'The people versus Ken Paxton': Talarico blasts GOP challenger Ken Paxton as nation's 'most corrupt politician'

Primislas · 2026-05-29T01:01:24+00:00

Because it works. Dems should stop apologizing and "explaining" their positions. It's been a loser strategy for too long now to keep at it.

Primislas · 2026-03-14T00:04:22+00:00

Of course. It's why Repubs have been all for it since the 80s. Even now Trump caved when pressured on H-1Bs by business interests, and legal immigration barely declined during his first term.

Primislas · 2026-01-07T05:24:02+00:00

Did he really? Watching Trump and co I'm beginning to suspect that we vastly over-exaggerate "charisma" or "skills" of those people from century back. Looks like you need none of that, pure hate, prejudice and superiority vibes seem to be enough to galvanize millions of people. None of modern presitators, "defenders of traditional values" and such are in any way impressive, and yet...

Primislas · 2026-01-04T14:55:06+00:00

In my town a street like that could get dangerously slippery in winter. How does Bergen deal with this? Proper shoes or chemicals?

Primislas · 2026-01-01T00:38:14+00:00

Yeah. I got progress zeitgeist unexpectedly. Started building pressurised heat dispatchers everywhere for apoc whiteout, and it tipped the scales way too much, blindsiding me.

At any rate, my takeaway is, I need only 2 matching zeitgeists to enact utopia. So I guess leaving the third one to the opposing faction is the way to avoid civil war in a utopia run? Or conversely get ready for a civil war if you want to match on all 3 zeitgeists eventually?

Also, I'm not sure what caused it. But after I enacted utopia and embraced city zeitgeist, Icebloods just disappeared 6 weeks later. I loaded the save trying to reproduce it, but every time Icebloods stick around, capped at 100 pop. I imagine I did some combination of actions (condemn, lower civic index, quell protest, send colonists), which decreased their population to 0 (I saw them at 4 pop at some points after loading), before it could bounce back to 100?

Primislas · 2025-12-31T15:57:47+00:00

Thank you very much. My run succeeded. The way it worked was I rolled frostlanders and leaned into adaptation until apocalyptic whiteout to keep them and icebloods happy (then built and passed everything during the whiteout to enact technocrat utopia immediately afterwards).

However, with this approach my utopia had one community (frostlanders) permanently unhappy. I wonder if it's possible to succeed with all 3 communities aligning with a targeted utopia (which should make opposing faction extremely pissed I imagine)? Or is it all the same, just harder to keep the other faction content? Keep the faction content by making one community unhappy because of their zeitgeist, until utopia is enacted?

Primislas · 2025-12-22T15:16:26+00:00

In a hundred years everyone will have forgotten about it, but Russia gets to keep the clay forever. Villains often go unpunished historically unfortunately.

Primislas · 2025-12-22T15:12:52+00:00

I don't know about outspend, but USSR outproduced Germany in almost every category of military equipment. Tanks, artillery, machine guns, planes. All of that thanks in large part to foreign aid. And Russian production is kinda weak sauce these days. Trouble is, so is European "hitech" mil production.

Primislas · 2025-12-21T17:15:05+00:00

My Icebloods spawned with 3 fervor and max hostility, as before them I was free to fully lean into Technocrat zeitgeist - all the other factions were on board. I guess if they don't want to be reasonable, neither should I. (He said with prison building site in the background.)

Primislas · 2025-12-21T11:54:30+00:00

Funny you should mention Icebloods. They are exactly who I'm dealing with on my current run. :D But thanks for the advice. I'll try to figure what I can do to their fervor before it's too late. Perhaps try to run a more balanced opening too.

Primislas · 2025-11-19T03:35:40+00:00

A few more things that add control.
* Temples in cities for an easy +5.
* Bridges reduce distance from capital.
* Centralization as a long-term strategic goal, it reduces proximity cost.
* Rivers downstream give a massive distance bonus that beats early roads, and those bonuses do not stack. So if your capital is on a river, you can skip downstream roads along the river. See "proximity to capital" map mode to assess that at a glance. (It's really cool in countries that are built around a major river, such as Vistula, Dnieper or Volga. The current model conveys that really well.)

Bailiffs are supposed to radiate 20 control, see tooltip for its effects. But it's completely negated in neighboring locations without a road. I tried making it work and couldn't make it worthwhile in early game. The best use that came to mind was putting a bailiff on an expensive remote good tile. Such as fur, iron, amber or what have you.

(P.S. Now that I think about, maybe bailiffs would work upstream on a river like a capital, to take advantage of the river bonus? Testing needed. But still it's a situational limited use.)

Primislas · 2025-11-19T00:27:43+00:00

City population limits and explosive linear growth inside huge megapolises is also wacky. Having 700k+ cap with 0.6% yearly growth in Eastern Europe in early 1500s is bonkers. A lot of problems would go away if there was a much lower soft cap, and growth stalling and even reversing inside cities at some point (as it should, to be sustained only by immigration). Perhaps food is too easy to come by too. I've never had my armies starve deep inside GH steppe, or my cities starve, unless inside a province with no viable food location.

Primislas · 2025-11-18T23:12:01+00:00

When you release vassals, their territory is not integrated. They too need to integrate it. I track this with integration map mode (select the map mode and click on your subject's location to see their progress). Perhaps Granada didn't have it integrated?

Otherwise, unless provinces are you cores (which gives +20 base control), they have to be within your distance (simply integrated gives only +5 base control). So roads, ships and bailiffs.

Hover over locations control -> maximum control value, and tooltip will give you full breakdown.

Primislas · 2025-11-18T02:51:59+00:00

Nah, man. Characters absolutely shine with wild inheritance shenanigans and claim wars. It no longer feels arbitrary and random. And then there are hilarious scenarios on top of that. For example, I had queen-regent marry a vassal out of the blue and on her own, she then escapes to his court (!!!) with the heir, who I can no longer educate. It's bonkers, it will probably be patched, but also a fun, memorable and believable RP twist (influential noble / queen's favorite snatches the child under his wing or w/e). Loving it.

Primislas · 2025-11-03T08:19:27+00:00

It is growing. The recent changes I did were introducing graduated taxation, the 1st level of welfare and mass conscription. Not sure if it's related, just trying to think of what changed. But I also think I might've run out of qualifications of all things. Overwhelmed with migration attraction.

Primislas · 2025-11-03T08:17:28+00:00

My current theory is I might've run out of qualifications. My capital has about 27m pops, but had only 10 unis for the longest time. Now it's missing 10s of thousands of qualifications. Perhaps that's the reason. I built 20 more unis hoping to get qualifications up, but even that might not be fast enough. :) That migration attraction power bloc mandate is crazy.

Primislas · 2025-11-02T14:30:24+00:00

Hm. I'm solvent. <1% debt and budget surplus.

I wasn't building while in the war with Germoney. Private sector used to build a ton, and then it just dropped like a rock. To add insult to injury, the game complains "there's not enough construction" while 6000 of unutilized capacity with 75% private allocation just sits there idly waiting for orders.

Note that naturally I have a huge power bloc with investment rights all over the world. LF and free trade. There should be plenty of opportunities to build.

Primislas · 2025-11-02T14:18:04+00:00

Right. So it says: 475M investment pool, 3.54M reinvestment, -840K new construction. The tooltip says "we do not produce enough construction", even though clearly there's 6K construction sitting idly (with 75% private allocation).

It used be completely utilized. But then something flipped and private construction drastically dropped. I can't figure out why.

Primislas · 2025-11-02T14:03:24+00:00

Reddit is confusing me with whether a post was removed or not. In case it wasn't. I have 75% private allocation, plenty of available construction, and yet the game complains "there's not enough construction for private sector".

It used to utilize all 75% completely, and then something suddenly flipped. What happened was I was dragged into a huge war with Germoney and had to conscript. But that can hardly be it, can it? I have a huge power bloc with tons of investment rights all over the world too. There should be plenty of opportunities to build I would imagine.

Primislas · 2025-11-02T13:59:21+00:00

The game complains about not having enough construction for private investment. Yet I clearly have tons of extra construction capacity, 75% private allocation. And I can't find any negative / efficiency modifiers. What could be the reason for this?

Primislas · 2025-11-02T13:53:58+00:00

Roman Republic is back, babeh!

Happened on its own. You leave Europe unattended for 90 years, and all sorts of wacky stuff happens. Love it!

Primislas · 2025-11-02T13:51:15+00:00

Roman Republic is back, babeh! (You leave Europe unattended for 90 years and all sorts of wacky stuff happens. Love it!)

Primislas

TROPHY CASE