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Population and demographics: kingdom building rules
- Thread starter blargney the second
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Just been looking at demographics and rulership again for a Labyrinth Lord game I'm running tomorrow.
Looking at medieval & similar population levels, I think 1-10-100 is a good rule of thumb:
Population
Howling wilderness, high mountains, tundra, deserts - ca 1 per square mile, typically hunter-gatherers.
Borderlands, Rugged Hills, Low Mountains ca 10 per square mile, typically clans.
Settled farmland ca 100 per square mile, typically peasants.
A new domain established in habitable Wilderness (like the Stolen Lands in Kingmaker) will grow around 100% per year in population until it reaches Borderland level, then 10% per year until (if conditions allow) it reaches Settled level.
Historically, pre-industrial population maxed out at around 180 per square mile of good farmland, with France having around 118 per square mile, Germany around 70-75 and Britain (with lots of moors and mountains) only around 30-40.
You still see populations of around 100 per square mile in many rural areas of modern Europe, such as Northern Ireland where I grew up.
Looking at medieval & similar population levels, I think 1-10-100 is a good rule of thumb:
Population
Howling wilderness, high mountains, tundra, deserts - ca 1 per square mile, typically hunter-gatherers.
Borderlands, Rugged Hills, Low Mountains ca 10 per square mile, typically clans.
Settled farmland ca 100 per square mile, typically peasants.
A new domain established in habitable Wilderness (like the Stolen Lands in Kingmaker) will grow around 100% per year in population until it reaches Borderland level, then 10% per year until (if conditions allow) it reaches Settled level.
Historically, pre-industrial population maxed out at around 180 per square mile of good farmland, with France having around 118 per square mile, Germany around 70-75 and Britain (with lots of moors and mountains) only around 30-40.
You still see populations of around 100 per square mile in many rural areas of modern Europe, such as Northern Ireland where I grew up.
So how many square miles is a 30 mile wide hex on the traditional Greyhawk maps?
The formula for area of hexagon, if I'm understanding Wikipedia right, is:
A = 1.5 dt
d = distance from flat side to flate side (30 miles)
t = distance on a straight side (around 17 miles, I think)
A ~ 1.5 * 30 * 17 = 765 square miles
So by S'mon's logic:
-- Howling Wilderness hex = 765 people
-- Borderlands hex = 7,650 people
-- Settled hex = 76,500 people
I'm thinking for most countries in Greyhawk, something like the "borderland" hex is about right for matching area to population. Makes sense to me.
The formula for area of hexagon, if I'm understanding Wikipedia right, is:
A = 1.5 dt
d = distance from flat side to flate side (30 miles)
t = distance on a straight side (around 17 miles, I think)
A ~ 1.5 * 30 * 17 = 765 square miles
So by S'mon's logic:
-- Howling Wilderness hex = 765 people
-- Borderlands hex = 7,650 people
-- Settled hex = 76,500 people
I'm thinking for most countries in Greyhawk, something like the "borderland" hex is about right for matching area to population. Makes sense to me.
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
I think the final form this will take will be as a chart that gives the maximum number of soldiers available based on the number of hexes in the kingdom. Should be pretty straightforward to use.
UselessTriviaMan
Explorer
It may or may not be of specific use for blargney's original question, but I found Medieval Demographics to be a fascinating read on this general topic. You might find some useful info there.
Yes, although Greyhawk's states have existed for centuries, fight wars with each other, and it's not clear why their populations are so low. The Great Kingdom, for instance, looks a lot like a bigger medieval France, mostly flat rolling farmable land. If the state is strong enough to exist at all, it's strong enough for the peasants to survive to reproduce, so one would expect it to have around 50 million people rather than the 5 million listed in the 1983 set. An alternative would be to reduce the hex sizes, as Greyhawk seems rather over-sized; maybe 10 miles per hex, giving it 1/9 the surface area.
