You voted for Viking era Cornwall. The northmen are ravaging Britain. Ivar the Boneless is being a git. Down south, all is quiet in Cornwall and Wessex. But for how long?
Meet Petty King Dumnarth II. This is us. #liveThread
You'll notice Leon lurking down at the bottom in that map as a small Viking kingdom. They're currently in a war with Wessex. If we get a chance, we'll pounce on them early.
Btw, I'm playing this slower than I normally would, so expect thread progress to be slower than normal.
Have a sunbeam kitty to tide you over.
Okay. Things. Been taking the time to look around and try and find a good alliance (there isn't one. Stupid babyless Wessex) and set stuff. Up. but we're cooking now. We're getting a claim on Leon (Holy war would drag other vikings in), and digging for secrets in our court.
We do, however, have one good option: betrothe our son and heir Ricat to a princess of Lotheringia. They're a BIG power, and that should scare any Viking claimants to our kingdom off.
This one is even comely!
Comely is an inheritable trait (this game does PROPER genetics now, which is amazing), so this seems like a win-win.
Who doesn't want nice looking grandkids?
Hmmm. Something tells me I should be nice to my neighbour. I have a good feeling about him.
WOOHOO!
Who then immediately calls me into a war. 😬😂
Ah shit. Oh well.
Hopefully they stay away from Cornwall.
We've gone scholarship focus, as I'm thinking the best thing we can do right now is focus on local development and creating good kids. it'll pay off in the long run.
Welp. There goes the neighbourhood.
Right. We have a claim on Leon. If we get Leon, I think we're sorted, as we're actually running a slight loss economically at the moment (on cash reserves from pope and events).
If not, this will be a short run...
This is why we've been running at a loss btw. I burned our early game cash on some men at arms to complement my levies. I learned last night that it's worth it early on, if it lets you grab territory quickly from weaker neighbours.
It's a worthwhile up front YOLO investment.
But if they pick up good allies and suddenly your targets disappear, you're basically screwed and might as well just end the run.
It's high risk/high reward.
Also, ransom EVERYONE early on if you capture them, if you can. Do it while your enemy can still pay full price. Because if you're winning the battles/sieges anyway, than the early cash boost is WAY more useful to you than war score.
HUZZAH! HUZZAH!
How Britain and Ireland look now.
Oh God. I HATE it when I'm just out for a walk and this happens.
Welp. There goes Lotharingia. Time to break that betrothal and try and find a new ally...
Well hello Mercia...
Which is handy, because that means I can go to war for Carmarthenshire with Mercia's help!
Meanwhile, I'm indulging in a little alchemy. As you do.
Proving VERY useful for cashflow!
Well we now own Carmarthenshire, but we may have a MASSIVE problem.
Wessex and Mercia just went LOLLARD.
DUN DUN DUN.
Okay, lunchtime.
Been really enjoying this save, and that Lollard outbreak seems a good point to pause this run.
I think after lunch I may do Sicily, just to show some variety, as a new thread.
In the meantime, here is a cat still in a sunbeam. New pose!
It's June 1999 and a NATO peacekeeping force (KFOR) enters Kosovo under a fragile peace, brokered to end the brutal Balkans wars.
When the first recon elements reach Pristina, though, they find that a small Russian force has also crossed the border and seized the airport.
The Russians (not unfairly) believe they have been cut out of the peacekeeping. But this seizure is an attempt by rogue elements within the Russian government to either provoke an engagement, or secure concessions.
They were FM Ivanov, General Ivashov and FSB head...
I'll NEVER tire of the fact that Uber were so desperate to avoid giving drivers sick days in the UK that they accidentally convinced a tribunal they were a cab firm.
Obscure autobiography arrived yesterday. Been trying to hunt down a copy of for years.
Tiny volume. Person who thinks he's unimportant. Arguably helped save thousands of Jews in WW2.
As is always the case, doesn't credit himself. Blames himself for not somehow saving more.
Flicking through it now and it's heartbreaking. As with Smallbones' papers or Mary Burchill's writings, just good people who stood up, but then cannot forever escape the guilt of thinking they could have done more than they did.
Even as they were doing more than anyone else.
We have a tendency to see 'heroes' as larger than life, and I hate it.
Nearly always they are just regular people who decide they will not accept what is happening, and who they're told to hate, and do what they can.
To understand Musk's renewed obsession with X and focus on financial services, you REALLY need to understand the X/Confinity merger that became PayPal.
And, particularly, the Peter Thiel-led coup that kicked Musk out as CEO/Chief Strategist.
Here's how that happened. 1/🧵
In early 2000, X hits the news for a vulnerability that allows money to be moved between accounts with just account details. This is fixed, but spooks investors.
Elon agrees with investor Mike Moritz from Sequoia to become CTO while Bill Harris (ex-Intuit) becomes CEO.
Meanwhile, over the road (literally), a startup called Confinity is making waves. It's funded by Peter Thiel, who is also its CEO, but is the brainchild of Ukrainian Max Levchin its CTO.
Backed by Nokia, Confinity is making a way to 'beam' money between PalmPilots by infrared.
Thread on history of X dot com and Melon Husk will have to wait until tomorrow as need to stream.
But in the meantime here is a quick story called:
That Time Elon Totalled his McLaren F1 While Trying to Show Off in Front of Peter Thiel 🧵/1
Year 2000. X and PayPal are fighting over the pay-by-email market. Both are burning cash so fast that a merger becomes inevitable (I'll cover all this in tomorrow's thread).
Musk (X) is REALLY not happy about this. He wants to WIN. Thiel (PayPal) is happy. He HAS won.
Thiel saw the writing on the wall, as did Bill Harris (formerly of Intuit) - X's CEO after Elon (biggest investor) stepped back to CTO . They have created this merger to save both companies and make lots of money. Harris has bullied Elon into it by threatening to quit otherwise.
I'm old enough to remember when the Rail Delivery Group insisted that Oyster Cards were the spawn of Satan.
They've never deliberately made one pro-passenger ticketing decision in their ENTIRE existence.
Best to assume, with ticket office closures, that this is still true.
If you're wondering why the RDG (or ATOC as it was then. They rebrand whenever the brand becomes toxic for being anti-pax) hated Oyster, it was because IT HELPED PEOPLE PAY THE RIGHT FARE.
The operators make a fortune, every year, from people overpaying for tickets.
This is why smartcard rollout is still shite outside London. There's zero financial benefit to the government or the TOCs in easy, transparent ticketing.
The only person who benefits from that is the passenger, and they aren't shareholders.