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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8437113"><p>This did make me think of just how challenging this particular rabbit hole can be. I was talking with a friend recently, who is very well read about history and someone I would consider more intelligent than myself, and he was trying to bring realistic economics to a maritime setting. It was excruciatingly difficult to get good information and understand the baseline costs of things (i.e. how many sheep x amount of wheat was worth). When I was doing my Roman campaign I had similar issues and remember trying to incorporate things like an imperial edict on prices (which turned out to itself be much more complicated). Now, when I do want a 'realistic' economy in my games, because I know I will never intuitively understand the economics of a medieval or ancient agrarian society, I just use anachronistic prices based on modern costs (i.e. well this chariot is comparable to a car so I will draw on modern car costs; if someone wants a meal at an inn, I charge them based on restaurant prices I understand). That has worked really well for me. It isn't historically realistic, but it tends to be much more consistent than when I research each thing individually because I don't really grasp those values on an internal level the way I do modern prices.</p></blockquote><p></p>