When constructing armies for my world I found a problem. What

>>48792540
Pay them in food and increase their pay for the amount of tours of duty they have served

>>48792540
Keep the base pay low, but let them make up the difference in looting and pillaging.

>>48792678
>>48792655
I'm sure that throughout history there must have been thousands of strategies for military pay, right?

>>48792540
Pay can vary, with different schemes depending on the circumstances (ie >>48792678)

But at the end of the day, they ought to go home with a bit more than a common laborer, but usually less than a tradesman (unless they have a rare skill or they're an officer who can lead a hundred violent misfits).

Of course, this doesn't count soldiers like wealthy knights or personal retainers to important people, who might be unusually talented and loyal.

>>48792708
One I've seen around a lot was what the English payed their soldiers which was based on profession.

I think footmen were payed something like 3-4 pence, men-at-arms were 12 pence, knights were 24 pence and archers were 6 pence.
Roughly 2 gp, 5 gp, 10 gp, and 2.4 gp respectively.

>>48792540
Pikemen in the Spanish Tercios got paid extra to compensate for the hassle of having to carry around such a heavy and unwieldy weapon.

On the same time period there´s the Landschneckts, who got cut up like butter in a sandwich party. That´s a reason they were allowed to wear all the crazy shit they usually wore to battle instead of uniforms. I´m pretty sure they also got a higher pay than the rest.

In Ancient Rome, soldiers didn´t get all that much, though it was enough to live and usually paid to their families, or to them upon their return. Most of their earnings came from plunder. In later times, specially after the Marian reform (where they stopped being a "primitive" army of mostly spearmen and became the tower shield and gladius legionaries that most people know today) they began getting extra pay from the general that fielded the army. Eventually, rich people started fielding whole armies out of their own pocket. It was also common to offer the soldiers a farm and some money to get slaves upon their retirement, so they´d be able to live a rather accomodated life.


But yeah, in professional armies your pay usually varies with your rank and the specific role you fulfill.

>>48792902

>Mixing the Marian reforms and the Polybian reforms

Utter pleb.

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151KB, 500x309px

>>48792540
>What should a soldier's pay be based on?
Well, how does your world function? If it's a highly centralized empire (think Roman Empire, or France after the 100 years war), there'd be a standardized salary decided from the top, with certain troops getting paid more to compensate for training/heavy equipment/mortality rates like the other anons in this thread explained. If it's a feudal setting (like most fantasy), each individual lord would probably have a deal with his own retinue. You could even introduce some intrigue based around members of one retinue switching to another lord (within the same realm) because he pays them more. Who knows, they might argue that because both lords are loyal to the same king, they technically didn't desert.

>>48792540
IT depends, in the renaissence Spain/italy times soldiers could be payed with a part of cloth and another of money, Ferdinand II of Aragon made lots of pacts to raise the cloth industry in his home territories of valencia and catalonia, and the hugh demand of cloth he got from Sicily and Naples made a lot easier the integration of those two to his kingdom. Cloth was a lot more easier to get than money and rich metals, than Spain was severely lacking at this point of history. The Romans in the republic had some part of they salary paid in salt too, but I bet you knew it already.

>>48792540
The war feeds itself. Pay your men in spoils.

>>48792902
>On the same time period there´s the Landschneckts, who got cut up like butter in a sandwich party. That´s a reason they were allowed to wear all the crazy shit they usually wore to battle instead of uniforms. I´m pretty sure they also got a higher pay than the rest.

Famously, the ones who fought at the head of the formation were called 'double soldiers' because they usually fought with enormous two handed swords and were paid twice what their comrades got. They were first in and tended to die in droves.

>>48792540
Both rank and profession, obviously, one being the bonus and the other the normal pay

>>48792902
It's Landsknechte, with an s instead of an e if you want the English version you uneducated fuck
And they were highly priced mercenaries because they were so efficient

>>48792540
Anyone into Warhammer fantasy know how empire soldiers pay functions?

In some feudal systems, soldiers recieved no official pay or only a nominal wage and only recieved food and a share of the loot as reward. Their military service was essentially what they provided instead of paying taxes to support an army. However, there might well be some degree of subsidy from nobles who wanted competent soldiers, in the form of gifts, frequent competitions with 'prizes' for those who demonstrate skill at arms, favourable treatment of families who provide more good soldiers, etc. The battlefield role you were meant to fill and the equipment you had to show up with depended on your social class, with more expensive gear being associated with numerous priveleges.

A more usual system was a fairly small wage based on a combination of social status, equipment and competence (mostly the first two, which were closely tied to each other). Typically, each role (archer, spearman, etc.) would have two grades of soldier with one earning 50-100% more than the other. The better paid soldiers would be expected to bring better equipment, possibly be a slightly higher social position and sometimes have to demonstrate a certain degree of skill or strength. English bowmen were judged mostly on how far and fast they could shoot and had to provide a slightly higher grade of gear to qualify for the raised wage. Footmen in the same army were paid mostly according to the amount of armour they could afford while knights and so on were paid mostly based on their rank.

Mercenaries would have a similar stucture, but obviously be better paid as they had no feudal duty to serve. Craftsmen, like armourers and engineers would often be paid quite well, typically being contracted for the work rather than called up as part of a levy.

Note that loot, ransoms, etc. were often meant to be shared out in proportion to the pay grade of the soldiers. They could be encouraged to pillage a town, but punished for taking more than their proper share.

>>48798864

I think they mostly have semi-professional soldiers who are paid a fairly reasonable wage. I seem to remember a few characters in the novels signing-up for service with various nobles and the WHFRP class system had soldiers as their own job rather than being something pretty much every commoner was expected to do for a while.

That said, there also seem to be a lot of part-time soldiers, militias and the like, so it's not quite like a modern army. The various craft guilds and so on seem to have their own militias, which are probably part of the agreement they make with local authorities to maintain their monopolies.

There's likely some degree of variation depending on local laws, conditions at any given time and the exact type of soldier in question. Poor and rural areas are likely to rely on some degree of levy system while the wealthy cities can afford a standing force of professionals. Greatswords and halberdiers are more likely to be full-time soldiers than spearmen or archers. Some do double-duty as military and law-enforcement (watchmen, road wardens and the like).

There are also a lot of specialists who seem to have some kind of duty to provide military service; priests, engineers and wizards must have a quota or something.

The higher end of the military seem to work on a more feudal system. Individual soldiers are recruited for pay, but the nobles who employ them seem to owe a duty to provide troops to nobles higher up the ladder. Not entirely sure how funding for the soldiers in managed; it could either be paid out of the noble's pockets or transferred from higher up. Possibly a mixture of both.

Knightly orders are something of a mystery. I'm not even clear if they are full-time soldiers or just nobles who are part of a larger organisation.

>>48799553
Knights orders in Spain at least were full time warriors monks, and sustained themselves thanks to they land posessions and raids into the muslims lands. They were the most organized and normally the most effective force in the peninsula, but didn't intervene (that much) in the Christian kingdoms petty wars than were constant.