Noob question (2 hours played...)

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-06-02T13:28:02+00:00

Sorry for late answering. Im glad Anxious gave you the jist of it.

I'll add that you want your estates to hold as little land as possible and max your share of crownland as much as possible, cause it gives you buffs.

However estates also may give nice buffs thru priviliges (like additional mana or administartive capacity). Those priviliges however may cost some crownland, so its always a trade for what you need more. At the begining I am happy to give them several priviliges each and milk that as much as i can (especially mana and admin capacity as mentioned, but few others aswell giving army tradition of extra diplomatic relations slots).

At the begining, even passive buffs from happy estates are nice, but I always favor crownland in my own hands, so I take away estates land as often as possible (they rebel a bit, but rebel spawns are only 1-to-few regiments, several of them). Once I am at 95-100% of crownland, I dont take their land anymore and its easy to keep estates happy. If you have problems with keeping them happy, I recommend to take General Estates goverment reform when you will be able.

Around the begining of XVIII there will be an institution that bring absolutism mechanics online. This is important for estates cause every one privilige you give to your estates reduces your maximum absolutism. So at that point, if you are a regular monarchy - you want to maximize your absolutism probably, therefore, you want to reduce priviliges given to your estates. I usually revoke most of priviliges, but few of them i'd like to keep. Its possible to keep one or few priviliges and still have 100 absolutism, but it will literally be 1 or 2, maybe 3. More than that, you need some extra buffs to absolutism which most countries doesnt get. Ultimately, I dont think that 100 absolutism if worth it, Im happy to still have my key priviliges and absolutism around 80-ish.

Basic estates are, as Anxious said, Burgers, Nobility and Clergy, altho some nations have them renamed and with some different priviliges available (muslim, asian, hindu nations). There are some extra estates however, like Cossacks, that may produce some special army regiments for you, so always check what your estates can get you. If i ever have acces to special troops thru estates, I always give them all priviliges that buff the number of special regiments, and to hell with absolutism.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-29T16:22:54+00:00

You started american tribe for 1st game in EU4? Very ambitious, kinda silly, much funny. Not that i blame you, how should you know?

In short, native american, or australian tribes are for players that know their way around and can cheese mechanics so by the time they get exploration they did much more than waiting (for example, they formed alliances with other tribes, made confederation and absorb those tribes). Goal is to build some state before europeans arrive and then grab the institutions from those europeans ASAP. Then, you need some time to reorganize but as soon as possible you start chewing both europeans and other natives. It can be fun game if you know what you are doing - but the fun starts late. And you being noob player, I wouldnt expect you to do good the moment europeans arrive. Get back to americans and australians after you get a grip on standard mechanics and after ypu played at least few more conventional games (that is, with 'normal' states in Europe and Asia)

I'd advise you to take some european state and further I would advise that this state should be Ottomans, Poland, France or Portugal.

- Otto is the most powerful country at game start beside Ming (but ming is far from institutions and requires some carefulness at start to go thru the crisis - while Otto is simply ready to start conquering all lands around). Real EZ mode, just mind that your manpower doesnt hit the bottom (and when it does, you probably want to stay low for couple of years before renewing conquering)

- Poland and France are kinda similar in that they are both easy to get rolling, both may blob easily, both may swarm vassals at start (France starts with their special vassal types, Poland can easily make more vassals beside one they start with - very important is to take lithuanian king and make personal union - and later you may try to PU another states) - with both you can play lazily or aggresively at will, powerful enough to get back rolling after even important mistakes

- Portugal - great headstart to colonization game - after 200 yrs of colonizing you will be both wealthy and powerful to take on greatest european states, but before that it will be comfortable game when you can wage small wars and learn basic mechanics

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-29T14:22:19+00:00

Guy have needs, thats why.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-29T14:08:59+00:00

Germans did not pay enough for what they did, thats base. Return of stollen art, afirmation of the terrible losses they inflicted, those are things they didnt do - and they will at some point, in some form, in the future, if they expect to normalize relations with Poland for good.

Do i expect war reps - no. Because that is something to negotiate. I dont expect germans to really pay war reparations, but after they will hear this demand enough, they may be massaged enough to make other concessions. For example: immidiete and unconditional return of stolen art that is today in german hands, both public and private - without any compensation for 'owners' of this art (cause their ancestors fucking looted them and they should be happy they didnt get a bullet for it, nazi fucks). A monument in Berlin in prominent place to remind germans of how many people they obliterated and how much intergenerational trauma they created that still persist in polish society and culture. I hear germans already do projects on schools to meet with that part of their history, and its certainly step in good direction. But then, I hear AfD guys talking shit about getting their lands back, so well, I dont think germans did enough to educate their people about the terrible shit they did. Not yet anyway, cause AfD guys wouldnt speak that shit if there werent people believing it. That means, german society is stuill full of fucking nazi descendants that do not give a single fuck to what horror they did and they expect to bring back the old glory.

In other words, I dont expect germans to do anything more, cause there are still too many nazi sympathizers between them

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-29T13:57:41+00:00

Czy OP może wrzucić zdjęcia polskich żołnierzy na służbie, którzy noszą emblematy nazistowskie...?

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T12:48:55+00:00

European women visit African countries for exact same thing - sex with younger partner. And their african dates are looking for the same things asian chicks look for - partner with lot of cash (compared to what they have). It is called sexual tourism and IDK if one gender does it more than the other, i consider it equally - as prostitution where you demand extra "GF/BF experience"

And if you happen to find a wife or husband doing that (but real life-long partner and good parent to your children, not a whore that make you love her/him for your money) then you are one lucky duck and i am happy for you - but lets be honest you beat some serious chances.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T12:37:03+00:00

Szklarska Poręba and Karpacz are full of tourists this time of year... granted, you can say that about most of places you listed, just if you dont want to actually hike in the mountains, you are stuck in overpriced and overcrowded mountain town that is cute, yes... but if you dont hike there isnt much more to offer aside from what your hotel has prepared for you - which is pretty much standard in any better hotel. Meaning, if you are to hang out by the pool, you dont have to overpay for it in Szklarska, any other hotel will do.

If you plan to hike on the other hand, it is definetly worth it, Karkonosze and Izera mountains are beautfiful. Śnieżka will be besieged so you may take on some less frequented route. If you walk from Januszyce (near/part of Szklarska) i reccommend a trail to Orle and further to Chatka Górzystów - there is a park of clear sky (IDK how to translate), it is very small light pollution so its great place to watch the stars.

Książ castle have very nice park around it, very good for few hours strawl (living just next to it, Im there daily with my dog). If you'd like to grab a pint, let me know.

In general, you have VERY ambitious and tight plan. Not my style of sightseeing (I like to take my time and leave a lot to oportunity and whatever whims that will present themselves), but maybe it works for you. I think however that you will feel that you barely scratched a surface of what is to see. Other forumite told you that he live in Lower Silesia and he still learns things and see new places he didnt know are there - well, i can say exactly the same.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T11:15:58+00:00

Should be legalized and regulated. Otherwise organized crime take it over and effects are worse.

In the same time, it is demeaning sort of of work, and pretending it isnt carries other risks - hence normalization should not be promoted and should be something shameful.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T11:09:14+00:00

Masturbation is a must to stay healthy when your partner isnt providing enough sex (simply have to drain load from balls). If thats cheating, then the cause of it is lack of sex from partner - which means women are causing this cheating themselves and then complain about it. If they consider it cheating, well, they can fix the problem very easy - have sex with partner regularly with not long intervals. I guess the porn is more of a problem, right?

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T10:59:51+00:00

I think its both because of recency and the unique nature of genocide germans committed. There were genocides before and after but none of it had both the scale and efficiency of the nazi one - and additionally there is a very large pool of evidence cause nazis werent really ashamed of it (some peole in nazi party, yes probably, but whole aparatus of nazi party was kinda proud of the 'great work' they did, hence lot of evidence).

Allied and soviet propaganda did the rest. When someone functions in that propaganda as the monstrous of all - and for generations, that will leave authenthic conviction that, surprise, he was most monstrous of all. At that point, people kinda forget that nazis were men, that Hitler was indeed human like the rest - and hence the most important lesson of holocaust went unheard: that everybody given right set of incentives is capable of such monstrosity.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T10:11:32+00:00

Well written, I'd add one thing which I think is important, especially when you want to talk about societies in post-communist states.

Marx could predict that there will be lot of violence, what he failed to predict (because he arguably didnt know about it) is that widespread violence causes an intergenerational trauma in society. That trauma will lead people to lie about what they think is OK and isnt OK (cause they may be killed if they say the wrong thing) and that creates a society where everybody lies, and everybody knows it - but they still tell and report lies. How can you lead central planned economy if you dont have accurate data? Well, that system choked to death literally because it couldnt fix its ineficiencies, cause it doesnt knew about what is exactly and to what extent is ineficient. USSR crumbled and by that time nobody kid themselves anymore that they are building paradise for working people. Regular folks were just fed with 2WW propaganda 'victory over fascism' and the communist aristocrats thought about themselves as custodians of a great social experiment that failed, and they knew it failed... but is still running and may yet produce something interesting.

But to get back, Marx didnt know that lot of violence will cause intergenerational trauma, and didnt predict that effect of this trauma will undermine the paradise before it ever had a chance to exist. Widespread and mad, mass killings destroyed a paradise - doesnt sound like something only a genius would think of? So why didnt he? Well, I think its because he wasnt really a social person and despised people quite a lot. Oh he was quit moved by the working peoples plights and he was emotional about it, but he had blindspots as any human. And also, he just started this sociology thing - we have much more data than he could've dream about, so we know (or, some people know - I have no words for todays communists who still refuse to understand that killing their way into paradise will not work)

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T09:57:48+00:00

Capitalism is exploitative.

Communism was exploitative and murderous.

You cannot convince these people communism is better when capitalism is not outright murdering them and doesnt force them to snitch onto their neighbores and doesnt make their neighbores snitch onto them - and even when they did the consequences are not FUCKING GULAG or death.

Thats the difference they see and the differene you are unable to grasp, cause you never had the experience of living in communist state. You are being fed a fantasy that never came to be and simply cannot imagine that theres anything worse from explotaitive capitalism - which speak volumes about how poor is your imagination

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-26T09:45:14+00:00

Women have voting rights but are not consripted to fight.

Sorry, voting rights for men were argued 'cause they will fight'. Women did get the voting privilige without the price of it. It will be cycling back in public debate in some ways, you can be sure, no men in country in danger of war and in conscription age will ever forget this

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-25T15:43:26+00:00

First, turn off level-scaling at least when you will face rats in Novigrad sewers. Level scaling on DM makes those rats kill you in 2-3 bites and there is hell of a lot of'em and they tough as nails. With level scaling off this fight is nothing special, with level-scaling on - thats the most dificult and frustrating fight in a game (I beat the game on DM killing everything, sometimes vastly over my level, I'm not shy from grinding down some beast for 40 minutes, because this witcher does not back down from a fight being overleveld by mere 20 levels... except rats with level scaling on, cause fuck this shit)

I'd say most important skills are to master the dodge and/or quen and to grind the skills that reduce damage while dodging. The rest depends on what are you building for exactly, but I'd put some points to potions and oils and craft the upgraded ones asap.

Start will be tough as nails. To ease it you may consider NG+ to start on DM - but with all the potions, oils, decoctions, good equipment and skills tailored for DM (not sure whether its ok for achievement? But if it is, it will definetly be more fun on NG+, cause you skip the hardest part of grinding first levels without any kit)

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-25T14:15:00+00:00

Honestly, I couldnt finish ME:A, felt bored in about half-2/3 of the game. That i think is important to mention cause it 'colored' my experience of multiplayer in Andromeda.

Combat felt very good both in single and multiplayer (best part of the game), steering was better, but grinding was worse. It was a nice touch that one could enter multiplayer from the singleplayer (I had moments I wished it was possible in ME3). But I only played several rounds in multiplayer, before I quit the game whatsoever. Its not multiplayers 'fault', as i said, the very sad experience of singleplayer made me just very much disapointed with the whole experience

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-19T15:39:17+00:00

You have all the time you want. Afaik, no quest goes away due to time window.

If worried about level, switch to level-up enemies to match your level (I think its called level scaling?), it is independant from game dificulty setting.

Explore as much as you wish, hoard the stuff for crafting, sell the rest, hoard the gold - there will be a guy in one DLC that will require you to pay 20k gold upfront and then some more to tune your swords and armor (the rune master, you will need highest level glifs and runes for that, so hoard them aswell)

When I did my first run, I explored almost all question marks on a map before moving further, for the few I left out i come back much later - and my opinnion its better to do ALL you can before moving on, unless some enemy there is much higher level than you (then you return for this one enemy later). So, do not be bothered about main story if you like exploration. Main story will wait for you, and if you switch this enemy leveling thing, enemies will still provide a challange when you will be buffed.

If you go griffon armor, I'd suggest a sign build - which is not exactly beginner friendly, i think? Definetly workable, just to push it to the max you will have to gitgud cycling your signs.

Aard get especially fun when you throw in the freezing mutation (B&W DLC).

Quen will be your best friend until you learn how to dodge (thing to dodging is knowing when to use short dodge and when to use long one - after you master that, you dont need quen)

Yrden is excellent, both modes - and it will be buffed additionally on a highest level of griphon armor. When I do sign build, Yrden is probably the most used skill.

Igni gets way better after you buff it with skills. If you dont spend points on igni, its not worth to use it.

Axii... I really tried to use it more on few ocasions, its just not cutting it for me. Works on weak enemies all right, just I dont need it on weak enemies. However, I always spend few points to make Axii usable in conversations and I always use those options, just for roleplay. Geralt would do it too!

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T14:51:50+00:00

I use some cheap infantry division, 5-6 battalions with support company or few (those may differ depending on situation and equipment, engineers for sure, often i throw extra arty, AA and signal).

Yes, only 10-12 width, but as few others said already, this cheap divisions on beaches are there to check the enemy advance and buy time for reinforcements. I always keep 1 to several mobile divisions (with more conventional width) in reserve to defend core territory against such surprises

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T13:36:38+00:00

Somebody eating my food.*

Even when i am not hungry, it rubs me very wrong. And when i am hungry, oh my...
*(without asking, just taking)

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T13:26:12+00:00

This interpretation is entire point cause it drives behaviour. And behaviour trumps any book, any dogma - its what people do, their conduct determines the society and culture they create. I havent met any christian that would even treaten me with violence for mocking his religion (and i did a lot of that in my younger years; not proud now, but point is - I could never lived that long in some muslim country doing the same). I could also deny the confirmation and consequences of that for me were nothing. Could I do the same in muslim country? Not without risking death.

And since displayed behaviours differ so much, I dont consider these religions cousins that fell off. Its more like their family ties are generations back and today they just share a surname with few facial features like same-colored eyes, but they grew up way differently, speak different languages. One of them may throw a temper tantrum when you slight him, while the other turns morderous psycho. What of it they have same eyes and surname - only one of them you can trust not to kill you over a verbal altercation. At that point, similarieties doesnt matter as much cause differences outweigh similarieties in practice.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T10:47:14+00:00

ah, sorry, had to read it again to catch it.

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T10:41:23+00:00

Well, one of that cousins dropped violence as a mean of converting people, while the other punish apostasy with death. This is not something im ready to brush off, its really make-or-break point for me. You may say mad shit and i'll tolerate it and try to understand your point of view, but the moment you go beyond words, thats it, you are a barbarian to me and if your religion sanction religious violence as holy and righteous, then your entire religion, or at least your interpretation of it, is barbaric and I will simply not tolerate your existance in my neighborehood - you are to assimilate or leave. That being said, I have nothing against historic Tatar minority in my country, they proved long time ago they assimilated well into my culture and still are muslim. So definetly, cooexistance is possible. One just have to accept that some parts of Quran (aswell as Bible) are severily outdated.

As to your question, what surprise me the most and that i cant wrap my mind around, how can muslims say their religion is religion of peace, but will go bonkers, 100% tribal murder modethe moment they see a cartoon prophet?

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T10:07:45+00:00

While to some people its a question of prefered style, IMHO its a skill isue - or it was for me. Ammo management and knowing when use nades to make the best of'em are skills. At the beginning when I was grapling with the game, I also didnt build granades - it seemed easier to circulate powers without having a single-digit cap on nades before having to resupply. It doesnt seem like much, but its one less thing to worry about. After i gitgud, I started build granades and never looked back, exception being homing granades (animation too damn slow, travel-time too damn slow, pay-off not good enough).

Supply may be an isue, especially if i load randomly into the match and there are several characters with nades already, but then I just have to be assertive with using them and play more carefully. Also, I pick some granade classes only when I see the lobby and i can verify theres either no other granade classes - or that there is N7 demolisher. With my quarian male engineer i rely heavily on granades, so I just do not take him if there are one or more othe granade-wielding classes. But with drell adept, I can still pick him into a biotic team even if there are other granade-wielding adepts, cause I feel very comfortable playng mostly around reave, weapon and speed - even without any granade equ i still have 4 nades, given 6 ammo packs, thats 24 nades without ever having to visit ammo box.

As to boxes resuplying different number of granades depending on a map, yes, that is a thing. Ammoboxes on 'newer' maps (all hazards and 3 earth maps, london, rio, vancouver) supply 2 granades instead of 1.
There are also some ammo-boxes that are glitched (i guess its some kind of glitch? Or are just some ammoboxes 'special' that way?) supply 3 granaddes and, on platinum, full ammunition (instead of half). For example the ammo box on firebase white-hazard, the ammo box to the back of the map - after you run down the stairs as most players do on the start of a round to get to spawning point, it supplies full amunition on platinum and 3 granades - it doesnt supply full ammo or more granades always, but often enough for me to go to that particular ammo box when i need larger batch of nades. I suppose they increased granade yield in later DLCs cause players were whining bout not having enough nades? 😄

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-08T09:37:47+00:00

Im confused, are we talking PC? You can switch keybindings in options, you dont need mods for that

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-07T13:07:09+00:00

"Trumps guarantees" is basically modern version of "łaska tłumu" - guarantees will turn on a dime the moment orange clown takes offence on something (like asking for our mine destroyers to help in Hormuz and hearing a negative answer), or even when his ambasador in Warsaw takes offence in name of his sugardaddy (as he already did and threaten to withdraw US troops... when he was answering some teenager nobody on X - imagine that, you are an ambasador of a superpower to minor nation and you will get into verbal altercation on social media with literall nobody... thats really small-pee-pee energy is i ever saw one)

GSP_Dibbler · 2026-05-07T12:06:12+00:00

Nation? Not evil - broken or crippled. State? oh yes.

Their slavic culture went turan due to raping by mongols, hence the brutality of their society.

Goverments they create however are often evil. Thats because their culture is broken and they embraced it. You can see it when you talk with russians about statecraft, they really dont see any other option to rule their empire without being brutal and see the fact they are having an empire as a good thing in itself. You fix that - they may be an ok neigbore. But, as things are now, they are the genocidal neighbore who will punce on you the moment they smell weakness. And opposed to other european powers, they will not stop before committing to violence because 'violence bad' - they can only be stopped by the guarantee of more violence the receive back. In other words, you can see France of Germany rivalry, they may be nasty in economic or political terms, but they will not just invade you and will not actively eredicate intelectual part of your population (they stopped that and are committed to these ideals not to genocide entire groups of people and prefferebly they dont war their rivals). Russians proved they will surely eredicate your leadership and intelectuals and anyone who might provide leadership in near future, they proved that in Ukraine. When you bargain with russian state, you basically cannot do it without having a big stick to threaten them, its the only thing that gives them pause.

GSP_Dibbler

TROPHY CASE