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Message: <blockquote data-quote="med stud" data-source="post: 169678" data-attributes="member: 1211">On army sizes in medieval times:The Spanish army was feared for it's great size in late 16th and early 17th century. It's size was 16000 soldiers, and it was considered huge. They werent bigger than that until beurocrazies were refined enough to allow for larger armies.The most common soldiers in wars in medieval Europe was mercenaries; you plan a war, hire mercenaries, fight the war, win or lose, and then you sign off the mercenaries. A good way to get professional soldiers in a cheap way.The English had their yeomen, which IIRC was obliged to practise archery once a week and be ready to join the king's wars for some time per year. In exchange they got some benefits from the king.---On the affording armies part: As many other have pointed out, they couldnt really afford it. The nations who became rich from wars was the country selling weapons to the warring parts, or the merchant houses doing the same thing. Almost all kings and other rulers were broke all of the time.---On the adventurers vs army thing: The real danger for the army isnt if the adventurers attack head on on a battle field. It's getting real ugly when high level spell casters start to take out all leaders. Invisible high level mages can take out several high officers per day. They can also destroy enemy moral by using this tactic from RL: When the army is on the march, the mages always take out the platoon marching after the first. Always. After two or three attacks against second platoon, no one will take that spot again. The discipline will break down, and the army gets standing on the spot. That's when the mages strike in the perimeter, further destroying morale.The mages can also dominate the generals, who then begins to give strange and destructive orders. After revealing this, paranoia will break out. Who is the enemy?The counter measures against high level adventurers killing armies is either to cut down the number of high levels, or to let high level characters join armies. This is pretty logical; a modern time army without air support will be shred to pieces by aircrafts (like in Afghanistan, for example). Therefore, any serious army who can afford it gets air support. It's expensive as hell, but vital. I think you can apply that logic to a fantasy world too; no mage support = dead army.</blockquote>

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