Unrealistic Water Crossings

[Foot]

I actually think the costs of most ships initially should be raised but upkeep lowered as regular maintaining wasn't incredibly expensive then but launching and the occasional refits were. Since a small fleet of quiremes costing less than a couple unit of peltasts seems unreasonable.

From our internal forums:

It's true that building a ship was expensive, but the cost of paying the crew was even more so. The ancient sources indicate the cost of building a trireme was about a talent, and outfitting the vessel cost another talent. Paying the crew cost about a talent per month. So the maintenance cost for a full year was 6 times the expense of construction and outfitting. Even if the vessel was crewed for only half the year it would have been 3 times more expensive to crew than to construct. In practise, the Athenians crewed only as many vessels as they felt they needed and kept large numbers of uncrewed ships in reserve. In an emergency, the reserve vessels were re-outfitted and manned.

While large mediterranean states maintained standing fleets, these tended to be small compared to the fleets they built in wartime.

Foot

[Ichon]

Well I don't know that much about Athenian vs Roman navy but my 1 impression was that Athenian and most Greek states were crewed by free men while the Romans used slaves. That might be a wrong impression but it would change the cost of labor I'd guess.

Also sailor was a respected occupation among Greeks- not as much among Romans. Though if all the factions share ship types it wouldn't make sense to have different costs anyway.

I've read that typical wages for a middle class Hoplite were 40 drachmas a month? And its roughly 6,000 drachmas per talent? So 1 talent would pay 150 men for a month. So if a single trireme cost 2 talents and we figure a ship/fleet represents 10 ships then 20 talents to build- another 1 talent for repairs per ship over 6 months and crew of 200 per ship upkeep would be 90 talents for 6 months.

Since we can't disband the crew when ship not in use in the game I figure half that is fair since in a 6 month period of the ship in service it might actually only be at sea for 3 months. Depending on conversion to game currencies then roughly that could be 1,000 build cost and 2,250 upkeep for a single "fleet" of tiremes. Seems a bit much unless the economy is radically altered so maybe half that? 500 build cost and 1,125 upkeep?

If it were a Roman ship and slaves were prisoners of war or criminals whose cost was quite cheap would wages be half or even 1/3 of a Greek ship? Although the initial Roman fleets used free sailors so the cost would have been equivalent.

Anyway- after looking into it I am convinced that most times the upkeep cost would be more than the initial construction costs by a large factor- my impression originally was based on thinking most of the crew other than officers and marines were slaves.

[moonburn]

slaves were used in ships but not in warships i believe at least until the imperial era romans used citizens or auxilia to row the warships since it demanded alot of training and willingness i mean many pirate groups where more powerfull then kings at given times and those pirates gave caesar and pompey a thriumph each so using slaves in warships seems counterproductive

[Ca Putt]

I've read that typical wages for a middle class Hoplite were 40 drachmas a month?

while Petekonter and smaller ships were often rowed by zeugites or even hippeis(ok just in fairytales^^) Trireres and above were rowed by the lower classes which consequently demanded less wager. still this is ONLY Athens not Sparta, not Rhodos and not the seleucid empire of which I do not know if they used slaves or citizens.

[Ichon]

Well I thought for Athens the different classes all rowed... maybe on different oar banks but- lots of differences in wages could make a large impact though over a 6 month period. I can't imagine the team will make many different ship types for each culture as that could take many unit slots. Not that naval combat and navies weren't important- they were decisive in many campaigns but the auto battles in MTW2 removes much of the impact of special units per faction. So I'd guess they will settle from some representational average. Probably with upkeep tilted a bit more than construction costs as even slaves had some cost and not everyone on the ship were slaves.

[Ca Putt]

I was just pointing out this one because I think the rest is somewhat correct, afterall depending on ship you also have marines/soldiers, officers, sailors and occasionally specialists in varying number it's not just a chunk of 150 Hoplites. wikipedia says:
170 rowers
10-20 sailors and officers
10 soldiers(they say archers and Hoplites tho it is not clear if those were Psiloi or hoplites with a bow ;) )

[Populus Romanus]

As Foot pointed out earlier, the crossable land bridges represent the ability of armies to utilize local trade and fishing fleets to cross short distances. However, the recruitment of mercenary ships also could represent this exact same type of event, but with less restriction and more flexibility. With that in mind, is it really necessary to have land bridges? Mercenary ships appear to be an altogether superior solution to the same problem.

[Atilius]

my 1 impression was that Athenian and most Greek states were crewed by free men while the Romans used slaves.

That's a misconception. During most of our time period, Roman warships were crewed by proletarii - citizens who did not have enough wealth to qualify for service in the army (Polybios 6.19). The Roman navy also used vessels supplied by the allied greek city states of Magna Graecia. These vessels would hae been crewed by free greeks.