How did the Dothraki conquer so much?

[Universal Sword Donor]

Just now, Lord Varys said:

Not sure what you mean by that. Khal Temmo and his sons died at Qohor.

We are told about what happened at Qohor with scant details. You're filling in the rest with your thoughts. We know Drogo was challenged for a command he gave as we saw it. Using "it is said" just means you can throw the rest of the sentence out.

Just now, Lord Varys said:

Of course it matters. But it just as well matters that a fortress city is a city, and no mere fortress. The name also doesn't tell us whether it was built as a fortress or had truly fortress-like characteristic, or whether it was merely called the 'fortress city' because it was used as a fortress or was seen as one such.

And the implication I care about is that a city is vast in dimension, meaning that whoever can besiege and starve out a city can also besiege and starve out smaller places like smaller cities, towns, villages, castles, fortresses, and the like.

All one needs to do to prove that the Dothraki can besiege and starve out cities is to point to one where this was done. And that I have done.

I mean, think about it - if the Dothraki have the patience and the power to besiege a single vast city for six years, they can stave out anyone (aside from, perhaps, places with access to the sea if they lack their own fleet).

A fortress city is no different than a city state in terms of comparison. I don't disagree with you that they had the power to siege Mordash. Patience is debatable since there was a succession of khalasars besieging it over the six year period: 

“The fortress city Mardosh the Unconquerable defied the horselands the longest. For close unto six years the city endured, cut off from its hinterlands, encircled by a succession of khalasars. Driven to starvation, the Mardoshi devoured their dogs and horses, then rats and mice and other vermin, and finally began to eat their own dead. ”

But them doing it to a fortress city is actually far more impressive than just a city or fortress. I don't know why you think it isn't

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

We are told about what happened at Qohor with scant details. You're filling in the rest with your thoughts. We know Drogo was challenged for a command he gave as we saw it. Using "it is said" just means you can throw the rest of the sentence out.

When was Drogo ever challenged for a command?

5 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

A fortress city is no different than a city state in terms of comparison.

A city state is a political term. It doesn't tell us anything about the physical city in the term.

5 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I don't disagree with you that they had the power to siege Mordash. Patience is debatable since there was a succession of khalasars besieging it over the six year period: 

“The fortress city Mardosh the Unconquerable defied the horselands the longest. For close unto six years the city endured, cut off from its hinterlands, encircled by a succession of khalasars. Driven to starvation, the Mardoshi devoured their dogs and horses, then rats and mice and other vermin, and finally began to eat their own dead. ”

But them doing it to a fortress city is actually far more impressive than just a city or fortress. I don't know why you think it isn't

Sure, that is why I didn't say a single khalasar but the Dothraki. The fact that those khalasars may not have been best buddies makes the thing even more impressive. Also note that they must have gotten along well enough to continue the siege as such, or else the Mardoshi would have been able to get in some more provision to last longer.

Then we agree that this was a great feat? I thought you wanted to downplay it. My entire point was that taking a 'fortress city' means they can take any city. And if they can take any city they can also take any castle (aside from, perhaps, a fully provisioned and manned Harrenhal or Casterly Rock or Storm's End while it still has access to the sea).

[Universal Sword Donor]

Just now, Lord Varys said:

When was Drogo ever challenged for a command?

He gave a command and it was challenged. Pretty pivotal point in the first book. 

Just now, Lord Varys said:

A city state is a political term. It doesn't tell us anything about the physical city in the term.

It tells us the state is a city. Much like the fortress telling us that the city is also a fortress.

Just now, Lord Varys said:

Sure, that is why I didn't say a single khalasar but the Dothraki. The fact that those khalasars may not have been best buddies makes the thing even more impressive. Also note that they must have gotten along well enough to continue the siege as such, or else the Mardoshi would have been able to get in some more provision to last longer.

Fair point.

Just now, Lord Varys said:

Then we agree that this was a great feat? I thought you wanted to downplay it. My entire point was that taking a 'fortress city' means they can take any city. And if they can take any city they can also take any castle (aside from, perhaps, a fully provisioned and manned Harrenhal or Casterly Rock or Storm's End while it still has access to the sea).

I never said it wasn't a great feat, well it is impressive for the Dothraki. A great feat would have been a bit more inventive and a good deal quicker.

Mardosh as an example is especially poor when converted to Westeros terms. Any number of the cities they overpowered would have a lot more bearing on 99% of Westeros than Mardosh. The number of times we've heard or read of a siege lasting more than a year is minimal (Dreadfort, Storm's End (?)) is minimal

[Lord Varys]

8 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

He gave a command and it was challenged. Pretty pivotal point in the first book. 

You may think about Jason Momoa there - who isn't Khal Drogo - but Drogo's commands are never challenged in the books unless I'm really misremembering things here.

8 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

It tells us the state is a city. Much like the fortress telling us that the city is also a fortress.

Actually, no. A city state can be larger than just the city. It means that there is a city which runs or owns a state. It can be limited to just the city, but it could also be much larger.

8 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I never said it wasn't a great feat, well it is impressive for the Dothraki. A great feat would have been a bit more inventive and a good deal quicker.

Mardosh as an example is especially poor when converted to Westeros terms. Any number of the cities they overpowered would have a lot more bearing on 99% of Westeros than Mardosh. The number of times we've heard or read of a siege lasting more than a year is minimal (Dreadfort, Storm's End (?)) is minimal

Well, I imagine the place wasn't called Mardosh the Unconquerable because it was easily taken. We know nothing about the place, but my idea would be that this was an extremely well-defended place, and stocked with provisions to last very long.

Considering that the moronic Westerosi have no clue how to properly bring down walls, either (nobody seems to have ever thought about digging beneath the walls), I'd say the Dothraki aren't in bad company here.

And to be sure - we have no idea how many of the other Sarnori or Ghiscari or Valyrian or Qaathi cities the Dothraki destroyed were starved out or taken by storm. We don't know the fate of many of those cities in detail, but we can expect that many of them were better defended and had more impressive walls than the average Westerosi castle (and, of course, more defenders). They were cities, after all.

[corbon]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I mean, think about it - if the Dothraki have the patience and the power to besiege a single vast city for six years, they can stave out anyone (aside from, perhaps, places with access to the sea if they lack their own fleet).

The text doesn't say thats what they did (nor rule it out, entirely).

"Cut off from its Hinterland...encircled by a succession of Khalasars". That can just as easily be less of a formal siege than a city-state thats simply cut off from everything else and effectively collapses from its own internal weight as various Khalasars came and went, encircling it. the wider context leading up to this paragraph supports this as the text talks about the great (united) Jhalasar splintering into a dozen lesser khalasars who went back to their old quarrelling ways
The horselords ride up, demand surrender, the city defies them, they may hang about for a bit, but eventually they ride off unable to do anything. However the city cannot get supplies, reinforcements or any help even even when there is not a Khalasar camped at the gates, as the whole region is beset by these multiple Hlasars wandering around and sacking various cities. Things get worse and worse until eventually when the next Khalasar arrives and demands surrender, the city can't take it any longer.

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The fortress city Mardosh the Unconquerable defied the horselands the longest. For close unto six years the city endured, cut off from its hinterlands, encircled by a succession of khalasars. Driven to starvation, the Mardoshi devoured their dogs and horses, then rats and mice and other vermin, and finally began to eat their own dead. When they could endure no longer, the surviving warriors of the city garrison slew their own wives and children to keep them from the khals, then opened the city gates and rushed forth for one final attack. They were cut down to a man. Afterward, the Dothraki named the ruins of Mardosh Vaes Gorqoyi, the City of the Blood Charge.

Clearly the fortress city had an army/khalasar oustide the gates at the end. But its pretty clear that there was no formal 6 year siege. In fact nothing in the entire story of the fall of the Sarathi shows any indication of any sieges by the Dothraki.  There's a succession of petty internal wars, with the Dothraki paid by one side to ravage the other, and ravaging everything anyway, then the united Khalasar arrives at Sathar and destroys its army in battle (the Sathari were still contemptuous and marched out to fight, no siege) before razing Sathar. Immediately two other Sathari Kingdoms march in to share in the plunder and battle each other!
6 years later a second city was sacked - but still the Dothraki were aided by another Sathari kingdom in a stupid petty internal war. Actually its the two who fought each other after the sack of Sathar!
A dozen years later the other of those two falls - the king murdered by his own Dothraki wife.
3 years after that the great Khalasar split up. But the Sathari stayed disunited and one by one their cities fell - we don;t know if by siege or treachery or sheer weight of numbers or idiocy like the others, or what. Given the first three were basically wiped out by their own stupidity, its seems a reasonable bet the others did too rather than an hitherto unmentioned siege capability of the Dothraki. By now you have a dozen or more khalasars wandering through the Sarathi lands destroying what they can, when they can, and cities fall one by one to different Khalasars.
Mardosh is merely the latest to fall (longest to last, in this period), 6 years after it was cut off, no mention of a siege.

After that the Sathari woke up and gathered together a 200000 man joint army to get rid of the Khalasars, but 4 Khalasars combined again and met them in open battle of the plains and wiped them out.

I rather suspect there weren't enough fighting men left in any of the remaining cities to  put up any effective resistance after that.

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, corbon said:

The text doesn't say thats what they did (nor rule it out, entirely).

"Cut off from its Hinterland...encircled by a succession of Khalasars". That can just as easily be less of a formal siege than a city-state thats simply cut off from everything else and effectively collapses from its own internal weight as various Khalasars came and went, encircling it. the wider context leading up to this paragraph supports this as the text talks about the great (united) Jhalasar splintering into a dozen lesser khalasars who went back to their old quarrelling ways
The horselords ride up, demand surrender, the city defies them, they may hang about for a bit, but eventually they ride off unable to do anything. However the city cannot get supplies, reinforcements or any help even even when there is not a Khalasar camped at the gates, as the whole region is beset by these multiple Hlasars wandering around and sacking various cities. Things get worse and worse until eventually when the next Khalasar arrives and demands surrender, the city can't take it any longer.

The Mardoshi killed their women and children rather than allow them to succumb to hunger when they made their last attack. They were besieged and starved out in a proper way.

If this hadn't been the case, if the Dothraki had just hung out there and occasionally burned some crops or molested people they chanced upon, then the Mardoshi should have been able to get new provisions and food from somewhere. Vice versa, said khalasars couldn't have hung out in the region for six years if they hadn't taken steps to keep themselves provisioned. They must have had an effective foraging system in place. The Mardoshi could tend to their farms and fields while they were imprisoned in their fortress city, right?

And the great art of siegecraft of Westeros is also pretty much nonexistent. When you deal with a large castle with impregnable walls then you starve them out, you don't dig beneath the walls so that they collapse or do other smart things real people did in the middle ages.

Considering the fact that the Dothraki stormed many a city in their days, not just the Sarnori cities but also Valyrian and Ghiscari cities, we should also assume they know enough about warfare to get themselves catapults and rams and ladders and other such things - because you simply don't get through walls and powerful gates if you don't have stuff like that.

6 hours ago, corbon said:

Clearly the fortress city had an army/khalasar oustide the gates at the end. But its pretty clear that there was no formal 6 year siege. In fact nothing in the entire story of the fall of the Sarathi shows any indication of any sieges by the Dothraki.  There's a succession of petty internal wars, with the Dothraki paid by one side to ravage the other, and ravaging everything anyway, then the united Khalasar arrives at Sathar and destroys its army in battle (the Sathari were still contemptuous and marched out to fight, no siege) before razing Sathar. Immediately two other Sathari Kingdoms march in to share in the plunder and battle each other!
6 years later a second city was sacked - but still the Dothraki were aided by another Sathari kingdom in a stupid petty internal war. Actually its the two who fought each other after the sack of Sathar!
A dozen years later the other of those two falls - the king murdered by his own Dothraki wife.
3 years after that the great Khalasar split up. But the Sathari stayed disunited and one by one their cities fell - we don;t know if by siege or treachery or sheer weight of numbers or idiocy like the others, or what. Given the first three were basically wiped out by their own stupidity, its seems a reasonable bet the others did too rather than an hitherto unmentioned siege capability of the Dothraki. By now you have a dozen or more khalasars wandering through the Sarathi lands destroying what they can, when they can, and cities fall one by one to different Khalasars.
Mardosh is merely the latest to fall (longest to last, in this period), 6 years after it was cut off, no mention of a siege.

After that the Sathari woke up and gathered together a 200000 man joint army to get rid of the Khalasars, but 4 Khalasars combined again and met them in open battle of the plains and wiped them out.

I rather suspect there weren't enough fighting men left in any of the remaining cities to  put up any effective resistance after that.

Sure, we know how the story went. The falls of the cities up to Mardosh were easy and in part due to the infighting of the Sarnori, but even there the Dothraki showed the same military acumen the old Andals did when they conquered the Vale.

What we don't know in detail is what transpired after the Field of Crows and the fall of Sarnath, but it stands to reason that some of the remaining cities were besieged and starved out as well since the sentence there says this happened as 'the Century of Blood draw to its close', indicating that some time was involved there. We also see the Dothraki being able to wear down the Ibbenese at Ibbish - a city well defended which fell again and again the Dothraki until they abandoned it.

The gist of all that just is that the Dothraki do know very well what to do with a walled city or fortress or castle if they want to crush it ... which they simply no longer cared all that much after they got the bloody nose at Qohor.

It is quite clear that the Pentoshi, for instance, delude themselves into the same false sense of security with all their gifts and stuff. The Volantenes seem to be more vigilant, maintaining defenses and not suffering the Dothraki in their lands.

[corbon]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Mardoshi killed their women and children rather than allow them to succumb to hunger when they made their last attack. They were besieged and starved out in a proper way.

Not for 6 years.
Its explicit. A succession of khalasars. Ie, they come, they go, another comes, another goes, another comes...

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If this hadn't been the case, if the Dothraki had just hung out there and occasionally burned some crops or molested people they chanced upon, then the Mardoshi should have been able to get new provisions and food from somewhere.

Where?
There is nowhere. Thats the point.

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Vice versa, said khalasars couldn't have hung out in the region for six years if they hadn't taken steps to keep themselves provisioned. They must have had an effective foraging system in place.

Indeed. The khalasars are foraging through the area, not sitting around the city besieging it.

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The Mardoshi could tend to their farms and fields while they were imprisoned in their fortress city, right?

I assume you mean couldn't. 
No, they couldn't. Farms and fields need constant tending. All your work gets destroyed if marauders turn up every few months. Food doesn't grow instantly and a city needs large amounts of it. Never mind that 'fortress cities' by their very definition don;t tend to be in the midst of wide tracts of arable land, and usually get the bulk of their food from further afield than a mile or two.

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Considering the fact that the Dothraki stormed many a city in their days, not just the Sarnori cities but also Valyrian and Ghiscari cities, we should also assume they know enough about warfare to get themselves catapults and rams and ladders and other such things - because you simply don't get through walls and powerful gates if you don't have stuff like that.

You are assuming data not in evidence. We don't know what state the walls were in - if there were significant walls even - how many defenders, whether the defenders marched out and gave open battle (as the Sarathi did multiple times) first, what the numbers were like, whether the walls were high enough to prevent scaling ladders and grappling hooks, etc etc.
Cities can be taken by storm without serious siegecraft in the right conditions.
Everything we read tells us that often the right conditions were met.
Rams and ladders and stuff yes. I wasn't arguing that they couldn't take a city/fortress/castle by storm. Just against formal long term sieges.

Dothraki 'sieges' do seem to last years, but are not conducted around the close vicinity of the object. The Dothraki merely exist in their usual foraging nomadic manner in the region, and the cities slowly wither, unable to access the resources they need to sustain themselves.

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Sure, we know how the story went. The falls of the cities up to Mardosh were easy and in part due to the infighting of the Sarnori, but even there the Dothraki showed the same military acumen the old Andals did when they conquered the Vale.

Which military acumen is that? Nothing to do with sieges.

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What we don't know in detail is what transpired after the Field of Crows and the fall of Sarnath, but it stands to reason

Ahhh. So its not facts we are relying on, its your reason.

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that some of the remaining cities were besieged and starved out as well since the sentence there says this happened as 'the Century of Blood draw to its close', indicating that some time was involved there.

Sure. The dothraki raid and plunder, cities get weaker and weaker, and eventually they fall. "Some time involved" doesn't require sieges - in fact it indicates not-sieges, since the dothraki are nomadic and live by forage, so they need to move around, not camp in one place for extended periods of time.
Their very existence, plundering, raiding and foraging, in the vicinity of the cities, weakens the cities over time. Until they can't stand even a short siege/assault.

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We also see the Dothraki being able to wear down the Ibbenese at Ibbish - a city well defended which fell again and again the Dothraki until they abandoned it.

The Ibbinese came out and fought them in battle, not hid behind their walls. They won some great victories too. But that just invited more khalasars to come - to test themselves perhaps? - and they Ibbinese were pushed further and further back. So the Dothraki raided and looted and destroyed more and more of their territory  - until the Ibbinese cities couldn't sustain themselves.

Look at the first time the Dothraki sacked Ibben. They broke through the Whalebone gate. It doesn't take a sustained siege or expert siegecraft to break down a bone gate, even whalebone (dragonbone maybe!).

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The gist of all that just is that the Dothraki do know very well what to do with a walled city or fortress or castle if they want to crush it ... which they simply no longer cared all that much after they got the bloody nose at Qohor.

I never said they didn't. Its just you made assumptions and statements that aren't borne out by the text - that they are capable of a six year sustained siege.

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It is quite clear that the Pentoshi, for instance, delude themselves into the same false sense of security with all their gifts and stuff. The Volantenes seem to be more vigilant, maintaining defenses and not suffering the Dothraki in their lands.

I agree absolutely. Letting them into your lands is the first step in your own destruction.

[Lord Varys]

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Not for 6 years.
Its explicit. A succession of khalasars. Ie, they come, they go, another comes, another goes, another comes...

It is explicit that it were a succession of khalasars, not the the siege was lifted in a meaningful way while one went away and the other came. It could be that they got five minutes of respite whenever they left ... or not. We don't know. In a fortress city one can imagine the people being besieged and starved out over six years. Perhaps they had their own freshwater supplies and their own means to grow food within the city for some time until winter made that pretty much impossible.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Where?
There is nowhere. Thats the point.

There certainly would be somewhere - other Sarnori cities, Essaria, Lorath and Braavos to the north, Qohor and Norvos and Pentos to the east, etc.

Not to mention other peoples still living in the area. This was the time of Dothraki expansion to the west, there must have been people around there to sustain those city states.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Indeed. The khalasars are foraging through the area, not sitting around the city besieging it.

If they did not besiege the Mardoshi they could have left. To pin somebody inside a city you need a huge host to trap them there. If there were just some savages on some horses around then the people could have left at any time. They might have even been able to marshal armies to push the Dothraki back. You do not allow an enemy to hang out in your lands if you have the power to push them back.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

I assume you mean couldn't. 
No, they couldn't. Farms and fields need constant tending. All your work gets destroyed if marauders turn up every few months. Food doesn't grow instantly and a city needs large amounts of it. Never mind that 'fortress cities' by their very definition don;t tend to be in the midst of wide tracts of arable land, and usually get the bulk of their food from further afield than a mile or two.

That would then have resulted in an eventual withdrawal of the Mardoshi from their lands and city, not a siege where they were starved out. You don't slay your women and children rather than allow them to starve to death when you are not in a proper siege.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

You are assuming data not in evidence. We don't know what state the walls were in - if there were significant walls even - how many defenders, whether the defenders marched out and gave open battle (as the Sarathi did multiple times) first, what the numbers were like, whether the walls were high enough to prevent scaling ladders and grappling hooks, etc etc.
Cities can be taken by storm without serious siegecraft in the right conditions.
Everything we read tells us that often the right conditions were met.
Rams and ladders and stuff yes. I wasn't arguing that they couldn't take a city/fortress/castle by storm. Just against formal long term sieges.

I'm not assuming that data isn't in evidence. I'm pointing out that if the Dothraki besieged and starved out one city - and that they did with Mardosh - then they could have done that with other cities, too. It doesn't mean they did it, of course. But I don't buy that the great Valyrian and Ghiscari and Sarnori cities all had crumbling walls and incompetent defenders when they were attacked.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Dothraki 'sieges' do seem to last years, but are not conducted around the close vicinity of the object. The Dothraki merely exist in their usual foraging nomadic manner in the region, and the cities slowly wither, unable to access the resources they need to sustain themselves.

That is clearly not the case with the example of Mardosh. In fact, if the Dothraki existed in their 'usual foraging nomadic manner' then they wouldn't have attacked and destroyed the cities of Sarnor in the first place. They were on a crusade to do that kind of thing, united under a single khal and later under a succession of lesser khals who still continued with this mission.

If they had been as decadent as Drogo and his peers the Sarnori could have paid them off the same way the Pentoshi still do. For a nomadic culture it is far more rational to come in every year or so and collect tribute in coin and kind and slaves rather than destroy this wellspring of easily acquired goods. But this is what the Dothraki did with all the cities they attacked until they met the Unsullied at Qohor.

The Dothraki were determined to exterminate the Sarnori and the other peoples they destroyed and that they did. This doesn't work if you cannot conduct a siege when it is necessary.

And you also do not 'accidentally besiege' somebody into killing their women and children. This needs intent on the side of the Dothraki. They clearly were there to pin the Mardoshi inside their fortress city and destroy them as soon as they got the chance.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Sure. The dothraki raid and plunder, cities get weaker and weaker, and eventually they fall. "Some time involved" doesn't require sieges - in fact it indicates not-sieges, since the dothraki are nomadic and live by forage, so they need to move around, not camp in one place for extended periods of time.

I said it could involve sieges, I never said it had to.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Their very existence, plundering, raiding and foraging, in the vicinity of the cities, weakens the cities over time. Until they can't stand even a short siege/assault.

That certainly is possible ... but just your conjecture. It isn't stated in the text. And it is not what happened with Mardosh.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

The Ibbinese came out and fought them in battle, not hid behind their walls. They won some great victories too. But that just invited more khalasars to come - to test themselves perhaps? - and they Ibbinese were pushed further and further back. So the Dothraki raided and looted and destroyed more and more of their territory  - until the Ibbinese cities couldn't sustain themselves.

No, until Ibbish was destroyed by the Dothraki.

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

Look at the first time the Dothraki sacked Ibben. They broke through the Whalebone gate. It doesn't take a sustained siege or expert siegecraft to break down a bone gate, even whalebone (dragonbone maybe!).

I didn't say Ibbish was besieged the first time it was attacked, did I?

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

3 hours ago, corbon said:

Ahhh. So its not facts we are relying on, its your reason.

Is it said by some,a wise man once said that it's common knowledge that personal head canon is still canon.

A wise man, sir. A wise man.

[corbon]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is explicit that it were a succession of khalasars, not the the siege was lifted in a meaningful way while one went away and the other came. It could be that they got five minutes of respite whenever they left ... or not. We don't know.

Riiiight. 5 minutes of respite. Or not even that.

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In a fortress city one can imagine the people being besieged and starved out over six years. Perhaps they had their own freshwater supplies and their own means to grow food within the city for some time until winter made that pretty much impossible.

Suuuure. Internal food growing for six years. In a fortress city. Ok.

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There certainly would be somewhere - other Sarnori cities, Essaria, Lorath and Braavos to the north, Qohor and Norvos and Pentos to the east, etc.

Except there are a dozen Khalasars wandering around, intent on destroying anything Sarnorii. Or anyone else coming to the Sarnori rescue. 

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Not to mention other peoples still living in the area. This was the time of Dothraki expansion to the west, there must have been people around there to sustain those city states.

You do remember those dozen khalasars, right?

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If they did not besiege the Mardoshi they could have left.

And marched their women and children through those dozen khalasars. Ok then.

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To pin somebody inside a city you need a huge host to trap them there. If there were just some savages on some horses around then the people could have left at any time.

Sure, its that easy.

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They might have even been able to marshal armies to push the Dothraki back. You do not allow an enemy to hang out in your lands if you have the power to push them back.

Err, they don't have the power, thats the point.

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That would then have resulted in an eventual withdrawal of the Mardoshi from their lands and city, not a siege where they were starved out. You don't slay your women and children rather than allow them to starve to death when you are not in a proper siege.

Sure. You march them into your rapacious enemies hands, instead.

Its like the Rohirrim heading to Helms Deep. Except they are starting in Helms Deep, needing to get to Gondor,  in year 4-6 of their lands being overrun instead of week 1-2, with a vastly more numerous and faster enemy, and much further to go to safety - if that even exists since Mardosh is the longest to hold out, so all the nearby cities have been sacked already.

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The Dothraki were determined to exterminate the Sarnori and the other peoples they destroyed and that they did. This doesn't work if you cannot conduct a siege when it is necessary.

Sure it does. Its just a bit slower. This all happened over years and decades remember. Less than 100 years.
It wasn't the cities that offended the Dothraki. it was the tilling of the land - the infrastructure necessary to support the cities. The cities were opportunities for plunder and glory, if available, but they weren't on a 'crusade' to destroy the cities. They just objected to mother earth's flesh being broken by plows and spades (and I wouldn't say they were 'crusading' against that even).

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And you also do not 'accidentally besiege' somebody into killing their women and children. This needs intent on the side of the Dothraki. They clearly were there to pin the Mardoshi inside their fortress city and destroy them as soon as they got the chance.

Sure. No one said it was accidental. Just not six years of continuous siege.

 

[Lord Varys]

17 minutes ago, corbon said:

Suuuure. Internal food growing for six years. In a fortress city. Ok.

Why not? This is a silly fantasy series where nobody has any really grasp of medieval warfare.

17 minutes ago, corbon said:

Except there are a dozen Khalasars wandering around, intent on destroying anything Sarnorii. Or anyone else coming to the Sarnori rescue. 

Where do you get this 'dozen' here? There is only talk about a succession of khalasars, not a dozen. And it is not clear where the khalasars who left went? Do you presume to know they remained in Sarnori lands, close to Mardosh?

That isn't in the text.

If there was one khalasar that left not followed immediately by another then they sure as hell would have had the opportunity to leave their city before they starved to death there.

Because there is also no talk about the Dothraki burning everything around Mardosh again and again and again for six years to ensure the Mardoshi would starve to death. Just as they could have obviously taken their people someplace else if they hadn't been shut inside their city. If you start to starve then trying to get to some other place is a better option than dying and killing your families. Risking enslavement and death is far better than choosing certain death, no?

17 minutes ago, corbon said:

Err, they don't have the power, thats the point.

They would have had the power if they hadn't been shut inside their city. Unless, of course, you assume that the hundreds of thousands or millions of people living in Sarnor were all butchered and enslaved by the Dothraki before they even defeated the High King and sacked Sarnath. If they could have gotten out, they could have raised armies.

17 minutes ago, corbon said:

Sure it does. Its just a bit slower. This all happened over years and decades remember. Less than 100 years.
It wasn't the cities that offended the Dothraki. it was the tilling of the land - the infrastructure necessary to support the cities. The cities were opportunities for plunder and glory, if available, but they weren't on a 'crusade' to destroy the cities. They just objected to mother earth's flesh being broken by plows and spades (and I wouldn't say they were 'crusading' against that even).

Sure, it was the tilling of the land the Dothraki didn't like, but they also liked to destroy the cities. And not only cities in the grasslands, but cities wherever they found them and cared enough for them to destroy them.

Insofar as the timeline is concerned, Mardosh is

17 minutes ago, corbon said:

Sure. No one said it was accidental. Just not six years of continuous siege.

It seems there were quite a few sieges done during the conquests of the Dothraki as the titles of the books written about the Century of Blood indicates:

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This is not the place to chronicle the events of the years and wars that followed, as the great cities of the Kingdoms of Sarnor fell piecemeal to the Dothraki. Those who wish a more detailed account are directed to Bello’s The End of the Tall Men, Maester Illister’s Horse Tribes, Being a Study of the Nomads of the Eastern Plains of Essos, the eastern chapters and appendices of Maester Joseth’s Battles and Sieges of the Century of Blood, and Vaggoro’s definitive Ruined Cities, Stolen Gods.

One could make the case that only the Free Cities and their allies did proper sieges during the Century of Blood but that would be childish in my opinion. The very context in the paragraph on Mardosh indicates that this was a proper siege:

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Kyth and Hornoth soon followed, destroyed by rival khals, each of whom sought to outdo the other in savagery. The fortress city Mardosh the Unconquerable defied the horselands the longest. For close unto six years the city endured, cut off from its hinterlands, encircled by a succession of khalasars. Driven to starvation, the Mardoshi devoured their dogs and horses, then rats and mice and other vermin, and finally began to eat their own dead. When they could endure no longer, the surviving warriors of the city garrison slew their own wives and children to keep them from the khals, then opened the city gates and rushed forth for one final attack. They were cut down to a man. Afterward, the Dothraki named the ruins of Mardosh Vaes Gorqoyi, the City of the Blood Charge.

Being cut off from your hinterlands means there are enemies between you and said hinterlands, i.e. said hinterlands are not destroyed or the people there all dead or enslaved, merely that you cannot get there and thus not get provisions.

Also, the verb 'encircled' means that a circle of people has surrounded you, indicating that you cannot get out of a very limited territory, i.e. in this case your fortress city. 'Encircled' does not mean that 'a dozen' khalasars hang out in your lands and you don't see them each morning when you look down from your battlements.

And the bottom line of all that simply is that Jorah Mormont is wrong and the Dothraki do know how conduct sieges. Or knew that back in the day.

You do realize that the basis for Jorah's claim is simply the current practice of the Dothraki to not bother besieging any of the Free Cities who give them gifts, right? But he cannot know whether they cannot do that or whether this is because they do not want to do that, can he?

In light of the things the Dothraki might be doing in the very near future it is very unlikely they collect gifts from the Qohorik and Pentoshi because they are impressed by their defenses or fear they would not be able to take those cities by storm (and thus have no idea how to crush them).

The Mardosh example shows that the Dothraki can conquer any city they like - and thus effectively also every castle they might want to take in the future.

[corbon]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Where do you get this 'dozen' here? There is only talk about a succession of khalasars, not a dozen. And it is not clear where the khalasars who left went? Do you presume to know they remained in Sarnori lands, close to Mardosh?

 

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Horro was the last of the great khals to command the allegiance of all Dothraki. When he was slain by a rival, only three years after the destruction of Gornath, his great khalasar splintered into a dozen lesser hordes, and the riders once again resumed their quarrelsome ways. Yet the reprieve this provided the Kingdom of Sarnor proved short-lived, for the Tall Men had shown their weakness, and the khals who followed Horro shared his taste for conquest. In the years that followed, they strove to outdo one another by conquering ever wider territories, destroying the cities of the grasslands, enslaving their peoples, and carrying their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to testify to their victories.

The dozen comes from here, and provides us with a  nice easy round number. I really don't care if it was 12, or 10, or 6. Some would be busy taking the loot back to Vaes Dothrak for example. And maybe some just disappeared back into the Dothraki Sea.
Point is the Dothraki were in general hanging about in Sarnori lands laying waste to the cities one by one. And Mardosh was the last to hold out (in that region presumably, since after Mardosh fell the remaining Sarnori kings awoke to their peril and formed the huge combined army which was destroyed at the Field of Crows).

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't in the text.

Well, I can read. What the text says is that the Khals that followed Horro (they would be in charge of the dozen splintered khalasars, or many of them at least) strove to outdo each other by conquering ever wider territories and sacking the cities of the grasslands (which means deeper into Sarnori lands since there were no cities where the Dothraki had been).
So maybe only 6 or 8 out of 12 were in Sarnori lands at any one time? Still the same effect, more or less. The cities fall, one by one. Mardosh is one of the last to hold out (its further away from the Dothraki sea than most) but cut off from its hinterlands (and from help from the likes of Saath) it can't survive. 
Since the Mardoshi were 'encircled' by Khalasars, some at least had ranged past them and were between them and and help from Saath.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Because there is also no talk about the Dothraki burning everything around Mardosh again and again and again for six years to ensure the Mardoshi would starve to death. Just as they could have obviously taken their people someplace else if they hadn't been shut inside their city. If you start to starve then trying to get to some other place is a better option than dying and killing your families.

It depends when you make that choice, and recognise it. the Mardoshi wouldn't be the first to get that timing wrong, and find out that the moment for them to escape their fate had already passed.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Risking enslavement and death is far better than choosing certain death, no?

Sure, I reckon.
Yet they chose it anyway. As have some people in our own history. I guess your reasoning isn't as infallible as you think.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They would have had the power if they hadn't been shut inside their city.

Riiight. Because they did so well against the Dothraki in the open.
A joint army of 200,000 odd Sarnori got massacred by 4 khalasars. I'm not sure what forces you assume the Mardoshi could put in the field. It seems like they thought they couldn't win in the open, since they did stay behind their walls.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unless, of course, you assume that the hundreds of thousands or millions of people living in Sarnor were all butchered and enslaved by the Dothraki before they even defeated the High King and sacked Sarnath. If they could have gotten out, they could have raised armies.

That would be your infallible reasoning again? 
Its not mine.
Apparently its not the Mardoshi's either.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The very context in the paragraph on Mardosh indicates that this was a proper siege:

No it does not. Thats all we are arguing about. 

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Being cut off from your hinterlands means there are enemies between you and said hinterlands,

Yep.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

i.e. said hinterlands are not destroyed or the people there all dead or enslaved, merely that you cannot get there and thus not get provisions.

Sure. And what is happening at said hinterlands? We got a bunch of Khalasars roaming around Sarnor remember, each trying to outdo each other.
It really doesn't matter whether the Hinterlands have been devastated yet or not though - the Mardoshi were cut off from them anyway. And the very word hinterlands shows that they were remote from they city, far away, not the nearby 20 miles or whatever.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Also, the verb 'encircled' means that a circle of people has surrounded you,

Yep. 
In military terms it also means being isolated and cut off. Clearly thats the context here.
You don't need a literal ring of men holding hands for an encirclement. All you need is the ability to deny entry and exit of a location. In terms of 10s or 100s of miles, Khalasars can do that without being in the immediate vicinity of the isolated or needing a conventional siege.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

indicating that you cannot get out of a very limited territory,

Nope. You can be encircled by enemies 1000 miles away from you. So long as you can't get out past them and no one can get in from the outside.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

i.e. in this case your fortress city. 'Encircled' does not mean that 'a dozen' khalasars hang out in your lands and you don't see them each morning when you look down from your battlements.

Yet if that is what is happening, and you can't get out, nor others in, thats exactly what you are. Encircled. So yes, it does mean that, among other things.

I think I'm done here. You are free to continue with your idea of the Dothraki camping around Mardosh in a siege for 6 years, I think the evidence is out there for all to see without more participation on my part.

[Back door hodor]

On 4/14/2020 at 10:24 PM, Lord Varys said:

 

I mean, think about it - if the Dothraki have the patience and the power to besiege a single vast city for six years, they can stave out anyone (aside from, perhaps, places with access to the sea if they lack their own fleet).

This is a very important point and holds up in universe, there is one Sarnori city left, it is built on a river delta,a quick look at a map shows you that the other Sarnori cities are primarily inland, the same with Quarth, the inland towns and cities fall but Quarth itself, situated on the sea at the mouth of a straight, still stands.

Back to the Sarnori, in addition to not uniting against a common threat until it was too late, also make the huge tactical blunder of  amassing an army to meet the dothraki in the field, instead of fortifying thier cities. Said army and its leader is decimated, leaving the remaining cities bereft of defends and thus able to be destroyed piecemeal, a wall is only good if there are men defending it.