Settlement Income

[Uhtred]

Is income by settlement size codified anywhere? I know Book of the Manor has a census / population growth entry that allows for the addition of a new Hamlet with a population of 100 people that adds £1 to Manorial Harvest Income, and Book of the Estate lays out approximate population by settlement size - Clusters / Hamlet / Village / Town. Estate also includes costs for building a Hamlet and Village, but I don’t see an entry there for increased Manor revenue.  

I’ve done the math using the two books to generate a quick guide to income by settlement size but it seems wrong - or flawed.  The Hamlet generates £1 per Book of the Manor and my math leads to £2.5 average Village income. Book of the Estate says that a Hamlet is 1/4 of a Village, so shouldn’t a Village be £4?  

If this info is laid out in a previous edition book, could someone please point me in that direction? 

[Atgxtg]

There are a few things to keep in mind. 

First off, Manor and Estate were done at different times, settlement sizes aren't the same between BoE and BoM. A village (300-600 people) in BoM is equivalent to a town (375-625) in BoE.

Generally speaking, the math and economics of  the Book of the Estate mostly supersedes that in the Book of the Manor. So in general you can assume that the values from Estate are the correct ones. So the Hamlet = £1, Village = £6 (£4-8), and Town = £9 (£6-12) from BoM p. 7 is outdated. BoM was written when the typical manor was assumed to produce 6 in income, which BoE upped to £10 (actually more than £120 but the knight won't see more than £10-20 of it).

 

Secondly, actual income varies wildly from village to village or from farm to farm. That's actually one of the reasons why the "Manor" was used as a basic economic unit, both in the game and historically. It allows the size of holdings to vary based upon how productive they were. So holdings are smaller and more tightly grouped on the fertile plans of Salisbury, and larger and more spread out in the hillier regions to the west. 

 

BTW, what are you trying to do with this? Do you have a player trying to expand his holdings? 

 

 

 

[Tizun Thane]

I always use the following formula:

1 manor = 500 inhabitants

• So 1 manor of 6 £ under the old rules? 500 inhabitants
• 1 manor of 10 £ under the new rules? 500 inhabitants
• A little estate of 120 £ according to the BoE (new rules)? 12 x 500 = 6000 inhabitants

[Atgxtg]

One thing that might help is that BoE links the income not to the villagers but to the fields, or lots. Each lot that is worked provides £1 of income, and a manor has ten "lots". To get more income a lord would have to be able to clear a new lot of land (which requires permission, as the land usually comes from nearby woods, not to mention funds), and then get enough serfs to work it, set them up with homes and so forth. Or use the new space for manorial investments.

Working with lots makes the match much easier, and you don;'t have to worry about how many villager or hamlets a particular manor has, or anything like that, and can just focus on the ten lots.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Morien]

Just to note that 'One Lot' is just 10% of the Estate, no matter what size. It is just a tenth, a fraction of the whole, not an absolute measurement.

[Atgxtg]

46 minutes ago, Morien said:

Just to note that 'One Lot' is just 10% of the Estate, no matter what size. It is just a tenth, a fraction of the whole, not an absolute measurement.

Interesting. So if an estate holder with ten manors (£100 income) gets raided and suffers 3 lots temporary damage, it basically means that raiders took 30% of his income (£30), and that he could loose up to that 30% during the harvest. 

But how does that work manorial improvements and investments? Should the bonuses be scaled to fit with the larger sized lots? For instance if a landholder with an estate valued at £100 were to assign one one his ten lots to a dairy would  that be the equivalent of ten dairies  and produce £20 instead of £2?

 

[Morien]

Lots are different from spaces.

 

Lots are simply 1/10th fractions of the total income (BotE v1.3.2, p.44): "Every holding is divided into ten Lots, each of which represents ten percent of the holding’s full, undamaged Assized Rent." They are simply used for the damage & reconstruction calculations, basically a unit of a simplified accounting. The whole Estate is treated as a single entity. (But, if you want to use the constituent manors in your own game, feel free. Especially if they are outliers, so not the whole Estate got raided. That's what I do in our campaign, treating one £50 contiguous estate as a single entity, while the earlier £10 manor counts as a separate one. Also, note that raiding the full £50 estate would require 5 times the manpower to raid a £10 manor, too, so it does scale up appropriately.)

 

Spaces are defined on p. 76: "These Improvements require space to build: Horse Herd, Leprosarium, Mellisarium, Orchard, Sheep Herd, Vaccary, Vineyard. One new Improvement per £10 Assized Rent can be accommodated."

So your £100 estate would have £100/£10 = 10 spaces for the space-limited improvements.

Each Improvement is for a SINGLE improvement. So if you build a dairy (Vaccary), it costs £15, provides £2 income and takes one space (BotE v1.3.2, p. 93). It doesn't matter if you build it on a £100 Estate or a £10 manor. What matters is that the £100 Estate has 9 spaces left, which you could, if you wanted, fill with dairies as well for a total price of £150 to build, £20 income and 10 spaces used.

Also note that the building time scales with the size of the estate, too: "Each £10 of Assized Rent allows one improvement to be built per year. If more are built, then extra outside labor must be brought in. This adds fifty percent to the cost."

So both the £10 manor and the £100 Estate can fill their available spaces (1 and 10, respectively) in 1 year with dairies by paying 1.5 times their annual income to build, and gaining +20% to their income out of it. It all scales, you see?

It is also possible for the £100 Estate to build up a variety of space-limited investments, say 3 horse-herds, 3 vaccaries, 2 vineyards and 2 sheep herds. They do not all need to be the same investment.

Edited June 13, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Morien said:

Lots are different from spaces.

Okay.

Quote

 

Lots are simply 1/10th fractions of the total income (BotE v1.3.2, p.44): "Every holding is divided into ten Lots, each of which represents ten percent of the holding’s full, undamaged Assized Rent." They are simply used for the damage & reconstruction calculations, basically a unit of a simplified accounting. The whole Estate is treated as a single entity. (But, if you want to use the constituent manors in your own game, feel free. Especially if they are outliers, so not the whole Estate got raided. That's what I do in our campaign, treating one £50 contiguous estate as a single entity, while the earlier £10 manor counts as a separate one. Also, note that raiding the full £50 estate would require 5 times the manpower to raid a £10 manor, too, so it does scale up appropriately.)

And give 5 times the reward if raided or plundered.(i.e £15 instead of £3)

Quote

Spaces are defined on p. 76: "These Improvements require space to build: Horse Herd, Leprosarium, Mellisarium, Orchard, Sheep Herd, Vaccary, Vineyard. One new Improvement per £10 Assized Rent can be accommodated."

So your £100 estate would have £100/£10 = 10 spaces for the space-limited improvements.

Okay, so lots are 10% increments of the land, while spaces are 1 per £10 worth of rent/land.

Quote

Each Improvement is for a SINGLE improvement. So if you build a dairy (Vaccary), it costs £15, provides £2 income and takes one space (BotE v1.3.2, p. 93). It doesn't matter if you build it on a £100 Estate or a £10 manor. What matters is that the £100 Estate has 9 spaces left, which you could, if you wanted, fill with dairies as well for a total price of £150 to build, £20 income and 10 spaces used.

Okay. Got it. So a holding with an income of £50 would still have ten lots but five spaces. BTW, just what does count as assized rent? For instance how about the market town and port bonuses? For instance would a holding with an assized rent income of £50 but which including a market town port (+20%) have an assized rent income of £60 and thus 6 spaces?

Quote

Also note that the building time scales with the size of the estate, too: "Each £10 of Assized Rent allows one improvement to be built per year. If more are built, then extra outside labor must be brought in. This adds fifty percent to the cost."

 

So both the £10 manor and the £100 Estate can fill their available spaces (1 and 10, respectively) in 1 year with dairies by paying 1.5 times their annual income to build, and gaining +20% to their income out of it. It all scales, you see?

No I don't see. Because that's not how it worded. In Estate the costs and incomes from investments and improvements are fixed, not presented as a % increase. If it does work as a % increase then the change is huge. I can see the £100 estate being able to fill ten spaces with dairies and getting +£20 income but isn't that fact that £20 is 20% of £100 basically unrelated? It really just building ten dairies (and having ten free spaces to do so).

 

Quote

It is also possible for the £100 Estate to build up a variety of space-limited investments, say 3 horse-herds, 3 vaccaries, 2 vineyards and 2 sheep herds. They do not all need to be the same investment.

Yeah, I see that now. Basically i had confused "lots" with spaces. It seems that lots are just 10% increments of rent income while spaces are actual units of land used for specific investments. 

I might have to fix one of two PK manors next session, but it shouldn't be a bit deal. I was allowing them to build additional investments by sacrificing lots for additional space. It was working out fairly well, too.  

 

Thanks for the clarification. 

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Morien]

32 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Okay. Got it. So a holding with an income of £50 would still have ten lots but five spaces. BTW, just what does count as assized rent? For instance how about the market town and port bonuses? For instance would a holding with an assized rent income of £50 but which including a market town port (+20%) have an assized rent income of £60 and thus 6 spaces?

On Hindsight, it would have been better to take the Market Town bonuses out of Assized Rent and just apply them to the Customary Revenue.

Spaces, being actual physical space, shouldn't increase with market town & other trade bonuses. It doesn't matter if there is no trade or booming trade, the borders of your land grant stay the same. Thus, I would base it on the basic AR without trade boni.

Note that the whole Trade bonus is more of a reflection of imported goods being cheaper, rather than an increase in production. It is just a conceit that this saving is expressed as an income bonus, like it says in BotW, p. 11: "The advantage of these centers of commerce is that local and regional trade benefits the neighboring lands by making it easier to acquire outside goods, so they are cheaper. This general and widespread savings is expressed as income."

43 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No I don't see. Because that's not how it worded. In Estate the costs and incomes from investments and improvements are fixed, not presented as a % increase. If it does work as a % increase then the change is huge. I can see the £100 estate being able to fill ten spaces with dairies and getting +£20 income but isn't that fact that £20 is 20% of £100 basically unrelated? It really just building ten dairies (and having ten free spaces to do so).

*long sigh*

I was comparing £10 manor having 1 space and building 1 vaccary, vs. a £100 estate having 10 spaces and building 10 vaccaries. Former pays £15 (1.5 times its basic annual income of £10) and gets £2 income out of it (+20% boost to its basic annual income of £10). The latter pays £150 (1.5 times its basic annual income of £100) and gets £20 income out of it (+20% boost to its basic annual income of £100). Thus they both scale in building costs (x1.5) and accrued benefit (+20%) in comparison to their basic annual income (£10 or £100).

Now if they already have built something else, then no, the +20% to CURRENT income is not the same as +£20. But that was so not my point.

Is it clear now?

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I might have to fix one of two PK manors next session, but it shouldn't be a bit deal. I was allowing them to build additional investments by sacrificing lots for additional space. It was working out fairly well, too.   

You actually can do this, but the system very much doesn't like you to: "One new Improvement per £10 Assized Rent can be accommodated. Beyond that, an Improvement can only be made on arable land, reducing income by £2 per used space."

I think a lot of your confusion is due to the fact that you are, if I remember our previous exchanges correctly, using an older, unrevised version of Estate? The revision was a major overhaul.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

On Hindsight, it would have been better to take the Market Town bonuses out of Assized Rent and just apply them to the Customary Revenue.

Yes, I agree.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Spaces, being actual physical space, shouldn't increase with market town & other trade bonuses. It doesn't matter if there is no trade or booming trade, the borders of your land grant stay the same. Thus, I would base it on the basic AR without trade boni.

Because of this. 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

*long sigh*

kay, I think I've caught up. Thanks for explaining it to me.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Is it clear now?

Yup.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

You actually can do this, but the system very much doesn't like you to: "One new Improvement per £10 Assized Rent can be accommodated. Beyond that, an Improvement can only be made on arable land, reducing income by £2 per used space."

I think a lot of your confusion is due to the fact that you are, if I remember our previous exchanges correctly, using an older, unrevised version of Estate? The revision was a major overhaul.

Probably. I know I was using an outdated version of Entourage for a bit and it lead to some confusion with the random wife stats and marriage tables. My confusion here was mostly in viewing "lots" as actual lots of land and not as 10% increments, plus I was viewing things mostly from the viewpoint of a single manor. 

All in all , though I'm not in too bad a shape here. I think I might have to talk to one or two players to fix a manor and the PKs with either lose  £1 or trade off one investment for a refund.  Thanks for the help. 

[Morien]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Thanks for the help.  

Happy to have been helpful!

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Happy to have been helpful!

To ensure that you stay that way, I won't tell my players that you're the one who took away their extra income!

[Morien]

Just now, Atgxtg said:

To ensure that you stay that way, I won't tell my players that you're the one who took away their extra income!

Nah, pin it on me all you want! Even my players are already convinced that I am out to get them, and my online GM avatar is the Eye of Sauron, so...

"It is not me, it is that EvilGM Morien from the forums who is at fault..."

[Atgxtg]

LOL! I think I've got the same players.