Army size?

[Green Knight]

Basic D&D had a little chart that would let you figure it out for countries, based largely on tech level and sexism level.

Anyway, for a Medieval level culture, in peace time, just men, the maximum size of the army is 1.5% of the population (2.5% if women are included). In wartime, that can increase by 10.

For Rennaisance, it's 1.25% and 2%

For Stone Age it's 2.25% and 4%

For Bronze, it's 2% and 3.5%

For Classical (Roman/Greek), it's 1.75%/3%

Ah, I see. The only reason women don't serve in frontline combat is because of sexism. Right.

I doubt it'd be easy, though, to come up with a comprehensive chart on all the variables that can determine the size of a nations military force.

For instance, a good idea might be a percentage scale that scales downward the larger the population gets, rather than a set figure. That'd prevent getting ridiculous numbers like Zhentil Keeps "impressive" 438 man army. It also prevents populations of like 5 million people having a 500,000 man army. A city of 50,000, for instance, would have say 10% of their population in the military. Whereas a nation of 1 million would only have 5%. The nation has a smaller percentage, but their force still comes out larger.

Other modifiers might be affected by alignment. More recruits from a lawful society, less from a neutral one, and even less from a chaotic one. So a lawful nation would probably get a bonus modifier to their percentage, while a chaotic society would get a penalty modifier to their percentage. And a neutral society, of course, would get no modifier. Bonus or penalty.

Religion would also play a role. Let's go back to Forgotten Realms. Is Tempus venerated in that nation? If he is, then chances are that nation would have more recruits then a nation which didn't venerate Tempus. I doubt many Oghma worshippers would join the military. Same goes for other war related deities, like the Red Knight, Torm, Bane, etc.

Then, of course, there's the organization of the military, itself. What incentives are there to join? Is it mandatory duty?

Lots of variables. Certainly more then what I posted and what I can think of, right now. Unfortunately I'm to lazy to figure it out, myself, which is why I want WoTC or someone else to do it.

 

[The Furious Puffin]

Hmm, The only source I have handy is my copy of the Art of War which has some metion of this, if I can *find it*

*much flipping of pages*

Bingo.

Zhang Wu
------------------

When seven hundred thousand families have to support an army of one hundred thousand on a distant expedition, the common people cannot avoid impoverishment.
--------

Zhang Wu was a Sung dyansty military biographer, and also wrote the above quoted commentry on the art of war.

While the above figure is subjective at best, and Zhang may not be the best authority on the subject, if you assume a family has 6.5 members that gives you a percentage of about 2.1 for Sung dynasty china. Actually slightly more, but something like that

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, I've seen a variety of sources with different figures for the strength of the Roman armies during different times. The estimation of army strength is not a precise thing, and is difficult to completely ascertain. For example, in The Grand Strategy of The Roman Empire, by Edward N. Luttwak, he writes that there were 67 or 68 full-strength Legions under the command of the Emperor Diocletian. Each Legion had approximately 6,000 soldiers, which would suggest that 408,000 Legionnaires were under arms. The practice of having an equal number of specialists/auxilliary troops would further suggest an additional 400-500,000 soldiers. Thus, providing a figure of 816,000 troops.
I've seen other estimates as low as 250,000 troops as well. With the additional auxiliaries, that would be, what? 500,000 troops? Good enough though S'mon. I think that would then be 500,000-1,000,000 soldiers. Assuming an empire of 100 million people, that would be a standing force of between .5 and 1.0 Percent of the population overall, correct? With an agricultural economy, ruled with a sophisticated government, do not these recruitment figures seem reasonable? I think that they should be accurate for what the Roman Empire was capable of. What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[ThenHeCame]

10%? That seems way too high. In the middle ages, most of the population was made up of peasants living in rural and small communities. I imagine most armed forces would come from royal guard and city defense forces with some militia drawn from outlands. Then again I could be totally wrong.

Just a rule of thumb I go by if a kingdom is threatend and needs a levy army. It's gonna vary from campaign to campaign of course. I don't have the time for any real in-depth research nor do I care, so quick little numbers like this make my day


GreenKnight,
Sorry, I can't get your message quoted, but those statistics you provided from FR seem about right to me. This is just the standing army, no counting reserves or levy strength. Plus a city like Zhent more likely uses more merc forces drawn from outside places then their own human stock.

 

[Limper]

Wouldn't the size of the standing military force during any era be based mostly on the size of its frontier? How much you have to defend, how self sufficient and reliable your frontier communities are, and the sophistication of your infrastructure (roads, etc.) would be my determining factors for army size. A strong highly mobile well supplied force can cover a good deal of territory and thus its owner may not need massive numbers of troops.

Also when concidering army size, given the logistics of supporting large numbers of men in the field, there is a practical "logistic" cap on the amount of troops one can have in one area. This may change in a fantasy/magical setting but would still exist.

So to the original post: I wouldn't put more than about 50K per country into any one battle. Their army may be larger but putting all your troops in one spot is very difficult (plus it opens you up along all your now undefended boarders, this being much more of a problem in a magical world than our own).

 

[Henrix]

So to the original post: I wouldn't put more than about 50K per country into any one battle. Their army may be larger but putting all your troops in one spot is very difficult (plus it opens you up along all your now undefended boarders, this being much more of a problem in a magical world than our own).

Yes, 50K would be a good limit to the fighting forces of an ancient or medieval type army.
The only larger armies I can think of (before the Thirty Yars War in the 17th c.) are the Alexandrian succesors, who in some occasions fielded armies over 100K strong on each side of a battle, and, of course, China (including the Mongols).

 

[S'mon]

Greetings!

Well, I've seen a variety of sources with different figures for the strength of the Roman armies during different times. The estimation of army strength is not a precise thing, and is difficult to completely ascertain. For example, in The Grand Strategy of The Roman Empire, by Edward N. Luttwak, he writes that there were 67 or 68 full-strength Legions under the command of the Emperor Diocletian. Each Legion had approximately 6,000 soldiers, which would suggest that 408,000 Legionnaires were under arms. The practice of having an equal number of specialists/auxilliary troops would further suggest an additional 400-500,000 soldiers. Thus, providing a figure of 816,000 troops.
I've seen other estimates as low as 250,000 troops as well. With the additional auxiliaries, that would be, what? 500,000 troops? Good enough though S'mon. I think that would then be 500,000-1,000,000 soldiers. Assuming an empire of 100 million people, that would be a standing force of between .5 and 1.0 Percent of the population overall, correct? With an agricultural economy, ruled with a sophisticated government, do not these recruitment figures seem reasonable? I think that they should be accurate for what the Roman Empire was capable of. What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Actual size of a Legion (rather than theoretical size) was more like 3000, with auxiliaries added 6000/Legion, in the Augustininan army of 25 Legions that makes 150,000 men, plus Praetorians, Naval troops etc. All the sources I've seen consider the Roman Imperial military to have been surprisingly small, certainly nothing like a million men, and it imposed a fairly small burden on the empire, one reason for its stability.

I don't know if 100 million is right for the population of the Empire, it seems high but plausible for the peak empire under Trajan. I've seen a suggested figure of 25 million for the empire at the time of Christ, which may be too low.

 

[med stud]

In the 16th century, the Spanish army was the largest army of Europe, and it consisted of 16000 men in a nation of maybe 5-10 million people.

In the 17th century, the Protestants had 100 000 men divided into four or five armies. I dont know about the Catholic army's size.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've been toying with the following ideas (mind you this is a work in progress):

Use the Leadership chart in DMG. Expand the table up to Leadership scores in the thousands. Decide what LS a hamlet, town, city and metropolis has and what can affect those scores.

Use the tables for cities in DMG to learn how much equipment a town can buy, If a hamlet only has 40gp available it stands to reason that that's the value of their soldiers' equipment in times of war.

Decide how many settlements each side has. The object of the war becomes to sack, occupy or raze settlements. Because if you destroy an enemy town he will lose LS and available equipment. If you occupy it you get the LS and equipment!

The DMG also tells you what leaders you might expect in different settlements and you can also learn how much magical equipment can be manufactured. You'll be surprised how hard it is to get hold of a high level wizard to outfit your flying, invisible cavalry.