Mapping Population Experiment: Part Two (found)

Found it! This and that, might make a complete Part Two! Other Part Two removed to reduce confusion.

The next phase may look confusing, but it was quite easy and intuitive. I took the preceding map, and based on the information on The 25 Mile Hex which say, "Thus, towns and cities occupy one 5 mile hex in total... In any settlement larger than a village, the entire population is considered urban and totally reliant on imported food from the country side." I filled in what I thought would be acceptable homelands for the city populace. As can be seen, I figured that 20 one mile hexes are associated with the town/city in the center 5 mile hex (I only counted half hexes as full if they were on the river, and three I deemed unsuitable based on how the river ran through it.)

Twenty, one mile hexes is 17sq miles (20x.865=17.3 rounded down for the river). I think this is where I will depart from the good, but general, ideas in The 25 Mile Hex blog and consult some data from the Bat in the Attic blog. He has some great data on pastoral and agricultural demographics that I want to play with. If I assume that the city raised up from a village to a town, to a city, as would be expected, then at least the original village population would be self sufficient. If I take a SWAG at the pastoral to agricultural ratio, then I can figure that out. If I assume 1/3 of the surrounding land is pastoral (herders) then the rest (2/3) is agricultural. Braking the land down like this gives me 5sq miles of pastoral and 12sq miles of agricultural farms and fields around the city. 12sq miles of agriculture will feed 3840 people (320x12) at 100%. I want to divide the 5sq miles between swine and other domesticated beasts; say, 2sq miles for swine which will feed 1600 people at 100% and 3sq miles of cattle, goats, and sheep which will feed 1500 people at 100%. So this land has the potential of feeding 6940 people at 100% productivity.

100% productivity is unrealistic, so... to the dice. The percentages of productivity come out like so; swine 51%, cattle, goats, and sheep 90%, and agriculture 99%. My mind is racing with potential dominion game rules at the moment. Stay focused... stay focused... So for the year; of the original 100% totals, 816 people will be fed by pork and it takes approx. 200 people to raise them (200 rural - outside the city walls feeding slop, leaves 616 urban city dwellers), 1350 will be fed with other domesticated animals which takes approx. 150 to raise (150 rural, 1200 urban), while another 3801 people will live on agricultural produce which takes 360 people to raise (360 rural, 3441 urban). That puts 710 people rural (outside the city proper) with 5257 urban (within the city proper). This seems high so far, but as I look at the map, it does seem like a rather productive area for the city. If I would have used the 13 one mile key terrain rules I used for all other five mile hexes, it probably would have limited this down quite a bit. Perhaps a redo once this is in order is called for? This, however, still only puts it squarely in the camp of a average sized Town based on S. John Ross's Medieval Demographics Made Easy. So, no worries yet.

On to surrounding Villages, which there are 7. Going back to guidance from The 25 Mile Hex, I placed villages where they had a full seven hexes to occupy without modifying the underlying terrain. It was intuitive once I started, or at least felt like it. I didn't mind delving off into the math for the core populace of the central settlement, but I don't want to go that far with the supporting settlements. So if The Hex Master says there are 350 able bodies people in a village then all I want to do is apply some randomness. To the dice bag...

d4 (1-2 minus, 3-4 add)
d20 (percent of change)


Village One: 350 minus 8% = 322 able bodies (92 urban, 184 rural, 46 surplus)
Village Two: 350 plus 17% = 410 able bodies (164 urban, 328 rural, 59 surplus)
Village Three: 350 minus 3% = 340 able bodies (97 urban, 194 rural, 49 surplus)
Village Four: 350 minus 12% = 308 able bodies (88 urban, 176 rural, 44 surplus)
Village Five: 350 minus 16% = 294 able bodies (84 urban, 168 rural, 42 surplus)
Village Six: 350 plus 15% = 402 able bodies (115 urban, 230 rural, 57 surplus)
Village Seven: 350 minus 2% = 343 able bodies (98 urban, 196 rural, 49 surplus)

Totals are divided by 3.5 to ascertain urban, double urban is rural, the difference of the total, minus urban plus rural, is the surplus in able bodies that can provide for the larger town or city. This replicates the 250 to 100 ratio he uses on the blog, though it is inverted here.

So now I know that there are a total of 346 surplus providers throughout the villages. At a 2:1 ratio, they are providing for an additional 173 productive (able bodied) people in the central settlement, above and beyond what the central settlement's core is providing for. If each able bodied person, of the 173, is supporting 5 (average number in a household) then an additional 865 people can live within the walls of the city. The original 5257 inhabitants, plus 865 more, gives us a subtotal of 6122 for the city proper.

Now to see how many additional people can be added to the central settlement with all the Manors' surplus kicked in to support them. There are 27 Manors filling the remaining usable space when adhering to the "zones of exclusion" guidelines. The 25 Mile Hex says there are 100 rural able bodies in a Manor, or 2700 in this case, which can support another 1350 at a 2:1 ration.

We are looking at a Large Town with 7472 people give or take... about the same as doing it wholey with The 25 Mile Hex rules.

That's about it for now. I will work on some tables; military forces, village merchants, key personnel... basically turn it into a Mini-Gazetteer, as time permits. I also want to try the same two different ways; strictly by The 25 Mile Hex and strictly using Bat in the Attic's figures to see which appeals more to me for Ukarea.

Best,
TB