The size of the Garlean Empire's military

The Garlean Empire is said to have quite the impressive military force. But just how big is it in term of manpower?

The Final Fantasy wiki gives some idea of it's size, but it's a wiki, and its valdity is in question. The wiki lists it this way:

14 Legions

1 Legion = 10 Cohors

1 Cohor = 3 Manipulae

1 Manipulae = 2 Centuries

If this is true, then the size of the army is dependent on how big a "century" actually is. In real-life Roman military terms, a century could consist of anywhere between 100-1000 soldiers. Assuming the usual definition, you get 100x2 = 200 as one manipulus. 200x3 = 600 as one cohor. 600x10 = 6000 as one legion.

Ultimately, this means that Garlemald's military force is 84000 total. that's...really, really small. In today's terms, that's at most 4-8 divisions. By real life comparison, the initial force that Germany attacked with in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII was about 13 divisions with 200,000 soldiers, and that was with a severely depleted military.

Given what I've seen, I find this hard to believe, even given the Empire's technology advantage. Watching some cinematic scenes (Like End of an Era) I suspect that the Garlean Empire's manpower is considerably greater, especially given the disposable nature the tribunes seem to think of the legionnaires.

It's not made clear just how large of a military the Garleans have.

This is important for me as I'm writing a fanfiction in which the Empire invades another country, and the smaller legion wouldn't have a hope in hell of winning that fight because of numbers.

I'm going to call the Final Fantasy Wiki wrong, until I see some sources. In principal, a Manipulus(?) should have 5 underlings beneath him.

Things are designed such that they explicitly conceal the true size of Garlemald's forces. Garlean tactics tend to centre on crack-squads rather than presenting a large standing army.
We also have the size of the planet to consider. By Earth standards, what we see in Aldenard would suggest it isn't much larger than the Brittish Isles. Small planet.

And on that planet, people can cast return. Now imagine how strong armies are and what tactics they can employ with this skill at their disposal. Having actual respawn points at your home base changes everything.

Well, considering the main FFXIV site specifically states that Garlemald's forces are actually not as extensive as they may at first appear to be, the FF Wiki estimate is probably accurate. After all, they can easily make up in lack of regular infantry with magitek weaponry - Juggernauts and Reapers alone could easily fill in for several normal troops alone, and that's not even including airship bombardment, something the Eorzean Alliance simply cannot match, so it's their use of magitek weaponry in battle that gives them their edge and not the size of their infantry units.

It's why Gaius had to flee with his tail between his legs during the Battle of Silvertear Skies - his forces were simply outmatched in power against the dragons and Midgardsormr, and the loss of their main flagship, the Agrius, only drove home that message - that the Empire's forces are nowhere near as extensive as they're made out to be.

As for Return and Teleport, considering those only work after first attuning yourself to an aethertye, it's not as useful in a military sense, as Imperial troops would have all had to have first attuned themselves to an aethertye in Eorzea before they could use it. Not to mention both Return and Teleport are actually classed as spells, and considering that Garleans are naturally lackluster at magic, I doubt somewhat they have anything similar in concept to aetherytes in Garlemald (may I be proven wrong though!) ;)

Don't forget that they have two continents worth of natural resources at their disposal for building airships, juggernauts, vanguards, colossi, etc. Think about how many magitek you see for every soldier. Hell, we only saw a few hundred individual soldiers in the storyline; Gaius' welcome wagon when he and the Tribuni showed up was like 50 people, tops. I'm not promising that SE stuck to the Roman convention I used when building the page I think you're talking about (though the division names, groupings, and officer titles are correct), but it sounds about right with everything we know so far.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

And on that planet, people can cast return.

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I'm not sure the Garleans can. I don't think they can cast much of anything. They're bollocks with magick.

In End of an Era, we see the Empire fielding an army of considerable size - far bigger than 6000. It could be as high as 100,000 or even 200,000, and that is just the 7th Legion.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

Things are designed such that they explicitly conceal the true size of Garlemald's forces. Garlean tactics tend to centre on crack-squads rather than presenting a large standing army.
We also have the size of the planet to consider. By Earth standards, what we see in Aldenard would suggest it isn't much larger than the British Isles. Small planet.

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Video games in general don't ever realistically display actual distances in the world they are creating. The only game that ever did that was Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, and it had a huge slew of issues associated with it.

I really don't like there being a small size for the Garlean Empire's military. It makes a story about a lengthy military campaign impossible to write well, because attrition by numbers would defeat them.

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Originally Posted by lord_naarghul

The Garlean Empire is said to have quite the impressive military force. But just how big is it in term of manpower?

The Final Fantasy wiki gives some idea of it's size, but it's a wiki, and its valdity is in question. The wiki lists it this way:

14 Legions

1 Legion = 10 Cohors

1 Cohor = 3 Manipulae

1 Manipulae = 2 Centuries

If this is true, then the size of the army is dependent on how big a "century" actually is. In real-life Roman military terms, a century could consist of anywhere between 100-1000 soldiers. Assuming the usual definition, you get 100x2 = 200 as one manipulus. 200x3 = 600 as one cohor. 600x10 = 6000 as one legion.

Ultimately, this means that Garlemald's military force is 84000 total. that's...really, really small. In today's terms, that's at most 4-8 divisions. By real life comparison, the initial force that Germany attacked with in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII was about 13 divisions with 200,000 soldiers, and that was with a severely depleted military.

Given what I've seen, I find this hard to believe, even given the Empire's technology advantage. Watching some cinematic scenes (Like End of an Era) I suspect that the Garlean Empire's manpower is considerably greater, especially given the disposable nature the tribunes seem to think of the legionnaires.

It's not made clear just how large of a military the Garleans have.

This is important for me as I'm writing a fanfiction in which the Empire invades another country, and the smaller legion wouldn't have a hope in hell of winning that fight because of numbers.

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I don't know of any period in the Roman army where a century was anything like 1000 soldiers. As far as I know, a century generally varied between 80 to 160 legionnaires.

84,000 is really, really small by modern standards. That's in modern times, when you have advanced agriculture and industry to support a large army, and the large population needed to recruit that large army, and a mechanized supply chain to get it all to them. When you go back to medieval times, it's pretty damn big. Garlemald has some pretty impressive technology, but how widespread is it? They've only been fielding this tech for a few decades. You have to have implemented it across society, from top to bottom, and had time for the population to grow in response to the increased agricultural output, to be able to field the kind of army sizes seen in modern times. You use the Roman army to figure its size since it uses Roman terms for its units. The Imperial Roman legions themselves never had much more than 100,000 troops, although there was at least that many again in the auxiliaries (which Garlemald may have as well).

Perhaps consider the largest number of soldiers a century could contain. That puts your number at 840,000. I think that's a reasonable amount to draw from two nations, even with a relatively small land mass.

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Originally Posted by Conradus

84,000 is really, really small by modern standards. That's in modern times, when you have advanced agriculture and industry to support a large army, and the large population needed to recruit that large army, and a mechanized supply chain to get it all to them. When you go back to medieval times, it's pretty damn big. Garlemald has some pretty impressive technology, but how widespread is it? They've only been fielding this tech for a few decades. You have to have implemented it across society, from top to bottom, and had time for the population to grow in response to the increased agricultural output, to be able to field the kind of army sizes seen in modern times.

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I give you another example of what has actually happened in history. Look at Japan. During the Meiji Restoration (late 1860s) technology in Japan was, as an estimate, equivalent to 1600s Europe. Firearms were only starting to proliferate, there were still scuffles in the Boshin War where fights were conducted with swords and armor. In 1873, after the dust had settled and the Meiji emperor firmly in charge, they began to modernize. By 1905, they had defeated both China in 1895 and Russia in 1905. By WWI, they were a world power. By the 1930s, they were approaching the status of military superpower.

So yes. Rapid modernization does happen.

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Originally Posted by lord_naarghul

I give you another example of what has actually happened in history. Look at Japan. During the Meiji Restoration (late 1860s) technology in Japan was, as an estimate, equivalent to 1600s Europe. Firearms were only starting to proliferate, there were still scuffles in the Boshin War where fights were conducted with swords and armor. In 1873, after the dust had settled and the Meiji emperor firmly in charge, they began to modernize. By 1905, they had defeated both China in 1895 and Russia in 1905. By WWI, they were a world power. By the 1930s, they were approaching the status of military superpower.

So yes. Rapid modernization does happen.

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You've chosen probably the most extreme example of rapid modernization in history, and it still took at least twice as long as Garlemald's been at it. In 1905, Japan only had a total armed force of about 300,000. Their victory over the Russians, while undeniably impressive, can be ascribed in part to the extreme remoteness of the theatre of war from Russia's main populated areas, and the general decay of Russian institutions--the complete overthrow of the monarchy was at this point less than fifteen years away.

Nevertheless, I'm not saying it's *impossible* that the Garleans have managed a huge modern-sized army--just that's it's not unreasonable that they haven't.

Japan is not the most extreme case of modernization. Not even by a long shot. You just need to look at the neighbour Korea for a counter-factual.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I'm not sure the Garleans can. I don't think they can cast much of anything. They're bollocks with magick.

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I expected better from you, Moose. While it is true that the pure-blooded Garlean elite are bollocks with magic, their average subjugated soldier from Othard or Ala Mhigo is not. Gaius knows what he's working with.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

I expected better from you, Moose. While it is true that the pure-blooded Garlean elite are bollocks with magic, their average subjugated soldier from Othard or Ala Mhigo is not. Gaius knows what he's working with.

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Well, that's where they get the signifers and medici; I was just arguing against the idea that Garlean military strategy, as standardized by the homeland, relies too heavily on tactics that homegrown Garleans cannot use. It implies that there are units made entirely of defectors from conquered enemy nations who are encouraged to use techniques that Garlemald can neither truly comprehend nor control. That doesn't sound like wise military leadership. That sounds like a good way to get your legati assassinated.

I am pretty sure the total population of the FFXIV world is not very large. Fantasy settings of such scale usually don't go beyond a few million individuals, if even that.

If the Garlean Empire's military is roughly ~100,000 bodies strong, then it's not unreasonable to assume the FFXIV world is one where ~100,000 bodies is a VERY SIGNIFICANT military body. If global population is in the millions, as it would tend to be for settings like this, then it's actually a very big deal, and understandably the largest military body of the world, hence the threat.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Well, that's where they get the signifers and medici; I was just arguing against the idea that Garlean military strategy, as standardized by the homeland, relies too heavily on tactics that homegrown Garleans cannot use. It implies that there are units made entirely of defectors from conquered enemy nations who are encouraged to use techniques that Garlemald can neither truly comprehend nor control. That doesn't sound like wise military leadership. That sounds like a good way to get your legati assassinated.

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Based on that logic, using Signifers and Medici would also be off-limits.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

Based on that logic, using Signifers and Medici would also be off-limits.

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How so? Medici just heal things - and nobody's gonna treacherously heal someone to death while no one's looking. And, sure, the Signifer could throw a flame across the room in a way no Garlean can ... but Garleans have guns. I don't think any of that is quite on par in terms of new and uncontrollable threats with being able to collapse onesself into aether and travel vast distances instantly. Hell, I bet a turncoat Signifer would eliminate casting time entirely and just blow him away with one of the guns before hitting the Return button and getting a 50 malm head start.

Again, all I'm saying is that the size of the Garlean army is probably not tied [in either direction] to the Return ability. Probably. We can debate the little things all day, though, just because it's fun.