Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Hypotheses for, and analyses of, the various Suikoden characters.
Porom
Banned User
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:11 am

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by Porom »

A strategist who loses a few battles but wins the war is a good strategist.
A strategist who does not make flaws is a nonsense idea because humans are naturally flawed. If you want a perfect character who makes perfect decisions that always work out perfectly in the end, go write fanfiction.
User avatar
patapi
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2520
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2004 3:55 pm

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by patapi »

It's in Lucretia's character to appear omniscient, so as to garner absolute confidence in her decisions and directions. This was emphasised a few times throughout the course of the game.

That said, her apparent perfection appears to be Konami's answer to fans who ceaselessly abuse the follies of earlier strategists' to question and invalidate their abilities. This entire topic, for example.
User avatar
Raww Le Klueze
Global Admin
Posts: 1915
Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2004 1:38 am

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Let's not forget that Lucretia gets to work with virtually no opposition as the Godwin's never get a strategist of their own.

Shu had to contend with Leon, Ceasar with Albert, Elenor with Cray while Lucretia gets free reign as the Godwins only plan to counter her was "wait it out" under the notion that she'd probably betray the prince like she did them.
Doctorum Non Urina Singulus.
jonathan_priest
Posts: 138
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:41 am

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by jonathan_priest »

snakebite105 wrote: 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.
Frankly I think you're being highly unfair and judgmental about this. In my opinion, Mathiu was the second best strategist in the game, beaten only by Leon. Remember, a strategists job is not to play nice but to win the war.

First, Gremio did not die because of Mathiu's actions, he died because he did what he had to do to protect McDohl. It was a selfless sacrifice to save someone he loved like a son and he had no regrets doing it. You have to think, this is war and people are going to die. Blaming Mathiu for Gremio's choice is far more critical of his actions than Shu sending Kiba to die.

As for using the Jowston army, that was absolutely brilliant. The enemy of my enemy and all that. Mathiu already said and Lepant backed it up that Rosman's army was too big to take head on, which is why the diversionary forces were dispatched to lead away a large part of the forces already in the castle. What Mathiu did was use an enemy nation's army to attack an enemy's army, thus preserving his own troops. He played that masterfully. That's what a strategist does, he calculates the probability of winning and uses his surroundings to his advangate. One of the chief rules of Sun Zu, "Know thy enemy, and know thyself."

As for Sanchez, that wasn't Mathiu's decision. After the war, after he died, Sanchez's life was spared by Lepant. Considering he was part of the "old" Liberation Army, the troop morale would have plummeted if they knew Sanchez betrayed them and sold them out to the Scarlet Moon Empire. You just won a major victory and cleared the way to the capital, why taint that victory with the knowledge that one of the most trusted leaders has been freely giving secrets to the Emperor?

Victor: "Just as some things can be right and useless, can't some things be wrong and priceless?"
Leknaat: "Even at his most powerless, man's existence is never without meaning."
Mathiu: "There is such a thing as flow in this world, there is such a thing as timing in warfare."

These are the lessons that Mathiu lived by, and what he died by.
"It doesn't matter if the glass is half empty or half full...what matters is the glass."
kuroi_shinigami
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:19 am

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagist

Post by kuroi_shinigami »

It's not fair for bashing Mathiu for using a diversionary tactics with using Jowston army. I still think it was a great strategy. I mean even Shu have to send his own army to death just for using diversionary, so in essence Mathiu was greater in the fact that it was not his army he send to death(and contrary to popular believe in game, the only things the strategist needs to think is the people on his own army. Some strategy even involve the death of innocents of enemy's country which although even morally is debatable whether it's wrong or right). And about the soldier being a potential soldier, how would Mathiu knew they are going to surrender after they were defeated. Although indeed a win with the least amount of bloodshed is the most perfect win, it's not always achievable and it's always better to sap your opponent's power before fighting against them to minimize the damage on your side, not to mention should the need arise to obliterate the enemy force when the enemy's loyalty is absolute, it will prevent more bloodshed on your side

About the war with sonya, if sonya's duty is to defend her fort, he will not budge from her castle even with any kind of taunt if she is a good general(which I can safely assume she is since she ranks one of the highest general in the army) so the ice ship was actually neccesary

About the fort that mathiu suggested, sure that someone else might know about the castle, but that does not necessarily mean the same person knew about the significance of the castle. At the time they ask Mathiu to be their strategist, the army was pretty small that it's not strange for them to adept a guerilla warfare or choose some place else like a mountain or a hideout to be their headquarter instead of some unused castle in the middle of nowhere. Mathiu recognized the significance of having a big headquarter to show powers and the castle is also in a place where it's easy to defend hard to be attacked which is always a plus.

I can't really comment about the fight against Teo since it's actually more logical to lure his army to the castle since IIRC Teo was on the offensive, not defensive like Sonya.

The one with millich was not about a war so I can't comment much since there's actually some other way to finish Millich like burning the castle like the TC's suggested, but then again it can also be argued that Mathiu's has no knowledge about the poison in Millich's castle.

So in conclusion, I don't think Mathiu's is a bad strategist. He was on par, if not better than Shu(but maybe still less than Leon since Leon is not burdened by morality. He thinks that no matter the amount of bloodshed, the faster the war is concluded, the better it is for the people, which is morally debatable). I haven't played suikoden 3 so I can't comment on Albert and Caesar while Eleanor's battle focused more on water battle which is a different matter tactically to land battle in Suikoden 1 and 2. I agree about Lucretia's "everything in my plan" was a little too convenient and doesn't showcase any of her ability at all, so we still can't compare the two right now(since there's maybe some possibility that Lucretia did do something behind the scene and losing badly without the knowledge of the army to prevent the morale drop)
jhonsadins

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by jhonsadins »

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.
SirNadir

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by SirNadir »

Well, if Mathiu hadn't been a part of the game, then you probably wouldn't have had the chance to get a lot of the stars of destiny and isn't that what the story is centered around? Also Sonya wouldn't have necessarily risked her troops to fulfill revenge. When she was in the position and her job required it, she fought Tir, but she was supposed to guard the fortress. Mathiu was worried about the war and was wiling to risk a lot to end it, he wasn't worried about wars in the future.
User avatar
jin022
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:51 pm

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by jin022 »

it's suikoden world so i think everything is destined no matter how good the strategist is.
User avatar
RangerDeon
Posts: 693
Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:07 am
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by RangerDeon »

patapi wrote:It's in Lucretia's character to appear omniscient, so as to garner absolute confidence in her decisions and directions. This was emphasised a few times throughout the course of the game.

That said, her apparent perfection appears to be Konami's answer to fans who ceaselessly abuse the follies of earlier strategists' to question and invalidate their abilities. This entire topic, for example.
I hated it so much. I thought it was silly.
In a perfect world, you always win and never lose (UNLESS YOU DON'T LISTEN TO MS PERFECT), but this isn't the perfect world. (I'd make a Walgreens joke but no one would get it......)

I happen to like when something goes wrong. People often associate that with failure, but a Strategist is only as good as his/her opponent and the Scarlet Moon Empire were great, as well as Highland -- Godwin and his goons, however, were made to look like idiots. While the game wasn't necessarily easy, it all seemed too easy for their army. Not very exciting.

...plus i hated how she wouldn't tell you what she's planning. He was like her puppet......but this isn't about my hatred towards her.

"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."
-Lorelai Gilmore
User avatar
TrueWater00
Posts: 247
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:07 pm
Location: Youngstown, OH
Contact:

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by TrueWater00 »

I agree with Rangerdeon! Lucretia was annoying, not only was that game TOO easy ( I played through half the game using Only the prince to see how easy it really was) but they give you a strategist that knows everything, I mean, give us some sort of a challenge sheesh, Suikoden V was my least favorite out of all of them because of these reasons :/
Heh,I'll make sure you can never make that grin again.I'll chop you up!Ground you up!Dry you in the sun!Break you to pieces!Bury you in the ground!Piss on you!Then i'll dig you up!Pull you!Stretch you!Drag you around!I'll Never Forgive You-Viktor
eldrasidar
Posts: 565
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 2:53 am

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by eldrasidar »

the problem with lucretia was that they never set up a foil for her. Every other strategist actually had someone of competing strategic ability. Gizel was essentially the Yuber of schemes, which is to say he made schemes for fun of making schemes, without necessarily expecting them to work, much like how Yuber likes chaos for chaos's sake. While that worked fine when nobody was trying to counter him, it immediately falls apart to concentrated efforts to do so, as Lucretia does. This completely different to the other suikoden's, where the strategist is often competing against several strong strategically minded people, often including their mentor, so it's a fair fight, and your strategist has to evolve as a character in order for you to win. Lucretia never evolves, which is why she is annoying.
User avatar
Nikisaur
Posts: 462
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2010 5:26 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by Nikisaur »

I don't believe Mathiu is the worst. I think that honour has to go to Lucretia. Her arrogant way of not telling you anything would never fly in real life. Also, because everything was secret, there was absolutely no second opinion or input from anyone. The smallest miscalculation or over-confident maneuvre, and everything would have gone totally tits up. The other strategists had secondary tacticians and stuff, where as I find it hard to believe Lucretia would have consulted Cius or Lelei for their opinions...
The only thing Suikoden lacks...is dinosaurs.
User avatar
Chaco
Posts: 718
Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:07 pm
Location: My house!

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by Chaco »

The ONLY mistake I feel he made was trusting Sanchez. That guy was clearly a villian and he didn't see it.
Otherwise, he did all he could to help them win the war.

Remember, everyone asked Gremio not to go with Tir on that mission, he went anyway. And as well, if not for the City-States getting involved, the war may not have been won. You have to sacrafice a few for the ultimate goal.
These wings arn't just for show you know!
-Chaco
User avatar
Silverberg
Posts: 84
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:01 pm
Location: Mass, USA
Contact:

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by Silverberg »

Maybe Mathiu would have been a better strategist if he didn't feel so obligated to help.

Either he was going to be forced to help the Empire or he was going to get guilt tripped into fighting against them because some kid with big inspirational eyes showed up with an earring, which belonged to his unforgiving sister who thought he was a coward.

If someone pulled me out of retirement where I was happy fishing and teaching kids stuff, I'd probably do a pretty half-ass job as a strategist too.

Besides, his head wasn't really screwed on right ever since he witnessed all that killing in front of a children . . .

I mean, were any of the strategists in Suikoden 1-5 really that great anyway? Even if they had this well conceived, time essential plan ready to go as soon as you step foot into the war room, they'll still give you time to travel around the country recruiting people if you ask for it. Heaven forbid you try attacking the Floating Fortress before you recruit the chef who's surprisingly OK with you tasting all his soups. (Who goes around to different houses simultaneously making soups anyway? Never anyone home)
"Black Rune, pink balloon! This guy killed Gremio!!!"
User avatar
RangerDeon
Posts: 693
Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:07 am
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Re: Mathiu Silverberg, Bad stratagist or the worst stratagis

Post by RangerDeon »

I think compared to the Suikoden 5 tactician, he did look like the worst. But he wasn't. She was just...ugh don't get me started.

He did pretty good. They won the war. The game was about loss considering Tir's true rune, so it wasn't going to be an easy fight. And that's totally realistic.

"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."
-Lorelai Gilmore
Post Reply