Warfare on the Shattered Plains

[Catalyst21]

This has already been raised but I suspect a lot of the "stupidity" is because we have 10 war camps competing with each other.

Looking at the map on page 182 (hardback) or here:

http://isaacstewart.com/images/wok/tWoK_MAP-3_SHATTERED_PLAINS-webres.jpg

We see that the war camps are tightly clustered together. For the first few chasms outside each war camp, they would be pretty much exclusive to that war camp and there definitely are some permanent bridges around (see pages 102-103). I suspect these are pretty much only right outside the war camps.

If we consider the relative size of the war camps to the shattered plains then the number of permanent bridges required to make a significant difference to mobility would be very large, as would the "free rider" problem. If one Highprince decides to make an "express way" to the big tower plateau, then the immediately adjacent war camps would be able to use maybe 90% of it, and even those furthest away would probably be able to use 50% of it. The Highprinces are as much concerned about one-upping each other as fighting the Parshendi so they wouldn't too keen on an idea that costs them a lot but where their immediate neighbors get most of the benefit at zero cost.

So, given the competitive costs and benefits no single Highprince would make the first step in isolation - from the sounds of things, the costs of basic materials is very high, much higher than it would be on a typical war on Earth. However, if the war camps could be united forcibly to work together for the benefit of the group, then the cost/benefits change entirely - if everyone shares the costs of building a wide array of permanent bridges, then everyone would benefit equally and no single High Prince would gain an upper hand or lose out in costs.

However, again looking at the maps, I suspect even then the costs would be very large. Even a theoretical (^-^) dictator wouldn't be able to force the Highprinces to commit economic suicide. The Highprinces are currently winning, what, 50% of the total available gem hearts? Maybe if they start winning 90% due to increased mobility and organisation then it would be worth the cost to the group. It would probably require such a payoff in gemhearts just for it to become possible to Soulcast so much anyway.

[rebuttal]

your logic is flawed. In TWOK it says that plateaus are bought and sold between highprinces. If you "own" a plateau then you are responsible for the upkeep of any permanent and scouts on that plateau. If a plateau is owned by another highprince you can't use it without their permission. So your argument about why pay for it if your neighbor will benefit from it is flawed.

[/rebuttal]

another argument I believe to be flawed in this discussion is that the increased cost of soulcasting the bridges is negligible because they are already soulcasting the wood for the bridges, just soulcast the stone instead. You *CAN'T* soulcast a bridge. What you can do is build a bridge and then soulcast that to stone. think about it. The only thing we have seen soulcast from air is buildings. Buildings in simple shapes. Anything more complex was carved then soulcast into (metal, marble) stone. So to soulcast bridges you would have to soulcast wood (or get it by other means), build the bridge, then soulcast it to stone. Which results in a net increase of 1 (or potentially more) soulcastings.

[kari-no-sugata]

[rebuttal]

your logic is flawed. In TWOK it says that plateaus are bought and sold between highprinces. If you "own" a plateau then you are responsible for the upkeep of any permanent and scouts on that plateau. If a plateau is owned by another highprince you can't use it without their permission. So your argument about why pay for it if your neighbor will benefit from it is flawed.

[/rebuttal][

Hmm. I don't think the whole of the shattered plains is already carved up between the Highprinces in this way - else why are there races for time over gemhearts? If every single plateau was owned by a particular Highprince then you'd only see 1 Highprince challenge for any gemheart - whoever owned the plataeu the target was on.

Do you have a quote to mind about these "owned" plateaus? I can't recall anything myself but I could certainly understand plateaus immediately outside a particular war camp being "owned" by a particular Highprince (and them being tradeable at the margins). I'm speculating here but maybe getting "ownership" over a particular plateau was simply about putting some permanent scouts on it, rather than being some kind of official legal contract with the King that all Highprinces would obey. In other words, ownership requires permanent and active maintenance. And cost - if my speculation is correct (and I hope it seems reasonable) then the more plateaus you own the more it costs continuously. So then only plateaus immediately outside war camps would be owned and most would be "unclaimed" allowing anyone to cross. So, shear expense would preclude a Highprince creating a long "highway" of permanent bridges - it would require permanent guards to stop other Highprinces from using it, and such guards would be extremely vulnerable to enemy attack.

another argument I believe to be flawed in this discussion is that the increased cost of soulcasting the bridges is negligible because they are already soulcasting the wood for the bridges, just soulcast the stone instead. You *CAN'T* soulcast a bridge. What you can do is build a bridge and then soulcast that to stone. think about it. The only thing we have seen soulcast from air is buildings. Buildings in simple shapes. Anything more complex was carved then soulcast into (metal, marble) stone. So to soulcast bridges you would have to soulcast wood (or get it by other means), build the bridge, then soulcast it to stone. Which results in a net increase of 1 (or potentially more) soulcastings.

This is my thinking too. I think soulcasting is mostly about creating "components" and is done in private.

Additionally, I suspect that soulcasting 1 item requires 1 gem - and that the bigger the item the bigger the gem required. That is, you can't use many small gems to soulcast one big item. (Has this been stated anywhere? It's a bit hard keeping all the info in the book in memory ^-^) Most gems would be small so most soulcast items would be small - hence, components.

[Kurkistan]

another argument I believe to be flawed in this discussion is that the increased cost of soulcasting the bridges is negligible because they are already soulcasting the wood for the bridges, just soulcast the stone instead. You *CAN'T* soulcast a bridge. What you can do is build a bridge and then soulcast that to stone. think about it. The only thing we have seen soulcast from air is buildings. Buildings in simple shapes. Anything more complex was carved then soulcast into (metal, marble) stone. So to soulcast bridges you would have to soulcast wood (or get it by other means), build the bridge, then soulcast it to stone. Which results in a net increase of 1 (or potentially more) soulcastings.

We have been discussing just how complex soulcast structures can get, so it is a valid point to question whether or not a bridge could be soulcast directly from air. I believe that the answer is that bridges are simple enough to be soulcast directly, without the need for an inital "mold." Arch bridges are essentially just arcs, which I think are simple enough to create without an intermediary structure.

EDIT: You could even just think of an arc as a cross-section of a dome, and an arch bridge as an arc with width.

I would like to note, tangentially, that it may still be cost-effective to "waste" wood on bridges only to soulcast them into more durable stone. Something to be considered even if you disagree with the following argument.

Accepting the idea that bridges are too complex to soulcast from air though, I do not think that this necessitates the construction and transmutation of entire wooden bridges in order to end up with a stone bridge.

I can think of several examples where you build a wooden frame in the shape of the desired bridge and fill it with another, cheaper material to be soulcast into stone, after which you can remove the wooden frame and repeat. Even if you cannot recycle the wood from these frames, it would still be far more cost-effective than wasting enough wood for an entire bridge.

The question of exactly what can be soulcast and how the input material affects the output makes analysis more difficult:

If only one "type" of material can be soulcast at a time, then we are restricted in how exactly we construct and fill our frame.

If discrete materials, such as a pile of pebbles, can be soulcast into a unified whole, then that frees up our options immensely. I'm inclined to think that they can, since "air" can be soulcast into solid stone, while it is be no means unified initially.

I will assume the most difficult combination of rules: one material at a time and whole->whole, part->part, for my model.

The simplest method I can think of using these restrictions is to soulcast water into stone. If a large quantity of water cannot be acquired or transported to the site, then it may be economical to soulcast rocks into water on-site.

The process:

1) Build a waterproof wooden frame, in an arch with walls the height of whatever thickness you want the bridge to be.

2) Dig ditches at each end of the bridge to serve as a foundation.

3) Cover the entire bridge snugly with a waterproof canvas, stretching down to cover the far edge of the foundation-ditches as well.

--3a) The canvas ought to have a hole in it which aligns with the top of the arc of the bridge.

4) Pour water into the hole in the canvas until the entire structure is filled.

--4a) Alternatively, you could fill the bridge with gravel and soulcast the gravel into water on the spot, leaving relatively little space to be filled with "real" water.

5) Soulcast the water into stone and remove the frame.

6) Use your new permanent bridge to "pwn noobs."

The same basic process would apply if the rules were less strict, perhaps simply filling the frame with gravel and soulcasting it directly into a cohesive whole.

A relaxation on the restriction of only soulcasting one "type" at a time would allow us to be less careful, perhaps mixing sand and gravel for a more even structure or more exactly shaping certain parts of the bridge, such as adding initially wooden crenelations or safety rails, while being less discriminating with the rest

This is my thinking too. I think soulcasting is mostly about creating "components" and is done in private.

Additionally, I suspect that soulcasting 1 item requires 1 gem - and that the bigger the item the bigger the gem required. That is, you can't use many small gems to soulcast one big item. (Has this been stated anywhere? It's a bit hard keeping all the info in the book in memory ^-^) Most gems would be small so most soulcast items would be small - hence, components.

I see no problem with creating the bridge out of components soulcast on-site. Just take the method I provide above and use thin panels to create partitions. Soulcast each "block" one at a time into stone and they will support each other when the frame is removed or destroyed. You can see Roman bridges that are still standing today to prove how durable this structure is.

EDIT: You could even soulcast the material for the partitions into a kind of mortar after you finish soulcasting the blocks, if you want a marginal increase in stability.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Kurkistan

[dj26792]

The question I have with all of these theories, is would it be believable for a society which has developed with ready access to Soul casting to have developed them, we know they can soul cast large and complex structures into different, materials eg: barracks from air, and that they sometimes carve things from wood before transforming them to stone eg: the hand rail in the Palanaeum (chapter 33) but do they have the understanding of physics necessary to construct a proper arch that would support it self, or would they just be able to soulcast arches from wood.

I think the main reason they haven't soulcast bridges and fortresses as forward defences is the restrictions on their use of soulcasting, done only at night under strict guard, they would probably have to have guards down in the chasms to make sure there were no spies in the bottoms of them, as well as having secure control of all surrounding plateaus, it would be extraordinarily expensive to field that many guards over night, especially since they don't even know which direction to advance in, they dont know where the Parshendi base is, they wouldn't want to charge out and get cut off after all, that would be extremely expensive, and cost them troops and soulcasters as well. Considering that most of the High Princes don't care about the war all that much its hardly surprising that no-one has considered these options. We might see some scouting in force now that Dalinar is taking complete control of the war effort but even so the cost and difficulty of building forward bases makes the reward negligible, until they know exactly where the Parshendi base is the manoeuvrability of temporary bridges is vastly superior strategically and much cheaper. After they find the Parshendi base a need for secure supply lines and the likelihood of some kind of siege developing would probably prompt them to make more permanent bridges and forward forts, at least, I would were I running the army, but they might have very different methods of waging that kind of war than we do.

[happyman]

Having read through all these posts, I have to put my money almost entirely on the theory that the lack of soulcast stone bridges is due to social, not technological, constraints. The fact that the Alethi consider each other to be a threat almost (or perhaps more) than the Parshendi, and the fact that the "war" has become more of a game than an actual war (to the Highprinces, not to the average soldier or heaven help us, the bridgemen, who are in mortal danger regularly), would seem to be the most important place to start when discussing tactics.

Think about it: The Alethi are there to avenge the assassination of Galivar, but how much to the individual Highprinces actually care about his death? What is their individual purpose and motivation for being at the shattered plains? How do the ardents view the whole situation? What are the problems they consider important?

I think all of these questions would need to be answered before we can even begin to get into the technical details. From the discussion above, I have been convinced that Soulcasting could be used to make the Alethi much more effective at an actual war.

[Tortellini]

I definitely agree on social constraints, but the question is, are the highprinces aware of the possibilities we discuss here and have consciously ruled them out - due to social factors such as taboos, political pressure or effects on their "war" they wouldn't want to risk - or are they simply not thinking of these options in the first place?

Simply put, they don't seem to be very research-focused. We do know that Navani is a great engineer, but despite the progress that fabrial technology is making, you don't see any of the men thinking about technological improvements much - even Dalinar, who is actively trying to innovate. Even with their neighboring kingdom - the only one with enough shards to be a threat to Alethkar - developing the half-shards, something that is a game-changer in shard-centered warfare, the Alethi still don't seem that concerned with new technology. Historically, there have been societies where innovation was very discouraged, and these were often stunted technologically after a while. Possibly, the Alethi society works this way, so that even smart people are not trained in thinking in new ways. That would be my guess - they could actually implement these new ideas and be much more successful with them.

[Sunblesser]

I definitely agree on social constraints, but the question is, are the highprinces aware of the possibilities we discuss here and have consciously ruled them out - due to social factors such as taboos, political pressure or effects on their "war" they wouldn't want to risk - or are they simply not thinking of these options in the first place?

Simply put, they don't seem to be very research-focused. We do know that Navani is a great engineer, but despite the progress that fabrial technology is making, you don't see any of the men thinking about technological improvements much - even Dalinar, who is actively trying to innovate. Even with their neighboring kingdom - the only one with enough shards to be a threat to Alethkar - developing the half-shards, something that is a game-changer in shard-centered warfare, the Alethi still don't seem that concerned with new technology. Historically, there have been societies where innovation was very discouraged, and these were often stunted technologically after a while. Possibly, the Alethi society works this way, so that even smart people are not trained in thinking in new ways. That would be my guess - they could actually implement these new ideas and be much more successful with them.

this is a good point, and it brings to mind some of the limitations the alethi impose on themselves. women are great scholars and engineers, i'm sure, but just as women can also be great warriors if given the chance, there is a potentially vast and untapped well-spring of creativity and innovation that is never allowed free-rein, because their men are placed in very strict roles of farmer, warrior, etc. sure, ardents don't have to worry about all that, but it is a certain type of mind that accepts becoming property to gain the freedom to study things.

besides that, men can't even read! think about how intelligent kaladin is, then imagine if he was allowed to study, and read, and turn an active, inquisitive mind to the problems faced on the shattered plains, armed with a host of scholarly learning and employing critical thinking. basically, the alethi have stunted themselves with all these strictly defined gender roles, but i suppose that's what rigidity brings.

[happyman]

I definitely agree on social constraints, but the question is, are the highprinces aware of the possibilities we discuss here and have consciously ruled them out - due to social factors such as taboos, political pressure or effects on their "war" they wouldn't want to risk - or are they simply not thinking of these options in the first place?

Simply put, they don't seem to be very research-focused. We do know that Navani is a great engineer, but despite the progress that fabrial technology is making, you don't see any of the men thinking about technological improvements much - even Dalinar, who is actively trying to innovate. Even with their neighboring kingdom - the only one with enough shards to be a threat to Alethkar - developing the half-shards, something that is a game-changer in shard-centered warfare, the Alethi still don't seem that concerned with new technology. Historically, there have been societies where innovation was very discouraged, and these were often stunted technologically after a while. Possibly, the Alethi society works this way, so that even smart people are not trained in thinking in new ways. That would be my guess - they could actually implement these new ideas and be much more successful with them.

That's a good point. My guess is that because they don't consider the war a "real" problem, they don't try to think of "real" solutions. They just go with what has not resulted in absolute catastrophe in the past, even if it doesn't work all that well compared to what could have been done. I say they do this, not because they are stupid or don't innovate, but because they are not motivated by their society or the war to solve these problems in a meaningful way. Their view of the main problems (such as other Highprinces, rather than the Parshendi) limits what kind of solutions they actually spend their time thinking about. Using bridgemen the way they do is a terrible long-term solution, but social class and short-term thinking made them do it anyway.

[Aiken Frost]

That's a good point. My guess is that because they don't consider the war a "real" problem, they don't try to think of "real" solutions. They just go with what has not resulted in absolute catastrophe in the past, even if it doesn't work all that well compared to what could have been done. I say they do this, not because they are stupid or don't innovate, but because they are not motivated by their society or the war to solve these problems in a meaningful way. Their view of the main problems (such as other Highprinces, rather than the Parshendi) limits what kind of solutions they actually spend their time thinking about. Using bridgemen the way they do is a terrible long-term solution, but social class and short-term thinking made them do it anyway.

I could put my money on that. Just look at what people did in real life, in similar situations.

[Tortellini]

That's a good point. My guess is that because they don't consider the war a "real" problem, they don't try to think of "real" solutions. They just go with what has not resulted in absolute catastrophe in the past, even if it doesn't work all that well compared to what could have been done. I say they do this, not because they are stupid or don't innovate, but because they are not motivated by their society or the war to solve these problems in a meaningful way. Their view of the main problems (such as other Highprinces, rather than the Parshendi) limits what kind of solutions they actually spend their time thinking about. Using bridgemen the way they do is a terrible long-term solution, but social class and short-term thinking made them do it anyway.

Good points, but I would argue that even if the war is not the highprinces' main interest any more, innovating should be in their interest. They are after all competing for the gemhearts, to the point where they often race each other for the right to get the heart and possibly fight the battle against the Parshendi. Better infrastructure and defendable outposts would make that a lot easier and would allow a highprince to capture more gemhearts, beating the others in the competition they do care about - they even have a scoreboard for that list.

[dj26792]

see it seems more to me like they have tactical innovation because war is a masculine art, but because the engineering aspect is a feminine art i think they would largely overlook it, field defences, like that would involve war, a masculine art and but require the knowledge of an engineer, a feminine art, its quite possible their societal blindspot has prevented innovation in that area, we know they all have slightly different bridge tactics, and army components its not they don't innovate, they just don't mix feminine arts and war, because according to their religion War is the premier masculine art, to bring a woman in would be sacrilege.

[Tortellini]

Hey everyone, since I started the thread, and it seemed to go a bit stale, I decided to make this my question to Brandon at the signing in Manchester. I've written up his reply in the post about that signing. So it seems that outposts are not quite as easy as I at least would have believed them to be, but that cooperation between the highprinces would definitely allow them to build easily defensible, large outposts (or series of outposts) in the plains. And with more cooperation, they could have won the war long ago.

As for the bridges, it seems we don't understand soulcasting well enough to speculate here. Apparently you do need wooden bridges first, which then can be soulcast into stone. These then would not be stable, since a stone bridge constructed like a wooden bridge would crack and fall unless stabilized, which would leave an opening for the Parshendi to destroy it after all.

So in the end, Dalinar seems to be on the right track, and missing innovation is not quite the solution I speculated it could be.

Edited November 28, 2011 by Tortellini

[name_here]

Huh, I could have sworn air was a valid Soulcasting target.

Ultimately, the biggest Alethi problem is that they're not taking the war seriously. They could slowly press forwards, constructing stone bridges the old-fashioned way, pressing towards the Parshendi base camp in a unified front with the bulk of their forces concentrated as mobile reserves on larger plateaus and Soulcasting bunkers to weather the Highstorms with the rate of construction dictating the speed of the advance. Given the Alethi formations' advantage in large-scale battles, greater numbers, and apparent Shard superiority, any strategy which would force the Parshendi to commit to a decisive action would be a winning one. They could also try bunching up most of their heavy forces and all of their Shardbearers for a lighting assault across the plains for a quick end to the war, but even discounting the unreliability of cooperation between Highprinces that's excessively risky for the side with the strong material advantage.

Personally, I'm not all that convinced that the Alethi leadership really knows what they're doing. Even accounting for the fact that they have good reason to avoid cooperative tactics, there's some serious issues with Saedas's strategies in particular and presumably in others as well

1) Bridgemen. I mean, I know he explains that they divert Pareshendi fire from his more valuable troops, but I can't shake the feeling that the Pareshendi target them because on those occasions when they do kill enough of them the Alethi cavalry charge is too small to secure the bridgehead and they're easily surrounded and brought down, while firing bows at soldiers in heavy armor or shieldwall formations is a waste of wood most of the time. This is supported by the way they immediately stop firing on them once the bridges are placed and they're no longer tactically relevant.

2) Alethi armies consist of heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, and spearmen. Given the constraints imposed by the plateaus, only a small portion of the army can be deployed. So why do they bring along their spearmen to every battle instead of a larger number of heavy infantry companies? Sure, that would prevent them from rotating their heavy infantry companies in and out of reserves and put more of a strain on them, but they apparently don't even do it occasionally.

3) So, if one of the constraints on how many troops they can bring is the way the bridges produce bottlenecks, and they have enough bridges to form three or more shifts, couldn't they have a second wave follow behind with some of the extra bridges?

[CrazyRioter]

air is a valid soulcasting target, but it seems that when soulcasting stuff out of air you are limited to creating relatively simple things, a bridge is apparently too complicated to soulcast from air.

[Inkthinker]

One more thing to keep in mind about soulcasting is that it's not a common, everyday occurance. It's done by a single group (the ardents), they have a monopoly on the process (Jasnah being the exception, hence her heretic status), and they charge a lot for it... hence it's more effective to pay them for soulcast food than it is to pay for soulcast bridges. Bridges come in handy for certain tasks, but EVERYONE needs to be fed out there, and there's very little forageable resources on the Plains.

Even if it's reasonably as easy to create bridges as some of you think it is (remember that most soulcasters can only affect a single type of transformation), the ardents have no incentive to play that hand.

Remember as well that the Plains War is being treated as a competitive game, not as an existential battle for victory or supremacy.

Now, if Dalinar takes control of all the armies as Highprince of War and proceeds to make them treat the conflict seriously, then we may see a change in tactics (like creating more permanent bridges). But under the status quo, where's the benefit that outweighs the cost?

Edited November 28, 2011 by Inkthinker

[Tortellini]

I believe Inkthinker has it pretty much right. They are treating it as a game, one they created a set of unspoken rules for that they follow to keep the game up. Anything that would threaten the game would threaten their income, which is much higher than if they weren't actually in the war.

The sense I got talking to Brandon was that for a single highprince, there would be a definite risk of significant losses involved in trying to establish an outpost. So if you think about it, it looks like this: either it works, and the other highprinces quickly adapt and follow suit, inching the camps closer to the center of the Plains. This will likely lead to more conflicts with the Parshendi but not really to more gemhearts. Or it doesn't work, and one highprince has significant, potentially disastrous losses and is in a weak position for quite some time. Not really an incentive there if you care about the gemhearts mostly. Better to not mess with the rules of the race and just play it as hard as you can.

On the question of ardents though - the king actually owns the ardents with the soulcasters (remember, they're property). Elhokar is the one actually charging for the use of the soulcasters, not the ardents themselves. So he is the one deciding how and when they are applied.

[happyman]

If I were to sum everything from this thread up, there are two main conclusions we can draw:

(1) Soulcasting has limitations we aren't aware of. You can't turn anything into anything, at least not easily or in one step. No surprise there, really; what soulcasting we have seen has been pretty, well, elemental. This means that many of the tactics proposed are harder/more expensive than we originally thought.

(2) Even within these limitations, the Alethi could have done more if they were motivated to actually win the war. Culturally, though, they haven't because their priorities are all screwed up.

I'd add that there is one more conclusion that needs repeating:

(3) Brandon is several steps ahead of us on this. No surprise there, really.

[Kurkistan]

I'd add that there is one more conclusion that needs repeating:

(3) Brandon is several steps ahead of us on this. No surprise there, really.

"Maybe...[sniffs] maybe."

It's always a good idea to double check, though. Remember that Brandon doesn't necessarily have the time or knowledge required to properly model such esoteric strategic environments, so it can't hurt to bring in some outside thought, particularly from experts and people with far too much time on their hands to think about these things. Also, it's kind of fun to talk about logistics and strategy in a world that includes the ability to turn rocks into food and air into rocks.

Edited November 28, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Dahak]

air is a valid soulcasting target, but it seems that when soulcasting stuff out of air you are limited to creating relatively simple things, a bridge is apparently too complicated to soulcast from air.

Domes and Tunnels for example, It was stated that the War palace had windows added after it was soulcast.

Notably despite this being years into the war they still don't have sufficient barracks for all the troops. Kaladin saw many people living in tents, when he first entered Saldeas' Camp.

Soulcasting stone can't be cheap. Since there is conservation of mass when turning stone to smoke, it stands to reason there may also be in reverse,which impies you are turning a lot of air into a small volume of stone.

Two other things I note here.

1] 9 in 10 soulcasters are single or limited function according to Shallan and the other 1 in 10 are attuned to a limited number [3 on the ones we've seen] of the essences. So swapping the gems may not be sufficient to soul cast different things.

2] The apprentice soulcasters who made the Iron, not born of stone, sold to the Shinn used wood and shells as a pattern rather than air. Which implies there may be a skill requirement as well.

Thus just because the King's Ardents can produce Grain from Stone and Wood from something doesn't mean they can create stone as easily.

[ReaderAt2046]

The Shattered Plains themselves create a very interesting tactical situation, as noted in the books, because the size of the contested plateau places an effective limit on the number of troops deployed, as well as the fact that the size of the army limits how fast it can move for the Alethi. We saw, however, that the joint strategy employed by Dalinar and Sadeas was extremely effective, both outnumbering the Parshendi and attacking from two sides.

With more than two armies, say five for instance, all moving efficiently as separate units and converging from separate routes, any battle would be virtually guaranteed to the Alethi, with crushing casualty ratios. Moreover, with multiple armies, Parshendi on contested plateuas could conceivably be cut off completely from retreat, allowing the destruction of entire enemy forces in detail.

Therefore, we see that it would be virtually impossible for Dalinar to waster "resources" by forcing cooperation because any cooperative effort is guaranteed to minimize Alethi casualties, as evidenced by his successful cooperation with Sadeas.

I believe that in the book attempted scouting parties had simply failed, killed by exposure to highstorms, chasmfiends, or Parshendi. A reconnaissance in force, properly supported logistically, would be necessary for both scouting and attack. The reason no one has done that is because of prohibitive cost and minimal individual gain, especially considering the probability that any one High Prince's army would be defeated by the Parshendi.

As to possible cooperation to attack the Parshendi if they felt it necessary, I think this is us disagreeing again on the amount of cooperation the High Princes are willing to consider. In both a world where gemhearts are preeminent and one where defeating the Parshendi is preeminent, what the High Princes are doing in the status quo is essentially optimal, barring cooperation.

Another point is that each highprince has a different specialty. Sadeas has the fastest bridges, Dalinar has the best heavy infantry, someone whose name i don't remember has the best archers, etc. If you combined these armies, you'd considerably increase the total power.

[Vortaan]

I think someone mentioned this, but consider the Parshendi as well. Arguably this strategy would benefit them more than it would the Alethi. They do not specialize, each Parshendi army seems pretty much the same. With shelters to rest, a run across the Plains would put them at the heart of the Alethi camp, or at least cut off their access to deeper in the Plains. Less access equals less gemhearts equals less food. So why haven't the Parshendi, that we assume are using Soulcasters, doing this? For that matter, why aren't they pressing the war? Armies make it back from losing battles. If the Parshendi were serious about the war, why do they not attack retreating armies?

[ReaderAt2046]

I think someone mentioned this, but consider the Parshendi as well. Arguably this strategy would benefit them more than it would the Alethi. They do not specialize, each Parshendi army seems pretty much the same. With shelters to rest, a run across the Plains would put them at the heart of the Alethi camp, or at least cut off their access to deeper in the Plains. Less access equals less gemhearts equals less food. So why haven't the Parshendi, that we assume are using Soulcasters, doing this? For that matter, why aren't they pressing the war? Armies make it back from losing battles. If the Parshendi were serious about the war, why do they not attack retreating armies?

I think there's a theory going round that the Parshendi are trying to get a battle-trained, pre-marshaled Alethi army in place for the Desolation. Serious warfare would defeat this purpose.

[name_here]

Agreed, assessing the viability of the Parshendi strategy without knowing their objectives is complete guesswork. They deliberately engineered this situation in the first place, by blatantly assassinating Galivar and pulling back onto the Shattered Plains, so presumably they're content with it.

It's alternately possible that the reason they aren't pressing the war is that they couldn't win if this turned into a straight fight with the Alethi, and their plan is to keep this siege going until Alethkar collapses and the Highprinces are forced to abandon the war to stabilize their lands. Their losses might not be as heavy as the Alethi believe, as it's possible their mixed-gender army got badly underestimated in terms of size

[Arcanist Lupus]

One thing Dalinar notices is that after he and Sadeas work together to bring two armies to a battle, the Parshendi start doing the same thing. But since they are (presumably) not divided the same way the Alethi camp is, they should have had the ability to bring two armies to a battle all the time, and yet they didn't until the Alethi did.

[ReaderAt2046]

Again fitting in with the notion that they are trying to maintain a stalemate. They limit their own armies to match the Alethi.