Navies need more power.

[sophie]

DaNESII comes highly recommended for the (serious and discerning alternative) historically inclined person. But there's just about something to suit every taste. If you want to have a talk pop just put this address into your browser http://nes-chat.tk/ and select a nickname. The guys (including myself) on here are more than willing to assist you in any way.

I'm getting an error message on it. Is the address correct?

Sorry if I'm derailing the thread .

 

[Masada]

It should be working. If you have any other problems just send a PM to Kraznaya.

 

[Nicolas10]

I'll clearly need to stop wasting my effort, but Masada's refutation of any Spain analysis as requiring "perfect hindsight" is flat-out ridiculous.

The quick analogy is to a professional athlete or rap star. You may see a ton of new cars in the driveway and tons of money being thrown about, but what's going to happen in 20 years? If he's not investing in anything, and the money well's dry up, then what's going to happen to his economic power?

Just like it wouldn't take a genius, if you actually traveled through Spain during its era of power, to see that it was far more backwards and less developed then other areas of Europe... and see that as a problem. Given that the diplomats, Merchants, priests, and military men of Spain traveled all ove Europe, it's not like they were ignorant of the increasing urbanization taking place all over Europe.

Spain was massively technologically backward... but it didn't have to be. It chose to continually rely on other nations for innovation, production capacity, and seafaring skills. It chose to continue to pay everyone else, never being ready for when the New World riches started to peter out.

And Henry Kamen has spent 20+ years of his life researching Spanish influence and development in that 300-year period. He has written two highly acclaimed works, first on Philip II and then the one I already reference.

I assure you, his conclusions upon Spain's techological dispariety (for example nearly all prominent Spanish authors had to go outside Spain to publish anything for the first 100 years of the Printing Press) and Spain's reliance on non-Spanish peoples for its infrastructure (i.e. Dutch, English, and Portugese shipping; Italian machinery, etc.) are not short-sited or made without serious years in the field.

 

[Dachs]

Eh. It's usually exceptionally hard to change institutions, especially under a monarchical system, and it's extremely difficult to create entirely separate economic sectors through sheer force of monarchical will. It wasn't as though Felipe IV or whomever could've just waltzed in and declared the Cortes shut down and aristocratic monopolies abolished, or whatever.

I'm unsure as to what the Spanish "could have" done differently (especially since Spanish domestic history isn't exactly part of my repertoire); working within the constraints of the system, the Spanish kept a vast empire running for several centuries and maintained European protagonism despite severe exogenous shocks like the War of the Spanish Succession, all the way up to Napoleon.

 

[Nicolas10]

You are absolutely correct, Dax, to acknowledge how difficult it is for a ruling, monarchical system to evolve or break trends.

But the Spanish example is one where short-sited decisions made long-term decline inevitable. To shorten a complex topic, the problems were urbanization and religion.

What drove the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centures was obviously the collection of movements that we commonly refer to as the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment.

All of these stem from urbanization and friction with the ruling powers. Cities became bastions of resistence, armed with the printing press, an artisinal class of citizens, and the powers of commerce and innovation. Northern urbanization, however, ultimately rebelled against the Catholic monarchy. Hence, the nasty bloodiness of the Reformation.

Spain's ruling system was decidly wary of these factors. The allied themselves with the Catholic interest, pushed for a continued agrarian system of nobles and peasants, and were outwardly hostile to many merchant and artisinal classes via the Inquisition, most obviously the Jews, whose expulsion deprived Spain of a strong merchant class.

These were all decisions made to consolidate political and military power at the time... but which failed Spain. Infrastruture, by definition, means urbanization. Spain chose not to this, and instead paid others to do so, i.e. Dutch, English, French, et al. As a result, all that money actually served to enrich and establish the middle classes of other European countries, and funded their construction of infrastructure (i.e. better ships, roads, schools, etc.).

Had Spain taken the Roman model of expansion, i.e. make its territories Spanish through infrastructure and urbanization, and, of course, engineer a stronger Spanish civilization via investments in innovation, education, and commercial infrastructure, then European history would be very different.

 

[Masada]

I'll clearly need to stop wasting my effort, but Masada's refutation of any Spain analysis as requiring "perfect hindsight" is flat-out ridiculous.

It does require perfect hindsight. Provide me with evidence that anyone in Spain at the time was aware of its deep systemic issues and had a realistic plan for how to cure them. Hint: investing in infrastructure isn't, wasn't and would never be recommended by any economist as a cure considering that it would, you know, exaserbate the problems.

The quick analogy is to a professional athlete or rap star. You may see a ton of new cars in the driveway and tons of money being thrown about, but what's going to happen in 20 years? If he's not investing in anything, and the money well's dry up, then what's going to happen to his economic power?

Good analogy poor understanding of the limitations of policy and knoweldge at the time.

Just like it wouldn't take a genius, if you actually traveled through Spain during its era of power, to see that it was far more backwards and less developed then other areas of Europe... and see that as a problem. Given that the diplomats, Merchants, priests, and military men of Spain traveled all ove Europe, it's not like they were ignorant of the increasing urbanization taking place all over Europe.

Except, broadly speaking, it wasn't. Sure, it was peripheral to the main action but it wasn't that far behind and it wasn't inconcievable that it could, and would, eventually catch up. Also, it wasn't like anybody knew the factors that drove urbanization or had the institutional means of replicating or complementing them in the first place. Besides, we weren't talking about urbanization earlier either, I seem to remeber technology and infrastructure being the operative thrust of your arguement.

Spain was massively technologically backward... but it didn't have to be.

You haven't provided any evidentiary basis to suggst it was. France banned cloth buttons, cotton calicoes and spinning machines till the Revolution but nobody describes them as being 'massively technologically backward'. It levied punative taxes on its people and levies on transport. It had arcane legislation from the production of just about everything: wool had to use a certain type of carding comb. In-fact it did everything possible to ****** technological improvement and far more importantly implementation and yet it avoids the epithets thrown at Spain.

It chose to continually rely on other nations for innovation, production capacity, and seafaring skills. It chose to continue to pay everyone else, never being ready for when the New World riches started to peter out.

I'm yet to see any evidence or context for the supposition that Spain was inferior in all those respects or that those choices it took were inherantly inferior. I'll use Maddison (2007) to show you my perspective. For 1500, 1600, 1700 and 1820 he cites Spanish GDP per capita in 1990 international Keary-Khamis dollars as $661, $853, $853, and $1008 respectively.

The United Kingdom* is larger at $714, $974, $1250, $1234 per capita.
The Netherlands is still larger than the UK and Spain at $761, $1381, $2130, $1838 per capita.
Spain is only marginally poorer than Italy is $1100, $1100, $1100 and $1117.
The same applies to Germany* which is $688, $791, $910 and $1077 respectively.
While France -- an economic 'titan' -- is only slightly richer again, with $727, $841, $910 and $1135.

So while Spain is somewhat poorer it isn't by much. Remeber as well that GDP per capita has a direct correlation to productivity and frankly I can't see any evidence that it was as behind as you claim.

*the figures are dervived from modern borders for ease of comparision.

And Henry Kamen has spent 20+ years of his life researching Spanish influence and development in that 300-year period. He has written two highly acclaimed works, first on Philip II and then the one I already reference.

Great. I'm sure he's a smart man. I would need to examine his arguements in detail but what you've presented as his isn't all that awe inspiring. It sounds more like a Keynesian/Developmentalist/Institutionalist account of development all of which originated in the middle part of last century and represent collectively a complete revolt against the economic theory and dogma of the past. Basically, its a sound critique of the problems but it doesn't represent a viable plan of action for change, at the time, considering that the fundimental underlying philosophical basis for it won't be invented for a few centuries.

But the Spanish example is one where short-sited decisions made long-term decline inevitable. To shorten a complex topic, the problems were urbanization and religion.

I'm not going to comment on the specifics simply because their unquantifiable. But I'll suggest this: if an economic policy is good after a decade your not trying hard enough. This is even more true of the pre-industrial world where you couldn't even realistically assess the impact of a given policy because you didn't even have the tools to do so. Aside from going down on the ground and talking to people -- and I've done that, its a horribly inefficient means of gauging policy impacts -- you haven't got National Accounts, research, papers or any sort of methodological or analytical framework from which to approach the issue.

Infrastruture, by definition, means urbanization.

That is false.

 

[sophie]

I'm not going to comment on the specifics simply because their unquantifiable. But I'll suggest this: if an economic policy is good after a decade your not trying hard enough. This is even more true of the pre-industrial world where you couldn't even realistically assess the impact of a given policy because you didn't even have the tools to do so. Aside from going down on the ground and talking to people -- and I've done that, its a horribly inefficient means of gauging policy impacts -- you haven't got National Accounts, research, papers or any sort of methodological or analytical framework from which to approach the issue.

This is my question: Did nations of the time have any sort of way of quantifying their economic progress at the time other than the tangible money they have coming into the coffers? I mean, the system of measuring GDP wasn't developed until the Great Depression, and Adam Smith is the one who really sparked the school of economic thought (or at least tends to be accredited as such), correct?

If that's the case, then how would Spain have any indication (at the time when change would have been possible) that the path they were going down was the wrong one?

Not really trying to make a point, just asking questions, please don't history rape me.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Trained British seamen did not defeat Napoleon, unless there were a few divisions' worth at the Battle of Leipzig that nobody noticed. That is all well and good for the purposes of the Royal Navy's personal upkeep and training. It has nothing to do with efficacy of blockade against a land enemy that does not rely on overseas trade for either money or resources.
.

Well, there was that one time...

It wasn't at Leipzig, but the trained British seamen literally did defeat Napoleon himself. Under the command of the man Napoleon attributed to robbing him of his destiny, the greatly outnumbered sailors and marines from 2 ships of the line made an efficient demonstration of naval power that put blockades and even Nelson's victory at the Nile to shame.

Since it makes your case, surely you can give them a nod.

 

[Ahriman]

I think this Spain discussion is very interesting. I'm no expert, so I'll try to avoid taking strong positions.

Masada's "hindsight" argument seems reasonable to me. Rulers and governments had very little idea of the strength of their economy, lacked any kind of modern understanding of economics, and had limited ability to influence economies anyway.
The strong central state is a very modern invention.

I've read one take that argued a combination of Dutch disease and kindof a "satisficing" story.
The argument was that Spanish nobility and gentry were able to maintain their creature comforts and social standing through income from the new world and standard agricultural feudalism. There were also enough new world opportunites for younger sons to go and set up their own feudal fiefdoms in the new world and still have a high-class lifestyle.
So the argument was that there was less of a push for gentry to diversify into other areas (trade, and later industrial capitalism) and create significant merchant/industrial classes. As agricultural output stayed relatively fixed or declined over time, Spain lacked the human capital to be able to shift to a commercial/industrial economy. As the most productive sectors changed, Spain got left behind.

No idea if this is true or not, and I tend to be suspicious of such "cultural" explanations. And I wonder what the mix of new world profit was from direct import of precious metals vs trade of sugar and other goods (if the latter was large, particularly after the first century or so, then surely there were spanish gentry gaining experience with trade - what happened to them?).
I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts though.

[Another story; based on the similar levels of per capita GDP that Masada quotes, how much of the decline in continental Spanish power is simply due to continental Spain's population growing slower than France/Britain, fueled partly by mass emmigration to the New World?
How did 17th/18th century spanish emmigration compare to that of France/Britain?]

 

[Masada]

Not really trying to make a point, just asking questions, please don't history rape me.

That's not my intention. I won't pretend to understand the history as intimately as some do but I understand basic economics, its limitations and the history of economic theory rather well.

Did nations of the time have any sort of way of quantifying their economic progress at the time other than the tangible money they have coming into the coffers?

Some taxes were levied on indicators of wealth. The English were fond of taxes on windows which was based on the theory that since only the rich could afford them it follows that you could tax the wealthy by taxing windows. The problem was of course that when the tax was implemented many people simply took out the windows and bricked the gaps up rather than pay the taxes. Still, others embraced the tax and used the windows as a means of showing their wealth off. Of course, this distorted the actual result significantly and made it all but useless for analysing the relative wealth of the nation -- even accepting the limitations of the measure looking as it did only at the wealthy. The Dutch seemed to have learned from earlier efforts and went looking for things that the wealthy couldn't change all that easily: they opted for taxing houses on how large the frontage was relative to the street. Which seems to have worked relatively well until people began to realise that they could just cut their houses in half and extend them backwards into the gardens. The house would be narrower (avoiding the tax) but was around the same size because it was longer. You can still apparently see the result of both in the homes of older parts of London and Amsterdam. The former tend not to have many windows while the latter tend to be far narrower than you might expect. However, there isn't any evidence that they were intending to use this to discriminate between different tax 'brackets' or the capacity of an individual to pay. It was simply an expedient means of raising revenue. There wasn't any attempt from this or other taxes to derive a sum total of the economic health of the country nor was there much effort to do that aside from looking at receipts -- like you suggested.

You have other options like a capitation tax: that is, a tax on the number of people in the country. But those are essentially blind to the relative worth of the individual. And besides, capitation records are always taken with a dose of salt because of the high incidences of avoidance. The French peasantry were notorious for doing everything in their power to avoid them and its suspected that they tend to understate the population by perhaps as much as 20%. Likewise, taxes on essentials like salt, bread and so forth could provide an indicative measure of the underlying consumption patterns but considering that its suspect in all cases as to how much was actually taxed and how much was say accepted as bribes or simply smuggled past check-points its difficult to say. That said, if we assume that approximately the same amount was taxed across time periods we can then use the percentage change in revenue as a crude estimate of what was happening in consumption. Even though we can't be sure what the actual level of consumption was. Obviously this kind of thing is open to abuse as well: the urban poor and middle class tended to be the only actually buying bread. The rural poor either made them themselves or bartered for them since monetisation even when it hit high gear during the reference period was incomplete and inconsistent at best. So the measure is limited, again in that respect.

But I guess my general criticism is that even in those states that had a reasonable means of figuring out an aggregate measure of the economy nobody really tried to do it. Most were content with just looking at receipts and nothing else. And, as anyone who has dealt with taxation in even modern states -- Greece being a particularity good example -- that's not the most brilliant of proxy the relative value of the economy.

I mean, the system of measuring GDP wasn't developed until the Great Depression, and Adam Smith is the one who really sparked the school of economic thought (or at least tends to be accredited as such), correct?

Correct, GDP wasn't fully implemented (note the caveat here) till the Great Depression. And even that has its limitations which have necessitated some quite radical innovations. I still don't know they changed livestock to biological something-er-call-it. There was a compelling methodological reason for it from someone on the receiving end of flak from the political masters.

Furthermore, while I acknowledge that Adam Smith does kind of fall into the real tail end of the equation and is commonly described as the 'Father of Economics' or some-such he wouldn't have recommended anything like an infrastructure building program. It wouldn't be until the Kenyes that that would become a viable means of achieving an economic end. Even the French who were fond of building infrastructure on a monumental scale didn't justify it or explain it in that way.

If that's the case, then how would Spain have any indication (at the time when change would have been possible) that the path they were going down was the wrong one?

Did they know that the steam engine was going to be developed and that it favoured states with good access to the coal fields? No. There was no way without substantial hindsight to see the problems. And even then, they were not thought to be insurmountable. Besides, attempts were made by the state to roll out manufacturing Charles V spent substantial amounts of money on building a state-of-the-art cannon foundry with Genoan help. But its a hard thing to know what to invest into and Spain may well have made the wrong choices but we can hardly castigate them for doing so. Lots of countries made bad choices. France banned automated spinning machines from something like a hundred years...

Masada's "hindsight" argument seems reasonable to me. Rulers and governments had very little idea of the strength of their economy, lacked any kind of modern understanding of economics, and had limited ability to influence economies anyway.
The strong central state is a very modern invention.

Correct on both counts.

I've read one take that argued a combination of Dutch disease and kindof a "satisficing" story.

That's a common economic history narrative for Spain. I don't know whether I necessarily believe it but that's besides the point. But I think your recount is a good explanation of that theory so I'll leave it at that.

No idea if this is true or not, and I tend to be suspicious of such "cultural" explanations. And I wonder what the mix of new world profit was from direct import of precious metals vs trade of sugar and other goods (if the latter was large, particularly after the first century or so, then surely there were spanish gentry gaining experience with trade - what happened to them?).

I actually more fond of this kind of narrative. Sugar production was a big industry for the Iberians before gold (really, silver was more important) gained its hold. Basically you crack the sugar cane by crushing it either (A) with lots of labour -- usually, slaves -- or (B) with capital intensive equipment. You either (A) make do with raw sugar of a lower value that you've cracked from the cane or (B) then transport the cracked cane back to the motherland to for further processing with still more capital equipment. The optimal solution for building up a manufacturing base is (B1): (B2). You want to utilize capital as much as you can. Originally (B1) was the optimal solution for the Iberians. That changed with the discovery of the Americans and the introduction of slaves. Economic activity changed over to (A1) which is sub-optimal but only yields raw unprocessed sugar.

The second stage wasn't to change for some time: capital intensive production was the optimal solution since the processed sugar was worth more than the raw by a factor of something like 5. However, it wasn't to stay with the Iberians who managed to raise costs by importing masses of silver and gold. This made them uncompetitive and the industry fled to the Netherlands where it stayed till the mid eighteenth century. Interestingly enough it was the largest industry of the Netherlands for quite some time. In effect the gold crowded out all the other industries by raising costs out of sync with gains in productivity which is a classic example of Dutch Disease. Spain is actually a good analogue to modern day Australia born as it was on the reams of easy mineral money... heh.

[Another story; based on the similar levels of per capita GDP that Masada quotes, how much of the decline in continental Spanish power is simply due to continental Spain's population growing slower than France/Britain, fueled partly by mass emmigration to the New World?

Hard to say. But Spains population growth had already reached a ceiling far earlier than anyone else and it was this that helped fuel large scale emigration to the New World. Nobody sane really wanted to go there considering that you tended to die relatively young from horrible diseases. Nevertheless, it certainly was a major factor in the relative decline of Spain.

How did 17th/18th century spanish emmigration compare to that of France/Britain?]

I think it was lower... both in aggregate and relative terms. But I can't tell you off the top of my head.

 

[Disgustipated]

I can't believe people are seriously saying navies aren't important. If they aren't important, why do nations have them? Why waste all that money? Why is it nations with strong navies have done better than nations with poor navies (especially in the long term). History does not lie.

All the arguments against navies point to the inability to quantify the effectiveness of blockades. It is one of those things you can't accurately measure. But just because you can't measure it, doesn't mean it isn't important. Just look at the victor. Time and time again, the victor is frequently the one with the stronger navy. Sure the large army empire can take vast areas of land in the short term, but in the end, they fall. The economic starvation does add up, it may take years, but it will add up.

Not going to comment on Spain, I don't know enough, and it's a thread derail anyways.

 

[Yared]

I don't think anyone has said that navies are unimportant.

What Dachs is arguing is that blockades pre-modern naval warfare (radar and other cool technology and ship building techniques) where much, much harder to keep up. A ship today can secure an area far bigger than one ship could a couple of/many centuries ago. (Compare a corvette to a trireme.)

As such, it was not always cost efficient to spend money on a blockade. In fact, that ship and that crew could've been used for raiding the enemy.

Or, at least, that's how I've understood his position in this

 

[Masada]

Or, at least, that's how I've understood his position in this

Correct, that is as I understand it his position.

 

[Disgustipated]

Back to gameplay...

I don't think anyone is advocating giving navies too much power. I don't want to be in a game where I'm blockaded during a war, and I lose the war just because of that. It definitely should have an economic impact. War is already too powerful in civ4, and I'd like to see more hindurance towards it. Because once you get large enough, victory is assured.

No one wants a game where a blockade always ensures a victory. But I think a majority of people in this thread are in agreement navies are not powerful enough, especially on the defensive side of things. The biggest mechanics problem I see is the fact that you can declare and land your amphibious group with no opposition whatsoever. If they could just fix this one aspect, I'd be pretty happy.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yes, Disgustipated, I think we should cease these pointless arguments about how harmful-or not-blockades were. Instead we should focus on the fact that, from a game-play perspective, BtS style blockading worked quite well to enhance the importance of navies in the game. Blockades were by no means *crippling* in BtS, but they were harmful enough that it was necessary to put out a decent enough navy to prevent it happening.
From the other side, blockading & piracy did sufficient damage to your enemies to make it worthwhile putting a navy out to sea-but not to the point of unbalancing the game.

As long as they use this, & coastal improvements, as a starting off point-& given the added fact that units can convert to unarmed transports in Civ5-then I think we can expect to see much, much more naval action this time around!

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

Instead we should focus on the fact that, from a game-play perspective, BtS style blockading worked quite well to enhance the importance of navies in the game. Blockades were by no means *crippling* in BtS, but they were harmful enough that it was necessary to put out a decent enough navy to prevent it happening.
From the other side, blockading & piracy did sufficient damage to your enemies to make it worthwhile putting a navy out to sea-but not to the point of unbalancing the game.

I strongly disagree. Blockades in BtS had trivial economic impacts relative to the overall economic impact of the war, and had no lasting impact - over a 10 turn war, blockades might cost an enemy 100-200 commerce (compare to the cost of losing cities, or having cottages pillaged away). Navies had very little power, and you were nearly always better off investing equivalent hammers in a land-based force, and maybe some transports if needed. No power would ever reach a situation where investing as much in a navy as in an army was even a vaguely logical strategy.

A naval power, such as Imperial Britain, was impossible to create, because that navy couldn't accomplish anything meaningful. It was at best a method for mild harassment and escorting your land army transports.

You could easily remain a purely land power despite having a very large coastline, including invading nearby islands. For example, in Civ4 earth map France could do pretty much everything it needed to do (conquer Eurasia for example) without ever needing to build warships.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My experience was very different Ahriman. Losing a number of quite lucrative overseas trade-routes (which had several times the value of a land-based trade route) proved significantly annoying to me that I felt *compelled* to put a navy to sea in order to counter it. By the same token, I found piracy a very good way to earn extra cash-in peace or wartime. Now thats not saying blockades can't be made better-after all, I only said BtS should be used as a *starting* point-not the end point!

Aussie.

Edit: as I've said above-if resources are finite (as we know strategic resources will be), then the potential for blockades to be more damaging in Civ5 is quite high. Consider the empire that currently has 10 knights engaged in war, but only has enough iron/horses on the mainland to support 5 of them. Imagine what will happen if said empire's access to overseas sources of horses/iron are cut off! Also, lets not forget that all we're hearing suggests that trade routes won't produce "Commerce" anymore-but might directly generate the other yields & commerces (like science, food, hammers, culture & gold). If overseas routes are still more valuable, than land-based ones, then the cost of losing these trade routes will probably be higher than when all they produced was culture.

Hope that makes sense!

 

[Ahriman]

I only said BtS should be used as a *starting* point-not the end point!

I think the Civ4/BtS blockade model is a poor starting point. I think we'd do much better off to create explict on-map trade routes that could be raided, rather than relying on a single-city blockade method.

Imagine what will happen if said empire's access to overseas sources of horses/iron are cut off!

Hard to do, because we have no idea how large the penalties for undersupply are.

Also, lets not forget that all we're hearing suggests that trade routes won't produce "Commerce" anymore-but might directly generate the other yields & commerces (like science, food, hammers, culture & gold). If overseas routes are still more valuable, than land-based ones, then the cost of losing these trade routes will probably be higher than when all they produced was culture.

I think you have a typo here.

I agree completely that increasing the value of trade routes (particularly sea-based) is the right way to go, because the opportunity cost of having no sea trade was not sufficiently high in Civ4.

I would expect them to provide a mix of gold and science (now that commerce no longer exists?), I have not seen any mention of them providing food, hammers and culture.