Category talk:Geography

I found some interesting population information, which I would imagine should fit somewhere within the broader geography category. I'm not sure where to put it right now, however, so I'm dumping it here in the hopes that somebody will find it useful. I believe Godrich's post is from 2004.

Well, having received an Ok from Solomon to post a bit of the demographics information, here it is. :)

First some disclaimers. I'm only going to be posting about some of the overall population figures for each province as well as some distances to give an idea for the scale of things. The exact figures for each individual city and town are still being worked out. I have rough ideas for them, but GM Cadaya and I want to go through and make sure that the city/town figures are accurate and fairly consistent.

Second, these numbers really don't affect too much in the game at this point, and probably won't, except for Traders. The reason being is that the "distance" between two places in game doesn't really affect travel time all that much, and the population of a city even less. The new commodity system will change that somewhat for Traders, and for the occaisional other player who may get caught in a food riot now and again.

Now for some numbers.

Zoluren: Total population of roughly 4,000,000 of which about 500,000 live in cities and towns.
Therengia: Total population of roughly 4,000,000 of which 500,000+ live in cities and towns.
Ilithi: Total population of roughly 6,000,000 of which 700,000+ live in cities and towns.
Qi: Total population of roughly 2,500,000 of which about 400,000 live in cities and towns.
Distances (as the crow flies, not the road distance)

Crossing to Arthe Dale - roughly 65 miles
Crossing to Riverhaven - roughly 250 miles
Crossing to Shard - roughly 401 miles
Crossing to Ratha - about 325 miles
Shard to Muspar'i - roughly 1000 miles
Now, for those that have made it this far and who may be wondering how exactly this will be used for the new commodity system, I'll use charcoal as an example. Historically, people in the middle ages used about 1 ton of charcoal per person per year. So for Zoluren, using the rough figures posted here, that means that Zoluren would consume 4 million tons of charcoal a year. (note: charcoal in the commodity system would also represent fire wood and coal. Even in 18th century Europe, charcoal was more widely used than coal.) With an Elanthian year of 400 days, this turns out to be an average of 20,000,000 lbs of charcoal consumed each game day, or roughly 6,000,000 units of charcoal from the commodity pits. Granted, not all of this would need to be delivered by Traders. Some would be generated locally and some would be moved by NPC traders.

Once more detailed numbers are finished and polished, I most likely will post some more. Though I wouldn't expect them before Simucon.

Take care,

Godrich de'Finchal

Hope that was interesting. --Basselope 23:09, 20 October 2007 (CDT)