Army sizes

Staff can know for obvious reasons, but the problem with open dialogue on troop counts during an ongoing battle is that both sides might not want the other to know any more than their characters could feasibly see. Troop count also correlates with the number of currently active accounts for that army. As such, one of the teams here is rapidly losing troops, due to the abandonment of the team by many players (or so it currently seems). Because of this, they're likely to have fewer troops right now than they might have at the start of the battle.

I can say for certain though, if I don't have to pin any numbers on anything, that the resources each side has fielded are vastly disproportionate, and as so eloquently stated in Total War, "only a military genius" could keep New Brimiarde in Goraia's hands.

Yeah, hard to have any exact numbers, and even knowing so wouldn't alter any of the odds to a noticeable degree.

I think that considering that almost all of Goraia is inactive and ineligible, and any changes to Isra's characters won't affect this battle negatively unless we all die while waiting for Goraia's next post to come, an understanding wherein you're stuck with the paltry forces you have on hand now could very probably be reached.

I wouldn't recommend it, though. Honestly, Goraia stands a lot more to gain by the NPC numbers being variable. You need every single armed peasant you can drag up, whereas the forces I've deployed to New Brimiarde aren't even half of those available to Isra.

Considering that any 'new' NPCs being brought into the scene have to be done logically (as opposed to just popping into existence in the middle of the battle), I think the current state of affairs is pretty much ok for both parties. If you have a specific idea, though, by all means, voice it.

You seem to be a bit out of the loop, yes. At the beginning of the war, less Goraian characters were active than there are at present. The forces were at no point anywhere close to equal.

Further, I don't see why the rules on groups would apply here at all, as neither party is a group. Groups are perhaps most comparable to minor factions. The best example is the Hunting Legion. They're a group of bandits and are unaffiliated with any nation. They receive 100 points per active character to be NPCs in their group. What's happening at New Brimiarde is a war between nations, wherein both parties are allowed 1,000 NPC points per active character in the nation. (Which includes citizens that are not present at this battle.) There are no groups involved. 

Your idea regarding allowing characters to command only a limited number of NPCs is an interesting one, but not one I think would be applicable here. Not now that the battle has already begun, and not without the rule being ironed out and agreed upon in advance by both parties. If put into place now, it will favor one party over the other. As I see it, there are already enough nails for Goraia's coffin, and I'm not looking to give them any advantages that would prolong this further. 

For context, the war began on October 18th of last year. So far, there are no casualties. I am very much against introducing optional new factors that would make this process even slower than it already is. 

I think that what you're getting at there is a pretty good idea, Alfher. In fact, I've been trying to do something like that for the last couple of months, it's my intention to win the attrition game because Goraia has no cards to play as far as surviving attrition goes. The only problem with the whole concept is such that things aren't really moving quickly enough to make that feasible. The last round at New Birimarde took more than a month. I'm not willing to play an attrition game when that's the case.