[Dragaera] _Iorich_ random brief comments (spoilers!)

[Howard Brazee]

On 1/26/2010 8:42 AM, Alexx Kay wrote:
> Lastly, transport by water is*astoundingly*  cheap.  If you haven't done
> the research, you'd be amazed at how much cheaper than ground transport it
> is.  Even in the modern world, with airports, freeways, and railroads,
> shipping by water is very often the cheapest option.
>    

And their society isn't one that is designed around doing everything 
quickly.

We forget how important water transportation is.   In the U.S. we have a 
few big cities that were developed after water transportation was king - 
namely Dallas which was designed to use water transportation, but 
missed, and Atlanta which was designed for the Atlantic Coast Line RR.   
That's it.

Europe has the same coastline as Africa with half the land mass.   With 
mountains in between, it was hard to unify, and had lots of little 
kingdoms that needed to give merchants concessions to get the money to 
fight each other.    These geographic influences were huge.