Help me /tg/ you're my only hope. Someone here must be better at crunching believable populations sizes or knows where to go to get something to do the job.
Anyway. Atlas of Rokugan says that "At most, the Emerald Empire is about 900 miles north-to-south, and between 500-600 miles across at the widest point." Then goes on to say that about twice the size of England (I'm assuming they mean the UK as a whole here).
The closest I've seen to population figures were these for the standing armies + reserves, just before the Clan War:
Crab: 300,000
Crane: 150,000
Dragon: 200,000
Lion: 500,000
Phoenix: 100,000
Scorpion: 200,000
Unicorn: 270,000
Minor Clans and Ronin (combined): 200,000
And that's just the military forces. Packing all those bodies + civilians + peasants into a Rokugan twice the size of the UK beggars the mind.
Anyone have a stab at more believable figures?
Oh, and general L5R thread I guess?
So adding all those armies together, you get roughly 1.92 million soldiers. If you generously assume that that's 2% of the population (since as I understand it the armies ARE comprised of a large chunk of able-bodied adults), 1.92 million folks times 50 is a total population of 96 million.
The current population of the UK is roughly 64 million people, so allowing for twice the land amount but regressing technology by a few hundred years...90 million might be pushing it a tad high, but not unreasonably so.
Of course, the total Rokugan population might be lower if you assume a larger chunk of the population is in the various armies. Bumping from 2% to 3% means you hit 64 million on the nose--so exactly the UK's modern population spread over twice the landmass.
Or we can just assume that the writers don't know what they're talking about and that the standing armies should be half their listed size, with a commensurate reduction in population (so, say, a total population of about 30 million, which is the approximate figure I can find for the entirety of the British Isles in 1801).
Haiku contest go!
>Anon, you should know
>[My clan]: greater than [your clan]
>It's just science fact!
If you assume that the soldiers of Rokugan are equivalent to the Japanese samurai class in just a general social organization sense, then the numbers there add up to close to 2 million, which is about the same as the number of (former) samurai at the time of the Meiji Restoration, out of a population of about 30 million or so. Japan's landmass is about 1.5 times the size of the UK, so even being conservative I would say it's feasible that Rokugan could support a population of 30 million or so, about the same as Japan throughout the Edo period.
>>45939412
Given that the modern UK population is reliant on modern agriculture and importation, among other details, I'd say reducing the population for Rokugan is pretty much a given.
>>45939676
They aren't just a general social organization equivalent as published, though, it's the actual standing army numbers. Still, 30mil is probably about as good as can be wrangled.
Anyone feeling any hope at all for this game's future?
>>45938953
Feudal Japan, when unified, had a population of about 30 million, and Rokugan is significanly larger than Nippon.
The Samurai were aproximately 10% of the population IRL, and I think it's safe to assume that percentage carries over to Rokugan
Knowing this, a standing army of 2 million is far from unusual.
>>45939543
>Daidoji "science"
>All boast: lacking when tested
>Just like the Crane Clan
>>45939874
I'm pretty hopeful. FFG has done really well with most of their lcgs-- I feel like they can pull off another Netrunner or lotr as opposed to another Star Wars or CoC.
As far as the rpg goes, if they keep roll-and-keep, which they got the rights to anyway, I think we'll be fine. Even if they screw up, 4e is still pretty damn good.
>>45939965
>What would be fitting
>for our Sadane contest?
>Your Sadane skills!
>>45940042
>I'll admit, they are poor
>I do not fear my weakness
>For I know my strengths!
>>45940132
>Poverty's no sin
>but six sounds in your first line?
>Unforgivable.
>>45940170
>I meant to write "they're"
>Jurojin has been unkind
>he makes my hand weak
>>45940309
>Is a Fortune's ire
>truly the cause, or is it
>your masturbation?
>>45940382
>Shame on you, brash crane
>lewd remarks to an old woman!
>Offer sake first.
>>45940421
>>45940382
>Sorry. That should say
>"lewd THOUGHTS of an old woman"
>mind, not hands, faltered
>>45940421
>Shame on you, old hag;
>your eyes fail you like your wits!
>I am not a Crane.
>>45940478
>you may not be Crane
>but have you a crane's long beak?
>Show me over drink.
>>45940517
>If rumours are true,
>even my great beak won't sate
>one who "rides" a horse.
>>45940635
It's MY eyes that fail?
And you are younger than I
This Crab rides no horse.
>>45940706
>I speak only what
>Crab geisha lament to me
>After you pass through.
>>45940782
>no, Ki-Rin geishas
>sad they ride pigs, not horses
>jealous of bushi
>>45940895
>I think you mistake
>frightened looks for jealous ones;
>they fear your great stink.
Sadly I've gotta leave for work in a couple of minutes. It's been fun, anon, someone should cap our great struggle.
>>45941036
man, we need a fucking l5r general
>>45940985
>the smell of hard work
>perhaps Ebisu loves me
>unlike Jurojin
>>45939412
Well, the numbers are a bit skewed. For example, the Crab has a very, very high ratio of active military to population, and an even higher ratio of reserve military to population. Literally every single Crab samurai is given a military rank and organized in such a way as to be quickly and efficiently called for active service and most peasants have some combat training and some weapons stashed away for emergencies.
>>45941500
Yeah; whereas the Phoenix probably have that 100,000 only by necessity and find it a distasteful requirement. The percentage was an overall average for all of Rokugan.
Speaking of the Atlas, anybody got a Scan?
>>45944432
It basically just doesn't exist on the internet.
>>45941036
Capped for posterity.
>>45938953
900 miles by 500 miles would be 450000 square miles. My recollection of the map of Rokugan is that it's roughly rectangular, so this "widest point" business isn't that relevant, but let's shave off a third for the sake of argument and call the empire 300000 square miles. This is about six times the size of England, more than three times the size of Great Britain, about two and a half times the area of the British Isles as a whole. The "twice the size of England" description is very loose talk.
>Military numbers
This really refers to the amount of the population eligible for military service, whether by membership in the samurai caste or by levy from the peasantry. It is far more than 2% of the population, especially as the Clan War era was a time of high mobilisation. (For example, later supplements would give the Lion Clan lands a population of about 5 million, of which about 300,000 was samurai of one sort or another.)
At about the time of Toturi's second death, the populations in each Clan land were:
Crab: 4.6 million
Crane: 3.8 million
Dragon: 1.8 million
Lion: 5.3 million
Mantis: 1.1 million (but note that many of these people don't live on the mainland)
Phoenix: 1.6 million
Scorpion: 1.8 million
Unicorn: 3.6 million
For a total of 23.6 million in the Clan lands. We could add perhaps another 4 million to cover people living in the lands of the Ten Minor Clans and in lands directly administered by the Imperial Families, for a total of 27.6 million, or a population density of 92 per square mile. I don't have medieval Asian population densities to hand, but 13th C France had 100 people per square mile, while Germany and Italy were at 90 per square mile, so Rokugan isn't that unusual.
>TLDR: The population figures are fine when you look at them closely.
Shamefur bumpu
