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Old 08-30-2018, 06:56 PM   #31
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Cost of Living and Governance

Technically, Military Rank 7 and Political Rank 7 would give four levels of Status, meaning that a king would need to pay for Status 3. I would give him Multimillionaire 2 and have him pay for Status 3.
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Old 08-30-2018, 08:13 PM   #32
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Default Re: Cost of Living and Governance

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Technically, Military Rank 7 and Political Rank 7 would give four levels of Status, meaning that a king would need to pay for Status 3. I would give him Multimillionaire 2 and have him pay for Status 3.
Ah, no. Rank 2-4 gives +1 Status, Rank 5-7 gives +2, and Rank 8 gives +3. So that would be at most two levels of Status. And I don't think it's legitimate to get Status from two different forms of Rank; you can't have a full-time commitment to both. If I even let you take both forms at all (rather than limiting one of them to Courtesy Rank), I'd say you had to go with the higher and make do with that.

Although in the special case of a reigning king, I'd say that his Political Rank, equal by definition to his Status (if he has Political Rank at all), takes precedence.

And then, also, as a head of state, he's the person the generals all report to. He may be Status 6 and Political Rank 6, but Status 8 generals and admirals take orders from him. I tend to think of Rank as being granted by someone who's above the top of the hierarchy, to whom the Rank holders owe service. One of the reasons for adding Political Rank, in fact, is so that the president of the United States, to whom our military commanders (with up to 40 points of Rank) owe obedience, was not based on fewer points than they were (35 points for Status 7) but on more (35 points for Political Rank 7 and 25 for Status 7).
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Old 08-30-2018, 08:51 PM   #33
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Default Re: Cost of Living and Governance

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Technically, Military Rank 7 and Political Rank 7 would give four levels of Status, meaning that a king would need to pay for Status 3. I would give him Multimillionaire 2 and have him pay for Status 3.
Is multimillionaire necessary? Technically in a constitutional monarchy or a republic the head of state will be a trustee for most of the wealth and calling it "his" or "hers" is just a poetic fiction. In practice of course in a reasonably large state, enough will have seeped into the privy purse for them to be called multimillionaire. But that is not hypothetically necessary. An Athenian Archon Basileus will not have multimillionaire or anything like it unless he is independently a shipping magnate.

A fictional state could be contrived where the privy purse is never more then what a typical high placed professional could get. They could still live in state and call it part of the budget for diplomatic expenses or whatever.
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Old 08-31-2018, 12:00 PM   #34
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I don't think it's legitimate to get Status from two different forms of Rank; .
Then you make Feudal Rank one of those 10 pt versions that replace Status altogether. If a king from a European-stle TL3 period had only Military or only Admin Rank 7 I'd not be able to tell you who had the other.

It seems clear enough to me that a feudal lord has the effects of both Military and Administrative Ranks and it's not like the modern day case where an Admin Rank 7 POTUS "commands" all US forces while sitting in the Oval Office. The feudal giy has to saddle up and risk his life leading from very near the front indeed.
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Old 08-31-2018, 01:18 PM   #35
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It seems clear enough to me that a feudal lord has the effects of both Military and Administrative Ranks and it's not like the modern day case where an Admin Rank 7 POTUS "commands" all US forces while sitting in the Oval Office. The feudal giy has to saddle up and risk his life leading from very near the front indeed.
I think that in medieval armies you didn't generally have Military Rank at all. (With the exception of mercenary forces, perhaps.) The king commanded because of his status and the personal loyalty of his warband. He might appoint someone he trusted to command in his place (a "lieu-tenant"), but this was subject to considerations of status and prestige.
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Old 08-31-2018, 05:07 PM   #36
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I think that in medieval armies you didn't generally have Military Rank at all. (With the exception of mercenary forces, perhaps.) The king commanded because of his status and the personal loyalty of his warband. He might appoint someone he trusted to command in his place (a "lieu-tenant"), but this was subject to considerations of status and prestige.
They might have been better-organised than you think. The system of having a captain, a lieutenant, and a sergeant-major at the company, an intermediate, and the general levels is pretty old, as is the custom of dividing an army into a centre (under the captain-general) and two wings, or into a fore guard, main body, and rear guard. The offices of Marechal de France, Earl Marshal of England, Connétable de France, and Lord High Constable of England are very old and I think originally military.

And when you're thinking of professional soldiers in the middle ages, don't forget the Knights Templars, Knights Hospitallers, Knights of Calatrava, Knights of Alcantara, Knights of Aviz, Mercedarian Knights, Knights of St Thomas Acon, Teutonic Knights, Order of Santiago, and Order of Sao Thiago. Or even the Knights of St Lazarus. Mercenary units weren't the only outfits of full-time soldiers with permanent organisation.
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Old 09-03-2018, 01:48 PM   #37
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There may have been technicalities if rank and status but rarely did anyone militarily out rank someone they also didn’t outrank socially.

I just assume that social status more or less equates to military or administrative rank
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Old 09-03-2018, 02:12 PM   #38
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Hey team!
… But what about someone with higher status? At what status level do we stop paying for the Cost of Living and let the government/job take over? I can grasp the idea of someone spending $12,000/month to keep them in style but can't comprehend someone spending $60,000,000/month to keep up their status. At some point the Status and Cost of Living must represent governing.
The entity for whom you are working has determined what CoL benefits to provide and it pays for that irrespective of your prior Status. But it doesn't pay for the CoL benefits you possessed before/outside your role. If you had a mansion and a yacht, you have to keep paying for its upkeep (or accept the consequences).

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What would be the maximum amount of personal Status for a TL 3 noble or king before the government picks up the tab?
I don't think this question is formulated intelligibly in respect of the CoL rules. At least I can't figure out what your mean.

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If you are adamant the King is Status 7 and must fork over $60,000,000 each month to keep them in supply of expensive food and clothing, how much of the Cost of Living should go towards the actual governance of their realm?
There is a list in Basic Set of what CoL gets you. It goes beyond food and clothing, including servants, housing and transportation (and I believe implicitly anything normally necessary for the provision and management of those things). It does not appear to cover the cost of state functions other than catering to the Status person's household. For example, the King's CoL does not pay the salaries of judges or the cost of court houses.

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Old 09-03-2018, 03:28 PM   #39
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. At some point the Status and Cost of Living must represent governing.
That’s part of the problem, especially in pre-modern societies.

If I recall correctly, originally the British sovereign owned the Royal Navy and technically all the land or most of it. Today some of the upkeep of the monarchy is out of the queen’s own pocket, and some is paid by the government. I saw on some home buying show that some home purchases in the UK are still technically a long term leases from the sovereign.

At what point does a government’s money stop being the monarch’s money?

Today, what was Donald Trump’s status before becoming POTUS? I mean the guy has a plane that rivals Air Force One already. He might be SAVING money being President. There was no world leader that wouldn’t have sat down and talked to businessman Trump that would talk to him as President Trump.... maybe more would have talked to the businessman.

Lex Luthor once said to Superman: “Do you know how much power I would have to give up to become President?”

Conversely, Barry Obama was in substantial debt and was the junior senator from Illinois. His status and personal wealth got a signifigant increase by becoming POTUS. Noteably, he was seen paying with a JP Morgan charge card, which means he has at least $10mil in assets being managed by JP Morgan... quite a change from his financial situation pre-POTUS.

Bush II was somewhere in between. Landowner and oilman in Texas, reasonably wealthy. Professional baseball team owner, maybe known in Texas but not a national household name like Trump. Probably lower status that his brother, governor of Florida. Post-POTUS his status seems to have gone back to more or less what it was Pre-POTUS. He gives a few speeches, works with charities but he’s essentially just a wealthy landowner in Texas again.

How much does the status of the position stick with you after you no longer have it? Obama pretty clearly gained status, did Trump effectively stay the same... or even lose status?

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Old 09-03-2018, 03:37 PM   #40
whswhs
 
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That’s part of the problem, especially in pre-modern societies.

If I recall correctly, originally the British sovereign owned the Royal Navy and technically all the land or most of it. Today some of the upkeep of the monarchy is out of the queen’s own pocket, and some is paid by the government.

At what point does a government’s money stop being the monarch’s money?
Is the state organized as a res publica (a corporate entity owned by some group defined as "the people") or a res privata (the private property of some specific family or lineage)?

Even in the res privata case, though, there are monarchies where the state acts as a going concern with its own accounts, the monarch owns that concern, but the monarch keeps separate accounts for himself personally. It can get messy without that. When I studied Chinese history we learned about the dowager empress in the 19th century who spent the Chinese naval budget for a year or two on building a marble ship in a pool in the Imperial Palace for herself and her ladies in waiting.
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