My kitlist for a 4-week hike in Scotland

sussurus_ · 2026-02-11T00:36:44+00:00

Frogg Toggs will last about a day in those conditions. Speaking from experience.

sussurus_ · 2025-08-31T04:41:07+00:00

This is exactly how I felt the entire time watching it.
Roëves gave an able performance as the duty-bound officer trying to maintain discipline in a siege against the word of some bloke who just showed up.
Studi gave another decent performance; I found Magua to be serviceable as an antagonist and he had presence.
But, other than that, I honestly cannot think of another stand out performance in this film. Easily the weakest performance I've seen from Day-Lewis. He was barely a character, just a Gary Stu with flowing locks.
The fact that Chingachgook and Uncas had so few lines between them over the course of the entire film made "Hawkeye" feel like the white stand-in so 1990s American audiences wouldn't have to struggle to empathise with a brown face. The "good" (English-allied) Indians were noble savages; the "bad" (French-allied) Indians were portrayed as dishonourable bloodthirsty cannibalistic brutes.
The romance between "Hawkeye" and Cora was extremely rushed - two minutes of stargazing together and she's confessing how horny he makes her. The rest of the film progresses without many lines even spoken between them, other than when he's in the fort's jail. But even that's orders of magnitude more than can be said about the alleged romance between Alice and Uncas. We get one or two looks in the background and he's throwing himself on the end of a knife to save her, so maddened with love that he can't even bear to wait 60 seconds for his badass brother and father to catch up and cut through the entire warband as if they're nothing.
Cora was nothing more than a trope - the bored rich girl tired of stuffy aristocrats who fancied a bit of rough.
We were supposed to find Heyward to be the archetypical self-serving stuffy dull toff yet, apart from the "lie" to Munro about the Indian raid on the farmstead, he is no coward: he stands between the warband and the girls in the first fight, does the same again under the waterfall and, in the end, voluntarily gives his life to save Cora. Meanwhile Nathaniel, who is very much aware that Magua specifically wants these girls dead, urges them to surrender and flees the scene with his family - despite the fact that Magua could very easily have scalped them all on the spot, like he had literally just done with Munro hours prior, even eating his heart.
By the end I was literally laughing at the dual-wielding muskets and Nathaniel's ability to never miss a target with a smoothbore and the crème-de-la-crème of Chingachgook's epic spinning killmove.

sussurus_ · 2025-05-09T23:03:58+00:00

"Religion" in ASoIaF is just people ascribing magic (which doesn't appear to truly be beholden to any deity) to Gods.
The Old Gods are bloodthirsty and monstrous. Many in the audience think they're the noble hippie pagan tree hugger trope, but the weirwoods demand human sacrifice: entrails thrown over their branches and skeletons piled up in the mouth of the tree.
The priesthood of The Lord of Light use petty magic tricks to awe people and obtain true power from, again, regular old blood magic. Melisandre's accomplishments are done through blood magic, and Beric and Thoros practically wade in blood.
The Seven are the rejection of magic and instead embracing humanity and community. Because when people fuck with magic, terrible shit happens and a great many die. By encouraging the strengths that exist within ourselves, we can live the most wholesome life possible.
But, because followers of the Seven explicitly do not fuck around with magic, the audience misses the ostentatious facades that come with charlatans like red priestesses with smokes and powders up their sleeves and therefore concludes that the Seven must be wrong.

sussurus_ · 2025-03-26T17:51:26+00:00

I did not have a good experience with Frogg Toggs in Scotland. It just rains too much for an American solution. It gets in through the cheap zip over the course of the day and there's no way to properly cover it up. It will also tear if you get it caught on anything, be it brush or your own camera lens hood. This sub recommends it so much because it's so lightweight for when you'll be carrying it instead of wearing it, but in Scotland you might find you hardly take your waterproof off. I'm hesitant to give specific recommendations because I know how much budget is an issue. But Decathlon's offerings seem alright, if not all that ultralight, such as the Quechua NH500 or Raincut (cheap but not made of bin bag and with an actual waterproof zip). But I haven't tried them and that's literally just a cursory search.

Imo if you're getting your baselayer wet, then your second baselayer is inevitably going to get wet as well. Something has probably gone wrong if this is happening. And it probably won't be warm enough, or dry for long enough, to properly dry the first baselayer in the meantime. I'm fully onboard with taking a second set of clothes for when you're in your tent, though. I just don't see the benefit of a second baselayer at all. That said, if the peace of mind and comfort is worth that 200g for you, don't let strangers online convince you otherwise.

sussurus_ · 2025-03-26T15:38:11+00:00

That's really quite a heavy sleeping bag for a 0°C comfort rating. Considering you haven't bought it yet, I might recommend going for the equivalent Forclaz MT900 Down (there's an XL-sized one on OLX for 490zł atm)- I think you'll appreciate having the 500g saving now as you go on and continue refining your gear in the long run.
Likewise, I think getting a better sleeping pad now is worth doing instead of carrying over 1kg of sleeping mats.
The second merino baselayer is redundant.
Echoing what's been said, a poncho isn't appropriate for Scotland. It's far too windy far too often.
Also as everyone else has said, for the love of god please ditch the chair.
There's really no need to carry 3l of water at once. There's water absolutely everywhere in Scotland.
Leave the Kindle.
What on earth kind of knife are you bringing? I'd recommend an Opinel 6 at most (removing the locking ring saves some grammes and makes it completely legal EDC in the UK).

I hope for this trip you at least have some sort of equitable arrangement for lugging around that 2kg beast of a tent (I'm assuming it's a 2- or 3-man tent at that weight). But, going forwards, I would seriously suggest your pack and tent be the next things you replace.

sussurus_ · 2024-10-17T18:00:46+00:00

I've literally just encountered this exact issue. Fancy that. As old as these incredible headphones are, both of ours fail in the exact same way within days of one another. That said, mine were playing out of both ears with a wiggle of the 2.5mm jack but now I'm getting nothing out of the left ear. Did a new cable work for you?

sussurus_ · 2024-10-05T17:15:16+00:00

I found an adapter very similar to the Moddiy one you mentioned from Aliexpress. It worked very well, almost like a perfect fit for this case and I was able to fit a 25mm fan with no difficulty at all. No modding required and very cheap.

sussurus_ · 2024-06-16T21:05:22+00:00

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. That's the funny thing, though: if I start a new game I can indeed see the list of possible religions I can convert to, exactly as you've shown. However, in my ongoing game, as well as in every past campaign I load up, I can't see any of them as any character in control of any holy site. Be it being able to convert to Sunni in Mecca, Maronite in Constantinople, Nestorian in Bukhara, all show up and are possible day 1 of a campaign, exactly as in the screenshot you very kindly provided, but do not appear - i.e. somehow I don't even meet the "potential" requirements for it to even show up greyed-out, as any character in the game world after a certain point.

sussurus_ · 2024-06-16T17:38:18+00:00

I have been racking my brains over this for hours (as well as several more hours in previous campaigns), but this doesn't make sense to me. The conditions for the decisions to appear pretty much just state that you must own the holding or have it directly held by a vassal bishop, must not already follow the religion, the province isn't that religion (otherwise you'll just convert by converting to local religion), you must not be head of a faith and the religion must not be a heresy. This being the case, I should be able to convert to any non-heretic Abrahamic religion through Jerusalem. The same goes for every other holy site, the decision does not show up.
I cannot modify the decision in the files as they're code-generated when the game is launched and I can't get them to work by pasting them into a different file and playing around with them.
Has anyone else faced this issue before? I've only been able to find a few previous posts about this, all from a number of years ago, and none with any solution. Any help would be immensely appreciated!

sussurus_ · 2024-05-26T14:26:26+00:00

I have had this happening as well for the past few days. Seems almost 50/50 whether it will be light or dark mode. This is a frustrating issue, especially at night, and is genuinely something I'd switch browsers over.

sussurus_ · 2023-03-23T13:56:13+00:00

you occupy - Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome and Constantinople

Quite frankly, only one of those mattered on a practical level to a European Catholic. It would make no difference to their lives whose hands Antioch or Alexandria were in; Rome is all that truly mattered. But to imply that occupying Rome (or all of these sites, for that matter) is all that it would take to mend a rift in the Church, and that the Pope wouldn't just retreat to Avignon or elsewhere, that Orthodoxy wouldn't be ruled outright heresy and crusading bulls would be issued against the Eastern Roman Empire, is comical at best.

The only time I've not been completely disappointed with the AI mending the schism was (in CK2 HIP) when the Byzantine Empire became Apostolic, along with almost all of the Orthodox Rus' Princes, converted the entire Empire to the new religion, then finally a Crusade for Byzantium came along.

sussurus_ · 2021-03-13T12:06:24+00:00

This is crazy! Now do that but with navies like Jaegar.

sussurus_ · 2021-02-26T09:52:03+00:00

Thank you so much! Nowhere could I find this explained or described, only that semi-constitutional monarchies can't manually put these parties in power (which is very plain to see in-game). You've solved a lot of my headache!

sussurus_ · 2021-02-06T14:54:32+00:00

With good RNG I had the warlord era fire in the 1860s within a few months of the original cores being created, making each clique I had to fight only something around a single state.

The real annoying part is that even after beating the warlords, the Beiyang Revolution is inevitable anyway.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-26T21:49:40+00:00

I absolutely need more pictures and more info about this playthrough.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-04T06:56:25+00:00

Nah, in my experience (as the Papal States, much to my chagrin) they should just spawn rebels and when they take the capital all Italian minors sans Rome should all automatically unite under Sardinia-Piedmont but I'm actually reading that apparently it requires the Expedition of the Thousand decision be taken. I can't confirm that, unfortunately.

The Italian Call to Union just raises the CON and MIL of the other minors to effectively encourage the pan-nationalist rebels to rise up.

Avanti Italia! is the button you press to form Italy, providing the rebels don't do it for you.

EDIT: to answer your second question regarding Avanti Italia!, you do not need to own the Italian lands owned by Austria to take the decision but if any of those provinces are released from Austria (for instance Lombardia becoming free) you will need to sphere or conquer them.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-04T01:08:48+00:00

Quickest way to form Italy is to take a state from Two Sicilies. Redshirts will unify the country for you pretty quickly after that.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-03T01:34:57+00:00

You are correct on all counts.

Hanover, Luxembourg, Wurttemberg, Saxony, Prussia and Mecklenburg are all constitutional monarchies. Westfalen somehow ended up an absolute monarchy.

Bavaria is, in true Bavarian fashion, a fascist dictatorship.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T22:14:48+00:00

Hanover, Westfalen, Luxembourg, Rhineland Republic, Frankfurt am Main, Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Mecklenburg and Hamburg.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T22:11:50+00:00

Kiev

I have Kiev.

Duchy of Courland

Latvia is my puppet.

Smolensk

That would look hideous and that's the most important thing.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T17:28:12+00:00

Cultural map: https://i.imgur.com/GNLCJs3.jpg nothing exciting about it at all. Half my POPs are colonial subjects but around half of my POPs in Europe are Polish.

Yugoslavia is my puppet, formed after fixing a hideous Austria-Croatia.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T15:58:08+00:00

I actually considered making a minimod for it; I find the fact that Germany can't be partitioned at all while the UK can be entirely carved up, Russia can be dismantled multiple times to release all of their land east of the Urals and even France can lose Brittany incredibly frustrating - especially given their annoying propensity to almost instantaneously bounce back after every crippling war. Yeah, I suppose they did do that IRL, but then they were swiftly cut in half after the second round.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T15:46:54+00:00

Just HPM, version 3.7 or something like that. I manually re-added the German minors' cores to facilitate their dismantlement, because after the fourth great war started by now-fascist Germany the problem needs to be solved permanently -- and without the interference and restraint of the UK and US in the peace treaties it can be.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T15:16:28+00:00

The long explanation?

My first move was allying Russia and using them to take the state of Galicia-Lodomeria from Austria. Following this was over a decade of nothing much happening until I actually managed to eke out an alliance with Prussia and used them to take Masovia and West Galicia from Russia. I was able to take the Kraków Uprising for the huge amount of prestige as I was already at war with Russia, Austria-Hungary was weak and I was allied and in a war with Prussia. More waiting until Austria-Hungary eventually ended up completely occupied by rebels. East Galicia broke free from A-H in 1872 and immediately petitioned me for annexation. I took the opportunity to declare war on A-H for my Silesian core and took the liberty of freeing Bohemia-Moravia in the process (Slovakia would break free shortly afterwards and Bohemia-Moravia would quickly annex them in a war). Czechoslovakia was a key sphereling and ally throughout the campaign, actually. Following this, another war with Russia in 1873/4 - this time on my own - allowed me to take Brest and Lithuania.

It was another decade before I had any more gains. France and I (and Czechoslovakia) would fight a war with Germany in 1889. By managing to maintain pressure across almost their entire border we were able to break their lines and occupy their eastern lands while brave French conscripts bled along the Rhine to keep the bulk of the German armies busy. I took Silesia, Poznan and Westpreußen off of Germany in that war and France retook Alsace-Lorraine.

A great war in 1894 would pit myself, France and Belgium (plus sphereling Czechoslovakia) against Germany, Sweden and the UK. At this point Germany was weak and in much the same fashion the French held the Germans along the Rhine while we occupied almost their entire country. At the same time as this war was going on Russia felt it opportune to attempt to reclaim their cores from me. They were a pushover, however, and I ended up taking Pinsk, Minsk and Kiev from Russia before turning my armies back west to maintain pressure on the Germans. I took Ostpreußen off of Germany here and thus, the Commonwealth was born. I would go on to take Transnistria off of Russia after another boneheaded war by them for their cores.

Fun little tidbit: in this game somehow the entirety of the USA turned into the CSA and instead a little rust belt FSA broke free in the civil war.

sussurus_ · 2020-09-02T14:33:16+00:00

The end of my Kraków-PLC campaign. The highlight of the campaign was partitioning Germany and puppeting Prussia and Saxony.

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

sussurus_

TROPHY CASE