By one guy. With practically no income, and a city that can barely support any infrastructure. Yeah, that's unbalancing.
Did you secede an entire city just to create a realm for
one single noble? Or are others going to be joining him? I find it next to impossible to believe that it's going to remain one guy for the rest of the war, that no other noble in Riombara has any plans to join, so this argument can really be dropped unless that is in fact the case.
Frankly, what I see here is a circumstance where the action, whatever its intent, does in fact create a strategic advantage. It might be small now, but it's not the degree of advantage that concerns me. If we get into questions of degree we'll be arguing from now until next year. The fact is, it does benefit Riombara at Enweil's expense. Having been in Riombara as recently as a year ago, I am well aware that there has been a plan in the works to recreate IVF for a long time now, but nothing says that couldn't be done after the war with Enweil was concluded. To me intent is less important than the result. Riombara has created a client state that vastly shortens the supply line to the front lines for any and all nobles that eventually join the new realm. Whether that's a horde or a handful and whether they have decent infrastructure at first or not doesn't really matter much to me; I'm more concerned that it happened at all, particularly since both noble population and infrastructure are subject to improvement as time goes on.
The advantage now exists and it can only grow larger unless Enweil is able to reconquer the city relatively quickly.I don't like the idea of judging on intent in this case because it's too easy to manipulate. If you know what the parameters are, you simply invent an intent to disguise the objective of gaining a strategic advantage. I know for a fact that's not what happened here, but a ruling to the effect that the intent absolves the perpetrator of any infraction simply opens the door to future abuse, as Chenier has pointed out. Riombara could easily have waited to take this step, and I believe that they should have.
