Using City Stats and Mass Combat Together

[Rigil_Kent]

Similarly to this thread, I'm in the process of spinning up a "Crusader Kings 2" kind of game where the characters are lords and have to run a domain. I too have been looking at the Pathfinder Kingdom Building rules, but I noticed they had very little reference about raising armies and the like. This ultimately led me to City Stats and the Military Resources stat in a city (which is going to be fine at the beginning, when the characters effectively have control of just one "city" but will be problematic down the road when they have control over entire counties or earldoms or duchies.)

Now, the Military Resource is determined by taking city monthly income x city population x military budget factor (which is derived by CR but is usually going to be around 1 or 2%.) In one of my tests, I derived a MR of $67,500 for a city.

With that in mind, I went to Mass Combat and determined that the Upkeep cost for 2 Units of Bowmen (16K), 3 Units of Light Infantry (24K), and 4 Units of Medium Infantry (24K) equal 64K, which is under the $67,500 MR per month.

So my question is really twofold:

1. Did I do this correctly? I'm presuming that, since the MR is a monthly amount, any extra can be banked so I did not bother with really figuring Raise cost for these units (except ensuring they did not exceed the MR). Obviously, I did not include any logistics elements because...
2. In City Stats p9, it is stated that "this can be treated as an overhead cost of 50% of the base cost for land logistics." Am I reading it correctly that logistics units in a city are 50% cheaper (which makes sense as they're going to have barracks and other buildings for this role.)

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Rigil_Kent

1. …
2. In City Stats p9, it is stated that "this can be treated as an overhead cost of 50% of the base cost for land logistics." Am I reading it correctly that logistics units in a city are 50% cheaper (which makes sense as they're going to have barracks and other buildings for this role.)

Originally Posted by GURPS City Stats, p. 9

GURPS Mass Combat provides definitions for combat elements, each of which has a cost to maintain. Maintenance is delivered to combat elements by logistics troops, which also have a cost to maintain. This can be treated as an overhead cost of 50% of the base cost for land logistics;
100% for naval logistics; 200% for air, orbital, or submersible logistics; or 500% for interplanetary logistics.

I must confess, I have no idea how to interpret this. In what situation(s) would the modifications given in GURPS City Stats above not be in play? I'm not even sure what the "overhead cost" should be applied to.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

I must confess, I have no idea how to interpret this. In what situation(s) would the modifications given in GURPS City Stats above not be in play? I'm not even sure what the "overhead cost" should be applied to.

You figure the cost to maintain the combat unit, as given in Mass Combat. So say this costs $50,000/month. If you're supplying it overland, you add 50% of that as overhead, or an extra $25,000/month, to get a total of $75,000/month. Add $50,000/month for shipping, $100,000/month for air, orbital, or submersible, or $250,000/month for interplanetary. So your total cost would be $75k if it was just down the road, but $300k if it was on the moon or Mars.

Bill Stoddard

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You figure the cost to maintain the combat unit, as given in Mass Combat. So say this costs $50,000/month. If you're supplying it overland, you add 50% of that as overhead, or an extra $25,000/month, to get a total of $75,000/month. Add $50,000/month for shipping, $100,000/month for air, orbital, or submersible, or $250,000/month for interplanetary. So your total cost would be $75k if it was just down the road, but $300k if it was on the moon or Mars.

Bill Stoddard

I can't believe I'm getting an answer from the author of GURPS City Stats himself. These forums are amazing.

So, in no case would the cost to maintain be merely $50k? That value is to be used as the basis from which a final cost to maintain must be calculated?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

I can't believe I'm getting an answer from the author of GURPS City Stats himself. These forums are amazing.

That they are. Also there is a much nicer class of posters here abouts.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

I can't believe I'm getting an answer from the author of GURPS City Stats himself. These forums are amazing.

So, in no case would the cost to maintain be merely $50k? That value is to be used as the basis from which a final cost to maintain must be calculated?

That's correct.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You figure the cost to maintain the combat unit, as given in Mass Combat. So say this costs $50,000/month. If you're supplying it overland, you add 50% of that as overhead, or an extra $25,000/month, to get a total of $75,000/month. Add $50,000/month for shipping, $100,000/month for air, orbital, or submersible, or $250,000/month for interplanetary. So your total cost would be $75k if it was just down the road, but $300k if it was on the moon or Mars.

And that overhead cost to support overland which increases the cost to $75k, would be $75k whether the forces are in your city, or on the other side of the continent, correct?

(I'm not being snarky. I know the Mass Combat rules are intended to give some structure to battles the PCs are role-playing in and within; they're not intended to be a tactical combat rules set.)

[Rigil_Kent]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

And that overhead cost to support overland which increases the cost to $75k, would be $75k whether the forces are in your city, or on the other side of the continent, correct?

Yeah, that's confusing me as well. Why would it cost the same to support units waging war a continent away than it would if they're just chilling in the barracks? I'd expect that it would cost less in a city personally, especially if you have a dedicated barracks building for that sort of thing.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Rigil_Kent

Yeah, that's confusing me as well. Why would it cost the same to support units waging war a continent away than it would if they're just chilling in the barracks? I'd expect that it would cost less in a city personally, especially if you have a dedicated barracks building for that sort of thing.

Consider the Reduced Readiness option.
In short, if your troops are in barracks in the home city because you just do not expect to need them tomorrow morning, you can spend much less on them. But they will be at half effectiveness (TS), and will remain so for a month after you brought maintenance expenditure at the standard level.
If OTOH they are in the barracks but you do expect trouble tomorrow, then they need to train, exercise, patrol the area around the city.

Some of the supplies you need for them won't be right there in the city anyway; you have to bring in axes from the Dwarven Forge and food from the Fertile Valley, and those shipments require caravans, i.e. logistics, whether the troops are in the city or at the frontline, etc.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

And that overhead cost to support overland which increases the cost to $75k, would be $75k whether the forces are in your city, or on the other side of the continent, correct?

I went with that for simplicity, and also because Mass Combat doesn't make the distinction. I wouldn't say it was wrong if a GM chose to lower the logistics overhead in the former case, though I don't think it could be cut to zero.