User blog comment:D0m0a/Nothgard Empire/@comment-27950421-20160806201841/@comment-27950421-20160809133504

1- That's really not an excuse. I can see how you would base it off of Mordor but Mordor doesn't work either. If you look though, you'll notice that Tolkien still left one side open, just the side that was facing away from Gondor. Like I said, reading this, it just seems like a very poorly hidden attempt at making your kingdom impenetrable.

2- No matter what advances you make with siege weapon technology, it's still siege weapon technology. Ballistae, Catapults, and Trebuchet are meant to knock down castle walls and gates, not take out infantry. They don't have the accuracy needed to hit groups of small targets like that. Even canons didn't. All an Army would have to do is spread out a bit and 90% of your artillery fire is going to miss entirely. What's more is in order to fire, you'd have to get your siege weapons to the mouth of the gorge. There's a problem with that though, that would mean all of your siege weapons and men are all focused in one location and unable to move (siege weapon don't during a battle anyways). This of course makes them sitting ducks for the enemies artillery. Your problem isn't resolved at all. The fort in the gorge doesn’t help, it keeps enemies from getting through but it still doesn't breal the siege. The same goes for if it were put on the outside edge of the gorge, though it would make exiting the gorge much safer for your troops. I will say that yeah sure, we can imagine anything we want, it doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. Though If you're willing to alter this, I would say put your back to sea and have a mountain range flow past the otherside Northgard in a curve. That makes sense and happens IRL. It also leaves your troops open to move up and down the coast and makes it to where you can have a navy. Rome became an Empire due to their control over the Mediterranean not their legion. They were in the perfect position to trade with areas from all around the Mediterranean and they had the military might to keep control of the trade lines and from that, they prospered.

3- The problem with that is simple, where does the water come from? A rainforest can generate its own self sustained rain. Everywhere else depends on the ocean to produce the rain. Doing the whole "It's magic, I don't gotta explain this shit" is lazy. You can get away with it on somethings but you kind of put a strain on the suspension of disbelief as it is.

4- Hyrule Prime is just as bad. If I could speak with the Dev team I would have told them the same thing.

5- A mamono army doesn't need to be seperate nor is it unique. It's pretty much what the entirety of the DLs forces are comprised of and any nation who would deny Lizardmen and other warrior mamono into their armed forces are incredibly stupid. The only requirement anyone should put on that is that all mamono joining their military must already be married to prevent undisciplined behavior and troops who are extremely usefu from abandoning their post to get laid. I fails to see why your special mamono units should be kept seperate from the rest of the legion aside from what could easily be viewed as a form of racism towards them.

8- A city is still inefficient. You could make note of a breadbasket region where a deal of farming is done like the Ukrain was for the U.S.S.R. and the American mid west is to this day. The region would have lots of farmland and lots of small towns. Not much else. As for defending farms from outsiders and sabotage? Not have it be centrilized like what you have is a damn good start. A fort can be infiltrated and massive food storages can be poisoned with relative ease. Massive stretches of land with numerous small storage location. Not so much.

9- having a weapons research facility where materials are plentiful makes sense. It's not what civilizations within the time frame did but it makes sense.

10- Sorry about misspelling it, though a mistake like that really doesn't have much to do with my argument. As I said before, it'd be best for the holy city to be part of or at least close to the Capitol. Having a holy city to make Galmathor happy doesn't work if the Emperor is doing stuff that pisses Gally off unintentionally. The religious heads and political heads need to be in easy communication with each other. You'd be best served by having a temple district that serves as the religious center. Jerusalem may have been a holy city, but it was the capitol of the territory it controlled and the biggest temples in the Roman Empire where of course in Rome.

11- Whether or not you knew of me at the time is irrelevant. I was merely using myself as an example. Giant Lizards are pretty much the most common monster archetype in existence. If you're going to use giant lizards that's fine, but if said giant lizards are completely unique to your country then you need to make these lizards a unique and distinctive breed in and of themselves with their own name. Saying that your country has giant lizards and no other country has giant lizards is unnecessarily restrictive to other people work and is kind of a dick move. Not to mention lazy. If you can't even come up with a name for your giant murder lizards you don't deserve to have them.

12- basically it's this. You're saying that when you conquer another nation they don't becone part of your nation. They are their own seperate vassal nations. These nations are required to fight in your wars, follow your laws, and you've stated elsewhere that your taking resources from them. However they still "rule" themselves. That's really just a way to for the Empire to seperate itself from any responsibility to the Dominates people. Right now, Polonias problems are Germanies problems. But for the Dominate? If they were hit by some natural disaster and city was destroyed, the Empire wouldn't have to lift a finger. You could and maybe you would. But the guy who takes over after you die? Or the guy after that? They ain't gonna do jack shit. It's not their problem. Also, the Dominate has to follow the rules set by the empire, do they have any say in what those rules are? Your country feels very Roman and I would imagine that you have some form of Senate working under the Emperor since a single man can't run a country that size. Are the Dominates represented in that? Do the people of withing the Dominates get to vote for that? If they aren't then the Dominates are clearly getting the shaft. If they are then the people of your kingdom are getting the shaft as they are left with a Senate where people from other countries are the overwhelming majority. Why should the Dominate even follow you? You've already said that they outnumber you a hundred to one and with your actions you aren't exactlyaking friends. What's to stop them from talking to the nations you haven't conquered yet? With your current policy you are under constant threat of rebellion. Rebellions that you can't control. As well as your efforts in conquest and what will basically be a world war with everyone piling on top of you.