[Beren IV]

One of the suspension of problems resultant from such variably-lived races is the question of how the slower-breeding races are not simply overrun by the faster ones. For example, in the present-day world, the population doubling time for humans is about once every 30 years or so. According to Laws and Customs Among the Eldar (LACE; HoME X: Morgoth's Ring) it would take the Elves as much as 150 years for the same, assuming three children per female. Doing the math, given resources, the Elves will double their population in 150 years, but Men will increase by a factor of 32. There will be 16 times as many of them as the Elves! And it gets worse: after another 150 years, the difference will multiply again: Men will outnumber Elves 256 times. This is a huge disadvantage! In order, then, for the Elves to not have been driven extinct by Humans as early as the First Age (as Humans have done to countless other animals), the Elves must have some advantage by which they counteract this trend. Of course, high Human infant mortality makes the difference not quite so large, but still big enough. (The Edain of course have relatively little infant mortality if we take the Sil literally, but then their childbearing habits are more Elf-like than Human-like).

As a result, the slower-reproducing races need some advantages in order to survive at all, even for the thousands of years over which Arda's history takes place. In some cases, these advantages are obvious: Dragons, for instance, have all kinds of magical powers, the ability to fly, and plain and simple size and strength to give them their edge. Of the more common races, however, like Elves and Dwarves, the advantages are less obvious. Many fantasy authors, and within the context of Tolkien's writing this is a perfectly reasonable answer, given the Elves and Dwarves superior magic and or technology that allows them to survive even when reproducing so slowly. Another possible answer is that these races have divine favor that ensures their survival.

How is TLA handling this?

[Caedus]

How about not taking things too realistic?

On the other hand: it's known that people reproduce more quickly in less wealthy areas, so maybe the same can be said for the humans that came in contact with Elves. I don't really see a problem here, as the game is only a representation of Arda: it doesn't have to render every single individual.

This post has been edited by Caedus: 05 August 2005 - 09:18 PM

[Mithrandil]

Forgetting one small thing, Beren. Elves do not die. Humans die of disease over the years, or of just being to old. This makes that they compensate the huge differences in size of numbers.

[Beren IV]

Elves effectively die from a population dynamics standpoing, as after a period of time they stop reproducing. Still, if you do the math, the number of Humans would vastly outnumber the Elves in a few generations, even with Elven immortality factored in.

Also, Elves really do die, not from age or illness, but from arrows, blades, etc.

[ProgramZeta]

I'd wager something to the effect that Humans are a tad more fragile than Elves. To cite a parallel in real life, how come panda bears aren't overrun by rabbits? Rabbits tend to die a lot, whereas panda bears are more protective of their youth. I imagine there could be a slight hp difference in favour of the Elves as well as a slightly longer training time for Elven units to reflect this?

[ElfTheHunter]

Well, to answer you I do not think it is out place to say Tolkien got it wrong (the simple fact is men did not take over until the 2nd/3rd age. But I have no question that elves were diminishing in numbers as men were increasing, this is apparant in the books. Look at Lord of the Rings, true there is a lot of elves, but the world was dominated by men. And I have no doubt eventually elves ceased to live in ME altogether sometime in the 4th age.

However, the elves would not really stop reproducing (or I don't understand what you meant) because think of the following

Finwe
Fingolfin (brother of Finarfin)
Turgon
Idril
Earendil
Elrond
Arwen

Remember, Galadriel (daughter of Finarfin) is still around in Elrond's time, which actually happens to be near the end of the reign of elves. Now, assume Arwen married another elf (and assume Sauron was not around threatening the existance of Middle Earth) they would have a child, but all along Elrond and Arwen would remain there. Just like Galadriel is still around, they will remain around while the elven race continues to have new children being born.

Yes, arrows and blades kill elves, but you have to remember that elves continue to be born. Elves being born only have to replace elves who die to battle or accidents, while humans being born need to replace men who died it battle, disease, old age or accidents.

And understand that the family line above is of a house which was deep in the war against Morgoth and Sauron, as such many of the elves died. But think of Nandor, Laiquendi, Sindar and other elves who were not that deeply involved with the war, all the parents are still there... look at your family tree, now imagine if the last 7 generations were all (minus 3 or 4) still alive today. That to me is more how elven reproduction works.

[Caedus]

Ah, but also don't forget that the older Elves tend to saild to the West.

[Beren IV]

I think that we are in principle in agreement: Elves do continue reproducing, just not at the rate that Humans do, and so eventually Humans become more numerous and Elves less. The believability problem that I have is that the Humans should have completely overrun the Elves and driven them to extinction within a thousand years of first contact, and even after three Ages of which at least the latter two are 3000 years +, the Elves still aren't extinct yet. There needs to be an explanation for this.

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Yeah, that does seem a bit odd. But as has been said, Elves don't die. That just means that they keep on living. And reproducing, most likely. After all, Maeglin's mother (whose name escapes me at the moment) was still able to have children after she came to Middle Earth, and she was probably alive for several hundred years at least in Valinor before that. Plus, for every battle that's there, you have Men and Elves killing Men and Orcs. That means that Men will take the lion's share of the casualties, not to mention the fact that they're more frail.

[Gamling the Old]

That makes some sense. However another thing to consider is that men took terrible casualties when the plague came out of Angband in the first age, while elves were unaffected. However, I don't see the age difference being a problem from the game design angle.

[Yiuel]

What should be understood is that it seems that Elves never diminish naturally. They must be either killed or brought out of the world. Let's think that Elves would reproduce at a slow rate, if they always replaced each unnatural death, they automatically never diminish.

I would also say that we only read about the higher class people. Those who are close to Kings. They probably had less children (yet, we have Feanor's seven children, a large family, yet doomed to disappear). But what about the lower class elves? Most are given a few brothers (remember Haldir in Lorien), and perhaps sisters. I think Elves were rather used to have large families, only did they not grew in number.

The Elves' advantage was then to never diminish in number, and when the first age ended, most Men were really diminish. It would then take 3 thousand years for Men to recover (the Third age is already that of Men), a plausible scenario. When Elves are big, its not easy to dwarf them...

[Deacon_Raptor]

The only easy answer I can think of right off the top of my head would be to make, for instance, the Elves super units, but very limited in numbers you could build, whereas say the Orcs would be extremely numerous, but very weak individually. The problem even with that then however is that the Orcs would be able to be everywhere on a map, covering all resources, raiding cheaply and effectively with large numbers of Orcs, and so on. In that scenario a good use of Orcs would win every time.

Now, not much is known about the game atm, how it is going to work at all. However, assuming a Age of X style of gameplay, with Ages to be advanced through, and so on, possibly a solution would be to limit the number of Orcs per Age. So in Age 1 you can have 10, in Age 2 you get +10 Orc population cap, etc.

With regards to the books this would be a plausible solution as well, because the various tribes of Orcs were constantly fighting with each other....only rarely as in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, the Battle of Five Armies, etc, did the Orcish clans ever retain some semblance of unity.

As to the case of the books, the Orcs were never able to overrun the Elves in part because they feared the power of, for instance, Elrond (case in pt. his power over the Ford, which was strong enough to disable the Nazgul temporarily). Also the Elves were like superheroes compared to Orcs. 1 Elf could easily defeat 3 Orcs. Plus the Orcs had to worry about the allies of the Elves coming to their aid....at least in the earlier days before Men and Elves dirfted apart. And of course, as I already mentioned, because they were at best an unstable union, and any 1 tribe or clan would have been EASILY wiped out.

[Beren IV]

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It would then take 3 thousand years for Men to recover (the Third age is already that of Men), a plausible scenario.

Yes, that's what's unbelievable. Humans have a population doubling time of less than 50 years. That means that, in 500 years, the population of humans will increase a thousand times. In a thousand years, the population of Humans will increase a million times. Now, of course, you can't increase exponentially forever - Malthus did have a point - but since Elves and Humans are in competition for resources, the Humans should easily outnumber the Elves. Even if one Elf can defeat several Humans, the Elves will still lose when Humans outnumber them a hundred against one, unless the Elves have some help. Without some sort of fantastical power on the side of the Elves, the Elves should not have made it to the end of the First Age, let alone the Third.

[Titus Ultor]

Infant mortality rates (until very recently) were astronomically high, with as many as three-quarters of infants never reaching the age of 10.

Also, it is important to remember that Tolkein's world is very large for the amount of populace it has at any one time (the vast wildernesses that had to be crossed in The Hobbit come to mind). Elves and humans tend to inhabit completely different areas (Rivendell vs. Gondor), which would tend to keep them from competing for resources.

I think the most misleading part of this argument is refering to men as "men", as if they were a) all male, b ) all able to fight, c) and not fighting each other. Humankind is constantly in conflict, and often does not allow roughly half of their population (women) to fight. Also, humans only are able to fight effectively for about thirty years of their lives (18-50). Elves, on the other hands, are capable fighters for their entire existence. They are bound to have more experience, skills, and morale than their human counterparts as a result.

[Beren IV]

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Humankind is constantly in conflict, and often does not allow roughly half of their population (women) to fight.

Yes, humans are always in conflict, but your second statement - that women aren't allowed to fight - is not. If a village was attacked, the women fought back - they would die anyway, so what is the use in not fighting? This is well-documented.

I have noted with some perplexity the fact that Arda seems to be so underpopulated - you bring up an excellent point. However, we still are faced with the same underlying problem: there has to be a reason why Men, in particular, populate so slowly. It didn't happen this way on Earth. Why?

[Deacon_Raptor]

Orc raids perhaps? As I noted Orcs are very weak, however, humans are weaker in very small numbers. In the expansion west of American history, people were often spread miles and miles apart, living in small individual houses, or small towns of 200 people at the most. Such a spreading would be ideal for Orcs and the other various aggressors.

[Beren IV]

But the Men that we encounter live in towns, not in farmsteads, and they band together to form military forces. Also, Orcs don't necessarily exterminate Men either - Orcs can be brutal, but Melkor's and Sauron's practices against Men are hardly genocide (unlike for the Elves), as many Men serve both Dark Lords. Is it Orc-Human conflict, then? Why don't the Orcs do the same to the Elves? They also move around in small groups, wander, etc.

[Deacon_Raptor]

Bescause the Orcs feared the Elves. Case in point, Glamdring, Sting, etc. The Elves made weapons which were specifically designed to kill Orcs. They had very good weapons and armor, and even just a few could kill a whole raiding party of Orcs, because of the sequence whereby magic weapons alerted of Orc presence, Elves hid, killed from long range with archery.

[Beren IV]

myself said:

Many fantasy authors, and within the context of Tolkien's writing this is a perfectly reasonable answer, given the Elves and Dwarves superior magic and or technology that allows them to survive even when reproducing so slowly. Another possible answer is that these races have divine favor that ensures their survival.

So, in other words, you make the case that the reason for the Elves' ability to survive is due to superior magic or magic-like powers.

Then, to repeat my first question:

me said:

How is TLA handling this?

[Aztec_Brave]

The most important thing to remember here is that Tolkien was not a demographer. Artistic considerations generally prevailed over 100% realism and I'm afraid we just have to live with that. We can of course apply terrestrial demographics to Middle-Earth (would that be Centro-terrestrial demographics then?), but it's pretty tricky ground to work on, and, as with practically everything when studying Arda, you have to make assumptions that aren't explicitly confirmd anywhere.

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there has to be a reason why Men, in particular, populate so slowly. It didn't happen this way on Earth. Why?

Actually Europe was not very densely populated in the middle ages, it's only today that we've managed to reach collosal population densities, due to technological improvements and better living conditions. In undeveloped rural societies (such as Europe before the industrial revolution) both birth rates and death rates were sky high (the first phase of the demographic transition model when both rates are extremelly high and roughly equal. In stage 2 births drop, in 3 deaths and in 4 it balances out) which actually leads to fairly little growth in population. This is the sort of thing we could expect for most men, at least those not in contact with elves, like the Rohirrim, the Lake Men, Bree, the Druedain etc. For men in contact with elves like Gondor or the Edain we would probably expect the death rate to be lowe and population growth a lot faster (although the Edain would be severely depleted by war). We don't really have too much mention of infant deaths and deaths in childbirth, but we rarely here about commoners who are the most likely to be afflicted by this, rather than royals and leaders and the like who would probably get the best access to medical treatment (it would also probably detract from the tone of the book if a high infant mortality was mentioned often), but we can probably assume that this would not be too different from Earth.

And then there's the other thing I'm surprised nobody has mentioned: Men have outnumbered the other races! Look at the facts, by the third age:
- Mannish populations dominate in Gondor, Eriador, Rhovannion, Calenardhon, Dorwinion, Harad, Khand, Forochel, in short everywhere!
- Elves seem to be restricted to Rivendell (a tiny enclave), Mirkwood (not much bigger), Lorien (also not huge) and some Avari settlements in the east and north that we can't judge the size of (they're mentioned in the Hobbit somewhere.
- Orcs seem pretty limited to a few places (the Misty Mountains, Mordor) and seem to be pretty much killing eachother off or being killed off by others so their numbers never grow to large.
- We don't hear much about Dwarven settlements, but I think the only one we know of at that time is Erebor. We can of course assume that there may be similar settlement in the east (there are some 4 or 5 houses of the Dwarves that aren't accounted for), but even so, there population looks to be tiny compared to men (their low birth rate is actually mentioned in the appendices, so they don't seem to be a threat to men).
- Hobbits are limited to the tiny Shire.
-The Druedain are a tiny nomadic forest race.

OK, I'll carry on later...