Andrew Janssen wrote: >Based on some of the discussions we've been having on the list lately, >I really think that instead of Scope being one number, we need two: one >number for area, and one for population. The current rules make the >assumption that societies with large populations occupy proportionally >large land areas(when your society is a nation). This doesn't do >justice to the variety of societies we have here. > Actually, the IH rules, as presented on my page at http://www.iki.fi/juuso/ihfudge already require those two numbers (although there is only one 'Scope' value). This, and the agriculture discussion, led me to think more about the scope, population and subsistance in a society. I would like to have a very simple ruleset which would cover these three issues in a somewhat consistent matter. The spreadsheets are very nice, but they are quite too complicated to be used in a (basically) table-top game. So here's my thinking laid out: 1. Scope of the society is based on its population (not the landarea). 2. Population consists of (a) people directly or indirectly involved with basic subsistance (farmers, blacksmiths, local lords, etc.), and (b) people not involved in such tasks (e.g. army, priests, artists, etc.; let's call these "extras"). 3. A single figure is used to represent how many "extras" the society can maximally support. This is the "margin of subsistance": it is the leftover from production of subsistance after the "normal people have taken their share. For example, a margin of 0.2 would mean that 5 people involved in subsistance livelyhoods generates enough to support one extra. Normally, though, these extras require more support than normal people: a soldier needs his gear, for example, which is not cheap, and which is away from subsistance production. Note that the 'subsistance' need not come from farming: it can be, for example, commerce. It just needs to provide the subsistance for the people in the society. 4. To tie the margin in with land area, another figure is needed: the subsistance population density, which tells how many normal people - well, let's say farmers - can gather their livelihood from one square mile/km. This determines how big population can live in a given area, or how big area does a certain population require. Typical values are around 1-2 for primitive gathering/hunting societies, around 10 (I think....) for herding, and around 100 for sedentary. Modern societies, and special situations (like imperial Rome) allow bigger population densities. As an example, let's assume an area of 100x100 miles. If it is fully cultivated, and can support 100 farmers per square mile, and the subsistance margin (which depends on the yield of the crop, which in turns on soil, weather, fertilizer, techiniques... and magic) is 0.2. The number of farmers (and their supportive cast) is 1 million, and thus the maximum number of extras is 200'000. Since these are more "expensive" than the farmers, let's say there are 100'000 of the extras => the maximum size of army is 100'000 men; in practice a whole lot less. What are the extras then? That depends on the motivation/obsessions of the society (religion --> priets, science --> scientists, art --> artists; and of external pressures --> army). Of course, the extras can also be valuable craftsmen, or for example gold miners, or simply more farmers; each of these generates more wealth to the society. So, depending on resources, motivations, and crafts of the society, the margin is also directly linked to the wealth of the society. So, just by specifying population, and the margin of subsistance, we can get - "extra" population --> maximum standing army size - some indication of the wealth of the society - with sub.pop.density --> required (cultivated) land area Comments? Hmmm... I'll have to go through Qaiyore socieities, and see how they compare with this (landarea, wilderness ratio, population --> what are the subsistance margin and pop.densities of different societies? Do they make sense?) juuso ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
