Costs of buildings and defenses, also the price of nobility

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Tribal kings: priests

Prince of Sartar: high priest

But the Gamemaster Adventures book states a few times that Leika is the High Priest of Orlanth Rex. Perhaps the Prince is then just primus inter pares and can't command the tribal kings with magic?

It stands to reason that there were High Priests of Orlanth Rex before the Kingdom of Sartar was formed, I think? Also, maybe you can have a hierarchy among High Priests? I imagine that huge and top-heavy organizations like Lunar cults would have any number of priestly ranks above regular Priest?

[Joerg]

About your building time estimate for a small log fort:

We know that the Roman legions (since the time of Marius) were able to put up a rudimentary log fort within an evening, after marching up to 20 miles (on roads, daily progress of the Varus expedition was significantly lower - especially after they deviated from the route supported by river travel). Admittedly with prefab material. And to disassemble it in the morning, carrying the material on to the next location, where the firstcomers already would have cleared the ground and put up a bit of earth wall and ditch.

The siege works before Alesia were done under duress, inward and outward, in quite short time, then refined.

Another example of fast building is the US custom of a barn raising - usually a one day event, although with the logistics for the material done in advance. If a barn raising has 5 crews in attendance (40 to 50 able-bodied workers), then we have a time frame here.

But then, getting the walls up and the roof on top often is only half the work.

 

[Blindhamster]

19 minutes ago, Brootse said:

That's about in the same ballpark as the RQ3 prices divided by 10. Good prices imo.

yeah, my process was:
- RQ3 prices /3 to get lunar prices

- work out a rough cost for a crew of 8 unskilled and 2 skilled labourers, divide that to get the number of weeks, manually adjust from there to get reasonable times for one team to do the work, using a few real world figures i could find (a 13ft roundhouse takes about 2 weeks IRL apparently, and ancient greek temples of size took 4-6 years), I also then took into account that a number of the building types are almost certainly going to have required more than one crew, so where i felt like they required 3 or more, i multiplied the number of weeks by the number of teams.

To get the monatery cost for materials, i essentially went with working out the above in reverse almost (so i got the number of weeks, assumed 5 work days, multiplied that by average cost of a team and added a % on top based on the idea that you're also saving time by buying materials rather than gathering them yourself. In the case of wood or mud-brick only buildings (so no stone or tiles) I reduced material costs somewhat because they were more common materials to work with and more readily available.

[Blindhamster]

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

About your building time estimate for a small log fort:

We know that the Roman legions (since the time of Marius) were able to put up a rudimentary log fort within an evening, after marching up to 20 miles (on roads, daily progress of the Varus expedition was significantly lower - especially after they deviated from the route supported by river travel). Admittedly with prefab material. And to disassemble it in the morning, carrying the material on to the next location, where the firstcomers already would have cleared the ground and put up a bit of earth wall and ditch.

The siege works before Alesia were done under duress, inward and outward, in quite short time, then refined.

Another example of fast building is the US custom of a barn raising - usually a one day event, although with the logistics for the material done in advance. If a barn raising has 5 crews in attendance (40 to 50 able-bodied workers), then we have a time frame here.

But then, getting the walls up and the roof on top often is only half the work.

 

see above for how i roughly worked out timings, I did reduce timings further in the case of wood-only buildings roo, how many people would have been working on a log fort in roman legios? the more realistic the numbers can be made, the happier I'll be. The only ones I have relative confidence in are the castle/temples and the roundhouse, as they were the only ones I could find realistic numbers to work with.

Ideally this sort of stuff would have been in the gm book seeing as if you're going to make a PC a Thane, you can bet the first thing they'll start doing, is trying to arrange building. Lol. But never mind. I'd say a Barn is still considerably simpler than even a the simplest commoners home in the list above. which would take 2.4 weeks with 5 teams based on what i currently have.

More than happy with people with more knowledge to make suggestions on more realistic numbers for anything that isn't the castles/temples or the roundhouse though! It'll hopefully be a useful resource that way!

 

 

edit

on the roman perpective a cohort was 480 soldier, so if i had the time for 1 crew as 24 weeks, that would be roughly correct, the logic being that it would take 48 crews about half a day to build the same fort. Thoughts?

Edited October 20, 2020 by Blindhamster

[Joerg]

The only historical sources which give some information on the logistics of building projects that I have in my collection are the data of Edward Longshanks' castle projects in Wales.

 

We don't know about crew sizes or materials cost of the Sartarite princes, but we do know what projects each of them initiated and finished, and we know their reigns. All ruling descendants of Saronil left some rather big projects behind, even Jorasar with his rather short reign, who extended the royal road from Jonstown to Dangerford. Given the quality of Sartarite royal roads, this was no mean achievement, although the fact that his father Jarolar already had begun (possibly finished) the walls at Dangerford, this may already have been fully planned when Jarosar took over.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The only historical sources which give some information on the logistics of building projects that I have in my collection are the data of Edward Longshanks' castle projects in Wales.

I'm thinking we ought to have numbers for time and workforce to raise a basic wood Motte-and-Bailey castle? No real idea, though.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

21 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

It stands to reason that there were High Priests of Orlanth Rex before the Kingdom of Sartar was formed, I think? Also, maybe you can have a hierarchy among High Priests? I imagine that huge and top-heavy organizations like Lunar cults would have any number of priestly ranks above regular Priest?

You absolutly align with the rules

 

A Rune Priest that runs a minor temple is called a Chief Priest. Rune Priests heading major or great temples are termed High Priests. Immediate aides to the High Priest of a great temple may also be called Chief Priests. Additionally, priests heading major temples that are subject to a great temple may also be called a Chief Priest. In most cults, each High Priest needs answer only to their god. In a few extremely large and well-organized religions, the High Priests answer to a high cult official responsible for a large area

 

So the rules are fine with Leika High Priest of her tribe and Prince of Sartar High Priest (or Senior VP / Senior Venerable Priest)  of all Sartar tribes

[Akhôrahil]

Only saw this now - RQG has a hide as worth 500 L for tax purposes. Since this also makes perfect sense compared to flocks, I’m pretty sure it’s the most basic number to use.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Akhôrahil