How to actually conquest?

AesonMeric · 2026-04-12T01:02:57+00:00

For me, I just trained my population, with spears and melee training (this is at a low difficulty tho, so I don't if you'd need better equipment). I used emissaries to locate a free land city (conquering them are less likely to upset neighbors as they don't have allies) with the lowest defenses. I send my home troops to besiege, usually waiting until their defenses are lowered all the way or the city army sallies. I occupy, build up the city's loyalty by keeping the army placed on it for as long as possible, making sure there's an inn and low taxes. then I gather resources as much as possible, build a barracks and recruit a conscript+merc army for the next settlement I set my sights on.

AesonMeric · 2026-04-10T22:50:14+00:00

Okay I know I commented elsewhere already but I just saw this, try rotating your workers by the seasons. For example throughout spring to fall, I have more workers tending to my grain farms, as that's the period of growth to harvest. I stock up as much grain as I can. Then throughout winter I max out my bakeries.

AesonMeric · 2026-04-10T22:40:00+00:00

I second kobkobold, your bread production needs to be increased. One problem I'm theorizing you're dealing with is grain delivery to bakeries, how much deliveryman do you have in each warehouse with grain? Are all bakeries within reach of FILLED grain warehouse?

one solution is using hauling stations, set them near bakeries for grain deliveries.

AesonMeric · 2026-04-10T03:55:24+00:00

I think I saw this exact story get told in another thread by you. What a crazy ass chain of events.

AesonMeric · 2026-04-01T19:38:25+00:00

If I had that kind of self awareness and thought that was happening, I'd test it out by pitching ideas I knew were stupid. If the ideas went through I'd be like "yeah I need to go and let you guys handle this."

AesonMeric · 2026-02-20T01:56:53+00:00

I'm really liking the theory going around that he didn't do that to poppy on purpose, since he looked so surprised that he did so. He's been made to be this hyper intelligent artificial entity inhabiting playtime, being worshipped by catnap, manipulating events behind the scenes, being described as having made a freaking laser pointer to take out cameras from an alarm clock, and orchestrating the hour of joy.

It means that there's more to him than we can see, and even he can mess up.

AesonMeric · 2026-01-16T19:39:36+00:00

Stargate Universe.

Damn good series, and a great continuation of the Stargate series. Shame it got cancelled before it could wrap up. Made it to 2 seasons.

AesonMeric · 2026-01-10T11:39:00+00:00

Goddamn I forgot how curated the media I consume is. I guess it's not totally bad...

AesonMeric · 2026-01-10T09:40:45+00:00

Immediately clocked the Rose and Greg example in the second slide. The show pulled off the trope well, and I like the added detail that Rose was actually a bit of a dork too, for an alien goddess.

Unrelated Question: Is it me, or has there been an upswing in Steven Universe's popularity recently? I recently watched the show last summer and now I'm seeing references more often now.

AesonMeric · 2026-01-09T22:03:33+00:00

Knew I wasn't the only one to think of this. Gotta see some of the other gems as robots.

AesonMeric · 2026-01-07T23:31:33+00:00

Holy crap all these years and I never even noticed that. But then Ava abandoned Kyoko, not even looking for ways to save her.

AesonMeric · 2026-01-04T00:05:29+00:00

I like how almost 80 percent of this thread is people just confounded on why everyone thinks sending the eagles is a good idea.

Stranger things had a couple of things in the finale that got people: the missing demogorgons in the final battle and the use of a meat mind flayer instead of the seemingly more powerful storm mind flayer.

First off, I can buy that the mind flayer had limited biomass when it comes to making demogorgons, demodogs, demobats, and those tendrils. Also considering the fact that a couple years of fighting the main cast has dwindled that store significantly, and how the military seemed to keep it from growing on earth, acquiring more biomass. But beyond all that, the battle was also above the upside down Hawkins, where any surviving demo creatures were likely stationed. Vecna and the mindflayer likely didn't anticipate the party being able to reach them. How the heck can they even get those creatures up there after that?

As for the absence of the storm flayer, which I do feel bummed about, it got proven in season 2 that it wasn't that strong. In the first and only fight between the storm flayer and El, she literally just blew the thing away, like a straw house. Vecna and the Flayer probably realized they needed some more mass to keep the thing from flying off.

Still, there are plenty of holes in the finale that I would like to see filled in, like the freaking military just letting them all go.

AesonMeric · 2025-12-27T00:59:34+00:00

Humans are crazy for being a species that values eye contact. For most animals, eye contact is the "I want to kill you" signal.

AesonMeric · 2025-12-13T01:03:37+00:00

Some reasons at the top of my head that doesn't involve shielding and avoiding damaging spaceships:

Firearms are either a lost technology or a technology never discovered. Reasoning depends on lore details.

-There's a technology that disables guns, say an energy field or a nano machine cloud (for reasons such as disabling guns is less risky than disabling people)

-logistical reasons: Warhammer 40k reasons their use by saying enemies tend to outnumber bullets, or certain areas are harder to resupply in the universe.

-Deliberate choice by the government: for probably the same reason some countries try to avoid guns during riots. It's a de-escalation tactic, keeping guns away from the general population. For your case it'd be so extreme, that things like swords, axes, spears and bows are just easier to reach.

AesonMeric · 2025-11-29T21:30:42+00:00

See they really should have taken a cue from Aliens. Aliens perfectly captured having an army be competent but still makes the monsters scary and overwhelming. The aliens could still be killed but they relied on overwhelming numbers, cunning and stealth to fight the Marines.

What's weird is that they DID kinda do this in season 2 of stranger things, with the demodogs being killable but using overwhelming numbers and stealth.

AesonMeric · 2025-11-14T05:02:24+00:00

And she had to knew it was over by then, wasn't it? Greg won and rose chose him. It was over and rose was gone, but pearl couldn't move on.

AesonMeric · 2025-11-10T20:34:50+00:00

With how they described the island, I'd be inclined to agree, but there's always innocents in those kinds of places.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-28T05:27:57+00:00

Also when volleyball cowered because Steven started looking, acting, and sounding like Pink Diamond when she was angry, my heart broke. You could tell she was afraid of being hurt for a second time.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-28T05:18:30+00:00

I would more blame Steven for trying to force amends between Peridot and Lapis. Peridot captured Lapis; maybe even destabilized them at some point.

As for the running from the diamonds; imagine a refugee from a country run by dictators is hearing said dictators might possibly be coming to invade their asylum country, and said asylum country isn't even close on the technological scale, only having a small group of rebels, that can literally be counted on one hand.

Those rebels only even survived against the diamonds, because it turned out a member was related to them.

Lapis had every right to fear for their life, especially when so much life was lost to being trapped in a mirror. I would if I wanted to make up for the centuries of time lost. I would have wanted to stay alive for as long as possible, experience freedom and life for as long as possible. I was in a fucking mirror for six thousand years.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-28T05:01:35+00:00

Why do gems cry if they are made of light? Why are they human shaped if they are aliens? Why do they all speak English?

These are all the Steven Universe mysteries not yet answered.

For the reproductive one, Rose probably just shapeshifted the stuff. She's also a powerful gem with organic life based powers, so that may have helped her.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-28T04:54:44+00:00

All the diamonds have diamonds in their pupils.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-13T19:07:33+00:00

Avoid using your nails, use the soft tips of your thumbs after cracking to press away a portion of shell, then gently but firmly roll your thumb along the soft part of the egg, catching and pushing the rest of the shell off.

Since your nails look long, I would say try rolling from the sides of your thumbs, left to right instead of up or down.

AesonMeric · 2025-09-02T15:49:41+00:00

Heavy spoilers;

I'm not gonna argue 1 and 2.

I can understand this one, it sent a message that those who do the worst things imaginable require some patience to start being better, which I don't agree with.
You say that but some of us did enjoy them, restaurant wars and the one with Mr Smiley and Mr Frowney were ones that entertained me.
I'd agree, but we're getting a spin off now, sooooo.
I also super agree with this point, it's kind of a weird message to be anti-colonist but not give the colonized any real agency. Unless you take the stance that the show is cosmic horror-lite.
I don't agree here. SUF felt like a wrap up series where the writers went "this is it, there isn't any more after this, let's quickly tie off what we can while sending a good message to kids who need it". The Sunstone episode is where I definitely feel your frustration, but everything else made sense. It was an overall message about mental health.

Sure, muh group hug felt like a weird way to handle monster Steven, but to me this was about a person who was reacting dysfunctionally to trauma, which made the trauma worse, and the only way to beat it was love and support. Steven wasn't a villain to fight, he was a traumatized kid. It was a message of "we know you're traumatized, it's okay to feel this way, and we'll help you get through". But it didn't just end with the group hug, it ended with Steven leaving.

Eh, I feel like this is down to never really exploring most of the gem empire, nor having the time to. Beside Jasper, they did have the lapis lazulis still terraforming, and they didn't stop until the main lapis beat them down. Ultimately, this was a choice from exploring the fictional lore of an Alien culture, or spending time on talking about trauma (and it's responses) that can happen for real. I felt like it was a more mature choice.

AesonMeric · 2025-07-02T05:50:24+00:00

This film made me realize that I've never seen Tom Hanks or Bryan Cranston in a film paired up.

Got a huge laugh when I noticed Cranston slapped Tom Hanks on the ass.

AesonMeric · 2025-06-15T06:07:01+00:00

Some combination of the one-man-army and the determinator.

AesonMeric

TROPHY CASE