military strengths in westeros, beyond shear numbers

[Bernie Mac]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

As far as I know most Iron Islands are not that big. You can get you ass to the sea and get you some fish yourself.

Sure they are, the main ones at least. 

Great Wyk was the largest of the Iron Islands, so vast that some of its lords had holdings that did not front upon the holy sea. Gorold Goodbrother was one such. His keep was in the Hardstone Hills, as far from the Drowned God's realm as any place in the isles. Gorold's folk toiled down in Gorold's mines, in the stony dark beneath the earth. Some lived and died without setting eyes upon salt water.

Many peasants on these islands who lived inland would rarely get the opportunity to fish or even the time (or the means) to get to the sea to fish. 

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

21 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the idea is that all or most of that fishermen could leave. Who do you think the Ironborn are when they are not raiders? They are fishers. Raiding isn't something only a certain class does. Everybody does it, or at least wants do it.

The Redwyne fleet could have stopped at Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh, Tarth, Estermont, and elsewhere in the Stepstones.

He could have continued to store food while his men were away in the North. And who says you can't maintain an army at the banks of the Fever?

Those islands are not that big. It should be very easy to do that. And I'm pretty sure that most of the fishermen could go. They would leave their women, children, and old people to themselves. This is a hard world, and women on the islands should be able to fish.

This is not a society where people were all that much dependent on other people in the sense that they needed goods to come to them for them to survive.

1) All or most of the fishermen could leave to go home? Sure and then they'd be killed by Ironmaker's men for abandoning the cause if Euron didn't chase them down earlier.

2) That is completely and utterly irrelevant to anything I've said. You can't stop anywhere on the south of Dorne.

3) He could have but Euron would have taken it when he sailed south with 1000 ships. Either the food is gone and people will starve or there are fishermen to fish. Robb says you can't and most of the the army wasn't at bank of the Fever river. It was at Moat Cailin. Fever River is 20 miles from MC. 

“Yes, but our food and supplies are running low, and this is not land we can live off easily.”

Hard to live in a swamp. There's a reason why Moat Cailin belongs to no one. More to the point, move the food 20 miles from the ships to MC is pretty impractical since they do not have many, if any, pack animals. They are more or less going to be continually marching back and forth with what they can carry. There is a reason why Eddard ordered 200 archers to be deployed at MC, not a whole army.

4) Just because the women should be able to fish doesn't mean they do. Please point out any IB female ship captain we see in the books aside from Asha. The closest analog we have to the IB is Bear Island (unless you want to argue Fair Isle) and the women do little and less fishing. They just run the house (ostensibly) and learn to fight.

5) Right they are self sufficient which is why they need to leave people behind to feed their families. Glad we agree.

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Sure they are, the main ones at least. 

Great Wyk was the largest of the Iron Islands, so vast that some of its lords had holdings that did not front upon the holy sea. Gorold Goodbrother was one such. His keep was in the Hardstone Hills, as far from the Drowned God's realm as any place in the isles. Gorold's folk toiled down in Gorold's mines, in the stony dark beneath the earth. Some lived and died without setting eyes upon salt water.

Many peasants on these islands who lived inland would rarely get the opportunity to fish or even the time (or the means) to get to the sea to fish. 

But that's only the case for Great Wyk. Not the others. Many of the men remaining on the islands would come from there. But quite honestly, we don't know how many people live inland on the Iron Islands. Whatever population centers there could all be at or near the coasts, because the land simply isn't fertile enough to support many people inland.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

1) All or most of the fishermen could leave to go home? Sure and then they'd be killed by Ironmaker's men for abandoning the cause if Euron didn't chase them down earlier.

I meant they could afford to leave home. Because they spent most of their lives on sea, anyway. They just have to leave their boat behind so that their women could go fishing themselves.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

2) That is completely and utterly irrelevant to anything I've said. You can't stop anywhere on the south of Dorne.

You said that the Redwyne fleet also didn't seem to stop anywhere on their way from Dragonstone to the Arbor. But that isn't necessarily the case.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

3) He could have but Euron would have taken it when he sailed south with 1000 ships. Either the food is gone and people will starve or there are fishermen to fish.

Again, I never said that all the fishermen would have left, either. And there are women who can do the job.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Robb says you can't and most of the the army wasn't at bank of the Fever river. It was at Moat Cailin. Fever River is 20 miles from MC. 

“Yes, but our food and supplies are running low, and this is not land we can live off easily.”

Hard to live in a swamp. There's a reason why Moat Cailin belongs to no one. More to the point, move the food 20 miles from the ships to MC is pretty impractical since they do not have many, if any, pack animals. They are more or less going to be continually marching back and forth with what they can carry. There is a reason why Eddard ordered 200 archers to be deployed at MC, not a whole army.

Victarion would have less men with him than Robb. 

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

4) Just because the women should be able to fish doesn't mean they do. Please point out any IB female ship captain we see in the books aside from Asha. The closest analog we have to the IB is Bear Island (unless you want to argue Fair Isle) and the women do little and less fishing. They just run the house (ostensibly) and learn to fight.

I don't think there are female captains. But a fishing boat doesn't need 'a captain'. It could just be a handful of people working together.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

5) Right they are self sufficient which is why they need to leave people behind to feed their families. Glad we agree.

Nope, we don't. People usually don't fare as well in wartime than they usually do. Many will starve. Some will die. But the Ironborn will deal with that. They lived through hard winters they should not have possibly survived.

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I meant they could afford to leave home. Because they spent most of their lives on sea, anyway. They just have to leave their boat behind so that their women could go fishing themselves.

You said that the Redwyne fleet also didn't seem to stop anywhere on their way from Dragonstone to the Arbor. But that isn't necessarily the case.

Again, I never said that all the fishermen would have left, either. And there are women who can do the job.

Victarion would have less men with him than Robb. 

I don't think there are female captains. But a fishing boat doesn't need 'a captain'. It could just be a handful of people working together.

Nope, we don't. People usually don't fare as well in wartime than they usually do. Many will starve. Some will die. But the Ironborn will deal with that. They lived through hard winters they should not have possibly survived.

1) The men who own their own boats are their own captains. That's the whole point. They wouldn't leave their boat behind. They are the captain. And if they are just a hand on the boat, then their family doesn't have a boat to fish with. Again this isn't particularly nuanced. The IB need to feed their population. If every fisherman leaves, they cannot.

2) No I mentioned *nothing* about the Redwyne fleet. In a conversation about the Ironborn, I said their voyage from the Iron Islands to the Shields was roughly the same as the 

3) Please show me where the women are fishing or doing anything but being wives. Please show me textual evidence. You've said multiple times that basically all the men would be gone. 

4) Victarion also didn't have horses for foraging parties and he had 10K men in an area that doesn't support a lordship. Not particularly hard to see again.

5) Every man is a captain and king of his boat to the IB, so yes a boat needs a "captain." He owns the damn boat.

Ok I give up. Your head canon wins. The IB are all sailing with Euron or dying at home. Ironmaker's men are hunting down drowned men to high five them. This is getting ridiculous. You have little to no textual support for anything, but sure let's go with it. 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

1) The men who own their own boats are their own captains. That's the whole point. They wouldn't leave their boat behind. They are the captain. And if they are just a hand on the boat, then their family doesn't have a boat to fish with. Again this isn't particularly nuanced. The IB need to feed their population. If every fisherman leaves, they cannot.

You basing this on the unfounded assumption that every captain only owns a single boat. I'd contest that. Not to mention that, again, Euron wouldn't have taken all the boats and ships the Ironborn have on his journey.

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2) No I mentioned *nothing* about the Redwyne fleet. In a conversation about the Ironborn, I said their voyage from the Iron Islands to the Shields was roughly the same as the 

I don't understand that sentence.

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3) Please show me where the women are fishing or doing anything but being wives. Please show me textual evidence. You've said multiple times that basically all the men would be gone.

I have no trouble assuming that women can survive while their husbands are gone. Those women whose husbands went with Euron will have to survive on their own. Whatever men remain behind will take care of their families, not the wives and children of other men. 

And I never said all the men would be gone. I said most of them would be gone. I spoke about half, two thirds, or three quarters of the male population who can fight (which should include men from 10-60, in the Ironborn culter, assuming they can still walk and have still both arms).

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4) Victarion also didn't have horses for foraging parties and he had 10K men in an area that doesn't support a lordship. Not particularly hard to see again.

Well, apparently he had the provisions. I don' care how he got them, nor do I think George does. For all I know I care Balon was preparing for a war for a rather long time. He could have stored a lot of food.

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5) Every man is a captain and king of his boat to the IB, so yes a boat needs a "captain." He owns the damn boat.

The question is whether such men qualify as captains and kings if they don't owe a long boat. Pretty much every man on the islands could have some sort of floating thing. This is an island culture, remember.

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Ok I give up. Your head canon wins. The IB are all sailing with Euron or dying at home. Ironmaker's men are hunting down drowned men to high five them. This is getting ridiculous. You have little to no textual support for anything, but sure let's go with it. 

Ironmaker is an old and done man himself. He may have some thugs but we can be pretty sure he has about as many men left as Melisandre has at the Wall after Stannis left - which means effectively none. Euron doesn't give a shit about the Drowned Men, and they don't seem to be powerful enough to make a lot of noise if you consider how effectively Euron outmaneuvered Aeron. He chose to accept the Kingsmoot thing because he knew he could use it to win the complete loyalty and devotion of the Ironborn. And that he did.

If Euron had wanted to cancel the Kingsmoot, Aeron most likely would have ended in the bowls of the Silence much sooner than he did. And his followers would have been killed.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Another problem I have with the idea that significantly more than 10% of the Ironborn population goes reaving, is that any major losses in battle would have a near genocidal impact on their society.

In all the mainland kingdoms, you could lose an entire army, and it would not have a significant or long term impact on your overall demographics.

In the case of the Ironborn, however, if they were to lose most of the men in a particular war, their population would take decades to recover. And that's before taking into account the economic impact of losing basically your entire productive workforce for a generation.

They would not be able to rebuild their fleets, and generally retain a stable society in the face of such losses.

And yet we see that they periodically recovered from every war very quickly over history, other than the Lannister invasion of the Iron Isles itself, which focused on deliberately destroying their population base at its root.

Normal wars though don't seem to have lasting impacts on their demographics. Which would be the case if 15% of your entire population was lost in some conflict. And the most economically active part to boot.

10% is already stretching it.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Another problem I have with the idea that significantly more than 10% of the Ironborn population goes reaving, is that any major losses in battle would have a near genocidal impact on their society.

Not all that many men are actually killed in battle. It is common misconception that a lot of people were killed in medieval or ancient battles. And the Ironborn never fought any pitched battles, anyway. At least not before they did conquer the Riverlands. And even there they won because they controlled the Trident, not because they had the better cavalry.

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In all the mainland kingdoms, you could lose an entire army, and it would not have a significant or long term impact on your overall demographics.

You would not lose 'an entire army' unless you foolishly marched into the Sands of Dorne. There people died. In the Riverlands, West, Vale, Stormlands, North, and Reach people are not likely to use entire armies. Just remember how many men died on the Field of Fire. Not all that many, but Aegon still defeated an army 55,000 men strong.

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In the case of the Ironborn, however, if they were to lose most of the men in a particular war, their population would take decades to recover. And that's before taking into account the economic impact of losing basically your entire productive workforce for a generation.

This kind of thing actually happened multiple times in their history. They did survive it. You yourself cite the Lannister invasion.

But on average the Ironborn aren't that likely to lose that many men in war. They did not all that often encounter or challenge a superior enemy fleet. And nothing indicates they ever lost a majority of their ships and men in such a battle.

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Not all that many men are actually killed in battle. It is common misconception that a lot of people were killed in medieval or ancient battles. And the Ironborn never fought any pitched battles, anyway. At least not before they did conquer the Riverlands. And even there they won because they controlled the Trident, not because they had the better cavalry.

You would not lose 'an entire army' unless you foolishly marched into the Sands of Dorne. There people died. In the Riverlands, West, Vale, Stormlands, North, and Reach people are not likely to use entire armies. Just remember how many men died on the Field of Fire. Not all that many, but Aegon still defeated an army 55,000 men strong.

This kind of thing actually happened multiple times in their history. They did survive it. You yourself cite the Lannister invasion.

But on average the Ironborn aren't that likely to lose that many men in war. They did not all that often encounter or challenge a superior enemy fleet. And nothing indicates they ever lost a majority of their ships and men in such a battle.

That is a sweeping statement to make.

Losses in battle may be manageable. But we read from Martin that if a battle is lost, most of the defeated army becomes broken men. They don't just return home en masse. Most never find their way home. As for the Ironborn, for every death in battle, there will be additional ships lost at sea - see Victarrion's Iron Fleet, or the Golden Company's attempt to cross just the Narrow Sea - there will be disease, accident etc.

Anyway, we don't have the exact figures. From a principle point of view, I just have a problem with 20% of an entire population going off to war. I don't think that makes sense.

[Lord Varys]

On 1.6.2017 at 2:44 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Losses in battle may be manageable. But we read from Martin that if a battle is lost, most of the defeated army becomes broken men. They don't just return home en masse. Most never find their way home.

That is not so. Martin tells us that the horror of warfare tends to break people sooner or later, but this isn't necessarily something that happens only to men on the losing side (nor to a great percentage of those). Roose retreated in good order on the Green Fork. His men did not break. Stannis retreated in reasonably good order on the Blackwater and the men who were captured by Joffrey did also not break en masse. And so on.

On 1.6.2017 at 2:44 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for the Ironborn, for every death in battle, there will be additional ships lost at sea - see Victarrion's Iron Fleet, or the Golden Company's attempt to cross just the Narrow Sea - there will be disease, accident etc.

That depends. Men may die when a ship sinks (or not, if they picked up by another ship) but the battles the Ironborn fight usually involve capturing enemy ships. There may have been some major naval battles (like the one off Fair Isle during Balon's Rebellion) but that doesn't seem to have been the rule. When the Ironborn built their vast empire they controlled the seas and did not have to fear to be challenged by ships and crews that were their equals.

On 1.6.2017 at 2:44 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Anyway, we don't have the exact figures. From a principle point of view, I just have a problem with 20% of an entire population going off to war. I don't think that makes sense.

But the Ironborn were constantly at war throughout most of their history. Up until the Conquest they were the wolves of the sea. They aren't a culture where the people stay at home in everyday life. They take their ships and sail the seas. And they may fish as much as they raid. And if you raid you have to know how to fight and kill. And that's what the overwhelming majority of the Ironborn still do.

If just 1% of the Ironborn went to war back during the days of the large empire they would never have been able to permanently hold their coastal holdings from the Arbor to Bear Island. You can only do that if you constantly remember your subjects that you are there and you are powerful. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is not so. Martin tells us that the horror of warfare tends to break people sooner or later, but this isn't necessarily something that happens only to men on the losing side (nor to a great percentage of those). Roose retreated in good order on the Green Fork. His men did not break. Stannis retreated in reasonably good order on the Blackwater and the men who were captured by Joffrey did also not break en masse. And so on.

That depends. Men may die when a ship sinks (or not, if they picked up by another ship) but the battles the Ironborn fight usually involve capturing enemy ships. There may have been some major naval battles (like the one off Fair Isle during Balon's Rebellion) but that doesn't seem to have been the rule. When the Ironborn built their vast empire they controlled the seas and did not have to fear to be challenged by ships and crews that were their equals.

But the Ironborn were constantly at war throughout most of their history. Up until the Conquest they were the wolves of the sea. They aren't a culture where the people stay at home in everyday life. They take their ships and sail the seas. And they may fish as much as they raid. And if you raid you have to know how to fight and kill. And that's what the overwhelming majority of the Ironborn still do.

If just 1% of the Ironborn went to war back during the days of the large empire they would never have been able to permanently hold their coastal holdings from the Arbor to Bear Island. You can only do that if you constantly remember your subjects that you are there and you are powerful. 

Well it was not 1%. Martin makes that quite clear. He says that they mobilize a much higher percentage than the mainland kingdoms. The question is just how high that percentage should be set.

I feel 10% is a very high figure. 5-10 times higher than even the wealthiest mainland kingdoms.

Anyway, it is just the difference between the Iron Isles having 100k people vs 250k people in total. Either way, it is a very small population compared to even Dorne. Which makes for some tricky suspension of disbelief to accept their enduring impact on Westeros over so many millenia. One plague, one famine or one major genocide like the Lannister invasion of the Isles, and they should have disappeared as a major force in continental politics, maybe for centuries, and maybe forever.

[Lord Varys]

17 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well it was not 1%. Martin makes that quite clear. He says that they mobilize a much higher percentage than the mainland kingdoms. The question is just how high that percentage should be set.

I feel 10% is a very high figure. 5-10 times higher than even the wealthiest mainland kingdoms.

Again, the people on the Iron Islands don't seem to have all that much to do. Back in the olds days they must have done essentially nothing but raiding. They really did not sow back then but simply stole whatever they needed from the people in the green lands. Things changed somewhat throughout the centuries but before the Conquest the Old Way was pretty much alive.

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Anyway, it is just the difference between the Iron Isles having 100k people vs 250k people in total. Either way, it is a very small population compared to even Dorne. Which makes for some tricky suspension of disbelief to accept their enduring impact on Westeros over so many millenia. One plague, one famine or one major genocide like the Lannister invasion of the Isles, and they should have disappeared as a major force in continental politics, maybe for centuries, and maybe forever.

A single six-year-winter should have killed all the people beyond the Wall and in the North. Perhaps even all the people in Westeros. Have you ever eaten an apple or orange that was five years old? Or vegetables or salted meat of that age, stored and preserved in a medieval environment? I don't think you get enough nourishment from things like that even if they were still technically edible.

The entire setting of this world is unrealistic. Especially in light of the fact that we don't even see the store houses for winter nor get any sort of explanation how food is preserved for years.

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Again, the people on the Iron Islands don't seem to have all that much to do. Back in the olds days they must have done essentially nothing but raiding. They really did not sow back then but simply stole whatever they needed from the people in the green lands. Things changed somewhat throughout the centuries but before the Conquest the Old Way was pretty much alive.

A single six-year-winter should have killed all the people beyond the Wall and in the North. Perhaps even all the people in Westeros. Have ever eaten an apple or orange that was five years old? Or vegetables or salted flesh of that age, stored and preserved in a medieval environment? I don't think you get enough nourishment from things like that even if they were still technically edible.

The entire setting of this world is unrealistic. Especially in light of the fact that we don't even see the store houses for winter nor get any sort of explanation how food is preserved for years.

Ok, you won't find me disagreeing with that. However, that is a mandatory unrealistic aspect deliberately introduced by the author, which we have no choice in accepting.

Placing the Ironborn population at a mere 250k even, is entirely voluntary on your part, and not imposed by the author in any way. In other words, it is a needless unrealistic aspect added for no real reason. Nothing in the text stops you from giving them 500k people and a more realistic, but still very high, 5% mobilization rate, for example.

[Universal Sword Donor]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Ok, you won't find me disagreeing with that. However, that is a mandatory unrealistic aspect deliberate introduced by the author, which we have no choice in accepting.

Placing the Ironborn population at a mere 250k even, is entirely voluntary on your part, and not imposed by the author in any way. In other words, it is a needless unrealistic aspect added for no real reason. Nothing in the text stops you from giving them 500k people and a more realistic, but still very high, 5% mobilization rate, for example.

It's fine man. We just have to accept that half the island is off fighting and everyone will starve, head canon being what it is.

[Corvo the Crow]

We may actually get an estimate on Iron Islands population. Or at least find a lowest possible number for it.

Pebbletown is mentioned to be home to several thousand fisherfolk. Lordsport is the most populated settlement and it is half the size of Lord Hewett's town on Oakenshield. While Lordsport is the biggest town and Greatwyk is the biggest island, Harlaw is the most populated overall.

Only number we have is pebbleton, which has several thousand. Though not so relevant I have also found numbers for Winter Town, which would give us an idea even if it won't limit how low or high can the number of people on Harlaw or Oldsport can be.

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Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at hand. Winter is coming.

AGOT 37, a  Bran chapter

 

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"How many is it now?" Bran asked Maester Luwin as Lord Karstark and his sons rode through the gates in the outer wall.
"Twelve thousand men, or near enough as makes no matter."
"How many knights?"
"Few enough," the maester said with a touch of impatience. "To be a knight, you must stand your vigil in a sept, and be anointed with the seven oils to consecrate your vows. In the north, only a few of the great houses worship the Seven. The rest honor the old gods, and name no knights . . . but those lords and their sons and sworn swords are no less fierce or loyal or honorable. A man's worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before."
"Still," said Bran, "how many knights?"
Maester Luwin sighed. "Three hundred, perhaps four . . . among three thousand armored lances who are not knights."
"Lord Karstark is the last," Bran said thoughtfully. "Robb will feast him tonight."
"No doubt he will."
"How long before . . . before they go?"
"He must march soon, or not at all," Maester Luwin said. "The winter town is full to bursting, and this army of his will eat the countryside clean if it camps here much longer. Others are waiting to join him all along the kingsroad, barrow knights and crannogmen and the Lords Manderly and Flint. The fighting has begun in the riverlands, and your brother has many leagues to go."

Agot 53, a Bran chapter

12000 men roughly amounts to 4/5 of what Winter Town can hold. When full it should have around 15000 people.

Alternatively, full to bursting could be without the new coming Karstarks, so ~10000 is 4/5, Winter Town would be ~12000 people when full.

Barrowton and Wintertown are told to be the most prominent towns of the North, with the latter being mostly empty during winter. I'd guess that when Winter Town is full, Barrowton and Winter Town would be comparable in size. Otherwise Winter Town wouldn't be worth mentioning together with Barrowton as the latter would be huge in comparison.

Another attempt on some population numbers so we may have a slightly better idea on Ironborn would be through the number of guards and city sizes;

Winterfell has 200 men guarding it and it's town, is 2000-3000 people, so one guard for evey 10-15 people it seems.

 

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You speak like a man with a great host at his back," he said, "yet all I see are three hundred. Do you spy that city there, north of the river?"
"The midden heap you call King's Landing?"
"That's the very one."
"Not only do I see it, I believe I smell it now."
"Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you'll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father's own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can't really say how many are left, but there's more than I care to count, anyway."

Everyone takes this for an indication of King's Landing being 500000 but clearly the "half a million" is after "fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses", Tywin's must be twenty thousand(he took casualties on green fork, however lightly and later lost more men against Edmure) and near five thousand gold cloaks (he had 4400 left after deaths and desertion). It is more like to be 350-400k rounded up to half a million after numbers from the soldiers, 75-95k added.

So for 350-400k Kings Landing first has 2000 men, then after Eddard's and Tyrion's attempt to increase the number, it has 6000. According to wiki when the Gold Cloaks established sometime around 100 AC,they had 2000 men, the number hasn't increased since then, though population sure must have. Also according to wiki, King's Landing became the third largest city in 25.

Anyway, moving forward, for 350-400k, They had one Gold Cloak for every 175-200 with 2k and when they numbered 6k, one Gold Cloak for every 59-70. They may have increased the number some more if they had the means or they may not have. I'll take the 6k as base for now.

We see Manderly Men, joining Robb, ~1250 of them Infantry men with trident spears. We later see in ADWD Davos chapters that Manderly is recruiting anyone above 5 feet and can hold a spear and we also see his household guard, men holding silver trident spears. So the soldiers we saw earlier were likely his city guard. If we accept this as the total number and would place White Harbor guard per resident number somewhere between King's Landing's and Winterfell's:

12500 at lowest if all his City guard went with Robb and he had the same guard per resident as Winterfell

and 87500 at highest. I believe It'd be somewhere in the middle since King's Landing still has relatively few guards so Ideally It'd have less residents per guard and Manderly would still have kept a small amount of men so his city wouldn't be defenseless until he recruited more guards. Estimations for White Harbor to be around 50k population doesn't seem far off.

A small town on a tiny island off the coast of the reach likely do not have as many men as White Harbor or else It'd be a city in it's own right. Taking into account there aren't any cities on the mainland Reach other than Oldstown, I believe Lord Hewett's Town wouldn't even be as big as Barrowton or Winter Town during winter.

Again, Pebbleton has several thousand, Lordsport is bigger than it but half the size of Hewett's Town, which is likely not as big as Barrowton or Winter Town, I believe 3-4K for Pebbleton and ~5K for Lordsport would be a good fit. Biggest Ironborn settlement not even 5k tells us much about their mobilisation I believe, little over 400 ships with some 30 men per ship except for the 100 ships of the Ironfleet.

[Bernie Mac]

9 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

It's fine man. We just have to accept that half the island is off fighting and everyone will starve, head canon being what it is.

Yup, let us all ignore common sense, logic and the actual text because the mighty Lord Varys has decided in his head how this world works. 

 

Lord Varys, I have to say that your bizarre need to not only be right but the only person who is allowed to be right is perplexing. There have been posts where I, and others, have agreed with you and you still have felt some kind of bizarre need to continue the argument. Frankly it is bizarre. Has there been a single post that you have actually agreed with on this forum?

[Lord Varys]

19 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Ok, you won't find me disagreeing with that. However, that is a mandatory unrealistic aspect deliberately introduced by the author, which we have no choice in accepting.

Yeah, but this whole thing is the reason why I'd say that we should not speculate too much about how people survive such long winters. The infrastructure and technology simply isn't there.

19 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Placing the Ironborn population at a mere 250k even, is entirely voluntary on your part, and not imposed by the author in any way. In other words, it is a needless unrealistic aspect added for no real reason. Nothing in the text stops you from giving them 500k people and a more realistic, but still very high, 5% mobilization rate, for example.

I honestly have no idea how many people there are likely to live on those islands. They are not so big, and since most people live off fishing we should assume that most population centers (which would be towns much smaller than the towns on the Shield Islands) should be close to the shores. Considering that the islands are not fertile and thus the people living off farming are actually likely to be worse off than the people living off fishing I'm inclined to believe that not so many people are living on the islands.

But I don't think I can put a number to that.

17 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

It's fine man. We just have to accept that half the island is off fighting and everyone will starve, head canon being what it is.

You don't have to assume everyone will starve even if half the men are away. People don't even starve in the North yet, never mind that there were no people left in the Karstark and Glover lands to bring in the last harvest.

7 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Yup, let us all ignore common sense, logic and the actual text because the mighty Lord Varys has decided in his head how this world works. 

Again, the point is that women can do some fishing, too. If the women on Bear Island can fight the Ironborn sure as hell can go fishing when their men are raiding. Back in the good old days most of the Ironborn would have been off raiding the entire year because that was what they did. They conquered the entire western coast of Westeros from Bear Island to the Arbor. To hold that they would have been forced to constantly reinforce their power and show their subjects that they were still there and still as strong as they were they first beat them into submission. How could they have done that if only a tiny fraction of their population went raiding at the same time?

7 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Lord Varys, I have to say that your bizarre need to not only be right but the only person who is allowed to be right is perplexing. There have been posts where I, and others, have agreed with you and you still have felt some kind of bizarre need to continue the argument. Frankly it is bizarre. Has there been a single post that you have actually agreed with on this forum?

I agree with a lot of stuff, actually. And at times I just comment on things not with the intention of continuing an argument but to simply elaborate on something. That is not supposed to be understood as another argument.

[Trigger Warning]

I really don't think GRRM put that much thought into the Iron Islands to warrant such a nuanced level of discussion. 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

I really don't think GRRM put that much thought into the Iron Islands to warrant such a nuanced level of discussion. 

 

Sadly this seems to be the correct answer to a number of these type of discussions, well beyond the issue of just the Iron Isles.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

I really don't think GRRM put that much thought into the Iron Islands to warrant such a nuanced level of discussion.

George actually gave the Ironborn a much more detailed historical background than any other of the Seven Kingdoms. He really cares about those pricks, much more than he cares about all of the other Seven Kingdoms.

But it is quite clear that George doesn't give a shit about population numbers, the time it would realistically take to raise an army, etc. He just ignores all that. We are getting no details on that very deliberately, just as he intended to give us precise dates or distances. He doesn't care about such details, he just wants to tell a good story.

[Corvo the Crow]

One thing I think that deserves to be mentioned is how different armies compositions are; while the most common we see is 1:3 (heavy)horse to foot, it does seem like it changes from region to region and even from lord to lord, I am not talking about individual lords who are whose troops are just components of an army, like Karstarks, but armies "on the field", whether it is from just one or two lords like Walder Frey's or Caron and Dondarrion or entire regions like reach or Westerlands. Also what would be the the composition of the infantry part, both in an army and from an individual lord, is another thing that intrigues me. Lords of the Dornish Marches, would have more archers among their infantry, I believe, as they are famed for them, Blackwoods also seem to favor archers as seen in Dance of the Dragons and Blackfyre rebellion.

Below are a the examples i can think upon;

- Renly: though he would have gathered more troops if he hadn't toss the peach, It seems to me he would be going for 1:3 he had, by my calculations, 21250 horse and 58750 foot. Of this 21250 horse, however only "ten thousand" were lancers, the others were light horse and freeriders so he was trying to achieve 1:3 while forming a huge army, but fell short on heavy lancers and so bolstered his ranks with freeriders and light horse.

- Dondarrion and Caron: had 4000 foot and 800 Knight, 1:5 ratio. They already had hedgeknights among their mounted troops, so they could've tried to get some more horses but they went 1:5 anyway so this must be what they are accustomed to in the marchers.

- Walder Frey: Walder has 1000 horse and near 3000 foot in Twins with some men skirmishing along the borders. We later see him raise more men, so he could've raised more initially but he seems to favour the 1:3.

- Robb: He has 3300-3400 lancers in his 12000 in winterfell but I'll pass this as his army is yet to be formed in it's final form, he later has

~19500 men with some 4500-5000 horses, so he too goes the common 1:3. Later however, we see him going 1:0 even after saving Riverrun which would allow him to get some infantry too ;he could still have splitted, sending infantry and some horse to besiege Golden Tooth and sticking to his fast attacks but he left all the infantry to Edmure.

- Tywin: We see Tywin having 34000-35000 troops, with roughly a 2:5, he could've been trying to achieve 1:2. After he splits Jaime has 1:4 or 1:5 and he has 3:5, so he definitely looks like he was trying to achieve 1:2. In both armies there are sellsword companies and there are light horse too, at least in Tywin's army so this looks like his preference. Earlier in his life he set out from Casterly Rock with 500 knights and 3000 foot, which would mean 1:6 but since this was a component of a larger army that'd form, I don't think his preference has changed over time.

- Edmure has, before facing Tywin, 3000 horse and 8000 infantry, around more than 1:3 but this is after two major defeats, so I believe he'd be going for 1:3 too.

 

As for compositions of infantry within an army, we only have one example that comes to my mind;

- After Robb lifts the siege of riverrun, one of the camps survive with 2000 infantry and 2000 spear.

Two other examples could be Whoresbane's force of 100 infantry and 300 spears but I'm not sure whether to take it as a component (of Ramsay's army or even Umbers by themselves) or an individual army. Same goes for Karstarks, 400 spears and 40 archers.