Millenia of strife, wars, natural disasters and unnatural machinations have splintered
every major civilization across the so-called Warhammer World.
The Dwarf Empire has long since collapsed into semi-independent mountain strongholds,
the High Elves face overseas rivals in Athel Loren and Naggaorth, and this is say nothing
of the Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Skaven and other bestial races.
Yet, however fractured these societies might be, they all exhibit to some extent, a sense
of ancestral kinship, or maybe even hatred, derived from a shared history, culture or
religion.
There is one major exception; humanity.
Every elf derived from the same ancient homeland, every ogre worships the great maw and every
Skaven fears the great horned rat.
This, at least in some sense, unites them.
To the merchants of Sigmar’s Empire, the peasants of Grand Cathay are every bit as
alien as the Elves of distant Ulthuan.
Conversely, Cathay has no real brotherly affection for the Empire, or Kislev, or Bretonnia.
Humanity had no single leader, no binding religion and no leading nation to which all
others pay homage.
But in the case of the latter, could we maybe select a favored candidate?
Which single human nation is the paragon amongst its peers?
Which is the most powerful in the Warhammer world?
To answer this question, we first need to properly define how we’re measuring power.
While it might be tempting to measure this by purely military strength, which nation
could dominate the others through conquest, I think this is a narrow view and fails to
consider many other expressions of power.
Instead, we’ll be considering a few factors.
Demographics, how large is a nation’s population.
Geography: what is the extent of its territorial claims and how amenable they are to human
settlement.
Economy, how advanced are its industries and production.
Political system; how are its leaders selected and how effective is their rule.
Military, what is the size and capabilities of its armies and allies.
And lastly, culture, to what extent does its prevailing beliefs influence the rest of the
world.
We’ll grade each of these as either low, middling, high, or dominant.
When looking at nation-states that demonstrate a large amount of power in these areas, we
can narrow our candidates down to four.
The Empire of Man, the Kingdom of Bretonnia, the Tzardom of Kislev, and Grand Cathay.
I mean no disrespect to Estalia, Tilea, Nippon, or Araby, but while they possess significant
power in certain areas, I don’t believe they show enough potential in every category
to warrant inclusion.
Though I must confess that might change if more information on these nations becomes
available.
Likewise, while Nehekhara at its peak would certainly be a candidate for the most powerful
human nation, today it is a memory.
We’ll only be looking at the era of Karl Franz.
Okay, starting with demographics, how do each of our nations compare?
As with many of the other categories on our list, it's impossible to get reliable numbers,
but I think it’s fair to say that Grand Cathay possesses the largest population of
any human nation in the known world.
If I had to guess, it would be somewhere in the low hundreds of millions.
In second place is likely the Empire of Man which is almost certainly the most urbanized
nation.
I’d say high tens of millions, possibly exceeding 100, million but no more than 150,.
Kislev and Bretonnia are likely tied for third place, both in the low tens of millions.
These two nations are much more rural with a much lower standard of living, and in the
case of Kislev, much higher mortality rates.
Given that Cathay probably has a larger population than the rest of these nations combined, I’m
classifying it as dominant, with the Empire at high, and Bretonnia and Kislev at middling.
Next up is geography.
This might be the most difficult category to get any sort of information on, as maps
of the Warhammer world tend to be unreliable.
Again, it’s tempting to rank Cathay very highly here, it is probably the largest human
nation, but its geography is a little underwhelming.
Much of it is contaminated by a vast warpstone desert, or divided between extensive mountain
ranges.
The nation might be vast, but its fertile land is concentrated on its coasts and riverlands.
The Empire of Man is the largest human nation in the Old World at least, and maybe rivals
Cathay, but at the very least has more favorable geography.
It is covered in farmlands and forests with rich mountain ranges.
The only blight in the Empire is Sylvania, which represents under a smaller fraction
of its total territory.
Now Bretonnia I think is the clear winner here.
It may not be the largest human nation, but it might have the most useable land.
For the most part, its geography is very similar to that of the Empire’s with two notable
improvements.
Better access to the Great Ocean, for most of the Empire’s major ports are up-river
or frozen in winter, Breotnnia just has a generally more pleasant climate.
Perfect for growing vineyards and making wine.
So if Bretonnia is the clear winner, Kislev is unfortunately the loser.
Most of their territory is inhospitable even in the best of times, and a frozen wasteland
in the winter.
Every major port is likewise inaccessible for a large part of the year.
So based on all this, I’m classifying the Geography of Bretonnia at high, Cathay and
the Empire at middling bordering on high, and Kislev at low.
Now the economy.
Here is where the Empire of Man really shines.
In fact I believe it’s just on the verge of an industrial revolution.
It’s beginning to transition from hand production methods to machines, possesses steam power,
and the beginnings of a mechanized factory system.
It also wholly embraced the rise of a merchant class, which is dominating its nobility.
The rest of the nations on our list are still stuck at some level of feudalism.
Bretonnia is probably at the bottom of the list, its economy is locked in a strict class
system with very few methods of creating capital.
Kislev is only slightly better, its cities are very wealthy, but the remainder of the
country is incredibly poor.
Cathay is tough.
In terms of raw production it probably equals or outstrips the Empire, but that's only because
of its immense population.
Regardless of how much it produces, the methods involved are rudimentary.
I’m going to classify the Empire as high bordering on dominant, Cathay at middling,
and Kislev and Bretonnia at low.
So, government.
I think the expectation here might be that Cathay again would be dominant.
After all, it’s ruling Emperor and nobility are immortal, benevolent dragons, which depending
on your outlook might have disqualified it from this list of human nations altogether.
Now the propaganda of Cathay has nothing but good things to say about these dragons, but
I don’t buy it.
For all their supposed wisdom these dragons have proven no better able to avoid civil
war among themselves than their human counterparts, and when we look at Cathay’s advantages,
how many of those were the direct result of good governance vs pure luck or its inherent
geopolitical position.
The Empire of Man is maybe a bit weaker in this field, it’s really a collection of
Electoral Provinces and getting each Elector Count to work together can be difficult or
even impossible.
Karl Franz seems capable, but there’s no guarantee his replacement will be as good
or even remotely competent.
That said, when the Electoral Provinces do work together, their total power is probably
the greatest in the world.
Breotnnia is likely the weakest of the bunch, still using anachronistic feudal system that’s
long since been replaced everywhere else.
Kislev though might be unusually strong here.
The powers afforded to the Tzar are not bound to any meaningful constitution or legislature,
so the office might be the single most powerful in the world, maybe equalling that of Cathay’s
Dragon Emperor.
So I’m going to put Kislev at high, Cathay at high/middling
depending on how involved the Emperor decides to be in that moment, the Empire at middling/high
and Bretonnia at low.
That takes us to military power and I think our first real controversial choice so far.
I am going to say that Kislev’s army is the most effective in the known world.
It’s not the largest, or the most advanced, but it has successfully resisted more invasions
than any other power.
It is constantly at war, its regiments are made entirely of veterans, there’s basically
no such thing as a raw recruit when you live on the border with the Realm of Chaos.
What’s truly astonishing is that while Cathay is in the same position, they’ve needed
to build a gigantic wall to resist northern incursions, and that hasn’t always succeeded,
while Kislev accomplishes the same result with nothing but its armies, discipline and
tactics.
That said, Cathay’s war machines are very impressive, especially the Teracotta sentinels
and the sky fleet, although the army as a whole is not used to aggressive campaigns.
The Empire of Man is also up there, mostly due to the sophistication of its arms, particularly
its artillery, although the quality of its armies can vary wildly from province to province.
Bretonnia comes in last here, antiquated armies in the same manner as its economy and government.
But military strength also includes a nation’s allies, and the western nations definitely
are ahead of Cathay here.
The Empire of Man, Kislev, Bretonnia, they all have strong ties with one another, and
with the neighboring Dwarfen kingdoms.
In times of great peril, they can also count on the High Elves and Wood Elves.
Cathay meanwhile, is entirely without any meaningful allies so far as I’m aware.
Empire of Man, and Kislev both score a high, while Bretonnia and Cathay are left at middling.
Like I said, this might be a controversial choice.
That leaves us with culture.
And I should specify here that I’m talking about soft power, how effective are these
nations at coercing others through appeal and attraction.
I think the Empire of Man is unchallenged here.
The Cult of Sigmar has spread everywhere throughout the Old World, and even smaller religions
like the Cult of Ulric are pretty well known.
The Empire is often seen as the leader in the fight against Chaos and many smaller nations
in the Border Princes and elsewhere try to follow its example.
The religions of Kislev and Bretonnia meanwhile are linked closely with their land, so it
doesn’t have much appeal to people outside its borders.
Cathay is in the same spot, but for a difficult reason, its rulers are very isolationist and
don’t even try to export its culture.
So I’m ranking the Empire at dominant, Kislev and Bretonnia and middling, and Cathay, at
low.
To be clear, I’m not saying its culture is inferior, it’s just less well known to
other nations and thus less appealing.
So that takes us to the final scores.
In my opinion, of the big four, Bretonnia is the weakest, largely in part due to its
outdated institutions, its saving graces are its favorable geography and powerful allies.
Kislev is in third place due to its experienced military and strong centralized authority.
Cathay is in 2nd place, saddled by isolationism and a government that doesn’t really reflect
its citizenry.
And the most powerful human in the Warhammer World is the Empire of Man; due to its sophisticated
economy, effective military, favorable geography, but most importantly, the worldwide appeal
of the Imperial system, and its God-King Sigmar.
But that of course is just my opinion, and even though these rankins were divinely inspired,
I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Do you disagree with my rankings?
Are there other important factors I didn’t include?
How would you classify each nation in these categories?
Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, this has been incoming.