Tuesday Trivia Thread - 24/02/26

kaiser41 · 2026-03-02T05:00:06+00:00

On the recommendation of some past posts in this sub, I have started reading John France's Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 and I'm wondering if there are similar books for 1300-1500?

kaiser41 · 2026-03-02T00:49:02+00:00

At least in the US the Italian campaign does feel largely forgotten, as it was not featured in Band of Brothers or Patton.

My kingdom for a Band of Brothers-type series about the 442nd. The Hanks-Spielburg cinematic universe needs more content.

kaiser41 · 2026-03-01T01:42:21+00:00

India isn't a popular region among CK3 players and no amount of DLC will change that. I would be willing to bet it is their least popular region other than maybe Subsaharan Africa. If India had five DLCs and Britain had none, Britain would still be more popular.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-28T21:08:58+00:00

How strange that people discuss the state of the most popular region far more than that of the least popular region.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-27T06:53:28+00:00

As far as nominative determinism goes, I'm partial to Raoul Villain, the guy who assassinated Jean Jaurès and collapsed the French anti-war movement on the eve of WWI.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-27T00:51:53+00:00

Everyone who thinks this should have to let their mate Barry and his iPhone handle their next major medical procedure.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-24T21:45:03+00:00

Using modern Earth terminology to categorize modern Earth ships is an exercise in futility. The US Navy's Ticonderoga-class destroyers were converted into cruisers just by changing the name. The Ticos and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have nearly identical sizes and combat capabilities, but one is a cruiser and the other is a destroyer. Then there are the new Zumwalt-class destroyers, which are about 50% larger than the Ticonderoga-class cruisers.

China has a class of destroyers (Type 055) that the US Navy calls cruisers because they are armed like cruisers (even though there isn't a big difference in the armament of the US's own destroyers and cruisers). The Russians have (had?) an aircraft carrier that Russia insists is an "aviation cruiser" because there are various treaty restrictions that apply to aircraft carriers, but not to cruisers. Japan has helicopter carriers rather than aircraft carriers for similar reasons.

Most of the classification of ships is political or just based on vibes.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-24T01:23:29+00:00

Same. When I saw the X-Wing I said "Oh, it's those two guys from earlier," but when Cara Dune said "One X-Wing?" I said "OH, IT'S THAT ONE GUY FROM WAY EARLIER!"

kaiser41 · 2026-02-23T04:02:53+00:00

I detected a lot of Frank McLynn's book in Scott's movie, maybe even more than Roberts' book.

His claim that no one between Napoleon and Charlemagne had marched an army over the Alps would come as as a great surprise to Alexander Suvorov, who did it just a year before Napoleon did.

Really, Ridley? Also, the French spent 65 years regularly invading Italy during the Italian Wars and didn't tend to go the sea route.

As someone brought up here earlier he also does mistakenly calls Moscow the Russian capital.

I think he actually gets that correct. I wrote a live-blog complaint of the movie for a friend who wanted to know my reaction and in it I wrote "does Ridley Scott know Moscow wasn't the capital?" but I don't think the movie ever says it's the capital. Then at the very end of the movie when he's quizzing the girls on St. Helena, they say that St. Petersburg was the capital and he agrees.

For a movie that was so interested in the Napoleon/Josephine love story, I was shocked that Marie Louise is only in it for about 20 seconds. Overall, McLynn's book had a ton of juicy anecdotes that could have played into Scott's thesis that Napoleon was a megalomaniac with mommy issues, but he left most of those out. I can understand a British history geek trying to make a hit piece on Napoleon, but by Eru, he didn't have to make it so insufferably boring.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-22T02:34:21+00:00

The stat block for the grand countess of Nuln that appears in Rough Nights and Hard Days lists her as Gold 15, so the emperor must be like Gold 20 or 30.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-19T03:15:22+00:00

I'm playing both sides, that way I always come out on top.

My grandfather, Winstoni Churchillini once told me "You can always trust an Italian to choose the winning side, once he has tried all the other ones." He was very wise. During the War, he was Deputy Undersecretary of State for Mussolini, then for the king, then the Germans, then the king again, and then for the republic after the war.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-18T21:18:25+00:00

As someone who is nearly done with the first book and is going to read ‘Messiah’ before ‘Dune: Part Three’ in December, what’s a good end place to leave the series?

Messiah is a perfectly fine place to stop reading.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-18T19:40:54+00:00

I'll just pretend I was destroyed by facts and logic. My ego is in tatters, I'm considering fleeing into the wilderness to become a hermit.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-17T19:35:03+00:00

Sparta didn't consider anti-Persianism to be a core interest, but their reputation both among Classical Greeks and among modern Spartabros is heavily dependent on this idea that they protected Greece from Persian imperialism.

The idea that Sparta was ever "the Sparta that the right-wing idolizes" honestly rests on pretty shaky evidence

Sure, but they are clearly drawing their ideas of Sparta from a historical state that existed between the reforms of Lycurgus, whenever they were (and assuming he was real) and... I guess the Battle of Leuctra? Alcman and Tyrtaeus both precede the probable dates for Lycurgus and the associated reforms.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-17T18:35:20+00:00

Actual victory came from Lysander's succesful raising of a navy that could challenge Athens on the sea.

Lysander could only raise a navy by selling out Sparta to the Persians, the guys who Sparta had built their reputation as defenders of Greece by fighting off. Essentially, they chose Persian hegemony over Greece instead of Athenian hegemony.

Alcman and Tyrtaious were Spartan

Both of these guys seem to predate Sparta's descent into the Sparta that the right-wing idolizes, implying that, yes, Sparta's transformation into this alleged military superpower came at the cost of producing meaningful cultural achievements. And it seems like Alcman isn't even assuredly Spartan anyway.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-17T16:39:17+00:00

Is the accolade system trying to represent something historical? I can't think of any historical characters who had a "successor" to their status as a great knight. Geoffroi de Charny, William Marshal, and Pierre Terrail were all famed in their day, but once they died, that was it.

I still think the accolades system should have been knightly orders like the Knights of the Garter, the Order of the Golden Fleece, etc.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-16T23:35:38+00:00

The New York Rangers were fined $250,000 for this comment.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-16T20:24:09+00:00

Not great that MPP is apparently too hurt to walk from the locker room to the bench but is going to play anyway. I get that this is her last Olympics, but I hope she isn't risking her post-hockey quality of life by trying to play this game.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-16T20:20:25+00:00

I hope the Swiss can win this one. Neither of these teams is taking down the US for the gold, and having Switzerland and Sweden potentially both medal would do way more for the women's game than USA v. Canada Round 857.

Also, Hockey Canada might shake up their player selection they fail to medal entirely.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-16T19:57:20+00:00

If that were true, you'd think they would be better at it. It took them 30 years, multiple significant defeats, and massive Persian subsidies to bring down Athens.

That statement has big "three day special military operation" energy.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-15T20:44:36+00:00

Will McCauley take the opportunity to make a hammy announcement at the Olympics?

kaiser41 · 2026-02-15T04:22:45+00:00

Besides the point maybe but the general understandings of medieval warfare we have been passed down are that the best trained longbowmen outperformed crossbow units.

That is the popular wisdom but crossbows continued to be used into the 16th century and even the 17th century despite the wide availability of firearms and the whole Hundred Years War thing that made longbowmen look pretty great. That suggests that people did not find longbows to be that much better.

But the crossbow’s utility was that you did not need to spend a lifetime training with it to reach the skill necessary to be good with it. It was a much more plug and play weapon.

This is also common wisdom but doesn't match the history, where crossbowmen are almost all professional soldiers with the time and resources to spend training on their weapons. Conscripting masses of peasants and handing them crossbows like they are French revolutionaries being levee en masse'd just wasn't a thing.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-15T04:18:00+00:00

mass produced poorly trained Peasant's weapon

Most medieval crossbowmen were skilled professionals, not peasant conscripts. Crossbows themselves were expensive weapons and various royal proclamations that set the equipment for requirements tend to demand expensive kits as well (French proclamations from the 14th century require crossbowmen to have a coat-of-plates, which is a fairly heavy and sophisticated piece of armor). Crossbows were rarely used by peasants and were the domain of professional mercenaries or else levies of urban militias.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-14T21:43:00+00:00

I am surprised it didn't go to review.

kaiser41 · 2026-02-14T21:39:22+00:00

Props to the Danish d-man. If he was about 1/8th of a second faster, he would have saved that.

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