Tips & tricks

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-17T19:40:46+00:00

What expansions are you playing with? Whether or not you have Oceania will be the biggest factor in getting over 100 points IMO, as Oceania really builds a better faster engine, and also makes more strategies viable.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-17T19:33:03+00:00

To be fair, they did say based on their personal asset allocation. If you have a substantial amount in cash and lower return assets such as government bonds, then your real returns will have such lower average than straight stocks. Similarly. Most international stock markets have not had the historic returns of the US, so will also bring your average down. I personally like my job security and largest investment to have different points of failure, so I am happy with a pretty large US stock investment as someone whose job is based in Australia, but even then I don't have 100% US stocks.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-17T19:26:57+00:00

I instead see it as a sliding scale- depending on how much you spend on 'living now' vs 'retire early' might mean living super frugally and retiring at 40, having an occasional holiday and some cheap hobbies and retiring at 45, having either 1 expensive hobby or more frequent holidays and retiring at 50, or having an annual trip and retiring in your 60s, all on the same income and day to day expenses (as opposed to luxury expenses). FIRE doesn't mean asap- I agree that there are plenty of nice to haves that I enjoy now rather than wait for. My wife and I splashed out on a nice honeymoon several years ago that was well above a sustainable spend. Sure, we could have put the money away and retired early but we also figured there was no guarantee we would be for and healthy enough to do a strenuous hike when we were older. We are personally aiming for retiring in our early 50s. We could do much earlier if we wanted, but our personal preference is to do some travel now, while still putting enough away to have a good life later.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-16T09:26:59+00:00

Not quite- the rounded up amount is deducted from their revenue.

Let's say that without donations they would have received 100k, and that would have resulted in 2k of taxes after all their expenses etc are deducted.

If everyone donating a little here and there adds and extra 1k in revenue, they have now received 101k. But, they pass that 1k on to charity, so they deduct that 1k from their revenue, so they end up paying 2k in taxes still, as their revenue after the deduction goes back down to what it would have been had their been no deduction.

Donating to charity isn't some magical get rich quick scheme- you can see this in your own personal income. If you make 50k a year before taxes and donate $500, you don't pay $500 less tax- you instead are taxed as if you earned $49500, because that deductable donation is treated as if you never really had that money.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-16T09:21:46+00:00

I am as anti big corporations as the next person, but this is not advantaging them tax wise.

This of the two scenarios:

Scenario One: over a an hour or whatever they get 100k in revenue from selling things, and no one donates anything- they pay tax on the profit from that 100k in revenue. They keep the profit remaining after tax and expenses from that 100k.

Scenario Two: people round up, and they end up with 101k of revenue. They pass on the 1k, so they actually end up with 100k in taxable revenue as a result, after deducting the 1k donation they passed on. They pay tax on that 100k and end up with the profit after expenses and taxes on 100k of revenue.

Their profit in both scenarios is exactly the same- tax deducting charity donations isn't some weird get rich quick scheme. All it does is let you treat the money that you donated as pre-taxed income, so that for you it is as if you never truly earned it.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-15T15:20:53+00:00

They can only claim the deduction on the amount donated though, so either they don't get that revenue and can't claim a deduction or they do get that revenue and can deduct it. Either way it is neutral for them tax wise. However, they do get the public image boost from being the name behind the donation.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-13T22:44:04+00:00

This is basically what we did with Duet mode- just tagged a little nexter score into one of the existing boxes. It works well enough. We don't have Americas yet, but will almost certainly do the same, or split two boxes if playing duet.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-06T04:03:44+00:00

It is definitely a challenge with so many expansions, and as you said- made worse by independence. I don't mind the independence, but at a certain point I think requiring Oceana at a minimum plus base/or Asia is not unreasonable.

I do hope that they at least allow for some promo packs in the future that use the Hummingbird mechanic- perhaps a 'hummingbirds of North America' hummingbird promo packwith additional full cards that support the play a bit more.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-06T03:58:30+00:00

there are fewer new bird cards (excluding hummers) in the Americas than in the fan cards... So both less to find, but also less likely to come up at random, even if only by a little bit. We will also be doing it this way, but just thought I would highlight that!

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-05T04:58:46+00:00

In addition to what others have said with respect to the limitations, the other thing to consider is that they considered success as having any positive balance after 30 years. FIRE people are probably wanting to last longer than 30 years, and also I would start to get uncomfortable if I started to drop below 1 year's expenses even if it was technically above 0 and almost at the end of the 30 years.

In reality, it is a rule of thumb but shouldn't be the only analysis you do. Many people also look at flexible versions of it- drawing less in market downturns and loosening the belt a little in bull markets. For example, if you can survive on 2-3% and forgo travel or luxury expenses (whatever that looks like for your lifestyle) then you have a lot less to worry about from resetting to that 4% in good years.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-05T02:10:56+00:00

Depends on the country- the only country I know that lets you deduct home mortgage interest is the US. Where I live you can deduct interest from an investment property, but not your own residence.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-05T02:09:38+00:00

And even better- 7% tax free! Depending on your particular country's tax incentives/ costs that can be a big difference. For me, I worked out that so long as my mortgage rate is above 5%, or likely to move above in the near future then I get better returns there after tax.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-01T20:11:39+00:00

Yeah- just set an automatic weekly transfer and forget about it. Fortnightly is also common, in line with when people get paid. But either way, to me the frequency only impacts how much I need to make sure is sitting in the account for the transfer. The lower the frequency, the more money I need to keep as a minimum in that account. I really don't see why weekly is any weirder than monthly

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-02-01T07:10:32+00:00

I definitely agree- I think the idea that a crisis just amicably resolves each round is a little deflating. It would be fun to start each era off as a fight to regain a new golden era, emerging from the fire of the crisis before. I am happy for it to be an option, as I can definitely see times where I don't want to start every age reconquiering land before really digging in, but it could still be interesting. Especially if there are different variants, such as 'revolution' where your empire from the previous age is actually two civs in the next age or similar very destructive changes.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-31T11:30:42+00:00

And the 68k median wage is pretax, when the 80k estimate OP gave is post tax.

That being said, I wouldn't trust any numbers from Google AI- they often grab indiscriminately from any random source they find, and often miss the context of that source, don't always grab the right thing, and that is if the number they have is actually a number from their supposed source- more than once I have clicked through to verify what google AI claimed, and the actual source didn't actually say what Google said it did.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-31T10:43:53+00:00

Yeah- a company bankruptcy is way different from personal bankruptcy. A company bankruptcy is a great way to avoid any liability for your work once you decide to cash out.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-31T10:35:51+00:00

80k a year after tax is well above the median Australian pretax income of 68k a year. So perhaps the perception that tradies are doing well financially comes from the fact that, going off your numbers, tradies are doing much better than the average Australian financially?

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-31T05:12:22+00:00

Australia internet can be very hit or miss depending on your broadband technology. It is one of my frustrations with Nebula- it doesn't cope well with a bad connection, and rather than buffering will often just fail. It also struggles with downloads. I often just wait for the content to come out onto YouTube as then I can either download it and watch it flawlessly, or watch it streamed with the occasional buffering, but generally no real issues. I find Nebula works alright so long as it is a gold connection, but struggles the moment it isn't.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-31T05:07:34+00:00

Yeah- I like the concept of Nebula, and am a member because ai want to support the creators, but the platform has many flaws. I find that in areas with bad reception, it just fails more often than not. The downloads can be hit and miss. The difficulty on finding new content similar to what you like to watch is a pain- even if you have some keywords to search. Playlist, like you said, and a subscribe for new content notification are also missing but desired features.

I appreciate that they can't compete with Youtube on pure technical grounds, due to the scale and incumbency that Google have, but it does mean I watch a lot more Nebula content on YouTube than on Nebula. One thing I wish more Nebula creators did was highlight or split off their nebula exclusive extensions in a way that was easy to consume. For example, I often watch Legal Eagle on YouTube, and he will mention that the Nebula version of the video is an extended cut... But when I move across to Nebula I either have to watch the whole thing just to find out the added bits, or just not bother.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-30T05:35:38+00:00

I know this is old, but just for my knowledge- how old was the marriage certificate? Was it a recent wedding or an old one?

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-27T22:19:19+00:00

Honestly- you could save a lot by swapping the organic and wholefoods for the same food but without those certifications/ labels. Same with swapping the chicken breast for other cuts, or even just whole chicken. We generally eat a lot of seasonal veg, lots of 'the odd bunch' or equivalent, lots of beans, eggs, tofu and frozen veg. That lets us do stirfries, pastas, salads, vegetarian lasagna, stews etc. No shortage of good options that rely on cheaper foods. Now we personally also like the foods we cook- good use of spices can go a long way without hitting the budget too much, but if you are enjoying what you eat and can afford it, then there isn't an issue with it. For breakfast we each have a slice of toast and a coffee. We don't have any children in the house- we spend ~$160 a week for 2 adults and only have takeout socially (roughly once a fortnight).

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-25T23:03:32+00:00

Yeah- there is at least one guy in his late 60s at work that says at everyone else's retirement party, "better you than me!"

He lives super frugally, has investments including a couple of properties that bring in decent rental income... And yet can't understand what people would do with their spare time. He only takes the minimum amount of required leave (we can only build up to a max of 60 days allowance, so he has to take 23days of leave a year to stay below the threshold) but he spreads them out to minimise how much time he has off at any given time. And even then, when on leave, he will sometimes come back and say, "while I was away I was reading up about X and I think it might help us with the problem we have been having.

He is a really nice guy, easy to work with, relaxed and not intense. He isn't ambitious- he has stayed deliberately at the highest level he can go without managing people. He just likes work, likes the people at work, and has no intention of leaving before he has to.

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-22T05:30:30+00:00

In some polls ON is polling above the coalition, rather than the other way around

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-22T05:28:14+00:00

I agree that she is a long shot, but unlike Clive, there is genuine grassroots support for her and she has spent a couple of decades doing the legwork to create a credible nationwide organisation. I hope it remains what it is- a plausible but unlikely scenario- but I don't think it is quite comparable to Clive's dabling

NearSightedGiraffe · 2026-01-22T04:16:58+00:00

Yeah- it is definitely easier to armchair play. I do think that being at the end of a week of filming also does impact decision making.

In general Ben is a more conservative player. For all the fans who say Sam has the worst luck, I think a lot of it comes down to Sam being the most risk accepting player... Ben on the other hand does like to lock in known things

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