I made that question and after I posted it I saw that I needed to clarify some things after reading your answer. I made 3 updates yes, but they were all within 2 minutes from each other so I thought it would be ok. Sorry though!
@Robin It should have gone to the sandbox first, I think. The basic premise of the question, that the cost should be expressed in modern money, is way out there.
@Robin And the issue is not with specific currency, but rather with the fact that the figures would be completely meaningless, because purchase power is so different.
Basically, $100 dollars today won't buy you the same amount of things the equivalent amount of gold would buy you 500 years ago.
And it's not just a matter of inflation, it's a matter of some things having gotten a lot cheaper and conversely some things having gotten a lot more expensive.
Yeah I understand that, but with Pipperchip's answer I now have some sort of baseline to move on from. His resource links are also a big help. I understand the basics of economy so I think I can extrapolate it to my world now. It was also more of a question to get a view of what it could cost.
@Robin Fortunately in this case you didn't change it so much as to completely invalidate other answers, but in general you should be reasonably sure of the for of your question before you post it so as to avoid this type of situation.
Yeah normally I make sure that my questions cover everything I need but somehow I totally forgot the essentials of the currency and what kind of troops would be in an army. And yeah, Stack exchange is teaching me stuff day after day!
@ArtOfCode, I was gonna try my hand at your (suddenly hair-dryer powered -- sorry if i induced confusion with the Ampere-hour comment) hovering city question, but @Jim2B has it covered quite well, and lots of pertinent comments.
@ArtOfCode You're not the only one I know to use that, but I haven't been able to figure out the American equivalent yet; generally they'll just say "college" most of the time.
@ArtOfCode You have universities, which are either general (usually named for where they are) or specialized (mostly technical ones); these are divided into faculties according to the field of study. Faculties internally have departments (originally cathedra) which further specialize.
As a student, you attend a study programme that is run by a faculty and may or may not eventually only deal with a single department. The degree you get is (in my country) dependent on the type of university you're on.
Basically, on the bigger universities you identify with your faculty first and with the university second; occasionally faculties of the same university will run competing programmes.
@ArtOfCode Eh, the difference is mostly cosmetic. Under the Bologna framework, you can get a magistrate on a general university or an engineer's degree on the technical ones; that's for the 300 ECTS equivalent
Doctorates are where it gets murky; it used to be that there were professional doctorates that you would get if after getting a magisterium you did another year of study and passed a rigorosum examination, but these are being phased out and we mostly do regular PhDs these days instead.
I'm here because it's fun. It has to be said this is one of the friendliest communities I've come across, and the stuff we do is complete nonsense sometimes
Aye. Here is a lot more lighthearted, and the critiquing element is well downplayed. It's just here's what I've got and here's what I want, what does everyone think?
Nice
I have this nasty feeling that I'm going to end up being just a few points short of 200 today
I do not understand the logic behind accepting purely fictional answers, such as several composed for this discussion of brainwashing
So far as I can tell, a very vague question was posed, and now there is extensive praise for a piece of fiction that proposes no answers. Why is this valid? What ...