An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
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Stark: Here’s a more in-depth answer than I originally planned but it snowballed.
I’ve got my hands on some OTL figures so I can make a reasonable comparison. I’m using Lascaris’s calculation that 1 hyperpyra = 0.52 pound sterling, but for the purpose of easing calculations I’m just going to say that two hyperpyra equals one pound sterling.
According to This Seat of Mars: War and the British Isles 1485-1746 by Charles Carlton, the Sovereign of the Seas, which was armed with 100 cannons, had a 1500 ton displacement, and have a very ornate and gilded stern cost 65,000 pound sterling. So the gift would pay for 3 Sovereigns. To help put that in perspective the author also gives 374,000 pound sterling as Elizabeth I’s income in 1600, so the gift by itself would be six months of her revenue at the end of her reign.
Now according to Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700 by Rhoads Murphey in one of the notes, a total of 65 million akce was needed for the Ottomans in 1653 to maintain (not build) 50 galleys and 13 galleons. I’m assuming this is for one year/campaigning season and don’t know the size of the galleons. Furthermore the author estimates the cost of building each galley at around 600,000 akce and each galleon at a minimum of 4.8 million but possibly as high as 7.5 million. For the sake of simplicity I’m going to go with 6 million per galleon.
This of course leads to the question of conversions. In Ottoman Warfare the author gives an exchange rate of 60 akce to 1 ducat in 1543. It’s a century earlier but I’m working with what I have. I’m assuming, but cannot prove, that the ducat in question is the Venetian ducat. According to a 14th-16th century currency exchange rate spreadsheet from the London School of Economics’ Website, in 1564 three Venetian ducats equaled one pound sterling, so 3 Venetian ducats = 2 hyperpyra. So the cost of a galley would be 600,000 akce = 10,000 ducats = 6,667 hyperpyra. The cost of a galleon would be 6 million akce = 100,000 ducats = 66,667 hyperpyra. So the galleon here, presumably much smaller and less ornate, costs about half of that of Sovereign.
So the gift would pay for 6 galleons or sixty galleys, or pay more than half the cost to maintain 50 galleys and 13 galleons for a year. The fleet cost comes to about 725,000 hyperpyra. Now in the context of the Indian Ocean frigates would be the best choice but I don’t know how much they cost compared to galleons/frigates, but even if a frigate still cost half that of a galleon the Romans paid for 12 Ethiopian frigates.
Now with other figures I can make at least a passing shot at a Roman military budget. According to This Seat of Mars in 1588, it cost 1700 pound sterling to maintain an infantry company for a year, 3700 for a cavalry troop, and 68000 for an artillery train (I’m assuming for the whole army). How well units match up is questionable, but I’m going to assume that an infantry company = 1 infantry droungos and one cavalry troop equals one cavalry droungoi and I’ll round the figures up to 2000 pounds sterling per infantry unit and 4 thousand per cavalry unit. So one Roman tourma with 8 infantry droungoi and 2 cavalry droungoi would cost 24000 pounds sterling or 48000 hyperpyra. Let’s add 6000 pounds/12000 hyperpyra for the artillery, so 60000 hyperpyra per tourma and 600,000 per tagma. So the eleven theme-tagmata cost 6.6 million hyperpyra annually.
Now there are four guard tagmata with 5 tourmai each, paid 50% than the provincials. So they add another 20x60000x1.5= 1.8 million hyperpyra. So we’re looking at least 8.4 million hyperpyra per year just to maintain the army, although I’d add at a bare minimum another half million at least to cover extra expenses, most likely more. This doesn’t cover the cost of fortress garrisons for example.
Now for the navy. I haven’t set down a specific navy size. I don’t know how the 65 million akce for maintenance were split between the galleys and galleons. The galleons cost much more to build but I doubt their maintenance costs are 10 times higher than galleys since they don’t have the hundreds of rowers. The Roman navy has moved much more towards galleons/fregatai so the 50 galleys to 13 galleons matchup of the 1653 Ottoman fleet doesn’t work. But I think it can safely be said that the maintenance of 50 galleys probably at least matched that of the 13 galleons so that sum going to all galleons could pay for at least 26 galleons, probably more. So 2 million hyperpyra at least for the Roman navy to pay for all its galleons, fregatai, and galleys.
So the Roman military budget is looking around 9-10 million hyperpyra for the army per year, plus 2-3 million hyperpyra for the navy. I’ve never anywhere, at least in the TL proper as far as I can tell, listed the annual income of the Roman government, save a note that the 10 million hyperpyra paid to Iskandar to gain the initial Khlat truce was “almost a full year’s revenue”. Considering the expense of the Roman military, I’m going to say that the annual Roman budget is in the 14-17 million hyperpyra range since after covering the military the entire civilian administration needs to be covered.
Everyone, please let me know if you have comments, questions, suggestions, corrections, or more data to add to the above. It'll be greatly appreciated.
JohnSmith: There will be at some point, I promise. There is a move to more linear tactics, with units firing by ranks, and smaller more manageable formations in the vein of the OTL Dutch and Swedes. The Germans are taking the lead here due to their experience in the Brothers War.
I’ve got my hands on some OTL figures so I can make a reasonable comparison. I’m using Lascaris’s calculation that 1 hyperpyra = 0.52 pound sterling, but for the purpose of easing calculations I’m just going to say that two hyperpyra equals one pound sterling.
According to This Seat of Mars: War and the British Isles 1485-1746 by Charles Carlton, the Sovereign of the Seas, which was armed with 100 cannons, had a 1500 ton displacement, and have a very ornate and gilded stern cost 65,000 pound sterling. So the gift would pay for 3 Sovereigns. To help put that in perspective the author also gives 374,000 pound sterling as Elizabeth I’s income in 1600, so the gift by itself would be six months of her revenue at the end of her reign.
Now according to Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700 by Rhoads Murphey in one of the notes, a total of 65 million akce was needed for the Ottomans in 1653 to maintain (not build) 50 galleys and 13 galleons. I’m assuming this is for one year/campaigning season and don’t know the size of the galleons. Furthermore the author estimates the cost of building each galley at around 600,000 akce and each galleon at a minimum of 4.8 million but possibly as high as 7.5 million. For the sake of simplicity I’m going to go with 6 million per galleon.
This of course leads to the question of conversions. In Ottoman Warfare the author gives an exchange rate of 60 akce to 1 ducat in 1543. It’s a century earlier but I’m working with what I have. I’m assuming, but cannot prove, that the ducat in question is the Venetian ducat. According to a 14th-16th century currency exchange rate spreadsheet from the London School of Economics’ Website, in 1564 three Venetian ducats equaled one pound sterling, so 3 Venetian ducats = 2 hyperpyra. So the cost of a galley would be 600,000 akce = 10,000 ducats = 6,667 hyperpyra. The cost of a galleon would be 6 million akce = 100,000 ducats = 66,667 hyperpyra. So the galleon here, presumably much smaller and less ornate, costs about half of that of Sovereign.
So the gift would pay for 6 galleons or sixty galleys, or pay more than half the cost to maintain 50 galleys and 13 galleons for a year. The fleet cost comes to about 725,000 hyperpyra. Now in the context of the Indian Ocean frigates would be the best choice but I don’t know how much they cost compared to galleons/frigates, but even if a frigate still cost half that of a galleon the Romans paid for 12 Ethiopian frigates.
Now with other figures I can make at least a passing shot at a Roman military budget. According to This Seat of Mars in 1588, it cost 1700 pound sterling to maintain an infantry company for a year, 3700 for a cavalry troop, and 68000 for an artillery train (I’m assuming for the whole army). How well units match up is questionable, but I’m going to assume that an infantry company = 1 infantry droungos and one cavalry troop equals one cavalry droungoi and I’ll round the figures up to 2000 pounds sterling per infantry unit and 4 thousand per cavalry unit. So one Roman tourma with 8 infantry droungoi and 2 cavalry droungoi would cost 24000 pounds sterling or 48000 hyperpyra. Let’s add 6000 pounds/12000 hyperpyra for the artillery, so 60000 hyperpyra per tourma and 600,000 per tagma. So the eleven theme-tagmata cost 6.6 million hyperpyra annually.
Now there are four guard tagmata with 5 tourmai each, paid 50% than the provincials. So they add another 20x60000x1.5= 1.8 million hyperpyra. So we’re looking at least 8.4 million hyperpyra per year just to maintain the army, although I’d add at a bare minimum another half million at least to cover extra expenses, most likely more. This doesn’t cover the cost of fortress garrisons for example.
Now for the navy. I haven’t set down a specific navy size. I don’t know how the 65 million akce for maintenance were split between the galleys and galleons. The galleons cost much more to build but I doubt their maintenance costs are 10 times higher than galleys since they don’t have the hundreds of rowers. The Roman navy has moved much more towards galleons/fregatai so the 50 galleys to 13 galleons matchup of the 1653 Ottoman fleet doesn’t work. But I think it can safely be said that the maintenance of 50 galleys probably at least matched that of the 13 galleons so that sum going to all galleons could pay for at least 26 galleons, probably more. So 2 million hyperpyra at least for the Roman navy to pay for all its galleons, fregatai, and galleys.
So the Roman military budget is looking around 9-10 million hyperpyra for the army per year, plus 2-3 million hyperpyra for the navy. I’ve never anywhere, at least in the TL proper as far as I can tell, listed the annual income of the Roman government, save a note that the 10 million hyperpyra paid to Iskandar to gain the initial Khlat truce was “almost a full year’s revenue”. Considering the expense of the Roman military, I’m going to say that the annual Roman budget is in the 14-17 million hyperpyra range since after covering the military the entire civilian administration needs to be covered.
Everyone, please let me know if you have comments, questions, suggestions, corrections, or more data to add to the above. It'll be greatly appreciated.
JohnSmith: There will be at some point, I promise. There is a move to more linear tactics, with units firing by ranks, and smaller more manageable formations in the vein of the OTL Dutch and Swedes. The Germans are taking the lead here due to their experience in the Brothers War.
Evilprodigy
Donor
From what I understand about naval strategy, and it's not much because I'm not a naval historian, nations who had large amounts of water to cover often did not invest in large warships even if they had the capacity to do so. This is mostly because the general strategic uses of, say, your given 26 galleons vs 13 galleons and 50 galleys are quite different. If there is a wide amount of water that needs to be protected (the Romans look like they have one of the longest coasts in the world) they would probably invest in larger numbers of smaller ships in order to more easily move naval vessels (smaller ships are faster) and spread them more efficiently over the wide area they need to cover. So as a result nations who don't have to do that prefer to concentrate their forces into small numbers of big ships, by comparison, since the larger slower vessels being less manoeuvrable does not matter due to the smaller area that needs to be protected.
You can see this generally starting from the 1500s to modern day since it's a common strategic tactic. The Ottomans for example had to cover the east and west Mediterranean as well as the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to a lesser extent the Black Sea. So they had large numbers of galleys with larger vessels for those large concentrated naval operations like Rhodes and Malta. By comparison the Spanish who only needed home defence for the west Mediterranean and a bit in the Caribbean were the ones who built the large galleons while the Portuguese with a similar state had huge Carracks. Mediterranean states like Venice, Genoa, and the Knights of Rhodes or Malta build very large war galleys since they needed to cover a smaller amount of sealanes. Genoa just the west Mediterranean, Venice the Adriatic and sometimes the East Mediterranean, and the Knights only around the Aegean or the Central Mediterranean. This tended to stay around later as well, since part of the naval arms race between Britain and Germany prior to WWI had to do with German force concentration in the North Sea and their focus on a big ship doctrine while the British had lots of obligations across the world and so had large numbers of smaller vessels spread out over their colonial empire and they needed to be fast in order to get there in the first place. France had a similar issue with large numbers of small ships while Russia also concentrated larger vessels due to their role as home defence of inland seas.
For Rhomania when you decide that they are focusing on galleons or frigates you probably need to keep in mind their naval doctrine. They have a large coastline to cover and plenty of seas with obligations in the east, even if the Shiplords do most of that. The White Palace needs to ensure adequate naval defence for the Black Sea, Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, Adriatic, and parts of the Western Mediterranean. The role of their outlying despotates in this is going to be important since Carthage and Sicily are the farthest west they have expanded and so that is where much of the navy would probably be actively deployed to fight pirates but they still need to have a garrison for waters closer to home, as the fight with the Triunes shows quite clearly. In my opinion this wide range of obligations for the navy lends itself to larger numbers of cheaper smaller faster galleys than few numbers of galleons, but I fully expect them to keep big ships around for concentrated naval operations where they are attacking and not defending.
Ok to go by Pamuk Ottoman state revenue in 1653 was 558 million akce so 65 million is a tad below 12%. What you are looking into for the Ottomans is basically here http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/faculty/sevketpamuk/jeh2010articledatabase and the silver content of the akce here http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/faculty/Faculty/Sevket Pamuk/database/Ottoman exchange rates-2.xls although IMS this covers only what reached Constantinople in the end. Other sources put Ottoman total revenue at about 10 million ducats by the mid 16th century which roughly corresponds to 15 million hyperpyra.
I'd note though that by this point the Laskarid empire is becoming a rather different beast economically compared to the Ottomans. Ottoman revenues effectively flat out around 1530 all the way to the early 19th century. The empire instead is following the European pattern, with increasingly efficient taxation plus a banking system on which the state can resort for loans (something effectively not there till the early 19th century for the Ottomans). Plus the eastern trade but that compared to the domestic financial developments is nice but hardly the elephant in the room compared to the fiscal state at home. In essence by 1600-1650 what you have is much closer to France in revenues and by extension potential military capacity than to the OTL Ottomans.
But that doesn't preclude having low cannon taxes for Imperial Merchant ships. In that case the government would still keep track of cannon tax rolls, it just wouldn't cost that much for the merchants.
@Basileus444 How has languages developed in this TL? Castile-Portugal must be developing something to unite them. As well, there's probably some Greco-Italian hybrid lurking in Sicily, along with the mess that is Punic.
Evilprodigy
Donor
Did that happen IOTL Spain? From what I understand modern Spanish is just Castilian.
What I'm really curious about with languages is how the United Kingdoms are shaping up. All that French and English intermeshing with some Irish thrown in has got to produce some interesting results. Each kingdom is seperate from each other, but they have to be having some cultural influence on the others.
Evilprodigy: The problem galleys are facing now is that with the proliferation of fregatai amongst the Mediterranean powers they’re increasingly hard-pressed in battle. A Roman galley with four cannons is going to have a hard time with a sixteen-gun Barbary fregata. They still have their uses for inshore work, but the Romans are moving towards a galleon (early ship of the line at this point) for fleet work and fregatai for scouting and patrol work. If I was to break my initial budget estimate down further I’d put something like one million hyperpyra to maintain 40 galleons, 1.25 million for a hundred fregatai, a quarter million for 35 galleys, and another half million for other expenses.
That’s my understanding too. Catalan is certainly not what most people call Spanish. But the Castile-Portugal union is much closer than the OTL Castile-Aragon one. Unfortunately I don’t remember who or where but I do remember a historian arguing that on cultural grounds a Castile-Portugal union in the late 1400s made much more sense than Castile-Aragon.
Sir Omega: Probably. For the sake of budget calculations I’m assuming minimal graft, which I admit isn’t realistic.
Lascaris: Thank you for the information; it’s very helpful and much appreciated.
You’re right that the Empire is much more economically advanced than the OTL Ottomans, but I do like having OTL figures to use to keep my ideas grounded, and the Roman Empire is substantially smaller than the Ottomans at their height. But that said I’ve done some calculations with the data you linked to in mind.
The Empire mints two silver coins, the miliaresion and stavraton valued in the Laskarid currency reforms at one-tenth and one-twentieth of a hyperpyron respectively. That was 300 years ago though and considering the influx of Mexican and Japanese silver (not to the extent of OTL but still there) I can see the silver coins losing some value relative to the hyperpyron, especially since maintaining a precise 10/20:1 value ratio probably wasn’t a high priority of the Roman government. So I’ll say that the value has dropped to a 12/24:1 value ratio. Going with that figure the miliaresion must have a silver content equal in value to .317 grams of gold (hyperpyron containing 3.8 grams of gold). According to Fernand Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II in 1610 the average gold-silver value in Europe was 1:12. Therefore a miliaresion has .317x12 = 3.8 grams of silver.
Now assuming an annual budget of 16 million hyperpyra, that comes to 192 million miliaresions or 729.6 million grams of silver. That converts to just under 730 metric tons of silver. Based on the tables that puts the Empire somewhat behind late 17th/early 18th century France but well ahead of everyone else.
245: I have a western Eurasia map made for the 1625 situation.
HanEmpire: They have the lowest rate of anyone taxed and I don’t consider the taxes to be too high. For comparison in “The Industries of Art” by Anthony Cutler in The Economic History of Byzantium he cites a document from 1384 Thessaloniki that values a horse at 14 hyperpyra. These hyperpyra are not the TTL hyperpyra though. According to “Byzantine Money: Its Production and Circulation” by Cecile Morrison, also in The Economic History of Byzantium, the final issues of the hyperpyra IOTL in the early 1350s were only 11 carats of gold in contrast to the 20.5 of the TTL issue. So the 14 OTL hyperpyra = 7.5 TTL hyperpyra.
But that’s for 1384. According to Fernand Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II there was a substantial price increase in Bursa between 1489 and 1617 of many commodities (given the shock of inflation in the 1500s it is reasonable to assume that inflation earlier was negligible). Timber and red grapes doubled, honey and butter tripled, wheat, flour, and salt quadrupled, meat and pepper quintupled. Silver influx into Europe ITTL is substantially less than OTL (Potosi hasn’t even been discovered yet) so price hikes of this height ITTL are unlikely. So let’s say the price of the horse doubled to 15 hyperpyra. Therefore a Roman ship-owner who armed his ship with 5 fifteen-pounder culverins would have to pay a cannon tax equal to the cost of one horse.
Frustrated Progressive: French is the main language of the court. English itself will have some more French influences than OTL, but English was also a pretty robust language by the time the United Kingdoms were formed. There’s no reason an alt-Chaucer didn’t appear. So there won’t be an English-French hybrid forming although the two languages will be somewhat closer.
Veranius: Castilian-Portuguese are merging; they’re much closer than English and French. By 1700 the middle and upper classes will be speaking a common language although the rural peasants will be speaking local dialects much closer to OTL Portuguese and Castilian Spanish. Sicilian I wouldn’t describe as a hybrid but as OTL Sicilian with a very large dosage of Greek vocabulary. And Carthaginian is just weird.
5000 Cows: They are having some influence but French and English already have enough built-up clout that they’re fairly resistant to each other. The physical separation of the language zones by the English Channel also contributes. The Triple Monarchy is very much a dual-language polity (Irish is an afterthought; at most 10% of the population speak it as a first language).
Stark: Thanks, although now I have to add a critique of my original estimate based on further research.
Based on the exchange rate table, the value of the akce vis-à-vis the ducat was 175:1 in 1650 as opposed to the 60:1 exchange ratio I used based on 1543 values. So that would suggest that my previous naval costs were three times larger than they should be. This would have drastic effects on my naval budget estimates. That said though that would be mean that an Ottoman galleon, rather than costing half that of Sovereign of the Seas, cost only one-sixth which I find hard to believe.
Furthermore according to The Command of the Oceans by N.A.M Rodger estimates a 2.6 million pound sterling expense on the part of the English navy in 1696 (in the middle of the Nine Years War). For fleet size in the same year he lists fourteen 1st and 2nd rate ships of the line, thirty six 3rd rates, forty eight 4th rate vessels, thirty five 5th rate, and thirty five 6th rates. So that’s a total of 50 ships of the line and 118 light vessels. Assuming that the maintenance costs of the ships of the line (1st, 2nd, 3rd) make up half of the expense total (aside from the light vessels there are the naval yards to maintain) that comes to an average of each ship of the line costing 52,000 hyperpyra per year.
This is double my original estimate for heavy warships (26 galleons costing 725,000 hyperpyra per year which comes to 27,900 hyperpyra per ship) and six times larger than the second estimate based on using the 175:1 conversion rate rather than the 60:1 for the akce. Now I would expect warships to be more expensive in 1690 compared to 1650 and the English warships are likely bigger, more heavily armed, built to a higher quality (plus a more developed naval infrastructure), plus higher crew pay (no galley slaves) which would do much to explain the 1690 English rates being double the 1653 Ottoman levels. But that is based on using a 1543 currency conversion for a 1653 transaction which is questionable. But the other option gives a 6 to 1 discrepancy between 1690 England and 1653 Ottomans and I don’t see the previously mentioned qualifiers covering that big of a gap. In short I’ve come up with arguments that my original figures may have been either significantly too high or too low.
That’s my understanding too. Catalan is certainly not what most people call Spanish. But the Castile-Portugal union is much closer than the OTL Castile-Aragon one. Unfortunately I don’t remember who or where but I do remember a historian arguing that on cultural grounds a Castile-Portugal union in the late 1400s made much more sense than Castile-Aragon.
Sir Omega: Probably. For the sake of budget calculations I’m assuming minimal graft, which I admit isn’t realistic.
Lascaris: Thank you for the information; it’s very helpful and much appreciated.
You’re right that the Empire is much more economically advanced than the OTL Ottomans, but I do like having OTL figures to use to keep my ideas grounded, and the Roman Empire is substantially smaller than the Ottomans at their height. But that said I’ve done some calculations with the data you linked to in mind.
The Empire mints two silver coins, the miliaresion and stavraton valued in the Laskarid currency reforms at one-tenth and one-twentieth of a hyperpyron respectively. That was 300 years ago though and considering the influx of Mexican and Japanese silver (not to the extent of OTL but still there) I can see the silver coins losing some value relative to the hyperpyron, especially since maintaining a precise 10/20:1 value ratio probably wasn’t a high priority of the Roman government. So I’ll say that the value has dropped to a 12/24:1 value ratio. Going with that figure the miliaresion must have a silver content equal in value to .317 grams of gold (hyperpyron containing 3.8 grams of gold). According to Fernand Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II in 1610 the average gold-silver value in Europe was 1:12. Therefore a miliaresion has .317x12 = 3.8 grams of silver.
Now assuming an annual budget of 16 million hyperpyra, that comes to 192 million miliaresions or 729.6 million grams of silver. That converts to just under 730 metric tons of silver. Based on the tables that puts the Empire somewhat behind late 17th/early 18th century France but well ahead of everyone else.
245: I have a western Eurasia map made for the 1625 situation.
HanEmpire: They have the lowest rate of anyone taxed and I don’t consider the taxes to be too high. For comparison in “The Industries of Art” by Anthony Cutler in The Economic History of Byzantium he cites a document from 1384 Thessaloniki that values a horse at 14 hyperpyra. These hyperpyra are not the TTL hyperpyra though. According to “Byzantine Money: Its Production and Circulation” by Cecile Morrison, also in The Economic History of Byzantium, the final issues of the hyperpyra IOTL in the early 1350s were only 11 carats of gold in contrast to the 20.5 of the TTL issue. So the 14 OTL hyperpyra = 7.5 TTL hyperpyra.
But that’s for 1384. According to Fernand Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II there was a substantial price increase in Bursa between 1489 and 1617 of many commodities (given the shock of inflation in the 1500s it is reasonable to assume that inflation earlier was negligible). Timber and red grapes doubled, honey and butter tripled, wheat, flour, and salt quadrupled, meat and pepper quintupled. Silver influx into Europe ITTL is substantially less than OTL (Potosi hasn’t even been discovered yet) so price hikes of this height ITTL are unlikely. So let’s say the price of the horse doubled to 15 hyperpyra. Therefore a Roman ship-owner who armed his ship with 5 fifteen-pounder culverins would have to pay a cannon tax equal to the cost of one horse.
Frustrated Progressive: French is the main language of the court. English itself will have some more French influences than OTL, but English was also a pretty robust language by the time the United Kingdoms were formed. There’s no reason an alt-Chaucer didn’t appear. So there won’t be an English-French hybrid forming although the two languages will be somewhat closer.
Veranius: Castilian-Portuguese are merging; they’re much closer than English and French. By 1700 the middle and upper classes will be speaking a common language although the rural peasants will be speaking local dialects much closer to OTL Portuguese and Castilian Spanish. Sicilian I wouldn’t describe as a hybrid but as OTL Sicilian with a very large dosage of Greek vocabulary. And Carthaginian is just weird.
5000 Cows: They are having some influence but French and English already have enough built-up clout that they’re fairly resistant to each other. The physical separation of the language zones by the English Channel also contributes. The Triple Monarchy is very much a dual-language polity (Irish is an afterthought; at most 10% of the population speak it as a first language).
Stark: Thanks, although now I have to add a critique of my original estimate based on further research.
Based on the exchange rate table, the value of the akce vis-à-vis the ducat was 175:1 in 1650 as opposed to the 60:1 exchange ratio I used based on 1543 values. So that would suggest that my previous naval costs were three times larger than they should be. This would have drastic effects on my naval budget estimates. That said though that would be mean that an Ottoman galleon, rather than costing half that of Sovereign of the Seas, cost only one-sixth which I find hard to believe.
Furthermore according to The Command of the Oceans by N.A.M Rodger estimates a 2.6 million pound sterling expense on the part of the English navy in 1696 (in the middle of the Nine Years War). For fleet size in the same year he lists fourteen 1st and 2nd rate ships of the line, thirty six 3rd rates, forty eight 4th rate vessels, thirty five 5th rate, and thirty five 6th rates. So that’s a total of 50 ships of the line and 118 light vessels. Assuming that the maintenance costs of the ships of the line (1st, 2nd, 3rd) make up half of the expense total (aside from the light vessels there are the naval yards to maintain) that comes to an average of each ship of the line costing 52,000 hyperpyra per year.
This is double my original estimate for heavy warships (26 galleons costing 725,000 hyperpyra per year which comes to 27,900 hyperpyra per ship) and six times larger than the second estimate based on using the 175:1 conversion rate rather than the 60:1 for the akce. Now I would expect warships to be more expensive in 1690 compared to 1650 and the English warships are likely bigger, more heavily armed, built to a higher quality (plus a more developed naval infrastructure), plus higher crew pay (no galley slaves) which would do much to explain the 1690 English rates being double the 1653 Ottoman levels. But that is based on using a 1543 currency conversion for a 1653 transaction which is questionable. But the other option gives a 6 to 1 discrepancy between 1690 England and 1653 Ottomans and I don’t see the previously mentioned qualifiers covering that big of a gap. In short I’ve come up with arguments that my original figures may have been either significantly too high or too low.
Basilieus444, I gotta be honest. I see you and Basilious Giorgious, Soverihn, etc with these Byzantium timeline's as writers and true authors. I honestly loved these so much. I've been lurking for around 6 months for some reason, finally got the guts to say hello. These sorta things inspired me to make my Cesare Borgia timeline. So, as a favour and something in return, I give you this meme as an offering. I appreciate its not much, but I hope it shows more than just 400 characters. Have a great day.
Basileus, I am rereading the story and I just got to the part where there's discussion about possibility of Roman New Zealand. I'm wondering, are there still any plans for that? And have you thought of some cool name for it?
I know this is ASB, but I would love to see a timeline use the supersized Zealandia continent. As it wouldn't really affect human history too much until the 1500s. Otherwise its a good Pacific colony.
Thanks for your reply.
Actually, there's no reason why the real Chaucer couldn't appear, as the died before Jan Hus, the last OTL man.
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