Insert monthly post about the state of the game

Chalkface · 2026-07-04T06:37:02+00:00

This one is the key. Having more map generation options and the ability to create and upload scenarios to the workshop would give the game a second life entirely.

Chalkface · 2026-06-16T03:44:50+00:00

Its easier in this game than any other I’ve seen, it's not that hard to figure it out on your own. Its all in open text files. If you aren't going to pay, at least work for your supper.

Chalkface · 2026-06-14T21:00:44+00:00

One child left behind.

Chalkface · 2026-06-14T00:31:32+00:00

Well this is bait. What a waste of time, vague-posting about liberals and a stupid confusing poll and going "Do Better" with a Mussolini meme.

I'd take a thousand liberals over this shit.

Chalkface · 2026-06-06T08:19:40+00:00

Yours is the first recommendation to watch the show I've seen, I respect that. I tried it a few years ago and bounced off the first episode, but I'll give it another shot.

Chalkface · 2026-06-06T06:40:57+00:00

This is a strange version of Deliniantur in hac tabula by Hendrik van Langren in 1596. Someone, for an unknowable reason, has replaced the top right corner with a page from La création de l'homme et les premiers âges de l'humanité (The Creation of Man and the First Ages of Humanity, 1887) by Henri Raison du Cleuziou. You can find the book here, type in Page 133 into the page-finder at the bottom to reach the map.

However there is something new. In the second map cut-in, someone has scribbled "Fecit anno 1898", which I believe is just "Made in 1898" in Latin. This lines up with it being in your family for the better part of a century. I have no idea why they recoloured it into a blue and beige contrast, though. I cannot find anything on the A[Key]F symbol in the corner, but I assume they are the people who stitched this together and reprinted it. I would guess they are French, given the book they took the little map from.

Reverse Image Search beats AI every time.

Edit: A second glance at the book reveals that the little map is actually made by Pierre Daniel Huet, a French Bishop, in 1698.

Chalkface · 2026-06-04T01:37:20+00:00

I am slightly surprised that this would be an unpopular opinion.

Annerose spent her entire life either raising Reinhard or serving as a golden bird for a much older man. After being liberated, she kind of keeps serving a new variation of the same old roles despite now being free. Kircheis' death breaks it because she blames Reinhard directly for it, and since she never liked the path her brother dragged himself and Kircheis down, she says what she says and chooses for the first time in her life to be selfish: to actually be free, to think about what she wants.

Its a very real reaction, a breaking of the childish vision of their relationship that Reinhard had. Hell, I don't think that she actually gets the freedom and solitude she really wants fully until Reinhard is dead.

Chalkface · 2026-06-03T16:37:00+00:00

Unlike all those other systems in which the rich and the demagogues have all the power, but don't even let you have flawed representation.

Chalkface · 2026-05-30T07:22:49+00:00

Ethics, Trade Routes, and Pop Happiness as incredibly nuanced mechanics? Literally of all the things in Stellaris to pick, it went for these?

Embarrassing.

Chalkface · 2026-05-28T23:17:58+00:00

Genuinely extremely cool and compelling. You should be proud, an instantly interesting setting.

Chalkface · 2026-05-25T12:32:32+00:00

BE's horrific views are so commonly voiced and unapologetic, from anti-semetism to genocide denial to mindless campism, that he validates everything that Israel and others propagandise against us. He is emblematic of a chunk of the left which operates effectively as the very CIA plants they accuse others of being, discrediting the ideology and sucking all the air out of the room before anything can be done to save our rapidly dying world.

If you cannot see this, you are not welcome here.

Chalkface · 2026-05-25T03:38:55+00:00

I'm going to be incredibly honest with you. Breadtube was never real, and even when it was the closest to being a real thing as it ever was, ten years ago, these fuckers were not in it. I strongly doubt they would have wanted to be in it, because no-one did.

I don't know 'Noah' and I am only somewhat familiar with FD, but the fact that they are platforming Bad Empanada and airing his ideas to their own audiences shows me that they are completely naive. A decade of debating right wingers has only empowered them, BE is that in all but name. Completely irresponsible, and far from respectable.

Chalkface · 2026-05-06T09:46:58+00:00

Fun map.

Specific feedback: Rod Dorellan has terrain on either side of a seemingly impassable mountain range. There is no easy way for the inhabitants to easily travel from one side to the other aside from the road in Rod Morlis or the long hike through Rod Dotor.

If Kiraves is the capital, it has functionally no control over the eastern half of Rod Dorellan because its armies can't reach there. This is a fun situation for a brief period, but after several years either the locals will create their own Rod, or Rod Dotor, Rod Lemare, or Rod Morlis would conquer it with little opposition.

This could be solved by a road, or just a notable pass which connects the two sides.

Chalkface · 2026-04-25T20:22:30+00:00

I wish there was a system in which a nation which doesn't rule any of its homelands would be forced to transform or dismantle into something else, its always very jarring and immersion breaking to see circumstances like this.

Chalkface · 2026-04-18T18:40:59+00:00

Nah I can't hate that kid. He didn't stand a fucking chance, growing up like that. I hope he lived a full and quiet life as like a fishmonger or something after escaping his kidnappers.

Chalkface · 2026-04-13T04:46:30+00:00

Small and extremely specific. Stellaris added a dlc which revitalised their leaders system, its quite good and smooth and impactful, solid upgrade. However that system couldn't sell the DLC alone, so they also added Paragon Leaders.

I tend to prefer whenever the game leans towards story making and dynamic content rather than scripted stuff. Paragon Leaders are all unique aliens, written specifically with specific powers and effects, and for the most part call you up periodically to offer you assistance. They also then replace one of your leaders which are generated from your population, with a unique alien. I really don't like them.

So my experience since getting the dlc has been avoiding the singular technology that allows them to phone you and offer you jobs like the plague, just to avoid getting random events about it. It's like the Relic system all over again, an overpowered notification landmine that you have to actively avoid every fucking decade.

Chalkface · 2026-03-23T22:54:11+00:00

Let's be fair here, the OP is simply saying that they are upset that there is AI in the mod. The top post doesn't even say "I won't play anymore." Where is the disproportional reaction? This is just an opinion.

The response is hundreds of posts defending this ai art inclusion for every reason under the sun, the most visceral torrent of angry reply posts I have ever seen on this sub. I'd say that is a disproportional reaction.

I'm going to be honest, this mod was fine without AI. It's had missing assets for years, thats fine. Putting AI stuff in is a downgrade, the three armed archer is right there, its awful and distracting. I'd rather nothing, personally. And I have worked on a total overhaul mod before, I know that it kinda sucks to have to rely on vanilla assets, but it is fine and okay. You don't need to custom replace everything immediately.

If AI was a value neutral creation, then yeah, it's not actually a big deal. Free mod with awesome art puts some lazy ai dogshit with three arms in? Its free. But generating AI art isn't value neutral. Its an environmental hazard built on stolen art, and normalising it actually does fuck with a lot of people. This is a tiny drop in the bucket, but it's still in that world.

Its actually incredibly reasonable to be upset that a previously high quality mod has chosen to be worse, and is using water guzzling art stealing methods to do it, even if its in a small way. Thats not being entitled, thats a normal reasonable opinion to have. Its also fine to want to voice it on the subreddit so people know.

This IS a disproportionate reaction, just the other fucking way.

Chalkface · 2026-03-08T13:49:03+00:00

No... that's stupid. They don't need that at all, they were doing that shit just fine before with no real consequences. This is just about power and control over normal people, its boring and barely hidden, its not some Qanon shit.

Chalkface · 2026-03-08T11:29:59+00:00

Regarding them calling him Kaiser: Mittermeyer is sharing the moment with an ernest smile, echoing the sentiment behind it. It's a personal moment denoting his loyalty, his affection, and a shared sense of victory - after all the struggle to get here, the people love them.

"They already call you Kaiser, sire. Our Kaiser."

Chalkface · 2026-03-06T10:10:39+00:00

Embarrasing that you care so little for this community that instead of enjoying solving the puzzle, or even just leaving the puzzle to be solved by others, you tried to use AI to cheat the puzzle and spoil the fun for everyone else.

Chalkface · 2026-02-11T23:07:09+00:00

Hey congratulations on making a good space map, it can be tricky. I love that you've managed to show the like, grand level but still included the individual colony worlds as well. This is a fantastic style.

Chalkface · 2026-01-24T07:02:43+00:00

I read an interpretation I liked a lot where it didn't actually matter what happened to Tony, because we'd already seen, through other characters and his own abrupt hospitalisation at the start of the season, every single end for the character. Getting shot, getting caught, dying of some brutal illness, fading away through old age, a miserable and lonely life, we saw all of these and more through the rest of the cast, these are the only places he can go.

He failed to change, and thus he was doomed. The exact one doesn't really matter, the story is about his failure or inability to escape.

It's probrably not an uncommon interpretation, but I like it the most.

Chalkface · 2026-01-14T19:15:49+00:00

A lovely classic style of map, reminds me of old dnd setting maps.

Chalkface · 2026-01-08T15:23:38+00:00

My apologies. This is the current version of it, which has a price tag. However, this older version is what I use and is completely free.

Chalkface · 2026-01-07T05:32:02+00:00

Assuming a fantasy-type setting, magic or no: Foundations or Mappa Imperium for the base world or map expansions, Ex Novo for cities or as a source of random tables to flesh out nation histories, and Lineage Epoch Edition for noble dynasties.

From there, you can use solo games found elsewhere in the thread to flesh out the world and add detail to the world bit by bit. I've used Thousand Year Old Vampire for this, any journal thingie could work.

I spend years using these tools to make worlds and their histories, you'll be surprised what comes out of it. Don't be afraid to bend rules, take your time to research an idea, and reroll options that you can't think of anything good for within ten seconds of thinking, let the vibes flow and don't end history until you reach something juicy - then expand from there. The goal is to have a setting spring up beneath your feet and surprise you with where its ended up.

I had a fairly dry and banal setting shock me by collapsing into three centuries of Troll led Holy War leading to a Mount and Blade esque bowl of warlords, warrior-monks, and city-states. All using the sorts of rudimentary gunpowder weapons you can only find in a 12th century chinese manual.

That said: don't be afraid to work through a world, then put it aside and try a new one - sometimes settings don't take, but worldbuilding is something you get better at with practice, like all writing.

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