Numbers of troops in empires vs city states

**Lazy O** · 03-14-2012, 12:38

Read some more yeh?

**seleucid empire** · 03-14-2012, 12:57

between a 5 day engineering course, work and friends i hardly have time to play EB let alone read up on the military history of every single large empire. Thats why i posted on here in the first place although i didnt except to get trolled like this, just cause cause im less knowledgeable than you

**konny** · 03-14-2012, 15:54

You don't need to read up the military history of each and every Ancient empire. A single text on (pre-railroad!) military logistics would do to get an idea what was needed to move around and supply some 30,000 men, leaving a healthy doubt when anything larger than 50,000 men is stated in the sources, and rendering any numbers of more than 100,000 in a single army as "completly impossible", and some 1,000,000 a joke at best.

**Lazy O** · 03-14-2012, 17:11

Originally Posted by seleucid empire

between a 5 day engineering course, work and friends i hardly have time to play EB let alone read up on the military history of every single large empire. Thats why i posted on here in the first place although i didnt except to get trolled like this, just cause cause im less knowledgeable than you

You were not trolled, you made an absurd claim and it was promptly taken to pieces, this is how the Interwebz works .

**moonburn** · 03-14-2012, 19:18

people calm down

as for a city with 1 million people kart hadast had 600.000 and they couldn´t muster more then 40.000 and even then they where very reluctant to do so except on special ocasions because the carthaginians + libo poeni where no more then 25% of the entire city of kart hadast wich after cutting children (normally around 50% or more of the population ) non poeni or libi poeni women and old men 40.000 seems exagerated

alexandria had 1 million but still the ptolemaioi couldn´t or wouldn´t field large armies even with such an high availability of manpower

one of the things i would love to see implemented in eb would be a sistem to fill up a generals slots and for every new trait (such as blooded) he would get a new slot to be able to recruit more regiments this would make it more historically accurate on how important it where certain individuals since most regular generals where unable to recruit efectivly due to lack of experience or keep men in the field

only a 10 star general with alot of other auxiliary traits or 3-4 family members in 1 single stack could make for a full stack that would make the game far more interesting and make the use of mercenary generals important

**seleucid empire** · 03-15-2012, 07:48

Originally Posted by moonburn

people calm down

as for a city with 1 million people kart hadast had 600.000 and they couldn´t muster more then 40.000 and even then they where very reluctant to do so except on special ocasions because the carthaginians + libo poeni where no more then 25% of the entire city of kart hadast wich after cutting children (normally around 50% or more of the population ) non poeni or libi poeni women and old men 40.000 seems exagerated

about the Carthaginian thing, i have a book on the military history of the Mediterranean called Greece and Rome and at war (although its not just about the greeks and romans). it says hannibal managed to raise an army of 80 000 but he only took those who were really determined (some 56 000)to conquer Italy, leaving the rest to defend spain and the pyrenees. wiki gives even larger numbers 102 000. this seems a bit big even to me, cause mercenaries were expensive werent they? However, would hannibal really have gone up against the roman juggernaut with less than 50 000?
and which battle are you talking about that involved 40 000 men? is it zama?

**moonburn** · 03-17-2012, 19:30

i meant kart hadast on it´s own wouldn´t have managed to muster more then 40.000 of it´s own citizens (citizens used in a broad sence i consider libo poeni inside the karchedoi since they shared the same religion and without the kart hadast power they would probably be without a nation since i doubt libians liked those half breeds that much) ofc they could rely on mercs or in libians but it was an example on how city states where actually pinned down in terms of recruitment wise

during the greek golden age the diferent leagues managed to recruit big armies but thats because every member contributed a litle bit (100 cities giving 1.000 fighting men makes for a 100.000 army and if they where all like athens 1000 would have been roughly 1 in every 40 men of fighting age)

hannibal veterans where mainly "mercenaries" in the sence that they weren´t carthaginians but mostly spaniards (not in a nationalistic sence but in the sence they where iberians) and celts wich had a debt towards him the man or towards the city of kart hadast

also the concept of a national army was impossible to consider back then if you mustered all the men of fighting age you could only keep them in the field for 3 months and if you didn´t let them return home famine would fallow cause a city state can´t work without it´s farmers builders bakers and so forth so yes city states or semi independent smaller states could muster more men in relative terms but they where far less flexible then a expedicionary forçe like the one hannibal marched to italy with