NationStates Jolt Archive

I mean more than just the usually cited 5% thing, as it seems obvious that when a nation with five billion people abouts (mine) attempts to field a 5% military, it would be 250,000,000 men strong, now of course this isn't just combat troops, but also would include support and such, but let's face it, this number is absolutely huge.

What I am proposing is that we try to create a progressive and graudal military size scale of some sort. I'm not the expert on this sort of stuff, so I'm seeing if anyone with better RP skills than I wants to take this up. If not, but I do get a sufficient response with comments, I'd be willing to take it up, even though, I cannot guarantee the best scale possible.

So, that's what I'm thinking, if you have any suggestions, fire away.


[poll coming]

As this concerns itself with roleplay battles (and not regions and the Invasion Game, etc), Moved from Gameplay to II.

A nation should be able to decide on its own on how large its military is. I've been thinking of upping my number just for the helluvit. If you're suggesting something like starting at 7% and slowly going down, why not?

Its generally accepted that something more along the lines of 1-1.5 percent is good for a total peacetime standing army. 5% is more for a draft than anything. When I say generally accepted, I mean that this is what the more experienced players woud tell you.

First, forget about the the 5% rule. If you had 5% of your population in the military, your economy would be in the toilet. If you are France and Kaiser Wilhelm is getting a bit close to Paris, then sure, take this extreame measure and draft this large army, but, RP your economy suffering.

I voted no in the poll. A scale is unnesessary. Last time I tinkered with my military, I had .5% in my military. If I shared a border with a hostile neighbor, I may be justified in having a larger percentage. A scale, however, will not be able to consider my specific situation.

Military size should be measured on a decreasing exponential scale.

http://img6.exs.cx/img6/678/newbitmapimage20ua.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

Numbers on the X axis indicates millions of population. Obviously, you can tell that the asymptote is around 1.5%.

1% of 3.5 Billion is still quite a bit.

First, forget about the the 5% rule. If you had 5% of your population in the military, your economy would be in the toilet. If you are France and Kaiser Wilhelm is getting a bit close to Paris, then sure, take this extreame measure and draft this large army, but, RP your economy suffering.


Its pronounced Kaiser Vilhelm, spelled, Kaiser William. And when the Prussians were approaching Paris, he wasnt Kaiser, he was just King of Prusia. And William was a terrible ruler, it was Moltke (Chief of Staff) and Otto von Bismark (Prime Minister), that won the war. William didnt even want a war, Bismark had to alter a letter written by William to get France to declare war.

I try to keep my military below 1%. This ensures that the saved money from a large army will be put into their training, and weaponry. Not like training even matters in the RP world. It's all about the number of uber tankz, uber ships uber aircraft and uber soldiers you have. As stated many times before wars in II are more like WWI.

Its pronounced Kaiser Vilhelm, spelled, Kaiser William. And when the Prussians were approaching Paris, he wasnt Kaiser, he was just King of Prusia. And William was a terrible ruler, it was Moltke (Chief of Staff) and Otto von Bismark (Prime Minister), that won the war. William didnt even want a war, Bismark had to alter a letter written by William to get France to declare war.
1. Irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
2. He was just pulling out an example; generally the head of state is used to personify a nation.
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I honestly haven't thought about it. I'd say my military (peacetime) is only about 1% of the total population... I really should sit down and work it out...
Teh ninjas has a point about the way things tend to work out in RP'd wars though...

I've always used a 1 per cent figure for my standing force - of which 75 per cent are logistics and support.

I have another 0.5 percent reservists that can be called up within weeks of a conflict and have received basic training.

It all depends on how you are situated (e.g. whether you are an island, archipelago, land mass connected to other nations, or even landlocked), the policies of your government, and the possible threats that your nation is facing. For me, with friendly land-based neighbours, and previous experience with amphibious assaults against Omzian soil, I generally use a military that is about 0.5% - 0.8% of my nation's population (depends whether you could in the reserves or not) with a large navy and air force (totaling about 17 million personnel in total; designed to protect Omzian soil from enemy invaders), in addition to a small, professional army (about 170 divisions total last time I checked). However, for the purpose of defending the nation against land-based attacks, I do have another militia unit, and that generally numbers to another 0.5% of the population.

Chellis uses a flat 3% standing military. Half of the military is rotated every six months into an "in" position, where they are actually training/on duty. The other six months, they work in the military factories, etc. This means that the real standing number is about 1.5%, whereas in wartime they all get called in active duty, and others take up the production jobs. If it gets really bad, we fall back. If we're being invaded, we call up the militia(Obviously its not realistic to have a super-jingoistic militia, and I dont, but large numbers of well equipped reservists equal a small number(proportionatly) of good warriors, quite often ex-military members who get a nice militia check for their service.

Instead of scaling down military percentages.... I mean, 12% of the American population were in the serivces at WWII..... It would be better if we set a scale for national population, like 1 billion be taken as 500 million, 2 billion as 600 million and so on.

First, forget about the the 5% rule. If you had 5% of your population in the military, your economy would be in the toilet. If you are France and Kaiser Wilhelm is getting a bit close to Paris, then sure, take this extreame measure and draft this large army, but, RP your economy suffering.

I voted no in the poll. A scale is unnesessary. Last time I tinkered with my military, I had .5% in my military. If I shared a border with a hostile neighbor, I may be justified in having a larger percentage. A scale, however, will not be able to consider my specific situation.

I have to disagree with your statement there. A country's economy isn't in the toilet just because it has a large army. The reason why Germany's economy got better was because Hitler started making the army bigger, it needed equipment so he made factories, which created jobs, which got the economy back togethor from the shambles it was in.

But I agree if someone goes over 5% that its economic suicide. I myself only have about 4-5% of actual people in my fleets. the rest is clones which exist outside the rest of the population because they can be produced, citizens cant.

What I never understood about the 'Economy in the toilet' part of having a large army was that shouldn't we take into account just how automated the industrial and agricultural areas of the country are? Highly Automated = Less people, and thus should mean more people free for the war effort.

Yes, but usually it means a huge government spending on defense, which results in all sorts of economical issues.

Look at the US today.... and Japan certainly don't like its 150% GDP debt.

What I never understood about the 'Economy in the toilet' part of having a large army was that shouldn't we take into account just how automated the industrial and agricultural areas of the country are? Highly Automated = Less people, and thus should mean more people free for the war effort.

Indeed, most people appear to assume a severe lack of automation and although this is entirely possible with crud economies, it is highly unlikely with lets say Powerhouse and above.

I have less than 1% (around 0.4%) in my armed forces (around 8 million) and this doesn't fluctuate even in war really, since i've never really had to call upon any reserves due to the sheer nation of the wars I tend to get into.

In short, your military numbers will decrease as you grow in size, as you really need about the same size forces, yeah small increases are fine just don't suddenly expect to have a millions more troops.

I like your idea.
In all honesty ive only bothered with 3 Divsions sure ive got more but i dont RP that much anymore so eh.Bloody General

NO.

It's just another one of the incredibly silly 'Lets make benchmarks to strangle FreeFromRP, it's fun to bash newbies!' proposals, and it is (As usually) incredibly stupid. There are different types of nations, systems, RP styles and god knows what, deal, rather than trying to frce one particular point of view (Or, in this particular case, the view of an arbitrary majority) upon others.

Oh, and while i'm at it...

Its generally accepted that something more along the lines of 1-1.5 percent is good for a total peacetime standing army. 5% is more for a draft than anything. When I say generally accepted, I mean that this is what the more experienced players woud tell you.I will admit that NS is a lot nastier as RL, as such, higher numbers are somewhat understandable. Still, IRL, we have between 0.3- 0.5% in the standard western nation. 1%+ sounds a tad much, especially since with populations in the billions, you can rationalise and keep it smaller.

As stated many times before wars in II are more like WWI.Not entirely incorrect. NS has a lot of nations with relatively comparable capacities and lotsa resources, large distances, giant frontlines, comparable doctrines and technology, as well as a load of allies. WW1esque scenarios are actually fairly realistic when it comes to NS. Wars of attrition are to be expected. And while NS conflicts with the available aerial capacities and tank fleets shouldn't be as static as WW1 western front... The general principle still applies.

I have to disagree with your statement there. A country's economy isn't in the toilet just because it has a large army. The reason why Germany's economy got better was because Hitler started making the army bigger, it needed equipment so he made factories, which created jobs, which got the economy back togethor from the shambles it was in.

But I agree if someone goes over 5% that its economic suicide. I myself only have about 4-5% of actual people in my fleets. the rest is clones which exist outside the rest of the population because they can be produced, citizens cant.BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry. But your post is just too... Funny.

1. Unfortunately, it is. Everything over 1% in peace time is disastrous. Automatisation is not an acceptable excuse, but I will come to that, later.

2. Germany's economy didn't get better, though. It got worse. Unemployment was killed by by way of 1. Removing Jews and woman from work and 2. Simply acquiring giant debts. The only reason Hitler could go through with his debts was because the war was ahead. Otherwise, the economy would have crashed, hard. And I shall also note that the standard of living was decreasing, constantly, from 1933- 1939, due to the military effords (And other things). While it increased in the twenties, despite all the problems.

Thus, the argument is invalid.

3. Clones are a part of your population. They have their own minds, they need food, they need housing, they are humans. What you're staging is a blatant poppulationwank.

What I never understood about the 'Economy in the toilet' part of having a large army was that shouldn't we take into account just how automated the industrial and agricultural areas of the country are? Highly Automated = Less people, and thus should mean more people free for the war effort.Oddly enough, the opposite is the case. The percentage of the population one could draft for the military without crashing one's own economy has constantly decreased since roughly 3000 B.C. Despite the rationalisation of production increasing constantly, over the same timeframe.

Automatisation is nice. Unfortunately, building a machine allowing you to reduce the amount of workers you need to produce one particular product from ten to one will require you to have (better educated/ sophisticated) more workers to produce said machine.

Please observe the rapid population growth going on since, well, the neolithic. If your theory was correct, about 0.0001% of today's population in western societies would work.

The rest would be a nobility, capable of doing nothing, being fed by the vast minority.

Now, amazingly enough, this isn't the case.

Yes, there are transition periods when brand- new technologies are introduced (Steam engine, computers), when unemployment rises.

For a while.

Then, with the new technology properly implemented, it decreases, while the population increases (Either by natural growth or by migration), again, due to an increased standard of living allowing to support more people.

And they will need to work to keep their standard of living. With less sources for 'war' being available.

It may be frustrating for you, but the 'Automatisation will eventually eliminate the need for work, and thus, the population will need to go to war, in order to keep it occupied' theory has been disproven over five- thousand years of constant development.

Which is kind of a crushing defeat, really.

Clones are a part of your population. They have their own minds, they need food, they need housing, they are humans. What you're staging is a blatant poppulationwank.

I'd agree somewhat with your other arguments except this one. Clones do need food and housing, and they can be considered human but what about a person who uses military droids? Would he count them as his population? I wouldn't and I don't. Clones can be produced, replaced, and can be fed those nasty food rations no one else wants. Housing is easy, barracks, big ass ones, as well as not keeping them in one place. My clones operate all over my infrastructure, they act as police, they also are in place wherever my fleet is. So they're aren't more than 250,000 in one place (My Imperial Guard in my capital) so I dont have those kinds of problem. All of my countries food is harvested by large automated droids (I might point out from Star Wars how Uncle Owen had nothing but droids and luke to work with so its possible to do so) and other machinery which handle the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of all crops. As to manufacturing, I leave most of it to my citizens except in the automated ship factories I have.

Also my society is somewhat simliar to that of the Spartans. They lived for war and nothing else. The Helots did the farm work for them and they stayed like that for nearly a thousand years.

Excpet for using clones for ground troops and fighter pilots and manufacturing workers...I dont use them for anything else. And I have quite making them after 25,000,000. That was the optimum number that was needed and all I have needed. And they dont exist as part of my population simply because they can be made, thus for classifying them as non-human = expendable.

Also, clones do have minds...but their the minds that I have made for them and trained them to be. So they wont be the same as a human and less suceptible to free choice outside of a military operation.

I'll have to agree with Der Angst's emphatic 'NO' on this one, for much the same reasons. Free form RP is just that. One ought to be able to work out standards for the RPs in which one is engaged with the other players in that RP so that everyone's happy and has a good time. That's rather the point, isn't it?

Realistically, anything over 1% of your population in the military will can your economy. Unless, of course, you have genetically modified non-human clones with no psychological requirements or free will, willing to live stacked up in barracks eating nutro-gruel (patent pending) doing nothing but preparing for war and an agricultural industry based on Star Wars tech. I humbly submit that if you hold up Star Wars as an example of what should be technologically or biologically possible, you will not meet with terribly much in the way of agreement.

But hey, if that's your style, on you go.

I'd agree somewhat with your other arguments except this one. Clones do need food and housing, and they can be considered human but what about a person who uses military droids? Would he count them as his population? I wouldn't and I don't.Well, lesse... A nation employing military drones...

Oh, that's right, I am one.

Lesse... How am I balancing...

1. Depending on how you count the drones, there are either ludicrously many, or ludicrously few. Counting only units that are the equivalent of human units, there are, indeed, ludicrously few. (Relatively speaking. Apparently, NS ranks me 302nd in the world for largest militaries... Of course, I'm interpreting it as spending and cut numbers.) For reasons like 'expensive', 'not needed' and so on.

2. For a variety of reasons, which include my drones, I'm not playing with my NS stat population. I'm playing with 1/10. Which is to say, roughly 460 mio sentients, rather than 4.6 billion sentients.

(For the 'clone' purpose, this would, indeed, be a tad extreme. But it is rather simple to just carve up your population statistics. 'This ones are clones, this ones aren't!')

Clones can be produced, replaced, and can be fed those nasty food rations no one else wants. Housing is easy, barracks, big ass ones, as well as not keeping them in one place.Try this with RL clones. Which is to say, identical twins. They will tell you to Fuck the hell off. Producing a clone is not exactly much different from producing a normal human being. In vitro or or a little sex, it is merely a technical difference.

Also my society is somewhat simliar to that of the Spartans. They lived for war and nothing else. The Helots did the farm work for them and they stayed like that for nearly a thousand years.So your nation is like the one greek citystate with the least developed economy and culture, which, despite the legends centering around it, still lost battles, needed decades to defeat Athens (And they didn't even manage to keep Athens down for long. Only for a couple of years), and which was eventually conquered by the macedons? Not very impressive.

And they dont exist as part of my population simply because they can be made, thus for classifying them as non-human = expendable.As mentioned above, no real difference from 'making' them by way of, well, consensual procreation. Classifying them as 'non- human' gives you a shiny, heavily armed 25mio men minority.

I would say that you're in serious need of writing a thread about them taking over your nation... Since there isn't much that could stop them.

Also, clones do have minds...but their the minds that I have made for them and trained them to be. So they wont be the same as a human and less suceptible to free choice outside of a military operation.Oooo... And you can't use that on normal humans... Why? Given that the mind of a newborn clone is in no way different from the mind of a new born 'normal' human. Again, observe the identical twin example.

Oh, there are of course potential cultural things. 'A clone, he doesn't count!'. But zero dissent? Yeah, right. Besides, where is the abuse of your technology? "Lets 'change' his mind a little, he is disagreeing." - "Lets just 'reprogram' criminals... And dissenters..." - "You know what? We would have it SOOO much easier with our people if everybody knew his place... And we have this shiny machines."

And so on. You see my point?

Yup. Hence my mention of genetic modification of the clones so that they had no normal human psychological requirements. No self-respecting clone would put up with such treatment.

"The clones are revolting!"

"Ah, they never do come out of the tanks right."

"No, I mean the clones are revolting!"

"I find them pretty disgusting myself, but what else are we going to use for the military? People?"

"No, I mean..."

5% = North Korea style always-total-war-your-economy-is-dying mobolisation.
3% = High threat first world economy-is-hurting wartime force
1% = High threat level first world peace time / wartime standing force
0.3% = First world peace time highly trained force

EDIT: Clones are godmod in the way they are used in NS. Every cloned creature in the history of mankind has been equal or worse than the original copy. Generally clones age quicker and die earlier. Look up dolly the sheep.

Personally, i try to maintain a 250,000 man army during wartime, with the option to draft people and increase it to aproximatly 500,000. I dont really use my actual citizens, cuz of their very short life spans, but soldiers raised from birth to fight and kept in sterile enviroments. I guess I coudl probably make it bigger, but Im still figuring out my military.