Fantasy author looking for tips on army sizes

[waldronate]

What sort of army structure are you looking for? Elites only, freemen, or conscript? What sort of population densities are you looking at for the basis of your armies?

Is warfare planned to be a seasonal affair or year-round? What is the level of agriculture that will feed these armies? Modern agricultural varieties allow for yields unheard of in the middle ages. Much of classic warfare was seasonable because someone had to stay home and do the farming (or leave the battlefield for planting and harvesting). I vaguely recall reading that classical yields for grains were around 4:1 on average (some crops are lower, some higher; some years are better, some worse). Modern yields might be ten times that due to genetics, fertilization, and mechanization.

Why are the cultures at war (wars based on ideology can have a much different army composition than a regular army - the crusades, for example)?

A critical component in most battles has historically been intelligence gathering. If you know when to engage an enemy and when not to, you have a huge advantage. Similarly, if you have communication between units in battle, there is also a huge advantage. Anything resembling telepathy will have a huge advantage on the battlefield and anything resembling clairvoyance will have a huge impact in intelligence gathering.

Most folks who are likely to respond probably won't mind reading lots of information.

[Francis Buck]

Thank you for the reply! I will do my best to provide the information you requested, and I'm also going to whip up a very rough map of the general placement of things.



So basically, the war that's taking place is between the relatively newly formed Empire of Orthigar, which is maybe ten years old by the time the story actually starts. Before the Orthian Empire formed, it was was a feudal monarchy. We'll ignore the Free Tribes to the north for now.

Carathir, Ethage, Ambany, and Strafos are essentially feudalistic monarchies as well. I would like for Orthigar to have a standing army (maybe five years old by the time the story starts), which would also be expanding fairly rapidly. This is partially because of religious conversions, and also because, being in Kentucky, they have access to good farming conditions (and with no threat to them from the west). When the story starts, Ethage has already been conquered and assimilated into the empire.

There are two religions: Tsashurism, which is the faith of the Orthian Empire, and Brishwaynism, which is mostly the faith of all the other "nations". When Orthigar conquers a new nation, the citizens can either convert to Tsashurism, or they can retain religious freedom, but they have to pay a tax to do so (along with other social restrictions, similar to our own historical dhimmi). There is also something comparable to a "knightly" social class for both the Brischwayn and the Tsashurites, but they would not be especially abundant. Horses and cavalry would of course be very valuable, but again I'm vague on the exact numbers there (also, there are no creatures or anything like that to worry about...most if not all of the animals would be ones native to North America).

As I mentioned, I'd like the technological level of these civilizations (which includes agriculture, weaponry, etc.), to be near or around that of the Dark and/or Middle Ages. You mentioned seasonal warfare, which is an excellent point, one that I'm afraid I completely overlooked. The entire story itself doesn't take place over more than a year (maybe a bit longer, if necessary, but the timespan is pretty flexible). So, does that mean it would make sense for me start the story around springtime?

In regards to the telepathy and clairvoyance, they're extremely rare and difficult to control in-universe, so overall I would suggest not to really take them into consideration. Intelligence gathering would be very much along the lines of its real-world historical counterparts (spies, informants, etc.). Magic also has virtually no significance in warfare either. For all intents and purposes, it's probably best just to proceed as if there's no magic at all.

As the story begins, the empire has taken Ethage (as I mentioned), and by about half-way through the story they need to take Ambany as well (Ambany surrenders after a particularly devastating loss, in which their second largest walled-city (called Urminy) is taken by the empire...so that's something else I'll have to figure out logistically). I've purposefully put-off figuring out exactly how the battles will play out, since I think it makes sense to figure out this other stuff first.

Overall, the most powerful nations in descending order (at least according to the plot) should be: Orthigar, Carathir, Ambany, Strafos, and Ethage.

Is there any other information I can add that would be useful? And thanks again!

EDIT: Oh, and the actual territorial lines between these nations are not strongly defined for the most part -- those modern US state lines in the map I posted are just there for reference. They don't have any significance in the actual story.