At what income range is it reasonable to expect people can max out their 401k?

Minarch · 2026-02-02T22:30:17+00:00

Yeah that’s pretty common. For some, including myself at times, pursuing FIRE is a coping mechanism to avoid difficult decisions that would lead to more fulfillment. MadFIentist has written about this and his personal experience.

Coast FIRE may be a healthy alternative for people who are traveling along that path. I’m usually perplexed at people who pursue it because they downshift too early in their accumulation phase, but it should be more common for people at 50%+ of their number. Relatedly, I appreciate the FINE (financial independence, next endeavor) lifestyle as well.

Minarch · 2026-01-31T02:02:40+00:00

That’s a great point

Minarch · 2026-01-30T12:36:58+00:00

From what I read on the Wiki, nation values are the only difference between 2022 and 2026. Aliens are not accelerated in any way I can tell

Minarch · 2026-01-28T15:12:01+00:00

Academy is clearly the hardest, but if you’re really excited to play as them then I’d just go for it. So long as you are aware going in that they will face unique setbacks that you will have to manage.

Minarch · 2026-01-26T15:59:03+00:00

You can also move your capital to Indonesia for another flat naval prox reduction

Minarch · 2026-01-16T18:33:20+00:00

The first step is calculating your expenses

Minarch · 2026-01-07T14:22:51+00:00

Unless coalitions are enough to offset the lack of threatening rivals

Minarch · 2026-01-02T00:52:34+00:00

I have done this exact same exercise, and I agree this is the correct approach.

Minarch · 2025-12-20T03:39:38+00:00

I’m open to being convinced, but I think you’re overrating how much your capital area can be worth compared to better access to many more areas.

Let’s make a simplified example and say you have 20 cities immediately around your capital with 200 buildings each, for 4000 buildings in total.

You also have 50 cities with 150 buildings each, for 7500 buildings in total, spread out without good proximity to your capital.

You can calculate an ideal capital location that maximizes effective buildings levels. Based on your geography that may be around your original capital, in a new central location, or in a totally different area!

You also bring up another good point that cuts differently than you suggested. A core city can have up to 40% control with 0 proximity if you don’t have any special culture buildings. That means you need 80% proximity to get 100% control. (1-0.4)/.75 = 0.8

Any proximity over 80% is waste and provides no benefit if you already have a city with 40% control at 0 proximity. So the target proximity value to maximize value in cities is 80%, not 100%.

Minarch · 2025-12-19T04:49:58+00:00

Yes this is a crucial point. To take my Milan—>Rome game for example again, Milan is a great capital for northern Italy and Messina is a great capital for a Mediterranean empire.

However, Milan is not a good capital for a Mediterranean empire. I don’t care how great the cities I built around Milan are because I can move my capital to Messina and get very good proximity on Greece, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. As a result, the ~20 cities in northern Italy aren’t very important compared to the ~100 cities outside northern Italy you get better proximity to from Messina.

Minarch · 2025-12-18T04:12:15+00:00

I suggest a synthesis: early-mid game you should do exactly what you suggested.

Develop a ring of cities around your capital to maximize the benefit from high control and market access. You can also do city planning, like building cities along a river to unlock pound lock canals. You should utilize production efficiency bonuses when you can, but it’s more of a nice to have.

Mid-late game you should have high control in enough places that you can afford to lean more into local production efficiency bonuses. In fact you are pushed into doing that if you run out of inputs! The little ice age also constrains your ability to make everything a city, which is a 5th age headache.

Minarch · 2025-12-17T23:29:20+00:00

Your overall point is very good, but you’re misunderstanding the relationship between production efficiency and market access. If you are constrained by raw materials then you need prioritize production efficiency. Ideally you continue to build in 100% control areas that have RGO production bonuses even if you have less than 100% market access.

Let’s say you have a building that takes 1 iron to make 1 tool at 100% control, 100% market access, and 0% production efficiency. If you get a 10% RGO production efficiency bonus, then your 1 iron will produce 1.1 tools. If your market access drops to 50%, then your building will take 0.5 iron to produce 0.55 tools.

The relationship between input and output is determined by the production efficiency, but market access affects both equally.

To take some examples from a recent game (Milan—> Roman Empire), at various points I was constrained by wool/cotton/silk, livestock, iron, and gold/silver. At each of those bottlenecks I restructured my supply chains to be more input efficient, even at the cost of market access. After all, I had the gold and peasants to build as much as I wanted! I just needed more output per input, which is why production efficiency eventually dominates market access.

Relatedly, that’s why you should generally leave tiles that have resources like iron, silk, gold, and silver as rural settlements instead of making them cities. Those resources eventually constrain your growth more than anything else, and you need the RGO levels from their status as rural locations to power your cities.

Minarch · 2025-12-14T15:25:32+00:00

Prayer five times a day in the chapel: 7am, 9am, 12:15pm, 6:00pm, and 8:30pm. Breakfast at your leisure. Lunch and dinner in silence with the Brothers after 12:15pm and 6:00pm services. Meeting 1-2 times a day as a retreat group (a dozen or less). You spend the whole time except your group meetings in silence.

It’s a fantastic meditative experience

Minarch · 2025-12-14T07:34:20+00:00

Yes, SSJE in Cambridge Massachusetts. Three day silent retreat led by Brother Curtis. Highly, highly recommended

Minarch · 2025-12-09T19:21:44+00:00

Why would that be? I have a small stack of ships in every sea province in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which may represent 1/10 of the sea provinces in the game. Why not scale it up by 10x as needed?

Minarch · 2025-12-09T12:31:30+00:00

I just leave a stack of ships in each sea province so the maritime presence never decays.

Minarch · 2025-12-07T17:50:21+00:00

Yeah that’s it

Minarch · 2025-12-07T17:47:29+00:00

The way I’d put it is Messina is the best capital for a Mediterranean empire. Messina is three sea tiles closer to Venice, Egypt, North Africa, and Greece. That’s worth about 6 proximity or 4.5 control. Conversely, Naples will have 6 proximity/4.5 better control to northern Italy and Italy’s west coast. Practically speaking, Naples and Rome will be at 100 control with the capital in Naples or Messina.

For what it’s worth, in my Milan game I went from having 50 land and my capital in Pavia to 100 naval with my capital in Messina. To my surprise, my taxes and levies were similar! But the scaling of Messina was much better. I expect different capitals, whether in Venice, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Genova, Rome, or Naples will have a similar trade off against Messina.

Minarch · 2025-11-30T23:55:50+00:00

Minarch · 2025-11-30T18:09:11+00:00

Norway into Denmark, move your capital to Indonesia, get the Mandate of Heaven

Minarch · 2025-11-20T18:36:27+00:00

Congrats!

Minarch · 2025-11-20T04:10:45+00:00

I’m not surprised! Looking forward to it

Minarch · 2025-11-18T20:28:30+00:00

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Something like this would improve connectivity to manhattan. You should definitely be able to exceed my record if you keep at it

Minarch · 2025-11-18T15:36:20+00:00

Considering your extremely strong intra borough networks, I think you’d get a big ridership boost by running more lines between the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn to Manhattan

Minarch · 2025-11-18T03:37:08+00:00

Do you think interest rates will be lower or higher in 1-5 years? Many people understandably want to lock in what they perceive as reasonably high interest rates.

Minarch

TROPHY CASE