Having successfully negotiated for a steady supply of elf livers, my quest to become the ultimate dwarf can continue a little longer. However, the process of negotiation was not without complications. I won't bore you with the specific details; Suffice to say, I am now the custodian of a small number of elven prisoners.
Out of deference to my new elf-lord ally, I would prefer to treat these prisoners well. Knowing that elves, unlike dwarves, tend to pine away if denied sunlight, I have ordered that they are to get some healthy fresh air and exercise while working (strictly supervised) in my fields.
This decision has presented me with a question that must be answered. To the best of my knowledge, the Labour proficiency is required for a character to perform labour fruitfully. Unfortunately, these prisoners lack that particular general proficiency, having backgrounds as petty nobles and yeomen. As prisoners, they've no means to attain the campain or adventuring experience required to learn more proficiencies by levelling, and as adult elves, they can't gain further proficiencies as they age.
I therefore must ask: Is there any other way for humans and demihumans to gain the labour proficiency, so that they can be put to work? (Perhaps by swapping an existing proficiency for a new one?) And if there really is no way for them to gain the Labour proficiency, how much can I expect them to produce while labouring without it?
This is properly broken down in Domans At War: Campaigns, but the labor proficiency is for SKILLED labor, whereas everyone can do UNSKILLED labor. In construction projects, the differences is 1sp/day for unskilled and 2sp/day for skilled, or 3gp & 6gp per month, respectively.
How important? Abraham Lincoln remarked in his first address to Congress that it was 'the superior to capital'. ACKS proves his point via the demographics system, as without available labor to hire, your capital sourced from the dragon's hoard cannot be put to use.
But anyway...
Jard beat me to it.
As far as training time, one could say that the 6gp/mo rate of skilled labor is equal to the pay rate of Light Infantry. Learning to be Light Infantry takes 1 month. You might be able to pay someone with the same Labor proficiency (5sp * trainees) per month, perhaps capped around 7-ish (base off Elite Troop Training from Axioms #4) to push the same Labor proficiency to those elves; including the cost of providing them laborer's tools.
I'd probably ignore the whole proficiency thing in this case.
The reverse of that implies that being Light Infantry, which I would suppose includes things soldiers ought to know, basic camping procedure, equipment maintenance, knowledge of signals, etc, etc. is equivalent to Labor and thus is Skilled Labor.
[quote="Jard"]
This is properly broken down in Domans At War: Campaigns...
[/quote]
Wow, that is not where I expected that info to be. I've been holding off buying Domains At War until it's available in physical format, but I keep running up against things like this... Ah, well.
This is properly broken down in Domans At War: Campaigns...
-Jard
Wow, that is not where I expected that info to be. I've been holding off buying Domains At War until it's available in physical format, but I keep running up against things like this... Ah, well.
Thanks for the answer!
[/quote]
yeah, as an outsider looking in, it sounds odd, but when you read it in the context of the book it makes a fair bit of sense. You're going to have players who want to try to get their stronghold or their siege engines done quicker, or who are going to try and get their soldiers to do some of the labor. That's where thate extra granularity comes in.