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

[prisoner_24601]

Sure, they were--right up until the point when Lothering and most of Southern Ferelden were obliterated by the darkspawn. The nobles are probably pissing their pants at this point, and If Maeferath came back from the dead and said, "I'll save you from the Blight," they'd consider it. The one thing people do know is that Grey Wardens defeat Blights. They'll worry about what comes later...later.

Ah this is a great point - and one I totally hadn't considered. This I buy as a reason for why they suddenly are starting to listen to a warden's opinion. It makes a lot of sense to me, because it fits the very fickle and self preservation side of human nature quite well.

That, to me, is why Awakening was so disappointing, and why I feel like there's so much room for fanfic. I want to find out what happens 2, 5, 10 years down the line when Alistair and Queen Cousland still haven't produced an heir. I want to see the backlash to the crown giving the mages more freedom. Eventually, I want to write about the political impact of the King's mistress and closest advisor being an elf. But during the Landsmeet, it's a crisis, and people are panicked, and not thinking about the long-term consequences.

You and me both. I would absolutely love to see the long term fallout of these rushed decisions. And if you write the story of the fallout about the King's closest advisor being an elf, sign me the hell up because I would love to read this fic.

And you are right that the game, by it's very design, requires a suspension of disbelief. I do get why people are trying to make these game mechanics fit into the context of the game - I just think that some make more sense than others. Awarding the decision to the biggest asskicker doesn't seem like a plausable explination to me given the context of everything else. People freaking out and giving more weight to the warden's opinion than maybe they should because they're panicked - yes this works for me.

[niniane]

I've personally always been rather curious of the fall out of a Warden who made terrible decisions and/or solved things just by killing people.

I find it very, very strange that you can go the brawl route for the Landsmeet and *still* choose who the king is (or queen, or marry the king, or marry the queen, or make Alistair and Anora marry). I can only imagine that once everything blows over that people are all like "eh...no, you only won because we were afraid you would kill everyone" especially if the Warden is still in a position of authority in the government (Chancellor/lover of Alistair, wife of Alistair, husband of Anora, chancellor in Anora's government but fighting with her).