Settlement Population - Professional Troop Class
Due to the expense of maintaining a standing army of professional troops most settlements generally only have about five percent of its population serving as fulltime troops in general service. When large wars start this number often dramatically increases, but the financial strain can cause serious damage to a settlements economy and general day-to-day operations.
The types of professional troops are the same as the types of professions available to adventuring parties. Some of these fulltime troops work for the different Organisations in a settlement, either directly or they work for the settlement Officials and are then loaned to another Organisation as part of an agreement.
There could be a few non-settlement Organisations in a few settlements that maintain a sizeable number of fulltime troops; this can be seen as a good indication of an Organisations political power in the settlement.
Due to their combat capability these fulltime troops are generally given a lot of respect by other citizens. The reasons for the respect can vary greatly. For example if the troops are generally known to harshly enforce the law or the lack of law then the respect is more fear based.
Another example is in a settlement with a generally pleasant society, the troops there could be respected due to their fairness. Generally a settlement has a mix of fair and harsh troops, but the mix usually depends on the settlements religious outlook.
A lack of soldiers can result in policing problems. With few professional soldiers available in a settlement, there will be few people to patrol the settlement and deter crime, or quickly sort out any crimes that are committed. A common question the various Organisation Officials face is whether the gold saved by employing fewer soldiers is worthwhile in the long-term, some Officials gamble that they can and that nothing bad will happen.
Possible problems caused by having too many soldiers are that they are likely to get bored if nothing major is happening (like a big war, for instance). Being in greater number can result in more disturbances around the settlement, as soldiers that are not very busy can be left to wander about and boredom could set in, or even if there is a lot of work to do the soldiers could end up getting very stressed.
In short Officials have to balance the risk of whether to have lots of well trained and equipped people in the settlement and that they will not abuse their position. Since soldiers are costly to maintain, the financial strain on the settlement is normally the primary reason why lots of troops are not employed at one time.
On average, of all the professional soldiers, 50% are Warriors, 15% are Archers, 10% are Footmen, 5% are Knights, 5% are Clerics, 4.5% are Scouts, 2.5% are Gladiators, 2.5% are Paladins, 2% are Battlemages, 1.5% are Berserkers, 1% are Rogues, and 1% are Wizards. The more specialised professions are more expensive to employ for a variety of reasons, the primary one being the fact that they tend to charge more gold for being specialised.
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