Demographics

[kgauck]

Oh yeah! This is a favorite topic of mine (Gary's and Kenneth's, too). I'd like to get into the population discussion more deeply, but I'll take that to another thread, which I probably won't start until next weekend.

The thread is here!

One thing it would be very nice to work out is what population densities are normal (baseline) for given terrain types. It would also be nice to have a normal maximum figure (the carrying capacity) of a province so that before a DM gets carried away, he pauses to consider where the food comes from. After all, if a province is importing food, someone else is exporting it.

Starting with the terrain types in the Rulebook, we have plains, hills, tundra, marsh, forest, forest hills, mountains, and high mountains. I've combined marsh, moor, and swamp, because the differences between them are not going to radically effect populations of PC type races.

Agriculture requires three things, sun, water, and flat land.

Plains would be provinces that are mostly flat, mostly grassy. If they are well watered they might be able to hold the largest populations. If they are very dry they could be empty. The best conditions for a 1000 sq mile province would be 120,000 to 135,000 people. If its too cold, too hot, or too dry, the population can get pretty low. The best baseline figure is probabaly just under 100,000 people for a normal plains province. I'd go as low as 50,000 for a Rjurik plains along the Hjarring River and lower as we move north.

Hills take away one of the three things agriculure requires. The normal human responce is to pasture animals on hills, because its easy and productive. Terracing is an option, but its labor intensive and the rewards are only seen in the distant future. Dwarves might expect to see terracing pay for itself in their lifetime, and regard it as investment. For humans it would be quite rare. A province with some hills shown on the map (say Nalhorske in Rjuvik) have 75% of a plains province, but half is perfectly resonable as well, if you like. A province that is all hills might have 10% of a plains province, but produce food for three times that number.

Tundra doesn't support agriculture, and hunting is pretty slim, so a population of several thousand quite reasonable, and the province could be empty as well.

Marsh A province like Jakkajoen in Jankaping that is all marsh will have several thousands. Under ideal conditions, a maximum of 10,000 is not out of bounds.

Forest On a smaller scale I divided forest in to total forest and mixed forest and farm. If you want to imagine a province that is all forested on the map, but still pretty well farmed, I'd suggest one third of a plains province. A province like Gundviir in Hogunmark is along the Hjarring river and would be worth 50,000 if all plains, but its at least 80% forested. As such I could estimate that the province produces 25,000 people worth of food, but as a level 4 province, I'm guessing its got 40,000 actual people in it, and the surplus 15K is almost certainly in Veikanger. So I'd imagine there are a lot of animals in the three provinces to the north, good fishing in the Hjarring, and a steady flow of animals into Veikanger. Djaalfund is harder to explain, so you can make recourse to the presence of gold or silver mines, as well as vast fishing fleets. I'd normally see 15,000 folks there, but as a 4 province, I'll say there are 25,000 in Aaldvika. The neighboring 0 level provinces may also pay taxes and purchase goods, tithe and the rest in Aaldvika and live free in their neighboring jarldoms. That allows you to spread the population around some, but leave the wealth in Djaalfund.

Forest Hills are a double wammy against agriculture, but still support a rich animal population which can be exploited by men. I'd treat the province like a hills province in terms of population, although we're talking about different animals and this can effect how markets work. Pigs are forest creatures, and like cows and goats, will walk to slaughter. Deer and elk are wild and need to be prepared (salted, smoked, &c) to bring to market. Of course the forest offers other virtues that might counter act the higher cost of some meats, such as abundant firewood and building material.

Mountains limit agriculture to a few valleys and also limit animal production. Many of the Rjurik provinces with mountains seem to be peppered with mountain areas, but could be quite arable in other parts of the province. If one imagines Skapa Hjarring to be 80% arrable, then 80-90% of plains seems quite reasonable. Add a large fishing fleet and this important city could easily have 20,000 people plus the 40,000 in the rest of the province. Provinces full of mountains would have very little habitable land for men, and would have several thousand people at most. Dwarves are likely to predomainate if they choose to.

High Mountains are basically empty of humans, though dwarf populations could still be hard at work. Mountains and high mountains are still restrictive to dwarves, but significantly less so. They are more likely to extend mountain valley agriculture with terraces, to raise larger herds of goats and sheep at steeper inclines and higher altitudes, and to construct agricultural places inside the earth to augment agriculture with fungus farms and so on.

In general, and one's mileage may very considerably here, dwarves treat hills as plains (90,000 in Bran's Retreat?), mountains as half as good as plains (50,000 in Rivenrock), and high mountains as 1/3 as good as plains.

Its always easy to go lower by stating that rainfall is scarce, the soil is poor, or the climate too hot or too cold. If a plains province is roughly 100,000, and up to a third higher under special ideal conditions, and then as low as you like if you want empty places. The adjust from there.

[Rowan]

Are you figuring on preserving a modifier for River and Seacoast? Those add significantly to potential productivity, I would say even more significantly than the original rules suggest, since nearly all reasonably-sized cities for most of history have been positioned on them.

Also, I recognize the simplicity of 1000sqmi provinces; that's helpful, but would you be modifying up to the 2500sqmi province sizes for the 50-mile-across provinces suggested by many here to account for a sufficiently-sized Cerilia?

You also noted Carrying Capacity. This is a very moldable concept for humans, considering different levels of sophistication that exist even within time periods (like iron age technology). Rule Province, then, would seem to allow exceeding normal limits by enhancing productivity due to the increased sophistication of the population (after all, what is all that government money spent on? ;) ).

It's a good baseline, though.

[kgauck]

I would not keep a modifer for rivers and coasts for every province, but assign the total bonus to cities that are on the map. From Stormpoint in Taeghas to Newelton in Talinie there are four cities on the map. I think those cities should get the benefit of the coast, rather than spreading it evenly to every coastal province.

I would assume that larger provinces have more waste land that is not arable, and smaller provinces have less. Smaller provinces can also be richer in other ways that nevertheless allow the populations to be the same size as larger provinces.

Different levels of technology had surprisingly little effect on carrying capacity. Most places have the same population during the Roman era as they do during the Rennaisance, and most points in between. Egypt supports four millions, France 20 millions, Italy 30 millions, and so on. The Vos (with their dark ages technology) can support basically the same as the Anuireans with their renaissance technology. Climate has a dramatically larger effect than technology (until well after the renaissance).

Return on investments of capital (digging a canal, irrigation, terracing) should only show noticable returns on investment well into the future (25-50 years?).

[Rowan]

I beg to differ about the impact of technology on population growth. While we are talking about pre-Agricultural Revolution tech levels, it's still readily apparent from that example, and that of the Industrial Revolution, that tech affects carrying capacity.

New methods of crop rotation, better plows, better trade, safer travel, etc. in the 12th century onward allowed Europe to expand, both in population and power, sufficient to empower crusades and expand empires, leading to Western power and colonization. Population grew along with it.

http://migration.ucc.ie/population/4%20eupophistory.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography
(And several offline sources that I could point you to)

If the Vos are nomadic or semi-nomadic, they definitely can't support the same populations as a renaissance Anuire: agriculture alone allows for much greater populations. However, it may be true that the land the Vos live on they are already making maximum use of (that is, Anuireans may not be able to farm much of it or use it any better).

Still, population numbers aside, tech levels certainly affect prosperity, which is what province levels really reflect in game terms, since they most directly affect income and resources used to fund further development and military activities.

I take it from your approach (and your consideration of larger land areas) that you're focused more on establishing a baseline population of Cerilia, rather than a set population density level?

As for returns on investment of capital, I agree mostly, but in game terms that's just not fun. Few games are going to last 25 years of game time, much less 50.

[kgauck]

I agree that the industrial revolution substantially impacts agricultural performance. It has nothing to do with a game that has a technology hundred's of earth years from a similar technological change. Even supposing such a revolution was possible, which I am dubious of.
The sweet spot of technological analogies are dark ages, medieval, and renaissance. Getting to far out of this zone is either evidence of special pleading or poor reasoning.

While there was significant population growth from the dark ages to the high middle ages (when population topped off before the plague), it was distinctly not due to improved technology, but adding new land to cultivation. We know how much land was added to cultivation because we have records of the vast land grants issued by various crowns. By the middle of the 13th century however, the only lands remaining to add were very marginal lands, and they were exhausted by the early 14th. The populations of France during the iron age Gauls and the 17th century French would top off around 20 millions. This barrier was not broken until the 18th century, the end of which saw the population climb to 30 million. Likewise England had a similar population curve, flat at 5 millions until by 1800, she reached 10 millions. Since these iron age population barriers are firm until the 18th century, unless you imagine Anuire in wigs, frock coats, and tricorns, there is no difference in carrying capacity due to technology.


Still, population numbers aside, tech levels certainly affect prosperity, which is what province levels really reflect in game terms, since they most directly affect income and resources used to fund further development and military activities.
Sure, but that's not what I'm taking about. I am talking about population numbers.


I take it from your approach (and your consideration of larger land areas) that you're focused more on establishing a baseline population of Cerilia, rather than a set population density level?
I don't follow this query. Please restate.


As for returns on investment of capital, I agree mostly, but in game terms that's just not fun. Few games are going to last 25 years of game time, much less 50.
Its no fun if its fake. If I can't believe in it as a real world, I don't much care about it.

Now there are other ways, methods directly connected to the renaissance, that allow a domain to get richer and more powerful. I cannot see why I should consider ridiculous economics, when I can do just as well with sensible alternatives.

The reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I, and Isabella profoundly reform the state from a feudal, household administration, to a bureaucratic administration based upon new ideas and Roman law. The state becomes stronger and richer. Therefor, it makes much more sense to see the rule action as first setting up an administration (at low levels, say 1-4) and then reforming and improving administration as we move into higher levels. A state is always fighting to reform itself because its supporters learn to game the system (whether as outright corruption, or just organizing things to their benefit at the expense of the system), because the problems of the past are solved and new problems need to be addressed, because experience shows the way to still more improvements.

These changes can be performed within the reign of single PC ruler. The effects of technology or economic development are too slow to influence the power of a state in single ruler's life. Of course in the long term, economic and technological achievements are cumulative, while organizational reforms quickly become dated and need to be reformed again.

[Rowan]

"1050-1200 CE: Medieval Europe - The first agricultural revolution of Medieval Europe begins in 1050 CE with a shift to the northern lands for cultivation, a period of improved climate from 700 CE to 1200 CE in western Europe, and the widespread use and perfection of new farming devices, some previously discovered by the Carolingians and the Romans. Technological innovations include the use of the heavy plow, the three-field system of crop rotation, the use of mills for processing cloth, brewing beer, crushing pulp for paper manufacture and many other advantages that before were not available, and the widespread use of iron and horses. With an increase in agricultural advancements, Western towns and trade grow exponentially and Western Europe returns to a money economy."

From http://eawc.evansville.edu/chronology/mepage.htm, a good quick summary of what I was referring to. If you assume that these advancements have already been made, then sure, we can be on the same page. Except that I'd leave the Vos and perhaps the goblins out of this one, maybe even Rjurik.

"Even supposing such a revolution was possible, which I am dubious of."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology --> for a table of advancements. Note that I agreed that the Industrial Revolution was not within reach, but just an example of how tech can impact populations. However, why preclude Agricultural Revolution ideas from inventive societies otherwise trapped in the Renaissance for hundreds if not thousands of years?

IMO, there has always been a tech stasis problem in D&D, where cultures are expected to remain at about the same level of development for thousands of years. Sure, gunpowder, steam, and electricity don't work. But iron/steel plows, seed drills, privatization/enclosure, cottage industry, shuttles and looms, wind/water mills and wheels, clockwork, advanced animal husbandry/selective breeding, concentrated animal feedlots, 4-field crop rotation with legumes, hybridization, planting of more nutritious foods, etc. could. In fact, I'd expect people to continuously come up with some crafty mechanical and methodological solutions. I'm just saying here that tech need not be static, and that it can have at least as much impact as the assets you suggest.

As for game mechanics vs. economic/diplomatic/military simulations, I think the game needs to be much more complex if you're looking for a simulation. While certain administrative reforms could be made, I doubt that such things as ruling any type of holding would provide a full ROI in less than half a year. The Fields of Blood book by Eden Studios (which takes BR into finer detail, but becomes too cumbersome in the process, IMO) slows down those ROI's a little more realistically, and includes the impacts of province assets and basic administrative styles and so forth.

What I was referring to about "baseline populations" was that if you're just trying to say that okay, at this point in time, we have these tech levels, amounts of cultivation, and associated population levels within which to work for the MR 551+lifetime time period, then great. I'm arguing over nothing. However, when I talked about increasing to 2500sqmi provinces, we'd either have to assume populations 2.5 times higher than your original suggestion, or assume that population levels are the same and densities go down, reflected far less land under cultivation. If there is less land under cultivation, then simply increasing it should easily support higher population levels--but again, this would be over generations, excepting immigration.

[kgauck]

The fact that we can name advancements in technology doesn't mean that they have any noticable impact over the short term or the long term when comapred to climate.

Citing population growth after a population collapse doesn't indicate the potency of technology, only that the the catastrophy which caused the collapse ended.

Many of the innovations you mention don't actually increase the food yield, they stabilize it. In fact some of them reduce the food yield by adopting practices, crops, or organization that yield less than prior models. Their benefits are found in sustainability, stability of yields, or equity between peasants.

Take all the inventions on your list and I'll withhold 15% of rainfall and drop the average tempreture 5 degrees and we'll see if populations rise or fall.


IMO, there has always been a tech stasis problem in D&D, where cultures are expected to remain at about the same level of development for thousands of years.
Medieval people were unaware of change over time. Their model of reality involved a wheel of fortune in which persons, countries, towns would rise and fall, rise and fall, as if pegged to a spinning wheel. Why impose an modern idea of progress (a product of the Enlightenement) on a mideval setting?


I think the game needs to be much more complex if you're looking for a simulation.Perhaps that's how you would go about constrcuting a simulation. I don't need to make the game more complex to simulate reality. In the original wargames run by the Prussian war collage, an experienced officer would examine the moves a junior officer would make in the sand pit with his "minatures" and describe what would take place. He didn't consult a rule book, tables, or dice. He used his battle experience to adjudicate the situation. Implementing a reform is basically just a craft check. Keep rolling an administrative check every month until (in theory) some very large number is reached. I say "in theory" because game events can dramatically effect whether a rulers projects go forward or are thwarted. Ultimatly, its the judgement of the referee. It doesn't take time or consultation. When I'm satisfied improvements are possible, I allow a rule action. Until then, keep making administration checks to give me a sense if your efforts are unsuccessful, proceeding slowly, or proceeding quickly.


What I was referring to about "baseline populations" was that if you're just trying to say that okay, at this point in time, we have these tech levels, amounts of cultivation, and associated population levels within which to work for the MR 551+lifetime time period, then great. I'm arguing over nothing.
What else would we do? This is not the forum where I'm going to reveal my holistic theory of total human development.


When I talked about increasing to 2500sqmi provinces, we'd either have to assume populations 2.5 times higher than your original suggestion, or assume that population levels are the same and densities go down, reflected far less land under cultivation.
I hate rules, even just a simple generalization to answer this question is outside of how I proceed. The answer is it depends. I could do either, neither, both. I'm creating a place where stuff happens and the players get to interact with it. If I think in a given circumstance I want a barren province, I do that. If I want a precious resource to fight over, I'll go that way. Rules exist so that people don't have to think, just refer to the rule. Rules make people stupid. Rather, do what makes sense in the context of the situation. My default preference is for changing population densities and keeping the total productive capacity of a province the same. When a lord gave land to a vassal he gave it to him based on what it produced, not how big it was. So there is a good rational for how this comes about.


If there is less land under cultivation, then simply increasing it should easily support higher population levels--but again, this would be over generations, excepting immigration. Except that I think Cerilia is full. Its not like there is perfectly good land over the next hill we just never got around to using before. We don't farm there because the soil is sandy and rocky, the water table is really deep, and the thistles that grow there are impossible to eradicate. Every additional acre should be more marginal than the worst acre being cultivated now. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise. Then have at it.

[Rowan]

"Many of the innovations you mention don't actually increase the food yield, they stabilize it."
Any innovation that increases manpower effectively increases yield, such as the use of draft horses over oxen, good plows, seed drills, wind and water mills, etc. Further, stability for a long lived species like humans is the very thing that allows for population growth. The population can only get as large as the drought/famine years can sustain. Irrigation and use of legumes and rotation methods are ways of reducing the impact of bad multi-year cycles.

That said, I haven't argued that climate doesn't make an impact. It certainly does. As for population rebounds, human biotic potential indicates that the population could rebound from significant lows in the span of a few generations, easily within 1-200 years. Yet we see longer sustained diminishments because of all of the factors of production changing: climate, land under cultivation, loss of Roman Empire technology until rediscovery, war, instability, disease, lack of trade.

"Why impose an modern idea of progress (a product of the Enlightenement) on a mideval setting?"
You don't have to impose an idea upon the people to observe as an outsider that progress tends to happen, despite numerous setbacks--the table I gave was just giving evidence of that. That said, what prevents Enlightenment thought from entering the game? Again, we need not force our conceptions of our game worlds into static 10,000 year stretches of the 14th century. I won't argue if you want to, I just don't like to because thinking about how life might change in fantasy worlds is interesting to me.

"What else would we do?"
It's two approaches. One is to total up province levels and index to population numbers (the default implication of the rules). Another is to set Cerilia at 50 million people (or whatever) and say this is the max settled capacity regardless of what we say the land size is (what you seem to be indicating). Another is to decide on the land size, then let the populations be determined by currently-settled densities, then modified by cultural advancement, climate, etc (more complex, but what I was talking about). In other words, if we want to make provinces average 50 miles across rather than 30, I wouldn't keep the population levels the same just by saying that all that extra land us unusable.

"Rules make people stupid."
Then why have them at all? Because they help multiple people agree on and understand how things will be run, so they can understand how the GM will interpret things and they can have some amount of predictability. I've devised many rules systems on my own and I like the exercise; it helps to make a game run in a sensible fashion. I've also played games without any guiding rulesets whatsoever, with players that trusted my judgment and storytelling. But now I find that I like having rules for the next major reason they exist: plug-and-playability. They can save tons of time. That's no remark on the intelligence of a person, just the fact that they can't or dont' want to spend the time or energy crafting rules or working without them.

[kgauck]

Innovations and yield
I have been arguing since the beginning that peak populations have not increased substantially prior to the 18th century, so I reject arguments that rely on population increases as evidence of anything, because I believe they have different causes.

Of the things that will influence agricultural production, and hence population totals, technology is by far the weakest. Climate and culture will have very large impacts, while technology has a slow, steady, cumulative impact. This is why I discount technology as a factor. Given that soils are not canon, rainfall, temperature (other than hot, warm, cold), the practices in use, the crops preferred, why try and fix the influence of technology, when its going to be much smaller than these other factors? If we knew how much a given province met these other conditions, it might make sense to consider technology. But since we're making things up from the roughest evidence, worrying about whether the people in question have invented the button or not, seems to be bad analysis.


You don't have to impose an idea upon the people to observe as an outsider that progress tends to happen, despite numerous setback.
A fantasy campaign is an imagined world. Whether the world is like ours or magically different is always an issue. My preference is to start with a medieval world view as the medieval's had it themselves, and then modify that to the setting as presented. I don't want to start with a modern view of the middle ages and then modify. I think that medieval views on magic, dragons, religion, government are all goofy. If I used my own views of what is real, there would be no magic, no religion, no monsters, and government would be so primitive that you could chuck the whole realm system and make kings into passive observers of their realms. This doesn't sound like BR because the assumptions that I have as a modern person and the assumptions of the setting are too different. So, in the spirit of role play, I put aside my own view of the world, and adopt world views from the past. Dragons are real, magic exists, gods are real, government is conducted with divine sanction and kings are (or can be) heroic figures who achieve great things and become legendary.


That said, what prevents Enlightenment thought from entering the game? If I were to create a BR based on Montesquieu, Diderot, and Voltaire, a thoroughly Enlightened Birthright, the best governments would ditch regents for republics of nobles and the upper middle class, drawing heavily on the most learned for advise. Religion would be an exploitive fraud perpetrated on the people, and temple holdings collection of RP and GB would come directly out of the collections of the state, and if they were contested to 0, the state would get all that RP and GB. Écrasez l’infâme! Law holdings would be very powerful and guided by the most enlightened officials acting in selfless devotion to the state. Under good enlightened benevolence everyone would prosper and live happily ever after. Realms that clung to notions of divine kingship would with and their people would clamor for illumination and reform.

And people would dress fabulously!

Again, this doesn't sound much like the Birthright setting. So it would appear these ideas as not well suited for the game. Renaissance and medieval ideas do seem well suited to the game.


Again, we need not force our conceptions of our game worlds into static 10,000 year stretches of the 14th century. I won't argue if you want to, I just don't like to because thinking about how life might change in fantasy worlds is interesting to me.

I believe Diesmaar was a Homeric style bronze age battle, and that progress does occur. But because the medieval world was unaware of progress, I prefer progress to be so creepingly slow that no one notices it. Just as progress actually was until the modern era (and even then early periods mistook their progress for simply more rediscovery).


It's two approaches. One is to total up province levels and index to population numbers (the default implication of the rules). Another is to set Cerilia at 50 million people (or whatever) and say this is the max settled capacity regardless of what we say the land size is (what you seem to be indicating). Another is to decide on the land size, then let the populations be determined by currently-settled densities, then modified by cultural advancement, climate, etc (more complex, but what I was talking about).
Ryan has already calculated the size of Cerilia and indeed the planet, based on the variation of climate from north to south and from the scale information presented on the map. So land size has been established to my satisfaction for years now. We have also assumed that after 2000 years of settlement, populations have exploited the best lands, then the marginal lands, and that even if we're below maximum sustainable population levels at the moment, they have been reached and can be determined.


If we want to make provinces average 50 miles across rather than 30, I wouldn't keep the population levels the same just by saying that all that extra land us unusable.
Why? It means, among other things, that you have to seperatly calculate the area of a lot of provinces and you can't just look at a province and make sense of it? That seems unnecessarily complex. Given that we have no knowledge of soil types, rainfall, &c, why not use this to make roughly even productive space? The lord enfiefing his vassals took these things into account.


"Rules make people stupid." Then why have them at all?
We shouldn't.


Because they help multiple people agree on and understand how things will be run, so they can understand how the GM will interpret things and they can have some amount of predictability.
You can do this in-character just as effectively, with all the benefits of resolving issues in character bring. I'd rather not have players making predictions about game mechanics, but rather make predictions in-character as people naturally would about unknown results to anticipated projects.


I've devised many rules systems on my own and I like the exercise; it helps to make a game run in a sensible fashion.
Thinking through the game, reflecting on actions and what they are and how they work, and even making mechanics are good and desirable. But if the thing you decided in one case is followed even when it no longer makes sense because its "the rules" you are hardly running the game in a sensible fashion. The game has to make sense first. Writing things down and developing mechanics should serve that function first, and should be abandoned as soon as they don't make sense.


I've also played games without any guiding rulesets whatsoever, with players that trusted my judgment and storytelling. But now I find that I like having rules for the next major reason they exist: plug-and-playability. They can save tons of time. That's no remark on the intelligence of a person, just the fact that they can't or dont' want to spend the time or energy crafting rules or working without them.
I'm talking about playing without the mechanics, I'm talking about whose in charge of the game. If the referee is in charge they do what is best for the game (as they see it). They use this mechanic or that mechanic, as seems best. If the rules are in charge the DM is expected to do what the book tells him to do and the players feel cheated or slighted if he doesn't follow the rules.

Rules as a perfect example of the garbage-in-garbage-out phenomenon. If the situation going in doesn't fit the expectations the rule was designed for, you get bad results. Plus rules get complicated when you attempt to model complex things. So you either over-simplify, or accept some junk results. Its easier to just use judgment first, and let the mechanics be a tool for the referee, not rules for him to follow.

[Rowan]

Any of these arguments about factors influencing population don't really matter on the time scale that most games are played, I'd agree, except for the difference in cultural patterns and technology indicating different land usage across the races.

What was the province size Ryan determined? About 30 miles or 50 miles across? I've heard a lot of 50 talk here, which is why I brought up the question about your population densities as discussed in the original post; yours were based on about 30, and I assume reflect some average idea of the land available for cultivation and habitation. If provinces are larger, you wouldn't have to calculate anything for individual provinces, you'd just adjust your baseline number by a suitable multiplier, like 2.5.

As for the rest of it, we're talking about different play styles, I think. I like using rules because this is a leisure activity for which I have limited time; I don't want to have reinvent rules systems or worry about consistency if I'm not using rules, and I'm more than willing to be lazy and let the rules do some work for me, accepting a simplified game to focus on the things I find fun. Then I just toss in the extra flavor in the game and more historical or new ideas as I have time and inclination.

So I'd be more likely to add in pieces of the occasional philosophy to BR than to adopt something wholesale and apply it universally as your satirical example going from nihilism of your modern day worldview to a utopian view of the Enlightenment presented. For instance, one implication of bloodlines is that the idea of Divine Right could not so easily be dismissed as in the Enlightenment.

I agree that rules should serve the story, but as a player I've been jerked around enough by by GMs who have little skill or consistency, questionable judgment, and anti-player stories that I prefer the rules to be a mediator between player and GM. As GM, I remember that player experience and leave them in place for that purpose (though I'm generally very favorable towards player interests anyway), choosing to make exceptions to the rules when needed rather than turning to rules only when I need help figuring out how to resolve something. It's the safeguard against possibly GM-tyranny that I give my players.

[Retillin]

Sorry to butt in here, but it seems to be a Story Telling game (kgauck) vs a board game (Rowan) debate. Neither is right or wrong on most of what you are talking about.

The only thing I really feel I need to add is the fact that tech does play a large part in the ability of populations to feed themselves with less land. Canals and irrigation alone help so hugely that it's mind blowing. Strong and solid roads speed up the delivery of food to market so less of it goes bad. ect.. ect...

So IMO I would not put a cap on the population, remember that just because you can grow more food doesnt mean that the next war will not wipe out the people that food could go to feed.

[ConjurerDragon]

kgauck schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=4113
> kgauck wrote:
> The fact that we can name advancements in technology doesn`t mean that they have any noticable impact over the short term or the long term when comapred to climate. ...
>
But he weren?t comparing technology to climate but only mentioning that
technology also has an impact?
> ...
> Many of the innovations you mention don`t actually increase the food yield, they stabilize it. In fact some of them reduce the food yield by adopting practices, crops, or organization that yield less than prior models. Their benefits are found in sustainability, stability of yields, or equity between peasants.
>
> Take all the inventions on your list and I`ll withhold 15% of rainfall and drop the average tempreture 5 degrees and we`ll see if populations rise or fall. ...
>
Average 5 degrees? Would that not already count as an ice age if average
5 degrees lower? Seems like an unbalanced comparison to me. Sure an
iceage has more influence on population than technology inventions. That
does not mean that technological advances have no impact on population.

Considering that as a player I normally are unable to influence the
weather, technological advances that can be used during the lifetime of
my character and are changes that a character could influence are much
more interesting.

> ...
> Medieval people were unaware of change over time. Their model of reality involved a wheel of fortune in which persons, countries, towns would rise and fall, rise and fall, as if pegged to a spinning wheel. Why impose an modern idea of progress (a product of the Enlightenement) on a mideval setting? ...
>
Not all of Aebrynnis is medieval and even those areas that are need not
to stay so during the course of a game.

[Rowan]

What does "schrieb" mean?

[RaspK_FOG]

"Wrote" in German.

[kgauck]

But he [wasn't] comparing technology to climate but only mentioning that technology also has an impact?

A negligible impact.


Average 5 degrees? Would that not already count as an ice age if average 5 degrees lower? Seems like an unbalanced comparison to me. Sure an iceage has more influence on population than technology inventions. That does not mean that technological advances have no impact on population.
What the average daily temperature in Khourane? I think its reasonable to suppose that we'd get a 5 degree variance if we just opened the question up and collected answers (in a format where you could not see other's answers before you answered). This is huge. The difference between a 12th century plow and a 15th century plow would not be identifiably different to most viewers and would have a very small (if any) impact on yield.


Considering that as a player I normally are unable to influence the weather, technological advances that can be used during the lifetime of my character and are changes that a character could influence are much more interesting.
Changes in the long term are negligible, changes in the span of a game are infinitely small. That's not interesting. Changes in social organization can be pretty dramatic, as I have argued, and should be used in place of technology for people looking to simulate dramatic changes.

Second, we have a sun goddess, a nature god, a water goddess, a storm god, a winter goddess, a sky god, and they all have weather spells, and you're telling me that PC's can't influence the weather? I would have figured that's one of the big jobs the temples do. Its how I would have described effects like the Realm Spell Bless Land.


Not all of Aebrynnis is medieval and even those areas that are need not to stay so during the course of a game.
I'm curious to find out what mentalities you propose they have instead.

[Rowan]

A wood plow pulled by oxen only allows cultivation of certain soils and is more labor intensive. A stout iron plow pulled by draft horses can allow fewer people to cultivate larger portions of land and bring new land, previously un-plowable or previously exhausted down to harder or less fertile soils, under cultivation. That doesn't increase the yield per acre by much (like four field rotation with legumes does), but it increases the yield per person and the number of acres farmed per person. Increasing yield per person allows overall productivity to increase, allowing more people to become tradesmen and so forth, which is reflected in Province Levels. Increasing the land under cultivation, however, both increases prosperity and allows an increase in population. All of this can happen easily inside a single generation, more rapidly than changes in climate occur (except by magic). These are the reasons that I don't like to limit Rule Province actions much. Total populations, though, increasing at less than 10% and likely less than 5% a year even under these conditions, don't really increase fast enough to matter during the timespans of most games.

[kgauck]

A horse is not a technology, its part of the organization of the farm, which I have talked about as a better way to describe improvements than technology
You have overstated the wonders of horses over oxen, see this earlier post (http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?p=40619#post40619) from an discussion of demographics late last year.
A heavy plow is only an improvement in heavy, wet, clay soils. I haven't seen the soil map in the boxed set. So, I can only guess at how much of an issue this is. It may be quite marginal.
Heavy plows, well suited to heavy, wet, clays were in use by the Slavs in the 6th century. So, I would guess the Vos already have them. They were in widespread use througout Europe by the 9th century, or the end of the Dark Ages, so who precisely doesn't have them? The goblins?
An iron blade only serves to extend the working life of the plow, freeing up labor. On the other hand its more expensive, requiring an investment of labor. The rate of return on this investment can be aproximated by the rate of adoption of the iron blade, which was slow, so its a marginal investment, only really useful for a few farmers. Every investment that has a positive rate of return eventually pays for itself if we extend the time line out long enough, but the slow rate of adoption tells us its not a huge winner.
Given the trade presumed to take place already in the basic materials, it would seem that if a new invention was useful, it would diffuse rapidly to those who found it so. Sure a waterclock is made by the Khinasi, but if a Vos had a need for one, he has one for enough coin. So I doubt very much that technological labels assigned to the various cultures are hermetic boundries past which goods do not pass.
No one, anywhere, went from scratch plows pulled by oxen, to heavy plows, with iron shod, pulled by horses. Each of these represents a change found in different eras. They also reflect changes that only make sense under certain conditions. This is mostly a false dichotomy.
Take for example the shift from oxen to horses. It began in the high middle ages, and wasn't completed until about the time that the tractor was replacing the horse. American farmers in the 19th century debated whether oxen or horses were better.
So when you say that this transition can be made in one generation, I'm reminded of the many reforms that ended up being counter productive because the conditions were not suited to the reforms offered.
I doubt very much that your PC has a degree in agriculture from a midwestern land-grant school and knows in what ways that proper innovation should occur. Instead he's experimenting, guessing, making mistakes (and its the peasants who pay for your errors, look out for revolts) and bumbling along by trial and error until he gets it better. That's how innovation works.

[Dirk]

I would like to interject two points into this conversation. The first is that people are very innovative at any tech. level. An example is the Inca empire. Not sure what tech level they would fall into but it would most likely be bronze age. These people did two things with the technology they had. First the developed agricultural techniques which allowed them to create an empire, An empire which included one of the worlds largest mountains range. At the height of their Empire the were able to preserve potatoes, the staple of their diet for years by freeze drying them. The agricultural techniques of the Inca were lost when they were conquered by the Europeans. Another system which was lost when the Inca Empire was destroyed linked communities of related people which each lived in different terrain and provide each other materials which were not available near one of the villages. In this way goods would come from the coast, foothills and rain-forest would be available in each region. This would be an example of Trade routes, which would exist before traveling merchants. My point here is that Technology has a huge effect on population but even more primitive populations will have learned tricks which make their lives easier. Therefore I do not think that Tech level should have a major influence when applied to birthright.

Another factor which has not been brought up is magic. Let us just look at the effect of Divine magic, We can Ignore arcane power as it is rare enough not to be a major factor. First the survival rate of any wound or disease would be much better. Even the low level healing spells are enough to bring a level 1 character to perfect health. In a practical sense a lot more babies and mothers would survive birth leading to a much faster population growth. A lot less children would die from childhood illness. Men and women would live longer. The other cleric spells, such as create food and water or control weather could help prevent famine. I'm sure there are even more spells if applied would make a large difference. The down side of living in a fantasy world is that there are a lot of nasty monsters in the world which will make life difficult for people. These monsters tend to be devastating to villages or towns they are near but would not have effect of a province level unless they were truly powerful, like a Dragon. I think the over all effect would be that we would have faster growing and more densely populated regions with empty pockets where the dangerous monsters are.

A third factor which needs to be mentioned is that in the Birthright rule book second edition it is mentioned that the level of a province does not mean the total population of that province. It merely represents the number of people who are part of the political system. This means the people who pay taxes and provide resource to the lord of the realm. The rule book even gives the impression that most province do have people who are not part of the province level. After all this it seems to me that the province level should represent the property of the province not the population.

[Retillin]

Dirk has made many good points. Thankfully filling in the blanks that I never get around to. Tech at any tech level (ie, stone, bronze, iron, ect...) always increase productivity. A copper as chops trees faster than stone ect... The extra time that worker has is not spent sitting at home watching American Idol, hopefully.

I do get what you are saying Kgauck, nothing makes food from a place where that food can not grow. However, unless the area is un-farmable for everything it will always supply something. As for your idea of why tech did not spreed during the middle ages I have to disagree. It is not because people wondered if a heavy steel plow was better. It was more of a communication problem. If someone in the Ghoere invents a better way to farm it will spreed much quicker to Coeranys than something traveling from Italy to Germany. As a fantasy game where it was easy and quick for players to move from one point to another it is not fair to say that ideas will not move just as fast. So even tho there are a lot of little wars going on, there is still a frame on a "nation" or "empire" to a semi open ability to travel.

I think the main argument here is you like putting a lot of detail into your game and do not like the idea of a province in Vosgaard reanching level 10. You want the players to work hard to do that. I agree, however for the casual player that much work bogs down the game and takes a large amount of joy out of it.

How can we explain the Imperial Capital being a level 10 when the next highest human cities are a 7 with large tracks of land around them? And the next highest overall, an 8, is a goblin realm where we tend to treat them as having much lower level of tech?

[kgauck]

I think Dirk has made some excellent points. The Incas had a stone age culture (and were experimenting with copper tools, but no bronze, and were working gold), but through the way they organized their society, they did build a functioning empire. Unfortunatly for them, they had no serious contact with other civilizations to exchange goods, ideas, or processes. As such they advanced very slowly compared to, say, the Spanish, whose European culture had direct and indirect contact with the Arabs, Indian, Chinese, and so on.

[kgauck]

As for your idea of why tech did not spreed during the middle ages I have to disagree. It is not because people wondered if a heavy steel plow was better. It was more of a communication problem. If someone in the Ghoere invents a better way to farm it will spreed much quicker to Coeranys than something traveling from Italy to Germany. As a fantasy game where it was easy and quick for players to move from one point to another it is not fair to say that ideas will not move just as fast.

This is incorrect. Ideas moved very fast across the Alps, and throughout the whole Latin Christian area. We know (because of manorial records) that one manor would use one method, and another manor right next door a different method. Peasants and their lords could see both systems side by side, and still would not change their patterns. Sometimes there were different conditions, and it was rational to have different practices. Sometimes the various actors had no idea if conditions were different and feared the costs of trial and error. If it works, why fix it? Sometimes they were once burned and now they were twice shy. Sometimes they were conservative, and peasants are notoriously conservative.

Even in the modern age, we find that people don't change all at once because someone is doing it better. A series of studies in the early 20th century showed that some people were eager adopters (they tended to be the wealthiest and most able to suffer the hazards of bad choices), a second group were early adopters, quick to follow what the first group did, if it seemed to work. They were successful and leaders in the community. They could afford to make changes. The next group (in the study a third of all group members) were the early majority. They closely followed the opinion leaders. The next group, the late majority (also a third in the study) were sceptical and cautious and tended only to adopt when it was economically neccesary, not when it was simply advantageous. Finally there were the laggards, who were suspicous of innovation, had limited resources to take risks, and would only bet on a sure thing. They wanted to make sure all the kinks were worked out. Switching to a new variety of seed in the 1920's could take over a decade in am Iowa community, going through each group.

Now scale things back to a society where everyone is near subsistance, and a mistake in planting, following some unproven innovation, could mean starvation. Even the innovators (the first group) are cautious and move slowly. The last group sometimes resists change by violence.


I do get what you are saying Kgauck, nothing makes food from a place where that food can not grow.
I don't know where you are getting this, but its not my point. My point is that of all the changes that can be made, to processes, organization, technology, or enviroment, technology is the weakest change of the group. If we don't have a fixed social order to work with, nearly all of a societies productive capacity will be determined by how a society organizes itself, and then a tiny amount will be based on technology. America and the Soviet Union had the same technology, their top scientists were equally good. One society organized themselves along free market capitalism, one organized itself as a command economy of a Marxist variety. Both saw increases in wealth, but one grew much, much faster than the other.

There are people in the world today who make one one-thousanth of what other people do (taking only averages for nations, say Switzerland and Mozambique) and its not because one of the people doesn't have technology. They can buy it, they often get some given to them, aid workers come and being some and teach people how to use it. But if their society is poorly organized (say, lacks a rule of law, indepenent courts, contracts, a stable currency, a banking system, a professional civil service) then it is poor and the other is rich.

We notice technological changes because we often look at a single culture and watch the way, say the English economy and society changes with the advent of the steam engine. Wow, marvelous technology changes the English. Why does Portugal lag behind? That's the more interesting question. Why can two societies be shown the same technology, can their brightest minds both understand it and be able to repeat it, and one prospers by utilizing it, and one turns it back? This is far more powerful than creating a new axle that is 10% more effectient (which is a huge effeciency gain, BTW).

[kgauck]

How can we explain the Imperial Capital being a level 10 when the next highest human cities are a 7 with large tracks of land around them? And the next highest overall, an 8, is a goblin realm where we tend to treat them as having much lower level of tech?
Development tends to be uneven, and the benefits of development are even more uneven. Five provinces grow at a 3% rate, five provinces grow at a 1% rate, and one city seems to spring up and represent the whole growth of the area. Seems to, but in fact is riding the wave of their growth.

It can sometimes make sense to raise all your 0 provinces to 1's and all your 1's to 2's and so on, but what happens in real life is that the 0's stay 0's and the level 6 province becomes a level 8.

Growth tends to be a % of growth from the starting base line. If Birthright were a computer game, and you could have complex math represent the growth, random events would happen that would give you temporary bonuses and penalties to income and growth rates in a province, and the best provinces would have started out bigger, and gotten more positive modifiers during the course of the game.

That's just to hard too reflect in a paper and pencil game, so we use the domain system instead.

[Dirk]

It can sometimes make sense to raise all your 0 provinces to 1's and all your 1's to 2's and so on, but what happens in real life is that the 0's stay 0's and the level 6 province becomes a level 8


This is a great point if you used America as an example. Look at how large our cities have grown yet how rural some of our country still is. I am from a small town in Maine that just surpassed its civil war population in 1998. Meanwhile the American population has increased many times. This however is not the case with every culture. The Romans and Greeks only let cities get to a certain size before sending extra population out to become colonist. Also in was only in the 20th century that countries began seeing over 50% populations living in cities. I think that in Brect where the focus is on trade, many people would flock to the cities. Anuire, which is still a feudal type system, would be in contrast to this. These people may not care or be able to ever leave the towns they were born in. I think the cultures in question would determine how an area's population grew.

[Rowan]

"Technology" is a very fluid term and can be used to speak of organizational advancements as well. Our argumentative lines are blurred, then, because much of what you call organizational I have been calling technological (adoption rates of hard, mechanical technology, changes in crop rotation, bringing new land under cultivation, etc.). So again I'll agree with you that organizational advancements are the source of rapid change. This is in part because it also changes the adoption rate of hard tech.

For example, you talk about the conservativeness of peasants while at the same time you say that tech is available to everyone. That just goes to show that availability of a technology does not equal adoption, not by a long shot. You state times when the plow was available, and mention trade with China, etc. Well, I've also referenced historical studies showing that the same tech you say was available was at least not adopted until the periods of medieval agricultural revolution around the 12th century, and contributed to the economic success and population recovery of that time period. I mentioned China because the seed drill was first invented and used there millennia ago; the English thought they had invented it in the 18th century. So much for the assumption of broad technological availability and adoption and the importance of the rapid spread of ideas.


"America and the Soviet Union had the same technology, their top scientists were equally good. One society organized themselves along free market capitalism, one organized itself as a command economy of a Marxist variety. Both saw increases in wealth, but one grew much, much faster than the other."

And so did its pace of innovation and adoption of those innovations, in part because of the disparity in overall population educational infrastructure and individual freedom and wealth/available capital.


"There are people in the world today who make one one-thousanth of what other people do (taking only averages for nations, say Switzerland and Mozambique) and its not because one of the people doesn't have technology. They can buy it, they often get some given to them, aid workers come and being some and teach people how to use it. But if their society is poorly organized (say, lacks a rule of law, indepenent courts, contracts, a stable currency, a banking system, a professional civil service) then it is poor and the other is rich. "

Organizational infrastructure is a type of innovation, adopted culturally and supported by the availability of capital. "Having" technology and creating it or using it widely are very different things. Sure, some people in Afghanistan have tractors, but most never will in their lifetimes. Even tractor factories will be slow starting there, and until they have something significant to export in trade for them (hopefully something other than opium), they won't be buying many, either (a condition similar, perhaps, to the Rjurik and Vos in comparison with other human tribes).



"Heavy plows, well suited to heavy, wet, clays were in use by the Slavs in the 6th century. So, I would guess the Vos already have them. They were in widespread use througout Europe by the 9th century, or the end of the Dark Ages, so who precisely doesn't have them? The goblins?"

At least three centuries of lag between the Slavs and widespread use illustrates my point. There are many technologies that will be widespread in some culture but not so in another, as suggested by the different tech levels attributed to the different cultures; why would all cultures, then, have the same farming techniques, but still said to be in different tech periods (High Renaissance vs. Dark Age, etc.)?


"An iron blade only serves to extend the working life of the plow, freeing up labor. On the other hand its more expensive, requiring an investment of labor. The rate of return on this investment can be aproximated by the rate of adoption of the iron blade, which was slow, so its a marginal investment, only really useful for a few farmers. Every investment that has a positive rate of return eventually pays for itself if we extend the time line out long enough, but the slow rate of adoption tells us its not a huge winner."

I disagree. The rate of adoption could have very little to do with the actual success and value of the technology. As you yourself show later in this thread, cultural and personal attitudes (the conservativeness of lords and peasants) heavily influences adoption, despite the value of it. So does the simple reality of communication back then, almost unimaginably slow and unreliable for all but a few scholarly and legal circles and topics. At least as important back then as it is today, though, is the availability of capital. Lack of competition and modern production methods may well keep the cost of new farm implements so unattainably high that it would take the life savings of several generations of peasants to purchase them. It took hundreds, if not thousands, of peasants to support a single knight's accoutrement on the battlefield during certain periods of history, after all. A peasant may want a heavy iron plow, may even theoretically recover the cost of it in a single year by producing a significant saleable surplus for the first time in his life, but if he can't scrape together the coin to buy one, he won't be adopting it any time soon.


"Given the trade presumed to take place already in the basic materials, it would seem that if a new invention was useful, it would diffuse rapidly to those who found it so. Sure a waterclock is made by the Khinasi, but if a Vos had a need for one, he has one for enough coin. So I doubt very much that technological labels assigned to the various cultures are hermetic boundries past which goods do not pass."

Answered in part above with the speed (or lack thereof) of communication and adoption. I also question, however, your presumption of trade taking place in basic materials. Trade with the Chinese was known for exotic items for the wealthy; months or years long, dangerous, low-volume, and expensive trade expeditions were not undertaken to try to make a profit buying a 10 coin plow in one place to try to sell it in another where few peasants can even scrape up enough for local 8 coin plows, much less cover the extensive markup required to cover the expedition costs and profit. (hypothetical examples of course)


"No one, anywhere, went from scratch plows pulled by oxen, to heavy plows, with iron shod, pulled by horses. Each of these represents a change found in different eras. They also reflect changes that only make sense under certain conditions."

As I've agreed already, tech innovations tend to have been slow in creation and slow in adoption; only minor improvements could be made during a game's time period, but adoption (your "organization advancement," I suppose) can be more easily improved. And, since I believe hard tech widely adopted can make more of an impact than you do, I think achieving that adoption is one of the many factors that goes into the development of realms during a BR game.

I have also stated that technological innovation and even any potential source of population growth is so negligible in the time periods our games are played as to be unimportant. Establish a baseline and go from there, using province level just to reflect prosperity.

If you want to continue the academic argument about technology and population somehow, that's great. Unless I'm missing something, though, we've long been in agreement about game effects, differing perhaps only a little in how we would describe domain expansion in story terms.

[RaspK_FOG]

Note that a lot more things should be taken into account when you mention adoption of a technology, and I don't just mean adding an extra group where ancient peasants simply refuse to accept new technological improvements...

In villages around the world, you can see that people adopt technology in a mistaken manner; for example, a canister of parasiticide bears excruciating details as to how it's meant to be used, and most farmers in several countries don't give a damn about the minutae of this, which just happen to be the most important things they have to know (i.e. not emptying the whole thing in the mobile sprinkler tank, but putting the indicated dosage instead).

It may seem odd to make such bold accusations, but understand that we are talking about the same people who, for no religious reason what so ever, continue to exhibit such practices as female infanticide when their culture deems it's best for entirely economical reasons, and even insist on saying various obviously mistaken and unscientific "facts" (e.g. that weasels kill hens by drinking their blood instead of strangling them, and even that's what they do it for - vampiric weasels?).

[kgauck]

Let's look at the best case scenario: England and Wales. There was a much lower population here, and because of the higher proportion of sloping land more livestock potential. France had much more flat land, and well watered, and warmer. So their starting population is higher, but they miss out and the increases found in England.

Total agricultural production increased by a factor of 4.5 between 1300 and 1850 (well into the industrial age for some countries). 1.00275 to the power of 550 is 4.52865, so the overall growth rate is 0.275% for agriculture anually. This works out to about 5% for a 20 year period.

Yield per acre increased by a factor of 2.4 between 1300 and 1850 for grains. That's an annual rate of 0.174%, or 3.5% over a 20 year period.

Livestock yields increased by 4 fold. 0.2525%, also 5% for a 20 year period.

These figures don't estimate any increase in quality of the food.

"The rapid growth in livestock output is closely connected to an important change in agricultural land, namely a massive improvement in grassland quality. In 1300, most grass was poor quality common pasture. By 1800, 15 million acres had been enclosed and improved. Better grazing underpinned the rise in livestock production." (Allen 2005) (
www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/users/allen/unpublished/AllenE&W.pdf)

Later:
"Much of the rise in corn yields was an indirect and unanticipated consequence of the cultivation of the peas, beans, and clover that improved fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Much of the output of the new crops was fed to animals. Thus, to a significant degree, the improvements in arable farming were driven by the growth of the livestock sector."

But, as it turns out, why did the livestock sector grow? As I have pointed out many times, livestock is labor effecient, but ineffecient per acre (you can get more food from an acre of grain, but more meat per day of labor). One of the advantages of meat, is that it will walk to slaughter. Urban populations eat more meat than rural populations do, in part because meat is relatively cheaper than grain the farther you get from the farm, and because urbanites have more money and can afford more meat. So the growth of cities, especially London, Paris, Barcelona, and so many Italian and Flemish cities.

Also, as populations increased, wages fell throughout the country, except in the largest cities, where wages remained resiliant.

The production of calories per head of population was very low in 1300 (1791 calories
per person per day) and I'll skip the effects of the plague, since we have proposed no such event for Cerillia, and observe that by 1850, calorie production was at 1970 calories per person per day. Because of imports (from America, Argentina, Austrialia, and other food exporters) calorie consumption was at 2525 per day. I'm not sure how well that translates, without imports, so its quite possible that calorie consumption will remain more or less flat, and more food translates almost directly into more people.