social classes at TL1

[Polydamas]

It was widely known in antiquity that Athens imported most of its ship-timber from places like Macedonia (see Thucydides and some of the orators from the 4th century BCE). I have never seen anyone try to lump firewood and timber into one requirement measured in cords, and I have no idea where "20 cords a year" comes from ... fuel consumption is hard to see in the sources, and AFAIK the usual unit was the donkey-load.

Originally Posted by whswhs

As I've said before, I would be happy to see a model of the economic geography of Portus Argenti that included its salmon runs and its other fisheries.

I have never seen anything like that, sorry. Generally historians are happy to have estimates of demographic statistics, creating a model which explains how those statistics came to be is too ambitious.

[whswhs]

So, now, what percentage of the population is young women of an age to marry?

We have 60 households with Status 2-4, and 540 with Status 1, and those are the populations Hanno is looking at; his mother is probably favoring the former group, as he would benefit from marrying up.

A long time ago, I tried some simple statistical modeling, and came up with the estimate that marriages tended to last on the order of ten years before one spouse died. If the population is in steady state, there will tend to be as many new marriages as there are ended marriages; that would imply 6 upper class marriages and 54 upper middle class ones. There's a fairly strong incentive for girls to marry young and maximize fertility, so maybe at any given time, in the higher classes, there are three years' worth of girls looking for husbands? That would give us around 18 upper class girls and around 160 upper middle class ones.

If marriages last longer, say 20 years instead of 10, that would imply half as many weddings per year. This might either reflect girls taking longer to marry or a smaller fraction of the population being young adults (a logical consequence of adults surviving around twice as long). I'm not sure how that affects the demographics off the top of my head. . . .

[AlexanderHowl]

If you want a realistic society though, you need to figure out where they are getting wood, for construction, fuel, etc, and clean water as well as food, or else it is just going to be another badly designed setting. If it is magic, just have enough magicians and figure out their capabilities. If it is not magic, then I would suggest keeping to my numbers because they are based on economic theory.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If you want a realistic society though, you need to figure out where they are getting wood, for construction, fuel, etc, and clean water as well as food, or else it is just going to be another badly designed setting. If it is magic, just have enough magicians and figure out their capabilities. If it is not magic, then I would suggest keeping to my numbers because they are based on economic theory.

It's not "poof! wood appears" magic, at any rate.

What I would like is to see you do an analysis based on the ways in which the situation is different, rather than just equating the nixie population to, say, an ancient Greek one. I'd also like to see separate analyses for fuel wood and construction wood.

The nixies live on rivers that flow through the elven realm of Trames Umbrosi. Elves have a profound affinity for vegetation and especially trees; they may be able to utilize forests more fully than men at the same TL. They probably supply nixies with a fair quantity of wood for ships and furnishings (and house frames, so far as nixies use these), in trade for fish and import goods. So they're part of the effective population, but not part of the political jurisdiction of Portus Argenti.

Nixies probably produce their own fuel, likely by charcoal burning. They probably need less per capita, as they have about 50% the surface area of men, and thus 50% the rate of heat loss. The ones who live underground also have comparatively even temperatures and don't need as much heating, though cooking and washing are still issues.

But also, through much of history, human societies have slowly deforested the surrounding lands, from the ancient Near East cutting down cedars to English ironmakers turning much of England's woods to charcoal. I don't think we neeed assume total sustainability, though elves have a longer perspective than men and very likely plant new trees to replace those they harvest.

I don't think you're seeing objections to your wish for realism; I think you're seeing questions about your methodology.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'd also like to see separate analyses for fuel wood and construction wood.

I'm not an expert, but surely some of the fuel wood could be waste construction wood (burning sawdust, unusable twigs, etc. for charcoal)

Originally Posted by whswhs

Nixies probably produce their own fuel, likely by charcoal burning. They probably need less per capita, as they have about 50% the surface area of men, and thus 50% the rate of heat loss.

Well, unless somehow their weight is unchanged or their weight is much higher for a human of the same size, they will be bleeding heat at a relatively increased rate (this is addressed on BIO63).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Well, unless somehow their weight is unchanged or their weight is much higher for a human of the same size, they will be bleeding heat at a relatively increased rate (this is addressed on BIO63).

Yes, of course. That's why their heat loss is 50% of human when their body mass is 34%.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by TGLS

I'm not an expert, but surely some of the fuel wood could be waste construction wood (burning sawdust, unusable twigs, etc. for charcoal).

I agree that that's true, but I think it would be a marginal effect on the total supply of fuel. It could probably be ignored for purposes of getting an order of magnitude for the supportable population.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In pre-modern societies, the vast majority of the population are Serfs (or the local equivalent), basically agricultural workers, who earn a Struggling Income and therefore support Status -1. When it comes to surplus production, agriculture housholds at TL1 support 1.25 households (actually comparable to hunter-gatherers or pastoralists at TL1), they just take up much less land, so they can support a denser population. If climate, location, or magic allows for greater agricultural productivity (for example, Egypt averaged around 25% greater productivity because of the flooding of the Nile), then adjust as needed.

I'm currently after more data to calibrate some farming yield mechanics I'm working on. Could you point me in the direction of the source(s) of the information about Egyptian crop yields please.

[Polydamas]

Also, just a tidbit to think about ... one reason this is hard is because creating such a model requires the same violent simplifications which James C. Scott writes about.

(A family in an ancient city did not have an income which was neatly measured in silver or grain, it had the husband's salary as a shipwright, the wife's work as a weaver and dyer and trading crafts and services with neighbours, everyone in the household's work in the garden and repairing the house after the winter rains weaken the mud brick ... and if the family could not track all of that and convert it into a single money of account, the city council or a distant king certainly could not! Similarly, nobody in ancient Athens had statistics for fuel consumption and could trace where all of it came from, although they could probably estimate how much timber came in through Piraeus because that was taxed).