[Discussion] Meat, sword and shield

As you all know, we already have a subsidized meat program in the SAS, where soldiers can request for meat that is sold at 17.50p and soon to be 17p. The meat is send to them in grants by the TM.

Now that war is finally coded, I propose we do the same with swords and shields. Also I propose that this system of meat subsidy be encouraged more and more. We need high strength soldiers faster..

Proposal :
The county engages butchers, blacksmiths and weavers for daily wages of 22p each.

Butchers will then be supplied with grants containing HHW and the wages, and they will then return meat back to the county. This will then be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current HHW prices of 15.50p, the meat cost will be 17.70p and wil be subsidized to 17.00p

Weavers will be supplied with grants containing hides and the wages, they will return the shields back to the county to be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current hide prices of 15p, the shields would cost 67p which can be subsidized to 50p.

Blacksmiths will be supplied with grants containing iron/steel and wood and the wages, they will return the swords back to the county to be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current iron prices of 20p and wood prices of 4p, the swords would cost 196p which can be subsidized to 150p.

Subisidy cost per meat : 0.70p
Subsidy cost per sword : 46p
Subsidy cost per shield : 17p

Criteria for sword and shield delivery : Atleast 50 str and 2 months of service in the SAS. Members who already have swords and shields need not be supplied with them again, but we can offer them the meat at an even cheaper price to cover the 63p subsidies offered to others for the sword and shield.

Basically what it means is the County will take up a commitment of 63p per soldier who has reached 50 str and has a service of 2 months and more in the SAS for equipping them with a sword and a shield. Meat subsidies are open to everyone in the SAS.

For members of the public, I have opened a discussion thread in my chambers so we can hear your opinions on this as well.

https://somerset.rpg-board.net/The-council-of-Somerset-c11/Counsellors-offices-c12/The-trade-minister-office-f45/Discussion-Meat-sword-and-shield-t196.htm

Hmm no other councilor is interested in discussing this? Somerset needs to get ready.

Oh and I was interested in dropping the price of meat a little lower, maybe to 16.50p or 16.00p as well.

Is not what we do already

Well what we have been doing has been on a limited scale since we only used to do the meat part of the program. We need people eating it more though, and we would need to offer a higher subsidy for that.

The swords and shields, we never went for a county wide program, it was mostly us encouraging the SAS soldiers to get them since they needed it for promotions. A lot of them obtained swords at 200+ pounds and shields at around 70p.

Instead of spending 270p, we can get them swords and shields for 200p. Time for us to push the program a lot more

Seems like the general opinion has been in favor of the program, both from council and the people.

I would like to start a vote on this issue in the next 2 days, so if there is any further issues we need to discuss with regards to this, we should do that now.

Has the county the funds to pay for this? Obviously, 17 pound meat subsidies aren't a big deal. 16.50 or 16 pounds might become a big deal. And 63 pound subsidies per soldier (granted that many people will eat a lot of meat before this really becomes an issue) could get VERY expensive very fast ...

Yes, the money is going to be a huge sum, no doubts about that. Which is why the last few terms we had concentrated on getting to the positive quickly. I will still need money for buying iron from time to time, and a lot of other things. But we will get it all done , especially if the towns also help. We have some of the best towns in the country. All of them are rich and economically strong.

A SAS meat price of 16 wont affect us in the long run. If anything at all, it will help our soldiers to gain +4 strength a day that much easily if they wish to.

I had planned an outlay of 100 swords and 100 shields initially. That itself would cost around 27,000 in total (6300 if you just count the subsidy). But Somerset is lucky that we have the resources to pay for all this, and while we have the resources, we should use it.

Well from what I've seen I'll support this as well, with the ever looming prospects of war I'm sure the citizens will welcome a stronger and well equipped army defending them, from what I've heard in Chard people tend to support this proposal as well.

Also as a member of the army myself I will definitely take advantage of this offer to speed up my growth

Just to recap once more :

Quote :

As you all know, we already have a subsidized meat program in the SAS, where soldiers can request for meat that is sold at 17.50p and soon to be 17p. The meat is send to them in grants by the TM.

Now that war is finally coded, I propose we do the same with swords and shields. Also I propose that this system of meat subsidy be encouraged more and more. We need high strength soldiers faster..

Proposal :
The county engages butchers, blacksmiths and weavers for daily wages of 22p each.

Butchers will then be supplied with grants containing HHW and the wages, and they will then return meat back to the county. This will then be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current HHW prices of 15.50p, the meat cost will be 17.70p and wil be subsidized to 16.00p

Weavers will be supplied with grants containing hides and the wages, they will return the shields back to the county to be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current hide prices of 15p, the shields would cost 67p which can be subsidized to 50p.

Blacksmiths will be supplied with grants containing iron/steel and wood and the wages, they will return the swords back to the county to be subsidized and sold to SAS members. At current iron prices of 20p and wood prices of 4p, the swords would cost 196p which can be subsidized to 150p.

Subisidy cost per meat : 1.70p
Subsidy cost per sword : 46p
Subsidy cost per shield : 17p

Criteria for sword and shield delivery : Atleast 50 str and 1 month of service in the SAS. Members who already have swords and shields need not be supplied with them again, but we can offer them the meat at an even cheaper price to cover the 63p subsidies offered to others for the sword and shield. Criteria can be waived if required.

Basically what it means is the County will take up a commitment of 63p per soldier who has reached 50 str and has a service of 1 month or more in the SAS for equipping them with a sword and a shield. Meat subsidies are open to everyone in the SAS

Now assuming a person can pay even at the subsidized rates, we could take a person from 0 str and 1 FC to 200+ str and 8 FC (200+ str, sword and shield) at a total subsidy cost of 233p (170 for the 100 meat, 17 for the shield and 46 for the sword). The raw capital for 100 meat, 1 sword and 1 shield would be 2033p (1770 for the meat, 196 for the sword and 67 for the shield)
We are going to need atleast 40 fully strengthened and equipped active soldiers in each town (40 because that is the maximum number of defenders who can defend at any one time).

Lets not get frightened by these numbers though. Currently Somerset is making between 6.5k to 8.0k per week in profits (unless we do mine upgrades). We can afford this. What I would really love to do is get the Lt.s to report in with 5-10 names from their towns. I can then concentrate on arming and strengthening them quickly. These chosen folks should have some cash with them though. If we dont have that option, I can still keep granting those who want meat while Sergeant Harekr can deal with the swords and shields. Or the mayors could handle the swords and shields themselves, that too is an option.

I have opened up a vote on this. This is the first public councilor vote in Somerset. Poll is open for 2 days

It is at https://somerset.rpg-board.net/The-council-of-Somerset-c11/The-public-council-room-f42/VOTE-Meat-sword-and-shield-proposal-t278.htm