astarkchoice

Ok issues that bother me -decline of the nights watch despite it directly affecting 2-3 -powerful northern houses before we even talk starks! Theres no reason they'd allow the watch to fall when raiders directly affect their lands..theyd be in regular contact with the lord commander for anything he needs. This includes the western sea having no ships too -the ripe islands close to ironborn and somehow they miss them. -the lannisters gold not slowly gaining them all of westeros once dragons died off -dorne, the north and the vale all being touted as impregnable yet easily acessible by sea...no in all those 100s of years thought to bypass the insane land blocks by just going by sea? -new ghis vast forces to face.....?

Based on 2 or so threads ongoing at the min. Once dany roots out slavery we could possibly see the essosi city states possibly raise their own standing freedmen armies rather than questionable loyalty sellsword comapnies (using many veterans of the sellsword companies currently). While sellsword companies may still exist wed expect the former slave freedmen to want a full time standing force like the westerosi ie forces that hopefully cant be paid by the uber rich to betray the anti slavery movement and force things back to the bad old slaver heyday!! The big issue is the dothraki khalassars would now be a threat not a vital part part of the slave trade anymore and thus would need to be dealt with!!! Heres how i think each city states forces would/should shape up.(perhaps iv played too much total war recently) Pentos: these guys would have the biggest need to get a khalasaar beating force and fast given they havent had a large military AND theyd likely be picked on 1st as a known soft target. They do have potential to have large navy and land force given their vast wealth. Like all free cities theyd need to heavily wall up the various outside settlements and invest in crossbows, archers and scorpions. They have the cash to have a large mixed force of well armoured horse archers , crossbowmen and archers , pikes and horse lancers to help.drive off the horselords!! Given their rivalry with bravos they may still have to keep forces to an agreed minimum . The windblown could be a good skelton to build this around as long as the tattered prince abandons his delusions of ruling it utterly. Qohor: the free city with the most work to do given their reliance on the unsullied. Perhaps using the existing eunuchs as professional backbone to train up most able bodied males into a milita! Longer spears and backed by lots of crossbows+ archers. They have the finest weaponmakers in all planetos to help. They make valyrian steel weapons too but clearly at too slow a rate to be a battle changer....unless instead of a few v.steel swords a month they produce hundreds of v.steel.arrowheads! The dothraki are unarmoured so that should pass through them like a hot knife though butter! One of their chief exports is wood from the forrest so finding lots of skilled axemen and training them up on the military equivalent shouldnt be too hard. Norvos: the slave bearded priest warrior caste would need altered to be purely volunteer but these could still form the officer/training corps of a larger force full.of either part time milita of full timers. Both they and the qohori live near such vast forrests archers and axemen should be plentiful to fill ranks, from the description though of moss overgrown pallisides theyd need to really build.up the walls to drive off the horselords. Lys: their island base means they dont have to worry about the dothraki but pirate slavers. They apparently already have high walls and a decent fleet , famed for bedslaves we.can assume this would remain but on a volunteer basis so could be good for info gathering. The fact they are famed for posions means they arent ashamed of them so possibly have archers with small pots to dip arrowheads in to increase fatalities. Tyrosh: like lys no danger from horselords as its across the sea but slaver pirates could be an issue. The fact the 3 cities would probably now be ruled by democratic councils could help stop the disputed lands and stepstones being fought over, the 3 could co-ordinate forces land and sea to keep pirate fleets away. Myr: is the only 3 sisters city to be in danger from the horselords once slavery is gone as they are on yhr mainland. The city os supposedly walled and they have apparently a preferrnce for crosebows....a perfect weapon to drive the dothraki off!. Add in myrish lenses on the city walls to spot khalassars, myrish fire the wound healing herb and they have a famous weaving industry meaning gambesons and brigandines could be standard weargear. Volantis: already an absolute brute military wise other than build up tje walls on its outside lesser walled cities they dont gave much to do. The elephants in the city could be very useful vs dothraki . The fire worshipper tigerguard (half their number) + firey hand troops could be moulded.into one huge profesional fanatical force at the beck and call of the fire priests to help preserve order and keep slavery at bay. Slavers bay: no reason of new ghis can field 6 ironlegions of freedmen the other 3 cities cant do at least 2-3 times that. The iron legions do have armlured and towered elephants bur asophot had elephants too so they should be able to get their hands on more (esp as they have exotic animals vs human eventd all the time). We see the clanker slaves have according to tyrion large amounts of lomg spears and crossbows , while hes right they are useless vs dragons these will help fight off dothraki. The crumbling walls would need touched up and of course finaly the pit fighters armoured up and sent out to demand personal combat from khals and bloodriders to leave them.leaderless!!

Just as in medieval times companies can be pretty loyal as future work depends on their reputations and sticking to contracts, like so.much of asoiaf everything is based on your pov....the lords of westeros as we see are utterly delusional to think their bonds of feudalism/vassals are any way more dependable than professional merc companies! Theres also the fact we see the stormcrows former captain (prendahl something) refuses danys offer to betray yunkai and break their contract as he is ghiscari, so there is some element of statehood/kinship involved too. It also reinforces the idea that breaking a contract even for a promised vast fortune is a big deal needing talked over among the captains! Also the slavery aspect means large standing forces outside the city states for hire sorta fits as a natural element in case any slave uprising movement sways the slave city guard troops to their side! Finaly between the slavery and capitalism the free cities have most things sorted withtrade so it makes sense military issues would also be sorted with such forces but without the nationhood or sense of unity needed for large standing forces outside city guards.

I cant see how it can fail short term when all signs point to it being rooted out utterly of essos. The slavery machine itself requires slavers bay to break/train slaves and it will probably be feedmen run for the near future, the dothraki who are major slave capturers will either join dany or be exterminated/nearly wiped out , volantis is set to fall as are most of the free cities. Its hard.to see.how it recovers or ever gets.to the same.heights again once the slaver bay 'processing' part of the slavery machine is ended nd the same time the dothraki as they are may cease to exist, this all on top.of the free cities moving to the more efficent freedmen run capitalism bravos model probably for good !! once the slavers lose again in mereen..its a semi religiously motivated powderkeg basicaly! Also bravos (and or the faceless men) may intervene to prevent slavery taking hold again!

Well theres the constant flaring up of the 3 cities disputed lands , norvos apparently bloodily contests the axe region with the ibbenese , unknown length of time for massive yi-ti civil wars and their wars with jogos nhai . The free cities , quarth and slavers may want a minimum amount of merc muscle in/near their cities to help supress any slave uprising (in case the slave troops in the city join in) not to mention some cities probably get nervous and hire some just when khalassars get close. In peacetime many will probably be broken up to protect merchant convoys on land and sea. A brave talented few may even get into mereens fighting pits!!! On top.of that theres the self inicted wound of patrolling ravenous slavers (dothraki and costal pirates) picking off people so anyone wealthy will want some hired muscle with their merchant convoys as they travel ! Not to mention agressive internal political power fueds [like in quarth] and rival merchants as powerful as minor westerosi lords wanting to wipe each other out! The offical wiki also says theres constant fighting in the disputed lands (we can assume these flare up from small scall skirmishing to full blown w0t5k scale wars!). It says 2 score companies are active in the region !!!! and worse sometimes captains can ignite wars themselves outside of free city orders (as we see there are bitter personal rivalries between captains!) So seems theres plenty of work for tens of thousands of mercs.on top of slave troops for hire and assasins. Add in various companies will have various levels of quality! We can assume the golden companys officers may pay out of their own pocket to keep the company largely together for large scale drills and high levels of training if theres 0 work or not enough for the whole force whereas lesser companies will release large numbers of infantry men in peacetime and expand again in wartime!

Yeah overall the sellsword market in westeros isnt huge vs essos. Tywin sends out for banners and sellswords but he has a week or so at most. We know later on stannis begins gathering sellswords and sellsails too. Now time is a constraint but also we know yi-ti is at civil war, the dothraki are imtimidatingly coallesing into one giant khalassar and the 3 sisters war is heating hence most of the sellswords.will be posdibly signed up already. For numbers we know Tywin assembles one wing of 1000(300 are valeclansmen so 700ish left ) of the rest some are concripts the rest are mercs described as horse archers,hedgeknights and freeriders etc on top of the brave companions. Later bronn manages to.recruit like 800 or so more for blackwater.

Yeah those sort might know of them true Even then they probably had a dozen or so picks above them of possible! The brave companions seem to be a bottom of the barrrel sellsword company.

Id doubt he sent for them personally or by name though, tywin doesnt seem the type to give 2 shits tracking the names or exploits of every paltry lil sellssword company.(esp given what he does with them in battle) They seem.to be scrapings frlm the bottom of the sellsword barrell

If word spreads to essos that war is kicking off sellswords may already be heading there just as they sid throughout westeros to the riverlands/westerlands borders. Volantis to lannisport would be a week or so at most, the build up period i always felt was a week or 2 Also the brave companions have a horrible rep so may have came to westeros seeking work (and/or possibly feasably seeking lords who havent heard of theit terrible rep) We do know he had time to employ the hundreds of sellswords/hedgeknights and horse archers (would have to be professionals) into his force and mixed them inwith some concripts that would later be added to tyrions savages to create his fake weak flank! Indicating both tywin had a week or a few weeks inbetween tyrions capture and neds execution. Yeah they would be the 'gold standard' but we know theyd reject all offers at that stage anyway so be may have tried to ŕecruit them and failed!

Well there is a gap between tyrions capture when tywin raises his host and the tullys begin to in response and then thr moubtain ravaing the riverlands, ned getting injured etc and then on to his execution...seems that could be a week or few weeks gap! Now we know from tywin + edmure beginning to raise their hosts sellswords.+ hedge knights began to move to the potential troublespot for work (hence bronn and his buddy) We know tyrion + the mountain commanded a 1000 man block ay green form where 700 were a mix of freeriders ,hedge knights and mounted archers (all profrssiobal hired merc ) + highly unsualy some comsripts too ..so there was clearly plenty of time for local merc muscle to gather (and clearly go for tywin than his poorer rivals) The brave companions we know are essosi muscle but we know the 3 sisters are prepping for war so good essosi sellsword companies may be already signed up (esp as the golden company will mysteriously not be taking any contracts this time) , we know the brave companions have a poor rep thus would be hired last by only the desperate and finaly as a very very small sellsword compaby they will have been far faster to travel the whole lot by boat than most!!

The ol mafia saying about war is bad for buisness and even low level raiding or land grabbing wont happen as often under one strong centralised rule and the threat of punishment that can go with it for breaking the king/hands peace. Theres limited infighting and 0 chance of one kingdom trying to conquer the others as there was in the past. Also weaker overlords of regions (tullys and tyrells) have the backing of the crown to help wrangle their more.powerful vassals A unified westeros has trade free flowing through it. The north is better off connected to the breadbaskets of riverlands and reach,dornes niche hot climate foodstuffs haveva bigger market, the lannisters gold can flow freely around the 7 and even the seemingly useless ironborn can offload their essos raiding high value/niche goods at knock off prices (and their probably cheap slave/thrall mined raw metals) Finaly theres massive advantages in centralised goverments power to orgainse large scale projects or deal with economic/social/ issues ,now most kings have waged thisnpower to make war abroad or internaly in westeros but in theory a less lazy king could do major good. Ie a less lazy robert could have fixed the nightswatch for ned , integrated the ironborn more, helped the vale put down the clans for good to make travel.there safe etc etc

It could maybe come back but id doubt it the anti slavery movement thats building will probably rip it out soo badly itl take some time for it to grow back if ever. In the meantime if the 2 major cogs of the slavery macbine (dothraki and pirates) could die out in the short term. The dothraki minus slavery will become public ebemy number 1 (assuming dany doesnt extermunate them) and the now freedman controlled major naval powers will clean out the basilisk isles more often, hell they may look to settle there thus ending that as a slaver holdout too Theres also the fact bravos is anti slavery (and possibly their facless men too) while they arent in a positiom to reverse it worldwide now they def would be in a position to stamp.out its resurgance

Maybe but the fact shes now tied into what seems to be the majority religion in essos....if the fire god messiah says slavery is wrong it seems unlikely itd be allowed back.

Hmm if volantis get involved it could make it a nightmare to occupy let alone hold! After bravos they are the strongest free city power. Yeah they can sustain pirates who prey on shiping, honest lords cant be doing that. Without piracy its pretty barren like the islands arounddragonstone.

Thought id start thread on how we feel essos could look post dany ending slavery. It seems she will win upcomming battle which will probably trigger a fire rigion backed slave revolt followed by dany going to westeros to kill the walkers and possinly be queen etc. Sooo its how do we think the post slavery dany essos will shape up? Dothraki: minus slavery these guys will be as welcome as a fart in an enclosed space all over essos. If dany doesnt destroy them by burning their capital then all sides will attack them any time.they come near cities! They will be slowly replaced by the far more likeable(and useful,) lambmen or the various cultures around essos can reclaim their ruined cities begin to build into the centte of esso again..the dothraki are basicaly cancer for essos and they need cut out Free cities: most of these will be just fine as they transition from slaver.control, more democratic free cities will probably shy away more from.war over the disputed lands . This will allow them to be settled safely en masse The bearded priests will need non slaves to make up their warrior caste though. Slavers bay : will obviously need a serious rework. It could start with making its whore and pitfighting niche cities volunteer only. Building unsullied is out but it can now begin to produce something between unsulled and the 'slave troops worth less thn the sword they hold) to defend their new cities from dothraki. Now in the slaver bay chapters theres a lot of reffeences to crossbows,tyrion mentions seeming them and long spears a lot and mocks they wont help vs dragons....now this may be a temp.change in normal gear innresponse to dragons but feels m mentions seeming them and lomg spears a lot and mocks they wont help vs dragons....now this may be a temp.change in normal gear in response to danys dragons but feel sorta like something slavers bay would have enmasse anyway as crossbows can make usesless.troops wortwhile and they are ideal cheap anti draon measure en-masee,.either way lots of crossbows is good vs dothraki! Theres evena small.island with a niche for professional crossbow men who could be hited to both help defend slavers bay and train up its defences! Astopors crumbling walls havev gotta be built up but overall they are in a good place to resist and change. The new ghis iron legions can be brought.over to bulk up security and both thy and astopor are noted for having elephants...excellent anti horse weapons

There would be 0 point None of the respectable lords would put their fleets at the command of mere merchants etc for sellsail activites or worse raiding like savages. Their fleets protect their shores ,valuable trade ports and also like the rewyne fleet individual huge merchant fleets! The ironborn wouldnt be opposed to raiding essos but already do that under their lords so no sellsail buisness model is needed , theyd chafe under the control of fulfilling a contract such as protecting ships etc The ironborn make plenty of trade despite what the greyjoys say (esp cheap raw materials (esp from their slave/thrall mines) so already have enough buinsess.on top of raiding+ fishing etc for themselves to be bothered with orgainising into formal companies (and remeber.orgainising the ironborn is like wrangling cats ) As for sellswords the men under each lord are either full time or hard worked part time professsionals. The full time men at arms when not guarding their lords keeps or training will patrol the lands borders ,roads, population centres and areas of note like a mixed scout + police force. The part timers will.maintain their lands so cant go The only people who have the free time are exiled knights and lords etc. The ones who arent exiled have responsibiliies etc. Even 2nd or 3rd sons have lots to keep them busy between training, huniting, overseeing mantaining the lands and keeps and social/political meetings etc

The steptones themselves are stony and harsh so there are only 2 options 1) they will only sustain is eithet a few dozen landed knights at best OR 2) occupy tyrosh utterly and use the cash flowing in from it to cover the cost of the fleet needed to keep the other 2 'sisters' at bay and the islands clean of pirate infestations. Now that.assumes the other free cities stay out and even then the wealth of those 3 can buy sufficent selllsails ,slave troopers, assasins and sellsword companies to give extremely stiff resistance eve against a united westeros. That said tyrosh has been sacked before despite its desription of high walls and thick inner walls (although this may have been by deceptiom to open the gates etc)

I have a feeling dany will exterminate them.virtualy. Shel.burn their captial to the ground leavingnthem with no anchor to their rotten culture. If free cities and slavers bay become anti slavery they wont be welcome anywhere

Tyrion Now in essos i can see him.solving who the harpy is as well as dropping snippets of awesome info from his days of reading about essos etc.

It be interesting as the ironborn dont have many archers nor horses to chase the dothraki off esp if comming off a boat BUT if the dothraki dont run off and harass and hold their ground their unarmoured asses will meet giants like vic.or andrik the unsmiling whod be in full plate ! Then theres the fun of the ironborn fondness for throwing axes meeting unarmoured dothraki bodies! More than likely cooler heads would prevail and theyd back off any beach with dothraki spotted nearby at daytime...until nightfall then land further up the coast and maybe catch the horselords in camp!

They have made.it clear the disputed lands are theirs (one of theirs) so everyone else staying out could def happen so it would depend on westeros commitment. The 3 cities are rich but theres only so much merc manpower that would be available at any one time! We can assume if theres no disputed wars on most merc manpower would be split up on leave around the free cities or far east where theres active large scale warfare (yi-to civil war) the sellsails will be largely far east in the basilisk isles or raiding summer isles etc. All would take time is assemble. Theres a small chance of hiring a passing khalassar whos mobility and archers would make them excellent for dealing with seaborne invaders but they havent the patience to wait around weeks or even months to patrol long seafronts inncase of invasion. That said a utterly united westeros is an adapable military beast! The ironborn make perfect naval raiding force to go 1st

Hmm could be but the essosi mercs im.assuming most will have come from the free cities so will have bonds to them or at least some of their leaders will. Yeah the fact tyrosh has been sacked before rests against them but westeros has to do a naval invasion which in the face of mercs, sellsails ,slave armies and the logsitics involved could be too much Plus again that all depends on of the other free cities decide to stay neutral! If bravos is agaisnt it then it simply isnt happening, volantis can make it extremely hard but not impossible and the smaller free cities could tip the balance too

A naval invasion could be tricky though in the face of a counter navy and a waiting professional force. Slave troops are tricky yes but they seem to be 3 varities unsullied, mass fastly raised conscripts 'not worth the swords they are given' and of course the ones the slavers rely on as their city guards/armed forces ie probably well treated and as good as westerosi infantry , loyal enough to supress their fellow slaves to maintain their cushy status quo! When you think on it for example astopor produces unsullied but theres no reason they cant produce large numbers of quality troops instead ie use their common sense to produce somethng in between green consript like the clanker lords send out and the stupidly overtrained and unnecessarily castrated unsullied! Shit only 1 in 3 survive so thats like 21k non eunuch a year troops they could pump out if they didnt put them through such stupidly excessive training!!!

Quality wise the free cities sellswkrds are at least on par with westeros forces but for overall size yes almost no one is matching a united westeros on land (bravos and maybe quarth can at sea though) .....on land maybe yi-ti but we dont know the scale of their current civil war, military wise if they are a medieval china rip.off then theyd be on par man for man. The only other force that could concievebly match a unjted westeros on land would be the jojos nhai being like the dothraki but without any of their stupid self imposed handicaps!! Economy wise ( outside bravos )essos is on a larger scale but is more slavery focused which is less efficent overall.

Itl depend on a few factors then including how much warning is given 1) if the other free cities choose to stay out of it..volantis, bravos, norovos, qohor , pentos and even little lorath ! Some may respond badly to westerosi agression if they attack tyrosh and volantis may feel the stepstones could still be theirs! Quarth etc id say would be neutral give they probably do a lot of trade with both sides! For any invasion to get off the ground we have to assume the faceless men have 0 interest 2) if on their own how many sellsails can they find to contest the narrow sea as no invasion gets off the ground without that ! We know stannis found 25 lysene pirate galleys under saan and 40 smaller sellsail galleys! The basilisk isles are swarming with pirates so may be awash with iron island levels of ships+ fighters to rent, quarths shipping volumes seems giant so who knows how many sellsail ships there are out there! We know the free cities are awash with minor banking clans to arrange or loan cash to arrange their service! 3)sellsword companies ! On here we estimated before there must be upwards of 50k sellswords to buy for the golden company to make sense and not be an instawin for the normal 3 sisters warfare over the disputed lands. Stannis seemed to feel finding 20k would be a few weeks/months at most too!! We can assume whoever is invading from westeros the golden company wont miss their chance to interject and weaken the regime too! 4)extras : slavers bay has huge forces for sale too but are far away , there are non facrless men lesser assasin cults for hire and theres the weather etc.