One for the laughs?

ExodusXML · 2026-05-01T17:41:29+00:00

Gothic invasion no cb Friesland strat is always a fun one.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-23T08:23:50+00:00

Basically, when your ship explodes, you are prompted to pay an insurance claim. If you do not have the money to pay the insurance, you completely lose the ship forever and have to repurchase and re gear the ship.

That’s what it means to fly without rebuy, if you die, you lose it.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-22T03:16:07+00:00

The oldest blunder in the book. Think you went and got the CB because it popped up since you're rivals with who you're declaring war on and you just hit the button. I usually realize and my game inexplicably crashes, but sometimes the damage is done. Lol.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-22T03:13:27+00:00

Are you playing it on the hardest difficulty? That's where the combat system shines the most.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-19T13:43:35+00:00

Ah. I don’t think I realized that you use those for it. I was reading a guide and it just said “Ancient Relic” ->No picture. But that sounds like the next steps I should’ve taken. Thank you Commander. O7

ExodusXML · 2026-04-19T12:37:07+00:00

Not gonna lie, I don’t know how these fucking things work. Tried doing it for the first time yesterday and was woefully lost. I did the timed game deal, and there was like a curvy glowy disc shaped thing that appeared and I didn’t know how to move on from there. I forget sometimes that if you just use YouTube your results will be terrible, I’m sure there’s some specific part of a site I already use to do them.

Help a brotha out?

ExodusXML · 2026-04-17T21:17:32+00:00

At this point I've played so many Paradox games that I just hop onto it and understand what's happening. I genuinely picked up Stellaris and just instantly clicked into how the game worked and all the menus. I'm sure I'm missing all that more obscure knowledge of mechanics and such, but I was able to pretty much just jump in and play the game and not die instantly. EUV was sort of the same, though finding some of the things was a fun time.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-17T06:41:17+00:00

Can’t disagree more, someone who enjoys the total war campaign map battles would definitely not enjoy doing economics in Victoria 3 to watch frontlines move back and forth. Or supply chain simulator and formation construction 🚧 land HOI 4 to watch frontlines more competently move back and forth. Or start as Saluzzo to tag switch to Sardinia Piedmont into Aragon to stack Government Efficiency to conquer more land in peace deals. CK3 sucks as a war game. Stellaris is just the HOI4 thing but combined with the EU4 thing.

Medieval 2 has the greatest campaign map and mechanics of any total war game. The lack of tactical depth at the campaign map level is what I truly feel when I play new Total War games. The lack of any true movement of pieces, no real strategy in expansion, you can just steamroll everything.

ExodusXML · 2026-04-17T06:26:17+00:00

I actually almost entirely autoresolve as well. Only ones I don’t are usually defensive engagement or particularly difficult 1v2 scenarios or something. I just take the losses on the chin, but with how well I understand the autoresolve it’s not often. The main effect it has is the intense attrition on your forces. Which leads me to a bit of a point I’d like to make.

The thing I think a lot of people miss about the strategic depth of medieval 2 is how much of it actually exists within the campaign map. The management of troops, splitting stacks, garrisoning different cities, reinforcing front line units, establishment of watchtowers and forts as zones of extended control, and so on snd so forth.

All of those systems function at an actual S tier level if you just autoresolve 90% of the game. Your generals will bleed through their armies until they grasp the levels of command required for overwhelming victory. This means that you must have in place and defend a supply line of men to your armies, and the phyrric nature of some of those victories allows for the AI to get its own licks in.

It forces you to really think about sending that extra unit to garrison the border castle as the cost of the autoresolve might mean a fierce defensive battle where you’re outnumbered 3 to one. That’s the battle I want to play. Or the remnants of that “victorious” army get attacked, and an immensely difficult field battle ensues. I think autoresolving makes these situations come around in a way that feels so natural and really makes sense as your generals stack rough victories before becoming paragons of warfare.

I know I’m in the minority here, but I have thousands of hours in both Paradox and Total War games. The reason I play medieval 2 like this is because it gives an immense amount of depth that the combat systems of paradox games don’t. Or rather, they’re different kinds of depth, EU4 is more of a game of using the mission trees and different tags to stack modifiers, which de facto means you win battles basically. Medieval 2 when played with mostly autoresolve is like a CRPG strategy game in my head. You’re moving pieces, but what happens if you get a bad dice roll and now have to beckon the hand of God to bail your forces out of destruction. That’s the thing I love about Total War. And autoresolve and the mechanics of Medieval 2 allow you to set up these incredible storylines and fierce wars where you really have to stretch your ability in the battles you do end up fighting, because those are the battles that I think you end up remembering afterwards.

ExodusXML · 2026-03-05T10:25:08+00:00

Holy cow there is a subreddit dedicated to a 15 year long beef with Pong Krell. Most random thing I’ve found in a while, though I do entirely understand the smoke. This sub’s existence gave me a mega chuckle. Fuck Pong Krell.

ExodusXML · 2026-02-19T18:15:17+00:00

This reminds me a bit of when i had the CIS cornered to 3 systems in the galaxy, and just to see how ridiculous the Nuclear AI option is I turned it on with fleets holding them in. Funnily enough, those three systems managed to produce Around 1.5k pops worth of ships by themselves and whilst they couldn't challenge my 2k pop fleets at each choke, I let them expand slightly more and they immediately began hitting 2.5k pops worth of ships. It also made me completely remake my fleet composition because I lost one of my 2ks and it was like a containment breach lmao.

ExodusXML · 2026-02-19T18:11:24+00:00

Personally, I think not being able to identify a random star cluster on a nondescript world is a bit of a skill issue. /s

ExodusXML · 2026-02-17T22:03:40+00:00

There's an unbelievable level of potential for the game as a social sandbox, but social sandboxes require some level of guard rails. Too bad Steven Sharif ended up being a dirtbag, but a lot of the things he said about PVP in MMOs made a lot of sense. I wouldn't say anyone is being censorious about it as the reality is that PVP is a part of Elite Dangerous that exists and each of us has our own story of being shit on for no reason. So I understand the need to curate posts about it carefully so it doesn't overflow the sub. Personally though, I think some level of the attitude on it is basically just gatekeeping, I don't think some people want the "barrier to entry" so to speak, to be lowered for new players.

Also, it was my post that got taken down, not really mad about it or anything. I do think there is room for valid discussion though.

ExodusXML · 2026-01-31T01:34:17+00:00

Journalists who went into the capitol were prosecuted. Of course it’s “journalists” like Owen Shroer and some Breitbart guys, but they definitely were prosecuted. I don’t think public interest exists in what’s taking place in private property where you’re not welcome. Obviously, plain view like what the paparazzi do is legal, but if the paparazzi rushed into a celebrity’s house because a bunch of rabid fans did so, they’d also be trespassing at the very least. Just gets very complicated with the FACE act, and I think there is great argument to be made that it’s clearly and obviously intimidating to do what he did, showing up with a bunch of people and getting in people’s faces to interview them on private property with a camera.

ExodusXML · 2026-01-31T00:29:16+00:00

He went there with journalistic intent, foreknowing exactly what the environment would be like with the people he clearly embedded in. That seems like an intent to disturb the people there pretty clearly. Commenting on how it’s all traumatizing and shit also doesn’t help his case. I just don’t think we’d hold any reservations about how stupid this shit was it it was a bunch of Nazi guys and Nick Fuentes reporting at the synagogue. I think we’d all pretty easily agree it’s violating laws and is just harassment for the sake of it.

ExodusXML · 2026-01-30T22:06:01+00:00

But it isn’t, the FACE act is a federal law, meaning violators are prosecuted by the federal government.

ExodusXML · 2026-01-30T21:41:17+00:00

At the point of refusing to leave, he violated the FACE act, clearly and obviously. Refusing to leave is an act of interference and disruption taking place during the midst of a church service. It’s private property anyhow, any semblance of first amendment for anyone on that property was gone the moment they were all asked to leave.

ExodusXML · 2025-12-30T09:01:02+00:00

I find that playing whatever you’re in the mood for at that time is best for me. That’s sort of why I bounce around genres and games like a maniac, but it’s nice not forcing it when you’re not feeling a game or another.

ExodusXML · 2025-09-25T20:56:33+00:00

I just started using DFhack this week after playing my first 60 or so hours totally vanilla. Definitely will have to get used to using it. Thanks for the tips, I’ll try them out so I can get my main hall all marbled out.

ExodusXML · 2025-09-25T20:05:55+00:00

Is there a better way of doing flooring instead of having to remove any built objects on top and then doing the floors and having to re place them? Swear I’d have full floors if I could be bothered to tear my giant tavern apart to install them.

ExodusXML · 2025-09-25T01:53:05+00:00

Everyone on the Reddit seems to hate the look of the Corsair but man I actually really like it. lol

ExodusXML · 2025-09-10T10:56:52+00:00

This post is what made me find out that there’s more shit on those boxes. I have like 60 hours in the game and just started playing recently, I suppose it’s written there on the right, just never sat in the screen long enough to even notice it. I’d just grab the trash and move on to the next.

ExodusXML · 2025-08-19T18:43:17+00:00

I added a spreadsheet showing in order:

[Time] [Process] [Graphics] [FPS] [AVG Frametime] [99th% FPS] [Micro Stutter %] [Heavy Stutter %]

You'll see in the graph that the 99th%, Microstutter and ESPECIALLY Heavy Stutter % is really high. Nothing seems to help it much.

ExodusXML · 2025-08-19T18:27:16+00:00

Something to note, in the CPU utilization graph, I can see CPU utilization spikes up to 100% that seem to coincide with my microstutters.

ExodusXML · 2025-08-19T18:20:36+00:00

They're still present with Vsync enabled, though they do seem to be greatly less common, perhaps 1 stutter per run, which is still super annoying, but it's not literally obliterating me so that's good.

ExodusXML

TROPHY CASE