One of the things that's always niggled me a little about IH was the abstractness about some of the Determinants involved. Abstraction is necessary, of course, or the game would be unplayable, but I'm a person who likes concreteness. In particular, I've often wondered about the interrelation between a society's scope, its economy, and its armed forces. The formulas we have seem to work pretty well, but I've never been able to get clear mental pictures from them. Well, the other night I was re-reading Sun-Tzu's "Art of War". For a book that was written two and a half millenia ago, it's aged well. Now, in Chapter 2, 'Waging War', Sun-Tzu says that to raise an army of 100,000 men, equip them in all respects, provision them for a march of 330 miles, and then support them in the field, will require the expenditure of 1,000 ounces of silver per day. That works out to a total of 22,812.5 pounds of silver per year to maintain that same army. Silver is currently trading at $4.79/oz, so a little math tells us that in the year 500 BC, a Chinese army of 100,000 men would consume the rough equivalent of $1.75 million per year to operate as a field force, or $4,790 per diem. Sun-Tzu's figure of 1,000oz of silver includes expenditures both at home and in field, plus allowance for unforseen events, such as emergency repairs. Now, obviously, drawing straight comparisons like this is slightly absurd, because the cost of maintaining an army depends on things like the level of technology and the cost of living. Still, it does give us some ballpark figures. Going by Sun-Tzu's estimate and assuming a similar tech level(equal to the Warring States period or to the early Roman empire), for every 100 men in your army, you can expect to spend an ounce of silver per day. So, using the tables from the IH Rules Site: Scope Daily Cost ------------------------------------------------ Vast >200,000 >2000ozAg Huge 200,000 2000ozAg Great 100,000 1000ozAg Big 30,000 300ozAg Fair 10,000 100ozAg Mediocre 3,000 30ozAg Small 1,000 10ozAg V. Small 300 3ozAg Tiny 20 .2ozAg Of course, this completely ignores the possibility that a nation's standing forces may include or consist solely of naval units. Maintaining a fleet and its necessary support facilities is far more expensive than maintaining an army and its facilities. It assumes that the army is actively campaigning. And it ignores the effect of raising the reserves. Just as an example, if a society of scope Huge were to call up reserves to their max of 2 million men, expenditures would jump to 20,000oz of silver per day. Keeping those two million men in the field for a year would cost 7.3 million ounces of silver, or roughly $35 million of today's dollars per year. And that's not counting the ripple effect to an economy of losing the economic inputs of the reservists/draftees. Sun-Tzu also points out that an army on campaign *must* live off the land as much as possible. A large army draws heavily from the treasury, which raises taxes to try and compensate, thus pulling money out of the pockets of the peasants. An army's presence also tends to cause local increases in prices, further draining the substance of the common people. And, an army in the field has a much higher rate of wear-and-tear & supply consumption; for example, the current model of combat boot used by the US Army is rated for three year's use in peacetime, but only six months in wartime. In Sun-Tzu's day, these factors meant that a peasant family could lose 30% of its income to war taxes and war inflation, while their government finds itself spending 40% or more of its revenues to support the army in the field. Again, these figures are for China in 500 BC, but I think a rough parallel may be drawn. What this little exercise should bring home is the fact that war, in any era, is *expensive*. Armies are *expensive*. Sun-Tzu was absolutely right when he said that "There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare." And what may this imply for the nations of Qaiyore? Well, as the rules already state, prolonged war with full mobilization *will* eventually hurt your society's economic determinants. No if's about it. The cost of war, even without that mobilization must be considered. Cedonia, before 1420, was large enough and secure enough to embark on a program of conquest using only their standing army. An examination of what Sun-Tzu has written suggests that even that would not have been sustainable in the long run. And then, of course, the Sinari went on crusade. Even given that the Sinari invasion was not quite twenty years ago, most of the societies directly involved in fighting them should probably think twice about getting into another conflict so soon. Mir is probably an exception to this, AFAIK the Sinari never came close to reaching the Island of Mir--of course, with a society Scope of Fair, going on a conquista could get expensive. As for Cedonia and myself, civil wars are a different kettle of fish in terms of costs. Much more expensive for the common man in some ways, and far harder to stop. Andrew Janssen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
