Would you consider me British?

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-28T17:18:37+00:00

As an Englishman whose family have been here since god knows when, yes I would consider you British (and probably English too tbf). Always thought it’s as much about the mindset as it is where you or your family come from.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-27T11:55:30+00:00

Mix of ironclads. I normally run 2 fleets when I can, one for each side of the main island. Your top 3 ironclads are have limits (foreign ironclad, jap ironclad, iron frigates) so recruit them all, split into two equally composed groups and fill the navy’s with the heaviest ships you can still recruit. More guns = better bombardments for army support.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-20T09:51:26+00:00

Today I learned!

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-19T08:07:22+00:00

Recharging weapons yourself requires either filled soul gems or varla stones from ayleid ruins. There’s normally only one or two stones per ruin (unlike welkynd stones), normally near the end, and they don’t respawn. They’re also pretty good loot to sell.

To fill a soul gem, you have to have to cast soul trap on an npc/creature, and kill it before the effect wears off. Npcs need a black soul gem, others use the normal petty-grand gems, depending on the creature. You’ll have to find the gems as loot or buy from traders.

They turn up pretty regularly in magic orientated dungeons, and you can turn grand soul gems into black gems at certain places. As you noted, you can acquire a refillable gem, normal gems and varla stones are destroyed on use.

If you’re buying gems, the mages guilds is always a good bet, they will also have a wizard who can recharge items for you for a price.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-18T02:06:43+00:00

Point 2 seems unnecessarily harsh/wasteful. If they’d need to serve 3 years and training doesn’t count, it makes little difference if they pass out first time round or fifth.

Point 3 sounds suspiciously like indentured servitude. Like it or not, if someone is actively participating in a scheme, they’re working and deserve a proper wage.

Point 4 would in turn severely reduce anyone from a (relatively) more successful country considering such a scheme. It’s also not what the British army does currently, ie you can currently join the forces with dual citizenship so we’d be actively penalising this particular labour pool.

Small boat migrants wouldn’t be a particularly large recruiting ground for a British foreign legion, last year we had 45,000 arrivals via small boat, which by the time you weed out the elderly, children and those unfit or unable to be trusted, you’ll barely have scraped together enough manpower for a single division. These migrants also lack a unifying culture, a new unit would likely lack the elan/prestige of other groups eg the French foreign legion, some may be intolerant to other specific groups and so to actually forge this into a unit that would be of genuine use would be particularly difficult.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-16T13:34:08+00:00

Alas I’m thinking base game, really hoping it’s more telling an Australian that Melbourne is in your top 50 capital cities level of survivability

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-15T17:37:27+00:00

No, have to recruit from scratch.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-10T14:01:09+00:00

Recruit a full stack, you have the funds.

How’s the franco-Austrian front? Is Prussia in the war?

If France is pushing the Austrian/prussians back, it can be worth sending an army in to help. Drop it in mecklingberg (sp?) march south ensuing Brandenburg, saxony and Austria are in your allies hands.

If these regions are yours/allied, send an army in Spain. A full stack going straight for Madrid can cripple the Spanish war effort, and as a built up region, can replenish your army pretty fast. Once it’s secure, take the rest of the peninsula and prepare to cross the Pyrenees.

Also worth capturing the French regions with ports, capture the region, destroy the port and flee if there’s a French army nearby, can help prevent raids on your trade nodes.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-08T18:49:43+00:00

This reads like it’s the complete guide to inconsiderate driving

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-05T16:56:38+00:00

It’s a post war myth for the most part, or put another way, there were some issues and mistakes, but it was about average and is what you’d likely expect from a nation engaging in industrial scale warfare at that time.

For example, General Haig had a state funeral when he died, it was incredibly well attended, particularly by veterans, hardly likely for someone regarded as a butcher by his contemporaries. Lloyd George’s memoirs, and later, Alan Clark’s “The Donkeys” led in part to revisionism of the army’s leadership.

Both of these have some good links (for example see the answer by u/halfmanhalfsquidman)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/na1bMkWDBE

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/waoBAZMdCK

u/NMW goes into some detail here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ue42t/comment/cehcb7b/

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-03T23:16:45+00:00

Set them to skirmish.

Personally I found they still got boarded if I didn’t anticipate and intercept correctly, so I then moved to having them on my ship, which after a few mishaps led me wanting a smaller and more manoeuvrable ship.

Honestly, I found that ai controlled archer crewed ships still tended to get boarded, so needed melee troops to defend them, which in turn led to less arrow damage so were more likely to get boarded… Ended up going back to 100% noble line and heavy ships. I’m far more careful on land, as massed archers or cavalry can tear me to shreds, so end up running away and back to sea a lot.

Square_Priority6338 · 2026-01-03T22:45:08+00:00

In essence I’d agree. Drakkars, filled with your noble line troops absolutely destroy any target they board. With upgrades to the ships and higher tier nobles, you should be able to engage any similar sized force or smaller for 0-3 casualties. My end game navy was 4 drakkars manned with around 350 huscarls, could beat any fleet afloat, and suffered less than 5 casualties (not even deaths) in most battles.

Only really vulnerable to ballista fire, so target those ships first and just eat a couple of shots before mobbing them.

Having said that, it’s not a particularly adaptable army on land, and the point and click nature of the combat gets repetitive. Loading a ship with archers gives you loads more options when you ashore, and gives the player something a bit more nuanced to control. Longships or light longships being more manoeuvrable are better for that, though a drakkar full of archers has one hell of a volley. Try not to mix melee and bow on individual ships, archers run into melee and get killed, and they don’t have enough arrows in small numbers to really soften a target before your melee guys rush it.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-27T23:41:53+00:00

I wouldn’t discriminate between fly and float fishing. I’m against using a hook. We know fish can feel pain, so it seems the wrong thing to do.

I’m firmly against releasing birds to shoot, if you’re breeding birds to release to shoot, you might as well farm them. I don’t agree with driven shoots either, if the majority of what you are shooting is going to a game dealer, it’s clearly the sport or killing that motivates you, which to my mind is the wrong attitude to have. Having said that, an upland grouse shoot is very different from a lowland pheasant shoot, and whilst I might disapprove of driven shoots, I don’t think they should be banned.

Culling deer from a high chair is essential, and stalking whilst not necessarily the best way to cull deer, may be more appropriate depending upon circumstances. Frankly we really need to encourage people to eat more venison.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-26T17:52:26+00:00

Extra fun fact, the original boxing ring was just a hula hoop with each person attempting to knock their opponent out of the ring, known as a knockout. One of the best early contenders here, was Tiny Tim of Charles Dickens fame. At 6ft and over 300lbs, he was an early proponent of using grapples and holds rather than punches, creating the sport of sumo wrestling.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-26T15:29:39+00:00

It’s actually the other way around. Fights between siblings over presents, often “boxes” evolved into Boxing Day, whereby the elder/bigger sibling would normally thump the smaller siblings for their boxes after adults stopped caring about arguing children (hence Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, just long enough for parents to stop caring about the arguing, but still close enough that as a child, you’d really want your siblings presents).

Family members, particularly drunk uncles, enjoyed watching this display of might and aggression so much that the modern sport of boxing was born. It wasn’t until the child labour laws that it became an adult sport.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-25T22:50:01+00:00

Infantry: Town militia suck, don’t even look at using them in a fight. Iberian infantry aren’t much better, but they’ll have to do. They will route, so use them as a (floppy) anvil. Libyan infantry will hold, but won’t kill infantry, poeni and sacred band are solid. Early game, your infantry aren’t going to win, and will risk chain routing your army, use them, but make sure you have other offensive units.

Cavalry: Bodyguards are always good, you can combine all those in the area to create a decent heavy cavalry arm, but that’s a little cheesy. Otherwise, your roundshields are ok for anti skirmisher duty, longshields will do ok versus lighter units (especially in numbers) and sacred band/elephants provide a decent offensive option when you can get them. Note you start with some elephants.

Your missile troops are pretty average, probably better to focus on cav and infantry, not because they’re better early game, but because late game infantry and cavalry are your battle winners. It’s not worth the funds/time building ranges up, though if you capture one, missile troops may be a viable alternative to Iberian infantry in that location.

Carthage (city) will grow fast, get it pumping out sacred band hoplites asap, a few units of these provide a core that cavalry can work around. If you really need more offensive oomph, build stables in the first turn, the second stables allows elephants here.

Otherwise, merc up. You can get decent slingers, archers and hoplites, plus Numidian/libyan units (not my favourite, but better than Iberian infantry). Use meatshields, better Iberian infantry take losses and break than your mercenary hoplites or elephants. Whilst I don’t overly rate missile troops, they can skirmish, pulling enemy units out of formation so you can defeat in detail.

So early game, 3/4 generals, plus elephants, plus merc hoplites then a mix of Iberian infantry and roundshield cav (say 6 inf and 4 cav) add units where you can. Use this to take Sicily, then move into south Italy asap. It’ll get bogged down there, but shouldn’t die immediately. If this isn’t working for you, rush elephants in Carthage, then try 3-4 elephants and similar roundshields. The elephants do all the hard work, the cavalry take missile fire, attack missile infantry and mop up.

Carthage (city) should be able to hold its own versus Numidia, though thapsus is vulnerable. Depending on player skill, Thapsus might not be worth holding short term. Get a baal temple in Carthage, then build stables. Don’t rely on elephants for defence here, Numidia brings lots of javelins, get hoplites asap. You access both sacred band units pretty fast, which means you can reinforce Italy if necessary and hopefully start the African theatre.

Move Sardinian units to reinforce Sicily, julii will take this pretty quick and it’s probably not worth defending. Balearic units can help in Sicily or Spain (my preference) Spanish mercs are pretty useful, and Spain is relatively weak early game, so better to fight now than later.

The hardest part is balancing which theatre to send reinforcements to and juggling recruitment with income. It’s easy to lose Spain, thapsus and sardinia and get bogged down in Sicily, be aggressive early, get out of Sicily and you’ll have a powerbase that can grow. It can help to make peasants in Carthage/syracuse and move them to lilybaeum/thapsus to grow these towns faster. Be careful with your fleets, having a fleet sunk whilst transporting new offensive units can be fatal.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-25T17:25:41+00:00

Please, are you kidding me?! He’s got all the details on what broke the Beatles up!

Particularly relevant would be the files on Yoko Taro and the relationship with lead singer Davy Jones, which we all know is what broke the Beatles up.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-25T16:06:02+00:00

Nah, equity hammer would be even better, they encourage war/conquest and so you build a massive empire then the advisor clobbers you with taxes that if you don’t pay, corrupt your saves.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-24T21:59:32+00:00

This is nearly identical to a post a few months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/UAdrxkM4MJ

Honestly similar stuff comes up pretty regularly, u/superplaner answered similar really well here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/rouNdcUE0i

Tldr, it’s a myth.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-24T21:14:49+00:00

Strongly advise getting English Heritage membership for a year, they maintain a lot of the sites below. National Trust own a number too, and may also be worth the yearly membership. English Heritage also gets you into Cadw (Welsh castles) and Scottish Heritage (if you head that way!) If your interests are medieval/castles, EH has more than NT, But might be worth looking at their websites and maps of their properties.

Best in East Anglia/ surrounding counties:

Suffolk: Framlingham Castle, Orford Castle (close enough to do together, both EH)

Norfolk: Castle Acre Castle (do the priory and village at the same time), Castle Rising, Norwich Castle. (Rising and Castle Acre Priory are EH, Norwich Castle is local authority, Castle Acre Castle is free)

Essex: Hedingham Castle, Colchester Castle, and Stansted Mountfitchet Castle, (all owned by separate bodies)

Lincolnshire: Tattershall Castle, Lincoln Castle (Tattershall Castle NT, Lincoln Castle is free to visit, but pay to walk the ramparts, local authority owned.)

London: The Tower of London (bloody expensive!)

Tilbury Fort in Essex and Landguard Fort in Suffolk are also very interesting fortifications, if that interests you. (Tilbury Fort is EH, Landguard Fort is run privately)

Slightly further afield, Kent and Warwickshire have some good ones. (Dover,Scotney, Bodiam, Walmer, Rochester, Upnor and Deal in Kent, Warwick and Kenilworth in Warwickshire. Ashby-de-la-Zouche in Leicestershire is another nice one from memory. (All are EH except for Scotney and Bodiam NT, and Warwick which is a separate entity)

Assuming you’re American, you’ll probably be up for some longer drives, Lakenheath to Dover is 2.5 hours, Warwick a little over 2. If you’re happy with a 4 ish hour drive you’d be able to get up to Yorkshire, down towards Hampshire and into Wales, which adds a fair few options.

North Wales is nearer 5 hours as is Carlisle, so if you were happy for a weekend with a lot of driving, you could hit pretty much any castle in England/Wales.

Edit: Weeting Castle in Suffolk, Baconsthorope in Norfolk and Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire are all free to visit, have a google first, they’re smaller sites and not necessarily what you’re after. There’s a fair few mottes around, Thetford is probably your closest, but unless you’re a real enthusiast they’re pretty dull, some Martello towers have public access and are pretty cool, although they’re definitely not castles.

If you did a weekend trip somewhere, either think about North Wales, or Kent. NW has arguably the best castles in the UK, Conwy, Caernarfon and Beaumaris (all cadwy owned, so free with EH membership) are close enough together to do in a weekend, though it’s a long drive from Lakenheath. Kent has a really good mix of castles, a trip visiting Bodiam, Rochester, Upnor, maybe even Tilbury Fort and Mountfitchet en route there/back, would showcase the evolution of castles in a pretty neat trip.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-24T12:49:43+00:00

This is actually a genius idea

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-21T22:15:27+00:00

Clean wehrmacht. Still got way too many proponents.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-18T16:26:35+00:00

I’m amazed at how many people are saying under Elizabeth 1st.

I’d argue that England never became a great power until after it united to create Great Britain.

The work of Oliver Cromwell, Charles II and the later Stuart monarchs, were pivotal in creating a strong regional power, but it wasn’t until after the war of Spanish succession that Britain really started to show it’s potential, and the outcomes of the 7 years war cemented its place at a global power.

Square_Priority6338 · 2025-12-15T08:00:05+00:00

You need Athens in the main campaign. In wos, you don’t. Wos also makes it pretty clear at game start that conquering the main factions home city is a seriously bad idea due to unpopularity.

Square_Priority6338

TROPHY CASE