Rendered at 03:17:09 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
manofmanysmiles 5 hours ago [-]
I've just spent an hour reading these words, and am having my mind expanded much further than I expected.
sklargh 6 hours ago [-]
I am designing a long term early edition d&d sandbox (Delving Deeper rules) and I have found this series and ACOUP’s other worldbuilding very helpful in shaping my thoughts and filling in the edges of procedurally generated stuff.
ggm 3 hours ago [-]
If you can afford to pay am army you can afford to pay the opposing side instead. And, many fine arguments abound for paying off potential invaders. It may be cheaper, and it may include paying them to go and attack somebody else.
kingofmen 10 minutes ago [-]
> If you can afford to pay an army you can afford to pay the opposing side instead.
Aside from all questions about how such an agreement is to be enforced once you no longer have the money but the invaders still have their weapons, the article shows very clearly that this is not true. Early states are seriously cash-strapped, and rarely pay their armies in easily portable goods. They can "afford" to raise armies consisting of soldiers who bring their own weapons and, by-and-large, their own food. That does not make for good tribute and so, in fact, they cannot afford to pay off an invader.
penteract 3 hours ago [-]
There are those who make strong arguments for the opposite.
Once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
ggm 2 hours ago [-]
Once you pay an army, you accept the army can take you over, internal or external.
Aside from all questions about how such an agreement is to be enforced once you no longer have the money but the invaders still have their weapons, the article shows very clearly that this is not true. Early states are seriously cash-strapped, and rarely pay their armies in easily portable goods. They can "afford" to raise armies consisting of soldiers who bring their own weapons and, by-and-large, their own food. That does not make for good tribute and so, in fact, they cannot afford to pay off an invader.
Once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.