Spoiled by civilized factions

[Zim]

No, not by their their better armored line troops, nor their better income (both inherent in their starting settlements and their better construction trees). Rather, I forgot how much better their base populations were.

Just started a Sweboz game after having played multiple civilized factions in a row...wpw Germania is lowly populated. Many of the cities I've conquered couldn't even recruit the turn after conquest. I may be screwing myself later, but I decided to also keep VH taxes in all settlements. My computer works best with large rather than huge units, so it seems a good way to keep up the pressure.

Anyone else get a bit of a shock after switching from a civilized to a barbarian faction?

[antisocialmunky]

They are all barbarians, some just have more money.

But yes I am disappointed by the fact that I can't send hordes of half clothed mans to zerg other factions. However its not that bad. If you have trees and you play the Sweboz then all that shiny armor is worthless.

[ARCHIPPOS]

well history and Malthusian demographics teach us that urban societies feature larger populations compared to tribal ones.

This happens for many reasons but mainly because urbanism employs more radical methods of shifting the natural environment to suit human goals (in short it uses intensive methods in exploiting natural resources).Especially in agriculture (=food production) the consequences are extremely far-reaching in eliminating the possibility of famine thus dramaticaly reducing mortality. Tribal societies have reduced means of controlling their natural environment so they are more prone to famine. Also urban societies usually feature better hygiene (though i understand that in the context of Roman proletarians living by the sewers VS Celts living in un-polluted environments with soaps and improved medicine that is not exactly the case :yes: ). Finally tribal societies employ a low-intensity but constant warfare/violence (usually on a local level or within the tribal society itself) which in the long run can prove quite decimating...

To counter higher mortality rates due to the possibilities of famine/diseases/wars tribal populations have extremely high birth-rates (higher than those of urban societies anyway). In fact according to Malthus human overpopulation happens when urbanism's benefits (food surplus,hygiene and social peace) reach a tribal society who by social reflexes continues to have many children... the results of low mortality + lots of babies = demographic boom :beam:

[Nirvanish]

Nice work Archippos!! That was the finest display of demography that I have seen in years.

[Arkhis]

Especially in agriculture (=food production) the consequences are extremely far-reaching in eliminating the possibility of famine thus dramaticaly reducing mortality.

History also teaches us that famine is inherent to agricultural societies, and if anything, agriculture increases food insecurity. Besides, you'll need chronic famine (constantly failed or low-yield harvests) to reduce the population. One failed harvest might slightly increase mortality (weaker persons die), but that is immediately offset by higher fertility afterwards. Admittedly, babies can't fight, but it's not the strong warriors who die during famine, but the elderly and the sick.

Ofcourse, having better technology increases output (and thus population and wealth from surplus trade), but it doesn't reduce the risk of famine (in those times, at least).

The biggest reason for a lack of food surplus (and thus lower population) amongst tribal societies is comunal farming. If the land is privately owned by families, production increases, simply because people are responsible for their own food. Communal farming incites a certain laziness. Privatised agriculture also leads to more innovation (trying to outdo the neighbours), and thus again, higher and more intensive production.

Be careful with Malthus though, he's been proven wrong on quite a few points, not in the least about his theories concerning overpopulation: fertility always decreases before the population should exceed it's limit. You are certainly right about the boom, though, but if the system doesn't crumble, the population won't reach an "overpopulation" level. Africa nowadays has some prime examples of tribal societies turning to urban societies, and then a failure and breakdown of the system (not to mention endless wars) means the production levels dropped and the higher population can't survive (thus leading to famine)

[Unintended BM]

Just about every faction besides Rome suffers from low population near the start of the game, at least for me. Maybe Carthage doesn't either.

Just use your starting army more and retrain instead of recruiting a brand new army. Maybe when you take a big city, expel the population. I think the population will only be dispersed throughout your cities that have governors, so if you're planning on expelling a city, move all of your governors to the cities that you want populated.

Also, when you recruit guys, make sure you recruit them from multiple provinces. Don't just use one city to recruit all of your guys, that's how you drain the population. Sometimes you can't help it, and the population will recover, but it'll take longer as a barbarian faction, as you've said.

[ARCHIPPOS]

I understand communal modes of production may disadvantage the creation of food surplus (in fact of any kind of surplus) but i'm rather suspicious to such arguments especially due to my political beliefs. Anyway one can point out that communitarian work may be better for the society in the long run (especially because there is no allienation or exploitation involved)- example in case could be EB and RTW... EB is basically a communitarian product whereas RTW is a product of a private company... and you see that indeed communitarian work can perfect private-profitiring's shortcomings in delivering a better finished product, no??? (of course we are talking of a symbiosis of private and communitarian work not a complete communitarian take-over)...

To all those that i wrote before i would also like to point out that emperor Marcus Aurelius had indeed tried to incorporate German populations within the Roman empire (i think somewhere near Ravenna). The plan failed terribly because contrary to the Gauls the Germans could not cope living in cities and they were even appalled by the sight of roads by the countryside. They looked down on agriculture and rejected the idea of paying for the goods they needed.Supposedly they were pretty "unlawful" in their everyday behaviour too...

so again we see those aspects of tribal lifestyle. Diminished means of exploiting the environment ( but someone could argue that such populations live in greater harmony with nature-which is especially true considering our epoch's problems), adherence of organised trade,intersocial violence etc etc etc...

As for the results of famine on a population i dunno. I'm from Greece and during the German occupation in WW2 there was famine which killed around 300.000 people (around 8% of the population) in one winter. Those were mainly lower income people , children and olds... i imagine that 2-3 consecutive rough years in terms of food production could devastate an agrarian society taking out 25-30% of its population (had this population not taken precautions in storing some food in earlier times or lacking the option to trade some vitals for its survival) ... and indeed from time to time such consecutive bad years can occur-it is then that some populations with only marginal surplus food suffer harshly...

[seienchin]

well history and Malthusian demographics teach us that urban societies feature larger populations compared to tribal ones.



How can you qoute Malthus? Hes been prooven wrong in every of his statements...:book:
He even miscalculated population grow...
Oh and by the way he said:
Wealth created by new production methods is only temporary cause the population will grow until everybody is as poor as before.
To qoute someone in my economics class "What a schmuck"

[ARCHIPPOS]

What??? How can you qoute Malthus? Hes been prooven wrong in every of his statements...:book:
He even miscalculated population grow...

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: are you trolling me ??? :beadyeyes2:

[seienchin]

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: are you trolling me ??? :beadyeyes2:
No. Im just saying qouting Malthus might be a mistake :book::book:
Population growth isnt exponential and food grow not linear :juggle2:

Your other posts is very interesting though. :2thumbsup:
Allthough germans at the time were farmers too. ;)

[GenosseGeneral]

Also, when you recruit guys, make sure you recruit them from multiple provinces. Don't just use one city to recruit all of your guys, that's how you drain the population. Sometimes you can't help it, and the population will recover, but it'll take longer as a barbarian faction, as you've said.

A phaenomen i do really hate in my carthie campaign. It took ages until Mastia recovered.



... Although germans at the time were farmers too. ;)

Yepp. Do not trust Caesar! :laugh4:

[Arkhis]

I understand communal modes of production may disadvantage the creation of food surplus (in fact of any kind of surplus) but i'm rather suspicious to such arguments especially due to my political beliefs. Anyway one can point out that communitarian work may be better for the society in the long run (especially because there is no allienation or exploitation involved)- example in case could be EB and RTW... EB is basically a communitarian product whereas RTW is a product of a private company... and you see that indeed communitarian work can perfect private-profitiring's shortcomings in delivering a better finished product, no??? (of course we are talking of a symbiosis of private and communitarian work not a complete communitarian take-over)...

The problem with this is that EB has no deadlines, it is not at all urgent, and is done completely by extremely devoted people. History is their passion, as is games. The EB team does this because they like doing it. This is contrary to work few people like doing, like for example, working the land. People will not work for "A Greater Good", sadly, but rather for themselves, especially if the work involved is NOT fun. People will care about their neighbours, their village (perhaps), but not about those in the distance, and they will only provide for those if they have an incentive: higher profit, or threat of punishment. The biggest failing of communism is the failure to develop a system based on the human psyche, and not on (as it stands) utopian ideals.

However: "(of course we are talking of a symbiosis of private and communitarian work not a complete communitarian take-over)"
Isn't that what the social welfare state stands for? Or at least, is supposed to :shame:.

However, this is quite irrelevant to the topic :embarassed:

I dont feel that troubled by low population myself, when playing. I'll be working with the armies I got at the beginning, or reforming them a little (getting preffered unit types).By the time I really need new troops/armies, I'll have enough population (or build up slower then usual). My first priority is to stabilise my economy anyway.

[WinsingtonIII]

The biggest reason for a lack of food surplus (and thus lower population) amongst tribal societies is comunal farming. If the land is privately owned by families, production increases, simply because people are responsible for their own food. Communal farming incites a certain laziness. Privatised agriculture also leads to more innovation (trying to outdo the neighbours), and thus again, higher and more intensive production.

I think it's a bit of stretch to claim that communal farming was the single biggest reason for a lack of food surplus. The time period we are talking about here was before the adoption of the padded horse collar, before the invention of the wheeled plow, before the land clearance movement, and most importantly before the adoption of the 3-field crop rotation, which was a vast improvement over the 2-field rotation used in Roman times. Medieval farming was largely communal as well, and by the central middle ages European farmers were producing 3 times the yield that the Romans could have hoped to produce. It wasn't because of a switch away from communal farming either, they still practiced communal farming, it was because of the adoption of new technologies and ideas. Of course, you are right that privatized agriculture may have led to the invention of these new technologies earlier, and yes, communal farming has a lower level of efficiency, so in the grand scheme of things, privatized farming is more efficient than communal farming. However, I think that in EB's time period the fact that communal farming was practiced was not the single main reason that yields were low, as evidenced by the fact that communal farming in the Middle Ages produced 3 times the yield.

[fallen851]

The biggest failing of communism is the failure to develop a system based on the human psyche, and not on (as it stands) utopian ideals.

Grammatically this doesn't make any sense. If failure to develop means they didn't develop it the sentence then reads reads: The biggest failing of communism is that they didn't develop a system based on the human psyche, and not on (as it stands) utopian ideals.

Anyway, many people do work for the greater good. I work at a psych hospital with aggressive austisic children. My wife left her high paying chemistry job to work as an adoption counselor at the SPCA. Of course we believe what we do is worth doing, so we enjoy it. But many people are convinced that making money is more important, and so they enjoy making money, it boils down to underlying values. Humanity is really in its infancy cognitively, and our minds have developed at the same pace as our technology. Go back even a few generations and everything changes technologically, but cognitively we are quite similar. Eventually humanity will grow up, and start caring about the things that really matter.

[seienchin]

Come on people, be a little bit carefull with applying modern economical theories to the antics...
A farming community cant be compared to comunism. :dizzy2:
Besides we dont know anything about productivity of ancient cultures. Esspecially those without reading and writing.
Ancient germany is the best exsample. It was believed to be a land of woods populated by a few barbarians, but archaelogists find traces of settlements everywhere and modern historians believe germany to be densily populated around 0bc.
But we dont know anything about there productivity and techniks and if they were able to produce less or more than anybody else.

[Arkhis]

Grammatically this doesn't make any sense. If failure to develop means they didn't develop it the sentence then reads reads: The biggest failing of communism is that they didn't develop a system based on the human psyche, and not on (as it stands) utopian ideals.

My sentence is, as far as I'm aware, perfectly correct. "The failure to develop" = "Failing to develop", its just a noun instead of a participle (conjugation of a verb that can serve as a noun or adjective). You should have refrased the bold part to "but rather", to go with "they didn't".


Anyway, many people do work for the greater good. I work at a psych hospital with aggressive austisic children. My wife left her high paying chemistry job to work as an adoption counselor at the SPCA. Of course we believe what we do is worth doing, so we enjoy it.

I can only commend you on that. I myself have a family member whose depression makes her very agressive (driving the employees at the hospital to tears). It's not an easy job, to say the least.


But many people are convinced that making money is more important, and so they enjoy making money, it boils down to underlying values. Humanity is really in its infancy cognitively, and our minds have developed at the same pace as our technology. Go back even a few generations and everything changes technologically, but cognitively we are quite similar.

I would say our minds didn't develop at the same pace as our technology. Don't get me wrong, I don't condemn these ideals as silly and/or stupid, but I don't thing humanity (as a whole, not individuals) is capable of putting aside profit for a greater good (yet).


Eventually humanity will grow up, and start caring about the things that really matter.

We can only hope so, but the barriers are plenty, and I'll probably be dust by the time they do. If they do, that is.

:oops:

My apologies for all the OT'ing. Perhaps we should start a group for hopeless idealists, so we can cry about the sorry state of mankind :shame:

[Macilrille]

To all those that i wrote before i would also like to point out that emperor Marcus Aurelius had indeed tried to incorporate German populations within the Roman empire (i think somewhere near Ravenna). The plan failed terribly because contrary to the Gauls the Germans could not cope living in cities and they were even appalled by the sight of roads by the countryside. They looked down on agriculture and rejected the idea of paying for the goods they needed.Supposedly they were pretty "unlawful" in their everyday behaviour too...

I am too lazy to look in my books as I had to face some pretty bad demons from the past yesterday, so the following will be from memory. However, I do have some knowledge of how things in Cimbria Chersonesos (Jutland, but I also know Denmark in general) in EB's timeframe.

In this period most of Denmark's land was exploited one way or the other and at 200 AD at the latest all land that could be tilled by the methods of that time was. They changed from cattle grazing freely in the woods year-round to having them stabled (in winter probably) harvesting and storing hay to feed them (hay being also small branches and such). Jutland was dotted with small villages/hamlets with one on a moraine hilltop every 2-3 Km. These had from 1- 30 farms (only one has been found with 30; Hodde (http://books.google.dk/books?id=zM4OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=hodde+iron+age&source=bl&ots=AdOP2goniQ&sig=FjaTqg_P1Y5MdU1r3ogqqaNeOHo&hl=da&ei=UaZJS_jbCtPr-AbujbFM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=hodde%20iron%20age&f=false)) and as stabling was introduced privatisation of produce- later land- and thus inequality developed as well. The fields near the village were tilled by a simple plow called an "Ard" (dunno it in English), while the meadows and woods between them (often along the brooks, bogs and strems) the cattle grazed. This was the economic basis for the warrior aristocracy who were to later make the poor civilised factions shake with fear.

I believe that a total of about 130.000 people lived spread out in the Cimbri Confederacy lands at the time of Caesar, a further 45.000 lived with the Anglii Confederacy in southern Jutland and north Germany. The peoples of Fyn, Sjælland and Skaane probably constituted about 120.000 on account of their fertile lands. But these are rather part of the “East Germanic” tradition not emphasising the warrior leader so much and rather more peaceful. As an aside the Roman Iron Age would see the East Germanic tribes continue this trend and at least on Sjælland show evidence of alliances with Rome while the people of Jutland, especially those Tacitus called Eudusini around modern Aarhus exhibits war-cult and animosity to Rome as well as possible connections to the Cherusci for the first 100 or so years before they too let Roman ways permeate their ideology.
Notice that I made this estimate for a roleplaying game (http://turbator.blogspot.com/), based on calculating the likely number of villages times the average number of inhabitants, it is thus a guess and nothing more really. But just as one has to make such for a computer game one does for a RP one

There is a lot more to it, and if you read Danish I shall gladly provide titles of some very good recent work. If you do not mind reading a PhD Thesis of much theoretical vastness and complexity I refer you to Hedeager's "From Tribe to State- Iron Age Societies (in Denmark?)".

Oh I forgot my point... edited to add that Germans had no problems with agriculture. Nor roads, imitations of Roman roads on a (much) lesser scale are not uncommon at Danish fords etc. At Marcus Aurelius' time they would not have had much trouble with hierarchial society as well.

[Epimetheus]

I personally have always lamented the inability of "barbarian" factions to civilize and build larger cities. I can understand limiting them in this regard initially, but if they were to establish a large, stable empire, espescially one with more developed or fertile territories, I severely doubt that they wouldn't adopt or develop more advance agriculture, architecture, and sanitation, and start building larger cities of their own.

[Macilrille]

Historically, we are well into the middle ages before the Germanic tribes had cities even slightly comparable to the Mediterrenean city state cities. The Gauls might have reached that state with their oppida before, but for good reasons did not. So I have no problem with that aspect of Barbarian factions. What annoys me is that when I have taken the Italian or Greek cities and gotten a Huuuuuge shipyard with facilities, Master shipbuilders, craftsmen, half-finished hulks, etc. I still choose only to build crappy Nydam boats to fight the rest of the civilised factions...

Imagine this;
Warchief, "My King, we have captured a Roman shipyard with five large ships in various state of completeness. The Master says he can finish them and build you more if you will but spare his wife and life. He offers to serve you faithfully, so you can lay all the rich lands around this sea under your foot, putting their people to the sword, let fire consume their cities, their women in chains under our bedfurs and their wealth in our coffers!"

King and Warlord; "NO!!! We will continue to sail as our ancestors did, we will build our own boats and show these people that size does not matter!"

Warchief; "Jawohl" (aside; "that is not what your wife says").

[ARCHIPPOS]

...

In this period most of Denmark's land was exploited one way or the other and at 200 AD at the latest all land that could be tilled by the methods of that time was. They changed from cattle grazing freely in the woods year-round to having them stabled (in winter probably) harvesting and storing hay to feed them (hay being also small branches and such). Jutland was dotted with small villages/hamlets with one on a moraine hilltop every 2-3 Km. These had from 1- 30 farms (only one has been found with 30; Hodde (http://books.google.dk/books?id=zM4OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=hodde+iron+age&source=bl&ots=AdOP2goniQ&sig=FjaTqg_P1Y5MdU1r3ogqqaNeOHo&hl=da&ei=UaZJS_jbCtPr-AbujbFM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=hodde%20iron%20age&f=false)) and as stabling was introduced privatisation of produce- later land- and thus inequality developed as well. The fields near the village were tilled by a simple plow called an "Ard" (dunno it in English), while the meadows and woods between them (often along the brooks, bogs and strems) the cattle grazed. This was the economic basis for the warrior aristocracy who were to later make the poor civilised factions shake with fear.

I believe that a total of about 130.000 people lived spread out in the Cimbri Confederacy lands at the time of Caesar, a further 45.000 lived with the Anglii Confederacy in southern Jutland and north Germany. The peoples of Fyn, Sjælland and Skaane probably constituted about 120.000 on account of their fertile lands. But these are rather part of the “East Germanic” tradition not emphasising the warrior leader so much and rather more peaceful. As an aside the Roman Iron Age would see the East Germanic tribes continue this trend and at least on Sjælland show evidence of alliances with Rome while the people of Jutland, especially those Tacitus called Eudusini around modern Aarhus exhibits war-cult and animosity to Rome as well as possible connections to the Cherusci for the first 100 or so years before they too let Roman ways permeate their ideology.
...

There is a lot more to it, and if you read Danish I shall gladly provide titles of some very good recent work. If you do not mind reading a PhD Thesis of much theoretical vastness and complexity I refer you to Hedeager's "From Tribe to State- Iron Age Societies (in Denmark?)".

Oh I forgot my point... edited to add that Germans had no problems with agriculture. Nor roads, imitations of Roman roads on a (much) lesser scale are not uncommon at Danish fords etc. At Marcus Aurelius' time they would not have had much trouble with hierarchial society as well.


Macirille i never said tribal populations were unfamiliar with agriculture or some form of organised living between different families. However the matter of intensity of these processes arises which indeed marks and characterizes societies...

Some form of small-scale agriculture was also practiced by nomad populations, as small and medium scale industry was common even amongst ancient urban societies even by 600 BC but they did not have revolutionary and altering after-effects... for a productive process to start being elemental in shaping a society extreme intensification of work must occur.

Thus technologic innovation but most importantly the arise of a certain work-ethic can indeed change the societal fabric... a society can cultivate the fields for decades or centuries going through the daily ordeal as a kind of "necessary evil" , a kind of un-prestigious task that is imperative to take place. Another society can field troops for an organised, high-tech army viewing this process as a kind of un-pleasant blood-tax that has to be paid each few years... it is self-evident that neither the first nor the second society are truly "agricultural" or "warlike" in character.For a certain ethic to characterize a population it must be implemented as a core-ideology and a legitimating noble pursuit rather than a mere demeaning task.

You wrote of Germanic populations living in small decentralised cells every 2-3 klm... but the process of urbanism is precisely the political annexation of such cells into a centralised state where relationships seize to be personal/familial. And indeed we see major states of ancient times that emerged from tribal to stately organisation (Athens, Makedonia, Rome etc,etc,etc) .Urbanised living means division of labour favoring extreme specialisation and large scale trade rather than economic autarchy. It means the coming forth of a rigid/impersonal law, it means extreme social discipline, centralisation of rule etc etc etc

as for roads i dunno...i suppose you know better especially considering i quoted sth i was told ages ago ... however as you yourself mentioned those roads were rather small compared to Roman ones which could explain why Germans could view Roman super-highways as utter monstrosities (if they really did that is).

On understanding tribalism i can suggest two great pieces of litterature that can shed some light into the mindframe of those societies. The first is "Taras Bulba" by Gogol-a fictional story on 17th century cossacks which is highly entertaining...
the second is the "The Broken April" by the Albanian writer Ismael Kadere which is a semi-documental account of how legislation and blood feuds work within a tribal society (in fact it can also shed some light into their demographics as well considering feuds within tribalism are institutionalised and cause an amazing toil of death).... both books are really small (around 200 pages each or so) but remember they must be conceived as ideotypical/paradigmatic in character rather than actual historical accounts... :yes:

[antisocialmunky]

The idea of a pretty much constant carrying capacity that Malthus seemed to like so much isn't true for industrial society driven by capitalism and innovation but better fits more 'state of nature' sorts of scenarios like EB Germania.

So while the food insecurity/malnutrition/famime claim of tribal vs urban cultures, the reasoning on why population is sparse in Germania is mostly correct.

I also wouldn't make such a clear division between tribal and urban and those two classes are not mutually exclusive. Urban societys do have more specialization due to surplus but that does not imply that the amount of specialization is on the 'extreme' part of the spectrum nor that tribal societies are always on the really 'low' end of the spectrum. I know you're speaking about trends in large generalizations which is what Macrille seems to be trying to refuting but I just had to say something about it :)

@Winston: Large scale commercial farming is the most CAPITAL efficient(input vs output). However with other metrics it is not so efficient:
-Variety - You usually only grow a few varieties of a few crops.
-Biproducts - Not particularly clean since you get a tons of pollution usually disposed of in an extremely concentrated levels.
-Inputs - Not the best raw material input -> material output ratio due to diminishing returns. Just because mass production has driven the price of the input down does not mean that the quanity of input per output is low. Only the profit is high.

Then you have issues of subsidies and sustainability as well as other effects. Like most things: mixed bag. :(

[Zim]

Thanks for the tips. I actually do a few of those things normally, although I'm bad about recruiting from a small number of provinces early on.

Carthage itself has a pretty decent population. Athens and Sparta aren't great, but the KH start with Rhodes. I supppose a lot of the populations are low, but the provinces in the Sweboz's field of influence seem rather worse than most civilized factions (towns numbers in hundreds of inhabitants rather than one or two thousand).


Just about every faction besides Rome suffers from low population near the start of the game, at least for me. Maybe Carthage doesn't either.

Just use your starting army more and retrain instead of recruiting a brand new army. Maybe when you take a big city, expel the population. I think the population will only be dispersed throughout your cities that have governors, so if you're planning on expelling a city, move all of your governors to the cities that you want populated.

Also, when you recruit guys, make sure you recruit them from multiple provinces. Don't just use one city to recruit all of your guys, that's how you drain the population. Sometimes you can't help it, and the population will recover, but it'll take longer as a barbarian faction, as you've said.

[Unintended BM]

Yeah, I usually rely on mercenaries quite a bit when being the Sweboz. There's a pretty good selection of troops up there.

Also, as the Sweboz, I constantly use my FMs in my armies. Get like five of them and some archer's or Celtic Slingers, and you've got yourself a great army. It seems kind of cheap, but like half of my FMs had horrible management, so I had to do something with them.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

What annoys me is that when I have taken the Italian or Greek cities and gotten a Huuuuuge shipyard with facilities, Master shipbuilders, craftsmen, half-finished hulks, etc. I still choose only to build crappy Nydam boats to fight the rest of the civilised factions...

Imagine this;
Warchief, "My King, we have captured a Roman shipyard with five large ships in various state of completeness. The Master says he can finish them and build you more if you will but spare his wife and life. He offers to serve you faithfully, so you can lay all the rich lands around this sea under your foot, putting their people to the sword, let fire consume their cities, their women in chains under our bedfurs and their wealth in our coffers!"

King and Warlord; "NO!!! We will continue to sail as our ancestors did, we will build our own boats and show these people that size does not matter!"

Warchief; "Jawohl" (aside; "that is not what your wife says").


But, if you research the matter, the large Greek and Roman quinquerime fleets needed a lot of maintenance work done to keep them operational (I include crew maintenance in this, keeping the men properly trained). And needed a lot of administration work to organise efficiently. This is not the kind of thing that barbarian tribes would be good at - plus it was extremely expensive.

Large warships in ancient times were like large warships today. They needed maintenance. And maintenance then as now was a key factor in choosing what to build/purchase. Low-cost maintenance is very attractive. Take Soviet Russia, for example. Did they have the technical know-how to build a large fleet of massive nuclear aircraft carriers, like the USA? Yes they did. Did they build them? No, not more than one or two. And what is the #1 problem of the Russian Navy in the Soviet era and today? Maintenance! They have the ships, but can't maintain them properly.

To a German barbarian tribesman, maintenance is not very exciting. Indeed, it's a downright pain in the arse! A lot of hard work, with no glory to be had from it, and it's time that could be better spent getting blind drunk!

So, a nice, small liburnian-style ship, which doesn't need much maintenance compared to a quinquerime, is naturally going to suit the German temperament far better. You just push it out when you want it, and drag it on shore when you don't.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Yeah, I usually rely on mercenaries quite a bit when being the Sweboz. There's a pretty good selection of troops up there.

Also, as the Sweboz, I constantly use my FMs in my armies. Get like five of them and some archer's or Celtic Slingers, and you've got yourself a great army. It seems kind of cheap, but like half of my FMs had horrible management, so I had to do something with them.

That's what I do too. I don't maintain a large standing army as the Germans, only the minimum I need to maintain order in my towns. So I save money that way. Then, when I want to go to war (and have saved up lots of gold), I raise my army with a few FM's, a few local units, and bulk it out with mercenaries. Since German FM's are infantry, it makes sense to use them in the front line of battle.

[ARCHIPPOS]

that's true... however there are some aspects of local recruitment that i find hard to understand... let's take Alexandria Ariana or Antiochia-Margiane as examples. Playing as Baktria i recently conquered both... i can recruit some regional Iranian troops and i can recruit phallangitai-But no pantodapoi Phallangitai!!! I mean what's with that ? Obviously if you have the capacity to drill some native local regiments as well as Greek phallangitai you can fuse Asian man-power and Greek know-how into training pantodapoi Phallangitai... in modern terms that would be like being able to build light tanks and heavy tanks but lacking the capacity to produce medium tanks... :thumbsdown: i guess this problem is connected with the avalaible unit slots per MIC ...

[KARTLOS]

But, if you research the matter, the large Greek and Roman quinquerime fleets needed a lot of maintenance work done to keep them operational (I include crew maintenance in this, keeping the men properly trained). And needed a lot of administration work to organise efficiently. This is not the kind of thing that barbarian tribes would be good at - plus it was extremely expensive.

Large warships in ancient times were like large warships today. They needed maintenance. And maintenance then as now was a key factor in choosing what to build/purchase. Low-cost maintenance is very attractive. Take Soviet Russia, for example. Did they have the technical know-how to build a large fleet of massive nuclear aircraft carriers, like the USA? Yes they did. Did they build them? No, not more than one or two. And what is the #1 problem of the Russian Navy in the Soviet era and today? Maintenance! They have the ships, but can't maintain them properly.

To a German barbarian tribesman, maintenance is not very exciting. Indeed, it's a downright pain in the arse! A lot of hard work, with no glory to be had from it, and it's time that could be better spent getting blind drunk!

So, a nice, small liburnian-style ship, which doesn't need much maintenance compared to a quinquerime, is naturally going to suit the German temperament far better. You just push it out when you want it, and drag it on shore when you don't.

yes but is was quite common for a conquering people to co-opt pre-existing naval facilities and knowhow

e.g the persians & assyrians both used the Phoenicians as "their" navy.

Another example would be the the vandals who launched a series of naval invasions. Spain to North Africa, North Africa to Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balaerics. And obviously a naval invasion of italy itself resulting in the sack of Rome.

The are many other good reasons for the Russians not to focus on air craft carriers. If the cold war had turned in WWIII, the Soviet focus would have been a land invasion of mainland Europe. They could literally just drive in. For America their likely zones of conflict where across a big ocean - Europe or Asia, therefore it is entirely logical that Air craft carriers would assume more importance to them.

[SwissBarbar]

The Sweboz have the advantage not to have any neighbours who will attack you soon. Therefore conquer as many cities you can with your army, disband them and build up your economy. It will take some turns to compensate the massive minus you have on your mnai-account, but once you did it you can go on. Use your FM to fight. They are strong and do not cost...

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

yes but is was quite common for a conquering people to co-opt pre-existing naval facilities and knowhow

e.g the persians & assyrians both used the Phoenicians as "their" navy.

Another example would be the the vandals who launched a series of naval invasions. Spain to North Africa, North Africa to Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balaerics. And obviously a naval invasion of italy itself resulting in the sack of Rome.


True, but then the Persians and Assyrians were more civilised than the Germans.

And the Vandal King Gaiseric invading North Africa and Italy by sea is, in my opinion, a special case. Gaiseric was the Germanic equivalent of Alexander the Great - a one-off military and political genius that conquered or outwitted every enemy he ever faced and did things no leader of his race had ever done before.

[Grade_A_Beef]

This happens for many reasons but mainly because urbanism employs more radical methods of shifting the natural environment to suit human goals (in short it uses intensive methods in exploiting natural resources).Especially in agriculture (=food production) the consequences are extremely far-reaching in eliminating the possibility of famine thus dramaticaly reducing mortality. Tribal societies have reduced means of controlling their natural environment so they are more prone to famine. Also urban societies usually feature better hygiene (though i understand that in the context of Roman proletarians living by the sewers VS Celts living in un-polluted environments with soaps and improved medicine that is not exactly the case :yes: ). Finally tribal societies employ a low-intensity but constant warfare/violence (usually on a local level or within the tribal society itself) which in the long run can prove quite decimating...

To counter higher mortality rates due to the possibilities of famine/diseases/wars tribal populations have extremely high birth-rates (higher than those of urban societies anyway). In fact according to Malthus human overpopulation happens when urbanism's benefits (food surplus,hygiene and social peace) reach a tribal society who by social reflexes continues to have many children... the results of low mortality + lots of babies = demographic boom :beam:


Huh, I don't see it that way at all. If anything, famine is a side-effect of agriculture. With the initial surpluses of food, you can be guaranteed that the population will increase. As people are essentially made of food, more food translates to more people over time. The problem is once you approach the carrying capacity of the land. As agriculture promotes such intensive use of the land and the population continues to rise, the reliance on "good" years become more and more noticeable, until just a a dry spell of just two years can cause devastating riots and civil unrest.

Tribes on the other hand are also dependent upon food for their population. But as they do not practice intensive agriculture, their population caps are much lower. Famines do not really factor into tribes as they can easily migrate elsewhere, seeing as they have much less people and above all tribal societies do not rely on the maximum carrying capacity of the land. Even if they ARE prevented from migrating or choose not to, their population density is so low that they lose only a few people to starvation (relative to agricultural societies), whereas famines hit enough people in agricultural societies that unhappy people can form.....dangerous viewpoints.

EDIT: Oh, looks like this has been elaborated upon already.....my bad

[ARCHIPPOS]

Huh, I don't see it that way at all. If anything, famine is a side-effect of agriculture. With the initial surpluses of food, you can be guaranteed that the population will increase. As people are essentially made of food, more food translates to more people over time. The problem is once you approach the carrying capacity of the land. As agriculture promotes such intensive use of the land and the population continues to rise, the reliance on "good" years become more and more noticeable, until just a a dry spell of just two years can cause devastating riots and civil unrest.

Tribes on the other hand are also dependent upon food for their population. But as they do not practice intensive agriculture, their population caps are much lower. Famines do not really factor into tribes as they can easily migrate elsewhere, seeing as they have much less people and above all tribal societies do not rely on the maximum carrying capacity of the land. Even if they ARE prevented from migrating or choose not to, their population density is so low that they lose only a few people to starvation (relative to agricultural societies), whereas famines hit enough people in agricultural societies that unhappy people can form.....dangerous viewpoints.


That's true... however urbanised societies can apply some tricks to avoid the possibility of famine... namely they can trade ... and indeed we can refer to the examples of classical Athens and Rome.Both urbanised and heavely populated which at the time of their greatest power were at the verge of famine because of their booming populations.And we see that Sparta has been able to prevail over Athens precisely by controlling the Bosporus straits thus cutting off Athens from the essential grain supplies of the Black Sea. It was an istant checkmate action - Athenians immediately surrendered (they would starve to death within months if they did not). Similarly in Rome we see the organisation of large-scale grain procurements from Egypt paid by the Roman state. Those grain supplies were essential for the social stability of the state keeping the masses of proletarians at check.

A few more things.Urban phenomene shifts the world in two halves.It creates an urban centre(polis) and an agricultural periphery(hora).However this division is not only geographic but also economic and political.Centralisation refers to precisely this process of hegemonising,controlling and subjugating the periphery and it can be seen everywhere.Costantly the urban populations project economic/political/cultural power first towards the native farmer class(who is forced to extinction and proletarisation) and usually at the same time this centralisation process is exported to the world .This is in fact the mechanism that keeps urban societies prosperous (but even a superficial analysis reveals that this wealth is unevenly distributed) .In modern times this process is known as colonialism.