01-07-2017, 01:41 AM
(01-06-2017, 02:30 PM)Revan Noctis Wrote: And those numbers come from where?
Extrapolation from real-world history, established canon, and guesswork.
Darkshire is a medieval-era european-style regional hub, the largest remaining settlement in the Pale Moors and the place where the majority of the population resides. It's large enough to have not just walls, but permanent defenses built out of stone. Figure late-medieval to early-renaissance due to the rest of the Omniverse dragging up the tech-levels and influencing society.
Let's use 1530 as a baseline for real-world comparison. Paris was the largest city in Europe - well over two-hundred thousand people, but that's way too big. Darkshire isn't the center of the most powerful kingdom in the Omniverse. London is closer, as it wasn't yet devastatingly important. The population was in the neighborhood of 50k, but it had a ludicrous population density for its land-area, and was growing rapidly, averaging 1000 new people a year, so that's still far too big. Likewise Prague.
Hamburg is a better comparison. An important regional hub, powerful even, but not a major factor in international politics and subject to civil strife. In 1530 it would have had about 30k people.
Taking into account that a large number of refugees would have fled into the city after the war against Diablo, we can use that as a basis for Darkshire.
Assume 10-15% of them are broken, diseased, or destitute from surviving in the Pale Moors, and thus non-factors.
Assume another 15% are too young or too old to assist with the defense. Take into account that Shang Tsung and his cabal have spent the last two years or so militarizing the city, the fact that in order to support a large military, a big chunk of the populace - call it fifty percent - have to work full time at keeping the city running, facilitating trade, and other basic tasks. That gives us about 20% of the population - which is very high, but consider that Darkshire is constantly in a defacto state of war with its environment - as either part-time militia or full-time soldiers.
Which works out to about six-thousand, with a 1k margin of error.