Grapefruit and Janissaries

[Snotty]

if your workmen have upset you, give them pink grapefruit cordial instead of tea

[SlowwHand]

Jon, check your spelling. No one is going to disagree with you as you have it written.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I love grapefruit juice. The sour stuff, not the sweat stuff.

Urgh! You drink sweaty grapefruit juice. What do you do, scrape your armpit juice into it?

[SlowwHand]

Too late.

[Cort Haus]

Not another Pourn thread.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Too late.

Doh!

Must. Read. Entire. Thread. Before. Quipping.

[SlowwHand]

I meant, you busted him

[Cort Haus]

Seriously now : I like grapefruit and its juice, but I don't eat sweets so can't comment on that, but I do recall that many fruit flavours do not 'port' very well to sweets. Orange juice is my staple though, I drink litres of the stuff. I prefer tinned grapefruit to fresh, as it actually seems fresher than fruits that have been sitting around for however long. There's more juice (I love vitamin C) and most importantly, it doesn't squirt into your eye and down your shirt when you put the spoon in.

Janissaries : I though these guys were specific to the Ottoman Empire - kids removed from the subject peoples and trained up to be sent back as quisling leaders.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I meant, you busted him

Ah, I thought you meant that you'd beaten me too it. You're way too nice, Sloww - trying to rescue him like that.

* Still narked with Jon over the Douggie Adams debate

[Elok]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Janissaries : I though these guys were specific to the Ottoman Empire - kids removed from the subject peoples and trained up to be sent back as quisling leaders.

In the books, the term refers to humans bred by aliens for loyalty and used as civil servants to run their empire. In addition, debatably, to the humans abducted and forced to grow drugs--hahaha, oh man, I knew I couldn't explain the premise with a straight face!

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Janissaries : I though these guys were specific to the Ottoman Empire - kids removed from the subject peoples and trained up to be sent back as quisling leaders.

Not so much Quislings as Imperial functionaries and an elite corps of soldiers. Besides that, though, you've got it. They weren't taken from subject peoples so that they would be more acceptable to those subjects as leaders; rather, they were taken from subject peoples because, as outsiders to the political establishment of the Porte brought into the service of the Sutan at a young age, they were far more trustworthy and reliable than possibly scheming and corrupt "native" Ottoman functionaries, officers, and advisors.

Edit: I also enjoy grapefruit

[Spiffor]

Grapefruit is nasty. But my father loves it

Janissaries absolutely rock in Age of Empires II. They're the reason I always play as the Turks .
Only the evil Rosbifs can possibly annoy my mighty janissary army

[Elok]

Seriously off-topic, but I liked the Chinese and their Chu Ko Nu myself. Given the low price and their rate of fire, you could buy a group of a dozen or so and nothing would ever touch them short of a siege weapon. Even a bloody war elephant would go down under the continuous rain of arrows; assuming its armor was maxed and the CKNs' attack wasn't, and thus each hit did one damage, that's still about sixty damage in two or three seconds, followed by another and another and another...against things that weren't armored they were even more brutal.

[Zkribbler]

Grapefruit soda pop = Squirt

Grapefruit is good...but you need SUGAR.


Dr. Pournelle is a great pulp fiction writer. I haven't read his Janisaires, but I did like his John Christian Falkenberg books...especially the one where his regiment shot up the constitutional convention damned left-wing wackos deserved it!

[Spiffor]

Well, my startegy was to make a square of priests. And all around them, a square of janissaries, with a few cannons behind for good measure.

My janissaries were ordered to hold position, meaning that they'd always be within range of the priests. And since there were many priests, my janissaries were basically immortal. At the same time, they packed a huge punch and shot very precisely, at an acceptable rate to boot.

The only thing that threatened me were those ****ing Rosbif longbowmen Only unit in the game that had a longer range than my janissaries (most ranged units had an identical range). Meaning that I had either to toggle off the "hold position" (which weakened me greatly), or to micromanage the execution of those little twerps

Needless to say, the English were so annoying that I made a point of exterminating them to the last whenever I faced them