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

If you can get grain stores, you can use extra grain annually to up birth rates. I think, in general, this is far easier than trying to get your medical infrastructure up to the level that it increases birth rates. Never mind that all of those people have to go through training too, so the academy cost would be prohibitive for most.

If I were you, I'd ask about what kind of value you could extract from existing hospitals, but I'd mostly expect to shut them down. They likely aren't worth the continued costs.

I've not tried night soil men, but my general opinion has been that they are too costly for the benefit. You can get improved harvests by doing irrigation and researching hardy grain without spending any recruits.

I've not had a disease outbreak in any of my positions, so maybe I've just been lucky.

Thanks Deacon - part of the thinking on hospitals is that since they are already built, if I only have to keep them open for another year (or possibly 2) to train lots of doctors, then I can shut them down after that.  Longer term I agree that the continued costs of buildings (especially if there are large numbers) tends to be not worth it.  When I looked at other buildings like academies I tried to operate a 5 year rule - if they would do something that was likely to be useful within 5 years then I would keep them otherwise shut them down (5 years upkeep being the same cost as building a new one).  In many instances I found that I had already researched all the improvements a particular academy could make that I thought were useful to me (I could keep researching lots of things that weren't since England is a bit behind on R&D), so they were easy decisions to close them.  But with hospitals and similar buildings I do wonder what the benefit is or whether it could be achieved in a different way.

Getting grain is more difficult.  In G7 England has been trampled upon by foreign armies that deliberately wrecked infrastructure, burned farms, stole cattle and grain, etc.  They also recruited or otherwise moved large numbers of civilians off productive agricultural land, in one case the entire population of a town was forcibly removed!  Foreign armies destroying your infrastructure and seizing grain does seem to increase the risk of famine.  Then add in Scotland which historically is more prone to famine than England and you will begin to see that it will take a few years for things to normalise.  I have been fortunate in that I have been able to get grain to avoid the worst of the recent famines (unlike at least 1 predecessor who lost 400,000 people in one year).  Agricultural infrastructure is still showing as virtually complete which is rather strange since after all the damage I would have expected to lose at least 1 level.  I have invested in fishing to try and get a buffer that way, but famines can completely undermine all efforts to rebuild an economy and cost lives.

The advantages of night soil men are that it gives a permanent and 'significant' increase in the chance of getting a favourable harvest and also improves water quality (less dumping in rivers) whilst reducing the stench in towns (which should also reduce the possibility of disease).  So that's 3 benefits for relatively low cost.  Yes each unit will cost £6K raising, £5K upkeep and 500 recruits, but that is just the same as town watch.  In the Papacy it took 10 units which is less than a year's recruits, and has an ongoing cost of £50K which is a bargain for increasing the chance of a good harvest.  Which is more useful, 1D or 1night soil men - both have the same upkeep.  For me, night soil men win every time.  It is difficult to guess at the figures required for each country as they have to be worked out by the GM, but I would be surprised if it took more than 50 units to do all of England/Ireland/Scotland, so that would be 25,000 recruits and an ongoing cost of £250K.  That is significantly less than the loss in tax revenue from a single point drop in EH.  So night soil men would appear to be well worth it.

Once you have a grain surplus then I agree that researching hardy grain and improving things that way are probably the better way to go, but I have to get to the kind of situation where that becomes possible first.

I hadn't posted on the latest focus of this thread because I wasn't sure if what I was attempting was going to be successful or not but the December return for G9 has just come out and it shows that I have increased the population of France over the year by just under 1 million (net gain of 953,000). Considering re-settlement to the colonies, which removes taxed population for me was around 75,000 that means actual population increase is over 1 million in the year

One of the things (amongst others) I have been doing is opening hospitals in key towns.

This may seem an expensive investment but I have just worked out that the 1m increase in population equates to increased tax revenues of £1,655k. In addition that base increase in 1m should equate to an ongoing benefit greater than upkeep costs.

Well done Count-de-monet ... this is the kind of result I need!

Obvious questions, though - you mention that opening hospitals is one of the things you have done, so if hospitals have helped were they supported by other things (like extra doctors, extra grain, etc as Deacon suggested)?

Also I seem to remember reading somewhere that every few years populations are marked up by 5% anyway, and for France's 20M population a 5% gain is 1M. Is this just a coincidence - automatic adjustment applied?

I suppose if hospitals are going to have a major effect then concentrating on towns with higher populations would make sense, although France has always been more centralised with Paris as the major town and most others of much lower population, so perhaps there are only 4-5 key towns for France (unless you have been building them up)? With England/Scotland there is a more even spread: yes London is large by population, but there are a lot more towns in the 20-60K population range. So if I built hospitals in that size of town and shut them down in smaller Scottish towns (average population 2K) then that might work?

Of course the big test as to whether hospitals have an effect is what happens if you close them - does population shrink or disease spread. If not then they may not have been directly contributing to population growth.

This is what I have actioned in France. I will try to break it down into sections so that you can see what might have had an impact to date;

Completed : Research into smallpox including inoculation (I suspect this is the biggest single factor), Established a Headquarters for National Health including a named historical doctor. He is supported by administrators and tasked with increasing the population, hospitals have been funded in all major towns (population over 5,000). Likewise sewers have been funded in all key towns to improve sanitation. I also have the grain subsidy in place managed by the named personality and his administrators.

Work Underway : I have introduced soap for the population (introduced this month so unlikely to have had any impact yet) and work is almost completed to introduce aqueducts across the nation to provide cleaner water. I am also animal breeding (new breeds secured but not fully effective yet - takes a number of years) to have higher meat yields for cows, pigs and sheep to give the population more meat and diet variety.

Ideas Dismissed : Producing trained physicians is prohibitive with my population size, so I have no trained doctors in place. I looked into midwifery and without looking at the details I remember this having the prospect of little impact or again prohibitive.

Hope that helps

Thanks Count - it does make a bit more sense now.

Also sounds like it was a culmination of several major projects.

Nearly every town (on the original map) in England has a population over 5,000 so I would be looking at around 40 hospitals (£30K each), plus sewers (£100K each), plus aqueducts (cost at least £10K each). That's a huge cost of £5.6M just on buildings and £400K annual upkeep on the hospitals (Sewers don't need upkeep, not sure if aqueducts do). Plus increase in government running costs attributable to your National Health HQ, academies to research animal breeding ... somewhat beyond the budget of England in G7!

None of this takes away from your achievement, of course, which is impressive. It is nice when a game objective pays off for long term committed players. France in G9 sounds like a most civilized and enjoyable place to be. No unemployed corsair problem there either! And I suspect France in G9 also has good relations with the Papacy. An object lesson in nation building and positive diplomacy for everyone.

Papa Clement wrote:Thanks Count - it does make a bit more sense now.

Also sounds like it was a culmination of several major projects.

Nearly every town (on the original map) in England has a population over 5,000 so I would be looking at around 40 hospitals (£30K each), plus sewers (£100K each), plus aqueducts (cost at least £10K each). That's a huge cost of £5.6M just on buildings and £400K annual upkeep on the hospitals (Sewers don't need upkeep, not sure if aqueducts do).  Plus increase in government running costs attributable to your National Health HQ, academies to research animal breeding ... somewhat beyond the budget of England in G7!

None of this takes away from your achievement, of course, which is impressive.  It is nice when a game objective pays off for long term committed players.  France in G9 sounds like a most civilized and enjoyable place to be.  No unemployed corsair problem there either!  And I suspect France in G9 also has good relations with the Papacy.  An object lesson in nation building and positive diplomacy for everyone.

In anyone wants to provide clean water to an area rather than do individual projects to a single city G7 Spain was quoted half the coast of a canal upgrade plus you need to have an Engineering Academy in the area to over see the work. Shown as "Aqueducts" on your list but includes related pipe work and water fountains.

This resently resulted in a bill of £1,800,000 for New Spain & a eye watering £5,350,000 for South America. Plus the cost of a new Engineering Academy in Mexico city. Guess who was the cheap skate who tried to direct work in New Spain from the Andes and ended up looking like an idiot!

Historically, the provision of clean water from outside was very important to the growth and health of cities like London but even though I have had "Aqueducts" in Spain & Naples (restored Roman Originals?) have not noticed much population growth, ditto improved medical provision, grain doles, free school dinners & waiving taxes for anyone with 4 legitimate children in school.

I suspect that increase in population in G9 France may be reward for cracking small pox which in our period hit one in three people and killed 10% of the infected (worse for Populations like Native Americans who had not been exposed to disease). King Carlos III of Spain or Carlos the Good as he is known in some quarters has already promised the Doctors weight in gold for anyone who comes up with cure but no luck

My Game theory on water supply, education, new animal breeds, the Law etc is that Richard once said that positions have a natural underlying position which they will move towards in absence of anything else happening. So some positions have to work really hard on their EH just to stand still why fortunate English & Dutch players just need to avoid anything bad happening and things will get better. My hope is that in the long run it may be possible to shift the underlying EH by long term projects.

The other good thing about "Aquducts" in particular is that the tax payers can see what their money is being spent on and as Royal Engineers blast their way through the Andes the majesty of his Most Catholic Majesty is displayed. Which may help keep his honour score up at a time when nasty things are being said about him!

Still say it was only one French Army which got shot at for trampling its nasty diseases all over my Duchy and who the hell is this French Treasury chap! I have been framed!! Its at times like this you want your Army to have a strong belief in the ability of the Government that they may have to defend and in the quality of Spanish fortress building/engineering.

Thanks for this Stuart. Building aqueducts over a large area (like roads) does make more sense than in individual towns. I've sent my turns back now, but it is something I can look at planning in. When I read Count's post about aqueducts it did strike me as being something which should bring health benefits and was very important as you point out.

It is a curious theory that positions have an underlying position which they will move towards naturally. Might explain why some things are harder to achieve for certain nations than others, but must admit I haven't noticed that much impact when I have tried to push down a certain direction in different countries. If the theory is right about the English and Dutch economies bouncing back strongly because of their historic focus on trade, the opposite should surely be happening with Spain which historically struggled financially and declined economically? Yet in G7 at least the Spanish economy has performed spectacularly, racing ahead of every other power. Only Russia comes close. Of course size is not always an advantage and I suspect that the larger countries do find it harder to sustain improvements in EH over long periods without a key event (like freeing the serfs for Russia).

Perhaps it is smallpox vaccines that really gave the boost. One to add to the research list?

Read with interest that in G7 the Government of France had forced its Nobles to contribute to a £40m loan to the King of France. With the Nobles of France getting a open ended bond which pays 5% per year.

Aware that "forced loans" from the Nobility and sometimes the Church were a unpopular but not uncommon way for Governments to raise cash in our period and earlier (developed out of shield money and the like where men with a military obligation to the Crown paid cash instead) and failure to "loan" money to King would result in loss of status and having to do military service on a fishery protction vessel or something like that.

Was wondering if anyone else had tried out this historic way to raise funds and what was the result?

Next thought was is this idea going to spread to G10 and how much is it going to cost my Characters? Guessed around 1M people would have to contrubute £40 each which would not be a problem to cash rich corsairs but bit of a bugger if all your wealth is in land etc and you have to borrow from the same money lenders who Mr Flowers Elector of Bavaria deals with just so you can loan it to Louis XIV at 5%.

Interesting questions.

I never had to resort to such tactics in England, but I would imagine it would hit both honour and EH quite hard. Precise effect would depend on how well the economy was doing before the forced loan. The higher EH then the more money would be around and perhaps the effect would be beneficial in cooling an overheating economy. But if EH is already low, a forced loan would probably crash it. Nobles would normally get round the lack of funds by increasing rent for their tenants, but to use Stuart's figures, if you have 1M nobles needing to find £40 each and their £/head is much higher than £40, then it should be affordable. If their £/head is less than £40 then it clearly will cause hardship.

Forced loans from the church are more problematic, depending on which church you are dealing with. The Catholic Church would be reasonably well protected against this since its structure remits all money to Rome for disbursement rather than being held within local dioceses. Local bishops do not have the authority to agree to any kind of forced loan since the money is not theirs to lend.

But in protestant countries where the head of state is also the head of the church, forced loans would be much easier. In fact I probably missed this trick as it would have been a good way to cripple the Church of England. I would expect the tax receipt £/head for 'church' would collapse in future years so the forced loan would be a very expensive way of extracting money. It also might increase the number of paupers so hit commoner £/head and necessitate a rise in poor relief payments if the church was the mechanism through which poor relief was distributed. A less damaging way of doing it (from an honour perspective) would be to request a forced loan through a minority church or group - forced loans from Jewish moneylenders were quite common in earlier centuries, although you would run the risk of economic damage if they called in their own loans to your nobles.

The longer term effect depends on what the money was going to be used for. If it is to accelerate investment in trade then perhaps the damage would be more limited, but I would imagine that it is easier to issue bonds for that. If it is because the country has reached its borrowing limit and can't pay the interest then perhaps it is just postponing the inevitable. One lesson from England's economy over the last few years is that economic contraction can be very hard to reverse and a steady reduction of £/head year after year can soon erode the tax base.

I think the majority view in England is that all taxation is extracted under protest, whether Parliament votes for it or not. When I picked the position up all taxes had been set to zero and Parliament wouldn't change it. Consequently I had no idea what the normal level of income was in England, nor what level of taxes could be safely raised without doing economic damage. It took nearly 2 years for me to convince Parliament to restore low levels of tax and having achieved that I am very reluctant to permanently lower taxes simply to boost growth. The effect of temporary tax cuts will be seen in the next income round. With hindsight I would have been better off assuming that £/head had been artificially high for a few years and should have raised taxes to 20% to grab as much as I could from these elevated levels, taking the economic hit earlier but bringing greater financial flexibility. The economy would have been weaker at the end, but I would have been able to raise more troops/ships to boost defences so less economic damage would have been done and the war might have ended earlier. It is difficult to say because although I have done a manpower audit of the war, I can't do a financial audit since I don't have the figures from the years before I joined.

I tend to agree that this is taking money directly out of the economy and would likely result in a sharp EH hit at about any level. This much money isn't sitting around in cash boxes, so that means nobles have to sell stuff, or stop their own economic activity to raise that cash.

And given it's likely unpopularity, I can imagine the honour hit would also be strong.

Maybe an option for a nation who needs to raise cash and doesn't mind cratering EH, but I wouldn't do it except in extremis.

I do think you could probably do this with catholic churchmen too, in so much as many churchmen in period were quite wealthy, and it wasn't all the church's money. But it is stickier, and as above, probably not a great idea unless you really need to do it.

Deacon wrote:I do think you could probably do this with catholic churchmen too, in so much as many churchmen in period were quite wealthy, and it wasn't all the church's money. But it is stickier, and as above, probably not a great idea unless you really need to do it.

It is complicated on several levels because it depends on the individual and the position they hold.

If the bishop is a member of a religious order then he does not own any personal property, so has no personal wealth to seize.

If the bishop is not a member of a religious order then yes, he could well have sources of private wealth, but this is what is reflected in the 'Church' tax on your own lists. So extracting a forced loan from that kind of bishop would theoretically be possible, but you would still be eroding the economic base of the country. It would not be a forced loan from the Church for the reasons I stated earlier.

One point that arises is what happens if such a forced loan pushes a bishop (who is not a member of a religious order) into bankruptcy - can he remain as a bishop? It is normally prohibited to enter a clerical state if you have debts - the debts must be paid off first. Consequently I have struggled to find a reference or procedure to cover the bankruptcy of a bishop. However, there are provisions that require clergy to adhere to the laws of of the country they are in so that they remain fit to hold (and execute) their office. Bankruptcy does place restrictions on the activities of an individual, so it is likely that this would be grounds for the bishop to lose his office.

So extracting a forced loan from a bishop and pushing him into bankruptcy could be one way to get rid of a troublesome bishop. But knowing the consequences it is unlikely any bishop would agree to a forced loan. So the forced loan is likely to be judged as a secular device employed by the state to hinder the bishop performing the duties of his office and consequently he is protected under Canon Law (can.2333).

From very early times rulers often turned to their own Church/Temples etc for ready cash since so much of the communities wealth was held in the form of religous statues, communion plates etc, etc made from silver or gold.

If you were St Louis of France needing to fund a crusade or a Byzantine Emperor with pagan Persian Hordes at the gates and promised to replace all the melted down gold/silver when the crisis was passed it (and kept said promise) and the wider community inc the Church considered it a crisis then this is probably a good way to gather large amounts of ready cash without doing economic damage or loss of honour.

However, if its not viewed as a crisis or you do not replace the melted down items the honour hit is going to be savage - since you have basically stolen from God and melted down whole communities most sacred treasure.

In Glori you are probably only going to start melting down Church/Temple plate if you are playing Austria or Venice and have a Ottoman Army at the gates. Or if you are of a religion which really dislikes idols (Protestant or Islam) and want to put an end to idiol worship.

Late in the historic WSS with invaders on the soil of France Louis XIV "borrowed" the Silver Plates of the French Nobles and melted them down but I do not think he touched any Church Silver. Think this would fund a small forced loan of say £10 per Noble and in a real crisis would not do much damage to economic health or honour........."damn it looks like Claude de Forbin is going to be eating off tin plate in near future! Still if its to save La Belle France from rapine and plunder by Imperial Hussars and their heretic allies."

But before asking your Nobles to melt down the family silver and eat of tin plate you had better have a damn good reason, or the honour hit is likely to be high.

Think if you go beond Silver Plates and Jewellery you are likely to take a real economic hit since most of the wealth of the Nobility and the Church is in the form of land & if they are to fund a loan to you they will either be forced to sale land (at depressed fire sale prices). Or mortgage at high rates due to the sudden increase in demand for credit.

De-facto a high "forced loan" on the Nobility is going to act like a rather unfair land tax and go down like a lead ballon. Since poor nobles who's wealth is basically their estate will have to mortgage to the hilt to fund their loan to you while richer nobles (like Govt Ministers) and their Bankers with cash to spare will make a fortune buying lands and mortgagees on the cheap. Graf Von Wallenstein made a huge fortune by such means in the 1620's/1630's.

Historically, weak Governments in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe which made use of compulsory loans from the Nobles had to keep their Nobles and sometimes the Church sweet by making political concessions such as greater control over both towns and peasents. With many formerly free culivators reduced to serfs with labour duties owed to their landlords.

May be totally wrong since I have never used the tactic or seen the tactic used before in Glori......but my feeling is that "forced loans" from the Nobility or the Church may be a handy way to raise cash and for the Nobility/Church to show leadership in a crisis, such as a famine or if you have a religious foe at the gates of the capital. But in other circumstances its a really bad and high cost way to borrow money (even worse than Bavarian money lenders?).

Think in G7 its going to be interesting to see if the French Nobles consider "I need £40m to wage another war against the ever loveable and cuddly Charles von Hapsburg, his charming Queen and that nice Mary of Ghent" to be a proper crisis and worthy of them melting down the family silver and flogging off land. I salute the G7 French Govt for being the first to make use of a very historic way to raise funds not even mentioned in the rule book, not sure if I would have been that brave.

I suspect Richard is going to leave this as a very Ad-hoc method with very variable result which should be left for crisis situations rather than a conventional finance method.

I like your point about crisis. I agree with your suggestion that how well it's received depends a great deal upon the assessment of generalized threat.

If the assessment is, "His Majesty is having a go at our our expense," Honour will drop appropriately.

I too will be interested in hearing how this plays out. My bet is on badly, but who knows? Every time it seems a player thinks they've cleverly discovered a way to get free money or recruits in the game, Richard shows them the error in that thinking.

Stuart Bailey wrote:From very early times rulers often turned to their own Church/Temples etc for ready cash since so much of the communities wealth was held in the form of religious statues, communion plates etc, etc made from silver or gold.

Plates, chalices, crucifixes, candlesticks possibly, but not statues! No golden calf.

It was always possible for rulers to seek to negotiate a loan from the church, but in terms of procedure they had to go through Rome. This is very different from seizing assets or imposing a 'forced' loan, which at all times would have been resisted by the church.

Stuart Bailey wrote:
If you were St Louis of France needing to fund a crusade or a Byzantine Emperor with pagan Persian Hordes at the gates and promised to replace all the melted down gold/silver when the crisis was passed it (and kept said promise) and the wider community inc the Church considered it a crisis then this is probably a good way to gather large amounts of ready cash without doing economic damage or loss of honour.

However, if its not viewed as a crisis or you do not replace the melted down items the honour hit is going to be savage - since you have basically stolen from God and melted down whole communities most sacred treasure.

In Glori you are probably only going to start melting down Church/Temple plate if you are playing Austria or Venice and have a Ottoman Army at the gates. Or if you are of a religion which really dislikes idols (Protestant or Islam) and want to put an end to idol worship.

Late in the historic WSS with invaders on the soil of France Louis XIV "borrowed" the Silver Plates of the French Nobles and melted them down but I do not think he touched any Church Silver.

I think that last sentence confirms the difficulty of getting a forced loan from the church - if Louis could have got away with it he would have done!

Of course an agreed loan from the Church to fund a crusade called by the Church was perfectly plausible and could be a way to stimulate the Medieval economy. Whether the Church was ever fully repaid is doubtful, but of all the suggestions so far this is probably the one that would work.

Of course getting the Pope to call (and then fund) a crusade just to help a nation out of financial difficulties could be rather difficult. The loan would almost certainly be insufficient to cover the costs and any additional funds would be dependent upon a successful crusade. Also I imagine crusades attract a different type of person to those usually taking service in the army - how useful are a few starving, badly armed and badly led peasants who have probably spent their lives avoiding battle against highly professional and disciplined veteran soldiers behind solid defences? The state would be expected to provide the core of professional troops for it to have any chance of success while the volunteers, though well meaning, may have been more a drain on supplies and transport than a great deal of use during the fighting. The whole crusade thing is probably a bit medieval, and although in some books the definition has been applied to other religious wars, I think by 1700 they had been long consigned to history. I'm not quite sure how players would respond if the Pope suddenly called a crusade and launched a worldwide fundraising appeal to pay for the forces needed to recover the Philippines from the Japanese.

I think we can agree that there must be an exceptional reason to resort to forced loans from the nobility and that in any case they may do more harm than good in the longer term. Famine may not be a good enough reason since although nobles wouldn't starve, their income from land will have already been hit by the loss of crops, so you'd get a double hit.

Perhaps it is easier to sell commissions or honours, or hit the merchants or bankers since they not only have money, but know how to make more of it? As a long term fundraising device James I required anyone with an income above a certain level to 'buy' a knighthood which at least gave (generally merchants and bankers) something for their money.

When I mentioned Statues I was actually thinking about non Christian and Islamic powers. Historically Romans and Greeks were keen on "borrowing" from Temples and I suspect rulers in Japan, China, India etc may have kept the tradition going in time of crisis.

Think the 1683 Vienna campaign was the last campaign before our period which shared much in common with a classic Catholic Crusade. In that the King of Poland was sent a Papal banner and was formally called upon by the Pope to lead the relief of Vienna. The Papacy also almost fully funded the whole campaign......well ordered the Catholic Church in Poland to pay for it.

The new Grandmaster of the Knight of Saint John may be interested in the fact that when Starhemberg the commander of Vienna said he needed 40,000 Florins a month for the 20,000 defence force and the military treasury of Vienna only had 30,000 Florins in it the situation was saved by the 400,000 Florins from the property of the Archbishop of Esztergom which had been brought to his Vienna Palace for safe keeping.

This fortune along with several others was "accessed" by the Bishop of Wiener-Neustadt, Kollonits a Knight of St John to help out in the siege. Not sure what the Archbishop thought about the Knights of St John rather cavalier attitude to private property or if he ever got his money back.

Kollonits cavalier attituade to private property may have been fostered when he was head of the Court Inquisition 15 years before and had played a leading roll in getting the Jews expelled from Vienna as a pro Ottoman security risk.

Oddly the only Jew left - Samual Oppenheimer Imperial Quarter Master - played a key role in supplying Vienna in 1683 and keeping the whole credit and supply basis of the Austria Hapsburg War ticking over up to his death in 1703. Indeed his importance can be seen my the fact that on his death the entire Hapsburg state finances fell into disarray and Austria defaulted on its debts.

It seems that the money men like the Gompertz in Saxony and the UDP bankers and the merchants providing supplies and materials trusted a Oppenheimer but not the bonds of the Emperor and his light fingered cronies like the Bishop of Wiener-Neustadt.

In a sense I can agree about the 1683 Vienna Campaign - it does have many of the features that should make it a crusade even if it isn't usually referred to as one.

The definition of a crusade is difficult (see The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades p8-12). It is no coincidence that 'crusade fever' really coincided with the growth of itinerent preachers who caused the church serious problems - most were little more than rabble rousers who would go round Europe stirring up trouble, often preaching heresy and encouraging violence against whoever the mob least liked. It was nothing really to do with religion. I suppose a modern day parallel is to be found with environmental activists who cause traffic jams by gluing themselves to bridges. In this kind of environment, many knights and professional soldiers would leave their homes and join a 'crusade' to fight someone. It didn't have to be in the Holy Land, but parts of Spain and France were affected by 'religious' violence. The growth of the nation state tended to constrain this. I would think that most players would not be very happy if itinerant preachers descended into their country and chunks of their army disappeared to fight a war against their trading partners. Of course if said country had turned on the church, then depending on the amount of religious fervour existing in the country they should not be surprised that the people may well show more loyalty to the church than their rulers. But ordinarily I think the notion of 'crusades' really died out centuries before 1700 and most players are quite happy that the Pope does not try to determine both their foreign policy and military. Indeed, in G10 (as you know Stuart), I have only ever responded when players have themselves acted against the church or sought to use the church for their own ends - otherwise they have no trouble from me! This is very much along the lines the GM has played an inactive Pope. I naturally get more things in the newspaper, but otherwise I don't think there is anything I have done that would not also have been the response from an inactive Pope. The big difference is that as an active player I will respond quicker and with more justification to what other players may think are minor issues that they may have taken an honour hit for in other games rather than it becoming a long running issue.

As to the wealth of bishops within the Holy Roman Empire, historical comparisons are difficult because in real history the HRE comprised several hundred territories and many of the Imperial bishops were also the rulers of tiny states or towns (their personal wealth was the wealth of their state). In the game there are some nominally larger areas (Trent, Salzburg, etc) which can be played representing this complex structure, but they don't seem to be particularly popular positions.

There is a special department in the Vatican to deal with disputes between bishops, so in the examples you quote no doubt it fell under their remit.

Think one of the most interesting military changes of the period leading up to 1700 is not the change in weapons or tactics but in how wars were financed.

Thus in the 1660's 2nd Anglo-Dutch Naval war Charles II using traditional methods of finance basically went bankrupt after two years (Ok so the Plague and the Great Fire of London did not help)while under King William and Queen Anne the English state was able to wage war on both land and sea for decades using the Bank of England and modern credit finance.

1683 while in many respects a high point of Polish military glory also shows the total failure of the Commonwealth and its finances to move into the modern era and how it was falling behind the rivals who were later to divide up the Commonwealth.

1683 and later Hapsburg campaign's and the wars of French in the same period are interesting in that we see every type of both ancient and modern finance used by Royal Ministers and Quartermasters tasked with getting a job done by Monarch's who often little understanding of the issues and likely results. So often look like a mix of the old and the new (ie a mess).

Glori tends to allow Anglo-Dutch style finance for all positions. So its interesting to see what happens when players try out other methods often traditional for the positions like the Nippon Govts dealing with Rice Brokers in G10 and the recent French moves in G7 - using the old tradition of the "forced loan" from the Nobility but paying them with modern interest bearing perpetual bonds.

In theory if you issue bonds on a back of a financial crisis to fund a war - they would be classed as junk bonds or even toxic and would sale for a lot less than the face value you forced your Nobles to pay. So in a true Wizzy Wizzard Wize you could then re-purchase the the bonds with only a percentage of the money raised. However, I suspect Richard would view this as a twist on the old fashioned re-basement and do nasty things to your EH & Honour score.

Stuart,

Interesting.

Could you either point to a resource or talk more about this? I know nothing about these shifts in financing and it sounds fascinating. How did it change?

It is an interesting aspect, but I don’t know how decisive it was. People have always managed to fight irrespective of how dire their country’s finances were.

Changing methods of finance probably enabled larger coalitions to fight for longer, and if fighting in a coalition, cross-border finance would seem to be more sensible than relying on a single government.

I also don’t think methods of funding changed simply to enable wars to be fought. One of the problems governments have always had is that they tended to develop very complicated tax systems based on established products and as the economies changed they found it hard to come up with new taxes to reflect that. The costs of war were additional to the basic challenge of funding their normal expenditure. In England wool tax receipts which had once met all government expenditure in Medieval times declined so more imaginative taxes were brought in. In France and most other European countries the salt tax was hated, but collecting alternative taxes proved somewhat ineffective. Failure to reform France’s tax system was a major contributory factor to the failure of French finances throughout the 1700s.

An interesting and accessible book on the subject is A Popular History of Taxation by James Coffield ISBN 0-582-10411-4, which examines taxes in Ancient Rome, England and America. It is a little dated (1970), but has the advantage of using constant money! Curiously when he discusses Rome he notes “the Romans always regarded direct taxation of their citizens as humiliating and undignified.” Not sure how this may be reflected in the new Rome game?

The question of "Did Armies grow larger & Wars longer and more expensive due to inprovements in Government finance? Or did Government's seek to improve their finances because of the demands of war?" is a bit like the question of the Chicken and the Egg which came first.

For what its worth my view is that most states either were in in permenant state of crisis management and responding to their possible rivals or they declined and perished.

Classic examples of the link between a States military power and its ability to raise funds via tax and credit include:

1) Prussia where the State built up its Army by any and every means possible (after nearly being wiped out as a State in the Thirty years War) & then used that military power to levy tax's or military obligations on all sections of society to such a degree that C18 Prussia has been called a Army with a state to support it.

2) England - Oddly England offers a example of a State were the Stuart Kings tried to exact taxation on Society to in part fund a Naval build up to take on threats from Spain, UDP and France and were defeated by a popular revolt(s). But their opponents then levied levels of taxation and set up credit arrangement such as the Bank of England which unabled English spending on the Royal Navy even in peace time to vastly exceed anything Charles I had even dreamed off. With said Navy playing a key role in development of English trade which in turn helped to fund the English Government.

Because the Navy was seen as a source of English pride, helped English Trade and was not seen as a threat to English liberty. English tax payers proved willing to cough up to a level which in other places needed to enforced at sword point. While England never became a Navy with a State like Prussia it is remarkable how much of English Industrial development at some link to the Naval needs and how many PM's were Naval Officers or had family in the Navy. Assume if you are standing on a quarter deck in rough weather it makes you keen on good well funded dockyards.

In many ways more interesting are the States which went into decline either due to a failure to the extract taxes and fund the new style larger armies like the Polish Commonwealth and Sweden. Both states which in may ways played a key role in many modern military developments but failed on a financial front.

Probably it is somewhat unfair to talk of the failure of Sweden since it could be said that Sweden always lacked the resouces and manpower to be a great Power and in many ways the period of Sweden and its Army as a great power was one of smoke and mirrors. Funded by such odd items as French grants and tax's on Prussian and Polish Ports which were always somewhat questionable.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the other hand matched all its rivals in terms of wealth and military man power but its unique inability to muster it (which drives Glori players nuts) was to see it swalled up by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Three states willing to pay taxes for armies or perhaps use armies to collect tax who built three of the military super-powers on the later C18 & C19 at least in part on the lands, wealth and taxes provided by the old Commonwealth.

France is a odd case - in some respects the Great absolute power which under Louis XIV used its natural resources to build armies of a size not seen in Europe since the Roman Empire. But in many ways it was an incomplete absolutism in that the Bourbon Kings used their armies to collect huge revenue but did not really get the Nobles and Church to pay fair tax levels only provide loans. This eventually resulted in a whole class who's major income was interest payments from the Government paid for by high taxes on productive parts of the French economy and an Army which spent vastly more than say Prussia but fielded fewer men due to the huge number of commissions sold by the Govt for ready cash. A tactic also used by the Prussians and English but they expected holders of commissions to actually show up and fight. And in the English Navy take exams as well!

For people interested in a (failed) attempt to clear up the tangled web of French Royal Finaces after the death of Louis XIV they might like to read John Law by James Buchan........you know when you are in trouble when you turn to a Scot to sort out your finances!

Was recently looking at the finances of the other Bourbon Monarchy (Spain) in 1741 its revenue came from:

Rentas generales (customs) 22%
Tobacco monopoly 20%
Tax on wool 3%
Salt monopoly 6%
Cruzada (a historic crasude tax on the Church never removed) 9%
rentas provinciales (?) 12%
Crown of Aragon 14%
Other (which includes Bullion from New World, feadal dues, income from Crown lands, Court fines etc) 14%

For a English reader what is noticeable is the lack of property/land taxation with the only direct tax seeming to be the Cruzada paid by the Church the other noticeable fact was the addicition of the Spanish Govt to revenue from Tobacco. A source of income which seems to have been growing strongly through the C18. Growing 400% in less than 30 years to 1741 while prices and other revenue stayed broadly stable.

Hard to say if this reflects a growing population or just a growing population of smokers!

Referring to the Cruzada as a tax on the church is misleading.

The Cruzada was a form of indulgence paid to the Church which signified the desire of individuals to support efforts to rid the Iberian peninsular of the Moors. The Church then subsidized the Spanish Crown to do the work. By the 1480s Spanish finances were in a mess and Queen Isabella resorted to forced loans from Spanish nobles. Partly to avoid paying such loans, Spanish nobles gifted money and land to the Church. This put it out of Isabella's clutches since she couldn't raise a forced loan from the church. So the Cruzada effectively paid for Spanish army to remove the Moors from Granada (1482-92).

Once the Moors had left Spain, the subsidy continued initially to support the conversion of Granada and then as a grant to aid the Church's activity in the New World. Whether the Spanish Crown actually spent the money on that purpose is unknown, but that was the rationale.

The Cruzada was freely given by Spaniards to the Church, then by agreement of Rome money was then provided by the Church for specific religious purposes. It was not a 'tax' levied upon the Church by the Spanish state. Nor could it be increased as the Spanish state required. So it has none of the attributes of a 'tax'.

From the Church's perspective the money was probably well spent since what was Spanish America still has a high Catholic population.


More generally I don't accept the premise that a large army was necessary for a state to survive and therefore they needed to improve their revenue to pay for it. At certain times I can see that it would have been a priority, but not always. It is much easier to join with others to establish a balance of power that avoids the need for crippling military or naval spending, and many states did just that.

The Bank of England was not directly established to pay for a war, but to get round Parliamentary control of government spending by allowing the executive to borrow. William had raided the English treasury, transferring vast sums to the Dutch treasury to keep Dutch armies in the field against France. As a result his credit had been stopped. After the defeat of the Royal Navy by the French at Beachy Head (1690), it was clear that England needed new ships. Normally I agree that paying for ships would not be a problem, but by this stage William was so unpopular in England that he couldn't get the money. Establishing a permanent national debt in the hands of Englishmen at least prevented more English wealth disappearing to UDP, and the interest they demanded on the debt was high. That English governments were always constrained in their spending by either Parliament or the national debt probably encouraged a more professional navy since it was far cheaper to capture enemy ships than build our own, and the naval budget could then be put into onshore support where as Stuart rightly points out it was needed to increase the effectiveness of the navy and help build up a large merchant fleet. In the case of England, then, trade and the need to protect that trade was the impetus to improving government finance, not the desire/necessity for a larger army or to fund a war without which England would have been overwhelmed.

Fair point, calling the Cruzada a tax would probably offend both the Church Leaders in Spain and Spanish Ministers (often the same people).

Probably to avoid hurt feelings its best to call it an annual grant or contribution from the Church to the Spanish Monarchy.

It funny how often Government revenue which is surposed to be for a particular purpose just becomes general revenue (British Road Tax springs to mind) but it was still a surprize to find out that a Spanish Church contribution to the Crown still provided 9% of state revenue 250 years after its original Holy War purpose ended.

Guess the cost of Spanish garrisons in North Africa such as Oran and other protective measures against North African corsairs could be seen as a continuation of the Spanish Holy War and as a justification for the Cruzada but after 250 years I think the Cruzada was just considered at part of the states traditional revenue.

In fact the Crown gathered rather more than 9% of its revenue from the Church since the King of Spain was also traditionally made Grandmaster of the various wealthy militant orders which had fought the wars to reclaim Spain from the Moors, and obtained substantial revenue from their lands and property.

Which raises a interesting question in G9......can a 6 year old girl become Grandmaster of the Order of Santiago?

Wonder if one of the reasons Spain seems to have so many Cardinal-Ministers etc was because so much of the money being spent by the Spanish State came from the Church and they wanted to see were it was going.

Think in G7 my Cardinal Minister is doing OK by historic standards since the Cruzada is only 3% and more than that has been spent on Church Schools (only £30m needed to make sure all those kids in South America are brought up to love the King of Spain, respect the Church and distrust the French, Jacobites & Ottoman Grand Vizier like a true son of Spain).

Stuart Bailey wrote:Which raises a interesting question in G9......can a 6 year old girl become Grandmaster of the Order of Santiago?

Oddly, yes! It was always a curious creation as there was no requirement for celibacy and it did admit women, so being female does not disqualify her. It was always more of a secular order in its duties and obligations than religious one. The Order of Santiago formally stopped being a religious order when Pope Adrian VI united its head to the crown of Spain, although there remained certain conditions of membership. Like the Knights of Malta there were requirements to have a noble lineage for 4 generations and had never worked in menial jobs. In addition many classes of people were permanently disqualified from membership of the order including: Jews, Muslims, heretics, converts to Christianity, or a mixture of these, no matter how far removed. Also disqualified were people who had been punished for acts against the Catholic faith; had been an attorney, moneylender, notary public, retail merchant, or had worked where they lived or would have lived from their trade; had been dishonoured, had neglected the laws of honor and executed any act not proper for a perfect gentleman, or who lacked means of support. The prospective member then had to live three months in the galleys and reside for a month in the monastery/nunnery to learn the Rule. I don't think this last requirement applies to 6 year old princesses. In 1653 the requirements were tightened up so that maternal grandparents are included in verifying noble ancestry; the member must be of legitimate birth through both parents and grandparents, not be descended from non-Christians, and prove at least 200 years of confirmed nobility of birth (not of privilege) from each of their four grandparents by legitimate marriage. Duties added in 1655 included defence of the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Well you did ask!

With Spain in G7 spending far more than she receives in Cruzada grants from the Church in Spain and having a well organised missionary effort in America, I think you're easily meeting the requirements. It really is quite easy for Spain to keep the Pope happy as you have proved.

Spain is a strange country to play because as a nation it was forged by Christians fighting the Moors, so the Spanish appreciation of the Catholic faith is more zealous and extreme than the more relaxed Italians and French. This is most clearly seen in Spanish religious paintings which are quite gory. It isn't just that Catholicism is intrinsic to what it means to be Spanish, but it is a particularly extreme form of Catholicism that makes the Spanish spirit. Separating the Church from Spanish society is therefore more difficult than in any other country outside Italy.

Papa Clement wrote:

Stuart Bailey wrote:Which raises a interesting question in G9......can a 6 year old girl become Grandmaster of the Order of Santiago?

In 1653 the requirements were tightened up so that maternal grandparents are included in verifying noble ancestry; the member must be of legitimate birth through both parents and grandparents, not be descended from non-Christians, and prove at least 200 years of confirmed nobility of birth (not of privilege) from each of their four grandparents by legitimate marriage.

With Spain in G7 spending far more than she receives in Cruzada grants from the Church in Spain and having a well organised missionary effort in America, I think you're easily meeting the requirements.  It really is quite easy for Spain to keep the Pope happy as you have proved.

Spain is a strange country to play because as a nation it was forged by Christians fighting the Moors, so the Spanish appreciation of the Catholic faith is more zealous and extreme than the more relaxed Italians and French.  This is most clearly seen in Spanish religious paintings which are quite gory.  It isn't just that Catholicism is intrinsic to what it means to be Spanish, but it is a particularly extreme form of Catholicism that makes the Spanish spirit.  Separating the Church from Spanish society is therefore more difficult than in any other country outside Italy.

Interesting that in earlier periods Iberia and Southern Italy seem very easy going about inheritence by natural sons and half of the bishop's and Cardinals seem to be "nephews" of the Pope or related to Royalty on the wrong side of the blanket. But by 1653 only legitimate sons going back generations are allowed to join the order of Santiago & probably the Order of Calatrava as well? Wonder if this had anything do do with the 1640 revolt of Portugal under a cadet branch of the old Royal House of Portugal?

In G2 the Bourbon King of Spain got very upset about having part of his birth-right usurped and waged on of the longest and most savage wars ever seen Glori to enforce his claim to Portugal which seemed to make him very popular in Spain, less so in Portugal and England.

Ref G7 I have role played Spain in a rather different manner to the one armed war lord in G2 who at different times fought Portugal, England, France, Indians, Ottomans, Moors and most of the Italian states including the Papacy. In G7 we have not had a player character Pope but for a long time the Jesuits were played which lead to many interesting letters between the head of the Order and Cardinal Portocarrero concerning what did the Pope think and how to deal with a very upset Hapsburg Monarch. General approach has been Rome will not do or ask anything which will upset a tempermental Hapsburg and the Cardinal and the Queen of Spain will coax him away from doing anything which cause problems for the Papacy.

Two big issues to date was when Spain found out the then Govt of Portugal was basically offering a base and a back door to anyone who wanted to invade Spain & the murder of Prince Eugine of Savoy by the Jacobite lackies of France. Papal opinion which Spain went along with was we can understand why Charles von Hapsburg is upset but can you please a) caux him out of starting a war in Iberia which will kill thousands of Catholics and b) Can you please try and stop him from trying to over throw the Catholic King of England as he will be replaced by a Protestant.

The fact that half of Cardinals in the Curia think the world of their fellow Italian the Queen of Spain and are scared to offend the tempermental German King of Spain (who is known to sulk and hold a grudge) means that the Papacy and the Jesuit Order have generally treated Spain softly and has generally had full Spanish support for its objectives.

Pity the combined Spanish/Jesuit effort to develop improved missionary techniques have still not succeeded but this and the Spanish Church efforts to build Catholic Schools and train Priests put it firmly in the "counter reformation" camp.

Ref the Arts and wilder culture - I took view that historically Spain in the C18 was influenced by France due to its French Kings and Italy due to its Italian Queens. In G7 with a anti-French King and a Italian Queen the Spainish Enlightenment has been Italian influenced plus some influence from Flanders and the America's. The Old Spanish party round Cardinal Portocarrero are not sure what they think of all this new fangled stuff and the King just "knowns what he likes".

This has resulted in the Prada now having exta wings (ok its a double square round Rococo gardens by Nicola Sacli) for Italian Art, American Art and modern Art (after 1700) but the main building is taken up by "Proper Art" by Valazquez, El Greco, Titian etc.

Meanwhile the Greatest Noble in Spain has moved to Mexico and has not to put too fine a point on it......"gone native." It seems that the double headed Eagle of the House of Hapsburg and the North American Thunder Bird = Same thing.

Papa Clementi may be pleased to know that the orders of Santiago and Calatrava made it into G7 as the two highest ranking Cavalry Regiments in the Spanish Army (forming the Royal Lifeguard in Spain). Somewhat to my surprize the one time they have been used in combat (in the post of honour on the right of the first line) they did manage to flatten two lines of hostile cavalry and not rout. Would rather not loss too many gold inlay cuirasses, silver spurs and toledo steel rapiers.....they cost a lot!

Orders for Holy Mother Church, the Spanish Enlightenment and the social development of colonies are probably only so much in game fluff
but I like to think it gives C18 Spain its own unique feel in G7. Not always easy esp for English speakers since its too easy for Spain to be dimissed as a power in extreme decline and for players to be blinded by the "Glori" of Louis XIV, Churchill, Peter the Great, The Great Electors of Prussia even Charles Vasa, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Prince Eugine of Savoy.

Ok Spain in this period does lack characters like Peter the Great but it does have its own interesting ones who were not lacking in ability, it was was the largest growing colonial empire in our period and it could be argued also built the best ships in the period. Admiral Nelson favourite ship for instance was built in a Spanish yard.