Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

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snakebite105
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Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

I have a theory that I think Mathiu was probably the worst stratagist ever.

During a 2 year time period he only had a few real plans and though I may have missed some he thought of..

1)Taking Toran Castle as an HQ
2)Suggesting to recruit Lepant
3)Orcastrated creating the forged document to save Liukan
4)Fooling the spy into thinking there was a training exercise while attacking the northern checkpoint
5)Getting the city-states to ambush Kasim's forces.
6)Making Ice boats to storm Sonya's fortress

Each of these plans while seemingly helping the Liberation army actually hurt the army or would have been figured out without him to help.

First off Taking Toran Castle,
Do you think anyone would really pass up taking over an abandoned fortress if they were in need of an HQ? This isen't rocket science here.

Recruiting Lepant,
They probably would have eventually been conned by Krin into recruiting Lepant without Mathiu's suggestion while they were traveling from place to place to get support not to mention Lepant's wife was kidnaped so Lepant woulden't have had a choice in the matter regardless.

Forging the document to free Liukan from prison.
This entire event could have been avoided entirely. If they just burned down Miliches fortress with fire arrows negating ever having to have to do any of this at all and captureing milich with little bloodshed. they'd never get killed by the rose and never need an antidote for it.

Fooling the spy with the training exercise to attack the northern checkpoint,
I don't think a guarded checkpoint during a war would be all that unprepared for an attack. They were going to be outnumbered regardless if they knew they were coming or not. I doubt fooling the spy had any real effect on taking that checkpoint over.

Getting the City-States to attack the rest of Kasim's forces.
This was a complete waste of life. the forces that were spread to 2 other positions to distract Kasim's forces away from his Fortress was a good plan Mathiu did not need the City states to then roll over those forces. Kasim wasen't exactly a difficult person to get to switch sides. and Milich did most of the work on persuading him anyway. All those forces could have joined the liberation army but were instead murdered.

Making Ice boats to attack sonya
making all those ice boats took a lot of people a lot of time and effort especially since they had planed to attack sonya the next morning. all they really needed to do was get Anji's pirates to harrass her some more and offer a challenge to kill Tir so she could get revenge over teo's death if she had attacked them at the fortress this would have given them the home field advantage not only is that tower extreemly tall allowing for a huge ranged advantage but they would have the obvious defensive advantage from their fortress. Not to mention they could have just used the fire spears to tourch their boats because by this point rune cannons are gone and regular cannons apparently don't exist. Their fortress would never be touched. they'd gain control of Sonya's fortress and all without Mathiu getting stabed in the end.


Because of Mathiu
Gremio was killed
Mathiu was killed
Potential soliders were killed by the city states not to mention those same soliders could have been used to help Riou in suikoden 2
the city states took control of kasim's region causeing a conflict after the war had ended to get it back.
a child was almost killed
Liukan was captured
Sanchez was allowed to live
Tesla was forced to work for the army
Kimberly forced Tai Ho and Yam Koo to flee from their home into Dunan
numerious forces were forced to work through the night on ice boats and were probably fatigued when attacking sonya's fortress
an most importantly Gremio was killed

the only good thing he did was get apple to join you paving the way for her to fail in suikoden 2 getting Viktor's mercs killed including Pohl. Sure he also taught Shu but Leon already had his hands in Suikoden 2 before shu becomes relevent.

Mathiu's failure as a stratagist has a legacy that lives on in future games.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by RangerDeon »

Oh, wow. .

Well, keep in mind, dude, that this was the first game. This game lacked many things that the others picked up. Also, while fully backed up with reason, all that you said was basically conjecture. . your opinions.
So I'll respond with mine.

Taking Toran Castle
Yes, sure anyone could have thought to do that but most of the people you were with did not know about the castle of it's significance. So, because he was involved in the previous war, he informed them about the chance to get the fortress.

Recruiting Lepant
Chances of Krin conning them into recruiting Lepant are slim. Why would he? Without Mathiu no one knew who Tir was, let alone knew he was leader of the liberation army. Krin would have conned them, sure, but he would have probably just stole their money and goods. Besides couldn't even count as a negative strike against Mathiu because most -- if not all -- of the strategist in the Suikoden games have adviced the leader to recruit someone of importance that the hero could have 'casually' ran into.

Forging the document to free Liukan from prison.
Didn't Militch have this poison? So. . fighting him head on, everyone would have died. Even with the fire spears, they would have died. So finding an antidote for the poison before rushing into things seems most logical. . so getting Liukan was unavoidable.

Fooling the spy with the training exercise to attack the northern checkpoint
I don't actually remember the story behind this so. . I have no response for it. <_<

Getting the City-States to attack the rest of Kasim's forces.
Well, Being a strategist isn't the same thing as being psychic. How did they know he would have switched sides. Beside, the City-State was already at war with the Toran republic.

Making Ice boats to attack sonya
You're forgetting something, pal: Anji isn't an automatic recruit. So they couldn't play large roles in the army because you could go without getting them all together. Besides, If they convinced her to seek revenge, who's to say she'd come alone? She was one of those 7 (or 6. .I think it was six. .I don't know) generals, so she's not stupid. There's no logic in having her come to your castle. And the plan worked out well, despite him getting stabbed.


So, I don't think he was the worst, he was just a part of the first game.
The other games expanded the roles of the strategist, due to longer games.

"I wasn't getting rid of you. I want you to do whatever you want to do with me. I know that sounded dirty, and dirty things count, but I didn't mean the dirty things. You and me can hang whenever, wherever."
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snakebite105
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

Toran Castle.
they would have got their eventually

Lepant
Kraze threatned him with his wife's life he was going to join eventually

forging the document
I said fire arrows plus a suprise attack not the fire spears. You were able to mow down the first round of milich's soliders but then come round 2 he had the poison ready. I'm sayin if they'd used that first round to shoot fire arrows the entire procedure following woulden't have been needed.

Fooling the spy
no need to argue

Getting the City-States to attack
He knew Kasim personally he would have known plus you had the other generals who could have persuaded him. The soliders that died not only wasted resorces for the Liberation army but for the soliders killed from the city states who would help Riou 3 years later not to mention when Riou got the Toran republic's help afterward. Every single man who died in that scirmish could have helped Riou.

Even if Kasim didn't join they could have held him hostage to prevent any attack on themselves.

Making Ice boats.
I'm going off of info assuming confirmed storyline not gameplay mechanics. Anji was there in the war thats what the story says thats what i'm using for evidence.

And i didnt mean for Sonya to fight 1v1 i ment if she used her navy to attack Toran Castle they could have used the few boats they had equiped with Fire spears to torch them OR used fire ARROWS off the top of toran castle.

Sonya would not have had a chance as her navy lacks cannons.



I really just wanted to take a bat to Mathiu's reputation.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by JanusThePaladin »

You're missing the point. What you're saying is CONJECTURE!
snakebite105 wrote:Toran Castle.
they would have got their eventually
You cannot say, without a shadow of a doubt, that eventually they would have chosen to take Toran Castle. More likely, they would have continued to hid in small towns, as their presedent has shown, then when they had marshalled significant forces they would have conquered an already established city and used it as their base of operations. A much longer, and time consuming process, tho simpler than conquering a castle in the middle of an ocean.
Lepant
Kraze threatned him with his wife's life he was going to join eventually
Again, conjecture. How do you know that Lepant would have come running to the Liberation army when Kraze kidnapped his wife? From the in game story that you see, Lepant was furiously attacking the army headquarter, gravely outnumbered. The far more logical scenario is that he would have DIED attacking the army, and Kraze would have proceeded to rape his wife, while bathing in Lepant's blood just for that extra sexual thrill.
forging the document
I said fire arrows plus a suprise attack not the fire spears. You were able to mow down the first round of milich's soliders but then come round 2 he had the poison ready. I'm sayin if they'd used that first round to shoot fire arrows the entire procedure following woulden't have been needed.
My first thing to say here is: At what point do you EVER see the Liberation Army use fire arrows? If you follow gameplay mechanics, and story line, fire arrows is an idea that never even entered into the game. Furthermore, Milich did not control the poison, it was released by the flowers in his castle. After the first skirmish, where they discover the poison, even if they were to use your strategy and mow everyone down with distant fire arrows, upon approaching the castle, the poison would still effect your party. Given Milich's connection with obscure forms of death and torture, we have no idea how long that poison would stick around after the destruction of the castle. Furthermore, strategically speaking, why destroy a fortified castle in the land you just conquered, when you could later use it in the event of an attack from somewhere else?
Fooling the spy
no need to argue
From my understanding, the point of fooling the spy was to keep them from sending in reinforcements, and keeping the conquering of the gate quiet. If you'll remember, defeating Kasim was entirely reliant on the fact that he still believe Griffon to be part of their army, therefore not being knowledgable of the defeat of the gate. Also, it kept them from being able to send reinforcements to the gate fast enough to defend it, as it is evidenced that a good deal of forces were marshalled north of it.
Getting the City-States to attack
He knew Kasim personally he would have known plus you had the other generals who could have persuaded him. The soliders that died not only wasted resorces for the Liberation army but for the soliders killed from the city states who would help Riou 3 years later not to mention when Riou got the Toran republic's help afterward. Every single man who died in that scirmish could have helped Riou.

Even if Kasim didn't join they could have held him hostage to prevent any attack on themselves.
First of all, you cannot use any arguments about Riou's eventual involvement with the Toran republic. Mathui is a strategist, not a psychic, he had no way of knowing that the City States would battle highland, or try to forge a treaty with the Toran Republic. His mind would be purely on the war he was in, not one that happens 3 years after his death.

Besides that, factor in that Mathui is AT WAR WITH THE GOVERNMENT. So, all the people who were members of the Scarlet Moon military are his enemies, not his allies. So he cares very little about their deaths, if it assists him in bringing down the government. Honestly, by splitting the empire's attention on 2 different fronts, and the fact that the area that was attacked was holding alot of soldiers for the empire, this is, strategically speaking, an excellent move. He loses the least amount of people, while causing his enemy to take a huge hit.

Furthermore, the Empire had long been at war with the City States, and I find it highly unlikely that Mathui would view their soldiers as anything important to him. He may not like wanton destruction of innocents, but i severely doubt he cares about another nation's soldiers dying because they stepped into an internal power struggle.
Making Ice boats.
I'm going off of info assuming confirmed storyline not gameplay mechanics. Anji was there in the war thats what the story says thats what i'm using for evidence.

And i didnt mean for Sonya to fight 1v1 i ment if she used her navy to attack Toran Castle they could have used the few boats they had equiped with Fire spears to torch them OR used fire ARROWS off the top of toran castle.

Sonya would not have had a chance as her navy lacks cannons.
Why would Sonya take her navy out of their fortified position, where they were guarding the entry into the only unconquered part of the empire, against all orders? Sonya may have been mad, and willing to risk her life to end Tir's, but there is absolutely NOTHING to evidence that she would be willing to risk the lives of ALL THE SOLDIERS UNDER HER in what would obviously be a stupid decision.


I really just wanted to take a bat to Mathiu's reputation.
Well you did. Didnt work, but i hope my responses were enlightening. IMO the worst Strategist is Ceasar.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

Toran Castle

I do know without a shadow of a doubt. Now most of my thoughts consider that Everyone but Mathiu is present and then saying how those events would unfold.

If they went from town to town as they were doing they would have met camille and Tai Ho Regardless mathiu did not introduce them. Tai Ho would knew about it and he is also friends with Anji's group and we know pirates have been trying to take over that castle forever. That was not an unknown structure everyone with half a brain knew about it.

Though in retrospect most peopel in Suikoden 1 had less then half a brain judging by the fact that all the generals could have crushed Tir's forces in a weeks time but instead decided to sit on their duffs.

Lepant

Lepant was not a willfull headstrong warrior. He was a noblemen who has the joys. His wife his sword and his son. He would not risk his life in a fools errand just to get some petty revenge because he listens to his wife and would not throw all that away. He would have joined especially since Pahn also used this oppertunity to save Lepant's wife and he was clearly already considering going back to Tir.

Kraze would also not risk tarnishing his reputation any further by killing the man he was sent to blackmail. Pahn would have freed Lepant as a gift to join the Liberation.


The document

Fire arrows was really more just an example. My point was they could still get within a good distance of the fortress to have used something ranged and firey to burn down the rose before it used its poison because Milich needed to activly use it it was not a secondary function that worked automaticly

Fooling the spy
first off i'd like to remention that everyone in Suikoden 1 was an idiot. everyone no exceptions. They should have realised that Oddessa's death was due to a spy.

The spy had to be someone with some real information not just a grunt in the military.

Using those 2 facts they should have realised that the spy had to be Flik Humphrey or Sanchez because Viktor was with Tir far to often to have activly been a spy on the side.

Flik was in love with Oddessa, Humphrey betrayed the empire, Sanchez was the only one who it could have been.

All of their problems could have been solved by just a little thought.

Getting the City-States to attack

The silverberg way is not to win but to prevent as much death as possible. yes alot of death happens because of the silverbergs but they are trying to prevent more then they are doing.



Sonya

With the statement you made Tirs army could have just as well completly left Sonya alone because she wasent doing anything worth while the entire war anyway. she wanted Tir dead with just a little bit of coxing she would have attacked. Besides she'd have eventually had to do something and being part of the NAVY a land war won't really matter once they start to attack Gregminister.

If she had attacked at any other time she might have been able to just topple tir's forces earlier and saved the empire. But she didn't no matter what she did at that point in the story it would have been a stupid decision she missed all her opertunities.



My information is not conjecture it is based on fact. Specificly the fact that Mathiu was horrible at what he did.

I am not a genius i'm just an average person. And I saw all these holes. No Mathiu is not Prof. X he can't read minds but There are better options. I thought of this entire attack on his person in 2 min. He thought of those 6 things over the course of 2 years. If I could have seen through his idiocracy then the next joe the plumber could have and they also could have come up with something better.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by JanusThePaladin »

I'm sorry sir, but you're backing up your conjecture with more conjecture based off of very circumstantial evidence. You're obviously not willing to listen to anyone else on this, as you have formed your own opinions, and its pointless for me to waste my time furthering the argument, as you refuse to even consider what is being said, but forge headstrong through it to repeat yourself. I'll allow someone else the opportunity to enlighten you further.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

JanusThePaladin wrote:I'm sorry sir, but you're backing up your conjecture with more conjecture based off of very circumstantial evidence. You're obviously not willing to listen to anyone else on this, as you have formed your own opinions, and its pointless for me to waste my time furthering the argument, as you refuse to even consider what is being said, but forge headstrong through it to repeat yourself. I'll allow someone else the opportunity to enlighten you further.
I think that the same could be said for you. good day sir.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by JanusThePaladin »

Except that i came in here to offer you a counterpoint. All you have done is refused to listen to what others say, then repeated your theory for a 3rd time, using the same reasoning that you yourself came up with, but that is far-fetched and fleeting. I am not continuing to argue the point, nor am i repeating my reasoning behind why i believe you are wrong. I'm simply telling you that if you wish to postulate a theory, you need to be willing to take negative responses and admit that your theory is incorrect. Otherwise we'd still live in a Geocentric universe.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

JanusThePaladin wrote:Except that i came in here to offer you a counterpoint. All you have done is refused to listen to what others say, then repeated your theory for a 3rd time, using the same reasoning that you yourself came up with, but that is far-fetched and fleeting. I am not continuing to argue the point, nor am i repeating my reasoning behind why i believe you are wrong. I'm simply telling you that if you wish to postulate a theory, you need to be willing to take negative responses and admit that your theory is incorrect. Otherwise we'd still live in a Geocentric universe.
While I don't agree with what you say I'll fight to the death your right to say it. This was ment to be more of a debate and your attacking my person next time you want to harrass someone may I suggest a fox corrispondant.

Yes its a what if situation but this isent just blatent lies its based on what would have worked better and what would have likely occered.

ya maybe Lepant would have goten himself killed but maybe he'd comit suicide maybe he'd cut off his arm and yell "KAAAAAAHHHHNNNN" who can say. whats more likely he'd get pahn's help and save his wife then join the liberation.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by JanusThePaladin »

No, what is more likely is he would have rushed into the army's base, headfirst, and gotten into a fight one against 6 well trained soldiers.... OH WAIT! That did happen. And if Tir hadnt been there because Mathui had suggested he go there, then lepant would have more than likely lost, as he required your help to defeat them. This is a simple in game fact, not a supposition, or assumption. He rushed headlong into an imperial base, end of story. If you're willing to ignore this simple FACT in your argument, or debate, or whatever you wish to refer to it as, then every other ingame fact can be ignored and i can state that they were all sugar plum fairies dancing a complicated version of the nutcracker suite.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by Lemmy Claypool »

Janus is right snakebite. Whilst you are using your opinions and, as has already been said several times, conjecture, Janus is backing up his points with evidence and facts.

Don't get me wrong, I agree and do think Mathiu pales in comparison to the likes of Shu, Leon and Albert. However, I disagree with your poor reasoning.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by Vextor »

snakebite105 wrote: Making Ice boats to attack sonya
making all those ice boats took a lot of people a lot of time and effort especially since they had planed to attack sonya the next morning.
Actually, they just used Thrash, Milia's dragon, to make those ice boats. Thrash can breath ice breath, which made the process quite simple for the rebel force. So it didn't take "a lot of people a lot of time and effort."
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by snakebite105 »

JanusThePaladin wrote:No, what is more likely is he would have rushed into the army's base, headfirst, and gotten into a fight one against 6 well trained soldiers.... OH WAIT! That did happen. And if Tir hadnt been there because Mathui had suggested he go there, then lepant would have more than likely lost, as he required your help to defeat them. This is a simple in game fact, not a supposition, or assumption. He rushed headlong into an imperial base, end of story. If you're willing to ignore this simple FACT in your argument, or debate, or whatever you wish to refer to it as, then every other ingame fact can be ignored and i can state that they were all sugar plum fairies dancing a complicated version of the nutcracker suite.
I'm pretty sure this is just conjecture and wouldent happen? Why, because you seriously could not consider that most of this was alternet ideas they could have used if they wern't simpletens and likely situations that may have happend without him. Maybe its not based on what happend but thats kind of the point thats why the topic was created.

Take Mathiu out of the situation what do you think would happen? Teo wins? Tir sinks into depression? Windy gets the rune? who knows.

What would have happend if Mathiu wasen't there. Instead of debating it you insulted me by calling me a close minded simpleten dispite the fact that you wern't willing to even consider my side of the story.

While lepant did kill the first string of guards by himself whos to say he wouldent have surrendered once he saw his wife was in imediate danger.

and Lemmy Claypool i don't understand how any of this is poor reasoning? What is your opinion on what would have happend in these situations without Mathiu being present. mind you Opinion and without Mathiu are key in this questioning.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by exo »

@snakebite105:
what about the ice boat?
have you any comment on Vextor points?
I say that one is pretty good argument.
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Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by Antimatzist »

imo you forget that the Liberation Army wasn't a real army in the beginning; it was a collection of some people whow ere against the government because of some reasons. mathiu was one of the few with military background/education, i guess very few people would have come with his ideas. He had a lot of knowledge which most people in the army did not have.

The worst thing he has done was not to search the spy in the higher ranks of the army. That could have saved his life.
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