Baldur's Gate vs Amn

Grum

So, we all know that the two almost went to war. For someone who knows the background better than I, what are the militaries of both nations like? If they went to war, what would most likely have happened?

wubble

Amn would probably win, Baldur's gate is an independant city state whereas amn is a huge country with lots of wizards. then again if the lord's alliance helps BG would be in with a chance.

Grum

What is the lord's alliance?

And for Amn, how much control over the wizards do they really have? Aren't their wizards there mostly to keep all of the wandering wizards in check?

And wasn't Amn being invaded around the same time by the...Scythiian...horde...or whatnot? I remember the town criers talking about that, as well as the monstrous deserters in the Umar Hills.

So if Amn, as a larger country, is fighting on two fronts and has internal control problems, could Baldur's Gate win?

Heindrich

There was a pretty extensive discussion on this topic here. Though of course everyone is welcome to add to it here.

Grum said:

What is the lord's alliance?

The Lords' Alliance, also known as the Council of Lords, is a partnership of merchant cities, founded in 1325 DR. [3][4] Its members are from the North and Western Heartlands, Waterdeep, Silverymoon, and Neverwinter, as well as other free cities and towns in the region, which make up the bulk of the organization.

Quoted from a FR wiki.

Grum said:

And for Amn, how much control over the wizards do they really have? Aren't their wizards there mostly to keep all of the wandering wizards in check?

If you speak to the government officials inside the Council of Six building in the Government District, they make it quite clear that the Council has limited influence on the Cowled Wizards, who are basically judge, jury and executioner when it comes to magical governance. In short, the Cowled Wizards cannot be considered part of the Amnish military.

Grum said:

So if Amn, as a larger country, is fighting on two fronts and has internal control problems, could Baldur's Gate win?

In my personal opinion, Baldur's Gate might win a battle or two, and frustrate Amn, but the power imbalance is too big. Amn is a proper empire, described by many sources as the greatest power in Faerun, with colonies overseas. It is basically Conquistador Spain. If a mortal threat emerged to threaten the Amnish core, I am sure they'd have the capacity to muster for war on a scale Baldur's Gate cannot compete with, and will win, sooner or later. At the most basic level, both Baldur's Gate and Amn rely heavily on mercenaries, and mercenaries are loyal to gold above all else... Amn has a lot more of it than Baldur's Gate. Athkatla is the City of Coin, afterall.

Grum

Thank you Heindrich.

So basically, all Baldur's Gate could hope for would be to maybe take Nashkel, fortify the mountainous border, and then sue for peace? Asking for so little that it wouldn't be worth mobilizing the empire for war.

Qwazi

If Sarevok wanted the people of Nashkel killed, it would have been so much quicker to just disturb a grave there.

elminster

Not sure if you have seen this but its a work in progress that sort of relates to the topic at hand.

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/37704/the-eve-of-war-work-in-progress

elminster

Grum said:

Thank you Heindrich.

So basically, all Baldur's Gate could hope for would be to maybe take Nashkel, fortify the mountainous border, and then sue for peace? Asking for so little that it wouldn't be worth mobilizing the empire for war.

I don't think taking Nashkel would be that great of a move as far as Baldur's Gate is concerned. I mean if they did that prior to the winter (when Amn's response through the use of land forces and ships would be more limited) it might work, assuming of course Amn was willing to negotiate, but Baldur's Gate (the game) starts in our equivalent of May. Nashkel is also only about 2,000 feet above sea level (which makes it less high than most of the Appalachian mountains). I can't find any other information on how high the Cloud Peaks get but at the time of the year the game is set but either I don't think there are really the conditions present to stop Amn from just taking Nashkel back.

Plus Athkatla alone (not all of Amn just the city) apparently has 8 ships, 900 sea warriors, and about 4,000 troops. Plus probably another 1200 mercenaries hired as "guards" by the various merchant families in the city (Lands and Intrigue lists 12 mercantile families and says they each have anywhere between 100 to 500 "guards" with 500 being the legal limit).

According to "Forgotten Realms Adventures" Baldur's Gate has around 1700 flaming fist Mercenaries.

So I think Baldur's Gate splitting their forces by attacking Nashkel would be a mistake. Amn can after all just bypass Nashkel and attack Baldur's Gate directly thanks to its access to the sea.

Heindrich

elminster said:

Plus Athkatla alone (not all of Amn just the city) apparently has 8 ships, 900 sea warriors, and about 4,000 troops. Plus probably another 1200 mercenaries hired as "guards" by the various merchant families in the city (Lands and Intrigue lists 12 mercantile families and says they each have anywhere between 100 to 500 "guards" with 500 being the legal limit).

According to "Forgotten Realms Adventures" Baldur's Gate has around 1700 flaming fist Mercenaries.

Much as I love the BG saga, this is partly the reason that I don't take official D&D lore too seriously when thinking about my head canon. Amn is supposed to be the greatest empire in Faerun (analogous to late-Medieval or early Renaissance Europe), and yet its capital is defended by about 5,000 soldiers. That's bad enough in a pure "historic fantasy" setting, but the FR is full of evil races (Drow, Beholders, Mind Flayers etc), dragons and super-powerful demons and wizards... it is a wonder that such small nations with such flimsy military capability can survive at all.

And that's before I think about Spellplague and how irrelevant it makes my efforts in the BG games...

So basically I take official lore (and game mechanics) as a guideline for my head canon, and fill in the gaps and ignore things as I choose, cos otherwise it gives me a headache if I try to explain things on a literal level.

elminster

Well it does also say that Amn's military is poorly organized and that it is considered to be the "least prestigious" task amongst the tasks the Council of Six normally take care of. It could also be that a larger number of troops being present in the city would attract the ire of the Shadow Thieves.

After all those 5000 troops only represents one facet of power within the city. You also have mercantile companies being hired out by people and the shadow thieves exercising their control over the city.

That said I won't really totally defend these books either. Lands of Intrigue claims that Athkatla goes from having 130,000 people in the winter and spring to 400,000 people in the summer. I'm not saying that that isn't possible, but it does seem very unlikely.

Grum

It could just mean that the census takers don't make that much of an effort to get around in winter...and during the summer you have lots of cheap foreign labor/merchants coming in.

As for Baldur's Gate, they don't need to win a war per se.

Amn: Huge nation, unorganized military, many rivals, being invaded by a large abhuman army
Baldur's Gate: City State with a highly organized military

The 'war' would be fought over Amn supposedly trying to destabilize the region. So all that Baldur's Gate would have to do is take the strategic mountain passes and defend them. Move a wee bit into Amnian territory. Take so little that the Council of Six wouldn't see it as a real loss ("oh no...we lost a single iron mine and a tiny village, along with some wilderness areas"). Make it not worth attacking. ("We *could* send in our forces to crush them...but it would be really costly, and we need those soldiers fighting the hobgoblins/goblins/orcs/giants/etc, which are ravaging the south"). And with the Navy....Baldur's Gate has its own fleet and it most likely has its own fair share of merchants.

No, Baldur's Gate can't compete with the Amnian Navy, but if Amn does send its own fleet, Baldur's Gate can still harass it. It has its own sea fortress and walls to defend itself. And it apparently has the Lord's Alliance, who could probably loan them a few ships/merchant marines/privateers.


So basically, the war would be Baldur's Gate striking a balance where they are taking just enough to make a point to their own people, but not enough to really make a war worthwhile to Amn. If anything, both sides do a few token skirmishes, make a deal and go back to a status quo, so both governments can show their people how powerful they really are.

FinneousPJ

@Grum Unfortunately that's not how people work. No matter how tiny a loss, the pride of the Amnish people will probably make them attack with vengeance. Look at something like 9/11. Couple of buildings and a few people -> let's invade the f***ers.

Hence, I would say BG attack Amn would be the dumbest thing. However, if Amn decided to attack BG, I think they have a chance of fending them off (unless Amn puts EVERYTHING into it, which isn't likely). Does that count as a victory?

Heindrich

Actually what @elminster said above reminded me of the foolishness of Sarevok's apparent strategy (though technically Sarevok's plan was never to win the war anyway). He proposes an attack to seize Nashkel and fortify the mountain pass from Amn... even assuming that Nashkel really is defensible and that the mountains provide an effective land bottleneck (which @elminster believes isn't the case), both Baldur's Gate and Athktla are major port cities... and Amn is a maritime empire, so Baldur's Gate is hilariously vulnerable to attack by sea and has no chance of winning any prolonged naval war. The supply of iron would be rather irrelevant if Amn just blockades all land and sea trade routes and starves the city.

FinneousPJ said:

@Grum Unfortunately that's not how people work. No matter how tiny a loss, the pride of the Amnish people will probably make them attack with vengeance. Look at something like 9/11. Couple of buildings and a few people -> let's invade the f***ers.

In fairness, 9/11 was pretty huge, both in terms of human loss (nearly 3,000), property/economic damage and symbolism. Invading Afghanistan was a reasonable response to strike back at Al-Qaeda, which accepted responsibility for the attack. The Iraq War however... (in my assessment) was a cynical move by Neo-Cons to exploit the political capital from 9/11 to achieve other less reasonable goals. But I'd rather not de-rail this thread any further with real politics/history. If you or anyone else would like to add to this subject area, may I recommend this thread or this thread.

FinneousPJ

Oh, I'm sure the 20 000 civilian victims agree with you it was "a reasonable response". If you don't want to derail the thread, why did you post that? I was just using a simple real life example to make an on-topic point.

Fiendish_Warrior

Anything is possible re: the navy. I remember a few Athenians with freshly-built Corinthian triremes decimating the Persian navy. If BG gets creative enough and Amn gets foolish enough, who knows? I don't know anything about the Sea of Moonshae, but geographically speaking, it looks like a great place to spring a trap for the Amnian navy, assuming they fall for it.

BelgarathMTH

About the "foolishness" of Sarevok's plan: Remember that he could not have cared less who won the war he was trying to orchestrate. His goal was to bring about as much bloodshed as possible, causing an ascension to deity for himself.

It was therefore in his interests to "poke the dragon" that was the Amnish Empire, as hard as possible, hoping for mass destruction in Baldur's Gate. I imagine that it is part of his political genius that he was almost able to persuade the government of Baldur's Gate to do something so monumentally stupid.

And he would have succeeded, too, "if not for you meddling kids!"

Grum

I guess by convince you mean: murder all of the dukes and replace both them and the nobles with dopplegangers.

Seriously...how many important nobles were replaced by the end of BG1? Those shapechangers came damned close to having a political monopoly in the Gate.

mashedtaters

I have a question that I was always confused by.
I know that full out war did not break out in Baldur's Gate 1, but it seems as though there was still some sort of battle between Amn and Baldur's Gate that is hinted at near the end. I can't remember anything else about this, though. Can someone please fill in the blanks for me?
If they didn't go to war, why was there a battle between them?