New flags on PTS

The Welsh flag, although officially recognised in very recent history, dates back hundreds if not thousands of years if the Roman association with the dragon (as the standard of the army that was based here) is correct.

So technically the Welsh flag IS a flag from at least that long ago if not longer.

I'm just saying, I like the Welsh flag and I'll wear it. If that is an immersion breaker for some - sorry.

That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? I mean by that logic something as simple as a star could "count". We probably had stars on some sort of design since forever, meaning that the American flag actually hails from prehistory!

Yea... I'm not sure that's going to fly. The entire point of a flag is that is is distinct from other flags, regardless of what symbols they might have in common.

Otherwise since both the US and Chinese flag have stars, or that both the US and Russian flags are red-white-blue, we would conclude them to be the same flag.

In a similar way, the Welsh flag is distinct from any national flag before it. You cannot claim that it is historical when it is really just a flag of the 20th century. Maybe it was inspired by a historical symbol, but that doesn't mean it is a continuation of that specific national flag.

The Welsh flag is distinct from other flags, I agree.



There is only one other flag in the world to my knowledge (and brief Google search) that has a dragon on it, and that is Bhutan. They look nothing alike.



I've done some digging and history states the flag in its current form as shown above was first flown in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. I make that 529 years, which is around the same kind of timescale that was said would be almost inconceivable to still associate with; yet - here we are.

As for being a stretch with regard to official usage - sure, I'll concede there. The flag is officially a 20th Century flag and thats the end of it. It was however in use well before that, but as usual in the UK we must bow down to our masters in England and must get their permission to do everything.

But, as I've said before, I love the flag of my country and I'll happily shell out some SC for it in game and wear it with pride. Though I'd like to think that it could be linked in some lore abiding fashion, however tenuous, I really couldn't give two hoots.

Hmmm... an interesting theory.

For example, the current tricolor Russian flag actually dates back to the 18th century. But it wasn't really the Russian flag as they were using the yellow Imperial flag, followed by the Soviet flag. Only in the 1990s did the tricolor flag come back as the "official" one.

So would we say that the current tricolor Russian flag is hundreds of years old? I think probably not. We would say that it is based on a much older flag, but because there were other official flags at the time (and Russia has changed from one political entity to another) it's hard to argue that the current Russian tricolor is that long-lived.

On the other hand flags can change slightly yet still remain the "same" flag. The US flag for example has had stars added to it over time to represent the addition of more states. Although the design is obviously different, it would be more acceptable to say that the US flag and its historical variants are the same flag; they have represented the same continuous political entity over time.

In other words what is important about flags is what they stand for, not their design. You could have a flag that shares identical design (like the Russian tricolor) but it would not be considered to be the "same" flag. Or you could have a flag that changes over time (like the US flag) but it would be considered to be the "same" because it has represented the same political entity.

The Welsh flag wasn't the flag of Wales until the mid 20th century and cannot be said to be older than that, in the same way that the Russian flag is also a product of the 20th century. I mean Wales hasn't been an independent country since... the 13th century (shame about Scotland's recent referendum)? It's hard to have a national flag when you're not a nation-state. Just like Imperial Russia, Wales has simply not existed as a political entity and has other official flags for that period.

One final note on flags. They are symbols, and symbols require a significant amount of effort to get people to believe and remember them. This is probably why no one remembers the flags of the German principalities, because part of German unification involved education to get people to forget their flags. Or why very few people (apart from maybe flag historians) are really familiar with other historic flags. So long as the state is not interested in using that flag as a symbol, it's actually fairly easy for people to become unfamiliar with past flags of long-dead political entities.

I would imagine that when all the old states were being assimilated by the TR in the 2400s, the TR implemented a similar campaign. They would probably teach people that nationalism and national pride is a terrible thing; after all nationalism was the root of the World Wars (including the third one which gave rise to the TR). There would be no loyalty to any symbol except the ones promoted by the TR, meaning no more respect towards historical national flags. I mean sure there might still be museums or something... but for the large part the TR population would be encouraged to view nationalistic sentiments as something backwards and primitive.

And again, this is because in order to get people to identify solidly with one symbol, you have to remove their identification with other past symbols.

Will never bother with flags or decals in general until they actually make them look good. Right now just about every decal just looks terrible when applied to infantry. Not much better on most vehicles either.

I'm really not a fan of seeing national flags in real life, let alone a game. Tribalistic nonsense.