Ch. 5 Asset maintenence costs

[Athos69]

Even these reductions should help to slash some expenses and hopefully bring realms like Ilien back into the black. I like it Osprey.

[irdeggman]

Shipyards are especially expensive to maintain.

This involves diverting craftsman from money making radesto maintain their proficiency on shipbuilding/maintenance. This is real expensive. If a shipyard doesn't continuously build ships it becomes less efficient and the cost/time goes up due to erosion of the skills. While many of the craftsmen come from other trades, it is the time they spend building ships that makes it a real shipyard instead of a woodworking shop.

This comes from real life experience. I've working at the 2nd largest Naval Shipyard in the world for 21+ years (it was the largest for 10 of those years) now and have seen other private yards go bust because they were competing for the same pool of skilled labor.

Do not underestimate the real costs associated with a shipyard capable of building warships at any point in history.

[Osprey]

The question this brings to my mind is whether or not there is any income derived from owning shipyards. Mainly this would be based on an assumption that there is some assumed use by the private sector (fishing boats, local transports, pleasure craft, etc.), and that this would help offset the maintenance costs.

If there is NO assumed income, then I can understand that shipyard maintenance should be higher than 1/4 GB per level per season.

[Raesene Andu]

I've been using the info Osprey posted to work out the maintenance costs of most of Anuires non-landed regents for the Atlas of Cerilia and it works quite well, making it a lot easier to calculate everything thing.

So far, a large number of organisations come in with a income of X GB + 1/3 or 2/3 of a GB, and most the maintenance is either a whole number, or with 1/2 1/4, or 3/4 tacked on, which should be easy enough to follow. The difference in the fractions between income and expenditure does concern me a bit, but it isn't hard to round the income down to the nearest 1/4 of a GB.

Most of the organisations come in with a positive income, as you would expect, while most of the realm are close to the edge, or with a negative income. But that is before you include tribute.

Take the example of Boeruine.
It has a maintenance of 47.5 GB, while its income is 48 GB. Then I add in a court wizard payment of 2 GB, which increases maintenace fo 49.5 GB and 13 GB of tribute from other regents and this brings the income up to a healthier 61 GB.

The Gorgon is an even more extreme example. He has a basic income of 69.33 GB (Provinces, Law, Temples) and an expenditure of somewhere around 80 GB (still working it all out . He then gains tribute equal to 63 GB from his vassals (include 30 GB from vassal Tollan), leaving him with a huge profit each turn. And if he cast's an alchemy realm spell each turn, he could potentially gain another 20 GB+ of profit due to the number of RP he pulls in each turn (potentially a shade under 200 RP/turn). Of course he strips the resources of his vassal leaving them with very little (Approved Temple of Markazor gains on 1/3 GB each turn).

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Osprey@Sep 3 2004, 10:25 PM
The question this brings to my mind is whether or not there is any income derived from owning shipyards. Mainly this would be based on an assumption that there is some assumed use by the private sector (fishing boats, local transports, pleasure craft, etc.), and that this would help offset the maintenance costs.

If there is NO assumed income, then I can understand that shipyard maintenance should be higher than 1/4 GB per level per season.

Shipyards are different than ports.

A shipyard makes its money from selling the ships it makes and performing maintenance on others. That is something that is generally missing in this equation IMO. That would be to treat building a ship like a craft skill. The basic costs are less than the market price of thecompeteditem. This would reflect the inherent benefit of actually owning (and maintaining the shipyard) vice buying the ship.

The monthly income would be generated by the transfer of funds from the maintenance of ships to the appropriate shipyard. Let's face it not all of the regents with navies in the 2nd ed material actually had shipyards, they had ports where they docked their ships.

So something along the lines wher a shipyard could provide maintenance to twice its capability to construct vessels might help in this case.

[Raesene Andu]

Thinking about maintenance of roads/bridges/etc. I agree that bridges, ferries, ports, and most roads should have no maintenance cost (covered by tolls, fees, etc), but there are a couple of situations where this should change. One is roads through mountains. Any road travelling through high mountains is going to be subject to slips, rockfalls, etc and is going to need repairs more often than normal roads cutting through the plains. Also the repairs are going to be more labour intensive (hence more expensive). Repairing a road on the plains, means going along and filling in the holes, not so in the mountains.

Roads through swamps, tundra, glaciers, etc may also need repairs more often, so perhaps a maintenance for the more expensive roads would be required. I'd like to keep it fairly simple though, so perhaps 1/4 GB for swamp/tundra, and 1/2 GB for glaciers/mountains. What repairs are needed to other roads can be covered by tolls. Bridges just don't need the same amount of repairs, and ports and ferries can levies tolls, docking fees, and the like to cover repairs/maintenance.

The shipyard issue is a little more complex. I'd suggest changing the maintenace to either 1/4 or 1/2 GB, just to keep everything on the same fraction. Then add something to the description about allowing the regent to repair and maintain his own ships at a lower cost than normal because he is getting the labour and materials at cost price.

Another issue that has been raised before about shipyards is the 2X level build cost. This means that you need a level 8 province at least to build a galleon (15 GB), which means only the Imperial City can construct galleons. I'd suggest changing this to either 2.5 X level which means you need a level 6+ province to build a galleon, which still limits it to around 7 or 8 provinces in all of Anuire that can build galleons.

You may also wish to put in something about how much construction can be completed each turn (i.e how many ships a shipyard can work on at once). If it is 1d4 GB, then it is going to take a long time to get any ships done. I'd suggest allowing 1 ship/2 level of the shipyard to be built at once, all at 1d4 GB/turn. It will still take ages to build a ship, but it gives a higher level shipyard more benefits and makes them more worthwhile.

[Osprey]

I've been using the info Osprey posted to work out the maintenance costs of most of Anuires non-landed regents for the Atlas of Cerilia and it works quite well, making it a lot easier to calculate everything thing.

Excellent. Easing the math was definitely one of the main reasons to standardize things somewhat. Now only ship maintenance remains as an annoying source of tiny fractions. :huh:

Roads through swamps, tundra, glaciers, etc may also need repairs more often, so perhaps a maintenance for the more expensive roads would be required. I'd like to keep it fairly simple though, so perhaps 1/4 GB for swamp/tundra, and 1/2 GB for glaciers/mountains. What repairs are needed to other roads can be covered by tolls. Bridges just don't need the same amount of repairs, and ports and ferries can levies tolls, docking fees, and the like to cover repairs/maintenance.

Good point. 1/4 GB for swamps/tundra, 1/2 GB for mountains/glaciers seems reasonable to me (cheap, even).

SHIPYARDS: Geez, this is a sticky issue. IMC I had allowed Level 7 shipyards to build Galleons (rounding up), limiting them to Ilien, Anuire, and the Imperial City in 551 MR. That worked pretty well on the basis that galleons were simply too big, expensive, and advanced for war-torn Anuire to produce in most places. But it also put a number of realms right on the edge of such capability, by ruling up their capital one more level...(like Seasedge in Boeruine).

Raesene, doing some math with build potential = Shipyard Level x 2.5 actually works pretty well (other than being yet another fraction to calculate) - caravels will still need level 3 shipyards, and there aren't too many level 6 coastal provinces who would actually have the shipyards anyways.

Also, raising the shipyards' build potential helps justify raising their maintenance to 1/2 GB per level each season - meaning those level 6 shipyards (likely the biggest that would be constructed) would cost 3 GB a season.

With that higher maintenance value, we should expect there only to be occasional working yards dotting the coastline of Cerilia. Which in turn makes selling completed ships, or leasing the shipyards (and thus allowing the shipyard owner to spend Court actions on things other than building ships), a more viable and likely option to help pay for them when they're not building up the owner's own navy/trade fleet. It wouldn't hurt to add a note about this practice in the description of shipyards, pointing out a mechanic for DM's to use.

I would expect ship maintenance not to require the same level of shipyards as necessary to build them. In fact, I would expect that most routine maintenance could be handled by a seaport's facilities, while more major (probably annual) maintenance would require shipyards.

Here's an idea: what if shipyards could simply absorb the maintenanence costs of some ships - say 1/2 GB per level of the shipyards? Thus, shipyards behind decent navies would sort of pay for themselves, as the maintenance savings would (at most) equal the maintenance costs of the yards. This would assume that the ships maintained visit the shipyards for at least a month out of each year.

So a level 6 shipyard in Anuire could reduce ship maintenance by 3 GB - allowing perhaps a few galleons and some caravels to be garrisoned there without additional maintenance.

As for Build speed, well...since ships are built using Build Court Actions, it would seem that the size of the court will really determine the speed of construction. IMC I had always assumed that shipyards could build more than one ship at a time, as it made no difference in the overall game (spreading Build actions between multiple ships really just makes each ship take longer in the current system).

IMC there were some serious shipbuilding sprees...and I found that the d4 GB per Build action was quite fast enough if loads of Court Actions were poured into the shipbuilding process. For instance, Ilien (w/ L7 shipyards) was building Galleons in preparation for a big Southern Alliance offensive against Diemed (this being Medoere, Ilien, and Roesone, plus IHH and EH). By lending Court Actions and lots of GB from its allies, Ilien's shipyards managed to produce 5 galleons and a few caravels in about 2-3 seasons' time. Extremely fast by Renaissance shipbuilding standards.

Also, I allow Profession (Shipbuilding) to be used just like P/Engineering is for land-based constructions - spend a Standard domain action to begin the project, DC 20 skill check by the master builder, and build actions for that building or vessel may be maximized (4 GB per Court Action spent). This should probably also be added to the Shipyards description in the revision.

Osprey

[epicsoul]

Another issue that has been raised before about shipyards is the 2X level build cost. This means that you need a level 8 province at least to build a galleon (15 GB), which means only the Imperial City can construct galleons. I'd suggest changing this to either 2.5 X level which means you need a level 6+ province to build a galleon, which still limits it to around 7 or 8 provinces in all of Anuire that can build galleons

Of course, you COULD always build a holding larger than what the level of province is. So, there could be a level 8 shipyard in a level 2 province. Just as there is no size limitation on fortifications. This would mean that several of the major powers COULD have shipyards capable of constructing galleons.

[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by epicsoul@Sep 5 2004, 01:34 PM
Of course, you COULD always build a holding larger than what the level of province is. So, there could be a level 8 shipyard in a level 2 province. Just as there is no size limitation on fortifications. This would mean that several of the major powers COULD have shipyards capable of constructing galleons.

That would mean that you could create a shipyard anywhere when the original intention of the rules was to limit where you could place major shipyards (availability of labour, skilled trademen, materials, etc). Therefore the BRCS specifically states that you CANNOT build the level of the shipyard higher than the level of the province. I think we should keep this limitation.

[Athos69]

If we are trying to get rid of those annoying fractions, perhaps we could do an across the board conversion of income and expenses.

1/3 GB will become 0.35 GB
2/3 GB will become 0.65 GB

1/12 and 1/24 (used for ship maintenence) would become 10% and 5% respectively.

Law regents would see a (very) slight increase to their incomes, Guilders and Temples would see an (very) slight reduction in their incomes, and the smallest portion of a GB that we would need to wory about would be 0.05 GB (which if people adopt 2 decimal place accounting, is dead simple to work with).