I’ve got a couple of questions in preparation for my next session.
1 - Pillaging: Is it possible, given enough time, to salt the earth with too small an army? For example, could an army of 180 beastmen raze a 190-family urban settlement in 13.3 days ([1 day to pillage a 1-500 family domain * 4 to “salt the earth”] / [180 troops available / 600 troops needed to pillage a 1-500 family domain])? Or is that not possible unless you meet the 600 troop threshold?
2 - Refugees: Since peasants get by on 3gp / month, I calculate that a family of refugees should consume 3.75gp worth of a stronghold’s stores each week (3gp per person per month * 5 people per family / 4 weeks per month). Does that make sense?
3 - Decayed Strongholds: I’ve established that it has been a long time since the cults of Gorm, Usamigaras, and Madarua have been able to make enough money to cover the entirety of the upkeep costs for their strongholds. So, these strongholds have decayed to half their value, though they still consist of the structures depicted on the Underground City map in B4. I’m representing this by reducing each structure to half its normal shp and placing a breach for each full 1000 shp missing from that structure. Is that reasonable?
That actually overstates the supply requirements of a peasant family as 3 of the 5 members of the family are dependents (children or elderly) who do not need as many calories as the adult laborers.
Consumption of a peasant families is as follows:
Adult male laborer - consumes 4 coppers per day, 120cp (1.2gp) per month
Adult female laborer - consumes 3 coppers per day, 90cp (0.9gp) per month
Dependents - consume 1, 2, and 2.5 coppers per day, 165cp (1.65gp) per month
Total per month: 1.2 + 0.9 + 1.65 = 3.75gp per month = 45gp
Production is as follows:
According to the Assize of Bread and Ale, when 1 silver penny can buy 3 gallons of beer, 1 quarter of wheat is 3 shillings, 4 pence
3 shillings 4 pence is 3.6+.4gp, or 4gp
1 man can farm 20 acres and manage 30 acres
1 acre of land yields 1 quarter of wheat, so each man thus produces 80gp of wheat
Each man has a wife, who produces 80gp of domestic goods, and 3 children, each producing 10gp of domestic goods
Each household of 5 consumes 45gp of goods per year.
Therefore each household produces 190gp of economic value, and consumes 45gp of economic value, netting 145gp of economic value.
Peasants live at subsistence level, so the economic value is extracted in rents, taxes, and fees to their landlord.
Therefore each household produces 145/12 ~ 12gp per month of economic value for their landlord.
Since each family consumes 45gp per month, they consume 3.75gp per month as a family unit.
Decayed Strongholds: Very reasonable way to handle it.
Again, thanks Alex. Even though the siege turned out to be too short for most of this stuff to matter, I love getting a chance to see the numbers behind ACKS.