25 réponses à ce sujet

[Lord Stark]

To start out here is my population estimate for Thedas:

Thedas – 40,500,000

Orlais- 9,000,000

Tevinter- 7,000,000

Free Marches- 6,000,000

Nevarra- 5,000,000

Par Vollen- 4,000,000

Seheron- 3,000,000

Antiva-  2,000,000

Anderfels-500,000

Dwarves- 1,500,000

Rivain- 1,000,000

Ferelden- 1,000,000

Dalish- 500,000 (max)

 

Using those estimates, I then guessed the following military strength for each.  

Militaries:

Orlais- 75,000 (in emergencies they could likely draft up to 90,000.  Befitting a superpower)

- Orlais is absolutely massive, and in addition to that they have several major cities even aside from Val 'Royeaux including a former capitol.  I'd imagine it wouldn't be a stretch that they can draft around twice the troops of any other human nation.  Basically its a slightly smaller France.  

 

Tevinter- 60,000 

- Massive city population, as well as a landmass comparable to Orlais.  

 

Par Vollen- 30,000  

- This does not count forces in Seheron which likely number around 20,000, + a potential 5-8k in Rivain.  But keep in mind each Qunari is worth more than each human due to training and this being a standing army.  

 

Nevarra- 40,000 

- A rising power, able to give significant regional trouble to Orlais.

 

Anderfels- 5,000

- There are ~1,000 Grey Wardens in Anderfels and they have power on par with a teyrn/ baron.  Most of their land is blighted.  So...yeah I'd imagine they'd have an absolute max of 5,000 people if they were to have a draft.  

Antiva- None

Antiva doesn't really maintain an army, nor do they have a need to.  If they did have to for some odd reason they'd likely be able to rally around 20,000 soldiers.

 

Rivain- 8,000

Small nation.  

 

Fereldan- 12,000

This was at their peak before the Blight.  They had 5,000 at Ostagar, but that was a hastily assembled force.  Fereldan in spite of its small population does have a fairly large geographical area.  If Cailan had waited he'd likely have 10-12,000 soldiers. 

 

Other Military Organizations:

Circle of Magi-20,000 total

-16,000 Rebels

- 4,000 Loyalists 

Templar Order- 15,000

Seekers of Truth- 1,000

Inquisition: (default)

10,000 foot 

2,000 horse

8,000 apostates

3,000 loyalists

 

 

Thoughts?

[Heimerdinger]

Good post. I would like to know where you found this information:

 

 

 

This was at their peak before the Blight.  They had 5,000 at Ostagar, but that was a hastily assembled force.

 

I remember a thread on dragon age wikia about "Could they have won at Ostagar" and I was thinking that it is impossible to estimate because the writers never gave any numbers. How many darkspawn were in the field? How many troops did Cailan have? How many did Loghain have? How many wardens?

 

They only mentioned that the Orlais troops that were turned back at the border had 12 legions of chevaliers and some 300 wardens.

[Lord Stark]

Good post. I would like to know where you found this information:

 

 

I remember a thread on dragon age wikia about "Could they have won at Ostagar" and I was thinking that it is impossible to estimate because the writers never gave any numbers. How many darkspawn were in the field? How many troops did Cailan have? How many did Loghain have? How many wardens?

 

They only mentioned that the Orlais troops that were turned back at the border had 12 legions of chevaliers and some 300 wardens.

 

Dragon Age Tabletop gives the estimate of 5,000 Fereldan soldiers, 15,000 Darkspawn.  

 

12 legions??? That's anywhere from 12,000-72,000 chevaliers depending on what legion figure you want to use.

[Heimerdinger]

Dragon Age Tabletop gives the estimate of 5,000 Fereldan soldiers, 15,000 Darkspawn.  

 

I see. Thought it was somewhere in-game and maybe I missed it.

 

12 legions??? That's anywhere from 12,000-72,000 chevaliers depending on what legion figure you want to use.

 

My mistake. Just checked Loghain's dialogue at the Landsmeet. He talks about 4 legions.

[Lord Stark]

I see. Thought it was somewhere in-game and maybe I missed it.

 

 

My mistake. Just checked Loghain's dialogue at the Landsmeet. He talks about 4 legions.

Alright so around 20,000 soldiers.  That makes sense.  Its also enough to annihilate the Darkspawn (also enough to conquer Fereldan)

[Eliastion]

I wouldn't overvalue Tabletop RPG as a source since the battle was used as example for mass-battle rules. As it was not created to really supply any lore but to illustrate rules for battles.

 

Also, I'd say you severely underestimate Tevinter (both in population and army), overestimate Orlais' population a bit, overestimate Dwarves severely (especially if you counted the two thaigs without those living on the surface and/or in Tevinter), overestimate Seheron and underestimate Antiva (population-wise). Also, I'm quite sure Antiva has standing forces - maybe not national army, but them merchant princes definitely have some forces, added together it could end up being, say, a thousand or something.

 

Oh, and there's a little problem with counting Dalish. Basically, they managed to assemble a respectable army in a few months in Ferelden (it being a place to flee from at that moment) - this would suggest that there is quite a lot of them clans, especially considering that despite (likely) high mobilization potential, Dalish wouldn't send all their forces to fight the Blight, as those same people are responsible for providing their clan with most of the food. So if we try estimating their numbers from this angle, 500 000 Thedas-wide could be a bit low...

Though things that should hint at their numbers often don't match by a couple orders of magnitude, so frankly, I've mostly given up on that I probably wouldn't even say a thing if you just guessed 500k without that arbitrary (max) you've put there with such certainty  

[Lord Stark]

I wouldn't overvalue Tabletop RPG as a source since the battle was used as example for mass-battle rules. As it was not created to really supply any lore but to illustrate rules for battles.

 

Also, I'd say you severely underestimate Tevinter (both in population and army), overestimate Orlais' population a bit, overestimate Dwarves severely (especially if you counted the two thaigs without those living on the surface and/or in Tevinter), overestimate Seheron and underestimate Antiva (population-wise). Also, I'm quite sure Antiva has standing forces - maybe not national army, but them merchant princes definitely have some forces, added together it could end up being, say, a thousand or something.

 

Oh, and there's a little problem with counting Dalish. Basically, they managed to assemble a respectable army in a few months in Ferelden (it being a place to flee from at that moment) - this would suggest that there is quite a lot of them clans, especially considering that despite (likely) high mobilization potential, Dalish wouldn't send all their forces to fight the Blight, as those same people are responsible for providing their clan with most of the food. So if we try estimating their numbers from this angle, 500 000 Thedas-wide could be a bit low...

Though things that should hint at their numbers often don't match by a couple orders of magnitude, so frankly, I've mostly given up on that I probably wouldn't even say a thing if you just guessed 500k without that arbitrary (max) you've put there with such certainty

 

Orlais has the largest and most powerful army of any human nation, they are comparable to France which in the middle ages had 15,000,000.  I doubt 9 million is an overestimation.  Tevinter is no longer a superpower.  Their military power comes from such a high percentage of mages imo.  50,000 is pretty generous.  As for their population, I imagine Minrathous has a population of 750k but I figure their other cities are only in the 20-50,000 range.  There's no way Tevinter rivals Orlais in population or scale of military, them being on par with Nevarra seems about right.  There are only 5,000,000 Native Americans in reserves in the US today and that's with permanent reservations established there's no way that I can see them rivaling Tevinter or having more people than say Anderfels.  

 

Antiva has been stated to have no need or a standing army.  I suppose you could guess they maintain around 2-3,000 but I honestly think that the only military they have is city watches and such.

 

For the Dwarves, I disagree.  Orzamar alone has 100,000, I'd wager the other two cities combined have another 150,000.  Unless a quarter of their population resides in the cities there's no way they can be under a million.  

 

Also the tabletop isn't really how I got that number.  I got that using this http://www.writing-w...sf/hordes.shtml It just happens that it falls into the same idea.  A hastily assembled army of 5.000 sounds about right.

[Eliastion]

Tevinter has suffered greatly in the war against Qunari but it IS one of the great powers of Thedas AND it is heavily militarized. Its capital is said to have a million residents, with truly astonishing 20% urbanization rate this would give us your 5 million even if this was the total city population, not just the capital. And it's not, Tevinter has around 10 major cities marked on the map, depending on precise borders (Orlais, for comparison, scores in low teens) so even if Minrathou's population is overestimated, your calculation is still off. Also, Tevinter is about comparable in size to the parts of Orlais where people actually live, so... yeah. Orlais perhaps could have bigger population than Tevinter, but it would be by 20-40% tops, not 80 as you made it.

 

Also, you made Free Marches + Antiva smaller than Orlais alone, now please do take a look at the map, they almost rival Orlais in land area with much more habitable terrain overall...

[Assassino01]

I'll drop my own estimates as well, for fun. 

 

Personally, on the very scarce sources of population for Thedas I'd guess the population to something like this: 

 

Tevinter: 10

Orlais: 10

Free Marches: 15

Nevarra: 5

Antiva: 5

Qunari: 5

Anderfells: 2 (thought it was around 5 before, but after reading around a bit I don't think so anymore ) 

Rivain: 1

Ferelden: 1

Dalish: 0,5

Total: 54,5 million.

 

Orlais is huge after all, and their heartlands are very densely populated (I imagine Tuscany during the middle ages personally), and even though much of the area is scarcely populated it is massive.

Tevinter lies in a lush region, Minrathous has a population alone of around 1 million, and the oldest settlements in Thedas should be here.

The Free Marches were described as the breadbasket of Thedas, and when they unite their forces even the strongest nations tremble. I imagine them much like the scattered city states of Germany and Northern Italy.

 

Tevinter:

I actually think Tevinter has the largest standing army, perhaps something along the lines of 100.000. Their climate should allow for a sufficient surplus of food. There are few other professions for those who are not slaves, and not wealthy merchants (Krem is an example), so I expect this is where most of Tevinter's "middle class" is employed, as well as their not so well off mages. Add to this a number of slaves kept for the express purpose of war, although I think most such slaves are guards to wealthy mages and magisters, and not outright soldiers.

Tevinter is after all in constant war with the Qunari, and thus needs a large standing army.

 

Note: Tevinter probably also keeps a considerable navy in order to safely ferry their attacking armies to Seheron every autumn. But most of the ships are probably merchant vessels which only serve in war for periods of time. 

 

Standing army: ca 100.000

 

Qunari:

Their army is probably the strongest in terms of actual fighting ability. They have a discipline and skill, as well as just pure physical advantages that give them a decisive edge. However, their numbers are probably not the greatest. Only those "meant" for military service serve in the Antaam, and the Qunari soldiers are full time soldiers, living for nothing else. I'd say there are roughly 50.000 all together. 

 

Standing army: ca 50.000

 

Orlais: 

Now this is frequently established as the primary power in Thedas. But their military prowess the last years seem lacking at best. Both Nevarra and Ferelden have bested them in war, although not easily. 

Personally I imagine Orlais has the problem of quantity over quality. Though their chevaliers probably possess both skill and discipline most of Orlais' wartime strength is probably poorly armed peasant levies that the various lords and ladies of Orlais contribute to the army. The Royal Army itself is probably not huge in peacetime, the expenses related to "The Game" probably far outstrip those afforded the army (and navy). I'd say Orlais probably only keeps about 30.000 outside war, a number which can be boosted to around 100.000 in wartime. 

 

Standing army: ca 30.000

Maximum size: ca 100.000

 

Free Marches:

Each individual city of town probably only keeps a small professional guard force, similar to Kirkwall's, and then trust mercenary forces in their internal rivalries. I doubt there are more than 10.000 professional soldiers employed in the Free Marches outside instances when they are engaged in war against an outside foe. In such times conscripts and mercenaries probably allow them to rival any power.

 

Standing army: ca 10.000

Maximum size: ca 100.000

 

Nevarra: 

They can beat Orlais, but only when most of the Orleasian army was engaged in Ferelden. They're probably more militarized than Orlais, they seem to put more stock in martial prowess anyway. I'd say they have roughly 40.000 men under arms, they could probably increase that in wartime though. 

 

Standing army: 40.000

 

Anderfells:

They're "the most feared" country in Thedas. I think the army they have is fierce, but I do not think it large. The king's power is mostly limited to the capital city apparently. So most of the forces are probably local militias and noble retainers.  I doubt the king commands more than 5000 men, ish. Add in the men the nobility keep on guard against darkspawn and I guess you have around 15.000

 

Standing army 5 - 15.000

 

Antiva:

Is said to maintain no standing army. But they must keep some forces none the less, if only for ceremonial purposes, and a bit of city guarding. I'd say maybe 5000. They're essentially a larger version of a Free Marcher state, and probably has a pool of mercenaries to draw from in a crisis (or the merchant princes do at least). 

 

Standing army: ca 5.000

 

Rivain: A small country with peaceful relations to their neighbors, easily defensible across their land bridge and largely lawless. I'd say they keep around 5000 soldiers as well.

 

Standing army: ca 5.000.

 

Ferelden: 

In peacetime the Ferelden army is probably not very large. The economy of Ferelden would not permit it, nor its lords' fondness for independence. But Ferelden has a tradition for martial skill, and most healthy adults seem to be at least proficient with a weapon, so I do not think it unlikely that the number of men and women that could be easily conscripted is rather large. The nobles all keep their own forces in peacetime, while the king retains a small Royal Army of a few thousand to guard Fort Drakon and the Royal Palace, as well as the border crossing with Orlais. But in war I think Ferelden can field many times what we saw at Ostagar. After all, even after that disastrous defeat, and a civil war we still had a decent army to assault Denerim with. 

 

Standing army: ca 5.000

Maximum size: ca 25.000

Dalish: 

The Dalish are quite tricky. I believe their number to be around 500.000. Thedas is sparsely populated, there are lots of places the Dalish can go. They've been around for 700 years, and their numbers should logically not be in decline (what with having magical healing available, and being able to trade when food is scarce). But that's just guesswork. Anyhow, we do see that a hastily assembled Dalish army in Origins is equal to their task and quite formidable in its own right. Although they do not keep a standing army most Dalish are skilled fighters, they have an abundance of mages, and at the very least it seem to me that in Ferelden alone there are enough to construct a small army in the space of months. The Dalish could probably put together an impressive army if need be. Although they'd resemble a horde more than an actual army in my view. 

 

Others: 

 

Wardens: ca 3000 I think.  More than a thousand in the Anderfells, several hundred in every other nation but Ferelden. 

Templars: 15.000 seems about fair, yeah. 

Circle: I doubt there are so many mages. That would mean each circle has/had more than 1.000 mages, and I doubt that. I think there are probably only a few hundred in each. With 15 circles I'd say there are about 4 -  5.000 circle mages all together, with about an equal number of apostates and hedge mages about. 

Inquisition: I don't know. At the end of the game we might have around 10 - 20.000 soldiers. But I doubt that will last. 

[Eliastion]

(...)
Circle: I doubt there are so many mages. That would mean each circle has/had more than 1.000 mages, and I doubt that. I think there are probably only a few hundred in each. With 15 circles I'd say there are about 4 -  5.000 circle mages all together, with about an equal number of apostates and hedge mages about. 
(...)

The problem with Circles is that the numbers of mages in the game and books and codex lore... kinda don't add up. We have some basis to estimate that Dalish have around 2-3% mages. Humans (especially outside  Tevinter) likely have lower percentages but Rivain is still said to have a mage pretty much in every village... so let's say around 1% of humans should be born mages. But just to be safe, let's take only a tenth of that as the Thedas average: 0,1% - this gives us a population of 1 000 mages in Ferelden alone and, according to your estimations, guys, 9-10 thousand in Orlais. Now seeing how rare circles are, one starts to wonder whether the system of localization of mages is actually working or remains a nice fiction that manages to acquire only around 10% of mages, likely those from major settlements and/or those that manifest their magic in especially flashy/unstable manner...
That would be an interesting thought, but I doubt that's the devs-intended conclusion

[Assassino01]

The problem with Circles is that the numbers of mages in the game and books and codex lore... kinda don't add up. We have some basis to estimate that Dalish have around 2-3% mages. Humans (especially outside  Tevinter) likely have lower percentages but Rivain is still said to have a mage pretty much in every village... so let's say around 1% of humans should be born mages. But just to be safe, let's take only a tenth of that as the Thedas average: 0,1% - this gives us a population of 1 000 mages in Ferelden alone and, according to your estimations, guys, 9-10 thousand in Orlais. Now seeing how rare circles are, one starts to wonder whether the system of localization of mages is actually working or remains a nice fiction that manages to acquire only around 10% of mages, likely those from major settlements and/or those that manifest their magic in especially flashy/unstable manner...
That would be an interesting thought, but I doubt that's the devs-intended conclusion

 

Yeah, but if we take into account that many mages die young, killed by mobs or their own parents when magic surfaces, or by overzealous templars, or from mistreatment like Cole and the number is already reduced quite bit. Then add all those apprentices killed during their harrowing or made tranquil, add to this all mages killed when attempting to escape the circle, those possesses and then killed, and all those that flee north to Tevinter, or those elven mages who no doubt flee to the Dalish. Add all that up and the numbers begin to make more sense.

 

Rivain is a bit of a special case. Magic is revered there, so the life expectancy of mages is probably a bit higher

[RoraM]

If one chooses the mages to close the Breach, former Grand Enchanter Fiona states that the rebel mages number in the hundreds.  To me, this means under a thousand, so 900 at most.  Vivienne also states that she leads the last loyal mages and that the vote to dissolve the circles was close, with the rebel faction winning by a narrow margin.  Again, a conservative estimate would mean the rebel mages comprised a little over 50% of the vote, placing the loyal mages of Southern Thedas, at most, also around 900.  That would mean 1800 mages for all of Southern Thedas.  That doesn't sound like a big number to me, so I wonder if the devs had done the calculations when they wrote the dialogue.    

 

As for Rivain, after the Annulment at Dairsmuid, nearly every mage's life expectancy was cut short in 9:40 Dragon.

[Eliastion]

(...)
Rivain is a bit of a special case. Magic is revered there, so the life expectancy of mages is probably a bit higher

I accounted for that, that's why my estimation for percentage of mages in society was an order of magnitude smaller than what sseems appropriate for Rivain.
Also, death by hands of parents/neighbors as well as possession and attempts at escaping the circles are marginal problems without impact on the population - after all, how many parents would kill their children when there is a system whey can give them to and never think of the matter again? How many villagers will try and lynch the mage rather than go tell their local Chantry they saw an apostate?
Harrowing/Tranquility is more significant but, again, it's described as the "final test" and "last-ditch scenario" respectively - I'd say that vast majority of mages do "graduate" successfully. And all this doesn't really apply to apostates who never end up in the Circle.
As I said, that 0,1% is a very careful estimation already, all considerations included, all mage-unfrendliness of Southern Thedas included.

[Eliastion]

(...)Again, a conservative estimate would mean the rebel mages comprised a little over 50% of the vote, placing the loyal mages of Southern Thedas, at most, also around 900.  That would mean 1800 mages for all of Southern Thedas.  That doesn't sound like a big number to me, so I wonder if the devs had done the calculations when they wrote the dialogue.    
 
As for Rivain, after the Annulment at Dairsmuid, nearly every mage's life expectancy was cut short in 9:40 Dragon.

I won't draw conclusions here, just stating two facts: first, winning vote by small margin doesn't mean that rebels were slightly above 50%, as it was a vote and one thing they did agree on was unity... so, Vivienne's "loyal" mages were, in fact, double-rebels that decided to go against the decision mages made as a whole. So I'd say that, in fact, vast majority of mages did heed the results of the vote (unless there is some canon material to contrary?).

And as for Rivain, Dairsmund's Circle didn't include the bulk of Rivain's mages who live scattered across Rivain. The Circle was more of an academy plus a facade so that Chantry would f*ck off "Yeah, look, we have a Circle, happy now?" They didn't even have a working Fornari branch to earn their existence, they relied on Rivaini nobles' donations.

[Ashagar]

Hmm, Ferelden, Orlais and Navarra all had two circles, Activa had one circle and there are five in the free marches, two at least which apparently kept enough mages and Templars who tried to stay neutral in the mage Templar war to be considered active circles. Rivian's circle was purged but most mages likely weren't in it to begin with. As for the Loyalist camp mages they seem to consist of the Loyalist and isolationist fraternities and all smaller named and unnamed fraternities while the rebel camp seems to be made up of the Aequartians and Libertarian fraternities.

[Lord Stark]

If one chooses the mages to close the Breach, former Grand Enchanter Fiona states that the rebel mages number in the hundreds.  To me, this means under a thousand, so 900 at most.  Vivienne also states that she leads the last loyal mages and that the vote to dissolve the circles was close, with the rebel faction winning by a narrow margin.  Again, a conservative estimate would mean the rebel mages comprised a little over 50% of the vote, placing the loyal mages of Southern Thedas, at most, also around 900.  That would mean 1800 mages for all of Southern Thedas.  That doesn't sound like a big number to me, so I wonder if the devs had done the calculations when they wrote the dialogue.    

 

As for Rivain, after the Annulment at Dairsmuid, nearly every mage's life expectancy was cut short in 9:40 Dragon.

 

A.  Not all the mages were with the Grand Enchanter at Redcliffe.  There's an operation after where you inform the rest of the Mage Rebellion about the events.

B. They had hundreds of noncombatants tagging along i.e. children, elderly, ect.  It is stated that there were thousands at Andoral's Reach.  

C.  When Cullen is telling his story about the circle he said there were 70 Mages and 30 Templars in the dining hall.  Assuming Templars are all assigned charges I assumed (adjusting for Templars not on guard duty say 9,000 stationed monitoring charges) I used that 7:3 ratio to come up with around 21,000 mages.  I rounded down and just said 20,000.  Not the best way to measure this, but we don't really have that much to base the size of the Mage Rebellion.  

 

I estimated 16k for the apostates, but the Templars having 15k, + 1,000 Seekers, and 3,000 loyalists with the remaining 2,000 being non-combatants.  There's no way the Mage Rebellion is only in the hundreds when its stated thousands died when the Temple exploded.  Not to mention in the opening we see the Mages/ Templars being implied to be similarly matched in numbers.   Fiona says the Templars fell upon them after the Temple exploded, I imagined their forces got halved which puts 8,000 apostates joining the Inquisition. 

 

I also strongly disagree with the notion of Tevinter being anywhere close to Orlais in terms of population/ military size.  They require a [I]massive{/I] city watch for Minrathous.  Not to mention its blatantly stated that Orlais has a larger population and is the most powerful in Thedas.  Tevinter is no longer at the top.

[Ashagar]

 I suspect your loyalist count is likely a tad conservative there since they are apparently sizable minority though as the rebels are made of the two largest fraternities they would be the majority while the rest of the Fraternities threw in their lot with the loyalists to form the loyalist camp.

 

Also what about mages who didn't throw in their lot with either faction like ones who went into hiding, locked themselves in their former circles and the college of magi or larger groups like the Ostwick circle or that other circle in the free marches where apparently for the most part neither the mages or the Templars obeyed the orders of their factions and most of them stayed put. Any idea on their numbers?

[Assassino01]

I don't know. It seems estimates of the mage population are more varied than that of the population of Thedas. I believe there to be no more than 5000 circle mages in southern Thedas in 9:37 Dragon. But that is but my own estimation.

By Circle mages I men those that have passed their harrowing. Likely the numbers of apprentices eclipses this number.

[Lord Stark]

I don't know. It seems estimates of the mage population are more varied than that of the population of Thedas. I believe there to be no more than 5000 circle mages in southern Thedas in 9:37 Dragon. But that is but my own estimation.

By Circle mages I men those that have passed their harrowing. Likely the numbers of apprentices eclipses this number.

 

Fair enough.  But the Mage Rebellion likely included apprentices. Regardless  I believe that total number of combat aged folks in the rebellion was likely around 16,000 in Southern Thedas.

[X Equestris]

Fair enough.  But the Mage Rebellion likely included apprentices. Regardless  I believe that total number of combat aged folks in the rebellion was likely around 16,000 in Southern Thedas.

Fiona mentions "hundreds" when you talk to her in Redcliffe. So either the Rebellion has suffered atrocious casualties, or it was unable to garner the loyalty of very many mages.

[Akrabra]

Fiona mentions "hundreds" when you talk to her in Redcliffe. So either the Rebellion has suffered atrocious casualties, or it was unable to garner the loyalty of very many mages.

Vivienne says that the vote split the circle in two. The loyalist follow her and the Rebels follow Fiona. She also points out that starting a war with the people of Thedas is luncay because they are outnumbered a 100 - 1. So yeah not many are born mages i take it. Not sure if she is stating fact or just using it as an example, but still the rebellion is very small considering the estimate of population in Thedas.

 

I do have a question though. If Orlais has this kind of strength how in the hells did Ferelden drive them back? I have read the book, but i find it hard to see Maric and Loghain as that influental on the army they had. 

[Lord Stark]

Vivienne says that the vote split the circle in two. The loyalist follow her and the Rebels follow Fiona. She also points out that starting a war with the people of Thedas is luncay because they are outnumbered a 100 - 1. So yeah not many are born mages i take it. Not sure if she is stating fact or just using it as an example, but still the rebellion is very small considering the estimate of population in Thedas.

 

I do have a question though. If Orlais has this kind of strength how in the hells did Ferelden drive them back? I have read the book, but i find it hard to see Maric and Loghain as that influental on the army they had. 

 

Guerilla fighting and superior tactics. An army of 10,000 can fall to 500 defenders behind a fortress' walls.  Or take LOTRs 6,000 riders owned over 100,000 orcs.  

[Ashagar]

There is also the fact the emperor of the time didn't care for the man he sent to play king ,he pointedly wasn't on good terms which is why he sent him to Ferelden in the first place and basically but left him out to dry from what I understand making no more than a token effort to help him at the end.

[Assassino01]

Also, the Fereldan population maintains a tradition of freedom and pride in martial prowess, quite unlike that of Orleasian serfs. Trying to occupy a population which not only resent the occupiers' presence, but also has the will and ability to do something about it is rarely going to go well. Especially when the occupiers act like the Orleasians did and fostered resentment in an already angry Fereldan population. 

 

Essentially, whenever Maric and his army went he could recruit, militias could be formed and the rebels would receive aid from the population wherever they went. the opposite being true for the Orleasians. 

[Lord Stark]

Tevinter has suffered greatly in the war against Qunari but it IS one of the great powers of Thedas AND it is heavily militarized. Its capital is said to have a million residents, with truly astonishing 20% urbanization rate this would give us your 5 million even if this was the total city population, not just the capital. And it's not, Tevinter has around 10 major cities marked on the map, depending on precise borders (Orlais, for comparison, scores in low teens) so even if Minrathou's population is overestimated, your calculation is still off. Also, Tevinter is about comparable in size to the parts of Orlais where people actually live, so... yeah. Orlais perhaps could have bigger population than Tevinter, but it would be by 20-40% tops, not 80 as you made it.

 

Also, you made Free Marches + Antiva smaller than Orlais alone, now please do take a look at the map, they almost rival Orlais in land area with much more habitable terrain overall...

You make a fair point, especially when you compare Tevinter with the Byzantine Empire that boasted a population of 10,000,000 in 1145 AD.  That being said, Constantinople was also stated to have 1,000,000 people although most estimates place it at around 750k.  I'd imagine Minrathous is the same.  I'm upping them to 7,000,000.  

 

The Free Marches have a disparate economy, so I doubt any city would be comparable to say Halamshiral or Val'Royeaux.  Antiva's entire economy is based on trade, and their primary export seems to be wine, they don't have large resource pools.  If your primary economic center is that then that means that vineyards start to replace things like wheat farms that would be used to bolster populations. 

 

So no, those are staying where they are.