Does Garlemald have enough for full out war?

[Alleo]

I do agree with Theodric that SB really did not feel like war at all, which probably just made the feeling that they are not that great as conquerers even bigger.

We know that we only got Ala Mhigo and Doma back that easily because Zenos did not care about these countries, but why then send someone like him there? Why let someone rule these places that randomly kills someone from their own ranks? These two states might not be the biggest but these wins will give Eorzea the chance to unite into a complete and bigger alliance and Garlemald loses his grip in these lands. And on top of that thanks to them winning more rebellions might raise in the future. So why not protect these states more? If you have such a huge army why not send more of them there?

So I really get the feeling that they are maybe not that big either. On top of that they are using lies and more to get states under their rule and it seems that primals are still a huge threat for them.

I do believe that a huge problem with Garlemald is the restriction of being an MMO and maybe not wanting to take some risks. War can never truly feel like war if you have barely any people fighting in it. If a bunch of rebells, the scions and the Xaela can take a whole small nation back something seems wrong. They could have made a scene where we see the burials of the people we lost thus giving us a way better sense on how big it truly was. At the same time the flagship of Garlemald is still hanging out on Azys Lla and probably waits for the day the plot demands it too move..but I just cant believe that they were not able to repair it since HW..

The game also has the problem that it cant really do an assault on the states. Bahamut was different since the game was remade after that and there was a time span so they were able to do some damage to Eorzea. (But imo its still not enough and its still funny seeing Bahamut directly attacking Limsa in the video and yet missing most of his attacks..) So we wont have any true big assaults on the cities since they would need to remodel it all. But this restriction already takes out some of the danger and fear. It was the same with Alexander who was such a huge threat to the land but we never truly saw any kind of consequenes on it thus it never truly felt like one.

[MuseTraveller]

Snip

I fully agree with all that you said. While I enjoyed the aspect of unite the tribes and push the Garleans away from Doma, it really felt underwhelming, and it was even more dull in Ala Mhigo.
While I can understand redesigning maps to display damages can be tedious they could have had a whole gameplay element where certain locations get constantly attacked and need players to periodically win be it FATEs or boss fights in order to keep an aetheryte location ours else it becomes unavailable and maybe every week we get reward based on how many were secured... but I digress.

I wish retaking Doma and Ala Mhigo felt more epic, instead it felt like we just poked bunch of Garleans who didn't really care what happens to these lands to begin with.

[LineageRazor]

We know that we only got Ala Mhigo and Doma back that easily because Zenos did not care about these countries, but why then send someone like him there? Why let someone rule these places that randomly kills someone from their own ranks? These two states might not be the biggest but these wins will give Eorzea the chance to unite into a complete and bigger alliance and Garlemald loses his grip in these lands. And on top of that thanks to them winning more rebellions might raise in the future. So why not protect these states more? If you have such a huge army why not send more of them there?

There are a number of possible reasons why Zenos was given the responsibilities he had, but I think that most likely up to this point he DID behave in a sensible manner. He was bored out of his skull by it, but I'm sure that before he found his "worthy opponent" in the Warrior of Light, he dutifully followed the script he was given, subjugating Doma and Ala Mhigo, all the while keeping an eye out for someone worthwhile to fight. When he found that someone, THAT became his top priority, trumping everything else.

It's certainly possible that no one anticipated this wild swing in priorities (or, at least, not the degree to which Zenos took it). Certainly, before the WoL started meddling there was no indication that Zenos was having any trouble keeping these provinces under Garlemand's thumb. He WAS good at his job - at least, until he decided to quit.

Certainly, the only Garlean who seemed to be able to understand Zenos's deeper motivations to any degree was his father, and Varis seemed to have his own reasons for giving Zenos free rein. Everyone else (fanatics like Asahi in particular) saw him as a brilliant warrior and strategist, a paragon of Garlean virtues.

[ObsidianFire]

Videogames that are at the scale of FFXIV (single-player 3rd person MMO) will always have problems showing large-scale conflicts. The game engines just isn't designed to have that amount of AI/models on the field at once. So I really do think this is a limitation of the medium. And yeah... new people are coming in all the time, so stuff can't be destroyed...

Personally, I view FFXIV as representing the world of Eorzea about as well as Grand Theft Auto V represents Los Angeles. Which is to say, there's a ton of streamlining in how things work in game (especially the politics/bureaucracy) and a lot of glossing over of details/events so that things happen in a timely manner and so that a good story is told from a narrative standpoint.

[Alleo]

Certainly, the only Garlean who seemed to be able to understand Zenos's deeper motivations to any degree was his father, and Varis seemed to have his own reasons for giving Zenos free rein. Everyone else (fanatics like Asahi in particular) saw him as a brilliant warrior and strategist, a paragon of Garlean virtues.

My problem is that Zenos did not just stop with punishing the people of these two states but also his own men. He kills at least two Garlean of higher rank so I just find it strange that his father does not try to put a leash on him. This could lead to a rebellion of pureblood Garlean if they think that Varis does nothing to stop their family being killed randomly. I mean they can say that this was not common knowledge but still its bad that he left him there after he did that twice.

[Dualblade]

There are a number of possible reasons why Zenos was given the responsibilities he had, but I think that most likely up to this point he DID behave in a sensible manner. He was bored out of his skull by it, but I'm sure that before he found his "worthy opponent" in the Warrior of Light, he dutifully followed the script he was given, subjugating Doma and Ala Mhigo, all the while keeping an eye out for someone worthwhile to fight. When he found that someone, THAT became his top priority, trumping everything else.

He also wasn't Garlemald's first choice for Ala Mhigo, Gauis was. And while things certainly weren't peachy keen under him they were almost certainly better than under Zenos...then he decided to go against orders and conquer Eorzea with the XIVth. If I remember correctly early on in SB Zenos mentioned that he thought the Empire should just invade Eorzea and be done with the whole affair, but orders were to stay in Ala Mhigo and keep watch on the border so he never did. It pretty much was his interest in the WoL that lead him to doing many of the things he did.

Doma atleast was also almost completely under control. Yotsuyu was a recent change in leadership as well, its possible that if she wasn't nearly as horrible to the Domans we wouldn't have been able to rally as much of a resistance as we did.

My problem is that Zenos did not just stop with punishing the people of these two states but also his own men. He kills at least two Garlean of higher rank so I just find it strange that his father does not try to put a leash on him. This could lead to a rebellion of pureblood Garlean if they think that Varis does nothing to stop their family being killed randomly. I mean they can say that this was not common knowledge but still its bad that he left him there after he did that twice.

This most likely isn't as uncommon as some would hope, Nero also cut down one of his own soldiers. He did accuss him of being a traitor, and given that he was most likely a conscript there is a good chance he was by virtue of, well, being from a conquered nation and probably not liking Garlemald much. But it still points to Zenos not being the only one to do so. And of course our favorite Garlean Roe using his own forces as essentially meat shields to the point that his own attacks could kill them.

[Sylvain]

The question isn't really if they have the military power but wether of not they actually can use that military force.

Short answer, yes they do have more than enough military strenght to obliterate Eorzea.

Long answer: No. They have the mean but they can't really do it for a few reasons.
First, primals pose a huge threat that they can't deal with anymore since we've destroyed Ultima. If it wasn't from our intervention, Eorzea could very well be concquered because the only thing that prevented them from invading us was, as many people pointed, the possible threat of primals by beast tribes.



There's nothing (or very little) Garlemald could do against many Primals who could mind control their army.

Second, without considering our recent victory that could spark hope in other concerred territories, they cannot send any army currently in place in a concerred nation without weakening their position in the said territory. This is why they've only set one regiment every time.

I don't remember how many army they have, but only one of them was more than enough to win against us twice and the only reason we've survived is because a giant magical lizard attacked them (saving us at the same time) on the first occasion and an ancient orbital prison fell on the battle field while releasing a cataclismic monster which, thanks to an old chap, was stopped before vitrifying the whole continent.

So if you remove the whole primal and keeping other nation in check issues, yes. They have more than enough.
If they'd send all their army one go it would feel like attacking the Hobit town with the whole military power of USA EU Russia and China at once. They'd just obliterate us.

Edit: Before people point we've reconcered Ala Mhigo. Let's not forget a few things (that were much more detailed in other posts), Zenos had many opportunity to kill the resistance. Hell he could have killed the warrior of light without any issue the first time we met him. Yet he didn't, and the only reason is that he was tired of living and was only trying to find a worthy opponent. Basically, we weren't so bad so he left us alive. Put anyone with the right mindset in place of Zenos and the rebellion would have died the very moment he set foot in the resistance hideout. He let everything happen so he could. have the fight of his life, the fight he was looking for. The fact that Zenos didn't care about holding the region is probably the most significant reason we won.

Do not think for a moment it would have worked in any other region. And with the recent loss, you can be sure that any other region will tighten their defense.

I cannot stress how important Zenos was a huge contributor to our success because altough he was an ennemy. When it came to hiolding Garlemald position in Ala Mhigo, he didn't give a single f1é&"k about it.

[Kallera]

"Tighten their defenses" just enough for 4 adventurers to run roughshod of the place, no doubt.

Even if Zenos was a huge reason why we succeeded in the first place, have we ever seen them do against eorzean forces what we do to them 7 days a week? Forget the fact that functionally they cannot take back any territory with players on it, Or legit strike back against any eorzean territory or city, or PROPERLY LOCK THEIR GATES.

Have we ever seen any proper resistance on their end?

[Sylvain]

snip

Obviously we will succeed, (and yes it's funny how they can't lock crap) but this is not really the point.

I wanted to make that point clear regarding AlaMhigo operation being a special case and to also answer properly his former question being Garlemald army vs Eorzea.

In AlaMhigo we didn't succeeded because of our military strenght but simply because Zenos was there. People often forget that the revolution was spared during the attack. Any remotely competent leader would have slaughtered the whole resistance like you would with any cancer cell. you destroy it before it grows.

In a total war of Eorzea vs Garelmald, assuming no special plot twist coming out of nowhere (you know, like a moon falling or an Elder dragon the size of a skyscrapper coming in), if Garlemald were to send all their 14 units at Eorzea's face, we wouldn't stand a chance.

But because it's a story where we must win, wouldn't becomes shouldn't as something would happen to save us all

I realise that for story reason Garlemald has been portrayed as not much of a threat so far (I do share this feeling, I've never felt threaten by them and this is something SE should fix as they are suppose to be one of the big bad guys), but to answer the former poster, I wanted to be clear that they are extremely strong. Let's not forget they had pretty much conquered the whole planet but Eorzea until recently and they have a significant technological advantage over any other civilisation we've met or know about.

In another post there was a lengthy discussion about Garelmald airforce vs Eorzea airforce.

They have a lot of those :


we have a few of those :


Not a single spellcaster could reach one of these cruiser and I'm pretty sure you would need more than 5 or 6 savages riding big birds shooting fireball to take that down. Even including some OP character such as Estinien and the WoL, being raided by a dozen of those ships would be a huge deal in itself.

[Frizze]

So what ive kinda wondered is this. Does the empire really care about losing Ala Mhigo? Wasnt the primary reason that they invaded so that they could get their hands on Ultima, which was buried beneath Ala Mhigo? Sure, you dont tend to give back land that youve conquered and you can still conscript the young and whatnot. But the land there is kinda crap, and they seem to treat Ala Mhigans even worse then they treat the people in some of the other lands theyve taken. And yeah, killing Zenos probly needs to be answered for regardless. But it felt to me like Varis sent Zenos away to a land they didnt care about so he could play without interfering in the business of running the empire - that he was powerful and good at putting down rebellions(before he met us) being a bonus.