NES Economics Thread

[Neverwonagame3]

As in errors in the rule set or errors made by players?

Both, really.

 

[bombshoo]

Actually thinking about it, it is probably roughly the same error. Most rule sets seem like they are oriented towards a centrally planned economy (Usually for simplicity sake), but as a result a lot of people play with this style even when it is not called for. Also rule sets that do use the system of complete player domination of the economy inevitably end up with things like lots of meta-gaming and horrible tech inflation.

 

[The Strategos]

What patterns emerge from this brief survey? First, it is clear that a number of regions were producing substantial surpluses for distant consumption. Olive oil and wine were hardly luxuries, but they were not staples either: that dichotomy suits morality better than economics. Surpluses were created within the traditional range of agricultural produce, the Mediterranean triad together with supplementary foods like fish products. Demand for these products depended partly on their uneven distribution, partly on the frequency of both food crises and gluts in the Mediterranean basin (Garnsey 1988: 8-16), partly on the high proportion of the population who neither worked on nor owned the land, but also partly because some areas were held to produce higher quality produce than others. In these conditions, a market for grain had long existed in the East (Rathbone 1983b). But in the west the amphora distributions attest new levels of production. These productions began in the early first century AD, and their floruit coincided with the period when the highest proportion of the imperial population lived in cities.

Can you explain/elaborate on the bolded text please?

 

[Masada]

I get the gist of what he's saying... look at the UN Charter of Human Rights for an idea of what we regard as staples of our existence and compare and contrast with what the various Roman classes felt were the staples of their existence.

 

[Masada]

Trade, then, can be viewed as an ‘historical constant’. No qualitative transformations can be indicated in the course of history; the basis, which was determined by the fixed rhythm of arrival and departure with the changing yearly monsoons, remain the afflux of larger or smaller crowds of pedlars of expensive and valuable high quality products, and the only alterations were quantitative ones within the given framework. There could be variations in the state of trade: the markets could be crowded; ships could fail to come because of war, piracy, shipwreck, famine or epidemics in the ports or on the way; the volume of trade could increase or decrease; the volume of trade could increase or decrease; the rhythm of turnover could speed up or slow down somewhat – these are all of them always ‘tendencies’ in connection with which the ‘market’ has to be visualized in the most tangible sense of the word, the market square, on the beach, before the towns ports, the narrow shop and warehouse streets in the town (the Hellenic deigma, the Moslem bazaar) the transactions in bargaining and selling taking place beside the supply of goods, in the booth from, person to person.

Am ‘international trade’, thus a ‘world trade’. Viewed in the forms advanced here as a hypothesis, the wondrous picture is explained of a trade which went its way from one end of the world to the other, handling and transporting expensive merchandise, closing sales in royal courts and in patrician dwellings, winning riches, and at the same time exposing itself to perilous adventure and suffering a wanderer’s existence – a trade which was an affair and lords and at the same time a powerless thing, a trade which seems to have been trifling and at the same time involved many people. The cultural and historical value of that trade is usually assessed as ten times higher than its economic value. It would however, be incorrect to do as usually is done – to draw from its value for cultural history any conclusion as to an equal importance for economic history.

I'll be peppering this thread with the occasional quote.

 

[Dannydehz]

People are still quoting Malthus? My God...

 

[Dachs]

People are still quoting Malthus? My God...

Uh, what's that supposed to mean?

 

[flyingchicken]

He means to say that he is of the thinking that Malthus was completely and utterly wrong, that Malthus' thinking was without any shred of merit at all, and that magic science and technology will solve every single resource-related problem humans ever will have.

I am just guessing of course LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!! hurrrrr

 

[das]

I have attained great knowledge during my journeys to long-abandoned cities and my studies of ancient scrolls and treatises. I have attained great power through my ritual sacrifices, as gruesome as they were glorious. I am become the Great Necromancer, and by the power that I have taken for myself I summon forth the Spirit of Masada into this long-abandoned husk, and bind him here to answer my questions, as he had in centuries past.

That's assuming that he didn't disappear again, but I think I saw him skulking about the sub-forum not too long ago.

*Ahem* I ask of you, Knower of Economics, what know you of the budgets of ancient states and empires? And of the proportions of incomes and expenses from various sources? Even of Rome I have not found as much as I should have hoped to; so much worse are more ancient and obscure nations. I bide you to speak of all that you know of this matter, for my greater glory and for the benefit of our entire Republic, or Common Cause.

EDIT: Oh, and while you're at it, I'd also appreciate information about the state of the major trade routes and suchlike in the whereabouts of 1000 BC. I have collected rather more data on that, but it's imprecise and contradictory, so if you know anything about that, it could be put to good use.

 

[Dachs]

How ancient do you want these budgets? I have estimates for various points in Byzantine history from Diocletian on, if that's vaguely close enough.

 

[das]

Obviously that's not quite what I had in mind, but on the other hand it should still be close enough in some essentials to be useful for comparison's sake.

 

[Dachs]

Well, I tried looking through Hammond and so forth for Mak expenditures estimates, but the problem with them at least is that it's pretty difficult to get an estimate of military pay, which was probably the largest disbursement. The nice thing about the Byzantines is that we know their rates of military pay, more or less, for the empire's entire existence, and everything follows from that.

Budget ca. 300:
Pay of soldiers (311,000 * 12 nom. * 4/3) = 4.976M nom.
Pay of oarsmen (32,000 * 12 nom. * 4/3) = 0.48M nom.
Uniforms and arms (311,000 * 5 nom.) = 1.555M nom.
Fodder and horses (26,000 * 5 nom.) = 0.13M nom.
Campaigns and other military expenses = 0.5M nom.
Pay of bureaucracy = 1.0M nom.
Other nonmilitary expenses and surplus = 0.8M nom.
Total: 9.441M nom.

Budget ca. 450-7 (reign of Marcian):
Pay of scholae (3,500 * 16 nom. * 4/3) = 0.075M nom.
Pay of field soldiers (104,000 * 8 nom. * 4/3) = 1.109M nom.
Pay of frontier soldiers (195,500 * 4 nom. * 4/3) = 1.043M nom.
Pay of oarsmen (32,000 * 4 nom. * 5/4) = 0.16M nom.
Accessional donative (335,000 * 9 nom. / 7 years) = 0.431M nom.
Quinquennial donative (335,000 * 5 nom. / 7 years) = 0.239M nom.
Uniforms and arms (303,000 * 5 nom.) = 1.515M nom.
Fodder and horses (122,500 * 5 nom.) = 0.612M nom.
Campaigns and other military expenses = 0.2M nom.
Pay of bureaucracy = 0.8M nom.
Grain dole = 0.8M nom.
Other nonmilitary expenses and surplus = 0.8M nom.
Total: 7.784M nom.

The Diocletianian figure is converted from the original denarii to nomismata from a time when nomismata were struck at 72 to the pound of gold, so they can be compared with Marcian's rate. Figures follow from Treadgold's Byzantium and its Army and fleshed out in his later History of the Byzantine State and Society, though from a quick perusal of various online previews of the relevant chapters of Hendy's Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy appear to correlate estimates of certain expenditures (mostly bureaucratic ones).

 

[das]

Other nonmilitary expenses

Like what, exactly?

Thanks.

 

[Dachs]

Largesse, public works and other building projects, imperial ceremonial, and tribute mostly I think, heavily variant between emperors as to what they actually spent it on. Even the heaviest tribute, to the Huns in the 440s, was only 151,000 nomismata yearly (with a half-million lump sum at the beginning). Marcian specifically spent most of that extra on settling the Germanic people along the Danube in 452, IIRC, some public works, and mostly creating a surplus.

 

[das]

What about the maintenance of infrastructure already extant, or does that go under public works as well?

 

[Dachs]

Yeah, I was thinking that would be largely under the public works heading.

 

[das]

I realise that I am hardly in a position to demand any celerity on your parts, but I'd like to know whether or not I should be expecting any other assistance (with the historical budgets or any other helpful information) by the time I can get back to properly working on the Project.

 

[Thlayli]

It really depends on the scope and time-period of the project. If it's regional, imposing one economic system based on local conditions would be fairly easy, and then using arbitrary units to measure wealth like we always do.

If it's multi-regional, it's going to be trickier to improvise a broad economic system that will apply to them all.

In a NES scenario though, really the only thing that players are interested in (and hah, OTL rulers too) is their income and how to maximize that. The best economic ruleset shows the player exactly how to do so, while noting the various risks that doing so implies.

 

[das]

That's not what I asked for; I asked for raw data so that I could figure out just what level of detail could reasonably be achieved, and how best to represent it. Well, I have some ideas already, but having a better idea of how the budgets of ancient states looked (with all due approximation, ofcourse) would go a long way towards helping me actually put it in stat form.

 

[Thlayli]

Hmm. I'm assuming we're talking about Ancient Near Eastern states, so...I'll see what I can find. We have a good library.