Fish!

[Quinn Inuit]

I've been looking at my parents' Philip's Atlas of World History while I'm snowed in up here. It's not the greatest resource of its kind that I've found, but it does have some useful economic maps.

I've been meaning to replace a visible resource with fish, since that was a major trade good at the time. Using my own research (1-2) and this atlas (3-7), here's a list of regions that would be fish exporters:

1. Bosporus
2. Rhodes (not so much a fishing station as a re-exporter of Black Sea fish, but this is the best way to replicate that)
3. That Greek colony just next to Odrysian Thrace
4. The far western corner of the Mediterranean
5. The NW corner of Iberia
6. Northern England
7. The far western corner of the Baltic Sea

Any other suggestions?

[Carados]

Is there any mention at all of what type of fish were involved??

I know that currently the black sea and it's rivers/tributaries are a major source of the highly valued (but rapidlly dwindling) Sturgeon stock including the largest of it's kind, Huso huso (these can actually grow to the size of small Great Whites...). Being bottom dwellers, I'd imagine the other fish would be the major trade resource in the region back in the days. But you can never tell, I suppose - Huso could easily swallow a duck whole if it wanted to.

Incidently, is there any plan for introducing resources for settlements that have a nice source of income through trade higher up the river? I'm thinking the aforementioned sturgeon and also salmon here, who come up to breed in the rivers. I haven't the faintest idea who could benefit from, this though, except for the regions around the black sea and maybe a couple of countires around modern day Russia. In England, the only real fish that come up the rivers to breed in todays age are Salmon and Eels I believe.

Northern England isn't anything special unless you are meaning the North sea, in which case all the coastal areas would probably benefit including Scotland. In fact, the whole of England Great Britain would most likely benefit from strange marine lifeforms as well as Northern Europe (I.e. Northern France, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Finland). Currently we get the occasional basking and/or blue shark. If this be the case then back in those days (and I see no reason why not) the surrounding waters are definitely aplenty in fish of great value for human consumption and trade. We do get Whales around every so often too.


(disclaimer: a certain someonw has had a fair buit to drink tonight (half a bottle of red wine and 4 cans of guineess) - as such, there is n gautrentee that anything I say will make any sense ast all - much to everyones amusement I imagine)

[Incomitatus]

My understanding has been that there was a particular type of fish sauce that was wildly popular in Italy, and so fish were caught, turned into a paste, and it was that which was exported, rather than the fish themselves. Iberia was the principle source in later times.

[Cheomesh]

Liquamen, also known as garum. It was to the Romans as ketchup is to us.

M.

[Maurits]

Hm. I heard that they let it rot to get a certain flavour... I wouldn't do that with my good ketchup!

[Cheomesh]

Hm. I heard that they let it rot to get a certain flavour... I wouldn't do that with my good ketchup!

Oh it gets worse

http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/roman/liquamen_garum.html

M.

[Caligula Caesar]

I think they exported fish from the coasts of Arabia, though not large-scale. I might be wrong, though. Can I use that reasearch for my mod? I have been intending to implemement a fish resource, but I didn't know where

[Quinn Inuit]

You people are awesome. I love learning all of this new stuff.

CC: Go for it. I haven't heard about any substantial fisheries in Arabia, though. I mean, I'm sure they fished, but I have heard about it being a major export.

Carados: Good job making sense with that much alcohol in you, and good choice of beer. I've only found one place in the U.S. where the Guinness tastes anywhere _near_ as good as it did in the UK.

In the Black Sea, I believe the fish was mostly herring or something similar that was small and salted. No idea about the North Sea--only the Durham area had the icon, and it didn't go into detail about the fish type. Hmmm...IIRC, the Frisians fished a lot, too.

The river fishing idea is cool, but I wouldn't know where to begin as far as which rivers at the time had serious fisheries. If anyone finds anything, I'll add it in.

One of my lawyer friends used to be a marine biologist, and she pointed out to me the other day that, prior to serious commercial fishing, you were able to find vastly larger fish on a regular basis. So who knows what size fish those guys were hauling in?

Ok, here's an updated list based on the discussion thus far and the recipe Cheomesh posted:

1. Bosporus
2. Rhodes (not so much a fishing station as a re-exporter of Black Sea fish, but this is the best way to replicate that)
3. That Greek colony just next to Odrysian Thrace
4. The far western corner of the Mediterranean
5. Lusitania
6. Northern England
7. The far western corner of the Baltic Sea
8. Hispania Baetica
9. A couple of the Caspian provinces
10. The Aral Sea (they catch and export a fair amount of fish there now, and probably did so even more when the Aral Sea still existed--Sic transit gloria mare Tethys)
11. Paestum, in the Pompeii area

[Carados]

Ahah, well I have a bit of a local reputation for still being able to hold a perfectly viable scientific conversation even when half drunk. Guinness is brewed in Dublin in Ireland... well, in Ireland at any rate! So we get the quality stuff here, whilst you lot get the cheap export

Anyway, like I say - the Sturgeon are primarily bottom dwellers but their size mean that if you managed to catch a big one... y'know. They aren't easy to haul in though. The white sturgeon in America is fished at a kind of sporting event, they have to be released for the most part, and it can take experienced fishermen a good hour or so to land some of the bigger kinds using rod and line. There are some videos on youtube of these sturgeon jumping clean out of the water. Truly amazing fish they are. Totally harmless to humans too, unless you get whacked in the face.

Yep. For the most part, marine organisms in general were much larger up until the dawn of serious commercial fishing and the use of big nets. A good example I like to use is the Sperm Whale. Bulls used to be able to grow to 25 meters in length about 2 centuries ago I've heard, but whaling discriminated against the largest whales so much that bulls almost never exceed 18 meters in length in todays age - a size reduction of 28%! In fact, I think the average is around 14 meters, in which case the percentage decrease is 44%! One fish back in those days could probably feed a decent sized family fairly well. Another thing is that an increase in size provides a squared increase in surface area, but a cubed increase in volume... so large fish would produce relatively more of this juice/"ketchup" than smaller ones would.

Are you thinking of doing anything like FOE at all? It would be interesting to have a kind of sustainable/commercial style of resource use. Fish, for example, could provide a modest income bonus if used in a suistainable fashion. Commercial fishing though would provide a far larger income, but would give a penalty to local population growth. It would lead to a bit more strategic thought, I'd imagine. Anywho.


As for the Liquamen, I would be tempted to give it a try actually If the Romans liked it then surely it can't have been that bad? As in, some sausages have an intestine casing. Some kebab places in Britain have been found to include horse meat and other stuff in them. Black pudding uses blood, and so on. I only see two issues really. A bad smell being one which leads to the next, that is attracting the many cats we have in the area

[Caligula Caesar]

You are right about the Aral Sea, BTW. I researched the Massagetae a while back, and discovered they sustained themselves with fishing instead of having to farm!

[Quinn Inuit]

They did? Whoa. I'm tempted to add in a population boost from fishing, then, but we have enough population growth troubles as-is.

The sustainable fishing resource idea is cool, but I don't think the AI could handle it. It can't even do sustainable armies yet.

[Wambat]

I should think any province with access to the sea would have some amount of fish production, only the value of this catch should be varied, and port improvements should have a significant impact on this value.

The Red Sea has been very fruitful since the north of Africa turned to dessert; same with the Arabian Sea; the unrestricted flow of nutrient sand and dust into these seas produces abundant fish life. This catch, however, would not have been communicated to the Mediterranean world, but to the east coeast of Africa and to the subcontinent, so it is not likely to be referenced in historical records generally researched for this game. It should be remembered that food crops like fish and grain could only be expected turn a reasonable profit in quantity, and they could only be transported in quantity over sea or navigable rivers. There is a reason the vast majority of the human population has always lived within 50 miles of the ocean.

Since we are considering fish as a trade resource, we should not forget the resource which made fish trade possible: salt. This really should be a mine-able resource with at least the economic value of a silver mine, if not more.

[Quinn Inuit]

Oooh, salt. Forgot about that one. Anyone know where ancient salt mines were?

You're correct that everybody's going to be fishing, but I want to put the resource just where it was especially significant. How was the Persian Gulf for fisheries?

I can't vary the value of fish (or any resource) with port levels beyond trade level boosts, which I'm trying to avoid for the unbalancing problems they cause. Unless I make it mine-able...not sure if that's even possible. I think I'd just like to stick with fish in only places known historically for major fisheries.

[Wambat]

The Persian gulf is going to be very productive with fish, but the map obviously limits the significance of this given the small number of ports available, and the low population centres in the area described.

Salt deposites are generally found in desert areas, particularly North Africa in Roman times, but places like Rhodes and Sicily produced salt from sea water. This method required a scientific know-how and many many years of investment to start producing salt in commercial quantities. A realistic representation might be salt mines which require, either a salt resource, or some higher rank of academy plus access to the sea. Also upgraed salt mines should require the salt resource to represent the greater production potential of land deposits.

[Caligula Caesar]

I've read somewhere that Illyria also had salt. Someone should research what places people export salt from nowadays - that should give us a good idea about it.

[Wambat]

I dont know about Illyria, but Venice absolutely exported salt; it was how they started being a real financial power in the Mediterranean; though that is a bit out of the time frame of this game. However, they distilled salt from the sea, which, really, anybody can do, they just had the accademic resources to know how to do it, and the financial backing to invest in the facilities needed to get large amounts of salt from the sea, which is considerable. Gandhi's march to the sea was symbolic, the Indians could never have actually sustained their salt needs by drying sea water on their linens, not if they also wanted to do things like grow food, and sleep.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hmmm...I think I'd rather not let players develop salt refineries wherever they wanted. Maybe if they had a huge time-based opportunity cost...that might annoy players more than anything, though. It might cause less trouble if we just limit the salt resource to either where it was or where the human capital for salt refining was living.

[anunnak]

The Getae tribe Buridavensi had alot of salt that they exported from the "Ocnele Mari" in the middle Carpathians...there are mountains of salt there,litteraly.

[GraaEminense]

According to the Oxford Atlas of World History, the Phoenicians traded in salt from near Lepcis Magna and Hippo on the North African coast. Fish is mentioned as a trade commodity in the context of the Roman Empire, and then only in the waters south of the Iberian peninsula and north of Mauretania.

Interestingly, these are the only references to these commodities for the relevant period/region in the book.

[Caesar Augustus]

It might not necessarily count for anything during the time period, but when I went to visit my grandparents who live in southern Spain a coupe of years ago, we drove past several salt mines.