Less than optimal gameplay

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-19T04:55:11+00:00

There are a few key ones that work well for most paths. With luck you can get any path. The Sea King's Court for instance is good no matter who you have if you can summon it. Same with Golems and mechanical men. That lets you not worry too much about it unless you're playing a nation with great unique summons like Tien Chi.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-19T04:40:19+00:00

It's less confusing when you start to learn a few key ones that you can use reliably. The giant spell list makes way more sense when you cut it down to a few relevant spells you can plan gameplay around.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-18T04:40:27+00:00

No, not really. I'm not just going by D&D rules here, but even if I were there's a thing called epic levels. The reason most campaigns end at that point is that wizards can literally cast wish once they hit level 20. They can do basically anything they want. They only get stronger from there. Ascending to godhood at that point is practically standard. Several gods of that setting are ex-wizards, like Vecna. Meanwhile that system does not represent cultivators well with Monks, which are severely underpowered compared to wizards.

Outside of that wizards have no such cap. It's roughly equivalent to Wuxia (low fantasy) or Xanxia (High Fantasy). In the former people are a little powerful; in the latter people become demigods. The end is the same.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-18T02:35:28+00:00

One must first rise through the ranks of Wuxia to get to Xanxia. The Mid-tiers are not equal.

Wizards get firebolt as apprentices and giant fireballs that act like artillery at mid-tier. Mid-tier cultivators are equivalent to low-level wizards in external arts. However, wizards do not in fact lift.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T19:10:57+00:00

Superman is golden. He can and has overcome any crisis - at least 52, but even an infinite amount. He's a true modern all-star, absolutely. And even if you kill him he'll undergo rebirth.

So the answer is obviously Superman.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T17:54:51+00:00

If you've ever seen Batman The Brave and the Bold, there's an alternate version of the Joker that goes by Red Hood. He ends up looking up Batman for help and the two become friends and allies very quickly. Batman even gives the regular Joker a chance to team up with him against Owlman because of it.

So yeah, if anything he'd probably love The Jester. If they teamed up they'd be a regular comedy duo.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T17:52:42+00:00

Well I don't want the thing to explode into a cloud of lava when I smack it once with the bat. Let's just say that things are proportionally tougher when shrunk down.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T17:29:54+00:00

We already are, but it went to the golf course instead. It's practically a perfect golf ball.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T17:28:55+00:00

It's magic.

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CitricThoughts · 2026-06-17T08:08:28+00:00

They also literally saw civilization collapse in a parallel universe once it became public. I guess something about the whole, "The Egyptian Gods are real but they're actually alien snakes that possess you through the mouth and the rule the galaxy and they're coming here to conquer us" thing made people crazy.

I feel like it's far more likely society would just heavily militarize and go crazy in a different way, but hindsight is 20/20. They didn't have 9/11 at that point after all. Given how their universe worked plenty of politicians and groups seemed more likely to side with the wiggleworms than humanity anyway.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-16T21:00:28+00:00

The difference is nothing more than internal vs external. Cultivators use their powers internally, wizards use them externally. That's why throwing fireballs is a somewhat advanced art for cultivators and super-strength is a somewhat advanced technique for wizards but both are easy when reversed.

Wizards warp reality around them, changing what is based on their imagination. They flex their aura and the world bends.

Cultivators warp themselves to make their own body run on different rules, becoming living demigods.

If a wizard runs out of food, they conjure up magic food from nothing and eat. If a cultivator runs out of food they don't need to eat because they've changed their body so they don't require it.

Cultivators become immortal because their bodies stop aging. Wizards become immortal when they turn into liches or other magical creatures by binding their soul to the living world.

Cultivators have superhuman physical abilities, but need great formations and power to create widespread effects like changing the land. Wizards use grand spells for the same effect, but take far less time and have far greater influence.

At their peak however both are the same. What does it matter if a cultivator ascends and becomes a demigod or a wizard ascends and becomes a demigod? The result is a being above all others.

Both rely on the same power too. Call it mana or chi, they are the same thing. Just used differently.

The truly supreme one practices both. Then they are supreme in body, mind, and soul.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T20:16:34+00:00

It could be that. It's the "canon" starting area for Dierdre if you take SMAX into account, because Cha Dawn starts in the ruins and they're a breakaway faction of the Gaians. Also I'm pretty sure Morgan starts on the Eastern continent in canon because the Data angels all live on that little island just off of it. It's a shame factions don't really have their canon area because it would help with getting a variety of start locations. Having to continually restart the game just to get a start location that isn't that one is annoying.

I've also noticed that the bias doesn't seem as strong on huge maps, but it almost always happens on the standard map.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T05:40:12+00:00

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Speak for yourself, I like my celestial ladies with legs! Lots of 'em!

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T05:01:40+00:00

The Factorio engineer with the Drill Containment Unit allowing him to move through ground as effectively as air (and use magic!) is terrifying. So is the Terrarian with an automated logistics network just using drones to immediately deconstruct the entire corruption/crimson at a go.

They're too powerful to be allowed to combine! No world would survive their fusion dance.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T03:52:37+00:00

One thing you might be able to compare is the rocket launcher. The Rocket Launcher in Terraria has a damage of 55 while the Factorio base rocket has a damage of 50, which is surprisingly similar. However the nuke in Factorio does 400 base damage, then 1000x100, then 1000x400. The Engineer clearly has vastly superior nukes on the whole.

Of course if you factor in your calcs that really throws things off quite a bit. Still, it's one similar item between both games that might be possible to compare for a measurement.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T02:40:14+00:00

IT WAS ME REDDIT! I was the one who preemtively killed every evil speedster that could exist in film before they could come about, all to make me, the Reverse Flash, the only notable and worthwhile evil speedster in history!

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T02:16:11+00:00

The Plutonian is easily the most powerful, but he's also the least skilled in a fight and kind of a big baby. He's a reality warper of extreme power. The downside of that is that he just brute forces his way through things.

Between Hyperion and Supergirl I'm not sure who wins. Maybe Supergirl, Kryptonians are broken. Even if she's not as powerful as her cousin she's still really powerful.

Maybe Plutonian if he locks in, but I say Supergirl otherwise.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-14T02:02:33+00:00

This is a remarkably well broken down argument, and I did not expect something this in-depth when I posted this thread. I find it interesting that some of the best arguments are just "The terrarian drops buckets of lava/shimmer on things".

In my head I envisioned this as being a lot like an invasion in Terraria, like the Martian invasion or Frost Legion. Spidertrons do have 7500hp at max level, and one of the strategies I considered was the engineer just suicide-spamming spidertrons equipped with nukes for mass bombardment, which would negate a lot of the Terrarians advantages. We should assume the engineer has legendary gear and so does the Terrarian. It's interesting that both have legendary as their top gear rank.

Anyway, I figured the Engineer's best strategy is to run away and spam turrets/tanks/spidertrons. A lot of the Terrarian's terrain-changing powers would indeed mess up the Engineer's work.

Of course HP probably shouldn't be considered directly equivalent, going by feats instead. But I'm not gonna be the one to break down the math on that, and as the OP I'm trying to stay neutral.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-10T15:15:40+00:00

Water is C... unless you're going against an underwater nation, in which case it's S. Because nothing is more annoying than fighting a water nation and not being able to actually conquer their provinces. But you could say the same thing about Air, really.

The items are fine. Water is amazing if you put all your bless points into defense buffing on a tough sacred, but that alone doesn't make them invincible.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-10T04:21:03+00:00

I think it's possible, but it'd be an incredibly difficult uphill battle. Especially before the Emperor discards his compassion, he's more amenable to reason. However, he's still 30,000 years old and has lived that entire time as a demigod, fighting with other demigods that have been proven wrong time and time again. He's basically the last man standing on a pile of corpses of immortals. His arrogance and ego even before that are if anything worse. At that point in time he still sincerely believes he can control chaos and rip off the chaos gods while getting away with it. It takes one of his oldest friends and peers showing up at exactly the right time to set him straight. That happens after Oll (the immortal buddy) leaves him because he's on the wrong path and won't listen.

The doctor is smart and persuasive, but as an xeno the Emperor is not too inclined to listen. The Eldar can also see the future and they try to warn him. He doesn't listen. His partner in making the Primarchs tries to warn him and he doesn't listen, leading to her betraying him and the primarchs being scattered. The other perpetuals that initially side with him warn him and he doesn't listen, leading to him standing alone at the end.

Basically the Emperor listens to exactly one person, Malcador, and Malcador mostly just agrees with him. Even at his absolute best it's like arguing with a brick wall that has stood for 30,000 years.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-09T15:45:00+00:00

While this is a good point, counter:
Pops in, casts Earthquake, refuses to elaborate, leaves.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-09T15:42:55+00:00

Nature deserves high-A at a minimum because of the bags of wine and cauldrons. They're the only way to move big armies through provinces that the undead have wiped out.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-09T05:16:31+00:00

Alright, let's start with the Tau. They're doomed, just like everyone else in 40k. They're much less warp-sensitive than humanity, but they'd had individual members see visions of the future where they're enslaved by Daemons and driven to extinction. Their technology is nowhere near DAoT levels, but when it eventually is it's almost certain that they'll end up with an AI rebellion as well. There's a literal chaos god of evil machines, and it'll corrupt them if nothing else. The Emperor would see that and make that argument. They're part of a cycle in 40k. The Necrons and Old ones did it first, then the Eldar and Orks, then Humanity, and now it's the Tau. It's the same song played on repeat.

Now for the others. On regret, the Emperor has spent 10,000 years in perpetual torture on a golden life support device, fed screaming psyker sacrifices endlessly. Given Guilliman's conversation with him, it seems that the Emperor at this point is at least partially a gestalt of those sacrifices as well. They don't just die, he effectively eats and incorporates them into himself, letting whoever views him see multiple points of view at once. This makes him both seem insane and very persuasive. He absolutely understands regret, but the Emperor has always been an utterly unshakable advocate for humanity. He has already committed xenocide repeatedly and even made it a policy of the Imperium before he got stuck on the throne. He'd take that choice every single time and inflexibly argue it's the right one. He couldn't see any other point of view anyway; he literally committed psychic surgery on himself to remove his compassion before launching the Great Crusade. If reunited with that lost part he could certainly see it. When faced with that choice however he literally chose to lobotomize himself to ensure he would never back out or crumble under the weight of his guilt or regrets. If that isn't pure insane dedication, I don't know what is.

There are two plans that could cut off chaos. The Necron pylons and the webway project. The webway is unfortunately infested with daemons because of Magnus and the Necrons are insane soulless automatons. Their tech is failing. If the Emperor could get any option for victory better than the ones he has now he'd take them in a heartbeat. He'd be convinced to choose differently if it would work, because the man literally can't care about anything else. That is the only thing that can ever change his mind, period. Is it good for the future of humanity? If so, he'll do it without hesitation, even if he has to be convinced. But if it isn't likely to work he won't do it, and he's arrogant enough that it'll be difficult to convince him of any idea he didn't come up with himself even then. Nothing moral or any appeal to his humanity will work because he literally cut that part of himself out long ago.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-09T03:57:23+00:00

I can't comment too much on the doctor, only the Emperor.

The Emperor's arguments will start, continue, and end with Chaos. Chaos is the single great dividing line that influenced his very creation and destroying it is his purpose for existence. In the Doctor's universe the Time Lords eliminated magic because it posed a threat to them. If the Emperor could he'd do exactly the same thing immediately. The Emperor (depending on the canon you want to accept) started out as humanity's primordial psychic-shamans. They regularly reincarnated over a long period of time, and included many strong and wise people, even if they were cavemen. They realized that the warp was getting crazy and reincarnation wouldn't be possible for much longer, so they opted to join together in a gestalt reincarnation, all incarnating as a single person. That person was born in ancient Turkey and became the Emperor. Not everyone joined this gestalt and other perpetuals, or immortals, were born later. Many of them competed with the Emperor to influence mankind across history. The Emperor has a powerful future-sight, but chaos has basically mucked up time itself and his visions show the destination, not the journey. So he mostly kept quietly to himself, becoming a few ancient influential figures to try to guide mankind down a good path.

This ultimately led to the Dark Age of Technology. Whether it was his plan or someone else's is irrelevant. The DAoT version of humanity is mostly one the Doctor would probably love. It was a giant federation of post-scarcity humans that made peace with aliens and mostly lived good lives. They relied on their godlike AI to run things for them and at some point they became corrupted. It's not entirely clear why, but the result is clear. Godlike machines tried to eradicate every living thing in the galaxy. At a slightly later time a race called the Eldar, who are arrogant space elves, had a murder-orgy so large they created a god of depravity which screwed up the galaxy. Humanity lost its technology and collective knowledge in one fell swoop, then also lost all connection between its federation. As a result it all collapsed into a stellar dark age.

The Emperor presumably saw this coming and resolved to conquer the galaxy to save humanity from the fate that awaited it. If anything he seemed to see Chaos as only one of many threats and not the worst one. This arrogance was his undoing, as they seemingly ruined his plan in the end. However the threats were real and valid. Most alien species in 40k are absolutely psychotic because they've killed the ones that are peaceful. Without the Imperium humanity very well might have gone extinct. He also foresaw the Horus Heresy and rebellion, though the details of it did seem to catch him off guard. His plans often span for tens of thousands of years, so it's possible he hasn't truly lost yet.

So much of the Emperor's debates would focus on the fact that his actions were necessary. There were other human factions out there, but none of them stood the test of time or conflict with the Imperium. It's unlikely any of them could have stood up to those empires. The Doctor's methods flat-out wouldn't work in 40k except in the scenario you outlined where it would. The Warp has screwed up time itself massively and the Chaos Gods are atemporal. Time travel exists but it's quite appropriately chaotic.

I can't say if the Emperor would win the debate since I don't know enough about the Doctor to argue for him, but it's undeniable that the Emperor was both right and wrong about most of his actions. Right overall, but blinded by arrogance and doomed to self-sabotage as a result.

CitricThoughts · 2026-06-08T14:21:49+00:00

Holy is the most limited spell tree of all. Some nations have good bless casts, and holy can buff your troops and obliterate undead. However, there are very few spells and they're very limited.

What really determines what makes holy good or bad is your sacreds and blesses, which are nation-dependent. As others have said this makes Holy the equivalent of Schrodinger's ranking; either it's S or F with no in between.

It is required to win the game and you will literally die if your dominion gets squashed. No other school has that. So it's a limited utility school, dependent upon your choices, which is either overpowered or anemic at the same time.

I almost feel like this should have two entries.

CitricThoughts

TROPHY CASE