Fixing Demographics for GURPS BANESTORM

[Ludek]

Originally Posted by hal

There is one question I'd have asked about the orcs breeding like flies - and the question is "what effect do you think this would have?" My take on the problem is that of land management. If you assume a 1 person per square mile density for hunter/gatherers, the only way orcs can increase in population is to increase the land they hold. Problem is, if you're the tribe whose lands are surrounded by other tribal lands, your excess population needs to push onto your neighbor's claimed lands or you have to migrate through their lands to find unoccupied hunting ranges. I can also see tribes not co-operating and even fighting each other from time to time - but never in a really LETHAL manner because the warriors of a tribe are also the hunters (ie, food providers) for the tribe. Just enough to bleed off the excess population, rarely enough to cause problems unless we're talking about a larger population displacing a smaller one.

I get impresion that you think of Orcs as just other primitive kind
of Humans as capabel of cooperation as we. I do not.
My own impesion i base Orcs are Wnedors form '13rd Warrior ' movie.
I.e. tehy are canibalistic (eat other humanoids and each other) .. it's not
suprising trait in such societies. They see each otehr as food source, tehy
tehy are lees socialy evoled than humans .. i.e. Orcs leaders have much
moore dificult tiume to get large groups of Orcs to cooperate than Human
leaders have with humans. I may be soem difernce of how their brain is
working or just undeveloped some social concepth .. but cosnsidering that in
800 years Orcs have't deloped any naton(whille being exposed to painfull
lesson from humans) .. I'm inclined to first option.

Originally Posted by hal

I concur. Megalan population needs to be upgraded to match the history. Caithness occupies a territory comparable to that of France. Assuming similar conditions to France (not always a valid assumption to make!), France sustained between 6 to 14 million of its own population. If Megalos is 4 to 6 times larger - conceivably, it would need a population of roughly 56 Million to achieve a population density of about 60 people per square mile.

Yes i could see grater populaion of Cathines and Megalos but do you really
need uniform average popalation desinty like France? Look at eastern europe
there were strong kingdoms taht controled a lot of land with much lover
population desinty than France.
BTW i haven't read Banestorm does it says about only _Human_ population s
when it gives numbers of pepole in Cathines and Megalos or it adds to this
numebrs Halfings and Gnomes ? If not this may be your source of 'mising'
polation.

[hal]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Lack of reliable contraception? I’m mean, you’re not seriously suggesting people would say: “Right that’s it, we’ve had our 2 children, no more need for that messy sex business now!”?

Part of the problem is that for some couples, having children was difficult. For others, Fertile Myrtle and Sureshot Sam would have 13 kids - NOOOO problem. But from what I heard during our "Natural Childbirth" sessions (for my wife and I that is), having a child any sooner than 6 months after the last one was bad for the wife. One reason why there were so many difficult childbirths in early times too was the fact that some of the "girls" having children at age 16 had somewhat further to go in the physical development process. Things we take for granted today, including caesarian sections were NOT the norm for those times. A child with its placenta around its neck was a problem, as were the issues of a breech birth. Throw in factors such as (and I have this from PERSONAL knowledge being of such parents) Rh Positive Fathers and Rh Negative mothers - having a child past #2 was difficult, if not impossible (anti-bodies to the Rh+ blood soon developed in the mother and would attack the 3rd or later child during gestation, ultimately causing damage or outright death for the fetus).

So many possible complications. I recall reading somewhere an estimate on the number of stillborns (wish I could recall the percentage darn it!) and it raised my eyebrow at the time and making me realized "The heartache they must have felt".

The funny thing is? When they talk about "fertility rates" and number of children per woman - they are talking about the AVERAGE number of children per woman. Somewhere out there, a woman who was barren was offset by women who had 8 or more children. With what we know about modern nutrition and such - I've no doubt that we can be thankful for the lowered infant mortality rates we enjoy today. Bringing this back to Yrth however...

When would magic have become widespread enough to make a difference in society to the extent that it could or would impact on population growth rates?

[cccwebs]

When would magic have become widespread enough to make a difference in society to the extent that it could or would impact on population growth rates?

That's a very good question.

Natural Recovery provides 1 HP per day (with a successful HT roll). A mage with minor healing can provide 1 HP per day to 48 people in an 8 hour day, in addition to the 1 HP which that person may be able to recover naturally. TL 8 Medical Care allows a physician to roll daily for 50 patients to restore 1 HP in addition to the 1 HP for natural recovery. This makes a healing mage the "equivelant"* of a TL8 physician, for HP purposes anyway. Now, healing mages will be far less common (assuming that 1 in 50 have magical talent, and 1 in 10 of those seek further training, that leaves far less than 1 in 500 of the population learning "healing spells"), but there's magical items (600 energy for a Minor Healing wand or staff, which only requires Magery, that 1 in 50 have, or Physician skill 15+, which would be more difficult), alchemical elixers (granted Healing elixers take 1 week to create and cost $120) and Herbalism (that Healing elixer takes 1 week to create but only costs $60 now) to figure into the equation.

* just comparing the 1 HP per day idea.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by hal

What the peasants are left with after they toil on their 15 acres of land, does leave them enough to handle their own personal requirements. The rest get consumed by the Lord or a portion shipped off to the nearby cities/towns.

Shipped off != taxed away. Not necessarily, anyway. A lot of labor, payments in kind, and money went to the local lord and/or church, but any surplus beyond that and subsistence was bartered or sold. That, after all, is how peasants got the money to buy necessary manufactured goods and pay monetary taxes and fees.

Originally Posted by hal

Harvest yields of 10 bushels for peas, 16 bushels for wheat, and 64 bushels of barley was meant to feed a family of 5. Remove 3 bushels of peas, 4 of wheat, and 16 of barley for seedstock and that was what was left.

...which is exactly why your 60% figure seems wildly implausible, particularly in the early-middle periods for which your 1:4 yeilds are more or less appropriate. It seemed wrong to me based on known historical rates of taxation, which tend to settle in the 25%-33% range (which do take into account fees for using the local mill, permission to harness oxen for plowing, payments to mediate disputes, and all that), but let's run your numbers.

Your own figures, which are certainly in a plausible range, come out to a useful yeild of about 67 bushels of various foodstuffs total, or, for a household of 5, a little under 13.5 bushels per person per year. How much does a peasant actually need to consume? Somewhere in the range of 700-750 pounds of grain a year, which works out to about 12 bushels per year. Now, that's a ballpark figure which varies somewhat depending on a person's age, the crops in question, and a few other factors, but the vast majority of that crop gets eaten. And, yes, it's a completely separate figure from the effective value provided by the peasant doing boon work for his lord, but any payements in kind or money ultimately have to come out of those 67 bushels. Unless a peasant is spending more than half of his time doing work for the local lord (much more, given that peasants tend to be far more productive on their own land than when they work for somebody else), which may be the case for a very small minority of particularly poor sharecroppers, I don't see room for anything nearly as high as 60% of a peasant's productivity being taxed away.

Now, higher taxes are at least theoretically plausible towards the end of the Middle Ages as crop yeilds increased. However, taxes tended to rise more slowly than incomes as the Middle Ages progressed.

[Christian]

hal, nice page but worthless.

It doesn't cite any sources, just presents some of the guestimates I was talking about. Useless internet rubble, sorry to say so. Its as much worth as if it would state "aliens are responsible for birth explosion". Without any reliable empirical sources its the equivalent of an urban legend. Even wikipedia (german version, lets not talk about the english wikipedia, ok?) is worth much more, as it is a compromise of several differing opinions.

And about contraception, guys, grow up: the idea that condoms and hormones are the first and only way of contraception is ridiculous.

My (catholic) grandmother had 5 children in a matter of a few years and then stopped, without using any modern contraception. How? Well, the knowledge about fertile times is as old as humanity, and given a consenting partner (and most men will consent if they have to feed 5-6 children already) the "risk" can be reduced significantly. Any good dark age midwife could give advice how to stop after the 12th child. Thats one of the reasons why they where persecuted by some clerics (and why many nobles did try their best to save them from persecution, remember, nobles are also married and have use for so many heirs only).

And given a magical society (remember that alchemy part DrTemp is always talking about?) the alchemical equivalent to modern contraception even becomes avaible.

Btw, an household of 5 is complete nonsense. Even in 1751 a swedish family had to have SIX kids to have one daughter married of, one son as an heir, and MAYBE a third kid that wouldn't marry or leave the country or such.

So an average family looked like this:

one surviving grandparent, two parents. Out of the six kids one died during the first year, so is of no long term concern. But two survived the first few years, so lets those three count together in "a half" kid that we know wont reach fertile age. And 2-3 kids survived to fertile age, but depending on circumstances the third either died as well (in bad years) or was becoming a nun or soldier. So its 1+2+0,5+2,5 = 6 or more persons per household at every time.

One problem you might run into is, that there often ain't any data on women, and children inside of families. Men where counted for taxes. Women, children and disabled/elderly only when the community had to look for them, so usualy only once they where out of the family system.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Christian

Btw, an household of 5 is complete nonsense.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. Five-member households weren't clearly unusual for the region and period for which Hal has data. Households with five people were probably a significant minority rather than the rule, but the medical technology of the time would have meant both increased infant mortality (which means fewer children and juveniles around at any given time) and a somewhat decreased life expectancy even after surviving childhood (which means not quite as many grandparents), and particularly poor families would have used that same contraceptive knowledge you mention to reduce births if they didn't have the land available to feed the additional mouths. Certainly, the average household size was a bit larger, but five's not out of the realm of reason.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

...which is exactly why your 60% figure seems wildly implausible, particularly in the early-middle periods for which your 1:4 yeilds are more or less appropriate. It seemed wrong to me based on known historical rates of taxation, which tend to settle in the 25%-33% range (which do take into account fees for using the local mill, permission to harness oxen for plowing, payments to mediate disputes, and all that), but let's run your numbers.

Your own figures, which are certainly in a plausible range, come out to a useful yeild of about 67 bushels of various foodstuffs total, or, for a household of 5, a little under 13.5 bushels per person per year. How much does a peasant actually need to consume? Somewhere in the range of 700-750 pounds of grain a year, which works out to about 12 bushels per year. Now, that's a ballpark figure which varies somewhat depending on a person's age, the crops in question, and a few other factors, but the vast majority of that crop gets eaten. And, yes, it's a completely separate figure from the effective value provided by the peasant doing boon work for his lord, but any payements in kind or money ultimately have to come out of those 67 bushels. Unless a peasant is spending more than half of his time doing work for the local lord (much more, given that peasants tend to be far more productive on their own land than when they work for somebody else), which may be the case for a very small minority of particularly poor sharecroppers, I don't see room for anything nearly as high as 60% of a peasant's productivity being taxed away.

Now, higher taxes are at least theoretically plausible towards the end of the Middle Ages as crop yeilds increased. However, taxes tended to rise more slowly than incomes as the Middle Ages progressed.

For what it is worth, I cite the source Standards of living in the later Middle Ages c. 1200-1520 by Christopher Dyer. You can purchase a copy HERE for the full price of $30 plus S&H, or you can buy a used copy for about $9 plus S&H from Amazon.com. Not to be disparaging Christian, but your tone comes on pretty strongly. Maybe you know what you're talking about, but what you're saying essentially contradicts Dr Dyer. Granted, writers are human as well and perhaps Dr. Dyer truly doesn't know of what he speaks. On the other hand, I am inclined to go along with his assessments. Much of what he writes pertains to not only the whats, but the whys of things in medieval times. There, you will find the material on two field crop rotations and three field crop rotations. He gives you solid enough data to work with such that you can determine the general mixture of people who held how much land etc, as either a freeman or a serf. He gives you a LOT of information such as the cattle people kept (goats, sheep, cows, and so on). In all of my years of searching for reference books, his is one of the most information filled books I've ever found, and next to Gies and Gies, one of my favorite authors. He has two other books you might find worth your while to read:
Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520
Everyday Life in Medieval England

In any event, I'm not here to get into a "******* contest" over whether what a Professor write is wildly implausible or not. Take it for what it is worth, or not ;)

***EDIT***
Oops - I used Terhan's quote in responding to Christian. This was not intentional :(

[Christian]

Hal, if you use a source, cite it correctly. Else its impossible to tell its worth.

Second: having a book full of data is nice. But you always also need to know where this data originated. How did he come to his conclusions? Did he use local or regional data? I assume he does, because he is professor for local and regional history.
OK, so he might have found a cache of information for his home region and even accumulated those data for a longer timespan. But whatever he got, its not reliable in the sense of a census. Its guestimate work. OK, but lets assume his sources are good. But, his data can't be as reliable for all of england. Why? Because there just isn't so much data.

So lets just assume you quoted him wrong, and he made statements about the Leincester area. Now tell me, why do you think his conclusions can be used for a completely different setting: not a rather well developed and increasingly overburdened area like Leincester in the 13th centurybut a colonial expansive area like Caithness during colonisation times?

[ArmoredSaint]

Christian, have you actually read Dyer's book? I've got it, too, and I don't think you should disparage him like that; I can't think of too many rivals Dyer's got in the field, at least not easily accessible ones...

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ludek

My own impesion i base Orcs are Wnedors form '13rd Warrior ' movie.
I.e. tehy are canibalistic (eat other humanoids and each other) .. it's not
suprising trait in such societies.

Cannibalism is very rare in the animal world, and I don't see any good reason for orcs to develop it as a trait. Of course, they may well see eating humans and elves as not being cannibalism.