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Originally Posted by getbak
The Tyrells were going to attack over land (until all the lords who were loyal to Highgarden switched their allegiance to Cersei).
Yara was supposed to sail down to Dorne to get the Dornish army and sail them up to King's Landing to attack from the other side. To march the Dornish army over land would have required them to march across all of Dorne and the Reach (and/or the Stormlands, which have been pretty much ignored in all this), and then they would have been on the same side of King's Landing at the armies from The Reach.
When Tyrion devised the plan, he believed Dany had unchallenged control of the seas with the Iron Fleet, so it would have been a quick hop down to Dorne and back.
He also believed that the armies of both Dorne and The Reach were loyal to Dany. It was believed that the only "Kingdoms" who were loyal to Cersei were the Westerlands (Casterly Rock), the Riverlands, and the Crown Lands (and possibly the Storm Lands -- but no one talks about them).
With King's Landing under siege from The Reach and Dorne, and Casterly Rock under control of the Unsullied, Cersei would have no support and nowhere to run. The war should have been short and decisive.
As the saying goes, all plans only survive to the point of first contact with the enemy.
Tyrion underestimated Cersei's ability to rally the lords of The Reach to support her. Once that happened, Tyrion's plan was screwed. They also didn't anticipate Euron attacking Yara's fleet and capturing the Dornish. That really ruined the plan.
Then, you add in the fact that Casterly Rock's gold mines are empty, and that was the only thing that made Casterly Rock worth anything. It was easy for the Lannisters to abandon it.
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Maybe underscores how useless Varys is now. As the former spy master for Westeros you would think he would have the contacts still to track Euron's fleet, know that the Tyrell bannermen were meeting with Cersei in King's Landing, and/or that the majority of troops had left one of the capital cities.
We knew that Qyburn had taken over the "little birds" in King's Landing but you would think Varys still had some contacts and spies in Westeros that could sniff some of this out. Not saying he should have been able to see all of the Lannister movements, but he shouldn't be completely blind to all of them either.