Discrepancy in lore (spoilers)

[Recon1o6]

Despite all the tech, garlemalds fancy toys aren't actually as op as they would seem. They require a lot of resources and logistics compared to their magical opponents who just need regular supplies. They are also very vulnerable to magic since the magitek gold mount specifically says they had to develop magic resistance coatings to stop them being blasted silly via even basic spells

A lot of them are very glass cannon esque, or they have structural weaknesses that their researchers aren't fixing as garleans focus more on firepower than defence (As any engineer could tell you, all them walking machines would be crippled easily by smacking the joints, given garlemald is in mountainous territory however walkers are useful for terrain traversal. This is why the hexadrones are deadly, but they are incredibly complex and rare- they are a new development and wouldn't fare well in garlean homeland)
Geomancers messed about with the wind aether and grounded garlemalds airships, hence why doma was invaded through nagxia through a tough campaign. The airships require lots of fuel as well which is why they raised the shield in the burn- to force the garleans to use a fuel heavy route.

The weapons are prototypes. Sapphire weapon required oversoul just to stand a chance at defeating the G-warrior. Emerald had to be snuck out to finish development. Ruby was in its field trials like one of the scorpions in ala mhigo. All of them ended up swiftly destroyed.

Finally, when the airships DO get the advantage, they are exactly as OP as advertised, such as when dalmasca got taken over. Air dropped over nalbina and dalmasca and it was conquered.

The good guys magic is very much a powerful and flexible tool. One mage might not be able to do much besides cast fire 1 or 2, but when you got a bunch of them together as artillery, those fire spells will saturate an area as good as any magitek cannon at no fuel cost or metal cost besides the usual small arms resources.
Finally, the good guys have been teching up as well. Machinistry and ironworks things especially if one of the bozja field notes is any indication. The good guys also have an advantage in that they can find weaknesses in the garlean mechs, but the garleans cant stop magic working on eorzea's side.

[KageTokage]

Technological discrepancies are a series-wide phenomenon, so XIV is nothing new in that regard.

As previously stated, the only thing I'm not really okay with is the IVth legion having sudden access to an Agrius-grade battleship when it took the Empire years to produce a second one after Midgarsormr scrapped their first on top of them supposedly being strapped for resources due to breaking off from the Empire.

It feels like a rather forced way of prolonging/escalating the conflict now that we've already dealt with phase 1 of their schemes by securing Save the Queen...and it's implied that the ship isn't even their endgame with them off-handedly mentioning that they had found something of greater important then the sword.

[Brightamethyst]

The empire is much more wary after what happened at Silvertear. In Eorzea aether is plentiful and primal summoning is easy and common. Getting blasted out of the sky because some panicked qiqirn summoned the rat god is a very real possibility.

[Cybylt]

Garlean cruisers are pretty impressive whenever they're outside of airspace guarded by ballistae that fire exploding lances the size of houses designed to hit significantly faster and equally sturdy targets.

Even before that, as imposing as they are the opposition they have is people who can will explosions, lightning, and permafrost into existence in the most vulnerable points of their designs. And casted magics are powerful, but often forgotten is magic is in *everything* we do, and in *nothing* they do. That medieval sword and armor? Magic is a part of its very creation process. The strength of your swings with a sword? Empowered by magic. All of it is always magic because it is innate to everyone but the Garleans and it is a massive advantage that the technology they have only brings to equity at best.

There's also the fueling issue which is brought up in Stormblood in a few points. Big ship isn't going to do anything but become grounded if they don't have supply lines set since its fuel and munitions run on the same resource.

[Bright-Flower]

It does bug me a bit yeah that they never really seem to use their theoretical air superiority.

With Gaius, he wanted to break the spirit of Eorzea and conquor it with its resources intact so I guess it makes sense he wouldn't want to bomb the crap out of them.

Aside from that, it may help to keep in mind that the empire was built from the ground up as a tool for the Ascians. The first emperor was an Ascian and Varis was basically their puppet despite despising them. And the goal of the Ascians was not world conquest but spreading chaos. They didn't want the empire to actually rule the world they wanted to use it as a cool of conflict and chaos to bring about calamities. So that could go some way to explaining why the empire isn't set up to just bomb the crap out of everything in sight as well.

[Jandor]

It does bug me a bit yeah that they never really seem to use their theoretical air superiority.

We even went and dealt with the airship issue over in Doma, and they were shown to be better able to deal with aerial enemies than we are, but in Eorzea everyone just went nah it'll be fine and then we won anyway.

More fool you I guess, Garlemald, imagine thinking virtually uncontested aerial superiority would give you the edge. That sort of thing just doesn't cut it when you're facing a land army that can throw fireballs up to a whopping 25 yalms!

[Brightamethyst]

More fool you I guess, Garlemald, imagine thinking virtually uncontested aerial superiority would give you the edge. That sort of thing just doesn't cut it when you're facing a land army that can throw fireballs up to a whopping 25 yalms!

Garlemald's last aerial invasion of Eorzea ended with the fleet being massacred by dragons and Midgardsormr personally destroying the flagship. Gaius himself said the cost was too high.

[Jandor]

Garlemald's last aerial invasion of Eorzea ended with the fleet being massacred by dragons and Midgardsormr personally destroying the flagship. Gaius himself said the cost was too high.

An outside force of magic flying space aliens fighting the Empire to a standstill at the cost of their own millennia old leaders body is probably the worst example you could come up with if you wanted to show that Alliance can successfully deal with airships on its own.

A: The alliance didn't do it.
B: It didn't push the Garleans back beyond where they started.
C: The cost was arguably just as high, if not higher, for the dragons.

Just to clarify, my criticism isn't that the Alliance can take out airships, it's that we're never shown, or even told, how we're doing it.
Air superiority is important, very important, and I want to know how we're handling that aspect of the war. I can fill in the gaps myself if I have to and come up with plausible enough explanations; dragonkiller support, dragoon boarding parties, rogues sabotaging them in dock, etc. but I consider it important enough that the story just kinda glossing over it annoys me.

[Vyrerus]

An outside force of magic flying space aliens fighting the Empire to a standstill at the cost of their own millennia old leaders body is probably the worst example

Within the context of the game world it isn't. The Garleans don't know that dragons are aliens, for one thing. For another, to them Eorzea is a frontier. Not only do they struggle to combat Primals without recent technological marvels, but the amount of resources they pooled into the Agrius was substantially high. They sent it in, fully expecting it to absolutely crush all opposition and raze Eorzea mostly to the ground. Instead, it's a scrap heap in the middle of a lake.

Also, aerial superiority doesn't mean as much in this world, as it does in ours. Case in point, flying Imperial dropships bombard you during the last segment of Keeper of the Lake. Not only are these bombardments non-lethal, we can anticipate where they land more precisely than the Garleans aiming them. Without a rapid fire bombardment, their normal air units can't even touch us.

Add to this, they tried the same trick twice. They built yet another dreadnaught, being a FF Empire, they are addicted to constructing them. It has been unable to leave Azys Lla for at least 15 months by my count from battle damage sustained from fighting ONE Primal.

So Garlean Dreadnaughts are O and 2 vs. Filthy Savage Magicks/Filthy Frontier Dragons. They're about to be O and 3.

To address your points directly:

A: Doesn't matter. Cost the Empire so much that they won't willingly commit that kind of force to Eorzea ever again, until the events of Stormblood.
B. It got rid of the mainstay in their military force, allowing the Alliance to engage them on somewhat even terms until Bahamut happened.
C. That's the Dragons' cost to bear, because they acted in accordance with the pact between Middy and Hydaelyn.

[Lusavari]

So after Delubrum Reginae we got to see one of the empire’s “star destroyers” arrive and I couldn’t help but feel a bit disconnected.

Not that I mind that sort of weaponry but supposedly Eorzea has been resisting invasion and fending off the empires advances for some time now and... well we have Gridania’s spears and archers, some mercenaries in uldah, and wooden ships with cannons in Limsa?

There’s even a grounded airship in the sea of clouds that they can barely keep moving...

I know we have magic on our side but that’s not enough. I mean given the scope of our spells in game the empire should have destroyed us long long ago. And it doesn’t make sense to me how a civilization in the space age is having trouble with colonial era (at best) weaponry...

And with the arrival of the ruby/emerald weapons and the G-warrior there’s even less of a case to have jobs with swords and shields or axes... GNB and MCH fit a bit better but I liked the fact that we were in the imperial age and not in cyberpunk 2077.

I’m sure there’s a way to reason out all of these issues but to me the game is falling apart in terms of cohesiveness. I wonder if people share the same thoughts.

I find it less jarring that the WoL is on the moon than the fact he is wearing medieval armor in the trailer when obviously there’s space ships zooming around and even scrappy resistance movements like Bozja look like world war 1 outfits.

Superior weapons don't insure victory. Just like how the wars in the middle east are still going on after a Decade. Or the fact the US Lost the Vietnam war. A lot more goes into war than superior weapons. The Empire has such a large swathe of area to take care of, they're spread thin, and the Ala Mhigan and Doman uprising combined with Zenos's activity has destabilized the empire. The whore story at this point is that several of the legates have gone rogue. When your chain of command is unstable that also puts even the most technologically superior forces at a disadvantage. Morale plays a huge role in wins and losses.

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.)

Superweapons like the... Weapons are one-of-a-kind prototypes that demand a massive amount of resources for R&D; they can't just throw the things around like mass production units, and even if they could the materials for making one probably cost a fortune. Likewise the G-Warrior is only refurbished Allagan tech; the Ironworks didn't make it, probably don't have the resources to make another, and are just using the captured Imperial maintenance facility in Terncliff to house and repair it since Eorzea more than likely doesn't have somewhere suitable. (Maybe Castrum Marinum, now that it's been cleared out.)

The Empire's got advanced tech, but it's best stuff is one-off superpowered prototypes they can't regularly deploy. It's day to day units, such as Magitek Reapers and Predators, can be defeated with the right strategies (Raubahn mentions having to learn how to deal with them late in Stormblood) or enough firepower (see the Legacy ending / ARR opening cinematic where a BLM blasts a Reaper with a fireball and destroys it).

As advanced as the Empire's tech is, it's a bit tough to fully overcome people who can pull meteors out of thin air. Plus, everyone other than Garleans (and poor Thancred) are capable of subconsciously using magic to reinforce and empower their bodies, which is implied to be how non-Garleans pushed them to inhospitable territory and why they need magitek power armor to help close the gap. An axe in the real world can cut through wood; an axe in XIV's world can cut through stone, used properly.

P.S. The IVth having an Agrius sized vessel when it's supposed to be sorely strapped for resources irked me too; but it's XII fanservice, so they'll do it anyway.

I love all the points you bring up as they were things I was also going to bring up. But also building on what you say about the empire. I would point out Emperor Solus Yae Galvos intentionally built the Empire to fail. Let's not forget that conversation with Varis where Varis accuses Solus/Emet-Selch of carelessness in dying without naming a successor, to which Emet-Selch retorts "Do you how carefully timed my death was? Throwing the empire into chaos was the intent!" Emet-Selch as Solus knew full well what he was doing. He built an empire that quickly grew under very competent and powerful leadership, and handpicked people loyal to him and no one else who then ignored orders to return the second the chain of command crumbled. Think. Gaius went rogue and refused to return when Solus died, believing it was his job to continue his mission as assigned and he wasn't going to take orders from anyone till a new emperor was selected. He went MIA Presumed Dead before Varis took the throne. Solus wanted something like that as having Legates who would go rogue, like Gabranth, Gaius, even Zenos and Valens. All of this was done to cause a calamity. This level of instability would have resulted in the release of Black Rose in the original time line, and the collapse of the Garlean Empire and all the deaths from the gas, it would have lead to the First being absorbed when originally the Light consumed it. The shortcomings of the empire are entirely by design but its creator.


For your P.S. point I would say though that every legion has 1 giant flagship and let's not forget Gabranth has gone rogue. Even if they're resource strapped, that 1 dreadnaught is still within the resources available to Gabranth.