How many soldiers can a medieval fantasy kingdom actually support?
This particular Empire is largely based on Russia (but poorer and more corrupt) and has a population of around 50 million.
It's got a strong military focus but apparently can only field a standing army of about 310,000 people stationed all over the empire and in times of invasion might be able to mobilise and additional 550-600k
Quite a small number for any long period of time, if you have an army in times of war, perhaps as much as 1/10 might be a professional soldier or armsman employed in border security, policing, guard or just general soldiery and training. The rest will be menial laborers with jobs such as farming, industry and any other low traditional shit jobs which in times of war are conscripted, given a spear, shown which end to use and told to march.
But the above might be wildly different, need more information to be more correct, what time in history are you playing in or what time is it similar too?
What part of the world are you playing in or what is it most similar too?
How much fantasy is involved?
You mention Russia which was heavily vested in Serfdom which is slavery with the workers tied directly to the land itself, with people holding the land for the Tsar/Crown. Largely uneducated (If it's before Socialism took over), completely poor with little knowledge on how to survive outside of their own local area. I would say that even fewer than 1/10 would have any professional soldiering experience as they were quite easy to keep in line, with the corruption you mention it may be that number changes with land barons training more to ensure the status quo stays the same.
When a country is corrupt to the bone, the main place power is found is in the military, at least when you look outside of the political class. So even those with 'professional experience' may not be experienced at all.
>>47163957
>Russia (but poorer and more corrupt)
Truly a visonage of hell itself. Corruption is almost a part of Russian culture.
>>47164044
There were airplanes, actual airplanes, working air fleet that was sold for scrap metal.
A motor-rifle regiment, basically a mechanized infantry like 40k style that was always kept on constant readiness ran out of gas as the reserves had been sold.
Then with the corruption you have horrific low level crime in the ranks itself, working for the officers. Theft, bribery and protection rackets are enforced through rape, assault and murder. So their is no morale and no need to defender the motherland and would most likely turncoat if given a chance.
>>47163957
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/
From the worldbuilding thread. Maybe they'll help.
>>47164025
The video game setting is more high fantasy but with mixes of modern technology - which this country doesn't get since most mages moved to a Kingdom to the South due to complications of the collapse of a historical steampunk Mage dominated Empire.
I'm interested in running a campaign in this setting so I'm trying to figure things out.
And as you say most figures holding key military positions owe it to nepotism or because they're directly loyal to the Prime Minister.
>>47164133
Look up the picture on 1d4chan Deathworld or something. It's if Obama was in Russia or something, Deathworld I think. That had some badass /tg/ made lore.
I recall the Soviets being led by a gestalt mind of Lenin, Trosky and Stalin.
>>47164130
>>47164181
Will do. Thanks.
>>47164181
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Deathworld
>>47163957
Helman?
>>47164130
>http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/
Apparently this town of 105 thousand people has only 171 bakers. 1 baker bakes enough bread for 614 people, daily. It must be one of those stew places... nope, both general butchers and chicken butchers combined serve 621 people per butcher. Pastry? 345 people per pastry chef. It doesn't have the number of fishermen, but assuming that there are only 37 fishmongers, I doubt they get much of their food from the sea. 1 person creating the food for 50 people daily is completely unsustainable, especially considering the 430 noble houses would damage that average.
What the fuck do these people eat?
662 Shoemakers. The poorest eat shoes.
>>47164428
What are the numbers on millers? Because it's possible that the poor people just make their own food whenever possible, and the nobles may very well have private kitchen staff that do it all for them.
>>47163957
>the city of Porn
>>47163957
How many of its fantasy people can make water, food, ammo and random supplies appear out of thin air?
>>47163957
I use the Magical Medieval Society PDF to generate a kingdom, then I use the total scutage tax to fund a non-wartime military.
It took way too much work for me to do but I laid out a pay system, upkeep costs, and even group sizes and structure.
I won't go into details about that so I'll assume you already have your own economy set out. In that case you could just use a cost per soldier for food and lodging. In D&D 5e it'd be about 5 sp per soldier, so assuming the basic unit is about 1,000 soldiers that's 500 gp per day (182,500 gp/year).
To keep the simplicity of this we can assume that a settlement can support half its population in soldiers. However if your kingdom is advanced enough to uphold supply lines, we can discard the last sentence and say it's an extra 10 gp/day or so to keep a steady caravan route.
As for equipment/recruitment costs, it depends on unit type.
>Magical Medieval Society PDF
>https://www.dropbox.com/s/wxngttqjt439emf/A%20Magical%20Medieval%20Society%20Western%20Europe.pdf?dl=0
>>47163957
Sauce of game?
>>47164207
Fucking awesome.
>>47163957
You have to take magic into consideration.
If wizards can just zap dozens of people to death or combine powers to bring down rains of fire then there won't be much use for a normal footsoldier except for spellfodder.
>>47164084
Golly geewillikers do I have a book for you.
One Soldier's War by Arkady Babchenko.
Everything in your post and more.
Everything in your post screams Chech
>>47164959
None
>>47165119
Mages are strong but not that strong.
Demons on the other hand are but they're not many of them.
All the Demons and millions of monsters live to the west of the wall
>>47165072Rance IX
>>47164207
Is there any more of this?
