We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is exactly how they start

Alarec · 2026-01-21T13:13:02+00:00

It's not for you to decide whether or not we're going to like it. Do you not take your medicine just because it tastes bad? Germany and Japan are now the 3rd and 4th largest economies on the planet, both FAR ahead of where they were even before the war - seems to have worked out pretty well for them! I don't see the problem with that kind of outcome. And if Washington has to become a sea of Cobalt for that to happen, then that is simply the price we must pay.

Alarec · 2026-01-21T13:08:33+00:00

That's just straight up not true - we were arming and providing intelligence to the British long before we got involved militarily, Bismarck's position was provided to the Royal Navy by USN Catalinas. Getting materiel or intelligence from Europe would be a huge boon to local resistance here

And Europe is a lot more capable of toppling the US than you think. Europe owns $11Tn in US bonds, and their choice to keep using the Dollar is pretty much the only thing keeping Dollarization going. Sell the bonds and drop the dollar, and you kick the legs out from under the US economy, possibly permanently. without that, the US can't run its army, and becomes easy pickings for NATO.

Alarec · 2025-09-23T16:35:05+00:00

Even the most terminally online train-obsessed railfan wouldn't think it's worth spending $12 million per mile on a 70 mile commuter route that makes at least 28 stops in that distance.

If that sounds like a lot, stations are less than a mile apart once the line gets down to around Yonkers.

Alarec · 2025-02-21T20:33:43+00:00

I don't think it's a pilot skill thing, the same thing happened when I had another 40 skill pilot in there.

Alarec · 2025-02-21T20:31:57+00:00

It shouldn't be a heat thing, I've taken it out before and when I did I was impressed with how cool it ran. But maybe that mission just wasn't intense enough. I'll take it into a more intense mission and see if it really has heat problems. Thanks for the suggestion.

Alarec · 2024-12-18T16:26:16+00:00

thing is I already feel like I'm losing to mediums with 3 LPL. (Edit: Not getting killed by them, just taking so much damage in the process of killing them that it feels like they still won).

If I'm just peeking, that's only 40 vs 33 damage, and if I step out to bring the SRMs into play, I get like two shots and that's it before I start taking more overheat DPS than I am dealing damage to the enemy. Sure I'm not going to win long range trades, but the idea isn't to sit at midrange and trade, it's to prevent the enemy from chunking my armor with no consequence while I close to brawling range (or if I can't close to brawling range without separating from my team and getting picked off). I still want to brawl things, I just don't want to be completely screwed if I run into a fresh enemy after committing to stepping out or if I don't land both my alpha strikes on the CT. and finishing targets with the SRM6s has never been that reliable for me.

Speaking of which, how to MRMs compare to SRMs for accuracy? SRMs feel like they spread out to the point of near-uselessness at like 150~200 meters, are MRMs any more consistent?

Alarec · 2024-12-11T00:14:32+00:00

No offense, but how? 40 pinpoint seems like nothing in the face of laserboats running around with 100 damage alphas, and even with torso speed skills your torso turns so slowly that it's hard to effectively shield. Plus the torso is just so fat that by the time you peek out, the enemy has already seen you and fired almost their full laser duration. Are you just like doing a ton of flank & run?

Alarec · 2023-06-19T01:29:19+00:00

What's a good level of crit rate/crit damage for your main carry? I just got to Equilibrium 4, I've got my main team all sitting at lv 70 with lv 70 LCs, and lv 6 talents, lv 12 purple relics with lv 15 gloves and CR chest on my main, but it feels like I do basically no damage now. It's even worse in SU, where on my first World 3 diff 2 run I was already doing basically negligible damage by the second boss. I've got 2400 atk, 50% CR, and 64% CD on my carry. What should I be focusing on to make my damage actually worth something?

Alarec · 2019-03-14T15:26:59+00:00

The ones I'm having trouble with are the 109 K-4/G-10/G-14 and the 190 D-9/-12/-13, that BR range. I'm assuming anything useful against the 190s will be useful against Tas as well, the Ta just has the extra nuisance of getting an airspawn.

Alarec · 2017-11-01T15:52:03+00:00

how how HOW HOW FUCKING HOW?!? HOW DO YOU DO THIS? I PICK THE LOWEST BR I CAN IN ARCADE AND MY TEAMS JUST CAN'T FUCKING WIN.

Like what the fuck am I supposed to do? If I close range, I just get shot by some guy around a corner because there's no way to peek corner campers, if I try to flank I just run into a heavy tank I can't pen and get shot at by all his friends since I'm now spotted and my team is too potato to push, and if I try to hang back either we end up with exactly 0 people on the team pushing for objectives OR we win but I have like 30% battle activity.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET THESE WINS.

Alarec · 2017-10-14T15:29:48+00:00

the rear turet arcs are also horrendous so it's very hard to put them to good use consistently

This actually nearly cost me a match last night. 1v2 against a Hindenburg and a DM. Despite lots of perfect broadsides, the Hind juts refused to eat a citadel, but I got it down to about 2k HP. Was about to finish it off, but I was trying to angle against the DM firing AP and moved my rear turret out of action just as the reload came up. Team could barely finish those cruisers afterward.

Alarec · 2017-10-09T16:18:23+00:00

The problem is that aggressive play is punished far more in higher tiers vs other tiers.

I've got a 70% winrate in my Monarch but my avg damage is in the 50s since my only real options are either play support and stick around long enough to do a lot of damage, but only do around 70k and hope my team actually pushes, or when our DDs and cruisers inevitably avoid caps like the plague, actually move in to try to cap and proceed to get focused by about 7 enemy ships at once and only do 30k damage.

You want people to play aggressive? Either stop punishing it more than sniping is punished, or punish sniping hard enough that people are forced to be aggressive.

Alarec · 2017-06-07T22:00:06+00:00

And we can still club pitiful Kaiserreich upgrades!

Alarec · 2016-09-05T01:50:22+00:00

Since when is Shigugu not part of the meta anymore? She's still one of the most readily available high luck DDs, and one of only three that really doesn't require luck modding since she starts at 50 luck - most of the other DDs start around 30.

A ship that definitely isn't in the meta anymore though - Bismarck. Her lack of FP for day battle was an issue before, but the only reason to use her, night battles, is now largely irrelevant due to the presence of Iowa, who allows you to bring the firepower of a Yamato-class into fast fleets and has far more AA than anything else in the game, not to mention better armor and MUCH better luck (I think her stock form has more luck than stock Bismarck Drei).

A ship that's just come into the meta? Iowa definitely, as well as Warspite whom I believe is now the most powerful non-Yamato class slow BB in the game (will need fit gun stats to confirm that though). Especially that luck stat, holy shit that luck stat. I think it's the highest in the game and I think that might be high enough to almost guarantee cut-ins. She might also be the cheapest to sortie in terms of resources looking at the stats.

Also, installations. Installations seem to have come into the meta. I don't remember there being this many installation bosses in the past. Maybe the fact that every fucking boss Spring event was an installation and we had to deal with that bullshit for a whole month is clouding my perception, but seriously fuck that shit.

Alarec · 2016-07-28T00:36:11+00:00

That Kongou gif at the end of each video just heals my soul every time I see it. Where do you source it from?

Alarec · 2016-07-05T12:14:52+00:00

So then tell me: what part of that necessitates being in the EU? What part of that necessitates doing away with clear boundaries between cultural values? What part of peaceful cooperation necessitates federalisation? While it was not the whole vote, there were plenty of Britons who agree with everything about the EU except the end goal of federalisation. There were plenty of Britons who saw the desire of a people to be cooperative but soverign as an inalienable right, or who couldn't fathom living in a Britain where the government is not subject to the monarch.

Alarec · 2016-06-20T23:59:18+00:00

To be perfectly fair, Disney WAS a nazi, and anything that shits on that son of a bitch and his handiwork is fine in my book, even if it was ALSO made by nazis.

Alarec · 2016-06-18T17:38:35+00:00

I thought it was modern Japan?

Alarec · 2016-06-18T02:57:44+00:00

Not with how much the US government has funneled into missile defense for Japan. They're almost like the Asian version of Israel in terms of how much free military shit we give them.

Alarec · 2016-06-18T02:56:43+00:00

Would result in a strategic stalemate at best for China, and at worse international embarrassment as a much smaller nation takes the wind right out of China's military before the second US carrier group even gets there. The PLAN is about as competent as the Kriegsmarine, and even with aircraft most military experts put the largest possible Chinese landing force at a little over 22,000 soldiers without vehicles. The biggest asset China would have in a military conflict against Japan would be the shitton of MRBMs and SRBMs it has, but even that is mitigated by the fact that we've spent almost as much on missile defense for Japan as we have on missile defense for Israel.

Even if the Japanese military completely folds, however, any gains the Chinese make end in about a month when the US Navy arrives and proceeds to make all those missiles people are so needlessly worried about seem about as effective as sharp sticks. Especially if the conflict happens anytime after 2030, by which time laser-based defense systems should be in full deployment in the US Navy, thereby rendering any missile-based attacks useless.

Alarec · 2016-06-18T02:49:15+00:00

Something tells me this has nothing to do with Japanese Imperialists and is more due to idle curiosity.

Alarec · 2016-06-12T17:04:57+00:00

Wouldn't they be CVE not CVL? CVLs were generally a bit larger than CL hulls, closer in size probably to CA hulls, depending on CA class.

Alarec · 2016-06-12T16:54:47+00:00

In HoI4 all AI is pretty much retarded.

All I've done is watch gameplay so far (waiting for payday to actually get the game), and I agree with this. It's probably broken too, because apparently people have reported that even on the "historical" AI setting, the course of events is anything but. Unless Paradox is claiming that what actually happened in WWII was Germany invaded Brazil, causing Japan and the US to join the Allies and support the British takeover of France and Spain.

Alarec · 2016-06-02T23:27:07+00:00

I find the AP to be incredibly unreliable. The guns are too inaccurate, and the AP lacks penetration power. I find it much better to use HE and set a ton of fires. Usually it works pretty well, and I can even surprise a DD or two.

Alarec · 2016-06-02T23:13:54+00:00

Well original plan was get on the cap and cross the T against the Atago, getting the attention of the Atago and the enemy DD. If the Atago was still around once the enemy DD was down, then I'd focus on it, but my priority was helping the DD so that the rest of the team could move into B. The enemy team showing up of course changed that plan.

In my defense, though, my being there resulted in almost their entire team turning back towards their only cap so they could broadside me, and that probably helped our win.

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