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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NewJeffCTHome" data-source="post: 2465741" data-attributes="member: 25012">The formerly mighty army of the Kingdom of NewJeffCT has been devastated by war.  In a heroic stand against an Evil Horde of invaders (orcs, hobgoblins, demons, undead, you name it, I have not decided it yet) , the army won what may be a pyrrhic victory.  The kingdom has a population of about 1 million humans.  Their standing army was about 5,000 men and militia and peasant levys amounted to another 50,000 men.  Save for a few small militia garrisons and peasant levys left to guard the other borders (say 3,000 total, or 1,000 for each of the 3 directions away from the invasion.) the entire standing army of 5,000 and the rest of the men of the militia and levied troops (47,000) engaged in an epic battle against the Evil Horde.  The Evil Horde was defeated and wiped out.  However, the whole army of the kingdom was almost wiped out as well – only a few hundred remain. My question is, how long would it take for the kingdom to legitimately replenish their military without completely wrecking the economy?  The kingdom can hire mercenaries in the short term to ensure none of their neighbors decide to take advantage of them, but mercs are usually more expensive than professionally trained full-time soldiers of the kingdom and are often unreliable.  They can bring some retired soldiers out of retirement and would obviously recruit more males than usual when they come “of age”, but if you keep bringing in more males than usual when they come of age, you risk harm to the kingdom’s economy: fields might not get plowed as quickly, fewer cows may be milked and/or slaughtered for meat, the 1 acre cornfield is not quite as fully planted with corn as it was in the past, the normal groups of trade caravans that come into the capital are fewer due to them not being guarded by professional state soldiers, and those that do come into the capital charge more because they often have to hire their own security even when close to the city, less iron is mined, fewer shoes are cobbled, fewer horseshoes and wagon wheels are made, etc.Given an average male/female split and a population growth rate of 1% per year (2% birth rate less 1% death rate), am I correct in thinking it may take a whole generation to get a fully staffed and trained standing army up and running, if not more.    And, when I say fully staffed, I mean back up to the 5,000 standing army that rode into battle against the Evil Horde.  I’m sure that they will add more and more every year, but soldiers can die in skirmishes or new wars, retire, become incapacitated, etc (clerics do not grow on trees in the world of NewJeffCT)  Or, does the kingdom go all out and bring in every boy that turns 16 years old into the military next year and then suffer the consequences economically over time?  Is my birth/death rate realistic, save major wars or plagues?</blockquote>

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