A few minutes ago I attempted to post a Quick Reply here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=1#post2498522
For some reason it ended up empty; but originally it was a slightly different phrased version of my second attempt: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=1#post2498530

This suggests that over the forum upgrade a crucial bit of forum software ended up broken: previously one could not post without including at least 3 characters of your own, so such post validation logic should've caught this error and rejected attempt #1. Or alternatively the forum/database ate my post and is currently mulling over the efficiency of various types of engines.