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Thread: [Award Winner] Cartographical Economics and Demographics - A Guide to Realism

  1. #21

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    This all reminds me of Europa Universalis Nice work btw.

    I would have to disagree with you about the navy though. The human component is very important as well. You cannot have more ships then people required to man them. Think of Ancient Athens: They had a navy of over 200 Triremes with some 200 people required for each of them. That makes 40.000 people, which at that time is a huge number.

  2. #22

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    My guides tend to be aimed at country level economics and I guess would not adapt well to what was a city state. However you are correct that it would be more realistic to work out the naval workforce and some sort of replenishment rate. But my guides try and simplify complex processes to make them easier to calculate in a sensible logical manner.

    If you worked out the net population growth, you could work out the limit for men that could be lost in a year and I think that is a welcome addition but does complicate matters and does not actually help to much in terms of economics. The reason for this is as follows.

    The assumption at the start is that everything at the outset is paid for already, we are merely working out the maintenance of public goods within the realm/country, so we account for regular costs/depreciation/replacement costs averages etc.

    You discuss the manpower aspect as important, and yes I to think it is important as mentioned in my guide, it represents the most costly aspect of our navies, in supplies, wages etc.

    I believe you could work in some way of representing this within the equation as perhaps an average human replacement cost. This would be the cost to the state of replacing each man with a native or a mercenary. Demographically speaking you could also workout the the proportion of the population that is involved in naval duty much like I did in one of the episodes for the army if you want to work out the manpower size.

    Needless to say, I certainly support adding this in, but believe it makes things unecessarily complex for my purposes and the purposes of my guides. I do encourage people to use my work and improce it where possible.

    PS: Love Europa Universalis, it probably inspired in some way to making this guide.

    PSS: I dont contest that Athens navy was that big however I would contest that a city state keeping a navy that size in running order is rational. Another point I should make is that when you talk abouyt Athens they did not having a standing navy as such, certainly I would contest that Athens would of had 200 standing triemes all the time. I believe at the time that during periods of wars and potential invasions i.e. Salamis that merchant ships were rented, commandeered etc and enlisted into the navy for that period. The guide generally deals with a standing navy because it is very hard to depict a navies cost without it being a standing navy, because costs are dependant on whether there is war or invasions etc. This is an important difference between the example you gave and my guides.

    In the same way I would pressume that Athens did not have a standing naval manpower of 40,000 men, but that civilians were supplemented into navies as well as mercenaries and mercenary ships. I make this assertion because I believe the population of Athens would not of even been close to 40,000 at the time, considering Corinth in 4th Century BC population was about 15,000 people. Therefore I would suggest that Athens did not have a standing navy of 40,000 men but rather used this amount to fight specific battles.

    My guide is for standing navies and thus manpower is less important, but still an important factor.

    Anyway good post, got me thinking...

  3. #23

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    I think the navy was actually standing, but Athens was an exception for that time, because they were the leaders of the Delian League and as such, they were financed by the members and had a huge population boost (I think my professor said something of about 160.000 people). But in terms of normal Greek city-states the navy was not standing (they simply didn't have the manpower to keep the economy going and have a standing navy). The navy was mobilized only in times of need.

    I agree with you, that in terms of the economic view, it is unnecessary to include the manpower as a factor. But I would simply calculate the maximum support for ships as the minimum between your calculations and calculations including the manpower. Just a thought (May have even been a factor for middle ages trade nations - Novgorod, the Hanseatic League, Genoa, Pisa, Ragusa, some crusader-states in Greece etc... didn't have that much inhabitants).

    PS: You might want to reconsider some of the calculations for armies that were not equipped by the ruler. In pre-renaissance times, there actually were no standing armies, the people who were called to arms had to bring whatever they had: sword, pitchfork, hunting bow, sling, etc... Sometimes not even supplies were needed (as the armies were usually small) because they would pillage everything in their path.
    Last edited by Al. I. Cuza; 02-25-2010 at 06:57 PM.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by terminal View Post
    I would contest that Athens would of had 200 standing triemes all the time.
    AFAIK ships were stored in military shipyards when they weren't needed, so they definitely wouldn't be "standing", but were readily available when the need arose.

    Quote Originally Posted by terminal View Post
    I believe at the time that during periods of wars and potential invasions i.e. Salamis that merchant ships were rented, commandeered etc and enlisted into the navy for that period.
    They probably would be commandeered, but they would serve as supply and transport vessels. Merchant ships do not make efficient warships.

    Quote Originally Posted by terminal View Post
    In the same way I would pressume that Athens did not have a standing naval manpower of 40,000 men, but that civilians were supplemented into navies
    Ancient Greek military in general consisted of civilians. The Romans were pretty much the only ones* who created something approaching an actually professional military system; other peoples only employed professional soldiers as the elite units of their armies.

    (* Of the time and place)
    Last edited by Ghostman; 02-26-2010 at 05:52 AM.

  5. #25

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    I will certainly have a look at manpower aspect more closely and see if it can be implemented. As I said I think that my work can be improved upon as I merely try and use logical rules to define specifics about nations. Having said that, we know that in the real world throughout the ages that economies are not run in the same way and certainly there has been an economic evolution since medieval times, especially in matters such as trade (which I will be trying to model into the tutorial). Back in the middle ages mercantilist theory was dominant and therefore trade was not seen as a mutually beneficial process, there was a winner and a loser from trade. However since Adam Smith and David Ricardo we now know that trade is mutually beneficial process.

    Since there has been a lot of good discussion on this subject and certainly very good dialogue on navies I invite any people who want to help out to come and theorize with me of how we model all matters economic and demographic into our worlds.

    PS (Ghostman): This is something I do know, standing armies and navies were not prevalent generally until the age of exploration, however as mentioned the problems lies in deriving actual figures from non standing armies whose cost will fluctiiuate wildly. Standing armies provide a more stable platform for costing. However I am beginning to work out a good working out armies composition and costs more effectively and even beggining to work on a system to identify the winner of a battle if two armies were to fight a battle, based on force size, quality, luck factors (die rolls), terrain advantages etc.

    Anyway once I get a working map again I will continue to theorize again.

  6. #26

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    This will be fun I would be glad to help.

  7. #27

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    Thats cool, that you want to help, lets just flesh out some ideas in here or PM. Anyway I have been looking at how to incorporate demographics and manpower better into my current model and by playing Crusader Kings I think the way they model provinces with specific manpower and army sizes by province could be a way to go. It's still very basic in my mind but I will be seeing how can incorporate that into my guide because I think that would sort out some of the manpower descrepancies and also perhaps begin providing adding a little bit of political insight into what dukes and counts would be powerful etc. Anyway, yeah keep the ideas and dialogue flowing I'm glad to see people like to discuss the mechanics of realm buidling from maps.

  8. #28

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    The problem in CK and EU is, that the population in the provinces does not influence manpower. That is why in most games France becomes this invincible monster. I would like to create a system, where the actual population of a province influences the basic manpower, not only as applied modifiers.

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Al. I. Cuza View Post
    The problem in CK and EU is, that the population in the provinces does not influence manpower. That is why in most games France becomes this invincible monster. I would like to create a system, where the actual population of a province influences the basic manpower, not only as applied modifiers.
    I agree. One way you could do that is to have a variable (population growth), thus you can work out the manpower increase per year, based on the population pyramids of the percentage of the population that is eligible for military service. The idea I like about a CK system is that specific priovinces could provide different tyoes of troops based on the dominance of specific classes in that priovince. You could also permeate differences in recruitment rates in different provinces. This could also be incorporated into the economic picture as well, in that one could say in the provinces where the king has direct control he can perhaps recruit more troops, whereas in provinces which are less centralised and adminstered by a count or duke, recruitment and central government income is reduced because one would assume they would take a proportion of profits and has influence on reducing troops going to service for the realm. The count/duke would also likely maiintain his own small army for protection of the province, meaning the province has a smaller pool of manpower.

    If one also assumes that the King province is the capital and is a heavily populated, then other provinces will have smaller manpower bases to start with.

    You could even make it more complex by attributing different population growths to different provinces, i.e. provinces with smaller population will likely have smaller population increases whereas smaller provinces will have smaller population increases.

    We also need to try and model domestic and international trade which I'm sure will not be easy.

  10. #30

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    Trade will indeed be hardest.

    Ad population growth: Like in EU (and most grand strategy games) population growth should be calculated relatively, not in absolute numbers. There should be a base population growth modified by different aspects: religion, health, immigration, emigration, war, food supplies, etc... And there should be a base maximum for the population in provinces, again modified by production technology, land-fertility, maybe even magic, etc...

    The population groups seem like nice ideas, but they don't only influence army composition and manpower, but also income, productivity and miscellaneous economical behavior. And here we should think of general traits which can then be applied randomly (frog-like fire breathing bards who eat brains wouldn't necessarily fit with the CK-specific groups )

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