Construction...labor costs?

One of my players wants to build a small house and palisade within a city’s pale, but outside its walls. No problem, says I, assuming you get the right permissions from the duke, etc, etc.

One thing I said when he started computing costs was that he’d need to hire laborers. He contended that the cost listed in the construction section included laborers. And, to be fair, I didn’t really see a section saying, you need X builders and Y time to make this happen (though I’ve not read that section as closely as I should perhaps).

So… do the construction costs include the cost of labor, or is that separate?

i seem to barely remember that there is somewhere a sentence in the text that states that labor cost are included in the structure’s cost. but don’t nail be down on page number :wink:

p. 127: “In addition to the building costs, the adventurer will need to hire at least one engineer (250gp/month) per 100,000gp cost of the stronghold.”

It goes on to say that you can reduce the construction time required by increasing the amount you pay, which is a pretty strong endorsement of the “includes labor” idea. Engineer appears to be the only item which isn’t included.

Construction cost includes labor cost. In Domains at War: Campaigns I explore this in considerably more detail. Here's the relevant excerpt.

 

Basic Rules for Construction

Chapter 7 of Adventurer Conqueror King System provides basic rules for construction of strongholds and related structures. These rules assume (1) that one engineer (250gp/month) is used per 100,000gp cost of the stronghold; and (2) that the time required to construct a stronghold depends entirely on its total price. For every 500gp it will take one day of game time. The basic rules allow for construction time to be reduced by 25% by paying 50% additional construction costs, or to be reduced by 50% by paying 100% additional construction costs. The construction time cannot be reduced by more than 50%.

These basic rules for construction are simple and easy to apply, but they are really only suitable when leaders have the leisure to  gather a large, well-trained work force. Wartime construction efforts are virtually always pressed for time and/or short on skilled labor, which necessitates a more flexible approach to construction, described below.

Advanced Rules for Construction

When using the advanced rules, characters may pursue many types of construction projects. Construction projects include stronghold construction, ship building, siege engine manufacture, field fortification, and mining/sapping.

Each construction project has a construction cost. A project’s construction cost is equal to the base cost of the project in gold pieces. For example, a keep has a construction cost of 75,000gp while a heavy catapult has a construction cost of 800gp.

The construction cost is paid by the labor of construction workers. Each day, each worker contributes a gp value of construction towards the construction cost. This amount is known as the construction rate. A worker’s construction rate is normally identical to his wage rate.

Workers may be unskilled laborers and/or craftsmen. Unskilled laborers might be peasants, slaves, prisoners, conscripts, or even mercenaries on labor detail. Each unskilled laborer has a wage rate and construction rate of 3gp per month or 1sp per day.  Craftsmen have considerably higher wage rates and construction rates. As detailed in the Proficiency section of ACKS, an apprentice craftsman can construct 10gp per month, a journeyman craftsman can construct 20gp per month, and a master craftsman can construct 40gp per month. Master craftsmen can also manage up to 2 journeymen and 4 apprentices to increase their construction rate by 50%. However, a master craftsmen managing junior craftsmen on a large-scale construction project (taking more than a day) reduces his personal construction rate by 25% due to friction and chaos.

...A maximum of 12,000 workers may work on any given construction site. The first 3,000 workers on a construction site work at their full construction rate. Any additional workers thereafter work at only 33% the normal construction rate, although the workers’ wage rates remain the same. Thus a project built with a work force of more than 3,000 workers will end up costing more (in gp of wages paid) than the labor cost of the project. However, the project will get built faster....

Back to Basics: The basic stronghold construction rules assume a typical stronghold is constructed by around 3,000 men. Of these, 47 are master craftsmen of the various types, each with their 2 journeymen and 4 apprentices, 329 men total. These construct a total of 235gp per day. Another 2,650 unskilled laborers construct  another 265gp per day. The total is thus 500gp of construction per day.  The two systems are compatible, so you can switch back and forth between them as appropriate.

 

So, if a large troop transport is shipwrecked on Dinosaur Island, and all hands survive the wreck, then the survivors can erect 5 feet of 10’ high defensive pailsade each day, while still having 7 men available for guard duty.

The fact that I can calculate stuff like that is why I love ACKS.

I am seriously dying of anticipation for DaW and Companion. ACKS pretty much got us back into gaming, and the stuff above is a large part of why.

James - Exactly!! My personal experience has been that things like that happen *all the time* in game campaigns, and most game systems just leave the Judge with nothing. He has to make it up. And while I think Judges are creative types, it's much easier to be creative when you have some foundational basis from which to create. So ACKS tries to provide that. Now if the players say "what if I want to use my vorpal sword to cut down trees more quickly," you have some foundation.

Cameron - Hang in there! I'm close to finished on both.

 

Alex wrote:

Back to Basics: The basic stronghold construction rules assume a typical stronghold is constructed by around 3,000 men. Of these, 47 are master craftsmen of the various types, each with their 2 journeymen and 4 apprentices, 329 men total. These construct a total of 235gp per day. Another 2,650 unskilled laborers construct  another 265gp per day. The total is thus 500gp of construction per day.  The two systems are compatible, so you can switch back and forth between them as appropriate.

When I add those wages up, I get:

47 masters -25% friction = 1,410 gold per month
94 journeymen +50% supervision = 2,820 gold per month
188 apprentices +50% supervision = 2,820 gold per month
2,650 laborers = 6,625 gold per month

13,675 gold per month ~ 547 gold per day (assuming 25 days per month)

I found the following useful breakpoint:

40 masters, 80 journeymen, 160 apprentices, and 2,600 laborers (2,880 total people).

40 masters -25% = 1,200 gold per month
80 journey +50% = 2,400 gold per month
160 apprnt +50% = 2,400 gold per month
2,600 laborers = 6,500 gold per month

12,500 gold per month ~ 500 gold per day

This breakpoint is particularly useful because you can increase the number of people by +50% without ending up with a half master.

Re: 33% efficiency.

If I double the number of people involved (+100% construction costs), I divide the construction time by 1.66 … which means I reduce construction time by -40%, not -50%.

(+50% construction costs divides time by 1.33, which does work out correctly.)

Given that it was kind of odd that doubling money halved time (when half-again money didn’t 2/3 time), should I assume that the original +100/-50 was errata?

Hi Thomas - Thanks for laying out your thoughts. Let me clarify my math and you tell me if you still see a disconnect.

First, the calculations are based on 30 days of labor per month. Why don't we assume days off, you ask? Several reasons:

1. The 6-day workweek was a Christian invention; Romans worked 9 days out of 10, and slaves and laborers worked every day. 2. Dividing construction by 30 makes for much cleaner math for the common unskilled laborer (3gp per month / 30 = 1sp/day)

3. Assuming daily work avoids the problem of calculating overtime. Put another way, if laborers work 25 days out of 30, but slaves work 30 days out of 30, does that mean slaves have a lower daily construction rate? Or does that mean you get more work out of slaves? Can you get more work out of laborers if you have them work 30 days per month? How long can that crunch be sustained?

So, with that in mind, the system in DAW yields the following:

Unskilled laborers produce 3gp per month, so dividing that by 30 yields a very clean 1sp per day.

Apprentice craftsmen produce 10gp per month, or 15gp per month when supervised. That yields 33cp per day, or 5sp per day when supervised (33 x 1.5 = 49.5, rounded to 50cp = 5sp)

Journeymen craftsmen produce 20gp per month, or 30gp when supervised. That yields 66cp per day, or 1gp per day when supervised. (66cp x 1.5 = 99cp, rounded to 1gp)

Master craftsmen produce 40gp per month, or 30gp when supervising. That yields 1gp 33cp per day, or 1gp per day when supervising. (40gp, less 25%; 40 x 25% = 10; 40-10=30)

1 Master, 2 Journeymen, and 4 Apprentices yields 1gp + 2x1gp + 4x5sp = 1+2+2 = 5gp per day.

Does that track? 

 

"A maximum of 12,000 workers may work on any given construction site. The first 3,000 workers on a construction site work at their full construction rate. Any additional workers thereafter work at only 33% the normal construction rate, although the workers’ wage rates remain the same. Thus a project built with a work force of more than 3,000 workers will end up costing more (in gp of wages paid) than the labor cost of the project. However, the project will get built faster."

Assumptions: 

1st 3000 workers x 1sp per day = 300gp

2nd 3000 workers x 1sp per day x 33% = 100gp

Total construction rate = 400gp / day

Construction price is 120,000gp

Construction Time:

With 3,000 workers:  120,000gp / 300gp per day = 400 days

With 6,000 workers: 120,000gp / 400gp per day = 300 days

Construction time reduced by 25% (400 x .25 = 100; 400 - 100 = 300)

Construction cost:

With 3,000 workers: 300gp per day x 400 days = 120,000gp

With 6,000 workers: 600gp per day x 300 days = 180,000gp

Construction cost increased by 50% (120,000 x .5 = 60,000; 120,000 + 60,000 = 180,000)

So as far as I can tell everything lines up. Where are we disconnecting? 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure why I thought it was 25 days. It adds up with 30 days. I think my brain just wanted something that allowed tidy incremental increases - as it stands, the only whole number increases you can make are x2 laborers, x3 laborers, and x4 laborers.

Construction cost increased by 50% (120,000 x .5 = 60,000; 120,000 + 60,000 = 180,000)

So as far as I can tell everything lines up. Where are we disconnecting?


The part where I mis-read the rules, and thought we were multiplying the daily or monthly cost by x1.5 or x2 in order to get things done faster.

That, like my whole post, appears to have been a total brain fail.