A lot of fantasy novels forget this part of the world-building process.

One hundred years ago, nearly every person in the world was a farmer. Even in Europe, which was much more advanced than Asia, Africa, and South America, agriculture was incredibly labor-intensive and difficult. If you were a knight, you would have maybe eight people who worked for you, and they would in turn have maybe eight people who worked for them, and you would have to work two months of a year in the fields. This was true for both knights and lords.<br><br>As a result of this, agriculture was a full-time job. It was something that everyone in a region worked on, because the amount of food produced could mean the difference between life and death. Any sort of war or conflict would usually result in the destruction of crops and starvation. It was incredibly difficult to transport grains, so staying self-sufficient and having enough food was not a given.<br><br>If you’ve read any fantasy novel published in the last twenty years, you’ll know that most of them are based off of modern times in terms of how they function. A lord might go to war for years at a time, and nothing would be left in his lorddom to grow food. This means that there would be no one left to grow food, resulting in everyone in the region starving and dying. However many people are farmers Times however many people are in the military should equal the total number of people. Etc. Fantasy authors make this mistake so often, and it would be so easy to fix. Don’t have your protagonist go to war for three years because a neighboring lord said something mean to him. Have your protagonist stay in his lorddom, and have 1/3 of his subjects grow food while the rest 2/3 go to war. It would be so much more realistic.<br><br>Sorry guys, just had to rant.