We all want to change the world
We all want to change the world posted in Homemade Settings, World Building & Galaxy Construction forum comment posted by uncle_jimbo | Author (uncle_jimbo @ Apr 9 2025, 11:51) |
| I'll need to work out at least combat strength of standing armies and opposing groups, which might derive from numbers, distribution of weapons and qualities of organisation. At first glance, it's a large question. |
Not a new one though. I think I've seen a number floating around that a change of government starts to have a chance when 3% of the population actively resist the current regime, which would possibly bear a relationship to the proportion of population who can be sustained as a standing army and (probably not by coincidence) to standards for military spending against a national budget - suggesting that dissidents have to outnumber the security forces to some degree to counter their other disadvantages.
Allowing a fair bit of adjustment to circumstances, I might expect committed revolutionaries to be d6% of the nominal population by CL, which is just a power of 10, so d6 times 1/100 of that. They have to cover all the zones (above) that the revolution tries to control, recalling there are a number of zones equal or greater than CL, so at CL 1 or only one zone in contention, all revolutionaries might be present, but otherwise there might be d4% in one or a few zones and d6 x 0.1% (a power of 10 less) in other zones.
From some earlier uses of abstract combat for armed persons, I might carry forward combat strength = 1.0 times numbers for full military equipment including body armour and some heavy weapons, combat strength = 0.75 times numbers if most at least have smallarms, or reduce it to 0.5 times numbers if only a few have firearms. They get to these states by availability of weapons in their daily lives, outside interference or extensive looting of defeated government forces. The latter two influences can also supply them with fighting vehicles, counted separately for combat strength.
I can try applying this to a couple of examples.
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