When people read in Taldor: The First Empire or Echoes of Glory that the Taldor army is made up of units called legions, how big do most assume that unit is?
A classical legion is 6,000 men (Roman), without auxiliaries.
Taldor has a lot of legions, which would suggest a pretty big population if the Taldor unit is that big.
For example, Echoes of Glory says that 12 legions are stationed at Maheto and "scores" are at Zimar.
That's about 180,000 men right there (assuming just 20 legions at Zimar), which would give Taldor at least 3.6 million people if that's 2% of the population (which is actually a little high for a medieval state). The Roman Empire had an army of about 400,000 men in the first century AD with a population around 50 million (just under 1% of population).
Does that seem right or do people think a legion is bigger / smaller?
Plant Growth is a 3rd-level spell. How many level 5 druids or clerics with the plant domain are available and ready to cast that spell on farms in all of Taldor?
IIRC, even Roman legions weren't always of the same strength, especially not when the Empire was in decline.
Legion strength certainly varied (although the army got much bigger as the Empire declined and became more of a military dictatorship).
I'm just curious what number pops into people's head when they hear "legion." I will admit that's it is 6,000 or so for me because of classical Roman strengths.
10,000 is the number that pops into my head. Not for any thought through reason though - four figures just seems too small for a fantasy army, in my mind.
Taldor seems to deploy the legions in big groups. So if they have 12 legions at Maheto, that's an army of about 72,000 men if it is 6,000 per legion or 120,000 if it's 10,000.
That would be a pretty enormous fantasy army. Certainly it's conceivable, but it would be really big.
Just as an example, the battle of Manzikert in 1071 between Byzantium (whom Taldor shares a lot of traits with) and the Turks saw about 20,000 to 30,000 on each side. Battles not involving Eastern Rome or its enemies were a lot smaller. Agincourt in 1415 was between 6,000 to 9,000 English and 12,000 to 15,000 French.
In the Dune universe, a legion is 30,000 men, so there is precedent for legion being used to describe pretty big numbers.
I think the 5,000 or 6,000 number makes the armies a little more manageable, but I'm really curious about what everyone's first impression is.
Going by your population estimates I imagine their legions are smaller to much smaller than 6000. I find it hard to believe that Taldor's poplation is over 3 million given the relatively small size of Oppara. But I also think that the major cities on Golarion are too small compared to history.
As for another comment... yes, all major farming communities could easily have divine influence. It only takes a village (pop 60) to have access to 3rd level spells. Also it is mentioned in the 2nd AP that druids used to enhance the fields in the county.
I did a lot of work on Golarion population totals in 2009 and I think 3 to 4 million might actually be small for Taldor.
Basically, through about the Renaissance, about 5% to 10% of a country's population could be expected to live in cities (just for perspective, worldwide, the number was about 30% in 1955 and is near 60% today). So if you sum up all the cities listed in the Inner Seas setting book and times that number by 10 or 20, you get between 2.3 and 4.6 million for Taldor's population.
If they didn't use battalion (usually 1,000 troops) somewhere else, I'd say you could argue that a legion could be around 1,000 men, but that seems too small in context.
With the reasonably commonplace availability via adepts plus 1st level clerics and druids of near-infinite purify food and drink, drinking water is not the health scourge as it was in OTL, if not outright by-and-large eliminated. That alone makes a significant population difference.
Oppara has about the same population as historical London did at the beginning of the 16th century.
Perhaps Taldor uses "legion" fairly indiscriminately, using the same term to describe armies in size from battalion strength (~1,000) to as large as a modern-ish legion (division in our parlance) of as large as 20,000.
I'm not so sure that London is the best city to compare it too as London suffered from disease, fire and smog so you can cherry pick its population. Wiki told me that it also had a population of 100,000 in 1300, or over 200,00 in 1605. And London is a very young city compared to Oppara.
Wiki also shows that the first cities at 100,000 population started to appear around 1000 BCE.
I also believe that Golarion is much more advanced than the Renaissance. I can easily list off instantaneous travel, knowledge sharing, food and water creation/purification, interstellar travel, not to mention it's more socially evolved... An argument could be made that its a far more advanced world than what we live in.
Which is also why its low population is odd to me.
Not that any of this helps with legion size. I'm sure you know that the answer is 'whatever suits your story the best'.
Of course.
I was just curious what number seemed reasonable to people or what they thought on first reading about the legions.
Of course.
I was just curious what number seemed reasonable to people or what they thought on first reading about the legions.
Methinks a 'standard' Taldan Legion is a modern-era battalion (1,000 combat troops).
I'd go for about 1000 at most. In PF, huge gangs of mooks aren't very useful compared to many fewer higher-level characters. So you won't have large armies of conscripts sitting around in peacetime. They'll be called up in the militia in wartime, but not as a standing army.
I'd assume a much smaller number than what you did, not that I know much about military history. A wiki read through also put a Roman legion at 4500 men, and said that Caesar's campaign in Gaul had a legion size around 3500.
So I'd actually say around 2-3000 people in a legion.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Seannoss
Was more addressing the percentage of population needed to ensure most fields in the country have Plant Growth on them every year. If only 1/10th of one percent of the population must be a 5th level Druid or Plant Domain Cleric to pull it off, it's certainly plausible.
No problem, I think we're in agreement here in that it's better to assume magic is more available than not.
Plant Growth is a 3rd-level spell. How many level 5 druids or clerics with the plant domain are available and ready to cast that spell on farms in all of Taldor?Quite a few. Look at the max spellcasting level for a random Taldor town and tell me what the max spellcasting level is. 3rd level casting is reasonably common. The blessing only needs to be done once a year, and the duration will have a winter it's not useful in (so you don't need exact timing for the spell) so it's actually perfectly viable for a traveling caster to hit several towns themselves.
A quick check of the internet says estimates for 1000s England are 12,600 square miles of farmland for a population of less than 2 million. Plant Growth effects a half mile radius, so a .785 square mile area. If you assume that only 0.25% of the population can cast Plant Growth and is willing to sell (not necessarily for direct coinage) their spell slots you've still got 5,000 casters. That's enough for them to do it in a bit over three castings each. The figure is apparently also counting fields that will be empty for crop rotation, so the number needed is even less.
I think your number of spellcasters with access to Plant Growth is too high. I'd say you can count out most druids (they are concentrated in the Verdurdan Forest and don't care about agriculture). That mostly leaves clerics of Erastil who took the Plant domain.
Also, spellcasting availability in a settlement doesn't mean that there is an NPC with a PC class living in the vicinity and adepts don't have access to Plant Growth.
The vast majority of Paizo writers do not get military organisation. The Twilight Child has a cavalry regiment numbering a 'few dozen'. Late Roman Legio had a paper strength of about 1200. My guess is that a Taldor Legion is about 80 strong. Maybe 160. Reminds me of the cohorts in the Deeds of Paksenarrion that were 80 strong, with the author being a former US Marine.
edited for late legio size. My memory is bad.
Taldor seems to deploy the legions in big groups. So if they have 12 legions at Maheto, that's an army of about 72,000 men if it is 6,000 per legion or 120,000 if it's 10,000.
That would be a pretty enormous fantasy army. Certainly it's conceivable, but it would be really big.
Just as an example, the battle of Manzikert in 1071 between Byzantium (whom Taldor shares a lot of traits with) and the Turks saw about 20,000 to 30,000 on each side. Battles not involving Eastern Rome or its enemies were a lot smaller. Agincourt in 1415 was between 6,000 to 9,000 English and 12,000 to 15,000 French.
In the Dune universe, a legion is 30,000 men, so there is precedent for legion being used to describe pretty big numbers.
I think the 5,000 or 6,000 number makes the armies a little more manageable, but I'm really curious about what everyone's first impression is.
You see my thinking in estimating fantasy armies has nothing to do with the real world. I'm basing it on Sauron's armies and all the various CGI scenes over the years.
I always struggle to see the point of seeking 'realism' in things like this since no matter where you look in a typical gaming world there's bound to be silly but pervasive tropes which would never hold up but which we all just take for granted (no way weapons and armor would "really" be as easily available as they are in D&D games - but we just accept it as part of the setting without drilling down into "What constraints did the ruling classes put on arming the little people down the years?" because that would be dull).
It seems to me that RPGs aren't really trying to replicate reality, they're trying to replicate action movies.
I also believe that Golarion is much more advanced than the Renaissance. I can easily list off instantaneous travel, knowledge sharing, food and water creation/purification, interstellar travel, not to mention it's more socially evolved... An argument could be made that its a far more advanced world than what we live in.
Which is also why its low population is odd to me.
But Golarion also has hundreds of entire species of actively malevolent monsters, many of considerable power. And quite a few of them want to eat your face. That's got to put a little bit of downward pressure on population. ;)
I'd go for about 1000 at most. In PF, huge gangs of mooks aren't very useful compared to many fewer higher-level characters. So you won't have large armies of conscripts sitting around in peacetime. They'll be called up in the militia in wartime, but not as a standing army.
This is a very WWI conception of army deployments -- lots of units with a paper strength that fill out with a mass mobilization when war is declared.
I think fantasy worlds work a little more like the early Roman or early Renaissance era -- standing armies are mostly mercenaries or highly trained, long-service troops.
Taldor is clearly trying to emulate Rome (and Byzantium in places). I think those legions consist of long-service troops that are highly trained and basically spend their lives in the army once they join (or are forced to join). I think the Taldan Horse is like Byzantine cataphracts (I think they are actually called cataphracts in some books), who dress like medieval knights (at least they do in the art).
I like a Taldan legion being around 5,000, and I like the Empire having a population of about 6 million (which, for reference, is about half the population of Basil II's Byzantine Empire in 1025).
If you use smaller numbers, I've found that players can wreak a lot of havoc on local law enforcement / garrisons just by killing 10-12 guards (that's 10-15% of some of the smaller legion sizes being proposed). I'm not all that comfortable with that.
If it's emulating a medieval or renaissance country - and especially a feudal one - armies are assembled by a baron getting men from his local lords and delivering them to the king as required, and then they return to the fields after the summer campaign. Taldor is more than a little feudal, though IDHMBWM so I can't check exactly.
Given the knights-and-damsels flavour of the place, I get the feeling that much of the heavy cavalry won't be cataphracts but Sir Rodney the Bold and his chums. So I guess there will be a mixture. It might be like 19th-century cricket teams made up of Gentlemen and Professionals, where the Gentlemen (knights) are competent but unremarkable (Warrior 1 / Aristocrat 2) and the Professionals are actually dangerous (Fighter or Cavalier 4). Though the knights don't think so.
I'd love to know the answer. I don't have any of the novels.