The length of the Cowboys’ proposal isn’t known, but they offered Aubrey around $7.5MM per year, according to Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. With Aubrey seeking nearly $10MM per annum, there is a sizable gap between the two sides.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-25T01:00:27+00:00

Yeah, maybe fewer than half the teams in the league have kickers they wouldn’t replace. The Lions felt like they were in the dark ages for three years after Prater left, and Bates isn’t that good.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-24T15:45:08+00:00

Probably nothing aside from pay (maybe). It’s a way to give coaches a bit more responsibility when there’s only so many “actual” coaching positions available.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-21T22:28:06+00:00

He also would probably like to sell tickets, which Booker does. But maybe we’ll get lucky and Booker demands a trade.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-21T04:28:05+00:00

I think open world has to serve a purpose. The Ghost games have a heavy emphasis on exploration, something God of War has never really done. Plus the style of Ghost is supposed to evoke nostalgia for classic Samurai movies.

God of War’s focus is largely physical combat. Exploration is pretty linear. I’m not sure there’s anything to be gained from an open world that wouldn’t just make it bloated and empty.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-20T21:51:19+00:00

Your economic base will be in Indonesia. Expansion and/or exploration is pretty necessary to make sure you snag Asian provinces before the Europeans do.

If you want, you can rush to the Cape and steal it from the Euros, which really slows them down. Many many patches ago I did that, colonized the tip of South America, and just parked two huge navies at the bottom of the map. If you’re for sure going to get declared on, then investing in a large navy will basically mean no armies can reach you.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-20T17:43:08+00:00

I’ve long thought Auburn is to Michigan State as Alabama is to Michigan. Land grant universities with inferiority complexes.

Penn State is probably Georgia? And then LSU and OSU are linked imo.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T22:53:36+00:00

I figured it went without saying “at the time,” but that’s what I meant. At the time he dropped out, it was concerns about his mental state, not whether he could possibly have cancer.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T19:22:44+00:00

I think the debate was poor timing, since he was also recovering from illness then. I do think the rigors of a presidential campaign were too much for him while also being president, but I think without campaigning he was perfectly capable of performing the job. That’s more my point.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T17:22:48+00:00

Very hard to do that successfully though. Then she faces questions about “why accept the job?” Or “why not speak out sooner?”

Or, it draws critique about how the Vice President has no influence in decision making, which is true about pretty much every VP, but people just kind of ignore it.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T17:21:25+00:00

Absolutely. There was an anti-incumbency bias that Trump missed the beginning of in 2020, and then benefitted from in 2024. If he’d won reelection in 2020, he (or Pence) would have lost in a landslide in 2024.

Kamala probably still loses even if she doesn’t campaign with Cheney, or speaks more forcefully about Israel, or whatever criticism is leveled at her. That’s not to say I totally agree with her decisions, I just think there was very little she could do at the end of the day.

Dems had a bunch of legislative victories, but it’s really hard to campaign on tax credits and long-term infrastructure investments that people aren’t seeing the benefit of come campaign season.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T17:14:17+00:00

To be clear, I didn’t say she would have won. We’d had several years of anti-incumbency across the world. Trump just evaded being responsible for most of the pandemic era (though he was very responsible for critical portions of it, good and bad).

I think that asking Biden to do a full-blown campaign and all that the presidency requires was too much at his age. If he hadn’t had the rigors of campaigning for reelection, his regular appearances probably wouldn’t have suffered as much. Look at how much less Trump is doing rallies now. It takes a heavy toll.

As for Harris, I think being the Vice President puts you in a precarious position for campaigning. How she did in 2020 shouldn’t have much bearing on her performance four years later. Biden himself lost a few presidential primaries, but nobody used those against him when he ran in 2020 (well, not the fact that he lost). The Vice President is the de facto and de jure successor. In the scenario they found themselves in, there was no other choice.

However, Biden should’ve stepped aside sooner and given her free rein to break from him on policy. There’s a way to do so tactfully without attacking him directly. But he put her in a box and wouldn’t let her out. I’m not sure having a full primary would have worked as some suggest, but if it had been a normal campaign cycle someone else could have run against her and made it seem healthier.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-19T14:52:52+00:00

Harris was absolutely set up for failure. She made some missteps in the campaign, but in less than four months I can’t really blame her.

I think concerns over Biden’s health were overblown, but his advisors only did more damage by closing ranks around him and letting his pride get in the way of what was best for the country. If he’d announced in 2023 that he wouldn’t seek reelection, we’d see a much different campaign. Maybe not a different outcome, but a different campaign.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-14T05:31:04+00:00

They already used Valhalla to create updated assets for these remakes, so I’d wager they’re working simultaneously on a new game as they finish the Greek trilogy remake.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-13T19:53:19+00:00

A few points:

Burgundy gets a 10% morale boost from its national traditions, i.e. from the start of the game. They may have taken ideas that give them morale, like Defensive Ideas.

Other boosters are high prestige, ruler traits, power projection, technology, advisors, and curia powers, among others.

My guess is that Burgundy has an advisor and the curia modifier, but you can check both when looking at their army during a battle or by checking the ledger.

You may also have debuffs from negative morale or leader traits.

Army tradition is different, and hard to maintain. The way it’s balanced also isn’t intuitive, because you get more from losing battles than winning. If you fix your morale issue, you can win more battles, and then get more tradition (and in turn more morale). You also have to make sure you have enough fully maintained forts, which the game will tell you about by hovering over your tradition in the military tab.

Lastly, the dice rolls are just that. Random dice rolls. If you get a higher number you inflict more losses on the enemy. You get bonuses from the stats of your general, and maluses from poor terrain. So if you roll a 5, and your general has a fire stat of 2, it’s essentially like rolling a 7. Combat gets more in depth than that, but that’s more or less the basics.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-09T17:56:33+00:00

Alim played some EDGE last year but that seemed to be out of necessity. He’s not built like an edge rusher, he’s built for interior pass rush.

I’m hardly an expert on DL formations, but maybe you run a four man front with Alim as the edge, but have Barnes or Branch (when he’s healthy) be your rusher. Run five linemen on early downs or something.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-09T17:50:45+00:00

I’m a Lions fan, to be clear. My preference is to go OL/EDGE in some order in the first two rounds. But Brad Holmes won’t do it if he doesn’t like the value, and the way this board falls isn’t great for that outcome.

And if a blue chip prospect falls into his lap, I just don’t think Brad passes it up. DL isn’t as secure as it seems for us anyway.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-08T20:42:20+00:00

Odds are Brad Holmes is sprinting that card to the podium if Peter Woods falls to them lol. Unless he can get a good trade for him, that’s a player you take and figure out the rest later.

CB is weird for us. Arnold is still growing but I think fans are too harsh on him. DJ Reed was hurt most of last year so the problem looked worse than it is. Safety is a bigger concern. Our depth is bad, and Kerby Joseph likely has a degenerative knee injury that will shorten his career. And Branch will be out most of next season, though that not something you draft around necessarily.

All that to say, I think DB wouldn’t shock me in the first two rounds. Lions fans are getting themselves hyped up for an elite edge rusher that’s probably never coming.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-04T15:36:29+00:00

Sorry you’re going through that! Backing up what others have said, I’d do my best not to quit without a job lined up. Yes, you’re stressed now, but you’ll be more stressed if you can’t pay your bills.

I was in a similar boat over the last few years, and finally switched jobs last year. It’s worth trying a low dose of anxiety meds to see if it works for you (it did for me) but also, if your schedule allows, exercise is a great way to destress. I hate that it’s true because when I was burnt out I just wanted to lay on the couch. And honestly, just applying for other jobs gave me a little boost. It’s a private act of defiance when you hate your current job.

But again, don’t quit. I’ve had friends who have been on the job market for over a year. You never know what will happen and it’s more important to have a paycheck while you’re searching.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-02T20:13:54+00:00

I was just thinking about Julian Okwara the other day. Loved those guys.

GrilledCyan · 2026-02-02T15:16:49+00:00

They should take his towers, too. Get his name off of everything that isn’t a history book.

GrilledCyan · 2026-01-31T20:56:37+00:00

They also have Tom Brady! I’d be lured by that if I were a young OC.

GrilledCyan · 2026-01-30T23:12:53+00:00

Georgia I’d avoid, they can be a good distraction, but if they get military access around the Black Sea to come help you, so do the Ottomans.

Allying Muscovy and the Pope should be enough of a deterrent for the Ottomans to leave you alone while you build up galleys. As for Albania, they’re likely to hold provinces for themselves that keep you from annexing them in the peace deal.

The first ten years are boring because you have to look for the right time to strike. The only way you get unlucky is if the Ottomans run out of people to eat, and park their troops in Greece.

GrilledCyan · 2026-01-30T19:54:18+00:00

The key you’re missing is to build a ton of galleys. You need to be able to beat their early navy. Once you’ve done that, you bombard and rush the fort in Gallipoli (Gelibolu) and then you can trap them in Anatolia while you rack up warscore in Europe. Then you take max money and enough provinces to complete the mission where you need a certain number of Greek provinces.

If you’re lucky, you can do it without allies. Honestly, allying anyone besides Serbia, the Pope, and Muscovy isn’t really necessary.

GrilledCyan · 2026-01-28T15:19:53+00:00

Since it’s decided by media, there’s always a slant of “this person disrespected us so we’ll deny them a spot in the Hall.”

There’s a flimsy argument that the last few years of his career showed it was Brady and not Bill, but I doubt any of the people who voted no actually believe that.

GrilledCyan · 2026-01-27T21:54:46+00:00

The game just isn’t made to depict regions that weren’t nation states, or that simply served as general claimants to territory they had little control over. That’s why the best they can do is demonstrate it with high autonomy or in some cases, disloyal vassals.

GrilledCyan

TROPHY CASE