Why cant we play Garlean empire?

[CaesarCV]

Most of that wreckage is clearly visible as in game military equipment such as airships, magitek collosi and reapers. Normally I would chalk it up to military equipment being far more fun for the artists to put on the map than combine harvesters, but this applies to the quests as well. And all of those clearly show how they haven't really improved the standard of living for the Ala Mighans at all. If anything, they've made things worse through their mass conscription, ruining of several markets, and ruthless taxation. The Yanxian quests clearly show that they are following very traditional farming methods and haven't changed much. The only ones who seem to get to see any sort of magitek are the people of Radiata, who are more or less slaves not allowed to know anything about their inner workings. The Domans who were going to be sent to do magitek work were also noted as probably having to have years or decades of training forced on them...all so that they can complete years of unpaid labor and maybe be allowed back home. As far as I can tell there have been next to no lifestyle improvements.

[Mysterysword]

Most of that wreckage is clearly visible as in game military equipment such as airships, magitek collosi and reapers. Normally I would chalk it up to military equipment being far more fun for the artists to put on the map than combine harvesters, but this applies to the quests as well. And all of those clearly show how they haven't really improved the standard of living for the Ala Mighans at all. If anything, they've made things worse through their mass conscription, ruining of several markets, and ruthless taxation. The Yanxian quests clearly show that they are following very traditional farming methods and haven't changed much. The only ones who seem to get to see any sort of magitek are the people of Radiata, who are more or less slaves not allowed to know anything about their inner workings. The Domans who were going to be sent to do magitek work were also noted as probably having to have years or decades of training forced on them...all so that they can complete years of unpaid labor and maybe be allowed back home. As far as I can tell there have been next to know lifestyle improvements.

Well, we can argue that the Fringes wasn't good for farmland, and there don't seem to be any signs of irrigation or other markers of large-scale crop cultivation there. The Peaks, on the other hand, has Byregot's Bread (which makes me wonder how it was named such when the Garleans outlawed religion under their rule) nevermind, it's Byron's Bread, I can't read, which also looks fairly primitive, and no machines, I think. Coldhearth definitely has nothing, and the people there are living on the verge of starvation, by all accounts.

And this all just seems so counterproductive, to me. Didn't the Garleans ever figure out that allowing and helping their territories to, at the very least, produce more food (not even mentioning other goods or products) would equate to more taxes, or even simply more goods and services for Garlemald? That's the most basic idea of investment, after all.

It's kind of difficult to figure out just what the Garleans want when they're this stupid about it. We know, at the very least, that they want to conquer the world. But their stated reasons for conquering the world don't seem to match up with their actions. If they want resources, then they're doing a pretty poor job of getting more resources out of their conquered territories. If it's to bring civilisation to the people they consider to be savages and barbarians, they're not doing a good job of that either. If they're expanding for the sake of expansion or some ideology that they're meant to be the rulers of the world, or to follow in the footsteps of the Allagan Empire, that's just not a very sustainable idea by itself, to constantly be at war for the sake of being at war. And we can see that they're now suffering major losses as a consequence of their mindset.