Regarding Alexandria, our reputation and so forth. . .you are both right. I am intemperate in my old age. And I fully agree about watching the SLOW decline of our reputation back to a more positive level (at least below half). I suppose my only fear is that if we are not proactive at some level (as you propose dear Gandolfi, attempting to gain some defensive war or such), then we will one day find ourselves on the receiving end of a negative diplomatic situation. [ooc--plus, sometimes it seems like the AI avoids attacking humans like the plague unless you have a core, and thus we might find ourselves consigned to 300 more years of watching the paint dry on our many Governor houses--BB just takes so dang long to decline]
I suppose it is inevitable that we will merely see the swallowing up of Egypt by the OE, a force that we cannot easily oppose. Hmmm, 200,000 men? It would seem that they must have gained some manpower from those horrible poor provinces in the Balkans. Wow--and I wonder why we never acquired them for ourselves, to have something of a more equal footing in war? Oh wait, I remember from the records, we don't WANT those kinds of provinces with those kinds of people; better to let them serve in the vast armies of our enemies than actually be of use to the Republic. Plus, I suppose it makes our job of building a Republic that much harder, thus more fun for us, since we must be long since grown use to ease of merely overseeing our trading riches. No reason to make our job easier with more men, more trade/tax revenue, less enemy. None whatsoever. Hey, if we are lucky, we can wait on an attack from the infidel and he'll have 300,000 men under arms after taking Egypt.
I suppose it is inevitable that we will merely see the swallowing up of Egypt by the OE, a force that we cannot easily oppose. Hmmm, 200,000 men? It would seem that they must have gained some manpower from those horrible poor provinces in the Balkans. Wow--and I wonder why we never acquired them for ourselves, to have something of a more equal footing in war? Oh wait, I remember from the records, we don't WANT those kinds of provinces with those kinds of people; better to let them serve in the vast armies of our enemies than actually be of use to the Republic. Plus, I suppose it makes our job of building a Republic that much harder, thus more fun for us, since we must be long since grown use to ease of merely overseeing our trading riches. No reason to make our job easier with more men, more trade/tax revenue, less enemy. None whatsoever. Hey, if we are lucky, we can wait on an attack from the infidel and he'll have 300,000 men under arms after taking Egypt.