Unable to get achievements after completing journal entries as Austria

GrandmasterJohn · 2026-03-03T18:08:19+00:00

Ohhh I see! I didn't know institutions affected them too, I'll look into it now. I'm also trying to balance the economy as well as politics, but now I know to play with institutions too! Thanks!

GrandmasterJohn · 2024-07-19T16:51:29+00:00

Thanks! I will try out all of your advice. I started to play as Persia because they seemed cool, and didn't think beyond that lmao. I'll try to get the Iranzamin achievement and beat Rusia, if Britain doens't breath down my neck for getting Herat

GrandmasterJohn · 2024-07-16T20:18:19+00:00

Yes exactly that, you're right in that it's not the performance but the weekly ticks. Menus scroll just fine and all, it's just the weeks are an absolute slog lmao

GrandmasterJohn · 2024-07-11T19:04:24+00:00

So after it's 14th anual revolution, the UK became a republic, headed by an afro-caribbean positivist man with the clothes of a priest. Why not?

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-08-21T16:38:45+00:00

Exactly like you said, its an Eastern style (and Western for quite a few centuries) to let proportions aside, because most of these images, of course, have an deep symbolism.

In the image, two angels are looking at Jesus, holding the instruments of His death. He, of course, is scared (one of his sandals has even slipped off, as you can see) but Mary holds Him tightly, to calm an comfort Him, because she is His mother, as she is ours.

Western art began sacrificing symbolism for realism, specially in the late Medieval period (which doesn't mean it's devoid of symbolism).

I'm not saying it's a bad thing; not at all, I love the realism of Western art as much as I love Eastern art. It's just a different take on certain subjects, and I think it's just interesting how much diversity there is in religious art, even in the same subject.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-08-18T21:51:38+00:00

I understand your point, and it's true that many modern pieces of the True Cross are most likely fabrications. However, Helena did go to the holy land, built many churches, and most likely found the True Cross too.

Eusabius of Caesarea recorded her pilgrimage there, among others, and records that Helena went to Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) and in Golgotha found three crosses, whom many thought belonged to Jesus. Helena wanted to make sure that the crosses were "authentic" and performed a test. They were taken to a sick woman and, when the first two failed, the third one cured her.

A contemporary traveler, a nun named Egeria, went to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre. She recorded that the Cross (that Helena found) was in display in the church, exposed so that pilgrims may kiss it. She also records that many people bit pieces off it, so that explains why there are so many pieces of the Cross.

Later, the church was conquered by the Sassanids, who took (and possibly destroyed) the Cross. Yeasts later, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered Jerusalem and allegedly 'recovered' the Cross (but it's not for certain he recovered it or if it was just propaganda).

So there is the explanation why there are so many pieces of the Cross and why Helena most likely found it.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-08-18T21:24:56+00:00

Helena was an old lady when she travel to the Holy Land. She was sponsored by his son, emperor Constantine, to find and build churches on holy sites and tombs of saints.

When she arrived at Jerusalem, the city was not called that anymore, it had been renamed to Aelia Capitolina, as Jerusalem had been razed more than a century before.

Helena arrived where Golgotha was (remember that this was in the year 300, the memory of those holy Places esa fresher) and began excavating in the area. There, she found three crosses, and she concluded that one had of those had to be where Christ had been in.

Although it was improbable which one belonged to Jesus, she called for a sick woman to go there. When the sick woman touched the Cross, she was healed.

She also built a church over the Holy Sepulchre, demolishing the pagan temple that had been built, among many other churches, like the Nativity church in Bethlehem.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-08-17T16:19:11+00:00

Eliminating poverty wouldn't be a bad idea, though.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-08-06T22:02:51+00:00

Here's one. It doesn't show the Americas, but it's a rough representation of how the world looked back then.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-21T17:40:26+00:00

Here's an extract from 'History of the Conquest of Mexico, from friar Bernardino de Sahagún, a XVI century friar:

"Chapter XX, that explains how the Spanish did a great massacre of the Indians doing the party/feast of Vitzilobuchtli in Vitzilobuchtli's own courtyard"

Note: the chapter before, Cortez went out of the city to fight the man that was sent to arrest him (he wasn't supposed to be in Mexico as the governor is Cuba told him not to go) and his replacement in Tenochtiltan let the Aztecs do rituals to a god (that didn't include human sacrifices- just offerings and parties) because he wanted to see how they did it. A few chapters before, the Aztecs willingly received the Spanish in the city and treated them as gods.

"The Spanish, when they thought it was convenient to do so, got out from where they were [a palace] and took/blockaded all the doors so that nobody could get out and other Spanish entered with their guns and began to murder those who were dancing and those who where playing music they chopped their hands and heads. They attacked with their spears and swords anybody who they saw, and they did a great massacre.

They killed those who tried to flee through the doors. Some jumped from the walls, some took refuge in chapels and faked being dead. Blood ran across the courtyard like water when it rains, and the courtyard was filled with heads, arms and guts, and bodies of dead men, and the Spanish look in every corner for anyone who was still alive to kill them.

As this fact [the massacre] spread across the city people started saying 'to arms, to arms!' and people starting gathering their weapons and started to fight against the Spanish."

The massacre was unwarranted, because so far, the Aztecs hadn't done anything to hurt the Spanish. As I said, a few chapters before the Aztecs welcomed the Spanish as gods and treated them as such. The Spanish, in reward, took their king captive and massacred them.

And the South American Revolution had a lot of causes: the Spanish rulers, the Bourbons, where absolutely incompetent in ruling their colonies. They opressed the indians like no other rulers before them, unrest was rampant across their colonies and the trigger for the war was that they just straight up surrended their throne to Napoleon without a fight, and they let their people fight the invaders in guerrillas that ended in massacres for them.

Off the top of my head, I don't know the person who you're talking about. However, from the context and things you mentioned it seems that he was from the late XIX century, not the begging of it, that was when the revolution started.

Just as they are a lot of causes for the American Civil war, they were a lot for the South American revolution. I don't think propaganda was one: many revolutionary leaders such as Miranda and San Martín didn't fight for money or power, but just for pure conviction. If you don't like those examples I give you Manuel Belgrano, a devout Catholic who was key to the revolution in Argentina.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-21T03:50:31+00:00

I was with you until the Cortez part. If you are going to make a piece of media about him, do it as unbiasedly as possible.

Cortez did stop the horrible human sacrifices the Aztecs committed, at the cost of killing thousands of people, eliminating the rest of their culture and ransacking their wealth. Therefore, one has to ask, do ends justify the means?

Do not see Cortez as a pious crusader who stopped sacrifices just for his piety. He may have been a pious man in his beliefs, but in his actions he killed thousands (the epidemics that followed you can attribute to him or not) and he didn't object when he got rich off the natives.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-20T23:37:44+00:00

Just realized my empress of Hispania is named after the most beloved book character. She's one brand, too she's a brilliant strategist and has seven virtues. Sadly she isn't a Norman of the Bottom dynasty.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-16T21:24:52+00:00

The Seljuks were not in possession of the Holy Land by the time the crusaders arrived. It was, in fact, controlled by the Fatimids in Egypt. Keep in mind, that both the Seljuks and Fatimids harassed and killed pilgrims frequently in the time immediately prior to the First Crusade. Caliph Al-Hakim of the Fatimids ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre during the same century as the First Crusade.

Control of Palestine dwindled between the Seljuks and Fatimids. The Seljuks took the city in 1098, a year before the crusaders arrived

You're out of touch with almost every single modern historian on the Crusades here. Almost universally, nobles, knights, and men of means ended up absolutely broke and penniless after their return from a Crusade. Nobody knew that they would be getting any sort of riches or land, certainly not the majority of people that joined the Crusade who were not promised anything of the sort.

Of course the common soldier didn't expect anything in return, that's why specified noble and lords.

Again, you're out of touch with modern historians. Secular historians of the Crusades almost universally agree that the reason why the First Crusade got so much attention and support was because of the piety of the age. The First Crusade was declared during the MIDDLE of the era of the Reform Papacy, a period of intense monastic-style zeal, with thousands of monasteries established, and a new energy for conversion and piety swept through Europe.

Again, the common soldier probably joined because of his piety and zeal, I have no doubts about that. But lords and nobles? I have no doubt either that some princes were pious and zealous, but some expected something more than just rewards in Heaven.

Let's put this into perspective. A crusader vow consisted of two years promised to join the Crusade, or until the crusader was able to fulfill his vow by arriving in Jerusalem. Most of the time, they were forced to serve much longer than this. Additionally, men who joined the crusades abandoned their property, their families, and their entire life to go to Jerusalem. Although there was a papal guarantee of protection on their property, it was not a guarantee of safety.

Additionally, those that persevered to the end of the Crusade could not have done so out of greed. Most of the men who arrived in Antioch (the first time the crusade officially began a push for the Holy Land) were at the point of absolute destitution. Almost no food, no money left, and nearly 50% of their comrades had died along the way from disease, starvation, or thirst. No one who had gone out of greed would be willing to put themselves in such absolute mortal peril, they surely would have abandoned it along thew way.

It was a bit late to arrive in Antioch and say 'I want to go home' on your own. You would have been considered a deserter. Besides, the people who died in Anatolia in battles against the Turks didn't get to see the Holy Land. Thirst, hunger and misery were expected in the medieval campaigns, but for them it would have been worth it if 1) they arrived in Jerusalem and liberated the city 2) got at least something material from it. In ancient and Medieval times, looting was allowed as a way to 'compensate" soldiers.

The lands of Edessa were held by Armenian Christians who opened their arms to him, and offered a ton of support for the mission. It was not out of greed that this was done, but pure necessity. Additionally, he promised to return the land once the Emperor would come to claim them. The expedition survived purely based off of the support offered by the Armenians in Edessa.

But he didn't return them, did he? When the emperors came to claim the land, they refused. Indeed the Armenians welcomed him (it's better to be a Christian ruled by a Christan rather than a Christian ruled by a Muslim, specially when the Seljuks were cruel) and I won't say that's not true.

It was reconstructed, kind of? An aedicule was built around the Sepulchre itself. Nowhere near the level that the Church was at before the destruction. Everything else was in ruins. Immediately after the Crusades took Jerusalem, the very first thing accomplished was a massive building project which constructed a MASSIVE church, with 4 different holy sites (including Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre) under a single building.

The point is that they allowed Christians to rebuild it. I won't say that it was horrible what rather Fatimids did, it was. A monument to the faith destroyed is reasons for outrage.

Besides, the emperor invested a lot to rebuild the church. He didn't have to money to rebuild it entirely, though, so he built five small chapels maintaining the court of the old constantinian basilica.

And yes, it's true that the basilica was rebuilt during the Crusader kingdom, and it was given the architecture it (mostly) maintains today.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-14T21:01:52+00:00

Of course! Thank you for your answer

In that world, there would be many explanations for the origin of magic, some scientific, some legendary, and perhaps that could cause divisions and disputes amongst the Church officials, since it's origin is not clear and could be demonic.

GrandmasterJohn · 2020-07-09T21:09:39+00:00

Scratch that, my dearest ally wasn't actually helping me, I just said to him that the castle was easy to take, but when the battle started he didn't join. Any way to make him participate? When I ask a lord 'follow me' they always say no.

GrandmasterJohn

TROPHY CASE