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One to five was the offhand estimate, but on the bright side they don't need those ships for defence when they've got the fine marines of the Barak Varr navy to ward off any pirates!
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Can it be Urist's Barak varrian Cousin who tells them off?
Vurist?
The empire is too busy for a war or even an honest try at gunboat diplomacy same thing with the dwarves
What the dwarves do have is money to spend and long lifes so eating a temporary trade loss is just a lot easier for them
This would be advise the dwarves could accept with the least amount of suffering
[X] They can make up for the loss in trade
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What the dwarves do have is money to spend and long lifes so eating a temporary trade loss is just a lot easier for them
This would be advise the dwarves could accept with the least amount of suffering
[X] They can make up for the loss in trade
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SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Do you think the High Elves would be happy to allow the Elf colony in Marienburg which is viewed to part of the city have its sovereignty violated in that way?
To be clear the High Elves view Marienburg as their city, it's just jointly cohabited with humans on the periphery in their view.
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Maybe think about how the reality of the situation would actually play out for a bit. Rather than post this kind of absurd scenario. You can't hide this kind of build up, and after their fleet was destroyed they'd have no response to further reprisals before they could muster any significant defense, so running the risk would be madly risky. The idea it would require a major force present for the entire five years doesn't wash at all.
This is ignoring the many previous chances the marienburger's could and likely would change their stance when they see what the table looks like before it even gets to the point of a naval fight.
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- Location
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And Finubar will not let it get that far. He might be limited in what exactly he can do, but he'll have enough allies in court that know how disastrous a war against the Karaz Ankor will be to strangle any notion of it.
Elves are arrogant pricks, but they're not stupid. War of the Beard 2.0 will destroy both of them and the people in power on both sides know it.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
First, Marienburg has enough money to fight an economic war with the Empire.
Second, this is a fantasy setting; the Dwarven contingent of the army that marched on Castle Drakenhof threw up a permanent stone bridge over a major river in something like two days.
Third, the complex engineering work has already been done, so it's just a matter of a comprehensive repair. Those are much faster.
Fourth, the QM said so:
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They were willing to bankroll basically the entire 8 peaks expedition and fund the reclamied karak for years in order to get a better trade route. It would not surprise me if they were willing to spend a large amount to at least mitigate the empire's loss of trade, because the canal represents a similar windfall once completed. Especially as the dwarves are insanely rich by human standards, and they have a longer-term perspective due to their lifespans. Losing income for 5 years is more akin to a single painful year for a human, and that assumes that Marienburg actually keeps up the blockade for the full 5 years, which would likely cripple their own economy.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
I suspect that isn't really true though, The high elves were broken by the war of the beard but so were the dwarves in equal measure. Only after the war of the beard the Dwarves were then nearly anhillated by the one-two punch of Slann rearranging the continent they were on and then the Skaven leading a genocidal war against the Dwarves.
The High elves didn't have anything close to that in terms of getting damaged. They had a war with the Dark Elves but they've had comparatively much longer to recuperate and not nearly as many threats to deal with internally. The High elves are still a global power. The dwarves aren't any more.
Getting to a level capable of threatening ships passing through wouldn't take all that long. Realistically speaking its an impossibility without pacifying the city because only heavily armed merchants would ever consent to travel through a hostile city where they can get shot at from either side or attacked/boarded by small (row)boats launched from pretty much anywhere along the bank. Destroying the fortifcations and navy would just create the biggest pirate base in existence... Plus of course the fact that there is a big difference between ships designed for river travel and those for ocean travel so you would have to change ships in Marienburg anyhow though admittedly the reik is passable for at least some bigger ships to at least Altdorf.
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Fair enough on this, I was wrong on that. I think it makes basically zero sense though. The circumstances after a naval defeat like that have altered so drastically it seems pointless to me.
First of all, while money is no object, it can also only hurry things so much. There's a point where hiring twice as many people just won't get twice the work done.
Second, Dwarves are Dwarves, humans are far less adept at such things.
Third who says that much of the complex engineering work will remain standing. Dwarves don't do half measures when they are destroying things. I fully expect them to have to remove whatever is left of the old buildings before building new ones.
And fourth, I suppose they could put together something shoddy to block the port faster, yes, but then that'd need way less effort to knock it down, hence why as few as one Dreadnought could do it.
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SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Throwing up a lock to fuck up river ships is very easy. You have to hold the river permanently to stop it happening.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
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I mean, I'm pretty sure a thousand years of bloody fighting, ending when Tethlis the Slayer drove the Druchii out of Ulthuan by carpeting the continent in bodies and featuring probably the bloodiest battle ever fought between the Asur and the Druchii is fairly comparable to the Time of Woes.
That's more in case they attempt to physically block the river, rather than any fears they'll have rebuilt their navy after an industrious few weeks or something.
[X] They can make up for the loss in trade
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If so then they will have to admit that their city is blackmailing the Empire in order to put pressure on the Dwarves, which.... ooof.
If its their city they'll chastise Marienburg for playing silly buggers and then threaten the Empire, because they do not want to be seen as blackmailing the dwarves.
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You are welcome to your opinion. I'd note there is nothing really to support it, but it is an opinion.
Marianburg is absolutely a bandit. They are going to starve the empire to maintain their profit margin, and the blockade cutting the empire of from the rest of the world will have casualties if not ameliorated. It's arguable that closing the river is an act of war on its own, BECAUSE IMPERIAL CITIZENS WILL DIE. This is demonstrated by the way the empire is willing to back down rather than suffer it.
So no, I don't think that there's much legitimacy in them trying to say that all they are doing is closing their own territory. That's like the guy upstream diverting the entire river before you get any water- technically within his rights, but still a massively hostile act.
Assertion without evidence.
If they don't forceably prevent the empire's trade from leaving the empire, then we have no problem with them. If they do, then it's a blockade of the empire regardless of whose waters it takes place in. And I'm ok regarding the forceable lifting of that as an equivalent act to putting it in place.
Note that none of the resources required are money. Bodies, time, and lots of renegotiation are the resources. It says "significantly weakens" on the tin, trying to pretend we can buy our way out seems disingenuous.
The thread moves too fast for that to be practical, unless you are de facto saying that only the people who have caught up on the thread may contribute. If it's said on the thread it is fair game for responses- and there are a lot of cases where strands of arguement are picked out and challenged in posts that aren't the 'main' discussion.
And the arguement that it is a vote directly for war is kinda doing the same on the other side. Marianburg started this with the embargo- they are chosing to starve Imperial citizens. Framing a response to this as bloodthirsty seems to put the responsibility on the wrong party.
They are chosing to escalate- and ignoring them leaves the door open to further escalation. Do you think they'd leave the canals un-sabatoged if we went with dwarf trade assistance? The game, from their perspective, is stopping the canals. Embargo not working? Well, they *could* just fold, or...
Point is, I think demonstrating a willingness to put the people making these calls in personal danger is going to do a lot more to change the calculus than trying to soak the hit.
That's what the single Dreadnought would be for. You don't want to try to cast a spell fit to sink one of those in your own city, risk of explosive miscasts aside.