Titus Ultor
-
Posts
893 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Titus Ultor
-
-
Is Caesar a pamphlet?
Because now we are able to see a world without God. Look around you! This is truly our Godless society! A society that has taken from man his accountability to himself and to God. Our western culture cries that man must lead man, but do we not now see the fallacy of this statement? Man cannot lead man because man cannot control himself! We are surrounded with hedonistic ideals that promote such terrible breaches in morality as abortion, gay marriage, drugs, contraception, and unbridled promiscuity to name a few. The fruits of this ideology are clearly visible- massive spread of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, a falling birthrate (hence a dwindling population), widespread addictions to drugs, a belief in “quick fixes” to our problems, depression, infidelity, and the list goes on. Is it no wonder that these European countries that call themselves “enlightened” because of their secularism have the highest suicide rates in the world?Do you know how society got to these apparent "hedonistic" state? It's ultimately a backlash of the forcefulness and inflexibility of religious leaders. I know dozens, if not at least a hundred, who have been completed turned off of religion by a rigid and "moral" Catholic upbringing. When the Catholic church as exerted political influence, there are hardly any examples of a long-lasting increase in the "morality" of society. The Civil Rights movement in the U.S. was led by Baptists and other Protestant churches. I believe it is related to the international and hierarchical nature of the Catholic church. Martin Luther King Jr. was a reverend of his own congregation, bound only by voluntary and loose ties to other churches of similiar beliefs. The Catholic church prides itself on its monolithic structure. Monolithic structures never apply perfectly on a global nature. If the Church (capitalized 'C' meaning Catholicism) is not flexible and understanding of changing conditions, it will attempt to lay a piece of cardboard over the world to fill in a bowl. It will simply not solve the problem. The most it can achieve is to hide the "hedonism" under a veneer of morality.
For a more Biblical approach to the subject, try the books of I and II Corinthians. The city was the Las Vegas of the Roman world, a port city of prostitution, drunkeness, piracy, thievery, murder, irreligion, and mystery cults. The Temple of Venus provided more than one thousand prostitutes for "religious" purposes. Quite a bit worse than Canada, with its low crime rate, relative lack of poverty and air of peacefulness (all key Christian values, unlike the rarely mentioned homosexuality and political involvement).
What did Paul write of in the two epistles to the church there? Did he command them to go to the leaders of the land and shout about their religious beliefs? Did he exort them to go about the city, condemning acts against their Christian beliefs? No. Nearly every word written in I Corinthians pulls their focus on internal problems, to make themselves images of Christ and examples of Him. And in II Corinthians, even when the great majority of the church in Corinth had taken his advice, he further focuses in on the remaining minority.
Never are Christians told to do anything but to respect early authority(as they are "appointed by God to punish the wicked and reward the good", to be examples, and evangelize. Participating in politics is NOT evangelization. I don't think I've seen many converts on account of a Christian partaking in politics. In fact, it is much, much more likely to push would be converts away and to shift the church's focus from its own morality to other's.
Christians are never seen in the Bible telling people about their sins or attempting to force them through legislation to accept or follow "Christian" beliefs. Being a "light unto the world" isn't about having judges who believe what you believe put in power, or about making sure that Christian symbols are displayed on federal property. Christians are told to be meek, peaceful and moral, and I've rarely seen anyone in politics, especially "Christians", who are any of those three. And, yes, that has even seeped in the papacy in the past, though less in later years (Great Schism/pre-council of Trent). And the only reason I believe that the papacy hasn't been so corrupted is because the political influence of the Pope has dropped enormously, even among the Church's own members.
-
Show up, keep in touch, tell friends, sign up to test when you can, download and help distribute the game when its released, or be a historian.
Okay, so maybe not the last one. This game will be nothing without an active and faithful community. That's where you come in.
-
I don't believe we'll show rotting remains in a game where we won't put in blood. I do definitely wish that games would leave more remnants of battles. Like pieces of armor or weaponry that stay on the map for a long time, if not the whole game. The obvious problem would be memory usage and optimization, however.
And on the sandals. We had a big internal debate on it and, in the back of my head, I was thinking "no one's even going to notice". Apparently, I was wrong.
I believe we chose it that way for distinguishment and status, if I remember correctly.One of my favorite parts of the screenshot is that it shows how the Spartiates will switch from spear to sword if not in formation.
-
I don't believe that we will have any sort of attack or weapon that would grant a status effect, at least not in the classic "poisoned", "blinded", etc. However, Heroes and (if I'm not mistaken) certain units will have effects on the statistics of nearby units. For example, having such-and-such hero would increase your infantry's attack by a certain percent.
-
Argh! I just saw something on this a few months ago. but now I can't remember.
-
pocket fell out
-
Mystikal - Shake ya a**
Just the beat. It makes you feel twenty times cooler than you should while posting on forums.
-
I'd say the nVidia 6 series would be a good bargain video card, from what I understand. Though it might be worth the economic strain (if you can stretch anymore) to get a near top-of-the-line one. It's definitely changed my gaming experience completely.
But I completely understand where you are now. I had a computer a year older than that and weaker in stuff until a couple weeks ago. Trust me. Any upgrade will make your computing life much, much better.
-
I have a nvidia 7800GTX (brand new and it rocks my world), and even with the shadowing and superfly water, I notice no real slowing in the game at this point. A little slower sometimes, but nothing too bad.
-
Base-building is one of my favorite parts, too. In half of the matches I play, I end up going "oh crap, I need an army!" right about when I get invaded. And then my pretty little base dies.
The economic side will be as important as the military side in at least one way. When your soldiers are also your villagers, every resource you put into your military pays off economically. Also, you'll have to find a balance between how many of your citizen-soldiers (the standard military unit of every civ, who also performs villager tasks) you leave to tend the fields while your army goes off to war.
-
The only reason Russia didn't quite win that war (they weren't adverse to crushing civilian populations as well, which definitely drops resistance, contrary to commonly held belief), is because the U.S. supplied the resistance with equipment, money and training. Equipment, money and training we're fighting today, actually.
-
The Doors - Not to Touch the Earth
-
When Michael used "rock-paper-scissors", remember that our system will be much more realistic than forced, as opposed to the traditional RTS. Units will have advantages because of what they are, not simply "attackx2 vs. infantry". Formations will work the same. They will grant basic bonuses, but will also simply be effective formations as they effective in the real ancient world.
-
Sony is one of the few companies that I have respect for, even if they do have horrible technomarket sense.
If only because they make good headphones and sound systems. -
Well. I transfered the settings from one computer to another. Somehow, all the programs that my mom needed got transferred to. not even sure how. Thanks for both your help on that one. I used a bit of both.
But now I have another problem. Only one computer actually has access to the other computers in the workgroup. It denies me access when I try to see the other ones on it.
-
So I got a new computer, and so did my mother. And we want to transfer stuff from the old harddrive to our new ones. Microsoft's file and settings transfer wizard says the best way to do this is through a home network. Now. We have a wireless network so all our computers are connected. But how can we actually transfer files from one computer to another?
-
My Dell has fine components. It lets you pick them all out yourself.
-
I saw an article about a guy who sends false information back to the phishers (obviously not the Nigerian Prince scam, but still a scam), so that when they sell the information they get off the net to various companies, the companies find that they're false and lose trust in the phishers.
-
The United States' armed forces are capable of defeating any given nation with relative ease. The problem comes when an insurgency pops up, as it most definitely would in Iraq. We could manage three Afghanistans. We cannot manage even two Iraqs. We can barely do one as it is.
-
Essentials of Celtic Warfare
by Cory McConnaughy (aka Titus Ultor)
The ancient Celts, unlike the Hellenistic and Middle Eastern cultures, were a disparate civilization split up into innumerable tribes, kingdoms and ethnic subdivisions. All of these politically and geographically separate groupings maintained a unified military structure. Disorganized yet fierce, the Celts proved vicious foes to even the richest and united nations.
The foot soldier, the basic unit of any Celtic army, maintained fairly regular equipment and tactics throughout all Celtic cultures. While the sword was a much-revered weapon throughout their lore, most warriors couldn’t afford such elaborate weaponry. Only their elite warriors, kings and chiefs were equipped with them, therefore. The swords themselves were among the best in the ancient world, due to the Celts’ talented smiths.
The cheapest and most plentiful weapon available was the spear. Most Celtic spears were of a relatively short variety, able to be used by one hand. This is due to the Celtic shield worn on the other arm, which is in many respects similiar in size and construction to the Roman scutum. Many Celtic tribes used a spear and shield wall similiar to the Hellenic phalanx, as Caesar notes in his Gallic Wars. The warriors would stand close together, forming a solid barrier of shields from which they could attack with their spears. This primitive “phalanx” survived in usage for many, many centuries, even making an appearance in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D., albeit utilized by the Saxons, who had conquered the British Isles from both the Celts and the Romans.
The Celtic soldier went into battle dressed in a variety of clothing and armor. Most of the warriors wore simple, traditional tartan trousers without a shirt. Often, their chests and face had tattoos in flowing, circular patterns. Many made their hair into a ferocious mass of spikes using white lime, lending them a extra stature and a more frightening appearance. Others dyed their entire bodies blue, though this was most often used by certain Caledonian (in what is now Scotland) tribes, particularly the Picts.
In a form of brazen bravado, some bands of warriors would go into battle nude. While perhaps seeming a little impractical, the sight of battle-hardened, screaming groups of nude warriors was a very unnerving sight to their opponents. While the Romans attributed this behavior to a specific tribe they called the gestatae, many modern Celtic scholars, such as Peter Ellis, believe that the contemporary historians and writers were mistaken. The gestatae were, in all likelihood, a top tier of fighters, present in a great number of tribes.
The Celts invented chain mail armor as their skill in iron-crafting grew consistently greater as the La Tene culture (the most powerful and widespread of the many variations of the essential culture) expanded. However, this complicated armor received much the same treatment as swords. It was very effective protection from a variety of weapons, such as the sword. Ironically, the armor only became widely used after Roman craftsmen reverse engineered the armor to mass produce it for their own soldiers.
Celticsiege warfare was among the least advanced of the time. There is no evidence of the Celts using any advanced equipment such as towers and ballista. Roman writers mention that most sieges relied on intimidation and soldier-level missile weapons as the primary manner of performing sieges. Celtic cities and fortresses never reached a great level such as those of, for example, the Greeks; so perhaps there was no reason for complicated siege tactics.
A final component of warfare was their much regarded cavalry. While not quite as extensive as the Parthians or Persians, the various tribes could generally field powerful and mobile cavalry which often frustrated their opponents and battle. Lacking powerful cavalry of their own, the Romans were known to often hire or recruit Gallic cavalry to carry out that role. The Celtic horseman was often of the nobility, and could carry either a spear or sword as their main weapon.
Ultimately, Celtic warfare is a less complicated system of battle than most of their opponents. They managed to hold their own very well, however, due to sheer ferocity and skill in battle. Their war machine was never fully conquered in ancient times, and their fearsome warriors remained legendary and revered throughout the period.
Bibliography:
Peter Ellis, Dr. Celts, the.
Caesar, Gallic Wars, the.
http://www.applewarrior.com/celticwell/ejo...ane/warfare.htm
-
I don't believe this to be universally true or completely appropriate, but I think this saying bears being mentioned here: "One man's death is another man's promotion". Simply killing one particularly brash figurehead in a group of highly motivated, fanatic, often suicidal warriors is hardly enough to crack any sort of resistance. And, given the general response to such violent deaths in the Middle Eastern cultures, I'd say that anyone with even a slight bit of cleverness in an insurgent organization would spin this death as martyrdom.
And if Al' Que'da was the only group causing havoc and killing hundreds upon hundreds of lives, both civilian and military, this death might have some effect. But given that the entire nature of the conflict lies on sectarian lines within the country itself, that is to say Shi'ite, Kurd and Sunni; not to mention some tribal friction, as well.
The American goal in Iraq is not simply to stop us from being attacked. We could probably turtle ourselves up in relatively safe compounds, attacking only on occasions where a clean victory was assured. Given our absolute advantage of technology and monetary resources, we could win in a head-on fight with essentially any group to face us.
It simply does not work that way. Even if the insurgents could actually be pinned down and prevented from causing American deaths, we still wouldn't have completed our stated goals: namely, providing security in America and spreading democracy to the Middle East. We have to do more than simply rack up enemy casualties. We have to do more than conquer land, seize weapons, or blow leaders into oblivion. America must create a democratic and stable government out of a region rife with conflict since the dawn of mankind.
I don't think we will see anything worthy of being called a "victory" over international terrorism in this decade. We may be able to make advances, in any case, but we cannot change the viewpoint of the fanatic and suicidal with the killing of a single man, no matter who he is. I would be pleased if we saw an end to the current wave (it'll invariably be back, I'd imagine) of international terrorism by the end of the next decade.
-
Very substantial evidence for the Phoenicians. Many sources, including the Old Testament (for example), mention child sacrifice as actually fairly commonplace among most of the various nations living in the Levant at the time.
I don't think he's trying to degrade the Carthaginians with this, it's simply a matter that's been mostly proven to be true over time. There's actually a (for the time period and culture) relatively large amount of evidence provided.
-
Very true.
Speaking of Empire Earth, I remember that games balancing system. It was really completely absurd, but it made it somehow fun. I even bought Empire Earth 2. Now that one is a horrible game.
-
Trampling before the stirrup, from a historical standpoint, is just a matter of your equipment. A group of Roman equites would not be able to do the medieval knight approach of leading with a long lance, due to the lack of the stirrup. However, by holding onto the reins, an ancient warrior armed with a light spear and small shield could certainly charge into a group of enemies and inflict some sort of damage upon them. It's probably not the most effective use of cavalry at this point, but it is still possible and still lethal.
Help, but how?
in General Discussion
Posted
All jokes aside, I am a historian myself. It's just that it requires relatively little skilled when compared to the sheer amount of effort and skill it takes to do rendering, programming and the like.