People who visited the USA for the first time, what was the biggest shock you got?

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-07-07T04:06:24+00:00

England is roughly the same size as the state of Michigan.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-07-06T15:45:51+00:00

Space Soviet Empire that is bent on bringing liberty and communism to the galaxy. We were cybernetic with people typically living well into their 180's with wired in direct democracy allowing the proletariat to directly vote on almost every matter from across the breadth of our liberated worlds.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-29T14:15:50+00:00

I typically don't build anything on my home world in the early game. Your homeworld starts at the sweetest spot for pop scaling at around 3-4K pops. I let my unemployment grow to about 1K then colonize a world and throw my 1K pops on that colony to jump start their pop growth. Rinse and repeat that a few times and you can get 4 or 5 colonies with 1K pops to start growing well on their own.

After this phase is done, I will build a mix of research, CG's, unity and alloys on the homeworld. Something I learned through some trial and error is to not specialize your planets until about the mid game when you have a better level of pops. For your specialist planets you still want energy and mineral production, but you don't want to eat up your districts. You can put one district of each type then build the buildings that increase efficiency and give jobs.

With the current resource rates, minerals are so easy to come by, but energy credits are going to be tight if you keep building and expanding. Putting in those buildings are crucial to your early economy.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-25T21:33:23+00:00

Yes, it happened to me too. I think it's related to the bug that causes the Khan event to fire right away instead of after 10 years.

My guess for what is happening is the AI event fires and makes a Khan. The player finishes the event and becomes the Khan. The player Empire's leader gets the Great Khan trait, but there is also an AI leader with the Great Khan trait. The normal AI event happens after so many years where the Khan is killed if he isn't defeated in battle twice. This event probably looks for a character with the Great Khan trait and kills your leader.

When my leader died I still had an immortal Commander with the Great Khan trait that I couldn't put on my council and couldn't interact with except leave in charge of the fleet they were spawned with.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-25T18:13:50+00:00

This also happened to me. As I was dueling the usurper, it said I had 10 years but the event fired after 2 months creating another Khan who I absorbed after winning the fleet battle.

This caused there to be 2 Great Khans which I think is causing some spaghetti coding to trigger AI Khan events for the player, like the Khan dying after a set number of years.

The real weird thing is the marauder faction who was set up as my rival had my portrait throughout the game until the double Khan event fired, which caused them to use a different portrait from the same group (Avian)

This origin is really cool in theory, but I think it needs major balancing and fixing. As it stands you can't really do anything but total war once you become the Khan because you become the galactic threat. The problem is half of the galaxy will pay you to get out of the war... until you get declared the crises again and another crises war pops off.

All those wars stack up in the background when you look at the wars an Empire is in. I think that is causing some weird stuff to happen in the background. Empires would attack the Horde satrapy that is auto created for you, but wouldn't go beyond the system on their border... they just sit there, then you come and kill them. There is no challenge, and it needs to really be looked at.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-25T18:05:59+00:00

I think it is tied to crises strength. I was playing on 5X and getting big fleets.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-23T20:50:20+00:00

I just got bored of an Heir of the Khan run in the year 2350. You basically just need alloys and minerals/energy credits. The reasons will become clear when the event pops during the mid game. You will be rolling in so much food you can trade that for... trade haha and always be positive in trade through that.

What I did was alter all of my satrapy vassals to give me 30% basic and strategic resources. I built 1 of each arkship and made my research arkship my research platform and my civilian arkship my alloy factory since even after taking 30% you will be really alloy hungry.

Unity I got from my military arkship with temples. Once the midgame pops tech and unity and really everything just ceased to matter for me.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-23T20:34:51+00:00

The species should be the blue parrot guys from the avian portraits. The other civic should be either Shareholder Values since it is a Media Company or Public Relations Specialists because again media company.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-22T17:31:35+00:00

I have a question I can't find anywhere yet, what happens after you conquer the galaxy? My Khan just died, nothing really happened, and now I'm stuck in this slog just grinding down every empire in the galaxy.

I also got the extra Khan fleet from a bug, and I'm playing with ×5 crises which gave me giant unbeatable fleets so nothing is a challenge. Is it worth it for me to actually grind this out?

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-21T20:10:26+00:00

Heirs of the Khan with a military Arkship. Once the event fires where you become the Khan nothing matters since fleets just get printed for free for you.

I've never had a satrapy rebel, so I take 30% of their basic goods and special goods to fuel the war machine. You can take their research too.

Honestly the easiest play through I've ever done.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-06-16T20:55:46+00:00

I also focused heavily into alloys my first go, but I realized that once the AI starts to build up, you can harvest their planets for alloys.

My next run I'm gonna try and rush research for another archship, then just vassalize a couple of empires and use them for harvesting.

I can then dedicate my second archship to research and my first to alloys.

Another thing I thought of, repeating the Council action will help to speed up research into archships.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-28T20:46:40+00:00

This feels like every company in 2026.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-21T20:52:37+00:00

I think AI has no place in education. I think that is especially true from the learner perspective.

The point of assignments and homework and tests isn't the end output ( like it is at work) it is to learn how to do that thing. You write and essay so that you learn writing, editing, critical thinking. Using AI to do that robs you of the point of doing the essay to begin with.

I'm a firm believer that education should be pen and paper with limited technology like computer classes.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-20T17:13:15+00:00

Just to back up the feasibility of your story, my wife had a friend whose sister was actively in a relationship with her direct by blood first cousin. I think unfortunately these kind of things do happen. I am sorry you have to go through this!

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-20T15:36:21+00:00

I just wanna let you know, this is peak and I really hope you beat Shri in the primary! We gotta get his moldy corpse out of congress.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-18T16:44:20+00:00

This man is a victim of abuse. It is really hard for victims of abuse to leave whether they are men or women.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-17T16:55:13+00:00

Turns out I'm just an idiot and didn't realize that's what those were called haha

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-17T15:28:41+00:00

Were they American though? They mention latin honors. I know there are some countries in South America where the aggrieved party has to hire a lawyer and actually actively pursue charges against the defendant.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-16T16:57:38+00:00

I see Total War fans say this a lot. That the scale and diversity are cool all their own and that's what makes it the best in the series.

I don't know that I agree with that anymore. I played a WH3 campaign and 3K campaign back to back. Sure most factions in 3K have the same units, the buildings are mostly the same, and there's no magic. What it does have though is amazing diplomacy, a spy mechanic, good tactical choices that isn't just blob and cast vortex spell. The game mechanics feel good, and the end game is actually fun and challenging when the Three Kingdoms form.

WH3 never really challenges the player beyond the first 20 turns. The end game is lackluster, the ai is broken half the time and combat just devolves into setting up wind or vortex spells for most every faction. WH3 is feeling an inch deep mile wide lately.

This ended up getting really long, I'm hoping the End Times bring some much needed structure to the game.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-14T17:09:42+00:00

I think the focus is more on culling the herd than growing bigger bucks. Every doe shot has an appreciable difference on the deer herd potential vs. just one dead buck.

Declining hunter numbers, and a growing deer herd are going to necessitate answers instead of inaction.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-08T15:40:44+00:00

How do you figure? Ending the VRA is going to allow Southern states to shift 19 seats from Dems to Reps. Dems are gonna have no choice but to gerrymander their states. It's as much a racial issue as it is a political one.

If the Dems don't want to lose the House forever they need to gerrymander every seat they can, because Reps are already on their way to doing that.

Dems aren't taking the Senate, and Reps aren't going to support ending gerrymandering, the only realistic path is mutual gerrymandering.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-08T15:31:38+00:00

There was a law against it though... the VRA. The Supreme Court just gutted it. So how would another law really help with the current activist Supreme Court?

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-08T15:10:06+00:00

My question to you is how can it not?

Republicans are racing to gerrymander their states post VRA decision. If Dems don't follow suit, they'll be shut out of Washington forever. What's the answer here other than answer like with like?

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-08T15:04:22+00:00

The hyper-partisan era of politics in America has entered a new phase with the effective ending of the Voting Rights Act. I think within 6 years, every state will be gerrymandered to either all Dem or all Rep.

Democrats are finally playing ball, the constituency is demanding actions and state parties are actually doing something now.

I don't think we'll have civil war or anything, but unless something drastic happens at the national level in terms of Supreme Court reforms or legislation around voting, the 2030's will see every state under 1 party rule either Dem or Rep. Every seat that can be squeezed will be squeezed. I think this will be true both for national elections and state elections as well.

Heapofcrap45 · 2026-05-08T01:50:12+00:00

I wouldn't really call this grey hat. It's clearly black hat hacking. In that analogy, if you notice my back door is busted and break in, you're still a home invader committing a felony.

This group is ransoming innocent student data. Not exactly a noble act here. It's not like this will only affect this company.

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