What about population?

[Mentat76]

So I conduct wars and hundreds of troops die and all. And after the war they are quickly replenished. And thenm I go war again and hundreds perish again... this goes on again and again.

So what is the point? There has to be a limit to this, a manpower pool of the region or something like that, just like in the HOI4. Is there something I dont know?

[The Former]

There are manpower figures in some Paradox games, but Crusader Kings puts the focus on rulers so it doesn't implement that layer. The only time it was implemented for Crusader Kings was in CK2's Horse Lords expansion, and even then it was only for horse nomads.

Basically, your levy size is an abstraction of this by way of... You only pull about 200 troops at a time from a given county, upwards of a bit over a thousand, with maxed out infrastructure in the late game. Doing some math...

Population density in England, 1086, was 2-5 persons per square kilometer. Germany had a similar figure, France was slightly higher. Assume roughly 30% of this consists of fighting-age men. By the way, this would only increase as time went on, at least until the plague.

Given that Dorset, one of the smaller English counties, has an area of 2,653 square kilometers, this would put them around 1,591 fighting-age men, assuming the low end of population density in 1086.

Now let's assume that every time you fight a war, the whole levy of Dorset (~200 people back in 1086, before your infrastructure gets going) gets called up and obliterated. You could fight seven wars like this before Dorset's levy would be completely dried up. Each war takes between one and seven years, give or take, and every year more young men become available for the levy.

In short, the levy pool is logically plentiful enough to abstract it, since this is the era before things like full mobilization and total war doctrines existed.

[Mentat76]

WOW now that a comprehensive answer.

Thx

[chebonaparte]

Did he use ai for that answer? lol

[The Former]

Originally posted by chebonaparte:

Did he use ai for that answer? lol

Unfortunately, no. I actually went into same data on 11th century England's population density and such. I was in a hole that day lol.

[Ashling]

Wars just weren't that depopulating in the past. It did happen, especially after the battle or when sacking a city, but realistically these would've been rare events. Something to keep in mind is that CK3's battles do not represent the period at all, and while manpower might make sense in a CK3 view, it would be kinda anachronistic.

I remember listening to one historian explain how two Anglo-Saxon nations might fight: a warband would find a landmark, often a hill or maybe near a city, and then they would wait. Eventually, word would reach to local ruler and he might sortie a small band to go meet the warband.
Then, he'd usually surrender (a bunch of professional mercenaries vs farmers isn't ideal) and pay a tithe and/or become subject to the warband.

Big battles did happen, but they weren't common enough to be so depopulating. Most of them probably happened between the Romans and the Muslims which is unfortunately the area I'm the worst in

[The Former]

Originally posted by Middling Cheese:

Wars just weren't that depopulating in the past. It did happen, especially after the battle or when sacking a city, but realistically these would've been rare events. Something to keep in mind is that CK3's battles do not represent the period at all, and while manpower might make sense in a CK3 view, it would be kinda anachronistic.

I remember listening to one historian explain how two Anglo-Saxon nations might fight: a warband would find a landmark, often a hill or maybe near a city, and then they would wait. Eventually, word would reach to local ruler and he might sortie a small band to go meet the warband.
Then, he'd usually surrender (a bunch of professional mercenaries vs farmers isn't ideal) and pay a tithe and/or become subject to the warband.

Big battles did happen, but they weren't common enough to be so depopulating. Most of them probably happened between the Romans and the Muslims which is unfortunately the area I'm the worst in

Good point. Technology and changes to the scale of warfare steadily increased this until medical advances started decreasing it again. Even the difference in casualty count from Gettysburg (~46,000) to Verdun (~206,000 dead, another 100k-200k wounded) was massive.

Our memory often underestimates just how devastating bombs, artillery, and machine guns are compared to groups of men running spears through eachother. True, the spear kills the other guy more reliably, but an artillery shell that lands right kills way more than just the one guy in one fell swoop.

Nasty business, modern warfare.

[Сааребас]

Ngl I would love to have a population mechanic.
Affected by weather, war, resources (food) and diseases.

However, to implement that CK3 would have to go into a direction, which, so far, it hasn't.

I think, for the setting though, that it would make perfectly sense.

BUT, it would also require far more depth in other mechanics then the ones I mentioned and would transform CK3 in a completely different game.


Like previous posters mentioned, levies (which technically also include knights, MaA's and Nobles) was only a portion of the total.
Basically it's just a sort of tax only applicable during war times.
Consisting of service rather than goods.