Building an irrigation system as a manorial improvement

[Primo Cavaliere]

Hello guys,

a couple of days ago, one of my knights asked me if he could build an irrigation system as a manorial improvement.

The second question was how would it cost and the third what effects it may have on the manorial income, hate landlord, glory and so on.

I took time to answer, since I could not remember any kind of that idea in the Book of Manor or anywhere else.

What do you think would be appropriate?

I was thinking about an investiment cost in between 6-8 Libras, with a maintenance cost of at least 1.

As for the effects, I suppose it could give a hate landlord reduction of 1 or 2 points and, perhaps, a Fate reduction of 1 or 2 points every winter phase?

Thank you in advance

[ArkSvid]

There's the Hardcore Pure 100% Realism answer and then there's the fun answer

The realistic answer is that the peasants would already have an irrigation system in place and a noble born landlord isn't going to know the first thing about farming (such knowledge would be un-knightly after all,) unless they have an unusually high folkore skill showing they're very in touch with the commoners.

The more fun answer, if your game is willing to stretch realism to allow the players to customize and build up their land, would be to let them build such an improvement but first decide on what exact category of improvement you want it to be.

If it's going to reduce hate landlord, it shouldn't provide any fate reductions or income, as the reduction in hate landlord is indicating the knight is generously giving to the peasantry despite it not having any benefit to themselves. Such an improvement also wouldn't have any maintenance cost as keeping the system running would be part of the peasants' duties.

But if you'd rather it be something that gives a boost to the manor's economics, I'd suggest dropping the reduction to hate landlord and adding a small income on top of the fate reduction (similar to how apiaries act.) Maybe even give the improvement a roll/check for folklore or prudent.

[Morien]

Also, England is famous for its lack of rain, right, hence the need of irrigation ditches? *tongue firmly in cheek*

More seriously, agreed with the previous poster.

 

[Darius West]

20 hours ago, Morien said:

Also, England is famous for its lack of rain, right, hence the need of irrigation ditches? *tongue firmly in cheek*

More seriously, agreed with the previous poster.

TBH you might actually need ditches to de-irrigate fields in Britain, channels to draw the water away without washing the crops away too.😆

More seriously, if your character was going to increase their land holding by cutting down wilderness, they would likely need to de-stump the new pastures, fence them in, and irrigate them.  Established land likely has most of that already.  One thing that might not be as common as irrigation ditches is good strong stone fences.  There are likely to be a good few rotting wooden ones that need replacing, and the same goes for cottages.  It's hard to hate someone who pays for a better place for you to live in if Hate Landlord is the main motivation here.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Darius West

[Primo Cavaliere]

Thank you for the ideas, but at what price do you think it would be fair?

[ArkSvid]

5 hours ago, Primo Cavaliere said:

Thank you for the ideas, but at what price do you think it would be fair?

If you're going to have it as an improvement that reduces Hate Landlord I'd suggest sticking to your original idea of 6-8 libra, as that's comparable to the cost of similar improvements. For irrigation as an economic investment I'd suggest making the cost/maintenance similar to the book's fishing pond; 5 libra to build, 1 libra to maintain.

[Morien]

4 hours ago, ArkSvid said:

For irrigation as an economic investment

Just mentioning quickly here that the Book of the Manor investment scheme is totally out of whack, unless you vigorously enforce the 'only one investment of its type' rule from BotEstate. It is still way too generous, but at least it will stop income from exploding upwards exponentially. (I did a quick calculation and the value of the single £10 manor in Uther Period, using the unrestrained investment rules from BotM, resulted in an income of thousands of pounds by the end of the campaign just from investments alone. Assuming no reassessment of the property (see below), of course.)

Introducing new investments that you can add for extra income feeds the same problem, although if you fix the above problem, it is a much lesser issue. Also, if you adopt the reassessment from Book of the Estate when the holder dies and the heir takes over, you can rebalance things in each generation, which helps a ton, too.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 12/23/2022 at 8:25 AM, Morien said:

Also, England is famous for its lack of rain, right, hence the need of irrigation ditches? *tongue firmly in cheek*

More seriously, agreed with the previous poster.

 

Search for "water meadow".https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-a-water-meadow.html 

 But these would seem to be anachronistic for Arthurian times.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
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