I figured out the demographics and population of the Sarranid Sultanate

I'm basing the Sarranid Sultanate off it's most likely real-world counterpart, the Ayyubid Dynasty of Egypt. Both are very similar in that they used heavily armored slave-soldiers (Mamelukes), existed around the same time and have similar styles of clothing and armor. Ayyubid warrior and Sarranid infantry. Both were established by strongmen who created their own dynasties, and since the western style of feudalism never really took hold in the Ayyubids or the Mamluk Sultanate that followed, I'm going to assume that the Sarranids are not using the same feudal system as Swadia.

So the Ayyubid Dynasty had a population of around 7 million in 1257. The Sarranid Sultanate has four towns, eight castles, and nineteen villages. These four towns (Shariz, Aherremad, Durquba, and Barriyye) correspond roughly to the four largest cities of the medieval Muslim word (Cairo, Aleppo, Damascus, and Baghdad). For the sake of Bariyye and simplicity I’m going to count Baghdad as a part of the Ayyubids. Like Baghdad, Bariyye was far to the east and pretty much untouched by the western kingdoms (Seriously, has the AI ever sieged Bariyye?).

The army of the Sarranid Sultanate has 20 lords. Adding in the roughly 200 soldiers of the Sultan correspond to roughly (2075)+200 = 1,700 soldiers under arms. Adding in the town garrisons gives us (450+3300) = 1,350 soldiers. The castle garrisons equal to roughly (120*8) = 960 soldiers. In total, the Sarranid Sultanate has roughly 4,000 troops in their army. Keep in mind this is a standing army, since in Mount and Blade, enlistment contracts aren’t seasonal and lords don’t disband or reduce their armies while at peace. For this comparison, I’ll use Rome as the example since I couldn’t find any old Ayyubid records.

Rome in the first century had a total population of around 60,000,000. Their professional standing army, including garrisons, was around 300,000. This means at any given time, roughly 0.5% of the Roman population was in the standing army. Put this same population in for the Sarranids and you get a population of roughly 800,000 people. Now from this we can deduce that we have roughly 400,000 males. According to the age demographics of medieval populations, roughly 22% of the population was between 18-30. So the number of fighting age males in the Sarranid Sultanate is around 88,000 men. Since it takes roughly fifteen craftsmen and farmers to support one soldier, this gives us a figure of around 5,800 men in the standing army, which shows the theoretical forcelimit of the Sarranid Sultanate. During times of emergency, nobles could call up more levies - up to 20% of the fighting age male population could be called up. However, they would have to be disbanded as soon as possible lest the kingdom suffer famine.

Now we’ll check the demographics of the cities. According to the list of largest cities, in 1315 Cairo had a population of 432,000 people Source. This is roughly 5.2% of the entire Ayyubid population plus Baghdad. Multiplying this with the Sarranid population gives it’s equivalent, Shariz, a population of around 41,600. Bariyye is more interesting. In 1200, it had a population of 1,000,000 people - or roughly 12.5% of the Ayyubid population had the Ayyubids owned it. This makes Bariyye the largest city in the Sarranid Sultanate by far, with around 100,000 residents. Durquba’s counterpart, Damascus, had a population of around 150,000 in 1300. This makes for around 1.8% of the Ayyubid population, or around 14,400 people. Since there are no records for Aleppo around that time, we’ll have to use it’s population in 622AD, which was 75,000 people. This gives us 0.9% of the Ayyubid population, which is a population of 7,200 for Aherremad. Not a lot, but still way higher than other estimates that range from 4,000 to 5,000 people.

In 1257, roughly 20.2% of the Sarranid population is urbanized. This is roughly in line with the rest of Europe and the Middle East, as most nations had one in every five persons living in a city by the mid-13th century.

Now onto the taxes. You get roughly 3000 dinars a week from towns, 1,000 from castles, and 400 from villages. According to this post, the weekly earnings of a skilled laborer is 10 dinars, and with a Medieval tax rate of 10%, that means each craftsman pays one denar per week. There are 52.1 weeks a year, which means one town will pay forth 156,000 dinars.

For the sake of raiding, I’m lowering to put this value at 125,000 dinars. But in Bariyye, that means that someone has shorted you some 2.4 million dinars (Since women usually didn’t work, I’m only counting half the population as taxpayers). Where did they go?

This may seem small, but in a city of 100,000, a large number of tax collectors and officials are needed: and as in the medieval Muslim world, the bureaucracy was a huge force behind the government. Since the Ayyubids also appointed Mamluks to positions as administrators, and we can take their salary off that of the Mamluks. A Mamluk is paid 57 dinars a week. This equates to 2,964 dinars a year, or 836 people that work for the city government. That’s around 0.83% of the population of Bariyye. Keep in mind that this includes everything from the bottom to the top, and they will average each other out.

Now as for Shariz, cutting out the city administration gives 1,040,000 dinars in taxes. This means 915,000 are spent on the city administration, which gives us 308 people employed by the city government, or 0.7% of the population.

In Aherremad we have 7,200 people for 235,000 dinars. Since Aherremad is a small city, there is no need for such an expansive bureaucracy; only around 37 people there work for the city government, roughly 0.5% of the population.

In Durquba we have 14,400 people for 375,120 dinars. This gives us 250,120 spent on administration, which is around 84 people working for the government there.

All in all, we have around 836+37+84+308 = 1,265 people employed in urban administration, which is around 1.265% of the Sarranid population. Keep in mind that in the United States, 7% of the population is employed by the government. Of these 7%, around half are bureaucrats, which gives us around 630 Sarranid bureaucrats, give or take a few.

Final Numbers:

Sarranid Sultanate Population: 800,000

Manpower: 88,000 men

Force limit: 17,600 men (Including garrisons). Minus garrisons equals to 15,290 men in the field. Keep in mind that this is the absolute limit, and almost all of these men will have to be disbanded after a month of campaigning, lest the harvest fail. This leaves around 4,000 men, around which 1,700 men are in the field at all times.

Population of Shariz: 40,000

Population of Bariyye: 100,000

Population of Aherremad: 7,200

Population of Durquba: 14,400

Total Urban Population: 161,600

Number of bureaucrats: Around 630 bureaucrats

Number of people employed in urban administration: 1,265 people

Number of minors (36% of population): 288,000 minors

Number of people 50+ (16.1% of population): 128,000 past 50

Number of people 18-25: 112,000

Submitted July 23, 2017 at 07:10PM by aeronautically http://ift.tt/2uOD5yI