Why City-State Wars Are Rare
Full declared war between major city-states is the rarest form of conflict in the world, for reasons that reinforce each other.
- Symmetric power
- No city has an advantage decisive enough to make war cheap. A full war between major powers is ruinously expensive in lives and resources with no guarantee of outcome.
- Geography
- The scale of the world makes projecting force across it extremely costly before a battle has begun. Supply lines of a thousand miles or more are a vulnerability in a world with no steam transport.
- Economic interdependence
- Trade between cities benefits everyone, and war disrupts the trade that funds the war. A long one impoverishes both sides at once.
- No mechanism for total victory
- An army that wins in the field still faces a fortified city that is nearly impossible to assault, a population with every Oathbond reason to resist, and supply lines running back through a Frontier that kills anyone who lingers in it. See Siege.
- Better options exist
- Trade wars, privateering, support for rival factions inside an enemy city, proxy conflict through Frontier raids and pirate sponsorship — all achieve political goals at a fraction of the cost.
- Strength may make right, but wisdom is knowing which fights are worth the cost to win.