"Your majesty, the Lombardians have lost a decisive battle in against the Florentians." said Felix with a grin on his face.

I shook my head in disbelief and I asked him to check again and after checking again, he confirmed that the Lombardians have lost against the Florentians. Then I started laughing crazily and I was quite happy. The Lombardians were my competitors but I didn't expect them to lose that badly. They had 43,000 troops while the Florentians had 18,000 troops and they lost which is quite embarassing to say the least. Looks like command still play's a role in wars unlike my old world. In my old world, you basically have no chance of losing as long you have overwhelming firepower unless the enemy is using guerilla warfare which the Americans learned in Vietnam and Afganhistan for a price. A price which probably is not worth it.

"What is the reaction of the Kildarians." I asked after I composed my reaction.

Kildarians supported the Lombardians as the Lombardians had strategic conflicts with the Rostok empire. The Kildarians and the Rostok empire are currently in a struggle for hegemony so the Kildarians need allies to combat the Rostok empire.

"Your majesty, the Kildarians have called for a ceasefire and are holding an conference in their capital city Portsmouth. The Florentians have approached us and the Rostok empire to support them in the conference. It is not clear who the Rostok empire will support in the conference but from information we gathered, they will support the Florentians. Should we support the Florentians, your majesty."

"Assemble the cabinet first and we will discuss it with them first."

After the cabinet was assembled, we started the discussion on who to support.

"I believe most of you know what has happend, to mitigate the effects of the Lombardians losing the Kildarians have called for an conference. The Florentians have asked us for their support. What do you think we should do." I asked them in a serious as they were gloating at the misfortune of the Lombardians as any rival country would.

"Your majesty, the problem is that the Florentians cannot give us enough benefits to make it worth for us to support them. If we support them, we will greatly anger the Kildarians and the Lombardians which will force us to move closer to the Rostok empire and give us less maneuverable space. At the same time, we don't want to support the the Lombardians as that we will put a strain on our alliance with the Rostok empire and stop us from reaching our end goal."

I nodded at him signifying that that's what I basically thought. As long as the benefits are enough, I will betray anyone and other countries will surely do the same. The problem is that there are not enough benefits to betray. Some countries are more trustworthy than others. Contrary to popular belief, the British were the best at betraying and countries with a monarch generally were trustworth relatively speaking. But that's relatively speaking, any country would betray you as long as they had enough benefits.

One reason democratic countries betrayed more is because they usually looked for short term benefits instead of long term benefits as the Chancellor or the prime minister only has four years in power.

"Just 1*paddle at the meeting and give some support to the Rostok empire. They will be happy and the Kildarians won't be offended too much giving us a back door."

Dictionary

1= What I mean by paddling is basically giving spiritual supprt but not any actual support. This basically means that you are not making any moves and are on one side instead of being neutral.