Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Cleretic]

I mean, on paper yes and agreed, especially taking into account Iscah's point that Future tech doesn't necessarily mean it's better, but I would note that the technologically superior Garlean Empire absolutely dominated magic-based ones up until all the other nations got their collective shit together to stall their advance. Even then, they didn't stop being a major threat until an Ascian and bored prince decided to speed-run the nihilistic route to self-destruction.

So it's somewhat unrelated, but I've been chewing on this for a bit, and from waht I know, the Empire's victories didn't really come from their magitek. It gave them equal footing in head-to-head combat, and probably something of an edge in the air, but their real known victories were tactical. Invading countries too unstable to put up a cohesive fight (Bozja, Werlyt), destabilizing the countries that could've posed a challenge (Ala Mhigo). Doma's basically the only country we know of that they beat in a straight fight, mostly by air superiority; the main reason their conquest of Eorzea stopped where it did was that they couldn't bust into the mainland, stopped by both the Elementals and Midgardsormr.

The magitek sure helped them, but we're not looking at a Civilization game where a tank rolls in on crossbowmen. It was the equalizer, not the decider.

[kaynide]

So it's somewhat unrelated, but I've been chewing on this for a bit, and from waht I know, the Empire's victories didn't really come from their magitek. It gave them equal footing in head-to-head combat, and probably something of an edge in the air, but their real known victories were tactical. Invading countries too unstable to put up a cohesive fight (Bozja, Werlyt), destabilizing the countries that could've posed a challenge (Ala Mhigo). Doma's basically the only country we know of that they beat in a straight fight, mostly by air superiority; the main reason their conquest of Eorzea stopped where it did was that they couldn't bust into the mainland, stopped by both the Elementals and Midgardsormr.

The magitek sure helped them, but we're not looking at a Civilization game where a tank rolls in on crossbowmen. It was the equalizer, not the decider.

This is fair, and I would even add to counter my own argument that the Empire had “lol Ascians”, who could basically cheat whatever systems by creating problems. Things like riling up beast tribes to keep the alliance disorganized.