Camel Trains

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1

I was just wondering if anybody had run the numbers for replacing wagons with camels on mercantile ventures.

At 60 stone/camel vs. 640 stone/wagon, I’m running with a 10 camels = 1 wagon conversion rate. This leads to caravans of 100 to 400 camels, with one merchant and 4 guards in charge of every 20 camels. A quick Wikipedia search suggests Silk Road camel trains ran with up to 150 camels, with 1 handler per 16 camels. So, I’m not getting all that close to reality with this rule, but there were a lot fewer dragons and undead on the Silk Road than on the Desert wandering monster chart, so it’s probably a push.

Does anyone see anything I might be missing?

2

Your conversion sounds fine to me. Caravans of 100 to 400 caravans compares well to Silk Road trains of 150 camels. 1 merchant per 20 camels compares well to 1 handler per 16 camels.

The ACKS world is considerably more dangerous than the real world, so the larger number of guards is justified.