For the retirement money , its possible for Smeb to join a western team . <| sep |> Honestly , it would probably come down to more of a standstill between Ul ' dah and Ishgard . Not to discredit either Gridania or Limsa Lominsa , but both have problems they can ' t readily deal with in time for the war beast tribes , voidsent , etc . Meanwhile , Ishgard is just coming down off the Dragonsong War . Fortifications , trained soldiers , and machinists means that conventional warfare in the frigid lands is . illadvised at best . More than likely , Ul ' dah would have to fight by wrecking Ishgard ' s economy good luck with that and starve the nation somehow . Ishgard has little to no reason to assault the other city states if a war broke out . Ul ' dah , on the other hand , would be able to recruit a plethora of people from the refugees temporarily solving their poverty problem by ransacking the other nations and just general dicking with economy as we all know they ' re want to do . There are half a dozen ways they could recruit from the refugees via propaganda , and by throwing them into fights they ' d reduce some of their refugee problem unlike Ishgard , Ul ' dah doesn ' t have a good way to train and arm the random thug off the street to be effective in combat . If you want to talk further on the point Ul ' dah would likely go for Gridania first , as they can capitalize on repeating Ala Mhigo ' s strategy as pointed out . With Gridania down , and their forces reluctantly under their control , Ul ' dah could then set it ' s sights on Limsa Lominsa and potentially strike a deal with beast tribes for help afterall , beast tribes have been shown to cooperate beyond just the divided camps we see in the tribe quests . We just don ' t like those ones because they tend to be power hungry villains .