A game for 4 year olds

[Alleluia]

I'd really like to know which real life examples you are referring to, since historically no, it has not been the that colonized people were somehow "worse" than the people colonizing them.

I mean there are real world examples. The British Empire abolishing slavery while several of the African tribes and nations they and others colonized practiced enslavement of their neighbors, plus exporting them. To be fair, the Brits didn't start out with that position. But they did get better and reach it, even while those tribes did not in that same time period.

The Spaniards conquering the Aztecs was a case of it too if you consider live human sacrifice to be worse than the Spaniards, which I would argue it was. Then you have older examples of Rome conquering several neighboring nations, with some of them having way less egalitarian legal standards than the Romans did. And I'm sure you can argue Nobunaga in Japan was better than several neighboring warlords he conquered, though probably also worse than some. (I'm not super familiar with Japanese history.)

Examples exist, though what "better" is can often (but not always imo) be argued about and considered relative. In-game, yeah, the Garlean rule is mostly not a purely civilizing influence that made things better than they were before. They are typically shown as a case of new problems replacing old problems at best, with some exceptions.

[aveyond-dreams]

I mean there are real world examples. The British Empire abolishing slavery while several of the African tribes and nations they and others colonized practiced enslavement of their neighbors, plus exporting them. To be fair, the Brits didn't start out with that position. But they did get better and reach it, even while those tribes did not in that same time period.

The Spaniards conquering the Aztecs was a case of it too if you consider live human sacrifice to be worse than the Spaniards, which I would argue it was. Then you have older examples of Rome conquering several neighboring nations, with some of them having way less egalitarian legal standards than the Romans did. And I'm sure you can argue Nobunaga in Japan was better than several neighboring warlords he conquered, though probably also worse than some. (I'm not super familiar with Japanese history.)

Examples exist, though what "better" is can often (but not always imo) be argued about and considered relative. In-game, yeah, the Garlean rule is mostly not a purely civilizing influence that made things better than they were before. They are typically shown as a case of new problems replacing old problems at best, with some exceptions.

That basically sums up the new position of the new Empress regarding the territories, was thinking that there could be some pretty backwards Druid/Viking regions somewhere in Ilsabard to fit the sort of warlords she refused to hand power back over to. Stable rule under a benevolent Empress is preferable to chaos. I should have thought given the trends I've seen of the posters here that they would jump at the chance to back a new female political leader who refuses to let herself be dominated by the powers around her.

[DPZ2]

That basically sums up the new position of the new Empress regarding the territories, was thinking that there could be some pretty backwards Druid/Viking regions somewhere in Ilsabard to fit the sort of warlords she refused to hand power back over to. Stable rule under a benevolent Empress is preferable to chaos. I should have thought given the trends I've seen of the posters here that they would jump at the chance to back a new female political leader who refuses to let herself be dominated by the powers around her.

So, the entirety of Ilsabard belongs to the Garlean Empire forever and ever, despite the backlash against the Empire in most of the conquered provinces. That certainly seems like something a benevolent Absolute Ruler could pull off. Perhaps it is the benevolence of first putting a velvet glove on the iron fist.

[MikkoAkure]

That basically sums up the new position of the new Empress regarding the territories, was thinking that there could be some pretty backwards Druid/Viking regions somewhere in Ilsabard to fit the sort of warlords she refused to hand power back over to. Stable rule under a benevolent Empress is preferable to chaos. I should have thought given the trends I've seen of the posters here that they would jump at the chance to back a new female political leader who refuses to let herself be dominated by the powers around her.

The thing is, is that after the point of Solus' death, Garlemald was no longer capable of stable rule.

Both wars of succession involved the legions fighting each other with the fate of the leadership of the country being uncertain and I would consider that chaos, not stability. On top of that, Shadowbringers ends with the destruction of Garlemald in the second war of succession. The capital of your empire being in ruins and the military that kept the peace in the empire being depleted with full legions deserting to create their own countries doesn't exactly lend itself to a stable empire, even if another Galvus' butt was place on the throne. Ultimately, I don't see how keeping the empire is better than returning power, especially since the they can no longer provide safety.

Your story involved a Garlean noble breaking the rules of Garlean nobility and culture to take the throne. Her first initial supporter is Gaius, who himself is a Garlean pariah labeled as the previous emperor's assassin. Even if your story takes place, her power is given to her by a deserted legatus ruling a breakaway province and depends on the support of a foreign army. Unless you retcon Shadowbringers, the empire is still fraying at the edges and has lost all of its territory outside Ilsabard, with the rebellions providing inspiration to others. She has no actual Garlean legions backing her and if she belongs to a faction, you didn't mention it. On top of that, your story has her dissolve the senate, which had been the governing body for ~550 years and the advisory body to the emperor after that. There's no way that's going to be a stable rule on its own unless the plot just says so and is left at that.


We do know of a viking culture in the game, Aerslaent, but they're extremely far away and considering Garlemald didn't bother with Hingashi, which is closer to their held territory, the Garleans probably haven't bothered with it. Since Garlemald is already in the furthest northern wastes of Ilsabard where such a culture would rise, I don't think there would be any warlord cultures other than the ones they put down to guarantee their safety during their republic days. Hypothesizing the existence of possible terrible warlords of "backwards" regions in Ilsabard we don't know about will just lead to endless "what ifs". What we do know is that every region so far visited or mentioned as part of a full storyline (not counting field records of places alluded to) that has been a Garlean province hasn't liked it and has rebelled successfully.

The closest equivalent might be Nagxia, since that was said to be a wasteland even before the Garleans came, but the Garleans didn't make it any better and what we do know of that place involves the XIth legion stuck in Garlemald's version of Vietnam, fighting against guerillas in the jungle and destroying native peoples' villages. Captured Domans were also sent to Nagxia by the Garleans to do grueling work. Doma itself has petty kings and warlords, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks that Yotsuyu's Doma is better than the way it was before.

[Cleretic]

The Spaniards conquering the Aztecs was a case of it too if you consider live human sacrifice to be worse than the Spaniards, which I would argue it was.

It should be noted for sake of clarity that this was by no means the intention of the Spaniards. They just turned up doing their conquering thing and by sheer chance happened to stumble into a situation where there was already a highly unpopular empire that neighboring nations wanted gone.

And being better than the Aztecs is less a credit to the Spaniards and more an underlining of how stunningly bad the Aztecs were. It wasn't exactly 'bringing civility to the new world' like the Spaniards thought, and was more lopping off the existing bad empire and then being their own brand of terrible. It was basically the Ala Mhigan situation of 'overthrow the bad monarchy and then the also-bad Garleans took over', only with a few more political players and... I'm not gonna say less active malevolence, but different active malevolence.

The Roman Empire is probably not the overall pitch that's survived in popularly-understood history, either; what we know from that is mostly stuff penned by the Romans, after all.

[thegreatonemal]

I mean there are real world examples. The British Empire abolishing slavery while several of the African tribes and nations they and others colonized practiced enslavement of their neighbors, plus exporting them. To be fair, the Brits didn't start out with that position. But they did get better and reach it, even while those tribes did not in that same time period.

The Spaniards conquering the Aztecs was a case of it too if you consider live human sacrifice to be worse than the Spaniards, which I would argue it was. Then you have older examples of Rome conquering several neighboring nations, with some of them having way less egalitarian legal standards than the Romans did. And I'm sure you can argue Nobunaga in Japan was better than several neighboring warlords he conquered, though probably also worse than some. (I'm not super familiar with Japanese history.)

Examples exist, though what "better" is can often (but not always imo) be argued about and considered relative. In-game, yeah, the Garlean rule is mostly not a purely civilizing influence that made things better than they were before. They are typically shown as a case of new problems replacing old problems at best, with some exceptions.

The British abolished slavery because it wasn't making them enough money, not because they realized slavery=bad.

[Jandor]

The British abolished slavery because it wasn't making them enough money, not because they realized slavery=bad.

Slavery not making as much money will have eaten away at the power of those standing in the way of abolishing slavery, but it doesn't make much sense as a motivating factor in and of itself. It's not like the actual business of ending it was free.

[thegreatonemal]

Slavery not making as much money will have eaten away at the power of those standing in the way of abolishing slavery, but it doesn't make much sense as a motivating factor in and of itself. It's not like the actual business of ending it was free.

Slave revolts being another factor, the risk were simply getting too big to try and maintain it. It's not as the British people suddenly grew a heart but that does make for good PR.