Feudal Warfare help needed [Archive] - Wizards Community

Feudal Warfare help needed [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Hochiu
03-21-07, 10:42 PM This has probably been asked to death but:

I'm trying to give a general overview of the primary nation my players will be playing in and I decided I wanted to include notes on the various military abilities of this nation. Since I don't have any of my resources on me at university, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out a realistic percentage of troops for my nation. Free web sources? Rules of thumb? Online books? Anything?

This nation is a heavily "glorified" feudal state, with a moderately strong central authority. The fluff of the nation is that they're my biggest lawful-good nation, and have often embarked on numerous crusades or attacks on historic or potential enemies, so maintaining a fairly large army could be beneficial, but costly. I would assume that the recent economic prosperity they have enjoyed would be because of the queen's cuts on paid soldiers..hmm.

The nation's borders are, however, too big for it to actually control at the present time (representing a kingdom's general This is MY territory mentality that is drawn on paper maps, but not recognized anywhere else); the kingdom is broken down into 16 regions that are supposed to have lords appointed/inherited into those positions, with each lord breaking down their own property to their vassals. However, there are only nine regions with Barons/Princes/etc, meaning that almost half of the country is not taxed, policed, or controlled by the crown proper and these people generally consider themselves "freepeople".

Arcane magic in this world follows kind of a three oaths [Jordan]/Murgens(sp?) edict [Vance] in that they self impose a restriction on the world that magic is not to be used in political/temporal affairs outside of an auxiliary capacity. To do so the wizard would face serious repercussions. Divine magic is under no such scruples, but it would be very rare that a number of serious druids would help this nation.

This kingdom also is the home to the Holy Church, which is my Latin Church representation, and they have a force of holy warriors, paladins, and knights that they can field independently (yet often congruously) with the royal warriors.

So, my desire is to get a generally realistic percentage of the population that could constiute the nobility (represented by trained knights), paid men-at-arms, and yeomen conscripts at any one time. I'll eventually go into the comparitive strengths of the nine regions of the kingdom once I figure out what would be appropriate for the big picture. I'm still unsure whether or not to include non-standard troops, such as aerial cavalry or not, since my game currently has a very low-fantasy feel to it and I want to remedy that realistically.

The nation has (as of the last royal census): 1,392,930 souls.

Thanks for any comments.
taradusis
03-21-07, 10:52 PM The Dmg has a rule of thumb for 1% being regular army and 5% being militia.These numbers are much higher for non-humans.The dmg also lists GP limits as well?I would use these as a starting point.
GoriceXII
03-22-07, 04:19 AM there was an old 2nd ed system for this as well I kind of liked--basically divide the local population by 1000 then multiply that total by 25; that being the regular number. Then 5% of the population are available for an emergency militia--ie able bodied peasants etc.

That's a fairly simple one but you can also go with this: each village of roughly 200-300 can support a knight or ten men at arms. (knight being a mounted warrior with at least chainmail, shield, spear, lance, sword and at least 1-2 horses; man at arms is an archer, pikeman, etc) This is the Pendragon system and you might look online to see if you can find free downloads or info for that; it is specifically geared to the Middle Ages.
Yakman
03-22-07, 11:43 AM Also, standing armies were almost unheard of in midieval times. People were called to arms--they were not soldiers.

Each town, each noble, each baron, was required to supply a particular number of men, with particular equipment, to serve for a specified amount of times. The nature of these contracts severely limited the capacity of rulers to make war.
Hochiu
03-22-07, 12:33 PM Aye, I understand this. The "moderately strong" centralised king is going to have a small group of professionally trained men-at-arms used as their personal army, while relying heavily on the vassals to come to war.

I just haven't been in a feudal mindset this semester, and there were greater percentages of professional armies and troops during the ancient world than there was in the medieval world. Hence, my questions.
Yakman
03-22-07, 12:58 PM Typically, a midieval king could raise about 1% of the population to arms. That's just a rough figure though. More would be available for extremely local defense. But keep in mind that supplies dictate war--he might be able to raise a hundred thousand soldiers but only feed 10,000.
DrBaltar
03-22-07, 05:31 PM Medieval European armies could actually be very large, because EVERY able-bodied man was supposed to join the levy when his noble marched to war. However, these armies never lasted very long, and were not very useful. Many serfs didn't even show up to the mustering field, and those that did usually only brought enough food to last about a week. In addition, these levies were pretty useless during a pitched battle(they usually had no equipment besides sharpened farming tools and only very minimal training).
But it is also important to remember that the typical medieval war didn't have that many large engagements; usually the invader just destroyed some crops, burned a few villages, raped a couple of women, and then went home. The aforementioned peasant levies excelled at this. These raids, known as chevauchee, made up most of the Hundred Years war.
If there was a pitched battle, the peasent levy probably wouldn't even fight; the men-at-arms would do this. Men-at-arms were the actual soldiers of the middle ages. They owned armor, weapons, and a horse. Knights were considered to be men-at-arms but not all men-at-arms were knights (having a lance and armor didn't make you a noble). In addition, just because they owned a horse doesn't mean they rode it into battle, they were often used to get from place to place. For example, the army of Edward III (the guys who won the battles at Crecy and Poitiers) was almost completly mounted, but you didn't see longbowmen riding their horses around the battlefield.
Finally, whenever the King brought his army to battle he was usually accompanied by number of mercenary troops. These guys would be either elite soldiers (like pikemen or crossbowmen) or specialists (like artillerymen or engineers).
Your nation could follow some or all of these rules; you make the decisions. Since you seem to be doing a low fantasy setting, I thought that the historical guidelines might be helpful.
Also, if you are looking at a book to make your medieval armies realistic, try Osprey books (google them). They are relatively cheap, have pretty color plates (which also give you an idea at how full plate really looked like), and are packed with info.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Hochiu 03-21-07, 10:42 PM	This has probably been asked to death but: I'm trying to give a general overview of the primary nation my players will be playing in and I decided I wanted to include notes on the various military abilities of this nation. Since I don't have any of my resources on me at university, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out a realistic percentage of troops for my nation. Free web sources? Rules of thumb? Online books? Anything? This nation is a heavily "glorified" feudal state, with a moderately strong central authority. The fluff of the nation is that they're my biggest lawful-good nation, and have often embarked on numerous crusades or attacks on historic or potential enemies, so maintaining a fairly large army could be beneficial, but costly. I would assume that the recent economic prosperity they have enjoyed would be because of the queen's cuts on paid soldiers..hmm. The nation's borders are, however, too big for it to actually control at the present time (representing a kingdom's general This is MY territory mentality that is drawn on paper maps, but not recognized anywhere else); the kingdom is broken down into 16 regions that are supposed to have lords appointed/inherited into those positions, with each lord breaking down their own property to their vassals. However, there are only nine regions with Barons/Princes/etc, meaning that almost half of the country is not taxed, policed, or controlled by the crown proper and these people generally consider themselves "freepeople". Arcane magic in this world follows kind of a three oaths [Jordan]/Murgens(sp?) edict [Vance] in that they self impose a restriction on the world that magic is not to be used in political/temporal affairs outside of an auxiliary capacity. To do so the wizard would face serious repercussions. Divine magic is under no such scruples, but it would be very rare that a number of serious druids would help this nation. This kingdom also is the home to the Holy Church, which is my Latin Church representation, and they have a force of holy warriors, paladins, and knights that they can field independently (yet often congruously) with the royal warriors. So, my desire is to get a generally realistic percentage of the population that could constiute the nobility (represented by trained knights), paid men-at-arms, and yeomen conscripts at any one time. I'll eventually go into the comparitive strengths of the nine regions of the kingdom once I figure out what would be appropriate for the big picture. I'm still unsure whether or not to include non-standard troops, such as aerial cavalry or not, since my game currently has a very low-fantasy feel to it and I want to remedy that realistically. The nation has (as of the last royal census): 1,392,930 souls. Thanks for any comments.
taradusis 03-21-07, 10:52 PM	The Dmg has a rule of thumb for 1% being regular army and 5% being militia.These numbers are much higher for non-humans.The dmg also lists GP limits as well?I would use these as a starting point.
GoriceXII 03-22-07, 04:19 AM	there was an old 2nd ed system for this as well I kind of liked--basically divide the local population by 1000 then multiply that total by 25; that being the regular number. Then 5% of the population are available for an emergency militia--ie able bodied peasants etc. That's a fairly simple one but you can also go with this: each village of roughly 200-300 can support a knight or ten men at arms. (knight being a mounted warrior with at least chainmail, shield, spear, lance, sword and at least 1-2 horses; man at arms is an archer, pikeman, etc) This is the Pendragon system and you might look online to see if you can find free downloads or info for that; it is specifically geared to the Middle Ages.
Yakman 03-22-07, 11:43 AM	Also, standing armies were almost unheard of in midieval times. People were called to arms--they were not soldiers. Each town, each noble, each baron, was required to supply a particular number of men, with particular equipment, to serve for a specified amount of times. The nature of these contracts severely limited the capacity of rulers to make war.
Hochiu 03-22-07, 12:33 PM	Aye, I understand this. The "moderately strong" centralised king is going to have a small group of professionally trained men-at-arms used as their personal army, while relying heavily on the vassals to come to war. I just haven't been in a feudal mindset this semester, and there were greater percentages of professional armies and troops during the ancient world than there was in the medieval world. Hence, my questions.
Yakman 03-22-07, 12:58 PM	Typically, a midieval king could raise about 1% of the population to arms. That's just a rough figure though. More would be available for extremely local defense. But keep in mind that supplies dictate war--he might be able to raise a hundred thousand soldiers but only feed 10,000.
DrBaltar 03-22-07, 05:31 PM	Medieval European armies could actually be very large, because EVERY able-bodied man was supposed to join the levy when his noble marched to war. However, these armies never lasted very long, and were not very useful. Many serfs didn't even show up to the mustering field, and those that did usually only brought enough food to last about a week. In addition, these levies were pretty useless during a pitched battle(they usually had no equipment besides sharpened farming tools and only very minimal training). But it is also important to remember that the typical medieval war didn't have that many large engagements; usually the invader just destroyed some crops, burned a few villages, raped a couple of women, and then went home. The aforementioned peasant levies excelled at this. These raids, known as chevauchee, made up most of the Hundred Years war. If there was a pitched battle, the peasent levy probably wouldn't even fight; the men-at-arms would do this. Men-at-arms were the actual soldiers of the middle ages. They owned armor, weapons, and a horse. Knights were considered to be men-at-arms but not all men-at-arms were knights (having a lance and armor didn't make you a noble). In addition, just because they owned a horse doesn't mean they rode it into battle, they were often used to get from place to place. For example, the army of Edward III (the guys who won the battles at Crecy and Poitiers) was almost completly mounted, but you didn't see longbowmen riding their horses around the battlefield. Finally, whenever the King brought his army to battle he was usually accompanied by number of mercenary troops. These guys would be either elite soldiers (like pikemen or crossbowmen) or specialists (like artillerymen or engineers). Your nation could follow some or all of these rules; you make the decisions. Since you seem to be doing a low fantasy setting, I thought that the historical guidelines might be helpful. Also, if you are looking at a book to make your medieval armies realistic, try Osprey books (google them). They are relatively cheap, have pretty color plates (which also give you an idea at how full plate really looked like), and are packed with info.