POV

The king of Strasbourg.

"Your majesty, what will our decision be with Mainz trying to unify the Gretan region. Should we join them or should we oppose them? My opinion is to oppose them as they will take away our military and make us into a state with only our financial power left." said the prime minister.

He clearly wants to oppose Mainz as he is part of the bureaucratic and the ruling class and wants to retain that power. But the requirements for me are different, as long as I can retain enough power, I will be happy. The problem is that the kingdom of Mainz wants to remove my army and downgrade me into a duke with only financial power which is unacceptable to me.

If I don't have my army, I would be powerless as Mainz can do anything to me without any military consequences as I can't rebel against them. They might not do anything against me right now as they need international reputation and suppressing me will lower their international reputation.

But what about the future, will they care about their international reputation then. If I join them, I am dooming all my descendants to living with a sword above their neck. For that reason, I must oppose them.

"I plan on opposing them. How do you think we should oppose them as currently with our military strength, we can't beat them unless another great power joins the war which is unlikely as they are currently having a war in the near east. Do you have a plan?" I asked them as I didn't want my country to get destroyed just yet.

"Your majesty, the Kildarians have contacted us with a hope of us integrating the south and Braushweig integrating the north. Then, we and Braushweig will sign a mutual defense treaty and we will war of aggression from the western empire and the kingdom of Mainz. I think their main goal is to create four powers with roughly equal strength in the Gretan region and make sure that the Gretan region will never be unified. But we can grow our strength and save our country." said the foreign minister.

This proposal is extremely beneficial to us. We can grow stronger and ward off future attacks with Braunschweig. At the same time, our strength will grow and we will have a higher development potential than Mainz. The problem is that Mainz will get angry but what can they do, they can't just attack us so suddenly as other countries might intervene and a coalition might form.

"Start negotiating with the Kildarians and start preparations to receive Conrad. We will also start making preparations to unify the south and stabilize other countries. For now, delay Mainz as much as you can and give them false hints that we will join Mainz." I said to the cabinet.