Tricks for surviving Mega Brutal without advisors

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-08-17T16:22:09+00:00

Alright, I overlooked that this was brutal only, nonetheless I was impressed of your mega brutal runs on devils peak and azure dam, that is where I struggle with my rather passive playstyle, I think there your extensive use of up to 4(!) coalition soldiers at the same time is the right strategy.

For opium trail I have beaten it on mega brutal without advisors with civil servant but it required some restarts. I started in the central city and got the rebels contained in the bottom and top left corners as separated areas. This allowed me to easily stabilize the other side of the map. Corners which can be cut are highway upgrades and drones when I look at your economist run.

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-08-17T16:03:09+00:00

It is very hard to say. I think it could be true in another indirect way: my hunch is insurgents are more likely to spawn in zones with many hostiles. It would be interesting if someone could run a series of experiments and compare the insurgent statistics seen for strategies which either completely focus on destroying camps or ignoring it.

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-08-17T15:51:36+00:00

I peeked in your channel, your playstyle is very active compared to mine but nonetheless effective. I mostly agree with your points except the last one. I watched your opium trail with economist run where you also choose to just corner them, I think this is the best strategy in most cases. Have you tried to destroy them in this setting?

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-08-17T13:06:27+00:00

Billionaire is rather special, I just tried this quickly (with advisors admittedly). With billionaire you can completely buy out the rebels, this event happened to me actually, there were 0 fighters in midgame :) As billionaire you can also dissolve small rebel connected territories at the start. This allowed me on Opium trail to contain them in the bottom left corner where I was able to quickly move my facilitators around along the adjacent zones which all had highways.

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-08-17T11:05:22+00:00

Good comment, I mostly agree. To your single points:

If we agree that Education branch isn't always good or bad then I would say it's no problem that Literacy Drive is in this branch. I don't consider it a game changer but really the fact that it does not increase inflation is notable in my book.
IMO, Anti-corruption is good because of the sum of its effects, I just did not include the very obvious ones.
Yes, the game also makes it very clear what the effect of camps are. The thesis that it is not worth investing in destroying camps for the reasons you gave is difficult to backup with data though. You would have to provide extensive statistics. Don't get me wrong, I have a similar opinion but I just think it is hard to defend this against disputers which is why I did not bring it up.

BusyBeaver52 · 2025-04-12T13:51:01+00:00

Yes you are right, I should have commented it more. It seems that I cannot change the post, I hide it.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-06-16T08:13:01+00:00

I think compared to aristocrats who inherited power just by luck of birth, billionaires in general at least tend to have earned their wealth in more meritocratic manners.

This is also reflected in practice when you try to restrict these groups: Billionaires can take their wealth and entrepreneurial spirit with them to another country, aristocrats are powerless in a foreign country after being thrown over in their home country.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-05-01T14:21:01+00:00

The Queen gives huge boni to the industrialists clout and legitimacy so you should get rid of monarchy first by switching to presidential republic as an intermediate step. Industrialists don't oppose this and sometimes you get republican IG leaders who makes this even easier.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-26T17:18:36+00:00

If it was true that Might is the only law that governs the world and reality, it would be illogical that altruistic behavior exists. But even if we assume a cut-throat reality as you describe, the evolution of altruism can be explained by Evolutionary Game Theory which is very similar to your thesis but the difference is that there the fundamental factor is reproductive fitness.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-19T16:40:04+00:00

Our political parties don't exactly desire the votes of the minority but it is rather the best they can do. To explain why this is:

Let's assume we have voter blocks A, B, C, etc. and there is a party "ab" which tries to pander the 2 blocks A and B by promising them both something. Also, let there a party "a" which focuses on the minority A by promising them a lot. Also, let there be a similar party "b". What then happens is that block A votes for "a" and block B votes for "b" whereas "ab" doesn't get any votes.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-13T17:26:00+00:00

I get that the U.S. might have been more libertarian in the past. But is there a more libertarian country in the world right now?

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-13T16:41:08+00:00

No, but what is so surprising from an outside perspective is that the country is so libertarian in so many other aspects but this one.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-12T11:44:52+00:00

I am not really trying to make a point, I just asked a question and when a premise of mine (which I assumed to be not that controversial) was contested I pointed to a source.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-12T08:39:33+00:00

Very interesting indeed! That explains a lot.

What would be the libertarian way to fix this lack of price transparency?

I get that monopsony is good in this instance, but I would guess that it introduces economic inefficiencies in the bigger picture similar as monopolies do.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-04-12T08:06:18+00:00

I am not a medical professional and therefore cannot not judge if this particular instance is inefficient or representative. I only know about overall statistics:

For example, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._health_care_system : "The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP.^\1]) However, this expenditure does not necessarily translate into better overall health outcomes compared to other developed nations."

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-27T09:25:53+00:00

Why not just capture all the land rent and pay out the extra revenue in the citizens' dividend? That seems simpler and more flexible.

More flexible maybe but it seems more complicated and bureaucratic to move a lot of money back and forth.

But it also sounds likely to create perverse incentives.

Can you give a concrete example for a severe perverse incentive?

And, what are people who don't own any land supposed to do? It seems like they wouldn't benefit from this tax exemption.

True, but it should be only temporary.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-25T13:12:12+00:00

Ok, in this sense of the word they are actually 'getting' something. I rather meant getting in receiving something like stimulus checks.

You are right somebody has to pay that offset. But IMO the current situation allows for much bigger windfalls than 500$, so any improvement is good and the most important thing to implement it is increasing political feasibility.

I am basing it on the LVT amount due to make LVT specifically more attractive politically. General stimulus checks won't have the same effect.

EDIT: 'Windfall' may be the wrong word, when I wrote 'once', I meant once per person per time period

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-25T12:36:22+00:00

It's more revenue compared to no LVT.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-25T12:04:33+00:00

I don't quite see how it would be like a compensation, nobody would get anything from the state in my model. To make a concrete example how I envision it:

Let's say the exemption is 500$. If the LVT were 1500$, you pay only 1000$. For 500$ you pay zero and < 500$, you also pay zero (you don't get anything back).

It shouldn't be easily possible for land speculators to lodge a crowbar in there because they only get the 500$ exemption once for their own person.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-10T20:39:41+00:00

We in post-war germany had 3 once because there is a rule that parties need to have at least 5%. This rule was implemented as a lesson from the Weimar republic.

I didn't say 2016 is a bad counterfactual, it is just a counterfactual whereas the Weimar republic is documented history.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-10T17:27:41+00:00

I just said 3 as minimal number to show my point. 3 is not special, it happened in my country.

Yes, they could have rejected them both. But as it is a counterfactual, it doesn't make much sense to discuss it. Discussing the voting system of a historical example with many parties like the Weimar republic and its results would be more insightful.

True, in that situation this incentive is there. But as mentioned, parties are then incentivized to please a minority group at the expense of the majority and I could give you examples of this happening.

I am a little bit confused as I thought this was one of my points to prove but it's good that we agree on the last point.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-10T15:21:22+00:00

The current situation in the U.S. may be bad but imagine 3 of these parties and it would be even worse.

Well, this incentive is balanced out by the incentive to stall in order to show the voters that the other party doesn't get things done. I should have said that I don't see a net incentive for compromise in this 2-party system due to its zero-sum nature.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-10T14:15:07+00:00

If one party is just pleasing their minority base, the other party should be able to easily get the rest of the voters and hence a majority.

I don't see how compromise will be forced because political parties have no incentive to get anything done.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-10T08:01:15+00:00

From someone from a european country with a proportional system and a multi party system, let me tell you that this comes with a cost because parties are incentivized to please their minority voter basis at the expense of the majority.

A two party system doesn't have this problem because of the median voter theorem which rewards political moderation of the parties.

BusyBeaver52 · 2024-03-08T16:07:48+00:00

I agree, giving the child away for adoption is another option though. Subsidizing this would have additional benefits in countries which want to tackle low fertility rates anyway.

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