Resource Limits

Hi all

I'm sure someone has posted about the limits the EoC faces, but I'm afraid I cannot find it.

I was wondering how the EoC will adapt and overcome to the new limits in manpower it faces. Just to name a few of the labor intensive fields they are heavily invested in: booming industry, aggressively expanding military (across the board), a large merchant marine, and a newly found raw materials project in Silverlode. Even with the populations of Emerald, Chisholm, Tarot, Zebediah, Corisande, and Maragaret's Land, and (some might argue) Armageddon's Reef with Dragon's Claw as a tentative territory added to Charis's population that is still a very tall order. As we all know, the EoC is made up of islands which by their nature have smaller populations than the mainland continents, and it is harder to get a modern logistics system set up given the Proscriptions limitations. I realize that the last part is really a temporary problem until the CoGA is neutralized along with the OBS, but nonetheless it is an irritant at best and a noose at worst.
Furthermore, since Silverlode is technically part of Old Charis, I highly doubt the House of Ahrmahk will want to allow outsiders into it, esp with the goldmine they just discovered. Even if they were to come up with a joint-stock system that might eventually evolve into a Wall Street, that would do nothing to solve the manpower issue of actually mining those resources. While Charis is taking steps to incorporate women into the workforce to make up for all the men going off to war, they are still a ways off from becoming a central player in the markets and work force.
So I'm wondering how this will play out. I'm thinking it'll force the EoC to redouble their efforts and shove women into the workforce (a move the current Emperor and Emperess will support), if they will use to bring the Ravenlands into the fold, if Siddermark will front the manpower (despite their casualties they still have a larger population base), or some combination of those options.
If they exercise the latter two options, well there's the start of the global market. That in and of itself will open yet another front the CoGA has to fight on, one it is even less ready to fight on than the military one, and become yet another economic and force multiplier that the EoC will control.

Thoughts?

IIRC the Ravenlands are lightly populated so even if they were willing to become part of the Empire, IMO they would not add that much manpower.

Of course, while the Empire could conquer the Ravenlands (even the Ravenlands lords know the Empire could), the Ravenlands would be more trouble than it would worth to conquer them.

Mind you, the Ravenlands lords aren't willing to give the Empire a reason to conquer them.

ChronicRder wrote:Hi all

I'm sure someone has posted about the limits the EoC faces, but I'm afraid I cannot find it.

I was wondering how the EoC will adapt and overcome to the new limits in manpower it faces. Just to name a few of the labor intensive fields they are heavily invested in: booming industry, aggressively expanding military (across the board), a large merchant marine, and a newly found raw materials project in Silverlode. Even with the populations of Emerald, Chisholm, Tarot, Zebediah, Corisande, and Maragaret's Land, and (some might argue) Armageddon's Reef with Dragon's Claw as a tentative territory added to Charis's population that is still a very tall order. As we all know, the EoC is made up of islands which by their nature have smaller populations than the mainland continents, and it is harder to get a modern logistics system set up given the Proscriptions limitations. I realize that the last part is really a temporary problem until the CoGA is neutralized along with the OBS, but nonetheless it is an irritant at best and a noose at worst.
Furthermore, since Silverlode is technically part of Old Charis, I highly doubt the House of Ahrmahk will want to allow outsiders into it, esp with the goldmine they just discovered. Even if they were to come up with a joint-stock system that might eventually evolve into a Wall Street, that would do nothing to solve the manpower issue of actually mining those resources. While Charis is taking steps to incorporate women into the workforce to make up for all the men going off to war, they are still a ways off from becoming a central player in the markets and work force.
So I'm wondering how this will play out. I'm thinking it'll force the EoC to redouble their efforts and shove women into the workforce (a move the current Emperor and Emperess will support), if they will use to bring the Ravenlands into the fold, if Siddermark will front the manpower (despite their casualties they still have a larger population base), or some combination of those options.
If they exercise the latter two options, well there's the start of the global market. That in and of itself will open yet another front the CoGA has to fight on, one it is even less ready to fight on than the military one, and become yet another economic and force multiplier that the EoC will control.

Thoughts?

[quote="DrakBibliophile"]IIRC the Ravenlands are lightly populated so even if they were willing to become part of the Empire, IMO they would not add that much manpower.

Of course, while the Empire could conquer the Ravenlands (even the Ravenlands lords know the Empire could), the Ravenlands would be more trouble than it would worth to conquer them.

Mind you, the Ravenlands lords aren't willing to give the Empire a reason to conquer them.

Granted. But Even when the EoC was moving it's forces from Chisholm to the mainland, it had to cross the Ravenlands...and had to bride the Raven Lords. I'm wondering if the EoC might not take advantage of this opportunism by supplying the managers and/or security for using Ravenland labor. That way all sides would benefit, the Empire would gain the raw materials it needs to stabilize its economy, the Ravenlands would get a taste/stake in the Empire's economy, and the Ravenlands would remain their own nation but becomes a neutral state or a buffer zone for the Empire.

ChronicRder wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:IIRC the Ravenlands are lightly populated so even if they were willing to become part of the Empire, IMO they would not add that much manpower.

Of course, while the Empire could conquer the Ravenlands (even the Ravenlands lords know the Empire could), the Ravenlands would be more trouble than it would worth to conquer them.

Mind you, the Ravenlands lords aren't willing to give the Empire a reason to conquer them.

Granted. But Even when the EoC was moving it's forces from Chisholm to the mainland, it had to cross the Ravenlands...and had to bride the Raven Lords. I'm wondering if the EoC might not take advantage of this opportunism by supplying the managers and/or security for using Ravenland labor. That way all sides would benefit, the Empire would gain the raw materials it needs to stabilize its economy, the Ravenlands would get a taste/stake in the Empire's economy, and the Ravenlands would remain their own nation but becomes a neutral state or a buffer zone for the Empire.

The Raven Lands don't have enough people to serve as a significant source of labor for the empire. Nor is their clan structure and culture suitable for that.

The EOC has about 72 million people and its agriculture has developed to the point where they have a fairly substantial work force in its nonagricultural sectors. The big multiplier already developing and which is enabling the EOC to compete with the mainland along side its military tech is the mechanization of its industrial sector which makes it possible for its labor force to be far more productive than its competition.

Don

Hello ChroniRder,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

Don is right on the money.

Resource allocation is an interesting aspect of the series, but I don't think the Empire of Charis is near to running into any manpower shortages soon.

To review RFC has given us the relative populations of both the empire and the other nations of Safehold;

Old Charis -14 M Siddarmark 129.5 M
Chisholm -15 M Border States 102 M
Emerald - 9 M KotTL 89 M
Zebediah - 8 M Harchong Empire 194 M
Tarot -11 M Dohlar 97 M
Corisande -15 M Silkiah 46 M
total 72 M Desnar empire 148 M
Sodar 37 M
Raven-Lords 123 K Delferahk 83 M

The post referenced was "Raw meat for the speculators April 15, 2012 with lots of other goodies.

The EoC military currently is between 1.17 to 1.25% of the empire's population less Corisande [~57 M], far less than the ~6% Merlin suggested they might reach to Rock Point in MTaT, and most of the other new fields for work or exploitation you cite are tiny; the number needed to dig the 'Mohryah Lode' is very tiny, only a few thousand men, given the slow production rate currently expected to avoid inflation, far less than the relatively few thousands working the 'Comstock Lode'.

I strongly doubt Cayleb would permit any lessening of his ducal rights on Silverlode, and given its almost entirely unconsecrated forest-jungle anyone looking for gold is going to have to bring their food and other supplies by ship, so having the ICN patrolling the coast may be a sufficient initial barrier, with a small army garrison at the mines, the rest of the island forest-jungle itself a rather considerable deterrent to anyone who's ever had to deal with such, so again few army patrols will be needed, though I've proposed in the past that Sharleyan might get some of her greedy nobles to invest in local industrial projects in return for 'permits' for survey expeditions to search for more gold [in all the wrong places, of course] or financing consecration projects to feed the miners or other survey attempts.

None of the industrialization projects is going to use that much manpower for quite some time.

Remember Charis paid 3-4 times the tithes of anyone else before the war, indicating it must have had quite an agricultural surplus to support all the artisans and merchants, which the ongoing improvements in farm machinery corroborate.

Given the continuing farm implement improvements, and the expansion in steam engine production there is relatively little pressure for more women in the workplace, though I suspect there are many more women working in the workplace not on the home or farm than most men see or admit.

The Raven-lords don't need to join the empire, and with only 123,000 people in their whole realm, they don't bring that much to the empire's workforce, especially given their rather hard scrabble existence.

So while the next war, approximately 20 years from now, may involve such a mobilization of the empire's manpower, this war won't.

L

ChronicRder wrote:Hi all

I'm sure someone has posted about the limits the EoC faces, but I'm afraid I cannot find it.

I was wondering how the EoC will adapt and overcome to the new limits in manpower it faces. Just to name a few of the labor intensive fields they are heavily invested in: booming industry, aggressively expanding military (across the board), a large merchant marine, and a newly found raw materials project in Silverlode. Even with the populations of Emerald, Chisholm, Tarot, Zebediah, Corisande, and Maragaret's Land, and (some might argue) Armageddon's Reef with Dragon's Claw as a tentative territory added to Charis's population that is still a very tall order. As we all know, the EoC is made up of islands which by their nature have smaller populations than the mainland continents, and it is harder to get a modern logistics system set up given the Proscriptions limitations. I realize that the last part is really a temporary problem until the CoGA is neutralized along with the OBS, but nonetheless it is an irritant at best and a noose at worst.
Furthermore, since Silverlode is technically part of Old Charis, I highly doubt the House of Ahrmahk will want to allow outsiders into it, esp with the goldmine they just discovered. Even if they were to come up with a joint-stock system that might eventually evolve into a Wall Street, that would do nothing to solve the manpower issue of actually mining those resources. While Charis is taking steps to incorporate women into the workforce to make up for all the men going off to war, they are still a ways off from becoming a central player in the markets and work force.
So I'm wondering how this will play out. I'm thinking it'll force the EoC to redouble their efforts and shove women into the workforce (a move the current Emperor and Emperess will support), if they will use to bring the Ravenlands into the fold, if Siddermark will front the manpower (despite their casualties they still have a larger population base), or some combination of those options.
If they exercise the latter two options, well there's the start of the global market. That in and of itself will open yet another front the CoGA has to fight on, one it is even less ready to fight on than the military one, and become yet another economic and force multiplier that the EoC will control.

Thoughts?

[quote="lyonheart"]Hello ChroniRder,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

Don is right on the money.

Resource allocation is an interesting aspect of the series, but I don't think the Empire of Charis is near to running into any manpower shortages soon.

To review RFC has given us the relative populations of both the empire and the other nations of Safehold;

Old Charis -14 M Siddarmark 129.5 M
Chisholm -15 M Border States 102 M
Emerald - 9 M KotTL 89 M
Zebediah - 8 M Harchong Empire 194 M
Tarot -11 M Dohlar 97 M
Corisande -15 M Silkiah 46 M
total 72 M Desnar empire 148 M
Sodar 37 M
Raven-Lords 123 K Delferahk 83 M

The post referenced was "Raw meat for the speculators April 15, 2012 with lots of other goodies.

The EoC military currently is between 1.17 to 1.25% of the empire's population less Corisande [~57 M], far less than the ~6% Merlin suggested they might reach to Rock Point in MTaT, and most of the other new fields for work or exploitation you cite are tiny; the number needed to dig the 'Mohryah Lode' is very tiny, only a few thousand men, given the slow production rate currently expected to avoid inflation, far less than the relatively few thousands working the 'Comstock Lode'.

I strongly doubt Cayleb would permit any lessening of his ducal rights on Silverlode, and given its almost entirely unconsecrated forest-jungle anyone looking for gold is going to have to bring their food and other supplies by ship, so having the ICN patrolling the coast may be a sufficient initial barrier, with a small army garrison at the mines, the rest of the island forest-jungle itself a rather considerable deterrent to anyone who's ever had to deal with such, so again few army patrols will be needed, though I've proposed in the past that Sharleyan might get some of her greedy nobles to invest in local industrial projects in return for 'permits' for survey expeditions to search for more gold [in all the wrong places, of course] or financing consecration projects to feed the miners or other survey attempts.

None of the industrialization projects is going to use that much manpower for quite some time.

Remember Charis paid 3-4 times the tithes of anyone else before the war, indicating it must have had quite an agricultural surplus to support all the artisans and merchants, which the ongoing improvements in farm machinery corroborate.

Given the continuing farm implement improvements, and the expansion in steam engine production there is relatively little pressure for more women in the workplace, though I suspect there are many more women working in the workplace not on the home or farm than most men see or admit.

The Raven-lords don't need to join the empire, and with only 123,000 people in their whole realm, they don't bring that much to the empire's workforce, especially given their rather hard scrabble existence.

So while the next war, approximately 20 years from now, may involve such a mobilization of the empire's manpower, this war won't.

L


Well, now I feel like an idiot for making the suggestion about the Ravenlands. I knew they were a minor player, I didn't realize they were insignificant compared to anyone. How does one go back and delete things off of previous posts?

Thanks for the numbers refresher. Ok so Let's say using those numbers that the EoC has ~72M people + 129.5M with Siddarmark, that is still a very low total compared to the 796M the CoGA can command. At best they control 1/4 of their population and at worst they have just about 1/10 of 1% of the CoGA's pop. Those are sum total numbers. That includes neither going into the exact sizes of each of their workforce sectors including military nor the casualties all those nations have sustained over the war.

Ragardless, that is a very tall order for an island empire trying to take on the mainland by any meter stick. Add to that the cost of their military operations: empire security, 3 field armies in Siddarmark, nation-building in Siddarmark, 3 fleets (1 keeping the pressure on Dohlar from Claw Island,1 raiding the northern territories on the fringes of the Hsing-Wu Passage, and 1 for either Homeland security or merchant marine security) on top of their "experimental industries" with mechanization (to Safeholdan standards...or should I say heretical?) and I can't help but feel that the EoC is spread very thin at least somewhere.

And before someone takes a shot at my point on merchant marine security, I remember there's been textev that states the SNARCs are spread thin and the Empire's navy cannot be everywhere at once. Some could stealthily build a squadron or two (aside from Thrisk's rebuild fleet) and take a popshot or two at the empire's heart: its trade capabilities.
For the record, I'm looking forward to seeing how Thirsk uses his new fleet. It's been too long since that man has been given another chance on the battlefield.

But I digress, I'm still looking for how the EoC is trying to surmount its resource limits especially in terms of population allocation. Even with mechanization reducing the total number of people needed, they still have an issue against the CoGA in terms of absolute numbers do they not?

Hi ChronicRder,

Don't bother deleting. Your post was not dumb and it serves the purpose of advancing an interesting discussion. I earmarked that info dump Lyonheart was talking about a while back and it has come in handy any number of times.

More on point, I really don't think that the difference in numbers between the EOC and the mainland have hurt the EOC much so far. The closest we have to a situation where the numbers could have been decisive not only tacticly but strategicly was the Battle of the Markovian Sea where the RCN didn't really have enough of the new shells and came within an eyelash of defeat.

The thing with numbers is that the only ones that count are are the ones you can actually bring to the task at hand. Everybody else is just sitting in the bleachers watching. This is true in both the military and industrial sectors. Further, if you need three people to accomplish something when the other guy only needs one, the two additional people you need are really sitting in the bleachers unavailable for something else that needs to be done. Then there is the additional problem of organization. If you can't round your people up and get them busy at what you need them to be doing, they are in the bleachers.

So we see the COGA's problem. Theoretically they have more numbers and vast resources available to them. But they can neither get those people rounded up nor efficiently use the people available for the task at hand which is why they are losing the war.

Don

ChronicRder wrote: I was wondering how the EoC will adapt and overcome to the new limits in manpower it faces. Just to name a few of the labor intensive fields they are heavily invested in: booming industry, aggressively expanding military (across the board), a large merchant marine, and a newly found raw materials project in Silverlode.

I'm delighted to see this question being asked. I could be mistaken, but my perception is that readers are assuming that Charis can hire new laborers, etc., using all the Gold recently discovered. If so, then they are making what I call the strawberry error, after an example given by Thomas Sowell.

Mr. Sowell said that when a person goes to the grocery store to buy strawberries she will buy one basket of them at the posted price, two at twice the price, or three at three times the price. To her, quantity is variable and price per unit quantity is fixed.

When you expand your view to the entire society, though, things are a little different. There were only so many strawberries produced this season. No amount of money will create another strawberry.[1] If one store sees increased demand, and their shelves become empty, then they will order more. If a wholesaler sees increased orders from all their retail shops then they will increase their prices. Retailers will start bidding higher in order to gain orders away from other retailers. To the entire society quantity is fixed and price per unit quantity is variable, at least in the short term. This is just the reverse of before.

Charis is in the position of a society buying strawberries vis-à-vis manpower, and other, limitations. They can't merely throw money at the problem and expect that to be the entire solution. One of the possibilities available to them is to increase productivity. Some of that is already happening with the cotton-silk gins and looms, air-powered machinery, and steam engines. In this case individual cotton-silk pickers and weavers make far more cotton-silk and cloth than before and so fewer of them are needed, despite the increased demand for cotton-silk and cloth. Some of those people can be gainfully employed at other tasks.

Despite that, it's not possible in general to pluck a weaver up and plunk him down into a mine. The cotton-silk cloth manufactory may be quite distant from the mine, and the weaver might not find himself amenable to mining. An alternative is available--job shifting to suitable employment. The weaver might become a cobbler. Cobblers in turn might become a cordwainer. A cordwainer might become a jeweler, and a jeweler might become a miner. However, doing all this implies massive re-locations in the work force, and that requires job mobility.

Another source of manpower is those people who are unemployed or underemployed. We've seen some of this in Charis, too, as many women are becoming gunsmiths.

~Tonto


[1]Limited additional quantities can be created by extraordinary efforts to prevent losses or to extend the growing season. The point remains.

n7axw wrote:The Raven Lands don't have enough people to serve as a significant source of labor for the empire. Nor is their clan structure and culture suitable for that.

The EOC has about 72 million people and its agriculture has developed to the point where they have a fairly substantial work force in its nonagricultural sectors. The big multiplier already developing and which is enabling the EOC to compete with the mainland along side its military tech is the mechanization of its industrial sector which makes it possible for its labor force to be far more productive than its competition.

Don

Don,

The current disparity in industrial productivity can't last. IIRC, the US had 60% of its population working farms until the 20th century. I hazzard to guess that Charis won't reduce that percentage by much until after the Proscriptions have been recinded and the OBS removed. I would further guess that the mainland will approach that percentage much more closely than Charis would wish.

Between Charis, Siddermark and Silkiah there are ~250 million people supporting those nations' economies. That leaves 750 million everywhere else. Assuming Charis manages 40% of its population working outside aggriculture and the CoGA nations manage 30%, the EoC has to be 8 times more productive in industrial production to match the CoGA. That's easily done right now, but the CoGA has a steeper learning curve. If the CoGA employs some less efficient steam engines in their industrial production, streamlines their processes and imrpoves productivity 3 fold from their base, Charis has to increase by 3 times along a much flatter improvement curve. At one point the gains in productivity for Charis can't keep pace with those of the CoGA nations. They have to increase their population.

So long as Siddermark remains part of their alliance, all is well. Should Siddermark leave for any reason, the Charisian population has to grow much more quickly than their mainland rivals or they will be out produced.

n7axw wrote:Hi ChronicRder,

Don't bother deleting. Your post was not dumb and it serves the purpose of advancing an interesting discussion. I earmarked that info dump Lyonheart was talking about a while back and it has come in handy any number of times.

<snip>

The thing with numbers is that the only ones that count are are the ones you can actually bring to the task at hand. Everybody else is just sitting in the bleachers watching. This is true in both the military and industrial sectors. Further, if you need three people to accomplish something when the other guy only needs one, the two additional people you need are really sitting in the bleachers unavailable for something else that needs to be done. Then there is the additional problem of organization. If you can't round your people up and get them busy at what you need them to be doing, they are in the bleachers.

So we see the COGA's problem. Theoretically they have more numbers and vast resources available to them. But they can neither get those people rounded up nor efficiently use the people available for the task at hand which is why they are losing the war.

Don

The EoC and Siddarmark have just over 200M while the CoGA currently has 630M people, that's a little worse than 3 to 1. IMHO the CoGA will shortly lose Desnair, Dohlar and South Harchong giving it an effective population of less than 385M. Assuming the Eoc's productivity is 3 or more times that of the CoGA alliance, which it seems to be, than the EoC and Siddarmark are on the winning side of the manpower/resource equation.

These 3 allies, while still being opposed to the 'Heretics', will be cut off and unable to coordinate will the CoGA or supply enough modern weapons to field armies. They will probably resist using guerilla tactics but I doubt the EoC will occupy.

Empire of Charis Siddarmark
Old Charis 14,000,000 129,500,000
Emerald 9,000,000
Zebediah 8,000,000
Tarot 11,000,000
Corisande 15,000,000
Chisholm 15,000,000
TOTAL 72,000,000

Church of God Awaiting
border states 102,000,000
Temple Lands 89,000,000
Harchong 194,000,000
Dohlar 97,000,000
Desnair 148,000,000
TOTAL 630,000,000

Neutral
Silkiah 46,000,000
Sodar 37,000,000
Raven Lands 123,000
Delferahk 83,000,000
TOTAL 166,123,000