant/Pandius Admin, let me make a request here. Since Pandius is still, AFAIK, the official Mystara fan site, the material there needs to labelled as such when it egregiously violates published canon. Please do so in the case of this fool's economics articles. More than one of us here have shown just how disposable his numbers are. Don't let the reputation of Pandius be stained with this kind of crap.
A lot of material on the Vaults violates canon, in fact it isn't too difficult to pick up a piece of canon which violates other pieces of canon. On the matter of the Vaults of Pandius I would point you to the FAQ on the Vaults of Pandius.
If you wish to write an article which disputes the numbers and puts forwards your own numbers then feel free to, and it can go onto the Vaults too. However I would appreciate an article rather than single line responses to another persons article.
Furthermore I don't appreciate being told what to do by someone who ignored my earlier post in this thread imploring people to act in a more civilised manner with their comments. This whole thread has gone too far now.
Furthermore I don't appreciate being told what to do by someone who ignored my earlier post in this thread imploring people to act in a more civilised manner with their comments. This whole thread has gone too far now.
First of all, I believe the word I used was "request".
And, um, I ignored your request? Yeah, right, your little buddy here has been an angel toward those who have criticized his figures. Or is that you can't admit error either, in posting this garbage to Pandius as quality material?
I've read the Pandius FAQ, I am in fact a regular visitor/reader there, but allow me to point out this page:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/owa
Each of these sites will be developing new canon game materials for use in your campaign.
Thus my request that such wildly non-canon material be labelled as such.
Most of the other non-canonical authors on Pandius label themselves as such, with a "In my campaign" type note. Dingbat's articles have no such disclaimer.
How many farms are there per hex? The farm sizes are limited by the rules you are using to between 8-71 acres, the per 56 square mile hex income increasing with the reduced farm size.
Light Wood Hex: 35840 acres - 7100 acres (100 farms, each 71 acres)=28,748 acre of timber per hex. Thats 10 light wood hexes x 100 farms x 5 people per 71 acre farm or 5000 people for all the lightly forested regions of the Marilenev Estate.
Cleared Hex:35,840 acres/2 (half farm, half pasture) (250 farms, each 71 acres). That is 5 cleared hexes x 250 farms x 5 people per farm or 6,250 people for all the cleared hexes (not including the Marilenev Castle & Village or Specularum).
Total in Farm Population=11,250 people
Shall we assume three fields of rotation?
A Single Resource Farm (71 Acre)
According to the D&D Companion rules on Dominions.
5 family members. 3 fields of rotation (each 23 acres) + 2 acres for farmhouse, yard, vegetable garden, A few Hens for eggs, Perhaps even a Pig.
Produce (1 resource: Wheat)
Fallow wheat........................20 bushels per acre
23 acres x 20 bushels = 460 bushels
stubble wheat......................12 bushels per acre
23 acres x 12 bushels = 276 bushels
Total Wheat: 736 bushels/year
Convert to Chaff & Grain
Chaff: 213lbs x 736 bushels=156,768 lbs Chaff
Grain: 50lbs grain x 736 bushels=36,800lbs grain
They require the grain equivelent of 2 loaves per family member per day or 1,680 loaves per year on top of the vegetables they grow in their garden.
Factor in the harvest efficiency of 63%.
Farm Produce at 63% Efficiency
Chaff: 165,768 lbs x 0.63=104,433 lbs Chaff (A 46 ton "haystack" of chaff)
Grain: 36,800 lbs x 0.63= 23,184 lbs
subtract the grain needed by the farm
-seed (46 acres x 60lbs seed grain=2,760lbs seed grain)
-grain for bread (1,151lbs grain)
-grain for 36 gallons home brew light ale (432lbs of grain)
subtotal=4,343 lbs
23,184 lbs - 4,343 lbs= 18,841lbs total grain
According to GAZ 11: 1 bag of grain (weight:40lbs, Value: 7.5 gp base price)
ElderSphinx: You suggest that farmers are getting 10% of that base market value (7.5sp/40lbs bag of grain) if they sell their grain in the city to Merchants.
Single resource Grain Income: (18,841lbs / 40lbs) x 7.5sp= 3,532.6sp (353.26gp)
A two Resource Farm (71 Acre)
According to the D&D Companion rules on Dominions.
5 family members. 3 fields of rotation (each 23 acres) + 2 acres for farmhouse, yard, vegetable garden, A few Hens for eggs, Perhaps even a Pig. Harvesting firewood as part of their right not to have to pay for it like on the one resource farms.
Produce (2 resources:Wheat & Timber)
Fallow wheat........................20 bushels per acre
23 acres x 20 bushels = 460 bushels
stubble wheat......................12 bushels per acre
23 acres x 12 bushels = 276 bushels
Total Wheat: 736 bushels/year
These are two resource Farms because they are also harvesting wood at the rate of 57,496lbs per farm per year.
Convert to Chaff & Grain
Chaff: 213lbs x 736 bushels=156,768 lbs Chaff
Grain: 50lbs grain x 736 bushels=36,800lbs grain
They require the grain equivelent of 2 loaves per family member per day or 1,680 loaves per year on top of the vegetables they grow in their garden.
Factor in the harvest efficiency of 63%.
Farm Produce at 63% Efficiency
Chaff: 165,768 lbs x 0.63=104,433 lbs Chaff (A 46 ton "haystack" of chaff)
Grain: 36,800 lbs x 0.63= 23,184 lbs
subtract the grain needed by the farm
-seed (46 acres x 60lbs seed grain=2,760lbs seed grain)
-grain for bread (1,151lbs grain)
-grain for 36 gallons home brew light ale (432lbs of grain)
subtotal=4,343 lbs
23,184 lbs - 4,343 lbs= 18,841lbs total grain
According to GAZ 11: 1 bag of grain (weight:40lbs, Market Value: 7.5 gp base price)
GAZ 11: 1 Cord of Wood (weight:800lbs wood, Market Value: 50gp)
Wood Income: (57,496lbs/800lbs)x 5gp = 359.35gp
Grain Income: (18,841lbs / 40lbs) x 7.5sp= 3,532.6sp (353.26gp)
Farm resource income=712.61gp
Calculating Total Income
A Single Lightly wooded Hex is producing about 1,884,100 lbs grain & 5,749,600 lbs wood off 100 Farms.
100 farms x 10 hexes x 712.61=712,610gp
A Single Cleared hex (half farms/half open grassland) 4,710,250 lbs grain off 250 farms.
250 farms x 5 hexes x 353.26gp=441,575gp
Total Farm Production Value =1,154,185gp
25% Income Going to the Lady Magda
Wood: 1,437,400lbs, 44,918.75gp (true value: 449,187.5gp)
Grain: 1,648,587lbs, 309,110sp (true value: 309,110gp)
Uses the Grain for Ale, Strong 20lbs/gallon in 9 gallon firkin.
Firkin: 6lbs wood x 183,176 firkin=1,099,056 lbs wood
183,176 firkin x 100gp=18,317,600gp
Selling to the merchants at 10 percent thats 1,831,760gp (1/5th of which goes to Karameikos)
Income to Lady Marilenev: (1,831,760gp)
Ducal tithe 20%=366,352gp
Church Tithe 10%=183,176gp
Remaining Income: 1,282,232gp
Income to Karameikos from Marilenev Estate (farmers, Lady Magda)
Strong Ale: 3,663 firkins (9-gallon barrel) of Strong Ale, 36,630gp (true value: 366,300gp)
Wood: 1,796 Cords (800lbs cord) of Common Wood, 44,918.75gp (true value: 449,187.5gp)
Grain: 41,214 Bags (40lbs bag) of grain, 309,110sp (true value: 309,110gp)
Dukes income from Marilenev: 1,124,597gp
I'd hate to have to lock this thread and start handing out warns/bans without regard for who started what.
Thanks.
What the Dominion rules Cover
Just to note here as well:
I can find no reference to anything you have included in this in the Dominion rules other than the family size being 5 people.
It has nothing about farm size.
It has nothing about field size and number of fields in rotation.
It has nothing about farmhouses and other sundries.
It does have information on resources, but they are by Domain, and either all worked by all families under the Companion rules, or only one resource may be worked per family under the Cyclopedia Rules.
Further, the Dominion Rules clearly specify a significantly lower final income for a Domain of this size. For 2,250 families, Lady Magda should be receiving 22,500 gp in labor services, 2,250 gp in taxes, and (assuming two vegetable resources of wheat and timber, both worked by all the families) 4,500 gp in resource income, for a total of 29,250 gp per month, or 351,000 gp per year.
So what you have presented is not what the Dominion rules cover.
It is a major variant, using information on prices for merchant goods from the Gazzes, and your own figures for farm size, harvest return, and rate of labor. You should label it as such, and not say it is based on the Dominion rules.
You should label it as such, and not say it is based on the Dominion rules.
Heavens no! Don't point that he's deviating! You're being mean! Sith might have to actually read the thread!
Just to note here as well:
I can find no reference to anything you have included in this in the Dominion rules other than the family size being 5 people.
It has nothing about farm size.
It has nothing about field size and number of fields in rotation.
It has nothing about farmhouses and other sundries.
It does have information on resources, but they are by Domain, and either all worked by all families under the Companion rules, or only one resource may be worked per family under the Cyclopedia Rules.
Further, the Dominion Rules clearly specify a significantly lower final income for a Domain of this size. For 2,250 families, Lady Magda should be receiving 22,500 gp in labor services, 2,250 gp in taxes, and (assuming two vegetable resources of wheat and timber, both worked by all the families) 4,500 gp in resource income, for a total of 29,250 gp per month, or 351,000 gp per year.
So what you have presented is not what the Dominion rules cover.
It is a major variant, using information on prices for merchant goods from the Gazzes, and your own figures for farm size, harvest return, and rate of labor. You should label it as such, and not say it is based on the Dominion rules.
I suggest that you go look in the rules again. The rules state that the population of a civilized (56 square miles of well settled lands) hex is 500 families - 5,000 families. If you divide a cleared land hex (35,840 acres) by that range you get 71 acres (500 families per hex) - 8 acres(5,000 families per hex).
And where ignorace exists I appy the real world Using those rates of agricultural production and the price estimates of eldersphinx as to what a farmer gets for it. Which offers up a real comparison of what the Dominion rules mean.
I also refuse to accept the need to confine the rural population to 8 acres when they live in an estate that has spent 15 years changing. Considering the hundred years of Thyatian occupation, that happened previous to the Arrival of Stephan Karameikos III, this opportunity for change was well justified. As you will also notice, Specularum is a Guild Town on a Corner of the Estate of Marilenev now grown beyond its established population.
What that Rent source for Marilenev tells us about the Marilenev is that they are intelligent money hungry tyrannts who look for new ideas to build wealth. One of those wealth building concepts is that if you kick off half the population and make the farms bigger per person working them, you get more money.
As I stated with the Original post of Marilenev: It is the model of agrarian reform under the Lady Magda. Suddenly it can no longer just tolerate subsistence farming and merged small farms into large therefor being forced to kick off the poorer producers. The Estate has pursued reform to become a real source of income. As the years progress undoubtably it will be worth tens of millions in annual income as it dumps surplus food production for the big money items such as vinyards.
By Historical reference we have the previously mentioned region of Bordeaux which was about the same size as Marilenev and also made the transition from surplus food production as a food bowl of Paris to that of Wine production. So we know the concept of Agrarian reform happens.
Frankly I think that Measuring Estates based on their capacity to produce is the superior model compared to those not quite correct rules based on a lack of understanding as to why Medieval productivity was low.
So what I did here is take the largest farmsize as determined by the Dominion rules and applied real production to them with a reasonable efficiency loss. And what did I get? I got a number very close to the value as suggested by the rules.
Now If we were to do something foolish like suggest that a Hex has a fixed income no matter the produce or its difference in value to other produce, then we would be wrong.
What the Dominion rules represent is Ignorance of all the facts.
I suggest that you go look in the rules again. The rules state that the population of a civilized (56 square miles of well settled lands) hex is 500 families - 5,000 families. If you divide a cleared land hex (35,840 acres) by that range you get 71 acres (500 families per hex) - 8 acres(5,000 families per hex).
No, you get a population density of 1 family per 71 acres.
That doesn't mean each family own or works 71 acres.
And where ignorace exists I appy the real world Using those rates of agricultural production and the price estimates of eldersphinx as to what a farmer gets for it. Which offers up a real comparison of what the Dominion rules mean.
Except in the real world, people don't each own and work a plot of land based on the raw population density. If we take the population density of the US which is 30/sq km, it would mean everyone has an 8-1/4 acre farm, or 41-1/4 acres per 5 person family. I quite assure you that is wrong.
I also refuse to accept the need to confine the rural population to 8 acres when they live in an estate that has spent 15 years changing.
First, no one is confining anyone to 8 acres.
Second, clearing and developing several thousand acres of land takes considerably more than 15 years, no matter how much you might want to say it can be done in a month or two.
Considering the hundred years of Thyatian occupation, that happened previous to the Arrival of Stephan Karameikos III, this opportunity for change was well justified. As you will also notice, Specularum is a Guild Town on a Corner of the Estate of Marilenev now grown beyond its established population.
No, I don't notice that. Where does it say that Specularum has grown beyond anything?
What that Rent source for Marilenev tells us about the Marilenev is that they are intelligent money hungry tyrannts who look for new ideas to build wealth. One of those wealth building concepts is that if you kick off half the population and make the farms bigger per person working them, you get more money.
No, it doesn't. If you look at Gaz 1, you will see that Lady Magda doesn't have the funds to keep her own manor house in proper repair. So obviously she has some problems with acquiring wealth.
As I stated with the Original post of Marilenev: It is the model of agrarian reform under the Lady Magda. Suddenly it can no longer just tolerate subsistence farming and merged small farms into large therefor being forced to kick off the poorer producers. The Estate has pursued reform to become a real source of income. As the years progress undoubtably it will be worth tens of millions in annual income as it dumps surplus food production for the big money items such as vinyards.
Yes, I am aware that you stated that. In complete contradiction of all the established canon for the area. If you want to create a completely non-canon version of Karameikos and Marilenev, go right ahead. But you should note it as such, rather than claiming that anything in the rules supports it.
By Historical reference we have the previously mentioned region of Bordeaux which was about the same size as Marilenev and also made the transition from surplus food production as a food bowl of Paris to that of Wine production. So we know the concept of Agrarian reform happens.
And do you have a time scale for how long that took?
Frankly I think that Measuring Estates based on their capacity to produce is the superior model compared to those not quite correct rules based on a lack of understanding as to why Medieval productivity was low.
And frankly, I and several other people think you are absolutely wrong.
So what I did here is take the largest farmsize as determined by the Dominion rules and applied real production to them with a reasonable efficiency loss. And what did I get? I got a number very close to the value as suggested by the rules.
Once again, what you took was the population density as determined by the Dominions rules, and made an unfounded assumption that such translates absolutely into farm size.
As another example, Karameikos has a population of 350,000 in AC 1010, with an area of 46,750 square miles. Taking that as our Dominion size, it means every 5 person family should actually have a farm of 427.4 acres. Of course looking at a map of Karameikos would show us that way too much of that land would be mountains, but that is what happens when you confuse population density for farm size.
Now If we were to do something foolish like suggest that a Hex has a fixed income no matter the produce or its difference in value to other produce, then we would be wrong.
But we aren't. Using the Dominion rules for resources, we see that there are three categories of resources that produce 3 different levels of income for the families working them and the rulers of those lands.
What the Dominion rules represent is Ignorance of all the facts.
But what they don't represent is mistaking population density for farm size. That is your primary error.
No, you get a population density of 1 family per 71 acres.
That doesn't mean each family own or works 71 acres.
At the Smallest population! At the largest (before they become a "Suburb of 5 acre blocks") they are 1 family per 8 acres. Probably I should have my estate manager impaled for treason for allowing farm sizes to reduce below 71 acres.
Except in the real world, people don't each own and work a plot of land based on the raw population density. If we take the population density of the US which is 30/sq km, it would mean everyone has an 8-1/4 acre farm, or 41-1/4 acres per 5 person family. I quite assure you that is wrong.
But we are not talking about cities here or the other reasons people are not forced to produce their own food. Marilenev is an estate. Therefor all the land is cleared for farming whether that be crops or open pasture grazing. Management says farm or die! Therefor because 5% of the peasant population is available for serving the ruler we must at least assume that 95% of the population of a given hex are on farms as rented to them by the ruler of the estate.
First, no one is confining anyone to 8 acres.
Second, clearing and developing several thousand acres of land takes considerably more than 15 years, no matter how much you might want to say it can be done in a month or two.
We are not talking about a new estate here but a very old one. Reform of farm size is something that has happened in fifteen years with a distinct change of management style.
No, I don't notice that. Where does it say that Specularum has grown beyond anything?
.
Expert Book, Page 38 Specularum has grown since this initial article where it is described as a population of five thousand civilians, with 500 troops of the Duke in occupation of the city.
With the recent articles on the Evolution of the city it hit 50,000 people in AC986. By the Gazetteer date of AC1000 it is described as being in excess of this census value which occured 15 years previous.
No, it doesn't. If you look at Gaz 1, you will see that Lady Magda doesn't have the funds to keep her own manor house in proper repair. So obviously she has some problems with acquiring wealth.
No it just says the castle has been allowed to crumble into disrepair. So she has the money but doesnt care about the Castle.
Yes, I am aware that you stated that. In complete contradiction of all the established canon for the area. If you want to create a completely non-canon version of Karameikos and Marilenev, go right ahead. But you should note it as such, rather than claiming that anything in the rules supports it.
No, As i recall It was the Estate based on real world production to estimate. That is better than the existing rules with all their errors and limitations because you can now decide what your estate produces, whether it is just self sufficient or a big money earner. Sure there are some aspects that you can plunder from the original rules such as potential farm sizes, how much rent they are being charged for that farm, or what ever.
And do you have a time scale for how long that took?.
After they got the permission of the estate management to abandon surplus food production for wine, it was about 50 years of continuous conversion.
And frankly, I and several other people think you are absolutely wrong..
They can think i'm wrong but they still have to live in the real world...
Once again, what you took was the population density as determined by the Dominions rules, and made an unfounded assumption that such translates absolutely into farm size.
As another example, Karameikos has a population of 350,000 in AC 1010, with an area of 46,750 square miles. Taking that as our Dominion size, it means every 5 person family should actually have a farm of 427.4 acres. Of course looking at a map of Karameikos would show us that way too much of that land would be mountains, but that is what happens when you confuse population density for farm size..
Unfortunately there are about 44 cleared hexes in running to about 110,000 people (The pretty civilized areas), 50,000+ in capital, 20,000 Kelvin, 10,000 Threshold, Other communities 20,000...leaving about 150,000 scattered across the rest of the country even if they are in the 150 light forested hexes at 20 families each that is another 15,000 so 2 families per 56 square mile hex, swamps, mountains, scattered across hills & heavy woods. Somehow that borderland population is 135,000.
But we aren't. Using the Dominion rules for resources, we see that there are three categories of resources that produce 3 different levels of income for the families working them and the rulers of those lands.
And income estimates for resource are poor at best.
But what they don't represent is mistaking population density for farm size. That is your primary error.
No. On an estate you farm or Die! There is no "surplus non producing population" unless the estate is increasing farm size and kicking poor producers out.
No it just says the castle has been allowed to crumble into disrepair. So she has the money but doesnt care about the Castle.
Oh?
The castle is a Gothic monstrsoity of depressing walls and crumbling towers; though she cannot afford to keep up its repair, Lady Magda stubbornly continues to make her home there out of family tradition
Gaz 1, page 39, direct quote.
They can think i'm wrong but they still have to live in the real world...
Think you're wrong? No. We have, and continue to, prove you wrong with specific citations of real world fact as well as documented Mystara canon. Yes, we damn well do live in the real world, come out and join us sometime.
At the Smallest population! At the largest (before they become a "Suburb of 5 acre blocks") they are 1 family per 8 acres. Probably I should have my estate manager impaled for treason for allowing farm sizes to reduce below 71 acres.
Now you are confusing population density with job specialization.
As the population increases, you do not, by default, add more farms. You more commonly add more specialists. As more families move into that hex, moving from just above Wilderness to just below Civilized, you start getting people like millers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and all the dozens of other craft and professional specialties. These people occupy little more than their homes, and perhaps a garden, perhaps 4 acres at most, more likely only 1 or 2.
That is why your farm size does not have to drop just as your population increases.
But we are not talking about cities here or the other reasons people are not forced to produce their own food. Marilenev is an estate. Therefor all the land is cleared for farming whether that be crops or open pasture grazing.
Not at all. That is a completely outrageous assumption, with absolutely no basis.
Management says farm or die! Therefor because 5% of the peasant population is available for serving the ruler we must at least assume that 95% of the population of a given hex are on farms as rented to them by the ruler of the estate.
They only get to say that if the people on the estate are slaves. As you made a rather issue of pointing out that slavery and serfdom do not exist in Karameikos, this claim is not reasonable.
Likewise your assumption that anyone who is not a servant is automatically a farmer is also incorrect. A village requires some minimum number of specialists to function. It will not have them if everyone other than a manorial servant is a farmer.
We are not talking about a new estate here but a very old one. Reform of farm size is something that has happened in fifteen years with a distinct change of management style.
Land development still takes time. Even 15 years is barely enough to manage the massive changes you want.
No, As i recall It was the Estate based on real world production to estimate. That is better than the existing rules with all their errors and limitations because you can now decide what your estate produces, whether it is just self sufficient or a big money earner. Sure there are some aspects that you can plunder from the original rules such as potential farm sizes, how much rent they are being charged for that farm, or what ever.
No, it was an estate based on your claims of real world production values. And those claims have been disputed.
It is also an estate based on your errors of confusing population density with land use, and now also confusing it with labor specialty.
After they got the permission of the estate management to abandon surplus food production for wine, it was about 50 years of continuous conversion.
Do you have a source for this?
And 50 years is significantly more than the total conversion in 15 years that you are asserting. So once again your own figure contradicts your estate model.
Unfortunately there are about 44 cleared hexes in running to about 110,000 people (The pretty civilized areas), 50,000+ in capital, 20,000 Kelvin, 10,000 Threshold, Other communities 20,000...leaving about 150,000 scattered across the rest of the country even if they are in the 150 light forested hexes at 20 families each that is another 15,000 so 2 families per 56 square mile hex, swamps, mountains, scattered across hills & heavy woods. Somehow that borderland population is 135,000.
So? I am performing the exact same calculation you are, dividing the population by the area, and getting the land being used by each individual.
No. On an estate you farm or Die! There is no "surplus non producing population" unless the estate is increasing farm size and kicking poor producers out.
That is simply not true. A miller does not farm, he runs a mill.
-seed (46 acres x 60lbs seed grain=2,760lbs seed grain)
For wheat, most of the sources state that it was approximately 2 bushels of seed per acre, which is 100lbs
so seed should be 23 acres * 100lbs = 2300lbs. Wheat was sown in the Autumn and crops could be affected by frost, snow etc.
Barley was the spring sown crop, so 23 acres should be allocted to it, but it required 4 bushels of seed.
23 * 200 = 4600lbs.
This was after seed storage and subsequent wasteage, so to keep seed for the next crop, you would need between 10-50% more per acre.
For wheat, most of the sources state that it was approximately 2 bushels of seed per acre, which is 100lbs
so seed should be 23 acres * 100lbs = 2300lbs. Wheat was sown in the Autumn and crops could be affected by frost, snow etc.
Barley was the spring sown crop, so 23 acres should be allocted to it, but it required 4 bushels of seed.
23 * 200 = 4600lbs.
This was after seed storage and subsequent wasteage, so to keep seed for the next crop, you would need between 10-50% more per acre.
That actually interests me: I find it amazing that even though Oats and Barley are the superior grain to wheat from a nutritional package, they prefer wheat because it gives white breads...???
That actually interests me: I find it amazing that even though Oats and Barley are the superior grain to wheat from a nutritional package, they prefer wheat because it gives white breads...???
I find it amazing that you assume medieval peasant farmers actually know about things like nutritional values...
Also pretty amazing how every time someone debates you into a corner, you change the subject rather than reply to the facts. Easier than admitting error, eh?
That actually interests me: I find it amazing that even though Oats and Barley are the superior grain to wheat from a nutritional package, they prefer wheat because it gives white breads...???
No, they like it because it tastes better.
They grow barley, which tastes terrible as bread, to make beer, which they liked the taste of.
They grew oats as animal fodder because it also didn't taste as good.
There is nothing particularly amazing about people having different tastes in food.
That actually interests me: I find it amazing that even though Oats and Barley are the superior grain to wheat from a nutritional package, they prefer wheat because it gives white breads...???
Usually only the nobles and the abbeys had the fine grade white bread, the serfs made do with coarse flour, which made more bread per lb and if a poor wheat harvest, then barley bread was the fall back position or mixed in with the wheat flour.
The Limits are there because everyone else is going to produce less.
As you pointed out, there are factors that reduce from those limits of productivity. I include that in such estates as Marilenev which I decided was 63% efficient because it is restructuring the estate to meet the new way of thinking, compared to the Best estates in medieval England which were getting 83% of the Limits I described.
While the others may want 5-10% efficiency which is only justifiable because of the ice age hitting northern Europe at the time, I cannot realy go along with it in a game where that isnt happening.
As you ask where do they get the extra labour to chop all that fire wood? From the City of Specularum which prior to the Arrival of Karameikos was a guild town on the Marilenev Estate.
Marilenev is described for Game Purposes as Southern France. In truth the Estate Should be pulling in 27 million in wine exports rather than wasting its time on fire wood and food exports.
Sure Yellowdingo, you can surplus labor from the "big city" but I personally wouldn't let UNSKILLED labor swinging a wood axe NEAR me
! Not to mention you haven't answered questions as to how a nearly supernatural amount of the land is first class black earth arable. Back to labor. Yes you can get surplus labor from the city, but it will be very inefficient labor. The pickers that work so well today are migrants who go from harvest to harvest and many have been doing it for generations. The quality difference is, in my experience, just plain vast.
Getting said labor to do such a dangerous activity as clearing virgin or even second growth forest? Better have a very dedicated cleric on hnd and good triage. Most woodcutters of the period worked with deadfall and smaller trees (quicker to dry and burn and thus get paid). Those who cut down virgin trees had experience and learned the craft for the same. Cutting a virgin tree safely is a complex skill that has so many factors that can go wrong. Not the least is having the tree fall on you. Sure you'll find a percentage of those who fled the farm to the city, but they FLED the farm: aka, the bulk of such don't like the work! Carrying cargo or doing some heavy lifting for a days pay has immediate gratificatiopn and doesn't leave you smelling like manure at the end of the day. Plus a large percentage of the population are shopkeepers, craftsmen ect. and don't need to pick crops or cut wood. That's what the woodcutters and farmers are for. :D
I've looked into the Classical Period and Early Medieval stats as well as 19th century stats (no Little Ice Age) and no estate I have found comes close to the sheer productivity your espousing. Sure the Bourdoux region produced millions of gallons, but it has a uniquely abundant amount of good soil, good long growing season, heavy population density and likely watered it's wine to boost amounts for sale (hey, some have thought this. The sheer amount claimed for the time rivals production today for a similar number of vinyards). Also, the crops (and Grapes) grown then did not have the resistance and productivity in yield seen today. One look in the records show a depressing number of failures and famines due to weather, bugs and diseases. Sure there's MAAAAAGIIIC
but mucking with the weather must take into account the real world too to stay consistant: rain there means no rain here. Bugs can do ALOT of damage before ever being noticed as can disease. Besides, who said a big decent leveled druid happens to be nearby and willing to work for (literaly) peanuts.Ont he same piece of land you're going to find good land and land that won't grow &*%#. Also folks, working more than 40 acres with a five person family (small for a farming family!) is a real &*%%-buster. Even then it tales some time to bring a crop in by hand, and one bad hailstorm or mouse swarm will take a huge chunk out of it. Men at the time were paid cash on the barrelhead, so to use surplus labor one has to have ready cash. No farmer has such until he's sold his crop. He likely owes alot really.
One last thing. Alot of the crops mentioned were unknown to Medieval Man. Corn? No way, same with tee, sisal and others. Lets figure out what should be there in the first place.