Road Building Costs?

[3catcircus]

Ok - I need some help. One of my players wants to build a road and asked about costs...

I can't find anything in DMG or other sources. A quick look on real-world got me a rough estimate of 30 million dollars per mile (assume about 15 million british pounds per mile) for a highway, and another quick research indicated that 1 british pound in 2005 was worth only about 1 pence in the year 1264 - or 1/240 of the value. Therefore, a highway would cost roughly 62500 british pounds per mile in 1264.

Assuming that the british pound weighs .25 gold ounces, and since there are roughly 50 gp per pound weight, then the costs for the player to build a road I'm guesstimating at 313 gp per mile.

Of course, this is all loosey-goosey math, but does anyone have a better idea of the costs to build a road from, say, Nesme to Silverymoon in Forgotten Realms?

 

[DMH]

I asked this before. I don't know where you got that 30 million from, but that is awfully high for run of the mill roads (more like a mill and a half).

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=146905

 

[Phoenix]

This is the single most fantastic thread in the world.

D&D never covers the little things in the world like this, the closest being in the D&D Cyclopedia which stated that:

Every family in your domain contributes 10gp per month to the general maintainance of the kingdom. This is not money, simply work that the peasants do in service to their leige.

You've also gotta take into account that they won't be building highways in the realms, cobblestone roads at best.

 

[Umbran]

Of course, this is all loosey-goosey math, but does anyone have a better idea of the costs to build a road from, say, Nesme to Silverymoon in Forgotten Realms?

To answer that, you first need to answer the question- "What kind of road?" Except perhaps in Eberron, what we probably think of as a road would be a bit anachonistic. Roads can vary between the basic dirt path, up through something that has a bit of grading, up to the Roman style, with grading, a legitimate graded bed for drainage and cobblestone paving.

You also need to consider the terrain the road passes through. Plains are no big deal. But mountains will need lots of digging, forests lots of clearing, and swamps would require massive roadbed building. None of those costs are negligible.

Next, how much cash you need to spend depends upon your workforce. Then you have to figure out if magic is being used...

Oh, and then we get to talk about maintenance. Roads don't last forever without someone caring for them....

Many, many factors...

 

[Nyeshet]

There was an interesting thread a while back about road building - in the roman era, as I recall. I'm not sure how far back it was made, so it may have been among those lost in May. Does anyone have a link to it?

Nevermind, I found an old bookmark. How in the world did I recall a thread that old?! I guess it made an impression at the time (pun intended).

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=146905

http://www.battleoffulford.org.uk/ev_roman_rd_constrct.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12677701/

The other two links came up with the bookmark search. They may be in the thread itself, although considering that the last is a year and a half older than the original post I somehow doubt it for the msnbc one.

 

[jgbrowning]

10,000 sesterces (2,500) silver denarius per mile was expected for an average roman road according to http://www.camelotintl.com/romans/technology.html.

I'd double the silver/gold conversion to 20/1 and make it 500 gp per mile. But that's for a good roman road. And they were quite good.

joe b.

 

[Hussar]

Assuming that the british pound weighs .25 gold ounces, and since there are roughly 50 gp per pound weight, then the costs for the player to build a road I'm guesstimating at 313 gp per mile.

I'd double the silver/gold conversion to 20/1 and make it 500 gp per mile. But that's for a good roman road. And they were quite good.

Loosey goosey math wasn't all that terrible.

I think the plan is, don't try too hard for realism. A guestimate of 300 gp/mile works. If the terrain goes through some serious rough patches, double or triple it per mile.

Granted, this doesn't buy you any bridges, but, that's another story.

 

[kigmatzomat]

You could pick up a copy of Magical Medieval Society:Western Europe, which includes an extensive building system. If you want flagstone-paved road, you're looking at ~2gp/sf (105,000gp/mile). If you are willing to go with a cleared, & smoothed earthen road with stone curbs it is 5cp/sf (2600gp/mile). Forgo the stone curbs and it drops to 520gp/mile.

Remember that a medieval road is not a blacktop or concrete extrusion and consists of shovels & plows turning soil, wagons moving hand-cut cobblestones from the quarries, careful hand-placement of those stones with sand sifted between them. Mortar, if available, requires water hauled again by animal and mixed by hand. The ability of modern pavement to use virtually any readily available gravel reduces the cost of roads by a huge amount. The manpower reduction involved in using automatic mixers and pavers is also hard to rectify.

 

[Arnwyn]

Of course, this is all loosey-goosey math, but does anyone have a better idea of the costs to build a road from, say, Nesme to Silverymoon in Forgotten Realms?

Crap. I actually "developed" (read: made up) costs for this in my campaign world (FR) that were kind of in-line with the Stronghold Builder's Guide (and for use with that). I further delineated costs between the FR-standard of "roads", "trails", and "paths". I use them for when PCs carve out their own realm.

Sadly, I post from the office, so I don't have access to my books and I'm a completely useless bandwidth waster. Sorry.

(Edit: But MMS:WE is a good reference, as pointed out above.)

 

[3catcircus]

Thanks guys - much appreciated.

kigmatzomat - where is this located in MMS:WE? I've got both versions of the book and I can't find it anywhere.

EDIT: I found it - I didn't bother looking in the appendices at first...