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Old 01-15-2018, 12:14 PM   #309
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Swords are cheap?

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
... The issue in that case was that swords were very cheap - seemingly insanely less expensive than a normal wooden shield. The author defended the position ... These data are hard to parse because of the large variance in value of currency with time and location. But it seems pretty clear that a common sword was a relatively inexpensive item - many, many times less expensive than even simple armor and not dissimilar in cost from farm implements.
Hi Larsdangly, thanks for the feedback!

In that game, could unskilled labour buy a sword with 12 weeks savings?

I stand by my thesis.

Let us look at a roman shield. You had layers of thin wood laminated together (basically plywood), a metal edge with wood or leather handles. You would have to saw that wood into thin layers, plane it, glue it together, add the metal rim, etc. And there were simpler and cheaper shields of course.

As for the 'simple armor', was it a cloth hauberk or chainmail? I could easily see a hundred fold difference in price. (The chainmail has to have the metal created, turned into rings and then weld or rivet the hundreds of rings together.)

Are the farm implements a heavy metal plow, or a wooden hoe? (Or a hoe with a small iron head?)

I've looked many times at ancient and medieval prices and they are all over the place. Prices could be 5 times more or less expensive that what made sense for me. When I use ancient prices I think carefully about if it makes sense before I apply the price in game.

It all comes down to labour. If the price of labor is very high, (like in TFT), the price of items needing a huge amount of skilled & unskilled labour also have to be very high.

Even if you assume that there is tonnes of quality steel everywhere just waiting to be repurposed (which I think is unlikely), TFT prices still don't make sense.

For example, to copy one page of a book costs $20 (bottom of 2nd column of Advance Wizard, page 7). In a 5 day week, a decent scribe can earn enough to buy two shortswords? Really???

If his wages were 1/10 that, things would make much more sense.

Warm regards, Rick.
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