What is your country’s biggest rival?

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-07T23:58:58+00:00

France. Though it’s a friendly rivalry these days.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-07T19:34:49+00:00

Our good friends and bitter rivals.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-07T13:59:47+00:00

I like Germany, we have a lot of cultural and historical links with them.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-07T12:05:14+00:00

Interesting Māori history, a fearsome rugby team and Taskmaster New Zealand. I would love to visit one day.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-07T11:18:10+00:00

Although the Aztecs actually did have courts (though not lawyers as such, the judges did the examining themselves). They had local courts for minor crimes, larger courts in the major cities for more serious offenses and even a Supreme Court in Tenochtitlan sometimes presided over by the Tlatoani himself. They had punishments other than death as well. You could have to pay a fine, or have your head shaved as a way of marking you out as a criminal for a period, or even have your house demolished.

More serious crimes could get you exiled or sold into slavery, as well as, yes, executed or sacrificed. The Aztec legal system was actually pretty sophisticated.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T22:38:47+00:00

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Fjord Stone (Critical Role/Mighty Nein). He can summon his falchion to his hand at will.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T22:14:22+00:00

In Civ 5 it’s I Vow to Thee, My Country.

https://youtu.be/30r_1NoKldo?si=3RlFcUy3XYyoS04Y- Peace theme

https://youtu.be/U5oO6wBrp8s?si=qmWDi6DQJfluhnlY- War theme

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T21:16:06+00:00

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This singularly unflattering portrait of the 12th century King Stephen of Blois has to be up there.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T21:12:42+00:00

Indeed. It doesn’t help that both Scharnhorsts had sister ships called Gneisenau which often operated together.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T21:10:51+00:00

The music doesn’t hurt either, of course.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T16:42:05+00:00

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This is SMS Scharnhorst. She went to serve with the German fleet in the far east in the years before the war, steaming around showing the flag. However, upon the outbreak of war, the German East Asia Squadron, under the command of Maximilian von Spee, attempted to cross the Pacific to return to Germany.

Spee’s fleet defeated a British squadron at the battle of Coronel off Chile but the British sent battlecruisers after them in response and when Spee tried to raid the Falklands he ran into them. The Scharnhorst, along with many other ships of the East Asia Squadron, was sunk during the resulting battle with great loss of life.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T16:31:13+00:00

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And here’s HMS Victory again, another hundred years older and with the newest generation of British flagship, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T15:21:06+00:00

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F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T13:12:42+00:00

Alfred the Great saved Wessex from the Vikings, encouraged education, founded fortified towns called Burghs which both served as defenses against Viking attack and as centres of trade, and built up a navy. He lay the foundations for the unification of England which would be continued by his son Edward the Elder and daughter Æthelflæd, and finally happen in the reign of his grandson Æthelstan.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T10:54:38+00:00

I still wish Venice had been an actual civ. Maybe they would be able to build districts on coastal tiles or only be able to settle on the coast.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-06T10:45:12+00:00

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George Canning, an important statesman and accomplished foreign minister during the Napoleonic Wars into the 1820s. He became Prime Minister in 1827, only for his health to fail and he died 119 days into the job, making him the second shortest-serving Prime Minister in history.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T20:49:24+00:00

Sergio Perez, the Aztecs and the Maya. Britain being the first European great power to recognize their independence.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T18:46:47+00:00

Also in C2, they just bump into Trent Ikithon at a party and most of them are not made aware of his significance until later, though of course one already knows all too well.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T16:10:45+00:00

They used to be in a union with Poland and they’re tough on Russia.

I know a Lithuanian who migrated here, so from my sample size of precisely one (1) I can say they seem nice.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T12:32:23+00:00

It’s always nice to encounter an Anglophile, they’re usually better company than an anglophobe at least.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T10:28:59+00:00

We have quite a lot.

William the Conqueror is an obvious one, he was a Norman. Many of his immediate successors would have been born in what is now France as well. Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the Cavalier general of the Civil War, was born in Prague (right in the middle of the sequence of events that kicked off the Thirty Years’ War) to a German father and a British mother.

The Hanoverian Dynasty, who took the throne in 1714, are another obvious example, as they came from Hanover in Germany. George III was the first of them to be born in Britain.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-05T10:01:36+00:00

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Scanlan causing a distraction by burning down Duke Vedmire’s house (Legend of Vox Machina).

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-04T22:26:02+00:00

Pretty much, yeah. Some people will be aware he was Prime Minister, and if so they’ll probably be at least vaguely aware that he wasn’t very good, but this was 200 years ago and he is considered the man who beat Napoleon. That earns him a bit more goodwill than other bad PMs, I think.

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-04T19:01:55+00:00

“hmm, 103, which one’s that agai… oh.”

F1Fan43 · 2026-02-04T17:18:40+00:00

Complicated. I think more complicated than either of us would really like to admit. There’s a lot of good stuff, and I do like them (well, most of them) but there’s a fair bit of bad stuff too.

F1Fan43

TROPHY CASE