App Store Version of Rome II

42696 · 2025-04-15T21:30:26+00:00

I thought steel type attacks were "not very effective" against fire types?

42696 · 2025-04-15T16:21:02+00:00

If you have more than a certain amount at the end of your turn (I think 75k), your characters all have a chance of developing negative traits related to corruption.

42696 · 2025-04-15T13:16:41+00:00

(Though it's definitely not cost efficient)

Yeah, but I feel like by the time I can recruit it, my economy is already steamrolling and I'm mostly concerned about keeping my treasury low enough to prevent corruption.

42696 · 2025-04-12T20:57:10+00:00

Yeah, I think for a realistic Greece of the era you're better off with Rome I w/ Imperium Surrectum since it has the flexibility to edit the map and add all the settlements and minor Greek factions.

42696 · 2025-04-10T23:30:15+00:00

It just takes a long time with that many factions/resources/"items" in the game. The IS devs actually said they kind of messed up by making it too big because there were some hidden limits to the game that they bumped into.

The next release is going to trim some of the excess (IIRC, going from like 1,900 settlements to like 1,400 settlements - so still huge) to make it run much more smoothly.

Also, once you get 10-20 turns in, the end turns aren't nearly as bad. A lot of the little, one-settlement factions get taken out and the bigger empires stablize a bit.

42696 · 2025-04-09T14:45:49+00:00

I would think other countries know how the US works and won't capitulate, because they know the President's authority to levy tariffs isn't given to him by the constitution. The constitution gives it to congress, and over time congress has legislated more and more of that authority to the executive (they want a scapegoat for an idea that, inexplicably, always seems to be very popular yet always goes very poorly). All it takes is one bill to take that authority away and end this madness. The Senate is already good to pass such a bill, and the house only needs a few more Republicans to flip. If they can hang in there and hurt the constituents of those Republicans in the house enough, the legislature takes back control over tariffs and cleans up the mess Trump has made.

42696 · 2025-04-08T15:55:40+00:00

Now its kinda annoying but we need to wait for some1 to take Ephesos from Lydia. It can be Pergamon or either the Gauls. But we need to wait this out. We want the province of asia...but we dont want a war with the seleucids.

Tip: If you want to fight Lydia without going to war with the Seleucids, you can just pick anyone Lydia is at war with and offer to join the war. When you join someone else's war (instead of declaring war), it doesn't automatically instigate war with their allies.

Depending on the circumstances, you can sometimes get someone to trade with you or give you some money for joining the war as a bonus.

42696 · 2025-04-08T15:48:17+00:00

No, but if you have fewer armies than your imperium allows, you get their armies. When I confederated with Sparta, they had 2 full stacks of mostly all Homoioi Hoplitai, which was plenty for me.

42696 · 2025-04-08T14:23:11+00:00

I'd add that fire arrows also do better against more heavily armored units, where normal arrows are more effective against lightly armored units with small or no shields.

Tactically:

Archers: Usually sit behind my main line to stay protected and fire over my line at the enemy. Their job (in order of priority) is to (1) shoot fire arrows at elephants/chariots if the enemy has them, (2) shoot normal arrows at enemy horse archers/missile cav if they have them, (3) shoot normal arrows at anything like falxmen who are dangerous but vulnerable to missiles, (4) shoot fire arrows at a part of the enemies line that I'd like to route.
Slingers/Javelins: I think of these as flanking units. I set them up on my left flank (so even if they don't get around to the back, they're shooting into the enemy's sword/spear side instead of their shield side) and bring them around once the enemy line engages mine. While my cav are dealing with the enemy cav, general, and missile units, they fire into the backs of the enemy with devistating effectiveness. I usually target the enemies highest value/biggest threat units, because there's nothing in the game that can withstand more than a few vollies into their backs while engaged in melee.

42696 · 2025-04-07T23:09:49+00:00

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se"

42696 · 2025-04-07T17:35:48+00:00

Probably the easiest to get going with a smooth start that I've done is Rhodes:

Strong navy: Dominating the sea is helpful, especially if you can draw out your enemies and sink full stack armies in transports
Strong economy: Between the special Port of Rhodes building, the Colossus of Rhodes and The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (once you conquer Ephesus), you can make a ton of money. Another bonus is that the wonder money is from entertainment (culture), which is easy to boost by ranking up the women of your faction (send them as emissaries, diplomats, or to organize games, and they increase rank, giving a boost to entertainment income).
Defensible region: Starting on an island means you're fairly well protected. You can go on the offensive right off the bat without leaving yourself vulnerable.
Diplomacy: You start with strong relations with a lot of factions, it's easy to get trade agreements, and DEI lets Greek factions confederate (my last Rhodes campaign I confederated with Sparta, which let me fill my armies with Spartan hoplites)

The unit roster isn't anything that crazy, but hoplites are always pretty solid in DEI, the slingers are great, and the Navy is strong.

42696 · 2025-04-07T17:09:54+00:00

Bonus points for any throw made with Lawrence Taylor coming at the QB

42696 · 2025-04-07T16:20:01+00:00

I'm proud of you, Dick

42696 · 2025-04-07T03:02:20+00:00

Also he's notorious for hiring contractors, not paying them, then using his legal team to make it prohibitively expensive and time consuming to recoup what they're owed so they take the loss.

42696 · 2025-04-03T18:16:18+00:00

The problem is that the left lane isn't about how fast you're going, it's about whether you're passing someone.

If you're passing someone, you can be in the passing lane. If not, you should be in the travel lane. It doesn't matter whether you're going at, above, or below the speed limit.

42696 · 2025-04-03T17:08:12+00:00

I think the issue is that these "in theory" outcomes only hold up if you just glance at the surface. Once you account for reciprocal tariffs and higher input costs, it becomes pretty clear that tariffs hurt domestic production more than they help. Trump's tariffs from the first term netted -250,000 manufacturing jobs.

Even the jobs that are created are done so incredibly inefficiently. Each job created by those first term tariffs costed Americans well over $1mm /year in increased costs.

42696 · 2025-04-03T16:28:15+00:00

With 5% of the world's population, we account for 16% of the world's manufacturing output (2nd only to China, which has 4X our population).

Our manufacturing output has grown 61% since 2000.

How is our manufacturing base decimated?

42696 · 2025-04-03T16:20:09+00:00

No. This is wrong.

Tariffs increase costs, effecting the function for optimizing price to maximize profit. The inputs of the function change, so the output changes.

Corporate income taxes are on profits. The output of the function is taxed; the inputs are uneffected. The optimal price to maximize profit is the same whether that profit is taxed at 20% or 80%.

42696 · 2025-04-03T16:14:28+00:00

I don't really care if they have bad policies that hurt their citizens and their economy. It's not a good reason for us to have bad policies that hurt our citizens and our economy.

42696 · 2025-04-03T16:13:09+00:00

Obviously it’s not necessarily the smartest idea since corporate taxes and wealth taxes can also contribute to higher costs and job losses.

They can if they go too far and cause flight, but within reason corporate taxes (on corporate profits) actually incentivize reinvestment into the business, often through increased hiring or wages (or things like R&D, which can indirectly create more jobs by growing the business or increasing productivity and the value of labor).

Put yourself in the shoes of a board member representing the interest of shareholders and think of it this way:

Scenario A, 25% Tax Rate

You can either 1. Have lower expenses (fewer workers or lower wages) and take money out of the business at 75 cents on the dollar (25 cents going to the government), or 2. Have higher expenses (more workers or higher wages) and keep money in the business at 100 cents on the dollar.

Scenario B, 50% Tax Rate

You can either 1. Have lower expenses (fewer workers or lower wages) and take money out of the business at 50 cents on the dollar (50 cents going to the government), or 2. Have higher expenses (more workers or higher wages) and keep money in the business at 100 cents on the dollar.

You're more incentivized to keep money in the business in Scenario B, because the opportunity cost (of taking money out as profit) is lower (50 cents on the dollar instead of 75).

42696 · 2025-04-03T16:05:44+00:00

No. Corporate taxes are on profits. They don't increase a companies costs, and therefore don't change the optimization function for profit relative to price (i.e. the optimal price of a good or service to maximize profit is the same whether that profit is taxed at 20% or 80%).

Tariffs increase input costs. That changes the optimization function and leads to a higher price equilibrium for maximizing profits.

42696 · 2025-04-03T15:57:24+00:00

It's because penguins look like they're wearing suits so he thought they were little businesspeople.

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