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    Which professions are best to level up to good

    Marshal Bombast
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    Post by Marshal Bombast Wed Sep 01, 2021 2:28 pm

    If recruits were no object which professions would you level up and why?

    Talking about profession in supplements that you can level up with trained professionals to poor, reasonable and good.  Why did you choose them and why in that order if choosing more than one:

    • Magistrates
      Physicians
      Priests
      Vets


    Personally I'm considering vets as would help livestock and hopefully economic health and can reach a good level with a reasonable number of recruits
    Papa Clement
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    Post by Papa Clement Wed Sep 01, 2021 9:02 pm

    I think I discussed my views on the relative merits of poor/reasonable/good levels of coverage in another topic.  It may be that achieving a poor level has relatively little impact so you need to aim for reasonable as a minimum (recruits permitting).

    If recruits are not a limiting factor, then if will not be a surprise if my top pick would be ...

    Priests (Catholic priests, naturally) - reasons being that if a people knows what it believes and why, then not only will it feel a greater identity with its ruler, but also be happier, more law abiding, and have a renewed sense of purpose that what it is doing is good and correct in the eyes of God and the Church.  Understanding church teaching should also improve the ability to reason so lead to better education which in turn should stimulate new discoveries (again, I only expect these benefits to be seen from Catholic priests and Catholic teaching based on St.Thomas Aquinas' approach that we can learn about God to some extent through the world he created, thus the Church and scientific research are not necessarily opposed. Protestants and other religions that reject the use of philosophy to explain aspects of religion cannot expect similar benefits). Crime levels should also fall (attending Mass regularly and partaking of the sacraments encourages a moral, law-abiding life), and although it may not always be the case, I happen to think that happier people tend to be healthier.  So look after the spiritual and most other things improve as well.  Whether all this happens in the game is unknown (yet), but I'm working on it.

    Next I would probably go for vets over doctors.  But it is a tricky one.  Given the misconceptions about medicine in 1700, it is possible that doctors did more harm than good and that more people were saved through good nursing than dubious prescribing.  Oddly vets tended to be more successful than doctors, at least with farm animals, probably because specialist knowledge of a few species and a few common illnesses could be learned in the field without relying on fancy theories.  In game terms, vets should be able to help breed improved animals with better health records which as you point out may increase returns from trade investments, higher tax revenues from nobles (land) and possibly EH.

    After vets I would prioritize aqueducts (to improve water quality), night soil men (double benefit), sewers, before only under protest committing to training doctors (if I couldn't train nurses).

    Last on the list would be lawyers.  I know there are some players who view lawyers as being a mark of civilization and therefore a good thing, but since the point of being a lawyer is to disagree with another lawyer, I can't see how having thousands of lawyers around has any positive benefit at all.  More lawyers does not mean better law, not even better administration of the law, since without lawyers it was down to the local squire to exercise his feudal responsibilities on behalf of the crown.  Lawyers have a habit of making up their own interpretation of the law to benefit lawyers at the expense of everyone else, and then wasting everyone's time arguing in front of other lawyers (judges) in the hope they will create binding precedents (make more law), which far from simplifying the legal system, increases complexity at the expense of common sense.  This is not a modern phenomenon: when God gave Adam the single law not to eat of the tree of life, along came the first lawyer (the snake) and reinterpreted it because Eve wanted an apple; with the arrival of the 10 Commandments, the number of lawyers (Scribes) had mushroomed along with their modifications with  pages of amendments and codicils, arguing about different interpretations.  And on it goes today.  Lawyers are parasites - their fees should reduce EH, while any ruler who employs them should find his honour falls because he is denying the nobility their feudal rights.  Of course the game may not reflect this to the extent I believe it should, but I'm not the GM.
    Nexus06
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    Post by Nexus06 Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:19 pm

    I hope Administrative, since i'm really investing into them.

    Joking aside, i would say that i'm finding Admin clerks very flexible, since you can use them to staff many structures that can/should/hopefully improve your performance in the various field of government.

    Vets and priests are very good too, but i fear numbers (Russia) as you have to devote 20,000 recruits, thus is a five or more game years project, and i'm not sure about the revenues.
    Marshal Bombast
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    Post by Marshal Bombast Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:04 am

    Agreed re administrators, though I wonder if tax collectors may cause an issue with nobles who are probably making a tidy profit out of tax farming. Still administrators is similar to Peter and his government efficiency reforms so I'm looking at that too.

    20,000 recruits for vets is a lot easier than 200,000 recruits for priests which might be nearer 50-100 game years Which professions are best to level up to good 169354432
    Nexus06
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    Post by Nexus06 Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:03 pm

    Beside Administrative, which i'm finding can be used in a multitude of ways, i would go for:

    1.farmers
    2. vets
    3. medical care
    4. traders/merchants
    5. Lawyers

    i'll try to prove my point.

    Since the XVIII century economy is mostly agricultural, avoiding famines and provide grain (food) on the desk i believe is the top goal. Also, farmers pay the rent to nobles with food and agricultural product rather than money, thus the "economy" might be more impacted by the existence of an agricultural surplus rather than other factors (except maybe you are Spain and have to deal with the treasure fleet. Last thing, providing food surplus on the market should help towns grow, attract labors and provide a cheaper source of workforce for intermediate products, that are sold in the economy.

    vets are here for the same reason, plus you might try to use them to try to breed better horses for chivalry, for example.

    meds, because who wants to see a deadly disease spread across the county? Plus a well fed and healthy subject is less prone to revolts!

    traders: I have honestly no idea why a trained trader should perform better in term of return of the investment in confront with an untrained dude, but i think it make sense, expecially if you want to dominate a specific trade (for example venice with glass, or french with wine). If you invest in slavery, i do not think you need to train your recruit in such kind of activity, but i think you should consider step by step if it is worth. Surely, since the recruits are a huge investment in game terms, wasting them is never a good idea.

    Lawyers: because your rioting subjects needs to have someone to hang during revolts right? Or maybe if you are considering a major changing in society, like the abolition of serfdom or so, maybe having a new code of law to be sorted out and enough lawyers to implant it and make it working could be useful, also if you are a trading country, should be a nice thought that law is respected and applied, and you investments are more guarantee.

    I've tried to come out with options that should not be in the rules, maybe you can consider them?
    Papa Clement
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    Post by Papa Clement Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:01 pm

    Nexus06 wrote:Beside Administrative, which i'm finding can be used in a multitude of ways, i would go for:

    1.farmers
    2. vets
    3. medical care
    4. traders/merchants
    5. Lawyers

    i'll try to prove my point.

    Since the XVIII century economy is mostly agricultural, avoiding famines and provide grain (food) on the desk i believe is the top goal. Also, farmers pay the rent to nobles with food and agricultural product rather than money, thus the "economy" might be more impacted by the existence of an agricultural surplus rather than other factors (except maybe you are Spain and have to deal with the treasure fleet. Last thing, providing food surplus on the market should help towns grow, attract labors and provide a cheaper source of workforce for intermediate products, that are sold in the economy.

    I can appreciate the point about farmers, Nexus, especially given the link between tax revenue from nobles and returns from land.  But there is an alternative way to do this rather than train farmers, namely 'land improvement' (if memory serves, half the cost of a level of canals).  Add in my favourite night soil men and the chance of a good harvest is significantly improved.  In G7 Stuart trains farmers so perhaps he can reveal if it provided any benefit.  Logically I can see that if you have introduced crop rotation, developed hardy grain, completed land improvement and raised night soil men, then trained farmers might be the only other positive you could try to boost yield, but on their own I doubt they would have that great an impact.

    The main reason is that not every country is that great at agriculture, and even within a good country there are areas which are always going to be low yielding and probably not worth using.  For Russia, putting trained farmers on the Ukraine bread basket is likely to be a good idea, but not in Siberia.  The key to increasing yields tends to be specialization - using poorer soils for animals not grain.  Similarly if you are looking to maximize economic benefit from farming then again specialization seems to be the way to go.  Denmark did this very effectively: their land could grow high yielding crops, but instead they went into pigs (I think there are twice as many pigs as people in Denmark).  They are so good at it they achieve higher returns overall by importing grain and using their own land to grow more pigs for export.  Scotland's farming problem was always that although it had the land for cattle, it was reliant upon English fodder to feed them over the winter; that is why many Scottish nobles had lands in northern England.  There are lots of similar examples.



    Nexus06 wrote:
    Lawyers: because your rioting subjects needs to have someone to hang during revolts right? Or maybe if you are considering a major changing in society, like the abolition of serfdom or so, maybe having a new code of law to be sorted out and enough lawyers to implant it and make it working could be useful, also if you are a trading country, should be a nice thought that law is respected and applied, and you investments are more guarantee.

    The image of a rioting populace lynching lawyers does have some appeal - I think there is a very good chance that would increase EH on its own.  We do need to get over the idea that more lawyers means better law, though - it is usually the opposite.  More lawyers just increases the number of legal arguments and paralysis ... again, ask Stuart as he seems to specialise in bring spurious legal cases in G7.  A new code of law might seem attractive until you actually implement it, at which point the lawyers start modifying it and trying to apply precedents established under the old code of law to the newer one.  You end up with 3 codes of law and strangely enough even more legal arguments.  I also reject the idea that law encourages trade ... it is actually very hard to stop people trading.  Ultimately if traders want repeat business then they will deal fairly with their opposite numbers.  They won't wait until a 'dispute resolution mechanism' is agreed.  And they certainly won't be put off by trade embargos or trading bans - somehow trade will happen anyway.

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    Post by Nexus06 Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:40 am

    Papa Clement wrote:

     But there is an alternative way to do this rather than train farmers, namely 'land improvement' (if memory serves, half the cost of a level of canals).  Add in my favourite night soil men and the chance of a good harvest is significantly improved.  In G7 Stuart trains farmers so perhaps he can reveal if it provided any benefit.  Logically I can see that if you have introduced crop rotation, developed hardy grain, completed land improvement and raised night soil men, then trained farmers might be the only other positive you could try to boost yield, but on their own I doubt they would have that great an impact.

    The main reason is that not every country is that great at agriculture, and even within a good country there are areas which are always going to be low yielding and probably not worth using.  For Russia, putting trained farmers on the Ukraine bread basket is likely to be a good idea, but not in Siberia.  The key to increasing yields tends to be specialization - using poorer soils for animals not grain.  Similarly if you are looking to maximize economic benefit from farming then again specialization seems to be the way to go.  Denmark did this very effectively: their land could grow high yielding crops, but instead they went into pigs (I think there are twice as many pigs as people in Denmark).  They are so good at it they achieve higher returns overall by importing grain and using their own land to grow more pigs for export.  Scotland's farming problem was always that although it had the land for cattle, it was reliant upon English fodder to feed them over the winter; that is why many Scottish nobles had lands in northern England.  There are lots of similar examples.


    Hi Papa,

    i believe this particular segment is extremely interesting, but i've never forum in manuals reference regarding "land improvements". As far as i know, for half the cost of Canals you can have:

    1. Acqueducts
    2. Irrigation

    other implementations i've found in game are:

    1. deforestation (per levels D->A)
    2. soil topping

    but i'm extremely interested, if you could detail.

    thanks
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    Post by Stuart Bailey Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:22 am

    On the subject of how to increase harvest yields and produce that important surplus needed to keep your Army/Navy in supply and counter the effects of poor harvests/famine my favoured method is to developed improved or hardy types species of grain or potatoes.

    Improved varities of grain seem to help production of a food surplus every year without any of the possible nasty side effects which you can get from the introduction of potatoe's or enclosure etc. Plus hardy grain lasts out of silo's which is also a advantage in some circumstances.

    The other 100% sure why to produce a surplus is to increase the amount of land under the plough by clearing area's of forest or ploughing up parts of the Pampas but this is not a option available to all positions.

    Suspect but am not sure that other types of things you can do with your agriculture may improve your chance of a good harvest but do not give the same certain improvement in food supply provided by improved grain or extra land.

    I also favour training farmers but in game this has more to do with the introduction of the Norfolk system of crop rotation. In theory growing crops of peas, root veg and other nitrogen fixers on fields which otherwise need to be left fallow should increase food production but in game this goes as winter feed for animals and the ability to keep more animals alive over winter is good for EH rather than your grain surplus.

    Also if playing a colonial power and trying to set up a new colony I often use some trained farmers and/or other trained workers as part of the 2500 recruits. So in G7 Montevideo is about to get its City Charter from good King Charles III. Its hinterland has been settled by trained farmers with improved grain seed, improved plaughs and improved livestock and long and secure leases on pepper-corn leases from the Crown. While the 2500 recruits provided for the actual city include 600 ex-apprenticed cloth workers and 700 ex-apprenticed leather workers to help process agricultural products like hides and wool. Have no clue at all if using non-standard recruits helps colonial development or not but it seems to make sence to me.

    Finally can I say a work in favour of trained lawyers being used as Judges to administer a written up code of law. Basically if you have a bunch untrained Nobles and Clergy on the bench (esp Jacobite ones who are mostly mad) it makes the law a lottery and probably a bent one as well. While this may work in favour of important locals in the long run its bad for economic confidence and people will avoid markets were they are not going to get a fair hearing.

    Also having trained Judges who apply a written law code as sent down by the King/Parliment rather than as they see fit tends to reduce the power of loyal autocrats and increase the power and status of the King or Sultan etc (honour score). Historically some of the strongest and most respected Monarchs be they Suliman the law giver, Justinian or Henry I or England were really keen on the law and having it enforced fairly by their Judges.

    In G7 the Hapsburgs have introduced a standard commercial law code drawn up by the law facility of the University of Pavia across all of their Spanish and Austrian territory plus standard weights and measures mostly based on Flanders trade use but have been scared to touch the different civil laws in Aragon, Naples, Milan, Hungary etc. The UDP has also adopted the Pavia code and the weights and measures for its international trade. Question now is will the new Holy Roman Emperor be able to convince all the States of the Holy Roman Empire to adopt the same? and send their best and brightest Students to study at Pavia?
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    Post by Papa Clement Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:55 pm

    Nexus06 wrote:
    Papa Clement wrote:

     But there is an alternative way to do this rather than train farmers, namely 'land improvement' (if memory serves, half the cost of a level of canals).  Add in my favourite night soil men and the chance of a good harvest is significantly improved.  In G7 Stuart trains farmers so perhaps he can reveal if it provided any benefit.  Logically I can see that if you have introduced crop rotation, developed hardy grain, completed land improvement and raised night soil men, then trained farmers might be the only other positive you could try to boost yield, but on their own I doubt they would have that great an impact.

    The main reason is that not every country is that great at agriculture, and even within a good country there are areas which are always going to be low yielding and probably not worth using.  For Russia, putting trained farmers on the Ukraine bread basket is likely to be a good idea, but not in Siberia.  The key to increasing yields tends to be specialization - using poorer soils for animals not grain.  Similarly if you are looking to maximize economic benefit from farming then again specialization seems to be the way to go.  Denmark did this very effectively: their land could grow high yielding crops, but instead they went into pigs (I think there are twice as many pigs as people in Denmark).  They are so good at it they achieve higher returns overall by importing grain and using their own land to grow more pigs for export.  Scotland's farming problem was always that although it had the land for cattle, it was reliant upon English fodder to feed them over the winter; that is why many Scottish nobles had lands in northern England.  There are lots of similar examples.


    Hi Papa,

    i believe this particular segment is extremely interesting, but i've never forum in manuals reference regarding "land improvements". As far as i know, for half the cost of Canals you can have:

    1. Acqueducts
    2. Irrigation

    other implementations i've found in game are:

    1. deforestation (per levels D->A)
    2. soil topping

    but i'm extremely interested, if you could detail.

    thanks

    All these would probably fall into the general category of 'land improvements', although aqueducts are more health related?  I was probably thinking of irrigation, but also quite possible that it was something I asked about in a game turn (via engineering academy) and received the answer.  I do know that different countries have the possibility of improving their land in slightly different ways, so for example to improve the Cambridgeshire fens, Richard would probably suggest irrigation; to work heavy clay soils more effectively you need improved ploughs rather than infrastructure-type changes; to improve land around Rome, drain the marshes (which could well have been calculated in a similar way or as a separately costed project - honestly can't remember).  UDP can reclaim land from the sea, so it is really something you have to think about and then apply to your particular country or to a particular area within that country.

    Deforestation is a tricky one because if you do it on an island you make it rather difficult for people to live there (wood for cooking/heating/shipbuilding?), and it inevitably does impact economically.  Also there is a huge difference between deciduous woodland and conifers - dediduous woodland tends to support a better mix in the undergrowth and for half of the year can be grazed with some animals, so if you chop that down and try to farm it then you stand a reasonable chance of doing OK, but at the cost of losing a food source for your animals.  Conifers are totally different: they suck up all the moisture and shed their needles/leaves all year round, gradually turning the soil acidic and destroying its structure - result, poor soil, not much use for crops.  So overall I would not mess around with deforestation - there are easier ways (like night soil men).

    Moving soil from a more fertile area to a less fertile one is hugely expensive - far better to use night soil men, or chain gangs of lynched lawyers.

    Problem you have with countries that have huge land areas is that infrastructure improvements cost a huge amount and in the short term although you may gain an EH point, you'll lose it again very quickly to some random Agema diceroll.

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    Post by Papa Clement Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:27 pm

    Tend to agree with Stuart's points on farming - will willingly concede he has worked on this aspect in the game on a much larger scale and for far longer than I have, so his advice on this is probably worth taking.

    Stuart Bailey wrote:Finally can I say a work in favour of trained lawyers being used as Judges to administer a written up code of law.  Basically if you have a bunch untrained Nobles and Clergy on the bench (esp Jacobite ones who are mostly mad) it makes the law a lottery and probably a bent one as well.  While this may work in favour of important locals in the long run its bad for economic confidence and people will avoid markets where they are not going to get a fair hearing.

    Also having trained Judges who apply a written law code as sent down by the King/Parliament rather than as they see fit tends to reduce the power of loyal autocrats and increase the power and status of the King or Sultan etc (honour score).  Historically some of the strongest and most respected Monarchs be they Suliman the law giver, Justinian or Henry I or England were really keen on the law and having it enforced fairly by their Judges.

    In G7 the Hapsburgs have introduced a standard commercial law code drawn up by the law facility of the University of Pavia across all of their Spanish and Austrian territory plus standard weights and measures mostly based on Flanders trade use but have been scared to touch the different civil laws in Aragon, Naples, Milan, Hungary etc.  The UDP has also adopted the Pavia code and the weights and measures for its international trade.  Question now is will the new Holy Roman Emperor be able to convince all the States of the Holy Roman Empire to adopt the same? and send their best and brightest Students to study at Pavia?

    It might be how you think it will work, but not in the game rules ... if you check 'codified law', (page 17 of Glory&Argument) it does 2 things:
    1. It brings together historical law into a single document
    2. It defines all crime and fixes the punishment for that crime.

    The problem with the first of these is that in virtually every country there is no consistent historical law applied in all regions: law evolves, and as provinces were added to countries, they generally kept their own law which was administered by local nobility as it has always been.  This need not be inconsistent in the locality, but it is a basic privilege of nobility to exercise authority in that area on behalf of the king.  Take those rights away and you might temper the power of the nobility, but you will also make it more difficult for them to maintain order at a local level.  You may well find that the nobility disregard a new fancy legal code and simply exert their old rights.  If you take Britain as an example, Welsh law was abolished by Henry 8th as part of a widespread reform, but Scottish law was not abolished by the Act of Union and is still a separate system today.  Now you might think this was just exceptionalism, but it isn't.  There were very good reasons why the Scottish legal system stayed true to its own history.  As far as I know this did not put Scotland at a disadvantage post-1701, so a single legal code is not necessary.

    The second effect is even more of a retrograde step.  Instead of leaving it to local magistrates to judge the facts of each case and permit a range of punishments where there are clearly mitigating circumstances or the risk of local rebellion, codified law takes that power from the judges and mandates a punishment.  The whole point of having judges is that they can use their common sense and recognise that when the letter of the law may have been broken, but not its spirit, they can consider what is best for the maintenance of order in the local community, not simply hand down harsh sentences and create injustice.  A peasant may be a bit irritated if someone steals his turnip, but the whole village will lose faith in the law if the thief is executed for it instead of being put in the stocks and pelted with rotting turnips to teach him a lesson.

    The most able law-giving monarchs repealed or simplified laws far more than they codified and enacted laws because they knew the limitations of the law and trusted their nobles to serve the king's interest.  Indeed, applying the law sensibly was a mark of nobility.  Of course there were inconsistent and cruel nobles who abused their position, but they didn't tend to get promotion on account of their misuse of their powers - usually the opposite.  Especially if as a result of their actions, an area rose in rebellion and the king had to send in an army and make various promises to the people that their concerns would be addressed.

    Lawyers as trained judges are a really bad idea unless your nobility is so inept and incompetent, so disregarding of its own interest and powers that it cannot be trusted to use them wisely.  And if that is the situation in your country, I think you've got far too many more problems to worry about than the legal system.

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