Everything But The Stabby Stuff: Food, Fodder, And Firewood On The March
I did quite a bit of historical research to figure out a good way to represent logistics and supply and the impact it had on armies prior to the industrial revolution. Historical accounts from Rome, Byzantium, and several other major historical polities. I like to think I did a good job but of course until the game gets into the playtesting the fun factor is up in the air. Of course the fantasy aspect also has a major impact on the situation. My goal is for magic to function pretty similar to the rest of the economy and related systems. It shouldn’t be as simple as getting portal magic and becoming an unstoppable military powerhouse. Even with location linked vs freecast portals.
If you want to skip right to the gameplay discussion you can ctrl-f “Logistics In Axioms” which is the relevant header but I don’t recommend it. The real world background helps in understanding why the design is the way it is.
Food, Fodder, Firewood
The 3 most important resources in ancient logistics were food, fodder, and firewood. A lot of stuff needed for an army was relatively static and long lasting. Tools, weapons, clothing, and armor were able to stay in good shape for very long periods outside of combat or heavy use. But the Triple F supplies were needed and consumed basically every day.
Firewood
An army typically got firewood from their surroundings after setting up camp and this was relatively easy to deal with in most biomes. Of course deserts and vast grasslands often posed an issue. But for the average environment an army was marching in they did fine with local gathering. A typical army would need something like 8 pounds of wood per person per day for heating and cooking. The Romans often required more for their fortified camps. Thus the average large army in the classical era might need 40 tons of wood a day. Typically a medium size tree averages around 1000 pounds of fire wood. So this actually isn’t as much as it seems.
A Roman legionary after the Marian Reforms usually carried about 64 pounds. A Roman conterbium was 8 legionaries. So during a firewood gathering operation even one man could supply his conterbium. The real issue would be finding 40 good trees to cut. A Marian Legion was roughly 4800 soldiers and 1200 support personnel so they’d need about 20 tons or 40 trees. Of course in many cases with a decent forest nearby you can get a lot of your wood off the ground.
A very important aspect of logistics in the classical and medieval worlds was how to handle firewood if you had to stay for a long period in one place. France and Germany were part of the ancient European continental forest but the focus for prominent classical polities around the sea made their lives at least a bit harder. The tradeoff for daily life and military actions in the forest was an inferior food supply but basically limitless access to firewood.
Fodder
Fodder was the second key thing needed to supply an army. Even in the case where you didn’t have a ton of cavalry you had a decent number of pack animals. The Romans used donkeys and ideally mules if they could get them. Horses were primarily used for the cavalry and were not loaded down. Camels were actually quite effective as far as weight carried as well.
Mules could carry roughly 300-400 pounds during classical times. In modern times we restrict their capacity to something more like 200 pounds for moral reasons but the ancients didn’t give a shit. Animals provided a strong carrying capacity compared to men. Typically after the Marian Reforms you had a single mule per conterbium and they carried the heaviest gear needed by the group while the soldiers carried the individual gear.
An ancient horse was fed roughly 5 pounds of hard fodder and 15 pounds of dry fodder a day. Dry fodder could be replaced by roughly 25 pounds of green fodder/forage. The ability to eat almost straight from the land was a huge advantage for using pack animals. An ancient donkey ate roughly 60% of the rations of a horse in all categories and 75% was the number for mules. They could also carry more, especially mules.
The Romans swore by mules over both horses and donkeys for a variety of reasons. These numbers were for ideal nutrition and you could cut back quite a bit during important times where the penalty for doing so with humans was far more painful.
Oxen, though typically not used extensively militarily required roughly 15 pounds of hay and 24 pounds of mash a day. They converted their food more efficiently which helps offset their size.
Horses and oxen need 15-30 liters of water a day with mules and donkeys needed much less though still more than a human. Fodder was perhaps the largest portion of the weight of supplies though not by a huge margin.
Food
The Roman army provided roughly 2.5 pounds of food a day to soldiers. The majority of this was the frumentum or grain ration. This was roughly 1.75 pounds. The rest of the weight was the cibaria containing meat, cheese, vegetables, sour wine, and the all important olive oil and salt. The Roman soldier had to grind his grain and bake his bread himself in most cases. In deserts they were given baked bread due to lack of firewood access. The Roman soldier prepared his own meals with his 8 man conterbium the vast majority of the time.
A Roman soldier typically carried 5 days of rations plus his gear while their mule carried the large 8 man tent and large hand mills for grinding the grain. Another mule sometimes carried ~12 days of rations for the unit.
The Romans provided grain because it spoiled much more slowly than flour even though it required the mills and was heavier before the waste was removed. Of course the leaders of the Roman armies were a bit more spoiled. Even those praised for their moderation and economy did things like take their favorite bakers or cooks as servants to the war. I will refrain from naming and shaming but it was very common.
Army And Troop Trains
The Roman army, especially after the Marian Reforms did a lot to bring down the size of the baggage trains for their armies. This increased speed, allowed for longer ventures, and limited being tied down defending their supplies. Many other classical states had perhaps a little too much weight in their train and this had significant impacts on efficacy. Many famous events in antiquity center around problems with troop trains.
The Roman army typically had a much larger train for the while army including the private trains of the officers as well as the equipment for engineers and for siege equipment. Then the smaller units, primarily at the lowest level would have their unit and personal equipment. Other armies allowed for more to be stored in the army train which was typically an inferior strategy.
Storage, Forage, And Requisition
So there were basically 3 ways to get supplies when you were away from your core territory. You could have granaries and warehouses, you could forage, sometimes even for food, or you could requisition food from allies. Then of course you had looting or threats to neutral or hostile villages and towns. We’ve discussed foraging a bit, so I’ll talk about storage first.
Not only the Romans but several other ancient empires and large polities like the Incas had a large network of storehouses of various kinds that were kept loaded especially as you got into your own lands. Then you had operational bases beyond the borders and then tactical bases within the area you were fighting which were sent supplies, by shipping if possible. Axioms is big on boats so this will be prominently represented in gameplay.
Requisition involved essentially legally or diplomatically requesting supplies from local allies or subordinate polities. In many cases a theoretically neutral polity might offer supplies, if they had them, to help you bring down their local rivals. In many cases you had longstanding deals or secretly negotiated agreements with local powers depending on the situation.
Finally looting and pillaging were a last ditch option and typically polities that could do so enforced bans on these activities especially without permission of the local commander. Of course many armies were not that organized and leaders didn’t have so much control over their troops.
Logistics In Axioms
My intention is to make the model in Axioms as flexible as possible and to try to allow for representation of a variety of logistical options. The Roman method is of course a central focus of my efforts but I also use it somewhat to represent an ideal of logistics, at least prior to the application of magical logistics.
Axioms has a complex economic simulation and like a city builder resources, products, and items actually exist with various attributes and in specific locations. Additionally buildings have storage for these things.
Axioms applies that system to “Armies” and “Units” with “Equipment” and “Supplies” as part of those entities as well as a system for tracking animals including pack and food animals. Indeed historically some armies campaigned with “meat on the hoof” as a strategy for providing fresh meat.
Provinces don’t have “supply” as a generic value but a variety of variables broken out and with natural and artificial replenishment. As a turn based game you have more freedom to handle complexities and military forces have some degree of choice over how they proceed and how they supply themselves.
Turns are a month which is a bit long for military action and I am considering weekly turns depending on performance. This will mostly require a modification of the attention point system. Shorter turns would also make the Social Calender/Social Occasion systems more interesting and perhaps a few other systems but I am not super hopeful that performance can support much smaller time divisions.
Armies/Units will have actual items for their equipment including armor, weapons, and supplies. Items, “Products”, and Resources are part of supplies while Equipment is all Items. Creatures, that is non-magical/evil lifeforms, are also part of the system to represent horses, pack animals, and food animals.
As you expand in size, should you choose to do so, there are some automation options for handling logistics and for some other systems. Basically you’ll only get a warning if there are problems. Of course in a turn based game you have more ability to micromanage but I want to make it as optional as possible for scale reasons.
Boats!!!!!!!!
Now for my favorite topic. Naval supply, as a subset of trade/transport/troop movement, is a key part of logistics. As explains in previous design posts I made choices for the default settings to vaslty increase the proportion of interesting and civilization supporting water features, even as I increased landmass. This is mostly by having a much smaller proportion of open ocean.
Naval supply had some special hazards and difficulties but it was often quite superior compared to maintaining long stretched out overland supply systems. The Romans as an example would often assign provinces to supply an operational base at a port in the area of a military expedition. Then supplies would be moved by the shortest overland route to tactical storage bases. Sea shipping was much faster and more reliable even accounting for storms. Part of this of course was that the empire was a coastal empire for the most part.
Boats in early antiquity were often not extremely complex or difficult to build, trading off on various aspects of quality. You could get a new fleet build relatively fast especially with smaller and more basic designs. A typical ship carried around 40-80 tons, which wasn’t a huge amount but using speed and repeat trips and convoys you could get a lot done without needing larger very complex ships.
It took roughly a week to sail from Ostia to Alexandria. Legions marched roughly 20 miles a day at 3 miles an hour and this was much faster than most classical armies. Ships however had standard travel speeds, usually around 4-5 knots or 4-5 miles an hour. So ships traveled around 50% faster than men marched and they could carry more for less expense.
Conclusion
Axioms has a relatively detailed design for supply and logistics and this is enabled by the general detail of the simulation making it much easier than it seems. I didn’t outline every mechanic with numbers in detail to save time and effort but the results should be relatively comparable to the real world until magic gets involved. No more marching massive armies across the world at high speed as is done in most strategy games.
There has already been a post about war planning and the next post in the Everything But The Stabby Stuff series will possibly come out tomorrow and detail the raising of armies. I’ll discuss the different methods, the different social and economic impacts, and also the political impact of different systems. The change from citizen militias to proletariat professional forces created long term consequences for Rome for instance.