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  1. #41
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    They have been mentoned in passing before, but sea-borne resources should not be overlooked. Fish (many types, I'd include lakes and rivers as sources and fish-products such as caviar, dried/salted fish, etc) are the obvious but there is also whaling, seal colonies, possibly penguin colonies in Thaele, etc - all of these could generate significant income for a province.

    Rights over fishing have, from vague recollection, been fairly hard fought over - although I'm not sure whether that would have historically been on a province by province sort of level though or either village vs village or realm vs realm without much in between.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    They have been mentoned in passing before, but sea-borne resources should not be overlooked. Fish (many types, I'd include lakes and rivers as sources and fish-products such as caviar, dried/salted fish, etc) are the obvious but there is also whaling, seal colonies, possibly penguin colonies in Thaele, etc - all of these could generate significant income for a province.

    Rights over fishing have, from vague recollection, been fairly hard fought over - although I'm not sure whether that would have historically been on a province by province sort of level though or either village vs village or realm vs realm without much in between.
    Right, coastal and lake provinces would likely have huge bounty from fishing. Also it depends; from what I've seen maritime rights vary tremendously; fishing often came under feudal rights though. Some manors and some fiefs had them tied to their grants even (iirc the medieval earldom of Devon and the duchy of Cornwall had large fishing rights in their grants), but cod fishing in Iceland, from what I can see, seems to have involved negotiating with the king of Norway; although this might be partly because technically the king was, by the 15th century, the feudal overlord of Iceland and these were foreigners, plus the only significant lords on the island were the two bishops.

    From what I can find the fishing season was about 9 months, which would give about 120-180 days of fishing, but I can't find numbers on productivity. A thread on the Paizo boards gives some interesting info but it doesn't always scan with what I've got (agro yields are too high (but one of the old economy threads had a pdf with yields that are, on the opposite hand, lower than what I got), milk is about spot on, eggs are too high, peat yield is far far far too low, fuel consumption is far too high unless it's per household in which case it might be a tad low; well and the author thinks a hide is a quarter of a square mile and than medieval england was more fertile than medieval France but stupidities aside it's my only source for fishing). At 30 barrels of fish a year for a fishing family on a small boat that's about 90gp using PHB2 figures. Assuming a case for 1sp=1d that family is getting almost 4 pounds out of a good year. That's really a lot for the renaissance (at least with this assumption). If half of that ends up in the coffers of whoever funds the venture, that's about 45gp/family, so assuming develop resource develops about a manor-worth of resource (i.e. ca 180 people), this might well be worth 1GB of fish a year. However, about 45 pounds per capita would be consumed a year. Which I have no idea is how many gallons (but iirc it's on the order of 1 bushel/capita which is slightly less than a firkin, so they'd basically be eating a barrel of it each household, not that much all told).

    So I tend to believe it would likely be the realm doing the grants, or if not the realm, any significant feudal prince (say, in a realm where the feudal lords are pretty much in charge of the coasts ).

    Purple dye IIRC was said to be worth more than its weight in gold. Pearls would be another one, especially if you get a lucky baroque pearl. And of course areas with coastal swamps and rias would also produce salt. Whale oil and seal fat which I have no idea what they were worth then.

    (as an unrelated aside I'm revising the figures in both Ian Holland's excellent document, Beruin's livestock counting, because both are imo slightly off on some of the accounting; it's sometimes minor but it can sort of make a difference at times; the link I put up there though was mostly for fish and flax data, which I can't find anywhere - that, hemp, and some of the pre-columbian exchange cash crops like indigo, cotton, sugarcane and coffee, along with olives and wine (which I have), would be stuff I'm hunting for - IMO the lack of cash crops in the original pdf is a pity)
    Last edited by Gwrthefyr; 11-26-2010 at 10:21 PM.

  3. #43
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I'd forgotten about dyes, but they had a direct impact on what people wore through cost and social decrees - an interesting matter of justice could involve some traveler wearing the wrong colour being arrested by an irate noble / clergy and the regent having to avoid offending the traveler's family / being a poor host for inviting them without warning the traveler of a local law and not offending the noble / priest.

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    I'd forgotten about dyes, but they had a direct impact on what people wore through cost and social decrees - an interesting matter of justice could involve some traveler wearing the wrong colour being arrested by an irate noble / clergy and the regent having to avoid offending the traveler's family / being a poor host for inviting them without warning the traveler of a local law and not offending the noble / priest.
    And joy a period relevant plot hook

    Okay so compiling some data for cash crops
    - Olive oil: my data gives 7 bushels/acres as a relatively bad plantation, the Athenian average was 15 bushels and the Sicilian Olive harvest was on average 20 bushels. It can probably grow in the South, East and most of the West and heartlands in Anuire, plus all of Khinasi. I get oil yields of a gallon the bushel with not too modern method but this requires a mill. Using the PHB figure for wine, at half this, I get about 50.000 gallons required to make 1GB a year from the Olive plantation. Assuming an average at about 15 bushels the acre and being generous for oil yields, this requires about 5,25 square miles; at worst, a little over 11.
    - Indigo: probably comes from Khinasi and Djapar but could likely grow in Anuire. It's a legume, too, which means it's good as a winter crop on fallow land, like peas and legumes in general (it's a lot like flax and hemp, too). The info I have gives about 40-80 pounds of indigo an acre, but I haven't found how much dye this makes. My only other economic data on indigo is that by the 1750s, Britain consumed about half an ounce of indigo per capita (600.000 pounds to a total population of roughly 12 million).
    - Flax and Hemp; I'm not sure whether to put them in as they're pretty basic; they're also legumes i.e. good for the soils. Linseed oil is produced at something like 1,5 gallon the bushel. It has yields of about 12 bushels to 3 planted on an acre if on good land. They were the typical winter crops along with peas. (my guesstimate is semi-confirmed in that it took almost 350 acres to produce the 80 tons of hemp for a ship of the line like Victory - USS Constitution took 60 tons - a prince with an active naval industry would likely invest in hemp)
    - Wine; my numbers give about 5 gallons of wine the bushel with some types of grape going as low as 5 for two bushels, but I can't find accurate figures. I have one piece on Champagne vineyards which gives me production figures at 5 quint/ha but there's the problem that the french quintal is both 100 french old pounds (48,5kg), 100 kg and, in some pieces, 100 french metric pounds (50kg). Assuming the smallest of the lot this gives me 4,5-6 bushels the acre. This sort of fits since it's 16 times less than the modern yields and the modern yields I find are about 100+ bushels/acre. So for the 1GB/year yield, assuming half the money (so 10gp the 250 gal) you need about 3-4 square miles of vineyards. Not quite as much as olives. I could see a high end of twice that productivity though.
    - Cotton, like Indigo, is more fitting for Khinasi but probably goes okay in southern Anuire. Figures I get are about 2-4 bushels the acre using non-industrial techniques, at 32 pounds the bushel. Cotton can be rotated with other crops, like wheat and legumes, but it was only when it wasn't a specialized plantation; not rotated, it will exhaust the soil for a while after ten years, with bad harvests the last few. Also quite work intensive. Assuming an average of 3, that's about enough, using modern figures, to make 40 pairs of jeans the acre.
    I also have unsatisfactory data on rice, none on tea, poppy, spices in general, coffee and sugarcane, although they were all pre-Columbian exchange staples in parts or all of Eurasia and the proximity of Djapar and Aduria to Cerilia likely means trade exists. For added hilarity an alchemist could accidentally discover lysergic acid from ergoted rye and turn it into an opium-equivalent
    For oil and other cash crop things, without a colombian exchange right away, adurian trade could probably lead to things like marula, kola nuts (as a cocoa ersatz), and likely coconut (which like marula and olives produces both highly nutritious fruits and eventually oil), which I didn't mention (I have a partial list of pre-colombian exchange staples and cash crops somewhere).

    My figures for harvests tend to be that a bad harvest in literature is roughly 15% under expectations while a good one is roughly 15% above; these are extremes which happen about 1/20 years on average (1/15 for bad although one paper I checked gives 1/9). Catastrophes are rarer still. Bad crops with cash crops can still be pretty bad, but on the scale of asset development will probably only be a minimal dent on overall gain and balanced out by good years elsewhere.

    Coffee's introduction outside of Yemen and Ethiopia in the 1520s also had a lot of fairly interesting plot issues which I could well see with most of the new stimulants, including cocoa, with a properly reactionary head of a local church. Sadly while I think it would fit the intended flavour I don't think it would necessarily fit the actual result. (to make it short; the Imams of Mecca didn't like coffee, the Ottoman Sultan was annoyed, had his own authorities proclaim a fatwa allowing coffee; the ban on coffee caused riots in Alexandria - then again a lot of ottoman muslim subjects were members of heterodox sects anyway).

    (Last edit: also counting things: that gallon of olive oil has the nutritional weight of 10 pounds of butter or 20 pounds of cheese or meat, or 240 eggs O.o )
    Last edited by Gwrthefyr; 11-28-2010 at 08:50 PM.

  5. #45
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Hemp and various other products also have secondary uses in addition to the obvious product, even if only as animal fodder so looking at only the headline product will tend to under-state income for the peasantry, although the impact would be on a level far below domain I suppose.

    I can see various decrees etc regarding narcotics (including alcohol) and luxury items (silk) being relatively common, although not necessarily in the manner that modern times expect - the rjurik druids might for example cultivate ergot for use in their rituals - I'd figure rye being fairly common along the Taelshore. Of course in mechanic terms the local guild being banned from wearing silk, etc is meaningless but for the more role-playing oriented it could be interesting.

    Another trading partner is Mieres - something kept the colony viable when the others collapsed and an otherwise unobtainable product like, say, chocolate would be a good candidate.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    Hemp and various other products also have secondary uses in addition to the obvious product, even if only as animal fodder so looking at only the headline product will tend to under-state income for the peasantry, although the impact would be on a level far below domain I suppose.

    I can see various decrees etc regarding narcotics (including alcohol) and luxury items (silk) being relatively common, although not necessarily in the manner that modern times expect - the rjurik druids might for example cultivate ergot for use in their rituals - I'd figure rye being fairly common along the Taelshore. Of course in mechanic terms the local guild being banned from wearing silk, etc is meaningless but for the more role-playing oriented it could be interesting.

    Another trading partner is Mieres - something kept the colony viable when the others collapsed and an otherwise unobtainable product like, say, chocolate would be a good candidate.
    Sumptuary laws are always a good source of fun like that for roleplaying. Also I suspect it could, to some extent, be arranged.

    Also given Suiriene's history, I suspect it, too, would probably be huge on cash crops and external trade, although maybe less after three centuries of independence.

    As for the effects of crop rotations and the like I'm slowly but surely coming up with a revised climate, agricultural model and dietary considerations table for effects on province sustainable population - hemp and flax do indeed have the additional effect of increasing land fertility (like peas), which is a huge deal even if the increase is slight. I think trade requirements could be an interesting way to get higher levels possible though. One interesting thing I found was that apparently making bread increases the value of wheat by something like 15% or thereabouts. Basically going by the old Ian Holmes table, a baker is the difference between the default 240 NU he put for a bushel of wheat and something much closer to 280 NU. It's one of those things that seem irrelevant in roman history class

    Also I'm suddenly hunting for data on paper consumption; with my stuff on shipbuilding I've got calculations telling me a regent like Ilien could probably do a pretty damn good living selling ships to neighbours with hemp and lumber (and not even a particularly significant amount of it - a standard 18th century 74-gunner takes about 60 acres' worth of lumber (as did the equally massive super-frigates the US fielded); I sincerely doubt a galleon takes anywhere near that, and I get figures going from 20 to 50% of waste which got reused as firewood and to do other things (or stolen on the yard)
    Last edited by Gwrthefyr; 12-01-2010 at 11:48 AM.

  7. #47
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    'Paper' can be made out of all sorts of things -don't forget slate and sheepskin! it can also be bleached and re-used. That said outside the wealthy strata I can't see paper seeing any serious use - the churches probably use more than everyone else put together.

    It's a handy waste product to sell though, and higher quality could improve the price significantly. I wonder if any province has a natural outcrop of graphite though? I think that Seathwaite in Borrowdale was unique in the UK and graphite has to be one of the last exports that most people would think of!

  8. #48
    I guess a question arises about how big the provinces actually are. If it takes say 10 square miles to get a good amount of Olives to make it profitable, how much of the province would that end up covering realistically?

    Also I guess it would be good to figure out what developing a resource actually entails rules wise. I have been using a roll to determine if the resource the regent wants can be developed, as well as limiting some aspects. I tried to limit the resources per province to 1 or 2 per province level, as you would need workers for the fields, herds, etc. Some obvious limitations would be things like a province that has a dominant Forest terrain would be good for Lumber, but not necessarily mining.

    I was thinking that adding in Resource levels would make sense. Say you start with a Lumber 1, that gives you a certain income, then you raise it to Lumber 2 which would add more to the income or add a additional benefit such as lower cost for certain actions.
    Last edited by Sarelth; 01-05-2011 at 07:07 AM.
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