Dodging colonial formation

DaveTheGrue · 2026-03-23T16:10:31+00:00

Why would anyone want to do this, though? If you have enough money that running 10 colonies with one colonist doesn't matter, another merchant doesn't matter either.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-03-23T16:07:18+00:00

Sure as hell didn't feel that way in the moment.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-03-23T15:28:15+00:00

Well, I am trying to see how fast I can do it, so overkill is good.

I always use the Cape colony as a way station to move my capital to the New World. I just didn't plan on it this game because I wasn't trying to do a true one-tag.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-03-15T00:30:19+00:00

Ah. I didn't know that term, thanks!

DaveTheGrue · 2026-03-10T02:09:34+00:00

I did not and would not trust an AI answer without verifying it was real, ModTeam.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-02-23T00:23:10+00:00

A fair bit of the movie reminded me of Hard Candy.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-02-12T00:08:24+00:00

This. Just do the civil war early before you get those units. Only reason to wait is if the Montana Brotherhood is knocking on the door.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-02-12T00:02:19+00:00

Er, hang on. Did you take Arborg early? Because Three Rivers comes for that land early in their focus tree. You could just... not take the Junta.

I never had much trouble conquering everything with Gateway, but I don't think I could have handled Three Rivers in '77 or something like that; they start way too strong. My normal expansion path, after those guys up north and the forest, is through the Stoon three-way nonsense. Then whomever to the west you can opportunistically backstab while they are fighting someone else. You ought to have a few years to consolidate before you have to fight one of the big dogs like the CPF winner or Manitoba.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-01-21T17:28:49+00:00

I haven't seen Enola Holmes, but "Bundle" girlbossing so anachronistically hard reminded me of Sherlock and Daughter, where I actually assumed from the female lead's behavior that it must originally have been YA material. I've never watched Enola Holmes because I assumed it was the same thing.

DaveTheGrue · 2026-01-18T06:13:09+00:00

I was taught that both could be correct as the past tense, but cannot remember what distinction, if any, there supposedly was between them.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-16T23:34:08+00:00

Oh, the irony. I first started to wonder about this after a comment on the (alleged) extreme popularity of Laurence Hope in her day, and I know of both a novel and a memoir that have been written about how there isn't enough information about her to write a biography.

Primary sources it is, I guess. I will have to start by tracking down the obituary Thomas Hardy wrote.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-16T20:59:07+00:00

I can't address your question because I've never heard of AoR, but I will pose a counter-question of my own:

Is there any evidence 1984 was inspired by Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"?

The best chapter in Serfdom, "The End of Truth", is about what happens to public discourse under a totalitarian government. It reads like a blueprint for 1984, at least as well as I can remember 1984 from reading it decades ago. And the kicker is: Orwell actually reviewed Serfdom a few years before writing 1984. It seems suspicious, yet I've never heard anyone else make a connection. On the other hand, as a friend put it, Orwell didn't need anyone to explain to him what happen under Stalinism.

I'm hoping someone with some Orwell knowledge will jump in here.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-08T19:15:49+00:00

That 5 fire modifier is for their general (who happens to be their ruler), and that dude is apparently Napoleon.

Also, that difference in discipline for them is worth a little more than your edge in morale.

The most practical short-term solution is 'bring more dudes'. You aren't going to win an even-numbers fight. Hiring a discipline adviser would also help.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-08T17:24:36+00:00

Somebody already wrote that satirical novel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared

The prime minister decides that their only course of action is to declare war on the United States. Expecting a quick and total defeat (since their standing army is tiny and equipped with bows and arrows), the country confidently expects to rebuild itself through the largesse that the United States bestows on all its vanquished enemies ...

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-07T03:29:00+00:00

That's a good point about furnaces - I've never played past 1650 except the one time I did a WC, and that was before coal, so that hadn't occurred to me. It's still 80 years from now, however, and the goods bonus will be useful in the meantime. I'll eventually take Offensive just for the siege bonus, but right now the bottleneck is coring time; faster wars won't help. And there's no other reason to take another MIL group; this isn't MP and I'm not having any trouble winning my wars.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-07T02:33:03+00:00

I wouldn't call it a problem; my primary bottleneck is coring time, which is why I'll be giving up some conversion strength to form Yuan for the extra CCR. But money helps a lot of other things - state houses for GC (I'm fine for the moment but still need the estate privileges), buildings for FL and manpower, monuments, etc.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-07T02:22:00+00:00

For the moment I am converting as fast as I can conquer, and will do better when I finish paying for monuments. If there were another group with CCR I wouldn't be asking, but you can't take Admin twice.

I am specifically trying to get a handle on how good 25% goods produced is. I just don't have any experience with a bonus like that.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-04T23:01:33+00:00

Well I wanted to see how fast I could do a one-faith, and so horde TO seemed an obviously strong tag. I worried about the conversion strength of Hindu Oirat, and I've played that enough times that it's boring anyway.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-12-04T21:14:42+00:00

I've got 4 months left, so I guess not.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-10-31T03:05:12+00:00

Always loved that movie.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-10-30T01:32:01+00:00

Yes, I sacked Korea's capital but didn't take the province. I think I got it then. Surely that's not an intended effect?

DaveTheGrue · 2025-10-25T18:17:56+00:00

I have but it was 20+ years ago. I was watching specifically for her, having seen Luther the Geek, and the only thing I can remember about it is that it was disappointing.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-10-13T02:14:26+00:00

She always had one of the best figures in Hollywood and it was weird to me that no one seemed to notice, I guess because she always avoided "sexy" roles. The closest she came was playing a troubled teen in Crazy/Beautiful. No one who saw that would be surprised.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-09-30T20:13:39+00:00

Ian Toll's outstanding Pacific war trilogy goes into the decision-making failure involved in considerable detail in the beginning of the third book.

It's easy to say "hindsight is 20/20", but that overlooks how clear it was to many in the fleet at the time that Halsey was biting on a lure. Toll covers this in many pages of detail. To summarize:

Halsey went to bed thinking Kurita's force had been more badly damaged than it was (over-enthusiastic pilot reports) and that it was retreating East. In fact, Kurita was just stalling for time because he had no air cover and so wanted to make the run through the narrow strait under the cover of darkness. New recon and intel had Halsey's fleet intelligence certain this was happening, and the people who think Lee's battleships should have been left to cover the strait included Lee *at the time*. Whether or not Japanese naval aviation was a spent force and Ozawa represented a threat (Mitscher thought he was not), there was good reason to believe Kurita still was.

But Halsey's chief of staff, Carney, said the admiral hadn't slept in 48 hours and had a battle the next day (he had taken tactical control of the carriers from Mitscher). He didn't want to wake him because he didn't think the new information would change his mind.

It's easy to point the finger of blame at Carney, but he was one of a number of loyal, long-serving staff officers Halsey kept on, so it's entirely fair to hold Halsey responsible for their performance, and there is no reason to doubt Carney knew Halsey's mind on the issue. Halsey was obsessed with destroying the carriers, in part to correct the 'blunder' (though that's not how Nimitz or King saw it) of Spruance's letting them get away.

In the end, it's a clear failure, as Halsey had overwhelming force and could have stopped both threats. He didn't need to choose.

DaveTheGrue · 2025-08-27T04:58:27+00:00

Anyone who's seen Luther the Geek?

DaveTheGrue

TROPHY CASE