Medical Care (Book of Revelations)

In the rules supplement Book of Revelations, it talks about medical care and plagues and the like.

Not that I've been playing as long as many, but I've not heard of a plague in game. Have people suffered bad plagues that hit their populations?

It also talks about training physicians, and how they can help reduce plague. But I was really struck but the last line "Good Medical coverage - 1 physician per 100 population - superb cover, outbreaks are less likely and population growth likely at a higher level."

1 per 100 is 10,000 recruits per million population! Is that even possible to achieve? It boggles me to contemplate it.

I would agree, the figure does seem high. To give a modern UK perspective, done some quick research, looking at the GMC stats for the number of doctors in the UK and NHS monthly stats. In the UK currently, there are roughly 245,000 GPs whilst the NHS hospitals has a further 101,000 doctors of all sorts-plus a further 306,000 nurses of all types (the NHS figures are FTE and whilst the GP figure is separate to the NHS figure, it is possible some doctors will be both GPs as well as working part time in hospitals). The UK population is currently a tad over 62 million.

On the other hand, I think the recruit figures in Glory are higher than reality? I am sure someone did post elsewhere that we form fleets and armies when historically single ships and companies were sent on missions.

I guess creating a good medical service is a long term goal though in my current role, I am training 5,000 doctors a year and it will take 60 years to get to that figure.

On the other hand, we only need one lawyer-judge per thousand people so a good legal service is a lot quicker

Speaking of Lawyers, has somebody done this? I would think a better legal system would be good for economic health. What have been the effects for anybody who has implemented it?

I have had them in games but have not yet seen a benefit-though I think it has benefited my honour

Interesting, I can see that, in that people have greater respect for a government that ensures fair justice.

Though I would have thought economic health would be effected. In real life, I do some finance things, and one of the key reasons why western markets do better is because of the stronger rule of law and less corruption.

But it may be a bit of a game balance thing. Can't have too many things that easily and directly raise EH maybe.

I think you are right on the balance. I also suspect its a slow, gradual benefit...and perhaps I need more Watches to make the legal service really effective

And dragoons. somewhere in the rules it talks about how many you need on patrol to cover your roads.

Not sure it's that complicated, but it would be interesting if you needed a combination of town watches, dragoons and lawyers to see the full benefit and that there was a 'synergy' bonus if you will if you actually did all of them.

Also from book of revelations supplement:

Patrolling Roads:

An effective patrol to police your road network - which does not mean it will always catch any bad guys, but will make certain you stand a good chance of doing so - equates to one squadron of dragoons (or their equivalent) per 10,000pds worth of road. So if to upgrade the road network a level costs 220,000pds, 222 squadrons should, ideally, be allocated. Lower patrolling numbers still have some use, giving a reduced chance of catching highwaymen, &c.

So I guess it may make sense that if you have courts you also need police to get a better effect....

Yep, it does seem it requires a combination-courts, watches and road patrols to be really effective. I also wonder if ones honour score has an impact-the higher the more likely ones subjects are to obey the law?

I know that last bit sounds silly but I am sure that in the rules there is something saying that if ones honour score is low (1 or 2) you are more likely to suffer natural disasters (including, I think, outbreaks of disease) and face uprisings, etc...so perhaps a high honour score mean you are less likely to have such problems? As an in-game way of encouraging 'right' behaviour?

I think improvements help to make things more stable.
If honour falls to a very low level, there is a greater likelyhood of suffering from natural disasters.