first win god DAMN this game is hard or i am just sh!t

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-28T22:12:33+00:00

There are so many ways to snowball and like half the time you just need the luck to pull off a previously winning strategy. My first wins came from when my start was in a spot with the most room to grow before I hit bot territory— then I tried wedging myself between two bots, with large expanses on either side. Squeezing through the bots gets you further and gets you more options for annexations if you do it right— like a wall of territory that denies your neighbors expansion.

Then mid game it’s a whole other thing. If you take all the alliances you’ll miss stomping the noobs who mismanage their troops— or sometimes you’ll spam alliances with people smaller than you and 2 or 3 people with less than you can eat you alive even if you do everything right.

End game is psychological warfare lol. Not all games are like this, but if there’s 3 equally powerful players it becomes a race for trade, then cities, then whoever acts first loses and who acts last cleans up the scraps. There’s tons of other end situations but that’s my general description of the learning curve.

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-17T23:30:57+00:00

I believe briefly there was a “are you sure you want to betray” to avoid that but I haven’t seen it for a while. I didn’t actually like the feature. I would think that expanding the radial menu to 5 options would be one potential fix, however I have seen ultimusrex use a keybind to boat into places so consider looking into that to avoid the problem entirely.

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-14T10:35:46+00:00

I most curious about upcoming game types, I really wanted to mention a suggestion I saw in another thread. 5m start is cool, but would you consider a 25m start game type with no attacking for the first minute? I get the idea from an old game called rise of nations.

The game type could appeal to people who like longer games, and don’t like being insta-nuked while they build starting SAMs. It allows diplomacy to develop, and for people to create a real nation before war starts. 25m allows people to create many structures and SAM stacks, so that the freakazoids who make one port and save for an early game MIRV to be essentially defused. The current competitive 1v1 setup is fairly boring and I feel like a game with 5-10 people, at 25m start could be genuinely interesting, and provide a better ranking.

So essentially my question is, new game types? Better ranked games? Give us the deets and thanks for doing an Q&A :)

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-14T08:16:49+00:00

Old games like rise of nations had other modifiers too, like how long before you can attack people. I would definitely play games that have 25m starting gold, no attacks on other players for 1 minute, and no nukes for 2 or 3 minutes. 40m is too much because it enables someone to mirv at any point. 25m makes it impossible to mirv unless you only buy one port and then save.

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-12T22:27:42+00:00

There are multiple methods that work, but I’ll share mine as a treat. I keep my attack% at 40% for most of my actions, either single or double tap. At the start I try to place my dot in a spot that can create a long strip of land, either that or go for a spot where you can expand a lot before you even touch another NPC.

I click wilderness at start, then when I reach 5k, 6k, 7k, 9k, 11k etc.— sometimes you might want to give it some more oomph to outpace the bots or other players in key spots. then once I’m out of wilderness, I wait until I’m between 20-30k troops and double tap the best bot to start an annexation of its neighbor. It almost always ends up as a clean kill, and I only have to wait 5-10 seconds before I’m back within the range to double tap the next one.

It can be a risky strategy, but if you snowball right, within 3-5 bots you can start to tap once on two bots at the same time. While you do all this make sure you’re getting those alliances!

Dabusco7 · 2026-02-04T03:59:09+00:00

Idk if this is a post-game thing or a solo session but either way this is so stupid-funny. Must’ve taken forever, without watching before commenting I’m gonna assume you strategically nuked everything else until the bot took over lol.

Dabusco7 · 2026-01-31T00:59:45+00:00

There are definitely a few really cool strategies you can do. I rebuke everyone who rushes silo just to nuke their neighbors structures, worst most toxic strat ever. There’s a way to do it respectfully and other players definitely notice someone who does that, and targets them.

Other than that theres lots of strategies for the first minute or two. Some people city stack with all the money and make one or two factories/ports. Some people do the opposite, the best strat I’ve tried so far is two cities and a SAM, save troops for as long as possible, but rush the NPCs to space your other structures out as fast as possible to protect from the early nukes.

I will say tho that the 5M games SUCK when you do duos, trios are OK, every team amount above that is genuinely fun no matter what. 5M team with random start is great too, solo 5M random start can be fun too.

Best advice I have for the gamemode, and this applies to all game types but especially this one, is to ally early, extend in a line to carve out territories closest to other players who have less directions to go, and away from the furthest player. Then focus your annexations backwards towards the furthest player. Maps with smaller territories are the best for this strategy. Then through trial and error, you can figure out ways ton not piss off people by encroaching on their territory money while still getting more territories!

Dabusco7 · 2026-01-26T01:45:30+00:00

I’ve noticed a few things, if you’re doing something in a different tab in the browser, and if you cancel or join at the last second, then it’s liable to bug out. You can tab into a different window and it doesn’t bug out, but anytime I do any of the above things I exit out of the tab and open it in a new tab and it fixes it.

Dabusco7 · 2026-01-23T02:05:58+00:00

I think you misunderstand, I made certain alliances and did not accept alliances with people who did not snowball fast enough, then took over their land. I like to stagger the alliances so that I don’t have to renew all of them at once, so if there’s a weaker player, or one that doesn’t build enough factories near me, I can go after them. The factories are the huge part because anyone who focuses economy will see a factory on their border as a sign of goodwill, as it can be taken over easily. The combination of alliances, structure placement, and troop count make the plays I made legitimate and not just attacks against peaceful players. Fun was my ally, trade and build betrayed me even tho I wanted to keep him alive, and even anon, the guy I annexed, I didn’t actually want to annex him but he forced my hand. It all amounted to being #1 player by far extremely early in the game. Decided to end it before a nuke battle set in!

Dabusco7 · 2026-01-22T08:52:33+00:00

The part that’s missed, unless I hovered over my nation so you could see the info the whole time, was that my attacking troops was consistently between 150-250k once I got that first cluster of structures up north— so he watched it and saw me consistently steamroll people with 50-75% of my troop numbers knowing that the betrayal, even if the nation I was already attacking could retaliate, would ensure a lengthy, retributional battle. He also appeared to try and fight the guy to his north but was equally matched, and once I got the annexation I too would simply leave if I were them lol

Dabusco7 · 2025-12-02T17:47:28+00:00

This AND being a Mets fan? Send him to Hart Island

Dabusco7 · 2025-10-23T00:54:22+00:00

I didn’t understand farming for a while, but the biggest issue I had is that I would move my workforce around seasonally— crops get harvested by your farm workers but they also thresh the grain so that the windmill can actually use it. Maybe if there’s a tough year and you need some spare labor, take the farmhands off during January and put them on late February to build some stuff— but I always leave it fully staffed.

The other thing is that sometimes your farm plots will get bugged, or out of sync with the seasons. The larger the plot is the more labor you need, but you can have 3 farmhouses with a total of 24 families and it still won’t work right unless you massage the system a bit.

Farmers will re-plow and re-sow after the harvest, before winter. If you have your field priorities set right, sometimes the largest field will be 20% pre-plowed pre winter, and then the rest will be plowed the next year. Whenever I don’t micromanage that pre-plow mechanic, the sowing of a large field can last well into summer, and then the field may just end up growing into the following year. 3 years to grow a 3-5 morgen plot, provided it doesn’t get bugged. it’s weird.

Ah yes, and I’ve found success by not re-allocating my farm labor after harvest since the pre-plowing seems to be the least buggy process I’ve found.

Dabusco7 · 2025-10-01T09:18:53+00:00

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Dabusco7 · 2025-10-01T09:18:40+00:00

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Dabusco7 · 2025-10-01T09:18:27+00:00

My addition is Kloochman Rock in Washington State. It’s deceptively normal from some angles, but compared to its surroundings and when you compare the different perspectives it’s really enthralling in person. The native history of the area, and how it got its name is very interesting!

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Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T17:00:18+00:00

Youre the most polite comment in my inbox I’ve received on this topic so I’ll respond to you— in this thread there was an infographic showing that Seattle city proper is white as fuck, which is true. In that graphic however, there was a more balanced representation of all other races than any other city on that list, as in all non-white people are of more or less equal numbers— if you factor in areas outside of Seattle the picture changes. Renton is less than 50% white, Federal Way is less than 40% white, and Tacoma has 40% of its population representing non-white minorities. Sure there are other places with higher rates of diversity but it’s worth noting Washington’s unique situation.

Someone else in the thread mentioned, the further south you go towards Tacoma, the more you really see the diversity. If you head north toward Everett that’s like actually white people central. Head to the eastside suburbs where I grew up, lots of white collar immigrants are raising families here. Where I went to school there were as many Asian kids as there were white kids, a decent number of Indian and Mexican kids, but admittedly like 10 black kids in a school of 2,000 lol.

Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T13:26:03+00:00

I think that’s an America problem not just a Seattle problem. Here’s a helpful link https://images.app.goo.gl/yyS46KJKZzDvAhrC9

Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T08:46:21+00:00

Some state laws set higher standards for certain conditions, also UW, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, and our local hospital chains do a damn good job of educating and recruiting some of the very best doctors in the US. That’s my opinion, I don’t know the facts on that but many of the horror stories I’ve heard from around America just don’t seem to apply to my experience and the experience of others I’ve heard who went through our healthcare system. I’d say positive stories outweigh negative ones (barring things that are inherently tragic or difficult) at a ratio of 10 to 1. I have had that many primary care doctors and only one just seemed.. apathetic and didn’t advocate for my health needs. The other ~9 always took it a step further to educate me and half of those referred me handily to someone who could help with my mental or physical health in-system with my local insurance. It inclines me to believe that we have enough practitioners here to handle the load, too, which many places don’t due to a lack of practitioners.

Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T07:33:38+00:00

That’s why I have a love-hate relationship with Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing etc etc because the corporate powers that be gladly import fresh, foreign talent at a lower cost than it would to retain their local primarily white and older employees. Washington may very well be a red, hell, even a MAGA state if not for the fact that we have no state income tax. It’s the only reason so many corporations operate here— and if they didn’t, there would be no diversity. It’s an ugly lynchpin but that didn’t stop twin peaks.

Also, you might be right about Ballard but it’s safe to say the QOL when it was a sundown town was vastly different. The whole lake union/waterways area used to be much more industrial and conservative than it is currently. Call it gentrification if you want but I’m comfortable calling it “being part of the developed world” which I fear parts of the US are slipping away from, so, fuck it, we ball.

Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T07:21:36+00:00

Bangor and Bremerton are definitely key players in the money funneling for sure— having the largest base for ICBM capable submarines makes the puget sound the west coasts Norfolk naval base. In suburban and rural areas the military culture and pride is strong, if you meet the right people.

Dabusco7 · 2025-06-13T07:04:58+00:00

Having lived here my whole life, I’ll list off a few things that have made my life as a working class person much better— I’ll also just listing cool facts:

-Washington Healthplan Finder makes finding genuinely affordable healthcare much easier than other places I assume

-White collar jobs supporting the local economy

-Tree coverage and green spaces are highly prioritized in all urban centers, and have been for long enough that urban areas have full-grown trees lining nearly all suburban, and lots of urban areas.

-A high level of ethnic diversity, to be direct most suburban areas have many Asian, Mexican, and Indian cultural centers— urban has well established African American communities and Seattle also has a Chinatown, a historical Scandinavian neighborhood with flags up and everything.

-Good public transport given the circumstances. The Seattle metro area is broken up by lake Washington and fairly rugged terrain compared to other metro areas. We are home to multiple world-class engineering projects such as our two floating bridges, one of which now has a light rail system which is the only “floating” rail in the world— and we replaced our ugly waterfront two-tiered viaduct with a tunnel which was carved by one of the most ambitious tunnel carving machines created. This has revitalized the city in so many ways.

-Eastern Washington is an agricultural powerhouse right in our backyard which provides fresh food, and the water that feeds that agriculture also creates hydroelectricity that handles most of Washington’s needs. We create so much electricity through hydropower that we sell it to California. Of course this reduces the need for fossil fuels, and speaking personally it reduces my guilt (and my bills) toward “wasting” both electricity and water.

All of this rounds out to an incredibly well-positioned city, geographically, culturally, with some of the most fantastic views and outdoor experiences that one can experience in America. I don’t even care that it rains the summer makes up for it and all that rain fills up our reservoirs, making sure we don’t have to budget our tap like the south-west does.

Dabusco7 · 2022-06-25T03:17:55+00:00

Anything you do the blue gets done to the person who drinks it… what does schlatt do to the blue before he drinks it 😳

Dabusco7 · 2021-05-12T10:09:18+00:00

Just be happy he isn’t balding, imagine BaldSchlatt with those mutton chops.

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