I disagree. It's central, fortified and rich. D'Hara may not see it as the outstanding military bulwark that it is but the leaders of that planned colony certainly did. In fact, we saw D'Hara as a waste of space in THE prime location on Dwilight for a warmongering, bloodthirsty, battle-hymn singing realm.
Soldiers don't eat gold.
And if you saw that, then no wonder you are doing such a horrible job as general. D'Hara's an atrocious place to defend. Once the old sea routes are removed, it'll be better, sure, but the sea travel is a new feature.
Had I been a foreign general of a realm that wanted to see D'Hara dead, I would have had the time to destroy D'Hara a thousand times over by today. It was a frigging linear realm, that couldn't scout its borders due to them being sea roads, and that granted far-away kingdoms the ability to launch a surprise attack and begin a takeover before any troops could be mobilized, with the sieging force likely cutting off half of the defenders from accessing the capital to recruit.
We never had a big army because we didn't feel like it. But to think that the islands would have made for a viable warmongering realm is just ridiculous. Even with contracts all over the continent feeding the realm was a bitch. And all it takes for months of efforts to go down the drain is just 1 week of harsh winter. Then you've got a ton of months of no income ahead to rebuild.
But then again, you couldn't even defeat a starved out D'Hara with nothing left but a stronghold and a crappy badland city, with all the might of Solaria and Luria Nova at your disposal. And somehow you'd think you'd be able to make a viable warmongering colony on the isles?
And you say central as if it was some kind of advantage. All it means is that "distance from home" is likely to kick in no matter who you attack and that anybody can backstab you from anywhere at any time.
Perhaps other rulers aren't the problem here, but the ridiculous expectations you make yourselves and your inability to achieve anything with the things you do have.
