Population and Military strength of the Empire Factions

[DasHeadCrap]

Concerning the unrest, expansion of mining and such in Aceon I've spent the past week looking over sources to pull concrete numbers on worth of in game items and the size of in game militaries. While the Aceon server is fantasy it has been built up around hard real life analogous that help guide and represent out respective nations. After writing this guide I will also be updating all faction pages to be relevant with this information. Lets begin.

Military strength of large border nations: Border nations are nations that are not native to Aceon but are large empires that have expanded into Aceon. Thus all border nation factions are inherantly stronger, have larger armies and populations but have less local control in Aceon and their lords have less political control overall. Currently the three border nations are Azmura, Aridell, and Aenesia. As all three nations are hard analogues of real life empires of the High Medieval ages I will thus base their home strength on the numbers I have sourced.

According to cross referenced research between credited historians and online sources I found that the average size of a High Medieval military was 1/4th of 1% of a nations population. During the High Medieval Ages armies were made up entirely of professional soldiers whom themselves were Freefolk (not peasants and not lords). Peasants would only see action in levies which were purely defensive organizations that served emergency city protection and would be generally a 3rd of the towns population.

Aenesia: 18,750 soldiers/archers/knights. This is based off of the population of 12th century Italy which was around 7.5 million.

Aridell: 35,250 soldiers/archers/knights. This is based off of the population of 12th century HRE (subtracting Italy) which was around 14.1 million.

Azmura: 1,250 soldiers/archers/knights. This is based off of the population of 12th century Denmark which was 500,000.

Localized Military Strengths of Aenesia, Aridell, and Azmura: Here I will state the relative populations and military strength of the Aceonic Aenesian, Aridellian, and Azmuran nations. These are based off of a combination of player members, settlements and their sizes, and presence of forts/military bases.

Aenesia:

Population: 800

Military strength: 500

Aridell:

Population: 1,600 (1,500 in Wellhaven, 50 in unnamed Logging settlement, 50 in Haven)

Military Strength: 650 (Roughly 600 in Wellhaven and it's surrounding permanent forts with 50 in Fort Ermor)

Azmura:

Population: 300 (none in Haven so far)

Military Strength: 40

Mercenaries, their cost and worth:

The High Medieval ages wouldn't see the widespread use of Mercenaries like the late Medieval ages and Classical Antiquity would. As a result mercenaries were often specialist troops or naval privateers hired to fill in cheap and situationally effective areas in an army. This would almost always come in the form of crossbowmen. Yew wood, feathers, and horse hairs combined with specialized fletching was extraordinarily costly in the medieval ages. To the point of which only the Normans and English ever really developed professional archers with bows that were accurate and had effective ranges. As for everyone else, Javelins, Crossbows (Not to be confused with arbalest which were late medieval crossbows which used a steel frame and were fare more powerful) and small ineffective hunting bows.

Mercenaries are a cheap source of crossbowmen that are trained in sword combat as well. They bring their own equipment and food and can be recruited on the spot but don't stand much chance against trained men-at-arms. They're best used as fluff, suicidal Human shields, and light fire support. Mercenaries can also be soldiers of another nation whom are lended out in exchange for money when the lending nation isn't at war.

As a result mercenaries will cost 1 gold block per 50 men and they will remain hired for about 1 IRL week. They will be a cross between light crossbowman and men-at-arms and while they wont be masters of either, they don't require a town, food, or any work what so ever other than the gold from your coffers.

Closing statement: This is not meant as an attack at any of the players, specifically Aenesia. As stated while it's known Aceon is a fantasy server is was built around and draws heavily from real life analogs. Such analogs will be used to base the power of factions on and if they arn't used it leads to arguments and fighting amongst players about "how big I am back home!". Fantasy is still kept in consideration (e.g. despite Italy being half owned by the HRE and half run by individual states in the 12th century it's projected as 100% controlled by Aenesia as they are based of Classical Antiquity Rome).

Building up your armies and populations in Aceon is the best way to truly represent your power. While the 1/4th of 1% rule is used for the sized of your overall military, your armies in Aceon may be as large as 1/2th of your population simply because it makes sense for your respective empires to have home funded military outpost in Aceon to project power. While Italy, and Germany don't exist as landmasses lore wise their lore wise anologs are nearly identical to what Germany and Italy are in real life (e.g. instead of German in Aceon they're the Western Isles).

As a closing note I will update all Faction pages and the warfare page. DO NOT EDIT OUT THESE UPDATES! DOING SO WILL RESULT IN ME SIMPLY LOCKING THE PAGE