Guild Wars 2

so Spoilers here

how many people actually died in Dragon fights

but how many people actually died in Zhitan and Mordremoth assault’s and how many Pact forces are left I know there still recruiting but eventually they should run low on troops with so many being killed off all the time which leaves into question how the kitten are they going to fight the other dragons with such few resources unless the mary sue heroes kill all the enemies by themselves which seems crappy

I mean unless in Tyria you can pop out a kid and they turn into an adult in less than 4 days the story seems kind of shallow in that area

Other than those we personally see? We only know this amount for Mordremoth.

Population has always been a big “never talk about” thing when it comes to Anet and GW2. We don’t know how many asura, norn, charr, humans, or sylvari there are. We don’t know the size of the Orders, or military forces. Nor the size of the Pact.

Nor casualty numbers in wars.

The army that fought Mordremoth is implied to not be large but to be very specialized; right at the Verdant Brink map your task is to help the many factions of the Pact regain their strength, not by numbers but by tactical advantages (setting up defense camps and what not).

The Pact did take a very large hit from fighting two dragons. To the point that at Dragon’s Stand we have basically the best soldiers only assaulting the jungle, and of course with the help from both Exalted and the frog tribes, groups that are presumably knowledgeable enough about Maguuma that they can yield the environment against Mordremoth itself, even though he has become part of that environment.

So I think it’s safe to assume the Pact numbers are at an all time low by the time we get to the second dragon (they have many soldiers stationed at the Silverwastes and at Orr who can’t be counted on too), but the ones who did reach the dragon are pretty much elite mercenaries who can more or less compensate for being outnumbered. The event itself even helps conveying this idea: each floating island during the last fight on Dragon’s Stand has a single “captain” elite NPC of sorts and no more than around ~150 people (3 full squads) are able to take down the dragon’s body, which is by no means a massive army if you take into account Mordremoth’s area of influence and number of mordrem he popped out.

I really wish I could find the dev quote on this, but I clearly recall an ANet statement at the time of the attack on LA that the city had a population of 45K and only 5K survived the Toxic Alliance and miasma attacks. Or maybe it was 35 K and 5K? Numbers don’t stick well in my head but the magnitude did. That statement became canon basis for a lot of RP on my part with my guild, as we used it to define the scope of the disaster. (Which is why I remember it now, it was personally relevant to my characters).

It was a solid reminder that the in-game size of things is representative only and the actual world really is much larger.

Personally, I recoiled a bit at those numbers: even with a surprise attack and the miasma, taking casualties that total on a civilian population that benefited from active evacuation procedures seems unrealistic. Historically, some of the most horrific tragedies had casualties well under the 50% mark, unless it was a deliberate policy of extermination undertaken over several years.

There’s also the fact that the new Lion’s Arch certainly does not look like the population is that much lower. More open spaces, yes, but away from those the land is used more efficiently. Unless there’s been a massive population influx from elsewhere for some reason…

Still, we could probably use the 35k figure for old Lion’s Arch as a benchmark for estimating other settlements. Divinity’s Reach, for instance, has about twice the land area and is more dense – 100k could well be a reasonable estimate.

Budman.2934:

so Spoilers here

how many people actually died in Dragon fights

but how many people actually died in Zhitan and Mordremoth assault’s and how many Pact forces are left I know there still recruiting but eventually they should run low on troops with so many being killed off all the time which leaves into question how the kitten are they going to fight the other dragons with such few resources unless the mary sue heroes kill all the enemies by themselves which seems crappy

I mean unless in Tyria you can pop out a kid and they turn into an adult in less than 4 days the story seems kind of shallow in that area

Since modern Kryta is based on Renessciance-era Europe, I took the population of London and Paris and averaged them to get 300,000 people living inside Divinity’s Reach alone. This does not include the estimated 80,000 living out in the countryside in Kryta. Now, to move onto Charr who would have 150,000 living inside the Citadel with the number fluctuating as Legions assemble. The Charr are a Warrior Society with more Charr outside their Citadel than within. I would guess (these are unconfirmed) that they would have 450,000-strong outside including Legionnaires prior to Zhaitan. (All of these would be before Living Story Season One). Then the Asura have 120,000 living within Rata Sum and around 10,000 outside in the Jungle. The Sylvari would have close to 90,000 total within Caledon and the Grove. The Norn are a proud race, but their numbers are not nearly as high as they once were prior to Dragons. The Norn would most likely have around 20,000 in Hoelbrak and 40,000 in the wilds since they are mostly a hunter-gatherer society.

That leaves our race populations:
Humans: 380,000
Charr: 600,000
Asura: 130,000
Sylvari: 90,000
Norn: 60,000

We can assume that prior to the Invasion of Orr that 1/40 humans were in one of the Three Orders. We can also assume 1/40 Asura were in one of the Three Orders. And also assume that 1/40 Charr were in one of the Orders. And also assume 1/40 Sylvari were in one of the Three Orders. And then assume 1/40 Norn were in One of the Three Orders.
That means:
Humans: 9,500 (In Three Orders Total)!
Asura: 3,250 (In Three Orders Total)!
Charr: 15,000 (In Three Orders Total)!
Sylvari: 2,250 (In Three Orders Total)!
Norn: 1,500 (In Three Orders Total)!
Total: 31,500+5330 Members from Lion’s Arch
I won’t get into how much for each Order, but this is prior to Zhaitan.
I would assume Zhaitan and his minions killed about 1/5 Pact Members. That leaves us with about 29,460 Pact Members. After slaying Zhaitan. I would say Pact encouragement went up tremendously after destroying Zhaitan. I would say roughly the Pact strength went from 29,460 members x1.5= Around 44,200 total Pact Members. I would also say Scarlet and her shenanigans killed roughly 1/8th of the Pact.
This means the Pact Prior to Silverwastes or Dry Top is 38,675. Then 1/15 Pact Members were killed from the whole Dry Top/Silverwastes scenario. Which means we have roughly 36,100 Pact Members left. Then there had to be an influx of recruits after realizing Mordremoth had a presence nearby central Tyria. So I would say 36,100*1.15= Roughly 41,520 Pact Members prior to HoT. The Pact had to leave some men and women behind to keep their three headquarters safe. I would say they left behind around 15,000 to safeguard their forts, bases, spy networks, excavations, and recruitment. That leaves 26,520 to bring the fight to Mordremoth. And we see around 1/3 of the Pact Forces crash and die along with 40% of the Sylvari who were turned into minions. With 1/7 of the current Pact being Sylvari (made up numbers) and 1/3 of the Pact dying. That leaves a scattered 13,890 remaining Pact Members! Throughout the time of HoT, I’d say we lost 1/4 of the 13,890 Pact Members. 10,420 Pact Members remain from the Campaign against Mordremoth.

Total Pact Members in Maguuma: 10,420
Total Pact Members in Tyria: 25,420

Talk about casualties.

Where are you pulling your numbers from?

“About 1/40 of X race is in an order”

“Zhaitan killed about 1/5 pact members”

“We got another 50% of membership after killing a dragon”

“Scarlett killed about 1/8”

“Dry top and SW killed 1/15”

“We left 15,000 behind because why not”

“Only 1/3 were killed in the crash”

“Mordy killed 1/4 of what was left”

Those are completely random!

You didn’t mention how you got most of those numbers, but some things to think about:

Using Renaissance figures directly is a risky proposition- too much is different in the Tyrian setting- but either way, before modern agriculture techniques it was an insurmountable fact that a lot more people had to live in the farms than the cities, or the cities quickly starved. The first number I found just now in google says the Renaissance ratio was about 3:1, which would put your human population total at 1.2 million.

Similarly, your figures for the Orders are way high. To put it in perspective, in the US- a relatively militaristic state- our active military personnel, the portion of our population that most closely models the Vigil, make up .4% of the population. In any of the races, that .4 would be split between the local forces actually fighting closer to home and the Vigil, and the Vigil would certainly come up shorter. The charr, even with their increased military, have increased loyalty and increased stigma to keep their contribution at least comparatively small. The Order of Whispers would get much less, probably less than half as much as the Vigil. The Priory would probably have a lot more… but all the same, I can’t picture the total population of the Orders making even 1% of the Tyrian population.

Then add in that the Orders only sent part of their numbers to the Pact, and the Pact brought in a large number of non-Order troops before Mordremoth, and that we don’t even have a general idea of how many of the sylvari turned to Mordremoth… it’s hard to be confident in any solid numbers like that.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Other than those we personally see? We only know this amount for Mordremoth.

Population has always been a big “never talk about” thing when it comes to Anet and GW2. We don’t know how many asura, norn, charr, humans, or sylvari there are. We don’t know the size of the Orders, or military forces. Nor the size of the Pact.

Nor casualty numbers in wars.

I think t’s funny that there are more skritt on that list than Charr. Either no one cares enough about the Charr to put there names on the list or they are simply kittenes who don’t die. I fully intend to believe the later. I doubt it is an indication of population.

ZombieLeach.5862:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Other than those we personally see? We only know this amount for Mordremoth.

Population has always been a big “never talk about” thing when it comes to Anet and GW2. We don’t know how many asura, norn, charr, humans, or sylvari there are. We don’t know the size of the Orders, or military forces. Nor the size of the Pact.

Nor casualty numbers in wars.

I think t’s funny that there are more skritt on that list than Charr. Either no one cares enough about the Charr to put there names on the list or they are simply kittenes who don’t die. I fully intend to believe the later. I doubt it is an indication of population.

And let’s not forget that bees are the most dangerous creatures in the jungle. Bees, and gravity.

My biggest problem is mostly:
We see a great loss, but we don’t know how big it really is.

When they showed the pact fleet destroyed, I was unimpressed.
Like, these were really all?
Don’t they have a base of operation where they build these ships?
Were they really so stupid going for an all out attack?
How many of the force is hold back to guard the other frontlines?
How many “new troops” were gathered via the World Continental Summit?
Did they expand?
What is the size and infrasructure of the pact?

I mean, the orders themselves are hardly touched upon and we certainly need a bit of an update on their dealing throughout the world (hardly as in: “we see them do their obvious stuff, but not much comming out of it as it is all location based and doesn’t really go towards a goal.”)

@Zhohan: Personally, I’d put human and charr population figures at roughly equal. You missed Ebonhawke, which is a small city in its own right, and while charr currently have more land overall than humans, biologically speaking they probably also need more.

@Aaron: I’m not sure that the charr society will be keeping their contribution small. The High Legions were formally in support of the Pact in Orr (in exchange for the Pact helping take down Baelfire), and generally speaking the Imperators – Iron and Ash at least – seem to be among the Tyrian leaders that take the threat of the dragons most seriously. I suspect that as long as a charr soldier can be spared from more local assignments, the legions look favourably on requests to do a tour of detached duty with the Pact.

draxynnic.3719:

@Aaron: I’m not sure that the charr society will be keeping their contribution small. The High Legions were formally in support of the Pact in Orr (in exchange for the Pact helping take down Baelfire), and generally speaking the Imperators – Iron and Ash at least – seem to be among the Tyrian leaders that take the threat of the dragons most seriously. I suspect that as long as a charr soldier can be spared from more local assignments, the legions look favourably on requests to do a tour of detached duty with the Pact.

I’m not sure those requests would be much more common than they are among humans, though. Of all the races, charr are both the most patriotic and the facing the broadest array of challenges at home, and unlike the other races (save sylvari) they don’t have to look far afield to find someone taking the dragons seriously. IIRC we’ve already seen several in-game who opted to take the fight to the dragons by joining the Sentinels instead of the Vigil. Add to that that a significant minority of the charr voice a conviction that their race can take the dragons on their own. Now, none of those zones have been updated since the Pact was founded, but I don’t know that any of the happenings since would’ve shaken up that state of affairs.

Charr may be facing the broadest array of problems at home, but I think Kryta’s problems are on the whole worse than the Iron Legion’s, or at least were at the start of GW2 (and seem likely to become so again with the White Mantle being set up as the likely main antagonists for the next Living Story season).

Their total contribution is still going to be limited by their ability to allow their soldiers to leave and go elsewhere, of course. However, I was largely responding to the notion that the military society and the possibility of facing stigma for desertion would keep their contributions down. While that might otherwise be the case, I think ArenaNet has offset the fact that charr are more bound to a chain of command then other races are through having the charr leaders being among the stronger advocates of working together against the dragons.

Broadly speaking, with the exception of the Pale Tree, there’s a relationship between how much freedom a member of one of the main races has to leave, and how much their leaders support the Pact:

The asura are probably in the safest place among the major races, and thus there’s little to hold them back from joining the Pact. On the other hand, the majority of asura downplay the threat of the dragons – the third asura personal story arc, in fact, makes it clear that the Arcane Council has been actively downplaying the threat from the dragons. So asura don’t have anything to hold them back, but most of them don’t care.

The individualistic norn have no social constraints from leaving on paper, but their homes are under direct threat from icebrood, dredge, and other dangers. Those with vulnerable family or friends in their home territory will likely want to stay there to protect them, and what passes for the norn leadership seems to share the attitude that protecting themselves at home is more important than contributing to a dragon-fighting organisation.

Humans (and sylvari) have leaders that support a unified effort against the dragons, but face a significant local threat. Military forces are required to protect Kryta against its own dangers, although some of those units have been contributed to the Pact from time to time, openly or through soldiers leaving the Seraph to join an order. Humans (and sylvari) also both have combat-capable adventurers and mercenaries that are not part of organised military forces and thus are more free to join the Pact on paper – however, these independent individuals and groups might still prefer to remain in their homelands to defend their homes and families.

Charr are in a similar situation to humans, but all things considered they’re probably better off. The Foefire ghosts were probably weakened by Adelbern’s defeat and again by Rytlock’s ritual, and the Flame Legion by CoF and the defeat of the Molten Alliance. However, while humans have independent combat-capable individuals who can go off and fight elsewhere as they please, all charr theoretically report to the military chain of command. However, the military chain of command has been presented as being highly favourable to the Pact, both as a whole and in wanting to have good relationships with the individual orders.

As a result, I think it’s likely that the charr contribution on the whole is similar to the other races. That extra step of needing permission from the chain of command is offset by the commanders being friendly towards the request and therefore likely to give it unless there’s a pressing reason not to. As a result, although on paper charr aren’t as free to just up and leave as even a Seraph officer could if they resigned their commission, in practise they probably have the same opportunity to join the Pact as other races do.

draxynnic.3719:

As a result, I think it’s likely that the charr contribution on the whole is similar to the other races.

That’s what I was angling towards, too. My initial point wasn’t that their contribution was small in comparison, just that it shouldn’t be blown up to be large in comparison. We don’t have nearly enough data to make an exact judgement, but there are enough exacerbating and ameliorating factors on both races that I think the numbers for human and charr (and probably sylvari too) are at least in spitting distance of one another.