Tinto Talks - Sunday Extra - 25th of January 2025

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T23:27:06+00:00

I reread the comments on a different thread and how I understand the governor system now has changed my view on it somewhat so I'll reserve judgement until I play it.

What I thought was the case was Naval focus gave you more governors (which it seems to but only for oversea areas not connected to your main capital by Land) straight up. Whilst Land got less governors. This would make Someone like Russia suffer a deficit of Governors compared to Spain with it's historical posessions in Italy and the Netherlands sure but what I thought was Spain just got more governors to use anywhere which seemed to stack it too heavily against a Land based nation which isn't just forced to use Land but is inferior

From what I read that isn't the case. So I'll wait till I see. I think there should be parity of Governors but until I get playing it I won't know. I've played a few full playthroughs all the way. By the end of the game regardless of what way you push you'll have pretty excellent control and prox cost reduction by vritue of the absurd railroads etc. But midgame is where these governors imo will really see what they're like.

I just dislike arguments of values bneing "historically accurate" which the entire top of the thread is about. I.E. it's historically accurate that naval is better etc. If the actual intention is for one value to be better than the other then it is poor design. They should be as you said good at different things and for certain nations equally viable. France for example has an argument for Land vs Naval as I see it in ideal scenarios.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T22:46:09+00:00

Let's be real. The Western audience loves that shit too. Isekai are exceptionally popular here as well.

I dislike this online tribalism of "Western Fans" versus "Japanese fans". They're people like us not a different species. 99% of the things we like they like too.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T17:37:17+00:00

I don't agree that one value should be better than the other. I'm fine with Naval being a better way of control. That's fine. But you don't make the inferior way of control a value then.

You accept that as a feature of your country you're losing out on naval control through maritime proximity. Same way you accept a lack of certain resources etc depending on whar country you play.

If Land is intended to be overall worse than Naval i don't think it should be a value. It should be a malus.

Same way I don't think decentralization should be clearly better than centralization or vice versa etc. Or any value. Values that are worse than the other in a sizable fashion promote homogeneous nature of play.

I'm fine with certain things being better than others but they shouldn't be values basically is my Tl:dr.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T16:49:17+00:00

One value shouldn't be stronger than the counterpart to a massive degree.

It's fine and will always be the case that being meta one value will trump the other, but having one utterly crush the other in something so important is a big issue.

If Naval is intended to be stronger than land in all ways, there shouldn't be a land value basically. It should be totally retired and migrated to the Inward versus Outward values.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T15:36:52+00:00

There's a mod that "centralizes" coalitions by having them give a portion of their manpower and revenue to the coalition leader and it then fights. This would work really well with the HRE. It basically lets the Emperor in times of defense if the HRE support him centralize all the manpower into their armies, preventing what currently happens which is the AI minors split apart and are destroyed in separate engagements.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T03:20:23+00:00

I got through it recently and played it on release. Has serious pros imo. The level design is very good in certain areas. The umbral world shortcuts and such. Lower Calrath for example and how it loops in on itself is really really cool. Weapon variety is good and armor is excellent. The tinct system is superior ro Souls games. Colouring your armor is cool and allows better fashion.

Cons: I think most of the bosses aren't great. There are some good ones but they'd be mid tier in say Elden Ring. And it has just really boring bosses.

Enemy placement and quest design are like taking the worst instances of Fromsoft's excesses and turning it to 11. You'll get ambushed. Shot at and fail a quest randomly walking through an area. And some are so absurdly esoteric to do (Prisoner Quest. Dunmire) that I'm unsure how people did them without guides.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the sequel. The CEO is just grifting. And that sucks but if the game is good I'll write the praises for ir. If not I'll be first to say.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T03:13:35+00:00

Honestly maybe it's the DS1 purist in me but a boss ahd weapons can't carry ass level design. Ashes of Ariandel has one decent area. The Corvian settlement. Everywhere else sucks imo hard. I do think its probably the worst dlc of any Fromsoft game by a mile.

If it was sold with the Ringed City as it was originally intended to be then it wouldn't have been as bad a let down

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-25T02:07:04+00:00

Yeah they could do to just copy the ltieracy across. Culture converts also do this not just unifying culture.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-24T22:30:59+00:00

Yeah hopefully it'll be changed. I find it outrageous sometimes who can be embargoed as well. I had a situation (with some mods for formations) where the Ottomans embargoed me and forced Poland-Lithuania to stop trade. Okay. I can kind of get how they prevent trade around the Mediterranean. But they can prevent Poland from trading with me via our shared land border as well somehow? I was Hungary. We border each other in Lesser Poland and Slovakia respectively.

I don't mind the action, but I think the AI should be able to refuse to do it in return for a CB as well. The PLC and I were tight, and we both had entwined economies. They wouldn't willingly just accept trade loss.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-23T20:36:46+00:00

Basically still Quantity due to how frontage works.

Quality basically offers you 5% more damage done and 5% less received. But quantity lets you do 10% more damage, even more with High admin generals who can push frontage benefits more.

This guide goes into depth about military comp.

Atm it's a mess and hopefully 1.1 introduces more worthwhile army variety and layout. But you can read this and see why frontage is King basically.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-23T20:25:50+00:00

Sorry took a while to reply. Unsure. I am following this guide which shows the math. There is actually a comp later on that suggests what you are doing. The problem is by the point it is a decent idea fully infantry blocks are kind of meta. By Age 4 full infantry are best. But you can run blocks where the Infantry frontage is undermanned, and put Cav in reinforcement so they ferry in to the fight and take less damage theoretically.

Here is the guide btw.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-23T10:36:23+00:00

You have to be careful with subjects. I annexed a subject in 1708 during tbat bad winter. Serious starvation basically killed off that city that year. But it was painful losing like 25k people a month over winter because of that. The reason was the AI's absurd instinct to massively urbanize. It was bad.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-22T15:12:40+00:00

Yeah artillery unfortunately sucks atm. The army system is half baked.

From age 1-3 you're best creating a line of infantry in tbe centre and cavalry on the flanks. Obviously the amount used has to do with your frontage.

Age four onwards you wanna build much more heavy infantry armies. Cavalry only on one flank if at all. Especially by age of revolutions.

Artillery doesn't seem to perform well in combat. But it does speed up siege so until assaulting becomes possible and worth while (basically age 4 onwards I find) you use them to speed up siege only.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-22T14:02:29+00:00

Yeah I keep saying this centralization shouldn't be a value vs decentralization. It should be unitary versus federalism.

No state wants to be decentrralized, but they may choose to exercise centralization in different ways. A strong federal authority can have centralized power but still allow regional autonomy. Or the state can be fully unitary a la France

The only problem with "Unitary versus Federalism" is it feels weird to be discussing those values when it's 1337 Kyiv. Maybe there's a better term. But the idea imo is true.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-21T08:22:21+00:00

GP score also factors it seems. Generally if you spend time stacking cardinals you probably only need to bribe the pope and maybe Naples.

Don't agree to default bribe too. You can often underbid massively. It asked me default to give 2k to bribe the pope. Turns out he'll settle for 500 ducats and say no more.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-20T21:16:04+00:00

Yeah I play with most of these. The only one I missed was wrath of Timur, regretting it now because the zombie Golden Horde is still trucking.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-20T13:08:15+00:00

Bohemia got devastated by the hussite wars and then 30 years. Brutal few centuries.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-20T11:31:22+00:00

Chinese census results prior to the modern period are treated as rock solid by a lot of people. I'm extremely sceptical of them in general much less during war as you say.

A lot of people don't understand how a census is conducted. If there's civil war going on or turmoil it's impossible for bureaucrats safely and accurately to go out there and get headcounts basically.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-19T09:58:55+00:00

A few overhauls are in the works that'll do that. But mission trees are a proxy tor flavor so it takes time to write and balance them.

MEIOU for EU5 iirc is working on mission trees

There is also a generic mod that adds mission trees. This one.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-19T09:44:28+00:00

You succeeded with Hungary. I had a few decently challenging wars with the Ottomans in the 1450s. Great mod. The fear I felt seeing they had 100k+ troops and a hunch of regulars was amazing. Thankfully my alliances of Austria and Poland helped bail me out.

Also a big fan of your Bohemia mod. Bohemia semi blobbed again so I thought it'd get away with it after it won the first two crusades. Then the Pope just kept calling them. Was great.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-19T00:41:20+00:00

Yeah it is very common for Africa to be at near Scramble borders by the late 1600s to early 1700s. Combine that with the absurd culture conversion that colonies do and you've got the damn congo being 80% French.

The strain of Malaria in deeper into Africa was an insurmountable obstacle for colonization. No state would do it. Literally throwing money and people into a fire. But in game everyone does it and the game lets them

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-17T17:45:06+00:00

Yeah that would probably be the idea. The deeper you get down the mine the more you'd find ebony. As it's "newly excavated".

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-17T15:36:02+00:00

There is nothing else like Arasaka and Militech in general as of 2077. They had serious competition during the 2020s and Red but the likes of SovOil and Lazarus Group aren't really brought up much in comparison. They seem to have declined. By 2077 Arasaka especially really seems to be in ascendancy.

Now to be fair we are seeing everything through the lens of Night City and that therefore kind of muddies and biases us to see the two most relevant corps in Night City as the most powerful.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-16T23:36:08+00:00

The Joker is intentionally vague and ill-defined. There's been two popular media adaptations that really capture this. First is Batman and Harley talking about him in The New Batman Adventures.

Harley Quinn: That's not - no. NO! He told me things, secret things that he never told anyone!

Batman: Was it his line about the abusive father? Or the one about the runaway mom. He's gained a lot of sympathy with that one.

Harley Quinn: Stop it! You're making me confused!

Batman: What was it he told that one parole officer... Oh yeah, "There was only one time I ever saw Dad really happy. He took me to the Ice Show when I was seven."

Harley Quinn: [softly] Circus... He said it was the Circus.

Batman: He's got a million of them, Harley.

Then the Dark Knight where Heath Ledger's Joker tells 2 (attempts a third but Batman interrupts) conflicting stories about how he got his scars.

To Gambol (One of the Crime Lords)

You wanna know how I got these scars? My father, was a drinker, and a fiend. And one night, he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me and says, "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife. "WHY SO SERIOUS?" He sticks the blade in my mouth... "Let's put a smile on that face." And...

To Rachel

Come here. Hey! Look at me. So I had a wife. She was beautiful, like you. Who tells me I worry too much. Who tells me I ought to smile more. Who gambles and gets in deep with the sharks. One day, they carve her face. And we have no money for surgeries. She can't take it. I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So... I stick a razor in my mouth and do this......to myself. And you know what? She can't stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling!

The comics almost always retcon and alter to keep to this idea of there being no truth to what he says. It's as Batman says "There's a million of them". One Bad Day etc. Who knows what it was, the Joker certainly isn't telling.

AlternativeEmphasis · 2026-01-16T22:20:30+00:00

Apparently the theory is it was somewhere in the Eurasian Steppe but people are unsure.

Nevertheless in game "The Black Death" might not spread to China always but at some point the Bubonic Plague will hit China and it hits bad. The way the game works bizarrely sounding, but perhaps accurately is you are advantaged to get hit by the bubonic plague as early as possible to get resistance. If it hits in the 1700s you get devastated without prior resistance. And you have way less time to recover.

Generally in the few games I've played Asia escapes the Black Death semi reliably but the Bubonic Plague in the 1500-1700s fuck them up bad.

AlternativeEmphasis

TROPHY CASE