covenants style of life and people required (teamsters eg)

Hi,

While automatising the excel (g sheet in fact but it's almost the same) worksheet for my covenant when the ASG asked we go into automn style of life (this inhabitant points raising), I notice that the number of teamster and servant rise too.

It really seems strange.

I'd link you the file but it's in french so inusable.

So here I'm.

  1. SPRING COVENANT LIFE STYLE
    We have a grand total of 389 inhabitants, for a total of 522 inhabitant points (PI).

Among those,

8 residing magi for 40 PI
2 invited for 10 PI
3 specialists for covenant management for 6 PI
5 companions for 15 PI
1 noble for 5 PI
4 apprentices for 12 PI

3 library specialists for 6 PI

64 workers for 128 PI

30 soldiers for 30 PI
1 siege weapon specialist for 2 PI
122 peasants for 122 PI

71 useless people for 71 PI

Which amounts to: 314 people for 447 PI

Besides we have
62 servants,
13 laborers [those numbers are automatically calculed according to covenant and our ASG assume they are this number in the game since he doesn't want to micromanage the covenant in roleplay]

for thus 389 people and 522 PI in covenant.

Now using automn prices ...

AUTOMN COVENANT STYLE OF LIFE
(using the table on p63 of Covenants)

Obivously, the numbers of people (except servants and teamsters) will not change:

8 residing magi for 80PI
2 invited for 20 PI
3 specialists for covenant management for 9 PI
5 companions for 25 PI
1 noble for 10 PI
4 apprentices for 20 PI

3 library specialists for 9 PI

64 workers for 193 PI

30 soldiers for 60 PI
1 siege weapon specialist for 3 PI
122 peasants for 244 PI

71 useless people for 142PI

Which amounts to: 314 people for 814 PI

So we need to have
110 servants,
28 laborers [those numbers are automatically calculed according to covenant and our ASG assume they are this number in the game since he doesn't want to micromanage the covenant in roleplay]

for thus 452 people and 1090 PI in covenant.

My question is thus: Is it really normal that going from SPRING to AUTOMN life style, you suddenly need +63 people because it is based on PI rather than people in the covenant?

If we would count on basis of people the numbers would not vary.

Counting with PI, you have more teamsters/servants, but each of those costs more too... to me, it seems strange.

Thank you for your opinion and answers.

Exar.

PS: For those interested, a little bit more text:

Obviously in our covenant it didn't change anything since our ASG agree that those 63 people appears while the cost for the covenant rises.

Because, yes, the costs are somewhat extraordinary but I guess it's normal (our covenant is not efficiently populated, I know: SG's (me, in fact) added the people from another destroyed covenant in, and it disrupts our balance but we can for some rp reasons banish them [and they are arabs in Provence... guess what would happen if we expel them... story time!]):

SPRING style of life: +490 - 247 = +243 pounds each year
AUTOMNE style of life: +490 -753 = -263 pounds each year

Variation is 506 pounds.

Obviously we cannot use that style of life, so the SG adopted a medium automn life of style: only for those who are useful in the covenant, that is to say magi, nobles, specialists, soldiers, workers; excluding thus peasants, worthless people and servants/teamsters, which amount to a total of 440 people and 747 PI and thus a balance of +490 -444 = +46 pounds each year.

It sounds about right that raising the standard of living of everyone at once would be prohibitively expensive, while raising the standard of living of a few inhabitants would be manageable.

(I'd be happy to see the French spreadsheet, btw :wink: )

It is - and is actually one of my main gripes with the Covenants economic system as written.
You mention that you have

  • and most if not all of these become more expensive to maintain once you move to Autumn (or even just Summer). In fact, when you look at the table at p. 63 of Covenants, you'll notice that many (indeed probably most) inhabitants double in price - and inhabitant points are already typically the largest single post on the expenditure list (in my experience) - so that's a huge change. More than once I've looked at moving our covenant from Spring into Summer, and found that it was simply too expensive to be practical!

Jules,
here the readable link of a copy of it.
drive.google.com/open?id=13a8WN ... -gKkJs_uYw

It may contain bug since I created the spreasheet but it's mainly updated by the ASG and I sometimes only correct it.

Ideas and a format, yay!
Merci :slight_smile:

If you move to the Autumn lifestyle, then everyone is eating finer food, living in warmer rooms (with all the firewood that needs chopping) and in better surroundings (needing more maintenance) and with more clothes and bedding (which all requires laundry) so the overall amount of labour shoots up massively. It's like the difference between a knight's household in the countryside, and a duke or prince's massive household.

As a UK citizen, I'm paying a tiny fraction of my taxes and living in a country who has the Crown Estates as a major landholder, just so a tiny handful of people can live in Royal estates and a small army of maintenance staff and servants can keep palaces and estates open. Apparently it's all part of the necessary fabric of state.

yes, because a higher lifestyle means you are using more resources, including having to ship more of them in. What seems odd to me is that if you have a 100% self sufficient covenant at the end of teh world somewhere you have the same cost in teamsters as you do if you are in the middle of a city and purchase everything. I guess that's what happens when you deal with a union...

It seems weird at first to have such a sudden upsurge of costs going from one level of lifestyle to the next, but a good comparison would be upgrading all the services in my work to make life easier; That's 8-35 new computers(depending on level of upgrade), more expensive transaction processing, new glass in the shelves, four new computer monitors to use as advertisement displays, repainting everything, two new projectors with better mounting; You probably need to add higher wages onto the existing staff, and ideally 4 new people working as well.
That jump on the sheet is sudden and severe, but is a slight abstraction; your covenant is probably going to be upping living situations bit by bit each season, starting with the magi; they'll find they need more servants to keep all the candles lit, and double the size of kitchen and staff. A month or two later, they'll be buying or building new furniture for all the rooms, and these expanded food costs are part and parcel to shipping more high quality goods in from further away, so you'll need to hire more teamsters and pay more merchants....
The cost change makes sense if you look at doing 5 years of 'upgrades' all in one season, and otherwise, assume half of it happens in preceeding years, and half happens after, and you're just rounding it out for easy math.

I didn't consider the facts like "having more people attend to your need". It's a good explanation and I don't have a problem with it.

Thank you.

[strike]That would justify extra people rather than extra cost per person, though.
If we ever reach that point, I don't know that I wouldn't house rule it a bit: allow differentiated treatment, but balance that with resentment because of it.[/strike]

Edit:

If differentiated lifestyles can be done for magi, I don't see why it couldn't be done for other Covenfolk.
It won't be popular, though.

Also:

Here again, character specific lifestyle adjustment is possible.

I don't see why it wouldn't be. Magi and companions get the fancy goods while the servants live on straw pallets and eat their table scraps? Sounds like your average noble manor.

The main thing is keeping the autocrat cooperative. If your covenant can afford to give the servants a decent lifestyle and the autocrat is a just man, he'll probably quietly arrange for your increased income to go towards feeding the sheep. Likewise, if a senior magus has the Compassionate or Generous Flaw, they'll probably object to living like princes while their servants and grogs don't have enough warm clothing for the winter, and they'll want to move the whole covenant up to Summer/Autumn living standards if they can afford it.