Out of curiosity, how big do you think the population of each Tellius nation is? And how many branded people do you think there are in the continent as a whole?
Have a nice weekend!
Hi!
Thank you so much for the ask and I hope your weekend is going well too! :)
This kind of estimation certainly isn't something I'm an expert in, per se, but I do like worldbuilding, so I have dabbled in it before. That is to say, take these numbers with a pound of salt. The only way I know to get even a baseline number is from the size of the armies.
We know in Part 2, Elincia's Royal Knights have about 6,000 soldiers/kinights, but Ludveck and the rebellion have thousands of their own traitorous soldiers. In Part 3, 3,000 soldiers from Gallia, 5,000 elite troops of Crimea, and 2,000 soldiers of Phoenicis join up with whatever army Sanaki has managed to obtain in Chapter 11 of when they go to take control of Begnion back from the senate. Later on, at the end of Part 3, when Daein has been backed into a corner, and the fact that they only have ten thousand troops to fight back against Ike's combined army with is so low that it's considered suicidal. It's therefore likely that Sanaki had 5,000-15,000 troops herself, in addition to the 10,000 pledged to her by her allies. And while thousands died in the canyon with Micaiah's attack, devastating the Begnion and Crimean forces in the joint army, Sanaki still has enough troops left to have the superior army size to Daein's ten thousand. (So 5,000~ laguz less whoever's died and then the survivors of the canyon attack, whatever that looks like. 壊滅 is the word used in the Japanese script). It's hard to imagine the army is only 5,000 laguz and that superior to Daein's 10,000 troops.
Crimean Rebel: The Royal Knights have left the capital! We estimate roughly 4,000 soldiers are marching on Felirae.
Ludveck: That means about 2,000 are left in the capital… That's more than I'd expected. …Hmm, I suppose it can't be helped. The column headed toward Felirae is primarily cavalry, is it not?
Radiant Dawn Chapter 2-3, Geoffrey's Charge
[ライ]
ガリア王国から
大将スクリミル率いる獣牙兵三千、
ただいま到着しました。▼
Ranulf, Radiant Dawn Chapter 3-11, Just Cause
[ジョフレ]
神使様！
クリミア王国軍より、精鋭五千…
準備完了しております。▼
Geoffrey, Radiant Dawn Chapter 3-11, Just Cause
[ティバーン]
よお、待たせたな。
フェニキス軍二千。
今から加わるぜ。▼
Tibarn, Radiant Dawn Chapter 3-11, Just Cause
Ranulf: Ten thousand? They aren't really going to try to fight us with only ten thousand men, are they? It'd be suicide!
Radiant Dawn 3-13, Blood Contract (about the insubstantial Daein army)
And this is after the very long war with many deaths that has already been fought in Part 3 already, and the Daein army is also recovering from their war against Crimea 3 years prior and the occupation of Begnion. I would say that all the armies are at about one-quarter to one-half their normal size at the end of part 3. And we also have to consider that there are more armed forces in each country that are not being sent for the fight for Gallia, Phoenicis, and Crimea, and that Sanaki only has a fraction of the army size of Begnion since the senate still has a lot. Ten-thousand is likely the best Daein can scrounge up at that particular point in time to defend itself from the invading army and will be our best key for total size.
From here, we can try and guess at the population. This is very difficult work. Pre-modern army counts and censuses are, how do we say...unreliable? Demographics from back when are difficult in general. Army sizes could be rounded or overestimated, or only include the higher-ranking members of society, to say nothing of population counts. There's a university TA Historian who goes into a bit on his blog.
The Seleucid Empire, to take one example, seems to have had a maximum military capacity around 80,000 men; being generous we can assume maybe another 20,000 in garrison duty (though in practice, many of these garrisons seem thinned out for major military activity, so we’re at risk of double-counting here), giving us perhaps 100,000 troops total, out of an empire that may have numbered anywhere from 10-20 million – so roughly 2.5-5m military aged males; the effective military manpower is anywhere from 4-8% of the free, adult male population. In contrast the figure for the contemporary Roman Republic that, in a single year approaches 25% and for Roman citizens over the first four years of the Second Punic War seems to have been above 70%; the possibility for variation here is enormous – so much depends on where on that sliding scale from 4% to 25% you think the society you are looking at is.
(If you want, the full post is here and very insightful)
Most others online agree that around 5% of the population could be part of a regular army, maybe getting up to 15%-25% in times of great need in the medieval period, but that couldn't be sustained for long because of farming/resources. That is to say, I'm just going to have to give my most reasonable guesstimate, also accounting for the fact that all armies have men and women fighting in it, not just men (so about 50% of the total population is eligible to serve, instead of the usual 25%, so about 2% to 4% from the figures of the Seleucid Empire).
For the human countries, this is a campaign lasting several months, over summer, into fall and winter. With harvest and crop plantings, they're likely not getting above 4% for the war. For Daein in particular, all of the able bodied men and women of military age have been put through labor camps in the Begnion occupation, and a lot of them were killed during the events of Path of Radiance. Ten-thousand is a rag-tag number for Daein. For laguz, they might have a higher ratio of soldiers to total population, but probably not by much as they do have farmers and civilians. However, given that the laguz live much longer than beorc, I'd expect them to have a lower total population.
So, let's say this for each nation before Ashnard invades, inclusive of all garrison/guard/royal/elite/regional armed forces:
Begnion: Has a standing army size of about 60,000-90,000 troops, including the Holy Guard and all various army factions (Northern/Central), which accounts for about 3% of the eligible population. (roughly 4x to 6x the size of the army Sanaki may have had available to invade Daein with)
Crimea: Has a standing army size of about 25,000-35,000 troops, which accounts for about 2% of the eligible population (roughly 4x to 6x the size of the royal army Elincia had to fight against Ludveck with)
Daein: Has a standing army size of about about 30,000-50,000 troops, which accounts for about 4% of the eligible population (3x to 5x their rag tag total available forces in Radiant Dawn)
Gallia: Has a standing army size of about 9,000-15,000 troops, which accounts for about 6% of the eligible population (3x to 5x the total army they lend to Sanaki)
Phoenicis: Has a standing army size of about 4,000-8,000 troops, which accounts for about 7% of the eligible population (2x to 4x the total army they lend to Sanaki)
Kilvas: Has a standing army size of about 2,000-4,000 troops, which accounts for about 5% of the eligible population (half of Phoenicis)
Goldoa: Has a standing army size of about 2,000-5,000 troops, which accounts for about 4% of the eligible population (numbers here are based off of vibes. We'll also set the eligible population to 75% of the total population as children are uncommon and they stay in their prime for thousands of years)
Serenes (Pre-Massacre): I just want to include them. We'll set them at about 75% of the average population size of Kilvas and Phoenicis
To reverse a percentage, you just divide the number by the percentage so 4% of 100 is 4, and 4/0.04 = 100. Doing that to the rough figures I made above and then again for the 50% to 75% of the ratio of eligible population to total population gives us these figures:
Begnion: Has a total population of 4-6 million people
Crimea: Has a total population of 2.5-3.5 million people
Daein: Has a total population of 1.5-2.5 million people
Gallia: Has a total population of 300-500 thousand people
Phoenicis: Has a total population of 114-228 thousand people
Kilvas: Has a total population of 80-160 thousand people (after losing 5,050 to the Blood Contract killing people for 100 days)
Goldoa: Has a total population of 66-166 thousand people
Serenes (Pre-Massacre): Had a total population of 72-145 thousand people
So about 8.5 to 13 million people total in Tellius.
These figures doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. Based on work that I've done previously to figure out the size of Tellius, we can see that it's actually probably quite small.
Looking at medieval demographics (again, taking those figures with a few grains of salt because of "reliability") these numbers fall about in line. Tellius looks roughly equivalent in size to modern France or Germany, and we're not out of range of either of their pre-Black Death figures. Phoenicis and Kilvas are a lot smaller than the other nations, so I'd be concerned, but they're about one-half to one-quarter the size of medieval Wallachia.
Germany/Scandinavia – The population in Germany and Scandinavia rose from 4 million in 1000, to 11.5 million by the 1340.
France – In 1328, France is believed to have supported between 15 and 17 million people (in a smaller geographical area than today's) and 20 million people (in the present-day area), the latter not reached again until the early modern period.
Wallachia – The region in the Southern part of modern Romania had a population of around 400,000 in fifteenth century.
So it seems sustainable to me, especially if we're on the lower end of things. Honestly, the beorc nations and Gallia could gain quite a few more people and still be within the realms of realism. I'd say the bird and dragon tribes are about what I'd expect, if not a little higher than I'd think based on the story telling, but not entirely unreasonable.
As far as the Branded go, given the fact that it can pass through bloodlines I'd set it to about 0.01% of the total population of a beorc nation, or 1 in 10,000 people in a beorc nation are Branded.
Thus we get:
Begnion: 400-600 Branded
Crimea: 250-350 Branded
Daein: 150-250 Branded
You could set it higher or lower, of course, but 1 in 10,000 feels about right to me. (Though for the game it's about 6 Branded characters in approximately 100 total characters, so....)
