Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
Eorzea is (barely) able to fend of Imperial assaults only because they only ever send one legion at a time, and even then it's a very close shave. The VIIth had all but routed the Alliance at Cartenau before the Calamity, and without the PC's intervention (and Hydaelyn's assistance in the endeavor) the XIVth would have won. The only reason the XIIth didn't overrun the Ala Mhigan Resistance was because Zenos wasn't interested in actually winning, and after our escapades in Othard liberating Doma (which took the assistance of both the Confederate pirates and most if not all of the Azim Steppe's Xaela tribes) couldn't call on reinforcements.

(Then again the Bad Future Crystal Exarch G'raha hails from suggested the Alliance could not just hold its own, but actually beat back the Empire.)
I'd like to add that the alliance that fought the VIIth, the alliance that fought the XIVth, the alliance that fought the XIIth, and the alliance that started beating the empire are all different organizations and in different states of being in very meaningful ways.

The alliance that fought the VIIth and XIVth was barely strung together, the three city-states backing it scarcely had internal cohesion let alone camaraderie amongst its member states. The one that fought the XIIth at Ala Mhigo was beginning to take proper shape but a sudden shift in lines so far afield to most of them limited what they could bring.

The one that starts winning against the empire is one that its member states had cut their teeth in battles against the legions that came before, that stand more united both within themselves and with each other.

Garlemald's actual advantage wasn't the technology but in that they were one of maybe three or four nations acting at a scope and scale we in the real world would recognize as a country, and it's telling that they treatied with anyone else that fits that criteria instead of trying to absorb them as well. Now they have numbers but even before the collapse they couldn't use them, most of their army is conscripts. You put them all in one place and the chances of them just turning around and overwhelming the minority of garlean officers is far too great.

It's also easy to forget that Ala Mhigo was holding them back alone for some twenty years before it tore itself apart, or that Doma would have successfully liberated if Zenos hadn't carried the win for the empire.

Garlemald has always been a paper tiger whenever put in a situation that would actually test it.