TheOmnimercurial
Dragon Bard
- Location
- UK
[X] No, but they could help break the blockade
[X] No, but they would fight beside you
[X] No, but they would fight beside you
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Hmm... on the balance if it is mostly gold the main issue becomes Marianburgher saboteurs, but if those get smashed we have an excuse to smash the city flat.
[X] They can make up for the loss in trade
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Not really, They will be deniable assets.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
The dwarves would set up feeding silos wherever feasible because they are dwarves.
In the interest of meta honesty, that depends on the roll of the dice.
Essentially we are voting for the type and range of consequences our high and low rolls are supposed to have. And the passionate discussions we had were about how a crit fail would look, how many different sub-rolls there would be, how high the thresholds for success and great success would be and which assets we want the forces of Order to commit to this bet in the first place, mixed with morality questions about the value of various lives and the justice question of what Marienburg "deserves" for their actions.
That said, the making up for the loss of trade option costs the Empire and Karaz Ankor a fair bit even with perfect rolls and risks random lost battles against Destruction on bad rolls, while gunship diplomacy allows for a perfect victory at a probably normal threshold, but a few crit fails in a row (a la Abelheim) could literally lead to the apocalypse.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I'd argue that even in a perfect world with perfect rolls, you can not hope to perform a naval assault upon a fortified city, and hope to come away without severe losses.
Blowing up an entire fleet, smashes all naval fortifications, and putting down the resistance in a wealthy city will always have consequences/
- Location
- The internet
And you would still have to stock those silos somehow, which means more wagons, and thus more food. Pre railway logistics is like getting something into orbit: the fundamental problem is that you need food (or fuel) to move, yet that food (or fuel) takes up ever increasing amounts of space and weight.
That is what they will try. Doesn't mean they'll succeed.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I'd say magic is a thing and miscasts are a thing so you definitely can. But even more mundanely, if Barak Varr's attack fleet is literally just five superships then the right balance of rolls can definitely mean that less than 20% of those get incapacitated, which would mean minimal losses. Perfect rolls on the trade thing on the other hand would mean that the consequences get downgraded to mild.
Edit: For a direct example, look at the utter destruction of Castle Drakenhof. Different situation I know. But right now I am talking about the possible, not the probable.
The trick would be farming food as close to the grass-less mountain paths as possible. I don't know enough about the terrain or geography to judge the feasibility of this.
In general, this is not as bad as a desert caravan would be.
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- Location
- Finland
Potential downsides are a war on both options.
Or if not outright war, enough separate combat that the cost is the same.
Though i guess i would have used "probable", as the likelyhood of world ending war with Ulthuan is much less likely with dwarves paying, but then it is very unlikely anyway.
The best case cenario with break the blockade means Marienburg backs down.
Worst (extremely unlikely) scenario means open full war between dwarves and the elves.
The most probably, to me, means some posturing, possibly even opened fire, but Marienburg eventually relenting because the odds simply are not in their favor if Dwarven Dreadnaughts come into play.
Unless i am incredibly wrong about Marienburg naval capacity, and the elven willingness to throw away potentially irreplaceable assets for a pissing match between two human polities, where their guy is the one being an idiot who started it.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
So people were claiming earlier that blowing up the infrastructure blocking the river would cost "thousands of innocent Marienburg lives". They were using this map to make this claim:
And I've got to ask: did you actually examine this map all that closely? Sure, it's a winding mess of canals and bridges, and those short bridges probably do have people living on them. But the Dwarves don't have to break every damn bridge in the city. There is a big obvious channel going down the middle, where they have to break a grand total of 1!
That big one in the middle, which looks too long to be heavily inhabited to me*. If it is, and they magically don't decide to flee after seeing ironclads coming up the river after a fight to what they know is a blockage on the river... well, that's a shame, but it's hardly the mass casualties being decried earlier.
There will no doubt be a mess of booms and chains, but people don't live on those.
*Actually, it probably depends on how wide it is, which I don't think this map is actually attempting to portray.
That big one in the middle, which looks too long to be heavily inhabited to me*. If it is, and they magically don't decide to flee after seeing ironclads coming up the river after a fight to what they know is a blockage on the river... well, that's a shame, but it's hardly the mass casualties being decried earlier.
There will no doubt be a mess of booms and chains, but people don't live on those.
*Actually, it probably depends on how wide it is, which I don't think this map is actually attempting to portray.
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Marienburg is basically guaranteed to send raiders after the dwarf caravans. Doing this is likely to result in a grudge (the Dwarfs aren't dumb). This might mean choosing to make up for trade losses might actually have a higher chance of conflict. Comparatively performing the obvious threat of gunboat diplomacy and threats might cause them to back off (especially combined with other pressures due to the problems that come with an embargo).
Talk about a tough decision. Still it looks like we're more united than we are divided here. The Chamberlain asked Mathilde what she thinks will happen and Mathilde replies, 'don't worry bro, the Dwarfs have your back.'
Talk about a tough decision. Still it looks like we're more united than we are divided here. The Chamberlain asked Mathilde what she thinks will happen and Mathilde replies, 'don't worry bro, the Dwarfs have your back.'
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Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
IIRC, that one is expecitly called out as having both homes and shops built into it.
I think, it's been awhile since I read the book about marienburg.
Or it could be more like when Admiral Perry's black ships rolled up to Japan and told them to open their ports or else.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah; for all that the thread is furiously divided on how, one way or another, Mathilde will be delivering the message "Don't let Marienburg's threats work; Barak Varr and Zhufbar want this canal as much as you do and will back you to the hilt."
Which, you know, is nice, and may surprise both the Chamberlain and Marienburg (who have been thinking of dwarf foreign policy in terms of foreign policy with KaK, who as established doesn't give a shit about trade).
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Fair enough! It still doesn't scream "mass casualties" to me, but that's not nothing.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Oh look, someone else finally noticed... after I said it multiple times. Yeah, I really don't understand what people were so afraid of. That's not even by the elf territory.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
The plan:
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I was literally in the process of trying to translate this into Khazalid when you posted this and stole my thunder.
That's a grudgin' 😐
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
The option literally says :
To say that breaking the blockade won't involve a shooting war is as tenous an assertion as saying that rerouting the trade routes won't involve actually running new caravans. I mean, technically Marienburg could give up as soon as the dwarves voice their support, but i doubt that'll happen.
So people were claiming earlier that blowing up the infrastructure blocking the river would cost "thousands of innocent Marienburg lives". They were using this map to make this claim:
And I've got to ask: did you actually examine this map all that closely? Sure, it's a winding mess of canals and bridges, and those short bridges probably do have people living on them. But the Dwarves don't have to break every damn bridge in the city. There is a big obvious channel going down the middle, where they have to break a grand total of 1!
That big one in the middle, which looks too long to be heavily inhabited to me*. If it is, and they magically don't decide to flee after seeing ironclads coming up the river after a fight to what they know is a blockage on the river... well, that's a shame, but it's hardly the mass casualties being decried earlier.
There will no doubt be a mess of booms and chains, but people don't live on those.
*Actually, it probably depends on how wide it is, which I don't think this map is actually attempting to portray.
People do live near those booms/chains and fortifications.
And a mage can hide in every little single house.
And all a guy seeking to sabotage the trade needs to do is swim out at night, board a merchantmen and sink it in the channel. So, we'll need to put a constant occupation force on the shores to stop the Marienburgers from trying anything.
You can not have a shooting war in an urban environment without having to deal with the consequences of shooting at a city.
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