View source for 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, [[Privateers|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.''

== See also ==

* [[Why Conquest Does Not Happen]] · [[The Pact of Reason]] · [[Warfare and Law]]