The Witcher 3 is a great video game, however I'm curious as to just how accurate it is with regards to its portrayal of life in medieval societies, especially during times of war.
To expand, as the invading armies advance, entire villages are either conscripted or destroyed. For example, one village had it's entire male population conscripted, while the women and children were simply discarded and left homeless. How common was the practice of conscripting from local villages after taking control of the surrounding area? Couldn't these conscripts harbor a desire for revenge against the invading army they were now being forced to fight for?
Additionally, just how quickly could medieval empires rebuild an effective army? Within the series lore, the invading nations army was more or less annihilated just under two years prior to their current invasion, yet they are able to reconstruct an nearly unstoppable army in that time, which seems pretty quick to me.
Finally, just how much power did large merchant groups have over monarchs, especially monarchs with an authoritarian streak? In the game, one of the Emperors is facing intense opposition from domestic merchant groups, who feel the war is harming their profits, a problem which the Emperor (and those in his court) perceive as a serious threat to his rule. However, it is previously established that the Emperor has simply killed off political opponents in the past, so why would unruly merchants be any different? Could medieval Monarchs truly be opposed by merchants in any substantive manner?
Trailers for some imagery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KczsbBpX1so
Thanks for any responses!
As for merchant lobbies, I think the game's portrayal of it is quite exaggerated, mostly due to three things:
1.- While there were powerful regional organisations of artisans, like guilds, and powerful merchant companies that handled enormous amounts of money, their influence was very strictly local in the case of the guilds, and very strictly financial in the case of bankers/merchants. While the political offices of free cities were often (not always) dominated by local oligarchies of merchants/bankers, their power rarely exceeded the context of the city and its sphere of influence/competition.
2.- We have already seen monarchs default on huge debts that they owed to early 14th century bankers/merchants, causing them to go broke, and they didn't face any socio-political backlash whatsoever. They only faced financial difficulties later on, since the reborn companies adopted a decentralised scheme to prevent such things from happening again, along with more wary policies.
3.- While many monarchs in the 13th and 14th centuries allied themselves with urban elites (often bankers and merchants) to curb the feudal prerogatives of the princes (by calling upon them to assist to the Cortes of the Kingdom of León in 1188, for example), in the 15th century and onwards, they pursued the program of absolutism, attempting to limit the influence of all the groups of power, including the urban elites.
I can only imagine them having that sort of influence in a merchant republic, but not in some sort of empire (I figure that the game's empire is more or less inspired by the Holy Roman Empire?).
As for the general aesthetics of the game, I think it solidly achieves the "feel" of 14th/early 15th century cities and so on, as I mentioned in that older thread, with artistic license, of course, it being a fantasy game.
I can't speak to power relations within a medieval state, but I can talk about some of the military questions you mentioned.
Conscripting random villagers from the path of an invading army would not happen. You might see villagers being forces to work as laborers, but it's unlikely that they would be dragged along all the way with any force. Mass conscription didn't really exist for medieval armies. While village men might be obligated to provide militia service, that would either be for emergency local defense (like in a siege of a town) or to act as law enforcement. They were not equipped nor expected to participate in real warfare. Medieval armies were generally small and dominated by experienced professionals. Conscripting peasants from the enemy countryside would be useless and counterproductive. It would simply increase the number of mouths a commander was required to feed without adding much to the effective combat power of his army. Also, conscripting random village men from the army's path would be both politically and economically unwise. If the army is attempting to actually make a permanent conquest of this territory instead of just raiding across it, then removing all village men would piss off the locals and unnecessarily damage the local economy, which makes the cost of occupation more expensive. When the English occupied Normandy following Henry V's conquests from 1415-1417, they spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to get the Norman population on their side and have prominent locals swear allegiance to and join in the new English administration. Even so, they dealt with an enormous number of plots against their garrisons and other problems stemming from the disloyalty of the Normans. Attempting to completely depopulate the countryside as you described would have made things even worse than they already were.
Your second question is going to the disappointing answer of "it depends." What do you mean by "an effective army?" Remember, there was no singular "English" or "French" army in the period. A field army would be assembled to accomplish particular goals for a particular campaign. That army would not (usually) be in constant existence for years at a time, although there would be a large number of veterans who made their living through serving in repeated campaigns. A major defeat in the field was a very bad thing, but it wouldn't necessarily mean that the kingdom was defenseless. A medieval field army generally represented a fraction of the potential manpower pool of the kingdom. Remember too that even in a major defeat, the entire defeated army wouldn't be killed. Some would be captured and many more would have fled. Would this be a problem? Yes, but not necessarily an insurmountable one. It depends on how exactly the battle transpired and what the political situation of the kingdom was. Did the king die/get captured? Are there individuals still willing to fight, or is there a faction that wants to make peace and lick their wounds? There will still be fighting men left in the kingdom, but they may not be willing to sign up for a second major campaign if the previous one ended in failure. There may be financial difficulties in paying for more armies if previous campaigns didn't achieve their goals. It's not implausible that a new army could be formed a few years after a major defeat, but it probably won't be as large.
While you wait for a more comprehensive response, you might be interested in a past past on the topic:
Additionally, it would be helpful to expand the post with more specific questions (did villagers really do x every day, live in buildings like y, etc.), possibly with cutscene footage or the like, to allow historians who have not played the game to better analyze its features.