War With A Mate - Episode 68: How I Met Our Mother

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

It’s all kept in the family today! Between James creating a parasocial bond with a parent, and a very familial History Segment. That’s not the only segment that’s “lighter” as we experience a Common Ground like no other, all against the backdrop of Andy’s great push West, as the Allies finally begin their move towards the border, chipping down the Axis forces as they move.

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Because we have your number. I've had it with the Saharan horned viper snakes in these sandy plains. That is a reference to both Snakes on a Plane with Samuel L. Jackson and the fact that it is St. Patrick's Day. i'm here to drive the snakes away and that's what i've tried to do today with you andy cool i wasn't sure where you're going with that but you you've recovered it i pulled it around it's a relevant reference happy st patrick's day to i guess anyone anyone who celebrates it welcome to war with a mate with me james me andy and it is a green uh festive special

we've got no green on i nearly wore green jumper to work today incidentally i was wearing green most of the day oh really yeah and then i changed out my pajamas when you were on your way you i don't you have pajamas yeah what kind of pajamas like what what kind of like what style of pajama i cannot picture you in pajamas like trouser bottoms the ones i'm wearing at the minute are covered in um pigs and blankets right so that adds a few questions because you said the ones i'm wearing at the moment which means you're wearing these in rotation yeah well i clean them and then wear the others i have multiple but it feels like at the moment you've you i think what you're doing is wearing them washing them and just keeping the same ones and you'll go to other ones

later in the year no they're on a cycle they get washed put in the drawers and then move through and when you say they're covered in pigs and blankets have you eaten pigs and blankets today or is it a design no they're just a fun festive design cool yeah that's what i was thinking this is these are christmas pajamas yeah i only get pajamas at christmas that doesn't mean they have to be christmas themed i get lots of presents at christmas they're not all christmas themed well it's just a thing it's one of the things in my stocking is i get pajamas i buy them i just get one set a year at christmas how do they fit pajamas and stockings as well put them in i don't that's not how big is your stocking

uh for anyone who that's not helpful this is this is bad podcasting etiquette you're showing me hand gestures and that's like to be fair typical stocking size yeah to put pajamas in there i feel like all you're getting are pajamas you're not getting any fruit any haribo pajamas socks and a terry's chocolate orange basically you're just getting a wardrobe with a hard bottom yeah that's all i need a wardrobe that people in prison would swing around to attack of the prisoners yeah we're missing a terry's chocolate orange from the pool table everyone stop or you're going in solitary well they're hard you can't let prisoners be running around don't tap it whack it is the saying that they have and we have a saying

too fuck the trucks i guess yeah that is one of them and today we've done we've actually not fuck the trucks no we both had fine truck times yeah what we did today is we've wrapped up up stage two of turn four and we started up stage three of turn four we made good headway because today we saw out the final glimpses of your movement phase yes i'd moved but we had fights to do so we picked them up yes and then got through my movement uh yeah did the truck phase pretty quickly and then we do organization stuff as homework now so so we did some air stuff as well yeah we declared them but didn't get them i just had a moment of blind panic there where i thought i'd missed my movement stage and i realized that this time i went first

there was a sigh up is working my stomach dropped when i thought you moved and i just didn't do anything so no what we did do is we finally addressed the combat that we left last session with which was a not a terrible situation for me but not a desirable one either no i went in on the i attacked the body of garrison the body garrison but you retreat before attacked i did i pulled away as soon as those guys came near the seventh armored and the fourth indian i pulled back and i put them into a particularly troublesome position one that was meant to create a problem for you i pulled them back but then moved them one hex to the right which meant that there was this gulf between this sort of wall i've built oh i say wall a line that i've built alongside the escarpment

hugging it and now they've moved one out which means that you can either try and follow and hug the escarpment around which means you have to punch through that hole in the middle that zone of control or you have to zoop complete zoop i'm going to use that word from now on it's looping fast yes you have to zoop completely around which takes you to a really awkward position where you're quite far out and the tracks are quite sparse yeah it also means i could only attack each of them because they were like formed a bit of a wall now i could only attack each of them with one thing or because of the way the zones of control were overlapped if i tried to do a two-on-one with either it would pull the other one in yes so yeah it was a nice little

position i only realized that as well when you attacked i'll i'll admit this was not a plan i had preconceived this was complete happenstance but i'm really happy it happened yeah take advantage of it i'll take advantage of you i'm sorry that sounded a lot more aggressive than it was meant to yeah it did when i'm taking advantage of you i wanted to see don't don't matter when don't make it inevitable well you know these things are we're entwined fate has brought us together yes and fate is i guess richard berg in the situation the designer of the game the creator our overlord all hail all hail what a guy he's given us let's not use hail he's given us a lifetime of entertainment he's given us a lifetime of activity with some

entertainment placed through it you know what activities are much better way to describe that so with that we had a little bit more combat because you decided to engage the next group behind the 62 gaff the body garrison uh which is the maletti division yes and the seventh armor division rolled up and they went hard they did they uh they unleashed their full barrage they actually on the first attack other than the one pinned thing they did a full ammo of all the loaded ammo like literally everything went what right before that no in that attack oh that was all their ammo not all the ammo they have like uh you know how they have loaded ammo oh yes i did a full oh yes the one that comes yeah pre-loaded yeah i've done quite a few of

in my day so you you really spooged your load yeah and then i went at them again so yeah you attacked them and i sustained 15 losses and decided not to move but i also inflicted 15 losses yes you did which was bad for me which i was very very pleased with that mismatch as well it was a plus eight for you which is right on the cusp of me being overrun so it's a really mismatched fight and that was mostly to uh that was that was down to morale because you had plus three morale after the adjustments i had minus one morale after a very good adjustment on my side and that resulted in an overall difference of eight because you put in 10 uh yeah it was yeah it was like rounded down to 10 yeah so in the end we had a difference of eight

so that eight resulted in 15 losses both sides however i employed the old tactic that the first libyan did back in city barani and i kept them in in place they did not move they lost an extra 10 as recompense which was a heavy loss i think that was like 19 overall raw strength points out of mine or yours out of mine yeah so i lost um i lost two recon battalions and the majority of a typical infantry battalion so that was that was a heavy loss i did lose a an infantry unit and a armor unit on that 15 that's good losing some of your armor and the armor division i'm happy to do that yeah i uh yeah there were two of them that free breakdowns they'd been like my breakdown bitches you're my breakdown bitch but yeah i wasn't distributing the breakdown like evenly

i was just doing it on one like one particular unit yeah you're chipping them away yeah rather than like spread them um so it got rid of them yeah i know i'm moving on uh yeah and then i yeah tidied up another like under strength infantry yes and then i attacked again you did yes yeah i'm gonna move past the spread them comment you're just gonna have to live with that um yes and then after they held position you went again and this time you inflicted another 15 percent and i hit you back for five percent yes this time the mismatch was far worse this time it was a 13 which meant i was overrun so that loss that i took was from all of my units not just the ones engaged the ones engaged were minimal i had one one in one actual point and you put another

10 in so that that hurt so on the back of that i decided to stay again i took 15 but then another 10 on top 25 i lost 14 i believe in that one so it was 19 the previous one 14 that one so that tracks at least or 12 no 12 i took in this one i took 12 because i'd lost some armor in this one so i lost some armor i lost two tanks no i didn't i lost four tanks four tanks big heavy lost on the tank front they are really good for defense yeah i think they have three defense points yeah they're really same I think all my tanks are better at the minute at least are better at defence

yes they were great so losing them all good and well but the alternative is I lose most of my men that then provide the combined arms garrison for the tanks yeah that was something I was waiting up as well is it worth doing

because infantry is more resilient because it doesn't suffer breakdowns yeah they can walk they've got legs But tanks do hit hard enough Tanks don't have legs They need fuel They can go further But I imagine

A lot of things without legs Yeah You've got that gulf in the middle Of things with legs If you've got more than two legs you go a lot faster If you've got no legs You also go faster No that's not true

Tanks, cars, bicycles They have philosophical legs. Nope. How does a slug move then? Undulating its body along the ground. Right, don't get technical with me.

Don't filibuster. Don't try and nitpick me when you're wrong and then get annoyed. Don't throw out words that you've made up. Undulate. Body. What's going on here? I guess the gas leak in here is getting worse.

Yeah, it is. And I'm fine with that. I've got a gas mask. i just didn't bring it so not that useful i'm suffering poisoning from carbon monoxide those those reddit threads are crazy by the way you know the ones where people have clearly suffered a carbon monoxide leak oh yeah i've seen a few of them where like people are like it's something unrelated they're like i think someone's breaking into my house and moving stuff and then people are like get a carbon monoxide detector and then like a month later it's like thanks for saving my life freddy yeah i was going insane i thought that someone was rearranging my

fridge magnets as a threat to kill me but turns out no i just didn't have a carbon monoxide detector you know what really freaks me out on those reddit ones because i read a lot of those like am i the devil am i an asshole i find them sort of voyeuristically fun in the same way the jeremy kyle show is i think like it's not a laudable thing yeah it's sort of voyeurism and of dysfunctional things, but have you ever seen any of the ones where someone's like, my spouse is starting acting weird or aggressive or something,

and then it turns out they had a brain tumour. Oh, that's horrible. And started getting, just those ones scare the shit out of me, where it's like someone's behaviour just changes utterly. I've not seen any of those ones, but that's

horrible. I saw a horrible one the other day, but it's not really fun to talk about so i'll tell you later some of the stuff on there is horrible but we just bring happy times here yeah apart from your history segments man they're horrible this one's more fun oh i look forward to it i'm hoping i'm trying to find a balance i think the last two weeks were pretty grim earnestly depressing is how i would describe them educational but awful yeah so i guess back to the game we had that that conflict where i lost another 25 percent and then i weighed up going again and you decided not to yes you you bit off

more than you could chew the malady division can't be stopped well i what didn't i was what weighing up whether having an additional free cohesion because if i attacked it would use five which put it to minus two oh wow so because they were exactly on 20 exactly on 20 cpa after the that last one the last fight so do i push them and if you weren't holding i think i might have because i'd go to minus two but they have the fight shove back go back to one would have been all right but then with you doing the hold yeah it's like i actually want those five cohesion points more than i want to rain the damage on yeah it's a nice position for me to being where i'm now putting you on the back burner the back foot rather so that you have to choose

whether or not to actually go over your cohesion yeah my real thing i'm trying to go for is your ammo your supplies cohesion it refreshes ammo only refreshes when you get stuff there yes which is something i actually wrestled with a bit today but uh moving on from the next thing finish up with the seventh and then i sent the fourth off to attack your retreated uh body of garrison which was a bit of a messy one for me you just retreated on that one didn't you yeah but it's it's one of those situations where i pulled them back and then i realized hmm hang on a minute this is this is something that can continue going on i can't actually fight back very efficiently because they're not a division no so when you started to advance on them again i was like ah

I can't actually sustain this too much. From what I've determined, they have a minus one morale as well. Off the top of my head, it might be minus two. Yeah, so you've got, I think, division two. Are they a three or a two on stacking points? Two, these guys, I think. So I think that's three inherently from division.

And then the morale difference. Morale is inherently a difference of two before any cohesion stuff. Yeah, that could fall comfortably into a five. Or a six. Yeah, at which point we're looking at an eight. I'm on the border of overrun before putting a guy in

and these guys are all gun there's four infantry in there, fair enough but it's pretty much all gun yeah, that's why the morale thing is way more important than I thought it was over the last two turns I've realised that

I think that like when we've had more frequent combat morale's so important because yeah, as we say there you can have a much smaller unit but if the morale i think that's why the 11th for sars stayed for so long they had two morale yeah which meant which is like 20 actual points which is two to three infantry companies yeah like that's the effect good morale has that's why i try and like point and laugh at you as much as

i can during the game to bring down your actual real life morale it does if it gets to me i'll take one off a unit yeah i've been going onto your laptop when you've been at the toilet and taking it off for that reason oh then we're double doing it oh double down yeah um i also just take things from around your house like fuses and uh light bulbs that's fine all the fucking light bulbs work anyway we we are playing this in a very dark home every day the summer months are coming yes daylight savings time kicks in soon you don't like that do you you're a big uh you're a big daylight savings time denier. I just think it's dumb.

I bet you are. I bet you don't adjust your clocks. They're all digital. I bet you go around telling people, no, no, it's actually six o'clock, not seven. No, I quite often don't realize it happened, but I think it's a dumb thing we do. I think it's a nice treat.

Getting that extra hour. Just by losing an hour elsewhere. The only time I really recognize those hours are usually around when they when they go back because it's often around halloween and there's i usually go to like a halloween night out yeah so it gets really late on and then it resets it's like oh taxis are going to be slightly cheaper for a bit longer because people don't realize how late it is and then i can then i slip into that window and get home for a lower price right i don't think that's how that

works it is i finessed the system people look at their clock and they're all drunk off their mind but i've thought this through i'm dressed as the mandalorian and i'm ready to get a taxi it works wonders so yeah the fourth attack to you guys you retreated so i pulled them back to that supply dump that i lost two turns ago the fort madalena supply dump the one just to the east of there yes which has been home to many different groups of people yeah that's seen like multiple divisions from both sides come through the seventh armored the fourth black shirts the first black shirts now the fourth indian division have all taken their share from that supply dump yeah it's a very diverse group it's been a it's sort of a well-placed supply

dump in the fact it's useful for both of us which i guess is not well placed yeah badly placed by you and the thing is every time we're swapping out we're having to third the amount of ammo in there yeah which is a real it's a hassle um speaking of supply dumps we small bit i did do during the organization phases i've built a supply dump at city barani at the end of the my bit of the coast road yes um so i mean i probably should have done that a long time a long time ago but i've done it now and now that you've done it um you are still in as much trouble as you were. Because all it means is you're going to have to have a little truck convoy

that works as a node between there and your guys that are down in the fight. Your 4th and 7th. And that's a nice spot for me to intercept. Realistically that's where I'm going to get the trucks.

Yes, because I've now broken them out of being in fortified positions. Yeah, they're no longer zipping along roads or hiding in Mercer Matru. So they are vulnerable to or any sort of guys i can slip through the cracks if only the saharan detachment were here to see this i mean i'm so glad they're not because it was such a worry unfortunately they're on their way to europe yeah maybe they're by now maybe maybe they're an island maybe it ties into the

saint patrick's day theme let's say it does did many axis prisoner of wars go to ireland it was a neutral country it's probably not yeah you're the history guy I thought I'd go to you for this one it's neutral but we have built a prison camp there I don't know I feel like there's definitely countries that fit that bill

Cuba isn't just a neutral country they have a military base there while actively embargoing it oh did not know that Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba oh

Guantanamo Bay is on like a small piece of land that America bought or rent from the Cuban government I know that, did that play a part in World War 2? yeah, no right, cool yeah, it's fun when you gaslight me oh sorry, I wasn't sure of you

I thought you were just talking in general I didn't realise you were another World War 2 example Andy, what we're doing is World War 2 centric it is so I'd like it if you could keep on topic please I've said this from episode 1 it's my job to keep everything on track and you're the one who derails stuff with your silly tangents i have played that role started

watching hannibal recently is it good it's actually i've watched three episodes and it's really good that's one of those shows that youtube shorts loves to show me stuff which is definitely taking the wrong message whereas like hannibal doing something sort of cool and then that like sigma music and it's like here's a serial killer that eats people can we not yeah the the structure of it's not what i expected i thought it'd be like a monster of the week or case of the week sort of thing like a procedural it's not it's not um it follows a very cool structure i'm three episodes in i'm really enjoying it so no spoilers please guys um i want to i want to see this one through because i don't have any spoilers apart from that he eats people i know that that's about

it yeah so getting back on topic because andy keeps on throwing me god this has been this has not been a focused episode so we we then wrapped up that that section of the the combat that was it the movement was done you went to the supply dump there we are and we moved on then to trucks trucking wise i've decided to move one of my convoys away from map b where they were supplying guys with ammo in the airfields from to brook and instead i've moved them all the way over to benghazi where they will be supplying my bombing airfields and have actually started to do that even that upstage yeah so it won't kick in for turn four upstage three but they'll resupply in that upstage and be ready for turn five upstage one that's right that's when they'll really get

that ammo kick in and i can actually restock that air that airfield five times per upstage because of the proximity to Benghazi which is, it's just an unlimited funnel basically for the amount of ammo I'll be using. So that's incredible. I guess you could also get rid of like a shitload of the trucks and just have like one heavy truck

do five journeys rather than have five trucks assigned. Yeah, if I wanted to stay conservative with the amount of ammo I'm putting in there I can just reassign them for other stuff. Yeah. Or break them up into, dare I say, small convoys something I should have done a long time ago in the right way around that area yes because you started with very small convoys

yeah and i i've really made a mess of the whole situation maybe i should have kept small convoys in certain areas you can't change the past but what you can do is look forward positively and that's what i'm doing and i'm looking forward to what i've done with the rest of my trucks which is supplying that barricade i've got next to just south of bardia that area with the escarpment they are getting stocked up real nice i've also made sure that some of the bombers and fighters are supplied around madby and madalena so i did that with the mission in mind which is where we go next i guess because we moved into i've got something i've done for the first time in this truck phase yeah that truck convoy i sent up that ended up on the supply

dump i'd recaptured yes that's a very good point i'm moving way ahead only had ammo in it oh no water no stores no fuel the one that you moved into the front line yeah that's bold yeah because i get that you're confident of stores going into turn five yes which you have to be oh that's insane but turn six they could be left with half rations that's i'm hoping over the next three op stages if you don't get supplies to them before turn six will they be on half rations yes so you've put all your eggs and i guess you've i've got an entire turn is my thinking game but i'm but i'm thinking as well my my shift has turned to disrupting supply lines more so than kill you oh that yeah i mean it's definitely a risk but the

it means that all the ammo i use that turn pretty much is replaced yeah which means again i can do both those divisions can do three or four fights yeah which is is good but again that that line of people you're going up against are three to four divisions on their own so you'd have to fight well i guess each of them once ideally for you and then get past them for that to then make up for it oh yeah it's definitely i've taken a risk here but i think it was just worth it because of the level of like an even they have the supplies they need when they have enough water and fuel for the rest of the game probably have you thought about though here's a situation for you so you move along that little line yeah but then i block that line again behind you with those guys

and then your trucks can't get to you i mean oh i it's a risk yeah i'm not i'm just thinking of like is that something you've foreseen in your your plan kind of i've got us i know how i'm gonna resupply them but yeah now it's funny you say that because i don't have any suppliers to give so if you think it's going to be to take them from me i've got bad news pal i don't have supplies oh no um i guess what you're talking about as well is you know how you were saying will they be supplied for turn six yes i probably won't do the alexandra to mercer matruh loop okay from your trucks for turn six all the trucks will probably be distributed from mercer matruh which has enough for one massive turn

and will probably end the game on, like, zero. It's more a case of, can you get your trucks to your guys? Yeah. At the minute, they're within a trucking convoys stage. But if I get my guys behind your guys, like, if I get them further east... No, I fully... But then you'd have to zoop around?

But you've kind of let me do... Your plan is for me to zoop around. You want to get along that line. I know you want to push them back. That's not why I'm doing that, you know. I've already started to slowly do that Okay, yeah, we'll see how it plays out I think it's going to be interesting

I think we've got some stuff coming up Definitely a risk, but I think it's like a manageable risk Where's my Kinder Bueno? Don't do that We've literally talked about this earlier today So let's not do that, shall we? I don't see it It's ridiculous behaviour from you

I think I'm the winner I think I won We'll see I hit the victory condition You've got to maintain that I've maintained a decorum about me That you've never done that In your entire life

That is so Poignantly true I've got a decorum to me I've got a sensibility Do you? I follow the rules of engagement I don't think you do Look, just because I'm playing the bad guys in a board game

Doesn't mean I'm actually the bad guys But it doesn't mean you're not It doesn't mean I'm not it also doesn't mean that you're not look being the historical good guys does not give you pedigree it does

it just does well now I see your insecurity oh of course and I raise you one I don't want to be the bad guys in this I feel like it gives me a bad image it's fun that we can play I'm a loser top trumps

oh what is crazy as well i mentioned this to you the other day uh the wikipedia trading card game oh yes i was meaning to buy some packs for that that i not buy but i was meaning to look at that but didn't yeah everyone look it up there's a wikipedia trading card game that's crazy yeah i should play it because i'll spend enough time on it i i like wikipedia i think it's quite useful i'm a big fan of it yeah i like the way that it has everything on there that i need to check in broad strokes yeah it's a very like people give it shit but it's very good for like a overview into a topic yeah it's usually relatively accurate like teachers were always like anyone can edit that it's like only if you

sign up yeah it was a while ago i saw a thing actually that said that per page wikipedia has a lower error rate than the encyclopedia britannica that that i believe yeah but it's also like when people are like anyone can edit it's like they also have a pretty strong moderation policy yeah anyone can edit it yeah it doesn't necessarily mean anybody will edit it and with wrong information yeah if you're committing to editing it you've probably got a reason to or you're a very committed troll yeah i guess the only ones you can't trust are like potentially political pages where people are coming in with like bias i don't think i'm trying to look for political info via wikipedia i thought that's a really good way to be misinformed

yeah well there's a, do you know XKCD? uh no, I don't see these it's like the black and white stick men webcomic but they have one of the comics um

where they're like, I've managed to circumvent the like Wikipedia politics thing uh, if you offered if the page for abortion has an odd number of characters I'll give this much money to one side and if it has even and I'll give it to this side.

But it's just the amount of characters. It's not the content. And then I just ruin the Wikipedia pages. It just makes it uneditable. That's a funny way to sabotage information. That's like internet arson. Yeah. Moving on beyond arson and trucks.

Do we have to? Unfortunately. it's keeping in the spirit of the podcast if we move on okay but it's also keeping in the spirit of the podcast that we did that yes so we moved on to the next turn we wrapped up our trucks and we moved on to your choice of initiative and who went first i chose me of course you did and rolled weather you did you rolled the weather and i was astounded to find out that we're ending turn four with normal weather yeah do you know how many upstages in a row we've had hot which is not meant to be the most common during during autumn fall yeah uh two uh hot was

turn three upstage three oh then turn four one and two wow so it's been three yeah we've actually looking at the list had the same amount of hot and normal and then we've had one that's been a we've had two that have been um two rainstorms and no sandstorms wow yeah that's a nice eclectic mix we need to get a sandstorm in before we're done i really hope we get one yeah i would i would have liked to see one i hope we get one of like i hope we get one for six six people six three rather i hope we get one for the the big finale i kind of hope it's not for that because i want that to be that's the everyone emptied the gas tank everyone emptied this like clip that's why go fucking nuts. Yeah, I think it'll be great if there's

also the sandstorm coming in on that. You have to fight against it. Yeah, it does add a dramatic backdrop. Or, I guess, just go full-on desert and it's just hot weather at the very end. Yes. Or go full-on this whole thing and it's just bland, normal weather and we don't get anything

exciting. It just happens. Or turn six is just the map covering rainstorms. Just there's no planes. No one can move. Blessing the rains down in Africa We did however

We even managed to get some air stuff done We were very efficient today We planned it We've got our missions ready I planned four missions, you planned two I have a strafing And bombing mission Both assigned to the 7th Armoured Division

I heard Close air, combat air patrol For above the 7th And the 4th And then I've got two bombing runs as well and then we spent 45 minutes looking through rules yes we had a another rule deep dive which actually was a real deep dive about something that wasn't relevant to what we were doing but we were like bugging us yeah which is how the intercepts work for planes well this is one that

yeah it really bothered me because i came so i came from a stance and we'll give a bit of context to this since i doubt anyone plays this game very much apart from the two or three who have told us explicitly that you do yeah weirdly it's for a game no one's playing we've had like quite a few people who are playing and have given us thanks to them um good rule insight yeah our our listener base in terms of actual people who have played the game in the general population is so disproportionate it's like a factor it's insane how many people play it compared to the gen pop wasn't a lot of people playing it solo which i think is cool like we've got at least two people that have got in touch with us who play this game on their own yeah which i don't know if it's

because they want to hurt themselves and this is the way to do it or if they're just far more tempered in expectation than we are and they're fine with what this game is and don't need to add in all of the elements that we do we started a podcast so we could finish this game if that doesn't scream insecure i don't know what does or we started playing this game to do a podcast i mean it's hard to say which way it went it's a sort of chicken and egg or a boris thing yeah we don't need to get into that we don't need to figure that out no let's not look inward let's look outward introspections for nerds and we looked outward we looked to each other for answers with these rules and we couldn't find them

because the interception rules for for air stuff means that when planes are doing air patrol we didn't know if the intercept meant whatever path that they flew around anyone who moves into their flight path at any point on that journey is intercepted or whether it's wherever they end up trying to defend if someone passes through that then they get intercepted yes and i think what our confusion came down to ultimately was interception as mentioned with combat air patrol in which it's if something's route passes through where it's doing it or in zone of control it can intercept and then there's also interception from scramble which is where you essentially in the mission declaration phase you put your unit on standby to like yeah scramble and those ones can

intercept on anywhere on the route yeah that's that's the big difference what we could tell so yeah they've used the word concept scramble and intercept would just intercept and that's because the game decides to use the word intercept in two different contexts without explaining it's going to be using them differently yeah so we thought there was an interception concept and there isn't it's not the way we thought i look for subsections called like intercept in the air rules and there isn't one and then we check the addenda and there is addenda but not about intercept specifically it's another situation where the game rules are just a fucking mess but also so precise that we did finally find the answer yeah a lot of it is us i i know i'm i know and i don't

i don't like that the game makes me feel so small sometimes like i i feel so big when i think i'm tackling this thing this behemoth is going to be mine to break the back of and then i remember you've just spilled beer all down your front yeah it doesn't matter uh green can as well yeah saint patrick's day you drove the snake out of the can and onto your chest the game is still even even this far in it's still catching me off guard and getting me wound up yeah and that is something that i feel we're getting towards the end of the practice scenario it's it's within view now we're coming to the very end of turn four and we've got turn five and six to come and we're making good headway we nearly did a full upstage

today yes uh homework obviously but in terms of like the stuff we both need to be there for we nearly ticked it all off yeah i think that tends to happen we get end of end of combat to the air phase we tend to do in one we can tick that off quite quite nicely and i think we i don't know about you but i feel a a sort of a quickening coming the the the end of this phase feels like it's it's ready yes it feels like the the practice scenario has now poised itself we're comfortable with the rules as we know them but we are still checking them it does feel like we're getting into a flow of that though this rechecking of the rules feels more natural now and i think as we start to come towards the end of this funnel it's going to go

it's going to go well yeah i think we need to just make sure we don't get overconfident on like even while we're doing the game we're gonna refer to the rules even if we think we know them i think we also said every five turns we're gonna do a little in the main game do a little refresh which we should um like go through get it in again because there's definitely stuff we've done wrong from massively wrong start of the start of the practice scenario up to now there'll be rules we're still not getting right yeah and when it comes to the full game i i fear it and i know it will happen there's going to be an anxiety that builds in me which means checking the rules is going to become another arduous task it's going to sort of reset the board on how i get angry with

the game yeah and i'm fine with that i know it's going to happen because it was it was a it was a resolution i made last year for last year that i'm not going to get angry at the game i'm allowed to get angry this year i'm angry a little bit today at the game fair enough not fully because yes i did just misread where the rules were so it's not on the game on in this one instance but i'm still allowed to be angry at it sure i'm valid with that yeah it's acceptable and that that's where we ended with our air missions ready to go yeah my strafing and my bombing and you're so yeah you're gonna strafe and bomb the seventh i've intercepted you've got i've intercepted was you 26 planes you were saying?

26 bombers are going to be dropping their load on the 7th armoured. And I'm intercepting them with 23 planes. In particular, my better planes. Yes, they seem scary from the TAC air and manoeuvrability. Yeah, it's the Blenheim Mark IV

fighter version. Against my... And Hurricanes vs... My C-309s. And I also have some CR-32s, 8 of them, that are going to be strafing the 7th. so i'm interested to see how that pans out it's going to be fun i love air combat and i think as well as air combat we're also going to be able to tick off some of the movement phase as well

quite comfortably next time hopefully yeah so that's all to come but that's that's what we did today and it felt like really moving forward yeah i think we did a it was a smooth one it was even with the rules checking i i can see the end of turn four and it feels structured it feels like we're heading into turns five and six with a conflict that's been mapped out and i don't think either like at various points we've both been sort of floundering yeah i think we've ended up in a nice it's nice that going into the back third of the scenario i feel like both of us are in an all right place like i think you probably are in a better position but i don't feel like there's nothing i could i've got plans i'm not like oh shit this is like grind out till the end

i like you've got a comfortable offensive strategy and i'm really i'm really dug in with my defensive yeah i'm comfortable in being able to hold you off to a certain degree there's definitely tactics either of us could pull that change this completely oh yeah but that also depends on stuff like weather supply lines going well someone not pulling the rug out from the other yeah well i was thinking about when we were rolling the weather for this one um the whole double back-to-back in like combat stage thing could be completely ruined if it was like a sandstorm or a rainstorm

yes because then you're left on you're trying to make up for lost time and also I can't utilise they can't move as far they'll break down more likely I can't utilise the turn I've given myself so I was pretty happy

when it became normal I think we've both done well we're in some solid ground and the only thing that could shake it is each other's tomfoolery that's kind of the whole thing though but uh i guess we've we've had our chat here uh should we see should we answer some mail back i suppose we should see what everyone else is saying instead of us just yapping the whole time let's have a little delve into this bag of ours we've got some uh some good pieces of mail in here

however our supply is running a little bit drier than usual we started to make our way through them bit by bit so if anyone does want to send anything to us the email address is info at war with a mate dot co.uk the website is war with a mate dot co.uk and instagram is just war with a mate so if anyone else wants to get on in here because we've got um we've definitely got a better supply than my men do but not as good a supply as your men do we've got a couple of good big ones people have sent in coming up so oh we got some real hefty ones really good ones um so if anyone wants to get their thoughts in doesn't really matter what it's about ideally about the game but we kind of do anything we'll answer anything we're not picky we're kind of desperate about that

kind of thing look back to the early episodes you'll know how desperate we are but to begin we have bianca and bianca says hey guys i recently started listening to your podcast from episode one i just finished episode 13 ah so the desperate era i have several corrections regarding your statement about not letting cats stay inside and letting them feed on pests city ecosystems are just as important as any other i agree bianca i live in a city i i need to go to fast food restaurants in the city i need to buy the horrible dietary requirement food that i have which is just unhealthy stuff so i completely agree city ecosystems are important i don't think that's what you're getting at though pigeons specifically control the insect and flying

populations you wouldn't want more mosquitoes in the summer would you though i doubt you get them in the uk very rainy kind regards from austria not australia bianca we do get mosquitoes occasionally yeah not as bad as other places i don't think i've ever seen a mosquito oh like in my life that seems wrong um i i don't think i've ever been anywhere where they're prevalent that cat common ground to see has been that's a real controversial one yeah that one's the kettle one sort of riled people up because it was just rubbish that cat one's it's really hit a nerve on some people well the kettle one riled me up and one of the person intensely who really went in on you yes that english friend with a potty mouth decided to pass on some compliments which

were uh just the worst things to say whereas the cat one i i see it in um our youtube comments i see it in the like four or five emails we've had mentioned in it yeah if so here's one yeah if anyone has any thoughts on a common ground that we've had that's particularly sat with them whether it's an agreement or disagreement on either side let us know because we'd like to know which common ground really sticks in your mind maybe you've got a favorite maybe you've got a least favorite maybe you just really didn't enjoy listening to one maybe maybe the kettle one really didn't sit with you well we've we've discussed the kettle one we can move on from kettle yeah we can i just i don't i don't have to it's this is actually my platform you should want

to we're allowed to both have equal screen time okay but we'll we'll give screen time more to the mailbag who else we got here andy uh yes we got one from monty monty is a mainstay yes in our in regular email he sent some good stuff some really good stuff and he's back in touch he sent the i hope i'm right about this he sent the pow diary uh for his family member that was really interesting could well be monday we'll double check if not very sorry but yeah monday all right uh good afternoon lads y'all uh it's monty from texas again i honestly don't have much to add this week except i finished episode 64 during the common ground which by the way is a great one both my parents are english majors so the topic of what exactly words mean uh comes up a lot in

my house james's joke about the garfield google search to his co-workers absolutely cracked me up i'm talking literally actually literally not figuratively literally tears in my eyes i was laughing so hard uh i'm going through some tough stuff at the moment but hearing you both talk about the game especially just being happy jolly friends having a blast together is a serious highlight of my week and makes my day a bit brighter when I get to listen to you. Thanks so much for continuing to do this and being a joy in the world.

Much love, Monty. Thank you very much, Monty. Monty, I'm not having a blast. I hate this game. Okay. Anyway, glad we're helping you out and providing a little bit of joy. Even though James seems

determined not to. I'm really glad that it's a bit of a highlight in your week, Monty. I hope you're doing alright. You know, I love podcasts being a bit of an outlet for people to get away from it all. So I'm really glad you get that from this, Monty. Oh, yeah. And when it comes to the Garfield joke, that is hilarious. I agree.

That's some of the funniest shit I've ever done. The fact that you sent out an email telling me that, that made me happy. That brightened my day through my hard times. Because that is the funniest thing I've ever done. by far and away the best joke well it's a wonderful symbiosis that you doing it has brought someone joy and them telling you about has brought you joy everyone who doesn't know what that is go back to episode 64 when i talk about it it's so good i'm so funny okay it's so good but i'll hop on it too much it's it's just a jolly good time

um when it comes to you your parents being english majors that's really cool yeah because they're both english majors that's definitely how they met pretty huge gas yeah yeah we know yeah that's that's the the monty parent love story story not part of our law yeah monty is he gets in touch a lot so monty's part of us so we are part of his parents so i feel like i know them at this point i've got a very clear picture as to who monty's parents are okay this is a step beyond accidentally doxing people no I want to

parasocially absorb Monty's parents into my personal zeitgeist but the first creator is who will parasocial the other way breaking new ground we're going to start crashing people's birthday parties little Kaz really mentioned in an episode

mailbag oh my birthday was this week we will find out where you live we will find your birthday party we will come and we want cake also if you want to invite us to any weddings if there's an open bar i'll probably come we do weddings by the way we do attend weddings i've attended several weddings in the past yeah and i will do it in the capacity of war with a mate i'll show up with like regalia i'll show up in in costume i'll i'll do anything i would just love to be invited somewhere i'll do anything i just want to be invited we'll come along hire us for events it's actually free

we just want to be part of something but um weddings aside um i imagine monty's parents could well be married already so we might have missed the boat on that one but thank you for the email monty and for anyone wanting to get in touch like i say you've got the details info war with a mate yes dot co.uk war with a mate dot co.uk is the website we've got a web form on there it works and the instagram is just war with a mate as well as that we also have a live show coming up the first and maybe only war with a mate live show depending on how well it goes people might detest it i think we'll enjoy it either way we'll have a good time we're going to be at the uk games expo in may of this year it's

in birmingham in the uk i know a lot of our listeners are by happenstance international a lot in australia so that's a trek to get there but if you're already showing up to the uk games expo we'll be there details to follow it will be on the saturday keep an eye on the instagram and i guess listen to this we'll usually mention this around the mailbag segment and when it gets closer i guess other parts just to make sure people know what's going on but we'll be there doing a live episode of the podcast there'll not be any gameplay we try to work out that the event doesn't really have the facilities to let us play it which honestly is kind of a good thing because taking those five the five picture frames of the game on what would let's be honest be public track it

would be trains buses yeah it would be a mess to bring it there but they don't do exhibition shows at the uk games expo so unless we did a tournament for the board game which isn't feasible unless the games expo lasts a century uh it can't be done but we will do our usual thing it'll be great to see anyone there so come along um but that that is it for the mailbag that's us wrapped up for now So, with that, we will be moving on to, hopefully, now that we've got rid of the horrors of the Ethiopian assault from Italy, maybe something more lighthearted? Yeah, should be. Then let's find out. The men of the long-range desert patrols were quite a sight on their return to Cairo from a month's trip to Libya.

The contrast between the east and west of the Nile is very marked. In the east, the country at this point became little thoughts of my past but had always been interested in boats and the sea. I am more or less in the position of a campus in the land of the ship, which is on the point of sinking because errors are present. We are absolutely not qualified to share views on history. Into the past. In our future.

Yes. Well, I guess it's current time. For anyone who's listening, it's the most recent moment in history, if you're listening to me say this right now. It's how linear time works. It is. But we're going back. Oh, where to?

When to? When to? All the way back to the 18th century. This is too far. You've done the history segment wrong. 1800, sorry. No, no, that's far too late, Andy. That's far too, far too far.

Okay, well, I'll hit you with the quote, and then we'll get into it. Let's hear it. Remember that the son of a king, like the son of a shoemaker, when he is a donkey, is a donkey. Right. I feel like you've lost the essence of what the history segment is. You went way too early. What's going on here?

I guess you'll find out. But that was a quote from Egido Ozzo to Victoria Emanuel III when he took the throne. Okay. Which throne would that be? The throne of Italy. We're talking about the Italian king for this. Right.

We didn't have a nice time with Italy last time. No, but it's one of two things we can focus on at the minute. I guess. I don't know. Maybe there's some desert stuff we could do. Victoria Emanuele Fernando Maria Gennaro of the House of Savoy was born on the 11th of November, 1869 in Naples while his parents were there on a trip.

hard launch yes he was born to the son of king imberto uh the first of italy a severe man with a very impressive mustache that in my opinion is slightly too big for his head and uh wow that really shocked me sorry i need a moment to catch my breath that went down the wrong way you caught me mid gulp okay wow continue sorry that the mustache comment was that's good you're right now i'm i'm all right we can continue okay wow uh so yes he's got a dad of a big mustache and his mom is queen margarita or margaret uh he's an only child so he knows his entire life that one day he'll be king uh he's a very sickly child uh with a wide range of ailments including something similar to rickets this is due to

severe inbreeding amongst the european nobility yeah i've got a little visual aid for you here you got a visual aid for me yes this would you say is a fairly standard family tree you know eight different grandparents yeah so what andy's showing me is a yeah it's your typical family tree it's it's two that then link down into one and then two and what yeah yeah that's that's a normal family tree and just have a look at this uh you try to figure that out while you look at it but i'll say this um three of his four grandparents were first cousins to each other Andy, this looks like a map. Yep.

This looks like a map I would do for a D&D session. Like, this is a dungeon crawl. It's not a tree. It's not a family tree. You can get to a lot of these different boxes from different routes. You can loop around. You can go back on yourself quite easily. Yes, so...

Yeah, I appreciate the way... This is hand-drawn. You've drawn this. yeah i drew that to get a track of what was going on because i was trying to understand you know what we'll put this on as the instagram picture this week because this is a mess yeah over the top this loops back around on itself and then branches up into the loop there's a pocket where the family tree goes up into itself and hides away in the past yes what a horrible family yes this is a deep problem with european european nobility especially this

late in the day there's one guy who interconnect yeah i don't actually know what the relations would be in some of these they're like first cousins and grandparents three of his three of his grandparents have the same parents yes that's what i'm getting from this there's a pocket where two of them are unrelated but some of them link back around everyone else is related yeah this is a closed loop is the issue the the tree doesn't branch in from off grid this is a self-contained family tree yes so sickly child it's a it's a covered family bubble yeah you have to wear braces to strengthen his legs all throughout his childhood which contributed to a short stature uh he'd only grow to 1.52 meters or five feet tall um this led to him uh being

resentful and insecure once his mum proposed uh going on a walk together in rome and he replied to his mother and where do you want to go to show yourself with a dwarf so a lot of uh a lot of insecurity here i'm just not healthy i'd be insecure if that was me in that situation yeah so his family's severe and uh militaristic uh view towards education as well as discouraging any display of emotion leads to just a very sort of twisted in like unhealthy childhood his tutor's a former military officer uh who gave the quote i started the episode with who'd commanded men in combat and was known for his tough toughness he educated him in something called the prussian model which sees the king as the vital military leader for an

army which must be at the center of the state this model sometimes described as not a country with an army but an army with a country interesting way to phrase that yeah some people think the this his tutor had a bad influence on him um i'm inclined to agree agito uh osseo and made an already insecure prince more insecure um but despite that um they remain friends right into each other often uh daily for years so also as soon as he's born pretty much his care is given entirely to a nurse bessie uh the widow of a british officer and very importantly to his mother um a catholic so his wet nurse and then his nurse is the only like familial bond he ever forms in is like he never forms that bond with his parents oh that doesn't feel healthy at all but it's not

entirely neglect because he and his parents will have formal dinner twice a week that doesn't mean it's not neglect yeah that's their only contact right that's not that's not absolving them of neglect that just means they're also i guess looking for optic repairs yeah or just like your kid is someone else's problem yeah I know you know different strokes and all but that doesn't really feel

like it fixes the problems that they've created here no also very typical at the time for like royals which is why they're all so badly adjusted then why do they keep on fucking each other it's bizarre they clearly aren't

fond of each other why do they keep on mating it's i don't know at the age of nine he witnesses an assassination attempt on his father firsthand the prime minister gets between the assassin's knife and the king and the prime minister's blood splatters all over the nine-year-old prince's uniform he's commented at the time to have remained like stoic and impassive but later that night when he feels safe with bessie he wept like to hear for hours so it's like having to keep someone just tried to kill your father you have blood all over you and you're not allowed to cry or show any emotion until you're in private and in this case with the maid who's the only person who feels safe to cry with

there's two parts to that one that is absolutely horrific what a horrible thing for a child to have to go through that is that is neglect yeah the fact that the only safe space is someone who's divorced from the family in any familial bond yeah and that's the safe space to go to the second what i find really hilarious is that you described it as witnessing it firsthand because in these times the only way to witness it second hand is if someone drew what was happening and then showed him a picture of it or the guy with handling a crank on a camera for 20 minutes didn't capture it's like a flickering light he's got the the hood over his head yeah because he's snapping pictures and then show him later second hand assassination attempt yeah good point uh but

everyone experiences this at that point but uh horrible nonetheless oh yeah so yeah as an only child with physical limitations he's introverted and this leads him to dive into his studies by the age of 10 he's memorized his entire family tree that's a circle i will say that is slightly less impressive than most people because there's less names to memorize if anyone's ever memorized a map of a of an area or if you ever played elder scrolls for oblivion and you remember the layout of a tomb it's just that except each room is a name also you're remembering the names of your great-grandparents three of the eight pairs are the same people it's actually you're kind of speed running remembering things but yeah he is a he is very intelligent and he's also sent to this

prestigious military cottage uh college which has a motto of in peace and in war which is focused on making students not just military officers but good citizens although I did find one thing I couldn't find a collaboration on it but because it's a military academy people who go there are members of the military

I don't I couldn't confirm this because I only found it from one source but I did see something that's saying they changed the physical requirements to join the army so he could they like change the height requirements and the physical standards so he could get in talk about privilege

yeah they're adjusting the overall requirements to join the military so one guy can get in yeah but he's very smart academically he's great at history and geography um to the point where he's occasionally consulted um by people outside italy uh for help on things like treaties including a couple in like south america so he's not he's royal but he's not he's not token royal he's actually effective in these roles he's not getting a title for the sake of a title he's getting a title because he's good at what he does yeah uh yeah he's good at what he's interested in a good art it's just unfortunately that isn't the skill set required to be a king unfortunately yes he's got other interests indeed he does and one of his main

interests that will be a lifelong passion is coin collecting okay to the point that between 1909 and 1943 he wrote a 20 volume book called numerum italium curum definitely pronounce that wrong that sounds like corpus nurium italicorum but it's a 20 volume book that classifies and describes every italian coin ever printed or made fuck this guy did war with a maid but for coins yeah something that takes a lifetime and it's kind of pointless yeah in fact at one point he would say to the current prime minister of italy at the time i leave to the italian people the coin collection which has been the greatest passion of my life he loves collecting coins this guy's very invested yeah this sounds like yeah that the guy

might have had a hyper fixation yes i think that would be a fair um he spends his early 20s in naples which is probably the best bit of his life he makes some friends who get him out with shell and he starts to date and socialize uh he mainly dates actresses and dancers although there's a baroness in there who he might have had an illegitimate daughter with he loves shakespeare like respects shakespeare a lot but doesn't like plays that's interesting so he likes artists and actresses and stuff but he doesn't actually like he likes live show he likes written word but not live shows yeah but he also has an attraction to the people doing doing the live shows yeah yeah but he doesn't want to see the art they're doing

necessarily. That's a really interesting dichotomy So he's living things up here but things are moving behind the scenes Savoy has not been single at 25 before and he should long ago have been married but he's incredibly resistant

to this because of his own experiences and literally his reflection in a mirror is a harsh reminder of the results of arranged marriages this guy's living a very deep life yeah he has a few potential matches that fall through for various reasons like one of them is one of his suitors um is anglican princess of wales but his mother's says she has to be catholic and renounce her religion for them to get married and that

causes an issue um there's a couple of others one of them is apparently hotter than his mum so she says no because she doesn't want anyone hotter around i i don't like the connotations of any of that no it's pretty gross but at one point kaiser it's such a thing across european like nobility circles that at one point at a function kaiser willemhelm the ruler of germany approaches him and asks him why he's not married and fair play to the kid he just says it's none of your business yeah i mean good on him yeah i'm on i'm on par for that uh eventually though they do find a suitable candidate eleanor of montenegro uh it's a good match politically even though her family's a bit poorer uh they're relatively new nobility whereas the savoy's are the second oldest

royal family in europe uh so it's kind of seen as a thing below a station but there's also some benefits to well one she's six foot tall oh so their kids might they see this as a thing of like this royal family are fairly new and aren't ravaged by inbreeding our family's got to a we need some outside so they're almost we need like a zip in our gene pool they're trying to Kind of over-correct, almost. Yeah. Where, because at the time, because on average, women are shorter than men.

Yeah. And back then, I know average height was much lower. Everyone's shorter because of diet. So, yeah, they found someone who's unusually tall. Yeah. From a female perspective. And this guy who's short. So they're trying to undo inbreeding.

Yes, and also... The thing is, I don't know enough about genealogy to know how this would work out, but I feel like I'm probably on par with someone who's from a well-educated world on maths. Like 150 years ago. And then I transpose this into people who

should be intelligent back then. So maybe I'm on the same level. Maybe I would make this silly presumption. Yeah. And at this point, a vast conspiracy kicks into motion, which basically every member of nobility except Vittorio

is a part of, where they've found this woman will be a good match but because of his resistance to arranged marriages they can't push it so they think their family are a good candidates at the initial meeting both eleanor and her sister are present in case he has a preference for one over the other that's so awkward yeah he doesn't know this though he's the literally the only person in the dark about what's going on here so the sisters know yes so you're going to along to this party like this is going to be your possible husband however we have brought your sister along just in case he doesn't really like you yeah well this is unfortunately that is the role of women in a

royal but still is the feeling of that must be so horrible yeah that's so fucking grim but he does like elena when he meets her um and then 13 months later they meet again at a function in moscow and he's smitten with her and at this point he's worried to tell his parents about it because she's of a lower standing even though everyone is arranging this for him and he knows that they're arranging it no oh he doesn't know any of it he's against arranged marriages because he's like i'm five foot tall i'm racked by all of these essentially like results of inbreeding oh i don't want to have an arranged marriage they find this person who's a good candidate for him i thought because she's a good candidate if they say if they push too hard he'll say no i thought

that they'd proposed it as like oh this is kind of arranged but we've got these two people you can pick from no it was like arranged in the fact they were like he's we're gonna marry him into this family ideally eleanor the elder but if not so that sister will be there in case he doesn't like her but might they're trying to synthesize a meet cute yes and he has no idea yeah to the point where he gets smitten with her but is there's a delay because he's worried about telling his family because he thinks they won't approve this is no they've arranged the whole thing this is a period piece sitcom by the way yes this is this is how i met your countess yeah and then he he does eventually tell them and they hug him in a rare moment of affection even though he thought

they'd be like upset about it because she's lower standing and all this stuff but it's just like it's almost the relief of like oh you are getting matt awesome and he doesn't find out for a long time that it's also i've got to correct you on that that's not a rare moment of affection that's that's not no from them no but not no that's not affection still that's like if you if like a group of people survive a car crash or a plane crash or some sort of tragedy and they hug each other afterwards it's not affection it's oh my god this worked it's adrenaline it's it's a primal success yes yeah i guess it's they're not loving him from his perspective but it's at least some physical contact with his parents what a horrible measure

of affection yeah uh he gets married in rome on the 24th of august uh not everyone's thrilled about it in particular this is a quote from a newspaper of the time that's horrible about this the king whose former stature did not the prince right whose former stature did not already conform to the physical ideals that the people had of kings. And a princess. Gracious, kind, sweet creature, but certainly not a

Greek helen who inflamed hearts. It's a horrible thing to write about. Well, the tabloid's writing a hit piece. It's also this kind of thing of like, oh, so what happened with Meghan and Harry happened in the 30s. I was just about to say, these are the

Meghan and Harry of yeah like it's 18 1800 the tabloids aren't new they captured something it's always existed a very old institution ragging on the elite um but despite this uh critique they're a good match they seem very happy together they're actually by all accounts in love also he seems to have a good his insecurity seems to fade away a bit about his height like there's this really it's quite a fun sweet picture of her resting a lot like a ladder up against her hip and him standing halfway up the ladder so they can like hold hands this is like all right that's that's quite that's like a sweet notion it's gone from

something about this has gone from like my height means i should never get married and i'm not fit or she's a good match basically as well that's yeah that's kind of got a nice notion to it like it sounds like they do care for each other yeah it sounds like a like a natural fit in the end yeah so at this point they're happily married they don't have children yet it'll take them four years to have their first child but yeah and at this point it's all looking up for him he's In his mid-thirties, his dad is 56 at the time, so he should be king for another couple of decades. He's got some years left.

He's got some decades to spend with his wife with limited responsibilities. All he has to do really is have children. Yeah. All that changes on Sunday, 29th of July, 1900, when Umberto I, who already survived two assassination attempts, including the one he saw as a child he's assassinated leaving a gym night uh gymnastics recital uh he's shot three times and at the age of 31 on a mediterranean cruise with his wife victor unexpectedly becomes king and we'll leave that for next time what a cliffhanger yeah what a

cliffhanger now this is this has went from the harrowing war crimes of the last history segment to a a sort of very black humor rom-com yeah i hope this one balances it a bit like obviously it's there's going to be grim stuff throughout i thought oh yeah already a lot of the people involved in this are absolute shitheads but to a a lesser degree definitely and i think this sort of plucky guy who's he's always been you know held down by his his physical attributes who unexpectedly finds love that's been pushed upon him and yet still emerges works yeah has unexpectedly become king yes this is it's uh it's it's a heath ledger film this is definitely going to be one for hijinks i can tell i want to know what happens when they get off this boat

yeah well what happens returning from this cruise he's set off to the seas as just a married man and he's come back a king yeah i thought this this one was really interesting to research because he's quite an interesting figure because not to give too much away but he seems like a decent guy smart seems like if he'd been born to anything else but becoming a king like he would have just been

probably led a fairly happy life doing coins but he has to be king he would have lived a subtle and humble life but now he's gonna have to become brave oh yeah but uh yeah we'll get into the rest of the

I look forward to finding out you all the food i want to find out what happens to victor yeah maybe he'll become the victor of his own destiny well with history coming to an end we are instead trapped now in the mortal coil of the current day the present life that we have playing the campaign for north africa for the rest of our lives and it's brought good times it's brought bad times the good times being the enjoyment we have playing the game on occasion and the podcast hearing from people the fun history segments the horrible history segments the bad being competing with each other going at each other's throats destroying a friendship that we've built over the better part of a decade

and all for what we've got to patch it up each week we can't let the rift grow we can't look at it too closely instead we need to become friends and that's why we have common ground and now for something nicer a little oasis in the war it's time for some common ground i'm trying to intro the common ground i'm recording maybe yeah and i've got one for you it's the chance to become friends again every week find an agreement on a topic that one of us chooses alternating and it's you andy who has to bring us together with the topic of your choosing and i think i've got one i i think you'll like it and i need to help workshopping a bit perfect okay i think we should create the mint of low value useful items

that are responsible for distributing them into circulation and people stop buying them okay okay this is probably going to require a hostile takeover of the bick corporation because the things i'm thinking of are pens and lighters okay but like things that are just useful to have out that are also like like you give someone a lighter on a night out it's too sort of like low stakes to go and get back yeah you can't ask for that yeah kind of the same with a pen if you leave too long a window you're like the weird one for asking for it back yeah actually i guess first for we need to we need to address that what is the longest time you can go before you ask for a pen back because you you learn and i'm not talking like a nice pen i'm talking like a like a ball

point yeah because if someone's got like a blanc or something you don't nick it same like if someone has a engraved zipper or whatever this is the yeah nick by the way being a term from northeast england i believe oh to steal yes to hit to take um because i just realized there as you said it that might not be a broad term to nick it i don't know what's regional me neither i don't know either so yeah if you if you if you take a a fancy pen you're in the wrong immediately there's actually a moral obligation to give it back but like a big pen where you get 20 for a quid like it's annoying if someone takes your pen but also you're if it's like more than basically i think if the day ends whether that's like you hanging out with that person for a day as friends or like

the work day it's gone i think that's that's i think that's too long you know it might be yeah like if i like so say say we're at work together we're in an office yeah and you go oh you got a pen and i go yeah yeah here you go it's a disposable like plastic point pen and i give you it and then it comes to like five minutes to five we're ready to clock out and i go have you got my pen i feel like that's too long yeah that's weird that's that's far too long i think you've got i think first of all you need to unless you go for it immediately like they finish writing the thing down and you kind of like gesture over and kind of go like oh i'll take that back and like yeah there you go unless you do that you have like a couple of hours window where you need to make up

an excuse to just borrow your pen back yeah and kind of go oh i'm writing some have you got my pen yeah yeah i'll take that back thank you but i think aside from that if it's not immediate or it's not with an excuse soon after you actually lose that window and then you become a freak because if you try and make up the excuse of i need to borrow a pen and it's not long afterwards they'll see through that if it's like four or five hours and you go can i borrow a pen they'll go ah i think you want this back and if you ask explicitly for it back you are a strange person yeah so this is the what i'm it's these objects that are useful to be like bouncing around society we should just have an organization that like dispenses them yeah you know how the

mint sends bank notes to banks and then if you withdraw money it adds the note into circulation yeah just like an organization where they hire a guy and send him to the smoking area nightclub with like 20 lighters and anyone asks they so i just think rather than anyone having to buy this stuff or look at it's you just sort of put it in and then it becomes a almost communal property thing big concern no one has to get angry about the pen it's just such a low stakes thing and also no one has to be the guy who goes and buys a hundred pens in a pack and ends up with like 10 of them left big concern though i'm just thinking of the the sort of you mentioned like you're you're on a night out and you you want a lighter i'm not sure that might not be the best

distribution method but yeah go on but if that is the situation who is paying for this because the money has to come from somewhere we're manufacturing something that is albeit very cheap to make i imagine but we still need to foot the cost somehow oh yeah um i think because it's actually very low i mean you've got to pay for a bit you're not talking billions no no or like i reckon if you were bulk buying half a million quid could get a year's worth of pens quid being another regional dialect of pound half a million pounds stealing could get all the disposable pens and lighters the entire country needs for a year yes which is fairly and also one of the things i was saying to help me out with this i fought lighters and pens immediately

do you have any other objects do you think fall in this category where it's like it's just useful to have around but it's not no one wants to be the one buying it i i do but before i get to my objects i'll get to my objection just just quickly because this is an important thing to cover because you mentioned these things at cost are cheap they're basically free yeah very very cheap to manufacture en masse yeah but you mentioned having a guy at a nightclub or dispensing them in some way there's a guy there yeah you've got a person and they are at a venue or they're in an office or they're on the street depending on what the item is they're ready to hand them off and in a shop maybe if it's like a day-to-day item fair enough but i want to take the example that you

gave because it's an important one it's out of the ordinary it's out of working hours it's the it's the extracurricular moment of i'm i'm on a night out i'm having a cigarette in a smoking area i would like a lighter albeit a dying thing because vapes e-cigarettes massive now but yeah let's take that as a an example maybe of a bygone era this guy is here who's paying him because that cost is massively expanding the cost in this situation yeah yeah i guess it would be kind of like a mint employee but maybe but they're getting they have to get paid money yeah that might not be the best way to do it i'm now it's unsociable hours it's maybe if at nightclub you know two three hours at a time this guy's getting a hundred pounds a night you know people who like

club promote yeah it's like for nothing but they get in first of all i don't want to exploit these people because i think these people are already not in a very good job yeah okay maybe i'm shooting this one down a lot i agree with the fundamental it's not a guy on the ground we talked about banks distributing new currency yes you know when you go to the bank and they've got the pen on the chain yes you just okay take the pen and then they put a pen there for the next customer that kind of thing where maybe anywhere where ikea with the pencils you know what pens you mentioned something there on the chain yeah maybe maybe we just have things built in okay so instead of distributing the lighters you just put a thing on the wall have like a little insert like it

like a smoking area we'll keep with the the smoking area um aesthetic so let's just have a thing outside like a little clicker like a sort of like a hob on an oven but like a little a spout maybe in a smoking area one that only like you know you click it and it lights for like two seconds so you can't abuse it or cause any trouble like the electric lighters where they just heat but there's no flame yeah like press the thing like in a car like a car cigarette lighter again from a bygone era but yeah maybe maybe we install those and then we we cycle that out to other stuff so you mentioned pens another one of pens by the way you use pen as the one of the examples of things but then you also give the perfect counter a pen on a chain yeah but that's that's limited

i think i don't know i just think we could just get these things out there because no one thinks twice what like passing them yeah but so if there's you don't need a pen in circulation for everyone i mean you don't but a lot of people have phones so we're talking about things that you need on the go here's one umbrella that's a big one i wouldn't mind umbrellas but we're gonna buy the umbrellas we're just gonna leave them an umbrella stand yeah i think like outside you could like have i don't know starbucks and then also but like yeah just have them but then also people leave them i want something that's got slightly less friction than you know the bikes yes that's where i was going with this that's the like model but i think it's too

like if you rent one of them you have to fucking download the app and give them like a deposit so you don't steal it and all that shit well i'm sorry andy but i do have a freakishly mundane solution to this okay and it is you have some sort of app where you you go to a an umbrella stand you tap your phone with the app and you take the umbrella out of a fixture and then you put the umbrella back afterwards tap your phone again to recognize you've put it back and then you get back the deposit of 10 20 pounds and that the thing is that means you have to go to you have to end up in a dry destination that has one of these deposit centers yeah whereas if you just have we're gonna eat the cost of the umbrellas i'm thinking pens lighters umbrellas are a good one charging cables

charging cables are a huge one i always have one on me i always in the office now i'm known for two things it's eating sausage rolls and having wires on me at all times of any kind usbc usb usb mini lightning port everything i've always got one of every cable on me yeah and so that's because people bunged in my bag because people borrow them people and again if someone asks you for a charging cable there is an amount of time where it's too long to ask for it back i was there charging cables have got more expensive they've kind of i think they're on the borderline of too cheap yeah i think i can definitely still pull that one back i think the end of the day asking for a charging cable is better than a pen there's still some nuance to

it but overall that's not as bad yeah I think it might get there it could well get there but yeah I was just a mint of useful low value objects

like just put them into circulation there's obviously things to work out how we put them into circulation and stuff but also if they're there it lowers the stakes even further you know what this is

this is going to be unprecedented this is going to be very big and I hope you can join me on this but I think we need to make this a to be continued because I need to think about the items that need to

fit into this bill oh we didn't do not a two parter because I did such a bad idea that you needed to come back over the top of me. Are we doing a two-parter because you want to refine it? This is going to be one in refinery. This isn't going to be me getting you back for the kettle thing.

I want to make this work because I do really believe in this. But I need to think about the items. I need to think about the cost. I need a rebuttal that will be likely also controversial, but one that needs to be found. Okay, so common ground we agree on. we agree on the low stakes mint is that what we're going to call it i say and this is but we need to talk about implementation and distribution i say for the first time in a common ground this is one

that is such a good idea but i don't want us to fall into the mundane trap of using an app okay that we need to put a pin in this okay this needs to be decided and i'm going to push back and i'll push back hard okay i can tell you that i have some ideas floating around that are going to be controversial so balls in your court it's for me to push back hard and for us to find that common ground okay so the common ground at the minute is it's worth looking at it's worth looking at okay and next week we will look at it again okay and you're promising next week next week okay no gap in between next week will be the follow-up to this and if anyone else would like to jump in on this i think if anyone gets in touch with us about this specifically before we record

this episode will release on friday we'll record probably on tuesday or wednesday yes so small gap but if you've got emails for the low stake mint common ground it's the weekend be in the mail segment we'll address them in a in the common ground yeah the common ground is where you will get your answers so if you've got one fire it over yeah let's workshop this idea as a group yes let's do this collective this is it this is the big common ground yeah let's make this a common ground the email address if you're firing it over is info at warwithamate.co.uk website warwithamate.co.uk instagram warwithamate if you have a way to help fix this this is your appeal this is like the simpsons episode where they decide who shot mr burns this is a cultural

landmark. This is Boaty McBoatface. This is Boaty McBoatface. This is the moment for you to have your voice heard. Send something in. Let us know. Your time is limited. Our time is infinite. Fucking wish. But regardless

of how finite or infinite time is, we'll be talking to you next time, because I've been James. I've been Andy. Stay subtle, humble, and brave in the deserts of your mind thanks for listening

good night We'll be right back.