G7 - The War of the English Succession & the breaking of the Pirate Brotherhood

Jason2 wrote:

J Flower wrote:Personally I blame the Russian Tourist board, not only did they supply the French with dodgy " Here be Dragons" Cartography items. Russian tourists also nicked all the pencils from the Flanders customs posts to do the "Multi guess tour quiz of Ghent" First prize a years supply of vodka & all the caviar you can eat.

So, yes, yes we did it, but will someone just please explain what we have done.

Oh, yes we did over the French treasury as well this month.

Started a Rebellion in Hungary

Misdirected people in North west England

Upset the Grand Vizier of the Ottomans.

Had a wee in the king of Frances wine

Stole the Mascot form the Jamaica Regiment while everyone was looking for who ever shot the Colonel,( it was just a distraction  to get the goat! )

So please place all the blame on Russia it was us we did it we own up we are guilty, In fact we were born guilty.

You've forgotten we were also behind the Persian naval actions.  The Persian cruisers were in fact Russian ships under false flags...as were the French corvettes...and now I come to think of it, the merchants were also Russian flagging Persian flags...

Lies, all lies

And that us the absolute truth, trust me.

Papa Clement wrote:

Jason2 wrote:Look at it this way, if your regiment of Scottish lawyer does appear next month, send them into Flanders...Stuart's already had enough trouble with Scottish lawyers in G10, I suspect the last thing he wants is to have to counter them in G7 as well!

That's advice I may well take!

Not directly, though, given King James isn't very keen on lawyers.  Perhaps I should set up a war crimes tribunal run by another character to try all the ex-pirates, ex-HWIC, ex-Kentigern, etc types?  Any names for a Scottish version of Judge Jeffries may be submitted for consideration.  He doesn't have to be Catholic - indeed it might go down better in the more Calvinist parts of Scotland if he wasn't.  But if he happened to have attended Oxford (so will hold a grudge against the Spanish who burnt down his university), then even better.

Jason2 wrote:The 38 administrators is an odd one though!  I have in the past used up odd batches of recruits like that to train as doctors, vets, administrator when there haven't been enough of them to even form a squadron.  In one game I had a mixed batch of Dutch, Danes, Hessians, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes and Saxons (less than 100 of each) all training at once at the same academy as doctors

I could understand it more if it was a round number, but 38?  Perhaps there is a special formula being applied, if a dragoon squadron has SL5 then there are only 75 men left in it, something like that?  Or perhaps one of their recruiting parties came back with only 188 pressed 'volunteers', 150 of whom were used to raise a dragoon unit and the 38 left over formed a kind of very small general staff or logistics corps?  When I've had odd recruits left over then I have tended to use them in trade investments just to tidy things up, but appreciate that for some smaller positions where every recruit counts, that could seem wasteful.

I'm just struggling to understand what improvement 38 administrators could bring to a country?

On the judges, two names spring to mind.  Afraid neither is exactly right historically, one is a few years early, one a few years late but both have the right reputation.  They are also the two it's easiest to find info on-felt it was easier to give you them rather than obscure (if nastier) ones who you'd need access to the National Library of Scotland to research  

George MacKenzie is almost perfect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mackenzie_of_Rosehaugh  A Lord Advocate who was particularly brutal in his repression of the Covenanters, is known as "Bluidy Mackenzie", he even opposed the removal of James from the Scottish throne.  Unfortunately he died in 1691 but am sure Richard won't mind a bit of necromancy.  

Lord Braxfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McQueen,_Lord_Braxfield is historically too late but again am sure bringing him forward won't be a problem.  Had a reputation as a "hanging judge" and to have "sinister skills". He was the judge in  the trial of Deacon Brodie, his behaviour during the trial was quite impressive, in a disregarding-legal-process sort of way.  You might find his invention of "unconscious sedition" useful.

On the 38 administrators, sometimes with the smaller positions you do get a strange number of recruits dependent on the economy and have had some odd numbers of recruits from recruiting parties (including a grand total of 5 in one game recently, luckily I gave an order so I made sure in advance the treasury got back any unspent bounty money). Think about it this way, in a smaller position you can't justify using 1,000 recruits in a single year to train as administrators so if you do want to go for efficient civil service but as a longer term project, you just train whatever surplus recruits you have and that could be 38 in a year.  I have trained batches of 10 or 20 (same with doctors, lawyers, etc)-the year before I might have trained 300 or 400 and the year after, when the world is calmer and I don't need to focus on military expansion, 500.   In the small positions, with a low population, it's often the way you end up playing the game.
Alternatively, it might be possible that there were more but the others decided they didn't want to enter your service.  That needn't be down to your enemies trying to be devious or anything, it could simply be an in-game mechanism where a hefty percentage of administrators who were training to serve the old regime decide they don't want to serve King James and go home.  There could have been 500 and all the others decided a life in the glens was preferable.  I have a vague memory of this happening in G2, might even have been with Scotland after a successful English invasion and where a lot of the soldiers along with doctors, etc simply when home instead of obeying orders to serve the new united British government.  
Finally small numbers of administrators can serve a purpose.  It was in G7 believe it or not, when Moldavia, in addition to having a highly efficient civil service, I also had a small number of administrators allocated to every minister to improve their  administration and it seemed to work.  It was something the previous player had started (he seemed to like admin, had even invented a new filing system)and I carried on.  Think I gave 10 administrators to a minister.  People think Scottish lawyers are bad, imagine a host of Moldavian administrators!

Jason2 wrote:On the judges, two names spring to mind.  Afraid neither is exactly right historically, one is a few years early, one a few years late but both have the right reputation.  They are also the two it's easiest to find info on-felt it was easier to give you them rather than obscure (if nastier) ones who you'd need access to the National Library of Scotland to research  

George MacKenzie is almost perfect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mackenzie_of_Rosehaugh  A Lord Advocate who was particularly brutal in his repression of the Covenanters, is known as "Bluidy Mackenzie", he even opposed the removal of James from the Scottish throne.  Unfortunately he died in 1691 but am sure Richard won't mind a bit of necromancy.  

Lord Braxfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McQueen,_Lord_Braxfield is historically too late but again am sure bringing him forward won't be a problem.  Had a reputation as a "hanging judge" and to have "sinister skills". He was the judge in the trial of Deacon Brodie, his behaviour during the trial was quite impressive, in a disregarding-legal-process sort of way.  You might find his invention of "unconscious sedition" useful.

Thanks very much Jason2 ... access to the National Library of Scotland is invaluable for any player of Scotland in a truly historic way.

Totally agree about George MacKenzie's suitability. I have William MacKenzie, (5th) Earl of Seaforth as a general and very good he is to. I did originally appoint him as Colonel of the Black Watch, but Richard seems to have promoted him to army commander. George MacKenzie also wrote Jus Regium: Or the Just and Solid Foundations of Monarchy in General, and More Especially of the Monarchy of Scotland: Maintain'd Against Buchannan, Naphtali, Dolman, Milton, &c. (published 1684), a major royalist tract which could be useful to republish in game.

Not so sure about Braxfield. Unconscious sedition is a step too far, even for me! Motive is not normally an excuse for criminal offences, but can reduce or increase culpability - not very useful for most offences in 1700 punishable by death. That said, I thought that the person committing a crime had to have the mental capacity (awareness) of his actions (irrespective of whether he knew them to be a crime or not). So 'unconscious' sedition seems to be a contradiction. I suppose it might apply to association with those who were committing sedition, but there must be other crimes which would cover that.

One of the things I am learning about how the law was applied by judges in the late Stuart period is that the judges took very seriously the idea that they represented the king so they enforced the letter of the law without mercy, but then expected appeals to the king so he could show mercy. One of the problems with the likes of Judge Jeffries, and possibly MacKenzie was that the cases they ended up trying were after rebellions and the king (James II) was notoriously reluctant to show mercy. So the judges earned a reputation for being harsh when they were just following the law.

Now this does bring me a dilemma with what to do with returning rebels and I genuinely don't know what to do about it (yet). One Catholic principle is that those who repent are given another chance (which is why executions are always uncomfortable for Catholics); of course this is not always reflected in the law and there are always some cases where it is necessary. Does this mean I should go soft on rebels? Probably not. But how do you convince those who are repeat offenders and still determined to take advantage of any perceived weakness to cause trouble? The opposite side of the coin is that a king must administer justice out of fairness to those who have been wronged. A general amnesty doesn't heal, just causes resentment. The criminals think they've got away with it, whilst the victims may then turn to crime to punish them where the law failed.

So perhaps I am looking at the problem the wrong way round; I need to decide on an approach first and then find a judge who would be sympathetic to it. Or a lesser crime which excuses the death sentence demanded. Perhaps I should introduce a new sentence for 'unconscious sedition' which I can use as an alternative and that might get round it. I won't be doing anything in a hurry as there should be tens of thousands more recruits being returned over the next 5 months and only then will I be able to assess the scale of the problem.

I did find another potential judge from my own research which you might like to look up in the Scottish National Library: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Jack_Hall I had come across him as a Jacobite character (you know how I like these Northumbrian Jacobites) rather than specifically a judge, but does have Scottish connections. He was a magistrate so I could promote him and he is alive in 1714. He would probably be fairer than either of those you suggest, but I could incorporate elements of their character into his.

This is far from a decision made, so do please suggest others you think might fit.

Jason2 wrote:On the 38 administrators, sometimes with the smaller positions you do get a strange number of recruits dependent on the economy and have had some odd numbers of recruits from recruiting parties (including a grand total of 5 in one game recently, luckily I gave an order so I made sure in advance the treasury got back any unspent bounty money). Think about it this way, in a smaller position you can't justify using 1,000 recruits in a single year to train as administrators so if you do want to go for efficient civil service but as a longer term project, you just train whatever surplus recruits you have and that could be 38 in a year.  I have trained batches of 10 or 20 (same with doctors, lawyers, etc)-the year before I might have trained 300 or 400 and the year after, when the world is calmer and I don't need to focus on military expansion, 500.   In the small positions, with a low population, it's often the way you end up playing the game.
Alternatively, it might be possible that there were more but the others decided they didn't want to enter your service.  That needn't be down to your enemies trying to be devious or anything, it could simply be an in-game mechanism where a hefty percentage of administrators who were training to serve the old regime decide they don't want to serve King James and go home.  There could have been 500 and all the others decided a life in the glens was preferable.  I have a vague memory of this happening in G2, might even have been with Scotland after a successful English invasion and where a lot of the soldiers along with doctors, etc simply when home instead of obeying orders to serve the new united British government.  
Finally small numbers of administrators can serve a purpose.  It was in G7 believe it or not, when Moldavia, in addition to having a highly efficient civil service, I also had a small number of administrators allocated to every minister to improve their  administration and it seemed to work.  It was something the previous player had started (he seemed to like admin, had even invented a new filing system)and I carried on.  Think I gave 10 administrators to a minister.  People think Scottish lawyers are bad, imagine a host of Moldavian administrators!

Fair enough. I suppose I can see where you are coming from. I have, of course, played smaller positions - the Papacy is not exactly awash with recruits - but I took the view that to build an academy and pay upkeep to train very small numbers of recruits simply wasn't worth it. I chose to wait until I have at least a few hundred to do at a time. That said I have trained smaller batches myself in G7, though never as low as 38. One of the advantages of smaller countries with smaller populations is that you can do some of the more interesting things like priests/doctors/lawyers in one go whereas it is prohibitive for larger countries.

I might try allocating administrators to ministers if you really think it helps - might be a use for some of the not so hardened rebels who aren't fanatical Kentigerns/Orangists/Calvinists/etc. I had planned something similar to improve Naval Intelligence, just haven't decided quite how to do it.

I do actually have an efficient civil service staffed by 5,000 administrators (not me, but a previous player), and an admin academy, but have found absolutely no benefit - quite the opposite. My government running costs just keep increasing year on year, yet I thought administrators were supposed to reduce those costs. Neither have I found that employing administrators actually helps my orders to be processed. I don't think the historical King James would have anything particularly against administrators (unlike lawyers), so perhaps there is something I have to order to get some benefit from them?

A few questions

As I'm thinking about how I would like England to be in the first period of peace it has known in 11 years, I have been going through every entry on my asset list and tidying things up. It is amazing how some quite basic observations/questions occur which I've never really thought about before, but which others may know the answer to:

Thinking a bit more about Jason2's comment that he gave 10 administrators to each minister to improve their effectiveness which seemed to show some benefit, I have several academies which are not doing much (and as far as I can tell have never done anything). I'm sure they were set up for some reason by one of the 5 or 6 players who have tried England in G7 over the years, but not all of them fit into my vision of England going forward. Academies seem to work best the more specific they are to whichever research development you are aiming to make. One of them is an academy of science which is probably useless because it isn't specific enough. But I wonder if I used it to train 1,000 scientists and then assigned those scientists to other academies, whether this would give a boost to research in the same way as Jason2's administrators improved the performance of his ministers?

2nd question: does anyone know what the benefit of a clock tower is? Most buildings seem to have a benefit, even if it isn't obvious, but I'm really struggling to see the use of a clock tower. Officers have watches, ships have bells which are rung regularly to tell the time. So other than as a talking point or tourist attraction, do they help people to get back from lunch on time or have any practical benefit which improves the running of a city?

3rd question: I'm a bit curious about the benefits of an arsenal - I realise this may make hardened wargamers wince, but from what I can establish it is only of use if you want to make a specialist weapon or a standardised musket and then to get enough of them made within a reasonable timescale seems to require several of them. I seem to have captured quite a few of them and since I don't really have any interest in fancy weapons am I missing another use for arsenals which could justify keeping them open?

4th question: when is a warehouse not a warehouse? In the old rules a warehouse was not mentioned as a specific building, but I used to build them to rent to merchants using a port and therefore boost returns from trade. Whether this ever worked or not I can't be sure. But in the new rules (page13) "the names 'rice storehouse' and 'warehouse' are synonymous with 'granary'." So it is possible I have granaries all over the place but am being charged upkeep on them because they were originally built as warehouses.

5th question: town houses. In the buildings section of the new rules it states that they cost £1,000 or £2,000 in a better part of town, or £5,000 if they class as a manor house. But in all cases they also appear to attract the standard £10,000/year in upkeep which is surely an anomaly since otherwise it would be cheaper to shut them down every March and build new ones after the upkeep round. Or am I missing something again? Was there originally a sentence which said that if a building cost less than £10,000 then its upkeep was equal to its original cost?

J Flower wrote:Personally I blame the Russian Tourist board, not only did they supply the French with dodgy " Here be Dragons" Cartography items. Russian tourists also nicked all the pencils from the Flanders customs posts to do the "Multi guess tour quiz of Ghent" First prize a years supply of vodka & all the caviar you can eat.

So, yes, yes we did it, but will someone just please explain what we have done.

Oh, yes we did over the French treasury as well this month.

Started a Rebellion in Hungary

Misdirected people in North west England

Upset the Grand Vizier of the Ottomans.

Had a wee in the king of Frances wine

Stole the Mascot form the Jamaica Regiment while everyone was looking for who ever shot the Colonel,( it was just a distraction  to get the goat! )

So please place all the blame on Russia it was us we did it we own up we are guilty, In fact we were born guilty.

Since the Russians have owned up to being responsible for a) Starting rebellion in Hungary & b) The French "invasion" of Flanders can you fully put the Hapsburgs out of their bafflement and also own up to c) Getting the Flanders custom's service so drunk on free samples of Russian rot gut Vodka that they were off sick for the four days the French were crossing the border and not paying any tax d) Getting the English envoy to France ghastly drunk and getting him to call a totally harmless Hapsburg envoy a Harlot and e) Being responsible for the death of thousands of Spanish and Dutch captives in Sweden!

Actually its this last one which leaves me really, really baffled. How did they get to Sweden in the first place? And why were the Swedes holding them captive?

Papa Clement wrote:A few questions

As I'm thinking about how I would like England to be in the first period of peace it has known in 11 years, I have been going through every entry on my asset list and tidying things up.  It is amazing how some quite basic observations/questions occur which I've never really thought about before, but which others may know the answer to:

Thinking a bit more about Jason2's comment that he gave 10 administrators to each minister to improve their effectiveness which seemed to show some benefit, I have several academies which are not doing much (and as far as I can tell have never done anything).  I'm sure they were set up for some reason by one of the 5 or 6 players who have tried England in G7 over the years, but not all of them fit into my vision of England going forward.  Academies seem to work best the more specific they are to whichever research development you are aiming to make.  One of them is an academy of science which is probably useless because it isn't specific enough.  But I wonder if I used it to train 1,000 scientists and then assigned those scientists to other academies, whether this would give a boost to research in the same way as Jason2's administrators improved the performance of his ministers?

2nd question: does anyone know what the benefit of a clock tower is?  Most buildings seem to have a benefit, even if it isn't obvious, but I'm really struggling to see the use of a clock tower.  Officers have watches, ships have bells which are rung regularly to tell the time.  So other than as a talking point or tourist attraction, do they help people to get back from lunch on time or have any practical benefit which improves the running of a city?

3rd question: I'm a bit curious about the benefits of an arsenal - I realise this may make hardened wargamers wince, but from what I can establish it is only of use if you want to make a specialist weapon or a standardised musket and then to get enough of them made within a reasonable timescale seems to require several of them.  I seem to have captured quite a few of them and since I don't really have any interest in fancy weapons am I missing another use for arsenals which could justify keeping them open?

4th question: when is a warehouse not a warehouse?  In the old rules a warehouse was not mentioned as a specific building, but I used to build them to rent to merchants using a port and therefore boost returns from trade.  Whether this ever worked or not I can't be sure.  But in the new rules (page13) "the names 'rice storehouse' and 'warehouse' are synonymous with 'granary'."  So it is possible I have granaries all over the place but am being charged upkeep on them because they were originally built as warehouses.

5th question: town houses.  In the buildings section of the new rules it states that they cost £1,000 or £2,000 in a better part of town, or £5,000 if they class as a manor house.  But in all cases they also appear to attract the standard £10,000/year in upkeep which is surely an anomaly since otherwise it would be cheaper to shut them down every March and build new ones after the upkeep round.  Or am I missing something again?  Was there originally a sentence which said that if a building cost less than £10,000 then its upkeep was equal to its original cost?

On 
Q1)  My personal take is I think it would work, in fact I am planning something similar in a couple of games, to add a small number of lawyers, doctors, vets, administrators to their relevant academy to help with teaching and research.  I'm viewing it like adding additional NCOs to an infantry battalion.  I am not expecting massive obvious improvements but see it as a bit of an experiment.
My only suggestion is, unless you've got a lot of academies, is 1,000 a bit OTT?  I am only planning on adding 10 to each academy.
I should also add I want to try out adding a small number of extra doctors (say 5) to a hospital and priests to a church/cathedral.

Q2)  It's interesting you asked this as there was an article on the BBC website today about clock towers and their relevance, both historically and now.  
I wonder if they are one of those things that in a small way boost your honour, by building one in a town? You'll know they were a matter of civic pride so could be a tool for in-games pride?
Even harder to prove, could they help with economic health in games in certain circumstances?  Ok, we know that with industrialisation and factories, the need to have your workforce turn up at a certain time becomes important and that leads to another reason to build clock towers.  I wonder if you are using factories in-game, could then having clock towers in some way aid your economic health as they mean your workers can see what the time is and go to work?  (unless someone has created knocker-uppers in a game?)

Q3) I guess if you aren't interested in unusual weapons, or improved versions of existing ones, then arsenals aren't much use.  I tend to use them as positions I'm playing often have quirky weapons that can only be made at an arsenal.
I just wonder though, as England, would it harm your position if you weren't at least developing a new flintlock and equipping your forces with it?  In my experience a new musket needs an arsenal.  I can imagine the English regiments getting a bit annoyed if they are lumbered with pre-1700 design of flintlocks when, say, they face the Spanished armed with a nice shiny new version that is longer ranged, more accurate, etc?

Q4) I had assumed the rule was referring to something in some games some people have opened rice"granaries" but called them warehouses, rather than suggesting that there were players using warehouses as granaries.

Q5) There are also chapels that cost less than £10K to build but cost £10K to maintain so (based on my expenditure of those) you don't get a price reduction on their upkeep.  I see the upkeep cost as a in-game admin "fix" to reduce the amount of admin Richard needs to do-a fixed price for an "institution" regardless of its cost to build/open-the alternative would be either a maintenance cost that's a percentage of raising costs or each institution has its own building cost and maintenance cost, both of which would be an admin nightmare.
i guess you could close each such institution in, say, March and reopen/rebuild it in May or June, but
that sounds like a lot of work, both for you and Richard in terms of orders and also cost for you in terms of extra orders
It could do damage to your honour or your economy.  Assuming the institutions are serving a purpose (official offices?  homes for a mistress?  ambassador's residence?) then in the closure period either the functions they perform wouldn't happen during the closure period, people homeless, etc.  Could annoy people, hit your honour, damage your economy?

Stuart Bailey wrote:

Actually its this last one which leaves me really, really baffled.  How did they get to Sweden in the first place?  And why were the Swedes holding them captive?

I have wondered on that.  My only thought is, did the Swedes do a humanitarian gesture,  maybe after hearing that someone had the prisoners but couldn't care for them?  So the Swedes took them on to look after them but it didn't work?

At the risk of being sanctioned for breaking the rules, I would first point to the opening of the newspaper report from Stockholm..."despite the best attentions of doctors and being well fed"

I can then confirm;
The "prisoners" were not Swedish prisoners. They had freedom of movement but their illness levels upon coming into Swedish care were SL 9 - 11 (yes you read the 11 correctly).

They were being cared for by hospital staff and a named doctor

They were being supported by grain supplies.

Unfortunately it has been a particularly harsh winter in Stockholm

count-de-monet wrote:At the risk of being sanctioned for breaking the rules, I would first point to the opening of the newspaper report from Stockholm..."despite the best attentions of doctors and being well fed"

I can then confirm;
The "prisoners" were not Swedish prisoners.  They had freedom of movement but their illness levels upon coming into Swedish care were SL 9 - 11 (yes you read the 11 correctly).

They were being cared for by hospital staff and a named doctor

They were being supported by grain supplies.

Unfortunately it has been a particularly harsh winter in Stockholm

I'm sure a bit of clarification isn't breaking the rules

But ouch, SL11, that is going to hurt

Any weapon designed by an Academy will need to be produced by an arsenal. That is anything that is not basic standard.

Thanks for your input Jason2 ... I’m splitting this in to 5 separate questions otherwise nobody will follow the answers.

Papa Clement wrote:Thinking a bit more about Jason2's comment that he gave 10 administrators to each minister to improve their effectiveness which seemed to show some benefit, I have several academies which are not doing much (and as far as I can tell have never done anything). I'm sure they were set up for some reason by one of the 5 or 6 players who have tried England in G7 over the years, but not all of them fit into my vision of England going forward. Academies seem to work best the more specific they are to whichever research development you are aiming to make. One of them is an academy of science which is probably useless because it isn't specific enough. But I wonder if I used it to train 1,000 scientists and then assigned those scientists to other academies, whether this would give a boost to research in the same way as Jason2's administrators improved the performance of his ministers?

Jason2 wrote:Q1) My personal take is I think it would work, in fact I am planning something similar in a couple of games, to add a small number of lawyers, doctors, vets, administrators to their relevant academy to help with teaching and research. I'm viewing it like adding additional NCOs to an infantry battalion. I am not expecting massive obvious improvements but see it as a bit of an experiment.
My only suggestion is, unless you've got a lot of academies, is 1,000 a bit OTT? I am only planning on adding 10 to each academy.
I should also add I want to try out adding a small number of extra doctors (say 5) to a hospital and priests to a church/cathedral.

I do have a lot of academies. Actually one of the reasons for going through the list is that it really is frighteningly bloated - upkeep on buildings (which includes academies) has now topped £2M which even I have to admit is rather too much clutter. I should stress that the way it breaks down does make sense - there are a lot of cathedrals, hospitals, trade-related buildings, etc, and a lot of towns (England+Ireland+Scotland+colonies) so if you think of developments that are useful to say the top 20 towns in England by population, the top 5 towns in Scotland, top 5 towns in Ireland, that's already 30 towns. If each has a cathedral, hospital and trade building then that's already 90. Add in important colonies (yes England does still have some), then that's around 3 more/colony which brings the total up to about 120. The academies are additional to this, as are various other buildings.

Don't forget I'm also due to get a lot of recruits back from the Treaty of Amsterdam. It might not be the full 140,000 I have calculated I am due, but it will certainly be tens of thousands. There would be no point in using them all to build a huge army/navy, so most of them need to be found something to do. Yes I could invest in trade (and that was my original intention), but neither do I want to waste them, so if I can use some in academies which will actually have a benefit then that is something I am trying to plan. And if I can fund it by shutting down surplus buildings then even better.

So I will be training some doctors, administrators for a year and adding some to help ministers/buildings/academies. Just don't want to go overboard, and of course I draw the line at training lawyers!

Papa Clement wrote:
2nd question: does anyone know what the benefit of a clock tower is? Most buildings seem to have a benefit, even if it isn't obvious, but I'm really struggling to see the use of a clock tower. Officers have watches, ships have bells which are rung regularly to tell the time. So other than as a talking point or tourist attraction, do they help people to get back from lunch on time or have any practical benefit which improves the running of a city?

Jason2 wrote:Q2) It's interesting you asked this as there was an article on the BBC website today about clock towers and their relevance, both historically and now.
I wonder if they are one of those things that in a small way boost your honour, by building one in a town? You'll know they were a matter of civic pride so could be a tool for in-games pride?
Even harder to prove, could they help with economic health in games in certain circumstances? Ok, we know that with industrialisation and factories, the need to have your workforce turn up at a certain time becomes important and that leads to another reason to build clock towers. I wonder if you are using factories in-game, could then having clock towers in some way aid your economic health as they mean your workers can see what the time is and go to work? (unless someone has created knocker-uppers in a game?)

That is spooky ... the BBC reading my mind? I have now read their take on it, but your suggestions were more useful. They tended to focus more on the Victorian aspects, and yes I can see that with railways time became much more important (I think it was less to do with factories than railways). As far as I know there are no factories in the game sense being used. According to the rules if you go over to factories then you lose a lot of existing trade investments and basically have to start again which would be horrendously expensive. Wouldn't lamp lighters act as 'knocker-uppers'? Anyway it sounds like the only use for clock towers is as a kind of tourist attraction. I only have 2 of them so will probably leave them there - just couldn't understand why someone would build them. I quite like the idea of building one as a reward once a town reaches a certain population size to try and capitalise on the civic pride angle. But even if I limited it to towns with a population over 40,000 it would still mean building quite a few more. The thing with buildings is that once they are built, the upkeep just keeps piling up year after year and what seemed like an interesting experiment suddenly becomes a serious cash drain.

Papa Clement wrote:
3rd question: I'm a bit curious about the benefits of an arsenal - I realise this may make hardened wargamers wince, but from what I can establish it is only of use if you want to make a specialist weapon or a standardised musket and then to get enough of them made within a reasonable timescale seems to require several of them. I seem to have captured quite a few of them and since I don't really have any interest in fancy weapons am I missing another use for arsenals which could justify keeping them open?

Jason2 wrote:Q3) I guess if you aren't interested in unusual weapons, or improved versions of existing ones, then arsenals aren't much use. I tend to use them as positions I'm playing often have quirky weapons that can only be made at an arsenal.
I just wonder though, as England, would it harm your position if you weren't at least developing a new flintlock and equipping your forces with it? In my experience a new musket needs an arsenal. I can imagine the English regiments getting a bit annoyed if they are lumbered with pre-1700 design of flintlocks when, say, they face the Spanish armed with a nice shiny new version that is longer ranged, more accurate, etc?

It wouldn't harm the position to develop a new musket - I could have them all dyed red to go with their red coats, or get them matched to the same colour as their facings which would look incredibly smart? But it would cost an awful lot to equip my army with a new musket, and if I could only build them in batches of 700/month I would need huge numbers of arsenals to equip my infantry with colour co-ordinated weapons.

Over the years I have captured various newfangled muskets and do have quite a few batches in storage, along with special backpacks and other enhancements I would never have thought of researching. There was no evidence that they really made a great deal of difference on the battlefield - well, they couldn't if the units involved were captured by my forces, could they? Arsenals don't research improvements only manufacture them, so I would need dedicated academies each researching a specific aspect of muskets and those developments (if I managed to get them) would then need to work together to produce a musket which had considerably better impact on the battlefield. I'm sure it is possible, but unlikely I would be able to develop one before I get attacked again, let alone manufacture and distribute it. Of course the easy way around this is to go to war with a nation which has the best muskets, capture some and then reverse engineer them to get the improvement, so that solves that bit. However, the logistics of issuing a new musket to garrisons in different towns is horrendous - moving muskets requires grain, plus the orders at the other end to assign them to units. By the time I've done I would be submitting pages of orders and using up thousands of tons of grain to just give my men a shiny new colour-co-ordinated fire stick. I just can't justify the hassle.

Thanks Ardagor for your input - UDP/Spain do use fancy muskets so that probably explains why they built arsenals in towns they had occupied. Still think that it would be very complicated to start building and distributing new muskets to all existing units in the English army so I can probably do without arsenals.

Papa Clement wrote:
4th question: when is a warehouse not a warehouse? In the old rules a warehouse was not mentioned as a specific building, but I used to build them to rent to merchants using a port and therefore boost returns from trade. Whether this ever worked or not I can't be sure. But in the new rules (page13) "the names 'rice storehouse' and 'warehouse' are synonymous with 'granary'." So it is possible I have granaries all over the place but am being charged upkeep on them because they were originally built as warehouses.

Jason2 wrote:Q4) I had assumed the rule was referring to something in some games some people have opened rice"granaries" but called them warehouses, rather than suggesting that there were players using warehouses as granaries.

I have one warehouse which is stated as being "for storage of goods" so that might be serving its purpose to boost trade, but the others? Perhaps it is more my wondering whether building a port includes warehouses so a warehouse on its own isn't going to do much more.

Papa Clement wrote:
5th question: town houses. In the buildings section of the new rules it states that they cost £1,000 or £2,000 in a better part of town, or £5,000 if they class as a manor house. But in all cases they also appear to attract the standard £10,000/year in upkeep which is surely an anomaly since otherwise it would be cheaper to shut them down every March and build new ones after the upkeep round. Or am I missing something again? Was there originally a sentence which said that if a building cost less than £10,000 then its upkeep was equal to its original cost?

Jason2 wrote:Q5) There are also chapels that cost less than £10K to build but cost £10K to maintain so (based on my expenditure of those) you don't get a price reduction on their upkeep. I see the upkeep cost as a in-game admin "fix" to reduce the amount of admin Richard needs to do-a fixed price for an "institution" regardless of its cost to build/open-the alternative would be either a maintenance cost that's a percentage of raising costs or each institution has its own building cost and maintenance cost, both of which would be an admin nightmare. I guess you could close each such institution in, say, March and reopen/rebuild it in May or June, but that sounds like a lot of work, both for you and Richard in terms of orders and also cost for you in terms of extra orders
It could do damage to your honour or your economy. Assuming the institutions are serving a purpose (official offices? homes for a mistress? ambassador's residence?) then in the closure period either the functions they perform wouldn't happen during the closure period, people homeless, etc. Could annoy people, hit your honour, damage your economy?

I accept it is an administrative nightmare to close then open buildings again, but in that case perhaps the workaround is to pay a salary to the person and require them to live in an official residence which they pay for. That would save the upkeep. Bit petty perhaps, but it would be simpler?

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
3rd question: I'm a bit curious about the benefits of an arsenal - I realise this may make hardened wargamers wince, but from what I can establish it is only of use if you want to make a specialist weapon or a standardised musket and then to get enough of them made within a reasonable timescale seems to require several of them.  I seem to have captured quite a few of them and since I don't really have any interest in fancy weapons am I missing another use for arsenals which could justify keeping them open?

Jason2 wrote:Q3) I guess if you aren't interested in unusual weapons, or improved versions of existing ones, then arsenals aren't much use.  I tend to use them as positions I'm playing often have quirky weapons that can only be made at an arsenal.
I just wonder though, as England, would it harm your position if you weren't at least developing a new flintlock and equipping your forces with it?  In my experience a new musket needs an arsenal.  I can imagine the English regiments getting a bit annoyed if they are lumbered with pre-1700 design of flintlocks when, say, they face the Spanish armed with a nice shiny new version that is longer ranged, more accurate, etc?

It wouldn't harm the position to develop a new musket - I could have them all dyed red to go with their red coats, or get them matched to the same colour as their facings which would look incredibly smart?  But it would cost an awful lot to equip my army with a new musket, and if I could only build them in batches of 700/month I would need huge numbers of arsenals to equip my infantry with colour co-ordinated weapons.

Over the years I have captured various newfangled muskets and do have quite a few batches in storage, along with special backpacks and other enhancements I would never have thought of researching.  There was no evidence that they really made a great deal of difference on the battlefield - well, they couldn't if the units involved were captured by my forces, could they?  Arsenals don't research improvements only manufacture them, so I would need dedicated academies each researching a specific aspect of muskets and those developments (if I managed to get them) would then need to work together to produce a musket which had considerably better impact on the battlefield.  I'm sure it is possible, but unlikely I would be able to develop one before I get attacked again, let alone manufacture and distribute it.  Of course the easy way around this is to go to war with a nation which has the best muskets, capture some and then reverse engineer them to get the improvement, so that solves that bit.  However, the logistics of issuing a new musket to garrisons in different towns is horrendous - moving muskets requires grain, plus the orders at the other end to assign them to units.  By the time I've done I would be submitting pages of orders and using up thousands of tons of grain to just give my men a shiny new colour-co-ordinated fire stick.  I just can't justify the hassle.

With new designs of muskets, in my experience there is no limit to the amount an arsenal can produce.  So you could send 1,000 battalions to a place with an arsenal and in a month have them all equipped with the new musket. Same applies to artillery. Not the case in all weapons of course, for example, a Chinese arsenal can only produce one batch of repeating crossbows at a time.

I don't think you would need lots of academies doing research.  I tend to just have one, give it a general "research better musket, with more range and greater accuracy" and that is it.  I tend to find you get quicker results with  focus on one aspect (range?) and then do more research on that design with another aspect (accuracy) but the time scales aren't that long

it's always going to be one of those ones of personal preference and experience-do you feel there is enough advantage to an improved musket to make it worthwhile it perusing?  Not really a right or wrong answer...just work on the basis whichever approach you take, it will go wrong

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
5th question: town houses.  In the buildings section of the new rules it states that they cost £1,000 or £2,000 in a better part of town, or £5,000 if they class as a manor house.  But in all cases they also appear to attract the standard £10,000/year in upkeep which is surely an anomaly since otherwise it would be cheaper to shut them down every March and build new ones after the upkeep round.  Or am I missing something again?  Was there originally a sentence which said that if a building cost less than £10,000 then its upkeep was equal to its original cost?

Jason2 wrote:Q5) There are also chapels that cost less than £10K to build but cost £10K to maintain so (based on my expenditure of those) you don't get a price reduction on their upkeep.  I see the upkeep cost as a in-game admin "fix" to reduce the amount of admin Richard needs to do-a fixed price for an "institution" regardless of its cost to build/open-the alternative would be either a maintenance cost that's a percentage of raising costs or each institution has its own building cost and maintenance cost, both of which would be an admin nightmare.  I guess you could close each such institution in, say, March and reopen/rebuild it in May or June, but that sounds like a lot of work, both for you and Richard in terms of orders and also cost for you in terms of extra orders
It could do damage to your honour or your economy.  Assuming the institutions are serving a purpose (official offices?  homes for a mistress?  ambassador's residence?) then in the closure period either the functions they perform wouldn't happen during the closure period, people homeless, etc.  Could annoy people, hit your honour, damage your economy?

I accept it is an administrative nightmare to close then open buildings again, but in that case perhaps the workaround is to pay a salary to the person and require them to live in an official residence which they pay for.  That would save the upkeep.  Bit petty perhaps, but it would be simpler?

That would make sense...in any game but G7...which as we all know is the game where if something can go wrong, it will go wrong...big time!

But seriously, it is a sensible way forward.  The only downsides I can see are if Richard decides the character decides instead to spend the money on the gaming tables or ladies of negotiable affection instead of the rent...or is it a negative to your honour, is giving someone a bigger salary seen as "vulgar" compared to a smaller salary but also a house?

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
2nd question: does anyone know what the benefit of a clock tower is?  Most buildings seem to have a benefit, even if it isn't obvious, but I'm really struggling to see the use of a clock tower.  Officers have watches, ships have bells which are rung regularly to tell the time.  So other than as a talking point or tourist attraction, do they help people to get back from lunch on time or have any practical benefit which improves the running of a city?

Jason2 wrote:Q2)  It's interesting you asked this as there was an article on the BBC website today about clock towers and their relevance, both historically and now.  
I wonder if they are one of those things that in a small way boost your honour, by building one in a town? You'll know they were a matter of civic pride so could be a tool for in-games pride?
Even harder to prove, could they help with economic health in games in certain circumstances?  Ok, we know that with industrialisation and factories, the need to have your workforce turn up at a certain time becomes important and that leads to another reason to build clock towers.  I wonder if you are using factories in-game, could then having clock towers in some way aid your economic health as they mean your workers can see what the time is and go to work?  (unless someone has created knocker-uppers in a game?)

That is spooky ... the BBC reading my mind?  I have now read their take on it, but your suggestions were more useful.  They tended to focus more on the Victorian aspects, and yes I can see that with railways time became much more important (I think it was less to do with factories than railways).  As far as I know there are no factories in the game sense being used.  According to the rules if you go over to factories then you lose a lot of existing trade investments and basically have to start again which would be horrendously expensive.  Wouldn't lamp lighters act as 'knocker-uppers'?  Anyway it sounds like the only use for clock towers is as a kind of tourist attraction.  I only have 2 of them so will probably leave them there - just couldn't understand why someone would build them.  I quite like the idea of building one as a reward once a town reaches a certain population size to try and capitalise on the civic pride angle.  But even if I limited it to towns with a population over 40,000 it would still mean building quite a few more.  The thing with buildings is that once they are built, the upkeep just keeps piling up year after year and what seemed like an interesting experiment suddenly becomes a serious cash drain.

Oddly, historically, knocker-uppers were very distinct to lamplighters, records don't suggest a crossover.  I have seen some references to knockeruppers being also porters at London markets, so doing the knocking-up on the way home from a hard nights work

I guess it depends on income levels, can you justify clock towers?  Playing Scotland, my answer would be "no", but Hanover (or the Hanseatic League), "maybe" to "yes"

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
4th question: when is a warehouse not a warehouse?  In the old rules a warehouse was not mentioned as a specific building, but I used to build them to rent to merchants using a port and therefore boost returns from trade.  Whether this ever worked or not I can't be sure.  But in the new rules (page13) "the names 'rice storehouse' and 'warehouse' are synonymous with 'granary'."  So it is possible I have granaries all over the place but am being charged upkeep on them because they were originally built as warehouses.

Jason2 wrote:Q4) I had assumed the rule was referring to something in some games some people have opened rice"granaries" but called them warehouses, rather than suggesting that there were players using warehouses as granaries.

I have one warehouse which is stated as being "for storage of goods" so that might be serving its purpose to boost trade, but the others?  Perhaps it is more my wondering whether building a port includes warehouses so a warehouse on its own isn't going to do much more.

I've always considered the port to be separate to warehouses but then I used to worked at the Museum of London Docklands, which was in the first properly designed bonded warehouses associated with a port facility in London.  Before they built those warehouses in what we now call "Docklands" storage facilities were a bit basic, often not more than "pile it up here and pay someone to keep an eye on it "

Jason2 wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
3rd question: I'm a bit curious about the benefits of an arsenal - I realise this may make hardened wargamers wince, but from what I can establish it is only of use if you want to make a specialist weapon or a standardised musket and then to get enough of them made within a reasonable timescale seems to require several of them.  I seem to have captured quite a few of them and since I don't really have any interest in fancy weapons am I missing another use for arsenals which could justify keeping them open?

Jason2 wrote:Q3) I guess if you aren't interested in unusual weapons, or improved versions of existing ones, then arsenals aren't much use.  I tend to use them as positions I'm playing often have quirky weapons that can only be made at an arsenal.
I just wonder though, as England, would it harm your position if you weren't at least developing a new flintlock and equipping your forces with it?  In my experience a new musket needs an arsenal.  I can imagine the English regiments getting a bit annoyed if they are lumbered with pre-1700 design of flintlocks when, say, they face the Spanish armed with a nice shiny new version that is longer ranged, more accurate, etc?

It wouldn't harm the position to develop a new musket - I could have them all dyed red to go with their red coats, or get them matched to the same colour as their facings which would look incredibly smart?  But it would cost an awful lot to equip my army with a new musket, and if I could only build them in batches of 700/month I would need huge numbers of arsenals to equip my infantry with colour co-ordinated weapons.

Over the years I have captured various newfangled muskets and do have quite a few batches in storage, along with special backpacks and other enhancements I would never have thought of researching.  There was no evidence that they really made a great deal of difference on the battlefield - well, they couldn't if the units involved were captured by my forces, could they?  Arsenals don't research improvements only manufacture them, so I would need dedicated academies each researching a specific aspect of muskets and those developments (if I managed to get them) would then need to work together to produce a musket which had considerably better impact on the battlefield.  I'm sure it is possible, but unlikely I would be able to develop one before I get attacked again, let alone manufacture and distribute it.  Of course the easy way around this is to go to war with a nation which has the best muskets, capture some and then reverse engineer them to get the improvement, so that solves that bit.  However, the logistics of issuing a new musket to garrisons in different towns is horrendous - moving muskets requires grain, plus the orders at the other end to assign them to units.  By the time I've done I would be submitting pages of orders and using up thousands of tons of grain to just give my men a shiny new colour-co-ordinated fire stick.  I just can't justify the hassle.

With new designs of muskets, in my experience there is no limit to the amount an arsenal can produce.  So you could send 1,000 battalions to a place with an arsenal and in a month have them all equipped with the new musket. Same applies to artillery. Not the case in all weapons of course, for example, a Chinese arsenal can only produce one batch of repeating crossbows at a time.

I don't think you would need lots of academies doing research.  I tend to just have one, give it a general "research better musket, with more range and greater accuracy" and that is it.  I tend to find you get quicker results with  focus on one aspect (range?) and then do more research on that design with another aspect (accuracy) but the time scales aren't that long.

it's always going to be one of those ones of personal preference and experience-do you feel there is enough advantage to an improved musket to make it worthwhile it perusing?  Not really a right or wrong answer...just work on the basis whichever approach you take, it will go wrong

Moving thousands of battalions to a single arsenal only to move them back again would mean double the amount of grain was used. The only way I can see it working is if you are building a large army from scratch in a single place which isn't really what I trying to do. Interesting, though, that arsenals can produce any number of muskets/artillery. Makes it even more odd that so many captured towns should have arsenals in them. You can tell that this kind of thing is not something which was high on my list of priorities and despite having played the game for a long time, I've never really tried.

Having checked the list of academies I don't actually have one which could do general musket research - those I have built are too specific and those previous players have built are too general! I can see the advantage of having a standardised musket though and that might not take long to develop if it is just a case of specifying it. And it may be that an arsenal isn't required to build a standard musket in which case it would be available at army camps so distribution wouldn't be a problem. I'll give it a bit more thought. I think perhaps some of it could just be cost/benefit - when I read pages of potential improvements in the rules, but the time you add up the cost of making each improvement you have a musket costing £5,000+/batch; add in uniforms and enhancements and you can easily reach a raising cost of double the basic. Also I had a bad experience of Highlanders refusing to use muskets at all, preferring to charge at the enemy and being shot to bits. Not entirely convinced that researching an improved claymore would have changed the result!

My experience of 'improvements' is very mixed and has varied between positions played. England seems really good at naval improvements, but many of the other improvements I've been researching seem to have shown no results for years. I'll admit I haven't tried to research any form of improved musket, but I do find it odd that I can get naval breakthroughs in gunnery, but not in army artillery. And I thought that historically war did act as a stimulus for the development of new weapons so should theoretically mean innovations come more easily if you have been at war for a long period?

Jason2 wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
5th question: town houses.  In the buildings section of the new rules it states that they cost £1,000 or £2,000 in a better part of town, or £5,000 if they class as a manor house.  But in all cases they also appear to attract the standard £10,000/year in upkeep which is surely an anomaly since otherwise it would be cheaper to shut them down every March and build new ones after the upkeep round.  Or am I missing something again?  Was there originally a sentence which said that if a building cost less than £10,000 then its upkeep was equal to its original cost?

Jason2 wrote:Q5) There are also chapels that cost less than £10K to build but cost £10K to maintain so (based on my expenditure of those) you don't get a price reduction on their upkeep.  I see the upkeep cost as a in-game admin "fix" to reduce the amount of admin Richard needs to do-a fixed price for an "institution" regardless of its cost to build/open-the alternative would be either a maintenance cost that's a percentage of raising costs or each institution has its own building cost and maintenance cost, both of which would be an admin nightmare.  I guess you could close each such institution in, say, March and reopen/rebuild it in May or June, but that sounds like a lot of work, both for you and Richard in terms of orders and also cost for you in terms of extra orders
It could do damage to your honour or your economy.  Assuming the institutions are serving a purpose (official offices?  homes for a mistress?  ambassador's residence?) then in the closure period either the functions they perform wouldn't happen during the closure period, people homeless, etc.  Could annoy people, hit your honour, damage your economy?

I accept it is an administrative nightmare to close then open buildings again, but in that case perhaps the workaround is to pay a salary to the person and require them to live in an official residence which they pay for.  That would save the upkeep.  Bit petty perhaps, but it would be simpler?

That would make sense...in any game but G7...which as we all know is the game where if something can go wrong, it will go wrong...big time!

But seriously, it is a sensible way forward.  The only downsides I can see are if Richard decides the character decides instead to spend the money on the gaming tables or ladies of negotiable affection instead of the rent...or is it a negative to your honour, is giving someone a bigger salary seen as "vulgar" compared to a smaller salary but also a house?

Hmmm ... yes, but you forget Jacobites are used to things going wrong, though somehow things seem to turn out right in the end.

The main use for townhouses that I have (and intended to do more of) is for Port Admirals. This was a kind of incentive or compensation for them not having a sea command. Also I had a number of inherited officers who couldn't necessarily be trusted with an independent fleet command. So if they messed up or failed to follow orders then I could assign them as a Port Admiral. It also made sense because of the importance of on shore services to the functioning of the navy. Of course in the usual G7 way, the original idea hasn't been implemented quite to plan, but with the war over, I am going to have to adjust command structures and may well end up with more senior officers than I need. The historical way of dealing with it was to place them on what was effectively an inactive register by 'promoting' them to 'rear admiral without distinction of squadron' and referring to them as 'admiral of the yellow' which always makes me cringe so I didn't want to introduce that in game. Also although a previous player had tried to recreate the red/white/blue distinctions, this really wasn't practical with the size of fleets I was facing. So I had to change that to a more geographically based structure.

A compromise could be to give him the townhouse now it is built (then pay him a salary so he can maintain and live in it). The building would drop off the upkeep list, but would still be there? And as a serving officer if he did something to bring the service into disrepute then he would be fired and lose the house anyway.

Jason2 wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
2nd question: does anyone know what the benefit of a clock tower is?  Most buildings seem to have a benefit, even if it isn't obvious, but I'm really struggling to see the use of a clock tower.  Officers have watches, ships have bells which are rung regularly to tell the time.  So other than as a talking point or tourist attraction, do they help people to get back from lunch on time or have any practical benefit which improves the running of a city?

Jason2 wrote:Q2)  It's interesting you asked this as there was an article on the BBC website today about clock towers and their relevance, both historically and now.  
I wonder if they are one of those things that in a small way boost your honour, by building one in a town? You'll know they were a matter of civic pride so could be a tool for in-games pride?
Even harder to prove, could they help with economic health in games in certain circumstances?  Ok, we know that with industrialisation and factories, the need to have your workforce turn up at a certain time becomes important and that leads to another reason to build clock towers.  I wonder if you are using factories in-game, could then having clock towers in some way aid your economic health as they mean your workers can see what the time is and go to work?  (unless someone has created knocker-uppers in a game?)

That is spooky ... the BBC reading my mind?  I have now read their take on it, but your suggestions were more useful.  They tended to focus more on the Victorian aspects, and yes I can see that with railways time became much more important (I think it was less to do with factories than railways).  As far as I know there are no factories in the game sense being used.  According to the rules if you go over to factories then you lose a lot of existing trade investments and basically have to start again which would be horrendously expensive.  Wouldn't lamp lighters act as 'knocker-uppers'?  Anyway it sounds like the only use for clock towers is as a kind of tourist attraction.  I only have 2 of them so will probably leave them there - just couldn't understand why someone would build them.  I quite like the idea of building one as a reward once a town reaches a certain population size to try and capitalise on the civic pride angle.  But even if I limited it to towns with a population over 40,000 it would still mean building quite a few more.  The thing with buildings is that once they are built, the upkeep just keeps piling up year after year and what seemed like an interesting experiment suddenly becomes a serious cash drain.

Oddly, historically, knocker-uppers were very distinct to lamplighters, records don't suggest a crossover.  I have seen some references to knockeruppers being also porters at London markets, so doing the knocking-up on the way home from a hard nights work

I guess it depends on income levels, can you justify clock towers?  Playing Scotland, my answer would be "no", but Hanover (or the Hanseatic League), "maybe" to "yes"

I can justify the one-off cost for building clock towers (even though at £30K they seem a bit high) and even the ongoing upkeep if I could see a clear benefit arising. It is the transparency which I am struggling with. If (by accident or design) I am doing something which is beneficial, then I would quite like to do more of it. But if I'm doing something which isn't working then I may as well stop doing it and use the money saved elsewhere. I suppose it is a common problem for players taking on a position which has been played before, but taken to extremis with England in G7 which I think has had at least 5, possibly 6 different players before me, many of whom have made changes I still don't know about. Ask advisors only goes so far, especially when many of the characters who introduced the changes are no longer around. Longer term as trade recovers with peace, England's income levels should shoot up - last year I did manage a small budget surplus despite heavy war expenses, but the elephant in the room is that in a few years I want to have saved enough to buy back the lease on America. So it is not going to be easy to generate that scale of surplus in the time available. If I can cut expenditure by reducing spending on unnecessary buildings by £1M/year for the next 4 years then that's £4M I don't need to find through trade.

I can see how you could want to build a clock tower in every Hanseatic League town as a symbol of membership of the League. And of course as a trading league it might aid commerce (turning up on time for meetings, or 'meeting under the clock'?)

Jason2 wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:

Papa Clement wrote:
4th question: when is a warehouse not a warehouse?  In the old rules a warehouse was not mentioned as a specific building, but I used to build them to rent to merchants using a port and therefore boost returns from trade.  Whether this ever worked or not I can't be sure.  But in the new rules (page13) "the names 'rice storehouse' and 'warehouse' are synonymous with 'granary'."  So it is possible I have granaries all over the place but am being charged upkeep on them because they were originally built as warehouses.

Jason2 wrote:Q4) I had assumed the rule was referring to something in some games some people have opened rice"granaries" but called them warehouses, rather than suggesting that there were players using warehouses as granaries.

I have one warehouse which is stated as being "for storage of goods" so that might be serving its purpose to boost trade, but the others?  Perhaps it is more my wondering whether building a port includes warehouses so a warehouse on its own isn't going to do much more.

I've always considered the port to be separate to warehouses but then I used to worked at the Museum of London Docklands, which was in the first properly designed bonded warehouses associated with a port facility in London.  Before they built those warehouses in what we now call "Docklands" storage facilities were a bit basic, often not more than "pile it up here and pay someone to keep an eye on it "

Yes, that was my original understanding which is why I was surprised when I checked the description in the rules. Also I seem to think in the Onedin Line they were always looking for warehouses, which I suppose makes sense. If the ports become more efficient in terms of loading/unloading so ships can be turned around more quickly then they must have somewhere to pick the goods up from and store them. So warehouses should become more profitable as trade increases. That was the idea of building warehouses - to reduce bottlenecks and make trade more efficient and profitable.

It is probably similar to other trade buildings in that you never really know how positive the effect is on trade returns. Trade missions/fairs are supposed to help, but perhaps to get the benefit there has to be a lot of trade going through a particular place to start with. Or you have to make a sizeable trade investment specifically with that country/town. Covered/great markets should also help, but again how do you quantify the benefit? I am beginning to wonder whether they are really only worth building in the largest towns and work a bit like ports. Every coastal town is assumed to have a port already, so building a new port is a development of that port and allows it to handle a larger volume of trade. But to get the benefit you have to have a larger volume of trade going through that port. Otherwise you are just paying out for a benefit you are not getting. In the past I had thought that building a port would encourage trade, but now I'm questioning that approach. English trade is at rather low levels after 11 years of war, so presumably existing ports have plenty of spare capacity. Trade should bounce back very strongly without much of a push from me. But of course England's geography means that as an island all trade with foreigners is by sea so a good network of ports would appear to be a requirement for trade.

Jason & Papa Clement,

have been following your open discussion on the thread for last couple of days, it's been really good to see the questions & points raised & talked through.
Certainly put a few new ideas into my direction, Thanks due to the pair of you.

Jason-glad you've found the discussion/ramblings interesting

Papa-I can understand your feelings and experience on improvements.  Mine is equally mixed.  As to arsenals, I think it's a case that as long as the weapon is reasonably "generic" (and even an improved version of the flintlock or artillery is still "generic" to a given degree) then they seem to be able to produce very large numbers.  I guess it's a bit like shipyards, there is no limit on the number of ships they can build at once (in theory you could order 100 SoLs in one go at one).  As the weapon gets more specialised then limits come into play.  
I think the reason for you finding lots of arsenals is that while one arsenal can produce as many weapons as possible, if you are trying to replace (say) lost weapons in a war, it might help to have a lot scattered around the country.  However from the way you play the wars, it does seem you don't really need them.  Another aspect could be, did the captured ones belong to a very rich nation?  When Hanover in G2, had so much money I couldn't spend it fast enough, I was opening arsenals in every town simply to use up the money.  When your economy is at 10, income from trade is three times your expenditure (even after doing away with all taxes), you can afford to waste money   Now if only I could have another position like that...

Given your other needs, it doesn't seem clock towers are a priority for you.  I suspect they tie in with your thoughts on warehouses, there might be a benefit but how can we measure it?  it all depends how much faith we put in our advisors and ministers, but perhaps we need to ask our trade ministers/advisers for a summary of the current trade situation and whether there is a demand for warehouses?  It's only a thought that has occured to me typing this but we might get back a report saying "merchants are paying high premiums to use the few warehouses there are" or "most warehouses are standing empty"