How big is a division?

[zute]

I apologize for another lame-ass question, but in the story I'm writing now this actually has relevance. It's the difference between paranoia and reasonable concern.

When you rescue Riordan he tells you that Loghain had turned away 200 Grey Wardens and two dozen divisions of cavalry.  When I looked up division sizes I got utterly enormous numbers like 10,000 for single light infantry division, in the modern army. I'm sure that must be vastly larger than in middle ages terms.

Does anyone have a feel for how many actually people that would be? 

My thanks!

Zute

Comments

[darkrose]

This is completely ignoring game cannon and the evidence within the game. Even her enemies talk about how skilled of a Queen she is.

I see this as partially a failing of the devs, because it's all telling without showing. What, specifically, does anyone say Anora has done that shows her competence to rule? Has she implemented any new policies? Changed tax rates? Negotiated trade agreements? Signed any major treaties? We don't know, because they never tell us. All we ever get is "she's a competent ruler", but what we actually see in game is a country that's collapsing in the face of a major threat, and a queen who appears to be doing nothing to combat it. (Maybe she is, but as far as anything we see in game, she doesn't do anything proactive during the Blight. She doesn't make any stirring speeches, doesn't try to end the civil war by doing anything other than talking to one guy). The only thing we do know as absolute fact is that Anora has not been able to do the one job that a queen consort absolutely must: to produce an heir. (And yes, I realize that it could be and probably was Cailan's fault, but no matter how the devs try to spin it, we're still dealing with the assumption that if a marriage doesn't produce children, it's the woman's fault until explicitly proven otherwise.)

The other guy is mostly an unknown quantity, true. But he looks the part; he's the son of a very famous father and the last of the dynasty that's ruled Ferelden since it was a nation, and most of all, he's a member of the organization with the specific skill set needed to combat the threat the country is facing RIGHT NOW. The idea that the nobility would support someone who was perceived as a military leader over the widow of the late king strikes me as quite plausible.

[prisoner_24601]

Niniane has a great post above that deals with this, but I'm pretty much going to echo what she said. It's true that there's a lot of telling and not so much showing, but this is not Anora's story. It's the warden's. And most of what would make Anora a good ruler happened in the five years prior to Ostagar, and probably wouldn't be very interesting to observe as it would mostly be administrative stuff. A lot of people praise her skill - Eamon, Alistair, Loghain, Celene as well as random NPC's - although I do agree that it would be nice if they were more specific about what she's good at.

We do, however, get a glimpse in the game of an intelligent and savvy and ruthless and flexible woman - which strikes me as the sort of person who would make a good ruler. And the differences between her and Alistair's answers when you ask them at the Landsmeet about why each of them should be in charge are huge - she comes across as far more reasonable and articulate than him.

But I do agree that Alistair makes a great looking package to Ferelden nobility. Anora hasn't produced an heir, which totally gets dumped on her unfairly, her father has completely undermined her authorty by siezing control, and he's one of the Grey Wardens. Alistair is the sort of dude that would appeal to a panicked group of nobles that use the idea of superority of bloodlines to keep their own priviledged place at the top of the food chain. I think it's entirely plausable that the nobles would go for him over her, but really I think it's a terrible decision overall.

What I'm saying though is that really, when you take everything into context, without the biases of the nobility towards favoring bloodlines and their panic about the blight, Alistair is totally unqualified to be the king (at least without some major help from either Anora or the Warden). He's not a leader and defers at every possible opportunity. He has none of administrative skills to rule, hasn't been trained for it, and has no real desire to do it unless you harden him and piss him off. To me, it's sort of like taking Derek Jeter and making him the head of Ford Motor company - yeah he's popular and good looking and probably a nice guy, but that doesn't make him qualified to put him a job where hundreds of thousands of people depend on making complex decisions.

Don't get me wrong, I do see why some wardens would pick him over Anora - like your city elf example before, but that almost strikes me as "Okay this is the lesser of two bad choices, and I'm going with him because there's no third option" more than "Alistair would be a great leader."