Kingdom devastated by war - how long to rebuild army?

[Slife]

For population increase where there's plenty of land available I use ca 2%/year, or doubling every 50 years.

It's closer to doubling every thirty years. Compound interest, ya'know?

 

[iwatt]

So, the King needs to replenish the nobility - it's time to start offering those mercenaries manors and baronies in exchange for their services, rather than coin.

Also, you have the merchant class filling in the power vacum (sp?) left by all the lost lordlings.

You have a kingdom full of 8 year old barons or lot's of unwed daughters set to inheirt titles. It's a good time to be an adventurer.

 

[NewJeffCTHome]

Also, you have the merchant class filling in the power vacum (sp?) left by all the lost lordlings.

You have a kingdom full of 8 year old barons or lot's of unwed daughters set to inheirt titles. It's a good time to be an adventurer.

you got it! that was part of my idea behind it, possibly have the PCs complete some tasks for the kingdom, which could include protecting a 5 year old Duke on his journey back to his manor/estate, helping quell a small rebellion, etc. if they do well, the king rewards them with a small barony on the border of the kingdom, or something to that effect.

 

[iwatt]

you got it! that was part of my idea behind it, possibly have the PCs complete some tasks for the kingdom, which could include protecting a 5 year old Duke on his journey back to his manor/estate, helping quell a small rebellion, etc. if they do well, the king rewards them with a small barony on the border of the kingdom, or something to that effect.

You can have a lot of intrigue in a game like this. Merchant house trying to break the power of the aristocrats. Defend the young noble. One of the PCs is the bastard son of a heirless house, a bard can marry the young maid about to be given up in marriage to a power hungry old lecher..etc..

 

[EdL]

EDIT: Modern "basic training" in the US is 6-8 weeks, IIRC. Presumably, there's less you need to teach a spearman or shieldbearer, so you could probably train volunteers in some shorter amount of time. I don't know how long it would take to teach a blacksmith or farmhand to be an Non-Commissioned Officer, but as mentioned above, you have a bigger problem in trying to find people to be the commissioned officers...

Um, learning how to shoot a rifle is a whole lot easier than leaning sword & shield or spear & shield work! 3-6 months for regular grunts, a lot more for non-coms and officers. Still, you pull out all the military retirees and in a year or so you should have a reasonably decent core of fighting men (and women, since this is fantasy). But that does beg the question of where the clerics and mages are?

 

[Raigon]

You mentioned that there were some but only a few survivors of the war. These people would be the few trained military men, as such they would probibly be promoted to officers in the new 5000 man army. However an army full of new officers would make the political dynamics very interesting.

 

[S'mon]

Sure, they can get 5,000 healthy bodies out onto the field, but how long until they are competent soldiers with a strong core of officers and/or knights to lead them?

From your description it sounds like there are enough survivors (several hundred) & retired veterans (unstated, but could be in the thousands) that there wouldn't be much trouble finding leaders for a new army of 5,000 or even 10,000. The kingdom may wish to hire mercenaries to help train the new recruits but it doesn't sound strictly necessary.

From everything you've said, if this is a typical feudal kingdom that was able to field an army of 5,000 + 45,000 levied militia, IMO there are no manpower reasons it would be able to field another force of 50,000 within a year. There might be financial or logistic reasons it could not afford to do so, and GDP might decline if there were a labour shortage, but probably by no more than 5-10%. If this is a wealthy kingdom the smart thing to do would be to recruit a trained professional army larger than the last one, and let the farmers keep farming, they could field an army of ca 20,000 without a noticeable effect on GDP - in fact the increased economic activity of the soldiers spending their pay may fuel the economy.

 

[S'mon]

It's closer to doubling every thirty years. Compound interest, ya'know?

I use 2%/year for short term growth, 100%/50 years for long term growth, to take account of plagues, wars & other population reducers.

 

[S'mon]

Um, learning how to shoot a rifle is a whole lot easier than leaning sword & shield or spear & shield work! 3-6 months for regular grunts, a lot more for non-coms and officers.

I don'y believe that modern weapons are easier to use and maintain than basic spear & shield training. Swords are a different kettle of fish, but spears are a pretty simple weapon.

 

[The_Universe]

Also, you have the merchant class filling in the power vacum (sp?) left by all the lost lordlings.

You have a kingdom full of 8 year old barons or lot's of unwed daughters set to inheirt titles. It's a good time to be an adventurer.

Yep - it's actually a pretty good setup for a game, and you can bet that the core of nobility that's left is going to have a lot more power (and more land) than they did before the battle. After all, they're the only "real" nobles left, and everyone else is going to be an usurper/pretender.

This also might be a good time to introduce some intrigue against the king. After a disastrous victory of this magnitude, the it might be time for this fantasy kingdom's nobility to force the king to sign their own version of the Magna Carta.