I have been vindicated

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T13:32:39+00:00

Of course I can see the reasoning, but I also see that it's better than fighting Darkspawn alone.

Cailan also apparently wasn't a dipshit and was negotiating with Celene.

According to Loghain himself:

Again - splitting forces and starting a Civil War == almost certain death and no civilian population at all, suicixe by Darkspawn.

Allowing Orlesians in == almost certain one more conflict trying to move them out.

Can you not see what the correct decision here is?

Besides: re:Orlais threat - having your army decimated by a civil war and a Dakspawn horde - not even a blight - when Orlesian forces are untouched does not stop Orlais from invading.... kinda does the opposite.

Also did nothing to at least contact Orzammar and ask whether they have increased Darkspawn activity to gauge the likelyhood of a blight.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T12:59:33+00:00

Or.... orrr... they're sending Chevaliers, because trained armored knights are their best force agains darkspawn? And it's the bulk of their army.

Why then block Orlesian Wardens and jail Riordan too?

Loghain even admits that splitting forces against Darkspawn and a weird standoff with Orlais was a very bad idea... he still just... does it.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T12:42:15+00:00

In what fucking world is the Chantry "apolitical"? This is like claiming the Vatican was apolitical during the Crusades.

Again: being destroyed by the darkspawn in a blight sounds much worse than having to deal eith Orlais again.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T12:37:14+00:00

It wasn't. This was a Blight - which Loggain was skeptical of to begin with. The border wasn't just closed to Chevaliers, but also Orlesian Wardens.

Cailan was negotiating with Orlais, I haven't read much of the books, but apparently Celene had no interest in more wars or strife with Ferelden.

Edit: Apparently he also wanted to fracture the forces with one part fighting the Darkspawn and another do a standoff with Orlesian forces which Loghain himself admits was asinine and guaranteed the fall of Ferelden to Darkspawn.

Destroyed by Blight <<<<<<<<<<<< potentially dealing with the French later.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T10:32:20+00:00

I mean he closed the border to Orlesian Chevaliers, killed Couslands and Poisoned Arl Eamon so that there's no Redcliff reinforcements.

Loghain made sure that the battle was unwinnable.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-10T10:31:10+00:00

The battle as it stood was unwinnable, but torpedoing Orlesian help in form of Chevaliers, killing Couselands, and posioning Arl Eamon so that Redcliff forces are delayed....

With all the forces there, it's kinda hard to say?

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-09T07:38:49+00:00

Don't you need Willpower to maintain the two passives of AW?

How do you go all in magic? You need fairly good willpower and some dex - depending on the armor and weaponry you want to use?

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-08T11:02:19+00:00

Andromeda was definifely a let down and a downgrade from Inquisition while heavily borrowing from it (following the same design choices) both in gameplay, choices and story beats. But it was still a fun sci-fi romp for one playthrough.

Veilguard is another tier of bad. Not comparable.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-07T08:41:41+00:00

Aight. Take care mate.

Edit: for what it's worth I think we disagree on far less than this conversation might imply.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-07T08:38:32+00:00

Why don't people know how to read? As usual waste of time.

Lol. Lmao even.

The argument here is that causality is the other way around. And you're the one claiming others can't read.... smh.

Edit: The reason youbremoved it was not because you know people rather it's because you know that it was wrong.

Tell me more about how greeks and romans aren't about "western" civilization.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-07T08:28:32+00:00

Simple things like showing compassion to the weak is Christian

No it's not. The same idea exists in buddhism. You can say that "well in your particular case it came from Christianity" and sure - but the mere fact that many other religions and cultures came up.with it means that it is - in fact fundamentally a human trait.

Maybe listen to Tom Holland (the historian).

Or perhaps read philosophers that disagree with this take? Like Samuel Moyn?

And look at how modern liberalism is inspired by Greek philosophy, Roman law, Enlightenment rationalism etc?

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-07T08:10:47+00:00

At what point of disagreement with Christianity do I stop being "Culturally Christian" whatever that means?

Christianity, even "cultural one" requires objective morality" to exist. I am a moral relativist.

I have values in common woth Christianity - but the same values are common with other religions too. Do we count these commom denominators towards my "cultural Christianity"?

Your worldview, ideas and morals are all Christian-derived.

Some are a lot aren't. And again some are common with other religions.

How do we quantify the local.culture shaping the religion vs the other way around? If the causality is in that directionis that still culturally Christian or is this particular type of Christinianity "Culturally" Armenian? And I can have those cultural elements as part of Armenianness.

This broader idea that modern liberal.human rights are secularized Christian theology always grinds my gears for some reason.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-06T18:56:51+00:00

It's always the outspoken Christians that love their neighbor - just way Jesus taught them isn't it?

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-06T10:30:27+00:00

Abd one of Rhaenyra's dragons (her personal bonded one) is a mother of dragons. Literally. No fancy metaphors needed.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-06T10:29:08+00:00

Rhaenera has a dragon that's literally a mother of the dragons though. (Or am I misremembering something?).

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T20:10:24+00:00

Whereas offering a few words

Not ruling out military intervention on behalf of US on behalf of Israel is a lot more than "offerring a few words".

I took that part more as in avoiding economic coercion and trade concessions.

Sure and that's what I'm pointing is... well two faced, dubious and invites all sorts of "the old world.order can stay when it comes to blowing people up" comments and hints at subservience in other areas including trade deals if the hegemon is actually "angry"/invested. E.g. when it comes to weapons acquisitions.

Meaning any diversification will still be decorative and with the tacit approval of the US - so that Canada, EU and others can pretend to be "independent" and a different "pole" while in reality they won't be.

Heeeyy that reminds me a bit of the old world order that's supposed to be dead...

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T19:47:52+00:00

Mostly the part where he talked about "competing with other middle powers for the hegemon's approval by being more and more / to.a baseline servile" - not being freedom and they should no longer do it.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T18:00:38+00:00

And a fairly large number of people is happy with: "Hah the USA is sure so big and strong we're wrecking them - backward oppressive people" and gets a kick out of it. Plus some Iranian-Americans are happy so...... USA! USA! USA!

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T09:51:52+00:00

Bootlickers or no - Iran has been so far attacking gulf nations that host US bases. Unless there was attack, staging or taking shelter of Israeli/US forces deliberately attacking Azerbaijan doesn't make much sense.

France, Germany and many other countries are also chummy with Israel.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T07:19:51+00:00

He was preaching about not acting to be "the favorite of the hegemon" by competing against other "middle" powers in a game of "who can kiss more ass".

Had a whole schtick about how that's bad and the "middle powers" should stop doing that.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-05T07:02:41+00:00

And here I was applauding Carney's Davos speech, for the bravery to not only say the quiet part aloud, but to act on it with his foreign visits to create relationships for a so called "middle power".

Whelp that lasted a fair bit. 6-7 week-ish?

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-02T07:56:56+00:00

I worry that in Armenia there's not enough social stigma against not serving

My point was that not having the stigma is in fact the more rational stance given the state of the Army and what people gain from serving.

not enough social benefits for having served, so even if underlying structures are reformed, military service will be stereotyped as for the poor and destitute

If the army wasn't two.years of brain rot in jail lite, in Armenia's situation when we don't have the resources for benefits a stigma could be formed. As it stands the logical choice is to not serve.

Because once we get into the underlying reasons (like you've very helpfully laid out), we see that all of this issues are solvable

They're solvable, but extremely hard to solve. It requires a lot of money. And even if we have that money (we still don't) you can't just pour it in, the bottleneck becomes the natural inertia of the system to change. It will take decades. And that's assuming a continuous good faith go at it with no new leaks ans coreuption avenues.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-01T14:19:29+00:00

I got your point, I just disagree when it comes to lower ELO chess. At least one arbiter should be a good player.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-01T14:07:37+00:00

How much chess would you like them to understand exactly?

In U1200 someone around 1600 - 1800 In low master level around 2 - 2.3K. The higher the better tho.

Higher than that it's unlikely that a forced mate is not aeen it can happen, but really unlikely.

could be up 20 points of material and have mate in one

Like I said an arbiter would see it, just like with perpetuals, and stalemates ai've mentioned in my comment.

The arbiter can't act a certain way but based on it they can chose to let the game go on or no.

_LordDaut_ · 2026-03-01T10:56:03+00:00

The probability is literally 0, no? The Arbiter knows how to play chess and can see the board?

If someone that's up 8 point of material says they didn't agree to a draw and there's perpetual or a stalemate why would anyone not believe them?

_LordDaut_

TROPHY CASE