It's a bit late seeing as how the Dragon is agreeing to peace but here's what I would have suggested to do in the war;
Casualties:Allied 35,000, 1,500 braves (Out of 45,000 and 2,000)
Atlantean 12,000 (out of 40,000) large proportion of leadership lost, levies have low morale.
So we're looking at 10,500 allied troops against 28,000 enemy troops who are mostly levies with little leadership. Close to three to one odds... that is difficult but not unwinnable. If the allied forces engage the enemy in a straight fight they will lose. If they stay and hold the fortress they will be contained in and lose. The key to winning this fight is to not out fight the enemy army but to out march it. Rather than fight the enemy the army should continuously move away and deny the enemy a decisive engagement, ideally while eliminating enemy scouting and foraging parties and harassing the enemy. If the enemy attempts to stop chasing the allied army the allied army returns to continue harassing enemy until they withdraw or resume following the allied forces.
The allied forces as a smaller force of disciplined soldiers is far more nimble than the enemy for a number of reasons;
- They are better marchers (it can not be understated just how much difference than can make over a full day spent marching)
- They are far more organised (this effects all kinds of things, such as the speed and efficiency with which they can make and break camp, sorting out general issues before they happen and preventing unnecessary supply lose and expenditure)
- Smaller forces can get past choke points like bridges far easier. A large disorganized column like the enemy has will repeated get snagged on such choke points. (They can counter this by thinning their column but that makes them far more vulnerable to hit and run attacks)
- The allied forces know the terrain
All this means they'll be able to outpace the enemy easily (unless there's something I missed, it has been a while since I last followed this game after all). But so what? We get the Cisharni to march all over the place what does that get us? Well you see a large part of marching is ensuring the marching soldiers maintain their energy while traveling long distances. Poor marching form will slow you down and burn more energy than you need to and levies are not trained how to march properly. The fact that they are slower will mean that in addition to this they will need to march harder and longer to keep up. They will have less time every day to setup camp and prepare food, less time to sleep (little to no time to sleep if the allies send night raids with the simple aim of denying the enemy sleep) By the time allied forces choose to engage, the enemy forces should be utter exhausted. On top of that maintaining their elongated supplies lines is costly in terms of men and raw resources. Every piece of bread fed to Cisharni forces in the east cost them an order of magnitude more than the fresher healthier bread the allied troops are eating. Further more the act of marching long distances burns a hell of a lot of chemical energy requiring that they eat far more than would be necessary for a camped resting army.
March rings around the enemy and exhaust them and their leader deprived levies who are unsuited to a protracted campaign. This way when it comes down to fight at a time and a place of your choosing you can send relatively rested disciplined soldiers against exhausted sleep deprived levies. The allied forces would go through them like a scythe through wheat.
But ah well it's too late now.