How Strong would the Riverlands be if they properly united?

[Craving Peaches]

Personally, I feel that if the Riverlords decided to stop squabbling amongst themselves and put up a united front like the other Kingdoms, the Riverlands should be the second strongest in Westeros behind the Reach. They have enough fertile land to support a large population, their rivers are good for internal trade, they also have ports on the Narrow Sea for trade with Essos. Unlike the Reach, they also have the advantage of some natural barriers. Looking at what we see in the books, it seems the Riverlands' problems are all caused by a lack of unity and failure to temporarily set aside internal feuding and put up a united front against external threats. I know some level of internal squabbles is normal, but the Riverlands appear to be especially bad in this area even by Westeros standards. Usually when they get conquered it's because they are fighting amongst themselves as well or invite people to kick out the current overlord rather than just doing it themselves. Also, their inability act as unified as the other Kingdoms (even temporarily) creates a vicious cycle where they are never as strong as they could be and have stunted population growth because they are a battlefield each war. 

Let's say that hypothetically, the horrible experience of what happened in the War of the Five King's creates some sort of pro-unity/proto-nationalist (like Dorne) movement in the Riverlands (e.g. blaming losses due to failure of lords to set aside squabbles). How strong do you think they could be?

[astarkchoice]

The are united enough (as any of the 7 kingdoms can be) and they can raise about 45k troops. (They are a breadbasket for westeros but i get the impression unlike the reach the riverlands is like the stormlands in that  has a lot of forrested areas  where nothing is growing.

The issues they have  seems to be various issues at various times of leadership etc, take the recent wot5k does anyne doubt that had bynden been there  not edmure then  jamie and tywin would have either lost and been sent packing to their own lands or been made to bleed hard to take the land they took? 

 

As for strengthening the riverlands assuming they already maximise the land and streams for food etc my ideas would be thus (not necessarily all have to be implemented)

1) harrenhall  option 1 : once whents die out hand this  monster castle to the rich freys , plenty of room for their growing overcrowded  brood! Can even split it along  maternal family lines that correspond to  various riverlord houses and they can combine to keep the castles enormous upkeep in check! So it sorta becomes a 2nd keep for freys and all their riverlord families.

2)harrenhall option 2:  tear down vast parts of its insides to make riverruns 1st city, safe inside huge walls! Theres even space for more crops etc in there! The whents could wall off part of it for their own private keep. Population will grow and you have a huge defensive structure back to something like full usefullness again.

3)build more bridges to keep the area interconnected easily and have more rapid response to invasions

4)force a tully frey marriage ..long overdue

Note with both harrenhall ideas id set up huge archery practice yards and wooden sword/spear sparring yards  for commomoers and men at arms alike to practice thus raising the skill level.of riverland fighters by using harrenhalls vast space.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

They'd undoubtedly be one of the strongest kingdoms, both in terms of economy and military power. 

The Riverlands are the second greatest producer of foods, are at the center of the logistics and trade routes between the kingdoms of Westeros, and their rivers could be exploited better with lots of riverrine transports and trade, new hubs and bridges, and water mills. 

They also can raise a significant amount of soldiers if united properly, and unlike what is often said they do have natural defenses in their rivers and lakes, and they could exploit more the possibility of a riverrine navy with smaller and very mobile ships that could carry lots of archers and mini-siege weapons.

[Maegor_the_Cool]

The problem with Riverlands has never been internal squabbling. It’s always been the fact that they were surround by every other Kingdom. And they lacked natural defenses that others had. The sheer amount of Kingdoms surrounding them meant that it was always likely they’d have a neighbor wanting to expand into them. Meaning they’d be constantly at war. To maintain that, you’d need a strong martial culture. Tristifer IV’s story was likely exaggerated to an extent, but I honestly don’t think by much.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Jon Snowfyre

[Craving Peaches]

4 hours ago, astarkchoice said:

2)harrenhall option 2:  tear down vast parts of its insides to make riverruns 1st city, safe inside huge walls! Theres even space for more crops etc in there! The whents could wall off part of it for their own private keep. Population will grow and you have a huge defensive structure back to something like full usefullness again.

This seems like a way to actually make Harrenhal viable in terms of being able to maintain it... Could even be the new capital of the Riverlands.

43 minutes ago, Jon Snowfyre said:

It’s always been the fact that they were surround by every other Kingdom

So is the Reach, but they are doing much better than the Riverlands, despite lacking their natural barriers... Because they usually put up a united front when invaders come knocking (with one exception).

[astarkchoice]

Post 2

Yeah overall riverlands seems to be a hard one to defend, geography and history mean its like dozens of mini kingdoms seperated by water and due to their history most castles largely set up to face each other  not incomming threats from other regions.

Lord frey is a scumbag but hes probably right when he said the wot5k opening riverlands battles where all but done before his guys could even assemble let alone get from the top of the riverlands to the bottom!  Many of the  rivers may be easy fordable at multiple places so it could be hard to build bottlenecks.

So i supposed another idea on the fly

5) order each lord to reduce the number of foot! Instead use the saved money on more mobile cavalry (lances and archers) or where possible small barges   to get heavy infantry moved around fast. Overall a smaller but much more mobile force capablw of either blocking an invading force comming in or harassing  or even destroying any force as tries ti take each small keep and fort on the way in!

 

[astarkchoice]

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

This seems like a way to actually make Harrenhal viable in terms of being able to maintain it... Could even be the new capital of the Riverlands.

 

Agreed the issue with harrenhall is its incomes from the vast lands around are supposedly huge but outweighed by its upkeep esp for a small house hence the solution would be either to make multiple houses responsible for it  (ie freys and all the riverland houses they are intermarried to all get a piece each ) or make it a city where merchants.

With such a giant castl you could properly wall off or use heavy gates on parts as mini keeps for nobility! 

Next id say

-keep the huge baths open to the public

-leave the worst ruined parts open to the public..woudlnt be long til the teeming masses in the likes of fleabottom.would be swarming there for clean safer housing (and the free baths)

The godswood is like 20 acres, cut down for crops ,in fact theres vast open spaces for crops to be grown internaly.

Make every able bodied man practice archery  daily  or vist the practice yards for melee sparring if they wanna become paid men at arms or the 'citywatch' this creating a good force to man the walls and a larger part time auxilury force.

Tear down the most dangerous towers and keeps and build new houses,taverns and brothels etc in the spacw..but carry the old.ruined stone up to the walls for tossing down at intruders.

[Groo]

7 hours ago, Jon Snowfyre said:

The problem with Riverlands has never been internal squabbling. It’s always been the fact that they were surround by every other Kingdom. And they lacked natural defenses that others had.

It doesn't have to be internal squabbling. The Riverlands don't really have a strong unifying sense of identity. Contrast them to the North or Dorne or the ironborn in terms of strong sense of identity and culture. Geography is their biggest weakness, but I would argue their weak sense of unity is their second biggest problem. They spent long years under foreign (i.e. ironborn) occupation. Relatively speaking, their ruling house hasn't held that position for long. Two of their main houses, the Blackwoods and Brakens, have perhaps the longest and most famous rivalry in the realm.

[SaffronLady]

19 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

if the Riverlords decided to stop squabbling amongst themselves and put up a united front like the other Kingdoms

That's a pretty big if, and the question rests on how is that supposed to be done. The Tullys started as vassals of House Vance, and 'House' Baelish currently consists a grand total of one person.

Of course, if we turn back the clock and say, not let the Brackens backstab Agnes Blackwood, then maybe we could still create a Tully-led riverlands (because House Blackwood does not follow the Fo7, so someone else needs to be the riverlands' rally point, and who better than Tommen Tully at that point?) 

Then there are the other great houses of the riverlands that may have or had a chance of their own. Mallisters, Freys, Brackens, Darrys, Pipers, even Justman and Teague, but each of these uniting the riverlands would probably a scenario of their own, some more like House Gardener (marriage), some more like the Starks (conquest).

19 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

the Riverlands should be the second strongest in Westeros behind the Reach

In terms of manpower and agricultural produce, yeah probably.

19 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

they also have ports on the Narrow Sea for trade with Essos

Saltpans isn't that attractive though, and it's about the riverlands' only Essos-facing port. Among its competitors are King's Landing, Driftmark, Gulltown, Duskendale ... yeah looking pretty bad.

19 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Let's say that hypothetically, the horrible experience of what happened in the War of the Five King's creates some sort of pro-unity/proto-nationalist (like Dorne) movement in the Riverlands (e.g. blaming losses due to failure of lords to set aside squabbles). How strong do you think they could be?

It really depends on who is heading the movement and which houses signed up. Any movement headed by the Blackwoods or Brackens in the riverlands are doomed to fail because the opposing house's network becomes automatically hostile.

[astarkchoice]

5 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

 

It really depends on who is heading the movement and which houses signed up. Any movement headed by the Blackwoods or Brackens in the riverlands are doomed to fail because the opposing house's network becomes automatically hostile.

The solution seems to be to either pick one of these 2 and ruthlessly wipe the other out and share out their lands to others OR use that competitivness agressively

Like in set piece battles stick them opposite ends and ask which side will kill the most of the enemy! Ask often  how many archers ,heavy cavalry etc to call up  they command and suggest the other side has maybe a dozen more here and there!

Ooh thats a new scorpion on your battlments is it lord bracken...i just came from the blackwoods they added 2 new ones   etc etc

Edited July 4, 2023 by astarkchoice

[James Steller]

Maybe I’m forgetting something, but how are the Riverlands special?

Every other region features squabbling between the noble houses. The Stormlands in particular are really inconsistent and contentious with their loyalty. A case could be made for the Bracken Blackwood feud, but the Starks had a much bigger feud with the Boltons, and the Manderly and the Peakes’ feud nearly tore the Reach apart. The Reach was also torn apart during the Dance of the Dragons, as were the Crownlands. I can’t actually recall much infighting between the Riverlords during the Dance apart from old Grover and the Miltons’ turning cloak when they let Daemon and Nettles leave. Robert’s Rebellion divided the Stormlands and the Vale, as did the War of the Five Kings. And need I bring up the Iron Islands? The Riverlands are definitely prone to dividing up, but I can think of a few other regions which do the same at the drop of a hat.

[SaffronLady]

40 minutes ago, James Steller said:

Every other region features squabbling between the noble houses.

Yes, but the riverlands had this problem dialled up to eleven. Which was kind of what OP was going on about.