Hi,

I was going through the Dragon issue 293, with the realmcraft rules in them.
I compared some of the figures, and it seems that the BR rules are a bit low
on tax rates and the like. I did some calculations, and I thought I might
run them by you guys. I found that on average, the Dragon gave 16 times more
tax than BR. I went looking in the DMG, and I found mercenaries are 5 times
higher than BR, ships 1.5 times higher and castles 3.5 times higher.

Here`s some of the assumptions I made.

The DMG says a common labourer can earn 3 gp per month (pg 149), which works
out as 1 sp per day. The DMG variant upkeep rule (pg 142) states that at
self-sufficient level, a person pays 2 gp per month, working out at 6 cp per
day. The DMG also states that at this level the person grows his own food,
and the like. The costs cover minor items, such as new shoes or a road toll.
That made me think that about 3/4 of the 6 cp would be tax. Doing the
calculations it worked out a commoner pays about 45 sp per season in tax (30
days per month, 3 months per season).

Taking a level 6 province, having approximately 40,000 people in it, it
would pay about 5 GB on average in Moderate taxes in BR. Using my figures,
they pay about 90 GB, which is fairly close to the 100 GB (converted) from
Dragon. Using my figures, BR is 14 times less.

Guilds were more interesting. I assumed that 80% of the province would be at
the economic level of common labourers, and 20% would be at Artisans, or
middle class. Using the same level of tax, 6 cp, I figured that 80% would
have about 36 sp per season to spend on goods, while 20% would have 18 gp.
It says in the rulebook that guild levels represent control of business, so
I used level 3 guilds in level 3 provinces, and the like. What I found was
collection was consistently 1.44 times more than taxation.

Does it make sense that guilds and temples would make more money than a
taxing regent at moderate levels? Are there errors in my logic? If you want
my calculations in detail, let me know.

What I like about these figures is that realms can support larger armies and
bigger fleets. I found that while playing a BR PBEM a average realm can
support about 2,000 to 3,000 troops at the most. Reading history with armies
of 5,000 to 10,000, BR could never make up for this.

What I would be tempted to do is split the collection into 3, with guilds
gaining 2/3 with temples gaining 1/3. It doesn`t make sense to me how a
temple can earn the same money as business, the goals are different. Using
influence points as John Machin does or something similar, like fixed
points, this would mean that Temples would gain more influence politically
than guilds, as religious people tend to believe what a priest tells them.
Guilds uses their money to get what they want.

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