If that's so then why are you suggesting we not make them? Why wheel in 19th century Russia and "improved magical productivity"?
> The best we have are actual population figures which may
> not be particularly reliable when we need to know the maximum population
> that an area could support given a particular level of technology.
But you're comparing with a different level of technology, which is to my mind less reliable still. Not to say, pretty irrelevant if the point is an actual comparison, rather than a hypothetical one (battery Celts, as it were).
> >Note that this certainly isn't true in either Heortling lands or the RW,
> >where clearing forests and "wildlands" was (and still is...) part of
> >the equation. Which itself is significant of course, depending how
> >viable "Hunter" is as a Heortling occupation...
>
> Hunting is a use of land and at a given level of technology may be the
> most effective. In other cases land may shift from wildland to farmland
> and back depending on population levels.
Hunting isn't a use of "land available for cultivation", and it's only the most "effective" _in terms of population density_ if it's the only one available to you at all. (Broadly speaking.)
> Only if we
> can find evidence of RW emigration at population levels significantly
> below those in Glorantha can we conclude that the area in Glorantha
> is overpopulated.
I think you're assuming some much stronger sense of "overpopulated" than anything I've suggested. I'm not saying 50 people per square mile will have them dying in the streets and heading for the Lunar poorhouse, but that it's too dense to _feel_ congruent with the comparisons that are usually made.
> If I were to suggest equivelents I would compare Sartar with Scotland/
> Northern England (probably excluding parts of the more remote highlands)
> rather than Iron Age Britain in general. The more productive lands of
> South East England I would compare to Esrolia.
I was deliberately saying "Britain" since we seem to have arrived at the situation where Sartar is considerably more populous than "North Britain", and Volsaxar (never mind Heortland at large) moreso than "South Britain" (splitting at say the Pennines for the sake of argument) for the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Dark Ages, or the early Norman period, pick any "tech"/cultural comparison you like.
Esrolia is rather in a league of its own, but in this case we're at least pretty clear what the dominant land use (if not to say almost exclusive).
Cheers,
Alex.
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