Hi, I've lurked here for a bit but this is my first post. I'm wondering –– the ACKS economic rules are constructed with a Late Antiquity economic and technological model in mind, if I recall correctly. What kind of rules modifications (for markets/pricing/land values/mercantile activities/etc.) would help to similate an early Bronze Age economy (roughly, -3000 to -2500)? Thanks!
One major facet of the economy you have to consider: slaves. Both as a major source of labour, but also as a commodity to trade. That has implications beyond the economic, of course.
Well, obviously some equipment is out.
The benefit of iron in the iron age and beyond, as I understand it, is that it makes metal much cheaper. Rather than making the weapons better, it was possible to afford metal weapons in bulk.
Get rid of high tech stuff like crossbows, maybe even composite bows, and multiply the price of metal items by something like… 10? Armor, weapons, etc. Spears and pole arms by less (2, 3?)
You may want to remove arcane magic, or change it up to represent the fact that it hasn’t been studied as long, too.
Also, I think you could argue that coinage shouldn’t really be a thing… masses of precious metals, slaves, livestock, but not coins…
[quote="DrPete"] Well, obviously some equipment is out. The benefit of iron in the iron age and beyond, as I understand it, is that it makes metal much cheaper. Rather than making the weapons better, it was possible to afford metal weapons in bulk. Get rid of high tech stuff like crossbows, maybe even composite bows, and multiply the price of metal items by something like... 10? Armor, weapons, etc. Spears and pole arms by less (2, 3?) You may want to remove arcane magic, or change it up to represent the fact that it hasn't been studied as long, too. Also, I think you could argue that coinage shouldn't really be a thing... masses of precious metals, slaves, livestock, but not coins... [/quote]
Sure: I'll multiply the prices of metal weapons by a huge amount. The city-states in my campaign world use cobalt-colored, circular pieces of tough pottery as coinage; but of course minor settlements won't use coins at all. As for arcane magic, my campaign world doesn't include Vancian magic at all, so comparison to "standard" ACKS is difficult. Thanks for the advice! :)
A good point. Thanks! :)
Also, this is outside economics, but if you want to give it a genuine Bronze Age feel, de-medieval-ise the equipment list. That would give a much more immediate message to the players that they're not in standard-medieval D&D-land any more.
Armour: No plate or mail. Scale is the heaviest armour around, otherwise there's linen/quilted armour. Shields are more important than armour - you might want to consider adjusting them in a similar fashion to the way I did for my (Iron Age) historical game.
Weapons: No two-handed swords, polearms, warhammers or other weapons designed to penetrate heavy armour. No crossbows or longer blades. The bow (composite bows should remain, though be rare outside of certain areas) and the spear are the primary weapons of war. The only swords are shortswords.
Cavalry: No medium or heavy horses. No barding for horses. Cavalry is usually chariot-based, or light skirmishers on ponies.
Coinage would be relegated to larger empires and even then, only the cities. You could look at a bartering system, based around grain or other necessities.
Good point. Measures like the bushel or talent have their roots in standardising volumes/weights of grain for trade.
Weapons: No two-handed swords, polearms, warhammers or other weapons designed to penetrate heavy armour. No crossbows or longer blades. The bow (composite bows should remain, though be rare outside of certain areas) and the spear are the primary weapons of war. The only swords are shortswords.
Non-standard weapon materials could also be in use, which I briefly covered here: http://www.autarch.co/comment/22549#comment-22549. Bronze would be the "standard" for this campaign, and meteoric iron could be used as an exceptionally rare mundane +1 damage weapon. I wouldn't necessarily exclude crossbows; there are Chinese crossbow lock assemblies of bronze that date to either the very late Bronze Age or very early Iron Age (ca. 600 BCE), and the terracotta army (ca. 210 BCE) still had crossbows with bronze locks. It would still be valid to ban crossbows (they didn't exist everywhere), but not mandatory, in my opinion.
Coinage would be relegated to larger empires and even then, only the cities. You could look at a bartering system, based around grain or other necessities.
We got into coinage and barter last year, in this thread: http://www.autarch.co/forums/general-discussion/acks-bronze-age-historical-fantasy
Cavalry: No medium or heavy horses. No barding for horses. Cavalry is usually chariot-based, or light skirmishers on ponies.
Chariots: http://www.autarch.co/forums/house-rules/hr-chariots
Some further clarifying comments on my economy and technology:
Archery: There are no bows of any type. There are javelins, other thrown weapons, slings, and flaming oil, however. Considering the ubiquity of the bow since the Paleolithic, this stretches credibility a little, but technological development across cultures can be quite haphazard –– look what the Egyptians or Mesoamericans did without the wheel.
Beasts of burden: Oxen, but nothing faster than a running human. (Although some barbarians are rumored to have domesticated giant lizards...)
Food: The city-states exist in a dry tundra with relatively little snowfall, or weather patterns of any magnitude (the planet has little axial tilt). The most important crops are varieties of acrid, bulbous fungi; in some areas these grow above-ground at levels sufficient to sustain a small village, but larger cities are built atop fungal caverns tilled either by the majority of the citizenry or by masses of slaves. The major delicacy consists of insects ground into a paste ("bug butter").
Slaves: The majority of the population in almost all cities, and a hugely valuable commodity. Most slaves are obtained from raids on barbarian communities, or from small, semi-autonomous villages (á la pre-colonial Africa or Carcosa) that raid one another and then sell the slaves to the dominant city.
XP: I've already eliminated the money-as-XP source (I use Korgoth's Target Advancement system).
Hope this helps! :)
No bows stretches credibility a lot. They're the most efficient means of hunting to feed yourself, especially if the javelineer can't even ride a horse to improve his hunting range.
You might want to consider allowing only self/short bows (ie the weakest/shortest-ranged bow) and having societal mores that suggest only peasants use bows. A "real" warrior uses a javelin.
Then apply the following changes:
-if a sling uses a cast bullet, rather than stone, damage goes up to 1d6, and range is 50/100/200 (note if you use a stone, standard damage and range apply).
-increase the range for a javelin to 40/80/120.
-decrease the range for a thrown fighting spear to 15/30/45.
These incentivise the use of alternative weapons to bows, especially when the only bow you can use isn't that great in comparison, and marks you out for scorn from aristocrats and warriors.
Cattle used to be a major form of property, if not *the* definitive form of property, in many places in the Bronze Age Near East. More than land, in some areas. They also served as a form of "currency" for larger transactions. A person owning many sheep and cows, not to mention oxen, was a rich person. This got into the language - in Hebrew, for example, the word for "property" (kinyan) came from cattle (mikne), the same goes in Latin IIRC with "capital" originally meaning cattle heads.
Of course, you can have enormous marvels of engineering with Bronze Age technology if you have enough manpower and good engineers, the pyramids being the most prominent example.
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Oh, sorry. Wrong early Bronze Age. ;)
Keep you fandoms straight, Kenn.
Something that would fit with the era is a debt economy. Basically, you do something for someone with the expectation that later in the road, they do something for you. Favors playing a big part of it, with currency for larger transactions or for social bond events.