NationStates Jolt Archive

I was wondering, is there any set rule to determining the size of your nation's standing military forces? I mean, I know it can't be larger than your nation's population, that's a given since there are only so many able-bodied people out of a certain population.

But is there a way to determine how many of the able-bodied citizens of your nation are actually in your military, or is it up to you so long as it's sensible?

I meticulously calculate my government's budget every IC- year (one RL month); the size of my military is based on what I'm able to afford to maintain, and it only expands when I can afford to purchase the facilities and an entire set of new equipment for the unit, and if I can afford the year-to-year maintenance afterwards.

That's an efficient way to do it. Just so I get an idea of how to do it, how do you figure out your government's budget?

Determine how your government collects money. Mine is financed through seizure of the assets of criminals, so I used some crime rate statistics and some demographic information about criminals' income and wealth to figure out what proportion of my population committed crimes and how much I would get from seizing their property. However you do it is fine; whatever you get from that is your income.

From there, determine what you want your government to do, and what it needs to do it and how much it costs--including equipment, salaries, facilities, real estate, operations costs, etc.

And of course, military isn't the only part of your budget. I also budget for courts and police, for instance...and my government does not do anything else anyway, so I estimate some general overhead costs for the head honchos of the whole thing, and that's it.

But I have detailed spreadsheets keeping track of, for instance, the cost of equipment used by a single police precinct--both initially and for replacements, how many precincts I have; the same for my military units--one for each type of unit--and courts,

I've also got a serious civil service/military salary structure for personnel expenditures.

Very nice. That gives me some good stuff to work off of and a lot of ideas. Thanks :D