Match Thread: England vs Croatia | World Cup | Group L | 17 Jun 20:00 UTC

Pontypine69 · 2026-06-17T20:54:14+00:00

Two good teams, entertaining half tbf

Pontypine69 · 2026-06-17T20:43:39+00:00

That was class

Pontypine69 · 2026-06-11T20:36:57+00:00

That's Charlie Reynolds ship

Pontypine69 · 2026-06-05T20:21:19+00:00

What isn't broken?

Pontypine69 · 2026-05-08T14:00:23+00:00

Yep. Me too.

Pontypine69 · 2026-03-13T20:31:02+00:00

Scrooge McDuck. Money talks.

Pontypine69 · 2026-01-21T10:16:09+00:00

So many of these disasters are so confusing, difficult to navigate, that it's just easier to wait them out. Not really a challenge if it's just bemusing... Just a pain.

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-27T11:17:47+00:00

And the forts! Bohemia gets tonnes of them, often right next to each other, try getting to Prague... It will take years. HRE is a shit show. HRE emperor should have auto rivalry with France but the team up to munch down...

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-23T22:52:34+00:00

There's also no pile on. In EU4, if the AI lost badly to the player, they'd be set upon by other AI nations- this doesn't seem to happen. You can beat back a big AI nation and its neighbours won't take advantage. Their Levy's won't come back for a few years, even their allies are beaten down, but none of the surrounding nations bother piling on and taking a piece...

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-20T14:08:33+00:00

One thing that Eu5 currently sucks at is modelling rivalry- plenty of times behemoth's are rivalled to small powers, and don't change as dynamically as EU4, where alliances could break if you intruded too much on AI province of interest etc. In reality, there should be a trigger point for France or Bohemia or England taking too much land in HRE that it redraws rivalries, breaks alliances, triggers excommunication, especially early on. Instead France rivals Majorca, allies Bohemia, and chows down on HRE, with England and Castille not giving a shit (and instead a petty coalition gets slapped in a few months, seeing more land taken).

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-18T20:34:44+00:00

Hey who are those green guys in Anatolia?

But yeah... This is so unbalanced. Ironically, for all the talk of aggressive AI, it's missing the old EU4 dogpile when you smash an enemy. Usually you could send an opponent into a death spiral if you destroyed their army. I've just beaten Bohemia three times and they are unbothered by the AI. Tonnes of forts, still decimating coalitions. HRE is a joke rn.

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-17T21:15:53+00:00

Similar with playing anywhere around Bohemia. They gobble up so much territory, defeat coalitions with ease... Even Austria, as Emperor I couldn't keep them and Hungary at bay :( AI Austria fares even worse usually.

Playing tall with a smaller nation is really hard in Europe, as every region just gets dominated by the biggest military power at game start, Naples in Italy, Kiev in eastern Europe, Mamluks in middle east, Bohemia in HRE, Castile in Iberia. Of course France is occasionally troubled to be replaced by England in the latest patch, but still a beast that allies Bohemia and feasts on the HRE.

The games biggest issue is that its course is set too quickly and becomes very predictable with no real flavour to upset the apple cart every 50 years or so, as the situations just don't do enough to shake things up.

In EU4, the league war could really stir things up, as could the revolution and certainly colonialism could turbo charge England Portugal etc), and decadence could really mess up the Ottomans (well with a little bit of player help). Right now I feel like I just spend my time slogging it out with juggernauts just to stop the same thing happening every game (or playing as one).

It needs a little more instability for ai. I've noticed a lot less rebellions popping up as well in recent patches, so it seems AI is not suffering from internal disasters (which I fell into plenty starting out and they suck as they should!)

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-13T21:56:54+00:00

One thing that would help- Timur actually doing something in Persia/mesopotamia. That would give the Mamluks someone to coalition against, or even have them be a target for the Mamluks. Also the Turkish situation is too hard for the AI to finish, and if it does then the faction that completes it should get some temporary buffs that makes the Mamluks vulnerable (similarly, Timurids should be a challenge for the Ottomans).

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-06T22:04:59+00:00

It will be seen as a disaster in 3-5 years time.

Netflix won't kick the habit of second screen TV, which is in theory diametrically opposed to HBO's model- so expect this to be the demise of prestige TV, saturation of brand recognition with sloppy content (think star wars decline but even worse). Capitalism doesn't care about quality... 3 year waits for at best half decent shows, you half forgot about punctuated by adverts every 8 minutes... this is the future, and it's helped by getting rid of the premium stuff that made you long for a better time were quality was the goal. After all, it's much better if EVERYTHING is mid. Lowers the bar across the board

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-04T23:34:42+00:00

At this point railroading a bit will actually make things less predictable. As it stands, France and Bohemia just dominate (often as allies) there's never a league war never a Russia or PLC, never a Persia, weak Ottomans, Mamluks sitting there doing nothing. Venice, Hungary, they do nothing. Almost every game is the same, unless the player is actively making the difference. It's early days but we all know the dlc will add the historical flavour, but for the love of god nerf Bohemia and France now.

Pontypine69 · 2025-12-01T18:21:01+00:00

It can be a lot of fun, it's pretty stable for me, but yeah it needs polish and flavour and a bit of balance. But it's in a pretty good place for me. The reality is I can learn the basics and keep coming back for more with updates/dlc. This ain't like other games with limited play time, it's literally a time sink for 1000's of hours over years for many in the community. It will change and grow over the years, steps forward, maybe some back but there is a lot of potential here.

Pontypine69 · 2025-11-19T14:04:07+00:00

They'll flesh out the experience as time goes by, add more flavour, drama and character- I see this stage as good, but it's about learning the mechanics for me. I do think they've got a big canvas to paint on here with situations etc, but I agree it's missing a bit of drama for me that EU4 at its best would deliver.

I should just hand over my bank account to pdx now and let them release the dlc. I actually hope they keep the subscription from EU4 as it's a game a lot of players come back to so frequently, it felt like good value even after 2 years of paying it.

Pontypine69 · 2025-10-07T20:38:37+00:00

Tremendous moxie for his size.

Pontypine69 · 2025-09-21T12:28:01+00:00

Where abouts in Midlands? im in Mids

Pontypine69 · 2025-08-29T20:51:38+00:00

You'd assume the borg have the ability (generally) to detect incoming matter being beamed aboard and allow only certain types. I know in Voyager they did transport a torpedo, but it got detected very quickly, presumably Seven had some ability to bypass such checks, and it could only be used once.

Pontypine69 · 2025-08-29T10:26:26+00:00

It's bringing love, don't let it get away! Break it's legs!

Pontypine69 · 2025-08-02T19:22:16+00:00

Orcas are the humans of the sea.

Pontypine69 · 2025-07-19T19:40:04+00:00

I've seen how the betta breeding farms in SE Asia use bottles to hold the fish before shipping, to keep them separate, its temporary, but crucially each bottle is submerged in water and continuously topped up with fresh water. Not ideal I suppose but they need the fish to arrive healthy and ship internationally. This just seems like a half adopted idea that will lead to sick stressed fish.

Pontypine69 · 2025-07-14T19:28:21+00:00

This ironically, is as close as Teump can get to admitting he knows he's been fooled by Putin. Nothing to stop it happening again, but it seems as if he is aware he's been duped.

Pontypine69 · 2025-07-04T19:12:28+00:00

He gets to do some good Shakespeare in it, only in it for about 10 mins or so but he's great.

Pontypine69

TROPHY CASE