Author Topic: Haalkitaine Question  (Read 1509 times)

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Offline RandalThor

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Haalkitaine Question
« on: February 02, 2020, 09:18:00 PM »
I have not been able to find this anywhere: What is the city's population? Looking at the map, I wouldn't guess more than 10-15,000. Is that about right?
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Offline MisterK

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2020, 01:33:59 PM »
I would have said 20K from memory, but I would not be able to remember the source :(

That said, the map looks small for a city that size, especially given the number of large villas belonging to the peerage. But I guess it depends on the vertical density of population (how many floors per building on the average).

Offline Neee-Wom

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2020, 07:01:41 AM »
In old Jaiman book, it was stated that Lethys was bigger than Haalkitaine and that Lethys is the biggest city in the continent having a population of 50K. If we consider that the army of the emperor has around 30K soldiers, we can estimate a populatin of 15-20 millions in Rhakhaan with a lot of small villages and towns with many in the range of 15 K people.

Alsow we have a Coliseum (23) that seats ten thousand people. The Coliseum in Rome was maybe 50-80 K seats for a population more than 1 million, so let's consider that   

So I would say that population in Haalkitaine should fall slightly below the  fifty thousand of Lethys, maybe 45K.

Ni!

Offline MisterK

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2020, 07:24:35 AM »
In old Jaiman book, it was stated that Lethys was bigger than Haalkitaine and that Lethys is the biggest city in the continent having a population of 50K. If we consider that the army of the emperor has around 30K soldiers, we can estimate a populatin of 15-20 millions in Rhakhaan with a lot of small villages and towns with many in the range of 15 K people.
Not necessarily. The population of the roman empire peaked at ~70 million (the estimation varies wildly according to the sources, though), with an army size that peaked around 450K soldiers, including legions and auxiliae. The ratio is about 0.65%, and it was at a time where agricultural techniques were fairly primitive, even compared with XV-XVIth century europe which could serve as a basis for Rhakhaan (more advanced agricultural techniques means less people needed to feed a given population, which is very important when you need to field armies year-round as opposed to seasonally).
0.65% is approximately a x150 ratio. This would put the Rhakhaan population around 5 million, which roughly matches estimates you can come up with using the size of the state and its coastline (when I did it, I excluded Meluria for my own reasons, but Meluria is about the worst land imaginable to have a significant population :p).

Incidentally, this would put the population of other nations in Jaiman at significantly lower levels, and the total population of the continent would likely not exceed 10 million - which is not bad when you consider the average threat level and the climate and latitude.

Offline Neee-Wom

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2020, 03:03:39 PM »
Not necessarily. The population of the roman empire peaked at ~70 million (the estimation varies wildly according to the sources, though), with an army size that peaked around 450K soldiers, including legions and auxiliae. The ratio is about 0.65%, and it was at a time where agricultural techniques were fairly primitive, even compared with XV-XVIth century europe which could serve as a basis for Rhakhaan (more advanced agricultural techniques means less people needed to feed a given population, which is very important when you need to field armies year-round as opposed to seasonally).
0.65% is approximately a x150 ratio. This would put the Rhakhaan population around 5 million, which roughly matches estimates you can come up with using the size of the state and its coastline (when I did it, I excluded Meluria for my own reasons, but Meluria is about the worst land imaginable to have a significant population :p).

Incidentally, this would put the population of other nations in Jaiman at significantly lower levels, and the total population of the continent would likely not exceed 10 million - which is not bad when you consider the average threat level and the climate and latitude.

I used roman empire for the coliseum and size of Haalkitane, for the army vs total population I considered numbers in Agincourt compared with population of France, as for me Rhakhaan pretends to be quite British but gets also a French flavour consider the relationships with smaller kindgoms like U-Lyshak, Saral and Tanara.

I agree 5 millions could be ok but it seems to me it would be underpopulated, and in my game all the continent is heavily underpopulated except Rhakhaan that has been the only stable kingdom, and even domains like Helyssa were islands of civilization. The best thing would be that TKA provides some numbers about how he see the population of Haalkitaine, Rhakhaan, U-Lyshak and the whole continent.
Ni!

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2020, 04:28:40 PM »
We could just ask Terry.

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Offline Terry K. Amthor

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2020, 02:19:09 PM »
Hey I am here; the site has been down. I am not great with numbers during this period, There are people here who have done great studies who can estimate better than me. I think several million for Rhakhaan, much less for other kingdoms. The norther Emer regions would have many more.

What was the UK like in the 1000's?
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2020, 02:51:32 PM »

What was the UK like in the 1000's?


A few million.

Roman Britain is estimated to have had roughly 3 million or so. That likely declined with the fall of Rome, such that it might have been a bit below that by 1000. After 1000, though, the population expands steadily for three centuries, reaching a medieval height of c. 4 to 6 or 7 million. Then came the Black Death, from which the population didn't recover till a few centuries later.

Note though that the population of what would become the UK was relatively small during this period (before the Industrial Revolution). France for example often had three or four times the population the UK did.

Cities in Europe were also much smaller, even comparatively, due to logistics and low crop yields. In 1000 AD, there were no cities larger than 100,000 in Western Europe (excluding Byzantium and Muslim Spain). Even the larger ones north of the Alps, such as London and Paris, were very small by modern standards -- on the order of 20,000 or 30,000. The largest in Italy (Milan, Venice, etc.) were probably approaching 100,000 by the end of the high Middle Ages (13th century).

By those standards, a city of 20,000 or 30,000 could very well be the capital of an entire kingdom, and a city of 50,000 would be the medieval version of a metropolis.

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Offline Neee-Wom

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2020, 04:59:21 AM »
I always thougt that Rhakhaan is closer to XIV or XV century than to XI so...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_England
1086   1,710,000
1290   4,750,000
1348   4,810,000
1400   2,080,000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France
1226   16,000,000
1345   20,200,000
1400   16,600,000

I'm happy with Haalkitaine slightly below 50K.
Ni!

Offline Hurin

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2020, 11:30:34 AM »
Yes, those numbers seem reasonable.

The Haalkitaine map may seem relatively small by modern standards, but remember, medieval people lived in much smaller houses than we do today. A one-bedroom condo or flat that today is considered only suitable for one person could in the Middle Ages have housed a family of 7 or 8. Most peasant or urban poor families lived in a one or two room shack... and they had big families.

Compare for example this map of London in a later period (1560), when the population was about 100,000. It still looks tiny by modern standards:

https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/79urqw/a_map_of_medieval_london_in_1560/
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Offline Gideon

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Re: Haalkitaine Question
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2020, 02:23:24 PM »
Thanks for the map reference!

For comparison, I performed a simple population overlay analysis and the 16th century population was incredibly dense. With many houses having multiple stories.
<jk>
At my best guess to hold 100,000 people in the city the average single person dwelling would need 3,703 levels.

Link for reference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hEEE8Jjevi85I5pMz5AY-h1G98tLHiQL/view?usp=sharing
</jk>