#weee math

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