The man that had just spoken to Alexander was nad Hysper and was among the biggest land owners among the gathered noblen, controlling nearly 1,000 sq km of personal land- almost equal to Alexander's.
But one would have a hard ti discerning the man was so influential just from his na because Tibias did not have a noble tiering system like Adhania.
Instead, all nobility were painted with the sa brush- as Nobles.
Of course, in reality, the richer and more powerful noble houses who controlled vast swathes of land wielded a disproportionate amount of power in court, kind of like how a country's finance minister is far more influential than say the sports minister, even though they were both mbers of the parliant and technically hold the sa level of post.
But this arrangent made things very hard for any outsider, for it was impossible to discern how important the person talking to you was.
Sotis even weak nobles able to raise barely a hundred n talked to Alexander like he could call rain and wind at the wave of his hand.
Alexander would many tis be astonished at the level of delusion.
Alexander recognized the Hypser for he had studied the backgrounds of many of the nobles here and thus knew his words could be seen as representative of the whole.
"......" And looking around the room, he indeed felt that was indeed the prevailing mood around.
Most of the nobles wanted to wait and see the result of Alexander's next move.
This to the man himself appeared very foolish, as in his opinion, the faster these nobles submitted to him, the better the deal they were gonna get.
But it seed the nobles still held out hope.
They did not say it aloud outright, but by their body language, Alexander could read that they still held great expectations for their king, who was viewed as a great commander,
Many believed that he could yet turn things around.
Regarding this, Alexander scoffed but he did not imdiately destroy the delusion.
He could have changed many minds if he wanted to right now, by just showing the various papers Lord Ponticus had about the country's affairs and the dire straits it was in, making them understand a miraculous coback was simply impossible.
Sure it was still possible for Perseus to be able to win or two battles against him, but unless Alexander let so shitty AI take control of him and commit brain dead mistakes one after another, even in the worst case scenario, he would be able to turn the war into a stalemate, locking in his gains and then in the subsequent years eventually grind the Tibian king down.
For the latter simply lacked the necessary n needed to fuel his reconquest.
But though aware of this inevitability, Alexander did not reveal so.
Because once he won so subsequent victories, it would be far easier and cheaper to make these nobles flip then.
So at Hypser's request, Alexander simply replied, "Then I will try to co to so sort of agreent with Perseus. In the anti, if any one of wants to strike a deal with , my arm is always open. You will not leave disappointed."
After this, in the following days, Alexander did get a few n who ca to him to ask for a deal.
But all of them were quite low along the tiering influence ladder and exclusively shared the characteristic of having lands very near Thesalie.
aning unlike the rest of the nobles, they were not so optimistic that the king would be able to penetrate so deep so as to co to rescue them, not when they were so small to begin with.
Regarding these flips, Alexander outwardly was very welcoming and offered quite so favorable terms, even lowering the ransom amount of their captives while internally, he mumbled at the tacit resistance the nobility as a whole displayed towards him.
He had hoped for a far better response but the other sides showed remarkable unity.
It seed that though they did not show it, most nobles inherently disliked Alexander- for he represented Adhania, their most hated enemy.
Regarding this Alexander would do nothing right now, but wait out and grind these prejudices down, be it using force or benefits.
But for now, he turned his focus to much more important matters, particularly reports nes was starting to send.
By now it had beco February and winter had been promptly replaced by the much temperate spring, driving away the cruel ice queen and replacing with weather with a much milder ambiance.
The ground quickly started to thaw and the river Diannu had by one beca clean of any ice, allowing Alexander to restart his supply runs, while up above, clear skies with the gentle grace of the sun appeared almost every day of the week.
The weather was glorious.
Which also ant the ti to restart their campaign had co.
Thus replacing the generalship of lodias with nes to give the latter a chance at glory, Alexander ordered a general advance towards the enemy capital, and within a week, a ssenger ca to Alexander bearing the news of an imminent battle with Perseus.
Mithriditus ever the resourceful man he was, managed to scrape together in the past five to six months not an insignificant amount of force given the dire limitations, and Perseus had set out to et nes out in the field with them, for one last shot at saving his kingdom.
As for the reason why he simply did not stay behind the walls of his capital Parthenigh and just turtle, well one only needed to look at what happened to the fortress city of Thesalie to know how well that strategy worked out.
Hence around mid February, nes's forward scouts started to deliver scant reports of enemy sightings nearby, and over the week or so, upon multiple sightings, their presence was truly confird.
Though the true numbers of the enemy forces yet alluded nes.
And that was because of the terrain they were currently in.
Wanting to take advantage of his legions' mobility and put the enemy phalangites at a disadvantage, nes had ordered the army to take a detour along a series of nearby mountain ridges called?The Sissilpond Ridge.
This way he hoped to avoid fighting on the flat banks of the Diannu where the enemy would be in his elent.
But this also resulted in making his scouting efforts very hard.
The enemy appeared to be scattered enough among the various wooded patches and a thick dense fog hung around there almost till midday every day.
This made it so that although the keen eyed scouting units were indeed able to confirm the identity of the shadow in the fog as being Tibian units, they were unable to get a solid count of their numbers.
This frustrated the general quite, as he repeatedly sent multiple units, even scolding many of his officers,
"What do you an you do not know how many enemies are there? How am I supposed to co up with a battle plan without knowing how many n I'm facing?"
"Is it a scouting force?"
"Or has the enemy's main force co up to et us?"
Facing this fuming general, the officers had little answer, with so mumbling to themselves, 'If you had stuck to the river banks, none of this would have been a problem.
It appeared that nes's decision did cause so controversy among the ranks.
Of course, all such dissent was kept to themselves, as a high ranking officer quickly sought to calm nes down,
"General, although we do not know the enemy's numbers, they should also not know ours. We have detected a lot more units around our camp, trying to poke and prod. They must be as anxious as such."
The man tried to show that both were on an even playing field.
And this worked, as nes quietened down and curly nodded.
It seed both sides would have to wait till the very imminent start of the battle, where they would form together to form proper battle lines to really know the numbers they were facing.
This to nes stung a bit.
And then to add to this slight hitch, the ridge also ca with so other disadvantages- particularly denying nes the full use of his heavy cavalry.
The uneven ground would make mass cavalry charges too dangerous, as the horses might trip and fall.
But all these inconveniences were trumped by nes's experience of fighting on phalanxes on even grounds.
He had suffered too much on straight head to head confrontations with that formations to want another fight there.
Besides, although the problems he was facing sounded great on paper, nes knew it was in a pretty good position.
Being inford by Alexander, he learned that Perseus barely had enough n in the whole country to perhaps gather at best 20,000 n.
Whereas he had commanded 29,000 n in the field, with a further garrison of 3,000 n along various cities.
As for the loss of cavalry, well being a true Thesian, nes, unlike Alexander or the rare Grahtos,?wholeheartedly followed the school of thought that- Battles were won by heavy infantry with the calvary being only an auxiliary component.
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