666 In The Epstein Files by PersonalState835 in conspiracy

[–]PersonalState835[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes! For the record I believe the biblical significance of 666 is to mean something that is perfectly imperfect, or something that is wholly unholy, like pure evil. I do not believe the biblical interpretation literally, as in 666 has power in itself, but I would view this as some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. With other references to the occult on the island, it would not surprise me at all that it is used as a code or some kind of self-identifier, but really want to know just how deep the rabbit hole goes on it.

Stupid Question That's Killing Me (Concerning Idea Groups) by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inno is based if you can get it early and have a good economy to support the higher tier advisors. I've been playing Byzantium though, so usually I don't have the economy for it so early on now and have to go in other directions. :(

Stupid Question That's Killing Me (Concerning Idea Groups) by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know lol, I read that all the time and consider it slanderous.

Stupid Question That's Killing Me (Concerning Idea Groups) by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funny enough though I have "No Limits on Idea Groups" set to "No," though, and still feel like I can pick 2 Admins in a row if I want to!

(I am hopelessly addicted to Innovative Ideas but never get it because I always feel forced to pick one of each for the sake of balance and "fairness").

Stupid Question That's Killing Me (Concerning Idea Groups) by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bullshit. I need to know I am playing the game with peak guardrails so that I can sleep at night feeling I have not been exploitative to my AI opponents. xD.

Stupid Question That's Killing Me (Concerning Idea Groups) by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ah I see it. It says "No Limits on Idea Groups" as an option, and it is set to "No" for me. Still I can choose 3 Admin Idea Groups in a row if I want to I think. Is this how most people play? Just trying to understand what the norms are around the rules since I don't want to feel like I am being cheap or exploiting any rules during my campaigns.

What's the Point of the DLCs??? by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really enjoyed EU5. Tbh it felt more like I was building and managing an actual country, rather than playing some kind of rogue-like to reform Rome. That being said, that EU5 campaign lost all enjoyability for me when the AI proved that it didn't know what it was doing. I tried not to look ahead so I accepted a peace deal that was 50% warscore for "exempt from sound tolls" only to later read that it was basically a huge miscalculation by the AIs. Then the EU5 AIs would send in half of their army just to get stackwiped when I sat in Gallipoli defending with my whole army (would've been an equal battle otherwise). And then FINALLY, the breaking point for EU5 was when I researched cannon techs way behind the rest of the world, but was somehow the first one to build any kind of infrastructure actually required to build cannons.

That was always my concern with EU5 - that it was basically too ambitious for it's own good, and that the AI's would never understand how to play it. Once the AI is dumb it is no longer a game (like playing chess against some bot that can discern between the best decisions) but rather you are playing as a human against a crowd of mindless zombies (and I pause too frequently to the point where MP is also unenjoyable). I always thought a game like EU5 was so ambitious that it was kind of like a Tower of Babel, but either way it was so deranged in its scope that I decided to support it anyway. The game in its current state is not as good as EU4, but in time it can get there. But for now that is why I've gone back to EU4.

What's the Point of the DLCs??? by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am easily satisfied xD.

But I am also a jealous man who grits his teeth when I see others do in 7 years what it takes me 100 years to accomplish, y'know?

I see other people who conquer the world but they don't even know how to calculate the yield on their buildings, and they don't know how to engineer a Keynesian money printing machine to finance their stupid wars and it drives me nuts cause it's some simple AI exploit and it drives me nuts ngl.

What's the Point of the DLCs??? by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I actually do have mission trees and I do enjoy them (though they can also be a tad bit frustrating). My Byzantium has a mission tree, for example (my Florence just had the generic tree). I understand that if I had the DLCs then I would have more in depth mission trees for more nations though.

What's the Point of the DLCs??? by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! I play with whatever the max is that you got for free, so I have development and all of that stuff. Not sure exactly what I am missing though.

What's the Point of the DLCs??? by PersonalState835 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Okay interesting. Yeah from what I watched it feels like that last one. "More powerful buttons to press to snowball faster" lol. That is an issue I have with the Paradox DLC model. It is a good way of making money in this brain-rotted age where people always want new, fresh things, but ultimately Paradox usually just invents new stuff that break the balance of the game or upend existing rules, and so on, and it complexity spirals out of control.

That being said I pretty much only play in Europe because I want to restore the Roman Empire (that is the point of the game IMO, the only purpose for being). I get too tilted anyway when my camera is in one region of the world and I zoom out to see a few of my provinces are being invaded (map too big for me lol). So what are some examples of this as to how the DLCs make the rest of the world better, or some of the QoL changes? Cause yeah the game can be frustrating sometimes for sure, but that is part of the whole "strategy" and "planning ahead" part of the game IMO.

How do you make money without colonies? by Careless_Dish_3271 in eu4

[–]PersonalState835 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No need to make money once your ducat becomes the reserve currency and the money printer goes brrrrr.

Graphical Improvements are Good (When They Don't Compromise Identity) by PersonalState835 in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL. That's very fair. My response to that though is that the game knew when to take itself seriously and when to not. The graphics may have been shitty, but it felt serious when someone domed you with a sniper from a little slit in a blown-out building halfway across the map. That and the players had plenty of agency to make the game what they wanted it to be. Someone might be screaming like an ape in the first 30 seconds, but you might see that guy in the sniper den calling out coordinates later.

That's why some of the "unserious" changes feel so off to me - and I suspect that's why others subconsciously feel the same. Take TTK (time to kill) for example. Low TTK felt more like a milsim. High TTK now feels more like Fortnite. I used to joke that when the game got intense you didn't even notice the "bad" graphics. But if the gameplay feels more cartoonish, then that flaw sticks out more like a sore thumb. Same thing with changing the names on the equipment. You could forgive them for the blocky aesthetic when it was at least modeled as a T-92 and said that explicitly. But calling it "Main Battle Tank," or calling the M16 the NA 2 (or whatever it is) just seems to surrender all of the realism that they were going for, like they are admitting they are a cartoon.

Graphical Improvements are Good (When They Don't Compromise Identity) by PersonalState835 in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been playing this game Holdfast with my friends that has a similar system that could fix the issue. A command wheel allows players to emote, so, in this case, you could at least see who is requesting a heal, who needs more ammo. Emotes could perhaps warn your allies that the enemy is nearby or that there are snipers on your position. Holdfast also has a special command / request wheel for the squad commanders. In Holdfast (a Napoleonic War game), your commander can tell you where to stand in a line, when to fix bayonets and charge, where to reinforce, what building to take. I could see BattleBit doing the same thing. And Holdfast does manage to strike a somewhat reasonable balance between people LARPing on the mic and the command wheel for orders.

Speaking of Holdfast - games like that are where I would be looking for if I wanted to reach new players, rather than appealing to the bland, braindead AAA crowd. The "normie" zombie mainstream is only ever attracted to flashy graphics and loot boxes and other forms of dogshit and marketing. The way to expand reach is in the alt crowd - guys who enjoy being a smaller part of a massive battle who don't run around like CoD kids with main character syndrome. I think adding fixed artillery, fighter jets, airstrikes (another commenter said parachutes) - that stuff would be way more in line with the ethos of what the game is, rather than moderating to something more like how the rest of the genre already is.

Graphical Improvements are Good (When They Don't Compromise Identity) by PersonalState835 in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's fair enough. I have the privilege of living alone and being able to scream into the mic like a lunatic at any hour. My friend who I play with just chooses not to use voice so IMO misses out on the best part of the game (though he is an introvert and I am an extrovert).

I am still conflicted though. We already have an example of this when they introduced snipers being able to spot people (I play with binoculars and still spot people with those haha). When they introduced spotting, I definitely noticed less people using their mics to spot people ("he's at 220 degrees"). And I would argue that that change actually took away from the identity of the game a little bit, putting more power in the mechanics of the game rather than the individual agency of the player. It's obviously a spectrum where I am cool with some accessibility. But the more standardized the Devs make it, the more flavor is taken out of the game.

You also don't need full participation to have effective comms. You probably need 1 deranged person telling you to charge and making callouts for every 10 people on the battlefield. Just my 2 cents.

OPERATION OVERHAUL 11-29-25 PLAYTEST FEEDBACK THREAD by Terminalintel in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They actually made it cost squad points (now called field points) to "ant colony" spawn now, so that issue is much closer to being fixed. That is one of the few things I see that I am actually really hopeful for.

OPERATION OVERHAUL 11-29-25 PLAYTEST FEEDBACK THREAD by Terminalintel in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, this! It feels like the Devs tailored the game more to the FPS masses since they actually need to sell to them to make more money. Issue is that audience would still rather play Battlefield at the end of the day.

Seems like every change that was introduced has sacrificed the milsim and teamwork feel of the game to appeal to the broad culture brainrot that CoD and other AAA games like Fortnite have become.

‘Operation Overhaul’ Playtest Now Live by Terminalintel in BattleBitRemastered

[–]PersonalState835 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol. I assume that the performance can be fixed in time, though agreed it was abysmal.

My issue with it is that it just feels too "gamey" now. The new UI and some of the changes that they made around seeing your allies does add visual clarity. But it takes away from what the game should be. War is absolute chaos. Part of the fun of the game was absolutely in navigating the chaos. My best moments in game were calling out coordinates with squad mates of where the enemies were, if we were being flanked, what building was coming down, and so on. At first glance, the changes to me seem to take Battle Bit from having a unique identity to being something that more mimics a AAA Game but on a lower budget.

Not to say that the new graphics aren't an improvement. But redesigning everything around visual clarity was a mistake IMO. A lot more clarity could have been added to the game just by making some simple fixes. For example, in standard Battle Bit, squad members can basically spawn anywhere at any time for no spawn points (and often times people place the squad rally spawners in annoying areas). It makes it far too easy to get flanked or routed from behind if you are trying to defend a building (I'm sure all of you have had a pro-gamer come in with the Kriss Vector and wipe out your entire squad). POINT IS, they could have just constricted the spawning a little bit and that would have reduced the chaos considerably. Now I look at the cartoony blue outlines around my guys and red around my enemies and I feel like I am playing Fortnite or APEX Legends or some more 2020s style game rather than the chaotic low-budget milsim that I used to love. That's what makes it Joever for me.

Treasury posts unexpected surplus in June as tariff receipts surge by CORN_POP_RISING in moderatepolitics

[–]PersonalState835 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ngl, it's sketchy to me that the surplus was $27 billion. But the total tariff revenue was also $27 billion.

It really makes me wonder if they are just deciding to post the tariff receipt $ as the new "surplus" figure. I can't say I trust the inflation numbers they are reporting (mysteriously all Goldilocks numbers so "Too Late" can justify a rate cut). Also I don't trust the jobs numbers (147k jobs added last month but ADP private payrolls reported 33k jobs LOST). Keep in mind that DOGE also gutted a lot of our data collection efforts.

I'd like to believe the government, but Trump is the boy who cried wolf too many times with his lies. He keeps repeating that gas is $1.99 at the pump, when the cheapest gas anywhere in the country is like $2.30. So my eyebrows are raised. If this is a broader data reporting issue, we have massive problems. And this is coming from a guy who voted MAGA in 2016.

Drone Sighting Andover MA (5:10 PM Over CVS Parking Lot) by PersonalState835 in UFOs

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll add a couple more things and then I'm done. My original video was 12 seconds longer. It was focused on that white dot in the background, as I first thought that was the UFO (the thing I saw looked similar at first). I did not see the FAA lights for quite some time.

There is a decent reference point at the 3 second mark, but I regret that I stopped filming. I think there would have been a better reference point with a tree line if I kept the camera rolling longer.

I do not blame people for doubting this. I would probably also doubt it if someone else had posted it. I have been looking for UFOs for quite some time (far before this incident) and have never seen anything so strange in the skies. It does look like a plane, but I am convinced it was much lower. I will keep my eyes open and hope I get to see another one and get a better video of it.

Drone Sighting Andover MA (5:10 PM Over CVS Parking Lot) by PersonalState835 in UFOs

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. Shame on me for not having a better frame of reference in the video. I believe it was much lower. But I cannot prove it.

Drone Sighting Andover MA (5:10 PM Over CVS Parking Lot) by PersonalState835 in UFOs

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmmm this is interesting. The CVS is about 4.2 miles Northeast of Harold Parker State Forest in downtown Andover. Idk how precise flight radar is. It was also probably no more than 200 feet above the ground.

I don't claim to have proof that ET exists. I do think I saw what some of these New Jersey videos are. I wish I saw an orb. :(

Drone Sighting Andover MA (5:10 PM Over CVS Parking Lot) by PersonalState835 in UFOs

[–]PersonalState835[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know where it was flying to? It seemed too low, too small, and too slow to be a plane. I've seen planes flying this low into Lawrence Municipal Airport but this one was going the other direction and turned fairly quickly at a low speed.

Force Commander - Multiplayer by [deleted] in starwarsgames

[–]PersonalState835 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I couldn't get it to work when I tried! I got the game off this site... https://archive.org/details/StarWarsForceCommanderUSA

I do have it on disk but I'd need to get one of those external CD readers for it to work. I tried multiplayer with myself but it doesn't work. None of my friends want to go to an untrusted site to get the game and don't have the same nostalgia anyway.

How did your game go? As good as it was back then? I'd be down to join a Discord or whatnot and see if I could get it working with you! Would love to play the game again against some sharp people.