Grasslands military strength

[Lunarblade]

Nutflush is right, there's quite a bit of internal strife within Harmonia at the end of Suikoden III, (I'm also sure that it was made even worse after a massive betrayal like Luc's) and that causes some MAJOR issues.

Let's assume that Harmonia has 1,000,000 soldiers. First, take out all the ones that are guarding the cities and trying to keep the peace. Next, take out all the ones that are pacifing all their outlying areas (such as Sanadia), and keeping control of the 3rd class citizens. Then take into account that the forces themselves might be under the influence of certain factions and are more inclined to fight each other than outsiders. Nevermind that from all descriptions Harmonia is ENORMOUS, so there's even more troops required to protect the countryside.

That doesn't leave a ton for invasions.
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[Beethoven4567]

That makes Harmonia seem like the Roman Empire during their declining days-too much political turmoil and internal strife that makes the Romans unable to expand their empire beyond Persia. The Harmonian military itself is large, but they are stretched out too thin across vast territories that they were unable to concentrate their forces in one area and overwhelm the enemy.
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"In war there is no substitute for victory"

[John Layfield]

It may seem like that on the southern front (seeing as they went from the Grasslands to Toran at one point). But for what little we know of the happenings elsewhere in Harmonia, they seem to be having a fine old time taking over nations and expanding their territory and such. It just seems that the southern nations are problematic as of late. That and events have really contrived to mess up their plans. I mean, ordinarly, Harmonia should've taken the Grasslands and Higheast but their luck was really against them in a big, BIG way.

If only Hikusaak would return and show them who's boss, eh?
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Kobold]

Harmonia usually only deploy very little batallions to war, although each batallion is huge enough. In fact, they seldom deploy their regular army even as Geddoe and co. mentioned sort of in S3.

And like Lunarblade said, this 1 000 000 soldiers consists of not just the normal deploying soldiers. It involves all the temple guards, Howling voice people, frontier defence force and everything, and most of these have their own things to do all over Harmonia such as guarding, pacifying, involving in skirmishes, and etc. Temple guards are not usually sent into battle, and neither are the Howling voice guild. They mainly only use their regular army and the mercs.

And with their large mass, i believe only half is really deployable, and even out of these half, they wouldn't be deploying all of them. Like Shu mentioned while Solon Jhee was about to attack, even when the enemy has many troops, many will be left behind in different places. With Harmonia's land space, let's say every town has about 500 troops stationed, and every city 1000. We don't know how many cities and towns Harmonia has, added up together, Harmonia really don't have many spare troops to deploy.

They probably only send those halberd wielding dudes to battle...

And if one argues if a nation like Grassland practically sends all their troops to battle everytime, why can't Harmonia?

Simply because Harmonia has an image to keep. They have to maintain order, and everything. A large nation often has more responsibilities than a smaller one. They do more than fighting.
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Kobolds are great!

[Beethoven4567]

I agree with Kobold. An army can also be used effectively to keep order and peace in towns and villages. Besides, given the immensely large territory that Harmonia governs, we could assume that rebellions and dissent is common throughout Harmonia. The Harmonian army is preoccupied with crushing this rebellions and insurgencies, so this should be one of the main reasons why Harmonia didn't deploy large forces during their intervention in the Dunan Unification Wars, the Higheast Rebellion, and the invasion of Grassland in Suiko 3.

Plus, we could also assume that barbarians from the Outlands frequently raided Harmonian territory, forcing the Harmonian army to be deployed in frontier fortresses to guard against barbarian raids.

So,due to these reasons, the Harmonian army can not deploy more than 10,000 troops during an invasion of a country the size of Dunan. It is one thing to win battles, but surely out of the 10,000 troops, half of that must be deployed to occupy a maximum number of 3 towns. Since Dunan is a large nation, Harmonia wouldn't invade it unless there is a war between Dunan and Toran or Dunan-Tinto.
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"In war there is no substitute for victory"

[Camus the Noble]

From what I gathered from playing the Suikoden games, Harmonia has the military strength to conquer the world, with the possible exception of Falena. Mere world domination, however, is not Hikusaak's goal; he seeks to control all of reality itself. He plans ot do this by bringing all all twenty-seven true runes under the control of either him or his slave-clones. Thus, he can't start a world war that might bring out True Runes against him (remember, they're sentient).

I'm guessing that near the end of the series, we're going to see Harmonia gather enough True Runes that Hikusaak will decide to simply subjugate the others. The resulting world war will unite all twenty-seven True Runes, as well as finally pitting Yuber and Pesmerga against each other.

So, in conclusion, those ten thousand troops are likely nothing compared to Harmonia's full might.

Wow, that was long.

[Eternal Wind]

The catch with deploying a huge army is opponent's True Runes and and potial intervention by powerful mages. By the SI-II-III time period I can think of a few people who can shred a large army easily; Leknaat, Windy if she is alive, Mazus, Crowley, Hugo (abeit uncontrolled), Lazlo, and potentially HeroV. A large army can also be done in by a few well placed assasinations and sabotage.

[Wataru]

[Zeik Tuvai]

Falena is far older then Harmonia and has had a lot more time to develope their economy and military prowess, and he never said Falena could beat them, just that Falena is a possible exception if Harmonia wanted to wage a world war. But, like he said, Harmonia is after something much harder to attain then the world... Their after reality itself, and the key to that suppossedly lies within the 27 True Runes.
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Those who stray from the path of justice,
Are those who have no courage...
But under the wing of a strong leader,
Cowardice cannot survive.

[Wataru]

How is Falena far older than Harmonia? The timeline shows Harmonia being founded in the year -2 and there is no mention of Falena before that.

Harmonia is the Suiko world's one true superpower. It is possible, however, for a smaller nation to defeat a superpower in a war, especially one on foreign soil. I think Grasslands could have taken on Harmonia in SIII if all thign were on equal footing. The Grasslands are known for being a martial culture. Fighting is in their blood. In terms of the lizards it's all they do. If the Grasslands didn't have their attention split between Luc and company, Zexen AND Harmonia proper, it would have been a much more even war.

Nation size is not the only defining factor in wartime. Look at Highland. In terms of area, it's a small country and it conquered half of Jowston, a much larger and ( I believe) more populated nation.

Harmonia's big and bad, but they're not all that. The Warriors' Village defeated them by itself.
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[Shikai]

Well

The Warriors Village didn't exactly defeat the entire Harmonian army, or conquer harmonio or anything.

they just pretty much won the battles necessary to stay independant. Still though, much props *gives the warrior's village props*
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