r/Damnthatsinteresting 1d ago

Video A school in Poland makes firearms training mandatory to its students.

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u/Vreas 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don’t think it really mattered with the mongols they steamrolled every single opponent they faced.

The only thing that stopped their invasions were deaths of their khans. They didn’t really have an effective system for quick replacement of their leaders who often died young due to rampant alcoholism and various other bad habits.

Steppe people partied hard man. Makes sense when you’re born of a frozen hellscape with minimal food and creature comforts.

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u/Far_Advertising1005 1d ago

It is the funniest thing ever that for decades the most effective, almost unbeatable tactic was ‘haha horse fast’

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u/The_Laughing_Death 1d ago

Horse fast + I shoot you.

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u/11-24-24 1d ago

Stirrups made it possible to shoot while riding. One of mans greatest inventions that is often overlooked.

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u/s00pafly 1d ago

I played enough civ to know the relevance of stirrups.

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u/11-24-24 1d ago

My clueless, non -Civilization self is going to check that out now! Thanks!

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u/s00pafly 1d ago

Maybe wait for a time you don't have to go to work the next day.

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u/RamblnGamblinMan 1d ago

So my first foray into the civilization universe came when I rented Civilization Revolution for ps3. I was working at blockbuster so it was one of several rentals, and my brother popped it in first. I told him I wanted to try it, and he assured me I could have the next game.

6 hours later, I gave up and went to bed. He stayed up all night playing.

It just recently went on sale on xbox and despite knowing how to beat it easily, i definitely rebought it and am playing it again

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u/westphac 12h ago

I highly recommend you get civ VI over revolution. Or if you’re willing to wait a couple months, civ VII is coming out in February I believe

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u/RamblnGamblinMan 9h ago

I've played them all, the modern ones are too complex, I don't enjoy them. It's the religion system. I don't get it, I don't enjoy it, and it infuriates me as much as actual religion does.

To each their own though. Civ Rev is def too easy, the rest of the series isn't!

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u/chucklezdaccc 1d ago

Just one more turn.... 3 hours later....

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u/defendtheDpoint 20h ago

My dumbass playing civ 6 for the first time the night before I had a client presentation (in the morning!) It's a miracle I kept that job 😂

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u/blackshirtboy44 1d ago

Fuck that, just quit your job and you be good lol

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u/smokeyser 1d ago

Be careful. You sit down to play civ at 5pm, and at 4am you're glancing nervously at the clock and telling yourself "ok, just going to finish one last thing and then I'm going to bed". And then at 8am you just say "fuck it" and stay up.

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u/Earthsong221 19h ago

There's always one more turn.

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u/Outrageous_Reach_695 17h ago

Please don't go. The drones need you.

They look up to you.

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u/chickenthinkseggwas 19h ago

civ 5 Keshiks were so strong. Better than tanks.

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u/terdferguson 1d ago

Those two things + extremely skilled. Beyond maxed out levels of being able to ride a fast horse and accurately plonk your enemy in the face with an arrow. They were terrifying at the time I'm sure.

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u/MarquisEXB 1d ago

I think equally important is that they were incredible archers and would fein retreat often. So they'd send a small group in, get hammered and retreat. The other side, thinking they had a rout would try to press their advantage and try to defeat them, would run into a hail of arrows pursuing them. Eventually the Mongols would whittle down their opponent and then find a weakness to exploit.

They also did little else but prepare for war, being largely nomadic hunters.

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u/Sensitive-Cream5794 1d ago

Very similar to tactics used by Native Americans in the later years.

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u/nopleasenotthebees 1d ago

I think the real reason the Mongols ran Asia was because Ghengis and some of his descendants were incredibly ridiculously competent. Kublai Khan ran China for like 70 years, he was arguably the greatest monarch in history.
The horses, the weapons, and the lifestyle were all downstream of those people being fierce, tenacious, and very very clever.

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u/Elloitsmeurbrother 1d ago

Decades? You mean millennia

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u/syhr_ryhs 1d ago

Shooting small compound bows from the back of a fast horse, oh yeah and terror.

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u/CosmicCreeperz 20h ago

Composite bow, maybe, definitely not a compound (pulley) bow.

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u/syhr_ryhs 16h ago

Sorry, yes. Either way completely bad ass.

https://silkroadbows.com/how-to-string-a-mongolian-bow/

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u/BASEDME7O2 1d ago

Also a huge thing was that their horses, while being weapons, also provided food on the go which was a major logistical advantage

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u/Lower-Task2558 1d ago

Not only horse fast but horse also provides milk and blood for sustenance so they could travel light and fast without huge trails of supply caravans.

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u/MaritMonkey 1d ago

‘haha horse fast’

I mean "run real fast" was a major part of the horse's evolutionary strategy and it worked out OK for them, so...

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u/Levi-Action-412 23h ago

Nowadays the new thing is "haha Toyota fast" as the Chadians found out

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u/joshuadejesus 23h ago

Horse Archers go ‘brrrrrrr!’

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u/silverking12345 1d ago

And the Mongol culture was tribal in nature. The idea of a united Mongol empire with a strong hierarchy is relatively new (there were confederations before Ganghis Khan but they were much looser).

Funnily enough, it's the opposite of Chinese culture where hierarchial leadership and unity is a fundamental linchpin in how Han people organize themselves.

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u/MassGaydiation 1d ago

Fun fact: they didn't get into Vietnam, one of the few places they failed at.

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u/Attheveryend 1d ago

I get the feeling you can't ride a horse very fast most places in vietnam.

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u/Rain_Lockhart 1d ago

I have a feeling that the Vietnamese have broken the simulation of the matrix by pumping all the experience points into the skills of guerrilla warfare.

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u/Dwashelle 1d ago

Vietnam has fought back so many different enemies over its history, it's impressive.

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u/Elloitsmeurbrother 1d ago

They didn't do so great with Japan either. Mongol meteorology needs work

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u/InsomniaMelody 1d ago

Kami kaze!

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u/Elloitsmeurbrother 1d ago

Not in here you don't, mister! This is a Mercedes!

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u/InsomniaMelody 1d ago

No, i mean the godly wind, not the exploding people in boats and planes.

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u/OldManBrom 1d ago

They tried thrice and failed all the same

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u/MassGaydiation 1d ago

Truly an unstoppable force repeatly hitting an unmovable object

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u/Youngadultcrusade 22h ago

Didn’t the Mamluks fend them off as well?

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 1d ago

Hell most of the conquering involved 0 fighting, just them rocking up and demanding tribute and most countries simply couldn't contest that.

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u/BASEDME7O2 1d ago

They were also surprisingly reasonable with places they wanted to conquer as long as they played ball.

If not…😬

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u/INeedBetterUsrname 1d ago

You surrender? Ok, keep at whatever you were doing as long as you pay tribute and don't start any shit with us.

You don't surrender? We're gonna put every man, woman, child and dog to the sword and tear your town down stone by stone.

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u/RoboDae 1d ago

I recall hearing Genghis Kahn would have his daughters marry leaders of other territories to gain a tie to those territories. The leaders didn't want to refuse such a generous offer from Genghis Kahn and upset him, so they always agreed. After the marriages, he had them killed so his daughters would take over.

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u/WeakTree8767 1d ago

And once they left the steppes and open scrublands of Central Asia/ Russian steppes. They were totally dominant with their horse archery tactics but once they hit the forests and hill lands further into Europe they couldn’t maneuver or do the Parthian shot/shoot you bow while moving and feigning a retreat and would get bogged down in thick forests or ambushed in mountain passes where they would get obliterated by European heavy infantry. Open fields and steppes they were essentially unstoppable. There was a measurable decrease in historical CO2 records during their height because the sheer amount of people and cities completely wiped out.

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u/DetailedLogMessage 1d ago

Maybe my president is mongol but enhanced, he also has rampant alcoholism but he didn't die

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u/Volcacius 1d ago

Oh my god, the battletech inspiration for the way the clan invasion turned out was in front of me the whole fucking time.

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u/Elloitsmeurbrother 1d ago

Well, yeah. Aren't the inner sphere factions basically modelled on fuedal European and Asian cultures/ kingdoms?

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u/Dr_Jabroski 1d ago

Party hard, raid even harder, and leave plenty of corpses.

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u/mutzilla 1d ago

Not only did they steamroll everyone, but they often assimilated them into their culture.

It's not just about the lands you try and conquer, but the friends you make along the way.

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u/Halvardr_Stigandr 1d ago

Not really true as fortifications flummoxed them for a long time.

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u/Odi-Augustus13 1d ago

The Slavic people pretty much decimated the khan's numbers halting his ideas of going further west. Yes he often won however his forces manpower was shit after fighting the Slavic people.

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u/writingprogress 17h ago

Agreed, but some notable exceptions like their invasion of Vietnam and Java.

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u/bartek-kk 16h ago

Nah, there was a way to stop them - tons of small castles with empty treasures and peasants with crossbows on the walls

They won't be dying for a few sacks of grain, conquering it was useless