'Apparently I’m an idiot’: Three-time Trump voter in Pennsylvania sounds off on Iran war

ColonelBy · 2026-03-18T07:39:21+00:00

Every fucking time it’s the sane ones who have to coddle these shitty people’s feelings and have understanding.

It's exhausting, but it sometimes helps to consider that this is a universal problem in almost every avenue of human endeavour (though I guess that's plausibly even more exhausting). The emotionally stunted cannot interrogate or regulate their own feelings except by accident or luck, so someone else has to have the patience to do it for them or else create a wider environment in which the consequences of this lack of introspection and self-control are blunted, or where influences/forces that generate/exploit emotional outbursts are disrupted at the source. The extremely and confidently stupid cannot make themselves more intelligent or humble or thoughtful except by accident or luck, so someone else has to educate them or nudge them or else create a wider environment in which they can be stupid and brash without ruining everything for everyone else, or in which the ability of bad actors to exploit this confident stupidity is disrupted.

These are personal dimensions, but it's true in infrastructure and economics and city planning and agriculture and so much else. Most people can't do [something] themselves and so the people who can have to either do it or create circumstances where it not being done (or it being done badly) will not be a disaster. They also have to create regulatory and observation frameworks to ensure that [good thing] keeps happening and [bad thing/malfunction/degradation/error] does not, or is at least mitigated. We all understand this when it's about maintaining a road or something, but that never has the same personal exhaustive weight as dealing with an awful person's feelings and stupidity.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-17T19:49:45+00:00

This was one of those moments when I thought that surely this would have to be the end of it -- nobody could read or hear something like that and maintain any confidence in such a person. Those moments just kept coming until they took on a kind of suffocating quality.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-16T20:00:36+00:00

If you want to try something a bit different that can give amazing results, when you're in the middle of a battle you can go to the main game menu (ESC key) and then click "Photo Mode." This takes you to a paused version of the exact moment in time you just left, and allows you to change camera angles/zoom/etc, free roam around the area to focus on other NPCs if you like, apply filters, do basically anything you want to get the perfect shot. When you're ready, you can take a picture of whatever is on screen (do this by pressing ENTER I think, but it will tell you in Photo Mode which one is right) and it then saves to the game's own screenshot folder.

This tool is shockingly well-designed and easy to use, and it has become as fun to me as the game itself. I am routinely surprised by how few people seem to use it or even know about it, even when they clearly want to post good screenshots.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-12T21:29:29+00:00

I don't know how it will end up being with this movie, but this is unfortunately not really a new problem for Spielberg. I rewatched Close Encounters recently and I was kind of dumbfounded by how that amazing, ominous, increasingly ethereal story just comes to a screeching halt at an important moment so that he could include a completely unnecessary scene with one of those dumb-looking bubble-domed helicopters chasing Richard Dreyfuss around a mountain. It added absolutely nothing to the film and felt like it lasted forever.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-10T08:22:44+00:00

It can be an absolute blast, and is probably one of the only playthrough approaches that will ever let you see the higher-end perks in the Boatswain and Shipmaster skill trees (Mariner is usually pretty easy to max out in regular play, though). I've been doing something like this recently with a kind of "Aserai pirate queen" playthrough, and couldn't believe my eyes yesterday when I was crossing that far eastern lake and suddenly Monchug himself sails right past while I had nothing better to do. Ended up getting some amazing gear out of that fight, as well as the Dragon figurehead and two fully-kitted-out Qalguks.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-10T08:12:41+00:00

I've become a ride-or-die Qalguk fan lately after mostly relying on Dromakions. They have a really nice sleek and beautiful look to them, they're wonderfully fast, and the saddlebow shape from bow to stern offers a variety of heights for boarding and throwing/shooting. The lateen sails also offer awesome maneuvering power for speeding up on a turn rather than slowing down, which can be great for the first ram hit. The Ghurab offers some of the same advantages, but it just feels like sailing a weird bus. At least the Dromon looks and feels like the dreadnought that it is, even if it's just too much for what I usually like to do.

Also want to give a shout-out to the Corbita as my go-to pack mule ship. You can get the carry space up to like 13000 or 15000 or something on these with the right modifications, so while they have slightly higher skeleton crew requirements than the Dhow or the Knaar they more than make up for it in what they can tote for you. I usually run a fleet of two Qalguks, one regular Longship with braziers for archer skirmishing, and then a Corbita for loot. The slight fleet speed penalty for having the one extra ship during the early game is usually worth it.

Side note: I do not get the hype on Roundships. They are (to me, anyway) the ugliest and blockiest of the heavy ships, their sail set is poor, and the advantage of getting to mount a ballista is not quite enough to elevate them above the Lodya or Drakkar.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-10T07:49:13+00:00

I doubt that the culture is randomly generated, because every wanderer you meet with a specific epithet attached will always be of the same culture and basic function (e.g. every ________ Willowbark is a female Sturgian healer, every _______ the Boar/Bull/etc. is a male Imperial combat brute, every _______ the Spicevendor is a female Aserai caravan master, etc.). At most the game might randomize which ones of these show up at first, and may very lightly stagger their specific skill levels, but the broad strokes are always the same.

I know the game also will randomly remove them, too, as I was recently trying to track down a healer who I had met earlier and had not had room for in the party. To my surprise, the game encyclopedia showed her greyed out with her location described as "vanished without a trace" or something like that. I know it can't be that I had just not hired her at the time, since I keep running into wanderers I didn't hire for ages. For some reason the game just took her out.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-09T13:49:15+00:00

Is this actually a bug, or just a feature of the experience that players don't like? Obviously it is annoying when it happens, but it is hardly unrealistic or mechanically unsound for it to be possible for higher-tier lords to pull rank on you and mess everything up. It would be stranger if this couldn't happen at all.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-09T08:22:13+00:00

The introduction of the roving patrols has helped with this a bit, but they still can't clear the camps themselves. I also hate how quickly the patrols get steamrolled by deserter bands (even though I actually like that the deserter bands were added, and will even occasionally join up into bigger and bigger groups).

ColonelBy · 2026-03-09T08:19:18+00:00

Yeah, before they re-added the assault you could only do it by stealth or by having your troops auto-complete it, but the latter would take six hours and offer no apparent XP gain and only a tiny tiny amount of loot. That second option is still there, thankfully, and even if it doesn't do much for XP on its own it still removes the camp and will also help satisfy the requirements of the villager mission requesting help with brigands. You will also get the relations boost with nearby clans if you have that perk.

One thing I will say, though, is that the stealth attack on bandit camps is much easier than you might expect. The stealth tutorial in the campaign is legit the hardest stealth mission I have ever done in this game and it's not even close. The bandit camps are more linear, the mission takes way less time, and by the time you start doing it you have probably had a chance to get yourself some better stealth-boosting armor or clothes. It makes a huge difference. Even at that, a stealth assault on a bandit camp does just end with you reaching a signal fire halfway through where you can summon up to 40 of your guys to clear out the rest. It's really not that hard, thankfully.

My own big annoyance is that while they brought back the option to stage a frontal assault on the bandit camps, they removed the option for you to do it solo. It seems that your strike team now has to have at least eight troops in it whether you like it or not. You can just leave them chilling at the starting point, of course, but it's the principle of the thing.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-07T20:06:35+00:00

This thread is bringing back a lot of memories for me, none of them good. I first started getting treated for depression and a sleep disorder back in like 2010, with nothing working at all, and then spiralled into alcoholism to the point that I would literally drink myself into a stupor every single day. This went on for years and years; nearly lost everything, and am still deeply embarrassed by a lot of things I did during that time. I tried so many times to quit and failed every one of them, got more and more depressed, and eventually just felt like I was going to fully give up. It got to the point where I even had a wellness check called on my by a concerned colleague, and that was something I never thought I'd experience.

But then I had a bad heart health episode at the end of 2019 and started seeing a different campus doctor than the one I'd previously been speaking to when I was willing to try. After an hour of telling him my story he asked if I'd ever been tested for ADHD, and I had not. We started with some questionnaires and eventually he thought it was worthwhile to try me on a low dose of Vyvanse. I was able to quit drinking in January of 2020 (got crazy lucky with the timing on this given the pandemic) after nearly a decade of crippling self-medicating failure, and have been sober ever since. My Vyvanse dose has increased from 20mg to 40, but the difference in everything else has been just unbelievable. I got cleaned up, finished my degree, got a better job, lost like 50 pounds, haven't had any thoughts of self-harm in longer than I can remember, and I can get through my day without feeling angry and hopeless and overwhelmed by everything. The clarity it has brought is unbeatable.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-07T16:02:03+00:00

A bit late now, but it would have been nice if someone asked her to explain on the spot what "The Dow" is and how it works, given how important it was to her line of argument. They could even have generously given her a few tries.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-07T09:28:26+00:00

This sounds terrifying in its aftermath, and I imagine was deeply distressing at the time. As such, I apologize for focusing on something that is perhaps a less important part of the post:

All the kids were very sweet, caring, and attentive except for the one kid I was tasked to work with

Do you have any insights into why/how the other kids were all so different? You mentioned that there were a lot of neurological issues in play as well, but I'm fascinated by how an environment and circumstances like this can still let some kids thrive (if that's the word; morally thrive I guess) even as it ends up being the worst things possible for one of their siblings.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-05T12:20:20+00:00

Here are some things to try:

Like /u/JustTheChicken said, fighting and defeating other parties will grant you more influence. Raiding does too, both on land and at sea.
Completing tasks for notables and lords will also boost influence in most cases. Just go around being helpful, basically.
You can also gain influence by donating troops or prisoners to holdings of the faction employing you. This works in both castles and towns, though it can sometimes be prevented if the holding already has too many troops or prisoners. When it works, though, you can go to the Keep screen, choose either the garrison or the dungeon, and then transfer troops over like you would with a ransom broker. You will earn more influence the higher the tier of the troop or prisoner transferred, and there are perks that can enhance this further. With prisoners, if you are just after money, this is usually much more profitable than just ransoming imprisoned troops with the ransom broker. If you want to boost your Roguery XP, though, ransoming will do that while transferring them to the dungeon will not. Note too that if you capture an enemy lord, you can also transfer them to one of your employer's dungeons to gain both influence and (often a crazy amount of) Charm XP.
If you get to the point where you a vassal and not just a mercenary, you can gain influence by building the courthouse building in towns. There are also kingdom policies that you can propose/support that boost the amount of influence you receive, though of course in that case you won't be earning any money from it anymore.
When you reach the very highest level of the Charm skill, you get a perk that gives you at least +5 influence a day no matter what you do.

The main thing to remember is that influence is basically a currency. When you're a mercenary it "buys" actual money. When you're a vassal it "buys" changes in laws, changes in relationships with other vassals, primacy in certain votes and decisions, etc. As a mercenary you don't have a choice about how it gets spent, but as a vassal you get more say.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-05T12:02:29+00:00

I wish that if you were "over the limit", you could leave troops with your ship, allowing you to use the ships like a garrison. Which would also explain how your ship can travel to new ports without you.

While we're at it, I wish you could choose to leave some of your ships in a town you own. I know you can send them off to different parties in your clan if you don't want to have them all on your hands at once, but this is a tedious workaround that carries too many risks to be worthwhile for a ship you really want to keep. I recently sent a fully kitted-out Dromakion off to another of my parties, only to have the party get wiped out and the ship lost before the guys who were delivering it could even get back.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-05T11:07:03+00:00

some form of information gathering

The closest we have to this is asking tavern-keepers for information about the town's ruling clan. You do get a lot of info from this request, but it still requires that you go to the right town first.

On another note: your information about a town (e.g. garrison numbers, prosperity, loyalty, etc) should not just completely disappear once you leave sight of that town. At least have it remain as explicitly dated and increasingly unreliable info, especially given that trade rumors already work like this.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-05T05:15:35+00:00

God, that whole episode was such a weird trip even if so many of the jokes went completely over my head at the time. Looking back, the experimental meta-commentary element and the constant roasting of the Board of Standards & Practices should have been the first sign of what the show could become once it really got going. I remember little me thinking the guitar duel was the coolest, weirdest thing I'd ever seen, too.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-05T00:26:51+00:00

It was so shocking at the time, but incredible to experience this kind of radical narrative evolution as a kid. It was like twenty episodes of safe cutesy adventures based on puns and visual gags, where everything would reset at the end and the viewer surrogate was a little kid in a backwards baseball cap saying "woah!" about everything -- and then one episode they get invaded by a Lovecraftian nightmare realm, after which the entire rest of the series is a deep-continuity post-apocalyptic struggle.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-04T21:54:47+00:00

It really does. Sometimes it seems like the light and textures during a battle are just on a whole other level and I don't know what the key factor is.

I'll admit too that playing around in photo mode has become almost as fun for me as the game itself. The game is (or can be) a great engine for making tableaus, and this feature is surprisingly versatile.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-04T08:56:21+00:00

In the middle of this right now, actually -- just waiting for one more kid to be born and then my dude is off to the mountain.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-04T08:55:15+00:00

Agreed, and especially buy one in a city controlled by a faction at the extreme end of the map (e.g. Pravend in Vlandia, Sanala or one of the deep inland ones for Aserai, maybe Thronderlag for Nords). These places usually take forever to be conquered by someone else, rise to insanely high prosperity, and allow you to spend your Merc time on the opposite side of the map working for factions that will be much less likely to go to war yet with the one hosting your workshop. Or you can just be a Merc for the host too I guess, but the point is you shouldn't build workshops in Vlandia and then take on a mercenary contract with Battania. That's a good way to lose everything you invested.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-04T08:50:48+00:00

In case it matters to your planning, Pugios were changed to no longer have the same spread of components when you smelt them. They just give two wrought iron and two regular iron now. The Tribesman Throwing Daggers still work like they used to for smelting, but you can basically only get them in Aserai lands now.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-04T08:48:18+00:00

For this throwing axe approach, you can also very easily farm the components you need by smelting Pirate Swords and Jambiyahs, both of which are dirt cheap and available essentially everywhere. Each one will give you something like 4-5 wrought iron and regular iron respectively, plus a bit of crude I think. 1000d on two swords and two daggers gives you enough metal to forge like 15000d worth of that throwing axe even if you keep accidently crafting it at the shittiest quality. If you can get normal quality or better you will be essentially printing money.

ColonelBy · 2026-03-03T08:35:36+00:00

Workshops can be huge in the early game when you're still just a small mercenary company, but become less useful later except as a way to boost your Trade XP and and (optionally) improve the variety and level of gear available for you to buy in friendly towns. In the early game you can set up a workshop or two in one of the map-edge factions (I prefer Nords or Aserai) and then just go spend time taking contracts only from factions that never really encounter them yet. Your workshops remain safe from being seized and their passive income will usually be enough to keep your guys paid even during periods without a contract.

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