(11-19-2014, 07:52 PM)Jazz Egi Wrote: I bet those walkers and mechs are garbage in the winter climate, as there is a lot of precedent for the dangers of poorly winterized machinery.
On the contrary, actually. Garlemald was originally a small republic located in the northern territories of Ilsabard. Now, we've only ever seen that small fraction of Ilsabard on the Eorzean map of Aldenard, so we don't know the exact shape of Ilsabard, but it seems to expand at least as far north as the Farreach, if not further.
It's very likely that Garlemald's original climate was that of an arctic one, or close to. They could very well be at home in the snow for all we know.
Of course, there's literally no way to confirm Garlemald's original climate, but we know for a fact that the heart of Garlemald was in the northlands of Ilsabard.
As far as the thread goes, Garlemald is the strongest world power on Hydaelyn at the moment, as far as we know. However, they are spread thin. Garlemald has incredible strength, but in order to mobilize it and push into unconquered territory, they have to pull their forces from some another location. This is one of the major reasons Eorzea has not been conquered yet. We saw an example of it during the war of 1572, when Solus relocated the VIIth legion from the eastern front to the western front. Only then did Garlemald start pushing into Eorzea with the combined forces of the XIVth and VIIth legions. This halted some of their progress in Othard, though, as the VIIth was the most ruthless legion on that front.They simply can't afford to withdraw forces from certain locations, as they risk uprisings if they loosen their grasp on certain territories. One uprising might lead to another, and it would be a chain reaction that would cause a great deal of political instability for the empire.
Right now they're just sort of playing a delicate game of trying to balance their thin numbers properly out across their conquered territory. Doma is a really good example of this. Garlemald simply didn't have the means to conduct a full-scale operation against the insurgents, so instead of squashing the rebellion with ground forces, they decimated an entire city with their artillery in order to force the surrounding territories into submission and discourage any further attempts at rebellion.
So yes, Garlemald is powerful, but... ...that power only reaches so far right now. Given recent developments in the storyline, though, we may see a drastic change in their strategy.
![[Image: 7Ho5y7x.png]](http://i.imgur.com/7Ho5y7x.png)
