average lifetime of military equipment

[kgauck]

I also highly recomend a new Magical Medievel Society chapter called Magical Medieval Warfare. The various PDF's put out will be collected in a book at some point, but now they are being sold by the chapter.

Magical Medieval Warfare doesn't have a comprehensive maintenance calculation as this thread has sought after, but it does include a "kit" start up cost for types of soldiers. Plus it uses the D20 city materials for developing a pillage table. For a $5 download I think its worth it. The larger section called a Magical Medieval Society is very valuable for calculating the income of a manor or city from the point of view of a lord.

Their chart for troops looks something like this:
Infantry (greatsword) 2 sp 25 cp -- -- 2 sp 25 cp 63 gp 103 gp 303 gp
Infantry (halberd) 2 sp 25 cp -- -- 2 sp 25 cp 23 gp 63 gp 263 gp

The last three amount in gp are for supplying them with a given kit based on the armor, and the other numbers are daily pay based on race, with dwarves and half-orcs costing more and halflings and goblins getting -- -- for not wielding standard greatswords and halberds.

[Jaleela]

In our game, we operate on a silver standard, directly derived from historical Europe, and adapt it to the rulebook by integrating the crown as a small gold coin. Even on a silver standard, and giving 3 deniers (pennies) as the average daily pay for an infantryman or archer, the bottom line of pay for a unit is a staggering sum of money. We work it out that food and clothing is either deducted as pay for standing troops, or considered a part of the pay.

Somebody mentioned the feudal system in the game as a means of fielding armies - GM's should keep in mind that any country employing a feudal system has the regent able to call on the feudal levy of knights and retainers for free for a period of 40-60 days, and then they must be paid to keep them in the field longer. We limit the regent’s benefit from the feudal levy by making such troops as a little less professional and a little less controllable on the battlefield (especially units of knights). The feudal due from towns and cities are reluctant to serve outside of a country, and unlike noblemen serving their feudal obligation, they tend to want to go straight home as soon as their time is up. Sometimes they don't want to fight at all - anyone wanting to see what sort of headaches craft-guild militias from towns can cause their regents is advised to read accounts of the men of Ghent turning out for the feudal obligation due to the dukes of Burgundy. They were always more willing to fight against their lords than for them, in the worst scenarios.

Even before standing armies were formed in the later middle ages (the French ordinance Companies of the 1440's, and the Burgundian companies of ordinance of the 1470's), kingdoms tended to keep small professional standing forces, mostly as garrisons of castles on hostile borders (like Carlisle in the North of England, or Calais). The French began keeping small standing companies from the middle of the 14th century at the latest, although not organized as an army, and under independent captains. These usually worked out to a few thousand soldiers constantly employed by a country, and maybe a dozen warships for a big country like France, which had a shipyard devoted to making war gallies from the late 13th century.

In our game, the mechanics of domain turns reflect what happened in the middle ages almost exactly, and not due to intent on our part, but due to the mechanics being so well worked out by the original game designers. My only gripe is with population densities, which in some official modules are kind of laughable - I think Medore is the worst, not having enough people working the land to possibly support the towns in the region. Anyhow, most kingdoms in our game have small standing forces of a few thousand soldiers, either raised locally, or mercenaries that garrison important towns and castles. If they take the field, it is from spring to fall, and very rarely in winter due to factors so ably pointed out already. Regents can also call out the feudal host, but have to plan this carefully, so they aren't caught with their chausses and braies down when they really need the numbers. We differentiate between the feudal host, which is composed of the lords, knights, and their retainers of a province, and the games "Levy", which you have to be even more careful in calling out, and which represents the "arrie-ban", because if you call out the levy during planting season, or harvest time, you are courting famine.

In game terms, a regent has a few thousand men who are semi-professional soldiers. He can usually easily double to triple those numbers calling out feudal knights or lords’ obligations, and the militias of towns. If a regent is desperate, they can call out a horde of ill-armed peasants, which might get a realm of say, six well populated provinces a total from all sources, between 10,000 - 20,000 men in a field army. This is a close approximation of how real medieval armies worked, which we find to be pretty cool.

Another way we work things is you can raise more men in a hurry if you have the money and hire mercenaries - right from the boxed set rules, but this is a double-edged sword, as we have the regents having to closely watch these armies with mercenaries, or suffer their own territory being looted. If a regent in our campaign disbands mercenaries in their country, they automatically suffer brigandage in any province such soldiers are disbanded.

I think the poll question should be worded differently. It assumes a fast rate of wearing out equipment, which as others have pointed out should not be assumed. Things like armour and weapons wear out slowly, except in certain cases (the low-quality 'Almain rivet' ordered by Henry VIII in the tens of thousands in the early 16th century). Mail for instance lasts for a very long time, and can be easily repaired. Historically, mail remained in circulation for a long time, and some experts in the field of arms and armour have seen mail fragments and hauberks that have very old mail in their fabric. The general belief is that mail was rare in the 'dark ages; after the fall of Rome, up into the early middle ages, and very expensive, but from that point onward as mail was recycled and manufactured new, an ever-increasing supply of mail circulated in Europe, so that a hauberk of mail that would only have been worn by a wealthy man in the 11th century had become the infantry haubergorn of the late 14th century, which with a padded gambeson became almost a standard and common soldiers defence. Mail got cut up into 'voiders', 'brayettes', and standards during the 15th century, to be worn with ever-increasing numbers of plate defences and brigandines, and still remained a common defense for common soldiers.

The bottom line is that things like swords, polearms, and mail shirts might have active service lives of a *hundred* years, not just a couple of years. Lots of swords existing today have early medieval blades with new hilts put on them in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries - lots of 18th century highland basket-hilted broadswords had medieval blades mounted with new hilts.

Something like an infantryman’s gambeson, of linen stuffed with tow, or layers of linen stitched together might only last a couple of years, a heater shield might not last a campaign season, but a helmet might last 50 years, even with regular use. The stuff that wore out fast as a general rule was the cheap stuff, the expensive things fortunately tended to last for a long time.

As had been pointed out, clothes could wear out fast, but even then, a doublet could last for years, and shoes could be re-soled to last more than a season. A lord was expected to provide clothes for his household servants, including soldiers in his household, but I don't believe that a regent was expected to provide anything more than a livery jacket for soldiers who were not household troops and these were expected to buy their clothing and shoes out of their pay.

Pay always seems to be the thing that eats up the regent’s money. Just be thankful that most of you aren't in a campaign where a regent is responsible to his feudal knights and sergeants for the cost of rumunda, or their best horse if it is killed or dies of disease on campaign!

[kgauck]

There is a lot here :-)

In our game, we operate on a silver standard, directly derived from historical Europe, and adapt it to the rulebook by integrating the crown as a small gold coin.

I tried to do the same, and ultimatly concluded that the PHB and the like are already based on a silver standard. The reason we mostly deal in gold is because the game was designed for hauling off great riches. Gygax talks at some length on this. If you try and find historical prices and salaries, what's given for costs in the PHB and the daily wage of hirelings in the DMG, you end up with accurate incomes (1 sp per day, a sword costs 150 sp, or half a year's labor, assuming you had no cost of living). The problem for recreating an historical feel to the money is that we don't have expences, other than adventuring gear. Ye Olde Quickbookes is not suficiently heroic to make living expences a part of the game.

We limit the regent’s benefit from the feudal levy by making such troops as a little less professional and a little less controllable on the battlefield (especially units of knights).

This is a great idea. Every warcard could be given a discipline and an initiative rating. Commanders would have so many command points. Commanders pay command points to move units. Units with a high initiative number would be likely to move on their own, and when they have high morale they run off to attack, when low morale they fall back.

The feudal due from towns and cities are reluctant to serve outside of a country, [...] read accounts of the men of Ghent turning out for the feudal obligation.

Indeed, I would not allow municipal levies to leave their town. Getting a municipal levy to go elsewhere (say to relieve a siege of the neighboring town) would require a diplomacy check everytime the agreement needs to be altered. Except for the defense of the town, hiring mercenaries would be much easier.

My only gripe is with population densities, which in some official modules are kind of laughable - I think Medore is the worst, not having enough people working the land to possibly support the towns in the region.

I think the population figures are one tenth what is likely, so I just increase by one order of magnitude.

[AndrewTall]

I think the population figures are one tenth what is likely, so I just increase by one order of magnitude.

Well, I think the population numbers are strictly numbers of taxpayers only. This could be hearths (so listing the number of families), exclude the very poor (who rarely pay taxes as they have no real transferable surplus income), tax collectives as single individuals, etc, or a number of other possibilities to justify the low figures bandied about in the books. I'd increase the number by 5-10 to get a 'truer' figure.

But yes, when you get the 'big city' in a major province numbering just 3-4,000 it looks a little low, particularly when under the rules you can raise units of 200 plus a time month after month from provinces with just 1,000 or so people...

[kgauck]

...Under the rules you can raise units of 200 plus a time month after month from provinces with just 1,000 or so people...

I'd say that 50 people can be raised from 1000 for local defense and 20 can be raised to wander off somewhere. In any long term struggle, 900 people are required to feed 1000, so even if you abandon all crafts and just keep the farmers at home, you can muster 100 people. At some point you run out of tools to fight and farm. Between planting and harvest, you can call out the farmers, but half of the faming population is children and the old or infirm, and half is female, so now we have 250 during summer, of which 50 can fight part time, including the 20 who can become permenant fighters.

Any deaths of farmers in battle reduces the harvest in subsequent years.

So it certainly looks like raising a unit of 200 people month after month from a province of 1000 people doesn't work once, unless we mean a levy in summer, let alone six or seven seasons in a row.

[DanMcSorley]

On 5/13/07, AndrewTall <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> But yes, when you get the `big city` in a major province numbering just 3-4,000 it
> looks a little low, particularly when under the rules you can raise units of 200
> plus a time month after month from provinces with just 1,000 or so people...

I think Anuire in particular and Cerilia in general has a lot of
semi-mercenary, semi-professional soldiers floating around it. The
region has had quite a bit of war in the past generation, and is
currently mostly at peace, meaning a lot of experienced soldiers are
around and underemployed. You can see this not just with the ease of
raising soldiers, but with the relatively common random domain events
featuring brigands- after all, what is an unemployed soldier with few
life skills to do when he can`t find soldiering to do?

Conversely, once you start hiring soldiers, I imagine the news will
circulate and more will appear in your province as if by magic by the
next time you want to hire some.

--
Daniel McSorley

[Jaleela]

On 5/13/07, AndrewTall <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> But yes, when you get the `big city` in a major province numbering just 3-4,000 it
> looks a little low, particularly when under the rules you can raise units of 200
> plus a time month after month from provinces with just 1,000 or so people...

I think Anuire in particular and Cerilia in general has a lot of
semi-mercenary, semi-professional soldiers floating around it. The
region has had quite a bit of war in the past generation, and is
currently mostly at peace, meaning a lot of experienced soldiers are
around and underemployed. You can see this not just with the ease of
raising soldiers, but with the relatively common random domain events
featuring brigands- after all, what is an unemployed soldier with few
life skills to do when he can`t find soldiering to do?

Conversely, once you start hiring soldiers, I imagine the news will
circulate and more will appear in your province as if by magic by the
next time you want to hire some.

--
Daniel McSorley

Yes, with a "but".

You cannot get around the iron law of pre-industrial agrarian societies, which is 90% of the population must be engaged in raising food to feed themselves and the remaining 10%.

The easiest method of getting the appropriate numbers of soldiers is to increase the population levels to a realistic number, by a magnitude as suggested. That way you have the neccessary craftsmen, farmers, priests, nobles, and soldiers, without having to suspend disbelief over what is really a silly oversight in the original game mechanics. Besides, no way is 1000 people in an agrarian society, living in a province 30 miles on a side, with 900 of the thousand being farmers going to make any serious environmental impact to reduce the 'magical potential' of a province - even if they were practising the most destructive form of slash-and-burn farming, and simultaneously using every stream as communal toilets, instead of using dung for fertilizer. 1000 people is a large village, not even a proper town, and they wouldn't be a spec on the face of a standard size game province.

Mercenaries don't spring fully formed and armed from the ground, as athena springing from the forehead of zeus, they have to come from somewhere. Usually they come from marginal societies that offer poor opportunities for young men, and these provinces are typically marches with other countries where warfare and raiding is endemic.

Raising the actual population numbers is the only way to get the numbers of soldiers envisioned in the game rules, and really, the only way to have the developed civilizations described in the boxed set and supplements.

[The Swordgaunt]

Does anyone utilize rules that consider calling out the feudal host and how many days they can actually have them in the field before they can return home?

Although I use a different battlesystem, I have used a "Call to Arms" rule, where a Regent can field a unit of Knights and a unit of men-at-arms on short notice. To do so, the Regent must use an Agitate action each turn and bay the upkeep-cost for the duration.

These unit can be lots of fun playing, since these men are free gentlemen, and may choose to follow the demands of honour more or less independently. Should they fall in a battle, loyalty may drop and ransom will brobably have to be payed. In an offensive campaign, they have land-claims as well.

[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=3742
> kgauck wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> ...Under the rules you can raise units of 200 plus a time month after month from provinces with just 1,000 or so people...
> -----------------------------
>
>
> I`d say that 50 people can be raised from 1000 for local defense and 20 can be raised to wander off somewhere. In any long term struggle, 900 people are required to feed 1000, so even if you abandon all crafts and just keep the farmers at home, you can muster 100 people. At some point you run out of tools to fight and farm. Between planting and harvest, you can call out the farmers, but half of the faming population is children and the old or infirm, and half is female, so now we have 250 during summer, of which 50 can fight part time, including the 20 who can become permenant fighters.
>
> Any deaths of farmers in battle reduces the harvest in subsequent years.
>
> So it certainly looks like raising a unit of 200 people month after month from a province of 1000 people doesn`t work once, unless we mean a levy in summer, let alone six or seven seasons in a row.
>
Why month after month? Wasn´t there in 2E already the rule that only 1
unit/province level could be mustered every domain turn=3 month?

[kgauck]

Why month after month? Wasnt there in 2E already the rule that only 1 unit/province level could be mustered every domain turn=3 month?

Yeah, but the numbers don't make any more sense that way. It only takes longer to get to the absurd result.