Re: Historical population of Genertela

From: John Biles <john_at_...>
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:53:48 -0600

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 5:12 AM, illuminate33 <inarsus-ferilt_at_...> wrote:
> While I tried to translate the article of "Battle of Night and Day" in WF#15....manpower of the both sides (Great Army of Restraint, Unity Army) are lower than I have expected (around 4000 men) despite the fact that it was one of the decisive battles in the history.
>

Some of the decisive battles of the American Revolution were fought by armies numbering 2000 or less on a side.

In a non-warrior society, it's hard to field more than 1% of the population as troops.

That being said, population was TINY at the start of the First Age and so by the time of the Gbaji Wars, it had grown a lot but it grew from a tiny base. Medieval England grew by a factor of 6 in about 225 years before the troubles of the 14th century began killing everyone. So if your base is tiny, the end result won't be so big.

> Martin Laurie wrote much about the Third Age Lunar Empire in "History of Dara Happan Army" and unofficial "Gwandorling Saga", but it might be not realistic in circumstance of poor food supply....
>
> IIRC, the decisive battles in later age (For example, True Golden Horde in Dragonkill, Night of Horror) happened with large scale army more than 10,000.
>
> http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonkill
>
> I cannot find anything about rapid population growth or the development of military food supply in the Imperial Age.... Any ideas?

The Imperial Age was full of powerful empires with powerful magic; we can assume good food supply and huge population growth pretty reasonably.