>Different angle, much the same conclusion, I think. I'm not sure how
>many clans there are in total, but since Sartar occupies about 200
>hexes,
Old Sartar, that is, the dark orange territory. Both Old and New Sartar have closer to 400 hexes, or an average of 500 people per hex, allowing for a few mountain hexes.
Three hexes are an infantry unit's day's march (excluding forced march or road movement). If we assume about 12 km per hex diametre, that's an average of three villages 5 to 6 km apart (one in the centre of each hex, the rest on the corners, with each corner shared by three hexes, thus 1+6/3) or five to six km to the next settlement of about 200 people (say seven to twelve steads) in any settlement in Sartar assuming equal distribution.
>and has a population of 180,000, that's nearly 1000 people per hex.
>That would only be feasible if not only almost all land were in
>productive use, but that it almost all be _arable_ land, which is just
>not at all sensible.
I don't have exact numbers, but the iron age village at Hjemsted (on comparatively poor soil) in Roman Iron Age Juteland, six km away from the next larger settlement, consisted of about 12 to 15 steads. It was surrounded by acres, then pasture, marsh, forest (admittedly little) and heath. None of these were left unused.
>I think one will find that historical population
>figures for more "advanced" cultures, in areas with less heavy relief
>are lower. (Sorry, don't have any statistics to hand -- will check
>out such references as I can find in our library.)
Well, if you think that Sartar is heavily populated, try and calculate population density for Heortland or Tarsh... My calculation ended up with ideal distribution of villages in the Heortland plateau, without much wild land between the commons, and still dense settlement but room for mostly forested hill crests in the foothill region. I guess Sartar is similar to the situation I ended up with in the foothills - partially forested hills or heath surrounding the fields and prime pasture.
Take a look at the map of Lismelder lands in Tales #5 (the Humakt special which was reprinted, p.3), and take each settlement shown there as a clan seat. You get about one clan per (lowland) hex.
Powered by hypermail