What economic pieces am I missing (imports/exports)

[PhoenixPhyre]

So I'm writing up the broad-brush economic situations for a few countries--
* What they import
* What they export
* What they produce locally

and need a sanity check to make sure I'm not missing anything major. The basic tech level is mid medieval, but with one area starting to surge ahead with clockwork-style tech.

------------
Introduction:
Five groups make up the Federated Nations. Since they’ve only known about the others’ existence for five years and they are separated by considerable distance, international trade is still in its infancy. This article describes the primary products of each portion of each nation and points out areas where they may trade more in the future.

The scale is one hex ~ 1 days travel

https://www.admiralbenbo.org/images/maps/Western-Noefra-210-AC_boundaries.PNG



Of the five, the Council Lands have the biggest and most diverse economy. Their prime weakness is in luxury goods--most of their production is utilitarian in nature. There are four major areas within the Council Lands, each with their specialties (although each area is mostly self-sufficient for necessities).

Orcish Border: Forestry and fruits
The northern region (including Baile Crann and the eastern shore of Lake Coy’in) is mostly forested. It also boasts concentrations of fruit orchards (mainly tended by wood elves and half-elves, as many Wall-builders are allergic to bee stings). Forest products are the dominant regional export--lumber is dragged out of the forests and down the rivers to the lumber mills of Baile Crann, wild mushrooms and berries are turned into preserves and exported, exotic meats are smoked or salted for transport. The mountains and hills have decent mineral wealth, but that remains mostly undeveloped and they import much of their refined metals from points south.

Moons-fall: Metal and stone
The mountains and valleys at the far east of the Council Lands (near Fuar-Uulan) are occupied mostly by dwarves; these severe areas produce much of the refined metals and decorative stone for the Council. Not much food is grown here (although some grains, mostly barley and rye, are grown in the flatlands at the north of this region). Honey is a prized commodity that must be imported; the same goes for refined sugars. The region is known for its distilled liquors. The deep-dwelling mountain dwarves rarely trade directly with outsiders--they use the hill dwarves as intermediaries. The smoke from the refineries can be seen for miles and gives Fuar-Uulan its characteristic grey tint.

Sea of Grass: Foodstuffs
The main central plains of the Council Lands produce most of the foodstuffs for the Lands. Ranches of cattle and sheep (mostly human-run), vegetable and grain farms (mixed ownership), and apiaries (almost exclusively a halfling product) produce mass quantities of goods that are sent elsewhere--to the capital to feed the masses, north and east in exchange for worked goods, etc. Sugar comes from sugar beets which are grown in the northern area of this region. The human farms rely on teams of oxen; the halfling ones rely on mass manpower. Gemstones and other fineries sell quite well here, as do intricate machinery as they lack the technological base to make those themselves.

Lake Coy’in: Aquaculture and Trade
The settlements on the shore of Lake Coy’in (Rabbiton, Rauviz, and Yurus-Zaali are the largest ones) produce fish and other aquatic products for export (usually salted or smoked). They are largely self-sufficient for food; lumber is their primary need (especially since cutting in Ladyforest is restricted sharply). With the opening of the mine near Bor’s Sacrifice, there is a growing refining industry.
This region also serves as the trade hub with the other nations and cultures--most of the goods from the western nations pass through Yuurus-Zaali and Rauviz on their way to the rest of the Lands.




The Dynasty is largely self-sufficient, especially with the influx of trained workers from the Clans that moved west from the Council Lands. They do crave decoration, as much of their effort goes into creating necessities. They export technological know-how and fine machinery from the goblin workshops of the southern Dynasty.

Orc-lands: Wood, Wool, and Leather
The northern area is dominated by orcish tribes. They herd cattle and sheep and produce forest products, importing metal and grain. Hides of forest beasts and cattle are tanned to produce some of the best leather of the Federated Nations. Fur trapping is another major source of income.

Central Lands: Food
The central plains below the capital are heavily farmed--they produce the vast majority of the food for the nation. These farms are owned by dragonborn nobles of Syra and Gal and worked by goblins and orcs. These workers are tenant farmers mostly, not serfs. The dominant products are potatoes (and other root vegetables), barley, rye, and wheat. Ranching is a sore spot--the nomadic Aurinko elves of the region conduct frequent raids to “liberate” any cattle or horses being raised. Sheep are common, especially toward the orc-lands.

Kairen Mountains: Metals and Stone
The lands of Clan Anu are cold and unproductive, but boast mines and quarries. The Silverblood mine is the dominant source of mithral for the entire Federated Nations; there are also several precious metal mines as well as a limited source of adamantine. They import most of their food, as well as workers.

Goblin-lands: Technology and Industry
The metals and stone from the mountains flow mostly to the goblin workshops near Byarsha. Here, hordes of goblin workers risk life and limb to develop new technologies and to smelt and refine the metal. It’s a very noisy, dirty place, but productive. They import food and export worked goods. Things like alchemical reagents and novelties are especially prized.



Byssia, as the smallest Nation, is mostly rural and has no separate regions. It uses very little metal, replacing it with magically-hardened and worked wood and stone. The cuisine is mostly fish-based, with rice and vegetables. Their mastery over plants does allow them to produce the finest spices of any place in the Nations.



The Stone Throne is subdivided into North, Central, and Southern regions. They are the only significant source of steelsilk, a plant fiber that is exceptionally strong and fine. They also produce most of the Federated Nations’ supply of silk, as well as large quantities of exotic goods such as spices and gemstones.

Northern District: Wood, Leather, and Silk
The Northern District specializes in jungle products, including silk (both regular and steelsilk). Food production is mostly rice and vegetables, with most communities producing fish for their own consumption. They import metal and stone, both worked and unworked.

Central District: Grains, Cattle, and Worked Goods
The Central District is mostly farmland and factories, with mines in the south-eastern mountains near the capital. They produce most of the grain, meat, and vegetables as well as working the refined ores brought up from the South and the lumber, leather, and silk brought down from the North.

Southern District: Metal, Stone, Fish, and Spices
The Southern District contains a major lake, and thus produces fish in abundance. There are also salt mines, as well as other mines (with smelters) and quarries. They import most of their non-fish foodstuffs.




Windwalker Collective
The Windwalker goblin collective mostly survives by gathering and herding sheep. Their major export is adventurers (the center of the Federated Nations is at Fort Hope, along with the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters). They also participate in trade between the nations, as many of the trade routes go through their territory.

Aurinko Elven Tribes
These elves, living on the plains west of Lake Coy’in are herders of cattle and horses. They only rarely trade their livestock, and then only the lesser breeds. They have a strained relationship with the Dynasty and are feeling hemmed in by the growing farms of the Council Lands along the southern shore. They import metalwork primarily, trading for leather and herbs.

[jqavins]

I've read the short top section; I'm about to dive into the spoilers but have these initial thoughts.

Your three bullets basically concern international trade. Assuming that "What they..." means both what and how much, you've got the major economic points of trade covered.
But there are many non-economic factors that affect trade: political, geographic, etc.
And, there are economic and other factors that underlie the ones you mentioned and affect other parts of life and the economy, such as natural resources, political stability, work force size and health, financial systems, and many more.


So, how much of this are you looking for?

You called these five groups the "Federated Nations" with capital letters, which I take to mean there is a formal arrangement of some sort among them. Among five groups there ten different bilateral relationships that all have to be stable and non-hostile for such a thing to come into being. You also say that these five groups have had no contact and were not even aware of each other's existence until five years ago. To me this is not credible. To work out a formal five-way relationship like this should take more like 50 years, or even 500, than 5.

More soon; there's a lot to read.
------------------------------------------
45 Minutes Later

After an interruption for that pesky thing called "work", I've started on the wall of text and see that some of the stuff I've mentioned above is addressed. I can't load the map here at work, which is probably a firewall issue. (It loads on my phone, but is too small to be of use.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've read the short top section; I'm about to dive into the spoilers but have these initial thoughts.

Your three bullets basically concern international trade. Assuming that "What they..." means both what and how much, you've got the major economic points of trade covered.
But there are many non-economic factors that affect trade: political, geographic, etc.
And, there are economic and other factors that underlie the ones you mentioned and affect other parts of life and the economy, such as natural resources, political stability, work force size and health, financial systems, and many more.


So, how much of this are you looking for?

You called these five groups the "Federated Nations" with capital letters, which I take to mean there is a formal arrangement of some sort among them. Among five groups there ten different bilateral relationships that all have to be stable and non-hostile for such a thing to come into being. You also say that these five groups have had no contact and were not even aware of each other's existence until five years ago. To me this is not credible. To work out a formal five-way relationship like this should take more like 50 years, or even 500, than 5.

More soon; there's a lot to read.

Right now, just mainly the intra-nation production. Basically--are these mostly self-sufficient nations missing any major products that would make them starve to death? Does the map make any sense? Each nation has interior divisions--those really have the specializations.

The Federated Nations Council is a League-of-Nations-like body established due to the meddling of an adventurer group that discovered the other nations and basically strong-armed the nations into talking to each other. It basically only handles the adventurers guild (which provides security and exploration services). They had done major services for each of them (caught some evil infiltrators for one, freed another from devil worship, stopped wars for the other two) so they had significant political pull. Right now, it basically exists as a talking society without any real direct influence (other than continued political meddling from the (now retired) adventurers).

Edit: Specifically, the FNC is a multilateral body in that the adventurers basically said "you owe us, so send a representative to go sit in a room and figure out how you can live together. We'll stand outside and make sure you come to an agreement. Don't let us get bored."

[sktarq]

Well a few things that come up.

Firstly Ceramics. A classic trade item. Particularly as they can go into luxury goods at the upper end.

Also firewood. Cities EAT fuel like they eat grain. cooking, building material, bath houses, executions, trash disposal, shipping/boat building, tools/furniture. Many cities we think of now being not near forests used to be near forests (Damascus, Bagdad, Rome, Chaco Canyon) which have since been cut down. as the stream of wood pulled locally begins to dry up they start importing it from farther away.

Also fiber. linen, cotton, wool, etc make good trade products. they travel well, and as near city regions will find food more profitable than fiber which is makes it a good choice for the hinterlands.

Also you have mentioned several groups who want luxuries but little in the way production of them.

And not all metals/gems are hill based (thank you civ games). A fair amount of gold and gems are picked out of riverbeds for example. Even iron sands are pretty common in river systems as a baseline source.

Finnally how internal trade is organized can have profound effects on what is needed. what kinds/how many luxury goods is linked to how wealth is distributed for example. Powerful intra nation guilds can put pressure to centralize certain industries and that drives a need for those goods to be transported.

Also most (but by no means all) regions are food independent in era you're aiming at. Sure individual communities may not be food independent (especially big cities) but they mostly import food from the next town or valley over. Large scale movement of food over long distance happened but was pretty rare. It is not that movement of food should not be important, it should be. but making a region a long distance major food exporter should be thought through carefully as to how the situation developed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well a few things that come up.

Firstly Ceramics. A classic trade item. Particularly as they can go into luxury goods at the upper end.

Also firewood. Cities EAT fuel like they eat grain. cooking, building material, bath houses, executions, trash disposal, shipping/boat building, tools/furniture. Many cities we think of now being not near forests used to be near forests (Damascus, Bagdad, Rome, Chaco Canyon) which have since been cut down. as the stream of wood pulled locally begins to dry up they start importing it from farther away.


Yeah, I forgot about ceramics/glass. I'll need to think about those.

As for fuels, I'd figured that the two major (non-dwarven) cities that aren't in forest territory burn coal (or something similar). The tech base is a bit schizo--there's pockets of remembered old tech and reasonably abundant low-level magic (cantrip level) that can provide a lot of that.



Also fiber. linen, cotton, wool, etc make good trade products. they travel well, and as near city regions will find food more profitable than fiber which is makes it a good choice for the hinterlands.


I'll expand the wool and add other fibers (mainly linen/flax as cotton doesn't fit my mental image of the area, but :shrug:)



Also you have mentioned several groups who want luxuries but little in the way production of them.

And not all metals/gems are hill based (thank you civ games). A fair amount of gold and gems are picked out of riverbeds for example. Even iron sands are pretty common in river systems as a baseline source.


Right now, I'm thinking that the main international trade is in luxuries--fine furs and small gadgets from the Remnant Dynasty, spices from Byssia, silk and other exotic jungly items from the Stone Throne, and magic/gems from the Council Lands.

The ones who have the inclination to work metals also happen to live in mountainous regions.



Finnally how internal trade is organized can have profound effects on what is needed. what kinds/how many luxury goods is linked to how wealth is distributed for example. Powerful intra nation guilds can put pressure to centralize certain industries and that drives a need for those goods to be transported.


That's why the Council Lands are so stratified--the whole system is run by a set of interlocking guilds that every human and halfling (and most dwarves that will deal with outsiders, as well as most of the wood elves) belongs to. The Agriculture super-guild (made out of a bunch of more specific guilds that have local chapters) runs food, etc production. The Forestry guild handles wood and "related" products. Etc.



Also most (but by no means all) regions are food independent in era you're aiming at. Sure individual communities may not be food independent (especially big cities) but they mostly import food from the next town or valley over. Large scale movement of food over long distance happened but was pretty rare. It is not that movement of food should not be important, it should be. but making a region a long distance major food exporter should be thought through carefully as to how the situation developed.

I thought I had mentioned that each region is mostly self-sufficient (with a couple exceptions--the Kairen Mountain region is strongly not self-sufficient--they're largely up there to keep the nasties from getting into the settled regions). I'll check and add more about that.

Thanks!

[brian 333]

Trade does not come ouf of a box ready made to deliver surplus to lack.

Trade is grown from small roots, fertilized by good will, and watered by prosperity. Which is to say, it starts small and only grows through mutual cooperation for individual benefit.

Example: Marco Polo went to China and came back with goods that made him rich. The volume of goods that went either way was quite small.

But other traders saw his prosperity and tried to copy his success. Diaz, Columbus, Magellan, and a host of others spent fortunes trying to emulate him, but caravan by caravan and ship by ship the successes began to add up until a regular trade between the East and West became common. But none of this would have happened if people didn't make money doing it.

Even something as simple as the berry farms of Southeast Louisiana which served the berry needs of New Orleans didn't happen overnight. It's such an obvious idea to grow fresh berries to sell to a city, but converting a farm designed to feed a family to producing berries requires the berry trade to be profitable.

So it starts small. Farmers take surplus berries to town, and make enough money to encourage more effort in berry growing. Meanwhile, city dwellers need to be aware berries are available which takes time and money to advertise. And now that there is demand for more berries, a more efficient means of distribution is needed, which takes time and money. With greater demand and more efficient distribution comes the need to devote more acreage to berry farming, which could glut the market with berries, so more advertising is needed to grow the customer base, which means more customers buying more berries which again calls for an increase of transport capacity.

The upward spiral depends on more than just surplus and want, which are free. To create this upward spiral requires sustained effort over time. Trade networks look simple and obvious after the fact, but required sustained effort over time to create.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right. These nations are in the Marco Polo stage. The current state of international trade is adventurous merchant groups moving small amounts of goods. The main point of the FNC is to allow for movement of people and goods as well as a little mutual aid (in the form of adventurers).

[Knaight]

The map is relatively sparse in terms of settlements, with a lot of pretty nasty terrain. This has trade implications - shipping costs are going to add up fast (particularly as it sounds like there's not really anything in the way of road systems), which suggests particular trade conditions. Things being traded to a place have got to either be unknown there or really expensive to produce.

As for particular gaps, the one that really stands out is horses - there's a few places in absolutely terrible horseland, and then the cities on the plains in much better land. I'd expect a horse culture somewhere on those plains, with associated trading. Glass and ceramic have already been mentioned, and I'm not seeing much of anything on that list that suggests that there is even meaningful clay usage. There's also relatively little trade in worked goods, apart from one region producing an ambiguous "industry". Trade costs being what they are I'd expect a lot more in the way of worked goods and less in raw materials, grain aside.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The map is relatively sparse in terms of settlements, with a lot of pretty nasty terrain. This has trade implications - shipping costs are going to add up fast (particularly as it sounds like there's not really anything in the way of road systems), which suggests particular trade conditions. Things being traded to a place have got to either be unknown there or really expensive to produce.

As for particular gaps, the one that really stands out is horses - there's a few places in absolutely terrible horseland, and then the cities on the plains in much better land. I'd expect a horse culture somewhere on those plains, with associated trading. Glass and ceramic have already been mentioned, and I'm not seeing much of anything on that list that suggests that there is even meaningful clay usage. There's also relatively little trade in worked goods, apart from one region producing an ambiguous "industry". Trade costs being what they are I'd expect a lot more in the way of worked goods and less in raw materials, grain aside.

I failed to mention that there is a restricted-use portal network (the blue dots are entry points). Very high-value goods can get shipped that way, but it's tightly controlled by the Adventurer's Guild (and thus the FNC itself) and expensive to get access to.

That map mainly shows the larger settlements--the dotted borders show the furthest claims of that particular group. But yeah, they're pretty far apart. Most internal trade is ~days from the major cities, international trade is ~weeks. The two western nations (Dynasty in the north and Byssia in the south) are relatively close (only a day or two between furthest outposts), the two eastern nations have some nasty terrain between them on the most direct route. The two eastern ones (Council to the north, Stone Throne to the south) are also the most insular.

Yeah, ceramics/clay is an issue I'll have to add.

Horses are bred mostly in the Council Lands (down on the plains). The Dynasty uses oxen mostly (because their neighbors will raid to "liberate" horses), Byssia is mostly swampy. The central region of the Stone Throne uses horses, but they also breed giant lizards for pack animals to the north (because that area is mostly untamed jungle). Mules get bred in the south. The only source of "prime" horses is the Aurinko elves, but they don't part with them easily.

I guess I'm just blanking on what worked goods would be worth transporting (or what they are, seeing as how I missed ceramics entirely :smallbiggrin:). Worked metal goods (refined ingots, finished pieces) are what I mean by "metals"--those regions tend to be both miners and manufactories.

[Max_Killjoy]

For "worked goods", you have multiple iterations.

For example, silk. Bulk silk cloth and thread are the first iteration, clothing and other finished goods are another iteration. (And heck, it's been a while since I looked up how silk cloth is made from the raw fibers, I could be missing an iteration.)

So the trade could be in steel ingots, or in finished weapons and tools and parts. It could be in exotic hardwood logs, or it could be in finished carved items.

Given the restricted and limited portal network, I'd lean towards the final iteration being the most commonly-traded materials.

[brian 333]

Means of transport of trade goods:

Rivers, Lakes, and Marshes are pole-boat territory. Often called barges, these vessels are sized to suit the waters they travel. In the North American Great Lakes and its tributaries the Voyageur Canoe dominated, which was a mini Viking Longship. On the Mississippi River and its watershed region the River Barge, a flat bottomed semi-open pole boat dominated upriver trade and until Stem Engines, log rafts dominated downriver trade. In the coastal swamps, especially around New Orleans where smuggling was a major component of trade, plank built flatboats dominated.

While paddling or poling is suitable for languid currents, more robust means of motivation are required for strong currents. Mike Fink and his boys used rope strung to shore where the crew hauled the boat against the current, poling in the eddies and backwaters. Sometimes draught animals were used for this purpose, such as in the Eerie Canal where mules supplied 100% of the power that moved the barges.

Portages, places where boats are carried overland either to bypass rapids or to cut off miles of an oxbow loop from the trip, begin as a trail hacked into the wilderness, but each crew that comes through improves them. If sustained trade becomes common in the region, such locations become campsites, then people begin to move in to service the traders and their boats, and eventuallly settlements grow until they are another market on the trade hub.


In the swampy jungles of Southeast Asia the Water Buffalo is the draught animal of choice where water routes are not an option.


Deserts are rough on horses, which require far too much water. However, animals native to the region often have the survival mechanisms horses lack. Camels immediately come to mind, but there are other options such as elephants and asses. (Greyhawk introduced the Pack Lizard in its original Underdark dungeon.) Such animals have the ability to survive long distance travel from watering hole to watering hole in scrub and desert terrain.


Steppes and Prairies are the natural home of horses, but they are also good for wagon trains, yurts, and caravans. Even today in Siberia, reigndeer drawn sleighs are considered more reliable as transport in the winter. Plus, if your motor dies you can eat it which you can't with a snow machine.


Ice fields are very hard on herbivores, but if there is access to fish and game canines make excellent draught animals.


Mountains bring to mind the humble Llama and its cousins. Vast trade networks in the Andes linked the Inca peoples. But we shouldn't forget the Himalayan Yak.


Whatever the terrain, there is a beast suited to survival there, and on Earth, domestication has proven effective on pretty much any animal we've tried it. In a fantasy realm there is no reason more fantastic beasts would not serve. While pegasi are probably not suited for much more than a lightly armored rider. But imagine Pack Trained Bulettes, which might be useful in deserts, or Giant Pack Beetles for use in dense forests, or even Pack Zombies who work for free as they shuffle across blighted lands loaded with trade goods.


But never forget the trade network which extended from the Northern reaches of North America to the Southern tip of South America which was dominated by the various MesoAmerican peoples who walked the trails carrying a bag over their shoulder. Humans are the most adaptable draught animal of them all.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For "worked goods", you have multiple iterations.

For example, silk. Bulk silk cloth and thread are the first iteration, clothing and other finished goods are another iteration. (And heck, it's been a while since I looked up how silk cloth is made from the raw fibers, I could be missing an iteration.)

So the trade could be in steel ingots, or in finished weapons and tools and parts. It could be in exotic hardwood logs, or it could be in finished carved items.

Given the restricted and limited portal network, I'd lean towards the final iteration being the most commonly-traded materials.

Just rambling based on this--

Bulk, weight, and perishability are the main deterrents of long-distance trade.

So whole logs don't work as well as boards, except boards are less durable than logs. So long-distance wood transport really should go by water as whole logs. Smaller things like furniture can go small distances, as can bow-staves, ox yokes, etc. This is consistent with history. Good. I do have rivers connecting Baile Crann to the lake; they've probably dug canals connecting that to the river that goes to the capital.

Stone is heavy and bulky and (relatively) fragile, so transporting it long distances is hard if you want to use it for building materials. Better get that locally. Gemstones can go very easily because they're small and light. Use those for international trade.

Metal ore is annoying--smelt it on-site or nearby, at least partially. For complex goods, ship the worked pieces. But without mass production and standardized parts, each village's smith is going to need raw stock to shape individually. So most of the medium distance (in-nation) trade will be in bars and ingots, with rare shipments of larger plates (as those take specialized mills to do well). Rare metals require specialized expertise, so the mithral from the mines in the Dynasty will probably get sent out as finished pieces. Gold/silver/etc. get coined in a centralized location or are traded as bars (more rarely than gems due to fear of adulteration).

Food is generally perishable--grain travels ok, but vegetables don't (pre-refrigeration/canning). Lots of salted/smoked/pickled/dried (and in rare cases magically preserved) foods can move medium distances. Only the rarest get sent internationally, and those are highly special (mostly spices). Cattle can be driven long distances to centralized slaughterhouses if the terrain is open enough. Same with other livestock (poultry can be caged and carried).

Fibers (silk, linen, wool, fur) travel pretty well. Probably not internationally except in the more high-end market (steelsilk, specially dyed fabrics from Byssia).

Ceramics/clay...still haven't placed those.

[sktarq]

Almost forgot two.

Salt. less needed if magic is common but everyone who wants to preserve food for winter or keep livestock wants it. plus it tastes good.

dye. indigo, dyewood, conchial, etc. Hell red dye was the second most valuable thing to be pulled from the spanish colonies after silver for many years.

Edit; Possible third. slaves.
possible fourth livestock-as in a cattle/sheep run.

[Tvtyrant]

So I'm writing up the broad-brush economic situations for a few countries--
* What they import
* What they export
* What they produce locally

and need a sanity check to make sure I'm not missing anything major. The basic tech level is mid medieval, but with one area starting to surge ahead with clockwork-style tech.

------------
Introduction:
Five groups make up the Federated Nations. Since they’ve only known about the others’ existence for five years and they are separated by considerable distance, international trade is still in its infancy. This article describes the primary products of each portion of each nation and points out areas where they may trade more in the future.

The scale is one hex ~ 1 days travel

https://www.admiralbenbo.org/images/maps/Western-Noefra-210-AC_boundaries.PNG



Of the five, the Council Lands have the biggest and most diverse economy. Their prime weakness is in luxury goods--most of their production is utilitarian in nature. There are four major areas within the Council Lands, each with their specialties (although each area is mostly self-sufficient for necessities).

Orcish Border: Forestry and fruits
The northern region (including Baile Crann and the eastern shore of Lake Coy’in) is mostly forested. It also boasts concentrations of fruit orchards (mainly tended by wood elves and half-elves, as many Wall-builders are allergic to bee stings). Forest products are the dominant regional export--lumber is dragged out of the forests and down the rivers to the lumber mills of Baile Crann, wild mushrooms and berries are turned into preserves and exported, exotic meats are smoked or salted for transport. The mountains and hills have decent mineral wealth, but that remains mostly undeveloped and they import much of their refined metals from points south.

Moons-fall: Metal and stone
The mountains and valleys at the far east of the Council Lands (near Fuar-Uulan) are occupied mostly by dwarves; these severe areas produce much of the refined metals and decorative stone for the Council. Not much food is grown here (although some grains, mostly barley and rye, are grown in the flatlands at the north of this region). Honey is a prized commodity that must be imported; the same goes for refined sugars. The region is known for its distilled liquors. The deep-dwelling mountain dwarves rarely trade directly with outsiders--they use the hill dwarves as intermediaries. The smoke from the refineries can be seen for miles and gives Fuar-Uulan its characteristic grey tint.

Sea of Grass: Foodstuffs
The main central plains of the Council Lands produce most of the foodstuffs for the Lands. Ranches of cattle and sheep (mostly human-run), vegetable and grain farms (mixed ownership), and apiaries (almost exclusively a halfling product) produce mass quantities of goods that are sent elsewhere--to the capital to feed the masses, north and east in exchange for worked goods, etc. Sugar comes from sugar beets which are grown in the northern area of this region. The human farms rely on teams of oxen; the halfling ones rely on mass manpower. Gemstones and other fineries sell quite well here, as do intricate machinery as they lack the technological base to make those themselves.

Lake Coy’in: Aquaculture and Trade
The settlements on the shore of Lake Coy’in (Rabbiton, Rauviz, and Yurus-Zaali are the largest ones) produce fish and other aquatic products for export (usually salted or smoked). They are largely self-sufficient for food; lumber is their primary need (especially since cutting in Ladyforest is restricted sharply). With the opening of the mine near Bor’s Sacrifice, there is a growing refining industry.
This region also serves as the trade hub with the other nations and cultures--most of the goods from the western nations pass through Yuurus-Zaali and Rauviz on their way to the rest of the Lands.




The Dynasty is largely self-sufficient, especially with the influx of trained workers from the Clans that moved west from the Council Lands. They do crave decoration, as much of their effort goes into creating necessities. They export technological know-how and fine machinery from the goblin workshops of the southern Dynasty.

Orc-lands: Wood, Wool, and Leather
The northern area is dominated by orcish tribes. They herd cattle and sheep and produce forest products, importing metal and grain. Hides of forest beasts and cattle are tanned to produce some of the best leather of the Federated Nations. Fur trapping is another major source of income.

Central Lands: Food
The central plains below the capital are heavily farmed--they produce the vast majority of the food for the nation. These farms are owned by dragonborn nobles of Syra and Gal and worked by goblins and orcs. These workers are tenant farmers mostly, not serfs. The dominant products are potatoes (and other root vegetables), barley, rye, and wheat. Ranching is a sore spot--the nomadic Aurinko elves of the region conduct frequent raids to “liberate” any cattle or horses being raised. Sheep are common, especially toward the orc-lands.

Kairen Mountains: Metals and Stone
The lands of Clan Anu are cold and unproductive, but boast mines and quarries. The Silverblood mine is the dominant source of mithral for the entire Federated Nations; there are also several precious metal mines as well as a limited source of adamantine. They import most of their food, as well as workers.

Goblin-lands: Technology and Industry
The metals and stone from the mountains flow mostly to the goblin workshops near Byarsha. Here, hordes of goblin workers risk life and limb to develop new technologies and to smelt and refine the metal. It’s a very noisy, dirty place, but productive. They import food and export worked goods. Things like alchemical reagents and novelties are especially prized.



Byssia, as the smallest Nation, is mostly rural and has no separate regions. It uses very little metal, replacing it with magically-hardened and worked wood and stone. The cuisine is mostly fish-based, with rice and vegetables. Their mastery over plants does allow them to produce the finest spices of any place in the Nations.



The Stone Throne is subdivided into North, Central, and Southern regions. They are the only significant source of steelsilk, a plant fiber that is exceptionally strong and fine. They also produce most of the Federated Nations’ supply of silk, as well as large quantities of exotic goods such as spices and gemstones.

Northern District: Wood, Leather, and Silk
The Northern District specializes in jungle products, including silk (both regular and steelsilk). Food production is mostly rice and vegetables, with most communities producing fish for their own consumption. They import metal and stone, both worked and unworked.

Central District: Grains, Cattle, and Worked Goods
The Central District is mostly farmland and factories, with mines in the south-eastern mountains near the capital. They produce most of the grain, meat, and vegetables as well as working the refined ores brought up from the South and the lumber, leather, and silk brought down from the North.

Southern District: Metal, Stone, Fish, and Spices
The Southern District contains a major lake, and thus produces fish in abundance. There are also salt mines, as well as other mines (with smelters) and quarries. They import most of their non-fish foodstuffs.




Windwalker Collective
The Windwalker goblin collective mostly survives by gathering and herding sheep. Their major export is adventurers (the center of the Federated Nations is at Fort Hope, along with the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters). They also participate in trade between the nations, as many of the trade routes go through their territory.

Aurinko Elven Tribes
These elves, living on the plains west of Lake Coy’in are herders of cattle and horses. They only rarely trade their livestock, and then only the lesser breeds. They have a strained relationship with the Dynasty and are feeling hemmed in by the growing farms of the Council Lands along the southern shore. They import metalwork primarily, trading for leather and herbs.



Don't forget that shipping costs are prohibitively expensive before steam, so international shipping is going to be mostly small amounts of ludicrously expensive products. Grain, for instance, isn't going to be a major shipping item unless there is a very stable trade route (Egypt to Rome) or a famine has driven up prices to "unpayable." Anything that expires is also off of the list, like fruit.

Road design also makes a big difference. Rome's roads were actually worse then trails for trade, being too hard for carts and hooved animals. China had greatly superior for compacted dirt roads, which could actually be used by carts, horses and cattle but due to dust clouds were inferior for armies.

Most materials that shipped before modern times did so because they couldn't be made locally, and even foreign materials that came from two locations tended to be dominated by the closer of them. India and China produced far more silk then the Byzantines but little of it came to Europe before Ottoman expansion because it was cheaper to buy from Morea then shipping five times as far despite local prices being much higher.

[Max_Killjoy]

Road design also makes a big difference. Rome's roads were actually worse then trails for trade, being too hard for carts and hooved animals. China had greatly superior for compacted dirt roads, which could actually be used by carts, horses and cattle but due to dust clouds were inferior for armies.


I'm not so sure about that one.

1) It takes a remarkable level of investment and maintenance to create an unpaved road that doesn't turn to mud with moderate rain and traffic. Modern gravel roads incorporate A LOT of stone, crushed or otherwise, and are maintained to keep a noticeable camber. A "compacted dirt road" is just mud waiting to happen.

2) The remains of ancient stone-paved roads and streets, Roman or otherwise, often show signs of heavy, long-term wear that could only have been caused by regular cart traffic.

[brian 333]

Knowledge is also a trade commodity.

Spies buy and sell military information, of course, but knowledge of society, knowledge of trade secrets, knowledge of religious mysteries, and general knowledge all sell.

For example, fortunes were spent to discover how silk is made and fortunes were spent trying to maintain the secret.

The knowledge of a particular religious belief could be weaponized, such as a religious prohibition against eating swine being used to turn one culture against another by publishing the knowledge that they eat pork. You could capitalize on that by claiming your troops oil their weapons with hog fat. Who would dare risk eternal damnation from a battle wound? It might backfire, though, as they attempt to eradicate the people who threaten them with damnation.

The point is that traders often sell the lightest, least bulky, and most valuable commodity of them all, for the right price.

[Max_Killjoy]

Knowledge is also a trade commodity.

Spies buy and sell military information, of course, but knowledge of society, knowledge of trade secrets, knowledge of religious mysteries, and general knowledge all sell.

For example, fortunes were spent to discover how silk is made and fortunes were spent trying to maintain the secret.

The knowledge of a particular religious belief could be weaponized, such as a religious prohibition against eating swine being used to turn one culture against another by publishing the knowledge that they eat pork. You could capitalize on that by claiming your troops oil their weapons with hog fat. Who would dare risk eternal damnation from a battle wound? It might backfire, though, as they attempt to eradicate the people who threaten them with damnation.

The point is that traders often sell the lightest, least bulky, and most valuable commodity of them all, for the right price.


That actually plays into the fictional side of the setting I'm working on in my brainstorming thread -- with one of the other civilizations doing its damnedest to suppress, slow, and eliminate specific technological advances by other civs. They have no deities, and slow, strange, subtle magic, so their mastery of "material magic", "alchemy", "strange artifice", etc, is their key offsetting advantage.

[brian 333]

That actually plays into the fictional side of the setting I'm working on in my brainstorming thread -- with one of the other civilizations doing its damnedest to suppress, slow, and eliminate specific technological advances by other civs. They have no deities, and slow, strange, subtle magic, so their mastery of "material magic", "alchemy", "strange artifice", etc, is their key offsetting advantage.

Magical processes would be as subject to trade secrets as any other technology. If Civilization A has magic irrigation, it's an advantage Civilization B wants.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Knowledge is also a trade commodity.

Spies buy and sell military information, of course, but knowledge of society, knowledge of trade secrets, knowledge of religious mysteries, and general knowledge all sell.

For example, fortunes were spent to discover how silk is made and fortunes were spent trying to maintain the secret.

The knowledge of a particular religious belief could be weaponized, such as a religious prohibition against eating swine being used to turn one culture against another by publishing the knowledge that they eat pork. You could capitalize on that by claiming your troops oil their weapons with hog fat. Who would dare risk eternal damnation from a battle wound? It might backfire, though, as they attempt to eradicate the people who threaten them with damnation.

The point is that traders often sell the lightest, least bulky, and most valuable commodity of them all, for the right price.

That's very true. At this point, that's probably the biggest commodity in international trade. The Adventurer's Guild maintains a head start, as they get reports from all their adventuring parties, but there are a bunch of other parties buying and selling information. Magical techniques, the secrets of the new-fangled technology, even stories. The richest citizen of the Council Lands (an adult brass dragon) is addicted to hearing new stories, so she's a prime sink for such information (she's quite picky but pays well).

[FreddyNoNose]

So I'm writing up the broad-brush economic situations for a few countries--
* What they import
* What they export
* What they produce locally

and need a sanity check to make sure I'm not missing anything major. The basic tech level is mid medieval, but with one area starting to surge ahead with clockwork-style tech.

------------
Introduction:
Five groups make up the Federated Nations. Since they’ve only known about the others’ existence for five years and they are separated by considerable distance, international trade is still in its infancy. This article describes the primary products of each portion of each nation and points out areas where they may trade more in the future.

The scale is one hex ~ 1 days travel

https://www.admiralbenbo.org/images/maps/Western-Noefra-210-AC_boundaries.PNG



Of the five, the Council Lands have the biggest and most diverse economy. Their prime weakness is in luxury goods--most of their production is utilitarian in nature. There are four major areas within the Council Lands, each with their specialties (although each area is mostly self-sufficient for necessities).

Orcish Border: Forestry and fruits
The northern region (including Baile Crann and the eastern shore of Lake Coy’in) is mostly forested. It also boasts concentrations of fruit orchards (mainly tended by wood elves and half-elves, as many Wall-builders are allergic to bee stings). Forest products are the dominant regional export--lumber is dragged out of the forests and down the rivers to the lumber mills of Baile Crann, wild mushrooms and berries are turned into preserves and exported, exotic meats are smoked or salted for transport. The mountains and hills have decent mineral wealth, but that remains mostly undeveloped and they import much of their refined metals from points south.

Moons-fall: Metal and stone
The mountains and valleys at the far east of the Council Lands (near Fuar-Uulan) are occupied mostly by dwarves; these severe areas produce much of the refined metals and decorative stone for the Council. Not much food is grown here (although some grains, mostly barley and rye, are grown in the flatlands at the north of this region). Honey is a prized commodity that must be imported; the same goes for refined sugars. The region is known for its distilled liquors. The deep-dwelling mountain dwarves rarely trade directly with outsiders--they use the hill dwarves as intermediaries. The smoke from the refineries can be seen for miles and gives Fuar-Uulan its characteristic grey tint.

Sea of Grass: Foodstuffs
The main central plains of the Council Lands produce most of the foodstuffs for the Lands. Ranches of cattle and sheep (mostly human-run), vegetable and grain farms (mixed ownership), and apiaries (almost exclusively a halfling product) produce mass quantities of goods that are sent elsewhere--to the capital to feed the masses, north and east in exchange for worked goods, etc. Sugar comes from sugar beets which are grown in the northern area of this region. The human farms rely on teams of oxen; the halfling ones rely on mass manpower. Gemstones and other fineries sell quite well here, as do intricate machinery as they lack the technological base to make those themselves.

Lake Coy’in: Aquaculture and Trade
The settlements on the shore of Lake Coy’in (Rabbiton, Rauviz, and Yurus-Zaali are the largest ones) produce fish and other aquatic products for export (usually salted or smoked). They are largely self-sufficient for food; lumber is their primary need (especially since cutting in Ladyforest is restricted sharply). With the opening of the mine near Bor’s Sacrifice, there is a growing refining industry.
This region also serves as the trade hub with the other nations and cultures--most of the goods from the western nations pass through Yuurus-Zaali and Rauviz on their way to the rest of the Lands.




The Dynasty is largely self-sufficient, especially with the influx of trained workers from the Clans that moved west from the Council Lands. They do crave decoration, as much of their effort goes into creating necessities. They export technological know-how and fine machinery from the goblin workshops of the southern Dynasty.

Orc-lands: Wood, Wool, and Leather
The northern area is dominated by orcish tribes. They herd cattle and sheep and produce forest products, importing metal and grain. Hides of forest beasts and cattle are tanned to produce some of the best leather of the Federated Nations. Fur trapping is another major source of income.

Central Lands: Food
The central plains below the capital are heavily farmed--they produce the vast majority of the food for the nation. These farms are owned by dragonborn nobles of Syra and Gal and worked by goblins and orcs. These workers are tenant farmers mostly, not serfs. The dominant products are potatoes (and other root vegetables), barley, rye, and wheat. Ranching is a sore spot--the nomadic Aurinko elves of the region conduct frequent raids to “liberate” any cattle or horses being raised. Sheep are common, especially toward the orc-lands.

Kairen Mountains: Metals and Stone
The lands of Clan Anu are cold and unproductive, but boast mines and quarries. The Silverblood mine is the dominant source of mithral for the entire Federated Nations; there are also several precious metal mines as well as a limited source of adamantine. They import most of their food, as well as workers.

Goblin-lands: Technology and Industry
The metals and stone from the mountains flow mostly to the goblin workshops near Byarsha. Here, hordes of goblin workers risk life and limb to develop new technologies and to smelt and refine the metal. It’s a very noisy, dirty place, but productive. They import food and export worked goods. Things like alchemical reagents and novelties are especially prized.



Byssia, as the smallest Nation, is mostly rural and has no separate regions. It uses very little metal, replacing it with magically-hardened and worked wood and stone. The cuisine is mostly fish-based, with rice and vegetables. Their mastery over plants does allow them to produce the finest spices of any place in the Nations.



The Stone Throne is subdivided into North, Central, and Southern regions. They are the only significant source of steelsilk, a plant fiber that is exceptionally strong and fine. They also produce most of the Federated Nations’ supply of silk, as well as large quantities of exotic goods such as spices and gemstones.

Northern District: Wood, Leather, and Silk
The Northern District specializes in jungle products, including silk (both regular and steelsilk). Food production is mostly rice and vegetables, with most communities producing fish for their own consumption. They import metal and stone, both worked and unworked.

Central District: Grains, Cattle, and Worked Goods
The Central District is mostly farmland and factories, with mines in the south-eastern mountains near the capital. They produce most of the grain, meat, and vegetables as well as working the refined ores brought up from the South and the lumber, leather, and silk brought down from the North.

Southern District: Metal, Stone, Fish, and Spices
The Southern District contains a major lake, and thus produces fish in abundance. There are also salt mines, as well as other mines (with smelters) and quarries. They import most of their non-fish foodstuffs.




Windwalker Collective
The Windwalker goblin collective mostly survives by gathering and herding sheep. Their major export is adventurers (the center of the Federated Nations is at Fort Hope, along with the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters). They also participate in trade between the nations, as many of the trade routes go through their territory.

Aurinko Elven Tribes
These elves, living on the plains west of Lake Coy’in are herders of cattle and horses. They only rarely trade their livestock, and then only the lesser breeds. They have a strained relationship with the Dynasty and are feeling hemmed in by the growing farms of the Council Lands along the southern shore. They import metalwork primarily, trading for leather and herbs.



Production capacity. You produce 10 tons of a product but someone else needs 30 tons...

Production costs. three nations can produce a specific good, each has a different cost for producing the product.

Taxes/Tariffs. These can affect the costs of production or to import. Imagine your nation produces McGuffins at a unit cost of 100 but the nation next door can produce and import for 70. Will you let them import and ruin your own economy by undercutting you?

Quality of good. Not all equal.

Vanity/Status. That Dwarf table made is certainly the best, but that much more expensive one made by the elves will certainly impress people and be a high status item.

Ability to ship/transport goods. Who is doing it? How are they doing it? How does the supply chain work?

[Tvtyrant]

I'm not so sure about that one.

1) It takes a remarkable level of investment and maintenance to create an unpaved road that doesn't turn to mud with moderate rain and traffic. Modern gravel roads incorporate A LOT of stone, crushed or otherwise, and are maintained to keep a noticeable camber. A "compacted dirt road" is just mud waiting to happen.

2) The remains of ancient stone-paved roads and streets, Roman or otherwise, often show signs of heavy, long-term wear that could only have been caused by regular cart traffic.

A somewhat middling paper I wrote on the subject when I was in grad school.


History 959
5/15/2015
Roads and Manpower in Ancient Rome and China

Early Imperial China underwent demographic and cultural changes as they transitioned from the Warring States era through the Chin and Han dynasties. A decentralized Seven Kingdoms was transformed and expanded by the creation of a new centralized center. Large segments of Europe underwent a similar transformation under the Romans. The transition period of Rome from the Republic to the Empire under Augustus saw a loose confederation of allies and dependencies transformed into a standardized empire with regularized taxes and borders.

The Chinese Empire and the Roman Empire both developed road making as an innovation which helped them to develop centralized features. The development of the road differed between then societies and was dependent on the cultural and historical context of the two societies. This paper will contextualize the development of the road within the societies. It will argue that the Roman Civil War period and the Warring States period created the cultural contexts under which the imperial road networks were developed and that these road networks were limited in their utility by the cultural, economic and geographic contexts of the respective Chinese and Roman positions. This paper will also show that the roads required massive supplies on manpower and that each society developed manpower in forms that originated in decentralized wars of the previous era.

The term road will be used to mean land which has been consciously transformed to ease transportation. The use of the term consciously transformed separates the road from tracks and paths formed either by nature or by individuals moving between particular points until the ground is worn smooth. While paths and tracks are important to any form of overland transportation, they do not require manpower to create and are not innovations. Roads are also understood to be for the primary goal of easing transportation, as opposed to defense. Long walls such as the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, or the Long Walls of Athens all provided better transportation than the ground around them but were for the primary purpose of defense and not of transportation. The importance of separating them comes from preventing the confusion of causes; the abandonment of roads due to their great cost to maintain may not also be accompanied with the abandonment of wall making, which is needed on a local level for protection.

Local roads created by communities to ease nearby transportation long predate the Roman and Chinese uses. However the creation of highways originates with the Persian Achameiade dynasties Royal Road, a highway that crossed through the center of the Persian Empire and allowed for the swift movement of messengers and armies. The creation and use of highway systems as a means for the movement of troops continues into modern state building. Major powers in the Second World War created highways to move mechanized forces, and the United States would create an Interstate Highway system after the war with military utility being at the forefront. Highways in the modern usage allow for the transportation of mechanized vehicles over long distances without being impeded by obstacles or damaged by rough terrain. The Chinese and Roman imperial armies lacked mechanized units and the logistical obstacles presented by diesel and air filled tires. They had to deal with similar issues of difficult terrain and supply logistics which could be overcome by the use of roads and the accompanying supply depots.

The geographic limits presented by China and Rome differ. China from East to West consists of high steppe coming down along river valleys into a gentle plain which ends in the East China Sea. The population of ancient China was heavily concentrated in the river valleys and plains of eastern China, and became more sparse in the western steppe and southern mountains. The much higher mountains of Tibet were not incorporated during the Chin or Han dynasty, and so the lands controlled in this period can be best understood as consisting of high open steppes narrowing and declining in elevation until they reach the sea. The existence of rivers flowing down from east to west allowed for trade and transportation to be easily made available without the existence of a road network within lower China. The East China Sea provided trade movement north and south along the coast, and of the Seven Warring States of the Warring States Era only the Chin existed in the higher plains of upper China, and it incorporated the mouths of the east-west rivers which bound the population together. The geographic location of the Chin made the development of roads there more beneficial than it would have been to the lower plains and oceans of the other states. While trade up and down river would have been simple, the north-south movement of troops and trade would have been more impeded than in other regions.

The Roman controlled areas wrapped around the Mediterranean sea, a sea which combined weak tides and channels with unpredictable storms originating from the Sirocco blowing off of the Sahara Desert. To the north of Italy lays the Alps, a high sharp mountain range with a relatively open pass to the west but which cuts off travel into the north and east. The early Roman conquests were largely dependent on their geographic relation to the Mediterranean, with movements upon the four peninsulas of Italy, Iberia, the Balkans and Asian Minor, and the promontory of North Africa around Carthage predating their conquests into close regions to the northwest and northeast. By the time of Caesar conquests were being extended out of the Mediterranean basin into Gaul (modern day France) and the Syrian Desert. Roman roads took on a geographic utility as they cut through the mountains separating their provinces and territories. Gaul and Britain were positioned along the Atlantic Ocean, which was rougher than the Mediterranean, and were further cut off from other Roman territories by the mountainous regions of Iberia. Mountains lay along the entire northern edge of the Iberian peninsula, increasing the distance of Atlantic trade from Gaul to populated regions of Iberia. In Pannonia (Austria) and Armenia the Romans also faced mountainous landscapes with more difficult water access, although they were still linked with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Roman roads thus cut across more difficult terrain than Chinese roads, but like them they were built to complement existing waterways and geographic features.

The form that roads took was different between Roman and Chinese roads. Roman roads were sturdier but less uniform than the Chinese roads of the Chin and Han. They were constructed in different ways based on their location but share a few general commonalities. First a trench would be dug for the road to be built into, so that the road would not sink into the top soil and become a depression. This trench would be laid with wooden beams which would be constructed as rails with boards laid between them. Then a layer of broken rocks would be laid down. These would be kept into a general shape by the wooden beams beneath them, but would retain their shape as the beams rotted away and the road settled. Next would be a layer of pebbles or gravel. The small rocks would be tamped down to provide a smooth surface to move across, with the advantage that it lasted for long periods of time and did not kick up dust when large numbers marched across it. Light rocks were also rain permeable but did not become mud in the rain, making the road good for cart wheels in all weather. Less frequently a layer of smooth, fitted rocks would be added to the top of the gravel layer. This would make a permanently smooth surface which would last longer than the gravel alone, but required greater amounts of manpower than gravel roads did and were not as water permeable. To fix the water runoff issue roads were frequently taller than the ground around them and fitted with ditches to absorb the runoff. Ditches and fitted stones are not always present in Roman roads, but in general the roads can be understood as forming a small dike in the landscape and being long lasting.

The design of Roman roads required large amounts of manpower and material which were usually supplied by the Roman army. To make the road required either nearby quarries or the movement of large amounts of rock along the road from an earlier quarry. The deep trench under the road required moving the dirt to a distance from the road and not allow it to pile up alongside it or the road would become the low point and water log. Drainage ditches reinforced the issue of moving earth, as they had to be emptied along with the road ditch. Finally the roads had to be maintained to prevent cart wheels from becoming stuck in overly deep ruts. Along the road would be placed supply depots for the army and messenger depots. These depots were created by the army as it formed the road, with each one acting as a base while the army was in position and then would be occupied by a garrison once the bulk of the army moved on. The depots could be used in relaying messages along the road, protected travelers and resources on the road, and were instrumental in the logistics of supporting the army as it moved along the road. The food supplies held at a depot could be used to resupply a passing army as it hustled along the road to deal with conflicts, and so prevent it from being slowed by an overly large supply train. The level of professionalism required to make and maintain the roads was usually carried out by the army, who were the chief benefactors of the roads. The cost of making and maintaining roads was thus rolled into the much more expensive framework of maintaining the professional armed forces.

Chinese roads were made of pounded dirt. Drafted farmers would take long sticks and beat the path down until the dirt was hard. Ruts would be cut into the roads at a fixed depth and width. These ruts would have to be maintained throughout the year, as they would naturally deepen and so make the road impassable for carts. Way stations were attached to the Chinese roads for the supplying of food, water and horses to passing messengers. They were also instrumental in the control of population movements. The Chinese government under the Chin and then the Han maintained strict controls on the movement of their population, forcibly settling them in underpopulated regions or as a means of breaking traditional bonds between families and regions. To prevent these groups from abandoning their new homes migration within the empire was banned.

Manpower under the Romans and the Chin/Han was gained in different ways. In Rome the army performed many of the manpower duties for the state. The army had originally been a drafted army fed and maintained from the Italian peninsula, but the size of European theaters eventually made this system logistically impossible. In the Late Republic armies came to rely upon a kind of officially banditry, where generals were expected to pay for their soldiers to remain the field. To do so the Roman general relied upon forced tributes from Roman ally nations as the army passed by, and the forced requisition of supplies from Roman territories. This system was not a stable one as it gave local generals institutional control over their armies wealth, making centralized authority difficult. It also placed tremendous burdens on the resources of the frontier but left the central provinces free of military payments. Under Augustus the system of payments was slowly transformed from the Ad Hoc system of the Late Republic into a professional system of acquiring and paying for manpower. Conscription for manpower was abandoned entirely, and a dual system of payments was created. Taxes taken from across the Roman empire were taken to pay the wages of the frontier troops. This money was also used to pay for the food, which due to the limitations of shipping was acquired locally. While the price for food was frequently fixed by the state at below the market price, the system helped to spread the cost of manpower from a regional zone to an imperial one.

In China manpower was traditionally acquired through the use of conscription. Manpower conscription was central to the creation of the Chinese army, which was far larger than the Roman army under the empire and permanently as large as the temporary height of the Roman military at the end of the Republic period. Men would be drafted from across the empire and mixed into heterogeneous units to prevent local loyalties from resurfacing. The soldiers were expected to identify themselves as soldiers in the imperial army first, and only as regional groups secondarily. This system was applied to other forms of manpower conscription, such as in the building of monumental architecture and roads. Manpower was drawn by force from across the Chin and later the Han empires to build the Great Wall, the road network, and perhaps most importantly to settle in new frontier zones between China and encroaching steppe peoples. The use of drafted unpaid labor was different from the professional army/builders of the Roman empire but served similar internal purposes. It mixed together individuals from a large area and created new identities for them, and it helped to spread the cost of manpower so that it did not decimate a particular region.

One of the key differences that arose from the Roman and Chinese policies was the cost of defense. The greater centralization and focus on the interior of the Chin and Han Chinese came at the price of expecting the frontier zones to provide for themselves. Under the Chin emperor 3.7 million workers were removed from the interior to the outer provinces under the title of soldier farmers. These farmers would be expected to build and defend settlements which would stand between the rich Chinese center provinces and opposing foreign attacks. The creation of these frontier provinces seems to have been from the vantage point of meeting cultural expectations about the emperors role in supporting farming rather than from a defensive orientation. Confucian ideals of imperial sponsorship meant that the emperor was expected in China to provide land to hungry individuals in support of a self-sustaining population. As peace led to population growth the number of farms moved below the number of individuals expecting to be fed. As the cultural values of ancient China disdained merchants and the concept of food doles, the emperor was expected to provide land to the growing population. Under both the Chin and the Han this was done by forcibly removing large numbers of individuals to the frontier where they would become farmer soldiers. The tenuous nature of this frontier and the cost of protecting it meant the Chinese empire did not supply it with garrison soldiers or roads, but expected it to become self-sustaining. The Han augmented the policy of forcing settlements onto foreign lands with the granting of lands owned by the state to the poor and legal limitations on the sizes of farms. The land policies of the Chin and Han were also tied to policies meant to prevent the creation of a large merchant class, granting them the lowest social position and drafting them into becoming farmers.

The movement towards greater manpower usage in China peaked during the Han conquest of their traditional enemy the Hsi-yu. Under the Han emperor Wu-Ti more than 12 million people would be involved in military affairs against the horse tribes of the Hsi-Yu, including some 1.2 million cavalry. These campaigns were carried out from 129-90 B.C.E and sometimes had a survival rate as low as 10-20%. Movements of troops and populations onto the steppe to remove the raiding society help to explain the limitations of the road as an implement of the Han military. The wide fields of the steppe and the mobile formations of the Hsi-Yu made roads as a means of moving troops quickly meaningless. Any fortification or road could be avoided by the horse people of the steppe, while still draining manpower from the chasing operations against them by the Han. Steppe battlefields required permanent populations to impede the movements of the Hsi-Yu and cavalry to force them into battle. The Han moved large populations of farmer-soldiers into the newly pacified region to establish fortified settlements. The farmer-soldiers made up the majority Han of the forces sent into the region, some 10.5 million men. Armies of this size could not be moved quickly, and the emphasis on using cavalry to chase down opposing horsemen made roads of little use. Even the post system was replaced by mounted couriers on a horse based route.

Roman approaches to manpower were altered by their position during the Roman Civil Wars of the Late Republic. In the Early Republic warfare was an expectation of class, with soldiers equipping themselves according to their capacity to do so. These soldiers were unpaid and fought within a short campaigning season, and were positioned under leaders provided by the Roman Senate. The early Roman army was thus an amateur affair, and it was not involved in the creation of roads or other civic buildings. As campaigns in Rome became longer the relationship between the general and his soldiers changed. The soldiers became paid professionals whose ethic often edged towards mercenaries. These forces were made dangerous by training and discipline, the latter of which allowed the generals to order their men to make supply depots, fortified camps and roads while on campaign. One of the major rewards that the Republican generals granted was land to their soldiers. This began under Marius and carried through Sulla, Pompey and Caesar. Augustus slowed the rate of Roman expansion during his reformation of the army from the ad hoc private armies of the late republic to the new professionalized armies of the Empire. The lower rate of expansion meant that the ability to award land to his followers dwindled, and a pension system in currency replaced it. This innovation, like the replacement of requisition of food with payments using taxed coinage, made the Chinese policy of moving large numbers of farmers into surrounding areas impossible. The Roman population, separated from conscription and requisition, expected to be protected from their neighbors by the large standing army. Roman roads and military bases were thus expanded ahead of the incoming population. The colonies were also different in that they usually took on the form of planned urban centers rather than farms as in China, so they were more reliant on trade.

The Roman road, like the Chinese roads, provided stop points for messages and individuals on the road. These points, called mansiones or stationes, were placed every 7,000 to 12,000 paces. Messengers traveled between five and eight stationes in a day, less in mountainous regions. The speed of a moving army seems to have been similar to that of an average messenger, with the stated rate of 10,000 paces a day. The upkeep of the stationes was left up to local provinces in certain periods, and was permanently transferred to the army under Septimus Severus. This matches the Roman evolution from using requisitioned manpower and resources to using paid soldiers as the instruments of manpower so as to benefit from existing tax systems.

The use of the Chin and Han roads outside of government messengers and armies was limited by the government policies against trade. Chinese farmers inherited the costs of running the empire in the form of military and labor conscription, requisitions of grain, and taxes. The Chin had abolished feudalism to undermine opposing families, but in doing so had monetized lands. Poor farmers sold their farms and land tended to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy. At the same time the production of food was declining with the number of farmers, and Confucian values opposed the creation of plantations. The result was the creation of laws limiting the size of farms in the empire and attempts to break the merchant classes. These included the transportation of merchants to the frontier to become farmer-soldiers, the prohibition of them owning land, and were banned from officialdom. Discrimination against merchants drove the wealthiest men in society towards becoming land lords, as they took a greater percentage of the crops from their tenants than the government did. Regional specialization continued despite the economic barriers placed by the government, as geographic features prevented some goods such as iron, silk and salt from being produced outside of specific regions.

The Roman road was limited by its tremendous expense and lack of general utility. The Roman economy in the late Republic and Early Empire is superficially similar to that of the modern world but was significantly different. The Roman economy was influenced by two major issues which separate it from the modern world. The first issue which restricted the Roman economy was the limited supply of food. Studies have shown that Pompeii, operating at possibly the height of the Roman economy and placed centrally in the economy allocated 50% of its work force to agricultural production. The surrounding Villas with their association with cash crops were located around local ports Transportation costs dominated trade, preventing the viability of long distance trade. They are not located in advantageous positions to take advantage of local roads however. The limitations of transport as an implement of trade is evident from the abandonment of Italian exports of grain to support armies. In the Republic grain was shipped from Italy to the soldiers in the field. Along with grain money was paid from the Italian interior to the frontier, where the soldiers would be paid from the Roman coffers. Roman generals in the Late Republic drew on local sources of grain and money instead, combining requisitions with levies against local allies. This developed under Augustus into a system wherein the Roman army was expected to be fed by the local province, which would either be requisitioned directly or paid for by tax money. Tax money was taken from across the Empire and distributed to the Legions, which were entrenched in border and frontier provinces. The primary source of food for the armies thus became forced grain buying, with the provincial farmers forced to sell their grain to the state at a fixed price.

The Roman economy was primarily concerned with local trade, the transformation of food into locally produced craft goods. Local manufacturing was small, employing less than 50 men. Goods that were exported long distances were expensive, and tended to be sold alongside similar goods produced locally. When Roman infrastructure systems were introduced into a region they would quickly bring the region into a similar state of existence. The amount of goods manufactured was small and was consumed by a local market, and only when new technologies developed were there larger distribution. The market would initially import the new product, such as glass, but over time local industries would multiply to perform the duty of manufacturing. This is the result of the tremendous cost of long distance trade. Overland trade was the more expensive of the two options, and even in the case of the Roman Army the preference was to deliver goods via ports.

The Roman road had issues paying for itself economically. While the military gained valuable supply depots during their building of the roads and could use them to easily move across their territory the majority of trade was too localized and too dependent on water transportation to make the road a financial improvement. The items that were carried long distances were limited to those which could not be made locally and so were not in danger of local competition. These items included staples such as ivory, gold, silver, iron, and silk which the manufacturing of was impossible in most regions. It could also luxury items like regional wines which were status symbols to the wealthy, but such items were likely to travel by boat if they did not travel by road. The central location of the Mediterranean also limited the economic utility of roads as long distance shipping, as the relative cheapness of shipping by sea was so great that grain from northern Italy was more expensive in Rome during the Early Empire than grain from Egypt.

The design of Roman roads also interfered with their use in trade or travel. Romans traveled frequently along the road, but doing so was expensive. The Roman Lucius spent his entire inheritance paying for the costs of traveling along Roman roads. Trips were frequently made on foot rather than in a carriage or on animal back. This stems from the extreme hardness of the compressed stone surface of the road; the light animal shoes used by the Romans did not do well on the road. The roads also did not do well with carts and animals, as evidenced by the Theodosian Code which banned the use of loads over a certain weight as harming the road. also lacked springs, making riding in carriages difficult and uncomfortable.

The adoption of roads in Rome and China during their periods of great social upheaval reveal the power and limitations of constructing and paying for manpower usage. Chin and Han practices directly caused the deaths of large numbers of their populations, and indirectly disrupted farmers throught taxation and land power so much that deliberate attempts to cultivate independent farms matching the cultural expectations of their society proved impossible. Roman manpower was based upon the ability to distribute taxes evenly across the population, and being able to use this money to convince its professional armies to act as both engineers and soldiers. These policies had grown out of the relationships which developed between the state and its population during the prior periods of military and social upheaval, and followed the trends set by them exactly. The roads and their uses were shaped by these trends. Roman roads were expensive, required professional builders and were ill suited to trade or the travel of citizens. They were primarily military roads built by the military for its own use. Chin and Han conceptions of military manpower also played into their use of roads. Roads in Chin and Han China were made for the use of carts and messengers, not armies. Assumptions about the nature of manpower usage led the Han to abandon the creation of frontier roads in favor of the forced movement of conscript soldiers to outlying borders. These frontiers were expected to become self-sufficient and their geographic distance and plains environment made roads difficult to build and redundant.

Sources:
The Archaeology of the Roman Economy p. 42 ISBN: 0-520-05915-08
The Economy and Society of Pompeii p. 197, ISBN: 90-70265-24-9
The Logistics of the Roman Army at War p.231, ISBN: 90-04-11271-5
The Roman World Volume II p. 587, ISBN: 0-7102-0895-2
The Rise of the Chinese Empire
Han Agriculture
Roman Roads
Han Social Structure

[Max_Killjoy]

A somewhat middling paper I wrote on the subject when I was in grad school.


History 959
5/15/2015
Roads and Manpower in Ancient Rome and China

Early Imperial China underwent demographic and cultural changes as they transitioned from the Warring States era through the Chin and Han dynasties. A decentralized Seven Kingdoms was transformed and expanded by the creation of a new centralized center. Large segments of Europe underwent a similar transformation under the Romans. The transition period of Rome from the Republic to the Empire under Augustus saw a loose confederation of allies and dependencies transformed into a standardized empire with regularized taxes and borders.

The Chinese Empire and the Roman Empire both developed road making as an innovation which helped them to develop centralized features. The development of the road differed between then societies and was dependent on the cultural and historical context of the two societies. This paper will contextualize the development of the road within the societies. It will argue that the Roman Civil War period and the Warring States period created the cultural contexts under which the imperial road networks were developed and that these road networks were limited in their utility by the cultural, economic and geographic contexts of the respective Chinese and Roman positions. This paper will also show that the roads required massive supplies on manpower and that each society developed manpower in forms that originated in decentralized wars of the previous era.

The term road will be used to mean land which has been consciously transformed to ease transportation. The use of the term consciously transformed separates the road from tracks and paths formed either by nature or by individuals moving between particular points until the ground is worn smooth. While paths and tracks are important to any form of overland transportation, they do not require manpower to create and are not innovations. Roads are also understood to be for the primary goal of easing transportation, as opposed to defense. Long walls such as the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, or the Long Walls of Athens all provided better transportation than the ground around them but were for the primary purpose of defense and not of transportation. The importance of separating them comes from preventing the confusion of causes; the abandonment of roads due to their great cost to maintain may not also be accompanied with the abandonment of wall making, which is needed on a local level for protection.

Local roads created by communities to ease nearby transportation long predate the Roman and Chinese uses. However the creation of highways originates with the Persian Achameiade dynasties Royal Road, a highway that crossed through the center of the Persian Empire and allowed for the swift movement of messengers and armies. The creation and use of highway systems as a means for the movement of troops continues into modern state building. Major powers in the Second World War created highways to move mechanized forces, and the United States would create an Interstate Highway system after the war with military utility being at the forefront. Highways in the modern usage allow for the transportation of mechanized vehicles over long distances without being impeded by obstacles or damaged by rough terrain. The Chinese and Roman imperial armies lacked mechanized units and the logistical obstacles presented by diesel and air filled tires. They had to deal with similar issues of difficult terrain and supply logistics which could be overcome by the use of roads and the accompanying supply depots.

The geographic limits presented by China and Rome differ. China from East to West consists of high steppe coming down along river valleys into a gentle plain which ends in the East China Sea. The population of ancient China was heavily concentrated in the river valleys and plains of eastern China, and became more sparse in the western steppe and southern mountains. The much higher mountains of Tibet were not incorporated during the Chin or Han dynasty, and so the lands controlled in this period can be best understood as consisting of high open steppes narrowing and declining in elevation until they reach the sea. The existence of rivers flowing down from east to west allowed for trade and transportation to be easily made available without the existence of a road network within lower China. The East China Sea provided trade movement north and south along the coast, and of the Seven Warring States of the Warring States Era only the Chin existed in the higher plains of upper China, and it incorporated the mouths of the east-west rivers which bound the population together. The geographic location of the Chin made the development of roads there more beneficial than it would have been to the lower plains and oceans of the other states. While trade up and down river would have been simple, the north-south movement of troops and trade would have been more impeded than in other regions.

The Roman controlled areas wrapped around the Mediterranean sea, a sea which combined weak tides and channels with unpredictable storms originating from the Sirocco blowing off of the Sahara Desert. To the north of Italy lays the Alps, a high sharp mountain range with a relatively open pass to the west but which cuts off travel into the north and east. The early Roman conquests were largely dependent on their geographic relation to the Mediterranean, with movements upon the four peninsulas of Italy, Iberia, the Balkans and Asian Minor, and the promontory of North Africa around Carthage predating their conquests into close regions to the northwest and northeast. By the time of Caesar conquests were being extended out of the Mediterranean basin into Gaul (modern day France) and the Syrian Desert. Roman roads took on a geographic utility as they cut through the mountains separating their provinces and territories. Gaul and Britain were positioned along the Atlantic Ocean, which was rougher than the Mediterranean, and were further cut off from other Roman territories by the mountainous regions of Iberia. Mountains lay along the entire northern edge of the Iberian peninsula, increasing the distance of Atlantic trade from Gaul to populated regions of Iberia. In Pannonia (Austria) and Armenia the Romans also faced mountainous landscapes with more difficult water access, although they were still linked with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Roman roads thus cut across more difficult terrain than Chinese roads, but like them they were built to complement existing waterways and geographic features.

The form that roads took was different between Roman and Chinese roads. Roman roads were sturdier but less uniform than the Chinese roads of the Chin and Han. They were constructed in different ways based on their location but share a few general commonalities. First a trench would be dug for the road to be built into, so that the road would not sink into the top soil and become a depression. This trench would be laid with wooden beams which would be constructed as rails with boards laid between them. Then a layer of broken rocks would be laid down. These would be kept into a general shape by the wooden beams beneath them, but would retain their shape as the beams rotted away and the road settled. Next would be a layer of pebbles or gravel. The small rocks would be tamped down to provide a smooth surface to move across, with the advantage that it lasted for long periods of time and did not kick up dust when large numbers marched across it. Light rocks were also rain permeable but did not become mud in the rain, making the road good for cart wheels in all weather. Less frequently a layer of smooth, fitted rocks would be added to the top of the gravel layer. This would make a permanently smooth surface which would last longer than the gravel alone, but required greater amounts of manpower than gravel roads did and were not as water permeable. To fix the water runoff issue roads were frequently taller than the ground around them and fitted with ditches to absorb the runoff. Ditches and fitted stones are not always present in Roman roads, but in general the roads can be understood as forming a small dike in the landscape and being long lasting.

The design of Roman roads required large amounts of manpower and material which were usually supplied by the Roman army. To make the road required either nearby quarries or the movement of large amounts of rock along the road from an earlier quarry. The deep trench under the road required moving the dirt to a distance from the road and not allow it to pile up alongside it or the road would become the low point and water log. Drainage ditches reinforced the issue of moving earth, as they had to be emptied along with the road ditch. Finally the roads had to be maintained to prevent cart wheels from becoming stuck in overly deep ruts. Along the road would be placed supply depots for the army and messenger depots. These depots were created by the army as it formed the road, with each one acting as a base while the army was in position and then would be occupied by a garrison once the bulk of the army moved on. The depots could be used in relaying messages along the road, protected travelers and resources on the road, and were instrumental in the logistics of supporting the army as it moved along the road. The food supplies held at a depot could be used to resupply a passing army as it hustled along the road to deal with conflicts, and so prevent it from being slowed by an overly large supply train. The level of professionalism required to make and maintain the roads was usually carried out by the army, who were the chief benefactors of the roads. The cost of making and maintaining roads was thus rolled into the much more expensive framework of maintaining the professional armed forces.

Chinese roads were made of pounded dirt. Drafted farmers would take long sticks and beat the path down until the dirt was hard. Ruts would be cut into the roads at a fixed depth and width. These ruts would have to be maintained throughout the year, as they would naturally deepen and so make the road impassable for carts. Way stations were attached to the Chinese roads for the supplying of food, water and horses to passing messengers. They were also instrumental in the control of population movements. The Chinese government under the Chin and then the Han maintained strict controls on the movement of their population, forcibly settling them in underpopulated regions or as a means of breaking traditional bonds between families and regions. To prevent these groups from abandoning their new homes migration within the empire was banned.

Manpower under the Romans and the Chin/Han was gained in different ways. In Rome the army performed many of the manpower duties for the state. The army had originally been a drafted army fed and maintained from the Italian peninsula, but the size of European theaters eventually made this system logistically impossible. In the Late Republic armies came to rely upon a kind of officially banditry, where generals were expected to pay for their soldiers to remain the field. To do so the Roman general relied upon forced tributes from Roman ally nations as the army passed by, and the forced requisition of supplies from Roman territories. This system was not a stable one as it gave local generals institutional control over their armies wealth, making centralized authority difficult. It also placed tremendous burdens on the resources of the frontier but left the central provinces free of military payments. Under Augustus the system of payments was slowly transformed from the Ad Hoc system of the Late Republic into a professional system of acquiring and paying for manpower. Conscription for manpower was abandoned entirely, and a dual system of payments was created. Taxes taken from across the Roman empire were taken to pay the wages of the frontier troops. This money was also used to pay for the food, which due to the limitations of shipping was acquired locally. While the price for food was frequently fixed by the state at below the market price, the system helped to spread the cost of manpower from a regional zone to an imperial one.

In China manpower was traditionally acquired through the use of conscription. Manpower conscription was central to the creation of the Chinese army, which was far larger than the Roman army under the empire and permanently as large as the temporary height of the Roman military at the end of the Republic period. Men would be drafted from across the empire and mixed into heterogeneous units to prevent local loyalties from resurfacing. The soldiers were expected to identify themselves as soldiers in the imperial army first, and only as regional groups secondarily. This system was applied to other forms of manpower conscription, such as in the building of monumental architecture and roads. Manpower was drawn by force from across the Chin and later the Han empires to build the Great Wall, the road network, and perhaps most importantly to settle in new frontier zones between China and encroaching steppe peoples. The use of drafted unpaid labor was different from the professional army/builders of the Roman empire but served similar internal purposes. It mixed together individuals from a large area and created new identities for them, and it helped to spread the cost of manpower so that it did not decimate a particular region.

One of the key differences that arose from the Roman and Chinese policies was the cost of defense. The greater centralization and focus on the interior of the Chin and Han Chinese came at the price of expecting the frontier zones to provide for themselves. Under the Chin emperor 3.7 million workers were removed from the interior to the outer provinces under the title of soldier farmers. These farmers would be expected to build and defend settlements which would stand between the rich Chinese center provinces and opposing foreign attacks. The creation of these frontier provinces seems to have been from the vantage point of meeting cultural expectations about the emperors role in supporting farming rather than from a defensive orientation. Confucian ideals of imperial sponsorship meant that the emperor was expected in China to provide land to hungry individuals in support of a self-sustaining population. As peace led to population growth the number of farms moved below the number of individuals expecting to be fed. As the cultural values of ancient China disdained merchants and the concept of food doles, the emperor was expected to provide land to the growing population. Under both the Chin and the Han this was done by forcibly removing large numbers of individuals to the frontier where they would become farmer soldiers. The tenuous nature of this frontier and the cost of protecting it meant the Chinese empire did not supply it with garrison soldiers or roads, but expected it to become self-sustaining. The Han augmented the policy of forcing settlements onto foreign lands with the granting of lands owned by the state to the poor and legal limitations on the sizes of farms. The land policies of the Chin and Han were also tied to policies meant to prevent the creation of a large merchant class, granting them the lowest social position and drafting them into becoming farmers.

The movement towards greater manpower usage in China peaked during the Han conquest of their traditional enemy the Hsi-yu. Under the Han emperor Wu-Ti more than 12 million people would be involved in military affairs against the horse tribes of the Hsi-Yu, including some 1.2 million cavalry. These campaigns were carried out from 129-90 B.C.E and sometimes had a survival rate as low as 10-20%. Movements of troops and populations onto the steppe to remove the raiding society help to explain the limitations of the road as an implement of the Han military. The wide fields of the steppe and the mobile formations of the Hsi-Yu made roads as a means of moving troops quickly meaningless. Any fortification or road could be avoided by the horse people of the steppe, while still draining manpower from the chasing operations against them by the Han. Steppe battlefields required permanent populations to impede the movements of the Hsi-Yu and cavalry to force them into battle. The Han moved large populations of farmer-soldiers into the newly pacified region to establish fortified settlements. The farmer-soldiers made up the majority Han of the forces sent into the region, some 10.5 million men. Armies of this size could not be moved quickly, and the emphasis on using cavalry to chase down opposing horsemen made roads of little use. Even the post system was replaced by mounted couriers on a horse based route.

Roman approaches to manpower were altered by their position during the Roman Civil Wars of the Late Republic. In the Early Republic warfare was an expectation of class, with soldiers equipping themselves according to their capacity to do so. These soldiers were unpaid and fought within a short campaigning season, and were positioned under leaders provided by the Roman Senate. The early Roman army was thus an amateur affair, and it was not involved in the creation of roads or other civic buildings. As campaigns in Rome became longer the relationship between the general and his soldiers changed. The soldiers became paid professionals whose ethic often edged towards mercenaries. These forces were made dangerous by training and discipline, the latter of which allowed the generals to order their men to make supply depots, fortified camps and roads while on campaign. One of the major rewards that the Republican generals granted was land to their soldiers. This began under Marius and carried through Sulla, Pompey and Caesar. Augustus slowed the rate of Roman expansion during his reformation of the army from the ad hoc private armies of the late republic to the new professionalized armies of the Empire. The lower rate of expansion meant that the ability to award land to his followers dwindled, and a pension system in currency replaced it. This innovation, like the replacement of requisition of food with payments using taxed coinage, made the Chinese policy of moving large numbers of farmers into surrounding areas impossible. The Roman population, separated from conscription and requisition, expected to be protected from their neighbors by the large standing army. Roman roads and military bases were thus expanded ahead of the incoming population. The colonies were also different in that they usually took on the form of planned urban centers rather than farms as in China, so they were more reliant on trade.

The Roman road, like the Chinese roads, provided stop points for messages and individuals on the road. These points, called mansiones or stationes, were placed every 7,000 to 12,000 paces. Messengers traveled between five and eight stationes in a day, less in mountainous regions. The speed of a moving army seems to have been similar to that of an average messenger, with the stated rate of 10,000 paces a day. The upkeep of the stationes was left up to local provinces in certain periods, and was permanently transferred to the army under Septimus Severus. This matches the Roman evolution from using requisitioned manpower and resources to using paid soldiers as the instruments of manpower so as to benefit from existing tax systems.

The use of the Chin and Han roads outside of government messengers and armies was limited by the government policies against trade. Chinese farmers inherited the costs of running the empire in the form of military and labor conscription, requisitions of grain, and taxes. The Chin had abolished feudalism to undermine opposing families, but in doing so had monetized lands. Poor farmers sold their farms and land tended to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy. At the same time the production of food was declining with the number of farmers, and Confucian values opposed the creation of plantations. The result was the creation of laws limiting the size of farms in the empire and attempts to break the merchant classes. These included the transportation of merchants to the frontier to become farmer-soldiers, the prohibition of them owning land, and were banned from officialdom. Discrimination against merchants drove the wealthiest men in society towards becoming land lords, as they took a greater percentage of the crops from their tenants than the government did. Regional specialization continued despite the economic barriers placed by the government, as geographic features prevented some goods such as iron, silk and salt from being produced outside of specific regions.

The Roman road was limited by its tremendous expense and lack of general utility. The Roman economy in the late Republic and Early Empire is superficially similar to that of the modern world but was significantly different. The Roman economy was influenced by two major issues which separate it from the modern world. The first issue which restricted the Roman economy was the limited supply of food. Studies have shown that Pompeii, operating at possibly the height of the Roman economy and placed centrally in the economy allocated 50% of its work force to agricultural production. The surrounding Villas with their association with cash crops were located around local ports Transportation costs dominated trade, preventing the viability of long distance trade. They are not located in advantageous positions to take advantage of local roads however. The limitations of transport as an implement of trade is evident from the abandonment of Italian exports of grain to support armies. In the Republic grain was shipped from Italy to the soldiers in the field. Along with grain money was paid from the Italian interior to the frontier, where the soldiers would be paid from the Roman coffers. Roman generals in the Late Republic drew on local sources of grain and money instead, combining requisitions with levies against local allies. This developed under Augustus into a system wherein the Roman army was expected to be fed by the local province, which would either be requisitioned directly or paid for by tax money. Tax money was taken from across the Empire and distributed to the Legions, which were entrenched in border and frontier provinces. The primary source of food for the armies thus became forced grain buying, with the provincial farmers forced to sell their grain to the state at a fixed price.

The Roman economy was primarily concerned with local trade, the transformation of food into locally produced craft goods. Local manufacturing was small, employing less than 50 men. Goods that were exported long distances were expensive, and tended to be sold alongside similar goods produced locally. When Roman infrastructure systems were introduced into a region they would quickly bring the region into a similar state of existence. The amount of goods manufactured was small and was consumed by a local market, and only when new technologies developed were there larger distribution. The market would initially import the new product, such as glass, but over time local industries would multiply to perform the duty of manufacturing. This is the result of the tremendous cost of long distance trade. Overland trade was the more expensive of the two options, and even in the case of the Roman Army the preference was to deliver goods via ports.

The Roman road had issues paying for itself economically. While the military gained valuable supply depots during their building of the roads and could use them to easily move across their territory the majority of trade was too localized and too dependent on water transportation to make the road a financial improvement. The items that were carried long distances were limited to those which could not be made locally and so were not in danger of local competition. These items included staples such as ivory, gold, silver, iron, and silk which the manufacturing of was impossible in most regions. It could also luxury items like regional wines which were status symbols to the wealthy, but such items were likely to travel by boat if they did not travel by road. The central location of the Mediterranean also limited the economic utility of roads as long distance shipping, as the relative cheapness of shipping by sea was so great that grain from northern Italy was more expensive in Rome during the Early Empire than grain from Egypt.

The design of Roman roads also interfered with their use in trade or travel. Romans traveled frequently along the road, but doing so was expensive. The Roman Lucius spent his entire inheritance paying for the costs of traveling along Roman roads. Trips were frequently made on foot rather than in a carriage or on animal back. This stems from the extreme hardness of the compressed stone surface of the road; the light animal shoes used by the Romans did not do well on the road. The roads also did not do well with carts and animals, as evidenced by the Theodosian Code which banned the use of loads over a certain weight as harming the road. also lacked springs, making riding in carriages difficult and uncomfortable.

The adoption of roads in Rome and China during their periods of great social upheaval reveal the power and limitations of constructing and paying for manpower usage. Chin and Han practices directly caused the deaths of large numbers of their populations, and indirectly disrupted farmers throught taxation and land power so much that deliberate attempts to cultivate independent farms matching the cultural expectations of their society proved impossible. Roman manpower was based upon the ability to distribute taxes evenly across the population, and being able to use this money to convince its professional armies to act as both engineers and soldiers. These policies had grown out of the relationships which developed between the state and its population during the prior periods of military and social upheaval, and followed the trends set by them exactly. The roads and their uses were shaped by these trends. Roman roads were expensive, required professional builders and were ill suited to trade or the travel of citizens. They were primarily military roads built by the military for its own use. Chin and Han conceptions of military manpower also played into their use of roads. Roads in Chin and Han China were made for the use of carts and messengers, not armies. Assumptions about the nature of manpower usage led the Han to abandon the creation of frontier roads in favor of the forced movement of conscript soldiers to outlying borders. These frontiers were expected to become self-sufficient and their geographic distance and plains environment made roads difficult to build and redundant.

Sources:
The Archaeology of the Roman Economy p. 42 ISBN: 0-520-05915-08
The Economy and Society of Pompeii p. 197, ISBN: 90-70265-24-9
The Logistics of the Roman Army at War p.231, ISBN: 90-04-11271-5
The Roman World Volume II p. 587, ISBN: 0-7102-0895-2
The Rise of the Chinese Empire
Han Agriculture
Roman Roads
Han Social Structure



Perhaps the Chinese solved the problems of "dirt" roads. I don't know first-hand on that, although I do find that a lot of hype about "Chinese wonders" turns out to be nothing special.

On the subject of Roman, etc, stone-surfaced roads, I do know for a fact that there's more than enough evidence to conclude that they saw routine and in some cases heavy cart and animal traffic.

I'll leave it at that, out of reluctance to derail the thread.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Perhaps the Chinese solved the problems of "dirt" roads. I don't know first-hand on that, although I do find that a lot of hype about "Chinese wonders" turns out to be nothing special.

On the subject of Roman, etc, stone-surfaced roads, I do know for a fact that there's more than enough evidence to conclude that they saw routine and in some cases heavy cart and animal traffic.

I'll leave it at that, out of reluctance to derail the thread.

As the OP, I'm willing to make that more on topic--what should a "good" road look like for roughly high medieval era? Assuming that the secret to Roman-style cement wasn't lost, would it be practical to make stone/cement/other pavement roads over hundreds of miles (assuming reasonably good terrain, mostly rolling plains)?

One culture (the Council Lands) is all about regionalized guild-restricted production, so they'd need to move goods quite a ways. I'm assuming a lot of the big bulky stuff would go by riverboat, but there'd need to be roads for many other purposes. They've got the manpower and the organization to do this, without squabbling nobles or internal wars.

Other cultures don't have nearly as good roads--the Stone Throne is heavy jungle, so they'd need a road connecting the major cities but otherwise would be hard to upkeep a road; Byssia is mostly rural, and the Dynasty is mountain/hill country.

[Max_Killjoy]

As the OP, I'm willing to make that more on topic--what should a "good" road look like for roughly high medieval era? Assuming that the secret to Roman-style cement wasn't lost, would it be practical to make stone/cement/other pavement roads over hundreds of miles (assuming reasonably good terrain, mostly rolling plains)?

One culture (the Council Lands) is all about regionalized guild-restricted production, so they'd need to move goods quite a ways. I'm assuming a lot of the big bulky stuff would go by riverboat, but there'd need to be roads for many other purposes. They've got the manpower and the organization to do this, without squabbling nobles or internal wars.

Other cultures don't have nearly as good roads--the Stone Throne is heavy jungle, so they'd need a road connecting the major cities but otherwise would be hard to upkeep a road; Byssia is mostly rural, and the Dynasty is mountain/hill country.

Roman roads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads). Their road network would look somewhat familiar to modern eyes, with multiple road types depending on intent, traffic, etc.

Mayan roads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacbe). They actually did build and maintain roads between their cities, often raised a bit above the variable level of the jungle terrain to keep them flat and dry.

"High medieval roads" leaves a LOT of room open, from paved main roads near cities, to some gravel roads, to timber roads, to worn-down tracks that were more like streams if it rained enough.

If the Council Lands are putting concerted effort into building and maintaining a road network connecting their cities, border crossings, and other important trade points, then I could easily see them building something like the Roman network. The "cement" used for roman roadbuilding was crushed pottery shards and lime, so even without the full-up "Roman cement", you can have those styles of roads.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Roman roads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads). Their road network would look somewhat familiar to modern eyes, with multiple road types depending on intent, traffic, etc.

Mayan roads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacbe). They actually did build and maintain roads between their cities, often raised a bit above the variable level of the jungle terrain to keep them flat and dry.

"High medieval roads" leaves a LOT of room open, from paved main roads near cities, to some gravel roads, to timber roads, to worn-down tracks that were more like streams if it rained enough.

If the Council Lands are putting concerted effort into building and maintaining a road network connecting their cities, border crossings, and other important trade points, then I could easily see them building something like the Roman network. The "cement" used for roman roadbuilding was crushed pottery shards and lime, so even without the full-up "Roman cement", you can have those styles of roads.

Thanks. The Council will probably go full-on Roman style (for the major roads), with graveled/hardened dirt for the lesser roads. Keeping with the guild structure, that'd be done (at the high levels) by the Paver's Collective of the Stonemason's Alliance of the Mining Guild. The actual labor for initial construction would probably come from the local guildsmen of the Agriculture Guild (as it's the biggest and most rural). I'm thinking a tax on those that use it (merchants, haulers, etc) paid through their guild hierarchy for maintenance. Specialized magic makes some of it easier (moving loose dirt is an at-will cantrip, as it packing it down).

The Stone Throne would have one major paved road (from the Holy City to the nearest major city), and then more mayan style (graveled/lime-cemented) roads to the northern and southern regional capitals.

The Dynasty would have significant expertise in stonework, so they'd have stone roads through the one major pass that they have to defend. They'd have decent roads in the plains, but poorer ones (logging trails, mostly) into the northern forests (as that's orc territory and they are less settled-in-one-place).

Byssia would have very few roads of any value at all, moving most stuff around by coastal boat or river. Their non-coastal parts are heavily forested foothills, not conducive to road-building.

[Gaslampgenie]

Hopefully I didn't just miss someone mentioning this in the wall of text, but pay attention to the direction the rivers are flowing for lumber. Baile Crann for example is situated farther from the sea than the forests that are presumably supplying the lumber. Rivers there would likely flow toward the sea rather than inland barring unique geography or mountains, which don't seem to be in that area (and the rivers from mountains glowing inland would likely create lakes either at surface or subterrainian depending on the geology). As was mentioned, full logs are very heavy and not practical to transport on land over long distance. Common practice was to actually just let the logs float down the river to a saw mill where they would be cut into boards. Boards, however, are still very heavy and impractical to transport and as a result there were usually towns or cities within a day or two travel that had the infrastructure to turn the boards into more refined products for building or weapons (polearms and wood shingles are good examples). Cities like Baile Crann can easily be hubs for lumber products but would likely not see the raw materials (logs and rough boards) from the forest. Hope this helps