Hey
@Qeqre , would you be willing to at least approval vote for a main Diplomatic outreach with the Caradysh? I think we could agree that that is better than more warriors right now.
Diplomacy with the Caradysh has a tendency to cost Stability. And in this case, we'd be doing it to appease a revanchist faction among the Forluc in order to avoid a situation where two of our vassals are angry at us.
One might first want to consider:
-is the Forluc demand reasonable?
-what is motivating the Forlucan irredentism?
-does fulfilling this demand have a healthy effect on Forluc culture and what does this say to our other subordinates?
-can we afford to have unhappy subordinates?
-how much does purchasing this land cost us in terms of actions, stability and resources?
The land in question has not been owned by the Forluc in living memory and the Arthwyd Empire accepted the territorial status quo back in 1930, even if the Forluc continue to hold a grudge over it.
We also do not know if it has since been (re)settled by the Caradysh Empire or its tributaries.
Overall, I'd say the demand is somewhat unreasonable due to the passing of time and our own acceptance of the new borders back when we allowed the Forluc into our Empire. Though Forluc!Negaverse SV would probably beg to differ.
The Forluc are doing this out of a mixture of a long-held grudge and because the Caradysh are currently getting their shit kicked in. Their preparations are for military conquest and cooperation with the Nersondur without consulting with Greenbay in advance.
Motivations appear to be hatred, opportunism, nostalgia for a better past, a mild independent streak and the notion that might makes right.
Our proposed solution is to take a page out of the Nersondur playbook of conquering through trade by offering to purchase the territory from the Caradysh. Culturally, this is traderism>militarism which is kinda good but it also validates the revanchism, opportunistic expansionism and rewards the Forluc for essentially setting their own foreign policy, which are bad precedents to set if we want this Empire to have strong central authority in the long run.
We have two Empire passives. We should be able to handle some level of outrage. Support Subordinate can be taken if people feel uncomfortable about not doing more to ameliorate the Forluc outrage, but the short-term headache is worth avoiding the issue of powerful independent and/or demanding vassals at a later date.
The costs of convincing the Caradysh to hand over the territory is unknown beyond the Diplomatic Outreach action. But the Caradysh are probably looking for a military advantage against the Nersondur right now, so unless the Caradysh are willing to simply hand us the land out of a desire to avoid a two-front war, the pricetag probably involves either a (temporary) military alliance or the selling of weapons/dead bodies, which have a high chance of causing hits to our Stability and/or Legitimacy(in addition to the normal Stabhits that come with Caradysh diplomacy).
