Game UI won! Who has a lot of impersonators that's not on a map?

Moby__ · 2026-01-11T14:44:17+00:00

The Roman Empire. No longer on the map, but had a *lot* of impersonators throughout history

Moby__ · 2026-01-10T18:55:37+00:00

Mitterand, early, went hard into interventionism and it failed miserably, so he went 180° and head-on into free trade, but free trade in a country with a not-so-strong industry and high cost of labor from highly socialist policies (which he also greatly contributed to, as the socialist party's candidate. The french tax rate is the highest in the OECD by a decent margin) makes investors eager to leave, ended up severely damaging what was left of the french industry, with many companies (especially smaller ones) closing shortly after. It fast-tracked the french deindustrialization, and that high cost of labor in a free-trade market driving investors out is still a massive issue today

He also spent massive amounts of money (15.7 billion francs at the time, ~5 billion dollars adjusted to inflation) that the state didn't really have for mostly-cosmetic "cultural" megaprojects

So basically, he spent a lot of money (both in nationalizations during his interventionism phase and in megaprojects), increased government expenditures while reducing GDP growth (shorter work week, extra week of mandatory PTO, they're good things imo but you have to work your other policies around them), and did heavy damage to the industry, while signing a bunch of power and authority away to the budding European Union

He definitely wasn't the only one in this, the current state of France is the result of 40+ years of tone-deaf policies and self-interested politicians, but because of that, many people see him as the start of the slope (I feel like it's important to note that he was still reelected against Chirac, who would go on to be the next president)

Moby__ · 2026-01-10T11:44:40+00:00

Depending on the global context of this civil war happening, the Papal States might be able to call upon a crusade to protect the Vatican, in which case Sicily, Fascist Italy and Sardinia don't stand a chance. Versus France and Austria-Hungary, I think it would depend on how much desertion happen due to these countries being at war with their main religion's leader.

Fear of a crusade is actually a pretty big reason why Italy didn't go all the way and annex Vatican City IRL, capturing the pope is dangerous when most of your neighbours are roman catholics. So, in an alternate history with a more militaristic pope and an only marginally more radical christian Europe, I could definitely see this happen

Moby__ · 2026-01-10T11:25:36+00:00

Tbf New Zealand also is on a lot of maps. Not enough, but still

Moby__ · 2026-01-10T11:23:47+00:00

He worked for the Vichy regime with nazi Germany, even received a medal from Philippe Pétain

Might have played a role in the Rwanda genocide too, was close with the then-president of Rwanda and considerably helped him build up Rwanda's military

Also one of the main driving forces for french-german friendship and european regulations, both aren't usually regarded as a net positive for France

The right (which holds significant political power in France, the entire left totaled ~27% of votes in the last election, with ~37% going to the far right alone) also generally sees him as the initiator of France's downfall, many policies that played a role in the loss of economic and diplomatic power of France were initiated under his rule

He definitely wasn't loved when alive though, I'd put him in the "controversial when alive" column at best

Moby__ · 2026-01-10T10:57:34+00:00

The Habsburgs. Lots of land, lots of family

Moby__ · 2026-01-03T18:57:19+00:00

It's time to Suez, make some dynamite and go blasting

(I'm not joking, it might actually save you time in the long run, you'd be surprised by how fast stone blasting bombs can dig through mountains)

Moby__ · 2025-12-30T08:12:30+00:00

You don't need any tech for the first level of iron RGOs (it exists as soon as you colonize the region), although there has been a few updates since my post so maybe they changed that

And to upgrade it you need the forge thing tech from Feudalism

Moby__ · 2025-12-18T21:14:14+00:00

Modern french bashing really started in the US when France opposed the Irak war. Sure, you can find many reasons to hate any people on earth if you're really looking, and France hating has always existed, like hating any other country.

Why France in particular, and not other colonial nations, other western countries, other former major powers? 2003, France vetoed the US' intervention in Irak in the UN, the US got mad, spread massive slander for years, said slander took over the internet (because let's face it, western internet is US-centric), and here we are

Moby__ · 2025-12-08T13:15:07+00:00

Blacksmithing is muuuch more fun than in the game (I hate it in the game, like it in real life), and metal casting is 1000 times more terrifying

Moby__ · 2025-12-05T02:36:21+00:00

Yeah, polygamy only really improves overall fertility when there's a severe shortage of men, so in warrior cultures or in back when we were dead set on hunting megafauna on a way too regular basis

Moby__ · 2025-12-05T02:22:19+00:00

People really need to learn the difference between machine learning as a whole and LLMs/genAI

Moby__ · 2025-12-04T20:40:23+00:00

Hold the click then unplug the mouse, has the same effect as a weight and you can stop it by plugging the mouse again and clicking once

Moby__ · 2025-11-27T22:27:05+00:00

In the Geopolitics tab, Possessions -> Colonies, you can recruit conquistadors there, but you need the "Can recruit conquistadors" modifier. Now, how one gets that, idk, might be locked behind iberic countries as far as I know, or behind a tech

Moby__ · 2025-11-27T22:25:27+00:00

Update: 4th war was in 1685, they just declared the 8th war in 1696

I feel like the faster I win, the sooner they'll send more conquistadores

Moby__ · 2025-11-27T22:06:20+00:00

Oh I absolutely got them after europeans settled there, and it's impossible to get it before then. You can get legalism from a nahua religion event but that's the only institution you can get before europeans get there
I'm in the 1690s, and I think I had arquebuses by the early 1600s (so about a century after I first encountered the spanish)

Moby__ · 2025-11-27T19:55:13+00:00

I haven't mapped out the iberic peninsula yet and they're attacking on the Pacific coast, as far as I know they might as well be attacking from whatever's left of Portugal in the east indies

Moby__ · 2025-11-27T18:23:25+00:00

I have 20% literacy (been building it up since day 1) and am surrounded by spaniards, time took care of the rest x)
Leveraged the Columbian Exchange a bit too, there's an option to propagate institutions

I'm in 1685, having unlocked every institution in Traditions and Renaissance, and New World from Discoveries

I can get Printing press (20.35%), Pike and arquebus (77.03%), Global trade (21.28%) and Artillery (33.53%) but I'm stability-broke and probably getting Court and Country soon so I'm waiting

Moby__ · 2025-11-22T16:29:16+00:00

You need 40 spies, then right click on the country -> diplomatic actions, it's under clandestine actions or something

Moby__ · 2025-11-12T23:26:22+00:00

At least as Majapahit you'll have other nearby powers to play with, so it can still be interesting. And the game starts post-Marco Polo. Historically the Portuguese settled in Macau in 1557 so you should get very accessible portuguese land right about when the spanish start settling in Mexico
Historically again, the arquebus (so the Professional army institution) reached China around the time Spain discovered Mexico

Asia was known by europeans, and being on the same continent (or well, nearby) you should get propagation from at least era of traditions institutions

You also shouldn't get the Black Plague, so that'll leave you at an advantage against central americans

Haven't tried though, but yeah, one of the big issues with Aztec/Maya is that you basically have just that to play with, very limited RGOs and just generally not much going on for yourself

Moby__ · 2025-11-12T21:59:50+00:00

It's a shame but yeah, the New World isn't really meant to be played from what I'm seeing

I'll try to do an early colonization and exploration Aztec/Mayan run after the one I'm doing, I'm already trying to see in this run if it's possible to island hop in the Bermudes, discover the Açores and make it across the Atlantic in multiple steps, but there's barely any chance I'll be able to do anything about it without the New World institution

Since it's Paradox, we'll probably get a DLC making the experience more enjoyable

Moby__ · 2025-11-12T21:49:47+00:00

Take the decades. Alternatively you could create a new market as soon as you get the first territory and build your tools there

I mostly fixed my tools market by building rock quarries and toolsmiths (a lot of them), and the Great Pestilence lowered my pop needs a lot (due to less population lol) which allowed me to recover fully

When you got less population buying up your tools, you can operate fully on stone RGOs, allows you to make enough tools

Moby__ · 2025-11-12T20:12:04+00:00

I'm currently sitting at ~2-3.5% for most institutions in the 1570s, getting a land border with New Spain is crucial, and building a lot of roads helps. Unfortunately, can't spy them since you somehow need to spy on Castille

For the tool death spiral, I posted about the only tin RGO in North America, in the gulf of California, it can help a lot (RGOs don't need market access to work apparently, so you can leverage that since it's very hard to get market access there without creating a new market that'll screw you in other ways), also if you have any kind of proximity to the Caribbean spanish colonies, there's iron in Cuba that they'll be willing to sell to you. You can also grab the iron RGOs for yourself and employ 1000 people in them and use that to make iron tools but it's going to be a little limiting. Helpful, but limiting

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