GuardianSing

Peter Kropotkin, obviously. Conquest of Bread? More like Fire Emblem Three Houses Conquest.

I completely forgot Manuela existed, I apologize. The Trotsky to Dorothea's Lenin.

It can be a mix of these things, none of it has to be mutually exclusive. I don't think folks are actively avoiding characters from Solm as some conscious racist act but generally with any kind of prejudice its often silent, beyond a person's own personal views of the world and more what they subconsciously see as being okay or normal. I'm reminded of the story of Disney princess merchandise in Japan specifically excluded Tiana, the only black disney princess for a while, for...some reason. I don't know how true that is now or even back then but regardless... I'm not sure what US specific views you are implying but knowing what racism is and learning to recognize implicit beliefs that imply prejudice would I think would be important for any society to know. Its not endemic to any culture to say that seeing another culture as less valuable is wrong. Japan as a country does indeed have a very different view on race compared to the US, as does Europe. That doesn't mean the Americas' color-based relation with race doesn't have a valuable insight to share about it, especially since people of color do exist in these countries. There are Japanese black people and they do face discrimination for their color even if they speak the language and know the customs. I'd argue that with a topic as important as discrimination against marginalized groups we should be very suspicious of anyone that claims culture as a justification for certain implicit views regarding race or gender. Japan, like the US, has a history of both extreme ethno-nationalism and staunch progressivism, and like any society, has people who are in favor of the status quo, simply seeing it as the culture, and people who are in favor of letting certain outdated ideas and views go. There are many Japanese conservatives who say that being gay or being feminist is a foreigner thing, and anyone who is doing it in Japan is probably just going through a western phase. Outsiders, with a monolithic view on Japanese society, will take that at face value and claim that it is just a cultural thing as if there isn't an entire political block within the country that disagrees. In any piece of media, a discussion on how it presents certain things, intended to or not, endorsing or not, is a worthwhile discussion. It doesn't have to be a critique on the quality of writing or a call out on the beliefs of the creator. You can still talk about the things within a work and how they may be a reflection of something within a society without outright condemning it. I find that there are many people who, when the topic of politics is brought up in a work, go on the defensive and assume it to be a critique on the work itself as if all art doesn't have some amount of political implications, intended or otherwise, or that you can still like a work while also acknowledging it may have some problematic elements. I make jokes about the sexism within Fire Emblem, but I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't love the franchise, nor do I think most of the creators are doing it as some conscious malicious act. Point being, stop going on twitter. It only seeks to give you rage bait to be miserable at and gives you a twisted perspective of what people are talking about. Don't let the supposed distraction from real problems be itself a distraction from real problems. Join a union, go out a protest, boycott various corporate goods, get invested in local news and politics, get involved in anti fascist meetings to talk about those real problems and what to be done about them. When you get out of your own little internet bubble you'll find that quite a lot of people are giving a damn about the rise of the far right.

Girlhood is a spectrum.

I was thinking about that too which added to the nomadic lifestyle of many tribes within the great plains. Why settle down in one place when a tornado could come and destroy everything? Besides, the buffalo herds move with the seasons and so they needed to as well to stay alive. And without horses or any other domesticated animals that could pull cargo, there wasn't much efficient trade that could be done when you got to a far enough distance. In the places there where bronze activity it would've taken years to transport a decent amount to a more temperate area, pray that it didn't rust on the journey there. Some theory that we may have been able to domestic bison or even mammoths for western tribes, which while being really cool conceptually, unsurprisingly didn't happen because Ow That would've been insane to witness, an entire goddamn mountain collapsing into itself. Ehh, I'm not sure it would've been that remarkable to them since it was drift wood of stray pieces spending months at sea from ships and not like the entire hull or something. What little they could make out of a ship would've not been that different from the canoes they had I imagine. Well at least the sole urban proletariat character in the entire franchise is pretty high. They gave her the Lenin hat and its fucked me up ever since

An inconsistent source of bronze for a quote on quote "proper" bronze age also had a play in it I imagine. Copper was wildly available but tin was limited to the southern regions which is why I imagine they were able to build larger permanent settlements, they had the stronger tools to be able to do so but even then their climate wasn't as suited to it as it was in Europe and parts of Asia. In the humidity of the jungle, wooden man made structures wither away much quicker, harsh rain storms causing potential mud floods much more common, natural disasters such as hurricanes, volcano eruptions (Seriously I'm pretty sure there are more active volcanoes in the tiny region of central American than there are in all of Europe combined.) and the general roughness of the jungle making it much more difficult for people living there to follow along the western path of progress so to speak. You can imagine that this is why many myths in the Americas regard nature as a powerful deity that must be respected while in Europe the common idea was that nature was a gift from God for men to exploit. Many nations in the Northwest did have some well developed ironworks going, but they were limited since their main supply of iron was from the wrecks of Japanese ships washing over the shores of what is now the Oregon coast. Early colonies were also more often independent ventures done by wealthy individuals rather than organized projects by the state, so if trade happened but not colonization I wonder if much steam for such a thing would ever be picked up should have indigenous nations become more powerful as a result. I'm being facetious, don't worry.

Depressing that in any alt history we still have to get invaded for it to make sense, it's our lot in life to be second class citizens and the best we hope for is to have "nicer" colonizers. Because in any alternate history that tries to keep the Americas completely independent from outside control in a way that is realistic we would have to shift American history so far back it would require sources and histories that we don't have because they were destroyed during the conquests. That being said, going back to the other video about Cortes, I do wonder if any interest in conquering the new world would actually occur in Europe had he failed to do so. History doesn't work by EU4 rules and if Cortes left the Americas with guns, cannons, and other things to reverse engineer, the desire to conquer them might've long left the powers of Europe, for much the same reason those powers weren't looking to conquer fragmented Japan, India, and all of Africa. Organizing a sufficient army and sending them across a several month journey by caravel would've been far too expensive and too unreliable to be considered worth it.

I'd note that he doesn't talk about the Aztec Empire and its political climate as much as what I think should be necessary for a discussion like this. The way that the Aztec Empire functioned was different from how we typically think of empires functioning, it being more of a coalition of city states that by force or otherwise needed to pay tribute to Tenochtitlan. If European guns and steel got into the hands of coastline states first I'd sooner predict an immediate civil war that would break apart the triple alliance and go back to the old days of city states fighting each other for local power. Other than that, as someone who is half Maya, you'll forgive me for not seeing this alternate history as anything more than a slight variation of events than a fundamental change. In either setting, the result is the same.

Hey I'm just looking at the material conditions, and according to definitely very trustworthy historian John Glubb our Empire has reached the 250 year mark and will soon collapse because...uh *Reads the Fate of Empires book* We gave too many rights to women and...allowed an influx of too many foreigners...or something. Just the map secrets page given to me. All else is blind. Hey I'm just saying, only three countries with largely straight borders? Ugly, Alaska looks terrible as a US state, the straight line between Canada and the US is uncomfortably artificial. Either the US annexes all of Canada or the continent just breaks apart and creates much more satisfying borders based off of geography and war. The map would look so much better. I'd say Edelgard but almost more the idea of her rather than the execution. I find her in theory to be more interesting than the other lords of Three Houses, both as a protagonist and an antagonist. In practice, the most interesting things about her are either tucked away in support conversations that many players might never see on a first playthrough or when she is the antagonist. As a protagonist she only plays second fiddle to the real main character, as the other lords as well, and for that reason she's kind of just a cardboard cutout for most of her own route. The story is very blunt in its progression and little space is given for characterization outside of supports, the most we get with Edelgard is her fangirling over Byleth which is the last thing I feel a story about her should be focusing on.

A secret unit?! And I didn't even know about it before hand!? I honestly would've gained so much respect for this game if they actually went through with this and have Sigurd leave, fundamentally changing the story. What a rude awakening. Oh we bewared him alright. Every hit takes 2 hit points off of this man. I'm just picturing her whacking a stick over his head over and over again while the audience watches Imagine if North America balkanized, we would look like a normal continent for once.

Don't feel too bad, nobody hates America more than Americans after all. But hey, do remember who you're talking to. American isn't just a catch all to refer to White Yankee cishet men. It's a geographical term that could apply to several million people, Native Americans included. My personal theory on American ignorance is that most folks living here are so exhausted and that combined with the individualistic culture creates a situation where most people don't care about much things beyond their immediate needs and wants. Why can't an American point Britain on a map? Because they've been working 2 jobs each week just to pay rent for their small apartment room and the rare moment when they aren't too exhausted to do anything after work they wouldn't dare use that precious time to learn about something just as stressful like politics. Idaho is weird. Its directly next to my state of Oregon and I couldn't tell you a single thing about it. The Northwestern states are culturally linked, we have a mutual hatred towards each other and also all hate California including California. From BC to SoCal we could be our own country. Meanwhile Idaho is directly next to us like the disowned brother from the Oregon territory. I know absolutely nothing about the state itself, personally I think they should just give it all back to the Nez Perce. Something something Bismark quote

That's usually how armies work, yeah. "...Ignore the fact that I killed your entire guard in self defense"

How in god's name is Victoria 3 not part of the sale Yep. I get the feeling most young Americans now would say they are "anti-capitalist" in the sense that capitalism to them is as simple as corporations being annoyingly persistent with advertisements. Its become a bit of a trend these days for media companies to lampshade capitalism even if they are still very capitalist in execution. Case in point, I watched the new Indiana Jones movie recently and in it there was a line where one of the characters said "This is capitalism!" as a quip response to Jones calling them out for selling artifacts on the grey market (Which is relevant to the video I posted the other day funnily enough) and in the story its supposed to be a joke, like a knock on "capitalism" while failing to see the irony of the movie being the fourth installment/reboot of a multi million dollar Hollywood franchise with the famous actors and everything. Thing about capitalism is that they'll sell you even anti-capitalism, communism, socialism, whatever, if they think people would buy it. Vietnam seems to be doing pretty well for itself. Fastest growing economy in recent years I hear. Some Americans are even moving there for the better standard of living and housing prices which is very funny to me. Is it Socialist? In that do the workers own the means of production? I don't know, I've heard conflicting claims from Vietnamese people and western journalists. I'd love to visit the country to see for myself really. I didn't see this but I did see this. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240102-the-train-maya-mexicos-ambitious-new-tourism-megaproject?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us Dubbed the "Greatest construction project in the world" and a "Symbol of hope for all living in the Mexican south." The enthusiasm is killing me.

What did steam mean by this?

Again, skill issue.

Rushing to the other end of the map is always my favorite part of any grand strategy game It is with remarkable coincidence that I find this post right after rewatching this video. Which happens to mention this exact event. A religious fundamentalist group like Isis definitely isn't keen on keeping around Pagan artifacts. Though fun fact they did sell a good amount of them because as it turns out, destroying stuff isn't very profitable.

I'm honestly really liking the big map focus as well. Its a welcome change from the other games. I lined them all up planning to say something in response but I completely forgot to once I posted it. Honestly though it was funnier that way so I kept it. Enlightening conversation You know when you really think about it, Fates is the most traditional game in the modern series. Fun fact, I bought a 500 dollar laptop recently with the idea of upgrading some of it later on when I needed only to realize this specific laptop cannot be upgraded, like at all. I'm permanently stuck with 8GB of ram. Pure despair.

I will never forgive this game if they make the generic blond hunk on the right the recruitable one instead of the lad with the sick hat on the left "Suicide is badass!" -Green units probably I do like how this game has significant moments of retreat and regroup. We can never have nice things... I didn't even get a choice in that. Guy just robbed me blind Boss design 101 If your boss has skills like this its probably a bad boss Especially if it can casually dodge a 90 like that This feels like less of a "I'm jealous of your dad" thing and more of a "You literally have the fucking prince heir to the currently vacant throne of our fucking enemies so therefore is by jure, the current ruler. Why in all the fucking gods' names have you been playing pattycake with him and his aunt for the past several months." No blobbing is a welcome change with the Victoria games if you ask me "Will you be a dictator, Trump?" "No, expect on day 1" You know its been amazing with Colorado and Maine ban Trump from the primaries and the seeing the reaction from some republicans all like "This proves the true agenda of the democrats, the mask is finally off but we always knew!" Suppose it takes one to know one, huh? Give me a Fire Emblem game about that. Wait This was their response Still going through bronze age development. Judgral went through a very literal period of divine right of kings and they've been riding that wave ever since without actually developing anything They should do Miitopia rules. Give various amount of funds to soldiers when they ask for it and its a roll of the dice what they decided to get.

Just a quick annexation, nothing to worry about. Its the proper response to being invaded if you ask every civ player. Wow all of that in what, five days? Spot the good guy challenge. That's called foreshadowing I...if you're the lords of this region aren't those your villages? And if so wouldn't it be in your best interest to not raid them specifically because they are supposedly the thing keeping your land afloat? This ain't the steppe, y'all need to work by feudal rules. If you want to be evil at least be efficient about it and raise high taxes and levies on the peasantry. Welcome to Fire Emblem Genealogy of the can't fucking trade items so what am I supposed to do with this. 5 times in a row. wtf is with the archers in this game. The stress caused by the limited ability I have to get to the raiders up north is killing me.

Oh finally someone acknowledges the logistical cost of war in this series. Can we appreciate the Christmas colors of these lads for a moment? I mean you could also take this remarkable opportunity and ascend the throne yourself, I'm sure the boyars back in Issac would buy the "A child is unfit to rule and I'm literally his aunt" reasoning. Would certainly die down the succession crisis that's going to happen upon your return. There's something very funny about Sigurd scaring off a creep for a girl just to then become the creep himself once he notices how attractive she is. Behind every great king is a guy in robes whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Holy shit each castle has its own thing? I completely did that by accident I seriously thought it had to only be the deployment castle. Folks welcome to the Ethlyn arena where her and her slim sword do only 3 points of damage to this armor guy per hit. Bravo, thou shalt not kill thy own sister. Jesus, I knew skills were weird but I didn't expect Midir to shoot 5 consecutive times. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I love how Lex isn't surprised by random lady arising from the lake with two axes in hand. The silence staff bringing a very abrupt silence to the epic battle music made me chuckle. I think every silence staff in these games should do that. Forget about the Dark god cult, this girl looks like she'll awaken fuckin' Cthulhu with this tome. Okay I know she said that his dark magic would surely kill me but out of morbid curiosity... God, dark magic animations were so hard nerfed when the jump to 3D animation happened. We're playing Fire Emblem.

Like literally North of this village in the map? Because that sounds like something this game would do. After much hardship and skill (reloading saves a dozen times) I managed to clear the way without getting the little guy killed. Also I completely skipped Genoa just so I could rush to that village before it got burned. Ehhh... Something tells me sieging this castle now will kickstart another wave of enemies from the north so I'll be back in 2 shakes. "She had a unique portrait and everything..." Uh... shouldn't we-... *scratches head* if he's the fucking prince shouldn't we take him hostage to force a peace treaty with Issac? Like I'm just saying... I don't know enough about Italian history to make a joke about this one. There's a joke here somewhere though I'm sure. So now that we have the kid you'll stop attacking us right? ...Right? Oh no. Ahah, okay. Let me just reload my save and take the castle while making sure none of my units are in range. Surely Sigurd will be able to survive after he sieges- Oh no... Oh thank god, she's ginger now. I'm sure Arden will be able to hold off those guys just fine.

Skill issue. the majority of strategy games I play have this as the full map.

The thing that all good Fire Emblem stories have in common is a faceless generic soldier. The homoerotic tension begins. Cool line! Still damseled unfortunately Oh damn, I see how this all works. ...It's going to be a nightmare to fumble through constantly later on I imagine. For a split second I thought this was going to be like the hubba tester thing in Awakening. That would've been supremely hilarious. If someone could teach me how to competently use the arena that'd be great. Okay I didn't expect those guys on the right to move, that might be a problem. An hour later I fixed the previous problem and now am in an entirely new one. Jesus Christ they weren't kidding about the long maps thing. I'm actually going to do something I don't recall ever doing in the entirety of playing this franchise...save mid chapter and pick it up later.

My favorite part of playing these games for the first time is starting thread long debates on here that I didn't even know were discussions to be had. Also happy New year! It's *checks watch* about a year till the second American Civil War happens. More like Thracia 1776 Did I stutter? The United States did have slavery as a homeland institution, in theory it was abolished during the Civil War (Tells you enough that we had to have a war just to ban slavery) but in practice continued on as an institution as late as the 1960s. Arguably it still exists today as prison slavery is still commonly practiced all around the country, including the south where it just so happens that many prisoners are black men being guarded by white police officers. Slavery as a practice back in it's prime I honestly would not hesitate to say that the violence and dehumanization imposed on enslaved peoples was just as horrid as the violence committed in the holocaust. Even if the goal wasn't the exact same, Hitler nonetheless was very inspired by southern practices of slavery and segregation from the US as well as the terrorist activities committed by the KKK. Speaking of which, the KKK definitely weren't some smallish obscure cult that it is sometimes assumed to be today. There's a reason why nearly all Americans know who they are. It was massive how much the KKK and the southern police force overlapped. With that in mind I feel like the south has been humbled like 50 times over yet still remains the most poor and conservative part of the country. Even a good portion of the black population down there tends to lean socially conservative on certain modern issues because many of those communities are still very poor and somewhat isolated for that reason. So I wonder if it's less that Europe just got humbled and more that they got humbled and also billions of dollars from colonization to make up for it. Course I say that, even much of eastern Europe gets the luxuries of free healthcare and education along with other guaranteed liberties despite many countries there never engaging in colonization and in fact are quite poor compared to western Europe. Other than the obvious reasons of a hyper focus on individuality and the consequences of the white flight in the 40s and 50s, I imagine the US having to build many of it's cities from scratch a mere 100 years ago or less had a role in making our current car focused infrastructure. The more west you go, the more car centered it gets as these newer cities barely had time to grow before the automobile skyrocketed in popularity among rich folks. We didn't have thousands year old cities built in medieval times to go off of as all of them where either destroyed by the US or long since abandoned by the Natives. With other Turtle Island cities it's somewhat similar, especially since many poorer countries in the global south tend to look towards the US as basis of inspiration for how to modernize, though in Guatemala I know there are many towns that existed since before Columbus that managed to keep a nice walkable urban infrastructure. Brazilia in Brazil in particular is one of the most wild cities I've ever seen, though to be fair was designed by a French guy.

Oh thank god, they fixed the UI from Mystery. Somethingsomethingwowthat'saverybigmapiwonderiftheothermapswilllooklikethishaha. I'd like to know what name DiMaggio is translated from. Modern Fire Emblem is too horny, I miss the old days. "You can't put a price on your health...but also you have to pay us." What is this, America? Out of spite I should just favoritize all the female units until they become power houses. This is a skill. Oh wow, you can look inside the castle for units and items during the battle? Shout out to Ethlyn for crittin the boss first try. Gee, it'd be a shame if you put the bridge on the exact location my badly damaged axe unit is sitting so that the ambush spawn immediately goes to kill him. Never punished. I mean 10 guys winning against like 50 is pretty impressive. I've thrown so much in such a short amount of time yet emerge unscathed. Ethlyn is crying. No? Nothing? You level for the first time in the literal first map of the game and you don't even get a single stat boost? Well at least she makes up for it in the banter. To all Europeans wondering why the US is so fucked, it's because the country was founded by extremely religious puritans that then went on to make Evangelicalism the biggest cult this world has ever seen, nearly half of Americans have been influenced in some ways by it.