This table is way cool!!
Why are some things left blank and others are 0?
Also, the modifiers seem a little small, but I’m not sure how it really works out in practice.
My first thoughts about the table itself are I’d adjust the first three time periods to 0-100yrs, 101-500yrs, 501 -1000.
My second thought is that I would re-label the Grains/vegetable as “horticulture”. It doesn’t much matter what kind of plant you are growing, plants are plants and that applies to grapes and coconuts and cotton and what have you. Which brings up the Wine/beer, coffee/tea categories – these should only be affected by distance. If the area in question is capable supporting the production of these horticultural products, then their fertility is affected just the same as any other crop, generally speaking.
As to the Grain vegetable modifiers themselves, I’d be inclined to almost reverse them. Farmers are actually usually really good about improving the soils they farm. (for visual examples of this it is always interesting to watch Flaherty’s Man of Aran). One can, for example, still tell the Norse infields in Greenland 500 years after they were abandoned, because the grass grows greener and thicker there from the backbreaking efforts of generation after generation of Norse farmers.
What kills traditional agriculture is not traditional agriculture, and until the advent of deep plowing in the late 1800’s, soil loss from farming itself was not the problem. The problem was (and remains) deforestation.
Cutting the trees and brush, and/or having too many animals (sheep/goats/pigs) that eat plants to the roots in one place too long are the big issues with soil erosion that lead to destruction of farmland.
Come to think of it, John Bennet (best known for Northern Plainsmen) of has written some great stuff on this in regards to Japan and medieval to modern forest management. Oh yeah, there is also the classic Haiti/Dominican republic case.
So, to model that you would need to apply some kind of “erosion management” variable, perhaps modeled on the distance variable already in place in ACKS. Different cultures or kingdoms would then show different degrees of either degradation or actual improvement in Horticultural, agricultural and forest products. Improvement would admittedly be rare, because few societies figured out really good forestry management practices.
There are a number of Categories I’d add:
Pipe weed (tobacco, kinnikinnick) (again only as a trade item not grown in the hex)
Amber
Obsidian
Seal hide rope
Rubber
Whetstone
Soapstone
Beads (a popular trade item almost everywhere in the world ‘cause they are hard to make)
Okay now here’s a different line of thought in regards to this table – I think it can go way beyond use as just demand modifiers. During our discussions on the blog about determining land value and income I made this comment “I’d probably be happier if some kind of ranges were given depending how the land is exploited, with modes of exploitation depending on knowledge/expertise/subsistence types or something on these lines – categories like mining, fishing, horticulture, agriculture, textile production (wool cotton fur), with a minimum – maximum population for each.”
The environmental adjustments table is PERFECT for that. I mean that in addition to modifying demand, I think it can also modify land value, using exactly the same figures. The adjustment that might be necessary would be a “population growth” adjustment that would work something like the “erosion management” adjustment, although I’m not sure if population growth might already be factored in somewhere.
Okay so thinking a little more about this “erosion modifier” business I proposed. First I would broaden that and call it “environmental management modifier”. I’m thinking it should be a rule, and not a number per se, and should only apply at 100 plus years. The modifier itself could be simply +, -, or zero applied to the factor in the column. So, for example, an elven kingdom, particularly adept at managing natural resources will improve the quality of their soil such that the adjustment factor in the column at 100+ years is negative. In another location, the human transhumant cattle raising culture (lets say an Irish type) is reasonably careful regarding resource management such that a 0, neither plus nor minus is applied to the kingdom. However, in more typical examples, the Mediterranean states, for example insufficient environmental management practices lead to severe soil degredation resulting in a + being applied to the horticultural factor.
Anything grown in the soil or any field animals reffered to in the modifier chart should all be affected by the same environmental management factor.
I’d also definetly change the modifier in the first column of Grains/vegetables (horticulture) from - to +. It takes a good 50 years for new farms to become truly productive. Swidden agriculture is somewhat of an exception in that the most productive years are the first two after which the fields are abandoned, but swidden agriculture can really only be practiced at subsistence level.
This table is way cool!!
ALEX: Thanks!
Why are some things left blank and others are 0?
ALEX: I just hadn’t finished the table yet. I did the ones that I thought were easy/obvious/clear first. The others I’ve since finished, but they ended up being more “game” and less “simulation” since it was harder to distinguish what the effects should be. I’ll upload the new table with the next rules update.
Also, the modifiers seem a little small, but I’m not sure how it really works out in practice.
ALEX: No, you were right - the modifiers were a little small in some cases. The latest table has more modifiers and some of them are larger.
My first thoughts about the table itself are I’d adjust the first three time periods to 0-100yrs, 101-500yrs, 501 -1000.
ALEX: Why? (Not sarcastic - just curious as to your reasoning).
My second thought is that I would re-label the Grains/vegetable as “horticulture”. It doesn’t much matter what kind of plant you are growing, plants are plants and that applies to grapes and coconuts and cotton and what have you. Which brings up the Wine/beer, coffee/tea categories – these should only be affected by distance. If the area in question is capable supporting the production of these horticultural products, then their fertility is affected just the same as any other crop, generally speaking.
ALEX: I was attempting to suggest in the table that certain areas in question better support the production of those products than others.
As to the Grain vegetable modifiers themselves, I’d be inclined to almost reverse them. Farmers are actually usually really good about improving the soils they farm. (for visual examples of this it is always interesting to watch Flaherty’s Man of Aran). One can, for example, still tell the Norse infields in Greenland 500 years after they were abandoned, because the grass grows greener and thicker there from the backbreaking efforts of generation after generation of Norse farmers.
What kills traditional agriculture is not traditional agriculture, and until the advent of deep plowing in the late 1800’s, soil loss from farming itself was not the problem. The problem was (and remains) deforestation.
ALEX: Wow. Your research on this and my own have led to diametrically different conclusions. Not that I disagree with you regarding deforestation, but rather I disagree that soil loss from farming wasn’t a problem until the 19th century. My go-to source for this research was DIRT: The Erosion of Civilization, by David R. Montgomery. Have you read it?
Cutting the trees and brush, and/or having too many animals (sheep/goats/pigs) that eat plants to the roots in one place too long are the big issues with soil erosion that lead to destruction of farmland.
ALEX: All true, but so do lots of other practices. Irrigation, for instance, often leads to salinization of the soil - this happened throughout the (once) Fertile Crescent. And many traditional farming practices DO erode the soil.
So, to model that you would need to apply some kind of “erosion management” variable, perhaps modeled on the distance variable already in place in ACKS. Different cultures or kingdoms would then show different degrees of either degradation or actual improvement in Horticultural, agricultural and forest products. Improvement would admittedly be rare, because few societies figured out really good forestry management practices.
ALEX: My implicit assumption is that all the societies in ACKS are bad at managing their soil, because virtually every historical society has been bad at managing their soil.
Pipe weed (tobacco, kinnikinnick) (again only as a trade item not grown in the hex)
Amber
Obsidian
Seal hide rope
Rubber
Whetstone
Soapstone
Beads (a popular trade item almost everywhere in the world ‘cause they are hard to make)
ALEX: Why “seal hide rope” in particular? That seems really specific when the rest of the items are so general. Likewise for the rest in the category. I’d put amber and obsidian under semi-precious stones.
Okay now here’s a different line of thought in regards to this table – I think it can go way beyond use as just demand modifiers. During our discussions on the blog about determining land value and income I made this comment “I’d probably be happier if some kind of ranges were given depending how the land is exploited, with modes of exploitation depending on knowledge/expertise/subsistence types or something on these lines – categories like mining, fishing, horticulture, agriculture, textile production (wool cotton fur), with a minimum – maximum population for each.”
The environmental adjustments table is PERFECT for that. I mean that in addition to modifying demand, I think it can also modify land value, using exactly the same figures. The adjustment that might be necessary would be a “population growth” adjustment that would work something like the “erosion management” adjustment, although I’m not sure if population growth might already be factored in somewhere.
ALEX: Don’t know if you parsed this yet, but I went the other way - the Land Value affects the Demand Modifiers. I do it this way because I assume that GMs tend to work from the top down. First they determine the general value of a region, then they determine its particular trade goods. (“This is rich, fertile country…Land Value 8.”) Of course you could do it the other way around by just reverse engineering the ##s.
“My first thoughts about the table itself are I’d adjust the first three time periods to 0-100yrs, 101-500yrs, 501 -1000.
ALEX: Why? (Not sarcastic - just curious as to your reasoning).”
DAN: Well, why 0-20 years? 0-50 years might be a decent enough compromise, but I don’t see 20 years being a big enough time period to measure any changes in land productivity.
The two areas I am most personally familiar with are Northeastern America and the North Atlantic. I’m somewhat familiar with the Jappanese 19th century expansion into Hokkaido, as well as the Jappaneses and Russian expansion into Sakhalin, Russian expansion into Aleutians, and the various waves of expansion into Oceana. So, these are the examples that stand out in my mind when discussing this stuff.
Looking at settlement in the Faroes, or Iceland or New York, the exploitative pattern that emerges is often quite similar, usually takes 10-20 years to go from temporary structures and rugged landscape to having significant, plowable fields and another 30-50 years of exploitation, to kill off the wild animals and cut down the trees and brush to the point that your soil is fast dissapearing and there’s nothing left to hunt. It took 100 years to cut down the trees in Iceland, for example, to the point that wood became a controlled and valuable substance. Community eforts could go faster - for example an Iroquois village could be built in about a year and fields cleared and planted in a year or two.
Point is you don’t see an immediate benefit from virgin land, nor do the consequences of bad practices add up right away.
“…What kills traditional agriculture is not traditional agriculture, and until the advent of deep plowing in the late 1800’s, soil loss from farming itself was not the problem. The problem was (and remains) deforestation.”
ALEX: Wow. Your research on this and my own have led to diametrically different conclusions. Not that I disagree with you regarding deforestation, but rather I disagree that soil loss from farming wasn’t a problem until the 19th century. My go-to source for this research was DIRT: The Erosion of Civilization, by David R. Montgomery. Have you read it?
DAN: No, I’ve read very few populists works of that sort. I expect its a pretty good book - Montgomery seems to have the geology creds at least - but if his thesis is that farming has to be destructive to the soil then its easy enough to disprove that. Just for fun I’ll give a link to a somewhat obscure South American example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta. My sources of information on agricultural practice and soil management are almost all either from conferences and excavations I’ve been part of or articles in academic journals and a couple scholarly works here an there. I’d say two of the leading scholars in this area are Karl Butzer and Ian Simpson, if you wanted to do some digging ont the 'net. Simpson in particular has done some really detailed and difintive work in the North Atlantic.
The late Robert Netting pioneered the work on small holdings and should be mentioned too because it is small holders who do the most to improve or at least maintain farming conditions. Small holders are, pound for pound, much more productive than large scale farms - a cultural organization factor that will have a huge effect on the rate of growth or decay of a given farm ecology.
If you really want, I could try to dig out and send you a couple of Simpsons articles or some related stuff but, ya know, might be a lot to put on your plate for a couple numbers.
ALEX: All true, but so do lots of other practices. Irrigation, for instance, often leads to salinization of the soil - this happened throughout the (once) Fertile Crescent. And many traditional farming practices DO erode the soil."
DAN: Good point on Salinization associated with intense irrigation, but that is a problem that will vary from area to area.
“ALEX: My implicit assumption is that all the societies in ACKS are bad at managing their soil, because virtually every historical society has been bad at managing their soil.”
DAN: I don’t think I can agree with that, at least, not throughout the societies entire history. I suppose it could be true of the Auran Empire, but I have a hard time of thinking of Elves eroding thier soil.
"Pipe weed (tobacco, kinnikinnick) (again only as a trade item not grown in the hex)
Amber
Obsidian
Seal hide rope
Rubber
Whetstone
Soapstone
Beads (a popular trade item almost everywhere in the world ‘cause they are hard to make)
ALEX: Why “seal hide rope” in particular? That seems really specific when the rest of the items are so general. Likewise for the rest in the category. I’d put amber and obsidian under semi-precious stones. "
DAN:
Pipe weed: Well, there’s a wine category
Amber: very important trade item. Not a stone. used extensively in varnish.
Seal Rope - premier trade good, far superior to other types of rope for use in sailing vessels. It is much more impervious to the effects of salt water.
Obsidian: hugely important trade item in non ferrous societies, less important, but still used, in iron using societies. Used for making extremely sharp tools - maybe not so important to a medieval era game.
Whetstone: Sources for stone of the proper hardness and consistency for a putting a good edge on a blade are actually fairly limited. Popular trade item.
Soapstone: (steatite)fairly rare and highly prized for cooking.
Beads: was thinking of two things here - Wampum, particularly Duthc manufactuer in Albany, and Italian Glass beads.
Nevermind Rubber, I suppose that would be a Horticultural product.
“ALEX: Don’t know if you parsed this yet, but I went the other way - the Land Value affects the Demand Modifiers. I do it this way because I assume that GMs tend to work from the top down. First they determine the general value of a region, then they determine its particular trade goods. (“This is rich, fertile country…Land Value 8.”) Of course you could do it the other way around by just reverse engineering the ##s.”
DAN: Hmm, I hadn’t noticead that. I’ll have to take another look to really see what you mean. Top down tends to go against the chaos/agency theorist in me, so maybe that’s why I didn’t catch it.
Bloody typos - That’s Dutch, not Duthc (although Duthc might make a good character name…
“ALEX: Don’t know if you parsed this yet, but I went the other way - the Land Value affects the Demand Modifiers. I do it this way because I assume that GMs tend to work from the top down. First they determine the general value of a region, then they determine its particular trade goods. (“This is rich, fertile country…Land Value 8.”) Of course you could do it the other way around by just reverse engineering the ##s.”
DAN: Hmm, I hadn’t noticead that. I’ll have to take another look to really see what you mean. Top down tends to go against the chaos/agency theorist in me, so maybe that’s why I didn’t catch it.
Okay, I think I see what you mean - using the Demand Modifyiers and Damain specific adjustments. Yeah, that’s workable. I don’t much like going about it that way though because you are shoehorning characteristics into a preset value rather than letting the territory characteristics generate your value. Seeems like it would be more work, trying to make everything fit in and make sense and work out to what is essentially an arbitrary total. I’d definetly rather do it the other way - use a version of the environmental adjustments table to generate the land value. I dunno, maybe that’s just me.