The Golden One - October 16, 2020


Age of Empires 3： Definitive Edition. The Swedes. Siege of Malta. Barbary Pirates.

Hosted by
Marcus Follin
Mentioned
Vasa Museet Barbary Morgan Francisco Pizarro Svea Livgarde Haudenoshuani Jean
A Note on Parenting and a Case for Monarchy. Low Time Preference vs High Time Preference Swedish History - Brahehus and Visingsö

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

130.9

Word count

1,576

Sentence count

100

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I take a quick look at the Swedish civilization in Age of Empires III: The Definitive Edition. I talk about the deck builder, the history of the game, and some of the things you can do in the game.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 PANTICULAR
00:00:30.000 Let's go.
00:01:00.000 Let's go.
00:01:30.000 Greetings, Laddingtons. Welcome to Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition.
00:01:35.400 First and foremost, shout out to my Czech friend and supporter, Jean, for gifting me this fine game.
00:01:41.280 As I might have mentioned before, my schedule isn't as flexible as it used to be,
00:01:46.540 so I won't make a Let's Play series of this game, but rather just a quick view of it.
00:01:52.040 I did play it quite a bit back in the day, and I've always been a great fan of all Age of Empires games,
00:01:56.860 so I thought it's only reasonable that I do a look at this fine game.
00:02:03.040 And I've always liked the aesthetics of it.
00:02:05.240 The game really captures the adventure and exploration feel of the European powers back in the day.
00:02:11.520 So you can see the gameplay before you hear you can be the main European powers,
00:02:17.520 and this addition they've also, to my great joy, added the Swedes.
00:02:22.540 So as you see before you right now, we have a representation of Stockholm.
00:02:27.740 And if you look on the aesthetic castle to your left, it's the old Tre Kronor castle.
00:02:33.420 It unfortunately burnt down and was replaced by what you see today if you go to Old Town Stockholm.
00:02:40.160 So, otherwise, it's a quite nice representation you had before you here.
00:02:44.480 And since we are on the topic of the Swedes as a civilization in the game,
00:02:50.260 I thought to show you a few fun things in the deck builder here.
00:02:55.860 So basically, when you play Age of Empires III, you can get shipments from your home city in the form of cards.
00:03:02.340 And I saw this fun card here.
00:03:07.840 Sjurströmming ships two fish crates.
00:03:10.500 So basically, Sjurströmming is a very particular Swedish dish,
00:03:14.380 which I must admit, and I'm sorry to all fellow Swedes here,
00:03:18.420 I am not a great fan of it, and it smells horrendous.
00:03:22.140 But some people love it, and it's a part of Swedish culture.
00:03:24.620 So it was nice to see the Sjurströmming make an appearance in the game.
00:03:29.780 Then we have some other cards that I thought to show you here.
00:03:35.620 Vasa.
00:03:36.520 And this is a reference to the great battleship Vasa.
00:03:40.640 It sunk just outside of Stockholm on its maiden voyage.
00:03:43.840 Quite a tragedy.
00:03:45.360 So if you go to Stockholm today, you can go to Vasa Museet,
00:03:48.520 which is a museum where they have the ship on display.
00:03:52.200 So it was not completely lost to the ages,
00:03:55.780 but it was a great and rather humiliating incident for the Swedish crown back in the day.
00:04:03.600 But that's a nice touch to include that there.
00:04:07.280 Then also we have allotment system.
00:04:10.480 And this is a reference to the fact that,
00:04:13.180 quite similar to how the Romans did it,
00:04:15.480 that a legionnaire got a bit of land after their military service.
00:04:19.780 Same thing in Sweden,
00:04:20.920 where the soldiers got a torp,
00:04:23.160 so it's a small cottage,
00:04:24.720 and some land after a military service.
00:04:27.700 So that is represented by this fine card here.
00:04:31.460 Then, to my great joy,
00:04:36.020 I saw that you had a card called Svea Lifeguard,
00:04:39.360 Svea Livgarde,
00:04:40.220 and that is actually where I did my military service.
00:04:43.400 So whenever I play this,
00:04:45.000 if I have the time to play this game,
00:04:47.100 I will include this all at all times.
00:04:51.360 So good stuff, good stuff.
00:04:54.040 So anyway, that was all for the cards.
00:04:57.000 And also in this definitive edition,
00:04:59.120 except for the Swedes,
00:05:00.380 they've also included the Incas as a playable civilization.
00:05:04.960 Now the Incas, of course, 0.85
00:05:05.960 were a powerful empire,
00:05:08.160 South America,
00:05:08.880 until the Spanish adventurer and explorer
00:05:13.580 and conquistador Francisco Pizarro
00:05:17.080 came with a rather small band of Spanish conquistadors
00:05:21.280 to conquer the empire.
00:05:24.700 Quite impressive,
00:05:26.000 speaking in pure military terms,
00:05:28.660 how they could conquer it,
00:05:30.380 just being so few men.
00:05:32.420 Then also,
00:05:33.200 a difference between this definitive edition
00:05:36.180 and the previous edition
00:05:37.460 is that the former Sioux
00:05:40.260 has been renamed to Lakota.
00:05:43.060 And the developers of this edition
00:05:46.000 actually consulted with Amerindian individuals
00:05:49.560 to make the representation of the tribes
00:05:53.200 more accurate.
00:05:54.860 So that's good.
00:05:57.040 Same thing here.
00:05:58.340 They were previously known as the Iroquois,
00:06:00.580 and now,
00:06:01.320 and I will see if I can get this pronunciation correctly,
00:06:05.140 Haudenoshuani.
00:06:07.800 No idea how you actually pronounce it,
00:06:09.820 but I'm guessing something like that.
00:06:11.980 So anyway,
00:06:12.520 they made some changes to the gameplay
00:06:14.240 of the Amerindian tribes,
00:06:16.540 but we're not going to get into that all too much.
00:06:19.160 But I want to show you something else.
00:06:20.960 We have historical battles,
00:06:22.700 and here we have Algiers 15-16,
00:06:27.040 and you're playing as the Barbary pirates,
00:06:29.880 and the enemy is the Spanish.
00:06:31.460 Now, of course,
00:06:31.940 I would want to have it the other way around,
00:06:34.760 considering the Spanish and French,
00:06:38.220 they did a great service for Mother Europe
00:06:41.200 back in the day.
00:06:42.580 So what happened during this time
00:06:45.080 was that in North Africa,
00:06:47.160 they staged slave raids
00:06:48.460 that reached all the way up to Iceland.
00:06:50.640 So basically,
00:06:51.560 the countries along the Mediterranean coast
00:06:53.980 and the Atlantic coast,
00:06:55.260 so France, Spain, Portugal,
00:06:56.980 France again on the Atlantic side,
00:06:59.220 England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland,
00:07:03.680 were all subject to slave raiders
00:07:05.480 from the Barbary coast.
00:07:07.380 So one day,
00:07:08.540 the Spanish had had enough, 1.00
00:07:10.740 so they decided to implement their will
00:07:13.700 on some of the states there.
00:07:15.780 Same thing,
00:07:16.680 the French during the 19th century
00:07:19.240 also had enough of the slave raiders, 0.98
00:07:21.640 so they simply conquered
00:07:22.800 a lot of the territory.
00:07:24.740 But in this battle,
00:07:25.780 you are defending against the Spanish, 1.00
00:07:28.220 so you can continue your slave raids.
00:07:30.880 But yeah,
00:07:31.820 I might play it at some stage anyway,
00:07:34.140 just for the historical knowledge.
00:07:36.700 And speaking of historical knowledge,
00:07:38.380 we have also story mode here,
00:07:40.120 and I will show you this fine introduction
00:07:45.180 to the campaign.
00:07:47.680 So I played this back in the day,
00:07:49.600 and I will show it to you now.
00:07:52.660 So the Knights of St. John,
00:07:55.320 more commonly known as the Hospitallers,
00:07:57.520 they fared a bit better
00:07:58.680 than their brother organization
00:08:00.940 or even rival organization
00:08:02.780 of the Templars,
00:08:03.940 who, as I mentioned on my Instagram
00:08:05.760 the other day,
00:08:07.120 they got betrayed by the Pope
00:08:10.220 and the French King Philip
00:08:11.820 on the fateful day of Friday,
00:08:15.780 the 13th of 1307.
00:08:19.500 But the Hospitallers managed to survive,
00:08:22.160 and they eventually landed in Malta,
00:08:24.460 where they successfully led the defense
00:08:26.540 against the Ottoman invaders.
00:08:28.800 And also the capital of Malta
00:08:31.120 is named Valletta
00:08:32.280 after the Grand Master,
00:08:34.040 Sjande Vallette.
00:08:34.660 So let's look at the cinematic.
00:08:37.380 The story of why my family
00:08:39.060 first came to the New World
00:08:40.420 begins with the attack on Malta,
00:08:42.600 the last stronghold
00:08:43.660 of a dying order of Crusader knights.
00:08:46.540 This much is fact.
00:08:48.440 My ancestor Morgan Black
00:08:50.060 was with the Knights of St. John
00:08:51.620 when they defended the island
00:08:52.900 from Sahin and the Ottomans.
00:08:55.460 The rest, well,
00:08:57.220 like most family stories,
00:08:59.060 it's hard to separate the truth
00:09:00.660 from the legend.
00:09:04.660 Morgan, the Ottomans have landed.
00:09:18.160 A thousand Janissaries
00:09:19.280 led by Sahin the Falcon.
00:09:21.380 Alain Magnin still commands the knights,
00:09:23.660 and he says we must hold them at the beach.
00:09:26.180 We'll make our stand here.
00:09:27.800 The Crusades are dead.
00:09:31.320 Your knighthood is all that remains.
00:09:33.360 A relic.
00:09:34.520 I'm not ready to die just yet, Vulcan.
00:09:36.860 And I don't intend to see
00:09:38.100 our knighthood broken.
00:09:40.080 It is already broken, Morgan.
00:09:42.720 Will you break with it?
00:09:44.520 Move the crossbow to the forward walls
00:09:55.040 to attack the Janissaries.
00:09:56.740 Defend the fort at all costs.
00:10:00.180 So now we get to see a bit
00:10:01.700 of the gameplay as well.
00:10:03.560 So here we have Janissaries,
00:10:05.600 the Ottoman elite troops,
00:10:07.000 and they were actually taken as slaves
00:10:10.100 from Eastern Europe
00:10:11.960 and then trained to be the elite troops
00:10:14.360 of the Ottomans.
00:10:15.920 So that is the story of the Janissaries.
00:10:20.360 And I'm not going to play through
00:10:21.600 this entire scenario,
00:10:22.720 but I just wanted to show a bit of it.
00:10:24.780 And I was actually in Malta
00:10:26.460 when I was 15,
00:10:27.880 and got to know about this
00:10:31.240 highly inspiring story
00:10:32.740 of the defense of Malta.
00:10:34.140 So it's always been
00:10:35.460 an inspiring event
00:10:38.340 for me personally.
00:10:41.520 So anyway,
00:10:42.480 I know it's a common topic
00:10:43.920 to discuss gaming,
00:10:45.740 and I know some good men
00:10:47.340 have legit criticism
00:10:49.000 against gaming culture, etc.
00:10:51.480 But for me,
00:10:52.800 playing Age of Empires,
00:10:53.840 all the games have greatly helped
00:10:56.100 in my historical interest,
00:10:58.820 and I've always managed to
00:11:00.540 balance it in quite a good way.
00:11:03.040 Now, of course,
00:11:03.600 if you are in a situation
00:11:04.640 where you play too much
00:11:06.720 and you skip the gym, etc.,
00:11:08.100 it's obviously not a good idea
00:11:10.000 to do it too much.
00:11:10.880 But doing it in moderation
00:11:12.000 after you've done
00:11:12.680 your other duties,
00:11:14.600 that's absolutely fine.
00:11:16.260 And especially a game
00:11:17.180 such as this,
00:11:17.940 if it really captures
00:11:18.980 a good spirit,
00:11:20.000 if it teaches you
00:11:21.380 some history,
00:11:22.120 if it gives you
00:11:22.960 a higher interest in history,
00:11:25.220 it's all good,
00:11:26.360 in my view.
00:11:27.680 So Age of Empires 3,
00:11:29.900 great aesthetics.
00:11:30.980 I'm very impressed
00:11:32.200 by the new graphics
00:11:33.180 here as well.
00:11:34.960 And yeah,
00:11:35.900 I might play it some
00:11:36.700 if I have more time
00:11:38.960 in the coming time,
00:11:40.300 but who knows?
00:11:42.160 So anyway,
00:11:43.000 that was all for this video.
00:11:45.140 Just wanted to have
00:11:45.860 a quick look,
00:11:46.800 talk a bit about
00:11:47.500 the Swedish historical references.
00:11:50.280 I do have a Swedish history video
00:11:51.740 incoming in a few days,
00:11:54.660 so stay tuned for that.
00:11:56.840 And yeah,
00:11:57.680 that being said,
00:11:58.260 have a great week in the head
00:11:59.960 and thank you for watching.
00:12:01.180 XOXO,
00:12:02.120 Boom! 0.99