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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1527724" data-attributes="member: 6533">Someone earlier mentioned the urban flavor of DnD and that's a very good point.Cities and towns were very important in the middle ages, but, with a few notable exceptions, not more so than a really good system of manors and villages.In a lot of ways the middle ages represent a sort of return to the country after the collapse of Roman urbanization.The population ended up much more evenly settled across the land and wealth was in well tended, settled, and protected provinces rather than in urban structures of merchants.GrumpyOldMan is right that the pyramid system is a good way to think of where the military power is going to be even if it's not so great a desciption of what that power is like or what supports it.The best way to think about how that pyramid is complicated is that......we tend to organize things into systems.  You need social security.  You create the system, integrate some existing things, and then create whatever other things you need....in the middle ages they organized systems around things.  You need a social safety net.  You have some Bishops who are doing that already, you integrate some new charitable orders, and then you have a system.Modern: You need an army.  You create a military, you integrate the local militias as reservists, and then you build West Point, some federal troops, and buy a good navy.  At the end of it you have armiesMedieval: You need an army.   There's some guys have some troops, you hire them, add on some institutions that will support them, and then call it the marche system.  At the end of it you have a system to support the troops.</blockquote>

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