New Civilizations [OOC | Open]

[Pax Nerdvana]

Man, y'all have big armies

I don't even have an army.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Meanwhile I just want to post as much as possible, but I don't want to swamp the IC.

I know those feels.

Sounds amusing, but Reagan technically has yet to live in this timeline. And may never live, of course.

Well, bad advice from the perspective of infiltration. Your military commanders are former raiders and brigands; thus their advice might include stealth to the extent of an ambush, but their experiences aren't exactly tailored to such an operation.

Several hundred, perhaps even as much as the high hundreds if all the members of the ruling council are there. Of course, if you intend to storm it directly, your major issue will be breaching the walls and the council's keep, more than the defenders themselves.

I think they'd be able to at least give good advice, but that doesn't matter now.

Besides the converts from the missionaries, I still have a steady, if slow, influx of converts from other raiders who have heard off our successes, and now my immortality as well. In total, I'd say I have about 10,000 Yamatzon total, 7000 of which live in Yapan itself. As suchy, my army has about 900-1000 soldiers total now. In addition, one thing the men are very experienced in is charging fortified positions and breaking through. As such, if I would charge the city, going straight for the Council hall, what would my odds be?

Also, is the city made of wood or stone?

To be more technical, I would guess other raiders are joining Yapan less out of religious conversion, and more out of a desire for plunder. Since you've been raiding the Politburo for a generation now, and all.

A thousand soldiers is probably a bit excessive. Remember, in the era of subsistence agriculture and hunter-gatherer societies that Japan remains in, better than 95% of the population will be involved in primary resource production, almost exclusively food. That means you might have five hundred persons within Yapan, including the Yamatzon that live in Yekrenia, who engage in specialized labor. Anything from woodworking, to masonry, to weaving, to trade, and yes, soldiers.

So, if every specialist in Yapan is a professional soldier, they're going to struggle to have armor or weapons or training of any quality. I presume rather that most of Yapan's soldiers are seasonal warriors, essentially militia or raiders raised as levies when they aren't overly needed on their farms, making the raiding and military capacity of Yapan cyclical with the planting and harvest of foodstuffs.

Thus you might raise a few hundred professional warriors year-round, but "professional" will be a very dubious term.

The Yapanese are accustomed to assaulting fortified positions?

Presumably wood, though I believe Koba was doing some stoneworking. At any rate, building full stone walls with his population base for a large cities is outside of our timeframe.

[Ralnis]

Hmm, I'm trying to be more American with my government but be more collective with my people, so could there be a Ronald Reagan figure in the future?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Hmm, I'm trying to be more American with my government but be more collective with my people, so could there be a Ronald Reagan figure in the future?

There is infinite variation in mankind's ranks, as the years flow onward.

So, sure. I doubt they'll be Reagan, due to mannerisms, culture, and so on. But perhaps similar in part.

[Pasong Tirad]

ikr. Their army is the size of my entire population.

I think I have 350 soldiers to like a 30k pop? I haven't looked at numbers in ages

If I'm doing numbers at the spot I'm guesstimating at most two hundred full time soldiers - mostly guarding trade fleets, with a few dozen as household/palace guards - with a population of at most 5k, if I take into account latest agricultural trends learned from Sympagis, relative stability of the area and whatnot.

[Ralnis]

Hmm, I'm trying to be more American with my government but be more collective with my people, so could there be a Ronald Reagan figure in the future?

There is infinite variation in mankind's ranks, as the years flow onward.

So, sure. I doubt they'll be Reagan, due to mannerisms, culture, and so on. But perhaps similar in part.

I mean i won't be a communist, but have a more collective leaning in values than standard America. I will still keep the idea of capitalism and the common man to have wealth and property, but our wealthy will be more inclined to give back to their workers or help their families.

[The Holy Dominion of Inesea]

I think I have 350 soldiers to like a 30k pop? I haven't looked at numbers in ages

If I'm doing numbers at the spot I'm guesstimating at most two hundred full time soldiers - mostly guarding trade fleets, with a few dozen as household/palace guards - with a population of at most 5k, if I take into account latest agricultural trends learned from Sympagis, relative stability of the area and whatnot.

The size of my military is large enough to smash any raider group, rather than a percentage of my population.

[G-Tech Corporation]

If I'm doing numbers at the spot I'm guesstimating at most two hundred full time soldiers - mostly guarding trade fleets, with a few dozen as household/palace guards - with a population of at most 5k, if I take into account latest agricultural trends learned from Sympagis, relative stability of the area and whatnot.

The size of my military is large enough to smash any raider group, rather than a percentage of my population.

I base mine on the amount of theoretical fronts that the Imperium faces threats on x # of soldiers per Great Company command.

[The Holy Dominion of Inesea]

Increased Calorie/Acre Yield + Decreased Child Mortality + Increased Population Health + Increased Arable Acres = Population?????

Like, I am running the numbers and it seems like there's gonna be a big ol' boom generation.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Increased Calorie/Acre Yield + Decreased Child Mortality + Increased Population Health + Increased Arable Acres = Population?????

Like, I am running the numbers and it seems like there's gonna be a big ol' boom generation.

Indeed. Not on the scale we might expect, given historic malnutrition, but huge to the barely-above-replacement population of the Neolithic.

[Ralnis]

Hey G, I know you have a lot on your table but can you give me an event?

EDIT: Never mind, just saw it.

[Pasong Tirad]

Increased Calorie/Acre Yield + Decreased Child Mortality + Increased Population Health + Increased Arable Acres = Population?????

Like, I am running the numbers and it seems like there's gonna be a big ol' boom generation.

Indeed. Not on the scale we might expect, given historic malnutrition, but huge to the barely-above-replacement population of the Neolithic.

So how long until a society goes from no-longer-subsistence-farming to no-longer-malnourished to actually-making-a-lot-of-babies?

[Ralnis]

Indeed. Not on the scale we might expect, given historic malnutrition, but huge to the barely-above-replacement population of the Neolithic.

So how long until a society goes from no-longer-subsistence-farming to no-longer-malnourished to actually-making-a-lot-of-babies?

Should be a generation or two.

[The Holy Dominion of Inesea]

Indeed. Not on the scale we might expect, given historic malnutrition, but huge to the barely-above-replacement population of the Neolithic.

So how long until a society goes from no-longer-subsistence-farming to no-longer-malnourished to actually-making-a-lot-of-babies?

If we assume the neolithic generation to be 16 to 20 years long, then at thirty years we are at the start of the first true boom generation, at least in the Sympagis. I would estimate the growth rate of the population to jump from the neolithic .05% to around .5% with the intermediate generation sitting in at around .3%.

15 BP : 29,775

0 YP : 30,000

15 YP : 31,378

30 YP: 33,816

Would be the estimated native growth of the Sympagis at as initial population of 30,000. The fertility of the next generation would likely sit at .6%, as would the following two. By the fifth or sixth generation, growth rates can range from .6% to 1.2%. Past that, I couldn't predict. It could spike to as high as 4% or floor to .3%.

[Pax Nerdvana]

IC up has been up for a couple hours now.

[Ralnis]

The event does give me some ideas, one is to try and recreate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with all the plants that I have brought with me.

[Yatzatz]

I think they'd be able to at least give good advice, but that doesn't matter now.

Besides the converts from the missionaries, I still have a steady, if slow, influx of converts from other raiders who have heard off our successes, and now my immortality as well. In total, I'd say I have about 10,000 Yamatzon total, 7000 of which live in Yapan itself. As suchy, my army has about 900-1000 soldiers total now. In addition, one thing the men are very experienced in is charging fortified positions and breaking through. As such, if I would charge the city, going straight for the Council hall, what would my odds be?

Also, is the city made of wood or stone?

To be more technical, I would guess other raiders are joining Yapan less out of religious conversion, and more out of a desire for plunder. Since you've been raiding the Politburo for a generation now, and all.

A thousand soldiers is probably a bit excessive. Remember, in the era of subsistence agriculture and hunter-gatherer societies that Japan remains in, better than 95% of the population will be involved in primary resource production, almost exclusively food. That means you might have five hundred persons within Yapan, including the Yamatzon that live in Yekrenia, who engage in specialized labor. Anything from woodworking, to masonry, to weaving, to trade, and yes, soldiers.

So, if every specialist in Yapan is a professional soldier, they're going to struggle to have armor or weapons or training of any quality. I presume rather that most of Yapan's soldiers are seasonal warriors, essentially militia or raiders raised as levies when they aren't overly needed on their farms, making the raiding and military capacity of Yapan cyclical with the planting and harvest of foodstuffs.

Thus you might raise a few hundred professional warriors year-round, but "professional" will be a very dubious term.

The Yapanese are accustomed to assaulting fortified positions?

Presumably wood, though I believe Koba was doing some stoneworking. At any rate, building full stone walls with his population base for a large cities is outside of our timeframe.

They probably start joining for desire for plunder, but the longer they stay, the more truly devout they become. If you're surrounded by religious fanatics, it doesn't take too long to become one yourself.

Ummm... Last RP, you said, and I quote:

A good rule of thumb for antiquity if you use a citizen army/citizen levy is 10-20% of the population armed for a campaign, and far less than that if you're talking a professional or standing military.

I said, fine, the total army is 1K out of 8K. You were OK with that.
Also, I use a technique of "train a bunch of people, let a few of them be the professional army, and the rest be people who are well-trained in fighting and occasionally participate in raids to keep themselves skilled".

Yes, we've spent the last 25 years carrying out raids. A large number of the raids were on fortified positions. Maybe not as fortified, but still fortified.

So, what about the Council building itself? Stone or wood?

[The Orson Empire]

Hey G-Tech, is electric power in the Imperium a state secret?

[G-Tech Corporation]

I said, fine, the total army is 1K out of 8K. You were OK with that.
Also, I use a technique of "train a bunch of people, let a few of them be the professional army, and the rest be people who are well-trained in fighting and occasionally participate in raids to keep themselves skilled".

Yes, we've spent the last 25 years carrying out raids. A large number of the raids were on fortified positions. Maybe not as fortified, but still fortified.

So, what about the Council building itself? Stone or wood?

Precisely- since I assumed you took that advice to heart and acknowledged an army of between 10-20% would be a citizen levy, not a professional force. One eighth is a reasonable number for a city-state of antiquity to deploy for a campaign season, but most of them are essentially militiamen and barely-skilled light infantry, not professional warriors.

Almost by definition, raiding implies avoiding fortified positions. Raids are designed to seize/deny wealth and resources without risking military personnel- if you're attacking a fortified position while raiding, you're raiding wrong. If you are attacking fortified positions, you're taking heavy casualties to skilled personnel, especially in this era where siege equipment is desperately primitive.

Presumably stone. Or brick- Koba was building aqueducts out of fired bricks, and they'd be a convenient building material.

Hey G-Tech, is electric power in the Imperium a state secret?

Not exactly. The Imperium wouldn't make any particular efforts to keep it secret, since it relies on a system of infrastructure and innovation which no other nations have replicated, but it would be essentially unheard of outside of the central holdings of the Imperium. Electrical grids are very intensive in terms of resource investment, especially in terms of capacitance and transmission over any real distance. I doubt there are any grids that run further than a city center or a major industrial district, and those are limited to northern Italy/Germany/Eastern Europe.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Indeed. Not on the scale we might expect, given historic malnutrition, but huge to the barely-above-replacement population of the Neolithic.

So how long until a society goes from no-longer-subsistence-farming to no-longer-malnourished to actually-making-a-lot-of-babies?

Tough to say, really. It mainly depends on what agricultural techniques you introduce and how widely they are adopted, the variety of crops available, and the ability of your medical personnel to prevent maternal mortality. More food means more potential babies, but if mothers are still regularly dying in childbirth you actual birthrate will only start climbing once you've had healthy mothers bearing healthy babies, and that can have a time lag of three or four generations, especially if you define "healthy" to mean balanced nutrition as opposed to pure lack of starvation.

[The Orson Empire]

I said, fine, the total army is 1K out of 8K. You were OK with that.
Also, I use a technique of "train a bunch of people, let a few of them be the professional army, and the rest be people who are well-trained in fighting and occasionally participate in raids to keep themselves skilled".

Yes, we've spent the last 25 years carrying out raids. A large number of the raids were on fortified positions. Maybe not as fortified, but still fortified.

So, what about the Council building itself? Stone or wood?

Precisely- since I assumed you took that advice to heart and acknowledged an army of between 10-20% would be a citizen levy, not a professional force. One eighth is a reasonable number for a city-state of antiquity to deploy for a campaign season, but most of them are essentially militiamen and barely-skilled light infantry, not professional warriors.

Almost by definition, raiding implies avoiding fortified positions. Raids are designed to seize/deny wealth and resources without risking military personnel- if you're attacking a fortified position while raiding, you're raiding wrong. If you are attacking fortified positions, you're taking heavy casualties to skilled personnel, especially in this era where siege equipment is desperately primitive.

Presumably stone. Or brick- Koba was building aqueducts out of fired bricks, and they'd be a convenient building material.

Hey G-Tech, is electric power in the Imperium a state secret?

Not exactly. The Imperium wouldn't make any particular efforts to keep it secret, since it relies on a system of infrastructure and innovation which no other nations have replicated, but it would be essentially unheard of outside of the central holdings of the Imperium. Electrical grids are very intensive in terms of resource investment, especially in terms of capacitance and transmission over any real distance. I doubt there are any grids that run further than a city center or a major industrial district, and those are limited to northern Italy/Germany/Eastern Europe.

The Lagoon Company would definitely be interested in it, however.

Perhaps after the next timeskip, they could make some progress in building their own electrical grid.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Precisely- since I assumed you took that advice to heart and acknowledged an army of between 10-20% would be a citizen levy, not a professional force. One eighth is a reasonable number for a city-state of antiquity to deploy for a campaign season, but most of them are essentially militiamen and barely-skilled light infantry, not professional warriors.

Almost by definition, raiding implies avoiding fortified positions. Raids are designed to seize/deny wealth and resources without risking military personnel- if you're attacking a fortified position while raiding, you're raiding wrong. If you are attacking fortified positions, you're taking heavy casualties to skilled personnel, especially in this era where siege equipment is desperately primitive.

Presumably stone. Or brick- Koba was building aqueducts out of fired bricks, and they'd be a convenient building material.



Not exactly. The Imperium wouldn't make any particular efforts to keep it secret, since it relies on a system of infrastructure and innovation which no other nations have replicated, but it would be essentially unheard of outside of the central holdings of the Imperium. Electrical grids are very intensive in terms of resource investment, especially in terms of capacitance and transmission over any real distance. I doubt there are any grids that run further than a city center or a major industrial district, and those are limited to northern Italy/Germany/Eastern Europe.

The Lagoon Company would definitely be interested in it, however.

Perhaps after the next timeskip, they could make some progress in building their own electrical grid.

Hmm, perhaps. Though that asks the question of how they are going to build generators and motors- they're not exactly cogs and wheels.

[The Orson Empire]

The Lagoon Company would definitely be interested in it, however.

Perhaps after the next timeskip, they could make some progress in building their own electrical grid.

Hmm, perhaps. Though that asks the question of how they are going to build generators and motors- they're not exactly cogs and wheels.

If they could get someone on the inside to reveal how they function, they could be reverse-engineered.

[Pax Nerdvana]

G has electricity?! I mean given magenets and copper wire, I might be able to make a motor.... Might be being the key phrase.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Hmm, perhaps. Though that asks the question of how they are going to build generators and motors- they're not exactly cogs and wheels.

If they could get someone on the inside to reveal how they function, they could be reverse-engineered.

True, true. That'll take quite some time though, since you'll need someone who has grown up in the Imperium's education system to have a shot at going near the systems in any comprehensive manner.

G has electricity?! I mean given magenets and copper wire, I might be able to make a motor.... Might be being the key phrase.

Only in very limited places/amounts, but yes. Some wind turbines, coal power, and hydroelectric plants. Mainly because I'm a big fan of permanent magnetic scaling for electrical infrastructure. I did a term paper in my grad on it for uni.