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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Humbaba said:
Best thing to do is avoid any possibility of the optics letting this seem like a military Elves vs Dwarves situation. We don't want to be in a position where one rogue/hothead (on either side) can turn this into Elf vs Dwarf war.
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Marienburg is directly going against the interest of Barak Varr here though, personally I think a very blatant display that this isn't just going to be a round two of their last glorious underdog victory, and that they've offended additional parties here. Is one of the best ways to get them to reevaluate what they're actually doing right now rather than waxing nostalgic.
 
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@BoneyM Would we have some idea what throwing the Transcendent Boon at this 'reroute trade' problem would do? Would it help enough to be worth it? Or is that entirely outside of Mathilde's experience?

Graf, /to sum up: "So it's a blockade, or it's war."
Mathilde, /nod thoughtfully. Then... "I've got this one. I know a dwarf who owes me a favor."
Graf, /Are you daft?: "I don't think that will help."
Mathilde: "You don't know the favor."
 
Thomasfoolery said:
Marienburg is directly going against the interest of Barak Varr here though, personally I think a very blatant display that this isn't just going ot be a round two of their last glorious underdog victory, and that they've offended additional parties here. Is one of the best ways to get them to reevaluate what they're actually doing here.
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You can tell how Marienburg doesn't want to risk offending the Karaz Ankor directly, by aiming at the Empire instead with the goal of forcing the Empire to stop Barak Varr.

Might even have worked if not for our presence providing other solutions.
 
@BoneyM Would any of those options also be valid? I do not necessarilly want one of them, but I want to know if any of those is an option when thinking about this, cuz knowing if any of them is an option will change my thinking.

1) I do not know enough to say for sure - accepting that while we know a lot about dwarfs, we are out of our depths on this subject. Will come with a loss of prestige, but will force more straightforward negotiations where we aren't implicated or responsible for steering things.

2)Treat him as we treat a liege at the end of a turn- giving him multiple options we think valid, present the upsides and downsides and letting him choose, like we do with our bosses.

3) offering to sabotage Marienburg- trying to be the badass spy, comes with personal risk, but a success would mean the best of all worlds?
 
GreenTamm said:
While I really dont want to go to war with Marienburg, could we make the Elves stay out of it by threat of Dwarf intervention?

Kind of like saying to Marienburg. "If you guys escalate to elves, we escalate to dwarves?
I don't thnik the Empire can take a war with Ulthan rn
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It all depends on this do they consider Marienburg "theirs" enough for this to be an elven pride thing. I don't think it they do, but we are not an expert on either Marienburg or elf politics.

Shame we don't have any rumor network in Ulthan. I give it even odds that they are already busy with something else right now which would really bring down the odds.
 
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If we do go the hire mercenaries route, we could hit two birds at once by spinning our success at K8P. If the dwarves agree to do that, with whatever option wins, those mercenaries could be used as a human buffer to go attack another hold, perhaps Black Crag or the one near Zhufbar.

I do think we should blockade though, I trust in Ranald and would further his gambit. Mathilde set all this in motion when she mugged Mork, I think we should see it through.
 
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So, I've seen it suggested that attacking Marienburg could prompt the High Elves to intervene on their side. What evidence is there of that exactly? And do we have any idea what sort of force they'd send to help if they did?
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I'm definitely leaning towards:
[ ] No, but they could help break the blockade
Barak Varr would absolutely act to protect their investment, if they were made aware of the issue.
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It's an attractive option, for sure, but what if Marienburg get naval support from Ulthuan, as the Chancellor suspects? Then we've got a Dawi/Elgi war again, and most probably to no gain, because the Ulthuani Navy is as far as I know the best in the world, so the Dwarves will not manage to break the blockade.
I think the "making up for lost trade" option is the best, even if it involves weakening everybody in the short term.
 
*Waves a flag around*
Perhaps we should bring the Elven Ambassador in on the entire thing? The elves hopefully won't care very much about who trades for as long as trade is happening?
What is Marienburg even exporting to the Ulthuan kingdom?
 
storryeater said:
@BoneyM Would any of those options also be valid? I do not necessarilly want one of them, but I want to know if any of those is an option when thinking about this, cuz knowing if any of them is an option will change my thinking.

1) I do not know enough to say for sure - accepting that while we know a lot about dwarfs, we are out of our depths on this subject. Will come with a loss of prestige, but will force more straightforward negotiations where we aren't implicated or responsible for steering things.

2)Treat him as we treat a liege at the end of a turn- giving him multiple options we think valid, present the upsides and downsides and letting him choose, like we do with our bosses.

3) offering to sabotage Marienburg- trying to be the badass spy, comes with personal risk, but a success would mean the best of all worlds?
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I'll add an 'I don't know' to the possibilities. But he's asking a straightforward question, not for a full report. You've got the space of an answer to try to steer the course of the future.
 
BoneyM said:
"They're threatening an embargo, and these canals won't be functional soon enough to stop it from biting.
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BoneyM said:
[ ] No, but they could help break the blockade
Barak Varr is the main force behind the project, and would not hesitate to deploy their navy in support of the Empire's to reopen trade routes
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Hey Boney, what exactly is meant by breaking the blockade? Bringing up some ironclads to Marienburg and threatening to shoot them if they don't let ships through their ports, or is there trade going on elsewhere that they'd also be interfering with? I don't quite understand the state of the Empire's maritime trade enough to know what this would imply.
 
Ptolemy said:
So, I've seen it suggested that attacking Marienburg could prompt the High Elves to intervene on their side. What evidence is there of that exactly? And do we have any idea what sort of force they'd send to help if they did?
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The High Elves fought in defence of Marienburg the last time the Empire attacked Marienburg. They won't aid it if it attacked us, though.
 
Ptolemy said:
So, I've seen it suggested that attacking Marienburg could prompt the High Elves to intervene on their side. What evidence is there of that exactly? And do we have any idea what sort of force they'd send to help if they did?
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The last time the Empire tried to retake Marienburg the High Elves defended them. Take note though that they was a direct attempt to take the city not challenging their blockade (and agression) on the high seas.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think the fears of War of Vengeance part Two are a bit exaggerated. No one on either side wants that, literally no one. They know it would be suicide. We could see elven raids, more dwarfs being hunted to make beard cloaks, more elves killed on the high seas by ironclads but neither state can afford a full blown war t and they know it. They have known it before Sigmar's Empire was a twinkle in a barbarian's eye.
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The thing about that is that nobody currently wants it. But, the truth is that in most wars, only one or two parties actually want the war and everybody else gets dragged in.

Getting the dwarves involved increases the chance of a Grudge getting involved. Having Dwarves and Elves together increases the chance of the an Elf with a grudge/problem with dwarves getting involved or on the hopefully unlikely scale of things, Chaos or one of the Dark Elves getting involved.

It's not likely to go to war. But getting them both involved even just in a stand-off is like setting a lit torch and a barrel of gunpowder in the same room. Sure, if everything goes well there won't be any explosions. But one fuckup and the room detonates.
 
Andres110 said:
It's entirely the truth. You think the dwarves are going to accept Marienburg's demands to stop their project? Furthermore, if the elves are marching in defence of Marienburg then they are complicit in its transgressions against the dawi, and the Karaz Ankor would indeed respond to that.
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The lie is us lying to our friends that this is an Elvish-originated plot, as opposed to something they are getting dragged into by existing alliances with Umgi merchants.
 
Asheram said:
*Waves a flag around*
Perhaps we should bring the Elven Ambassador in on the entire thing? The elves hopefully won't care very much about who trades for as long as trade is happening?
What is Marienburg even exporting to the Ulthuan kingdom?
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Importing, I believe. I think them and Tiles do really well on things like Elven wines and goods.
 
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