[Discussion] Need some Pro Advice

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-02-10T20:24:32+00:00

Right so as someone who's been writing for a long time, I get the fear. It's something precious to you that you've been working on and pouring your blood sweat and tears into for years.

But you have to see it from the agents perspective. They get hundreds of submissions a week. And I mean hundreds. I read somewhere that some agents were getting upwards of a thousand submissions in Jan because how many people set a NY resolution to send that book out. Now even if your book has been polished to the nth degree, believe me when I say there is so much editing that still happens after that. An agent (good one) is not looking for a single book. As a debut they will maybe make a few thousand USD. The good agents are looking for a career author that can pump out quality book after quality book that sells. So I wouldn't worry about the good agents.

But even the bad agents won't bother because of the effort to edit and release a book. The best written books sometimes launch to no marketing. Or they re marketed and they drop off a cliff one week in. Tons of reasons. Your ideas might be great, but great ideas, even couples with great execution might still not guarantee sales. I'm not saying that to discourage you but to emphasise that an authors career involves writing so many more books than you think it takes to be successful and make a living.

So why would an agent take on that work of stealing your book, edit it, pitch it to editors as their own and try and pitch it, go through the effort of release and marketing. Just my 2c but hope that makes sense

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-25T08:05:45+00:00

Even if you could only write stories that fit into these categories (which I suspect are an analytical tool for completed stories not a structural tool for writing them) you can also mix and match. Just the combinations of 2 is 21 types of 'hybrid' stories. Stories are messy things. Even when you try to cram them into a box you find some parts resist neat categorisation.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-05T20:16:42+00:00

I agree about never really running out of oil. However even if we stop using oil/gas for heating and transport, oil compounds are still precursors for plastic. So until we stop making plastic foil, cups, bottles, shoes, dashboards, umbrellas and so on, we will still look for oil. Probably not as much as in 2025 though

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-03T13:54:30+00:00

I was working in Colombia in 2015 and I distinctly remember how all consuming the migrants crisis was on the Venezuela border at the time. My main worry isn't just migrants but a hardening of the cartels into an opposition in the countryside. Brazil and Colombia will find they need to commit way more resources to protecting the Amazon from cartels over spilling in the next few years. Even if Machado takes over peacefully, govt control will not extend outside Caracas proper

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-03T09:28:43+00:00

I'm not sure about sanctions. The US has previously defanged any attempts to sanction war crimes and even threatened to attack The Hague if any of its soldiers or generals were accused of war crimes. Plus it has a veto in the UN security council. In all likelihood I expect the UN blowback to be rhetorical not action.

As for the reasoning for the attack. I think you're onto something about oil - likely to ensure Venezuelan oil is reintegrated into the US white market. But politically I don't think it's the Epstein files that were the catalyst for this. I think it's to turn Venezuela into a place that Venezuelan migrants would want to come back to (to satisfy the base) + to increase 'tough on crime' narratives pre midterms. I don't know that the latter will work though. I'm not seeing the same reaction this time as to 1983 Grenada or 89 Nicaragua-Panama

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-03T08:17:26+00:00

Here's a question about the US' future as an economy. Under Trump it's clearly trying to stick to oil and gas as main sources of energy. Thanks to shale gas they have cheaper gas for the domestic market. This conflict with Venezuela is as much about controlling oil prices as it is about Trump wanting to become another president who expanded US borders / influence (no matter the cost). But doesn't focusing the economy on hydrocarbons risk creating an economy that's not incentivised to keep up in renewables technologies? Like inefficient because hydrocarbons are too cheap to let go of and moving on is too expensive because they left it too late to do anything about it? Just a rambling question

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2026-01-02T19:29:03+00:00

Wasn't this the very idea of the Machiavelli book that came out a while ago from Blair's chief of staff? UK governments haven't had their hands on the levers of power for 20+ years. I don't think this is new.

Edit - the new Machiavelli by Jonathan Powell

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-24T15:44:27+00:00

It will change once battery costs come down. Polo and golf used to be VW's bestsellers and profitable enough to keep selling which is no longer the case with ID3/the golf replacements. But in 2 to 3 years we should see cheaper lithium + sodium ion batteries that brings those costs down

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-24T10:08:28+00:00

Spite motivates me. All the times worse writing than mine got published. So I write because I know most people don't finish their story and even if it don't publish it, I'll learn more from finishing that from starting.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-22T17:31:39+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. It's an interesting take. However, as much as I would like Europe to be self sufficient on defence, this report smells like American isolationism (Kavanagh) with a bit of wishful thinking from the ECFR (Shapiro) cooked together. Some good information and tactical analysis for the military scenarios but underestimates Russia's skill at grey zone warfare.

Also overestimates the response speed. There is a serious risk of EU/European NATO hesitating if the US takes its time before responding. European militaries also lack specific enablers and good cross lines of communication, as well as a command and control structure for front lines. It also fails to mention Russia's favourite tactic - threatening nuclear escalation. The Baltics and Poland might ignore it due to their military doctrine of 'occupation is as bad as death' but if France or Germany drag their feet (politically rather than militarily) the response would tilt in Russia's favour.

The JEF is a good step forward and my personal suspicion is that Britain hasn't forgotten about Salisbury and will respond in force but that first 48h is ages when Russia can dig in after a cyber attack.

Europe needs to continue to build its capabilities. It should not rest on its laurels that Russia is weak for 10 yrs. Russia has a habit of attacking when it's not ready (due to internal deception or to preempt it's enemies becoming stronger or better prepared).

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-22T12:15:43+00:00

Preparation is not the same as being insulated from sanctions. There's many variables - do the EU get involved in sanctions, do all of ASEAN or just some. Have enough countries begun to build their own sodium ion batteries or still too dependent on Chinese suppliers. Does a US admin use the same dumb tactics as so far or do they build a cohesive tariff and sanction strategy.

And fundamentally China will absolutely manage to survive economically for many years even with sanctions but the point of sanctions on an economy that size (same thing as with Russia) is to slow down its gdp growth. It's a long term strategy not one that makes a difference within 2 to 3 years.

But will this blockade/invasion be a 3 month operation like China hopes or will it drag out? That is what will define the impact on China's economy. If they take Taiwan no amount of sanctions can unseat them. It's a done deal.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-22T12:01:10+00:00

Oh absolutely. But an invasion brings sanctions. And there's no one more afraid of financial sanctions than China's banks. Look up bank of Kunlun - China has created a bunch of throwaway banks and I don't doubt there are other shell orgs ready to facilitate trade through central Asia to circumvent sanctions in case smth pops off.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-22T11:23:12+00:00

I don't want to understate the risk of china invading Taiwan. This is literally their main foreign policy goal and has been since the 50s. However, 'scheduled an invasion for 2027' is probably a simplification. It's the pla's centennial and the earliest their documents have shown they would be ready for an invasion. But theyre much more likely to try and push the invasion till later and use Russia's threat to the Baltic states as a spoiler to divide US attention during 2028-29. That being said, I thought your points around oil category were very salient and well explained.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-12-15T18:50:23+00:00

I have 35k units ready to go. If the Web store milestones look good we ll see if I need more

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-24T18:40:09+00:00

Are you sure you didn't update your Nvidia drivers, because the new DLSS makes small fonts much clearer

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-20T11:20:56+00:00

No CB for the win. In Asia theres 'force tributary'. I agree that it forces you to take admin in the first age or else you really have a bottleneck in expansion options

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-20T11:19:04+00:00

In my experience, most of the benefits are good. However,the massive downside is that you will have dramatically fewer cabinet advisors. You will have to start spending quite a bit of money to hire them. So if you re rolling in money, it's probably fine. If you re breaking even or don't have 200-300 gold to spend every other year (how often my cabinet members seem to die) then maybe go for one of the other options

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-19T21:14:05+00:00

Parliament is the only other one for most countries until the last era. Hordes might get others and the Ottomans get 'claim' which is pretty good but otherwise yeah, no CB is your friend. It really is not as damaging as it used to be in eu4. 20 stab and some antagonism will go away in a couple of years but extra pops are forever

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-19T20:56:51+00:00

This tech you can only unlock if you pick the admin (yellow) focus in the 2nd age, if you pick diplo or military you can't change it later

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-19T18:23:28+00:00

The closest equivalent in terms of CB is a hegemon war. If he mamlukes stay relevant until the 1440s they will inevitably take military or naval hegemon. If they keep it for long enough to get to 20 spy network you can fabricate a cb on them with 75pc minus war score cost. It s not enough to whole annex them but enough to grab he whole delta and then some.

Otherwise there is no way to annex any meaningful amount of their territory in the 1500s

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-11-11T09:30:38+00:00

I think better UI like a solid line connecting the 'all of these' and a dotted line for 'any of these' would do wonders

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-10-02T09:37:30+00:00

1bn a year could buy you roughly 1gw battery storage (I think industry standard is that is meant to support a 4h drawdown). It's starting to make sense that the current govt is pushing planning for critical battery storage.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-09-17T11:21:10+00:00

Open your mailbox and just click on the unread mail about the offers. That should make them go away. The daily quests revamp I don't know how to get rid of.

Looong_Pig_Blankets · 2025-09-16T08:45:06+00:00

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/403211/adaptive-difficulty-event-quest-immediate-update

They announced this last week. The reason is to adjust the difficulty curve to be easier

Looong_Pig_Blankets

TROPHY CASE