>>5289290You’ve been waiting for several days when you get a report from the north, a spy recruited by the former rookies whose surgeries hadn’t quite led to full hybridizations - you’ve tried hard since folding them into your own organization to never think or refer to them as ‘failures’, which is a challenge sometimes considering that the process used to turn them into warriors did, objectively speaking, fail to produce the intended results.
In any event, the report that falls into your hands paints a familiar tactical and strategic picture - low morale, supply troubles, signs of overextension. Two points however do stand out. The first is a standing order to avoid any unnecessary contact with civilians in occupied areas, which you can interpret to be a direct result of your own threats issued towards the occupiers camped on the northern Sakian coast. It’s a new development that will have to be considered in your future dealings with the now-stalled invasion effort.
The second point is that there has been a massing of troops on the northern border of inner Tarsus, the region still remaining in Tarsus that lies directly west of the major city of Merced. Until recently this was a strategy that the invading force had not pursued, instead choosing to focus on the broad front of the northern border of Hazaran - now extending from the Sakian town of Kraljevo in the west to the former Cuilan border well east of Acerrae.
“There are three possible strategies here,” Noventus muses thoughtfully, staring at the same map as you are. “The first is that they intend to take Merced. The second is that they intend to occupy the border along that edge, leaving Hazaran isolated from the west end by their forces, besieged in the northern passes with Sakia, and hemmed in by the mountains of Shukzan to the immediate east. That leaves only the sea lanes accessed through what was once western Noroit, and through Noroit itself which is hardly what one would call friendly territory.”
“And the third strategy?” your mother presses curiously. “Would it have anything to do with seizing the port of Talje near our present southwestern border with Tarsus?”
“That is one strategy I had considered,” Noventus confirms. “Seizing that location would open a friendly port on the south side of the island where troops could be landed and a blockade of our southern ports established.”
>Any of those things would be bad. We should coordinate with Tarsus to stop the southward thrust.>Attacking Merced seems the most achievable goal… the ONLY achievable goal in fact. Plan for that.>The worst case is that they seize the southern ports. We should mobilize civilian populations and prepare against any landings.>Other?